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nanatsuyu · 1 year

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Top 5 vs Personal 5

List your top 5 fics ranked by kudos on AO3. are you surprised by what's most popular to your readers? then provide your ranking of your personal top 5 fics, and tag a few fellow writers!

oh boi these make me nervous but thank you @mostlymaudlin ;; (tagging: @skvaaader @jaywalkers @annawrites @marianjos @kevneildependant @takitalks)

i'll follow format cus this looks pretty and personal favs first feels nicer to share. (i havent posted a lot of fic so there's a bit of overlap)

that's just something people say (T), 119k, andreil || slowburn road trip au where neil steals andrew's car and andrew makes a deal to take neil west before they part ways again (haha...unless? 👀) this is my baby that i worked on for several months and posted every chapter in one day lmao it was my first chapter fic and my first major au. im still very proud of it <3

better safe than damned (E), 18k, andreil || a smuttier au of an au with demon!neil and witch!andrew and tentacles lol it sounds depraved, and the tags make it sound really depraved but half that word count is aftercare and exploring ones comfort zones and sexuality? so its personal and one of my best written smutfics imo

what a chatty creature (T), 14.7k, kandreil || 5 times neil goes nonverbal and the one time he finds his voice. i wrote this for my friend gull and had them give me 6 of their favourite words and included those in each part. i liked exploring communication with kandreil when in a slightly different font

messy (E), 10.3k, kandrew || au where kevin and trans!andrew are fwb (but more because feelings are fun) its another soft smut where andrew thinks too much, and hes a bit further in his healing, but reservations are still that. i like playing with their dynamic a whole lot. i was incredibly nervous to post this but im glad i did <3

taptaptap (T), 7.2k, kandreil || canon divergence kandreil where theyre a year or so removed from college and in love, but kevin and andrew never resolved The Incident after baltimore. this was my first big softie fic of them. i love kevin with my whole heart and i think he should be happy always so this one is close to me

taptaptap (T), 7.2k, kandreil || this one doesn't surprise me when it comes to popularity. its super soft and canon divergent and my first non exchange/gift fic!

that's just something people say (T), 119k, andreil || its a 100k+ slowburn andreil fic. it was bound to do numbers but its also very validating because i worked so hard ;;

like you swallowed a bone (T), 7.6k, gen twinyards and nicky || mixtape post canon fic exploring what happened with the twins and nicky's relationship years down the road. i think this got popular because of age and i still really like it, but im not sure what sparked this one for people lol

what a chatty creature (T), 14.7k, kandreil || this def got popular because fuzzy and kandreil and its relatively low stakes in drama (not that i write particularly dramatic things but yknow)

morning coffee (E), 9.8k, kandreil || post canon divergence smut with the boys before neil has an interview. kandreil smut speaks for itself in popularity lol i am still incredibly fond of this one and its gotten a lot of comments recently which has been nice. wrote it because i wanted to see more fic that felt like kandreil and not just andreil + kevin

im terrible at boosting my own stuff because i never feel like i explain myself well enough to sell my ideas or fics which is definitely reflected in my summaries that i have often been told "do not do the fic any justice" lol that and im horrified of people saying theyre silly but at least a few people think theyre pretty neat! :^)

#aftg fic rec #my writing #i gotta get better at being kind to myself and my works so here goesss

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muninnhuginn · 2 years

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I need your thoughts on Time Loops please please

Not sure where to start on this one so apologies in advance for rambling!

In terms of general time travel stories vs time-loop centric series I tend to have slightly different approaches. For general time travel stories I tend to prefer stable time loops (or observed stable time loops?) as they make the most sense in terms of mechanics. Or at least in terms of not running into paradoxes.

Also I just remembered I rambled about this previously and worded it better then so have that whilst I’m at it:

All that said! I see time loop stories *set up* as time loop stories in a slightly different way as their own self-contained thing. With these, you don’t have to worry about how the time loop fits into the overarching scheme of things for time travel and can try a load of different types of time loops out. So, you get some stories where the loop is exactly the same *minus changes made by the protagonists* and that can actually help build up a mystery. If other changes are being made then who is making these? Is there someone or someones in the loop also influencing things? You can also get series where actually each loop the characters are dumped in is essentially a different universe where there are minor alterations where events will spin out differently (see: Higurashi). There’s a lot of leeway in terms of how time loops are set up and what the specific rules are. Does the loop reset at a certain time or when a certain event is triggered?

Time loops are basically open to a lot of different mechanics that both the characters and the audience can try to figure out which means there’s a huge overlap with mystery stories. And I think that ultimately lends a lot to why I personally enjoy them. Because there’s always something that needs to be figured out, either in the mechanics of the time loop itself or in terms of how characters can break out of the loop. What conditions need to be fulfilled? And then if there limits to the looping itself (limited loops) it enforces a limit on how long the characters have to fulfill that condition.

(Also, just to note that single episode time loops generally exist to push characters to limits they wouldn’t usually consider until they complete an action that snaps them out of it. They therefore tend to be more character-driven and less mystery-driven than a series would be. I still personally like them, but for a different reason than the mechanics/mystery of longer series.)

Going to list a few time loop media I've watched in the last few years below the cut. I'm probably forgetting a load and I've not included any series that are usually more standard fare but have a single time loop episode. This isn't really a rec list but more a 'have some thoughts on this media against your will’. I will say that more than one of these doesn't present itself from the start as a time loop series so the fact it’s listed here may itself be considered a spoiler, but as there's no way to spoiler tag on Tumblr as far as I know you'll just have to choose whether to risk that by clicking the read more.

Also, like, given these are time loop series/films/etc, people die in them. A lot.

Reset (cdrama)

Two people on a bus that keeps exploding trying to figure out how to escape the bus with themselves and everyone else on the bus alive.

The plot writing for this one is really tight and the way stuff ties into the overarching plot builds a really strong mystery. It's one of those series where you're generally figuring a lot of stuff out at about the same pace as the characters are managing it which is really refreshing tbh? It's rare that mystery series manage to hit that sweet spot. It also has some really strong individual character focus episodes.

Its weak points basically come down to a) mandatory romance (though it's not really the focus and easily ignorable), and b) the fact it's a mainland Chinese drama means that its approach to some of the police and crime aspects of the show especially is going to be kinda... offputting. For what it's worth though, I think the writers did the best they could within that framework.

Steins;Gate (anime)

Okay, so this series is an adaptation from a visual novel but all considered tells the story well enough to work as an anime. The main victim of the fact its an adaptation is the pacing in the first ten or so episodes as it has to introduce and show all the characters in ‘normal’ situations before pulling the rug from underneath them. This means that the first few episodes can be rather slow going until the plot kicks in. Some of the characters in the anime do get way more characterisation than others, but I think you’re given enough for basically all of them to be able to sympathise when they get focus episodes. Except for Daru, sorry. I know some people can like his character, but I tend to find it waaaay too “haha funny anime pervert” style and nothing else to particularly like him. (I will say he gets more fleshed out in S;G 0, but in the OG series? No.)

Anyway! One of my favourite parts of this series beyond Kurisu and Okabe (once the latter has taken several shots to the ego) is the way it lays out the time travel mechanics. I won’t go into full detail, both because it would take ages and because my explanation skills are not up to the task, but essentially it uses the idea that there are several main branch timelines and you can create variations in order to move across between timelines. Small variations and you still cycle around the ‘main’ branch in a sub-timeline of it, but with a big enough variation you can hop all the way across to a different ‘main’ branch. Of course, timeline changes are pretty tricky when the only way you have to enact them is... sending a text to the past.

Note: There are two further anime pieces you can watch after the original series. There's the film set after the OG series and there's Steins;Gate 0. With the film, it's very much "this is your series on emotions rather than plot" and it caters very much to the main relationship of the series. It's up to you how canon you consider it. Steins;Gate 0 is an optional sequel series based upon if one of the episodes of the original series branched out into a different ending. I personally do prefer the original series to 0, but 0 is good in of itself and has a somewhat different cast. It's just that it very much is not the original series and it makes that clear. Maho is not Makise and if you can't get past that you're going to really struggle watching this series.

Higurashi no naku koro ni + kai (anime)

Another VN adaptation. It’s set in a rural Japanese village in the 80s when a new guy starts at the school there. Starts slice of life cutesy, becomes horror story, rinse repeat, until you slowly realise it’s actually maybe more a mystery story about friendship? The first season plays much more into the horror elements, but you start to get more pieces near the end of that season and by the second season you’re actually getting answers to your questions. The end of the OG series was legit so cathartic? You really want to root for the main characters to succeed together.

Note: I'm talking here about the anime which is probably the most accessible route to get into the series, but this was originally based upon a visual novel series that I believe now has translations available via Steam. The VNs, from what I've heard, have a lot of extra information for each arc than was able to get adapted to the anime. That said, having only watched the anime, I found it plenty fulfilling in of itself and I think more gets through than VN readers actually realise. There's also an optional sequel anime series: Higurashi Gou/Sotsu. I have... very mixed feelings on it and the focus is very different to the OG series, but from what I've heard, the manga adaptations of these arcs (Gou and Meguri, I think?) do a much better job of fleshing out motivations and pacing. (There’s also Umineko which is a kind-of-kind-of-not connected series by the same author which I saw the anime of yeaaaars ago and have been trying to wipe from my brain so I can read the VN without spoilers. Even though I’m super tempted by the Beato art)

Groundhog Day (live action)

I've watched this loads in my childhood but hadn't properly rewatched until a few months back. I feel like almost anyone into time loops who's from a western background will have seen this already so not quite sure what to add. I guess... I hadn't remembered how much of a dick the main character was and found that some aspects had perhaps aged with the film (for instance, I feel like the romance aspects would hopefully have been written differently nowadays)? But overall still a decent watch.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica (anime)

The fact I’m putting this on this list is a spoiler in of itself. In case you’ve somehow not come across this series in the last decade or so though, I’ll do the usual thing of saying “watch at least the first four episodes”. It’s magical girl genre, a darker take than typical, though maybe not as much as people like to make it out to be. Still, the series is a self-contained plot where the characters are mainly there to move the plot along and to present themes. It also ties in various pieces of old European literature/folktales (Faust, the original Little Mermaid) without you needing to have read/heard of them to follow it along.

That one Good Omens fic with the historical accuracy: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20428025/chapters/48461819

Giving this one a shout-out purely because it's a gen (pre-slash technically) fic set in ancient Egypt and the research the author did for it is ridiculously impressive. There're appendices where they show what they researched and where they decided to take creative liberties and-- look, it's still time loop fic, okay. It’s been years since I read it so I can’t fully remember specifics but considering I remember reading both it and its non-time loop sequel I presume the quality must’ve been at least decent.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (anime)

Not the focus but the implication is there especially in the Rebuild films that the whole series is a loop which has been reiterated many times previously and will keep repeating with various differences until at last the cycle can be broken.

Revolutionary Girl Utena (anime)

Same as Evangelion, but less evidence for it. Also, if you check out this series and you're worried about any kind of triggering content whatsoever, please look up a trigger list, thanks.

Russian Doll (live action)

Watched this in the last few weeks and it was an experience. It’s Nadia’s birthday and she keeps reliving it over and again. There are some aspects that aren't really my speed (a lot of casual sex and drugs) but it does something interesting with time loops I haven't really seen done before? Not going to say what so I don't spoil it, but a key thing with this series is basically that the universe wants to let people figure themselves out and doesn't mind giving them a nudge rather than subscribing to some of the more logical time loop mechanics. Also, a big part of the series is about how people deal with trauma, especially of the intergenerational variety and I got the impression there were a lot of Jewish themes in the series too, though not being a Jew I think a lot of it went over my head unfortunately.

This series has two seasons, the first can be watched and be complete in of itself. The second is trying to do something different than the first so not exactly comparable? Still solid, but you have to suspend your disbelief further as it goes on and really lean into the 'this is the universe's will' kinda thing.

Congratulations (Egyptian film)

Watched this with some friends because tbh I wouldn't have even heard of the film otherwise? Stuck with me even years later though. So, this film takes a lot of the basics of Groundhog Day to their extremes. The protag starts off being absolutely despicable but as he finds out more the situation changes and it changes again and by the end it's not necessarily that he's an entirely different person but his perspective has been entirely altered. This film basically uses the time loop mechanic to tell a very character-driven story and even though I was insistent at the start I couldn’t sympathise with the protagonist by the end I definitely felt *something* about him.

#castielrisingabove #when answering this I noticed there was another ask I'd somehow forgotten to answer so oops #long post #ask meme #again sorry about all the rambling but I presume you saw me saying this was a topic I could go on about #so I'm taking it and running #time loops

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lovely-echoo · 3 years

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Sleepy Bois Inc x FranBow!Reader

In-game AU

Part 1/? Pt.2

Plantonic!SBI x Young!Reader

(10/11 years old)

OneShot/Drabble(?)

Genderneutral reader (they/them) 💜

INFO; If you haven't played or seen game play of Fran Bow then you can skip this if you'd like. If you don't care then go ahead.

Summary; Basically if you've seen/played the game you should know how this goes, you take place of Fran. So you go/went through the same things she did and you still have Mr. Midnight. This takes place while Fran is still in the mental hospital and then got teleported near the SBI.

Honestly I kept thinking about this but was afraid to request it to anyone so I'm doing it my myself-

If I get any info wrong, I'm sorry! I rewatched Markiplier's game play so it shouldn't be way off.

P.s not everything is described the same.

(^ art by sunquids on twt)

CW/TW: mentions/includes of cussing, gore, death, blood, consumption of medication, sexual assault (brief mentions of Damian/The King)

Fluff/Normal

(Angst if you squint)

How you ended up there - How you met Philza and Technoblade

As you were walking around the hospital, you decided to take a pill to see if it'll help.

You watched as your vision blurred and some sort of demonic noises rang in your ears.

After a few seconds your vision cleared up, you took a look around the front desk.

The once dull and lifeless room had turned into this even duller and just plain deathly like room.

Blood was everywhere, random body parts of babies where thrown around. A skeletal figure was hung with what looked like an umbilical cord wrapped around its thin bones, it was connected to this baby covered by a blue blanket.

Just about everything looked grotesque.

Suddenly the floor ahead of you opened and this slimy black tentacle like arm grabbed you by the waist and pulled you in.

It seemed you may have passed out during your fall because you woke up to the sounds of hissing and supposedly two men.

Oh and let's not forget the killer headache causing the ringing in your ears. :)

You rubbed your eyes as you sat up, the light around you seemed much brighter than before.

You looked at the two men in front of you and then glanced down, you spotted Mr. Midnight!

His fur was spiked up and his ears were flat against his head. He seemed to be trying to protect you from the men.

Ignoring their presence you immediately scooped up your precious fur baby in your arms.

Your mind completely forgot about the fact there are two strange looking men in front of you.

A few droplets of water dripped down your (S/C) cheeks onto your (F/C) shirt/dress.

You started crying, so much happened in a short period of time and you found your cat you oh so desperately tried to find.

It panicked one of the adults. Said adult was an average tall man with slightly longer blond hair than average, he also had a green and white striped bucket hat. But what stuck out the most was the large pair of wings behind his back.

At first you thought that it was your pills fault but everywhere around you looked….

Normal?

It seemed like your meds wore off while you supposedly passed out.

But that doesn’t help or ease you at all. If the side effects wore off then how the hell did he have wings?!

The blond walked towards you slowly, like you were an injured puppy. His blue eyes roamed around your body, as if studying your every mouvements.

The other man who was beside him earlier seemed to tense up and looked at him as if he grew another head. He was on edge you assumed.

But he looked even weirder to you. He had long pink hair tied into a loose braid falling over his shoulder. Was it natural? He also had tusks peeking out from his bottom lip, they were large but not enough to be in the way. His skin seemed to be on the pinker side, it was roughed up with scars and calloused in certain areas. You noticed he had pig ears poking out his crown. Is he a king of sorts? Wait, that reminds you of someome... Oh! The king of course!

Ah yes, the king. You quite missed him actually, he was playful and let you use his cane- sword to get a key. But he didn't know about that part. You wonder if he's doing alright right know, the asylum sucks. And the shadow thing next to him said weird things to. Who exactly is the holy man? Why'd the shadow say he took off his clothes?

You couldn't dwell on it to much as you got distracted by the approaching man.

He reached out his hand to stop the winged male. “Phil-”

But the man named ‘Phil’ interrupted the crowned male by putting up his hand. He stopped his hand and let it limp to his side.

“It’s alright Tech, they seem harmless.” ‘Phil’ reassured, though ‘Tech’ nodded his head with a stern expression. There was still hesitance in his sharp red eyes.

‘Phil’ took the same hand he put up and reached it out to you. A soft and kind look in his eyes, you could’ve gotten lost in them if you weren’t careful.

“You alright there kid?” He asked, crouching down to meet your height from where you sat.

“Y-yeah, I think so…” You winced, your throat was hoarse and dry. You peered at ‘Phil’ as he took out this glass bottle with what you assumed was water.

He handed you the fragile bottle, he saw the look of hesitance in your childlike eyes. But something about them set off alarms in his head, they were dull. There’s nothing wrong with that of course! But they were too dull, at least for a mere kid.

He recognized a glint of trauma in your (Eye Shape) eyes, those beautiful (E/C) orbs had seen something they shouldn’t have. Haven’t they?

“Don’t worry mate, it’s fresh water.” He examined the way you handled the cork, you were inexperienced. He could tell you’ve never needed to do it, but why? It’s really the only way so far to keep water with you.

Did you not have any?

While he was lost in thought, you just had noticed he had an accent of sorts. Nothing wrong with it, you've just never heard of someone with it.

(^ Ignore that if you are british)

While the winged male was off in his own world the piglin hybrid watched as you sniffed the clear liquid in suspicion before letting your cat smell it as if you were looking for their approval.

To his surprise they did give it to you, the black cat nodded it’s head and squeaked out a meow. That strangely sounded like a yes- but he dismissed the thought. Probably was just the voices fucking with him.

You gulped down the water as if you hadn’t had any for months.

‘Why tf are they so desperate-’ ‘lowkey kinda concerned lmao’ ‘they look like they’d be an orphan tho’ ‘lmao maybe’ ‘idc about the kid, i want the cat’ ‘absolutely-’ ‘Nah fuck the cat, im allergic.’ ‘lol and?’ 'PFT ANY ASKERS???'

Those were all different voices speaking and overlapping each other.

Technoblade sighed as he glanced at his father, he knew him on the back of his hand. He let him be and slowly walked next to Phil and kneeled down.

“What’s your name kid?” he asked, taking the empty bottle you had handed him. “(Y/n), (Y/n) (L/n)/Bow.” You bluntly answered, looking at him in the eyes. He noticed how bloodshot they were, I mean you did cry not even 5 minutes ago.

"What's yours?" You questioned tilting your head a bit in the process.

Unbeknownst to you, some voices in a certain someone's head were losing their shit, squealing and chanting ‘protecc tiny bean’ over and over again.

"The name's Technoblade, but you can call me Techno." Strange name in your book but your not the one to judge. You simply nodded your head in acknowledgement.

"That guy is Philza, but you can call him Phil." He pointed his thumb to the unfocused man. Technoblade or Techno- cleared his throat.

“You’ve got somewhere to stay? Where are your parents?” “Why can’t you mind your business?”

Techno’s eyes twitched in annoyance and his teeth clenched to hold back any crude words.

Although he noticed the flash of pain in those dull (E/C) orbs of the mentions of your parents.

He sighed once again, something you noticed he did a lot. At least, so far he did.

“Look kid, do you have a place to stay or not?”

And that's how you ended up meeting your new family. . . <3

I may include a taglist if anyone's up to be tagged lmao

#mcyt x reader #platonic x reader #tommy innit x y/n #technoblade x reader #philza x reader #wilbur x reader #sleepy bois inc x reader #sbi x reader #fluff #mcyt #fran bow #franbow!reader #reader as fran bow #mr. midnight #cat #tiny bit of angst #only if you squint tho

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septembercfawkes · 5 years

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How to Use a Dash—in Fiction Writing

I've been getting more requests to do posts on proper punctuation, and one that a few people have mentioned is the em dash. I actually think this one is a little trickier to use than the semicolon (which I argue is actually one of the easiest), just because the rules surrounding it are more lax. However, like the semicolon, you can pretty much get away with almost never using it.

But a great em dash can be really effective, and sometimes it's just the punctuation mark you're looking for. It's worth noting that em dashes feel more informal. They make the text more casual, which may or may not be what you are looking for.

With that said, let's get started.

For Interruptions

As an editor, one of the most common (but understandable) problems I see with dashes is that the writer uses an ellipsis (. . .) to indicate an interruption instead of a dash. An ellipsis in dialogue means that the speaker sort of just trailed off:

"I don't know. Maybe it's something . . ." she trailed off.

But an em dash means they are cut off.

"I don't know. Maybe it's something--"

"Like an animal? Maybe a bear?" Callie interrupted.

Interruptions may not always be from another speaker. They can be a sound in the environment:

"If only--"

A police siren suddenly went off. We looked at each other, and then ran pell-mell down the alley.

They can be an action in the environment:

"Now I just need peaches, grapes, apples and--"

A shopping cart crashed into mine.

Sometimes you can even get away with the character's own thoughts interrupting their dialogue if they have a sudden realization.

"I don't know! Maybe it's something like--"

A jaguar, she suddenly realized. Yes, that fit perfectly!

Basically when a character is cut off in dialogue (or in some cases, even thoughts), you should indicate that with an em dash.

If action interrupts a complete sentence of dialogue, you set it off by em dashes:

"You said"--she wrenched open the car door--"that she would be safe!"

"You said that she would be safe" is a complete sentence, but "she wrenched open the car door" is an action, not a dialogue tag, so technically it should be set off like that example.

For a Sudden Change of Thought

Similarly, your character may sort of "interrupt" themselves in that they may have a sudden change of thought. In that case, use an em dash.

"If only--hey, want to go to dinner?" I asked.

This can sometimes happen out of dialogue if you are in deep viewpoint.

I slowly put down my bag. If only--maybe she'd want to go to dinner.

As a Counterpoint to Parentheses

Em dashes can also function like parentheses . . . but different.

Parentheses imply a sort of aside. I personally think of parentheses as the "whisper" equivalent of writing. It's additional information that is read "quieter," like having a friend whisper something to you when you are at a lecture.

Dashes can set information aside too, but rather than "whisper" it, it's being highlighted. It carries a little more intensity and tends to be read at a faster pace than parentheses. (Even though it may be additional, side information.)

He grabbed every kind of soda he could see--root beer, cream, orange, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprite, even grape Fanta--and piled them into his shopping basket.

Notice how this has a slightly slower, less intense feel when in parentheses:

He grabbed every kind of soda he could see (root beer, cream, orange, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprite, even grape Fanta) and piled them into his shopping basket.

Dashes are also a little different in that if you use a dash to set off the beginning or end part of a sentence, you don't need a second one. You only need two when you're setting off something in the middle of a sentence.

He grabbed every kind of soda he could see--root beer, cream, orange, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprite, even grape Fanta. He piled them into his shopping basket.

Root beer, cream, orange, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprite, even grape Fanta--he grabbed every kind of soda he could see. He piled them into his shopping basket.

With parentheses, you always need to close them.

He grabbed every kind of soda he could see (root beer, cream, orange, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprite, even grape Fanta). He piled them into his shopping basket.

And you typically don't start a sentence with parentheses, unless the entire sentence is in parentheses.

For Quick Emphasis

Similar to the last section, you can also use em dashes for quick impact.

You can use a dash to highlight or emphasize a single word.

There was only one place he dreamed of being--Hawaii

This can also work in places where parentheses typically won't (which is why I'm putting this in its own section).

Hawaii--it was the only place he dreamed of being.

Of course, you can do this with more than one word.

Joshua had two loves in life--Lucy and tater tots.

To Help Readability

Dashes can also be used to help make a sentence easier to read. This is usually done when a phrase set off by commas has a lot of its own commas within it.

When the medicine arrived, about two months, three stomach aches, five headaches, and six sleepless nights later, she felt so sick, she didn't know if she could keep the pills down, so she begged to be taken back to the hospital.

-->

When the medicine arrived--about two months, three stomach aches, five headaches, and six sleepless nights later--she felt so sick, she didn't know if she could keep the pills down, so she begged to be taken back to the hospital.

Like a lot of things in writing, you can argue that some of these sections overlap (because can't this dashed part just be put in parentheses? Or be considered an interruption?).

For Missing Text

This is sort of outdated and not something I recommend using except in special circumstances.

