I'm starting a thread to track changes I'm making in sorting through the stories in Main. If other contributors or admins would like to use it, please feel free. Just seems like a handy way to keep track of what's come up and what's been dealt with.

2013-03-21 @ 0:27 UTC

Moving On by Bad Horse
Themes: wasted potential, individual vs. social identity
Moved to: Personal Life Issues

The Dragon and the Photograph by Scramblers and Shadows
Themes: unrequited love, mourning
Moved to: Love, Family, & Other Relationships

The Princess Will Save Us by El Dante
Themes: unreliable authority figures
Moved to: Trash - Contributors
Comments: I just don't feel like this one does enough with its theme. It's a meditation on the old "Duck and Cover" policy, and it's not a bad story. It's easy to miss the moral subtext, though. I just don't find it challenging enough for inclusion.

Old Friends by RBDash47
Themes: mortality
Moved to: Trash - Contributors
Comments: I love this story, but I just don't think it really says anything challenging. Yes, death is a serious topic and it's good to meet it on even, friendly terms. Maybe this is challenging in that it asks us not to fear death so much? Please, someone feel free to disagree with me on this one. I just can't bring myself to think it deserves to be here, as much as I like it, but maybe someone else can find a good argument for its inclusion.

801105

I feel that if you take out Old Friends, you'd have to take out half of the things in Main right now. Which is probably the case anyways, but still.

801105

Well, I checked the trash. I didn't see Princess Will Save US there. I wouldn't mind seeing that in the trash. I don't take it very seriously myself. It was primarily an experiment about the style of "dark," using what I've come to call the "death knell line."

But what I DID see in the trash was my One is Silver. That's--look, I know it's not much yet. What's on the site is still an ugly read and it's still just picking up. But to see something I've been working on for over a year now, something with so much put into it despite the intangibility, something I have such high hopes and ambition for, something that I feel my very soul and being has seeped into, to see it in a folder labeled "trash," I just--

Honestly, I'd prefer not to have it in the group at all.

I'm editing at every opportunity, writing like there's no tomorrow. You just can't see it. Now, I don't often like to boast, and I realize I am still but a novice writer, but I can guarantee you something truly spectacular when this is done. And I'll be shocked if you can't find a reason to include it in a more dignified folder. If you could just kindly wait for it to get there.

979771 I haven't been sorting through these lately and can't really tell you anything about what happened with this particular story, as I haven't looked at it.

But the "trash" bin is basically just a way to clear things off the group for the moment, I think, since technically only a group admin can remove stories that have been posted. So someone along the way must have decided that the story, as it stands, doesn't fit for the group. If you think it will be a good fit for the group at some point further along (and again, "fit for the group" is very much a decision based on the criteria listed on the front page for the group, not a comment on whether a story is good or not), then I'd suggest submitting it again at that time and making sure you explain your reasons for suggesting inclusion on the "Nominations" thread in the group forums.

I hope that helps.

980717

(I'm still a bit confused about the Save Us/Silver mix-up, but that's a small worry.)

Once Silver comes into full swing, I really do think you'll welcome it to this group. It takes its time with it, but aside from its "prime directive" (a retelling of MLP as though it had been for older audiences) it encompasses all the views I've developed through my ponderings about life in general. You can say it's my life philosophy. Many questions are addressed, the story and its details are saturated in figurative meaning (I've turned the resistance against the Nightmare into an allegory for the struggle against and then acceptance of death), and I try my best to give some insight as to a general way to live ("write your friends and yourself a good book," as you'll hear me say).

Now, I don't claim to have all the answers. I may not always have one for each the ideas I bring up. (Applebloom asks the Doctor, "But, then what do you do? What do you do when you have to do somethin' you know ain't right?" His answer, "I don't--I don't know..." He then tries to scrub the red paint from his hands, but he knows it won't wash off.) I believe, however, that a man's wisdom should be measured not in the answers he gives but the questions he asks. If I can't make up my mind on something, I hope the readers can come to answer it for themselves some day.

I'm also a die-hard humanist, albeit a cynical one (an oxymoron, I'm well aware), and that surfaces even having Discord design the humans. (Though, truth be told, a cartoon about small, colorful equines with a viewing community with a general bias against anthromorphs/humanizations might not be the best medium to preach about humanity's bright points.)

But honestly, once this is done I know you will want to put this story in with this group. Even if you can't put your finger on why, you won't be able to disagree. You might even invent a reason to have it added, just because you know it belongs in a group of stories that make the reader sit back for a moment and think about life.