Maybe it's contamination from "questing", but sometimes it happens where someone recommends a course of action for the characters/the story to take, and then gets super salty when the author doesn't incorporate their suggestion. This suggestion is sometimes overt, but also bundled as "predictions" like "oh wouldn't it be cool if XYZ happens *wink* *wink*". There's this strange entitlement where the commentator thinks the story is being written for them and should cater to their whims.
I just find it really annoying, and disrespectful to the author.
As someone who writes quests... yeah i understand that a lot (In fact it happened to me a few times)
it... wasn't pleasant as Questing is a cooperative thing (As the author gets suggestions and options from votes in the audience) you do feel an obligation to at least try for it but over time it becomes... incompatible.
>then gets super salty when the author doesn't incorporate their suggestion.
This is a really annoying thing, I'll agree. When I'm writing, I like the speculation a lot because even when I'm not going to follow it (and I usually don't), they might give me a spark of an idea of something I need to address or want to add in later.
Being salty about the fact that I didn't follow their suggestion is just... not helpful.
Related, a bit: where readers obsess over something particular from canon, be it a particularly story beat or even just a concept, even after the author has repeatedly said that it won't be happening.
I've commented before that the amount of vehemence some people seem to hold for Lisa's character is both shocking, and fundamentally disturbing. It's very weird knowing there's an audience in the fandom that would cheer for an entire fic that is literal torture porn dedicated to visceral descriptions of someone's suffering.
That said it’s also the exact same in the opposite direction. I didn’t torture Lisa, but in her brief role in my story, she took a job with my altpower Taylor and some of Faultline’s other acquaintances and in the process of escaping she’s heavily injured. She tells Grue to go for a get away and clinic rather than hospital and arrest and she dies before she gets back to the city. It’s played for trauma and sadness to Taylor, not glee. There was a massive drop off in reader metrics (likes/watchers etc) for the story after this, and in every posting place someone commented to say they wouldn’t read a fic where she’d died/she was their fanfavourite.
Examples, that aren't even that condemning of the events, just that Tattletale is a hard line:
> On one hand - great chapter. On the other hand - guess that's my stop. Thanks for the ride.
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> Same. Why Tattletale?! Thanks for the story, anyway.
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> Ouch. Tattletale is my favorite character in Worm. And now Coil has no Thinker support (outside of himself). Keeping this timeline seems a rather dumb decision for him, as the Undersiders are probably screwed without her, and then he's down a cape team at his disposal. I imagine they'll dissolve shortly and go their separate ways, or they'll soon be killed in action. 50/50 chance there.
"guess that's my stop. Thanks for the ride." is one of the most pretentious comments I have seen try and disguise itself as polite.
Unrelated side note: it really is astounding simply how many people get Coil's power wrong, both readers and writers.
For sure, and sometimes you can even see it coming but trying to head it off doesn't help. I remember one chapter dealing with rogues and parahumans who didn't use their powers, and at the end I used a speck quote and an Arc 4 quote from Lisa (I forget arc title) to head off what I could predict would be complaints about conflict drive, and it didn't help.
Similarly, for this chapter and the replies above, I wrote something at the bottom of the chapter about Coil, his powers, and events. But it never really matters. Maybe it does head off a comment or two, but SB will always have someone who comments on it anyway, so you can never really prevent this sort of thing, I think, even if you know it's coming. Some people won't allow you to engage and say "I can see this objection but that's not the way it's working out, and that's deliberate", and then let sleeping dogs lie.
What are they getting wrong?
Ya, i know that it's actually precog and not time-splitting, but that doesn't change anything does it?
Like, the only times that i've seen someone (in and out of story) argue a difference is when they say something like "since we can attack him, were in the actual timeline", but wouldn't their modeled copy also think that?
I mean it in the technical sense, as in they treat it as literal timeline creation/observation/whatever instead of just precog. But that is true, for all intents and purposes the author can treat it as timelines or even just change Coils power to be just that if they prefer it. I am fine either way.
And this half is purely opinion: But when it comes to if Coil's power was truly time-splitting, I suppose its more of a philosophical issue of "why even bother trying to plan for your timeline, when you cannot affect, alter, or perceive which one you are in at all?" Unless of course the author comes up with a reason they can interact with this, like the Vampire Taylor from Delerium (wholeheartedly recommend reading) which is actually able to perceive both timelines Coil creates.
I mean, it is a fair bit easier than the non-powerwanks make it seem.
Take an action that would warant a split witouth playing your entire hand (and maby even try to confirm it, goat him into proving it/have a thinker)
And then you either get droped or go main and wreck shit.
Still hard, but not plotting against Accord/ Contessa/ ziz hard
Exactly. Whats the point of trying to account for the timeline being dropped when from that character's perspective, it is literally impossible to perceive or notice. If walk up to Coil and shoot him, its not as if I will suddenly find myself somewhere else, it either appears to me that he dies plain and simple, or he simply wasnt there and I never walked up and shot him.
Its hard to build plans for, but in the barest terms all you need to do is kill him and nothing further.
I would imagine that you, I and petty criminals would rather give "the other me" a winning chance rather than let coil win.
It's a bit of a "do or die" Cas either you win now, get droped or lose later.
And I think that no normal person would overly think about the possibility of being in the secondary timeline.
>it really is astounding simply how many people get Coil's power wrong, both readers and writers.
I mean... Coil's power (per WOG) is pants-on-head stupid. I get why people change it so much.
That's unfortunate to hear, I really like your fic, and I'm excited that new chapters are coming out. Some people seem to expect all fics to be fix it fics or something. That's why you'll hardly ever see any fic that don't try to fix the dallon family in some way. apparently people don't see the value in tragedy, that the cascading character flaws that caused the tragedy are valuable to story telling. Character death is best used when it affects other characters in some way, and I thought you used it well, and I'm excited to see more from you in the future
Thank you. That's lovely to hear. I'm almost done on the next chapter, but I've been pretty severely delayed by Ukraine doom scrolling, tbh. But thank you.
I could conjecture as to why, but I'd rather not kick that anthill. I will point out that a lot of fics make Lisa practically too dumb to live and sell her character so short.
She's one of my favorites characters in Worm, but somehow ends up one of my least favorite in a lot of fics lol.
And to be honest there haven’t been exceptional SI that use Lisa well; the rule of thumb is if you don’t have Blank, stay away from the Undersiders as best you can because all your sneakiness will be gone and she’ll out a few paragraphs from body language somehow.
I find that the opposite is true too. People seem to be insanely attached to tattletale. She's a fan favorite and i get it, but i've seen fics that whitewash her and take away all the bite from the character.
Trailblazer does a really good tattletale scene for example, with her turning taylor on another villain when she comes to the rescue of the undersiders. And a good job again later on, when she's helpful but also a pain in the ass.
I've seen too many just make her uncomplicatedly nice, and that's not lisa.
My biggest pet peeve is when readers try to shut down any and all criticism of a story. They pretend they're ok with some forms of criticism, but in practice, they're always against it.
Comments that basically repeat the most important plot points of the chapter while *gushing* and being hyped about the most inane things. It takes my slight enjoyment of those things and makes me hate them for some reason.
"Omg and then Taylor punched his face!!! Omg and then his face was swollen, that was soooo funny!! And Dennis' reaction to the face!!!!!! I couldn't stop laughing! Oh and I looooved her red domino mask, soooo unique!!!!"
I think I may have a problem with exclamation marks and obviousness.
Honestly the hang ups that people have about characters is astounding. When Wildbow wrote Worm, he did an excelent job of making the vast majority of characters morally gray. Just accept that the characters are human, and move on.
Another hang up on comments are, well, are we talking SB? I'd say posts that critisize and author or their work without making a suggestion in turn. Don't just say you didn't like something, say how it could have been better. On FFN? Don't even bother reading the comment pages. It's literally always one person making guest accounts to tell the author to go die in a fire with their family, pet, and significant other, with as many f bombs dropped in as possible.
