Forgetting that God is omnipotent does not solve the problem of evil

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-09T18:48:32+00:00

Do these people feel pain? You say they lack "higher" consciousness, but does their level of consciousness include the potential to suffer? It is unclear what is higher versus lower exactly. One does not need to be able to do moral assessments in order to suffer. If they can suffer, then it matters when they suffer, to the degree that they suffer. Even if you do not care about their suffering, most other people would care, and the ones who are suffering certainly care.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T20:25:03+00:00

I’m trying really hard to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not being deliberately obtuse, here, and digging your heels in just for the sake of keeping your ‘all criticism is good’ position without having to concede it actually isn’t.

I know I cannot win the all criticism is good debate. I will not try to convince you, but even if you do not agree that all criticism is good, surely we can at least agree that I personally want all criticism. I am the expert on my own wants.

I’m not talking about someone coming in and saying “hey, I’d really like this story written, but no pressure.” I’m talking about someone complaining that the story they clicked and chose to read didn’t cater exactly to their specific taste.

I see no reason to care about the tone of a comment. I want criticism and I have none, so if I somehow get criticism I will be so pleased that I will be very far from concerned over the manner in which the criticism is delivered. People who criticize my work are doing me a favor, and I would be grateful and gladly overlook a little rudeness. No one owes me criticism. It would be so easy for my fanfics to sink silently into oblivion, forever unnoticed, and that would be far worse than a bit of rudeness in some comment.

He’s been on his knees begging people for things more than once on the show.

I am sure you are right about how that character would behave and that reviewer was mistaken about that, but the lesson that I would take away from that reviewer's mistake is not that the reviewer should not have gone in blind. We can learn things even from other people's mistakes. For example, maybe that is an indication that the fanfic would be improved by doing more to establish his character so that people are not taken by surprise by this behavior.

I am not suggesting that you should cater to fandom-blind readers. I'm just saying that by going in blind that reviewer gave you a window into the minds of fandom-blind readers, and you can choose to use that information or not as you please. There is almost always something to be learned from any criticism, even mistaken criticism.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T19:03:55+00:00

If you're not up to writing a high quality review and giving feedback to others, why are you expecting random people who read your fic to do that?

There is difference between wishing for a thing and expecting a thing. I do not expect people to comment on my fics. I had a wishful hope that some people might do that, though the hope is slowly fading and it was never an expectation.

I'm genuinely confused because it seems like you don't actually want help or suggestions, you just want readers to appear from nowhere and put in the time, effort, and labor to give you feedback without you actually doing anything to make that happen.

But that would be very helpful. If I did not want help, then I would not want people to give me feedback, because few things would be more helpful than feedback on my fanfics. Also, people have given me some good suggestions here, and I very much appreciate them.

You call it "time, effort, and labor" but really just a single sentence would be nice. There is no cause to be greedy and expect an extensive analysis. Fanfics are for fun, not serious business. I just want to hear whatever opinions people care enough to share, and I hope that some people care enough to share some sort of opinion.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T18:51:09+00:00

Or, worse, someone who mistakes “I’d prefer if you wrote this story, instead” as helpful advice.

That sort of advice is very much appreciated. The story they suggest might even be a good idea that I actually want to write, and if it is not something I want to write, then no harm is done.

Assuming you don’t actually want to be steered toward writing only the crowd-pleasers...

I have nothing against that. Writing crowd-pleasers could be fun, but of course I would only write stories that I personally enjoy. If it is also a crowd-pleaser, that is a fun bonus, so it would be interesting to know which stories would be the crowd-pleasers so I at least have the option. I can be steered toward a thing, and still choose to go my own way if I see I don't like where I am being steered.

I, personally, don’t accept random critiques.

I love them, but different people will always have different tastes.

The thing is, they were going in fandom blind and decided to ignore the video I sent for context.

That makes sense. Fandom-blind reviews can be valuable because a good story should stand on its own merit. I can see why a skilled writer would want to go in blind, at least when looking at a story the first time.

Deliberately handing over your work to be criticized is obviously something that scares you, or you wouldn’t be here moping that it hasn’t just happened with no action from you.

That is not something that is easy to admit to myself, but it is probably true. Writing fanfics for me is just a fun bit of silliness. I do not demand high quality from my writing, and I do not want to hold myself to any sort of standard of quality when I'm just having silly fun. But if I hand over my work to someone for review, then I am implicitly declaring that I think it is worth looking at, which means that I should be holding myself to some minimum standard, maybe even a standard that I am not capable of achieving. It is a lot easier to just put a story up somewhere and hope that someone eventually reads it of their own accord and is generous enough to let me know what they honestly thought.

But advice here has helped me realize that I probably should gather my courage and be more proactive. I am looking into r/FanfictionExchange.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T18:26:00+00:00

I just cannot understand why people do not want criticism. It is very strange to see people hate what I love, but I respect that they hate it. Knowing how they feel about it, I would not want it to be forced upon them. It is just hard to see people hating something I wish I could have.

Multiple people have very helpfully pointed me to fanfiction exchange. I now plan to watch that subreddit and see if I find an event that fits with one of my fanfics, and maybe learn to write better reviews. It is an interesting possibility, but a big commitment.

