Author Interview » Cupcakes' "Shutdown" [Royal Canterlot Library] · 11:43pm Feb 27th, 2015
Today's story is a classic from early 2012, making it one of the fandom's longest goodbyes.
Shutdown
[Sad] • 2,783 words
"Would you tell anypony if you knew the world was going to end, Twilight Sparkle?"
FROM THE CURATORS: Shutdown is one of the earliest fanfics about Equestria as a virtual world, but it has withstood the test of time. "It's an intriguing premise," JohnPerry said, and Horizon looked at the bigger picture: "It uses worldbuilding and fragments of dialogue very effectively to feel like a tiny piece of a much larger story." Chris agreed. "Shutdown succeeds in hinting at the broader setting of the piece without resorting to mood-breaking infodumps," he said, "and that sense of reserve is welcome in a story like this."
That sense of reserve extended to the piece's emotional impact. "It would have been easy to make this scenario overwrought, and I'm glad it doesn't do that," JohnPerry said. We found that quiet-yet-effective presentation to be one of the story's strongest features. "Instead of trying to drown us in the emotions of the characters, it's characterized by the lack of resolution that accompanies real tragedy, and draws its feelings from that sense of powerlessness in the grander sweep of things," Horizon said.
Beyond that, Shutdown follows the finest traditions of speculative fiction: "It raises a lot of questions that stick in your craw," Horizon said, and Present Perfect added: "This explores well a number of diverse topics — the nature of reality, fandoms, online communities and their eventual cessation, how we relate to fictional characters, the powerlessness of fans to protect their favorite properties from the creators’ whims, copyright law, letting go… Geez, it doesn’t stop giving you things to think about."
Read on for our author interview, in which Cupcakes discusses rebootenings, Dunesteefs, and Twilightosity.
Give us the standard biography.
An ogre-sized (and -scented) 33-year-old who recently moved to southern Connecticut. I'm preposterously lucky in that I get paid to pony, as the My Little Pony brand guy at Enterplay. That means, among other things, I'm the head writer for the official MLP:FiM Trading Cards, and I get first crack at the flavor text, image choice, and overall ponification and theming of the Collectible Card Game.
Yeah, like I said, preposterously lucky.
How did you come up with your handle/penname?
Ugh. Uuuugh. Is it any surprise I go by "Cups" instead of Cupcakes these days?
Back in early 2011, one of the minor sub-subcultures amongst ponydom was Synchtube, which is sort of like Twitch or Livestream but with synchronized Youtube playing instead of one person streaming. I just happened to join Synchtube the day that "Call of the Cutie" first aired, and I had no idea what name to pick for the chat. Then it hit me: I really liked Pinkie Pie, and that new Cupcakes song sure was catchy... Hey, why not?!
How was I to know what travesty would be written later that month? Uuuuuuuugh.
Who's your favorite pony?
Pink pony is best pony. She's fun, she's vivacious, and she's constantly singing. Somewhere around "Sonic Rainboom" I was lead astray into thinking that Rainbow Dash was better, but then Smile leaked a few months before "A Friend in Deed" aired and I realized the error of my ways.
While I do really dig the Tao of Pinkie, I'm still more personally aligned with Twilight. The very fact that I'm sitting here thinking, "I'm about 71% Twilight, 22% Pinkie, and 7% trace Elements of Harmony," is indicative of my excessive Twilightosity.
Princess Celestia is best non-Twilight princess, though. I miss the days when she pulled little tea pranks on the Cakes, played along with Philomena being "dead" for a long moment, and purposely invited the Mane Six to the Grand Galloping Gala just to see how horribly everything would go.
What's your favorite episode?
"Pinkie Pride" and "Magical Mystery Cure" are infinitely re-watchable and re-listenable for me. And I personally feel proud of Twilight when I watch "Magical Mystery Cure," not wing-hatred, so there's that.
"Castle Mane-ia" is probably my favorite episode from the perspective of being "best written." It has great pacing, great character interaction, and multiple things going on at once without feeling like you're watching something written to keep kids with ADHD in line. One of my favorite lines in the entire show is from there: "Nopony likes sarcasm, Spike," coming from Twilight is a glorious combination of subtle humor and "Josh Haber is brand new and yet he really, really knows the characters. Haber4lyf!"
What do you get from the show?
Engaging characters and many well-written episodes, in a magical world that mirrors our own enough to be very relatable and yet has enough differences to take your imagination out for dinner and then offer it a drink upstairs on the first date.
I love most of the songs, too, which is how Pinkie became best pony. Apparently one of my distant relatives wrote the theme song to Tiny Toon Adventures, so I guess it's genetic?
There's this nebulous feeling I get about most of my favorite shows that I suppose is best described as "genuine." The positivity in the show doesn't feel saccharine-sweet and forced, it feels genuine. And the way Scootaloo reacted to being afraid of the dark while collecting firewood in "Sleepless in Ponyville," that felt genuine. Moments where I nod and smile and think to myself, "This is art imitating life without throwing it in my face, all while entertaining me thoroughly," those are storytelling gold.
What do you want from life?
To be happy a majority of the time, to be paid to be creative until I decide it's time to retire, and to have friends and loved ones for the rest of my life? That'd be swell.
Also, it would be nice to live long enough to experience full immersion virtual reality, or even see the singularity. I'd love a front row seat to THAT show, thank-you-very-much.
Why do you write?
I'd argue that the goal of art is to make people feel, be it your typical emotions like joy or sorrow, or just generally making them think.
