#(just thought I’d say that I don’t actually have any authority on these fandoms)

[rube-too-many-fandoms]

batfam headcanon:

Tim and Dick both love Doctor Who and bond over it a lot.

Dick is a Star Wars fan while Tim is a Star Trek fan. They butt heads about it occasionally.

Dick stans R2-D2. Tim stans Kirk (and maybe has a crush on him).

(…okay, Dick 100% had a crush on Leia. and dressed up as Han for Halloween once. or several times.)

Meanwhile, Jason’s vibing with Back to the Future and Lost in Space (and the book The Little Prince).

Dick loves the Avatar movies while Jason loves Avatar the Last Airbender. (Jason gives him shit a lot for them having stolen the name.)

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Ways I can think of that “DanDaDan” differs from other shonen series:

* Female MC is as important as male MC

* Canon romance gets consistent development through the series. I think that’s part of the reason why the MC ships with the rivals (Aira, Jiji) aren’t as popular with the fandom for once. The main ship is actually getting good development, so the fanbase doesn’t have to make up headcanons to fill in the space.

* Flips the found family trope on its head by having the main group despise new people whenever they show up and they even actively try to kick them out. The new people only end up staying because they keep lingering around to the point that the main group just gives up and lets them stay.

* The rivals aren’t emo or angst-ridden. Aira is a delusional tryhard popular girl while Jiji is a himbo drama queen. I’d even go as far to say that the MCs are the ones who are emo and angst-ridden.

* Supporting cast is more than just important, they become integral to the story. I’d say that the further you read into DanDaDan, the more it becomes an ensemble cast where everyone is a protagonist in their own right.

* World-building is all over the place, but in a good way. Most other shonen are pretty consistent with what kind of world their characters live in. MHA is superhero-based, Naruto is ninjas and magic, Bleach is spirits, and so on. DanDaDan feels like the author just throws whatever cool shit they can think of into the story. That’s actually the reason why I wrote in a different post that DanDaDan reminds me more of Marvel/DC than any other shonen series, it manages to capture the catch-all insanity of those comics.

* Doesn’t rely on hidden power-ups. The main characters either have to outsmart the villains or they have to train to get better with the powers they already have.

* The pervert comic relief guy is actually endearing for once. Not because of his pervert tendencies, but because he’s so oblivious to how socially inept he is that it’s kind of funny. This is gonna sound strange, but he sorta reminds me of Thor in Thor Ragnarok. Full of himself and oblivious to how dumb he can be. He’s Thor without the good looks lol.

* Flips the “nerdy outcast loser somehow gets a harem” trope. Instead of making Okarun cooler than how he actually is, the story emphasizes that the women who fall for Okarun are as weird as him. Momo is a weird outcast, Aira has main character syndrome, Vamola doesn’t understand how to human because she’s literally not one, Rin thought Okarun was a vampire (and wanted him to be).

* Flips the “elderly figure in charge of the teenagers” trope. I don’t really get motherly figure vibes from Seiko Ayase, I get more “cool wine aunt who is stuck with her niece” vibes. In fact, there was the arc where Okarun showed up to her in spirit mode to get her help with fighting off the alien invasion and Seiko’s response was, “Well, I’m not in the area and I have other shit to do, so you kids figure it out.”

* The series takes the piss out of the trope of mystical/magical items that the group acquired to get their powers. I mean…the main mystical MacGuffin in the series are Okarun’s balls.

* Okarun was about to go into an “I’m weak / I wish I was stronger / I want to get stronger for my friends” breakdown, but Turbo Granny told him to shut up and keep fighting.

* Not afraid to put the “cool girl” in as many funny situations as possible. Off the top of my head, the series built up Momo as this cool, tough girl who doesn’t take shit from anyone…then several chapters later, Okarun found out she got a job at a maid cafe.

(Feel free to add to the list!)

[bennyden]

User hamatoanne's fic plagiarism

Hello, I’m the author of The Android, an AO3 Robot OC x Reader fic that was plagiarized by hamatoanne on Tumblr in her Aemond x Reader story, System Error. You can read my AO3 post for more info about the issue. As you can tell by the timestamps on AO3 and the screenshots of her now-deleted story, mine was posted months before hers. I didn’t want to make this public, but it appears Anne has not learned her lesson and is grasping at straws to keep her readers in the dark. She’s been deleting her stories to hide evidence of her plagiarism. I think you deserve to know who your beloved writer gets her words from.

I don’t know this fandom, but I’ve heard you guys can get pretty crazy. Control yourselves. The only one who needs to take responsibility is Anne. Don’t send hate to her mutuals. Don’t send hate to her followers. Don’t stalk or harass or dox anyone. Read through this post and form your opinion.

First bunch of screenshots: A side-by-side comparison of her story (now deleted) and mine (still up and linked above). I took screenshots in advance in case something like this happened so I’d have proof if I needed it. I decided to compare the first chapter of my fic with the first part of hers. I could do the whole thing, but I’m a busy college student and I think just a quick skim of the pictures below is enough for people to see the extent of her plagiarism. 

I have screenshots of her entire post, but I don’t want to make this too long to scroll through and Tumblr posts cap at 30 pictures. I’m assuming some of you have already read her story multiple times, so you’re familiar with the words. If you haven’t, then I should warn you that the fic that she plagiarized is very not SFW. I’ll let you know where the not SFW content starts so you can skip it. 

On the left is my story. On the right is what Anne posted (and took down).

Not SFW content starts here. 

Not SFW content over.

Finally, I DM’ed her. This was just before I posted to The Android on AO3 about the situation. To summarize, I wrote about how I would go about the situation and how hurt I was about a bigger creator stealing from me. I admit, I was too kind and too much of a pushover. I just wanted things to go quietly. She later replied with this and deleted her fic immediately. 

“I was completely stupid for not giving your credit” Why do they always play dumb? You copy that much and can’t even think to put my name there? You credit the artist but not the person who basically wrote your whole story? The story that gave you over 3k notes, so much more clout than any of your other stories has earned you? Total BS.

“I had every intention of giving credit where it was due…But I forgot” Right. Sure. Of course. If she felt guilty about plagiarizing, she would not be so shameless to accept praise like she did. I have examples of where she happily thanked people for complimenting "her work”, but didn’t want to bring other blogs into this, especially since they were none the wiser to her plagiarism. Ironically enough, someone even gifted her a badge for being a good writer the day she replied to my DM. She tagged that post “#a breath of fresh air on a horrible day”. I wonder why her day was horrible. Whoever gifted her that badge deserves their money back.

My thoughts when approaching her DMs were:

If she wants to keep up the story? Fine, just edit the post to say that it was heavily influenced by my story and leave a link to the original. I don’t mind. The readers will see that, click my story, compare the two, and think, “Hey, that’s not just inspiration! She plagiarized!” and her downfall would start from there without me having to do anything.

If she ignored me and didn’t fulfill that request, i would take matters into my own hands and expose her on her own post. Even more damaging.

In the end, she chose to delete the post entirely, getting rid of the evidence and her clout. I actually didn’t expect this outcome since I thought she’d like the clout too much, but I guess she decided this route would be the least damaging to her reputation. Everything was swept under the rug for now. 

And like a fool, I said thanks and went on with my life. But I decided to keep track of her. Because while I was too cowardly to do anything, I knew there would always be someone in the crowd who would take action. And it seems like people did. 

After reading the supportive comments from readers of my fic, I started to regret how lightly I handled it. I wanted to be mature even though I wanted her entire blog to fall and her reputation taken away. But I didn’t want to be a “bad person”. I wondered if I should keep pursuing the issue. I realized that my overly-people-pleasing behavior might lead her to continue her ways. I decided to speak out because others might’ve had their works taken by her and that my silence wasn’t helping. 

Next is her post, now deleted (I wonder why), about how she’s been so sad and how she’s going to be deleting her old stories and starting over. I’m likely not the only one she’s plagiarized from if she’s deleting other stories. At the time, I only saw supportive replies and reblogs on it, but maybe she deleted it after people started calling her out? Idk.

She’s playing the victim game pretty hard. Acting as a kind underdog even though she’s the big creator who stole from a nobody like me. I know I said on my AO3 update that people shouldn’t send hate to her (and even censored her name after she deleted her story) but I guess I’m a little happy that people sought to call her out on her shit. I wish I was as brave. 

Later, a nice person (we’ll call her Bob because she asked to remain anonymous) DM’ed me directly with a kind message. After seeing this, I decided I should take action and expose all of this since Anne obviously hasn’t learned and wants to keep it all hidden. Bob confirmed that I’m not the only victim of Anne’s plagiarism either.

Bob asked that I not use screenshots of our DM’s so here is a transcription of the important parts:

“Hey! I just found out that one of your fics had been plagiarized by someone in the HOTD community. First of all, I am tremendously sorry that happened…”

(For Bob’s privacy, I won’t explain her relation to Anne. Just know that Anne has refused to message her back).

“I definitely think you should make a blog post. with side by side comparison. I am still completely gobsmacked that she pilfered your entire story word for word and changed a few things. We found evidence that she had plagiarized multiple stories. Not just yours. We found out her mermaid!aemond fic was entirely stolen as well as a few others. She has quietly deleted them and hasn't spoken on them since.”

“We surmised that she takes ‘underrated’ fics from different fandoms and changes the name and that's it. It's almost like she believed that stealing from other fandoms was going to draw less attention than stealing directly from the HOTD fandom.”

