May the muffins be forever in your favour.Demonic Dragon, Fic Deletion and Threatening your Favourite Pony Author: About things you should do and things you should NEVER do · 7:57pm Aug 17th, 2018
Today, I received a private message. As you might already know if you've seen me posting comments in some places recently, I am a very huge advocate for it that ponyfics stay online, whether on the accounts of their authors or on independent archives, such as FIMFetch or my archive account, Fluttercheer's Orphanage for Abandoned Pony Fiction.
The message I received is related to this and since it's a serious one, I decided to share it and to address some points in it:
HELLO, ITS ME DEMONIC DRAGON!
I HAD TO MAKE THIS ACCOUNT BECAUSE AT THE TIME. I WAS UNAWARE MY STORIES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON ANOTHER SITE! I DONT KNOW WHO DID IT, BUT, IM ASSUMING IT WAS YOU! I LEFT THE FANDOM FOR A REASON! BUT,NO. SINCE IM IN IT I CANT EVER LEAVE! BECAUSE ASSHOLES LIKE YOU. DONT WANT PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN DRIVEN CRAZY BY THIS GODDAMN FANDOM TO LEAVE BECAUSE. OUR STORIES HOLD A SPECIAL PLACE IN THEOR HEART. OR, IT INSPIRED THEM TO BE BETTER. OR, HELL, IT HELPED THEM GET BETTER IN REAL LIFE. TO THAT I SAY.................GO SO A MOTHERFUCKING BRAIN SURGEON. BECAUSE ALL I WAS, WAS A GODDAMN FAN, WHO JUST WANTED TO WRITE A STORY ABOUT CHRACTERS THAT I LIKED. I LEFT BECAUSE IDK WHO FOUND OUT MY REAL WORLD ADDRESS AND SENT ME A LETTER. ASKING ME TO FINISH MY STORIES. SAY THAT ITS MY RESPONSIBILITY AS AN AUTHOR TO FINISH THEM. THAT ISNT WHAT DROVE ME OUT OF THE FANDOM. NO, IT WAS THE THREATS I STARTRD RECIEVING. I GOT A LETTER SAYING THAT IF DONT FINISH MY STORIES. SO AND SO IS GONNA COME FIND ME AND PHYSICAL HARM ANYONE CLOSE TO ME. THAT IS WHY I FUCKING LEFT. NOW IF IT WAS YOU WHO POSTED THEM. GET THEM THE FUCK OFF FETCH NOW. AND, TELL ANYBODY WHOS EXPECTING ME TO POST THE STORIES ON FANFICTION TO FORGET IT. YES, I DID SAY I WAS GOING TO POST THEM. TRUTH WAS I WAS TRYING TO FINISH ALL OF THEM BEFORE I POSTED THEM. TJAT WAY I WOULDNT HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THE BULL ANYMORE. BUT, SEEING AS HOW MY STORIES ARE ON ANOTHER SITE WITHOUT MY APPROVAL. WELL, TO ME, THATS PRETTY MUCH SAYING. THAT I DONT CARE IF YOU WANT OUT. YOUR GOING TO FINISH YOU FIC'S BECAUSE THAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AND YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE THE FANDOM! NOW, PLEASE, TELL EVERY,MOTHERFUCKER, TO LEAVE MY THE FUCKING HELL ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's a lot of big letters..... Nonetheless, the message mentions a few important things:
1. "I LEFT BECAUSE IDK WHO FOUND OUT MY REAL WORLD ADDRESS AND SENT ME A LETTER."
Despite that this message is very aggressive and insulting, I give Demonic Dragon the benefit of the doubt that the things he says here are true.
First things first, if you are behind a username and an online identity, it is hardly possible that any user can find out your home address and send you a physical letter. Exceptions for this exist, if you have your home address stored on your computer somewhere and you get hacked or if you were foolish enough to post your home address online (Facebook, ponies! Don't do it, it's bad for you.), then this is possible to happen.
However, if you did such a thing and you get unwanted, physical fan mail by one of your readers, then you and you alone are responsible for this. It is your responsibility to keep your data and personal information safe, by not posting them online where everyone can see them and by having a sufficient anti-virus and hacker protection software installed on your computer.
