For the first time in ten solid years, I've have a story on the feature page. Ten years of writing filled with blood, gore, and violence and it's a random piece of smut that gets me featured. I'm not here to advertise as my one shot is already on the front page. Instead, I'm here to ask the obvious question. WHY? Why would you people only recognize my smut over my greatest works? A one off story over my best work.

Not here to advertise, I am just genuinely curious why dark, violent, horror, and gore are not given the love they deserve in this fandom. This fandom has lived with the dogma of being a disgusting place for years, and I disagreed every time. But look, just look my first ever feature is exactly what this fandom is mocked for the most.

I would love a conversation to spread... Why does the smut always win and gore is ignored?

7956670 That's easy, everypony can clop to, well, clop; but only a minority can clop to gorefest.

I've tried to combine the best of both worlds, earning the nickname 'torture-porn writer', but for some mystical reason, gore is a turn-off for almost everypony. My award-winning clop&gore novel scored only 2% on the cloppability scale.

7956671

7956670
Because most people don't like gore, and a lot of people like porn.

Personally I usually look at teen or mature stories with Slice of Life, or Romance and/or Clop. Some longer stories I've gotten into with some psychological and character insight where romance and clop are a minor part. Those longer ones that have a lot of clop, I end up skimming those scenes because often they become repetitive. Not really into horror, and although I'm not a military person or have much interest in that I've read some well written stories with that kind of violence. Not much into horror movies or horror stories; just not really my genre.

Sometimes I only have the patience or am in the mood for shorter stories. There are many stories I've started that are very long, but those I've usually only started when the beginning chapters have been posted, or from an author I like and not a full older story of 100 or so chapters from someone I haven't read.

I like gore as the circumstances that demand it I tend to find interesting. Give me your gory story that you want people to read most, and I'll have a look.

I relate. Never written clop. Never going to. The stories I've done that are worth something in my eyes? I can name one user (perhaps two or three if I lower my standards) who has shown interest. Otherwise it's no one. Relatively empty comedic one-shot? Drooled over by comparison.

That's how it is, alas.

7956670 A lot of the time, a great deal of fun is gained by reading about characters that you'd want to see yourself as, or empathise with. Part of the point of writing is often trying to get readers to connect with characters, and situations, and plots. This is so ingrained in how we approach writing that it's kind of expected to have characters that are, on some level, relatable, not because relatable characteristics are somehow better, but because you want the reader to relate to a character in order to be more invested in a story. This is so effective that you can use relatable characters to trick readers into relating to things that they didn't actually expect to find empathetic, simply by using the fact that, a lot of the time, people want to relate to some things.

Given the choice, would you rather relate to a character that's having their guts pooling on the floor, or a character having crazy good sex? Which one hits that fun wish-fulfillment vibe more?

7956689
Good character writting can happen in both, you can finds characters you adore in both. I'd rather have a character I can scream over when they die rather then O face when they climax.

7956671
I'm right there with you sometimes. Some of my older stuff was gore and sex, but I got the point where I just enjoy the gore more. The only reason I started writing clops more recently is because for the most part, they are easy to pop out in one shots.

Clop scenarios are confirmed to happen behind closed doors in Equestria. Grimdark gore stories are tonally incompatible with FiM.

Guess which one is generally more accepted by those who actually like MLP FiM.

7956681
Journey To Hearth's Warming has been going on for 6 years now and has plenty of graphic moments like Princess Platinum getting her arms ripped off, A main character getting impaled through the chest, another has his heart ripped out by a wendigo, The entirety of season 6 involving dodging colossal size monster made from the souls of millions, Season 7, starting in august will featuring a moment of full on cannibalism

Something Wrong With Canterlot is a pseudo sequel to JTHW. Zombies have taken over Canterlot thus there plenty of graphic scenes there. Anthology style so the time frame is harder to gauge, but so far I've included immolation, multiple characters already lost their wings with flashbacks planning to go into more detail later, Military line up, physical abuse of certain dragon. As for stuff yet to happen. Arson, body mutilation, self mutilation, tons of dead zombies

This thread makes me wonder, whatever happened to the art of showmanship?

