A random fan who's a friend of Dorothy

My name is Aksee, username used to be Superfandompal713. My icon was made by me!

[akseedragon713]

Hello! If you’re looking for my Fanfics or Fanart, I’ve got a side-blog so they’re easier to find! Over here at AkseeDragon.

[fonscordi]

Playing with different brush settings

[heartinhyacinth]

Hereee pretty fishy dianxiaaa 🎣

[gingerjargogle]

MerMay Day 5: Wonderland ⏰🐰🌹

With Wonderland being such a kooky place, the possibilities were endless. BUT when I saw a screenshot of Alice in the "Drink Me" glass, I knew I had to put Mer-Alice in the bottle!

For her tail, I liked the idea that there was a little bit of Wonderland's eccentricness with her all along, so I played with a new brush and created a pattern I really enjoy! I think it had a nice balance of Alice and the crazy adventures she would soon be finding herself in.

Would you enjoy a trip down the Rabbit Hole? ⏰ Or is that not quite your cup of tea... ☕

[giodutra]

mermay 03

[norhuu]

A Crocodile Siren calls a guileless stranger to the murk.

[bobbins-patchland]

Happy Mermay! I've been trying to figure out how I want to play with Mermaids in the Kirby universe for a while now, and I think we've made some progress. Meet Petite Lobster and Squee, both affectionately named by my Twitch chat. XD

Squee doesn't have a lot of story at the moment. She's really just "Squishy, but make it a mermaid". Petite however, is a little more fleshed out. The story we came up with was that she's made from the same metal as Heavy Lobster from Kirby Superstar, and her primary objective is to collect parts of ships that have fallen into the ocean to rebuild them (namely, the Halberd). Given the resemblance to Susie, I imagine she might be a creation of the Haltmann Works Company, but we'll have to see. A huge thank you to @beth-purcell, @iggymtg, and @graycoin for their contributions to this, you guys rock. XD Under the cut are the original sketches before we fleshed out these.

As you can see, there's a third here, a Patchlander betta fish mermaid that loves to collect treasure. I'm not feeling as certain about her, but maybe we can revisit another day. I'm having a lot of fun with these, they're very cute. <3

[anasabdin]

I couldn't [ 10 colors ]

[aelulu]

Too much motivation tdy...

I also like it without background soo take it under cut if you want

[feefal]

Happy Mermay! Oysters can totally be mermaids, right?

[aelulu]

Pages 17, 18 & 19

Previous pages

explodes

[mismedleym]

recollections

[mira-cler]

this trope so silly I enjoy it lots whenever I see it

[munawritessometimes]

My cursor had stopped working.

I thought there was something wrong with my keyboard...until it started typing by itself.

Not so fast, it wrote. You can't get rid of me that easily...

I furiously pressed my backspace but nothing was working.

You keep my changing my character. The font kept changing rapidly. But you just LOVE to write my death scene, don't you?

The screen began to glitch, colours flashing and breaking before my very eyes.

If I can't exist...then no one can.

A single textbox stood in the middle of all the chaos.

Delete work?

"NO!"

>Confirm

[luna-azzurra]

A non-writer asked me "but where do you get your ideas" and i genuinely did not know how to explain that it's not a place. it's not a website. it's not a folder. it's that i was on the bus and a woman was holding a paper bag very carefully and something about the way she held it made me need to know what was inside and then i needed to know why she was sad about it and then there was a whole person and then there was a whole story and the bus had already stopped and i missed my stop. that's where.

[cameoappearance]

Strange women on buses distributing ideas is no basis for a system of artistic motivation

[ao3commentoftheday]

Hello!

First of all, thank you for hosting so many discussions on your blog. It's always incredibly interesting to learn how fandom-related outlooks and experiences differ between individuals.

The topic of feedback and beta-reading has been particularly curious to me. However, while reading through the responses, I couldn't shake off the feelings that the underlying definitions used by each person may also be a fascinating thing to explore.

As such, if you don't mind: what would you describe as "inappropriate feedback"? What characteristics does it have? And likewise, what do you think is "appropriate feedback"? What's your personal guideline for that? Thank you for answering, and well... I would be thrilled to learn what your audience thinks too. 👉👈

Feedback that I give during beta reading is quite different from comments I leave on posted works.

