As Requested- My Zine About Fat And Plus Size Body Types From Instagram!💖 Happy Drawing Everyone!

black history month is coming to a closeeee but i have something that’ll help you draw black characters in any month! if it was helpful then hey… here’s my kofi 😏

Kudos vs. Hits on AO3

Back in early 2017 I had a conversation with friend and fellow writer @pushtheheart​ about reader engagement on AO3. We’d noticed that, particularly on longer fics, kudos rates drop pretty sharply at a certain point and never really pick up again. Add to that, most of the comments on a new chapter tend to come in those first 24-48 hours after posting. Beyond that, you’re probably only going to see more if you’ve got one of those rare and marvellous spirits that binge-reads and leaves multiple comments as they go. This can feel pretty discouraging, particularly if you’re working hard toward the completion of a bigger project. It can seem like nobody is interested in what you’re doing now that you’re 20 chapters and three years in. Going on the assumption that the answer wasn’t simply, “we suck”, I started tracking kudos vs. hits over time on my longfic to look for trends. I don’t have any data previous to posting chapter 9 of 30, as the idea didn’t occur to me until then, but what I gathered after that was really interesting. I’m sharing it here for anyone else who enjoys data and is curious about this kind of thing!

But first, a note on engagement and expectations…

If you’ve ever put content on the internet you’re probably aware of the “1% rule” or “90-9-1″. Basically, it means the vast majority of people lurk and <10% will engage with the content they consume. For every 10 hits, you’ll get one engagement in the form of a like, kudos, a share, etc. Comments are a deeper level of engagement (community participation) so you’ll cut that down another 10:1. As an example, let’s say you put up a blog post that gets 1500 hits. Average-to-above-average engagement will see it get around 150 likes and 15 comments. I wanted to see if this was true for fic as well. And in general this does seem to be the case – with a few caveats.

This rule only really applies to fics with <10′000k hits. Once you cross that line, kudos drops sharply. There’s another sharp decline at 20′000 and, while I don’t expect to ever hit this mark, I imagine the same can be said for 30′000 or 40′000. I think this is likely due to established readership. The longer the fic is, the less people are likely to hop in unless it’s been personally recommended to them - most of your readers are already subbed. Eventually you’ll reach a point where the vast majority of engagement is made of these people: invested readers who have already left their kudos and their comments back when they first subscribed. 

In the old days of Newsgroups and alt.creative it was customary to leave comments on every chapter. There was no such thing as hit counts and likes so this was the only way to let someone know you read it. That’s not the case anymore. My working theory is that this is influenced by social media. It’s trained people to equate ‘many comments’ (or simply just high engagement) with ‘stalking’ because that kind of behavior on other mediums, like Facebook or Instagram, tends to raise eyebrows. As a result people are a little more gun-shy about leaving a bunch of comments. 

Here’s the data from my fic, Roses Where Thorns Grow. The Dragon Age fandom is in limbo right now as the last major chapter of the series came out in 2015 and we’re all sitting around awaiting the release of the next… so there’s not a ton of activity. DA fandom hit its peak in around 2014/2015. Many of the popular artists and authors have moved on, and it’s not really a particularly big or active community by comparison to mega-fandoms like The 100 or MCU or (apparently) Hockey RPF.

(Pic fixed, previous did not include kudos data for April-to-June of 2021)

The most obvious jump was when the pandemic hit and lockdown began. I don’t believe it had anything to do with the content of my fic or the posting schedule, it was a matter of people turning to AO3 to soothe their cabin fever. AO3 actually mentioned the same in various tweets and posts at the time!

Engagement spikes of statistical significance occurred in a few places:

1. The completion of “part one” and the beginning of “part two”. I’m not convinced this has to do with the content, as quite a few people later told me they bailed due to the subject matter not being their cup of tea. Rather, I think this is because of the soft ‘complete’ status. A lot of people refuse to read in-progress fic. Though I personally find that baffling. You’re missing so much good stuff!

2. Related, finishing the fic. Those in the above category tend to wait until something is done to leave their kudos.

3. A smut chapter. This is self-explanatory. Bioware fans are horny-ass motherfuckers.

3b. It’s worth noting at this point that posting outside of the weird AO3 update notification void of 12am-5am UTC also saw a difference exclusively in comments/hits on new chapters. It didn’t compare to these other spikes, but is absolutely worth keeping in mind. If you’re a night owl like me wait until after 5am UTC to post your updates. More information on this phenomenon can be found on @jenroses​‘ post about it, here.

4. By far the biggest and most significant jump: breaching page two of the pairing tag.

Nothing impacted by engagement more than this. Not being shared on Reddit, not story content, size, update speed or regularity, not self-promotion, not my own community engagement, nothing. It was so significant I could just about pin it to the day. Once I hit the very bottom of page two of “Female Lavellan/Solas” I got like 25 new followers (finally pushing me over 100), double the notes on my posts, viral spread of several Tumblr posts (I’m counting ‘viral’ as something over 500 notes), more comments, more kudos, more bookmarks, faster comments on new updates, several binge-readers and someone even made me my first fan art ( @nivenor-krosis​ ILU I think about this every single day). 

