History Fanfic / ConsequencesOfUnoriginality

** When Rainbow is stumbling over Emeris's name, she comes out with [[MortalKombat Ermac]].

* InsaneForgiveness: It is discovered that Emeris has this, to the point where others (especially Rarity) call him out for such unhealthy behaviour. If you wrong him in any way, he will constantly find excuses for it, or why he probably deserved it.

* BeneathTheMask: Because the slightest hint of affection would be taken as a sign of “yes, let’s have sex” by anypony he talked to, as 'Gary' Emeris had to be cold, distant, uncaring, rude, impatient, and generally an asshole. Of course, this only reinforced everypony else’s [[HeroWithBadPublicity real feelings]] about him.
** Rainbow Dash is the only pony under the influence of the GSE to have any real understanding of who ‘Gary’ was as a person. She saw his abhorrence for the attention he received, admired him for the genuinely heroic and awesome deeds he did (even if he was forced into such situations by the GSE, he still controlled his own actions and could have sat back and done nothing), and was attracted to him for the way he selflessly went to fight unbearable horrors again and again… and for his general awesomeness, of course.
*** She’s also the only pony to not to blame for what how the curse made ponies act, once the GSE curse was removed, and didn’t see why Applejack would. She had difficulties reconciling the real Emeris with ‘Gary’, but the reasons why she was attracted to him were entirely genuine (although her behavior was certainly the work of the curse). Considering how she behaves in canon around other awesome ponies she looks up to, she may not have noticed that every time she tried to talk about him she was forced into complying with the GSE’s “Gary is awesome” directive.
** Celestia, in an unpleasant way. Whenever Celestia is angry or irritated over what ‘Gary’s’ curse does to her citizens, she freely vents (verbally) her anger on Emeris. Because in a world where the GSE ensures that nothing he does is a mistake and everything is “perfect” for him, her anger is the closest thing he comes to encountering genuine emotion — and he is grateful for it. Celestia hates it.

*** Emeris [[spoiler: gets his ear cut off by a bitchy barber. Ponies have a vein in the ear that could have led to him bleeding to death if it hadn’t been for Rarity holding the wound closed]].

* DeathSeeker: Emeris is not one, but if they hadn’t found a way to reduce the constant monster attacks, he would have reached this point.

* EldritchAbomination: Gary Stu. Everyone around him is forced to love him with psychopathic intensity, completely overwhelming their normal behavior and personalities while leaving their original self to, fully aware, experience these unnatural feelings and behavior. Even [[TheScottishTrope talking about him]] invokes this. Even if he had no experience or practice, he ''will'' be superior to other ponies if it comes in any form of comparison or competition. The laws of the nation rewrite themselves to force him into the position of alicorn prince. He is described as a “flaw” in the world, and his mere presence is enough to make monsters appear to commit horrific catastrophes and atrocities for the sole purpose of giving him a reason to defeat them. His magic involves twisting reality itself to do what he wants it to — shattering the earth, creating volcanoes from the ground — not any of the proper methods that is supposed to guide the use of magic. And Gary can even [[spoiler: become real if the name becomes too associated with Emeris in the Aether. Not layering Emeris with the concept of Gary, but actually changing him into the GSE concept of what and who Gary Stu should be.]] And then the creatures from Beyond seep into the world through the cracks made by his flawed existence…
** The creatures from the Beyond. Just knowing about them can be enough for them to spread into the world, and just [[spoiler: seeing Emeris’s memories]] is enough to put Twilight in danger from them. The princesses had to erase her memory of what she saw, but even through that she still suffered nightmares over them.
*** A living, sentient disease that spreads by blood and [[BrownNote laughter]], twisting the forms of the ponies it infects to make their eyes bleed and their mouths rip open into too wide, toothy grins as they laugh and laugh. And Gary, for all his seemingly limitless power, couldn’t do a single thing to help a single pony who got infected except MercyKill them to contain the disease.
*** A fire that ate flesh and couldn’t be put out.

* EldritchLocation: The Beyond, which Emeris was unfortunate enough to be in before arriving in Equestria. Comparisons to [[CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]] were made.

* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Emeris honestly doesn’t understand why Rainbow Dash likes him, because he doesn’t think he’s awesome, cool, or in any way heroic at all. This is after proving himself to be a total badass many times over, even after having his Gary Stu overpoweredness and invincibility taken away. Despite his valiant actions, and a selfless willingness to endure pain and suffering to spare others, he can't comprehend why anyone would think positively of him, and fails to recognise or outright dismisses several of his own talents, such as his leadership abilities, tactical thinking, ability to keep calm in a crisis, and some considerable magical skills.

* HumanoidAbomination / HumansAreCthulhu: [[spoiler: Human beings. Emeris’s pony body is a shell of [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower harmony]] that allows him to exist in a universe with fundamentally different laws of physics.]]
-->''There was something words failed to describe residing in the chest cavity of the body, shining with darkness, bent at impossible angles, twisting and shifting and impossible to describe. Twilight’s mind recoiled from it… and yet it was so familiar because it was… it was ‘’’EMERIS’’’ on a level that was hard to describe but was so fundamental that it actually hurt''

* ImaginationBasedSuperpower: Emeris's ability to make constructs with his magic, which he compares to the GreenLanternRing by name. However, it is shown that almost all of his magic is based on him creating coding algorithms and running his power through it (not to imply that math or coding don’t require imagination).

