man I hate past sins · 3:17am Dec 10th, 2012
HI, I'M COMPLAINING THAT PIECE OF SHIT (A) IS MORE POPULAR THAN PIECE OF SHIT (B), IT'S PRETTY REDUNDANT SO IF YOU AIN'T INTERESTED IN MY OPINIONS YOU CAN JUST SKIP THIS PART
but really, why is this piece of shit popular again?
nyx is a black colored, alicorn foal, has dragon eyes, "adawable", Twilight basically instantly adopts her DESPITE just being kidnapped, manages to gain the trust of every single one of Twilight's friends within the first three chapters, gets admitted into the CMC, beats Diamond Tiara and Silverspoon at something, is unbearably "shy" ALL the time, and is so powerful with magic that she turns Fluttershy arbitrarily into a tree and back for no reason at all.
and how about this cover art. I mean, seriously, twilight with a noose around her neck - can you be more edgy? it reminds me of ads for evening soap operas that are just like 'CHARACTER (A) WILL LAND IN A PREDICAMENT THAT'S VERY MUCH LIKE THIS. BUT THEY'LL PROBABLY SURVIVE IT.'
hey, I won't lie. if I could write popular stories that are mostly crap but still get views like a ke$ha sex tape, then I'd do it. But I wouldn't bother defending them on the grounds of 'artistic integrity'.
Especially not Past Sins. I gave it a fair, honest to goodness go, with no prior assumptions - I mean, LITERALLY, I had it linked to me by a friend of mine/fan of the fic, and thought, 'oh, this is pretty popular, I should read it sometime."
I was literally enthralled by how bad this shit is. Past Sins is pretty much just pandering to people who like filly luna/nyx, plus the author's own "love" for his little derpy alicorn OC. How this shit gets the same amount of attention, as, say, anything written by short skirts and explosions is pretty much beyond me.
seriously. I hope the person who wrote past sins steps on a fucking lego, or something
edit: actually, this guy made a really good point about what I have to say - and I really agree with him.
"It's like this for me. I like action movies, Rambo being one of the earlier ones that I enjoyed. Recently I have found myself getting annoyed at movies that just fill the air with hot lead and gratuitous explosions because it seems unimaginative to me. When I go back and watch Rambo, however, I don't think of it as one of those movies because I know that it existed at a point in time when that sort of thing was really very impressive in a movie. The same applies to Past Sins. I look at it as an older, more "classical" work of fiction, as opposed to something that is horrible because it falls into the stereotypical "OC Alicorn" traps."
ANYWAY NOW THAT WE'RE DONE GIVING A SHIT ABOUT MY OPINIONS
Golden Rule update soon. When? Nonspecified. Probably a few hours, once I smash out this last essay.
Damn, dude(s), university is actually really hard when you take it seriously.
You seem tense.
Its going to be ok just deep breaths
Is someone vexed? I think someone's vexed.
You will most likely catch hell for saying that.
Just warning you.
Well everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I read that story awhile ago, and I remember liking it for its humor. To each his own I suppose.
shit happens, life moves on. Did you at least get all the anger out of your system?
You are a very brave person to bash one of the most popular and well written story in the fandom. I won't try to defend it since I know it would be pointless since I won't be able to change your mind. But be warned not everyone will be as nice as me, except to be flamed.
ponilauta.fi/poni/src/13476168243029.jpg/Pinkie%20You%20Seem%20Upset.jpg
Have fun receiving hate from the people who liked the story.
592952
yeah, actually, I feel a lot better now.
Thank you so much for asking :')
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I really have no idea... I haven't read it
also, holy fuck, people are really foreboding about this. 592955 592943
I'm not sure I'm ok with this :(
Story seemed pretty darned good to me.
To each their own.
Also, I personally don't like SSAE's stories.
Past Sins has issues. We all know that.
But it became as popular is it is because the author(s) wrote a lot of really really good shit before that, so there was plenty of trust.
Read more of Pen Stroke's shit at least. It's great.
And, hey. I love SS&E, but I only really care for like 1 in 4 fics he writes. (He really needs to not write shipping. Ever. Unless it's a plot hinge like Morning Dew was, or non-perspective characters like CaraWhistler)
But nearly every single fic by Pen Stroke is (while not nearly as epic as SS&E's best stuff) consistently high level goodness.
Edit:
Also, did you read the original version or the current? The current is way more polished.
592971
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592965
IMO it was a good read and personally enjoyed it. Our esteemed host 592967 did not and that is his opinion just as my opinion is my opinion. take a gander at it see if you like it. DON'T SHOVE IT DOWN HIS OR ANYONE ELSE'S THROAT!