7956670
There's kind of a lot going on here, so it's not even as simple as "porn vs gore".

I mean, that would probably be enough on its own. It shouldn't be a mystery that many people enjoy porn more than gore. Porn tends to be titillating to most people who would read it, while gore is generally not. Stories that make use of gore generally have to have something else to make them appealing. Gore isn't going to draw in people on its own in the same way porn will (or, at least, not in nearly as much quantity).

You also have to consider the reader base, which comes from a fandom of a generally bright and optimistic cartoon. MLP certainly doesn't have any adult content to it, but sex can easily be positive and pleasant, which makes it much less of a stretch than a gory story is. And mind, I'm saying this as someone who actually likes well-done gore, but generally has no interest in porn stories.

On top of that, most of your stories are anthro, which tends to be seen as a negative by most people who are here looking for ponies rather than pony-inspired humanoids. The result is that anthro stories get viewed less and are less likely to be featured than average (about 2/3 the rate, in fact). This tends to be less of a factor in porn where anthro is more accepted (whether because people like human breasts, or because they feel quadruped ponies are too close to bestiality).

tbh it’s mainly up to preference or at least that’s how I see it

7956721
I'll take a look.

7956721
I read the prologue. I don't want to be nasty, but it didn't excite me one bit. For me it was empty fighting. It had neither details nor insights that I found interesting. It didn't evoke the enormity of a battle. The prose is like that of someone who wants to sound like a high-fantasy narrator but doesn't have the knack. I know I sound a bit dickish, but I think it's better to say something than to say nothing.

This isn't really relevant, but maybe it'll make my comment nicer: Writing fiction's hard. I'm not much good at it either. I respect that you're putting in effort. Godspeed.

7956670
In the 80's movies could be rated x for 'excessive' sex or gore, except it was always just for the sex with the single exception of Robocop.

It's probably because all the mods are wankers. 😁

7956880

read the prologue. I don't want to be nasty, but it didn't excite me one bit. For me it was empty fighting. It had neither details nor insights that I found interesting. It didn't evoke the enormity of a battle. The prose is like that of someone who wants to sound like a high-fantasy narrator but doesn't have the knack. I know I sound a bit dickish, but I think it's better to say something than to say nothing.

No, this complaint is perfect. I like to know if I'm doing something wrong. Frankly, I hate utter silence. Question which prologue we you reading? JTHW I could understand your disconnection since it's just a bunch of OCs with the scant mention of Starswirl at the end. If you want more canon characters you are familiar with try SWWC, it's not require to read JTHW to understand what's going on in SWWC, just know it's anthology so the timeline jumps around a lot.

This isn't really relevant, but maybe it'll make my comment nicer: Writing fiction's hard.

You want the truth, the second nicer comment. Yeah, I hate those, especially the part I bolded. You can comment on anything you like in my stories comment sections, the more detail the better. But please, never give me a simple sentence. I'm autistic, ergo I have no fucking clue what you mean if you just tell me "Write better".

Overall, I'm glad you gave my book a chance. I'm sorry if I couldn't hook you.

7956716
So you just going to casually ignore the many dark moments in the series, like when King Sombra mindcontrolled two entire countries, two separate times and kidnapped a baby. All kinds of dark implications could be assumed under your logic of "clops just happen in a world full of friendship and love"

7956888
It was JTHW's. I'll have a look at SWWC.

7956889
I said gore and grimdark. Not darker.

7956904
Sure, sure, none of those soldiers died gruesome and bloody death at Sombra's hoof. Do I need to remind you in one canon timeline Rainbow Dash had her wing ripped off.

7956909
The Cutie Re-Mark was a bad episode. I can’t respect it on principle.

Season 5+ writers also didn’t understand FiM prior canon due to not being required to familiarize themselves with earlier seasons. They basically made stuff up as they went without grasping FiM’s tone and lore, including the jarring tonal shift of Re-Mark.

Take this argument elsewhere. I’m not going to gum up the comments here by playing your game.

