309851
Essentially this. A lot of the reasons that have to do as to why we haven't set up a base on the moon is lack of funding and the technology necessary to do that. The US has retired the Shuttle Program but it doesn't mean that it has lost interest in space exploration. If there is anyone who has no interest in expanding out to space is a luddite, plain and simple, and today's generations, surrounded by technology, are no luddites.

Besides the links that you've provided mostly concern the US of A, not the rest of the world. If our governments don't get their space program moving along, there is growing interest from the private sector to work on space travel. There is a number of spaceports in the US alone.

Space commercialization will likely be one of the big pushes to propel our space programs forward.

306129 Why are you and chatoyance not locked up. you lunatics and your crazy ideas have traumatized my brother and I will not have that.

312329
Nobody cares about your brother, get over yourself.

Contrary to popular belief the world does not revolve around your family and quite frankly I'm getting sick of your attitude and blatant disregard for the rules. I Don't care that your brother is traumatized, you don't insult the author directly for some imagined/delusional slight.

312329

I'm sorry, but if your brother got traumatized from some shitty stories on the internet, he probably should get off this site for fear of an aneurysm. Instead of talking about how this affected your brother, go in-depth; talk about the stories, specific ones, and detail exactly what you find wrong with them. That's the best method for showing what you believe is wrong with these stories.

312329
NoMoreInasity is right, tell us why her stories are bad and what you dislike about them instead of just whining about your brother.

312329

Woah there. It's just a story. One I disagree with, and one I think is rather idiotic (For reasons listed), but you should lay down an argument as to why you dislike the stories other than just sprouting thing we don't know are true about family members. I'd rather this forum be devoted to honestly intelligent conversation rather than devolving into name calling and other such activities. List a coherent argument as to why you dislike the universe. Don't just say someone's crazy.

312365

Harsh words from someone who corroborated on another thread labeling an author on this site as clinically insane...

312391
True, true, the irony was not lost on me when I made the post. But I am a troll and therefore hypocritical by nature.

312393

Well, at least you admit it.

Yeah, and I just started reading Aftermath, and it comes off as one of the most disgusting pieces of racist humanity-hating garbage possible, and I don't think I'm even halfway through it yet. The human character is depicted as being incapable of anything but rage and hate and every pony there is a Goddamned saint.

I say this not as an attack, but as my immediate gut reaction to the first third of Ten Minutes: Aftermath

What kind of drugs exist that even makes a story like this possible? What kind of human being can write something like this and actually seem to believe it's appropriate? I write about stuff that's completely off the wall....I am known and hated on many a MU*.....and frankly, I think that when she writes these kinds of things, she's got to be taking some kind of narcotic. Who in their right mind thinks these kind of things?!

Seriously, and I mean this, this is the kind of thinking that leads to cults who engage in mass suicide. She advocates the destruction of humanity in such a way that it makes me honestly worry for our
existence as a species because we have someone like her in our collective genepool. How can she write a story where something like this happens and call it 'a transformation into pure joy'?

Not only did the original author of Ten Minutes not have a clue this had even been made (and by his own statement did NOT agree to it), but she basically makes me more embarrassed than I've ever been to admit to liking FiM. Seriously, this story makes KAREN TRAVISS look like a reasonable author, and if you know the Star Wars expanded universe, and the loathing she's generated there...well, let me put it this way. When someone can actually make Karen Traviss seem reasonable and well written with her 'Jedi are bastards, Mandalorians are saints' rants disguised as books...well, it should tell you just how wrong this person's stories are. Frankly, I am utterly disgusted with this stuff.

Quite frankly, this woman frightens me....and bear in mind, I LAUGH at horror movies. I think Cupcakes is ridiculously overrated and find it funny as hell because of how out of character it is and how over the top and pointless the violence is. You read that right. I think Cupcakes is FUNNY. What does that tell you about me that I find one of the most reviled fanfics in the fandom hilarious, and yet this woman scares me?

As a minor note: I am not embarrassed to admit to being a fan of FiM, under normal circumstances. But then I see stuff like what she's written where our own species are dpecited as nothing more than mindless savages pretendng at civilization while ponies are incorruptibly pure pureness who can do no wrong despite this not even being accurate in the official canon. I look at her work and I shudder to admit to being a fan of the show because she's part of what I would consider the lunatic fringe of the fandom given the way she writes humand in TCB stories. She takes everything wrong to me about the idea of the Conversion Bureau and magnifies it several times over, and tries to pass it off as her doing stories where the 'good guys' win, when said 'good guys' are actually genocidal monsters who are so far from canon it's ridiculous.

I'll say it again. She gives me the fucking CREEPS

319827 I agree, my solution is to ponify all the asshats in this world. Let good people like us, stay human and exist in Equestria alongside the ponies. That would scare off crime.

319837

Scare it off, or make it kill itself?

319839 Shrivel up and die.

319842

Sounds like fun.

319844 Maybe we could work together on a story like that ?

319845

Maybe. I'm a bit swamped at the moment with my novels and my own fanfics, but I think we might be able to try to work something out for the future.

319827, you're free to express you opinions and your feelings about an author's work and them AS AN AUTHOR. I'll let this one slide because it's about how you feel but in the future, tone down the attacks on the author as a person.

Do the TCB Authors actually consider the 2. Season, because i heard they dont recognize it as canon or so.

319827
Hey. Traviss is awesome. You best shut your mouth.

319987

Sorry Velkaden. As I said, I wasn't intending it as an attack. I was just trying to get my feelings out about the problems I had with her as an author. If it came off like an attack, I apologize.

320038

Ehhhh, Traviss is ok with some of her books, but some of them are terrible. I really dislike her Halo extended canon book, mainly because it demonizes characters who were the heroes for the past 7 novels, but hey, it's your opinion man.

319987

I agree with this sentiment. I'd rather we have an intelligent dissertation of the themes and ideas behind these stories, and not the authors.

320411
I've only read her books from that one series where... Jaina Solo's brother turns bad and the Republic Commando books.

I was never into Halo for the books, so I've stayed away from those.

ANYWAY, back to the topic...
Actually I only jumped in here about Traviss...

320022

An interesting question. One I really wouldn't know how to answer, as I haven't read too many TCB fics yet, and as such can only really say that my own anti-CB fic WILL take season 2 into account.

320022
Because S2 completely invalidates the whole idea that ponies are saints and humans are scum, the basis of TCB (although, it's rumored that all Blaze wanted to do was explain why humans are gone but everything is designed for humans). In S2, ponies ponies beat the shit out of each other. They lie, they steal, they deceive, anything that a 6 year old girls' show can possibly get away with.

Honestly, the only difference between ponies and humans is that they had an immortal ruler who knew what she was doing. Human didn't. Also, they're herd animals, so they're more self-sacrificing than predators (us) who tend to only out for themselves/family/tribe.

320827

Even in the first season, the ponies are no saints, come to think of it. The very existence of Nightmare Moon blows the idea of ponies as saints out of the water. Let alone some of the other stuff they get up to.

320827
I thought so...

This pic summarises it pretty much

321409

Agreed. She was an emotional shut-in at first by all accounts given the comments we hear from both one of the Unicorns seen in the first few minutes of the pilot and her own comments during the pilot while on the way to Ponyville. While she certainly has gotten better about it over the course of the last two seasons, she hasn't completely overcome it.

Hell, Boast Busters alone invalidates all the 'ponies are good and no conflict' BS. I love Trixie, she's my favorite character, but even I know she acted like a jerk to Snips and Snails. Not to mention 'magic schmagic, boo!' from Dash, one of the Elements of Harmony! Not very harmonious, Dashie!

319837

"my solution is to ponify all the asshats in this world."

That is terrifying. I'm surprised nobody else mentioned how messed up that entire idea is.

Especially since that is exactly she believes in doing, except that she is convinced that everyone is an "asshat". If you seriously advocate brainwashing (at best) people simply because you find them to be less friendly, kind, or pleasant to be around than you would want them to be...

Of course, it is entirely possible that you were being less than serious and it went over my head completely. If that is the case, please ignore all of the above.

