This is the Milgram sideblog for @gunsli-01. This is my space to be critical of what I enjoy to my hearts content. I've always been a fan of murder mysteries. Focusing on the ins and outs of what they may have done and why while messy is what I find the most fun! Hopes for the series is finishing it with an appreciation for all the cast not just a select few.
I know it's a longshot but I think the funniest fucking thing that could happen this trial is if Mikoto and Kotoko two people who def gave more than their fair share of people the business had the highest innocent verdict they ever had. It'd be double hilarious if that happened and their videos showed them doing worse shit than we thought outside the murder. Like they didn't just kill people no on top of that Kotoko also frequented the fucking abandoned building Yuno fell in and that's why the gate was half open. Mikoto fucking killed a relative of the truck driver that was in the accident in Shidou's case and they got the call about a family members death right before the crash leading to them both being tangentially involved with why two other people are here. Fucking impossible for the second things to happen but it would be the funniest thing to occur. We're just here like what other curve balls could they throw at us and Milgram goes "I know they killed people but we brought Kotoko here for being non-binary and a furry actually."
I know it's a longshot but I think the funniest fucking thing that could happen this trial is if Mikoto and Kotoko two people who def gave more than their fair share of people the business had the highest innocent verdict they ever had. It'd be double hilarious if that happened and their videos showed them doing worse shit than we thought outside the murder. Like they didn't just kill people no on top of that Kotoko also frequented the fucking abandoned building Yuno fell in and that's why the gate was half open. Mikoto fucking killed a relative of the truck driver that was in the accident in Shidou's case and they got the call about a family members death right before the crash leading to them both being tangentially involved with why two other people are here. Fucking impossible for the second things to happen but it would be the funniest thing to occur. We're just here like what other curve balls could they throw at us and Milgram goes "I know they killed people but we brought Kotoko here for being non-binary and a furry actually."
my biggest word of advice to anyone scared to post their work/ocs/involve themselves in creative spaces online is to earnestly get interested in other people. be kind to others, like/reblog their work, tell them what you like about their work, get to know them as people.
this isn’t to “weasel” your way into anything or having ulterior motives or whatever. if you become friends with someone then that’s great! but there’s always something very personal about posting any kind of creative work. we’re all trying our best to connect with each other and the best way to get comfortable is to get to know others and show up as yourself. 🫶🏾
i love making friends in fandom, i love playing with our toys together, i love coming up with increasingly niche aus, i love lifting strangers up, i love motivating people to create, i love watching someone get excited over an idea and immediately running with it, i love yelling in tags together, i love seeing someone gain confidence in their writing/art because people were kind to them <33
I am surprised how like calm things have been semse the end of Futa and Mu's trials.
Like their trials were the biggest amount of bullshit all of trial three. Everyone else has been kind of mellowm it was weird how people tried to vilify Yuno for struggling with suicide ideation to try to construct some form of murderous intent. But like that was a niche case.
I say that was weird solely because like getting pregnant doesn't magically make a person less depressed and intrusive thoughts occur in all sorts of people. Being unsure about becoming a mother is an incredibly normal thing to feel. So that was legitimately baffling to me.
Futa's was pretty much twitter discpurse amplified because well that's what all his trials have been. Mu's was like a funny mix of people taking things way too far by tying this characters verdict to their actual lives and bombarded discords with pleading reminders to vote her innocent like Haruka trial two. Do not do this. This is genuinely distressing behavior to flood community chats with and being considerate of others around oneself takes a whole of zero seconds. Like at a point we all need to take a step back and recognize distressing behavior as distressing even if it feels like it may legitimately be the end of the world if the outcome we don't want comes tp fruition.
This is a show and as we saw being innocent does not gurantee anyone in this series survival. Shidou and Mahiru were both innocent and they still died. Everyone who was innocent this trial can vwry much still die if any of the characters decide to attempt to end someone else's life and one person was just voted innocent for stalking someone out of her school and stabbing them. Nothing is stopping Mu from rolling up on any of the others after Milgram is done and doing the same to them. She choose to randomly kill someone for looking at her wrong and can choose to do so again if she so pleases. That's the price of pardoning someone, that's the price of forgiveness. If a person forgives someone they should do so with the understabding that they may very well make the same mistake again. Milgram has not been dishonest about this fact either. Multiple characters state that they will do the same thing again or cannot stop. Many say this out the gate.
What I'm saying is it's genuinely been a difficult road to get all the way here. To the ninth prisoners final trial being right around the corner. So it's nice to have two relatively peaceful trials where I haven't had to hear about people arguing much over anything or directly antagomizing each other even though the voting would beg tp differ. Maybe there has been but I think given the last two prisoners cases taking a moment for some brevity is incredibly important. Don't know if this makes sense or not but got damn thank everything and anything we're almost done.
Serious note slandering the other milgram characters won't make the characters anyone may favor seem more innocent by comparison.
These characters are alll in here for doing things the general public wouod take issue with depending on their personal experiences and murder. One could respectfully discuss how they may or may not feel as though a matter of someone's personal dislikes is not worthy of the same ire as cold blooded murder is and I believe that woupd be a prpductibe conversation go have. The same as one discussing generally what they dislike about the actions and/or consistent behavior of prisoners who did not commit murder. There is even room to discuss what the prisoners who committed murder have done over the course of Milgram to try to change and help others arpund them. A good example of this is discussing whether rehabilitation means letting oneself wasteaway for another's gain putting your life in service to others to make amends to the idea of a person long gone. I think it would be productive to discuss how rehabilitation is not martyring of oneself and being humbled does not mean treating ones own life as less than others around them. Discussion that I feel simply cannot happen when people make up things about characters to make them appear more bad than they are. There would be space to discuss so much more if some of these characters weren't having tmz style articles written on them that would have outlandish covers like "Hide your puppies and kittens this prisoner may be meek but he ain't weak!" Picture of Haruka with the flashlight pointed on him from All Knowing All Agony with a subtitle going "Autism the hating animals disorder". Like half this shit is just wild amounts of behavior that exists in all of our every day lives which has gone so unquestioned and unpacked that it feels appropriate if not relieving as well as maybe cathartic to voice one's upset in this way.
Instead of discussing the parrallels between Mu and Mahiru. How they both expected others to make up all the happiness in their lives and cater to them. How neither were happy when they weren't given special treatment and their lives felt dull and empty without that. How even though they were out drinking mud water and eating mice Mahiru was happy because her boyfriend was their and he was her whole world. Now was the emotionally healthy for him no not in the slightest but it's also not emotionally healthy for her to only realize this when he's hanging from a tree in front of her. Because she was so in love with this person that the thought of marrying anyone else was somethibg she fled from. She wanted to be with him for the rest of her life but at the same time let's not pretend she wasn't looking for new potential partners while she was here and trying to still have a life after that. She wanted to know that this wasn't her fault but the truth of it would have always been it takes two people to have a relationship even if it only takes one person to end one.
Other people can't make soneone else feel better about theur romantic partner taking their own life. Because most other people did not know that person to the extent that the person themselves did. They didn't wake up with this person everyday, share every evening with them, learn all theur favorite food, work with and/or go to school with them. Nine times out of ten no one is going to be as close to those lost than the ones sho lived with them and to those people that person or those people's presence is a foundational to their everyday lives. Possibly what they built their entire lives around and there's only several cases that showcase that.
Shidou's (lost his whole family), Mahiru (lost a longterm romantic partner), Kazui (lost his best friend and partner during the same day his childhood friend told him not to speak to him), and Amane whose report literally states to her, her family was her entire world. Her entire world was her famiky and their religion from before she was ever born. Now her mom is dead and her dad is who knows where and she's been sitting in milgram for six years going "At least my dad will come back and be proud of me soon".
Q.02 Who do you look up to?
Kazui: You won’t know them even if I say, but I have a childhood friend I really respect. Sorry for just answering someone from my personal life.
Amane: My father. He’s been away on a trip for a while, but I think that’s very honourable of him.
About a guy who I really speculate may not be coming back. May simply be raising a second family in Tokyo. Here's hoping he is actually doing what he said he was and will be coming back. Yet, her parralleling Shidou in losing abd being involved with the death of family members (since Shidou operated on his family as well) really makes me doubt her father is coming back. Mostly because it would mean the two people antaginistic towards one another are also the two people who lost their entire family. Just like Mahiru and Kazui both lost their longterm life partners. Basically maybe I just like the symetry of the idea.