And no problem
592967
Your opinion is your opinion. You're entitled to it.
Just saying others are going to try to force theirs on you. I'm pretty much expecting it.
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It hits all the marks you talked about, and is basically the equivalent of something done by committee to appeal to everyone in the fandom. It would be interesting to know how many fans of past sins were new to fanfiction when they tried it.
Also, it is written pretty well, and sometimes that's all that's necessary for a fic to get popular, although fortunately that's less true everyday.
From what I've heard from other critics, how much you hate the fic seems to hinge on when you realized that it was completely predictable. Some after a few chapters. I am not a clever pony and it hit me 2/3 of the way through that everything that happened afterwards I already knew. There were literally 0 surprises in the last 1/3 of the fic. Everything that could be assumed and cleared up in a paragraph is drawn out in its' own passage. The icing on the cake is when she gets her cutie mark. OC X stopped Y bad thing from happening = shield.
As far as I can tell, the only crime Past Sins has is being one of the older fics on the site. I read it and found nothing particularly wrong with it, save for the fact of it being a bit overdone in terms of concept. I think this is less a product of it being bad and more a product of it having existed prior to the community disliking those things about stories because they were done to death already.
It's like this for me. I like action movies, Rambo being one of the earlier ones that I enjoyed. Recently I have found myself getting annoyed at movies that just fill the air with hot lead and gratuitous explosions because it seems unimaginative to me. When I go back and watch Rambo, however, I don't think of it as one of those movies because I know that it existed at a point in time when that sort of thing was really very impressive in a movie. The same applies to Past Sins. I look at it as an older, more "classical" work of fiction, as opposed to something that is horrible because it falls into the stereotypical "OC Alicorn" traps.
That is, of course, just my opinion, and you are welcome to take it or leave it as you like. While not my favorite work, it holds up reasonably well in my opinion, and it was an enjoyable read. I found nothing particularly horrible about the writing, and though I am loath to admit it, I actually like Nix in parts. But again, that's just me.
592976
hmm.
wow, you guys are really good at making points that sort of bop me on the head by how simple and poignant they are.
I'll look into this.
Just ignore it like I do.
592980
dl.dropbox.com/u/109212453/CalmDown.jpg
Dude, I just posted some gifs... I haven't read it and have no opinions...
593010
I'm never serious (unless otherwise stated by me) about anything on the internet. Life is less stressful that way. Have some music that I found 
592986
exactly, dude! I'm literally hi-fiving my screen, because you just literally framed the issue right there.
it was just so easily predictable. surely that's a core element of a bad fucking story, right?
592989
wow, jesus. I'm being humbled by my readers here, because you make another really good point.
Past sins, like a james bond movie. I watch james bond movies so I can see a suave british superspy use his gadgets to infiltrate a secret underground fortress, judo chop the neck of a bad guy and make love to the euphemistically-named damsel. Is it in bad taste? Absolutely. But it's bad taste in GOOD taste, if you know what I mean.
It's done well and there's nothing actually wrong with past sins, it's just a pile of shit and I hate it for being a 'james bond' that I happen to dislike.
You read Past sins because you want to read about the little alicorn filly. I totally get that now.
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you know, I learned something today.
i enjoy past sins.
593066
and there's nothing wrong with that.
Because everyone is allowed to like past sins in the same way I like james bond.
i dont like the new bond.
593101
Here. Read this series and you'll feel better. Well you'll be ded, but feel better.
http://muffinshire.deviantart.com/art/Comic-Twilight-s-First-Day-1-333365520
http://muffinshire.deviantart.com/art/Comic-Twilight-s-First-Day-2-335221312
http://muffinshire.deviantart.com/art/Comic-Twilight-s-First-Day-3-341536080
593114
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592937
The vex is strong with this one.
Why should anyone give a fudge if past sins is shit or not? I just think it's good that there are people actively reading and writing instead of watching the dammed television all the time!
There is no way Rambo would be a good read in novel form.
Update for Golden Rule?
Also, I'm not big on alicorn/alucorn stories though I wrote one. However, the thought of hanging Twilight?!
F**k Rambo, I'm going Red Dawn on your ass, whoever drew that!
This might help
funkygeorge.com/images/cart/goosfraba.jpg
Why the blind hate for alicorn OCs? I thought hatred for alicorn OCs was supposed to be directed at self-insertion type alicorn OCs. I have not read the story but from what I can gather it's a filly version of Night Mare Moon? If it was the author trying to place themselves in the story then yeah, flame away because that shit is Twilight (vampire) level shallowness.
Then again, this story could be shit, but Drop of Moonshrine was one of the first comedy fics I read and still one of my favourite, I can't really see Pen Stroke putting out that kind of bad content. Or it could be shit.