7956913
So you deny an episode existence on principles. I understand if you hate it, but the episode is real. All of it happened, ergo gore and grimdark exist in this series and I don't even need to go with the details in this episode. Sombra kidnapped Flurry Heart in Season 9, Chrysalis held Cadance hostage in Season 2. Which sections do you want to ignore next? The tantabus is an allegory of suicide. Tirek spends the entirety of season 4 ripping out the magic of millions of ponies, the equivalent of violating them in the most personal ways possible. Tempest literally had her horn ripped off, on-screen during the movie.

Do I need to keep going, because before I was giving you the easy shit to accept? I could listen dozens of darker, more gruesome stuff the series has done in general that even makes my books seem tame.

7956670

7956671

7956672
We'll, if I can offer my two cents... I think its important to note one really shouldn't really "want" to get off on gore or violent depictions of rape/pedo/dark power dynamics, but there is a school of thought where they use such things in therapy as a means of catharsis for victims of such sad occurences (thank you Japan for the manga industry.) Personally as long as matters are kept solely to the realms of ink and pen and not being indulged in obsessively, its a matter of taste and the law (with the noted exception of pedo stuff. Theres a whole world of worms in matter of ethics Id rather not address here, but thats the line for me.)

That said, I would also state I'm not all that into porn myself, or more specifically I don't purview such works for their intentions. To me, while I CAN appreciate the efforts of, say, hentai artists ink shading, the actual sex parts are... dull. I mean, takes Shakespearicles or Postmoderns work here. I might have myself a giggle with Some Leech and TheVclaw, but I don't actually put much thought into such works because such things don't warrant it. Shakespearicles however is attempting to actually write people engaged in a societal taboo (right or wrong, which is another debate. Alternatively, Postmodern writes about the relationship between a horse schlong chugging xenologist and her growing obsession and egging on of a herm Celestia and how they feed into the dual madness they are falling into.

Conversely, I have a similar thing with gore. Like Porn, Gore is cheap. Its meant to appeal to a base desire in mankind, either in horror or power fantasy, and most folks lean heavily on that. Its like the difference between, say, a film like A Clockwork Orange and A Serbian Film. Sure a Serbian Film is gross with vile concepts, but it makes me scoff where as Clockwork is generally disturbing because theres no humanity in a Serbian Film and nothing worth investing the energy of being disturbed about.

Another difference that leaps to mind between Crossed and Blood Meridian. Again, one just leaves you with ick, while the other makes you contemplate the state of man and your place in it.

I'd recommend Come and See. Its got sex, gore, and nazi death. Its got a whole of everything for mom, dad, the kids, and even Grandpa and the family gimp

7956915
I think an important distinction here is that there is a pretty big distinction between the levels of dark in the show and actual gory content. The show touches on some darker concepts, but it does it in much gentler and frequently indirect ways. You've used some colorful language to portray the events in MLP as much darker than they're presented in the show. Yes, you can read the tantabus as being an allegory to suicide, but in the show it's presented much more simply as a manifestation of guilt that takes on its own life and becomes a typical dangerous monster, more allegorical of self-recrimination and guilt, and the whole problem is easily resolved by the end of the night. You describe Tempest's horn being ripped off on-screen, but that's not true and is much more graphic than what actually happened: the camera cuts to black as the blow comes in, showing only the broken tip, but not the moment or immediate aftermath of the injury. There is no lingering detail of the injury itself. It's bloodless. It cuts to later when she's already recovered from the event itself. The whole thing is done in a simplified artistic style. It's the closest MLP gets to depicting the moment of a violent injury, and it's still about as clean and G-rated as you can make it. Other injuries don't even go that far; when Dash broke her wing, the most we see are some feathers poking out at weird angles and no visible wound. Even the bad-future Dash with the artificial wing at most implies some vague unknown injury to her wing. They're all about as far from gore as you can get.