Long and short of it there's so much to talk aboit outside of shit made up just to make characters look worse. Also yay Rochi is updating translatiobs again I really love the work they do. So, I was happy to see that when I went to get that question and answer.
something that kinda sucks is how platonic relationship tags aren't really a thing in fandom like how romantic ship tags are. like if you wanted to see stuff specifically about the romantic relationship between two characters all you'd have to do is search their ship name and you'd easily be able to find the stuff you want. but if you want to find platonic stuff you can't do much but search both of their names together and hope that the stuff you want to see pops up. people shy away from using specific tags for platonic relationships even if they're obsessed with the dynamic in question and in the rare cases where there actually are tags for platonic relationships they're usually just for qprs specifically anyways
Naming Kotoko's last song Drama is really good because it highlights the connection between her and Futa that Milgram has been hitting on since day one. It's also just wild given how she was in Deep Cover. All dressed in her own guard uniform being as dramatic as can be. So, I wonder how her third mv will go beyond as well as add to that imagery.
They really named her last song the controversy light edition. It's also funny because drama is what influencers of any degree tend to call all criticism against them to downplay it while making their detractors look unreasonable or nitpicky.
This also makes all her fucking song titles buzzwords. Harrow a word that is used in sentences such as "It was a harrowing experience." Typically to illustrate something was obscenely painfull, difficult to live through, and traumatic. Deep Cover the title of a 1992 film as well as another term for non-official covers.
Wikipedia Cover (intelligence gathering)
"In espionage, operatives under non-official cover (NOC) are operatives without official ties to the government for which they work who assume covert roles in organizations. Another term often used is deep cover, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as 'designating an intelligence agent whose real identity and allegiance are thoroughly protected.'
This is in contrast to an operative with official cover, where they assume a position in their government, such as the diplomatic service, which provides them with diplomatic immunity if their espionage activities are discovered. Operatives under non-official cover do not have this "safety net", and if captured and charged as spies are subject to severe criminal punishments, up to and including execution. Operatives under non-official cover are also usually trained to deny any connection with their government, thus preserving plausible deniability, but also denying them any hope of diplomatic legal assistance – or official acknowledgment of their service."
Colloquially the term has been used to describe going undercover in a group for such a long period of time that the one undercover may become so intimately involved with it they might have difficulties distancing themselves from the group socially or emotionally. As well as the other term for a non-official cover However, it's typically all for the sake of bringing down the group from within as well as bringing those connected with it to justice. It's difficult to tell if this is what Kotoko is doing because she is shown jumping individuals with priors and no shown group affiliations as of writing this.
Basically it may be what she framed herself as doing before being brought to Milgram and doing for Es leading into trial two. Taking into consoderation most song titles have not been super literal so far but a reflection of the prisoners mindsets I believe this is pretty likely. Though aspects of their titles can be taken literally in hindsight,
Yuno Kashiki
Umbilical: Her crime did involve a literal umbilical cord as shown in Life. This cord seemed to disconnect, snap, or generally sustain damage due to her accident.
Tear Drop: This has a double meaning. Referencibg how much Yuno cried over her circumstances as well as how she wanted society to ignore her upset and instead tear and drop her for her brhavior.
Life: Also has multiple meanings. Firstly the circumstances that brought her into Milgram were caused by her living her life which this song highlights. However the song highlights all the people she's lost throughout her life and the main life lost from her accident. A loss that can be interpretted as not only the life of the unborn child but the loss of her own future. Leading to her feelings of not wanting to think about the future as well as feeling as though she carelessly ruined her own life. These feelings contribute to her beliefe that because of her past shortcomings she doesn't deserve to live and isn't worthy of forgiveness unlike others around her. Sentiments made very clear by the lines,
"Don’t forgive me don’t forgive me don’t forgive me don’t forgive me. Think about those who should have lived instead of me, so why?"
Kazui Mukuhara
Half: This has multiple meanings. Firstly it's a reference to him being half-hearted. Half in and half out of all of his relationships and noncommittal. In this case noncommittal and half-hearted refer to not committing to oneself or personal feelings enough to give those things the weight they deserve not unfaithful. "Since when have I ignored my feelings? It’s better to be a let down, than to be let down yourself." Also refers to living only halfway. Living ones life but mostly in ways to comfort and appease those around themselves than honestly for oneself.
