Dodged a Bullet, I Guess · 1:49am Feb 3rd, 2013
I'm sure at least a few of you are familiar with Cracked.
Now, I'm actually a fan of the site. Check it almost every day, been on their forums for years now, back before those forums were associated with Cracked. Back when they really were pointlesswasteoftime.com, back when David Wong still had a day job and John Cheese had a website he updated. In fact, it was on those very forums where I first heard of pony, before all pony was banned there.
They recently ran this article, which I am not here to complain about.
What I am here to talk about is that Romance Reports was considered for a place in that article. Oh yes, it's all right here! Possible reasons for including it being, and I quote:
What is it?
The Romance Reports, by sleepless brony. 138,000 words long. Twilight Sparkle is driven to research relationships to please her crush, Princess Luna; sex research.
Why is it freaky?
-It's not a one shot or a crackfic. This is the most genuine example of a dude turned on by ponies in the entire fandom.
-The author really, really gets every pony on the show. He writes in their mannerisms and personalities with a careful amount of detail. Events that happen in the TV show become an integral part of his plot. This guy doesn't want to fuck horses, he wants to fuck the ponies in the show, specifically.
-Bronies adore it. It was incorporated into a MLP fanfiction hall of fame where the administrator defended it. http://www.ponyfictionvault.net/2012/05/on-subject-of-clop.htmlRead more: http://www.cracked.com/forums/topic/122431/x-most-insane-things-bronies-have-made/0#ixzz2JnQW6uYw
They then include some quotes and some fan art. Not a bad mention, if I do say so, although they missed the other stories written by other people in the same continuity. That was a big point in Fallout: Equestria's favor, so I feel a bit left out.
No, that's not true. I'm actually really relieved it wasn't included - I can't imagine what attention would've been brought my way had they run the article with my story there.
Speaking of which, the reason it was rejected?
"Not too crazy."
Hooray! Not too crazy!
Good job, bro
Huzzah! Let's hear it for an acceptable level of crazy!
787461
Acceptable levels of crazy are the best level of crazy :) You actually don't want to error to low on the crazy either.
Acceptable levels of crazy are always good. Also, your fic was one of the first ones I read on this site, after The End of Ponies.
You must be or else you wouldn't be here.
But at least they did bother to figure out why your story was supposed to be popular.
As I recall Fallout Equestria doesn't have any sex scenes which was quoted as a primary selling point.
EDIT: in all likelihood thats what made the difference, trashy romance novel about ponies just doesn't have the same visceral ring to it as pony torture porn.
Cracked tries to entertain its audience with 30 second sound bites and making something sound spectacular in a few paragraphs is actually hard.
That's pretty lucky, yay for not being too crazy.
Out of curiosity, what do you think of their opinions on Romance Reports, and you, specifically?
787479
There's chapter 20.5, but I don't know how many people view that chapter as 'canon'.
Eh Romance Reports is hardly worthy of being included in the list of 'Craziest WTF Pony Fanworks'. Not sure if you're disappointed by that or not, still it's one of my all-time favorite fanfics, it's just fairly normal, then again RR was the first fic I read with non-humanized sex in it, but that's hardly an issue now.
This is just perfect the cracked article made me laugh so hard I scare the shit out of my wife not literally mind you but still damn funny
oh and she thought it was pretty laughable as well but oh well people are going to hate what they don't understand
787493
I guess if Lauren Faust has to deal with us the rest of her life then FoE having to suffer its own audience isn't too unfair.
The whole point of the article was "look at these dudes and how strange it is for them making sex thoughts about ponies," so I'm not all that surprised you didn't make the cut. Yeah, there's some intensely hormonal pony-on-pony action in Romance Reports, but Cracked is kinda like the circus freak show of the Internet. What they wanted was a story about a man fucking a pony made out of coleslaw, because that's the Internet age's version of set of bearded siamese ladytwins, and that is exactly what they got. They tried spinning RR as some sort of fiendish sexual deviancy, but the best they could manage is several variations of "ponies are fucking; man must want to fuck pony," and that's just not entertaining for their target audience. They want 'point, laugh, and be amazed,' not just 'point and laugh.'
Rainbow Factory? I mean sure it's worse than cupcakes or sweet apple massacre. But "100 days of blueblood" takes the crown when it comes to gorefics... (NOTE: do NOT read this, seriously you have been warned...)
Having checked out the article, it looks like RagingSemi (did they take your place?) is gone now? Did the article cause this?
Haha! Oh wow.
It was definitely an amusing surprise to get the ePFA linked to from a Cracked article. Dunno what I would have done if the Vault had been.
"-The author really, really gets every pony on the show. He writes in their mannerisms and personalities with a careful amount of detail. Events that happen in the TV show become an integral part of his plot. This guy doesn't want to fuck horses, he wants to fuck the ponies in the show, specifically."
That counts as a weird thing, huh?
Daaayyyyuuuummmm, son.They sure like to get their hate on over some bronies, don't they? It's not the broad (and I do mean broad) paintbrush they tried to paint us all with that bothered me. It was the gross inaccuracies... okay, yes, the broad paintbrush bothered me more, but I'm trying to not be bothered by it. It annoys the Hell out of me that humans as a species tends to lump everyone of a certain fandom into one group, point out the one that makes the worst possible scene, and say, "See? We told you they're freaks! Look at them! Look at them! Jeer with us!". And yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy of that last statement, but as a great writer once said, "Hypocrisy does not invalidate a point".