I love that MLP will include the occasional dark element. It makes the world feel deeper, and it adds a real sense of conflict and risk. More importantly, it's a matter of tone: Equestria is a bright and optimistic setting, and it uses little bits of darkness to enhance that, but it never lingers on them. It doesn't do grimdark. The darkest we see are things like the glimpses of bad futures that end up being completely undone by the end of the next episode. Even Sombra's war on Equestria is a completely bloodless affair that's resolved by the end of the two-parter, with everyone back safe and sound. Sombra is the only exception, vaporized in a "blink and you'll miss it" brief shot of him turning back to shadow and dispersing. It's still a pretty G-rated death. So G-rated that we're not even sure if it's death, because he came back from a pretty similar "death" several seasons earlier. Hell, they're so G-rated that they won't even explicitly say a character is dead when they're doing a whole episode about a pair of ponies everyone watching knows are dead.

Surely you can see that this is a very different sort of tone from, say, showing someone being disemboweled, or impaled on a stake, or choking on their own blood, or having their limbs torn one-by-one from their body. It's a huge difference in tone from what the show has.

Meanwhile, it's not exactly a huge leap to go from "I like you" to "No, I really like you." It's certainly different from the show, but it's at least different in the same direction. It's easy to imagine that these characters would actually have sex, especially when the show has ponies like Little Cheese.

Both are, obviously, going to have a smaller audience, but it's not surprising that porn would have a larger audience than gore.

7957200

I think an important distinction here is that there is a pretty big distinction between the levels of dark in the show and actual gory content. The show touches on some darker concepts,

You could say the same damn thing about cloping. We don't see any characters fornicating in the show. The closest we get to child birth is two moments in the entity of nine seasons. Remind you, that literally one gen back, Gen 3.5 had Sweetie Belle birthed out of a pair of rainbows so assuming Gen 4 just has a bunch of ponies banging off-screen is a greater stretch then a literal on screen moment of a removed limb.

You've used some colorful language to portray the events

No, actual moments that happened. Do I need to provide time codes to each episode when they happened or are you that desperate to ignore the canon of the show.

Tempest's horn being ripped off on-screen, but that's not true and is much more graphic than what actually happened: the camera cuts to black as the blow comes in, showing only the broken tip,

How the fuck is that NOT SHOWING IT ON SCREEN.. You literally say it happen in your own sentence.

It's bloodless

G rated Gore is still gore. G rating kiss is NOT PORN.

some feathers poking out at weird angles and no visible wound.

Sound pretty damn graphic to me. Didn't Invincible Season 2 Finale show the mother's arm "poking out at weird angles" Rainbow Dash is literally in a FULL BODY cast afterward, ergo they are treating it like ACTAUL LIFE THREATING wounds.

Equestria is a bright and optimistic setting,

My logic: Add some blood.

Other writers: IT NEEDS PORN!!

Sombra's war on Equestria is a completely bloodless affair

So... we are just going ignore him kidnapping a literal baby kidnapping on screen, millions of mind control soldiers that the main six needed to defeat, and ACTAUL MURDER of the Tree of Harmony, ON SCREEN.

Sombra is the only exception, vaporized in a "blink and you'll miss it" brief shot of him turning back to shadow and dispersing. It's still a pretty G-rated death. So G-rated that we're not even sure if it's death, because he came back from a pretty similar "death" several seasons earlier.

Back to my previous comment: G rated Gore is still gore. G rating kiss is NOT PORN.

I'm not going to argue with your denial of the show's darker shit. I'm just concerned that you're instead, perfectly fine justifying PORN of a literal KIDS SHOW. Say my ideas are stupid all you want, but the moment you say PORN of a kid's show is somehow better?! That's when you've lost me.

7957209

No, actual moments that happened. Do I need to provide time codes to each episode when they happened or are you that desperate to ignore the canon of the show.

I'm well aware of the events you're describing. I'm saying you're using intentionally evocative language to make those events sound darker than they were presented in the show, that's all.

So... we are just going ignore him kidnapping a literal baby kidnapping on screen, millions of mind control soldiers that the main six needed to defeat, and ACTAUL MURDER of the Tree of Harmony, ON SCREEN.

All of which is, as I said, completely bloodless.

G rated Gore is still gore

"Gore" is the gruesome depiction of wounds or blood. There are no gruesome depictions of wounds or blood in MLP. Thus, there is no gore in MLP. You can do G-rated injuries, but that's not gore any more than a pony giving someone a peck on the cheek is porn.

