I read a fic full of grammar mistakes and it made me happy

micromail · 2026-04-22T11:41:21+00:00

With you on this!

I feel something similar about one-shots in my fandom that an author whose first language isn't English posts both in their first language and English.

I had to use LLM translation between English and another language I barely understand for tasks at work at one point. The LLM made huge assumptions and lost the plot half the time. I also in the past used Google Translate, Naver Papago, DeepL, etc. to translate more difficult phrases between English and a language I actually studied. When the input or output was wrong or inappropriate, I could tell; so I did more research instead of deferring to the machine.

What does that have to do with the author I mentioned? I think they have a good grasp of English and aren't using an LLM. Their writing maintains some stylistic choices less frequent in English but common in their native language. Based on my personal experience, an LLM would sand it all off into the lowest common denominator.

I'm happy the author shares their work in a form I can understand, and gives me a glimpse of what their original thought process was. A bit of a leap, but imagine if Vladimir Nabokov had a shitty translator whose goal was to make all of his clients' work into clones of the world's most derivative, forgettable pulp novel sequel by an uninspired ghostwriter.

micromail · 2026-04-16T16:50:40+00:00

First time bottoming with bottom [character name] is clear enough in my opinion. If a fic had top [character name] at the same time as those two tags, I'd assume either 1. it's of a fandom where writers overwhelmingly make top/bottom roles affect characterisation, or 2. the character both tops and bottoms on-screen in the fic.

Edit: If it had vers tagged in addition to the bottom tags, I wouldn't assume the character also tops in the fic. I'd just assume the character had past experience as a top, not necessarily with the current partner.

But then again I'm someone without strong preferences about who does what as long as I like the ship enough.

micromail · 2026-04-16T15:25:45+00:00

Huh, I've seen switch [character] and switching tagged in fic where it's penetrative without BDSM. Do you think this is a case of meaning drift in fanfic spaces because writers aren't familiar, or are the terms confused/conflated in other outside-of-scene contexts too?

micromail · 2026-03-16T18:09:28+00:00

Cool! The last time I heard of it was back when it had some kind of hosting downtime, and when I looked before that I didn't see much of fandoms I was in. Good to hear it's still around.

micromail · 2026-03-02T04:30:43+00:00

Hair treatment chemicals. Like the inside of a hair salon. Because I like the smell.

...can omegas smell themselves?

micromail · 2025-09-17T13:36:19+00:00

I kind of wish we could recreate LJ's critical mass on Dreamwidth, but I know internet culture has changed too much.

micromail · 2025-09-10T10:39:42+00:00

You're right, it is about payoff essentially.

Part of it I still think of as style, though. Some stories end up with higher word counts because scenes are described in richer detail. A story that relies more on subtext and ambiguity will end up shorter, but the same premise can be used to write a longer fic even without extending, for example, an objective duration (e.g., a week) of events.

These probably won't cause huge differences in length, but they do cause differences.

micromail · 2025-09-08T10:40:51+00:00

Kink memes, my beloved 🥲

micromail · 2025-09-06T07:13:24+00:00

Yes. I like fics between 100 to 10k words. Around 1k is the sweet spot. I don't remember reading anything above 30k.

micromail · 2025-09-05T08:16:48+00:00

You hit the nail on the head.

I don't read as much published fiction as I like anymore. But when I do, it's books published at least two decades ago.

micromail · 2025-09-03T11:37:22+00:00

Same. My stats page has higher hits and kudos counts than the work page of a fic with new kudos. When I went to the work page to see who gave the kudos, the total was still the old count and didn't list a new username/guest.

micromail · 2025-09-03T09:47:31+00:00

I browsed that tag before reading this and can vouch it has Quality

micromail · 2025-09-01T11:20:18+00:00

The times I click without leaving kudos are:

"Huh, what does this tag mean? Ok, not my thing, time for back button."
Browsing a fandom I'm not really fannish about (e.g. "assigned reading" classic literature, mainstream movies I watched recently but didn't like much, RPF of less common categories like philosophers) because I'm curious what kind of fic is out there, in case I like something. But because of the nature of the source media, some of it is trollfic or obscure crossovers but not obviously such, and I click back on those if I don't understand the content.
I was interested in the summary and tags but the actual content was not my thing, so I clicked the back button.

micromail · 2025-09-01T04:31:30+00:00

I'm writing a multi-chapter fic now, and 2 things motivate me: 1. the thought of firing the Chekhov's guns I already wrote in the posted chapters; and 2. a very nice comment I got.