321607

I think her explanation for that was something about those ponies being tainted by humanity, that all "asshole" ponies in FiM were descendants of the first human Celestia met and ponified... Of course, I have only read summaries of the fic in question since I cannot bring myself to actually read her stories without feeling nauseous, so I may be mistaken.

321409
321416
...I got nothing. The Twilight Sparkle social shut-in thing seems to have been completely ignored in TCB as far as I know. That is an excellent point.

321682 I didn't mean it seriously. Just throwing that idea out, ponify all the terrorists, criminals, dictators. Let the rest of the populace live, of course Celestia is too busy to know that not all of humanity is evil, because she has millions of multi-color slaves kissing her arse.

On the subject of her (assuming we are speaking of JDR and not TCB!Celestia), you folks may want to check out the conversation going on on page 2 of the comments for Ten Minutes: Aftermath. Feel free to let me know what you think of the discussion/debate I'm actually having with her. It has taken a very strange turn, as she's now trying to claim Aftermath is intended as a religious thing meant to parallel Christianity. I would LOVE to hear what you folks think of my response to her about it.

321754

Fair enough. I was pointing it out because I was curious as to whether or not my reaction to the new 'religious' spin she's putting on it brings up any new thoughts on the Bureau universe in general. She is, sadly, the most prolific author in this universe, or so it would seem, and hearing this new spin she's put on it makes me wonder if it would have any affect on how people regard the TCB universe in general. From my perspective, it takes the TCB concept from morally disturbing to downright frightening, given this new spin since, if we look at the TCB universe in the trappings of Christianity, it becomes almost like a demented spin on the Inquisition, especially when one looks at the PER. Does this mean Celestia is the Vatican? If so, what does that do to the TCB concept as a whole, when the Vatican had a hand in at least one incarnation of the Inquisition directly, and gave approval, however tacit, to the others before and after?

321691, seriously? That's the definition of cruel and unusual punishment. You're not just dead; you're dead and resurrected as a lobotomized slave. That's stooping down to <TCB>Celestia's level.

321710, bring the comments over here and maybe we can join the debate.

As for your comments; you bring up a good point. And JDR's response just validates what I thought about her TCB-verse; that it's essentially a exhortation to kill or convert the "non-believers" dressed up in a pretty equinoid package.

I am extremely glad that this is all fictional and that ponification isn't physically possible. With the way some TCB fans behave; I honestly could see them trying to reenact their favorite TCB stories but for real.

321789 Sure I can do that. Did you want the entire conversation up to and including these, or just the religious related stuff, which is currently going on now, and she's just posted a response to my reaction to her religious spin?

Related: anyone play Mass Effect 2? And if so, what was your choice in Legion's loyalty mission and why?

321805

The whole thing if possible.

321846, I'm curious does this loyalty mission have a religious bent to it?

321860

I can do that. Uh, do I just cut and paste, or is there a way to transfer the comments or what? I don't know too much about the ins and outs of this site.

Cut and paste.

Use [quotes] [/ quotes] - no space between / and q for

this

321865

I got into a debate with her in the same comment section. Well, really I just asked why she was censoring (that is, deleting the comment of) someone who pointed out a mistake she had made. I asked this repeatedly, and she became increasingly petty and childish in her responses (and avoided and later refused to answer the question). She then deleted both her posts and mine and then made a large post about how she doesn't mind arguments and discussion as long as everyone is nice and mature about it...

Fortunately, I took screenshots.

Point is, the current debate is happeing in her comment thread, and she can just delete opposing arguments at will if she is losing. Posting the entire argument as it develops here should work around that little... problem.

EDIT:
321860
The mission involves dealing with a faction of synthetic (A.I.), SAPIENT race known as the Geth that is currently hostile to you. You board their station (along with a friendly member of said race, Legion) and make your way to the control room or whatever. Once there you are given a choice: Destroy the hostile geth or reprogram them so that they are now on your side. You originally intended to destroy them, but the reprogram option became available because THEY created the virus and intended to use it on the friendly Geth.

Certain squadmates will point out the ethical problems involved in the situation. Samara in particular has an excellent argument.
Interesting, Legion itself seems to be okay with the brainwashing. Geth morality is... different from organic morality.

321860
Sort of , but not really. It's a choice between brainwashing a splinter (called heretics, and emotionally and religiously-laden term, which leads to a theme of "is synthetic life really alive?") group of AI called geth, or outright destroying them using a virus. It may seem obvious that it's better to destroy them as brainwashing would make us no better than TCB ponies, they are computer programs and you can't apply our morality to them, as stated by your geth companion, Legion. If you kill them, you lose potential war assets. If you brainwash them, you go through the morality of it (at least killing is black and white) and they join your side.

I brainwashed them because they were going to die either way, so I might as well utilize their 'man'power and because after they tried to aid the Reapers (sapient spaceships intent on killing all organics) I lost all my sympathy for them; they didn't deserve a proper 'death'. It's war, and I don't plan on losing.

Look "Legion loyalty mission walkthrough" up on Youtube.

321896
321860

I forgot to mention in my comment... I brainwashed them, something I now regret doing (both for ethical/moral reasons and for the fact that in ME3 they went to war with the Quarians ANYWAY).

Damn my weakness for the Paragon/Renegade marks. I think it was a huge mistake to make one decision Paragon (brainwashing) and the other Renegade (Kill them). Brainwashing doesn't sound like a Paragon thing to do to me.

As I said earlier, some squad members have some interesting thoughts on the situation, as seen in the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_QmG57VwZs

321889

I'd love to see those. Okay. I'm going to post these...and watch out. Long as post is long ass here. It starts with her replying to a comment that I responded to in turn, and it goes from there. There's also some dude name Darius in here cause he decided to throw in his two bits. Needs two posts to get all the way through this, I'm afraid, so let me apologize in advance for double posting.

Chatoyance:

>> King Rhaegas Targaryen
No one should be 'calling' me on anything. There is no need for anyone to be 'called' on anything, ever.

There should be love and tolerance.

I write the stories that make me happy, that make me feel glad, hopeful, cheerful, and which give me the illusion of Something Better. I know they are just silly, ridiculous stories. But my stories make me happy, and make me feel joy inside at the vision of a better, kinder, more beautiful world.

There is no need to 'correct' anything or anyone.

I am sorry if you don't enjoy my stories as much as others do. That's all there is to it.

Me:

>>Chatoyance
> No one should be 'calling' me on anything. There is no need for anyone to be 'called' on anything, ever.

Actually...they should be called on things and so should you. That's the whole point of reviewing a fic and leaving a critique for it.

If you write stories solely to make yourself happy, your best bet is not to post them on the internet. Otherwise you get two pages worth of people explaining to you what they don't like about your stories, and you pretty much going 'well I write them for myself so I don't care what you think about them.' There is a reason why people are upset at you, Chatoyance, and in this post you have underscored it and yet you don't seem to even understand that you have.

You act like we should agree with you instead of trying to point out our own views on the story, presumably with the intention of getting a discussion going where people exchange ideas and points of view instead of automatically having you decry every point of view but your own if it's not in complete agreement with your views. If you don't want reviews, or comments, or to get in flame wars, honestly, your best bet is to keep the things to yourself because otherwise....well, do I really have to point out the last two pages again?

If you're going to post things on the internet on a website like this, you need two things: 1. Really thick skin to deal with the response from readers since in this day and age, a website like this can and will provide the means to produce instant feedback. 2. The common sense to realize that people are GOING to take issue with things if they see issues there. And if you plan to respond to those issues they raise...well, it would be a lot smarter to try to see things from the point of view of the readers who are trying to tell you something instead of just saying only your point of view matters. If you really believed that...you wouldn't have put this fic up on a site where other people's views on a fic can be expressed.

Of course, if you really believe that your view is the only one that matters...why even respond to the reviews and critiques left by readers? Why should you care? After all, their opinions don't matter. All that matters is that you're happy, right? Aren't those your words?

