Reviews & replies: The good, the bad, and the WTF

I just got one of those "write my story for me" reviews:

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vampiregirl2009
2009-12-19 . chapter 25 Can you do another story & it's about Len/Maya. the info: Len fell in love with Maya. But what happen when Xaviax kidnapped Maya & tried turning her into his bride. Can Len save her or will Xaviax win? Oh, please have Maya pregnant & Len the father.

I'm tempted to write it as a story within a story that one of the characters writes and everyone gets mad at him.

EileenK98 wrote:

I just got one of those "write my story for me" reviews:

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vampiregirl2009
2009-12-19 . chapter 25 Can you do another story & it's about Len/Maya. the info: Len fell in love with Maya. But what happen when Xaviax kidnapped Maya & tried turning her into his bride. Can Len save her or will Xaviax win? Oh, please have Maya pregnant & Len the father.

I'm tempted to write it as a story within a story that one of the characters writes and everyone gets mad at him.

I've gotten reviews like those, including some that demanded I have the story written by a certain time. Do your own writing, fanbrats!

Then there was one reviewer who was so enchanted by a story I was writing that she wanted to send me an outline of how the rest of the story should go. When I informed her that I already had an outline and knew what was going to happen, she informed me that she was very particular about what happened in stories she liked and if didn't go her way, she would stop reading it. (Boo-fuckin'-hoo.) When I asked her why she didn't just write her own stories, she replied that she could never decide what she wanted to happen in the story and always had to keep rewriting the first chapter (and yet she wanted me to follow her outline for a story I'd been working on for years). [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Background:

• The grammar, spelling and lack of capitalization in the review is identical to the grammar, spelling and lack of capitalization in the fic.
  
• She spelled Neville 'Nevil' and spelled 'Wrackspurts' a different way nearly every time she mentioned them and never correctly.
  
• Every single other review for this fic mentioned the poor grammar and spelling.
  
• I criticised how she made Neville bust in through the wall on a Thestral and then forget to do a basic spell. Okay, I'll concede that point.
  

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the reason i said it was my story and
i'll spell it how i want is because frankly i am lazy and don't want to
go back and get my story re-validated just because of a name
misspelling and in my mind Nevil is how you spell Nevil and i'll keep
it consistently that way. Nevil i feel can't be changed. just because
he has done some really amazing things doesn't mean his entire nature
would have changed. to me he is strong but still forgetful at times.i
am sorry about the grammer but u r really the only person it severly
bothers so much that they mention it 5 times and u have read the entire
5 chapters so it really can't the end of the world. i am glad for the
constructive critisism but u didn't even say if u LIKED the story. this
site isn't a test grade i do my writing for fun and if u don't like it
i am not forcing u to read it. i am not trying to be mean but i don't
think there was a single positive thing in that last reveiw (well you
did say seamus was "better" but it still seemed to put down my previous
chapters) and it kinda bothers me. for anyone who doesn't like my
grammer mistakes you can comment about that once or twice but i realize
i am not perfect and there are plenty of things on this site with worse
grammer and spelling, as always i am still glad you reveiwed and hope u
do continue to read the story and am sorry if misspellings and Nevil
and gramatical stuff bothers you.

It's the way she just flat-out admits that she's too lazy to try to improve as a writer or even to spend fifteen minutes changing the spelling of 'Neville'.

Did she just act like misspelling his name was a form of respecting the character? O_o

No, that ignoring how he was at the end of the series is a dishonour to him.

My new best friend's at it again:

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vampiregirl2009
2010-02-01 . chapter 33 I kinda want a vampire kidnapped Maya and Len save her.

So, in other words, Twilight with Kamen Rider characters. *facepalm*

Sorry to necropost, but my favorite anonymouse left this review on my latest chapter:

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Update.

That's it. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]


Edit: she has now posted this on three out of four chapters, all of which were posted within two days of each other.

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or anyone who doesn't like my grammer mistakes you can comment about
that once or twice but i realize i am not perfect and there are
plenty of things on this site with worse grammer and spelling,

Is that a GOOD excuse to not turn on your spellchecker? "There are people worse than me, so it's okay to suck as long as I don't suck as bad as them."

And it's spelt Grammar.

My most recent fic on FFN has garnered a surprising number of reviews (especially compared to my other fic in the same fandom). Unfortunately, quantity=/=quality.

