#I was mostly thinking about how I have some updates that aren't going to translate to print very well -

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hello again! I'm not sure if you answered this previously, but will you ever consider making physical books for "Poorly Drawn MDZS" because I would whip out my wallet SO FAST--

It's something that I've been thinking about While the answer has been strong 'maybe', there *is* a future where there will be some kind of physical version of my art - be it in stickers, a zine, prints, charms, or otherwise.

Personally, if PD-MDZS the comic was to be released physically, I would want to throw in some exclusive bonus comics/goodies to go with it! Please stay tuned!

[rogumi]

JPN Nintama Fandom Hashtags & Etiquette no Dan

Since the fandom is increasing in numbers, both in its country of origin and in western spaces, I thought I could help people better understand some of the hashtags more widely used on Twitter/Bluesky and other places. And maybe give some more insight on the more basic etiquette expected of you in Japanese fandom spaces. This is, after all, a predominantly Japanese fandom space and you're bound to interact with users who don't speak English at all and aren't familiar with our fandom culture. Let's be polite!

First, let's tackle the hashtags and how Japanese fandom users use them.

A twitter user, Yada-san, kindly summed up the most popular hashtags in their post here, and I thought that was such a nice summary I could just translate it and hopefully give you a little more cultural insight as I go.

#忍たま Mainly used by the official accounts and such. You can find official information and updates here. Yada-san specified since official accounts use this tag, they refrain from using it themself. You'll find this sentiment is shared among a lot of otaku, specially women who are into either the BL or yume subculture. (And going by word of mouth, the fandom online is mostly adult women lol.) #RKRN (From the title of the manga, Rakudai Ninja Rantarō). Since a lot of fans feel uneasy using the "official" tag, this is the tag most use for their gen fanart. Yada-san says "personally, I don't think it's a good idea to post shippy content to this tag."

#rkrnプラス The yume tag for the fandom. Here you'll find yume art/fic and scenarios in general. Yumes in the fandom usually use the 🌸 emoji.

#nin_draw Now this tag is quite popular and causes a lot of confusion to newcomers. Some people think that since it's such an active tag, it must be the main fandom tag but that'd be incorrect. What happens is that every 2 days, the manager of the account nin_draw on twitter will post a new prompt (usually a character name or the name of a committee or a group) and then you have 60 minutes to draw it. Everyone is free to join! You just have to make sure you follow the rules. They have quite a few, but basically. No NSFW, no ships unless they are canon, no ninmyu, no kemomimi or animals, no modern aus, no genderbends, no aged up or aged down characters (unless we've seen those versions in canon). Basically, they want to keep things gen and as close to canon as possible.

These are not rules anyone can force you to follow, but if you ignore them it will make users uncomfortable and more likely to ignore you/mute your or straight up block you.

(Yada-san mentions a tag for people wanting to connect with other Nintama fans, but I'll skip it for now.)

And what about ship art, you ask? Yada-san states "I post it by clearly stating the ship name and without any of the other tags. If the art is too risque or it might need more warnings, I either mark it as sensitive or post it on poipiku. However, determining what's appropriate or not can be hard at times, and I still have a lot of room for improvement in this area."

And that's it for the original tweet!

Now, for a more general overview of etiquette in the Japanese fandomsphere. You may have noticed through a lot of it, Yada-san offers suggestions or examples of what they do rather than say "don't do that!" and that's very common in the fandom in general. Nobody will confront you directly (at most, they might through an anon messages) but they will most likely just mute you/block you/ignore you.

Some users give foreign fans more of a leeway but others don't. A lot of them are very unforgiving of people who use official art as icons. This stems from NHK itself not allow sharing screenshots on social media, a rule most Japanese fans follow. Consistent with this, if they see you posting screenshots and gifs they may steer clear from your account. Again, we live in an era in which we are in constant communication with people from other countries, so some users are more forgiving about this than others. Remember that this is just a guideline, and in the end, whether you follow it or not is up to you.

You also don't want to use other people's art as icons, unless specify in their profile that it's okay. That's a surefire way to get blocked by an artist you like. On the same vein, don't repost OR trace art. Recently, there was an issue of a foreign fan tracing art and they thought they could get away with it since Nintama is such a small fandom in English speaking circles... don't be that guy!

Also if you're an adult you may want to add your age to your bio. Sometimes, just putting 18+ won't be enough since Japanese users don't want to risk someone still in high school seeing their works.

As for Pixiv, the Yume tag is 忍玉-夢 and the BL tag is 忍玉-腐.

If you're interested in a ship but aren't sure what tag people use, I highly recommend looking at the pixiv dictionary entry for Nintama BL ships! If you're not familiar with the characters names or how to write them in Japanese, the Nintama English wiki has the kanji for the character names as well.

⚠️ ⚠️⚠️ The name order in which ships are written in Japanese is really important! ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Unless the artist states they are into reversible ships (riba/リバ）it's safe to assume they are fixed and the first kanji/name of the ship indicates the top. So don't go to an AB artist asking for BA! That will, again, get you ignored/muted/blocked.

And I think that's it for now! I got tired and can't think of anything else haha. Hopefully this was helpful. I can't overstate how much these rules aren't enforced by anyone but the users' preferences, but if you don't follow them it may be the reason why people are not engaging with you or blocking you.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask me on this post, via ask, or in the Tasogaredoki Jou discord server! Take care and be a 良い子。

[nyerus]

Overview of TGCF Versions

Due to recent(ish) events, I thought it would be good to make another post cataloguing all the different "versions" of TGCF, for newcomers and old fans alike! I'll also be going over some FAQs that I've seen or been asked so this post can serve as a decent info thread.

For simplicity's sake, first think of there being two "main" version of TGCF:

The Original -- what all the translations are based on, as well as the manhua and donghua.

The Revised -- what was released in print last year in China (only), and what was recently updated on JJWXC. The audio drama is adapting this

The original webnovel was itself not "censored." By that I mean, it contained everything MXTX originally wrote including kisses, swearing, innuendo, etc. MXTX did self-censor to avoid Real Censorship (hence the lack of NSFW scenes we may have gotten like in her previous novels), but that's a whole different thing. For all intents and purposes, consider the original version and (most of) its translations as being uncensored.

The revised version was first publicly released as a print novel in China. As such, it was actually censored. While "Hualian" is still there, and things are alluded to, it's a lot more vague. Kisses and a lot of other things were cut, including certain dialogue tidbits that perhaps were deemed a bit too obvious. (Plus a lot of Feng Xin and Qi Rong's cursing was removed lmao.)

HOWEVER, shortly after the print release, the audio drama started adapting the uncensored revised version. So we all knew there was an uncensored revised version somewhere in existence. It wasn't until the end of last month that we actually saw it! TGCF was available again on JJWXC after years of being "temporarily locked" to comply with regulations. (Though it was possible it was locked for other reasons. We will never fully know!) Not only was it finally unlocked, but it was actually updated to the uncensored revised version!

F.A.Q.s

1.) Why did MXTX make a revised version anyway? MXTX has mentioned before that she was not entirely satisfied with the original version of TGCF. Because she wrote and released each chapter in a serialized manner, with frequent (possibly daily?) updates, it doesn't surprise me that it didn't turn out exactly how she wanted. Now that she has the opportunity to sit down with it and go over everything on her own time, she's able to get it closer to what she wanted. In short: she's just really passionate about this story!

