“The Hall of Origins itself is fanmade and used in just about every story with Arceus in it, and in every story I’ve seen with it, all the Legends were there.”
Ahhh this is cathartic. Now that we’re out of AOOO I finally get to throw down with one of those people who think their ten-steps-removed game of fanon telephone requires no explanation when dropped into fanfic.
And yes, they did just say a canon location is fanmade. Don’t worry, it gets worse!
T H E C R E A T O RNOVACORPNo, I will not take it up with the thread, I will take it up with you since you are the one who messaged me about it in the first place. Firstly, “Pikachu” and “Charizard” are their actual names since they were never given anything otherwise, and thus, they will have their names be capitalized just like how they are in the games. Secondly, I know I have much work to do as a writer. This is the first story I’ve ever written, so of course it will look sloppy in the beginning. Trust me, there are far worse writers out there. Heck, I’ve seen some who still write in script format! Thirdly, I capitalized “He” and “Him” in some cases due to either that person not having a revealed name yet (in the case of “The Man” in the beginning), or to show that that character is one of high rank and power, like that of Arceus. Fourthly, Arceus was described as “Creating the world with his thousand arms” so yes, he is the closest thing we’ve gotten to a God-Pokemon. Fifthly, The Hall of Origins has ALWAYS been described as the hall where every Legend meets, not to mention this was a celebration of another Legend’s achievements. So, yes, Deoxys would be there. Finally, I thank you for writing your complaints in the form of constructive criticism instead of a flame, and I hope you will take my criticism of your criticism in a similar light. If you do not like my story, then you simply do not have to read it, though that is your decision. Thank you for your review.
secs ago
[No, I will not take it up with the thread, I will take it up with you since you are the one who messaged me about it in the first place.]
If you had gone to the thread, you would have seen that argument has been debunked years ago. This is the exact reason why I tell people to go to the thread first. Don’t waste my time with points that have already been discussed to death.
[Thirdly, I capitalized “He” and “Him” in some cases due to either that person not having a revealed name yet (in the case of “The Man” in the beginning), or to show that that character is one of high rank and power, like that of Arceus.]
Is The Man actually a god? If not, capitalized pronouns don’t make sense. We don’t capitalize the pronouns of mob bosses or kings. Regardless, you don’t do it with any consistency, so it’s still an error.
[Fourthly, Arceus was described as “Creating the world with his thousand arms”]
In the games, yes. In the anime, no.
[Fifthly, The Hall of Origins has ALWAYS been described as the hall where every Legend meets]
Citation needed.
“Don’t waste my time with points that have already been discussed to death.” Then don’t waste mine with criticisms that have a basis discussed to death, if it’s that old. Nobody besides you would care anymore, were that true. “The Man” is currently his name, and has, or WILL have, godlike power in his own right. I labeled this story as “All” when debating between Anime, Game, or Manga world for that very point you brought up with Arceus’s description. The Hall of Origins itself is fanmade and used in just about every story with Arceus in it, and in every story I’ve seen with it, all the Legends were there. On another note, I saw how you criticised a few other stories that came out around a similar time ours was. Maybe instead of criticising other people’s fics, you should spend that time finishing yours.secs ago[Then don’t waste mine with criticisms that have a basis discussed to death, if it’s that old. Nobody besides you would care anymore, were that true.]
I don’t follow. The basis remains true regardless of its age, and plenty of people still care. If you have a strong opinion on this, you should really discuss it where everyone can weigh in.
[“The Man” is currently his name, and has, or WILL have, godlike power in his own right.]
I don’t quite understand what you mean. Regardless, it’s fine to capitalize his pronouns if that’s the logic you’re using, but you have to be consistent about it. The part I quoted is the only time his pronouns are capitalized in the entire chapter, from what I can tell.
[I labeled this story as “All” when debating between Anime, Game, or Manga world for that very point you brought up with Arceus’s description.]
??? I suppose it could theoretically be a crossover if you’re bringing in game/manga characters, but… so far you’ve only featured anime characters. And that’s confusing, because game Arceus and anime Arceus are completely different beings and characters. If you’re using anime protagonists but not anime Arceus, that’s really confusing and you need to spell that out explicitly so readers know what to expect.
[The Hall of Origins itself is fanmade]
?????? No, it’s an actual location in D/P/Pt where you encounter Arceus. Beyond that, there is no canon information on it. It’s briefly mentioned in the manga with only a vague description and does not appear at all in the anime.
The Man is a worm, so to speak. Later on in the story, he will have such a grip over the public’s mind that they will follow his every wish to the end. He is not above wringing his partners dry, so to speak, of their usefulness to get what he wants. That’s what I mean by power. What I meant by “fanmade” is its “personality” so to speak. The Hall of Origins had no real “character” to it.secs ago[What I meant by “fanmade” is its “personality” so to speak. The Hall of Origins had no real “character” to it.]
??????????????????????????
Outside of the fanbase, the Hall of Origin holds no true purpose. It’s just there for show.You’re writing a work based on a source material. There is no “outside of the fanbase”. That’s what the Hall of Origin canonically is. If you’re making up your own completely different location and mythology, why are you calling it by the same name? That’s incredibly confusing.Confusing? If you’ve been on the Pokemon side of Fanfiction for two days, you’d have seen the Hall of Origins used in the exact same way by hundreds of people.No, I’ve seen it used in a hundred different ways by those hundreds of people, because it’s a Frankenstein created by a hundred games of fandom telephone rather than drawing on any hard canon basis. And it is still confusing, regardless, to call it by the same name as a completely different thing that does have a canon basis. If this is pure fanon, it should be called something different. The Hall of Origin may be a featureless location, but that blankness is still an important canon trait, and overwriting it is a significant divergence from canon.…do you not know where we are currently speaking? We are currently in Fanfiction: the accumulation of all fanon. I’m just using the exact same Hall of Origins that’s been used here in the literal exact same way for YEARS now by hundreds of people.secs agoFanfiction is not the accumulation of fanon. Fanfiction is derivative work based on canon. Making stories based on “the accumulation of fanon” is often really irritating and confusing to outsiders, because it’s basically fanfiction of fanfiction — except there’s no one primer you can read up on, you have to be a participant of the community to pick up on all the thinly-spread tidbits that never got any clear definition and are constantly reinterpreted by every individual.
You shouldn’t assume readers are familiar with anything outside of the source material itself. If you’re working in your own interpretation that’s a significant departure from canon, you need to show how you got from canon to fanon.
And above all, it is still absurd to use the name of a canon thing to refer to a completely different thing.
“it is still absurd to use the name of a canon thing to refer to a completely different thing.” Like literally any Pokemon?And it really isn’t hard to pick up on the version of The Hall of Origins that 95% of the people on here use. Is it really that hard to pick up on that? No. I figure’d out the link when I was twelve without reading the Manga from a Pokemon Card of The Hall of Origins. My co-writer figured it out in seconds after reading simply the words “The Hall of Origins” on any random given story. Literally every writer I’ve ever talked to on here either uses it that way, or never even knew there was a difference in the first place. Does it REALLY matter to you so much that The Hall of Origins would be an empty white space with Arceus in it? It really shouldn’t. Do you want to know why thousands use the Hall in an exact or vastly similar way in the form of a meeting place for the Legends? Because it’s fun. Because it works. Because this is Fanfiction where you can do just about whatever you want. You are literally the only person I’ve ever met who doesn’t use the Hall this way in their Fics. I’m just appealing to the majority, or at least attempting to.secs ago[“it is still absurd to use the name of a canon thing to refer to a completely different thing.” Like literally any Pokemon?]
What are you talking about.
[Does it REALLY matter to you so much that The Hall of Origins would be an empty white space with Arceus in it?]
Yes. Because that is canon.
If you want a place where you can do “just about whatever you want”, write original fiction. Fanfiction is constrained by the source material.
Canon, canon, canon, NOTHING HERE IS CANON. Nothing here NEEDS to be canon. Why? Because it’s BORING. We’ve already seen this crap in the shows, games, and manga. Fanfiction is literally about taking your own spin on an original series. You’re grasping at straws to seem correct.secs agoIf you think canon is so boring, why aren’t you writing original fiction?
I, personally, do not think canon is boring, and would appreciate it if you didn’t force me to sift through stories based on a canon you made up to find stories that actually engage with the source material.