>I write the stories that make me happy, that make me feel glad, hopeful, cheerful, and which give me the illusion of Something Better. I know they are just silly, ridiculous stories. But my stories make me happy, and make me feel joy inside at the vision of a better, kinder, more beautiful world.

There is no need to 'correct' anything or anyone.

So then I have to ask....why the hell are you even HERE?

Chatoyance:

>> Warwolf
Perhaps I need to be more clear, more precise.

Discussion, polite and reasoned, is welcome and good.

Rabid, meanspirited, attacking rudeness is not welcome and not good.

I and my works are not here to be 'fixed' or 'corrected', and I am definitely not here to be attacked. Which is what has happened, to the point of death threats against me. No. That is very, very wrong, period.

If people want to discuss issues politely, with kindness and with respect, that is fine. Let us explore our different views constructively.

But when it turns into "I want to kill you" or "You are a misanthropic bitch" or "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!" then the discussion is over. It isn't even a discussion. It is just bullshit trolling.

I am here to write stories and share them with decent people capable of reason and decorum. I am not here to be attacked by foul-mouthed children with no life experience and the manners of a pack of wild dogs.

I stand by the statement - there is no reason to 'call' anyone on anything, because there is no person here whose judgement over me I recognize in the least. 'Calling out someone' is a judgmental attack that assumes moral or ethical superiority. It is childish and reeks of entitlement. I am not here for that.

Does someone have something useful to say about writing technique, or character progression, or narrative structure? I am all ears. Does someone have a unique view on how the story could have progressed, or an avenue that might have been explored or what they found powerful, or what they felt could have been done more with? Excellent subjects.

But if you look above, at the comments posted, you will find very little of that. You will find childish attacks and the message "We don't like this, you should not have written this, you are a nazi misanthropic poo-poo head." which is utterly inappropriate.

I am here for the decent people. I am here for the people that know how to behave well around others.

I am here for something better than the usual internet, filtered by something we should all have in common - a love of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, where the basic premise is FRIENDSHIP.

There is no friendship in death threats, attacks of character, and foul words.

I am here for the friendship. Not abuse. I am here for mature and decent sharing of written works. I am not here to be trolled by brats thirty years my junior.

I hope this explains my meaning more clearly.

There is no need for anyone to be 'called' on anything, ever. I repeat that, and I mean it. Nothing needs to be 'fixed', and no person, no writer, needs to be chastised or shouted at or picked on or attacked. Ever. Not ever. Not for any reason.

And should we do such a thing, we should regret it, apologize if possible, and strive not to do it again. We should definitely stop doing it immediately. All of us.

Me:

>>Chatoyance

... So by your reasoning, people who are being published professionally should never have anyone help them by working as an editor or pointing out where an idea is bad, where it can be improved, and where it should be rethought entirely.

Honestly, that's the problem I have with what you just said. I have read this entire two pages worth of comments, and I can tell you here and now things did not start out the way you claim. While the comments about the fic itself were negative, they did not start becoming a situation where the commentators lashed out at you until you replied with comments that, so far as I can tell were largely sarcastic, snarky, and generally trollish, claiming that anyone who didn't like the fic didn't 'get' the fic, and in general saying their opinions didn't matter because they weren't what you wanted to hear, at which point things pretty much went the way of a hand grenade tossed into a well. Again, this is not an attack. This is my opinion based on the things I have seen on the past two pages worth of comments. In other words, opinions based on the facts as I see them.

Bear in mind, Chatoyance, you have less than twenty years on me if that. Calling people 'brats' because they do not bow down and claim your fic is the greatest thing since sliced bread while praising anyone who claims you've done absolutely nothing wrong is, in fact, far more the act of a troll than the so-called 'brats' you claim are trolling you.

Another problem I have is that the fic premise itself, neither the original, nor, from what I can tell your own works, has nothing to do with friendship. Friendship is a state of give and take. The fact is, if ponies had a way to make humans immune to the radiation to begin with, which they obviously either did or could have easy created since they have the ability to physically alter the bodies and minds of those who are converted, and they instead say 'you have to be what we want or else you need to die...' well, to me, that isn't friendship. That's a bully. That's a dictator. That is, in fact, the exact opposite of the message of the show which the fics on this website are based on. Now make no mistake of it. My own fics tend to be very violent, very action filled, and largely intended to be epic 'hero' stories. But that's because we have seen that on the show.

We have seen the ponies befriend dragons and griffons. We have seen them in conflict with other races such as the Diamond Dogs, the Changelings, the Draconequuis (of which Discord may be the solitary member of that species), and the aforementioned dragons and griffons, as well as various other creatures of mythology. We know that there is a version of HELL in Equestria due to the existence of Tartarus, Cerebus, and the fact that evil is acknowledged to exist within their world. Evil which in fact has to be acknowledged and has to exist because if it doesn't, how would they KNOW it in other races? The way you describe Equestria— which defies even the pilot episodes, nevermind the rest of in-show canon— depicts it as a paradise that would mean that they wouldn't know evil, greed, anger, hatred, etc. if it came up and bit any of them on the ass. They wouldn't be ABLE to see humans as anything but a species that they should endeavor to protect AS THEY ARE because they wouldn't be able to see any of the things you claim the humans in your fics are, or for that matter any of the anti-human takes on the species in the TCB universe. Without evil, there cannot be good. Without darkness, nobody would appreciate the light, but not everything is black and white. In fact, nothing is in real life, or even in most pieces of fiction. There are shades of grey, sure. But most TCB fics, including this one, come off as ridiculously black and white where ponies=perfect in every way and humans who don't believe Celestia is incorruptible pure pureness and all-powerful= rat bastards who should all die because they aren't willing to be ponies.

Every species strives to better itself every day Chatoyance. Every person strives to be a bit more than they were the day before. You ignore that about humanity in this story, and from all accounts, most pro-ponies writers in the CB subgenre of fics do as well. People have tried to point this out to you politely. In these two pages worth of comments no less, and you've first trolled or deleted their comments claiming them to be abusive or childish, and then stood agape when people whom you've seemingly gone out of your way to upset respond with anger based on your comments or actions.

In many ways, Chatoyance, your actions in response to the initially polite comments on this fic and the problems as they saw them, are responsible for the way they have responded to that, and in turn, perfectly illustrate the issues they have with the concept as you write it. You generally come off as saying that any view that does not expressly agree with what you think is attacking you, or is misinformed, or simply posted by someone who doesn't 'get' what you're trying to say. This after you say that you want discussion and opposing viewpoints. The fact is, you don't get what other people are trying to tell you, and forgive me if this seems rude, but frankly it honestly feels to me like you do this deliberately to get a rise out of people so you can use their angry responses to the things you've done to rile them up as a way to justify yourself and your beliefs. The very definition of trolling by internet standards.

I will leave you with this thought.

If there was no reason to call anyone on a bad fic, we would all be a very happy little group of readers. But sadly, the world is not perfect, and neither is anything anyone writes. You must learn to understand that people aren't going to be out to get you as a writer unless you give them a reason to. You have given them reason to in your comments towards people, but seem to think it's their fault that they get angry at you for not listening to them when they're trying to BE polite which leaves them little recourse but to allow their emotions to have a greater say in the things they post.

Make no mistake, I do see this as a bad fic. It is distinctly anti-human, which is at it's core, the very definition of misandry. A hatred of mankind. The ponies do not act in a manner evoking the concept of 'Friendship is magic'. They are literally saying in most TCB fics, this one included: 'you have to be what we think is best or else you have to die'. They have the ability to produce a serum that would leave humans intact and whole. Without changing anything about them. And instead they force a change on humanity they have not done on Diamond Dogs, Phoenixes, dragons, or anything else we've seen to exist in their world. Instead, they produce a serum that forces a physiological and psychological change on mankind, not caring about the moral implications of this.

And before you say anything about Celestia being a God, let me point out, the reason why the ancient pantheons remain such popular myths is because the Gods were relatable. They may have had divine power, but they also had flaws. Even Zeus, king of the Greek Pantheon, had his flaws. Odin may be the All-Father of the Aesir, but he's not invincible. Thor was basically the Norse's version of Superman long before such a concept existed. He was the ultimate Viking hero as a God, and even he had parts of his legend that could show a way for people to relate to him.

