Read it Later story count: 95 (+1)
Words read this week: 8,616
This week, in "Logan is not American, you know", a reminder that what I mean by "brackets" are these things: ( ). These – [ ] – are specifically "square brackets" to me. While we do use the term "parentheses", doing that in colloquial British English sounds overly formal and a little bit affected. And now on to more interesting matters. Three fics today, all of them pretty short as I'm not yet up to longer reads:
Heartstrings by evelili (review requested by author)
Amber Hearts by Blondlionezel
Sweetie Ban by Casketbase77
★: 1 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Review requested by author
Heartstrings by evelili
Twilight, Flash Sentry and Sunset Shimmer
G4 EqG; Romance/Sad/Slice of Life; 5k words; Apr 2023; Everyone
Flash Sentry knows their relationship was never meant to last.
The Spring Fling Contest winner deserves its accolade. An excellently written fic which turns a lens on the awkwardnesses and contradictions of Flash having a relationship with a pony princess from another world. Both are characterised appealingly, especially their vulnerabilities, and the use of brackets in the present-tense narrative enhances this. Meanwhile Sunset (who is after all dating another girl who is very like Flash's Twilight...) plays a fine role as his supportive friend. Music is used for emotional resonance, and this also works well. Perhaps a slightly predictable ending, but getting there is so satisfying that this is a very minor issue. The end A/N is in social media style,¹ something which isn't to my taste but doesn't dent my regard for the fic itself. This is a really fine look at a relationship that's rarely taken seriously. A strong four-star rating and definitely recommended. ★★★★
¹ Meaning written in an "i hope ur happy with this story lol" style, without capitals or full stops.
Amber Hearts by Blondlionezel
Spike, Twilight and OC
G4; Romance/Adventure/Comedy; 1k words; Mar 2015; Everyone
Spike, while doing an errand for Twilight Sparkle, meets a young, female dragon named Amber.
This author burst onto the Fimfiction scene in January 2015, published 18 fics in eight months, then disappeared for good. The fic is marked [Complete] and so reviewed as such, but there's a "To be continued" at the end. As for the story itself? There's the bare bones of a fun, light romantic adventure here, but that's the problem: it's only the bare bones. Far too much plot is packed into a thousand words, and it's not only the shipping that's rushed. The Dragon Lands being so much closer than "Dragon Quest" suggested is a stretch too far, and Spike's errand is awfully convenient. Not a horrible fic, but much too skeletal to recommend. One of those "top-end one-star" efforts. ★
Sweetie Ban by Casketbase77
Sweetie Belle and Sunburst
G4 AU; Comedy/Slice of Life; 3k words; Aug 2023; Everyone
The School of Friendship is cracking down on AI-assisted homework. This is bad for the resident robot tutor.
One of this author's "Snippets" series, and a fic I pushed up the queue because I suspect the subject matter might date quite quickly. The tutor in question is, of course, Sweetie Bot and the teacher in charge – Sunburst – plans to combat the use of "ChuffGPT" (a FlimFlam product, natch) by shutting down all mechanical devices during the midterm exams. Sweetie will therefore be effectively laid off for the duration, and she's not happy about it. What I like about this is that Casketbase77 doesn't take the easy, crackfic approach, instead providing us with a more thoughtful and even occasionally emotional story – especially when Sweetie Belle interacts with Sweetie Bot. It cuts off a bit sharply (something of a Snippets feature) but appropriately enough, this is surprisingly sweet. ★★★
Next week, it'll be on to the other three fics that were supposed to be in this Roundup and would have been had Covid not intervened. The total word count will be higher next time, although still lower than I was managing pre-virus. After that... well, we'll see. Maybe, just maybe the Thousand Words fics will finally get a look-in! Next week's trio:
In Creeping Twilight by Shilic
The Iridescent Iron Rat by horizon
The Third Alicorn Conspiracy by starfox64x
Someone showing up to a website, contributing a bunch of stuff, and then fucking off less than a year later is somehow even more mysterious than the ones who are there for a month, or a week, post one story, and never do anything else. c_c Like, who does either of those things?
ReplyDeleteSo, in British common parlance is there such a thing as a "parenthetical" remark? Because a "bracketed" remark seems very weird to me, and I can tell a truck from a lorry when the wind is southerly... ;)
ReplyDeleteYep, we have parenthetical remarks. It's specifically for the ( ) symbols themselves that we don't tend to use the word.
DeleteWell, that's a relief!
DeleteThe proper terminology is parentheses for ( ), brackets for [ ], and braces for { }, but they've fallen victim to the common effect of so many people not knowing them that improper usage has become prevalent. You really only see strict adherence to that in the math/science world anymore.
ReplyDeleteThat's unreasonably prescriptive for British English, certainly in 2023. None of the major newspapers prefer "in parentheses", and even for .ac.uk websites it only has about a 60:40 advantage over "in brackets". Even Nature has plenty of articles going back at least a century that use "in brackets" for the round type. Except when there's a risk of confusion, it's almost completely uncontroversial here, and even then quite a lot of sources use "round brackets".
DeleteIn normal writing, you rarely see anything but parentheses, so it doesn't really matter what you call them, but when all three turn up frequently and they have substantially different meanings, like in math, science, or programming, it's far more useful to have a succinct and repeatable way to refer to them. When I'm looking over someone's shoulder and telling them how to use a particular Linux command, for instance, I just want to be able to rattle off what to have them type without stopping to clarify. And that's 95% of the use cases I encounter.
Delete"Round brackets" is what I'd say if I needed to be specific; it also has the plus of being consistent in form with "square/curly/angle(d) brackets". Even when reading out a program listing or something, it would still be rare to hear "parentheses" outside formal/professional/technical settings. To the extent that I suspect I'd actually have to stop and clarify "put that in parentheses" more than I would "put that in brackets", given that "round" is generally assumed.
DeleteProblem with "round brackets" is that braces are also round, so you still might be misunderstood. I don't know. The Brits, Aussies, and Canucks I've dealt with on engineering projects don't say that, so I guess that's just confined to the technical folks.
DeleteI think that's probably the answer. In an international, technical environment it makes sense for everyone to use the same words to avoid confusion. I'm not an engineer, but I know of other circles where British and American people have agreed to use the same term even where they wouldn't in everyday, informal life.
DeleteOn a more general note, I understand that "round brackets" is not a term much used in the USA. It is pretty common here, and nobody I know would think you meant the { } kind. Again though, if I were working in a specific technical setting, I'd defer to agreed usage for that setting.
The most common non-technical uses I hear this side of the ocean are curly braces for { }, square brackets for [ ], and parentheses for ( ). < > comes up so rarely that nobody has much of a name for them. In the coding I do, it's rare to use them in pairs. Usually it's just one of them, indicating a direction of I/O, and we use the inelegant "direct into/from" or even more inelegant "less than/greater than."
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