If you fail at these things and get unwanted mail, then you can't blame someone else for this shortcoming. It will be your fault then.
2. "I GOT A LETTER SAYING THAT IF DONT FINISH MY STORIES. SO AND SO IS GONNA COME FIND ME AND PHYSICAL HARM ANYONE CLOSE TO ME. THAT IS WHY I FUCKING LEFT."
However, THIS isn't okay. Everyone is responsible for keeping their personal information safe, but if you come across an author's home address, you should never ever send the author threats like this.
There is a difference between friendly fan mail sent out of appreciation for an author's work (still ask before you do that, if only to not startle an author when they suddenly have mail from a person they never heard about) and a letter full of threats of physical harm for them and all of their loved ones. And that difference is that you will only sow a lot of fear in their hearts and give them restless nights and that you won't achieve anything with that.
If you send an author threats, you will not motivate or inspire them to finish their stories. No, in many cases, you will only achieve the opposite of your goal, that authors feel they have to delete their stories in order to stay safe.
I often encourage authors to continue their stories myself and I readily recommend others to do the same, but this is not the way to do it. All you will get from this is a scared author and a bunch of deleted stories that might be gone forever then and you will not only hurt the author with this, but all of their readers, too.
And you even hurt the entire fandom this way, because you give people who are quick to judge reasons to think we are full of psychopaths. Never send threats, no matter how frustrated you are.
3. "SAY THAT ITS MY RESPONSIBILITY AS AN AUTHOR TO FINISH THEM."
I will be the first one to tell an author that a story that is published should get finished and I personally said that I will finish each of my stories and not let my readers hang by cancelling them. I am also the first one to understand the frustration over a fic you love not getting continued for months or even years. So this is a statement I agree with.
However, to emphasize this again, if you want to encourage an author to continue and finish their stories, do it in a motivating and, most importantly, friendly way. Give them actual arguments why they should finish their stories or, if that is in your power, offer help with whatever ails them and prevents them from continuing their stories.
But don't speak out threats. They are pointless, they don't contain any arguments, they don't help, they just make matters worse. And, on top of that, threats like this endanger yourself, too.
You aren't as anonymous in the Internet as you think you are and you are especially not anonymous after you sent a physical letter full of petty threats. Things like this can be traced back to the source easily and law enforcement is everywhere.
If you talk with an author about their unfinished stories, stay constructive. Don't be a dick.
4. "GET THEM THE FUCK OFF FETCH NOW. AND, TELL ANYBODY WHOS EXPECTING ME TO POST THE STORIES ON FANFICTION TO FORGET IT."
So, now that these three things are said, let's get to the other side of this mess..... Receiving threats is a horrible thing to happen for anyone, but paranoia and panic are, especially if you become insulting to others in the process, not a good way to react on them.
A raging fanboy who sent you a letter with threats out of frustration that your fics aren't finished will, for first, very likely live far away from you, making it a chore of massive proportions to get into a plane and to show up on your doorstep, possibly requiring them to do a trip across half of the planet.
This costs a lot of money, it costs a lot of time and it means to take a great risk (Ever tried smuggling a long knife or a handgun into a plane to add weight to previously spoken threats? Good luck with that.). It's a chore none of your fans and followers will bother with, unless you are a celebrity with 3 million Instagram fans or with 10 million subscribers on YouTube. And even then, the chance is slim.
And even if, by unlikely chance, someone who lives three hours away from you sends you a letter with threats for not finishing your ponyfic, they would play their own life by showing up at your door and trying to hurt you and your family. It's a risk no one takes for a fanfic.
Additionally, no one ever heard of it that a fanfiction writer or creator of any fandom, regardless of their skill and the size of their fanbase, has ever been assaulted in a way like that. The rages of the average Internet kiddy are, even if said rages get taken out of the Internet, not to be taken too seriously.
And even if all of that healthy logic and all these facts are still not enough to calm you down, then breaking out in panic and removing your fics from everywhere will do nothing to improve the situation. In fact, such a move will likely anger the one who sent the letter even more, because then, they can't even read your stories at all anymore and because you sent them a clear message that a continuation won't happen. It will make them more angry and increase the tiny chance that they are actually stupid enough to do what they announced and come to your home.
