#which is not said explicitly IN the fic so i didn't tag it on AO3

[clotpolesonly]

Six Of One

welcome to another episode of "Jess projects her experiences onto fictional characters" 😂 it's been a little while! (i strongly suspect that this experience of mine is the 'tism somehow, hence me subjecting my autistic king Declan to it) anyway, the title is a truncation of the phrase "six of one, half dozen of another" which means that two options are equal in value and, thus, it doesn't actually matter which you choose. one is as good as the other. | Jordeclan | Gen | 2.3k | Established Relationship | Verbal Shutdown | Accommodations | Fluff | (also on AO3)

The new studio space was spacious, well-lit, and blissfully free of vegetable-esque breasts. This one also had an elevator instead of three flights of stairs, thank God. Declan stepped out of it and into the familiar scent of turpentine and canvas, strong even though all the doors along the hallway were currently closed. A small, private smile tugged at his lips, despite his mood.

Perhaps it wasn’t right to call it a mood. By all accounts, Declan felt fine. His day had gone well so far, with a number of business transactions handled smoothly and efficiently, a phone number attained for a frustratingly difficult to track down associate-of-an-associate-of-an-associate, and several texts exchanged with Ronan with hardly any insults involved. It was breezy outside with just a hint of chill in the air signaling the incoming cold snap. The barista at the café had called him Derek again, but she’d finally gotten his coffee order just right. Matthew had only been five minutes late to soccer practice instead of his usual ten.

Declan had had far more stressful days than this one—he could practically see the look Ronan would give him for the sheer magnitude of that understatement—and yet he couldn’t help the tightness in his shoulders as he let himself into the studio.

Jordan was at her easel, engrossed in whatever she was working on today. Music spilled from her laptop, as it often did when she painted, and her voluminous cloud of curls jounced with every enthusiastic bop of her head. The baggy jean overalls she’d taken to wearing had been released from her shoulders, straps instead tied haphazardly around her waist to leave her in a mildly paint-splattered sports bra instead. She was barefoot.

Some of Declan’s tension eased.

The Artist Unbound, oil on canvas, he thought. Or perhaps pastels, to capture the soft haziness of the feeling that grew in his chest to see her like this. Not for the first time, he considered taking Jordan up on her offer to teach him how to actually make art himself, instead of only appreciating others’. It was always said with a teasing lilt, but she meant it. Every time, she meant it.

It wasn’t until one track flipped over to another less to Jordan’s liking that she noticed his presence. She immediately rerouted from the laptop to dance her way across the room, smiling, until she was close enough to kiss him.

“About time, Pozzi,” she said, arms sliding around Declan’s waist. “I was beginning to think you’d fallen down a manhole or slipped through a sewer grate or something equally cartoonish and ridiculous. Not because I thought it likely—I mean, let’s be honest, if anyone is going to fall prey to cartoon physics in this, the real world, it would definitely be Ronan—but I’ll admit, I did get a certain amount of schadenfreude from the mental image. Hope you don’t mind, love you lots, anyway, what took you so long? Did Matthew lose a fight with his cleats again?”

Declan opened his mouth to tell her about the Masshole who cut him off right when he needed to change lanes to catch his exit. He was going to tell her about the lady’s flowery “Choose Kindness” bumper sticker and make a quip about irony. “If only I could be that lacking in self-awareness,” he planned to say, “it’s probably so much easier to live that way.”

He didn’t say any of it. He thought it. He thought it clearly and fluently, all the words lined up and ready to go. Then he opened his mouth and nothing came out.

His shoulders inched back up toward his ears. Jordan’s fingers dug into his back, no doubt feeling the tension creep in there as well, and she pulled back a bit to look at him.

“Alright, bruv?”

Declan closed his mouth. He nodded. It both was and was not the truth.

Jordan tilted her head to the side, lips pursing. She didn’t look concerned, which Declan appreciated, but the scrutiny brought more color to his cheeks than he would’ve liked.

Tone light and easy, she said, “Hand-Cat got your tongue with its weird little hands?”

That mental image, every bit as cartoonish as Ronan falling down a manhole and twice as disturbing, yanked a laugh out of him. Jordan’s smile was smug, like it always was when she managed to make Declan laugh in a way that would embarrass him if he’d done it in public, but she was still watching him carefully. Looking for clues, maybe, or for an explanation.

Declan wanted to tell her, It’s fine.

He wanted to tell her, You don’t need to worry, it’s only that my mouth has spontaneously developed a dysfunction where it refuses to produce sound.

He wanted to tell her, This happens sometimes. No, I don’t know why.

He wanted to tell her, All the words are still in here, I just can’t seem to get them out.

Instead, he fished his phone out of his pocket. He opened up their text thread and typed out a message, turning it around for her to read instead of sending it.

[Do you mind if I talk like this?]

Jordan had to pull back further to squint at the small screen, tightening her grip on his waist to keep from tipping over backwards. A crease appeared between her eyebrows, lips pursing again. Her eyes darted to his face for a mere second, assessing, and then her face cleared. She shrugged expansively.

“Doesn’t make any difference to me, Pozzi. Words in air, words on a screen—six of one, if you know what I mean. Call it a baker’s dozen if you throw in emojis. Did Matthew teach you about those yet? The silly little pictures the kids are using these days?”

Declan rolled his eyes. He typed out another message.

[I’m acquainted with the concept of emojis, yes. I didn’t even need Matthew’s tutelage in them.]

He included a little old man emoji to punctuate the statement. It might have been the first time he had ever actually utilized an emoji in a text message, but Jordan didn’t need to know that. It made her laugh, anyway, which was the important thing.

She stepped back out of their embrace, her hands taking a brief detour to squeeze his ass before letting him go completely, and dug her own phone out of one of her overall pockets. She held it up with a jaunty little shake.

“Mind if I respond out loud?” she asked, walking backwards in the direction of her half-finished painting. “Only, this shit’s messy, and touchscreens and fingerpainting don’t get along very well. Though I suppose I could make something avant garde out of it. Statement about the sanitization of the internet and corporate whatever-you-like killing the creative spirit and whatnot. You’d have to buy me a new phone after, if I sacrificed this one to the art gods, but I know you’re good for it.”

[You can talk normally.]

Declan sent this text, since Jordan had retreated too far to read it from his screen. She checked the message and nodded. Then she spent a minute fiddling with her phone, humming along to the laptop’s next selection. She propped it up on the edge of her easel, far enough away from the canvas to not be in danger of getting splattered, with an air of triumph.

“Futzed with the settings,” she explained. “So it won’t time out and turn off as fast and I won’t have to keep trying to unlock it with messy fingers. If you say something and I don’t notice for too long, whistle or some shit.”