Sometimes the em dash is used to show that certain text has been left out. If you read some older books, like some of the classics, you may notice em dashes are used to avoid giving specific dates or names.

For example, in Jane Eyre, you will find text like this:

Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, ----shire.

Which is meant to say the place is called something shire.

Or you may find dates like this:

19----

So the story avoids giving a specific year.

Fiction today doesn't usually do that.

The em dash can also be used this way when the text is unknown. The only way I can see this working in fiction today, is if your character found a paper or something that was damaged so they could not make out the words properly. You might would write the note like this:

My dear ------,

Please come to m---- at t---- and bring ------

Sincerely,

----t

When used this way, two em dashes denote part of a missing word and three em dashes denote a whole word is missing.

It's completely possible to go through your whole writing career and never need to use em dashes this way.

Hyphens vs. En Dashes vs. Em Dashes

When people talk about "dashes," they are almost always talking about the em dash, which is what this whole article has been about, but there is also the en dash and the hyphen. En dashes are shorter than em dashes and hyphens are shorter than en dashes.

Hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash (—)

An en dash is about as long as the letter "n" and an em dash is about as long as the letter "m" (which is where they get their names).

The differences between the hyphen and the en dash can get a little fuzzy in the industry, so I'm going to pull from the The Chicago Manual of Style (which is what fiction uses) website and let them explain it.

The hyphen connects two things that are intimately related, usually words that function together as a single concept or work together as a joint modifier (e.g., tie-in, toll-free call, two-thirds).

The en dash connects things that are related to each other by distance, as in the May–September issue of a magazine; it’s not a May-September issue, because June, July, and August are also ostensibly included in this range. And in fact en dashes specify any kind of range, which is why they properly appear in indexes when a range of pages is cited (e.g., 147–48). En dashes are also used to connect a prefix to a proper open compound: for example, pre–World War II.

You probably don't need to worry too much about the differences between a hyphen and an en dash, so I don't recommend stressing about it. Just know they are different, and you can look them up if you really need to. And definitely don't go walking around like you are smarter than everyone because you can tell the difference between hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes.

How to Properly Write an Em Dash

You may notice now that you don't actually have an em dash key on your keyboard. You have a hyphen. This often gets used as both a hyphen and an en dash. To denote an em dash, you hit that key twice (--); today, most word processors will automatically turn that into an em dash (—).

In the traditional, standard manuscript format, em dashes are written as --. This is in part because SMF uses a Courier font, where every character is the same width, so technically a hyphen is going to look the same as an em dash, so you need to use two hyphens to indicate an em dash. You can also use two hyphens to indicate an em dash when automatic reformatting is unavailable. You've probably noticed on my blog that I usually use -- for my em dashes. My blogging platform does not reformat them to em dashes, and I have much better things to do than copy and paste them all in. Besides, there is nothing "wrong" with using --, technically speaking. It's just if something is going to be professionally printed, you should use —.

In fiction, there should be no spaces before or after the em dash.

Wrong:

He grabbed every kind of soda he could see — root beer, cream, orange, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprite, even grape Fanta — and piled them into his shopping basket.

Correct:

He grabbed every kind of soda he could see—root beer, cream, orange, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprite, even grape Fanta—and piled them into his shopping basket.

Also Fine:

He grabbed every kind of soda he could see--root beer, cream, orange, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprite, even grape Fanta--and piled them into his shopping basket.

(But reformat for professional printing)

And that's about all you need to know about em dashes for fiction writing.

*This is based on U.S. styles, and I’m not sure if em dashes are written differently elsewhere.

#writing tips #writing tip #writing tips and tricks #fanfic #fanfiction #writeblr #writing advice #writing reference #writing help #writing helps #author #editor #nanowrimo #punctuation

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dramionediscussion · 4 years

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Thanks Lisa and Anon for answering! I don’t think I really disagree with either of you. I think, we share quite similar views, or at least something quite close to each other. Those answers got me thinking, and gave me a lot of food for thought. It’s not exactly the first time, I’ve pondering this. It always happens, when I am trying to find AU Dramione fics (semi-regular occurrence. I especially enjoy regency Dramione, which compliments HP and the pairing marvelously. As I see it, HP is unconsciously reminiscent of and models certain aspects of wizarding world after Victorian and Edwardian Great Britain). I just cannot help myself with stuff like this.

I imagine, there aren’t many people who find something like this riveting to think about or discuss, so thank you for indulging me. After all, people get by splendidly, without ever considering what is the formal definition(s) of AU. In almost anything people can operate exceedingly well by just going with their their gut instincts (kind like, I know what AU is, when I see it serves people well).

I’ve seen roughly three different main interpretations for the term AU, each with some internal variations and nuances. Differences are mainly on how encompassing they are, as they tend to overlap and include each other, because they are formed from common basic principles. They are just applied differently, or more accurately it goes from broader to narrower, but broad definitions also include narrower ones.

Also, there are more possible definitions, which could be derived from same principles, if one would on look at them entirely divorced from how they are actually used anywhere in the fandom. Just by looking at the word AU totally atomized, and then forming principle from it, and applying deductive-logic.

The first principle is canon divergence. Whatever AU is, it’s clearly related to divergence and alterations from canonical events, characterizations, and universe. The differences are mostly about how widely or narrowly this is applied. Sometimes also what exactly counts as canon, or what is believably canon compliant. The second principle seem to be avoiding redundancy, though this is applied a lot more randomly, and its usage seems to based mostly on conventions and popularity of certain tropes.

By redundancy I mean, that certain more commonly used tropes and descriptors often don’t use AU, because they are well-established terms by their own right, and they obviously by their own definitions are AUs. Like mentioned 8 Year, EWE, time travel, Marriage Law, creature fics like werewolves and veelas, and many others. Sometimes all non-canon pairings intrinsically are omitted in similar manner, but sometimes they are not. Like said, this seems to be more up to fandom conventions and mimesis, rather than applying logic rigidly from first principles.

By using these foundations, one could establish quite many similar but slightly different definitions, depending how HP universe / canon is understood. People seem to go with mostly with 2-4, but logically one could use 1 or 5 as well, but it’s impractical for other reasons. First one is broadest, and fifth is narrowest, and first includes all others within it, second everything except the first, and so on.

1. All fanfics are AUs. If HP universe / canon is understood very stridently as single chain of events and singular universe, which is authored only by JKR. Every fanfic forms its own universe, which will be slightly different from JKR’s one, by adding literary anything what wasn’t already in it. Even if a fic doesn’t contradict JKR directly in a knowable way, but it still won’t be the same, because we cannot know if events or characters would’ve taken that exact particular path, or if any description or characterization would exactly match the one true timeline and universe. We can only asses whether something is more believable or likely to happen in canon, but we cannot ever ultimately confirm them, because the final reference point is JKR’s works.

As an example, saying that Harry Potter drinks a cup of tea at Burrow at midday 2.10.2015 might not be exactly contradicted by anything in canon, but the event itself isn’t canonical, and it is contradicted by saying that Harry Potter drinks a cup of tea at Grimmauld Place at midday 2.10.2015. Both are equally true and likely to happen canonically, yet neither is canonical event. They are differing alternate universes, despite being about equally compatible with canon. If canon is understood as single non-contradictory universe with single timeline with exact properties, then all fanfic is AU.

2. All fics which diverge from or directly contradict canon are AUs. In this definition antonym for AU is canon compliant, and every fic can be classified as either AU or canon compliant. This is quite common definition out there. It certainly is workable and there’s nothing wrong in using it. However, like with all definitions it’s not entirely free of problems and ambiguity, especially how it’s applicable and to what it fits exactly. Some say that adding anything to already covered timeline is AU, even if it could believably happen between gaps not covered by canon. So, in order to not be AU, it has to set before or after HP heptalogy*. You could say, that we cannot know anybody else’s inner-voice or mindscape except Harry’s, thus anything written from any other perspective is AU.

Most people can agree that certain events are canon, and that’s fairly uncomplicated (Sirius dies at the end of OftP, Bill and Fleur have their wedding at Burrow, etc), but almost everything else gets quite murky very fast. So, if this definition includes anything beyond those canonical events, like characterizations, descriptions and mechanics of how HP universe functions exactly, then it can be fairly difficult to determinate whether a fic is AU or not. As almost everything except those canonical events are easily contested and ambiguous to being with. Usually there’s multiple equally plausible interpretations for almost anything not covered explicitly or in great detail in canon (sometimes even when they are covered extensively).

Personally, I am not too found of this definition. Not because aforementioned difficulties, but because it’s too broad and encompasses too much. All non-canon pairings are AU as an example is just too large portion of fanfics, because we only use AU in context of fanfics, thus it’s better that the terminology reflects and helps us to distinguish and categorize fanfics. Multitude of fanfiction has grown so much beyond canon, and spiraled so far and wide, that terminology which is so pivotally anchored to canon is more detrimental than helpful.

3. All fics which diverge or contradict canon in some major or significant way are AUs. This is something I see used a lot, and I believe this definition of AUs was what the person in Dramioneasks was referring to. Typically this means absence of some major characters, such as Voldemort or Dumbledore, or that major canonical events are changed, such as Wizarding Wars are have starkly different outcomes, or that golden trio never became friends, or main characters are sorted into different houses. Also, widely different characterizations (Evil Harry or Hermione, or good Voldemort) are counted as well.

I found this to be quite solid definition, and this is my personal threshold of what I consider to be AU. Ofc, its not unproblematic either, because what exactly counts as major or significant is very open-ended. There probably is very strong inter-subjective consensus on certain matters, like everybody probably agrees that Harry, Voldemort and Hermione are major characters without any doubt. Also, they’ll probably agree that Oliver Wood is a minor character, but what about Draco, Neville or Luna? How about if or when Harry joins the Gryffindor quidditch team. Does alterations in stuff like that count as AU? Can many minor changes create a cumulative effect, in which the fic in question is so different from canon universe, that despite no major changes, it should still count as AU, because so many little things are different.

Quite a lot of characters, details and events fall into that gray zone, so often it can be quite difficult to determinate AU by this definition, because so many things fall into that gray area of what is exactly significant change and what isn’t, and from what perspective. The only way to really determinate something like significance is an inter-subjective consensus by the fandom, and that might be either uncharted or too arbitrary for some people.

4. Only fics which change canon or the established universe in some foundational or fundamental way(s) are AUs. These are fics, which are not set in a same timeline at all (at the end of the 21th century UK), such as medieval, regency, prohibition, and they might only have slight parallels to canonical events. Also if some common defining elements such as presence magic or muggles are entirely absent, or changed beyond recognition (everyone’s magical, or nobody is, or muggles are aware of wizarding world, and actively hostile towards it). No Hogwarts at all, or the entire wizarding world is modeled differently, etc.

I see this used quite a lot as well, and these tend to be automatically labeled as AUs by almost everybody. It’s quite narrow and specific, thus it’s not very problematic, except it borders of being too narrow or rare to be really useful. Personally, this is mainly what I am seeking for, when I look for AUs, but I can see that it doesn’t cover enough ground for many. This is what I am primary thinking, when I see tag AU, but I can see why including previous definition is necessary. Problems are quite similar as in previous, the similar ambiguity of what is foundational or fundamental, like in beofre. But I believe there’s way more common ground and shared understanding with this one. It’s very rare to see a fic, which would qualify as something like this, but what isn’t described or labeled as AU.

5. Only fics which change some determined core component(s) are AUs. This is merely taking similar logic one step further, and saying that some specific element(s) is absolutely crucial and at the core of HP (like the presence of magic), and as long as a fic fulfills that condition, it isn’t AU. Nobody actually uses this definition, but I added it as more as demonstration of logic and principle, and how it can be applied further, exactly like the first definition (logically totally sound and sensible, but empirically mindless and useless).

Ofc, one could use this logic even further to either direction. Sort of logic ad absurdum, to a point in which, either every Harry Potter text out there (even those published by JKR) are actually AUs. or nothing is. Already not everybody considers everything JKR has said or published as canon, and by restricting what counts as canon one could get to a point that nothing actually written is really canon (something like real canon is what JKR intended HP to be, but failed to accomplish by her writing). Or that only one particular fic counts as AU, or that no fanfics are AUs, because by labeling them HP fics in some manner is meaningful enough to consider them just as a re-interpretation of multifaceted canon.