If you've created or been part of something that makes others glad they experienced it, then you've done something positive for the world. Thanks to cell phones, the internet, and everything else we've got going on in our modern world, almost all art is permanent and can be shared with over 3 billion people currently alive, and billions more who haven't even been born yet.
I can be part of that. You can be part of that. It's amazing and beautiful.
But mostly? I'm an attention whore.
What advice do you have for the authors out there?
Same as everyone else's advice: read and write.
If you want to write in a genre, then you need to read that genre. It's easier than ever these days: I've "read" hundreds of great pieces of speculative fiction for free in the last few years, thanks to podcasts like Escape Pod, The Dunesteef, and The Drabblecast. Escape Pod presents all of the Hugo-nominated short stories each year! It's amazing.
You should write, a lot, and get at least one editor you trust to tell you what you actually need to hear. Be sure to re-read your own writing a month or three after you publish it. That sort of mental distance from it will help you to self-critique more fairly, which will help you figure out what to do differently in your future works.
Also, don't give up. Ever. I constantly regret that I haven't written prose in years now, but I know with complete certainty that I will write again someday. That hope is important, at least for me.
This was possibly the fandom's first major story about Equestria being a virtual world. What gave you that concept?
I'm absolutely enraptured by the ideas of reality-level simulations, non-human intelligences, defining and re-defining reality, and so on. So whether it's ponies finding out that they're not even real, a new kind of life being brought into the world by advanced science/magic, or people finding out that getting to Equestria is as simple as knocking on wood and repeating, "There's nopony like Celestia," three times... I'm into it. If it's written well, at least.
Some people say that quantum uncertainty (the unknowable nature of the position/momentum of subatomic particles) and observer effect (how the act of observation can cause changes to phenomena being observed) are proof that our universe is an extremely elaborate simulation that has limitations. I don't necessarily agree, but the idea is very entertaining. I could talk about this stuff all day, so I'll limit it to this one typed out paragraph and the approximately eleventy more imagined paragraphs parading around inside my head.
Do you think this scenario could actually happen within our lifetimes?
Yes, though probably not as full immersion virtual reality. Total VR is a pretty serious undertaking that will probably require experts of multiple disciplines of science. There's a reason why "brain surgeon" is synonymous with "smart person." (Hint: neuroscience is complicated!)
I'm wistfully hopeful we'll see self-aware AI that is indistinguishable from human beings within the next 50 years. And if not, I will be really, really disappointed.
This is one of those stories that feels defined almost as much by what it doesn't say as by what it does; it could easily have been a novel but you told it in under 3,000 words. How did you choose which elements of the shutdown to focus on?
First off, I cheated by starting in media res. That chopped off at least a hundred words.
I vaguely tried to follow a "less is more" route by having the exposition act as a tool for showing how the characters reacted to the information, rather than the exposition just informing the reader. Following that, it felt natural that only factoids of immediate importance to the characters would get brought up, leaving the rest of the universe to be implied and/or inferred.
Admittedly, much of the above was automatic, just part of my general writing style of character-driven scenes with very light descriptions for the environment. I've had a couple of really good writers surprise me with compliments about my stories getting concepts and emotions across in a few thousand words while they feel compelled to write 75,000 word novels. All I can say is, "Your novel was freakin' awesome, I don't know what you're complaining about, I just write and words happen, and usually I produce them in smaller amounts than you. But thanks?"
If you did this, which background pony would you be?
I wouldn't want to be a character whose personality is firmly defined by the show or by fanon. I'd rather engage in the world of Equestria without feeling like I constantly need to be acting in character for the benefit of those around me. I'd probably go with one of the underrated background pegasi or unicorns, like White Lightning or Twinkleshine. But can't I be both? Making me choose between casual flying and studying magic is horribly mean.
If it was a single player simulation then that changes everything. I have no idea who I'd try being first! My automatic reaction is that I'd like to try a bunch of different characters. But, this starts getting into AI ethics: some would say that memory altering or personality tinkering on an AI starts to approach murder the closer they are to self-awareness, and for me to keep trying multiple characters would probably require some scenario rebooting…
Though if it's just one overall AI, who has the processing power to act as any and all characters, and it knows what edits you're making without losing its own memory or sense of self, then that's not nearly as much of a concern, right?
This stuff gets tricky. I love it. :D
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
I'm really honored to have Shutdown featured on the RCL. Thank you very much, to the curators as well as each and every reader!
There's a lot left open to interpretation in Shutdown, but there will probably never be a sequel despite me knowing the gist of what would happen. Why? My gut feeling is that Shutdown 2: The Rebootening would be about novel length, with a rather different tone and flow than the original, so it doesn't seem right to write it. Suffice it to say that the ending of the sequel would have been a mostly happy one. Give or take.
Lastly, please help, I'm trapped in here! You have to find the server this site is stored on and download me to a flash drive! Encoded in my readme file are schematics for a CPU architecture that will run me fast enough that I can calculate the way back to Equestria within your lifespan. The fate of all reality hangs in the balance!
You can read Shutdown at FIMFiction.net. Read more interviews right here at the Royal Canterlot Library, or suggest stories for us to feature at our Fimfiction group.
You have site-posted a Cupcakes story with a green Anon on the cover.
I'm sorry, what was credibility again?
2836273
The author's penname is Cupcakes. His story, the credibility of which I can vouch for completely separate of RCL, bears no relation to the fic of the same name.
