#review etiquette

[emperorsfoot]

one thing that ffn had right was having Reviews on fics instead of Comments

comments are great, as an author, I love them. but comments are meant for the author. when you click the comment count on AO3, it takes you to the fic, and if its a multi-chapter fic you have to scroll for 84 years to get to the comments. its not designed for people to read the comments first

reviews on ffn, however, opened a a page that was just the reviews that appeared in chronological order with most recent first. you did not have to open the fic in order to read the reviews, you could just read the reviews, then decide if you want to read the fic or not. reviews were meant for the readers

I just read a fic on AO3 that I really wanna write a review for, for other readers. something along the lines of

I found this fic through the ship tag, and the ship is there, but its background. this fic is actually about one of the characters in the ship and their relationships with various members of their family. if you're a fan of that family of characters, you will love this fic. but if you're looking for ship content this fic is severely lacking. the ship isn't even in the same room together until the last 2 chapters

but that is not the type of thing you put in a comment to the author on AO3

we need to bring back review culture

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[itsanidiom]

Food safe fun fact #1: DO NOT ICE A BURN

You're supposed to run it under cool water because EXTREME COLD actually stops it from healing

[fiddleleafedfig]

I love reading a public bookmark calling my characterisation “surface level”, made by an account of zero (0) published works.

I just love that so much

[megamindfandombookclub]

April's Book Club winner is... @berrymarais! Thanks for submitting @buginateacup's fic: Haute Water!

by impatientseamstress Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen Fandoms: Megamind (2010) Relationships: Minion & Roxanne Ritchi Characters: Roxanne Ritchi, Minion (Megamind), Megamind (Megamind) Additional Tags: Met Gala, fashion - Freeform, Inspired entirely by the line "You know who would serve absolute cunt at the Met Gala? Megamind", and an entirely lacklustre 2022 Met Gala, The fact I resisted calling this Haute Cunture deserves applause, Presentation!, featuring Megamind and Roxanne in haute couture, Minion having the time of his life being a drama queen, Megamind in an Iris van Herpen inspired outfit, in universe punishment of people who don't understand the assignment, Roxanne in GILLS, Minion in PEARLS, Megamind in SPIKES, Absolute high nonsense, pre Megamind/Roxanne/Minion polycule if you really squint, And a little flirting, because why not, strict research was done on making a believable sounding Met Gala theme and NOTHING ELSE! ​ Summary: Roxanne admits she has an invite as Metro Man's plus one to the Met Gala. Megamind and Minion decide to offer their assistance… Words: 6,630 | Chapters: 1/1 | Language: English | Published: 2022-05-15

As before, it's highly encourage to leave positive feedback for our wonderful and talented writers:

After all, fanfic is a lover letter to Fandom and what better way to say "Thank you" than to let them know in a review? Encouragement goes a long way!

[simplydnp]

you’re trademark is having the best thoughts and then for some reason leaving them in the tags 😫

lowkey i hate attaching myself to a post i didn't write. this is why i love peer reviewing so much because sure i think i have a lot to say. but it's also a little annoying to just. permanently etch yourself to the post when op didnt ask 😂 but if someone else agrees with me enough to put 'em there, hell yeah! love that

[panther-os]

a few ao3 pro tips:

for the love of god format your links in comments and authors notes with the <a href="[link]">[page title]</a> html

don't put unsolicited recs in the comments

don't put recs in the comments at all if you can't find at least one nice thing to say about the fic you're. yanno. commenting on?

[samanthajameswriter]

Charming and Absurd: 19th-Century Etiquette Rules For Victorian Women

[macmanx]

Do bad reviews kill companies?

No, bad products do, and sometimes those products get reviewed, because that's just how it works.

Don't release bad products.