Celestia is the same way. If she was all powerful, there would never have been a Nightmare Moon. There would be no reason for the Elements of Harmony to exist. She would have existed prior to the founding of Equestria and Discord would never have been an issue, let alone a force canonically shown to be stronger than her. She has flaws. She isn't all knowing and she certainly isn't all powerful. She is relatable, to some extent, in the show because she isn't a perfect being. She is very powerful, yes. She is exceedingly long-lived, no question. But all-powerful and all-knowing? Sorry, no. I understand that's what you want her to be, but in making her that way, you essentially remove any ability to like or respect her in your fic because she just comes across as a mind-raping, heavy-handed bully who instead of fixing a problem, gives humankind a truly sadistic choice: Give up every part of what makes that person an individual, or die.

Something I want you to think about, Chatoyance. And I mean think about it. Don't simply block it out because it doesn't fit with what you want. I am trying to give you fair and reasonable criticism. It's up to you as a writer to either respect that attempt or not. But don't disregard what people say and then act like you're the reasonable one if you do so. If people try to give you critique and you ignore it, or worse, belittle it because it doesn't conform to what you want, then you actually justify the anger that results from such actions.

In other words, you have sown what you reaped by ignoring other people's concerns and points of view. Simple as that.

Darius:

>> Warwolf

Good job not stopping immediately man, we all appreciate it...

Let's ignore the death threats and nonsuch and make her feel worse, why don't cha...

Me:

>> Darius

If I might take a moment, I would like to paraphrase Omega Supreme:

SARCASM: UNAPPRECIATED.

If you have a problem with the points I have made in regard to why people become that riled up that they feel the need to make such comments, by all means, please enlighten me as to why. If you have a problem with my own views, again, feel free to enlighten me as to why. I have stated my opinion plainly and honestly, and did so with as much respect as possible.

And by the way...where exactly are these so-called death threats anyway? I certainly didn't see any on here.

Chatoyance:

>> Warwolf
That has been dealt with, and those responsible perma-banned. The fuss over my stories boiled over into stalking and crazy. Hopefully, that part is over forever.

Let us all act kindly towards each other, without harshness or the need to change anyone or anything. Let's simply enjoy our ability to craft fantasies together and celebrate each others unique outlooks.

Me:

>> Chatoyance

Ah, well, if such a thing was genuinely happening, then I'm glad that matter's been resolved.

As for not needing to change anyone or anything....change is usually a good thing. It's how we become better people. And while I have no problem with people enjoying their own and others fantasies, I do recommend being a bit more open to the fact that other people may not necessarily like what they see. Again, reasoned discussion can be a good thing, especially if it helps writers to be better at their craft. God knows I sucked years ago when I started out, and I like to think I've gotten better at it. You have a lot of skill as a writer, but I don't know that your general attitude towards legitimate criticism of this story really reflects that talent. As a writer in this kind of forum, you need to take into account why people might not like something you write about, and consider that they might well be right. Even if you don't change what you write, belittling legitimate criticism certainly doesn't help your cause when dealing with readers who end up forming their opinions of your work based on a great deal of heavy handed anti-human sentiment. Again, this has been the largest problem people have had with this work, myself included. And even now, you're not really acknowledging anything these people, nor myself, have said. Your general response has been 'well nobody ever needs to change and that's that'. This, I feel, is not a healthy attitude to have.

Let me put it another way. If you think people are so bad, and you claim you are so unhappy, why are you not taking the time to make yourself a better person instead of writing things that make other people unhappy with the way you portray humans as a race? Just because something like this fic makes you happy isn't a good excuse to put something up when you know it will result in a great deal of backlash. If things at one point truly got as bad as you claim, isn't this a good indicator of the fact that you're doing something that's setting people off in all the wrong ways, and that you should step back and consider the reason why? Clearly, while things have obviously calmed down from whoever this person throwing death threats at you was around, it's very clear that you are still setting people off, given how quickly tempers flared over these last two pages.

Believe it or not, people do need to change when there are problems, and we have done so as both individuals and as a race. In fact, that's largely been your own argument throughout much of the last two pages worth of comments. So if that's true, why then would you say nobody and nothing needs to change? Doesn't that invalidate your own arguments?

Chatoyance:

>> Warwolf
Have you noticed that what is going on here is less about making any sort of point, and more about 'winning'? As though this were a fight of some kind?

I have.

Peace.

Me:

>> Chatoyance

Honestly, I haven't this, to me, has been more a discussion rather than a fight.

Darius:

>> Warwolf

If you think people are so bad, and you claim you are so unhappy, why are you not taking the time to make yourself a better person instead of writing things that make other people unhappy with the way you portray humans as a race? Just because something like this fic makes you happy isn't a good excuse to put something up when you know it will result in a great deal of backlash. If things at one point truly got as bad as you claim, isn't this a good indicator of the fact that you're doing something that's setting people off in all the wrong ways, and that you should step back and consider the reason why?

Honestly, that sounds like censorship to me. You get to have your views while others who don't share your views are belittled and ridiculed?

...change is usually a good thing. It's how we become better people.

It can also work the other way around, though...

Honestly, what pisses me off about this whole situation, coming from a fanfiction reader of various subjects, is that the rating of this fic doesn't at all equal the quality that I see in this fic. This fic is well written, yet because of some pro-human fans and nonsuch (I blame the "Anti-Conversion Bureau" hate group), it's gotten more down votes than it deserves. There are fics out there that deserve more hate than this. For example, look up "hammohamster". She was actually banned from fanfiction.net because of the content of her work.

Me:

>> Darius

>Honestly, that sounds like censorship to me. You get to have your views while others who don't share your views are belittled and ridiculed?

This is actually a fair point and is in fact the one I was trying to make about why people were getting so angry with Chatoyance in these response pages, because they felt that was what she was doing, or at least this is the impression I was getting when reading through all this. The fact that I had to actually put this point into a phrasing that makes someone who is a fan of this fic think I'm trying to censor the author is a sad, sad thing. Make no mistake. I am not trying to censor her by suggesting that she brings a lot of these people's attitude down on her. She is free to post what she wants, as nobody but the people in charge of the site can really stop her, but if she knows people are going to have polarizing opinions of it, and that people who dislike the concept of the CB universe in general are already predisposed to point out the bad points in the concept, she should respect that fact and try to understand their views instead of making several of the early comments she did, which felt like ridicule and belittlement of people's views of the fic. While writing about people in such a fashion might make her happy, she came off as being amazed that there were people who weren't happy about what she was writing and instead of responding in a way that was indicative that she was open to discussion and opposing viewpoints— despite what she says later on in these comments— she initially came off as snarky, sarcastic, and in some cases outright trollish. I am not saying this was her intent. I am saying that this was what she came off as in my view and I think in the views of others, whether or not she meant to.

>Honestly, what pisses me off about this whole situation, coming from a fanfiction reader of various subjects, is that the rating of this fic doesn't at all equal the quality that I see in this fic. This fic is well written, yet because of some pro-human fans and nonsuch (I blame the "Anti-Conversion Bureau" hate group), it's gotten more down votes than it deserves. There are fics out there that deserve more hate than this. For example, look up "hammohamster". She was actually banned from fanfiction.net because of the content of her work.

Okay, here's a major flaw I'm seeing in your thinking. You are coming from the perspective that being 'pro human' when reading a Conversion Bureau-based fanfic is somehow a bad thing. Make no mistake, the Conversion Bureau has more than a small number of fans. But for every person who enjoys this concept, where it is largely depicted as genocidal aliens taking our minds and bodies from us, there are just as many who find this idea repulsive if not more so. Ironically, there are less members of the Anti-Conversion Bureau group on this site —and I take offense to the term hate group, as we are most certainly not a hate group. We are, or at least my view on us as a group is that we are a group of people who feel the Conversion Bureau is a flawed, dystopian, and quite frankly horrific world that presents a message completely in contrast to the message of the show. If you actually look in the group's main page, you will notice there is no mentioning of 'hate' being the mission statement of the group. It is listed as being "For those who find that The Conversion Bureau leaves a bad taste in their mouth.."— than there are in the 'primary' Conversion Bureau group, which is populated so far as I can tell, with people who enjoy seeing the Ponies as aliens who are essentially murdering an entire race regardless of the method since the ultimate result is the complete erasure of humanity from Earth, instead of actually trying to live in harmony and friendship with the species they have just come in contact with.

