Just when I thought EQD couldn't get more hilarious, Parasprite challenges me. · 8:14pm Apr 17th, 2014
So many people complained about the EQD pre-reading process and the poor quality of feedback, that they went to straight-up automated form letters to reject stories. So now, it literally isn't what you write or how well it's written, it's whose dick you suck.
Parasprite disagreed, and bet me he could get one of my fics featured using the same rejection letter that I recieved and making the same revisions I attempted to make. I accepted. Here is the result of my first eight attempts. Hopefully Parasprite has better luck, or this bet is in the bag.
Thank you for submitting your story to Equestria Daily, but, unfortunately, I cannot recommend posting it at this time. Due to the high volume of stories we receive on a daily basis, we cannot give specific feedback. Our Editor’s Omnibus contains a thorough list of the issues we look for in our reviews, and also contains resources for finding proofreaders and editors. Give it a look, as it will go a long way toward improving your writing!
Sincerely,
Pre-reader 63.546
And for some context, I was bored and they did this "all strikes from before March 23rd 2014 are cleared" thing. So I've been submitting all my previously rejected stories from the last year with the revisions they suggested, for this ongoing bet with Parasprite, to see if any got accepted.
I'm totally gonna kick Para's ass on this bet.
Parasprite's Bet:
The bet is basically that Parasprite says they accept any good fiction if you don't disagree with them. Ever. Just make the changes, beg, and maybe give them a reach around. I believe he only gets featured because he has connections.
My Bet:
My bet is that EQD is basically shit and will reject all my fiction until the end of time, because approval is based on anonymous pre-reader opinion, and anonymous pre-readers have 100% ability to be assholes with no feedback or transparency to their actions. They'll find reasons from "I'm not in the mood" to "Kaidan is an ass" to reject perfectly good fiction, and that nothing short of a complete name change and story name change will "trick" them into thinking something wasn't written by me.
Eight stories so far rejected without reason, another ten or so I'm waiting to get form-letters back on. And here I thought I'd waste time address their "complaints" such as "the letter e is overused" or "one of the periods looks like a comma."
And trust me when I say that to date, not a single pre-reader has had the balls to step forward and reveal their fim fiction name or provide any proof to defend their rejection. Clearly, I would tap untold millions of dollars in resources to track them down and kill them in real life if I knew their fake nickname on a single fan fiction site.
So I'm not saying using fake-fake nicknames to pre-read is a bad thing, I wouldn't want a single crazy fan to track down their fake nickname and kill them, just that it's cowardly to hide behind fake-fake nicknames. Seriously, one level of fakeness should be sufficient.
And just for funsies, I'm going to accept this pre-reader rejection letter change as a victory. They were so scared of me criticizing their rejection emails, that they've gone to form letters and re-changed their fake-fake nicknames so they won't get their feelings hurt.
And now, I'm off to drive to BabsCon. It's a shame, too. I literally will be worrying all day about whether or not the fim fiction site mods came by my blog to make their typical apologist statements in defense of the elitism of EQD.
Don't worry, I non-sarcastically promise to log in at BabsCon and read every single reply, and foster a logical, adult discussion on the topic. I also promise that I'm taking this super seriously and have a genuine interest in what everyone has to say on the matter, and that I will not just focus on college, my career, or other real life things, when there are super serial internet arguments to be had over non-sense.
And I promise to believe you.
I'd want to use a fake-fake nickname to avoid people taking a much more reasonable sort of revenge like downvoting all my stories or arguing with me about it in unrelated forums.
Same thing happened to me when I'm submitted. To be honest, I don't even know what they mean. So, what do you do you bet on it?
Love the outro
Have fun at Babscon and good luck on the bet. Is there a wager though?
2019027
I'm curious what the stakes are, too.
Kaidan, you have over sixteen hundred followers, dozens of wildly successful fics, and are one of the most prolific and recognized writers on FimFic.
Ever stop and think that maybe you don't need EqD?
I mean, you don't see surgeons and rich lawyers going to soup kitchens and asking for their
publicity, err, I mean free soup.EqD has a disproportionate amount of power, and the only way to have a bulwark against their influence is if people start ignoring them and their arbitrary choice of features. Many new writers feel they don't have a choice, and they feel they have to rely on EqD to feature them to get their first views. But you're not a new writer, and you don't have to give a fuck.
Just ignore them. It's well established that their choices are arbitrary. So screw it, don't do their dance. You don't have to.
2019076 Agreed
Besides FimFiction has taken over EQD as the place to find pony fiction. There isn't even a need to visit there. The only reason I go to that site is to look at the drawthreads >_> I skip right past the featured stories.
2019076
Basically the exact same thing I would say just worded way better.
I remember when I first started enjoying the fandom of MLP:FiM my two go to sites were sadly fanfiction.net and the much more preferable EqD. The site was nice but the environment was a bit terse but at least the mods kind of took feedback unlike fanfiction.net. I still went about looking for alternatives that weren't set in forums but followed an actual web story format.
