*The title is a bit misleading, I just needed to vent somewhere...This has nothing to do with kpop, but with writing/fanfiction comments in general.

If you read my "About Me" section, you also know I have a fanfiction.net account. I peruse it occasionally, and recently I read a bunch of Elementary (US television show) related stories. I left a review on one of the stories, observing while the writer had Sherlock Holmes's character written perfectly, her Joan Watson sounded a lot like him. I added that the concept was interesting and I thanked her for the read. (This is my actual review: "Ha, how interesting. I think you got Sherlock's personality down pat but maybe a little more work on Joan's, she kinda sounds like him here. Anyway, thanks for the read :)")

The next day, I saw a message in my inbox, opened it, and was shocked to read that this author of the Elementary story had known my comment meant well but it had "rubbed her the wrong way," attacking me that even though I had felt Joan's character needed work, I didn't add anything more to my review, I should've given her constructive criticism: what I didn't like about her Joan, what she could've done to improve, etc. She explained that the characters are hard to write and then said that she knew her portrayal of the character needed work, that me pointing it out was unnecessary; she said she hated comments like mine, ones that only mentioned the problem at the surface without digging into it.
I could tell she was frustrated, but I didn't understand where her emotions were coming from because my comment was meant to be harmless...I sat in my chair for a good five minutes in disbelief, re-reading my review a few times, re-reading her message ten more times, looking at her profile, looking at my profile.

SO GUESS WHAT I DID.

I replied. Y'all should've known XD

I said I understood the Elementary-verse persons were complex and that because of this realization, I couldn't very well give her constructive criticism. I told her that if she knew her character wasn't as good as she hoped it to be, she should've just taken my recognition as constructive critism, that if I can see that Joan isn't an accurate portrayal then other readers probably see it too.
I meant to leave my reply at that, but then I went into a full blown list of things that were like and unlike the show's lead female character in the writer's story, in my opinion, so she could think about it (because that's what she wanted).
I told her I looked at the other reviews on her story and that they were all positive. Did she ask them individually to give her more criticism, what they liked about it? Why did she have to attack my mostly positive comment, because I gave a tiny bit more insight than theirs?
At the end, I wrote something like, "You knew I meant well, but you also could have replied to it better."

Today, I check my inbox again and I see there's a message. I go to click it AND GUESS WHAT IT SAYS.

"Private Message Denied. You are not allowed to pm this user."

LOOOOOOOOOOOL OMG I'M CRYING XD XD XD XD XD XD XD

I literally laughed out loud though...Does that make me a horrible person? (MissMinew, I expect you to answer this (; )

But hold on a second, THERE WAS A MESSAGE. I swear to God the writer replied to my response (because there's a "3" in the message thread: first message from her, one from me, another from her...unless the third one was just her letting me know she blocked me?), BUT I CAN'T SEE IT. She couldn't even wait a day to block me so I could read what she wrote back? BECAUSE WHAT IF SHE DID. I want to know what she wrote back!

But yeah, I can't even copy and paste her first message and my reply message. I wanted you guys to read those too; the entire thread is blocked for me. Most of you wouldn't be able to read half of it though: she's from France and half of her message was in French; my reply message was 75% English, 25% French and that was amazing for me :P

*deep breaths*

So yeah, that's it. I even wrote a little rant on my fanfiction profile page, including her username LOL. So savage, but she won't let me pm her anymore ^^

Did I say something wrong? I personally don't think I did, and I think she could've handled her reply better. Maybe something more along the lines of, "Hey, thank you for your review but could you please elaborate what you meant by 'a little more work'? In what ways were the characters similar and what didn't you like about Joan? I would love to have a conversation!"
Haha, maybe not totally like that, but something like that? Is that so hard to ask?

Also, I find a good golden rule about "negative" comments is to take a day or more and think about how you would like to respond to the person. There's a good chance the reviewer didn't mean to be unkind (written word is hard to decipher), and I found that a lot when I replied to those people (I would usually mention that I found their tone of voice in their comment to be attacking which I didn't appreciate, and they would respond that it wasn't their intent to be condemning). Don't write in the spur of your sad/mad/frustrated/annoyed feelings because more problems could arise from that; write a response when you've calmed down and had time to think about their point of view too.

Alright, I didn't mean for that to get so long, but there it is. Let me know what you thought of the situation too! Maybe I was in the wrong from my initial review...