Jed On: Conversion Bureau · 9:50pm Aug 8th, 2014
A quick note - I feel like I should write about the Conversion Bureau subgenre of the MLP fandom, since I'm writing something set within it (sort of - to the extent that Conversion Bureau's existed and Conversion exists, though I'd like to think I've not done a straight and narrow interpretation).
See, TCB has a bad rep. It has a bad rep for many reasons, including an author who shall remain nameless (I've never interacted with said author, never read their work, and from what I've read of it and some of their attitudes, I have no desire to). This bad rep, however, stains a lot of works with real merit: you see, TCB (especially in it's Alternative form, the style in which The Other Side of the Spectrum and my own Avatar of Albion are written) has a great deal of potential. In my story and in others, it allows for the MLP verse to be taken to dark extremes. It allows characters to be explored in different ways to canon (see Blueblood the Revolutionary or Lightning Dust the combat flyer in my AOA) and allows us to throw characters into situations that would never happen in the show (full on bloody brutal conflict? Ponies killed by RD's Sonic Rainboom?) and see exactly what they'll do. That's fun to write. I'd like to hope it's fun to read - I've certainly enjoyed stories I've read that follow that.
When I started AOA, I had put TCB in the title of it. I removed it because not only was it overlong as a title, but I kind of felt like it was leading to a situation where the story was being misjudged. Since TCB elements that I use are in many cases tangential (I've altered several pieces of terminology and barely featured some staples of the genre, for example) putting "TCB" there feels a little wrong. That is not, however, to say I am ashamed of my work being a TCB piece. It wouldn't exist without TCB and TCB itself has a great deal of potential. In fact, I believe it has a great deal more potential now, having been "ruined" by a certain author (depending on your view) than it did before, at least in my opinion: after all, there are many great creative works that only exist as reactions to that style of TCB.
In any case, it was a topic I felt compelled to write about. Thanks for stomaching my ramblings.
Til next time.
Jed.
Said author has a lot of anger issues and uses what could otherwise be an interesting twist on the story as a bludgeon to smite enemies. She also seems to think that she somehow outranks Hasbro Studios in how their intellectual property should be seen.
In a way, a lot a great works (Other Side of the Spectrum, and a few others...) came about specifically to point out flaws and other problems with the entirety of the way said author wrote her stories. That, and the fact that she started relying on using fake accounts to increase her standing, didn't help her image either, but that's besides the point.
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Oh, I know all about said author from tropes pages and chats with the Spectrum crew, especially while writing The King's Speech. I don't, however, feel overtly comfortable with (too much) comment on said author since - well, I've never personally interacted with her, and hopefully never will.
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I knew she deleted comments that suggested that she was a crazy misanthrope but I didn't know about the sock puppets. That's not a surprise, though....:
2355526 That's why she got banned for a time, was because she was essentially cheating the system to make her stories more popular, not to mention all the other crap and her vehemence against criticism. But, that's all water under the bridge now. As long as she doesn't transform into Celestia, we're good.
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Makes you think: there's a certain kind of insecurity evident in someone so eager to attack anyone with any criticism of their work, and someone so desperate to be liked that they manufacture accounts to achieve it. It's kind of saddening, really.
Still: never interacted with that author and hope not to.
2356495 I have on one occasion, and it was very brief. Her user page is an absolute mess. Don't go there, ever, if you know what's good for you.