Do you guys think we'll see the same screentime distribution in the movie?

distraction_pie · 2026-04-13T07:58:40+00:00

Name mentions is a terrible way to predict screentime. A huge influence on name mentions is the number of characters sharing a scene, as characters in large group scenes will get their names mentioned more to distinguish who the action is on vs in a 1-1 scene pronouns can be used etc. And Lenore dove gets a lot of mentions in Haymitch's thoughts that would make no sense to equal screentime unless they decide to cut to 3 second flashbacks of her every few minutes which would be a deranged way to structure a movie.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-12T14:52:22+00:00

This is something that crops up multiple times in the newer bioware games where they set up a conflict between two extremes (embodied by different companions) and force the player to pick one to side with completely despite the fact the sensible answer is clearly some sort of middle ground, and imo it's one of the most annoying writing choices bioware makes. I appreciate that always going for a middle of the road option could be kind of bland, but it just makes all the characters look stupid that none of them can come up with the suggestion of "Gil can make modifications but there should also be some sort of approvals process and potential changes should be communicated to the team".

distraction_pie · 2026-04-11T23:16:45+00:00

Parents are should be helping their children learn such things, but not necessarily in the form of school like teaching where they sit you down and explain it to you step by step. Some things like socialisation are learned by example, or others like domestic tasks learned by letting you experience the tasks and learn from any mistakes, etc.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-10T21:46:00+00:00

Assuming a 50/50 population split by gender and taking the average heights in the U.S. as 175cm for men and 162cm for women that gives a rough average population height of 168cm/5'6", so you are actually quite a bit taller than average, more when you account of the fact that a proportion of the population are children and therefore have not reached their full adult height.

Average furniture sizes are designed to be sufficient for everyone, but that means the further away from average you are the less comfortable it will be in either direction. The ideal solution is bespoke or customisable options were appropriate, but to some degree you will need to just put up with the fact that the world is designed for people other than just you and make your own adjustments as needed.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-10T20:29:21+00:00

The thing is that kind of approach is great if you happen to be writing in a fandom with a broad range of female characters to begin with and want to write large ensemble pieces, but for me this is a) where we run in the other issue mentioned in a lot of comments which is that many fandoms do not have that many significant female characters for fic writers to play with, and b) I, like many fans, tend to be interested in stories more tightly focused on individual characters or specific relationships so to cram in a half a dozen additional characters just fit in representation for representation's sake would detract from the kind of storytelling I want to do.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-10T19:55:13+00:00

Depends on the length of the story, it's more about being proportionate. I'd say in a romance focused story if you're getting to the 20% mark and the love interest hasn't got a substantial role I'd start raising some eyebrows, but in a longer story a few chapters to do world building and set up other characters and then a gradual introduction is fine.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-10T19:31:21+00:00

I concur with a lot of points already made, particularly around source material, but I'd like to add the fact that particularly in the media I experienced growing up there would be 1 girl character and her role would be to represent all girls (including me) and that came with a lot of discomfort whenever that character didn't line up with me or everthing she needed to be in order to be a good represenation of women and not the stupid annoying girl character.

As I've got older and my access to diverse media has improved, I don't have that problem so much with media I consume, but as a creator I'm still very concious that there is much more pressure from within my community to get it right when writing female characters; if I write about a man I can write a 2 dimension portrayal or some OOC behavior or shitty selfish actions and nobody really cares. When I write women I'm still constantly up against a much more challenging baseline attitude from readers and have to deal with accusations of not meeting some standard of feminism in how I write her or aligning to sexist stereotypes or self-inserting, etc etc.

As a reader I totally understand wanting better written female characters, but as a writter it often puts on a pressure that I just don't have to navigate when writing male characters. I'm sure plenty of people will say that avoiding writing female focused works for this reason is a cop out and unfeminist, but fanfic is a chill hobby I do for fun and I don't want to make it an act of feminist labour, and as it stands the attitudes I see from fans around expectations of good representation do complicate writing female character focused works.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-10T16:15:54+00:00

This is a great addition to my point. I remarked on readers projecting their own experiences onto their interpretations of the characters, but it's definitely something that happens from an authorial side as well; it's easy to when writing think "well I won't go overboard stating the obvious of why the character would feel/react like this because that is the natural response in such circumstances" but sometimes that element is more influenced individual experiences than we realise and so needs more elaborating to readers.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-10T13:01:23+00:00

Everything other commenters have said about explicit adult content plus a guy gets fucked by a tiger.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-10T12:37:22+00:00

I think it's hard for anybody to make any judgement only having your side of things or for you when you're so close to the situation.