Woah, well.. many of what I have to say has been said. Especially the fact that indeed Past Sins was likely a first for many of us(it was for me) and over a year ago we really didn't have any clichés or supposed nonstarters such as the "alicorn OC". That and personally I didn't know what to expect from pony fanfiction when I started reading it, it was one of the first and the very first "serious" mlp fanfiction I've read. Another thing is that there was way less material being put out back then, you could read everything being put out and still be bored by the end of the day. Would it be as popular if it had been back then if it were published now? Most certainly not. I find many of todays good fanfiction doesn't get the attention it deserves.
I can't deny any of your claims about Past Sins though, in fact they are quite true. However I did enjoy Past Sins, a lot. The Twi-Nyx relationship is its high point I believe, it was heartfelt, while probably not realistic(the adoption part?) there was the emotion. I do find it unfair that a portion of the hate towards it seems to be simply due to the fact that it was popular. In a way it was /the/ first big hit, somewhat of a milestone for pony fiction. For example the claims of self insertion… what? Absurd. The hate directed at the author himself is appalling. Surely there are worse stories out there on this site deserving of said hate? Unless Pen Stroke has been running around like some pretentious "Blueblood" character claiming his superiority over the likes of other authors I don't see what's to hate on. Dude just wrote a story… about ponies. We all love ponies.
Anyways, I agree that this is all pretty redundant. Just pushing out what I think here. :p
PS- Funny you should mention SS&E. While I genuinely liked The End of Ponies, a good proportion of his writing tends to get caught up being too tedious and heavy.
All of these are really good points. I tend to not read much these days, mostly because I'm busy writing my own stuff. I feel the same sort of way with My Little Dashie, I read it and was not particularly impressed. The constant references to it throughout the fandom annoy me because it's like a bad inside joke. By the time I wrote The Great Brony Migration, I had seen enough of the 'popular' and not-so-popular fics to see trends, but I wrote an HiE/BiE anyway, totally expecting it to get flamed to hell. 10k unique hits later, I was proven wrong. But here's the thing, writer, I feel that my other stories, with the exception of one, are much better than the one that got popular. It almost hurts to see my other, improved, works going unnoticed but sometimes that's just the way things are. It is, all of it, garbage but even tripe has its levels of tolerance. Still, I shouldn't complain. I have 400 followers and my stories tend to accumulate views eventually.
And 594357 brought up an excellent point
This community is one of the best I have been a part of, the only problem I see with it is that it takes itself way too seriously, especially when it comes to fanfics. Even if someone comes up with a fantastic story, what are they gonna do with it? You can't take it to a publisher, you can't put it on a resume, you can't market it at all. Everything we generate here is locked up tight by copyright law. In light of this, I think people need to realize that all of this is essentially practice, we are all learning stuff here and nothing is going to be perfect. Rather than throwing around all of this rage and woe is me, we need to be helping each other improve. There are too many bystanders. My most recent story has over 200 hits now but only about 13 comments and most of those are made by two readers. While I appreciate their comments, I crave more feedback, something specific about the story that I could improve or even something they liked about it that I can keep doing in other stories. I know that this is a very informal community and there are far more readers than there are writers. Perhaps the readers don't think that what they say has any merit because they don't write. What they say does matter. I also don't approve of this strange aura readers attribute to their favorite writers. I've been subject to it myself. First of all, I don't deserve it and second, it only promotes more squabbling. It's also good to keep in mind that not everyone is on the same page, so to speak. This is a very diverse community, not every user is a 20 something; there are a lot of younger readers and writers. It would be a shame and a travesty if a young writer were to be discouraged from pursuing the craft because of only a few mistakes in a first attempt about colorful equines in a fantasy land, blown out of proportion by overzealous bronies.
Though you're allowed an opinion and I respect that opinion, I don't think you should say the guy who wrote it should step on a piece of lego. He never did anything wrong, only wrote a story that you don't like. Love and tolerance man.
When did you read it? Because I read the original, and I've read all the revisions since then (I have too much time on my hands, I should have at least 10 million words read by now). The first was just awful (i.e. OP main character, Mary Sue, various plot-holes, etc.), but PenStroke did write it well.
"Sometimes it's not about telling a great story, it's about telling a story greatly." - Bradley Tharpe (my English teacher). An example of this is My Little Dashie: The story itself is a piece of shit, but it was written in such a way that the reader is drawn in and actually starts to care about the characters (still a shitty story though).
While I disagree with you on Past Sins, as the most recent revision is among my favorite fics, everyone has the right to their opinion. Night Guards is by far the best fic on the site, though.