for me, it was seth fanboy trixie shit back when the site was young.

then it was the drawn friend post. they didn't allow oc in the post, which they made a drawfriend for oc but they later added oc's in the normal post. i pointed this out in a thread and BAM got hate from everyone on there.

then the last straw was the tara why post of the twilight message. it got removed because it was porn(if you saw it, it wasn't r34 at all) but mostly because it was by tara why. of course now her self gets posted but still tick me off what they did.

923404 And even then, stories of questionable entertainment value with mistakes of varying severity still manage to make it through. English is such a flexible language. Why risk alienation with such elitist subgroups of styles? I don't recognize Chicago style versus Oxford style. I recognize readable English versus unreadable English. Fun versus boring. Straight versus gibberish. So long as something doesn't look like Ebonics and looks like either plain, ordinary American English or British English(apparently they hate this), I'm good! Technicalities be damned! There is nowhere in their omnibus even mentioning any of this, only the basics of telling a good story and how to differentiate between show versus tell. And if I remember a storytelling website correctly, there are times where tell is wholly appropriate. The new attitude is not show don't tell. It's show don't (just) tell.

923375 And why the fuck do you care so much? For starters, you must be new here. Both those stories were there before the rule was even implemented. Hell Cupcakes was there before Party of One even aired. Also, I believe the term is called grandfathered in. Secondly, if you don't like that genre, DON'T READ IT. I cant tell you how much I hate scum like you who believe that their view is righteous and that others should believe the same way. So, long story short, burn in the pits of Tartarus. M'kaybye

923524

Oh, no, I love dark and grim dark. Sorry, we've had a misunderstanding. I'm just saying - contradictions to rules are a real nuisance to me. Especially with a site of its "quality" - the changes to rules should apply to past fics, too. Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you and I commend Cupcakes for opening the grim dark genre to us authors. I usually stick to the "creepy" themes, rather than brutality.

922347 For me it was the constant disregard for respect. I sent in three stories and each time they were unprofessional and just ranted at me about what was wrong without respecting me as a person. Basically they told me to stop writing because I, apparently, suck. They basically almost destroyed my love of writing.

923548 Huh. I have to be honest, didn't expect a response like that Misunderstandings are a bitch. Now I can understand your sentiments for new fics including that FoE compilation post for I also hate their lack of consistency of their own rules (maybe I should add that to the list?), but those two fics were kinda there for practically the start of the fandom so they didn't necessary do anything wrong at the time. Also, for how big of a part of the fandom Cupcakes was, I wish it at least got a post saying that it was disappearing or something. That just seems disrespectful to me, even if the story was, well, Cupcakes. Sry if I seem like one of these

923619

Oh, no, you don't appear to me as a troll. Mistakes happen and I wasn't clear. Anyways, yes I agree a forewarning for those who knew Cupcakes when it first came out would've been nice. Or perhaps just remove the rule in general and keep a section dedicated for teenage/mature fics (excluding clop)? I mean, there's so much more they could do with that rule. But, y'know.

-When I sent in a story, the guy denied me because I talked smack about them in the past. I'm not even kidding.

-He didn't specifically say my story suffered from Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. I was left asking what was wrong with it until Ezn's guide explained.

-What really broke the camel's back, however, was their fifty-eighth Fallout: Equestria post of shit stories that don't belong on that site, how Project: Horizons gets its own post JUST because Kkat said she liked it. Recent chapters show that the story is legit crap. And finally, that 'Luna Reviews Bioshock: Infinite' thing was just incredibly stupid and made me feel embarrassed to even be a part of this community. Though, a quick stop by this site fixed that.

lol

I once submitted a story to EQD, wasn't on this site btw, It was a reasonable quality story, had 2000+ likes, 7000+ views and virtually no dislikes, I even had 3 prereaders editing it (I would send it to each of them to be more thorough) so it was virtually, gramatically flawless.

Guess what, they rejected me for improper use of a comma, and then because of something I wrote inside of it that could be considered offensive, somebody (him) messaged me on that site and called me an impish faggot. What. The. Fuck EQD!!

I'll even give you the sentence, but no context because I can

"Sometimes, I think about cheese" Yeah, a HL2 reference, and that's what that elitist bigot faulted me for, there isn't a single thing wrong in that sentence, hell, even my prereaders said so!