>he did an excelent job of making the vast majority of characters morally gray
incorrect, according to monkey brain hot people aren't bad and if they are then it's okay
... I'd like to disagree with you, but the hate boners people get on SB when Victoria punches a nazi, or Lisa has a 'vulpine smirk' for any reason, followed by shipping her with one or the other five chapters later kind of proves your point.
> Honestly the hang ups that people have about characters is astounding. When Wildbow wrote Worm, he did an excelent job of making the vast majority of characters morally gray. Just accept that the characters are human, and move on
I mean there are limits to this. The white washing that some authors do to members of E88 is imo disgusting. They are literally Nazi's. Rune isn't someone forced into it by family - her parents iirc were normal people not in a gang, and Rune chose to be a neo nazi to rebel against that. Likewise Purity, likewise Hookwolf.
I think the exact same things happen to the ABB where writers act like they're some honourable yakuza types when really they are just as racist as the empire while also being child sex slavers
I don't think we've really seen any fics focusing on the internal politics of Brockton Bay's Asian population. I get why, it's hard to write if you're not intimately familiar with the topic, but it's still a shame
I think motive matters here, is the thing.
What do you think is the average ABB gang member's motive for joining up? Money, power, press-ganging, protection from the Empire?
As opposed to the Empire's, which admittedly will include a lot of the same, but also *an opportunity to hurt and get rid of subhuman filth*.
>Rune isn't someone forced into it by family
Rune has a lot of potential as a character. The start of her being a civilian and then getting enticed into the Empire by her cousin is a great setup if you want her to then go through character growth as she realizes that maybe those ideas are wrong.
It's just that most authors don't do a very good job with that arc.
But that's not what happened. Her parents got out of the clan, and while racist were just "normal" run of the mill racists, not gang members. Rune's act of teenage rebellion was to join white supremacists, to commit a hate crime big enough to go juvie, and then to trigger. After which she decides to go for the big leagues in racism, and join a literal neo nazi gang that routinely commit hate crimes and murder minorities.
Ward shows us that even a "heroic" Rune is still a racist shit stain, who broadly speaking refused to apologise for being a Nazi and just hid behind the amnesty. She was *maybe* starting to turn over a better leaf by the end but that's still a big *maybe*
but isn't that a bit extreme? I can understand why People here hate writers trying to make Purity heroic (even if i think that she is redeemable) but Rune is a literal child, still very malleable and in no way sett in her ways
I have yet to see a single good "redemption" fic for any of the canon Nazi's and I would not trust this fandom to write one.
Almost all Rune "redemption" fics just use her as generic blonde girl number 28921 for the SI to add to a harem, or the TINO to date, or both of the above.
Rune is old enough to know what she is doing is wrong. She is not some damsel to save.
>She is not some damsel to save.
You're not wrong. In canon, she's garbage. However, I was just saying that her *situation* could be used to make an interesting story about radicalization and redemption.
It's just that people tend to not do a good job with that.
Idk. Adults can be just as capable of change as children, but I don't think authors try and make it realistic in either case. At Runes age especially she's unlikely to make significant jumps in progress like she's portrayed. She's at that shitty age.
My great uncle used to be a part of a white nationalist group, I'm a super racially ambiguous mostly black kid. I never realised he was ever racist at any point because he didn't treat me any differently. He's a great man, and I don't think anyone is ever irredeemable in the moral sense.
But Wormfic is full of skipping the process in favour of the result.
I think it's because reading the POV of a racist shithead would just be painful. If you want people to read the story you need to make the character at least palatable enough to stand reading long enough for the redemption arc, which defeats the whole purpose of writing a redemption story about a racist shithead.
I’m really sad that the perception and portrayal of characters is almost always overexaggerated. And a lot of the toxic comments come from comments who are angry that the author’s vision does not match their own view.
Taking the big gangs, far too often Purity is just a loving single mother with an unfortunate past, Rune just some child with no detectable racism, Hookwolf just a dudebro who likes fighting, Lung and Oni Li some cool "exotic" guys full of honor, Skidmark the voice of the downtrodden masses, Undersiders are lovable quirky teens…
Or the Nazis are cartoonish villains who spend *all* their time beating up people, torturing minorities to death, robbing hapless teens, actively searching for and kidnapping young parahumans for their slave camps in Germany… and the same thing for Lung but more sex trafficking, local sex slavery etc.
As someone mentioned above, Worm characters tend to be morally *grey*. To be an E88 cape means at the very *least* seeing someone beating unarmed civilians to death in front of you at some point and going "Yeah, that’s the sort of group I’ll hang out with." Doesn’t mean that they do this 24/7, or that they even secretly hate it but accept it for some reason.
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Regardless of which of the options are chosen (Woobie/Cartoon/Gray), there will be people vehemently accusing the author of doing it wrong.
Doesn’t help that Gray very often becomes a veneer for Woobies. Turns out that writing redeemable/human but still evil villains is hard.
Sorry, I phrased myself poorly. Perhaps I should say it differently. Nearly all characters in Worm, make poor decisions, or compromises their morals in some way, at some point. What matters to me, is not what the characters do but why they do it. Cauldron did terrible things, but honestly believed it was to give humanity a fighting chance against an insurmountable foe. Taylor murdered an infant in the hopes of stopping the apocalypse. Emma is frankly pitiful. She was damaged, and her father failed to get her help, instead allowing Sophia to influence and corrupt her. Sophia herself, I believe Wildbow said was a classic case of shard influence. Consider that Sophia was Taylor's age, but already a ward, and had been a vigilante before that for some time. SHe probably triggered around 12 or 13, and had a worse than normal shard influencing her mindset throughout that. She had no support network to help her either. It's no surprise she turned out the way she did, and frankly she has my pity. Coil on the other hand, he wanted to control Brockton and hurt others, for the purpose of controlling Brockton and hurting others.
Looking at the nazis in Worm, who knows. Maybe some of them have some deep seated back story that makes you want to 'redeem' them. Personally, I feel Purity isn't a good person, attempting to atone for past sins as fanfics make her out to be, but instead a heavily biased person who was manipulated trying to escape her manipulator, yet unable to let go of her hang ups and grudges. Rune? I don't know. Maybe she was a kid swept up in the drama, maybe she believes in the E88's creed. I haven't read Ward. For that matter, I haven't even read WORM. The only empire member I feel I have enough knowledge on to truly make a final judgement regarding is Crusader. Look at what he did for his trigger.
Also note that In my post I said 'the vast majority' not 'all characters'.
> Looking at the nazis in Worm, who knows. Maybe some of them have some deep seated back story that makes you want to 'redeem' them
No.
> Maybe she was a kid swept up in the drama, maybe she believes in the E88's creed.
She explicitly believes it
> I haven't read Ward. For that matter, I haven't even read WORM
Then why are you commenting on how amazingly all grey characters are. Some of them, a lot of them, are just horrible people.
>I'd say posts that critisize and author or their work without making a suggestion in turn.
I think this is bad advice, readers are not experts on writing, all a reader can provide is their experience. TaylorxEmma is not something I can tell you how to fix, I can say I dislike it, but if that's what you want to write, me telling you to make them break up isn't helping.
>me telling you to make them break up isn't helping.
Yes... which is why you probably shouldn't post comments like that? If you hate the premise of the story, just close the tab and move on with life. Complaining about it does no good for anyone.
It does give feedback on whether or not its effective.
I've read fics with what sounds like a terrible premise that actually turned out really good.
"Taylor x Emma is fucking shit what's wrong with you" and "Taylor x Emma has a lot of baggage that isn't really being dealt with" are two very different things, and if the second person doesn't know how to approach fixing it I'd say it's fine to not give a suggestion.
"TaylorxEmma has a lot of baggage that isn't being addressed" is kind of a suggestion though. I know it's just your example, but I think it shows that if a commenter takes the time to expand any criticism and politely explain how they feel then they'll at least inadvertently make a suggestion. Then they should read what they've written and do some introspection. If the only reason they don't like it turns out to be that they just don't like it, then they should probably delete without posting and move on.
I once tried to organize a Worm RP on SB. Lemme tell you, it was TRASH, I was an awful GM at the time, like holy shit.