Not what I meant. There’s this giant place called “Fanon” that sits happily in between “Canon” and “Fandom” and makes up 95% of Fanfiction that seems to be flying above your head. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t force me to” blah, blah, blah. There’s no such thing as “Canon” here. It’s all “Fanon” and “Fandom” (aka OC’s). “Canon” is the Anime, Games, and Manga’s original stories.secs agoYou keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Canon is the source material, yes, but fanfiction should be compliant with that canon. Else you are not actually writing about the source material and it is not really fanfiction. Fanon is where fans fill in missing pieces of canon where there is no information one way or another so it might as well be this interpretation. Even then, there is no One True Fanon, because by definition it is based on individuals’ opinions and interpretations. What you’ve done is replace explicit canon with your own original ideas. That’s not fanon, that’s writing original fiction.
…which is exactly what almost everyone here does.No, it really isn’t.Hi I don’t know if you knew this, but this account is used by 2 different users, and I’ve been reading both of your messages back and forth and at first I didn’t mind them because it was a friendly argument about the fic, which I welcomed, BUT now it’s turned into trying to prove each other what’s right or wrong about fanfiction in general and I’ve gotten tired of always getting these messages of you guys making arguments that are basically unrelated to the fanfic at this point. I did this story because I wanted to have fun, but it’s hard when I get on the account and see that the only message I’ve received is you guys arguing so I please ask you both to stop, say thanks, and goodbye. It’s up to you guys if you wanna continue this discussion but I figured that since I’m one of the authors, I needed to address this little argument you guys had going on. I’m Hydra just in case you were wondering. The good man who’s been talking to you is The Creator I thank you for your criticism and I won’t be responding to this discussion again, but my friend is free to respond if he wants. Thank you and goodbye.So what I’m getting from this is that someone really needs to sit fandom down and explain that original fiction is an option.
Why does being out of AOOO allow you to throw down? What’s stopping you from throwing down there?
capitalizing he and him because of the character it refers to lacking a proper name
Well, that certainly is a new one.
Arceus was described as “creating the world with his thousand arms”
Moving past the fact Arceus doesn’t have a thousand arms (isn’t it a quadruped?), I’d be interested in seeing the source for this. It’d actually be a pretty good answer to the common “any reason why Arceus is male in this” question you ask people who do that. Of course, considering he described the Hall of Origin, which even I know is a canon location (and, besides the fact it’s the home of arceus and possibly the weird centipede thing from Platinum, literally nothing else) despite having never played the game it’s in, as a fanmade location in the very next sentence leads me to believe he’s probably wrong about this too. I don’t feel like checking to be sure, but I’m going to guess Arceus is canonically a genderless pokemon. Can I get any source on this?
It’s fine to capitalize his pronouns if that’s the logic you’re using
I think you should also indicate this to the reader somehow. If someone is godly enough to be He and Him, then the reader should be able to tell something’s up with him. Something to make it clear you’re doing it on purpose and its not just a grammatical mistake.
If you’re working in your own interpretation of canon […]
Heh, this is actually why I left my opinions of noctowls hooting out of my mini-fic (for want of a better term) in the previous Pokeauthors post. It wasn’t long enough to merit explaining my interpretation of the world of pokemon so I just kept the fact that Vivian’s noctowl communicates via hooting to myself until the dialogue about what I wrote made it relevant. I honestly didn’t expect it to come up, but even though it was just two short paragraphs that merely teased at a plot, I suppose I should’ve expected the level of critique I received from y’all. Mini-Farla probably thought more about it than I did writing it (which is probably true for a lot of the stuff he reviews).
But if I was writing a whole story, I definitely would have made a point of indicating what level of intelligence her various pokemon have and what level they can communicate at. Because I actually did put together a little bit of a pokemon team for her (by adding all the pokemon I was considering featuring before settling on showing off her shiny noctowl) and they’d all be different. Because, you know, two paragraphs doesn’t mean I can’t currently have ten pages of backstory floating around in my head now. I’m, perhaps a bit unsurprisingly, the kind of GM who has intricate backstories for every NPC ever.
And I probably would’ve put an author’s note after chapter one explaining that my opinion on the topic differs from the anime depiction just to ensure people understood this would be the case and I would only have to reply to hundreds of identical questions instead of thousands. I’d probably have put it in the “game” category if it was on FFN, though I’m not really sure what differentiates the anime, manga, and game category besides the use of canon anime or manga characters. One of you will have to explain it to me.
original fiction is an option
As someone who has only ever written original fiction and the most sizable foray he’s made into fanfiction is aforementioned mini-fic… I will never understand why people are so resistant to the idea their fanfiction is actually original fiction. They should be proud of being able to write something purely from their own creativity without using someone else’s as a starting point. That level of creativity is vital to being able to write good fiction as well as good fanfiction.
Not to disparage the many legitimately good fanfiction that exist out there, but I can’t help but but feel like this is the cause of the generally low quality of the medium and wonder how much fanfiction would be better if people who wanted to write it took a couple years writing wholly original fiction first. All the fanfiction I’ve read that I’d classify as quality writing are from people I’d imagine would be just as good writing original fiction as fanfiction.
Fanfiction shouldn’t just be the thing you write if you’re too uncreative to write your own original material. It should be a vehicle to explore in further depth a setting or cast of characters you love, or to provide more material about something you want more of, not as a crutch for writing.
Incidentally, I’ve been noticing I’ve been doing this a lot, and I feel like I need to ask the long term commentators of this site: Is it bothering anyone that I use the term “you all” or “you people”, or usually the more friendly and casual “y’all” to refer you y’all? I sincerely hope it doesn’t come across like “you weirdo fanfiction-writing lessers” and instead just that I merely don’t consider myself part of your in-group yet (nor do I feel like I even remotely should).
I’m just being paranoid about that, right? It might not seem like it, but I’m actually putting in a ton of effort to not be hated, because I am a very naturally abrasive person who tends to be hard to get along with unless you’re also a little bit abrasive. Someone once asked myself and someone who I considered a friend, after we had been going at it after an RPG session (where, admittedly, our PCs did not jive at all), if we actually despised each other and neither of us realized that our conversation could have been read as that by a third party. That abrasive. I could be used to scour paint off a wall.
The fact that the most I’ve teased someone after like a month of commenting was going “hah hah you’re from New Jersey” because I know what it’s like being from New Jersey is a total miracle.
but I’m going to guess Arceus is canonically a genderless pokemon. Can I get any source on this?
Enjoy! Dex entries from the games themselves!
Diamond: It is described in mythology as the Pokémon that shaped the universe with its 1,000 arms.
Pearl: It is told in mythology that this Pokémon was born before the universe even existed.
Platinum: It is said to have emerged from an egg in a place where there was nothing, then shaped the world.
Heartgold/Soulsilver: According to the legends of Sinnoh, this Pokémon emerged from an egg and shaped all there is in this world.
Later games basically use variations of the above.
It’s always either an “it” or pronouns are avoided altogether in game text, and has a 100% genderless gender ratio. (I mean, other pokemon, even those with 100% male or female ratios are typically referred to as “it” as well, but this is to show that Arceus has both flavor text and game mechanics suggesting its genderless, as opposed to, say, Solgaleo and Lunala which are referred to as the “male”/”female” evolutions of Cosmog in their opposite game’s dex entry despite having no gender as far as game mechanics are concerned.)
I meant the instance the author refers to where it’s referred to as “he”, actually. Sorry about that, I was unclear.
I’m still not 100% sure on what you mean. I think the author of the fic is referring to Arceus’s Diamond dex entry and just insisting on “he” pronouns because either there’s been enough fanon reiteration of it with Arceus referred to as male that the author thinks “he” is in the actual quote (or the convoluted logic of “enough fans use he that it may as well be canon even though it isn’t actually canon”) or they’re using “he” because their own Arceus character is referred to as such.
I think this is what you mean? Sorry if I’m still missing the point. It’s 4am here and I really should be sleeping instead of spouting pokemon trivia.
Somewhat unrelated but in case you’re curious, the popular fan theory is that the 1000 arms are metaphorical or, after this event, possibly referring to unown under Arceus’s command as a number of unown appear and cover the screen when Arceus creates an egg for the player. I mean, this is getting into theory rather than straight up canon, but it’s the kind of fanon that’s meant to explain or fill gaps rather than “my brother’s friend’s cousin and a bunch of other people use this fanon so it’s basically true”.
I prefer this interpretation as well, with the additional theory that the Arceus body we see in the games is one of those arms rather than Arceus at its full power. Because for the creator of the universe, Arceus sure is pathetic (the plates are affected by item-nullifying moves, even). It makes a lot more sense if you assume it’s only extending a small tendril of its power into the world to interact with us.
