It's Finally Over · 6:07am Aug 25th, 2014
Is... Is it over?...
...
Can I come out now?....
...
Alright, looks... safe enough.... it's still int he featured box though.....
Holy crap.
Guys.
You don't understand.
She Said No is... it's just....
Let me put it this way. I've always said and believed that an author should be proud of everything they release to the public. I stick to this rule.
The backlash I got for that story almost made me regret posting it. Almost.
I wanted to spark discussion and thought... and I certainly did that.. over four hundred comments in a little over two days. Some hostile, some positive, some negative, some ignorant and some brilliant. This story has become something all on its own. I tried moderating the comments, but there are just so many. One flame war in there got to the point where an actual site moderator had to get involved and cut it off. I can't believe this.
And also, I get a small sense of pride for having written something that caused a shit storm this big. She Said No is just... I'll be honest; I stopped caring about it the minute I finished the epilogue. I put less than 3 hours into the entire thing, less than 4 thousand words, and that all happens in two days. Honestly it was overwhelming for me. I logged on to fimfic one morning to over 230 notifications, and I had stayed up till 3AM the previous night, so all that had happened in about 7-8 hours. And it just didn't stop.
But it's finally calming down now. Today was, most likely, the last day of the featured box, and the arguments in the comments have all pretty much died out. It ends at nearly 450 comments.
So, now that it's all over, what am I going to do?
Go back to Twidash where it's safe. I never got anything like this on my Twidash stories! I was writing for a fairly large niche audience who all pretty much agreed that they liked it. She Said No was so controversial that I... I don't know how long it'll be till I venture out again. Okay no, it didn't traumatize me or anything like that, but it was bigger than I had ever thought something from me was going to get. It's boosted me past 200 followers, and... it just got ANOTHER comment.
Seriously though; what now? How can I possibly top that?
Well, for starters I'm going to take a look at continuing Under Our Wing, which now has a solid plot that I love to bits. Of Sky and Snow will continue updating, and I'm still working (slowly) on Hidden Hearts, Marks of History will be worked on occasionally, but it will be slow to update.
So yeah, welcome to all of you new followers. Since you're new, let me give you the run down; I bog a lot. More than I probably should and more than you'll probably care to read. I love comments on anything I do, and my comments are always open to those who are civil.
I'm sure you'll learn to love the others as much as I do.
Until next time,
Kodeake out.
> Does what is the very definition of trollfic.
> Still claiming not a trollfic.
2399423
Oh look, you're still here.
Look, it's not a troll fic. it's so clearly not a troll fic. Discussion does not mean troll fic. It's not my fault the argument got that heated, and I certainly didn't expect or want that.
Yeah, I do get a little bit of pride that it caused that much debate, because something I wrote made people feel passionately about it enough to go that far.
A troll fic is written with the intention to cause the flame war that happened.
I did not have that intention, ergo, not a troll fic.
I can't control how vigorously people defend their opinions. It's not even my fault they had those opinions.
I wanted discussion and thought, not flaming and insulting.
2399433
Oh, arguing intent versus effect. You wanted to make a goose, but it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
2399459
Which doesn't even compare to my story. The effect it had has nothing to do with what it actually was. I wrote that story seriously. I intended for it to be taken seriously, or at least as serious as you would normally take a piece of fan fiction. It turned out serious.
It doesn't walk or quack like a duck. Some people (a minority, might I remind you) responded as though it did. People also think the Eagle's song "Hotel California" is a song about Satanic worship. That doesn't make it a song about Satanic worship. You thinking my story is a troll fic does not make it a troll fic. A few people responding to my fic as though it were a troll fic does not make it a troll fic. Now, had the majority of people responded that way, then maybe, but as it is, only a couple people went into the arguments and such. Most people gave actual thought son the story, and gave actual criticism or praise. Because they took it seriously, because it's not a troll fic.
2399423
The fundamental difference here (as far as I understand it) is that a trollfic is designed to simply make people angry. It doesn't take a stance on any divisive issue, it simply exists to make people angry and is only successful when you have people raging about the story in the comments.
Kodeake's story, however, does not do this. If you read it, it is made to be serious. It takes a stance on an issue and does not exist to simply make people angry. The fact that people got angry comes from a different reason entirely. They could have gotten angry because they think Celestia is a bitch (and many thought otherwise) and ergo returned to the Internet argument default: pointless rage. People started arguing in the comments about the story and about the nature of the characters included in the story. People tossed around pointless insults because they are children throwing a tantrum, as people are want to become when granted access to the internet and a keyboard.
A story that attempts to spark discussion and make people think is in no way a trollfic. A trollfic exists to make people mad, not to try and create intelligent discussion on a topic. There are poems, short stories, books, movies, and even video games that all exist to make people think. That's the point of a lot of them, actually. The Great Gatsby, Shutter Island, BioShock Infinite, The Book Thief, and even something like Romeo and Juliet are made to make you think and to spark discussion. It's why certain books and movies and poems are selected to be mandatory in high school English classes: they make you think and the teacher wants to spark discussion. I believe Kodeake made "She Said No" to fall into this category.
2399726
Oh, you're quite wrong here. Any decent trollfic totally takes a stance on some divisive issue; it takes a very controversial (generally shunned) stance, and supports it with fallacious arguments.
In this case the stance is "Don't try to stand up for yourself, because you'll end up ears deep in shit" and supports it with Celestia being a total manipulative passive-aggressive bitch punishing Twilight for her attempt at independence. Obviously that conclusion totally goes against all the show stands for, and it's entirely expectable it would enrage the brony community. The fallacies lie in Twilight's quite thoughtless choice of the moment and method of taking her stand, in Celestia being a callous, passive-aggressive bitch towards Twilight, and the aftermath painting Twilight as a total villain.
Maybe it wasn't the author's intent but that's totally the effect: Outrageous claim supported by fallacious arguments in form of a story that commonly elicits anger in the readers and incites flame comments. AKA trollfic.
Also, the difference between a crappy trollfic and an excellent one is subtlety. A blatant trollfic will leave you disgusted at worst, because you can see through the author's game and it's simply not believable. But one that leaves you all angry at the subtle wrongness and you need to reflect deeply to recognize it bears characteristics of a trollfic, is a masterful one.
Honestly? Speaking as the last original Equestria Daily pre-reader, I know the others would back me up on this: Controversy is never a bad thing. You may not have hit what you were aiming for, but you definitely sparked one hell of a discussion and debate, the flame war notwithstanding.
I'd say be proud of what you've accomplished, good and bad.
Also, I think I'll be keeping an eye out for when you do TwiDash. I like your work!