things and stuff
I have had a cold since early last week, and have spent pretty much all of this time sitting in my easy chair with a mug of hot tea and my laptop. But finally, signs of life!
Thank you to
skuf and
whatistigerbalm for the cards;
littlerhymes for the lovely but sadly mangled postcard; and
krait for the tea! (Which I haven't really tried yet because I want to wait until my tastebuds come back.) I have sent, um, two cards! Because I got sick. But I am still planning on sending more!
I have been mostly just reading Yuletide stories, and I'll be doing another rec post shortly. But I have also been scrutinizing the tag set for Chocolate Box to decide what I want to nominate. (For those of you who haven't heard of it, this is a fic and art exchange with 300-word or sketch-art minimums, with matching on romantic and friendship relationships. More at
chocolateboxcomm, but be quick if you're interested as noms end tomorrow evening.)
So, about reading Yuletide and making recs. There was a bit of a kerfuffle on _coal about people who comment and don't also kudos. Kudos were only introduced on AO3 in 2010, iirc, and it wasn't until a few years ago that I started leaving kudos as a matter of course whenever I commented. I figured that if I liked a fic but didn't have anything to say other than "I liked this!" I'd kudos, if I had something to say I'd comment, if I liked it a LOT I'd do both, and if I loved it I'd rec it (on my journal, as I didn't use the AO3 bookmarks or recs).
But as I learned that people often sorted on kudos to decide what to read, I changed my "I liked this enough to say something" default to comment+kudos. And though I still don't typically use bookmarks or the AO3 rec feature, as I mentioned last post I have started using it with the Yuletide Recs collection.
And that's not the only thing I do differently for Yuletide. I would say that my criteria for commenting (and everything else) are a bit more relaxed for Yuletide stories than they are in general, and it makes a difference whether it's a story in a popular fandom or a one-off truly rare fandom.
In really rare fandoms, I will kudos if I like it enough to read the whole thing - which is actually a higher bar than it sounds, because SO MANY STORIES competing for my attention, and I'm not shy about backbuttoning. I will comment if I liked it a lot, and I will do my best to find something to say about it! But I'll only rec it if it's really fabulous. And it's funny, sometimes I find myself hesitating - and then I'll read something that is WOW I want to grab my friends and tell them to read it! And I know that THIS is something I want to rec, and THAT doesn't quite measure up.
But in popular fandoms, by which I mean anything that I read outside of Yuletide, or that has more fics in Yuletide than I can count on the fingers of one hand, I am both more and less picky. I am more likely to kudos, because I feel bad for the writers who see their fics unhappily unloved. But I'm less likely to comment unless I really really like it a lot. But I'm more likely to rec, because I'm picking out the fics from this group that I think someone who reads this fandom would like, rather than the best fics that everyone should read (if they are wonderful without canon knowledge, or if they are wonderful if you've seen the movie or read the book but it was a long time ago and you wouldn't have bothered even clicking but really, you ought to, I swear).
Hamilton is an exception to this, because it's an exotic to me; I don't read in it outside Yuletide unless someone posts a rec that looks really up my alley, and I only read a handful of the Yuletide fics. I also am clearly outside the mainstream in it, because I couldn't finish the ghost!Hamilton/Burr fic everyone is raving about despite it being the type of story I adore, and much of the fandom is modern AU, and, well, if you know me from Eagle fandom you know how little I like modern AU for historical fandoms. There are a few other fandoms like this for me as well; I suspect the fandoms that I used to love but am no longer in are like this, like Eagle and Raven Cycle.
Which leads me to the realization: I was a little surprised to realize that I had no interest in reading any of the Raven Cycle stories. Which made me a little sad. I guess I'm out of the fandom now. I will certainly read The Raven King, but I probably won't buy it - I'll just wait until it shows up in the library. Meanwhile, I've got this 30K fic that I need to muster up the energy to do beta edits on...
Anyway, recs coming soon. Just you wait.
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth
Thank you to
skuf and
whatistigerbalm for the cards;
littlerhymes for the lovely but sadly mangled postcard; and
krait for the tea! (Which I haven't really tried yet because I want to wait until my tastebuds come back.) I have sent, um, two cards! Because I got sick. But I am still planning on sending more!
I have been mostly just reading Yuletide stories, and I'll be doing another rec post shortly. But I have also been scrutinizing the tag set for Chocolate Box to decide what I want to nominate. (For those of you who haven't heard of it, this is a fic and art exchange with 300-word or sketch-art minimums, with matching on romantic and friendship relationships. More at
chocolateboxcomm, but be quick if you're interested as noms end tomorrow evening.)
So, about reading Yuletide and making recs. There was a bit of a kerfuffle on _coal about people who comment and don't also kudos. Kudos were only introduced on AO3 in 2010, iirc, and it wasn't until a few years ago that I started leaving kudos as a matter of course whenever I commented. I figured that if I liked a fic but didn't have anything to say other than "I liked this!" I'd kudos, if I had something to say I'd comment, if I liked it a LOT I'd do both, and if I loved it I'd rec it (on my journal, as I didn't use the AO3 bookmarks or recs).
But as I learned that people often sorted on kudos to decide what to read, I changed my "I liked this enough to say something" default to comment+kudos. And though I still don't typically use bookmarks or the AO3 rec feature, as I mentioned last post I have started using it with the Yuletide Recs collection.
And that's not the only thing I do differently for Yuletide. I would say that my criteria for commenting (and everything else) are a bit more relaxed for Yuletide stories than they are in general, and it makes a difference whether it's a story in a popular fandom or a one-off truly rare fandom.
In really rare fandoms, I will kudos if I like it enough to read the whole thing - which is actually a higher bar than it sounds, because SO MANY STORIES competing for my attention, and I'm not shy about backbuttoning. I will comment if I liked it a lot, and I will do my best to find something to say about it! But I'll only rec it if it's really fabulous. And it's funny, sometimes I find myself hesitating - and then I'll read something that is WOW I want to grab my friends and tell them to read it! And I know that THIS is something I want to rec, and THAT doesn't quite measure up.
But in popular fandoms, by which I mean anything that I read outside of Yuletide, or that has more fics in Yuletide than I can count on the fingers of one hand, I am both more and less picky. I am more likely to kudos, because I feel bad for the writers who see their fics unhappily unloved. But I'm less likely to comment unless I really really like it a lot. But I'm more likely to rec, because I'm picking out the fics from this group that I think someone who reads this fandom would like, rather than the best fics that everyone should read (if they are wonderful without canon knowledge, or if they are wonderful if you've seen the movie or read the book but it was a long time ago and you wouldn't have bothered even clicking but really, you ought to, I swear).
Hamilton is an exception to this, because it's an exotic to me; I don't read in it outside Yuletide unless someone posts a rec that looks really up my alley, and I only read a handful of the Yuletide fics. I also am clearly outside the mainstream in it, because I couldn't finish the ghost!Hamilton/Burr fic everyone is raving about despite it being the type of story I adore, and much of the fandom is modern AU, and, well, if you know me from Eagle fandom you know how little I like modern AU for historical fandoms. There are a few other fandoms like this for me as well; I suspect the fandoms that I used to love but am no longer in are like this, like Eagle and Raven Cycle.
Which leads me to the realization: I was a little surprised to realize that I had no interest in reading any of the Raven Cycle stories. Which made me a little sad. I guess I'm out of the fandom now. I will certainly read The Raven King, but I probably won't buy it - I'll just wait until it shows up in the library. Meanwhile, I've got this 30K fic that I need to muster up the energy to do beta edits on...
Anyway, recs coming soon. Just you wait.
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth