I got this email from EqD after submitting my magnum opus, Shadows Of The Past. It is a tragic yet also funny tale of the adventure of a young colt who is under the heavy burden of a prophecy while Equestria goes to war with the Griffons and a human ends up in Equestria and another human becomes a pony, but I'm not going to tell you who he gets with. I put a lot of hard work and sweat and tears into this story and it made me cry several times as I wrote it because it was so emotionally powerful. I submitted it to Equestria Daily last Thursday and they just sent me this highly insulting email.

Dear not-parasprite-someone-else-entirely,

We regret to inform you that your story, Shadows of the Past, will never be featured on Equestria Daily without a serious rewrite and a lot of attention from an editor. Your plot is amazingly cliched, your characters are all one-dimensional cardboard cutouts, your narration is frankly some of the most awkward I have ever read in my entire life, and you do not seem to know what the meaning of the word 'pacing' is. You skip over important elements, then draw out long, irrelevant segments about what essentially amounts to nothing in relation to the story. I cannot even begin to dissect the problems with your dialogue because there are more problems than anything else. This whole story is a mess, and I would recommend starting over from scratch if you really want this idea of yours to be received well, or even comprehensible to a general audience that isn't you.

Also, this is your third strike. Please do not resubmit Shadows of the Past after this point. Threatening to burn down Sethisto's house again will do nothing to change this. Take an English course and some therapy classes, and come back when you're a little better at writing. Then we'll talk.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EQD THEY HAVE NO FRICKIN IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING OKAY I WROTE A FUCKING MASTERPIECE AND THEY ARE JUST SAYING NOPE WED RATHER HAVE SHARKNADO FICS INSTEAD OF SHADOWS OF TEH PAST I DESERVE TO GET GFEATURED MORE THAN THOSE DUMB TRIXIE FICS OKAY I AM THE BETTER WRITER AND THOSE AUTHORS ARE STUPID AND SETHISTO IS STUPID AND HES A WHORE AND HES A BIG DUMMY AND IM BETTER THAN HIM AND I HATE EQD AND ILL MAKE MY OWN SITE AND BE MORE FAMOUS THAN SETHISTO AND EVERYBODDY WILL LIKE MY STORY AND THEN ILL BLOW A BIG RASBERY IN SETHISTOS FACE AND SAY HAHAHA YOU SHOULD HAVE FEATURED MY STORY YOU BIG NITWIT KDSJGDSGJHSD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBBBBBGHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

2723311

A fuckin' shame. It was a masterpiece of pure god-like artwork.

~Skeeter The Lurker

I don't need to read it to know it's the best story in the fandom.

2723311
I can't tell what's serious...

2723311
Edit: Wait, is this meant to be some kind of joke I missed... or? Lolwut

Take an English course and some therapy classes

But... all true writers have severe mental problems!

2723345

2723340

Please tell me you're joking...

~Skeeter The Lurker

2723345 Since when do you ever comment on this site?

2723362
Sorry, I'm Normal, not Joking.

2723362 Yes, he's joking. What I think is funny is that anyone thought he was being serious; re-addressing the rejection letter to "not-parasprite-someone-else-entirely" was sort of a dead giveaway.

Good one, Parasprite. You're such a joker!

2723383 That's MY line!

2723394
Oh well~ Guess you missed out this time

2723400 I will harvest your organs for this!

2723405
Mmm, you know how to turn a lady on.

2723390

2723410

2723311 Link to story?

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/155920/shadows-of-the-past

Lol this.

2723447

Click here

2723389

Oh, I knew full well that para was joking and full of it.

I was talking to Normal when I said that.

~Skeeter The Lurker

This is my favorite post.

2723498 Ah, my mistake.

Incidentally, I've seen you comment in multiple places and have never had an opportunity to say this but... +1 on the Aku avatar pic. Good memories. :)

2723311 Do you think they'd like The Homoerotic Biblemann Adventures Of Yesterday's Tomorrow?

2723638

Why, thank you!

...God I miss that show.

~Skeeter The Lurker

2723677 And the actor who voiced Aku. There died a great vocal talent...

2723701

Agreed.

Rest in Piece
Mako
1933-2006

~Skeeter The Lurker

2723343
I do both of these. Does that mean I'm now a flawless writer?

2723311

Best. Post. Ever.

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2723447
I have not laughed harder in a reasonably lengthy amount of time.

2724442 Like, is this one of those jokes everyone should know and I'm one of those people standing outside looking in like.

Edit; To clarify, I'm the type of person who lets jokes fly over their head without realizing

it's ok man. EQD is that way to everyone. "pats you on the back"

P.S. did you really threaten to burn the prereader's house down?

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience on us. It's not always easy to dig into the queue when we've got other IRL things going on, but we really do have a responsibility to the fic community at large and we therefore want to know where, when, and how we're lapsing. Clearly this kind of feedback is inexcusable for something submitted to us in good faith, and we've already delved into some internal discussions on how to better convey criticism to declined authors in the future.

