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GUYS THIS IS AMAZING

SERIOUSLY

6000 YEARS

STORIES THAT ARE OLDER THAN CIVILIZATIONS

STORIES THAT WERE TOLD BY PEOPLE SPEAKING LANGUAGES WE NO LONGER KNOW

STORIES TOLD BY PEOPLE LOST TO THE VOID OF TIME

STORIES

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Reason #1,324,789 of why I love this show.

This was a casual side conversation between Bashir and Sisko about a fellow crew member, completely unrelated to the episode’s plot, and its just so sweet.

It’s nice to know that if you’re a pregnant father-to-be on DS9, your buddies Julian and Miles will build you a hatchling pond, buy you baby clothes, and throw you a shower eagerly attended by the station’s commanding officer (who was practically beaming with joy when he found out that you were expecting).

How wonderful.

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Blood loss? No I know exactly where it is

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Blood loss? No I know exactly where it is

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THE MISCONCEPTION ABOUT COMMENTING ON FIC

I’ve read all kinds of posts both from writers and readers lamenting about comments on fic. Authors are upset when they don’t get any, readers don’t know what kinds of comments to leave, etc. And it finally clicked in my brain why I think a lot of people don’t bother writing comments. 

And this is what it boils down to:

Writers do not want praise.  We just want to talk about our story. 

I can’t speak for everyone obviously - but I think the majority of writers don’t care so much for the “omg you’re a brilliant writer!!” comments as much as we just want to hear your thoughts on the story. Even if it’s just your thoughts as you’re reading of “oooh x happened! I can’t believe y said this! What’s going to happen now that z has happened?!” We literally just want to talk about what we’ve written like you would with a friend about a tv show. We’re not out here demanding praise like some entitled narcissist. 

While praising our writing skills or writing style is appreciated, it doesn’t need to be said on every fic and every chapter that you read. If you regularly comment on someone’s work that’s telling enough that you like our technique. Readers shouldn’t feel pressured to have to praise a writer’s abilities every time they want to comment. 

In the grand scheme of things, talking about the fic/chapter is actually more helpful to us writers instead of spewing praise. It’s the same with artwork. As nice as it is that people tell me “wow your art is so pretty!” it’s a LOT more useful to me to get comments like “I love their expressions!” or “the lighting on this is gorgeous!” because then I know WHAT people are liking about it. If no one ever comments on my backgrounds, I now know what to improve. If most people comment on liking the expressions, I now know the strong points of my art and can use it to my advantage to make even better art in the future. 

The same goes for fic. If multiple people tell me they liked a certain part of the story I now know that things similar to that are a hit. It’s feedback I can use to improve the story and give my readers more of what they want. Without that I have no idea what they like about the fic.

Talking with a writer about their story also gives them inspiration!! Nothing gets us more in the mood to work on a fic than to have people wanting to talk about it. A lot of times just talking about one of my fics with someone will give me that push to continue working on it. Getting a comment that just says “great chapter” or “you’re a great writer” doesn’t do much to motivate us to continue that particular fic. But if you talk about the story and the characters it gives us motivation to continue working on it, may even give us ideas for future chapters. I would hope that those of you with “comment anxiety” find this approach so much easier than trying to praise the writer every time you read.

So that fic the author hasn’t updated in forever that you’re dying to read? Talk to them about the fic and the elements of the story! It will make the writer want to talk to you about it and will get their mind thinking about it, hopefully inspiring them to continue where they left off. Fics that are left in silence are more likely to be abandoned or even deleted because nothing feels worse than putting your heart into a story to have no one say anything about it. 

TLDR; Writers do not want praise, we just want to talk with our readers about the story itself, and these are the kinds of comments that inspire us to keep writing more. 

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If you’re ever feeling down, read this paradigm for “banana” in Icelandic. read it aloud. you will feel better

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vampire hunter? no i said vampire HAUNTER. this jerk sucked all my blood out so now i spend my afterlife knocking over shelves and scaring off potential victims and just making the castle generally pretty cold

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Pedro Pascal tweeting about OFMD is something that can be so personal

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my favourite ever literary trope is “you want me to be a villain? i’ll show you a villain” that shit gives me goosebumps and given the right context also turns me on

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I like to take the Tolkien approach. The world I’m writing about has a completely different language, and I’m just translating into English with the closest words I can find.

Everytime that Tumblr post about “You can’t use the word bungalow in fantasy worlds!” or whatever and then it’s all the fucking reblogs of all the words that have “specific origins” that you “can’t use” because “those people don’t exist” or “those places” or whatever.

Do you know how many fucking basic words we use to describe the world are derived from very specific people and very specific events? Or are stolen from languages in which those words come from VERY SPECIFIC PEOPLE and events? If you get rid of one, you might as well get rid of them all! Because just because YOU don’t know the VERY SPECIFIC HISTORICAL ORIGINS of this word, doesn’t mean your AUDIENCE doesn’t and wouldn’t that break immersion??

No. No it fucking wouldn’t. Not if you, you know, make it work.

What else would you do? Write in a god damn conlang? Because all I’m hearing is “because I know the origin of this word, therefore it can’t be in fantasy” and honestly fuck off.

I’m gonna go put bungalows in my fantasy now.

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GUYS THIS IS AMAZING

SERIOUSLY

6000 YEARS

STORIES THAT ARE OLDER THAN CIVILIZATIONS

STORIES THAT WERE TOLD BY PEOPLE SPEAKING LANGUAGES WE NO LONGER KNOW

STORIES TOLD BY PEOPLE LOST TO THE VOID OF TIME

STORIES