Concrit: To Give or Not to Give?

Sigh. Ever type out a perfectly rational and even-handed critical review for some misguided piece of fanfic that fundamentally misunderstands the personality of one of your favorite characters, then delete the whole thing unsent because the intended recipient is probably fourteen and will construe it as a "flame" or "hating" or somesuch?

People are right when they say that good 'fic doesn't get enough reviews over at ffnet. But the bad stuff doesn't get enough criticism, and I'm sure that part of it is because I'm not the only one who looks at the badfic, looks at the author profile, and says, "Eh. Waste of my time." I'm not talking about sporking or flaming or ad hominem attacks; I mean just kindly pointing out to someone that the premise of their 'fic is based on a view of the character that is flat-out contradicted by the game script. Like, "Character X is not a jealous bastard who would invade other counties if his girlfriend married someone else."

Yeah, it's fanfic. Yeah, we all take liberties. And in a piece of proper length and development, maybe Character X could be transformed into a jealous bastard who invades other counties over being jilted. But sometimes stuff just hurts.



ETA: The charming little 'fic that sparked this turns out to have been plagiarized. I have my facts in line and they are going down. Mwa ha ha.