(no subject)

[esmenet]

Dear writer of a fic I read ages ago:

Yes, cyanide is commonly said to smell like bitter almonds. However, if you taste bitter almonds, I doubt the medics will get there in time to save you.

Use tags, they're your friends

[jaaaarne]

Dear "Merlin" ficwriters on AO3. You know you're awesome, don't you? :) However, will it, I don't know, kill you dead to put an "Alternate Universe" tag (or something) on your story if it is an AU? Sometimes it would be obvious from the summary, but sometimes it wouldn't. Please, do take pity. It's not like it irritates the living daylights out of me [yet]. It's just that sometimes I don't have the willpower to backbutton and therefore generally lose the time I could be spending reading (and commenting on) your other stories.

Love you anyway,
me (who is awful at tagging herself, what a shame *gg*)

Not-So-Dear Multiple Left Behind Writers:

[dancing_chimera]

1. Please please please learn how to spell Nicolae Carpathia's name. He's a major character in every single book but Kingdom Come. He is the major antagonist for the series (Well, you could argue that his daddy is, but really, I think the general consensus is that it's him.) To really cap things off, he has an entire book named after him. There is really no excuse for not getting this right. Even if it would absolutely kill you to glance at your bookshelf, flip open the guidebook to the giant character section on him, check Behind the Name for the Romanian form of "Nicolas," spend a quarter of a second on Wiki, or even just stop for a second and reflect that "Nikolai" doesn't quite look like that word that you've read some five million times over the course of a sixteen-volume book series, you could at least use one of his many titles. "His Excellency," "The Potentate," "Saint Nick," "the Romanian kid," "I," and so many others would be entirely in-character, depending on whose POV you're writing from and when your fic is set. If all else fails, just call him Carpathia. That one's not so hard. Just write "Carpathian," so you know you've spelled it correctly, then delete the "n."

2. Nicolae is young enough to be Jonathan Stonagal's great grandson. Please remember that when you're writing about Stonagal's non-adoptive daughter being younger than Nicky.

3. It does not make your Sue special if Nicolae 'wants-to-bang-every-woman-on-earth(-and-probably-most-non-women-on-earth)' Carpathia wants to bang her. If she does not want to bang him, he'll get over it like he always does. There are always more women (or men, or others) out there, and he can pretty much take his pick. This is one of the few fandoms where the bad-guys are actually misogynist enough that it would be more impressive if Nicolae allowed her in his presence in spite of not wanting to bang her.

4. Nicolae’s biological parents? Their names are Marilena Titi, Baduna Marius, and Sorin Carpathia. I don’t mind if you want to change to the surnames of the first two to match the last one, but, other than that, their names should not be changing in every other fic.

5. Nicolae's aunt is not related to his mother (or either of his fathers). There are paragraphs upon paragraphs for chapters at a time of Marilena angsting about Viv's status as Nicky's honorary aunt, as well as a fairly lengthy explanation of how Viv and Marilena met, and several discussions about the differences in their backgrounds. Never mind that everyone in the entire universe loves to remind Viv that she and Nicky aren't related by blood.

Little love,
~Me

*gets out umbrella to shield herself from the "If you want good fic, what are you doing in this fandom!" downpour*

Edited even though no one gives a shit anymore because I just realized that I said 'Glorious Appearing' where I meant 'Kingdom Come.'

Wasting characters and other less than smart "summery" mistakes

[brihana25]

It's just wrong to see any comm with the word "fanficrants" in the name be so nekkid, so I decided to help it out a bit by posting an old rant of mine from my personal journal.

It's hard to summerize in 200 and some characters, but here goes. Lots of hurt,little comfort,alcohol abuse, and warnings when you need them. Pre-series and goes into the series. ...'I don't cry because...my tears are kept down in the bottles I drink...'

Let's go through this slowly:
1. If you think there are too few characters allowed in a summary, wasting 65 of them to tell us that is less than smart.
2. The word you're looking for is "summarize". Unless you're actually talking about making your fic more resistant to warm weather.
3. Lots of hurt,little comfort... - Two things on this one. First, if you hadn't wasted all those characters bitching about not having enough characters, you'd be able to put that space in there. And second, hurting without comfort is not Hurt/Comfort, and you shouldn't have used it as a category.
4. ... warnings when you need them. - Wrong, because when I need them is now before I've started reading the damn thing, not when I'm halfway through and (possibly) enjoying it, only to find that you've done something squicky and I have to stop reading it.
5. ... - Oh, also, those characters you were bitching about not having? You've wasted 9 of them on random and unnecessary ellipses. Stop that.
6. That quote? Makes no sense. You mention alcohol abuse, so I'm guessing this is supposed to be a thought from the mind of whichever character you've turned into an alcoholic (I'm gonna guess it's Gibbs, because it usually is). Now, if Gibbs' tears are kept down "in" the bottles, then that would mean that eventually he gets to them and starts crying. I don't think that's what you meant. That's why it should be "kept down by the bottles I drink," implying that he doesn't cry because the alcohol keeps him from feeling anything.
7. If your goal was to make sure I (and other readers like me) didn't actually read your story, this summery was definitely the way to go. If that wasn't your intention, then you need to work a little harder.