A review's review's review? · 4:06pm Sep 27th, 2020
Disclaimer: I could tell you the context here dear followers of mine, but I'm not going to. This blog post is for one person, and one person only, he asked me to do it this way, and I will honour his wish. I do not recommend you to read this comment if you're anyone else but Ice Star. Honestly I wouldn't recommend him to read it, it will just gonna make him more angry. But of course anyone is welcomed to read this whole thing, though if you want to find out the story behind it, you have to do it yourself.
Allright Ice Star, I have to start with a little story here. When I chose to review your story I was just about through with the whole review group. I wanted to give myself a month and a half thinking time, before I made the final decision, so I wanted to pump out one last review to meet my September quota, which would have given me the rest of September and the entirety of October to officially make my decision. (It wouldn't have, because of the rather crooked ways Azure enforced the rules of the group, but I only learnt that after I finished your review.) Despite this I've already announced the group my intention to step down.
So when I chose your story I had one goal on my mind. I wanted to find a good story. If you look at my reviews the best score I gave is a 5. With the caveat that though it was a five, it was closer to a four than a six. So yes, so far I was not impressed with the stories I read. (In the context of this review group, there are plenty of great stories out there on the site.)
So after posting my penultimate review, I went into the main folder of the group sorted it by rating dismissed the first two stories for some reason (probably because they had humans in them, that's almost always the reason.) and then looked at yours. It didn't look particularly appealing, but it had a good rating, it was posted on EqD, so I was confident there was more to it than met my eyes.
Now the interesting fact is, that I either missed the horror tag completely, or forgot about it by the time I got around to read it, but I didn't go in with the notion that this was gonna be a horror story.
Which is what I prefer, honestly, in terms of reviewing, because a story should hold their own even if I don't have a particular set of expectation for it.
So there is the answer for your, and half the comments section's main problem with my review. The reason I reviewed a horror story, because I didn't know it was gonna be a horror story.
Would I have reviewed it had I seen the horror tag? I think yes, though I can't be certain of course. You can think what you want, whatever happened, happened, I'm not gonna concern myself about the circumstances.
But the important thing is that I wanted to like this story, I really did. Until it convinced me I shouldn't.
Now let's see if your words hold any merit against my review.
It feels weird that you didn't use the spoiler function that the site provides, thus making it easy for readers to spoil the story just by reading a few words on.
That's I think is a fair critique, I don't use the spoiler tag a lot in general, so I kinda just forgot about it, but had I thought about it I would have decided against using it because I thought it was something everyone should read. So I was not going to make it easy on the reader not to read it.
One of the more recent reviews I've had from this group had the 'summary' section read much differently.
I knew anyone who read my disclaimer tag has a solid idea what the story is gonna be about. So for them it was pointless to write anything more about the story, in the summary. Therefore my summary was almost exclusively for those who didn't read my disclaimer, and for them I wanted to give something snappy, to ignite their enthusiasm, and I wanted to keep it short, for those who've already read what the story is going to be about.
The reason I established a mundane, boring tone in the first sentence because I wanted to contrast it with the second where I alluded to murder.
Here, it sounds like you picked out a story you knew you wouldn't like to give it a review you knew would sound passive-aggressive and salty.
I categorically refuse this claim, based on all the evidence I've just provided. Also I'm almost physically incapable of being passive-aggressive. I'm way to honest for that. I go with regular aggressive.
The idea of all horror thriving off the otherworldly, action-packed, and unknown
I did not say such thing. Maybe the third, but I would argue even against that. Because I said that suspense is more about the things the author does tell about the story. So it's more about a careful balance of the things the readers know, and don't know. Also because I knew I was not particularly familiar with horror, I asked around in the reviewer channel in the discord group if my assessment about horror stories was correct. Noone seemed to argue with it, so I proceeded accordingly.
Also I don't think I pigeonholed it anywhere, but more on that later.
There are two things that you do here that do not fit a story review. First, you use terms and concepts that do not exist in the written word. Soundtracks and jumpscares are not elements you will find in a story.
Suspense transcends genres. The reason I chose the most basic, rudimentary example of suspense, I know of, because it's easy to understand. Granted, I chose my example from films because I'm more familiar with them, I don't think I've ever read anything in the genre of horror, but it doesn't matter, I could have used a painting as an example had I been well-versed enough in the language of the stationary visual arts. I'm not, the audience is probably not, so I went for films, because I found that's the artistic language the largest portion of people understand.