[hazbinbabbling4ever]

My top 10 gomens fics

I decided to do this too, so here’s my fav fics from 2023 (but probably also 2022, this post has been in the drafts for a loong time), so here we are:

In mixed company, or the corporate retreat of Heaven and Hell (M) by Theoldaquarian

Probably my favorite fanfic ever: it’s not just the getting together story that is fun and entertaining to read, but it’s the world building surrounding them that almost feels like I’m reading the book all over again. From the inner workings of Heaven and Hell to the various secondary characters, it felt like I was reading a spin off written by the authors (and now that s2 is out and the two Ineffable Dumbasses kissed, even more so).

A few more rescues (T) by poetic_nonsense

I am a big fan of anything that sees these two dorks navigating history with all their quirks and problems and pining. This story is one of the best I’ve read on the theme, it offers some more rescues courtesy of Dashing Hero Crowley, with Swooning Maiden Aziraphale (mostly) grudgingly participating. It’s super soft, pine-y and also very funny.  Time Flies (When You're Having Fun) (E) by Mussimm

This is very much like a bodice ripper but with much better writing. The mistery is not the centre of the narrative, it’s not just “how will Azira stop the time loop”, but how he and Crowley will meet every time, how things change in slightly different scenarios, but in all of them they’re just so soft for each other. 

A Winding Path (T) by ZehWulf

The cutest retelling of Red Riding Hood. Amazing atmosphere, world building and interactions between all the characters. You can read the relationship between Azi and Crow how you want, friendship or more, it’s perfect whichever way you spin it. It’s eerie and soft at the same time, the fairytale tone is still very much present and it’s not disney-an in the slightest, it’s more like an old-fashioned grimm tales. 

Temptation (E) by TawnyOwl95

Vampire fic which veered from what I expected and I was so happy with it. Funny and with just the right dose of adventure and pining. 

The rose and the serpent (T) by Atalan

Probably one of my favourite fics ever. It has fairytale elements to the nines, but also a strong plot, splendid side characters and a love story that’s so soft and beautiful. 

The rose thief and the Priest (T) by Improbabledreams900

This wins the cake for random-est plot ever, but it’s super soft and a nice love story over all, Aziraphale is a little shit and I loved him for it, Crowley is your usual “wiley” mess. They sort it out beautifully in the end.

In the house we remain (M) by Commodorecliche

I’m not a fan of romances between a ghost and a living person but this was written in such a convincing, realistic, intriguing way that I was hooked from start to finish. It doesn’t shy away from the dark themes/gore-y details that such a love story entails and I can’t recommend it more.

So You Need To Get Into A.Z. Fell & Co.; Now What? (A Guide For Unfortunate Bookworms) (G) by C4llistrad

I love outsider pov’s anything. Fics like this one, where we get to see our fav characters through the eyes of strangers (who could as well be us), and we piece together bits of information here and there. It’s super fun. 

The Penthouse (G) by Worseomens

Another outsider pov, where we see the friendship between Crowley and one of his neighbors. Super funny.

[quoththemaiden]

I saw your tags in the poll comments and I had to jump into your ask box. If you want to reply to comments, don't be afraid to do it! People love nothing more than to interact with the author. People comment to express their love for your work, and I can promise nothing make them more happy than to have a reply from the author!!! It's a "my comment had been seen and made them happy, yeah!" feeling.

My tags, for context:

This poll is wild to me. Tumblr's interpretation of fanfic etiquette seems completely backwards from my internet upbringing.

Back on ff.net, where the number of reviews wasn't even a sortable field, it was still uncool for authors to respond to the reviews. Every fic would end with "Please R&R!!!" but actually interacting with reviewers was the kind of thing you were supposed to grow out of as you went from a socially clueless young teen to a socially competent older teen. Saying "That's exactly what I was going for!" or "Oooh just wait, you'll love it!" or "I'm so glad you liked it!" was really just patting yourself on the back for being awesome, and saying "No, you don't get it--" was too defensive. (Putting "I've been blown away by the response to this fic" in an A/N is sufficiently self-effacing if used sparingly, though.)

On AO3, looking at the comment section of a fic and seeing that an author has responded to every comment with "Thanks!!" or "❤️" feels similarly desperate to me--

--and not just cringey, but also vaguely unethical because it's artificially doubling the number of comments on a site that does allow sorting by comments. Like, let your fic stand on its own merits instead of trying to game the system with fake reviews.

But on Tumblr, there's those AO3 etiquette posts going around saying "kudos are for if you finish reading a fic; comments are for if you enjoyed it." And that just feels backwards. Shouldn't kudos be for if you enjoyed the fic enough that you think it should be boosted in the rankings so more people read it? Comments, on the other hand, are mandatory on every fic you read unless you can't find even a single good thing to say about it. (And you're still obligated to rack your brain a bit to see if you can at least pull out a "Wow, that was an interesting premise!" or "I really love this trope so thanks for writing this!" or "This was such a fun line!" and just try not to be too obvious about damning with faint praise.)

I've had authors respond to say, "Hey, sorry I haven't responded to your comments yet, but I've been reading them" and I'm always like... my dude, that's not how this economy works. You write fics and I leave comments. You don't have to write fics and respond to comments. Take a load off.

Obviously if I say something particularly insightful it's nice to hear the author's thoughts back, and I've had some cool conversations about their inspirations... and the friend I talk to literally every single day is someone where we both loved each other's fics 20 years ago and we got started talking because of it... so it's not like I think it's never okay to respond to a reviewer.

(And, frankly, a lot of my comments are a couple paragraphs long or I'm leaving a dozen comments in a short timespan, so it hasn't usually felt weird when authors do respond to me to comment on some highlights.)

It's just absolutely baffling to look at that poll and see that 88% of authors do or think they should respond to comments, so I'm clearly in the vast, vast minority.

It's absolutely, mind-bogglingly wild. And since it's purely a cultural thing, being in the minority means I'm wrong, and I need to come to grips with that. Like, I'm going to need to actively, consciously work on flipping my judgement-o-meter from "responding to comments is inappropriately clingy and must be actively avoided" to "responding to comments is good and expected" because the former is a social norm I internalized decades ago and now I need to go through the active work of completely flipping what's rude and what's polite -- which is a thing that happens all the time as we get older, of course, but it was a shock to encounter it here.

[mothymusings]

First Entry

“Esto es verdad, y no miento. Como me lo contaron, lo cuento.” ― Donna Barba Higuera, The Last Cuentista

For my first (and a few after this one) entry into this blog, I've decided that I would review books I've read in the near past before exhausting my queue. So let's jump in, shall we!

Synopsis

A story spanning centuries and across worlds, The Last Cuentista follows young Petra Peña, the daughter of scientists and the granddaughter of a storyteller as her entire sense of reality crumbles in the wake of an apocalyptic event. Leaving behind the only place she, or any other person in history, has called home in hopes of starting civilization over on a new planet, Sagan. 

Petra has to come to terms that all she ever knew, the landscapes and stories from her abuela are gone as she and the rest of her family enter hypersleep, hoping to wake up once the journey is over. However in the ranks of those whose fate is to watch over their pods for generations never to see Sagan itself, conflict is brewing; change is coming. 

Now Petra, the sole person to remember the past and Earth as it was, has to navigate an eerie and dangerous landscape all while grappling with the fact that even the things she thought she’d keep through her journey to Sagan may very well be memories in the wind. 

First Impressions

The Last Cuentista felt to me like it nailed the central themes and overall narrative about remembering the past and honoring the traditions of our ancestors even in the face of conformity. I remember reading it on a plane ride, squished against a total stranger in the dimly lit cabin and never taking my eyes off the pages. I felt the loss and the anger, the tension, fear, grief and solace as I walked through this interstellar journey with Petra and the other kids of Zeta Group. 

The book felt simultaneously easily digestible due to its middle-grade rank and still complex enough to ponder what it was conveying. I came away feeling at peace, there isn’t technically a happy ending I would argue, not after all that went on right before. But it was a start after the end, left open ended not in hair pulling agony; rather slumping in exhaustion and taking a moment before gathering up the pieces left. 

The Good, The Bad, and the Fuzzy

Now here’s where we get to the Nitty Gritty of book reviewing. I’ve already outlined the Good in my First Impressions but I will place more of the Good I saw in the book smiles. I enjoyed the vivid descriptions, especially tied into the uncanniness of the augmented Collective. It kept me wondering why they would want to radically change their own genetic makeup if the memory of Earth had been (supposedly) all erased. The trauma Petra experiences and her reaction to it is realistic, and I felt for her as someone who also recently lost a loved one dear to me. It’s hard, and the moments where you feel like letting go are visceral. Plus less about the story but the cover illustration is absolutely gorgeous, shout out to the illustrator for such an amazing design!

The Bad…as a preface I will never be too harsh on a book since again, this is for my own entertainment and overall my reading list is catered to what I like. But still, no book is ever perfect. One of the problems I had was my suspension of belief in the fact that the ark ships had the technology for suspended animation and the ability to upload any topic of the world’s collective knowledge in the modern day. Not to mention how the Collective simply “purged” the adults because they were too finicky to brainwash. Even still, those were valuable resources they could have used instead of relying on the limited amount of children on board. It reduces risk of course, but surely having maybe one or two adult scientists around per generation, even if confined, would have sped up their technological advances. Plus for the book’s title to be the Last Cuentista, The Last Storyteller, the stories Petra herself tells Zeta crew feel almost rushed and unsubstantial. 

The Fuzzy, where things feel lost in the fluff. I had so many questions throughout the book, mainly about Voxy and what will happen to him on Sagan since the Collective seem to be deathly allergic to something in the environment. Why Chancellor Nyla kept the personal effects of the ship's inhabitants instead of purging them like the rest of the risks. How Ben managed to upload an ai/computer program into Petra and the fact that she was only able to access it in hypersleep and not normal sleep. I understand that this book is middle-grade rated and that may provide some restrictions and boundaries, but I still felt that there were so many what-ifs?

Conclusion

The Last Cuentista is one of the few Sci-Fi books featuring a Latina protagonist I’ve seen, with an interesting narrative weaving tradition with promises of the future together while arguing against conformity as a solution to previous misdeeds. It’s a good read that I feel definitely would have completely captivated Middle School me hard, and even now as an adult I still enjoyed it despite its moderate use of what I can only describe as ‘trust me’ poetic faith. Overall this book is one I would recommend as an easy sci-fi read that also provides good emotion to keep you invested and feeling. 

Rating

A solid 7.6/10 Lamps! 

Upcoming…

Be On the Lookout for the next book being reviewed, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae!

[palin-tropos]

when 3 people in a reblog row write “omg prev tags so good” and it’s my original post tags i’m thinking maybe it’s time to copy paste those tags into the post

[moreaugriffins]

sometimes writing a fic means also watching a 2hr long bloody opera (on youtube) so i can have two characters have bloody thoughts on the opera they watched together

[megamindfandombookclub]

Rage Rage FUCKING RAGE

About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

[the-bookworm-cafe]

Christopher Ross and Tahl Raz Never Split The Difference

Never Split the Difference

One of my favorite books written by an FBI negotiator that teaches you how to get the answer you want through simple psychology and good manners. He teaches you how to get out of any minor and major situations through, surprisingly, kindness, and how being polite and talk through every problem life throws at you.

He teaches an empathetic approach where you try to see the other person's POV. Listening for key words that the other person is telling you that you can use against them. Reusing those keywords by labeling the other person's problems and acknowledging their goals and emotions they gave you.

My favorite part was how he described life and death situations where he just asks logical questions such as: How am I supposed to get the money? How do I know the victim is alive? How do you want me to send it? etc. Most of the time, the "bad guy" didn't think everything through and you can haggle this information out of them by listening and asking questions.