The (Questionable) History of Flutterrape

 

---

 

Long, long ago, when Christopher 'm00t' Poole - then owner of both 4chan and a sense of dignity - caved and created the /mlp/ board, greentext stories were (and still are) extremely popular.

 

We attribute the start to our threads to TG Weaver and his sets of images about Fluttershy aggressively hitting on Anon and failing miserably. The early Flutterrape threads coincided with the Rainbro Dash threads, which would later expand and come to be known as 'Anon in Equestria'. Though Flutterrape came before them, and don't ever let those godless heathens in AiE forget it.

 

With the stage set, Weaver departed to work on other things such as Five Nights at Freddy's and other flavour-of-the-month fandoms, which let greentexters take the stage. Many of the first Flutterrape threads didn't have a name or title. Mostly they were "one-shot" threads that people would just post a green and leave.

 

Greens back then were usually short. Maybe one or two posts at the most. That said, this was also a time when FIMfiction didn't really exist like it does today, (and had yet to be subjugated by our own resident FlutterPriest) and Fanfiction.net was considered cringe worthy at least. Though lets be perfectly honest with ourselves, Fanfiction.net was always cringe worthy.

 

For Flutterrape, it was Driverbang that changed the whole format of the thread. Driver began posting chapters of a longer, better paced, overarching story with an actual plot as opposed to being a simple comedic one-shot. Though the story was short, and in retrospect shoddily written, it was a landmark story in the history of the thread and would set a new standard that many writers would aspire to reach thereafter.

 

Inspired by Driverbang, others like GetMeOuttaHere, Clever Dick (Cerenth), Raritan, Slasher Science, Urban, Minion of Lulu, Etiquette, and Jibber to name a few produced many stories that would go on to be fondly remembered in the future, and further cemented the groundwork for how stories should be written in the thread.

 

The threads progressed in a manner typical of recurring threads on 4chan - a culture set in, the community produced a number of high-profile users, drama inevitably occurred once a fortnight, and all throughout stories were posted, praised, and criticised. In time, many other writers would step forth including ScrabHunter, Theseus, Smudgey, Picklehead, AFlockOfYorkshirePuddings, and Shiggler.

 

A special mention must be made for Morning.

Morning was one of our oldest members, and he was the man that created this very pastebin. He monitored the thread, updated the requests bin, and added new writers to the list. He diligently worked behind the scenes for years, and his efforts must not be forgotten. Personally, I miss him very much. Thank you for your efforts, Morning.

 

Enter: The Scruffening.

Angered by his mother confiscating his Limited Edition Pokemon cards under the argument that "Thirty-year-olds shouldn't be playing with children's card games", /mlp/'s assigned janitor (known fondly as 'Scruffy') began banning threads left and right that were deemed 'not suitable for work'. From a "legal" standpoint, since /mlp/ was a Blue Board, that is, all content must be safe-for-work, anything not following the rules must be purged and banned. A lot of fine, Christian, family friendly threads were lost, including Milky Way, Ass Worship General, and, unfortunately, Flutterrape. Likely because it has "rape" in the title and the janitor was too intellectually inept to read the OP.

 

To say it was a shitstorm would be a bit of an understatement. It was nothing short of bedlam for a good while, and only a concerted effort to complain and post porn in defiance of the new rule enforcement would garner a response from the mods.

 

Scruffy made a decree later on that Flutterrape threads would be allowed under the grounds of NSFW text. We were on a sort of "fucking watch it, Flutterrape, or you're gone forever." kind of deal. Sadly, Ass Worship General and Milky Way would forever be gone. Though recently, the new owner of 4chan - Hiroshim00t - created /trash/, a secret board that has all the pony porn you could ever want. So tappa-tap-tap that shit into your URL bar and go hog wild. Don't go giving yourself friction burn.

 

At this point, however, the damage was already done. Anon in Equestria was alive and strong at this point, and had survived the purging since it isn't an overtly sexual thread (though you could cut the homo-erotic tension in there with a knife).

 

The Scruffening sadly coincided with another miserable, un-ignorable trend: the slow death of the pony fandom. 2011/2012 is generally considered to have been the Golden Age of the Friendship Is Magic fandom, and in the years since then the fandom has experienced a gradual decay in terms of interest and content creation. This inevitably affected /mlp/, and by extension, Flutterrape. Writers faded away and quit, and the thread sadly never recovered. It could be argued that had the Scruffening never occurred, the thread would be in much better condition. It is in this writer's opinion that the thread was destined to decay just as the rest of the board did. Time marches on, and so to must we be obedient to her fancy.

 

But apart from that depressing shit, we also saw a load of super fun drama and notable events that people reference from time to time.

Here they are in no particular order:

 

- Ponyrape -

We attempted to change from Flutterrape to Ponyrape, so that we could have Twilight and other horses get into Anon's pants. It didn't go well. Driverbang hated the idea, as he thought it befouled the legacy of Flutterrape and detoured too far from the original thread. But he's gone now. S-stupid jerk. But still, we lost lots of threads and precious time. It remains Flutterrape to this day (we just edited the OP), and any horse can try to get into Anon's pants.

 

- Zer0 Day -

Zer0 was a writer that mysteriously arrived one day and started dropping hella rad stories. He spoke mostly through haikus, and wrote brilliant green, but wasn't one for small talk. He generated quite a fair bit of buzz, and then, after a few months, Zer0 revealed he was actually Slasher Science. It wasn't a particularly impressive reveal, and the initial response was limited to say the least. But it was the catalyst to what this writer (being someone who participated in the event) regards as a total fucking embarrassment.