(Also, 'get' should be plural.)
I love that when out of the plethora of mistakes I've surely made you chose one to mention, you fuck up the reasoning of your correction. Yes, that "get" after "music" should be "gets" instead, but it has nothing to do with plural. Verbs can't be plural in English. (Technically they can, but they are not differentiated.) Ironically enough, if the subject was plural - which is the only thing that can be plural - "get" would be correct. What you're talking about is the third person "s" suffix on verbs which is not the same as the suffix that denotes a plural noun. (Though that is also an "s")
But you go and say this, claiming that I barely foreshadowed these things, when almost all of the story was built around foreshadowing and atmosphere.
I know that you tried to established the atmosphere, but you felt short. That's why I said you felt short. I work in mysterious ways, don't I?
Redheart showing that she had maliciousness that was beyond budding for some time was established early on in the story
I just re-read the first part of your story, and I disagree. (I don't know what I was expecting, I've read it twice before reviewing it, but i still did because it's the right thing to do) The first sentence I could misconstrue as showing maliciousness is: "Sometimes, those ponies didn’t realize just how lucky they could be – spoiled with meals, attention, leisure reading, and constant rest."
And even that would be a stretch and a half. But it happens at word 845. If this was a 20 chapter fantasy book of around 100.000 word that would be chapter four not that early for such a questionable little clue.
Because I would argue that this sentence doesn't even establish maliciousness. It establishes resentment. Yes, almost any maliciousness can be traced back to some sort of resentment, but not all resentment leads to maliciousness. So how is a reader supposed to be able to see what's coming based on these clues?
I've met like dozen different resentful people working very menial jobs, obviously angry at the world. Or themselves. If any of them were serial killers I wouldn't be alive today. It's not a particularly common thing, so how was I supposed to tell what was coming. You can say that I was not supposed to be able to tell what was coming, and you would be right on that, but when the twist happens I should feel like I was dumb for not seeing it coming.
I didn't feel dumb, I felt: 'meh whatever shit happens'. I feel dumb now, wasting my life writing this comment now. Luckily this is the last time my self accepted responsibilities will come back to bite me. (At least those connected to this review group)
The whole story is centered around Redheart. We get to understand her dreams, begin the story in her house, and never deviate from her perspective. That you feel she wasn't characterized enough perplexes me.
Yes, but the only two things we learn about her, is that A: She hates her life and B: She hates everyone who is more successful than her.
Now I admit, this is the one thing I am biased about. I don't hate horror stories. I do hate everyone who blames other people for their own shortcomings. So I disliked Redheart from the get-go. There were clearly ways to improve on her life, and she was to blame for not doing any of them. But that's neither here or there.
All I get from her, that she was resentful. Which yet again, doesn't mean she has murderous intents, and doesn't mean she is gonna act on those murderous intents. So I don't care how much we don't deviate from her point of view if we don't see anything alarming from her.
You just need to be able to pay attention to details and have a good sense of what makes a person someone you would want to stay away from.
Look I've seen a lot of resentful people, and they are generally harmless. Redheart in your version was also a classist, but that's not a sin. People have evil thoughts about others, it doesn't mean they are gonna act on them. I have a lot of evil thoughts I don't act upon. Being scornful of a kid made me dislike her, but I didn't think she was gonna kill anyone. Resentful =/= Murderous.
This is going way too slow so I'm gonna stop reacting to your complaints individually. You are basically repreating the same one arguement over and over for the next few paragraphs anyway.
I think the reason I disliked Redheart's characterisation because with the classist viewpoint you introduced, she just had to much actual reason to kill someone for me to call her just a psychopath, but had too little reason to be understanding with her in any way shape or form. For me this story ended up being on the floor between two chairs. You claim you introduced your character well enough, I think such a complex problem can't be addressed in a fic consisting of 4.5 words that tells half a day worth of in universe time. You scratched the surface, but on the surface, there is nothing more boring than this Redheart character.
Throughout the reading I have felt nothing about anything. I don't care what pigeonhole you think I tried to fit this story, because it didn't fit any pigeonhole. And before you get all cocky about how unique you perceive yourself being, this is not a compliment, because the one common thing about these pigeonholes, is that they all fall into the category of entertainment.
