There’s an emotion only unlocked when you live in a house with multiple stories. I call it “the stair emotion” and it’s when you realize the object you need is on the other side of yet another trip up and down those goddamn stairs. It’s the closest I get to transcending the desire for material goods. Maybe I don’t need that notebook. Maybe I don’t need anything.
Here's some of the notes, starting with the things multiple people brought up:
SHRIMP COCKTAIL:
banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol
generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is
#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro
And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!
POMEGRANATES:
zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple
thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute
sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.
FRUIT TREES:
zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''
salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE
baander: #cranberry trees
DOUGH/BATTER:
maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre
livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles
lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY
Some other topics:
ANIMALS:
catenarwhal: #mandatory 'how cows produce milk' mention#i'll never recover from that one I fear
piromantic: #one time i saw someone fake their way through describing how spiders behave
pluto-lichen: horses
misskittypotter: #stardew valley faking its way through what fresh fish smell like
pa-pa-plasma: #saw someone faking their way through knowing what a seal is once #i still am fucked up over that one to this day. they just straight up did not know #& they were NOT good at guessing it either like it was clear they had never googled that animal ever #& was only just now realizing via answering questions from anons that seals are not!! what they assumed. initially
SEX:
dykevandyke: #what a prostate is #and where it is located #as in. external.
dreamyeyedrose: #I remember back in the ff.net days reading an Ichigo/Renji fic where the writer assumed the penises go inside each other #and I was like “I mean I don't know how it works for sure I don't have one but idk if that's how it works”
SOME OTHER FOOD STUFF:
thetrekkiehasthephonebox: #add another one to the list bloggers#this character is cooking a salad
shosta: #still baffled about the published work that didn't know food could freeze
sun-dari: #once i read a fic where the author didn't understand cinnamon
alto-tenure: #read something recently where the author was just. blatantly wrong about spices
dramatic-dolphin: #i saw someone try to fake their way through what ramen is once. like 14 years ago.#but i remember.#i was very confused about ramen for a few months. they were writing it so authoritatively.
the-celery-stalks-at-midnight: #i will never ever forget someone putting leftover fries in the microwave to reheat them and setting the timer for five minutes
typeghost: #this sparked a memory of a hannibal fic where the author had to fake their way through writing about gravy
draculin: #the one fanfic where the author knows about coffee only as a concept wrote a character as a coffee drinker#was very interesting#I don't remember the fandom or the plot but I was mesmerized by the coffee actions and choices
11235811235811: #there's a lot of faking their way thru congee in the svsss fandom i'll also note
fishali3n: #read one where the person clearly didnt know what tofu is
emmy-everafter: #in the aftermath of shadow and bone s2 i saw a lot of people pretending to know what stroopwafels are #babes they are more like cookies than breakfast waffles #like yes there is a waffle pattern but you're not gonna cut into a stack of them with syrup and sugar#🤣🤣🤣
NON-FOOD STUFF:
red-umbrella-811: Shoutout to Dame Agatha Christie for faking her way through what a wrench is in a very popular published work.
bluebeetle: #once saw someone have a character put an entire phone book in their pocket
nonametis: #- sex talk in languages other than english #<- or just the petnames in a different language other than English
sadisticpony: #the fanfiction i saw this week where op DIDNT KNOW HOW AUTOMATIC DOORS WORKED #and that they arent in peoples homes!!! of course. also opening the automatic door for someone is unironically very funny but its not #its not like. grabbing the door handle to let someone in. helpppp
danmeichael: #reminds me of the fic with the figure drawing class where the character started with the feet. #i love you feet first figure drawing author
meowmix1100blr: #me watching this one fic absolutely obliterate what the board of directors does
vexedhexes: #one time i read an architect character making a doorway bigger by building a bigger door #what a beautiful world. #OH. also gravity falls fic where they go 'oh piedmont is in california so its warm all year round'
leveragehunters: #characters going to a beer garden #And it's literally a garden outside the pub#It was a very cute mistake
fitofpique: #yes! #grown men do not get blind drunk off two beers #but i am possibly guilty of the hypothermia one #assuming it does not make you very horny?
dadvans-likes: #always thinking abt the soup kitchen fic #the entire setting of the fic was 'soup kitchen' #and i very quickly realized #the author did not know what a soup kitchen was #and they thought that soup kitchens only served soup #fic
msmargaretmurry: #i love fanfiction #once read a fic where the characters played 20 questions #but the author seemed to not know how to play 20 questions and was just kind of winging it........ #immaculate
shakespeareaddict: #Look I know not all of us are hockey experts #But it takes about ten seconds of research or any attention paid to the show to realize #That the Stanley cup playoffs are not in fucking September
baejax-the-great: #the funniest one i saw #was someone faking what church is like #like 1. they really didn't have to write an entire church experience for their fic #and 2. they had clearly never even watched a show where people went to church #it was bonkers weird
twosunson: #things ive seen authors faking #knowing how to unclog a drain #knowing. literally any history #knowing what ketamine looks like (apparently- oregano) #(you know who you are)
waterhorseyblues-ao3: #beltane being celebrated in winter #wales being portrayed as a completely separated land from england (i wish) #characters getting up after weeks of bedrest like that dosnt completely fuck you up
violetfairydust: #i once read a fic where the flight time from london to seattle was 3 hours
purekesseltrash: One time, in a fic set specifically in Des Moines, IA, two of the characters casually drove 20 minutes to the ocean. The memory continues to delight me. I want to know where that author thought that Iowa was.
