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@dreaminghour / dreaminghour.tumblr.com

call me dreamy if you like, 30+, she/her ♡ star wars and katie mcgrathtagsfic logao3quote don't like? don't read icon by @kana7o
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saja-star

One of my favorite things about learning about traditional textiles is the little ghosts they left in the language. Of course the ghosts are there, now that I know to look for them. Once upon a time, half the population spent a majority of their day making textiles. Spinning, at the very least, has been a part of humanity since the Neanderthals. That kind of knowledge doesn't just disappear.

A heckle was a device with sharp metal spikes, and people drag flax through the spikes to separate out the fibers from the chaff. When you say someone heckled a performer, you think you are being literal but you're speaking in an ancient metaphor.

When my grandpa says "spinning yarns" to mean telling stories, he knows that one's not quite literal, but its vividness is lost to him. There is no image in his mind of rhythm, muscle memory, and the subtle twist that aligns clouds of fibers into a single, strong cord.

When a fanfic writer describes someone carding their fingers through someone's hair, that's the most discordant in my mind. Carding is rough, and quick, and sometimes messy (my wool is full of debris, even after lots of washing). The teeth of my cards are densely packed and scratchy. But maybe that's my error, not the writer's. Before cards were invented, wool was combed with wide-toothed combs, and sometimes, in point of fact, with fingers. The verb "to card" (from Middle English) may actually be older than the tools I use, archaic as they are. And I say may, because I can't find a definitive history. People forget, even when the language remembers.

official linguistics post

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teaboot

I just reada really good fic but halfway through I realized "oh shit this is really familiar.... didn't I write something like this once?" And as I kept reading I kept predicting what happened next and the further I went the more convinced I was that they'd ripped off my story-

like, copied the ENTIRE plot and re-written it, just better than I had? The characters were more fleshed-out than mine were, and the POV was more interesting, and the pace made more sense- but it was MY STORY?

So close to the end I was like "holy shit.. do I message them? Ask if my story inspired theirs? Should I be angry? Flattered?" Cause their tags and description didn't mention me AT ALL, which, sure, it's fanfiction to begin with, but if you're using my work than at least credit me as inspo, right? Just to be courteous?

But I get to the end of the final chapter, and it's not finished, and I'm kind of disappointed cause I never finished my story and I was really immersed in their version now and had been looking forwards to seeing how they tied up my loose ends- so I scroll to the bottom to leave a comment, and.

It's MY URL.

IT WAS MY STORY THE WHOLE TIME.

THE ONE *I WROTE*.

In *2013*.

And FORGOT ABOUT

BECAUSE I WAS SO INSECURE ABOUT MY SLOPPY, SHALLOW, AMETEUR WRITING

And I'm just sitting here now staring into space thinking about every shitty story I've ever written now like

IT WAS ALL GOOD?

IT WAS GOOD THIS WHOLE DAMN TIME??

I'M A GOOD WRITER?????

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azuremist

I think that more fanfiction should be written with the aim to tackle the original meaning of hanahaki. Because when the concept of hanahaki disease was originally created, it was intended to be a metaphor for suppressing one’s feelings.

Your feelings are this beautiful garden of flora inside of your chest. When you express how you feel honestly, you allow for it to grow freely. But when you hide how you feel out of fear of rejection, and try to make it smaller and smaller, the flowers become cramped inside of you, until you choke on your own feelings. Every flower you cough up is something you’ve felt, but refused to say.

The whole “dying” thing is intended to be more symbolic especially. You’re killing off bits and pieces of yourself and how you feel, because you’re afraid to express yourself.

It’s not really supposed to be, “The one I love doesn’t love me back, and I’m dying from it.” Rather, it’s more along the lines of, “Repressing your emotions is bad for you, and it’s better and healthier to express them freely, even when it’s scary.”

Which is to say that, one, the cure for the disease should be telling the person that you are in love with how you feel. How the other person feels about the person afflicted should have nothing to do with it, as the trope is meant to be about feeling your emotions unapologetically.

And that, two, it’s not an inherently romantic trope. Obviously, it has romantic applications, but it can be written for any situation where a character is hiding how they truly feel. This can include a refusal to address a specific trauma, a desire to indulge in something that they’re ashamed of, and even really practical things, like wanting to ask one’s boss for a higher position.

Although (as an aromantic person myself) I don’t agree with this conclusion about the trope, this application would also avoid people calling it arophobic. When the thing killing the character is a refusal to be honest with themselves, rather than an unrequited love, it’s on nobody’s hands but their own to save their life.

There are a ton of ways that this interpretation of the hanahaki disease could be applied in new and interesting ways in fanfiction, and I’d love to read what things people could come up with!

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*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

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

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lolcat76

How much is it to supersize to smut?

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kncrowder88

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”

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roachpatrol

*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.”

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kickingshoes

“Do you take fanart?”