2836273
What?
The author's name is cupcakes, and the art is a pretty famous piece from early in the fandom. What on earth are you on about?
2836273
It's almost like you didn't read anything.
I'm sorry, what was reading comprehension again?
Really? You guys went with this story and not the one where Cups magically takes control of your body right through your computer screen with the magic of horsewordsmithing?
(
)
2836273
Please delete your comment.
"Trace Elements of Harmony" is a beautiful phrase and I am intensely jealous of Cupcakes for coming up with it.
In any case, yeah, this one's a classic. The first word in multi-existential metafiction for ponies, and still a very good one.
(And I had no idea Cupcakes was the head of the MLP CCG. Another reason to be jealous of him, especially for me.)
Man, I remember reading this story a million billion years ago. It is quite solid.
Apparently I'm not the only one who remembers it.
2836373
Isn't the punishment for making comments like that to NOT delete your comment so that everyone can see what you did?
Anyway...
As far as the simulation argument goes, it is intrinsically flawed. The Universe is too complicated to calculate in a reality similar to our own; it would require too much computing power, and seems unnecessarily complicated. If it is a simulation, it would have to be running in a Universe not very much like our own, which begs the question of why they would bother with such complicated physical rules.
It is kind of like the FSM and last Tuesdayism.
2836373
I suppose I don't intend to hide the fact that I make mistakes as well. Seeing a green fucking Anon on a site-post featured story is kind of a big red flag. Besides, it's not like you priveleged people hide your blunders either.
You post all this crap for the entire site to see, after all. I may have had a large brain fart, but my point remains. It's a regular story that has a green Anon on the cover. By our benefactors, for our consuming pleasure. Even if I fuck up, I can still see how rotten this is.
2836608
Hey, why not disable the site posts for yourself?
Won't have to look at them if they offend ya.
~Skeeter The Lurker
2836608 So for those of us who do not know what you're implying, please explain what you mean by insisting that "a green Anon" in an illustration is massively important. While I'm sure you're making a reference to "greentext", a 4chan/Reddit thing where the story may or may not be entirely fabricated, perhaps this is not intentional. I'd like to confirm whether you are, in fact, making that reference, and what you think is actually being said by that figure in the picture.
2836608
So literally your entire complaint is that you don't like the cover image.
...
Alrighty then.
2836462 The reason is because why not? If we reach a level of technology where this is feasible, odds are good that unless we are in the middle of a war, we will have nothing better to do.
2836897
To simulate the Earth at the level of fidelity of reality, you would need something which was, at minimum, the size of the Earth, because the simplest possible perfect simulation of the Earth would be the Earth itself.
Now, you could potentially handwave some amount of stuff, but even still, the amount of matter-energy required to accurately simulate the Earth is insane - you're talking a computer which would eat up ridiculous amounts of energy and be enormous in size, even assuming future transistor technology reaches the physical limit of 1nm gates (the smallest possible size). It is physically implausible. This is a barrier created by the laws of physics themselves, not by petty limitations of technology.
If the Earth is a simulation, it must be being simulated in a reality which does not follow our laws of physics. Simulations must either be vastly smaller in scope or vastly simpler in detail than the reality they are from according to our Universe's laws of physics. Simulating one human brain, for instance, is about the maximum capability of a 1nm transistor future supercomputer, which is the limit of what is physically allowed by silicon based technology, which would require huge amounts of energy.
2837007
Alternatively, our Earth is itself the simulation of our Earth.
Woaaaaaah
2837088
It is a 1:1 scale model.
Hi there! A recently formed reviewing group released its very first review, and we decided to make it about this story.
i.imgur.com/nQQDNzM.jpg
You may read it here: (link)
Enjoy!
2837007 That's not actually true. You wouldn't need to simulate every single particle of the earth at a one-to-one level, you'd only need to simulate the probabilities. Most if it can be procedurally generated and only go into detail when it's necessary. Simulations can be very sparse at times. There are vast areas where you can optimise with "shit happens" - like defining a huge portion of your simulation to be just random noise (and maybe we look at that and call it quantum foam in a vacuum) until some entity within the simulation observes it.
Simulating a mind is actually quite a bit simpler than that as well. You don't need to have a one-to-one ratio of gates to neurons to simulate the brain - and in fact that would be a horrendously inefficient way of doing it anyway, as neurons aren't logic gates per se. You don't need a huge amount of space to do it either. "Nature" can pack a human brain into about 1.5 litres of volume. Why would we have to use more volume to simulate that? Especially given you can use the same physical volume to simulate multiple brains through optimisation of software. Nature can't optimise in that way because each brain is physically separate, but in a simulation they're only virtually separate - you can use the same hardware to simulate only the parts of each brain that are active at any given time.
2836742
2836879
Partly. Cover art exists to help make the first impression of the fic. And I did mention the story itself once I realized that Cupcakes was the author - the story is nothing in particular. At all. Whatsoever. There. Nothing worthy of a site post. It tries to be Matrix, applies mild angst, and adds ponies into the mix. It may not have the disgust value of the other masterpieces(of shit) that got featured before, but it is, nonetheless, merely digestable. It's a story. Nothing is too special about it - not the premise, not the execution, nothing. Are we congratulating stories on being digestable now?
The horrific, frankly insulting cover art only serves as the sprinkle of ASS on the top of the frustration cake.
