#i will use every single comma in existence

[m155y-74]

Tim LaFlour texting headcannons

- his name in your contacts is Timbit❤️

- poor boy truly cannot type, there are typos in every text he sends

- he does not know what a comma or apostrophe is

- never uses caps unless you do and then of course he’ll match ur vibe

- you get lots of cryptic messages ‘red or purple’ - ‘umm red why?’ - ‘no reason’ he then shows up with your favourite snack that has red packaging or a bouquet of red flowers

- always replies to your messages straight away unless his phone is dead or he’s asleep

- his phone has never been charged to more than 15% since he bought it

- chronic multitexter

- massively overthinks and panics if you leave him on read

- you get sent so many pics: a cute cat he saw on his way home, a cool outfit a guy was wearing anything he sees that reminds him of you

- also literal thousands of selfies anytime he’s with someone ‘wait we gotta take a pic so I can send it to….’

- he updates your contact picture maybe once a week if not more

- he would rather die than send you a one letter reply, and kind of dies inside when you do

- every morning he texts you asking for an outfit pic

- then sends 47 messages saying how amazing you look

- if he’s horny or missing you and wants to text you he’ll send a really basic ‘hey’ ‘miss you’ in the hopes that you’ll get the message because he’s so nervous about initiating it and making you uncomfortable (also sub baby)

- when you send him selfies in his hoodie or clothes he immediately puts his shoes on to come over

- first time you sent him a selfie in his hoodie that you stole he showed up at your door ten minutes later. ‘what are you doing here?’-‘i thought i would reply in person eh?’

- you kept doing it and now it’s become a code for when you want him to come over

- sends you screenshots of lyrics that he’s listening to you that made him think of you

- he has an album of pictures of you on his phone (duh) and every time someone mentions you or asks if he’s single he immediately whips it out. ‘look at my baby, aren’t they so gorgeous, this is from when we went ice skating’

- if he sees you online late at night he will force you to go to bed and refuse to reply till you go to sleep (ifyky)

- checks that you’ve eaten enough or drank water throughout the day

- if you send a sunset picture or something like that he will without fail reply with ‘woah pretty!! but not as pretty as you’

also behold the most Tim coded text chain in existence

@nanaldy @rose-bunny-28

masterlist

[olderthannetfic]

Vent. I *hate* having my works beta read, the emotions of going through the suggestions and comments and nit-picks. Especially when what they're 'correcting' isn't wrong but something stylistic I did on purpose. I get a beta reader for exchanges or gift fics, because I feel like I *should*. But if a reader genuinely cares that much that I used a hyphen instead of an em-dash, or that a single line of dialogue is missing a comma. Fine, they can leave. It's not worth making myself hate and second guess something I already worked so much on already. Yeah yeah, I know I'm actually the one with the problem here, acting irrationally. But it's just a miserable process.

--

Good lord. Beta reading shouldn't be like that.

To be honest, I usually do everything at the last minute, so I rarely bother with betas for exchanges. And when I do get a beta, they're usually worse at spotting typos than I am and not that great at suggesting stylistic changes. It's some combo of me being a fairly good writer and fairly lazy about finding the right beta.

Let's be real: in a good story, no reader, including me, cares that much about a couple of hyphens in place of dashes. And I'm someone whose dashes are all correctly formatted in the first draft. You're being defensive and weird about something that isn't the heart of the issue here.

The issue, to my eye, is that you want some basic proofreading out of a sense of duty, and people are offering you bad quality stylistic advice.

I see no reason why you ought to use betas. They don't make your writing better just by existing. Every writer could get better with good editing, both good editing they do themselves and a good editor who's another person, but the whole thing is a creative collaboration. Finding a good editor you mesh well with is like finding a co-author you want to work with or the right therapist or a significant other. Just filling that slot with a person will usually do more harm than good.

Betaing—editing—is a skill the same as writing is, and most people suck at it.

[orcboxer]

Wait I looked up the library of babel and kinda didn't understand it :( think you could explain it a bit ?

The Library of Babel is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges about a virtually infinite library containing virtually all possible information of a given length.

Every book has 410 pages, and all the letters are presumably the same size, and they only use the same 22 letters (it doesn't use the English alphabet, as the story itself is not written in English) plus the period, the comma, and the space. But as you pick up and read various books in the library, you find that most of it is gibberish, as though each symbol is generated randomly. But! There are no repeats. No two books are identical, they may differ by a single symbol at a minimum.

This leads people who live in this library to infer that the library is in fact finite, as there is only a certain number of books that could exist within those parameters. If the books were only 1 character long, there would be 25 books, one for each symbol. If the books were 2 characters long, there would be 300 books, one for each unique combination of two symbols. If the books were 3 characters long, there would be 2300 books. And so on. But the books in the library are all 1,312,000 symbols long, so the number of possible books is fuckin massive. So massive that there would be more books in the library than there are atoms in our universe.

So you can infer that there's one book in the library that's just the letter A repeated a million times. Which means that there are a million books that are almost identical except one of the As is replaced by a B. And exponentially more books where two As are replaced by a B.