Declan watched as she picked up her abandoned brush, loaded it with paint, and set about her work without further ado. It took him a moment to recalibrate. He wasn’t certain exactly what reaction he’d expected, but an absence of questions, comments, or concerns apparently had not been it. Eventually, he shucked off his jacket and took up his usual position on the couch, angled just so to have the best view of Jordan herself and also a glimpse of her piece as it came together under her deft hand.

Normally, this was the part of the evening when Declan would talk. Well, he spent a lot of every day talking, but this was when he would actually say things. Things that mattered to him, stories he wanted to tell, jokes too inappropriate to make in a business setting, anecdotes no one else in his life would’ve cared to hear but Jordan always did. Now, he turned his phone over in his hand a few times before typing out, [Missed my exit. Some Masshole with a “choose kindness” bumper sticker cut me off in traffic, if you can believe that.]

Jordan’s phone buzzed with the incoming text. He watched as she finished a careful stroke of the brush before glancing down at the screen, still lit up. She snorted.

“Choose kindness? The irony’s killing me, mate. D’you think she takes selfies sipping $18 frappuccinos and captions them with Love Is Love and #positivity?”

[Almost certainly.] He added a peace sign emoji. It made Jordan laugh. [But Matthew was very nearly on time today, I’ll have you know.]

Jordan’s gasp was theatrical. “Really? He does learn!”

[Miracle of miracles. He didn’t even bitch when I said we didn’t have time to stop for McDonald’s. Truly, a day of firsts.]

Part of Declan thought that maybe Matthew had chosen to let it go on purpose—one of those rare moments of perceptiveness that were growing less rare with time, now that Matthew was making an effort toward, as he put it, “learning how to think better”. On the way to soccer practice had been when Declan’s mouth had started to betray him. He’d had to think “Matthew, put your seatbelt on” six times before he’d managed to actually communicate it audibly. The McDonald’s question had been met with a curt “no time for that”, forced out with far more effort than made any kind of sense for four very simple words that Declan said on a regular basis. By the time they’d reached the school, it had been a true struggle to muster up a goodbye, and once he had, he’d known there would be no more verbalizing tonight.

Matthew hadn’t seemed upset or like he thought Declan was mad at him, which was a relief because he wasn’t. There had been nothing wrong. Declan wasn’t even anxious about anything, beyond his general baseline. He’d thought plenty of perfectly amiable thoughts in Matthew’s direction on that trip. He’d told himself to say them instead, over and over. The rest of him just hadn’t cooperated.

He wondered now if, had he not been driving, Matthew would have minded him texting instead. Matthew wasn’t text-phobic like Ronan. He probably would’ve been over the moon about the opportunity to introduce emoji usage into their conversations, regardless of whatever malfunction of Declan’s speech capabilities had provided it.

Jordan certainly didn’t seem to mind. She chatted away the same way she always did, with only a slight delay when her eyes were too busy to spare. Text wasn’t a particularly expressive medium for conveying tone, but she knew him well enough to infer when he was being wry. She did send him an amused look for how long it took him to type out several paragraphs’ worth of commentary on the Henry Wallis wannabe from down the hall, but she put down her brush to read it all eagerly enough that he didn’t feel judged for it.

Despite the alteration to their routine, it felt just the same as it always did.

Declan wanted to tell her, I love you.

Instead, he texted, [You’re really not going to ask, are you?]

He’d been quiet—so to speak—for long enough that Jordan had to double-tap at her screen with the back of her cleanest knuckle to access the notification. She didn’t need clarification or context. She just wiped some carmine paint onto the thigh of her overalls and said, “Is it something that needs asking about?”

Declan turned that question over in his head. He would have asked, if he’d been in her position. He’d been asking himself for hours. Hell, he’d been asking himself for years, what this was and why it happened and why he couldn’t just spit it out when he got like this. He’d yet to find an answer or a solution.

But Jordan hadn’t needed one. All she’d needed was a way to keep hearing him.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

He couldn’t say it right now, but he could wrap his arms around Jordan’s waist and press a kiss to her shoulder. She set down her brush in favor of reaching up to bury her fingers in his curls, cupping the back of his head to keep him close. She was undoubtedly getting in his hair. He decided that he didn’t care very much. They stayed like that for most of a song, swaying gently, Jordan humming along contentedly despite this particular track not being of a genre that easily lent itself to humming.

On the easel, Jordan’s phone screen dimmed, sleep mode impending. Declan picked it up before it could go fully dark. He typed in a text and held it up for Jordan to see.

[Thank you.]

Jordan wiggled around to face him properly, settling her arms around his neck and somehow managing to trap the phone between their chests. She kissed him, sweet and slow.

“Anytime, Pozzi,” she murmured against his lips. “Six of one, know what I mean?”

Declan thought, I’m starting to.

[fallenlondonficswap]

2024 Fic Swap Event Information

On September 12, assignments will be given for the secret gift swap and the public portion of the event will go live in the form of a google sheet.

Event will end November 25.

The deadline to drop out is November 15. Life is unpredictable and I'm very understanding if you need an extension or need to drop out. This is a flexible event not meant to be stressful. I only ask that you please communicate with me so I can arrange an alternate writer or plan extended time.

I'm aware it can feel daunting to write about others' OCs, and it's entirely optional! Ideas for types of fics to write include: NPC character studies, second person/game style, explorations of locations, etc.

Most of all: be creative, have fun, and enjoy practicing the craft of writing! Don't be nervous. Your writing is good enough to participate.

How it works:

There will be both a secret gift swap and a public portion of the event. For the secret swap, everyone will be randomly assigned another participant to write for (matches based on game experience level), to ensure everyone receives at least one fic.

The public event will operate similarly to "artfight," in which you'll be able to view people's wishes for fic and write something for any participant(s).

After the participant list is posted, please DM me if there's anyone you don't want to be partnered with for any reason. No questions asked. This information will never be shared. During the event, if you receive a gift that doesn't align with your interests or includes content you explicitly said you didn't want, don't be scared to let me know. We'll work it out.

The event moderator reserves the right to remove a participant who fails to follow event guidelines.

Rules:

This event is limited in scope to Fallen London and not the tie-in games. I'm aware some overlap exists with the tie-in games which is okay to reference, but fics should be focused on Fallen London.

Submissions should be a minimum of 250 words with a hard limit of 2500 words. Please feel free to post if you write something outside these parameters, but I will not be reviewing and reblogging them.

Keep it relatively 13+, around the same level as the game. This includes not only sexual content but depictions of violence.

You are required to write an item for your secret swap partner. The rest of the event is optional.

Respect others' wishes. You will be shown people's preferences for what they do/don't like and their comfort level with spoilers. Please follow those guidelines when writing something for someone. If you have questions, reach out to me and I can reach out to the person you're writing for on your behalf.

On that topic, please do not write something about your own OCs for someone else, unless they've explicitly said it's fine to write something with both their OCs and your OCs.

When posting a fic, please tag this account and the person you wrote it for. You agree to having your work shared on this account.