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

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my dream as a fanfic writer is to write a story which people want to talk to me about and send asks about afterwards and discuss things the characters did and the symbolism and meanings behind certain lines and I'll be all "hehe thanks" but irl I'll be in literal tears because I wrote something that means something to someone

Please give me feedback! :)

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tiggymalvern

I got an AO3 comment once which summarised said, 'I've been reading this fic for years and I keep coming back to it over and over because it's so amazing and I feel guilty that all this time I never commented, so this is me letting you know how much it's meant to me for so long.' And that was incredible, because five minutes before I didn't know that person existed and then they tell me that I've made such an impact on them.

It is never too late to leave a comment - the author will always be thrilled.

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That fic you wrote?

The one about the ship no one else cares about, or the deeply unpopular character, or the extremely unusual AU?

The fic that got no comments or kudos when you posted it?

Months or years from now, that fic might be exactly what someone is looking for in the sea of fics about all the popular characters, ships, and AUs.

Your fic might be the only fic out there that has what someone is looking for. The only fic that scratches the itch that it turns out you and that reader share.

And that's awesome.

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rosesradio
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kitschlet

it's actually wild to me because like, back in the day in oldschool fandom you would ONLY find "cum" in badfic. like it would be like seeing a fic with no punctuation. you'd just know the writer wasn't really that serious. like i cannot tell you how much EVERY writer that was involved in the fandom community would absolutely exclusively use "come." i don't mind "cum" myself but it's very weird to see the culture shift like that

THIS.

like i actually am gonna need some nuance in the form of polling demographics here because the notes are hilarious and BAFFLING. seeing strident assertions from BOTH sides that the alternative option is cringe (and even some cum proponents claiming that "come" is the one that's juvenile??? WHAT)

not to be pedantic about jizz terminology, but "come" as both a noun and verb for ejaculate has been in widespread use for centuries. it's all-purpose and versatile and i can conjugate it without summoning alan cumming.

"cum" as a variant spelling is by no means new to the game, but it spawned from 20th century porn, and as such has been tied to the trashiest grodiest fuck nastiest scenarios for so long that it verges on cartoonish—hence its association with "badfic" in bygone eras of fandom. like the term carried a very very specific informal vulgarity that would certainly seem out of place in the vast majority of fics i've ever read, few of which featured the babysitter getting fucked by the pizza man as their raisons d'être. and before anyone comes for me (ha) saying i must've been reading tamer stuff, this is speaking as someone who has read everything from the gooiest fluffiest smut to some absolutely depraved brain-melting shit

ALL THAT ASIDE, i am so curious whether respondents fall into particular camps re: age, fandom, platform, nationality, etc. Because I've only noticed a preference for "cum" on tumblr fics from certain writers here and there—mostly those who post short smutty scenes with no capitalization (which to be clear are amazing, no shade intended; for some reason no caps + cum makes sense in my head—maybe because no caps reads as suitably informal idk). but i know the fandom world is vast and ever-changing, so maybe it's just that "come" has always been the norm in my corners of the internet.

basically: poll caught me WAY off guard and now i'm invested and want answers 💦

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dreaminghour

I'm over 30, post primarily on AO3, barely posted on FFN or LJ when I was active on those sites, and deliberately use both: 'come' for the verb and 'cum' for the noun. My co-writer prefers 'come' so that's the spelling we use when we work together 🌧️

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rosesradio
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northisnotup

Tags by @oflights bc they're a Thesis Statement and deserve to be taken into consideration

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lychgate

No yall are stupid writing COME is what makes u look like a 10 year old way too scared to write the word cum.

Cum is the funniest word in the world and I will FIGHT for CUM. 'Elegant' u absolute fool. U joyless abyss. Cum is a nasty dirty word and u have prettied it up to the regular word come because u were too cowardly to write the best word mankind has ever made. It is a three letter word and it's been a CLASSIC, and u want to say it's 'sophisticated' to ruin this.

What is sophisticated about a load of goo flying out a penis, u gotta get down to her level and respect the slapstick of what's happening. U gotta stop being embarrassed about CUM because it SHOWS everytime u type 'come'. A story that has 'come' instead of 'cum' is written by a baby too afraid to talk about the fun silly nasty parts of sex. It tells me ur not mature enough for the joy of the immaturity of fucking around, and quite frankly, I'll flood ur house with 500 pounds of cum. I'll drown ur family in cum. Ur crops will suffer and die because I unloaded dumptruck after dumptruck of cum onto it. For God's sake man learn to enjoy the simple things in life u ghoul.

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hallowedlore

You're wrong.

"Cum" is the variant and "come" is the original.

Specifically, "come" has been used to refer to orgasm and ejaculation since the 17th century at the latest. Its first known use is in "Walking In A Meadowe Greene", from a folio collection of songs dated 1650:

They lay soe close together, they made me much to wonder; I knew not which was wether, vntill I saw her vnder. then off he came & blusht for shame soe soone that he had endit; yet still shee lyes, & to him cryes, "Once More, & none can mend it."

