A brief thank you. · 12:05am Mar 12th, 2014
Internet hugs go out to Jordan179, JetstreamGW, Timeaus, Jake R, Bradel, DbzOrDie, eggynack, Cold in Gardez, MrNumbers and others, for their various contributions in a certain comment war on the rape-fic-that-is-absolutely-a-rape-fic, no matter what the author and others think. Yes, it's keeping it in the heat, but the fact the people haven't stopped pointing out the actual problem in the comments means that anyone who sees it will also see exactly why it's being talked about.
(Also, thank you, Jordan, for writing a really interesting response fic, which deserves more attention: An Epistolary Legal Consultation Between Princesses)
I already knew that some of you were stand up guys, and the rest of you have earned the benefit of the doubt in that respect. As a woman and a member of this fandom, I'm glad you guys are there. Thanks, and let me know if you ever need a favor. I'm happy to help.
I'd have joined in, but...
Anything I would have said would simply parrot what other said or not have been relevant.
~Skeeter The Lurker
1918104
I totally understand. I guess you could say, me too.
But seriously, I know there are plenty of great guys out there who are on the right side of this. I just want to thank the ones who are taking the flak so that you and I don't have to.
The story concept is squicky. Probably it would come down to statutory rape because I think Derpy in this story is childlike... But then we get into a legal and moral gray area of whether someone who does not understand sex can consent, which I guess means virgins can't consent... Bah, I can't pretend to care about the finer points, I just don't like the idea of a person being taken advantage of.
I've seen this far too often. "She went to a bar, knowing she would get drunk, so legally she consents to anything that follows." No, she went to a bar to drink. You dragged her drunk ass home with her wearing beer goggles and you raped her. Congratulations.
Same thing here. Derpy literally states she has no idea what's going on. She cannot consent to what she does not have any concept of.
I have no idea what is going on. Woo!
good lord that story is just awful.
Internet hug: returned. That was some pretty crazy stuff going down.
1918136
Exactly. I mean, there's no gray area about whether someone who doesn't understand that sex is happening can consent to sex. There might be conversation about if the person did or did not understand, but the fic makes it clear that she does not.
And for the author to put in the description that it's "debatably" rape is just wrong and shows why so many guys don't think that date rape or raping a drunk girl "really counts" as rape.
1918149 http://www.fimfiction.net/story/174445/stuck not to be confused with the Appledash story which has a similar premise but there is not a question of consent.
I do like yelling at people.
Huh? What?
1918136
1918181
Reads description...
Thank you for your kind words.
1918136
And you know, whether or not what the POV character does is legally "rape" (that's the issue which I think is somewhat-debatable, as I can see how Yu's lawyer would defend him from the charges) it is most defintely morally rape, and even much more definitely totally-reprehensible conduct.
For my part I've just steered clear. I'll tack my thanks to these guys on to yours though. I don't have the spirit left in me to try to fight the levels of disgusting rape justification that the fandom can sometimes throw out, but I can say thank you when someone else stands up and says what needs to be said.
I did actually check out what was happening as a result of this post. I firmly wish I hadn't. Far more than before, I am grateful to those willing to wade in and try to teach this unpleasant individual exactly where he is wrong, even though he seems to be immune to reason.
I'm glad that I could help. Something that intolerable couldn't go without at least a few words putting it in its place.
I bowed out of the debate a little earlier than most, so thank you to everyone who continued on after I left. It was rather sickening to wake up to it at the top of the FB this morning, and even mores o knowing my comments helped it generate heat.
Oh well, at least there's not some douchebag taking everything that was said and throwing it back in our faces- oh wait. Will people ever learn?
Thanks for the ridiculous read I got from going through all those comments. I am not saying I would call it a war, but some people might.
It just steered clear once I read the description. Its pretty F'ing clear its rape. Rape is one of those yes or no things. Something either is or isn't rape.
When I saw in the description that the author mentioned it could be seen as rape, I stayed well away from it. I've long ago gotten tired of arguing with bronies and other people in fandoms about rape, so I just sort of give up on it.
So wait,
What was the popular opinion again?
Tried reading it but got lost...
Oh FIMFiction, the things that go on when I'm at the office.
To be honest, my stance in the whole thing was that rape in reality is horrendous, while rape fantasy is perfectly fine.
1918342
There was no popular vote. The author had no clear understanding on what it was he arguing to begin with.
