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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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20 years a blogger

It's been twenty years, to the day, since I published my first blog-post.

I'm a blogger.

Blogging - publicly breaking down the things that seem significant, then synthesizing them in longer pieces - is the defining activity of my days.

https://boingboing.net/2001/01/13/hey-mark-made-me-a.html

Over the years, I've been lauded, threatened, sued (more than once). I've met many people who read my work and have made connections with many more whose work I wrote about. Combing through my old posts every morning is a journey through my intellectual development.

It's been almost exactly a year I left Boing Boing, after 19 years. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't fun, but it was definitely time. I still own a chunk of the business and wish them well. But after 19 years, it was time for a change.

A few weeks after I quit Boing Boing, I started a solo project. It's called Pluralistic: it's a blog that is published simultaneously on Twitter, Mastodon, Tumblr, a newsletter and the web. It's got no tracking or ads. Here's the very first edition:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/19/pluralist-19-feb-2020/

I don't often do "process posts" but this merits it. Here's how I built Pluralistic and here's how it works today, after nearly a year.

I get up at 5AM and make coffee. Then I sit down on the sofa and open a huge tab-group, and scroll through my RSS feeds using Newsblur.

I spend the next 1-2 hours winnowing through all the stuff that seems important. I have a chronic pain problem and I really shouldn't sit on the sofa for more than 10 minutes, so I use a timer and get up every 10 minutes and do one minute of physio.

After a couple hours, I'm left with 3-4 tabs that I want to write articles about that day. When I started writing Pluralistic, I had a text file on my desktop with some blank HTML I'd tinkered with to generate a layout; now I have an XML file (more on that later).

First I go through these tabs and think up metadata tags I want to use for each; I type these into the template using my text-editor (gedit), like this:

<xtags>

process, blogging, pluralistic, recursion, navel-gazing

</xtags>

Each post has its own little template. It needs an anchor tag (for this post, that's "hfbd"), a title ("20 years a blogger") and a slug ("Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting"). I fill these in for each post.

Then I come up with a graphic for each post: I've got a giant folder of public domain clip-art, and I'm good at using all the search tools for open-licensed art: the Library of Congress, Wikimedia, Creative Commons, Flickr Commons, and, ofc, Google Image Search.

I am neither an artist nor a shooper, but I've been editing clip art since I created pixel-art versions of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood glyphs using Bannermaker for the Apple //c in 1985 and printed them out on enough fan-fold paper to form a border around my bedroom.

As I create the graphics, I pre-compose Creative Commons attribution strings to go in the post; there's two versions, one for the blog/newsletter and one for Mastodon/Twitter/Tumblr. I compose these manually.

Here's a recent one:

Blog/Newsletter:

(<i>Image: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg">Marc Nozell</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">CC BY</a>, modified</i>)

Twitter/Masto/Tumblr:

Image: Marc Nozell (modified)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg

CC BY

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

This is purely manual work, but I've been composing these CC attribution strings since CC launched in 2003, and they're just muscle-memory now. Reflex.

These attribution strings, as well as anything else I'll need to go from Twitter to the web (for example, the names of people whose Twitter handles I use in posts, or images I drop in, go into the text file). Here's how the post looks at this point in the composition.

<hr>

<h1>20 years a blogger</h1><xtagline>Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting.</xtagline>

See that <img> tag in there for frnklogo.jpg? I snuck that in while I was composing this in Twitter. When I locate an image on the web I want to use in a post, I save it to a dir on my desktop that syncs every 60 seconds to the /images/ dir on my webserver.

As I save it, I copy the filename to my clipboard, flip over to gedit, and type in the <img> tag, pasting the filename. I've typed <img src="https://craphound.com/images/ CTRL-V"> tens of thousands of times - muscle memory.

Once the thread is complete, I copy each tweet back into gedit, tabbing back and forth, replacing Twitter handles and hashtags with non-Twitter versions, changing the ALL CAPS EMPHASIS to the extra-character-consuming *asterisk-bracketed emphasis*.

My composition is greatly aided both 20 years' worth of mnemonic slurry of semi-remembered posts and the ability to search memex.craphound.com (the site where I've mirrored all my Boing Boing posts) easily.

A huge, searchable database of decades of thoughts really simplifies the process of synthesis.

Next I port the posts to other media. I copy the headline and paste it into a new Tumblr compose tab, then import the image and tag the post "pluralistic."

Then I paste the text of the post into Tumblr and manually select, cut, and re-paste every URL in the post (because Tumblr's automatic URL-to-clickable-link tool's been broken for 10+ months).

Next I past the whole post into a Mastodon compose field. Working by trial and error, I cut it down to <500 characters, breaking at a para-break and putting the rest on my clipboard. I post, reply, and add the next item in the thread until it's all done.

*Then* I hit publish on my Twitter thread. Composing in Twitter is the most unforgiving medium I've ever worked in. You have to keep each stanza below 280 chars. You can't save a thread as a draft, so as you edit it, you have to pray your browser doesn't crash.

And once you hit publish, you can't edit it. Forever. So you want to publish Twitter threads LAST, because the process of mirroring them to Tumblr and Mastodon reveals typos and mistakes (but there's no way to save the thread while you work!).

Now I create a draft Wordpress post on pluralistic.net, and create a custom slug for the page (today's is "two-decades"). Saving the draft generates the URL for the page, which I add to the XML file.

Once all the day's posts are done, I make sure to credit all my sources in another part of that master XML file, and then I flip to the command line and run a bunch of python scripts that do MAGIC: formatting the master file as a newsletter, a blog post, and a master thread.

Those python scripts saved my ASS. For the first two months of Pluralistic, i did all the reformatting by hand. It was a lot of search-replace (I used a checklist) and I ALWAYS screwed it up and had to debug, sometimes taking hours.

Then, out of the blue, a reader - Loren Kohnfelder - wrote to me to point out bugs in the site's RSS. He offered to help with text automation and we embarked on a month of intensive back-and-forth as he wrote a custom suite for me.

Those programs take my XML file and spit out all the files I need to publish my site, newsletter and master thread (which I pin to my profile). They've saved me more time than I can say. I probably couldn't kept this up without Loren's generous help (thank you, Loren!).

I open up the output from the scripts in gedit. I paste the blog post into the Wordpress draft and copy-paste the metadata tags into WP's "tags" field. I preview the post, tweak as necessary, and publish.

(And now I write this, I realize I forgot to mention that while I'm doing the graphics, I also create a square header image that makes a grid-collage out of the day's post images, using the Gimp's "alignment" tool)

(because I'm composing this in Twitter, it would be a LOT of work to insert that information further up in the post, where it would make sense to have it - see what I mean about an unforgiving medium?)

(While I'm on the subject: putting the "add tweet to thread" and "publish the whole thread" buttons next to each other is a cruel joke that has caused me to repeatedly publish before I was done, and deleting a thread after you publish it is a nightmare)

Now I paste the newsletter file into a new mail message, address it to my Mailman server, and create a custom subject for the day, send it, open the Mailman admin interface in a browser, and approve the message.

Now it's time to create that anthology post you can see pinned to my Mastodon and Twitter accounts. Loren's script uses a template to produce all the tweets for the day, but it's not easy to get that pre-written thread into Twitter and Mastodon.

Part of the problem is that each day's Twitter master thread has a tweet with a link to the day's Mastodon master thread ("Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at @[email protected]. Here's today's edition: LINK").

So the first order of business is to create the Mastodon thread, pin it, copy the link to it, and paste it into the template for the Twitter thread, then create and pin the Twitter thread.

Now it's time to get ready for tomorrow. I open up the master XML template file and overwrite my daily working file with its contents. I edit the file's header with tomorrow's date, trim away any "Upcoming appearances" that have gone by, etc.

Then I compose tomorrow's retrospective links. I open tabs for this day a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and (now) 20 years ago:

http://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2011/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2001/01/14

I go through each day, and open anything I want to republish in its own tab, then open the OP link in the next tab (finding it in the @internetarchive if necessary). Then I copy my original headline and the link to the article into tomorrow's XML file, like so:

#10yrsago Disney World’s awful Tiki Room catches fire <a href="https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/">https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/</a>

And NOW my day is done.

So, why do I do all this?

First and foremost, I do it for ME. The memex I've created by thinking about and then describing every interesting thing I've encountered is hugely important for how I understand the world. It's the raw material of every novel, article, story and speech I write.

And I do it for the causes I believe in. There's stuff in this world I want to change for the better. Explaining what I think is wrong, and how it can be improved, is the best way I know for nudging it in a direction I want to see it move.

The more people I reach, the more it moves.

When I left Boing Boing, I lost access to a freestanding way of communicating. Though I had popular Twitter and Tumblr accounts, they are at the mercy of giant companies with itchy banhammers and arbitrary moderation policies.

I'd long been a fan of the POSSE - Post Own Site, Share Everywhere - ethic, the idea that your work lives on platforms you control, but that it travels to meet your readers wherever they are.

Pluralistic posts start out as Twitter threads because that's the most constrained medium I work in, but their permalinks (each with multiple hidden messages in their slugs) are anchored to a server I control.

When my threads get popular, I make a point of appending the pluralistic.net permalink to them.

When I started blogging, 20 years ago, blogger.com had few amenities. None of the familiar utilities of today's media came with the package.

Back then, I'd manually create my headlines with <h2> tags. I'd manually create discussion links for each post on Quicktopic. I'd manually paste each post into a Yahoo Groups email. All the guff I do today to publish Pluralistic is, in some way, nothing new.

20 years in, blogging is still a curious mix of both technical, literary and graphic bodgery, with each day's work demanding the kind of technical minutuae we were told would disappear with WYSIWYG desktop publishing.

I grew up in the back-rooms of print shops where my dad and his friends published radical newspapers, laying out editions with a razor-blade and rubber cement on a light table. Today, I spend hours slicing up ASCII with a cursor.

I go through my old posts every day. I know that much - most? - of them are not for the ages. But some of them are good. Some, I think, are great. They define who I am. They're my outboard brain.

#pluralistic

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writing-with-olive · 4 years

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A starting place for self-editing your novel

I wrote this in a reblog to one of @boy-who-can-fly‘s posts, but as I couldn’t add any tags to that that would make it findable to more than just my followers, I figured I’d make the same content in an original post because YAY TAGS!

Without further ado...

1) Take a break.

Some authors have suggested taking a break for six or so weeks, but I find anything longer than three makes me too distanced from my story, and I have to work a lot harder to get back into my protagonist’s head. During this break, don’t so much as look at your story. Instead, focus on something else. Maybe growing your author platform, planning or developing another wip, or researching the publishing industry if publishing is the end goal for your book (this goes for both traditional and self pub). The point of this is that without some distance, it’s going to be a lot harder to see larger developmental flaws.

(this is a very long post, so the rest of the steps are below the break)

2) The first read-through.

After your break has ended, and you’ve got to be a little stern with yourself not to extend it farther than what you set, or else you’ll never return to it, do a readthrough. This means either just reading it off you’re computer or kindle, or going to somewhere like staples and getting it printed and spiral bound (this costs money, but I found it helpful down the line). Two rules: 1) no editing. 2) look at the first rule. This read-through is going to help give you a general sense of what is and isn’t working in your book; the problems you notice here are likely going to be the biggest ones. (if you want, you can combine this step with step three, but I found it more helpful to keep them seperate)

3) Outline.

It doesn’t matter whether you outlined before, or whether you decided to pants it. By the time you get to editing, you need to have an outline that’s reflective of what you actually put on the page. Go through your story, chapter by chapter, and for each new scene write down

what is your character’s goal in this scene

what is standing in their way

what is the outcome of the scene.

This list should not go into depth; one short sentece per point, MAX. That being said, make sure to keep things specific, so “MC wants to convice X to go with them to Y.” is going to be a lot more useful to you later on than “MC tries to convince them to go.” This outline is going to help you objectively look at your story structure, as you can see a lot more of what’s happening at once, without being quite so overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the words you wrote. Yes, this step can be a bit tedious, but it is so, so worth it.

4) Sort out what you need to fix, aka start making a game plan for your edits.

Now that you’ve read through your wip at least once through, and probably twice, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you need to fix. The key here is that right now, you want to be fixing on the global edits - the things that span beyond just a single scene or chapter. The reason why is that you don’t want to be spending hours perfecting a scene that you’re just going to need to cut later because it doesn’t advance the plot.

In a new document or spreadsheet (whatever you think will work better for you, I liked using a google doc), write issues you see with:

Each of your main cast (regarding character development, motivations voice, etc)

Setting/s (consistancy, realism for your world)

General worldbuilding (consistancy, things poorly explained/set up)

Main plot (following a given plot structure, building tension, etc)

Each subplot (how it intertwines with the main plot, plot structure, building tension, etc)

Other major things you noticed during your readthroughs

These things tend to be larger scope, and generally are worth addressing first.

5) Picking your edit.

Look at the list of edits, and see which one is going to cause the most ripples through your story. This is going to be the first thing you look at to fix. If there are more than one edits that will all have major impacts on the story, think about which edit would make the other ones easier.

For example, in my wip, Project Toxin, my plot was, well, a trainwreck and a dumpster fire’s love child. But my characterization for my MC was also a wreck. Still, getting the overall plot more in order would make it easier for me to edit my MC, so I chose plot first.

6) Make a game plan for your edit.

Before diving in and ripping through your first draft, come up with a game plan. Brainstorm possible solutions to the edit you’ve chosen, and look at what ripples it would cause. You want to make sure that what route you take isn’t going to upset something major or crucial to your story. Most likely whatever solution you choose will cause some other upsets, so just make sure to think through what makes most sense for your story.