So the very next day I copy pasted the EQD rules into a separate foldier, opened it up beside word, and began to write a story

The very next day after I sent it it was featured, and guess what it was about

Trixie running a motel. Yeah. I hadn't even sent it to one of my prereaders actually, so it had a ton of erros STILL got accepted though! So right on the 3rd chapter I sent a little "thank you" note to EQD, here's what it said

"Hey you there! Nice to see you've been enjoying the story, well I've got some news, you see, recently I sent you guys at EQD a fic, here's the <link removed> What? Oh sorry, probably ain't good enough for your site, remember how I said I had 3 prereaders? Well none of them edited this. You heard me, EQD isn't home to the WORLD'S BEST FANFICTION like it's all cracked up to be, this has as many errors as a Mexican prostitute has had herpes, and I'm honestly disgusted for the pure crap that is this story they've let on there, I'm disgusted with how much favoritism and elitism you idiots have too So now, tell me, On a scale of one to ten, how good a fic is this? 1? 10? I'd say -6, this is, by far, the single worst thing I have ever written, so I'd like to say a big ol' FUCK YOU to EQD, have a good day, goodnight, and goodbye assholes!"

I got carried away honestly

I regret nothing...

That... was...Awesome!

One other thing that's been getting to me, the white-knighting of EQD and its prereaders.

It's like you can't say anything bad about them without these self-declared defenders getting on your case.

I am aware that there are people who bullshit complaints about EQD because they were rejected. That doesn't mean that everyone who complains about something on the site has a vendetta against it.

FimFiction made me hate EQD before the latter ever had a chance to get any hooks into me.

While I'd heard about EQD before I ever even saw the show, this was the first site I found my way to after I became a fan. I can find all the art or fanvids I want with just a few quick seconds of searching on google and youtube, so no need to go signing up for any sites for those. My big deal, though, is fanfiction. It's what I spend a lot of my free time on. I was directed to FimFiction and EQD by a friend with similar interests a few months back. Naturally I checked out the one with "fiction" in it's very name first. When I checked out the other one just a few hours later... *eugch*. An ugly interface with terrible fics labeled as top shelf and asshat users who I wouldn't trust to mop up their own frothing drool without a spotter and two pairs of floaties. I immediately disliked the place for simply being blanketly inferior, and everything I've heard from users and former users since then has only further lowered my opinion of it.

I'm more than happy here.

924467 My god Sir you just won +9001 internets for what you just did ^^. I bet those elitist pricks were so butthurt that they deleted everything lol.

My story "A Puppet to her Fame" got permanently rejected for being "abuse porn." Now I can see how he might mean "you overused abuse" and then we could agree to disagree... but I think abuse porn is sex involving whips and chains or something. Anyway, I never liked their site for fim fiction it just seemed like it'd be fun to try and get something posted on it. Like my editors said, if you want on EQD write a happy / slice of life / romance, and involve Trixie. They were still suprised (all 4 of them) that my story was rejected, let alone called abuse porn.

It's teen rated with off-screen gore, and uses abuse as operant conditioning to control behavior. Unfortunately it's not what the readers want on EQD, it's what the pre-reader wants, which is why that was my first and last time actually 'trying' to get featured.

Dear Author,

While grammar errors are few and far between and the character actions (despite some rushed development) are well-conceived, I feel I must reject your story for publication on EQD. In this reader's opinion, the tale takes a concept (Octavia is an abused shut in with a mysterious secret) and then drowns it in what amounts to 30,000 words of abuse pornography. The seed is good, but it grew into something unmanageable.

Some examples:
Abuse
Psychological torture
Physical torture
Neglect
Attempted rape
Dismemberment
And so forth

This content (and its delivery) makes me unable to recommend it for posting on the blog in its current format, and a rewrite would require a nearly complete thematic recomposition. It is for this reason I cannot suggest you re-submit it in the future. This is a permanent rejection.
We look forward to your next submission.

Pre-Reader OU812

922347

When Sethisto's personal blog became the foremost pony news site.

925026 They did, and I actually had to make an entirely new profile on that site and transfer all my stories because people were showering with so much hate.

Still totally worth it.

That avatar is so amusing.

927486

I believe you can get a second opinion. Try and email them and ask for another guy to pre-read it.

928098 can you provide links I would definitely love to see all the butthurt (just a hobby that i am not proud of)

923524 Calm down, tiger. That was quite possibly the biggest, not to mention stupidest overreaction I've seen in some years.