I’m down for things that are seemingly complete entities representing parts of an incomprehensible whole no matter what the context. Plus, detailing what the other 999 arms of Arceus are like would be super cool.
Yeah, the sentence from the first post that begins with “Fourthly”.
Why does being out of AOOO allow you to throw down? What’s stopping you from throwing down there?
AOOO lets authors delete any comment on their fics, so virtually everyone I encountered just did that instead of engaging with me.
So, you’re the type of person that most people would rather just go away than deal with? Shocking.
Declaring you’ve won a debate because you refuse to acknowledge the other side of that debate even exists is the lowest form of argument.
As always: if they don’t want to engage with me at all, I’ll respect that, but they have to put up a Do Not Engage sign on their fic to begin with. They are posting on a public website with a public comment feature, which means engaging is the default behavior and anything, potentially, goes. The website does have options to customize your comment preferences. It is on them to use those, not on me to intuit what they want.
Do you ever consider stating positives you liked about a fic along with all its grammatical errors as a way of softening how harsh people perceive you and preempting the “grammar doesn’t matter, story does” people? I can easily see why they think you’re just there to put them down. The most positive thing I can think you’ve said about a fic is “I’m glad you’re not capitalizing pokemon”, which sounds kinda backhanded at best.
Sometimes, detailing the things you think were done well can be just as important a part as the things you think need improvement, so those features can be emphasized and refined. Even the most thick skinned people can be a bit disheartened by receiving a review on something they worked hard on containing absolutely nothing but copy-pasted critiques of their grammar and absolutely nothing on their original creativity.
Of course, grammar is an important tool to conveying that creativity and it should be pointed out if it can be improved because skillfully conveying a story is part of being a good storyteller, but so long as you consider the story comprehensible (which, I know from your reviews, isn’t always the case), engaging with the narrative on a more personal level than the vehicle the story is told through is what pretty much every author wants.
Of course, I’m not saying you just make review something with “I liked the main character, good job!”. That doesn’t help anybody. But “I liked the main character, but you could improve here and there” makes it a lot easier for the author to believe you’re here to help instead of getting off on how well you’ve memorized a style guide.
I know this probably sounds a little harsh, and probably like a lot like a concern troll, but I really think that one little thing would go a long way to getting people to accept your criticism (so long as they’re not the people who insist their original fiction is actually fanfiction, who I just can’t understand at all). I totally understand why you make your reviews the way you do, but I also understand the psychology of the people who resist accepting them, and knowing how and why they think the way they do might make them more likely to accept your critique, even if you ultimately disagree with how and why they think what they do.
For the record, the one time I’ve asked for your opinion on somthing, although I fundementally disagreed with you on a topic which (unlike grammar) is subjective and you’re free to disagree with me on because your opinion is based on a solid foundation of logic and is very well argued (there’s nothing I hate more than the inability to explain why you have an opinion, and it makes engaging a fan of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure on why they think it’s a good story more painful than pulling teeth because none of them seem willing, or possibly able, to explain why they think it is), I actually really enjoyed the fact that you seemed interested in what I had to write and probably took the time to think about it more than I did. It’s actually tempting me to write more original fiction about Pokemon, which I didn’t think was something I’d ever want to do.
So, even though I don’t think I’d change the narrative because of what you said, I still appreciated that you said it. I’m actually a totally happy customer, even though it critiqued my grammar and structure a bit (though you really didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know about my writing style’s flaws) and I wish my problems in those areas were simple enough to handle with a copypasted paragraph about capitalization.
But, to be fair about that, I’m the kind of guy who enjoys a gentle challenge to his opinions, because the only way to reinforce an opinion is to have it challenged. Sure, I’m extremely stubborn and you totally failed to convince me, but that doesn’t mean that its theoretically impossible, and having to defend my opinion might’ve given me some new insight into why I held it and how better to demonstrate it in the narrative and express it to those who disagree.
You’ve been reading the reviews, right? I do point out stuff I like. I just very rarely find stuff I like because most fic is unremarkable cookie-cutter stuff, and I’m not going to reach for something just to give insincere, backhanded praise.
It’s highly likely I skip over a lot of it. It really depends on where it is in the review. If it’s sandwiched between the capitalization copypasta and the dialogue formatting copypasta, it’s very likely that I just skipped over it while skimming for critique that isn’t grammatical copypasta. If it’s at the beginning of a review, I almost certainly read it.
I understand not praising it if there’s nothing to praise, but surely they can’t all be that bad. If they are, I have to wonder if this isn’t just some bizarre form of masochism on your part. And believe me, spending a decade on /tg/ has introduced me to some pretty bizarre forms of masochism (and I started visiting the site because of Exalted 2e, which is itself a form of bizarre masochism). So that’s saying something.
It’s not that they’re all bad. It’s that they’re all unremarkable. I honestly do not know what there is to say about the latest variation on Game Opening Novelization or Actually a Biblepunk Story, and that’s most of the incoming fic. Well, that and mislabeled anime fic, but the whole point is that I have no interest in that to begin with.
What’s wrong with anime fiction, and what kind do you prefer?
I don’t watch the anime, that’s all.
Due to a few circumstances, I’ve actually watched a pretty decent amount of the X&Y series, and it’s surprisingly high quality for being, you know, the Pokemon anime. Make of that what you will. I think it’s a result of the age of the franchise. Most of the younger people working on it probably grew up right around Gen 1 came around, so they’d have a love for the franchise that the writers of the original series lacked, and even the people who didn’t grow up with the series have probably been working on it for a long time now and have grown proud of their work on it. According to Bulbapedia, Pokemon X&1 episode 1 was written by Atsuhiro Tomioka, whose first screenplay credit was Ash Catches A Pokemon, which was episode three of the original series. Pokemon Sun and Moon episode 1 was written by Aya Matsui, whose first writing credit is episode 281 (Advanced Generations episode 7), which premiered in 2003.
Watching Sun and Moon’s anime (currently on episode 7), I feel as if the plots are actually kind of bare, and I’m not digging the new art style at all, but it’s not like nothing at all happens and I don’t mind having a relaxed pace. But it really helps that Mallow and Lillie are both adorable. I really hope Mallow actually gets to do something at some point, but the fact her only pokemon is a sentient cherry doesn’t lead me to believe it will. At least Lillie gets an important subplot, I suppose. But that’s just me; I don’t expect you to be able to enjoy a show based solely on something like that.
I didn’t think I’d ever emphasize with a Pokemon character as much as I do Lillie in the anime, but I’d probably be just as bad with touching pokemon as she is. I really like both her English and Japanese voice actresses (but I tend to usually like characters who use the specific dialect of Japanese that Lillie does) and she gets some of the most animated and characterful animations when her fear of touching pokemon comes up.
It’s probably just because her game version gets so much more characterization than the game versions of the rest of Ash’s friends, but she really feels so much more of a companion character than pretty much everyone else.
Oh, incidentally, I’d love to hear some recommendations of fiction that you actually think is more than just unremarkable. So far, the only examples I’ve seen of what should and shouldn’t be done in Original Trainer fiction, and its far easier to say what should be done than to actually do it.
Oh, and I would very much prefer it if it took place in one of the first two generations, but wouldn’t mind if it took place in the third. I don’t mean to ask too much of you, but I don’t have the context needed for newer generations, so it might be hard for me to grasp what makes them good if I have to google every name, location, and concept. Sorry if this is too troubling.
(But to then immediately ask to trouble you more, I’d love to see a well done example of a Standard Original Trainer, especially if it involves that archetype as a supporting character. I’m not sure why, but I think that could be an amusing thing to read, so long as it doesn’t venture too far into “hah hah, I am above the pitfalls of this fandom, so I will make jokes about the typical protagonist” territory.
But the idea of someone just bumping into the most cliche example of a standard trainer who is operating under a totally different set of genre rules just sounds so funny to me I can’t help but ask.)
Everything done by the regulars on this site (Farla, Actonthat, Keleri probably someone else I’m forgetting) and Farla’s friend Emberkeelty, for starters. Making It Big is also a good take on a standard original trainer journey.
Farla’s encountered a few she liked over the course of her reviews, but you’d have to ask her if she remembers any.
Oh yeah, I suppose I should’ve started there. It totally slipped my mind that the people here also write pokemon stories in addition to writing about pokemon stories. I have a link to the Complain about Farla forum, so I’ll look around there for familiar user names, then? I assume that everyone uses the same names as here, at least.
Except you, for some reason. Is there any story behind that user name?
Oh, and does anyone post on sites other than FFN (and if so, are their user names any different) or should I limit my search to there?
Of course, if you’re posting reviews on a website that allows authors to delete said reviews and complaining that you don’t get to “throw down”, one might suggest you stop reviewing there. The authors are only using a functionality built into the site. I believe this is an argument you’ve used against authors on FFN who ask you not to review their stories. “The website allows me to review so I will.” If AOOO allows the deletion of your reviews and authors take advantage of it, I don’t see why it should concern you.
The reason he can’t “throw down” like on FFN is because the authors are able to delete reviews instead of having to actually engage with criticism or even defend themselves, which encourages AO3’s trend of erasing negative reviews from existence instead of FFN’s trend of argumentatively combating them.
It’s impossible to get in the long drawn out debates or, indeed, literally and back and forth discussion like the one archived in this post if criticism is deleted instead of responded to in the first place.
Note how he’s not actually bitching about people who delete his reviews, saying they shouldn’t do it, or even volunteering the information that they do on his own. He’s merely stating it as a fact that they do in response to someone else digging into the matter.
That said, it is a concerning thing that anyone in the fanfiction community should be concerned over, because that ability to ignore negative criticism will not only hurt the author by allowing them to ignore even the most legitimate of criticism, causing them to never improve and possibly allowing for the already incredibly low standard of quality of pokemon fanfiction to become even lower, but also hurts the reader by making it impossible to use reviews as a metric of a story’s quality because they’ve been scrubbed of anything less than five star reviews.
And this right post, right here is what he means by throwing down. I have thrown down with you, and you can either allow this comment to stand, or respond to it. You can ignore me or engage me. And apologies to Mini-Farla for making this throw for him.
(As an aside, I have a big issue with the “no one argues passionately about something they don’t actually believe” line in the description of the rule banning devil’s advocate arguments. You can’t be on a high school debate team without that ability, so it stands to reason that thousands of people do, in fact, do that.
I’ll fully accept being called an ass for doing it if that’s how you feel and it’s your right to do so, and it’s wrong to use devil’s advocacy as a justification for sexism or a shield to hide behind when making racist remarks, but it’s possible be passionate about debate without having to be passionate about what is being argued. Just look at all those paragraphs I wrote about the nature of a site people post fanfiction I don’t even read to that I don’t even use.
My ability to argue about things for hours on end without the slightest hint of passion is the number one reason people who debate with me end up becoming infuriated.)
CrazyEd has already covered most of the counterargument, but I’d also like to point out that I have, indeed, stopped reviewing there. Are you actually paying attention at all or have you just now dropped in to tell everyone how you have absolutely no idea what’s actually going on?
Even still, the comment deletion appears nigh-useless in terms of actually helping authors. Nearly everyone who did it went on to throw a fit at me about what a monster I was for reviewing at all and that they wish I never had. To accommodate such sensitive individuals you need proactive measures, not reactive. The damage was already done when I commented; all the deletion accomplished was to prevent anyone from addressing their issues and coming to terms with the problem. It’s a bad system that only ends up hurting more people in the long run, and I’ll stand by that.
I’m not saying what authors should or shouldn’t do, just pointing out hypocrisy where I see it.
When an author on FFN says “Don’t do X ” and the response is “I’m doing X because the site allows me to do X”.
When an author on AOOO deletes a review, an action the site allows, the response is “That is a bad thing.”
Before you state that deleting the review prevents discourse that could improve writing, I’m willing to wager that you could find as many people who would state that the criticism given by Mini-Farla is unhelpful as you would who find it helpful. Once again, this isn’t about what’s good for the author, it is about pointing out hypocrisy, which is my own personal hobby.
That’s because it is an unhelpful thing. But notice how, even though it’s an unhelpful thing, his response isn’t to keep reposting the same review over and over until they give up trying to delete it or something of that nature, or anything else that would be fighting against the design of the site.
He probably doesn’t like that they delete his reviews, but because it’s something the site allows, he accepts that it’s going to happen. Just like how the site’s review function allows him to make reviews on the site, the site’s review deleting function allows authors to ignore his criticisms. So he reviews and they delete. How is that at all hypocritical? Have you even seen him rage at people who use this delete function to remove his reviews?
His posting of reviews on AOOO is actually far more supported by the site than the people on FFN telling him to not review their work is supported by FFN as far as I am aware (and, even then, he just said he’s willing to not engage if the fic says Do Not Engage before he does, which he’s not required to do at all). So he posts reviews on AOOO using their review feature. And when they get deleted by an author with the review delete feature, they get deleted by an author. Because both him and the author are entitled to use the functions of the site as designed. The opinion the site shouldn’t be designed like that has absolutely no bearing on the facts of the matter and he doesn’t try to force his opinion on those using the site’s features as intended. How is that hypocritical?
the criticism is unhelpful
Before you try an appeal to the majority, what exactly makes it unhelpful? I think that some of them might be a little too condensed to adequately cover their topics in full, but I’m sure he’d be willing to elaborate on any given point when asked. Even then, its still more helpful than not pointing out the flaw in the first place.
Are they unhelpful because the author refuses to listen to criticism? That’s hardly his fault.
Mini-Farla has shown a willingness to engage even with the most trollish of reviews on his own fanfictions and based on what I’ve seen on this site, if he posts anything to AOOO, probably wouldn’t delete a review unless it was just straight up hate without any actual criticism. He once got a revenge-review claiming one of his fanfictions had some capitalization errors, and the only reason he didn’t cheerfully and totally engage the troll and ask exactly where they were so he could fix them (basically, being a strawman example of the perfect reviewee) was because FFN doesn’t allow responding to anoymous reviews. As far as I know, this review is still on the fic. Where’s the hypocrisy in that?
Hell, come to think of it, has he deleted any of your comments criticising him for alleged hypocrisy? If it’s not within his power to do so, he could easily ask the person who sockpuppets him his older sister to delete your comments. Now that would be hypocritical.
Or, going even further, he could’ve deleted the eight paragraph comment I posted near the top of this comment chain, where I basically reviewed Mini-Farla’s reviews. In fact, most of my comments on these review series can be broken down into comments that are jokes or comments that are critiques of his critiquing style. I’ve never encountered any retribution or backlash for doing so.
From what little personal experience I have being reviewed by Mini-Farla and reviewing Mini-Farla, I’d say that he is both a helpful reviewer and a gracious reviewee. I’ve actually found him one of the most easy to debate people on this site and probably the person I’d be the easiest friends. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d get mad when I insult his taste in animu waifus, at least.
Because I totally would. Even if they were the same as mine. Even if he didn’t have any. Because that’s how friendship works, right? Jokes aside, he seems like the perfect kind of chill dude who wouldn’t get rankled by how abrasive I can be.
I’ve gotten into somewhat heated conversations with other people (some of them based on misunderstandings or otherwise totally my fault) here, but I think I’d have to just start spamming straight-up hate speech to actually upset him. And, even then, I’d only upset him long enough for him to delete my comments and ban me. So if you disagree, I’d love to hear why he might be found unhelpful, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t as well (unless he’s gotten so used to hearing the same five non-reasons that he doesn’t need you to tell him to know). I’m actually very curious what those reasons might be.
Okay, I think I’m understanding your objection better now.
I don’t think you really understand the difference between the people who hate me for reviewing and my view on comment deletion. The people I have to pull the “it’s how the site works” card on are people who try to report me for reviewing at all, as if I am breaking rules by using the site as intended. I don’t behave this way to authors who delete my comments because yes, as you said, it is their right to use that feature of the site. I would prefer if they engaged with me, but I acknowledge I cannot force them (whereas I would like to point out people who don’t want me to review very much can). My frustration is at the site designers who thought it would be a good idea in the first place.
So curiosity got the better of me and I clicked the fandom tag for pokemon on AOOO. And I gotta ask… how the fuck did you even find fanfics to review on this site in the first place? Most of the ones I saw were either nonsensical mega-crossovers or ultra-deviant pornography. Having generic OT wake-up-eat-breakfast-go-to-pokemon-lab fic would be a dramatic improvement. At the very least, I wouldn’t feel like even reading their synopses would get me on a watchlist.
There were like five pokemon tags in the anime section of the top search bar. Which one did you click? There’s no way in hell you clicked the same one I did.
The reply feature seems to be working a little wonky for me at the moment. Hopefully this ends up where it’s supposed to go.
He probably doesn’t like that they delete his reviews, but because it’s something the site allows, he accepts that it’s going to happen.