For example, when working on my story, I was fixing plot first. Figuring out my game plan meant looking at my scene list and moving things around/adding/cutting content until I had a plot that was much more satisfactory, and that was, in my mind, not a wreck.

Possible game plans for different types of edits:

1. Plot:

Look at your scene list. What helps to advance the plot? What is dragging the pacing. Are there any elements that you are adding or cutting in your overall story that need to be accounted for? With this in mind, cross out scenes that you want to cut, move scenes around that need to come in a different order, add scenes that need to be added, and mark scenes that need to be combined into one.

2. Characters:

For each of your characters, look at their character development. It’s going to be hard to make them come to life better on the page unless you’ve got a grasp of who they are, even if you didn’t plan them out originally. If you have not, consider listing in a spreadsheet or google doc what their backstory is, what their goals are, why they want those goals, and what a few of their strengths and weaknesses are. Also think about their voice: what words do they use more often? Sentence structures? What do they sound like when they’re talking? Stuff like that. If your character is inconsistant, pick one version of them that you want to follow (knowing that they will likely change over the course of the story), and look at what parts of them you will need to change to accomodate that.

3. Setting/Worldbuilding:

I’ve put these together here as they’re somewhat similar. For poorly explained aspects of worldbuilding, look at where you might add in little details so you can better set that foundation (this is not usually a global edit). If things are inconsistant, look at what makes the most sense for your story, and like what we talked about with characters, alter the rest to accomodate that.

7) Making edits.

This is where you really get to dig in and really move things around. Using the edit you’ve picked and the game plan you’ve developed, go through scene by scene and make the changes. I strongly recommend having a seperate doc from your rough draft to store your second draft in. Currently, my process is to have both open at the same time, and if a scene is already fine, I’ll just copy/paste it over. At least for me, however, it’s usually not, and I’ll either make tweaks to fix it up, or, more often at this early stage, I’ll rewrite it. As an added bonus, I also find that rewriting it makes my prose a lot stronger, since I’ve grown so much as a writer since I originally wrote the scene.

Since you know your story better, you may find other elements that you want to change are improving as you edit. If not though, don’t worry - they’ll get their own editing pass.

8) Repeat steps 5-7

You made a list of edits you needed to make back in step four. Now, follow steps 5-7 to make all of those edits and changes.

9) Repeat steps 2-8

Two steps telling you to repeat in a row? Yes. The deal now is that you want to make sure you’ve cleaned up any global edits before moving on to anything smaller. If you’ve been thourough thus far, this will be a very fast step. If not, think of this step as a safety net. There may have been ripples that you didn’t notice earlier on, and it’s a good thing you’re catching them now.

10) Chapter edits

At this point, we’ve cleaned up all the big edits. Now we’re going to look at each chapter. Within each chapter, there needs to be a mini-arc. A beginning, middle, and end. This is the time to really focus on that. Also focus on things like tightening up prose, combining or compressing paragraphs, making sure you’ve adequately set the scene, etc. If you’re over the word count limit regarding your genre, also focus on cutting a certain number of words from each chapter to put your story back within those limits.

11) The little things

This is about combing through your wip to find all of the little errors that have made their way through edits. Typos, weird or incorrect grammar, useless adverbs, things like that. At this point, everything is on a more superficial level.

Beta Readers

Given that this has gotten quite long, I’m not going to go in depth about beta readers here, but around step 10/11, you’re going to start recruiting beta readers (you’re going to want to try and have multiple rounds of somewhere around 10 betas each, which is why having a good author platform is useful: recruiting is easier). Between each round, you’re going to look at their feedback and make the necessary edits. After several rounds of beta readers, you’re going to look it over a few more times, and then if you’re going the traditional publishing route, you’re going to query agents. If you’re going the self-pub route you’re going to look to hire a professional editor. If you’re not looking to publish, this may be the end of the line.

Good luck editing!

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babysprouseisart · 4 years

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Honestly more things are pointing to a permanent separation for SH. No indications of any reconciliation sadly. And it makes it even harder without the confirmation. I guess when they start to get papped with their new SOs will be the day that it is confirmed they are done. And I hope it is soon. This push and pull with them is exhausting

Good day, anon, and welcome to hell. Screams for help will not save you, alas, because when it comes to a topic in which I am 99, 9% sure, I have no equals. I'm sorry you probably got the wrong address, but it's too late. I am merciless and bloodthirsty with anyone who tries to contradict my faith, tries to correct my point of view and convince me of their own, although I did not give it a reason. Because it's my fucking blog where I for x-billionth time has already expressed my exact points and agreed with some people which think and proved the exact opposite to all that you are saying. So be prepared to be slowly but surely tortured by my long ass post.

So, let's start with what I said about my blog: only good vibes here. I am not interested/concerned about other opposite/negative feedings. I just don't want to make a big deal about it. Here, in my blog, we support Lili Pauline Reinhart and Cole Mitchell Sprouse in any case as couple as well as individuals.

This means that under no circumstances do we talk about them, their relationships, their projects, their family, or their decisions in a negative way. Yes, we may disagree with something they do, where they do it, and how they do it (what they post, what they like/don't like, write or repost, who they meet, with whom they decide to be, live and communicate with, what they archive/unarchive, and so on), but we do not have the right to judge them or decide how to act. We also can't control it and it's none of our business.

I repent if I once made the appearance of a person condemning one of them or their family for their actions and possible causes of the separation, it was only my objective external disagreement, points and thoughts aloud, nothing more rude, involved and inappropriate. And I think with many of my words said earlier (or the words of those I follow and reblog their posts) about the behavior of family/friends of Lili, Cole, and so on, people with brains and common sense could agree. Remember this, or write it on your forehead, so that the next time you write to me, you will see these words.

Moving on, taking into account all of the above, I would like to tell you that it probably won't be enough for one blog to explain to you point by point all my beliefs and points of view on this subject, to prove to you that every fucking word you say is illogical shit and the most real nonsense. It feels like you're an alien who fell from another planet and decided to crawl into our hole with your impressions of a newborn baby who doesn't understand much about the world and its creators. Although in this case, I'm more of the opinion that you are a little asshole, in which the vein of hatred is boiling and you like to come to this and some other blogs to tell us your agenda although we have no idea where you have such rash thoughts, perhaps you have an extra chromosome? Dude, treat your paranoia.

Further, given that I don't have much time and desire to describe all my points of view point by point, which, unlike your random set of words, really makes sense for hundreds or even thousands of people who have the gray matter to be able to think, I will attach my long - standing post, indicating all the facts at that time proving the opposite to yours. Although, I will try to supplement everything else as much as I can.

While, we all ( I hope) already realized and accepted that for many reasons, during this quarantine, Lili and Cole had some problems, were distant and ended up apart for a certain period of time, immediately after the end point of the explosion and informing us of all these public actions on social media (I hope you understand), then after a few weeks, they were already confidently moving towards resolution and recovery and that's why:

https://babysprousehart.tumblr.com/post/618026656780648448/hello-i-hope-this-doesnt-come-off-negatively

This was written long before, but still has many valid points and I just want to widen some of them.

Take a sit and follow me word by word.

I shall start my addition of evidence, based on all the guesses and great opinions of others, as well as hints from the Lili and Cole themselves. I would like to start with a significant event and the day when Lili posted a photo from the Antelope Valley on April 28th, well, or 27th, depending on where you are.

Perhaps we lose some missing pieces in this puzzle and forget about something that was done earlier, but I just want to start counting from this moment.

A few facts about this photo/photos:

1) It was posted exactly 3 years later from their famous photoshoot, when very, very, very many people, mostly in media, began to suspect that there is something between them in a romantic way. It was exactly in the same place, exactly with the same style, exactly in a similar image (waving curly hair, light flying dress, black and white effect) and even without a capture. The picture marked the anniversary and is very important for the two of them. An undeniable fact, beat me.

2) That photo was definitely taken by Cole. Why?

Here are a couple more facts in addition to the first:

They have the quality of captured on professional camera.

You can see, that Lili did not tag the photographer and said jokingly that the photo was taken by Milo, why would she lie, or hide that it was anyone else, because clearly she just hid that because it was Cole.

You may have noticed that Austin, when asked who took the photo, whether she took it and whether she is a good photographer, says no and her reaction with a grin and laugh is priceless. She also didn't tag nor the photographer, neither Lili in her photos from there.

You can watch the vlog in the Colleen blog and see there are very similar figures to Cole, Lili and Milo walking along the valley, because, duh, they were there.

You can view her post, where you can see Cole from the back (notice his dark clothing, the same as on one of his post in the profile, which he has already deleted, as well as his position from which the photo of Lili was supposedly taken and it is just in the same place).

You can observe his style of photography and how similar the theme is to the photos from 2017.

You can see the same poppy behind his ear in one of the past stories.

You may have noticed that the photo of Lili is processed with the same effect as several photos in Cole's profile, and I can tell you as an amateur photo editor that it is very identical.

Question: why arrange such a significant photoshoot with your ex after a few weeks of separation? Why is Cole smiling in a photo (black and white one with a mustache and black clothes) probably taken there? Why is everything so secretive if they broke up? Why even post a photo that your ex-boyfriend definitely took? How can you calmly go to this place, which reminds you of your joint travels with your former lover? Therefore, this photo and later another one from there were the first iron arguments in confirming the improvement of things.

I would like to continue with another ironclad proof.

Lili in early may very fiercely, after a few weeks of Cole's statements about slander and threats, which she did not respond to so clearly at the time, defended Cole and pointed out the private relationship and literally said that people should stop it and even though should hurt and bully her, but not him.

Question: did she defend her ex so publicly? Would Lili talk about a private relationship if that was the way her past relationship was most often? Would she have written anything at all if she didn't care about him and didn't feel something towards him? I don't think so, so it's gibberish to say so (about the break up) when it's the second unquestionable argument.

Next, we need to talk about the general activity of Cole and Lili in social media. I just want to list some observations, in different order, but it seems like everything we have now:

If earlier it was visible in the posts of Lili that it was clearly a show off, then over time and after the published photos, she began to behave more sincerely and tenderly, began to publish Milo less, began to say that there was only the two of them less, has stopped showing how good she is without certain someone, as if for Cole showing that she could cope without him, which was visible in the posts and stories, she began to talk more about improving her mental health as a result of training, spoke about how later she was feeling better and that she was grateful for those who were with her and difficult times and in light moments, that you just need to live and enjoy.

Additionally, I can say how she shone with each photo, and it was a natural glow of happiness and settling down. She no longer sang sad songs or posted sad songs, on the contrary, posted sexy, funny and relaxed ones. She appeared more in photos taken by paparazzi. She posted sexy, energetic, romantic movies, funny cartoons, watched funny clips, was excited about her project, laughed, danced with her dog, played with a dog with macaroni, cosplayed Willy Wonka (we all have a feeling it’s Cole’s thing, no?), playing with sand, puzzles, posted funny memes in story, which unfortunately coolly accepted as the opposite, posted a poem with a typo and funny answered to a fan who corrected it, told more about poems and attached a photo with a fragment of a poem about love from her upcoming book. She liked some photos from the anniversary of the last episode of the series, where we remember there was a hot scene of her and Cole's character, she liked a Bughead drawing. Yesterday, she actually posted one of the sexiest videos that will not be posted, being single and lonely, we saw that she actually spent more personal time with Cole (I am not saying they weren’t doing t back then), which was investigated thanks to many amazing people here, and even if they don't live together yet, they are more likely to meet and have met with each other, and more hints on sexy times (because, come one, maybe Milo was the one who left a hickey on her neck, huh?), which is undeniable, just compare the fact that she is no longer in the old rental, and he is not in Kj's house, she then posted a photo from some place, which is very similar to where Cole shot a video with Jimmy Fallon.

He also began to be more active in social networks, exactly after she started posting photos of the Antelope Valley, he posted a series of photos of the kissing couple, even if it was a gay drawings, they were filled with love, there was a photo of him with cattle with the sarcastic caption, then the photo about porn bots, with funny ask to leave him alone and saying it’s not allowed to be horny on quarantine, again a photo of himself with heart eyes that I talked about above, he posted a very funny video recently. There were more photos from the paparazzi after some time when Lili's usually flashed, and then it stopped, then his humorous photo in the washing machine appeared, which she probably had taken, and why so I explained in the attached post, he posted a photo from the walk, which was also probably taken with her, because again, she had a similar location, then he jokingly called Tommy ‘the’ muse, maybe roasting fans, but he didn’t use ‘my’, so, indicating he still has his own muse, then we saw him at that damn party, which caused people's panic, although he is an ordinary person and has the right to relax, and by the way at this party he was very happy and frisky, but nothing bad or shameful happened and he is innocent, then we even saw Cole, after Lili, delete many of the photos, although he had also unarchived some of them several times, as she had, which means that he did not delete them completely, but just removed many of them, leaving the most tender photo after or before the kiss at the famous moment when Lili wanted a toast and eggs at 1 am, or many photos reflecting her body, which also marks not a bad phenomenon, but a simple trolling from them. Proof of this trolling and unarchiving is on the vastness of other blogs and on Twitter, thanks to that girl's video.

The way their condition and activity on social networks have changed is very noticeable and is also third undeniable fact of denial of the break up. You can compare photos of Cole taken by Alex, where he is clearly very sad and depressed, because it was taken somewhere in the interval of their real breakup. And compare this with his smiling and playful state during the interview with Jimmy, where he also sparkled with happiness and fun, constantly smiling and seemed to be aroused about something (or someone). I think even a newcomer will notice a change in their mood and attitude. You will see the difference. And this does not happen when going through the break up after 4 years of deeply imbued with love relationships. Please understand, damn it.

