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Every now and again I'll get a sudden bunch of reviews from different people, apparently at random. That is, I didn't update anything recently, I didn't review or start a fight on someone's forum or in any other way put my name (and the link that goes with it) out into circulation. This tends to bother me in that particular way where you're curious but can't ever confirm anything. It's almost always just two, to make it even harder to be certain of anything.
See, by my reasoning there are three possibilities:
a)Coincidence. People randomly stumble upon my stories at a certain rate. This time, it happened that two or three did so at once.
b)The first person stumbled on them, then told the other person(s).
c)Someone else stumbled on them without reviewing (or stumbled on and reviewed a while ago) and has told the other person(s), who then show up.
Does this matter? No. Not in the slightest. Sometimes I have a niggling curiousity if the source is links to me/my stories getting posted someplace public but elsewhere on the internet, but odds are against it and even on the occasions it's true, it's generally no more interesting than "Hey, check this out."
That said, there are deeply satisfying times when things do come together nicely and one can not only trace what happened, but finds out all sorts of new things.
So I found I had two new reviews for Inheritors and Ice, by two different people. Standard.
But! They were both flames.
My initial thought was that it was someone dual-accounting (because seriously, they're flames, and those are a good deal rarer...especially within five minutes of each other) but the reviews didn't sound similar in style. And when I clicked on the accounts, they were both old and both had long profiles.
Both, however, reference the same forum, The Domain. Since both also crow proudly about the fact they're flamers, I guessed that the forum was probably our common link. One of them or a third party had brought me up/explicitly requested flames for me. I head off to do a targeted google search on the forum...and find that the only time my name's come up is someone listing me among good pokemon authors.
Now, this being the sort of forum two flamer-chans hang out at, it's certainly the sort of place where simply having your name mentioned makes you a target (someone with higher/different standards heads over and decides that your stories are bad, then targets you with the typical rage directed against any bad author who's getting praise, or someone who doesn't like your stories jumps right to the "targeting with typical rage" bit). Except the thread is months ago and my name hasn't come up since according to Google, so while it's an explanation, it doesn't quite satisfy me.
Of course, there are other forums on the site and, sad to say, it's hardly the only forum for flamer-chans to hang out at, so I figure I'll broaden the search a bit and see if my name's come up more recently.
And huh. I'm apparently widely hated by a group with members that overlap with the Domain. (And ones who think I'll run crying if anyone's mean to me, at that) That's a much more satisfying explanation.
As usual, I find the thread itself fascinating, if unclear in how useful it is. (On the one hand, should I take their complaints against my profile as evidence that I am not communicating myself properly? That is, if people take As insanely awesome as I am, I am sadly not capable of replying to anonymous reviews. If you wish to ask questions or discuss the story, please remember to either sign in or give an email. as a serious statement, is this a sign I should revise it into something more clear, like perhaps So I've been getting these anon reviews, written by people who seem to think I can reply to anon reviews, which is impossible and therefore like saying I have awesome magic powers that let me do the impossible like reply to anon reviews, but I actually don't, so you need to sign in/leave an email to get a reply, and I'm hoping that the people who give anon reviews as if I can answer them, being made up mostly of rather flame-like criticizers, will realize the last thing they would want to do is imply I have awesome magic powers or any other positive trait, and therefore stop doing it.? Or should I take the fact that they also seem to think I have some sort of massive villainous plan behind wanting people to email me and that the fact people have favorited/reviewed/whathaveyou my stories makes me a horrible egotistical person as evidence that they're just going to interpret everything I say as arbitrarily evil? Or should I take the fact they think A high percentage of kids are concerned with being popular and fitting in. If you're one of the smaller percentage that isn't, get with the program! Copy this into your profile like a good little sheep. If you're part of the high percentage who are concerned with popularity but want to feel like a special snowflake, add your name to the list so when the meme gets popular, everybody will see your name and know how nonconformist and cool you are. is a legitimate version of those copy-paste memes as a sign that looking for reasoning of any kind here is a lost cause?)
Anyway, my review replies were both painfully polite. On the one hand, this makes it entirely possible they'll take it as sarcasm/trickery/something else along those lines. On the other, well, odds were they'd take anything else I said like that too unless it was "OMG SHUT UP. I r serious important author who will ignore your (totally right, totally concrit) FLAMING because I have a big ego and can't take (totally true) criticism and now I sic my "friends" on you!!! lol."
