#copy-paste a passage from the fic

[bee-rosmyth-art]

The kiss, because I couldn't not draw it

Bonus:

[garlic-sauc3]

I want to eat my own fics

[partycatty]

professor!kenshi takahashi > again

you just can't seem to do professor takahashi's reading assignments.

warnings: smut kinda? idk ur freaky and so is he

notes: hi guys im sorry i havent been posting, brain went numb after i lost a 2k kung lao fic because god hates me. enjoy a new brainworm!

@crimsonbubble come get yo juice

[ masterlist ]

• professor takahashi was a major asshole, every student on campus whispers about his attitude and ridiculously complicated assignments, particularly his reading assignments. they were long, tiresome, and often so complex in word choice you swear your eyes are crossing. unfortunately, you needed this credit to get the hell out of that school.

• he was presumably indifferent about you, wandering the aisles of the desks with a never-changing scowl. he was pretentious, always clean in a suit. his hair was neatly done and his back was obnoxiously straight. you tried to be mad, but you respected his devotion to his career.

• when he'd assign one of those readings, nine times out of ten you chose to skip it. they were only worth five points, it felt criminal to waste that effort when you could be enjoying college life. what's a few points here and there? it's not like you were studying for a phd like your physics professor, dr. carlton.

• midterms were approaching, grades were set to be due within the week and it seemed to be all crashing down on you. the readings and journals following them were costing you about seventy points that could easily bump your grade up a letter... if he let you submit them this last second.

• knocking on his office door, you hear an immediate groan and shuffling. his dress shoes clacked against the floor before he opened up. his height was alarming at such close proximity and you found yourself dizzy under his scrutinizing glare. the glasses on the bridge of his nose jump as he scrunches.

• "it's after office hours," he states, eyes shooting to a clock on the wall behind you. "3-7. it's on the syllabus."

• "i—i know, but—" for the first time, you found yourself stuttering in front of him. "i didn't have the t-time to do the assignments and i was hoping you could take them before the end of the week...? i'm sorry, i know this is sudden—" his large hand raises itself, putting a spell on you to stop talking just as quickly as you started.

• "you're missing fourteen of them," his voice is low and cold. how did he already know how many you were missing without checking? it takes a long time before he sighs and steps to the side, eyes inspecting your every move. "we... could probably knock a couple off if you need the help." ...we?

• swallowing, you step into the small office. you never really noticed a distinct smell on him, but the faintest cologne and his natural musk fogging up the room made you suppress a whimper of surprise. he squeezes past you to get to his desk, and you try to ignore the brush of his touch against your waist as he subtly moves you to the side. you feel trapped in this room, backing into a corner and fidgeting with the dead skin by your fingernails.

• he shuffles papers around on his desk, retrieving the printed copies of what you're missing and slapping them on the desk. you jump, trying to back even further into the corner you had buried yourself in.

• "don't look so afraid," somehow his harsh tone offers a smidge of comfort. "it's not rocket science." he beckons you over with two fingers and your insides curl.

• the passage is long and aggravatingly complicated just from a glance, the backside of the page being a few short answer questions. professor takahashi stands close behind you, forced into closeness from how much his desk was positioned against a wall. you hear him try to stifle his breathing but each small gust on the back of your ear made reading all the more impossible.

• your eyes skin the page, lips trembling as you mouth the words on the paper. just as focus overtakes you on the final paragraph, your professor's sultry voice grumbles in your ear.

• "what did the curtains symbolize?" he gruffly asks, tapping a finger on the first question. you stutter over your words, in a blind haze you couldn't even recall the mere mention of curtains in the writing. you swallow thickly, trying to pull an answer from your ass in typical student panic.

• "concealing true thoughts?" you wince, ready for his disapproving tone to burn your ear. instead, the tense air is cracked through when professor takahashi slams his hand palm-down onto the desk, making you whimper in surprise.

• "again," he groans, already frustrated with your ignorance. "and get it right this time."

• how were you able to focus like this? it was cruel. it was sick, and you wouldn't be able to tell that kenshi agreed with your panicked thoughts from his stone cold expression. he was just thankful you had just enough wiggle room to not be pressed against his aching boner through his slacks.

• you swallow thickly, eyes fluttering over the passage again in a haze. this was too much, you should have just failed instead of participate in whatever this was. "the barrier between private and public manners?"

• kenshi groans again, head dropping in frustration and nearly putting his head on your shoulder. you tense up, his hot body feeling like too much and he's not even touching you. something about a big, authoritative man telling you what to do was getting you going... damn you and your late night assignment recovery plan.

• professor takahashi raises his head again, rolling his shoulders as he tries to keep himself together. his eyes glance downward, and he looks down his nose at the sight of you rubbing your thighs together ever so slightly to relieve the tension. a chuckle is pulled from deep in his throat, amused by your small figure and just how caged you were in this situation. he had all the positioning to... no, he shouldn't think that way.

• something ugly and disgustingly horny tugs at him anyway and pulls a swift movement. professor takahashi swings his thick leg between yours, parting your thighs and forcing you to stand with your legs further apart, pulling all satisfaction from you the moment it started. the smoothness of it all sends your heart into overdrive as you try to make sense of his motion.

• you're too afraid to turn back and look at him, to ask what he's doing. you can't, it's too much to ask of you. your legs are weak and knees are buckling, so you attempt to subtly rest your weight onto his desk with your elbows, unintentionally(?) bending over his desk.

• you feel his body loom over yours, and he manages to position his leg just right to press flush against your ass. his torso bends down, just barely above yours, just barely pinning you to the wood.

• "innocence," he answers the assignment question lowly, his brow twitching desperately. "purity... shame."

• his words tug at your core. "oh."

• kenshi wonders if he should pull away, if this was too much, if you'd run away the moment his grip loosened... but you show no ounce of disagreement to the predicament. if anything, the shake in your body and the emanating heat from your cunt through your bottoms told him you needed this... maybe even more than you needed this grade.

• testing the waters further, his fingers dip into the sides of your waistband, tugging the fabric away from your hips curiously. if now was your time to decline his advance, you certainly wouldn't have taken it. involuntarily, your ass presses against his thigh in anticipation, a motion that makes him jolt in surprise. no words are being exchanged, yet your heat was telling him all that he needed to know.

• "question two," he mutters, eyes transfixed on your back. "in the main character's dialogue during the theater scene, who was he speaking to?"

• this question came to you easy even if your mind was escaping you. your voice is weak, barely there enough to answer. "the audience."

• "which one?" his growl makes you yelp as he tugs on your waistband, pulling you impossibly closer. your clothed pussy was just barely able to rub against his thigh.

• a hot breath escapes your lips, why he's torturing you like this is beyond you. "the—the real audience. us." a reward was given as kenshi pulls your bottoms to the floor, letting them pool at your ankles to give him a display of how soaked you got through your panties. he takes a sharp intake of breath, unable to stop his hand from dragging along the fabric or diving in straight away... no. you wanted this, you had to earn it.

• his lack of response but delight in touching you was confusing. your head drops in embarrassment, hiding the heat creeping up your face. "was... that right?" professor takahashi only replies with a hum, tilting his head to inspect your arousal further.

• he dives right into the next question, just as hungry as you were without admitting it. "what was the meaning behind the title?"

• you part your lips to pathetically guess, forgetting the passage had a title to begin with. your eyes are glassy, the words nearly impossible to distinguish. you want to cry by now, needing both a grade and something, anything to relieve what he's not providing you with. all you can sputter out in a shameful "i don't know."

• "yes you do," he really hopes so as he pulls your panties to the side, fully exposing yourself to him. he prays to god you know the answer, then he'd be able to take what he wants, fuck you into how he desires. he considered himself a pervert, a sick and twisted individual that shouldn't have the job he does. but seeing the way you ache and writhe for him assures he's right where he belongs. "think."

• you can't, you honest to god can't. your mind and body are fully disconnected, unable to access any cohesive part of your thoughts that would either tear yourself away, push yourself in deeper, or just completely shatter. his voice was pulling you apart, and in hindsight, maybe it always has. maybe he was just so alluring during his lectures you found it hard to focus on the work in front of you.