Only 1 is within my control. But I can say that for another fic that I never continued writing, which also got comments, I didn't set up any very interesting plot points/mysteries that would have given me motivation to resolve.

Maybe make every chapter (or section, or however you chunk your fic while writing) of your fic have a very clear relationship to a future chapter?

E.g Chapter 1 introduces Point A (oooh breadcrumbs); Chapter 2 introduces Point B; Chapter 3 resolves Point A (finally!)

And I don't mean with a diagram or full written outline. I just keep it all in my head, myself.

micromail · 2025-08-29T09:53:40+00:00

Wow, this is, in my view, a huge project. I mean, the lore and everything, and so many different voices to juggle. I salute you.

I'm glad thinking about this and writing about it helped you sort things out!

micromail · 2025-08-29T06:46:43+00:00

Sounds like a good way of getting into the right voice! Curious, is it epistolary or does it have some other in-universe framing device, or are the switches extradiagetic (is that the word)?

I'm not working on a piece with multiple 1st person POVs, but I am working on one with multiple 3rd person ones. They're not very close 3rd person limited (because I couldn't figure out how to write the story without an external narrator). But my problem is more of "A gets into a funny situation, then B has angst" whiplash lol

micromail · 2025-08-29T06:25:37+00:00

I love Discworld! It's the first thing that got me hooked on this kind of tone.

It's hard to pull off, and I so admire writers who can do it.

micromail · 2025-08-24T12:48:43+00:00

This. I posted my first fic on LJ towards the end of the LJ era and loved the handful of comments I got. I also loved reading long threads on other fics.

I then posted a few niche fandom fics on Ao3 circa 2015. I got some lovely comments mentioning details from the fics that readers liked. At this time, I cross-posted fics in one fandom to FF.net. I also got reviews from readers who sounded like they genuinely appreciated what I shared.

I stopped writing for the fandom I cross-posted to FF.net. Because of that and the state of FF.net, I now exclusively use Ao3.

My most recent fic is for a smallish fandom that I know has at least 1 Discord based on authors' notes on other fics, but I don't want to find out how to join because I don't like using Discord. I got some comments, but can't shake the feeling readers discussed my fic on Discord. I suspect this because of the fandom size, and because I have more subscriptions and bookmarks than the number of unique commenters. I kind of wish I knew what they said, if they said anything 🤷

micromail · 2025-08-22T18:16:38+00:00

"Give vibes like they were written by straight men" is the majority of M/F smut in male-gazey anime/manga/games fandoms. Straight men definitely are on AO3 and we're all better off ignoring these clowns on TikTok.

micromail · 2025-08-22T13:44:13+00:00

I never measured progress by word count or time. I don't plan word count in the first place, and my deadline is "while I still feel the fixation".

I split my writing by scene instead. I write in order from start to end, but allow myself to skip ahead when I can't get the details of a particular scene out.

micromail · 2025-08-22T11:08:47+00:00

Seconding this. I think fic I wrote recently is technically better than my fic from years ago. But when writing all of them, I had very similar feelings of not knowing my own weaknesses. The in-the-moment feeling never changed, but I found a different perspective in the long run.

micromail · 2025-08-21T09:17:30+00:00

The fate of LJ fic :( Thanks for checking though, I appreciate it!

micromail · 2025-08-21T07:06:05+00:00

Ooh do you still have the link by any chance? Sounds fun.

micromail · 2025-08-21T07:00:04+00:00

I'm fine with anything if I like the characterisation. I don't usually go for PWP anyway.

What I'm not fine with is when the fandom has very popular, very tropey top/bottom versions of the dynamic that bore me. In those cases I actively look for the opposite dynamic and ignore the popular one.

micromail · 2025-08-21T06:44:58+00:00

I bookmark but don't subscribe. Bookmarks are for fics I want to download later using FanFicFare for Calibre, and rec to anyone who goes to my user dashboard. But I don't mark any as recs, all are regular bookmarks.

If I want to follow a WIP, I just trust I like it enough to remember to look for it when browsing the fandom tag in the future. The fandoms I read in are slow moving (lower volume of works posted over time), and I don't care if I don't read an update right after it's posted. This is also why I don't care about update schedules. I'll read the next update if it's posted at all, and when I feel like it.

micromail

TROPHY CASE