Peggy Carter And Ellie Miller Are Related. Just Saying.

Every time I watch the Good Omens trailer, when we see Crowley dancing in the trippy disco scene in the very beginning I always just think, ‘Oop, Aziraphale just took LSD and it’s making him see things.’ Why does he see Crowley dancing in a trippy disco setting? Why is he taking LSD at all? I don’t know, you’d have to ask him.

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

Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s discussions are interesting in Good Omens simply because their such utterly different approaches to them. Now I really enjoy Crowley’s points but right now I’m focusing on Aziraphale’s side because despite the several years he’s lived on Earth and the books upon books he’s read he falls back on one simple reason for everything that happens.

Ineffability,

And maybe that reason works sometimes. And it certainly does; it leaves just enough wriggle room, just enough doubt, that his opponent can’t definitely say that he’s wrong. After all, in Good Omens God is real even if He hasn’t been seen or heard from in a few millennia. Crowley can’t say that there isn’t a Higher Plan.

But what he does do is learn how to counter-argue the Ineffability reason.

It seems to me that at this point Aziraphale is using the Ineffable Plan as an excuse. It’s like hearing all the churchgoers out there when questioned about God’s existence or why bad things happen to good people they simply reply, ‘You have to take it by faith, that’s all.’ Take it be faith, take it for Ineffability.

Which of course leads to Crowley’s logical rebuttals. That’s the key difference, I think, when looking at their conversations. Aziraphale relies on the possibility of the Ineffable Plan, while Crowley has taken the time to learn how to perceive an argument on all sides and come up with a counter argument for everything the angel says. His reasons make sense, which only highlights how desperate Aziraphale’s Ineffable argument sounds sometimes.

Which just makes it all the more brilliant when he uses the Ineffable argument to run circles around Metatron and Beelzabub later on in the story.

Wriggle room always wins an argument. He must have learned it from Crowley.

Just once, when the Master is revealed to be The Master, I don’t want the Doctor to be all horrified and taken aback and be all like ‘oh my gosh it can’t be’. 

I just want an exasperated eye roll and a ‘fuck’s sake, you again, huh?’

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved Ian Holm’s portrayal of Bilbo in the LotR trilogy, but it was really Martin Freeman’s rendition of the character that really made me fall in love with him, and let me finally finish The Hobbit book. I’d read LotR at ten years old and loved it, and despite trying to read The Hobbit, I simply couldn’t do get through it. Martin brought Bilbo to life for me that breathed life into him when I read the book and allowed me to understand the full beauty and fun of the character of Bilbo Baggins as written by the Professor.

Question about writing here: in my senior year of school my English teacher told my class that the word ‘get’ should never be used when writing. He said it’s a lazy word that never adds anything to the story, and that you should find a better way of explaining what you mean. I typically tend to avoid using ‘get’ as a result of what he said, but is it really that bad of a word to use? 

*finds angsty fic*

*whines every 5 minutes*

*screams intensely*

*leaps out of window whilst holding laptop*

*rolls in blood and tears*

*dies*

that was really good i’m gonna read it again 

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Thank you so much! It’s definitely made my day and I hope what I write makes you happy too! x)

Bernard 33 Horsehead Nebula In Orion Constellation

you know it’s really hard to obsess about just one fandom. just really freaking hard, it’s like you look at people who can be into Harry Potter for ten years of their life and I’m just over here thinking HOW DO YOU STAY IN ONE FANDOM FOR 10 FREAKING YEARS I DON’T HAVE THAT KIND OF TIME