Coolcat1701

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"Authors artificially inflate comment counts by thanking people, I can't find anything with a real comment count to read." No they fucking are not, they're grateful for engagement.

"I can't read anything under 100k." That's the majority of fics you're ignoring, most novels aren't even that long.

"I don't have time to look for the incredibly rare diamond in the rough, so I won't read anything below a certain amount of kudos, comments, and hits." Those fics are popular because people gave them a chance and then snobs like you found them.

"I won't read anthing with a single typos." You made typos in that sentence, get off your high horse.

"One singular author didn't thank me for commenting, I'm never commenting on any fic again so I don't get burned." You're punishing people because someone didn't give you engagement they don't owe you that they might not have seen.

"This fic is three months old, it's so old, it doesn't matter if I comment or kudos, it's old." Fics do not have expiration dates, comment and kudos.

2,948,374 under 10 kudos

I had a big fanfic in a previous fandom where one of the big reveals was the involvement of a kind of infamous villain, whose presence was built up to and foreshadowed through the whole fic until his reveal without ever mentioning his name, so that the name drop would be a gut punch. It worked especially well because of who the villain was and his presence in that fandom space specifically (it's very complicated) and if it was an original story this reveal wouldn't work at all the way it was written in the fic. Because if you don't have a predisposition to think about that character and his relationship to the hero in a very specific way, then just seeing their name won't do much to you; the reveal and the recontextualisation it pushes upon you hinges on your previous knowledge of the source material.

I think it's an interesting tool fanfic authors are given. One of my favorite fanfic of all time is partially a re-imagining of its source material's canon, and something it does is introduce antagonists much earlier in the story or deepen npcs' stories. It then works to evoke a tragic irony that again wouldn't work if you didn't know the source material, and it's something the author obviously has a lot of fun with.

anyway if you get a comment like this, chances are that they are bot and their goal is to do whatever it takes to get you to delete your work, most certainly (from what I’ve heard) it’s because they want to “safely” steal your work, use it to train their ai without you being able to rightfully claim ownership of your work since “there’s no proof that the work was stolen/was posted elsewhere first by you” because the original source has already been deleted.

THEY ARE ALL BOTS. at first it was “ao3 is deleting fics and your entire account will be affected unless you delete the fics yourself” then it was “this work contains contents that are illegal and they have already reported you and your fic to the police” (yes, that’s how desperate these bots are), and now it’s this.

report their comments to ao3 for spam—in this case, specifically, I think you may be able to report them for harassment too—and don’t pay attention to them, most importantly don’t delete your works, don’t feel discouraged by their comments. remember that they are bots and they mass comment something like this on people’s works at random to get people to delete their works. (or even if they’re not bot, they are still pathetic bullies who don’t deserve your time or attention.)

Not every consequence needs to be negative, and not every negative consequence needs to be catastrophic, but one of the easiest ways to kill the tension in a story is to teach your reader that it doesn't matter what the main characters do because everything will work out for them, and any setbacks won't have long-term consequences.

Because once you've taught that to the reader, then why should they care what the characters do? What does it matter whether they make the "right" decision because every decision will ultimately be the last one.

And once you've given your reader that for long enough, you can't really go back, because that will feel like a betrayal. You can't give the first negative consequence 3/4 of the way through the story, because you've already set up the story as one where actions don't have (negative) consequences.

When you're thinking about how to give actions negative consequences, consider that there are a many different types of consequences, including:

Physical (death, injury, disease, etc.)

Emotional (fear, concern, anxiety, sorrow, guilt, PTSD, etc.)

Social (loss of a relationship or friendship, mistrust from other characters, etc.)

Temporal (loss of time trying something that didn't work, additional time required for recovery, etc.)

Locational (loss of territory, displacement to somewhere else, etc.)

Autonomous (arrest, detainment, kidnapping, loss of ability to act of their own accord, etc.)

It can make the story more interesting (and more realistic) to not just focus on one type of consequence but instead to consider different kinds of consequences (positive and negative) a character would face for their actions. Maybe they end up better physically than they would otherwise--but they lose other people's trust by their actions. Maybe they save someone but lose time.

