Hmmm. This looks interesting. I'll definitely keep watching how things unfold!

Hah! I can see my comment drew some negative attention. That's fine, to each their own^^

Anyhow, I kind of expect Celestia to have grown a penis in the meantime as well, which is why she selects special ponies for shemale cock-training. That, or she is catering to a deeply held femsub fetish she wishes to spread across Equestria. My hunch is on the former, though I'll admit that my personal preference would be the latter. Either is possible with the current setup.

5432675

We'll just have to see! Who knows what Luna's influence has done to Celestia :9

Holy shit...I actually kind of liked it.

oh god, blocked and deleted comments, incoming shitstorm

5433546

I just like to keep the place tidy!

5433489

Huzzah!

5433597 Or you could learn to take criticism instead of outright deleting comments and silencing people.

5433899

Oh no I silenced people on a thread about a pony clop fic who weren't actually providing constructive criticism. The horror. If they added any value I would have left them. Most people just want to bitch about the themes of the story and have no real feedback about the content itself.

5433899
5433546
To be fair, just posting "This sucks" isn't particularly helpful. That's not criticism, that's venting.

5434202
5433984 It doesn't even matter if they were helpful or not. The fic was posted on a public site that allows people to post their opinions. If you don't enjoy negative criticism, trolls, or just mean people in general, don't post it where people can comment. Authors that delete comments prove their immaturity and do nothing more than attract more scorn.

5434626

You subscribe to some craziness I do not. I see no reason why posting on a site that has comments enabled entitles people to be trolls/jerks with no consequences. Your own argument is self defeating. You write that the fact that the ability for users to comments implies that they should be allowed to comment with anything they like. As an equivalent statement the fact that comment deleting exists implies that I'm entitled to delete anyone's comments.

QED

5434644 I can assure you that the delete function doesn't exist to silence people that you don't agree with. Those that thought so have found out quickly how wrong they were. I suggest you read this if you are confused:
http://foal-free-press.weebly.com/home/with-regards-to-comment-deleters

You will notice they even mention outright flames and trolls, and acknowledge that you may want to delete them. However, the issue with this is twofold: One, the person will most likely continue to harass you. Two, the comment is now deleted, and we have absolutely no idea now if the comment was indeed a flame or troll. Those comments could have been warranted criticism, but now we'll never know. You would be much better off reporting these people if you feel they are indeed intentionally harassing you.

5434644

I see no reason why posting on a site that has comments enabled entitles people to be trolls/jerks with no consequences.

I also think you may be new to the internet.

5434699

I disagree with you, but you'll notice that your comments aren't deleted. Funny that.

I'm confused about how this person is going to "continue to harass me" with their account blocked, and deleting the comment. Blocking them also seems a lot more efficient than wasting time opening up trouble tickets with admins. That in mind, I really don't have time for idiots, and I don't want their garbage polluting the comment threads on stories that I write. I'm unapologetically into a lot of terrible things, kinks that always bring out the pitchforks and torches, and they won't find a soapbox to stand on here.

However, this comment section should be for discussions about the story itself. You're welcome to note me if you're really interested in continuing this conversation, and I can continue to tell you how you're wrong.

5434626
As much as I may like Togashi and their stories, I'm not sure this is an entirely fair criticism. Whoever runs a comment forum has every right to delete whatever comments they choose.

Now, that certainly doesn't give the owner of the forum immunity to the social consequences of deleting a bunch of comments at a whim. I just don't think that's the issue here.

For example, I've seen a couple of the comments that were deleted, and the two I saw (at least) were very immature and provided no useful feedback to the author whatsoever (I can't say about the others, though). Did you see any of the comments that you're defending? I don't understand why ponies are immediately upset by seeing that comments were deleted without having the full context about what they contained. Personally (and I am almost as new as Tala, I admit) I deleted a few comments on my current large M story because they lacked spoilertext, and didn't see any backlash as a result.

It sounds like you're saying that there is a culture of suspicion here when it comes to deleted comments, and that's useful information. I just am not experienced enough to know, and it seems a little irrational to me if that's the case.

Anyway. I'm not (probably unsuccessfully) trying to stick my muzzle into the flames, but I still don't follow why an author should feel compelled to leave unwelcome graffiti up (let alone a brand new author). I realize that maybe seeing comments deleted might cause ponies who would otherwise leave useful feedback up to balk at it, but I doubt most ponies with useful feedback would expect that. If I saw this on a random blog or story I wouldn't assume that constructive feedback would immediately be deleted.