The first and fifth definitions are closing into the absurd territory, and I’ve not seen anybody using them. Words are more than stiff logical proposition, and there’s other considerations, which sometimes overrides internal logical consistency (reasons relating to things like aesthetic, social, and utilitarian concerns). Like the first definition would be totally unproductive and redundant. AU is always used in the context of fanfiction, in order to distinguish different fics from each other, thus a term which contains all fanfiction is tautological and useless for that purpose. Also, too narrow or specific terms are not useful either, because they pile on unnecessary accurate and too specific information, which ends up distracting people by cluttering them with overabundance of details and needless complexity (human mind is nothing if not finite after all).

*What are canonical texts of HP is can of worms I am not touching. Most agreed consensus is probably that at least HP heptalogy is canon, so for purposes of this that’s what I am sticking by. There’s some differing opinions about CC, Fantastic Beasts, her online commentary, Pottermore stuff, interviews, and QAs. I’ve only met one person who didn’t consider the whole HP heptalogy as canonical (because he was convinced that books 5-7 were written by a ghost writer, and they didn’t count). Everything else seem to be quite disputed.

#dramione #submission

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five-wow · 5 years

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Author Asks

Rules: answer these questions and tag five other fic writers to do the same.

I was tagged by the wonderful @novemberhush. Thank you, omg, because I love rambling about writing and this is the best kind of opportunity to do so, handed on a silver platter, ahh. 😊

Author Name: Square / Squares / SquaresAreNotCircles

Fandoms You Write For: I’m a fandom hopper! In the past year or so it’s been Hawaii Five-0 (a truly ridiculous amount), Shadowhunters, Venom, Harry Potter, due South and Stargate Atlantis. Other fandoms I’ve written at least one fic for are Twilight, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Glee, BBC Merlin, BBC Atlantis, Teen Wolf, In The Flesh, Star Wars, Supernatural, the MCU and High School Musical. And uh, Alexander the Great/Voltaire fic (which would be... history fandom? RPF?) and one (1) Judas/Jesus Biblefic. If we’re getting really technical, also a tiny little bit of One Direction fic.

It should be noted that all of this is about fic that ended up getting posted somewhere on the interwebs - there are multiple Star Trek (TOS/AOS and DS9) fics lingering in my drafts (!! one day I will finish one of them), as well as some How To Train Your Dragon, The Good Place and Deadpool stuff, and definitely more I’ve forgotten.

Where You Post: Since I made the switch to writing in English everything has landed on ao3, but I used to write mostly in Dutch, so there’s still close to a million words, I think, under my name on quizlet.nl (not to be confused with quizlet.com, which is a very different website).

Most Popular One-Shot: That depends on how you’re measuring popularity! Going by kudos, it’s Tell me I’m perfect (but tell me the truth), a Magnus/Alec Shadowhunters fic. It’s the truth is a really old fic about Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood from Harry Potter that has the most hits out of all my works, and That time Steve kissed every single Avenger (and also Bucky), an MCU Steve/Bucky fic, has the greatest number of comment threads.

Also, since this is an h50 blog: for my fic in this fandom Wanted: partner (in crime) has the most kudos and hits; You had me at meow has the most comments.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: I’m working on one for h50 (going slowly, so slowly), but I don’t have any posted to ao3. I used to write a lot of multi-chaptered work in my quizlet.nl days, and I think my most popular fic there was probably the second fic I ever wrote, when I was fourteen or fifteen, which was a next-gen Harry Potter fic with shifting and overlapping POVs from the three Potter kids. It was kind of, well, not great, but it’s probably what really cemented my writing habit, it’s still my longest fic ever (over a 100k!) and I got my first fandom friends out of it, including one I’m still in contact with to this day, even though neither of us writes much if anything for Harry Potter anymore.

Favourite Story You Wrote: Ohhh, that’s such an impossible question, especially because I’ve been churning out one-shots like I might actually be getting paid for it, so there’s so much to choose from, which is a thing I have difficulty doing at the best of times, holy shit. Uh, I once wrote a 70k Remus/Sirius (Harry Potter) modern college-ish AU in Dutch that I still like; weirdly, I think that Biblefic holds up (also Dutch), and the HSM fic is fun to reread once in a while because of the fourth wall break, as is That escalated quickly, a Percy/Oliver fic. Ooh, and the fic about Shuri and Stucky and a goat!

For h50, it’s even harder to choose, because my preferences change pretty much weekly (a combination of newer fic being shinier, looking back at fic from even just a few months ago and finding things I would have done differently now, and comments influencing the way I personally look at my own fic), but right now, I’d say I still really like the fic where Steve adopts some guinea pigs, the one with the slightly tipsy team bonding by talking about mutual crushes and this 9.11 coda fix fluff getting together thing.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: That Biblefic, haha, because it’s a very complicated topic and my aim was definitely not to offend. People were really sweet about it, though! Mostly, they were kind of shocked it wasn’t crack, but that’s fair, because so was I.

Also pretty much anything I post in a new fandom, really, and low key just... anything at all. I’m always a little scared I tagged something super badly or accidentally copy-pasted the wrong text or unknowingly wrote something super offensive or whatever, despite my double- and triplechecking of the posting form. (I’m also still kind of scared people on ao3 will randomly decide they hate my fic and my writing and me personally (ao3 is really big and very anonymous and coming from the small town that was quizlet.nl even in its heyday, that’s scary), but that fear has abated as I’ve posted more, just because the data is showing pretty conclusively that thought is as irrational as it sounds. Everyone is always so nice, gosh.)

How Do You Pick Your Titles: Mostly, I steal lines from random songs. I have a small pile of song lyrics to use as potential titles, because going on a seperate hunt for every new fic would take most of my waking hours. Sometimes, I’ll use a pun (like You had me at meow or Retail Therapy) or something else that I think sounds good, especially if the fic is mostly comedy and/or has a specific premise that would do well in a title (like Five times the Governor of Hawaii suspects his taskforce leaders are violating fraternization policies (and one time they tell him they are)).

Do You Outline: I’m mostly writing fic of (sometimes much) less than 5k at the moment, so not really. I do sometimes write tiny bits of a bunch of scenes and then fill in the rest around that, which is a kind of outline, in a way. For longer works, I usually make a one page bullet point list of things that need to happen and work from there, because I can’t do really extensive outlining or I’ll just get caught up in the details and lose all of the oversight a tool like that is supposed to give you, as well as most of my enthusiasm for the project.

How Many Of Your Stories Are Complete: Of the ones posted? On ao3, all of them, because unfinished posted one-shot works would require some strange bending of those concepts. On quizlet.nl, I do have some abandoned works, but I think 80% is finished.

In-Progress: SO MUCH. Seriously, just, so much, oh god. I’d really like to write another Stargate Atlantis fic (and I have 30% of one done), and something more for due South, too, and maybe a small Percy/Oliver thing again some time because they were my very first OTP and I kind of miss them, but mostly I have, like, 100+ half written things for h50. I really wish that number was an exaggeration. There’s no way they’ll all get finished, but maybe... a third? Mayhaps?

That One Truly Long H50 Fic that I was already talking about way back in October last year is also eternally ��in progress”. The thing is that it has about 25k now, after a year, and I think it needs... at least four times that. Probably. So either I’ll have to stick with this fandom and my slow progress for another three years to have a shot at getting it finished, or I’ll need to find a way to up the speed a little. Maybe I could try working on it for NaNo this November? That would be pretty awesome, but honestly, part of why it’s moving this slowly is because NaNo-style fast and messy writing for this scares me a little, because I might end up writing a lot, decide it’s not what I wanted for it, and become too intimidated to ever edit and/or rewrite the entire thing. But idk, I probably just need to get over my own fears, because I really do want to write Longer Fic again. Short stuff is fun and feels really productive and that’s great, but I miss the actual slow burn and build-up that only 50k+ words can give you.

Coming Soon: Hopefully a lot? For h50, that is. I have no idea what’s getting posted next, because I’m never entirely sure what’s going to be finished next and something really random might come jumping in, but at the moment I’m trying to direct most of my energies at a slightly longer fic I’ve been working on for months (not The Long Fic, a different one), a fic labeled “9.01 memory loss fic”, another one temporarly entitled “Perfect Kauai beach house vacation”, and maybe an ace!Steve fic I’ve been working on, if I ever manage to uh, actually finish that, instead of rewriting three sentences during every round of editing and never actually adding anything to fill in the gaps it still has. There will also be more season 10 codas, in all likelihood.

Do You Accept Prompts: I’ve never done that before in the traditional way, but I’m thinking about it! I’d love to try (and it would be a breath of fresh air, in some ways!), but the main thing holding me back is that I have way too much on my plate with just my own ideas to work off of, and I don’t want to disappoint people. Maybe if I do drabble-ish prompt fills? It’s definitely been on my mind.

Upcoming Story You’re the Most Excited For: I’m excited for a lot of stuff, but honestly, the top spot right now probably goes to the ace!Steve fic. I’m not even sure it’s that good, necessarily, but it’s, idk, really cathartic, I suppose. Seriously self-indulgent in strange but very good ways. I really like writing it. (Second spot goes to the beach vacation fic, because I haven’t actually written that much for it, but it’s been my go-to easy happy place for the last few weeks.)

I’m tagging @love2hulksmash @thekristen999 @stephmcx @girlonastring @flowerfan2 and @pterawaters, which is six people because I can’t count, but I’m about to make it seven because I’m also tagging you, the person reading this (hi there!). Say I tagged you and tag me so I can read it! I know that kind of thing can feel awkward, but it won’t be, because I’m cheering you on. Go for it, if you want to do it. :D

#tagged in #writing #*#question: [requires maybe two words to be answered]#me: [writes two lengty paragraphs]#i guess that also tells you something about what kind of writer i am

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itsanerdlife · 5 years

Text

Chasing The Dream 3/10

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader (High School/College AU)

Warning: Angst. Underage drinking. Jealousy. Language. Heartbreak and arguing.

A/N: This is the series, the prequel of Chasing Dreams One Shot. They do overlap so if you need to read it I can link it when time comes.

Your father always warned you about musicians. They’re never good news, but Peter Parker is everything you could want. The other half to your groupie, rocker baby soul. Peter and the guys have big dreams to be rock stars, you couldn’t be a bigger fan of theirs. But your dad’s got a different path for your future, one that doesn’t include Peter and his band. But can Fame and dreams coming true really keep the two of you apart? Is this just a high school love? Or will you make it through the struggle of chasing your dreams?

Tag List Is Open!!

High School –

Y/N (Living on a Dream)

You move through the bodies around the table playing beer pong. The front door opens, and you catch a glimpse of messy brown hair and a white band T-shirt. You quickly run your free hand through your waves, giving them a fluff. The music that vibrates the house, suddenly changes, as you spot Peter working his way towards you. You grin at him and he grins in response, a hand on your waist suddenly spins you around.

Todd, one of the football players runs his eyes greedily down your body as he towers over you. He licks his lips and leans in closer to you. His hand around your waist, you lean back slightly from him.

“I always knew there was more under all those little good girl, teasing skirts.” He chuckles. You roll your eyes, you wore dark cut off, distressed jean shorts, and a form fitting white crop top that read QUEEN across the chest in faded red lettering.

“Gross you are even thinking about me.” You pat him on the chest attempting to move away from him.

“Maybe you aren’t just a good girl underneath all that.” He leans in closer.

“What I am underneath anything, would never want anything to do with you and the low IQ you are carrying around with you. If it wasn’t for the IQ, your idea of good music is Drake and Lil Wayne, which just makes your IQ even worse.” You peel his hand from your waist as he stares at you, trying to understand what you just said to him.

“Drake and Lil Wayne are awesome.” He grins nodding.

“Oh god my IQ is dropping breathing the same air as you.” You blink, pressing your lips together, looking for an escape.

“Hey.” Peter appears next to you, grinning. His arm slips over your shoulders. “Sorry we’re late. But Buck is worse than a girl. If his hair doesn’t fall just right, we can’t leave.” He shrugs, sighing. “Excuse us.” Peter blinks looking at Todd, who blinks looking from you to Peter. Todd moves to the side, looking confused still as Peter leads you back towards the kitchen.

“Oh god thank you.” You drop your head to his chest, laughing.

“You looked like you were being tortured.” He laughs.

“He seriously said, and I quote ‘Drake and Lil Wayne are awesome’ after I insulted his IQ and music taste.” You laugh.

“That’s torture enough.” Peter nods. His band T-shirt was Pink Floyd, a white T-shirt and colored album cover.