2.) Is there and English translation, or will there be? What about other languages? Officially, not yet. We don't know if there ever will be, as MXTX would have to re-negotiate the rights with publishers for translations, and at this time, we don't know if that'll happen. Unofficially, there are a few options: a. ClearNoodle has done some fan-translations you should check out here! b. By purchasing the webnovel on JJWXC now, you can MTL (machine translate) the novel. If you've seen screenshots in English floating around that aren't part of the fan-translations above, this is probably the source.

3.) What is JJWXC and how do I use it/purchase TGCF on it? JJWXC is the webnovel publishing site where TGCF was originally released. It hosts a giant array of C-novels, including most other danmei that you may have heard about. SV and MDZS were indeed also on JJWXC, but are currently (still) locked. To purchase TGCF (or any other novel) on JJWXC, cangji.net has an excellent guide and list of other helpful links to get you all set up. Please do check it out! Additionally, buying on JJWXC seems to be the most direct way to support authors. You can also throw bonus tips at them!

4.) How much has really changed in the revised version? A fair bit. Mostly, the changes are to do with plot structure, minor characters, overall flow, and so on. It's still essentially the same story, but in a way that feels fresh. Hualian in particular have exactly the same dynamic as before. MXTX added extra scenes between them, including very sweet and tender domestic stuff haha! There's also a few new lines of spicier dialogue to go along with some of the scenes that already existed in the original.

5.) So what is considered canonical? Both, in a way. MXTX has stated that she's happy if fans can enjoy both at once, and that we're free to pick-and-choose as we wish. Personally, while there are many things I prefer from the original, the revised version is something closer to MXTX's true vision for the novel. So I feel that holds a little bit of weight there, too.

6.) Will the manhua/donghua be adapting any of the newly revised content? So far that seems unlikely. The revised version facelifts a lot from the early parts of the story, which is stuff these adaptations have already covered. It would be hard to change things down the line now. At most they could add some of the extra dialogue or such, but we'll see if that's the case. For now, we simply don't know and shouldn't count on it. If you'd still like an adaptation of the revised, please absolutely check out the audio drama! It's easily become my personal fave adaptation of the story, and is made by a small but very passionate team who are close to MXTX. Thus, it's quite faithful and does the source material such justice! <3

[i-hate-liking-batman]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged by @yersina ! Warning that most of my fic links are Ao3 account locked!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

13! They're all different lengths and about half of them are complete? And only more to come because I joined another big bang...

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

It's crazy because I only started really getting into writing in the past 3 years and I hit 151,653 words! I'm very proud to be here! I remember when writing 40k in a year seemed impossible for me.

3) What are your top five fics by kudos?

Haha this is more of me having one very popular fic and the rest are neck and neck, but here is the order! "Hello, Time Goes Quickly", "Fate Led Us to You (It Was Worth the Wait)", "I'll Take Care of Your Roots So Grow Tall, My Love", "Time to be Human", and "The Trials of Loving"!

4) What fandoms do you write for?

I've written all over the place, and some I won't come back to writing for even if I still read! I've written for D. Grayman, Marvel, Mob Psycho 100, Genshin, My Hero Academia, Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun, and The S Classes that I Raised! I mostly write for the last two!

5) Do you respond to comments? why or why not?

I actually always respond to comments! Every time. I make it a point to respond to every comment I get on my fics. I just get so excited knowing someone cared enough to comment, and want the reader to know I see them!

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

I don't really write angsty endings so I'll just go with angstiest in general! I'd say my S Class Percy Jackson au, "The Trials of Loving" is the one!

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

Ooooo I have a lot of happy endings! And they're pretty happy if I do say so myself. Maybe my Percy Jackson au for Sctir "The Trials of Loving" again lol. It ends on their wedding day!

8) Do you get hate on fics?

Nope! I have gotten spam though rip. At most it's commenters who are confused so I explain, but my commenters are lovely people!

9) Do you write smut?

... I have one smut fic and it's my most popular one. It's 30k and only like 5k is smut, and all of it was hard to write lol. But it must be done! For anyone curious it is in fact "Hello, Time Goes Quickly" lol.

10) Do you write crossovers?

My first fic was actually a crossover fic! It's inspired by liketolaugh 's crossover fic "Cosmic Composite" which is an Avenger's and D. Grayman crossover. Everyone should check out their fics! One of my favorites is.... so many actually so here's a link to their PJO and Avenger's crossover: The Blue Food Project

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so, but I don't really check for that, so it's possible!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but it would be great if that happened!

13) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

..I have tried and failed because I don't have a consistent writing schedule. I write 10k in 2 months and then go off the grid for 6 lol.

14) What's your all time favorite ship?

Oooo this is tricky!!! Maybe Sung Hyunjae x Han Yoojin from the S Classes that I Raised! I love them a lot. NEVERMIND MAIRUMA LATEST CHAPTER CHANGED ME LOVE TRIO FOREVER!!!!! (Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun ship with Iruma Suzuki, Clara Valac, and Asmodeus Alice)

15) What's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

My Welcome to Demon School fic "I'll Take Care of Your Roots So Grow tall, My Love," I had so much fun with brainstorming ideas there is no set ending... I'll update it eventually though!

16) What are your writing strengths?

I'm confident of my characterization of characters! It's why I usually can't do other POVs for other characters. I need to feel confident in how I understand them to write for them.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing in detail. I like getting to the point, because too long sentences in my writing aren't interesting lol. So sometimes there are images in my head I don't describe enough for readers to picture what I'm imagining.

18) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Fun! I just want to make sure I use it right.

19) First fandom you wrote for?

Whoops I already answered this but D. Grayman and Avengers! For personal writing it's My Hero Academia.

20) Favourite fic you've ever written?

Oooo this is also a hard question because I don't read my fics lol. Probably "The Schoolmaster Must Die"! It's a School for Good and Evil au with the characters of "The S Classes that I Raised" and I had a lot of fun with it even if it's not close to done.

This was so much fun to answer! Tagging @frill-s , @enmu-redacted, and @meow-meow-magical!

[thesimquarter]

hello! sims 2 miniopolis update!

first of all, my current sims 2 urbz sims >:3 outside of the obvious change of a default skin, they don't look that different compared to my old versions of them. But! believe me they are better.as well, this time! there's the DS exclusive characters and a few sims intended to be townies. In order, Lloyd, Red Man, Daschell Swank, Chet R. Chase, Bucki Brock's sister, Joe from the Flea Market (yes, he does have a name), Ava Cadavra, and Gordie Puck. Indeed, they're very red.

And an update to the town in general! I've finished most of the easy lots now, mostly having harder lots to do now. Such as the Mausoleum, Circus, Brownstones + Slice O'Life (which I… attempted. can you believe that the map of this game doesn’t follow the laws of physics?), etc.

New lots include: - Junked Schoolbus (which IS connected to the Chopper Garage visually but they aren't the same lot) - Chopper Garage (which i am not going to put underneath the road/jail! it looks cool in-game, but possibly impossible to do in the sims 2 but it makes no sense spatially!! the other side of the garage would just be underground!!!) - Cemetery (Mostly just empty buildings for aesthetics. No graves… yet. and there probably won’t be until the final version of the hood.) - Miniopolis Chronicle (TINY) - Miniopolis Hospital + University (if this was ts3 i probably would have made them separately) - Club Xizzle (what is it supposed to look like on the outside + should there be two?) - Glasstown Megamall - Cinema d'Urbania (how do you make a cinema in this game? big TV?)