I have listed alas not everything that speaks so vividly about things going in the right positive direction and is evidence that everything is getting better again, there will be only more I assure you and you will kiss my ass, as Cole said.

Execution cannot be pardoned.

You have one attempt to put a comma and decide your fate, but I think you’ll fail because you are a total sucker anyway.

Bye!

#cole sprouse #lili reinhart #sprousehart #sprousehart positivity #sh positivity #bughead #only good vibes here #positivity #anon hate #anon ask #ask #cole and lili #relationship #break up #not a break up #shut up dumbass

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bettsfic · 5 years

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socknography: the importance of preserving fan creator biographical data

i wrote earlier on utilizing collections and bookmarks to boost the archival power of ao3, and in that post mentioned how i wish authors would fill out their bios so we can preserve fanauthor information as well as we preserve the fics themselves. so, here is my rant about WHY WE ARE SO IMPORTANT.

for my masters thesis i wrote about the layered pseudonymity of fanfiction authors, and after doing a ton of research, i find myself still thinking of the pseudonymous/anonymous divide as it pertains to fic. we have authors we consider “famous” and ones whose followings eclipse that of traditionally published authors, but unlike traditionally published authors, we don’t put a handy bio at the end of our fics. in fact, if you want to find out about the author, you have to hope they’ve linked somewhere to their tumblr or twitter or dreamwidth, or they have consistent pseuds across platforms. and from there, you have to hope they have an ‘about me.’ but most, myself included, don’t.

unlike traditional publication -- where amazon and goodreads and even the back of the book contains biographical info -- and even unlike the rest of fandom archival etiquette -- which, despite having virtually no committed rules still maintains its organizational structure -- there is no standard etiquette on fanauthor biographical data.

i speculate the reasons fanauthors are hesitant to write their own biographies is very complicated:

there is no “ask” for it or existing standard. when i publish stories under my real name, i’m required to provide my bio, which contains my accomplishments, where i got my degree, where else i’m published, and my website. all literary author bios follow this formula, so they’re pretty easy to write. other than this post, i have never seen a request for fanauthor bios. so without an editor demanding it, and without a standard formula or platform to draw from, a total lack of information becomes the norm, and almost any info other than the standard “name. age. pronouns. ao3 name. list of fandoms and/or pithy one-liner” of tumblr or occasional ask game is seen as a deviation from the norm. even ask games get a bad rep sometimes, and they’re transitory, a post you see as you’re scrolling through to somewhere else, not static, like a dedicated profile page.

pseudonymity veers too close to anonymity. an anonymous author cannot have a biography. a pseudonymous author can, but biographies may be seen as defeating the purpose of writing under a pseudonym, or multiple pseuds. a sock account is a sock for a reason -- you don’t want it associated with your main. moreover, i believe fandom creates an environment in which to acknowledge your accomplishments and promote your own content is seen as narcissistic. fanfiction can sometimes be seen as a genre of selflessness, donating time and energy into a community centered around a shared canon, not personal gain. to acknowledge the self publicly is to invite attention, and attention is contradictory to anonymity.

shame and humility. the more information you have on the internet, the easier you are to find. very few fanauthors use their real names, or feel comfortable connecting their fan identity to their real one. i hear pretty constantly how often fanauthors hide their fannishness from their coworkers and loved ones, how only the people closest to them know they write/read fanfic. moreover, you might think “my most popular fic only has 10 kudos and 1 comment, nobody wants to know about me” (which is so not true, but i’ll get to that in a minute).

fandom is constantly changing. with a central archive for fanfiction in place, it’s easier now to be in multiple fandoms at once than it ever has been. if you want to read all sugar daddy fics, there’s a tag for that, and if you’re not picky about canon, you have an entire buffet of fandoms to choose from. communities are growing and shifting and changing shape. i move fandoms, and i keep my friends and readers from previous fandoms. i get dragged to new fandoms frequently. my interests and inspirations change, but i don’t erase my history or identity every time i move, i only add to it. i am always betts whether i’m in star wars or the 100 or game of thrones. but if you only read my fic, you don’t know the stories behind it. many people don’t know i entered fandom in the brony convention community in 2012, or that i was sadrobots before i was betty days before i was betts, or how fandom changed my life and led me through a path of personal trauma recovery, or that i co-founded wayward daughters, or ran the fanauthor workshop, or all these other things about fanfic that is not fanfic itself.

if you are a fan creator, your fannish personal narrative matters. telling your story helps preserve the metatextual history of our genre.

i think constantly about what our genre will look like in 30 or 50 years, if it will be like other genres that began as subversions of the mainstream: comic books, beat literature, science fiction. genres that, at the time involved groups of friends creating stories for each other, bouncing ideas off of one another, experimenting with or distorting other genres, and which became, over time, well-regarded forms with rich histories.

maybe one day, like the MCU, we’ll have a dedicated production company that churns out adaptations of longform coffee shop aus written between 2009 and 2015. maybe “BNFs” will be read in high school literature curriculums. maybe our work will end up on the real or virtual shelves of our great grandchildren. and if that happens, if fanfic goes entirely mainstream, how will fanfic authorship be perceived? how will fanpeople in 2080, if humanity is still around by then, interact with the lexicon we’ve created and preserved? what would you do if you found out Jane Austen wrote under five different sock accounts across three platforms over the span of twenty years? how would you, a fan of Pride & Prejudice, even begin to find all of her work?

we have so many social constraints pushing against us. there’s purity culture, which encourages further division of identity -- fanauthors may write fluff on their main and have various sock accounts for underage/noncon fics. if you’re a scarecrow, you’re much harder for a mob to attack. there’s misogyny, which dictates women/queer ppl shouldn’t be writing about or indulging in or exploring their sexuality at all. there’s intellectual property and a history of DMCAs, which, although kept at bay by the OTW, may still have influence on the “illegal” mentality of our work. with social armies against us, it’s easier to exist in the shadows, on the fringe. we change URLs based on our moving interests, and split our identities a million different ways, and keep sarcastic “me” tags full of self-deprecating text posts. we are difficult beasts to catch, because we have not been allowed to exist.

i spent a lot of time today googling the word for “pseudonymous biography” and came up empty-handed (if someone knows of an existing word, pls let me know. “pseudography” is apparently a fancy word for a typo; “pseudobiography” is a fake biography), so for lack of anything better, i’ve come up with the term “socknography” because 1) it’s funny and doesn’t sound intimidating, and 2) it encapsulates the sensitive and complicated way fanauthor identifying conventions work. and also i think “fanauthor biography,” “bibliography,” and “profile” just doesn’t cut it for the actual work of these pieces. they don’t necessarily include IRL biographical data, they include more historical/community context than a bibliography, and the words “profile” and “about me” don’t really inspire interaction, or acknowledge the archival importance of this work.

astolat’s fanlore page is my go-to example. astolat writes under multiple pseuds and has major influence in the history of fandom. she’s also a traditionally published author, but you notice, her ofic novels are not mentioned, nor any other real-life identifying information. fanlore has a really good policy on this in place, for those concerned about doxxing.

(moreover, i am not suggesting you centralize your socks. they’re socks for a reason. but most everyone has a main, and that main identity has a story.)

there are 2 existing spaces to preserve socknographies.

fanlore, a wiki owned by the OTW, you can make an account and create a user page (which is different than a “person” page) using a user profile template

ao3′s “profile” page, which is a big blank box in which anything goes

(i’m not including tumblr on this list because i don’t think it’s a stable platform.)

fanlore’s template is straight to the point and minimal, which doesn’t really invite narrative the same way a literary bio would. ao3′s big blank box leaves us with the question -- wtf do i say about myself? how do i say it? how much is too much? and because of that, most profiles are either blank or only include a policy on translations/podfic/fanart, and maybe links to tumblr and twitter. but let me tell you, if i have read your fic and taken the time to move over to your profile, you better believe i am a fan. and as a fan, i want to Know Things.

here are the things i want to know, or

a potential template:

introduction (name/alias, age, location, pronouns, occupation)

accomplishments (degrees, personal history)

fan history (fandoms you’ve been in, timeline as a fan, how you were introduced to fandom/fanfiction, what does fandom mean to you -- this is where your fan narrative goes)

fandom participation (popular fics/posts, involvement in fan events/communities, side blogs, interviews, etc. 3 & 4 might be one and the same for you)

spotlight (which of your fics are most important to you/would you like others to read and why? what are the stories behind your favorite fics you’ve written?)

find me elsewhere* (links to tumblr, twitter, insta, etc.)

policies on fanart, fanfic of fic, podfics, and translations

*you cannot link to ko-fi, paypal, patreon, or amazon on ao3/fanlore per the non-commercial terms of service

i’ll be working on filling this out for my own profile as an example, but you can also see how my @fanauthorworkshop participants filled out their fanauthor spotlights, and the information they provided. obviously, you should only share that which you feel comfortable sharing, and as your fandom life changes, your narrative will change too. it’s not much different than updating a CV or resume.

tl;dr the goal is to provide a self-narrative of your fan life/identity for posterity. who are you and why are you a fanperson? why do you create fan content? what are you proud of and what do you want to highlight to others? who are you in this space?

#socknography #fanfiction #ao3 #otw

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halliewriteshockey · 5 years

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Proofreading/editing services available!

Do you love to write but you’re not always sure of the right word to use? Romance is your jam but action is difficult for you? Need help with snappy dialogue and witty banter? English is your second language and you’re not sure if that phrase translates properly? No matter what you write, I’m here to help you make your work stand out!

I’m a published author with four books available for purchase and two more coming late 2019 and early 2020. My novel Broken Halo was nominated for Best Book of 2017 in the Indie/Digital Erotica category by RT Book Reviews. I have immersed myself in the writing world for over a decade and I’m ready to share that knowledge with you! Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @greymichaela. Tumblr: http://greymichaela.tumblr.com.

Proofreading ($3 per 1,000 words)

What I will fix:

Spelling

Capitalization

Punctuation

Formatting

Grammar

If the work needs to be rewritten so sentences make sense or flow better, or there are more serious issues that require fixing, you need more than just proofreading. That’s where copyediting comes in.

Copyediting ($5 per 1,000 words)

What I will fix:

Everything included in proofreading, plus:

Word choice

Sentence structure

Continuity errors

Plot points

Fact checking

Things that just don’t make sense

Your work is dear to you and I know that! I’m not here to rip it to shreds—only to lovingly polish it and help it become the best version of itself. I believe people work best with encouragement and constructive advice, so nothing is ever offered in a meanspirited way but only in the interest of helping you and your work improve.

(More details and peer reviews below the cut.)

The nitty-gritty

I will read anything. Yes, anything. Got a Final Fantasy/Wario fanfic crossover you’re dying to unleash upon the world? I’m your girl. Polyam/OT3s/filthy smut/no smut at all—bring it on. Action, romance, genfic, meet-cute, in any fandom or your own original writing, I will give it all the same thorough care and consideration. (Note: for my own mental health reasons, I will not read more than 1K of Supernatural fandom per week and I cannot read anything regarding harm to a child, be it physical, mental, or sexual. This is subject to change as needed to keep myself safe and stable.)

I am not a sensitivity reader. If you have questions about how race or gender or disabilities are portrayed in your story, I can put you in touch with someone who can help, but I’m not the right person to make sure they’re done properly myself. The one exception here is if your writing has to do with asexuality or being on the spectrum—that I can help with.

Reviews:

I’ve been beta’d by Michaela for the better part of five years, and I couldn’t have asked for a better working and personal relationship. Not only is she herself insanely talented, but she uses those talents to make me a better writer than I ever could have been otherwise. I’m tighter, faster, and less clumsy an artist than I was five years ago, and there’s no one else I could possibly thank. She catches everything, from plot holes to poor word choice to that time you used the wrong homonym and she never lets you live it down, Michaela. Ahem. Working with her is an absolute dream – Michaela is honest, but never unkind in her feedback. You’re gonna get the big sister author talk you never knew you needed, and you’re going to love what it does to your finished product. - Aaliya

Michaela has really gone above and beyond to help me with my writing, and she’s had a really noticeable, positive impact on my work. She’s extremely skilled at the minutiae of typos, grammar errors, and spelling. More than that, she has a great grasp of tone, pacing, and characterization, and her suggestions are consistently ones that improve my writing and push it to a new and better level. Beyond that, she’s also extremely friendly and easy to communicate with! She works extremely hard and very quickly. I would recommend that anyone have a beta like her, but that would be impossible – she’s already the best there is. - Sebastian

"GreyMichaela is everything an author could ask for from a beta reader. Being a professional and published author, she can not only provide insightful, blow-by-blow pointers on story structure and pacing, but she has an incredibly helpful knowledge of the nitty-gritty technicals of writing. I thought I had a competent grasp of grammar and punctuation until the first time she took a look at my work, and (very kindly) showed me how to properly format speech tags. Most importantly, she is a wonderful beta reader because of how supportive, positive, and encouraging she is to all burgeoning and established writers. I cannot recommend her skills enough!" - Joe

Michaela is a phenomenal editor. She helped me with everything from big picture plot points to narrative flow to catching tiny overlooked typos. I highly recommend her to any writer, especially those working on novels. She will help your writing shine. - Ariel Bishop (author)

GreyMichaela offered her beta services to me when I was hopelessly stuck with my manuscript. She went over what I had written and provided me with a lot of feedback on the "small" things (such as phrasing, grammar, etc.) as well as the "bigger" things (plot, structure, pacing). She has been incredibly helpful, supportive and encouraging. I felt like she knew what story I wanted to tell, and helped me get there. She embraced my voice as a writer, and helped me make it clearer. She took care to understand both me and the story, as well as what I wanted help with, and based her feedback off of that. I'm really happy with how my manuscript turned out, and I will gladly recommend her to both new and experienced writers. - ljummen

I accept Paypal and Venmo. Message me today and let’s get started! (Reblogs appreciated also!)

