The Marci Rating System

today years old

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:50:21 GMT

I've seen WADA statements for many years -- on products, on documents, on websites... And yet I was today years old when I finally learned that it stands for World Anti Doping Agency. Thanks, thehockeyboys fanfic!

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caturday updates

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 13:31:32 GMT

I love being subscribed to AO3 fics and authors. Every day I wake up and my email inbox has updates in it. Do I remember all of these fics? Nope. Does that impede my enjoyment of them in any way? Absolutely not.

It's especially fun with a very active fandom like the hockey boys right now, because I'll have six new chapters in my inbox, absolutely zero recollection of the context for any of them, and I'll just read them all in a row. No plot, just vibes.

(There are multiple authors I subscribed to when they were writing a lot in a fandom I was also in, and then they start writing in a different fandom. I still love seeing their updates! I don't always read them, but I'm thrilled that they are creating and sharing those creations. Sometimes we circle around to match fandoms again and it's like 'fancy meeting you here, what a delightful surprise!')

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lucky me!

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 11:49:53 GMT

I'm one of this week's lucky 10,000!

Okay, this is one of those things I feel like I really SHOULD have known, and maybe I did know, sort of, at some point? But I saw a post about it on tumblr and suddenly it made more sense, and I tried it, and now I'm lucky AND I have more fics to read!

Here's how I usually find things to read on AO3:
*fandom tags
*ship tags
*other tags, because I love tags
*sorting by kudos
*the bookmarks of an author whose fics I like
*if a fic I like is in a collection, seeing what else is in that collection

But APPARENTLY some people are out there using the ACTUAL AO3 bookmarking system to find recs! You can click the number after 'Bookmarks' and see everyone who's bookmarked the fic, along with who gave it a little heart recommendation, and the notes or tags they added. All of this I sort of basically knew.

I genuinely NEVER THOUGHT to click the username of people who had bookmarked a fic I like, and then check the rest of their bookmarks for more stuff! Brilliant! I am in the lucky 10,000 for sure, except now I have a 50,000 word fic AND a 100,000 word fic in my tabs and I'm also supposed to be in the office today...

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winter reading bingo update

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 13:14:32 GMT

One of the library's Winter Reading Bingo squares is "tell a friend about your favorite author or book." I'm... not sure I have a favorite author or book? Picking just one seems like a lot of pressure. I like different things at different times! It depends what kind of mood I'm in!

(I could probably set up some kind of 'overall state of my mood' tracker based on what fandom I'm reading the most in at any given time. But I'm not sure I want to know.)

(PS: It's been very interesting watching the hoopla app try to recommend things based on my previous reading. There does not seem to be a way to actually tell it anything, nor does 'supernatural space romance, but funny' seem to be a current literary category. But that algorithm sure is trying!)

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the challenge of picking a new book

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 12:44:34 GMT

File this one under: turns out this is one of the eleventy-billion reasons I love fanfic!

So: audiobooks are fun! They're great to listen to while I crochet, or while I ~~pretend to~~ work, or a variety of other activities. (Okay, it's mostly crochet. But right now that's a 'several hours a day' activity, so it adds up to a lot of books!)

But: it's SO HARD for me to pick a new book after I finish one! It's like an echo of the stress of new social situations: WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? WHAT IF I DON'T LIKE THEM? WHAT IF THIS ONE IS NOT FUN?

With fanfic, I know all these people! They're my people! I like them already! There's already a whole foundation of enjoyment built in to each new fanfic experience that makes it way less stressful. WHO KNEW???

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"accumulate enthusiasms"

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 12:27:34 GMT

For reasons I don't entirely remember, I receive a daily email from the New York Times (it's called "The Morning"). It's generally a roundup of headlines, and since I'm not subscribed to the NYT, I can't actually read any of them, but that's fine. There's also a puzzle at the end which is A+ great.

