#fuck NaNoWriMo staff

[cinnamonfridge]

I am so fucking done with all those fucking retarded morons at NaNoWriMo.

Fuck every god damn one of you. Go die in a mother fucking fire.

I'm actually glad I'm dying. Can't wait to see the end. But fucking know this... everything I ever posted is about to become public and I mean everything. Even all the moderator posts. See, I have an export of my account data from late May so it contains a lot of shit that staff and certain moderators don't want posted.

This is what you fucking pieces of shit have earned. May all of you and @nanowrimo burn in fucking hell.

[suzukiblu]

Day twenty-four of fic NaNoWriMo, obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon.

“I’d say maybe a picnic in the park or something but that seems incredibly dangerous unless I can pre-verify that Ivy’s in Arkham,” Tim muses, smacking a few more goons upside the skull. The others are already scattering to bolt, and there’s not much point in chasing them down; they broke up the deal and sent the suppliers running, and that was the main concern. Now they can track down their source and go from there. “And even then it’s kinda fifty-fifty.” 

“Yeah, you never know what she’s left out there,” Dick agrees. “Plus sometimes the things she’s left out there cross-pollinate, and then no one knows what’s out there, including her.” 

“Don’t remind me,” Tim says with a grimace, having unpleasant flashbacks to the skunkweed thorns and pitcher plant trees. Ivy’s creative enough without any accidental cross-pollination happening. 

“So what does planning a date have to do with that YJ-related op?” Dick inquires casually as the last of the grunts either hit the ground or flee. Tim does not freeze, because he's not fucking new here. 

“Nothing,” he lies. “I’m cycling through the projects I have scheduled to work on this week. Next there’s a stakeout uptown and some reoptimization of my utility belt organization.” 

“Planning dates is in the same category as ops and stakeouts and equipment maintenance, huh?” Dick asks with a laugh, holstering his sticks and then reaching over to ruffle his hair. “Never change, baby bird.” 

Tim is absolutely going to, but again, hopefully not before thirty and ideally while bringing Dick along for the ride. Dick would be a terrible supervillain and also probably pout if Tim put Superman in a kryptonite death trap to sit and think about what he’s done, but Tim loves him and wants him to be happy and also wants to make this awful fucking world a better place, and you don’t do that by just ditching all your friends and co-workers; you plan ahead and work with them, flaws and all. 

Anyway, Barbara would be good at being a supervillain, and she’d be a lot likelier to come along for the ride if Dick did. So that’s also another reason to recruit him. 

They’d both probably like to kill the Joker, anyway. Maybe they could make the rusty crowbar and shrapnel bomb plan a group activity? That’d be nice. 

Look, Batman doesn’t kill, obviously, but Tim isn’t Batman, Dick and Babs are also not Batman, and none of them ever intend to be. So “Batman doesn’t kill” is, in fact, only Bruce’s problem. 

“So I know you’re going to laugh at me for this, but you know the circus is in town next week, right?” Dick says, sparing him a smirk. Tim considers tripping him with his bo staff. “You know, for this totally theoretical and generic one-size-fits-all date that you definitely don’t have anyone in mind for.” 

“While I appreciate the suggestion, the person I don’t have anything in mind for has terrible self-esteem and I promised her someplace ‘nice’ for this totally theoretical and generic one-size-fits-all date,” Tim says, because he is definitely still in the closet here and he is not giving a Bat the clue of saying “they” to obfuscate Kon’s gender. Might as well light the Bat signal with a pride flag filter over it, for fuck’s sake. “She might take fifteen-dollar tickets and sawdust floors the wrong way.” 

“That just means she lacks taste, baby bird,” Dick hums easily, putting his hands on his hips and tapping a foot in consideration. “Hm. Well, Zatanna also happens to be in town next week.” 

Tim considers what it’d do to his self-esteem to watch Kon spend an hour-long show drooling over a gorgeous older woman in fishnets, spanks, and a sexy tuxedo jacket and decides not to go there. Also, there’s the issue of Zatanna potentially recognizing him, and also potentially recognizing Kon, who he doesn’t think she’s ever met but is both terrible at secret identities and a teen heartthrob superhero whose face is all over the place and also looks exactly like Superman’s on top of that. And Zatanna has definitely met Superman.

So yeah, that seems unlikely to end well either way. 

