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π π π π ββπ π π π roach β
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π π π ββπ π π twenty-five β
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π π π π π π ββπ π π π π π no thanks β
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π π π π ββπ π π π infp-t β the mediator β
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π π π π π π π π ββπ π π π π π π π gmt+1 | β β β¦ β β β β β β β¦ β β β β β β β¦ β β β β β β β¦ β β β β β β β¦ β β β β β β β¦ β β β β β β β¦ β β β β β β β¦ | xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Hello! My name is Roach, the malcontent formerly known as McHaggis, and I've been on this site for a good while now. Wherever I end up, the Guild will always have a special place in my heart because it's where I met some of my very best friends and long-time writing partners. (Seven years strong!) It has absolutely nothing to do with the functional code or the great status bar takes, that much I can assure you. There's not much to say about me except that I'm a graduate who had a lot of time to kill in lockdown, which is easing up at present. I'm currently trying to tame BBCode or die trying, and I think it's going pretty well. If you are at all interested in this endeavor, please check out my guides (1 & 2) or PM me for a bit of chit-chat about tables so janky you can literally break the site with them. β
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π π π π π π π π π π π π π π ββπ π π π π π π π π π π π π π the old guard, dragon age 2, mass effect, doctor who, the witcher, lore olympus, the devil is a handsome man, avatar: the last airbender, the dragon prince β
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π π π π π π π π π ββπ π π π π π π π π groups β¦ sentaku, a tower of sand 1x1s β¦ morsmordre, amortentia, veritaserum, post-script (complete), six in the chamber | ββββββββ βββββββ β β β β βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ βββββββ β
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I'm retired from the Guild, having moved entirely off-site, but I occasionally dip in to collect old GIFs and writing.
Probably not, as I'd have the self awareness to know when the fuck to walk away.
I'm going to leave before the thread implodes in true Inkarnate fashion. You guys have fun.
Hey, look your mind reading again.
Pray tell. If no one took a person's critique personally. Why would someone like you feel the need to make ad-hom attacks exactly?
And ironically, this almost proves my point. (In that someone is flat out stating something, that has no example offered, or elaboration on why it's so bad.) But, I digress.
So, before you had to bring it up the second time. When I wanted to be nice and shrug the obvious cheap shot off. I was weighing on questioning precisely what you think critique is meant to do. When you posted right under my review, "Long review is bad. Because it's not friendly."
Well, here's the thing.
Critique isn't friendly. It's not fun to hear. No matter how lighthearted and filled with sorry's one makes it. Because people can utterly freak out regardless. Or act like you, and attack someone's method regarding their own preconceived flaws on what was said. When here's the dirtiest truth of them all, it's only meant to help and offer suggestions for improvement. Nothing more, nothing less.
No, providing every detail of not only what you liked, why you liked it, what you didn't like, why you didn't like it, what was actually wrong, and friendly suggestions to improve, is not, nor will it ever be "bad critique". And because I *do* know what I meant. And many people who appreciate it, knew it wasn't "to feed an ego".
Nothing is stopping an author from explaining that themselves then. And better yet, taking one's rewritten words, going "Hmm. Okay, how do I take that advice, and then make it my own?"
Because, I don't believe anything is perfect. If I fuck up in writing or critique, the more specific you are, the better it is to me.
And the total reverse of you claiming "suggestions to fix sentences are always bad". Isn't useful to me at all. Because it provides me no wiggle room to grow as a critic. Something that everyone should work to improve upon.
And let's cut to the "bring me down" chase, and say I've had many PM from people I've critiqued/advised in the exact same way, and thank me for how clear I was. So, don't tell me that it can never work. Because I know it can, and does help people. Especially, those who can actually assume one's good faith.
And, cherry on top. If the author is allowed to have a voice that is unquestioned in their method, breaking any rule that suits them.
Well, why can't the critic or the reader be allowed to have their own methods of review, that may even be different from how someone else tells them "the right way to offer help"?
This sounds like you're playing the role of a mind reader.
(Or when you're writing a fan fiction, because hey guess what, that's rewriting/changing someone's established 'voice/cannon' and making it your own. And that's okay too.)
This sentiment could easily boil down to "the author can never be wrong/all writing quality is subjective."
Because, just perhaps, not everyone that critiques or offers personal advice is thinking "how can I feed my ego today". But does it, in order to help someone get better. (Or at the very least, get them to understand a different perspective.)
And, tell me this...
How can you critique anyone's writing choices whatsoever, when you aren't allow to seek or offer changes?
Because all critique and advice does this. With literally every example you can think of. You are looking, or expecting someone to update something.
So for example, why is "your sentences are complicated and vague" more helpful and acceptable to say, than "Your sentences complicated and vague, so if you don't mind, let me provide you potential solutions as to precisely what I'm talking about."
In both cases, the person giving said advice, is asking the author to change their original work. Likely to make the author's sentences more clear and concise. So assuming both people are doing that in good faith. Where one often gives no examples and provides no solutions. And the other does so. Is the first better because...they put less work into their giving their advice? Is it nicer to leave an author clueless on what the former even wanted? Simply because it there's the chance it will hurt one's feelings a little less, from the sheer lack of context for them to dwell on?
There are more interesting alternatives TBH.
Lockdown has been tolerable for me for one reason and one reason only. Amortentia, a 1x1 project that my writing partner and I started on the 10th of April, just hit 100k words! Considering it took us a year to reach the same word count for our previous big roleplay, to have managed it in less than four months is such an incredible change that literally came out of nowhere. 50k of this came from the last month alone, like a pseudo-NaNoWriMo we didn't know we were doing. I cannot enthuse about @Aconite and her writing enough. Not only has she been the backbone of the project (with the legwork of every scene written from her character's point of view) she never ceases to amaze and inspire me with her creativity. This happened most recently when she began to work in written descriptions of the characters playing music with the sort of luxurious prose one might expect in a real, published novel, but I have also died over every new character, every dramatic moment and every line of banter she has ever written. There's no-one better to gush over wild tropes and headcanons with, to exchange aesthetic boards and Spotify playlists with, to chat with well into the early hours of the morning, and to roleplay with in general. Here's to doing this again, and many, many more late nights staring at a screen, growing too attached to fictional bastards and waiting eagerly for our next turn. Or waiting for the master doc to load, because at 229 pages, it sure is crunching. |