You're free to share your work on any social media you like, but it must be posted on tumblr. I will be creating an AO3 collection if you wish to be included in that, too.

Above all else, be kind and respectful of others and their interests even outside the event. See the notice on appropriate community behavior and what could result in removal from the event.

If you ghosted during the 2023 swap, you are not invited to participate in this one. It’s not fair to receive a gift without giving one and not communicate to the organizer. This rule does not include people who communicated that they needed to drop out/needed extensions.

If you have any questions about sign-ups or need anything at all, feel free to ask. (This event is fan run, unofficial, and not affiliated with FBG)

[spacexfucker]

I wish I'd had the wherewithal at the time to properly document in real-time the influx of new people into Fandom spaces online during the start of the pandemic.

There's a very interesting set of people who, because they were spending so much time indoors, decided to navigate online spaces for more content of their favorite media. And, in doing so, dipped their toes in the first few inches of Fandom space.

I've seen most of these types of people on tiktok where it's fairly easy to access introductory Fandom content like fan edits and what are essentially AMVs. Because of the nature of those searches, most of the results at first are very surface-level. Nothing too crazy, just screen grabs, scene breakdowns, thirst traps, etc.

But, as is the nature of getting into a tag on tiktok, eventually the algorithm starts pushing you deeper content the more you interact with a tag. And suddenly, you're getting in-depth breakdowns, shipping content, and then, slowly, content that starts slipping away from strict canon.

So these people, who likely didn't necessarily anticipate the depth of Fandom or understand its quirks and layers, are thrown off. You see "discourse" at this level by people who have never been in Fandom before getting really pissy about things like crack ships, aus, or anything that isn't very strictly canon/explicitly said. Purists who don't want to be associated with the other people who have been in Fandom spaces for longer.

Now, this happens all the time even before the pandemic but because of both the pandemic and the popularization of titkok, this particular fan is a much larger part of Fandom. There's a lot of them and new ones every day and none of them know how Fandom works, what the like general rules and etiquette are, and a good chunk are very resistant to critiques on how they interact with fandom spaces.

The biggest culprit are people who, through tiktok, have literally been influenced to find fanfic. But not based on what they actually would like to read, but what they hear that everyone else has read or is reading again. Unfortunately, the fic that has had the most traction and spread on tiktok is Manacled, a Harry Potter fic. Anyone familiar with ao3 can look this up if you don't already know about it. And if you'd read the tags, I'm sure you could piece together why exactly a fresh new Fandom recruit or even just a regular person who happened to enjoy HP years ago would come across something that is being passed around as good and enjoyable and a way to relieve their favorite series may have terrible consequences.

Then there was this frankly huge influx of people who had never read fic before and had no idea how to parse the system of tags on ao3 reading a book about their favorite characters in a very dark, riddled with triggers, extreme AU. A lot of these people were basically following a trend. And most of the videos I saw talk about Manacled did not really do it justice in terms of preparing their audience for exactly what this fic had in it, nor how to properly interact with the Fandom space and ao3.

People were reading Manacled but not paying attention to tags and then making videos basically slandering the author for the story, hate reading it to talk shit and make hate content. But, on the flip side, there are people who loved it and wanted physical copies.

Unfortunately, this is where a singular tiktok comes into play in which a friend videoed gifting her friend a bound copy she'd made herself of Manacled. And like on tumblr, when certain posts get a threshold of interactions, it breaks containment. This caused another small influx of people who had never been introduced to Fandom, let alone fic, to flock to ao3.

At this point, we start getting into you-all-are-going-to-get-sued territory.

A large number of people read Manacled and other, mostly very popular dramoine, fanfiction. An undetermined amount of those people then, after seeing the video of the binding, began searching for ways to purchase a physically bound copy for themselves. For whatever reason, most were not willing to do this themselves, and so this is where the etsy listings came in.

There was a small boom of etsy listings for bound copies of mostly Mancled. In fact, you can still find these up. This, obviously, is both very illegal and very fucking insulting. This is a very big legal issue. In response, at least at the time, several of the bigger, popular fics took down their work from ao3. Which unfortunately didn't do much because in response, people who had downloaded the first prior were sharing those downloads with heartbroken fans.

You'd think that after being told that selling fic is illegal that people would stop. But they don't. If you take a look at one of the etsy listings, some of these are being sold for over 100 dollars. There's been a small push by parts of Fandom that have been around for a while to go to etsy occasionally and mass report these listings, but it's not really stopped anyone yet.

Fic authors have made a ton of requests either on tiktok or through ao3 for people to not do this. But, because most of these people don't know Fandom etiquette or even care about actual law or respecting authors, these requests have been mostly ignored.

Over the years as an author and someone who has also just read a lot of fic, there is a ratio involved in fic metrics. Generally, you can usually expect about 10% of the hits value for kudos and anything from 1% to 5% of the hits value for comments.

Due to the influx of people with no understanding of fic Fandom etiquette, if you look at the metrics for Mancled, it has over 8,300,000 hits. But its kudos and comments do not reflect the usual ratio.

There is even a strange crossover with goodreads where you can literally find reviews for Manacled. Which is honestly probably one of the most interesting things Ive seen. There are actually several dramione fics you can review on goodreads.

I'm still trying to process how some people's first introduction to fic was Manacled. I'm not saying the story isn't good or isn't well written. But, you have to admit it's a very strong first foray into fanfiction.

All of this to say, when you run into someone starting fights in Fandom space about canon or shipping, I'd say there's a good chance that you're interacting with someone fresh into the space who's entire online experience has likely just been Facebook and fan edits on tiktok. Metaphorically, a group of people who only have ever used salt and pepper on tv dinners arguing about your wine pairings, seasonings, and why you deviated from Marie Callender's fettuccine Alfredo recipe.

As a disclaimer, not all new additions to Fandom are bad. It's great to grow. It is interesting to see how a lot of antis come into the space, though.

[catgirl-catboy]

It is so obvious racist fics on ao3 is a strawman, and I have not seen one reasonable proposal on how to handle them that goes in line with ao3's morals.

The thing about most major archive warnings (minus Major character death, which is hard to tag for as a result!) is that they are completely binary. Either there is underage sex happening, or there's not. Either rape appears in the fic, or it didn't (with the common dubcon tag for where its ambiguous.)

racism is hard to tag for, since a lot of racists aren't writing about racism consciously.

When the author is self aware enough to tag it...

1.) Does historical fiction impact the rules?

2.) What if the canon itself is horrifically racist, and the fic tackles the shitstorm of the canon?

3.) What about tropes that can be racist, but aren't explicitly so (Slavery aus where both characters are white.)

4.) What if the character in question has no canon race?

5.) What about the race of the author? The author could be a POC writing a ventfic about how they were treated!

6.) What about works trying to be progressive, but fumble the message hard.

7.) Are we judging by a US-centric definition of racism?

8.) What if the racism is a canonical character flaw that canon establishes as a negative trait?

