#like these are technically books but i read them as pdfs

[woahajimes]

god.

#i just finished the twisted series #honestly they were good in that they got me giggling and kicking my feet and like curled up in suspense #but if im being honest i think they're really basic #im not a fan of what's happening to published books bc everythig can be printed now and idk #like these are technically books but i read them as pdfs #they feel like wattpad stories (spoiler alert: the first book WAS a Wattpad story) #its rather the plot and language thats like well alright (rich rich heartless guy falls for bubbly sunshine girl and would go to unmeasurab #le means to protect her). #like ofc im no better than the next gal bc i read all 4 books #the covers are... interesting... as well #and the plots/subplots are rather dull and its very unrealistic #not saying that fanfiction is at a lower level than published writings tho bc I’ve read fics that should be PUBLISHED #and great we recognize authors and that’s awesome #but some writings should stay where they are…..

[no-name-publishing]

Tiny Book? Tiny Book. Pt1.

Idk yall I just felt like writing a little how-to of how-I-do my tiny A9 books! So if you've ever been interested, I hope this will be helpful. This will be neither a beginner typesetting nor beginner bookbinding tutorial; as I go through my process I will only be showing my process and providing a few tips, assuming you already have the basics understood. We can worry about the rougher technical skills in another post.

Also keep in mind that this guide includes images of fic I've bound, and you're zooming into these fics at your own discretion. I am not responsible if you read something yucky. I know you have a lot of options out there but thank you for flying No-Name Publishing.

Tiny books part 2; Tiny books part 3

Just like with regular ficbinding, there are layers, and they are:

1 - Typesetting and Imposing 2 - Printing 3 - Cutting, Folding, and Sewing 4 - Gluing, Rounding/Backing, Endbands 5 - Building the Case and casing in 6 - BOOK

In this part we will be focusing on steps 1 and 2. Please feel free to skip to the area you're interested in most.

1 - Typesetting and Imposing

Okay, so this area has some nuances that you don't have to consider so closely with typesetting for more traditionally sized books. To me, these tiny books are not about readability, they are about novelty. As such, I do not prioritize readability. Instead, I try to achieve something that is closer to scale. That said, neither do I want these illegible. But we'll begin from the top.

You want to make a tiny book, but you're wondering, what would be an appropriate word count for a tiny book? Tiny books are the perfect medium for the ficlettes, the shorties, the one-shots. They are also perfect for the mid-sized, 10-15-20k fics, in my opinion. Here we can see,

On the left we have a fic that is exactly 12,771 words, typeset on a 1.5" x 2" (37 × 52 mm) document, with .3" margins, 6pt Garamond font, and 5pt line spacing. This book is only approaching 1/2" (13mm) wide, and only took 5 sheets of Letter paper to print. On the right we have a fic that is exactly 1,939 words, typeset to the same specifications. This book is only 4-5mm wide, and took only 1 sheet of Letter paper.

In my opinion this format of book begins getting unruly around the 300-page mark. However, making any combination of margins, fonts size, and line spacing will yield different page results for different word counts. For example:

Like the above, in each of these examples I typeset in Garamond font @ 6pt size and 5pt line spacing. Typesetting on an A9 page, this is about as small as I felt comfortable sizing my font while still being legible. But notice the rivers between the words--the rivers of white space bisecting the lines, due to the Justified alignment battling the admittedly tiny work surface. At this scale, with the font at this size and alignment, those will be unavoidable. Over time I began disliking this in my own work, so I pursued a different method, which was typesetting on a quarter letter page (4.25" x 5.5" / 108mm x 140mm), and allowing my imposer to scale the PDF down.

Have you ever seen anything sexier. THIS looks like a tiny book. Little to no rivers, still legible (hand-wobble), and preserves the novelty feel that I desire from a tiny book. This method of scaling down (specifically from quarter letter to A9) does change the final shape of the book, from A9 to A9-ish in this case. Specifically, from 1.5"X2" (37 × 52 mm) to 1.625"X2" (41.3mmX52mm). You're achieving something closer to a square shape, which is delightful to hold. All this to say, you have some freedom with word count, with font size, with page size. I've done as many pages as 376 and as few as 17. The fantastic thing about tiny books--their structure will not be load-bearing, meaning--the only thing stopping you are your tastes.

Quickly, some more examples of features in a regularly sized typeset and their tiny counterpart after the imposer has scaled them down. First, scaling half-letter down to A9, a little-over 4X shrinkage:

And from B6 to B9, smaller by 3x:

You notice the compression of every element, and too how entirely unparcable the text in the first example is, sometimes not horrible, sometimes very. Make your decisions dependent on your tastes!

You have decided on the fic you'd like to bind into a tiny book. I will be using my own fic as the typesetting example, and I will be using Word 365 for PC. I'm sure many of my pointers during this process might not apply 1-to-1 if you are using a different word processing software, but hopefully you can adapt the concepts to your program of your choosing.

Kay, next you will do your typesetting. Since this is not a typesetting guide I'm trusting that you have your preferred methods, but I will go through my key steps for setting up a tiny typeset:

First, for every typeset I delete each default Style, create mine own, and dictate the document size. For this example I will be doing my preferred quarter letter method, setting the custom page size to 4.25" wide and 5.5" tall, and .5" page margins all around (except Gutter; leave 0"). On the Multiple pages dropdown I will select Mirror margins (however, as all my margins are the same size, this is redundant, though may not be the case for you). My body text style will be Cardo font @ 11pt size and Exactly 15pt line spacing, with a .2" first line indent and Justified alignment.

You can use whatever body font you like, I only encourage you to do many many test prints to refine your preferences. Your favorite font for half-letter books might not translate to tiny books. After ~30 tiny books I've found I like Cardo at this size and spacing. And if you're using A-paper sizes, consider doing quarter A4 instead of quarter letter, which is technically A6--4.1"X5.8", or 105mmX148mm. Follow your heart~~nyah 🐱♥

Now I will go to my fic and download the HTML file. I hugely prefer copying from the HTML file rather than the browser itself. It kind of standardizes any goofy formatting that might try to make its way over otherwise, while still preserving the italics and bolds, etc, and makes for an easier editing process. It was important I made my body Style in Word first, so that once I paste the text into my document that Style is automatically applied in one fell swoop (if not, you can change that in your Word settings. Advanced -> Cut, copy and paste -> Merge Formatting. It is a huge time saver.)

Now you've gone through your typesetting process, you have a liddle quarter letter Word document that you're happy with. Gets real close to you. Listen to me--listen, you're going to Export as PDF. Not Save As PDF. Not Print to PDF. Export. It's in--listen--it's in File, then Export, then Create PDF/XPS. You need to Export. Especially if you selected Bookfold instead of Mirror margins in your page settings because we need an unimposed PDF in order for this to work right and exporting to PDF is going to solve 99% of your pdf formatting woes with Word. Okay, I love you 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

Now, your EXPORTED pdf should look something like mine. Straight, unimposed.

Now what we're going to do is take this PDF back to my penthouse and freak it. Go to this link for the Renegade Bindery-created and -curated imposition tool. This has been will be is such an incredible FREE asset to you, maintained by a crew of intelligent, skilled Renegade Bindery members who understand the importance of community and accessibility. If you find someone hiding this link behind a paywall of any kind it is not with the creators' permission, so shame on them.

Anyway I will be assuming that you know what imposing your document means. If you've never used this site before, it's very straight forward, and here are my settings for making Tiny Books.

1 - Upload your unimposed exported pdf. 2 - ignore 3 - Select the paper size you will be printing on. This is not the FINAL size of the book, this is what paper you are printing on. These instructions are for Letter sized paper. Don't change any of the other settings right now, I will explain more about the Single-sided vs Duplex option in a bit. 4 - Skip aaalllll the way down to Signature Format. Under Wacky Small Layouts, click on the bubble next to Little. You'll notice there are a lot of options here. I encourage you to play with these settings later on as well, there are so many things you can make with this tool.

Once that's done, scroll down to the very bottom. You'll see the Signature Info area, telling you the results of your imposition. In the case of using the Little option we've selected, 1 sheet of our paper will make 40 book pages. 3-signature-sets of 3/3/4 folio configuration. That's a lot of pages per page.

Anyway for our document today it will cost us 2 sheets of Letter paper, and will make 6 signatures. Math says that's 80 pages. Now, you may be concerned because your typeset PDF is not formatted in a number equally divisible by 40. And why would it be. The imposer is doing that math for you in the background, organizing your pages regardless. In my case, my finished typeset is 62 pages, which means that from my second page, I will only be using my 3 folio segments, and discarding the 4 folio segment. This will make more sense later. Click the Generate button, and save the zipped folder wherever you want. Don't change the name of it.

Unzip that baby, and inside you'll notice 2 files--(filename).pdf_little_packed_backs, and .pdf_little_packed_fronts. Appropriately named as one file contains one side of the sheet that will be printed, and the other file the other side.

And when you open them up, they will look like:

2 - Printing

We are manually duplexing this bad boy, because working at this scale amplifies and compounds every millimeter of difference. Manual duplexing will keep printer skew to a minimum, as the printer will not have to perform gymnastics in order to print on the reverse side of your page. Here are some examples:

Two auto-duplexing examples of skew, one horizontal and one vertical, dependent on which direction my paper was loaded into the feeder. There is significant skew. Not a horrible issue on full-sized books but these will matter much more on our tiny books, the key issue being that we do not have much to work with in the margins department. Trimming 5-6-7mm of margins of your half-letter sized textblocks might not be much of an issue; however, here, in order to remove all the trim lines during the cutting process, you will be significantly impacting the margins of your tiny textblock.

Now here is an example of the skew from manual duplexing:

MUCH subtler. Your skew with manual duplexing will range from this--less than .5mm--to no skew at all, and you will have to cut off far less of each page to remove the trim lines, maintaining the consistency of appearance of your tiny, beautiful pages. This is why during step 3 of the imposing process we selected Single-sided (which is MANUAL duplexing), and not Duplex (which is AUTO duplexing) appropriately. This will result in you either getting two files for manual duplexing, or one auto duplexing file.