Every possible string of information, using the 25 base symbols, that can fit within 410 pages, exists somewhere in the Library of Babel. Including this post (not counting the extra 4 letters in the English alphabet). There must also exist, then, perfect predictions of the future, copies of all the greatest works of literature, and descriptions of you reading this post.

The sheer scale of the library is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to wrap your mind around. The story is, in my opinion, a fascinating piece of cosmic horror.

[aphfanficwriters]

Every month we will pose a question and collate responses as a fun and informal little exercise in getting to know each other and spark discussion. This month's question is:

“Which writing rule do you most enjoy breaking?”

relmu / @iamnompuehuenu: this is my personal preference, but i absolutely adore flowery writing that borders on purple prose. maybe it's because the literature i grew up with is filled with metaphors and decorations and that rubbed off on me, but i just find it extremely beautiful and dramatic… I've come to learn that English-speaking writers are more direct and that purple prose is not seen with good eyes, but i like it so much i have to remind myself to not put too much emphasis on descriptions and metaphors when writing lol. it sometimes becomes heavy to read but for me it's a joy, though i understand it's not for everyone 🙏

prush / @proosh: you can take run-on sentences from my cold dead hands

Wasps / @petiolata: "Avoid epithets" is the one I enjoy breaking the most. To me, it's very similar to "show, don't tell". Like every writing practice that people get told "don't do that!" about, they have their time and place. Both telling and epithets can create distance, or emphasize certain qualities about the character. They can also convey information faster. I think a lot of the criticism of them comes from a lack of understanding that people read fics for different purposes and so writers will write with different effects in mind. If a fic is meant to be an extremely fast-paced suspenseful ride—and that's more important to the writer or audience than elegance of writing or creating deep POV closeness—and an epithet best serves that, then isn't it the best choice to use the epithet? What makes good writing is widely debated, but what makes a good writer in my opinion is intentionality. The ability, skills, knowledge, to accomplish exactly what effects you're going for. And sometimes that means making choices that serve pacing or kink appeal over elegance or POV depth. I probably don't use many epithets in my fics, but knowing how much unfair flack they get makes me celebrate every single one.

Tama / @delgumofics: I generally try to follow the rules since I'm always trying to grow as a writer. I think mine is run-on sentences though. If I'm writing a scene where a characters understanding of the world is supposed to be different in some way, like they're really high, or they're very emotionally charged, I use a lot of run-ons to express that. I try to put myself in their heads pace and think how they'd think, and when someone is fucked up or really emotionally charged, grammar and pacing kind of go out the window. Thought becomes one long stream of ideas and feelings so I try to express that sensation with words. That usually results in run-ons dotted with short snappy single or two word sentences mixed into the paragraph.

WhiteWings / @smuttyandabsurd: "Write what you know" seems to be taken as "write only what you know" which is a terrible rule. Write what you don't know. Push the limits of your knowledge. Deep dive into research and learn things you didn't know so you can write about it… Or don't! Revel in making it up and writing with terrible inaccuracy, it's called artistic license babes. It won't appeal to everyone, of course, and you may very well annoy a bunch of people, but you can't please everyone and you shouldn't try to.

Didi / @teaedon: first draft is the final version, and i don't cut anything out (well, rarely).

Yukihitomi / @arthurhonda: Writing rules? Don’t know em. Too busy destroying the English grammar. Punctuation besides commas, periods, exclamation points, and question marks don’t exist.

And there were those who didn't understand the assignment... 😅

Eru / @eruverse: Wasn’t aware there were rules, I do what I want and what fits best

@folightening: I'm not even aware what the rules are so I've no idea. I just write how I want.

Beetroot / @council-of-beetroot: Does anyone have a list of writing rules to reference?

Mossman / @one-more-mossman: I don't even know what rules the writing has [...] Uneducated swine I am

[sparks-chaotic-cove]

maybe a hot take but I kinda despise text-speech? or like, shortened speech.

I am not talking about acronyms, such as "idk" or "lol", I'm talking about words like "tru" or "tho"

See using these is absolutely fine if you know how the original word is spelt (ex: tru -> true, tho -> though)

But so many people are forgetting how to spell basic words. Especially kids who are getting on the internet are growing up and not being expected to know how to spell because of autocorrect and shortened words (along with the education system just being terrible).

There will always be a few words each individual will struggle with (because English exists and it is very weird), but those shouldn't be every single word. Also with vocabulary! I shouldn't have to explain what the word "generally" means to a 15 year old! That word should already be in their vocabulary!

Additionally, if everyone knows a decent amount of general vocabulary, it'll make it so much easier to communicate clearly and effectively.

Basically, kids need to be taught more spelling, vocab, and even grammar. (I have seen seniors in highschool write essays with no periods, no capital letters, and no commas. That should be concerning more people).

Language is meant to help us communicate! By knowing how to use it, it lets us communicate things clearly! If we become so reliant on digital tools and shortened speech, it can cause confusion.

[royalsunshinehotel]

How to they text? (Dev Patel preference)

Anwar Kharral Definitely spams you with memes, it's self explanatory. He's not so much a texter as he is sending you tiktoks that apply to whatever conversation you're trying to have with him.

Sonny Kapoor You're getting paragraphs. Every. Single. Time. English is his second language, but he loves it and he's using every word from his 'word of the day' email.