“Maybe,” he says, finally retracting his staff and putting it away. “I don’t know if she likes going to any kind of shows, honestly. Like–I just don’t know her that well yet. Theoretically, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Dick agrees with a laugh, pulling out his grappling gun and wagging it at him. “Race you back to the Cave? Winner gets tips on how to charm a totally normal civilian who definitely doesn’t fight crime in a cheerleader skirt.” 

Tim has no idea how he feels about the fact Dick is so certain Cissie is the one he’s trying to plan a date for. Then again, Cissie is the one who yelled at half the Justice League. So maybe he sort of understands the assumption. 

Kon looks better in a crop top, though, Tim privately promises himself to never actually say out loud. Like, he definitely does look better, in Tim’s opinion, but a) Cissie would shoot him for said opinion and b) Kon would be unbearably smug about said opinion. And unfortunately, Tim finds Kon’s preening smugness increasingly charming, so he really can’t be doing that to himself. 

He was so damn proud of himself about the fucking crop top, the bastard. Tim should burn it. Or buy him twenty more. One or the other. 

The shorts he’s just not going to think about right now. Like. Ever again. 

He’s pretty sure they’d work better with a thong than boxer briefs, though. Or just going commando outright, maybe. Tactile telekinesis probably makes chafing less of a concern, Tim figures. 

Not that he’s thought about that. At all. In any way. Ever. 

Definitely not. 

Dick fires his grapple and takes off. Tim pretends to be extremely heterosexual about Cissie and not even slightly gay about Kon, though he has very little idea how to actually do that, and rushes after him. There’s basically no way he’s actually going to beat Dick unless criminal activity interferes or Dick just lets him beat him, of course, because Dick’s been flying all his life and flying in specifically Gotham since he was literally prepubescent, and Tim has just been sneaking around random rooftops and alleyways and only actually known how to do a basic somersault for a couple of years, much less any real acrobatics or aerial work. So like, there’s definitely a skill gap there. 

Might as well chuck a flying fish at a hummingbird and see who comes out ahead, really. 

Technically, though, Dick mostly works out of Bludhaven these days, so technically . . . 

Look, Tim just so happens to know about certain construction-related shortcuts that may or may not be currently relevant thanks to some surprise rogue attacks last week, and even if he weren’t pretending to be heterosexual about Cissie he’d be trying to beat Dick back to get first dibs on Alfred’s jaffa cakes, so . . . 

The jaffa cakes are delicious, though the dating advice is unfortunately irrelevant. 

Tim appreciates the thought, at least.

[duckprintspress]

I know almost nothing about NaNoWriMo but I would love to hear what you mean about "the last five years". What have they don't in the last years (before this current bullshit) to make the experience worse than before?

Hey!

So, I first heard about NaNoWriMo in like...2005? 2006?...and made my own first attempt in 2012, so I've been around for a while.

For me personally, three major things stand out as being issues:

In 2019, NaNo rolled out a new webpage, consolidating what had once been two different webpages - the main NaNo page and the Camp NaNo page. This roll out was, to put it gently, a fucking disaster, and broke much of the website, and at least for me made it nigh-unusable. It also nerfed the forums.

Late last year, grooming allegations came out against moderators and staff. You can read more about it here. I never looked into it much, and it was very difficult to tell what actually happened with the backlash - what was proven, etc. - and I just don't know much about it, but it certainly made me extremely wary.

And the current nonsense, which it sounds like you're aware of.

I've also known multiple regional coordinators (ML = Municipal Liaisons) and while they've not shared specifics and even if they had, I wouldn't feel at liberty to share what was shared with me, the general consensus is that the treatment of the volunteer MLs has gotten progressively worse, and the forums and boards increasingly unusable, to the extent that a lot of people I know have "broken off" their regions - my home region, for example, operates a writer group, founded originally through NaNo, now completely separate from NaNo because NaNo fucked up just that bad. Like I said, I don't know the details, but I trust my friends that if they say it was untenable, it was untenable.

All in all, since the website merge, they've made it clear they don't care about the feedback they receive, seemed to almost be going out of their way to damage the community-building aspects of the webpage that were always one of the most valuable parts of the experience, and just generally haven't managed things like the scandal in #2 well.

Honestly, I basically stopped using NaNo after the merge. I managed, I think, two more years after that (not winning NaNo, but I won a couple Camp NaNos with my own word count goal in, like, 2019 and 2020).