Cat: He literally says this title is literal in the lyrics, "To be caressed by you, that would be perfection. I wanted to be loved, just like a cat. Maybe act capricious, on my word and at my fancy."
Camouflage: A lot of people believe this title references the marriage but it references the liquor. Kazui uses his drunkenness as a camouflage to excuse his confessing to his friend. Alcohol appears prominently throughout all his videos due to this. On some level he deeply wants to believe that if he wasn't drinking than he wouldn't have said what he did and every song he has serves to deconstruct this notion building up to this pay off,
"Intoxication as my excuse, if only I didn’t get drunk on the booze + myself."
Kazui blatantly admitting that even if he wasn't drinking hos honest feelings would have still wound up being spoken. Because the booze wasn't what pushed him over the edge his own feelings were.
He also uses his drunkiness to not only lament his actions but excuse how the people around him responding to them. The Blah, blah lines only coming in when he sees the result of his honesty. As he mocks himself for ever speaking the truth at all-
"Blah Blah, oh no I’ve said it. Blah Blah, what am I doing? Intoxication as my excuse, if only I didn’t get drunk on the booze + myself. Blah Blah, oh not taking it well. Blah Blah, what am I doing? A self-gratified ILY, oh honey you’re such a fool, can’t take it back."
Something foreshadowed in the lyrics of cat, "It’s better to be a let down, than to be let down yourself." Something that ties into him lamenting that he didn't continue lying in his trial two voice drama. He constantly berates himself for not continuing to keep his feelings in and excuses the reactions of those around him as a reasonable result to his lack of tact and inability to live up to what he presented to them.
"Hiding it would have been best? Never reveal, or else, punishment? Heartbreaking, damn."- "A self-gratified ILY, oh honey you’re such a fool, can’t take it back."
The characters in the series titles have a lot artistic flare but there are some characters that harness that flare with an air of simplicity while still managing to have their titles be relevant to their cases. I think this is a really clever way the staff have added to their characterization by showing of their artistic prowess through their songs naming conventions. However it does create some very funny juxstapositions such as,
Mikoto Kayano
MeMe: There's me and then there's me. Actually this is still really simple and has flare at the same time. It alludes to the characters DID but also their self-centeredness. How "It's always about me, me" in this case them. Again it's literal like with Kazui in Cat there's a lyric in MeMe that references the literalness of this title and this continues in Double.
MeMe- "Maybe it’s ok to try to keep on living. Split in half, make that heart beat."
Double- "I don’t remember a thing, it couldn’t be helped, I’m DOUBLE (MeMe)."
Double: I mean literally look at the cd cover and the line from MeMe.
"Split in half, make that heart beat."
Requiem: The most amazing word in the English language. Quite literally referencing a myriad of things. One Star pointed out being the album Roquiem.
It also could possibly be referencing the movie and novel Requiem for a Dream. Though I doubt in the last act they are going to throw drug addiction in the mix of things going on here. This connection is more due to the mention of dreams throughput Mikoto's narrative as well as the shared thread between both stories of the characters involved wanting to work their ways out of their situations through any means.
The title can also be taken literally as a requiem sung for themselves. It has been built up to be taken as such through Double lines such as, "Cling to me, hoist me up as your “savior”, stand up and sing out your gratitude, that’d be good" and "Cling to me, hoist me up as your “savior”, stand up and sing out your gratitude, so why". Basically this is Mikoto delivering on that.
In contrast to,
Shidou Kirisaki
Throw Down: I'm throwing down my ethics and committing malpractice by killing this patient to possibly commit more malpractice by fprcing myself into an operating room to perform surgery on my own family which I have been told not to do.
Triage: My family and that bastard were brought in through triage this is how I found out they were in an accident.
And,
Mu Kusunoki
After Pain: This is after I bullied her with my classmates, she hiit me with a chair and they started bullying me because I cried and threw up in response to that. Then I killed her.
It's Not My Fault: It's literally not my fault though you see why I had to do it and you can't see any wrongdoing on my part. But what if I was a little bad don't hate me wait it's not my faukt we agreed on this (literally did not do that).
