Time To Be Honest · 8:30pm May 4th, 2021
This is gonna be a rough blog, but I gotta get it out there.
So, if I'm being perfectly honest? I kind of hate this site. A little bit. I love the source material. I love the stories. I love that there are people who love my work and love reading it. With that said, having recently spent hours upon hours upon hours fulfilling my duties in judging for the SunFlower Contest, it's highlighted something about Fimfiction that I've been trying very hard not to think about.
Basically, I just got done reading through and judging on dozens of stories that all took excellent, nuanced approaches to different forms of excellent storytelling, all touching on topics like self-harm, suicide, depression, mental illness, and the like, that are difficult to even talk about, much less write about, and most of them did so with candor and grace. I consider myself privileged to have had the honor of reading and sorting through all of those wonderful stories and I feel like a better person for having read most of them.
So imagine my absolute, slack-jawed groan of weariness when the next contest to flood the featured box is about literal mother-fuckers. The sheer amount of unpardonable filth caking this site genuinely turns my stomach.
I don't care about porn, okay? Sex workers are legitimate professionals and sex writers are just as much so. There are romance/sex-oriented novels (Black Dagger Brotherhood for instance) that are well-written and take so many topics seriously and treat them with gravitas while still being steamy and full of improbably proportioned bits for those of you who want them (I'm ace so, y'know... w/e), and having an excellent sense of humor about it all to boot.
What I'm talking about isn't that. I'm talking about the stuff that would be literally illegal anywhere else, and the sheer amount of it really just... makes it harder and harder to come back to this site. To even touch it beyond making sure my updates go out on time. It really does feel like every time I do so, it leaves a patina of something unpleasant on the tips of my fingers. I barely read ponyfic anymore because there's just not that much good stuff anymore, and what of it there is gets drowned out by all of the foalcon, bestiality, and incest.
Frankly, it's just kind of gross.
It's getting harder and harder to reason with myself and continuing to provide content to this site is actually worthwhile. Not because of my readers, but because I'm just... I'm so goddamn tired. I just uploaded a new chapter of We Are Legion and, to no one's surprise, it was immediately sandwiched by incest.
That's just depressing.
I'll be honest, that kind of stuff, more than anything seriously has me asking if I'm doing the wrong thing here. If writing on this site isn't actually helping, even peripherally, with perpetuating something I find personally unspeakable.
It's something I have to think about.
Until then, with the best will in the world, and all the love in my heart,
Cheers,
I-A-M
Big agree with everything you said. People who insist they need depraved, vile, illegal shit otherwise they'll have nothing to jack it to aren't the people one should be catering to. Fimfic hosting thousands of stories fetishizing sexual abuse in one form or another ought to be an indictment of the entire community. Instead we all just collectively shrug and pretend that it's normal.
But it's not normal. It can never be normal. Not in the eyes of the victims who have lived through such things, only to see hordes of incels vomiting filth all over the place fetishizing the very things that traumatized those victims in the first place.
That said, you're better at putting these feelings into words than I am, so I put them into video too \o/
I don't think so, in fact, I think you're doing exactly the opposite. You're proving that this site isn't only a perpetual tirade of clopfics. That there are writers that want to talk about the difficult things that some choose to ignore, and offer support to those that can relate, or simply just tell a story to entertain, or because of inspiration or a more decent contest.
Just like the SunFlower contest, and the event that started it, proves that this site can be good, even if it has a severe problem with most of its content. It has certainly helped me push through a very difficult time in my life by allowing me to do what I like most and makes me happy.
As big as it seems and feels, it's just a part of this site, not its entirety. You help keep it that way.
5512470
I want to believe that, but when I look at genuinely good stories that are lucky to get 500 views and then see stuff like 'Morning Routine' that has almost THREE THOUSAND in two days, it gets really, really hard to believe that.
