Throwback thursday to when I was like 12 and I was putting out new writing DAILY...... Like entire Chapters of my then-current wips just, over an afternoon. What the fuck was I on

Nobody:

Me, age 12, just started drinking coffee:

I drew 14 pictures during the day, and wrote 32 pages a night. Now I can’t do shit.

A huge part of this is because you've gotten better! And now, when you're drawing/writing/doing whatever creative task, you're not just mindlessly throwing thoughts at your paper, you're thinking as you do it. Children can churn out a lot more work because it's not yet refined, but when you're older and have more practice, you work with all these thoughts running through your head about form and shape, color palettes or word choice. Now, you're making a dozen decisions with every moment of work, and you're also questioning the decisions you've just made, wondering if you can do it better. Don't beat yourself up about producing less work now than you did back then, because every sentence or shape involves a lot more effort for you now, than it did when you were ten and brand new to this hobby.

Also you have a job now and the never-ending bullshit that is laundry and dishes and feeding yourself.

okay, I actually really needed to hear this

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.

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It’s especially important that your fanwork must follow the muggle theme listed in the prompt, must be created specially for the Fair and should not be posted anywhere else. The collection is also anonymous so any work submitted to the collection will automatically stay anonymous until the end of the fair.

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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? (∩⌣̀_⌣́)

Okay, so, looks like Google Docs might actually start implementing their rule about not sharing explicit content. (This includes writing.) How in the ever loving fuck am I supposed to back up 1,000+ stories that equate to 3 million+ words into fucking Microsoft Word????? And efficiently, for that matter?! HELP.

I figured out how to move all my stuff onto Microsoft Word!

See those three dots next to the folder name? Click on that.

Then it'll give you the download option.

Once downloaded, it'll save the folder as a compressed zip file! All the documents inside are changed to Word files, and you can view and edit them now.

Now I know how to move 3 million+ words onto my laptop. It'll still take a bit, but not nearly as long as I'd imagined.

I would like to add that I am not trying to fear-monger. However, it is part of Google Drive’s TOS to not share explicit material, be it sexual or violent. (So, basically what I write.)

This occurrence seems to be rare. Read about it here.

Besides, it is better to have everything on your own hard drive vs Google docs. You retain more ownership over your work that way.

Someone pointed out that I did not provide the ToS, which, my bad. Again, not trying to cause a panic or anything. Just saying that Google is not a safe place to keep your writing/art.

This is the specific part of the ToS that I was looking at:

And this is the part that says they can restrict access to your writing or remove it entirely for breaking the ToS:

So, yeah. An author lost access to their writing due to sharing it with beta and alpha readers. It seems like an isolated incident as far as I’m aware, but you can never be too careful. Back up your stuff if you can.

Source @ X

ID: tweets from @boulevarddouble:

okay SO. Just FYI i have an insider contact and i asked him about this new google drive nsfw scare.

"What I think has happened is that drive has made several updates to its spam/abuse filtering and one of the focuses is trying to catch spammers who share explicit things in docs with random emails. Which is good in theory, but has the potential to hit false positives."

his recommendation is to keep NSFW words out of your doc titles and instead of sharing the "open link", share directly with you beta's email addresses.

It is also more likely to flag up explicit images, though that is less likely to be a fic problem.

/end ID

You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?

You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on chapter at three am is right?? Right????

You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?

(^^Important tags are important.)

AO3 IS A COMMUNITY. NOT A CONTENT FACTORY.

To all my writers who have a tough time with smut terms and not knowing which ones to use, I have found the holy grail for us.

This reddit user took a poll of 3,500 people and went really in depth with asking their favorite terminology, along with actual pie charts on what the readers preferred to see in their smut.

Here's the direct link to the Google doc with all the info!

A treasure! Especially the Notable Omissions sections.

elon musk should kill himself elon musk needs to kill himself elon musk would make society as a whole better if he killed himself now

Sorry to break the theme of the blog but a lot of people who post their incredible works here use Twitter so

Reblogging this for a second time because your art will also be used in AI training models, apparently.

Artist pals, heads up

“fanfiction,” as a concept, only exists because of intellectual property. at the end of the day, it’s just fiction. some of it is great, some of it sucks ass. sometimes, it can reveal something damning about the author—prejudices, biases, whether or not they think cats should be left indoors, how they feel about offshore tax evasion, whatever. that’s the nature of fiction. this is not news to anyone who’s ever opened a book

what’s truly unique about fanfiction is that it’s anonymous and free with a barrier to entry that ants wouldn’t notice climbing. also, it’s amateur by necessity; barring a few notable exceptions, nobody expects their gaudy slash fiction to win them an award or make them a million dollars. this crock pot of internet fuckery lends itself to two things—a monumental diversity of skill level and buck wild nasty behavior

fanfiction is neither god’s gift to all man kind nor an incurable blight. it’s just a thing. that exists. it’s neither defenseless nor indefensible. it can be harmful, helpful, or benign. more importantly, it’s not going anywhere, so i wish we’d stop arguing about whether or not it’s “legitimate” and talk about what’s actually happening with it instead

Obsessed with AO3 writers, who are a particularly fascinating subspecies of homo sapien.

to whichever writer comes across this, i am so proud of you !!! yes you, the person reading this !!!! i am cheering you on !!!!!

Dear Fanfic Authors, PLEASE stop deleting your stories! The number of times I have browsed my AO3 bookmarks, just to find several stories marked as deleted, makes me sad thinking about it.

People love your story. Yes they do. Especially when so many have taken care to give it kudos and add it to their bookmarks. So while as an author I understand wanting to distance yourself from old writing, for whatever reason, please remember others love that story and will be sad to see it go. It could have meant a lot to them.

So instead of deleting, please press that ORPHAN button. That way the story is no longer associated with your AO3 account or username (the story will now say written by Orphan Account) but the people who cherish your story can still enjoy!

ICYMI, there was fear that companies were scraping public AO3 fics to train their AI without the consent of AO3 or its users. That fear has been confirmed.

AO3 has written about what they’re doing (and what they’re not able to do), and they recommend restricting your work to AO3 registered users only. [Instructions here]

This gross misuse of the archive by techbros is why I’ve locked down my fics for the foreseeable future. I recommend the rest of you do the same.

I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

Predatory publishers trying to make money on your fanfiction WITHOUT GIVING ANY TO YOU.

Please read this.