#and you have the right not to engage with their creation.

[thescrapwitch]

Tolkien Reading Day 2025

Happy Tolkien Reading Day! Since the theme for this year is Fellowship and Community, I thought I would recommend a few fics that I feel reflect it:

Tend to the Flame by @maglor-my-beloved

The Fëanorians, returned at last, move to Formenos and turn the ruined fortress into a city of crafts and creation, a place of second chances and a home for those who do not know where they belong. Their family grows over the centuries, and Míriel's last work is in time completed. (Or, what if all my blorbos were friends and lived in a cool city together and bonded over an arts&crafts project)

Department of Song and Craft Safety, Review, and Approval by @icryyoumercy

there is a plan to prevent the re-embodied Fëanorians from once again engaging in questionable behaviour or craft. strangely, it doesn't work

White Water Flowing by @starspray

In Valinor and homesick for Imladris, Celebrían decides to build a new one.

The Last Spring by @clothonono

"Perhaps they've had another baby," said Lalwen. "How many are they up to now, five?" "They cannot possibly have had another baby," said Findis. "Can they?" "Perhaps he's coming to visit," said Finarfin. His siblings all glared at him.

to speak, to scream and laugh with the echo by @clockworkcrabofea

In which Maedhros once told Maglor that Angband’s government was very might-to-right so, upon waking up in the past after haunting the shores through the Fourth Age, he decides that he could probably beat up a balrog or two and marches his ass across the Ice to bitch slap Sauron. Sauron finds himself unexpectedly okay with this.

Songbird by @tanoraqui

It was not with heavy heart that Paladin Took approached the Bird's Nest. But his ribs might've been weighty and his liver positively annoyed, and not just from the many fine ales and finer wines he'd consumed throughout his life. It was that damn Lotho again, Lotho Sacksville-Baggins from up Hobbiton way with his air and his Big Men—well, two could play at that game! And if anyone was going to be calling themselves "Chief" in this day and age, it would be the right and proper Thain of the Shire! His blood up, he knocked rather hard on the oversized door. "Maggie! Are you in there? Open up!"

To Live in the Undying Lands by @tathrin

A smattering of snippets set throughout the (im)mortal lives of the remaining members of the Fellowship on the other side of the Sundering Sea.

Anastasis by @chthonion

"Forgive me,” Frodo says in his accented Quenya, the syllables strange in his ears. “I—I have an old wound. It troubles me still, sometimes." "It is I who must ask your forgiveness," says the stranger. "I believe I may be the one who put it there." In Aman, Frodo and Celebrimbor and Finrod forge a friendship, talk about trauma, and deal with the fact that Sauron's ghost is haunting Celebrimbor.

Old bonds remade by @deadqueernoldor

“When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited” Or Maglor is in banishment as decreed by the Valar, but it seems he is the only one who remembers that ‘banishment from elven society’ means that he is supposed to be alone

I forced myself to stick to nine recommendations (to match our favourite Fellowship) but PLEASE add more fics to this list! There are so many amazing Tolkien fics so make sure to reblog this with your own favourites.

Have a lovely day!

[bruciemilf]

Anyway. Frustrated reminder that if artists pour time, energy, passion, thought, and skill into their piece, it’s their right to do whatever the fuck they want with it. Fandom is a playground and you can do what you want always

[lightbulb-warning]

so has anyone figured out WHY there is the Need To Share our Artworks™ or is it just the vibes and our Soul apparently

[ataykiri]

Our stay on this earth is so so short, we’re in such a dream state that we keep forgetting this truth

[getvalentined]

Hey, so, it's all well and good to not like newer titles in an older fandom, but the moment that you say that anyone who does like anything about those titles is ignorant and stupid and wrong, the moment you say that anyone engaging with newer material in a positive way doesn't actually care about the source material, you are completely out of line.

