For genres to work, we take the validity of the core concepts of the genre as an assumed absolute. For example, for a Martial Arts film to work, defeating foes with martial arts has to be the "Right way" to do things, contrasted with any "Wrong" ways like poison gas bombs or other forms of weaponry the hero doesn't use. A kung fu film wouldn't be much of a kung fu film if the hero decided to abandon kung fu and show up with a Toyota truck and machine gun.

I have seen value in stories that take ancient genres and deconstruct old parts of it taken for granted. Spider-Man started out as a deconstruction of comic books after all, because the superpowers went to Peter Parker, a selfish(at first) guy struggling to keep his life together as he juggles his responsibilities to himself, those he knows, and those he has to protect. But what value is there in a Spider-Man fic where his web fluid doesn't work and his attempts to swing across buildings result in his death? What value is there in a Batman fic where The Doomslayer shows up and kills him for no reason? What value is there in a fic that pretends Metropolis is worse off for having Superman there to protect it from corrupt cops, random thugs, psychic gorilla armies, megacorpo CEOs, and more?

The same amount of value you'll find in the same sorts of stories written to unjustly demonize The Conversion Bureau. TCB isn't an "old genre", it's a new, fresh, exciting, original idea. Something anathema to the modern consumer, who prefers to live in ignorance and purchase his happiness from the approved sources while harassing strangers on Twitter over Korean Pop and political nonsense.

Insecure people see the grim dark world around them, and fear the grimmer darker future TCB sees for the human race. Insecure people hate that ponies save humanity from its worst traits, rather than some random superhero or videogame character designed for them to fall in love with and purchase. Insecure people hate the idea of humanity growing beyond the flaws that make insecure people who they are and abandoning the flawed human form for a more aerodynamic and intelligent form. It is a fearful rejection of TCB's message that drives insecure people to loathe the story and its creator. Because deep down, insecure people know it would take beings from another dimension to save them from themselves.

Fake tears have been shed over how human culture perishes in TCB because of ponies... Except... Human culture already perished thanks to the Elites. The Humans of TCB have no virtues. No redeeming qualities. They have been reduced to a slave caste of dependent parasites serving parasites. Ponification is a blessing, their only possible salvation. This is not humanity at its best. This is a humanity that would die swiftly without ponies anyway. What of that consumerist culture is worth preserving?

The Conversion Bureau is a genius work of real literature and it will be recognized as such for years to come, while every fic that seeks to demonize ponies and Queen Celestia and TCB will sit discarded in a pile with every other anti-TCB story effectively identical to it.

The original conversion bureau story was *pretty bad* so you got one group of people who liked the premise but wanted to do it right, and another group of people who hated the premise and wanted to basically parody it.

Also, Humanity Fuck Yeah has always been a popular genre (not on this site but in general) so you have to expect that sort of thing to have an appeal.

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Why are so many threads here blatantly anti-TCB?

Insecure people see the grim dark world around them, and fear the grimmer darker future TCB sees for the human race. Insecure people hate that ponies save humanity from its worst traits, rather than some random superhero or videogame character designed for them to fall in love with and purchase. Insecure people hate the idea of humanity growing beyond the flaws that make insecure people who they are and abandoning the flawed human form for a more aerodynamic and intelligent form.

This right here is exactly why there's so many. Let me give you a metaphor, one day during one of the shittier years in African history, as millions of people are dying of starvation, dieseae and conflict, a group of people open up a clinic that promises to end the peoples suffering and take them to Europe. All they have to do is to abandon their African ethnicity, their culture, and their identity and join proper civilization as whites. Also they accidentally released a nanobot virus that's going to destroy everything made by Africans, from the Pyramids of Giza to the historical cities of Mombasa. Woops

Would that not be the most fucked up shit you've ever heard? That's basically what TCB Equestria is doing, a cultural and philosophical genocide. Not helping is that they're going to destroy any trace of our civilization. That is why people like the HLF, that's why people make all these shitty stories, that is why people call you insane. There are ways to help humanity without achieving what the most batshit madmen in our history failed to do.

The Conversion Bureau is a genius work of real literature and it will be recognized as such for years to come

No it fucking won't. Ask anyone who reviews literature for a living, or even just a casual MLP fan and ask them if they've heard of the conversion bureau. I guarantee they'll look at you like you're insane.

