They Like It, They Really Like It (+New Story Snippet) · 9:21am Feb 28th, 2013
The Lavender Letter recently crossed that apparently-significant threshold of 1,000 upvotes! It sits just now at 1,005 up / 18 down, and hell, I'll take a 98.2% grade on just about anything. Interestingly enough, it's been over 1,000 favorites for a huge while, currently at 1,180 stars.
I've always thought of favoriting as something one does beyond upvoting; I'll upvote just about anything good, but starring something requires a particular standard of greatness. Apparently I'm weird and counter-culture, though.
More shinily, yes that's now a word, this gives me an excuse to blog, which in turn gives me an excuse to post a preview of my new story-in-progress! It current sits at 2,100 words, and given where it is relative to where I want to go with it, it may end up around 8-10,000.
So, without further ado, a little of my current piece, 'Destiny', and Other Lies Told to Foals.
Tap, tap.
Princess Celestia's ears perked up, and her eyes were nearly drawn from the page into which they were two paragraphs invested...
...Probably just the rain freezing in the night air.
The alicorn settled back into her reading. Daring was just about to meet with the mysterious Steward of Gallopfree, rumored to be as ancient and powerful as Equestria's own beloved Princess—
Tap, tap, tap.
Or maybe it wasn't the rain, freezing into tiny hailstones as it fell through the chill night air to strike her bedroom balcony windows. Two was coincidence, but three was a pattern.
And while Celestia wasn't expecting any kind of surreptitious midnight rendezvous, that didn't change the fact that there were a few ponies capable of such means.
One, in particular.
Reluctantly, she tore her attention away from the adventurous exploits of a pegasus explorer, and turned it toward a (presumed) on-occasion-overanxious unicorn protégé.
An errant thought prodded her to an accompanying idea, and she also reached out her magic to a stack of towels in the bath closets.
Tap, tap; more quietly this time. Hesitantly, as though the tapper was starting to think that they were an unwelcome disturbance, that coming here had been a terrible idea.
Towels at hoof, Celestia enveloped the glass doors in her magic, set aside their many wards, and opened them to reveal a shaggy, soaked, and shivering Twilight Sparkle huddling in the rain. Her coat was mussed, her mane tangled and plastered over her face, her ears pressed flat and muzzle all scrunched up.
"...You look like a lost puppy."
It was all Celestia could do not to burst out laughing. As it was, a little snickering managed to elude her usual composure.
A raised hoof and clearing of her throat restored her poise—snicker—ahem, mostly, and the princess shifted her attention from being a terrible pony to addressing her distressed student.
"I’m sorry, I didn't mean—come in from the rain, Twilight. Let's get you warmed up."
Somewhat belatedly, it occurs to me that I may be falling into becoming typecast as a Twilight/Celestia author. Maybe I'll have to crank out that AppleDash after all...
not to say you are wrong, but while it is a "favorites list" anyone can use it for any reason. for example one could put fics they hate in there if they really wanted too.
I personally like to keep track of everything i have read and to get chapter updates on anything i am reading. So every single thing i have read is in there. the stuff i have downvoted too. (rest assured lavender letter is upvoted, a finer vintage too!)
I am sure other people use it for the same reason.
just putting everything into perspective and letting you know some of those numbers are a bit off, though lavender letter is a fav for me in regard i would probably fav anything i upvoted anyway
It's natural to be drawn to Twilestia. It is bestia, after all.
And congrats on your story. A thousand upvotes is a lot of upvotes. As for the favorites/upvotes disconnect, I was likewise quite puzzled by it, but I'm informed that people use the favorites system to differentiate between the stories they might want to read (Read Later) and the stories they are certain to read (Favorites).
And the new story fragment:
Moar?
Like it's a BAD thing!? I especially like that lost puppy line, it drives home the cute
.
873470
THIS
meh, I've known predominantly twilestia writers that end up with great stories, like, really really great! Although the big example I can think of mostly wrote darker things so....
873470
Yeah, as much as I want to write something clever or insightful, truth is that Ghost speaks my thoughts exactly as well.
This is not a new thing.
Looking forward to the finished product!