1918342
The story depicts sex with a immobile pony who doesn't know who is touching her, and doesn't understand that the 2nd person narrator is having sex with her.
The author labels this: "non-violent rape (debatably)."
Many commenters, including those I thanked, point out that if the character doesn't know that sex is happening, they can not consent to sex, so it's rape. Period. Not debatably.
The author stands firm, and refuses to remove the qualification. He refuses to state what he believes, except that "some people" wouldn't call this rape, and he never said it's not rape. He's claims to be totally neutral. Some people come to his defense, and various people go back and forth about the same thing for several hundred comments.
I'm proud that I didn't recognize anyone defending the author. If I had, there's a good chance I would have blocked them. I know that O blocked Aurora Dimmit, but O has had dealings with him in the past.
1918388
That has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of whether that story was about rape, which was what 90% of the argument was.
Someone writes a second person story about you (as in YOU, the reader) raping a mentally handicapped girl…
…and it still had three upvotes for every one downvote.
Sometimes I really wonder about the people on this site.
It's funny. Name one other fandom where raping a retarded (and I use that in the literal sense for Derpy) horse would be within the realm of possibilities to write fanfiction over. You don't hear about an autistic Optimus Prime getting porked by a random dude while his circuits were fried, for example. Nor do you hear about Harry Potter's sweet, sweet can being torn asunder by a viking OC that invaded Hogwarts. Only animals from FiM get banged this often by circumstance. I don't know where I'm going with this, all I know is it slaps me on the knee.
1918400
It was when things were getting personal in the argument in the beginning, which at first wasn't about the author's inexcusable reasoning, but more of the fact if the story itself was something to frown upon simply because of the material.
The author believed that the story wasn't rape due to his "interpretation" on the matter itself, which, quite frankly was just- I don't even know what to say exactly. What did you expect me to say? That during the whole fiasco I tried to reasonably explain things to the author himself through PM's simply so that I can try to keep things civilized? Although I did attempt several times, he wasn't having it. So I wasn't even going to attempt to press the matter any further as a public display. That is exactly how confrontation occurs. And I didn't want that.
1918407
Derpy isn't mentally handicapped. She has an eye condition with the fact that she is just a klutz. Her being retarded is simply a small interpretation done in by a small select group of fans.
1918456
I happen to know that the opinions being expressed by O, and the folks mentioned above who were there in the beginning (Jetstream, Jake, Jordan, Timeaus...), centered entirely around the author claiming that it wasn't rape. If you were PMing him, trying to reason with him on that point, I appreciate it, but I also think that the people I mentioned were doing the right thing by calling him out in the comments.
But please understand that none of the people I mentioned were complaining about it being a rape fic. We've all been around long enough to see rape fics featured, we hardly bother with them. Some of those people write hardcore clop themselves. Some, I happen to know, love rape fics.
If you thought that any of those people were upset that this was a rape fic, you need to look a little closer at what people are saying, and not jump to conclusions. (There were a few anti-rape fic people in the comments, but none of the ones I mentioned.)
Also: 1918469
Including the author of that fic. alexnines comment is exactly correct.
1918474
Oh, yes they were doing an exceptional job during the whole thing that's for sure. I just don't like the idea of starting things that could be potential of getting out of hand on an astronautical scale. Because rape is a topic that is thin ice for anyone who ventures into that topic.
That's understandable. I wasn't referring to our star players here to begin with. There were just more than a few unsavory individuals there at the time.
Looking again won't be necessary because wasn't jumping to conclusions. I followed the entire incident. So I don't need to call any of the aforementioned gentlemen out on anything. As a matter of fact, MrNumbers and myself actually got well-acquainted afterwards. We talked. We laughed. We argued on petty semantics and formerly apologized afterwards. He's actually a rather enjoyable conversationalist.
1918474
As for the Derpy being mentally handicapped bit, I was referring to her actual character in the show, not how she was being portrayed by the author. If alexnines was referring to the story itself, then he would be correct. I honestly believed that he was actually meaning that she literally was mentally handicapped. If the first possibility was indeed his original statement, which I'm now certain it was after pondering the notion, then I apologize for misinterpreting the information.
1918456 I recall there being only a small minority who were morally outraged by the very existence of a rape story. It was mostly just a big argument about that one word: "debatably". If I'm not mistaken, and I may be, the only real proponent of the former position was ScarecrowBoat, whose stance I may disagree with to an even greater extent than that of the author.
1918563
Yeah, ScarecrowBoat has been keeping himself busy around the site...
And considering the anti rapefic stance he took, the fact that the last link goes to his pro-foalcon comment makes him seem like he might not be entirely legit.
1918563
Yes, but I never explicitly gave on the exact number of people who were outraged because of the material. How many people do you think out of the 110+ people who viewed that story actually downvoted it simply because it was just poorly written? I'm not starting another argument, just an analysis.
But as for ScarecrowBoat, all I can say is that I have not only taken extensive study in psychology for almost four years but also have a close friend who has been a counselor for five years, and for a moment after viewing the things he seemed serious about, I assumed that he was a sociopath or just has a loose grasp on humanity.
1918136
Er, let's make something clear here.
Having sex while drunk is not inherently rape. It is only rape if you:
1) Do not consent (obviously.)
2) Are unable to consent (and yes, you CAN consent to having sex while drunk; you can also sign contracts while drunk. If you are borderline unconscious, then no, you cannot consent; if you are merely drunk, you can definitely consent)
3) Were drugged against your consent, and would not have had sex but for the intoxication (that is to say, someone slipped you something without you knowing)
So if you are wearing "beer goggles" and some girl takes you home and has sex with you, and you agreed to it at the time, you weren't raped. You are perfectly allowed to regret it in the morning, but it doesn't mean you were raped.
I hear some people claim that drunk sex is rape, but it is not. If you consent to something, even if you are drunk, you are still on the hook for your consent. If you make the choice to drink, you are choosing to impair your own judgement. It is the same reason you can be charged for DWI/DUI; when you choose to impair your own judgement, what you do is your own fault.
As for the story itself... well, the character himself knew what he was doing was wrong. I guess the (debatably) comes from the fact that Derpy apaprently didn't care afterwards, so it is really playing the Rape Is Love trope straight. Or possibly just "If you decide you were okay with it after the fact, you weren't actually raped." Completely ignoring the whole she didn't know what sex was (or maybe she did, seeing as she decided he was her coltfriend... but didn't at the time? I don't even know). The story was a bit of a mess to start with.
I blame all of you for making me read a creepy second person sex fic. This is all your fault. Though it did get another downvote from it. However, I'm quite certain, given that the author did not change their point of view, that all of the social justice warrioring against him was a complete waste of time. It has been my general experience that when a bunch of people react aggressively to someone saying something stupid, they almost never actually change their point of view... which is why they are so good for arguing against, but it is almost always useless.
I was willing to merely nope away from the story and ignore it, but the apologia in that comments section made me ill. I'm so sorry it exists. I'll echo the kudos to the folks you named.
1918657
My point of view is that often discussions like that aren't for the parties involved, who won't be convinced, but for the other people who read them. They might either convince those with more open minds, or at least show how stupid you look expressing opinions like the one the author was expressing.
That's why I consider it a success, because these posters didn't leave any room for people who glanced at the comments to miss the issue.
1918707
That is a rationalization I myself frequently use when I get into stupid internet arguments - I'm trying to convince the audience. And I do know that sometimes it works, as I've gotten PMs from people before to the effect of "Good job" or "I love reading your points of view" or "Would you mind writing up a list of errata for our meeting?" (I totally did, too. Good old WotC. And people say they don 't care about their forums.)
I also know that sometimes I am just rationalizing my desire to argue about something, though, like essentially every single argument I ever have in the history of ever on any news article. And I do that quite a lot. I know some of them never get read. In fact, the majority of them.
Where does this fall? I don't know, but I do know I almost never read story comments, personally; generally speaking I only read them if I'm planning on commenting.
I think my favorite comment, though, was:
And talking in the second person, clearly. Which really only makes the whole thing that much worse. Really I've never understood the appeal of a second person story like that when it isn't basically a "choose your own adventure" type deal. If I don't have agency, it isn't really "me".
1918632 That is some high level crazy right there. Definitely part of why I stepped out of the argument, cause you don't interact with the high level crazy. It gets inside your head.
1918641 Fair enough. I'm sure that a decent number downvotes any rapefic as a matter of course. I just didn't think that the argument was tilted in that direction, though there may be some folks who went that way with their comments.
1918994
The only second person thing I've seen really work was a combo of first person/second person, where the main character wrote his journal in the second person, as if talking to himself.
It's a kind of cool idea. I used it for an AppleDash prompt tag fill for "regret," I think.
Whoa. Well that just earned the second down-vote of my fimfic career (the other one belongs to a little gem of a fic where Applejack has an abusive husband who eventually kills her, and her last words say that it was OK and she didn't defend herself because God would want her to be loyal to her husband to the very end - there aren't enough WATS?! in the world to explain that one).
I didn't know about this fic, but I just went over some of the argument, and...it's frightening. Like, I know in my brain that there are definitely people out there who hold this guy's (author's a guy, right? I don't know if it'd be worse if they were a girl or not) type of opinion, but seeing it laid out, where he (?) refuses to acknowledge rape as rape...like how? How is anyone that misinformed? That type of mindset is scary, really. Hopefully they grow out of it. (It could happen, right? I need to be optimistic about this sort of thing).
Good on you guys for trying to salvage some logic out of that situation. I likely would have rage quit a few posts in.
1919030 One of the best I've seen is definitely "The Accident", by Dave Eggers. I think there's also a section of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" that's in the second person, and it was beautiful stuff. It's absolutely a thing that's misused much more often than it's used well though.
1919057
I'm guessing that the story was written by someone who hated Christians, didn't have a very clear idea of what the faith entails, assumed AJ was Christian because her voice is rendered as Bible Beltish, and had no understanding whatsoever of any of the salient points of Applejack's personality -- specifically, that she's brave, indomitable and tough as nails when she needs to be.
1919161
I'm unsure, to be honest. I checked out the comments after skimming the fic, and the author seemed to genuinely believe that they were portraying the right thing to do. They said they were religious, I believe, although what religion I have no idea - I've studied a few and never heard anything about murder for no reason being cool, in any of them (and none of the religious people I know would give that thought the light of day). Although, the author could have been a giant wannabe troll. But still, writing a fic and then responding to all the comments in-character seems like a lot of pointless effort. There wasn't much of a shitstorm surrounding it, either, if that's what they were going for. *Shrug*
In any case, the stupidity overpowered my "just ignore it" shields and the little red thumb was cast. It was kinda fun. It's why I can't be trusted with power. It starts out as downvoting fics, and then somehow I'm bent on world domination. I maybe sort of envy people who can do it responsibly.
It's a pity I missed all this. I'm definitely not a fan of rape stories, and I have all this spare venom just lying around... spiteful, nasty stuff used to burn the wretched, mm. Well, sometimes it'll garnish my blogs for flavour, eh. Or er, season it heavily with violent tend? Yeah, that mostly. Whichever!
I'll have to investigate the cause - I'll bring a jar of Hydrochloric Acid, just in case. You never know when it'll come in handy!
1918657 TD, normally I find your arguments persuasive, but you're arguing semantics this time. Would a lawyer or judge agree with you? Probably. Me, I am just considering the fact that people don't make good decisions while drunk and other people take advantage of that impairment. Like, using roofies, that's clear cut, but what if you egg the girl on while remaining sober, knowingly getting her plastered so she's unable to really protest or do anything? Again, legally, you're right. Morally, that's a fucking awful thing to do to another person.
1919382 It's still going on, and it might even be stupider now than it was at any point in the past. It hit a particular precipice of stupidity here, and there's still a decent amount of room to slap that comment around if you're into that sort of thing.
1919464
Wow. I've got stupid to spare, but this... I'll have to wait until after work tomorrow to get my bearings. It's as crazy as expected, but fourteen pages of screaming and cursing is gonna require me some serious deliberation with fully rested faculties.
Sigh. Soon, very soon. Thank you very much for the information.
1919481 Yeah, this fellow is just his own particular brand of crazy, or is possibly just a troll. Most of the stuff he's written there is along those lines, but I read that line of comments, and it just seemed special to me somehow. As a personal rule of thumb, I only get involved with that particular sort of argument for as long as it remains at least somewhat enjoyable.
1919488
My money is on troll.
1918707
The oddest part for me was the author repeatedly stating how he hated 'moral objectivism'. I think he meant moral realism, but perhaps he really dislikes Ayn Rand.
He left me with the impression that he stood by no principles whatsoever, that he believes any point of view was somehow defensible, but somehow he cannot be bothered to actually defend his stance. Odd.
But he did manage to get his fic featured with a single word in the description.