Eh, more introspection.

[farla]

I was just looking over my last bunch of one-shots and realized that for a lot of them, some or all of the reviewers totally missed the point. Okay, I can actually see the (stupid) reasoning for Hatred, that's just militant shipping in action. But there's also Knowledge, where even the couple people who figured out the pokemon was dead either thought the girl had made a mistake (totally not the point) or tried her best, or something; Strife of Mere Immortals, where I don't think anyone got it and about half of them seemed to think one of the two was good, plus they seemed to miss the bit about twins, as in, same-species; and Absolution, where people actually argued against the point as if I believed it, and I don't know if anyone got that the absol was talking about a causal, karmic sense of suffering, which was why there was no point in saying sorry. And then there's the whole thing with The One Who Moved with most of the reviewers thinking it's a metapod for some reason, despite the poochyena.

So...are my stories too hard to follow? Are my reviewers just not paying attention? Do I really need ending author notes explaining the situation?

Comments

[negrek.livejournal.com]

I think I understand them pretty well. A lot of people just don't seem to get things, though. Like that person who reviewed "The Last Word" with "THAT BETTER NOT HAVE BEEN ASH!" In general, people seemed convinced that the person in the story was supposed to represent someone in particular, when in fact the whole idea was that it could have been anybody.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're one of my saner reviewers. And agreed, there is a weird fixation with figuring out which canon character it involves. Maybe it's a holdover from the earlier days when all unnamed character fics were supposed to be someone in particular.

Sometimes I wonder why so many readers seem adverse to the concept of looking for clues, and just assume that their first assumption is correct.

[negrek.livejournal.com]

I think looking for clues is the fun part. I got one review that was like, "Arrgh, this made me think! I hate it when things make me think!"

And I was like, "But isn't that the whole point...?"

[farla.livejournal.com]

Well, when one lacks a brain to start with...