So Did Mary Poppins Inspire Missy, Or Did Missy Inspire Mary Poppins?

“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers is Alec and Tess’s song. No one will be able to convince me otherwise.

These guys are brilliant and my favorite Shakespeare to watch. Definitely worth the laughs.

Ya’ll, I happened across the classical piece ‘Devil’s Trill Sonata’ by Tartini for the first time (don’t know how I didn’t know about it before), and I found THIS GEM in the comments:

I’m FUCKING DYING send help.

Honestly, I love a lot of the humor in MASH, but I think my favorite moment is in S8E9 Mr & Mrs Who, when they play So Long It’s Been Good To Know Ya during the ceremony to dissolve Charles’ and Donna’s “marriage”.

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

hey so protip if you have abusive parents and need to get around the house as quietly as possible, stay close to furniture and other heavy stuff because the floor is settled there and it’s less likely to creak

HECK yes, it's Echo!

I've loved Echo since the New Avengers comics that first introduced her years ago. Very excited to see her in the MCU!

ok but the team of scientists making Carlos their adoptive dad and going to him when they get hurt or are arguing or when they get really excited and want to show him some new discovery like a kid showing their parent their artwork

Broadchurch is a story about mothers

Yes, it’s stated and shown that Alec Hardy and Ellie Miller are certainly the main characters, and Alec’s journey is certainly the most obvious storyline in the series, I won’t argue that.

But Broadchurch is a story about mothers.

The series opens up with a shot of Danny Latimer standing on the cliffs and then it cuts to Beth Latimer waking abruptly the next morning. Most of the first episode focuses on Beth and her journey finding Danny’s body, in fact, and her struggle trying to understand the loss of her son is a main focus of the first series. Several scenes in those episodes focus primarily on her:

(Realizing what “finding a body on the beach” might mean.)

(Opening of s1e2, when she’s folding Danny’s clothes.)

(S1e7. “I lay there thinking what would I go through to have him back? I’d be raped, I’d be tortured, I’d have a gang of men on me, I’d be left for dead if it meant [Danny] was safe.” This was Jodie Whittaker’s finest moment, in my opinion. She hits Beth’s desperation and agony right on the head.)

(And of course the moment when she tries to process the fact that it was Joe Miller who killed her son, and all of the fucked-up irony that comes with it.)

There are so many more moments when Beth is the prime example of the Mother Angle that Chibnall approaches but these were the moments when I think it was strongest.

Ellie is another example of mothers in this story. She’s constantly protective of Tom when Hardy pushes to speak to him and take part in the recreation. We all laugh at the moment when Ellie threatens to throw a cup of piss at her boss but the reason WHY she says it in the first place is the clue:

-”I’m his mum, I decide.”

-”Oh, so your commitment to this investigation stops outside these doors.”

Hardy tries to trump her authority over Tom. She explicitly states she doesn’t want her son to take part in the investigation in any way and Hardy keeps on pushing, even insulting her commitment as a police officer.

Don’t push the protective Mama Bear.

Favorite moment of Ellie as Protective-Mama-Bear is s1e8. It’s the moment that bothered me the most when Jocelyn Knight brings it up in s2.

Ellie does confront Joe as a wife, certainly, at the end of s1e8. But again it’s interesting to note exactly what it is that Joe asks that sets her off:

She’s in control enough to only scream at Joe from a distance in the beginning of this scene. It’s only when Joe requests to see Tom that she sets upon him uncontrollably.

Seriously, do not piss off the Protective Mama Bear.

S2 deals with Sandbrook more than it really deals with Broadchurch as a whole, I think, and it definitely focuses more on Alec as a character, but the theme of Mothers is still prevalent in the contrasting images of Cate Gillespie, a drunk and unable to cope with the loss of Pippa; Tess Henchard, Alec’s ex-wife who loves her daughter but is willing to keep her guilty actions a secret so that Daisy won’t hate her; Beth, focused so much on getting closure for Danny she almost forgets about her newborn child (until Mark’s actions shake her out of her obsessive need for ONLY Danny); and then finally Ellie again, warning Joe away from their sons with the threat of death if he dares show up around either Tom or Fred again. It will be very interesting to see what direction Chibnall will go with the Mothers theme in s3.

Let’s all take a moment to appreciate over-protective Ellie Miller in S02E07:

Claire Ripley comes marching up to the courthouse with her murder face on.

Ellie sees her come in. She knows Hardy is downstairs and that Claire is heading for him. Alarm bells go off.

shit shit shit shit shit

…aaaaand she’s off, faster that Mad Max in his Interceptor, ready to cut off Claire and stop her from getting to Hardy before she does

We see the target, sitting awkwardly alone and pretending to text on his phone.

Ellie has run ahead of Claire and she’s watching her like a hawk, positioning herself between the two of them, ready to fight to defend her large idiot friend

Claire reaches into her backpack. Ellie’s watching her, still a few strides ahead

She looks at Hardy, who is completely oblivious to what’s happening (jfc Hardy this is why she doesn’t trust you to look after yourself)

And bam. When Claire slaps the pendant against Hardy’s chest, Ellie is right there, literally having positioned herself between the two of them to make sure her tall skinny Scottish bastard isn’t in any danger

(ง •̀_•́)ง

Without even thinking about it Ellie ran (ran!) to throw herself bodily between Hardy and a murderous-looking Claire. It turned out to be a complete overreaction on her part, but if Claire had reached into her backpack to pull out a weapon instead of the pendant, Ellie would have been on top of her and wrestling her into submission faster than you could blink, and probably before Hardy was even aware that she was in the building. For all her complaints about him, Ellie is so instinctively protective of Hardy. Her entire attitude is basically “he may be big but he is fragile I’ll fight ur ass don’t test me”