I can't speak for anyone else, but I tend to fave most things I have read that have even remotely caught my attention. In fact, back when this account was named random7634, it was created purely so I could use the favourting system as a set of bookmarks. I wasn't intended to get every involved in the community. In fact, I have on occasion faved-and-disliked. Often because the fic in question contains a single good idea or gave me an idea, but is otherwise a train wreck.
I'm also very free with my likes, though I have a policy of not hitting like or dislike until I've read a significant amount. I'm more stingy with comments—if I left a comment saying I liked something, that means more than a like or a favourite—and even more stingy watches. I used to operate on watch-requires-two-good-stories policy, now I'm not sure what the logic I use is.
The scene is very cute. I actually like the:
bit best. I'm imagining Celestia raising an amused eyebrow at being used as a standard by which ancient and powerful beings are measured.
PS: Also, with a name like Sunchaser, you're not doing yourself any favours if you don't want to be typecast as a Twiestia writer.
Can never have too much
TwiLunaTwiLestia, especially from an author known for glorious wordworks on the order of Lavender Letter. Keep it coming! We - your loyal readers - know it'll be grand, even if it's AppleDash.On the thumbs up vs favorite front: I favorite everything that gets a thumbs up, for one reason alone: the email updates checkbox is tied to the Favorites button. If there's a story I want to follow and get instant notification for new chapters, I have to give it a favorite so I can follow it too. That bugs me because there are lots of stories that show promise but which don't merit a Favorite based on their first few chapters. I need to see more from them before I place my vote (especially since thumbs up/down can't be retracted, only switched) but I can only do that by giving a gold star. Luna's Librarian is in the same boat as Lavender Letter: 1140+ favorites, 1014 thumbs up, so I can only assume people are starring it and tracking it who haven't yet given it a thumbs up. There's part of my wish list, Knighty: separate the Favorite button from the "email updates" checkbox, and allow thumbs up/down to be reset to "neither" instead of just switching back and forth
Yeah the upvote fave thing always confused me as well. I have defaved and downvoted stories if I feel they went downhill. Happening to a lot more stories recently. Unfortunate that.
It's a fact that some people are stingy with their faves and upvotes and some are not. Also, look at the views to votes ratio, most stories have roughly 10%~20%.
I guess it's good to remember fiction is highly subjective. I've seen stuff with little to no upvotes which I think is great, and stories with 1000+ which I think suck. I always remember that Jersey Shore and Honey Boo Boo are popular too, doesn't mean they are good.
Not that I am comparing your work to those... pieces of entertainment.
This is the way that I operate as well.
I use favorites to keep track of stories. Read Later for stories I'm probably not going to read but still might on a whim and want to be able to find.
And also congratzses
For me, a star is 'I like this enough that I want to read more', which is the lowest level of liking something; if I'm not interested in more, then I don't really like it. Then, a thumbs-up is for if I really like it. Adding to the confusion, I'll sometimes thumbs-up but not star a story if I don't like the story, but think the author has promise and I want to encourage her to write more.
It would be interesting to see if there's a difference in how people use stars and upvotes, based on whether they joined under the current system vs joining back when FiMFic used a five-star scale instead of a thumbs-up/down system.
That's kind of exactly what i do. If i like a story i'll give it a thumb, if it's good, i'll give it the star, and if it's drawn me in like a moth to flame and not complete yet, i'll give it the track.
873800
On watches, my own rule comes across as meeting one of two conditions: three faved stories from an author, or a significant amount (250k+) of words from an author that are considered faved (faved stories from one author wordcount > 250k, basically). You'd be surprised how many actually fall under the second, not the first for me. Varanus got an exception because Composure. He's not the only one that did, but his is one of the more recent ones.
I'll put my own thoughts here. Before favoriting and tracking were merged, I did not use the favorites much.
Here's how it usually went: I would begin reading a story, then track it if I thought it was interesting and wanted to read more. After the author posted a few chapters, I would usually give it a star vote. If the author completed the story, and I liked it a lot, it got a gold star. Stories I read from other places that also got uploaded here I would also favorite, if they were completed.