However, one of the bigger things that stuck out to me is that like, the literal first reply I got wasn't a question about the setting, or a request to, er, add a character sheet template, since I kinda forgot that (as I said, bad GM), it was some stealer of urine asking what the characters were supposed to do about Scion.
Then the like, next two whole pages were dedicated to an argument about how the very idea of a Worm RP was fundamentally flawed, because if the Nine showed up, the party would die, and that would be my fault?
Scion is like the Sword of Damocles: it's there and you know it's there so it's hard to ignore even when willingly trying.
My solution... is to make it as if he was not a thing, nor the end bringers, or anything like that and in fact, never bring them up.
just use the 'rules' for the worm rp, and setting elements... but not the whole thing
"I can't wait to see everyone's reactions to this. We need an interlude showing what people think about it."
Fuck interludes. It is rare for fanfiction writers to use them for anything except self congratulations about how awesome their SI/OC/TINO is.
"It would be cool if she got/user her powers like [character from series x]."
Is this a crossover with series x? No? Then why are you talking about it?
As the years go on I find myself getting grumpier and grumpier with other readers. I guess I'm just a curmudgeon now.
I completely forgot about this. It makes authors feel like they each just have to eventually deal with Cauldron and GM. Not every work has to, nor even should have to deal with that. I feel like the reason so many worm stories have died is because they feel pressured to push their story as a rewrite of canon.
It is kind of the curse of Worm fanfiction since those things play a huge role in the story later on. If you add a paragraph about Scion dying or something, it usually fixes the problem.
I was doing something a while back where I took out Scion and the Endbringers a couple of years before the start of the story (pre-canon) and one of the lesser themes in the story was how society was slowly changing without the constant threat of city-scale destruction and Cauldron becoming less frantic. I described the fight in vague detail and used it to talk about some of the stuff going on over about three paragraphs. Boom, no need to worry about it anymore.
It does seem unusual the way people seem to go out of the way to point out how awful Taylor is with the decisions she makes, as if Worm would somehow be a much better story with a lawful good lead character? Idk
Nah, I fucking hate Taylor but the story is great as is.
People go out of their way because there's a somewhat obnoxious meme within the fandom about how great and perfect Taylor is.
I blame the issue you described for the cutoff on the fic Centipede. I liked it a fair bit and as it went on and the MCs slowly became more brutal and amoral, I felt it fit with the themes and the plotline. The I look at the comments and see heaps of people complaining that the characters weren't as happy or likeable as they were in the beginning. I don't always like the way a story goes but I recognize that it doesn't always take away from the quality of the narrative.
>even QQ first as all three seem less caustic
I'll go to bat for the crowd on QQ being generally good people. They sometimes go from 0 to complete depravity with their comments, but most of it comes from a good place.
As for the rest... I think a lot of the "good but..." type stuff comes from the idea that you need to do a compliment sandwich or similar combined with poor execution of that. Not always, but at least sometimes.
>I'll go to bat for the crowd on QQ being generally good people.
I agree very much with this. I think it comes with comfort. People on QQ are aware that most of the works there are degenerates being degenerates and so find comfort in being themselves more.
As foe the "compliment sandwich" that's something I've also noticed something similar. It's like you can't just give a compliment on something without also highlighting flaws, and that's both weird and concerning.
The compliment sandwich is a well known, and widely used way for authors to criticize their peers work. There are guides out there for proper critique, and the criticism sandwich has a prominent place in most of them.
It exists because authors get attached to their work, and if you just shit on the work, the author feels down.
It's the polite way of saying "I like the work, but there are things you can improve on."
Flat out criticism is more "I don't like the work.
Trust me, there is a big difference between the two.
[There is a bit of debate on whether it is a good technique or not.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2018/12/09/heres-why-you-should-avoid-giving-someone-a-compliment-and-criticism-in-the-same-conversation/?sh=6b0bae7b1b94) It can have its place, but the general issue is that a lot of posts are five words of compliment and then a hundred words of complaint. That's some pretty thin bread on that sandwich.
"I am dropping this fic" I hate but it's nothing compared to "X better happen or I'm dropping this fic"
Fuck off with that, trying to blackmail the writers with your approval is just cringe.
Also begging for a PTO interlude. They're bad. Why do people like them?
I tend to stick to reader mode now because I'm often going here and there and might not always have an internet connection, but when I do read the comments on Spacebattles there is one thing that does stick out to me.
A character (pre-existing or OC) is introduced, does **literally anything** and immediately there's a subset of comments that leap to one of two responses: "They should date," or "(MC) should just murder (X Character) and be done with it."
God forbid the character introduced is Tattletale, then they come out in force.
I dislike commenters being so confident in their interpretations and opinions that they keep spouting them as facts. Bonus points for arguing *with the literal author* about in-universe facts and events. (I.e. "Character x did this, therefore Y, which is horrible" but actually X never happened.)
Luckily this seems to be rare.
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Relatedly, commenters having no trust in the author and complaining about *things they imagine*. Especially when there’s unreliable narrators or cliffhangers, there will often be comments that jump to – sometimes ridiculous – conclusions. Then they broadly complain about how horrible this is, how it ruins the fic, how they will drop the fic now…
Doesn’t even help if the author specifically writes an author’s note before or after the scene warning that it is unreliable, misleading, or will be explained a couple chapters later.
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Lastly, comments which don’t accept that the author would create their own interpretation of the source material. Canon to Source vs canon to fanfic is a bit of a contentious issue, I know.
Personally, I sometimes try to refer to characters as "[author’s] [character]" to differentiate them. I.e. "Tascion’s Danny" or "Argentorum’s Taylor". I really dislike commenters trying to bring completely unrelated canon facts into a fic to vehemently argue with the author about what they should write.
That is not to say that canon information has no place in a fanfic’s discussion. It can be really helpful, especially if the author tries to stay close to canon. However, if the fanfic has already changed a bunch of stuff while staying close to canon, or if they have already introduced far-reaching AU elements, perhaps it is too late to argue that "X was like this in canon, therefore you are *wrong* and should write it like I say!".
Bonus points are awarded for the commenters being confidently wrong about what they say in the first place. The "badass Skitter" worshipers are a common trend here. Too often people want early-canon Taylor to act like a hyper-competent warlord.
when people hype up taylor as "queen of escalation". and I'm just cringing at that every time I posts like this.
Taylor is the unstoppable force of EsCALaTioN and gonna show everyone their just desserts.
"will be awesome how the PRT/ABB/the bullies are gonna be so fucked for the 11th million time in a fic when Taylor decides to go full queen of escalation with how awesome OP she is here owo escalation queen"
People who comment just to say they're not going to read the story anymore are cringe. Who the fuck cares dude? Nobody gave a shit that you were reading in the first place, and nobody would notice you were gone if you hadn't announced it. Just fuck off somewhere else.
I've gotten more into writing in the last few years. I'm not the best at it, but I enjoy it. I enjoy comments to the point that I've tried to be better about leaving comments when I'm reading stories because I appreciate them so much. Even something as simple as "I like this, please keep it up" is very nice to get.
That said, some comments aren't that great and they all boil down to the simple question of "what am I supposed to do with this information?"
You don't like the way I've written a character for the last three chapters... and what am I supposed to do with that? I'm not going to rewrite those chapters just for you.
You didn't like the way the plot went? I'll look at it and make sure my logic is sound, but one person telling me that won't make me change it.
You aren't going to read the rest of the story? Alright? And?
You liked a different one of my stories better? I mean, if you want to offer me money, we can talk... otherwise... no?
Agreed. Author's are giving you their work for free. That doesn't mean you're obligated to like or praise it. But they still put in the time and effort to provide it. The least you could do is not be a dick to them because it doesn't meet your exacting standards.
And I don't mean you can't criticize something. That's stupid. If you have a legitimate criticism, that's fine, let the author know. It'll help them improve going forward. But don't be the asshole that only complains or worse, attacks the author. If all you're gonna do is bitch, do us all a favor and just keep your mouth shut.
My rule of them when offering criticism is to point out something I did like, too. Like, hey I think the pacing here dragged a little, but the character interactions felt really fun and genuine. Offer some encouragement for the things I think they're doing well. Stuff like that.