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Celestia takes on this role for Emeris to have ''somepony'' who won’t crumple worshipfully under the effects of the curse. He appreciates this and willingly subjects himself to it. It helped keep him sane.
** Emeris himself, as ‘Gary’. Even a small amount of affection would be taken as a giant flag saying “rape me now”. So he is forced to act distantly and rudely to everypony, including the ones he likes.

-->''I’ve been a lot of things. Monster, prey, beast, umbralkin, demigod, something straight out of bad fanfiction, and now a unicorn. A brightly colored pony unicorn. Yeah, it’s been that kind of life.''

* OnlySaneMan: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. While Emeris and Celestia appear to be the only ones not caught up in the craziness surrounding the GSE, it's later revealed that everyone else is completely aware of how they're acting, but the curse prevents them from controlling themselves, to the point where they're physically incapable of spouting anything other than mindless adoration for 'Gary'. And thus, from talking to each other about anypony else’s experiences with him. Classical conditioning ensures that this remains largely the same even after the cures ends.

* SafetyInIndifference: Ponies got murdered, tortured, driven insane, and raped, for the sole purpose of creating a story for Gary Stu to play the hero of. This was the effect of Emeris being present in the world, and earlier on it would happen a minimum of once a week. It reached the point where he was no longer able to personally care for the victims of it, because no one can stand that much pain. Emeris still wants to protect ponies and does everything he can for them, but he couldn’t emotionally invest more of himself into the ponies who were suffering because of him.
** In a mix between this and ConditionedToAcceptHorror, Emeris no longer considers monsters to be frightening or even a cause for true worry. As a Gary Stu, he was invincible, and he learned what true fear is in the form of the [[EldritchAbomination creatures from the Beyond]]. Even knowing that he’s only a normal pony, something like a monster attack doesn’t concern him at all… at least, not directed at him. [[spoiler: [[AdultFear Apple Bloom, however…]]]]

** He is shown to forgive way, way too easily. Rarity pointed out that [[BodyHorror what had just been done]] couldn’t simply be forgiven like that, but he reacted as though she had told Fluttershy to kick a puppy.

** When Rainbow is stumbling over Emeris’s name, she comes out with [[MortalKombat Ermac]].

** There is a minor one when Rarity calls Emeris out on his extreme need to accept apologies. From somepony who just cut off his ear after ruining the haircut he paid for, and who had been nothing but vicious to him up to that point. As Rarity points out, some things can’t — and shouldn’t — just be forgiven on the spot like that.

* [[WorldsStrongestMan World's Strongest Unicorn]]: Twilight has always been written as magically power, and is stated to have the most potential of any unicorn Celestia has ever seen. But this fic really drives in how ridiculously strong she is. Grave Danger, an Archmage and extraordinarily powerful, says that he could carry three train cars full of of military supplies and still be able to fight. Twilight? She could carry ''the entire train'' with ease. The only reason she doesn't is because Emeris thinks she'll need every scrap of power to ensure nothing happens to her or the girls.

* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: Human beings are ''not'' supposed to exist in a world with Equestria’s physics.

-->'''Emeris''': I’m drawing a line in the damn sand! And not a damn one of you will pass! So '''bring it on!'''”

** Rainbow Dash is the only pony under the influence of the GSE to have any real understanding of who ‘Gary’ was as a person. She saw his abhorrence for the attention he received, admired him for the genuinely heroic and awesome deeds he did (even if he was forced into such situations by the GSE, he still controlled his own actions), and was attracted to him for the way he selflessly went to fight unbearable horrors again and again… and for his general awesomeness, of course.

* GuiltComplex: This becomes one of Emeris's defining traits after the curse is broken, and is discussed as being indicative of how bad his mental issues are. If someone or thing is in any way remotely connected to the curse he suffered from, he will apologise relentlessly for it, despite it not being his fault in any way. He feels like he deserves every bit of hatred aimed at him, even when his ''detractors themselves'' admit that he doesn't and is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Even when doing everything he could to help ponies who were suffering and in danger from unspeakable horrors (which is partly responsible for his PTSD), he blames himself because in his mind he was never good enough.

** Several stallions apologise to Emeris for trying to rape him due to them experiencing uncontrollable lust under the GSE. Like Emeris they were completely innocent of any wrongdoing, being unable to control themselves due to the curse.

* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Emeris honestly doesn’t understand why Rainbow Dash likes him, because he doesn’t think he’s awesome, cool, or in any way heroic at all. This is after proving himself to be a total badass many times over, even after having his Gary Stu overpoweredness and invincibility taken away. Despite his valiant actions, and a selfless willingness to endure pain and suffering to spare others, he can't comprehend why anyone would think positively of him, and fails to recognise or dismisses several of his own talents, such as his leadership abilities, tactical thinking, ability to keep calm in a crisis, and some considerable magical skills.

* InsaneForgiveness: It is discovered that Emeris has this, to the point where others call him out for such unhealthy behaviour. If you wrong him in any way, he will constantly find excuses for it, or why he probably deserved it.

* MamaBear: Celestia is this to Equestria [[spoiler: and to Emeris]]. Although her first action when arriving at the [[spoiler: riot of Ponyville against Emeris]], her first act was to peacefully incapacitate him; when she turned to address the crowd, she burst into angry flames and captured them in magical golden bands to force them to listen to her WhatTheHellHero speech.

* MercyKill: Emeris had to do it on occasion due to the GSE when even his enhanced powers were not enough to save ponies. For example, he was unable to cure a disease spread by blood and laughter which caused the victim to bleed and endlessly laugh themselves, and had to vaporize the entire village to contain the threat and end their suffering. This is one of the many causes of his PTSD.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Of sorts. While Emeris doesn't show many ill effects after the curse is broken, when Rarity starts fussing over his appearance it gives him a panic attack, and [[spoiler:when Twilight's spell goes wrong and he thinks his curse has returned he becomes hysterical with fear before passing out. Twilight diagnoses him with PTSD, in part due to the years he's spent trying to avoid being molested or raped by his GSE-affected fans. She's proven right when Applejack and Rainbow Dash both ask him out at the same time and he suffers yet another panic attack.]]

** Emeris doesn't often have dreams, but when he does his nightmares are full of horrors that no one should have had to face. His nightmares were all real.

** There is a minor one when Rarity calls Emeris out on his extreme need to accept apologies. From somepony who just cut off his ear after ruining the haircut he paid for, and who had been nothing but vicious to him up to that point. Some things can’t, and shouldn’t, just be forgiven on the spot like that.

* BeneathTheMask: Because the slightest hint of affection would be taken as a sign of “yes, let’s have sex” by anypony he talked to, he had to be cold, distant, uncaring, rude, impatient, and generally an asshole. Of course, this only reinforced everypony else’s [[HeroWithBadPublicity real feelings]] about him.

After two years of this nightmare, Emeris and Celestia manage to break the curse and turn him into a Unicorn/Earth pony hybrid - and then [[ProlongedPrologue the story begins]], as Emeris attempts to make up for all the trouble he has unintentionally brought to Equestria.

* AboveTheInfluence: Despite his attraction to several of those that come on to him -- particularly Applejack and Rainbow Dash -- Emeris refuses to take advantage of anyone and constantly turns down anyone who asks. Due to enforced PoorCommunicationKills, few ponies actually know this.

** Celestia, in an unpleasant way. Whenever Celestia is angry or irritated over what ‘Gary’s’ curse does to her citizens, she freely vents (verbally) her anger on Emeris. Because in a world where the GSE ensures that nothing he does is a mistake and everything is “perfect” for him, her anger is the closest thing he comes to encountering genuine emotion—and he is grateful for it. Celestia hates it.

* DarkIsNotEvil: Despite being called "Vice Magic", it doesn't actually seem to be inherently evil. Just unpleasant. Twilight even admits that darker magics are appropriate sometimes (as a last resort).
* DeathSeeker: Emeris is not one. But if they hadn’t found a way to reduce the constant monster attacks, he would have reached this point.

* {{Determinator}}: Emeris when protecting those he cares about. The amount of pain he went through just to end the curse was unfathomable, but he still controlled himself enough not to destroy everything around him in his pained throes.
** Starcloak unicorns train to use magic even when their horn is injured -- or even if it gets broken entirely. This is agonizing.
* DoomMagnet: The curse turns Emeris into this leading to immense collateral damage for anyone unfortunate enough to be caught up in it, though the effect can be partially mitigated through magic and distance.
** And, as a pack of thirty-plus weirdly determined timberwolves seem to imply, he might not be out of the woods just yet.

* EldritchAbomination: Gary Stu. Everyone around him is forced to love him with psychopathic intensity, completely overwhelming their normal behavior and personalities while leaving their original self to, fully aware, experience these unnatural feelings and behavior. Even [[TheScottishTrope talking about him]] invokes this. Even if he had no experience or practice, he ''will'' be superior to other ponies if it comes in any form of comparison or competition. The laws of the nation rewrite themselves to force him into the position of alicorn prince. He is described as a “flaw” in the world, and his mere presence is enough to make monsters appear to commit horrific catastrophes and atrocities for the sole purpose of giving him a reason to defeat them. His magic involves twisting reality itself to do what he wants it to -— shattering the earth, creating volcanoes from the ground -— not any of the proper methods that is supposed to guide the use of magic. And Gary can even [[spoiler: become real if the name becomes too associated with Emeris in the Aether. Not layering Emeris with the concept of Gary, but actually changing him into the GSE concept of what and who Gary Stu should be.]] And then the creatures from Beyond seep into the world through the cracks made by his flawed existence…

* ElementalRockPaperScissors: The ice wolves made by Vice magic are vulnerable to fire and Virtue magic -- both of which are provided by Emeris.

