Just Watched This Video About A Real Life Marriage And The Husband Recounts He Proposed To His Wife By

The thing that is so exciting about the Thirteenth Doctor is the fact that she’s starting off with a clean slate. She’s excitable and childish and so much lighter than any of the other Doctors since the start of the 2005 series, and that’s because she can be. Doctors Nine through Eleven had their childish sides, yes, but there was so much darkness there behind their eyes and actions. So much pain. He was the last of the Time Lords. Until halfway through Eleven’s journey he believed that he had committed the most atrocious act of murder. But when Gallifrey was saved there was hope. Hope for the next day. Hope for the time when maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be so alone anymore. Twelve started out colder and more aloof but by the end he’d thawed considerably and even told the Doctor he would become to ‘Work hard, run fast, and be kind’.

And she does, and she is. She doesn’t hold onto the burdens of the past. She’s not the murderer of her people. She’s not the last of the Time Lords. She’s lost her family, and there’s real sadness there when she talks about them to Yasmin and Ryan and Graham, but she’s learned how to build around the grief and carry them with her. There’s steel there in her when she’s facing evil, but that’s simply the Doctor shining through. 

She’s just brilliant.

So how is that no one has ever made a documentary about the life of Clara Barton? I’m quite miffed about this, because she was such an inspiration. 

Perhaps I’m mistaken here, but every time I watch BBC Sherlock all the way through, I feel like the dynamic of Sherlock and John changes between TRF and TEH. Sherlock is still the brilliant detective and John is still the faithful blogger and friend; but it’s their individual reactions to St Barts and the subsequent two years that have changed how they react to one another. 

Sherlock’s still an insufferable prat most of the time, and he still misses social cues 99.9% of the time, but he’s softer around the edges. The way he interacts with Archie, his reactions to James Sholto locked in his hotel room, his MANY little moments with Mary, all reflect on a man who went through hell during his two years away and rather than becoming even more closed off and alienated than normal actually found it hard to be as much of an island as before. His circle of friends is small but he finds it impossible not to be somewhat gentler to them than before Moriarty’s scheme on the rooftop. Or rather, he had come to care for John and Greg and Mrs Hudson a great deal before the rooftop, but Moriarty forced him to actively prove it and once the lid was popped open it was impossible for it to be sealed completely again.

It’s rather like the Twelfth Doctor, who starts out as oblivious to social cues and more of an anti-hero than any Doctor before, a man who is harsh and unforgiving to those who anger him and has absolutely no recognition of friendship or even the desire to hug; who by the end of his tenure and with the help of his companions, whether it be Clara or Bill or Nardole or even Missy, has softened to the point where he even initiates a hug with Bill and Nardole and clearly has no desire to break it. Of course, Sherlock and the Twelfth Doctor are both written by Moffatt, so it’s not so much of a surprise that their dynamics are so similar.

John, on the other hand, grew sharper due to St Barts and the subsequent two years. His anger with Sherlock’s necessary deception is unrelenting and viscous, and it’s clear that even if he forgave Sherlock of it in TEH we can still see its latent existence all too clearly in TLD. He’s a man who fell to pieces once again in the wake of a life-changing tragedy and when he managed to glue himself back together some of the pieces were either missing or more brittle. He has less patience for Sherlock’s actions, he actively confronts Sherlock about the latter’s drug use during TAB, and I will not even get started in on the morgue scene during TLD. (That will be addressed later in another post eventually.) Where Sherlock’s learned response to the two years-hiatus is newfound understanding, John’s is anger, which all culminates in TLD and finds a somewhat solved dynamic in TFP. 

I love seeing all of those pictures of Jodie during the premiere screening of DW when she’s standing in front of the Tardis. It’s so awesome that she gets the chance to do that after we’ve seen Christopher and David and Matt and Peter do so, too. She finally gets a chance to shine as the Doctor and hopefully this starts a long-term precedent for the show.

Chris Chibnall. For God's sake you need to give us a meeting between the Thirteenth Doctor and her daughter Jenny.

David Tennant as Jimmy Murphy

United (2011) 3 of 4

people who don't wear glasses who are writing characters who wear glasses;

they get fogged up when we drink hot beverages. they get smudged for no reason. we will push them up using anything in our area (i.e shoulder, whatever is in my hand, scrunching my nose up so they get pushed up, etc.). they get knocked off our faces all. the. fucking. time. when we change clothes we either take them off or they fall off when we pull our shirts off. we have to clean them after being in the rain. we own multiple pairs of them, not just one lone pair for our whole lives. most people don’t wear them in the pool, but some have extra old pairs for the pool (like me). some people take them off during sex, that’s fine! but some people keep them on. they don’t get squished into your face when you kiss (most of the time. at least from what i’ve experienced and i’ve got some mf big glasses). if we look down and look back up while you talk/to peek up at something, we will just peek blindly over the top of them. we clean them on whatever item of clothing is closest. some of us have prescription sunglasses and some of us wear contacts when we need to wear sunglasses. please keep some of these in mind when you write characters with glasses cause y'all who have 20/20 vision keep telling me all characters sleep in their glasses and own the same singular pair from age 6-25 and they never clean them.

A Brief Guide to Supporting Authors

As a minor change of pace, I’d like to share some information about how to support fanfiction authors. Many readers don’t believe that their comments, kudos, or bookmarks are important to authors, but they are. 

So, great! Now, let’s talk about the various ways to give feedback - including those other than comments and kudos - as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each method. 

