#guest bloggers

[duckprintspress]

Fandom 101: The Origin of the Citrus Scale

A guest post by Aeryn Jemariel Knox. (@jemariel)

Ah, the citrus scale. It’s like a cryptid roaming the edges of modern fandom communities. Long-tenured veterans speak of it with affectionate mockery while newcomers google curiously. A relic from a bygone fandom era, the citrus scale saw a brief resurgence in 2018 during the Tumblr porn ban, suggested as a way to avoid the new bot censors trawling for posts with the NSFW tag—though never, I think, in seriousness. 

That may have been jocular and short-lived, but it does point to the reasons why the citrus scale was created in the first place. Certain fandom activities have always had to fly under the radar to one degree or another. Whether you’re trying to evade legal action or simply avoid deletion based on explicit content, a certain level of obfuscation is sometimes worthwhile.

It’s not hard to find the generally agreed-upon definitions of the citrus scale’s levels. According to Fanlore, KnowYourMeme, and others, this is more or less the “official” citrus scale:

Orange: Light stuff, kissing, nothing below the waist or under the clothes. 

Lime: Groping, implied sex without details, fade-to-black, no intercourse or intimate contact.

Lemon: Sex, in full detailed glory. Woo-hoo! Regardless of the actual acts performed, if you can tell who had an orgasm (or, perhaps, had an orgasm denied), how, and where, it’s a lemon.

Grapefruit: We’ll get into this later.

But these tidy categories are clear thanks to the benefit of hindsight. In the Wild West of the early internet, it was not so easy to pin down exactly what you might be getting into based on which term was used.

At its origin, the citrus scale wasn’t a scale at all. It has its roots in hentai (and was always more popular in anime fandoms), stemming from a specific early hentai film by the title of Cream Lemon (1984). Hentai being what it is, this led to certain subculture communities referring to any story with explicit sexual content as a “Lemon.” And for a while, that was the extent of it. Then came fanfiction.net purging explicit content (2002), Livejournal suffering Strikethru (2007), and other events that pushed burgeoning fandom communities out of their growing hubs and back into smaller, isolated communities centered on a single fandom or pairing. In the relatively sparse early ’00’s internet, anybody could spin up an Angelfire website, pass the link around to their friends, and get a reasonable amount of traffic.  Websites devoted to the works of a single author or small group were common.

I mention this to describe the landscape in which fandom lexicons grew and evolved in the early-mid 2000s. Each pocket community had its own rules, lingo, and expectations; venturing outside of your home pocket could lead to some pretty major miscommunications. 

“Lemon” was established early and its definition has hardly shifted. It means that the labeled content (art, fic, mood board, etc.) includes sex. Intercourse, bumping uglies, etc. However, some yaoi fandom niches used it specifically to mean gay sex of the male variety. In some communities, “lime” developed as a corresponding term for feminine gay sex, while other communities brought it up with the usage that eventually “stuck,” “not quite a lemon.” Given that lemon and lime often go hand in hand when discussing actual flavors, the fact that we had some divergent term evolution is not surprising. But coming in from a different pocket of fandom and seeing “lime,” thinking you’ll be reading semi-softcore sexual tension and instead being confronted with graphic sapphic antics? Bit of a shock, I’m sure.

A more dramatic example is the rating level of “Grapefruit,” which occupies two completely different ends of the scale. In some circles, grapefruit was defined as “less intense than lime,” G or PG-rated stories that were more soft or cute than sexy. In other circles, it was used to mean the exact opposite. Kinkier than kink, smuttier than smut, grapefruit art and fic was where you went to have your eyebrows singed off. Some communities were even more specific, using grapefruit for stories featuring non-consensual sex. This was where darkfic lived – in modern day parlance, your “Dead Dove, Do Not Eat” works. To say that this usage difference caused some disagreements would be putting it mildly.

Nobody really worried about orange. Orange just existed, not bothering anybody.

When these terms were coined, the internet was not an assumed aspect of everybody’s daily life the way it is today. There was no Tumblr, no Facebook, no social media to speak of. There were no large repositories of internet lore and knowledge such as Urban Dictionary or KnowYourMeme. It was a playground. And what do you do on a playground? You make friends! The citrus scale, like so many fandom tropes and concepts, was defined by groups of friends that created them ad hoc to meet their own needs at the time. No one could have predicted that it would become so much a fandom history that it’d be enshrined, nor that I would be writing a blog post about it two decades later. From the common source of lemon, people extrapolated what the rest of the scale might look like, and there was no authority to tell them they were wrong. (Except other fans. That hasn’t changed.)

In conclusion, it’s best not to take the citrus scale too seriously. At best, it’s a cheeky way to avoid censors who try to bar a community from engaging with explicit works, but it’s also varied to a fault and open to interpretation. If you and your community have come up with a use for it that suits your needs, then congratulations: you’re part of a fandom tradition stretching back to the roots of the internet. Just don’t try and tell anybody else that they’re wrong. You might start a flame war.

References:

Prokopetz: Orange and Grapefruit

She’s Got Plans: What is the Citrus Scale in Fanfiction?

Unwinnable: Lemon and Lime

Past Fandom 101 Posts:

Everything About A/B/O Dynamics You Wanted to Know (but were Afraid to Ask)

How to Diversify Your To-Be-Read Pile

Recognizing AI Generated Images, Danmei Edition

[halimecan]

[annika-shurafa-interiors]

[themyscirah]

Ok game time which 3 series would you just DIE to get a run on ? I'm talking full creative control, can be as a writer or an artist + plotter if that suits your vibe best

My 3 are

Suicide Squad

Wonder Woman

Green Lantern Corps/Green Lanterns

(in that order)

[kais8cats]

heyo im backk since nobody follows me I don’t think anyone cares that im back or was even gone. but im back with a better haircut(you can’t see the old one and you can’t see the new one) better music taste, new teachers,a space hey account and a new found love for blogging

[pattytacuri]

outgrown

Lately I feel too big for my current pot I need somewhere else to bloom this is too comfortable too stagnated it’s almost suffocating I need another place full of challenges and opportunities I need a place where I can full fill the extent of my potential

9/2/22

[angiecosplay01]

[textingtroublesanswers]

I had a dream about your blog.

Soldier was on a cruise ship and had stolen everyone's lunches (everyone had packed sandwiches and stuff). Then he got into a fight with one of the anons over said lunches and ended up in the pool.

I thought you'd like to know.

"Someone stole my lunch?" Jane yells, "Wait... I stole everyone's lunches? I would never! Soldiers need to eat; the team can't go into battle with empty stomachs! Just ask Medic, he'll tell you. Or he might remove your stomach, that works too."

[digitalelevate1]

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[duckprintspress]

How to Pitch to Duck Prints Press

A post by Duck Prints Press staff editor Lacey Hays.

In the publishing world, the word “pitch” conjures up a certain image. Perhaps you’ve been asked to write an “elevator speech” so you can quickly pitch your story to an interested party at a conference or meeting. Maybe you’ve participated in Twitter pitch-parties where you only have 255 characters to hook an agent. Every publisher and agent has their own expectations, and we are no different at Duck Prints Press. Since submissions are open again, we thought we’d take out some of the guesswork and tell you what we, as a press, are looking for.

For authors who have never worked with us before, the application asks for two  submissions: a writing sample and a pitch. The requirements for the writing sample are listed as part of the rubric for each anthology. We’re often looking for something a little different with each project, so we highly encourage you to look over the rubric and follow it closely when selecting a piece of your writing to share. Otherwise, it’s pretty straightforward. We want to see the best of you—a polished selection of writing that sings to your abilities as an author.