Now, I have nowhere near the following of the rock star writers in this fandom and never will – it’s taken me like 6 years to amass 120 people – and I’d love to blame that jump on being a nice person or a good writer or something, but the data really doesn’t support that. More than anything else, visibility impacts kudos. And, unfortunately, it seems you have to expect that once you start creeping toward 10k hits, regardless of that visibility, your kudos rate is going to dwindle exponentially. 

This data is a big part of why I decided to put up a post highlighting some lesser known authors and pin it to the top of my Tumblr. If you love an author, promote them! Reblog them. Like them. Recommend them. Talk about them. If you’re an author, reblog your own posts 10 times. More! And if you’re a reader who wants to find more really good fic, go past page two of the search results! There are a ton of gems back there that will never see more than a few hundred hits and are incredible reads - you’re missing out! 

For writers: historical women’s clothing

Those who have been with me for a while know that although I’m not an expert,  I’m super enthusiastic historical clothing. Which means I also notice when it’s totally butchered in writing (I’m looking expecially at you, smut fics). So here are some pointers for your historical/fantasy lady’s clothing, for my peace of mind:

Not everything with laces is a corset. Although terms overlap, we mostly only talk about corsets from mid-19th century. Before that you have stays or bodies, maybe even jumps (unboned, quilted garment). You’re pretty safe with simply saying stays.

Stays cannot be tight-laced! You can only tight-lace if your garment has metal eyelets (otherwise the lacing would tear the fabric, ruining the garment), and those only came in mid-19th century. Your 18th century lady won’t be gasping for air (I’m looking at you, PotC)

That being said, even tight-laced ladies are unlikely to gasp for breath.

Your character won’t be wearing a corset/super structured stays under an empire gown/Regency style dress. That would be totally unnecessary (looking at you, Bridgerton). Character instead would be wearing “transitional stays”–a short, boned garment somewhere between a modern bra and a corset–, or lightly boned/unboned stays. The point of these is to push the boobs up, not to slim down the waist/create a silhouette.

Instead of stays, your early 16th century/fantasy character can wear a boned kirtle–in this case, the bodice and the skirt are made up of one garment.

Stays/corsets can be back laced (mostly earlier stuff), front/front-and-back laced (a bit later), back laced with clasps at the front (Victorian)

Some stays can be worn as outerwear. They can be colorful and intricately decorated.

Gentlemen can and will help their lovers dress; they know how women’s clothing works.

There is always a chemise/shift under the stays! (looking at you, The Tudors.) That is your first layer–it protects the character’s skin from chafing and the character’s clothes from sweat.

Stockings are held just under the knee/mid-thigh with garters/ribbons.

No panties! No underwear, whatsoever. Ruck up those skirts and the banging can commence

There’s such a thing as split drawers (19th century)–which is like a pair of knee-lenght underpants, only the two legs are not connected at the groin area.

Ladies can have pockets–they are basically big pouches that can be tied around the waist with a string. They can be worn over or under the overskirt.

If the pockets are worn under the skirt, then they can be accessed via slits on the sides. This happens when the skirt has a kind of “apron like” fastening: basically, the top of the skirt is made of two rectangular pieces, both of them having their own ties. You first tie the back part on the front, then the front part in the back. And voila! Slits on the sides.

Those were just from the top of my head. If you have any question, feel free to ask*–or better yet, look up ladies on the internet who know more than me on this topic, like Bernadette Banner, Karolina Zebrowska, or Abby Cox.

Also feel free to correct me if I said something stupid

this shit’s like straight out of a parks and rec episode

this was gonna be a tutorial and i guess it still is but if anything it’s just a really long and drawn out “essay” on drawing people with epicanthic folds. one of my biggest pet peeves is people drawing asian people exclusively with the same type of eye they’d give white people or anyone else who typically doesn’t have the fold! however i know that most people are taught with the standard white person eye (google image search for “eye” and it’ll all be pictures of white people’s eyes) so learning to draw epicanthic folds is a consciously learned thing. 

therefore i bring you this, which attempts to break the mechanics of epicanthic folds down into something that’s a bit easier to digest and implement in your own art! 

style can be argued i guess but it’s not that hard to stylize eyes with folds if you do proper observation and research. eyes with epicanthic folds are as diverse as eyes without so it’s not like you have to adhere to a strict model for them (although many people think that you have to) and all it takes to distinguish the two in stylized art (and even in semi/realism once you think about it) is a few lines! like i said this is a learned process but it’ll make your asian characters (and characters of other races even) a bit more interesting and believable.

looks like she needs to let the soup cool down before she gets burned. Oh too late!

Writing Traumatic Injuries References

So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache… Eragon breaks his wrist and it’s just fine within days… Wounds heal with nary a scar, ever…

I’m aiming to fix that.

Here are over 100 links covering just about every facet of traumatic injuries (physical, psychological, long-term), focusing mainly on burns, concussions, fractures, and lacerations. Now you can beat up your characters properly!