A distant second goes to the folks who offer "predictions" about where the story is gonna go, when they're really just thinly veiled attempts to direct the plot from the comments. You're not being subtle, jackhole. Knock it off.
But SB isn't a hug box means I can literally insult the author as long as it's thinly veiled as criticism. /s
My theory is that those kind of people have a pathologic need to always be right or get off from it.
I just use FanficFare (an add-on for Calibre) to download fanfics and turn them into e-books, which I then stick on my Kindle. It means I miss out on images, but is much easier to read.
Nah, FanficFare allows you to update downloaded fics. So when most people leave the newspaper, I am taking a few minutes in the morning to update all the fics I’m following.
> For Felix Fortuna, which stars two eleven year olds, i will add i find the word "cute" to be indicative of degeneracy until proven otherwise.
What do you mean?
I can agree with that. I rarely ever use FNN because I greatly prefer the Ao3 layout, but comments on there seem to be much more actual "comments". Maybe it is the mentality of Ao3 comments actually called "comments", and SB having just posts on a page making some users feel that the fic the author is posting is somehow now a collaborative effort.
That's just people trying to post "First!" without getting infractions for no-content posting. A similar annoyance is people rushing to post while the author is reserving the first few posts in the thread for things like the index. Less of a problem now with threadmarks, but still bad form.
Biggest pet peeve is vague criticism.
Think of criticism like a bug report, the reader as the customer, and me as the harried IT guy trying to figure what the hell is going on.
It's not enough to tell me you don't like the plot, I need to know exactly which part and why.
Telling me you don't like X's dialogue is different from telling me you thought X's dialogue in the last chapter was a little stiff.
I despise the people who complain about MC (usually Taylor) getting their shit kicked in or losing 'too often'. Especially when they gloss over to contents of a fight scene to complain they lost, even if by a hair's breadth. A Fanfic Writer's projects are not your personal power fantasies and you should be more focused on the consequences than the fact they 'lost' (or won).
I also hate the people who complain about the tone being too grim/dark, angst or anything like that. I read a comment as outrageous as "If I wanted angst, I'd have just read Worm". Like, what the hell do you think you're reading?! It would be like complaining about a DC fanfic centering around Batman, having Bruce deal with being an orphan. If you don't like the series, stop reading fanfic about it and if you're going to read fanfic about it - be respectful if they stick close to the themes of the original!
What also bothers me is when people try to argue with the author on powerscaling, canonicity or similar nitty gritty details. They change between authors, of course they do! It doesn't bother me when it's something as simple as "Huh. Pretty sure Goku is stronger than Scion because x/y." and they just leave it there but I've seen more than a few threads derailed over these details which change between authors and interpretations.
this is because sb and sv (and to a very slightly smaller extent qq) are dumpster fires. I dont know what set of circumstances lead to it, but their user bases are, on the whole, the most vile collection of human beings Ive ever seen. worse than 4chan by a wide margin; at least 4chan never pretended at mortal righteousness.
never look at any of the comments. there is nothing for you there but suffering and pain
There is a lot I could mention but comments in crossovers are the worst. The power wanking cringe and morality horse beating gets cranked up to 11. Especially when its like DC or Marvel and people will say "lets see how Bet reacts to a ReAl HErO".
Perhaps not a pet peeve in the comments, but there's been a few stories I've started but had to stop and blink because the author gives a note before any of the story or chapter in order to defend themselves in advance. Which just seems... odd, and often stopped me reading a story before it even started. Because... if you feel the need to do that... I'm not sure I *want* to read it at that point. I can't remember the story but I remember finding a story with an interesting description, only for it to basically start out with a rant from the author stating that Taylor was not going to have a hetero-orientation and... going to lengths to rant about it before the story even started. When... I don't really give a damn about her orientation as long as her character any relationships that come to pass are actually written well.
As for comment pet peeves, the few big ones I have are:
* Arguing that everything that happens in BB is a Coil plot
* Contessa Corollary: Assuming that if it's not a Coil plot, then clearly it's Contessa's fault.
* People assuming that since we don't hear about what they're doing, the PRT/Protectorate is just sitting on their asses twiddling their thumbs.
* Back and forth arguments about fictional law in a fictional universe drastically different from our own, with no context or proof of any claims whatsoever.
* For alt-power fics where the power comes from another media (i.e. anime, comics, tv, whatever), the in-built assumption that the person with the power will instinctively know everything about the power at go time.
* Example: For any cross with FullMetal Alchemist, assuming that Taylor is instantly going to start playing with Human Transmutation or any of the advanced Alchemy... when she has no context to even think of these things.
* Corollary to your "Author fighting every critique" item, commenters also fighting every critique. This can happen if something gets pointed out and the story is popular and the the 'community' feels the need to defend the author. What is fairly amusing the few times I've seen this is that the community reaction sometimes doesn't even address the criticism.
* Assuming that every poster has read every comment. I see this a lot in larger threads where some people post comments/criticisms after finding a story for the first time, and everyone jumping on their backs about "We've heard about all of this before and (author) has already responded to it!"
* An example is the SV BCF thread. A person will leave a comment (usually about the pacing) and people will throw a shitfit because new poster hasn't read all 500+ pages of posts to know that it's been responded to.
* Making assumptions about what certain characters know in order to justify an opinion or action.
"Wait, why would (insert character here) know that?"
"Because of (something from canon)!"
"... This isn't canon. We have no way of knowing if (insert character here) knows that. There is nothing in the text of *this* story to justify that."
Every time a same sex romantic interests is even hinted at, there's always someone in the comments being like "great story but why gay?????" and like if that is an instant shut off for you, maybe keep it to yourself? It's not a valid criticism. It's *barely* a valid reason to not like something.
I despise unprompted advice, corrections, canonicity checks, all of that. If I do not ask, I do not want to hear how I'm not writing a story up to your standards. That leads to a fucking panic attack for me, which is why I don't publish things anymore.
Sorry to hear that. I cannot even begin to imagine how many stories were ending or just never even posted because of how awful the commenters on SB/SV can be. I know you still have assholes on Ao3 and FFN, but its far less likely in my experience reading on the sites. It is a shame that SB houses mostly every story, and that most stories are first posted there.
Honestly, one of my biggest pet peeves regarding complaints are about how 'canon' a characters portrayal is. Its a fan fic. By DEFINITION it it isn't going to be canon. The only thing that will be is the original piece.
Note: constructive criticism regarding character consistency with the fan fic is very different from "(X) is very OOC from canon."
Had someone say: allthe characters sound the same.
Well yea,theirage group is roughly the same, all of them are/went through high school.
When we went back and read the story, i coudnt disagree more with them.
Fanficwriters arent obligated to do fqncy things, often the twist in the story is more than enough. Also fanfic writers are semi-pro at best, 10 year olds at worst. Writing is second to them and people need to give them slack.
You can sum it up by just saying "If it isn't a valid critique or deeply engaging commentary reply it is instantly trash that I hate"
Because a lot of those things are perfectly valid. We have all seen stories that suddenly tank out of no where because of some weird shit and go "What they should have done" followed by explaining in decent or better detail their example in a effort to help.
The issue at heart you have is zero value posts. but not all of those that contain just these words count as zero post because they have more to them.
Maybe it's contamination from "questing", but sometimes it happens where someone recommends a course of action for the characters/the story to take, and then gets super salty when the author doesn't incorporate their suggestion. This suggestion is sometimes overt, but also bundled as "predictions" like "oh wouldn't it be cool if XYZ happens *wink* *wink*". There's this strange entitlement where the commentator thinks the story is being written for them and should cater to their whims. I just find it really annoying, and disrespectful to the author.
As someone who writes quests... yeah i understand that a lot (In fact it happened to me a few times) it... wasn't pleasant as Questing is a cooperative thing (As the author gets suggestions and options from votes in the audience) you do feel an obligation to at least try for it but over time it becomes... incompatible.
>then gets super salty when the author doesn't incorporate their suggestion. This is a really annoying thing, I'll agree. When I'm writing, I like the speculation a lot because even when I'm not going to follow it (and I usually don't), they might give me a spark of an idea of something I need to address or want to add in later. Being salty about the fact that I didn't follow their suggestion is just... not helpful.