 

A collection of writers: Swift Monkey, Nebulus, Theseus, Lasagna, Clever Dick, Raritan, and others, decided to try their own hands at pulling a Zer0, albeit in a more on-the-nose, or, blatantly-obvious way. These writers took up "Zer0" versions of their trips and began posting Slasher style gore/edgy stories as a way of poking fun/releasing their anger about being swindled by Slasher. Slasher entered the thread and posted along the lines of 'lol wut'. Various anonymous posters at the time expressed a great deal of confusion, and the intended effect of the event was lost on all but the people taking part. A terrible idea, and one that this writer regrets to this day.

 

- The Circlejerk -

The Flutterrape Circlejerk Skype Group is a tragic mistake that Sir Tim Berners-Lee - creator of the World Wide Web - likely feels responsible for, and wishes he had never created the Web so the Skype Group wouldn't eventually be formed.

 

To be brief* (*not even remotely brief), the initial idea behind the group was a sound one: create a Skype group to quarantine all the shitposting that would ordinarily take place in the thread. In practice, it only half worked. An entire Skype chat full of concentrated, weaponised autism did just what that you would expect and still managed to leak into the thread, although at a much slower rate. A second group was also created, and this caused tensions. The second group was started by the writers in the thread that wished to hone their talents and bounce ideas off each other. In order to focus themselves on getting better, such a group would only have to include the most talented and driven writers in the thread, and couldn't be subject to the rabble in the 'other' chat. If you're thinking of the word "elitism" right now, you would be correct. As a person that was in both chats, I can tell you that elitism was an unfortunate side-effect of being in a select club for people who considered themselves "the best". (Sorry.)

 

Things were fine for a while* (*Four and a half minutes), lots of (perfectly reasonable) accusations of "elitist" were tossed about and a whole slew of other sub-chats spawned for the various friend-groups that were formed in the main Skype Chat. At its peak, the FR Skype Chat had about 80 people in it. Now it's a ghost town. The second "elite" chat on the other hand is alive and well, but about 90% of it have moved on from writing and are now doing other things like baking, being in the military, studying to be doctors, and working in supermarkets.

 

- Raritan -

There isn't any way to talk about Flutterrape's history without mentioning the man who asked Lauren Faust to read his fanfiction.

Yes, that absolutely did happen, it was during her ceremonious visit to /mlp/ for a Q&A session.

No, he doesn't regret it, I've asked him.

 

He's best known (and hated for) his reaction following the final part of GetMeOuttaHere's "Exchange". Raritan blasted the story, citing unoriginality and a refusal to listen to criticism offered by various people at the time as the main reasons why Exchange was less-than-good. The final part of the story was considered a goodbye for GMOH, who is widely considered the greatest writer Flutterrape ever produced. Posters got mad at Raritan being so callous, and, after Raritan blasted several other writers for being bad, the thread sort of rallied against him to hate the fact he exists.

 

Raritan loves attention. It made people read his stories. His Exchange rant was only a small part of his crusade against public cohesion and general decency, and in his insane quest for views and notoriety he formed a reputation that many older viewers of Flutterrape came to hate, although his "A Helping Hand" story is still considered an FR classic. Despite having effectively quit the thread, he still shows up from time to time to offer words of encouragement* to people. (*Derision.) May he live a long and prosperous life*. (*Die screaming.)

 

- Office Love When? -

FlutterPriest wrote a story called Office Love. He never updates it. Be sure to ask him when the next part is coming out as frequently as possible.

 

- The Wedding Proposal -

This one was a doozy. Writer ASwiftMonkey had an alternate account under the name "UVLight". It went a bit far, however. Swift gave UV life in the thread and in Skype chats in the form of his 'fiance'. The Wedding proposal was Swift's way of asking UV to marry him using the thread. And everyone was happy, until it came out that UV was fake and our familiar friend that we spent time in Skype chats with, didn't really exist. Though the truth about UV was kept secret for a while, likely out of shame since people in the thread still fondly recalled the event despite the truth being somewhat of a downer.

 

- FIMfiction -

Seeing a thread that was slowly, slowly dying, many writers such as Flutterpriest and Swift went and made FIMfiction accounts to cross post all of their writing. Each writer had varying levels of success. Swift's stories are frequently found and used on fanfic readings to gross people out, and Flutterpriest just hit 2000 followers, placing him in the upper percentile of writers on FIMFiction. In time, he will use his influence within the community to corrode it from the inside, and bring the entire site crashing down around him, much like that movie The Manchurian Candidate but with ponies instead of communism.

 

- Cog and Pennywise -

Writer Cog (short for Cognisant, if memory serves) went above and beyond the phrase "you are your own worst critic" by creating an alter-ego named after Pennywise the Clown from the Stephen King novel/movie "IT". Hours after Cog, and only Cog, would post a story, Pennywise would appear and all-caps rage about how much of a fuckboy Cog was. Cog finally revealed that he was Pennywise to no one's surprise, but thereby confirming our suspicions that he was completely insane. We all wish him a speedy recovery.

 

---

 

Where are we now? We survive. Flutterrape has somewhat of a reputation for stubbornly refusing to stay dead. Somehow, even though we have the slowest threads on /mlp/, even though we have hardly any stories, and even though other generals enjoy far more content and appeal, we still manage to keep the threads alive. It could be said that it is actually the second oldest and longest running general on /mlp/ (The absolute eldest being MLPG). Yet despite its tragically long lifetime-per-thread, usually about a month per thread these days, it continues to soldier on.

 

As for the number of writers in the thread, that remains at an all-time low. Interest in Flutterrape has waned to the point where precious little greentext is actually posted compared to threads like AiE and other, younger generals. But we have the wisdom and the experience of one of the oldest threads on /mlp/, and we have seen dozens of generals rise and fall in our time.

 

 

Flutterrape is eternal. Flutterrape is infinite.