Really? That's your con-crit? Really?

[ratherastory]

Oh, fanfiction.net, how you perplex me.

So yet ANOTHER person wrote me a weird review for "Heaven Without You." I swear that story attracts the weirdest comments... mind you, it's also the stand-alone which got the most comments, so maybe the percentages work out.

The latest commenter (who again left no link for me to answer) liked the story, but berated me for not having, and I quote: "a defined supernatural element." She then magnanimously forgives me, because it's a character-driven story.

*snorts*

Good Lord.

Comments

[ficwriter1966.livejournal.com]

??????

That's... I honestly have no words.

Could you give me a link to the story? I'm feeling like I need to look at the crazy firsthand.

I do have to applaud you for having the strength to post over there. I think I would have fried my last nerve ending a long time ago.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Sure!

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5866304/1/Heaven_Without_You

[klutzy-girl.livejournal.com]

lolwut. Oh, ff.net reviewers. What's wrong with you?

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I don't even know.

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

Um, wastn't Heaven Without You mostly hunter trauma? And therefore rather less with the small s supernatural than most of your stories?

But it's OK. We all forgive you. We are beautiful, magnanimous people. Even if you do something crazy by having, like, angels or ghosts in your stories.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Uh, sorry, I was missing a word. It was because there wasn't a supernatural element. :P

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

Well, that's not more polite, but it makes more sense.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sorry. I was under-caffeinated and skipped a word. Good thing she forgave me! I totally might have lost sleep over it otherwise. ;)

[bumblee.livejournal.com]

I've never posted any SPN fic on FF.net. Is it worth it?

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Not really.

I started out on ff.net and have people there who read my fic who aren't on LJ, which is why I stick around. Overall, the quality there isn't great, and the reviews are... perplexing at best. ;)

[bumblee.livejournal.com]

I only post things on LJ...I really haven't ventured onto FF.net in a long time.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I wouldn't bother.

[cordelia-gray.livejournal.com]

Maybe she thought you meant the genre "supernatural" rather than the show? Even so, that makes no sense, because you've got an angel and two characters who've come back from the dead, so - I dunno. It was nice of her to forgive you, though ;)

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I know, eh? I don't know how I would have carried on without her forgiveness for my grievous lapse in judgment. :P

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Crazy weird reviews on ff.net are like a badge of honor. It's part of the experience. You've got to treasure them, and the more out-of-touch they are, the better. I got a weird one on "syndicated scifi show" and I was kind of excited. My first nonsensical review/criticism! It was great.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Cool. So far none of mine have been nonsensical. A few made me scratch my head, and one was offensive (the one that accused me of plagiarism), but none so far have made no sense at all. :P

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Perhaps nonsensical isn't the exact right word. Just the sort of thing that makes you go, "uh, what?" because it just seems so hard to imagine a sensible human being making that comment. (Like your plagiarism one. And this one. It's just weird.)

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

True. I keep having to remind myself that the age group is generally much younger over there. It explains part of it, at least. :P

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

"After that, it's a waiting game." sounds a whole lot like her paragraph that reads "Dean loses track of the days." It does? Um.. by having none of the same words??

That was the weird comment that jumped out at me..

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

That's the worst one to date. Apparently I "ripped it right out" of wave_obscura's fic. I went back and re-read Houdini (because I love the fic and I wanted to re-read it anyway), and I suppose there were SOME similarities, but not enough to warrant an accusation of plagiarism.

Also, I have been absolved by wave_obscura, so I'm not worried. :D

[saberivojo.livejournal.com]

Well, at least you have been forgiven. You know, you can rest well tonight without all of that overwhelming guilt about your lack of defined supernatural element.

*headesk*

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I mean, I was definitely going to lose sleep over that! :D

[primrose-1.livejournal.com]

Huh. Go figure. That's weird.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Seriously. I mean, there's precedent in SPN for episodes without a supernatural element ("The Benders"), and a LOT of fic out there does just character studies, h/c, pre-series or whatever without any supernatural elements as well.

I don't understand why she was so put off, especially since I put it in the summary that Sam got taken by hunters. Weird.

[melanth0.livejournal.com]

ff.net is craycray, and I strongly suspect that at least half the commenters half-heartedly have their troll on.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Half-heartedly, for sure. If that's the best they can do? It is a sad day for fandom indeed. ;)

[tahirire.livejournal.com]

This one is the one that kills me -

"this was a good story. really top of the line h/c. exactly what I was looking for

I just would have felt better if some of the words and sentence structures hadn't been ripped from wave obscura's fic. starting here: "After that, it's a waiting game." sounds a whole lot like her paragraph that reads "Dean loses track of the days."

maybe it's the trademark of a good fic writer. maybe it's a similar structure that h/c fic writers revert to. I don't know"

WHAT. DEY FUTS.