9.) How would you deal with users reporting racism unequally? Its hard to have one major archive warning thats binary enough to cover all of this.

(before someone pops the question, I do think ao3 needs to hire the people they said they'd hire. Thats a completely separate issue that this post isn't about)

[i-make-fun-of-spn-characters]

hope this is ok to ask but if you’re willing to spill would you mind talking about some of your spn fic opinions 👀👀

DISCLAIMER: Everyone who writes fic is awesome for doing it and should do what they want and my opinion doesn't matter because who gives a fuck what I think??? Write what makes you happy!!! It doesn't matter!!! If someone doesn't like it they can read something else or write their own fic!!!! I will jump to the defense of an author whose work I don’t even like if they get a bitchy entitled comment from some jerkweed who thinks every fic should be written exactly how THEY want.

That said, in MY opinion *breathes*:

Need more of Cas being a bitch. Cas can be cool sometimes yes and sometimes he can be awkward yes but also he doesn't answer the phone, and when you call him out for ghosting you he just shrugs and says he was busy. He rolls his eyes because you're exasperating and your voice is grating. He ate his own siblings a few times and also said he wanted them all to die because they were so annoying about free will in season 6. Like yes he does little puppy dog eyes and says “sorry” but then he does that same shit again for the 12 billionth time to everyone around him. 

Need more of Dean being that guy. The "I was right about the thing and you didn't listen to me and it blew up in your face, idiot" guy. Like a lot of fics that are Dean centric seem to focus on Dean's self worth issues and his belief that no one loves him and he doesn't deserve happiness because he is a Loser and Stupid and a Weapon and is parentified which is a thing that Dean deals with feeling, but he is also THEEE most annoying hoe when he is right about something and he will NOT shut the fuck up about it. There is a lot of "Nobody will ever love me I am not smart like Sammy ;_;" and I would love to read more "I am literally the actual psychic in this family and I can sniff out how this stupid plan you came up with will fail with the accuracy of a bloodhound looking for a corpse that is just 2 feet away and I will tell you exactly how dumb you are then the universe will prove me right after you go behind my back and I WILL remind you about it at least 5 times." Yes Dean has self-worth issues but also yes Dean will endlessly shit on beings who could kill him in the blink of an eye and will tell everyone they are fucking stupid. 

Nobody can write Sam. Not you, not me, not his fans, not his haters. If, by some miracle, a person CAN write Sam accurately, then they write the best Sam ever written in the entire universe and there are galaxies exploding in your brain as you read his inner monologue... until you get to the part where Dean or Cas becomes relevant and then you immediately have to click out of the fic because this author put every single stat they have into Sam Understanding and apparently there’s are Cas Understander and Dean Understander penalties for doing that of like negative 5 trillion. Worst takes you have ever seen in your entire life. It is too painful to continue reading. Horrible crimes are being committed.

If Kevin appears in a Sam-centric fic there is a good chance the author is mean about him. 

Now that we can exclude things from search results on AO3, I need a tag called: #Everyone gets an A+ on their Mental Health Report Card after the decades of torture and/or lobotomies except Dean who is the Only Fucked Up One Because He Just Can't Manage Like Everyone Else Can And He Is Explicitly Treated As A Burden For Having Trauma Instead Of The Idea Of Him Being A Burden Being Subverted. 

Fics where Cas shows up in the fic to randomly bring dues ex machina from randomcountry and then disappear again as unobtrusively and robotically as possible "You're welcome my friends Sam and Dean Winchester beep boop" *flies away on wings ignoring canon wing loss timeline* are just????  

I notice many authors don’t care/remember when Cas does and doesn’t have certain powers in canon and he flies everywhere and it leaves me very disoriented. Like who even IS a Cas who never lost his wings? That is a different guy.

Every time someone writes "Dean finally pulls his head out of his ass" in the summary of their destiel fic a cute baby animal gets swallowed up by quicksand. 

Making Benny evil is a self-report that you don’t know how to write a friend or love interest for Dean that is better than him and that fact lives rent free in your head. 

[halfagone]

how is a person supposed to fix a problem when they're unaware of its existence?

So I know who sent this, and I know you meant for me to, or else there wouldn't be a point in dropping this ask at all. Even if you did choose to use Anonymous for it, which does make me question how genuine you are with your request when you aren't willing to use your username and own up to it.

Quite frankly, I'm just very uncomfortable that you felt the need to drop an ask at all, when your DMs had explicitly said that you just wanted me to hear you out, but then now you're... asking for a response? That's not what you told me, and I have the receipts to prove it.

Honestly I'm uncomfortable period because I blocked you on Discord, Ao3, and three different Tumblr accounts and you still chose to reach out, not only through DMs on a fourth account, but now through an ask.

I didn't say anything before, because I didn't want to air out any dirty laundry. But since you were confident enough to send an ask, then I feel confident enough to reply. Publicly.

Months ago, early into the time we knew each other, you made a negative remark about a fic. I had said something back then, because I didn't see what the problem with the story was, and I wasn't the only one. There were other people that didn't understand where you were coming from, but that's not what stood out to me the most. There had been another user who was actually interested in the story, from the summary and tags that you posted... and you shot them down for it.

It was one thing for you to not personally like something, but it was a whole other thing for you to put someone down for liking something you didn't. That should have been the first sign for me. But it had been so early on that I wanted to see if it was a one-time thing, so I decided to wait it out.

But here's something you should know. That fic you were rude about? Was a fic from one of my four closest Discord friends. And I hope you realize how hard it was for me to sit there and watch you put other people down for being just interested in that story, and still give you a chance. Honestly, I feel like an idiot for giving you a chance at all after that. But I wanted to believe in you so much, so I did.

And for a while it seemed fine. We bantered, we teased each other for our sleep schedules, we talked about our hobbies. Hell, I even helped you build a Discord server! And I started to think that maybe it was just a one-time thing.

And then I found out you had gotten into multiple altercations with different people for fics and ships they liked. This was before I had ever known you, so maybe I could have just dismissed it as the past. But by that point it was too late, because I had already excused it once when I shouldn't have, and I couldn't excuse it again.

In DMs, you said that me cutting off contact hurt you, and to be honest, it hurt me too. When all this went down, I literally had just lost another long-time fandom friend. And now you're exhibiting a lot of the same behavior I had to block them for. I didn't want to lose you too, but I can't excuse this anymore when I made my boundaries clear and now you've continued to ignore them and have even gone back on your own word.

What hurts the most about this was that you were nice to me. You treated me with respect, you didn't disagree with me when I said I wasn't interested in a fic or a ship. But all those other stories you argued and harassed people for? I like those fics, I like those authors. A lot of them are even my friends! And now I have to reconcile that knowledge with the fact that, had I been there when you said all those horrible things to those people, I would have defended them too. And we wouldn't have been friends to begin with.