First, the ethics. At the end of the day, news is a business. We need money. How do we get money? By you watching our broadcast. Why would you watch our broadcast? Because you TRUST us!!! And what would happen if you stopped trusting the information we give you to be accurate? You’d go get your news from a competitor station and we just lost our money. We DON’T want that, not to mention the fact that there’s a whole ass LAW called ~defamation~ dedicated to SUING YOU for saying bad shit about people. Even if you’re found innocent, lawyer fees are still expensive as shit just to get to that point! We don’t wanna be sued!!! And we want you to keep watching our show regularly! Which means WE CAN’T TALK SHIT NO MATTER HOW BADLY WE WANT TO

The news does NOT make any claims that aren’t guaranteed fact. Even if we’re pretty DAMN sure something happened a certain way, we don’t put that on US. We’ll keep the words in someone else’s mouth instead. Let’s say a worker for an auto company has been arrested for stealing parts from the store. We wouldn’t ACTUALLY say that. We’d say “Police say this worker is the one stealing parts from the auto store”. Key word: POLICE say. We didn’t say SHIT because it’s not our JOB to say shit when the person hasn’t been found guilty yet. Other people say shit and we just tell you about it

Of course, media bias is a very real problem. Some stations like Fox News are obvious about it, sometimes journalists have very human biases that can accidentally spew into their writing. It’s human and it happens. But FAKE news? Straight made up bullshit I pulled outta my ass??? I would be fired YESTERDAY. We’re not supposed to make even the SLIGHTEST of mistakes in our facts, let alone straight up lying. I’d have to flee the goddamn continent if I wanted another chance in broadcast after that shit

So that scene in a film, where the main character watches TV to see ~the media~ spreading rumors about something and blow it massively out of proportion??? Not happening. Unless it’s the student newspaper or that opinion show starring Old Ass Anchor Man that 5 people watch on Tuesdays, that doesn’t happen. The Daily Bugle has NO credibility

The main thing though is the writing style: broadcast writing is a very specific type of writing. We write concisely, conversationally, and in present-tense as much as possible. We’re live on air and we know you’re just playing us in the background while you make dinner, so we’ve only got one chance to get your attention and keep it. The flowery language is kept to a minimum, we write in active voice as opposed to passive (thus throwing away all essay writing skills I received in high school), all while trying to keep you engaged and interested

That example I mentioned in the tags — “It’s been two weeks since Manhattan was hit by a meteor.” That’s a shit beginning story sentence!!! First, it’s been TWO WEEKS. I’d bet MONEY everyone already knows about that meteor and then some, why are we telling it all again??? Are you gonna tell me something new about the meteor or are you gonna recap everything I probably already know by now? Second, that’s a BORING opener!!! Aside from the fact that I already KNOW all that, why should I care? How does the story connect to me? Where’s the hook? Also, that’s sentence isn’t written like how I would talk!!! It sounds like a damn robot!!!

Hey you -

Yeah, you, the one with the full-time job and the spouse and kids and hectic schedule and too-full days and no time alone, with the fic updates that take weeks or sometimes months because it’s hard to fit writing into the whirlwind that is your life

Yeah, you, with the full school workload and the billion and one pressures and the fears about what the hell are you going to do with the rest of your life and what the hell kind of world am I inheriting, who writes in crazy, rushed chunks as a way to blow off steam from all of that pressure and all of that weight

Yeah, you, struggling with just making it from day to day, paycheck to paycheck, who’s constantly stressed and frazzled and just trying to stay above water, who writes epic and fantastical stories because, fuck, the world’s depressing and shitty enough already

Yeah, you, who are all of these people or none of them - who write for fun or for escape or to hone your craft or to be part of a community or because you love the meta aspects - I love all of you guys. In every fandom, writing every pairing. You’re all rockstars.  The stories you give us, the joy and care and emotion and catharsis you bring with every word and every story, are a blessing and a gift, and I thank every single one of you for all the time and effort and love that goes into your work.

Also this entire thought process: