here's where the author-bashing in that fic was: kelly criticized the author of the sporked fic by saying it was weird that he, a fourteen year-old freshman in high school, liked my little pony, basically. that was author-bashing 'cause, "the author's interests are weird for someone in their gender and age group" is something that only is about the author and has no bearing on the story itself, essentially. and it's also sexist to say that only girls should like traditionally feminine stuff, the same way it is sexist to say that only boys should like traditionally masculine stuff. and like, i'm nonbinary and assigned female at birth, and love red vs. blue, which was made by dudes with an initial dude target audience, basically, and it would be offensive to me if someone said that, 'cause of my gender and birth assignment, it was weird for me to love red vs. blue. i mean, it wouldn't phase me much 'cause i'm used to being weird but i don't like the idea that people think that, 'cause of my gender and birth assignment, i should only like certain sorts of things. and do whatever you feel like doing when it comes to my fics, btw. i just figured i'd offer since i was criticizing your fic and i'm sure i can handle it.
Like, if you want to improve your writing and help people improve theirs, you don't need to be a bully and pick on teenagers on the internet. You can volunteer as a beta reader! You can join writing circles! You can even take classes on it. The sporking organization format isn't the only thing that exists in this sunny God's earth
I tried to get proper concrit ages before trying to join a sporking organization but I couldn't get people to be harsh enough.
it's hard to explain how to take criticism properly, really. but i think it's important to really think about it and ponder it and if someone gives you resources to consult, to consult them, and not immediately get defensive about it. to sit with it a while and come to your own conclusions. and also to not insult the people who criticize you or immediately assume they're being cruel. like, sometimes the people criticizing you are being cruel and sometimes their criticism is bad criticism, even if they aren't being cruel, but not all criticism is like that, and it takes patience and experience to figure out which kind is which, i think. and also, when people say you're saying and/or doing bigoted things, try imagining to yourself how you would feel and/or how accurate it would be if people said and/or did the things you were saying or doing to and/or about to the groups you belong to. that's not a totally reliable method for avoiding being bigoted but it works pretty well for me, i think. though i'd advise you not to run through that thought process in public since that could cause splash damage.
Ah, so I wasn't being clear enough in making Kelly be in the wrong when her first brony-encounter resulted in her being shocked. It's in her backstory, but I didn't mention in this fic that she's from the 80's and somehow missed that even in the original MLP cartoon, the villain looked like he came from the dust-jacket of a metal-band album. Hue's explanation probably also relies heavily on knowing who John de Lance is and the documentary about bronies. I guess that part needs a proper explanation that doesn't rely on the reader knowing about brony culture?
yeah, you weren't clear on that but even still, even if you were clear on it, your character criticizing the author for being into a traditionally feminine fandom would still hurt the author far more than an ordinary sporking would and would cause splash damage for readers of your fic that also have fandoms not traditionally associated with their genders and/or birth assignments. like, portraying characters making sexist assumptions is an okay thing to do in most fiction but having one of your agents make one about the author of the fic they're sporking crosses the line into author-bashing and is likely to feel really insulting towards your readers since some of them likely have fandoms not traditionally associated with their genders and/or birth assignments. i can't get into all of the nuances of when it is a good idea to write a bigoted character and when it isn't and how bigotry should be portrayed in fiction (and i'm honestly not an expert on it, myself) but i can tell you that, 'cause of what i said above, it was a bad idea to do it right then, in that manner.
Oooh, can I have the name of the bad art blog to see if they'll do mine? It might be cheating to drag the stuff I'm not happy with anymore out of my deviantart storage.
So you’re just not going to even acknowledge the dozen or so people who called your assertions about fragility on the internet out of line? That’s truly just lovely of you. You wanna know how to be better at taking criticism? Start by not ignoring it. I feel like you’ve tried to explain multiple times, but I still don’t understand this: if you hated what the PPC wanted you to do so much, then why did you keep doing it? You make it sound like they were forcing to write things you didn’t want to write like they had some kind of power over you, which is patently false. You could have just stopped trying to write for them and spared yourself all this goddamn pain. Why didn’t you just write your own shit, for your own improvement and satisfaction, instead of trying to please people you thought couldn’t be pleased? After all, if a setback puts you off your passion, then it was never a reaaaaaal passion right? (for clarity, that’s not what I believe, it’s what you said, and I want you to understand how dumb and cruel it is) Don’t do that. That’s stupid. If you only want this because you think it’ll piss them off, you’re wasting your fucking time. They won’t be pissed off, they’ll think you’re utterly pathetic for being so mad about not being in their club, after four years, that you try and start your own out of spite. It’s just really sad, honestly. Why don’t you write for yourself, not other people? After all, if you take criticism so much to heart, you’re clearly too mentally fragile to post on the internet. (see above parenthetical) hmm, maybe they didn’t want to be harsh with you because you’d demonstrated, like you did here, that when people are harsh with you about things other than writing, you fly directly off the fucking handle? maybe they reasonably thought that if they criticized your writing too much you’d snap and start antagonizing everyone in reach, and they didn’t want to deal with that? or maybe they were offering valid criticism, which you didn’t see because it didn’t look like you think criticism is supposed to. criticism doesn’t need to be harsh to be valid or helpful, and maybe your perception that it is maybe you cling to the PPC so much. cause their whole thing is being catty and obnoxious about other people’s writing. but as multiple people have said in this thread (though you’ve ignored them) that’s not how you help someone be a better writer. Harsh criticism is not automatically good criticism.
