“Do you have any twos?” Neil asks, frowning down at his hand. He can’t tell if it’s a good one or not. He doesn’t know if that’s possible in this game.
“Nope, go fish,” Nicky says. “Any kings?”
Neil wordlessly hands two over just as Dan and Matt come into the suite, both talking about something that Neil doesn’t pay attention to.
“Do you have any fours?” Nicky says.
“Go fish. Any sixes?”
“Nope, go fish.”
“Are you two seriously playing Go Fish right now?” Dan says, popping up behind Nicky and startling him enough that some of his cards fall out of his hand.
“Jesus, Dan, give me some warning next time. Yeah, turns out Neil can’t play any card games, so we’re starting small and working our way up.”
“So you’re cheating at Go Fish with someone who’s never played cards before.”
“You’re cheating,” Neil says. “Seriously? It’s not like we have money on this game.”
“No one bets on Go Fish,” Nicky says, even though he definitely tried to when he suggested they play it. “Besides, cheating is part of the fun! He has to learn that.”
“You could’ve mentioned it,” Neil says. “I just assumed we were playing by the rules. Now that we’re cheating, I’m going to definitely beat you.”
“We need to introduce him to Bullshit.” Matt hands beers to Nicky and Dan and settles on the floor next to Neil. “You’d definitely kill at that. Plus you could get all your lying energy out during a game and be totally honest afterward.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” Neil says, and Matt laughs like Neil has just told a very funny joke.
“We were thinking,” Dan says. “You and Andrew, me and Matt—we should go on a double date! I mean, we’re on the same team as him and we’ve never really hung out properly, so wouldn’t it make sense if we got to know him better?”
Character A has the suspicion that they’re being haunted. Strange noises and things have been happening around Character A’s house, but they haven’t seen anything concrete. One night, while brushing their teeth, Character A notices that their movements and the mirror’s reflection don’t quite line up correctly. When Character A stops, their reflection also stops, then gives Character A a wide smile.
Do not leave criticism in fanfic comments. Even if it’s constructive. Even if you’re “just being honest.” This is not traditional publishing, and you should not treat fic in the same way you treat traditionally published works. AO3 comments are not Amazon reviews.
If you want to offer the author criticism, please follow the steps below:
Contact the author to see if they even want your criticism (their vision and intention might be different than yours; this isn’t for-profit publishing, so there’s a chance the author has no desire to make their fic anything than what THEY want it to be. Moreover, unless you’re some kind of literary genius, it’s possible that they might not give a fuck about your opinion)
If they do, provide it in a private forum so that they have the opportunity to accept or reject your criticism outside the public grounds of AO3 comments (what I mean is: CRITICISM IN COMMENTS IS FUCKING HUMILIATING)
Do not be offended if they don’t accept your criticism
Thank them for their time and for listening to you speak your peace
Some additional notes:
Do not leave negative criticism/hate/wank on a WIP (or, see above: ever). Some people are enjoying the story and negativity might (will) make the author fall out of love with what they’re writing such that they don’t want to finish it. Also, you owe it to the author, who is writing FOR FREE, to hear them out to the end of their story in case they end up fixing what you were criticising.
Do not leave a comment telling the author why you stopped reading the fic. The author isn’t going to fix it and it’s just going to make them sad and feel shitty. Seriously, these types of comments are everywhere and they help NO ONE.
If you read something in a fic you don’t like, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST STOP READING IT. Please don’t let yourself believe that the way you see fic is the way fic ought to be. Everyone likes different things. It’s okay to exit silently. It’s the polite thing to do.
Do not point out OOC. Ever. Period. End of story. Interpretation is the entire point of fanfic. If you don’t like someone’s interpretation, DO NOT READ IT. You’re not the IC Police.
Avoid backhanded compliments. Please don’t start a comment with, “To be honest I hated this at first, but…” or anything similar. If there is an insult in your comment that is turned positive somehow, it is still an insult, and it is still hurtful.
Please please please, I am begging you, readers of fanfic, to take into consideration that fanfic authors are not celebrities, even if you think they’re super popular and amazing writers and you get hearts in your eyes when they acknowledge you. If you cut them, they will bleed. If you talk to them, they will listen. If you tell them they suck, they will believe you.
