The Gayest Of The Gays! Get It Boys! Let's Hope You're Celebrating Good This Year🥲

Sometimes it's not even hateful criticism that hurts the most.

I've received comments on fic that's explicitly tagged as self-indulgent, fic that I've written and shared for the sole purpose of making myself happy, only to be told all the ways it's lacking.

This has never been done in an overtly rude way, but it still hurts.

To be told that a character I wrote in a specific way, simply for myself (FOR FREE), is frustrating, weak, underdeveloped, etc. is extremely hurtful.

Not because the criticisms aren't valid, but because I didn't intend to upset anyone with my interpretation, nor did I write MY INTERPRETATION with anyone else's specific tastes in mind.

I adore receiving comments but for someone who already struggles to find the time/motivation to write, that shit's depressing, disheartening, and makes me never want to type another word as long as I live.

Nah, fam. It's not about "taking" criticism. It's about the fact that unless a writer asks for it specifically, it's a dick thing to do on a website that is rooted in community.

If a writer wants critique they will ask trusted friends or professional associates (in the relevant field). When a writer shares a fic on AO3 it's not necessarily with the aim of improving their craft (there are better places for that). It's about sharing joy.

Positive comments enhance that feeling of joy and community. Negative comments do not.

Fic isn't a product to be evaluated. If it's not for you, then you can just walk away. 😁

nothing in the world makes me more evil than just being kind of annoyed

I would fucking DIE if someone wrote this in my comment section, oh my GOD!

trying to think of what to write in an ao3 comment that isn't just "blew my cock and balls straight off"

This exactly. I've heard the argument that if someone wants to go on a mass shooting spree they'll find a way. That's bullshit. Yes if someone is determined to hurt someone bad enough they will but we don't have to make it easier for them to do so. We should have already been making it harder for murderers to murder. The fact that an 18 year old who is not even legally allowed to purchase alcohol can legally purchase an AR-15 should speak for itself. It's about creating roadblocks and deterrents for mass shooters. We should have already done this. Hell humanity is so full of apathy that if you make things difficult enough I'm convinced most people won't bother. Even if that's not the case is what we're doing now working? Has anything been working? Obviously not or this would be a non issue so I ask you, what's the harm in trying something new? The most stricter gun laws could do is not work and since we're already there...

Why not?

Beto O'Rourke was right

More people should tell their governors that they're useless to their face.

On Wednesday afternoon, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott briefed reporters about the school shooting in the town of Uvalde that left 19 children and two adults dead, he was approached by an unexpected speaker—his Democratic opponent in this fall’s election, Beto O’Rourke. The former El Paso congressman and presidential candidate, who had been waiting silently in an aisle seat in the school auditorium, walked up to the stage and began to challenge the governor.

“You’re doing nothing,” O’Rourke said. “You’re offering us nothing. You said this was not predictable. This was totally predictable.”

He was shouted down by some of the people on stage. One called O’Rourke a “sick son of a bitch.”

“This is not the time or the place to do that,” said another.

“Don’t play this stunt,” Sen. Ted Cruz told him.

Eventually, O’Rourke was escorted away from the stage by police.

Crashing your opponent’s press conference is, as Cruz said, a stunt. Of course it is. But so was the event O’Rourke was crashing, in which the most powerful men in the state assembled at a school auditorium to do…what, do they do, exactly?

We’re all familiar with this routine by now—the elected officials who descend on the scene in their best emergency-response earth tones to bask in their proximity to law enforcement and collectively absolve everyone with power of any responsibility. People like Abbott and Cruz and Ken Paxton and Dan Patrick—the state’s Republican attorney general and lieutenant governor—will emphasize the “tragedy” of what happened and the unpredictability of it all. There were no obvious signs, Abbott said on Wednesday, not long before O’Rourke’s interruption; law enforcement acted quickly, he said, and saved lives; the assault rifles he acquired shortly before the shootings were, of course, purchased legally. They’ll give a few days of defensive interviews about hiring veterans to stand guard at schools. Maybe, in a few weeks, we’ll get “Uvalde Strong” t-shirts.

O’Rourke’s rhetoric on gun control viscerally shifted after the 2019 massacre targeting Mexican and Mexican-American shoppers at an El Paso Walmart. He pushed a mandatory assault-rifle buyback program during that campaign and said at a presidential debate, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” He now says he is “not interested in taking anything from anyone,” but he has criticized Abbott for signing a law that allows anyone to carry a handgun without even acquiring a permit.

Ultimately, the question of whether his intervention Wednesday was polite or not is less important than the fact that O’Rourke is right. The effect, if not the outright point, of events like the one he crashed is to ensure that the right time and the place to discuss gun control never comes—to indulge the delusion that the people who are truly doing nothing are actually doing something. The shooting was predictable, if not in the specific sense, then in the broader one: The state’s and the country’s gun laws enable outcomes such as this by design. If it wasn’t predictable, then why can we keep predicting it?

Liability is the most Caroline Forbes coded song ever and you cannot change my mind.

people always hear i'm aro and go "oh you must be so lonely!" like yes i am but being aro has nothing to do with it

Truer words have never been spoken

Never mind, Kol’s back and nothing else matters.

asexual sex workers are braver than any US marine

I think it needs to become common knowledge that "inability to read social cues" can show up as overcompensating.

You don't know how much misbehaviour is allowed, so you become the perfect child who never tests rules.

You don't know if someone is irritated with you, so you'll be extra generous and self-effacing.

You don't know how much is expected of you at work so you'll kill yourself in a minimum-wage job and not notice that nobody else is working like this.

"Hardworking and quiet" should be as much of an autism red flag as "ignores rules and doesn't know when to stop talking". Or why don't we just start using words to communicate so i can stop tracking everybody's eyebrow twitches, that would be great.