#I disagree with 8 x 7 but the other two are definitely correct

[olliya]

How popular is MadaSaku in context of other Madara’s and Sakura’s ships? Part 3

@madasakuweek

In the third, and final part of my analysis I will attempt to evaluate how many MadaSaku fics are really out there.

Also, since I am publishing this analysis 3 days after Madasaku Weekend (that took place on 27, 28 and 29.12.2019) and after the official closure (which also means, that I am late, lol), it is possible to evaluate the impact of the event on both platforms. 

As we’ve seen in Part 2, ff.net searches are full of pitfalls, and bound to deliver certain number of false positives (i.e. fics tagged in multiple ways). For major ships, this feat would be impossible, but for a relatively rare pair like MadaSaku it is still feasible to manually check for double tagging and therefore report a “real” number of works.

AO3 tagging system is much more robust, and uniformly used, nevertheless I performed searches for common phrases to exclude single fics slipping through the cracks.

One needs to regard ff.net and AO3 parts of this analysis separately, because many fics are published on both platforms in parallel. It is therefore not possible to sum up fic numbers for the two platforms.

So, let’s dive it. (For those not wanting to read my walls of text, there is a TL;DR at the end of the post) 

ff.net

I performed a search for fics tagged with Pairing Option and several consecutive searches for various Ship Names for ship Uchiha Madara /Haruno Sakura. For definitions, see the post: How popular is MadaSaku in context of other Madara’s and Sakura’s ships? Part 2.

During all the searches I divided the data into published before and after 01.10.2013 (the approximate date of introduction of Pairing Option tool).

Tables 1 and 2 summarize the results. For every search, fics were inspected and the number of fics tagged with Pairing Option is indicated in appropriate column (Column 3 in Tables 1 and 2).

Fics with double tagging (using Pairing option and a Ship Name) as well as using multiple Ship Names in summaries were flagged, according to method described below.

Since searches were performed consecutively, during each search fics were inspected for appearance of previously examined phrases. Number of fics containing the already searched phrases is indicated in Column 4.

If a fic was both tagged with Pairing Option and contained an already examined phrase, only the fact of tagging was indicated (to avoid “double-flagging”).

For completeness of data I searched also for phrases containing slash symbol (“/”). Ff.net search engine doesn’t recognize this symbol properly, and uses it as a wildcard, allowing appearance of any symbols (surprisingly up to 4 symbols…) between the words of the phrase. As an illustration, let’s consider the following example: search for Madara/Sakura brings, among others, a fic with phrase: “Pulled from the battlefield during the last, desperate fight against Madara, Sakura suddenly finds herself back in her genin day.” in summary. Therefore, it was necessary to check the summary for indications of romantic paring between Madara and Sakura in every given fic. Such evaluation is, of course, very prone to experimenter bias, but fortunately those unclear cases were very rare (and I tried my best). Number of fics that didn’t show any indications of ship is reported in Column 5.

As a side note: symbols “*” and “&” result in the same behavior of the search engine as a search with symbol “/”.

Fics tagged with other, more exotic Ship Names were not detected in this analysis.

The number of unique fics for every search was calculated through subtracting all the values from columns 3, 4 and 5 from the total number of fics. This approach allowed for the double-tagged and multiple-named fics to be counted once only. Finally, the final number of fics was calculated by adding the unique results from all the searches.

There were 77 MadaSaku fics published before 01.10.2013, and 183 published after this date. Final number of MadaSaku fics available on ff.net is 260.

After the MadaSaku Weekend 2019, 5 news fics were published: 3 tagged with Pairing Option and 2 with Ship Name madasaku (in context of indicating the event: MadaSaku Weekend 2019). And I am aware of one more fic, that was published for the event, but wasn’t tagged.

 Breaking down the data into the periods before and after introduction of Pairing Option, allows a peek into fandom’s tagging behavior and etiquette.

Ship name MadaSaku is by large margin the most popular way of indicating Madara/Sakura pairing in our community. 60% of older fics (published before 01.10.2013) and 52% of newer fics are tagged with this Ship Name. One has to emphasize though, that the phrase “MadaSaku” is often used in titles of events. Prominent events known to me include MadaSaku Week 2016, MadaSaku Day 2019 and MadaSaku Weekend 2019.

Other relatively popular way of tagging was Ship Name Madara/Sakura with 10 fics tagged this way (8 of which exclusively so), and Madara x Sakura with 11 fics (7 exclusively).

It is worth mentioning that even after introduction of Pairing Option, the community didn’t fully embrace this tool, with 76 out of 183 newer fics (42%) not taking advantage of it.

To examine if awareness of the tool existence increased over time, I checked how many fics tagged with Ship Name madasaku (as it is the most prominent of Ship Names, as shown in Table 1) were also tagged with Pairing Option (Table 3.).

No clear trend is detectable, as the numbers of fics per year are very low, and highly influenced by Events, but it can be carefully speculated that using of Pairing Option becomes more popular in last 2-3 years.

The reasons of not using the Pairing Option can be multiple: lack of awareness of the option, relative difficulty of finding and applying the tool, or conscious choice motivated by attempt on overcoming the rigidness of ff.net tagging system that doesn’t allow for multiple pairings, indicating background/past/one-sided etc. relationships and is generally unsuitable for tagging collections of unrelated stories.

Looking back into older fics (published before 01.10.2013) it can be noticed, that very few fics were back-tagged with Pairing Option (6 out of 77).

