"This is ass."
A young man's voice echoed into the empty room. His keyboard made wretched sounds like something 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 same time. 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 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 me hooked. But I guess the author is too lazy to do anything with it.
Send.
A young pale man with messy black hair leaned back on his chair. The chair made a noise like something about to give up on its own existence.
He grabbed his coffee and took a sip. Cold. He didn't care.
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 comment thread under chapter 2,045. Other readers were losing patience too. Some were nicer about it. Some weren't. Arthur was somewhere in the middle, which was saying something because he had once written a four paragraph breakdown of why a side character's arc was structurally offensive.
He meant 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 somewhere 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 home 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 some 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 time.
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 comments for this man to quit on me. 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 comments too harsh? He went back and scrolled through his comment history on the novel. Some of them were pretty brutal. He knew that. But he had been honest. Every single time he had been honest, and honesty was more than most readers bothered with.
He wasn't going to apologize for caring enough to say something.
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 comments.
So the author actually reads them.
Arthur chewed on that for a second. Then typed.
I'm sorry if I came across harsh, but I still stand by what I said. Your novel was a disappointment. And the fact that you're quitting now says a lot. It hurts watching something 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 time ago and saved everyone the trouble.
A new message came in.
If you know so much better than me, 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 message.
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 name 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 something was burning through him from the inside.
Water. I need—
His knees gave. The floor came up fast and met 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 slammed back into his own skull like he'd been dropped from somewhere high.
Arthur opened his eyes.
His knuckles were stinging. Tingling. That kind of deep soreness that only comes after impact.
He looked at his hand. Blood was smeared 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, some with trays. Whispering about something.
The room was big. Stone walls. Long tables. A cafeteria, maybe, but not any cafeteria Arthur had ever seen. High ceilings. The smell of something warm and starchy in the air.
"Vex?" Someone 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 alarmed.
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 remembered. The knuckles already bruising.
Vexis.
That name.
That name was in the novel.
He knew that name.
His stomach dropped somewhere past the floor.
What the actual hell is going on.