The reason the current issues have prompted me to delete is that, once upon a time, it was required to enter typed text to "validate" a word count. I have no idea if NaNo retained that text in anyway, nor do I have any idea what the terms of NaNo's agreement with ProWritingAid is. All I know that even the possibility that they've got my data stored, even the chance that they might use my words to train PWA's LLM, is enough for me to go from "I no longer use this or wish to us this" to "I am immediately deleting."

Hopefully, deleting actually removes my data. I wasn't able to take the time to read their updated ToS enough to actually be sure. But it's the one thing in my power to do, so I did it.

Sorry I don't have more detail to make rubbernecking the drama more fun, lol. :D

-unforth

[walks-the-ages]

Hey nanowrimo, what the fuck does this mean. What is this article about.

Why do you have an article that sounds like an angry tumblr post that is *clearly* about some incredibly serious allegations, but you're trying to sidestep them by..... acting like people questioning your endorsements of clearly shitty people/company is somehow the same thing as belittling the romance genre or people who became published authors after starting out with fanfic??

Full text from September 2nd, 2024 so they can't edit it later:

"I can't believe NaNoWriMo is endorsing a person/company who does ______________!"

3 days ago Updated Not yet followed by anyone NaNoWriMo is not in the business of telling writers how to (or how not to) write, taking a position on what approaches to writing are legitimate vs. illegitimate, or placing value judgments on personal decisions that are a matter of free choice. Opinions about "correct" ways to write or "right" vs. "wrong" kinds of writers should not be brought into our spaces. Our priority is creating a welcoming environment for all writers. There is no place for that kind of virtue signaling within NaNoWriMo. This position extends to our partnerships with sponsors and affiliates, with authors who we invite to write pep talks or serve as camp counselors, and to people who we invite to participate in events. NaNoWriMo is a global community of more than 550,000 writers who we fully expect to have different values, different needs, different preferences, and different curiosities. Because Wrimos are not a monolith, we don't cater to a specific author archetyope or ideology.  We take this position firmly, and we take it seriously. NaNoWriMo is a 25-year-old organization with staff that has been in the writing community for a very long time. We've seen tremendous harm done over the years by writers who choose to pick at others' methods. We've seen indie authors delegitimized by traditionally published authors, highbrow literary types look down their noses at romance authors, fanfiction writers shamed for everything from plagiarism to lack of originality; the list goes on. Not only is this sort of shaming unnecessary and often mean. It's proven itself to be short-sighted. Some of the most shamed groups within the writing community are also the most successful (e.g., Romance is one of the highest-grossing genres; an increasing body of data shows that indie authors do better than trad-pub authors, and some of the biggest names in publishing started out in fanfic). NaNoWriMo's mission is to "provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page." We fulfill our mission by supporting the humans doing the writing. That means not judging them and not allowing judgmental dynamics to enter into our spaces. 

this just reads like an angry, desperate attempt to downplay a serious issue by pretending people are just being misogynystic or looking down on indie authors when clearly that's not what they're responding to lmao, considering probably 99% of Nanowrimo's participants are aspiring writers who probably started out with fanfiction and are probably going to be self published?????

[moreyachtsforgrant]

In case anyone was wondering regarding the state of the NaNoWriMo organization, well, it's still entirely fucked.

To address some of the misinformation floating around out there, in a format that will essentially reach twelve people, if I'm lucky, I would like to clarify that Mod X (the alleged groomer) is not, and has not been involved with the situation and toxic culture that has developed on the YWP forums.

Why do I call it toxic? Simply put, it is. It is a toxic environment that has forced teenagers to bear the burden of mental health support for other teenagers. The sheer amount of trauma bonding I've witnessed as these teens have come forward with their stories is alarming. This is not the fault of the teens. It is the fault of the staff members assigned to moderate them, the same staffers who absolutely failed on every possible count to protect their charges.

The Board is continuing to "investigate", which I have to actively choose to believe means they're sifting through the data they've been sent and are hoping to supplement it with their own findings. The forums (both the main site and the YWP) are still shut down, outside of the one thread in the board section. It's pretty much perpetually off-topic, anyway.

It is hard to see any future where the forums are allowed to continue. That is not entirely the fault of us, the community. The blame rests on HQ and staff refusing to acknowledge there were problems and on the moderators for being reactive instead of proactive.