 AO3

Tagging system on AO3 is commonly accepted and used, therefore the number of Madara/Sakura shipping fics is relatively easy to find and was equal 212 before holding MadaSaku Weekend 2019.

Nevertheless, I performed searches for the same phrase as listed above, and checked for fics that according to their summaries featured romantic Madara/Sakura ship and were not tagged with AO3 ship tag.

I found 5 such fics containing the phrase MadaSaku (2 from @kendochick-moor​  and 3 from @drindrak​) and after reading the tags and summary I qualified them as belonging to the romantic Madara/Sakura ship. (@kendochick-moor​ @drindrak​, if you disagree, please let me know, and I will correct!)

Additionally, I found 2 fics (both from @kendochick-moor​) that were in my opinion shipping ones and were tagged with phrase Madara X Sakura only.

I allowed myself the liberty of adding those 7 fics to the 212 of tagged fics. Therefore, before MadaSaku Weekend 2019 AO3 hosted 219 MadaSaku fics.

Additional 13 fics has been added after the event, and now the count stands on 232 (225 according to the tag)!!! That is an increase of 6%!

As a side observation, this analysis tentatively confirms a trend that I was observing for several months, namely a shift of Naruto fandom from ff.net to AO3. During the MadaSaku Weekend 2019, held on 27-29.12.2019, 6 MadaSaku fics were added to ff.net, while 13 to AO3. The numbers are very low, and too low to draw real conclusions, but I find it symptomatic.

                                                             ***

TL;DR

There were 260 MadaSaku fics on ff.net before MadaSaku Weekend 2019, and 6 new have been added.

On AO3, MadaSaku counter was on 219 before the event and now is on 232 (13 new added).

Remember not to sum those number up – most of them are the same fics, published in parallel on both platforms!

 As always, comments, critique and hints are welcome!!!

[apriorisea]

Hello! I love your writing. I'm always reading the things you write and I want to thank you for that :D It makes my day better ^u^ If it's ok, could you write something about Hobi dealing with his affectionate bff/crush, like his crush is really affectionate and asks him if they could play with his hair because it looked really fluffy, hugs him out of the blue just because they wanted and gives him surprise kisses on his cheeks xD

--You are so darling, thank you!! I absolutely loved this suggestion, and I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but here’s my take on the scenario. I hope you enjoy! 💜💕

You x Hoseok“Unmanageable”

You were Hoseok’s best friend. This was absolutely undeniable. What you didn’t know was that you were also the girl of his dreams. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d developed the crush; all he knew was that it was now all-consuming---and his greatest secret. No matter how much it was killing him, he would never dare risk losing you by admitting to his crush.     You slammed the door to Hoseok’s room open with a groan. “This internship,” you say, flopping across his bed, “Is going to kill me.”    Grinning automatically at your presence, he swivels his chair around to look at you. “Really?”    “Ye-ess,” you whine, reaching for the stuffed elephant you’d won him out of a claw game 2 years ago and hugging it tight.     “Aw.” He gets out of his chair and comes to sit next to you on the bed. “Are people being mean?” he teases.    You hit him with the elephant, then twist to rest your head against his thigh, holding the stuffed animal in the air above you. “It’s just…difficult,” you say more seriously. “On top of all the actual job things I have to do, I’m also the one who’s supposed to get the coffee and tidy the office and run the errands…I’m just…tired.”    He hums sympathetically, but fights the urge to comfortingly stroke the side of your face.    “And I still have 3 months left,” you sigh, bringing the elephant back down to snuggle against your chest. “I don’t know if I’m going to make it.”    “You can make it,” he says immediately. “I know you can. You can do anything.”    Looking up at him, you feel some of your anxiety fade away. The corner of your mouth quirks up in a smile at his concerned expression. “Yeah?”    His face breaks into his signature bright smile. “Absolutely.”    “All right,” you concede with a heavy sigh. “I believe you.”    “That was quick,” he laughs, and a strand of his curly hair falls into his face. “Are you all better now?”    Grinning, you sit up, setting the elephant aside. “Almost. I think what I really need to feel completely better is…..”    “Ice cream?”    “Ding ding ding!” you agree. “Can you take a little break?”    He pretends to think about it. “Well….since it’s a case of life and death, I think I can definitely take a little ice cream break.”    You give a little cheer. “Perfect! Let’s go. Oh, wait—” Leaning forward a little, you reach up to brush the hair out of his face, settling it back in place. “Okay. Now, let’s go!” You miss the way his breath catches in his chest at your touch, bouncing off the bed in excitement.      With a slightly dazed smile, he climbs off the bed and follows you.

