#because when you say you want feedback

[tennessoui]

it’s like baby gorl there’s no way I, the author who wrote the fic you’re commenting on and who is the intended audience for this comment, am gonna agree with you 😿🙏 some things can just stay on your chest 🙏

[thepoisonroom]

'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.

I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.

About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'

-Casey Plett, Consciousness

[nientedal]

On Constructive Criticism.

Hey friends. You ever want to leave a critique on a fic, and the author says they like constructive criticism/"concrit," but then you leave your critique and you try to make it complimentary but the author still seems less than thrilled with you? You may have missed the point of "constructive!" Don't feel bad, you aren't alone. Took me until I started writing and receiving feedback to really figure it out.

The key to remember is, "constructive" doesn't mean "nice." It doesn't mean phrasing gently, or doing a compliment sandwich (although those are fine things to do as well). "Constructive" feedback is feedback that would make the story as the author has already written it stronger.

"The execution of this character's decision to do XYZ felt a little bit out of nowhere, to me. Was that your intent? It didn't seem like it was meant to be a big twist, either. Maybe some extra foreshadowing would make it stronger, or some shock on the part of the other characters." THAT'S constructive criticism.

This is NOT constructive criticism: "This character doing XYZ thing really doesn't make for as strong a story as it could. I think he should have done NQD thing, instead. That would have been better."

The first example offers some ideas on how to help a character's decision land better when the reader couldn't tell what the author's intent was. It's possible the reader didn't like the decision and that's why they noticed - maybe some foreshadowing would have helped them accept it better, or some indication that it was meant to be shocking would have validated the reader's surprise & displeasure. But, crucially, the reader did not suggest anything that would require a massive rewrite. Some tweaking, sure, maybe the addition of a few paragraphs. But not a change to the character's decision as a whole, the way the second example suggested. The second example does describe something the reader thinks would make for a stronger story...but it is not something that would make THIS story stronger. It is describing a different story than the one the author has already written so far, so it's just plain ol' criticism. Constructive criticism makes the existing story stronger.

That's the difference. You aren't workshopping. You are commenting on something that is already being written, that is already planned to the point where someone is already posting it. There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between workshopping a story and simply giving concrit! Unless the author has specifically asked for workshop-style help, offering things to do differently from what was already written is worse than useless. Don't.

Rule of thumb: if what you're saying can be boiled down to "I think this cake would be better if it was pie," say something else. The cake is not pie. It's not GOING to be pie. I didn't ask what you think I should bake, I put cake on the table and asked what you thought of this cake. Tell me what would make THIS cake better. Not the pie you were thinking of, and not a different cake you might have liked better. THIS CAKE.

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

sorry for only saying this type of shit lately but i kinda wanna drive a car straight into a brick wall at the highest speed possible

[iceyrukia]

Women’s self-image is as negative as ever despite the “body positivity” wave of choice feminism. Why?

I think one of the biggest reasons as to why women’s beauty standards and self-image are worse than even is because you can preach about unfair beauty standards all you want and tell women not to make fun of another woman’s looks but you can’t take away the social status and praise that women who are “beautiful” get from society (both men and women). You give them clout and praise them. Something both “body positivity” and “body neutrality” feminists do btw despite all the talk about acceptance.

It’s like saying you don’t support the ethics behind a product and yet still consume and buy it. In this case “beauty” being a luxury achieved via consumerism where women become the products (objects) that other women admire and obsess over. There is a demand so there is a supply PERIOD.

Women might not directly pursue beauty (“I do it for myself”) for men but nonetheless it’s definitely ingrained as a sign of status and that’s enough to cause a negative self-image in women who don’t participate. Men might have been the original perpetrators of installing unrealistic beauty standards for women but the victims (women) have also turned into perpetrators who can’t let go of the misogynistic status symbol of having value from appearances because it’s considered “culture”.

[honestlyvan]

Let me be absolutely clear -- the problems with Tumblr will keep getting worse if the disabled minority and the trans people and the people frothing at the mouth at the opportunity to yell at a transphobe, keep @’ing staff and the developers on this site, tell them to kys, because in the meanwhile the transphobes and racists and white supremacists will keep using the actual tools Tumblr provides for blocking and reporting, further poisoning the datasets used for moderation, and encouraging the idea that using the official tools does nothing to basically ensure the only statistically meaningful data available to Automattic is poisoned, poisoned all the way down, poisoned beyond usability.

Hatespeech and bias needs to be reported for it to be considered statstically significant to act on from a developer point of view. Suicide baiting and spamming any of the official means of communication will get you eliminated as a spammer, even if you’re peppering legitimate criticism within your ventpost about how you hate the new thing. You are playing the TE/RFs game.

[anarkhebringer]

As Dawntrail approaches, I will reiterate for new FFXIV players that ARR isn't as bad to start with as people claim it is, it's a genuinely good introduction to the game and worldbuilding. We all just say it sucks because it has no replay value to us, so just take your time.