* GuiltComplex: This almost becomes Emeris's defining trait after the curse is broken, and is discussed as being indicative of how bad his mental issues are. If someone or thing is in any way remotely connected to the curse he suffered from, he will apologise relentlessly for it, despite it not being his fault in any way. He feels like he deserves every bit of hatred aimed at him, even when his ''detractors themselves'' admit that he doesn't and is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Even when doing everything he could to help ponies who were suffering and in danger from unspeakable horrors (which is partly responsible for his PTSD), he blames himself because in his mind he was never good enough.

* HeroicRROD: Emeris severely damaged his internal organs(!) when he [[spoiler: gathered energy from other sources to fire off a [[WaveMotionGun magic blast]] so powerful it blew apart a [[GiantEqualsInvincible walking attack-mountain]]]]. WordOfGod says that the total power of it wound up on the same level as a 9th circle spell.

** What he put real effort into mastering -— notably, his heavy specialization in unusual magic -— remained even after removing the GSE.

* {{Necromancer}}: Grave Danger is one.

-->I’ve been a lot of things. Monster, prey, beast, umbralkin, demigod, something straight out of bad fanfiction, and now a unicorn. A brightly colored pony unicorn. Yeah, it’s been that kind of life.

* PoorCommunicationKills: [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]]. Nopony can talk about Gary, because anytime they try there are compelled by the GSE to gush about his amazingness. So nopony actually knows what Gary did to anypony else -— and they have ample cause to assume the worst, although this excuse begins to run thin pretty fast. And because of the huge trauma and shame of how they were influenced, as well as two years of being conditioned not to talk about Gary, even after the curse is removed the misunderstandings just keep building up.

* RapeAsDrama: While this doesn't actually occur to any named character on page (though Emeris likely had to deal with victims of this due to the GSE), this trope is played mostly straight when Twilight believes that Emeris ended up raping her friends by taking advantage of their behaviour under the GSE, not realising her attempts to trick him into sex were actually the closest anyone had gotten -— although Fluttershy also came very close.

* SecretArt: Emeris, when trying to learn about the GSE, studied a lot of esoteric forms of magic. The most notable, and the one he is most proud of, is Reality Calcification -- the use of magic to stabilize reality and stop that which would change it. Normal magic works just fine, but it was created to put order to Discord's chaos, and was capable of partially reducing the Gary Stu Effect. His knowledge and skill at the art is second only to the Princesses.

** When using Virtue magic, Emeris pulled upon happy thoughts -- his friends, obviously, but the only ones named were Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Twilight.
** Applejack has shown a good deal of interest in Rainbow Dash -- as much or more as towards Emeris, truth be told.

* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: Emeris knows coding and is good with numbers. As such, he has come to view magic as a code for the universe, allowing him to make spells more quickly than a classically-trained unicorn would, as well as "load" pre-programmed spells. His perception of magic as coding language is of great importance to his use of runic magic -- this way of thinking allows him to work at a higher level than his knowledge of runes would normally allow, making him in practice one of the best runic mages in the world (although he is quick to point out that he "cheats" when somepony tries to praise him for it).

** Emeris isn't adept at a lot of different forms of magic that even a basic mage would could do offhand. He can use battle magic like all get-out, though, and has a good deal of straight-up power that his affinity for dark magic makes more effective than it would otherwise be. His experience as Alicorn of the Earth also taught him how to tap into the leylines, a concept he recycled to draw upon... other powers, to make something immeasurably more powerful than he could accomplish on his own. His talent at Runes, although lauded by Twilight, is this so much as it is Superpower Shortcut; by treating it like a coding language, he can carry over a lot of tricks that would otherwise take a deeper understanding of Runes.

** There is a minor one when Rarity calls him out on his extreme need to accept apologies. From somepony who just cut off his ear after ruining the haircut he paid for, and who had been nothing but vicious to him up to that point. Some things can’t, and shouldn’t, just be forgiven on the spot like that.
* [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman What Measure is a Non Pony?]]: Twilight tries to assuage her guilt after bullying Emeris -- something she states herself no well brought up mare should do -- by reminding herself that he's not actually a stallion, even if he looks like one.

-->“I’m drawing a line in the damn sand! And not a damn one of you will pass! So '''bring it on!'''”

*** He gets absolutely mangled from [[spoiler: fighting off a pack of 30+ unnaturally determined timber wolves to save Applebloom]].

** He also can't understand why Applejack would be in any way attracted to him, after he almost gets himself killed saving Applebloom's life from a large pack of timberwolves.

** Twilight's initial behaviour towards Emeris, however wrong, stems from a desire to protect everyone from what she sees as an unrecognised danger.

* RapeAsDrama: While this doesn't actually occur to any named character on page (though Emeris likely had to deal with victims of this due to the GSE), this trope is played mostly straight when Twilight believes that Emeris ended up raping her friends by taking advantage of their behaviour under the GSE, not realising her attempts to trick him into sex were actually the closest anyone had gotten -— although Fluttershy came very close.

* ReformedButRejected: The entire story revolves around this.

