Well, of course you are. Me too. But if so, you may want to check out his recentish Fimfiction post in which he mentions his intention to delete several stories in the next few days. No, The Celestia Code and its sequels are not among them, thankfully. But the last line of the Fimf post says that the non-listed stories will stay up "for now" – so you may want to download those as well to be on the safe side. As things stand, iisaw has 17 published fics, so it shouldn't take a ridiculous amount of time. It's worth reading the comments below the post, too. Some interesting stuff in there.
On a more general note, it's pretty unusual for an author to give notice of their intention to pull stuff from Fimfiction. I do remember that HoofBitingActionOverload gave similar notice in 2016, but in his case that was going to be all his stories and was connected to his original fiction career. (He didn't actually go through with the unpublishing in the end.) Several other authors have simply nuked their accounts with no warning. So iisaw's decision to give due warning is a nice gesture. I download and keep every story I read in any case. It's not as if they take up much space on modern storage systems.
There is one small way in which this will have a direct bearing on my blog: as a matter of policy, Ponyfic Roundup does not feature stories that are not publicly available directly from the author on Fimfiction (or, very occasionally, another fanfic site) at the time I write the review. Going on from that, I don't think it would be fair either to review a story whose author has indicated a desire to remove it from the site. Therefore, none of the fics listed in iisaw's blog post will be reviewed in PR.
You know, sometimes I wonder why guys like him even bother to have an account like on 'Fimfiction' or 'Fanfiction' if they're just going to delete their account along with all their stories? Now if they were the kind of stories that get mostly negative reviews for poor grammar, improper character portrayal, horrid pacing, an ill-appropriate accusation fic and/or the story constantly shifts focus... I'd understand 'that'. But to me, this is kind of like cancelling a whole group page just because the series you put together wasn't off to a tremendous start and you weren't thinking how everyone else would feel. Ultimately, it's not my place to state what this guy is doing may be a slight immature nor is it even my place to say what is better for artists of his caliber, even if it were considering how all their fans would want. Ultimately, as the narrator of their own story, this is iisaw's choice as to what he wants to do for himself even if certain repercussions would have to be thoroughly addressed.
ReplyDeleteIf I do have to make ONE suggestion based on this: I really hope that his ultimate decision is a choice he made 'wisely'.
It's not my place to speak for iisaw. But read some of his comments on this very blog from recent months, and you don't exactly get a picture of someone wildly in love with the fandom as it currently stands.
DeleteI'm absolutely sure he's thought about this.
Why, yes I am!
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, I've considered moving the stories to an alt account as some people have suggested, but if I did that, I might as well make the user name "iisaw's_crappy_stories".
I'm rereading them all, just to confirm my opinion, and it looks like Welcome to Pony Vale and A Serpent Underhoof will stay. But the rest aren't worth wasting the storage space on.
Oh, BTW, even though it's staying, I don't recommend reading or reviewing A Serpent Underhoof. It really isn't the sort of story I think you'd enjoy. Spare yourself the unpleasantness.
DeleteI consider this a small victory. :)
Delete@iisaw -- I'll take your advice on A Serpent Underhoof, then, thanks. It wasn't on my RiL list anyway, but then its combination of tags is not one I'd expect to have appealed.
Delete