For the entire duration of reading this story not once, but twice, I didn't feel scared, I didn't feel afraid, I didn't feel tense, I didn't feel disgusted, I didn't feel excited, nothing. Maybe I'm old fashioned but when I'm reading something for entertainment, I want to feel something other than precisely distilled, chemically pure boredom.
Maybe this is realistic, or something, and maybe that was your intention, but I don't judge based on that. I'm not a mind reader. I based on one single factor only. Whether I enjoyed it or not. I never said I was fair, I never said I was objective, because I don't think there is such thing in literature. I said I was gonna tell what I think about it, and that I did. Sure I could have done it better, and yes I didn't put enough effort into writing the review, and for that I'm sorry.
But no, I was not biased about your story, because I physically couldn't have had biases against it, and then you assumed that my entire review was born out of bias.
So who is the biased one here?
Sorry son, in my eyes your story just isn't that good. It achieves what it wants, but what it wants is being boring as fuck. You might call it entertainment, or art, I call it wasting my time. Many people seemed to like it, so take heart in that fact, and stop bothering me about my imaginary biases.
You want us to believe that Ice Star asked you to relocate a conversation on a group about a specific story, and turn it into an enormous public blog post where you repeatedly and angrily trash both his story, and his response to your review? Without providing a link to the review or the story for context?
Horseshit.
You made this rant as public as possible because you're insecure enough to be embarrassed by a comment(!) an author made contesting your review of his work, from way off in a group most of us don't belong to. You aren't providing links to the comment or the story so readers of your blog can't make up our own minds about the discussion—you only want us to see the part where you insult him.
Even if Ice Star requested this, and I don't believe that for a moment, it's incredibly petty and the language you use isn't just defensive, it's accusatory and extremely rude. You call him several inappropriate names like "son" and refer to him as "cocky about how unique you perceive yourself being", you insult him personally and his writing, you talk down to him, and you repeatedly assert your own self-worth.
This is really not a good look for you.
5365303
Hey Trick, nice hearing from you again!
I told you, you shouldn't read this. Now you got so angry for no reason. I'm sorry about this you shouldn't have been dragged into this.
I hope I can make you feel better, by providing this proof of him wanting me to blog about this: https://imgur.com/a/Dezu4Ic
Though I want to clearify that Ice Star probably wanted to relocate this to here, because the thread in which we should have discussed it got deleted. I personally chose to believe, he is a firm believer of open discussion over anything else and I respect that deeply in him.
I could give you the link to the original convo, but it has been deleted, but here is the usless link for it: https://www.fimfiction.net/group/213901/my-little-reviews-feedback/thread/448517/review-breathtaking-banality-by-ice-star
And here is the proof that I was against the deleting of said thread: https://imgur.com/a/17xlRFY
I hope this clears out the misunderstanding.
As for my language, I must resort to quote Pontius Pilate: Quod scripsi, scripsi.
I'm sorry I had to publicise private mails, but in case of such serious allegation this still seemed like the best choice.
Lmao imagine making another blog just to be an asshole to someone who just wanted a nice review.
You really do have some sand in your vagina, don't you?
The only cocky person here is you if you actually think anyone gives a shit about your rude ass "review" of Ice Star's story. You're not special, your opinion doesn't matter, and you should honestly try going a single day without making an ass of yourself. Trust me, it's nicer that way.
5365323
Allright, I hope you have a wonderful day.
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5365303
When the initial thread was close to being locked, Jnzsblzs asked if I wanted a re-review. Or, I think someone else asked if I wanted him to do a re-review. I did get a lot of PMs that day, but I do believe it was Jnzsblzs who asked. I said that I would have no problems with a re-review, since I figured that there was no issue in giving Jnzsblzs a second chance. Maybe he was a newer reviewer. Maybe he had a bad day. Either way, giving a bad review is something to be learned from. I gave him the okay to do so and said that it would be best to utilize the blog feature to display it.
He's selectively quoting a thread that's now deleted. I hadn't even asked for the thread to be deleted, just locked. I figured that the group could use it as an example for other new reviewers.
Jnzsblzs hasn't even linked it to me yet. You're actually the one who did. I got no sneak peeks of this.
Indeed it isn't.
5365319
You have a funny way of talking to people you respect. Just saying.
Is this why you don't appear to proofread your reviews?
I wouldn't say this is in any way a serious allegation. You could have asked my permission to do this, considering those are my PMs too.
