pittwitch

I vowed to find time to do something creative everyday. Creating a feast for family today. Health, happiness and wealth is my wish for us all. 

I vowed to find time to do something creative everyday. Creating a feast for family today. Health, happiness and wealth is my wish for us all. 

November 6, 2016
Firstly, I'd like to welcome all the new users we're seeing daily! Glad to have you here! Please do familiarize yourself with the Terms of Service and Content Guidelines. This IS a moderated archive. The news posts are always posted to the forum as well, and one does need to register to talk with staff about the news post. Click the forum link!
Software Upgrade
Thank you to all of you for your patience through the process. We all appreciate it!
The front end has a few more things to have done. Currently, manta2g is developing a new menu which will be mobile friendly/accessible. After that, she'll be working on selectable skins. Of course, the other bells and whistles you've all asked for as well, such as one click add to rec reading, currently reading, and etc. These are all on her to-do for that.
PHP has been upgraded to version 5.6.x. ALL the software is compliant, up to version 7 of PHP.
The forum has been updated to the latest version. The bug tracker is now here.
The Black Diamonds from Hell
This is a result of the character conversion, and the many, many character sets which lived in the database at the time. What happened was, where the character sets were not latin1, as they should have been, the conversion changed the character set to ANSI (Western, Windows-1252) instead of utf-8. The good part, is that means that the data was not lost, as I was expecting. The bad part is the damn diamonds. I’ve written up something to show you HOW to change your browser encoding so that the diamonds show as the punctuation that they are.
In the meantime, we are going through each story manually, and finishing the character set conversion. This is time consuming, so please use the information at the above link. The only subdomain that is finished with the finalizing of the conversion is books. I’m currently working buffy, and the other gal is working in cartoon. Once I finish in buffy, I will move on to celeb, and so on. I will let you know as each subdomain is finished.
Ad Blockers
Our banners are embedded in the site skin. They do not pop up or under. As we use banners to pay the bulk of the site expenses, please consider whitelisting the site in your ad blocking software. We’d greatly appreciate it!
Unlimited subcategory levels
With this ability FINALLY in place, I’m starting to implement it. Where you see this, such as in the books subdomain, where I’ve already moved Anita Blake and Twilight back to their parent categories (where they should be, after all), an empty category will display the latest listing. Be sure to click the menu at the left to get to the story listings for the categories. Non posting categories are, by their nature, EMPTY. Manta2g has told me that she will make it so that the non posting categories will not display the listing where they are children of top level categories. This should make it less confusing.
 