I may be less jaded and/or too new to understand how things work and why, however, so I welcome any information that comes out of this pleasant and happy discussion of rainbows and smiles. And I'm probably making a bunch of dumb assumptions so I welcome feedback on that too.

but seriously you buckers play nice already

5434954
5434699
Like Togashi said, deleting comments is commonly seen as a free pass to give an author as much grief as you like, within the allowed guidelines. Sometimes above and beyond, but that's crossing a line. Despite the above post, I'm actually more on the side of free comments. We had a censoring system for comments according to votes once—it sucked. Big time. Giving other commenters the power to censor your thoughts was worse than any author deleting them could hope to be.

Back to the story itself: I... think I remember stumbling across something with the same name a while ago. Or did someone forward it to me? Well, anyway, from what I saw, the main focus was on Big MacIntosh and shemales. Nothing wrong with either; I'd just love to see some more males in action, if possible!

5435043
5434713
If that's the case, there should probably be a warning for new authors. Maybe there is one in the how-to and I missed it, though.

To provide some context (since I actually know who Tala is offline, ironically), Tala has an account on FA (under a different name) and has to delete comments all the time because people are constantly attacking them for the art content (it's not even their art, it's commissions).

5435083
That's unfortunate. A lot of stories with this slant get that treatment. They fare better if Spike's the one doing it, but even then it's a tossup.

If you happen to have Tala's ear, please tell her it really is better to let even useless comments stand. Ignore them if they offer nothing. Heck, I've had my comments deleted, and that was for pointing out that putting a person who didn't attack you in the hospital for a week and threatening them with death if they even think about following you, even just to apologise, and not feeling a shred of remorse for either didn't make the protagonist look all that heroic. Oftentimes it is used to delete valid concerns, so people react allergic when they see it happen.

Also, I think someone actually did send me a pic or two of Tala's Universe. I've wondered if there is an overarching reason for the radical societal changes it depicts. Like with your story! Where we have some hints but nothing certain yet ^^

5435194

Thankfully I possess a pair of eyeballs, the ability to receive notifications, and a keen understanding of Chrome.

I don't have any intention of changing my behavior towards nasty comments. Bad behavior should be actively punished not ignored. Thankfully I don't care if that irks people. Whatever ridiculousness happened to make people think that deleting comments should immediately cast suspicion on the author really should be reversed. I enjoy making threads on the artwork I commission, or create, civil and productive. Part of that taking out the trash, and preventing fires before they start. I see proactively blocking and deleting people who leave offensive/trollish/useless comments as part of that.

5435209
Well, it's your prerogative. As long as no mod steps in and says otherwise, of course. Please don't take what I noted as anything but suggestions^^

By the by, what is the gender distribution in this Equestria? I ask because, if I remember things correctly, the way things might go down will see one rather rapidly depleted. Perhaps put in note explaining it somewhere? That, and/or the method they perhaps plan on using to raise the numbers back up

5435194
As you can see, Tala is their own pony and is neither my foal nor slave (for the moment at any rate). But I'm fairly certain they will read whatever you post to them, provided it isn't filled with vitriol.

My mane interest here is in learning if there are unspoken rules I didn't know about. It isn't an attempt to change anypony's behavior, but anypony who knows me surely knows that by now.

well okay maybe not changing behavior is kind of hawt but you get the idea

5435251

I cannot fathom in a million years why a mod would actually step in to stop someone from blocking rude/offensive comments. That would be a great time for me to pack up my stuff and find another place to be hosted. But I'm new here, so who knows!

With regards to gender distribution and I think you'll find out the answer to your question in a few chapters. I don't want to spoil anything, and part of this story series is answering questions exactly like the ones you've posed, but I want to do it inside the story, as opposed to putting it all in notes. It's part of the reason why I tried to emphasize the ponies' hands in the first chapter. To get people strongly aware that they're anthro ponies.

All of those things you mentioned are good points. And they'll be addressed. Especially how to keep the mare population up.

5435339
Oh, I seriously doubt any mod would actually do that. They tend to step in with stuff like like plagiarism or underage content. Quick note: Anthro characters under the age of 18 can't be involved in sexual situations, iirc. Quadrupeds are fine, but as soon as it has hands one needs to be careful.

And I'm perfectly happy to read any answers in the story proper!

That was kind of annoying because those replies from Togashi were referenced to my responses.

I'll ask Togashi via mail just to make sure I didn't miss anything.

5437127 Just one of the problems with comment deletion.

I think the mane (main) thing you need to work on is the number one problem most amateur fiction suffers from. This problem is usually referred to as "show, don't tell" (i.e. that's what you should be doing). This issue occurs frequently in your story, but here is one prime example:

"Surely Tala would turn heads. Rarity would most definitely have approved."

Lines like these force-feed your readers a value judgment. This is almost never a good thing in fiction. What you should be doing instead is this: write the description well enough to allow the reader to come to the desired judgment on their own. In this case, you should be describing the dress without expressing any of the intent behind its design, and without labeling it with value judgments. If you describe it properly, readers will think and feel what you want them to think and feel, without being led there by the hoof.

I would even suggest avoiding comments like, "the dress was provocative for day wear", when possible. While much less obtrusive, this is still a judgment the reader could come to without you making it explicit. Something like that might be necessary if you were describing the social context itself (e.g., if the reader didn't know what was considered acceptable or unacceptable day wear in anthro-Equestria), but in this case it appears that Equestria's standards (initially) are similar to Western standards so the judgment isn't necessary.

I'm being very serious when I say all this. "Show, don't tell" is one of the hardest things to train yourself to do in fiction writing, but it's probably the most important. Don't tell me somepony is powerful; show me. Don't tell me something is disgusting; show me. Don't tell me somepony is sexy; show me.

Unfortunately, this is hardest to do when you're writing in third-person omniscient voice, which is a common voice to use. I know you're using third-person omniscient in this story because you describe the motivations behind multiple ponies' actions. In my Twilight's Journal story, I'm using first-person unreliable character voice. That work is not a good example to draw from if you're writing third-person omniscient, because the narrative style I am using allows me to cheat extensively. However, the only judgments I can put in my story are Twilight's, which are unreliable. I chose that voice because the entire theme of the story revolves around Twilight's perceptions and how they transform as she herself changes. But even there, I try to avoid adding her judgments when describing a scene (or at the very least, I include a neutral description along with her judgment calls, so the reader can compare the two in a more objective manner). See the chapter where I describe Rarity's dresses for an example of how I balance the two.

If you try to tell the reader judgments in any kind of third-person voice, those judgments don't come from a specific character. They come from you, the author, and that's how readers will perceive them. This makes the judgments feel "forced" upon the reader by the author, which makes it much harder for a reader to forget they're reading a story. Besides, it's really not interesting when you're told what to feel (er, mental fetishes aside). Fiction is neat because you can (and should) leave much of the interpretation up to the reader. Sometimes you should even do it with descriptions of things and characters. (For the extreme example, some very famous authors actually never describe their characters beyond, say, "the old woman"; but that's way too far if you want to write an erotic work, heh.)

Most of the other things I could say are super-duper minor in comparison to "show, don't tell". I strongly suggest focusing on that as much as possible in your writing. I also recommend browsing through the writing guide (it's a drop-down from the FAQ) as it contains a lot of useful information that could benefit your future work.

Feel free to come to me if you have any questions or need other advice.

5437641
I'm going to copy this to my blog if that's okay. I know you're not going to delete it, but it will be nice for me to have it separately elsewhere as I feel other ponies could benefit from it.

5437641
Also also, the writing gets better as the story gets going. So don't take the forcefulness of my suggestion as an indication of the degree of disrepair of the story. For the most part I think it's well-written, and the thumbs-down are mostly for the tags and story description alone, I would presume. (I'll never understand why somepony would downvote a story without reading it...)

Having (finally) read the entire thing, the only other feedback I have is that in the sex portions, I think there are too many adjectives in one place (that is, the density of modifiers is too high). I know that you're used to mucking, and in tinysex (pose-based, real time fiction sex) it is common to pile on the adjectives because the goal is to get the other author(s) off in a reasonably short space of time. It's a little different in prose, where you can afford to take your time, because the reader has control over how fast they read and where they linger. With that in mind, I'd advocate holding back just a little on the descriptor density, and try to space out the length of the sex scene more instead.

Also, a couple of descriptors seem intended to titillate, but don't entirely make sense. For example, how is "shemale sperm" any different from "sperm"...? (I actually am a shemale and it's pretty much the same to me.) You get the idea. Don't throw in words just because you're horny. Make them fit.