“who’s the top??” “who’s the bottom?” “blank is such a bottom-“ “so and so is taller so they’re the top-“ listen guys. it’s whichever one has a harder time being vulnerable. that’s the bottom
Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”
So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”
Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.
Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.
#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)
To my 25 - 35 year olds, you've reached the age where people around you are starting to give up on themselves because they think it's too late. Don't let that energy rub off on you. It's not too late.
# my favourite part about this post # is that nowhere does it say to reblog this # but we’re all reblogging it # because if we have to suffer # so do other writers
so I know I'm autistic but sometimes the ADHD pops up and waves cheekily at me too
(Wikipedia was consulted heavily during this five minute period of musing and again during its reconstruction in text form below)
Looking at catalpa tree in my backyard -> hehe bean tree -> regular beans also have heart shaped leaves, is that a fabaceae characteristic? -> what's the word for heart-shaped in botanical terms, I know this -> cordate, funny that sounds like chordate for vertebrates -> ooh THAT'S what I can title my BotW daemon au fic, punny on daemons as being a piece of your heart but also they're basically all vertebrates except insects I guess. I should post those snippets at some point
(ofc it turns out they're not actually the same family at all, bignoniaceae isn't even in the same order, like the only thing catalpas and beans have in common is the cordate leaves and elongated seed pods. Which checks out bc one is a vine and one is a fucking tree, you know? Though they do both grow very fast)
...Have to snicker a little when, in order to fit the fifth member of the core marriage into the shot, I have to stick him half a mile away...
Anyway. This is just to let everybody know that for Pride Month of 2026, the Ebooks Direct Pride Package has been really ridiculously discounted.
...From the product page:
This package contains all our Middle Kingdoms material—some of the first LGBTQ-representing epic fantasy in the 20th-century fantasy field, now continuing into the 21st. It also contains the matter-of-fact exit from the (contextual) closet of two of the best-loved characters in the Young Wizards universe—Advisory wizards Tom Swale and Carl Romeo, on their first canonically-"out" venture as a couple.
The main part of the collection spans more than forty years, from the publication of Diane Duane's two-time Astounding Award finalist The Door Into Fire, first published in 1979, through its main-sequence sequels (both also Gaylaxic Spectrum Awards Hall of Fame winners) The Door Into Shadow and The Door Into Sunset, to 2018's and 2019's interstitial Tales of the Five novels, The Levin-Gad and The Landlady. The collection also includes such otherwise hard to find short works as Lior and the Sea and the two current volumes of the "Sirronde's World" group, The Span and Parting Gifts.* And finally, it also includes the Middle Kingdoms novelette Overdue (Tales of the Middle Kingdoms #2), and the short Young Wizards work Owl Be Home For Christmas.
All that for $19.99? Seriously, I need my head felt. So please go validate my mental state and go buy the package. ...And happy Pride!
(Meanwhile, a project for the course of the month is to put all the queer, bi, and/or ace characters in my various series into that shot. That bridge should be a little more crowded by the time I'm done...) 😏
(And the usual sorrowful reminder: With regret, we must remind any UK viewers of this product that, due to Brexit, we can no longer sell ebooks directly into the UK. Our apologies.)
I’ll tell you what I look for in a fic rec list and then we’ll see what everyone else thinks is good :)
all one fandom, and if it’s shippy then all the same ship
titles of the fic link over to AO3
include the rating of the fics and a brief description (or the reason why you like it)
tag the authors so they know they’ve been rec’d
I’ve definitely seen fic rec lists with a specific theme to them as well, for example “[ship] hurt/comfort recs” but I’m personally good with just the description and picking from there.
Do any of you make rec lists? Do you appreciate them? What makes a good list?
Ooh, I love rec lists, but I have fairly different preferences for them:
All one fandom is good, but it doesn’t need to be all one ship. I don’t have anything against multifandom rec lists, but the odds of me being familiar with multiple fandoms on them are slim. The important thing is to be clear about the rec list’s theme before you actually list the recs themselves (e.g. random works I liked, coffee shop AUs in small fandoms, m/m slash in Specific Fandom, etc).
The reason you like it, or the reason you think other people should read it, is absolutely 100% necessary, and ideally it consists of at least a couple sentences (unless it’s a 100-word drabble you’re reccing). Without this, and especially if I don’t know anything about your taste in fic, it’s not any different than skimming a work listing.