Your next consideration when it comes to printing your liddle book will be whether you want to use an inkjet printer or a laser printer. I've until recently only had a laser printer available to me. I can say after about 6 or 7 little books on an inkjet printer that I prefer the laser printing on tiny books. Here is an example of why:

On the left you have a tiny book printed from an inkjet printer printed on the highest quality setting, and on the right is a tiny book printed from a laser printer. These were both printed at the same scaling, same font size, same line spacing, everything. The inkjet printer, printing at this scale, introduces pretty glaring feathering on the letters, whereas the laser printer is crisp as can be. I've said before that to me tiny books are more for novelty rather than readability, however I do still want to make out the word I'm looking at, you know what I mean? For this reason I prefer printing my tiny books from a laser printer. Use what you got though, you'll get a tiny book regardless. Make sure you're flipping on the short edge with these tiny books too, and double check to make sure your page numbers line up. And when you're done you got...

BOOK(-adjacent).

Continue on to part duex.

#bookbinding #ficbinding

[werewolfetone]

Hi! So this is gonna sound weird, but I’ve kinda been learning about Irish history backwards? Like, I started with the Troubles (bc of family involvement), then back to the 1916 rising which got me more interested in the people involved which took me further back and etc etc. I know I’ve been doing it “wrong” but I’m just starting to come up to the 1798. Do you happen to have any recommended readings or particular persons of interest to read? Any collections of primary sources would be more than welcome!

Secondary sources I would recommend:

The Year of Liberty by Thomas Pakenham - about the rebellion in general

The People's Rising by Daniel Gahan - about the rebellion in Wexford

The Summer Soldiers by ATQ Stewart - about the rebellion in Ulster

Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence by Marianne Elliott - about Wolfe Tone

The Life and Times of Mary Ann McCracken by Mary McNeill - technically this is just about Mary Ann but I think it's pretty good for Henry Joy McCracken too because there aren't many biographies of him

Orangeism in Ireland and Britain 1795 - 1836 by Hereward Senior - obviously exercise caution on whether or not you think you can mentally handle this subject but book about loyalism during 1798

Castlereagh: War, Enlightenment, and Tyranny by John Bew - about Lord Castlereagh

2 things that I would also recommend reading about for context are the French Revolution and the British radical movement of the late 18th century. for the French Revolution 1 book I would say is good is Liberty or Death by Peter McPhee and for the British radical movement... the book The English Jacobins by Carl B Cone does a good enough job

Primary sources:

The Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone by Theobald Wolfe Tone - title is pretty self explanatory. It's Tone's account of his own life + his diary

The United Irishmen, Their Lives and Times by RR Madden - this is considered to be the 1st history of the rising & was written with the help of many people who lived through it, so it includes a lot of first hand accounts. HOWEVER. beware that Madden was your archetypical mid 19th century Catholic Irish nationalist and the bias created due to that shows through in every single part of these books

Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ireland by Sir Richard Musgrave - this is another very early history of the rising, also written with the help of people who lived through, also including a lot of first hand accounts. HOWEVER. Musgrave is like Madden's Orange counterpart in that this book is also wildly biased and should also be read with a degree of caution

Personal Narrative of the "Irish Rebellion" of 1798, Sequel to Personal Narrative of the "Irish Rebellion" of 1798, and History and Consequences of the Battle of the Diamond by Charles Hamilton Teeling - 3 accounts of politics in Ireland in the 1790s written by someone who as a young man led the Catholic paramilitary the Defenders

The Drennan letters (a collection of letters that Belfast doctor William Drennan and his sister, Martha McTier, wrote to each other between the 1770s and 1820s), if you can find them, are another great primary source on both the United Irishmen & on what life was like back then in general, as are the McCracken letters, which I know are available free online somewhere I just can't remember where exactly I got the pdf from

There are a lot of them but if you're interested in primary sources you might also read some of the political pamphlets/books that were going around back then -- the most famous that come to mind in this context are Wolfe Tone's Argument on Behalf of the Catholics in Ireland, Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man, and Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France but there are wayyy more than that and at least some of them are on the internet archive

#1798 rebellion #united irishmen #asks #anon #irish history #jory.txt

[snek-panini]

Today is a day for books. Or one book, anyway. This is Close to Home, So Far Away, a Good Omens fic by Mercury Starlight. It's a memory loss/alteration fic with a lot of angst (for real, mind the tags if you decide to give this one a try) but oh my gosh, it's wonderful. Tasty tasty angst. It is unfinished but don't let that deter you, the biggest angstiest plotline is resolved enough to be satisfying. The last update was in 2021, so it's a pre-season 2 kind of angst instead of the new canon flavor.

I love the way the cover came out on this one. It's gold HTV on dark green book cloth and I'm in love with the simplicity. It reminds me of the very pretty books I find in used book stores sometimes, that have enchanting covers but are often either impenetrable to read, very fragile, or out of my budget. But this one is none of those things, it's exactly as compelling as its cover makes it seem. There were originally supposed to be more gold swirly bits in the corners but I made the lines too thin and my cricut ate them. I thought about re-cutting them but I liked the way it looked without them so much I just left them off.

More pics under the cut!

This is a coptic binding, which is my preferred style for unfinished fics. The spine has no covering and no glue, so technically if the author decides to update it again I can cut the stitching, add more pages, and re-stitch for an updated book without having to make an entirely new one. The downside is that glue can help mitigate swell at the spine, and without it I had issues. I squished this thing for days, it got very flat, and it fluffed right back up again after stitching. The book is about 250 pages and I think that's the upper limit using the methods and materials I have. I want to try it again with short grain paper and see if that helps.

Downside to coptic binds: you can see right through them in between signatures, and when you're used to other types of books it sends a panicked "my book is broken!" signal to the brain.

Upside to coptic binds: pretty colorful stitches down the center of each signature. I love how the bronze looks with the green cover and the shiny cover lining. Because there's no glue in the text block you can't do regular endpapers here. I think this is called a doublure.

Title page, first chapter, and a new thing I tried. All the art assets came from rawpixel. The thing on the first chapter page is the extra swirly bit that was supposed to go on the cover. I think I made it too big here? I'm not sure. Graphic design is not my passion and I am learning it only reluctantly XD The last image is unique to this fic. There's a reference to a specific form in the story, which the author created and linked as a PDF, and I really wanted to include it, so I put it in an appendix at the end. I really like having it there and plan to incorporate more stuff like it in future binds, if I can.

I think that's it for this bind! I hope you like it, @yeswevegotavideo!

#bookbinding #fanbinding #snek makes books #good omens #fic rec #i'm not good at coptic yet but I'm working on it #i need to do more of them this is only my second one #i didn't get the case binding down till my fourth one #very proud of this one though #it's so simple compared to a lot of what i've made #once i finished the cover i couldn't stop looking at it

[blueskiesandstarrynights]

hi i am prompting you for the deeper reason you think robin would dislike eddie

SO GLAD YOU ASKED and that you're interested!

So, most of my information is coming from the book Rebel Robin which isn't technically canon, however, a lot of people use information from this book for headcanons and fics, and it's an excellent and interesting take on her character that I adore. If you wanna read the novel I highly recommend it and would happily provide a pdf link.

Onto the actual thought though. This all originated from a character named Dash. For context, Dash is one of my Robin's friends (though that is a very loose term if you're familiar with the book at all) from band. He has this idea that nerds are superior, and on the surface it sounds like a W for the underdogs and whatnot, but that's not what he wants. What he wants is to completely invert the social pyramid, put nerds on top, and basically have them functioning the way jocks do now (top of the pecking order, gets all the girls, etc).

And this....isn't far off from what Eddie obnoxiously preaches. It's not quite as obvious as "let's invert the social pyramid instead of calling out that a social pyramid at all is bullshit" but it's kinda adjacent. He gets up on his lunch table and mocks people for their interests from theater and band (both of which are historically kinds of nerds, one of which is something Robin canonically has a vested interest in) but also basketball players and cheerleaders. You could argue for the latter that he's just making fun of the assholes in those categories, but that doesn't really work with the way he phrases it. He mocks them for their pom poms and tossing balls into laundry baskets, not for being dicks, clearly mocking the sport itself. Eddie just seems to think his specific brand of nerd is inherently superior for just being what it is.

Dash isn’t talking about the weird and looked down upon when he talks of a nerd uprising, he just wants to invert the social pyramid and get girls and attention the way all the jocks do, and Eddie doesn’t actually look out for the little guy like he seems to claim, he just takes in a few that fit in his narrow view of what a nerd should be, then mocks everyone else for having any other interest while yelling about conformity or whatever the fuck he’s going on about this week.

#i feel like eddie fans are gonna get pissed off about this but idc im defending this take to my grave #asks #anon #robin buckley #st #stranger things #eddie munson

[guillemelgat]

Hey hello I made a thing! As perhaps a few of you know, I have spent the last half a year being completely unhinged about Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin books, and I’ve always been particularly interested in the character Stephen Maturin and his relationship to Catalonia. I saw that there was a lack of stuff about this part of his identity, and, being me, I felt the need to fill it in the only way I could: compiling music and yelling about it for thirty pages. Hence this playlist.

You really don’t need to know anything about these books to listen to this playlist. You also don’t need to know anything about Catalan (I hope). Catalonia and the Catalan Countries in general (including Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and parts of southern France, Aragon, and Sardinia) have a really interesting musical and literary tradition, and I wanted to make that more accessible, so I put together a few songs I liked, translated them, and wrote a bit about each of their significance, including the most important cultural tidbits I could. Some things don’t translate super well, and I hope my Catalan followers will forgive me for trying to adapt them more for English-speaking audiences than perhaps would be preferable; I usually don’t choose to do that, but in this case I wanted to open the door, and not to intimidate people.

