• Member Since 7th Aug, 2011
  • offline last seen Mar 15th, 2014

Colour Coded Chaos


Hello! I'm an aspiring fanfic writer from southeast England. Hopefully, some of the stuff I post will not be a boatload of dross...

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Dec
23rd
2011

Bastinado, or, Dumping Unfinished Grimdark Stories onto EQD for Fun and Profit. · 10:10pm Dec 23rd, 2011

Greetings, true believers!

Y'know, every time I say that, it just gets creepier and creepier. Anyway, I submitted The L Words to Equestria Daily with the tags Adventure and Sad. This, in hindsight, was probably a bit of a mistake; there is a lot of violence, the majority of it self-inflicted (save that which happens off-camera between Liar and Lapse), and it covers some very dark themes. Indeed, the pre-readers at that singular body said so, and requested to change the tag. I gave my assent, with an assertion that the kind of people who don't read stories purely based on tags are the kind we can really do without - for instance, I despise Twixie as a ship and yet a comic was made of a Twixie femmeslush thing I wrote and got onto EQD. The point is, don't judge a fanfic by its tags. However, it was not tagged with a grimdark tag (this, in retrospect, is most likely my own fault - I thought they were going to do it, which shows an amusing naivete on my part) and thus a lot of comments have come my way about how a simple sad tag does not go far enough.

And they're right. It doesn't.

See, the thing is, EQD doesn't have much in the way of a middle ground between Sad and Grimdark. This is why I like the tag system on FiM - it has a dark tag without all the negative teen-angst-and-chainsaws connotations of a GRIMDARK tag. I would like a Dark tag on Equestria Daily, as sometimes they can cover dark material without making it sad until you actually think about it. Fallout: Equestria, for example, does this extremely well; the land of the ponies is (by the story's start) an absolute shithole on a par with the Seventh Circle of Hell and just under Margate in terms of utter horrendousness, yet it does not dwell in misery and the impossibilities of living in such a landscape and remaining the kind of pony we love to watch of a Saturday morning (Saturday afternoon in my case, my country being several hours ahead of the majority of yours). It's not a sad fic until you think about it - Fridge Horror, they call it on TVTropes - and that's the hallmark of good writing. Whether or not I do it is entirely your opinion. Literature, like all art, is almost entirely subjective.

So yeah. Not too far into The Leader but I hope to get it finished before the year is out.

Happy Holidays to all, and may all the little pastel-coloured ponies bring you joy. Except Berry Punch, because you have to get her wasted first.

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Comments ( 6 )

And it's getting harder to get Berry wasted. It's becoming a problem.

2631 Quite. I've already used up my stocks of TNP; perhaps moving onto Sink The Bismarck will have more of an effect...

(for reference, TNP linkymabob and Bismarck linkymabob)

I DO judge by tags, though I agree EqD needs something between Sad and Grimdark. The soon-to-be-approved fic "Contra the Heresies" would be tagged grimdark for spousal abuse and very mature themes, but no gore or such. Tags tell you at least in general what to expect in conjunction with the description. The appearance of "grimdark" plus "asylum" could never be good, ever.

And I can't objectively judge FO:E. I hate Fallout as the last, desperate refuge of they who appear on the wrong wedge of the Epicurean Trilemma or objectivists who want a broken world to make in their own image. Fallout: Equestria takes innocent, candy-colored ponies and mutilates their flesh, breaks their minds and blasts their land, all because a torture-artist thought they'd get literary.

What was I saying? Eh. Doesn't matter. I discriminate based on tags, because my life sucks some days. Why even look at grimdark and sad when I don't need it?

2670 People make the mistake that art is about feeling good. It's about feeling.

2717

Generally I agree. However, without having read Fallout: Equestria, I can understand what Mr. LaVedier is getting at. I tend to avoid grimdark fics, even though I could probably stomach much worse material having enjoyed Naked Lunch and Soviet history, just because tonally it seems like such an inappropriate fit for a setting based on candy-coloured ponies. (And why thinks like 'Cupcakes' provoked such controversy when they were first dumped on the community.) Obviously my feeling doesn't apply across the board given that I've enjoyed The L Words so far despite their rather dark tone. However, I do think that a writer will experience a greater degree of hazard doing 'dark' in a My Little Pony fic that might not be such a problem in say...even a Star Trek fic.

As for the tag system at EqD? I suppose 'Grimdark' is meant to cover all the things you touched on, especially since Fallout: Equestria has a Grimdark tag. Though I can see your problems with it since 'Grim' is basically an intensifier when added onto 'Dark' and the EqD description of the tag goes: "Stories that involve death, famine, plagues, twilight going on rampages murdering all her friends, ect." which certainly swings peoples impressions of the tag to the more extreme end of dark subject matter.

Actually, on the subject of middle ground between "Sad" and "Grimdark", there's more than you seem to be aware of. There is a "Dark" tag suitable for non-explicit horror on EqD which your story now has, there is also a "Grimlight" tag for stories with death and violence/gore but no moral evil, and a "Light Grimdark" for stories have grimdark content that is less intense or in very small amounts.

Personally, I do not judge stories by the tags alone, I judge them by the content. Usually based on a disclaimer by the author or from the comments. There is some very pure "Grimdark" content that I have no problem stomaching for a decent fic, and there is some much tamer content that I would not abide even for the greatest masterpiece.

It's also rater insulting to state that that you have no respect for people who flat out avoid certain types of content. As if being discretionary based on personal tastes is something negative. You say art makes you feel, but art makes you feel "things". Some things, some people do not want to feel. Forcing an experience that one would not enjoy is rather cruel.

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