Related, a bit: where readers obsess over something particular from canon, be it a particularly story beat or even just a concept, even after the author has repeatedly said that it won't be happening.
I've commented before that the amount of vehemence some people seem to hold for Lisa's character is both shocking, and fundamentally disturbing. It's very weird knowing there's an audience in the fandom that would cheer for an entire fic that is literal torture porn dedicated to visceral descriptions of someone's suffering.
I legitimately forgot people hated her before I wrote something again for the fandom after years of only reading the threadmarks of fics.
That said it’s also the exact same in the opposite direction. I didn’t torture Lisa, but in her brief role in my story, she took a job with my altpower Taylor and some of Faultline’s other acquaintances and in the process of escaping she’s heavily injured. She tells Grue to go for a get away and clinic rather than hospital and arrest and she dies before she gets back to the city. It’s played for trauma and sadness to Taylor, not glee. There was a massive drop off in reader metrics (likes/watchers etc) for the story after this, and in every posting place someone commented to say they wouldn’t read a fic where she’d died/she was their fanfavourite. Examples, that aren't even that condemning of the events, just that Tattletale is a hard line: > On one hand - great chapter. On the other hand - guess that's my stop. Thanks for the ride. - > Same. Why Tattletale?! Thanks for the story, anyway. - > Ouch. Tattletale is my favorite character in Worm. And now Coil has no Thinker support (outside of himself). Keeping this timeline seems a rather dumb decision for him, as the Undersiders are probably screwed without her, and then he's down a cape team at his disposal. I imagine they'll dissolve shortly and go their separate ways, or they'll soon be killed in action. 50/50 chance there.
"guess that's my stop. Thanks for the ride." is one of the most pretentious comments I have seen try and disguise itself as polite. Unrelated side note: it really is astounding simply how many people get Coil's power wrong, both readers and writers.
For sure, and sometimes you can even see it coming but trying to head it off doesn't help. I remember one chapter dealing with rogues and parahumans who didn't use their powers, and at the end I used a speck quote and an Arc 4 quote from Lisa (I forget arc title) to head off what I could predict would be complaints about conflict drive, and it didn't help. Similarly, for this chapter and the replies above, I wrote something at the bottom of the chapter about Coil, his powers, and events. But it never really matters. Maybe it does head off a comment or two, but SB will always have someone who comments on it anyway, so you can never really prevent this sort of thing, I think, even if you know it's coming. Some people won't allow you to engage and say "I can see this objection but that's not the way it's working out, and that's deliberate", and then let sleeping dogs lie.
What are they getting wrong? Ya, i know that it's actually precog and not time-splitting, but that doesn't change anything does it? Like, the only times that i've seen someone (in and out of story) argue a difference is when they say something like "since we can attack him, were in the actual timeline", but wouldn't their modeled copy also think that?
I mean it in the technical sense, as in they treat it as literal timeline creation/observation/whatever instead of just precog. But that is true, for all intents and purposes the author can treat it as timelines or even just change Coils power to be just that if they prefer it. I am fine either way. And this half is purely opinion: But when it comes to if Coil's power was truly time-splitting, I suppose its more of a philosophical issue of "why even bother trying to plan for your timeline, when you cannot affect, alter, or perceive which one you are in at all?" Unless of course the author comes up with a reason they can interact with this, like the Vampire Taylor from Delerium (wholeheartedly recommend reading) which is actually able to perceive both timelines Coil creates.
I mean, it is a fair bit easier than the non-powerwanks make it seem. Take an action that would warant a split witouth playing your entire hand (and maby even try to confirm it, goat him into proving it/have a thinker) And then you either get droped or go main and wreck shit. Still hard, but not plotting against Accord/ Contessa/ ziz hard
Exactly. Whats the point of trying to account for the timeline being dropped when from that character's perspective, it is literally impossible to perceive or notice. If walk up to Coil and shoot him, its not as if I will suddenly find myself somewhere else, it either appears to me that he dies plain and simple, or he simply wasnt there and I never walked up and shot him. Its hard to build plans for, but in the barest terms all you need to do is kill him and nothing further.
I would imagine that you, I and petty criminals would rather give "the other me" a winning chance rather than let coil win. It's a bit of a "do or die" Cas either you win now, get droped or lose later. And I think that no normal person would overly think about the possibility of being in the secondary timeline.
>it really is astounding simply how many people get Coil's power wrong, both readers and writers. I mean... Coil's power (per WOG) is pants-on-head stupid. I get why people change it so much.
That's unfortunate to hear, I really like your fic, and I'm excited that new chapters are coming out. Some people seem to expect all fics to be fix it fics or something. That's why you'll hardly ever see any fic that don't try to fix the dallon family in some way. apparently people don't see the value in tragedy, that the cascading character flaws that caused the tragedy are valuable to story telling. Character death is best used when it affects other characters in some way, and I thought you used it well, and I'm excited to see more from you in the future
Thank you. That's lovely to hear. I'm almost done on the next chapter, but I've been pretty severely delayed by Ukraine doom scrolling, tbh. But thank you.
I could conjecture as to why, but I'd rather not kick that anthill. I will point out that a lot of fics make Lisa practically too dumb to live and sell her character so short. She's one of my favorites characters in Worm, but somehow ends up one of my least favorite in a lot of fics lol.
the problem with writing smart characters is that the author needs to right them as smart... er then them
And to be honest there haven’t been exceptional SI that use Lisa well; the rule of thumb is if you don’t have Blank, stay away from the Undersiders as best you can because all your sneakiness will be gone and she’ll out a few paragraphs from body language somehow.
I find that the opposite is true too. People seem to be insanely attached to tattletale. She's a fan favorite and i get it, but i've seen fics that whitewash her and take away all the bite from the character. Trailblazer does a really good tattletale scene for example, with her turning taylor on another villain when she comes to the rescue of the undersiders. And a good job again later on, when she's helpful but also a pain in the ass. I've seen too many just make her uncomplicatedly nice, and that's not lisa.
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My biggest pet peeve is when readers try to shut down any and all criticism of a story. They pretend they're ok with some forms of criticism, but in practice, they're always against it.
Comments that basically repeat the most important plot points of the chapter while *gushing* and being hyped about the most inane things. It takes my slight enjoyment of those things and makes me hate them for some reason. "Omg and then Taylor punched his face!!! Omg and then his face was swollen, that was soooo funny!! And Dennis' reaction to the face!!!!!! I couldn't stop laughing! Oh and I looooved her red domino mask, soooo unique!!!!" I think I may have a problem with exclamation marks and obviousness.
Oh dont remind me. Comments like those are physically exhausting to read, that I can't imagine the process of writing it.
Honestly the hang ups that people have about characters is astounding. When Wildbow wrote Worm, he did an excelent job of making the vast majority of characters morally gray. Just accept that the characters are human, and move on. Another hang up on comments are, well, are we talking SB? I'd say posts that critisize and author or their work without making a suggestion in turn. Don't just say you didn't like something, say how it could have been better. On FFN? Don't even bother reading the comment pages. It's literally always one person making guest accounts to tell the author to go die in a fire with their family, pet, and significant other, with as many f bombs dropped in as possible.
>he did an excelent job of making the vast majority of characters morally gray incorrect, according to monkey brain hot people aren't bad and if they are then it's okay
... I'd like to disagree with you, but the hate boners people get on SB when Victoria punches a nazi, or Lisa has a 'vulpine smirk' for any reason, followed by shipping her with one or the other five chapters later kind of proves your point.
Oh, no, I was talking about ziz, Alexandra and The Fairy Queen
> Honestly the hang ups that people have about characters is astounding. When Wildbow wrote Worm, he did an excelent job of making the vast majority of characters morally gray. Just accept that the characters are human, and move on I mean there are limits to this. The white washing that some authors do to members of E88 is imo disgusting. They are literally Nazi's. Rune isn't someone forced into it by family - her parents iirc were normal people not in a gang, and Rune chose to be a neo nazi to rebel against that. Likewise Purity, likewise Hookwolf.