Neal Sampat I think he's the type who swaps out LOVE with LUV. He uses "U" for shorthand, but all of his sentences are capitalized.

Deon Wilson I think he's using shorthand whenever he can. He's a computer genius, he's truly gonna do what he's gotta do to get his point across. Also, he peppers in numbers, just for fun, think "b00bs"

Sheru “Saroo” Bierley Saroo's doing his best to use full sentences, but he really needs to remember that commas exist not just the "-"

Jay Menha Jay is a very big fan of his blackberry, but I do think that maybe he's not been taking his joing supplements so you don't get much beyond 'lol' or 'haha' as a response to a text.

David Copperfield Where Sonny writes paragraphs, David is writing NOVELS. BE AFRAID. DON'T TEXT HIM BACK. He'll make your phone bill skyrocket I fear.

Joshua Madika I'm sorry, he's the worst texter on the list. He'll see a text, forget about it, and get back to you the next time you text him/ when he feels like it. Just be sure to follow up with him, because if it's something he wants to do, he'll respond for sure.

Sir Gawain I've touched on this in other preferences, but you're getting grade-a shitposts all of the time. It's garbage and it's all for you. "Just saw a snake...oh nor, we are all snekes" or some shite

The Kid I think you're getting photos. You do have to text things like "are you alive," to which you get a response of a photo of 👁️👁️, but that's between the two of you.

[vaspider]

See, there's the thing "spider"- its not your place or your job or anything but your annoying fucking hobby to report me being on tumblr! My existence in the jumblr tag isnt harassment and I will not be leaving! People can block me but if I have to remake again youre annoying them not me! I have a macro. You need to block the tag "oxford comma forever" and move the fuck on! I keep replying to you cause YOU keep it going. Be the supposed adult you lie about being, sweatie 😘

Directly interacting with people who have blocked you is harassment. Creating a blog with my name to impersonate me (like you're doing now) is harassment. And you know that, because you're doing it to try to upset me. You've said as much to me and to other people. The fact that I find it tiresome and not upsetting in the least seems to really get to you, because you keep returning over and over to try to bother me and my partners. Sending my kid's name and an address I haven't lived at for half a decade and comments about the Father's Day posts on my FB to us as, what? Proof that you're the one digging around in my Facebook obsessively to try to doxx me and my family? ... o... okay, sure? And you think that makes you the mature adult?

Like... okay?? Good job, you've proven you're a gross creeper who can't just leave people alone?

If you would simply not interact directly with the people who have told you that they don't want to interact with you, we wouldn't know you exist. I don't follow the Jumblr tag; I don't go into tags pretty much at all and never have. I read my dashboard and almost never anything else. I find out about your new blogs when you interact directly with one of my friends or with me, and then, yeah, I report you, and I block the blog, because, to be clear:

That's what I'm supposed to do.

If you just... left alone the people who have told you "I don't want talk to you," we would never find out about your next blog. Every single one of your blogs I've personally reported to Tumblr Staff is because you've directly interacted with someone who blocked you and told you in so many words to never contact them again, and either that person explicitly asked me to add that interaction to the ongoing ticket that I have open, or that person was me.

I don't care if you're on Tumblr. I really, really, really don't. None of us care that you're on Tumblr. You are a deflated tube man of a human being, and we don't care about you.

What I care about for exactly as long as it takes me to report a blog and roll my eyes is that you are obsessively harassing people I care about.

So, yep, I'm going to keep being the adult: I'm going to report this, too, and block this, too, and move on with my life. And the next time you directly interact with me or those friends who have previously blocked you, I'll repeat the process.

I suggest you move on, too. There is nothing to be gained for you here. You can't hurt me, you can't upset me. Nothing you say to me is novel or painful; it only reveals your own insecurities. Why are you obsessed with the idea of "another man sleeping with your wife," for example? You keep using it as an insult, which doesn't say anything about me, about my daughter's dad, about my partners... but it does say a lot about you. Why are you obsessed with the genitals and sexual habits of people who you've never met and will never meet? Why are you obsessed with what I call myself? Why are you obsessed with my pronouns, my political affiliations, my age? You keep trying to misgender people, to insult me based on my age or my weight... and, like.

It's just... pathetic. I really just feel very sad for you and how very empty your life must be.

This behavior is just... sad.

[harmonycobelsvolkswagenrabbit]

20 author questions

tagged by the lovely @badcatholichusband

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 11

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 153,683

3. What fandoms do you write for? Succession

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

This is not therapy — Roman chooses to go see Dr. Kellman on his own, which she identifies as one of his “strengths.���

Once upon a poolside — She knows by the knock that it’s him. That, and she was half expecting him to come crawling to her, a glutton for punishment. What she’s not expecting is to see him already punished: the blood on his shirt, the tear in his suit, the bruise already forming around his left eye. Not again, Logan, she thinks, only to remember that they’d entombed him that afternoon. Just another hurt-comfort fix-it fic immediately following S4E9.

Soft like silk — roman/gerri with twice the silk blouses (my magnum opus)

I know a place — season three of succession but it's Shiv who's weird about Gerri

Something unholy —something about “in costume” put the image of Roman in a priest’s collar in my head and I can’t get it out. A silly, sick, sexy, and heartwarming romp. In response to: Roman/Gerri autumn date. Takes place in a simpler time (season 2). I am going straight to hell.