I understand disliking later iterations. I do. I've been there, many times. I understand being upset about a piece of media being taken a direction you didn't want it to go, I understand feeling let down by the handling of new media. I understand lamenting about it with friends, on your blog, whatever. That is perfectly valid behavior, that's part of being a fan of something. It's normal and it's human and it's expected. It's fair. It's your right, in fact.

However.

The instant that you turn that frustration into vitriolic insults toward other fans for having the "audacity" to be excited about newer material, the instant that you decide that you get to choose who is and isn't a "real fan," you are grossly out of line.

That's not up to you. What people get out of a series, what people enjoy about a series, what people want to see in a series—that's not up to you. What the creators do with a series, what direction they take it and what declarations they make—that's not up to you.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being upset, with disagreeing with other people in fandom, or even with disagreeing with the creators. But spouting off about people whose only "crime" is interest, asserting that they don't know what they're talking about, that they don't deserve to be here because they don't feel the way you do? That's pure, unadulterated entitlement.

That's not how media works, and it's certainly not how fandom works.

[sysig]

Your Weekly TV Guide

On Monday you can expect:

2:30 PM: Star Control II - Helix

And Tuesday:

2:30 PM: Star Control II

Wednesday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Thursday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Friday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Saturday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Sunday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Thanks for tuning in! (Patreon)

[tamaharu]

ive inherited a copy of lolita from my parents (i.e. i stole it from the library in our basement and started treating it like its mine) with the 1989 vintage international cover and i think its actually not that bad. better than the 50th anniversary one with the lips anyway imo (which is the cover for the library ebook vers ive checked out).

like i think any cover that incorporates the "only convincing love story of our generation" quote anywhere kind of sucks on principle, and the fact that it features a photo of a girl at all really goes against nabakovs instructions, but compared to other covers that break those two rules, the haziness of the photo creates a really evocative atmosphere i feel matches the book more or less.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

heard someone say archive of our own should install a "dislike" button and I thought I should say this: no, there's absolutely no need for archive of our own to install a "dislike" button.

why? because archive of our own isn't tiktok or youtube or twitter/x where users can monetize their content. archive of our own is a nonprofit site run by fans for fans, which means every content — every fanfic — you see on archive of our own was made out of pure love and passion from the artists/authors.

ao3 authors write because writing about these characters is their happiness and passion. they write for themselves, but they were generous enough to share with you their creations.

they're not "content creators" the way tiktokers or youtubers or instagram models are. they don't "make content" for views and engagements that can be monetized.

so no, you don't get to "grade their works" unless they specifically and directly ask you to.

you don't get to "say what you dislike about their works" unless they specifically and directly ask you to.

you don't get to "dislike" works that are not made specifically to please you in the first place. you're just a guest in someone's house, a house in which they let you in because they were kind, you don't get to roam around their house and say what you dislike about their furniture. you don't get to roam around their house and say you "dislike their house".

of course, you can have your opinion about the house its host invites you in. but if it's a negative one and you find yourself not liking the house, the polite things for you to do is excuse yourself and leave without telling them you dislike their house.

and just because you personally dislike the house doesn't mean the house is "ugly" either. the house you dislike could be a favorite, most luxurious place to many others.

my point is, don't be entitled by wanting the rights to voice your disapproval of things that you get to enjoy for free. don't be entitled by wanting the rights to voice your disapproval of things that were made out of love and passion — things the artists made for themselves for fun.

it makes you look like an entitled jerk with main character syndrome. the universe does not revolve around you.

now repeat after me: don't like don't read. no one forces you to continue reading a fic you don't like. quietly leave instead of being rude to authors who write for free because writing is their source of comfort.

people are so used to contents that were made because it's a trend / contents like tiktok that were made with the main purpose of reaching high engagement and making profits that they forget sometimes things can be made out of love and be made just for fun. sometimes things are supposed to just be for people to enjoy, and if some people don't enjoy them, then they can simply leave without being unnecessary unkind.

[katzirra]

I'm not a musician or a writer but I do feel this can apply about visual works like animations or movies too!