I don’t even see why it would matter if the review is deleted. If the goal is to provide feedback to the author, it was done when the author read the review and decided to delete it. If the goal is to have a list of copy/pasted criticisms for all to see, then I can understand why he would be disappointed. On the matter of copy/pasted reviews, I’ve always felt they’re fairly low effort. I’m sure this has been discussed to death before, however, I feel that a person who types out “Your fic sucks” or “Your fic is great” has put in more effort that someone who pastes comments # 1, 3, 5, and 6 and calls it a day. You, yourself, have already said it’s easy to miss any free form comments in among the pasted ones. I know he reviews a lot of fics but I’d rather see fewer, higher quality reviews than the number and quality (in my opinion) we see now.
Before you try an appeal to the majority, what exactly makes it unhelpful?
I think you may be confusing being helpful and being right. I’m not a professional writing, but I have little doubt that what’s being put into a review is correct. The only comparison I can come up with at the moment would be ordering a meal at a fancy restaurant and it being served to you on a filthy plate. Even if the meal was given to you for free and extremely well cooked, what are you going to remember? The dirty plate. I think the reviews would be better received if he cleaned up his plates a little bit.
So if you want it broken down on why I think the reviews are unhelpful, it comes down to this: If a significant number of readers aren’t digesting the feedback because of how it’s written, I would say that its helpfulness is diminished. You can blame it on the authors as much as you want, but eventually, if you want to say that Mini-Farla is being more helpful, he’s going to have to look inward.
I don’t think you really understand the difference between the people who hate me for reviewing and my view on comment deletion.
I surely do, I just got caught up in having discussions on two topics. I apologize for any confusion.
I will say that I’ve easily gotten lost in the “Hello,” she said copypasta because it’s all lumped together in a single paragraph of the same repeated phrase with punctuation differences. Maybe splitting it into a new line would make it less dense? I mean, it’s for sort of the same concept as to how a new speaker means a new paragraph: it’s easier to keep track of which part goes with what.
I would, but autocorrect doesn’t allow you to add line breaks.
I don’t even see why it would matter if the review is deleted.
This is actually a pretty good question. I can’t answer it extremely well, so I’ll have to kick it over to Mini-Farla. I think either him, or possibly Farla, wrote something somewhere about how reflexively deleting critical reviews while they’re still upset from having read them prevents them from going back after they’ve cooled down and more objectively analysing their merit, but I don’t know where that was written so I can’t point you to it myself. Sorry!
Someone who pastes copy-pasted reviews, especially for grammatical problems, still has to take the time to analyse the work. It might be low effort to post that copypasta, but it’d be an insanely high and pointless amount of work to write out the capitalization copypasta each time someone capitalized pokemon names incorrectly.
When I don’t notice customized criticism in between copypastas, it’s because I’m reading them here, and I’m not going to bother reading the same exact paragraph of text posted underneath yet another FFN link each and every time it’s posted. When you get a review on a story you wrote, it’s far easier to make sure to address each and every point, than it is if you read sixteen nearly identical reviews to stories with nearly identical problems.
I think the reviews would be better received if he cleaned up his plates a little bit.
I’d suggest you search this comment section for my post beginning with “do you ever consider stating positives”, where I ask the very same question of Mini-Farla, and his response to that question. Still, I think it’s unfair to not lay any of the blame on the authors. How would you deal with the author detailed in this post who is factually incorrect about the Hall of Origin? It doesn’t seem like he’d accept any criticism no matter how clean the plate or free the meal. What then?
I don’t even see why it would matter if the review is deleted. […] If the goal is to have a list of copy/pasted criticisms for all to see, then I can understand why he would be disappointed.
You answered your own question. There is also the aspect that I want people to return to the review and confront it, as people tend to calm down and see things rationally after a little time.
I think the reviews would be better received if he cleaned up his plates a little bit.
Do you really think this is not the thousandth time we’ve heard this? Do you really think we haven’t tried this? Are you really arrogant enough to think that you can swoop in here knowing nothing about our history and tell us something we didn’t catch in years of doing this? This. Does. Not. Work. End of story.
I know he reviews a lot of fics but I’d rather see fewer, higher quality reviews than the number and quality (in my opinion) we see now.
Then review yourself instead of wringing your hands. That is the only way you can prove any of your theories. If you want to treat every single grammar mistake like a special snowflake, go ahead and tell me how that works out for you, but I don’t have time for that. The sheer volume of fanfiction, and the repetitiveness of the mistakes, necessitates quantity over quality.
You answered your own question. There is also the aspect that I want people to return to the review and confront it, as people tend to calm down and see things rationally after a little time.
I think you misunderstood my intent. I wasn’t talking about having a lasting review in the terms of the author coming back to it, but having a lasting review in the terms of other people seeing it. Drawing attention to yourself as a reviewer rather than helping to improve the author. If the author reads a review and deletes it, the feedback is given, even if the author doesn’t consider it. If the author deletes it, all that was lost was your name on a review. Regarding the author “coming back to confront the review”, I think they would remember enough about “that annoying review they deleted a few days ago” to have their epiphany a few days later. If it was going to happen at all.
Do you really think this is not the thousandth time we’ve heard this? Do you really think we haven’t tried this? Are you really arrogant enough to think that you can swoop in here knowing nothing about our history and tell us something we didn’t catch in years of doing this? This. Does. Not. Work. End of story.
If calling it as I see it is being arrogant, then I’m arrogant. If you’re being told something a thousand times, maybe there’s a reason. That’s why I said you would have to look inward. Sometimes you don’t need to be well versed in the nuances of something to know it’s not working. That being said, your comment smacks of martyrdom. “I have so much to give and no one will take it and appreciate it.”
Then review yourself instead of wringing your hands.
If and when I did review a fic, I would put in the effort to not list off a bunch of copy/pasted responses. I wouldn’t attempt to review all of the “sheer volume” out there. I believe it’s posted elsewhere here that this is not your job. You seem to feel like it’s your job to review an enormous amount of fanfiction. You really don’t need to do that. It’s your choice if you do, just don’t fault those who point out the problems that arise while doing so.
If the author deletes it, all that was lost was your name on a review.
No — if the author deletes it, no one else can see it either, and secondhand exposure is curtailed.
Regarding the author “coming back to confront the review”, I think they would remember enough about “that annoying review they deleted a few days ago” to have their epiphany a few days later.
I don’t understand what you mean. People can’t come back to something if they delete it after barely reading it. Farla discusses this on her forum; people will frequently blow things out of proportion and build up a worse specter in their head than what actually happened. It is helpful to have a permanent record of exactly what was said instead of stewing over something half-remembered.
If you’re being told something a thousand times, maybe there’s a reason.
Yes, and that reason is that people don’t know what they’re talking about because they can’t be bothered to read the responses I’ve actually gotten. (Most of the authors who respond to me do not know about this blog, the express purpose of which is to archive responses precisely for this kind of analysis. You have no excuse.) I can understand how, from an outsider’s perspective, it seems like a reasonable idea. But the fact is that it just doesn’t work. People have flown off the handle at me for glowing reviews that included one grammar correction, and have thanked me for reviews that even I thought were harsh. I have given out quite literally over a thousand reviews and I have seen very consistently that author temperament affects response far, far more than my tone does. If you want to convince me otherwise, you have to show me empirical evidence instead of supposition.
I wouldn’t attempt to review all of the “sheer volume” out there.
Then we have different goals and you are judging me by a standard I never claimed to follow. If you want to focus on quality over quantity, by all means, do that. But that’s not what I’m doing, and what works for you isn’t going to work for me. When the quality of the fandom rises to the point that these errors are not so endemic, perhaps that will change. But until then, I believe that this method is the best way to get there.
Then we have different goals and you are judging me by a standard I never claimed to follow. If you want to focus on quality over quantity, by all means, do that. But that’s not what I’m doing, and what works for you isn’t going to work for me.
So, I think I hit the nail on the head with my martyrdom comment, and I think I’m finally satisfied. The reviews aren’t so much about helping authors as they are about showing people that you’re helping authors. Like a person that volunteers, not because they believe in a cause, but because it looks good on a resume. Any good that comes of it is a side effect, not the target. Do I think you’re accomplishing anything good? Of course. Do I think a different approach would be better? Yes. It’s obvious you’re not going to change your mind until you’re ready, and that’s okay.
I assume you’re familiar with the difference between justification and rationalization. I feel you’re doing more rationalizing than justifying.
I believe that this method is the best way to get there.
I’d like to restate my point from the end of my previous comment. By all means, keep punishing yourself to crank out the huge number of reviews, but don’t fault those who point out the problems with saddling yourself with such an unnecessary burden.