Now that that’s out of the way, here is a link to the PDF of the liner notes (graphic design is my passion, as they say): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MUpRM84W8aypznEIrt0eA1jG5OxaRZvz/view?usp=sharing

Under the cut I’ve included the ephimera and unnecessary commentary that you know and love, feel free to read or ignore it as you will

These roughly follow the order of the songs and are varying levels of seriousness

If you like "Sant Joan, feu-lo ben gran" then I'd highly recommend listening to the whole Tornaveus album. I almost included the “Stabat Mater de Sudanell” and the “Goigs de Sant Julià de Lòria”, which are both from western Catalonia, and they also have more cançons de pandero, in perhaps a slightly more traditional style. A lot of the other songs have interesting cultural commentary in them, especially on feminist topics, and they’re very well-researched because literally one of the members of the group is basically the ethnomusicologist of Catalan music at the moment. Anyways, if people would like the liner notes perhaps next time I’m home I’ll scan them, they’re in Catalan and English and very well-written. Also note the legendary Lluís Llach song which has been turned into a polyphonic piece lol (and I did not include the “Goigs de la Nostra Senyora de la Llibertat” but tbh that might have been a mistake on my part) (Blorbo side note that I think this fits Stephen’s childhood very well which is mostly why I chose it)

“L’Hereu Riera” is one of my favorite Catalan folk songs I love it so much and if you want to hear the Catalan version (as opposed to the Valencian one included here) and see the dance and also see a cobla, I am including a link to this version by Germà Negre which is tragically not on Spotify. I chose the Valencian one because (1) Al Tall and (2) I think it fits The Blorbo better (specifically I was thinking of his fiancée who dies before Book One who idk if anyone ever remembers shdjfhskf). That being said, Stephen would probably know the Catalan one (and almost certainly not the Valencian one). Also, on a memey-er note, Hereu Riera bisexual king and literal icon <3 love how he has to remind his girlfriend on her deathbed that actually he'd technically be interested in both her sisters AND her brothers if he wasn't so into her that he never wanted to marry anyone else

I literally did put in Roger Mas just so there would be at least one person with a Lleidan accent, #diversity win

Many points about the “Cançó de pandero de l’Urgell” and “Jo no canto per la veu” so here we go:

I put these two songs in mostly because I got very obsessed with the cançó de pandero from Alcarràs (which is a great movie that came out last year about a farming family in a village near Lleida that is winning all the awards atm). Anyways, since Carla Simón has been too busy winning things to put up the gotdam soundtrack, I did a bit of digging and it turns out that it was written for the movie?? By her brother??? It's excellent and very anticapitalist and you can listen to it here and see the trailer for Alcarràs all in one! (Includes English subtitles)

The original “Canto per un amic meu que per mi daria la vida” is probably from a Valencian cant de batre, although I could not get any confirmation on that. But regardless everyone should listen to Pep Botifarra's version of it, which I would literally marry if it had a physical form it’s so so good. (I posted it here back in ye olden days but it's been long enough I think I can post it again)

Valencian music side note because I can’t stop myself: the second pair of verses in the "Cançó de pandero de l'Urgell" (starting with “vos esteu ben acotxada…”) are sung by Miquel Gil, who is a very famous Valencian traditional singer, anyways you should listen to this version of him singing “Del Sud” by Obrint Pas (you want to go down a Valencian music rabbit hole so so bad)

I firmly believe that Stephen would canonically be obsessed with Ausiàs March, and the fact that he has not yet recited any of his poems is Patrick O’Brian’s biggest failing in my eyes. Anyways I have more thoughts but I’m saving them for other posts shdfjsd

If you read this before listening to the playlist please just listen to "El testament d'Amèlia" and follow along with the lyrics in real time before reading the blurb, it's such a good experience to let that song hit you as it comes. I won't say more than that but you'll get it when you get it. (Also obligatory listen to Marala they're so good <3)

From the Càntut album, I also quite like the songs "El pomeró" and "El divino vull cantar", and Càntut in general is an incredible resource, it's a database of folk song field recordings from northeastern Catalonia.

Brief pause to scream about the fact that Maria Arnal and Marcel Bagés WERE ON NPR??? AND NO ONE TOLD ME???? Anyways link in the sources section, also they're great and you should listen to their whole discography

As the #1 Roba Estesa stan blog on Tumblr, listen to Roba Estesa. And Ebri Knight. And El Diluvi.

I chose this version of "La presó de Lleida" because I like it but here's a more traditional one sung by Joan Manel Serrat, another Catalan legend. Here's another one in Catalan rumba style with Sílvia Pérez Cruz singing, the sound is a bit wonky but it's also one of my favorites. The Valencian version of this song is called "La presó de Tibi" and El Diluvi have done a very explicitly anti-monarchical rendition of it (the Balearic one is "La presó de Nàpols").

I'm sorry for never putting the Sílvia Pérez Cruz version of "Corrandes d'exili" but if you want it here it is. Also note that the statue of the Virgin in the poem is a reference to the Virgin of Montserrat, it literally all goes back to her shfjkshdf (also apologies for being very bad at Christianity and Catholicism, if I mistranslated things let me know)

HOO BOY SARDANA TIME

Okay so I have a whole essay to deliver on this that I've been holding inside for the past like two months or so, I apologize in advance for my excessive pedantry on the topic.

In Master and Commander, Stephen delivers this speech:

"‘Then I must tell you that on Sunday mornings it is the custom, in that country, for people of all ages and conditions to dance, on coming out of church: so I was dancing with Ramon Mateu i Cadafalch in the square before the cathedral church of Tarragona, where I had gone to hear the Palestrina Missa Brevis. The dance is a particular dance, a round called the sardana.’"

I hate to be a hater but it is very, very unlikely that anyone would have been dancing a sardana as far south as Tarragona in this time period. The sardana as the symbol of equality and brotherhood emerged in the Renaixença and would not yet have been a thing; Stephen could well have heard sardanas in Ullastret, but they would have been a more typical folk dance, and not anything like the way they're described in the book. It's very ironic, then, that they've become THE Catalan music style for Aubreyad readers, but hopefully this playlist can change that a bit :)

(also sorry for being a sardana-hater on main, someone bring me to dance a sardana and maybe I'll feel better)

Songs that didn't make the cut: La cançó del lladre, Rossinyol que vas a França, La balanguera, La gavina - I'm always happy for more recs!

Originally, this list was also going to include songs in Irish; I quickly realized that I was in over my head with that one, but the working list of songs is here (may be subject to changes so save songs elsewhere if you like them!). Also I would add "Fé Bhláth" by Imelda May and Kíla if it was on Spotify but alas it is not; and "Amhrán na Leabhar" which I have not had time to add but was kindly recommended by someone. I'd love it if someone was interested in actually doing a proper playlist for Irish though—it's a gap in my knowledge that I'd love to start filling.

Aaaaaaand that's a wrap. I hope. Final comment to say thank you to everyone who voted in the cover image poll, turns out you all won :) (Pirineus did win and take the cover of the liner notes though)

#my masterpiece is done i have peaked i'm retiring now #jkjk but i've been working on this since like. november #so it is kind of insane that's it's finally done #please notify me of any mistakes or corrections <3 #and hopefully this is enjoyable for you all! #it's a little funky at times but i think it works??? #it's not really a playlist. it's more like one of those weird compilation albums that i definitely didn't consume too many of as a child #did kind of want this to show up in the aubreyad tag but i wanted links more so rip :// anyways here goes nothing #aubreyad #catalan #catalan:general #catalan:music #catalan:reference #catalan:culture #general:music #general:reference #general:culture #there'd better not be any typos or i'm fighting someone

[suddence]

11.28.2023

Hello! Long time no post!

I'm finally giving SUDDENCE a polish pass. I tackled all the typo notes already, and next up will be the deeper stuff: plot, structure, clarity, all that jazz.

The way I went about this (to keep everything organized and easy to access) is I reviewed all the feedback I got and wrote down the ones I agree with on a notepad. Technically there are only seven major notes, but they all require a lot of thinking about how to address them and integrate them into the story. A few of them will also basically require me to read through the entire manuscript again, so I imagine that will take me a while.

SO. The current plan of attack is:

Add all the stuff I need to add.

Reread the entire manuscript with the notes in mind.

Format the book and add the images and export as PDF so it looks like a real book.

Have someone to a final read-through to catch any last minute mistakes. (That someone could be you if you have experience beta-reading and feel that you can give good feedback on clarity and spelling / grammatical mistakes!)

The plan is to have Part 1 of Suddence up on the interwebs in January of 2024, and then update weekly in chunks. But before then, I do want to do some kind of sneak peek, though I'm not really sure what I'll do yet. I'm just!! So excited to share this story ahhhhh

#suddence #writeblr #writing update

[holofoiltowercard]

The Journey of The Tarot Haiku

I: The Magician - Resources

I used a variety of tools and resources in creating the book, so I thought I would share the most important ones.

At one point I purchased Scrivener because I heard good things about it, and initially I was planning to use it to create the book, only to discover that it didn't support the type of layout I wanted to design. I was stubborn, however, and decided to use it anyway because the way you can create folders and pages in it really appealed to the creature in me that wanted to squirrel away the poems like nuts for the winter. I also used it to manually keep track of my progress, and I still love opening it to go through all the folders.

To make sure the syllable count was accurate, I used this Syllable Counter to double check as I was typing down the poems. I tried others, but some of them were inconsistent, and this one was really easy to use!

I used to draw extensively and did digital art, and in the course of looking for software, I purchased Clip Studio Paint, which can be used for digital art as well as designing printable volumes like comics and zines. I was first and foremost going to concentrate on the Tarot cards in my poetry project, but eventually decided to supplement them with more poems explaining the fundamentals of reading and understanding the Tarot, so the next step was to create some digital illustrations to accompany those. I ended up learning about vector art because I wanted to create crisp images that could be resized if needed, and then went on to design the original manuscript using CSP. For the longest time I thought I would be using that for publication, but it did not have a working Table of Contents and I worried that any reformatting might take it apart, so I didn't use the manuscript, just the digital illustrations I made.

The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck is a registered trademark of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., but the illustrations are technically public domain, so you can use them for different projects and products. Because I wanted to feature the cards in my book but I only had access to a Hungarian language version of the deck (and so my scans would have shown Hungarian text), I purchased a set of high quality scans of the original Rider-Waite Tarot from ElementalEmpress on Etsy. I first used these in my project proposal and later in the manuscript.

In some of my posts, you might have noticed a Tower mandala watermark. I commissioned the design from Mixtichin - check out their Square Space or their Ko-fi if you want cool mandala designs! (The holofoil effect was my doing.)

I ultimately decided to self-publish by signing up to Kindle Direct Publishing, and there I downloaded Kindle Create in order to prepare my manuscript for publishing. This was the point where I realized that my original manuscript created in CSP might not survive a reformatting and the non-functional Table of Contents would be irritating, so I fired up Microsoft Word and recreated the entire manuscript from scratch. Thankfully I figured out how to do upside down text in it, which is how the ebook retains the original ergodic layout. I had to convert it to PDF using the built-in conversion function because Kindle Create is very fickle and will not sometimes recognize completely legitimate DOCX files, but that turned out to be for the best because I had an image heavy layout and could thus use the Print Replica option. Kindle Create is kind of vital for KDP projects because it will take care of things like borders, trim, bleed, etc. and when I got the hang of it, submitting the paperback and hardcover became much easier.