"how is a person supposed to fix a problem when they're unaware of its existence?" - I shouldn't have to be the one to tell you that putting down and harassing people for their harmless opinions is wrong. And maybe I didn't say anything to you, but if I had, would you have really changed? Or would you have just stopped saying it to my face because you knew I didn't like it? Because I know now that people said something to you about it. I know now that your behavior wasn't excused before, and I shouldn't excuse it now.

If you contact me again, I will block you. If you argue with me about this, or that I should give you another chance, I will block you. Because that will just be more proof that you never saw anything wrong with what you did, because you are just doing the same thing and harassing me now.

This is the only response you will get from me about this.

[singingcookie]

Fanfic Q&A!

Thank you for the tag @encyclopika, sorry I'm oh so very late getting back to it 😅

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Good question uhhhh 55???? That seems like way more than I thought it would be....

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

523,858 words! Granted over half of that is just my slow burn story so lol

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Primarily I've written for My Hero Academia (40 out of the total 55). But I've also written for Kingdom Hearts, The World Ends With You, and more recently Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Oh that's a good question let's see...

Drops of Jupiter (829)

A Princess's Dilemma (381)

Within Arms Reach (378)

One Plus One Does Not Equal a Date (Probably?) (303)

I Roll to Seduce (296)

I'm...genuinely shocked one of my LoZ fics is up there??? And so high??? 1, 3, 4, and 5 are all from my hero fanfics which is not surprising and most of them are super old. Number 2 I only posted in June and it was my first fic for LoZ so that's...interesting to say the least.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! The last year or so I've had a hard time working up the energy or finding the words to respond to comments, sometimes. But whenever I do gather up the energy to do it, I tend to answer everything in my inbox in one fell swoop! And I always really appreciate getting them so tbh sometimes I feel bad that it can take so much energy to reply....

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh gosh idk if I have anything that qualifies as an angsty ending lol. Maybe Tarantism (a KH fic) because it's supposed to be feelsy and then the ending is one of those "it's just a dream" things haha.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Happiest...probably A Family's Orbit? The story has married izuocha with their first kid who they're not sure when or if she'll have a Quirk of her own. But the one-shot ends pretty happy.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Hmmmm I've gotten a handful of complaints on Drops of Jupiter, on occasion. Usually just people telling me I'm going too slow (when I put in the author's notes of the very first chapter that it's "the slowest of slow burns" smh). Or this one time someone told me I didn't give Deku enough victories in the fic and it would be way better if I did.

Outside of that though, I can't think of any on my other stuff. I've been blessed with very kind commentors, I think.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've written a couple for Izuocha. But yknow usually, in all honesty, I've only ever written smut out of spite? The two fics I have (Burning Heat and Homecoming) were written in opposition to fandom tendencies at the time. Mostly everyone was talking about Izuku like someone who was a sex addict/sex god and Ochako was just kind of there. And I said "actually I think Deku's on the ace spectrum and probably mostly just cares about pleasing his partner than anything" and thus they were born. I haven't reread them in ages though that said lol

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Generally, no. However, about a year or so ago I got really into twewy again because I had just finished playing NEO:The World Ends With You. So I came up with a concept that kind of meshes twewy's concept with the my hero world? I only have one chapter posted of Death By Proxy so far, but I have an outline and little details written down whenever I'm in the right headspace for it. For what it's worth, you don't really need to know about twewy to read it, because Izuku finds out how everything works at the same time you do lol

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. Here's hoping it stays that way lol

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of? I've never been asked about it anyway.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not explicitly? I feel like I help out my friends with their stories and vice versa, but not really.

Oh!

Although once upon a time me and a friend (you know who you are) wrote a KH fanfic together but I guess that was moreso just for us than anything else lol

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Probably Izuocha, just going by the numbers.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Hmmm probably Eri-sitting? I really want to finish it at some point, and I posted the first part with every intention of doing it. But I never figured out the way I wanted to start chapter 2. Maybe someday though. Also!!! I did start writing a fanfic based off of heroes of the dark, but I didn't end up finishing it because it contrasted how the story ended and I thought completing that would be in poor taste with that said lol

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hmmm I've always found dialogue and characterization comes easier to me than I think it does to most others? There's always been discussions I've seen where people are like "oh sometimes the characters just do what they want" and I've never really...had that happen? Or at least not in a way that completely alters a story like I've seen people say. Little actions or pieces of dialogue that take me by surprise, sure, but like never anything that completely alters a plot beat I had planned. But usually at least for me, the plot beats are so centered around who they are or how they act that the odds of them veering off course are incredibly slim, if that makes sense

God I'm rambling uh dialogue and characterization I guess was my point haha.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Probably description is the thing I have the hardest time with. Some people are so good at writing a setting and making everything seem so like immersive in that way. For me, I don't see the point in describing something unless it's like relevant and so my description tends to be very to the point.

Also estimating a story's length. Usually I come up with a concept and then I'll say "oh yeah this'll only be this long" and then I start writing and writing and realize I had a lot more to say than I thought I did initially. This has happened a handful of times now haha

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic.

I definitely don't see anything wrong with it. I usually only do it for small phrases, myself, but partially because I'm not fluent in anything except for English. And I generally try to do some research or I'll check with friends if I have any who speak the language I'm using.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Kingdom Hearts! Back in the days of yore, yours truly actually wrote KH retellings with OCs back on quizilla lmao. I wrote quite a lot back then although with how long it's been most of the things I posted on there don't exist anymore. But that was back during 8th grade when I started.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Oh hmm I don't know. I feel like favorites is tough because I like a lot of my stories but for different reasons. I'm exceedingly proud of Drops of Jupiter for example. And I think it's been a true adventure to write and does have some of my best work in it as a result.

But I also think some of the prose and concepts I've made for Call From the Wild has a special place in my heart. It's very different from...basically anything else I've ever written because most ever other fic is "modern" in a manner of speaking and this was my first time writing something that's...decidedly not lol. I also think I'm fond of it because it's adhering to canon while allowing me the creativity to come up with how certain things happened since the details before the Calamity in botw are pretty limited...

Basically I guess my favorite kind of fic I've written is anything that really allows me to go nuts creatively.

Thanks so much for sending this! I don't have anyone in particular I want to tag, but if any of my followers fill it out, please tag me so I can see it!