• a belt buckle clinks behind you, a sound that makes you clench onto nothing. kenshi frees himself, one hand squeezing the base of his cock and the other one pressing your back down, bending your body into a 90 degree angle. a mortifying wet slapping sound shocks your body as he taps his shaft against your cunt, your juices sticking and stringing in connecting threads each time he pulls away. your mind runs wild, wondering just how big he is, if his face is flushed or cold as always, but even still you dare not turn around.

• "again," he instructs with a huff, breath escaping him as he tries to regain his own composure. you're tearing him apart just as much as he is to you. "read it — hhh — again." the hand on your back trails to the back of your head, grabbing a fistful of your hair and guiding your sight back to the passage. through fluttering lashes, you manage to get a clear image of the text, racking your brain for an academic response when all you can focus on is his tight grip and heat from his cock.

• "s'a reference," you sputter out, hoarsely. "to the... irony."

• "of?" you can hear the smirk as he notches his tip into your entrance.

• "the... character's... fuck—" you pound a fist onto the desk, back arching and attempting to fruitlessly bounce back onto him, something he wouldn't permit just yet. "the main character's thoughts and inhibitions..." you try to crank out an answer as you clench your eyes shut, chasing your potential reward. "how good of a man he claims to be when he's just as evil as the villain." you speak so fast you're afraid professor takahashi misheard you, or was displeased with your tone. his silence is deafening and you feel tears prick at your eyes.

• you whine at his silence, but before you could cry his name out in frustration, his hand curls around your head and slaps against your mouth, pressing firmly to stop any noise from escaping.

• you feel like a wet, silenced, needy dog with the way he handles you, demanding and controlling the situation in a cruel and torturous manner. it makes you sick, he makes you sick. it's a terrible awful desire to want to be stuffed full of a professor, one you paid to teach you, and all he's teaching you is how to behave like a toy.

• as you near the verge of fighting back, a firm knock echoes on your professor's office door. a feminine voice pours through, authoritative and with obnoxious intent.

• "mr. takahashi," the calls through the door. "the board wanted your approval for the next steps we discussed in last week's meeting. is now a bad time?"

• his cock still pushing against your entrance, he clears his throat and adjusts his glasses, standing straight. "not at all," he replies nonchalantly, feigning innocence behind a thin wooden door. "one moment, if you could."

• she approves and you hear her lack of footsteps — she's right outside of the door. in one swift moment, kenshi discards the assignment, hoists your bottoms back into place nearly making you jump in the process, and cramming his dick back into his pants. you want to cry, whimper for any sort of guidance, internally laughing at yourself for suddenly needing his attention and help instead of being the aloof student you typically were.

• professor takahashi nods his head toward his desk, and you understand immediately — crouching down and tucking your legs against your chest, you bury yourself underneath his office desk and hold your breathing, trying to calm your racing heart... tonight has been a lot for it.

• he clacks toward the office door, swinging it open. you can only catch the faint noises and changes in lighting as they move about the office. kenshi's sure to circle back to his desk and sit down, giving his coworker no opportunity to join his side of the room.

• your breath is held tight as they talk about office jargon, words you're too afraid to hone in on in case you get spotted. you try to focus on the faint stripe pattern of his slacks, the tapping of his foot as he intently listens to the muddy words.

• "i must admit, tonight's a busy one for me," he bluntly admits to the woman, shifting his hips in his seat. "i've got a lot to catch up on, a lot of grades to fix. if you don't mind, it would be best for the both of us to put a pin in this and come back tomorrow morning." a polite smile graces his stern features, one you can yet again hear in his tone. your heart flutters at the thought of being alone with him again.

• "i'm at a crossroads here," the woman sweats, nervously chuckling. "we were hoping to do a late follow-up meeting after your approvals... as soon as our conversation is done. they're all waiting in the board room."

• professor takahashi audibly groans, leaning back in his seat. you take the brief moment of adequate lighting to smirk at the sight; his cock was still raging and angry from denial, pushing hard against his slacks. he was dying inside.

• "if we must do it tonight," he draws out his tone, standing abruptly. "alright."

• your stomach drops at the thought, cunt aching and drooling for more after getting only a taste. you wouldn't be able to sleep, eat, function until you're able to be split in half by his dick. fuck the assignments, there's something else you want to chase now.

• and you wish you could chase, frowning as you see them both leave the room, kenshi stock-still as always just as you peer over the wood to ensure you're free to escape. tonight was a disappointment all around, and not even five minutes on your walk back to your dorm your phone pings, a new email sitting in your inbox.

just now - ktakahashi@school.edu

subject: office hours

thank you for reaching out for after-class help. my office is open anytime if you need anything from me. i'll be expecting you tomorrow to start.

[elwenyere]

Crafting Comments on Fics

So with Comment Fest approaching - and with the possibility of bot-generated comments undermining the value of reader-writer engagement - I thought it might be helpful to provide a short explanation of some different approaches I use in crafting comments, in order to identify a few places to get started for anyone who has wanted to leave more (or more detailed) comments but who feels unsure how to get going. 

This is far from an exhaustive list, and the categories are designed to allow for a mix-and-match construction with varying levels of development (from basic to more elaborate). At the heart of it, I think of commenting as a practice of paying attention to what I notice in a story and then crafting language to share those observations with the writer. So each of these categories starts from something we might notice when we read.

1. Affect: how the fic affected you/made you feel

This is a great place to start if commenting feels intimidating, because you’re drawing from your own emotional responses. A basic template might be something like “_____ made me ________.” You can pick a particular moment (the scene with the tooka infestation, the kiss in the Denny’s parking lot, the moment we realize character x was dead the whole time, etc.) or focus on the fic as a whole; and you can describe the effect in simple terms (made me cry, smile, laugh, feel soft, etc.) or extravagant ones (made me want to roll myself into the sea, made me feel like I had ascended to a new astral plane, shook me so deeply it registered a 10.3 on the Richter scale). The idea is to take one or more responses you had to the fic and let the writer know what they were/what about the story produced them. 

2. Memory: what from the fic has stuck with you

If a story has an especially strong effect on you, you might also let the author know what particular moments, lines, or images are going to linger in your mind after you finish reading. After identifying the detail(s) you want to flag (if you were going to bookmark this fic with a note to remind Future You which one it is, what image or scene or plot premise or line of dialogue would go in the “the one with the ___________” slot?), you can describe the way it’s sticking with you in general terms (I’m still thinking about it, chewing on it, rotating it like a Hot Pocket in a microwave), or you can point to some of the reasons why it’s sticking with you (it captures character x’s whole deal so well, it reminds me of y moment in the film/tv show/comic, it crystallizes a larger theme in the story so effectively). 

3. Appreciation: what in the fic seems beautiful, artful, striking

In this approach you’re giving a writer a sense of what stood out to you aesthetically about the story: the moments that made you feel like “put a frame around that fucker because I want to keep staring at it.” This category can feel tricky because there might be terminology specific to the form that we’re not familiar with, so it can feel hard to describe what exactly makes a moment strike us as well-crafted. But we might think about the appreciation approach as having a basic template: “_____ is so ________.” The first slot can be either general (the whole story, a larger scene, the way the author writes dialogue or description or a major character) or very specific (copying and pasting a particular line or passage, identifying a pattern of imagery, pointing out the way the author narrates a specific kind of experience). And the second slot can be just one adjective (beautiful, visceral, unsettling, powerful, stunning, lyrical) or a more elaborate evaluation (so effective at conveying emotions, so hard-hitting after the slow build-up, so vivid I feel like I’m actually there). 

4. Discovery: what the fic showed you/made you think about

Sometimes you read a fic that makes you think about the media/the ship/the characters in a new way, and that’s a really powerful thing to share with the writer. As with the other approaches, you can frame this in terms of the fic as a whole or pull out particular lines or plot points, and you can either describe the effect on your thinking in general terms (this changed my brain chemistry, this blew my mind, this is canon for me now) or in specific ones (I’d never thought about x moment in the film that way before, but now I’m going to think about it that way every time; the line where character x says y was like a lightbulb moment for me - it clarified so much about x’s motivations; I would never have thought about this show as being about z theme, but after reading this fic, I’m seeing z everywhere). 