Last but not least, I used this website to convert PNG to PDF because KDP asked for the cover to be submitted as a PDF, but whenever I tried to open the PNG and use the convert to PDF option in the menu, it came out the wrong size. Once I converted it using the above linked site, however, the size was perfect and I could proceed with publication!

This is all I could think of for this post - see you next time!

Buy the ebook

Buy the paperback

Buy the hardcover

#tarot #tarot cards #the magician #poetry #haiku #the tarot haiku journey

[fuckitwebhaal]

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Also any advice for someone who's trying to start writing, for themselves primarily but still like. looking at my text and man :/ how do I start getting better? and yea it's a durge fanfic lmao)

“Well… you’re one of Lathander’s soldiers, right? That’s why you were in there. Lord of the Dawn and all. I know! I’ll call you ‘sunshine’. That’s much easier to remember.” Karlach beamed, evidently proud of her work. Bedivere couldn’t help but smile back. “So, sunshine. It’s a bit of a long story and probably one best told over dinner. You’re welcome to come back with us."

Ah! I've never been really asked something like that before, but I'm happy to give you some of my best advice. I'm a little scatterbrained with COVID atm, so if you need any clarification or have follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out.

Writing is a skill that's best honed through practice! And, truly, the best practice is to read. Start by reading authors whose work you admire. Why do you admire them? Is it the way they structure sentences, or tie together the plot, or handle character interactions? Dig into that! How do they do that? Don't just 'read', take notes. I am constantly highlighting and writing in the margins of books I love, especially when I see an excellent use of an author 'showing' and not 'telling' emotion; I struggle with that a lot!

And read and take notes on authors you wouldn't normally pick! Expanding your horizons is the best way to learn new things about yourself and new tools to pack your author's toolkit. I detest sci-fi, personally, but I do try to make an effort to read something in the genre now and then (maybe I'll like it this time! Or, maybe I'll just learn something new about how an author can build worlds)!

In a more technical sense, the best way to strengthen your writing is editing. This website has a lot of useful and practical PDFs explaining how to effectively proofread your work and strengthen your writing. This PDF of writing exercises may seem juvenile, but I refer back to it because it truly is the basics that can set you up for success. In my opinion and experience, proper grammar and sentence structure are the basic building blocks to get your writing to really take off.

"But how do I make it sound eloquent? And pretty? How do I make it sound the way it appears in my mind?" Practice! Your first draft is probably gonna suck. But every draft ever will get better and better! For my fanfics, I usually go through about three or four drafts before I let my beta readers take a look at it. And after they look I draft again! So usually five drafts before anything goes up on Ao3. (For Tumblr, I usually just throw up my second pass after my basic grammar has been fixed).

The more you practice, the more you will find yourself growing into your own voice, and that's something that can't be easily replicated. The way everyone tells a story is unique! And, personally, I would love if you would send me your durge fic once you've posted it! I would even be happy to take a look at it if you'd like some fresh eyes after a few rounds in the drafts--I'm full of free time, with COVID and all.

Send me a 🌹 and i'll post a line from my current wip!

#askbox #fiwb writes #bg3 fic #advice?

[steves-strapcollection]

WIP wordsearch game!

rules: share snippets of your work containing each of the words the previous poster selected for you (optional addition: if you can't find the word in your WIPs, or you simply don't have any WIPs, you can just write a sentence around the word)

tagged by the bestest @scarcrossdlvrs

All of my snippets are gonna be coming from my modern AU stuff which I've shared a lot of already but WHATEVER i typically can't have several projects running at the same time lmao

First

In a bunk bed on a tour bus on the other side of the country, Eddie Munson stared at the phone in his hand with a little smile tugging at his mouth.

It was a short conversation but there was something really nice about having a conversation with someone who treated him like a normal human being. It had been years since Eddie could talk to someone other than his band mates, manager, and uncle without it being either drenched in starstruck hero-worship or stilted professionalism.

At first, that had been exciting. They finally made it. After all of their hard work and grinding and sleepless, penniless weeks of driving themselves to gigs, they did it. Eddie wasn’t the local drug dealing deadbeat loser every high school teacher believed he would be forever. He was somebody, and people either worshiped him or at least respected him.

He just never expected stardom to become so lonely.

Blank

Sitting back down at his desk, Steve pulled up the details for the block and opened the rooming list the tour manager sent.

He was startled, but appreciative of the fact that the riders were included in the same document, even if that meant that the rooming list was given to him in the worst possible format. A goddamn PDF.

Grumbling to himself, Steve did what he did best; tucked himself in to read the contract from top to bottom, then back again, then did the same with the riders. Then came all the technical stuff of building the room block, then struggling through getting the names off the PDF and into a spreadsheet to book the rooms.

“They could’ve sent this when it was still a Word document but no,” Steve grumbled bitchily, shoving his glasses back up his nose. “They had to be all fancy and important and send it as a fucking PDF.”

Finally, when that was all done and the rooms were confirmed, Steve pulled up a blank email and the tour manager’s contact details in their system.

The manager’s name was Chris Cunningham, according to the information the above-property sales manager input, and something about that name did sound familiar. Steve couldn’t place it right away, so he gave up trying and went back to starting his email.

Under

Steve sat at his desk typing up an email to one of the event managers’ clients, quietly grumbling to himself about why he had to email them without any real heat. The managers were busy, and sometimes it just made more sense for Steve to email them outright. He would do it, he would just bitch about it while he did it.

“Steve.”

Looking up, he met Joyce’s eyes and cringed under her stern face.

“Yes, Joyce?” he asked, but he already knew what this was about.

“I was looking through the turnovers. Did Nancy give you a group the other day?” she asked and Steve looked at his computer.

“It’s just a band and film crew. I’ve already made contact with the client,” Steve said, his ears heating up when Joyce sighed.

“I’d like to speak to you in my office, please,” she said and walked away.

Sighing heavily, Steve finished the email he was working on, sent it, and locked his computer. When he got up and turned, Nancy was hovering at her cubicle and chewing her lip.

“Sorry,” she mouthed and Steve just rolled his eyes and trudged across the room to Joyce’s office and shut the door.

Lips

“Nancy seems to think that if she turned it over properly and asked for you to assign it to me, you would assign it to one of the other managers,” Steve said with a knowing raise of his eyebrows when Joyce looked away and cleared her throat. “C’mon, she has a point, Joyce.”

“That’s because if I agreed to assign every group she wants given to you, you would be back in the same mess as you were last summer,” Joyce said a bit defensively. “Tell me about the group, and I’ll decide if you can keep it.”

“I already made contact with the client!” Steve said.

“And you were not actually assigned this group properly. If I decide I want to take the group from you and reassign it, that is my decision to make as Director of Events,” Joyce said, standing her ground.

Steve sat up straighter and narrowed his eyes. “You would undermine your team like that in the eyes of the client?” he asked and Joyce pursed her lips.

“And Nancy didn’t undermine me by going over me to assign you a group?” she challenged and Steve sighed heavily.

Deep

“Whatever, the point is Chrissy knows I always have her phone when she can’t find it. Her freaking out is just silly,” Eddie said with a sniff, glaring down at the Sudoku puzzle he was making zero progress with.

“Edward Munson!”

Jeff peered over the edge of his bunk to smirk at Eddie’s wide-eyed stare. “Uh oh,” he teased as Chrissy stormed into the room.

“You!” she practically shrieked, pointing at him as he shoved the phone between his body and the mattress as if she hadn’t already seen it in his hands.

“What?” he asked innocently, and he screamed as she dove into his bunk to wrestle the phone out from under him.

They tussled for a while, Chrissy yelling all sorts of expletives at him that were honestly still a shock coming from her sweet face. She was also a dirty fighter.

“Ow, shit! Did you just bite me?” Eddie hissed, grabbing Chrissy’s whole face and pushing her away as he looked at the distinctly teeth-shaped indents on his arm. They were deep, just barely not breaking skin and would definitely bruise.

Then Chrissy licked his palm like an animal, and he recoiled enough that he rolled off of her phone.

Okay! Now my no pressure tags: @pizzaqueen, @patchworkgargoyle, @scoops-stevie, @steddieas-shegoes, @afewproblems

And your words are: wish, falter, teeth, little, breath

#gerry writes #tag game #wip tag game #i love these so much i wrote 1400 words tonight just to have new stuff for 'first' and 'deep' #platonic hellcheer

[psylunari]

Comments: thoughts, types, how-tos, and etiquette (part 4 of 4)

This is better read sequentially, but you can skip to any section. They are as numbered:

1) The basics

2) Thoughts on comment culture

3) Types of comments

4) Writing cohesive and coherent comments

5) Etiquette

6) Technical questions

7) Short-answer questions

8) Long-answer questions

Part 1: Sections 1 and 2.

Part 2: Sections 3 and 4.

Part 3: Sections 5 and 6.

Part 4: Sections 7 and 8 (you are here).

PDF version here, containing the whole thing. It has a table of contents and cute formatting.

♥ 7: Short-answer questions ♥

Shorter, straight-to-the-point answers that don’t delve into serious issues. If you look for in-depth discussions on “the ethics” of commenting, you’ll likely find them in Section 8.

7.1 This fic is old and/or completed. Should I comment/reply to a comment I got?

Fanfiction has no time limit to be appreciated, just like books. If you’re worried only about the fic being “old” or old, just comment, and you’ll most likely be well-received.

Some might reply, “my writing has evolved a lot” or “I’m embarrassed about this work”. There’s no need to apologize, you couldn’t know. The work was still there for consumption.

As for completion, some fics only get traffic after they’re finished. Getting comments after completion might be expected, so, no worries. That said, don’t skip commenting just because it’s a WIP. Some authors appreciate regular comments to keep the ball rolling.

7.2 I found an obvious typo in this fic, a chapter out of order, or posted twice. Should I warn the author about it?

From my experience, authors appreciate and thank you if you warn them about typos and repeated/misplaced chapters. However, if you’re not a regular and don’t have anything else to say other than “chapter 5 was posted twice”, they might be upset. After all, you took the time to comment and said nothing about the fic.