Again, you say 'pro-human' as if this is a bad thing to be. And you seem to equate the quality of the writer's skills as being the same as the quality of the fic. I can tell you from my own experience as both a reader and writer of both fan fiction and actual novels out on the bookshelves that this idea is ridiculous. There are many books that are extremely well written that people can, do, and have regarded as crap, and stories that are written by writers who aren't nearly as talented as some others out there which are lauded because the story is what matters, not how well it is written. Sometimes fans of a writer will see crap where others see something fantastic. For example, I have read a few of Stephen King's works and some of them I absolutely love. But I cannot stand Misery because no matter how well written it is— and it is well written— it starts out halfway decent, but becomes utter crap as the story goes on. At least, in my opinion it does, anyway. King himself has disavowed some of his own fiction, such as the story Rage since some have linked it to a shooting in a high school many years ago. Despite there being no genuine link between the event and the story itself, the fact that the perpetrator had a copy of the story in his locker was enough to make people think he was inspired to do what he did because of it.

It's not the skill with which the story is written that got the downvotes. It was the story itself.

Chatoyance:

>> Warwolf
Allow me to tell you about how I made 'Aftermath', and the underlying premise of all of my Conversion Bureau works. Maybe it will help.

First, let me state that I am an atheist. I do not believe in god, I consider religion to be equivalent to believing in the Easter Bunny in every regard.

Now, to the meat of it. My Conversion Bureau stories are all just Christian Fundamentalism recast in pony form. A story is a story, and if it works... well, it works.

"Aftermath" is nothing more than 'Left Behind" - you know those silly (but incredibly money-making and successful) novels about a Rapture, and those who get stuck on Earth because they didn't lick the bible enough or whatever? Just do this: Everytime in 'Aftermath' that you see the name 'Celestia', just put in 'Jesus Christ'. And every mention of a pony? Just substitute an angel or a Raptured Christian Soul. And for the soldiers? Just peg them as soldiers who have Rejected The Way or whatever. And Equestria is heaven, paradise, salvation.

That's it. That's the gimmick. That is all I did. I took the most popular religious myth in my nation (The US) and painted it in ponies. I ponify Christianity, and show humans being Raptured with purple goo and becoming angelic - free from violence, free from shame, free from sin, free from evil. I paint my version of Jesus as a peacemaker and a forgiver, rather than a temple destroyer - Celestia would rather Convert than Destroy, and she will stop to Save even the last soldier on the battlefield that is opposing the Kingdom Of God... or as I have renamed it, 'Equestria'.

Now, I've read the studies on Bronies, the breakdown of who they are that was shown on Equestria Daily. According to the polls, it was - if I remember - that the majority of Bronies self-define as atheist, something like seventy percent or so - I can't remember exactly, but it was pretty high up there. So maybe this is the problem all of you are having - maybe you are just plain sick to death of Christianity, and hey, I don't blame you one bit.

The basic premise - that there is something better than human beings called 'god', and that there is a 'heaven' to escape to, and that humans would be reborn free from evil is pretty much an escapist fantasy. But that's the point - pastel ponies in a magical wonderland ARE an escapist fantasy. That is why they are fun. Life is hard, humanity is pretty damn cruel, and fantasy exists as an alternative to reality. That is why there even is fantasy.

It's just that the Bureau stories and the Christian fantasy fit. They fit so perfectly. Right down to the Rapture-rrific being naked before god - or Celestia - in that ponies usually don't wear clothes. The Conversion Dream is a perfect Near Death Experience (NDE), Equestria is utterly heavenly, it's the Elysian Fields - heck, it even borders Tartarus! The term Conversion is directly a reference to religious Conversion, and the process itself, changing the human body and mind into kindness and love is completely in line with being made Free From Sin. It's a one-to-one correspondence, and because it works so well, what else could I do but make Celestia perfectly Jesus-like? She forgives all, she embraces even those trying to destroy her, and she offers everypony - um - everyone - an immortal soul and paradise. It just fits. Like a glove.

Check this out - it's a paragraph from my story, with the names and genders changed, that's all:

__________________________________________________
Then he saw Jesus.

He stood nearby, overseeing the effort to heal the wounded and comfort the dying. He turned his head and looked at him. His eyes were kind, but sad.

“Jesus...” Michael didn’t know what to say. What could he say? “I’m sorry. I’m... just sorry.”

Michael hung his head, his ears down.

“Michael, it’s alright.” Sky Shimmer licked his ears, somehow it was wonderfully comforting. “Jesus forgives you.”
_____________________________________________________

What I am saying is this, Warwolf - it's OK to be atheist. I'm a bloody atheist too, alright? I am not shitting on your rationalism. I am just telling a story.

Warwolf - there really is such a thing as being overly sensitive about the little stories and fables and myths the religious cling to. The fact is, these silly stories of theirs WORK. They sell like pancakes, they appeal to a lot of people, and they are, after all, just stories. They are lies, tales, fictions. But they do have power that can be used.

There is no way anyone is going to get religion because I re-wrote the concept of Evangelical Christianity as ponies. So there is no reason to be so darn angry and impatient with me. I used their myths because they are very powerful, effective myths, and this scenario was so tailor-made for just that myth that the story basically wrote itself.

So, are we good? I get that you hate, really, really loath Christianity. Yes, I used the core fable the Evangelicals love - Rapture and a kingdom of love and beauty, the return of their Jesus - as the basis of Aftermath. I admit that all I had to do was write a Jesus story and change the names and make the angels and spirits into ponies, and make Jesus into Celestia. It's the core conceit here. A better life. Eternal life. Heaven as Equestria, freedom from sin, salvation, forgiveness for anything if you only Convert.

But... just because I used a common myth, doesn't mean I support evangelical Christianity. I don't. It's all bunk. But try, try, try to realize - a story is just a story, and that particular story is really, really powerful. History confirms this.

Don't let your hatred of one religion's fables blind you to the story potential of scavenging their myths! A story is just a story. Every story is just a reworking of a small set of very basic myths to begin with.

So relax. It's no big deal, and me playing with their silly myth doesn't make me one of them.

So does that help at all? Does that solve the problem?

Now you know how Aftermath was written, what the trick, the gimmick was. If you go over it and just replace 'Celestia' with 'Jesus', it's utterly obvious. And if that upset you, because the stats show that most Bronies are atheists, come on. Let it go. I am not advocating Christianity here, no matter how much it may seem like it - I am honestly just using their story for my own ends, and that is legitimate. No, I did not make it a parody. I suppose that if I had taken a mocking tone, maybe that would have helped.

But I didn't want to just mock Christianity, that wasn't my purpose here. I wanted to use Christianity, because it is just one more tool in the writer's toolbox. I am past being upset at mythology. I don't need to mock it. I don't need to parody it. It's just a tool.

Hopefully, this will help, because it's the only thing I can think of to comprehend the upset over this piece.

Yes, I did a Jesus story as an alternative ending to Ten Minutes. Guilty as charged.

But there is nothing wrong with that. A myth is still just a story, and it works. It fits TOO perfectly.

So please relax. I'm an atheist too. You don't have to be all up in my face here.

A story is a story. OK?

Me:

>>Chatoyance
....Hooo boy. Talk about throwing a live hand grenade in. But in this case, you opened this particular can of worms, so lemme take it by the numbers.

Number one, and this one will probably be the biggest surprise I have for you in this whole response:

I'm not an atheist.

As such, that argument goes right out the door. If religions can be considered like 'breeds' then I am a half-breed of the Christian and Judaic faiths because my father's side of the family is Jewish, my biological mother's side of the family is catholic, and my stepmother's side of the family — though she herself converted to Judiasm— is some denomination of Christianity. I do believe in a God.

