Hello everyone! Some changes happened to Potions and Snitches lately, and this news item should explain them all.
The changes are good! I promise! Please comment on them and whether they will work for you!
The classifications on the site have been updated to better reflect what they mean. Please edit your stories and make sure that all classifications on your stories are correct!
The Takes Place classification has been expanded to have both summers and seperate years, as well as a time period before Harry's birth, and other time periods after Hogwarts of Harry's young and middle adulthood. The years and time periods are based off of Harry's age and what year of schooling at Hogwarts those years correspond to. You can see the complete list of times here: Takes Place.
Warnings have been split into warnings and tags. Some mentionable tags that have been added include Sibling Addition (where Harry gets a sibling other than Snape, or Snape gets a sibling other than Harry), and Crossover. Other classifications were added. The complete lists can be seen by browsing Warnings and Tags. If you have suggestions for tags, please list them here in the comments.
Snape Flavour is a new classification to show what each story's Snape is like towards Harry. It includes Cruel Snape, Mean Snape, Nice Snape, Canon Snape, Nice OOC Snape, ect.
New characters added include Teddy.
Categories have been reorganized and renamed to better explain what stories should be found in each. Please go through your stories and try to match each story with the category that it best matches! The categories are as follows:
Big Brother Snape - Stories where Snape and Harry have the same parents, or one parent in common with each other. May be biological or adopted, officially or not.
Master Snape - Stories where Snape has absolute authority over Harry; consists of Apprentice Harry, Headmaster Snape, and Slave Harry.
Subcategories:
Apprentice Harry - Stories where Harry is Snape's apprentice.
Slave Harry - Stories where Harry is Snape's slave.
Teacher Snape - Snape teaches or instructs Harry, esp. In a profession or as an instructor. Contains Trusted Advisor Snape, Professor Snape, and Unofficially teaching Snape.
Subcategories:
Trusted Advisor Snape - A nicer Snape than canon. Serving as a trusted counselor or teacher to another person, especially in occupational settings. Used to be Mentor category.
Professor Snape - Stern, canon version of Severus Snape as Harry's teacher. Used to be Teacher category.
Snape Equal Status to Harry - Snape and Harry have the same status and are equals in social power. Subcategories are Colleagues Snape and Harry, Foes Snape and Harry, and Comrades Snape and Harry.
Subcategories:
Colleague Snape and Harry - Snape and Harry are both Professors, or workers at the same institution, with the same status and power of social position.
Foes Snape and Harry - Snape and Harry are adversaries or opponents on equal footing and status; Examples: both players on opposite sides in a Quidditch match, fighters on opposite sides of a war battling each other,, both duelests at a dueling competition outside of school.
Comrades Snape and Harry - Stories where Snape and Harry work together for a common cause, and are equal in social position and power. Examples: Both prisoners, both patients, both retired persons, both activists in a war. Comrade: A person who shares one's interests or activities; a friend or companion.
Parental Snape - Snape exercises paternal care over Harry; to perform the tasks or duties of a parent or father. Subcategories include Biological Father Snape (Sevitis and Severitus stories), Stepfather Snape, and Guardian Snape.
Subcatgeories:
Severitus Challenge - Stories that answer all of the rules of the Severitus Challenge. The "Severitus Challenge" was first started in the early 2000's by the author Severitus (yes, that's a penname) in which: Severus Snape must be revealed to be Harry's father, Remus Lupin must have returned to Hogwarts for some reason or another, Harry must undergo some progressive physical change starting on his birthday, the story must be based mostly around Harry and Snape, and more rules...
Guardian Snape - One who is responsible for the care and management of the person or property of an incompetent or a minor. Not biological.
Healer Snape - Stories where Snape heals Harry in some way. Healer - one that heals or attempts to heal. Healing: the process of recovery, repair, and restoration.
Reverse Roles - Harry Potter takes care of Severus Snape. Roles are opposite or contrary in position, direction, order, or character. Includes Big Brother Harry, Healer Harry, Master Harry, Parental Harry, Teacher Harry.
