#no matter how much you try to avoid it

[spandexinspace]

All the pop culture references in The Boys/Gen V are going to date them horribly and quickly, but I do like how real it makes them feel. There's a degree of rawness and humour you can only reach by actually interacting with reality and I don't think a lot of fantasy and science fiction can reproduce that, but these shows do it pretty much every episode.

[novelistparty]

you know how scifi novels always have people in the far future speaking "common" or "basic" or whatever universal language? in science that is matlab. it is a wildly purchasable "common". a truly majestic example of how to make a product guaranteed to be in every science budget. it's like someone figured out how to charge for the english language

[fisheito]

my princess nonsense is being encouraged watch ouyt imabout to be eneaabled

OK WHATF ATHAT'S SO CUTE I HAD TO MAKE IT i know realistically there's little to no chance that rei DOESN'T know how to work heels 🤣 BUT IMAGINE.....ING.... YAKUMO GENTLY GUIDING REI IN HEELS, WEEKS BEFORE THE BIG GALA AND HAVING NONE OF HIS NORMAL FEAR OF PHYSICAL TOUCH BC HIS [TEACHER MODE] IS OVERRIDING HIS INSECURITY

[icewindandboringhorror]

boy in silly sitting positions compilation

[coquelicoq]

In talking about Chaucer (p. 74), I said that, in general, puns and verbal connections of sound were unimportant and not to be sought out; and now, you will say, I have been using them to explain cruces in Shakespeare. Alas, you have touched on a sore point; this is one of the less reputable aspects of our national poet. A quibble is to Shakespeare [Johnson could not but confess] what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way and sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind.... A quibble was for him the fatal Cleopatra for whom he lost the world, and was content to lose it. Nor can I hold out against the Doctor, beyond saying that life ran very high in those days, and that he does not seem to have lost the world so completely after all. It shows lack of decision and will-power, a feminine pleasure in yielding to the mesmerism of language, in getting one's way, if at all, by deceit and flattery, for a poet to be so fearfully susceptible to puns. Many of us could wish the Bard had been more manly in his literary habits, and I am afraid the Sitwells are just as bad.

William Empson, 7 Types of Ambiguity, ch 2 pp 100-101

i'm sorry this is so fucking funny. that pathetic loser shakespeare who loved puns so much it cost him everything, except of course his status as the most famous, most read, most immortal english-language author of all time. but everything else, he lost and it's all because of how weak he was to resist a pun :/ pouring one out for my sad little girly man who could have had it all if only he was better at writing, the thing he is the most famous guy in the world for.

even empson, who disagrees with johnson that shakespeare "lost the world", is like, too bad our favorite poet is susceptible to the thing that made him famous :/ really tragic that the guy whose wordplay we've been talking about for 300 years likes wordplay :///

also i can't get over writing a book about the types of ambiguity and NOT INCLUDING PUNS?? sorry but puns are ambiguous! that's where their juice comes from! imagine liking ambiguity so much you write a book about it but never mention puns except to dunk on them. imagine being a POET and POETRY CRITIC who looks down on sound-based ambiguity! could not be me!!

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

My partner finally finished BG3 but has no idea that his ending was actually bad cause he was a pro-Vlaakith githyanki who rode off with Lae'zel but got NO EPILOGUE where Withers points out y'all died im 😭😭😭

they have no idea what happened with Gale or anyone else (who was still alive) after flying away 🙃🙃🙃

[devotedlystrangewizard]

the school arc to me is so good because it drags ciel out of his position as a powerful figure and literally places him in the shoes of the person he could have been. the circus arc ALSO drags him out of his position as big bad queens watch dog/head of the phantomhive estate but the school arc feels like a mockery of a future that never was. this is what he could have been had his parents not died. and even then its NOT because he will never be that kid.

he never was.

[raspberryjellybrains]

its been a billion years since I posted anything meaningful about mcga but I'm thinking about Alex helping Magnus with clothes.

I think Blitzen would love to help style Magnus, but I think he might accidentally end up being a bit overbearing, albeit with good intentions. He wants to help, but would probably end up tripping over his own fashion opinions more often than not, and Magnus would want to make his friend happy too much to actually voice his own opinions consistently. But Alex would understand that identity through fashion is something slow to be discovered on your own. It's not instant, it's a slow process of trying things and finding out what makes you feel good physically and emotionally. You can't pressure a person finding their own style, especially someone who's never had much room to do so and will likely feel guilty about making that room. She's gone through the process, and she'd probably be more than happy to help someone with it too.