Putting aside the seriousness, take a break, man. I won’t say you’ve earned it, but I will say you earned it.
And that last line was supposed to read ” I won’t say you’ve earned it, but I will say you deserve it.”
But, who cares? I never claimed to be an expert.
Now I’m curious: Why do you believe that custom tailoring his criticisms about capitalization and dialogue formatting for a select few will achieve the goal of raising the overall quality of pokemon fanfiction on FFN more than reviewing as much pokemon fanfiction that is posted to FFN as possible?
Do you really think people are going to stop telling him “well, that’s how the games do it, so I’m going to keep doing it that way” if he writes an individualized explanation to how species names are common nouns which aren’t supposed to be capitalized?
Not an expert in reading minds, but I imagine they mean more in the sense of developing fewer, quality reviews tailored to more than grammar correction. It’s not the grammar message they want personalized, it’s the focus on the individual story and its plot and characters.
Or I could be wrong and they mean more tact. (Note that tactfulnes and sugarcoating are different things.)
But I can’t really speak for Me (wow that sounds weird without the context that that’s their username) so these are merely conjecture.
But if the technical writing is so bad that no one wants to read the greatest plot ever, what’s the point? I was just suggested a fic that supposedly has an interesting relationship between its two main characters, but before that, I was warned that the technical skill wasn’t that great. I looked, and if I don’t read this, it’ll probably be due to that. Getting the average technical writing skills up to at least “grammatically sound” is the first step.
It’s also far easier. If someone is resistant to the rules of grammar, how are you going to convince them that their narrative (which doesn’t have such cut and dry defined rules) is in need of an even bigger overhaul? Someone can have the best grammar ever, but if their plot is OOC Ash harem fic, then going “oh god why would you write this” isn’t going to convince them to change the plot in any way. They’re writing exactly what they set out to write.
(wow that sounds weird without the context that that’s their username)
Sounds like someone’s calling the kettle black.
Upon reading the first chapter, my first impression is confirmed. No matter how interesting this story is, I don’t think I would’ve finished reading the first chapter, due to the grammar of the story. This fic definitely seems like it was written by someone to whom English is not a first language. They’re definitely proficient enough to get their point across in most places, but that’s not what I look for in fiction.
I’m not saying to drop the grammar review, if that’s what you’re understanding my post as. Some people would take grammar correction better if they had confirmation that their plot mattered to the reviewer. Some would see plot crit as far more difficult to swallow than the technicals. Unfortunately, this is a problem that’s rather case-by-case and the Farlas’ reviewing styles don’t allow for case-by-case as the focus is on quantity.
The unfortunate part is that the plot doesn’t often seem to actually matter, since the majority of them are totally uninspired and derivative. He does seem to mention the plot when it is actually trying something different. I just don’t think that grammatical criticism would go down well with a spoonfull of “also, your plot’s been done a million times before/completely illogical/super problematic”.
I think a lot of the reason for that is, a lot of the time, it doesn’t seem like the author has an idea of what the plot should be. Forget not having the whole thing planned out, they don’t even seem to have an idea where things will go past getting a pokemon.
It’d probably help a lot if people based their first chapters on the game more than the anime. The games pretty much always start with some reason for you to be doing things. Even if it’s as simple as the fetch quest in Gen 1, that’s still an objective for your protagonist to be working towards. Or, if they still want to go the anime route, they need to be willing to fill the space between canon cities with their own original locations with interesting things happening. Ash visits two or three cities in between New Bark Town and Cherrygrove City.
Again, my point was trying to interpret Me’s thoughts as preferring fewer, higher quality more individualized reviews and seeing them as being more helpful to the author being reviewed over the Farlas’ quantity-focused reviews aimed at getting as many people to see the technical corrections as they can.
Once again, I feel the need to readress that whether the quantity of reviews actually makes unrelated writers preemptively do their grammar differently isn’t something quantifiable, so Me has every right to find individualized reviews more useful than quickfire ones on the basis of which is more useful to the author actually recieving the review.
(I’m probably not expressing myself very well. Sorry.)
But the fics that require more individualized responses already get them. You can’t exactly be surprised that a hundred fics with the exact same plot and the exact same problems get the exact same review, can you?
No matter how much time, attention, and sugar-coating you give them, the actual content of the review would be identical.
So, I think I hit the nail on the head with my martyrdom comment, and I think I’m finally satisfied. The reviews aren’t so much about helping authors as they are about showing people that you’re helping authors.
Where on Earth are you getting this from? I would not care if I had to do this anonymously; if anything it might be more successful that way.
You are making a ridiculous amount of assumptions here. This isn’t punishing myself. I do this on my free time, because I want to. Renouncing copypasta and actually caring about what authors think about me, that would be punishing myself. Maybe it is you who needs to take the break.
I feel the need to readress that whether the quantity of reviews actually makes unrelated writers preemptively do their grammar differently isn’t something quantifiable
Yes it is. You need to go reeeealy far back, possibly even to the Livejournal days, but the reason the dialogue paragraph is so complex now is because Farla did see people fixing the basics and requiring help with the higher-level stuff as she progressed through the month.
Farla can explain more if she feels like commenting.
You know, that’s a good point. Why don’t you do it anonymously? I’m not sure how helpful it’d be at this point (I have no clue how notorious your reviews are in FFN’s community), but without a face to pin the hate on, they might be more successful.
Three reasons: Anonymous reviews can be deleted; anonymous reviewers cannot be blocked; and authors cannot respond to anonymous reviews, which makes it look like I’m hiding from consequence. I do think it is actually helpful for people to have a face to talk to; as I’ve said before, I think it’s good for authors to work through their frustrations. They can’t do that if they’re harried by an anonymous cloud.
Ah, fair enough. I definitely see the advantages over anonymous review if that is the case. As far as FFN is concerned, then, anonymous review definitely seems like a worse option than identified review.
I mean, I honestly would be interested in that if it actually works, since my main question is why all this effort is being put into fics that you feel aren’t worth more than a quick grammar rundown.
Perhaps if the review roundups came with a brief analysis of whether trends in technical writing have changed every few weeks or so that might be useful?
Although if that’s too much to ask, I guess I’ll just take your word for it.
Like I said before, technical writing skill is the foundation upon which literally everything else is built.
Ah, I think I keep ending up being unclear. Basically I’m saying I’d be interested in seeing the acutal patterns of improvement because that sounds like it’d be something worth looking at. Like a roundup of which copypastas end up being used more or less frequently in a month or something.
That probably wouldn’t be too hard to do yourself. It’s just basic data aggregation. You’d just need a master list of all the copypastas he uses.
The biggest problem with trying to analyse trends, though, is probably author turnover. It’d be hard to analyse writer improvement if most people start writing, do three fics in the course of three months, and then quit forever. I would not be very surprised if Farla was one of the longest lasting authors in FFN’s Pokemon category. Her account was made in, like, 2001 or something insane like that. She’s probably been writing Pokemon fanfiction since before a lot of Mini-Farla’s reviewees were born.
The same reasons that feed into why Pokemon games will probably never improve in the areas Farla wants them to improve are probably all applicable to explaining why the overall quality of Pokemon fic never seems to improve either.
Now I’m curious: Why do you believe that custom tailoring his criticisms about capitalization and dialogue formatting for a select few will achieve the goal of raising the overall quality of pokemon fanfiction on FFN more than reviewing as much pokemon fanfiction that is posted to FFN as possible?
Experience. I work in customer service in what is probably one of the most generally despised industries in the world. Insurance. Most of my customer interaction is through email. At one point I was probably interacting with more people in a day than Mini-Farla does in a week. The emphasis was on speed and efficiency. Use the pre-generated templates, send the email, and move to the next question. Much of the time you’re giving bad news to a person and they finally found out that the form letter style responses were adding to the anger/frustration of the customer. We then moved to a more freeform method, and you know what? It helped. People take bad news better when they feel like they’re talking to a person rather than a robot.
Do you really think people are going to stop telling him “well, that’s how the games do it, so I’m going to keep doing it that way” if he writes an individualized explanation to how species names are common nouns which aren’t supposed to be capitalized?
Heck, no. There are always going to be people who yell/scream/argue no matter how nice you are about it, but my experience says he would get less pushback if he tries. I’m also going to stick my own opinion about capitalization in here, although I doubt it will be popular. The games and the rules of the English language be damned, I think the capitalization is a style choice by the author. As long as they’re consistent, I couldn’t care less.
Where on Earth are you getting this from?
I may not have been reading your reviews as long as others here, but I have been lurking around long enough to see patterns of behaviour. I believe that you’re more interested in showing your talent for language than actually helping people and, I’ll be incredibly blunt, it would take a lot to convince me otherwise.