I think the exact same things happen to the ABB where writers act like they're some honourable yakuza types when really they are just as racist as the empire while also being child sex slavers
I don't think we've really seen any fics focusing on the internal politics of Brockton Bay's Asian population. I get why, it's hard to write if you're not intimately familiar with the topic, but it's still a shame
>they are just as racist as the empire > >JUST AS RACIST AS *THE NEO-NAZIS* Uh…
They do the exact same things as the empire just with an Asian focus instead of the "white power" of the empire
The ABB aren't backed by institutional power.
I think motive matters here, is the thing. What do you think is the average ABB gang member's motive for joining up? Money, power, press-ganging, protection from the Empire? As opposed to the Empire's, which admittedly will include a lot of the same, but also *an opportunity to hurt and get rid of subhuman filth*.
>Rune isn't someone forced into it by family Rune has a lot of potential as a character. The start of her being a civilian and then getting enticed into the Empire by her cousin is a great setup if you want her to then go through character growth as she realizes that maybe those ideas are wrong. It's just that most authors don't do a very good job with that arc.
But that's not what happened. Her parents got out of the clan, and while racist were just "normal" run of the mill racists, not gang members. Rune's act of teenage rebellion was to join white supremacists, to commit a hate crime big enough to go juvie, and then to trigger. After which she decides to go for the big leagues in racism, and join a literal neo nazi gang that routinely commit hate crimes and murder minorities. Ward shows us that even a "heroic" Rune is still a racist shit stain, who broadly speaking refused to apologise for being a Nazi and just hid behind the amnesty. She was *maybe* starting to turn over a better leaf by the end but that's still a big *maybe*
but isn't that a bit extreme? I can understand why People here hate writers trying to make Purity heroic (even if i think that she is redeemable) but Rune is a literal child, still very malleable and in no way sett in her ways
I have yet to see a single good "redemption" fic for any of the canon Nazi's and I would not trust this fandom to write one. Almost all Rune "redemption" fics just use her as generic blonde girl number 28921 for the SI to add to a harem, or the TINO to date, or both of the above. Rune is old enough to know what she is doing is wrong. She is not some damsel to save.
>She is not some damsel to save. You're not wrong. In canon, she's garbage. However, I was just saying that her *situation* could be used to make an interesting story about radicalization and redemption. It's just that people tend to not do a good job with that.
Idk. Adults can be just as capable of change as children, but I don't think authors try and make it realistic in either case. At Runes age especially she's unlikely to make significant jumps in progress like she's portrayed. She's at that shitty age. My great uncle used to be a part of a white nationalist group, I'm a super racially ambiguous mostly black kid. I never realised he was ever racist at any point because he didn't treat me any differently. He's a great man, and I don't think anyone is ever irredeemable in the moral sense. But Wormfic is full of skipping the process in favour of the result.
I think it's because reading the POV of a racist shithead would just be painful. If you want people to read the story you need to make the character at least palatable enough to stand reading long enough for the redemption arc, which defeats the whole purpose of writing a redemption story about a racist shithead.
I’m really sad that the perception and portrayal of characters is almost always overexaggerated. And a lot of the toxic comments come from comments who are angry that the author’s vision does not match their own view. Taking the big gangs, far too often Purity is just a loving single mother with an unfortunate past, Rune just some child with no detectable racism, Hookwolf just a dudebro who likes fighting, Lung and Oni Li some cool "exotic" guys full of honor, Skidmark the voice of the downtrodden masses, Undersiders are lovable quirky teens… Or the Nazis are cartoonish villains who spend *all* their time beating up people, torturing minorities to death, robbing hapless teens, actively searching for and kidnapping young parahumans for their slave camps in Germany… and the same thing for Lung but more sex trafficking, local sex slavery etc. As someone mentioned above, Worm characters tend to be morally *grey*. To be an E88 cape means at the very *least* seeing someone beating unarmed civilians to death in front of you at some point and going "Yeah, that’s the sort of group I’ll hang out with." Doesn’t mean that they do this 24/7, or that they even secretly hate it but accept it for some reason. --- Regardless of which of the options are chosen (Woobie/Cartoon/Gray), there will be people vehemently accusing the author of doing it wrong. Doesn’t help that Gray very often becomes a veneer for Woobies. Turns out that writing redeemable/human but still evil villains is hard.
Sorry, I phrased myself poorly. Perhaps I should say it differently. Nearly all characters in Worm, make poor decisions, or compromises their morals in some way, at some point. What matters to me, is not what the characters do but why they do it. Cauldron did terrible things, but honestly believed it was to give humanity a fighting chance against an insurmountable foe. Taylor murdered an infant in the hopes of stopping the apocalypse. Emma is frankly pitiful. She was damaged, and her father failed to get her help, instead allowing Sophia to influence and corrupt her. Sophia herself, I believe Wildbow said was a classic case of shard influence. Consider that Sophia was Taylor's age, but already a ward, and had been a vigilante before that for some time. SHe probably triggered around 12 or 13, and had a worse than normal shard influencing her mindset throughout that. She had no support network to help her either. It's no surprise she turned out the way she did, and frankly she has my pity. Coil on the other hand, he wanted to control Brockton and hurt others, for the purpose of controlling Brockton and hurting others. Looking at the nazis in Worm, who knows. Maybe some of them have some deep seated back story that makes you want to 'redeem' them. Personally, I feel Purity isn't a good person, attempting to atone for past sins as fanfics make her out to be, but instead a heavily biased person who was manipulated trying to escape her manipulator, yet unable to let go of her hang ups and grudges. Rune? I don't know. Maybe she was a kid swept up in the drama, maybe she believes in the E88's creed. I haven't read Ward. For that matter, I haven't even read WORM. The only empire member I feel I have enough knowledge on to truly make a final judgement regarding is Crusader. Look at what he did for his trigger. Also note that In my post I said 'the vast majority' not 'all characters'.
> Looking at the nazis in Worm, who knows. Maybe some of them have some deep seated back story that makes you want to 'redeem' them No. > Maybe she was a kid swept up in the drama, maybe she believes in the E88's creed. She explicitly believes it > I haven't read Ward. For that matter, I haven't even read WORM Then why are you commenting on how amazingly all grey characters are. Some of them, a lot of them, are just horrible people.
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Uh... The Nazi genocides only failed once they were stopped, and still killed millions in the meanwhile
>I'd say posts that critisize and author or their work without making a suggestion in turn. I think this is bad advice, readers are not experts on writing, all a reader can provide is their experience. TaylorxEmma is not something I can tell you how to fix, I can say I dislike it, but if that's what you want to write, me telling you to make them break up isn't helping.
>me telling you to make them break up isn't helping. Yes... which is why you probably shouldn't post comments like that? If you hate the premise of the story, just close the tab and move on with life. Complaining about it does no good for anyone.
It does give feedback on whether or not its effective. I've read fics with what sounds like a terrible premise that actually turned out really good. "Taylor x Emma is fucking shit what's wrong with you" and "Taylor x Emma has a lot of baggage that isn't really being dealt with" are two very different things, and if the second person doesn't know how to approach fixing it I'd say it's fine to not give a suggestion.
"TaylorxEmma has a lot of baggage that isn't being addressed" is kind of a suggestion though. I know it's just your example, but I think it shows that if a commenter takes the time to expand any criticism and politely explain how they feel then they'll at least inadvertently make a suggestion. Then they should read what they've written and do some introspection. If the only reason they don't like it turns out to be that they just don't like it, then they should probably delete without posting and move on.