* SafetyInIndifference: Ponies got murdered, tortured, driven insane, and raped, for the sole purpose of creating a story for Gary Stu to play the hero of. This was the effect of him being present in the world, and in the earlier times it would happen a minimum of once a week. It reached the point where he was no longer able to personally care for the victims of it, because no one can stand that much pain. He still wants to protect ponies and does everything he can for them—but he couldn’t invest more of himself into the ponies who were suffering because of him.
** In a mix between this and ConditionedToAcceptHorror, Emeris no longer considers monsters to be frightening or even a cause for true worry. As a Gary Stu, he was invincible, and he learned what true fear is in the form of the [[EldritchAbomination creatures from the Beyond]]. Even knowing that he’s only a normal pony, something like a monster attack doesn’t concern him at all… at least, not directed at him. [[spoiler: [[AdultFear Applebloom, however…]]]]
* TheScottishTrope: Even mentioning Gary forces everypony in the immediate vicinity to start talking about how amazing he is—preventing anypony from saying anything negative about him or describing their experiences about him. Leaving everypony with just the most horrible things their imagination can come up with to think about him.
* SecretArt: Emeris, when trying to learn about the GSE, studied a lot of esoteric forms of magic. The most notable, and the one he is most proud of, is Reality Calcification--the use of magic to stabilize reality and stop that which would change it. Normal magic works just fine, but it was created to put order to Discord's chaos, and was capable of partially reducing the Gary Stu Effect. His knowledge and skill at the art is second only to the Princesses.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Of sorts. While Emeris doesn't show many ill effects after the curse is broken, when Rarity starts fussing over his appearance it gives him a panic attack, and [[spoiler:when Twilight's spell goes wrong and he thinks his curse has returned he becomes hysterical with fear before passing out. Twilight diagnoses him with PTSD, in part due to the years he's spent trying to avoid being molested or raped by his GSE-affected fans. She's proven right when Applejack and Rainbow Dash both ask him out and he suffers another panic attack.]]

** When using Virtue magic, Emeris pulled upon happy thoughts--his friends, obviously, but the only ones named were Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Twilight.
** Applejack has shown a good deal of interest in Rainbow Dash--as much or more as towards Emeris, truth be told.

* SphereOfDestruction: And what a sphere it was.

* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: Emeris knows coding and is good with numbers. As such, he has come to view magic as a code for the universe, allowing him to make spells more quickly than a classically-trained unicorn would, as well as "load" pre-programmed spells. His perception of magic as coding language is of great importance to his use of runic magic--this way of thinking allows him to work at a higher level than his knowledge of runes would normally allow, making him in practice one of the best runic mages in the world (although he is quick to point out that he "cheats" when somepony tries to praise him for it).

* ThereAreNoTherapists: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. While therapists do exist, [[spoiler: and Emeris genuinely needs help, the Mane Six is reluctant to let him go to a therapist because of the very real danger of the therapist sabotaging his recovery. So they try to take on the roll themselves, with professional therapy as a back-up plan]].

** There is a minor one when Rarity calls him out on his extreme ''need'' to accept apologies. From somepony who just cut off his ear after ruining the haircut he paid for, and who had been nothing but vicious to him up to that point. Some things can’t, and shouldn’t, just be forgiven on the spot like that.
* [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman What Measure is a Non Pony?]]: Twilight tries to assuage her guilt after bullying Emeris - something she states herself no well brought up mare should do - by reminding herself that he's not actually a stallion, even if he looks like one.

* GoodWithNumbers: Emeris was an accountant, which proves to be [[FunctionalMagic incredibly useful in the branch of magic he focuses in]], and making him one of the best runic mages in the world.
* GuiltComplex: This almost becomes Emeris's defining trait after the curse is broken, and is discussed as being indicative of how bad his mental issues are. If someone or thing is in any way remotely connected to the curse he suffered from, he will apologise relentlessly for it, despite it not being his fault in any way. He feels like he deserves every bit of hatred aimed his way, even when his ''detractors themselves'' admit that he doesn't and is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Even when doing everything he could to help ponies who were suffering and in danger from unspeakable horrors (which is partly responsible for his PTSD), he blames himself because in his mind he was never good enough.

* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Emeris honestly doesn’t understand why Rainbow Dash likes him, because he doesn’t think he’s awesome, cool, or in any way heroic at all. This is after proving himself to be a total badass many times over, even after having his Gary Stu overpoweredness and invincibility taken away. Despite his valiant actions, and a selfless willingness to endure pain and suffering to spare others, he can't comprehend why anyone would think positively of him, and fails to recognise or dismisses several of his own talents, such as his leadership abilities, tactical thinking, ability to keep calm in a crisis, and some considerable magic skills.

* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler: Human beings. Emeris’s pony body is a shell of [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower harmony]] that allows him to exist in a universe with fundamentally different laws of physics.]]
->''”There was something words failed to describe residing in the chest cavity of the body, shining with darkness, bent at impossible angles, twisting and shifting and impossible to describe. Twilight’s mind recoiled from it… and yet it was so familiar [[spoiler: because it was… it was ‘’’EMERIS’’’]] on a level that was hard to describe but was so fundamental that it actually hurt–“''
* [[spoiler: HumansAreCthulhu]] See the above.
* InTouchWithHisFeminineSide: He goes to the spa with Rarity and Fluttershy for a manicure, pedicure, hoof-filing, etc. He likes pink, has a nice pink vest, and admits that he isn't really masculine.
* IncendiaryExponent: Emeris starts throwing swords that are on fire. He also uses a blessing to give ponies flaming hooves, the colors of which changed to match the magic of the individual (Rainbow Dash's, obviously, looked [[TechnicolorFire fabulous]]).

* InsaneForgiveness: It is discovered that Emeris is this.

** What he put real effort into mastering—notably, his heavy specialization in unusual magic—remained even after removing the GSE.

* {{Irony}}: After Emeris has his curse broken, Rainbow Dash admits to Applejack she actually liked 'Gary' and that her attraction to him under the GSE was mostly genuine. The idea that Emeris might not actually be "cool" after all causes her a lot of frustration.

*** Subverted in both of the above cases—[[BeneathTheMask neither is actually a jerk]], and if the situation were different they would be wearing their gold hearts on their sleeves.

* LanguageOfMagic: Emeris looks at magic like a computer language, and makes programs that he can just run power through to get quick effects. His unique P.O.V. on magic gave him a shortcut in mastering runes.

** He isn't one, but WordOfGod states that Emeris put some study into Necromancy in his general study of magical ways to enhance or augment themselves. Which makes sense--''nothing'' about Gary seemed to be permitted to change. Even his mane and tail grew to full length after a night's sleep.

* PoorCommunicationKills: [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]]. Nopony can talk about Gary, because anytime they try there are compelled by the GSE to gush about his amazingness. So nopony actually knows what Gary did to anypony else—and they have ample cause to assume the worst (although this excuse begins to run thin pretty fast). And because of the huge trauma and shame of how they were influenced, as well as two years of being conditioned not to talk about Gary… even after the curse is removed, misunderstandings just keep building up.

* RapeAsDrama: While this doesn't actually occur, this trope is played mostly straight when Twilight believes that Emeris ended up raping her friends by taking advantage of their behaviour under the GSE, not realising her attempts to trick him into sex were actually the closest anyone had gotten—although Fluttershy came very close.
** Emeris has had a number of close calls with rape—both on the receiving end, and when under the influence of a combined love potion, lust potion, and enchantment spell (which is still the receiving end, but with the added horror of the mare in question effectively being compelled to use him to rape herself). All are treated as appropriately horrific.

* ApologisesALot: Apologising for being Gary becomes almost a second job for Emeris after the curse is broken, even when it wasn't his fault in the slightest. When he has part of his ear accidentally cut off by an irate barber, he instantly forgives her and vows to come back and apologise later because of the negative impact this will have on her business. Everyone else who knows him can see just how unhealthy this is.

* TheAtoner: Emeris is determined to make up for what happened to everypony while he was Gary. It wasn’t his fault, but he feels that it was nonetheless his responsibility. The lengths to which he goes for that are not the signs of a healthy mind.
** When [[spoiler: almost everypony in Ponyville]] ready up to attack Emeris, he tries to leave, but when they try to hurt the Mane Six to get them away from him he explodes in anger. But just before he railed on them for threatening his friends, one of the first things he says is that he probably deserves whatever they wanted to do to him. But just him.

* EnergyBall: TakenUpToEleven when [[spoiler: Emeris combines the powers of flames of hell, the unnatural cold at the depths of Tartarus, lightning, life energy, the power of the dead, the realms of dreams and nightmares, and his own guilt/self-loathing/suffering into THE HELLBALL]], which proceeded to [[spoiler: destroy a living mountain]].

* FollowTheLeader: Readers may note several similarities between this version of Equestria and that found in FanFic/{{Xenophilia}}, something which the author readily admits to taking inspiration from.

* GoodWithNumbers: Emeris was an accountant, which proves to be [[FunctionalMagic incredibly useful in the branch of magic he focuses in.]]
* GuiltComplex: Emeris.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Played With. While everyone publicly espouses the virtues of 'Gary' and how awesome he is, they all secretly dislike him due to the way the curse makes them act. This is DoubleSubverted when ponies actually get to know the real Emeris and find him to be a likeable guy.

* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Emeris honestly doesn’t understand why Rainbow Dash likes him, because he doesn’t think he’s awesome or cool at all. This is after proving himself to be a total badass many times over, even after having his Gary Stu overpoweredness and invincibility taken away.

* OneOfUs: Although he hasn’t specifically mentioned Tv Tropes, Emeris has mentioned a number of tropes by name and the author was ecstatic to discover this page existed. Fellow still seems pretty chuffed with this, actually.

When Emeris Fillson is transported to Equestria, he finds himself turned not just into a pony but into an Alicorn, and a GaryStu at that. Thanks to a curse that Emeris calls the Gary-Stu-ness Effect, or GSE, he is better than anypony at any of their special talents (especially when in direct competition), is loved obsessively by everypony he comes across aside from Celestia and, worst of all, is a DoomMagnet that continually brings devastation to Equestria in the form of monsters that only he can stop, and not without collateral damage.

