What doesn't kill us makes us stronger

[Actingup]

Just a thread, if others are interested to join, to celebrate the slings, arrows, and brickbats received in comments. Not the constructive criticism, not the headscratching stuff (might be better for other threads), but the stuff that was written to make us slink into our corner.

Why 'celebrate'? Because despite the incoming fire, we don't hide under our rocks. We live to write another day.

I'll start:

"This piece is only 7,000 words long, but it was so difficult to make it to the end. What you’ve written here is horrendous."
(@Stacnash on "The April Fools' News Story")

 

[Bamagan]

Why 'celebrate'? Because despite the incoming fire, we don't hide under our rocks. We live to write another day.

I like hiding under my cozy, comment-free rock...

 

[designatedvictim]

"This piece is only 7,000 words long, but it was so difficult to make it to the end. What you’ve written here is horrendous."
(@Stacnash on "The April Fools' News Story")

Holy crap! I didn't know comments could run that long!

Over a thousand words! Impressive.

And he hated it enough to keep notes? That's dedication!

 

[YmaOHyd]

Holy crap! I didn't know comments could run that long!

Over a thousand words! Impressive.

And he hated it enough to keep notes? That's dedication!

Stacnash has left many such comments, and keeps a list of all the authors she's reviewed. She's given terrible reviews to people who make a living doing this full-time (BreakTheBar) and people who are universally considered among the most talented storytellers on this site (onehitwanda). She's also given raves and useful critical feedback to some folks. She contains multitudes, does stacnash.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

 

[EdwardsOtherSide]

Wrong; what doesn't kill us gives us unhealthy coping mechanisms and a dark sense of humor.

Oh.... my bad. This is about comments, not life in the military.

 

[Erozetta]

by Anonymous user on 02/02/2025

Any husband thats would treat his wife this way needs to be dropped into a barrel of acid. Same for any person who would write this kind of crap.




I believe this counts as "hit the mark" for writing a reprehensibly vile character.

 

[Actingup]

by Anonymous user on 02/02/2025

Any husband thats would treat his wife this way needs to be dropped into a barrel of acid. Same for any person who would write this kind of crap.

I believe this counts as "hit the mark" for writing a reprehensibly vile character.

Wow - a poster child commentator for mixing up a character and an author.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Any husband thats would treat his wife this way needs to be dropped into a barrel of acid. Same for any person who would write this kind of crap.

Evidence of the very prominent phenomenon that you are judged not by how well you write but by whether or not the readers agree with you.

 

[WCSGarland]

I can't find the comment any more, probably because it was deleted in one of the site sweeps, but it was a comment to the effect that since I only had 3 followers, it was time for me to hang it up.

 

[AwkwardMD]

What doesn't kill you will try again.

 

[Erozetta]

Wrong; what doesn't kill us gives us unhealthy coping mechanisms and a dark sense of humor.

Oh.... my bad. This is about comments, not life in the military.

Trauma from a bad upbringing does this too.

It sometimes unnerves people how cheerful I can sound when joking about death.

 

[Omenainen]

I thought this was funny:

In several of your stories I’ve seen errors in your use of pronouns. His when the story line was a her, him when it should be a her, he instead of she. Proof read more carefully please as it breaks the flow of your narrative.

I found this piece to be your weakest but some of your story lines are excellent.

This person read a few of mine and liked them, but when faced with my smashing the patriarchy 750, it’s suddenly “oh but you suck with pronouns” (but politely, this was a nice person). I probably do, yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me to use gendered pronouns so sometimes I make mistakes, and most likely some of them end up on the published work. It didn’t bother them as long as they liked what they were reading. Sådant är livet.

 

[Actingup]

I can't find the comment any more, probably because it was deleted in one of the site sweeps, but it was a comment to the effect that since I only had 3 followers, it was time for me to hang it up.

I had one of those with the most recent story. Extra marks to them for knowing how to click on a profile, I suppose.

 

[Actingup]

I thought this was funny:



This person read a few of mine and liked them, but when faced with my smashing the patriarchy 750, it’s suddenly “oh but you suck with pronouns” (but politely, this was a nice person). I probably do, yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me to use gendered pronouns so sometimes I make mistakes, and most likely some of them end up on the published work. It didn’t bother them as long as they liked what they were reading. Sådant är livet.

Ah.. that's somebody who doesn't understand about different languages. I think I'd probably put this in the box of somebody who was thinking that they were being helpful, but wasn't.

 

[Omenainen]

Ah.. that's somebody who doesn't understand about different languages. I think I'd probably put this in the box of somebody who was thinking that they were being helpful, but wasn't.