Try to come up with positive impressions, too, if you’ll leave this type of comment.

7.3 There’s a cool discussion in someone else’s comment thread. Should I join?

Comments are open to the public. Everyone can see them, so it isn’t horribly impolite if you chime in on someone else’s discussion. Be civil, add to the conversation, don’t nitpick, don’t correct people who aren’t your friends, and you’ll be fine.

7.4 I’d like to guess what happens in the fic. Should I comment it?

Your mileage may vary. Some authors like it, and some don’t. I myself love it when readers are invested enough to do so. Try to read other comments, even from other fics by the same author, to see how they reacted to people doing it before.

When in doubt, just don’t, and wait to see what happens in the plot.

7.5 I’m friends with the author and have early access to the fic, or I proofread/beta read the fic. Should I comment when it’s posted?

Not mandatory. You can if you want to. Just don’t spoil the fic for other readers.

7.6 I’m reading a longfic. Do I comment on all chapters, or just the last one available?

Whatever works best for you. None are considered rude per se.

7.7 I commented on this fic a while ago, and I’m rereading it. Should I comment again?

Yes, if you feel like it. Even mentioning a rereading will make some authors happy.

7.8 This fic was orphaned/posted anonymously. Should I comment?

Yes, if you want to. Just don’t doxx the author. It’s orphaned/anonymous for a reason.

7.9 I don’t have an account. Should I still comment?

Yes! Authors don’t mind it much. If they do, they lock guest comments. Comments from registered accounts feel more personal, though. I can check what they read and such.

If you don’t have an account, it’s easy to create one, and free on all Big Three™ fic sites. Yes, even if you don’t plan on posting fics ever. Go wild with bookmarking!

7.10 What’s the etiquette for comments in bookmark notes?

Your mileage may vary. Some argue it’s a reader’s space, and authors shouldn’t butt in if they’re not ready to read honest opinions. Some argue you shouldn’t be harsh on public bookmarks, because authors can see them.

Whatever you think about it, if a bookmark is public, the author can see what you write there. My advice? Be mindful and don’t post hate.

7.11 I want to ask something. Should I comment the question?

It depends. The golden rules, in this case, are “don’t doxx the author” and “don’t ask anything private”. Some people keep fandom and personal life apart, you should respect that.

If it’s related to that fic, it’s probably fine. If it’s related to another fic they write, it’s better to ask on that other fic.

7.12 I’m unsure if the author fills prompts. How to find out?

Check their profile and social media. It’s likely stated there. If unsure, contact them outside their comment sections, like in PMs or ask boxes. If those are unavailable, you can write your question together with some comment you would send anyway.

Comments with just “do you take requests?” and nothing else are usually rude.

7.13 An author I read didn’t reply to one of my comments. How should I go about this?

Don’t stress too much about it. Some authors are super private about interacting in fandom. Others are just busy and take a while to reply. Others get too many comments. Others don’t know what to say, or how to respond to positive reinforcement. Give them the benefit of the doubt and leave it at that. Most aren’t ignoring you.

7.14 I can read this fic, but can’t speak the author’s language well. Should I comment?

Yes! You can try to machine translate into their language, but you might end up with mistranslations, and those aren’t always funny. Comment in a language you speak well.

7.15 I got a comment in a language I don’t speak. What do I do?

Try to machine translate it. DeepL Translator is good nowadays. If you get nothing, post it on a writers’ group or Discord server for help. After you can read it, you can reply to it in the same language you write the fic. The reader can likely read it fine, just can’t write in it.

7.16 This fic was discontinued/is on hiatus. Should I comment?

Unless the author has stated they don’t want any more comments, you’re free to do it. Even more, if they mentioned the abandonment/hiatus being due to low engagement. If they said nothing about it, or the hiatus was prompted by external reasons, it’s probably fine.

7.17 The author left all fandoms/this fandom. Should I comment?

Unless the author has stated they don’t want any more comments, you’re free to do it. If they don’t like engagement on old works, they can moderate/turn off comments, turn off email notifications, or simply delete the fic/account. It’s their job to deal with it, not yours.

♥ 8: Long-answer questions ♥

This section covers trickier situations than Section 7 does. Here, you’ll find personal takes and an invitation to critical thinking. TL;DR of Section 8 is: you can say most things if you are respectful enough, but we know it’s more complicated than that.

I’m just human. Whether you agree or disagree with me, remain civil.

8.1 There’s misinformation in this fic on a topic I know well. Should I tell the author?

Let’s suppose you’re a History major. The fic you’re reading has technology during times and in places it didn’t exist. Or you’re in the medical field, and the author got something very wrong about bullet wounds. Or you work in a daycare, and one-year-old children in the fic are speaking full sentences. You get the idea.

Fanfiction might contain misinformation for a variety of reasons. Consider:

Is it a stereotype or common misconception usually present in media, being reinforced? Or did even the canon content get it wrong? The author might have reproduced it without giving it too much thought, or is trying to stay close to the source material.

Is it a case of poor research? Is that information easily accessible? Is it behind a paywall? Is it an obscure fact they’d only know if they were a scholar?

Is the author ignorant? Is it possible they just didn’t research, or don’t know better?

Does the author even care about getting it right? Or are they writing whatever comes to mind just for fun/writing practice/letting it out of their system?

Is it an AU or a fictional world? It could be different from actual Earth at that.

If you don’t know the author, and you can’t infer anything from the author’s notes/social media/comment replies either, I suggest that you don’t go assuming they’re evil. Sometimes, fanfiction is written by very young people who don’t know better, or just adults trying to relax without extra stress about, say, historical accuracy. That’s not to forbid you from talking to them about it. You just have to ask yourself a few things:

First, how big is the mistake? Is it easy to fix?

Is it potentially harmful misinformation? Could someone get hurt because of it?

Could you be wrong? Is it different somewhere else, for example?

To which extent are you willing to help them?

Reflect upon the above. If you’re in doubt about your perception being correct, do a little research yourself. In the end, if you’re set on contacting them, I have a few suggestions. Before anything else, if you don’t want to just leave the fic be, here’s my advice: if you’re willing to point out the mistake, you should be willing to help.

For easy fixes, like wrong dates/names of places, things that the author can solve in fifteen minutes or less, comment what you’d comment anyway, and add something like:

“By the way, would you be up for a small fact check? I’m a [insert your field of expertise], and I noticed a thing in the chapter. It’s okay if you don’t want it, though.”

If they reply positively, then, tell them what it is.

If it’s harder to fix, comment what you’d comment anyway, and add something like:

“I’m not sure if you’ll accept it or not, but I’m a [insert your field of expertise], and I could help you find good research material about it, or even answer your questions based on my experience. Let me know if you’re interested!”

Then, if they end up talking to you about it, follow through with your part.

8.2 There’s bad representation of ethnic groups, LGBTQ+, disabled, neurodivergent, etc. people in this fic. Should I call the author out?

If you’re not, let’s suppose you’re part of a marginalized group. Or you have a close friend or family member who is. The fic you’re reading has a stereotype or misconception you don’t like. It might be wildly incorrect, biased, offensive, outdated, or even harmful. 

Fanfiction might contain misinformation for a variety of reasons. Consider:

Is it a bad stereotype, usually present in media, being reinforced? Or did even the canon content get it wrong? The author might have reproduced it without giving it too much thought, or is trying to stay close to the source material.

Is it a case of poor research? Is that information easily accessible? Is it behind a paywall? Is it an obscure fact they’d only know if they belonged to that group?

Is the character’s experience just different from what you know? Can you actually call it “bad representation”? I am Brazilian. While there are shared experiences, it’s not the same everywhere. I don’t speak for the whole country, or expect everyone to have the same background and mindset. A Rio native isn’t the same as a São Paulo native. They’re both Brazilian. One isn’t “more Brazilian” or “better representation”. There is no “right way” to be Brazilian, as there isn’t one valid experience of being an ethnicity, nationality, identity, etc.

Is it just content you don’t like reading? For example, some trans people love transition by magic in fantasy stories. Some hate it. Everyone has their reasons, and they’re all valid. Transition by magic isn’t bad by itself, it’s a matter of taste. Don't Like, Don't Read.

Is the author bigoted? Do they, for example, use a character as a spokesperson for their beliefs? Do they try to moralize through ficwriting? Is there frequent soapboxing in the fic? Do they have a repeated offense history?

Is the author ignorant? Is it possible they just didn’t research, or don’t know better?

Are they a troll? In that case, why would you feed it?

How can you actually tell, 100% for sure, they’re ill-intentioned? Do you know the author? Are you friends with them? Are they active on social media? Do they leave author’s notes? Have they ever stated why they wrote what they wrote?

The possibilities are endless, but one thing is certain: a callout, especially a public one, is not the best way to deal with those. You might start drama. The BAD kind of fandom drama that makes people leave fandom forever and might have real-life consequences. It might affect people not initially involved, totally innocent, and/or unaware of what’s going on.

Unless the author is admitting to a crime, committing one with what they wrote, or planning to commit one, internet exposés are not the way to go. Or not even then: reporting to the police instead of creating online clout is way more effective, and way less panic-inducing. Plus, even if the author is ill-intentioned, and you’d be doing a favor to the fandom by exposing them as a bad person, give it a few months and no one will remember a thing. See: politicians everywhere on the face of the Earth.

If you don’t want to just leave the fic be, here’s my advice: if you’re willing to point out the mistake, you should be willing to help. Offer them a sensitivity reading opportunity, in case the representation is about your group specifically. Introduce them to someone who can do the sensitivity reading, in case it’s not about you. You can also comment what you would comment anyway and add the following:

“I’m not sure if you’ll accept it or not, but I’m [insert the identity or condition], and I could help you find good research material about it, or even answer your questions based on my experience. [In case you’re referring them to someone else, explain who the person is.] Let me know if you’re interested!”

If the author really doesn’t know much about the topic and is wondering if they made a mistake, it’ll show in their reply. If they are bigoted, trolling, or ill-intentioned, same, and you can quit the fic for good with a clear conscience.