I'm just concerned that you're instead, perfectly fine justifying PORN of a literal KIDS SHOW.

...You've written multiple porn stories of that same kids' show...

Say my ideas are stupid all you want, but the moment you say PORN of a kid's show is somehow better?!

I never said either of those things, and I challenge you to quote where I did.

I get that this is something that you feel strongly about, but maybe calm down a bit. I'm not saying your stupid or that your ideas are stupid. I'm just disagreeing with you and explaining my reasoning why.

7957254
Those porn line were aimed at the general group

...You've written multiple porn stories of that same kids' show...

Only started those this year, check the dates... Outside of those I wrote a zombie porn piece and a drunk piece many years ago. Other than, not much of anything porn related out of a single scene in one of my large gore fics

Oh, after ten solid years of preferring gore over porn, and now I get featured. Thus proving my point this fandom is built on perverts. I hate writing smut, but it lands me on the top of a bunch of perverts. Is it worth it? I don't know, but this is the trench these weirdos built around me. How can I climb out without committing the same deeds?

I hate writing this stuff, always have. But when you all call my other ideas stupid, how can I survive?

7957325

how can I survive?

Tried writing comedies full of sunshine and happy thoughts?
A jolly disposition filled with laughter will probably attract less "weirdos" to your stories.

7957325

What 7957352 said. I've yet to write a single outright porn story and most of my stories are "E" and "T" rated comedies, and yet a little over half of my (90) stories have been featured at some point, though it was a relatively rare event for my first 25-ish stories before it started becoming more frequent.

7957393

25-ish

Oh, look I'm at 27 stories and it took ten years to get there. Are you saying I need to write faster to get featured? Because that's some crazy logic. More so when you're gauging solely on the E&T Versus M rating. M is not exclusive porn. At the same time, the featured stories changed based on whether you have the M setting on or not. Featured E-rated stories can easily be at the bottom of trending the moment you turn on the M settings. This is why you aren't told when you're featuring, you just have to discover it yourself by randomly stumbling upon it on the front page.

7957352

But both of you are forgetting the point of the thread here. It's not about writing the cleanest thing that will get featured, rather this conversation is why the porn gets more favored over gore. I could write the cleanest and happiest thing ever that is sure to get featured no matter what? Then I cover it in blood and suddenly, it's dogshit in the eyes of this fandom, yet take the product(Even after smearing it with blood) inject it with porn and suddenly, not only is it back on the featured, it could easily claim the top of featured for far longer than it could have before the gore or the just plain happiness.

7957435

you aren't told when you're featuring

Yes you are told.
https://www.fimfiction.net/bookshelf/1/featured?q=%22Lighttone+GryphonStar%22

Mate, I don't want to take you down, but here is the idea: you can either write for popularity, or you can write what you like. If those two don't line up, because you prefer creating more violent stories instead of smut, that's fine, but accept you will inherently have a smaller audience. This fandom was always full of horny fucks, I bet even many of those holier-than-thou people clopped sometimes who argued against porn on shitty sites like Equestria Daily and the sort.
Or you can give up your artistic integrity, and go the route of featuremaxxing. Write light smut with anon, many one-shots, and you can gain 500+ followers in less than a year. A certain user on this site got more than a thousand, and only been here for two years. I don't think I need to introduce him.
You can't argue people into liking a gore-heavy story, even if it's much better written than some clop piece if they came for the clop. 80% of the current Fimfic audience is made up of people only looking for self-insert wish-fulfillment wankery. 50% of those people don't even care about the ponies, they could be substituted with female characters from any moe anime, but the pony fandom still happen to get the largest amount of fanfics out of any online fandom. Hence they come here, and not Fanfiction.net.

7957446
No, you still have to discover this. My case was proven when I didn't know that other story was ever featured period. Legit, that one came out nearly a month early and I had no clue. Because I wasn't told ever. Instead, like you I had to be shown through a search bar, not told by the site itself.

7957446
Yes, thank you for telling me it was, because that was wracking my brain for the longest time too, that one sits at a far higher rating I was curious, but never had a clue on how to check, especially when the story was no longer even on the front page.