5. Do you respond to comments? Not really but I would like to start because I love comments and am so grateful to everyone who reads my fic!!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angistest ending? Honestly I’m not sure how White Ferrari will end, but I’m thinking it will probably be that one. As for existing fics, probably Once upon a poolside, but it’s not even that angsty. I’m all about hurt/comfort on a micro and macro level.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Soft like silk or maybe This is not therapy.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Only one time and it wasn’t even really hate but someone was like “Gerri’s too mean” and I was just like “uh-huh.” because that’s how I like her.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? I pretty much ONLY write smut lol. The kinky kind??

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Yes I love them. Honestly my Hacks one I think is the craziest. One day I’ll finish that. And my Veep.

11. Gave you ever had a fiction stolen? No! But Soft like silk has inspired some stuff and honestly that counts for like a billion kudos

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? no

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? no but I would! hmu!!

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? oh god this is so hard — I really am just absolutely obsessed with bisexual icon Gerri Kellman and will pair her with anybody (even her husband Baird!) but Shiv/Gerri I think

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Meditations in an emergency. I am going to finish I know a place one day but there’s just a lot of pressure (from myself) to make it good (plus I have to rewatch the end of S3 to put myself back in that place/time.

16. What are your writing strengths? kink/smut, dialogue, accuracy to the source material, character complexity (according to my wife who betas everything)

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Self indulgent background on the Kellman family, commas

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? my French isn’t good enough

19. First Fandom you write for? Sherlock (I used to write Irene Adler/Kate the maid, so that’s telling of a number of things)

20. Favorite fic you’ve ver written? probably This is not therapy because I’m a therapist in real life and it was fun to just disregard literally every single element of what that’s actually like and have fun with the idea of Gerri being Roman’s therapist

tagging anybody who wants to do this including my IRL wife @thegables and romangerri folks like @catherineflowers29

[alarrytale]

There is no plural of 'sheep' babe - it's an irregular noun. The word 'sheeps' doesn't exist.

Yes, babes, i know. But sometimes, when english is your third language, and you've used the two others at work that day, and you're multitasking trying to sing along to troye sivan's absolute banger of a song 'in a dream' while answering asks, your brain misfires and you end up writing 'sheeps' instead of 'sheep'. Autocorrect isn't exactly helping here (set to norwegian). It keeps wanting to correct 'situation' to 'situasjon'. And i have to fight it every, single, time.

I'm also going to butcher the comma rules, because they are so different from the norwegian rules so i'm just going to follow both rule sets and, put, commas, everywhere, i, want! It's going to be fun, and you'll have to deal. I appreciate the correction though, since i'm a perfectionist. I'd hate to not know the difference between 'breath' and 'breathe' (my pet peeve mistake in fics).

Also: Sau, sauen, sauer, sauene! Sheep should be plural!

[wonkyjaw]

I’m desperately trying to read this ARC from NetGalley but it’s… not for me. At all. So I’m getting super nitpicky about it. There’s no way my review will be good and at this point I can’t tell if I hate it so much because it’s not for me or if the things I’m nitpicking at would still be an issue for me if the ways that it’s not for me didn’t exist.

The synopsis just screams that this book was practically MADE for me but the synopsis didn’t say “oh yeah the MC is 70-80” which I just really really really don’t care to read about. You’d think it’d be such a small thing, but I just dislike it so much. So that means when the 3rd person POV constantly head hops that annoys me extra. Or when parents don’t seem to care about the stranger who just dropped their kids off in the middle of the night I’m yelling at my phone. Or every time the MC says something highly accented I’m like “after how many years do you drop the accent especially when you’re used to flying under the radar??” Then every excessive comma makes me want to reach for a red pen. And to top it all off the ARC is a PDF so it’s a nightmare to read on my phone.

I refuse to rate DNFs so I feel like I have to finish this to submit a review and I have to be honest about it, obviously, but I’m so annoyed with the whole situation. Ugh. I don’t even know what honest is with this one anymore because so many of my issues with it don’t say anything about the actual book. I’m a biased judge.

I’m sure it’s an absolutely lovely book to people who enjoy this sort of thing, but it’s ticking every single one of my pet peeve boxes and that makes it impossible to like the plot I was sure I’d love.

[tacobellebandit]

I think examples of mistakes like leaving out commas that changes the meaning and using the incorrect homophone in a sentence are all very funny, but I think the effect is often extremely overstated.

Like yeah, it's funny that your invitation to eat dinner ("It's time to eat, Sally") turned into a threat on Sally's life AS the dinner ("It's time to eat Sally"), but in reality, this sentence doesn't exist in the vacuum. It's in the context of all the words that came before and came after, and brains are clever enough that we can actually pick up on those clues to help us understand the sentence. It's basic reading skills, and it's how we can learn unfamiliar words without looking them up every single time.

In reality, you will understand that they are NOT going to be eating Sally, because the dialogue will have been directly addressing Sally, or directly after Sally will be like "Yay, I'm so hungry" or a million other clues that make the misplaced comma amusing, but not breaking to the meaning of the sentence.