Luckily around last summer I had a friend recommend FiMfiction.net because of its diversity of fiction available and how it was a better environment to comment and share thoughts. After that I began to visit EqD less and less that it has gotten to the point of being just the place I find MLP news.
Wow, fuck you too.
The only prereader I know is Alexstraza, and I don't even know him that well. I've been featured twice and rejected six times--If I have "connections", they're not exactly very good ones. What I am trying to show you is that if you accept the criticism constructively, you can speed past the prereaders, and if you treat them with respect, you won't have nearly as many problems.
Seriously what was the point of saying that? I didn't do anything to you. Actually, I've been one of your biggest fans and best friends for a long time. What was the fucking point of that, Kaidan?
2019085
True dat.
I only go to EQD for videos and music. Stories are for FimFiction.
This is my motto when browsing EQD:
quickmeme.com/img/f5/f5c68d09de4775f93752d130174d9ac3792b9ea909e4747f802a2276d019fae9.jpg
2019085 I'm only ever there for the new episodes since they post stream links.
Personally, I think it's to do with your other works. Even though your other works have nothing to do with the fics you apply with, they look at your FimFiction account and see that you write clop.
EQD is religiously anti-clop. It's my opinion that they're refusing you only because they don't want you highlighted because of your clop fics (Which are fucking awesome anyway)
Fuck those guys, you're one of the best writers on here, anyway.
Yeah, I could count on one hand the number of fics I've started reading at least in the last year and a half from to an EQD feature.
You mean they haven't even gotten to a fake-fake-fake nickname yet? Jeez, they're slackin'.
2019134
Are you sure that was not just meant as a harmless joke? I mean maybe that was too much but Kaiden seems to poke fun at everyone in his blogs.
2019282
Maybe. It's hard to tell with Kaidan whether he's joking or being passive-aggressively insulting.
2019288
Nyeh tis true, but you might just wanna wait and talk to him to check it out. There is no point in getting all worked up before you talk to him about it.
2019290
He just left for Babscon, so eh.
I was butthurt for a bit, but not really so much anymore. Just annoyed now.
People still care about EQD?
2019293
Meh, tis understandable.
Well with an attitude like that...
P.S. you'll need to suck my dick a little harder if you want to get posted. Put some back into it.
The Gore is strong in this one...
I don't get it. Everything I learned in writing classes pointed towards ginormous ego and being an asshole to everyone as cornerstones of literary success.
I look at EQD once a month to see if Project Horizons updated. Otherwise, I don't even bother with the site.
Man.
I felt kind of bad about rejecting Shattered Prism because of its incomplete ending, but not anymore. Eight rejections is a sign that someone needs to grow as an author. Pissy little rants on Fimfiction are a sign that someone needs to grow as a person.
If you want I can tell you my fake-fake nickname.
BUTTHURT FOR EVERYBODY!
2019688 Yes because 8 rejections from a fandom website clearly is a sign that someone is lacking as an author and not that the site is bias
. Also I'm pretty surer this whole post is satirical.
I'm not hating on EQD for being bias, I understand as a website that is run by people that they are going to have a bias because every individual has an internal bias as well and some people are better at overcoming it than others.
EQD also has a target audience and a specific type of fic that they are looking for promoting. Because of these 2 factors some fics just won't make it in no matter well they are written. It's not something to be angry about just something to be accepted as a simple truth.
2020212
I don't think Kaidan has submitted porn, gorn, or Human in Equestria stories to EQD, so that argument doesn't work.
Eight stories that don't pass the bar mean that the stories aren't high enough, not that the bar is unfairly raised.
2020265 How does that argument not work? You just listed 3 things that EQD doesn't allow are you telling me that none of the pre-readers are letting their personal likes/dislikes/opinions influence whether they approve a fic or not?
Everyone has different tastes so it's entirely likely that someone reads a fic that would be good to a lot of people but that they themselves don't like. Ignoring this fact is silly it's entirely probable that the only reason someone didn't get their fic approved is because of what pre-reader they got.
This isn't a stab at EQD because that's the only reasonable way to evaluate a fic but it is something that should be accepted :3
2020279
2020265
It's more his attitude, I think. He reported the first prereader who rejected Shattered Prism--and the report was just so smug and oozing USI that it made me cringe.
Also, I don't know what this is about people not getting feedback. I always get feedback, even when they rejected Listen and Learn and said it was too dark to be posted, period. The guy wrote like 20 paragraphs about it. Maybe they only bother with fics that either they think are interesting or expect the author to listen on.
Good luck, Kaidan. Also, good luck with winning the lottery, living to be 100, and attaining enlightenment.
2019321 So are you guys going to ban Kaidan from submitting to EQD because of this overly-critical blog post like you banned me from EQD for my own overly-critical blog post?
I mean, I never actually insulted EQD and said it was shit, or that you needed to "suck dick" to get on the site. I never said EQD was outright corrupt, which is a pretty serious and unsubstantiated allegation.