The drama has reached some less than savory parts of the internet, as well, and concerns raised to the Board via email regarding a possible influx of hateful and dangerous people have thus far gone ignored.

To anyone who sees this post and uses the NaNo websites, I urge you to remove any personal information your profiles may have. Switch your attached emails to burners, if possible. I have been assured by former moderators in regards to the supposed "data breach" that Mod X did not have access to any passwords or email addresses, and only maybe could have seen username changes, but I will reiterate:

NaNoWriMo is not safe. They have not protected you. They aren't protecting you. You will have to protect yourself.

May your whisper networks be free of hateful rhetoric, and may your off-site discussions not turn to negativity.

I wish you all well.

-Definitely Not Grant

[cup-of-hot-worm-milk]

02/11/2023 2:28pm AEST the Palestine tag and any tag related to Gaza have gone from the trending page again. And before anyone claims it's due to trends cycling:

Here is the Palestine tag - 1.3k posts today

Here are the trending tags

Fnaf - 1.4k posts today

Halloween - 4.8k posts today

Christmas - 469 posts today

November - 751 posts today

Nanowrimo - 971 posts today

AEW - 739 posts today

Happy Halloween - 925 posts today

Helluva Boss - 329 posts today

The Nightmare Before Christmas - ??? posts today

How can some of these trends that haven't even breached 1000 posts overtake the Palestine and related tags?

Fix your fucking trending pages @staff

[hushed-chorus]

Hearing the behaviour of NaNoWriMo staff when allegations of child grooming were raised against one of their volunteers just reminds me how fucking often people don't take child abuse seriously.

[fission-mailure]

It's a shame to see over the course of the last year NaNoWriMo just ... completely dive off the deep end of terrible behaviour, in terms of like, allegations of staff members grooming children; allegations of pretty serious bullying and harassment of volunteers, including racist bullying; peddling pay to publish companies; and now sulkily coming out in support of AI because they have an AI company as a sponsor, and claiming that not supporting AI is ableist and anti working class.

Like, before they were shut down, I did sort of find the NaNo forums useful when mulling over writing problems! Not because the advice other users gave was ever any good, ninety nine percent of the time it fucking sucked, but it served as a useful Rubber Duck Method of hashing out the problem and figuring it out.

[woodsfae]

B5 s03e10 Severed Dreams table of contents - previous episode

Londo fully deserves all the inconvenience that an extremely pedantic Narn security force can muster against him. It's the least his genocidal, fascist ass deserves. I hope many more little miseries for him. 

"This never would have happened if the humans hadn't started fighting each other!"

This also would never have happened if Londo hadn't thrown the entire fucking galaxy under the bus in exchange for temporary political cred. 

Having moral qualms about firing on one's own people mid-civil-war does seem like the sort of emotions one would have as a member of the military that's schisming against itself. 

Psst, while the opening is playing, I have a secret. I'm 100% going to count these words towards my NaNoWriMo count. Probably am not going to make it, since I didn't write at all from the 11th to the 26th. But I did write more than 14k words in the last two days so ya never know. I could whip out 11k a day for the final two days of November. No I'm not lingering over this paragraph to inflate my word count, how very dare?

General Hague's ship is coming to B5. It's called The Alexander, which is a pretty obvious allusion to Alexander the Great, although the Rangers haven't been conquering any vast tracts of land lately in B5.

I fucking LOVE G'Kar helping with the Rangers now! He's like "I AM A GOOD ALLY JUST LIKE I ALWAYS KNEW. Watch me carry this slender little Minbari as far as you'd like." 10/10, no notes. I think he might be my favorite character overall. I mean, Susan is the BEST, but I think G'Kar might be my favorite, yanno? There's a difference. 

"Our humanity got us into this. It's our humanity that's going to get us out again." 

I certainly do hope so, John Sheridan. Because as always, this show is eerily prescient about our present, when it was intended to be a social commentary on the socio-political state of the 90s. 

This side character Minbari is a kickass actor. He welled those tears up no problem. Also very lame that there's even more instability that'll inevitably benefit the Shadows. How much more bleak does it need to be for them to have a satisfying, underdog victory? They're already under, dawg! 

General Hague is dead.  Most of General Hague's fleet is destroyed. And Earthforce is bombing Mars. The plea from Mars not to fire, that there's women and children, is chilling. But the random Aflack commercials on Tubi are great about lightening my mood. /s 

It's so funny that Delenn makes sure to tell Lennier she will support any decisions he makes in her absence, because I just know she's about to go fuck shit up on the Grey Council. 

This journalist is so brave! The journalists were lying, spreading earthgov propaganda, but it didn't matter. The government still came to take them down in the coup because they weren't extreme enough. 

The Agrippa and the Roanoke are coming to seize command of B5....Agrippa was a general, but I don't recall what he is most known for. Roanoke is famous in the USA for being an early colony, which the colonists all disappeared from in a fabricated mystery, when it was obvious they had joined the nearby Roanoke tribe. I wonder if the Roanoke is going to switch sides at the last moment in this episode, or go fuck off to do their own thing or something. 

John giving his senior staff the same inspirational speech he uses for himself because it's 100% "Do it for Delenn!!!! And freedom. But mostly Delenn!" It's extremely cute. 

tHe CoUnCiL wIlL NoT sEe YoU. - useless Minbari dude

"Then I will see them!" 

Yes you will, Delenn. That whole speech is excellent. and wasted on that little pissant. But her speech to the Grey Council is even better! 

Mira Furlan delivers this speech, as all of her speeches, so powerfully. 

And she has such pointed things to say to each of them. Yessss be shamed!! Delenn you badass. Shattered that staff literally with her bare hands!! Was that the strength of prophecy, or her mad grip strength? She got five of them...are there nine on the Council at a time? I can't recall. 

It's very endearing that John called home to make sure to check in with the folks before he can't do it easily for awhile. 

"Where's Mom?" "Oh, she went to town....errands to run. You know how it is."

Actually, in this family, I do know how it is. Is Mom Sheridan in jail for protesting or agitating or something? 

I remember liking the design for B5's little fighter holds when the series started, but I like it even more now. It's just so smart. They're stored so there's easy access with the spin-gravity, and so they can't deploy accidentally. And then they get whooshed out to space when the pilot is in. I'm sure the new opening which highlights it in such crisp, remastered HD helps a lot with my newly arisen appreciation for their fighter deployment systems. 

It pleases me greatly seeing Sheridan using DraalPlanet's hologram! I'm a sucker for continuity. 

Susan Ivanova is right, damn it! One of them, her or Sheridan, does have to be out there, fighting with their people against the rest of EarthForce. And it does have to be Ivanova: Sheridan is the captain. He can't captain while he's starfighting. 

OK they're here! The Churchhill - authoritarian leader who speaks first and deploys their fighters first. Sheridan speaks eloquently. The Agrippa and Roanoke fall silently in line. I'm so curious to see how this plays out. Ivanova is engaging with the Churchill. The Alexander comes out as well! And there's a breaching pod on B5 - something for the B5 security forces to do so Garibaldi doesn't feel left out! 

It's horrible to see the Narn security forces going in without armor, ahead of the humans in armor. At least give them some protective gear, damn! So many of them went down, and idk if their blasters even have stun capability. I'm assuming they're all dead. Which, fuck. 

I think Hiroshi rammed the Roanoke? Ah, and the Roanoke is destroyed. I think all three of the attacking ships were straight up destroyed. I'm usually able to track the B5 battles, but this was the largest and most complicated one.  And I am also kinda crossfaded. 

"If you value your lives: be somewhere else." 

Delenn is getting all the best speeches this episode, as she deserves. Really, excellent Delenn episode all around! She is a badass. Love to see more aspects to her badassery highlighted. 

Zack Allen is now a paragon of helpfulness and loyalty. And Garibaldi got injured again. 

It suddenly sounds like the Churchill was on B5's side which...I definitely misunderstood part of that battle, if so. But at least B5's fighter crews are at full strength since they're taking the Churchill's survivors. 

John Sheridan has a good conversation with the Major whatshisface, and I am charmed again by his deciding not to wear his uniform till he can be proud of it again. Will he extend that decision to every personnel on board? Is everyone about to be running around in civvies? Soace fashion! Space business casual!  

Dang, Delenn's "Hello, John," was sultry. And her dress is much simpler and akin to a human wrap-dress than her usual, structured Minbari robes.