More importantly, on Saturdays the email includes the full text of whatever op-ed article got selected -- generally something calm and Saturday-worthy, like 'making a summer playlist' or 'why I love daylight savings time,' that sort of thing. (LOL when I went to link the author's page on NYT [Melissa Kirsch] I realized that apparently they are always the Saturday writer. WELL THAT EXPLAINS SOME THINGS!)

And THIS week (September 7, 2024), the article was about tennis. Or more accurately, tennis fandom. (I was much more interested when I realized it was more the second than the first.) It's a conversation that comes up again and again in fandom -- how much are you a fan of the thing itself, and how much are you a fan of the community that builds up around it. It was also about the joy of enjoying things -- not uncritically, but enthusiastically nonetheless.

I can't actually link to the article itself, but this is the concluding paragraph, and I thought it was worth remembering.

If we define ourselves by who and what we love, and I think we should, then it’s valuable to love as many things as we can, to accumulate enthusiasms and lean into them, to hold onto passions when we discover them and not let them fall away. This way, our identities become rich, multidimensional, expansive. Sometimes it feels like there’s more to dislike than to like, more to disdain than to embrace. My longing for tennis feels like an opportunity, a reason to open my arms wider, to take more of the world in. I’m going to seize it.
-Melissa Kirsch, "Love All"

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fic search update

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 11:51:27 GMT

I did, eventually, sort of, make it through all the relevant(?) pages of my AO3 history looking for the particular Star Wars fic scene I remembered. I did not find it. The most likely reasons for this include:

*I got bored of looking and mostly just skimmed a bunch of the pages

*The scene was probably a very small part of a much larger fic, possibly one that didn't catch my eye as a 'yeah I'd like to re-read this'

So I've moved on to a more general 'just read a bunch of stuff and maybe it will pop up again on its own.' WHO KNOWS?!?!? It could work!

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how many could there be?

Tue, 21 May 2024 12:04:29 GMT

I've been reading a lot ::cough:: A LOT ::cough:: of Star Wars fic recently, and there are a few that I've been trying (somewhat haphazardly) to find again, because of specific scenes that stuck in my head without any context.

Over the weekend I got the brilliant(???) idea of looking back through my own AO3 history -- SURELY, I thought, that would be much easier than trying to guess my way through recreating my tag searches to find things. And it probably is? But it's still FIFTY-EIGHT pages of fics, which -- what? How did that happen?

(Plus side: it's all fics I already thought would be interesting! I've had a great time so far looking back and going 'ooh, yes, I want to re-read that one.')

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"hello my fellow peers"

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 15:05:13 GMT

Gotta love when you get a work email from someone you've never heard of that opens with this line:

Hello My Fellow Peers,

I'm not an english major, but I'm relatively sure the 'fellow' is implied by 'peers.' Still, the sentiment is very nice!

(This just led me down the rabbit hole to a 2017 Verge article about how the 'how do you do fellow kids' meme is overused and also just over. Sadly the know your meme usage over time graph isn't currently working, so I can't make any claims as to the phrase's post-2017 longevity other than 'I'm pretty sure it's still around.')

As one of those old people who continues to use outdated memes long past their prime, I'd like to personally suggest that 'hello my fellow peers' becomes the workplace version of this meme from now on. As supporting evidence, I present the following: it's an older code, but it checks out

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love a good time travel fic

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 15:20:17 GMT

So it turns out Star Wars fandom is, at the very least, ready to fight for the title of PEAK time travel fix-it fandom. And the fics are SO LONG!

At the very-very least, they may win the title of most content available in english, though to be fair, I've spent a certain amount of time trying to figure out if words actually are in english, or maybe are typos, or possibly they're just Like That in the SW universe.

(I assume part of this largesse is because, um, there are so many things to fix? And also there is a lot of time to choose from?)

Me, with five separate tabs of series pages or bookmarks lists open at once: I swear I don't even go here! ::shakes fist in a begrudgingly impressed way at the SW universe in general::

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it's seasonal!

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 14:11:44 GMT

*Very atmospheric cloud cover today; excellent winter aesthetic.