As an artist I love oogling a good piece of media like anyone else, but when it comes to movies my favorite thing in this world is a good piece of cinematography in a film. Holy shit.

Having a friend who works in film, and is crazy passionate about it, who has explained how some things are achieved or handled only makes me analyze shots and movement more these days.

I love the idea of how storyboards work from conception to final shot, and a lot of times when I watch a complex scenes, or see a crazy colorful arrangement I'm lost in that thought train of "how did they achieve that?" "what did that board look like?" "what was the conversation about this like??" I'm lost admiring composition set ups and such.

I think that's kinda the beauty of any kind of media; deconstructing it down to why it's hitting or missing with us. The beauty of discussion and media analysis!!

Why a piece of writing is received well, and what sticks it in the consciousness of the world or what it could do better - what YOU may do different, or what inspires you. There's a reason people love to quote books and writers - reasons sentences stick with you and make you pause at times reading a truly good book. It could be a line about something as simple as the turning of the season, but what words slotted together to make that image might really HIT something.

What a song is doing lyrically that's impressive, or what about the background/instrumental track is good - is that a sample? What are they doing to achieve that little hook that's going on? Are these two things meshing well? There's so many times at work I've put stuff on a playlist to listen to and pick apart later. Playing mostly harmony roles in orchestra in my childhood gave me an appreciation for what's going on in the background, and it's interesting to really LISTEN for that stuff tbh :0

But movies are a big thing for me as an artist... I love going to the movies, sure!! But sitting at home on my PC while I'm working on art? A movie going on half my monitor, and pausing every so often to admire a shot, a composition or a sequence of how a camera moves through a scene? Man. Rewinding and analyzing a shot and how they frame things - visualizing the layout planning? So fun. So neat. Inspiring, truly at times!

Media intake, analysis, deconstruction - whatever have you is so interesting in general. But it's also ya'know, some people just take it in and nod their heads - ALSO VALID!!

okay sorry, one other thing annoyed me about that writing class. one of the students is this super clean-cut doctor who works at an HIV clinic, and he asked the prof "do you ever get distracted while reading books, because you find yourself analyzing the craft of them instead of sinking into the story?"

and she said "no," and turned away. and the whole class laughed awkwardly, bc it was a pretty abrupt and dismissive answer. so then she turned back to him and said "you wouldn't ask a musician if they get distracted listening to songs. they just enjoy the music."

but I dunno, I'm a newbie writer with only one (scheduled-to-be-published) book under my belt, but I get distracted sometimes when I'm reading. if I find I'm not sinking into a block of text, I'll squint at it and be like "okay, they're using too much passive voice, that's why my brain isn't grabbing on to it." so I'm sorry Mr. HIV doctor, I thought your question was reasonable!

[prokopetz]

I think a lot of folks in indie RPG spaces misunderstand what's going on when people who've only ever played Dungeons & Dragons claim that indie RPGs are categorically "too complicated". Yes, it's sometimes the case that they're making the unjustified assumption that all games are as complicated as Dungeons & Dragons and shying away from the possibility of having to brave a steep learning cure a second time, but that's not the whole picture.

A big part of it is that there's a substantial chunk of the D&D fandom – not a majority by any means, but certainly a very significant minority – who are into D&D because they like its vibes or they enjoy its default setting or whatever, but they have no interest in actually playing the kind of game that D&D is... so they don't.

Oh, they'll show up at your table, and if you're very lucky they might even provide their own character sheet (though whether it adheres to the character creation guidelines is anyone's guess!), but their actual engagement with the process of play consists of dicking around until the GM tells them to roll some dice, then reporting what number they rolled and letting the GM figure out what that means.