General resources

WebMD

Mayo Clinic first aid

Mayo Clinic diseases

First Aid

PubMed: The source for biomedical literature

Diagrams: Veins (towards heart), arteries (away from heart) bones, nervous system, brain

Burns

General overview: Includes degrees

Burn severity: Including how to estimate body area affected

Burn treatment: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees

Smoke inhalation

Smoke inhalation treatment

Chemical burns

Hot tar burns

Sunburns

Incisions and Lacerations

Essentials of skin laceration repair (including stitching techniques)

When to stitch (Journal article–Doctors apparently usually go by experience on this)

More about when to stitch (Simple guide for moms)

Basic wound treatment

Incision vs. laceration: Most of the time (including in medical literature) they’re used synonymously, but eh.

Types of lacerations: Page has links to some particularly graphic images–beware!

How to stop bleeding: 1, 2, 3

Puncture wounds: Including a bit about what sort of wounds are most likely to become infected

More about puncture wounds

Wound assessment: A huge amount of information, including what the color of the flesh indicates, different kinds of things that ooze from a wound, and so much more.

Home treatment of gunshot wound, also basics More about gunshot wounds, including medical procedures

Tourniquet use: Controversy around it, latest research

Location pain chart: Originally intended for tattoo pain, but pretty accurate for cuts

General note: Deeper=more serious. Elevate wounded limb so that gravity draws blood towards heart. Scalp wounds also bleed a lot but tend to be superficial. If it’s dirty, risk infection. If it hits the digestive system and you don’t die immediately, infection’ll probably kill you. Don’t forget the possibility of tetanus! If a wound is positioned such that movement would cause the wound to gape open (i.e. horizontally across the knee) it’s harder to keep it closed and may take longer for it to heal.

Broken bones

Types of fractures

Setting a broken bone when no doctor is available

Healing time of common fractures

Broken wrists

Broken ankles/feet

Fractured vertebrae: Neck (1, 2), back

Types of casts

Splints

Fracture complications

Broken noses

Broken digits: Fingers and toes

General notes: If it’s a compound fracture (bone poking through) good luck fixing it on your own. If the bone is in multiple pieces, surgery is necessary to fix it–probably can’t reduce (“set”) it from the outside. Older people heal more slowly. It’s possible for bones to “heal” crooked and cause long-term problems and joint pain. Consider damage to nearby nerves, muscle, and blood vessels.

Concussions

General overview

Types of concussions 1, 2

Concussion complications

Mild Brain Injuries: The next step up from most severe type of concussion, Grade 3

Post-concussion syndrome

Second impact syndrome: When a second blow delivered before recovering from the initial concussion has catastrophic effects. Apparently rare.

Recovering from a concussion

Symptoms: Scroll about halfway down the page for the most severe symptoms

Whiplash

General notes: If you pass out, even for a few seconds, it’s serious. If you have multiple concussions over a lifetime, they will be progressively more serious. Symptoms can linger for a long time.

Character reaction:

Shock (general)

Physical shock: 1, 2

Fight-or-flight response: 1, 2

Long-term emotional trauma: 1 (Includes symptoms), 2

First aid for emotional trauma

Treatment (drugs)

WebMD painkiller guide

Treatment (herbs)

1, 2, 3, 4

Miscellany

Snake bites: No, you don’t suck the venom out or apply tourniquettes

Frostbite

Frostbite treatment

Severe frostbite treatment

When frostbite sets in: A handy chart for how long your characters have outside at various temperatures and wind speeds before they get frostbitten

First aid myths: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Includes the ones about buttering burns and putting snow on frostbite.

Poisons: Why inducing vomiting is a bad idea

Poisonous plants

Dislocations: Symptoms 1, 2; treatment. General notes: Repeated dislocations of same joint may lead to permanent tissue damage and may cause or be symptomatic of weakened ligaments. Docs recommend against trying to reduce (put back) dislocated joint on your own, though information about how to do it is easily found online.

Muscular strains

Joint sprain

Resuscitation after near-drowning: 1, 2

Current CPR practices: We don’t do mouth-to-mouth anymore.

The DSM IV, for all your mental illness needs.

Electrical shock

Human response to electrical shock: Includes handy-dandy voltage chart

Length of contact needed at different voltages to cause injury

Evaluation protocol for electric shock injury

Neurological complications

Electrical and lightning injury

Cardiac complications

Delayed effects and a good general summary

Acquired savant syndrome: Brain injuries (including a lightning strike) triggering development of amazing artistic and other abilities

Please don’t repost! You can find the original document (also created by me) here.

I hope you enjoy the show!

god i just binged barry, its so good!! how are u liking it so far?

i’m enjoying it!! i don’t find most of the characters likable but also like, i don’t think you’re really supposed to? it’s an enjoyable show and it made me chuckle a lot

Oh god, please delete the extra spaces between paragraphs in your fics on AO3. Please. I know it takes ages and it’s really annoying to do, but it is an immediate backspace away from your story if I’m on mobile because I get one sentence per page and acres of white space.