*Time to do the present exchange BEFORE the present exchange! (So, the Christmas thing in our family is that we each buy our own gifts, and then give them to other people to wrap up and give back to us, which makes perfect sense in my head but is admittedly a little convoluted. But fun!)

*Today's crochet project is a TINY WREATH, I LOVE IT ALREADY! (I have not made it yet. But I started it!)

*There's a whole AO3 tag called "Inspired by Hallmark Christmas Movies." I know I should have expected this, and yet it was a delightful surprise yesterday evening. YES I want Christmas movie tropes but with my favorite fanfic characters!!!

*The cat has discovered the joys of sleeping on the back of the sofa, which is A+++ adorable.

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that's it exactly!

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 11:16:37 GMT

I was reading on tumblr yesterday (as one does), and came across a post by laundrybiscuits that's mostly about Stranger Things and the intersection of canon and fandom, and also included this bit that really resonated with me:

"what I personally enjoy about ST is the stories its components let other people tell"

And I was like 'yes!!! yes, that's it exactly!' (Despite my flash of confusion about 'ST' not meaning 'Star Trek,' lol.) That's my experience of fandom in general, which is why I read in so many fandoms that I've never consumed the original media for. And I didn't want to lose the quote, so I'm putting it here!

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learned it on the internet

Sun, 15 May 2022 15:01:04 GMT

I was talking with my parents yesterday and we had a whole chat about repetitive stress and computer work, shoulder pain, back pain, etc -- all those things that apparently grown-ups talk about, haha.

Good news: I managed to get through the entire conversation without blurting out 'everything I just said I got from a Stargate Atlantis fanfic.' Real life kudos to me!

On the other hand, I wasn't able to suggest doing some things left-handed and still avoid laughing, so I didn't mention that little tidbit of wisdom.

(It was Advantage, by Resonant, a fic which really isn't about repetitive stress from computer work, but the line "Can't you do some of your touchpad work lefthanded?" has stuck with me since 2005 (?!?!?!), so it counts!)

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thanks, Untamed fandom

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 11:36:20 GMT

I was pretty sure I started reading Untamed fic around the start of the year, so I went back searching through my AO3 history. Sure enough, based on my entirely unscientific search, Untamed stories started showing up significantly on December 29th, 2019. Which was, uh, 165 pages deep in my history. ::clears throat awkwardly:: Well, 2020. ::handwaves away the fact that probably every year has that many pages::

ANYWAY the point is that the Untamed fandom is a gift that keeps on giving, and I appreciate it. I have never seen a fandom where enormous amounts of new content are generated so consistently (and for such a long period of time!). There's so much! And the VARIETY!

After a year-ish of reading, it feels like I have met so many versions of these characters, and enjoyed getting to know them all. Everyone is shaped by their circumstances and their choices -- change one or both, and the story kaleidoscopes out from there. And really, when *couldn't* I benefit from reading these messages over and over?

*It matters that you tried, even if you failed.

*It's worth it to love, even if you lose them.

*Every individual has the power to choose.

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this show!

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 11:29:17 GMT

As I was watching 'The King's Avatar' last night, I got a little stressed out watching the in-game fight scenes. (It was suspenseful, okay? I was worried!)

And then I was like, 'wait, why not just skip over this part?' Even though "curate your own experience" is such a mainstay of fandom and the internet, somehow I still often find myself feeling like I "should" experience things a certain way. But I don't need to!

You'd think I would have learned this lesson already, since I am the fan who skipped all the Harry Potter books after #4, and since I *just* watched 'The Untamed' and skipped almost half of it. But I just keep tripping over it.

So I reminded myself yet again, that since my goal in consuming media is to experience enjoyment, then it makes sense to focus on the parts that are enjoyable for me. Which is to say, I did skip over the fight scenes, and it was great.

(Also, I wish there was a multitude of fics about what in the world was happening with the other characters during the ENTIRE Challenger's League process, which seems remarkably glossed over in the show but must have been absolutely hilarious.)