* AboveTheInfluence: Despite his attraction to several of those that come on to him - particularly Applejack and Rainbow Dash - Emeris refuses to take advantage of anyone and constantly turns down anyone who asks.
** Due to enforced PoorCommunicationKills, few ponies actually know this.

* TheAtoner: Emeris is determined to make up for what happened to everypony while he was Gary. It wasn’t his fault, but he feels that it was nonetheless his responsibility. The lengths to which he goes for that, though, are not the signs of a healthy mind.
** When [[spoiler: almost everypony in Ponyville]] ready up to attack Emeris, he tries to leave—but when they try to hurt the Mane Six to get them away from him, he explodes in anger. But, before he railed on them for threatening his friends, one of the first things he says is that he probably deserves whatever they wanted to do to him. But just him.

** The various [[MonsterOfTheWeek Monsters of the Week]] can lead to some very nasty cases of this for ponies, as shown in ''Twisted Reflections of Consequences'' where a mare gets turned into an EldritchAbomination. The nightmares shared by Twiris show that this is fully present in the story proper.

** Starcloak unicorns train to use magic even when their horn is injured--or even if it gets broken entirely. This is agonizing.

* EldritchAbomination: Gary Stu. Everyone around him is forced to love him with psychopathic intensity, completely overwhelming their normal behavior and personalities while leaving their original self to, fully aware, experience these unnatural feelings and behavior. Even [[TheScottishTrope talking about him]] invokes this. Even if he had no experience or practice, he ''will'' be superior to other ponies if it comes in any form of comparison or competition. The laws of the nation rewrite themselves to force him into the position of alicorn prince. He is described as a “flaw” in the world, and his mere presence is enough to make monsters appear to commit horrific catastrophes and atrocities for the sole purpose of giving him a reason to defeat them. His magic involves twisting reality itself to do what he wants it to—shattering the earth, creating volcanoes from the ground—not any of the proper methods that is supposed to guide the use of magic. And Gary can even [[spoiler: become real if the name becomes too associated with Emeris in the Aether. Not layering Emeris with the concept of Gary, but actually changing him into the GSE concept of what and who Gary Stu should be.]] And then the creatures from Beyond seep into the world through the cracks made by his flawed existence…
** The creatures from the Beyond. Just knowing about them can be enough for them to spread into the world, and just [[spoiler: seeing Emeris’s memories]] is enough to put Twilight in danger from them. The princesses had to erase her memory of what she saw—but even through that she still suffered nightmares over them.
*** A living, sentient disease that spreads by blood and [[BrownNote laughter]], twisting the forms of the ponies it infects to make their eyes bleed and their mouths rip open into too-wide, too-toothy grins as they laugh and laugh. And Gary, for all his seemingly-limitless power, couldn’t do a single thing to help a single pony who got infected.

* ElementalRockPaperScissors: The ice wolves made by Vice magic are vulnerable to fire and Virtue magic--both of which are provided by Emeris.

* EnergyBall: TakenToEleven when [[spoiler: Emeris combines the powers of flames of hell, the unnatural cold at the depths of Tartarus, lightning, life energy, the power of the dead, the realms of dreams and nightmares, and his own guilt/self-loathing/suffering into THE HELLBALL]], which proceeded to [[spoiler: destroy a living mountain]].
--> A ball of sickly green with shadows seething across its surface, images of skulls and faces flashing in and out of existence as the burning sphere grew, the screams of a thousand souls heralding the blast, a warbling wail of pain and agony as the world shook. Pressure blasting away as the sphere of destruction grew, kicking up the snow and pushing us back even as we stood just over a mile away.

* Fireball: Amongst other elements involved in THE HELLBALL.

* FullContactMagic: The Flowing Stream, Still Way, and Shattered Mirror martial arts--whatever they are--seem to be this, at least in part. They are the only styles that let unicorns use magic safely while in melee combat.

* ''{{Hellfire}}'': [[spoiler: Emeris can use it, at cost to himself]].

* GenreSavvy: Emeris is well aware he's an InvincibleHero under the GSE and takes full advantage of it.

* InvincibleHero: Emeris under the GSE. [[GenreSavvy He takes full advantage of it]].

----

** There is a minor one when Rarity calls him out on his extreme ''need'' to give apologies. From somepony who just cut off his ear after ruining the haircut he paid for, and who had been nothing but vicious to him up to that point. Some things can’t, and shouldn’t, just be forgiven on the spot like that.

** There is a minor one when Rarity calls him out on his extreme ''need'' to accept apologies. From somepony who just cut off his ear after ruining the haircut he paid for, and who had been nothing but vicious to him up to that point. Some things can’t, and shouldn’t, just be forgiven on the spot like that.

* BlackMagic: [[spoiler: Emermis has it as his talent, despite having learned the minimum required to know it couldn't fix the GSE]].