[rootsmachine]

ao3 year in review !!

tagged by @sapphicscience thank u charlotte!!

works published: 27

word count: 64,873 -- which oh my god lmao insane

kudos: 2850!

hits: 23219

booksmarks: 532!

subscriptions: uhh for author subs it's 65 but i don't think this reports year by year! for individual fics it's 24

most popular by kudos: i got her if i want, my sadie hawkins dance tai x van fic! my top two yj fic are the two pre crash set fics i wrote, which interestingly were like .. the easiest ones to write

most hits: open my arms and give it all to you which is actually one of my favorites, set immediately post 2.07 written in a 45 minute blur

longest: a not admitting of the wound (8018) which is also the only multi chapter fic i wrote this year. i'm not HUGE on writing more than one chapter and really disliked this when i posted it but -- it's grown on me!

shortest: dead when i woke up this morning (881) .. weird dreamlike tai x van & lottie x van fic i wrote

most comments: open my arms etc again which has 19 !

fics that made me cry: i honestly don't really cry at my own fic but under the waves in the blue which is an other tai pov fic about after the crash would be Emotionally my favorite

fics that made me smile: AGAIN i don't really smile at my Own fic and a lot of what i write isn't particularly Smiley but i got her if i want was written in a Lot of ways for myself about a decade ago so. that!

gifts: all the frequencies hold was a gift for sam @redundantjane & i don't think i tagged it as such on ao3 but don't know why i am the way i am was written explicitly for charlotte @sapphicscience.

oh and my stupid fic about jeff & van was jokingly written as a gift for my partner (doesn't watch yj and Doesn't Want To) bc they told me if it's a show about a soccer team there should have been more soccer (or football as they actually said however im stubbornly american in this regard)

collabs: no Actual collabs but i think of a hillside struggling to stand as a spiritual collab w lily @somethinginthestaticterm who had a brief shared mania about the mountain goats' tallahassee

events: my most recent fic that i wrote in a daze and am pretty sure Doesn't actually make sense was technically written for yj october! haven't taken part in any other fic events mostly bc i didn't have the inspiration to write for a lot of the second half of the year but. cest la vie i'll write more in the new year:)

i'm going to tag @owltrifecta anddd anyone else who wants to do this! i honestly cannot keep people's ao3 usernames & tumblr urls straight SO if you write fic! im tagging you

[deepestbluesky]

i was tagged by @minnarr to list my 5 favorite fics i've written! it's actually very funny to me, because i saw one of these posts yesterday from a writer i like very much who i've followed for ages, and then i got tagged today, and i realized the connecting thread is literally just one person in between. anyway!

note: in case you haven't looked closely at my ao3 page (or. not closely tbh. to my eternal regret, it's still my top fandom), i used to write hockey rpf. i don't anymore, because i think hockey and especially the nhl is morally bankrupt and actively harmful, and i no longer feel comfortable writing about nhl players or sharing fic about them. this is all to say: 1, i actually don't think i've explicitly said that before and it's important to me, and 2, i will not mention any fics from this fandom.

LUCKILY, i've somehow???? written a lot????? since then????? this continues to baffle me. how did i get here. (🎶letting the days go by🎶) (if you think, gee, did sky have trouble picking 5 fics? it has been fully half an hour and i'm still at 11 fics. the lengths i go to for tumblr posts that don't matter.) (have now picked fics, didn't take much longer bc i decided to try and go for a wide spread of fandoms, and also to pick the ones in that 11-fic list that had the lowest kudos lol)

give thanks to the broken bones. this is a batfam fic in which bruce wayne gets kidnapped as a civilian and dick grayson comes to rescue him. i have some defensive feelings about this and about the way dick and bruce's relationship is written here, but i often feel like i'm not great at writing complicated relationships that aren't just fluffy, and i feel like i nailed it here. also: gen fics.

tired of waiting for tomorrow to come. another batfam fic! this one a character study of sorts about jason todd and also my love letter about bruce springsteen's music. it's one of the most self-indulgent fics i've ever written and i'm really satisfied with it, even tho there are definitely things i wish i'd done differently too. i wrote a dvd commentary companion too so if you want Even More Of My Thoughts about it, they are on ao3 :D

daydreamers please wake up. there are goddamn NINE fics for this fucking fandom and mine is the LONGEST??? this is a fic for another dc comic, Far Sector, written by nk jemisin and drawn by jamal campbell. i loved far sector, i think it's gorgeous and fun and a cool sci fi story with very fun characters, and so when i had a chance to write a fic for it for yuletide, i was DELIGHTED. and then i realized i had to figure out how to write horror for the first time. it was a lot of work and i think it turned out really well.

don't let the stars get you down. this is a fic for the untamed, and it's jiang yanli and jin zixuan. i have now written TWO platonic marriage fics for the untamed, and i'm personally thrilled about this fact. this one is shorter but also, in some ways, more interesting to me. i really love fics that dig into jyl and what she's doing and thinking and i haven't written as many as i'd like, but that is very much what this fic is. also i just have so much love and affection in my heart for the idea of two people being married and having a kid while not being In Love and in fact having sex with and falling in love with other people.

you're a curious one. this is a word of honor fic, and it is, of course, hanwenzhou. so, to be clear, if you count shl/tyk/qy together, it's CLEARLY my second most written fandom. and yet it ended up with only one representative on this list, partially because i have more kudos in this fandom lol. but that said, if i was only gonna pick one, it had to be REALLY on brand, and this fic is PEAK sky is on her bullshit. inspired by a critical role scene with sexy dangerous vampire attacks. the whole fic is building tension that never quite resolves bc building the tension is way more fun to me than writing sex scenes usually. spoiler: everything is actually fine and there's a happy resolution. this concept still lives in my head rent free.

idk who to tag, so AS USUAL, if you see this and want to play the game, do it and say i tagged you! i am very serious, you can tag me even if we've never interacted. you can also not tag me but say you got it from me! whatever works.

[hella1975]

Whats the most 'wtf' threat-message-comment thing you remember getting?

Maybe not a mean comment, but the most like 'why do you feel comfortable saying this to me' thing?

oh to be honest ive never received any actual AWFUL asks/comments but i have received a lot that toe a very fine line to the point i cant even remember all of them. like it's clear there was never any malicious intent but some people just reallyyyyy do not understand boundaries. most of the time i just wont answer but if im in a bad mood i tend to tell you guys off for it lmao so you've actually probably seen the worst ones.

i guess not threatening or mean, but one comment that has always stuck with me just bc of how 'wtf?!' i was about it is this one commenter i had on ao3. they were a reallyyy loyal commenter for MONTHS like every single chapter they'd leave at least a paragraph, and two thirds of the para would always be pure praise for my writing, which was why it was kinda complicated bc i KNEW the rest of the comment wasn't intended to be criticism, they were just the kind of person that clearly didn't have a filter. so what they'd do is they'd say all these compliments, but then they'd say what they DIDNT like about my writing. and my attitude with fanfiction is that unless the work is actively problematic, you just do not tell the author their shortcomings. idc if this isn't a widely held opinion; it's my opinion. ao3 authors are giving us this shit for FREE out of their own time more often than not while balancing jobs and a social life - it is their HOBBY and it's not your place to tell them you dont like their plot or the way they wrote something. write it yourself if it bothers you so much. and so for ages i just didnt respond to this person's comments even though MOST of the comment they'd leave would always be positive, bc the tagged on parts always felt passive aggressive. like they were clearly part of the Annoying atla fandom bc they'd always get annoyed when any of the characters held zuko accountable for anything. they openly admitted that they just wanted zuko to be babied and didn't like it when people were mean to him, a sentiment that REALLY pisses me off, and they were also SUCH a katara anti which, yk, red flag. but it was fine. it wasn't a big deal, i could handle the comments and i genuinely just forgot about them as soon as i read them.