Wildfury wrote:

cool

ericka wrote:

Kallen put as a couple of lelouch and knows that he is zero

luis wrote:

Kallen put as a couple of lelouch

kevin wrote:

continuous but has even Kallen and Lelouch

Those last three were all anonymous; I don't know if it's a single illiterate/non-English-speaking Kalulu shipper with a split personality, a hive mind, several people with only one imagination between them, or one person who thinks that if they scream about their ship of choice enough times I'll bow to their shrill-voiced monomania. (Hint: they're wrong.)

Then there was the reaction to the minor OC with about 5 lines to his name who has a crush on one of the main characters:

Deviate Fish wrote:

I don't like this Will Keaton touching Nunnally.

(My facetious reply to this one was "Lelouch? Is that you?" Note also that the character in question did not in fact touch her at all.)

Yuriski-1st wrote:

Are you going to pair Nunnally of with this weird OC? Hopefully not..

One of the joys of small, weird fandoms is that when you get a lot of people together who are passionate about the subject matter, that can often make for really good reviews. Right now, I'm in the G.I. Joe fandom (don't laugh) and they're good people. Which makes it all the stranger when you come across the occasional semi-coherent one.

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hahahahahahaha oh my god! hahahahahahahahhahahahhaha lol

. . . thanks, I guess.

That's pretty much her modus operandi for every single review she gives. I think the Joe fandom has spoiled me; I've gotten too used to thoughtful, coherent feedback.

I got this crazy review on fictionpress for a story that doesn't have any genies in it. :

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[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Drizzle 2009-11-13 . chapter 1
two genies!? I knew disney left out something
important!

It's definitely not a fan fiction (right? It's on fictionpress). I'm
not sure I get what this dude is trying to say.

I once had another author essentially 'steal' three OCs I'd created for a very long, three-story arc. She initially asked me if she could 'borrow' them for a story she was writing, but she wouldn't tell me what the story was about, or why she couldn't create her own three OCs (except, of course, that mine came already fully-realized, complete with back story). When I told her I'd prefer it if she didn't, she said I had no way of claiming them as my own, since they were OCs, so she was going to use them anyway, and tough if I didn't like it.

Never did know why she fixated on those three particular characters, or what she was planning on doing with them.

I just got this review for a fic I wrote a good ten years ago:

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please please please write a sequel it'll kill me if you dont i'll also give u
a great big cookie so please (puppy dog pout)

Um...thanks?

Lady Anne wrote:

I just got this review for a fic I wrote a good ten years ago:

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please please please write a sequel it'll kill me if you dont i'll also give u
a great big cookie so please (puppy dog pout)

Um...thanks?

I know the feeling. Back in the early 2000s, I began writing what was intended to be a three-part story arc for the fandom I was heavily into at the time. I basically worked myself into a major case of writer's block (or possibly a nervous breakdown, I've never been sure which), and while half of the third story still exists, I never finished.

Four or five times a year, I get e-mail from someone who's new to the fandom, have read the first two stories, really liked them, and wanted to know if I'm ever going to finish it. It always makes me feel bad to have to tell them no, though I do find it a bit of an ego boost that so many people seem to like that particular story.

What I really hate about some of the flames I've gotten was that if only the flamer had read the author's notes or summary more carefully, they wouldn't have been so upset over the fact that my story featured a slash pairing.

Topics like these always remind me of a long, rambling review I once got on an original fic from some teenager trying to convert people to Christianity, complete with musings on the moral decay of society and numerous Bible quotes. It came out of NOWHERE and it was by far the most bizarre thing to appear in any of the reviews I got.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

I just got this review for a fic I wrote a good ten years ago:

Quote :

please please please write a sequel it'll kill me if you dont i'll also give u
a great big cookie so please (puppy dog pout)

Um...thanks?

I know the feeling. Back in the early 2000s, I began writing what was intended to be a three-part story arc for the fandom I was heavily into at the time. I basically worked myself into a major case of writer's block (or possibly a nervous breakdown, I've never been sure which), and while half of the third story still exists, I never finished.

Four or five times a year, I get e-mail from someone who's new to the fandom, have read the first two stories, really liked them, and wanted to know if I'm ever going to finish it. It always makes me feel bad to have to tell them no, though I do find it a bit of an ego boost that so many people seem to like that particular story.

I'm absolutely curious, so please don't think I'm rude for asking:

Was your fandom HP, by any chance? One of my favourite stories of all time had exactly this happen - three parts, the third only half finished and abandoned. It was an extremely popular story for the pairing and on a well-known archive which ended up having a lot of drama associated with it.