However, I do not subscribe to the tenets of any one religion, particularly because many tenets of virtually all of the major religions in the world tend to be self-contradictory. As such, I follow my own way, which is to be the best person I can be, and keep an open mind to the idea that there's some wild, weird, wacky, and wonderful shit out there in the universe.

The fact that you claim that you're dressing up this story as seeing the ponies and Equestria as an analogue to Christianity actually makes this whole fic pretty fucking frightening now. Because we've seen what Christianity did in the name of 'conversion'. I don't think I need to really go into the details of the horrors Christianity inflicted upon anyone who didn't believe the way they did, including those within its own supposed religion, do I? If I do, I can sum it up in two words.

The Inquisition.

As someone who believes in a God (and I don't believe blindly, mind, I question everything when and where I find it necessary), I can easily see parallels between Aftermath and a mix of the Inquisition and a heavy dose of modern day intolerant bible thumpers. Particularly because in the Bible, Torah, and various other supposedly holy scriptures?

God and His angels aren't pacifists. They can and do beat the fuck out of people and things they don't like.. If you look at much of the old testament, and see it without the limitation of blind faith where everything is taken as absolute Gospel (if you'll pardon the pun), God can seem to come off as a complete [asshole, doing away with things He doesn't like, kicking humanity out of the Garden of Eden because....well face it. The way you depict ponies? It's exactly the way Humans are before Eve is tricked into eating of the forbidden fruit of KNOWLEDGE and REASON. In other words, once Humans had the ability to THINK and UNDERSTAND the world around them? He booted them out of the Garden. Because if they had continued to eat of the tree of immortality, they would have been THE EXACT SAME AS HE IS.

This is a big reason why Aftermath bugs me to begin with, even though I wasn't thinking of it in religious context before, and didn't even realize the very real parallels that I can see now in the TCB universe. Instead I was thinking of it from a purely modern context without the religious trappings of humanity. Now that you're telling me to look at it from a religious point of view, it actually makes me feel worse about it.

Comparing Equestria to the Elysian Fields is only a partially acceptable concept, because even in the Elysian Fields, you didn't get into Elysium by being a total and utter saint. Many heroes of Greek mythology end up in Elysium, and they were no saints in life and most were definitively violent. But they were heroes, and they did things that earned them a place in Greek paradise. Considering we see conflict within Equestria itself in canon, this also renders a great deal of your idea of Equestria as 'free from sin' untrue. We know that this is untrue due to what we see in the show. There have been wars. There is evil in Equestria. Ponies can do things that are wrong and even 'sinful'. Celestia isn't even an analogue for being the all-powerful deity you're trying to equate her with because Discord is canonically more powerful than she is. He is just this side short of being a literal force of nature given a living, breathing form and runs roughshod over her and everyone else, and it takes magic (itself largely condemned in the New Testament) in the form of the Elements of Harmony to stop a force of nature from doing what it does best in the world: Exist. In essence, Magic is itself a form of technology being used to control the world of Equestria, which defeats the purpose of claiming Equestria is better because it's supposed to be 'natural'.

There's also the entire bit with the 'souls' thing which you really don't want me to get into if you want to paint this up as a story based on religion. We could be here till doomsday if we get into that now that we're bringing religion into this.

So no, this doesn't make things better. This actually makes it worse, honestly. And bear in mind, I'm not angry with you. Annoyed at some of your arguments, perhaps, but not angry with you.

Life is hard, you're right. But if it was easy, it wouldn't be worth anything. It's by overcoming the adversity in life that we know we're alive by what we accomplish.

Humanity is not cruel. Individual people are cruel, and yes, sometimes those who are cruel will flock together. Humanity as a whole is largely willing to live and let live, though. Do we have some assholes around? Damn straight. Have some managed to make their way into positions of power and authority? Sure. But a few bad apples do not spoil the whole bushel.

Damn. I think I wore out the part of my brain that handles philosophy for the moment. This was a big one. But frankly, it needed to be said.

Chatoyance:

>> Warwolf
As a genderqueer lesbian, I assure you I have no problem understanding the horror of religion. I have been attacked over simply existing in the world since kindergarten, and the the primary reason and push behind most of the misery in my life has been religious in origin. If any person on this planet had a reason to hate, loath, despise and spit upon the Old Testament crap (the basis of all of the Big Three) it would be me. By all rights, I should be spitting venom at the merest mention of Jesus, God, Jehovah, or anything at all religious that came out of the Middle East.

I have been beaten, betrayed, cut, hit, denied employment, denied housing, denied medical care, and more, and the people doing it told me in no uncertain terms that the reason was their religion, which was almost exclusively Christian, with only two insults coming from Judaism. I haven't had to deal with Muslims, but I have no illusions there, I assure you.

So, why on earth am I writing happy stories of happy ponies being happily Pony Raptured?

I am facing my demons head on, basically. I am trying to stretch my brain around the less horrible and cruel parts of the core belief system that has continually ruined my life, and use it for my own fun. I am turning the greatest evil that has ever harmed me into something pleasant. In this way, I hope to heal all the anger and hurt inside me at the grotesque injustice I have endured.

I am not doing it childishly - I am not choosing to make a mean parody, or slam all the faults or problems with the core Judaeo-Christian-Islamic monotheistic construction. That isn't healing at all, that is just throwing a tantrum.

Instead, I have taken the 'nicer' side of the whole 'salvation-based' mechanism that underlies the Big Three Religions and recast it, without rancor, without anger, without petty digs or insult, and I have used it as the central conceit of over a half-a-million words worth of science fantasy.

My solution to how hurt I am by religion is to recast my enemy, that which has gone out of its way to hurt, oppress, and destroy me in my long life, as something pleasant, something fun, something Better Than Life. By doing this, I can let go of my anger. I can almost see what drives such fanatics to their cruel and mean evils. They are enchanted by a beauty they see.

In order for me to understand what they see, I need to create a beauty that can appeal to me. I found the answer in a magical wonderland of perfectly kind, perfectly loving ponies, a world where friendship is literally the supreme magical power.

Of course, this meant castrating the dark side of monotheism - all the Armies Of God stuff had to go. Because ponies don't kill. They don't burn cities, they are not Old Testament wrath and jealous god stuff.

I made a candy-flavored Rapture-Through-Kindness, a Crusade where no weapon is used, and no human is killed. Just made innocent. The weapon of the ponies is Enforced Innocence. It is Weaponized Sinlessness. The only thing killed is the desire and the ability... to kill.

In doing this, I gain understanding of those who have hurt me, but I also gain a comprehension of why such beliefs are so 'sticky', so entrancing, bewitching, and beguiling. I also get to play with what Something Better Than Man would look like, a Pony Singularity where humanity evolves to a higher state. In one of my stories, I framed this as a machine Singularity, where the ponies were sapient artificial intelligences. After all, the Singularity is, really, just the Rapture of the Nerds when tickle comes to spank.

I really like my vision of Equestria. It is Oz, Fairyland, Heaven and Elysium all in one. I have constructed it to be as appealing as possible - to me. And, I think, to quite a few others, from the letters I get. I've made a heavenly place completely devoid of violence in any form. An evangelical pony would never deny anyone anything, or beat them, or betray them. I have symbolically turned those who have harmed me over the decades into kind and loving pals. I have recast my enemies as friends, so that I can let them go, and let the anger and the hurt go with them.

It is my concept that whatever power such evil as religion has inside me, from hurting me in the real world, can be neutralized by pulling a Pinkie Pie.

I am Giggling At The Ghosties with my stories. That is rather where the whole idea started you see, that song. The Catholic art teacher that told me I should commit suicide to save the world from the sin of my very existence, the nun who lambasted me for daring to comfort a sick woman in the hospital I was in because I was 'tainted', the best friend who beat me when he found out I was genderqueer, my own father holding a gun to my head, being forced into homelessness, being denied medical help for being a freak, the Rabbi that got me to go to Temple with words of friendship only to pour on every section about how evil I intrinsically was, the... the list is endless. Just endless.