“Nice shirt.” You tug lightly on his shirt.

“Same to you. Queen, classic.” He grins. You notice the writing on his palm and wrist as he picks up a cup.

“What is this?” You grin, taking his hand and turning it over.

“Something I’m working on.” He shrugs. Your eyes move over the words written in ink on his skin.

“Lyrics?” You look up at him.

“Like I said,” he grins “something I’m working on.” He fills his cup, placing his arm over your shoulders again, the both of you wander out to the back.

--------

“Who picked the music?” Buck winces into his cup.

“Why?” Nat grins.

“Some old school shit, lot of grunge.” He shrugs.

“She will slit you from ear to ear if you disrespect the grunge era.” Nat laughs.

“Who?” Buck swallows.

“Me.” You tip your head, mouth pushed together.

“I was not disrespecting it, just wondering why so much was being played.” He quickly covers his ass.

“Better than the mindless bullshit people listen to, today.” You shrug.

“True.” Peter nods, sipping from his cup.

“Kiss ass.” Steve coughs into his hand, everyone laughs.

“Y/N is the music god, for everything we do.” Wanda laughs.

“I prefer the term Goddess. I don’t have a dick.” You smirk, tipping your cup at Wanda who leans into Sam laughing.

The song changes, Buck starts laughing as you and Nat start instantly singing to each other. Saving Abel – Addicted, the party around all of you starts singing it too. Buck and Peter are dying laughing, Steve nods, bobbing to the beat, and Sam’s fingers move across his thigh. You and Nat get louder with the song, shoulders moving, hands going, singing at each other.

“They do this every time this song comes on.” Buck leans in closer towards Peter.

“Why?” He laughs.

“No fucking clue. They just laugh and carry on like nothing happened.” Buck grins, shrugging. The song ends, you pat Peter’s thigh grinning.

“Time for shots.” You jump up as Buck starts laughing looking at Peter.

“Oh no.” Wanda shakes her head.

“You know the rules Wanda, strip down if you’re not drinking.” You shrug grinning at her.

“Wait what?” The guys reply at once, looking around.

“Better pick your poison boys, and hope you can handle your alcohol better than us girls.” Nat shrugs, as you both turn heading for the kitchen.

---------

Peter (Good Girls Are Bad Girls Who Haven’t Been Caught)

“Hold on a second.” Peter holds up a finger as Y/N and Nat set down three different fifths and shot glasses.

“Come on Parker, you don’t like games?” She grins, leaning back in her chair, a smug smirk on her lips.

“Depends on the game.” He struggles with the reply for a moment, trying to not just grin at her.

“Works like this boys.” Nat shuffles a deck of cards, while Y/N slides shot glasses around. “First one to say no, throw up or can’t finish their shot, strips down and runs around the house.” She grins.

“Fuck.” Sam rubs a hand over his face.

“Jager?” Y/N cracks the bottle and Wanda cracks a can of red bull.

“Hell no.” Peter laughs, he leans over swiping the bottle of Jack.

“Pansy.” Y/N bite her bottom lip grinning.

“What are the cards for?” Steve looks nervous.

“Shit we need another girl.” Y/N sits up. “Amy!” She waves over the cheerleader, with curly blonde hair.

“Hey Y/N.” She grins coming over.

“Play our game?” Y/N bats her eyes.

“Damn.” Amy laughs. “Alright, but no photos this time.” Amy holds up her finger.

“Deal!” Y/N claps her hands together. “You’re between me and Steve.” Y/N grins.

“He’s cute.” Amy laughs “And I’ve kissed you before.” She waves her hand. The guys exchange a look again.

“I’m missing something.” Peter holds up a finger.

“Oh the cards.” Nat wiggles them in her fingers. “Each card has a dare, or command on them. Like,” she finds one and holds up. “Pass me with only your mouth.” She blows him a kiss. Peter looks from Nat who was on one side of him to Y/N who was on the other side of him.

“The rule is whoever fails the challenge, the command, has to do a shot.” Y/N grins, winking at him.

“This is going to be a fucking interesting night.” He laughs.

---------

“Do you know how hard this shit gets the numb-er your lips get?” Sam laughs, trying to make the card stick to his mouth. Y/N dying laughing next to him, daddy’s good girl wasn’t much of a good girl that much was pretty clear.

“Sammy you better get ready to drink up baby boy, cause you can’t get it up.” Y/N giggles, taunting Sam as she leans on the table.

“Peter, shut your girl up.” Sam laughs, still trying to stick the card to his mouth.

“Oh no, I don’t need her taunting me.” Peter laughs. “But bro it looks like your ass might be getting naked.” He pats the table top laughing.

“Like hell!” Sam grumbles, finally the card sticks.

His hands pump in the arm as he turns to pass it to Wanda. Amy and Y/N exchange the card, but Nat snaps at Y/N as Peter leans in to take it. Instead of card his mouth lands on hers. She kisses him, her hands holding the front of his T-shirt, he kisses her back his one hand on the edge of the table, the other on the back of her chair. There’s a round of hoots and whistles, making them break apart.

“Hand it over.” Nat grins. Y/N rolls her eyes, looking down.

“Hand what over?” Peter flushes.

“Payment for losing the card trade.” Nat grins. Nat hands him the card, it reads pass me with only your mouth, in the bottom corner is reads Loser removes their shirt. Y/N pulls the Queen crop top over her head handing it to Nat. She’s sitting in her cut off shorts and white lace bra.

“That means I get to make anyone I want drink.” She does a little giddy dance. He looks at her funny, she holds up her card, it reads Kiss the person to your left in the middle of a challenge and make anyone you want drink. “Worth it.” She winks at him.

“You did that on purpose.” He nods.

“Don’t you already know it Parker.” She grins, pointing to Sam and Buck they take the shots in front of them.

“Good Girls are bad girls who haven’t been caught.” He laughs.

“By golly I think you go it.” She laughs.

Everything Peaches 2/6/19: @xmtd5 @mo320 @courtmr @all1e23 @izzy--lee @irepeldirt @dumblani @crist1216 @alyssaj23 @allyp1023 @joannie95 @kolakube9 @rileyloves5 @sarahp879 @sea040561 @sexyvixen7 @pcterpvrker @pigwidgexn @doctoranon @abschaffer2 @nickimarie94 @teller258316 @wandressfox @amandab-ftw @henrietteoaks @nea90sweetie @circusofchaos @itsagalaxystar @bettercallsabs @miraclesoflove @lucifersnipnips @queenkrissy11 @sadyoungadult @destiel-artemis @paintballkid711 @iwillbeinmynest @sweet-honey15 @chanelmadrid13 @mellxander1993 @spookygrantaire @geeksareunique @supernatural508 @sammysgirl1997 @itzmegaaaaaaan @booksbeforebois @mariekoukie6661 @pure-princess-97 @capsheadquaters @samanthasmileys @youclickedthislink @futuremrsb-r-main @lovemarvelousfics @petersunderoos96 @loving-life-my-way @booktvmoviefangirl @supernatural-girl97 @fanfictionjunkie1112 @abbypalmer14-blog @meganlikesfandoms @awkwardfangirl2014 @supernaturaldean67 @xqueenofthecraziesx @queenoftheunderdark @writingaworldofmyown @supernaturallover2002 @sprinklesandsugarcubes @whothehellisbucky-1930 @verymuchclosetedfangirl @for-the-love-of-the-fandom @ocaptain-mycaptainmorgan @wonderlandfandomkingdom @crazy-little-thing-called-buck @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @stupendoussciencenaturepanda @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety

Peter Parker: @ml7010 @ariminiria @dkpink123 @little-smurf @boltsgirl919 @everthenerd @ms-rogers06 @crayonwriting @baebeepeach @bellamouse16 @honey-bee-holly @kiss-the-stars-goodbye

Chasing The Dream: @del-rcys @gabile18 @robin-writes @raven-black102

#Marvel #Peter Parker x Reader #Avengers #Peter x Reader #Chasing The Dream #Marvel Fanfiction #Peter Parker AU Series #Avengers Fanfiction #Peter AU Series

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data-monkey · 5 years

Text

AO3 stats project: kudos

Up next: what kinds of works get kudos?

Thanks to @eloiserummaging for beta reading these posts; any remaining errors are my own. A Python notebook showing the code I used to make these plots can be found here.

I want to be really specific before we get into this: I don't mean "which works are better." There's a perception I see sometimes in fandom that more kudos = better material (e.g. when you're sorting on the works page). That may be true within narrow categories, but kudos also relate to things like "was this emotionally moving vs technically skilled or both or neither" and "what would I be embarrassed to be seen liking" (since the usernames of people who leave kudos appear at the bottom of the page). So exactly why some things have more kudos than others is outside the scope of this post.

The first thing to look at is how the number of kudos scales with the number of hits. Obviously, if more people look at your work, more people are available to leave kudos. But we wouldn't expect the same ratio at low hit counts and high hit counts. That is, if 10 of the first 100 people who looked at your work left kudos on it, we would expect fewer than 10 of the next 100 to do it. That's basically because the top fans--of the author, of the genre, whatever--are more likely to read it right away when it's new, while people who read it later may not fit into the target audience quite as well. Even if a lot of them like it, statistically, you might expect that fewer of them will hit the kudos button. Also, because you can only leave kudos once, repeat visits will increase the hit counts without increasing the kudos counts; that will matter for works that people like to reread, or for works that were posted one chapter at a time.

So here's kudos vs hits. The blue-colored region is showing where the most works are: low hits and low kudos, like we already knew. The heavy purple line is the average trend. If you look very closely at the low end, you can see it bends a little bit: the average kudos-to-hits ratio is higher for low-hit-count things, like we predicted.

In fact, we can just plot that (average) ratio:

We can do the same for bookmarks and comments. (I’m just going to show the ratio from now on, because it’s easier to interpret.)

Those are pretty similar, with fewer overall numbers, and slightly more comments than bookmarks. I’m not sure what to make of the fact that bookmark & comment ratios increase with the number of hits. I don’t really use either bookmarks or comments, so maybe I’m missing something of the essential psychology there.

Okay. That’s averaged over all works on AO3. Do things change if we subdivide the works into categories?

First up: have the number of kudos per fic stayed the same over time? The first few years of the Archive didn't have the kudos feature, so the oldest works we would expect to be very low, but did things change after that?

Yes. I was a little surprised by this, but it does look robust: Works seem to get peak kudos (adjusted for hit counts) in 2016 and 2017, with less both before and after. I think there are a few possible explanations for this besides "people got more likely to leave kudos and then less likely to leave kudos." One would be a difference in other kinds of reader behavior: for example, repeat visits to the same work will drive down the kudos-to-hit-count ratio, because you can only leave kudos once; or, if people click on a work to mark it for later, that can register as another hit without actually being another human reader. Another would be a difference in reader populations: maybe the same people who have always left kudos are still leaving kudos, but the AO3 is now big enough that we also get readers who aren’t in fandom social circles and are less likely to hit that button. Also, if works in progress get a lower kudos/hits ratio, then more recent stories with a higher WiP rate might have a lower average--although, as I’ll show below, I don’t think it’s large enough to explain this discrepancy.

How about word count?

By the way: the labels have the same color as the lines they go with. I’m using an algorithm that tries to place the labels so they don’t overlap, which sometimes means the labels aren’t that close to the line they go with--for example, here, the 3,000-10,000 word line is actually mostly covered by its label, and there will be some cases below where the labels are pretty far off. Just match the colors and you should be able to figure out which is which!

Anyway, peak kudos occur around the 3,000-30,000 word count. Lower for the very longest and very shortest things. My anecdotal experience is that very long works are most likely to be ficlet collections or otherwise works in progress, and so you might expect more repeat visitors to those works as authors add new chapters. Actually, let's check on works in progress in general. Here's complete works and works in progress:

You do see signs that having a WiP gets you fewer kudos per hit. Again, this is almost certainly because the same readers come back for successive chapters but can't leave multiple kudos. The differences aren’t very large, though--look at the y-axis. The different years range anywhere from 0.03 to 0.08 at a low hit count, but the same range here is like 0.060 to 0.065!

Ratings?

Here’s an example where the labels are pretty far off the lines--“Not Rated” is the green line that ends under the second “e” of “General Audiences.” Teen and gen are a little higher, explicit a little lower--I would guess some combination of more repeat visits to explicit fics and possible embarrassment at leaving kudos on fics with certain kinds of content. (Also, higher ratings are somewhat more likely to have warnings on them, which may change the emotional calculus that goes into whether you hit the kudos button.) But again, these differences aren’t that big--nowhere near the differences for years or word counts, for example, if you look at the range the vertical axis is spanning.