"I don't know how much this cost you personally, and I suspect I never will. But I want you to know that seeing your face is that moment was the finest moment of my life." 

cute, but I think Delenn heartily enjoyed ripping the council a new one.

I am glad Sheridan got applauded by all his B5ers at the end, and the pan over to the partially torn down Nightwatch poster was c h i l i n g

want another one?

[before-i-forget-again-pod]

WHOA!!!! Is that a

Before I Forget (Again) Progress Update (May Edition!)?

It’s been so long!

“Beck!” you may be crying, “Beck, where hast thou been? It has been eons since the last update on BIFA! Are you even working on it anymore?”

And to that, dear reader, I say YES! I KNOW! AND I’M SORRY! But I promise you, we are still working on the show! Here’s what’s been going on since the beginning of April:

Head Writer Beck participated in Camp Nanowrimo to get some scripting done. Thanks to Nano, we now have several first drafts of episodes!

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… a new member of the historical research staff? Yep, that’s right, we got a new history nerd! Everybody say hi to Historian 3!

Finals are finished! Most of our staff are college students, so it’s been a very long, very exhausting uphill battle to get the ball rolling up until this point. Now that Schooooool’s Out! For! Summer! we can really get to work.

It’s been a long, stressful month and a half since we last spoke, dear reader, so I hope you will forgive our silence. There’s been a lot of trial, error, re-writing, asking for help, and stepping back. Giving yourself grace is an important part of any writing process, and there has been a LOT of grace in this project. The only way to make it through is to just keep trucking, so that’s what we’re going to do until our show makes it to your ears. Always ask ‘what next’, because as long as you have a ‘next’ to look forward to, you’re not allowed to quit.

So, TL;DR, Yes! We’re still working on the show! No, it’s not close to being finished yet, but yes, we’re on the right path.

In the next few weeks, be prepared for a new character introduction! This next guy needs a fucking nap that we will not be allowing him to take, the poor dear.

Ciao!

[smokedapplecores]

Work in Progress Ask Meme

@zombified-queer why you gotta expose me like this😭

Prompt: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive of ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Here’s my list of unpublished aka unpolished WIP with their working titles. No, the titles do not help, most of theses are over 20k words. Yes it’s all The Hotel aus, don’t judge me. Most recent at the top:

Mor3 Parlour

More P2rlour

Reha6

R5hab

More Parlour

Ciergebot lmao

New new new new rehab

Training the old staff

Abandoned AU

Parlour

Rehab AU

Concierge/Owner/Lobby Boy Multi

New new new Rehab

24/7

Hunger gays but with new fucked designs

Rehab new new stuff

Post Rehab Baby

Rehab new stuff

Hunger games more like hunger gays lmao

Nanowrimo 2/3

Nanowrimo side quest

Nanowrimo 1/3

Ciergeboy rehab

Weird guy is multiclassed

Aud/Hop madness

Touch adjacent

Dungeon AU

Post rehab

Rehab wrestling

Weird guy has a bad time

One on one training

Body Modifications

Don’t yell at the weird guy

Help us weird guy

Wake up weird guy

Wax Galaxy

Red Call

Treat

Shibari

Quality Control

Grip Strength

First kills

Lmao Die little winner

First Flirtations

Skilled Debater

Wrestling Match

Fishing District

Hunger Games

The Race

Post Basement HJ

Bad Taste

Owner Bad Time

Basement - SAC so nasty af

Basement redemption dress

Trans Basement

Physical Checks

Minnesota Handshake

I tag @hornblowershitposts because ZQ already did it and I only write with these two goons.

[snotsloth]

Hey y'all,

So, as you have all probably seen, I've been participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time in like a decade and having a fantastic time. I've written more in the last 15 days than I have in a very very long time.

But some stuff has happened. Unbeknownst to me, while I was having a grand old time writing my little (irresponsibly long) Baldur's Gate fanfic, the NaNoWriMo forums were on fucking fire.

And for good reason! Apparently, for basically an entire year, moderators and staff have been stifling dissenting voices of forum members who brought up legitimate and serious concerns such as, but not limited to, official sponsors who were scammers that had been previously identified and called out in the forums, inconsistent forum moderation (including favoritism and special treatment for people they were close with), and inadequate protections for participants under the age of 18.