#please reblog #help me spread the word #Michaela edits #more reviews to come

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midnightcalibration · 4 years

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Merry Bobunk Christmas!

What: Short Fanfiction

Fandom: Avengers

Characters: Read the tags for the list.

Why: ‘Cos me and a friend of mine came up with the idea of giving a Christmas role to each avenger, and I decided to write this.

Words: Almost 1800 according to my text editor.

Quality: Probably with a lot of typos and awful grammar.

Stupidity level: High (I hope).

---------------------------------------

Tony is coming back to his workshop to continue one of his most important projects of the year. He hadn't slept since whenever the last time was, but who needs sleep when you've got coffee? He pities those who can't drink the miraculous brew.

As he enters the room the first thing he notices is DUM-E fighting against the cables of some Christmas lights. The lights are winning... Oh! Now U is trying to help his brother, that's nice. Aaaand now he's stuck too. Tony can't believe he won a prize for one of those things.

"Dum-E, U, stop destroying my delicate work, if you please."

Sparks jump out of the lights.

"You know those lights are supposed to last, not turn into fireworks. Sto- Ah- great! The workshop is on fire. Congratulations! Now it would be a good time to use your skills with the fire extinguisher, Dum-E," Tony says as he grabs said object himself, "Though I'm not sure you would still point it at me, instead of the fire..."

After putting the fire out and helping his not so intelligent bots, he gets back to work. He is just a little bit tired, but he has to finish it in time.

Last years had been chaotic. He never had time to properly put on a good Christmas decoration show for everybody. It's not like he is a traditionalist, or even believes in Christmas. For him, it is a time where people start to compete to see who has the best circus in town. And he, as the Stark he is, cannot just let it pass. He is the greatest showman there is. Sorry, Hugh Jackman, not sorry.

Has he hears the "bing" of the elevator sound he looks in its direction and sees the best two presents he is lucky to have in his life. Pepper is holding Morgan's hand while the little pea giggles as she skips and pulls her mother with her. Only when they got closer he notices something is odd. They are wearing costumes.

"What do we have here?" Tony asks. "An elf munchkin coming straight from Santa's workshop? And she's bringing with her a..." what is Pep supposed to be? "Gingerbread woman? Seriously?" He snorts. "Is it because of your hair?"

"Well, this Santa's little helper here thought you might need a sweet cookie to help you work," Pepper replies.

"Ok," he snorts again, "that sounds like something you would never say."

"Well, I didn't say it, Miss M. did."

Another "bing" echoes in the air and Peter comes out rushing and talking non-stop, "Oh, So sorry I am late Mr. Stark, I had to help like half of the people I saw when coming here as well as save like seven cats from trees and woah I even found a goat on one, Did you know goats climb trees? It's amazing, I mean I knew that already but I never thought I would see one in New York, And-"

"Calm down, Speedy Gonzalez! Have you ever heard about punctuation? And, I don't know, breathing?" Tony sasses before noticing Peter is also wearing an elf costume. "Did you go around saving old ladies from crosswalks in that?"

"Oh this?" Peter looks at himself, "I wasn't sure what to dress as but then Morgan told me she needed an elf brother and I was happy to be hers!"

Okay. That makes sense, Tony guesses.

"Has the party already started?"

Tony jerks his head and sees Rhodey, in a ridiculous candy cane suit. Like, seriously, what is going on? Why is platypus wearing that colorful, er-, thing, where only his face is visible?

"What's up, honey bear? Did you get abducted by aliens, where they did all these terrible things to you, and now you have a nineteen year old college student clown soul trapped in your body? Come on, Rho-rho, you can do it! You can win the fight for the right of control. Now really, what party?"

"Ha-ha. Very funny, Tones," Rhodey says with a fake laugh. "I hope you haven't forgot that today is Bobunk day."

The fu-?

"Bobunk is my favorite!" Morgan almost squeals. "It's what makes Christmas magical."

"It sure is, honey," Pepper agrees and Peter nods. OK, maybe he drank too much coffee. Or not enough!

He turns to his desk to get his mug so he can wash down the brown liquid. It is then he notices two big present boxes near the wall, that were not there before.

"Who the hell put that there?"

"Boss, you should mind your language! Morgan has ears." FRIDAY spoke.

"Sorry honey bee," Tony says trying to ignore that the sentence "has ears" was a bit odd, in the context. Like, it is true, but perhaps not the best way to put it. Maybe he needs to check FRIDAYS NL program, and see if she's not trying to learn her vocabulary from websites where people forget the difference between "they're", "their" and "there". Anyway, the presents! What are they doing there?

As he approaches the packages, they "explode" with a loud pop revealing Nat and Clint smiling from ear to ear, with present bows in their heads, dressed in wrapping paper, and shouting "SURPRISE! MERRY BOBUNK CHRISTMAS!!!"

Okay, now he is sure they are trying to troll him. He gets it, he deserves it for all the times he did the same. It was never at this level of crazy, though. He would keep it to wit and sarcasm.

*knock, knock, knock*

The sound came from the balcony glass doors. It is dark outside and Tony can't see anyone. And who would enter through the balcony? Except for him, of course? He purposefully ignored it.

*KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK*

He looks again. Nothing. He resists the urge to ignore it again, but then whoever is outside is probably freezing. And they are just pranking him in a weird way, they don't deserve to turn into ice cubes, right?

When he opens the door, he sees a snowman. Dressed. As. Captain. America.

"Ahah, joke is on you! This is more of a jab to Capsicle, not me."

"What are you talking about, Tony?" The voice sounds so much like Steve's. Where the- "Holy shit!"

"Language!"

The effing snowman is speaking. IT. IS. SPEAKING! Like, it is not Rogers dressed as a snowman. It is a effing snowman, like a real one.

"How are you doing it?" Tony is still perplexed. And not even sure he can believe Olaf here actually had enough humor in him to be passing as a snowman.

"Doing what, Tony?" the freaking snowman actually frowned.

"Make it so realistic?"

"Tony, do you always need to be so rude?"

"Wha-" *CLASH*

Tony rushes inside to see what has been broken. He hopes it wasn't anything related with his Christmas project.

He stops. Thor is there, blinking. Not with his eyes, no. He is lighting on and off in several spots. You know.... like Christmas lights!!! And he is fighting is bots!

"I challengeth thee to fight me with honor, arms of metall. Thee shalt learn the warth of the mightie lightning!"

"Pepper! Pepper Ann!" Tony calls.

"What is it, Tony?"

"What is happening? Please tell me you are seeing how weird this is. I'm not going crazy, right? I don't do crazy."

"What are you talking about?" she smiles, "You are always crazy. Come! Let's see the nativity scene."

"We don't have a nativity scene, Pepsy Pep."

Pepper chuckles as she points to two new figures. Yep! He gives up. Yep, yep. For the good of his sanity, he's going to pretend everything is normal.

Wanda is dressed as Virgin Mary, and is hugging(?) Vision who seems to be wrapped in a big blanket, and very naked under it.

"Hey there, Mary, baby Jesus." Tony acknowledges. "Where is Joseph?"

Vision replied with baby cries. Totally normal.

"I'm a single mother."

"Oh yes, of course you are. Sorry for the assumption."

"I am Groot!"

"You're right, you a-" Did the tree just talked?

"Meow!" T'Challa says, his cat tail wagging as he "paws" at panicking Bucky and Scott, who are hanging from the tree - which has grown, just a note - like Christmas tree decorations. From above, Sam and Hope are laughing. They have wings so they can fly away from the sharp claws of the King of Wakanda.

Of course this is normal. He just probably traveled to an alternate universe. He just needs to know how to go back to his sane plane of reality.

The tree is gigantic, now. It's breaking the glass doors and cracking the walls. It is threatening to destroy the whole tower. This can't be. No matter how everyone is ignoring what is happening, this is dangerous and he can't let anyone get hurt. Specially Pepper and Morgan.

He makes a gesture to call his suit, and flies outside to assess the damage. Curiously enough, nothing seems to be in danger.

"Boss!"

"Yes FRIDAY?"

"We have an UFO incoming, and fast."

"Say what now?"

He looks and sees something is coming his way. His GUI zooms on the object.

"This is normal, this is normal, this is normal."

"SANTA SMAAAAAASH!" Green Hulk Santa yells, as he flies through Tony in a sled pushed by a black reindeer with a helmet that looked the exact same as Loki's.

They smash into the tower, because why wouldn't they, right? The 'K' of the STARK lettering of the tower falls.

Then he sees it! It all makes sense, now! This is Bobunk Christmas in its perfection! This is his destiny.

Letting himself accept the Christmas spirit burning inside him, he flies to the top of the tower, that now was more tree than anything else, opens his arms and legs and turns on the repulsors, casting a magnificent light, turning into a blinding shining star.

He feels magnificent!

Everyone on the street below start to cheer and applauding the exhibition. He did it! He got the best Christmas decoration of the world!

"Stark!" Everyone shouts.

"Stark!"

"Please! This is not about me," he says.

"STARK, WAKE UP!"

Tony jerks as he wakes up.

Fury is towering over him with a disapproving frown. Everything is back to normal, since it had all been a dream.

"Stark, why are you looking at me like that?" Fury asks, with actual confusion painted in his face.

"I makes total sense!"

"What does?"

"You!"

"Me?"

"You are my Bobunk Christmas Grinch!"

THE END!

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go-diane-winchester · 5 years

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How come Misha gets away with causing so much damage to this show?

Thanks for the conundrum @staycejo1:

That is a good question to ask. How does Misha get away with so much? The reason is simple. Misha is smart. Compared to Jared who is merely scholarly or book smart, and Jensen who is intelligent with regards to cinema and various arts [he hit the nail on the head with wincest, year ago], Misha is shrewd. I don't like the man, but I have to admit, he is very smart. He is using something I learned about whilst studying Public Relations: networking. Networking requires skill. You need to know how to talk to people and you need to know which people to talk to. If you network properly, you reap major benefits. There are a few cliques that Misha might be networking with: SPN production personnel, SPN alumni and cast members, Creation Entertainment, media personnel and selected fans.

SPN Personnel and affiliates

I elaborated on these people in other posts.

Bob Singer:

Bob Singer has been a co-showrunner for almost all the time that SPN has been on air. He handles production while the other co-showrunner handles the story. And yet, this man never gives the impression that he is a showrunner. When Sera Gamble killed off Castiel, rumor has it, that Singer fought to bring the character back.

Eugenie Ross-Lemming and Brad Buckner

She is Bob's wife and was brought on board with her writing partner, Brad Buckner. Since season 7, she has enjoyed many promotions. Now she is a co-executive producer on the show. Nice to work for your husband, huh. She and Brad butchered Sam's character until recently. I think Jared told them off. They were demonizing Sam to elevate Castiel's status. Currently, they are not writing destiel. They are not stupid. They are writing enough material to keep Misha on the show.

Robert Berens

Robert or Bobo Berens started off as a writer and moved up to co-executive producer. He allows the leads to be abused by heller fans, that he follows online. Remember, he is the one following problematic fans and not the other way around. Does that even make sense?

What personal stake do they have in keeping Misha relevant? Well, they all take their cue from Bob, and he is a close friend of Misha's. If Bob has a stake in Random Acts or Gish, then it might explain why he isn't willing to let Misha go. But I don't have that information just yet.

Stands

Misha has shares in Stands. For awhile now, they have been pushing destiel related merch. When they start to regret it, you will see a change. This is because hellers are already complaining about getting duped by Misha regarding the merchandise. We will just have to wait and see.

SPN alumni, cast members and affiliates

I spoke about these people before so I will gloss over them here.

Kim Rhodes and Brianna Buckmaster

They needed Misha for Wayward Daughters. They have affiliation with a bunch of fans who are involved in the Travis Aaron Wade scandal.

Osric Chau and Orlando Jones

I don't think Osric had any personal stake in elevating destiel. He really loved SPN and the fanbase. He was probably trolling destiel for fun like Orlando Jones does. The minute both men realized how problematic the hellers are, they slowly backed off. I don't think Orlando Jones has spoken about destiel in a while. He still is a friend with Misha as is Osric. I don't think these actors have any ill will. So far they just seem like a couple of trolls. Misha's networking failed with Destiel but succeeded professionally because these two men may be able to ''hook him up'' with other projects.

Creation Entertainment

Someone once pointed out that Adam, the CEO of Creation Entertainment, is in fact, Misha's cousin. I don't have any sources of that. However, for awhile CE was pushing a lot of YANA and destiel related things on their con circuit. The reason is because they have financial stakes in Misha's charities and thought that pushing destiel might make his fans shell out more money. The cockles photo ops probably gave them the erroneously impression that Misha himself, is profitable. Recently, however, this happened.

https://jolygram.com/profile/creationent/photo/1842990860569353024_552397215

They added a caption: Name a better duo. We'll wait. So was Cockles not better anymore? Misha is not profitable, so all of a sudden, CE loves the leads. I think they realized that when Misha's entire con fails but one of Jared's sweaty hoodies which he wore all day, fetches $8000 during an auction, that maybe they were betting on the race horse that dances rather than runs to the finish line.