^ necroing comment.

Personally, I just got apathetic about it. Nothing killed it for me. I just couldn't be arsed to care.

922379>>922387>>922542
They've told me to change the plot before. And yes, they allow their biases or what they like to guide their decisions far too much (though allowing such a thing at all is just ridiculous).

922391
THIS A THOUSAND TIMES THIS. The site's pretty good, but their mods let the power go to their heads.

922433>>922631>>922785
They don't take stylistic choices into account. They have a very 5th-grade grasp of the English language and don't allow anyone to deviate from it.

922469
It's favoritism plain and simple.

922511
Heh, good way to describe it

922907
milesprower06 already tried that. Got rejected anyway.
923061
And heaven forbid you mix styles! They don't know what to do when you do that!

923224
Agree with all of that.

923301
By attempting to slam News Corp. they became News Corp. Talk about irony.

929479

And heaven forbid you mix styles! They don't know what to do when you do that!

>implying they know what to do when you stick within a single style they're unfamiliar with
>implying they know what to do ever
>implying they're aware of different styles of writing
>implying they actually know decent literature

It's one thing to fail fics for bullshit grammar reasons - the argument "then fix them" is one you can't really refute without sounding lazy. Maybe I disagree that those minor errors disqualify a great story (and I do disagree, strongly) but... damn it, they're right about it having errors.

But then I've seen them fuss over stylistic details and styles of writing that aren't even wrong, like the Chicago/Oxford stuff. And in any case, what does it matter in the end what style's being used so long as there's actual artistry in the usage? By acting the way they do, they basically purge all emotion and creativity out of writing and turn it into writing essays for school. Which... is probably the end of most pre-readers' experience with the language, as far as I've seen. It's disgusting that they have such a high-and-mighty attitude, get a lot of things wrong, and crush the dreams of loads of writers in the process. And no matter how much noise the rest of us make, it seems like the majority of the fandom just sort of goes along with it. Makes me sad.

929616 Ya it was a bit much Thankfully the matter has been resolved in a level headed manner as being a misunderstanding. Heck, I'm even following him now for both his level headed response and for his story Thantos Creed. Though I do stand by the fact that neither story should be removed because they didn't do anything wrong at the time. Still cant believe how Cupcakes has been around since Jan 2011.

929873 Well, hypocrisy is one of the biggest things leveled against EqD, and "it was grandfathered in" contradicts the reasoning for the "no gore" rules - "we want to be a family-friendly site." So in that case, I'm glad it's down because it represents EqD actually following their own damn rules. I disagree with those rules, absolutely, as even though Cupcakes is pretty much my least favorite piece of literature in history I'm an advocate of your "if you don't like it, ignore it" argument, but I do think if you're going to make rules so your site is family-friendly, you should actually make it family friendly.

But, in any case, I don't visit EqD because I hate its users, its administration, its layout, its content, its elitist attitude and (grossly undeserved) reputation as the apex of the fandom, and everything else about it I haven't already covered. So if affects me very little.

929896 Personally I think that the no gore rule is just plain stupid. They would pretty much have to remove the whole grimdark genre. Then they would have to remove a good portion of shipping for being too saucy. Where do they draw those lines anyway? I think they would have a better time just revising the rule if not deleting it entirely to make themselves stop looking like hypocritical asshats. I personally liked Shadowflash's idea with having a separate section for them or maybe even adding a filter like this site has. But hey, I agree, I don't really go there for fics anymore so I don't care much what they allow on nowadays. However, old fics like Cupcakes and Fallout aren't on Gdocs so they aren't to easy to find outside of eqd and newer members of the fandom wont even know of less popular fics' existence. So I guess that is why I find deleting fics kinda annoying. They should probably make a resource link to deleted fics if they plan on going down that route.

929975 My point is if they want to hold to a morality of being family friendly, then they have two options. One, do what Shadowflash suggested and what this site does - make those fics inaccessible unless you want to view them. There's apparently a site called Equestria After Dark, and a friend of mine got a shipfic hosted there although i've never been there and have no intentions of doing so, so I don't know what kinds of stuff they do host. This is obviously the better option because it lets those fans to read their chosen material while keeping things PG for everyone else.

OR, you can slash all offensive material from the site. make the entire thing family-friendly. You don't pick and choose fics based on legacy or popularity; that's called hypocrisy and it makes you look like a douche. Which sort of explains why EqD ran with it, I suppose.