I'm thinking about them going around to different stores and finding that Magnus likes second hand and low-end boutique stuff more than anything. Alex letting him onto her etsy account and buying his first piece of jewelry, taking him around to all of her favorite stores where she's greeted as a friend. Yeah, they could do all this in Valhalla, but where's the fun in that?

I think Magnus would like earth tones and dark, muted colors. He would avoid synthetic materials for their unnaturally soft textures and blue would make rare appearances. Alex would parade him around in his first pair of White Guy Khaki Shorts in five years, glowing with a silly sort of pride and Magnus feeling something kindle back to life in his chest at a growing collection or flannels, just like his mom. I'm imagining Magnus learning what it's like to live with his body, rather than despite it, and feel comfortable with himself in his surroundings for the first time since he was a little kid, taking a hike in the woods. And I'm thinking of Alex holding his hand the whole time.

[musical-chick-13]

One of the WORST parts of having OCD is that some of the Fears™ are actually humanly possible, so it's not like my response can just be, "Oh that'll never happen" or even "I've never seen that happen, so it's probably unlikely."

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

persona fics are kinda insane because the p3/p5 isekai reader insert WILL have you feeling the full force of grief at like 3 in the morning

[yeonban]

It's lovely when I read a book and some random paragraph in it hits me in the face like a train at mach speed

[starlooove]

Why are people surprised that Zionists are being abhorrent at these protests and then sayin they’re victims. Ig surprised isn’t the right word but people keep pointing out ‘this doesn’t make sense’ like it’s a fallacy in a discord debate like this is just how racism has always been

[astralazuli]

I need new undergarments. Which is like. My personal hell as a fat enby with sensory issues & slightly hindered mobility. Spent some time today digging through page after page of google search trying to find something &...

Look, I'm just saying. Whoever keeps deciding to list their brands as "size inclusive" & "plus size" when their largest size is a women's 14?

I think fat people should be allowed to hunt them for sport.

[galpalaven]

thinkin cringe anime oc/canon character thoughts tonight like its 2012 and i have my entire life ahead of me

[shivasdarknight]

[Image ID: A screenshot of user redwinterroses (from Jan 27, 2022) tinted yellow to indicate that it is a screenshot and not a post on the dashboard. The screenshot reads: All I'm saying is, if a fic refers to characters by their physical attributes instead of their names or pronouns ("he smiled at the older" "the blonde laughed") when we know who the character is, and ESPECIALLY if the descriptions include "ravenette" or "cyanette" or other ridiculous words--

I'm clicking out of that fic so fast my Ao3 history won't even register I've been there. /.EndID]

I'm gonna use this as a launching point for something that really bugs me with regards to how people - especially folks on tumblr - talk about fanfiction and if something isn't "up to snuff" or to their tastes. This ranges anywhere from grammar and punctuation, to even judgement towards someone for their skill in writing and how they frame it on tumblr - such as word choice or dialogue tags (said and its variants). Plenty of other things that get torn into (like POV type like first, second, or third (usually its first getting dunked on, second if you're not a Homestuck); or even tropes) but that's a different discussion, and I'm focusing more on how people talk about things that are "subpar". There are many posts like this, but I want to use this one to talk more about it as it's the one I most recently found. We're going to talk about this attitude, critique vs criticism vs what tumblr thinks is good critique with regards to writers (regardless of skill level, but mostly beginner ones), so this will get a bit lengthy.

Let's get definitions out of the way so everyone is clear here. When I say critique, this is in reference to feedback given towards a thing (writing, art, etc.) with the intention of improving upon it. Critique has a narrow scope, but it often addresses subject, form, technical aspects (in writing, form and technicality are grammar/punctuation, style, and prose - the latter of which is what OP is digging into), and execution. Critique includes both negative and positive aspects because it's important for good critique. Critique isn't tearing into someone for the sake of it, because the point of critique is to improve upon these aspects and become more comfortable in your craft. To take critiques is a skill in its own, but so is giving critiques - the best advice is usually a "critique sandwich" in which you say something positive, point out something that can be improved upon (importantly: not saying negatively charged things), and then summarize in a positive tone. Critique is not an excuse to bully, and critique should always be consensual. Critique appears in classes, in the form of beta readers, asking others for advice, and so on and so forth. The person who made the thing must be open to critique for critique to be effective. If they are not looking for critique and you give it anyways, you're just an ass.

