#critics united

[thornybubbles]

Guess who paid me a visit on Fanfiction.net

So today I went to check up on my stories on Fanfiction.net to see if I got any comments, messages, etc. I saw I had a review on My "Jealous Yandere Jo-Foes" story. This is what it says:

"catspats31chapter 1 . Dec 18, 2022

The writing quality is good in terms of your spelling and grammar, but the following part of the Content Guidelines is broken for being a second person or you-based story:

Entries not allowed: 5. Any form of interactive entry: choose your adventure, second person/you based, Q&As, and etc.

Please remove all elements related to the reader and replace them with a canon character or original character. Switch to first person or third person point of view. You can always put it on another site where it is allowed such as Archive Of Our Own."

Now let me clarify something for those of you that are not in the know (I only found this out myself today)... this person is part of a group that goes around dropping into people's reviews to tell them that they are violating the rules of Fanfiction.net. These people actively flag stories they say are in violation of the rules. These people are not affiliated with Fanfiction.net. They are not admins or moderators and they have no agency or authority to be doing what they are doing. I'm not the only one that this has happened to and I'm not the only one talking about it. This has apparently been going on for a while.

I do not appreciate someone who is not in charge, acting as a rules lawyer for a site that they do not own or work for.

Something else to take into consideration is the fact that if you go to the "reviewer's" profile, they wrote this:

"Second person/you based stories or reader inserts. Sometimes, the reader would feel traumatized when the story puts them in it. I feel that stories like that show a sign of laziness when authors put things like "(name)" or "(h/c)". Can't you use another character from the fandom or an original character instead of putting the reader in the story?"

The whole "traumatizing the reader" is an incredibly weak mindset, but this mostly shows that this person simply doesn't like reader inserts. I feel that this is the REAL reason that catspats31 decided to warn me about my "violation". That seems to be the case with a lot of people in this group as well. They go after both writers of reader inserts and people who write smut. Now, I know that Fanfiction.net has some rules against NSFW stuff, but I don't know nor care much about it because I don't write smut anyway.

I don't feel that my stories violate the rules because the rules state that interactive stories are not allowed. It mentions "you based" stories or stories written in second person which can be a reference to reader inserts. However, most reader inserts, my stories included, are not interactive. The reader is inserted into the story as the main character but does not control what they do or what happens to them in the story. Therefore, by my reasoning, they are NOT interactive. When I tried to argue this point, I was called "disingenuous" for interpreting the rules how I want. Funny, coming from people who are merely interpreting the rules how THEY want (when they didn't even have a hand in creating said rules) but whatever.

I have made a post to Fanfiction.net's help desk forum asking if someone who is an actual moderator or admin can tell me if reader inserts are allowed on the site or not. Only one person said that reader inserts are technically violating the rules, but this person is not a mod or admin, so I take what they say with a grain of salt. I also suspect that this person is either part of this group or a sympathizer. (There are a lot of people who sympathize with them. It's really weird and cultish.)

I sent two emails to Fanfiction.net's support email to inform them of the confusion over their rules. I asked that they please clarify in their rules if they consider reader inserts to be interactive or not and if they actually violate the rules. Who knows how long it will take for them to get back to me or if they ever will.

Another thing to note is that there is a community created by these people that adds stories to a list of stories THEY say violate the rules. There, they "review" and actively report stories for rules violation. My story is on that list. I can do nothing that I know of to get it removed.

I do not plan to bend the knee to these people but I also do not plan to upload anything else to Fanfiction.net until I get word back from someone of actual authority. However I will also not be removing or changing my stories to cater to these people.

If it turns out that my stories are indeed in violation and reader inserts are not allowed then I will happily remove them from Fanfiction.net. I have been seriously thinking about just leaving the site long before this happened today anyway. I have no attachment to Fanfiction.net and I get a lot more readers for my JoJo stories on other sites anyway. Archive of Our Own is a much better site for a lot of reasons. Better tagging for one thing. Tagging on Fanfiction.net is practically non-existent.

I will update this if anything new happens.

[kittystargen3]

Attention

Sorry, no story updates today. Last night an issue was brought to my attention when I received not one, but two separate threats in my fanfiction.net reviews. The user starts with a hateful flame, quoted below.