Oh well. it's fortunate FIMFiction exists where we can find fiction of better quality within an more easily navigable interface and with a friendlier community that isn't full of idiots.

Reasons why I hate EQD.

1. Sethisto. His fucking love for Trixie baffles me, I just don't get why he has such a hard on for this character.

2. The community is absolute garbage. The comment sections on things are full of pointless bickering and flame wars. Or it just ends up being an endless circlejerk of "This show is teh best show ever huehuehue"

3. The Pre-Readers are biased as fuck and just plain suck. While I've never submitted anything to EQD I am friends with those who have and their stories were rejected outright for something silly. Like not double spacing after a period.

4. So many awful stories get featured there.

930092 924467
If it includes , it has a pass. That's a secret rule imposed by Sethisto.

930188 As much as we hate how EQD handles the fanfics and accepts only famous ones and Trixie involved fics, it's more or less the biggest source of visits for any writer who manages to get past the pre-readers. Talking about irony...

930120, there's a hilarious anecdote here by someone who made a - self admitted - shit story that was of Trixie running a motel. It got on EQD despite having a lot of grammar errors.

This amusing case shows the hypocrisy of EQD:

They featured a story titled "Just Pull the Trigger". It's about Rarity playing Russian roulette with a bunch of lowlifes she met at a bar after she goes to drink away her sorrows after having a bad fashion show and at the end, it's implied that she lost. Since when is an explict depiction of Russian roulette "family friendly"? Nevermind the grammatical errors or how OOC it is for Rarity to be drinking in a crappy bar and playing Russian roulette.

930218 Technically, most fics would already be OOC, but I get your point. And that's suppossed to be suitable for a blog where there's no age restriction for any visitors and readers? I mean, just by adding a "Dark" or "Grimdark" tag under the title isn't going to stop people from reading the story because they didn't check them (Which I think must happen 99% of times).

923683

alx, y u gtta h8 bby.

930218

I wonder if they even monitor the shit people say in their comment sections. I bet that isn't family friendly.

928726
Second opinion denied without even reading it or addressing any of the points in my email. Mainly, that the abuse falls far short of tortured, the dismemberment is implied, and the attempted rape never happens.

Apparently all 30,000 words are over-the-top abuse porn, and my points are invalid.

That's what fimfic is for :p We don't want to be "Edgy", we want to keep EQD family friendly. I'm sorry you dislike that, but I'm not going to change it because someone wants to see ponies tortured, dismembered, raped, and abused. - Sephisto

Yep that's exactly it, I want to see more stories like cupcakes and Sweet Apple Massacre. Secretly, that's why Octavia only gets choked twice and hit by her mother twice. Because, choking and hitting = raping fillies = abuse porn. It has nothing to do with the auto-rejection of dark tagged stories and the auto-approval of Trixie stories. It has everything to do with raping fillies.

930419

Jesus... *whistle*

Well, there is one way I can think of to get past that, but it involves writing a whole new story anyways.

Sorry to hear that, dude.

930092
Wow, if they rejected a story for not double-spacing after a period... I don't know what to say. We're talking a fifty year old habit to make using a typewriter with fixed-width font easier to read. I'd throat punch anyone who tells a fledgling author to double space after periods.

Knowing them and the rejections I've gotten, or stories I edited for people who have gotten rejected, their pre-readers are at about an eight grade level of understanding the English language and rules of grammar.

930419, seriously? Sethisto just looks like an ass in that letter. That emoticon isn't needed and it looks like he's making fun of the guy for challenging his rejection.

And having seen some of the rejection letters, is it that hard to say "I am sorry but your story was rejected for [reason]. [Some examples and suggestions]"?

An unsettling number of the rejection letters I've seen have smartass/snarky responses mixed in with advice.

If they're trying to bill themselves as a "big name publisher" for MLP:FiM fics, some professionalism would go a long way.

930915 I don't think EQD is capable of being professional. They're rejection letters are usually snarky or rude and make no sense. Instead of offering proper critique on something they point out minute flaws and nit pick/

930337
I'm really amused that my comment has 12 downvotes.

Rock on.

931025

I am too. I up-voted it because I knew that you were joking around.

1. Bunch of fags
2. Pre-readers are a bunch of super-fags

929124 Had to delete it since my account was deleted by me. I left a chapter before I deleted it though, but all the butthurt is gone.

