• Member Since 13th May, 2012
  • offline last seen Jan 30th, 2022

HoofBitingActionOverload


The sexiest man you've ever met.

More Blog Posts119

  • 232 weeks
    Stories resubmitted

    Hello,

    I hit the resubmit button on my old stories "Lick," "The Art of Falling," and "Sapphire" because someone asked me to. I don't remember exactly why I unsubmitted them or when. They should be visible on the site again.

    Enjoy the finale.

    Best,
    HBAO

    12 comments · 611 views
  • 286 weeks
    I finished Some Hugs Last Longer Than Others

    A long time ago, years ago actually, I said I'd finish my last fic. I did try a few times, a couple different finished versions have existed. But they were all terrible. Some Hugs was a problem story from the very beginning. The concept seemed like comedy gold. Pinkie Pie glues herself to Rainbow Dash. Hilarity ensues.

    Read More

    5 comments · 690 views
  • 325 weeks
    How was the Friendship is Magic movie?

    So there was a Friendship is Magic movie released semi-recently? I haven't seen it, but I was looking around for fans of the show's reactions, and I can't seem to find much discussion anywhere. Did we all hate it, or what?

    17 comments · 753 views
  • 342 weeks
    Writing is Dumb - Part Two of the Story of the Story of Spring is Dumb

    Once upon a time, I started a full making-of-style commentary of the creation of Spring is Dumb. The first part describing the prewriting of the story looked like this. Now, about two

    Read More

    7 comments · 930 views
  • 350 weeks
    I published a story!

    Your favorite fimfic author is taking his very first tippety toe baby step toe touch into the wild and wonderful world of original fiction publishing, and that first step is this thing, which you can find here. Might look very familiar if you participated in the Writeoff's

    Read More

    14 comments · 678 views
Aug
29th
2016

One week from now, I will unsubmit all of my stories · 3:02am Aug 29th, 2016

I am not deleting my stories, I am unsubmitting them. This means they will no longer be publicly available on the site, but if you have a link to the story, you'll still be able to access it. I've also been told that if the story is in one of your libraries, you'll still be able to access it, but I haven't been able to test that.

When I unsubmit them, I'll also post a blog post including links to every story, which will remain up permanently. Every other blog post, including this one, will be deleted. Unless someone asks me not to delete the blog posts, but I can't think of any reason anyone ever would, because there's nothing here but scat.

The story pages will also be password protected, but I'll post the password in the blog along with the links to the stories.

Never mind, linking unsubmitted stories is against the rules. Instead, the I will link to gdoc versions of the stories.

I've tagged Spring is Dumb to this post because that story has more favorites than any of my others, and I want as many people to see this post as possible.

If you'd like to contact me now or anytime in the future, I will always be able to be reached via pm.

Edit: There's a lot of writing in my fimfiction, and even entire stories, that I could re-use in my original fiction. In particular, I'm talking about all that cheap smut I've written over the years, because there's always a market for cheap smut out in the world of self-publishing. And hey-oh, I need money. But I can't use any of it in my original fiction as long as it's easily available for free online. I can't delete all of it, because that would make me a cock, but I can at least make it a little less easily available for free online.

Report HoofBitingActionOverload · 1,883 views · Story: Spring is Dumb ·
Comments ( 34 )

Hey dude!

What made you decide to unsubmit all your stuff?

Regardless, I hope stuff is going well for you in the land of writing.

4178806 4178805
It's always confused me, the reasoning behind removing your work.
I'll be honest, there are times when I know removing one particular piece of work might be important, but why remove the whole lot of them? It's really confusing.

I'm not sure what purpose this course of action would serve, but apart from breaking bookshelf and group access to your stories, doing that also happens to be against the site rules:

Unpublished stories and chapters

Sharing access to unpublished stories or chapters is only allowed for the purpose of help with editing or other stages of the writing process.

So, yeah.

4178805
4178806
Edited the post with explanation. But basically, I can't use any of my pony fiction in my original fiction while it's still easily available on this site for free. Especially the smut. I need to put all that smut to work.

4178814
I'm not removing anything (except blog posts, but who cares about those?). You will still be able to access all of the stories.

4178817 Well, that's very reasonable. Good luck with professional writing!

That makes sense. I've unsubmitted some of my own stuff for the exact same reason. Good luck, dude.

4178816
Well that's dumb. If I get trouble for it, I can include gdoc links instead.

I'm sorry. I've wanted to refit a lot of my pony fiction into original fiction for a while, but I'm unable to do so as long as it's still available here. It'll all still be accessible if you want to read any of it.

4178831
You aren't required to delete them from the site, but you aren't allowed to make a blog post that is just a bunch of links to unpublished stories, either.

Sadly, the rule was put into place after someone's story failed moderation (for plagarism, specifically), then they posted a link to it in their blog and in a bunch of other places and a bunch of people went and read it anyway. This is why we can't have nice things.

I think "Just Being Pinkie Pie" is my favorite. I am making sure I download all the stories that I have favorited so that just in case things don't work out like we all plan I will still be able to read it.

