I think an important part of becoming a better writer is learning how to both criticize things you like and engage with criticism of things you like. This is for a few reasons.

First, it's a key tool to being able to identify what you actually like about the media you enjoy, which can help you replicate or reflect those things in whatever way works for your story without also replicating things that aren't working.

For example, to be able to identify and understand that I find the romance stronger than the other major plot arcs in a book I enjoy--and thus tease out what in the romance I find successful--I have to be able to criticize the plot of it, even though I enjoyed the book overall. It doesn't mean I enjoy the book less, it just means that I am able to separate out what didn't work as well (and why) from what did, so I can more effectively analyze and understand what did work (and why).

Second, it helps you remember that even good or enjoyable things are imperfect, and something need not be perfect to be good or enjoyable. Defeat the perfectionist that lives in your brain.

Last, to improve your own writing, you both need to be able to criticize it and productively receive criticism of it without hating it in the process, which means you need to have internalized that idea that criticism of a thing does not equal dislike of it. You also just have to be willing to criticize things without feeling bad about it, and to take criticism without feeling bad about it 

Criticism of a work isn't personal, and the more successfully you are able to separate out enjoyment/like for a work and criticism of it, the better you can become as a writer.

thinking about “you haven’t met all the people who will love you” and like!!! you also haven’t found all the things that will make you happy!!!! there will always be new authors and musicians and artists whose work you will one day discover and love!!!! there will always be new hobbies and skills for you to learn and feel fulfilled by!!! there will always be new things around the corner that will bring sudden and unexpected happiness!!!!!!!!!!!

becoming homophobic because when two characters in a scene have the same pronouns you have to say their names one william times

finally some good advice on this post

Not sure why it's a new trend among fic readers to assume if the fic has not been posted within the week it's inappropriate to comment on it, like the fic has to be hot out of the oven to give feedback for.

I got a comment on a fic that is less than a year old and it was mostly an apology for being a comment on an "old fic" and how late they were in commenting.

Just comment on the fic. Doesn't matter how old it is.

Fandom is not social media.

Fandom is not trends.

Fandom is a cross between a library and having a slumber party with your friends.

"Old" means nothing to fic.

I haven't updated my fic in several years but I got a comment recently and it really helped kick my writer's block in the ass and I'll be posting several chapters shortly.

So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE comment on pics regardless of age.

I think there's something that needs to be said about encouraging readers to leave feedback.

For me it's not about "tell me my writing is amazing and stroke my ego"

It's more about "please engage with me so that I can experience your joy secondhand and foster a connection with you"

I understand that not everyone wants this in their reading experience, some people are shy and a million other reasons why maybe someone wouldn't want to engage and that's perfectly fine!

But what I'm trying to steer away from is being a passive content creator with passive consumers. What I want to steer toward is fostering a community that is essential to fandom. I want to see your reactions because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something.

On encouraging reblogs —

I understand that not everyone is comfortable reblogging, especially explicit content. This is ok!

But just consider that the only reason you were able to enjoy a fic or fanart is because someone else shared it, and by not sharing it yourself you are potentially robbing someone else of the opportunity to enjoy it as much as you did.

As OPs our reach only goes so far and this website relies on reblogs in order for anything to truly get seen by a wider audience.

So that's really it! That's why I encourage these two things at the end of every story I post. Not because I'm trying to be demanding and "make people feel bad" if they don't do it.

I know most other social media sites encourage mindless content consumption and that's just the way of the world nowadays, but I am from a time when community was at the heart of fandom and I just don't want to lose that.

But what I'm trying to steer away from is being a passive content creator with passive consumers. What I want to steer toward is fostering a community that is essential to fandom. I want to see your reactions because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something.

Wei Weaving is a Chinese artist

in 2015 we didn’t have AI psychosis so people had to make do by believing a dress was white and gold

Because it was

Is the gold in the room with us right now?

yes. the dress is gold.

...

the dress has always been gold

r u saying this doesn't look white and gold to u???

...

what.

it's a white and gold dress in cool blue dim lighting w/ bright warm light behind it, making an optical illusion. we're not fucking doing this again

oh god fucking damn it

I know tumblr likes to exclusively make it about bloody hospitals but this is what Color Theory is about

HOW DID THIS DISCOURSE COME BACK IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2026!???

when I tell you people were shouting up and down my dorm's hallways about this when it first happened

(the dress was by Roman Originals and it was in fact blue and black. but they made a one-off white and gold one for charity later)

I remember when this happened lol

Some people see the photo as showing a white and gold dress, some people see a black and blue dress. What colors you see has nothing to do with "understanding" how color works in a photo, it's perception that differs.

tags from @mnemonomancy

Yes! It's actually very interesting. The Dress was such a huge phenomenon because people genuinely perceived different colors for no obvious reason

Saying "its just color theory" doesn't completely capture it, as per the wikipedia page, we still don't know exactly why this photo of a dress Does That. The meme actually kicked off quite a bit of scientific research into how the brain creates this grand hallucination we call perception. It's not trivial or stupid at all

BANDIT PLATE

Song: We're All In This Together

Musical: High School Musical

Composers: Various (Matthew Gerrard, Robbie Nevil)

Audition workshops are 90% figuratively grabbing a child by the face and saying “listen. Listen to me. You are good. You can sing. You can act. You can dance. You HAVE to go in with confidence tho. Even if you’re faking it. You HAVE to.”

The child with the world’s most beautiful voice will come in and sing staring at their feet at the volume of a beetle’s radio.

Light Yagami: *furiously writing Bugs Bunny's name in the Death Note*

Bugs Bunny: *standing behind him and peering over his shoulder* "Bugs" is spelled with a Z.

Light Yagami: *without turning around* Ah yes, thank you *erasing furiously and continues writing*

Bugs Bunny: *stroking chin* Or was it an S?

Light Yagami: *erasing again and writing again*

Bugs Bunny: No, it was definitely a Z.

Light Yagami: *erasing again, even more agitated*

Bugs Bunny: Wait! It was a TH!

Light Yagami: *turning around, red faced* Can you decide on a spelling already?! *awkward pause, realizing who he's talking to*

Light Yagami: *screams, notebook and pen shooting up*

Bugs Bunny: *yoinks them both out of the air* Now let's see... Light Yagami... *begins scribbling*

Light Yagami: *on his knees, hands clasped* Wait, no, please, I beg of you! Spare me!

Bugs Bunny: *turning the Death Note around to reveal he doodled an unflattering caricature of Light*

@charlesoberonn made a really, really good post that I stole to make... this

Writing is lonely in a specific way that is hard to explain to people who don't do it. not lonely like isolated. lonely like you are trying to build a bridge to another human consciousness using only words on a page and you will never actually know if you got there.

You send the thing out and maybe someone reads it and something moves in them and they have no way to tell you exactly what moved or why and you have no way to know if it was the thing you meant or something else entirely.

You're working in permanent uncertainty about whether any of it lands. and you keep going anyway. you have to develop this strange faith in the act itself, in the value of the attempt separate from the outcome, because if you need confirmation every time you sit down you will never sit down.

Most of the writing happens in a silence that never fully gets broken. you learn to be okay in that silence or you don't last.

it’s so magical and beautiful that there are sprawling interconnected cave systems carved deep into the earth by various geological forces and you don’t have to go in them. there are miles and miles of stone passageways in total darkness that require you to exhale all the air out of your lungs to squeeze through parts of them and you don’t have to be there. some of these squeezes are underwater and require cave divers to take off their oxygen tanks and push them through ahead of them and me i am above ground looking at the sky as we speak. there are untold subterranean wonders no human has ever seen and i will not be the one to discover them #grateful #blessed

so true there could be any number of undiscovered species down there all of which are none of my business and never will be. peace and love on (the surface of) planet earth 💕