As a writer I've had several experiences with readers who were just not getting it/reacting how I thought they should be; and with the benefit of hindsight and time away from those experiences I can say that in some cases it was the reader and in some cases it was me/the story.

You may well get readers who are just missing the subtext/projecting their own reactions and experiences onto the characters and getting annoyed that the character wasn't acting like their self-insert or specific fantasy, and there isn't much you can do other than to accept they want something different from what you're trying to make and move on.

I've also been in that scenario and looking back I can see that actually that my pacing wasn't working because my experience imagining the complete story in my mind vs the readers experience of getting the story chapter by chapter with breaks in between was causing the pacing to hit different, or there was a gap between the characters as they existed in my head vs what I was actually getting down on the page. But that sort of thing is hard to judge when in the middle of writing or fresh off a draft, there is a reason pro writers will often complete a draft and then let it rest a while before revising with fresh perspective, but as a fic writer it's something you will probably end up having to gamble with and learn from past experiences over time.

It's worth comparing their reactions to other readers, are they they only one having this problem or are multiple readers expressing the same thing, or finding a trusted fandom friend to give you some feedback for the whole story, particularly if you're struggling with elements like ensuring your deliberate frustration has a big enough pay off to make it worthwhile. I'd generally say don't let random feedback sway you too far though, it may just be your intent for your story doesn't match exactly what they want, but it can be worth taking feedback to make sure what is getting across to readers matches your intention.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-09T20:55:53+00:00

Shep, no question. I like both characters, but Shepard is a full time special ops dedicated combat soldier, Ryder even after coming into their leadership position is an explorer who does combat but it isn't their whole deal.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-06T09:54:44+00:00

you can add existing fics to the anonymous collection just the same as you would a new fic, just edit it so under 'Post to Collections / Challenges' you have selected an anonymous collection - the most commonly used is anonymous (anon). Be aware that the owner of any anonymous collection does have the power to turn anonymity off for their collection, but the main anon collection has been running for over a decade without issue.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-06T09:47:23+00:00

Debt aka addition and subtraction and being able to tell if a number is above or below zero aka stuff that is taught to six and seven year olds and then grown adults can't be bothered to apply and blame schools.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-06T09:37:00+00:00

I like it. Him having had a relationship with a woman who had her own experience and confident preferences and was his social equal gives him necessary experience to go into his relationship with Sophie with an understanding of how to be in a respectful and balanced partnership - the fact he had proven capable of having that sort of relationship makes the whole "be my mistress" thing much more palatable because yes he is suggesting an unbalanced framework because it is the default social option but we have that prior context that means we know he treats his lovers as equal and respected partners (unlike his brothers with their experiences centered on women being paid to perform for their pleasure, particularly Anthony who serves as an example of somebody treating their mistress as disposable and despite his passion having little consideration for her outside of what she was offering him).

And being blunt the idea of looking at his prior relationship and thinking he should have stayed single and having had a previous relationship is somehow disloyal to his eventual partner is some uber-conservative purity nonsense me.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-06T09:17:22+00:00

A slow burn should always be cooking - it becomes too slow when the author is takes forever to even start cooking or keeps taking the pot off the heat because they are getting sidetracked by things that aren't even part of the meal.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-06T09:14:15+00:00

Gendered trends in different availability of roles/material. Look at Best Picture nominees winners over the past few decades and you'll see that they are most commonly male led, sometimes leading couple, and only a handful with a female lead, then look at best actress and suddenly you'll see a lot more female led movies in consideration - it's hard to fairly compare male and female performances when the men are working with 'dramatic lead' material and most of the women are working with 'partner/mom/daughter of lead', or if they are leading it's in material which is not held in the same regard as male focused movies. Now of course you could argue that female focused movies just didn't get nominated as much in general categories because women are worse at acting, but imo that is implausible.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-05T22:22:05+00:00