Reviewing
We’ve made some big changes to the review process. The biggest one is removing the REQUIREMENT of inputting an email address to make an anonymous review. Now, you simply leave the review. Just remember to add your pen name where it’s asked for, so that the author knows who it is!
While I’m on the subject of reviews, I’d just like to remind readers that the authors get paid nothing for what they do. I’m not saying leave a review to fluff ‘em. What I AM saying is that at least acknowledge you read what they wrote. Maybe it’s an old fashioned thing because I’m an older gal, but I feel if I’m going to take the time to READ something, I’ll take the extra minute or so it takes to acknowledge I read the chapter (or in some instances one shot). When I have more time to be more verbose, I am. BUT, even when I don’t HAVE a lot of time, I still at least say that “hey, I read it, and thank you for the update” or something along those lines.
To the authors, a reminder that you can set or unset whether or not you receive anonymous reviews in the first place. Not all authors want anonymous reviews, which is why the option is left TO the author. The author is also able to set or unset whether or not to receive an email when a review is left.
Story Tags
One of the other things we do, as we go through each chapter, is to go through the story properties and remove the non-searchable characters from the tags. With the search made to where you can search with two or more characters, instead of four or more; this made it so you can search the tag field itself now. In order for it to work properly, this means that the ‘/’, ‘&’, ‘-’ and other characters like that that are not searchable have to be removed from the tags themselves. i.e. M/M becomes MM, M/F become MF, etc.
Dribs, Drabs and Doggy Tales
This is the forum where they all are listed. This is the current one. These are open ended, so if one set of words doesn't work for your muse, look at others!
Funding Status
As always, we appreciate and thank everyone who can donate. It's certainly not required of the users, but every little bit helps! I'm in the process of setting aside an emergency fund, equal to 3 times the monthly expenses. That will be noted on the donation page as well.
Deletion notification
For Accounts
When deleting an account because the user is underage, a plagiarist, or whatever else would be a reason to delete one entirely, we do NOT send a notification.
For Stories
When deleting stories, this is done for non compliance with the ToS. Stories are HIDDEN long before they are deleted. The user is told there is an issue, and given 7 days to comply before the story is hidden. Upon hiding, the story is left for 30 or more days (it ends up being more when I have a heavy work load IRL) before it is deleted. If the issue is CORRECTED, the story is restored to public view.
Disposable email
Disposable emails are not checked, and we don’t allow registration with them. Upon finding an account registered with a disposable email address, it is deleted.
Broken resource links
Thank you to the users who thwacked me with the information that they weren’t working. I feel terrible, I should have looked when the forum had its last big upgrade. I saw the change in path, and it just didn’t occur to me to check the linkage in the site pages. Sorry about that, but it’s now fixed.
Email address visibility
By default, the email address is hidden when you register. It will only display if you put it in the bio area of your profile.
Tech Bits
Archive Cleanup
Now, because of the new tools that I (and other staff who do this with me) have at our disposal, this should proceed at a much faster pace. For example, I fixed a 52 chapter story with errors from the old crash in 4 ½ hours last week. That same story, fixing it the way I had to before, would’ve taken me roughly 40 hours to get the exact same results. The new tools make it so I cut out several steps in the process, as I no longer have to do this all directly in the database itself. It also means that the people who help me with clean up, can help me with this part as well, not just finding the issues and giving them to me, which is what we did before.
Something which I do want to stress with you all, is that I completely agree with what was said during the restoral after the big crash in 2005. It’s really not the responsibility of the users to fix all this. It’s the SITE’S responsibility. This is why I don’t insist that people fix it themselves. Does it help to have users do this to? Sure it does! But, I don’t expect it, as it’s the responsibility of the site.
Tech support, directions given
Just to reiterate, when I email out step by DIRECTIONS on how to do something, that is exactly what they are. Not suggestions, but directions. If followed as stepped out, it works very well. This means that the user must follow them in the order the steps are given.

Please remember that the authors you read do like to hear from you! Leave them a review or two, and let them know how they're doing!
DemonGoddess061
 
P.S. On a PERSONAL note! My team won the World Series! I’ve been waiting my entire LIFE for this!!!!!
Okay, I’m done spazzing about it for ya. - DG

Here's to the next 100!

In all honesty, I think writing, and the inherent escapism of living for a time in another world of one's own creation, is probably one of the healthiest and sanest responses to stress that there is.
It's often easier to face hard issues in the settings we create and control, and I'm frequently surprised when I see a solution to a real life problem after I've been writing about something quite different. The skills I use as a writer to resolve conflict in my stories and among my characters seem to trigger a sort of thinking outside the box effect in my real life, if that makes any sense.

Readers make no sense, lol. Often the ones who take the time to review, aren't in the majority. It struck me today: frequently what repulses us in reality does indeed attract us in fantasy, i.e. incest. At its root, incest is just - so wrong. But when reading fanfiction, without the "realness" of the characters, even I will openly admit that Wincest or Twincest is quite adequate for heating up a frigid day amid this despicable polar vortex thing.
Write for yourself; what you enjoy. Screw the rest.

Not surprisingly, Bronxwench and I share a lot of the same tastes. Oddly, it seems, for a woman, I like a strong female lead. She doesn't necessarily have to be the dominant partner but I certainly avoid the wishy washy women. I do not do rape stories. If it is essential to the plot of the story, well, I can tolerate it but I find nothing even remotely erotic in rape. There are those who do though. I like strong male characters as well. But the most important part of what I like is the actual story, whether it's multi-chaptered or a PWP - it should be well-written, planned out and at least plausible.

