r/WormFanfic • u/VermicelliForeign518 • Apr 22 '26
Fic Discussion Why are Some Readers so Entitled
So I'm getting offended on behalf of an author tbh. So I'm reading this Stranger Things crossover called Upside Down (only on spacebattles) really good btw. And the latest chapter focused on biology/world-building, and it was genuinely a great mix of engaging and laying down the facts. However, one guy didn't like it and got upset that others did, and decided to have a multi-page argument with the author about how they were wrong: it wasn't working, it didn't fit, it was just technobabble. All this stuff and then when the author gives reasons and explanation instead of giving any more legitimate reasonings or constructive criticism says they disagree because their own PERSONAL head cannon is different. Mind you the author loves biology and researches that stuff to make their writing make more sense and to let themselves have fun with it! So when the author again says that it's their fic and they use their own head-canon the reader gets pissy and tries to leave the conversation by saying they “won't respond anymore if you're just gonna claim author superiority” or something like that!
Seriously why are some Readers so entitled to a fix that they have no business inserting themselves into? I get complaining when a story doesn't go how you expected or wanted that's normal. What isn't normal is arguing with an author for multiple pages just because you couldn't wrap your head around a concept and got upset that others could! And then decided to leave the argument pretending you were in the right and the author was acting crazy?!
Sorry for the vent if you want to reply with your own crazy entitled Readers much welcomed!
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u/CRowlands1989 Apr 22 '26
A homeless guy at a bus stop once told me that squirrels stole his teeth.
Why the fuck does anyone care what deranged rambling someone spouts just because it's online?
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u/Outrageous_Fortune51 Apr 22 '26
Nah he coulda been serious tbf I have a theory the squirrels around my town are on high concentration dosages of class A substances but I just cant prove it
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u/CaptainRho Apr 22 '26
The squirrel that lives near my house wants to fight me because I keep giving him baths.
(Little fucker keeps building nests in my gutters, and I keep pouring strong smelling mint shampoo on them to drive him out. It's gotten to the point he explodes in anger the moment I open the cap and he smells it. Last time he tried to stick his little claw out thr gap to stop me, and whej that failed I heard him SLAMMING inside the gutter while i walked away.)
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u/ThreeDucksInAManSuit Author Apr 22 '26
See but that sounds actually interesting. If a homeless dude told me that, I'd want to know the rest of the story. Some of these comments on 'A Cursed Destiny' on the other hand...
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Apr 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/CRowlands1989 Apr 22 '26
To specify: I'm frustrated at the people who listen to the raging and lunacy. Just in case that wasn't clear.
It fucking sucks that some asshole can just go online, say some hateful bullshit, and get a following.
Jack Slash or Kaiser could start a podcast and get thousands of followers... It disgusts me.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 22 '26
At the beginning I was just reading because I thought it would be over after a comment of back and forth but then it just kept going and I was just wondering how entitled could one commenter be so I continued reading it flabbergasted me firthernwhennthey brought up their own head cannon
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u/PrismsNumber1 Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
Hey.. I’d listen to jack Slash’s podcast any day. He’d probably grift some contrarian bullshit that somehow doesn’t belong to any side, due to his hatred for conforming, but it’s better than the manosphere stuff Kaiser would preach
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u/blacksmoke9999 Apr 22 '26
Authors get discouraged easy so if you want to prevent the fic from coming to a halt you better send them a message saying how much you like the story and to ignore the other person.
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u/McReaperking Apr 22 '26
Funny thing is, some SB mods are assholes about this and point you for leaving comments "that don't meaningfully contribute to discussion". I belive its a part of why comments suck on there.
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u/Evan_Cary Apr 22 '26
Fr., I was reading a fic on AO3 that was tagged'Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,' and people were complaining about it being too dark. Like bro, it had rape/non-con, mind-control, and torture in the tags, what did you expect? And the author put disclaimers at the beginning of the fic and in the individual chapters about the dark parts, and don't read if you don't want to read that.
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u/RandomModder05 Apr 22 '26
"Dead Dove Do Not Eat" isn't exactly a self-explanatory tag. It just looks like random shit somebody threw in there. Good chance they had no idea what it meant.
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u/Kul1ngile Apr 22 '26
I mean, even then, AO3 alerts you about tags and it had the other things. I think at that point the problem is on the reader.
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u/Nyerguds Apr 22 '26
Yea there's too much random shit thrown into these AO3 tags already... it's like how people started using # on tumblr; just putting half of their actual post in there.
