The Internet's Biggest Hypocrite

So earlier today I submitted a story, and it failed moderation. I won't share any particular details, but it was a crossover between MLP and a certain video game, and I was pretty much plagiarising the entire game in less than 2000 words. I had a sneaking suspicion this would happen, but I submitted the story anyway. Thanks for the warning, sneaking suspicion. At this point, I would like to thank the user Spacecowboy for rejecting my story. It was a giant pile of horse turd, it only took me three hours to write and do the cover art, and frankly I wish I'd never written it, never mind submitted it. Your judgement is impeccable, good sir/madam/whatever.

Being autistic and all that stuff, I didn't take it very well. As it happens, I'm extremely bad at taking criticism. I am, however, good at calming myself down, so I went for a walk with my two dogs, took a shower, and then came back and deleted my story, in the hopes that I would never be reminded of it again. After all this, I couldn't bring myself to hastily type an angered reply to my story's rejection - in fact, I could only feel sympathy for my rejector. He/she/they must get hundreds of terrible pony-related ripoffs that they have to reject every day, and every time they do they risk the story's "author" turning into a jerk and firing shots at them.

Now, I have 4 followers, who I'm guessing either follow me because a) they're on a quest to follow everyone, b) they enjoy my honest-to-a-fault, critical nature, or c) they found one of my comments funny or something. I'd like to think that for the most part, the reason is b). I bring this up because interestingly enough, while I was waiting to see if my horse turd would make it through moderation, I took a personality test. It was one of the tests where you were given multiple statements about yourself, and you had to answer by agreeing or disagreeing with those statements. One of the statements was as follows:

I worry too much about how others think of me.

I agreed very strongly with this statement, because in all honesty, I do. I'd like to think that I can take negativity in my stride, but I can't. I don't hate anyone who thinks negatively of me or anything I've ever said. I can honestly understand why they dislike me, apart from this one guy who introduced me to brony culture, was my best friend for nearly two years, and then told me to fuck off out of nowhere. He's never spoken to me since. That was a major dick move on his part, but that's beside the point. I am usually extremely critical of myself, but I was tired today so I let this embarassment to my ego I once called a "fanfic" slip through.

What have I learned today? Well, it turns out that I can handle criticism in real life better than I can from randoms on the Internet. I guess being able to put it to a face makes it less scary for me. I'm also a major hypocrite; I dish out negativity wherever I go on FiMFiction comments, but when someone else turns up to call me out on my BS, I get defensive (almost). Thinking about it, we could probably adapt this into an actual episode of MLP, if it hasn't been done already. (I don't watch the show.)

Now, if only it were a Saturday.

~ epicn00b