Pretty much. Aside from all the objectionable explicit content, there's also the staff's high tolerance for fascism and general bigotry. Part of me wants to stay here with all the good folks still left (such as yourself) to try and pluck the weeds, since I've been a part of this community for years and I don't want to see it corrupted like nearly every other online space. On the other hand, many of the authors I visit here to read the works of have already jumped ship simply because they just moved on with their lives, losing interest in ponies. And yet, amongst all the 14 year olds and incels, we're still drawing in talented new blood to our corner of the site. Still, once Offprint is out of alpha, and its userbase and mod team grow, I might relocate there completely, and encourage like-minded individuals to do the same. Well, once I finished the last chapter of my one remaining ongoing fic on my alt account. Heck, the only reason I'm a patron still is to make up for the years I was unemployed and not.
I don't like it much either, but if it bothers you there's these really cool tricks I've discovered: don't read it, and turn off the Mature 18+ setting if you can't handle it.
5512474
See what you're ignoring about my blog, is that that's what I've been doing. My problem isn't that it exists. My problem is that I'm trying to decide if what I'm doing is, in part, supporting something that I find unconscionable. That and, almost everything I write sits in the M-Rating for reasons that have nothing to do with Porn. So if I turn on the M-Setting, I'm blanking out 90% of my own work.
Besides, sticking my head in the sand has never been enough for me, unfortunately.
5512472
Quality over quantity.
Even if those good stories only get to 500 people, they will leave a more lasting impact.
Honestly this is kind of the reason I'm so open with the stories that inspire me to write and I enjoy. Share the good works to see if more people pick it up.
5512473
I spent enough time in the offprint discord to know their morals are scarcely better than fimfic's when it counts. Not to mention the constant condescending attitude of the mod team towards anyone who disagreed with their stances was unbearable.
5512477
I suppose they might be a tad rigid while not going far enough? But the alternative is, well, this. Even discounting the code of conduct and solely going by the fact that it allows other fandoms, original fiction, and poetry while being a usable website next to the alternatives (A03, FF, etc.), I'd argue it's still superior. We're not going to find a perfect utopia anywhere online.
5512481
One of the mods there has personally lied about me, lied to me, gaslighted me, gaslighted others about me, lied and abused the trust of one of my closest friends, told me my history of self-harm addiction left him "unimpressed", told me "it's not your place" when I was upset by their decision to allow stories fetishizing sexual abuse because I had a friend who have experienced it and have talked with her extensively about how such stories being accepted and encouraged makes her miserable, constantly belittled and condescended myself and others in the server and generally was agonizing to be in the presence of.
So long as someone like that is in a position of authority at offprint, all I can say is I personally am staying away.
5512475
And I'm saying that your only mature option is to continue doing that. Just because you use the same site as people who write things you don't like doesn't mean you're endorsing that content by being here. I use this site because I like pony fiction. Do I like incest? Eh, not really, but it's not like somebody else writing about it is doing me or anyone else any harm. I'm an adult and can recognize the difference between fiction and reality. Hell, I expect most incest/dubcon/snuff/etc./etc. writers don't endorse what they write as a position they'd support. I can think of one potential exception, and all he wants to do is grill.
Bottom line, they have every right to write what they want, and what they write is clearly popular or it wouldn't be getting into the Degeneracy Box on a regular basis to begin with. It may squick you, me, and others out, but they are just words of horse fiction at the end of the day. Don't like, don't read. Don't want to do either of those? It'll be a shame to see you go, and I think you're being silly, because no reasonable, mature, adult human being is going to look at what someone else is writing that you don't have anything to do with and say "Oh my god, Guilt by Association! REEEE!"
Again, just because you share a platform is not an endorsement of their message. Do you use Twitter? Gmail? Plenty of people you disagree with use those platforms as well, but I doubt you're having a moral struggle over that. Same thing here. Their existence on the same platform is not the same as you endorsing their content. No one here supports bestiality as far as I know, even the ones writing it. Same with incest, rape, snuff, vore, uhhh... Etc. etc. insert other disgusting fetishes here. You being here isn't an endorsement of that, and anyone who'd try to tell you otherwise is selling something.
5512503
And I remember your snide comments and glee in spreading lies and smears.
Seems some things haven't changed.
5512484
This is a lie, knowingly or not. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just haven't thought about it much beyond what you said here.
You have no idea what seeing stories like this being flaunted around and celebrated by hundreds does to victims who have actually suffered from these things. Could you tell all the people who were raped as children by their fathers or older brothers/cousins that there's nothing wrong with fetishizing the trauma that ruined their life because it's "not hurting anyone?" I sure hope not.