I redid King Tower as well, just to make it fill out a 3x3 lot instead of a 2x2 lot, and Café Multiplaya has a new outdoor seating area (to fill in space). The Coffee Shop, the Market, and Glasstown apartments were in my last post, just kinda in the background. The Market has a lot of creative liberties taken to it, as I just didn't like how it translated into the Sims (as in it's made to represent the real-life French Quarter Market more). The Glasstown Apartment has a few other units in it for some of the Urbz sims (more on that in a bit!)

I removed pretty much, all the elevation from the .s4c terrain. It's easy to put back butttt, the sims 2 just doesn't work in a way that's friendly to sloped lots (and simcity 4 for slopes that take <1 unit of distance, you can't make steep cliffs in these games. so, basically, due to the compactness of the city, there isn’t enough room to add in slopes without making it all janky). They may come back at the end if we can Wizard the slopes to work the lots, but for now...

Ignore the weird road off the Sim Quarter. I was experimenting with what could be done with the riverboat. I was thinking about putting it on a beach lot and making a joke about it being temporarily landlocked (read: i already did) and was trying to find a good, functional place to put it. There may be other ways to do a riverboat though… hmmm

Anyways onto housing for the Sims. So, the Glasstown Apartments has a few more units to fit in a few other characters (Lottie Cash (I did manage to squeeze a bowling alley in there), Lily Gates, and Darius) but other than that? Very little! (I did Ewan’s House. however, it’s just a box; i took modest pretty literally). I might make a post soon where I talk about where each Urb would probably live, just as an excuse to talk to myself for a little while.

[kerubimcrepin]

LIVEBLOG: Dofus Novel 4, The Thirsty Beheader

I apologize for my absence. Translating this novel has burned me out from the fandom in a pretty major way, and I also got into a different fandom in the meantime and am, like, three 4k word chapters deep into a longfic for said new fandom. Besides that, I had a depressive episode and went insane for a while. Basically, I've been a bit busy.

At the same time I release this post, I have uploaded the new, updated versions of both translations (since this liveblog is mostly a reason for me to reread and fix stuff) to MEGA and VK, so I recommend you download the new versions!

I will mostly be copying the text directly, to bypass tumblr's image restriction, but some screenshots will be provided. For example:

If pride is a sin, then the typesetting and cleaning I went through with this book will have me go to hell after I die. (I don't think I'm a master, but I did a pretty good job, ok?)

A cart had just entered the District of the Lost Steps. It stopped in front of the store, as two Srams* got out.

I love the internal consistency of the street being named here. Thank you, author of this book, for caring.

“Are you sure about this,” asked the little guy, “Is this really the right place?” “Yeah,” replied the tall one, “There aren't thirty-six Shushu* houses in the neighborhood.”

LMAO this is something Kerubim is actually known for, huh?

At the time that this book takes place in, joris can't read very well. Cute...

Also, hehe... I am pretty proud of the way this part of the book was cleaned + the font + the layers and colors and opacity I applied to the text, to make it fit in with the paper.

^^^ This is me btw, during this entire post. ^^^

The entirety of the epilogue and prologue are typed on top of cleaned backgrounds sourced from the scan. The rest of the book is typed in front of a digital background. This artistic choice was made because....... You can't set different pages to be different colors in word. You have to overlay some image or a textbox, if you want a page to be a different color.

Anyway — I had a lot of fun searching for the fonts from this book! (and far less fun searching for appropriate fonts for the Russian translation since none of the fonts this book uses have cyrilic versions...)

The fonts this book uses are: Dimbo, Chelsea Market, and Aleo. Google them for all your Dofus Aux Tresors de Kerubim related needs.

The fonts I chose to use in the russian translation are: Brydan Write, Correction Brush, Curinn, and Itim. I just had to make do with what I had, ok?

“My Papycha said it's urgent!” exclaimed Joris, “He could be in danger. Maybe he's being attacked by the Thirsty!” Even Pupuce looked worried. Simone reread the message, thinking out loud: “The Huffing Bow Wow tavern is in the Pandawa district... There's plenty of bamboo milk there. Maybe the neighborhood is overrun by the Thirsters?” “And soon, the whole city will be under attack!” concluded Joris.

Nobody knows how to escalate a situation better than a 7yo with anxiety. God bless <3

The Ecaflip goes full "war machine" mode: he cuts and slices through the living dead for the entire night, and when the golden disk of the sun finally rises over the horizon, the scenery is carpeted with the Thirsty. The region is saved. Kerubim becomes a legend. To thank him, the local lord offers him the... “Hey... Joris? Are you listening?” asked Simone. She began shaking the boy, who, abruptly snapping out of his reverie, mumbled: “Huh? What?”

Joris is so normal. So sane.

“Bye-bye,” added Bowiknif. But Luis slammed the door in their faces, roaring: “You're not going anywhere!” “Oh yeah?” hissed Bakstab, “Is that so?” “Would you like us to chop up your friends with a Brakmarian steel sword of Chouque?” questioned the other, “Or with Samuel J. Axe?” Luis muttered what sounded like a string of expletives, before reluctantly opening the door to the two robbers, who bolted out without further ado.

I'm LITERALLY fucking insane about this.

“I'm sorry,” said Luis, “I tried to hold them back, but...” “We know, we saw everything,” the girl cut him off, “You did your best, Luis.”

Actually deranging. Also explains why Luis did fuckall about Sipho, Harebourg, and Ush — there's just not much he can actually do.

She spotted a Dragoturkey standing near a trough. In two strides, she reached the animal, untied it, and climbed onto its back like an experienced Dragogirl*. “Let’s go!” she said to the boy.

This once again raises a some questions about Simone's past — when did she learn how to ride dragoturkeys? Is it the same reason why she knows how to fight, at least a little?

Then again, maybe she's just being an Osamodas here.

I love, love, love the Simone&Joris content in this book. Their bond is so important to me... She's the aunt who stepped up.

This art is so nice...

They had run like mad through half the city, arrived at the wrong address, turned back just as a thunderstorm broke out, wandered around in the rain in the Pandawa district, and FINALLY arrived at the Huffing Bow Wow Tavern, a large, long building with a thatched roof.

They're so fucking stupid. I love them.

“Ah, there you are!” called out Kerubim, “I almost thought you’d make me wait some more!”

I wish english also had the phrase "I almost thought you'd be late" as a cunty response when someone's an hour or three late to an event. I don't think the english translation I made conveys the sheer frustration.

Kerubim raised an eyebrow — a perfect copy of the circumflex accent:

I struggled with this part a lot in russian sjfkgdfg. It made me nerd out a little bit too.

I didn't have a lot of comments here, but eh. It was nice to finally get this over with dfjgkdsfg.

[gffa]

THE HIGH REPUBLIC READING PROJECT UPDATE: Since I finished Phases I and II (aside from Young Jedi Adventures previously), in the interests of not having a mile long post, I'm just doing Phase III stuff now. I've also decided against including The Vow of Silver Dawn since I don't think there's an official English translation--though, I am reading the fan translation. (Slowly, I've been reading ORV when I do have time to read.) Look how close I am! I'm even an hour and half into Defy the Storm and I've started the Phase III comics and I'd guess I have about ten issues left in total to catch up on and I finished Young Jedi Adventures. I can totally do this over the next week and a half!