Basically, they're putting the GM in the position of acting as their personal assistant, onto whom they can offload any parts of the process of play that they're not interested in – and for some players, that's essentially everything except the physical act of rolling the dice, made possible by the fact most of D&D's mechanics are either GM-facing or amenable to being treated as such.*

Now, let's take this player and present them with a game whose design is informed by a culture of play where mechanics are strongly player facing, often to the extent that the GM doesn't need to familiarise themselves with the players' character sheets and never rolls any dice, and... well, you can see where the wires get crossed, right?

And the worst part is that it's not these players' fault – not really. Heck, it's not even a problem with D&D as a system. The problem is D&D's marketing-decreed position as a universal entry-level game means that neither the text nor the culture of play are ever allowed to admit that it might be a bad fit for any player, so total disengagement from the processes of play has to be framed as a personal preference and not a sign of basic incompatibility between the kind of game a player wants to be playing and the kind of game they're actually playing.

(Of course, from the GM's perspective, having even one player who expects you to do all the work represents a huge increase to the GM's workload, let alone a whole group full of them – but we can't admit that, either, so we're left with a culture of play whose received wisdom holds that it's just normal for GMs to be constantly riding the ragged edge of creative burnout. Fun!)

* Which, to be clear, is not a flaw in itself; a rules-heavy game ideally needs a mechanism for introducing its processes of play gradually.

[edenorisshitposting]

Who's the idiot who spread that myth milk is pus? Turns out it spread so badly even my vegan (not brain damaged) roommate believes there's noticeable pus in cow's milk.

[yugsly]

Do you have any advice for artists who so desperately want to create something- anything- but nothing they do feels or comes out right? To the point where it feels like a herculean task to even draft ideas out. I wouldn’t describe it as an art block because it’s been years now, in my case.

I know it’s a bit of a heavy question and the same advice won’t work for every body. I suppose I’m just curious if you’ve ever dealt with similar emotions. Your art plucks my heartstrings and makes me think in ways few other artists have, thank you for making such wonderful creations and thank you for providing the opportunity to engage like this.

It sounds like you need to find your voice. Or, find your Voice again. I have dealt with similar things. I was in a similar slump the past couple of months. ... Uh, like six months. It was Really Bad. Nothing felt right. I forgot why I did art and why I liked it, for a beat, and I felt very lost. Was incredibly hard to draw and think.

What finally took me out of it (I guess I'm still digging myself out, but) was revisiting things that lit my fire to begin with, reminded me what I was fighting for with my visions in the first place. Music, comics, movies! Talking with my friends about those things. Go to the library for a day and dig around. It sounds silly maybe but Trust.

And starting small. Don't start something thinking it has to be Your Big Thing. Something consumable. You gotta do it for yourself. Make something you want to see. Make comics on napkins. Doodle with crayons. You gotta let loose. It sounds silly but you gotta start with, "it ain't that serious." You're just you. Playing dolls. Draw what you WANT to play with. Share it with others if you want to, if that motivates you, but don't let others become the only reason you create.

I don't know if this helps.

Thank you, by the way!

[oc-ology]

How to get past the fear of OC posting

People should create for the sake of creating but people post to engage with the community. However, posting can be intimidating and anxiety-inducing for a lot of people. It’s easy to say “do it scared” but much harder to put into practice. So, I’ve put together a few steps that lead up to doing it scared. These won’t work for everyone and this is meant more as general advice.

Step One: Why are you scared?

The first step is to figure out what about posting is scary for you. Oftentimes, it’s not as simple as “what if my post flops” or “what if people think I’m cringe”. Once you’ve figured out the surface-level reason, dig a little deeper. If your post flops, does that lead to you doubting the worth of what you’re creating? If you’re worried about what people think, is that because you’ve experienced judgement before or are worried your inbox will be flooded with criticism?

Identifying why you’re scared will not only help you understand yourself better (yippee!) but you can also then work on the source of your fears and anxieties at your own pace.

Step Two: Find ways to lessen your fears

One way of working through anxiety online is to find ways to mitigate the specific source of your fear.