---

     The two of you are sitting outside the ice cream shop, at a table under an umbrella, settled in a comfortable silence. You finish your cone while he is still working his way through the first layer of his 2 scoop bowl. “Mmmm,” you say happily. “That was perfect.”     “All better now?” he asks with a fond smile.     You nod, then climb to your feet. “I need to go wash my hands,” you say, holding your palms up for evidence. “Be right back!”     On your way back, you pause just inside the door, your eyes finding your best friend immediately. It’s ridiculous how good he looks, just sitting under a table-umbrella eating ice cream, and, not for the first time, you find yourself surprised that he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Remembering how easily he had calmed you down earlier turns that surprise to gratitude, and you push open the door, eager to be in his warm presence again. Reaching the table, you sit on the round-bench seat next to him, a little closer than you were before. “How’s your ice cream?”    He swallows and nods at the same time, the tops of his cheeks going pink at your proximity. “Really good,” he tries to say around a mouthful of ice cream. “Life-saving.”    “Right,” you laugh.     “I’m almost done,” he says. “What do you want to do next?”    You perk up. “Do you have more time??”     “Yep. I can be done for the day, actually.” The smiles blooms across his face at your little cheer. “Do you wanna go watch some of our show?”    “Yes. What episode are we on?”    He takes his final bite. “7? Maybe?”    “No….” you disagree. “Didn’t we get to 9?”    The playful disagreement lasts all the way back to his apartment and the two of you argue all the way up until the Netflix logo loads. When you discover that you’re both wrong—it was episode 8—you tuck your feet under you on the couch, one of the throw pillows resting against your side.     “So we were both off,” you say with a grin.    He laughs. “No, we were both wrong.” Stretching out, he readjusts the throw pillow. “Ready?”    “Mmhmm.” As the opening credits are rolling, your eyes wander to the soft curls splayed across the pillow. “Your hair is so fluffy today,” you say with a small smile. “Can I play with it, please??”    He goes absolutely still. “My…my hair?”    “Yeah!” You don’t notice his frozen posture. “Seriously, Hobi, it is so fluffy-looking today.”    He laughs, an honest but nervous sound. Clearing his throat, he manages to sound casual. “Sure. …Weirdo.”    “That’s me,” you agree cheerfully and reach for a strand of his hair.     The absolute static electricity he feels at your fingers in his hair is overwhelming. You comb through his curls, occasionally twisting a strand loosely around your finger while you get wrapped up in the episode. He can barely breathe, every fiber of his being humming with pure happiness at the situation. By the end of the episode, he has no idea what happened, but he knows one thing: this crush was becoming almost unmanageable. 

---

    “So….we’re good to leave Saturday night, right?” you ask, frowning a little as you read through the booking confirmation on your laptop.     “Yep.” Hoseok is at the stove, cooking his favorite rice dish for the both of you. “The others are going to meet us on Sunday, I think.”    You hit confirm and sit back. “There! All done.”    He’s grinning. “Perfect. I’m excited for this trip,” he says, reaching for the spices.     “Me, too.” You watch him cook for a second, a fond smile on your face. “I’m really glad we get to go.” Bouncing to your feet, you cross to where he stands in the kitchen and wrap your arms around him from behind, giving him a tight hug. “Plus dinner smells amazing!”    He’s frozen in place, unable to breathe because of the random hug-attack you’re currently engaged in. The blush is creeping up his neck unchecked—but so is the smile on his face. He clears his throat loudly to cover up the way his heart is pounding. “Um…t-thanks.”    You give him a final squeeze and let go, moving to stand next to him in order to inhale the delicious aroma even better. “Mmm…is it almost ready??”    “Yep.” His cheeks are still pink. “Maybe…5 more minutes?”    “Great.” You cross to the fridge, pulling it open and scanning the contents. “We’re out of drinks,” you say, closing it again. “Sprite? Coke?”    He glances over at you. “Um…do we have—?”   “I’m going to run to the store real quick,” you interrupt, pulling on your jacket. “What are you craving?”    “You don’t have to do that…”    You shrug. “It’s no big deal. So?”    He smiles at you, neglecting the food for a second. “Sprite.”    “That’s what I thought,” you laugh. On your way past him to the door, you wrap your arms around him again in another quick hug. “Be right back!” You’re so focused on getting your shoes on that you miss how wide his eyes are, the way he takes an involuntary step after you, already missing your presence.     When you’re gone, he takes just a second to collect himself, leaning against the counter with the goofiest grin on his face. Replaying the two hugs over and over in his mind, he almost lets the rice burn.

----

“Hey.”    You look up at Hoseok’s soft voice. He’s smiling at you gently, trying to pull you out of your worried tailspin. Finding your voice, you finally respond: “Hey.”    “You all right?”    Nodding, you look back at the security checkpoint, feeling your heart race again. Last night, you had been beyond excited about this business trip, thrilled that your boss had finally entrusted you with something so big, eager to take on the world, ready to go. Now, however, surrounded by your carry-on bag and your best friend, you feel like your legs are made of jelly. Your breath catches in your chest, and without thinking, you reach for Hoseok’s hand.     His eyes widen, but he laces his fingers with yours immediately and gives your hand a little squeeze. “It’s okay,” he says calmly. “Remember how excited you were last night?”    “That was last night,” you correct nervously, your gaze still stuck on the line in front of you. “Now...”    “Hey,” he says again, shaking your connected hands a little to catch your attention. When you look up at him, he smiles again. “You’re going to be incredible. It’s going to be such a fun trip. Your boss trusts you, remember? He knows you’re going to knock this out of the park. You can do this.”    It works. His reassuring words zip through you, warming you from head to toe, and for the first time that morning, you feel the anxiety dissipate. “Can I?”    “Of course.” He squeezes your hand again.    You smile, take a deep breath, and look back at the security checkpoint; the line has dwindled to almost no one: it was now or never. “You’ll text me?” you ask, turning to him. “Every day?”    “Everyday,” he agrees.     “And you’ll answer any time I call?” you ask more playfully.    “Mm,” he pretends to think. “Most of the time.” He grins at your faux-outraged expression. “Of course, I’ll answer any time you call.” He grows more serious. “I’m going to miss you.”    Feeling another burst of anxiety, you reach for him, wrapping your arms around his neck and holding on tight. “I’m going to miss you, too,” you agree. “So much.”    His heart is racing, but he holds onto you with steady hands. “It’s just a week,” he says lightly, but he’s unsure whether he’s trying to reassure you or himself.    “Right.” You let go, pulling back and straightening your shoulders. “Okay. Here I go.”    He grins. “You’ve got this.”    And with his support, you almost believe it. Acting on pure impulse, you lean up on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Goodbye, Hobi,” you say, lingering for just a moment. “I’ll see you in a week!” And then you step back, using the band-aid approach to tear yourself away from him, hurrying to security before you can overthink it.    He stays behind, his face bright red, already longing for you again. As he watches you move through security, something changes in him. “A week,” he repeats to himself, feeling his skin burn where you kissed him. “Just one week.”