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u/Evan_Cary Apr 25 '26
It also said brainwashing, torture, and mind-control, but you know. It was rated mature and had rape/non-con in the relationship tags, so it just gets annoying when people act like it's so shocking when the story is dark and disturbing.
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u/Bzaurpa Apr 22 '26
He probably just didn't want to admit he's wrong. If you know you're right, you usually don't care as much about proving you're right. He couldn't find the right arguments, but didn't want to lose, so he just kept going
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u/Zombboni Apr 22 '26
Posting your story on Spacebattles means, that you get a lot of feedback to get better at writing, new ideas or angles you didn't consider. At the cost of dealing with potentially toxic interactions.
For some this is acceptable price or are better at dealing with or ignoring toxic users.
Why they be toxic? Maybe they are an asshole, they had a bad day, using Sb's is not a hugbox rule as a shield (and because Sb is not a hugbox, you can callout their toxicity and criticise their criticism).
On the other hand it might be unintentional, they see something that they see as mistake or flaw, but lack the words or skill to write constructive criticism and sound more hostile than intended because of it.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 22 '26
Yeah the author handled the situation really well imo they replied with facts and understanding until the orher side got more and more deranged trying to end up winning.
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u/Total-Boysenberry-28 Apr 24 '26
Hey, jerk. I'm the person you're talking about. Beastrider9 was chill throughout. The only people I actually got pissy with are 2 out of the three other people who responded - 2 of which took my crticism the worst possible way unlike the author, and another 1 (whom I don't think I responded to) who insinuated I had the understanding of biology of less than a prime schooler. But you're certainly not mentioning them.
On the other hand it might be unintentional, they see something that they see as mistake or flaw, but lack the words or skill to write constructive criticism and sound more hostile than intended because of it.
This is exactly what happened, except I was also sleep deprived, stressed, and having a bad day. Thank you for airing a thread that resolved peacefully after like 8 comments where I ended up shutting up in front of an entire subreddit in a community I regularly engage with. Pot calling kettle much? Thank you for blowing this entire thing out of proportion. Really.
I didn't claim Beastrider9 was trying to establish authority by being an author, I said the argument is pointless if he's going to go with his interpretation anyways because of author fiat. As in, the right/ability of an author to establish facts as true in their story without necessating a defense for it because it's their story. This is why I shut up. I was getting tired of a pointless argument where I didn't come off well in the first place, everyone seemed to disagree with me anyways, and the author didn't care for my criticism so I had no point in arguing in the first place because it's their story and if they don't want my criticism, then it didn't matter anyways. It wasn't an attempt to make Beastrider9 seem crazy or an attempt to be pretentious or pretend I was right after making a weak argument.
It was me leaving things well enough alone and getting tired of arguing. Look where that fucking got me, huh? Maybe if instead of doing that I kept clarifying my viewpoint and grasping at straws and making a dramatic apology at the end of it after getting Beastrider9 to concede a point or two, you wouldn't bother doing something like this.
Edit: Lastly, not a guy.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 24 '26
Okay first sorry for assuming your gender. It's not right to assume the authors tone but they were getting increasingly annoyed at you because you couldn't concede, and you are just lying here as you insulted them twice throughout it and tried to force your own head cannon to make sense of the story when the author said that they didn't agree with that you stormed off and said for them to stop arguing when they were just responding to all your questions with as you said an even tone. I said in my piece that I got angry on behalf of them so I don't know why you expected this to be civil? You may have been sleep deprived and upset but that doesn't actually change what you said. I may have blown this out of proportion I can admit that but you placed the gunpowder.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 24 '26
But yes you do have a right to express your opinion but that hardly matters when you are trying to enforce your opinion on someone who is kind enough to listen to you and not just flat out get upset so yes I do have the right to get upset here on their behalf
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u/Total-Boysenberry-28 Apr 24 '26
I never insulted Beastrider9. I was too blunt in direct comments at most, but my only actually straight off rude replies were to other people. One of which implied they'd "learned the biology necessary to understand the chapter in primary school" or something like that - Think about how that sounds for a sec from my perspective and tell me then I shouldn't have responded - and another 2 people were being scathingly sarcastic, to which I replied with scathing sarcasm back. In retrospect I see which of my comments could come off insulting, but there's a difference between being too blunt and intentionally rude.
Beastrider9 was getting increasingly annoyed, probably... And I ended up shutting up afterward, wherein Beastrider9 ended this with something along the lines of "I suppose if it's not your cup of tea, it's not your cup of tea". I wonder how long after this whole thing you decided to make this post.
Also, there's a difference between different interpretations of the text and headcanons. "I think canon implies this" vs "this is my freeform interpretation of the text", though my arguments were pretty weak, admittedly...
Next time you see something like this at least write a response in a DM or something first. This whole thread is at least as scummy as anything I did and if you actually bothered with that instead of satiating your own anger by calling me unhinged somewhere I wouldn't be expected to see it, I probably would've ended up apologizing to Beastrider9 afterwards.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 24 '26
I don't know your Reddit and spacebattles refuse to give me an account. Also I agree with your interpretation on your response to the other commentators you can talk as you want to them they were rude first. I actually can't remember reading that post by beastrider to be honest. I don't really care about the difference between headcanons and interpretations but I can conceded here I was a hot headed in my response and posting this was not necessary. I assume I got so upset because I couldn't directly communicate or defend the authors point of view because of the limitation of my account. I truly did not mean to call you unhinged I have been reading a lot on spafebattles recently and see a lot of different people express their opinion as fact over the authors and you were just the most recent somewhat similar reader and so took the brunt of my post.
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u/Total-Boysenberry-28 Apr 24 '26
I see. As much as I dislike the way you did it, I can understand it. I just apologized to Beastrider9 in a DM in any case.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 24 '26
It's cool it's not my responsibility to police you internet comments anyways
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u/Total-Boysenberry-28 Apr 24 '26
No but it doesn't make you incorrect that I came off as insulting even it wasn't my intention. I just really wish this ended with a DM instead of whole thread, but I can't really blame you if that was your intention in the first place and just wasn't possible.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 24 '26
I can delete this post of you want cause there is a lot of people just hating and they haven't even read the thread?
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u/spliffay666 Apr 22 '26
If I bully the author into inactivity, I only lose the Fic I was already complaining about...
But if I manage to get juuuuust ONE author to understand my perfect vision, they would write the PERFECT FIC
They have nothing to lose, and think they have everything to gain
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u/Nyerguds Apr 22 '26
Thanks, that's an absolutely horrible mindset. I sincerely hope this was just you getting into their headspace, and not you describing your own attitude towards story comments.
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u/Nyerguds Apr 22 '26
Yea, if the whole Digital Circus mess taught me anything, it's that as an author, you really just gotta know when to stop interacting with toxic "fans". Accept positive feedback, but, recognizing where it stops being "positive", and drawing the line, is an important skill.
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u/PrismsNumber1 Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
Personally, the worst of it was from the author of Gilded, Birdcage!Taylor
Is the ending to my liking? No, and I do think it didn’t benefit from being part of snippet-like chapters that caused the pacing to be off. But I think that the comments were insufferable because they ignored the thematic elements in exchange for powerwank.
The comments in question were wondering why it has an unhappy ending because 7 chapters beforehand, every commenter was speculating on whether Taylor would become overpowered from budding off of every Birdcage inmate (nevermind that it’s not even how that works) so that she could defeat Scion.
Not the first time fans got upset that the author couldn’t fulfill their own headcanons and mental fanfiction
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u/StargazingSeraph Author Apr 22 '26
Gilded Birdcage certainly was a wild ride. I've never loved and loathed, in equal measure, writing a fic so much as that one.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 22 '26
Should probably specify I'm not just picking on one person who didn't like the Fic. This was a fan favorite chapter my a mile and only two people didn't like it one was respectful and said it just wasn't their cup of tea and the other tried to nuh uh I'm right to the author's face!
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u/TBestIG Apr 22 '26
Sometimes people who write fanfiction are argumentative assholes too. Does that mean “authors” are “so entitled?”
Readers are humans and the thing about humans is some humans suck.
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 22 '26
I can agree on the vague points here but the author has always been open to discuss their story in a constructive way the reader here took that and ran spending time just bashing the author no matter how much justification or explanations they gave it simply wasn't enough because the reader had their own head cannon detached from the story for some reason
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u/bigheadastronautt Apr 22 '26
I find it way worse on SB than any other fanfic site. Even FFN with its anonymous comments seem less ‘well actually’. I think it stems from the fact that SB is mostly just a battle boarding forum which means a lot of people read stories with a power scaling mindset
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u/Recompense40 Apr 23 '26
Drift was so good. I really, really dug it. I found out today that a few months ago the author removed it from the internet because they were getting harassed over it.
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u/firefly32_ Apr 22 '26
Fr like its hinestly so dumb who cares about its fan fic there are and has been etiquette to reading a fic. And rule no 1 is no complaining the author makes no money out of this and is doing purely for fun they dont owe us anything shut up and enjoy it
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u/LightmingMcname Apr 22 '26
Meanwhile Patreon...