See, by my reasoning there are three possibilities:
a)Coincidence. People randomly stumble upon my stories at a certain rate. This time, it happened that two or three did so at once.
b)The first person stumbled on them, then told the other person(s).
c)Someone else stumbled on them without reviewing (or stumbled on and reviewed a while ago) and has told the other person(s), who then show up.
Does this matter? No. Not in the slightest. Sometimes I have a niggling curiousity if the source is links to me/my stories getting posted someplace public but elsewhere on the internet, but odds are against it and even on the occasions it's true, it's generally no more interesting than "Hey, check this out."
That said, there are deeply satisfying times when things do come together nicely and one can not only trace what happened, but finds out all sorts of new things.
So I found I had two new reviews for Inheritors and Ice, by two different people. Standard.
But! They were both flames.
My initial thought was that it was someone dual-accounting (because seriously, they're flames, and those are a good deal rarer...especially within five minutes of each other) but the reviews didn't sound similar in style. And when I clicked on the accounts, they were both old and both had long profiles.
Both, however, reference the same forum, The Domain. Since both also crow proudly about the fact they're flamers, I guessed that the forum was probably our common link. One of them or a third party had brought me up/explicitly requested flames for me. I head off to do a targeted google search on the forum...and find that the only time my name's come up is someone listing me among good pokemon authors.
Now, this being the sort of forum two flamer-chans hang out at, it's certainly the sort of place where simply having your name mentioned makes you a target (someone with higher/different standards heads over and decides that your stories are bad, then targets you with the typical rage directed against any bad author who's getting praise, or someone who doesn't like your stories jumps right to the "targeting with typical rage" bit). Except the thread is months ago and my name hasn't come up since according to Google, so while it's an explanation, it doesn't quite satisfy me.
Of course, there are other forums on the site and, sad to say, it's hardly the only forum for flamer-chans to hang out at, so I figure I'll broaden the search a bit and see if my name's come up more recently.
And huh. I'm apparently widely hated by a group with members that overlap with the Domain. (And ones who think I'll run crying if anyone's mean to me, at that) That's a much more satisfying explanation.
As usual, I find the thread itself fascinating, if unclear in how useful it is. (On the one hand, should I take their complaints against my profile as evidence that I am not communicating myself properly? That is, if people take As insanely awesome as I am, I am sadly not capable of replying to anonymous reviews. If you wish to ask questions or discuss the story, please remember to either sign in or give an email. as a serious statement, is this a sign I should revise it into something more clear, like perhaps So I've been getting these anon reviews, written by people who seem to think I can reply to anon reviews, which is impossible and therefore like saying I have awesome magic powers that let me do the impossible like reply to anon reviews, but I actually don't, so you need to sign in/leave an email to get a reply, and I'm hoping that the people who give anon reviews as if I can answer them, being made up mostly of rather flame-like criticizers, will realize the last thing they would want to do is imply I have awesome magic powers or any other positive trait, and therefore stop doing it.? Or should I take the fact that they also seem to think I have some sort of massive villainous plan behind wanting people to email me and that the fact people have favorited/reviewed/whathaveyou my stories makes me a horrible egotistical person as evidence that they're just going to interpret everything I say as arbitrarily evil? Or should I take the fact they think A high percentage of kids are concerned with being popular and fitting in. If you're one of the smaller percentage that isn't, get with the program! Copy this into your profile like a good little sheep. If you're part of the high percentage who are concerned with popularity but want to feel like a special snowflake, add your name to the list so when the meme gets popular, everybody will see your name and know how nonconformist and cool you are. is a legitimate version of those copy-paste memes as a sign that looking for reasoning of any kind here is a lost cause?)
Anyway, my review replies were both painfully polite. On the one hand, this makes it entirely possible they'll take it as sarcasm/trickery/something else along those lines. On the other, well, odds were they'd take anything else I said like that too unless it was "OMG SHUT UP. I r serious important author who will ignore your (totally right, totally concrit) FLAMING because I have a big ego and can't take (totally true) criticism and now I sic my "friends" on you!!! lol."
