#because they're serials and not published e-books

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I hope you’re doing well and the scans went(?) good!

I have a question, or two. For your stories, do you mind if we download them to kindles/ebooks to keep and read? And then if you do, do you have maybe an option on your Patreon or Ream to download them in a format where it’s not double spaced between paragraphs? It’s weird, I’m weird 😅 but for some reason on my phone I don’t mind reading that way and it’s honestly preferable but on the kindle it makes my brain itch. If not, no worries, I’m gonna download anyway if you’re okay with it. I love The Nascent Diplomat and your Jack Frost/Pitch Black too much 😅 and The Wildness Within and UtB but I gotta wait for that too finish… essentially every story I’ve gotten through so far I’ve loved. Anyway, off track, I just didn’t think it’d hurt to check and ask!

Hi anon,

AO3 allows downloading in nearly all formats to e-reader (I wouldn't post there if I wasn't fine with that! Free to access also means free to enjoy in different formats).

Unfortunately the "weird double spacing" is actually an accessibility necessity (to the point that most of us exit out of fics if they don't have it). Honestly it's just standard Word Processor spacing, it's not even the actual 1.5 or double spacing you can choose on Word itself, it's just internet formatting, like what you see in my response, which makes reading it much easier.

You're welcome to change the formatting to suit your needs! :D

[loumandaniel]

Heyyyyy a long time follower and I hope you don't mind me asking this; do you have any armandaniel fic recommendations that doesn't have past dm? Also on that note how do you think armandaniel would look ( if it is to be a thing ) if there were no past dm?

oh, boy, do i!

a haunting just for company by valkyrisms (e)

"I know what a breakup looks like," Daniel says. "The better question is, why are you coming to me about it? I'm the one who broke up your little sham." "This is what humans do, don't they?" Armand asks, letting his voice drop. "Crashing on their friends' couches when there's a blip in their romances?"

i'll fix you and have my fill by breackers_dock (t)

The “Daniel had a stroke in the apartment and Armand panicked and turned him because he didn’t know what else to do” theory, but treated seriously. ((this is one of my favorite turning fics btw))

all human decisions by luckydicekirby (m)

Daniel might be a newly minted best-selling conspiracy theorist whose sanity was being publicly debated on every existing social media platform, but he was still a journalist. He could track down one monstrous extremely divorced serial killer, easy.

open up your skull, i'll be there by anonymous (e)

Armand turns up in New York, and then he leaves. Daniel's not having that.

you said if they do dm - they've confirmed they are! they've built armand and daniel as complimentary foils with an undercurrent of *~romance~* they're meant to mirror and oppose the other.

and so for the second question:

to me, their story together is about mutual and brutal recognition as the knife turned inward. that's the dm romance story to me! with the version we have of them now, i don't think a romance in the traditional sense will ever work, but, i mean, no other romance has worked for them either. daniel's played father and husband and armand's trying so hard to play perfect companion, but i think the recognition of their worst truths is far more intimate than their attempts at a traditional love.

they want to break and understand and break and mold. both of them want to press on the other's sorest spots and there's something undeniably romantic about figuring out exactly where the wounds are buried ('it's alice, louis' versus 'armand, amadeo, arun'). they're drawn together because of the other's ability to recognize that.that's where their love lives: the parts of themselves no one else could tolerate.

i do think daniel started really writing, publishing, and marketing the book with an attempt to pull armand's attention. i think daniel's position in s3 is simply 'why?' daniel wants to unmask armand and armand wants to be unmasked -on his terms.

and you can still tie into book canon with armand's fear of a fledgling. daniel isn't the naive and eager book version. he's going to analyze and dissect and enjoy the Gift with an endurance of years tacked onto his belt. that's going to be terrifying to armand. daniel destroys himself and others with easy and that makes him unpredictable - a cold killer. and isn't that just fun going forward in this show? :)

[catcorsair]

I actually think you should finish your story the way you had it outlined! I would rather see the vision you originally had for it than something that was crowdsourced from other readers. Just my opinion though! Either way I will read it I just think you should focus on what you want and the people who will be there will be there.

