Miss Maddy

Except they’re not giving actual valuable feedback, because being critical of something does not actually mean having constructive critical feedback.

Being able to offer constructive feedback is a skill. It doesn’t mean “having a negative opinion.”

You don’t need to be a professional writer or editor, but you do preferably need to have a basic understanding of technical writing skill, an understanding of the genre you are critiquing and a very basic grasp that just because you do not like something, does not make something objectively bad.

Messaging me to tell me you find something “cringe” isn’t valuable feedback. That’s you going out of your way to make sure a stranger knows you don’t like them.

Doubling down and emailing me back to tell me you “just wanted to help,” like help where? Where was the feedback?

What am I supposed to do with that except feel bad and stop writing?

You knew what you were doing and I will hold that mirror up. If the reflection you see makes you uncomfortable, that’s on you.

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Also, as a wider note: don’t do this in general, don’t tag or email authors in negative reviews.

Food Empowerment Project maintains an updated list of chocolate brands they recommend based on the following standards:

transparency about the country of origin for cocoa

if sourced from Western Africa, the workers must own the companies/be in charge of the profits from their labor (this standard is because child labor and slavery have been widely documented for decades in this area)

if sourced from Brazil, the workers must own the company and/or be in charge of the profits from their labor, or the company must be going above and beyond to support the workers and their families (this standard is because "child labor and slavery only recently have been documented in cocoa in Brazil" and they are "giving Brazilian companies that are trying to address the issue by supporting the workers and their families the benefit of the doubt.")

[Source: "Understanding Our Chocolate List" from their website]

So, Tony’s allied with Barry Callebut to get its cocoa. Barry Callebut is one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world, and it is unethical, obviously. This led to Tony’s revealing in February 2022 that 1701 child laborers were in their supply chain. Barry Callebut had over 21K at the time. Both of those numbers have risen, and Tony’s has outright admitted they don’t give a fuck about child labor laws when asked about it, content to let children to continue farming their cocoa instead of actually doing the activism they claim to do. (business-humanrights.org, feb 6 2022)

About a week ago, Tony’s joined Barry, Nestle and Ferrero in pushing against the reinstatement of important EUDR deforestation legislations. Under that regulation that they pushed against, they would’ve had to be more transparent about their supply chains for their more key ingredients - So Tony’s is lobbying against the exact thing they claim to stand for. (confectioneryproduction.com, mar 18, 2026)

Won’t restate @closet-keys’s addition, of course. That’d just be redundant and maybe annoying since, yknow, it’s already been said.

If you wanna find a better chocolate brand it’s really damn easy. There’s lists on slavefreechocolate.org of both the ethical and unethical companies. Both lists can be found here:

And may your pets always stay healthy ♡