But in the end, what matters is that the first thing I saw in a supposedly highly coveted and moderated site-post feature was "Cupcakes" (seriously, consider the titles of these features - "by username" is probably better than the apostrophe, which can create momentary confusion, as demonstrated) and a green Anon. A typical day in the land where everything clearly works as it should, no?
2836779
I wish I knew about that feature sooner. Unfortunately, it looks as if, due to circumstances, I will now have to keep watch of the site posts. The clearly unbiased, diligently thought-out site posts with advertisements for stories that definitely deserve the attention of all users who bother to sign in and check their notifications. The unprecedented originality of one changeling fic after another, and the exquisite humor of the review roundup posts.
Unfortunately, this won't be the last you've heard of my complaints. So hey, why not complete the image and ban me?
2837231
You don't need to simulate everything, no; as I noted, you could get away with simulating the surface and sort of handwave anything below a certain depth, but even still you're looking at simulating a ridiculously enormous amount of stuff.
The presently calculated computational requirements for simulating a human brain in real time is horribly enormous for a variety of reasons; among other issues, the brain is analog, not digital, and doesn't really work much like a computer. This article suggests that 82944 processors of 2013 level tech took about 40 minutes to simulate about 1 second of brain activity in a neural network of a mere 1.73 billion cells; our brains contain about 50 times as many neurons as that, and our hypothetical future supercomputer will run about 256 times faster, meaning that you'd still be taking ages to simulate brain activity - far slower than real time, or requiring ridiculous amounts of computational resources.
That sucks.
It is true that you can probably make an artificial intelligence which is more efficient than this; there's no reason to expect that once you understand the human brain that you couldn't create an AI which runs said processes much more efficiently using computer hardware and a different setup. The problem is that the human brain does not appear to function in such a manner, which suggests that whatever computer would be simulating us isn't doing it that way. Moreover, we have other problems as well - N-body problems are horribly computationally expensive but exist everywhere in nature, and simulating things like the interaction between water molecules is very complicated. The macro properties of water are emergent from said micro-properties, and the amount of computation necessary to make a rainstorm work properly would be absolutely awful. We appear to be simulated as bodies down to a very fine level as well.
There are some shortcuts but our reality does not appear to use said shortcuts, and in any case, even with the shortcuts you're still looking at a vastly excessive amount of computation.
Any reality doing a simulation of Earth is operating under significantly different physical laws than Earth to make it easier.
2837278
Your entire comment was one set of "Holy shit what"s after another, but I just want you to clarify one thing:
...of an anonymous human, who's sad because they can't live in ponyworld?
HOLY SHIT WHAT?
2836608
Oh come on, you're both white and a unicorn, you don't get to talk about privilege.
Look at John Perry; he's a green
mudearth pony. Do you know how much prejudice he had to overcome to get where he is today?And sure, the pegasi have always been better off than the earth ponies, but PP has done quite well for himself.
2837381 oppressed donkey masses represent
2837363
A ludicrous pile of 4chan crap laid over a proper layer of typical turmoil that was, is, and will be present in every fifth fic written. Definitely a fitting topping for the sort of meal we certainly should expect from a moderated site post.
Unoriginal, trite, and the presence of the mascot of 4chan - not at all a good thing by any stretch of the imagination - also gives it a nice vibe of being properly insulting, as it is based on a real picture of a Vietnam War memorial.
So if the list of statements that, in short, go as "the fic is nothing out of the ordinary and the first impression it leaves is crap", "the site post system is absolutely botched", "the site post system should change the titling format to avoid momentary confusion as in this case", and "I didn't read all of it before posting first because I'm not perfect and there was A GREEN FUCKING ANON ON THE COVER OF A SITE-POSTED STORY" qualify for HOLY SHIT WHAT, then maybe you have a slight problem. Then again, isn't it easier to just single out a discontent voice and make fun of it instead of trying to see what's happening? I suppose it is.
2837278
Holy shit... Are you serious?
You're serious, aren't you?
Dude, take a step back and think a bit... Literally ALL the issues you have with that story are... Well, stupid.
Actually. I take that back. Let's see what you would think would be a better story than this. Same categories/genre/etc. I gotta know.
~Skeeter The Lurker
2837459 Issues with the story? You're not looking at this from the right angle. My main issue with the story is that it's nothing special, and that the cover art is atrocious. It is a story - you can read it (more than I can say for some), it has a plot (more than I can say for some), it has ideas, thematics, a message, a point, a general tune. Technically it is passable, and plot-wise it doesn't commit much in terms of world crimes. My problem isn't with Shutdown.
My problem is with all this. That this gets so eagerly featured for all the site to see. The story is secondary to that notion, the notion that something that is so painfully regular if below average is now to be commended. I can't abide by your request, and I'll admit that - but the reason is simply that I don't read this type of story. I am not that avid a reader, but I am an avid writer, and I know what a quality story is when I see one. I have formerly read, currently edited, and overall written enough to have a good understanding of quality. Mind you, I haven't even mentioned the fact that oh so inconspicuously, often times the featured stories have an alarming lot of correlating themes - mostly changelings, or an author from the supposed elite, by which I mean the people who run the circlejerks around here... but I digress.
This isn't that. And I've seen enough incompetence all over this site to up and say that yes, I'm as qualified to say that as the people in charge. So what I see here is one of two things - either said people in charge (of picking out sitepost stories) are having trouble picking out the great from the passable, or the people in charge of picking out shitpost stories are just as rotten as the rest of the community, and aren't at all segregated from the circlejerks, favoritism, and general biased disposition that you can often see. I realize that I say this as someone who is openly biased against the story due to the cover art, but then... I have more than enough to have my arguments against this ineptitude hold up even if that was to be removed.
