#i made all my fics available to registered users only

[radioactive-earthshine]

New Kon Fic "One Weak Later" now available on AO3

Chapters 6/6 Words: 10,492 Rating: Teen and Up Category: Gen Relationships: Bart & Kon, Kon & John Henry Irons, Kon & Tim, Kon & Cassie Sandsmark Characters: Kon El, John Henry Irons, Tim Drake, Cassie Sandsmark, Bart Allen, Tags: Kon El Centric, Angst, WHUMP, Melancholy, PTSD (see fic for full tags)

Summary

"Kon tried not to think about the future they all saw while they were ping-ponging through time - the year 2020 where the video archives showed their adult selves in their 30s fighting yet another war. All of them except Bart. Up until about a week ago Kon wrote the entire thing off as ludicrous and a sick and twisted joke pulled on them by time itself. But now… now…

Bart was in a coma, and he would not wake up."

War was war, and there never were any real winners. Particularly not for Kon as his mental health spirals following the Our Worlds at War event due to his guilt for being responsible for marooning his team on Apokolips. With kind and firm words from John Henry, Cassie's blunt compassion and even Bart haunting him, Kon struggles to find himself after the war.

Kon can forgive anyone, but can he forgive himself?

Excerpt

Earth wasn’t anything like how he remembered it was when he returned with his friends. Metropolis, his most beloved city, was pockmarked by the war with a haunted population that looked at him with distant eyes and made him feel like he really did step through a looking glass into another world. Even Martha Kent’s kind smile and gentle love to him was through a haze of gray and grief that washed her light out. The more guilty and paranoid part of his mind was certain it was because they were looking at a murderer, and they knew it. 

They all knew he killed Bart. His clone. Didn’t matter. Someone died that day on Apokolips. Multiple people. The Lobo clones. They all were dead because he couldn’t accept the mission he was given, and in an effort to save Steel’s life that didn’t even need saving, he instead crashed all of them on the worst planet in the universe. Less than six hours later, several hundred Lobo clones were a bloody biomass and Bart was a crumpled spasming husk. 

If Kon could have switched places with Bart, he would have, because it was his fault and Bart didn’t deserve this and… “He’s going to get better,” said Cissie as they visited Bart in his bone bleach white hospital room at STAR Labs. She sat on the bed near his large feet and rubbed his blanketed shin gently, her blue eyes glassy.   Bart, the person that Kon remembered as a bright and loud hurricane thunderclap more free than the wind, was a thin limp corpse, imprisoned in a bed and abused by his own biology. As Kon looked at Bart, he intrusively remembered the end of the real Little Mermaid story where the mermaid melted into seafoam and how serene a death it must have been, and those white blankets and pillows Bart melted into could have been bits of foam and ocean as he faded away from life.  But Bart clung fiercely to life as the machines he was hooked to beeped in disjointed harmony. 

I had to lock down all my fics due to AI Scraping so this is only visible to registered users only.

The title is spelled like that on purpose.

[uglifish]

🔒 i made a change

🔒I also checked off the box that hides me from search engines.

i am sorry if you are someone who reads without an account on-the-go, but generative AI is killing art and writing. If you really need me to explain why, please dm me and we will debate, or I will happily elaborate. 🔑 Thank you for your support so far. I know my updates have been spotty but rest assured, I will still write, and I will still update. Thank you for your comments on my most recent fic too!

🔑  All my stories are still available, no worries. I have not deleted anything.

🔒

My works are now only shown to registered users.

some people argue that this will prevent your works from being seen, so they'll risk the Ai bot scraping them to keep their works public.

🔒 well my response to that is: i dont care about exposure. I don't make art for fame, for money, or power. i make art for happiness, from curiosity, and for fun. If it's none of those three things, I will stop. Generative AI for art and writing is a soulless suckhole that kills all three of those creative conditions. It doesnt invite curiosity, it is not fun, and it doesn't evoke joy. Its joyless. Fight back. Protect your art. It's okay to go private.

