abunchofstories

[abunchofstories]

Perhaps I'm too tired to write right now

[abunchofstories]

If ANY of yall EVER do this shit to me, im deleting every single fic out of spite.

If I ever catch one of yall doing this to another author and I know youre a follower of my work I will block you personally on every platform

None of yall are the fic police. I DESPISE genai. I think its an insult to art, humanity, and the planet itself. But aint not a single fucking person here qualified to pick apart a strangers fic looking for a gotcha moment to make yourselves feel superior. If you think something is ai you can ask the author (most are proud of the ai use and will just tell you straight up) if they say yes you have your answer and can warn people. If they say no and you dont believe them you block and quietly keep it between you and maybe a close group of friends. Spreading misinformation is DANGEROUS. And NONE of you doing this shit are anywhere near qualified to do it.

THIS GOES DOUBLY FOR ARTISTS.

[abunchofstories]

oh we are never getting out of the learned helplessness cycle are we gang

[abunchofstories]

for ppl looking for gdoc alternatives --

these are the ones i use (or have used in the past) that don't allow ai data scraping!

ellipsus (free to use, also allows folders in the same way that gdrive does)

notion (free to use, and although there is an AI function, notion has explicitly said that it does not scrape your data/allow 3rd party clients to use that data at all)

scrivener (59.99 one time payment, but its a super robust tool for writing and organization)

honorable mentions:

zenwriter (4.95/month sub or 29.95 one time payment; very bare bones writing tool to cut out all distractions; i couldn't find specific language that addresses ai usage of data so... i can't say one way or the other?)

if anyone else has recommendations on gdoc alternatives, pls rb/add below! :)

[abunchofstories]

couldn’t have said it better myself.

[abunchofstories]

I'm so glad to see AO3 making it absolutely clear that none of these things are allowed to even be HINTED at.

Here's some of the language from the new post about AO3's police on commercial promotion:

-

There is a wide variety of things that are not allowed under AO3's non-commercialization rules.

Any other language which one might interpret as requesting or having requested financial contributions, whether for yourself or others. This covers indirect references, euphemisms, or other language intended to get around the TOS. Some examples of this include:

Thanks for the coffee!

My ☕ username is the same as my username here

This chapter is brought to you by my patrons

You know where to find me if you want early or bonus chapters

Check out my Twitter to learn how you can donate to me since I'm not allowed to discuss it here

If you want to hear more about my ideas, talk about fandom, or find more of my stuff for a coin, visit my Tumblr

Solicitation is not allowed, whether it's for yourself or on behalf of someone else.

[abunchofstories]

Ao3 does not need an algorithm, you're just lazy

Ao3 does not need a 1-5 star rating system, you just want to bring down authors writing for FREE

Ao3 does not need automatic censorship, it is an archive, therefore anything can be posted

Writing or reading about something illegal does not mean the author nor the reader condones it, if that were true, you could never read a story involving anything negative

Purity culture is ruining fan culture and you all are fucking annoying

[abunchofstories]

Congratulations to all AO3 users! Important Milestone reached!

Bookmark database overran!

[abunchofstories]

I really really really don't know who to ask and I'm new to AO3😢😥😥 Is commenting too much awkward??? I'm socially inadept and interacting with people online gives me an overload of anxiety and recently I've found this fic and fell super deep in love with it and commented massive messages on each chapter. The author replied to me at the beginning but recently they just stopped (hi I understand it's not the author's job to reply and they're likely busy with their life too) but I can't help but be kind of worried that I somehow had put them off (because my comments sometimes involves analyzations and if I get into something too much I can be too excessive) I plead for advice is this normal???

while I can only speak for myself, I as a writer absolutely LOVE it when people give me long comments (the longer, the better lol) and, for me personally, there’s no such thing as too many comments.

love love love love these long comments, they help motivate me, especially when my readers give me deep analysis on the characters and/or their actions.

anyway, fellow writers, reblog if you love long positive comments

[abunchofstories]

“you’re a writer, right?”

me, staring at the one sentence i’ve managed to add in the last hour and the 12 open tabs on the specifics of shoes in 1845 Ireland: In theory.