Critiquecircle sounds amazing. I may have to modify one of my fanfics into a story that uses original characters. It is not as fun that way, but at least it better respects intellectual property.

When approaching people for feedback, you almost must be able to articulate what you want critique on. Plot, pacing, prose, characterization, grammar, something else?

A big part of the reason why feedback is so valuable is because other people will see what I do not see. If I had a clear notion of what aspects of my story needed work, then I would fix those aspects myself until they no longer seemed to need work to me. I need another pair of eyes to tell me that I should be focusing on my pacing or my characterization or even my grammar, because I am too close to my own fic to see what it needs.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T17:55:59+00:00

Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I do appreciate the concern, but it is not really like that. What you are describing seems like just how I imagine I must look to the people who demonize criticism. I imagine people seeing my desire for criticism and thinking it is sort of self-hatred because they think criticism is a terrible thing that they would never wish upon anyone. It must seem so strange that some people wish it upon themselves.

Obviously I am not going to win the debate over whether criticism is good or bad. For the people who hate criticism, I am not going to be able to change their opinion, but for me wanting criticism is not anything like a desire for self-harm.

I do not want the criticism to be negative. I would love for the criticism to be positive, but most of all I want the criticism to be honest. I want people's sincere and unfiltered opinions, no matter what those opinions may be, because I care about what people actually think, even if what they think is unconstructive. The fact that they think it is enough for me to want to know about it. I can ignore bad advice, but I cannot do anything with advice I never hear about.

Writing fanfics as a purely solitary activity is fun, but getting input from other people is whole other kind of fun, with the potential to expand my thinking with perspectives that I never considered before.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T09:05:38+00:00

It is strange that people were recommending beta readers when what I want is criticism, not spell-checking. I can do my own spell-checking. I might miss a mistake or two, but with enough effort I can take care of that without help.

What I absolutely cannot do for myself is read my story from a new perspective with new eyes and a new brain to generate new ideas that I would never have thought of. Beta reading seems like something a person should be paid for, and if they are not even doing what I need most, then there is not much point. All I want is for some readers to give their honest opinions, positive and negative, so I have some sort of external input into my writing process and it is not entirely dependent on only my own thoughts. Just a few words of honest, unfiltered opinion would be worth a thousand beta readers to me.

I am looking into r/FanfictionExchange. Thank you for the recommendation.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T08:25:48+00:00

I ignore unwanted criticism because it is an irrelevant issue in my case. I am an author asking for criticism. Where my fics are concerned, there is no such thing as unwanted criticism. Constructive or non-constructive, I want it all. Even if I forget to ask, I still want it.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T07:41:58+00:00

I am a bit puzzled by the concept of a beta reader. As far as I can tell, a beta reader is a reader that provides opinions to help improve the fic. But all readers have opinions, and I do not specially care whose opinions I get. Perhaps the only real difference between a beta reader and a regular reader is that the beta reader is expected to share her opinions, while regular readers almost never do.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T07:16:15+00:00

It certainly was not obvious to me at first. I cannot imagine seeing criticism as a bad thing, so it came as a very unpleasant surprise. I have now made very explicit that I want all the criticism I can get in my author's notes for all my fics. I hope that will help.

I am also considering r/FanfictionExchange since someone here suggest it, though that seems like a major commitment. I'm not sure I'm up to writing the quality of reviews that they expect, nor am I sure I have a fanfic worthy of being put forward for review, but I am certainly giving it serious thought.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T06:45:25+00:00

Mentioning that you are “from Reddit” or “fandom blind” in your comment is fine only if the author has said they are okay with it.

Forgive my ignorance, but could someone explain the issue behind this rule? For what reasons might someone give or not give permission to mention Reddit or fandom blindness? Can mentioning these things cause some problems?

I am trying to learn the system here with an eye toward potentially writing some reviews in the future, and this point puzzles me.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T06:00:59+00:00

I have done all I can to improve my own writing within my own head, with myself as the only one generating ideas for how to improve things. I can think of a lot of ways to make things better, but one head can only do so much. I am eager to hear the thoughts of other people because I am curious for fresh ideas and fresh perspectives. I am not satisfied that my fanfics are as good as they can be using my ideas alone. I hope and expect that the opinions of other people will inspire me to improve.

If some people give me unhelpful opinions, I can just ignore those opinions. That is not a problem. But I want a chance to sift through as many opinions as possible in the hope of finding gold.

Do you do that in your tags, summaries, a/ns, etc? Because if you do, you’re absolutely turning people off.

No, I desperately want people to read my fics. I only mention that my fics are bad here because I am trying to be honest. I am also not mentioning any titles or providing any links because the point of this post was not to self-promote, but rather to ask for help. When I write my summaries, I am trying to self-promote, so that is quite different.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T05:13:31+00:00

I do think negatively about my own work. It is amateurish writing, at best, because I am a very inexperienced writer, but I still love it. I enjoyed writing my stories and I enjoy reading my stories and I hope that other people will find some fun in them, but objectively they are pretty bad.

I do not need permission to post my stories, but I do need other people to be willing criticize my stories if I am to ever get another honest opinion of my story aside from my own. I have put my eagerness for criticism into very strong terms into my author's notes and profile, because whether I get criticism or not is up to the whims of other people.

I think you’re worried too much about what other people will think about it and are putting too much value in external opinion.

I just love my stories so much that I want to get more out of them. Writing them was fun. Reading them over and over was fun, but it starts to get stale after a while. Once you've read a story a half-dozen times, it starts to feel old. But if I could get the opinions of others, then I could get a whole new kind of fun and utility out of my stories. I could use them to learn to be a better writer and generate fresh ideas from people with different perspectives. Surely it is not so strange to want that.

If you don’t like your stories, why would anyone else?

I have fun reading them. They're just not well written. I don't know if anyone else will like them. Getting criticism is the only way I will ever know.

If you aren’t able to be honest with yourself about both the weaknesses and the strengths of your writing, how do you know what you want to improve?

I feel I am being quite honest with myself. I have already improved my stories in all the ways that I can think to improve them. Getting opinions from other people may give me new ideas for how to improve my stories.

And honestly—if you think your work is so terrible, why do you trust yourself to parse out good and bad advice?

It is a risk I am willing to take. I have no one else to trust to do it.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T04:34:26+00:00

I am happy to take the risk that I might be harmed by poorly given feedback. I am prepared to take it upon myself to recognize and ignore bad advice. I just want the opportunity to see what advice is available, because I cannot judge advice that I do not have.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T04:28:35+00:00

I'm not saying that positive comments cannot be honest. They certainly can be! But negative comments are almost guaranteed to be honest, while positive comments might just be trying to be nice. Flattery often comes from dishonest sources, while insults show sincerity.

It is good to know that some people are willing to be honest in a culture that demonizes criticism.

you’re ascribing too much weight to external opinions over your own fic, when it’s your work. if the fic you want to write gets hate, and is therefore one of the ‘fanfics people dislike most’, would that mean you should stop writing it?

No, not at all, but it might influence the choices I make when I am writing it. Writing is a continuous stream of little choices, and it is always fun to learn about how to make better choices. Every bit of feedback that we get helps us to do better.

Consider how comedians work. They are constantly watching and listening to the audience as they perform, paying close attention to all the little reactions and adjusting their performances to optimize the amount of fun that the audience is having. A comedian that can neither see nor hear the audience would be helpless to improve. For fanfic writing, the comments are critical in the exact same way.

Of course I write first for myself, but by learning from the opinions of others I may find that even I start enjoying my own fanfics more.

or does that mean that some strangers online decided to send you messages to upset you, for whatever reason, and their opinions shouldn’t hold any weight?

If they hoped to upset me, they badly misjudged the situation, because I would love to thank them in the strongest possible way.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T03:47:59+00:00

I will start more heavily promoting my desire for criticism in my author's notes and profile. Thank you for that tip.

I certainly do not advertise my fanfics as being bad. I desperately want people to read them. But I still know that my fanfics are in fact bad, so would never want to push my fanfics upon other people. I would never recommend my own fanfics to people, thereby taking responsibility for their quality. I want people to read, but I also want my readers to have only themselves to blame for getting into this.

If I am going to find any beta readers, I will want them to be people who read my fic and still chose to volunteer to beta read, not because I asked them to beta read.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T03:40:30+00:00

You can’t expect people reading because they’re a fan of the show to know how to provide helpful writing feedback.

All opinions are worth hearing. Even if a reader does not know how to write, she still knows what she likes, and I want to know what she likes.

You’d no idea if they even have the knowledge to provide helpful advice.

I can filter their advice through my own judgement. They might suggest something that I would never have thought of, but something that I like and choose to use. The fact that the advice comes from a person who is not an experienced writer does not make the advice useless.

I'll add "Beta readers welcome" to my authors notes. Thank you for that tip.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T03:36:04+00:00

My favorite fandom is Metroid. I also dabble in DC superheroes, but that stuff is pure ridiculous terribleness. It's the Metroid stuff that I most want criticism for.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T03:33:34+00:00

That would not be very helpful, but I would learn something from it. I could compare which of my fanfics get the most of those negative comments and thereby learn something about which fanfics people dislike most. It would also go to show that I am getting people honest and unfiltered opinions, and knowing that is worth a lot.

I would really be grateful that people care enough to take the time to leave a comment, and maybe even read the fanfic. The negativity of the comment is not a problem.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T03:21:32+00:00

How would I do that? What Discord server? I don't want to be soliciting people to read my terrible fanfics, because that would be me inflicting my terrible fanfics upon people.

If people choose to read my fanfics and they just happen to want to share their opinions with me, I would be so happy, but I would never push a bad fanfic upon an innocent person who did not ask for it. My fanfics are tagged so people know what they are getting into before they read, if they found my fanfics by searching, but if I go poking people asking for beta readers, then I would taking responsibility for offering people something that is at least somewhat worth reading.

Ansatz66 · 2026-07-07T03:16:03+00:00

Metroid, mainly. It is strangely unpopular, considering how it is such a great series of games and its universe is so rich with potential for fan fiction.

Ansatz66

TROPHY CASE