Some Internet Stuff
Jun. 29th, 2005 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaI was clearing out my inbox a bit and came upon a review I got back on the 7th, one of the first reviews using FFN's new subject line.
I have to say just a few things. You told everything about the Charmanders life correctly, but I thought the whole plot and story was pretty pathetic. I hope to see some better stories from you.
The story in question? The fourth one from the bottom, written back in 2001. I have 96 other stories, 93 of which were written after Weak. So while I wouldn't disagree that the story is rather pathetic...reviewing my fourth-oldest story and saying you hope for better stories is a bit WTF and all.
WTF is actually a pretty good description of my internet life in general, actually. Checking out my story stats has informed me that, of the eight stories that have been marked for story alerts, three are completed and have been for several years and two are one-shots. Of the five stories I actually am working on, only two are on alerts. And my subversive little story Hatred is on six favorites lists, those of AAM fans.
Incidentally, Reality seems to be acting as an attention magnet. It's on six favorites and six alerts (not bragging, more just WTF???ing) and got about the same number of reviews as the first chapter of Ice. I'd have thought people would make more of an effort to avoid something like this. Even the 'I'm reviewing because I'm sending in a character' and 'I'm reviewing to say I thought this would suck' reviews don't completely explain it. So ignore your common sense and mine. Clearly, self-insert stories that offer to be a sue orgy of unfitting, overpowered characters attract attention and praise. Go now and write them until all our heads explode.
Meanwhile, my brother's reading Facia's Xanthic Growlithe Contract. At prompting, he even mentioned a criticism of it, that the battles were better described and more realistic than in the game...I'm disowning him.
And Serebii....
The Serebii forums have reminded me again of why I don't use forums. Aside from the signatures which have brought me *this* close to a killing spree, the number of people who seem to interpret 'character request' as 'I want to write a story revolving around your character and plot' grows frightening. (I'm also somewhat disturbed by the number of people who keep giving something utterly irrelevant in the 'goals' category. I don't give a fuck if she wants to be a singer or a writer or a brain surgeon or a prostitute when she grows up, people!) This is my own foolishness, of course, but I always thought that if someone asked you for a character to put in their (presumably already thought-out) story, you wouldn't include a background and goals that seemed to be specifically designed to force that writer into writing something revolving around your character doing your plot.
Okay, yes, I knew full well what I was getting into, and yes, it's certainly not going to bother my story. But I still feel like complaining.
Although considering what's going to happen to them, I suppose it's fair enough. (Why yes, of course I'll let her be able to transform so she looks cooler. Writing about someone being consumed by another personality will be fun. Oh, you want your sweet, perfect primary character to fight another character you made up? One with super powers trying to kill her? Sure, no problem. No problem at all...)
Anyway, I have gotten a lot of good...well, useful characters. The only problem is that I'm lacking a couple of common archetypes, so I'm going to have to create a few myself to balance it out. Beyond that, things are looking good.
I have to say just a few things. You told everything about the Charmanders life correctly, but I thought the whole plot and story was pretty pathetic. I hope to see some better stories from you.
The story in question? The fourth one from the bottom, written back in 2001. I have 96 other stories, 93 of which were written after Weak. So while I wouldn't disagree that the story is rather pathetic...reviewing my fourth-oldest story and saying you hope for better stories is a bit WTF and all.
WTF is actually a pretty good description of my internet life in general, actually. Checking out my story stats has informed me that, of the eight stories that have been marked for story alerts, three are completed and have been for several years and two are one-shots. Of the five stories I actually am working on, only two are on alerts. And my subversive little story Hatred is on six favorites lists, those of AAM fans.
Incidentally, Reality seems to be acting as an attention magnet. It's on six favorites and six alerts (not bragging, more just WTF???ing) and got about the same number of reviews as the first chapter of Ice. I'd have thought people would make more of an effort to avoid something like this. Even the 'I'm reviewing because I'm sending in a character' and 'I'm reviewing to say I thought this would suck' reviews don't completely explain it. So ignore your common sense and mine. Clearly, self-insert stories that offer to be a sue orgy of unfitting, overpowered characters attract attention and praise. Go now and write them until all our heads explode.
Meanwhile, my brother's reading Facia's Xanthic Growlithe Contract. At prompting, he even mentioned a criticism of it, that the battles were better described and more realistic than in the game...I'm disowning him.
And Serebii....
The Serebii forums have reminded me again of why I don't use forums. Aside from the signatures which have brought me *this* close to a killing spree, the number of people who seem to interpret 'character request' as 'I want to write a story revolving around your character and plot' grows frightening. (I'm also somewhat disturbed by the number of people who keep giving something utterly irrelevant in the 'goals' category. I don't give a fuck if she wants to be a singer or a writer or a brain surgeon or a prostitute when she grows up, people!) This is my own foolishness, of course, but I always thought that if someone asked you for a character to put in their (presumably already thought-out) story, you wouldn't include a background and goals that seemed to be specifically designed to force that writer into writing something revolving around your character doing your plot.
Okay, yes, I knew full well what I was getting into, and yes, it's certainly not going to bother my story. But I still feel like complaining.
Although considering what's going to happen to them, I suppose it's fair enough. (Why yes, of course I'll let her be able to transform so she looks cooler. Writing about someone being consumed by another personality will be fun. Oh, you want your sweet, perfect primary character to fight another character you made up? One with super powers trying to kill her? Sure, no problem. No problem at all...)
Anyway, I have gotten a lot of good...well, useful characters. The only problem is that I'm lacking a couple of common archetypes, so I'm going to have to create a few myself to balance it out. Beyond that, things are looking good.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-01 07:14 pm (UTC)Oh, that's actually not that surprising. Someone might have started reading your story and bookmarked it at the second chapter. I've done stuff like that before. Or someone might have it on an alert, gone to chapter three and skipped back to chapter two just to remember where they were. Or so on. FFN doesn't record unique hits, so errors like that pop up pretty fast.