5437641
I actually started that part of the story out with a bit more tell than show, and then added in more show afterwards. I specifically had a dress in mind when describing it. I wasn't sure that I was getting across the difference in Tala's dress above and beyond what every other pony was wearing. I thought without describing their outfits, I would lose that context. So I cheated a little to get the point across. Maybe I could have just made the dress so terribly lurid that it would have been shockingly obvious. Part of the problem is that the dress is suppose to be on the fringes of acceptable, but that's a lot harder to communicate in text than it is in a visual medium.

I'm not sure I agree 100% that the instance you pointed out was a bad tell vs show moment, but I do agree with the idea in general. I'll have to take a second and look and see how I feel about it. But not until I've had some time to let my brain rest on it.

5438993

I do go adjective crazy sometimes. I do find myself deleting them on occasion, but I'll probably need to be a bit more proactive. Though the shemale sperm part was more to identify it as belonging to Tala. In particular what I was trying to get across was that act of swallowing Tala's sperm was more exotic because Tala herself is exotic. Pinkie may have gargled jizz before, but never from another mare.

Hmm, someone care to explain why the like:dislike ratio is how it is?

5439383
I'm all but certain it's the content. Pretty much any story that advertises rape gets a bunch of dislikes when it first appears on the front page. The ponies who visit the story later usually do because they're either looking for that content, or it is posted to groups in groups or group folders specifically for dark content.

5439420

Ah, that makes sense why it's in Badfic Bin. Thanks.

5439393
Tala privately mentioned to me that they didn't want the story page to be cluttered with an argument about comment deletion, and those comments appeared after Tala made an (admittedly rude) request to take the discussion to private messages in this message: 5434749

I presume the comments weren't directed at me because Togashi did not respond to my PM requesting info if the messages were intended for my eyes. I hope I haven't pissed anyone off, but I don't think I've done anything beyond the pale here (apart from being a bit surprised by the reaction to comment deletion).

I know Tala very well and have seen the kind of things people will start with them on FA without provocation, so I'm not surprised they are being proactive here about blocking ponies who go off-topic or complain. I wouldn't do things the same way, but that's because we're different ponies which is okay.

5439383
People downvote for nasty themes, not content. I've encountered the same thing in every forum I've had either a commission or a piece of art I've worked on published. The moment the story went up it got more than a dozen downvotes too quickly for people to have even gotten into the first couple of paragraphs. As time has gone on the ratio of upvotes to downvotes towards a more positive ratio for the reasons Trick Question mentioned. To reiterate people who are interested in the content are seeking it out, and judging it based on merit as opposed to taste.

5439451
ColtAnon is clearly a sock puppet for Togashi. Into the block list he goes!

5439479

Hmm, it's really when and how you write it. Since you have such a small amount of followers to back you up you don't have that leverage of those first likes from your followers which can be devastating to your story. Another would be the groups it's in, example being that it's in two big groups I'm admin for. And you both are right, yet another reason as to why there's more dislikes is because of the content. People want something original, and entertaining. I haven't read your story as I don't read nor edit M stories. But I bet you that's one of the reasons, could be blandness. But probably the largest one would be that you deleted comments and for that you're going to learn the hard way that you do not do that.

5439503
I think you're confusing me with someone that cares about upvotes or downvotes, or what people think about deleting comments. People can add this story to any off color group they'd like, it's not a punishment, for me at least. I write these stories because I get off to them. I post them here because I'm aware that other people will to. It's a pay it forward but with porn.

5439428
Even some of the more well-written stories in Fall of Equestria have nearly as many dislikes as likes, just as an example. A good chunk of the dislikes on my M story are because I initially put a disclaimer that part of my story was "inspired by elements from FoE", and that was all I needed to say to have a bunch of ponies downvote it. So I took that down eventually and just made the disclaimer direct and general. If I'd known more in advance, I could have prevented some of the dissing.

I'm actually rather surprised Twilight's Journal has >81% likes, all things considered. The writing is good (I think) which is a big part of it: ponies who would normally not read stories with nonconsensual elements (rape is still a bit of an exaggeration, but it depends on your perspective) are still reading mine because it's just too interesting to quit!

Yes, I am a terrible pony.

5439518

It's more about you're rep. Sense you deleted comments you're forever branded as a comment deleter. This means that no one will ever want to come and read these stories of yours as you deleting stories give people a bad view of you. By having one of your stories in those groups is will always give them a bad rep. Now, if you want, I can remove them from the groups.

5439529
Whyboner, why?