Their personal stake was money which is why they dropped Misha and destiel related endeavors like a hot potato. Misha's networking failed here. Well, not completely. I heard there might be a new Misha con. I think they want to be sure that he is a failure before letting go completely.

Media Personnel

There are many kinds of mediums that are available to Hollywood. Some are more important than others. There are small trendy little pointless media outlets, usually social media outlets, like Hypable, ONTD and Geekiary. There are bigger more credible ones, also known as mass media outlets, like E! Entertainment. The heads pick up on news coming from the mass media. They don't bother with small outlets, and that is where Misha does his networking. He has people working within these outlets who are not legitimate reporters. They are merely gossipers and shippers in disguise. These outlets are invited to meets to disseminate information and that is where Misha connected with these viruses. Some of these pseudo-journalists have since been demoted, reprimanded or fired for misinformation.

What is their personal stake? Self-importance. Hellers and their sock accounts keep these peoples social media handles active.

Selected fans

These are fans that are overly invested in either Castiel or destiel. Most of them are nobodies but because of their association with Misha, they are recognizable figures. These are meta writers and influencers within the fandom. Their names are:

Lua James, with a twitter handle, poptivist. Real name: Theresa Cotter

Influencer who regularly attacks Jared on SM, and fled California after Travis's house was vandalized. Close friend of Kim Rhodes. Destiel shipper. Claimed to be a Journalist. Not sure about that. Followed by Kim, Matt Cohen, Robert Berens and Briana on SM.

Monica Gleberman

Very big shot. Lua's bosom buddy and Swagger magazine journalist or editor. She is a minion who lied that she had sex with Jensen and Jared. Commits fraud.

Emily Cleghorn

Influencer. Not sure if she is a meta writer. Runs the SPN anti bullying twitter handle and Exorcising Emily blog on Tumblr. J2 kicked her out of con once, because she made them uncomfortable with a tweet. She got into a twitter fight with William Shatner over destiel.

Reba Snodgrass

Runs small cons like Wayward con. Proven liar. Has to know Misha personally in order to run the cons.

Janelle Clay Davis

Influencer, also known as intelligentshipper on Tumblr and GhostofBobby on Twitter. Claims to be haunted by the YED. Pushes destiel like a religion. Cyber stalks people. Posted a selfie where she is posing with a gun recently.

Sara Burnhope

Knows Misha and his parents personally. Random acts volunteer as well as Gish participant. Might have worked with YANA although I am not sure about that one. Attacks people on his behalf on social media. Cyber bully. From the UK. Might be an influencer. Not sure if she writes meta.

Melanie Adeline

Regular con-goer and influencer. She has fans of her own. She belittles Jared to his face. Destiel shipper. Knows Misha and Briana personally.

These influencers and meta writers are important because without them and their overreaching meta, Destiel will fall flat. Misha accidentally tagged their meta once in a tweet. Or so he claimed. What is their stake, other than canon destiel? Self importance. These randos are suddenly important people, because Misha put them in that position. They are the ones who encourage people to vote for Misha for awards, and harass the execs for destiel. They are the ones who attacked J2 for the Nolacon joke and influenced others to follow suit. The above women were implicated in the Travis Aaron Wade scandal. There may be more, but these are the worst of the worst. As far as I know anyway.

So to answer the question, why does he get away with this problematic system that he has put in place? Notice, that he is affiliated with small fries. Misha, like I mentioned before, is a nobody. People are not linking the irritation they are dealing with, to Misha. Misha's criticism of SPN's misogyny was reported in those petty small media outlets where his hellers are working. And it was written in a such way that he is portrayed as a good guy. If E! spoke about it, Misha would have been in trouble because Pedowitz and gang pay attention to E! not Hypable. That's why they don't fire him. They don't know what he has done because he has spn people in his back pocket covering for him.

Even J2 don't have time to look through their own panels. They are certainly not paying attention to Misha's panels. So obviously Jensen doesn't know about this.

If Jensen was aware of this, a fistfight would have broken out of the set. Jensen would have boxed Misha's ear. Because this is sick. This was apparently at one of the Chicons. I don't know which one, because I can't stomach looking at that over bloated loudmouth. This is proof that the leads have no time to spare looking at this man's panels. So he is confident enough to say these things knowing full well, that the lead are too busy to care about him. He's behavior goes unchecked, and his continued presence on the show ensures that Gish and Random acts are continually funded. He needs Castiel to keep these two machines running.

Excuse the typos.

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t-lostinworlds · 6 years

Text

Crush (Ethan Dolan) [3]

A/N: I am very aware that I am so slow at updating, and I am so sorry. ANYHOW! Part 3 is finally here!

Summary: What would happen if the one and only Ethan Dolan found himself crushing on a simple but closed off girl like you? Would he work hard to try and break your walls? Or would everything be too much for him? (loosely based on the song Crush by David Archuleta)

Warnings: None, maybe typos haha.

Word Count: 6,136

Masterlist in Bio

P.S. I’ll leave the tags at the bottom, so if you want to be tagged when I post an update to this series just comment/message me and let me know 💖😊 (or if you want to get tagged when I post a new fic just let me know haha)

-:-:-:-:-

Part 3

Your usual routine every time you have a day off is just being a couch potato the whole day, eating junk food while watching some random movie on Netflix. You don’t usually go out unless it’s certainly needed to. So when you stood in front of an unfamiliar building in downtown L.A., you just knew today was going to be very different than most days off.

After that night at the restaurant, you’ve received a text from James almost immediately as you got home, saying that he really does want to film a video with you, but he didn’t say what it was about yet. The both of you only talked about your schedule and when you would be free. Few days later, here you are, standing in front of James’ apartment door.

You knocked a couple of times before you heard a faint shuffling on the other side of the door. Next thing you knew, you were greeted by a glammed up James, smile wide with a hint of mischief in them. Your eyebrows met for a couple of seconds but were soon gone when he engulf you in a hug.

“You came! I’m so excited for this video oh my god!” He exclaimed, letting go of you in order for him to step aside, gesturing you to come in. You fiddled with your fingers as you looked around the place. It was nothing too extravagant but it was still aesthetically pleasing with the red brick walls, frames with motivational quotes in them and a few plants here and there. You nodded to yourself, impressed; it definitely was better looking than your tiny apartment.

“James! Why the fuck does your Wi-Fi have to be so slow!” You jumped, startled by the abrupt voice coming from behind you. You turned around to face the living room, and that’s when you saw him. To say that your heart skipped a beat would make it too cliché, but is still true to say the least.

It has only been a few days since the last time you saw him in person but he seemed to have grown even more handsome with that light scruff covering his jaw.

You hated to admit it but you have been thinking about him none stop, and not because you’re a fan of him, but because of this odd feeling that erupts inside of you whenever he crosses your thoughts. And when you watch their videos over, you found yourself staring at him longer than you should be, getting a little too distracted when he laughs or just stares at the camera too intensely as if he was looking straight at you.

You tried plenty of times to ignore this little “crush” you have on him, because you didn’t want to get hurt again, not after what happened just a year ago, but it seems to get only harder as the time goes by.

You looked at him with wide eyes, clearly surprised because James failed to mention that he was going to be here too. He was just laid flat on the couch, his phone directly on top of his face as he scrolled through it, completely oblivious to your presence.

“Don’t be rude Ethan, especially when I have a guest over.” James said from behind you but you can’t seem to take your eyes off of Ethan. You flinched a little bit when you felt a hand on your shoulder, turning around expecting James but you saw Grayson smiling down at you before turning his attention to Ethan when he spoke.

“What guest? I know it’s Grayson who just walked in so don’t use that excuse on me.” Ethan grumbled, his eyes still glued on his phone. You bit your lip to suppress a smile, looking up at Grayson who was chuckling at his stupid brother.

“Don’t say anything just yet until I give you a signal okay?” He whispered, but before you could respond, his voice already boomed around the apartment.

“(Y/N)! It’s nice to see you again.” Grayson exclaimed, giving you a quick hug. You hugged him back, still a little bit confused as to what’s happening, but you kept your mouth shut just as he said.

“Ha – ha very funny Gray, stop playing with me.” Ethan rolled his eyes, but still didn’t tear his eyes off his phone. You covered your mouth as you giggled, looking up at Grayson, him giving you a wink and a quick nod.

“What’s funny?” As soon as those words left your mouth Ethan’s head snapped in your direction, mouth hanging open and eyes as wide as saucers as he saw you standing there. He dropped his phone on his face and cursed, stumbling as he tried to stand up as quick as he can.

“(Y/N)! Hi.” He squeaked when he finally stood on both feet, swallowing the lump in his throat, his hand scratching the back of his neck while his face turned extremely red.

“Hi Ethan.” You waved at him shyly, giggling at his reaction, feeling a little bit flattered thinking that maybe, just maybe you weren’t the only one feeling these feelings towards a certain someone.

You quickly shook your head to get rid of your thoughts, mentally slapping yourself as you realized that you are already dancing around dangerous territory.

You know Ethan is a great guy but still, you can’t be that naïve girl again. As much as you like him, you need to protect your heart as much as you can, even if that means denying your feelings for him. Maybe if he can prove himself, then you’ll try your best and open up a little.

Grayson laughed beside you; hand on his stomach as he turned around to James who was holding his phone up. “Did you get that?” He said in fits of laughter. James giggled with a nod, “Sure did sister.”

You laughed, looking back at Ethan who was rubbing his face with a groan, evidently annoyed at all of you. Well, maybe not so much at you because he can’t be annoyed at how adorable you looked today in your simple ripped jeans, black Vans, and a black rolling stones t-shirt.

Ethan hasn’t stopped thinking about you ever since the two of you met at the restaurant. Even Grayson got annoyed at how he kept talking and asking about you, pestering James at times to just give him your number already, but James is stubborn as hell, he kept saying that he should just wait.

He sometimes even tried to eat at the restaurant again but Grayson advised him to be patient, and not to be desperate.

Ethan tried to deny his attraction towards you but he just knew that what he’s feeling is not a one-time or a playful thing. He has never liked a girl this hard before, and that’s saying something because he doesn’t catch feelings for girls that easily.

“Hi.” You said with a soft smile, Ethan blinking twice before realizing that he unconsciously walked towards you. “Hi.” He responded, blushing profusely knowing how weird he must have been just standing in front of you for who knows how long.

The way you had Ethan captivated is scaring the living daylights out of him. You already had him hypnotized without doing anything at all. Your simplicity is so beautiful that he just can’t seem to get enough of it.

You stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, your smiles slowly disappearing, both your eyes speaking for themselves.

“(Y/N)! We’re ready for you!” James sing-songed, breaking the gaze between you two as you looked away, cheeks flushing. “Uh, I have to –” You started, not being able to finish your sentence as you pointed both of your hands towards James. Ethan nodded as you slowly walked towards James, getting inside a room that looks like his studio.

“Okay kitty girl, you sit here and we’ll film the intro.” James instructed after he introduced you to his editor, placing a stool behind the white table. You sat down, eyes adjusting to the bright lights. “Okay we’re filming.” James sat down beside you and smiled, clasping his hands together in an excited manner.

He took a deep breath before saying, “Hey sisters! James Charles here and welcome back to my YouTube channel! Today I am joined by a very unfamiliar face to you guys. Say hello to my friend (Y/N)!”

“Hi guys!” You said shyly, waving both of your hands. “So sister (Y/N), how about you tell us something about yourself and your taste in make-up and in fashion.” James looked at you expectantly. “Yeah, my name is (Y/N) and I’m just a simple girl who works as a server in a restaurant, nothing too special really. Make up and fashion wise, well…” You trailed off, not really sure on what to say.

“It’s okay, just take your time. It’ll look fine after editing I promise.” James reassured. “You’re doing great (Y/N)!” You heard Ethan yell from somewhere, making you blush and fumble with your words even further. James looked at you, his eyes twinkling with excitement.

“I – uh, I don’t really wear that much make up as you can see but I really love watching your videos even if I know nothing about make up you are just so fun to watch. And I just wear the usual jeans and shirt every day.” You laughed, thinking about how boring you actually are. “Aww, thanks sweetie.” James gave you a side hug before turning back to the camera.

“Yes, Sister (Y/N) here is just a shy simple girl, but we are going to changed that today by giving her a makeover!” He squealed excitedly, clapping his hands a few times. You stared at him, in utter surprise, clearly not expecting this at all.

“She didn’t know about this anyway that’s why she’s sister surprise at the moment.” James spoke to the camera nonchalantly. “Wait what? A makeover?” You asked, eyebrows knitting together.

“Yup, I thought I’d treat you with a makeover since you were so kind to us when we ate at the restaurant, and trust me guys, she is the sweetest ever. I can also see that you are very hard working so I’d really love to buy you new clothes!” James exclaimed. “Oh my god! Thank you!” You exclaimed, giving him a huge hug.

You aren’t exactly poor but you can’t really spoil yourself either since you are still saving up so that you can open your own restaurant soon, plus paying the bills doesn’t come in cheap. It makes you really happy that James is kind enough to treat you on buying an outfit.

“Don’t mention it sweetie!” He hugged you back. “And we’re going to be picking three outfits today so we better get going and you wouldn’t be able to see them until the big reveal.” He added after you guys pulled back. “Three outfits?!” you asked, your eyes bugging out of your head.

“Yes sister, we are going all out today. So chip chop, let’s go sister shopping! Ew that was so bad.” And with that both of you stood up and went outside of his studio.