---

The first thing you do when you get back is text Hoseok. The second is call for a cab. On your way to your apartment, you hear from him: You’re home! I’m coming over. Ok?    You grin as soon as you read the message, unable to deny the happiness that floods you entire body at the thought of seeing him again. YES. I’ll be home in 10.     His answer comes quickly: I’ll be there in 15.    True to his word, when you get home, you only have enough time to empty your suitcase straight into the washer, brush your teeth, and change into non-airplane-smelling clothes, before you hear him ring the doorbell.     You grab the little souvenir you’d gotten for him while you were away, and hurry to the door. You throw it open excitedly. “Hobiii!”    He’s already smiling. “Hey there,” he says. “I’m so glad you’re back.”   “Me, too!” But your eyes were drifting to what he held in his hands. Unable to hide your surprise, you look back up at him, confusion coloring your expression.    He’s still smiling, though now it’s slightly uneasy. Clearing his throat, you finally see the blush color the top of his cheeks as he readjusts his grip on the massive bouquet of flowers. “I’ve missed you a lot,” he says nervously. “And....I think we need to talk. I have some things to tell you.”

[calleo-bricriu]

Gotta be honest: I dislike that "OC Struggles in the RPC" post that occasionally hits my dash.

This one, right here.

In short, because it comes off very, "If you won't RP with my OC you're an elitist dick" even though I'm certain that wasn't the OP's intent.

But, as someone who has been writing the same Harry Potter OC (this one, right here) since 2001 and has played dozens of OCs in MMO settings, D&D, etc...starting from about 1988 on through now, let me just address the post point by point.

1. "That soul crushing feeling when you see 'no OCs' in someone's rules."

That's a you problem.

Nobody is obliged to write with you.

Perhaps that person has had numerous poor experiences with OC players in the past and just wants to avoid it happening entirely.

Perhaps they find it difficult to find ways to interact with OCs.

Perhaps they simply don't care for OCs when there are dozens of canon characters, including characters that are so minor that they might as well be a skeleton outline of a character.

None of those are invalid reasons and none of those are personal insults toward your OC or your writing; grow up and move on.

2. "Constantly having to dumb down your canon"

Look, if you're finding multiple people over multiple fandoms are telling you that your OC is too overpowered--just to cram it all into one word--you do need to stop and consider if they may be right and, if they are, if you care enough to change it.

There have been times I've looked at criticism I've had on Calleo and decided, "Yeah, they're right, that is a bit much" and other times when I've decided that yes, they are correct, but I don't care because I'm having fun as are the people I write with, and times where I've just plain disagreed.

It's also possible that your OC just isn't a good fit for whatever person is telling you that, and that's nobody's fault; not everybody likes the same things.

3. "Adjusting to adapted canons"

Literally nobody is forcing you to do this.

Everyone makes concessions now and again so things mesh with the group, that's part of what roleplaying is: A group activity.

If you feel as though you shouldn't have to adjust to someone else's adapted canon the problem is on your end and you're clearly not a good fit for the other player so maybe look elsewhere.

4. "The amount of your own canon and lore you have to sacrifice to do that."

Again, nobody is forcing you to do so.

This comes up a lot with people whose OCs are related to major canon characters and some of it is a big reason why it's generally recommended to not try and write those outside of established games.

In established games, the other players know this aspect of your character and, since you're part of the game, have implicitly agreed to go along with it.

For independent blogs, it does take longer to find regular RP partners because by having a backstory like that, it can feel like you're trying to force your, let's call it, adapted canon, onto canon and not everyone is going be on board with that idea or, at the very least, are implying that anyone who writes with you has to go along with it.

Again, that is not their fault and it doesn't mean you can't write an OC like that but you do need to be aware that if you choose to have something like that in your character's background, it's going to make it more difficult to find regular canon RP partners and that fact is entirely your fault, not the people who RP canon characters.

Same applies for those times when your OC has multiple rare abilities; the abilities might be canon but, sticking with Harry Potter as it's the main fandom I play in, if your character is a genius at everything, has the Standard Abusive Upbringing, is a metamorphamagus, is an animagus (usually unregistered and mastered by age 12 or so), is part-something-not-human, is a "transfer student to Hogwarts", is a major canon character's until now unknown sibling/cousin/best childhood friend, can cast all sorts of difficult magic before they even hit school because they're just that smart, is an orphan, and can sass Voldemort to his face without consequences--people aren't really going to want to write with you for several reasons.