EqD may not be the place for fic in the fandom anymore, but I see no reason to resign to the inevitable as long as we're able to drive traffic for folks out there. Please feel free to write back to your pre-reader or to request a different one -- we're really not in the business to make enemies here.

Threatening to burn down Sethisto's house again will do nothing to change this.

burn down Sethisto's house

again

Determination is the key to success!

2723373 Look at that fancy red highlight on his name!

2725589 In all honesty, I think the pre-reader who got assigned to this fic did something like this:

*glances at fic*
*reads author name*
"Oh goddammit it's parasprite again..."
*Picks up phone*
"Seth, he threatened to do it again."

2732781 The highlight...is orange...

2732805 Incorrect.

Red Color shades:

Knighty's name:

Closely resembles the second/third-lightest color scheme for red.

Edit: I am slightly colorblind to red, but that has been proven in my case to make me see red shades as being lighter than they actually are, by very small margins. A very pale red and very pale pink are difficult for me to distinguish.

But this looks like a solid red.

2732923 Oh. That explains why you can't see the orange in Knighty's name.

Also, no. I've grown so irritated from hearing people say that orange is red all the time(Hair is the best example) that I've adapted my eyes to see orange at incredibly deep tones. That's orange, albeit a blood-orange, but orange nonetheless. It does not match the red above in any manner or form.

2725589

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience on us.

No, it's inexcusable. I'm going to sue you for violating my constitutional right to be featured on EqD no matter how shitty my writing is simply because I'm me and therefore everyone else should bend their rules to give me what I want as quickly as possible.

It's not always easy to dig into the queue when we've got other IRL things going on

I don't care that your mother is in a coma and your sister just got back from being held captive in a basement for 3 weeks. My red and black alicorn OC is more important than you can possibly imagine, you filthy casual.

but we really do have a responsibility to the fic community at large

[Make up your own jokes about this one; there are too many possible routes I could take, so I'll let your imaginations, however limited, do the work instead]

and we therefore want to know where, when, and how we're lapsing.

You were lapsing the moment you featured a story I don't like. Why do you feature things that I don't like? Stop it! It's offensive!

>:V

Clearly this kind of feedback is inexcusable for something submitted to us in good faith

I know! I mean, obviously I'm the best writer who ever lived, so no one should criticize my work for any reason whatsoever. I'm so glad you understand.

and we've already delved into some internal discussions on how to better convey criticism to declined authors in the future.

Personally, I would recommend just telling them to fuck off and take remedial English. Some people are going to get mad no matter how nicely you phrase legitimate criticism, because their butts are perpetually sore and they desperately want an excuse to take it out on another human being.

EqD may not be the place for fic in the fandom anymore

Meh. I found spiderses through it, and that remains the best piece of literature I have ever read in my entire life. On the other hand, the fandom is now chock full of shitty low-quality fics and subgenres, as evidenced by the large numbers of Spike harem and cosplay stories we've been subjected to lately. It's good to have a source for reasonably good stories that doesn't force me to sift through millions of words of pure garbage first.

but I see no reason to resign to the inevitable as long as we're able to drive traffic for folks out there.

[words]

Please feel free to write back to your pre-reader or to request a different one -- we're really not in the business to make enemies here.

Are you... actually taking this seriously? Or are you just being polite by default? Because the responders to this thread, for the most part, seem to have missed that the point was to mock their stupid reactions to having their fics rejected. I thought the allcaps rant--as well as the fact that I have already been featured on EqD and do not even have a story called Shadows of the Past--would make it clear that this was not serious, but I clearly overestimated my target audience's ability to comprehend subtextual hints.

But yeah, you should just feature all my stories. I'm that awesome.

2732923

Did this thread seriously devolve into a discussion on the colour of kniggity's name text? My god, I've seen some weird and insipid tangents in my life--most of them on /b/--but this is a positively legendary achievement.

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2732773

There actually is a guy who got perma'd from EqD a while back because he told them he'd kill himself if they didn't feature his shitty stories.

2725334

Of course I did. I also threatened to hold my breath until I passed out, but that didn't work either, strangely.

2934057 yea like 3 weeks ago.

2934298

Oh, it happened again? I was referring to something last year or the year before or something.

2934349

Did this thread seriously devolve into a discussion on the colour of kniggity's name text?

2934354

Ah, my bad.

but still

Just what

What is Shadows Of The Past?

Well, that's what happens, when a website is 'controlled' by some absurdly lazy, tyrannical dictator who's prone to censor information about issues with the website (even if minor) that even an underpaid McDonald employee could solve.
Whole weeks, and even months of reports... 'Royally' ignored and then mass-deleted by Sethisto personally.

I think that's why countries tend to have elections, after X years, to reduce the risks of the ''Leader'' becoming so full of himself and stop caring about the ''little people'' and the ''little problems'' that are ''beneath him''.