"This is ass."
A young man’s voice echoed into the empty room. His keyboard made wretched sounds like sothing on its last legs.
Your novel is so redundant it’s actually unreadable. The main character is weird, the plot is slow and fast at the sa ti. The pacing is nonexistent. I genuinely don’t know how you managed to make a world this interesting feel this boring.
Send.
He sighed.
This novel has ACTUAL GENUINE POTENTIAL. I was very intrigued at the start of this series. The power system is unique and the world building is actually pretty decent. The first fifty Chapters had hooked. But I guess the author is too lazy to do anything with it.
Send.
A young pale man with ssy black hair leaned back on his chair. The chair made a noise like sothing about to give up on its own existence.
He grabbed his coffee and took a sip. Cold. He
swallowed it anyways.
Arthur had been spending his weekends like this for about two years now. Sitting at his computer, leaving unsolicited criticism on webnovels for no real reason.
He told himself it was for fun. Told himself he didn’t actually care whether the authors listened or not.
He was lying, but whatever.
He scrolled up and read the comnt thread under Chapter 2,045. Other readers were losing patience too. So were nicer about it. So weren’t. Arthur was sowhere in the middle, which was saying sothing because he had once written a four paragraph breakdown of why a side character’s arc was structurally offensive.
He ant every word of it.
"Reckoning of the Mages" was the kind of novel that made him genuinely angry because it refused to be bad from the start. It had pulled him in. The magic system was unlike anything he had read on the site. The world felt real. The first arc had actual tension, actual consequences. He had stayed up three nights in a row reading through the early Chapters like a man possessed.
Then sowhere around Chapter 300 it started to wobble. By Chapter 600 it was a different novel entirely. By Chapter 1,000 he was hate-reading it and he knew it and he kept going anyway.
That was the thing about a story with real potential. It was harder to let go of than a bad one.
He hovered the mouse over the ho button.
Should I hop onto another one? There’s no point waiting around if the author isn’t going to turn this around.
A notification popped up.
[ LazyTurtle has made a thread ]
Oh?
The author posted a thread?
He clicked it.
-----
Dear readers, I have so unfortunate news. I’ve been working hard these past few years trying to deliver the story I envisioned. And sadly, I was disappointed in myself. Not only that, I disappointed you guys as well.
After months of thinking, I’ve decided to stop writing this story.
Thank you for everything.
-----
Arthur read it twice.
Then he leaned forward and read it a third ti.
Huh.
The author is actually dropping this.
He sat back. Looked at the ceiling. Then looked at the screen again.
I did not just read over 2,000 Chapters and leave 300 comnts for this man to quit on . On everyone.
Hell nah.
He clicked the author’s profile and typed.
Hey. Why are you dropping? Don’t give up now. You spent years on this. Actual years of your life. And you’re going to walk away from it right now?
Sent.
He stared at the cursor.
...Were my comnts too harsh? He went back and scrolled through his comnt history on the novel. So of them were pretty brutal. He knew that. But he had been honest. Every single ti he had been honest, and honesty was more than most readers bothered with.
He wasn’t going to apologize for caring enough to say sothing.
A typing bubble appeared.
I simply didn’t understand how writing works. Or how my characters and world work. Thank you for reading and for putting effort into your comnts.
So the author actually reads them.
Arthur chewed on that for a second. Then typed.
I’m sorry if I ca across harsh, but I still stand by what I said. Your novel was a disappointnt. And the fact that you’re quitting now says a lot. It hurts watching sothing with real potential get dropped because the person handling it just gave up on it.
He exhaled. Hit send.
Leaned back again.
The chair creaked dangerously beneath him.
He looked at his monitor, then at the wall, then back at the monitor. Outside his window the city was doing its usual thing. Traffic.
Arthur picked up his coffee again. Put it back down without drinking it.
If this author is such a crybaby, honestly, he should’ve dropped it a long ti ago and saved everyone the trouble.
A new ssage ca in.
If you know so much better than , why don’t you try writing it yourself?
Arthur’s eyebrows went up.
He pushed his bangs back with one hand and stared at the screen.
This arrogant little—
Another ssage.
I dare you. Go ahead and fix it. You clearly know better than the author, right? Best of luck.
Arthur.
He went still.
Stared at the na on the screen.
Huh? How does he know my—
Searing pain split through the back of his eyes. Arthur shoved back from the desk and hit the floor on his knees.
What is this. What is happening.
I can’t see.
His vision went sideways. Everything in the room tilted and blurred at the edges. The pain behind his eyes crawled down his throat and into his chest and kept going, spreading out through his arms and his stomach and his legs until his whole body was lit up like sothing was burning through him from the inside.
Water. I need—
His knees gave. The floor ca up fast and t his face.
He lay there for a second, cheek against the floor, fingers spread out like that was going to help anything.
Wait.
Am I dying?
What the hell.
I don’t even have a girlfriend yet—
Everything went black. Then a wall of noise hit him from every direction at once and he slamd back into his own skull like he’d been dropped from sowhere high.
Arthur opened his eyes.
His knuckles were stinging. Tingling. That kind of deep soreness that only cos after impact.
He looked at his hand. Blood was sared across his knuckles.
He looked up.
A young man with brown hair was on the ground in front of him, crying, hand cupped around a nose that was leaking badly.
People stood in a loose ring around them both, so with trays. Whispering about sothing.
The room was big. Stone walls. Long tables. A cafeteria, maybe, but not any cafeteria Arthur had ever seen. High ceilings. The sll of sothing warm and starchy in the air.
"Vex?" Soone to his right. "You okay? You just completely broke his nose, man."
Arthur turned his head. Green hair. A guy his age was looking at him with an expression caught between impressed and alard.
Arthur looked left. Right. Turned all the way around.
Where am I.
Who are these people.
What just happened.
"I’m sorry, Master Vexis!"
The bleeding young man on the ground pressed his forehead down. Bowing. Blood dripping from his face. "I won’t look at your eyes again! I swear it! Please don’t—"
Vexis.
Arthur looked down at his own hands again.
Pale. Longer fingers than he rembered. The knuckles already bruising.
Vexis.
That na.
That na was in the novel.
He knew that na.
His stomach dropped sowhere past the floor.
What the actual hell is going on.
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