You're entitled to your own opinion, but don't trot on mine.

If it means anything, my idea of a TCB story is just Humanity fucking off and settling a new planet, living in fear of Equestria because of historical revisionism

A lot of stories feature Equestria destroying human culture as part of the story. Out of the ones I’ve read, the only ones where human culture is preserved are Reality Break and An Azure Future although it’s been a while since I’ve read either and I might be misremembering.

A lot of stories also portray the ponies as better in every way than humans. Some stories deconstruct this (Reality Break only has the ponies convert humanity because it’s the only way to save them from an apocalypse, which neither race caused; Negotiations shows the ponies are just as flawed as humans), but many stories take it way too far, to Mary Sue levels.

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A lot of stories feature Equestria destroying human culture as part of the story.

Yeah that's kind of the rub, you'd probably get less backlash if Chat's stories had someone make the effort to preserve our heritage. Where even as ponies people still considered themselves Muslims, French, Chinese, Amish or what have you. That way it would be no more of an extinction event than when Homo Erectus became Homo Sapiens

The original TCB was somewhat ambiguous about the how and the why of the reasons for the Conversion Bureau. It existed and there was some sociological reason for conversion, but nothing else was ever made clear before the original author ended his work. All the versions afterwards, whatever the path taken, were created by their authors and based on their imaginations. The aforementioned 'Chat' has a dark vision of the possible future in which corporate giants control the world (as in the original ROLLERBALL) who still want to come out on top no matter how illusionary it is. Others have more upbeat. All depend on the Conversion process to carry the story forward and becomes the motivator for the 'how' and the 'why'

And if you don't like them, do as I yelled at the Cigarette Smoking Man to do when he complained about the chocolates in the box; make your own.

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Except that isn't what the core of the story is.
It's not about everything humans ever made being destroyed. It's about humans having to change species to survive, and all the way culture and technology and our laws would inevitably need to adapt to such a massive change, let alone how much PEOPLE would need to adapt to such a massive change.

The ponies shouldn't be "evil but stupid" alien invaders with suicidal tactics that would make WW1 generals blush, and humans shouldn't be a contrast of "flaw but relatable badasses who prove their absolute superiority in war, peace, morality, culture, and science, and in all things to the Inferior People." (In other words, the exact thing the writers make the ponies out to be, but since we're human, we're not supposed to notice when the humans do it).

7665819
Are we reading the same stories? Like at all?

The ponies are laughably inferior to humans in every possible way in every CB story I've read. They pathetically try to invade Earth, and are obliterate by the killer ape, who then show their superiority again in peace time by being gracious victors to their fallen foes though they the Inferior People don't deserve any of it. The transformation is little more than a side note in the end in such stories. The ponies could have invaded to steal everyone's pizzas and it would have had the same impact on the story. There's no exploration of nature vs nurture, no exploration of how people would be forced to adapt taking new forms, let alone our laws or technology. There's no exploration of what new social lines might be created (like the elderly choosing to become new whelps and the age difference results in giving them the bodies of teenage dragon, others choosing to become sea ponies and merponies, or hippogriffs not understanding they AREN'T natural shape shifters).

It's just seeing ponies die by the power of the almighty bullet over and over and over.

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Not everyone has time left on this Earth to write, let alone time in living in the grind of modern society. And not everyone is a great author.

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CB at this point just exists to have humanity write a love letter to itself and watch colorful ponies (who are naturally deluded at best, or nationalist socialists at worst) be gunned down.

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Fair point, but the OP sounded weird as fuck.

Insecure people hate the idea of humanity growing beyond the flaws that make insecure people who they are and abandoning the flawed human form for a more aerodynamic and intelligent form.

Like what the fuck is this. Anyway, a couple of good examples of what you're talking about have been mentioned where there's no such cultural posturing. Like Yellowstone, but they are pretty rare due to how off-putting many of the pro conversion fics can seem. I want to see ponified humans rebuild their communities on their homelands. That could be interesting to see a group of them try to rebuild Mecca.

But yeah I definitely agree with that second paragraph, I don't know if I've ever seen a fic where the ponies were depicted as a genuine threat and wasn't written by grayonblue. Like I want to see the full might of magic and toon physics only be slowed down by the weight of industry and science, but I never get that. So in the second point I very much agree.