Site Post » Five Score Divided by Four Stories · 6:47pm Sep 13th, 2013
Hi guys. We've been getting some fics with the Five Score Divided by Four premise in the approval queue lately, and it's been a point of contention amongst the staff as to what to do with stories like these. For those not in the know, Five Score Divided by Four stories generally concern a human character waking up with a cutie mark on their rear end and fearing that they're turning into a pony (which they typically do, eventually). The staff's had a couple concerns about approving these stories, namely:
-The majority of Five Score Divided by Four stories we get are only written to the point of the human having a cutie mark at the time of submission. The staff generally doesn't consider "I have a balloon tattoo on my thigh. Am I turning into Pinkie Pie maybe?" to be enough MLP-related content to be approved as a My Little Pony fanfic, meaning we often have to send these stories back to add more pony-related content.
-Even Five Score fics that have been written beyond this sketchy point at the time of submission are debatably related to the MLP universe. Generally, the most that connects these stories to MLP is "I look like Pinkie Pie and have hooves" and characters knowing about My Little Pony as a show. Fimfiction primarily determines what is and what isn't a MLP fanfic by how much the story actually involves ponies or MLP universe, not whether the characters are fans/happen to think or talk about My Little Pony. So "this character happens to look like Pinkie Pie now" is considered a very tenuous connection to MLP. This gets even more tenuous when the human character may or may not be turning into an OC pony instead of a recognized character.
This in mind, the staff has decided to start rejecting submitted stories based on Five Score Divided by Four. While we understand that some stories in this premise may not run afoul of the above two problems, the vast majority of these fics we get in the approval queue do, and tend to require drawn-out debates with the authors over whether or not their story is actually a My Little Pony fanfic.
Of course, we will not be messing with Five Score fics that have already been approved. This ban merely applies to Five Score stories that may or may not be submitted in the future. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this, feel free to respond below.
Have a nice day!
Edit - 9/22/13 (Please Read Before Responding):
Corollary Rule: It has been decided that we will continue to allow Five Score fics provided they are at least 30k words long or complete at time of submission (and, of course, determined to be sufficiently related to MLP).
Now the question is: who to blame and hate the most out of the staff?
And let the rage begin!
Still, understandable.
~Skeeter The Lurker
this doesn't affect me in the slightest. I don't write about humans often, and have never- nor will I ever- write about humans turning into ponies.
have a good day, Obs. stay cool, you awesome bastard.
1347152
Both none of you and all of you, most likely.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Alrighty.
>inb4 butthurt like that Red Thrush story
I'm quite fine with this.
Incoming angry people
I've always made sure to follow the rule that the story has to be mlp related enough before publishing so I'm fine with this.
It seems fair enough. This is a site about mlp fiction of course. A story that avoids much of the actual show would be pretty boring to read...and approve i suppose.
It is nice to see there is a line with all the scary stuff that gets through ha ha.
Massive shit storm in 3... 2... 1...
I'm alright with this.
I blame Devise Heretic.
INB4 all the 'outrage' comments that will go on for no longer than 24 hours, then the entire thing will be forgotten.
Doesn't effect me, and the premise itself does seem loose at best all things considered when you look at the rules of the site. The arguments made by the staff here are solid and I for one fully support it.
Have a nice day Ob.
site has been going downhill ever since these new guys were introduced, sheesh
OK, I am fully understanding of the reason behind this. It makes sense.
I do have a question. If a Five Score based story was submitted, complete, and with sufficient pony content so that there was no doubt of it being MLP related, would it still be rejected because of it being Five Score based?
1347181
And in your day you banned uphill both ways.
Huh. Well, glad I didn't put that off.
As long as you don't mess with what already exists, I'm okay. Can't deny that TS's original story has a huge following and banning THAT would CERTAINLY cause a shitstorm of epic proportions.
As it is, I could argue that the basic premise of the stories involves humans actually becoming the actual characters, but it probably wouldn't accomplish anything.
I assume having the new guy make the potentially unpopular announcements is a rite of passage?
BLASPHEMY! Thou art close-minded with thine rules!
<.< Is that fic good, by any chance?
I'd assume not, 1347182, because in that case the story would be undoubtedly attached to My Little Pony and thus would avoid the issue entirely. It does, of course, depend on how you work that 'sufficient pony content' in...
DISCLAIMER: I'm not staff, this is just speculation because nobody else seems to be answering you.
Can a parody still work? If not, I'm still cool with it. Just wondering.
I support this fully. Good call.
1347182 I too would like to see this question answered by the site administration.
Less human, more pony!
For a second I was afraid it was something about the original fic itself. I must say I'm relieved
While it isn't the best (from a technical stand point) it is among my top favourites of fics I've read.