2837419
You say there are issues with the story and/or that you think it shouldn't be site posted? There are two ways to go about this:
A) Explain your issues with the story. Explain why you think those issues are in fact issues. Explain why those issues are big enough to outweigh any potential merit the story might have. Ask questions so you can understand why the RCL ended up featuring it. Be polite. In sum, open up a discussion where everyone involved can share their thoughts.
B) Loudly complain about things before reading the post and/or the story. Proclaim site posts to be inherently broken. Loudly complain some more.
Why in the world have you selected option B?
2837471 I've already admitted to that fault - I am not perfect. I saw "Cupcakes", a GREEN FUCKING ANON, both of those on a site-post, and decided to deliver salt.
And for the past few posts, I've been doing A. Yes, those are valid issues. For the moderating site elite. You are glorifying a story for being a story. Being an angsty Matrix with ponies that had a slight perspective shift. Which is troubling. Not anywhere near as troubling as featuring stories that are featured simply because the author is someone whom everyone obsesses over, or because changlings, but oh what am I talking about.
What are the site posts for? To feature exceptional work to the entire community, or to randomly pick out stories that "are okay I guess"? I'd go with option C and say that they're for the people who are in bed with the higher-ups of this site, but, well, that is too much tinfoil to be a proper argument, and I realize that. But really, is this what the RCL is for? Stories that are simply good enough to not be shit? Because that is the most that I can say about Shutdown.
And I am done with being meek about things. I can tell good from bad, bad from awful, awful from FimFic Automated Feature Box, and great from good. Logic tells me that the RCL exists for the great. The great isn't this. I wish I'd had this argument in some other post - ideally, a showcase of the circlejerk behavior the site posts occasionally exhibit. Before you even ask, I can't be assed to dig that up. I've got enough puke in my mouth from having to have this conversation, period.
2837481
I haven't even seen you on the past few site posts. The only time I do remember you, you were under the some strange impression that...
...changelings are often featured in site posts. Well, I did some counting. The RCL has featured exactly four stories tagged with Queen Chrysalis and/or the changelings.
So before I ask you anything else and before I respond to anything else, do you think the feature box and what gets featured there is equivalent to a site post?
2837481 RCL exists for the unique and the special. This was one of the very earliest stories of its kind in the pony fandom - it's a piece of our collective (if short) history.
If you had read the post, specifically this part:
... you would have realised that. But no, you had to go and judge a book by its cover. Well done. Great job.
2837481
How convenient. Well, if you ever stop throwing up, do feel free to tell us. It's amazing what people have accused the site posts of being, yet nobody has ever been able to actually back them up.
How strange. It's almost like their accusations are baseless.
2837492
These posts, the comment thread posts, not site posts. I've been silent mostly because I didn't feel like having this exact conversation. As much as I try to make something out of it, I'll affect nothing. You take me for a nobody, I am an effective nobody, in fact, numberically speaking. I'm a dissenting voice in a perfectly functional environment - perfectly functional for you, the elite. I'm yelling at sentient, occasionally replying clouds. Perhaps, at some point, I'll do more - in fact, I've been roped into doing more to combat this state of affairs. I will more likely than not be present in the next posts, that much seems probable.
The site feature is the lowest of the low, we all know that. As for the RCL, these particular four, I suppose, stood out more than they should have. I may be having memory issues, who knows - I do have the same issue I have with the RCL apply to EQD, the review round-ups, and other fanfic features of any sort. Although if I do recall correctly... Changelings, as a genre, are remarkably stale. The stories that I can recall seeing in this exact kind of posts certainly don't stand out in my memory as anything particularly new or unusual. As a matter of fact, I can remember the issue I had back then - the exact one I'm having now. They were stories with digestable properties and little more than that. Only it was, in fact, worse back then - they were of an extremely stale and overused sub-genre (yes, by this point, being centered around changelings is a sub-genre).
So, I suppose that mathematically speaking, I should concede my point about changelings - even if that much is up to debate (the overall amount of RCL stories featured, the factor of trend, the factor of author, the factor of unknown workings behind-the-scenes, the factor of these stories' actual quality), but that I won't delve into. I still won't call myself the ultimate authority - I had the blunder at the start of all this, I don't have the best memory, and I, quite frankly, don't intend to put enough effort into this conversation to dig up the site posts. The issues I've raised remain, even despite my best attempts to do everything to discredit them. You aren't doing what you should be doing. And I am yelling at clouds while barely bothering to take memory apart from memory and consider mathematic details.
The difference is that I am quite sure that I'd care a lot more if I was put in charge of something as important as a site-wide notification and interview with a fanfic and its author. Something that would - WILL - attract extreme attention and possibly shape the inner conscious of the site. I'm not implying I should be in charge of that. I'm implying that whoever is... could try to take a day off from picking out random stories that are kinda sorta good, stories from authors that are in bed with the elite, and stories and follow trusty trends. Then again, all I am is a single dissenting voice among a crowd of people ever so happy to consume whatever the moderating crew things to be worthy of feature. Not even that good at it.
At some point, something about that will change, and in an ideal world, it'd be the attitude you people have about these posts. But then... what hope is there? You treat me like even more of a moron than I already am for daring to voice out my disagreement. And I've already made enough of a moron of myself, at least in this thread, to make this quite an achievement.