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it's like a fun surprise

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 11:18:15 GMT

I love the 'subscribe' feature on AO3, but I don't usually remember if I've subscribed to a story, a series, or an author. (Okay, I usually don't remember subscribing at all. Isn't that the point of subscribing? So that I don't have to remember to go check for updates?)

So every time I get a notification I'm like 'what's this? was I reading this fic? what's it about?' Usually I just read the new chapter, and sometimes I remember the context as I go, and other times I have no idea what's happening. But I have fun anyway!

I figure once I've read enough in a fandom, there's a sort of, I don't know, context cloud. And after that, everything I read has all this potential backstory and context and subplots that my brain just fills in around the text. (Also applies to reading or viewing actual canon! Makes movies so much more fun!)

I don't really know how to explain it. But fandom is great! Way to go, fans!

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caturday reading corner

Sat, 24 Aug 2019 12:11:56 GMT

I've been having a great time this week spending hours upon hours reading fanfic from Quantum Bang. It's been a while since I read a bunch of long!fics anywhere except AO3, and the nostalgia factor can't be denied. Very enjoyable!

(For some reason my computer has major issues loading the site, to the point where I've had to read the cached versions of some pages, which really only adds to that 'trying to shush the dial-up modem because it's 2 am and I'm on summer vacation at home trying not to wake anyone up' feeling.)

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fandom convergence

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 10:32:29 GMT

So I was pondering the 'aliens, demons, superpowers' challenge for the Brush & Lantern community. Also I'm going hiking in less than two weeks. And my brain was moseying right along on these two tracks, when suddenly it hit me:

*aliens
*mountains
*spaceships
*maps
*twins with cool powers
*a journey
*older, adultier adults who say cryptic things

Guardian fandom, where are my eleventymillion Escape to Witch Mountain AUs???

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but it IS a word!

Mon, 03 Jun 2019 09:53:14 GMT

My computer refuses to admit that “portaled” is a perfectly acceptable way to express the verb concept “to travel via portal.” I portaled over there! You portaled over here! They portaled to THE MOON!

At first I thought maybe it just wanted two letter l’s (portalled — mm, I don’t know, if it’s a made-up word anyway, why clutter it up with extra letters?), but no. It suggests that perhaps I mean “portaged.” Thanks, but no. That’s something quite different. (Also a means of travel! Not as convenient.)

Merriam Webster online does accept portaled (and portalled) as real words, but considers them adjectives (“having a portal”), which I guess is a bit like how bedazzled is an adjective now. (Although in a humorous twist, MW tells me bedazzled is a verb. Which really is an argument in favor of portaled being a verb, as far as I’m concerned.)

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.

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sleeve garters

Tue, 07 May 2019 11:17:48 GMT

I’m three episodes from the end of Guardian, so my brain is pretty much in an ‘all Guardian, all the time’ mode right now. I have two (2) questions, as of episode 37.

ONE: I’m — confused, about what the plan is. Is it still time travel? Because I don’t understand why they would need the wick for that; the lantern clearly worked fine to open a wormhole before without one, right?

TWO: After an important family discussion about sleeve garters, my understanding is that their intended purpose is to make sleeves the right length. As in, you shouldn’t then need to roll your cuffs up? Logically, my brain can understand that perhaps the sleeve garters are for making sleeves the right length under a jacket, and then once the jacket comes off, the sleeves get rolled up. This genuinely seems like a lot of work for someone who can magically transform their outfit, though. And they’re clearly not a ‘blending in with the locals’ thing, because *no one* else has them. So yeah, what’s up with that?

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.

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time to lie

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 10:24:38 GMT

Mondays at work tend to contain a certain amount of small talk centered around the weekend. How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? But in the same way that I don’t particularly care what my coworkers did this weekend, they don’t particularly care what I did either — there is a script to these things that is in turns comforting and maddening.

On the plus side, it *is* funny.

Coworker: “How was your weekend?”