I honestly wanted to like this story, but this is just bad. It's akin to sniffing a moldy egg casserole from the back of my fridge: a stupid waste of time for something rotten that belongs in the trash.

Now, if any of you have recieved a similar message, do not take it seriously. They literally copied and pasted a prewritten message into a box on a website. That's all. I looked this up and found reports of similar messages dated 3 months ago on forums. The rest of the message was similar, though not exact.

The message goes on to say they are contacting me on behalf of a "Friend," who they named in the review. Now, I won't be posting this name here, because if it is a real person, I don't know that they are at all connected. Like I said, the earlier reports were similar, only they named a different user. If you've recieved a similar message, I'd advise you not to contact this person. I will share what I did and encourage you to do it too.

The reviewer instructs me to review one of their stories. They issued several threats against me, see below. I *** to abbreviate a couple of swear words because I don't post that stuff:

If you fail to comply by not responding or worse yet, attempt to leave a negative review, I will report your account to both The Critics United as well as the other site administrators for deletion. Do not think of blocking or reporting us. I will find out and there will be consequences if you do something stupid to her.

If you troll my friend, be warned we will troll you, your fics and all of your followers. We will also place your s***fic in our other friend's community, S*** Fics That Deserve a Good Flame, so that everyone here will make fun of you. Since we don't want it to come to that, just write a short, good review for her stories and we'll leave you alone.

Now, as to what I did, I reported this user. I emailed the support address: Support@fanfiction.com In the subject bar I put [Abuse] Threatening Review because I was told it helps them to sort messages by subject. If you receive the same message, I'd advise you to do the same. Don't respond to their threats, and don't contact the named user. I have all of my stories on my PC, so I wouldn't mind publishing them elsewhere, if I had to. They have no real power.

Now, If the sender of this message reads this, I have a special message for you. If you ever contact me again, whether on Fanfic.net reviews, private messages, or elsewhere, I will be contacting the police.

[smashbrosodyssey64]

Holy fucking shit I got threatened with a report to Critics United I'm so fucking happy this is a dream come true

[kagenoneko]

Out of all of the people associated with Critics United, this one is the most annoying.

[hello-eeveev]

Dorian: We were in your home! It was charming. Lovely.

Caleb, with a very genuine smile: Oh, thank you. We work very hard at it.

once again I am made a wreck by the building of a home together and the pride Caleb clearly takes in having done that 😭😭😭

[albaharu]

i just think they are neat

[burr-ell]

the "you should be wary, because only one side of this table is underestimating the other" -> "i wish for you in the future to find someone who will mourn you when you are gone" -> "do you think that'll break through, or do you think you'll be surprised?" pipeline <3

[redditreceipts]

Viji Palithodi is the founder of a woman's trade union improving the working conditions of women. It focuses on the rights of saleswomen, who beforehand did not have the right to access a washroom even when they were doing 12-hour-shifts: "In shops, workers, especially the women, aren’t allowed to sit even when there aren’t any customers. After our protests, an amended law ensured seats."

Male-centric trade unions did not respond to these human rights violations, so Viji took it upon herself to form a women-centered union.

"After relentless protests and strikes, the government amended the Kerala Shops and Commercial Establishments Act (1960) in 2018, mandating toilet facilities for women workers. Local administration built public toilets in Kozhikode."

source source

I literally can't believe that trade unions centered around men did not take these torturous conditions seriously, but love that she stood up against it ❤️ and actually changed something

[zwoftt]

WEEKLY DORYM MOMOS N OTHER STUFF!!! (in no particular order)))

the chemistry between bells hells and the mighty nein is just so good. i had an absolute blast watching

the settle nod orym gives when jester says dorian is “really handsome” when shaking dorian’s hand

”mr. dorian” cad says when calling over to dorian, who looks a little startled at the professional nickname

dorian nodding in agreement to orym’s plan, as he normally does.

the way dorian tries to show off his abs next to beau after orym asks her what her routine is. the laughter afterwards when he gets embarrassed!!!!

jester winning over braius and getting more backstory than anyone else. so golden.