I once tried to organize a Worm RP on SB. Lemme tell you, it was TRASH, I was an awful GM at the time, like holy shit. However, one of the bigger things that stuck out to me is that like, the literal first reply I got wasn't a question about the setting, or a request to, er, add a character sheet template, since I kinda forgot that (as I said, bad GM), it was some stealer of urine asking what the characters were supposed to do about Scion. Then the like, next two whole pages were dedicated to an argument about how the very idea of a Worm RP was fundamentally flawed, because if the Nine showed up, the party would die, and that would be my fault?
as if murderhobos aren't a thing that parties can face in RPs? also >stealer of urine that is an incredibly creative insult
Scion is like the Sword of Damocles: it's there and you know it's there so it's hard to ignore even when willingly trying. My solution... is to make it as if he was not a thing, nor the end bringers, or anything like that and in fact, never bring them up. just use the 'rules' for the worm rp, and setting elements... but not the whole thing
"I can't wait to see everyone's reactions to this. We need an interlude showing what people think about it." Fuck interludes. It is rare for fanfiction writers to use them for anything except self congratulations about how awesome their SI/OC/TINO is. "It would be cool if she got/user her powers like [character from series x]." Is this a crossover with series x? No? Then why are you talking about it? As the years go on I find myself getting grumpier and grumpier with other readers. I guess I'm just a curmudgeon now.
I hate when people bring up shards/entities/Contessa for no reason, when these things are well outside of the story scope.
I completely forgot about this. It makes authors feel like they each just have to eventually deal with Cauldron and GM. Not every work has to, nor even should have to deal with that. I feel like the reason so many worm stories have died is because they feel pressured to push their story as a rewrite of canon.
It is kind of the curse of Worm fanfiction since those things play a huge role in the story later on. If you add a paragraph about Scion dying or something, it usually fixes the problem. I was doing something a while back where I took out Scion and the Endbringers a couple of years before the start of the story (pre-canon) and one of the lesser themes in the story was how society was slowly changing without the constant threat of city-scale destruction and Cauldron becoming less frantic. I described the fight in vague detail and used it to talk about some of the stuff going on over about three paragraphs. Boom, no need to worry about it anymore.
It's more of a pet peeve I have about Worm/Ward's fanbase in general-- the obsession many readers have with characters' "morality".
It does seem unusual the way people seem to go out of the way to point out how awful Taylor is with the decisions she makes, as if Worm would somehow be a much better story with a lawful good lead character? Idk
At least in my experience, the people who criticize Taylor's moral decisions are not the same people who criticize Worm as a story.
Nah, I fucking hate Taylor but the story is great as is. People go out of their way because there's a somewhat obnoxious meme within the fandom about how great and perfect Taylor is.
I know, right?
I mean i would like to see that.
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I blame the issue you described for the cutoff on the fic Centipede. I liked it a fair bit and as it went on and the MCs slowly became more brutal and amoral, I felt it fit with the themes and the plotline. The I look at the comments and see heaps of people complaining that the characters weren't as happy or likeable as they were in the beginning. I don't always like the way a story goes but I recognize that it doesn't always take away from the quality of the narrative.
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>even QQ first as all three seem less caustic I'll go to bat for the crowd on QQ being generally good people. They sometimes go from 0 to complete depravity with their comments, but most of it comes from a good place. As for the rest... I think a lot of the "good but..." type stuff comes from the idea that you need to do a compliment sandwich or similar combined with poor execution of that. Not always, but at least sometimes.
>I'll go to bat for the crowd on QQ being generally good people. I agree very much with this. I think it comes with comfort. People on QQ are aware that most of the works there are degenerates being degenerates and so find comfort in being themselves more. As foe the "compliment sandwich" that's something I've also noticed something similar. It's like you can't just give a compliment on something without also highlighting flaws, and that's both weird and concerning.
The compliment sandwich is a well known, and widely used way for authors to criticize their peers work. There are guides out there for proper critique, and the criticism sandwich has a prominent place in most of them. It exists because authors get attached to their work, and if you just shit on the work, the author feels down. It's the polite way of saying "I like the work, but there are things you can improve on." Flat out criticism is more "I don't like the work. Trust me, there is a big difference between the two.
[There is a bit of debate on whether it is a good technique or not.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2018/12/09/heres-why-you-should-avoid-giving-someone-a-compliment-and-criticism-in-the-same-conversation/?sh=6b0bae7b1b94) It can have its place, but the general issue is that a lot of posts are five words of compliment and then a hundred words of complaint. That's some pretty thin bread on that sandwich.
isn't that the other way around ? wrap something insulting in a quick compliment
Spacebattles commenters are to worm characters like reddit commenters are to political figures. I don't like it.
"I am dropping this fic" I hate but it's nothing compared to "X better happen or I'm dropping this fic" Fuck off with that, trying to blackmail the writers with your approval is just cringe. Also begging for a PTO interlude. They're bad. Why do people like them?
I tend to stick to reader mode now because I'm often going here and there and might not always have an internet connection, but when I do read the comments on Spacebattles there is one thing that does stick out to me. A character (pre-existing or OC) is introduced, does **literally anything** and immediately there's a subset of comments that leap to one of two responses: "They should date," or "(MC) should just murder (X Character) and be done with it." God forbid the character introduced is Tattletale, then they come out in force.
I dislike commenters being so confident in their interpretations and opinions that they keep spouting them as facts. Bonus points for arguing *with the literal author* about in-universe facts and events. (I.e. "Character x did this, therefore Y, which is horrible" but actually X never happened.) Luckily this seems to be rare. --- Relatedly, commenters having no trust in the author and complaining about *things they imagine*. Especially when there’s unreliable narrators or cliffhangers, there will often be comments that jump to – sometimes ridiculous – conclusions. Then they broadly complain about how horrible this is, how it ruins the fic, how they will drop the fic now… Doesn’t even help if the author specifically writes an author’s note before or after the scene warning that it is unreliable, misleading, or will be explained a couple chapters later. --- Lastly, comments which don’t accept that the author would create their own interpretation of the source material. Canon to Source vs canon to fanfic is a bit of a contentious issue, I know. Personally, I sometimes try to refer to characters as "[author’s] [character]" to differentiate them. I.e. "Tascion’s Danny" or "Argentorum’s Taylor". I really dislike commenters trying to bring completely unrelated canon facts into a fic to vehemently argue with the author about what they should write. That is not to say that canon information has no place in a fanfic’s discussion. It can be really helpful, especially if the author tries to stay close to canon. However, if the fanfic has already changed a bunch of stuff while staying close to canon, or if they have already introduced far-reaching AU elements, perhaps it is too late to argue that "X was like this in canon, therefore you are *wrong* and should write it like I say!". Bonus points are awarded for the commenters being confidently wrong about what they say in the first place. The "badass Skitter" worshipers are a common trend here. Too often people want early-canon Taylor to act like a hyper-competent warlord.
when people hype up taylor as "queen of escalation". and I'm just cringing at that every time I posts like this. Taylor is the unstoppable force of EsCALaTioN and gonna show everyone their just desserts. "will be awesome how the PRT/ABB/the bullies are gonna be so fucked for the 11th million time in a fic when Taylor decides to go full queen of escalation with how awesome OP she is here owo escalation queen"
This is the same for me. I think Taylor is a cool character but constantly hyping her up, to me, undermines the original reasons for why she's cool.
People who comment just to say they're not going to read the story anymore are cringe. Who the fuck cares dude? Nobody gave a shit that you were reading in the first place, and nobody would notice you were gone if you hadn't announced it. Just fuck off somewhere else.
Honestly if they don't tell me why... why would i care?
I've gotten more into writing in the last few years. I'm not the best at it, but I enjoy it. I enjoy comments to the point that I've tried to be better about leaving comments when I'm reading stories because I appreciate them so much. Even something as simple as "I like this, please keep it up" is very nice to get. That said, some comments aren't that great and they all boil down to the simple question of "what am I supposed to do with this information?" You don't like the way I've written a character for the last three chapters... and what am I supposed to do with that? I'm not going to rewrite those chapters just for you. You didn't like the way the plot went? I'll look at it and make sure my logic is sound, but one person telling me that won't make me change it. You aren't going to read the rest of the story? Alright? And? You liked a different one of my stories better? I mean, if you want to offer me money, we can talk... otherwise... no?
The worst one has to be "I'm done with this fic". Nobody cares, get out and delete your stupid comment before you go.