“James, three is too much, you really don’t have to.” You said, still overwhelmed by his sudden generosity. You don’t really know each other that well yet, the only thing you have is what you see in their videos.

“No it really is fine. And I have a big feeling that we will be seeing you more often so three outfits is no biggie.” He brushed you off, leaving you there even more confused.

What does he mean by seeing you more often? Is James Charles planning something here? Is this more than just a simple video?

“Twins!” James yelled, catching both boys’ attention who were just sitting on the couch, on their phones. “You drove here separately right?”

“Oddly enough, yes, we did.” Ethan answered, giving suspicious looks at James. There’s something about today that makes Ethan feel a bit uncomfortable, like James and his brother a plotting his death or something. This morning, James just randomly texted him to come by at his place for something really important and when he got out of the house, Grayson’s car was nowhere to be found.

So he drove here in his Jeep, sending Grayson a quick text to where he was going. Weirdly enough Grayson responded a few minutes later saying he was on his way to James’ place too, he just needed to pick up a few things that’s why he went out earlier than expected.

“Perfect! Let’s go people!” James shouted, clapping his hands in an authoritative way, ushering everyone off of their seats and outside the door.

“So I guess were taking the Jeep since that’s the only way we all fit?” Ethan said when all of you reached the spot where the boys parked their cars.

“No way, I’m not leaving my car here. I don’t trust this neighborhood.” Grayson shook his head, holding both of his hands up as he walked over towards the driver’s seat, getting inside without another word.

“Ooh true, okay, Kelly and I will go with Grayson and (Y/N) would you mind accompanying Ethan? No? Okay let’s go! Ethan I’ll text you the address!” James grabbed Kelly’s hand and went inside Grayson’s car before you could even utter a single word. Next thing you know, they already drove off, leaving you standing there with Ethan dumbfounded.

“Un-fucking-believable.” You heard Ethan grumble behind you. “What was that about?” You asked with a small laugh, turning around just in time to see him rake his fingers through his hair with his other hand in his pocket, his biceps flexing in the process, the white shirt he was wearing leaving so little to the imagination.

No one can disagree with you when you say that Ethan Dolan is hot. Yes you’ve seen him shirtless from photos since there are quite a lot, but seeing it in the flesh is a whole different level, and he isn’t even shirtless now.

You bit your lip unconsciously and Ethan caught this immediately as he was already looking at you, a smirk playing across his face, feeling his ego shoot to the roof. Maybe he doesn’t have to worry too much about making you like him.

“Trust me, I have no idea.” He chuckled as he answered your question, making you snap back to reality, and judging by his smug expression, you definitely got caught checking him out. “What?” You asked, giving him an innocent smile, but your cheeks still turned red anyway.

“I don’t know, maybe I just caught you eyeing me or something.” He raised one eyebrow at you as he ran his tongue over his teeth, making him look even hotter, feeling even more confident this time when he saw you blush.

“Oh don’t be so full of yourself Ethan.” You rolled your eyes, the flush on your cheeks just growing even more. He laughed, turning around and opening the car door for you. “After you mi lady.” He curtsied with a grin, super pleased with himself, knowing that he has somewhat of an effect on you judging by your red cheeks.

You cocked your head to the side, looking at him cautiously as you walked forward and stood in front of him for a second. “I heard you like a gentlemen?” He gave you a quick wink and smirked, making you scoff as you got in the car, the shy and awkward Ethan from moments ago was long gone.

He jogged his way to the driver’s seat, a grin now plastered on his face. He can sense that you are trying to hide something from him. Not many people know this but Ethan is very good at reading people, whether it’s form body language or just how your eyes look.

Just as Ethan started the engine of his Jeep, his phone beeped. “Is he fucking serious?” He muttered as he read the text over and over. “What is it?” You asked with your eyebrows drawn together.

“James just texted me, but he didn’t give any address at all. He just said that I should keep you busy while he picks out the outfits, saying it should be a surprise. Then he added, ‘have fun you two.’” He answered, scratching the back of his neck, finally putting the pieces bit by bit on what James is planning all this time.

“Okay, that’s a bit weird. Are you sure he didn’t say something to you about this? Because I feel like this is more than just a video.” You giggled, thinking about how slick James can be when planning things.

“I kind of have a hunch, but I’m not entirely sure. And no, whatever he is planning, I have no idea.” Ethan narrowed his eyes at the road, scrunching up his nose as if he was deep in thought, which was very cute.

“So I guess you’re stuck with me then.” You shrugged as you gestured your hand from the top of your head to your feet, Ethan’s eyes following attentively, almost sizing you up.

“I wouldn’t mind that. I wouldn’t mind that at all. I’d quite like that actually.” He smiled at you cheekily, giving you another wink as his chin rested on his hand.

“Oh for fucks sake, stop doing that will you?” You groaned, burying your face in both your hands to hide you red face. Remember that time when you said if you’d had a dollar every time you blushed? Well, you’d be filthy rich by now, especially when you’re with Ethan.

“Stop doing what (Y/N)? Making you blush? Is little old me making you blush again?” He teased, giving you a soft poke on your side making you flinch a little bit. God this man just knows how to make you feel all tingly and soft inside doesn’t he? The way he has an effect on you is frightening.

“Just drive idiot you’re wasting gas.” You avoided answering his question as you are too embarrassed to admit so. “Fine, where to?” He chuckled, finally driving off, silently thanking James just a little bit for giving him a chance to spend more time with this amazing girl.

“Pizza?”

***

Meanwhile on the other side of town, Grayson trudged behind James lazily, getting more and more confused as to why he has dragged him into this “plan” of his.

“James, what am I even doing here? I clearly no nothing about girls’ fashion.” Grayson groaned when James dragged him into a Gucci store.

“Well, you clearly know Ethan and I want you to judge if Ethan would like the outfit or not.” James brushed him off, picking out a nice belt for you. Grayson furrowed his eyebrows, “You do know Ethan won’t care what (Y/N) wears right?”

“Oh no, I know that. I just want to see him all shock and everything, like completely blown away.” James said, settling with a cute and simple reversible black leather with a double G buckle that would go very well with the first outfit he has chosen.

“Can you at least explain to me bit by bit what you really are planning here? Because you only texted me and said that I should leave the house before Ethan wakes up since you have a surprise for him. And I know some of this isn’t part of the video.” Grayson crossed his arms in front of his chest as leaned over the counter, waiting for James to explain everything to him.

“It really is plain and simple Grayson. First, I wanted the two of you to drive separately so that we can just leave Ethan and (Y/N) with each other. Second, I have set up something for the two of them later on and just let this relationship blossom. You saw how they looked at each other, there is something there, and I really love being a sister cupid for once.” James grabbed the bag and started to walk out of the store, Grayson quick to catch up with him.

“Wait, you aren’t including this in the video right?” Grayson asked as he saw Kelly about to turn the camera back on.

“No silly. As much as I would like to put ‘Setting Up Best Friend with His Crush’ on the title, I want this to be private, you know how some of your fans are, I wouldn’t do that to (Y/N) and to Ethan. Besides, we still don’t know where this is going to end up. I’m just giving them a starting point, and the rest is up to them.” He gave Grayson an honest smile, in which Grayson nodded approvingly.

Of course Grayson loves their fans so much, but some of them can be a bit too much when it comes to them dating or just being with a girl for that matter. And James is right, they still didn’t know if this is going to work or not, plus it’s their choice if they want to go public.

“I feel like I’m just your private driver or something.” Grayson complained as they got back inside the car. “Oh sush, you’re helping more than you think you are sweetie.” James gave a dismissive wave of his hand, handing some bags to Kelly in the back.

“Where to next?” Grayson asked. James gave him the address to their next destination, heaving a huge sigh, Grayson slowly drove off.

***

“Uh, I’ll get a pineapple pizza, and…” Ethan looked up from the menu and at you. “I’ll get the same.” You smiled at the waitress. She gave you both a nod and walked away. You looked back at Ethan to see him smile at you in complete adoration.

“Do you really like pineapple pizza or are you just trying to impress me?” He wriggled his eyebrows at you, leaning back on his seat as the corner of his mouth quirked up. You scoffed, “Please, I’ve been eating pineapple pizza long before I knew your obsession about them.”

This just keeps getting better and better. He thought to himself, leaning forward to rest his elbow on the table and stared right into your eyes. “Where have you been all my life?” He muttered, his crush for you building up more and more as he got to know you better.

“You’re so cheesy aren’t you?” You shook your head with a laugh, the redness starting to tint you cheeks once again. He listed his shoulders up in a half shrug. “At least I try and I know you find it cute because you’re blushing again.” He pressed, tilting his head to the side with a proud smile, making your eyes roll.

“Shut up.” You grumbled looking everywhere but him. He held his hands up in surrender as he laughed, the beautiful sound echoing around the restaurant.

“Why are you even wearing a hoodie? It’s hot out.” You changed the topic to try and divert the attention to something else. “Well, I’m clumsy as fuck and I don’t want to stain my white shirt.” He answered, eyes lighting up as the waitress came back with two huge slices of pizza.

“Oh wow this is huge.” He rubbed his hands together as he licked his lips, so excited to take a bite already. “Let me take a picture.” You suggested, him agreeing as he gave you his phone. He lifted the pizza up, doing silly faces and a few serious ones.

“I’m starving.” You sighed, lifting your own pizza to take a huge bite, hearing a click a few seconds after. You looked up to see Ethan holding his phone up with a chuckle. “Cute.”

“Delete that Ethan.” You glared at him, your mouth still full, but being the stubborn person that he is, he just kept snapping pictures of you as you tried your best to hide your face.

“Please stop.” You laughed as he started to make faces as if he was a professional photographer. After a few more clicks he finally stopped, giving you a wide smile, showing his gums and all. “You’re such a dork.” You can’t help but feel your heart swell at this adorable person in front of you. How can someone be adorable and hot at the same time?

The two of you continued to eat your pizza, just talking about anything and everything as you got to know each other more, finding out that the more you guys talked, the more you have in common.

Ethan found himself liking you more and more as he found out the things you are passionate about and the things that makes you, you. Ethan likes it when you talk about the things that make you who you are because it just makes you glow in such a way that has him captivated.

That’s why he silently cursed when James texted that it was time for the two of you to go back to his apartment, indicating that your alone time together is ending.

You frowned as you received the same text as well, not wanting this time with Ethan to end, but you had a video to finish so you guys paid your meal and stood up, slowly walking back to the car, the conversation between the two of you not pausing even for a second.

Ethan opened the door for you again, being the gentleman that he is. When he got to the driver’s seat, he stared at you for a moment, deep in thought.

Ethan doesn’t like to say it out loud but he does in fact get shy around girls, but something about you just wants him to be bold and daring for once, so that’s what he did.

You felt your breath get caught up in your throat when Ethan reached over you, left palm flat on the window on your side as he came face to face with you. He stared you down, your faces just inches away from each other, to the point where you can smell a hint of mint coming from his breath due to the gum he just chewed a few seconds ago.

His eyes glanced down your lips for a moment, not even trying to be discrete at all. You gulped, your hands fisting on your thighs, feeling your heart rate escalate. He looked back at your eyes with a lopsided grin as you felt his hand brush pass your shoulder, his nose now almost brushing yours.

“Seatbelt.” He whispered, before pulling away with the strap of your seatbelt in his hands.

You took a glimpse at him as he locked in your seatbelt while he watched you intently through his lashes, with you still frozen in your spot, your brain still processing how close you were just seconds ago.

You let out a deep breath that you didn’t realize you were holding as he sat back on his seat, wanting nothing more than to punch that stupid grin off of his face.

“What? Safety first.” He shrugged as you eyed him questionably, putting on his own seatbelt.

Funny how quick the tables have turned don’t you think? Earlier he was the one all awkward and fumbling when you were around then all of the sudden he’s got this huge confidence out of nowhere, making you feel so shy and intimidate by him.

“If I hadn’t known better, I’d say your hitting on me Dolan.” You teased to try and hide your embarrassment.

“What if I am? What if I like you? Would that be a problem?” He said bluntly, staring at you with a proud, genuine yet very nervous smile with both hands on the wheel just as he started the car. He knew it might have been too early for him to say that, but the short amount of time that you spent together had him so sure that he in fact likes you a lot.

That caught you off-guard by a lot, blinking a few times with your mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, not sure on how to respond.

What a way to tell you that he does in fact like you in a way right? I mean it really that much a big of a deal, maybe he just likes you like a friend or something but the way he has been acting by only a few meetings are saying a lot.

He chuckled at your reaction and took his eyes off of you as he drove off, biting hid bottom lip to try and hide the fact that his cheeks are getting red as well. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel anxiously since he pretty much admitted himself that he does in fact like you.

To come and think about saying that to a girl you hardly know and had just met twice is a completely and utter madness. For all he knows, you would’ve think he was delusional or crazy or something.

Even admitting to himself that he likes you more than he normally should makes him think that’s he has finally lost his brain, but something inside him is urging him to continue, that this isn’t wrong.

Why would it be wrong though? After all, you don’t get to choose who you catch feelings for, it just happens and there’s nothing you can do about it, whether it’s at first sight or a couple dates after.

He stole a few glances over you as you stayed silent making sure to still focus on the road, but his foot was bouncing out of nervousness for what you would say to him.

Ethan was never the one to be bold and brave towards a girl, especially in person. I mean when you do it on text, it is so much easier since you don’t have the pressure of getting embarrassed or the fear of rejection. Plus rejection over text hurts less than getting rejected straight up front.

He was overthinking your answer a lot, would you reject him and tell him he’s weird or would you take it differently?