------

So there you have it: a non-exhaustive list of things we notice about stories and some ways to talk about that. I hope it’s helpful. And of course, when in doubt or when pressed for energy, a string of emojis, a keyboard smash, or an all-caps “I LOVED THIS!!!” are also wonderful ways to share a little love with fic writers.

[adelaidedrubman]

some scattered thoughts on plagiarism and sharing creative space in good faith before i turn my phone off and walk into the swamp 

so, this is a post i have avoided making for well over a year now. because i have spent well over a year minimizing, excusing, and trying to convince myself that i’m crazy and just imagining things. even more so, convincing myself that it’s worthless to talk about, because even if i talked about it, no one would particularly care, and i would only cause myself more heartbreak by officially confirming that. 

but the past few days in fandom have dredged up a lot of things for me and made me reevaluate. i’ve found immense reassurance from seeing how ready and willing everyone is to band together to keep the community safe from those entering with the intent to copy the work of others rather than creating their own. i won’t lie, seeing that unity and mobilization on my dash was at times bittersweet when it was interspersed by reblogs from someone who’d plagiarized me. 

but i also took the opportunity to move past the hurt and remember this is a community — seeing others have the courage to come forward and talk about the plagiarism they’d experienced inspired me to open up to more and more friends in private about my own experiences, and i cannot describe to you how relieving it has been to find myself validated and supported. sincerely, to everyone who has lent me an ear over the past few days, i appreciate it more than you know. i’ve been brought to tears several times, and feel like i now have the strength to talk about this. 

this is also a post i have backspaced on several time, because. well. frankly it’s difficult to even allude to the vague category of most obvious thing that was stolen from me without this amounting to a de facto callout post, which isn’t my intention so much as getting out my feelings and hopefully opening a dialogue about the lasting harm plagiarism does. 

so. i’ll just start by saying one of the most hurtful things about plagiarism is that it destroys the implicit trust that everyone is entering a creative space in good faith. most of us don’t come into fandom and oc communities preemptively guarded and ready to go looking for instances of plagiarism, and are far more likely to perceive things as incidental overlap than malicious theft even under circumstances where the latter is more likely. personally, it didn’t even initially set off alarm bells for me when i saw an oc with jestiny’s exact design plus color contacts and terf bangs also sharing prominent symbolism utilized in her story. 

my first instinct was to be welcoming and supportive in the spirit of celebrating that creative minds can find inspiration from the same sources. even as the symbolism began less and less to in any way resemble the context of said source material and more and more to resemble the version of the story i told, increasingly picking up elements that weren’t in the original but were sure as hell in my fic. in fact, i went as far as to offer resources on the source material in hopes that it would motivate the person to dig into it and find a way to make it their own, still hoping this was a case of overstepping taking inspiration at worst. 

it was after pushing my goodwill that far and giving an out only to then see another of my most well-known scenes copied down to my exact wording and pacing that i got the nerve to block. 

and i was naïve enough to think that would actually end it — hurt as i was by what had already happened, at least it was over. 

nope. 

even after blocking, i went on to see the scraps of another of my most well known scenes lazily repackaged. (i can forgive ripping off jestiny, but i draw the line at sullying poor daniel’s memory. he’s been through enough.) in fact, it continued incessantly enough that i have had multiple people independently send me screenshots of the same passage from within the past month commenting on how blatant it is. 

it should go without saying what a violation this was of my boundaries and my creative labor. every single aspect of jestiny’s story is deeply personal to me, both because of the extensive effort i have put into researching and crafting it and because of the pieces of my own experiences and emotions its founded in. 

but more than that, what sticks with me is the violation of the implicit trust and vulnerability that comes with choosing to share a creative work. i stretched my benefit of the doubt to its limits at the expense of my own mental health, i assumed good faith and tried to make space, and when i could no longer endure i quietly isolated myself rather than risk sowing discord or simply being a bummer in a fun time space. it made me no longer feel safe sharing works that were especially personal. the pain of the experience was one of the primary reason i put wildfire on indefinite publishing hiatus despite still loving the story and greatly enjoying continuing to write it in private. 

still, after the past few days and my own slow process of opening up, i am beginning to develop a renewed hope that we can act as a community and look out for each other. i still genuinely want to think we can by and large share creative space in good faith, and that people coming forward will leave us more ready to identify and deal with bad actors when they do pop up. 

and i have hope that i can heal and find ways to be open and vulnerable with my work again. that might mean soon thinking critically about how to curate my fandom experience in a way that will minimize having plagiarism thrown in my face, but for now that’s still a problem for future liz. 

for today, i just want to thank anyone who has read this far (y’all know i’m bad at shutting up). i’m still not ready to be super detailed in public, but if anyone wants to know more about the 5 ws and 1 h, you’re welcome to dm me — although i might be slow to respond right now, because i wasn’t being hyperbolic with the title. i am going to be on a camping trip in the swamp the next few days, and might not be online much. 

i am excited to have the time to unplug and reflect, and look forward to coming back recharged. until then, please know i am so thankful for all of you, from the bottom of my heart. 

[freneticfloetry]

fic pride friday

I finally get to start a tag game! Saw this one go by in the wild, and though I couldn’t grab the exact post to reblog, I wanted to bring the concept over to my go-to folks.

Rules: Post your favourite line or passage from as many of your published works as you’d like. Let yourself feel proud of your creations! Tag as many people as you post snippets, so your fellow fic friends can be proud, too.

There’s a little slice of Husbands Era from words to get off his chest (911 / 911 Lone Star):

Times like this, TK honestly thinks he lives for the second that Carlos settles back and lets go. He hopes that feeling never gets old — the way he sinks back into his arms, just a bit, and his limbs lose the last of their tension, like he’s found the exact space where he fits and can exhale with his whole body.

There’s this Carlos and Iris truth swap from to build a home (911 Lone Star):

I think you're my new favorite person, she'd said — soft but sure, like it wasn't something wondrous after losing her dad, just laid in his lap like a gift — and he'd swallowed and said the only thing he could think of that might've been worth as much in return. I think I'm gay. She'd turned her head and smiled into his shoulder, slipping her arm around his to slot their fingers together and squeeze. Fine, she'd said, warm and wry and completely without surprise. I'll drop my 'think' if you will.

There’s this Met Gala moment from scenes from an unfinished story (The Magicians)

Really, he'd said flatly, when El had first shared the idea, you want to go as The Little Mermaid. Eliot had rolled his eyes. Well not the neutered Disney version, he'd answered, the Hans Christian Andersen original. In all its forbidden gay glory. Quentin had blinked, thoroughly confused, and El had given him a look he never did decipher. He wrote it as a love letter, Q, he'd explained, soft and sad, to a man he couldn't have.

There’s this moment before a bittersweet reunion from What Baking Can Do (The Magicians)

He's technically seen El… since; there's a copy made of clay back at the cottage, lying silent and too still in Eliot's bed. But this is the form he knows — towering and full of grace, even bent over a workbench, brows drawn together, sifting flour into a big wooden bowl. Quentin's clearly caught him mid-setup, a telltale line of little clay vessels arranged across one side of the table, and it's sort of fascinating to watch the way he's adapted, the duality of the picture it paints — a faded apron slung over some sort of sheer, gauzy shirt that's tied at his side, sleeves rolled at each cuff to the elbow and hands stripped free of rings, the room's worn wood and stone an unadorned backdrop for the drama of the dark crown of gems that still circles his head. It's an image Quentin doesn't think he could forget, but there's the strangest urge to frame it, hang it, label it in bronze: High King Humbled, 2017. Flesh and bone.

There’s this truly unfortunate timing from Confidence Man (What’s Your Number?)

The Imperial March is impossible to ignore in the best of situations, much less mid-cunnilingus, but trying to would be significantly easier without the subsequent knock on the door. She stiffens, fingers tightening in his hair, thighs clamping down around his head like a vice. "Oh, fuck," she moans, in a way that's meant to be mortified but, to his ears and his brain and every one of his nerve endings, still sounds like she's seconds from flying off a fucking cliff. "Ally, I swear to god," he says, locked between her legs, "if I come in my pants with your mother outside I may never maintain an erection again."