No no, it was helpful in a way. Apparently I do need to proofread for pronouns more dutifully. It’s just funny that as long as they liked the storylines, it was all praise, but when they didn’t it was nitpicking errors instead of saying “well acksually I would like to keep the patriarchy.”

Edited to add, comparing that to this Overcritical’s comment:

Overcriticalover 4 years ago
It's alright, I guess
I have trouble with stories that don't tell you almost immediately what the sex of the person who is narrating is. You have to guess and that takes away from the involvement in the story. Eventually we find that the story teller is a woman. Then we have to start guessing who she's grieving and what the circumstances were. Was she happy with her man? Was there a problem at the end beyond the early death? Why is she celebrating her man's very recent death by picking up some young unknown artist and having sex with him? Is that one of stages of grief I'm not familiar with? From a literary point of view I guess it was well written. Did it teach me anything about grief? Not hardly. 3*

He liked my Romance stories, enough to follow me out of the category and read one other of mine, and unfortunately it had him confused BUT the comment was still informative in that he showed his thought process. (Also it wasn’t the husband who died.)

 

[Katie_Mae]

"This piece is only 7,000 words long, but it was so difficult to make it to the end. What you’ve written here is horrendous."
(@Stacnash on "The April Fools' News Story")

Ah, Stacnash, lol. She's added one of my stories to a list so I expect her attempt at a scathing comment soon, haha. The story she's chosen is a partial first draft I pulled out of my WIPs, wacked a hurried ending on it and slapped it up here without even reading it through... where it has bafflingly sat at a bizarrely high rating considering what it is. It will be interesting to see if she finds any hilarious typos my friends and I haven't already laughed over, lol.

In general, I don't follow the adage of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." When it comes to comments, however, though I've had some who've attempted at leaving a troll comment, they haven't hit the mark. Either the comments are a) hilarious or b) reveal the troll is an idiot or c) both. So I rather enjoy the troll comments (the ones I've received so far, anyway) because they make me laugh.

 

[lovecraft68]

Holy crap! I didn't know comments could run that long!

Over a thousand words! Impressive.

And he hated it enough to keep notes? That's dedication!

That comment is from the nastiest troll in the readership and its not even close.

Have to question the quality of their life if they have that much time to rip apart a 2 lit page story and take notes on it. That and the level of malice in them.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Edited to add, comparing that to this Overcritical’s comment:

"I have trouble with stories that don't tell you almost immediately what the sex of the person who is narrating is."

One of my 750s makes it a point not to mention that. The few from here who commented about it seemed to like the mystery of not knowing.

 

[lovecraft68]

Ah, Stacnash, lol. She's added one of my stories to a list so I expect her attempt at a scathing comment soon, haha. The story she's chosen is a partial first draft I pulled out of my WIPs, wacked a hurried ending on it and slapped it up here without even reading it through... where it has bafflingly sat at a bizarrely high rating considering what it is. It will be interesting to see if she finds any hilarious typos my friends and I haven't already laughed over, lol.

In general, I don't follow the adage of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." When it comes to comments, however, though I've had some who've attempted at leaving a troll comment, they haven't hit the mark. Either the comments are a) hilarious or b) reveal the troll is an idiot or c) both. So I rather enjoy the troll comments (the ones I've received so far, anyway) because they make me laugh.

I agree that adage doesn't apply in comments here, or the net in general. Its a bunch of mindless keyboard warriors squealing away with bandwidth courage. We don't know these people, and we-and they-are fortunate for that.

But the whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger expression in real life is one I'm tired of hearing. Life chips away at you and wears you down. You're not stronger, you just keep functioning because what choice do you really have?

Considering the ever increasing and sad suicide rate, many people are deciding to take the one option open that isn't just taking it up the ass.

Perspective is a powerful tool, and in the grand scheme of life comments here shouldn't even be a ripple in our ocean.

 

[lovecraft68]

No no, it was helpful in a way. Apparently I do need to proofread for pronouns more dutifully. It’s just funny that as long as they liked the storylines, it was all praise, but when they didn’t it was nitpicking errors instead of saying “well acksually I would like to keep the patriarchy.”

Edited to add, comparing that to this Overcritical’s comment:


He liked my Romance stories, enough to follow me out of the category and read one other of mine, and unfortunately it had him confused BUT the comment was still informative in that he showed his thought process. (Also it wasn’t the husband who died.)

I take pride in the fact that I broke Overly Critical.

He left three comments on my story, a scathing hateful one. He came back some time latter and blasted me again-and of course I never respond to any comments bad or good, so he's yelling into the void-he comes back yet again, and this time the comment is more tame. He saw I wasn't removing his remarks, replying to them, or giving a flying fuck about them and he came back to leave a more thoughtful comment.