Now, they are ponies. Now they are nice. Now they are all behaving pleasantly and lovingly in my stories, and I can let go of them. I can enjoy my perfect Equestria, my truly loving Celestia, and envision a soft inquisition that actually does bring joy instead of suffering. I can turn all that bullshit on it's head, and make it not hurt anymore.

That is why I write my stories like a big Pony Rapture. To destroy the hurt inside and take power for myself.

It is often said that all comedy, and all art, and certainly writing, is therapy.

I agree with that notion.

Me:

>>Chatoyance

Okay, firstly, I have a friend who is herself part of the LBGT community. The difference between you and her is I have never heard her decry religion itself as a problem the way you are. The religion itself is not what hit, cut, hurt, etc. as you claim. It's the people who have taken that idea and warped it so they can justify their own actions.

The problem is that the way you claim you are facing your 'demons' head on is in a way that intrinsically causes the argument behind why you feel what's happening in your stories is a good thing to fail. The moment you 'weaponize' sinlessness, it is no longer sinless. It is, as the term implies a weapon. Which means it is being used to hurt, to harm, and to force someone else's wants, desires and/or way of life on someone else. The moment you 'enforce' innocence, you are intrinsically causing more harm than good on anyone, and that includes any harm you feel has been done to you. The idea of 'enforced innocence' is like taking protestors out to Tienanmen Square and shooting them in view of the public simply because they wanted a different way of life. You are, in fact, becoming a worse monster than anyone in this country today. (And yes, I am also a US resident. And do bear in mind, both sides of my heritage faced atrocities far, far worse as a collective people than anything you as an individual have had to deal with. All for being what they were, and this at various points in history.

Furthermore, perfection of any kind is an utter illusion. I understand that you like the fantasy, but this is where a big disconnect is happening that you aren't seeing. I don't know if you've ever seen The Matrix trilogy. The machines created a perfect world, a completely happy fantasy where everyone wanted for nothing, there was no sin, there were no crimes, and everyone was a sparkly happy pony.

And reality beat that AI to death.

Millions of humans were lost to the machines because they completely rejected the idea of perfection because on an instinctive level, we know that perfection, true perfection is meant to be unattainable. The human mind cannot and will not accept such a thing. The closest we have to true perfection is the world of Star Trek and even that world isn't truly perfect. And we shouldn't want it to be. In a perfect world, nothing changes, nothing evolves. Nothing new exists. That's not living. That's living death. And that's what you're dealing out to people in this fic, and that's not a good thing, and so people, myself included, have tried to tell you this, without involving religion itself. And you have refused to see it. I'm sorry, but this just needed to be said. Ponies are not saints even in the show. People have said things like this in comments on TCB fics, yours included, countless times, and each time, it has been ignored in favor of 'ponies are angels, how dare you say canon should matter?!' They're not angels. They never have been, and God help us all if they should ever turn out to be. It would destroy any ability for most people to relate to them.

I understand what you're saying you were trying to do, but honestly, I think this is something you should have mentioned well beforehand. Because the result of what you've been doing, and given you've apparently not mentioned any of this before, has left people who disagree with what you've done in this fic, and others, has made it seem as though you hate humanity for the sake of hatred. I am not saying what you're doing in these fics is right even though I am now aware of the motivations behind it— far from it, as quite frankly what you're saying you're doing is plenty weird, even for my somewhat outlandish tastes. As an example of how outlandish I am? ...I find the infamous Cupcakes to be hilarious because of how over the top and completely divorced from canon it is, and the idea of essentially lobotomizing people you don't like in a fantasy which you then proceed to post on the internet is creepy as hell to me — but I am saying that if you expected people to just go with the world you've created when it goes again

st everything we know of ponies....then you failed epically. Because the comments you've made before now have painted a drastically different picture of yourself. This new information does not absolve you of criticism or make your point of view seem more valid, and it does not make their views any less valid. In many ways it makes the concerns of others more valid because you're blatantly saying that you feel that in-show canon shouldn't matter because your story is better than canon. This is a dangerous trope. Because when done wrong, fans will lash out at it. And it's clear that there are as many, if not more people who see this as the trope done wrong as there are people who don't even realize the trope is there.

And that's where the discussion stands at this point so far. I'm waiting to see how she responds. ...

I apologize for the long post. But as I said...long-ass post is long ass. ...And long-winded.

I also think I screwed up the quotes thing somehow.

Never mind, I figured out what I did wrong. Fixing the old post now.

Is it okay if I upload the screenshots I took? If so, how would I go about doing so? I tried uploading them to a certain site in order to link them here but I feel in doing so I have made a huge mistake and now kind of wish I had a time machine.

What is the best way to post the screenshots I took on here?

321940, the right most button with a picture on it. Also, make sure it's not too big.

Warwolf, you bring up a lot of good points. One thing I found odd was that JDR says that the violent armies of God from the Old Testament have to go in her story.

Well if you ask me, Celestia and her ponies are doing the exact same thing that she excised. And don't tell me that expanding a lethal barrier and forcibly converting people isn't violent. It's disturbingly reminscent of the Crusades.

As for the influence she'll have on TCB fandom, we might be seeing more fics with religious bent; possibly even spitefics aimed at religion.

321982>>321915
To me her religion analogue just seemed like a stupid cop-out to seem "deep" and "sophisticated".

Because, you know, you automatically gain 50 IQ points when you criticize popular beliefs/mindsets.

321973

Got into a discussion on Transhumanism and the whole TCB thing. Legion has some quotes on the subject (not the specific subject of course, but...)

"The Old Machines offered to give us our future. The Geth will achieve their own future."
and
"The process is as important as the results."

I am a proponent of Transhumanism. I believe that we can become better than what we currently are. But such things should never be FORCED on someone, and I also feel that humanity should improve itself on its own terms. Finally, I think such improvements should be done gradually and carefully.

While on the subject of Mass Effect, I noticed that there seem to be some similarities between the TCB!Ponies (or at least TCB!Celestia) and the Reapers...

321995, I'm a transhumanist as well and like you said, you can't force upgrades on people.

And JDR says Human-->Equestrian pony is transhumanism. Agree or disagree?

To me, it's in between. Sure we get enhanced strength, flight, enhanced longevity and magic but we lose free will and have emotions severely blunted.

Is that really an enhancement?

------------

If any of y'all played the game Total Annihilation, there's a pretty good analogue to TCB.

A high tech civilization (the Core) mandates patterning (brain uploading into heavy, durable machines) for its citizens for safety. People are repulsed and form a rebellion group (the Arm).

Now that would make an interesting TCB story. Ponies find a way to allow Humans into Equestria by using a potion to render them immune to radiation (ponification is still an option). Unfortunately, for some reason, the government later decides to make ponification mandatory, causing a rebellion group to form.

321982

Crazy thing is, she acts like she IS a religious fanatic, except the religion that she is so fanatical about is the one she created herself. As you yourself pointed out,
"Well if you ask me, Celestia and her ponies are doing the exact same thing that she excised. And don't tell me that expanding a lethal barrier and forcibly converting people isn't violent. It's disturbingly reminscent of the Crusades."

It's odd. She claims to reject religion, and yet exhibits, embraces and glorifies the very worst aspects of religion and religious behavior. Hopefully you get my meaning... I can't quite explain it. The above quote about the Crusades hopefully explained what I meant.

Also, on the subject of image posting... it asks for me to enter a URL for the image, but the image is on my hard drive... where is a good place to semi-privately host the image?

321982

Oh it gets better. Here's the latest response from Darius to me. He also responded to something from Diamond Khan, but I leave it up to him to decide if he wants to post his comments and response here since that part of the conversation is more of a brief tangent where Diamond basically claimed Chatoyance was pulling shit out of her ass, and Darius response to it. Anyway, here's what he said to me, and my response back.

Darius:

>> Warwolf

While writing about people in such a fashion might make her happy, she came off as being amazed that there were people who weren't happy about what she was writing and instead of responding in a way that was indicative that she was open to discussion and opposing viewpoints— despite what she says later on in these comments— she initially came off as snarky, sarcastic, and in some cases outright trollish.

