...to Ribbons · 10:21pm Sep 20th, 2015
Recently, I put one of my stories into a group that takes story submissions and then somepony decides if yours is worthy enough to qualify.
Here's the problem. I don't remember doing this. I probably did it by mistake.* I hope I did it by mistake, at least; with the depression my memory has been execrable.
Long story short, it was accepted. Now I'm permitted to put up a ribbon to advertise that fact, which is something I am very much disinclined to do.
What I'm considering is whether or not I should request to have my story pulled from the group entirely. I am embarrassed to have applied to a private archive in the first place, and I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of anypony thinking I did this intentionally. Even if I decide to do that, I may not have the standing to get it removed anyway (groups aren't and shouldn't be about the authors, after all, but about readers being able to locate relevant stories).
Note: please realize I don't think there's anything wrong with private archives (I'm not judging anypony else).
I enjoy participating in the Writeoffs, but those are a pony of an entirely different neon shade: there is no bar for entry or acceptance. Of course I should credit The Writeoff Association when I put up a story that authors and reviewers helped me to improve. However, I've decided to remove "bragging rights" from those stories. From now on, any writeoff-related stories I publish here will mention that a draft appeared in a particular writeoff, and nothing about how well it fared. I'm not sure why I didn't do this in the first place.
(* = This did happen one other time, but drama redacted.)
Uh, why do you care/mind?
3407646
I... hmm. Okay, this probably sounds extremely stupid, but I don't know how to answer that.
I should probably take this as evidence I might be acting irrationally. Were that true, it still wouldn't give me a hint as to what "rational" would be. I can see there isn't a logical way to explain myself but it doesn't mean I'm wrong.
I suppose I will sit on my hooves for a while until I can answer that.
I don't think you have to request your story be removed--submitting it to a selective group doesn't indicate bragging or arrogance, and neither does it getting accepted. If you're uncomfortable with displaying the ribbon, then I say don't. If you're unsure if that's some kind of group requirement, I would just pm one of the mods, asking if it is. I doubt anyone would notice though.
3407646
I now have a definitive answer!
"I have no idea."
Cognition and affect are surprisingly disjoint realms of mental processing, in other words.
For now, I'll stop sabotaging myself, but I'll leave the damage I've done where it is. I'm starting to think I don't have the right to request my story to be removed from an archive anyway, and if ponies like it, I have no quarrel with that.
On the bright side, I have an amazing Last Dreams entry almost complete (it needs a small trim). This sort of contest is right up my unusually-heavy ball lane.
If permitted by horizon, I will post my conclusion on FF even if it does not win. (I'd rather publish it on my account than elsewhere anyway.)