I will say that I felt empathy towards him even in the nasty remarks, he lost someone and that is hard, and I feel for the man. My story was a catharsis piece about the hell we went through years ago where I almost lost my wife. It was painful to write, and I'm sure brought that pain out in others, its not the typical Lit fare. But I still get a kick out of him coming back and changing his tone. The story obviously stuck with him because he kept coming back to it with months in between.

That's when you know a story hit someone hard.


First-
by Overcritical  on 11/16/2023

Is this actually someone's idea of ROMANCE? What a gruesome story. And completely unbelievable. Page after page of pain and personal horror. I know because I spent 11 months with someone who went through much of it before slipping away. Miracles don't happen and the pain is beyond belief. It does not belong in any category in Literotica and the author should be boiled in oil for writing it and Literotica should be whipped for publishing it. 1*

Second-

by Overcritical  on 01/25/2024

I can't believe you spent 4 pages on this horror story. I found it in Romance, but although I usually don't complain when people put stories in the wrong category, this was indeed a horror story. I know because I spent 11 months with my wife while she succumbed to cancer. Why subject us to this graphic description of a personal horror? There is no rating low enough to judge this piece of absolute garbage. 1* just to get my two cents in.

Third-
by Overcritical  on 08/29/2024

This story hits so close to home for many of us although I dare say that most stories do not end on such a high note. My ordeal lasted 11 months without the surgical interlude and the she slipped away, finally at peace, her ordeal over. I know of several other such stories and the only thing they all have in common is the pain, the despair and the helplessness

 

[StillStunned]

That comment is from the nastiest troll in the readership and its not even close.

Have to question the quality of their life if they have that much time to rip apart a 2 lit page story and take notes on it. That and the level of malice in them.

And yet she also leaves positive reviews of some stories.

Love her or hate her, she always goes into detail about why she rates a story poorly or highly. Bearing in mind that each of her reviews is one reader's opinion on one story, what's to complain about? People shrug off 1-star ratings, saying that the reader must be a troll, or poorly informed, or had wrong expectations of the story. Here you have someone who explains precisely why she gave however many stars, and people call her nasty. And at the same time they moan that they never get feedback on their stories.

How much weight should you give her comments? As much as you want. Sift through her points, consider them objectively, and you might find something useful. At the very least, that possibility has to be better than an anonymous, unsubstantiated 1 bomb.

 

[Katie_Mae]

But the whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger expression in real life is one I'm tired of hearing. Life chips away at you and wears you down. You're not stronger, you just keep functioning because what choice do you really have?

Yup. Agree.

And then there's what doesn't kill you often just hasn't killed you yet, or weakens you for the thing that does. While strength can come from adversity, I don't believe it's necessarily always the adversity itself which has made you stronger. That or there the classic "people think they're strong but their trauma just turned them into an unfeeling fuckwit."

Yet some online anonymous troll who doesn't know what underpants are trying to be mean in the comments? Yeah, that doesn't rate very high in the "life's hardships" scales lol.

 

[EdwardsOtherSide]

One of most important moments was when I heard someone say "don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from".

Accepting that was life changing.

 

[lovecraft68]

And yet she also leaves positive reviews of some stories.

Love her or hate her, she always goes into detail about why she rates a story poorly or highly. Bearing in mind that each of her reviews is one reader's opinion on one story, what's to complain about? People shrug off 1-star ratings, saying that the reader must be a troll, or poorly informed, or had wrong expectations of the story. Here you have someone who explains precisely why she gave however many stars, and people call her nasty. And at the same time they moan that they never get feedback on their stories.

How much weight should you give her comments? As much as you want. Sift through her points, consider them objectively, and you might find something useful. At the very least, that possibility has to be better than an anonymous, unsubstantiated 1 bomb.

The opinion is also based on their very brief stint in the AH where the mod blew them up in close to record time.

The length of the comments is proportionate with level of self-importance whether its positive or negative. A comment longer than many lit stories isn't 'deep', its look at my genius.

But the main reason I made the comment is so the OP or anyone else they've blasted doesn't take them that seriously, and practices "Look at the source" because as you said, they only speak for themselves, they just do so loudly and nastily, unless you can hit their personal sweet spot...so are they objective as you ask me to be? No, they're not. The authors she blasts often are the ones here that told them to piss off. Is that objective? No.

Hilariously, they put an author here on their do not read this author list for being an awful writer.... but raved over a story that author wrote under another pen name because they didn't know it was them.

Hmm...not sounding objective there either.

You can't perfume a pig.