The rest of the thread is here.

tl;dr: Don’t monetize AO3, kids.  You won’t like what happens next.

read this thread. this is by far the most concise explanation of a lot of different issues that i’ve seen in fandom spaces in a while. cosigning both the linked thread and the thread about aus/uk/can law that’s linked in-thread.

AHDHXHEBSG TWITTER WRITERS DID WHAT NOW???? AND PEOPLE PAID THEM????

If someone has never taken a class that includes copyright law, they may not know this stuff, so I don’t necessarily blame random people for not knowing what copyright is, but like… maybe just maybe it’s something that should be taught????

Just another reminder, because this always drives me crazy, but even if monetizing your fic was 100% unambiguously legal and protected, AO3 would still not let you do it because AO3 was founded and is supported by people like me who want a fandom community that is completely divested from making money off of fic.

Yes, this. Lots of fanworks on AO3 are unambiguously legal. Fics based on Shakespeare plays and fairy tales and Greek mythology and The Great Gatsby and your original character from your D&D game are not violations of copyright, because no copyright applies to those things.

AO3 still doesn’t let you monetize those things on the site, because we don’t want the site to be commercial! Because that’s not what it’s for!

It’s not there for you (generic you) to make money off the efforts of the people who build and maintain the site for free! We aren’t getting paid for the work we do to give you a nice site to use, just like you aren’t getting paid for the work you do to create whatever art you share there. Because fandom is supposed to be a community where we share with each other, and therefore we all benefit.

The deal is, we give you a free, stable, safe platform to host your works. In exchange, you get a site that isn’t covered in ads and tip jars and links to gofundme and “read the next chapter at my patreon”. You get one goddamn place on the internet that isn’t trying to make money off you. And we will defend that space and keep it non-commercial.

have you guys ever heard of fan fics? your faves are getting railed to death in there lol awesome

they’re also giving them proper representation and undoing the brutal mischaracterization that went on for a decade, also torturing them a little

i hope this email finds you panting and moaning and begging for it

ok.

*pulls up to the fanfic drive-thru window* uh yeah, i’ll take a fake relationship with a side of mutual pining and thinking the other isn’t interested, thanks

#*bored author’s voice over the tannoy* d'you want fluff with that? (via @amarriageoftrueminds)

#sure and if you can throw in an extra “sharing one bed” trope, that would be great.

How much is it to supersize to smut?

So if you get smut and fluff from a drive thru where do you go for angst and dark?

That you order from the guy in the trenchcoat in the alley. “You want angst? I got angst”

*sticks my withered goblin paw out from under the bed* psst kid i got ‘they both think the other one is dead for like seven chapters’ 

Reader: “How much will that be?”

Author: “Just a comment. Please for the love of God leave a comment.”

“Do you take fanart?”

Author: soft crying… yea-yeah i take fanart. your change is everlasting love and friendship… is that okay?

The accuracy.

The “just a comment” as payment floored me.

THE ACCURACY

2024.05.24

Complete fics posted on AO3 this day

1. Silver Eyes by newshapes8 [E, 8k]

►Harry’s obsession with Draco Malfoy only worsens when he spots the boy with a newly acquired belly button piecing. Horny thoughts ensue.

2. Sugar Quills by lovemalfoy [E, 6k]

►Draco Malfoy loves eating sugar quills. Harry Potter loves watching him suck on them even more.

—

Fest/Exchange

1. Count On Me by Anonymous [G, 23k]

►University students Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy run into each other one day. Literally. On bikes. After that, they can’t get away from each other, no matter how hard they try. And then, it seems, they might not want to. ★ Lights Camera Drarry 2024 | @lcdrarry

Heads up that newshapes8 on this list has been plagiarising Dramione fics, copying them to repost as Drarrys. Silver Eyes is a copy of A Little Glint of Gold by Zeebee3, and two more of the five fics on their account (moonlit and saviour complex) are also plagiarised.

I honestly don't know why more people aren't talking about this? (∩⌣̀_⌣́)

i hate finding things out about the writers of the fanfics i read

uhm no the fic about those teenagers fucking isnt silly anymore youre 28 years old

...Who do you think built AO3?