5365323
Seven, you're a poet.
Why do you preface a review of a story with your personal social drama? That seems very rude and unrelated to the subject of the story.
This is coming from the guy who says he's not passive-aggressive.
Okay.
You manage to make this come across more like a pedantic excuse than relevant information.
This does not make sense. Genre tags are one of the easiest things on the site. I could understand if this was about a particular group this was in, since groups a) can be hidden b) require you to scroll down to the side and into comments to see them (which could make for accidental spoilers) and c) often contain huge spoilers. Saying you don't know what genre a story on Fimfiction is would be like me clicking stories at random and being shocked and appalled that they have words in them. I even use the color-coded genre tag feature just so I can get a better idea of what a story will be at a glance. (That and because the all-blue ones look gross.)
There is never an excuse to say that you don't know what genre a story is unless the author mistagged something or didn't use tags altogether.
Tags aren't meant to set your expectations, they're there to categorize the work. This is a huge boon in an online library in order to keep it from becoming a mess like AO3 is. It's also not any more different than how books are sorted into sections at bookshops. The genre tags aren't there to cater to you.
If you don't know the genre of story you're reviewing, then you simply should not be reviewing. This is not exclusive to fanfics at all and is the Reviewing 101for any medium: know your genre.
Different stories suit different people but here it sounds like you wanted to hate my story more than it was in some way objectively bad.
Using basic site functions to improve the experience of people is not whatever it is you're trying to get that. Seriously, as a reviewer, you should have some knowledge of advantageous formatting and The Basics. Reviews are made for other people to read by definition, while stories can cater to an audience of one if they have to.
That just feels like laziness on your part.
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Being action-packed and having otherworldly beasts are two things that traditionally qualify as suspenseful. You're just trying to debate semantics at this point.
So, almost like establishing a character as resentful (and gradually malicious) creates the "known" that indirectly creates the "unknown" with readers not knowing that said character will commit murder?
Awesome!
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Correct.
Incorrect. When reviewing within a certain medium, you go for the jargon needed for that medium. You also used words for concepts that physically cannot exist within the written word, such as jump scares. This shows that aside from not knowing the genre of horror too well, you need to brush up on the medium itself that you are reviewing. This doesn't mean you have to read prize-winning novels, just check out how successful reviewers do their stuff. You seem particularly interested in the Rage Review style of review, but to do that right you need to check out how those are done right and what kind of material can even be rage reviewed successfully. There's a group for Rage Reviews on Fimfiction, and I would suggest reading threads and guides in order to understand what you're attempting in the first place.
You should not be debating proofreading and grammar in a review unless it is from the story itself. If English is not your first language, there are numerous ways you can improve it, including asking for help or finding a program that will correct any mistakes you make. There are probably many other ways you can refine your reviews too. Fimfiction also has a writing guide that is very helpful. No review should be under-proofread and poorly formatted.
This is not mysterious. This is you refusing to explain what makes the atmosphere "felt" short. You need to be able to give that information when reviewing and show that you can a) explain how to improve the atmosphere you think I failed to establish and b) what is an example on how to do it better. You could even cite a specific story as an example.
This is somewhat understandable. Perhaps there were times where she was too indirect in different parts of the story's start.
Not particularly. You would have to have a very narrow view of maliciousness to not see how it can be understood that way.
You're basically admitting that you hate gradual build-ups here, even though slower development is often crucial to longer fiction and particular genres. Having this appear at word ~800 of a story around 4,500 words is not bad at all. You seem to think that every story needs to snap right to the action, or that every author has a style that supports that. I eased the reader into this story because that was what was needed.
Resentment in itself contains some iota of maliciousness. Dude, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you just genuinely don't seem to know how the basics emotions work here.
That's the point. Redheart doesn't appear to be some cold, sophisticated level. Is she heartless? Yes, she is. But she starts off feeling like someone you could know, and only when you go back do you see that her actions and thoughts were foreshadowing. I swear you're just being purposely dense at this point.
This helps establish that she's not a healthy pony and gives her a solid foundation for her motive. Being able to connect these things isn't that hard. She's shown to be obsessed with a job that she's only really okay at, has nothing else going for her in life, and wants a very narcissistic world where she's the best and most successful nurse ever because she's stuck wanting an idealized vision that not only won't be, but she puts no sincere effort in making. She wants to be a nurse for all the wrong reasons, cutie mark aside.