What we’re looking for in a pitch is more subjective and a bit different from other presses. Many presses only accept fully written stories, so a pitch is used as a teaser to drum up interest. We choose authors for their storytelling ability, assessed by their writing samples, and then ask them to write us a new, never-before-seen story. While we don’t expect authors to submit completed stories, we do want to know you have a fully realized story you want to write that interests us and fits within the anthology’s themes and requirements. In essence, what we would like is a cross between a teaser and a summary—something interesting that tells us how the story will unfold and lets us see how it might fit in with the other stories in the anthology. Here are our suggestions on how you can create dynamic and interesting pitches specifically for Duck Prints Press:

Spoil us! No, seriously. We want to know the beginning, the middle, and the end of your story. Or, if not the end, at least give us a clear view of story progression with an intriguing hook. We need to know there is a story in your heart and that you know where it’s going.

Fit the brief. Every anthology is unique. Each one has a list of requirements, and your pitch should make it clear how your proposed story fits those requirements. If the anthology asks for a certain genre, a certain type of character, or a certain type of relationship, call those things out. Don’t make us guess.

Give your pitch some character. Who are the main players and what are their relationships? How do you want these relationships to resolve? Found family? Tell us! Enemies to lovers? Same! The characters don’t need names yet, but they nonetheless need to live and breath on the page.

Plot is everything. What does the main character (MC) want, what is in their way, and how does their life change? What motivates your MC? Who, or what, is the antagonist, and why? How do you want to resolve the plot (even if you leave off on a question?) You won’t convince us you’re ready to tell this story without conveying these aspects of the story.

Make us feel. Is there longing in your story? Passion? Anger? Romance? We want to get a feel for the tone as we read your pitch. Please make sure it matches the tone we’ve asked for in the anthology, though. A grimdark horror story for a “happily ever after” anthology won’t make the cut.

Take all the space you need. Each pitch has a maximum number of words. We give plenty of room to make sure you can fit everything you need because we’re looking for so much more than an elevator speech. Be aware of the flow, though. You want to be concise and exciting.

Edit, edit, edit. Your pitch is as important as your writing sample and should be edited to the best of your ability. It should be formatted well, have good sentence variety, use excellent grammar, and have been spell checked. We don’t expect perfection, but editing is a major part of our process. We like to see that our authors turn in their best work every time. It can often help to have someone else look over your work before you turn it in. We strongly encourage the use of alpha and beta readers for all press work.

Tag it. We ask that, in addition to submitting your pitch, you also submit a list of preliminary tags. Think about how you would tag this story if you were to post it on Archive of Our Own. Will your story contain potentially upsetting content like sexual abuse (on screen or off screen?) Character death? Harm to children? Our staff has a variety of life experiences and while we strongly believe in your freedom to write what you want, we believe equally in harm reduction and giving people the tools they need to curate their own experiences. We request more general tags as well. Are you planning a story that you’d call fluffy? Is it angst with a happy ending, or hurt/comfort, or whump? We’d love to see tags similar to those that would go in each section of an AO3 post: major warnings/potential triggers, type of relationship (if any), and “additional tags.” You don’t have to have everything single thing in there, and they can potentially change, but tags help us assess what tone and specific content you’re planning to include in your story, once it’s fletched out from short pitch to full length. Tagging is not optional.

Most of all, have fun! If you are in love with your story, we will see that love. You are applying to write with us because you have a passion for writing that you want to share with the world. Don’t get lost in the details and forget. We have authors from around the world who have written for a huge variety of fandoms, people who are native speakers and grammarians, people who speak English as a second (or third) language, people who dabble in every genre. What do we all have in common? A passion for the craft. We love to write, and we want to work with people who also love to write. You—yes you!—can do this, and we can’t wait to see what you have to show.

Looking for more information? We’ve got you covered; this is not the first time we’ve written about pitches!

Guest blogger Alec J. Marsh wrote a two-part series about Query Letters: Why Query Letters are Good, Actually and How to Write a Great Query Letter

The last time we opened for submissions, we did an anthology-specific post about what we look for in pitches, including samples of pitches we liked from applicants to our first anthology, Add Magic to Taste.

We also wrote a long post containing general advice on how to transition from writing fanfiction to writing original fiction.

Want some guidance on how to edit, edit, edit? Here are some quick tips on how to edit your own writing.