If you received a letter by someone like this who is actually psychotic enough to make their threats become true, removing your fics will not help and will not make you safe, but likely worsen the situation. If you receive such a letter and if you feel you are in actual danger, then you shouldn't waste your time with deleting all your fics and you shouldn't do anything that makes that person more unstable, instead, you should alert the police of what happened and let them do their job.
Another recommended thing you can do is making the threats public by posting the letter on your account, tell how you feel about that in a blog entry and call out the person who sent them. This has a very good chance of making the one who sent the letter so embarrassed or afraid that they will stop bothering you (assuming they even plan to send another letter).
There are also a lot more nice folks in this community than there are bad folks and you will receive tons of support if you make such an ugly case public, which alone will very likely be enough to make the person who sent the threats back down and leave you alone.
However, a deletion of your stories, in case someone is out to get you for being a negligent author, maybe makes you feel safer, but it does ultimately nothing to protect you. Worse than that, it can be this what suddenly brings you in very real danger if you deal with an actual psychopath.
5. "HOW MY STORIES ARE ON ANOTHER SITE WITHOUT MY APPROVAL. WELL, TO ME, THATS PRETTY MUCH SAYING. THAT I DONT CARE IF YOU WANT OUT. YOUR GOING TO FINISH YOU FIC'S BECAUSE THAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AND YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE THE FANDOM!"
Finally, this. FIMFetch only lists your author name alongside fics you've written for the purpose of artistic credit and for making it possible to find them easier via the site search. From the point where your fics are only available on FIMFetch anymore, no one will expect from you that you go and continue writing them anymore, because you have no ability to do that on FIMFetch, cause even if you would make an account on FIMFetch, the site does not offer any features that allow you to write stories on there.
From that moment where your fics can only be accessed online on FIMFetch, no one reckons with a continuation of them anymore. Readers and fans of your stories simply go there to enjoy what exists of your stories as they were used to before you took them down. At that moment, everyone has given up hope that your stories will ever see a continuation.
Last, but not least, you leaving the fandom and your fics that you've written leaving the fandom, are two very different things. If you are really dead set on leaving the fandom, then no one can keep you from doing that. And whether or not your fics stay in the fandom after your departure, does not matter for this. You left the fandom. Your fics remain as your legacy, but you aren't here anymore and probably hang around somewhere else on the world wide web under a different name.
If your fics stay here, then this doesn't mean you are still here, too. You can move on as a pony author, but that doesn't mean your fics have to move on together with you. And in reverse, just because your fics are still here, doesn't mean you are bound to the fandom still.
There is also no risk that you will get buried under messages asking if you still continue your stories, because if you left the fandom, then it means you left the site here and then you will not see these messages you get. If you have left, then you have left. End of story.
Other than that, there is actually even a plus side to it if your stories remain after you left: Decisions can change, so if you ever change your mind and decide to return one day and to keep writing, then your stories are where you left them and no one can take your stories and repost them here under a different name and pretend they are the actual author. It would be immediately imminent that these aren't their stories, because your author name is still listed on FIMFetch alongside all of your stories.
Your stories still being available on FIMFetch protects you from that. It will always be known that you are the author of these stories, because they have written your name right next to them. And if you leave them here on FIMFiction.net and just let your account getting locked up when you leave, you will have even more protection from plagiarism like that. However, if your stories are deleted everywhere, anyone can prey on your stories after they once downloaded them, repost them and pretend they are theirs. With your stories gone everywhere, there would be no way to prove them wrong and to expose them.
But even if you just know you will never return, and therefore don't care about this advantage, the continued availability of your stories online does not mean you are eternally bound to the fandom. It only means that people can still remember you and what you've written and still enjoy your works. Nothing more, nothing less.
The brony fandom is no creepy cult. No one can prevent you from leaving if you really want to do that.
Five things as general clarification/advice here. Whether you are a pony author yourself or just a passionate pony fic reader, pay heed to these words, to avoid making mistakes that will make matters unnecessarily complicated or unpleasant for everyone.
To end this, some direct words for you, Demonic Dragon:
If all you said in this message to me is true, then I symphatize with you and I won't blame you anymore for feeling the desire to take your stories down. However, even you aren't without flaws in this and you could have reacted to the situation better, which is something you can hopefully see after reading this.