Subcategories:
Big Brother Harry - Stories where, as brothers, Harry is older or larger than Severus.
Healer Harry - Stories where Harry heals Snape is some way.
Parental Harry - Stories where Harry is Severus' guardian or parent, biological or not.
Teacher Harry - Stories where Harry is Snape's teacher or professor.
Misc - Stories that don't fall into any other categories, but still feature no slash interaction between Snape and Harry.
Subcategories:
All written in Snape's POV - Stories told all from Snape's point of view.
Keepers of the Snitch - Someone other than the Durley's or Snape is a guardian to Harry (Snape must still have regular interaction with Harry).
Fic Fests - Stories as responses to certain Fests are archived here! Usually some sort of challenge or prompt response stories.
I hope that these explanations have cleared up confusion, and that everyone will be able to use the classifications and categories better by understanding what they mean. Please go to your stories and make sure all of the classifications and categories are applied correctly.
Not all of the skins have been updated to show the new classifications of Tags and Snape Flavour. I will work on updating them all next week.
Comment with any improvements or things that should be added.
Thank you and enjoy the new additions!
Chocolate frogs,
Jan
Haha, I might have to agree with Jan on that point. I much rather you write, too, JA. LOLOL.
However, I've just got an idea. What about a page where all those lovely banners can be displayed? Prehaps, even where writers can pick one up to use with their story - only if you want that much, JA. But that'll give you a chance to make banners `till your heart's content, and also give them a chance to be shown off. <3
Anthezar sometimes I will put something up on shout box that announces that I'm making 1-3 banners for those who are lucky enough to see it first :p I believe they still make banners for free at the Dark Arts site which I used to be part of once upon a time. Funny, people know I make banners, but no one has ever actually asked me to make one for them. Wonder why.
Jan, if I just write write write, the writing suffers. It's always been like this. I'll write for a week or maybe two then take a break for a few weeks. It helps things settle and percolate in my mind so that I'm ready to come back with another fresh burst of ideas and emotions for writing. i suppose it's the same with graphics. If I feel like doing it, I do it. In any case, those graphics I made yesterday... all of them total took me less than a half hour. I am lightning fast with graphic stuff especially considering that I already have all these Harry Potter images on my computer that I've had forever. Rarely ever do I have to go search for one :p I could do so much more if I had photoshop cs 5 or 6 but that's a lot of money and all I have is Photoshop Elements 7 (which I'm getting a new computer and I can't find the disc so I might not have that after 2 weeks when the new laptop arrives). o.O
In any case, to make graphics all I need from you is the location of the graphic and it's size (unless you feel like giving me a color shceme but I like picking color schemes based off of what's in the pictures I use already). I don't know how to skin (I've looked multiple times online for a tutorial) but I was thinking it might be similar to what happens in skins in xml where you can just upload a new image of the same size and then replace the link to the old image with the link to the new image? If that is the case I thought you could give me the sizes for images in skins we already have, make a copy of the code for those skins and I could go at it and send the code back to you. I don't necessarily know how to code html or xml but I've done enough modifying to get around when making my websites via xml and blogger.
I have Photoshop CS3 and Elements 10 and them regularly. I'm an artist, so I use the software for drawing and painting. But I not into graphic arts - don't really have the eye for it - but I have done some stuff on that end. Trust me, there's not much in power difference between the two. The big difference is you have more power in the brush creating and altering in CS3, and you can group layers. (Which is a must for me; drawing in Elements with no grouping the layers drove me insane.)
Having dealt with the two program for /years/, I assure you there isn't a huge 'whoa' amazing difference. LOL. I can paint and do the same things I did in CS3.
You have a powerful program there, JA, and your work shows it. Your banners always look really pro.