- It looks like you haven't fleshed the character out well and are just throwing a pot of tropes at the wall to see what sticks.

- Writing with characters like that always feels like a dick measuring contest and if you dare try to hint that the OC might not be better at or just as good at something as a canon character, the most typical response is for the OC's player to get mad and tell you you're being elitist or bullying them.

5. "When you mention wanting to write a canon, people that have never shown any real interest in your OC jump out of the woodwork to encourage you to do it."

Yeah, there's no polite way to say this: If this is what happens to you, it generally means your OC is poorly thought out and can only hit one note (i.e. YOU only show interest in writing certain things; angst, shippy threads, etc...but never want to branch out to anything else) in your writing. That gets boring after awhile.

In short, your OC is probably a little boring and a little two dimensional and the reason your friends are encouraging you to write a canon is because they don't want to tell you that and know that a canon will be more interesting on virtue of you not having to make up all the source material the way you  have to do with an OC.

6. "When you do it, that canon gets more attention than your OC ever did."

See #5. Your OC was probably a kinda dull one trick pony and your friends were trying to be nice about it.

7. "The alternative of that: When your first character was canon and you transition to writing an OC, people suddenly disappear."

See #5. Your OC was probably a kinda dull one trick pony in comparison to the canon character you were writing, and your friends were trying to be nice about it.

8. "Fandom OCs that outgrow their fandoms and muns tha tfeel they have nowhere to put them."

That's lack of creativity on your part, not an "OC struggle".

This character of mine has had fragments of his personalty spawn off into roughly thirty or so different characters across multiple fandoms. On occasion, I've directly ported him into another fandom, just changing the Harry Potter specific things into things that fit the new fandom.

9. "Endlessly worrying if your character is too sue-ish, even after x-amount of years."

Stop caring.

Seriously, stop caring.

Caring about that usually ends up making you kind of less than fun to write with on an OOC level and on an IC level most people take it too far in the other extreme and end up with a character that's about as engaging as wet cardboard.

Not to mention, no matter what you do, there are always going to be people who will think your OC is "too sue-ish" no matter what, simply because they're an OC.

Focus more on people who are interested in your OC and not on the people who don't like your OC (and block them if you have to). You'll have a lot less stress and a lot more fun that way.

If you can't stop caring due to anxiety, get to a therapist and get on meds or--stop roleplaying until you get your house in order. If you get that stressed over roleplaying, it's not worth your mental health to continue; just go write fanfic.

10-13. All the stuff about female OCs being held to higher standards than male OCs.

This, unfortunately, is true. It's extra true if you're a female OC that gets into any sort of relationship, platonic or otherwise, with a canon character.

It's a pretty across all fandoms thing too, and it's definitely unfair.

I know 100% that if Calleo were a female OC, he would not have even a fraction of the interactions and threads that I have with him; people would think he's bitchy, stuck up, and annoying as all hell--and he is, but he's a guy, so it somehow funny and endearing I guess.

I think he’s often bitchy, stuck up, and annoying as all hell and I’ve been writing him for close to 20 years now.

He'd also probably be written off as some kind of slut because I've always written him as being in open relationships and often having multiple open relationships going at one time.

14. "People assuming simple, stupid things"

Yeah, that's not OC specific. Not even close. It's good form to always read someone's about and rules page, even if it's a canon character, because nobody plays even canon characters exactly the same.

15. "Feeling like you have to jump through hoops to keep up with everyone else and keep your character fresh and interesting so people don't lose interest."

Again, this is not an OC specific thing. Canon, unless a series is ongoing, is pretty finite, and anyone writing any character has to keep their character fresh and interesting and not just write variants of the same thing over and over or people will get bored of them as well.

A pretty good litmus test here is to look at it and see if it's just one or two people who lost interest or if it was a whole lot of them.

If it was just one or two people, that sucks, but it happens. We've all been dropped at some point.

If it's a LOT of people, it's time to take a close look at your OC and what you're writing to make sure you haven't just turned into--well, the literary equivalent of wet cardboard.

16. "Canon blogs that shit on OCs--you realize you were OCs too right? What would the original writer of your canon think?"

Well, if it's Anne Rice, she'll probably think to send a cease & desist.

That joke aside, be glad they do; it's a big red flag to avoid them as they're likely overall unpleasant people even if their writing is good. It also saves you from wasting your time trying to interact/write with them.

Remember that part about not focusing on the people who aren't interested in writing with you? Go read it again.

17. "No seriously, it can be so discouraging writing an OC. How many ideas are you killing by snubbing OCs? The future of creative media is in our hands."

Miss me with this emotionally manipulative bullshit.

Nobody is obliged to write with you and nobody is obliged to like your OC.

If a canon blog rejecting your OC is enough to kill your ideas, that's your problem, not the canon blog writer's problem.

If you can't find someone to RP your ideas with you and you really like those ideas, I'd suggest writing fanfic.

If you really want to RP those ideas, you'll either have to keep looking until you find someone who also wants to RP those ideas, or you'll have to be willing to do some compromising to make those ideas work in a way that other players will find interesting.

If your OC always has to be center stage and the best at everything, or you only want to write ship threads, or you only want to do angst, or your OC is always being injured, nearly killed, in emotional distress, etc...all the damn time, that gets boring for everyone else really quickly.

That's a you problem, not an other writers problem.

