Authors, Part 22

[farla]

You have received a reply from the author, Exilo, regarding the review you
posted for:

Title: Zenith
Chapter: 1
Story URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5913790/1/
Author URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/865658/
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*sigh* Didn't we already go through this? Cause you are more and more striking
me as a troll.

Why even bring up the gym thing? But alright, if you really can't figure it
out, let me explain it to you: This is meant to be an adult side of Pokemon.
People would rather "real" fights, with true violence than the cleanness of
the gyms. More prize money. More cameras and fame. Something new even.

We already went through the capitalization thing. In Pokemon, the franchise,
you capitalize Pokemon's names. Do your research.

I have no clue why you are trying to apply real game physics to the anime.
Considering there are such ridiculous things as "aim for the horn!" in the
anime, there is nothing of logic in it. Again, it strikes me that you don't
care about the universe i am writing in, you have this narrow idea of what is
right and flame what others put. And i do believe the body slam was the one
and only move Snorlax landed. That was it. And Princess mused that one more
hit would have put her down. She had adreniline pumping, and what's more, an
urge to make Jenna proud.

Can you point out what is wrong with the tense, or just your Spider-sense
tingling?

Yes, because, again, in the anime which i am writing this on, the villains are
completely competent. Indeed, in all literature, the villains are always
competent, and they are never without an artistic flare that, yes, it
illogical, but put in for the enjoyment of the fic. As well, consider that
this has probably been gone through time and time again, and people are
paralyzed with fear from intimidation of a human who is as big as a very big
Pokemon. Words are stronger than punches a lot of time, because you CAN scare
someone into submission. Basic psychology really. This is just an artistic
flare.

Then, why wouldn't Jenna want to use her Vulpix. Perhaps because, given the
attempt at a realness to this, Flamethrower would actually kill someone? Yeah,
why wouldn't a jet stream of fire streaming at the person, why wouldn't you
just wantonly do that? I mean, if you had a flamethrower on your back, would
you instantly use it? I'm trying to install some level of realism, while
balancing the nature of the anime. So we are lead to the fact that Pokemon
have much, much, much better endurance than humans. And Pokemon attacks on
humans, would kill the human. Jenna is not a murderer. Just the same as in the
prior fic by Gecko, she has an innocence to her, that her first thought is not
"I'm going to use my Pokemon to murder these guys. I'm going to run away."

Why doesn't she stay in the crowd? Perhaps she panics? Perhaps she doesn't
know who to trust? Perhaps, in real life after a tramatic experience people go
aimlessly wandering into the night, without a clue of what is happening. She's
eleven years old. She's not a murderer, she's not a monster, she's not going
to be thinking rationally after an event like this. That is basic human logic,
but of course, that does not fit in your narrow idea of what is right and what
isn't. Not to mention there were people there, guards, coming at her. So she's
scared. Fear, it's an irrational emotion, but she chose flight instead of
run.

You have some merit in your review, but you come off as a pompous, arrogant
troll. And you can say that i am acting like a baby who can't take criticism,
but when i write, i like to expect SOME level of intelligence in my reader. I
assume that they are smart enough that they can understand an eleven year old
girl might not be thinking completely straight after she's nearly mugged. I
expect my reader to be able to understand the psychology of fear, and how it
would make a eleven year old girl act. I also expect my reader to have a basic
understanding of the "rules" of a given canon, which makes my head explode
that for a second time you should attempt to correct me about Pokemon.

You're a troll, a fancy troll dressed in a nice suit and all, but a troll none
the less. Because if you weren't, and you felt this strongly about a critism,
you would actually be seeking to help people. I've been as rigid as you have
been, but i always, always, always make an effort at helping people as well. I
give them something, instead of tearing them down.

As a formality, i won't block you, in case you want to PM me back with some
pathetic flaming of how poor a writer I am and how I’m just a child who
can't take criticism.

But i will formally ask you to stay away from my works. I don't want you
reading, to be perfectly frank. You don't like my style, i can't fault you in
the slightest for that. That is your complete right, but i am not interested
in what you have to say. And i strongly suspect that this is some sort of
wrath at your attempted flaming of Gecko's story. So i will ask you not to
attack my stuff further, and not attack other people's.

If you review again and attempt to pass this flame off with an air of
authority, I’m going to block you, simple as that. I am more than sick of
people like you, to be frank.

-Exilo

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So presumably they sent me a previous message, anyone remember?

Also really confused how we got from "no stupid it's anime no physics exist what are you a moron!" to "no stupid flamethrower is deadly what are you a moron!"

They've since appeared on the forum. The good news is, I'm sure now of why certain posting styles make me assume a poster is male. The bad news it's because they're mansplaining.

Name: SunLight
Profile: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/162707/
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Subject: re: Your review to In the Time Capsule

Thank you for reviewing. On rereading I have to agree about the ending;
originally it had not been there but I wanted to somehow bridge the three
years between R/B/Y and G/S/C. The intent was that as Gold, most of us
probably traded with Red to get our old pokemon across time (the specific Gold
and Red who had a conversation.) And yet when we battle Red in Mt. Silver,
it's as if we don't know him, even though we could've easily just traded with
him at the Mt. Silver pokemon center (the generic Gold and Red at the end of
the story, following the game storyline.) But I executed it rather poorly and
I should fix it.

Thanks again!

--------------------
Name: metrokarateacademyrocks
Profile: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2291145/
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Subject: re: Your review to That's High School

A response to your review at http://www.fanfiction.net/r/5911740/

thanks for the tip, but you should know that this is my first fanfiction. i
know that its borng in this chapter (i was thinking the same thing when i was
writing/typing it) but i was trying to make it not too rushed, also to
described the characters.