* InformedAttractivess: The process of converting Emeris into something that can exist in Equestria transferred his attraction to human women to attraction to mares. However, he has no idea ''what'' about them he likes, but Fluttershy definitely has it in spades. There's a reason she was a model.

** Due to enforced PoorCommunicationKills

** Celestia, in an unpleasant way. Whenever Celestia is angry or irritated over what ‘Gary’s’ curse does to her citizens, she freely vents (verbally) them out on Emeris. Because in a world where the GSE ensures that nothing he does is a mistake and everything is “perfect” for him, her anger is the closest thing he comes to encountering genuine emotion—and he is grateful for it. Celestia hates it.

* BlackMagic: [[spoiler: Emermis has it as his talent, despite not actually having learned any]].

* DeathSeeker: Eremis is not one. But if they hadn’t found a way to reduce the constant monster attacks, he would have reached this point.

* {{Determinator}}: Emeris when protecting those he cares about.

* EldritchAbomination: Gary Stu. Everyone around him is forced to love him with psychopathic intensity, completely overwhelming their normal behavior and personalities while leaving their original self to, fully aware, experience these unnatural feelings and behavior. Even [[TheScottishTrope talking about him]] invokes this. Even if he had no experience or practice, he ''will'' be superior to other ponies if it comes in any form of comparison or competition. The laws of the nation rewrite themselves to force him into the position of alicorn prince. He is described as a “flaw” in the world, and his mere presence is enough to make monsters appear to commit horrific catastrophes and atrocities for the sole purpose of giving him a reason to defeat them. His magic involves twisting reality itself to do what he wants it to—shattering the earth, creating volcanoes from the ground—not any of the proper methods that is supposed to guide the use of magic. And Gary can even [[spoiler: become real if the name becomes too associated with Eremis in the Aether. Not layering Eremis with the concept of Gary, but actually changing him into the GSE concept of what and who Gary Stu should be.]] And then the creatures from Beyond seep into the world through the cracks made by his flawed existence…
** The creatures from the Beyond. Just knowing about them can be enough for them to spread into the world, and just [[spoiler: seeing Eremis’s memories]] is enough to put Twilight in danger from them. The princesses had to erase her memory of what she saw—but even through that she still suffered nightmares over them.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Played With. While everyone publicly espouses the virtues of 'Gary' and how awesome he is, they all secretly dislike him due to the way the curse makes them act. This is DoubleSubverted when ponies actually get to know the real Emeris and find him to be a likeable guy.

** What he put real effort into mastering—notably, his heavy specialization in magic—remained even after removing the GSE.

** Eremis himself, as ‘Gary’. Even a small amount of affection would be taken as a giant flag saying “rape me now”. So he is forced to act distantly and rudely to everypony, including the ones he likes.

* OnlySaneMan: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. While Emeris and Celestia appear to be the only ones not caught up in the craziness surrounding the GSE, it's later revealed that everyone else is completely aware of how they're acting, but the curse prevents them from controlling themselves, to the point where they're physically incapable of spouting anything other than mindless adoration for 'Gary'. And thus, from talking to each other about anypony else’s experiences with him.

** In a mix between this and ConditionedToAcceptHorror, Eremis no longer considers monsters to be frightening or even a cause for true worry. As a Gary Stu, he was invincible, and he learned what true fear is in the form of the [[EldritchAbomination creatures from the Beyond]]. Even knowing that he’s only a normal pony, something like a monster attack doesn’t concern him at all… at least, not directed at him. [[spoiler: [[AdultFear Applebloom, however…]]]]

* ThereAreNoTherapists: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. While therapists do exist, [[spoiler: and Eremis genuinely needs help, the Mane Six is reluctant to let him go to a therapist because of the very real danger of the therapist sabotaging his recover. So they try to take on the roll themselves, with professional therapy as a back-up plan]].
* TwoBeingsOneBody: [[spoiler: The result of one of Twilight's spells going badly wrong]].

** When he wakes up in the hospital, he mentally comments on the [[NeonGenesisEvangelion unfamiliar ceiling]]. He immediately lampshades this.

* MamaBear: Celestia is this to Equestria [[spoiler: and to Emeris]]. Although her first action when arriving at the [[spoiler: riot of Ponyville against Emeris]], her first act was to peacefully incapacitate him; when she turned to address the crowd, she burst into angry flames and captured them in magical golden bands to force them to listen to her WhatTheHellHero speech.

!!''Consequences of Unoriginality'' and the canon side-stories contain examples of:

-->“I’m drawing a line in the damn sand! And not a damn one of you will pass! So ''bring it on!''”

* OneOfUs: Although he hasn’t specifically mentioned Tv Tropes, Emeris has mentioned a number of tropes by name and the author was ecstatic to discover this page existed.

* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: Emeris knows coding and is good with numbers, and has come to view magic as a code for the universe, allowing him to make spells more quickly than a classically-trained unicorn would, as well as "load" pre-programmed spells. His perception of magic as coding language is of great importance to his use of runic magic--this way of thinking allows him to work at a higher level than his knowledge of runes would normally allow, making him in practice one of the best runic mages in the world (although he is quick to point out that he "cheats" when somepony tries to praise him for it).