Pain: What I perpetuate and you clearly have not had enough of yet. How many times do I have to teach you people this lesson the song.
It's literally like alright yeah fair that's pretty straight to the point. Than we got what Amane and Haruka are doing just making up whole new fucking words and phrases. As well as just titling ot shot in present tense not past with all of Amane's titles.
Amane Momose
Magic: I can still change and be better that's the true magic anyone can choose to be better at any time. And I'm doing that right now.
The Purge March: Kill them, trample them, crush their throats get to marching.
Non-demonium: Maybe my religion was wrong maybe you don't need to be religious to have morals and do right by others. Maybe... this shit's harmful. Maybe we should be nondenominational.
Me: What if that causes chaos and pandomonium?
Amane: Then let it.
Me: Alright. Bet. What's the worst that can happen?
Amane: My mom's dead and I'm torn between blaming myself for her death and the religion that stopped my dad from killing himself.
Me: Shit that is the worst that could happen. Songs a banger though.
Amane: Thank you.
At this point Kotoko's titles could mean fucking anything. It's just so funny they're like this.
Kotoko Yuzuriha Discogrophy
Harrow, Deep Cover, Drama.
It's like list of most cancelable words. It's like what you give a person when you are setting them up to fail. Why did they do her like this? Why is she this funny? Also even funnier that Amane is the only odd one out when it comes to the covers of their albums again this trial. They said you will have it the hardest kid.
If I post weird shit it's because I'm currently being buffeted by organs that bleed even when their is no injury which has me sentimental. Also, Haruka's birthday is this month. Sometimes I wonder if he was innocent trial two would his situation be dofferent or would he have committed to helping Mu even in his innocence. I would like to think the latter but a part of me is introgued by the reality where Haruka abandons Mu by not committing to his word at the beginning of trial two and instead tries to help her in other ways. Such as simply talking things out with her and presenting ger with his interpretation of the guards perspective. I can't help wondering and speculating how their relationship would have devwloped if the verdict was different. A part of me is also wouod have liked to see that option because I wonder how Mu would have internalized someone who she vuews as worse off than her being favored more than her through being found forgiven. Mostly because I'd like to see how the reference to him changed if they didn't remain in the same boat. It would have been nice to see Haruka talk qith Amane more given they both experienced issues within their homelives but Haruka's justifiable fear of being around children made that impossible round one and round two he was on trying to do right by at least one person time so. A lot of lost opportunities there that I've yet to reconcile with I hope we get to see alternatives after eberything is said and done.
Me every day unprompted, "Don't worry if Amane somehow isn't guilty in three months with how quickly she's dropping Mikoto and Kotoko are definitely fucked just judging off of how people engaged here. Like if Amane is where we start hitting the threshold of people's ability to forgive then the people who on record jumped strangers are fucking burning in hell, I guess."
I need to state beyond the idea of she won't be guilty alone this is in fact not a comforting thought. However, the alternative is that more people find it socially acceptable or better for someone to kill random strangers, that have literally done nothing to them in the name of others, evem when a plethora of other options are at their disposal than it is for someone to kill their abuser who menances them in their home twenty-four seven as society turns a blind eye because they view that person as the property of said abuser.
So, if Mikoto and Kotoko are innocent while Amane is guilty we got a non-negligible amount of data from this fandom that just shows being a murderer isn't worse than being a child and even without Mikoto and Kotoko following up after her the responses to Mu and Shidou already showcase this well enough. Mikoto and Kotoko's verdicts as well as how people engage with their stories ultimately serve to put the nail in the coffin the fandom has carved at that point.
Sure, that coffin has weird about child abuse victims carved into the side but like Milgram started there and is going to end their. Plus, child abuse is something that societally causes a lot of people discomfort to engage with and victims of it tend to be mistreated throughout the whole of their lives. So, it is realistic in that sense for such a blatant display of it to cause a myriad of kneejerk reactions. Beyomd that if you take every individual case there have been layers of being suspect about child abuse in discussion around all of them. Amane just gets it harder due to being the visible child in the cast.
Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”
So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”
Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.
Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.
the wisdom ive learnt is that becoming part of a friend group 1) takes a long time and 2) involves a lot of feeling awkward and left out at first. there’s nothing terrible about this but if you grew up chronically lonely or have any kind of trauma relating to social isolation this likely feels Really Wrong and activates danger signals. but both fortunately and unfortunately it’s just how becoming close to new people works most of the time
another thing that was not intuitive to me as someone who grew up an autistic loner: basically everyone on the planet is starved for connection all the time and almost everything people do is an attempt to reach out to another. most seemingly illogical interactions and behaviours can be explained by this. you have to take as many of these invitations as you can. even if you're wrong you still attempted to bring more warmth into the world
Fandom old here, been in fandom since I was 13 and I'm not in my early thirties. In regards to the Beta and Writer conversation I have been seeing on your dashboard as of late, I wanted to say that Fanfiction.Net actually had the ingenious idea a long time ago to make a list of beta readers. What you did was you filled out a beta-editor profile and your fandoms that you were willing to do. They still have it up. The issue is that Archive of Our Own Does *not* have this. There's no official list of active beta readers or what fandoms they will do publically. Instead, most beta readers that I have found are in fandom discord servers. Tumblr doesn't give enough traction to do a beta reader call because everyone posts and can get lost in the feed. That helps no one, not the writer and certainly not the beta whose looking for someone to help.
The other issue that I am seeing is that there was a unspoken yet quite loud rule that betas were people who wished to be editors one day and just like many of us on fanfiction were hoping to become writers or were going to go into English Degrees, understood that we had to practice for our own rejection. So basically, rejective sensitivity didn't exist for us because the betas were in as much practice as we were. This is their craft as much as writing was ours. Now there were bad betas, don't get me wrong. But you knew a bad beta from a good one.
Now, I don't know about everyone else's school. But in my high school we were taught how to give criticism. Art and English teachers used to make us grade each other's art and grade each other's essays long before the teacher ever got a hold of them. We had a rubic to follow in English to help us, and for art...that could get brutal. Big time. You didn't get a I'm afraid. We got "oh god, she's going to hate it and I'm going to be re-writing this again" because English teachers back in my day gave back essays and told you to re-write it. You had four drafts before you could turn in a "final". I don't know how classes are run now, but this is another huge problem that I am seeing.
So, how does this work in fandom etiquette today? I don't think anyone really wants a "beta", they want assurance. Every time I see "it's my writing style" I leave because I already know they didn't want me to edit and it wasn't a writing style they just don't know how to break the rules properly. Betas can help you break grammar rules *properly*, because that's their craft. They know the rules therefore they know how to bend them, break them, and make them theirs. Writers, we should know how to do that too, but they know it better. Let them have it. Let them know what really is a writing style because if it's just insecurity, guess what? Here's the tough truth: you either get a beta and you enhance your writing and you learn how to hone your craft to be a better writer or you don't. And the problem is that you can get better if you don't. A beta isn't a have to...but a beta can make you get better faster. You'll be getting better slower especially with lack of engagement on fics on AO3 if you don't. Which is a valid way to go. And a whole other ask/blog entirely. Editors and writers go hand in hand, betas aren't an enemy you fight. People who are afraid of the red pen weren't afraid because of the mistakes they made, it was once more going to the typewriter and figuring out how to make it *better*.
idk how old this person is, but i'm 40, so at the very least not that young.
I used to be in a "brutal criticism" writing environment when I was ~18. what it did was kill my desire and ability to write, and I didn't get it back until I got into fandom and met people who approached my writing with warmth and a desire to help me learn.
a brutal criticism can feel satisfying to make or read. it is not actually better in improving a story than a gently phrased "hey the thing you did has X effect, is that what you meant to do?"
"when I was young we didn't have rejection sensitivity!" or maybe all the rejection sensitive people were driven out of the writing circles you were in. maybe you'd prefer that. I don't.
I am a fandom old, been in fandom since I was 13 and I'm 42 next month. I used to write a writing advice column on fanfiction.net (I was fifteen and my only qualifications were I wanted to do it) and while yes it was more common to have a beta reader at the time, it was also well known that there are different kinds of betas, and what anon describes was often not called a beta at all but an edit. A beta reader was there to tell you if you misspelled the character's name or forgot a piece of lore, or if you had used a word incorrectly, or if this fic had the emotional impact you intended. A beta reader has never been primarily about harsh criticism, and anon is the kind of beta reader I would have shrugged off as "not really interested in fandom."