I'm just the same when it comes to art. Either I'm feeling it, or I'm not. LOL. With writing, I'm always feeling it - it never stops bugging me in my brain. I just have to be phyiscally well for it. =/
I used to have CS1, that's what I learned on, and for a while I had the trial of CS6 (LOVED that). I like that in PSE7 I can grab layers on the canvas instead of having to select them in the pallet. I draw and paint in Manga Studio 5. I do the graphic art and sell a lot of it on print on demand sites like Zazzle and Cafepress, but since I like P and S so much I like giving back to the comunity so I don't mind doing free stuff. I think they should let me make some p and S shirts and mugs and stuff to sell on Zazzle to make money to pay for the servers and site maintenence etc.
Are you on Facebook Anthezar?
/inhales
Man, I'd love to use Manga Studio. I tried out a trial of that, but the learning curve completely made me scream. I want to get sketchbook pro for the ease of painting, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Do you actually make decent money doing that? That would be interesting to get into. I'd love to see your work.
I am not, actually. I can't make heads or tails of that place, thus I haven't bothered with it. I am on DA, but I haven't been active recently due to health. I can generally only focus on one thing at time during this. XD P&S really needs a good forum so we can all chatter away. *giggles*
I know I don't like Yahoo forums. I didn't have any issue learning Manga Studio. They have some great short videos on YouTube.
Putting graphics up on Print on Demand sites is a passive income. The more desings you put up the more you make. Some people have thousands of designs and they do make a good income each month. I don't make that much but it's nice to get a payment every once in a while.
JA, the images can work by deleting and reuploading but I would need you to send me images to upload to the site servers. Some images currently are used as backgrounds of a table cell, or floating with html. I'd rather just make new skins altogether. You can pick the color schemes. This script we use for P&S is unique so skinning it is unique too. A lot of the older skins on P&S use html tables because I was great at html and couldn't figure out how to make them in CSS at the time. They really need to be switched and translated to css.
The colors and images and styles - everything on a skin can be changed. You can even move around where things are, and what things show up. You really need to have an understanding of CSS to be able to know what can be done style wise. I also hacked some blocks and such to make things the way I wanted them.
If you want examples of skins to play with you can start here and download some to see what they are made of:
http://hugosnebula.com/downloads/category-20.html
Focus on the structure and design elements, because everything else can change. For example, the Boxed In skin is the one I used to make the Hedwig skin.
I tend to prefer the cleaner styles with less graphics, and with a header and menu at the top. I don't like to get into all the variables, overriding blocks, and rotating images. It makes it way too complicated to make and then things break when you change other things on the site.
Here is a tutorial that explains how the 3 column skin was made:
http://hugosnebula.com/articles/3ColumnCSSLayout.html
Here are more tutorials of some of the different parts that go into an efiction script:
http://hugosnebula.com/articles/category-15.html
I can chat with you about skinning next week sometime on a messenger program and walk you through some stuff.
I use Macromedia Dreamweaver 2004 and Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2.
Okay, new tag suggestions added. :)
I am trying to keep the Teacher and Mentor categories more defined and seperate. Ideally, stories should be placed in one or the other, otherwise there is no point in having both.
Those are awesome JA! Sorry I haven't been on much the couple days - I caught a stomach bug and wasn't able to get to the computer much. I must admit that the reason why I haven't been trying to get you to do skins and graphics is because I would much rather you write!
Plus, I have to go back and review css and other things to be able to work on skins. It's been years since I did one. It's complicated as a mixture of css, html, javascript, php, mySQL, and other website script things going into it. I would also like to learn php so I can add more awesome things to the script like pets, awards, story banners, better reviewing system, and rewards for reviews that readers can then exchange and give to authors, ect.
I'll see what I can do with skins next week. Maybe we can pick one to work on. I like the one that is mostly grey-ish the most because it has its own color that hasn't been used yet.
I try to keep the graphic size on skins to a minimum because it helps save bandwidth on the site. That is also one of many reasons why the green one is the default. We do need a skin for small mobile devices though, one that is very minimal.