Below is a bit of background to the fic in question, it'll put my rant in perspective
- Spoiler:
So this fic is a pretty deep OT3/Polyamory thing involving Steve, Darcy, and Bucky from the MCU fandom. I'm not usually into reading that kind of thing, but I noticed that the fic is nearing eighty chapters and I got kind of curious. Needless to say because of this rant, I've been pretty disappointed by the most recent chapter. The author has a nasty habit of including the thoughts of Darcy's Vagina ala 50 Shades of Grey. And she decided to write an entire chapter 'crack fic style' narrated by Darcy's vagina. That would be great... if it didn't just gloss over some major plot points and was so disjointed I had no idea where it started or ended.
Here is the story
Dear Steele Holding On (fanfiction writer on AO3),
I would like to take a minute to give a brief opinion on your work 'Ice and Fire'. First off, let me start by saying that I respect you as a writer. Granted, your story is at time painful to read because of how the characters behave, and there are times where certain characters act so out of character that I want to vomit, but I respect that you have taken artistic liberties to make an otherwise unusual situation seem plausible in the context of the MCU.
I've noticed a rather alarming trend in your story though. One such alarming trend that culminated today in chapter seventy of your work. You see, you have a nasty habit of inserting little asides in parenthesis. Now, that in and of itself isn't bad, and when done properly it can enhance the work as a whole.
Only those asides are little anecdotes made by one Darcy Lewis' vagina.
Your little anecdotes of 'lady parts' waving pompoms or cheering is very similar to a novel called 50 Shades of Grey. That novel is a heaping pile of shit, and although you claim to not have read it, you're on the internet. And you're a writer on the internet. I doubt that all of the jokes about Ana's 'inner goddess' are as unknown to you as you claim them to be. Now, I can ignore your little lady part bits. I haven't had an issue with them and I honestly don't care when they're a few simple sentences. But you decided to make an entire chapter narrated by the character's vagina.
Excuse me, what?
Do you think this is a joke?
Your readers knew that this particular chapter was going to be a big, plot heavy one. And, you basically just let us down with this.
Why?
Why would you write an entire chapter, (an entire, plot heavy chapter) narrated by a character's vagina? You had the chapter written. The actual, respectable chapter was written. Why didn't you post that and post the vagina narrations in a separate, one off story? An alternate take if you will. Why would you do something so, quite frankly, stupid? It doesn't fit with the tone that the story was taking. It doesn't fit with the tone that the chapter needed to take. Your readers feel cheated.
I don't even like your story and I feel cheated.
Naturally, commenters would have responded. Now, I will grant you that I only saw the beginnings of the comments. They seemed well rounded and tame to me, but I left your story for a few hours and during that time they may have gotten hurtful. But, from what I saw it was basically the same reaction as me, just why? So imagine my surprise when I check back in with your fic to see if you changed the chapter to see this.
- Quote :
- A/N Okay readers, this was intended to be a bit of fluff, I flagged it as crackfic, and I fulfilled a request from several of my extremely supportive readers and had a lot of fun with it.
- Quote :
I will not tolerate any more flaming messages complaining about this chapter. I will continue to delete those and will not debate them. Overall, the reception has been great but there have been some detractors who seem to think this is an open forum to tear me apart as a writer. If you don't like it, that's fine, I can appreciate that and have zero intention of doing this kind of thing as anything but a one-off. I have worked my butt off this past year to produce a fantastic piece of art and do not deserve the awful things that have been posted. For the record, I have not read 50 Shades and don't appreciate comparisons to it.
That being said, I'm taking a two week hiatus to quit being pissed off at the nasty notes.
Excuse me, what? You call constructive criticism nasty notes? You don't get to post a chapter that you knew was absolute crack to the actual, plot heavy, story and then pitch a bitch fit about people not liking it. While I understand that its your story and you can write whatever you want, however you want, you need to be prepared for the consequences. You have a lot of readers, not all of them appreciate a story that they're reading to suddenly turn into crack. You pitching a massive fit, and deleting all the comments that don't agree with you, doesn't show maturity for someone who is supposedly an adult with a family of their own.
You call your story art, but it isn't. There are other, millions of times better fan fictions than what you have written. These authors weren't afraid to post emotionally gritty chapters. They didn't resort to writing about the feelings of a character's vagina because they were afraid of posting some heavy stuff.
You take your two week hiatus, realize that your chapter was lacking in all the important parts, and come back to see what a fool you've made of yourself. In the mean time, I'll read better fics and try not to remember that yours exists.
Get over yourself, you self entitled brat. The internet is a brutal place. When you put bullshit in, you should expect to find it to be flung right back at you. You are a writer. You should expect people to have both negative and positive reactions to your story. If you aren't emotionally mature enough to handle criticism you should not be posting your work online because you will get criticized. There are going to be people who are better than you giving constructive criticism. Deleting their comments and only allowing for the positive ones to remain and stroke your ego will do nothing for you as a writer, or as a person. Instead of wallowing in self pity because people don't like your vagina chapter you should man up, admit that you made a dumb move, and at least post the actual chapter you wrote.
as respectfully as possible considering you wasted about thirty minutes of my day between reading, and writing this rant
-Tyriant