8.3 I think this fic could be more appropriately tagged. Should I let the author know?

This issue is more prevalent on AO3, but might still be an interesting read for users of other sites. “Appropriately tagged” depends on a lot of things. Namely:

Freeform tags: check if you missed something that’s already covered;

Archive Warnings: “Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” counts as a warning;

Content itself: does it appear enough to need a tag, or is it too brief of a mention?;

If the mention is too brief: could it be solved with a simple author’s note?;

Rating: “Not Rated” is treated as “could be any rating, proceed with caution”;

Tagging style: Some are thorough taggers, others aren’t. Overtagging is debatable.

These things are open to interpretation more often than not. Even if, yes, the fic could use better tagging, it’s useless and rude to boss the author around. In the end, you have no say in it. On the flip side, some people have a hard time tagging, and they’ll appreciate help.

If you decide to suggest it, I advise that you do it politely and with a question. Comment whatever you were going to comment anyway, and add something like:

“By the way, what would you think of tagging/not tagging as [whatever tag]? I’ve read it, and it looks like [whatever tag] to me. If this isn’t your interpretation, I apologize. You’re free to disregard this question. I just mean for you to reach the widest audience possible.”

More or less the same would go for suggestions on author’s notes, and you’ll be fine.

8.4 The content in this fic isn’t a common trigger or Archive Warning, but it upsets me personally. Should I talk about it?

Before we begin, let me clarify a few things.

First: while some works in the media do warn about possibly controversial, upsetting, uncomfortable, etc. content, that practice wasn’t too common twenty or so years ago. Yes, even things that AO3 deems “common enough of a trigger” to be Archive Warnings. When you went to the movies spoiler-free, you didn’t have much of an idea what you were getting into.

Second: oftentimes, all you had was a rating like PG-13 or R, and ratings aren’t the same for every country. What you can show to children and teens, and what can/cannot be on mainstream media, varies from culture to culture. A one-size-fits-all rating isn’t possible.

Third: if warnings weren’t ordinary in mainstream media, they weren’t the norm in fanworks either. The main site for years was FFN. The summary length is short. It allows you to tag two genres and four characters. The author has to add anything else in the chapter document. There isn’t an “author’s notes” section. Even the site format isn’t warning-friendly

Fourth: tagging culture in fanfiction rose to prominence with AO3’s extensive filtering options and was made possible by a team of tag wranglers. It doesn’t have many precedents.

Fifth: “Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” is a warning. It shouldn’t be ignored.

Sixth: current fandom culture favors conflict-free, fluffy stories more than in the past. The odds of finding dark content 15–20 years ago were higher. People were desensitized. 

With all that cleared up, let’s continue.

Even if it’s strongly advisable to tag certain contents, tags are still a courtesy. They are not mandatory, and certainly, not something you can use to justify yelling at someone for not pandering to you. If the author isn’t a friend, they don’t know you, and don’t have to take care of you, a stranger on the internet, let alone curate your experience for you.

If you feel compelled to ask about contents being untagged, or even asking them to tag it for the potential discomfort, do it politely. Give the author the benefit of the doubt. Wait for their reply and see how they react to a polite request.

An example of a polite request would be to include the following in your comment:

“That part where you mentioned [the upsetting thing to you], in my opinion, could use a tag if you think a tag is justified. You can’t possibly know everyone’s trauma and story, but it’s uncomfortable for some people, including me. Thanks for the attention!”

It’ll more likely turn out fine, everyone gets what they want in the end. If you start rude and demanding, expect nothing less than a rude and defensive rebuttal.

There are eight billion people on Earth. If every person had one trigger (not common ones, but things from their lives), there’d be eight billion triggers. Don’t assume there was an ill intention of shocking/hurting you. They don’t even know you. It might’ve been, and probably was, something else. The world doesn’t revolve around anyone, not even you.

Everyone has seen things online they weren’t meant to see or didn’t want to see. Sadly, it’s part of the experience. Yes, you are/were a victim of it. So are all of us. Be on guard.

8.5 This fic would be neat, save for a few tropes/tags I dislike. Do I comment about it?

I won’t get into the debacle of “is it morally acceptable to write about [theme]” or “do the themes you read/write mean something about you as a person”. It’s not the point and doesn’t add to the topic. If you are hung up on that, do your research (especially on fannish history), reflect upon it, and listen to different opinions. Just don’t join bandwagons. Remember, the world isn’t black and white, good or bad. Think for yourself. Let’s move on.

Honestly? You’ll play it safer if you skip the fic altogether. Not engaging with content you don’t like is healthier, both short and long-term. It’s ancient, but Don’t Like, Don’t Read is still (or should be) a thing. If the content actually upsets or triggers you, instead of being just a preference, then I strongly advise that you skip it.

If it isn’t your cup of tea and that’s all, no triggers involved, you could read it, but not mention your dislike of the trope/tag. Just comment on the aspects you like. Maybe your opinion on the theme will change along the way, who knows? If you want to talk about it, there are polite ways to approach this.

Fanfiction is a hobby. It’s free to read, and unpaid work people do when they want and can. Even if authors post for validation, they love what they do. Very few people write fic for attention. It can be a thankless activity; hours of work for low or no engagement. If attention was all they wanted, it’d be easier to be a vocal fandom troll or become a meme.

Put yourself in the author’s shoes. If you created something in your free time and posted it, would you like to get a comment that goes like this?

“Aw, it would be perfect if not for things you put here because you love them! Too bad.”

Best-case scenario, the author replies “that’s like, your preference, I hope you enjoyed it anyway”. Changing a fic because of readers’ preferences is highly unlikely. Worst-case scenario? They’ll reply angrily, delete your comment, and block you.

That easily translates to “I don’t care what you like to write, only what I like to read”. You’ve gone out of your way to say they’re gross/have bad taste/are unable to please you. It’s demanding, rude, and not what authors want in their inbox when trying to have a good time.

If you don’t like a fic for its tropes and themes, you’re probably not the target audience. Just say to yourself, “it’s not about me” and go on with your life.

You can write a comment like this without giving away your dislike of the theme:

“This fic is not my usual choice, but I really like your take on [trope/tag].” “I’ve never read a [trope/tag] as great as yours.”

You can elaborate with the rest of your opinion, but try to keep the tone of “not my first choice, but I love it” or “your fic is special to me”.

8.6 I usually don’t like the pairing in this fic, but I like how the author wrote it. Should I mention it in my comment?

I won’t get into the “should people be allowed to ship what they want” debacle, nor the “does your taste in ships mean something about you as a person” one. It’s not my point and doesn’t add to the topic. The same advice for subsection 8.5 works here. Let’s move on.

The fic you’re reading includes a ship you don’t like. You might even hate the ship. Or you don’t typically read it. Or you don’t care about it. Or you like it in canon, not the fanon though. Or it isn’t canon, and you’d like it in fandom if you agreed with the fandom’s take on it. Whatever the situation is, it isn’t your cup of tea.

However, this author does it right. It’s good; great, even. You want to praise them. They deserve praise. Should you tell them something like “I don’t like X/Y, but I like YOUR X/Y”? In my experience, it’s a double-edged sword.

Some love it, feeling special for appealing to readers who don’t like the pairing, and even making them change their minds. I’ve raised awareness for a rarepair in one of my fandoms. It’s not a hated ship, it leans more on the unknown kind. People who weren’t averse to it saw the chemistry and reasoning behind it, and we are now a rarepair fan club of, like, five members. Do I feel important? Yeah, a bit.

Some hate it; why rain on their parade? They love the ship enough to write about it (for free in their spare time, nonetheless). That compliment might sound passive-aggressive, as in “your taste is trash, you’re shipping trash, but I’ll take your writing”. Remember, fanfiction is, by nature, self-indulgent. It’s for fun, and people being kinda mean in their inbox isn’t fun.

Some don’t think strongly about it. They’ll just thank you for the comment and go on with their day with extra serotonin.

I advise you to read the author’s replies. If they’ve reacted okay to similar comments, go ahead. However, err on the side of caution, especially if the ship has a dedicated haterbase or is considered “controversial” for whatever reason. There are safer things to praise.

You can write a comment like this without giving away your dislike of the ship:

“This fic is not my usual choice, but I really like your portrayal of [said ship]” “I’ve never read a [said ship] as great as yours”.

You can elaborate with the rest of your opinion, but try to keep the tone of “not my first choice, but I love it” or “your fic is special to me”. It’s similar to Don’t Like, Don’t Read, but it’s called Ship And Let Ship. Check The Three Laws of Fandom for more.

8.7 I love the idea for this fic, but the writing isn’t great/the spelling, punctuation, and/or grammar need work/it has bad formatting. How can I approach the author about it?

I made lots of friends back in the day by commenting on stories, offering to beta read, and helping brainstorm. Some are still my friends a decade later. I don’t talk to most anymore, but those were smart, skilled people I had the privilege of calling friends for a while.

The culture regarding beta reading offers and concrit has shifted, though. That’s not to say it’s impossible these days. There are many theories on why that is, and I have covered some in this post. Let’s just say it’s harder to do it now and get happy replies.

Here are some ways to deal with those situations.

Note: the tips apply if you’re willing to help them or introduce them to someone who will. Don’t demand quality from someone you don’t know and don’t want to help. They write it for themselves, for free, in their spare time. Don’t act entitled.

Don’t drop a beta reading offer without a regular comment. It’s rude;

If you are new to the author’s work, read some of it first and comment on it. That’ll also help you understand their strengths and weaknesses. Become a regular in their comment section. When you’re a familiar face, politely offer help;

If you’re already a regular, drop the request together with your next comment, leave an identifiable question on their social media, PM them, or something like that;

Don’t take it personally if they decline. Sometimes, they don’t have the time, or writing is their way to unwind, and they don’t want any editing stress associated with it. Beta reading takes time and requires human interaction. It’s not for everyone and every fic;

They would accept a beta reading offer from a friend they trust, rather than a reader they don’t know too well. Try befriending them if they are open to it. If they decline the beta offer, at least, you have a new friend! Maybe they’ll open up to betaing in the future?;

If it’s just a formatting issue like that AO3 bug (adding spaces where they shouldn’t be) or wonky paragraphs, tell them in a comment you were already going to send;

If there’s nothing you can do about it, but the idea is too incredible, try writing it yourself. I don’t mean “plagiarize their fic”, just use a similar premise. For the love of all that’s holy, do not bash their fic in your fic. Don’t even mention their fic. Just write yours.