the jealousy of dorian when he sees how many people are in relationships and [not him] because he’s being a scaredy cat

caleb knocking sense into orym. CALEB KNOCKING SENSE INTO ORYM!!!

anybody else think dorian was trying to set up braius and veth really hard just to get him off of orym??

no thoughts just dorian and yasha bonding over music

the nervous glances robbie and liam share when they’re thinking about what to do with their characters …. especially after robbie tried to knock on orym’s door earlier in the episode but it was drowned out by shenanigans

the frantic inspiration dorian gives to braius when he’s painting orym

everyone getting so silent and so excited when dorian knocks on orym’s door. so is liam! his eyes light up immediately!

the whole confession scene was just so, so, so good. so beautifully well done. it made sense for both characters, and honestly so satisfying to see the moment happen after three years of consecutive pining/yearning. dorian giving orym the chance to make his own choices, and orym curling up in dorian’s embrace immediately just to be there,,, “not wanting to spoil the moment”. some of my favorite lines though, “let me comfort you for once,” from dorian; unaware that he WAS[is] in fact orym’s form of comfort but also implying that dorian finds immense comfort in orym, and orym’s “this is okay.” accepting the fact he is in love with dorian, finally, and truly. INTERLOCKING THEIR FINGERS. sound familiar??? something he couldn’t do with will in the vision???? but he instead does it now with dorian????? uuuuuhghhhhghhhhhh …. dorian fantasizing about them before falling asleep to the sound of orym’s breathing,,, orym staying awake longer to once again watch dorian sleep before passing out too.

also the fact the confession scene wasn’t too dramatic but still surprising and amazingly done just makes that feel so much more REAL. like how REAL LIFE confessions would be with highly traumatized people. not even mad they didn’t kiss yet because boy… just—- ugjjjjhh it was so beautiful, so raw. and it was robbie’s first time doing a romance roleplay too!!!

in the cooldown and [from introspection] robbie says dorian is very inexperienced with love and the feeling of it- since he was sheltered for so long; so orym is basically his first love(but dorian is just also super nervous and respectful towards will and orym’s relationship so that explains why he was so careful about expressing himself too.) and liam mentions orym was too shy to do anything himself so that’s why he had his other character go in there and just slap him on the ass because he wanted orym to talk to dorian somehow. which means that both robbie(dorian) and liam(orym) WANTED to have that exact moment between them, BOTH WANTED them to talk. and also the entire cast was fawning over them, matt getting teary eyed and the girls whispering and laughing to each other, sam getting excited himself and tal just smiling like a dork. everyone was just so proud of them!

DORYM NATION HOW ARE WE FEELING FOR NEXT EPISODES??? IM SO EXCITED TO SEE THE AWKWARD LAUGHTER, LOVESICK FLIRTATION AND EVEN MORE FROM OUR FAVORITE BOYS now time to start the cycle again of waiting years for them to kiss (i hope not please god)

[undead-knick-knack]

POV: You have to choose a multi-class teenage adventurer

[mirrorofliterature]

when people go like

'oh, the jedi couldn't intervene in tatooine because it was outside of the republic's jurisdiction uwu'

I'm like: do you think that's a good reason?

imagine if doctors without borders was like that. like, jedi is supposedly a non-government organisation/religious order. the good of the galaxy should not be equated to the interests of the senate and the problem is that it was.

the jedi order became corrupt when they became attached to the republic as an ideal, the senate, rather than the republic, the people

obviously, the jedi storming into somewhere like tatooine and leading a revolution would be an absolute disaster, as social change (particularly something as drastic as a revolution) needs to be bottom-up to be successful. but they could have done something. get a few jedi in contact with the slave underground, be allies and coordinators.

the jedi order loses its way because they sacrifice their morals, again and again, for the supposed 'greater good'. it's utilitarianism writ large.

a good discrete example of the jedi order's flaws is when they negotiate with the hutts for hyperspace lane access.

they know the hutts are slavers and crime lords. that's not a secret.

but, they need the hyperspace lanes For the War

the jedi order keeps peace, yes. peace for who? peace for the billions of slaves? their idea of peace seems to be to maintain the status quo, even as the status quo became increasingly toxic.

the jedi order choosing to accept the clones, choosing to fight the war, it was the easy choice. it was the wrong choice. it was the path of least resistance.

but does that make it right?

no.

think back to the delegate of 2000 meeting:

“The moral authority of the Jedi, such as it is,” Bana Breemu said, “has been spent lavishly upon war; I fear they have none left for politics.”

anyway the jedi should decentralise and help the people, not the Senate

[thornybubbles]

Just deleted all my stories from Fanfiction.net. I suggest others do the same.

