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.
I'm SO excited for Couriway 10k!!! I've been here since he started the challenge, and it still feels kind of unreal. Unfortunately it is at 4:30 AM for me, but I will be ruining my sleep schedule for it regardless.
your neutrophils absolute? 2.71. anion gap? why, that's 11! hemoglobin A1C? a solid 5.4. and don't fret, champ—your VLDL (calculated) is a cool 12. real fascinating stuff. hm? what's that? you want to know what kind of blood you have? like, so you won't have to look your next ER nurse in the eye and tell her you have no clue what type you have right after giving her a date of birth that confirms you are over 30 years old? psh, don't be silly! we can't tell you that! it's a ✨secret✨
gen ai usage is bad. i do not like gen ai in any form, and will absolutely pull my support from people or companies who use it.
AND
if you look at people (like regular, ordinary people) and see their using generative ai as an excuse to harass, threaten, or hurt them, i do not want anything to do with you either. people fuck up and make mistakes and sometimes they double down on those mistakes and are really stupid. that does not give you the right to harass them or tell them to kill themselves.
call them out when they’re being stupid, yeah. pull your support, protest, boycott. do not threaten people or ddos them or tell them to kill themselves.
Duos/couples/groups where the quietest one is the one who leads or typically has the final say.
Stories where the focus is on a clearly platonic relationship. Familial is acceptable, enemies to friends with zero romantic overtones is ideal
The people insisting the romance is doomed/impossible/will cause a war/etc are RIGHT rather than simply being bigots (this doesn't mean it can't all work out in the end. but serious real-world problems/major relationship stress caused by things other than external prejudice must occur, and it has to be bad enough the couple--and ideallythe reader--wonder if the relationship is a mistake)
The parent/mentor/teacher goes on a quest to save the child/student
The initial love interest turns out to be a bit of a jerk, actually, but this isn't immediately obvious
Advertising rant of the day: wrinkles cannot be described as "moderate to severe."
Symptoms of illness are "moderate to severe." Injuries can be "moderate to severe." Wrinkles are not medical issues. Wrinkles are not unhealthy. Wrinkles are the body behaving AS INTENDED.
Calling your wrinkles "moderate to severe" and saying you were "treated for" them is like saying you were treated for your moderate to severe leg hair, or moderate to severe calluses or moderate to severe dimples. All things that the people who have them sometimes find undesirable. All things that are completely natural and normal parts of many healthy bodies and do not impair the functioning of said bodies in any way.
"Readers have SHORT attention spans! The average reader takes just TWO sentences to decide whether to put a book down! You have to HOOK them in the FIRST sentence! GRAB them by throat and don't let them BREATHE—"
... have... have we considered that perhaps the average reader just, like, knows what they like in a book? I mean... first sentences are famous for establishing things like *checks notes*... genre, tone, POV, pacing, character, voice, uhhh... writing style...
The average reader is putting your book down because they discovered it's in first person (or not in first person). The average reader put your book down because they wanted a cozy read, or they're sick of cozy reads, or romance, or grimdark, or assassin princesses, or vampires, or or or. The average reader put your book down because they just didn't like your writing style—no, not because it was boring... they just, get this, didn't like it.
The average critical reader put your book down because it had six grammatical mistakes in the first two sentences.
The average reader will read quite a ways if the premise intrigues them, they like the genre, the writing style doesn't get on their nerves, and the characters pop off the page. In fact, they'll probably read the whole book, so long as it delivers on its plot promises and doesn't drag in the middle section.
The average reader will, however, stop reading after just two sentences if it's clear by the second sentence that the only thing they'll like about this book is the opening line.
Idk, I just think like, painting a demographic of people who, you know, pick up full length books to read for fun, as having short attention spans doesn't make too much sense. At least not as much sense as the alternative: words tell people things; namely, the contents of this book.
In general, though, I think we jump to blame short attention spans too often when there is a far more logical explanation. "It takes 0.06 seconds for viewers to scroll past a post." Yes, that is typically how long it takes me to discern whether this post is about something I'm interested in. There's a trillion posts out there, probably a billion books, of course we've gotten fast at sorting through content. That's not an attention span issue. That's just efficiency.
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