How about pairing type?

As a reminder, those pairing types are gen (no romantic or sexual relationship); male/male, male/female, and female/female; then “multi” meaning either multiple types of pairings, or a relationship with more than two people; and “other” meaning everything that doesn’t fit neatly into those categories. I could have seen this plot going either way--M/M is the most popular so people like it, or other things are less popular and so readers reward them more. Looks like it’s the former. Not sure what to make of “other” and “multi” being the lowest.

Are fandoms different?

Indeed they are. (I don’t think this is entirely explained by differing kudos rates & fandom popularity over time, although that's probably some of it.) How about tags?

I feel like there's a paper somewhere in this plot alone...

One last note. As I mentioned, people tend to view kudos as a measure of quality. I have no way to measure actual quality of works. But I do have one way to think about it: Creators are likely to produce similar-quality work. (Not always, as fans of many published authors can tell you. But often.) So how much do individual authors' kudos counts vary? As I mentioned in the first post, I have a policy of not showing data for individual authors here. But I can show my own, since I can give informed consent as to this usage of my data. :) So here's the average kudos vs hit count line, with my fics shown as dots around the line.

I would definitely say my works have variable quality (particularly because I included all my own backdated works, meaning my fics span more than 15 years of my life--and I hope I'm a better writer now than I was when I was 18!). But you can see that the kudos to hit count ratios are ALL OVER the place. Twice the value of the line, 1/10th the value of the line--really varying, right?

So here's how I made the plot I'm about to show you. For every creator in the database, I look at their kudos vs hit counts for all their fics, and I measure how far away from the average line they are (and whether they're above it or below it). And then I measure what's called the “standard deviation” of those distances--basically, asking how much those numbers vary. A really low value means of an author’s works are the same--and that could be "every work has only 10% of the average number of kudos" or "every work has 1000% the average number of kudos"; doesn't matter, it just means they're consistent. On the other hand, a high value would mean, well, somebody like me: with some works that get a lot of kudos, and some that don’t. Here's the distribution of that standard deviation, for all authors with more than one fic and at least 1000 total hits on all their fics:

So you can see it does, actually, vary a lot. My particular number, by this count, is 0.44, and you can see that that's a little high but still pretty typical--even though it's a lot of variation if you look at it! So I think this is support for my statement earlier, that you shouldn't think of kudos (or kudos/hits) as a measure of quality, for some definition of quality. It's measuring something--but it's way more complicated than quality.

One more post after this: just some fun questions.

#ao3 #fan stats #fanstats

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faejilly · 6 years

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if broken hearts were whole, 4/?

gosh, I am having way too much fun with this soulmate/soulmark AU thing. also apparently it’s kind of an everyone lives! story, which is comforting. Still haven’t gotten to the massage part of the original prompt yet though, what can I say, I’m slow. (AO3) (series tag)

At first Alec thought Ragnor really didn't want to see them, didn't want anything to do with any of them, and he couldn't figure out how Jocelyn had managed to get anything out of him, ever, much less a full-service plot of some sort.

But then Alec shot a demon, Ragnor and Magnus hugged and held each other a bit too tightly to be dismissed as casual, and Alec realized Ragnor was just as freaked out as the rest of them, he just hid it by being a sarcastic ass.

That was kind of familiar.

That seemed like a good sign, actually, that Alec was a lot like one of his improbably gorgeous soulmate's best friends. As soon as Ragnor rolled his eyes at him, Alec felt better about... well, everything, actually. Especially about dragging Ragnor back to the Institute so they could have a talk behind a couple extra layers of wards.

Luke was there when they got back, tarot deck in hand, and they proceeded to have an argument. Or six? At least Alec had managed to get them all back into a conference room again first.

No one could agree about what to do with the cards, what to do with Ragnor, what to do next about Jocelyn, how much shit they were all going to be in as soon as Maryse decided to start talking to them again, what the Clave was likely up to, how many Circle sympathizers were working for the Institute, possibly including his parents, which was a thing Alec didn't know how to think about at all, because if he did he was going to do something like punch one of them, or try and lock them in the cells, or something equally stupid that would accomplish nothing except make a mess.

It was exhausting. Alec wasn't quite sure how seven people seemed to manage to have ten different opinions on everything, but it didn't take long before he was done.

"Enough!" He was kind of surprised when that worked, but he blinked and tried not to show it. "We'll leave the Cup in the cards, since Valentine probably can't get it out again, and I'll put it in the Institute safe under my locking rune." He raised his eyebrows as everyone looked at him. Whether it was the right call or not, they all had to trust everyone in the room, which meant they had to trust him. Luke didn't look thrilled by that, but he seemed to realize it was the best option they had right now. He handed the box over.

"Ragnor," Alec turned toward their sort-of guest, who frowned at him, but was quiet about it Judging from the set of Magnus' shoulders, that was actually a pretty good sign. "While you are more than welcome to stay at the Institute..." He trailed off as Ragnor shuddered. Circle sympathizers had been the loudest part of the discussion a minute ago. "It's probably better if no one here—" Alec tilted his head to signify the Institute itself, not the people in the room, "—knows where your new safe-house is."

Ragnor's lips tightened, and he and Magnus looked at each other, and had the sort of silent conversation only people who were very close could manage. Eventually Magnus sighed, and Ragnor rolled his eyes.

"We'll go take care of that, I think." Magnus offered Alec a smile, small and not quite happy, but it made Alec's breath catch, and it was impossible not to smile back.

"Come get me when you're done?" Alec's voice was softer than he'd ever heard himself talk in public, especially considering everyone else was standing there looking at him, but he didn't regret it at all when Magnus' eyes brightened and his smile widened.

"Of course."

He watched Magnus escort Ragnor out of the room. Luke was staring at him when he finally managed to tear his attention away from the door after it closed behind them. Izzy was grinning, and Jace looked like he was about to say something unfortunate.

Alec rolled his eyes. Luke looked like he was about to ask, and Alec raised his left hand to show him the stars across his fingers.

Luke's mouth stayed very slightly open, and he blinked.

Clary giggled. Alec felt his own mouth twitch as he tried not to smile. It was almost fun surprising everyone with his soulmark. Finally not hiding... everything.

Not hiding anything.

He wondered who he'd get to show it to tomorrow.

"Alec," Clary started, and stopped, and her mouth twisted. Alec lifted his eyebrows. He had no idea what to do with a Clary that wasn't just... charging forward, literally or metaphorically. He was starting to realize he might like that about her, if he ever got a whole day where she didn't seem to ratchet up the insanity an extra five levels.

Maybe.

"I might—" her head tilted. Alec was getting a little worried now. She blinked, and her eyes looked almost damp, and she shook her head, and this was definitely a little terrifying. "Just in case my mom, we can't..."

Oh.

"We'll get her back, Clary."

She met his eyes at last. "And if we don't, what happens to that card?"

"We're no worse off, and hey, no one else can steal the Cup again," Jace said, though he did not sound nearly as easy about it as the words themselves implied.

"I might be able to get it out," Clary said, gaze steady as she looked at Alec.

The whole room went still, and Alec shook his head. "Not yet. But," he held his hand up to stop her when it looked like she was about to interrupt. "If that's something you want to practice, make sure it's somewhere secure." He glared over her head at Jace and Izzy. This was not something they could afford to half-ass. "We cannot risk someone learning you can get at it. It makes you even more of a target than you are already."

"What, Valentine needs two reasons to kidnap me?"

"No, kiddo." Luke's voice was heavy and slow. "Anyone who thinks they're losing their chance to get the Cup will try and kill you, so no one else can get it."

Clary's eyes closed, and she swallowed. For a half-breath she almost looked fragile

Clary was having a really, really, crappy week. He... could not empathize, for the first time in at least ten years. His fingers curled, guarding the splash of stardust, hiding it in the shadow of his palm. Not that he'd forgotten the previous ten years of his own crappy weeks. Alec hadn't ever known how to get himself out of that sort of mood; he certainly didn't have a clue how to help Clary.

But his siblings did. They'd managed him, after all.

Jace leaned over and bumped against Clary's shoulder. "Maybe we could show you around. This is your Institute now too, you know."

"Get some food, maybe some new shoes..." Isabelle's voice trailed off and she draped her arm on Clary's other shoulder. "Start up again tomorrow, help Ragnor with his spell, save your mom, save the world. We've got a plan."

Clary smiled, and it was sharp and bright. Alec almost sighed again. Regular bulldozer Clary was back. It had been a nice break, that single minute. She slipped out from between Izzy and Jace, and stepped close enough to Luke to wrap her arms around him.

Luke hugged her back, and the Lightwoods all slipped out the door before they accidentally heard whatever it was they needed to say to each other.

"Joining us for a break?" Izzy asked, sounding almost hopeful.

Alec shook his head. Jace rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath. Alec rolled his eyes back and huffed louder. Izzy put her hands on both their shoulders, a gentle reminder she was more than willing to smack their foreheads together as needed.

Alec restrained himself from rolling his eyes again. "Someone has to finesse the mission reports, since we have no idea who's really reading them, apparently."

"Oh." Jace frowned. "Good point. Here I thought you were avoiding Clary."

"Well, it's a bonus."

Jace and Izzy smacked him on opposite shoulders, and he grumbled half-heartedly.

Reese was walking by, and she did a double-take and almost tripped over her own boots. Alec carefully didn't look over at her, he hated when people stared at him every time he moved, but he could tell she retreated down the hallway at twice her usual speed.

"What just happened?" Alec looked at Jace and Izzy. Jace shrugged.

Izzy grinned, and smacked his shoulder again. "Ouch." Alec stepped back and away. Not that that would even slow her down, but the principle seemed sound.

"You're smiling." Izzy informed him, sounding painfully smug. "In public. When there are no kids around. Not sure anyone here's seen that before."

"What's this about kids?" Clary almost bounced back into view, Luke stepping more sedately behind her.

Izzy just shook her head, her smile lighting up her face. "That's one you'll have to wait to see. Words don't do it justice."

Jace leaned closer to Clary, his voice dropping, though he was loud enough for Alec to hear easily. "Alec's the most popular babysitter in the Institute."

"Screaming five-year-olds are much easier to reason with than you two."

Luke coughed. To be fair, he was probably the only other person there with much experience with screaming five-year-olds. Alec suspected Clary had been more the constantly running out of sight and climbing all the furniture five-year-old than the screaming at the top of their lungs five-year-old, but they tended to overlap.

He bet her mundane friend just followed along and tried to keep them both from dying.

Alec had a sudden unexpected surge of sympathy for Simon.

"But I have work." Alec shooed them all in the general direction of the mess. "I hear they're making chocolate chip cookies today, go see if you can get some before they're all gone."

Izzy and Jace and Clary turned with an audible clatter of footsteps, and Luke chuckled softly. "Still resorting to bribery, hmm?"

"Cookies work on almost everyone."

Luke shrugged agreement. "I could use some chocolate chips myself."

"Thank you, Luke." Alec said softly before Luke had managed more than a couple of steps. "For trusting us."

Luke shook his head. "I trust Clary, and she trusts you." He looked over his shoulder, and Alec could see his determination in the line of his back, the glint of a wolf hiding behind the mundane color of his eyes. "Don't prove her wrong."

He was gone before Alec managed a response.

Not that there was much to say to that. He'd try his best.

No. It wasn't just him. Izzy and Jace... and Magnus, now. They'd try their best.

Hopefully it would be enough.

***

Izzy showed up at his office a few hours later. Alec had finished the initial reports, and was trying to set things up so the next batch would be easier, no matter how much of the truth he had to wiggle around. Stupid and tedious, but not terribly difficult.

She collapsed dramatically into a chair, and waved at him when he lifted his head. "Luke headed back to work a while ago. Jace and Clary are... practicing."

Alec snorted. It sounded like a terrible innuendo, but for once he knew it wasn't. It worked well, though, if anyone happened to be wandering by. "I do not need details."

Izzy laughed. She knew what he meant and what it sounded like as well as he did. They were depressingly good at this. They'd had a lot of practice, whenever their parents were around. Talking about anything too important with them tended to be painful.

Alec pushed away from his desk, and wandered over to the chair near Izzy. It wasn’t that late. Alec usually worked later than this, planning or paperwork or training. But for once, he didn’t want to. He’d had a good day. He could be done.