[abunchofstories]

You should get an AO3 account

With the rise of AI and the well known epidemic of AI companies scraping Ao3 for training data most authors on Ao3 have locked down their fics to logged in users only. This is unfortunate for authors and readers. As an author I've noticed a steep drop in readership on fics restricted to logged in users and when recommending fics to my friends I've noticed that the folks without an account can't find the fics. The logged in users only toggle, not only keeps people without an account from reading a fic, but also from seeing its listing at all. More than 50% of fics I come across have this setting turned on. So, you should get an AO3 account. I know this seems daunting and unfair because it's an invite only system but, you can invite yourself through the homepage if you don't already have one, and in the past few years I've never heard of someone who requested an invitation through this method, not getting one. And for those of you who are hesitant because you don't write, that's okay. It's not weird at all to click on a commenter username and find that they have 0 works and 10,000 bookmarks. It might take a week for the invitation to actually show up, but I can almost guarantee you will get one, just keep an eye on your email. It's free to join and donations are optional. You'll have more to read if you have an account and maybe give your favorite author the chance to protect their work from AI without a loss of readership and feedback.

[abunchofstories]

"Did you know people are masturbating to your smut fics-- 🤢" I hope they get twice as wet as I did writing it, mind your fucking business.

[abunchofstories]

I'm so glad to see AO3 making it absolutely clear that none of these things are allowed to even be HINTED at.

Here's some of the language from the new post about AO3's police on commercial promotion:

-

There is a wide variety of things that are not allowed under AO3's non-commercialization rules.

Any other language which one might interpret as requesting or having requested financial contributions, whether for yourself or others. This covers indirect references, euphemisms, or other language intended to get around the TOS. Some examples of this include:

Thanks for the coffee!

My ☕ username is the same as my username here

This chapter is brought to you by my patrons

You know where to find me if you want early or bonus chapters

Check out my Twitter to learn how you can donate to me since I'm not allowed to discuss it here

If you want to hear more about my ideas, talk about fandom, or find more of my stuff for a coin, visit my Tumblr

Solicitation is not allowed, whether it's for yourself or on behalf of someone else.

[abunchofstories]

idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

[abunchofstories]

one of my worst writing sins is abusing my power to create compound words. i cannot write the sentence "The sun shone as bright as honey that afternoon." no. that's boring. "The sun was honey-bright that afternoon" however? yes. that sentence is dope as fuck. i do not care if "honey-bright" is a word in the english dictionary. i do not care if the sentence is grammatically correct. i will not change. i will not correct my erred ways. the laws of the english language are mine.

[abunchofstories]

y’all ever read a fanfic that you cannot believe an author just wrote for free?? what an honor it is to read a piece of someone’s soul they shared out of nothing but love for a piece of media. what a privilege it is to be allowed their talent because you share an interest!!

[abunchofstories]

The fact that kids nowadays want ao3 to be censored— guys. Guys. Where is your sense of adventure? When I was 12, and homeschooled, and had unlimited internet access on my second hand laptop, all I felt upon discovering ao3 was unmitigated joy. A whole platform where people can be fucking weird and post toe-curling novel-length diatribes about ANYTHING. How beautiful is that?

And then you, the reader, can just jump in and post your own weird shit? And people might comment just to say “nice job!” Or “where the fuck is the next chapter” on your 20k coffee shop FNAF AU? Bro. Them’s the little things that make the internet worth anything.

Ao3 is so beautiful. I love scrolling past indescribably disturbing descriptions. I love knowing they have a place to be posted. I love knowing that, should I feel the urge to indulge, I can do so with no repercussions.

Mi familia. Mis amigos. Por favor. Take a step back and be grateful that not every facet of creativity has been locked behind an algorithm.