OP I have bad news for you about most professional writers, too

Went to a panel about slash fanfic at a con. Moderator said, "Welcome to the panel about erotica." The words "slash" and "erotica" were used interchangeably throughout. Panel was great.

There was a Q&A at the end so I raised my hand and said these terms seemed conflated. Moderator explained she'd run this panel for 10 years and it started out being about slash but drifted into erotica and she never changed the name. (She also said she was glad I brought it up and would keep it in mind for the future of the panel.) The guy on the panel who writes original m/f erotica said that slash and what he writes are basically the same thing. I said I had no complaints about the name of the panel or the panelists, I was just curious about what slash meant to them, and whether slash by necessity had to include sex scenes to be considered slash.

Two panelists answered that slash was romance between men but usually had sex. Eventually one of them did make clear that slash didn't have to have sex but that it was what they wanted to read. Another panelist said that to them slash really just meant dude romance but people wouldn't read their fic unless there was sex so they felt they had to put sex scenes in.

Person came up to me after the panel. Said they felt I didn't get my question answered. Then they explained that since the 70s, 'slash' has been used to mean m slash m romance, meaning explicit and sexual. Then they said it sounded like what I wanted to ask about was shipping. They explained to me that shipping is just wanting the characters to be together but slash meant sex. They explained that since the invention of AO3, people had begun to use the ampersand to mean the fic had two characters who were friends and that the slash was used to denote ships, but even though that punctuation just meant romance, the word "slash" in the last twenty years had become synonymous with explicit fic. I explained I had been in fandom longer than twenty years and this was not necessarily my experience. They said, "Bye!"

Though they seemed confused as to whether what they personally defined as slash had been mainstream since the 70s or since the last twenty years (the person was 24), they were well-meaning. The panel was great. I'd recommend it to anyone, though I'm not stating the name of the con here because I don't want anyone involved to feel this is really a critique of the panel itself. The moderator in particular was superb.

I think that this conversation just brought up a whole lot of feelings for me. I think it bothers me that people still think that all fanfic is smutty, that all slash requires porn, and that all fic must have porn in order to be read. I am familiar with this conflation and feel perfectly fine going to a panel that I think is about slash fic and finding out it's about erotic lit, some of which is fanfic. After all, I like both, and I recognize that fandom mushes these things together and teasing them out into separate strands isn't something everyone--or possibly even most fans--have any interest in. I recognize that I am pedantic to a degree that most people find uninteresting.

I have a little bit more of a problem with the idea that slash is "basically the same" as het, but this was said by only one of the panelists. If your panel is actually about straight up erotica and not slash, then the problem is just the name of the panel.

What I found the most frustrating, however, is that whenever I have this conversation, I feel like the default assumption most of my interlocutors begin AND end with is this: smut is why we're here. And I just don't understand that. Away Childish Things has 44,800 kudos, and it has no smut in it. My next most kudosed fic has almost 15,000 kudos and tons of smut. My next most kudosed fic has almost 14,000 kudos and it doesn't even have a kiss.

I'm not talking about kudos to show off how many I have, or because I think kudos make a point about quality of a fic. They have nothing to do with quality. But they do have to do with popularity, and the truth is, sex doesn't sell. It's something else. It's not good writing. It's not a great plot. It's not in-character characterization. IT'S SOMETHING ELSE. What is it?

I've had people say to me, "Well, you're lettered; it works differently for you." DOES IT??? Maybe they meant that because enough people know me as fic author, people will read my fic anyway, but let me tell you, it's always been this way for me, long before my fic was really popular. The ones with smut did not get more praise and attention. The ones that PEOPLE LIKED got more praise and attention. Do people like fic that has smut in it more than fic without smut? Some of the time! Does there have to be smut for people to like it? NO.

Have I had people tell me they didn't want to read something I wrote because it didn't have smut? YES. But the point I'm trying to make is, there are people who want to read fic that doesn't have smut in it. THEY are your audience for the fic you want to write that doesn't have smut in it. Fic does not have to have smut to be fic; it doesn't have to have smut to be read.