Some fears have easier solutions than others. If you’re worried about people criticising your work, you can turn off anonymous asks (as most people are less likely to be haters when there’s a name attached to it) or turn asks off entirely, as well as limiting replies to those who have been following for a week. This way, if someone does want to be an unpleasant individual, it’s a little harder for them to do so.

A lack of engagement is a little harder to remedy. Here, the only real solution is to try and divorce the idea that engagement = worth. Remember why you’re creating an OC. Because it’s fun! It’s an act of creation! Because you want to find a community…? A community or OC friends will never just drop into your lap. You need to seek them out yourself. Look into discord servers, forums, tumblr networks (are they still a thing?), fandom events and exchanges, and most importantly: go out of your way to send asks/questions to others and build friendships with them! If you’ve got social anxiety like me, this is going to be a big challenge. Which leads to the next step…

Step Three: Start small

It doesn’t matter how small your first step is - so long as that step is forwards! If you’re nervous about OC posting, find the smallest thing about them and post it with the expectation of getting no notes. That’s right, I want you to go in and expect it to flop. Anything over one note is an automatic win. This first post isn’t about engagement - it’s about getting over the initial fear of posting. 

It can be tempting to just go right out the gate with elaborate explanations of backstory, lore implications, power levels, everything. But the trick really is to start small. Most people scrolling tumblr aren’t going to read a few thousand words on something they’re not invested in yet. TL;DR is a curse that I’m sure we’ve all fallen victim to. 

Instead, break up information about your OC into small pieces that can be posted one by one and have some kind of visual piece with it. People are usually more drawn to images than text. For example, which of these two things are more visually interesting?

What Perseus keeps in his bag:

Amulet

Tinderbox

A broken blade

50ft of hempen rope

25gp of silver powder

Waterskin

Rations (cheese, bread, sausage)

OR

Obviously this comes down to personal preference but a lot of people would find the illustrated version to be more interesting. You don’t need to be an artist to do this either! You could make a version of that example in photoshop or a similar program. Picrews, moodboards, edits, game screenshots and photography can all be used to add a visual element to your posts.

Step Four: Why am I still scared?

Fear is not easily stamped out. Anxiety is definitely the kind of thing that lingers. These steps aren’t meant to immediately make OC posting not-scary. That’s something that will only come with time as you get used to it. Again: Do it. Do it scared. Gradually, it’ll be less terrifying and in the meantime, you might be able to make a few friends who also want to talk about your blorbo.

[sapphorror]

The Narrator's perspective only gets more horrifying the longer you think about it. Like, imagine being an Echo of yourself—one of many, all made to serve a very particular purpose and knowingly living on borrowed time, if 'living' is even the right word for your current state of pseudo-existence.

You've inherited the mission of a dead man—it's literally the only thing left that you can do before fading, so you sure as hell better believe in it; the alternative would be unbearable. Only you keep failing. With every loop that you don't remember, your lack of agency in this situation becomes starker—you can influence small things, sure, but it becomes increasingly clear that you have no real power, no matter how personally invested you are in the events unfolding in front of you. You are, after all, only an Echo. You've forfeited the right to meaningfully engage with the world.

Worse—every loop you're made aware of is another time you've failed, with unimaginable consequences, though you had no control over these previous iterations of yourself and can't even learn from their mistakes. Everyone around you is operating on a shared perception of reality that you are not part of, will never be part of. After a few repetitions, you are, ironically, the least informed person in the room. All you have left to go on is an evidently outdated script. At the same time, everyone else is experiencing a contiguous version of you, comprised of parts that are, in some sense, also you, while at the same time existing at a complete remove from your current perception of self. Whatever you don't know you did—that's you now. You are, after all, only an Echo. You've forfeited the right to define your own identity, never mind know what it is.