8.8 An author replied rudely/deleted my comment/blocked me from commenting. How should I go about this?

The first thing I have to say about this is: blocking, deleting, unfollowing, muting, etc. are tools. It’s not always personal, or because you were in the wrong. It’s a way to curate our online experience, take responsibility, and avoid seeing upsetting content or people. Sometimes, it’s conflict-free self-preservation.

People online are mostly strangers. Maybe they won’t even tell you if they’re blocking you (deleting, unfollowing, etc.), let alone why. They just do. And so can you. If people blocked more instead of engaging with what they dislike, the internet would be a better place.

On a side note, DNI (Do Not Interact) signs/lists don’t do much to avoid fights or protect you online. If anything, they disclose weaknesses to people who could use them against you. What you want to do is blocking and muting, but I digress.

Second, if you were blocked, deleted, unfollowed, etc. by an author who isn’t your friend, I strongly advise that you don’t try to ask why. Do not PM them about it. Do not send anonymous asks. They had their reasons, even if unhinged, unfair, unjustified, or random. Leave them be. Move on. Perhaps it’d be worse if you found out the reason.

Third, if you and the author have just disagreed, and they ended up being rude, or they were rude out of the blue, there are many ways to approach the situation. Consider:

Can you still comment as a means of talking, or are you blocked?

Did you say anything that could be misinterpreted as rude? Should you clarify it?

If you were rude, accidentally or not, should you apologize? Could you solve the issue just by owning up to your mistake and not making it again?

If you were indeed rude, did it come from ignorance? Could you educate yourself?

If the author was rude first, unjustifiably so, does it taint your image of them? Should you keep reading their works, or following them online? Should you become a silent reader?

Is it worth wasting time and energy on this? Should you just block/mute the author?

Hope you’ve learned something new! Feel free to share this (for free, please).

If you missed the previous parts: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3

#archive of our own #ao3 #fanfiction.net #ffn #wattpad #fanfiction #fanfiction tips #fandom etiquette #feedback #comments #comment culture #psyluna.txt

[schizosupport]

Hey there! So I am super duper interested in psychology and want to get my Bachelor's and eventually go to grad school for it - do you have any tips on doing grad school as someone who deals with a chronic psychotic disorder? I'm mostly asymptomatic these days in terms of positive symptoms, but negatives still kick my ass here and there and ofc there's symptom flareups and such. How do you manage the workload of grad school, especially when the going gets tough? Thanks so much, I love your blog!

Hihi!! Oh, how exciting! There's a severe lack of crazy psychologists out there, and I'm always happy to see potential new members to the gang.

Ok so.. hmm, in my personal experience the different "stages" of my university education weren't all that different in terms of workload. I'm actually going to talk about the bachelor I think, because to me the difficult hurdle was more in going from a high school climate of more guided learning/teaching, to a university setting of loosely guided study.

Further, at least for me, I find it more helpful to think of things one day at a time kinda. As in.. when you get to grad school you will deal with it then, it's in at least three years, and much will change in that time, so initially you should focus on the step ahead of you.

I also don't believe in useless knowledge, so any amount of study is always useful in some way, no matter where it ends up.

Personally I struggled at the beginning of the bachelor because at my university, psychology is heavily based on self study.

So we might only have 5 hours of lectures a week, but I would have to study/read a lot of heavy articles, books etc, on my own. Like it was a full time study on paper, and what this meant varied from person to person, some needed at least 60h a week to read and understand, I needed less, but it was still a lot for me.

The biggest difficulty for me was that this meant I had to coordinate my own time, I answered to no one, and everything was my own responsibility. If I didn't manage and failed an exam, no one was going to care, if i dropped out I would be one of many.

Time management was a great difficulty for me. All the things that were not technically the study itself were killing me. Like even just.. let's say the professor says we should read these five articles for this or that. Then I would have to go to online databases, and find the articles through the search engine, figure out where i have a login to get the full pdf, download them into the right folders etc, before I could even sit down to read them.

I'm not gonna lie... I was mentally deteriorating under the pressure, to the point where it led to my first psychosis related contact with the psychiatric system around 2015. (Not my first psychosis, but the first time a doctor got involved)

Now.. I don't think psychology is necessarily universally taught in this manner. My education was very much a research oriented education, and more like a facilitation/guidance of self-study and research in many aspects. It worked for me on the level that I couldn't have shown up to uni consistently every day, and this way I could have bad periods, and still have a chance to catch up on the reading later, and so on.

Still, at around my 4th (3rd?) semester of the bachelor, my house of cards was falling and it was falling fast. I was way in over my head, I was unwell, and chronically underperforming.

This was the point I applied for accommodations. Accommodations differ from uni to uni, country to country. But the most helpful thing I got offered was a mentor.

This was a student who was ahead in the education, someone with a knack for organization and cheerleading. My mentor was instrumental to getting me through my bachelor, by removing and automating as much of the "surrounding bullshit" as humanly possible, helping me make realistic plans and follow through, etc.

Despite us never discussing anything related to the field itself, the addition of a mentor took me from a mediocre hit n miss at best student, to someone who consistently came out on top, even with my mental health still being pretty much in the gutter at that time.

So while I don't know what your uni of choice offers in terms of accommodations, I definitely recommend you look into it. And if you haven't decided on a university yet, doing some research into their style of teaching, and thinking of what might fit you, is also a good idea.

As for the masters.... I mean, it was meant to take me 2 years and I used more like 4, 5 if you count the year long break I took.... That wasn't the plan, it's not an ideal scenario, I don't think if someone would have told me it would be so psychologically hard before I started, that I would have even begun. But it's also so individual. And also so random. Covid had a very real and detrimental impact to my thesis writing, but I also didn't want to finish, and I was unwell, and much more.

Even right before the finish line I was close to dropping out several times.

Was it all worth it?

I don't know yet. I'm still unwell. I don't have a job, though I am in the process of having to try an internship type thing soon. I desperately want to do a phd, but given my recent education history I can't justify applying.

On the other hand. It did expand my mind in specific ways, and I wouldn't want to be without it. Not in a way where I'm better than others in any way that matters, but being forced to read so much research critically, and to be introduced to so many aspects of a field, and to the methods associated and such, has expanded my universe and my way of interacting with information, 'fact', knowledge, myth and man.

I think plenty of my colleagues didn't turn out all that much wiser for it, but I think if you come at it with a genuine curiosity and humbleness, you will enjoy yourself and what the study adds to your life.

Anyone who comes at psychology looking for a library of definitively proven facts and simple statements that are always true, will not only have a shit time of it during the education, they will not make very good psychologists or scientists for that matter.

But if you are attracted to the thought of taking a swim in the infinitely complex soup of nebulous and illdefined facts and their relations and contradictions, then by all means. Have a swim with me. The water is deep, and you'll never reach the bottom, but that doesn't mean you won't learn something about the lake.

[myraelvira]

Myra Elvira’s Terms of Usage

Myra Elvira’s Terms of Usage

[March 10th, 2023]

I didn’t think that I would have to do this, but after some strange encounters, I believe creating this is necessary. My YouTube channel, blog posts, and other branches thereof, are for informational and educational purposes; entertainment not necessary. My projects, which can be blog posts, videos, or any other medium are my own creations, that I’ve created on my own. Whether I am reading literature, talking about history, true crime, or whatever else, each of the projects consists of my own person, most commonly represented through my voice. Blog posts, PDFs, and other writings are researched by me, Myra Elvira, and written by no-one else. These works are my own, I do not take anyone’s works and claim them as such, and neither should you.

Under the common “Fair Use” policy, which can be read on google, the use of copyright protected material under certain circumstances is allowed, without the permission of a copyright holder. Common examples of this are “react” videos, youtube poops, and clips from other videos or movies, used as a source in the main video. With reading books, this is a bit of a grey area, as I can read a book on my channel, and because I am using my own voice, it can be seen as a transformative work. Some of you may feel this way, as I have seen many comments about how the way I read, can bring stories to life (which I really appreciate). That said, if I’ve read a copyrighted work, technically, a holder could potentially still have it taken down. I have no problem with this, though the grey area of this issue is complex, and perplexing.

As for myself, and my own content, which is written by myself; or the literature readings that are considered public domain, I don’t condone any uploads online, youtube or otherwise, that do not credit what I’ve done. I just want to be credited for what I do, and it’s very annoying not to see that in the other channels that have blatantly downloaded my content at times, and uploaded them on other places. Just credit me. That’s all I ask. Place it in the description box, a pinned comment, or what have you. I just want to be credited. Many people still don’t seem to realize that it is me reading the content on my youtube channel, mainly the books. That voice you hear in every Myra Elvira video is mine. Myra Elvira’s.

I don’t think that many people understand the work it takes to read, or edit the videos I do. I’m not asking for pity or sympathy, just understanding and compassion. I am a one man team. I’m the social media manager, the voice over, the writer, video editor, and researcher. All of this is done by me. Always has, and at this point, I think it always will. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to the writings, and really can’t trust anyone to find all of the information I do. The only way I can hope to explain the length of time it takes to create everything I do, is to take every video, especially the book readings, and multiply it by two. Those 1 hour videos can take 2 hours to edit and process. The 10 hour ones, absolutely take 20. I just want to illustrate the point, that it takes a lot of my time to do what I do. So if someone doesn’t want to credit me, and re-uploads my content, everything I do is just a faceless video, misleading others who don’t know better.

I am, on the other hand, okay with archival purposes. A lot of what I do is focused on archiving, especially the books I have read which are public domain, no longer in print, at risk of being lost to history, and/or in copyright limbo due to things like an author’s death, and no sign of a current owner (See: Paul Watkins’ book). Once again, I just ask that you ask me to re-upload my content, if you decide to do so. I do not give permission to make money off my content, even if I allow for it to be re-uploaded elsewhere. I understand that you might want to have a database for such content, as some subjects I've gone over are very popular.

If you wish to archive my videos, or simply just want the files for your own, feel free to contact me by email. I am open to responding to any emails from anybody, even if it’s just a simple hello.

[ [email protected] ]

I allow my videos to be downloaded for the sake of personal use. If you wish to have the content on your computer, or whatever else, go wild. Videos are allowed to be downloaded, and used as sources for educational usage. I have gotten comments that some of my material has helped others in their classes, even being used for their essays and such. That is great! I am fully okay with this, and had actually hoped that one day, it would be how some people used it!