Some people will insist that the sentence simply cannot be understood as is (even though obviously they understood it as a mistake, which involves understanding the intended meaning in the first place). Sometimes mistakes and typos will make it really hard to understand a sentence, but I think more often people just don't even try and then get smug about it as they correct it.

Like that post, "Suzy was balling at her grandma's funeral" and "Suzy was bawling at her grandma's funeral", it's very funny, but I think as a reader I can understand from the tone of the entire scene, that Suzy is actually crying and the author made a homophone error, and not that the tone of the passage suddenly changed for a single sentence and then went back to somber.

[astralsys]

Intro post?

I made this account for fun maybe? fun as in I just wanted to fuck around and vent a little into the void under an account that's not much connected to my other ones idrk. dont have much of an online presence really wanted to see how this will play / work out. even tho I already have an account on here that I use personally to gush about things cause I can't help it probs not gonna use this that much.... probably cause I'll forget this exists, anyways comma!

collective info about me:

💫 ✨ | Astral System | ✨💫

Either call me Astral or K!

They / Them ( NO plural prns / &!!! /srs I hate it fuck off people who use that )

Trans Non-binary Aroace Bodily Adult

Masc / Neutral, System, Alter, Human / Person

Proff Dx’ed w/ D.I.D. ( adult dx'es ) in recovery since 2018, dx’ed also w/ MDD, ASD & ADHD ( childhood dx'es ) [ not recovered ]

( I'm only saying this cause one of my parts may leak that info out by accident, dont know better dont have a consensus with privacy atm, and I would rather just say it now instead of worrying about it being outed later idrc if you think I'm faking or not I've been dx’ed for over 6 years now idc what rando’s on the internet think about me tbh )

❌ ❌ Other Info Never Disclosed ❌ ❌

DNI: Minors, NSFW shit, Queerphobes, Racists, Ableist, Pedo’s / Zoo’s, Proship / Anti’s discourse

Mspec “Lesbians” / “Gays”, Male “Lesbians” Queer ID’s based off people, Rad Inclusive, Transmed, BaB ( + all other queer exclus )

Any "System’s" ( No Matter What "Type", I dont want to see you fuckers fuck off with your “plural community” all of you are fucking bullshit ), “Endogenic System’s”, / “Mixed Origins System” / Tulpa, Pro “Endogenic” / Pro Non Traumagenic “Systems” Whatever Fucking “System Origin” You Fuckers Keep Coming Up w/

“Medically Recognized System” / “Dx”, Self Dx’ers, Pro Self Dx, “M.U.D.” / “M.U.I.”, ( Medically Unrecognized Disorders / Illnesses )

Anything on Pluralpedia! Any Discourse!

I dont wanna see it or you I will block you on sight. I dont care, i am not your friend I don’t want to be your friend leave me alone and out of this shit.

—

specific info about me:

K or Astral ( not giving you my full name )

They / Them, Fey / Fem, Ae / Aer ( + other neo’s )

Trans Non-binary Otherkin / Alterhuman Agender Aroace

Host of Few ( also not giving you their names who fucking does that? ) I'm an adult ( id w/ body age not getting closer than that )

interests / dislikes / triggers private fuck off idc I'm not trying to make friends here

I hyperfixate on a lot of things due to both having asd and adhd and it effects my life way too much it’s annoying af I actually fucking hate it… having both is a fucking mess istfg, also chronic depression that’s so cool who doesnt love that? been dealing with that one for years and it sucks it really sucks I dont wanna keep feeling this awful my entire life, but its not gonna stop for me i think atp.

having D.I.D. isnt something I am ever gonna get into specifically, cause why the fuck would I? why do people have the need to tell others about their extensive personal med hx "oh you have to know all about my / our "system" and everyone apart of it! and every single disorder I / we self dx'es myself / ourselves with too!" ( just had to put the plural pronouns cause that's how these people talk ik I've had personal experience with these kinda people ). do these people not understand anything about internet safety omfg do you not listen to yourself at all? you’re not going to know anything regarding my med hx that I havent already given you cause to be honest I dont trust any one of you with me and my fragmented self and you don't really need to know. my alter’s are not something I talk to anyone about online or irl really. my trauma also isnt something I am ever gonna talk about honestly me even typing all of this out is insane to me what is wrong with me….

credit: banner @/Suyasuyabi427 pfp @/muku_69.0

[sleepwithnightlights]