Does this site do the same with other fandoms? Do they rag on rule 34 of other things? I think it's a safe bet that if they saw well drawn R34 of say, Daphne and Velma from Scooby Doo getting it on, they'd have very different reactions. Are they that weirded out by sex with food? Have they never seen Top Gun? Okay, granted it wasn't literally sex with food, but still.
This article is a prime example of why people write fanfiction for this series. It's escapism from intolerant pricks like this who want everyone to conform to their ideal of what constitutes entertainment, and no one is allowed to deviate from it, except so that they may heap scorn upon thee one who dares to be different. Sorry, sorry. It's just that people who don't get something, only skim through the material to find things to poke fun at, and then act like their fetishes and hobbies are the normal ones, make me glad that I don't have my finger on the button that launches all the world's nukes.
I'm glad I never heard of this site until now, and I doubt I'll be returning to it. When I first read your blog title, I thought it had something to do with Cracked magazine. Remember that? At least they were funny and not malicious when they poked fun at something. No, there's enough of that kind of intolerance in my life as is. One thing I'd like to point out. They said that Hoof beats was an adult porn comic. An ADULT PORN comic. Are there other types of porn? Isn't porn by definition for adults?
I haven't been to cracked in over 2 years, but this is hilarious. You aren't really famous until a large site openly hates you.
Congrats!
I feel proud that I helped with a lot of that characterization work SB. Who knows without my help maybe you wouldn't have been considered for this prestigious honor.
Did Xenophilia get a mention in the thread too?
Congrats Sleepless, you're only a little crazy!
I'll make you a shirt.
How in the world they consider Fallout Equestria crazy, and your story not worthy of being crazy, I'll never know. Still, yay for acceptable levels of crazy!
Yeah, the article was awful, whether or not you're on the clop side of the fence. It was just bad.
I'll post here the comment of mine that got in the Top Comments before being knocked out by the other 5,000 or so disgruntled commenters.
"This article was funny. Not ha-ha funny, of course, but the funny like the smell you get when you leave a carton of eggs out in the summer sun for a week."
I'd be proud. Of most clop authors they found you to be too good to add in their list of insane mlp fan creations. I never read FiE but the other three I know. If I saw you on the list I'd be like, well you know what I like insane.
The comment section always makes these articles. I was reading this article a week ago and I got a good laugh out of the "YELLOW JOURNALISM" comment. Something about that comment is just hilarious.
Some day I want to grow up to be just as not-too-crazy as you!
787717
Not that I know anything, but it certainly looks like that. As for the article itself, it's lazy, mean-spirited and, worst of all, not even funny.
RagingSemi has indeed taken a break from this site and removed all of his work after his little shoutout in that article.
The most genuine example of a guy turned on by ponies in the entire fandom?
I'm not so sure about that one...
I might well end up taking point for you on that. Honestly, if you take the right attitude and your life is just sheltered/insulated enough, this isn't a thing to fear that much. I got two hundred thousand youtube hits for 'On To Somethin' Good' for very similar reasons (FunnyJunk mocking it) and didn't die. Just say 'sorry if you didn't like it, I can't help that. I promise no real unicorns were harmed in the production of this'.
It's the internet. The internet is big. You cannot do anything worth doing without potentially pissing off somebody.
Even if Romance Reports had been a well written self-insert, I would have thought, "Okay, so what?" to their accusation.
But it wasn't a self-insert.
So it's not even applicable.
I bet those douches would lie if asked if they ever fantasized about Gadget or Cheetara or some shit.
I'm heartened by the fact that most of the comments - especially the non-bronies - in the article amount to "Yeah, so what?"
Reading the thread where they were compiling examples, there was one guy pointing out how weak their examples and views were, and they told him to shut up because it wasn't relevant. And then when the article came out, everyone yawned, because it's old news.
There's not enough face-hoofs in the world.
Looks to me like they basically said it was a good story. They said you wrote in a "careful amount of detail".
Also you have to wonder why they seemingly read the whole thing if they were so revolted by it.
787481
Oh, you.
787493
Honestly, I was pretty flattered - he seemed to think it was creepy because it was too good? That's how I'm choosing to read that.
788100
I didn't see any Xenophilia mentions, strangely enough. I would've thought the Conversion Bureau would've been mentioned too - doesn't that also have its own whole mini-universe of fics?
788117
YES. Large, please.
I am so glad people have to resort to mocking us because they're so uncomfortable by what we are. It makes me chuckle knowing abnormality gets on so many peoples nerves.
Congrats on being not too crazy!
Taking away the message from RR that you personally want to have sexytimes with some cartoon ponies is odd, though. Because I've read some stories that made me pretty darn sure that the writer did, in fact, want to have sexytimes with cartoon ponies, and RR didn't read that way to me at all. *shrug*
799489
Right? They didn't bring in that one on the food ponies. Or talk about all the other second person stuff out there.