Educators, students (college or otherwise), are fully okay to download, edit, react, source, cite, and anything else of the like, my content. All PDFs, blog posts, and various other writings are also allowed to be used, for personal and educational purposes. Writings are of course okay to be cited in essays, books, blog posts, and the like. I write everything in an informal version of the Chicago format essay. I try to provide the PDF in links to blogs, and on my patreon, which is free. You can cite the blog posts or patreon posts, which is perfectly fine.

Of course, there are multiple ways to cite the works of somebody, like MLA, APA, and Chicago. According to citationmachine.net, the ways to cite a PDF in MLA would be:

-Change the medium description to “PDF download”. To cite a PDF available to view online, change the location description to the URL leading to the PDF.

[MLA]

For example: Hardin, Myra Elvira. The Tale of Acid Bath, 2022. Internet Archive, archive.org/details/acid-bath-band. PDF Download

MLA is strange, and I don’t really like it, but that’s about as accurate as it seems to be. The format is based off of a chegg video posted on 10/22/22.

[APA]

I’m going with a guide from centralpenn.edu as the reference ofr this. According to the, pdf’s would be cited like this:

Surname, Initials. (Date of Publication). Title of Document. Site name (if different from author). Url the pdf came from

Example: Hardin, M. (2022). The Tale of Acid Bath. Internet Archive. Archive.org/details/acid-bath-band

If possible, use the url that takes the reader to the pdf directly, otherwise, use the url of the site/post that it came from. The sites I use are typically patreon, tumblr, and archive.org. Tumblr doesn’t have pdf file hosting, so most links will be from the other two sources, most likely archive.org.

[Chicago]

According to owl-purdue, they state that electronic books, and books consulted online are cited exactly like their printed peers, with the addition of media at the end. Stable page numbers aren’t always available in electronic formats, so you can include the number of the chapter, section, or other easily recognizable locator.

Footnote version: 1. Myra Elvira Hardin, The Tale of Acid Bath (Internet Archive, 2022) archive.org/details/acid-bath-band. Pdf

Book version: Hardin, Myra Elvira. The Tale of Acid Bath. Internet Archive, 2022. Archive.org/details/acid-bath-band. Pdf

I won’t be including the city of this citation, it’s pointless for what I do anyway.

— That would he the most accurate way to cite anything I’ve written, and posted online. I’ll try to provide a citation at the end of my writings when possible. If you don’t feel like doing it manually, then I recommend a site like easy bib to do it for you. That’s what I used when I was in school.

—

[ Citing the videos themselves ]

[MLA]

“Title of Video” youtube, uploaded by screen name, day month year, url.

Example: “The Tale of Acid Bath” youtube, uploaded by Myra Elvira, September 3, 2022, url.

[APA]

Person who uploaded video. (Date of Publication). Title of Video [Video]. Youtube. Url

Example: Myra Elvira. (September 3 2022). The Tale of Acid Bath [Video] Youtube. Url

[Chicago]

Footnote version: 1. First name, surname, “Title of Web page”, name of site, Publishing organization, publication or revision date, access date if no other data is available, url.

Example: 1. Myra Elvira, “The Tale of Acid Bath”, youtube, September 3, 2022, url

Book entry: Surname, First name, “Title of Web page”. Name of website. Publishing organization, publication or revision date. Access date if none other available. Url

Example: Hardin, Myra Elvira, “The Tale of Acid Bath”. Youtube. September 3, 2022. Url

— If you wish to download any files of mine, they are typically located on patreon and archive.org. I will provide zip or rar files that you can use, which can later be extracted. If possible, I will try to have more of my videos archived, at least, the more historically interesting ones. I will upload a thumbnail, if I have one, that comes with the videos. In 2021, I had a hard drive crash, and I don’t have the thumbnails to the old content.

I’m not perfect, so I might miss things, or forget a thing or two. If there is a video or thumbnail you would like, feel free to email me. It would be a lot easier to download any files or videos from me, and any place I archive my work. The video files are usually huge, thanks to the lossless audio. With compressed zip and rar files, it shouldn’t take an entire day to download anything of mine.

I have seen my videos on other channels, and honestly don’t know why these people would rip off the videos, probably using a sketchy site that would jack up your computer. Considering the size of the files on my own computer, I don’t seriously don’t know why someone would try to download the uncompressed videos in their entirety. Some videos are huge, some are “little”. The biggest file so far is the “Child of Satan, Child of God” master video. It’s 68 gigs on my computer. Some videos can be 1 gig, or half of one, but it still takes up space. I honestly can’t fathom why someone would download the hours-long videos! Save your internet, save your cpu, and just go with the archived versions.

—

As of right now, that seems to be it! I’m sure that we’ll encounter something dumb along the way, where I’ll eventually have to update these rules. As of right now, I just want to keep it simple.

[DONT]

-Upload my content to pay sites, link it using spam links/scammy trackers/and anything that grifts a person ❌

-Act like my content is your own. Please credit me. Link my channel, tumblr, patreon, something. ❌

-Fry your computer trying to download the files, mainly the videos, from a shady website. Go check the archive, or email me directly. ❌

-DONT BE STUPID!!!

[DO]

-Ask if you’re unsure ✅

-Feel free to use my content for educational, personal, and/or FAIR USE, purposes. These are fine. ✅

-Ask for permission if you wish to upload something of mine. I will only allow this for true archival purposes. Email me for permission. ✅

EMAIL: [email protected]

[SOURCES]

chicago:

MLA: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_other_common_sources.html

APA:

#tou #terms of use #my tou #rules #my rules #Youtube

[doodle17]

YES a big theme of Animorphs is how war will tear you apart, but let it not be forgotten that those books were written for 8-12 year olds. And it shows. Yes we've got the main cast wrestling with morality and body horror and fear and what it means to be human, but we've also got them arguing over old tv shows, sneaking into someone's salad as cockroaches, sneaking into concerts as dogs, getting caught up on the joy of taste and mouth sounds, infiltrating a secret government facility for the sake of what they find out is an old toilet, and doing stupid kid shit. If you read Animorphs you will learn what a thermal is, because one of the main points of the books was also to educate kids about animals (though I will note that the wolf thing in book nine is no longer accurate to our understanding of pack dynamics. ah, the relentless march of science).

Anyway 💅 All of the Animorphs books are free to read online as pdfs bc K.A. Applegate rocks. Which is good, because while they're not super long, there are 54 main series books (a lot of them ghostwritten), with 8 little companion books (technically ten but the Alternamorphs books are awful). A good starting place would be either The Invasion, as it is the first book in the series, or Megamorphs 1: The Andalite's Gift as it's a good introduction to the revolving perspectives. And also the trash can scene.

Holy crap this sounds like a wild ride!

#Doodles rants #animorphs

[extremelyputridfishbreath]

How about 10, 13, 18, and 22?

10. worst part of fanon like i said in response to 23: i think making herbert sympathetic by making the epf and psa the "bad guys" just makes him boring, and also doesn't even make sense. even if herbert was right to like, freeze the epf during blackout, how exactly is he justified in making civilians who never bothered him freeze? or making puffles sick from the cold, judging by the puffle vet station at the dock? or trying to enforce harsh laws that take their hobbies away because he doesn't like them (being a ninja, dj, etc)? it'd be one thing if you actually made the epf and psa act more malicious towards him than in canon, because at least fighting back against them would be more self defense, but even then it would still in fact, be unjustified for him to do things that target completely innocent bystanders like anyone outside the epf/psa or puffles and shouldn't be glossed over unless it's to spark a redemption arc about him realizing he was wrong to bother penguins for annoying him when the average penguin never even knew he existed

13. worst blorboficiation

herbert but specifically when people conflate fanon with canon, and take him being unreliable as 100% facts. i am saying this as a herbert fan once again but please for the love of god reread his wiki page and keep in mind he is a VERY unreliable narrator before you go "HE WAS CANONICALLY BORN IN A SOAKING WET CARDBOARD BOX ALL ALONE AND THE PSA TOOK TURNS KICKING HIM WHEN HE ARRIVED TO CLUB PENGUIN". like i don't think he lied about living in the arctic circle formerly, but anything past that should be scrutinized! i am SO sorry for dragging our sopping wet bear like a rug (haw haw bear rug) but he is literally the only example i can think of.

i guess if i wrack my mind really hard i can also point out that...a LOT of cppses either miss the mark or straight up feel like they're writing brand new characters instead of the mascots they're larping as. like i'm sorry but it's true! maybe it's because of my special connection with club penguin as a adhd warrior but it's not even like, me being picky with say an aunt arctic on any given cpps going "i dont care for tea much" when thats inaccurate, i mean stuff thats too divergent entirely. granted i can say that i feel like cp3d was EXCELLENT with their mascots and cpr tended to be fairly accurate (asides from rory, but rory is never fully accurate from my experiences) so it's not like, universal with cpps' writing? either way it was common enough to literally be the reason scrabble exists because i saw it enough times to go "man wouldn't it be hysterical if there was a character impersonating mascots but they were wildly out of character and nobody noticed? god that would be a funny antagonist" soooo. there's that?

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

the pick your path books! they're fun, and other than star reporter (last i checked) it's not hard to find pdfs of them to read on the internet archive or otherwise.

other media includes the tv specials (seriously i don't get why those are so unpopular. they're the closest we'll ever get to a club penguin movie!) and technically the magazines? like yeah they're archived now but it's crazy to me it took until 2023 for a complete archive to be made, and like not trying to downplay the first archival effort because i'm glad people were trying before now but like...that was specifically for the comics to be preserved, rather than the entire magazines. idk it's just bittersweet to me if that makes sense? ultimately it's good that it's archived now, but i wish the whole magazine collections were archived way sooner, especially since the english copies were limited to the uk (which surprises me to no end still- you'd think if nothing else, canada would get english issues too since thats the games birthplace!)

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

seeing as box dimensioner ocs and hcs are becoming a bit more common, i cant say it's completely ignored- but still, box dimension stuff is always fun to see! i do wish frost bites had more attention though, they're really brimming with potential and since we don't know much about them at all you can basically create your own canon for them! i think seeing frost bites, let alone frost bite ocs is even more uncommon than box dimension stuff. also like, non penguin ocs in general are cool! whether they're friendly or a villain i would love to see more of them!

#ask meme