[mikodrawnnarratives]

(click for better quality)

IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE

The "Happy Birthday dear Evie Artino" Fic is done!!

And I've had this art finished since SEPTEMBER

And my artstyles changed a bit I'd redraw Nova if I didn't mind taking even LONGER on this

I can FINALLY share it!

Read the fic at this link!!

Though, because of all the AI scraping risk, I'm gonna be trying to minimize that with this fic by making it only available to registered users. Get an invite here for an account if you don't already have an account

Word count: 17,104

Summary:

It’s been 12 years since Nova’s family was murdered. After the previous year of being a renegade and the aftermath of her uncle’s actions, Nova gets a moment to breathe. To grieve.

Though, it’s a little more than difficult to do that once she’s told her baby sister’s corpse was never buried. Never found. 

And now she has to search for the infamous thief, gone rogue, Magpie. As if she didn't have enough problems to deal with.

Let's just get this over with…

Timelapse and Timeline are available under the cut

FLASH WARNING btw The timelapse exported in a way that makes the beginning going from white to darker go very quickly. The timelapse shouldn't have any other flashes than that beginning part If you don't want to risk seeing the flash/only want to see the timeline, you can view it here and here

Timeline I made for the fic:

and

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Okay, first, if you have an AO3 tab (or a whole forest of them) open right now, just go ahead and close it. Stop adding your refresh pings to the onslaught.

Second, I made my fics locked to registered users only because of the dystopian hellscape of AI scraping, but before that happened I did crosspost most of my work on here, so if you're just dying for something to read, my backlist is available.

I'll try to pull together a single post with links to all those individual crossposts tonight or tomorrow, but in the meantime, one easy way to reference (for me and a lot of other writers) is to drop into a user's post archive and filter down to Links. I tended to post AO3 links up top but include the full fic beneath. (Again, not for all, but most.)

Happy reading.

[kanafinwe-makalaure]

Sometimes I think about all the guest kudos I have ever gotten on AO3 and wonder - how many people, maybe people who are new to fandom, have read my fics and smiled? How many people have come to A03 from my Tumblr? Has one of my fics ever been the first fic someone has ever read? Has anyone ever joined fandom because of one of my silly little fics? Read one of my fics on their phone under the dinner table or their desk at school or work?

Probably not. Maybe? I don't know who these people are; now many anonymous "guests" are different people? How many are the same person, reading through all my stuff? How many are people with an account that loved the fic so much they logged out just to leave another kudos?

I just went on AO3 and locked all my fics, making them only available for registered users. No more guests. It makes me sad; it feels like saying goodbye to all these faceless, happy little people who have found my stuff and left behind a fleeting trace of their essence to let me know they read something of mine and it made them smile. (Or cry? I don't know. They're just kudos.) It makes me sad saying goodbye to them, but I don't want the soul of my works, my soul, fed to AI. Mindless, devouring monster without a heart, black cloud of toxic fog darkening the bright horizon.

[twotwinks]

rain + bankita

woo yay my first ever bankita fic! it was so hard to write actually whoops. yu's voice didn't come as easily to me as some of my other little guys, so it took a few tries for things to start feeling right. hopefully this isn't an indication of how future attempts will go!

send me a fall prompt! 🍂

(also available on ao3 for registered users!)

It had started pouring down rain in the early afternoon, seemingly out of nowhere and to most people's surprise. Yu was lucky enough to have an umbrella on him, but he knew there were plenty of others who hadn't been so fortunate. People rushed past him as he walked home, trying to escape the downpour as quickly as possible. Still others crowded under awnings, eaves, bus stops — anywhere that provided even a bit of cover.

Yu eventually spotted a familiar face among that crowd, pressed up against a building to avoid as much of the shower as he could. With his blue hair slicked down and clothes dripping nonstop, he looked for all the world like one of the stray cats Yu often cared for. Still, there was no mistaking who it was. Yu quickly changed course and headed for his friend’s hiding spot.