935825

For me, Equestria Daily was killed when I spent a lot of time reading the story here and then going back to their archive. I was seriously underwhelmed. Almost all the stories there have at least decent mechanics and writing, but very few of them stand out as being particularly good. Most of them are pleasant; there certainly isn't much bad about them. It's just that there is not that much I would call good, either. And what is there just seems overwhelmingly repetitive and canned... Shipping, shipping, shipping, shipping, Fallout Equestria, Fallout Equestria, Fallout Equestria, Trixie, Trixie, adventure. It just gets bland and seems like it was purposelfully designed and selected to offend as few people as possible. It's a sludge of samey, fine, stories, but it's still a sludge. It's been quite a while since their stories really made me have any strong reactions. I haven't run into anything innovative, provocative, meaningful, or surprising there in quite a while.

The worst part is that they say that these stories are the best that the fandom has to offer. No, they're what you say are the best fandom has to offer. And any attempts at criticizing the site or its methods always draw haters and claims that you are whinining simply because you are not good enough to get in. That is certainly the case for some people, but definitely not for a very large proportion of the detractors who don't even talk about being rejected.

I loathe the nebulous and arbitrary manner in which they decide what gets in and what does not. It seems like shipping and their old standbys get let in fairly easily. If you are a famous author, or your story is very popular, then you are much more likely to get in. Unknowns tend to fail. They absolutely hate human stories and won't allow sexual content. There is a standard, but it so often seems arbitrary and unfair. It's highly prone to prereader bias and whims; there isn't any sort of referendum process to it. If the prereader likes you, then you get in. If not, then you are excluded. It's also horrifying how they can reject on grammatical grounds for the most esoteric things, but then they give very little good feedback and complain about being overworked. In the time it took you to find those tiny errors, how many thoughtful pieces of helpful feedback do you think you could have written? I could go on and on about this.

930218

This amusing case shows the hypocrisy of EQD:

They featured a story titled "Just Pull the Trigger". It's about Rarity playing Russian roulette with a bunch of lowlifes she met at a bar after she goes to drink away her sorrows after having a bad fashion show and at the end, it's implied that she lost. Since when is an explict depiction of Russian roulette "family friendly"? Nevermind the grammatical errors or how OOC it is for Rarity to be drinking in a crappy bar and playing Russian roulette.

I hate that story with a passion. Why? Because it was featured very shortly after I submitted my story, "Shell Shock", to them, which they rejected. I know that somebody is going to just say "You're just butthurt because you got rejected!", but let me explain and give my reasoning.

In the letter (which is on the front page of this group), I was told that it was turned down for the plot being contrived, ponies being violent for no reason, and it being a niche piece. I was then told that it maybe would do better on FimFiction and that it needed a total rewrite. I noticed many errors in spelling and grammar, and I wasn't even paying that much attention.

Contrived plot? Rarity's fashion show didn't go so well, so she goes to a nasty dive bar and gets blind drunk. The bouncer just happens to know Hoity Toity and sets up a meeting. Hoity Toity will make Rarity famous if she puts a gun to her head thrice and survives. In Shell Shock, Fluttershy and Shining Armor are in a war provoked by terrorist and providing security for a forward operating base. A truck full of POW's captured during the course of operations is brought in. As revenge for killings and terrorism perpetrated by them, the POW's are massacred. One tries to escape. Shining Armor forces Fluttershy to choose between killing the POW and being killed herself.

Baselessly violent? The former essentially is a mild form of SAW but with ponies. There's no justification for any of it other than that it amuses them to make others gamble their lives. Somehow, this is family friendly. The latter is set in a nasty war with ethnic and cultural and personal conflicts being involved. It forces the protagonist to make a choice. It's not family friendly, but it does feature some very starkly portrayed conflict and issues. It's meant to punch the reader in the guts, and it does. It got strong reactions out of all my readers. Isn't that what a good story supposed to do -- make you both think and feel?

Niche story? This is admittedly open to interpretation. Still, a female putting a gun to her own head over a hypothetical fashion line having much broader appeal than a conflict about morality versus complicity, is something that i'm going to call doubtful.

Lastly, needing a total rewrite? That would ruin the effect I intended. What about it demands a complete rewrite? I'm still waiting for an answer!

Sounds like a lot of people would be happier if they simply said, "These fics are ones that we like" instead of "These fics are the highest quality ones in the fandom".