You still stared at him like an idiot, words getting caught up in your throat. You two haven’t really known each other that much yet, so should you say you are keen on the idea – which you very are even if you’ve only met him twice – or should you deny and hide everything to just save yourself from getting hurt in the near future?

You cleared your throat when you’ve finally composed yourself, settling with the best answer you could come up with.

“Well, if that’s the case, just so you know, I am not an easy girl Ethan. I’m pretty guarded as I may say.” You spoke with truth, settling with giving him a little warning that you are not sure about getting into something that involves dating just yet but not full out rejecting him too since you do like him, as weird as that sounds.

“I know and I am going to work hard to break your walls and prove myself, I promise. You might be weirded out by this but I really do like you (Y/N), and I’d like to see where this connection is going to take us.” He said and you can see how he truly meant it just by looking at his eyes.

“Me too Ethan.” You whispered, not really being specific on what you mean by that, if you liked him too or you’d liked to see where this is going too, or maybe it’s just both.

“Okay.” Ethan nodded and smiled, slowly driving off. At least you didn’t say no and that you didn’t like him right? Plus your answer pretty much meant you agreed with everything he said, and there was nothing negative about what he said.

The two of you continued to get to know each other during the drive back to James’ place, sometimes jamming out to the song on the radio when it was familiar to you both, just enjoying each other’s company all in all, laughing and just smiling from ear to ear.

A few minutes later, Ethan pulled up in front of Grayson’s car with a sigh, the smile still glued on his face as you guys laughed about something stupid he did when he was young. He turned the ignition off and unclasped his seatbelt, about to open the door when he heard you sigh in annoyance.

“You okay?” He turned to face you, seeing you struggle with the clip of your seatbelt. “Need help?” He added with a chuckle as you blew out air from your cheeks. “Please?” You gave him a pout as you inclined your head, Ethan’s heart stopping for a moment at how adorable you looked. God he wanted to kiss those lips so bad right now.

You stopped fumbling with your seatbelt as he reached for it, getting closer with you again. He struggled a bit, questioning why it suddenly was so hard to undo it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know wh–“ Ethan started as he looked back up, stopping himself when he came face to face with you again. You didn’t realize how close you were until you looked down and saw his lips just there, a few inches away.

He mirrored your actions; the only difference is that his eyes lingered on your lips a little longer. He forced his eyes to look away from your mouth, his urge to just press his lips on them getting harder and harder to hold. You licked your lips unconsciously, looking down at his pink lips then back again to his eyes.

Both of you heard a click as Ethan finally undid your seatbelt, but none of you backed away. You stayed frozen on your spots, him getting so lost in your eyes, you feeling the same.

You felt a hand cup your cheek, Ethan slowly pulling you even closer until the tips of your noses touched, eyes still boring into yours, looking for any sign of doubt and found none. You felt your hands rest on his broad shoulders, your body just taking over at the moment as his lips ghosted over yours.

Ethan was about to close the space between you two, to finally taste those plump lips of yours, until you heard a loud and obnoxious knock on the car window, forcing the both of you to jump away from each other.

You turned around and saw James smiling widely as he waved his hand. You sighed giving Ethan a glance over your shoulder to see him glare at James, obviously annoyed at him for interrupting what was about to happen.

You held back a giggle, opening the door as you got out of the car, cheeks flushed as you greeted James. “I can’t wait to see you try out the outfits I bought you!” He squealed, wrapping an arm over your shoulder as he pulled you inside the building, not giving you the chance to wait for Ethan.

He on the other got out of the car with an annoyed look on his face, slamming the door harder than he should have. “Dude you okay?” Grayson asked as he saw his brother’s expression. “I’m going to fucking kill him.” He growled lowly, staring at James with his arm around you as the two you disappeared inside the building.

Grayson traced his brother’s gaze and looked back at him. “Why? What’d he do this time?” He asked, placing a hand on Ethan’s shoulder, slowly nudging him to start walking.

“I was about to fucking kiss her bro, it was so close then James decided to fucking bang on the window.” Ethan ran through his hair in complete frustration. Grayson looked at his brother shocked and amused by one, being able to get so close to a girl to a point where they’re about to kiss and two, getting completely infuriated by just an interrupted kiss. Maybe Ethan really wanted to kiss you that bad.

“Shut the fuck up Grayson. I’m not that bad at girls.” Ethan snarled, swatting his hand away as he saw the look Grayson was giving him, knowing exactly what’s in his mind. Grayson threw his head back and cackled, slinging his arm over Ethan’s shoulder, pushing him inside the building.

“Bro, relax. You’ve got plenty of chances, the day isn’t over yet. Don’t worry; you’ll get that kiss.” Grayson patted Ethan’s back. Ethan shook his head with a deep exhale. Maybe he was overreacting a little bit, but he really wanted to kiss you so bad and he was so close, James interrupting it just annoyed him so much.

Guess he’ll have to try again later then.

===

Tags: @sspidermanss @castiel-savvy18

(this is based on the comments of the last one. I’m sorry if you didn’t want to get tagged anymore since I take so long to update just lemme know and I’ll stop tagging you 😭😅 and again if you want to get tagged just comment/hit me up 💕)

Part 4 coming soon

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allyngibson · 4 years

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Throughout January I worked, off and on, on something of a private project, to make an ebook of Ellery Queen’s long-out-of-print anthology, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes.

An anthology of Sherlock Holmes parodies, sprinkled with a few genuine pastiches and two play scripts, essentially a survey of non-Doyle Sherlock Holmes literature to mid-century, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1944 then allowed to go out of print, due to legal threats from the Arthur Conan Doyle estate. Never reprinted — twenty-five years ago in The Game Is Afoot, which contains about a third of The Misadventures, editor Marvin Kaye says there was (then) movement toward a reprint, but nothing ever came of it — The Misadventures has been a kind of Holy Grail, something I’ve long sought (and once held in my hands, in a college library) that I’d never own. That’s not to say that one can’t find them for sale, but I have better things to do with my meagre income than to spend several hundred dollars on a rare book.

A decade ago, someone uploaded a scan of the entire book to the Internet along with a very rough OCR of the book’s text. I found it, pretty much by accident, one day, and downloaded the files, assuming they might quickly disappear. (Which they have not, but I won’t point you in their direction. They are quite easy to find.) Whereupon they languished on my hard drive for several years.

Around Christmas 2013, after reading an article about it in The Atlantic, I began to use the now-defunct ebook reader software Readmill. This line in Robinson Meyer’s article intrigued me: “I’m nearly certain it has the best digital typography among e-reading software today. On Readmill, digital books look like books, not text files foisted into an extensible reading environment.” I sideloaded the software onto my Kindle Fire tablet and quickly discovered that, yes, Readmill had great typography, and then I began thinking about what I wanted to read with it.

I’ve been making ebooks for myself since 2000, when Microsoft released the Reader ebook software. (Though the software has been long unsupported, to this day I regularly use Berling Antiqua, the font that came packaged with Reader.) One of the first things I did was to download Overdrive ReaderWorks, a software package for making the LIT files that Microsoft Reader used. Even then, twenty years ago, nascent ebooks were simply containers that contained HTML files, CSS files, and images — essentially, the components that drive the Internet to this day. When I got a Nook, I downloaded Calibre, an ebook management package that can convert ebooks from one format to another, even let you build them from scratch.

Making an ebook of The Misadventures, then, was a deeply intriguing idea.

The first thing I noticed when looking through the scanned PDF of The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes was that it was a beautiful book. I fell in love with the typography, the heavy use of small caps, the old-style numerals.

#gallery-0-16 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-16 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-0-16 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-16 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

It was a book I wanted to look at and savor, not only because of its words but because of its beauty. I wanted to recreate, as much as possible, the look and feel of the original book, and I wanted my ebook to be just as beautiful.

I worked intently for about two weeks in early 2014. I would go to the text file — which was very, very bad — and copy out a story and paste it into Notepad. Then, comparing it to a printout from the PDF, I would correct the errors and lay my HTML tags. I even created CSS code so the story introductions would be formatted correctly.

Then, in mid-January, after completing a clean-up of about a third of the book, I stopped. To this day, I don’t know why. Did I lose passion for the project? Was I overwhelmed at work? Whatever happened, my working files sat, unwanted and unloved, in a directory on my desktop, and at some point I moved them off of my desktop, out of sight and out of mind. I’d think about The Misadventures from time to time, and do nothing.

Around Christmas, I said to myself, “Dude, why don’t you finish it?” And a few days after New Year’s, I picked it up again.

I had new ideas. I’m a big fan of Standard Ebooks, a project that makes free, professional-quality ebooks from public domain texts. Their books look great, they’re coded well, the CSS produces beautiful typography. Essentially, they made exactly what I wanted my ebook of The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes to be, so, using Calibre, I took a Standard Ebooks book apart and decided to use its code as my foundation, adding my chapters and my CSS code on top of the basic CSS typography.

I started with what I’d done six years earlier — the introduction and dozen stories I’d cleaned up — and added them to the Calibre project. Most stories started with a block at the top that indicated its detective and its narrator, side by side on the opposite sides of the page. I experimented with CSS code to make that work — I settled on using two SPANs and floating the text left or right — but most of it was fairly straightforward. The advantage to working in Calibre in this way was that, as I finished proofing and polishing a story, I could add it to the ebook file and see how it worked, building the book one story at a time.

There were challenges. Footnotes don’t work in ebooks, so I moved all of the footnotes in The Misadventures to an Endnotes section. There’s an index, which I wanted to keep, so I coded internal hyperlinks to the stories or, in some cases, endnotes that the original index would have. In so doing, I discovered one entry in the index that actually wasn’t in Ellery Queen’s manuscript, and there were two Wastonian characters that should have been in Queen’s index that weren’t. These I silently corrected.

#gallery-0-17 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-17 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-0-17 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-17 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

One thing I was keen to do was to retain the illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele. Sidney Paget is considered the definitive Sherlock Holmes artist, but I have a distinct preference for Steele.

#gallery-0-18 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-18 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-18 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-18 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

One thing I did not do was to retain the dropcaps that led off each story. Dropcaps don’t work well in ebooks. But I did retain the way the original book began each story with a few words done in small caps.

It took about two weeks of work to complete the book. The two play scripts were probably the most difficult part of the book to format correctly. After assembling the finished book, I did a proofread on my Kindle, highlighting things that looked like they were wrong, comparing those highlights to the manuscript, and editing my files to make corrections. Doing so, I believe I’ve fixed a couple of typos from the original book. There was one howler of a fact error in a single story that I silently corrected by changing a single word, and I thought about adding one note to explain the reference to “32mos” in John Kendrick Bangs’ The Adventures of Shylock Homes, as that’s a term I don’t believe I have ever encountered (it’s an old publishing term, today we’d call it a “trade paperback”), but that I left alone.

Whether it looks the way I want it to is due to the ebook readers software, not my work. Different ebook readers implement the CSS3 spec incompletely or inconsistently. I thought the finished ebook would look fantastic in Moon+, which is considered one of the best ebook reader apps out there, but there were parts of my CSS that it simply ignored in favor of its own way of formatting. Small caps and old-style numerals are, shall we say, edge cases that aren’t always implemented. I tried various epub plugins for Chrome in Vivaldi and got exactly what I wanted in a desktop browser. On a phone or tablet, Gitden Reader did the best, but it’s not a particularly user-friendly piece of software.

Readmill did well with it. I discovered that I had implemented the detective/narrator block leading off each story badly. When I replaced the SPAN tags with P tags and a display: inline; rule in the CSS, they formatted correctly. But it can’t do the small caps or old-style numerals at all. Six years ago I might have driven myself mad trying to figure out why it wasn’t doing those things. Now I understand that it’s not Readmill, it’s simply how ebook readers work.

My decade-old Nook Simple Touch, poor thing, did better than I thought it would. The Nook has a well-known problem with centering images — it can’t handle the simple CSS rule margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; display: block; at all — nor does it do the small caps and the old-style numerals.

My Kindle Fire and the Kindle app on my phone do very well with it, as you can see from the screenshots above. It does the small caps correctly, but for old-style numerals I need to use the Georgia font instead of my preferred Palatino.

It’s unfortunate that The Misadventures has been out of print for the last seventy-five years as it’s rather entertaining and provides a nice overview of the state of Sherlock Holmes literature at the time of its publication. There’s an Arsène Lupin story (“Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late,” the first meeting of Lupin and “Shears”/”Sholmes,” which you can read in Standard Ebooks’ Arsène Lupin collection), Vincent Starrett’s classic “The Unique Hamlet” makes an appearance, as does Mark Twain’s A Double-Barrelled Detective Story. There’s a Solar Pons story from August Derleth, there’s a story that a serious Raffles story and a Holmes parody at the same time, there are stories from Anthony Boucher and Manly Wade Wellman that place Holmes in a World War II setting, there’s even two stories about Sherlock Holmes’ children, one played for humor (his three year-old son is even better at deduction than his father, but with the maturity and discretion of a three year-old), one a serious mystery (with a Joan Watson, no less!). Many of the pieces are parodies and burlesques that poke fun, sometimes gently, sometimes savagely, on Sherlock Holmes. The script from The Adventures of Ellery Queen radio show with a Sherlock Holmes theme is really the only self-indulgent inclusion, but the story introductions by the Queen gestalt are fascinating, warm, and chatty in their own right. It’s a nice collection, one that, if someone brought back into print, I’d happily add to my bookshelf.