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You're a troll, a fancy troll dressed in a nice suit and all, but a troll none the less.

Hee.

In all seriousness though I can see myself writing something like this when I was a new writer on FFN. New (or maybe younger?) writers don't take criticism very well, and I wonder if it's a byproduct of elementary/middle schools where students are praised for employing good grammar and mechanics, and not punished for, say, a lack of originality or weak ideas.

I suppose it's a weird tradeoff. If your criticisms are too veiled (e.g. "your story is great except maybe you could perhaps improve this...just a thought cos your story's actually really good!") they won't get the point, and if your criticisms are too direct they will get offended, and possibly still don't get the point.

Give them a few years though. Some of them do grow up to be pretty decent writers.

BTW I'm SunLight (I read your LJ sometimes, though usually I can't keep up during NaRe month :P)

[farla.livejournal.com]

(Unfortunately, they claim to be twenty...)

I wonder if it's a byproduct of elementary/middle schools where students are praised for employing good grammar and mechanics, and not punished for, say, a lack of originality or weak ideas.

Yeah, I wish. Mechanics went off the table not long after content. Hate hate hate hate hate the school system.

If your criticisms are too veiled (e.g. "your story is great except maybe you could perhaps improve this...just a thought cos your story's actually really good!") they won't get the point, and if your criticisms are too direct they will get offended, and possibly still don't get the point.

Yeah, one of the reasons I'm a strong believer that waffling is bad is that when I was young and people started poking me about stuff, I'd go "Yeah I know :D But I think it makes more sense this way :D and anyway why bother changing because you just said you thought my story was awesome :D thanks for reviewing!"

I do think that being mean makes people not want to take the advice, but I don't think it's worth worrying about in normal contexts because people will either take any criticism as an attack or else not realize it's important to fix. Plus, a lot of the time being mean sort of recalibrate things, so that when someone nicer comes along they can make a big show of how they're taking the NICE REVIEWER'S ADVICE and how they totally showed me. It's funny, this kind of thing isn't such a problem face to face, yet you'd think...

And no one can keep up with NaRe! certainly not me

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

If only they were employing good grammar and mechanics. But yes, I agree with your point. I recall my "reports" from elementary school were just plot summaries of books and it wasn't till junior high that we learned to write a five paragraph essay and got any criticism whatsoever on content, and even then they were more concerned with structure.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, five paragraph essays!

They used to mark me down when I got older and tried to have my paragraphs actually lead into one another.

[midnitesaboteur.livejournal.com]

The other review was on day eleven, though I had to search to find it. The last few paragraphs of his rant reminds me of that entry... "Surely you are criticizing me because of a deep and unwarranted prejudice!" "Right... who are you again?" "You were the bitch who thoroughly mocked my amazing story!" "Doesn't narrow it down." "It was an Inuyasha fic." "..." "High school AU?" "...?" "Oh, come on!"

[farla.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. Story even has the same cast. My method was just to click their profile and see if I'd reviewed anything of theirs, should have actually thought a while.

And yeah, people tend to assume that my feelings toward them must mirror theirs toward me. We are silly monkeys.

[antialiasis.livejournal.com]

Yes, because, again, in the anime which i am writing this on, the villains are completely competent. Indeed, in all literature, the villains are always competent, and they are never without an artistic flare that, yes, it illogical, but put in for the enjoyment of the fic.

What is it that makes people think villains being incompetent somehow makes the story more enjoyable? I've gotten into a bizarre argument about this before, so apparently it's not just this guy. I don't get it.

[negrek.livejournal.com]

The only time I can think of when you would actually want your villains to be morons would be in slapstick comedy, but as this guy apparently wants to write something serious...

I think it may be some kind of mutation of, "People want the hero to win, so the villains have to be stupid/easy enough that the hero doesn't get stomped on." Alternatively, it makes it more satisfying to sneer at the stupid idiots getting in the hero's way if they are incompetent--they're not sinister and people don't feel bad about seeing them get beaten up.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Alternatively, it makes it more satisfying to sneer at the stupid idiots getting in the hero's way if they are incompetent--they're not sinister and people don't feel bad about seeing them get beaten up.

Definitely something to be said for this - or even, since we're all more aware of fan-reactions, trying to preempt any Draco-in-leather-pants misinterpretations of their opus.

Weirdly, though, they seemed to be going for badass!scary!villains, who do end up winning the confrontation.

[farla.livejournal.com]

I think it's a mix of two things.

There's moralizing - there's the Saturday morning cartoon set who believe giving a villain positive traits is bad, and especially should never be better at something than the hero.

Also, writing incompetent people is easier than writing competent ones. It's a lot easier to say the villain made an obvious mistake than to work out how the hero defeats them anyway.

I suspect the idea readers actually want incompetent villains is largely a defensive thing. This might actually be part of some grand unified theory for bad tropes - it's easier to deliberately do something bad than to try and maybe fail at doing it better. It's like when people say they meant for their character to be a sue. Here, they say they meant for the villain's plan to have massive holes you could drive a truck through, and since they weren't trying to make a good plan they can't be criticized if it's not a good plan.

yay!

[nrrrdy-grrrl.livejournal.com]

I look forward to these postings because I have a perverse sense of humor about observing unreasonable people. Plus I actually learn stuff about fandom.

Re: yay!

[farla.livejournal.com]

^_^

There's been surprisingly less crazy this time around. I think it's all concentrated in the romance area and I ended up avoiding it.

...so, uh, next month should be batshit, since I have to go back through and deal with them.

Re: yay!

[nrrrdy-grrrl.livejournal.com]

I perversely await those halcyon days! You're a trooper.