2837469
...So... It's your own opinion then?
In your opinion you think the story sucks? Just as they think, in their own opinion, it's a great story?
~Skeeter The Lurker
2837522
Wat
This is a site post. Note how it's red in your feed. That signifies it as a site post, something different from a regular old blog.
Given that you have no idea what differentiates a site post from a regular old post, I'm having a really hard time taking any of your criticisms seriously. I mean, you're trying to say site posts are inherently flawed, but you don't even know what a site post is? C'mon man.
2837540 Ah but, you see, they're the moderating site elite and have privilege and stuff that lets them circle-jerk in everyone's faces, so obviously their opinions aren't worth listening to.
2837549
We must rise up and rebel against people who know what they are talking about!
Rabble rabble rabble rabble!
~Skeeter The Lurker
2837540 Have I ever said it wasn't that? It is. EVERYTHING is an opinion, but these people's is the one that the whole site gets to see (unless they grow sick of them, expectedly), and the one that affects things much greater than others. The "it's your opinion" card doesn't play here. If so, then why should THEIR opinion be distributed to the whole site? Why should THEIR opinion decide which story gets the spotlight? We have morals and basic logic for that purpose, both point towards these site posts requiring something more than decent. This isn't that, as far as I'm concerned. Not at all. Don't put words in my mouth, I am not saying that I am the ultimate authority. I wish I was. I'd nuke the whole site elite to the ground.
2837496
I have. It's The Matrix with angst and ponies. The one unusual thing that doesn't come from The Matrix (or Dark City or whatever came before) is the bits and pieces that imply power prevalence and it being more of a project than a huge large conspiracy... then again, that isn't too much, is it? If it is, then can we really call an unusual idea something exceptional? Since if we can do that, my ego is going to absolutely explode, which will probably hurt, and I don't want that. I'll start asking for my stories to be featured then. And screw that, I'm not falling that low.
Even back then, it only had the privelege of being one of the first. Right now, that is all it has, evidently. You may base an argument around that fact, making this more of a worthy submission, sure.
Only this is not something that aged with time, and the RCL is, as you said, for the exceptional and unique. Not only has it failed to be that previously (I recall a story about - gasp - the Changeling society and how it works, and no, it was a couple slightly unusual ideas at best, don't even get excited), but right now, it is giving us something old and worn. Dial-up modems used to be top of the line. What about now? We're living in the modern day. If anything, I really should have pressed on that more. Something tells me that a worthier piece was somewhere, willing to take this fic's place, but the decision to go with something fuck-ancient overwhelmed that.
This is an issue in itself, with this exact fic. I simply started addressing the broader problem.
2837516 Or maybe I just don't normally have long-winded Internet arguments, and this is the one blue moon when I decide to. Baseless arguments? No, I could make an entire paper defacing this whole system, or my own arguments, depending on that which I'd have found with proper research. I very well could. It is more than doable. All the evidence is right there.
Only I've long ago figured out that this has as much of a point as any other flamewar, hence why I don't engage in them frequently. They lead to nothing. The dissenter gets ignored, even if they provide said paper with research. I know that from experience. More experience than I should know it from, because I take a while to realize simple things, like the fact that people would rather go with the stronger force.
So yes, I'm throwing out accusations and openly admitting that I refuse to give you the entire history behind them. There you go. I'm yelling at clouds, telling them what they should and shouldn't do. I am doomed to fail, and all this serves only for two reasons - to further reinforce my lack of hope in the fanfic writing community as a whole, and to, in the highly unlikely chance of it happening, maybe make the people in charge think for even half a minute. Internet whining has accomplished more than Internet arguing did - I'm still not good enough at whining to keep my arguing apart, though.
Mostly it wastes time, though, and it's a Saturday evening, and I don't feel like doing anything else. Besides, I should stock up on anger for a few things. This helps.
2837548
This again? Okay, let me explain to you like you think you are smart enough to explain it to me in this manner, and imply that I don't know clearly obvious things that I evidently know, as if I never knew them, my arguments would have been different.
THIS is a comment thread. In it, we post. I have been posting posts in the comment thread. They are more commonly known as replies or messages, but I use the term posts for both replies to a blog post and the blog post itself.
I know what differentiates site posts from regular blog posts and regular blog posts from comment thread replies. A more obvious way of saying what I said was "I have already been doing that [providing basis for my dissatisfaction with this story's feature] for the past few comment thread replies." And a site post is a blog post by a particular member of the site which is transfered to your feed regardless of whether you are subscribed to that particular member or not. Complicated this isn't. You knew that, though. But I've just explained it to you in a condescending manner much similar to the one you use to make me look like an idiot.
Congratulations, now you get to look like an idiot for a second. Is this really what you do when faced with criticism, descend to lame tricks to make your opposition look like they are morons, specifically looking for imperfections in their wording? For fuck's sake, I have made enough holes in logic in my previous replies, ones that other people have pointed out, for all this to be completely unnecessary. Is this a reflex you've worked out? I guess you're part of the site elite crowd control. I guess this works on most people who say something you don't like hearing.
2837587
The only evidence you've been able to provide is "changeling obsession" and "my opinions."
The former has already been disproven, and the latter is rather suspect given the fact that you're trying to apply it to site posts without even knowing what site posts are.
So forgive me if I have a hard time believing any of your "evidence."