All I said was that EQD was biased and treating my stories differently from other content they posted on the site, which I made a very strong and well-documented case for that none of you has ever properly refuted, instead opting to ban me for "attacking pre-readers," when in reality I did no such thing.
If a person can be banned for a post as well-researched, pleasant, and analytical as mine, then CERTAINLY Kaidan's whining and wild accusations deserves a ban, too.
Unless your banning-from-EQD standards are as inconsistently-applied as your story approval standards?
2020279
Other than disliking bad grammar / storytelling fundamentals, no. If someone doesn't like a genre, they generally pick something that is not that in the queue.
I listed some things EQD doesn't allow because you mentioned that some things won't go up no matter how well a written they are. Porn and gore fall in that category. Other things, like HiE or Fallout crossovers have a higher level of scrutiny put on them (the latter go in their own compilation post, usually), but again, I'm willing to bet that's not the case here.
"The PRs are biased" line sounds like a cop-out used by people who don't handle rejection well. There might be a human element of incorrect rejection, but that'd be a much, MUCH smaller number of fics than people seem to want there to be. Think >1%, when people want it to be 50% to spare their ego.
2019477 are you cereal?
2020752
Well, you were banned for wasting our time. I don't know if we'll ever end up banning Kaidan. He's been a dick via blog posts but that's about the extent of things.
2021184
Ahh, memories...
Weird ones, but still memories.
2021184 Wasting your time? Nowhere in my ban notice email was it implied that I was banned for wasting EQD's time. The crux behind the ban was that I had "insulted" the pre-readers and had engaged in "intolerable behavior." Here's a selection from my ban email (bold added by me)...
Why do you insist on trying to revise history and say that the reason for my ban is "wasting your time?"
Even if that was really the reason, I think Kaidan has wasted a lot more of EQD's time. Who submitted more stories to EQD, me or Kaidan? Who sent EQD more emails, me or Kaidan? Who reported more pre-readers, me or Kaidan?
2020886
If someone else besides me deserves such notoriety, who am I to ask that they be denied it? I'm willing to share the infamy with another.
>autism
2022166
Change your blogpost back to what it originally was before you cleaned it--then we can make a just comparison.
2022457 I haven't edited a single word of it since I was banned. Nice try though.
2022459
Whoops. Mixed up your blog with your comments on IHED. Sorry, my bad.
2022582 It's okay. Actually, I'm ready to bury the hatchet with EQD, because I don't think these arguments are very productive and are frankly a waste of time, as Alex has said.
Ok, so the overall bet is that EqD only accepts good stories??? Ok, yeah, um, Kaidan has this in the bag.
2021184
2020752
Thanks, and I am aware I'm being a Dick and treading a fine line... At the end of the day though, it's satire and being a Dick that get people fired up enough to discuss this stuff. No one tells their friends to go look at so and so's rational debate on analytical peer review of fan fiction.
I want to draw attention to a simple reality: the more anonymous and hands-off the pre-releaders are, the easier it is to say "meh I had a long day and this short description sounds lame. Rejected."
I may have always argued my rejections, but I did learn from them, and at least I knew what areas to improve. I like to think I could sincerely apologize to you all on a day that wasn't April first. Maybe when I turn 29 this year my mental maturity will reach 16. :-)
Oh, and if all strikes are removed does that include the lifetime ban to Puppet for "dismemberment, rape, torture, and abuse"? I checked, and there is no rape :-P
Oh, last question, if I go to the Eqd panel at babscon are you gonna kick my ass in real life? I kinda want to go but I left my mace at another convention.
2019134
Sorry, that's why I had you guys vet the blog in Skype. It was joking, truth is you can hold a reasonable discussion without insulting their college major.
2019321
Yeah, that is a really bad attitude, but it s okay. I'm practicing my oral at the con. It was salty and awkward at first, and I had a lot of excess saliva. However, I'm told that I'm a natural. It was a bit hard not to gag when I went deep, but overall I'd say I could give you head now without embarrassing myself. :-D
Speaking. Of, you and obs are okay. I still hate meeester, but that's only because of the triple e in his name. It's like you're all a bunch of normal human beings and now that I don't have 20 year old lieutenants yelling at me everyday, I've calmed down enough to appreciate all the hard work you do.
So yes, I fought for our freedom, and you fight the urge to ban me. Friendship truly is magic that we can get along at all.
2019076 doctors don't beg for food at a soup kitchen, but med students do! Don't lie, I know you've eaten soup! And you're right, I don't need to get on eqd, but I am stubborn as a mule, and the day sanctuary got rejected for tense errors, and the next three editors only found a single tense error, it's been personal. The day I get a story on eqd is the day my new motto becomes live and let live.
2019523 you learned correctly. Just look at M. Night Shymalan. He is the dumbest Fuck alive, but his ego is ginormous, and he's an asshole.
If anything, I owe my success to clop, ego, and asshole... But you didn't hear that from me.