You are making a ridiculous amount of assumptions here. This isn’t punishing myself. I do this on my free time, because I want to.
You also seem to get off on showing “it’s me against the uneducated masses.” You wouldn’t post author responses if you didn’t.
Of course, I didn’t come in here expecting to change you. My original intent was to pop in, discuss a little bit of hypocrisy I saw, and fade into the mist and somehow I got drawn into a discussion of the value of your reviews and left with a little bit of insight on why you do what you do. Maybe I’ll pop in again sometime if I feel the need to discuss something in the future.
Did switching to a freeform method reduce your output by magnitudes, though? How much actual personalization did you put into it? It’s really easy to write a form letter that doesn’t sound like a form letter if you write it out from mostly-accurate memory each time to induce a little variation and the reader will only receive it once. There is a huge difference between going “oh, hey, X happened, so I have to send out X form letter” (which takes five seconds) and reviewing a creative work. And when you personalized those form letters, they probably weren’t literally identical situations you had to write about, were they?
Mini-Farla still has to read the things he’s reviewing and, you know… actually review them. And that doesn’t actually answer my question, which is why you think such a dramatic reduction in reviews would increase effectiveness, because that’s what would happen if you tailored reviews to a select few (who will still push back because he’s telling them something is wrong with their fic) instead of reviewing everyone who needed it. If five people refuse to accept perfectly tailored criticism, that’s just as pointless as if fifty people refuse to accept form-letter criticism, except it took way more effort to do. Think of it this way: If you were a telemarketer, would you use a different speech to convince the person you’re calling to buy the product, when you know the moment they realize you’re a telemarketer, they’re going to hang up no matter how little like a robot you sound? You don’t go duck hunting with a rifle.
If someone tried creating such a personalized response to each and every fic, they’d end up reviewing fics months and years old, long after the point where a review might actually help someone improve on the writing of that fic. The copypasta is because literally everyone does the exact same thing incorrectly in literally the exact same way. His reviews are as varied as the flaws found in the works reiewed. Which is why the reviews are all identical.
he would get less pushback if he tries
The review culture of FFN villifies any review more criticising than “hey, great story”. You’re expecting way too much out of this site. Half the (very few) people who say “hey, thanks for the constructive criticism” end that sentence with “but I’m not going to change anything”. People don’t seem to actually want review out of FFN reviews. They want encouragement. AO3, which was basically made because the creators didn’t like the rules of other fanfiction sites, has a feature where you can press a button to tell people you liked their story without even writing a single word explaining why, and you can delete any review you don’t like.
I’d love to see, for just one week, Mini-Farla try totally 100% personalized reviews of all the fic uploaded, just to see how much more effective it is. My guess is that, just because the dialogue criticism now uses specific examples of where they improperly formatted dialogue from the story, the dialogue will remain misformatted.
As long as they’re consistent, I couldn’t care less.
Not only do they rarely keep them consistent within the story, but even totally consistent use of Pokemon game canon capitalization introduces actual gramatical problems that can not be avoided or ignored. The canon capitalization rules are objectively less effective at conveying information than the regular capitalization rules.
You also seem to get off on showing “it’s me against the uneducated masses.” You wouldn’t post author responses if you didn’t.
I told you why I post author responses literally two responses ago. Pay attention.
You’ve just admitted you were arguing in bad faith from the start, so I’m not going to bother with this anymore. Stop wasting everyone’s time and write your own reviews if you really care about this.
That probably wouldn’t be too hard to do yourself. It’s just basic data aggregation. You’d just need a master list of all the copypastas he uses.
That would actually be interesting to attempt. Do you know if a masterlist exists on this site? If not I’d be glad to see it posted here. At the very least it would probably help me notice mistakes in my own grammar I hadn’t thought of looking out for.
The biggest problem with trying to analyse trends, though, is probably author turnover.
To be honest, the author turnover rate is the main reason I wonder about whether induvidualized or mass focus is more effecient in the long run. I’d personally rather put my time toward reviewing authors who would stick around long enough to actually show improvement than trying to educate everybody, but such a sentiment is more of a personal reviewing prefernce rather than a criticism of the different goals.
The same reasons that feed into why Pokemon games will probably never improve in the areas Farla wants them to improve are probably all applicable to explaining why the overall quality of Pokemon fic never seems to improve either.
Other than the fact that the game devs probably don’t ever actually see the reviews Farla does, you mean? :p
Do you know if a masterlist exists on this site?
Not to my knowledge. You’ll have to ask a Farla. I’d check around their FFNs in the meanwhile, though. If it’s anywhere, it’d be there.
reviewing authors who would stick around long enough to actually show improvement
How would you know which authors are that kind, though? Would you make a note of everyone who posts a fic and check back in six months or a year to see if they’re still writing? Nah, just correct the grammar of the ones who need it, and if they start writing fics a year later that have great grammar but plotting problems, deal with those then.
I’m pretty sure Mini-Farla only ever reviews first chapters, so if they post a new fic, it’ll get a new review. Of course, that doesn’t really help the people whose first fic is a massive OT epic journey they just keep adding to, but… odds are they’re going to be the ones who wash out anyway.
the game devs probably don’t ever actually see the reviews Farla does
Even if they did, they wouldn’t feel the need to change it. Even if a thousand people made the same reviews, they probably wouldn’t. There will always be a new crop of ten year olds to play their latest iteration of the same thing they’ve been doing for two decades who don’t care if the female PCs are all in skirts and short shorts.
Do you know if a masterlist exists on this site?
It doesn’t, but give me your email and I can send you one.
How would you know which authors are that kind, though?
Again, I feel like this goes back to different reviewing goals. I don’t have a strong inclination towards helping everyone with their fics or improving the masses, so I would prefer to focus on the stories that were already more unique. From what I’m familiar with (which, admitadly isn’t a particularly large sample size) the generic original trainer fics are also the most likely to go under compared to the ones that already show originality but struggle with grammar and plot problems.
Honestly the top reasons I don’t review are a lack of mental energy for such an endevor (especially on a large scale) and doubts about my own ability to explain clearly. I don’t agree with everything about the Farlas’ style (I doubt I’d agree with everything about any style since people rarely agree on everything) but I certainly respect the level of commitment the pair put into this.
(whew, this sub-conversation came out of an ill-thought-out attempt to try to explain my questions about whether mass reviews or individual reviews would be the most helpful and realizing that Mini-Farla and I have different primary goals on which authors the review is supposed to be for. I did not intend it to turn out so hostile. My apologies again for my lack of ability to express my thoughts clearly.)
Alas, I feel kind of uncomfortable putting my email out there. Sorry.
Would it be possible to put the masterlist onto this site?
If not, that’s okay.
give me your e-mail and I can send you one
It might just be easier to make a post with everything in it and stick it in Farla’s FFN forum, the housekeeping category, or something instead of having everyone ask for it individually.
I would prefer to focus on the stories that were already more unique
The biggest problem with that would be just straight up finding fic that original but still in major need of reviewing in the first place. The people who write that kind of thing are probably pretty competent writers in the first place. There doesn’t really seem to be a middle ground between “barely understandable cookie cutter OT fic” and “engrossing and thought provoking character study” (rare as they are).
Someone who pastes copy-pasted reviews, especially for grammatical problems, still has to take the time to analyse the work. It might be low effort to post that copypasta, but it’d be an insanely high and pointless amount of work to write out the capitalization copypasta each time someone capitalized pokemon names incorrectly.
I would imagine the main complaint comes from the reviews that are only copypasta. It comes of as robotic. Even if only the criticisms that apply are picked (to show that the individual work is the one it’s being used on) it could easily come across as someone having only cared to read the story for these specific points and nothing more.
I kinda think of it like old book reports I had to write back in elementary school where you had to include enough specific details to “prove you read the book” in question rather than finding a summarized version and writing based on what you found in that. It’s certainly easier to use a copypasta when the work strikes you as average and nothing more, but it can be unhelpful to the writer because they see it as just a clinical checklist of common mistakes rather than their story that’s being reviewed. That’s definitely an area where I agree with the “correct but not helpful” assessment. Writers are looking for proof that you even cared enough to learn their main character’s name, you know?