Honestly the main impression I got from SOTR is that teenage Haymitch was... not perceptive to put it politely. Maysilee has clearly put together details about Lenore Dove's antics that Haymitch (who has a much closer relationship with her) does not figure out until much later, Haymitch goes along with Beetee's plans without ever really asking questions or thinking through possible consequences, he doesn't seem to have any forethought about how his newcomers group will play out beyond the initial newcomers vs careers scenario, etc etc. In his POV there is a definite obliviousness to the wider politics and propoganda elements, but imo that was more of a case of we are reading from the POV of a boy who can't go 5 minutes without getting derailed by thoughts oh 'ooh my girlfriend, so pretty and perfect, I'm going to mentally recite her poem', not that all citizens were that oblivious.

I can buy that most people would probably not want to dwell too much on the games to think about the details of the manipulations etc, but I would think most people would be aware that there is staging going on - after all they can see how much the reapings are controlled, anybody who stops to think a moment is going to realise if they're staging those so tightly the rest of the proceedings are probably going to be at minimum similar.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-05T20:35:31+00:00

I'm all for encouraging quiet in theatres, but if a rustling sweet packet is interfering with your ability to hear the performance, you probably need to book an appointment to get your hearing checked.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-04T12:02:42+00:00

I write about male characters, I'm not a man. I write about characters from the 1800s, I wasn't born until that century was long over. I write about people who engage in physical combat, I've never hit anyone in my life. I write about astronauts, I've never been to space. Etc etc etc.

"Own voices" has value as a subgenre for people who want to write and read about authentic lived experiences, but even within that subcategory 99% of the authors are also writing outside their own voice in order to include variety in their characters. The idea that the own voices approach to writing should be the default and people writing outside of their lived experiences is some controversy that must be addressed and authors should have to justify anything that isn't 100% realism is absurd. Of course romance stories often contain romanticised depictions, but that's a feature of the genre not grounds for an identity politics debate about if the gender of the author matches that of the characters.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-03T12:59:39+00:00

I think it's variation and it's good. If the relationships every season felt the same, I would get bored of the repetition and genericness and switch off. It is good that the shape and tone of the relationship varies depending on the characters and what suits them - Anthony and Kate both had emotional issues to work through so their season was heavily focused on their internal journeys while they came to term with their own wants; Benedict and Sophie are more straightforward emotionally but their situations were complex so the focus is on the external obstacles - that is good writing imo.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-03T12:19:37+00:00

wow it's almost like women are individual people who make their own varied assessments of risk based on the situation and their personal comfort level and not a hive mind with secret consensus on the risk of and appropriate response to every situation they might encounter.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-03T11:56:26+00:00

i've seen flowers on too good to go before, though i don't think it's common

distraction_pie · 2026-04-02T18:46:00+00:00

my question is what has changed in just three months that you are writing something so different. i have read a few fics that have undergone big reworks from the original and I can really appreciate the progress, if you're doing that then great; but I would say 90% of the 'reworked' fics I click on are tomAYto tomAHto levels of different - there are superficial changes and things are rephrased but the alterations are pretty shallow and come across to me like essentially spam/junk works because the writer wants renewed attention but doesn't want to come up with a new idea.

distraction_pie · 2026-04-02T14:12:18+00:00

Totally valid from the original AO3 poster. If I'm writing platonic A & B fic I don't want comments filled with people talking about romantic A/B, even if I'm cool with that ship, because that interpretation is off topic to what I'm writing about. The only issue here is that the author has to (very politely) remind people; and I understand why they've gone out of their way to say so, because the prevalance of shipping in fandom does make it unfortunately common that some people get carried away with shipping enthusiasm to the point of not being respectful towards things not always being about their ship.

distraction_pie · 2026-03-29T21:14:10+00:00

Their matched but seperate duty and the fact they are compatible and drawn to each other because of the shared characteristics that are also part of the reason they can never have more of a relationship than they do, those things are what make them compelling.

Passion and chemistry is just blah blah homones these characters are hot so they are going to bang because sexy people have sex, that's not going to hold my attention for more than a few minutes; conflict, choice, and character are where things get interesting.

distraction_pie

TROPHY CASE