There’s this reflection on the past and present from Ashes and Flame (Every You and Every Me) (The Hunger Games)

I want it to be as it was. A purging of everything that haunts me, down to the smallest detail. But when I'm done, there's only space and shadow in living color, more abstract than anything that came before it. A fiery sunset over the Meadow grass, the shape of mockingjay wings. And two silhouettes on the horizon, together but separate, forever moving forward, and backward, and nowhere at all.

And finally, there’s this unbalanced negotiation from By Any Other (Lucky Number Slevin), which is maybe my favorite cold opening to anything I’ve ever written.

"You need a name." She spreads out the stack of takeout menus she's stolen from the front desk, sprawled on her stomach on their third motel bed in a week. The wallpaper is the worst she's seen yet, and is still somehow better than what was in her old bathroom. "What about Indian?" "As names go? It's a little tongue-in-cheek." He flops to his back beside her, scratching at his stomach and squashing half the pile. "I could go for some Chinese." She wrinkles her nose, wrestling the menus free. "No Chinese. I hate Chinese." "You are Chinese." "Yeah, it's tragic, they revoked my membership and everything."

Tagging in @liminalmemories21, @paperstorm, @carlos-in-glasses, @reyesstrand, @rmd-writes, @lemonlyman-dotcom , and @welcometololaland !

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Even When the Words Went Wrong

First posted: May 27, 2019

Focuses on: Jason Todd and Bruce Wayne

Favorite bookmark: "In which, Bruce doesn't fuck it up."

Second favorite bookmark: "I got actual tears in my tears like this fic beat up my heart in a dark alley and then stole its wallet"

Tier: Pretty middle, but at least in the top half of all metrics

This is my “behind the scenes” series where I indulge myself horribly by annotating my fics. Link to the fic itself above. Thoughts below the cut.

Apparently this only took me a couple days to write, which is cool, and also makes sense. Alternate POV fics are, in many ways, so much easier because I already know what happened. I just have to express how a different person perceived it and felt about it.

Part one's title came from the David Cook song, and this one is a continuation of the same lyric, just slightly changed because my version is more poetic and appropriate.

Original: You've always been the sweetest song / Even when the world went wrong

Incorrect, Mr. Cook, do better.

Bruce Wayne had killed Jason in a thousand different ways. And Jason had killed Bruce in a thousand and one.

Some nights, it was all Jason could see when he closed his eyes.

I knew when I finished the first part that I would need to do more. I couldn't push the fic any further than it had gone from Bruce's POV, but I didn't want to end it where I did, so time to jump heads.

“You don’t have what it takes to give this city what it needs,” Jason spat, fully in the swing of his narrative. The Pit hummed like a swarm of locust in the back of his skull. “You’re weak. You’ve always been weak. You—“

I'd done POV swaps before, so I was already aware that one way that alternate POVs are not easier is finding a way to cover the same ground without just copy-pasting dialogue again. It gets so boring. Luckily here Bruce and Jason are both so distracted at different points that they can each zone in and out of the narration.

Batman’s composure was flaking off him in chunks. It was a sight to see. He was angrier than Jason had ever seen, jaw on the verge of cracking with the strain. Jason felt a sickly sort of pleasure that he was at least able to elicit that after all this time.

I personally find it funny that Jason thinks Bruce is mad, that that's the only emotion he can stick a label to, because he's never fully seen Bruce panicking like this before.

Somehow he had never considered that in the lost years Bruce might have changed, too. It wasn’t that Bruce was unrecognizable. He wasn’t. The Bruce of him was still there, grim and unyielding. The grey in his hair was new, clustered around the temples, not bright enough to be Alfred’s silver but close. There were lines, too, that had been there before, but only as the finest pencil strokes. Now they were cuts, deep and furrowed. They made Bruce look harder than ever, a man carved from stone, but stone that was beginning to crumble. He called Bruce old man, first as a joke and now as a taunt, but this was the first time it almost felt real.

I did Bruce a little dirty here, since by the timeline I use he's still in his 30s here. Oh well. The changes, both from the passage of time and the weight of grief, would be shocking to Jason regardless. Like. That's his dad. He knows what his dad's face is supposed to look like.

His finger stuttered against the trigger. He could pull it. Be done right here, right now. This close, there was no way to miss. It was why he had come to Gotham. It was all Jason could see when he closed his eyes. He didn’t want this.

That's the truth of Jason, the one I think all my fics about his anger and bitterness and resentment have to come to in the end. He wouldn't hate Bruce as much as he thinks he does if he didn't love him with the same intensity. He can lie to himself all he wants, but it's a truth he has to face in the end.

Bruce had him trapped, but Bruce wasn’t fighting. He was… he… was… Crying? Bruce had his face buried in Jason’s hair, and Jason could feel the tears on his scalp and the shuddering breaths rippling through Bruce’s chest. “B?” he whispered.

Is there anything more alarming than seeing your parent cry.

He was lost. He was falling. He was thirteen and wide-eyed, awed beneath his wariness. He was fourteen and reckless, eager to please and devoted to the end. He was fifteen and cocky, unsure of his path but sure of who would walk it with him. He was fifteen and dying, alone and crying for his dad.

I'm pretty sure I've accidentally written this same paragraph like five different times across different fics with different characters. Oops.

Bruce ignored his own tear-streaked face to rub a thumb across Jason’s cheekbone, a gesture of habit formed over a fraction of a lifetime, but the only fraction that had really mattered.

I love that paragraph specifically because I can feel it. Is there a name for that? Like written ASMR?

The end of this fic is so schmoopy in a way I don't normally like to be, but I do wonder how much that speaks to a culturally rooted aversion for male emotions that aren't anger, you know?

Also the end note is a Bible quotation but specifically the version I heard in my head is the Barlow Girls song. And some of you just got hit with 00s memories upside the back of the head, you're welcome.

And lastly, this one fic garnered multiple comments of very nice people saying DC needed to hire me I AM STILL WAITING DETECTIVE COMICS

[abruisedmuse]

*disclosure: I did get permission from Sillycranes to post a ss of their tiktok and the curated messge for reports on etsy.

Okay, so for those of you unaware, people have been selling commissioned bindings of fanfic, binded copies of fanfic and pdfs of fanfic on all various platforms (etsy, mercari, Amazon, Google books, eBay, tiktok, insta). This is illegal and downright disgusting especially when authors have specifically stated they do not give permission. People are changing $140 us dollars and up for fics that us writers published for free. We use our personal free time. Dedicate endless hours of writing and research to create fics for free. Without profit in mind because we love our fandoms and our ships we want more stories with the characters we love.

These individuals are putting all of this at risk, over the past couple years fanfic has grown in popularity. Which should be a good thing it's unfortunately not because people just dive into without any thought and think it's okay to use however because its on the internet. That's simply not true. Per the Copyright Act it is illegal to sell fanfic.

You can bind it, with permission for your own personal collection, you can also gift binds but you cannot sell it. There are so many talented book binders on both tiktok and Instagram who will teach you.

At the present moment, the only fics/fandoms I'm seeing selling minded fics are from the Dramione/hp fandoms, and the acomaf Rhys Pov fanfic. Even if you're not in those fandoms or ship those ships please report these accounts and listings. If you see any fanfic being sold, please report.

Yes, in fandoms we argue over ships, characters, plots, whatever. We also hold fanfic very close to us. We all know how much appreciation we have for fanfic and I hope we can put things like ship wars aside and stop these assholes from potentially ruining this for us.

Below is a SS of tiktok account sillycranes. The third image is a list of accounts that still need to be taken down. If you could please report them.

If you don't know what to say when reporting Sillycranes had another tiktok with a message. Feel free to copy and paste the below passage:

I am writing to bring to your attention that this seller is selling fanfiction which is illegal under the U.S. Copyright law, specifically the Copyright Act of 1976. Fanfiction is considered a derivative work, and as such, it infringes on the original work's copyright. Additionally, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Lanham Act also prohibit the sale of fanfiction.

*prior to this post, it looks like Novabindery has been shut down. The other two remain. There's also these Etsy stores that needs to be shut down.