BUT THEN one day they left me a comment being like 'im going to stop reading this fic' which that alone is such an odd thing to alert the author about, but then they proceeded to explain to me why they weren't going to read anymore. like they spent an entire para being like 'this is why i dont really like this fic anymore' LMAO?? and i distinctly remember them saying something about zi se and how they hated him partially because they hate kids but mostly because he was an OC which i just thought was such a fucking funny thing to say like the cheek?? i was flabbergasted and i was kind of sick of their shit at that point, so my response was (para-phrased): 'not to be rude but in future i think you should consider when commenting on fics if your comment is actually necessary.  it can be very discouraging as a writer to be told directly by a reader that they don't enjoy your story and don't like the direction you're taking it. i'm confident enough in taob and my own abilities that i can brush it off very easily, but i'm just worried that if you said this to a newer or smaller fic writer it could really impact their confidence. the decision to stop reading isn't the issue here, it's just that you felt the need to explicitly tell me about it' which i thought was very hot and mature of me. like i very rarely pull out the 'taob is one of the biggest fics in a very big fandom' card but when dealing with rude people i have no shame in being like 'i will not miss a single reader like you realise that right i will not notice if you stop reading' so yeah as an experience it was all just very odd JSKDGHKJDSH

[daydadahlias]

Didn't you write a story with rape? Doesn't that make your character "kind of fucking questionable" as well?

Bit of a long answer, I apologize, but I figured an ask like this required one.

I've been looking at this for a minute now and trying to decide on how exactly I want to proceed with answering this (or even if I wanted to answer at all) considering that I find the nature of it just so unbelievably ridiculous.

But, as I consider this a genuine attack on myself, I'll go right ahead with clarifying why I think this ask is completely out of line.

"Didn't you write a story with rape?"

Yes, I did. In fact, I have multiple stories on my ao3 profile (and in my original works) that deal with the subject of rape/sexual assault/harassment.

The three fics on my ao3 that have this subject matter at the forefront of their narrative/as an important component to the plot are: Portable Player, Tinted Windows, & Will Be.

If you go to read any one of these works (which I can just assume you haven't because if you did, you wouldn't be in my inbox right now, throwing around accusations about my character) you would be greeted with a list of trigger warnings and disclaimers from me as an author on the content of the story.

Here, since you haven't read them, anon, I'll pull a couple out for you!

TINTED WINDOWS: "Also, warning, this fic deals with heavy themes such as sexual assault, underage prostitution, and abuse. While there is no explicit or on-screen rape in this fic, I would like people to be safe so please don't read this fic if rape is triggering to you.

Take care of yourself <3"

PORTABLE PLAYER: If you are a victim of sexual assault or sexual coercion, be aware of that before reading.

Along those same lines, there is discussion in this fic of sexual assault/abuse as a minor. There is no on-screen rape in this fic but it is referenced and important to one character’s interaction with sexual situations. For me as a writer, it would have felt disingenuous and neglectful not to include a character who had experienced some form of sexual trauma in an au like this. Oftentimes, those who work in sex services have been abused, and it would simply be ignorant of me not to include it in some facet when trying to accurately portray the industry.

WILL BE: There are several sex scenes in this fic, one of which is non-consensual. While not inherently graphic, rape is depicted explicitly in this story as it is the main component of this plotline and thus will be extremely triggering to some readers. If you fall into this category, once again, please do not read this. The last thing I want is for someone to read something they’re not comfortable with or that will be emotionally damaging.

Please take care of yourself, be safe, and do your best to take care of others.

Will Be especially (which I assume is the fic you're referencing in this ask) is a dark fiction piece. It is clarified and has been clarified by me as the author multiple times that it is dark fiction and is not supposed to be a fun, upbeat story. And I don't know how many times I've said it, but I suppose it bears repeating: there's a strong difference between writing well-tagged, disclaimer-heavy dark fiction and writing rape scenes that are supposed to be hot or for enjoyment. Nothing about the rape in Will Be was meant to be enjoyable. It is depicted as traumatic. Nothing about it was enjoyable to read or write.

My whole argument every time I have ever spoken about this subject has been that you can write whatever you want, just make sure you tag and warn for it appropriately so a reader isn't confronted with ideals that shouldn't be promoted. No one can read Tinted Windows or Will Be or Portable Player or any of my other works and even remotely claim that it depicts rape as okay or sexy. Not someone who read the stories correctly.

I write about rape to bring awareness to the subject. Because guess what, honey, I do want morality in my fiction, at least from the author's side. And I've always given it.

If you think my character is questionable for writing about a subject that's close to me and that I think needs to be written about in this manner (in which it is depicted as detrimental to the character it impacts), feel free to get off my blog and stop interacting with me. I wouldn't want anyone to feel unsafe here.

But I've never portrayed rape, ever, as something attractive. That's the point I was making. That's the point I've always made. That if a scene is supposed to be hot, it better have consent from both parties. And, here, I'll link you to just a handful of the posts I've spoken about that in.

here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,

Oh, and here, have an entire character analysis of Will Be!Calum I wrote and linked at the end of the fic to clarify that the story is dark fiction and that Calum's character is supposed to be complex and questionable.

TL;DR: you've never listened to a single thing I've ever said.

[that-wildwolf]

I was tagged by @crescentbunny and I'm not tagging anyone in particular because I never really have a good grip on who's already done a tag game and who hasn't...

Anyway! Here goes :)

How many works do you have on AO3?

I write lots of one-shots, so this should be around thirty... Yep, twenty-seven.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

Where do you check that? You can check that???

*spends approximately 10 minutes going through AO3 settings they didn't know existed*

Cool! A lot of features I didn't know about. Anyway, um. Yes. My total word count is, for the moment, 471,674 words.

Wow. I. Um. Almost 500K words. But—and this is extremely important—I feel like this graph contains some vital information:

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Wow. Okay. I'll do this in chronological order because I never really counted.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Inheritance, Assassin's Creed, The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Attack on Titan, Fallout, Sarah Jane Adventures, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Steven Universe. I don't think I missed anything...?

That adds up to 13.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Of course I do! I thrive on feedback! Not implying that my entire self-esteem hinges on the approval of strangers on the internet, but comments are the best fucking thing ever! Instant serotonin for a whole day! Of course I'll reply! I love getting into little conversations with my readers, too!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Wow. I'm usually more of a happy ending kind of person, but A New Quest (which I wrote at the super proud age of 11) did end with half of the main characters dead and a memorial service for them as the last scene, so... You know. If you consider that angsty, then sure.

