author intentions and reader interpretation

So, way back in the beginning of February, the night before I had a 9am class, I stayed up past 5am, absolutely enthralled by this amazing fic--but when I went to bed, my predominant feeling was of dissatisfaction, because of an author's note at the very end of the fic. The next time I posted here, I mentioned that I had a lot of meta-ish rambling to do about author's notes, but that February ended up being the crappiest month I've had in a long time, so I never got around to actually rambling. But for some reason, I've been thinking about that again, so I wanted to get down my thoughts.

First, a sort-of disclaimer. I will be directly referencing the fic that inspired this, to use as an example to explain just what rubbed me so much the wrong way, though I will be fairly vague, since it's just an example, and not the main focus of this post. I'll be using examples from published authors too, contemporary and not. This ramble might end up controversial as it is, but I want to make clear that I'm not going after anyone in particular. *cough* Anyway.

( There are some things I think authors just shouldn't talk about )