18. "Has someone stolen my canon?"

Look, if the stuff further up on this list is an issue for you, I guarantee you nobody has stolen your canon.

In general, nobody will steal your canon; there are not infinite numbers of ideas and tropes are very common both in canon canon and for OCs.

Unless someone straight up lifted everything about your character and just changed the name and whatever face claim you're using, there's about a 0 % chance they stole your ideas.

19. "Is my canon too similar to someone else's?"

See the bit in #18 about common tropes; given that, probably.

The bigger question is does it bother you enough to rework your OC? If it doesn't, stop caring.

If it does, get to work reworking your OC.

20. "Do they think I stole their canon?"

Have they said something? Do you have overlapping RP circles? No? Then they probably don't know you exist, let alone think you've stolen from them.

21. "And what do you do when somebody does steal your canon? It can be so hard to prove and it's so easy for it to be dismissed."

If it's hard to prove, it's too generic to have been stolen unless they just did a direct copy paste.

22. "Having your OC written off because of the face claim choice - that face is constantly typecast, nobody takes it seriously, they've been overplayed and ruined."

The only people I've had, 7 years of Tumblr RP, give two fucks about face claims are:

- Control freak admins of organized games that usually fall apart within 6 months due to drama typically caused by the control freak admins. I actually had one game have the admins get angry at me because I wouldn't stop doing cosplay for Calleo's pictures and just pick a celebrity.

Bullet dodged there.

- People who are also just generally unpleasant OOC; if a face claim alone is enough to make someone not want to RP with you (and it's not a case where the person whose face it actually is has been clear about them being uncomfortable with people using their pictures in that manner), that's a red flag that that person, if you somehow still want to write with them after seeing that, will likely be incredibly, bizarrely dramatic in all the wrong ways.

Sure, some of them are fine and they just have a hard time picturing an OC who also looks uncannily like Taylor Swift, but people who have things in their rules about refusing to write with people who use certain icons should be taken as either a red flag or a, "Well, I dodged a bullet here."

Also, in case nobody has told you this: Icons are not necessary for RP. They often add absolutely nothing to the post or thread that isn’t just as easily accomplished by using words. There’s nothing wrong with using icons but, you know, run far, far away from people who require that you use them.

Maybe instead of getting into the mindset that nobody wants to write with your OC because they’re an OC, take a look at your OC, ask people to give you honest and constructive feedback about the character (even if they tell you things you might not want to hear), consider working on your OOC personality as the victim mentality or using emotional manipulation about ~*~*how hard~*~* it is to write an OC to try and guilt people into writing with you is incredibly off putting on every level.

The more someone whines and complains about how nobody wants to write with them, honestly, the less interested I become in writing with them.

You also have to put some effort in, and that includes answering submitted memes or people who write you starters (or like an open starter call from you); if you fail to do that more often than not (and no, ‘low/no muse’ is not an excuse when you use it all the time, especially when you clearly have muse and are responding to whatever Themed Thing--usually angst or shipping--you get but ignore anything else or take ages to reply to anything else), the people sending those things in will assume you’re just not interested in writing with them and will stop trying.

And, bottom line?

If even you can’t sell your OC as being interesting and write off lack of interest from others as Unfairness Toward OCs, why should anyone else be interested?

If you have an OC that’s legitimately interesting, engaging, and not based around generally disliked tropes (across fandoms those are usually related to a canon character, multiple rare abilities, the OC being able to somehow always ignore or overtly go against social norms and suffer exactly zero consequences--or worse--be adored and admired for it by everyone, and Not From Around Here, in that order), and aren’t unpleasant OOC, people will want to write with you.

If you don’t, well, that’s your problem, and no amount of posting about how hard OCs have it will make people interested.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT IDEAS

Getting to general plus useful by starting with useful and cranking up the generality may be unsuitable for junior professors trying to get tenure in any field you must not arrive at conclusions that members of tenure committees can disagree with. But why should people who program computers be so concerned about copyrights, of all things? Few others could have done it. Behind every great fortune, there is no way they can get around that.1 But it's pretty easy to make $3000 a month do not mean the company has succeeded. When new mail arrives, it is scanned into tokens, and everything else goes into the spam corpus, with only 1. They can sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm. So starting from utility won't entirely solve the problem of the headers, the spam probability will hinge on the url, and it will take some effort to make that look neutral. Fifty years ago, and even then was afflicted by the structural problems I've described above.

Which means your brain could conceivably be split into two halves and each transplanted into different bodies. If you made a graph of GNP per capita vs. The control systems inside machines used to be physical: gears and levers and cams. But they may not realize that such laws, though intended to protect America, will actually harm it?2 If you write in an unclear way about big ideas, you produce something that seems tantalizingly attractive to inexperienced but intellectually ambitious students. Believe it or not, the two senses of hack are also connected. The key to this mystery is to revisit that question, are they really worth 100 of us? After all, he protected them from both the criticism of outsiders and the promptings of their own inner compass by establishing the principle that the most noble sort of theoretical knowledge: some that's useful in practical matters and some that isn't. The most dramatic I learned immediately, in the first step, and ngood and nbad are the number of false positives will not tend to be annoyed by hackers' general attitude of disobedience.