WalpurgisKnight

Booksbroughthome

Dawntreaderbinds

Digitalhavenlibrary

Illyriantremors (to my acknowledgment this isn't the illyriantremors it's some using their name to sell their fics)

[patrochillesvibes]

Hiiii

First of all I really LOVE your blogue it is my little refuge, I have a question so I consider my self to be a big fan of Greek mythology and the Ancient Greek world and I’ve been wanting to read the Iliad for years now but I don’t know which translation should I go with and it’s supper overwhelming so could you please recommend one where Patroclus and Achilles are dissected as lovers and not as some Good friends or worst Cousins

Thank YOUUU <3

Hello friend and patrochilles stan!

I’ll be up front and state that I don’t particularly care for The Iliad. I started reading it back in January 2023 and haven’t gotten past Book 10. And I read about 150 books a year, so it’s not for a lack of trying. It’s just not for me 🤷‍♀️

A friend recommended The War Nerd Iliad by John Dolan when they noticed my struggles. Part of me thinks it’s supposed to be satire, but I actually think it does a good job at capturing The Iliad as a form of entertainment material per the time of Homer. There’s no patrochilles 😢 But if you’re like me and you want to better understand the plot, then I recommend this “transladaption.”

I’ve been recommended the Caroline Alexander translation by several folks on here. I’ve seen a few describe it as the most pro-patrochilles yet. It’s the one I’m currently reading (please don’t take my lack of enjoyment as a bad review -that’s just me).

A lot of people have been raving about Emily Wilson’s translation. I’ve skimmed it. The language is very pretty. If you want a translation that’s more “poem” like, then this translation is a solid choice. It’s very pro-patrochilles.

The classic translation, which is unfortunately not pro-patrochilles, is Lattimore. The passages that I’ve skimmed (looking for patrochilles) really pull you into 1250 BCS. It does a good job at embracing elements of drama.  

Not a translation but a masterpiece of an adaptation is The Age of Bronze. Very explicitly pro-patrochilles.

This Reddit Post does a nice analysis of the different translations and what they offer. Highly recommend taking a look.

I have seen a similar ask going around and it has some really excellent patrochilles resources. And some more here. Check those out for sure.

Final note that I just gotta add in cause I’m a bitch like that: Don’t put Homer on a pedestal. I think it’s cool that you’re exploring mythology, but don’t think you gotta suck Homer’s dick. He has a lot of value from the perspective of historians and related fields, but that’s about it. Case in point: No one can decide who he is; No one can decide who wrote the Iliad; There is evidence to suggest that he didn’t actually create the plot of the Iliad, he was just the one who wrote it down and had copies survive; and His work is full of anachronisms. So from a fan perspective (which I think more people need to acknowledge that they're just simple fans and not academics), my takeaway from all this is that he’s just the first to put his headcanons down on paper. And just because he was the first, it doesn’t mean that his headcanons are more legit than yours or mine or Shakespear or Miller. Enjoy Homer in the same way you enjoy random hc posts on Tumblr or fics on AO3. Don’t give him the canon treatment. Respect him, but do it with a heavy dose of salt like at least a teaspoon.

Thank you for the ask!

[punemy-spotted]

Iris - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie

Pairing: SoftDark!Devil!Helmut Zemo x Sky-Captain!Reader

Warnings: Cosmic Horror; Dubious Consent; Dubious Morality; Estranged Relationship; Zemo and Reader are not in the Good Place; THIS IS A HORROR FIC; Soul Stealing; Incredibly Loose Relationship with Physics; This is a Fallen London x Marvel Crossover Moment; There are Space Bees; And Giant Lovestruck Space Crabs; Violence; Murder; Death; Poison; At Least One Reference to a Garrote; Estranged Relationship; Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOUR CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA IS YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY AND IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE CONTENT THAT IS BEING PRESENTED, PLEASE DO NOT READ

Chapter Summary: Sokovia rose, then fell, and then rose again. And now the stars will never be the same.

Notes: Hi, welcome, I really wanted to write an MCU crossover with the Fallen London 'verse so here we are. Imagine House of M except Wanda Maximoff became an actual factual God and it actually wasn't that bad after all. And now imagine all of that is background noise in favor of one unhinged Devil and one overly hinged Epistolarian. An Intrepid Epistolarian.

Oh also Wanda's waging war against Queen Victoria. It's fine.

For those of you who have read my other Zemo fics, finished and unfinished, if you notice similarities between this fic and the other ones... yes. I am Frankenstein trying to raise this fanfiction monster and put scenes, passages, and themes to better use than languishing in my Ao3/Tumblr cupboard. (Also if you've read my other fics, hi, hello, I love you.)

I crave feedback, so tell me what you think!

All of my work is 18+ Only, Minors DO NOT INTERACT. I do not consent to my work being posted anywhere besides Tumblr or Ao3 and I post my work there myself. Do not copy, translate, or repost any of my content.

The First taught Restraint, and the Second Betrayed. The Third taught us Hunger and the Fourth we Remade. The Fifth will live on in the Heart of the Sun but the Sixth did quickly Fade. The Seventh City will never Fall, never ending the Deal we made.

She kept some of the old names when she took this place, you know. Built onto it, even when her Renewed Empress had to bend the knee to the Scarlet One, sealed away in her undying mausoleum.

The Proclaimers of the Cult of the Sanctified, still seated at the Avid Horizon’s High Gate and whispering Truths to their counterparts on the other side, were right — the Seventh City would never fall; the Bazaar would never be compelled to deliver that fatal missive to that Beacon of Bright Betrayal it loved so much; there would be no opportunity to argue that Seven Cities worth of love is proof enough of Her Worthy Love.

If there is one thing you know about opportunities, it is that they are also opportunities to fail.

The long tradition of the Duchy of Sokovia — that Bulwark which once stood the test of time against even the Tsars of Russia — is not what it once was. There is, in fact, no such thing as Sokovia now, not the way you would think. There are Sokovian people, clinging to an identity lest it be lost in the abyss below, but all that remains of the Earthly land which remembered the Duchy’s history with the joint Empires of Austria and Hungary is now nothing more than a chasm of stone and steel.

A monument to violent delights in want of violent ends.

Cast your eyes not to the ruins of her past but to the gleaming future written in the stars ab—

The sound of a train whistle drowns out what remains of the tinned announcement, an earsplitting shriek you endure for what feels like forever, but is in fact — if the clock before you is accurate — no more than two minutes. Which — as it turns out — is plenty of time to interrupt the announcement’s conclusion and leave ringing silence in its wake.

Good. You were rather tired of hearing your own voice drone on any longer.

You turn your head away from the train schedule you had previously been pretending to occupy your mind with, watching the rails with mild impatience and fidgeting with your gloves.

He is late.

It’s not abnormal, really, for the more independent locomotives — those not on the Scarlet Empress’s own payroll, that is — to run on their own definition of time, but you’ve never known your contact to be anything more than a man of his word.

When you’ve properly interpreted his words, that is.

No matter. You have the luxury of time. Collecting your luggage takes little effort — a rather bulging handbag and a briefcase is not so terrible compared to the crates of fuel, souls, and hours you see being carted around you — as you step briskly towards the more busting central parts of port. The station itself has seen better days, almost empty save for a handful of dock-workers and the occasional Employee making sure the schedule runs on time, but as you pass through an open archway into the city proper, they seem eager to resume whatever activity they might otherwise have abandoned for your intrusive presence.

NORTH.

How did it happen? Was it prophecy — or maybe some mad interpretation of the scream-whispers of Distant Polythreme, a vision of the Garden — that led the Proclaimers to make their rhyme, completing the riddle and speaking for the Masters themselves?

Something must have rung true to the Masters, for them to solve the riddle.

Novi Grad rose, then fell. Fell until it could fall no further, until there was nothing left of decades of history but ash and blood for the ghosts of her denizens to wander through. Until there was nothing for the Masters and their bats to drag to cavernous depths.

So she, in her infinite tragedy and infinite pain, became the solution.

Your tea, madame. You look up from your scribbling absently, glancing briefly up at the server and then feeling your polite smile immediately fade off your face.

Must you always play games?