So if you noticed that one of your favorite Aemond fics is gone, now you know why.

‘But benny, she still wrote her own sentences and just changed it around to fit aemond!’

Fanfiction is transformative. You know what the source material is and who created it. You know you’re not reading a copied and pasted text with maybe some words and sentences switched around. This wasn’t fanfic. According to Google, plagiarism is defined as, “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” (See what I did there? I credited Google. Is it so hard to give credit where credit is due?) She copied people's work, didn't give credit to the source material, and claimed it as her own. That's plagiarism.

I wouldn’t have had a problem if she properly credited me and linked the original story. I wouldn’t have had a problem if she didn’t blatantly copy and paste the entire text and premise. I wouldn’t even require getting permission to write a story based on my fic if she had satisfied those conditions.

She’s a 27-year-old grown-ass woman with enough free time to simp over some blond guy with an eyepatch. I’m a 21-year-old college student who only posts fics during the summer and winter because that’s when school’s on break. I’m too busy writing lab reports and essays to be an active writer online. The fact that she can disrespect smaller writers so tremendously should not be acceptable. The fact that she also deceived her devoted readers and friends about her "works" is also unacceptable.

What can you do about this? To be honest, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had to deal with this before. I want to be a good person and say, “Don’t send any hate to Anne, don’t harass her. Just unfollow her and stop supporting her.” But that obviously hasn’t taught her anything. She’ll just make a half-assed apology, maybe go on hiatus, maybe disappear, and then pop up again under another name to steal from another creator. If you have any ideas on how to deal with this, please tell us. 

She can try to block me or delete her posts, but the evidence is out and the damage is done. Anything she does to hide this mess will only make it worse for her. I’d appreciate people bringing more awareness to this issue, especially if it can reach the eyes of others she’s taken from. 

Thanks for reading.

[dinarosie]

hi i am actually very interested in the fact that you are "anti-marauders" because i have a strong feeling you've never actually had a conversation with a (real, not tik-tokified) marauders fan. i don't particularly "hate" snape, but i do NOT think he's a good person. i have a lot of similar nuanced feeling pertaining to peter, and i will admit that james and sirius are often childish and did bully snape. i've decided to reread half-blood prince, and rewatch the movie, so i can have a real conversation of my opinion on snape, and i will send in another ask later.

also, sectumsemprus (is that it?) is his SIGNATURE spell- for reference, voldemort's signature spell is avada kedavra, and harry's is probably expelliarmus. do you know how many times you have to use a spell for it to become your signature spell?

Hi there! Thanks for reaching out.

First, I want to clarify that I use anti-Marauders tags not because I created this blog solely to spread hate against them or to harass their fans, but because it’s a general Tumblr rule. For nearly any post criticizing a character, you’re expected to use anti tags, as fans of that character might not want to see critical posts about their favorite. This ensures fans who may not want to see criticism of their favorite characters can filter or avoid it if they choose.

Now, you mentioned that I probably haven’t talked to a “real” Marauders fan, which is why I have anti-Marauders posts. But honestly, I don’t think all fans of the Marauders share the same views, nor is it possible to talk to every fan before making a post. I see a lot of anti-Snape content daily—much of it from Marauders fans—and often get an idea for a post that I decide to share. I imagine most bloggers do this; it’s part of engaging with fandoms online. I try to offer thoughtful critiques when possible, but that does take time. Sometimes, seeing particularly harsh, illogical, or double-standard comments pushes me to post a short, sarcastic response—one that mirrors the style of some of the content I encounter.

Overall, I wouldn’t call myself “anti All of Marauder fans.” Yes, I use terms like “Marauders fans” and “anti-Marauders” tags, but my issue is only with fans who unreasonably hate Snape and mock him (even for things like his background) or who attack Snape supporters, labeling them with hurtful terms simply for supporting him. Outside of those specific cases, I have no problem with other fans.

As for your question about Sectumsempra, I understand you’re suggesting it became Snape’s “signature” spell through frequent, harmful use. I looked up the reference you mentioned, and here’s the passage from Deathly Hallows where Lupin speaks of Sectumsempra:

“He lost his hood during the chase. Sectumsempra was always a specialty of Snape’s. I wish I could say I’d paid him back in kind, but it was all I could do to keep George on the broom after he was injured, he was losing so much blood.”

It’s worth noting the term Lupin uses here: specialty, not signature. Sectumsempra first appears in Half-Blood Prince as an unknown spell by an unnamed creator. After Harry uses it on Malfoy, it’s still an unfamiliar spell until Snape admits to creating it at the end of the book. But in Deathly Hallows, right after the Battle of the Seven Potters, Sectumsempra becomes widely associated with Snape (via Lupin’s words).

While in Half-Blood Prince the goal is to keep the creator of this spell anonymous, in Deathly Hallows it’s crucial to know exactly who used Sectumsempra during the Battle of the Seven Potters. The inconsistency here seems intentional. The author isn’t referencing Sectumsempra’s notoriety here to highlight Snape’s past; rather, I believe she brings it up as an important clue about the future. This clue gains significance after we view Snape’s memories, especially after reading Dumbledore’s line to him just before the Battle of the Seven Potters:

And Severus, if you are forced to take part in the chase, be sure to act your part convincingly… I am counting upon you to remain in Lord Voldemort’s good books as long as possible, or Hogwarts will be left to the mercy of the Carrows..."

But in THE PRINCE’S TALE, we see that Snape defies Dumbledore’s advice—he steps out of his role as a Death Eater and targets another Death Eater with a spell that’s highly conspicuous, one that could jeopardize his cover. (If successful, and had it hit another Death Eater, they would have immediately recognized the spell as Snape’s own.) So why would Snape make such an irrational choice? Why take such a risk? To save the life of Remus Lupin.

This scene is one of many that show Snape’s growth and commitment to doing the right thing—not out of loyalty to Lily, not for Dumbledore, nor for any personal reward.( And that's exactly why, in the chapter where Snape's true loyalty and the real story behind him are finally revealed, this spell and its backstory are brought up.) As he admitted in his iconic line to Dumbledore, he had grown weary of watching lives be lost when he had the power to save them. Whether it’s an old bully, Lucius and Narcissa’s son, or James and Lily’s, Snape steps in without hesitation to protect a life—even if it endangers his own

Another reason I don’t believe the author’s aim here is to highlight Snape’s crimes as a Death Eater is that there are numerous scenes throughout the series discussing Snape’s actions during that time. Yet, we never see any indication or hint from the author that Snape committed serious harm or atrocities while serving as a Death Eater. In fact, in his argument with Bellatrix, it’s mentioned that Snape actively tried to avoid participating in missions. During his planning conversations with Dumbledore, we’re also told that his soul has never been tainted by murder. And in Karkaroff’s trial, there’s no crime or accusation he can use against Snape.

[enkas-illusion]

Two Can Play a Game

Fandom / Pairing: Jujutsu Kaisen / Geto Suguru x f!reader

Rating: NSFW/Explicit - MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

Content Warning: suggestive, Gojo being a menace, roommate shenanigans, wingman!Gojo, violent games, friendly banter, geto’s huge fingers…

Chapter Summary: You are stuck with your awful roommates on their Saturday games night. You were ready to be bored to death this weekend but what you were not expecting was being stranded on Geto’s lap by the end of the night.

Author's Notes: gamer!Suguru rotting my mind. Let me know if I should make a part 2! If you enjoy it, feel free to like, reblog or comment; I’d love to know your thoughts. Thank you for reading! 

-Nanami's Munchkin

Part 2

Being roommates with Satoru and Suguru was nothing short of an adventure. It always felt like you were taking care of two cats who actually did pay rent but were a pain in the ass to handle. 

The tamed one was Suguru, the black cat with black cat energy. Satoru, on the other hand, was worse than the orange cats, a menace, making your life miserable. However, you wouldn't have it any other way – a cat person always loves the little devils immensely, despite the hell they raise.

Saturday nights were game nights for the boys. Usually, Shoko, the fourth person in the house, your white dove of peace between the guys and you was out for the weekend. The dove in question, however, had betrayed you to flock in someone else’s nest so you were left alone with the men-children screaming over a stupid game.

It's true that you don't know what you've got till you don't have it anymore. You think back on all the times you open a bottle of wine, enjoy a smoke on the balcony, and share the gossip of the week with Shoko. 

You weighed your options – scrolling through reels while silently drinking your wine while pretending you don't exist would be a lot easier than spending the night witnessing your two roommates behave like toddlers. 

So you did just that, flopped down on the armchair scrolling through feed, sipping your wine quietly. You'd downed more than half the bottle before boredom hit, causing you to look up at the TV to see what Suguru and Satoru were up to. 

The amount of fun they were having playing a violent and gory game made you cringe. For them, this was no less wholesome than a fluffy princess ride at DisneyLand.

“Seriously guys, is this fun to you? You just go around killing people!” Ideally, it'd be better to let it slide without the unnecessary commentary, but this is far from ideal so you let the boredom and booze speak for you.

“Oh and Genshin is not violent at all!! Sweet little Hillichurls getting hit by a meteorite just for existing is fun, right?” Satoru mocks back in an instant without taking his eyes off the game.

“I don’t think you know Hillichurls to be calling them sweet and little,” you argue, offended that your favorite game was dragged into the conversation.

