Stop writing this shit. · 11:22pm Sep 11th, 2014
How an Actual Human Vs Pony War would go
This isn't a story. It's a biscuit thrown at FIMfiction's floor so all the military and humans-are-awesome fanboys can run in and play another round of soggy biscuit.
Give me the worst written LoHAV story any time any day. Or a bad alicorn OC "parody", or another IKEA erotic clop fic. At least they're stories. Fucking hell. What a way to start the morning.
I've been getting tired of all the bullshit that's featured. I want story, I want scripture, I want something someone put a lot of work into, to make it as best as they could. It's like you can tell when someone put their soul into their work and when someone didn't. (Kinda makes me think of the movie industry.)
You know, Vis, you strike me as the kind of person who gets angry very easily, and I knew even just from looking at the description and comments how this was going to go, so you should've known too. Maybe you'd be better off avoiding the kind of crap that the feature box turns up? People like John Perry and the parasprite suffer this kind of dreck because they can make comedy out of it and teach us something while they're at it, but if all shitfics do for you is to get you enraged and make you post rant blogs, maybe you shouldn't be reading shitfics. Just doesn't seem healthy, bro.
2447354
It's more of a mild disgust than being enraged. Kind of like looking under your desk and finding chewed gum there. Posting a short blog is just a way to normalize.
I knew it was going to be swill from the title. I looked anyway. Call it naivete or whatever. I keep expecting that maybe someone would break the mold.
2447367
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2447367
Whatever works for you, I guess, but I still can't say I understand the mentality in reading something you know ahead of time you'll dislike. When I read terrible fanfics, it's because I find them funny. John and parasprite, like I said, read them for the entertainment of others. But I'm not sure what you get out of it. Do stories like that just make you too morbidly curious to leave it alone?
2447385
I do read them to find the one to break the mold. The shittier the premise, the more morbidly curious I am to see if this would be the one to rise above. I don't mind the constant disappointment or the mild disgust. They're just passing feelings in the end, easily solved by a short blog post.
2447409
Sounds good. What was your best find?
Why don't you support our troops?
2447416
In terms of humans and ponies interacting? Someone wrote this really long ass 400k word story about that subject. I read the first chapter and it was decently written and had a story to tell instead of just jacking off to how awesome and unbeatable humans were and relying on military fanboys to circle jerk in the comments section.
Didn't push through, though. 400k words asked for a lot to invest which I didn't want to especially when I saw the cancelled tag. While I appreciated the decent first chapter, I stopped there. I think it's a good find regardless.
2447477
What was that one?
So I read the story in question, just so I would be on the level for this conversation. I guess you could compare it to a cheap firework. Loud, fulfills a singular purpose, probably could blow your fingers off if you aren't careful, and ultimately pointless.
I guess I'm so used to seeing this sort of jive in the featured box that I automatically passed on reading it.
Well, you can always rely on me for interesting stuff. Whether it's objectively good is debatable, but I always attempt to write something at least somewhat unique with each of my stories.
Yeah, I'm ashamed of myself for self-promoting too.
figured I'd read it just to see and I wholeheartedly agree. not only is it done just to say ponies can't win, but Celestia is being even stupider than ponies in the show are ever shown to be (which is saying something)
one of the very few stories I've downvoted
I think the real entertainment value to this fic is in the comments section. You have people saying "Humans will totally annihilate all ponies in any situation. Period." and others saying "Ponies will totally annihilate all humans in any situation. Period." Neither side will back down and it's kind of funny watching the two sides war. The story itself is inconsequential "Humans are AWESOME!" fluff. It's not the worst that the feature box has to offer. It's the bad clop fics that keep showing up, or worse the bad HiE clop fics, that are the scourge of fimfiction.
2447736
Well, that's the point of the piece, isn't it? I believe John Perry refers to this sort of writer as "Player". They don't get to the feature box through interesting writing. They write bait and wait for people to bite.
