wank...
[head against the keyboard]
Last Thursday I posted an entry featuring Ménage à Trois and yesterday I posted an entry featuring Tantalizing Passion of an Unkempt Soul. Both stories were written by ImagineTheMist. There are various reasons that a Suethor may end up having more then one story featured. In this particular case I was going through my e-mail and featuring Sues that various people had sent in. Each was sent in by a different minion months apart from each other.
One of the first things I found out about this writer was that she had been critiqued by one of the minions in the past and didn't handle the critique very well. I then found out that another minion was getting tired of seeing the author was around, so I did some digging and found their tumbler and found out that the writer had found their story on Pottersues. Before I get into that there are a couple of other things I found out.
First, I found out that the writer has been spamming people with links to her stories asking for reviews, and then proceeding to harass them when she didn't get what she wanted which was positive attention. At least that is the jest of what I got.
Second, she also threw a fit because she posted a link to Ménage à Trois on her tumbler and ended up being flagged so that her posts doesn't show up under the tags she uses. She claims this move was not fair as the story is rated M, and she didn't post nudity. The problem with this claim is that her story is actually rated MA and she posted a link to said MA content.
Anyways... here is what she posted to her tumbler.
“Great, now my fic is featured on Pottersues. I’d complain to the person in charge except I’ve seen what happens to people who dare disagree, though most of the fic written by the critiquers are far worse than mine. I know I’m a good writer, I don’t need their validation.”
“Couldn’t that be technically harassment/online bullying?"
And...
“Someone wants to translate my fic Menage a Trois into Russian, that’s how good it is!”
“Obviously Pottersues doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”
So...
The first thing I'm going to say is that there is no problem with people coming in here and voicing their differences in opinions. If a writer comes in and says something like,“I'm the writer of the fic and I don't agree that my character is a Mary Sue,” practically nothing happens. If I writer comes in and says something like, “I'm the writer of the fic. My character isn't a Mary Sue because... [what ever their reason may be].” then something happens. Why?
Because “whatever their reason may be” has moved from simply being an opinion to supporting said opinion with facts. Facts can be called out for being wrong or illogical. When a Suethor comes here and uses bad facts to support the claims they make they will be called out for them. On top of this the facts they try to use have no well written essays or articles out there to support them while the facts used here have tons of essays and articles regarding said topics that people have taken the time to write.
The claim that most of the “critiquers” writing is worse then your own is an ad hominem attack. Even if the “critiquers” writing was worse of yours it doesn't change the fact that the writing needs to improve. That said I have a problem believing that the writing of the “critiquers” who post here is worse then your own unless they're writing badly on purpose. Many of them know to avoid making characters OoC, they pay attention to the logic in their stories and they don't write sex just for the sake of writing sex.
I'm also wondering how they could possibly have read all the stories that the “critiquers” have written within a single day as the post was posted the exact same day I posted the entry about Ménage à Trois. Make that half a day as I didn't post the entry until after noon. Some of the minions don't even use the same name here as they do where a person can find their stories.
They also claim they don't need our validation, and yet I know that they've been posting links to their story in an attempt to get people to read and review which means they do feel they need some kind of validation for their writing.
Featuring their stories in this blog is not a form of harassment or bullying. Being able to take criticism is part of being a well functioning adult and slapping the word “bully” around whenever ones feelings get hurt because someone criticized ones writing or ones poor online etiquette seriously belittles those who have had to deal with real bullying.
As for harassment, harassment is where someone goes and tries to force someone to do what they want by using insults and other behaviors that are impolite. Funny how the writer in question is going around spamming people's stories with links and then bothering them when they don't get what they want. Before accusing someone of being a bully or harassing someone a person really should double check their own online behavior.
The last thing I'm going to say is that getting the work translated by someone doesn't mean I or the other “critiquers” are wrong in our critique of the work. Twilight is an example of a poorly written work that has been translated into over ten languages. It means nothing. I'll end this by saying I hope that the writer eventually grows up and her behavior matures.
Edit: A certain Suethor did not like what a cetain Beta had to say years ago and is continuing to try and harrass said Beta. The Suethor claims that this started not with herself but that is far from true. As I've clearly stated both entries were sent in by different people and they were sent in a year apart. The writer herself though personally admitted to me in the e-mail she sent me that despite the fact she doesn't agree with what we do here that she had tried to send in a certain Beta's fic to try and get it featured and that she's pissed that her stories ended up being featured instead. I rejected said entry because while the writing of the Beta's stories fic was rough around the edges there was nothing that screamed Mary Sue in the first few chapters I looked over and looking over them again I hold the same opinion I did before.
That also said let's leave her well enough alone. She's pretty much outed herself, and hearing her harrass and bully others on her tumbler is not enjoyable. I will also be turning on screening for these three entries.