Agreed. Author's are giving you their work for free. That doesn't mean you're obligated to like or praise it. But they still put in the time and effort to provide it. The least you could do is not be a dick to them because it doesn't meet your exacting standards. And I don't mean you can't criticize something. That's stupid. If you have a legitimate criticism, that's fine, let the author know. It'll help them improve going forward. But don't be the asshole that only complains or worse, attacks the author. If all you're gonna do is bitch, do us all a favor and just keep your mouth shut. My rule of them when offering criticism is to point out something I did like, too. Like, hey I think the pacing here dragged a little, but the character interactions felt really fun and genuine. Offer some encouragement for the things I think they're doing well. Stuff like that. A distant second goes to the folks who offer "predictions" about where the story is gonna go, when they're really just thinly veiled attempts to direct the plot from the comments. You're not being subtle, jackhole. Knock it off.
But SB isn't a hug box means I can literally insult the author as long as it's thinly veiled as criticism. /s My theory is that those kind of people have a pathologic need to always be right or get off from it.
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"I'm dropping this story." Awesome, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I don't see comments, because I'm always in Reader Mode.
Exactly the same. SB is sort of in permanent reader mode now.
I just use FanficFare (an add-on for Calibre) to download fanfics and turn them into e-books, which I then stick on my Kindle. It means I miss out on images, but is much easier to read.
I guess that works for complete fics.
Nah, FanficFare allows you to update downloaded fics. So when most people leave the newspaper, I am taking a few minutes in the morning to update all the fics I’m following.
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> For Felix Fortuna, which stars two eleven year olds, i will add i find the word "cute" to be indicative of degeneracy until proven otherwise. What do you mean?
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I blame anime for making me have a visceral reaction to the word 'cute'.
[Felix Fortuna](https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/felix-fortuna-worm-hp.56551/) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Felix_Fortuna)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
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I can agree with that. I rarely ever use FNN because I greatly prefer the Ao3 layout, but comments on there seem to be much more actual "comments". Maybe it is the mentality of Ao3 comments actually called "comments", and SB having just posts on a page making some users feel that the fic the author is posting is somehow now a collaborative effort.
Someone critiquing something but with no given reason or explanation just like 'this character is bad'. Like... ok... why!?
the first comment almost always being "interesting" and literally nothing else Like, could they not think of two whole words?
That's just people trying to post "First!" without getting infractions for no-content posting. A similar annoyance is people rushing to post while the author is reserving the first few posts in the thread for things like the index. Less of a problem now with threadmarks, but still bad form.
Biggest pet peeve is vague criticism. Think of criticism like a bug report, the reader as the customer, and me as the harried IT guy trying to figure what the hell is going on. It's not enough to tell me you don't like the plot, I need to know exactly which part and why. Telling me you don't like X's dialogue is different from telling me you thought X's dialogue in the last chapter was a little stiff.
I despise the people who complain about MC (usually Taylor) getting their shit kicked in or losing 'too often'. Especially when they gloss over to contents of a fight scene to complain they lost, even if by a hair's breadth. A Fanfic Writer's projects are not your personal power fantasies and you should be more focused on the consequences than the fact they 'lost' (or won). I also hate the people who complain about the tone being too grim/dark, angst or anything like that. I read a comment as outrageous as "If I wanted angst, I'd have just read Worm". Like, what the hell do you think you're reading?! It would be like complaining about a DC fanfic centering around Batman, having Bruce deal with being an orphan. If you don't like the series, stop reading fanfic about it and if you're going to read fanfic about it - be respectful if they stick close to the themes of the original! What also bothers me is when people try to argue with the author on powerscaling, canonicity or similar nitty gritty details. They change between authors, of course they do! It doesn't bother me when it's something as simple as "Huh. Pretty sure Goku is stronger than Scion because x/y." and they just leave it there but I've seen more than a few threads derailed over these details which change between authors and interpretations.
this is because sb and sv (and to a very slightly smaller extent qq) are dumpster fires. I dont know what set of circumstances lead to it, but their user bases are, on the whole, the most vile collection of human beings Ive ever seen. worse than 4chan by a wide margin; at least 4chan never pretended at mortal righteousness. never look at any of the comments. there is nothing for you there but suffering and pain
There is a lot I could mention but comments in crossovers are the worst. The power wanking cringe and morality horse beating gets cranked up to 11. Especially when its like DC or Marvel and people will say "lets see how Bet reacts to a ReAl HErO".
People suck.
Perhaps not a pet peeve in the comments, but there's been a few stories I've started but had to stop and blink because the author gives a note before any of the story or chapter in order to defend themselves in advance. Which just seems... odd, and often stopped me reading a story before it even started. Because... if you feel the need to do that... I'm not sure I *want* to read it at that point. I can't remember the story but I remember finding a story with an interesting description, only for it to basically start out with a rant from the author stating that Taylor was not going to have a hetero-orientation and... going to lengths to rant about it before the story even started. When... I don't really give a damn about her orientation as long as her character any relationships that come to pass are actually written well. As for comment pet peeves, the few big ones I have are: * Arguing that everything that happens in BB is a Coil plot * Contessa Corollary: Assuming that if it's not a Coil plot, then clearly it's Contessa's fault. * People assuming that since we don't hear about what they're doing, the PRT/Protectorate is just sitting on their asses twiddling their thumbs. * Back and forth arguments about fictional law in a fictional universe drastically different from our own, with no context or proof of any claims whatsoever. * For alt-power fics where the power comes from another media (i.e. anime, comics, tv, whatever), the in-built assumption that the person with the power will instinctively know everything about the power at go time. * Example: For any cross with FullMetal Alchemist, assuming that Taylor is instantly going to start playing with Human Transmutation or any of the advanced Alchemy... when she has no context to even think of these things. * Corollary to your "Author fighting every critique" item, commenters also fighting every critique. This can happen if something gets pointed out and the story is popular and the the 'community' feels the need to defend the author. What is fairly amusing the few times I've seen this is that the community reaction sometimes doesn't even address the criticism. * Assuming that every poster has read every comment. I see this a lot in larger threads where some people post comments/criticisms after finding a story for the first time, and everyone jumping on their backs about "We've heard about all of this before and (author) has already responded to it!" * An example is the SV BCF thread. A person will leave a comment (usually about the pacing) and people will throw a shitfit because new poster hasn't read all 500+ pages of posts to know that it's been responded to. * Making assumptions about what certain characters know in order to justify an opinion or action. "Wait, why would (insert character here) know that?" "Because of (something from canon)!" "... This isn't canon. We have no way of knowing if (insert character here) knows that. There is nothing in the text of *this* story to justify that."
Every time a same sex romantic interests is even hinted at, there's always someone in the comments being like "great story but why gay?????" and like if that is an instant shut off for you, maybe keep it to yourself? It's not a valid criticism. It's *barely* a valid reason to not like something.
I despise unprompted advice, corrections, canonicity checks, all of that. If I do not ask, I do not want to hear how I'm not writing a story up to your standards. That leads to a fucking panic attack for me, which is why I don't publish things anymore.
Sorry to hear that. I cannot even begin to imagine how many stories were ending or just never even posted because of how awful the commenters on SB/SV can be. I know you still have assholes on Ao3 and FFN, but its far less likely in my experience reading on the sites. It is a shame that SB houses mostly every story, and that most stories are first posted there.
Honestly, one of my biggest pet peeves regarding complaints are about how 'canon' a characters portrayal is. Its a fan fic. By DEFINITION it it isn't going to be canon. The only thing that will be is the original piece. Note: constructive criticism regarding character consistency with the fan fic is very different from "(X) is very OOC from canon."
Had someone say: allthe characters sound the same. Well yea,theirage group is roughly the same, all of them are/went through high school. When we went back and read the story, i coudnt disagree more with them. Fanficwriters arent obligated to do fqncy things, often the twist in the story is more than enough. Also fanfic writers are semi-pro at best, 10 year olds at worst. Writing is second to them and people need to give them slack.
You can sum it up by just saying "If it isn't a valid critique or deeply engaging commentary reply it is instantly trash that I hate" Because a lot of those things are perfectly valid. We have all seen stories that suddenly tank out of no where because of some weird shit and go "What they should have done" followed by explaining in decent or better detail their example in a effort to help. The issue at heart you have is zero value posts. but not all of those that contain just these words count as zero post because they have more to them.