I think part of the reason I get so upset about it is that slash as we know it today didn't just emerge because some people weren't getting to read smut and they wanted to. It emerged because women and queer people and other marginalized communities were not getting to see what they wanted to in mainstream media. They weren't getting sex scenes, but they also weren't getting queer content, they weren't getting stories about sensitive men that defied patriarchal stereotypes of male toxicity; they weren't getting stories about disabled folks and people of color and folks who are into kink and folks who have different lifestyles. To reduce fanfic to porn is to remove the rich history of why it exists and who it exists for.

I asked earlier what makes a fic popular, and to me, it's exactly this. It's when you read a thing and you feel, "this is really satisfying to my id in a way that I am not getting from mainstream media." And sometimes what is satisfying to your id is very horny anal sex. Other times what is satisfying to your id is Bucky Barnes getting a blanket and facing his trauma. Sometimes it's Harry Potter being trans. Sometimes it's Naruto and Sasuke getting to just hold hands as the sun sets. I have no idea who those two people are but boy howdy do I know they just fucking need to hold hands.

But the other reason I get so upset about it is I'm so fucking tired of reading a great fic that devolves into mediocre mechanical porn that is there due to the collective brainwashing that states that this is the ONLY reason ALL of us are here.

Discuss.

why taking commissions for fanfics can KILL Archive of Our Own and fanfic culture as a whole

if you don’t want to live in a fandom without AO3, keep fanfics free.

I actually don’t mind that “dead dove” has become conversational shorthand for “fics with heavy themes where you REALLY need to pay attention to the warnings”. such is the nature of language. what i do mind is when people tag their actual fics with dead dove and then give no indication of what they’re actually warning about. that is useless. that helps no one. that is completely against the spirit of the meme. i will not be reading that

When the tags say "bdsm" and "dead dove" it means that the bdsm is, like, super duper bdsm.

When the tags say "dead dove" with no other clarifying tags, it's like walking down a hallway and having someone shout "BE ALARMED" and then vanishing into thin air with no further details given. Be alarmed about what.

Fanfic tiktok is wild... I see so many people saying shit like "I could never read anything below 60k!!", or "What story can you even tell in under 5k words?" or "A oneshot below 10k isn't even a story!" or "I always filter completed fics by 100k< only!"

And I'm like...

A) which fandoms are you reading fics for where you have this kind of offerings on the regular?

B) have you heard of short stories? If you truly think every story NEEDS to be longform to connect with people, I sincerely feel sorry for you.

C) Average novel length is between 50k to 100k. I'm sorry, but CONSISTENTLY demanding fic writers to push out fics of that length is insane. Just think about it: YOU DEMAND AUTHORS TO PUT OUT FICS THAT COMPARE TO COMMERCIAL NOVELS IN LENGTH (AND QUALITY) AS A BASELINE.

Yall are wilding.

Sure sex is great but have you ever read a fanfic by an incredible author and then realized they have 30+ other fics in the tag?

Things fanfic is reputed for inserting into the source material:

Things fanfic actually inserts into the source material:

And so importantly, in prev tag:

#actual personality for character who was done dirty in canon

And layers upon layers of deeper personality for characters regardless of depth in canon.

Including mutually-exclusive yet somehow still complementary and true-to-character characterizations for characters, so you can choose your favored character interpretation and enjoy it while other people enjoy theirs.

Also a shitload more attention to recovery and healing from all the shit they get up to, physical, emotional, interpersonal, you name it.

can you believe that we have fanfiction. that we have websites dedicated to fanfiction. that there is a place that you can go and read tens, hundreds, thousands and thousands of pieces of writing that strangers have made. people who are not "writers". people who come home at the end of the day and have feelings and say, i am going to put that into words. i am going to share those words. short, long, sweet, sad, horny, funny, wonderful words. we are all just human and we all love to make and remake and share that with others. can you believe that.

As promised! I wrote about the illegal fanbinding that's led to writers deleting their works recently, how that connects to the current pull-to-publish wave, and what happens when the rapidly expanding sphere of fic readers starts to get disconnected from *fandom*:

We'll also talk about this in some capacity on the next episode of @fansplaining! (In contrast with today's episode, on the non-monetized, gift-economy practices of many fanbinders, whose hobby is also imperiled by the people selling and buying fic.)