Thanks for the warning I would have been very sad if I found your stories suddenly gone without an explanation or warning.

Also I was rather fond of some of your blogs and I think I was waiting for your discussion on PinkieDash I believe. Oh well that will have to wait for somebody else's analysis.

I hate when people unpublish their stuff.

But, at least you're just "hiding" it.

~Skeeter The Lurker

4178831

Ask knighty for permission to do such. Or one of the mods.

Might allow you to do it.

~Skeeter The Lurker

Time to throw your pony life down the memory hole, eh? Seems increasingly to be the trend these days.

Well, I'm sad to see the body of work that you had here disappear, but I wish you luck with the life you're trying to bring about for yourself. I'll be sure to save the works I care about before they vanish forever. Thanks for the warning, the horsewords, and everything else you've given us over the years.

I hate endings...:pinkiesad2:

Meeester
Moderator

4178831
What the other guys said. Gdocs are fine only for Everyone/Teen stories.

Still no sharing access to unpublished fimfic content regardless if it's not part of editing.

4178963
That stinks. Particularly the only for E/T stories rule.

Oh well, I'll figure something out. Thanks for the clarification!

That's an acceptable reason. Thanks fot the heads-up.

This is bizarre. Why does refitting your work require it's removal? Presumably anyone interested in purchasing it with the ponies removed would not be interested in the pony version in the first place, and unponifying it is a non-trivial process. It's not like you don't own the works, so there's no reason that you wouldn't be allowed to use them. I really can't think of any benefit to doing this other than trying to avoid having to admit to whoever you're submitting this stuff to that it was originally pony fiction, which implies that you'd actually change them so minimally that they'd find them in the first place.

Also, please don't remove the blog posts. There's a great deal of history with subjective value recorded here, things that are worth reading, like "I don't give a shit what you think about my writing". Things that give insight into the philosophy of an author have value in the context they bring to their works.

Quite frankly this is probably about the most cynical thing I have read in a long time, and it's pissing me off. I'm not going to bother being as diplomatic and supportive as the rest of the people in this comment section. I'm sorry, but doing this will make you a cock. Whether you're really deleting your stories or just half-assedly hiding them, still a cock. You're a cock even just for making this plan, albeit not as big of a cock as you'll be when you actually go through with it. Maybe you don't care what this lot thinks about you, but if that were true, then why are you even writing this post?

What happened to

The stories I want to write can't be written with ponies anymore.

anyway? This doesn't sound like writing new fiction that can't be written with ponies, this sounds like shortcuts and cynicism, not creativity.

So in short:

I can't use any of my pony fiction in my original fiction while it's still easily available on this site for free.

Why not? You're changing it, right? Rewriting, even. Why your entire catalog? Is everything really so amenable to de-ponification that wouldn't make it unrecognizable?

but I can't think of any reason anyone ever would, because there's nothing here but scat.

Way to insult anyone who ever liked any of your character discussions or author ramblings. Not that I don't understand the artistic desire to put down one's offhand work, but ya also have to consider that there's usually someone who will see value in it.

Nooooo!!! Darnit, there's so much good stuff in there.

Why is there a need to remove your blog posts?

4179020
You also realize that your stories (mature especially) have been cached in several different FiMfic archives and general internet archives, and will still be publicly available regardless of what happens on this account? The internet never forgets. :unsuresweetie:

I mean, for the non-Mature stories and blog posts, all anyone needs to do is head over to the Wayback_Machine. Even if the stories themselves aren't cached, since you're only unpublishing rather than deleting, the links are still good. You don't exactly have to search the Dark Web, here.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

I was all set to be pissed off, but that's actually a good reason to do this. :B At least you're not pulling a darf. Whenever you publish real stuff, be sure to mention which story it's based on, and I will compare/contrast! :D

Should I consider your incompletes abandoned, then?

Doesn't seem necessary, I don't think many of your customers for non pony work are going to know this stuff exists, or bother looking it up. And if you plan to try to sell your new stuff to your pony readers it is bad public relations.

..Oh. That...makes sense. Is a shame, but makes sense. You're unsubmitting because you're turning your ponyfics into paid writing. *Saves Spring is Dumb*

4179288
I tend to agree... I'm trying to see the point here.

First publications rights are already gone, unless he either changes enough that it's not recognizable (in which case the originals wouldn't matter because he's claiming they're different works) or self publishes (in which case the only issue would be competing with himself, and leaving them up as gdocs would do that anyway.) Unless he planned to lie to publishers.

And I would understand it more if it was one or two stories he planned to file the serial numbers off of and mash together. I fully support that, but when it comes to stuff like smut... I mean, there's not a huge amount of variation anyway, so rewriting it as original doesn't seem that hard. (What I mean to say here is Lick is an awesome piece of smut, but I've probably seen a half dozen suspiciously similar pieces of smut, and if they'd all been HBAO under alts writing the same story over and over, I would never notice. (Except to note that overall quality of smut had drastically improved.) Hell, I might not even notice if he reused portions, there's only so many ways to porn.)