Who We Are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fanfiction authors navigate the complex process of bringing their original works from first draft to print, culminating in publishing their work under our imprint. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Love what we do? Sign up for our monthly newsletter and get previews, behind-the-scenes information, coupons, and more.

Through the month of January, 2023, all new monthly backers on our Patreon and ko-fi can claim a merchandise freebie in addition to all their backer rewards – which, depending on your backer level, could include a free copy of this story! Why not take a peek at what we have to offer?

[halimecan]

Müslümanlık Zamanla Değişmez, Zaman Ona Uyar

Son yıllarda din anlayışımızda büyük değişiklikler olduğu sıkça dile getiriliyor. İnsanlar, Müslümanlık’ın geçmişteki anlamıyla şimdi arasında farklar olduğunu ve bunun zamanla değiştiğini iddia ediyor. Ancak burada unutmamamız gereken bir şey var: Din, zamanla değişen bir kavram değildir. Zaman, dinin özüyle uyumlu bir şekilde evrilir, fakat dinin hakikati ve temel öğretileri değişmez.

İslam, Allah’ın son mesajıdır ve bu mesaj, tarih boyunca insanlar için geçerli kalacak şekilde belirlenmiştir. İslam’ın özü, insana doğru yolu göstermek, adaleti sağlamak, insan haklarına saygı göstermek ve Allah’a teslimiyet içerisinde bir yaşam sürmektir. Din, zamanla dönüşüme uğramaz. Zaman, insanların içtihatları, anlayışları ve yorumları üzerinden şekil alabilir, ancak dinin kendisi sabittir.

Müslümanlık, başkalarının Müslümanlığını yargılamak, başkalarının dini pratiğiyle ilgilenmek değil, bireysel olarak Allah’a kulluk etmektir. Tıpkı Mevlana’nın dediği gibi: “Kimseyi yargılamadan, her insanın kendi iç yolculuğunda neye ihtiyaç duyduğunu anlamaya çalışarak yaşamalıyız.” Gerçek anlamda bir Müslüman, önce kendi nefsini ıslah etmeye çalışır, başkalarını eleştirmek veya yargılamak yerine, kendi ibadetine ve ahlaki sorumluluklarına odaklanır.

Eğer ülkemizde herkes, sadece kendi dini pratiğiyle meşgul olmayı, başkalarının inancına müdahale etmeyi bırakmayı öğrenebilse, toplumda daha fazla hoşgörü, daha fazla barış ve huzur olur. Çünkü her birey, kendi ruhsal yolculuğunda farklı aşamalardan geçer ve bu farklılıklar, dinin özüyle bir çatışma oluşturmaz.

Gerçek Müslümanlık, dinin ahlaki değerlerine sadık kalmak, başkalarına karşı iyi niyetli olmak ve insanlık için hayırlı işler yapmaktır. Eğer her birimiz, kendi Müslümanlığımızı yaşamak ve bu yolculukta başkalarına karışmamak için çaba harcarsak, toplumda daha barışçıl ve huzurlu bir ortam oluşturmuş oluruz.

Zaman değişebilir, ancak dinin özündeki değerler sabittir. Müslümanlık, başkalarını yargılamakla değil, önce kendimizi doğru yolda bulmakla ilgilidir. Bu anlayışı hayata geçirirsek, toplum olarak daha huzurlu, daha mutlu bir geleceğe doğru adım atmış oluruz.

[yogurtstress]

My friend tried the black cherry chobani yogurt yesterday, and I typed up their thoughts about it:

[duckdotcom]

you are an enigma to me. why do you categorize posts about jfk's assassination? why do you tag posts about sleeping? why public restroom simulator? these questions keep me awake at night

they are my friends :)

[newjenns]

hari’s revenge

[chicoinematt7]

How The Jesus Prayer Impacted My Life

By: Jackie Kierulf Years ago, a friend invited me to a seminar on the Jesus prayer. As a cradle Catholic, I no longer felt that attending mass on Sunday was enough. Over time, I joined a choir, attended several weekend retreats for young adults and made friends who were more active in parish life than I was, all intended to bring me closer to God. When I was asked to join one of those friends…