I am a bit scared

I use a nightlight to sleep I am 23 and am scared of the dark. I am scared that something is there, something will jump at me. That when i open my eyes they will meet someone elses, that things move at the corner of my eye. I already sucked at falling asleep but that made it even worse. Plus i think i started to grind my teeth a while ago, if i had to guess at the same time the shadows started to actually be scary. I used to be fine with the dark and when i imagined something being there, coming at me i would smile in understanding of the creature, sympathy. I wasnt scared of them and it was a proving that i was toughened up that they werent worse than what i knew. So it might be good that they are scary now, perhaps it means i allow myself to be vulnerable. Stress and worse time falling asleep would disagree tho. I feel silly writing this while knowing i might share it. I know not many will see it and at worst an ai bot scrapped it and thinks humans use the word scary and scared a lot more than they should. I also dont write. I used to when i wanted to be an author, they were horse stories and truly wonderful. Later in school i still loved to write, some of it was the silliness i deserved, and some was concerning and should have tipped off my teachers. I guess i gotta say: "I dont write anymore." Which will soon be a lie if i ever make it past 1 or 2 posts. I also dont speak english as my first language and i dont get better at grammar the later it gets, which is when i will write most of these texts. Late at night when im dreading to exist but death is too extreme because of my mom and because of my dog and because of my cat and because of my friends and im scared of pain and i am not at risk, i am in therapy and would certainly not go on a blog to seek my last contact and all i want is to be nothingness but not dead but every thought is poison and i want it to finally shut up up there. So i'll write instead and finally remember what i was thinking duing this time and make it easier for my therapist.

I dont think i used a single comma so far. Oops. I also think that i am being cringe. I will sound edgy no matter how i word it and that no thought will be unique, that what i write is eye-rollable. Teenager stuff. I guess its teenager stuff, its kids stuff, the me teenager and the me kid is just as angry and sad and terrified as the now me. I guess i deserve to be those things and sound cringey and edgy i've got important stuff to share, like being a sad and terrified and angry kid. So back off hater and ai that will not use a single comma now thanks to me. You are welcome guys, i saved us from the impending plagiarization of everything everyone is writing anywhere. Yippie.

I dont allow myself to have a break from doing something during the day.i need to do something so i dont start thinking. Thats stuff bed-me has to deal with and she has gotten quite adapt at trying their best to work with the mess day-me has to deal with. • Fantasy stories. • Funny or exciting scenarios. • Revenge scenarios. • Fake arguments. • Something tragic has happened and only i can help (f.e. a train has been taken hostage and i can save everybody). • Someone i love dearly has died (not actually) and i am now left to deal with grief i cannot even imagine how bad it will be once they truly die. • Someone i love died (actually) and i am left to be furious with the hands they were dealt and they were not able to live their life as they deserved it. • Less now but i used to love creating little love interests and creating whole stories on how we met and fell in love.

There is more but writing does make me tired. Also a lot of these dont actually seem good or helpful and you would be correct but awful scenarios bring a sense of control since i know how to deal with surviving and adapting to anything.

I think i had strategies like these since ever. They used to be mostly diving into the fantasyland of whatever book i was reading, creating my own character, having my own powers, replaying what fun they had. I used to look forward to that part of falling asleep since it was so fun. I dont know if there is something not "normal" about that, something any kid wouldnt do aswell. Im starting to get frustrated that i cant put my thoughts down into writing like i want it to, so ill go try and sleep again. Thank you for reading, hope you got your nigthlight on or video or

[gaykneecaps]

Who is timothy dexter??

i recommend reading his wiki page :) but, if youd prefer not to read his wiki page, here is a summary:

Timothy dropped out of school at age 8, and remained illiterate for the rest of his life (despite being a published author later on). He married a rich widow as a young adult and then, after/during the revolutionary war, bought a HUGE amount of continental currency (which was now useless) because no one else wanted it, and everyone laughed at him because he just wasted half of his fortune, but then continental currency became worth a small amount and he doubled his wealth. He bestowed upon himself the title 'lord timothy dexter' despite the fact that he was not a lord, and asked his local government for a political title which they refused to give him until he hastled them for long enough that they gave him the title 'reporter of deer' (there were no deer in Massachusetts, where he lived) and he was like 'yeah thats good enough'. And the local aristocrats really did not like him. So they tried to bankrupt him, of course. They each come up to him, time and time again, and give him the WORST POSSIBLE buisness advice. and he takes it! every single time he takes it and he does it with huge amounts of enthusiasm but crazy circumstances mean that he makes a huge amount of profit. example: someone tells him to ship coals to newcastle, he does not realise that this is an idiom for doing something unneccesary because newcastle is a coal mining town, and does it, but by the time it arrives all the workers are on strike and he makes a huge profit. Another example: Someone tells him to ship bedheating pans to the carribean where they absolutely do not need bedheating pans because its tropical, and he says yes that is a GREAT IDEA and so he does it, and the people in the carribean sell them as ladels and he makes a huge profit, but he takes this to mean that scientists were in fact wrong and the carribean is really fucking cold and so he sends them a bunch of like mittens and sweaters and stuff, but they arrive just in time to be intercepted by a ship that was headed to siberia, so he again made a huge profit. he also: accidentally hoarded whale bones, and sold them for corset stays, as well as rounded up a bunch of stray cats on the coast and sent them to a country where there were NOT cats before (sorry i cant remember the name of the country)... and they welcome a solution to their pre-existing pest problems and keep them as pets.

After all this, he decides to write a book. And he is still illiterate, by the way. He calls it: 'a pickle for the knowing ones'. So this book has like a singular full stop the entire book, and the spelling is ATROCIOUS- my favourite quote is: 'jorge washeton'. And the book somehow becomes suppper popular, but ofc everyone complains about the lack of punctuation. His response? release a second edition. But the only thing he changes, the only thing at all, is to add a page at the end that has a line of full stops, a line of commas, etc- and instructions to 'peper and solt' them as you will. He spends most of the book complaining about his wife- which brings us to our next point, his family.