In terms of reputation, honestly he'd have better luck using his rep in pony fandom to sell new stuff than trying to invent a new pony-free rep. A few hundred people already inclined to like your writing is nothing to sneeze at for a new author.

I'm not morally outraged or anything, I just kind of feel like this is coming from a confused and not-good place. I agree with the call that it feels cynical, but there's a kind of desperation and defeatism about it too. I'm concerned.

I guess for me, what it comes down to, HBAO: you're an awesome writer, you've written some great stuff here. And you can write better stuff. So I'm not sure why you're not doing that.

But good luck in any case.

What 4179714 said. No one who isn't interested in pony cares if it started as pony or is available as pony.

I'm not going to get all worked up over this, especially as I'm not as familiar as some others with the legal ins and outs here. But I am really sorry if this really is the only way you feel able to go. Regardless of whether your stories are still available "out there" somewhere (and they will be -- as 4179475 said, the internet never forgets), it seems a crying shame to be deleting/hiding/whatever such interesting writing, both fiction and discussion. Maybe I'm whistling in the dark here, and if I'm wrong I'll accept it with sadness rather than anger -- but I truly hope that you are able to find another way.

Before I say anything else, thank you for the warning and the delay. That shows a lot of respect for your audience.

That said, add me to the Axis of 4179714/4179288/etc., in the sense that I think it's better for both your audience and your self-interest to leave the stories up. Even if you're no longer interested in MLP, you've got a substantial audience here that could cross over into your original fiction work (Bookplayer in particular might be able to speak more to this, having just self-published an original fiction novel last week and advertised it here). Your already-published stories are in the long tail, slowly accumulating views just by virtue of being there, and people who like those stories already know they like your writing. If you file the serial numbers off a particular story, it's easy to vanish that one and tell people it's now available as original fiction, and that leaves the other bridges unburned.

There may be factors to this decision (which you may wish to leave unsaid) that make a clean break preferable, and I can't hold it against you if there are, but in the general case, I believe sending work down the memory hole works against you.

EDIT: Also, even if you still decide to remove everything, is it possible we could get an exemption for Where Have The Stars Gone? so as to not break the Royal Canterlot Library feature? Or could you drop me a Google Docs link for it? Or should I just note that the text of the story is no longer available at the request of the author? :unsuresweetie:

A couple people I'm following pointed to here, so I became curious. I'm afraid that it seems like I haven't read any of your stories yet, though a handful were in my Read It Later. :twilightsheepish:

At least you're giving a sufficiently advanced warning (seriously, thank you for that) and I was able to look through your story list and see what caught my attention enough to want to download so I have easy access to read later, even if I don't get around to any of them until after a week from now. :pinkiesmile:

I won't add much more to this because frankly enough people have covered the concerns over this decision and I have the same thoughts that this wouldn't achieve anything and many people would be sad from this. If this does happen, for people who aren't aware there are sites like fimfetch.net which has cached stories of everything on this site. It is disappointing you want to do this but frankly I don't see the point all things considered. I hope you reconsider but it is what it is.

4179288

Agree with all of this, please don't remove stories or blogs that don't HAVE to be removed for some reason.

Yeah im not gonna be all nice and stuff, gonna flat out say. Your Logic makes no goddamn sense, do you REALLY think the audience your gonna be chasing after now is gonna be checking a freaking pony fan fiction site? or any publishers are gonna be doing thing? Because if so, that's some incredibly high level paranoia.

So I came here because a little while ago in my feed I found like two or so blog posts. These blogs were posted by authors that are pretty well know and I also respect them(as I'm sure a lot of others do as well). They say that a an amazing author will be soon deleting all of his stories. And that a lot of those stories are really good.

Now they didn't say why but I thought I'd check you out. And I'm....well I'm shocked that this is the reason why you are deleting these stories. Or making them hard to access.

I think this guy has said it really well 4179288 and I have to agree with him.

I know a lot of people must like your work and With what others are saying I'd probably like them very much too. And I could probably add another good 10 stories to my favs list.

But if this is the reason why I don't think I'll bother reading them. It would be a waist of effort.

Unless there would be true legal issues with all this. I'm just really disappointed.

-BFBL

4183109
In his defense, publishers will absolutely check fanfiction sites. Typically, making a professional fiction sale requires giving them "first publication rights" — in other words, part of the value of the story is the novelty of it, because it hasn't been shown to the world before.

Filing the serial numbers off of fanfiction to make it original fiction is a grey area. You're arguably editing the story sufficiently that the product you're shopping around is no longer the same thing that people can read for free online. But that's the publisher's decision to make, since they're the ones paying — and having the original version of the story openly available online definitely can spike a sale and cost you actual money. Unpublishing it from the internet doesn't make it vanish, but the harder it is to find, the smaller the chances it will cause problems.

The part of the argument I object to is preemptively deleting everything here. Because of various archive projects in which each story is already included, the difference between blowing a story up now and blowing it up when you start that story's editing-into-original-fiction process is really slight. And the ones that never make the transition would get to continue living here, and would keep providing a trickle of new fans for the new projects.

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