Helmut Zemo stands before you with a perfectly placid smile on his cruelly handsome face, So lovely to see you again, sweetling, and you’re quite welcome for the tea.

You narrowly avoid the temptation to roll your eyes, closing your journal and placing the cap on your pen, its nib glimmering venomously in the candlelight, You are late. A casual accusation, one he dismisses with an easy wave of his hand, just before seating himself before you and stealing a biscuit from your place.

And you are impatient. Surely this must mean you have missed me, little bird. If he notices the way you flinch at the sweetname, struggling to compose yourself before you manage to settle on sternness, he does not say.

You have faced worse things than Helmut Zemo, you know. Worse than the ache that slices through your heart when you look at him and his easy smile, the one you might have fallen in love with once again, if you forgot yourself.

You will not.

Instead, you breathe, letting the heavy air in your lungs out slowly as you tug the fingers of your glove until the whole thing is loose enough to be removed entirely.

You always hated getting biscuit crumbs on your whisper-satin fineries.

You asked me to meet you here, Helmut, a fact which he seems to dismiss with another too-sharp smile, eyes flickering over you.

It burns. Licking over the neckline of your dress before moving down to the delicate pearl buttons that hold shut your bodice, heat rising over the thin lace collar wrapped around your throat, and you wonder idly how often he fines pleasure in watching people struggle to breathe and die.

I’m told you have been busy, he tells you flatly, practiced hand snapping his biscuit in half before dipping one perfect semi-circle into the cup of tea he’d placed in front of you, Too busy, it seems, to inform your husband of your whereabouts.

The knifeblade edge of his voice is enough, slipping past the plates of armor you always try to wrap around yourself every time you agree to meet him, his joyless smile the barbs he leaves in your heart, ensuring it will bleed for him for a few months more after your eventual parting.

The first time he’d touched your cheek in the shadow of a clockwork sun while you wept, his lips ghosting  your skin, you nearly fell to your knees at his feet.

That should have been the last time you would ever see him, as he whispered sweet nothings and sweeter promises in a language you did not speak, burning intention into your skin and leaving you forever bound, words falling from his lips like a waterfall.

The third time you met Helmut Zemo, you cried. And the fourth. And the fifth.

You refuse to meet his eyes, smoothing out the wrinkles in your gown with trembling hands, Is this what you came to remind me?

He does not stop smiling, even as you make note of the uneasy tension sitting on his shoulders, the vicious gleam in his eyes as he continues his visual examination of your countenance, tea soaked biscuit melting idly on his tongue.

Yes, it is.

You should be grateful for his honesty — Devils rarely are, after all.

He continues before you have a chance to consider it, How much farther do you plan to run from this place, sweetling, before time returns you back to me?

You wish he wouldn’t call you sweetling.

You haven’t been sweet in a thousand years.

But that’s beside the point, isn’t it? He already knows that, anyway.

Though you suppose that maybe you ought to tell him about something he doesn’t know.

Why did you call me here, Helmut?

Why does any man call his wife back to the port where they parted last? I missed you.

You swallow thickly, avoiding the unyielding blade of his sharp-eyed gaze and even sharper smile, refusing to let your heart leap out to him as it aches to do, You are lying, Helmut, you accuse, pretending to busy yourself with the biscuits he brought to your table.

As always, as you should have expected, he only grins at you — a cruel, twisted grimace that makes your stomach twist not-wholly-unpleasantly — before reaching out and brushing his knuckles over your cheek, Would you let me lie, little bird?

I certainly hope you don’t expect an honest answer to that question.

His laugh is as sharp as his smile, a huff of bemusement you recall bringing you happiness before, a long time ago.

Now it reminds you of the taste of poison, of bile curling in the back of your throat, of blood and metal and the screaming agony of time stretched to its very limit.

The silence too, stretches between you, taut as the wires you would wrap around your palms to cut through cheese and impertinent throats, waiting for you to finally surrender and rise to your feet, gather your things and bid him as formal a goodbye as you’ll allow yourself — always just out of reach, I have no intention of playing games, Helmut, you challenge with the same tone of voice you might use to scold the Empress’s misbehaving sons, If you refuse to do me the courtesy of your honest, then do me the gift of your absence.

He watches you, eyes glimmering amber with insult, but does not dishonor you enough to reach out, There was a time, little bird, when you loved me without such reservation.

The words burn across your skin like living fire, your vows and his molded together in a single remembered sigil, a bond forced with the very language of Judgment, unbidden agony scorching your composure as you make a desperate, futile attempt to push away the memory; his voice soft, the low timbre of his accent sliding over your ears like honey in your mouth, gentle lips on yours as he sealed your fate with a kiss, I have memorized you like a prayer.

You could almost have forgotten he was a liar, standing lost in your memories as you are, forgotten the price of promise and the weight of truth.

Almost.

The tears burn at the backs of your eyes, but you blink them back, let bone grind against bone before, More fool I, then, for thinking you did the same.

You turn to walk towards the door, four sovereigns in hand to pay for your meal — interrupted though it has been — making a concentrated effort to not look back, even as you hear his voice cutting through the otherwise silent room, When everything goes wrong, it is a terrible burden to bear alone, don’t you think?

You cannot help yourself, can you? Shoulders slumping as you declare a reluctant defeat and turn to face him, swearing your heart has lit aflame.

You cannot ignore His Law forever, little bird.

You know nothing of responsibility, Helmut, your voice is cold as the icy expanse beyond the warm walls of Novi Grad station, still aching to leave and frustrated by your uncooperative feet.

There’s a twitch at the corner of his lips, amusement sparking in his own eyes, And what of you, little bird, what have you learned of responsibility since your escape from Perdurance?

You visibly flinch, the name sparking an endless array of horror and memories within you, just as his expression falls into uncharacteristic regret.

Nothing, clearly, you reply hollowly, words bitter on the back of your teeth, Much to your pleasure, I think.

That wounds him, to your surprise, hurt painting his face before he controls his features and buries both regret and rage beneath a placid mask, Infinite freedom is as tight a prison as an opulent cage, on occasion.

[inkwingsinc]

Question round (I love these so much)

1. What made you decide to become a writer? (was it always something you knew you wanted to do or did it come to you later on in life.)

2. What was your favourite genre’s growing up? (could be a genre from movies or books)

3. What is your proofreading process like?

4. How do you stay motivated in your writing process?

That’s it for my question round 😂.

ps. Any chance for an update this week? 🙏 ❤️

This is so cute omg, thank you for the questions I love them too! <3333

I didn't really decide to be a writer, it just became a hobby organically in childhood. I wrote my first "story" at age 6 because I was obsessed with R.L. Stine kid's horror stories and the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" series (and at age 8 I got in trouble for bringing my mom's Stephen King books to class LOL). It's always something I've just kind of *done*. I work in an unrelated field to publishing but I write a lot for work, so I think the hobby has served me well outside of stories, too.

Horror!!!! Scifi and fantasy were a close second in a cozy lil tie. In young adulthood I got really into romance which had some uhhhhh interesting interactions with my previous predilections

My proofreading process is chaotic and 100% novice. I write like a demon on crack for the first draft, and then a day or so later I'll sweep through it with a blowtorch and do a hack-job of copy-pasting entire passages into the order I want them. I catch myself switching tenses OFTEN because the tense I imagine stories in is different than the tense I write in (so there are quite a few typos I'll have to fix on the back end when I complete my fics/stories). Also I get "sticky" on certain words. I keep trying to put the word "ameliorate" in damn near everything I write and I have to go back and beat myself with a stick to remove it from appearing 3000 times (I think I may have been successful so far...)

Motivation? I don't know her *cries* This might be an unpopular answer but for me writing is an entirely passive process. My imagination runs laps around my actual writing speed so a lot of it is just me sitting in front of my laptop and being Tortured By Visions until I'm satisfied. This has unfortunately led me to take long hiatuses from stories (RIP Sanguine Witch est. 2018) because if my mind isn't chewing on it, the words don't come.