Hello! Thank you for the very sweet words of encouragement! I should clarify that I never planned to change anything about the overall plot of the story based on the poll results - it was more of a goof for fun and to learn what it is about the story that its readers gravitate towards. I hear a lot of positive feedback about Sophia in the comments of chapters focused on her, but of course I do wonder if the pacing and temporary focus of the story being on an OC makes those who are mainly reading for Christine lose patience. Although I will say that Sophia's storyline is inexorably tied to Christine's, for reasons that (I hope will blow folks minds 😁) will become clearer as the story progresses - there's a reason why Sophia entered the narrative when she does. (I hope y'all stick around!)

All that being said, there are certain benefits to publishing a story in parts rather than in book form (I do plan on publishing a print version eventually btw - I won't be removing it from AO3 when I do though) just as there are drawbacks, and readership is far more likely to be lost in a serially published format than a traditional novel. And I don't want to lose the readership the story appeals to most, the E/C folks, before the plot payoffs that they're reading for. I've mentioned before in asks that the story is finished to the end in its first draft, but there is always wiggle room for certain aspects, especially having to do with the flux between Sophia and Christine's narratives. So the poll is really helpful for me in determining when, in this serial format, I focus on who, if that makes sense. Additionally, this is fic and isn't limited by publishing standards of word count etc, so I can go into more detail with a character than what the plot technically requires - for example, Sophia's first main chapter (part four) was so well received by my readership that it did influence my writing - I've really gotten to dig into the details of her narrative rather than moving through it in the same way as I might have were she poorly received. But that's the beauty of serial publishing, and of course, it's why commenting and interacting with the story as a reader is great for everyone! 😁❤️

ANYWAY. Rest assured that the story itself will not change based on the poll. Your faith in me to tell this story (one that I love and am very excited to tell) is so motivating and meaningful to me! Sorry for my delayed response, my box is overflowing atm (thanks loves! 😭) and Mercury retrograde is kicking my ass in the communication and writing departments as it does...

Fans of Teeth, y'all are the best and I feel blessed to have you, so trust me that I won't do you dirty just because of a poll 😁❤️ And if you haven't read it yet, I hope you'll give it a chance!

<3

Cat

**OH and editing to add for those who are curious that the next chapter (part 6) is currently about ~45K (😅🤭) and mainly focused on Sophia, though Christine does feature in it (and not just as a child! 😂)

[eorzean-capitalist]

Gravitas going live in Nov.

Since Vella is winding down, they're letting us publish our serials in novel format.

Gravitas is open for e-book preorders now. And on Nov 11th, there will be a paperback option as well.

For Chicago natives Jimmy Erickson and Vinnie Santini, the death of their garage band, Gauntlet, seemed like the worst thing that could ever happen to them. With their dreams of getting signed and becoming rock stars fizzling, neither of them expected to be selected to audition for Gravitas, a powerhouse grunge band with multiplatinum albums to their credit and all the fame and fortune that comes with it.

When Jimmy is chosen, Vinnie gets a glimpse of the horrors going on beneath the surface. Gravitas isn't just any metal music act. The entire band and its manager are part of a secret underground of psychics known as The Awakened.

And Jimmy isn't just an ordinary drummer. To them he's a newly minted god. Because in the world of the Awakened, power is the only thing that matters.

Will Vinnie be able to rescue his drummer in time? Will Jimmy resist the temptations of rock stardom and Awakened worship? Or will both of them be lost to this new world, casualties of the fame machine and the allure of reality-defying psychic powers.

[tamiveldura]

Friday Update 9/27/24

The new alarm worked! Go me.

This week has been light on the words and heavy on the admin because I had a lot of house-projects suddenly come to fruition.

We had new carpet installed which meant a day of Other People in the house. Rather than waste the time struggling with words, I deemed it to be an admin day. I went through every product listing on my website and I combined every standalone audio product with its matching ebook.