7957448

you can either write for popularity, or you can write what you like. If those two don't line up, because you prefer creating more violent stories instead of smut, that's fine, but accept you will inherently have a smaller audience.

No, I completely agree with your logic, I just find it sad this fandom is fine with the state of things now, justifying porn over gore when they're writing stuff on a kid's show. Both sides would be hated and even considered outright wrong in the face of the real audience. Yet, my side is somehow the worst of the two.

I never wanted to make this thread to justify gore in a literal kids' show. Yet, their side is somehow better purely because they think it perfectly fine justify porn in it AKA. "Oh, these characters are talking about friendship, there is nothing dark in that but they must be fucking damn good off screen."

7957460

but they must be fucking damn good off screen

That much is true that sex is more an inherent part of life than maiming sapient creatures. Now we could argue how much that justifies the existence of THIS much smut in the fandom, but it's how things are. If we ignore ponies for a moment, we can see that PornHub is more popular than LiveLeaks, for example (or the equivalent, as LiveLeaks is kill). Sex just sells, that's it, more so than casual violence.

7957325

Oh, after ten solid years of preferring gore over porn, and now I get featured.

Gore is a very niche interest, especially in a community based on a show that is generally bright and optimistic. Of course a gore story is going to get less interest. It doesn't have nearly as much of an audience. Such a story is naturally going to have a much harder time getting featured. What I've been trying to say is that this doesn't mean it's worse, just that it has less broad appeal. It's only worse if your only valuation of your work is whether it's popular, but I think that's a poor way of judging a story. Every story here is already niche by way of being MLP fanfiction, and will naturally have a smaller audience than general fiction will.

Most of the people here aren't passing judgment on whether porn or gore is more "justified" in the setting or whether it's "wrong" to write it. We're explaining why one is more popular, and in particular, why someone who was interested in the setting might find it easier to enjoy one than the other. Heck, I've written a gore-tagged story myself.

Though I should point out, if your main goal is to get featured, porn isn't it, either. For all the talk of porn dominating here, porn stories are dead-average for chances of being featured (around 15% of porn stories get featured, which is the overall average). The high scorers are slice-of-life and comedy stories, with teen or everyone rating (all at a bit over 20%). On top of that, gore stories still get featured, just at about half the rate of average (about 7%), and that's still above well-known tags like tragedy, horror, mystery, and thriller.

7957435

Oh, look I'm at 27 stories and it took ten years to get there. Are you saying I need to write faster to get featured? Because that's some crazy logic.

No, I was basically saying you could write more stuff besides porn or gore-y stories (i.e. non-"M" rated comedies, and on a side note, the "anthro" tag can make it harder to get views) if you want to get featured or "survive", and my comment was based off this part of one of your comments.

I hate writing this stuff, always have. But when you all call my other ideas stupid, how can I survive?

But as for why porn may get more action over gore, if it's true, then it goes back to a saying I've heard of that is "sex sells", which isn't even unique to this fandom--far from it. Not to mention, as one of the things 7957475 pointed out, gore, especially "M" rated gore, is, like it or not, a more or less niche interest here, possibly due to the overall bright theme of the show even with the occasional darker elements here and there.

But if it makes you feel better, I've seen quite a few people also not like the smut stuff, and I usually stay away from it too.

7956915
One can, either as a fan or a fanfic author, freely disregard any episode or even season; hell, for most of the fandom's existence, people have been disregarding the events of Mare Do Well. Nobody can force another to accept the events of an episode they don't like, just like you can't force people to like M-rated gorefests.

You are using the most controversial episode of the most controversial season (other than maybe season 9), to argue why people 'have' to accept your stories. NOBODY is disagreeing that the show has its dark moments, but DARK IS NOT GORE.

Get this through your head, MOST PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO READ GOREFICS, THEY DO NOT NEED TO JUSTIFY THEIR DISLIKE OF THOSE FICS, AND NOTHING YOU DO CAN CONVINCE THEM TO CHANGE THAT.

Gore is, and always will be, a niche interest.

Okay, since the last comments are just repeating the same thing over and over without any expansion. I'm going to have the Admins lock this.

Since it's being requested by the threadstarter...

--Sweetie Belle