In spite of the limitations of the ebook reader software, I achieved what I set out to do. I created an ebook of Ellery Queen’s The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, one that looks professionally produced and maintains, as much as possible, the formatting of the book as originally published in 1944. Sometimes I will open the book on my Kindle, just to flip through and look at it. It’s a good looking book, an attractive book, and I’m glad I spent the time, picked up the project again, and finished it.

The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes Throughout January I worked, off and on, on something of a private project, to make an ebook of Ellery Queen's long-out-of-print anthology, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes.

#Arsene Lupin #eBooks #Ellery Queen #Kindle #Microsoft Reader #Readmill #Sherlock Holmes

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psychic-refugee · 5 years

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Fanfiction Pet Peeves

These are just my opinions. I don’t name any specific author or story.

It seems like for the most part it is considered rude to post criticisms on fanfiction. I think as a community we’re trying to be more inclusive of all writing “styles.” I am a big believer in writing the story I want to tell, so I have to recognize that my style won’t be for everyone. I do think this is a positive direction, but I think it also cuts down on the responses/reviews people would get. I’m not opposed to it, but if this is what is considered the proper etiquette then we have to accept that we will not get as much feedback.

Now I know there is a difference between a criticism and a flame. I’m not saying we should allow flames.

I keep seeing all these posts about leaving a review, but I feel like we’re not giving them leeway to review. And sometimes, not leaving a review is a review. I always assume that if my hit count is higher than my review counts, then the difference are the people who didn’t like the story enough to review. Whether or not because they found it boring or hated it, that’s left a mystery.

I think with the advent of the “not beta read, all typos are my own” tag or warning, it’s basically telling the reader that they did some proof reading but for various reasons, they don’t have an editor basically. I think because fanfiction is a hobby for most of us, then it’s fair not to go that extra effort. Probably because I do it. lol. I try to get everything I can, but a few things always manage to slip by. So, most don’t take note or bother to mention typos unless it’s particularly egregious. The only exception I would make would be to writers whose first language isn’t English. I have come across stories where it’s clear there is something lost in translation and having a beta would be necessary.

E.g. a GOT fic where they called Gregor Clegane the “Enormity that Rides.” His nickname is the Mountain that Rides. I get that they maybe thought they were using a synonym, but in this instance, it doesn’t fit because Mountain that Rides is what he is known as, not necessarily a description.

I think it’s a fine line between something that is written well or poorly and personal taste.

There is just so much fanfiction out there, it’s hard to review them all. There have been many cases where I don’t even make it past the first chapter, the story just doesn’t interest me or there is something about it that is off putting.

Here are a few things that make me not want to read the story at all.

“I suck at summaries” and variations thereof: basically the author is bashing their own writing and they still want you to read. I don’t have time for that. If the author doesn’t have the confidence in writing a few sentences, I can’t imagine their actual writing being worthwhile. This is especially true for AO3 with its tagging system that can actually help give us an idea of what the story is about. There are thousands of fics written daily, I can’t read them all and this is part of the triage of me deciding to read something. The only time I may ignore this is if the OTP is exceptionally rare or the fandom is small. In those instances, I’m not as picky because I don’t have much to pick from.

I also wonder if it’s not some form of compliment fishing. Like they want you to feel bad for them for being insecure, and they want you to say “no, it’s great!” I have no patience for those type of people.

Overtagging: If a fic has a million tags, my eyes just skip over it. This usually isn’t a problem for normal stories, this usually happens because it’s part of an anthology. It just looks super obnoxious to me. I would rather they just start a new fic each time and tag accordingly. There are some who overtag, listing literally every character that may show up despite their actual contribution to the story. If a character is just kind of mentioned or seen in passing or is talked about as part of exposition, then I don’t think they need to be tagged. Character tagging is really for the main characters. If I’m looking for X and your story shows up, but X is just seen in one chapter and it’s not about them, then I’d be irritated. The same goes for any “Warning” tags. Over tagging just clutters everything up, and I personally can’t stand it.

I’m also not a fan of doing whole sentences as tags. “I wrote this when I should have been…” and variations of things that would do better in notes rather than tags. Like I’m never going to filter for whatever your inane excuse is for the writing the story in the first place. It’s just dumb, obnoxious, and unnecessary to me.

No proof reading: This is different than not beta read. There are some that outright admit that they haven’t proof read. Sometimes, they’ll say “I’ll get to it later,” which I don’t understand at all. It’s fanfiction, we do it for free. There are no actual deadlines, I don’t understand why they don’t proof read before they publish. Then there are those that say “not proof read” and leave it at that. I’d like to think I’m a decent writer, and my first couple of drafts are always pretty rough. Even with several rounds of proof reading, I still manage to miss things. Not even trying seems so lazy and arrogant. I feel like they’re giving me advanced warning to not bother.

What makes me stop reading after the first couple of chapters.

Format: If the format is off or makes it hard to read, I just can’t bother. There are writers who somehow are able to write on their mobile device. I don’t know if they just don’t have access to a computer, or perhaps don’t want to leave evidence of writing fanfiction. Either way, I respect that they have limited means, but I don’t want to read it. The worst is when they don’t put in hard returns, either for separate paragraphs or when writing dialog. Basically, they don’t include enough white space. Trying to keep track of where you are reading with a never-ending paragraph creates eye fatigue, and it takes away from enjoying the story.

Then there are writers who don’t use punctuation. There was one author that refused to use capital letters, ever. They cited E.E. Cummings as justification. Not only did I have a problem with this readability wise, the justification didn’t make sense to me. Like nothing about the story really spoke to me about using this particular syntax as a way of any meaningful expression. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Wiki Storytelling/Choppy writing: This happens when there are too many simple sentences, or the narrative feels like it’s just a summary. Like there’s little to no description of what the character was feeling or where they are. I’m not saying we all need to be G.R.R.M. or Tolkien, but I want more “meat” in my story than:

Mal was told to get the wand. Her three best friends went with her. They got into the limo, it was scary. They tried to steal the wand but set off the alarm.

This type of story telling is boring to me. I think we find this mostly with very young writers.

AUs of movies with no unique features: where the fandom characters replace the characters in movies and the writers basically rewrite more or less line by line what happened in the movie (e.g. Descendant’s characters in Legally Blonde). I feel like I could save time if they just told me “X movie but with Y actors.” Not only do I feel it’s a waste of time to read it, I would think it was a waste of time to write it. Like assuming we’ve seen the movie, we know what happens. If the replacement characters do nothing to add or alter the movie, then I don’t see a point of the story.

Anyone have any fanfiction pet peeves?

#fanfiction #pet peeves #opinion

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annoyingsouldefendor-blog1 · 7 years

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Sabotage & Fear

I am pleased to report that the blog I announced [on August 20] – the one about what actually happened in the Cuban Missile crisis – is finally up on WordPress. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that the process involved: multiple hacker attacks; a trip to N. Virginia to have my laptop deloused by professionals; many, many calls and messages to WordPress, Microsoft et al.; two [or three] anonymous calls to me saying that somebody was trying to invade and take over my machine; and numerous trips [by me] to various book stores, libraries, etc. looking for a hacker free location from which to work.

There,wasn’t one, by the way. It’s as though public computer services, even at the local VA Hospital Complex, have been taken over by an organized crime family. Perhaps I should scout these places to see whether sex workers and drugs also are available. Not that I’m particularly interested in drugs, except as a research topic. And I don’t pay for sex, even when I have the money. But for those of you who might indulge in such things, it’s worth noting that they are illegal, and frowned upon generally, so the possibility of blackmail goes along with each purchase.

Recent Text from G. Sallust[1]

[This is Phil, and as our founder notes, it wasn’t easy to post the last blog. Frankly I don’t see why the opposition fought so hard. Obviously that blog got on somebody’s nerves. Now Mr. Sallust’s writings can do that, as you – and many of our other readers – know. His frivolous comments on sex and drugs are a perfect example: unnecessary to his story and likely to outrage someone. Although they are true.

But what was so offensive about the last post? All it did was describe and document what the Kennedy Administration, 65 years ago, did to resolve its crisis with Cuba and the old Soviet Union. We and the Soviets negotiated, rather than risk a thermonuclear war. As Winston Churchill once said, “To jaw – jaw is always better than to war – war.”[2] If you know someone who says it’s stupid to negotiate, you may know a crazy person.]

Sabotage

Anyway, the last blog was posted on August 30, and it didn’t go easy into the web. WordPress ultimately accepted the text of the blog, but it had problems with each and every footnote. Mr. Sallust says dealing with the footnotes was like fighting street-to-street in a hostile city, not that he’s ever done that kind of thing for real; but each footnote was an objective that had to be addressed and conquered; he found no solution that worked for all of them.

And the result isn’t pretty. The information in the notes is all there, finally, but the hypertext links don’t work, the font colors are off and there are unaccountable typos in the main text. It’s as though there was a guerilla on the other side, trying to counter every move he made, and opposing everything. Our founder says he now understands how Donald Trump must feel in Washington, DC.

Ultimately he [Sallust, not Trump] managed to create something online that was more or less like the original, so he posted it and went to lunch. He had spent – he said – more than 4 hours that last time doing something that should have taken no more than 15 minutes. And, he says, he isn’t counting the 3 or 4 prior, unsuccessful trips when the entire hacker world seemed to turn against our blog. He says that he’s not going to spend time correcting defects in the post until such time as the malevolent hackers are defeated, preferably in jail, or at least are diverted to other targets.

That’s quite a story, isn’t it? Judging from all the effort put into stopping us, somebody really hates what we have to say. Perhaps we should be grateful. “Any publicity is good publicity,”[3] or so it’s said; and judging from the last election that maxim still works. So I guess we’ll soldier on, antagonizing the idiots.

So what do we talk about? Well, we try to know our audience, and today you’re preoccupied with hurricanes and/or war. We don’t have any opinions about the weather except that hurricanes are big and dangerous, and probably not the President’s fault. So I guess we’re going back to the Koreas one more time.

If we decide to negotiate with N. Korea, what should we talk about?

Fear

Why does a country have nuclear weapons, or any weapons for that matter? Why does it have an army, etc.? Well, the classical answer is that countries arm because they’re afraid. “Since, in the main, it is not armaments that cause wars but wars (or the fear thereof) that cause armaments, it follows that every nation will at every moment strive to keep its armaments in an efficient state as required by its fear, otherwise styled security.[4]” That’s from Salvador de Madariaga, a Spanish diplomat of the 20th Century. I quote him not because I’m an expert in these matters, but because I think he was.

So for the most part, countries arm to the extent necessary to assuage their fear of attack. If a country is surrounded by large, unfriendly neighbors, armed to the teeth, it will bulk up its military. If it operates in a more benign environment, where the threats are few and far between, it will be less preoccupied with armaments. So from that it follows that any negotiation with North Korea must take into account the North’s security concerns. If it’s to give up the security blanket of nuclear weapons, it will want – actually, need – something in return.

What might that be? One would think that, with formidable nearby allies, like Russia and China, North Korea could drop its expensive nuclear program and simply rely on their support. Perhaps Kim Jong Un doesn’t really trust them? What an interesting thought! Probably he doesn’t trust Japan; that country and the Koreas have a bad history. And, since he’s currently threatening us, obviously he doesn’t see us as a friend. So what could the world offer him to abandon his nuclear program? How about some form of multilateral security guarantee? No invasions, no regime change, economic support and more trade in return for abandoning nukes and submitting to intensive inspections.

We made a deal something like that with respect to Cuba, except that it was simpler. We agreed not to invade, and the Russians agreed to support their new client state. It seems to have worked. And there’s a precedent for inspecting another country’s home grown nuclear program. We and the Russians have done it more or less as a matter of course from time to time. You remember “[t]rust, but verify,” don’t you?

Why Do It?

This is just a thought and I’m not making a moral judgment here. I’m not saying that the North’s government is good, or bad. The last time we went to war to get rid of a bad person, Saddam Hussein was our target; we succeeded, dismantled his government, and found ourselves stuck in a glue pot, attempting to create a new government out of chaos. We didn’t get free for years, and when we did the new guys lost big time in their first engagements with a rag-tag group of insurgents called ISIS. So we went back, more or less allied with Iran, a country that’s supposed to be our mortal enemy, and helped Iraq gradually right the situation. Anyway, I think they’re righting the situation.

It’s not wise for us to take on N. Korea if we can cut a deal. We’d win a war, for sure, but then what? We can’t afford any more expensive and needy client states, like Iraq. And let’s not even talk about Afghanistan, the world’s premier supplier of the opium poppy. Many years ago we defeated the Taliban over there in a few weeks, stayed to do some nation building, and it’s still draining us.

And then there’s the refugee problem. Most likely North Korean refugees won’t come here, but they will head for the borders, i.e., those with Russia and China. You’d think those countries would be concerned about an influx of refugees. They ought to be.

Conclusion

So there’s plenty of reason for the rest of us –the non-North Koreans – to agree to guarantees and other measures to enhance North Korea’s security. And the North should realize that the closer they get to a viable nuclear force, the more attractive a target they become. Why? Fear, “otherwise styled security,” may lead others to attack first, rather than wait for North Korea to do it.

Anyway, it’s just an idea.

[1] Text from G. Sallust, circa September 2, 2017. The text is loosely edited, to remove potentially offensive material. Who in the world is the “pixie psychopath?”

[2] See Knowles [editor], The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (6th edition, 2004) at Winston Churchill, p. 222, n. 3. In the future we’ll cite this as “ODQ at __.”

[3] See ODQ at Proverbs, p. 614, n.24. See also ODQ at Brendan Behan, p. 63, n. 17: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.”

[4] See ODQ at Salvador de Madariaga, p. 405, n. 8

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