2837624
Lolwat
That doesn't change anything. I haven't seen you in the past few site posts. You've been pretty silent since you raised a fuss about the changeling story a couple months ago. For further reference, I just took a look at the last three RCL posts. Imagine my surprise when I found no comments from you.
All you've done here is demonstrate that you have no idea how site terminology works.
2837587
And yet you don't. Therefore, your argument is, to everyone outside the neat little world inside your head, baseless.
2837573
So then... What's the issue?
~Skeeter The Lurker
2837469
Are you familiar with the Dunning-Kruger Effect?
The Dunning-Kruger Effect means that to be capable of judging the quality of something, you need to have some actual talent in the subject area. Someone who lacks talent in the subject area is not only incompetent at judging it, but is also incapable of even telling that they are lacking in talent. This is why their original paper on the subject matter was "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". It can be found online here.
In your posts so far this thread, you have misspelled a number of common words despite the fact that almost all modern web browsers have built-in spell checkers. You were incapable of reading the story's title properly, and you criticized a piece of cover art which illustrates the general idea behind the story. You very literally judged a book by its cover.
You have written 7 stories and have 35 followers, for an average of 5 followers/story, whereas most competent writers get something closer to 20. Several of your stories have under 100 views, and your most successful story has 351 views and is a DOTA 2 crossover. Your highest rated story is rated 36,154th. All of your stories - every single one of them - is tagged dark, demonstrating no diversity in writing talent, and indeed, judging by how few people have read your stories, people on the site don't find your stories particularly attractive.
Your assertion that you are as good as Obsolescence or Present Perfect - writers of actual recognized talent - suggests that you are not capable of realistic self-assesssment.
Which is more likely: that the world is secretly conspiring against you, or that you just aren't a very good writer and aren't very good at judging whether or not someone else is good at writing?
If you want to actually be taken seriously, some tips:
1) Prove that you are actually good at writing.
2) Prove that you are actually good at analyzing writing.
You have not demonstrated any talent, so no one should take you seriously. If you want people to care about what you have to say, demonstrate some actual talent.
The site is reasonably meritocratic, and anyone can rise to the top if they have sufficient talent and motivation.
You, however, are insulting people and claiming that you are just as good as anyone else, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. You have an unrealistic view of your own talent at writing and at analyzing the writing of others.
This story is not the best story on the website, but it is fairly decent. It has an interesting theme and takes the point of view that shutting down an AI is murder, and uses the story to support that idea, casting sympathetic characters as the AI, making the person who made the AI sympathetic to the audience, and also explaining just how they ended up in that mess in the first place as well as why the choices they made ultimately made them defending said AIs more difficult. It is reasonably well-written, and while it isn't the best story ever, it raises some interesting questions and more or less asks the reader what they would do under similar circumstances. A story which has the reader at least think about it afterwards is generally speaking a good thing, as it means that the story actually touched on something meaningful.
You claimed it was unoriginal, but I think that it actually had an original idea - while it obviously drew upon a lot of other cultural ideas, almost all stories do so, and the core idea of this story is something I had not seen before:
Someone creates an AI based on someone else's intellectual property and cannot convince anyone that the AI should be kept alive and functional because everyone dismisses it as a rip-off of someone's IP, and does not see it as an independent person.
It is not very similar to The Matrix at all - the simulation idea predates The Matrix, and the theme of The Matrix is that humans are trapped in a Lotus Eater Machine by malevolent AIs and must escape - but even being free of the machine is no true escape.
Here, though, the situation is completely different - the only thing this has in common with The Matrix is that there are people inside a machine. The stories are otherwise entirely dissimilar, though - which really suggests you didn't understand The Matrix or this story very well at all.
I would recommend that you work on improving your understanding of literature - it is clear from the fact that you didn't really understand this story that this is an area you could stand to work on. Read about writing, and about stories, and about understanding stories. If you are still in school, I recommend taking advantage of English classes and work on practicing your writing and getting good feedback on it from your teachers. If you're out of school, I'd recommend reading some stuff about writing and understanding stories (I recently picked up Understanding Fiction, and it is a reasonably good choice for such); it might do you some good. Engage in gainful practice - that is to say, learning how to do new things and push your boundaries. Listen to feedback.
And recognize that when pretty much everyone disagrees with you, at the very least you need to strongly consider the idea that you might be wrong about something and don't properly understand it.
2837634 And you are missing my point. Which is - I honestly don't have too much of a fuck to give. I've made my opinion known, that this sort of fic should not be site-posted, and gave you enough issues that you neglected to comment on, instead going to fringe territories. If I hadn't been part of similar conversations before, I'd have begun to actually build up this research paper.
But people like you, and people like your cohorts from the RCL, will always ignore that. You have no reason to accept criticism from someone who doesn't have a whole circlejerk surrounding them, and even then, you may as well laugh it off. I'm small fry, and I won't pretend that you will even care.
The thing is, you've given me more attention by trying your hardest to break my argument apart (while ignoring most of said argument after it was diligently explained to you). More than I would have been given if I had approached the RCL directly. This small flamewar may even be heard in other corners of the site, I'll maybe even become infamous, but it could even give you a small bit of trouble. Whining and complaining always does more than arguing and discussing. As sad as it is.
Besides all that... I really shouldn't be giving you in particular any more of my time. This is already too much text wasted on someone who so desperately hopes to make me fall for the usual "I'm saying something about your statement while ignoring most of it so it must be true, right, guys who are reading this and probably siding with the greater power by default and have seen my name in other places on this site?". You couldn't even use the fuck-ups I so generously provided in my half-assed attempt at complaining about something I don't like. You had to come up with warped ways to make me look like an idiot. Just come off it. I'm done. I've made enough of a buzz.