That being said, I can completely understand the reasoning of this decision. This is a MLP site, afterall, and while the author and the pre-reader may know that it will turn into a pony centered fic, the rules are clear.
You'll receive no ire from me. It's a completely understandable point.
I think this rule is fair enough. If the story is set AMONGST ponies (ie, a human finds themselves in equestria whilst slowly changing) is fair enough though right? This question's directed at you Obselecence
1347152
How about the 434,343,467 people who write 'Ohymygosh, lemme turn into my OC, and use this group as the why!' I suppose after having to reject that many of em, it's easier to just issue the blanket statement.
I'm just wondering if I should care or not...
Well I certainly agree with this decision.
Not counting the reasons above, my personal opinion is that gorg darmint guys get an original premise for once in your lives.
If your only "lead" to "writing" a "good" story is to mooch off of other authors' concepts like a parasitic mass of leeches, down to the exact streamlined bullet-point list of events, you don't deserve nice things.
1347182
1347207
1347208
1347213
Good catch! This is a legitimate issue, so I brought it up with the rest of the staff.
Unfortunately, after some deliberation, we've decided not to allow Five Score-based stories as a blanket rule. We understand that this may not seem fair, given that the primary issue is that most Five Score stories are not related to MLP at the time of their submission, but allowing exceptions to this rule negates most of the root cause for the ban (which is people believing their story DOES relate to MLP and getting into drawn-out arguments with the staff when this doesn't prove to be the case).
Given that the boundary between "related to MLP" and "not related to MLP" is somewhat subjective, we'd much prefer to ban Five Score stories altogether than to tell some that they're okay and reject others.
So, long story short: no. Sorry.
I don't
Logic is make perfect if think rule should absolute however i'm no those people
Rule should be bit Bendale and moldalbe
This to me only me,Is unacceptable,I was going write this story like this before but now I have no chance,I hate Rule about how ratated has to be It so arbitrary
We have pony make war(The immoral game) which nothing like show yet it has character of mlp it allow
arbitrary rule is which site work on i know but are and always be arbitrary
1347208 I would say no, because it'd technically be in the universe.
Not sure if I should be sad that new side fics to my story are banned...
webtrax.hu/myfacewhen/faces/movies-videos-cartoons-series/futurama-fry-not-sure-if.jpg
...or somewhat proud because my story spawned so many side fics that the moderation team noticed and had to make a new rule specifically about them.
In either case, do what you gotta do FimFic team, it's your site to run. Sorry for being the cause of this drama
I actually didn't see the appeal behind the stories, I knew others liked them but I didn't see the appeal, and I didn't see how it was MLP related most of the time, so I am good with this. Plus they keep turning up in the featured box so you cant tell me to ignore then while I am looking through the box for interesting fics.
1347245
That story and the others is about the ponies and directly pony related, while these stories are not directly pony related and just a human with a cutie mark on their butts saying about ponies. The different being that their are actual ponies in one and just people in the other.
There are so many comments about an impending shitstorm and rage and yet not a single person who's commented has been upset with this decision.
Irony
1347247
Congrats, I guess...?
I note that the job of proclaiming a category ban falls to the new guy.
Fimfiction believes in trial by fire.
1347243 While this does not effect me, where as I do not wish to write a Five Score fic, It is a bummer to see any future stories of this Verse banned.
I am thankful though that you have not decided to ban the current ones, mainly because there is the original one, and two of the side stories which I feel have good promise if they were tied in successfully with the main one.
Most human you'll get from me in a Mlp fanfic is Twilight either schooling one of the badasses (like mastershief) in how to be lethal, or Watching a human that's freshly arrived in Equestria get mauled by Timberwolves.
Dat profile picture doh!
This is so mellow it scares me.
1347247
I know I've spoken publicly against your series in the past, but I have to sympathize. I know I wouldn't want my work or derivatives of my work to be banned.
1347245 Unfortunately, if we start allowing exceptions, then everyone will want to be made an exception. The staff's decided in favor of a blanket ban on the genre to stop that from happening and make it as clear-cut as possible. I'm sorry if you had plans to write something in the genre, but at least this announcement let you change your plans before committing too much work to the idea.
Meh.
Never read the original.
Was never a fan of the 'human turns into pony for x reason' anyways.
And there's a reason I throw disclaimers in there, 1347243 ;P
Do what you have to do to keep the site's quality up, guys.
1347181
What do you mean 'since'?
So now I wait for the next category ban to arrive.
The ban on The Conversion Bureau genre.
Because its the same general idea with a different cause 90% of the time for the same reasons admins have stated.
Pony original character self insert fantasy.
Or is it exempt on grounds of its waning popularity making it less work for admins?