MAIN STORYLINE NOVELS - PHASE III:

The High Republic: The Eye of Darkness

The High Republic: Escape from Valo

The High Republic: Defy The Storm

MAIN STORYLINE COMICS - PHASE III:

The High Republic: Shadows of Starlight - 4 issues

The High Republic (2023) - 7 issues [ONGOING]

The High Republic Adventures (2023) - 5 issues [ONGOING]

The High Republic - Saber for Hire (2023) - 1 issue [ONGOING]

ONESHOT COMIC ISSUES - PHASE III:

The High Republic Adventures: Crash Landing

EVERYTHING ELSE:

Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures - 25 episodes + 6 shorts

I enjoyed Escape from Valo a lot more than I thought I would, Older's and Wong's books usually just aren't my jam, but when they got in a bunch of new characters, I found myself more intrigued this time around. Part of that is probably that Phase III feels a lot tighter and more impactful now that they've had time to really get in gear as an initiative, but also I think maybe it feels like Older and Wong are spreading the story around to more characters and ones that resonate better with me. A lot of it is that I feel like Older is a little too close to Ram's character and winds up making him feel like The Most Specialest Boy Ever, but putting him into smaller chunks made him go down a lot better for me and I found his struggle to connect with the Jedi younglings versus becoming attached to them (in the way the Jedi mean it/more Buddhist-aligned) worked well for me. I think the book still fits into the overall trend for me--mostly one of my lesser faves of the Phase, but with 2-3 absolutely BANGER scenes about Jedi philosophy that make it worth reading for. Now, on to Defy the Storm and I'm curious how this will go, I like both Ireland and Gratton's work, but I do get a little "...." at Ireland's writing for Avon, who I thought worked well enough in the first book but starts to feel like she's not allowed any real flaws because she's too special. I just want a little more variety with the heroes, to let them have some genuinely unlikeable moments to be relatable. (This is personal preference, I might feel different if these were established characters or I was more in the target range.) I also finished Young Jedi Adventures and I honestly enjoyed having it on in the background! It's very much aimed at a preschool audience, but it does so with charisma and charm radiating out of it in every scene. The voice acting is top notch, the animation is gorgeous, the character/setting designs are stunning, and I admit, I got a little invested in the characters over the time spent with them. To the point I'm kind of genuinely champing at the bit for a second season because I NEED Taborr resolution, YOU CANNOT END IT THERE??? I NEED TO KNOW HOW THIS TURNS OUT???? I NEED ANOTHER SEASON!!!! At least tell me that someone else is in the same hell that I'm in of wanting to see how that conflict plays out and getting weirdly invested in that little shit that just wants real friends. ;__;

[humanpurposes]

Thanks @targaryenrealnessdarling and @emilykaldwen for tagging me <3

1. How many works do you have on ao3(or masterlist)? 16 on AO3, but I also have two Christmas oneshots that aren't on there, so 18 I guess.

2. What’s your total ao3 word count? 269,227

3. What fandoms do you write for? Mostly House of the Dragon, occasionally the Ewanverse.

4. Top five fics by kudos Karma is a God, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, Come So Close That I Might See, Hysteria, Sour Switchblade.

5. Do you respond to comments? Usually! I like responding to comments, but sometimes it slips my mind.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? My Tom Bennett mini series, Just For a Moment 🥲

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Mine All Mine, my Michael Gavey oneshot.

8. Do you get hate on fics? I wouldn't say it's "hate" but I've gotten some weird comments from people who hate Aemond, but like... you're reading an Aemond fic, what did you expect?

9. Do you write smut? If it ain't got smut it wasn't me (tearing my hair out every time I write it).

10. Craziest crossover? Still not over my vision of Aemond as Dream of the Endless.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I wouldn't say outright stolen. If I had a nickel for every time someone who went out of their way to distance themselves from me then ended up writing something quite similar to one of my fics, I'd have two nickels.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? @targaryenrealnessdarling @bottlesandbarricades 😐

14. All time favorite ship? All time?? I have loads idk, I'll always love Zutara. In HotD, Alysmond.

15. What’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I was thinking about From Eden, my Osferth series recently. I feel like I should get back to that... eventually.

16. What are your writing strengths? Dialogue, character, I think I'm quite good at descriptions. And plot too, I think I have a good idea of the "big picture".

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Starting too many series and then taking months to update them. Overwhelming myself with specifics of a chapter plan. Putting off writing because I know it's not going to be perfect first try.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? Yeah it's fun to have the odd bit of High Valyrian in my fics, but I worry about the translations and I'm not qualified enough to include more than a few lines.

19. First fandom you wrote in? That I published, HotD

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Noooo don't make me choose between my children- Karma is a God. Me and her been through the trenches together <3

No pressure tags: @randomdragonfires @inthedayswhenlandswerefew @the-heartlines @theoneeyedprince @barbieaemond @marthawrites and anyone else who wants to do it!

[sappho-of-space]

20 Questions Writer Meme:

I was nominated by the lovely @ashilrak to participate in this. Answering the these questions was a fun- a little walk down memory lane and a reminder of how much I've grown.

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

47!

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

189419

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Percy Jackson at the moment! I've written snippets for The Magnus Archives and Danny Phantom. I've also contemplated writing for Marvel for a while.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. A God in Chains (3151)

2. At the Armrest of a God (3149)

3. we both have bad taste in men, but at least we have each other (2073)

4. cookies aren't the only hot thing here (1713)

5. you and i until eternity (1705)

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

Complicated answer. I did in the past until I dealt with some harrassment/negativity with a previous fandom. It scared me away from interacting with any that I didn't really know on my own fics. I've found a lovely new community, so I'm trying to respond to comments more to show everyone how much I appreciate them.

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

I actually had to skim a few of my fics to remember their endings, lol. My answer is probably:

another flower in a garden of tragedies

Or

Of New Blood and Old Hyacinths

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

I've written a lot of fluff with happy endings, so I'll just answer this with the fic with my favorite ending.

"we both have bad taste in men, but at least we have each other" is a win for the lesbians and was just so much fun to write. I've gotten a lot of requests for a continuation of it, and I've had some ideas, but nothing enough to put to paper.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Lmao, yes. I've orphaned about 7 fics from a previous fandom because of the toxicity of the fandom (My Hero Academia). It was everything from demanding updates to trying to 'cancel' me for no reason but because they didn't like how I portrayed a character. On my most recent fics, there hasn't been much overtly negative- just jokes/comments that don't land well. Overall, I'm happy with my new community.

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

Yes, lmao. I write hedonistic shit that would make even the most stone cold nun blush. Looking through my fics makes me realize I really enjoy temple/altar defilement.

10. Do you write crossovers?

None yet, but I'm not opposed! I enjoy reading them when they tick all of my boxes, but I will admit, I can be pretty picky.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

None that I know of, but I wouldn't be surprised.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Just one. I thought it was very sweet and adored the fact that someone liked my writing enough to spend time translating it.

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

Just one, but I'm very open to doing more! I've written in a rouns robin, but I think I would prefer doing a full co-write with one or two other authors.