It's not that it's not hurting anyone. It's just not hurting you. Please, you can make the world better by thinking about those who are actually harmed by acts easily brushed off as harmless.
From the very beginning of my immersion in FiM back in 2011, it's been abundantly clear that the only reason the show was as much of a phenomenon as it was is thanks to the kind of scum-sucking trash men that have infested /b/ for literal decades by this point deciding to invade a feminine space, and all the stuff I've seen has kind of desensitized me to a lot of this filth in general. That is probably a big part of why I may seem unbothered or outright dismissive of its harmful effects, and I will never be able to apologize enough for not being loud enough for these past ten years. Another is that I have simply been scared; a long time ago I called it like I saw it, and I very quickly realized I was actually in the exact wrong crowd to do that. That experience had a pretty lasting effect on how I (don't) socialize.
It's pretty shit that I owe so much of my very being to 4chan-types in that way, and I just kind of have to live with it.
Woeful as it is, I'm still here. Because despite all this morally reprehensible fungus caked onto the walls and ceiling, FiM is still the show that liberated my femininity, and stories on Fimfiction specifically put the uncomfortable questions about identity at the forefront of my mind (I can pinpoint the exact story that changed my entire life). Even ignoring that, this site rekindled my love for reading, because there are indeed difficult stories, hilarious stories, thrilling stories, legitimately sexy stories, heart-wrenching stories, and ones that are all of those things, all on here. And they are still being written today. So much of who I am emotionally, I have discovered thanks to this place.
Yeah, a good half of the featured box is going to be dime-store smut that sticks there for a week and a half because humans are disgusting creatures who just need to get their rocks off and the thrill of transgressing morality and/or legality has become so ingrained into their sexuality that I would literally never want to associate with them for fear of being a target. If it was truly possible to escape this somehow, I would love to know. But I truly, honestly left this site for dead a good four years ago because I was certain the waning of FiM would mean the waning of its fan content, and well... I'm back, you're here, all the people who participated in the SunFlower contest are here, all the people participating in the FiO contest are here, and all the people (including myself) who will be effectively taking the site over for a couple weeks in June will be here, and at the very least I don't plan on leaving again any time soon.
The spark is real, and it can shine in any darkness. I can't think of any better example than Fimfiction. All those boys announcing how sad and empty they are do not faze me.
Especially since the Mature filter is on by default. That does close people off from some truly beautiful work, but if it's better for someone's experience, I'd wholly recommend keeping it on (or turning it back on, in our case).
Sorry for the absolute novel, btw
5512484 I remember when you showed up in the Writeoff server. You were polite, and cordial, and charming, and then you started making comments about replacement theory, and I was like “hot piss appearances are so godfuckingdamn deceiving.”
ah, nostalgia.
5512484
Using a social media platform that is in use by other, horrible people, isn't the same thing as contributing creative fiction to a site that not only turns a blind eye to it, but actively encourages it.
It's not a matter of just ignoring a limited proportion of the userbase at this point. It's a matter of forcing myself not to acknowledge that those people are starting to become the majority. You're a reader. A consumer. It's different for you, and that's fine. I'm not saying you don't have the right to your opinion. But if you think that me having qualms about contributing my creative work to a site that encourages pedophilia, incest, and bestiality (there have been literal contests for that stuff) is childish, then you are welcome to remain all the way up there on your high horse.
I'm sure the view is better anyhow.
5512494
I know how you feel. This is the site where I really cut my teeth on writing creatively. It's given me so much practice in writing and made me a much better writer in general, but things are really getting out of hand.
So sorry to hear about your experiences. I really shy away from that stuff as it also makes me uncomfortable. What is it about this site that aids in perverts unleashing their darkest desires? I've written clop fics about pony/human and pony/pony relations but that doesn't mean I want to f*** a horse or watch horses f***.
5512519
I don't mind the stuff they do but it dose become a problem mostly it depends on there fan base me included
I can't count how many times I've seen great stories be drowned by porn. The only alternative is to turn off NSFW, but there are many Mature stories that would be missed that way too. I'd say not to give up... because the moment we really start losing good authors and are left with just the porn, the site will really be lost.