[rootbeercandy]

actually i love shitty poetry i love things that are considered terrible or cliche or pretentious or amateur or unapproachable or any combination of those things i love when people try to express themselves in pretty words or complicated metaphors or even just in very simple terms and most of all i love when people put themselves and their work out there into the world Knowing full well that they have little control over what happens next

[blujayonthewing]

so in juniper's campaign we've just found ourselves in a high-stakes situation that I as a player do frankly find stressful and am anxious about, but hey hi also the DM was like 'okay here are the exact mechanics of how this is going to work because I don't want to surprise you with serious repercussions, also here are all the options you will have to try to do something about the situation-- [affected player] what do you think? honest feedback, I don't want it to feel unfair, I want to be clear that I am not just trying to kill your character, and if it ends up being badly balanced we can revisit it down the road' and oh my god I could COLLAPSE and WEEP with gratitude

[13threbagel]

I just realized that the arguments used on generative AI are basically the same as those used on NFT. They treat anything on the Internet as free to use and completely disregard the fact that copyrights exist for everything that someone made on the Internet.

Just because something exists in a public space doesn't mean it is in the public domain (free to use, copyright-free).

You'd think that's a no brainer but apparently not. And when they broke those boundaries, they just go, "Oops, it's already in the model/chainblock. You should have never upload them publicly/minted it first so you can keep the work to yourself."

sth sth demean human desire to socialize and part of that involve sharing things they are passionate about, aka the thing they had worked on to connect with other people. And taking it for yourself and disregard the original artist is insanely disrespectful sth sth

[disengaged]

why are jobs always like “expansion of duties without increased depth or adequate compensation” . lol girl ew …. no like seriously EWWW ….

[gontagokuhara]

JUST RECEIVED SOME OF THE NICEST AND MOST THOUGHTFUL AND DEEPLY IMPACTFUL FEEDBACK ON MY WRITING I’VE EVER GOTTEN I’M SO EMOTIONAL OH MY FUCKING GOD

[relicsongmel]

Being a music-based synesthete with absolute pitch is wonderful but so frustrating because the vast majority of people have no context for the way I experience music and thus whenever I try to explain it it makes no sense to them. What do you mean you can't tell what color this song is. What do you mean you don't hear a Bb minor chord and feel your body react to it before your brain does. What do you mean you can't feel the warm sunbeams of D major dancing across your face. My world is filled with musical color but even if people think it's cool they will never really see it and it makes me sad

[sabraeal]

as a writer how do you stop thinking about like getting kudos/comments? I've just started writing fanfic, and when I start a writing something -- it goes well and then eventually I get to point where I'm like "ahh but what the readers don't like that? or what if I don't get as many kudos or comments" and it makes it difficult to continue because then it becomes stressful -- I guess how do you deal with "wanting to write stuff for yourself" and "wanting validation" thanks!

You're going to hate this answer, because I hated it too, but TIME. When you first start writing and you get kudos and comments and people love what you're doing, it's a huge validation of your effort and talent, and it's natural that you want MORE of it. When I first started putting up fics I already had been writing for 15+ years, knew I was good at it, and still for a good few years found myself really glued to the hit counter, and the kudos, and wondering how I'd be able to get people to comment the same way they did on things like Seven Suitors.

But the thing is that commenting comes and goes in waves, and unless a fandom has a big comment culture, or is large enough that you're guaranteed a good glut of them every time you post...you're going to hit a point where you write exactly what everyone wants and get crickets. And at that point you'll get ANNOYED, because LOOK, I MADE THIS, i made it for YOU GUYS, and now y'all don't have anything to say? It'll get to you. It'll make you doubt that you know what anyone wants at all. It'll happen and it'll suck the whole time.

Lots of advice will say "write for yourself," which is an excellent sentiment. You should always write what YOU want. Put into your fic what you want to see, write the nitpicky poetic metaphors and craft the most screwball twists your heart desires. Pour yourself into the most niche AUs and most tin-hat canon theories. At the end of the day, you want the IDEAS you put down to be for you, because comments and kudos are nice, but if they don't come...you have to be proud of what you put out, even when it feels like an echo chamber.

But also...we don't POST things for ourselves. We post things to share. Fic are a conversation with canon and it is perfectly natural to want to create something that creates conversation among other fans. So you're never going to fully get the need for validation out of your head, you're not. You can hide hit counts and ignore your inbox all you like, but the want to have someone interact with your work, to inspire someone to reach out to you will ALWAYS be there. You just have to create a healthier relationship with it.

Be confident in what you write. Think less about whether people will like it, and more about how you WANT them to react. The reader is the most important character in any novel, but it's the one most authors forget to manage. When you come to a point where you go "oh man, I hope this is good for them!" stop and go, "what do I *want* them to be feeling here?" Focus on where you're putting their attention and whether you WANT it there. There's so much you can do when you visualize your relationship with the reader as PART of the work, and it takes off a lot of the pressure of "is this good? is it disappointing? will this get me validation?" and brings it back into the realm of storytelling. You are taking your reader on a journey, and when you do it well people will think less about "did I like that?" and more about "what comes next?"

[horsemeatluvr23]

btw constructive criticism on my art is always always welcome !!! i know some people shy away from it because u don't wanna give feedback to someone who hasn't asked for it but. i am trying to improve my art skills, particularly when it comes to drawing people and i would rly appreciate advice :D i will never take offence if it's constructive <3

[that-was-anticlimactic]

lol my student teaching supervisor sent me my feedback video because he observed me friday and it was twenty minutes long and he essentially said that he was disappointed in me and that i did a disservice to american poetry so i'm feeling pretty good about myself