On the other hand, criticism - especially in this context - is broader than critique. It tends to have a more negative connotation of it, but to be critical of something isn't inherently to be negative to it. This is where you see your media criticism, dissection of trends, etc. This doesn't usually engage directly with the source of the criticism most often, it's usually supplementary. Again: broader than critique, but its space does not often overlap with the original thing. Important to note that criticism does not inherently mean that the critic hates the thing being criticized. Criticism is just being critical of a thing. To be critical is not inherently negative; it's just talking about something to a finer degree than casual consumption. It's not admonishment, it's often a way to start a discussion.

This is where people tend to balk at the idea of criticizing fan media because they conflate the two, but critique =/= criticism. Critique is more based in the craft itself (art, writing, etc.) while criticism is more about the broader impact of the thing made by the craft. While critiques do exist in criticisms, and critique can draw from criticism, they are not the same thing.

Examples:

Critique:

Your inking wasn't consistent, so the final print is splotchy. You need to improve on inking your block if you want your final image to look the way you intend it to

You added too much ink to the block and caused a lot of spillage, you need to find a balance between the two in order to get what you want

I like the gestural nature of your drawing, but I think that you would get a stronger composition if you pushed it further and focus on line weight

The alliteration is a really nice touch in your prose, but you fall back on it a lot. I think that the alliteration would be more effective in this moment if you limit it to that moment and change up how you write prose leading into it - maybe slowly increasing the repetition until you get to the three-beats?

Your prose is really strong, and I like what you've developed so far. What I think you need to work on is learning how you can control your technical flow with better punctuation usage, such as a better understanding of when to use commas or em-dashes.

You're using periods at the end of your dialogue that is followed by a tag. Unless there's nothing like "he said", then periods in dialogue must be a comma. Not "'Alright.' He responded.", but: "'Alright,' he responded.".

Criticism:

There is a common trend within fandom to take a female love interest from canon and find a way to shove her off to the side for the sake of m/m shipping. It's come in a variety of forms, but the most notable ones include villainizing, killing her off, or the modern lesbian best friend/wingman which overlaps with the other modern form, the mean lesbian adjacent to the m/m ship.

Despite all the advancements that have been made in terms of accessibility within video games, it almost seems like some games are more inaccessible than ever due to developers prioritizing a key experience rather than making sure it's playable for everyone. A good example of this would be the MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, and its late game raiding that features many fights with non-toggleable flashes that have induced seizures in players, or their lack of color contrast options for color blind players - forcing both groups to either suffer through the content, not raid, or seek out illegal mods if they play on pc. Console raiders have no such options, as the in game effects toggle doesn't apply to the worst offenders.

With these examples out of the way, look back at OP and how they've framed their "advice" (which they say is advice further down this thread - as with all others who jump in on the post with "advice") - does this look like critique or criticism?

This style of post - and how everyone jumped on it - are part of a really frustrating trend online, but especially on tumblr, where people make vague complaints about a kind of writer and use their vague posting to tear into them. At this point, most people understand that unwanted critique is bad, so they instead channel that need to critique in stuff like this. From here on, I'm going to call it ""advice"" - quotations and all.

This is not advice. It's not even good critique. This ""advice"" is taking a common mistake or habit of fanfic writers - most of whom are new to writing, are teenagers, or haven't been professionally trained in writing because so few people have that opportunity - and then tearing it to shreds. This is looking at a habit that fanfic authors learning how to write picked up from other authors learning how to write, and then declaring that if a writer uses it you will not engage with them whatsoever.

That's not advice. It's a vague threat through shaming people for doing stuff. The thread goes on to list actual advice, but most of it is the most bare bones writing tips that doesn't account for people experimenting with style. It's shame through nitpicking and expecting everything to be perfection.

Fanfiction is held to a really awful standard in which it must meet every single one of your needs as a reader, otherwise it's not worth your time. Between the lack of support on platforms like AO3 or FFNet, and then these mass shaming posts that tear into writers for having the audacity of making a mistake, is it any surprise a lot of fanfic writers give up? Why so many fanfics you like just go unfinished with no word from the author?