He did not have a great relationship with his wife, mainly because when he had people over when they would ask about his wife and how she was, etc, he would point at her and say that that was not, in fact, his wife, but the local ghost. yeah. He did a bunch of other stuff as well, (such as faking his death to see how people would react and getting mad at his wife for not crying enough at his fake wake) i again reccomend reading his wiki! hope this helps.

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

3, 25, 34, 38

3: What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

I write to music, and I try to challenge myself by writing out my target in under three songs. Sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's not. And I guess it's only cursed because sometimes the songs I choose are kind of weird (or more specifically their videos sometimes), and also because it shows that I can't do anything without giving myself some sort of funny challenge to motivate me.

25: What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

I think Margaret/Victoria (haven't decided on which name for her yet) would have been really into Tumblr indie pop fandom if she was a teenager in our world. And she would be into all the big names (Lana, Marina, etc), but her very favourite would have very specifically been Melanie Martinez. And then she would grow up and kind of bury her past as much as she could, as we all try to do once we grow out of our teens, but I don't think her taste in music would have changed very much from there (she just wouldn't really be into the specific artist anymore).

34: Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

It's good. I'm glad it exists. But I also believe you can simply just ignore the rules of grammar if they are inconvenient to you, so whatever, really.

38: What is something about your writing process YOU think is Really Weird? If you are comfortable, please share. If you’re not comfortable, what do you think cats say about us?

I guess the weirdest part of the writing process for me is just the part where I brainstorm for ideas. When I write, I just need to focus and write, and just listening to music and challenging myself to put words to the document is enough for me. But I generally find it difficult to write if I don't know what I want to say. Or well, it'll be more apt to say that I can type out words, but I would not really be writing.

I hate that feeling, where I'm writing, but I realise I'm not saying anything of substance. But I also at this point I am just so into the habit of writing everyday that it just feels weird if I can't do it. So, my plan for this is to just live a life that is just so rich and varied that at any time, I can just pull something out and spin some sort of story for it. At this point, I think this is the only real way I can stay sane, because I think if I go too long without writing it would drive me just a little bit bananas.

This isn't really the weird part in and of itself, I think. I think the weird part is when I start doing things like drinking orange juice mixed with coffee or reading every single Bionicle novel or climbing both of the currently existing hills in my country or eating cereal with pear cider just because I want to know what happens/what it'll be like. These days, I am just perpetually indulging in my curiosity now. It's led me down some weird places, but hey. Who knows what would lead to a good story someday, you know?

For this series of asks for writers

[duckprintspress]

Editing Tips for Beginning Editors

This is a guest post written by Adrian Harley.

Congratulations! If you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet you already have a lot of the skills you need to be an editor. Even among full-time professionals, a lot of editing skill comes from reading a ton—you get an “eye” for when a sentence just doesn’t look right. The more you read professionally edited work, the better you get at it. (Fanfiction is incredible, obviously. But fanfiction has its own quirks, and the grammar and punctuation can vary, so I’m not confident recommending it as a way to brush up your instinctive grasp of when a sentence “looks right.”)

The specifics of what you do as an editor can vary a lot depending on what you’re editing and who you’re editing for, so in this post, I’ll be covering some of the basic principles that I think will be helpful no matter what type of editing you do. Broadly, I’ll be going over language-related tips and profession-related tips. 

Language

I won’t be going over the nuts and bolts of grammar here, as a zillion good guides to it already exist online. Grammar Girl is my go-to free resource, and a lot of grammar and punctuation questions can be easily answered online or in a style guide from your library. I looked up the rules for commas a LOT in my first years of editing, and I still have to double-check them sometimes. A lot of the fiddly details differ between guides (how to write a.m. and p.m.; serial comma), but the nuts and bolts of grammar and punctuation stay the same across guides. 

Professionally, those fiddly details are a big chunk of editing. Do you write out numbers less than 20? Less than 10? Do you capitalize titles like “President” all the time or only in certain situations? There’s no one right answer, which is one of the many reasons there’s no “right guide” to editing. A style guide will decide many of these questions for you. If you pick up editing as a profession, your employer will most likely have a style guide in mind. You may want to pick one for yourself if you do freelance editing. That way, you won’t have to re-decide on every job, and if you get repeat clients, you’ll be sure their text is consistent across all their documents. A “series bible” for fiction works on similar principles. 

Whether you’re looking at those fiddly details or at the big picture, one principle of editing is to never take anything for granted. Someone says there’s five ancient orbs needed to defeat the dragon? You’d better count the orbs. Make sure every proper noun in the story (names of people, places, things) is spelled the same every single time. This is the kind of thing you’ll get quizzed on if you ever apply for a professional editing gig. Every editing job I’ve ever applied to has an “editing test” of at least a page, and it usually has at least one of those errors (if not both).

Another major thing to watch out for is colloquialisms, especially ones that mean multiple things. A short list of common errors I see:

“Since” should only relate to the passage of time; it does not mean “because.”

“While,” again, should only refer to time—two things happening simultaneously. “But,” “although,” “whereas,” and others are good substitutes for the other sense.