(Note: this guide is focused on ao3, but many parts apply to other platforms.) 

Bookmarks

Summary

Bookmarks let you keep track of a story for reference, re-reading, or just because. 

Public bookmarks are displayed on the story’s main bookmark count, and private bookmarks are not. 

Authors can see the total number of bookmarks on a story, both private and public, from their stats page. They cannot see who has left a private bookmark, or when it was made. 

Works can be sorted/filtered by the number of bookmarks. 

Bookmarks can be tagged, annotated, etc. 

The bookmark feature also as a “recommendation” option

Pros and cons

Pro: a bookmark serves as a more specific form of feedback than kudos, because it also means the reader likely wants to come back to the story later, and/or that they recommend this story to others. 

Pro: if a bookmark is public, authors will probably see it (we check those!). 

Pro: because notes/tags/annotations on bookmarks are optional and not intended for the author, readers feel less pressure to have a specific depth or format - anything goes. 

Tips and tricks

how to use the bookmark tool to create a rec

how to tag bookmarks

Kudos

Summary

Kudos are the easiest way to let an author know you like their story. 

You can only give kudos once per account, or once per IP address if you’re logged out. You cannot remove kudos. 

If authors have enabled this notification, they will get one email per day that lists who has given kudos on which works. These emails are magic. 

Kudos serve as a method to sort/filter fics, and readers often use the number of kudos or the kudos/hits ratio to determine whether or not to start a story. 

Pros and cons

Pro: quick and easy 

Pro: more kudos make other readers more likely to read the story

Pro: authors do tend to see kudos, whether via email, their stats page, or the story page itself. 

Con: kudos are a one-time thing, so if you leave them early in a multi-chapter story, the author has no way of knowing if you’re still reading. If you wait until the fic is complete (since kudos can’t be removed), the author won’t know you’re reading/that you enjoy the story until after it’s complete - and a perceived lack of reader interest is a leading cause for abandoned WIPs. 

Con: authors tend to interpret kudos less positively than readers. Therefore, if you leave kudos and mean “I love this story so much!!” the author doesn’t know that, because people leave kudos for many different reasons. 

Con: they’re not specific. The impact of praise tends to increase with specificity. For example, “this fic is great” is nice to hear, but “your dialogue and characterizations in this story are great” is more specific and will generally inspire more emotion in the author. Because kudos are both the lowest effort and lowest specificity form of feedback, they don’t have the same impact as other methods. 

Tips and tricks

If, for some reason, you don’t want to leave kudos on your username, you can quickly leave guest kudos without logging out by copying the address, opening a private browser session, and leaving kudos as a guest.

You can also do this if you want to leave multiple kudos 

Subscriptions 

authors can see how many users are subscribed to a story from their stats page

authors cannot see who is subscribed to their story 

authors do not know if a subscriber is still reading, or if they are inactive/not checking updates 

subscriptions to authors do not show up in the story subscriptions count 

subscriptions can give an author a general indication of their audience for a multi-chapter story, but it’s almost exclusively a tool for readers rather than a feedback mechanism. 

Comments

This has been covered in depth before - check the links for more info. 

Your Guide to Reviews

Appreciation Without Anxiety: Commenting 101

How to Write A Good Review on FFN (most of this also applies to ao3)

tips and tricks for commenting on mobile

Why People Don’t Comment

“Can I Say This?” Culture, Comments, and Concern

101 Comment Starters

Recommending and Sharing Fics

Simply posting a link to a fic on tumblr is a great form of feedback, if the author sees it - it’s fine to leave a comment on the fic saying “I recommended this story!” with a link to the post, or to tag them on tumblr if you can find their account. 

If an author shares their tumblr account, liking and reblogging their story-related posts is a great way to show support, because it means that you enjoy their story enough that you want other people to read it. 

Authors on tumblr will often check both their notes and the tags people add, and tagging it with something along the lines of “I love this story” or “please read this” will make an author cry happy tears. 

An easy way to create rec lists is to bookmark fics or use the mark for later feature as you read them, and once per week, make a list via tumblr post. Generally, you’ll want to list the title, author (tag them if you can find them on tumblr!), fandom, pairing(s), and character(s). A brief description is nice but not necessary; if you want to add more but you’re not sure what, simply copy-paste the author’s summary from ao3. Then, if you haven’t tagged the author, leave a comment on the story with a link to your rec list. 

I don’t actually have words to describe how amazing it is to find that someone has recced my fics, but wow. I have literally cried. 

Misc.

if you can find an author on tumblr, feel free to tag them in posts (for example, “this photo makes me think of your story, @author!”) or send asks about their fics. 

If you’ve written or drawn something inspired by their stories, let them know! Don’t worry about whether it’s “good enough,” because I promise they will love and appreciate it (and you!). 

If you’ve made playlists, moodboards, metas, etc, also let them know! 

If you see someone else recommending or mentioning their fic, tag the author - they likely haven’t seen it. I’ve only found out about several things like this after a friend saw the post and sent it to me. 

If you see someone posting negatively about their fic, don’t let the author know - it’s stressful, upsetting, and they can’t do anything about it. 

This guide is not exhaustive, but I hope it’s given readers a bit more information regarding how authors receive and interpret feedback!

- Mod Rose

Do you ever wish you could forget?

Congratulations to the writers of the Dirty Dancing remake, you've convinced me that the original was actually amazing all along.