First of all, when I'm a beta, I'm seeing the work while it's still being actively worked on and edited. That means I can make suggestions that I wouldn't make on a posted work - anything that's posted won't be edited beyond fixing typos.

Second of all, when I'm a beta I have a relationship with the author. I might or might not know them beyond being their beta, but as their beta I've talked to them about their story. I know what their goal is for the fic. I've asked about what their priorities are, what they're trying to improve, what they don't want me to comment on.

So for me, "appropriate feedback" is anything that falls within the boundaries they've asked for help with, that I have knowledge of, and that is aimed at helping the author make their story the best that it can be.

Inappropriate feedback would be:

commenting on something they've asked me not to comment on

commenting on an aspect that I'm not knowledgeable about (for example, I won't comment on characterization if I'm a casual fan or if I haven't interacted with canon at all)

making suggestions that would change their writing style to be more like my writing style

making suggestions that would change the story into something different from what they've told me they're trying to do

My goal as a beta is to help an author solidify the story they're already telling, clarify the voice they're already using, and support any areas where they feel like they need support.

I also love it when authors allow me to cheer read and add in comments about parts that I particularly enjoy. Not everyone wants that, but it makes me so happy to have that little back and forth of "OMG I LOVE THIS!" and "YAY! I'm glad that worked!"

Cheer reader comments are the kinds of things that I leave on posted fics as well.

What about the other beta readers out there? Do you have thoughts on this? And authors - what would you consider appropriate or inappropriate feedback from a beta you're working with?

[sexydexynurse]

These days I mostly have a reciprocal beta situation with someone I've been friends with for years because of that. I personally think that one person having aphantasia and the other having very strong visual images when reading gives a good mix of processing stories for picking up inconsistencies and things.

Things I'm usually looking for when betaing or asking for from a beta are:

Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation (SPAG) - Did I drop a comma? Did I drop a letter? Did I accidentally use too instead of two because I wrote it at two am in a dark room with a cat yelling at me?

Readability - Are there any clunky phrasing or convoluted sentences or otherwise confusing passages? Are there word choices that make the meaning of a passage unclear because of multiple definitions and insufficient context? Is that intentional?

Characterization - Does the overall POV voice seem in character for the POV character? Do dialogue bits seem in character for those characters? Is it consistent throughout? If not, does it serve a purpose and is it intentional? If I don't know the canon sufficiently, it's mainly looking for consistent characterization.

Worldbuilding - In AUs or other bits where I've made up new world rules, are they consistent? Are they internally logical? Are they interesting? Are there unintended implications that I missed noticing?

Canon Compliance - Does it break with canon? Is that intentional? (canon is a buffet to choose what you want and ignore the rest -especially for DC comics with their own conflicting canon- but I think that works best if you are aware and actively choosing to ignore that bit of canon.) Are there interesting call backs to canon that provide more depth to the passage? Does that add unintended context or change the way it will be interpreted from the intention?

Insider Trading - Did I claim something about laws that's actively incorrect? Applying the specialized knowledge and real world skills that the beta has to the story. I have a Masters of Accountancy, so if the fic mentions accounting in a way that doesn't make sense to me, I will ask clarifying questions or provide related information to allow it to be smoothed.

Cheer Reading - Any turns of phrase or bits of characterization or worldbuilding etc that really get me and make me happy or make me feel things. Giving the emotional response feedback, especially for things done well.

General Vibes - Final thoughts. Does it feel complete or does it want more? Does it feel like it dragged on overlong and I should have cut out half of it? Does the ending feel earned? Does it have the desired emotional effect?

For comments, appropriate feedback (imo) includes the things in Cheer Reading and general emotional and mental response to the story as a whole. If it makes me want to chew over the implications or rotate the blorbos about a variation on characterization, I'll tell them that. Once it's posted, I will assume that no changes will ever be made to it, so I'm not going to bring up anything I think could or should be changed except in the rare situation where html coding may have eaten part of the fic and that's because it's an issue with displaying the fic.

[idlelizard]

shapely sugar bowl