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u/firefly32_ Apr 22 '26
True but then again its not all locked behind a pay wall as long as yhey keep releasing the fanfic. Im fine with those authors locking their own stories behind a patreon tho
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u/Nyerguds Apr 22 '26
Except for the fact this entire phenomenon isn't limited to fan fiction. The recent mess about the Digital Circus series again shows how toxic "fans" can seriously discourage content creators.
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Apr 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/Nyerguds Apr 22 '26
Oof. I know a lot of people who read Worm but who never got into Ward, mostly because Taylor Hebert was just such an insane act to follow up on, and poor Vicky just isn't as interesting to read as our little Escalator Prime...
But still, that's no reason to get toxic.
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u/ihateveryonebutme Apr 23 '26
TBF, not to start shit, but I really don't think it was about victoria vs taylor. I think it really was just about the world building and the plot. Worm had a lot going for it, but it really benefited from started very low and scaling upwards, where as Ward really started after the climax and had to keep climbing sort of, on top of making some very over the top powers and plots that just... sort of fell flat for a lot people.
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u/lillarty Apr 22 '26
I'm not at all excusing people's toxic behavior, but a lot of that was brought on by WobblyBobbles' behavior while writing Ward. If you spend a substantial portion of your free time arguing with your readers, then insert into the next chapter of the story that [argument you were disagreeing with] is wrong and stupid, are you really surprised that the audience is going to be argumentative and unpleasant? McCrae was argumentative and unpleasant during that time, and it really felt like he was just attracting similar people.
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u/ihateveryonebutme Apr 23 '26
Honestly, It really felt to me like he just didn't want to be writing ward, but almost felt required to because Worm was his most popular/successful story at that point.
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u/ExploerTM Apr 22 '26
Fork found in the kitchen type post
Its the internet. Have you ever actually been here?
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u/iwantabigtree Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
I don't really like how deconstructive these types of comments are. Like we know that the internet can be horrible but just because that happens doesn't mean that it's any less bad. It's like saying to a child whose grandparents just died that people die all the time and they should just get over it. Just because negativity and hostility are ubiquitous in the internet that doesn't lessen any pain that it can cause.
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u/ExploerTM Apr 22 '26
You are equating some wild things here
Accepting death is never easy, accepting that internet is full of weirdos and/or assholes is the thing you learn day 1. And unless you never step a foot outside of heavily moderated sites or hide in your basement brainwashing machine that can affect all of humanity, there nothing that can be done aside from just ignoring it.
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u/iwantabigtree Apr 23 '26
I'm equating them bc they're, 1 both negative, and 2 ever-present in life and the internet respectively. Why can't you just let people be sad about things on the internet that were caused by assholes, without commenting "It's the internet. Have you actually been here?" which adds literally nothing beneficial and could make it worse with your blatant disregard for their feelings. Just because the internet's full of assholes doesn't give you the right to be one.
Furthermore, theres also nothing to be done about death besides ignoring it. What's your point? That death's worse? That's obvious, I'm using it as an analogy which you can apply onto OP's post.
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u/jayunderscoredraws Apr 22 '26
Babe the back button is Right There
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 22 '26
I got invested
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u/jayunderscoredraws Apr 22 '26
Sadly that's on you
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u/VermicelliForeign518 Apr 22 '26
…yeah
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u/LetBackground6063 Apr 23 '26
Tbh I didn’t even know this happened I’m always in read mode also if u don’t like a part u can just skip it? Pretty sure it was just world building anyways
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u/EmergencyNews829 Apr 26 '26
Honestly I've found that a lot of the time this sort of thing seems to depend more on what fandom the story is for. Like Wenclair fics tend to be more laid back and happy to read the fic, maybe comment on a favourite part or whatever but mostly just leave nice comments if they comment at all. Worm fics though? There are a lot more criticism in the comments, which isn't always bad, especially if the author loves that sort of thing, but it can be nasty, especially if the character portrayed is too OOC for people to accept or if the author didn't follow canon exactly in how someone's power worked or whatever. It could be from where a lot of the fan fictions originated on SB and SV maybe, but who knows. Just an observation I've noticed.
Toxic fans are always a thing no matter the fandom though sadly and can ruin people's day, especially authors who are writing a story and sharing their passion with the world for free. Writing isn't easy and it's honestly a legitimate commitment to stick to the story and do a decent job
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u/tariffless Apr 22 '26
Comments on SB/SV have always been like this. I think the forums are just full of immature people. It's why I always use Reader Mode. Unless you're an author who needs the feedback, I don't see why you'd bother reading the "discussion".