🔹 Someone else's fiction cannot cause you physical harm.

🔹If someone else's fiction is causing you emotional or psychological harm, or distress, you can put it down and not read/watch it.

🔹Your emotional well-being is not the responsibility of fiction writers.

🔹Someone else's fiction is not about your personal trauma.

🔹When reading or watching fiction, you always have the power. You can always stop. You are never reading fiction without your own consent.

🔹Fiction writers are not responsible for other people's mental health.

🔹The content of a piece of fiction does not reflect on the morality of its author.

🔹Just because someone writes about bad things happening, doesn't mean they want those things to happen.

🔹Don't like? Don't read.

Canary Creams and New Yellow Paint

dothechachaslide

Chapters: 16/16 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Scorpius Malfoy, Astoria Greengrass, Teddy Lupin, Andromeda Black Tonks, Luna Lovegood, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Poppy Pomfrey, Blaise Zabini, Lavender Brown, Pansy Parkinson, Parvati Patil, Rolf Scamander, Original Characters, Original Non-Human Character(s)

  Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Second Wizarding War with Voldemort (Harry Potter), Minor Lavender Brown/Parvati Patil, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander, Divorced Astoria Greengrass & Draco Malfoy, Magical Prostheses (Harry Potter), Time Travel, Serious Injuries, Moving Portraits (Harry Potter), Artist Harry Potter, Werewolf Teddy Lupin, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (Harry Potter), Disability, Monocular Vision, Loss of Eyes, Hoarding Disorder, Black Astoria Greengrass, Mixed Scorpius Malfoy, Black Hermione Granger, Black Rolf Scamander, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Magical Creatures, Magical Environmentalism, Unusual Career, Getting Together, Job Loss, Past Major Injury of a Child, Creature Discrimination, house arrest, Temporary Minor Character Death, After Effects of Crucio | Cruciatus Curse (Harry Potter), Ministry Corruption, Wizengamot Trial, H/D Erised 2022, POV Draco Malfoy, Mystery, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Pets, Banter, Blow Jobs, Face-Fucking, Dirty Talk, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom Harry Potter, Top Draco Malfoy, Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Recluse Harry Potter, Ensemble Cast, Person of Color Harry Potter, Drarry in their 40s

Summary:

It’s not Draco’s fault that Potter is seeing things and Scorpius’s campaign to be the Ministry’s Creature Liaison is struggling, it’s not.

Draco didn’t ask for Potter to walk into his Ocularistry Clinic in Northern Ireland fifteen years after they last saw each other, demanding to know why the Spectroculars Draco invented malfunctioned while Potter was painting and cost him an eye.

Scorpius hadn’t asked for any of that either, though, so when Potter and the rest of Draco’s patients start to see mysterious symbols through their prosthetic eyes, and the resulting blow to Draco’s public reputation drags Scorpius’s campaign through the mud, Draco is determined to fix it.

If that means trudging through a boggy moor in search of a fictional species Luna thinks is causing their problems, Draco will just have to pluck up the courage, march in with a team of Gryffindors, and be ready to battle any beast they meet.

Even if that beast looks less like the large, bipedal talking toads they find and more like the Ministry of Magic as a whole.

AN: The injury descriptions have been rated non-graphic by multiple readers. To the best of my abilities, that’s true.

(੭ˊ͈ ꒵ˋ͈)੭. * ･ ｡ﾟ☆

Excerpt:

“You’re alive,” Harry says.

“You got your glasses back,” he returns.

Harry laughs. “That I did.”

He steps closer. Draco does not move.

“Madam Pomfrey said you’d still be treating your wounds for a while.”

“Yes, more dittany and silver. To aid the scars in fading a bit and to relieve itching.”

“Do you need any help?”

He meets Harry’s eyes, then looks quickly back down again. There’s not much he struggles to reach, but Harry’s offering, so he nods.

Harry steps close to him, and he takes the ointment from Draco gently. He swipes his fingers in it and brings them to Draco’s chest.

The cream is cold, but Harry’s hand is warm as he massages it in.

Draco’s eyes flutter shut.

