#writing/criticism

[shyjusticewarrior]

At some point "fanfic can be as good as professional writing" became "fanfic should be as good as professional writing" and that's caused major damage to fandom spaces.

[elumish]

It is incredibly important to train yourself to have your first instinct be to look something up.

Don't know how to do something? Look it up.

See a piece of news mentioned on social media? Look it up.

Not sure if something is making it to the broader public consciousness, either because you don't see it much or you see people saying nobody is talking about it? Look it up.

Don't know what a word means? Look it up.

It will make you a better reader and a better writer, but it will also just make you more equipped to cope with the world.

So often, I see people talking about something as though it is the first time anyone has ever acknowledged it, when I've been reading reports about it on the news for months or years. Or I see someone totally misinterpreting an argument because they clearly don't know what a word means--or, on the other hand, making an argument that doesn't make sense because they aren't using words the right way.

Look things up! Check the news (the real news, not random people on social media)! Do your research! You (and the world) will be better for it.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

yall gotta learn the difference between "this character is an asshole" and "this character was supposed to be super cool but the author is an asshole" and "this character is a teenage girl who was mean once"

[elljayvee]

Genuinely don't know what it's called but there's a particular way of violating reality that doesn't work. For example, I am willing to accept an omegaverse university AU of nearly any fandom you care to name (except, for some reason, Sherlock, because I have an inexplicable hatred for unilock). However, a lot of Star Wars university AUs specifically fail on this aspect: they make Anakin an engineering PhD student and Obi-Wan something like literature or classics, and then they make Anakin his TA or GA.

You can't do that. Absolutely not. Anakin is unqualified for that and a university would not do it in any case. A university would literally hire a junior or senior undergraduate workstudy student to do as much of that work as possible first. They would do NOTHING other than do that and make the prof do all his own grading.

Is there a name for "I will accept [wild fantasy premise] but not [ordinary wrong thing]?" Please tell me there's a name for this. Probably someone who studies lit will know? I'm a systems person I don't know from lit theory just like Anakin

[noperopesaredope]

I wish we had more female characters like Eleanor Shellstrop. One of the most unlikable people you've ever met. Read a Buzzfeed article on most rude things you can do on a daily basis and decided to use that as a list of goals. Makes everyone's day worse just by being there. Dropped a margarita mix on the ground and tried to pick it up, only to get hit by a row of shopping carts which pushed her into the road where she was hit by a boner pill delivery truck, killing her instantly. Cannot keep a romantic partner despite being bisexual. Had a terrible childhood but will die before she gets therapy. Best employee at a scam company. Just the worst but also can't help but root for her to improve.

Absolute loser. Girl-failure. Bad at almost everything. Literally perfect female character.

[heywriters]

Once again, you can be an English major. a seasoned journalist. an established author. a famed literary critic...and you will still scratch your head over the junk that makes it big. Public opinion has no worth. Just write what you want.

"But I don't want to share something that isn't perfect" why not? everyone else does.

[tossawary]

I just know in my heart of hearts that in "Star Trek" at one point, there was some moral panic somewhere on Vulcan (among the uppity sorts) because Human culture was "infecting" the local youth with their overly emotional, destructive, unproductive, frivolous, and uneducational ways.

And what was actually happening was that a bunch of Vulcan kids got really into 23rd-century "Minecraft" or something.

Small Vulcan child @ another Vulcan child: (in a tone that sounds flat to Humans but angry as hell to Vulcans) "You have compromised the optimization of my fortress. I am having an emotional urge to blow up your house... in Minecraft."

[buggachat]

something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.

But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin

[prokopetz]

People act like "satire must have clarity of purpose" is some elevated maxim, but all it's really saying is that you need to a. be making fun of something specific, and b. have a good understanding of what that thing is, because if you're just lashing out in all directions without regard for what you hit the result is usually going to be functionally indistinguishable from your conservative uncle on Facebook.

[xandrikart]

[lo-andbehold]

A callout post (it’s me I’m calling myself out)

[leonardcohenofficial]

lmao i know this is so low stakes but i do not know how to explain to people that the man from midcentury television you are obsessed with is almost definitely not in fact queer coded, you are reading a character through a queer lens

[elumish]

One really important thing about fiction is that "fiction does not need to reflect your platonic ideal of moral living" and "it is valid to criticize a work or collection of fiction for the messages it sends, ideas it perpetuates, and ways it tells stories" exist simultaneously.

[tackykachowch]

Silco SO should've haunted the narrative in s2 I can't stress this enough. Like, we knew Vander, Mylo and Claggor only for 3 episodes, but their presence was felt aaaall throughout s1. And now you're telling me that a PRIMARY ANTAGONIST of s1, a leader of Zaun, Jinx's dad and The person who started the negotiations with Piltover for Zaun's independence only got a couple of mentions?? Which aren't even relevant to the plot or character motivations??? Are you LEGIT FOR REAL kidding me???? I still can't believe this happened chat.

He's literally a part of the main cast. He literally was present in every single episode of s1. And again, given just How Much was tied directly to him his death should've had just. Massive consequences. For almost every single character. And yet.

My honest reaction to this information:

[atlaculture]

Really interesting video about how ATLA was received by Chinese audiences and how its ending would be different if it aligned more with Chinese philosophical traditions. Would love to see some discourse in the reblogs and comments!