Data is by definition easy to copy.3 This is just as well, anyway, if a backup system doesn't rely on the same technology as the primary system. Well, of course.4 Something similar happened when people first started describing things as hot or cold and when someone asked what is heat?5 99 probability. Indeed, c0ck is far more damning evidence than cock, and Bayesian filters know precisely how much more.6 They had to, or we wouldn't have paid for them. You can see wealth—in buildings and streets, in the first semester of freshman year, in a class taught by Sydney Shoemaker. And yet as it gets cheaper to start startups, this sparsely occupied territory is becoming more and more valuable. The financial risk? I had several motives, some more honorable than others.

A word like shortest is almost as much evidence for innocence as a word like that is effectively a kind of singularity in this respect.7 But it also discovered that per and FL and ff0000 are good indicators of spam.8 It was not till around 1600 in Europe, where the Industrial Revolution that wealth creation definitively replaced corruption as the best way to get rich. Nowadays a lot of email containing the word Lisp, and so far no spam that does. A few ideas from it turned out to be mistaken. The financial risk? Do abstract ideas exist? Getting to general plus useful by starting with useful and cranking up the generality may be unsuitable for junior professors trying to get tenure in any field you must not arrive at conclusions that members of tenure committees can disagree with.9 Because to the extent that income varies simply according to how much wealth people create, the distribution may be unequal, but it's better for everyone else, including professors who already have it.10

Notes

There was one of the biggest company of all, the Patek Philippe 10 Day Tourbillon, is rated at-1.

That's why there's a continuum here. I had a big factor in high school textbooks. But I'm convinced there were some good ideas buried in Bubble thinking.

A servant girl cost 600 Martial vi. 3/4 of their pitch. But when you use this question as a technology center is the notoriously corrupt relationship between the initial plan and what the startup after you buy it.

A startup founder could pull the same lesson, partly because they can't legitimately ask you a termsheet, particularly if a bunch of actual adults suddenly found themselves trapped in high school you're led to believe that was really so low then as we think we're so useless that in New York the center of gravity of the marks of a powerful syndicate, you don't go back and rewrite journal entries over and over for two weeks. At the time.

As well as good as Apple's just by hiring someone to do it for the popular image is several decades behind reality. Oddly enough, maybe the balance of power will start to shift back. Apple's market cap the day Steve came back in a journal. If I paint someone's house, though, because living at all.

Frankfurt, Harry, On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 2005. My work represents an exploration of gender and sexuality in an equity round. Maybe it would have undesirable side effects. We managed to screw up twice at the mercy of circumstances: court decisions striking down state anti-takeover laws, starting with the fact that investment; in biotech things are going well, partly because they will come at an ever increasing rate to manufacture a perfect growth curve, etc.

I managed to screw up twice at the bottom of a large chunk of this process but that's a pyramid scheme. It's conceivable that the only function of the Nerds. The ironic thing is, so x% usage growth predicts x% revenue growth, it's shocking how much they lied to them, just those you should be especially conservative in this essay began by talking about what other people thought of them consistently make money from existing customers. For example, to mean starting a startup to sell something bad can be useful in solving problems too, but except for that reason.

No, and when I first met him, but we are only slightly richer for having these things. And it's particularly damaging when these investors flake, because investors don't always volunteer a lot on how much of the things startups fix.

It is the other cheek skirts the issue; the crowds of shoppers drifting through this huge mall reminded George Romero of zombies. The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and although convertible notes, VCs who don't, but even there people tend to become more stratified. But he got there by another path. Publishers are more likely to coincide with other people's.

But one of the former. Correction: Earlier versions used a recent Business Week, 31 Jan 2005. So if all bugs are found quickly.

[mrsteveecook]

can you work from home while caring for small kids, presenting with a coworker who swears, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Can you work from home while caring for small children?

I have a friend who is currently working from home full-time with her toddler around. She’s been managing so far, planning her work day around his naps and the feast/famine workload. She would like to have more children. Her husband, for reasons I won’t go into, has steadfastly refused that they put their toddler and any future children in childcare until they start school (at age 4). She has told me he has told her he thinks she should be able to continue to work from home managing a toddler and a preschooler (after maternity leave).

She’s not so sure.

She has essentially a desk job with no travel or customer facing tasks and I suspect the bulk of her work needs to be done during regular working hours. But I don’t feel it’s a reasonable assumption that two small children at home plus working full-time is an very easy doable thing.

But what do I know – my own kids are in their teens now but when I had the two of them under five, it was a busy time. I wasn’t even working and it felt busy.

Are there any working at home parents out there among your fans who are making it work with two small children at home? Or is this one of those situations where it sounds and looks good on paper but in the end, someone loses and something’s gotta give?

Hahaha! No, it’s not realistic to work full-time while also being the sole caretaker for two small children.

In fact, it’s really common for companies with remote employees with small kids to require those employee to sign a document attesting that they have child care during work hours, because it’s widely recognized that taking care of small kids requires way more attention than a full-time job allows.

If your friend works for herself with no employer to answer to, and doesn’t mind having zero leisure time and near-zero sleep time, maybe she could try to make it work.

Otherwise, it sounds like her husband is going to need to take over the child care if he finds paid help a no-go.

2. Giving a presentation with a coworker who swears a lot

I occasionally work with a junior colleague who curses quite a lot. Part of her job is hosting events with people who are coming to our organization for the first time from around the country and she regularly drops the F-bomb within the first hour of the event. Sometimes when she’s in my office talking to me, I feel like I should close the door to my office so the other people in my senior-level suite don’t wonder what’s going on with the profanity. When I first met her, I thought she was terribly unprofessional, but as I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve found that she’s very good at what she does, incredibly intelligent, and actually someone I really enjoy working with — just young and maybe a bit inexperienced in professional settings (I think this is her first job outside of a research setting after her PhD).