I should be more careful, in the future, to be sure I never say things like 'close enough for government work,' or 'with nothing else to do but wait,' or 'Sam,' or 'Dean' anymore. Wouldn't want to plagiarize. Fer Gawd.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I could totally accuse you of plagiarism! *points accusingly*

IDEK. *shrugs*

[tahirire.livejournal.com]

It's true. I do use the English language.

*is srsface*

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

COPYCAT!

*sticks out tongue*

[wave-obscura.livejournal.com]

I'm seriously considering not posting there anymore. I'm like you-- I started out there and would have never found my way here if it weren't for ff.net, but there's always SOMEONE there just WAITING to be irritating.

I get angry PMs for not updating fast enough and was recently I was accused of being a Sam-hater, with the reviewer implying that Dean was OOC because he would NEVER like an OC who dared treat Sam so badly. Okay, maybe not... but hey, it's the first chapter of a multi-chaptered fic, a sequel to a fic you read and liked all 40,000 words of, so you think maybe you could GIVE ME THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT FOR A COUPLE MORE CHAPTERS?

My favorite review was when I accidentally posted a REALLY rough draft of the last chapter of Houdini, tacked onto the penultimate chapter. Someone, knowing I posted it on accident, wrote me a review telling me the rough draft portion felt rushed, and would I please try to take my time fleshing it out?

Jesus, people. I ask myself all the time why I still bother :)

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

*snort*

The sense of entitlement at ff.net is mind-boggling.

We haven't even SEEN Dean's reaction to the woman yet. Jesus, people! I keep wondering if I shouldn't leave ff.net, but part of me enjoys the train wreck. ;)

I'm a little nervous about my BigBang over there, because of how it ends. The people at the anon meme are already hating it on principle. ;)

[tifaching.livejournal.com]

"The people at the anon meme are already hating it on principle. ;)" This means you are doing something right!

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Let's hope so! They're building on each other's annoyance right now. I shouldn't be looking at the thread (not good for my sanity), but it's like a train wreck: I can't look away! ;)

[wave-obscura.livejournal.com]

I know, jesus, how can you stand to look at that thing? My self esteem is far too fragile. I got a relatively mild bashing on there a couple months ago and was crushed about for a week :)

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I think if the criticism was about, I dunno, the actual story or the quality of my writing, I'd be crushed.

As it is, the ones complaining the loudest are doing so about the fact that I obviously don't understand the relationship between Sam and Dean, because of how I ended the story.

I can sort of understand where they're coming from, but I'm having a hard time taking the complaint seriously, because the ones complaining have not, in fact, read the story. *eyeroll*

So, yeah. Right now it's kind of entertaining.

One of them has commented in such a way as to off-handedly suggest I don't write well, but not exactly, and I can't bring myself to be upset about it. :)

[debbiel66.livejournal.com]

I guess I shouldn't send you a needy pm asking when you're going to be updating, huh? ;)

[wave-obscura.livejournal.com]

Ha-- well you see, I love when people are curious about updates. It's nice to know that people care. It's the OMG WILL YOU HURRY UP AND FUCKING UPDATE ALREADY BECAUSE IT IS SO RUDE TO KEEP PEOPLE WAITING FOR A NEW CHAPTER I HATE YOUUUUUUUUU that I don't like :)

Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, I will have an update on Monday :)

[greeneyes-fan.livejournal.com]

Because of course your readers are paying you a great deal of money for timely updates.

[debbiel66.livejournal.com]

Okay, you all are convincing me not to feel the least bit bad that I never finished posting one of my older stories on there. I don't know why I posted there at all - guess it felt better to have postings in two places lest LJ ever crashed, and one of my LJ buddies came from ff.net, but seriously?

I never read over there - wouldn't even know where to start.

[greeneyes-fan.livejournal.com]

For some reason, this whole discussion makes me think of a classic dichotomy: Fic which is actually good vs fic which feeds my twisted needs.

ff.net is there for the latter. And for a handful of authors, like k. hanna korossy or PADavis. Actually, I think those are the only good SPN writers who haven't migrated to LJ. (I may have forgotten someone, no offense intended).

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Heh. I totally hear you on that. ff.net feeds some of my twisted needs, for which I will willingly read terrible, terrible fic with poor spelling and bad punctuation and horrible dialogue. ;)

[kasman.livejournal.com]

You need to turn off anonymous reviews on FFN. Make 'em sign their work!

And actually, angels are considered to be "supernatural elements". On the other hand, not every episode of supernatural has contained supernatural elements (The Benders? Family Remains?), hence Dean's comment about people being crazy...

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, she signed, she just didn't leave a reply link. :)

I was thinking along the same lines as you: sometimes, it's just people.

[kasman.livejournal.com]

How very irritating of her. :(