*fax machine screaming into the void*

cats when you step on their tail: i'll admit that was rather ouchie, but given the lifetime of goodwill and trust between us, one must conclude this booboo is but a fluke.

Stop telling people to just orphan their fics.

Orphaning a fic means giving up any and all ownership over it. No way to claim it back, edit it or delete it. Yes it's an archive but an author should still have the right to delete their work if they feel like they don't want it to be up anymore.

Readers always scream for authors to orphan their fics instead of deleting because they feel like they have a right to the fanworks that is shared with them for free. If it's so important to you to not lose a fic, download it. Also comment and encourage the authors, instead of telling them to give up all ownership to their work.

To authors, if you think about deleting your fics, there are other options you should employ first. If you don't want it connected to your name, put it into an anonymous collection. As long as it's in there, noone can see you wrote it, you still can edit ot or delete it and moderate comments on it. You can even move it to anther account, just create another one, add it as co author and then take your main account off. Then you can still edit it from your second account but it's no longer connected to your account.

If you don't want it to show anymore put it in a unrevealed collection, that way, the fic won't show up but it's still there, you can still see it, read comments and make it public again.

If you feel the urge to delete your fic, try one of these options first and see how you feel about it after a while, you can still delete or orphan afterwards, but this hopefully makes your decision easier.

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.

this ask makes me feel like I'm about to step into a hornet's nest lol

I'd say it's way more the norm than the exception to determine post order by things other than order of submission! I can only speak for myself and a few other fest mods, but I'd say submission order is only one of many factors which go into the posting order.

Personally, when scheduling out works for a fest, the most important factor for me is length. For example, blackcest fest this year had the majority of fics 1k-5k with a few fics 20k-30k. One of my priorities was to spread those longer fics out so people would get a chance to read them (rather than get overwhelmed by a bunch of long fics all in one day/week.) Since this year I posted two fics a day, I'd try to make sure the longest and shortest fics would be paired together (or a long fic + art) and only post 1-2 of the longer fics each week.

Another priority for me was to try to spread out ships and m/m, m/f, and f/f works, but that was a second priority to length.

Another top priority is to spread out authors/artists. If someone submits multiple works, I tried to make sure to post those works on different weeks even if they submitted both of them pretty early.

Submission order is a factor, but that's mostly in the fact that the first week tends to be works submitted well before the deadline, the second/middle week(s) features the works submitted right around the deadline, and the last week is for fics submitted late. (But that's not a strict rule. It's just more how it shakes out when I'm adding works to the posting spreadsheet.) (In my posting order spreadsheet, I don't track the submission date, and so sometimes once things really get into the mix and I keep moving things around it's the factor I'm most likely to lose track of.) As a mod, my priority is the coherence of the fest overall.

to respond to the ask more specifically (acknowledging I'm making some assumptions which may or may not be true), I think it's super valid to feel some anxiety and nerves around waiting for your fic to be posted in a fest. I've submitted to so many fests at this point, and I still do even if the nerves are not as bad as they used to be lol.

I'd encourage you not to think of things in fandom as 'suspicious,' which kind of carries the assumption that there's some shadowy powerful actors trying to do bad things. Fandom is overwhelmingly full of friendly, busy nerds doing our best to have fun and create fun for others.

as a bit of an aside, I'm not sure if it's always been this way, but I've noticed a real uptick in really unkind, ungenerous behavior and accusations thrown at fest mods lately. I don't know what to do about it (other than encourage all fest tumblrs to turn off anon asks lol), but I'm just naming that I don't like it. If a fest ever has rules or policies that don't vibe with me (and many do!), I do not participate in them. People are also always welcome to drop out of fests if they decide they do not like how the fests are run. People are not entitled to pester the mods into trying to change the rules of the fest (which happens way more often than you might think!)

1.) Not all our parents would bake us a fucking cake when we come out. Some of us are closeted. Surely you understand this? You also do not need to know my parent’s names or occupations; we are both adults. I do not need nor want to mix you and my private life with my parents and my public life.

2.) Trans people do not owe you their dead name or government name

3.) I’m not telling you for the sake of job security. I am a government fucking caseworker working amidst a fucking lavender panic!

“There’s no way you’re a different person outside this; you’re still you at your core. What harm is there—”

No, I am a completely different person. A different person with a different personality and different interests and a different name and presentation. I am a completely different person because I keep this life and my public life private to avoid fracturing 90% of my interpersonal relationships and 100% of my professional ones.

“You’re not out? But you’re so confident.”

I need y’all to start bringing that energy. Because it’s not always safe for someone to be out and not everyone is safe to be out around.