This time Suguru replies,”Maybe you are just salty because you don’t know how to use a console.”

Taking full offense, you challenge, “I would've learnt it ages ago if I wanted to…”

“What's stopping you? That way you can play your precious Genshin on the console as well. It will be fun. Then we can all have a game night.” Suguru's tone is condescending but you understand him well enough to know when to take the bait.

“Hard pass! No way I wanna play with you both. It would only make my hair whiter than this dumbass.” You say pointing at Satoru.

“Huh! The feeling's mutual darling. I’m not psyched about you ruining our sacred games night. Also, you might finally start to look a bit attractive with hair like mine.” 

Satoru’s comment ticks you off, you know better than to let it get to you but you're too far gone to think straight now. So you put down your wine glass as you stomp to where they're sitting, ripping out the console from Suguru, settling in the tiny space between the two manspreading, “You’re on, bitch!” 

“You really think you can beat me?” Satoru looks amused, Suguru has a similar look on his face.

“Just shut the fuck up and start.”

As the game starts, you realize how dumb this decision was – you'd walked right into the trap. Not only do you not know how to use the console, you don’t even know what this game was and what you needed to do.

“I’m going to find youuu~~” Satoru says in a creepy singsong voice that makes you shriek as you try to run in the game. 

Suguru just lies back on the sofa laughing at both your antics. No matter how much you tried to believe the cat analogy exclusively applied to the two, everyone knew you were one too.

“Found you!” Satoru squeals as you nevertheless try to hide and fail miserably. And before you know it, your screen turns red with the words DEFEATED on it.

You pout at Satoru and he says, “Aww, that was no fun. Let me heal you so we can go again.”

“Really! You can do that?” You ask, looking up to him with glittering eyes.

“Satoru!” you hear Suguru suddenly scold, causing you to stare at him with confusion. And before you can ask what was wrong, you hear a few more gunshots from the game. Satoru, being the absolute worst, continues to shoot your already dead character.

‘SatoruAlmighty_89 WINS’ the screen displays.

“Suguru! Satoru is so mean!” You look at Suguru with those puppy eyes that you know makes him melt. Your final trump card, given that he may or may not have called that look adorable in the past.

“‘Toru, your name doesn’t really look that well on top of the leaderboard… kind of used to seeing my own.” Suguru pokes at his best friend just to rile him up.

“Bitch please… Do you wanna go again?” Satoru takes the bait.

“Nope. Not me… her.” he says, tilting his head in your direction.

“Hmm?” you simply give him a confused look. But before you can decipher the meaning behind his words, he wraps his arm around your waist to pull you to him in one swift motion till you’re sitting on his lap. Your face turns hot as you quickly slide down to adjust between his parted thighs instead – trying to keep the atmosphere pg-13, what with Satoru in the room.

Suguru, on the other hand, couldn’t care less – he leans forward till his chest is flush against your back, resting his chin on your shoulder. His huge arms wrap around you, enveloping you into him as they hold the console in front of you. 

“Okay, let’s defeat him, shall we?” he whispers sweetly in your ear, “Let me take it from here.” you feel his hot breath behind your ear, making you blush harder than a rose.

Satoru gives you both a disgusted look, “Ugh… get a room!”

“Somebody’s bitchless.” you tease Satoru. It wasn’t hard to sense the sexual tension that had always lingered in the back ever since you had started living together with Suguru – sure, you had two other roommates but you never wanted to tear the others’ clothes off in a fervor. Shoko had once teased you that ‘if one could try cutting the sexual tension with a knife, the knife would grow blunt due to how thick it was.’ 

As you’re laughing at the now-pouting Satoru, you twist your neck to look back at Suguru, giving him a big grin that makes his heart do summersaults. 

Suguru’s fingers encompass your dainty ones as he guides them to the console. As the guys start playing the match, you move your fingers to the side of the device, letting Suguru take control as his fingers rapidly slam and rotate the buttons. You can’t look away from his hands even when the game begins. His fingers look so sexy moving around the console that you can’t help but imagine how they would feel on you.

“Pay attention to the game, sweetheart.” he whispers into your ear. His words catch you off-guard as your eyes shoot up to the screen, embarrassed that he’d caught you staring. His comment puts you into a deeper daze but you shake it off to focus on the screen, still you find your mind wandering, barely caring about the game. 

He’s so into the game that his chest often presses against you as he tries leaning forward when a battle gets too intense. At one such moment, before you can talk yourself out of it, you shift your hips back ever so slightly to press against his crotch. You swear you feel his otherwise restless movements still for a split-second but he doesn’t let his composure falter since he had a match to win.

Suguru actually manages to win as his name makes it back on top of the leaderboard. You cheer out loud and turn around to hug Suguru, but not before tilting your head to blow raspberries at Satoru.

“What are you… like five?” Satoru complains. You simply bring your hand up to do a blah-blah gesture, rolling your eyes at him dramatically.

“It’s not fair! It was two vs one.” Satoru pouts.

“Go cry about it somewhere else. A win is a win!” you tease him further. 

Satoru gets up from his place and walks off saying, “I anyway don’t play with cheaters.” 

If you weren’t reeling in the high from your win and laughing at Satoru’s antics, you would have noticed the wink he gave to Suguru before retiring to his room.

You’re still laughing as you watch him go back to his room and shut the door behind him with a ‘night, cheaters!’

When it gets quiet, you suddenly become super aware of the way you’re still perched comfortably in Suguru's lap. 

“You need to actually teach me how to use this thing.” You say as you try to break the impenetrable tension, fumbling with the console before tossing it on the sofa, beginning to get up.

Before you can move any further, you’re pulled right back into Sugurus lap as you let out a tiny squeal at the unexpected move. Your breath hitches in your throat when you feel his clearly evident boner, hard against you.

“Did you really think I'd let you off so easily after you pulled that little stunt during the game?”

[vampire-exgirlfriend]

You guys, what the fuck is up with the increase in stealing and plagiarising in this fandom lately? When did that become a thing that was okay to do?

The first time I was flat out plagiarized was almost four years ago in a different fandom. A well known author in that fandom took the first paragraph of a short one shot, one of the first things I’d ever posted and that I was incredibly proud of, switched a few words, and then used it as the summary for their slightly longer fic. They then went on to steal the premise of my ficlet and just…make it longer. This was brought up in a discord server a friend of mine was in that I wasn’t and the general consensus was “who would believe you? You’re nobody.” So I kept my mouth shut and I deleted my fic because seeing it made me feel like shit. Something similar then happened to a friend of mine with the titles of her fics being stolen, flat out and word for word, for the same characters. And again it was “no one will believe you.”

We shut up. We stuck it out. And then when it kept happening, to us and to others, we left that fandom.

I was so, so excited when HotD aired. I was back in my ASOIAF phase that had never actually ended. It was a new opportunity to make friends with common interests and my writing improved so much because of how passionate about the canon material I was. I have made some of the most incredible friends, like life-long, stay up all night talking, come to my house or let’s hang out when you’re in my state/country kind of friends. It’s pretty amazing. But this fandom is a whole different beast than any other I’ve been involved with. I have no idea if it’s the general age of the fandom, or the lack of prior fandom experience, or what us old people call the “tiktokifcation of fandom.” But it’s different. And while that’s usually a good thing, there are so many times when this has been awful. There is a huge lack of accountability here. People are stealing things. And the weirdest part is, they don’t care! It is plagiarism to have someone else's story opened while you write yours so that you can tone match the other writer. It is plagiarism to take people’s well thought out ideas and then use them beat for beat. I get it, it’s fic, nothing is wholly original, we are going to see idea recycling! That’s just fandom. But to model your entire story off of someone else’s is heinous. And it’s wrong. And this literally just happened to a very good friend of mine. When she mentioned she was uncomfortable with it and had blocked the person who did this, someone she considered a level headed mutual (who has recently admitted to plagiarising someone else themselves, mind you) told her that she was just drama baiting and didn’t have the right to be upset. The same thing happened to me with a now deleted creator who told me that she dragged me in her discord server and that her friends (all big name creators would essentially “black list me” for saying anything).

It’s not dramatic to not be okay with your work being stolen! This is a normal fucking reaction. In trad publishing or academia, this shit gets you banned, expelled, etc. It can ruin your life.

I received a slew of anons recently asking for help with graphic making and editing. And I was so excited about them. That shit is fun for me. We chatted for a while, with them on anon, and that was that. Until I got an anon letting me know that the person I was talking with was someone who had stolen ideas and storylines from me and other creators. So I looked, I asked friends to look, and the consensus was “yeah, this is fucking plagiarism, and it’s weird.” All of the edit stuff she’d asked about was used on an edit that was a direct rip off of my own. But I elected to not make a thing of it, to ignore it, to wash my hands of it because of the weird fucking trend of calling out theivery being labeled as drama baiting. And I didn’t want that, not after I had genuinely made the mistake of thinking that someone had stolen an idea from me when they hadn’t (calm down, we’re really close friends now). This person deleted their old blog and so I thought it was over. And then yesterday I got a dm from this new blog I didn’t even know existed accusing me of sending them harassing anons.

A blog, who had stolen from me and at least four other people, who had reached out to me on anon for help and ideas, that at this point I didn’t even know existed anymore, said they knew I was sending hateful anons accusing them of theft. I wasn’t, of course, because I had no idea they even existed, and it made no sense that I would even know they’d created another blog. I only found out about their new blog when they dm’d me from it. But they had obviously done this to enough people that they were now getting called out on it.