Harry does not speak, and Draco is afraid that anything he could say to fill the silence would make it painfully obvious how he feels.

So he just stands there and lets Harry’s fingers play across his skin. Draco doesn’t stop him when Harry goes over the same spot a second time, even though it stings.

“Bandages?” Harry breathes.

“Hm?” His eyes open. Oh.

Draco doesn’t look at Harry as he grabs fresh bandages and places them into his hands.

He holds his arms up obediently the way Harry directs him. The pain is worse now, and Draco has to guide Harry to make sure he doesn’t wind the bandages too tight.

Harry ties a knot against Draco’s skin, his fingers brushing lightly over his ribs. He runs a flat hand down the plane of Draco’s stomach and then stops, keeping it there, just above his hip.

“Why aren’t you looking at me?” Harry whispers.

He can’t. Because if he looks, then Harry will see. He’ll know — every torrid thought haunting Draco’s mind, how it feels to see him so near a bed, how he imagines kneeling at his feet and kissing his way up bare thighs, every bit the worshipful fanatic.

Would Harry let him? Maybe he needs more control than that.

Draco looks up. Harry’s green eye is glittering, his cheeks warmed with red. Draco can see him breathing, the soft fall of his chest.

“I’m looking at you,” Draco tells him.

Now, all Harry has to do is tell him to look away.

Harry exhales softly, unreadable.

“Say something,” Draco demands.

“Why don’t you call me Harry yet?”

His stomach pulls tight. For Merlin’s sake. “Why should I?”

“I think I’d like to hear it.”

“I don’t … there’s nothing to it. I’ve always called you Potter.”

“Please?”

The light from the lamps is soft. It suits Harry, to be the brightest thing in the room.

“Harry.” It comes out as the barest whisper, broken. Draco meets Harry’s eyes and prays Harry can’t see the images pouring out of his head, the ones that keep him up at night; his finger tracing across the dimples at the base of Harry’s back, their hands twining together as he fucks into him, listening to his horrible singing in the kitchen during early mornings.

“Draco,” Harry replies, in just as low of a whisper — because he’s cruel, a sadist, he has to be.

“Don’t say it like that.”

“You want me,” Harry says. He sounds surprised.

“I…” Draco doesn’t know why he admits it. “Yes.”

“Why?” The question comes from a place of such honest curiosity that Draco falls just a little bit harder.

He’s gotten good at wanting, over the years. Wanting his father to be proud of him, wanting the war to be over, wanting to regain favour with the public, wanting his family to be safe. He’s never been all that good at knowing what to do with something once he has it, never been able to love the things he gets the way they deserve.

How do you make someone see all that they are?

“I don’t know.”

He does, but he can’t put it into words. Draco’s been wishing all this time that he had some sort of defence against the aching, gnawing feeling in his heart that he’ll fuck this up; that he isn’t good enough for Harry — not the Saviour, not the Chosen One, and not the man right in front of him.

“I want you to kiss me,” Harry says.

“I won’t be able to think clearly for the rest of my life.”

Harry steps closer, and Draco feels the soft breath of a laugh skate across his face. Their foreheads fall together, and the warm metal of Harry’s prosthesis presses against Draco’s brow. The tip of Harry’s nose brushes against his own.

“I want you to kiss me,” Harry says again.

And Dear Merlin, Draco must already be fucked in the head, because he does. He closes the distance and brings his hand up to the back of Harry’s neck.

Harry shouldn’t want him. But that doesn’t matter, because Harry was right. Draco is selfish. He’ll take anything Harry offers him, and he’ll take it greedily, hungrily — like a man who believes he deserves it.

He parts Harry’s lips with his tongue, and he pulls their hips together.

Harry sighs in the back of his throat, and Draco cannot help the way his chest seizes up, and he surges against him, kissing as though it might be possible to get past Harry’s physical body and burrow somewhere inside his soul. Draco was wrong, it turns out. He’s well versed in mistakes — he knows them like the grooves of his own wand, having made enough for a lifetime — and this can’t possibly be one. 

Not when it feels like this.

꒰˘̩̩̩⌣˘̩̩̩๑꒱♡