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

Very hard, but probably spideypool. I've had a Spider-Man fixation for about half my life, and I simply love Deadpool. Besides spideypool, probably perpollo or jonmartin.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but don't think you ever will?

I don't think I have one? I have 4 wips currently. One has an ending well in sight. Another has 15k words already, and I refuse to let all that go to waste.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Descriptions and pacing! I've been told a few times that people enjoy reading my au's because I don't infodump all at once, I make the gathering of information feel natural and comfortable. I personally love my visual metaphors.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Time management. I'm generally very busy and get easily distracted. Getting myself to sit down and actually write is a pain.

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

I try to write around using another language if I don't know a native speaker who could help me. Writing in German would be no problem for me (I studied it in college), but I would shy away from anything else.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Attack on Titan (I was in 8th grade, lol). I published it on Wattpad, and it did fairly well before I deleted it.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

This is almost impossible to answer, but I loved writing "And Spring Will Come Again." It was for a fic exchange that I pinch hitted for. I went a bit overboard with the nature imagery and metaohors, but I had fun researching folklore + mythology. Anything that requires research is very fun to me.

I, sappho-of-space, hereby nominate @celestialepiphany .

[cuppa-ale]

Hi. I'm not responding directly because I really don't know how, so I'm going to say this here because I've gotten a few similar asks and DMs:

If you have no age in bio and I don't know you, or are a minor, please DO NOT request me for thirst art of your favorite character, even if it's one I've drawn before.

It makes me really uncomfortable and like I said, I really don't know how to respond to messages like that. I appreciate if you like my art or any blorbo I've drawn, you do you, I support you- but PLEASE do not ask me to draw characters that you think are "hot" if you're not an adult / I don't know that you're an adult.

Even if you are, I would probably still refuse because I unfortunately don't have the time/energy to take on requests that aren't commissions.

I think it's within a person's right to withhold their exact age when they're anonymous online, so this isn't me saying that you should put your age in bio- just that these kinds of messages make me uncomfortable. It doesn't happen a lot but it's happened enough to where I would like to have a "sign" of sorts that I can tap if it continues.

I also want to say that, for any minors online reading this, it's 100% okay to be attracted to a character or whatever and post about them- but I am begging y'all to PLEASE DO NOT put yourselves in potentially vulnerable positions by privately messaging adults about it, or asking them to draw your fantasies. It's dangerous at worst, and at best, it's uncomfortable for any adult with sense and you can get yourself and/or them in trouble.

I'm going to leave some resources here from people who actually know what they're talking about in regards to internet safety and spotting the signs of inappropriate behavior online (and even in person):

Resources for general internet safety with an online game you can play (available in multiple languages): https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/

Articles and tips about internet safety for parents, teens and kids alike (English & Spanish): https://kidshealth.org/en/searchresults.html?q=online&start=0

Article about internet safety for kids and teens, mostly geared towards parents, but contains useful tips like not giving out personal info, how to be safe on social media, how to deal with cyberbullying, etc... (only English as far as I can tell): https://www.consumernotice.org/data-protection/internet-safety-for-kids/

Article with tips about spotting red flags of inappropriate behavior and grooming online (English): https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2019/post-update/protecting-kids-online

Warning signs for manipulative behavior/grooming, with links to more articles about online grooming in particular (English & Spanish): https://rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs

Child Grooming & Other Abuse Warning Signs (English): https://safekidsthrive.org/the-report/introduction/other-warning-signs/

7 red flags that you're being groomed — how to spot the difference between a well-meaning adult and a predator (English): https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/what-is-grooming

The Parents & Caregivers Guide to Online Youth Radicalization (English): https://www.splcenter.org/peril-guide-online-youth-radicalization

That last one may seem a bit random, but I think it's topical and important to read even if you're not a parent or caregiver. I also want to include these warnings signs of grooming from the Safe Kids Thrive website with some additions by a user on Twitter (who also compiled the above resources and more) on how these may manifest in online fandom/hobby spaces in particular:

https://x.com/SamAburime/status/1818117440946978989

The thread I linked above also contains a Spanish translation. I know this is a dreadful topic and most of us are just here to have fun, and I know some of these are lengthy, but I think they are important to spread around and for people to read and be aware.

You don't have to share them from me if you don't want to, either- make your own post, spread these resources to others, especially if you can find resources in more languages- talk about internet safety and share resources from professionals!

[greywindys]

Share your thoughts on the final of BNHA once you finished it, please

Yes! Sorry, I'm late. I was away this weekend, so I actually still haven't had the chance to read the official translation, but these are some of my thoughts that I'm going to try to limit to a few paragraphs (feel blessed that I don't subject this blog to all of my anime tangents).

The tl;dr version is...whelmed, but more positive than negative.

I don't hate the ending as much as some people, but I can also admit that it's a tough one for fans who aren't there for Bakugou or Deku, and even then, there still feels like there are chunks missing from their respective stories.

Obviously, I'm mostly into this series for Bakugou. I would argue, objectively, that he has the most dynamic and satisfying arc in the series overall. For someone who seems to be more of an artist than a storyteller (this isn't to say he's terrible or anything, I actually think he's good at this too), Hori did a pretty good job with him. I'd say he fulfilled he promise to treat his story with care. I wish we had more inner thoughts, more conversations. The biased part of me thinks there should have been more recognition for what he contributed to the final battle. But then another part of me thinks, well, it's in character for Bakugou to want to keep those moments (i.e. what happened with Shiggy) private. We should have at least gotten a scene of AM signing his card. But I also knew we wouldn't because I, to this day, still believe that was a random thing Hori threw onto his death fakeout to make it seem more tragic, and not because he genuinely wanted it to be a part of Bakugou's story line. I'll stand by this! But he should've signed his card.

Idk if I'm in the minority about this yet or not, but I don't mind Deku's ending. It was surprisingly, refreshingly, bittersweet. This series has, in the past come across as too optimistic for me. I was full expecting everything to ~work out, and I mean, it still kinda did? But Deku losing his quirk, everyone growing apart and moving onto their respective adult lives, that's all very real. But I also don't think that takes away from Deku's identity as a hero. Those who expected him to end the series as the strongest, most admired, rich etc, hero perhaps have forgotten that Deku was never motivated by any of those. He's in it because he genuinely care for humanity and wants to help others, and he continues to do that into his adulthood, with or without a quirk. I don't think we're supposed to pity him, and it's too bad that's what some are doing. He's happy! And we see the impact he's made on everyone at the end.

At the same time, the absence of Deku's inner monologues in particular, create a weird distance from him, and wish Hori had brought it back in the final chapters. We never really got to know what he thought about the final battle. And even outside of him, I surprised at how much was skimmed over re: other important characters (Todoroki, Aizawa, Dabi, etc.).

But it it was burnout, I get it. Having written a fic that took two and a half years of monthly updates, I get it. I, too, received feedback calling part of my ending rushed, and I agreed. I knew it was rushed! I would get to certain points in the chapter and realize that the paragraph I was working on could be its own chapter. But I was just ready to be finished writing it (I love the story to this day, don't get me wrong), I didn't want to expand it anymore. So, I can't imagine what I would feel like after 10 years. So, I can't be that angry. In some ways, the loose ends leave a lot for the fandom to work with, and I know it'll inspire many amazing works.