You guys, we have to fucking stop acting like this. This fandom needs to stop stealing from each other and eating our own. And if someone brings up that they’ve had an idea stolen, we need to take them seriously instead of insinuating they’re only attempting to cause drama. Stop sending people unhinged anons because you feel like you’re guilty of lifting from another creator and just work on creating something original. Writing is hard. Giffing and making edits is fucking hard. And no, nothing will ever be 100% original, that’s just impossible at this point, but stop fucking taking things that aren’t yours and claming them as your own. Do better. Grow up.

[laura1633]

Fic writer interview thank you for the tag @481boxboxbaby and @souvenir116

Tagging @saviour-of-lord and @ilyarozanove (not sure if you have been tagged already and no pressure if you don't like tag games!) and anyone else who wants to do this feel free to use this as your invite.

How many works do you have on AO3? 155 - Wow okay I don’t know how I ended up writing so many.

What's your total AO3 word count? 1,076,320

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 1. Preloved  2. Good Boy 3. A million times over 4. Weak 5. My Pretty Princess

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to respond to comments and I have gotten a lot better at it. If I have ever not responded it's because I have left it too late and then panic over whether it's still appropriate to respond!! I read all comments though, it’s the biggest motivator so thank you to everyone who leaves comments on fics, I appreciate you all <3

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? Either ‘One last night’ or ‘Hitching a ride’ Both are open ended though. 

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?There are a lot that have happy endings but off the top of my head I will go with ‘A million times over’. It’s just an overall short cute one-shot.

Do you write crossovers? No

Have you ever received hate on a fic? If I have then I have forgotten about it because I can’t recall any hate coming in. I am sure there are plenty of people who hate my stories though, I’ve just been lucky they haven’t told me about it! 

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yes I do and lots of it. Almost any kind. Dom/sub, pain play, tentacles, omegaverse, lots of kinks, nice soft sex, loss of virginity. I would definitely say varied!

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not stolen but hmmm I have seen something very close to what I have written. 

Have you ever had a fic translated? No, not that I have seen anyway. I have had people ask before but I am not sure if they ever actually translated them.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? No but I have spoken about it with @481boxboxbaby unfortunately I am disastrously disorganised so I don’t know if I should really inflict that on other people 😂 I do think it would be fun to have a fic with a set up and then multiple authors taking a chapter each to write the scenario from various drivers points of view. That would take a lot of organising though.

What's your all-time favorite ship? Lestappen

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?There are so many of them, I have a folder full of random wips that will likely never be finished. At the moment I am fighting my way to try and finish a cowboy Max au one shot, I have started it and deleted it soooo many times, I will finish it though, it’s just not clicking right now! 

What are your writing strengths? I guess maybe just having a certain level of creativity when it comes to coming up with ideas. That can also be my downfall because there are too many ideas pinging around for me to concentrate on one! 

What are your writing weaknesses? I always say that my writing style is more about a general vibe rather than it being grammatically correct 😬

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I’ve personally never done it. I’d have to use google translate and I wouldn’t trust that it would read properly.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? F1

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?Charles/Oscar or Max/Rico Verhoeven. I will get around to writing them eventually

What's your favorite fic you've written? It’s probably recency bias but the fic I am writing and posting right now “Preloved” is probably my favourite. I think it's also super encouraging when people are commenting and enjoying the story so it has made the whole thing more enjoyable. I will definitely be writing some more multi chaptered fics going forward. Of the one shots maybe The Sweetest Deal because it plays into my love of babygirl Max.

[your-writer-beta-side-piece]

Looks like it’s time for me to pop back up again begging for fics about my new hyper fixation!

What’s in store for you in this post:

*An impassioned plea throughout the whole post to all of you amazing writers

*Gifs that will keep you up at night too

🎅 *My Gator Tillman fic Christmas wishlist 🎅

🏆*A (Smutty) Rec at the bottom for the best Gator x OC I’ve found so far🏆

*More gifs because goddamn I’m in a chokehold 

It is seriously criminal how there’s like, two Gator x OC’s (that I can find, if you have any don’t hold out on me please!! I feel like I’m going through withdrawals having to wait a week for another episode as it is) on here and AO3. 

I mean come on we all love ourselves a slutty, dominate, broken character that we all fantasize about fixing. 

Not a single thought I’ve had about this man has of the Christ like variety, and I don’t think I really need to explain why just look at these gifs/photos:

HE HAS HANDCUFFS ON THE BED THE FICS ARE WRITING THEMSELVES 

🎅My Gator Tillman Fanfic Christmas wishlist🎅:

I want a full story fleshing out our new favorite loser, but still somehow so damn attractive, Gator

I want an ofc that is too good for him but we all know we’d sink that low too girl

I’d LOVE it if it followed canon. Like how in the show he’s trying to get her/he's going after her like he is trying to get Dot 

(come on if he was stalking you and called out to you and said “mama it’s time to come home” YOU TOO WOULD FOLD)

I want him to use those handcuffs on our girl once he finally gets her

I want smut 

Y’all on AO3 come up with the best damn oc’s there’s a reason they’re binding yalls books and talking about them all over booktok like you guys are published authors 

(Im not saying it’s right/that I participate or that it is even legal, I’m saying Ive seen it and I know you guys have the caliber of writing to make some people not give a fuck and try the law for some of you guy's stories)

I want him to call her mama

I want the dominance, the stalking, the cat and mouse chase

I want a plot as wild as this season and those families are

I know some people hate fics that follow plots of books or shows but this season is AMAZING and so fucking wild. I love it and I’d love to read about it and be immersed further into Fargo. I don’t want to leave the season 5 Fargo world I want to stay longer... with Gator

I want more smut 

A plot that can only be contrived by fanfic authors who have been reading and writing since they were 15 or even younger

I want even more smut 

I want all of the angst, good writing, and humor you can think of

I have a feeling we’ll need some of you fic doctors to write us a fix it fic of some sort 

But I especially want smut. I want to drown in smut. 

I want it all and you guys have served it all before so I know it's possible

If I could outline a whole plot, along with side plots, new characters and character arcs, write, and edit as fast as some of you guys can I would do it myself. I would do it for us. I’ve considered it. I mean I’ve been really considering it these past few days since it’s dryer out here than the Lyon’s bed. I’ve got an idea, lust, Christmas candy, and the hyper-focus to keep me interested for at least three to four weeks!! (I might have started if it wasn't the week before finals for me right now)

But some of you guys who’ve written for Steve Harrington (let alone other fandoms) have the ability to be best selling authors, so I know these communities have both the talent, ability, and the horniness to do this. 

I believe in you guys, I believe in us. Let's do it for Christmas 🎄

REC I PROMISED:

Since it is the season of giving, I’m going to share my favorite fic so far. Let me know if there’s any fics we need to add, OR if there’s any books with love interests like Gator, for science 👀 

Again the general criteria I’m using is along the lines of:

Is there an actual story going on?

Is there an oc who has a purpose, goals, wants, needs, an actual arc of some sort?

Is Gator Tillman still sexy af?

Is it following canon or is it original?

Is the plot and characterization good?

Does Gator call her mama or is it at least probable that he will 👀 ?

Is the grammar/writing good?

Basically the same stuff we all want to check off 

MY FAVORITE FIC SO FAR REC: 

The best I’ve found so far has been: 

Every Little Thing

By BuckysGrace

Link:

Why I like love it:

1.) The writing is pretty damn good

Normally we have to wait a few weeks or months with new movies/shows/books for people to have time to write and publish their well written and plotted fics but we have been blessed early!!

I really like the sprinkle of tid bits to come here and there. The authors really laying the foundation down for this story leaving little comments and hints here and there in their writing and characters conversations. 

I can tell that the author is really working hard to create believable oc's and a world that could actually be a part of the Fargo TV show universe.

2.) Damn the little taste of smut we got just flamed the fire!

Tell me why I could actually visualize Gator during that scene?!?! It really felt like his characterization was perfect here! And damn I love me some dominant, possessive, jealous himbos who would kill for me or worse.

I PROMISE I'M TRYING SO HARD NOT TO SPOIL ANYTHING FOR YOU GUYS!!!

3.) I really like our girl Daphne (OC)

I feel like I can actually see her. Like I can hear her when she speaks. I can feel the awkwardness of her situation and her uncomfortableness radiating through me. 

I like that she's shaping up to be a character with wants and goals and not just a 2-d romantic partner

4.) GODDAMN THAT DINNER WAS AWKWARD AND SEXY 

I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE AFTERMATH ooooooo boy.  I’m not spoiling anything. You can suffer (and enjoy 😏) that part all for yourselves

5.) We have confirmation from the author that there is a whole ass plot and story in the works

I love to hear it almost as much as I love to read it! But I could tell that they had some stuff in mind from the way they were writing alone before the confirmation. 

6.) AND ITS GOING TO FOLLOW CANON EVENTUALLY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME US! 

I might just get to hear Gator call our girl mama before I die from fic starvation. Plus we just might get the stalker Gator on page like we have on screen!

7.) I like the dual time line

It’s done a good job of getting me hooked. I’m really interested in learning more about Daphne’s past and her relationship with Gator. I think as time goes on as we learn more about their relationship and her relationship with both her family and his things are really gonna kick off.

4.) Gators characterization seems to be pretty accurate 

He's selfish, possessive, dominante, kind of a jackass, but he is also sweet to those he cares about. Which, is something I've noticed when watching the show, and I've seen some posts talking along similar lines. I don't think he's mean deep down, I don't think he has it in him. I think the facade he puts on is the product of his father.

BUT I'm not excusing anything he's done of course

6.) The grammar is pretty good 

Good writing like punctuation and sentence structure along with good story telling is just so important to me. I'm one of those people who can't get into a story if it's not written well.

7.) GUYS IM SMELLING THE ANGST COMING

Some of us are like blood hounds for this stuff, you read hundreds or even thousands of fics and books and you can start to know what goodies are coming your way. And I can feel the pain train a comin down the tracks! 

8.) The smut is promising to be real real good 

I just want to circle back to this for a moment because I am so excited to read more

What I don’t like about it:

It’s not longer/finished already so I can't devour it in one sitting 😭

You might not have read it yet 

@buckysgrace

I think the only way through this is to fill our thirst for this man and if here and TikTok have shown me anything it’s that we’re DAMN thirsty! 

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE!? GO WRITE MORE GATOR X OC SO WE CAN ALL DEVOUR IT ON A03 OR READ BUCKYSGRACE’S FIC AND CRY WITH ME THAT THERES NOT MORE OF IT OR MORE OF ANY OTHER GATOR X OFC FICS 😭😭😭

*Did I write all of this instead of doing homework and studying for next weeks finals? Yes. Am I eventually going to devolve into a fic rec/review only blog? Maybe maybe not.

More gifs/photos for research purposes

[hxhhasmysoul]

Have you seen this? https://www.tumblr.com/gojosbf/748604451516006400/hey-guys-what-the-fuck-is-this-who-is-voting?source=share

[That is satosugu blog (sorry).]

Just want to say : thanks so much @hxhhasmysoul. You open a new door to me, in shipping Sukuna/Itadori, and it's in the top 5 fav ships above.....As a multishipper, I never consider SukuIta until I found this blog of yours (especially your SukuIta fics recs).

I've read all SukuIta fics from your fics recs list, do you mind if I ask another fics recs? Also, thanks a lot for the Killua/Gon fics recs, really love them.....🤩

Don’t apologise for linking a SatoSugu blog, you don’t have to warn me  XD Thank you for the ask, I will be really mean, so just a fair warning.

Also it’d be pretty obvious that they are a SatoSugu blog even if you hadn’t warned me. What gives them away is that they can’t read, reading comprehension is just rare among the fans of that ship.  

They ask who voted in a ranking made based on the amount of published works on Pixiv XD

It’s even funnier no one in the notes noticed that. 

But these comments are fascinating to me.

So like 3 Gojou x Getou is reasonable but 4 Getou x Gojou is not, so it’s unreasonable for Getou to top? Is that it? 

Same with 7 and 8, it’s even funnier because the preference as to who tops is usually reverse in the western fandom XD

I’m not sure why Yuuta x Toge is not reasonable.. I mean they are the same age, right? 

Well Gojou x Utahime they disapprove on the forced straightness grounds, I mean even if they ship stsg, Getou’s dead, and Gojou could be bi… but whatever icky woman is icky.  

I mean I disapprove of shipping Gojou in general, because I think all Gojou ships are either misogyny or queerphobia, because he’s too awful to force onto other people… The dumb fascist is the only one that can be punished thusly, they are equally awful as people ;)

I guess the ships between Megumi and Toge, or Gojou and Nanami or Ijichi are pedo ships, because Toge is a year older than Megs and Gojou is at least a year older than either of them. Or is Gojou x Ijichi just simple abuse? I’d call it that. Oh, and I checked Nanami x Ijichi and that’s just clearly pedo stuff, Nanami is one year older. (Honestly this ship could be really nice, Ijichi could use a guy who can stand up for himself and actually is thoughtful)

What more can I say… Generally there being just two Sukuna ships is disappointing, people have poor aesthetic taste. No Kenny ship is also sad, especially seeing how popular Toge is and well that guy gets barely any development in the story, he’s kinda boring to me. 

As to Yuuji’s ships. GoYuu falls under Gojou shouldn’t be shipped, period. The ships with Megumi I get. Nanami and Chousou make sense too, even if they’re not my jam. But the ship with Getou… every time I see it, it makes me lose faith in humanity a little. 

___

I’m glad you got into SukuIta. More fics:

Smail just has a lot of stuff and I love most of it.

This is specifically what Smail wrote for me.

Creepy and hot trapped in spaceship smut.

Sweet and sexy Escort AU by Yuujispinkhair.

Monsterfucker Coffee Shop AU smut.

Hot Hockey Player Groupie AU smut.

Sukuna reincarnates as a cat, serves him right.

Art and short fics some very smutty.

This is one of my top 3 fics ever it was supposed to be crack but the author failed and now it's a very long fic with amazing relationship dynamics.

And another gem by the same author where Sukuna gets domesticated.

[cecilysass]

The reason ScullyTorture wasn't as much of a thing is the usual reason whenever people refuse to centre a female charcater: good old fashioned misogyny, fandom unfortunately always has and always will care more about the male charcater , it's the same reason why there's hardly any whump of female charcaters (when whump itself is hugely popular) and the term 'lady whump' (ugh) is a thing (some people say its because they feel uncomfortable 'hurting' female charcaters because of..domestic abuse? I don't get it), though the fact that whump/charcaterTorture isn't too pervasive in txf fics nowadays is curious, maybe because the show isn't on anymore?

This is interesting, Anon. It’s true that in general fanfic doesn’t center female characters as much, and tends to favor M/M ships over F/F or M/F ships. It’s a whoooole thing. A lot has been written on the topic.

But in XF fandom, I don’t know if that’s really true. I wouldn’t say there’s been an overwhelming tendency overall to write more about Mulder than Scully. Yes, MulderTorture specifically was more popular, but there’s so much fic about Scully. I’d say it’s pretty even? Maybe others disagree. Back in the 1990s / 2000s there was more M/M fic being written, but there was never as much as MSR. And ships that include Scully (mostly MSR) are definitely the most popular now. This is not least because many younger XF fans are actually diehard Gillian Anderson fans first.

I’m no expert on fanfic in general, but I do know it’s written overwhelmingly by those who identify as girls and women, as well as nonbinary individuals. I know there are all kinds of theories about why this population seems to like to write more about male characters, including widespread misogyny in fandom. And let me be clear, I’m sure misogyny plays a role.

But I don’t know—knowing the rates of SA and domestic violence in my country (U.S.), I am also not going to dismiss the idea that some authors don’t like writing violence against female characters for personal reasons. That seems really plausible, actually.

I also just suspect that authors are writing about male characters more often for complex social-psychological reasons? But smarter people than me have thought and written about this, and like I said, I don’t even think it’s as true in the fandom I play in.

[boreal-sea]

Hey, I have a question and I was wondering if you could help because it’s really been confusing me lately. If not, for any reason at all, you’d rather not I totally understand. You can just delete the ask.

With a lot of pro-ship arguments I see the phrase it’s “just fiction” and idea that fiction can’t harm anyone. However propaganda is still obviously dangerous and representation is important. I don’t know how exactly the rules are different for these things and I’d really appreciate any thoughts you had on the topic, if you have any. I might be missing some obvious part to this, my brain tends to do that

So it's not that the rules are different, it's that the entire context is different, including the intent, impact and scope.

I used to deal with this mental conflict as well, as a young person. I was raised republican, and one of their big tactics is oversimplifying things. So you learn "violence is bad", and then you see BLM protestors and the January 6th rioters, and the simplified world view says "if you think the BLM thugs are justified, then so were the January 6th patriots - they both rioted, they both fought for their rights against the establishment".

Now obviously, those two situations are absolutely not equivalent when you think about them for longer than a millisecond, but the simplified world view does not want you to think. In the simplified mindset, "destroying property" is always wrong, no matter the reason why. So if you are OK with it in one situation, you cannot disagree in another and vice versa. And that is the mindset Antis have when it comes to fanfic: if propaganda is bad and can negatively influence people, if giant blockbuster movies, famous novels, and popular TV shows can negatively influence stereotypes about people and cause other harm, then it is equally wrong to write about icky kinks on Ao3.

The thing is though, these are not at all equivalent situations. Propaganda is created with the explicit intent to influence people's opinions about a subject area. The scope and impact of famous authors and directors is way, way bigger than a fan author on Ao3 - and big-name folks like that do actually have to deal with the impact of their work. Spielberg regrets the negative impact Jaws had on sharks, for instance.

A fanfic you write for yourself and post on Ao3 for a niche audience of fans is going to get a couple thousand hits, at best. It's very unlikely to ever escape the awareness of people in your fandom. And especially if you have tagged it correctly, the only people who are going to read it in the first place are people who are already into that kink, or who are open to it. It is never going to influence culture at large. My kinky fanfic is not going to have the same cultural impact as Steven Spielberg's Jaws did in 1975. And no, my fanfic is not going to "normalize rape culture".

Any work of fiction can have unintended impacts. This is not a logical justification to not create art. "Problematic art" not only deserves to exist, it needs to exist. If you don't agree with that, then you might as well be on the side of the folks in red states across this nation who are banning books in schools, forcibly rewriting history to erase slavery from the USA's past, and thinking they can get rid of "problematic media" they claim is "grooming their children".

[personal-progress-dropout]

Rainbow Sheep II

(Also Titled: Why I Will Fight For Queer Fiction to Be Available In Libraries. Rainbow Sheep is now a series because I say so.)

This is a less spiritual post than last week's, but my journey towards embracing my queer identity wasn't always spiritual.

I grew up in a conservative home. I don’t think we ever called ourselves that, but we were immersed in a brand of patriotism that comes from being a military family, and watching Fox News with my father was an evening ritual for us kids. For our family, gay people…existed. But we weren’t homophobic! We were nice to gay people, and our neighbor was a lesbian!

But queer people couldn’t exist in fiction; if they were ever involved in a story it was as a political statement. Why can’t the character be straight? Being gay doesn’t add anything to the narrative. (Fast forward eleven years and now I’m headcanoning all of my favorite characters as queer. Go figure.)

The first book I ever read with queer representation was Rick Riordan’s The House of Hades, in which one of the characters came out as gay. I was viscerally uncomfortable with the concept that a character written by one of my favorite authors could be gay. I jumped through all sorts of mental hoops to explain why this character was actually straight, and finally, I dismissed the series as Rick Riordan becoming woke and politicizing children’s fiction.

The first TV show I ever saw with queer representation was Steven Universe. I was babysitting some kids and they started binging the series, which I’d never heard of before. It sucked me in. I was enchanted by the animation, delighted by music, and charmed by the characters—wait a second, there’s a gay character? Multiple gay characters? And they’re showing this in a kid’s show?!

It had been years since The House of Hades had been published, and I had the benefit of actually talking to and making friends with queer people. I was no longer uncomfortable with their existence, and so I didn’t tell my parents about the show. It was awesome, and I was positive that they’d ban me from watching it. I was always good with mental gymnastics, and I rationalized that if they didn’t know the show existed, then they couldn’t forbid me from watching it, and I technically wouldn’t be breaking any rules. Instead, I snuck around watching clips of Steven Universe like some kids snuck around smoking joints. 

I’d always thought that being queer was inherently sexual, but here was this cartoon showing queer characters fighting off antagonistic space rocks and just living their lives. It was completely alien to me. Queer people can just…exist? Without an agenda? (By the way, kudos to Rebecca Sugar for making a show so good that it caused a conservative Christian girl to have an mental crisis.)

Reading fanfiction helped. I was interacting with other writers and readers who wanted to be seen in their favorite fandoms, and that was something I could understand. It helped me learn more about the world and about myself—I wouldn’t realize I was queer until I was sixteen, and I wouldn’t come out to anyone until I was 18. I didn’t have the language to describe what I was, and I was limited by my lack of understanding. I didn’t know what aroace meant, let alone terms like transgender or nonbinary. Reading and consuming media helped me realize that the world is more than what I was raised to believe. 

I love the stories I mentioned above. They helped me realize my internalized homophobia, and they helped me discover that I have a lot of progress to make. And that’s why stories are so important! They challenge our beliefs and shake up what we thought we knew, expanding our vision until we can see a world more different and beautiful than we could have ever imagined on our own. 

Anyways, support your local library, vote for school/library boards, and screw book banning.

[erraticprocrastinator]

Maybe I’m imagining it, but am I the only one who’s noticed a significant shift in fandom culture very recently?

This is coming from someone who’s “grown up” with modern fandom culture, and I’m not even talking about the differences between now and six years ago, when I first started participating in fandom spaces. I mean recently as in the past few months, maybe the last year? Again, maybe this is just in my head, but, I swear, I feel like I’ve been seeing a bigger and bigger division between creators (fan artists, fic writers etc) and audiences (readers etc) across multiple fandoms and in general fan spaces, too.

In particular, it feels like reader entitlement when it comes to fanfics is becoming much more prevalent than I’m used to seeing. I’ve been coming across so many posts, across multiple platforms, trying to justify re-uploading others’ work, coming after authors who orphan or (god forbid) delete their fics, complaining about unfinished WIPs, and so many other things that honestly give me the ick. I know that, as an author myself, I’m biased towards these kinds of posts, but I really do feel like there’s been a shift from fans who really are just genuinely invested in this content to a way more hostile attitude. I’m used to seeing people who are upset about a favourite fic being removed, or disappointed about an abandoned WIP, but I’ve just never noticed so many people outright vilifying authors for it, or promoting things like using the Wayback Machine to copy and repost deleted content (something I have now seen people suggesting to each other on multiple occasions). It’s starting to put me off from actively participating in fandom at all, which I really don’t want to happen.

Even setting that particular issue aside, I’ve also noticed a huge uptake in people shaming both authors/artists and readers for the kind of content they produce and consume. I genuinely don’t think I can scroll through any of my social media feeds without finding at least one post complaining about a certain ship, or the way Author X portrays Character Y, or the existence of Dead Dove, or literally any other tag or trope that’s ever existed on AO3 or any other major site. I’m not talking about people asking others about their preferences, or people who say something just isn’t their cup of tea. I’m talking about posts, dozens of dozens of posts, made with the sole purpose of saying “eww, why does XYZ thing even exist, I mean who could ever read/write this, you’re disgusting if you do”, completely unsolicited, about every possible content you can imagine. I’m genuinely asking, whatever happened to “don’t like, don’t read” and “you’re allowed to click away”? Again, I’ve only ever known relatively recent fandom culture, but I always thought that “you do you” was the generally accepted attitude? I was actually anxious about posting my most recent fic because of this, and I’m honestly still a little afraid that I’m going to get a comment tearing apart my characterisation or end up as the subject of some unhinged Reddit thread — and what I write is pretty tame, compared to the darker works out there.

Have fandom spaces always been like this and I’m somehow only realising now, or has anyone else noticed these things, too? Is there some piece of the puzzle that I’m missing? I’d particularly love it if other fic writers could weigh in, because I’m really curious to see if it’s just me who’s seeing things this way.

[thedrarrylibrarian]

One of my favorite things about doing Happy Hour is facilitating guests and encouraging them to be creative with their recs. Whether you want to format with bullet points or use emojis or write a paragraph-form rec, I love seeing guests give their favorite ficswith their style. When I asked our wonderful @phdmama to join and be a Happy Hour guest, she had the wonderful idea to change it up a bit and give her re-read recs, and I think you'll be so thrilled with what she came up with. Enjoy!

When The Drarry Librarian invited me to participate in Happy Hour, I was SO excited and honored, because, well - they’re doing such wonderful lovely things in fandom, and who doesn’t adore hyping up a fic they love? But as I thought about it, I realized that so many of the fics I wanted to rec were older and well-known, but they’re the fics that came to my mind because I’ve read them so many times.

Which got me to thinking about the role of rereading in fandom, and how it works for me. Now, I know there are lots of people who never reread, and there are lots of people who maybe reread occasionally. (This is actually one of the things I adore about fandom, all the beautiful differences we bring to the table!) That’s just not how my mind works. I’ve always been a VERY COMMITTED (aka deeply obsessive) reader and as I think back over my reading life, I’ve also always been a REreader.

Reading, quite literally, has saved my life and transformed it. So I thought I’d highlight of few of those fics that have impacted me so profoundly. These fics are comfort food for my brain. These are fics I come back to, over and over and over again. They live in my soul. (For the purposes of this piece, I’ll stick to Drarry fics, but there are these special fics in every fandom I read in, and we all know, I read very widely in lots of fandoms - it’s truly an embarrassment of riches!)

Two notes: 

I would recommend pretty much anything by these authors (read the tags etc etc) &

Limiting myself to just a few was SO SO difficult and I know I’m leaving out so many of my favorite authors and fics but I wanted to ACTUALLy write this!

Foundations by saras_girl (236,075 words, rated E)

When one door closes, another one opens – with a bit of a push. Life, love and complications. [sequel to Reparations]

Now, I could probably put most of saras-girl’s fics on this list and call it a day, but this fic (the whole ‘verse honestly) hits me on so many levels. From a narrative standpoint, I absolutely adore the idea of Healer Harry, and this whole world is just so rich and fully realized. This fic hits the therapist/healer in me and it speaks to the way so many healers are, just as Draco is, so wounded and in our own journey. But even more so, this fic gave me a tool for when I was navigating my father’s dying, the tool of, “in this space, we can say whatever we want, whatever we’re thinking and feeling, without any apologizing, equivocating or shaming ourselves.” (The “we” in this case was my sister and me.) It felt like because I had read this, it gave me permission to live it, and I cannot begin to explain how necessary it was for me during that incredibly painful time. This fic hits grief and loss and how hard life can be sometimes but also it’s so beautifully healing.

One moment that gets me:

“Don’t say anything,” Harry pleads, and it’s almost a whisper. He doesn’t want to hear any 

reassuring words, were Draco inclined to begin offering them.

“What makes you think there’s anything I could say?” Draco murmurs against his ear and holds him tighter.

The Light More Beautiful by @firethesound (81,225 words, rated E)

Thirteen years after Draco accepts Potter's help escaping the horror of his sixth year, he returns to England where he makes the unfortunate discovery that Potter is still as obnoxious as ever. And worse, more than a decade overseas hasn't been enough to dim Draco's obsession with him.

I think this is one of the first Drarry fics I ever really just fell head over heels in love with. This was in my early days of navigating AO3 and I really didn’t understand it all. I read the fic, and lost track of it, and was thinking about it several months later. I ended up going through my entire history (IT TOOK A LONG TIME PALS) to find it because I just remembered loving it so much. Every time I reread it, I just fall more and more in love with it. I love that these are imperfect people, who’ve learned and grown and changed. I love the narrative voice in this - I think this fic really shaped both what I love to read (a sort of spare, dry, very funny until you get PUNCHED IN THE FEELINGS kind of voice) but also my own writing. This is the kind of voice I aspire to. 

A moment (one of many) that makes me laugh:

“Fuck off,” Draco says again, slapping his hand away. So much for Potter keeping his hands to himself.

“Come on!” Potter slides off the table, grabs him and pulls him into an awkward, shuffling sort of dance that consists mostly of hip-grinding and arse-groping and, to Draco’s horror, he starts belting out lyrics. Draco thinks he’s getting them horribly wrong until it clicks that Potter’s just making them up as he goes along. About the two of them. And well now, that’s just inappropriate.

“Stop it!” Draco says, trying to push Potter off him. It’s a struggle to keep from laughing, but he knows if he does it’ll only egg Potter on. “You’re not even singing the right words.” He doesn’t succeed in dislodging him. Merlin, Potter’s like an octopus. An octopus with a terrible singing voice and no sense of rhythm and a somewhat frightening sense of humour.

Draco finally makes him shut up by sticking his tongue in Potter’s mouth, and mercifully Potter’s more interested in snogging than in continuing his ridiculous made-up lyrics.

Balance, Imperfect by @bixgirl1 (91,000 words, rated E)

When Harry sustains an injury in the line of work, he no longer knows how to navigate the life he loved, and finds help and solace from the most unexpected source.

I was sort of wary going into this one. I have very complicated feelings about relationships between healers and their patients, and normally avoid that dynamic but this was recommended to me (I can’t even remember by whom) and I am so thankful I did try it, because it’s another one of my all-time favorites. This is another fic that really dives into the absolute complexity of disability, trauma and healing. We have real people who are amazing and flawed and beautiful and so, so real. One of the things I also love about this fic is that Harry isn’t “fixed” by magic - he heals, and he adapts but he’s profoundly changed by his experiences, and as a trauma survivor, this just resonated so so deeply for me.

A beautiful, poignant moment:

When Malfoy finally leaves him alone at the end of the night, Harry exhales for the first time in what feels like hours. His body feels tight and confusing; he wants to rage and throw things at the other man, wants to refuse his aid.

But there was a moment when Malfoy seemed so assured, so fucking confident that he could help, that Harry had been dazed with the force of his own longing, but couldn’t bring himself to ask if that help would be able to make him whole again.

He didn’t think he could stand hearing the word no.

Aurora by @wolfpants (5,230 words, rated M)

Eighth Year at a half-built Hogwarts, and Harry is not following Draco Malfoy anymore. At least, that's what he's telling himself.

This fic just breaks my heart in the most beautiful way (which wolfie knows cuz I just screech about it periodically). I love so many of the different iterations of post-war Harry but this is absolutely one of my favorites. He’s lost and struggling to find a way, and I love that journey for him. Wolfie’s such a wonderful writer, and this whole fic is just so delicate and beautiful. 

A moment that makes me cry EVERY SINGLE TIME (this writing OMG):

And that was how the two of them found themselves in an intense and hushed conversation out on the fields, the same fields Harry watched Charlie and Nicu kiss, where Ginny demanded too much of him and Harry cracked under her questions, questions, questions.

They came back to the house together, sticky-cheeked and red-eyed, and a week later, it all became clearer to Harry when Ron asked him about it on one of their forest walks. It became clearer when Harry had planted a misdirected kiss of his own to his friend’s lips, and Ron had let him, and had, for a while, allowed it to continue, until he slid his fingers gently over the nape of Harry’s neck and pressed their foreheads together and let Harry cry instead, and he told him, "it’s alright, it’s alright mate, no one’s going to hate you for this, it’s alright, we all love you, you just have to talk to us, you just have to know that we’re here for you, yeah? No matter who you are, alright? It’s alright. We just want you to be happy. It’s all we want."

Believe me when I say, there are SO SO many fics from so many brilliant writers that I wanted to include, it was incredibly hard to narrow down. I feel like I say this over and over again, but I’m so so grateful to all of you for sharing your gifts with fandom in all the ways you do. They’ve transformed my life in deep, profound, and permanent ways. Thank you.

And a huge thank you to thedrarrylibrarian for letting me share these thoughts and fics with you!!! 

   - xox phdmama

Thank you so much @phdmama for the amazing recs! It was a delight to have you join us!

[love-kurdt]

How to Write a Good Fanfiction: A 5 Step Manual

Hello! My name is @love_kurdt, also known as Eva, and I’m a Wattpad Veteran of the early 2010s, where the genres of Slash Fics, Y/N, and Imagines ran rampant. I spent years of my life as a kid scrolling through my iPod touch, weeding through Wattpad’s plethora of profiles, on a quest to find quality fanfictions. I found a handful, which I added to a specific reading list to come back to when I needed a break from screaming into my pillow because of the sheer audacity of thought-criminals who called themselves writers.

When I’d reached the point of reading the same five works over and over in a never ending cycle, I decided to make the life-altering decision to start publishing my fanfictions online. Granted, I was only thirteen at this point, so my writing wasn’t spectacular by any means, but I came to discover that over time, the mere acts of reading and writing can light a spark of inspiration that can carry you to creative success.

I’ve been writing my own works for over ten years now, and can confidently say that I have cracked the code to writing a good fanfiction that will have your readers captivated instead of cringing. Please don’t get me wrong– if you want to just write fanfic on the internet for fun, and not to write a novel, that’s great, too! That’s what the internet is for; exercising your free will. But this manual is tailored towards those who want to hone in on their craft and gain a substantial following as strictly fanfiction authors. So without further ado, let’s jump into it. Godspeed!

Step 1: Choose Your Fandom

What show, movie, or book has drawn you in and left you feeling like there should be more to the story? When one of those media comes to mind, you’ve chosen your fandom!

Step 2: Do Your Research

When writing fanfiction, it’s kind of an unspoken rule that you need to know the canon of the fandom you’re writing about. The canon is also known as the source material. For example, if someone were to write a Draco Malfoy x OC fanfiction (*cough* a 200+ page Draco Malfoy self insert fic written at 11 years old in a series of notebooks bound together with multiple layers of Gorilla tape *cough*), the canon would be the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. It’s, in essence, what “really” happened. It’s totally fine if you want to write a non-canon compliant fic, too! In fact, they’re extremely popular, specifically within the “fix-it” genre, which usually involves characters that died in the canon but the author kept alive in their fanfiction. Either way, you should have a general idea of how the canon functions within the context of the fandom, so you can make creative choices that diverge from or stick to the canon.

With the canon comes the fanon, which is basically a compilation of fan theories and headcanons that are often common themes in both canon and non-canon compliant fanfics. A pretty niche example of this is the Byler fandom (the ship between Stranger Things characters Will Byers and Mike Wheeler), where there’s an official list of theories on Tumblr that are used in many, if not most Byler fanfictions. There’s FlickerGate, where the flickering of the garage light in Season 1 is actually Will and Mike in the Upside Down in Season 5. There’s BirthdayGate, where the antagonist, Vecna, manipulates the minds of everyone in Hawkins to forget Will’s birthday, which is a central plot point in a lot of Byler fics since no one seems to remember it, not even his best friend. There’s also LetterGate, where Will confronts Mike in the canon about not sending any letters after he’d moved away, but the theory reveals that Mike wrote plenty of letters– he just never sent them because they ended up turning into love letters, which in turn resulted in internalized homophobia. You get the picture. Most theories reach far into the land of delusion, but it doesn’t stop writers from creating incredible work that could easily be mistaken for a script.

But Eva, what if I just think the characters are hot and I don’t give a shit about the cannonball? I can’t tell you what to do, my friend, but I highly suggest you at least consider the canon so you can avoid all the petty, obnoxious gatekeepers in some fandoms who can be unhinged enough to send death threats if you leave out a significant canonical detail. But you do you!

Step 3: Choose Your Platform

There are three popular platforms to choose from: Archive of Our Own (ao3), Tumblr, and Wattpad. There are also a few other lesser known or dead pages such as fanfiction.net, but I honestly wouldn’t bother with those, since they’re more infiltrated with anons and bots nowadays.

This is where you want to think about 1) where most of the members in the fandom you chose reside, and 2) the demographic of readers you want to reach. For example, I observed a higher number of Nirvana fans on Wattpad than the other two platforms, which is why I chose to post my full length Kurt Cobain fanfiction, “You Know You’re Right,” on there. It also helped that my favorite author of another Kurt Cobain fanfiction on Wattpad, @/ugh-nirvana, had hits in the hundreds of thousands, so I was confident that my book would do well on that specific platform. On the other hand, the Stranger Things fandom is in full swing on Tumblr and ao3, so I chose to post those fanfictions on there rather than on Wattpad. It all just depends on who’s where.

You also have to consider how active you want to be on your platform(s). Tumblr is more of a blog situation, while ao3 and Wattpad are solely for publishing the work. If you want to have a life beyond the realms of the world wide web, choose Wattpad or ao3, as inconsistent updates are a bit more accepted than on Tumblr. But if you want to throw yourself headfirst into a fandom and put your whole author-ussy into your fanfic, then Tumblr is the platform for you.

You should be aware, however, that Tumblr involves a lot of upkeep, as well as constant, strategic, and active participation within your fandom. Visual aesthetic is vital to any functional Tumblr blog. Most profiles have directories, with color coded links to each work’s homepage, which is linked to each individual chapter, which are then distinguished by a unique GIF to capture a prospective reader’s attention while they’re scrolling through copious amounts of content. And there are always new ideas and theories in development in certain fandoms, so it’s crucial to keep up with recent updates in order to stay relevant.

After all is said and done, you don’t have to get married to one platform for the rest of your life. You can choose to be exclusive to one or two platforms, or publish everything on all of them! The decision is ultimately yours!

Step 4: Obey the Writer’s Trifecta of Consistency

Yes, I came up with this term, and yes, it should be a real thing. Because in every piece of writing, whether it be fanfiction, a short story, an actual book, a screenplay, what have you, it is critical to be consistent in your People, your POV, and your Plot. Let me explain.

People

Your people, or your ensemble of characters, consists of three hierarchical levels: your protagonist/antagonist, your side characters, and other background characters. I should emphasize the importance of building character profiles for everyone, including your pre-existing characters from the fandom, but specifically for your original character(s) if you have them. That way, you know who serves as a major plot device, who serves as someone who just helps time move faster, and those who are mentioned by name but have very little significance to the events of the story. I’m going to reference Harry Potter again, since most of the world is familiar with the characters. Harry and Voldemort are the protagonist and antagonist; Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Professor Dumbledore, Hagrid and company are side characters; and Peeves, Seamus Finnigan, and Blaise Zabini are background characters. Keep this hierarchy in check; don’t let your main characters fade away, and don’t let your background characters shift to the forefront for no reason. If you do plan to move a character up or down the ladder, make sure to have clear motive as to why you’re bringing this character into or out of play.

2. POV

Your POV is the point of view in which you’re writing from. Assuming you’ve been in a typical middle school English class, you’ve heard of the first, second, and third person points of view. I cannot tell you how many times I have read fanfictions that jump from one POV to another, sometimes within the same sentence. I open the door and see Kurt Cobain standing in the corner of the room. She walked across the floor to meet him there. See what I did there? I jumped from first person present tense to third person past tense. Do not attempt this at home.

The least common of the three points of view is the second person, or what I like to call the Y/N point of view. In fanfiction, second person POV is often used in self-insert fics, where instead of a character’s name, it’s replaced with “you.” That’s why a lot of romantic character x reader fics are so popular. You should feel free to use this one, especially if that’s the kind of vibe you’re going for, but I’m going to elaborate a little bit more on first and third person, as they’re a bit more “literary.”

The first person POV confines the narration to the mind of one character. It can also be done with multiple characters, but be sure to do it so it’s painstakingly obvious to the reader whose POV you’re writing from. Also note that if you plan to write multiple first person POVs, try to keep that number on the lower side, as a large number of POVs can get really complicated really quickly. Third person narration can be done from two angles: limited or omniscient. Limited is more similar to first person, in which you’re confined to one person’s viewpoint, but they aren’t the narrator; you’re just seeing the story through their eyes. Omniscient is my favorite, because you can narrate from a bird’s eye view with the freedom to travel from mind to mind and read their thoughts.

Building character profiles can be really helpful when developing both first or third person POV; if you connect with a particular character more strongly than the rest, that should tell you whose POV you should write in. If you choose to switch POVs, be sure to do it either on an alternating/rotating basis, or if you repeat, it should be apparent as to why that particular character is the “voice” of that scene.

3. Plot

Dare I say that Plot is the most important step of them all, so do not skip this one, whatever you do! The biggest mistake most fanfiction writers make is having a concept but lacking a plot. It’s like biting into an apple just to discover it’s a lemon. Many writers are capable of starting off strong, but once their initial story begins to meander, traveling into uncharted territory, their brainchild can become a monstrosity.

In order to write a solid plot, it’s pretty common knowledge that you need to have a beginning, middle, and end in place. It doesn’t need to be overly specific or down to the last detail, you just need to figure out how your characters make it from point A to point Z (the larger scale), and how points B through Y factor into the plot (the smaller scale). There are a few routes that you can take in order to do this: you can write the entire thing ahead of time without any input, you can write the entire thing with the feedback of a beta reader or proofreader to help you work out any kinks or mistakes before you publish it for the entire platform to see, or you can publish it gradually and take feedback from your readers as you go. Should you go with the last option, though, you should be made aware that if you aren’t already an established author, it may feel like you’re talking to a wall, and you will likely feel discouraged from writing the story altogether.

I find it helpful to outline the whole thing. I have a closet door in my house dedicated to a Dave Grohl true crime fanfiction I’m working on. I’ve written the entire story from beginning to end on index cards, split into four different parts with each card representing a chapter. What’s good about outlining is that I can edit my story as I go along. If I decide to change something, I can add or remove an index card, then replace or rearrange the other index cards to work around the change I made, and that way, I don’t have to start over from scratch. It’s helpful to see everything laid out in front of me, so I’m not left at the end of a completely improvised plot with a slew of loose ends that I’ll need to go back and edit. It’s also better than publishing each part individually then having to redo everything after your readers have already seen it. And I don’t know about you, but I enjoy it when I’m able to save some time, energy, and lengthy explanations to random people online. That is, unless you enjoy constant feedback from readers, in which case you can change the plot on a chapter by chapter basis based on their feedback.

Consistency in all of these respects is key. I cannot emphasize this enough. Keeping all of these elements in check will help you create a sort of cohesiveness that will neatly wrap the story up with a little bow on top. 

Step 5: Use Relevant Tags and Content Warnings

Repeat after me: tags matter! Again: tags matter! When you’re about to publish your fanfiction, you’re going to be given the option to add tags to your work. For my first few years spent on Wattpad, I had no idea what tags were, so I didn’t use them. Thankfully, the platform was still pretty small, so people still found my work pretty easily. Nowadays, though, it’s nearly impossible to find what you’re looking for without searching excessively specific tags and using a million filters. It’s unfortunate, but look at it this way: there are so many people contributing to so many fandoms that the content is seemingly endless!

What you’re going to want to do is add as many tags as you can but keep it as simple as possible. I know that sounds kind of oxymoronic, but I mean it in a way that all of your tags relate directly to your story, and not just to the fandom itself. A lot of readers feel misled when they’re scrolling through their filtered search page for, let’s just say, a Byler fanfic, and end up neck deep in a Mileven fanfic in disguise. That’s not a fun experience.

Lastly, please remember that you are publishing your work on the internet, and you don’t know who may encounter your work! Listen, we live in a world where everything needs to be overexplained, everything needs trigger warnings, and everything needs to be neutral or else someone is going to hate you. I get it. I’ve been writing fanfiction for a long time. It might be annoying to add content warnings, especially if one of those warnings spoils a major plotline, but if I’m being honest, I’d rather be safe and add the damn warning than not add the warning and be responsible for someone’s worsened emotional or mental state. Bottom line, it’s just fanfiction! Let’s do our due diligence to create a community full of love and understanding for everyone!

After that, you should be all set to publish! Let’s review one more time for the road:

Choose Your Fandom

Do Your Research

Choose Your Platform

Obey the Writer’s Trifecta of Consistency

Use Relevant Tags and Content Warnings

If you’ve stuck around for this long, thank you so much!

I hope this manual helps you along your fanfiction writing journey, wherever it takes you <3

[xxsksxxx]

Twenty questions for fanfic writers

Tagged by the wonderful @baronessblixen !

Thank you for tagging me! 💕

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

3

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

22,718

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The X-Files

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Movable Forces

Liberating the Mirage

Shadows and Light

5. Do you respond to comments?

Always. I still check every time I get a comment whether the commenter might have mistaken my fic for another story and they meant to comment on the other one. I’m definitely going to say thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a comment.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don’t really think any of them ended with an angsty outcome.

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

They all ended happily so far.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven’t. And I hope it stays that way. That’s not an experience I need to have.

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

I haven’t. I’m not a huge pwp reader anyway so I doubt that’s something I’ll ever do. I’d like to be able to write a good smut scene though one day.

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

I haven’t written any.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, I don’t think so.

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

I haven’t.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Mulder and Scully (MSR)

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

A fic that I’ve had in my head for now 27 years. I wish I could just sit down and write it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’ve been told I’m good at writing atmosphere and settings. I have to trust them on that as I have no way of looking at my writing objectively.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Overthinking. I’ll plot and plan and rethink and do yet another round of research—only to start the whole outline over again. I seriously need to stop thinking and just start writing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

As in the characters speak a different language? I haven’t done that so far but I think I’d ask a native speaker if they could look over it.

Or as in writing in a foreign language as an author? Well, it’s intimidating and a bit scary but there’s nothing I can do. I’m not a native speaker so I either have to suck it up or stop writing.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Actually written the fic down? The X-Files. Written stories in my head? Probably Nils Holgersson when I was three. 🤣🪿

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

All of them.

I’m tagging @scullyswifey @amplifyme @randomfoggytiger @msrafterdark and everyone who wants to play.