“Due to” does not mean “because of,” it means “caused by” (and I’ve seen some editors argue to not even use it for “caused by” and to only use it for when something is owed to someone).

“If” will often need to be replaced with “whether.”

Obviously with dialogue, that’s a whole nother story, but be careful about these in narration, even with a colloquial narrative. They can introduce unintentional double meanings.

When you’re moving from basic accuracy to style, you’ll often need to “tighten up” the language. This might be something you’re used to doing in your own writing. This doesn’t mean all prose should be sparse! But as an editor, part of your job is making sure that every word is contributing something, no matter whether the sentence is flowery or stark. One exercise is to go through and see if you can cut one word from every sentence. Depending on what type of editing you do, you’ll have different “filler words” to look out for. My personal demon is “just,” so I always do a search for that when I’m revising my own work. In my day job, the word “provide” often signals a clunky phrase that could be condensed into a single, better verb (e.g., “provides assistance” vs. “helps”). 

You’ll look for a lot as you edit, so don’t feel like you have to do it all at once. A simple search can make sure you’ve caught issues like “while” and “since.” Other issues are best solved in their own read-through. For me, I try to do a read-through specifically for passive voice. I often skip over passive voice on my all-purpose read because, well, the sentence makes sense, doesn’t it? So my eye simply doesn’t catch it if I’m not on the lookout. As you edit, you’ll figure out what process works best for you.

And to wrap up the language section—checklists are your friend! I used to have a post-it of all the things I knew I struggled with, and I’d systematically search the document for those trip-ups after I did my first read. You can customize your own checklist with whatever snags give you trouble.

Professionalism

A huge part of editing as a professional is in how you interact with other people. Your whole job is telling people they’re wrong, after all, and you often have no control over whether they’ll listen to you. Everything you can do to make the criticism easier for them helps!

My favorite “one weird trick” that my first boss taught me is to turn every criticism into a question. If you’re suggesting a significant revision, “How about…?” is one of my favorite leads. If you have no idea what’s going on, do your best to figure out what might be causing the issue, then form a question around that. “Are there missing words here?” is kinder and more useful than “Huh?”

Essentially, your role as an editor is to advocate for the reader. This “reader stand-in” role can help frame critique as well. Will the reader understand this? If you’re in one of the more-technical editing jobs, that question may be completely necessary. As an editor for scientific research, I’m often editing documents meant for people who know way more about the subject matter than I do. The framing of “the reader” is also a useful tool in your toolbox for fiction. You may be editing something that you are not the target audience for. Or, on the other end of the scale, you may know without question that you’re reading something incomprehensible. The polite device of “the reader” helps add a level of depersonalization to the critique.

Unsurprisingly, for editing, communication is key before you even start work. “Editing” covers a huge range of possibilities. Make sure you and the author are on the same page. Do they want a proofread—only correcting glaring errors? Do they want you to improve the phrasing of sentences? It can go all the way up to practically rewriting the thing, if you’re working at a corporation and the authors aren’t professionals. This conversation beforehand will let you know whether you should make “artistic” suggestions as you read, whether you need to stick with nuts and bolts, or something in between.

If the author says they only need a proofread and you discover the whole thing is terrible, that’s when some tactful emails come into play. Never start doing a higher-level edit unless you’ve talked about it with the author first. You have much better odds of an affirmative if they feel like they’re collaborating with you–that you’re both in it together to make the best document possible. As far as the tactful emails go, be kind and be specific. If you have examples of what you’d like to correct, throw those in. It helps the author know what to expect and make an informed decision.

And sometimes the author says no, and that’s okay! You must wash your hands of it. It’s not your name on the thing, and if you don’t put it in your resume, it never will be (fresh out of college, I worked on a couple truly awful novels that nobody will ever know I worked on). Perfectionism is HARD to overcome, I know, but accepting the errors gets easier with practice.

And finally, if you’re still wondering, “Am I cut out to be an editor?” I would recommend the words of Neil Gaiman. In his excellent “Make Good Art” speech, he says that as a freelance artist, you need to do good work, do it on time, and be pleasant to work with. And then, he adds, “You don’t even need all three! Two out of three is fine.”I recommend the whole thing if you ever want to battle imposter syndrome, because the same tenets apply to editing. At least I think they do. You don’t need to be the perfect editor—nobody is. But I guarantee that you have most of what you need already, and I hope this has helped.

Biography

Adrian Harley, one of Duck Prints Press’s editors, has been a full-time professional editor of scientific research for 10 years. Their freelance and ad-hoc editing has run the gamut from books to blog posts to family members’ cover letters. They’ve been published in Duck Prints Press’ And Seek (Not) to Alter Me and the forthcoming She Wears the Midnight Crown, as well as OFIC Magazine. 

Want to learn more?

Beware the Weasel Word has information and resources for “tightening up” language.

How to Ask for Feedback on Your Writing talks more about how, from a writer point of view, to help your editor understand what type(s) of editing you’re looking for.

Giving Quality, Motivating Feedback focuses on exactly what it says on the tin: how to give a writer feedback they’ll listen to.

What is an Alpha Reader? talks about what role alpha reader editors play and how to work with one.