Thread:RubyTheMaster/@comment-4750363-20130605200748/@comment-4332975-20130611173544

This is something that I've long campaigned against, actually. I feel that there is an unfair bias against certain concepts. More often than not, it isn't the subject matter, or even the ideas that is the problem. It's just the quality of writing. Even the usual death and gore can be effective if the person writing it knows how to "sell" the discomfort it brings. Indeed, a large number of my own stories, generally well received here, have been in direct response to something someone thought just wouldn't work.

It began with CPwiki, in fact. I wrote My First Pikachu to test whether or not the clichés were the problem, or the fact that the stories just followed the same formula. You can find many of the common elements in this story; Pokémon feeling abandoned, odd pitch-shifting and nature changes, events centring around Lavender Town, a Pokémon showing definite attitudes toward fighting, and attacking the one that replaces it. However, I use these elements to different effect, and set a different tone from most poképasta. The difference is so pronounced, some have even said that they didn't see clichés in the story when they read it.

Later, when people started complaining that Sonic could never make a good creepypasta, I wrote Sonic Alpha, and focused on a "What if" approach to the Sonic story. By basing my ideas off of things canonical to the series, and extrapolating some of the logical implications - along with a healthy dose of my own views on game design - I tried to create a tale of what Sonic really could have been, if it hadn't been made for a young audience. It may be one of the darkest Sonic pasta out there, tone-wise, without a drop of blood ever being shed.

Then, when Mutahar declared that a good Minecraft creepypasta was impossible, I wrote one for that. He said that they were all about Herobrine, and I'll admit that I took a bit of a shot at him for that when It Wasn't Herobrine. Again, no gore, no ghosts...just the logical implications of the game's own lore, and the ambiguity of wondering if it was true, or all in someone's head. Are we being watched, or is sanity merely something we hold by the slightest thread, only waiting for that slight jolt to make it snap...and which implication would really be the most unsettling?

I've even taken my pot-shot at every "file extension" pasta ever. With Unknown Format, I aimed to give my take on why there's so damn many. Yet, for all the clichéd descriptions of gruesome scenes thrown into well-known games and programs, I knew that wasn't to be the scary part. I didn't try to make it scary, only to set the tone. Again, by changing the focus to the human aspect, and how our fragile minds react to trauma, I think I was able to tell a story that went beyond the clichés it embraced.

Ultimately, that's my point. I do not believe that there are any bad stories. There are only bad storytellers.