So if you read my previous post, you know all about what's going on over on FF.net. I have decided that I won't wait for anyone from FF.net to respond to my emails as I now know that they won't be getting back to me. I found out today that FF.net has no professional moderation anymore and has left all moderation up to its users. It's because of this that groups like Critics United have completely taken over the site. 

If you post your stories to Fanfiction.net, you will put yourself at risk of being targeted by these people. So for the sake of your stories and your sanity, don't post your stories to FF.net. If you already have stories there, transfer them to another site. 

[nowyoursoulisforfeit]

Thinking about Percy and Keyleth during his first resurrection and I am not okay.

[dandelionjack]

no martha in the UNIT spinoff… literally a sea devils invasion plot… pete mctighe cowriter… i can’t lie folks i’m feeling apprehensive more than excited. fear it won’t be very good, or in any way critical of the militaristic new UNIT

[kagenoneko]

Some Observations

After calling out the troll in the Ace Attorney section on fanfiction.net, I have experienced a deluged of spam reviews on my fics. One of those reviews happened to be from a member of Critics United.

The Critics United reviewer happened to have only one favorite story. That story is a word for word copy of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hilter. Doesn't seem like a story that someone from Critics United would support, especially since it is a rule violating story.

Then I decided to do a search based on some words from the review and added site: fanfiction.net to the end of the search query. I found that using DuckDuckGo resulted in me find a bunch of other reviews that use that exact same phrasing. Using google resulted in me find this blog post on on flames.

As for the other reviews that I found, some are associated with a different user. Here is an image of one of the reviews:

And here is another example:

And I have also found a similar review that was from a guest and then there was a story that I found that had a ton of guest reviews that had this similar kind of language. The guest reviews are under different names most of the time.

So I decided to search the user who had left the review on my fic.

That search resulted in me finding some of their comments on a forum that was not associated with Critics United. Their comment was pro-Donald Trump and implies all members of Critics United are also fans of Donald Trump.

It also seems like a Critics United member might be supportive of John Phoenix spam fest going on the Ace Attorney section.

To pull all what I found together as a TL;DR:

-Critics United members post unoriginal flame reviews

-Their members are pro-Trump and some like a story that is a copy of My Struggle by Adolf Hilter.

-Support the people who post troll content on ff.net.

So yeah, these people are horrible.

[anistarrose]

there's a type of tumblr funnyperson who's never posted explicit hate/exclusionism towards asexuals and other a-specs... and yet, they like to make up a guy. where the type of guy they always make up undermines any trust a-specs might've otherwise had for them. for example, a common post format is making up a hypothetical tumblr user's bio that's obviously just so cringe, according to the sensibilities of everyone reading — wherein the implied joke is how we've all seen someone in the wild who's cringe like this, right?

these posts always feel the need to slide some a-spec microlabel in there. a lot of the time, it's specifically an ace-spec microlabel plus "heteroromantic," especially if they think that the guy they're making up is trying to be a real special snowflake. to round out the "cringe," they usually pepper in at least one element from the set of: neopronouns, a namedropped mental illness, and a piece of media that's targeted at children/popular for tumblr to hate at the time.

then a zillion people reblog that post, all agreeing haha that's so cringe, and a million a-spec people (and nonbinary and autistic people) shudder — because are they the butt of the joke, to the people reblogging it? or are the people reblogging just laughing about a different element, like a comically long DNI or something, which has distracted them from noticing the fact that OP clearly associates a-spec identities with "cringe"?

if any a-spec people point this out about OP, or ask a reblogger if they support ace people, they are inevitably accused of overreacting — which is great for the aphobes, because they get a new "cringe" a-spec person to point and laugh at. it's just such a nasty cycle, and even people who wouldn't consider themselves aphobes aren't great at noticing and interrogating it.