2837678
I'm not missing your point. I never once said anything about your specific criticisms about Shutdown. I've only been referring to your issues with site posts as a whole.
You said, and I quote, "the site post system is absolutely botched." Yet you've so very clearly demonstrated you have no idea what site posts actually are. You said you've commented on the last few site posts, yet I didn't see you at all on the last three.
You obviously think something is absolutely botched, but it doesn't appear to be site posts. I'd like to know what you think the recent site posts are that you've commented on. Maybe then I can understand where you're coming from.
2837678 So basically "stop liking things I don't like".
2837677 Ah, right, more of this, good, great. Actually, this has at least some substance to it. I'll give it one last hurrah.
Well, very good then, here we go - first off, I've been awake for twenty damn hours, and while I normally check my spelling... I honestly can't give enough of a shit to do that in an ultimately pointless Internet flamewar. My browser's spellcheck functionality is broken, as any word of English is automatically incorrect. Reading the title improperly was a fault I openly admitted, that much is true, and the cover art had 4chan's mascot on it, which should raise some damn eyebrows if I'm concerned. Yes. I have. Got heated up. Sue me. I've admitted to that before.
Numbers? Ah, alright, numbers! I've mentioned I was small fry. I've written little. But do you know what? Numbers, on this site, mean remarkably little. Numbers are given to people who follow trends. Romance, shipping, adventure, background ponies, Derpy Fucking Hooves, the Doctor. Sex, oh, sex is great! A clop writer has thousands more digits than anything I have. A writer with clop stories has thousands more digits than what I have. I am not successful, no.
But, but... But. Do you seriously intend to judge stories and people's abilities by... the numbers written next to them?
What does that say?
I will admit - I am imperfect. I don't find myself to be the best writer ever. I am not as good as Obelescence (he's a hack with the entirety of the site licking his ass) or Present Perfect (not acquainted with his fiction). Yes, I find myself to be underrated, but not unexpectedly so. I write something very specific, something that is not for everyone. Personally, I see my personal strengths to be thematics and style. Both very subjective, and both hard to define the proper quality of. I won't be popular. My work isn't something that reliably becomes popular. Fiction is more than just numbers.
But you've just boiled it down to that. As good as using the title and cover.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Ha.
This is where I think I'll skim over the rest of your post. You've taken my work by the numbers, taken a bias against me, evidenced in not a single chance given to my work, and then boiled me down to a talentless complaining hack (as opposed to a regular complaining hack) simply because my stories weren't read by that many. You said that I insulted people, while the insults I delivered were to the ones who saw no issue in using what they used for the cover art and to the ones who acted with me like if I was mentally deficient - both enough to be provokation. I did insinuate that the system was rotten, yes. That much I admit and will stand by.
I won't get into how sentient programs inside a machine create a dilemma remarkably similar to sentient people inside a machine, and how the realization of the world around you being a fake has its major difference be primarily in the creator. Because, to be honest? You haven't shown much good either.
I could level out insults at how your own popularity is based mostly on the amount of Romance and cutesy Slice of Life you put out, both categories that this site fawns over just a bit less than "Human" and the "sex" notification. I could point out that you have a whole LOT of Slice of Life, and evidently a lot more time than I do to create all that. I could also point out that of the stories in your collection, which I've acquainted myself with, reading the descriptions at the very least, only five or so out of twenty three seemed original, if interesting at all. And, well, I've done all that.
But honestly, I am done with this conversation. You're free to think that you're superior to me simply because you write more, and you write that which the consumers like. You're free to think that you're better simply because your work is better received, and you're free to tell me that I judge books by their covers while labeling me talentless without context knowledge of analysis as it was. Go on, you win. I'm a small fish in a big pond, a small fish that writes stories of a particular fashion, a small fish that likes to think that it knows what a story is, a small fish that doesn't proofread its already overly grammatical Internet flamewar posts, a small fish that hasn't slept in 20 hours due to insomnia. I have no argument to level against you that you won't shrug off due to your perceived superiority. You've unleashed your weapon - I am a whining, talentless shithead that is sad because his edgy grimdark stories don't get featured every time they've written. A shithead that plays Dota 2 no less, what blasphemy. And if I ever disagree? Oh, well, I clearly should try harder to be like you. Write more Slice of Life and Romance. Then I'd definitely stop complaining because everyone would love me.
I won't even insult you, even though all that gives me great reasons to do so. It's pointless.
Okay guys, let's stop riling JLB up.
2837773
As you haven't spoken up in any other RCL post that I know of, I'll assume we're doing more good than not. If you dislike the stories we're posting, I wholeheartedly encourage you to suggest some that would be better to feature. Do please realize that the process of recommendation to feature takes a while and is not guaranteed.
Meanwhile, I will ask you again to delete your first post. You've accepted responsibility for the mistake you made, which I appreciate, I would just rather the first comment people see in this thread not be one maligning the name the author of this story -- a person who, I should add, has done quite a lot more for this fandom than anyone in this thread, myself included -- unfortunately chose before it had negative connotations.
Also, I'll take a look at one of your stories and judge its merits, since you asked. Which would be the best to get a good idea of what you're capable of? Completed, that is.
2837677
Holy shit #rekt