It got so bad that the Board of Directors had to step in and closed down the forums on Nov 12. The posted a statement, and did leave a few specific threads open to collect community comments and answer questions. You can read what they have to say on the primary statement (CW for talk of harassment, mentions of transphobia and racism, and talk of child sexual abuse) here. That thread also has a helpful list of links at the bottom of the initial post that will help you get up to speed if you wish, though it is a lot of reading and potentially traumatizing if you've dealt with issues like this before.

I'm not going to rehash all the details here because even though I've spent a good chunk of the last two days reading up on this mess. I'm not a direct participant in any of these events and I would rather you read what happened in their own words if you're interested.

What I will say is it looks like the NaNoWriMo organization suffered from chronic under-staffing which resulted in employees working excessive hours at jobs that they lacked adequate skills, training, and support to do effectively. In an attempt to make every donation dollar count, they over-promised and under-delivered on programs and services offered by the org, and fundamental safety parameters were just never put in place.

It does appear like the Board is taking things very seriously and they are working on an action plan. However, none of those actions will be taken until at least Nov 27. So, for me, this is where my NaNoWriMo participation ends for the year. I am still working feverishly to meet my personal goal. I just won't be tagging any updates with NaNoWriMo or Nano2023. I will probably still be doing my daily word count updates because they entertain me and help keep me motivated, but it will just be tagged with generic writing and BG3 tags.

I hope that the Board of Directors is able to get things under control and that we see a new and improved NaNoWriMo organization rise in 2024. This annual challenge and the community around it has been a terrific influence in the lives of many writers. Until then, I'll just be over here, scribbling about blorbos.

[dragon-swords-prophecies]

NaNoWriMo 2023 Day 29: Herald At Dawn

***I'm doing half a nano (25k not 50k) cause I have too much other shit to do (school)***

Today's Word Count/Today's Goal Word Count: 825/835

Total Word Count: 24,375/25k (98%)

Goal Word Count: 25k

Snippet:

There were 16 people permanently on staff at the Herald; despite its age, it was a small paper. Four of them were in assistant positions, or apprentices. Of the remaining 12, there were five that were jokingly referred to as the “Senior Seniors”. They had, for whatever reason, been there the longest, or had known James the longest, or what they wrote meant they had to work closely with him a lot. The members of that group were Bill, Alexandrina, James, Leo, and Jack. Two of them could be, for the time being, counted out. At eleven twenty-three Alex walked into the office and asked Bill, Jack, and the assistant politics writer, George Turner, to come and talk to her in James’ office. There were a lot of questions, most of them as to where the hell James was, where Leo was, where she had been all day, and etc. But they were the ones she wanted to tell first. Bill & Jack, because they were her friends and James & Leo’s friends and deserved to know first, and George because he was going to be doing the politics section alone for a while. “What’s going on, Alex?” asked Bill, once they were all in James’ office and the door was closed. “Leo was stabbed,” she said, deciding that it was best to deliver the news now and not to dance around it, no matter how painful it was. “It appears that whoever was targeting the judge and Atkinson tried to kill him, too, but wasn’t successful.” Jack leaned back, and swore. He dragged a hand down his face. “Fucking hell,” he said. Bill went stock still, freezing in place like a burglar caught stealing from a jewelry store. Finally he said, voice hoarse, “He… what?” George titled forward, head almost on the desk, staring into the grain of the old, worn boards. Eventually he looked up, but did not say anything. "I'm sorry," said Alex, and she meant it.

Notes: 625 words left, y'all. The snippet is REALLY long today, but I wanted to share this part, and I couldn't find a good place to cut it off and still have it flow well, so I am sorry for clogging up your dash. Today I went and wrote some of the next part of the story, and then some of the first part of the scene where everyone else finds out that someone tried to murder Leo. I'm really proud of the descriptions in it.

Taglist (ask to be +/-): @thelaughingstag @gr3y-heron @another-white-void @amethyst-aster

[cinnamonfridge]

I don't need legal council because I'm not guilty of the fucking bullshit people keep claiming I am which is why they can't find fucking evidence of it.

I've got less than 30 days left on this miserable piece of shit planet so no reason to give a fuck

As I literally proved multiple times now, I absolutely despise NaNoWriMo the organization and the staff because of their lies and outright refusal to be truthful and honest, especially Marya but the community itself? I do still care about it. Literally why I sent what evidence I could myself to the board to help them with their investigations.