Be kind to fanfic authors. They do what they do because they love to do it. Don’t take that away from them by leaving tactless or rude comments.
It’s the time of the year again when this post from 2015 needs a reblog.
Life might have made Andrea a dangerous girl, but Mommy made her a killer. Rule 63!andreil ftw.
Andrea Minyard is the kind of girl men hate.
That’s fine with her – the ones who can’t tell that on sight she teaches to hate her soon enough. That’s the way she likes it.
She’s the girl all in black, the one with the sharp knife against both forearms. The one who is the fucking knife. A danger to herself and others, out of control: like she’s ever done anything unprovoked in her entire life. Like she’s ever done anything that wasn’t with someone else’s name on her lips, burned bright on the inside of her eyelids.
It’s just that people have funny ideas about reasonable force. They didn’t grow up like she did, of course. Danger breeds danger, and all of her earliest memories are soaked in it. It’s really no wonder that she turned out the way she has. Psycho. Monster. Murderer.
That last sounds like it came straight from her sister’s mouth. Because life might have made Andrea a dangerous girl, but Mommy made her a killer.
Andrea is meant to be the one who ends things, not the one who starts them. But she’s the one who offers Kevin Day a deal when he crashes into the midst of the Foxes, with his broken hand and equally broken spirit.
He’s so scared. Andrea can’t bear him, for that or the brusque snarl of an expression he paints over it in his attempt to seem braver. She has no fondness for liars.
She remembers him telling her that she could make something of herself, though. She remembers him saying you’re worth it. She wants to keep him close so that when he fails to uphold his end of their bargain, she can punish him for it.
She never claimed not to be petty. For example:
“I won’t fuck you,” Andrea says, apropos nothing one night when they’re at the house in Columbia.
Kevin clearly hasn’t heard her come into the living room where he’s trying to get comfortable on the couch, because he jerks up so fast it must sober him. “I don’t-”
“I know you don’t. If you did, I’d have neutered you already.” She’s grinning, buzzing on crackers, but not joking. Not much, anyway. “But for the sake of clarity-”
“I get it,” Kevin says. He appears vaguely frightened by the suggestion. Andrea would think he was sensible enough to avoid women like her if she hadn’t seen Thea Muldani – that girl looks like a killer.
“You’re not as stupid as you look, then,” Andrea tells him, patting him on the shoulder. He actually flinches.
It’s lucky he’s more afraid of Riko than he is of her.
Kevin has barely had his dressing off his hand when someone manages to take a photo of the two of them in a grocery store near campus, half of Kevin’s tired face and Andrea’s bright-eyed grin turned to the camera. The media goes wild for Kevin Day and the woman he must be fucking, because God knows that men and women can’t be in close proximity without wanting to fuck.
Someone spray-paints ‘whore’ and ‘bitch’ and ‘slut’ on the stadium walls over the weekend. Andrea looks them over and laughs – kids these days, thinking they’re so original. She can’t even remember the first person that called her a bitch, and for her that really is saying something.
The next week at practice Wymack comes into the lounge and dumps a plastic bag of letters on the desk. He says, “This is all hate mail.”
Dan, who’d been furious about the graffiti, says, “What the hell?” When she pulls one of them out, it’s addressed to Andrea by care of the court. So is the second, and the third.
“I’m not replying to them all, if that’s what you were hoping for,” Andrea says lazily from her spot on the couch.
Wymack’s expression is steadily unimpressed, but his gaze doesn’t waver from her face. “Some of these are death threats.”
She laughs. “How boring.”
“I’m involving the cops.”
“Go ahead.” Andrea can’t wait to see them pretend that they’re putting in the bare minimum effort.
“Thanks for your permission.” He looks away from her at last. At her side, Kevin is rigid. She elbows him hard enough in the ribs to bruise so that he squirms towards the arm of the couch in an attempt to escape.
She turns to look at him. He doesn’t look back. She croons, “Oh, Kevin. Is that fear or guilt I see?”
“Andrea, be quiet,” Wymack says.
“You’re no fun,” Andrea tells him before turning back to Kevin and stage-whispering, “Don’t you trust me?”
Shadow In The Light 