I’m mid twenties, so younger than the others here, but I just wanted to add — I went to college for creative writing, and was required to take both editing and general workshop classes (which were taught by published authors, so people who had gone through this process professionally themselves) where I was also taught how to give criticism, and what anon is describing is not what I was taught. What the reblogs are describing is much much more in line with my experience. You can be honest with your criticism without being brutal. Making people feel bad about their writing is not going to encourage them to keep trying to get better. My professors emphasized this a lot in my workshop classes, and made it clear that they would step in if they thought things were getting too aggressive or cruel. That never actually had to happen in my classes, I think because everyone there was getting workshopped at some point and knew how anxiety inducing it was to put yourself on display like that, so we all had a mutual respect and care for each other during critiques.
In workshop we were taught to detail what worked for us as a reader vs what didn’t (or what wasn’t clear, or what took us out of the story, etc), not what was “right” vs “wrong” or “good” vs “bad.” Creative writing is an art form, and art is inherently subjective — there were times in workshop where I would critique something that one of my fellow students really liked and felt worked, or vice versa. Sometimes we’d suggest something be cut, only for the author to explain their intentions which would change the conversation to okay, how do we help them work that in better? The professors also always made it clear that the student being workshopped was not required to implement everything being suggested. The main point of workshop was to help the author see their work from the perspective of their reader, which in turn could help tailor their edits moving forward. However, sometimes that’s not what their goals for the piece were. Sometimes it is just a stylistic choice that they prefer, and that is their right. It doesn’t make the piece inherently bad - you personally just might not be the target audience for it.
And even with copy editing, which I think is more in line with what anon was describing, where you’re focusing more on grammar and phrasing and the “little things”: your goal is still to preserve the author’s intentions and narrative voice as best as you can. And again, the author doesn’t have to use your edits. I can flag something as clunky and suggest a rewrite, and they don’t have to make that change if they feel it serves the intended purpose as is. That’s not necessarily insecurity or a refusal to improve, that is them making a stylistic choice that they feel suits their piece better. At the end of the day, they are going to know their piece better than you, and it is going to mean more to them than it does to you, and the author-editor relationship only works if you respect that (just as they respect you enough to seek and hear out your critiques and understand that it’s not personal).
On that note, some of the experiences anon seems to be drawing from appear to be very academia-focused, and I think that’s an important distinction to make because editing for academic writing is very, very different than editing for creative writing. In academia, the rules do matter a lot more. You’re writing for a different audience, and the focus is much more on the material/content rather than a unique voice/writing style. The goal is to become invisible as a writer to avoid distracting from the content (I was taught that you shouldn’t use first or second person at all in academia for this reason). Stylistic flourishes and grammatical rule breaking aren’t going to fit. That is what a high school teacher sending an essay back covered in red marks is going to be looking at. In creative writing, you typically want your voice to stand out more and leave an impression. You’re trying to paint a picture and evoke emotions and inspire reactions rather than presenting and analyzing information. It gives you a lot more stylistic freedom, and that’s something you take into account when editing.
And then on top of that, as a final note, fandom and fanfic is not professional writing, creative or otherwise. It something that is done for free and for fun, and there are many times that the target audience for a fic is one singular person: the person who wrote it. Not everyone wants to be a writer outside of fanfic, not everyone is training to become less sensitive to rejection - a good many authors are just playing with characters and ideas for the fun of it. That is also something to be taken into account when editing. I have a friend who beta reads my fics for me, and what I’m looking for in those interactions is basically to find out if what I’m saying makes sense, and if she has the intended reaction to it. It is much, much less in depth than what I would expect from a full workshop on one of my pieces, or from someone copy editing them. Again, that’s not me being insecure or not wanting to improve as a writer, that is me not wanting a fixation on “honing my craft” to take over what is essentially my playtime. There are other times where I’m focused on improvement (and I do feel that improvement happens with everything you write on some level), but that’s not my goal with fanfic.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to what an author is looking for in a beta/editor — there isn’t a one-size-fits-all. Some people do seek out brutality without emotion in their betas/editors, and if it works for them, that’s great! But that’s not the standard, and it’s not something that’s going to help most people.