You're supposed to not like her. She's the villain of the story. Later on, she even murders a pony. You are not supposed to like her in any way. You recognize that she blames everypony else for something that they've never done against her, and don't seem to grasp that it was intentional.
Her job is saving the lives of others and compassionately caring for them, and she's unable to do that. She doesn't care when children are hurt and she only ever shows ill will and irresponsibility towards others, including potentially on purpose acts of neglect.
She has an obvious prejudice that is entirely unjustified in a job where she shouldn't have that. There was nothing harmless about her, on top of the fact that she was an unfulfilled workaholic.
That sounds like a personal problem.
If you don't think that a nurse being unable to worry about a child is a red flag at the very least, I don't know what to tell you. The story doesn't have to establish her as outright murderous, just that she is capable of being so and that she has a motive, however, rooted in illogical thinking it is.
Yes, and the point is that she is a mundane plain Jane who hides an unhealthy, obsessive resentment and does not lead a well-adjusted life.
Based on how you're using it, you don't seem to understand what it means to pigeonhole something.
This sentence does not read very coherently and is difficult to parse. I would suggest rewriting it.
This makes it seem like you didn't read the second chapter because I have a hard time believing that felt nothing whatsoever at any point in the story. There is also an obviousness to how much you resent the story and character, so there's that, which counts as a feeling.
If you don't account for an author's intent in a review, then you're not reviewing very well.
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You said you would do a re-review, not a rant. Dude, we discussed this in PMs.
Well, why wouldn't you put good effort into a review? That's just purposefully mean-spirited on your part.
It is not possible to be without some bias, the matter is if you can address it and work past it. I am always going to be biased for or against certain kinds of stories, and that is something I have to acknowledge if I review a story containing said content I'm biased for/against.
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5365390
Great gif, that's exactly what I'm planning to do.
5365392
Well let's agree to disagree.
5365397
It's crazy how you say you want to have a discussion about this, but then when Ice Star replies with a long comment, you only have "let's agree to disagree" to say. Why is it that everyone who uses a Quibble Pants avatar is just as arrogant, uninformed, and unwilling to accept fault for a situation as he is?
Also, Norris posted that gif as a reply to you because he doesn't care about your blog, so it's funny that you complimented it and proved you have no situational awareness lol.
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5365303
Just to give it the full context
I literally asked if Ice star if he wanted a reply to his comment. I felt he deserved it. He said if I wanted to re-review it I can do it in a blogpost. Since he called his comment a review of my review, I thought the term "re-reivew" somehow referenced that. I was wrong about that, but I've had no intention to redo my review, if I had known that's what he meant I would have never agreed to it. As i have said Quod scripsi, scripsi.
I selectively quoting the only response on that thread that comes from him. Because out of all the comments I didn't want to respond to after I left the group, his was the only one I thought deserved a reaction regardless of my position on the reviewer team. (To clarify: had I stayed on the group I would have responded to everyone.)
I asked for this comment to be saved, in case the thread was deleted, because Azure told me he is considering deleting it. Azure sent it to me. so I could make this comment, if Ice requested it. (Not sure if at this point he'd already requested the reply to his comment, or I'd just given the offer. Not that it matters.)
I don't know why Ice thinks he was owed a sneak peek of this. (If indeed he thinks he was owed a sneak peak. I'm not sure.) He wanted me to make a blog post about it and I have. If he wants to read it, it's his job to figure out how he wants to notice it. (The easiest way to do it would have been to tell me in the DM that he wanted a link.) He didn't, so I assumed he was gonna follow me or check on my blog in a week or so from our conversation when I promised him I was gonna be ready.
5365398
Don't put words into my mouth. I've never said I wanted to have a discussion about this. I said that Ice wanted to make it an open discussion. So I gave him the openness what he wanted. I've wasted enough hours of my life on this whole thing as is, and I don't owe him any more of it.
Funny how don't recognise you are berating me for not having situational awareness while you didn't notice that I was sarcastic.
5365401
No he doesn't. Which is why he has no restriction about saying it out loud. I mean, it doesn't matter anyway, so how would it hurt anyone?
What's so funny that all the people who think it doesn't matter seem to care a lot more about it than I do.
5365430
Oh, so then you were being rude again. Lol, that's not better, that's worse haha.