So, yeah, you can go screw yourself as can Usaki, RobitLurker, SepiaAndDust and every other user I ever kept from getting in trouble when it was more than earned.

I mean fuck, those PM screenshots I posted? The reason Sarah was included because (this was before Usaki announced their intent to stop being a ML) and made some comments that came up in that discussion and Sarah got included because he should have been removed as an ML. I literally begged Sarah to talk to him but not remove him unless necessary:

[soopersara]

NaNoWriMo 2021: Day 21

4747 words written today 61651 words written total (goal: 35007 words)

Milestones: Finished drafting Chapter 73 of A Tale of Ice and Smoke! That makes 3 days of finishing chapters in a row! 

Also, I’m gonna apologize right now for the way that 73 leaves off - part of the reason why I wrote so much today is because the end of 73 is a DOOZY and I needed to get a little farther into the next chapter so that I wasn’t lying awake all night itching to give it some resolution. 

Not gonna lie, I’m kind of counting on y’all forgetting which chapters are which before I post them so that the cliffhangers slap you in the face with maximum effect 😂 but even if you know that something’s happening, this one should be a pretty intense. 

Sneak Peek: Beware spoilery material below the cut!

*

"I'll even bet that this fucking freak has something to do with the fleet. Right?" Hahn swung back around and advanced on Zuko again. "Is that where you're from? It almost has to be, right? You're nothing but Fire Nation scum."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Zuko snapped, the words burning on their way out of his mouth.

"Oh, you don't like that, huh? You think you've got friends up here or something, Fire Nation trash? Because I promise that you don't."

Blood roared in Zuko's ears. If there were any protests from the others--and there may have been, since he thought he saw their mouths moving--he couldn’t hear them. His vision began to narrow, blackness closing in from the edges until he couldn't see much aside from Hahn.

"You want to know why they're calling you 'Red'?" Hahn added, looking smug. "I'll bet all the money I have that it's because of--" He reached upward, trailing his fingertips along his own face, outlining the rough shape of Zuko's scar.

Zuko roared with fury, and then a lot of things happened very quickly. Aang whipped out his staff, pointing it at Hahn's chest, and Sokka reached for the boomerang strapped to his back, but before either of them could make another move, Hahn was engulfed from beneath, and he sailed back into a wall and stuck there, covered in a jagged glaze of ice.

"If you say one more word, Hahn, I swear I'll make you regret it," Katara shouted, still in her bending stance, clearly poised to hit him again if she had to.

On the opposite side of the group, Sokka froze for a second, then gradually relaxed, lowering his arm away from his boomerang. "That's--you know, not quite what I had in mind, but I guess it still works."

"Yeah." Aang took a little longer to relax back out of his stance. "Good bending, Katara."

[the-resurrection-3d]

mid-November check-in

Was going to write this yesterday but When Your Mental Has Illness, lol. I'm feeling much better, finally -- got my essay draft turned in on time and only noticed two obvious spelling errors after I'd already submitted. Not sure what I'm going to tell Dr. Prof. Girlboss at the staff meeting tomorrow but. Whatever. I'll deal.

So far we're up to 247, 759 words for the year and 25, 239 for the month! So I'm honestly very close to where I'd need to be if I was doing NaNoWriMo. I'm not gonna specifically push myself to reach 50k, but I have so many writing assignments due that I'm very curious how close I'll get "organically." Last month I reached 47.2k so it's not like getting close is gonna require a lot of extra effort on my part.

I wonder if I'll reach 300k by the end of the year-- I mean, I do have a 20-page paper due for linguistics, and a 8-10 page paper for duck tits class on top of the actual duck tits project (which itself will end up being about 14.5 pages). Hmm. I guess we'll see.

Today I only have a very brief presentation to prepare for, so I'm gonna try to finish the Massimo+Alberto bonding I'd alluded to yesterday. I have some dialogue and a strong idea, but I'm aiming for it to be a flash fic like "what I know now." Further, the editor that published "Monica" and who I'd infodumped to about bronies who fuck dolls is guest editing on a zine about body horror, which I'd initially thought I could submit a revision of "a dream among the sharks" to, but alas, their word cap is 500. So instead I think I'm going to finish one of the Nickberto prose poems I have laying around and submit that instead.

What else, what else-- oh yeah! The Berlin fic is up to 4.8k. I need to go through and re-outline it. We'll see how that pans out.