If there’s something that you had to overlook while reading the fic, or something that made you hesitate to rec it, mention it! If I know the reccer would usually consider a lack of empty space between paragraphs a dealbreaker, I might be willing to give the fic a go despite the fact bad paragraph spacing is usually also a dealbreaker for me. But if I just click on a link and find a wall of text, I’ll probably back button from not just the work, but possibly the rec list as well.
I think of recs as being for potential readers, not authors, so if I were making a rec list, I wouldn’t tag them. (But I would try to comment on the fic!)
Hello! I recently started a fic rec blog so I have some thoughts:
I agree that single-fandom (or theme) blogs are more preferable to find, but think about what you want to run also. I wanted a place to archive all my favourite works, and I definitely don't have the energy for multiple blogs so this blog is multifandom. It's not for you (random folk on tumblr) it's for me (person having fun making the blog)
similarly, think about the maximum amount of effort you can spend on the task and still complete it. It would be nice to create a highly polished blog with a written summary and full tags and clear themeing, but that is actually a lot of work!
I've gone with a bullet point summary of author, rating, fandom, ship and then my own thoughts. You can check out the about pages for more information on how I'm organized.
I disagree strongly on tagging the author for a couple reasons - for one, you then have to go through the effort of finding the author (do yourself a favour and avoid giving yourself additional work)
also because as sarking mentioned, it's good to bring up both flaws and personal taste in a rec that may end up being very rude to mention to an author. If I'm reccing you something with the caveat that I really don't like how [important side character] was handled, it would be super rude to tag the author!
Additionally:
Think about longevity! I publish one rec a day through my queue, which means I don't have a lot published yet, but also means my queue is very full and I can chillax between doing a few recs in a row
if you are doing a specific fandom or ship rec blog, it is entirely possible to actually run out of good fic. Don't rush to publish a whole bunch of works just to keep your blog from looking empty! it'll fill up!
tags are your friend, but they can also be your enemy. Don't go overboard on keeping things organized - again! keep your work manageable!
it's very easy to absolutely burn out on a long term project, set yourself up for success at the start!
A lot of this is really good advice, so I'm just going to focus on a few differences between a Rec List and a Rec Blog. I've done both of them, and they have different strengths!
A single-person Rec Blog (a blog that only posts fic recs, one rec to a post) is great for long term reach. You can show off the widest variety of fics. It can slowly gain followers, and people can learn what you like and how it compares to what they like, allowing them to really start to trust your recs!
I find that it helps to have a set format for posts, and to provide more info than you would on a rec list - things like ratings/warnings, ships, a separate summary and comments section, etc.
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A Rec List (one post with a bunch of fic links) is great for creating connections in reader's minds. If they know one authour, they can be introduced to other authours that share a positive quality - similar types of prose, the same types of kinks, a shared tendency to write 50 chapter epics, etc.
This means the fics should be carefully chosen. Just throwing up a bunch of fic you like is functional, but doesn't work to the format's strengths.
It's usually better to have shorter recs than a blog would, relying on an intro to get across the theme, along with general range of warnings, etc. The recs are mostly your reaction, with maybe a sentence hinting at the plot. Individual warnings are only necessary if a fic is exceptional - something like, "This one is darker than the others, with a bit of a horror vibe, but the sibling relationship [or whatever the list is themed around] is SO GOOD!"
Regularly posting rec lists can allow you to get many of the strengths of a rec blog - readers who have learned to trust your taste, possibilities to rec a wide variety of fic, etc. - while also keeping all the strengths of the lists. I've followed multiple people who did this, and they were all great!
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Also, a Rec Blog that allows other people to submit, like I'm currently running, is slightly different, as well.
These are great for building a community. They allow for the longest lifespan, as long as you don't burn out - because you aren't the only one supplying them with fic. And they allow YOU to discover new fic!
Structure of posts should be even more formalized. More info is helpful, because people's ability to communicate what they like about a fic is going to vary wildly, and readers aren't going to learn the submitters' likes and dislikes in the same way they can for a single reccer. You have the highest chance of writers stumbling across their fic, so I STRONGLY suggest a policy of focusing only on the positives.
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A final format is the Multi-Topic Rec List. I have a list I updated for almost a decade, until Tumblr stopped allowing me to edit posts that old. It was focused on a single character, with sections for specific tropes I love. I keep a link to it in my header and pinned post. Really fun to be reading a new fic and get all excited that you can add it to a specific section!
Great if you're not making recs frequently enough for regular lists/blog posts, and aren't looking for huge reach. It never got reblogged a lot, but it did get an outsized number of people sending me messages telling me how much they appreciated it, which is a very different and enjoyable experience!
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Tagging the authour seems to be controversial, but I suggest no matter what format you choose. I also suggest wording things in a way that will feel good for authours to read. Recs are for you and other fans, but fandom works better when we're consistently building each other up, even when the other person isn't around.
Also, tagging the authour can expand your reach a LOT. Authours love reblogging posts complimenting their fic, which means their fans, people who presumably like similar fic to you, are exposed to your rec blog/list, and all the fic by other authours you think are equally good.
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