I also offered you in private message to let your stories getting moved into my archive that I linked at the top of this blog entry. I did this, so that you can disassociate yourself from your stories without going so far as to having to delete them. This is the very purpose of this archive and the reason why I created it, to give ponyfics a new home when their author does not want to have them anymore, just like FIMFetch does, but in a space where they can still get continued even after an author gave them up, by giving another author the chance to adopt and revive them.
I offered you a good way to distance yourself from your stories, even to not mention your name on the archive, but you declined this offer.
As much as I symphatize with you in this situation, you could have dealt with it in a better, more productive and even safer way than outright deleting all of your stories and not only hurting the smart cookie who sent you the threatening letter this way, but also all your decent readers.
To repeat this, this isn't to blame you for being afraid after receiving physical threats per mail by an overzealous and impatient reader. But deleting all or any of your stories is an extreme measure that is never truly necessary and there are always better ways.
And that's all I have to say about this matter. Everyone, authors and readers alike, be smart. Fluttercheer, out.
I HOPE no fics are taken down, and oh boy...couldn't that post have been worded better? :/
4921427
Sadly, the fics by Demonic Dragon are already taken down. They only remain on FIMFetch anymore, for the time being.
For the message, I assume it was written in a fit of panic, which is why I blocked Demonic Dragon's new account here and, instead of answering him, decided to address his points here.
I can imagine that there are a lot of authors who delete their stories for similar reasons or because of being in a similar situation, so I wanted to give public advice regarding such situations.
No matter what, don't send death threats.
A remarkable concept. You know, I was originally going to send death threats to a guy I've never met in person over a ponyfic, but now that you pointed out that it's bad, I realized: Holy crap, I'm stupid!
4921433
It should be obvious, really, and shouldn't require an explanation like this. Sending threats caused an author here to take down all of their stories and to delete their entire account, so it's very apparent what serious damage doing that causes.
Wise words, very wise words. I guess he exaggerated a bit. That's the reason I keep away from Facebook, giving away as little infomation as possible. Andf I story gets cancelled, the author should tell why.
Also, just to let you know, if I ever leave, feel fre to "adopt" my stories, I don't mind. It started just as a stress relief, now it's a hooby
4921449
I don't know whether or not he has posted his home address on Facebook or how it became public. Facebook is just a likely example, because a lot of people carelessly post all sorts of personal information on that site.
I have a Facebook account, as well, but I barely use it and it contains zero personal information about me.
And, thanks, I'll remember that! If that should ever happen, I will be happy to include them in the archive I created!
4921453
You're welcome! Franly, I hope this website remains when G5 comes and still allows G4 stories, as I really want to finish any incomplete story and publish stories I have planned.
Well handled Fluttercheer !
It is stress inducing dealing with these events, is it not ?
4921529
Thanks! Yes, it is..... Right now, it is.
4921432
Ah, OK. :'( Well, I'm sorry you had to see that. :/ Can Fimfetch stories and its website be easily located? Also, you're a bit like me, because when I see the message, I'm like: "Swearing and shouting won't help your situation."
4925128
Yep, it's very easily accessible. Just go to:
https://fimfetch.net/
And type in "Demonic Dragon" in the site search to find all his fics. Unfortunately, I had to find out that two of his fics could not be included in the archive..... According to the admin, there was some derp when these stories got fetched, so it didn't work properly. It's not clear right now if they can still be fetched, so they could be lost now.
By the way, if you want to support FIMFetch, the admin of it also has a Patreon account:
https://www.patreon.com/fimfetch
It doesn't have many patrons, so if you can, chip something in! It's a very important archive for all of us.
4925195
Oh, cool, thanks! I'll likely support them on Patreon someday; I don't have any money online lol.
4926671
You can also use a credit card to pledge via Patreon. And if you don't have one yourself, maybe your parents would use theirs?
4926701
Yes, I could ask them to do that. Sometime, I'll probably do that and support the creator. :)
4921453
Like you, I also use my Facebook account barely, and it doesn't have a lot of personal info. Just two or three things, I guess, but not home address or anything.