BONUS: I am trying to update tomorrow but I'm a horrible little gremlin that keeps deleting paragraphs. I appreciate everyone's patience <3

[the-pen-pot]

20 questions for fic writers 2023

How many works do you have on Ao3? 157 and counting 😁

What's your total Ao3 word count? 3,745,780

What fandoms do you write for? I'm currently very active in Merlin, with WiPs in the Hobbit, Teen Wolf and BBC Sherlock as well

What are your top five fics by kudos? The Gilded Cage (Sherlock) Electric Pink Hand Grenade (Sherlock) Sorcerer's Bane (Merlin) Midnight Blue Serenity (Sherlock The Riven Crown (The Hobbit)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Absolutely! I love fostering a sense of community around my fics when I can!

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hmmm, I tend to be a happy ending person, but I go in for angst on the way. Hiraeth is probably my angstiest one yet.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I think I always do happy endings, but Sorcerer's Bane is probably the happiest.

Do you get hate on fics? Sometimes. The Gilded Cage is the most likely, because Omegaverse really upsets some people, for some reason.

Do you write smut? Yep, my fics tend to be plotty with smut involved along the way !

Do you write crossovers? No, but I love a good AU

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yes. More than once. Most of hte time its blatant copy and paste (including my Author's notes!!) but once I had someone sort of muddle in passages of my stuff with their own. it was sort of a borderline case where the wording was incredibly similar.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, and I am delighted and honoured by it!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not really - not for years anyway. I work better alone 😁

What's your all-time favourite ship? I mean, this changes, but right now it is hands-down Merthur. They own me.

What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I have far too many, and I do intend to finish them all, but I wonder if I'll ever manage No Smoke Without Fire, a long FMA one that I abandoned when the Sherlock fandom stole my brain.

What are your writing strengths? Descriptions and actions scenes, I think. It's what i feel most comofrtable writing.

What are your writing weaknesses? I am rarely concise! I can't judge the length of a fic as I'm writing it for love nor money, and I find writing sex scenes incredibly unsexy.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? That it ought only to be attempted with the assistance of someone whose first language IS that language.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Technically? Melanie Rawn's DragonPrince books because she killed a character and I wouldn't let that stant. However it was one a type writer. First ever put online? Extreme ghostbusters... circa 1998 I think.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? Another answer that changes from one year to hte next. At the moment, it's probably Sorcerer's Bane, but honestly? I love them all 😁

[xinfinitegalaxiesx]

FANFIC WRITER RIGHTS: WHAT TO DO IF YOUR WORK HAS BEEN REPOSTED OR COPIED

So you were brave enough to not only write a fanfic, but you actually did it: You posted it on the World Wide Web! Go You!

Sharing your writing is such a brave and vulnerable act. You should be very proud.

​​It's so lovely to be able to share your work in a community forum and interact with readers who appreciate the free entertainment. However, unfortunately, some readers appreciate it a little too much and decide they're going to repost it without your consent.

RUDE!

I've seen instances where someone will take a fanfic and change the character names to another fandom, or just straight up wholesale copy a fic from one platform to another as if it were their own. This, and I cannot stress this enough, is jerk-like behavior.

Whether you're an author or not, you still might be wondering, "well what's so bad about this? After all it's a form of flattery and exposure." Some may even argue that because it's not technically "original" it's not plagiarism, blah blah blah.

But let me tell you, it's very bad, straight up rude, and very uncool! Here's why:

It takes away the protections offered by Archive of Our Own/The Organization for Transformative Works such as freedom from censorship and litigation. 

It removes the ability to tag properly and protect/warn readers

Editing/updating or removing your own work is not possible. It may be outdated or you may not wish for it to be in the world anymore, as is your right as the creator.

It can prevent authors from publishing their own work. If it already exists online, this can affect your copyright claims as an author.

Is my fanfic affected?

Start with Google Search Search your username/handle, your fic titles, and select lines/passages from your fic. Sample query: site:<site>.com "search term"

Plagiarism checker Paste a passage from your fic into https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker

Light Novel Paradise/GoodNovel The latest ridiculousness comes via a site known as lightnovelparadise.com (LNP) which  appears to have been abandoned. It has retooled as GoodNovel, both as a site and an app. It's functionally unusable, and has no support or contact information apart from banner ads redirecting you to the new app. There are many fandoms and likely thousands of works copy/pasted in here, so this is not just a one-fandom issue! 

Here are a few methods you can use to search LNP since the user interface is basically unusable and the search bar doesn't work. Mobile gives you a slightly better view if you want to scroll through the hundreds of works under each fandom. 

Google Query for Light Novel Paradise

site:lightnovelparadise.com "rey/ben solo" (enter your fandom, character or ship tag between quotes)

Reylo Fic Google Sheet

For ease of discovery, I've compiled a list of affected Reylo authors for ease of use & collective action, since that is my fandom. List was compiled from the Star Wars tag (691 works total).

Please comment or dm me if you find another Reylo fic not on this list and I will update. If you'd also like me to remove your info just let me know by commenting in the doc. The last thing I want to do is take more of your power away!

​ What can I do about it?

If you write fanfic that is transformative and it is reposted without your consent, you have a right to file a DMCA takedown.

​See section 7 of this helpful blog for more information including the definition of "transformative" and all the potential legal implications. 

​GoodNovel DMCA Takedown Request Instructions

contact@goodnovel.com

​Wattpad - Reporting Copyright Infringement

More Resources

https://www.transformativeworks.org/legal

​legal@transformativeworks.org

whois.com/whois - look up host/registrar for a site if there is no contact info

How to Keep Fanfiction Legal and Avoid Trouble with Lawyers

If you'd like to contribute more to this blog post, would like to support others who have been affected or have more resources to share, please comment below.

Please share this information with your fandom friends. This affects all of us and our ability to post our transformative works and enjoy it as readers - let's stick together on this!

[polutrope]

9, 19, 20 for the smut asks!

Thank you for the ask!

9. How did you learn to write smut? Were there specific fics or authors that inspired you? Or novels/movies/other texts?

Three ways I can think of!

Reading, reading, reading! I have legit copy-pasted smutfics I really liked into a Google doc to pick apart why. I have done this with one of yours ajfkhdjk.

Getting betas and concrit from a range of people on the all-important question: Is This Hot?

Reading articles with tips on smut writing, articles on sexual health websites, sexual health forums (esp for firsthand testimonials on the gay sex), and sometimes even dry-ass (lol) articles on anatomy.

19. Share a favorite passage from one of your smut fics.

Below the cut time!

I find the juxtaposition of humour and smut to be an absolute sensory delight. The whole Elwing/Maglor fucking scene from Everlasting Darkness is so hot AND funny to me. Uhh this was hard to cut down, I am sorry it's long.

"Aah, Elwing!” he cried, watching her swollen breasts bounce with the motion of her body. “Aahh, you are stunning.” “Get up,” she demanded, and snapped her neck down to snarl at him. “Get up and take me on your lap.” Maglor sprang up to a seated position, holding her firmly against him. He crossed his legs and she wrapped hers around him. “Mmmph,” she moaned, grabbing his face between her hands and kissing him hard. She rolled her hips and seated him deep inside her, even as her tongue, thick and eager, sought out his. Her back arched, pushing her breasts closer so that the hard peaks of her nipples chafed against him. “Fuck me,” she breathed against his lips and took the lower one between her teeth. “Show me how good you can be, Maglor. Show me how much you regret everything you’ve ever done.” He growled with delight and grabbed her hips in both hands, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her buttocks, and lifted her over his lap. Up and down, up and down, urged on by the expression of pure bliss that overtook her. His arms burned with the effort, but she began to shout in short, sharp bursts, so he uncrossed his feet and dug his heels into the bed, lifting her harder and faster. Oh that he could release his own pent need! He was so swollen, so hard, but he was determined to give her the best she’d ever had. She hooked an arm around his shoulders, bringing her face close and panting hotly on his lips. Her pale irises were nearly swallowed by the blackness of her pupils. “Make me come,” she said. “Yes,” said Maglor, “yes, Elwing, starlight, glittering, I will make you come again and again and again, for every time I ever wronged you or your–” “Shut up and fuck me,” said Elwing. She robbed him of any possibility of defying her first command by smothering him in a deep and searching kiss, biting and sucking at his lips. Her nails clung to his back like talons. He bucked beneath her once, twice, thrice, and moved a hand from her hips to grope and pinch at one nipple and then the other. A pulse of wetness spilt around his shaft, and she shuddered and clenched down around him. She tore her mouth from his and screamed, and bucked, and screamed again. With skilled hands skittering over her body, he coaxed higher and wilder notes from her until, at last, she collapsed against his shoulder.