Even worse—this has trapped you within a stagnant hell of your own creation. Nothing you say or do really matters in terms of your own self (the rest of the world is a separate issue entirely). Anything you've come to believe—say, for totally hypothetical example, that you were wrong actually and your envisioned paradise is really a hell beyond any you had the capacity to envision—has about as much permanence as a drawing in the sand. 'You' will continue, exactly as you were, no matter how much you might like to change your behavior. Every possible future has already been set in stone. You are, after all, only an Echo. You've forfeited the right to say anything you haven't already said.

For some reason, no part of any of this has made you feel more comfortable and at peace with the general concept of finality.

The really, truly absolute worst part, though?

There is no one for you to blame but yourself. And that's exactly what turns your story into such a tragedy.

[getvalentined]

An open letter to @staff

I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.

The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.

Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.

This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.

This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.

Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.

You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.

Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.

This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.

You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.

The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.

You can do so much better than this.

Response to the Update

Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.

I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.

Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.

People read it that way because that is what you said.

*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:

136,635 votes breaks down thusly:

An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)

Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)

This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)

[drchucktingle]

Chuck, how do you deal with people who are rude about you and your work? I write queer romance and I want to put my writing out there for people to read, but I'm a very sensitive person and I know it will be hard not to take insults personally and let them affect me. I don't want to let that stop me from expressing myself and sharing my art, but I'm scared!

very good question buckaroo. i am a good example of this as pretty much EVERYONE was rude about my work for many years calling it 'so bad its good' (it is just good) and 'terrible photoshop' (i think it has a great and instantly recognizable style) and 'intentionally stupid premises' (i dont think there is anything stupid about sex being fun and whimsical and playful). even these days the reaction of the VAST majority of buckaroos who discover chuck have this reaction AT FIRST, and then learn to appreciate the tingleverse in a more sincere way over time.

all that is to say BEING DOUBTED HAS WORKED OUT VERY WELL FOR ME. art that changes meaning over time can be very powerful, so if someones initial reaction to my trot is one thing and then it evolves into another thing, well that is just good art. while it can feel bad to get a bad review, i would say a bad review just means you have entered a realm of tension and change and discord and WE ARE TALKIN ABOUT ART BUD so that, in itself, is very exciting.

i think of what i do as 'punk writing', and a big part of that means pushing against preconceived sensibilities. not many other authors will proudly say 'there SHOULD be some spelling errors in my erotic shorts because i wrote it in a day and edited it once. that is the FEELING i want to create', but that is my way. by creating what is in my soul i KNOW i am going to bother some buckaroos and that is okay.

now i am NOT assuming you are also doing punk writing (that is okay of course we all have our own styles. what i am doing with tinglers is pretty rare), but it still stands to remember that there are 7.8 billion people on the planet of this dang timeline and some of them are bound to be bothered by your creations. that is not a problem, that is just part of baring your authentic self.

the other thing to remember is theres no REAL right or wrong in art. it can be analyzed in different ways and i tend to look at it in a way of comparing intention to result, but even THAT is not strictly correct. therefore any bad review of something you make is not actually BAD it is just someones information and feedback for you to take or leave. a one star review is just another opinion, it is no more right or wrong than your own opinion, and that is wonderful. it is freeing.

if i see a bad review of my own book, lets just say CAMP DAMASCUS for instance, i do not get upset because i know this: that reviewer is not wrong. camp damascus is five stars for me, but it is one star for someone else AND THAT IS OK. THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. THAT IS GREAT ART. also MAYBE THEY KNOW BETTER THAN I DO. just because i wrote the book does not mean i am the authority on it, and the conversation and tension between those that enjoy something and those that despise it is a creative act. the audience engaging with your work is just your art emerging from its cocoon and saying 'here i am. lets see where i flutter off to now'

do not fear the river of this timeline sweeping away your creations and carrying them where it will. this is inevitable, but it is also beautiful and freeing. you cannot swim against it and that is okay bud, because YOU HAVE ALREADY WON. you have already created something and given a piece of yourself back to this timeline and that is a great honor and privilege. it is literally all there is

by creating ANYTHING you are proving love is real, and that is something to be proud of