With that though, when favorites and tracked stories were merged, it lost a lot of significance for me to favorite a story. (not to mentioned that I had like 150 chapter updates, because of those unread fav'd stories) So I saw the gold star less as an award and more of a tack: keeping the stories I was interested in reading "tacked" to a bulletin board, so that I could read them as they updated. That's not to say I didn't use it for its (by my standards) original purpose, though that purpose was pretty much reserved for one-shots and already complete stories.
Upvoting is something I am a bit stingy with, though I'm working to change that. When I upvote something, it holds more weight than a favorite to me; it is me saying "Hello author, this is a fine piece of pony words that you have written, this is me saying without words that I think of your pony words as good quality."
If even a small percentage of the users who read your stories have the same mindset as me, then this would be a good indicator of their thought process.
So yeah, it appears my thoughts on the issue are the inverse of yours, but with my short explanation I hope it's been understood.
Hey, only writing Twilight/Celestia fics is A-Okay in my book. Besides, typecast is totally the wrong word. Honored is what you're looking for--"being promoted to the most esteemed and desired position of Celestia/Twilight author"--that's what you meant to say. And that's what you will say.
Got it?
Good! Now off you go to continue writing--we await your return! Toodaloo!
I totally agree with you, that is exactly how I feel, I don't understand people who go crazy with the golden star
My Rule of Thumb(s)
Like - pretty much anything I've read that is decent and I have enjoyed, or will eventually read and suspect will be good
Favorite - A REALLY good story, one that I have read and absolutely loved, and it generally has to be very well written. I only probably favorite one in every 25 or 30 fics.
Watch - They have to have written one or more absolutely awesome and beautiful fics, be a friend, have a lot of potential in my opinion, or have some other extenuating circumstances
Dislike - OUTSTANDINGLY BAD, so bad as to damage my faith in the inherent goodness of mankind, I can't express how bad a fic has to be to earn this. I have probably downvoted 5-10 fics total
Lavender letter definitely deserved my fave. Deal with it dood
:D
873702 You know, it's funny you should mention that...
873800 To really put a point on it, it's that I'm specifically a Celestia writer. Twilight is best mane six, but for me Celestia is best pony--it's with her that I identify most readily (this may be evident in how I write her?).
I think the Like and Star system here on FF isn’t a good think for rating a story. It’s too unspecific.
But ok here is how I Rate a Story and the Author.
If a Story is interesting for me whether through the synopsis or the construction of the story itself the Story gets on my Read Later list. So I can see when she gets an update (Story on Read later lists with updates are immediately on top of it) so I don’t need to Favorite it just to get update notifications.
The “Star” is something a Story only gets if she makes me hooked up for more of it and she was well written. The Characters were mostly IC or had a good and interesting own Characterization *for OCs*
And of Corse to Track all my Favorite Story’s so I don’t have to Bookmark them all ^^
A thumps up is for me just to show the Author that his story was nice and enjoyable for me.
For me personally is the Following of an Author and a Comment on the Story about the Story (Not just the usually “Nice one” aso) a little bit of an Shout out to The Author which says for me: “Hey If Read that its really good / let’s talk about it / go on with it / here are my thoughts about it, I Follow you now because I see Potential in you and hop for another great Story of yours.
So that the Author really sees that there is actually interest in Him and his art of Storytelling.
And for the Lavender Letter itself it deserves this “Fame” this story is one of 4 other Stories that was so good that it has owned his Place on my Personal Crème de la Crème of FF at my User Page. And this is really hard to accomplish, for this you have to make me think about a Story or a Character and the Writing must be so good that I really feel with them, you could also say that The Story has to have a Hart and a Soul.
*Ps you’ve kick out Eternal with it*
Since I can’t evaluate Authors I have do make my own list for them. ;)
I know maybe it is a little bit strange how I rate/fav and Co but it feels right for me.
And for the new Story: I want more xD but what are the Tags for this story? i hope nothing Dark (Pleas don't go this Road like most of the Other Authors...it would be a waste of your Talent for me..)
Oh and to Celestia, I can understand you, she is really something special. I hope i see more of her written out of your hand