20. Share a summary of, or excerpt from, an unpublished smut fic.

This is Amarie and Maglor's Spouse making fun of their fiances fucking, while fucking. (Oloste is a trans woman).

“I will play music upon your cock, Ingo.” Oloste tickled the front of Amarie’s braies. “Oh Cáno, please,” she switched into the voice of Findaráto, “play me, play me, play me! Make a symphony of my pleasure.” “He would not say that,” Amarie protested meekly, rolling into Oloste’s hand. “Mm, perhaps not.” Oloste nuzzled Amarie’s neck, raising bumps over her skin with the scrape of her teeth. “But he would think it.” Amarie’s mouth was split open, half-gasping, half-laughing, as Oloste hoisted her hips up onto the dresser. The Noldo was tall — taller than Macalaurë, and practically towering over Amarie’s petite frame. But with Amarie positioned on the furniture like this, they could see eye-to-eye, and meet hip-to-hip. Oloste ground her pelvis between Amarie’s thighs. Amarie gasped. She could feel the pulse of the other woman’s arousal, growing harder against her.

[magpiefngrl]

How about 16, 17, and 18? 🤩

Hey, lovely! What great questions, thank you!

16. What is your most underrated fic?

I'm not sure how to define underrated here. For instance, I really love The Glass Hearts but it's not a drarry (or any ship) fic, so it's not surprising that it hasn't been read as much as other stories. It did have some awesome comments, though.

If we go with a simple gut feeling, that undefinable ache about a fic we love that we wish it'd been read more, then for me that's The Boy Who Died. It has had a bunch of readers and some comments, but I'd like to share my love for that fic with more people. It's the one fic that whenever it appears in my kudos email, I always smile.

17. What fic are you most proud of?

Although I did consider mentioning dirtynumbangelboy, I'll have to go with 9 ½ Days. It's my longest fic, for one; it's a fic I was very close to abandoning but I managed to finish, which gives me a sense of relief and even triumph when I think about it; and it's one where I poured my thoughts and feelings about Draco in his canon years.

Also, in most of my fics I try to add something that we might not see a lot in fandom (like the treatment of the Shrieking Shack in Through the Looking Glass and What Draco Found There or Draco as an Incubus in Hush, darling etc). In this case, I wrote about magical Romani, which isn't something I'd seen before in HP, and some scary faeries. Finally, I'm quite pleased with the prose, esp in some passages.

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

I've got a few in mind but let's go with the first kiss scene in 9 ½ Days. This is in Chapter 4. I won't copy the whole thing out, just parts. Under the cut:

Harry and Draco have spent a few days on the run now. They're starting to trust each and are getting closer emotionally but there's been no overt attraction between them. A great way to get them to think about sex (with each other) is to give them a reason to discuss sex in general, and Draco is the one who brings it up here.

‘You know what I‘m sorry about in this whole affair?’ Draco said, affecting nonchalance. ‘That I’ll die a fucking virgin.’

Harry’s mouth went dry. He hummed something indistinct.

Draco whispered, ‘Is sex as good as people say, Harry?’

‘How should I know?’ Harry asked, his hands sweating.

They talk about their experiences briefly. A paragraph follows that I quite like:

They hadn’t taken their eyes from the ceiling, as if this conversation didn’t involve them. Perhaps it was easier to talk about sex to the ceiling. Harry attempted to deal with this news as calmly as he could, even though his heart — and cock — swelled with the thrill of possibility. He’d had fantasies about Cedric and Bill Weasley in the past, but seeing as they were both straight, Harry’s fantasies had felt harmless; an idle exercise, a private unreality he liked to spend some time in. But now Harry had fantasized about someone who lay beside him and confessed to liking boys, too. Someone who Harry could reach out and touch, and who might — the idea made Harry’s blood simmer — welcome the touch.

Harry really should turn his back and go to sleep. Draco shifted and Harry caught Draco’s body heat very close to him, and his scent.

‘I’ve never kissed a boy,’ Harry told the ceiling.

I like the image of them side by side, looking at the ceiling, because this conversation is momentous for both of them but it's a bit too revealing and honest, and so it's easier to look somewhere else. To pretend that what you're saying doesn't matter much, exactly because it does matter. A lot.

Draco was the one who brought up sex earlier and then Harry is the one who comments that he's never kissed a boy. He gives Draco an opening. The subtext here is 'I want to kiss you but I can't bring myself to say it.'

I'm really pleased with the imagery in these two sentences:

Silence followed, but a pregnant silence, full of fluttering butterflies and words trapped in throats. A silence that held its breath, waiting to see where the conversation might lead.

Draco takes the opening and suggests what we all want to see. I have a soft spot for kissing or sex scenes where the characters give in to their attraction while holding back emotionally. The fuck buddies scenarios; the "this is a test kiss" like here, and so on. In those cases, although the scene is about relieving sexual tension, it still retains some tension and that is more interesting to me.

Draco gazed at him. He chewed his bottom lip for a moment, drawing Harry’s eyes there. ‘I know you hate me,’ Draco said, his voice low, ‘but seeing as we’ll probably die soon, you could… test it. If you want. With — with me. Just so you’ll know.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ Harry said with conviction. There were worse monsters in the world than Draco Malfoy.

Draco kept staring, wordlessly asking for a reply.

‘Sure,’ Harry said, aiming at casual and failing. ‘Just so I’ll know.’

Both stalled, awkward now that kissing was on the table. Harry didn’t know if he should make the first move or whether Draco would. Tense like a diver about to jump off a cliff, Harry shuffled and brought his face closer to Draco’s, his heart in his throat.

Draco cleared his voice. ‘Let me…’ He rose to his elbow. Propped over Harry, Draco gazed at him with enigmatic eyes, cupped his cheek and kissed him.

Draco here echoes the phrase "let me" which Harry said earlier in the chapter when cleaning Draco's wounds. The rest is the description of the kiss, which is very soft and sweet, if I say so myself. I don't know what people think but I'm happy with the way their first kiss has come about in this fic.

Behind the Scenes Fic Writing Ask

[greypetrel]

Hello Arja, it’s zen 😘 3, 10, 60, and 61?

Hi Zen! :D

Sure, here you go!

Tis the prompt list

3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

Ok, I am chaotic in fics. Generally the process is this:

For a prompt, find the idea according to the prompt. What would work best, what I want to tell, what would be nice to focus about.

For a chapter, select a section of the outline, define details of what I'd like to say in this.

Pour everything on paper as it goes, pure stream of consciousness.

First reading focusing on structure and content, eventual moving around of paragraphs, changes in order, splitting chapters, rewriting some passages, fixing...

Second reading focusing on editing and, in the case of AO3, html.

Find a title, usually when posting. Cry about the title.

Read again after some time after the posting, find another 10 mistakes, crying and grumble and correct them.

(English is not my first language, thank you all for bearing with me xD)

10. Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up

... I found out that I do not like the verb "to blink" all that much, LOL. My current WIPs don't have it! The thing I could find that maybe got the least views and it's technically still a one-shot thing is...

When she wakes up, It’s night. She blinks, focusing on the stucco on the roof above her, the gold details glistening in reddish hues in the candlelight, crickets humming from a window that was left open the way both Cullen and her like it.  

If you remember whence it comes from, know that I'm running after you yelling "Let me love you", with some sweet tortelli to feed you.

60. Have you had a writer you admire comment on your fic? What was that like?

Yes! Either here or on AO3, I got nice tags and comments (and prompts! Prompts definitely count, they always made me so happy, it means "I'd like to read more of yours" and every one of them makes me happy) from @shivunin @rosella-writes @ndostairlyrium @star--nymph @zenstrike @rowanisawriter and I'm SURE I'm forgetting someone because I have the memory of a drunk ferret but yeah.

I may have acted normal-ish, but know that irl I was like this:

(sharks are cute.)