He came to a stop in front of the boy and offered up a smile. “Minato, hi.”

"Oh. Hey." The very corner of Minato's mouth twitched up in response.

Minato looked a little strange without his signature headphones and mp3 player, both instead safely tucked away in his bag out of the rain. He seemed to feel out of place without them too, fidgeting with his collar and shifting his weight from foot to foot. Eventually he leaned out from beneath his cover to peer idly up at the sky, watching to see if the rain showed any signs of letting up.

Yu tilted his head towards the right side of Minato's face, where his eye was now completely obscured behind the bangs plastered to his face. “Can you even see out of that eye?”

"Not really."

"Here." Without thinking, Yu reached up to brush away the sheet of hair, carefully unsticking it from Minato's skin. Minato went still under his touch, simply staring at the ground between their feet without a sound.

The change in his posture was subtle, but still enough to make Yu aware of what he was doing. He pulled his hand back sheepishly. "Sorry. I should've asked first."

Minato blinked a few times, seeming to reorient himself. "It's fine."

The unusual quietness of his voice made Yu doubt that it really was.

He took a step back and lightly cleared his throat. He’d nearly forgotten why he’d gone over to Minato in the first place, but this seemed like as good an opportunity as any to bring it up. "Why don't I walk you home? You'll stay drier that way." He raised his umbrella slightly, a physical invitation to join him.

"No, I’m alright." At least Minato sounded like himself again. "I'd probably bump into you and get you wet too."

"I don't mind. A little water won't hurt me."

Minato considered for a minute more, then nodded slightly. "Okay. If you’re sure." He stepped out from under his shelter and slid quickly into place alongside Yu. “Um. Thanks.”

“It’s no problem. I’m glad I saw you so I could help you out.”

The pair fell into step together easily, making small talk as they went. Yu found himself leading the conversation more often than not, with Minato only chiming in every now and then. It was a weird feeling. He was used to being the quiet one in situations like this, but Minato somehow managed to speak even less than Yu normally would. It seemed…sad, in a way, like he felt that he had to hold back like this. Yu started making attempts to engage him more in the conversation. He wanted Minato to feel safe around him, like he didn’t have to hide so much.

They soon came to a stop at a crosswalk, and sure enough, Minato bumped his elbow into Yu’s arm.

"Oh. Sorry." Minato quickly finished crossing his arms, presumably to try and keep himself warm. He peered up at Yu from beneath his bangs and almost-smiled again. "Told you that would happen."

"And I told you it wouldn't hurt me." In fact, the slightly damp patch on Yu's sleeve was nowhere near as concerning to him as the actions of the boy by his side. It hadn’t occurred to him that Minato was likely to get chilled from his earlier drenching. They probably needed to get him someplace warm soon. "Hey. My place is closer than yours. Why don't you come over for a while? You can dry off and maybe wait out the rain.”

Minato turned his head to properly look up at Yu, sporting his usual impossible-to-parse expression with his mouth slightly open. Yu wondered if he’d actually managed to catch him off guard with the sudden invitation. He smiled, hoping it would be encouraging. Minato watched him for a moment more, then turned and stared down at the pavement.

“Sure.” His voice was soft again, but in a completely different way than it had been earlier.

Yu fumbled for words for a few seconds. "Oh. Um. Alright. Good." He hadn’t realized just how much he’d wanted Minato to say yes. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy to convince him, either. Minato had always been the kind of guy to just go with the flow, but he was also notorious for keeping his distance from pretty much everyone. Maybe he’d also decided it would be best for his health. Or maybe he’d actually wanted to come over?

Yu was pretty sure it was the first thing, but just the thought of the second made his chest feel funny.

They set off together once again, now headed towards their new destination. It might have just been Yu’s imagination, but Minato seemed more willing to talk on the way. Maybe this whole thing really had let them get a little closer to each other.

And if not, there would still be plenty of time before the rain stopped.

[triptychgrip]

Fic Rec: Power Exchange between Ace/Dom Yuuri and Allo/Sub Viktor

Back with another post-canon fic rec, this time with a gem I discovered during my recent Ace Yuuri reading kick (speaking of which, I would LOVE if you shared your favorite ace-spectrum works, too).

Note: this work contains explicit sexual content and is only available to registered Archive Of Our Own users (i.e. I am unable to link to the story itself)

In part 3 of the excellent series japan’s ace, katsuki yuuri by ao3 user FullmetalChords, after an unexpected drop-in on Viktor masturbating — an incident that Viktor feels/expresses major guilt around, not wanting Yuuri to feel that he thinks their relationship is lacking in any way just because they don’t have sex — Yuuri develops an idea around how he might be able to bring Viktor sexual pleasure without feeling pressured into doing something he doesn’t want.

I love reading Dom/sub intimacy between Yuuri and Viktor and absolutely love the way in which this fic went on to depict a perfect middle ground for allosexual Viktor and asexual Yuuri to share in a new experience together (hint: it involves vibrating sex toys with Yuuri largely being in a different room for the vast majority of the scene).

Below is an excerpt that captures the incredible care between them that this story portrays.

—

He sets down the knife, rinsing his hands before going back to the vibrator, this time slowing it way down. He’s rewarded with impatient, breathless sounds coming from the bedroom.

“Ahnn… fuck, I can’t…”

There’s a slight whump that comes from the bedroom, and Yuuri’s head snaps in its direction, unable to keep from feeling a little alarmed.

“Color, Vitya?” he asks, letting his voice carry through the doorway, finger still hovering over a button on the remote.

He hears Victor laugh, breathlessly.

“Green,” comes the immediate answer. “Ohh, green, Yuuri, green…”

Reassured by the answer, he changes the pattern of vibrations, simultaneously ramping up the speed once more. A garbled rush of Russian obscenities is the only reply he gets. It’s clear, just from listening to Victor, that he’s enjoying this immensely.

Yuuri is amazed, in fact, by how much he is enjoying this. What he feels isn’t arousal, per se, but is more of a… tender feeling. Knowing the absolute trust Victor has placed in him, that the man he’s admired, the man he’s longed for, the man he loves, is entirely at his discretion. That kind of trust is a heady responsibility, and Yuuri is honored beyond words that Victor has allowed him to have it.

—

I highly recommend the entire 4-part series, and part 1 in particular is an excellent character study of Yuuri’s feelings around his ace identity.

Below is another excerpt (from part 1) that made me melt 😭 🥰

“If I asked you to kiss me,” Yuuri says, his mouth feeling very dry all of a sudden, “would that… would that be enough?”

Victor’s eyes meet his with that warm smile Yuuri loves so much. Corners of his mouth curling up, showing off the dimples that the cameras never get to see. It’s all the answer Yuuri thinks he needs, and then Victor bends down, just slightly, to press his lips softly against Yuuri’s. It’s reverent, like Yuuri is Victor’s dearest treasure, and Yuuri thinks he might cry at the tenderness of it.

When Yuuri thinks of eros, he thinks of flames curling the edges of newspaper, consuming until nothing is left. It’s the kind of love he still has no idea what to do with, a demand where refusal only means losing it altogether. This kiss is not a demand. It doesn’t consume, doesn’t take anything Yuuri isn’t freely giving.

—

Last but not least, if you are aware that the writer (FullmetalChords) is on tumblr, please let me know; I would love to tag them in this post, but did not find any profile with that username.

[uhhhyaenbyjade]

@mimbotomy tagged me in a fun tag game for fanfic writers, so here's my answers!!!!

How many works do you have on AO3? I have 62 total works, and I am so disappointed in a lot of them 😅

What's your total AO3 word count? 339,839 words!

What fandoms do you write for? Lately I've been working a lot on fics with AC: Odyssey, Monsterverse, and VicTORIous. However, I did recently do a fic for Mean Girls (2024) and I used to write a lot for BNHA/MHA, when I was very big on that fandom, but all those fics are really bad and cringe so I try to pretend they don't exist. I also have some batfamily fics, and a few for Dynasty. A few oneshots here and there with that fic being my only work in the fandom. And how could I forget, Horizon!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Confidence - What a Hero Needs - this annoys me so much, it was my first fic, EVER. I wrote it 4 years ago, and it's still my most popular, I've written much better stuff. I've even REWRITTEN THIS ONE AND THE OG IS STILL MORE POPULARR GKHDGHJHWJHK Apects Unknown - or are they? - a fun batfamily and wonderbat based fic off of my own mini-universe. Very cute, and very proud of this fic Perseverance - What a Hero Needs - the immediate follow up to Confidence. Again, I've written a lot better stuff "What? I like hero merch!" - My favorite crack fic I've written. Also BNHA/MHA based, but this was just fun and cute Among (Us) the Villains - yet another BNHA/MHA fic, but this time it's based about Izuku being friends with the LoV. And gaming with them. Made around the time of Among Us, hence the title

Do you respond to comments? I try, especially once I post something new. But honestly, a lot of my responses end up being just hearts or "thank you's" and it personally makes me feel like I'm being disingenuine when i respond with them too much

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I suppose Kumandra's Heart? But that was more sad than angst, I think?

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Pretty Girls, my Mean Girls (2024) fic!!!! I love this one so much, it's one of the few I go back and reread often! Basically a rewrite of the movie to be a lot gayer.

Do you get hate on fics? Oh yeah, there was this one marvel fic I did, and this one commenter was really mad that I wasn't going exactly as canon dictated. Because of course

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I have a few fics with smut, and it's mainly kink-based. Definitely love involved too, but very kink-based.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Yes! I enjoy it a lot! My craziest one would probably have to be the one I'm currently writing, combining the Assassin's Creed universe and Legendary's Monsterverse. It's called Ancients Risen Anew, and based on Kassandra joining MONARCH after the G-Day event in 2014!

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge! I made all my fics available only to registered users for the purpose of keeping them as safe as I can while still sharing them.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope! Would love to see it happen though!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nope! It sounds interesting to do though!

What's your all time favorite ship? I would have to say Jade West/Tori Vega. The good old classic gay couple from Nickelodeon, as much as we hate how that era of TV was behind the scenes. A close second would probably be Aloy/Seyka, from Horizon. I just love them so much, they're my little blorbos (i think i used that term right :D)

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I have a few, but I'll talk about Cascade for now. It's the marvel fic I mentioned earlier, and I kinda lost all interest in marvel recently. The last media I saw was The Marvels, and I enjoyed it a lot, but I kinda got oversaturated with too much Marvel stuff, and not enough of it was as amazing like Shang-Chi was to make me wanna stay interested. Will definitely watch the stuff I'm interested in though (anything with Kate Bishop and Yelena)

What are your writing strengths? Hmmmm, tough one. I would say lore. I love writing lore and explaining lore. I am also very good at writing outlines.

What are your writing weaknesses? Fight scenes. Especially fast paced ones. I love the choreography in movies, but how am I supposed to translate the fast-paced combat into writing in a way that feels natural????

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I have done this for a short story! Please go check it out, its non-fandom related so it didn't get traction, but oh my god i did so much research for it and I love it. It's called Children of Níðhǫggr!

First fandom you wrote for? Boku no Hero Academia / My Hero Academia. Please, end me

Favorite fic you've written? How the fuck am I supposed to choose just one?!??!?! I'll limit myself to five, to keep this short, lol Ink & Sparks - which is my favorite Jade West/Tori Vega fic. I rewrote it several times, and the version linked is the best one I've done. Please check it out, I love it so much! There's More To Life Than Surviving! - Honestly, this one is a contender for top fic. A crack fic, but for Ninjago! Loved it a lot The Titan of the Pearl - A very nice fic I wrote combining the Pirates of the Caribbean and Godzilla. Because I can Kumandra's Heart - A slight ending rewrite of Raya, the Last Dragon, which is my personal favorite Disney Princess movie Pretty Girls - the Mean Girls (2024) fic I mentioned earlier. I love this one so much, and like I said, I keep going back to reread it, that's how much I enjoy it Going to tag @aeide, @hartlesshart, @foibles-fables, and @spectres-n-knights for this! And if anyone else wants to, please go ahead!

[hydrangeapartridge]

Hi, Hydrangea!

I hope your having a wonderful day, I just wanted to ask you about a fic of yours, that I read in June! Your ShinsouxReader on AO3 called "Until death brings us together". I wanted to re-read it so badly, but whenever I click on the links on your Tumblr, it redirects me..

I was wondering if maybe you had taken it down or if the link expired? Thank you so much much for your time! I would appreciate a response more than anything, I adore your work. 😊🫶

Hi there !

I didn't take it down and here is the link on Ao3

However I recently made all of my fics on AO3 only available for registered users only bc of several posts I read about AI bots taking data from AO3 works without permission... Maybe that's why you get redirected?

You can also find this fic as tumblr posts starting from here with chapter 1

I also try my best to tag my works with the tag #hydrangeawrites and on my tumblr page if you search the title of my fics you should find them too.

I am glad you enjoyed my work enough to reread it 🙏 Please tell me if you still have trouble finding this fic or any other

Have a great day or evening or night, wherever you are on the globe <3

[danvillecheese]

hiiiiii so i didnt really want to do this but ive made all the fics on my ao3 only available to registered users due to this stupid ai data collection thing. if you like reading fics on ao3 please make an account - you can bookmark your favourites and subscribe to authors AND works and it even keeps ur fic history (which is great for finding a fic you once read and lost to the abyss). like i said, i didnt really want to gatekeep my fics, but if it means my work isnt getting stolen by robots then so be it. okay bye thats all for now <3

[derangedthots]

Life/Blog(??) Update:

hello again my darlings💕💕

i know it's been a couple weeks since you guys heard from me(i keep doing a disappearing act on you fjsks sorry about that) and i know i've worried a few people. i finally felt like i had enough mental/emotional space to address everyone again - however long or short this period of activity ends up being - so i'm here to say i've been dealing with some stuff in my personal life that's kept me from being present on this blog. my hopes are that i'm coming to the tail end of The Current Life Mess™ but if that doesn't end up happening, i wanted to at least leave some sort of 'official' explanation here.

regarding CTF, i'm still very much working on it so there are no worries on that front. obviously the next chapter/s update is gonna come later than what i'd originally planned (april-may? who was i kidding omggg) but hey, that's life🙃🤷🏻‍♀️ trust me i'm not happy about it either (very cringe behavior from me being this late ugh) but i wanted to be transparent abt the delays bc this community has been nothing but kind and generous and patient and i didn't want to leave you guys hanging dry just completely clueless about everything🥹

in the couple weeks i've been inactive my askbox has filled up again and i'll try to get to answering those very soon. thank you again to everyone for being so patient with me, i appreciate every single question/comment/rant very Very Much😭💕

on a final note, and perhaps the most important thing out of this whole post - there's a good possibility that i'll be privating Fire Made Flesh and Courting the Flame in the next few days. all this stuff around AI/ChatGPT has been making me anxious for a while. the amount of entitlement that's been increasingly pervading creative and/or fandom spaces is very concerning to me and it should be concerning to everyone else if it isn't already. i haven't encountered any problems (that i know of) with my own works or from any one of you lovelies(💕💕) but all the same, i've come to a point where i don't feel comfortable risking it. i know making my fics available to only registered ao3 users doesn't completely prevent this from happening, but i'll take any stopgap i can right now until the OTW does smth about what's happening. i might change my mind in the future and make FMF/CTF publicly available again for a short time (ultimately that is how they can get the most visibility) especially when i update CTF but, for now, that won't be the case. i'm mentioning this for transparency but also bc i know not everyone has an account and i wanted to give you guys the time to take whatever measures you need to have access to the fics, whether that's making an account or just downloading them. i also wanted to mention it bc i know not all of my readers has a tumblr/knows i'm on here so i thought you guys could help spread the word. (i'll be adding a short mention of this to the ending author's note of CTF ch 2 as well don't worry)

wanted to say thank you to everyone again, i love all of you and i hope you're healthy and happy♥️💖 stay amazing my darlings💕

sincerely, your wife😚❤️‍🔥

[hihopelessromantics]

4, 23 and/or 41 for the ask game :)

Question 23: What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

Mermaids. Worldbuilding, society, interesting verbal and body language, fairy tale connotations, varied character design, relationships with other fantasy creatures, creativity-provoking magic system, and potential for Themes, both dark and wholesome, they have it all. I've always been too shy/embarrassed to write aus like that down... but I've seen so many people on here freely enjoying the mermaid things since I realized what MerMay is... maybe this is the month! Also, if you like mermaids, friendship themes, and language, The Waterfire Saga might be a treat for you. That's the series that opened my eyes to the possibilities of the genre.

Question 41: Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

Well, for this fandom, yours have been a great inspiration to me, as well as @7-ratsinatrenchcoat's, but the Original that made me appreciate fanfiction as an art form to the extent I do now is "Scaring Darkness Away" by Linkedsoul. Main theme is darkness, and healing from it. It's my top favorite spinoff of the RPG game that got me into character-based storytelling and psychological horror, Satsuriku no Tenshi. This weird thematically complicated little game absolutely enchanted me when I found the youtube playthroughs for it online. I started reading this fic when I was 13 and did not know to read the tags, and also had zero contact with fandom spaces outside of Pinterest. It was just me and this fic and the daydream universe I made for it for 2+ years. It is unfinished but as I've said (somewhere) I will wait forever and am very content with my experience in the meantime. Stumbling across this did a Lot for my understanding of how interactions between characters can have an impression on the reader and just angst and character writing in general. Not sure what you or anyone would think of it, but I thought it was a wonderful read.

Kay so I went back to look for it and now it's only available to registered AO3 users so guess I'm finally trying again to get an account on there. Never got a response the last time. I'll get back to you on that later. God if it's been deleted I'm going to be emotionally wrecked

Question 4: What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of?

Ooo, so many. I only have posted a few things, and I would dig for something I could ramble on about, but I'm short on time so for now I'm going to have to go with this line:

"FOOLS. DO YOU REALLY INTEND TO KILL ME? when the dust settles here, you will all be dead, and the Holy War will begin anew!"

"When the dust settles, I’ll be making love to your son on my golden throne, and you’ll be a scorned, forgotten memory."

Possibly the most nsfw line I've ever written 😅 buuuut I love it so much, it requires almost zero context for the desired effect (I think). Plus I just think it hits well. And I can see a badass Elizabeth saying this in the heat of the moment and then her REACTION afterward after realizing what she just said in public... if she's flustered, so funny, and if she totally stands by it and Meliodas gets a little flustered or is in too deep to do anything but stare with lovey-dovey eyes, even better.

That was fun~ see you next time hopefully!

[firebatvillain]

On the possibility of ML companies scraping AO3 for training sets

Like many, I’ve also seen the concerning recent discussions of commercial AI trained on datasets scraped from fanfiction.

Why do you care about this?

I've always felt that the fic-writing side of fandom existed beyond the reach, mostly, of capitalism. It's a community formed around developing a cultural commons. We write for ourselves, and for each other. We write for the communities we’re in. We write out of love rather than in pursuit of financial gain.

While money is an aspect of paying for servers (I certainly donate to AO3 when I can), and other aspects like zine printing, and some people turn fandom fame into careers, it’s just nice to have a place that’s not about that. Fandom is a place of joy and sharing. It has always felt special to me for this reason.

