There's not enough bitching

[Arakawa]

I can't explain how happy it makes me that I have no idea what that means.

Let me fix that for you: OvershadowedByControversy.

The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction The Conversion Bureau and its numerous spinoffs are most well known for their misanthropy, Unfortunate Implications (least of which include the advocating of genocide), and the intense Flame Wars that often accompany these fics.

[Anastasia]

So at the risk of a whole lot of misery, what exactly -is- the conversion bureau, anyway?

[Dracos]

The fight is long.
Matchmaking continues to tire.

I want to sleep a while.

Bloody matchmaking service.

[Anastasia]

The fight is long.
Matchmaking continues to tire.

I want to sleep a while.

Bloody matchmaking service.

So still having loads of fun at work, eh?

[Yuthirin]

Looking for a girlfriend, Ko?

[Anastasia]

Looking for a girlfriend, Ko?

I'm somehow wary of this tangent. Like I'm being set up for something horrible.

[Arakawa]

So at the risk of a whole lot of misery, what exactly -is- the conversion bureau, anyway?

For those who don't care, picture pony fanfiction written by a transsexual Skysaber. For those who do....

*takes deep breath*

Spoiler: ShowHide

So, from what I gather some guy Blaze came up with the basic idea. It had the whole 'ponies are superior master race' thing right from the outset, from what I gather. To wit, one fine day, a portal to Equestria appears in the ocean. There is an expanding zone of magic around Equestria which is poisonous to human life, so the only solution is to set up Conversion Bureaus that give you purple potion that turns you into a pony. Some humans accept the change, while others predictably respond by setting up terrorist groups. But the ponies are in the right! For as a bonus, the potion fixes the evilness of humanity, for humans are naturally evil warmongers, but turning them into ponies makes them nice and cuddly on the inside as well as the outside. This is the part that many humans reading the fics objected to as kind of preachy.

Then along came Jennifer Diane Reitz and put her own spin on that; part of which involves applying the Message with a sledgehammer where the original used an ordinary hammer.

Jennifer Diane Reitz is a Wiccan atheist singularitarian transsexual Internet crazyperson from San Francisco who has put together some interesting and imaginative science fiction; I mentioned Unicorn Jelly above, as a webcomic which starts out as apparently a vaguely-Japanese-medieval-D&D fantasy (meh), but then turns out to be a science fiction about humanity having been stranded in an alternate dimension with weird and very alien laws of physics. (Their planets coalesce as triangular flat-earth 'worldplates' in a Sierpinski pattern.) Some pretty scary dilemmas, at-least-entertainingly-dorky alternate-universe costumes and cultures, decent amount of Neon Genesis Evangelion style mindscrew, except unlike Neon Genesis Evangelion I can actually understand it by the end of the story. Good stuff.

So, the stories are imaginative, but the politics of it, good God... how can I explain it? While there are interesting character ideas (just as with the setting), in lieu of development the characters themselves are frequently made to partake in Anvilicious morality tales about love and tolerance of sexual minorities. In the case of Ponies, this is a chance to preach about how humanity is evil and our evil ape biology is evil (but it's not our fault because our evil godless universe made us that way) and we are killing the Earth and along comes Celestia to save us all by turning us into ponies who are good, and love and tolerate. We have the Cardboard Fundamentalist arguing all day with Equally Cardboard Atheist but then they're turned into ponies and the Fundamentalist guy is magically cured of religion and they discover their repressed homosexual feelings for one another. I wish I was kidding. (see somewhere here: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/1868/27-ounces)

I am not even touching the politics here; even assuming all of the ideological premises, if you read you will find those types of scenarios are just fascinatingly bad in how they're put together, considered purely from a storytelling standpoint. (On the opposite end of the spectrum, I found myself annoyed at CS Lewis with That Hideous Strength recently for somewhat similar reasons. i.e. it's just not good when whatever point the author wants to make ends up devouring what should first and foremost be a story.)

Rather than pony fics, this can also be explored by looking at one of JDR's comics, e.g. http://www.pasteldefender.com/040.html. Or her advice to transsexuals and gender confused people. From all this I infer that, (a) coping with people brandishing knives at you, by going off and constructing an elaborate fantasy universe where you win, is a thing; and (b) between herself and a hostile universe JDR clearly has put up an impenetrable and ultimately counterproductive wall of self-esteem. For this results in reacting to many people with undisguised anger, with many people who provide constructive criticism on how to tell a better story getting brushed off while other people crawl out of the woodwork to provide much nastier destructive criticism. Much, much headshakingly noisy drama.

And the Conversion Bureau stories of JDR have that same quality, with the ensuing drama multiplied by the fact that they're hosted on FimFiction with more idle eyeballs around bumping into it, whereas to care about an original fiction like Pastel Defender Heliotrope either way you'd actually have to seek out the author's website.

So, in summary: JDR writes/draws/produces fiction that alternates (more properly, 'veers wildly and unpredictably') between intriguingly inventive, and unusually Anvilicious, which is a combination that for me personally balances out to enjoyable but many other people seem to object to. I actually read some of the Conversion Bureau stuff on Fimfiction without realizing that this was the same author of Unicorn Jelly, and was wondering why I was having such a bad case of the deja vu.

And come on, a person who can display a sense of irony like the following is not all bad:

"We welcome you to Aerostatica, with open tentacles and open sacs. Join us and float in peace and harmony. Just drink this, a mere three ounces of ponifaloonification serum, and you will live in love and joy as one of us."

[Anastasia]

I read that, blinked and realized I'd repressed whatever I read. Something about...you know what, nevermind. Thanks for the info. Gonna go do something mind rotting for a good while, make sure I got all of that out.

*Shudder*

[Yuthirin]

Dear Christ.

[Anastasia]

Dear Christ.

That also works.

In seriousness, I read lines like:

It had the whole 'ponies are superior master race' thing right from the outset, from what I gather.

Jennifer Diane Reitz is a Wiccan atheist singularitarian transsexual Internet crazyperson from San Francisco who has put together some interesting and imaginative science fiction

My brain slips gears. I try and formulate an intelligent reply, but it's drowned in a tidal wave of the letters W, T and F.

[Ergoemos]

Eh it takes all kinds.

I think for a nice unifying opinion, I'd like to say "fuck you" to the guy who came into my office celebrating the death of the "hippy no talent drugs addict godless comedian". His words summarized, not mine.

[Dracos]

Wow.

You've got to be a pretty petty person to be that negatively worked up over someone you view as a comedian.

[Iron Dragoon]

Eh it takes all kinds.

I think for a nice unifying opinion, I'd like to say "fuck you" to the guy who came into my office celebrating the death of the "hippy no talent drugs addict godless comedian". His words summarized, not mine.

"Godless" implies that this person is some variation of Christian. Catholicism specifically states that you should be forgiving of your neighbors. Celebrating the death of someone firstly, isn't very forgiving, and secondly, isn't very respectful to the family.

It seems he is a rather poor Christian, and small minded, petty people are never worth getting worked up over.

I say be content in that this person will likely be miserable in some facet of his life for as long as he lives, as he is too petty and small to ever move past anything, and dismiss his existence as much as you can.

If god does exist, I'm sure he/she/it has done the same.

[Anastasia]

You know what sucks? Being a good guy at work, always trying to help people out and when it comes down to it? The people you help leave you to hang when the situation is reversed. Ugh.

[Carthrat]

Some people will take advantage of your generosity. Be generous anyway.

(yeah, it sucks, man. Lamers.)