Izzy's eyes lit up as he sat near her. "Oh, does this mean I can finally get some details about last night?"

Alec groaned, but he waved his hand in a all right, continue sort of motion.

"You spent the night with a guy, Alec." She leaned a little closer, and her voice dropped. "Did you get any sleep at all?"

"Not much." Her eyes widened. "Not like that!"

She bounced a little in her chair, clearly impatient, and he could feel himself blushing.

"We went out for tapas. And walked around for ages. And we talked. And we went back to his loft, and he made me a drink by snapping his fingers, and even his cocktails are sparkly." Alec couldn't help a sigh. He stared down at his hands in his lap, watching how the firelight caught against the stars under his skin. He still had no clue how this had happened. How he'd gotten so damn lucky. He didn't know how to describe how he felt, how to describe Magnus. Too good to be true? "He's just..."

"Awww." Izzy reached across the space between them to pat his arm when it became obvious he wasn't going to manage more than that. He looked up to see her smiling at him, blinking her eyes as if she was afraid she was going to cry. "I'm happy for you."

"So am I." His voice was soft. He hadn't ever expected happy. He wasn't sure what to do with it. He was kind of afraid he might start sniffling at any moment, too. "Though, I fell asleep on his couch kind of mid-sentence, which is maybe a little embarrassing."

"You were comfortable there." Izzy tilted her head. "Bet you slept better even half hanging off a couch than you have here in ages."

Alec blinked. He had. He shrugged his agreement, and was probably blushing again to judge by the fact that Izzy was giggling. At him, clearly. Not that he minded. She hadn't sounded that happy in ages either.

"Well aren't you two as pretty as a picture."

"Magnus!" Alec leaned precariously around the edge of his chair, looking toward the door, to the voice that was already familiar, already comforting. He was pretty sure he looked ridiculous, and the smile he could feel on his face wasn't any better, but he didn't care. Magnus was just so beautiful. Absolutely worth watching him walk closer. "Hi."

Magnus was smiling too, and he stopped only a step away. “Hi.”

Isabelle snorted. She was grinning when Alec turned to look at her. “Go on, you know you want to.”

He did. He really really did. Alec turned his wrist, and Magnus took his hand, and pulled him up and out of his chair. “Emergencies only,” Alec looked down at his sister, and Izzy’s laugh followed them into the hallway.

#jilly writes #shadowhunters #soulmate au #alec lightwood #malec #if broken hearts were whole #my sh fic #sorry these are such short chapters #I just #only sort of have a plan?#it was supposed to be a one shot #it's kind of doing its own thing now #*laughs*

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kitterscosplay-blog · 6 years

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Patterning Princess Allura

Below the cut is my very long and picture filled explanation of how exactly I went about patterning my Allura costume (the tag for Allura, including photos of the finished look, can be found here!). So hopefully you might find this helpful, and later on there will be another post about the constructing of the costume (plus wigs, make up and prosthetics), but it’s best to start with the basics.

Behold the very fat pattern pocket used for this costume--this is mostly because the patterns for the very large skirts had to be folded up about a million times to fit, but also just because the costume had a lot of individual panels and pieces that had to be made.

The Dress Bodice

The bodice on the white under dress was a relatively simple patterning process--all it required was a few simple measurements. Mostly for the length--measuring from where I wanted the neckline to be to where I wanted the bodice to end and the skirts to begin--but also for fit. I didn’t make the under dress terribly tight fitting, particularly when taking my bust measurement because Allura is a rather regal, refined sort of person--and also because she’s from a children’s cartoon. The bodice required the following measurements be taken;

length (neckline to waist)

waist

bust

neckline

After taking the measurements it more or less became a matter of drawing some lines on a piece of paper and connecting the dots. The end result for the front bodice panel was this;

The back was very similar--the only significant changes were a slight raising of the neckline at the back, and patterning to allow for a center back seam for the invisible zip to be put in. As such, the pattern looked like this;

In the end, despite the neckline of the bodice being hidden by the cape, the unfinished edge of it bothered me--and finishing it with bias binding was proving very tedious. So I ended up adding a collar to it. Because this was more for my own peace of mind than visual effect, the collar was literally a long thin strip which was folded, sewn and turned inside out. I measured along the edge of the neckline of the bodice once it had been assembled and used that as length, then made it approximately three inches wide so when folded over, the collar would be around one and a half inches, which I thought seemed like enough.

All in all probably the most boring pattern piece in the project.

The Skirts

The skirts attached to the dress proved to be one of the largest challenges of the project--simply because they were very large. While a lot of people when making Allura costumes add a strip of pink fabric to the bottom of the white skirt, this wasn’t going to work out well given the fabric that I had and how much of it I had due to the bias. So instead, I patterned a three tier skirt--the bottom two tiers (one a sheer blue, glittery star print to show off only when I twirled, and the other a beautiful pink chiffon) were the same length--approximately floor length on me which isn’t very far. A separate pattern was made for the white skirt--which would be essentially the same, only about five inches shorter to allow the pink to show at the bottom.

This is the pattern piece for the two longer skirts, and below is a photo of this with the shorter pattern piece laid over the top for reference.

These skirts are all half circle skirts; a waist measurement was taken (one that approximately matched up with the waist measurement used for the bodice), and while some might have gone for full circles, as I’m quite petite, this was more than enough to look very full and luxurious on me. After the waist measurement was worked out, a tape measure was held at where the “point” of the triangle would have been (if the semi circle of the waist hadn’t been cut out, where the point of this triangle shape would have been), and then moved it around making small markings at the same measurement along different points. When done, the dots were connected and the pattern was ready to go. Both pattern pieces were exactly the same, sans a few inches in length.

The Loincloth/Sash

I hate the word “loincloth’ but that is more or less what it is. The strip of light blue fabric that sits at the front of Allura’s gown. This was literally just a very long rectangle when patterning. I measured approximately how wide I wanted it to be--just by measuring on myself at the front and how wide I thought was appropriate--then added the length of the longer of the two skirt patterns.

The Sleeves

The sleeves were made in two parts, as there is a puffy capped sleeve attached to the armhole of the bodice, and a blue sleeve which begins around mid bicep. I designed these pattern pieces to have significant overlap, as I hoped it would give the shoulders a little more ‘puff’.

The white sleeve pattern was made by rather simple measurements. I measured how long I wanted it to be--taking the measurement from where the bodice armhole would be to just below my elbow--then I measured around my arm at about where my armpit is, so the widest part of the sleeve pattern, just below the sleeve cap, and then around my arm where the sleeve would end, just below my elbow. The sleeve cap was patterned using the measurements I used to make the bodice’s armhole--for both I really recommend a french curve, or even just pinching the shape from a commercial pattern and tracing it--no one will know!

The blue sleeve pattern was a lot simpler. I measured around my bicep, where the pattern piece would start, and then around my knuckle--never the rest, or you’ll have a lot of problems getting your hand into the sleeve. Always do the bottom measurement or the ‘wrist’ of the sleeve as the measurement of the widest part of your hand--the knuckle.

Essentially this just created a trapezoid.

The Corset

Patterning the corset was done using the tried and true method of glad wrapping and then duct taping my torso--through the help of my lovely friend (who would be my Shiro while I was in costume!), a cast of my torso was created, which we could then draw on to get the shape of the corset we wanted--fitted to my body. Once this was drawn on the cast and cut out, it was transferred to paper, creating these three pattern pieces:

Which obviously look incredibly strange and like they don’t fit at all--because human bodies are decidedly not flat or made of straight lines, and so don’t always translate to paper well. However, this pattern worked perfectly with some finnicky sewing around the edges. When tracing on the cast, be sure to account for the neckline of the corset--I gave Allura’s a very gentle sweetheart neckline, as well as a point at the bottom where my hips were, and then allowed the back of the corset to sit slightly lower at the back than the front. It’s worth noting that this corset had no boning in it and was purely for aesthetic purposes, and not shaping.

The Cape

Patterning the cape posed minor problems as initially, the back upper panel was patterned to be far too small for my shoulders--but at the time the tails of the cape had already been made, so the back panel is at the top wide enough for my shoulders and tapers down to the appropriate width for the tails to be attached and sit as they should.

The one at the top was the original pattern piece, and the one at the bottom was the redrafted (and final!) one. The piece was made by measuring shoulder to shoulder, and using that as the point of greatest width, and then the measurement for the bottom ‘tapered down’ part was taken from measuring the tails width at the top when they were positioned as they would be in the final garment--slightly overlapping. All in all, this addition of the tapering down actually looked quite good, and when on the body was almost unnoticeable.

The front was simply made by measuring across my collarbone, halving the measurement and adding a slight dip in to account for the neckline.

The outside of the tails was taken by measuring approximately where I wanted the cape to fall--how long I wanted it to be--along my back, and then measuring how wide I wanted the ‘bulb’ of the tail to be--making it the widest point, as well as the width of the top of the tail where it attached to the back piece.

The inside of the tails was essentially this same pattern piece cut up to account for the white and pink segmenting.

The Crown & The Crest

The crest attached to the front of the corset wasn’t something I patterned--instead I simply googled the Voltron symbol and printed it out at the right size and used it as a pattern piece.

The crown was incredibly easy--once I had my wig on, I measured from temple to temple, then added an allowance of about half an inch for where the crown would sit under the wig to be sewn into it. At the middle point, I added a small triangle and that was that!

And that’s more or less how I patterned my Allura costume--if anyone has any questions or anything was unclear, please feel free to let me know, send me an ask and I’d be happy to walk you through it more clearly. Possibly with diagrams--we shall see.

#costume: allura #Costume Write Up #Patterning #Cosplay How To #princess allura #vldallura #voltron legendary defender #voltron cosplay

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superlinguo · 7 years

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Linguistics jobs - Interview with a data scientist

I’ve gone from zero interviews with librarians to two in two months! I’m so excited to interview Heather Froehlich this month for two reasons. The first is that it’s a neat comparison with Shanna’s story last month of the different ways linguistics can take you into a library career. The second is that Heather is one of the lovely assortment of linguists on Twitter (@heatherfro). You may also recognise some of the names in Heather’s interview - she helped me get in touch with a number of people who have appeared in the Linguistics Jobs series! Also, I’m thinking of getting “Humanities behemoth" printed on my next set of business cards.

What did you study at university?

I was a bit of a Humanities behemoth: I have a double major in English and Linguistics and picked up a minor in Women’s Studies from the University of New Hampshire, which as my friends Allie, Braden and Caneel have all talked about, really stressed the study of the structure of language rather than its function.

Unlike Allie, Braden and Caneel, I spent my third year at university translating Old English into Modern English and was mostly terrible at it, but I found the overlap between the relationship between literature and linguistics and the history of English as a language to be totally fascinating. I was always interested in Early Modern English because it feels like a middle point in the history of the English language: we have Old English on one end and contemporary English on the other, and there is an enormous of political and social upheaval in the period too. I became very interested in ways English – and the language used to describe marginalized people - has changed over time.

In 2010 I moved to Scotland to do a research masters in literary linguistics working on gender-specific possession in Shakespeare’s plays using corpus methods, which then became a PhD expanding on the language of social identity in Early Modern dramatic writing using corpus stylistic methods. I guess I continue to be a humanities behemoth, only now I’ve added elements of information science and computer science to the mix too.

What is your job?

My full title is “Digital Scholarship Fellow in Quantitative Text Analysis” and I’m an Assistant Librarian at Penn State University. I’m a corpus linguist and I support other people wanting to do quantitative work with text across the humanities at Penn State.

Despite my long title, my job is pretty simple: I count words in lots of texts using computers and teach other people in the Liberal Arts and associated disciplines how to do this. My job is pretty new (both in its existence at PSU and for me, as I started in May 2017). At the moment, I do a lot of talking about what I do and how I can help different departments - this presently includes giving talks, giving overviews of ways I use corpus methods in my research, and sort of generally talking up my work and my areas of expertise. I also have a lot of scope to do my own research and support on other people’s projects. Every day is a little different but it’s always fun. I get to hear a lot about a lot of other people’s interests and think about how my knowledge can help them.

How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

My research is about Shakespeare and his contemporaries’ usage of the language of social identity, I have taught several classes on topics like Shakespeare and language, and I am now teaching people how to use corpus methods to support their specific research interests. So, I use my linguistics degree every day in my day-to-day work, and it informs pretty much every aspect of my professional life.