Tumblr is too comfortable with this idea that they get to sit here and tear into authors who may not be using perfect syntax or use goofy words like silverette. You are looking at someone stumbling their way through a hobby that is admittedly very hard and tearing into them behind their back. When people see these posts, their fist reaction isn't go go "oh thank you for the advice," it's to get self conscious about their own writing and if they do fit the bill, they're not likely to take your advice. They may just stop writing altogether.

What gets to me is that this ""advice"" - this shaming framed as tips from people who "Actually Know how to write" - is it's considered a more widely acceptable way of talking about fanfiction and fanfiction authors than actually supporting authors you like. It's more acceptable than passing around resources. It's more acceptable than actual criticism of harmful things in fandom (see: colonizer lan wangji, op of this thread has talked about it a fair amount) that the criticism of would then make spaces safer for the people impacted (in that case, address the anti-indigenous writing of a horrific fic in the MDZS fandom that was trying to romanticize the tactics used in the genocide of indigenous americans).

Tumblr users seem to know to not take unwanted critique to the comments of the author in question, yet they can't seem to keep their mouths shut; instead, they curate hundreds of posts with thousands of notes to shame authors who have committed the grave sin of using goofy words or having awkward prose - which I'm so sure that no of the people making these posts have ever made mistakes like these in their own writing </sarcasm>

This collective shaming of writing characteristic of people learning how to write or who aren't super familiar with English doesn't sit right with me. Especially since so much of it feels like a reflexive cringe for things that the person grew out of. Maybe something isn't your style, but maybe it works for someone else. Everyone complains about the repetition of "said", but there are some hard hitting stories that weaponize the repetition of "said" for effect. Consider OP: a very specific one that I use still is bluenette, in part because I am a brunette who dies his hair blue very frequently - thus, bluenette (brunette+his is not incorrect in usage for myself, check my pinned; brunet+she would also not be incorrect - so do not come nitpicking me). Bluenette sounds so much like brunette that it comes off as a pun, and in this case it is used intentionally for said pun and often as a joke somewhere in my writing or even just conversation. Is OP going to also apply this logic to people who refer to women as brunets or blonds, or men as brunettes or blondes? Sometimes stuff like this is someone trying to work out their style. Sometimes it's a genuine mistake. Sometimes it's someone doing this with the utmost intention of calling a character by their hair color as a sign of disrespect through denying them their name - you do not know why it's used, and to publicly shame people for a common mistake is not how you're going to get them to improve.

The way ""advice"" is delivered feels like reflexive cringe, like I said, but also like a gross misrepresentation of what criticism is. Criticism's goal is discussion and improvement. Posts like these are just a way to shame people who aren't as skilled as you expect them to be. Let me make this clear: you are reading fanfiction. Many people use fanfiction to learn how to write, and may not have the most polished style. You are reading this for free. It's frankly really shitty to nitpick at someone's writing style and skill and then put it on blast for thousands of people on tumblr to jump in on this dogpile. Even when you give advice - such as in this post down beyond this screen - it's still framed negatively and in a "do this or you're bad" kind of critique. This is not framed to actually help people with their writing; this is shaming them into the style that you like and find engaging. And every following post beyond the advice from OP in this example further dogpiles the original point.

If you are shaming someone through a vague post because you don't like the fact that they're not a skilled writer, then it's clear you do not actually care about these people improving. You would rather mass shame writers who don't fit your view of what technically flawless prose looks like - be it because they're a teenager, they learned writing from online spaces and are still learning, or English isn't their first language - than actually teach them in a way that would be conducive to learning. You would rather have people jump in on this mass shaming as a sense of self importance because none of you write that way, thus everyone else who does is bad.

This is not critique. This is not criticism.

This is shaming writers - specifically writers who are still learning - for the fact that they do not match your expectations, and then gloating about how you never want to touch their work ever again.

The example above is shaming a common writing habit of teenagers and new writers who learned independently, and then following that shame with a threat to never engage with their stuff again, and then some tips sprinkled in with more "if you do this, shame on you" language.

You know, the exact stuff that makes people quit writing as a hobby or trying to learn it because they want to join in when it concerns this aspect of fandom.

This kind of ""advice"" is just vague blogging a writer to shame them. They may not ever see it, but Tumblr sure does a good job of keeping people from ever attempting to write because of the unreasonably high standards for a new/inexperienced writer putting stuff on the internet.

[deus-ex-mona]

why can’t this week just end alreadyyyyyyy