CORROSE

芒种~ || Mangzhong~ || Grain in Ear~

The wind rustling ancient trees is rain on a clear day,

The moon shining on the plain is frost on a summer night

the past few days my mind has been consumed by an ongoing story about Bricks and Minifigs, a second hand LEGO store, stealing $200,000 worth of vintage Star Wars LEGO sets from an old man, and using several police departments to illegally obstruct any investigation into it. Police harassment escalated so badly Reckless Ben, the youtuber investigating, was jailed a few times and is now in Mexico. (wikipedia page if you don't want to watch a video)

this story has police corruption across states. healthcare costs. mormons. it feels like a modern day tintin adventure lampooning america. or an episode of south park

"*****smut marked with asterisks so you can skip!*****""

Don't. Don't do this.

You let readers know what your fic contains through proper tagging and rating. Content warning notes at the top of the chatter are also great. You can even summarize key "this is the plot relevant stuff you missed of you're skipping this chapter" notes at the bottom too! This is a much smoother reading experience.

This is HELL on screen readers which is a disability access issue. Screen readers will read out every single asterisk you put, which I have seen done as entire page breaks. It's an awful reading experience. Please just don't.

Readers do not need their hands held through the reading experience. If they're enjoying the fic but don't care for smut, they can just skim until it gets interesting again. If they REALLY don't like smut, you warned them. There's a back button. You don't have to do a special song and dance isolating out the specific parts you think might be "icky". (If you think those bits are icky and don't like writing them, consider just don't! Fanfic is a hobby we do for fun and you don't have to write anything you don't find enjoyable. There's plenty of readers for gen fic and smut free ship fic).

Please, please don't try to span the entire page with whatever symbol you're using for your scene breaks. It takes an eternity for screen years to get through, and typically has me noping out of even the most interesting stores.

Instead, use just three (or fewer) make. Three is standard, and does the job without making your story unreadable.

It is hell

It is absolute hell

From navigation to listening to the voices

It's just awful

Since then I've tried to write with screen readers in mind because the number of websites that think about accessibility is SO SO SMALL

If you don't believe me, use NVDA which is a free accessibility tool. Otherwise you have to spend thousands of dollars for a slightly better one. Then try to navigate a website.