So yeah, I thought the ending had its strong points and its weak points. But I appreciate some of the choices Hori made. I hope he can get his rest now lol.

[klug]

Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop Final Story Impressions

This is a repost of something from privatter for my Twitter. I think my opinions are about the same as most fans, it's mostly negative/disappointment.

⚠️ Mostly negative opinions. I will focus on the overall game experience first and then story.

> Good points

I loved the final boss battle BGM. It was really really good.

This game has so many side stories that I love because they explore aspects of the characters that aren't touched on much, so I can't really hate it. Ally and Rafisol have my favorite side stories, but I'm also fond of Klug and Risukuma's.

A lot of the main stories are also really good, Ecolo and Accord's specifically.

This game has a wonderful presentation and I can tell the devs poured a lot of their love into this game. The amount of collectibles and flavor text and attention to detail for the shadow battles also made me so happy.

---

> Bad points

The online and various bugs in this game all just make this game very hard to play sometimes...it's good if you have a lot of people to play with locally, I guess.

The platform exclusivity and update schedule, but I don't really need to go into why these weren't good.

The translation quality was inconsistent in several places and there should've been more quality checking. I'm not sure if the translators just never cross referenced each other's work, but it was so weird to go from very well translated stories to ones that just got subjects wrong or made ridiculous inferences that weren't in the original.

---

Onto my feelings on the story...

It is about what I expected, but somehow it's worse than what I expected. As the main stories continued, I noticed there was no true plot progression and most of the newer episodes were dedicated to reiterating information that the players should've already known or inferred from earlier stories. At that point, I accepted the ending wouldn't be anything spectacular despite how incredible the beginning chapters were, but the ending was abrupt, everything felt too easy, and there were a few developments that didn't feel foreshadowed at all.

Why did not!Sig want to control the dream world anyway? We didn't see anything of this plan in Satan or Ecolo's stories either. How could it have only taken 2 Puyo battles with Amitie to beat Sig, anyway? He (and Strange Klug!) are treated as ridiculously powerful characters, and Sig's Secret shows this too. Why did the ending only involve Satan, Ecolo, Arle, and Ringo -- people who really aren't as close to Sig as his own classmates? Why weren't Accord or Lemres there after being so heavily involved with Sig and Meena?

It felt like they just needed to slap an ending onto this story somehow. And Sig's story itself was even somewhat of a letdown for me. I thought it was very very funny, but I was a bit sad to see that we didn't get to see anything very interesting after Meena took some of his powers. It felt like there was seven supposed to be a chapter between Sig and the final chapter focusing on not!Sig and what he was doing because, let's be honest, he barely showed up. The fact that he wanted to control the dream world was very sudden and only came out at the very end.

I think all of this just hurts more because I've always really liked Sig, Amitie, and the crimson spirit and their connections lore wise so I was excited to see it touched on in more detail but...we don't really have anything new now. A lot of this story felt like a combination of the novels "Everyone's Dreams Coming True?!" And "Sigs Secrets", both which I honestly like better than Puzzle Pop.

The amount of lore drops and teasing with the crimson spirit also just hurt me more. I'm very dedicated to her as a character ,so it felt like they were just showing her off only to pull out the rug from under me by not actually involving her in the story...? This is entirely a tunnel vision take, but I do think it is hard to write a story like this without being more explicit about the fact she exists...

I hope this story at least creates a point for them to jump off from in the future since the scattered lore in audio dramas/books is more consolidated here, but it feels like this is how they're ending this subplot with Sig and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Because my aforementioned favorite ends up getting the short end of the stick.

[meowmeowbeepy]

Wow here are some updates no one asked for

I just caught up on previous blog posts. I am sorry the last two seemed more like tweets. Here are some historical happenings since last true post (mostly I've been doing book and podcast reviews lol?)

I went to NY w/ Benny which was fun. I was so incredibly pleased w/ myself that he actually LIKED it. Lots of touristy things that we all must do at least once in this life... Next time we go back we will be more slow paced. I liked the hotel A LOT. It's great to stay in 1 central place when traveling. I know I'll have made it in life if my future hotels on vacations are nice as balls and convenient and no compromise! He liked the MET the most. I felt bad bc I was not doing well that day (abrupt #3 iykyk and hungry and feet hurt). Something I like abt Ben: he never makes me feel bad when I actually am being a problem. I cannot say I am as gracious towards crankypants. I liked the ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty! Specifically the Statue of Liberty. The island was not crowded, and we were the first group there so it was an ideal situation and felt whimsical for an iconic landmark. I also really liked seeing friends Clur and Corn. It was so nice and energetic for the limited time I had. But the most soul filling ofc was bringing Benny to grandparents. I appreciate my auntie sm for being the best (albeit crazy) caretaker of grandparents (also crazy). Family becomes everything and continues to speed up up up up in importance as we age. Our social worlds will get smaller.. not worse! Just infrequent! But family is home. That's how I can describe the feeling anyways. My translation abilities were better than I thought... Also, I knew they were old but I never felt they were any older than other grandparents. But after this trip, I could SEE and I really felt that they are getting far older than average/normal. So I treasure and am thankful for that. I hope they will be here for much longer. So much time has gone by since I was a little college kid staying majorly w/ them "upstate" and venturing towards Manhattan. Now, I don't think I could do that haha. I am such a princess haha.

Before we went to NY me, daddy, and Benny went to a Rockets game. It was perfectly fun and something I know my daddy will treasure a lot. He likes that kinda stuff.

I thought December was going to be a huge flop/slow month for HAs but it ended up being ok. January tho... extreme flop lols. But I guess I have one more week to turn it around? Doubt I can realistically. I wonder if I am not as motivated as I was when I first started :( But idunno. I think about the ethics and morals of different HA levels way more than I used to? Or at least deeper than I used to so maybe that is affecting me? I also think I am more realistic than before- I used to give my 500% and was blind to a person who probably wouldn't follow through. Now, I can see it early on and it doesn't disappoint as much I guess. Probably not good. Also, the salary drama I've recently become privy to was a weird thing to experience in my career. I didn't get TMJ from it lol and feel pretty neutral overall. But hoping the best... for all.. and for me. If I could say 1 thing I am really bleh to: the tracking and KPI of my office. The higher ups are VERY nice... but what's going to happen when my numbers aren't as good for an entire year as maybe they were Sept-Oct. But I won't be too negative, realistically I know things will ebb and flow without any change in me.

Ok last one. We got a new doggy! Born 3/21/2020... Barney! He's so sweetums and so much more DOG than Toby was. Barney is just a wee bit mischievous but it is overpowered by his loyalty and desire to be close to humans. Toby was very mischievous and not super affectionate or needy, tho very loyal w/out shame lol. (Ex. does not want love from anyone but my mom.. esp Joann) Barney is pretty sweet to all. Joann has announced that he is HER dog, which makes sense. AND I don't mind. I just want a little doggy adjacent. She is basically holding him hostage in her room which I think is funny bc his personality probably will do well w/ that. Vs. Toby hated her for that. God blessed us w/ Barney though. He is so gentle and baby that he will be a good second dog to people who VERY HONESTLY have not fully moved on from Toby. And probably never will (not in a super bad way) but he was more than a dog lollll so dramatic.

K bye

[eponymousfics]

when you make a three page comic about writing a fic instead of actually writing the fic hashtag writer problems

this is the evolution of writers talking to the characters in the author notes lol

translations under the cut:

page 1:

epon: Hey, Ichimatsu...

ichi: Ah?

e: What do you want...next?

i: ...eh?

e: I mean, you just graduated [context: the latest update of the silence purrs was chapter 21], but that's not the end, right? There's other stuff you want?

i: 'stuff i want'...?

i: nnnn...

i: cats...

e: There are already four.

i: Oh, that's right. ...then...

i: ...I can't think of anything else...

e: Seriously...it's fine if you have cats and s*x, huh...

i: Yeah. (❁´◡`❁)

e: (❁´◡`❁) That's really all you need to be happy, huh...how un-greedy and sweet 💜

e: Unfortunately, we can't just let it end like this.

i: Eh?

e: Listen up, we've only got the "ki" and "sho" part of the story! [context: first two story beats in a 4 beat classification system] How are you going to get us to "ten" and "ketsu"?!

i: Eh?! Why would you ask me—aren't you the writer?? It's your job to think of that stuff isn't it?

e: That's true, but I need you to give me a certain amount of direction! Ok? It's ok if it's simple! Like, is there a kind of date you've always wanted to try, or?

i: nn~....

e: Do you really need to think so hard?! Anything goes! Even if it's pervy!

page 2:

i: Then...maybe...going to a cat cafe together...or something...

e: I've already planned something like that.

i: You said it was fine if it was simple?! (If you've already got plans don't ask!)

i: Fine, then why don't you focus on something about the reader character instead of me? Isn't their job going to come up later?

e: The reader's job, huh...um...

i: What do you mean, um?

e: I mean that sounds like I might run into a lot of things I need to research, and that sounds annoying~

i: Isn't that just you making work for yourself?

i: Sheesh. What did you even come to ask me in the first place?

e: Well, if we look at it broadly, where do you want to end up, ultimately? Living together? Confessing your love? Or should we leave all that up in the air and just end it on the "yeah they probably wound up doing those things" vibe? You're not ready for marriage, right? You wanna get a job?

i: Eh? What's up with those options? It's kind of a lot of pressure...

e: Well I mean, it's a romcom after all...>_>

i: B-but weren't all those options part of the "rom"? What about the "com"?

e: Oh, that...

e: I've mostly asked those guys to take care of that part.

e: So all you have to do is be lovey-dovey ;)

i: EH—?!

i: No no no no—! That's embarrassing!! Let's just stop—!

e: What, no we can't! We can't just end the story right here! You're super popular, Ichimatsu!

i: W-why...is everyone stupid?

e: That's not it.

e: It's because you're cute. :)

i: . . . ?

i: n...there's no way that's true...anyone who thinks that must have something wrong with them....they're definitely stupid...

e: You're as mean to your fans as ever, I see.

i: But I mean...why would they want trash like me...

e: Because you're cute.

i: But WHY would they think that?!

e: Hmmm...

e: I think it's about your heart.

page 3:

e: I mean, you're definitely a dark, violent, cynical spoiled baby of a NEET, but���

e: —on the other hand, sometimes you're really kind, or considerate, and your smile is really cute, and you have a surprising amount of common sense, so you really do have a bunch of good points. Plus, the darkness is pretty relatable. (The modern world is pretty scary, you know....)

e: So, let's work together to think of a story that everyone will like. Leave the romantic stuff to me. Can you think of anything to develop the plot from here?

i: ...

i: But...don't you think there isn't enough of a break?

e: A "break"?

i: I mean, it's me. If we're going to do anything more than we've already done, I'm...gonna need some time to recover. I can't change that fast, you know.

e: Hmm...is that so...(should we try changing focus then?)

e: Wait, that just brings us right back to the reader's job again!

i: Then go with that, please.

e: *sigh* Now I'm tired somehow...

i: ...

i: ...do you wanna...give it up? I mean, it's just a story about me—

e: NO.

e: I vow...

e: to make you happy!!

i: ?!

i: W-w-w-what's with that phrasing, what is this, a proposal?! It's not, so don't say embarrassing things like that—!!

e: (Sorry, sorry (❁´◡`❁))

//end translation

[analyzen]

Italian Fandom Meta | Most Popular Types of Pairings on EFP vs. AO3

EFP (2001–, Fanlore) is the most popular writing archive in Italy, and it hosts both fanfic and original fiction. Under the cut you’ll find a breakdown of the most popular types of pairings on EFP in comparison to the most popular types of pairings in the Italian section of AO3.

The Italian version of this analysis can be found here.

TL;DR:

53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted

49% of the registered users on EFP have deleted their accounts

M/F works amount to 60% of the whole website

EFP’s three most popular fandoms (Harry Potter, One Direction, Original Fiction – Romantic) all have a majority of M/F works

On AO3, most Italian works are M/M (56%)

F/F doesn’t have much content on either site (4-5%)

Methodology

I’ve followed @olderthannetfic’s methodology from this earlier Fanfiction.net analysis. Basically, I picked a sample size of 666 chapters and organized them in four categories (M/M, M/F, F/F, Not tagged; more on this later).

Why I chose chapters instead of stories

On EFP you don’t have specific links for every single story. Instead, every chapter you post gets a unique id, which can be seen in the link itself. For example, at the time of writing this the last updated chapter on EFP was this one:

viewstory.php?sid=3974099

Which means that this was the 3'974'009th chapter ever posted on EFP.

Ids follow the usual numerical order, so if a link reads id=3, then there have to be id=1 and id=2, and the next link will have id=4.

So I’ve used a randomizer to select ~1200 unique ids to analyse.

Weren’t 666 chapters enough?

I started out with 700 chapters, but half of them weren’t working. That’s because 53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted from the website.

Thanks to the link of the last updated chapter, we know that almost 4 millions chapters have been posted on the EFP. But EFP's homepage shows different stats:

Registered users: 602395, 205974 of which are authors Last registered user: [blacked out] Total of stories: 517083 Total of chapters: 1869573 chapters Total of reviews: 6222695 Online users: 17 logged in and 53 visitors

While we should have almost 4 million chapters, the stats show ~2 million chapters. Why? Because the stats only show the stories, chapters and users that are still on the website, and they don’t show the stories, chapters and users that have been deleted.

(Sorry, I forgot to translate this one. It reads: Total of chapters posted on EFP between 2001 and today. Orange: deleted chapters. Blue: chapters that are still online.)

Thanks to the stats on the homepage we also have a link to the last registered user. User ids follow the same numerical order as chapter ids, so once again we know that 49% of the users ever registered on EFP have deleted their accounts. That's a lot of deleted accounts.

Categorization

After selecting 666 (accessible) chapters, I organized them into 4 categories:

M/M: contains all stories tagged as “yaoi”, shounen ai” and “slash”

M/F: contains all stories tagged as “het”

F/F: contains all stories tagged as “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash”

Not tagged: which contains a) poetry, b) stories tagged as “no pairing”, and c) untagged het stories.

As for the untagged het stories, there are two issues:

Many M/F fics simply aren’t tagged

Many gen fics include untagged M/F ships

If the description made it clear that the story included a heterosexual relationship, I added the story under the M/F tag. Otherwise I left it under not tagged.

Also, on EFP “yaoi”, “shounen ai” and “slash”, and “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash” actually mean different things.