That's really what I find disgusting about the whole thing. It's a scam and it works.
2447826
It's hard to believe that somebody would be THAT desperate for attention that they would take the trouble to write 1,000 words of nothing just to get in the feature box of a fanfiction website. It is the Internet, and people do stupid stuff for attention all the time on the internet but this is a pony fanfiction website. Getting featured like that is twice as meaningless as what Joe Biden had for breakfast.
Agh. The first paragraph had already made me cringe. I don't and never have liked 'humans' stories, but seriously, how did THAT get the featured page?
The paragraphs are clumped together and that grammar.
Come on, I've read better 'human' stories.
EDIT: Actually, I think the title refers to the story. Perhaps the war is as bad as the way the author writes his story. :/
2448034
You should also take into consideration the time frame as well. I mean we are already pretty far into the annual hiatus. So basically we have reached the point where all the easily exploitable story ideas provided by the previous season have been used up.
With nothing left to guide them, some writers fall back on these uninspired concepts to garner more readers. It's kind of a shame honestly, as the fandom is well known for pumping out some high quality content.
2447444
Okay, apparently people thought I was being serious.
2447477 I'm kinda curious now, if you don't mind, what was this actually decent 400k story called?
2448169
From taking a look at the titles of the author's other works any extra readers and/or followers he gets from this story will be gone soon enough. He has the most recent human vs pony war fic, two Army rangers go to Equestria fics and two FPS videogame/MLP crossovers. Most likely each story contains GUNS and 'SPLOSIONS and humans beating the ever-loving snot out of ponies because we all know that magic is completely useless against GUNS and 'SPLOSIONS.
There needs to be a separate feature box for all the bad clop, HiE and human/pony warfare stories to go to. Then perhaps we could have some way to draw attention to the good stories like Past Sins and Hard Reset.
To quote teh paraspriet:
2448034
Here are some things people have done to be FIMfiction famous.
1. Created multiple accounts to upvote their stories.
2. Spammed dozens of strangers to read their fics.
3. Pretended to have cancer.
Creating comment section shit storm bait is actually pretty mild and it's not hard to put together a thousand word piece for such purposes.
2448227
It goes by the incredibly creative name of Human.
I should write a story like that.
It would feature soldiers from both sides of the conflict, and detailed looks at their tactics and capabilities so we can get an objective judgment on who might actually win. The characters would go about their daily lives, giving us in-depth explanations about their routines, and they would interact with each other a while, and nothing would happen and no war would be started at all because the humans and ponies would never meet because there's no such thing as a goddamn portal to Equestria and the entire premise is stupid anyway the end.
This is why I like stories like Quantum Castaways. It shows humans and ponies on equal footing and that they can be friends. We need more stories like that one.
2448505
You know, the sad part is that the same people will come into your story anyway and start a riveting "debate" about which side would win if a war did start.
2448478
Cancer? Seriously? Who would be so desperate for attention that they pretended to be deathly ill just so grown adults who like to read about pastel colored ponies will pay attention to them?
For the sake of anything and everything sacred, have some pride in yourself (not you specifically Visden Visdane, but whomever was that desperate for attention) or at least some basic human decency. Just because it's the internet doesn't mean you can't be a decent person.
>read shit story
>despise it for being popular, even though it's shit
>write blog, which results in even more people looking at the shit story
I think the author won this battle...
Also, I'd rather read crap like this -- which at least has the appeal of pissing people off -- than some of the pretentious BS that gets featured everywhere and becomes the subject of interviews and other wank...
2448667
Won what?
Some time in the feature box? Woop-dee-doo. The contempt of a few dozen authors? Mildly annoying some people for a day or two? You want to "win" this shit? Keep your prize then.
If this was something you paid for in order to view like a movie or a published novel. Yeah, the author has won. Just like Twilight won or Eragon won. The authors kept all the money whether the people who bought their book liked or hated it.