What I’m thinking: ‘Shen Wei wears a watch on his left wrist, but I’m not sure we ever see him actually look at it. Presumably quite a few of his powers have the potential to disrupt the battery power and/or electronics of a watch, but maybe it’s wound by hand and has gears instead? Or it’s fake. Is time even the same in Dixing? Did the Justiciar really imply that maybe people hadn’t *noticed* that the Hallows were gone? Because that doesn’t really match up with what I thought they were supposed to do, but on the other hand, it kind of seems like he’s a liar?’

What I say: “Great, great, how about you?”

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.

ETA: In the VERY NEXT episode I watched, Zhao Yunlan asks what time it is and Shen Wei checks his watch!

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the more you know

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 11:06:19 GMT

Fanfic introduced me to the concept of “stress baking,” which the internet tells me is apparently a real thing. I don’t get it, but that’s cool, it seems like a neat de-stressing option if that’s your jam.

I am more of a “stress reading” person, which leaves me with a lack of both baked goods and dirty dishes at the end of the day — a trade-off I’m willing to make. On the other hand, it kind of makes me wish I had a more useful de-stressing habit. Stress cleaning. Stress exercising. Stress crocheting. (I don’t know how to crochet. But fiber crafts in general seem like they’d be useful.)

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.

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Florida recap day 3

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 14:42:53 GMT

*Rangerstop! Citywalk! We saw a snake! (It was small.) Day 3 was an array of excitement, much different than last year, when I pretty much slept all day.

*Met noxelementalist, which was fun! Hi nox!

*It occurs to me that I eat a lot of bacon when I’m on vacation. Maybe just because it’s easily available? Also I like food I can eat with my fingers. (It is entirely possible that living alone has ruined any table manners I might once have had.)

*We used the stairs a lot this year, which was great. I am terrible at waiting, and also not fantastic about interacting with other people on an elevator, so stairs are an A+ choice always. (Why am I such a disaster human? I do not understand elevator rules of engagement. To be fair, there are no elevators in my day-to-day life, so I have very little practice at them.)

*I took approximately a million awesome pictures of *Andrea taking pictures.

*Pro-tip re: Citywalk: They say there is a restroom by guest services, which there is! But there is also a much nicer, quieter, and cleaner restroom waaaaaay on the other side by the Islands of Adventure entrance area. Also it’s just fun to wander around that area when it’s mostly empty.

*Looking back through our pictures, I’m very impressed that *Andrea and I basically managed to accidentally color-coordinate almost every day of the trip.

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.

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that awkward moment

Tue, 02 Oct 2018 10:47:17 GMT

Being a fan of the fanfic but not super familiar with the source material sometimes gets super weird. This happens to me a lot with Harry Potter, because I work with people who love the books & movies, and I always want to be all, ‘Yeah, HP is great, absolutely!’ But what I mean is: ‘I stopped reading after book 4 but I just spent the weekend reading a 200,000 word time travel AU and it was A+ fun.’

(Occasionally it comes in handy, because sometimes obscure book things get disproportionately focused on in fanfic. Usually it just leaves me with wacky gaps in my knowledge.)

Here’s a fun fact that came from neither books nor fanfic, but that I learned from my daily trivia calendar: the HP spell “avis” has the effect of “creating a small flock of birds.” (I have So Many Questions.)

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.

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fic search Friday

Fri, 31 Aug 2018 10:09:25 GMT

So, that quote from Infinity War, when Loki says, “I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again.” It reminds me of a fic (and I can already tell this is going to be one of those times when — once I find said fic — I will realize they are not similar in any way except both mentioning the sun).

But it turns out it’s hard to find a fic based on the following memories:

*Tony Stark wears a scarf.
*It’s an AU.
*There are aliens.
*Clint turns partway into a bug?
*I cried.
*Maybe I’ve recced it before?
*Tony and Steve made speeches and everyone voted.

I’m pretty confident I’ve got it bookmarked somewhere, so that’ll be a project for the day if it gets slow at work.

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.

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