| Current mood: | Candy-Coated |
"You only like my fic because you're a moron! Give me reviews!"
Though I bore witness to much of this wank, the tale truly belongs to a friend of mine. In her words:
(edited because for some reason the links are all wonky, thus some c&p'ing might be necessary)
Take My Hand (http://fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1248607) is a fluffy little Vash/Meryl Trigun fic at FFN. The author demonstrated that she understood grammar and paragraph breaks, and lo, it was good.
Then she tried her hand at original characters. Meryl brought home her boyfriend/fiancee/father of her unborn child, Vash, to meet the family Stryfe. Meryl is also in her late 20’s/early 30’s by this point, so her older brothers would be mid-to-late 30’s. They act like they’re five. They call the stranger in their house a loser, and, upon finding out their sister is pregnant, say that they hope it gets their family’s good looks by adding, “Hope it doesn’t look like him. Fucking ugly baby.”
It really threw the cute fluffiness of the story off that these two characters were so contrived. I put in my review that they didn’t act their age at all. She replied not through email (which I left with review), but in her author’s notes of the next chapter. She asked to be introduced to these fine men that act their ages.
I sent her an email (http://www.livejournal.com/users/fadingembers/130209.html) to explain why I felt that way about the characters. Twice, she was reminded that the email was not a flame, and that I enjoyed her story. She replied through email, which was definitely a step up. But the email was about 10 steps down. She insinuated that because she shouldn’t make fun of reviewers, I said she should stop writing altogether. Her author’s notes weren’t cocky; it just felt that way in contrast with the narrator of the fic, Meryl. And her best friend/little sister is the bestest beta reader ever, and she didn’t see anything wrong with the brothers Stryfe. Anyway, she’s been surrounded by men all her life and she knows them even better than women and her brothers really really really fer sure do act like that.
The kicker follows. She wonders why she’s received so many reviews, because it “has no plot.”
“It's just a mound of mindless drivel that I put together because my sister bet me ten bucks I could never write a lime scene. So you guys sit there and talk about something like "Hmm...I think this is a very well written story, and it's very in character, but honestly, do brothers act that way? And where's his jacket?" and you wonder why Jade and I laugh? It's a joke, do you get it? This fic is probably the least well planned piece of random fluff that I've pulled out of my ass ever, and you guys are gobbling it up! It's FUNNY!
Silly me. If someone wanted to pay me $10 to write a lime scene, I’d write PWP (“Complimentary”</a> is a fine fic you can see at AdultFanFiction.Net) and be done with it, not a 13-chapter (still going strong) fluff that has already had its mediocre sex scene.
The following chapter had not one, but two author’s notes. A strange feat when you consider that there’s only one author to the story. The first note was by her beta friend, and was directed only to me. The second note was by Teresa, the author herself. I wish I had saved it, because she’s deleted it and put something apologetic in its place.
Her attitude can best be described as snide, and echoed the above sentiment from her email. She felt betrayed by her readers - they weren’t being honest with her! If they were honest, someone would have told her how much the story sucked. But nooooo, all they did was compliment her tale and say that they enjoyed it. How is it that none of them saw there was no plot? TMH is obviously the worst story ever posted to FFN and they gobble it up! Haven’t they noticed it sucks? Haven’t they noticed it’s pointless? It almost feels like it isn’t worth continuing...sigh...
She certainly got honesty. Reviews telling her what a spoiled kid she was poured in. Only then did she change the author’s notes. She only wanted some honesty. She had so many good reviews, she didn’t think people were even reading the story, and that hurt to know that a story she worked so hard on wasn’t getting honest reviews, and people were only telling her nice things. Poor thing.
But wait! If she only wanted honesty, why did she make fun of reviews she didn’t like or understand? And if she thought TMH was just crap and was laughing at us for “gobbling it up” then why did she want honest reviews? Why should she care?
All sorts of logical arguments with her are impossible. It’d be like leaving a review that said “Duck season!” just to see if her author’s notes would insist “Rabbit season!”