2448672
This story succeeded in proving (once again) that the "appropriate response" to a bad story in the minds of 99% of FimFic's readers is to descend upon it like a swarm of angry locusts. The noise created by them alone will just attract more people to the scene.
I'll bet you and all the other offended people that at least ten other equally shit fics got submitted (and passed moderation) within the last week. It's your own fault if this one in particular got a bit of fame.
The story also shows off how people's standards have zero consistency. To me, the story in question can be summed up like this: "yet another fic that only got any fame because of a blatant title." When I compare that to how many other stories with the same gimmick get featured and whatnot, yet do not generate a ton of hate, but in fact the exact opposite, then I prefer the former. What it wanted, what it got, and what it deserved are all mostly the same thing. I can't say the same for some of the other crap that hits the front page...
2448693
And this is something worth "winning"?
Well, congratulations to the author. Truly, he is deserving of this wonderful prize and all the recognition that goes along with it. He can have the fame. Absolutely. I'm happy to contribute to his lasting legacy of writing shit. And I'm sure everyone who's written or will write a long, very explicit, and very detailed blog about how shitty this story is will be happy to immortalize this story for being shit. What a triumph for this writer.
2448700
That is probably what most people said about Cupcakes when it first came out. You can still hear about it to this day, even though far better (and far more gruesome) gorefics have come out since its release.
Which is not to say this story is on the same level, but the thing about "is this worth 'winning'?" Well, if I get to see a load of users on this site flip their shit over something so forgettable, then I'd say it definitely is.
2448710
I'm not asking about you winning. You get to amuse yourself, hooray. I'm sure every caustic reviewer is having a field day over this. They win too. And I kind of enjoy reading those reviews. So I kind of win too.
But what does the author win? There are only two kinds of comments in its comments section. Comments about how shitty it is and the persistent debate about who would win in a war between ponies and humans. I'll be honest, this would dishearten me if it happened to my story. The story is popular, but more for the shit storm in its comments section than its actual content. Is this success worth striving for? I don't think so.
Are you going to write a story like this? You just found a winning formula here. 1k words of wanking off to military hardware. Make sure everyone from the Humans are Superior group are notified. It's an insta-feature recipe. Would you strive for this?
2448721
Maybe that's the kind of reaction he was going for. I can't really tell, since he's not very active in the comments, but I can easily imagine him laughing his ass off behind the screen while people argue about the whole "how would ponies beat humans?" thing and call each other names for whatever points they bring up.
Also, it sparks debate. Obviously, this fic isn't the best example, as the "debate" is anything but serious or noteworthy, but it still managed to achieve what I have not. My stories, even though I intended most of them to do so, hardly ever manage to instigate any speculation and whatnot in the comments. Perhaps I'd need a few hours in the feature box for that to happen, or maybe I just don't write well enough. Either way, I'd love to be able to set off so much rage with a fic of mine.
2448743
Sounds like a plan. Well, you got your recipe then. Absolutely shitty writing and a shitty concept. Good luck on your next story.
2448748
It's been my "contingency plan" for a while now. If all else fails, and none of my works gain any attention, then I'll either:
1) Write a clopfic.
2) Write a really shitty fic that just begs for a flamewar.
However, I'd prefer to do it the "not shitty" way, i.e a story that is controversial, but not for stupid reasons. The only example I can immediately think of is Biblical Monsters, and I would love to find others like it, not to mention create my own some day (not counting the ones I already did do... )
Also, despite my defense of it, I don't think this "recipe" is a healthy one. As I said before, what this story did is far from unique. I appreciate the fallout it created far more, and that isn't a trivial distinction. That bit of appeal aside, it's another worthless fic that abused a cheap gimmick to gain fame. Nothing else worth noting.
2448761
I'm...mildly disappointed to find that you write for attention.
2448771
If I didn't, I wouldn't submit my stuff for all the world to see. Claiming otherwise is, in my opinion, a lie.
2448775
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE attention. I love it when people gush over my stories. But I would rather languish in anonymity than to deliberately write something trashy just to get people to talk about me. And that's no lie.
