Author's Rant (Squid Ball Possession Edition)

Author's Rant (Squid Ball Possession Edition) — The following is the author's rant, unrelated to the main story. Squid Ball has possessed me. If you're worried it might affect your mood, don't read. Feel free to stay and watch the drama. —

I've been writing for ten years and never responded head-on to anything before. Tomato made me break that rule.

Those people in the reviews who banded together to leave bad ratings with zero reading time, calling themselves my readers—do you even deserve to?

A vicious male villain saying "his mother" means I insult women. Not following the bizarre rules you set for female-lead stories means I insult women. A male lead having a highlight moment in a story with a CP means I insult women.

Who exactly loves carving the word "insult" onto their forehead so much? You've insulted yourselves—don't drag me into it, okay? A proud female lead gets killed by "jealousy," then after turning over, gets killed again by "freeloading."

Let me first explain what happened for readers who don't know. Because the above remarks slapped me with the label of insulting women, I wrote the first version of a content warning at the beginning when the story had hundreds of thousands of readers. I barely changed it afterward and posted it directly in the author's notes as the second version, where it stayed up for at least several months.

Then, at some point, it suddenly got removed by moderation. That's why the author's note in Chapter One now says thanks for gifts—when an author's note gets rejected by moderation, it automatically changes into that day's thank-you message.

Then, a week ago, the review section suddenly filled with bad ratings from people with zero reading time. They said some blogger had put me on blast, specifically