One Wank After Another

[coalcube]

A blank assignment is a funny thing, isn't it? When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone.

Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

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Comments

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I can't remember the last time I encountered italics in a fic so I'm really struggling to wrap my mind around how they could be integral to someone's fic writing style.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

"You never encounter fic that heavily relies on italics for emphasis," coalie asked. "Huh, that's so weird."

They wondered if the other coalie was in very different fandoms, or if they were just the type whose eyes skipped over formatting when they read and they simply didn't notice the italics use in the fic they read.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

NC

Italics is so weird to me for emphasis when it doesn’t really stand out that much and ALL CAPS or bold is right there.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I think that's pretty much the point, though, that it adds emphasis without throwing the reader out like more dramatic formatting tricks can do, since people are used to italics as the standard form of emphasis in published fiction, whereas bold in the middle of a block of text stands out far more but in a 'WTF are you doing, author?' negative way, like using underlining or coloured text.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, I’ve always felt that italics under emphasizes, it just looks like somebody is whispering to me.

Then again, I read a lot of comics so I’m really used to RANDOM words being BOLDED! And much more outlandish and bazar typography.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I think comics have actually trained me to tune out bold completely because the emphasis is usually so weirdly placed that if you try to incorporate it in any way into your reading the text becomes too bizarrely stilted to read.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Totally valid.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Ngl it's because of this that I don't read comics.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, I hated that.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I think a lot of people in audiovisual or voice-acted fandoms get overly fixated on trying to capture every little nuance of how the actors pronounce things by using italics for emphasis instead of just trusting the reader to be able to hear the voices in their head as they read. (Similar to how some fic writers will go overboard trying to describe every little detail of body language all the time instead of just a few representative actions.)

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I feel twice called out by that!

/coalie using lots of italics AND describing every detail of body language

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

You don't even have to be in an audiovisual canon's fandom for it, OTL. I'm glad I've been branching out into style pastiches for some assignments, because trying to emulate a specific written style really made me aware of how much I overuse italics. If every other word is emphasized then nothing is you dum-dum!