I remember reading her works years ago and enjoying them to the same extent I enjoyed the original books. I think my favourite was the one where Hermione found out Snape kind of stole a daughter from her and was raising her on his own. It was my first major exposer to fan fiction and to erotic literature in general and an integral piece of how I got into writing. I can only hope that through her works she continues to inspire others as I had been those years ago and offer condolences to her family and friends.

How about Arabella Figg? Sure, no good at the actual magic but she was connected to his parents through the Order and lived close by! She could have taught him all kinds of valuable cat herding skills that came in useful getting people to stand against the bad guys!

are the godmothers in Harry's world? We learn that Sirius is Harry's godfather and Snape is Draco's but where are the godmothers? Who would they be? Why didn't they step into the picture? How different would the stories be with a more matriarchal influence?
Okay - going back to my coffee now.

My favorite of hers: http://hp.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600006978- interesting take on Dementors.
Ms_Figg was a large part of the inspiration for me to come out of the anon shadows and into a more active part of fanfiction. Her joy, sense of humor and ability to spin a tale are compelling. Her strength in adversity, IRL, was beyond compare.

My favorite of hers: http://hp.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600006978- interesting take on Dementors.
Ms_Figg was a large part of the inspiration for me to come out of the anon shadows and into a more active part of fanfiction. Her joy, sense of humor and ability to spin a tale are compelling. Her strength in adversity, IRL, was beyond compare.

I was thinking the same. We all sit here and well, at least I do and take for granted that we're all human. So it saddens me when something like this happens. It puts it in perspective that there's an actual person on the other end. May she know eternal peace and condolences sent to her loved ones.

You'll be missed, Ms_Figg, and my condolences to her family and loved ones.

I second that emotion. Your tales will live on. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us, Ms_Figg. My life has definitely been bettered by knowing you.

Wonderful author, and a wonderful human being. You will be missed.

I'll admit, I haven't read Ms_Figg's stories, nor did I know her. But it is sad to lose one of our own.
Rest in peace, Ms_Figg.

No, no, it's not a waste of time at all! Actually, we do get a great deal of help from our members, which since we're a small staff, we appreciate enormously. So please, never think that you can't post something up, or ask about anything. Personally, I have no trouble checking comething out or answering questions, because in the long run, it keeps our site running smoothly.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was mandated to use the scale to evaluate reading materials for my students. I tossed it in the trash. Newspapers don't make the grade. The writing therein rarely moves past fourth grade. Ignore it. It's useless.

When I used Word, I used to run the spellcheck mostly to find and eliminate passive sentences, and to check those stats, because I didn't want them to get very high.
IMHO, in fiction, if you want a reader to follow the storyline and characters, it's really important to be easy to read.
But.. having said that, I kind of think it's important whatever you're writing. I mean "A Brief History of Time" is a great book because it's easy to read and comprehend, and so it lets the reader in. Instead of wading through it, you can relax and let Hawking tell you cool secrets about amazing things.
There are exceptions. Out of curiosity I checked a website to see what some classic authors score like (some of Oscar Wilde's are quite low), and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was at the top, but that's different, because it's like reading someone's soul. Robin Williams springs to mind here, ranting about measuring poetry. Whitman's score is a failure of the equation.
Wow.... that's a startling conclusion. Maybe I should always have aimed high.

All of the responsibility rests with the Dom.
It is hard to write a responsible story with a good Dom, keeping in mind the controls the D would want in place and the boundaries that the /s wants to push or experience. It isn't the relationship most outsiders think it is. The D is the responsible party and the /s has all the power. That makes a D/s completely different from a M/s IMHO.

I'm glad it was useful! I think when a writer takes the time to research and get it right, the story is so much more powerful, so cheers for you for putting in the extra effort!

My very first fanfic, Harry Potter, Snape/OFC. I took it down to work on it and my kid ran a magnetic toy over the CD.