Not all people are going to take being bashed lightheartedly...

I take offense to the term hate group, as we are most certainly not a hate group. We are, or at least my view on us as a group is that we are a group of people who feel the Conversion Bureau is a flawed, dystopian, and quite frankly horrific world that presents a message completely in contrast to the message of the show. If you actually look in the group's main page, you will notice there is no mentioning of 'hate' being the mission statement of the group.

So please explain to me why, in several topics of the board, do I see people bashing Chat and her universe of stories over and over and over?

Not to mention: "Which TCB fic do you hate the most" "Why do you hate the Conversion Bureau" as well as that one topic calling these stories the equivilent of a "cyberpunk shithole"

...you seem to equate the quality of the writer's skills as being the same as the quality of the fic.

Not true. I've read fics that were well written, but the content in itself was crap on a stick.

The entirety of (my last post)

That's nice that you're now calling her a monster. Very nice. People are killing for the lulz, people steal money from the poor, and here she is just writing stories on the internet.

That whole "Tienanmen Square" argument is just... I don't know what to say about that. That's like saying being pure is the equivalent to the holocaust. It doesn't add up.

In fact, this entire ideaology doesn't add up. Why would you reject pleasure for pain? Why would you reject paradise for people living frozen on the street, no roof over their head?

Stopping people from getting hurt, ever, is harming them?

Me:

>>Darius

>Stopping people from getting hurt, ever, is harming them?

It is when it's being forced on them. And especially when one's view of 'harm' is so ridiculously different from anything people would normally envision. Someone here has already made reference to Room 101 from 1984. It's a valid comparison.

>That's nice that you're now calling her a monster. Very nice. People are killing for the lulz, people steal money from the poor, and here she is just writing stories on the internet.

That whole "Tienanmen Square" argument is just... I don't know what to say about that. That's like saying being pure is the equivalent to the holocaust. It doesn't add up.

In fact, this entire ideaology doesn't add up. Why would you reject pleasure for pain? Why would you reject paradise for people living frozen on the street, no roof over their head?

Calling her a monster? I think that's a bit of a stretch. Am I calling what the ponies in her fic are doing monstrous with this statement? Absolutely. Am I saying the reasoning behind why she's having them do it is flawed and disturbing? Damn straight. But calling her a monster? No. Trust me, if she's a monster, what does that make Hitler. He not only had fantasies worse than this, the bastard actually acted on them. Her treatment of humanity in her fiction is monstrous. But that doesn't make her a monster personally. It does make me wonder where she got this idea from though.

>Not all people are going to take being bashed lightheartedly...

I repeat an earlier statement. She didn't start getting 'bashed' as you put it, in this chat thread until she started being snarky, sarcastic, and trollish in her responses to people putting up polite criticism (however negative the criticism) in regard to this fic. In other words, any bashing she got here came about because she incited it.

> Not true. I've read fics that were well written, but the content in itself was crap on a stick.

If that's true, please explain then why you said this:

>Honestly, what pisses me off about this whole situation, coming from a fanfiction reader of various subjects, is that the rating of this fic doesn't at all equal the quality that I see in this fic.

> >So please explain to me why, in several topics of the board, do I see people bashing Chat and her universe of stories over and over and over?

Not to mention: "Which TCB fic do you hate the most" "Why do you hate the Conversion Bureau" as well as that one topic calling these stories the equivilent of a "cyberpunk shithole"

Brief tangent here as someone who was an English major in high school: The word is equivalent, not equivilent.

Now, to answer you. Is either topic the mission statement of the group? No. Is the word hate a strong one? Yeah. But most emotionally rooted words are. Does that mean someone can't say they hate the fic even if what they really mean is dislike? Hell no. Someone obviously does feel strongly enough about TCB to use the word hate and since that's the name of the topic thread, that's what you have to deal with for the name of the topic thread.

As for bashing Chat? Yes, she does receive negative comments there. But outright bashing? No, sorry. Hell, I'll say this here and now. Chat scares the shit out of me, and largely because of the way she has come off in her comments in just this fic's comment section alone prior to my getting involved in the discussion. Because she really came off, whether or not this was her intent, as believing all this crap she was spouting about how bad humanity as a whole is supposed to be and belittling anyone who disagreed with her and praising anyone who claimed she was doing nothing wrong. It honestly made me think of people who ran cults that would brainwash people into joining them being applied to ponies.

Now that I know what her idea behind why she does all this is...quite frankly that creeps me out even more that she would actually post things like this on the net when her reasoning is that she enjoys fantasies of lobotomizing people from her past she doesn't like. It's like she's saying, and again, I have no idea if this is her intent or not, "I hate humanity, so I'm going to imagine a world where everyone I hate is a smiling carefree zombie with anything that makes them human is removed simply because I had a hard life."

That's not a healthy thing to be saying. And even if that's not what she's saying she's doing— which would stand in direct opposition to what she said not even five posts ago— the fact that even the implication of that is there is enough to terrify me. ....And I can tell you here and now, I'm no poster boy for normalcy myself. But she...frankly, the things she implies in both her fics and her comments is less than confidence inspiring.

321915

I really just don't get how she can factor religion into these stories. Sure, I could get if this was a parallel to the Spanish Inquisition (Which nobody expected), but as a parallel to the rapture, it fall short.

The first idea behind this is the fact that Celestia is not perfect. Even if she ignores Season 2 canonically, Nightmare Moon beats Celestia, and puts her out of the picture. That throws the idea that Celestia is omnipotent right out the window. Celestia has been proven time and time again to be a quite fallible ruler, if a very efficient one. So that's one piece wrecked.

Furthermore, if this is a way for her to get over her religious woes, and doesn't care what we think, why then is this labelled as MLP fanfic? Why not make up your own names? Because her fanfics, besides Celestia and Luna, have little to do with MLP. The Mane 6 are never brought up, no characters are mentioned. Really, you could make the ponies aliens and very little would change. It's not very much a MLP fanfic. It just feels like her bitching about her woes rather than a legitimate story. If this is her trying to make recompense, why relate it to MLP, and why post it online, on to websites with a very visible critique section, AKA the comments?

Finally, as many have said before, a "soft inquisition" is an inquisition nonetheless. It's a hideous concept that not only is this genocide not being considered a genocide, it's being considered good. The difference between this and Heaven is that in religion, humanity was always destined for Heaven. There was always a spot there. The idea that this is what we were meant for, and that idea gives some people comfort. In TCB!Land, Celestia is trying put the square peg inside a circular hole. She's trying to put humanity, these "soulless", "evil" creatures where they don't belong. Into a world where all their struggle, their very identity means nothing. The difference between Equestria and Heaven is that in Heaven, "you're" still "you". What you did in your previous life still matters. In Equestria, when you drink the potion, "you" die. And you're replaced with a caricature of yourself.

And since no one on the other side visits this thread anymore, that post went to waste. Oh freaking well.

322030

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide

TCB is the one and only example in the "Fan Fiction" section

"If this is her trying to make recompense, why relate it to MLP, and why post it online, on to websites with a very visible critique section, AKA the comments?"

I actually brought this up before somewhere... Can't remember if it was in the argument in Aftermath's comment thread or somewhere else but... really, isn't the point of commenting to voice your opinion on the work? It's not there so that authors can be blindly praised for their work. Same with the rating system.
Telling people "Don't like, don't read" or "If you can't say anything good don't say anything at all" always annoyed me. If you have the right to voice your opinions in story form, I have the right to voice my dislike of your story (and thus your opinions, I suppose). It's just so... hypocritical. "I get to say whatever I want about those I dislike but don't you dare say anything bad about me or my work."

I... ergh. I don't know. Censorship angers me. Hypocrisy angers me. This combines both of those things.

EDIT: It is ESPECIALLY hypocritical of her because she goes and comments negatively on others' stories (See Anthropology, where she was upset that JasonTheHuman didn't traumatize Lyra and/or make all humans Always Chaotic Evil). And yet for some reason, when people do the same to hers that is being mean.