Fun fact: Crossing A Line was actually originally supposed to end with Shepard dying! The last chapter (which to me still feels a bit out of place) was rewritten completely. I'm glad I changed it, though. I'm having a lot of fun with the sequel!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

A month ago I'd have said Waiting Between Worlds without second thoughts—does it count as a happy ending when the whole fic is just a happy ending?—but it's just been going downhill the last three or four chapters. Pretty much every one of my one-shots in the When I Need You series. Also, Crossing A Line, I guess, now that it has a happy ending.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I... really don't. I'm wildly ace, all my sex knowledge comes from smut and porn and I'm pretty sure that if I were to actually write the adult stuff, I'd either go way overboard and make it too obscene to read or end up with something completely dry and clinical and unreadable too.

When there's sex scenes in my fic, I usually leave them implied. I say the characters had sex, but I never explicitly write the actual sex. I don't think I'd be good at it. (Actually, I've tried plenty of times and I know I'm not. It's the dirtiest, kinkiest filth you'd ever see and I'd really recommend against reading it.)

I do like writing the pre-chorus to sex, as it were, though. The sensual foreplay to the sexual foreplay. The soft or heated moments leading up to the act. I've even gotten comments about my lime being "extremely hot despite not being smut" and I'm more than happy with that description.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the strangest one you’ve written?

I used to write crossovers. Now I only sometimes write AUs based on a different fandom, like a Shakarian Kimi no Na wa!AU.

The strangest crossover I've ever written? Don't know if any of them were strange. I had The Wolf Among Us/The Walking Dead crossovers and Doctor Who/Sarah Jane Adventures crossovers, but both of those pretty much exist in the same universe already, so... No. No weird crossovers.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

God, I hope not. At least none that I know of.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes. Plenty. A lot. I'd wager around 4 out of 5 comments on my Shepard Twins fanfic are negative. I haven't updated the fic in a while, but that doesn't mean I'm not writing anymore. I have around 50K words' worth of WIP of it. So no, the hate comments don't bother me. (A lie: they bother me a lot. They even make me cry, sometimes. But they're not gonna be the reason I stop writing a story I enjoy.)

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

My very first fanfiction writing experience, actually. In retrospect, I think that worked out great, because that kind of cooperation made it easier to carry the whole thing through, get it to the end, and was a very positive experience - which is probably why I've continued to write fanfic.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Ahhh. Royai or Shakarian? Royai or Shakarian? Stupid, since they're almost the same relationship dynamic, but they're both amazingly written. I'm edging a bit more towards Shakarian, because interspecies stuff is always a bonus. Still, it's a close competition.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I wish! I've translated other people's fics, but I've yet to have someone do that for me.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I plan to hope to finish all my WIPs.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. This is going to come off as boastful, but I think I'm pretty good at replicating individual characters' speech patterns.

What are your writing weaknesses?

According to my beta, I use elispses too liberally. According to me, I have trouble with transition scenes. I never write in order, so I always end up with disconnected scenes I need to join into a chapter. And the join parts don't even come easy to me.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Not a fan. (When I write fanfics in Polish, I sometimes use English, but that's not the same because everyone in Poland knows English anyway.) If it's a made-up language in the fandom, I like to include some words every now and then in dialogue - especially when it doesn't translate exactly. I love spotlighting cultural differences. I actually learned a load of Jel words for my Murkmire fanfics.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Good times. Damn, that was a long time ago. *suddenly gets the overwhelming realization that they've been writing fanfic for the bigger part of their life* ...Wow.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Big Spoon/Little Spoon, a short Shakarian one-shot exploring the psychology of the Spacer background a bit. I also used lighting in a really cool way in this one! I'm really proud of it. Even when I call it "the Spooning As A Metaphor For Nationality Issues fanfic", I mean it in an affectionate way.

As far as non-one-shots go, I'm going with Crossing A Line. It's got it all: Enemies to Lovers, language barrier, interspecies awkwardness... Plus, writing from Garrus's POV is always a treat. I get to refer to humans as "aliens". What more could you want?

[florbexter]

re: copyright LBC (disclaimer: real rough, focused on german copyright law + i'm not (yet) a lawyer) I didn't find the part where she explicitly said sth against fanfiction but as she has the rights for LBC it also entails the names, setting, overall plot line etc = everything that might get included in fanfiction. note that fanfictions like gif are a greyzone in germany and could very possibly get treated as copyright infringement by a court (1)

basically, Mame asserting the she holds all the rights doesn’t change anything. fanfiction already has one foot in the infringement zone, german law doesn’t have any statutory rule for these cases, fair use (usa etc) won’t help you either, italian copyright might be more lenient but i’m not an expert on that. furthermore it’s also undecided which country’s copyright would apply so it’s a case by case thing (i know nothing about thai copyright law) (2)

in europe the standard system is the “take-down on notice system” so Mame would have to tell tumblr to take down your stuff. If article 13 of the copyright regulation passes tumblr has to prevent anyone from uploading fanfiction that infringes on Mame’s rights (which is challenging cause no one know at what point fanfiction is an infringement even though overall it most likely is), it’s a technological fuckery and won’t work but hey (3)

IF your fanfiction gets reported to or detected by Mame she could sue. as for damages: they get calculated differently in every country but for germany there would be three ways to do that, 2 of them consider suffered financial losses etc so it’s safer to upload to a non-commercial platform (=ao3). however under german law she could still demand the amount a hypothetical license would have cost you (4)

to recap: - nothing new, - fanfiction most likely constitutes copyright infringement in any country and there’s most likely not a legal exemption in place, - depending on which copyright gets applied you could possibly get sued for damages even when you don’t profit off your fanfic, - uploading to ao3 is safer, - new copyright rules in the US and article 13 in Europe will make everything even worse (5 - I think? I lost count)

(last part) my advice: don't freak out. Mame most likely won't know about fanfiction on tumblr, lawsuits are costy & time-consuming (especially re infringements on blogs like tumblr) so fanfiction on here might not be worth it. if you feel anxious, put everything on ao3. just know that that doesn't mean that your country's law doesn't judge fanfiction as copyright infringement. still, ao3 is the safest location.

First of all: thank you so much for breaking this very complicated topic down for me. 

Tbh I’m almost done with this whole LBC mess because you can’t really catch your breath with everyone involved in this project. It’s exhausting and takes the joy out of it. 

Deleting my posts with LBC fics wouldn’t really help because the reblogged posts would still be floating around, so I’m just gonna see what will happen next and post all future fics only on ao3 and share the link here which I should have done from the start because you wouldn’t be able to find ALL my fics through the tag or blog search anyway. 

I just want everyone to know that you still can send me LBC prompts and you don’t have to create an AO3 account to read them there (but I should have some invitation links somewhere if you want). 

Don’t freak out my pals and thank’s again to @ctl-yuejie for the great information! ❤