But that's just me being selfish.
Authors like you as friends and peers in writing make me stick around for reasons beyond my own sake.
5512519
There honestly isn't a better alternative in my eyes; we're lucky to get a fan-fiction site that has any amount of consideration for the user experience whatsoever, let alone anything approaching content standards. It's the same story everywhere, especially on the internet; in a great intersection of people you will find the worst, they will find an audience, and they will gain out-sized visibility thanks to their provocative behavior. The only options in response are to give up, give in, or keep doing the positive work you want to do and hope that one day we won't be stuck in this soup of bad situations.
Now, perhaps a niche fan-fiction site for a specific IP isn't exactly the place to plant a flag down and fight the good fight, but ground ceded is worth more than itself, in the sense that it emboldens these kinds of people to go and take over bigger targets with more brazen and deliberate action.
If you honestly do have better prospects elsewhere then 1) can I see, and 2) absolutely dedicate yourself to them for the sake of your well-being and happiness. I'm not ready to leave this place to the wolves, personally. And while ~200 views per story may not seem like a lot, I really didn't expect to get even that much, coming back, so I have more than enough energy to keep going and more stuff to write.
5512551
The alternative to the alternative is to delete all stories that fetishize sexual abuse like rape (which would include incest and underage content), sexual violence/torture, and the abuse of non-sapient animals. Nothing gets grandfathered in. All people who continue to defend pedophilia and similar atrocities get banned.
Absolutely nothing and no one of value would be lost.
(Also, it’s not like all these stories are M-Rated to begin with.)
5512563
I write heavily on AO3 in various fandoms—League of Legends, Warhammer 40k, etc...
5512475
Your stories alone with those who also tell other riveting and awesome stories, whether they be suspenseful, comedic, slice of life, romantic etc, keep me interested in this site, and its not to say you can’t write stories with sexual content in them, honestly some of the ones ive seen are pretty interesting for many different reasons. Some have a larger plots like coming to terms with your identity or sexuality, finding love, love during conflicts, or your classic romance story or shipping that does have sex but incorporate themes or ideas like building a family, “where do we go from here, what does life have in store for us?” Stories are great! (Im not good at describing them, please forgive me anyone i may have left out or poorly described). Like you, I-A-M, The Rules series is a great example, it does have sex but it does tell an incredible story 3 different ones to be exact and has some ideas and themes I never thought of or have seen before and i commend you for introducing me to that. Two other stories come to mind one is technically multiple stories but basically Sci Twi and Sunset become a couple both dealing with sensitive topics like mental illness/ depression, i think Sunset gets pregnant but she or twilight get in a bad car crash and have to do rehab and ptsd but help each other. The other is one about Sci Twi trying out for modeling but unknowingly ends up in the adult film industry, surprisingly it actually goes into what its like in the adult film industry how it works, the lives they lead away from the camara and how she starts to like it but then later comes to terms with it not being right for her as confuses her job with genuine romantic feelings and eventually leaves it behind. However, the fics that are more sex and porn yes can be read and enjoyed within reason. But the foalcon, beastiality and incest ones least in my opinion could maybe be put on different site or at least be filtered differently. idk im just thinking from the top of my head and am not trying to talk down towards anyone, i hope I don’t come across that way. Regardless of my opinion, you do make a very valid argument/ point that i never really picked up on before.
5512580
Well now that we're talking actions to take we run into the problem of the actual managerial team of Fimfiction, and given that this has been an element of the site for a long time, I'm less than optimistic about how they'll handle it going forward.
5512482
Well, shit. I had no idea. Maybe I'll have to knock some sense into them.
Be nice if there was an option that would filter out such things when looking through featured and popular to be sure.
5512591
It’s kinda what the team of mods and story approvers functioned as before they were combined. In recent years, they’ve obviously become extraordinarily laidback in their approach to things.
5512605
I'd rather you didn't.
Coming from someone who’s seen comments like this in innocent stories, I understand. And I just want you to know you are the best thing to ever happen to this website. And since this is the last time I’m gonna be honest on this website, I won’t lie when I say I’ve dreamt about meeting you.