It makes me sad to think of a corp taking the flourishing garden of fandom communities and using it to profit, even if it doesn't hurt me directly in any way. 

Is this actually happening?

In terms of fanfic being used to train research AIs, yes. In terms of the same at commercial firms, probably.

The best-documented example of fanfiction used to train AI that I've found has been from Redwood Research, a nonprofit research group. They wrote a recent article here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.01663 which used the FFN fic pack that was made a while back during concerns of FFN’s site instability.

4.3 Initial data sources Our initial, baseline classifier training set consisted of “snippets” derived from a dataset of fan fiction stories. We sourced our prompts from an archive of approximately 300 GB of stories from fanfiction.net

A.1.4 Fan fiction distribution Our source dataset was a 300GB archive of stories from fanfiction.net13.

13 https://archive.org/details/FanficRepack_Redux 

It seems this research group considers an archive of scraped fanfic to be a good source of training set content. Their method of training is to first get content for a baseline, then use mechanical turk-style gig economy work to retrain the model after that. It seems that this works pretty well for their purposes.

Commercial groups are not far off from trying things like this, if they aren't already.

What steps can be taken?

I would guess that any fic that was previously available to the wide internet has already been scraped by at least one company. For new fics and chapters, one could definitely take steps like:

Any new fics you publish could be made viewable only to registered viewers

If you update an old fic with new chapters, change its status to be viewable only to registered videos

There are some downsides: if you do this to a fic, you will make it inaccessible to people without AO3 accounts. While it is not difficult to get an AO3 account these days, this still will reduce the number of people who can enjoy your fic.

I am curious about how datasets are generated, shared, sold, leased, etc in the ML industry (and in ML academia, where there's some overlap). If new firms sometimes start from scratch and scrape new data sets, then that's something that locking existing fic would avoid.

How do I hide my fic from scrapers?

To hide one fic: edit it, then check the box under Privacy for “Only show your work to registered users” to hide your fic from scrapers.

If you want to edit multiple fics at once, follow the guide here: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/posting-and-editing?language_id=en#editmultipleworks and select your works. In the multiple-edit screen, the option you want will look like this:

Set this to “Only show to registered users” to hide your fic from scrapers.

What are you going to do?

I’m still thinking about what I want to do.

To some degree, it feels like the horse is already out of the barn and corps have already gathered my own fics for themselves. If I restrict all my current fics to registered users, that will cut off future attempts, and if I restrict new fics to registered users, I can be assured that they won’t contribute to corporate profits. But it would also make it harder for some people to find my fics.

I like it when I can share my work with others, and that people enjoy them, and limiting that would make me sad.

[slicesofapple]

hi lovely! hope you are doing well :) just went to go re-read one of your amazing erejean fics on ao3, and found that they werent available. was just curious if you have privated them for good, or if this is temporary? just wondering, as you are one of all time favorite writers ever, and reading your works always bring a smile to my face ❤️❤️

Ah, you are so sweet to say such nice things 😊 I am all smiley inside from reading them. Yeah, that thing..... I was reading a little from people who had their work posted to rivd.net without either their knowledge or permission. I haven't had time yet to figure out if any of my fics are there, but it seems to be a pretty widespread auromated problem. And the idea of it so pissed me off (that and other ai scraping) that I made all my fics available only to registered users. I'm not sure if I'll put them back up for everyone to see, I'll have to see. The whole issue is so maddening! Im sorry you are not able to read them, i hope you are able to get an ao3 account (i know not everyone can). Sorry i dont have a better answer for you! I just don't know right now. and thank you again for your kind words 💕

[tachvintlogic]

Danny's Guide to Lying to Reporters

Summary: While the Fentons were on a family trip, Vlad decided to hold a press conference and announce that Phantom is actually his dead son. Danny finds out about this at possibly the most inconvenient time.

This is based on this prompt and now the response is on AO3. Only registered users can see it for now since I got hit by a kudos bot on one of my fics. It'll be made available to all users after a few hours as a precautionary measure.