I’ve looked at things Farla as said about the copypasta style saying that it’s more efficient than individualizing reviews, but is it really? It’s faster. You use the clinical checklist on more stories in less time. But people see it and end up offended because there’s no “proof” you read their story in particular. Even if it’s time consuming, I feel like that style would be more helpful. After all, there doesn’t seem to be any deadline to meet. It’s like a fic writer excusing not bothering to edit with “I didn’t have time” when there’s no time limit on when a fic needs to be posted./two cents
If they didn’t review as efficiently as possible, Mini-Farla would still be reviewing things uploaded in January 2015. Unlike the content producers, who produce at their leisure, the reviews have to keep up with that of the production.
They “have to” by what measure? This isn’t a career.
The deal they made with the fanfiction devil. I’m pretty sure they’ll, like, melt or something if they fall behind. It’s the only possible explanation as to why they subject themselves to such torment. Besides, there’s really no point to critiquing something if it’s already long since been abandoned because the author ran out of ideas after getting their OT their first pokemon.
More seriously, this ties into the dispersal thing. People read the reviews of the most recent stories. Fewer people are reading the reviews several pages in. Hitting the whole front page at once is more effective than giving deeper reviews but slowing down to the point of falling behind.
Notice how he doesn’t deny having made a deal with the fanfiction devil.
How suspicious.
I’m still curious as to what motivated them to start this in the first place.
(Or why they even bother at all with the ones that only get “learn to troll” as a review.)
They like reading pokemon fanfiction. 99% of pokemon fanfiction are uninspired grammatical messes. They want pokemon fanfiction to be better. They use the feature FFN created to assist writers in improving their work.
Seems pretty straightforward to me. The only pokemon fanfiction I’ve ever completed (or, at least, read the entirety of before the writer abandoned it, as the case often is) is Farla’s Unoriginality.
This is probably the case in a ton of fandoms. As I enjoy constantly reminding everyone here because I’ve yet to go full Dark Side despite Mini-Farla’s attempted temptations (attemptations?), I have read pretty much zero fanfiction, and the fanfiction I have read was from recommendation. Why bother looking for myself, when most of it is so unbelievably bad?
I don’t think I’ve ever searched for fanfiction myself and found one that I thought was really good. Even when I tried skimming through the list of Farla’s works, I didn’t really find any summary that really sparked my interest enough to read (though I was skimming pretty lightly and in a bit of a layabout mood at the time, and none of them seemed like particularly light and fluffy reading to do when bored), at least as far as Pokemon is concerned.
There is still that Exalted fanfiction I found when I looked through her AOO after finishing her story about Harry Dresden getting shivved by Caster… I should really start that one of these days…
And then I can finally defeat Mini-Farla once and for all by being inspired by to write an Exalted fiction of my own. He can’t tempt me to the Dark Side if Regular-Size Farla already has! Clearly, that is the best way to resist his temptations.
I meant more in the sense of using reviews to try to get both the author and others to see their grammer points, even for fics they probably wouldn’t have even wanted to read otherwise, rather than just following the fics they liked and hitting the back button on the unoriginal ones.
Does it actually lead to more improvement? I can’t see any empirical way to know whether the grammer in a new fic is better than the standard because its author just happened to spot their review of another, unrealted fic and take the criticism to heart or because they happened to just be better at grammer out of the gate. It seems like a lot of effort with no way of knowing whether the payoff is actually from that effort or not.
Hm, I suppose that’s true, but on the other hand… it couldn’t possible hurt, could it?
You’re assuming the author is my target. What’s important is getting the information out there. Speed enhances this dispersal and increases the chance it will be read by more people. It doesn’t matter if one author turns me down because I didn’t give them a unique review; I can try again with the next. I’m not shooting for a perfect run, I’m shooting for a bulk success rate, and by that metric this works extremely well.
I’ve looked at things Farla as said about the copypasta style saying that it’s more efficient than individualizing reviews, but is it really? It’s faster.
Yes; it’s fast enough to enable us to do this at all. Seriously, try reviewing yourself at my rate without the copypasta. You will go insane. Grammar is complex, and correcting it often requires a lot of caveats to prevent misinformation. If you don’t have a master copy you can paste in, you will forget things, you will get tired, you will get frustrated, you will slow down. It leads to a lower quality of review overall and, let’s be honest here, do you really think anyone will appreciate it? The people who insist that bad grammar is just their style do not actually care that the corrections were copypasta. That is, very transparently, just an excuse. They’re angry that they’re being corrected at all. A personalized dialogue explanation is not going to change that.
You are free to test your theory empirically to prove me wrong. But I don’t think you’ll find much success.
I’m largely referring to the “but what did you think of the story otherwise?/what did you think of the plot?” crowd. Even if your thoughts are just “wow, this is a generic plot” that’s still a thought that relates to the story over the grammer.
Something like “At this point there isn’t much to separate your story from the crowd. You should consider sprinkling in what’s different about your story earlier.”
(… the second half of this seems to have gotten eaten… anyway…)
Something simple like that could cover the “what about the plot” concerns if you really don’t see anything unique about it. And if there is something unique (good or bad), comment on that.
Uh, that is exactly what I do. I even customize the “this is too insubstantial for a first chapter” copypasta most of the time. Come on, I know the reviews are repetitive, but if you’re going to criticize my style you need to read through them.
Honestly, the “too insubstantial” quote always reads more like it’s referring to the quantity of content rather than the originality or lack thereof to me.
Yeah, that’s how I first read it too. Like “there’s barely anything here for me to review”, or something. No one’s going to come back to chapter two if chapter one was a three paragraph teaser. And, to be fair, you could have the most interesting story in the world, but if you only release a tiny snippet once a week, no one’s going to follow it.
(Interestingly, one of the things I’ve noticed about Bleach is that a lot of people in the west seem to feel that Bleach got bad precisely at the time they caught up to the Japanese releases and had to read it in a weekly format. Bleach uses incredibly decompressed chapters, especially in its second half, and it’s not unreasonable to be able to read an entire chapter of the Hueco Mundo arc in a minute flat. Combined with a week or two in between minute-long bursts of story, it’s easy to see why people who stuck with it that long gave up there. A similar situation is “it’ll read better in the archives” webcomic updates.)
There is one in Part 49 (the review of the fic “Skystone”) that definitely makes the point that you’re saying the narrative content is lacking, but the other two uses of the same copypasta in that part are a lot more open to interpretation and could easily be read as a critique against the wordcount.
I’m glad to hear I’m not alone in having read it that way.
Honestly, the “too insubstantial” quote always reads more like it’s referring to the quantity of content rather than the originality or lack thereof to me.
Yes, but I do address specific parts of the plot and the specific ways in which it’s lacking.
Look, if you want me to review in an extremely specific way that you’re not getting across to me, you need to review yourself. Seriously, guys, I don’t know why none of you are considering that as an option. The fandom needs more reviews, and the review culture will be healthier with multiple reviewers with different styles than one person.
To be honest? I’m not entirely sure enough about my own familarity with grammar rules to know whether my insights would be useful (I’d certainly rather not spread misinformation, especially not in a massive scale like your undertaking.)
All I’m suggesting here is a rephrasing of the “insubstantial” quote to further clarify whether the case is referring to length, content, originality, or a combination thereof.
Yeah, that specific copypasta could definitely do with some clarification.
You said you wanted me to review more than just grammar. Leave the grammar to me and review the parts you think I missed, then.
All I’m suggesting here is a rephrasing of the “insubstantial” quote to further clarify whether the case is referring to length, content, originality, or a combination thereof.
I already did. How do you not notice that it used to be different? I changed it because authors complained that it was unclear.
You’ve exhausted my patience. I am not the sole arbiter of fanfiction reviewing. If you want to review a certain way, put your money where your mouth is and do it yourself instead of backseat driving. I’m not going to discuss this further.
I am afriad the lack of clarity on my part is responsible for a fair bit of the frustration here (and I worry that that lack would make reviews by me unhelpful). I was pointing out specifics I felt needed more clarification. Whether you agree and alter it or feel like it’s okay as is is completely up to you and your experience of what works or not and that’s 100% okay. I’m deeply sorry for offending you.
(and also the fact that I had not at the time of writing the previous comment seen the updated version. Sorry again.)
(unless that is the updated version in which case I’m still confused and probably incrediably annoying by now)
Yeah, I’ve been half-tempted to ask this before, but I kind of just assumed the answer would be the same as when I asked why he doesn’t mention things he liked about a story: they’re all so uninspired, there’s nothing to say. But, then again, I suppose now that “this is very uninspired” actually is something to say in itself.
But then again, I assume that making this kind of comment could only lead people to think even more that he’s just trying to bully them. Many of the people he reviews can’t care less about the grammar so long as the story is interesting, but they can’t deflect “the story is boring” with even perfect grammar.