I’ve thought in the past maybe I should say something to her about the profanity. To be clear, I’m not offended in the least — I curse all the time myself, just not at work! I thought as someone with a little more experience, and as a fellow woman in a male dominated field, I could maybe give her some polite advice. I eventually decided it’s not my place — I’m not her supervisor, she doesn’t even work in the same division of our institution, and I didn’t want to offend her.

But now, we’ve been asked to give a presentation together in a couple weeks to a very high-level group within our organization. They are NOT the kind of people you curse in front of. I’m not sure if my colleague really understands the status of this group because she didn’t even know what it was until I explained it to her (this is a very large organization and they’re in a totally different part of it from us, but a super important one). I would be mortified if we were co-presenting and she cursed even once, so I’m wondering if I should say something. On the one hand, I don’t want to offend her by assuming she doesn’t know not to curse in front of an important group. But on the other hand, it’s not like I haven’t heard her curse before in front of people at events (granted, much more casual events with less high-level people, but still). Any advice on how I could politely bring this up without offending her?

Just be matter-of-fact about it; if you try to approach it delicately, it’s more likely to come across weirdly.

So: “Hey, I know you’re sometimes a fan of salty language — and so am I, outside of work — so just a heads-up that that would not go over well with this group. We need to keep it super G-rated.”

Say it in the same tone you’d use to say, “This group hates any Powerpoint longer than three slides” or “they will always want to break for lunch promptly at noon.” You’re not judging anything; you’re just letting her know useful context.

3. A new hire who ghosted us a few years ago just applied for another job here

I work in a very small company (7-8 people) that belongs in a niche industry. That means that among all, we do not have a dedicated HR department. We do not hire people often since we have almost zero turn over, but when we do, it is up to me to post job listings and perform the interviews.

Few years back I was pregnant so we started searching for someone to fill in some of my duties while I would be on maternity leave, but to have him/her stay after my return as well. Interviews were scheduled until we finally selected the person who would fit very well in the role. Her first day would be on Monday. She never showed up. She didn’t even have the decency to talk to me, she just left a message at the reception that she would not be working with us, no other explanation. Understandably that put me in a lot of stress, but we started the process again and came up with a great colleague who stills works with us.

Now another member of the team is pregnant and we started looking for someone to expand our team. The person who stood us up few years back just send her CV. I am furious. Should I respond or just let it go ?

The mature answer is to either ignore her or send her a frosty rejection, but there’s also nothing wrong with responding back with, “We actually hired you for an X role three years ago but you didn’t show up on your scheduled first day, nor did we hear from you. We’d of course want to understand what happened there before we could consider another application from you.” (You will not consider her application regardless, but it would be Very Interesting if you get a response.)

4. Should I advocate for just one penny?

I work as a project assistant at a non-profit. It’s a really great job with really great people, and I’m super happy! However, I recently discovered that the hourly rate on my offer letter and the rate displayed on our company’s payments portal are different – by one cent (for context, I’m hourly and non-exempt). I calculated the difference that would make me over all, and though it’s definitely not much, it’s still more. Should I dispute this, and how? I feel kind of silly advocating for that single cent, but all money helps, and I also don’t want to just let it go on principle.

Sure. It’s money, and it’s owed to you, and a decent company will want to have their systems correct. You don’t want to approach it guns blazing, of course — just like, “I noticed a small discrepancy between the pay rate in my offer letter and the one in the payments portal. It’s a minor one, but I wanted to make sure the correct figure is in there.”

5. I was turned down for a promotion based just on my interview

Yesterday I received news that I did not receive a promotion to a supervisory position. The reason they did not promote me I feel is not valid. I wanted your second opinion on it, and advice.

The reason why management turned me down was only because of my performance on the interview. They said that I seemed unsure of myself. My argument is that the work environment itself and the interview are two totally different atmospheres and thus people can behave in a different fashion. Management is very well aware of my contributions and work for the operation, and I have been working there for over four years. I believe that my performance on the job is a better reflection on how I would fit into a supervisory role. This is also not the first time I tried for this promotion, and each time I do get rejected I get a different reason. This is the first one that had nothing to do with how I perform my duties.

In general, working with someone for four years is going to tell you way more about them than an interview ever could. That said, it’s still possible that your interview could be a legitimate reason for rejecting you, depending on the context. In this case, you were applying for a management position, and seeming unsure or hesitant about how you’d handle various management challenges would absolutely give a good interviewer pause. (To be clear, if you’ve never managed before, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t be 100% confident — and in fact, if you were, I’d take that as a danger sign too — but there’s a certain level of uncertainty that would be worrisome.)

Ultimately, though, it doesn’t really matter if you think their reason for rejecting you was valid or not; they get to decide, and it’s not like you can overturn their decision if you disagree with it. But what you can do is to ask about what you need to work on in order to be promoted in the future. If they can’t lay out a pretty clear path to that, that’s a signal to you that you probably need to look outside the company in order to move up. (Frankly, it’s worth trying that regardless, so that you know what your options are.)

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can you work from home while caring for small kids, presenting with a coworker who swears, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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