Jonathan Ng wrote:

At 01:36 PM 9/6/98 PDT, you wrote:

And just worthless. SI fics aren't even worth being read.

If you don't want to read it, don't read it, gubby.  Don't come crying to us.

How is the tired Foreign Exchange Student angle 'SI'? It's a less direct
form of a straight SI. The author is inserting his world view,
perspective, and culture into where it doesn't belong.

No.  A foreign exchange student, if done correctly, can change the whole
way a person thinks of a universe.  For example: Greg Sandborn's _Nabiki:
New Horizons_

I don't really think that that NNH changed my perspective about Ranma universe
in any way that having Nabiki marry a Japanese man would not have.  

NNH should be pointless according to you as well.

In the scale of 'SI-ness', the Foreign Exchange Student premise rates a
3 out of 4, a straight SI being a 4 and inserting North American
cultural references being a 1. Anything past a 2 is worthless.

Who made this up?  And what constitutes as a 2, then?

You could do this exploration much more effectively without resorting to
an SI--but then, the point is that you want to write an SI. The
'exploring the less talked about characters' is nonsense.

Then "Roses of Shadow" (Lawson) is nonsense, since it talks about Kodachi
mainly.  "Nabiki: New Horizons" is nonsense, since it talks about Nabiki.

But let's see... you've just said an SI is pointless, and the "exploring
less talked about characters" is nonsense.  Which means you're telling him

Actually he didn't.  He declared that the claim that the author could
be interpreted as making, to be writing a self insert  in order to 
explore less talked about characters was nonsense.  That's true in the 
sense that there is no particular reason why a self-insert or foreigner 
character would be more useful for the purpose of exploring less talked about 
characters, than, say, writing from the perspective of one of those background 
characters in one of the mob scenes at Furinkan High or just from the 
point of view of a new Japanese student.  Perhaps less so.

The author is indeed writing a self-insert because that's what he wants
to write.  Of course that is his authorial prerogative.  Just as Ian
Fleming was allowed to write a glamourised, fantasy version of himself
as a hero, so anyone can make themselves a fantasy protagonist.

Why, exactly gutb chose to announce, yet again, that he doesn't read
self-inserts, as if we should care about this quirk of his, is a mystery.
It's fair to say that writing commentary on stories you haven't even
read is simply...pointless.  

However, I will make one comment on this story.  The authorial note at
the start was a bad idea, likely to make more people delete the fic without
reading it, rather than less.  Just write the story, don't try to explain
it to us in advance.  If the story doesn't stand on it's own merits, explaining
what you intended to do won't help it.  If it does, the note makes you seem
insecure of your story's worth, and therefore you are less likely to get an
open-minded hearing from your audience.  

not to write anymore because *you* don't want him to.

You've just contradicted yourself too.  So your C&C is pointless.

He's just trying to break up a stereotype about SI fics (which is well
deserved...)