God. You know, I really wanted to leave this alone and just leave, but holy FUCK you're a cunt. "Haha I am all high and mighty and I deem that your story was boring because I say so! You write boring stories!"
Go fuck yourself, holy shit.
Okay, when I PMed you saying everything you did wrong and why you should realize what you did wrong: this is precisely what I was talking about. I'm sorry I even tried to help you in the first place.
y r u ghey?
do you eat da poo poo too?
y?
shut up
ugly
5365401
doing the Lord's work, godspeed.
5365414
This was for clarification's sake in my response to Trick.
And for the record, I don't care if you call me arrogant because my character is irrelevant in a review of my story. But you really don't seem to get that to get this story where it is, I had to go through an Equestria Daily prereader and got my results from the contest judges. I also keep a close eye on my comments. All three of these people had to say that the character work and atmosphere were the story's strong suit, but that the syntax in previous versions needed a lot of improvement. I revised this accordingly. You don't give the kind of feedback anyone can use for improvement nor do you seem to think that you should be considering why you might be the dissenting opinion. Popularity does not guarantee that a story is good, but as the author of this story (and having worked with other people's feedback to improve it), I know that even if this is not my best work, it isn't anywhere near as bad as you think it is.
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5365319
For the record, I'm not actually upset. I was a little emphatic, but that's only because I don't think you realize how bad this looks. I have no desire to harm you—just the opposite.
5365392
5365414
This appears to be the major point of confusion.
That said, the rudeness and personal attacks—predominantly from jnzsblzs, though I didn't see the escalation elsewhere—are the only reason this argument is a problem.
In general, if you review people's stories, being harsh and honest about the content and your feelings is fine, but disparaging the author is not acceptable. The only time that would be warranted is if the story were so inappropriate it would have already violated ToS for hate speech or personal attacks.
5365585
I honestly was expecting a legitimate review this time around. Perhaps I got my hopes too high, especially since this mostly highlights content in my comment rather than the story.
To this day I still don't know why you were accepted to be a reviewer and I was there when you got accepted.
This is a great review. I really got immersed with your thoughts and opinions and not once did I find myself disagreeing with you. However, I did find a small mistake in the last paragraph.
Here, I'll go ahead and fix it so you can add it to your review.
Holy fucking shit, you are such a deluded asshole. You're so self-assured in your intelligence and your superiority to everyone else that you can't even see it, either. I was considering just leaving it here, or maybe not even commenting at all. I mean, others have already clowned you better than I can.
But then I read this. And just... no. No! Fuck you! I've just ignored your awful review of Chamomile for months because I got vibes from it that you were the type of person to be too narcissistic to actually take anything from what I would say. And I still believe you're that kind of person, but I don't even care anymore. I'm going to tear your dogshit review to shreds. Link to it here.
Well, this is an actual summary, unlike what you gave Ice. It's not a good summary, but I mean, there was an attempt I guess.
What's the point of this? You provide no examples of what you consider to be "blatant 'Rarityisms'" here, so this isn't constructive, which should be the point of all criticism, nitpicky or not. It strikes me as you fumbling to shoehorn in some critique that could seem justifiable because you couldn't actually think of anything and you can't stand not feeling superior to someone or something.
If by "primary" you mean "most surface level", then sure I guess. Also, it strikes me as amusing that you immediately contradict your previous critique in the same sentence. You love to see it.
I'm not gonna sit here and say my portrayal of Twilight was perfect, because it isn't, but I fail to see what makes her a cardboard cut-out. Her behavior and dialogue being predictable doesn't make her a cardboard cut-out. I can see how her being predictable to you could make her boring, but being boring and being two dimensional are different things.
God, you are such a fucking prick. Throwing in a strikethrough here isn't funny or clever like I'm sure you think it is, dude. Like, we get it, you only liked one of the characters.
This is one of the worst parts of your review by far. I agree that the pacing at the end is too fast, and I'm sure we'd disagree to what degree it is, which is fine. But seriously, what the fuck is this? First is the condescending "down the toilet" line, which I'm not going to bother with because everyone already knows you're an unlikeable asshole.
What really gives me pause here is that you've not only stripped all nuance and subtlety from their conversation, but you've also misrepresented what they're actually saying here. I guess if I just read this simplified version you've constructed I'd think Twilight was two dimensional as well, so I'm sure glad that this isn't actually a good representation of events.