I've always wanted to know what happened to it, and it was the first thing that popped into my head when I read your post.

Philomena wrote:

I'm absolutely curious, so please don't think I'm rude for asking:

Was your fandom HP, by any chance? One of my favourite stories of all time had exactly this happen - three parts, the third only half finished and abandoned. It was an extremely popular story for the pairing and on a well-known archive which ended up having a lot of drama associated with it.

I've always wanted to know what happened to it, and it was the first thing that popped into my head when I read your post.

Sorry, it wasn't. It was a rather obscure fandom called The Sentinel. I've never even read the Harry Potter books; most of the badfic I've seen snarked on here and the totally loony shippers scared me away from it.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

I just got this review for a fic I wrote a good ten years ago:

Quote :

please please please write a sequel it'll kill me if you dont i'll also give u
a great big cookie so please (puppy dog pout)

Um...thanks?

I know the feeling. Back in the early 2000s, I began writing what was intended to be a three-part story arc for the fandom I was heavily into at the time. I basically worked myself into a major case of writer's block (or possibly a nervous breakdown, I've never been sure which), and while half of the third story still exists, I never finished.

Four or five times a year, I get e-mail from someone who's new to the fandom, have read the first two stories, really liked them, and wanted to know if I'm ever going to finish it. It always makes me feel bad to have to tell them no, though I do find it a bit of an ego boost that so many people seem to like that particular story.

I get a lot of odd reviews for this story, probably because it had a downer ending and the OTP did not end up together (they were both alive, but life took him in a different direction from her). Fanbrats hate that. All stories must have happy endings, or at least ones ending in either death for both or a his/her heart went on sort of situation (and why that is considered a happy ending, I've never quite understood).

The only reviews that make go WTF? are the flame reviews which read like the person hasn't read any of the clear warnings about what to expect. Ugh! And yet when I point that out they shoot back saying about how they got a right to bitch. Um, no. It's like skiing in an area that is clearly marked Out Of Bounds and dangerous. If someone does that and gets hurt, then they effectively lose the right to get monetary compensation, because they knowingly chose to ski where they shouldn't have.

From the reviews for this (bad) Code Geass fic:

Darth Lelouch wrote:

I loved your story. You think the edges? I hope not.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Keith Fraser wrote:

From the reviews for this (bad) Code Geass fic:

Darth Lelouch wrote:

I loved your story. You think the edges? I hope not.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Sounds like they left out a few words there.

Just remembered a review I got for a lengthy piece of FF7 slash. I tend to cross-post and at the time I was posting on Live Journal comms, Media Miner, and AFF. Anyway, I can't access AFF right now but the reviewer was complaining about how I'd feminized Cloud in this passage:

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Looking deeply uncomfortable, Cloud lowered his gaze to the worn
tabletop. Reno thought he could detect the faint stain of a blush along
the blonde's cheeks and felt inexplicable satisfaction. “Um…thanks, I
guess, but back then…I was skinnier, weaker. Honestly, I didn't start
bulking up until after I failed to make it into SOLDIER and was
transferred to Shinra's basic military.” When he met Reno's gaze, his
lips parted as though he wanted to say something else, closed again,
and then he was shaking his head, “but that's not important anymore. I
was young and clueless and look where it got me?”

(in case you're curious, in the paragraph proceeding this one Reno got rather flirtatious with Cloud, but I didn't really want to include so much text to get to my point)

Anyway, so I was pretty confused because I don't really prescribe to all that top/bottom, uke/seme shit that's so prevalent in slash/yaoi. What I was portraying was not submissiveness on Cloud's part but his general awkwardness when it comes to...Well, a lot of social situations. I mean, thinking in retrospect, I suppose I could have (should have?) had Cloud glare at Reno and ignore the comment. Really though, I don't think it's as heinous thing as the reviewer had made it out to be....

I recently dropped a review discussing the absurdity of someone's AU romance fanfic. She recently updated and added an author's note reminding everyone that it is indeed an alternate continuity.

I find this somewhat confusing as I am a blatant troll fic writer, I posted my review using my moron-who-misuses-Spell Check shtick, and I'm the only one who took issue with the concept.

Pengwolf wrote:

I find this somewhat confusing as I am a blatant troll fic writer, I posted my review using my moron-who-misuses-Spell Check shtick, and I'm the only one who took issue with the concept.

Well- there is a pattern in these times of ignoring the reasonable in favour of the batshit.