Okay.  This angered me, not because of your opinion itself, but how you 
presented it.  

Saturday, I spoke at Fanime of the importance of writing from the heart 
and writing without fear.  Ironically, the same goes for criticism as 
well.  Good critics balance compassion for the writer and the desire to 
work with the writer with the desire to see the best product possible. 
 Fear - the fear of possible retribution for said words, the fear that 
logical arguments may get shot down - interferes with this.  Now, in 
many cases, private C&C is best, as it keeps possible demoralization of 
the author from occurring and can avoid messy arguments.  However, in 
this case you gave private and public negative C&C, effectively giving 
your argument in private to shield it from skewering and then turning 
around trashing a work in public without reason.  In this case, you're 
saying, "I have this great argument as to what's wrong with this work, 
but I'm not going to give it to anyone because I think someone will 
shoot it down."

You tried to shield yourself, keeping your own skin ahead of mine and 
any other author.  In other words, your words are the antithesis of 
everything that critiquing is supposed to be.  If you give permission 
for me to respond to your private argument in the public domain of this 
FFML, I will consider them and respond to them within the realm of 
honorable debate; however, until then, I can only consider them as the 
cowardly ramblings of someone unprepared to defend his own words.

-- Nick

DB Sommer wrote:

You know, this could have been a good piece, save for the completely
unneccesary villainization (and OOC behavior) of a character. Most people
probably won't even detect it, since it's been horribly overused to the
point where it's more of a standardized fanfic convention (like the idea
that Akane hits Ranma every time he's obnoxious or  the existance of an
'Amazon Cabinet of Love Potions') than having any reasonable basis on the
actual series (which implies the exact opposite direction would be taken).
In 'ND's case it's even worse than most since there's absolutely no reason
for it. It adds nothing whatsoever to the story, other than to go out of its
way to cast a character in a far more negative light than they ever really
were. Do I think in this case it's bashing? I'm not sure, but probably not.
I would guess it comes more from relying too much on automatically using
fanfic convention (a sin I HAVE been guilty of on more than one occasion)
than actual antipathy of the character, though I could be wrong.

I will say it's well written and the prose flowed beautifully. Actually
those are probably contributing factors to why I pointed it out in this
piece rather than others it's been used in; it stands out all the more
because it's so terribly out of place. My recommendation, axe them
completely and read through it again. You'll discover the story isn't
changed in the slightest, since what you put in was uneccesary and
gratuitous.

Just my two cents worth.

D.B. Sommer

(Who is tired of seeing fanfic cliches and being told how 'great and
awesome' they are, and will probably get flamed for it)

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