5512606
Turn NSFW off.
EDIT: I’m being snarky. It’s my personality.
5512611
I think they mean specifically porn stories. There are plenty of M-rated stories worth reading (I-A-M's among them) that are not depraved fetishistic sexual abuse fantasies.
5512611
I keep seeing this response, and the problem isn't that. The problem is that I know it's there. Pillbug had the same advice. Ignore it. But that's what I've been doing. It's not enough. There's too much to ignore. I can switch off the Mature Filter (which blinds me to my own fics). But the problem isn't that I'm seeing something I don't want to see. It's participating in a system that encourages the inexcusable.
5512616
That is another part of the problem, certainly. A bigger problem is that the stories are approved at all. Sex stuff is okay, just... Incest and Falcon is wrong on so many levels. And to be honest, even my snark is starting to wear off, and I am very snarky.
5512609
Alright. I'll just keep an eye out, I guess.
5512606
The biggest issue is that a complex filter/AO3 overtag-like system will filter out the content. It will not get rid of the fact that said content is still accessible under a different filter and that the poisonous community that is tied to that content will still exist.
5512620
And that's my issue here. I'm hitting the wall of 'where do I draw the line'. It's become one of those issues that I can't just ignore, and I'm not the type of person to ignore those sorts of things anyway. The fact that it's so prevalent here that I can't even keep my own stories visible without being bombarded by stuff that any reasonable set of mods and admins would have banned ages ago is problematic in the extreme.
Offprint offers a pretty good alternative. Trust me, i'm the biggest name in woke porn.
5512631
That's true, but what I've started to appreciate about AO3 is that that very tagging system actually keeps that particular community relatively small. It's not given precedence or prevalence, and it works well as a form of damage control. It's impossible to excise from fan-works, unfortunately, I realise that, but it at least allows it to be hedged out.
5512637
Which would be understandable for dealing with people seeking different interests and tropes instead of wanting to segregate pedophiles and incest apologists.
It is a sad sight to see... I've been in this fandom for a decent amount of time. It's terrible to see the rate of decay. But more and more of us are growing up, and moving on, leaving only the garbage behind. Seeing stories like those featured more and more often, reminds me that the staff have probably begun to move on too, caring less and less about what is allowed on their site.
Some days I wonder if I should move on too...
I know I can't. At least not yet. Cute little stories about fluffly little horses keeps me going in our dreary reality, and I don't feel ready to just abandon it all. But one day, I'm gonna open up the site, and see the feature box filled with only trash, and that will be the day I know this fandom is dead in the water. Just like everything else, entropy is inevitable.
On a slightly happier note, can I get a link to you on AO3? I'm new to the site and don't understand how it works yet, but I'd love to follow you over there.
5512475
For whatever it's worth, Offprint separates porn out into an Explicit rating, and allows toggling both Mature and Explicit filtering independently of one another, for precisely this reason.
(It also does not allow explicit content that does not involve consent, which immediately cuts out large swathes of the kind of objectionable content that regularly populates the FIMFic feature box.)
Yeah, it is pretty hard to be on this site some times, the constant PORN! PORN! PORN! that is in your face is incredibly aggravating and, since I don't read porn fics, I don't even know its content.
The fact that the featured box only allows 3 fics that aren't new to appear, while the rest is usually just filled with porn is incredibly aggravating. And to say "just turn NSFW off" or "just ignore it" is BS in its own right. There are a lot of quality M fics that aren't porn that exist, and because of all the annoying porn fics, it is impossible to find good quality fics unless you comb through the categories with a magnifying glass.
The site has devolved, and it is quite sad to see... but I can't leave, especially now that the Trek fic I'm collabing with is incredibly popular now. Or, when it can stay on the box until the annoying porn washes it away.
5512631
Fair. Personally my view of humanity is low enough that I have come to terms with the idea that a large percentage of people constitute scum in my eyes. I’ll not claim my apathy is a particularly good response but it is the only one I can recommend without being a hypocrite.
5512659
That’s understandable. Apathy is not an inherently bad thing, but it’s become coupled with ignorance and denial of there being a problem in regards to the Fimfic situation.
you guys like omelettes?
fuckin’ love a food omelette.