This wasn't an urgent project, just a long one, so I had scheduled a few books/month to get through them all eventually. At that rate it would have taken me until next July to finish. Now I'm pleased to report they're complete!

Projects like this crop up periodically as technology changes or I learn more about the tech I'm using. Sometimes standards or expectations change. There's a non-zero percentage of my time every year just re-organize data.

Also this week I received short story rejection so I repackaged the story and submitted it to Writers of the Future. Despite having many things published in many places, I have not yet "Pro'ed out" of qualifying.

Other tasks included reviewing cover art for the prequel story of my Alien dragons series Heartfire. I have the prequel and book 1 written. The book needs a revision, but it's in line behind vampires, so unfortunately you won't see those soon.

I also reviewed the final PDF for A Gathering Of Stories: Halloween

https://books2read.com/AGatheringOfStoriesHalloween

It's up for preorder!

Finally, words were also had, just fewer than usual. I'm a quarter into Vampire Submitted, but don't miss the serialization of book 1, Vampire Mated on my blog right now:

https://www.tamiveldura.com/vampire-mated-chapter-one/

The final bit of news for this week is I've started drawing my own pieces of art for the vampire series. I have a list of illustrations I'd like to do, some for the e-books like nice scene dividers or chapter flourishes. Some for the Kickstarter edition like character illustration and NSFW scenes.

I will be posting art here as I finish it, but NSFW stuff will be on my blog. You'll need a free membership on my blog to see it just so it's gated, but it's not behind a paywall.

Until next week!

[olderthannetfic]

(Apologies because Eng isn't my first language but I'm trying)

@ the fan artist who's thinking of selling their fanart of the small-time creator: I wouldn't do it. Actually, i wouldn't sell a book of any fanart. You could get into legal trouble further down the line from doing that by big and small corporations, but I could be biased because if I were a tiny creator who isn't backed by any megacorporation, I wouldn't like it if someone made money off of my own work. I'd dislike it more if they made more money than me. And this is a personal tangent, but I'd like an answer from anyone if possible because I'm asking a genuine question, not trying to be snarky or mean in any way. Does anyone think some people in fandom claim undue ownership of other people's art (art being the source material). I can understand the perspective that it does take a whole lot of time and love to create fanfics or fanart, but at the end of the day, it is a derivative work, and to me it doesn't mean random people can profit from someone else's work just because they love it. But it seems like whenever companies or individual creators send cease and desists to fans for selling fanfics or fanarts, fandom makes it seem like they're being unreasonable. I know people irl who self-publish comics with limited resources, and it does hurt creators' feelings and wallets sometimes when they spend years of their lives creating characters and worlds, just to see someone else profit from it without even seeing a percentage. Is it possible that social media has made boundaries seem more blurry, so people think of indie things that aren't corporate-backed the same way as the MCU or a show? Is it a feeling of entitlement or selfishness or something similar? Because I don't get the anger some people get from being told they can't profit from fan works. At the end of the day, it doesn't belong to us, and none of us have the legal right to make money from it.

--

I do find some people's reactions pretty entitled. If their writing/art/etc. skills are actually good, they can file the serial numbers off and build their own IP that they can then monetize in multiple ways with no worries.

A good story of this type I remember was when some webcomic had a "team edward" joke where the character turns out to be wearing an Edward James Olmos shirt. Readers loved it, so the webcomic artist started selling it... only to get an email from EJO's people. After nearly having a heart attack, he read the e-mail, and what it actually said was "Eddie loves the shirt, but if you're monetizing his image, we need a cut and a contract."

Obviously, that won't work for every instance of fan artist wanting to sell fan art of something, but given how much easier it is to contact indie people, maybe in some cases, one could work out a profit split?

It sometimes seems like the people who "have" to monetize fanworks and who are really entitled about it are actually saying that they don't believe their skills are good enough to sell without a crutch and/or that they refuse to fill in the gaps that make people care about a new character/story. I don't have much sympathy for this kind of thing.