And that's the first attested use, aka the first time it was undeniably intended to refer to orgasm in written form. It was likely in popular use earlier, whether in bawdy verse or dirty talk. One glance at Shakespeare's works, for instance, shows several heavy-handed contenders:

(from The Taming of the Shrew, Act II sc. 1, written ~1590. This is an incredibly pun-heavy scene where Katharina and Petruchio lob sexual innuendos at each other - a tour de force of linguistic double-entendres, where every other word has two or more bawdy meanings.)

(from Troilus & Cressida, Act IV sc. 2, written 1602. Is it possible the naughtiness is only the reference to her chamber? Sure, so it can't be seen as inalienable evidence of the sexual usage of "come" - but it's a strong suggestion that the word already was being played with in this register.)

Cum, on the other hand, is a much more recent variant. Its first attested usage as a noun is from the 1920s; its first usage as a verb from the 1970s. And while it's also very likely it was in popular use before then, that's still almost four centuries after the emergence of the sexual "come".

And it makes sense etymologically: to come is to "move with the purpose of reaching, or so as to reach, some point; to arrive by movement or progression". In the 13th century, it took on the meaning of "to happen or occur". It's a very useful catch-all term for the moment of orgasm, since it can refer to a) the successful completion of the act of sex, b) the eruption of pleasure, or c) ejaculation.

(Cum, meanwhile, is a Latin word that means with. You can argue that sex is a moment when people are with each other physically, but only if you purposefully ignore the existence of masturbation and solo orgasms.)

"Cum" was not changed to "come" by joyless, immature writers who can't appreciate its original, bawdy meaning.

"Come" is the original bawdy meaning.

Dirty euphemisms have a long, fascinating history in the English language. They're sly and funny, and they create connection between those in the know. They add ... tension. Potency. They form layers of meaning until the word feels charged with physical energy and breathless emotion. Maturity and immaturity crammed together into a tight space to create something hot.

You like "cum" best because it's filthier or sexier to you? Cool! Language is alive and fluid and evolves through usage; use the word that you like best.

You like "cum" best because you like to pat yourself on the back for edginess, and love to shame others as immature and joyless — yet you don't go to the minimal effort of basic fact-checking before you hit post on ur gross judgy little bullshit?

You're just a dick. <3

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crimeronan

people who let me wake up to this get a special place in heaven. firefly_fox how does it feel to hold my life in ur hands....

my favorite thing about this post is that a handful of people have gone "oh wait! this is tangible proof that i don't need to be embarrassed about leaving a lot of comments!! i'll stop being so ashamed!" YES!! ao3 authors basically universally will die for people who comment spam. we love to see it and we do not find you weird or annoying At All.

think about it this way: we ourselves are weird enough to have spent several hours, days, or Months writing down this story. we are weird enough about the content to do that! why on Earth would we be mean and judgmental toward people who care enough to get excited about reading it?? we shared it Specifically For You To Get Excited About!

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atlinmerrick

WE WILL WRITE FOR YOU WHEN YOU DO THIS, TOO.

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I am aware I have died on this hill before but people who really strenuously argue that fanfic isn't "real writing" drive me insane. what do you meeeaaaaannn. besides the fact that any attempt to define "real art" vs "fake art" is inherently reactionary, it just doesn't make any sense. it's Writing. people Write it. what the fuck are you talking about.

"it's totally self-indulgent with no standards for quality and criticism is borderline not allowed"

are you like. aware of the concept of hobbies? if someone regularly posted pictures of their hobbyist knitting projects on their blog, it would be considered rude to drop in with "criticism." that's still a real art form.

"most of it is really bad"

I cannot stress enough how much perceived quality is not a valid metric for determining what is and isn't art

"it's just porn"

I'm going to kill you

"it's full of unchecked misogyny, racism, queerphobia, etc"

I have some really bad news about every artistic medium ever

"you didn't put in the work of making your own world/characters, you just copied someone else's"

tv shows with writers' rooms. ghost writers. franchises where different works are written by different people. adaptations and retellings. sorry guys I guess none of these are real writing anymore.

There is an endemic problem in spinoff novels or cross-media properties like comics, where you'll get a very talented author recruited whose work is generally excellent, and everyone's excited, but then it turns out they don't know how to write fanfiction.

And the result is that the spinoff is really bad. Because the author completely fails to capture the vocal cadence or behavior or motivations of someone else's characters, the narrative tone of the series...they try too hard to the point of making in-universe references feel stilted and unnatural, or do WAY too much exposition about things that shouldn't need to be explained at this level of barrier-of-entry.

The ability to be a chameleon, to figure out and match the "feel" of characters and a world you didn't create, is a learned skill.

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prokopetz

They say you should make art for yourself, but the folks writing long-form fic on AO3 where the last reader comment was thirty-five chapters ago and they're still updating every week like clockwork are putting that into practice in ways I can only dream of.

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