Take it from someone who has published professionally, @Greallan - this is 100% the truth. The best critiques I've ever gotten were not 'harsh'; conversely, some of the most useless critiques I've gotten were brutal. Being mean doesn't make a person right, it just makes them an asshole. Aside from that, this all looks like some sort of elaborate revenge fantasy that is never, ever going to get you want you want out of it. I don't even know you, I've just been a bystander to your behavior on this forum, and I'm dead certain that at best you're going to waste people's time and come out of it looking intensely foolish to the people you want most to impress.
Yeah, no, I'm not gonna dig up whatever laughing at bad art tumblr posted my art and give them free advertising.
Harsh criticism more often than not isn't good criticism, and most people that are more interested in helping people improve instead of interested in being catty and abrasive know that. You can be stern without humiliating people for fun, which is basically what the PPC does.
A lot of bad art blogs have actually moved to actual criticism, with consent from the creator (meaning basically self submissions). So yeah, actually, depending on which blog it was, it could actually be okay to submit some of your own old art.
Effective methods of coaching that we've noticed by way of actual fucking studies on sports teams, people in exercise programs, and children learning to play board games: Positive affirmations and reinforcements of effort being put out by learners Showing the learner hands on how to do the thing and providing tips on the process of doing the thing Positive affirmations of a thing that a learner did well Attempts to make the activity fun for the person learning Methods of coaching and such that led to people quitting programs, losing interest, and generally not having fun with whatever they're learning: Harsh criticism Punishment, especially if it seems arbitrary and unfair Writing's certainly not kid's football or whatever the fuck but I do feel that this sort of thing can be applied to other varieties of learning. Especially since we've shown it with games and puzzles too.
Also asking Vivec for the blog was highly inappropriate. They were clearly uncomfortable with the whole incident and that was pretty clear given the whole 'Fuck sporking as an entire concept' thing. You don't ask people to go and find stuff that hurt them to help you, especially not when those people aren't happy with you. It's very callous and lacking in empathy for Vivec. And before you go 'but I have the 'tisms' there are other forms of empathy in existence besides affective empathy, and those other sorts can be learned.
Yeah, y'know, I'm not really keeping tabs on every art blog that does nothing but make chan tier "why does this character look like a fat t-slur" comments, so I'll pass on finding out if they've turned a new leaf.
Competent, helpful, criticism that you've asked for or requested, especially if it's part of a class or something, can be amazingly valuable. Derision and mockery from random strangers generally won't be. Source: I did some sporking of someone's fic at one point. I can guarantee you, I was not actually trying to make him write better. I was trying to make him uncomfortable enough with posting his off-topic fic in the wrong discussion forum that he'd go away.
@Greallan do you prefer harsh criticism 'cause the lack of social niceties involved means that it's blunter and gets to the point quicker, and thus is clearer than you than gentler criticism is?
Fine, give me the names and post-links of all 12 people and I'll craft an apology that covers all of their concerns. I said earlier that I was going to write a "poke me if I missed you post" and it's not like this thread has even existed for a full week. Have you seriously done nothing in your life that you didn't want to do? Was it really your idea to learn the road rules, independant of trying to get a driver's license? Do you really enjoy putting on proper outdoor clothing to go get groceries, do you really enjoy giving them money before they let you take the food? Why does anyone put up with hazing instead of just leaving? Anyway, it took a while before "they couldn't be pleased" sunk in, especially since it wasn't true. As far as reaaaaal passsion.... WTF, I wrote at least 80% of my stories because of the setback. You're full of shit with that one. So being mad about something that happened 4 years ago is pathetic? Insert any incident that people are still mad about but didn't happen within the last 40 years and scream at me because the fundamental problem is that the people who think it's stupid outnumber the people who don't think it's stupid. The statute of limitations on debt is four years or more. Someone who's mad because her mom forced her to shave her pits when she was a teenager doesn't have the right to be mad about it 5 years later? I wrote for the drawer, and it got progressively worse. Having access to a beta or some sort of feedback would have at least halted the decline. As for the last part, I want you to prove that any criticism has struck my heart rather than my image. Give me an example. Maybe harsh was the wrong word, but if people are so worried about fee-fees to actually say what's wrong, it's not good. This is some reviews for my low-effort crap and none of them are are particularly useful for me improving. https://www.fanfiction.net/r/2700258/
