Darkscribes Blog for Rommel

On developing news...

January 29, 2008 | 2 Comments

If you thought EFO's QC was fucked up you haven't seen nothing yet.

After having a story in the cue--which, if the hit count is accurate (well, on EFO it had close to 90 with only six people having access to it, so I wonder) I'm sure you have all read by now--for a month trying to get it looked at, and getting excuse after excuse I get this comment from IO: 

 

"Ikarus Onesun has posted a comment to Power Plays, below is the comment.

You know, you're not a bad writer at all, Rommel. But having skills is one thing, and having a certain degree of taste is another. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against lemons in general (although I wouldn't exactly list them as a favourite genre). Lemon content works for me as long as it's handled maturely and makes some sort of contribution to the overall plot. But rapefics are another thing altogether, and they're not the kind of thing I want to read at all, or want to see here on EFO. It's a shame, because I honestly think you can do a lot better than this, and I don't want you to take this rejection as a putdown, because it's clear that you *can* write. Your characterization is quite good and your spelling and grammar is pretty clean for the most part. But if your only purpose with this work is to tittilate and shock the reader, than post it on mediaminer with my blessing. And if you can come up with something that handles mature themes more... maturely, then by all means send it our way."

 

 

My immediate reply, as you may guess, was to suggest that next time this supposed controler of "Quality" should, you know, read the fucking story before making an ass out of himself. You know, out of respect for the author if nothing else. Of course, in the effort of being "mature", it went like this:

 

"Your comments leave me with the nagging suspicion that you didn't even read the whole story. That is the only explanation for having missed the point so spectacularly. At least I can say Fresh C and Himonkey got it despite the rejection. I know I can write, trust me, so hearing that is not what I want from the QC. Instead I should hope for you to be able to pick out the themes and underlying context of the story.

I understand this is not a clear cut lemon. Certainly it is not meant to be because Evangelion does not lend itself to such a simplification. Rather, it is meant to explore relationships between complex characters through a complex, if physical and controversial, interaction such as sex, and through their actions, intentions, etc. Again, your failing to grasp any of these and to see anything about the story beyond the fact it is grammatically and orthographically clean point to you not having read it in anything other than passing.

And so does the implied accusation of immaturity. Considering the QC has seemingly had such trouble with this story--a fact I'm very proud of--and the comments from both Fresh C and Himonkey, it is a completely empty qualification. But I suppose it's the prerogative of the critic to try to slander that which he does not understand or doesn't take the time (well, you did have a month so that's no excuse) to read carefully enough to form any sort of informed opinion.

Sorry to call you out, but everything in your comments can be arrived by a simple cursory glance at certain "controversial" parts without any of the surrounding context, and nothing points out to you actually having given any thought to the story itself as whole.

But that's just MY opinion, so whatever."

 

Yep. Ladies and gentlemen, here you have you the reason EFO is a carcass of it's former self. Too sad, really.