But it’s important to stress I wasn’t formally trained, really. I was kind of given a computer and told to figure it out, but I think that also really helped me understand why digital methods mattered to me. I didn’t care that Mary has eight watermelons and Jane has 17 oranges and why do these people have so much fruit? But I did care why Macbeth uses ‘she’ much less than other Shakespearean plays.

I also started doing this kind of work in 2009-2010, just before the term ‘Digital Humanities’ hit the mainstream academic world, which was both convenient and slightly confusing. In a lot of ways, I was extremely lucky to be in the right place at the right time, but I also really benefitted from having a strong background the humanities and having to figure out the computer stuff as I went.

Do you gave any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

I’m beyond grateful I was encouraged to experiment with different classes and disciplines as a built-in feature of my undergraduate degree. I’ve come to realize this is hugely unique to the American education system: I wouldn’t have taken a linguistics class if it hadn’t fulfilled a general education requirement in my freshman year. I certainly didn’t expect it to change my life. So I would encourage every student to try to take coursework that interests them outside their discipline (especially in an educational system which has very set coursework). Even if you don’t end up taking it for credit, just sit in and listen: you are letting yourself experience a new perspective, which is important.

Any other thoughts or comments?

I’ve never felt like linguistics is a siloed discipline unto itself, as it has implications for all sorts of people, whereas my other disciplinary homes can be a bit more specific about what matters to them and why. More importantly, the Linguistics Jobs interview series has clearly highlighted my suspicions that you learn a lot of different skills in syntax, phonology and sociolinguistics classes. This is a great thing - you walk out with a lot of confidence in learning new methods and approaches quickly! Use it to your absolute advantage on the job market.

Previously:

Interview with a Librarian

Interview with a Text Analyst

Interview with a User Experience (UX) Researcher

Interview with a Study Abroad Facilitator

Interview with The Career Linguist

Interview with a local radio Digital Managing Editor

Interview with a freelance translator and editor

Check out the Linguist Jobs tag for more interviews

#language #linguistics #linguistics jobs #linguist jobs #lingjob #career #job #jobs #careers #work #library #text #text analytics #text analysis #computational linguistics

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wastedstudies · 7 years

Photo

i was casually looking through reblogs of my works and then i saw the follower count for my studyblr and i swear my eyes died

hello! this is kalice, and wastedstudies has reached 800+ followers!! i had intended on doing this when i reached 500, but somehow the numbers slipped past me[probably while i was studying haha] and now we’re here!

anyway, this post is meant for those anons and tumbles that ask what stationery i use, and how my colour-coding system works! i would say colour-coding is relatively easy, though it can be costly especially if you use a lot of colours like me - not saying it’s a bad thing though, i happen to love and adore stationery with a passion thus my notes are normally quite colourful.

majority of my stationery are quite affordable - other than my washi tape, i think i spent over sixty bucks on washi already - which is great because singapore is really expensive!

stationery:

the pens i use are all from muji! fun fact: i only got into colour-coding because a friend gave these coloured pens to me for my birthday last year.

muji coloured pens[top left] these are about $9 for a bottle, i think?[i wouldn’t know, i received three bottles last year] and it contains all the colours for their gel-ink pens in 0.5mm. i don’t normally like 0.5 pens because my words like to stick together when i use them, but for these they are quite okay! note that they can smudge easily, especially the orange and the dark blue!

muji 0.38 black pens[picture not included] this was $10.90 for a pack of ten which i got at the end of last year! even though they do provide a black pen in the bottle, i prefer using 0.38mm black pens because, as mentioned earlier, my words stick together when i use 0.5! but also a pack of ten comes in real handy especially since my black pens run out of ink faster than my phone battery.

highlighters! ah yes, the one thing i spend most of my money on. i use mildliners, uni-propus windows and daiso’s marking pens!

uni-propus window highlighters[top and centre] i would buy uni-propus window highlighters if only they had a variety of colours like mildliners, actually. these are the same as mildliners, where they double up as both a highlighter and a marker. the marker side is firmer, which is great! and the highlighters have a little window which really helps when i’m highlighting notes in my textbook - there’s always that one word that we accidentally highlight - or gauging up till where i’m supposed to highlight before writing my notes. these are $2.40 each, if i’m not wrong!

mildliners[top left] i really like mildliners due to their unique colours - look at the mustard yellow hello - and the fact that it doubles up as a highlighter and a marker. the downside to the marker is the fact that i have to be exceptionally careful that i don’t press down on the tips. mildliners are considerably expensive since one can cost about $2.40, and i’m lucky enough to get mine from japan so they are slightly cheaper! but it’s a good investment especially since they have really pretty colours and have the marker!

daiso marking pens[second row left] if you’re on a budget, however, let me recommend you daiso’s version of mildliners. i kid you not, i got a shock when i saw them. they don’t have the cool colours, but they do have the pastel and warm colours and guess what? you only pay $2 for a pack of five! the colours on their marking pens are slightly more faded than usual mildliners, but they do the job well, and i’ve been loving the pastel pink!

daiso water-base markers[second row right] although i do enjoy using the markers at the end of my highlighters, i normally use those when certain notes overlap various aspects of my system. but for the headers of my notes, i use daiso’s water-base markers because they’re solid colours and are really nice to write with! a pack of five with one blue, one red and three black markers is just $2! they’re really useful when i’m doing my headers and sub-headers, and sub-sub-headers.

notebooks! now this is what i’m willing to spend over a hundred dollars on.

muji notebooks[third row left] i mainly use muji notebooks, since they’re only $3.60 for five A5 ones! i tend to use A5, because i prefer using smaller notebooks in general. of course, i have multiple notebooks for certain subjects - don’t get me started on biology notes - but i just like how compact it is and it’s easy to carry around. besides, it makes studying for exams a whole lot easier because then i don’t have a whole stack of papers to carry around, but instead a couple of notebooks which contain everything i need to know!

campus notebook[third row right] for math, however, i need a multiple B5 notebooks. the one i’m currently using is a campus one, which is what my friend got for me! i really like the paper quality, and because math is all about practice, you need multiple notebooks to practice, practice, practice.

loose-leaf papers and other miscellaneous items

muji loose-leaf papers[picture not included] grid and lined loose-leaf papers - yes. they have different functions! i use grid paper when i need to do mind-maps because it keeps everything neat and pretty! lined paper is for notes that i take during class, because then i can scribble everything down in pencil as quickly as possible and come back home and organise them properly in my notebooks. can you imagine messing up the organisation in your notebook? *shudders* lined paper is also used when i have random ideas floating around and i need to scribble them down, which is why i have a stack of loose-leaf lined paper in my folder! muji paper is really cheap for such high quality so YES!!

muji flash cards and to-do list, and daiso tags[last row left] next, flash cards! learning languages and formulas? get flash cards. these prove to be really useful as you can literally carry them anywhere. train broke down again? gotta pull out my flashcards and learn all the quadratic formulas. you can get a pack of five from muji for $5.60! tags! get these from daiso! useful for colour-coding! you can also learn how to write backwards as you can only write on the matte part of the tag! but useful all the same! mini to-do list! i got this from muji, and what i do is that i write down my tasks for the week, and i slowly add on as it goes by. then, over the weekends, i stick my task list onto my desk so it’s easier for me to keep track of what to do!

colour-coding system: sample[last row right]

remember those tags and highlighters i got? yep, i have given them a specific function. this gives your mini to-do list another function, because you can now label which colours are for which! and i stick them in my pencil box so i can always refer back if i ever forget their functions.

colour-coding is easy! you require patience and a lot of colours if you want to be as specific as me, but it makes your notes *aesthetic* and a lot easier to understand rather than looking at a notebook with only one colour, right?

special thanks:

thank you to the following tumbles which inspired me, and supported me even, to do up my own studyblr!

@studypetals / @elkstudies / @studylustre / @kenmastudies / @summertae / @saltyattic / @rhubarbstudies / @studytwice / @study-natural / @stxdythings

here’s to a new term!

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torontocomicsanthology · 7 years

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How does an anthology choose its stories? Here's how we did it:

How do gatekeepers choose which stories to include in a book? I can’t answer for any large companies, but I can share a little about we decided it for the current Toronto Comics book! I imagine that some of our filters are similar, and I hope it will be helpful to folks.

So, for Volume four, we received 115 pitches from 73 authors. That’s about 30% more than last year, which is great!

Step 1) Choosing our criteria

Before we started this volume, the editors and I built guidelines to make something we’d all be proud to put our names on. Since this is intended as a career launching book that may deal with sensitive issues, we wanted to be careful and positive.

Each of our three editors have very different tastes, and so if we all like a piece, we can safely assume it has a wide appeal.

Personally, I’m a sucker for any fun piece of slightly-absurd melodrama with a good visual hook. Throw me a wild image!

One editor is very interested in social justice and representation ( and the careful handling of those matters ). Talk about something that matters!

Another is most engaged with experimental stories that push the medium and leave the reader with questions. Show us something we’ve never seen before!

I am the lead editor, but our process is set up so that I cannot overrule them and just choose the stories I want. I’m working with these editors because I trust and value their judgement, and that means respecting their decisions, especially when we disagree.

Here’s the rough metric we came up with:

Major positive criteria

Pitch shows clear understanding of story.

Unusual genre.

Characters reflect Toronto’ diversity.

Creator has positive online reputation ( esp. successful kickstarters or signs of commercial success! )

Minor positive criteria

Tasteful product placement of Toronto landmarks.

Story is in the history genre.

Has human empathy, forgiveness, softness etc.

Creator is talented but unpublished.

We have a positive prior working experience with the creator.

Creator currently lives near Toronto.

Negative criteria

Edginess, overuse of profanity, sexuality, etc.

Modern personalities used in too-casual fashion, or anything that could be considered slanderous.

Too many capes stories will sideline the book into the superheroes genre.

Step 2) Accepting pitches

We asked writers to use a Google Form to submit their pitches, but we did get a number of emails from folks saying they couldn’t submit through it. I know some projects have had good results funnelling applications through Submittable.com, but it seemed like overklll for what we needed.

A number of folks also just emailed us directly instead, so I just appended their emails to the Google Docs spreadsheet that was generated by the submission form. If they included sample files, I emailed them to the other editors.

Step 3) Reviewing Pitches

Filter 1: Quality

Immediately after we closed submissions, every editor made their own copy of the spreadsheet, and read through every single entry. We each use our own rating system, but we roughly ranked our stories into ‘Must have’ ‘Pretty good’ and ‘Hard No.’ We made brief notes on every single pitch, just so we’d have a reference point later.

Having spent a few days making notes, we met up at a bar downtown, and sat down for unhealthy pub food and a solid four hours of pitch review.

We each read aloud our Must Haves and Pretty Goods, sharing our opinions as we went through, and then compiled a cross-references list. If we all liked it, it was immediately in, and if any of us was a Hard No it was thrown out. After some time, we whittled it down to about thirty stories.

Filter 2: Individuality

Then we looked at overlapping themes and elements. We had a large number of stories about the omnipresent condo gentrification in the city, quite a few about a Tunnel Monster, and a surprising number of historical Riots pieces. We added tags describing genre and theme to the top 30, and then chose the most distinct example of each that touched the most bases.

Filter 3: Page count

Finally, we looked at the page count of each of the stories. Each page represents a dollar figure, so much as we loved a lot of the stories, we simply can’t commit to them all. We agonized over choices, haggled a few pages off some of the pitches, and made difficult decisions.

We still ended up choosing more stories than our intended page count, so we may have to ask for more on our KS than originally planned. At the same time, it’s also likely that some stories will drop out over the course of development.

Step 4) Specific suggestions

Writers, for the love of god, don’t keep us in suspense about how your story ends. If you don’t tell us how it concludes, I assume you don’t know.

If you have prior writing experience, it’s a big plus! If you can send us some previously finished comics, that’s a huge deal.

Don’t send 10 page pitches.

Don’t send 10 word pitches.

Scan your pitch for typos and grammar.

When possible, run several pitches past friends or colleagues, and see which one they respond to best.

If your story includes an older guy creeping on a younger girl, no matter how it ends, think twice about submitting it.

I hope this helps folks! I share a lot of this stuff because comics anthology organization is still such a new field, and there's not much information out there. If you're an editor with a different perspective, or have feedback to offer, I'm always trying to listen and learn!

#makingcomics #anthologies #anthology #curation #comics #pitches #writing

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