There is so much to unpack here. Their conversation didn't resolve things, Twilight isn't magically over her anxiety and completely ready to rule. I'm going to quote the final three paragraphs from my story because in no way was my intent ever to magically tie things up with a neat little bow. Life is too messy for that.
On the more subtle side here, the rain is still falling outside. Sure, it's calmed down, just like Twilight's anxiety has, but it isn't gone. On the less subtle side... I basically say right afterwards that Twilight isn't permanently better and that she has just calmed down for the moment. I'm not sure how much clearer I could be without bashing someone over the head with this, frankly.
Also this is in no way even close to the definition of deus ex machina. God damn.
This is just dumb. This would be a fundamentally different story with any of these changes. It wouldn't be about Twilight and Rarity anymore, it'd be about taxes or whatever.
You are such a fucking asshole dude. Again with the belittling and including unnecessary details for the sake of "honesty"--seriously, who cares that it's closer to a 4 than a 6 to you? Even your compliments are backhanded, but that isn't really surprising.
Anyways, this is a fuckton of words about something that really doesn't actually matter, so here's the tl;dr of my reaction to this review and everything else I've ever seen you say:
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/663501980379119619/759968183104569368/D_Xv_eqW4AgZXkB.png
You prose here is stilted and there's no clear direction or consistent pacing.
Revise the blog and get back to me.
5365791
God damn, after Ice Star dismantled everything this dude says in his "reviews", you come in here with even more!
media.tenor.com/images/36cf8e179b1eed9f03b5c9b0fbaf2ddf/tenor.gif
Or is he?
Fuck it, since we're airing dirty laundry tonight, let me have a whack at these comments he left on one of my stories.
Hell of an opener there, bud. And then you followed it up with this:
Slice of life stories are not hit and miss by nature. No genre is "hit and miss by nature". You expected a lot of yak culture to be explored in... a comedy slice of life oneshot? This falls in line with a lot of the earlier criticisms against you. You go into stories with certain expectations without even bothering to read the descriptions or the tags, and then you decide that just because a story isn't what you expected it to be, it's just bad? Sure, you're entitled to your opinion. But parading that opinion around like it is the law is harmful, especially to newer authors. You stand to do a lot of damage to someone's confidence and passion for the craft if you shit on their story for no reason other than "It wasn't for me". I'd consider myself fairly seasoned in getting negative criticism, and even I felt a little put out by your assessment of "exceedingly boring". Imagine if that was a beginner author. How that would make them feel. It's destructive criticism, and it does nothing but make an ass out of you.
So... You're going to use the fact that I stuck to a character's canon speech patterns as a point against me? On a fanfiction website?
Ok, what else?
Ah, I get it. Because this is a comedy, we're not allowed to have any details or problems in the world that aren't directly intended as jokes. I will concede that the seriousness of the issues caused by the hot cocoa was a tonal clash with the comedic intent of the story, but... this is absolutely a departure from normalcy. Not one with an immediate punchline, but a departure nonetheless. Yona pretty much flat out says it. Multiple times.
Yes, Gallus got a raw deal, but nobody really won in that scenario. Yona went through a traumatic experience. The village suffered damage. International intervention was needed. Gallus unintentionally brought drugs to a mob of junkies in withdrawal. Him losing his money was less a comedic point and more of a real consequence. Maybe it would have helped balance out the tonal clash in the story to make the impacts from the events less lasting.
And there you have it, you hit the nail right on the head! Thanks for doing the work for me on this one. Just above you made note of how the yaks village gets destroyed regularly by a plethora of things. That's a pretty unrealistic expectation for a poor mountain village to be able to rebuild itself, so why did you not dock me points for being unrealistic there when you had to dock me for it here? Where is the consistency? If you can believe that the yaks live in such a perilous place and not believe that the crystal empire might be equipped for a humanitarian (equinitarian? Bovinitarian?) relief effort in this cartoony, unrealistic world. Yeah, sure. Fine.
I can cede that you made some valid points against my story. But the way you presented them? Condescending and shouting like you know so much better than everyone else? And then refuse to accept it when people push back against you and your tepid, biased, weightless opinions? Literally go fuck yourself, kiddo. You didn't even give me half of the shit that you gave the other people in this comment section, and even that was enough to kill any credibility I would have given you.
GG, please never review anything ever again.
Hey, looks like you're finally being noticed for something! Congrats, man!