This screenshot here is from the posting page on EFP. It reads:

Pairings * You must select at least one tag from the list, and you can choose up to three tags. Het: for heterosexual relationships Shonen-ai: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Shojo-ai: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Yaoi: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Yuri: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Slash: for male/male relationships from TV shows/movies/books FemSlash: for female/female relationships from TV shows/movies/books

The thing is. People either respect the rules and use different tags for different kinds of stories, or they use these tags interchangeably to maximise the chance to appear in other users' searches. Which means that you’ll find RPF tagged with “shoujo ai”, and Attack on Titan fics tagged as “slash”. (More info on this later.)

Findings

On EFP, the majority of the stories are M/F.

To confirm this, I checked some specific fandoms:

Some notes:

Because EFP doesn't have metatags like AO3, what I did was: 1) go to a specific fandom, 2) filter through every single tag, and 3) jot down the number of pages per search. Every page contains up to 15 stories, so for example searching for het in Original Fiction – Romantic gives you 846 pages, which amounts to around ~12690 stories.

The tag in red, “Nessuna”, means “no pairing”. It is used for gen fics but also for untagged M/F fics. This is especially true in some fandoms, ie. Original Fiction – Romantic, and Harry Potter.

EFP’s filtering system sucks. You can only filter through stories with specific relationship tags, but you can’t filter out relationships tag. So what you see in the graph is how often a tag is used... which brings us to some issues. For example, Harry Potter is the biggest fandom on EFP, so much that Harry Potter stories amount to 11% (!) of the whole website. But in the graph it looks like the One Direction fandom has more stories—wrong. Actually, One Direction has many stories tagged as both slash and het, while Harry Potter stories tend to be either one or the other.

EFP’s filtering system sucks, part 2. Because “shounen ai”, “yaoi” and “slash” are often used at the same time, you can't really smash together all three of the tags to get a total amount of stories. I'd say that around 50% of the stories tagged as shounen ai and yaoi probably overlap, but there is no easy way to find out because, again, EFP’s filtering system sucks. The same goes for “shoujo ai”, “yuri” and “femslash”.

Fandoms with a majority of M/M stories

While there are some fandoms with more M/M stories (ie. Death Note, Hetalia, Glee, Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf), these fandoms are simply extremely small in comparison to other bigger fandoms full of M/F fics. Which obviously skews the numbers in favor of M/F fics.

What about femslash?

EFP suffers from the same lack of femslash as AO3 as a whole. In the fandoms I've analysed, only two have a big enough number of F/F. The fandoms are Glee (which has more F/F stories than M/F stories) and Grey's Anatomy (which has as much F/F as M/F stories, with little M/M).

Original Fiction

I thought it might be interesting to explore the original sections too, especially because Original Fiction – Romantic is the third biggest fandom on EFP after Harry Potter and One Direction. These Big 3 all have a disproportionate amount of M/F stories.

By logic, this would mean the the majority of the userbase on EFP prefers M/F stories. But then, aren't fans always complaining about “too much slash”? If “Any Two Guys” were enough to find slash appealing, wouldn't it be easier to simply write original M/M?

I think that looking at original stories might help us understand why people might prefer slash over het in some fandoms. For example, the amount of M/F stories in Original Fiction – Romantic implies that, when authors have to chance to choose what types of stories to create from scratch, they might prefer M/F stories.

This would support the theory that many people might prefer slash because of the lack of (well written/primary) canonical female characters + how well M/M relationships, both platonic and romantic, are written in canon texts in comparison to M/F or F/F relationships.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that not all fanfic writers write original fiction and viceversa, so I'm not trying to find a universal explanation here. Also because not every website has a majority of M/F stories.

Which brings us to...

AO3 vs. EFP

As per today 20/04/21, the Italian section of AO3 contains “only” 24777 stories, divided between many different fandoms. To make a comparison, the Italian stories on AO3 amount to 5% of all the stories available on EFP. To make another comparison, the whole Naruto fandom on EFP has 20129 stories in total.

EFP has also been active for 20 years, while the boom of Italian fics on AO3 only started around 2018. We can't really make a 1:1 comparison between the two archives, but we can still try to understand the preferences of their users.

M/M and M/F stories on EFP vs. AO3

EFP: 60% M/F, 25% M/M

AO3: 56% M/M, 23% M/F

The percentages are almost swapped.

This might be because of the archives themselves. EFP has always been the general website for any Italian fandom (and actually at first it mostly hosted M/F content), while AO3 has always had a big M/M userbase. I'm basing this statement on this AO3 analysis from 2013, in comparison to this FFN analysis from 2018 which showed a majority of M/F fanworks, and finally this AO3 vs. FFN vs. Wattpad analysis from 2019, which showed that AO3 has always been the outlier for its majority of M/M content.

Then again, M/M stories on EFP have always been subject to the “usual” type of borderline-to-direct harassment that M/M fans are used to, which is something that still happens to this day especially in certain writing groups on Facebook, where the Italian writing community is pretty active. It wouldn't be weird for slashers to move to AO3, where they know they'll find more like-minded people and less headaches. (Also, the Italian section of AO3 has a lot of M/M RPF that's banned on EFP.)

The “Multi” tag on EFP

The only thing that barely resembles a multi tag on EFP is threesome, which for some reason is often used as a synonym for love triangle. So from the tags it isn't easy to understand if a fic includes an actual threesome (as in, a sex scene), a polyamorous relationship, or a simple love triangle.

This doesn't mean that there aren't poly stories on EFP—it simply means that they're impossible to find using the search system.

And that's all, I think!

[beeezie]

Hello you. How are you? There are some stories in ffnet that aren't in hpft and ao3.

Answering some of my recent questions out of order - if the same person submitted them, I’m not ignoring the others, I’m just going with what’s easiest to answer right now! :)

In general, HPFT should have everything - there are a lot of things I’ve just never bothered to x-post to AO3 and/or FFnet. A week or so ago, though, I decided to hide some stories on HPFT that more recent stories (or just where I’m taking my writing) have led me to want to update, including:

1) Wrinkles of the Road - This is probably the big one that I’ve hidden, and I promise it’s on my radar to edit ASAP. There are a couple reasons - the first is current events related and honestly looking at Scorpius’s Malfoy grandparents through a lens of RL bigotry, and there are some things I want to handle a little differently there (including having him take more ownership of it). The second is that I have writer’s block with that story and I’ve often found that editing often reinspires me.

2) Dark Side of the Moon - I always knew where this was going, and I think it’s reflected pretty well, but some of the new details about what Vic’s been doing in Shenanigans and my affection for Brendon Greengrass is making me want to rework this a bit around the edges.

3) Devil is in the Details - James II is a step or three beyond Rose and his other Gryffindor secondary family members in terms of recklessness, and I want to reflect that a little better, especially now that I feel more comfortable translating mental illness into my writing. (I have a lot of personal experience with it, but I’d mostly limited the mood/anxiety stuff to Lavender before starting to write Astoria.) Like, real talk: I’m pretty sure James is bipolar. That’s not all going to come out in Details - he doesn’t really break down until later - but I do want to allude to some of it.

There are a couple other one-shots I’ve hidden, too, but those are the big ones.

So that’s why a few are missing on HPFT. My goal is to have them all back up in May or June.