2448478
Aha! I knew it.
Trust me, Vis, it's actually a really good thing that you stopped where you did, because I cancelled it for a reason. Later chapters are nothing like the first one, and I'm certain you'd have not liked the full story if you'd actually read it, for a whole lot of reasons. In fact, it's probably one of my worst works.
I don't understand your thinking vis, If you don't like it don't bother reading it.
It's the guy's loss that he wasted time writing that crap.
2448852
I still hold the first chapter to be pretty decent. I wasn't a fan of the Author's Notes at the end of it though.
Have you considered a reboot? Or do you wish to just move on?
2448866
If you don't like it, why did you read it?
If you didn't read it, how can you say that you don't like it?
Like I said, I will push through a shitty title/description/premise in hopes of being pleasantly surprised. I don't mind being disappointed. And I will not be stopped by this typical defense that bad writers use.
2448867
The thing is, for all its problems, it did still have its fans, and I've got to show my audience some respect. To fix the big problems with Human would require a massive overhaul, since the story's biggest problems are so deeply rooted in my intentions for the series (i.e. it was meant to be a dramedy, but is instead a tonally inconsistent piece that is sometimes a comedy and sometimes takes itself seriously, which just leads to both sides undermining the other).
I could try to reboot the series and write it in a way that doesn't make me cringe to look at it, but then I'd have a story nothing like the one I've already written. I'd have to ask my already existing audience who just spent the time to read 400K words of my story to read it all again so that they can understand what's going on in the new version, potentially pissing them off if they preferred the first version. And then I'd have become Pen Stroke.
And don't get me wrong, striving for perfection isn't bad. There are worse authors to be than Pen Stroke. But I'd rather make peace with my mistakes and just try to write better stories in future than tinker with Human forever in some vain attempt to 'save' it. It's still there for the people who like it, my better stories are there to hopefully capture the attention of those who don't, and I just pray that I'll eventually write something more popular than Human and be remembered for that instead.
2448778
If for nothing else, I'd do it just to prove a point. But I could also do it just for the hell of it. Besides, there's no telling which one might actually end up super famous (if any at all), intentionally or not...
Oh yeah, the feature box. Let's recap...
- a fucking Snape fic of all things
- HFY circlejerk fic
- shit tier fapfic
- shit tier fapfic No. 2
- Minecraft crossover fic
- another 4deep8u Octavia fic
- Mass Effect crossover fic
- meh spinoff of a shit sequel to an okay-ish Tyrantlestia fic
- Fallout 3 crossover fic
- yet ANOTHER prompt collab collection, wow, so exciting, maybe this time 95% of the stuff won't suck a dick (haha, fat chance)
...then again, why don't we do something less likely to cause cancer, like eating asbestos or something.
I think the first thing the author did wrong was thinking that human military hardware would beat out the magic that the ponies possess. I haven't actually read it, but from what I've read of the comments the original characters are horrible and the show characters are so out of character it hurts.
oh boy, this one. i have a bad reputation with humans are superior and stories like this. i may occasionally read some weird human in equestria story sometimes, but stories like this are....... garbage. i wanted to say cancer but it is not even worth being called cancer. cancer has some significance to it.
2448867 for every story out there that is worth reading, there are gonna be much, much more that are gonna be really bad. though i am surprised to find somehow who is even more picky than i am. though there has been many casses where me tolerating the drivel has given me pure gold, or at least a nice amethyst. its like terraria in that way; go through a fuck load of dirt and you can finally get something useful.
one example is known as Unwell. not the tightest writing but it has an itnersting premise and fairly solid characterization. has had a few hiccups here and there but the writer strives to improve.
2449079 primary flaw is that they never take itno account that magic could be used ON human weaponry to sabotage it. kinda hard to shoot a bazooka when it has been turned to chocolate, or use gunpowder thta has been forced to combust while still in the bulelt cartridges.