The Guild Deserved Better

This is a challenging process, although we’ve found ways to streamline it and can normally get a reply out pretty quickly (like within a few days).  We do it because this is part of why AO3 exists in the first place - to provide a safe haven where users can post their works without worrying about censorship or sudden crackdowns on certain kinds of content.  We do it because this is important, and helping these users get their accounts and be able to share their works safely is why we’re here.  We hope that we’ll be able to help as many of them as possible.  

There have been a few (thankfully few, that I’ve seen) complaints about these new AO3 users not always knowing how things work - what language to tag with, or what fandom tags to use, for instance.  To this I would say:

1. Have patience and be considerate.  They are coming to a new site that they aren’t familiar with, and using it in a language they may not be expert in, and it might take a while to learn the ropes.  You can filter out works tagged in Chinese if you don’t want to see them.  Or just scroll past.  

2. You can report works tagged with the wrong language or the wrong fandom to our Policy and Abuse team using the link at the bottom of any page.  This will not cause the authors to “get in trouble” (a concern I’ve heard before, as people are reluctant to report for these reasons).  It means the Policy and Abuse team will contact them to ask them to change the language/fandom tag, and if the creator doesn’t, they can edit it directly. 

China is tightening their freedom of speech in recent years after Xi has became the chairman (he even canceled the 10 years long term of service of chairman, meaning he can stay as the leader of China as long as he lives–he has became a dictator).

They censor words that are deemed “sensitive”, you can’t type anything to criticize the chinise government. Big social media platform won’t even post the posts containing sensitive words. You don’t have the freedom of publish books without the books being approved by the government either.

To disguise this whole Ninety Eighty-Four nightmare, they started to pick on the easy target: the women and the minorities (China is getting more and more misogynistic as a result of the government trying to control their male population through encouraging them to control the female population through “chinese tradition family value” but that’s another story).

Last year, the chinese government arrested a woman who is a famous yaoi/BL novel writer named 天一 and sentenced her 10 years in jail for “selling obscene publications” and “illegal publication” (she’s not the only BL writer who got arrested. Meanwhile, multiple cases where men raped women only get about 2 years of jail time in China). It’s a warning to anyone who want to publish anything that’s “not approved” by the government that they can literally ruin you. 

Just recently the chinese government “contacted” website owners of one of their largest romance/yaoi/slash fiction sites 晉江 and announced that for now on, for the sake of a Clean Society, they can’t write anything that’s slightly “obscene”. No sex scene, no sexual interaction, they can’t even write any bodily interaction below neck (I’m not kidding here).

But that’s not their actual goal. They also listed other restriction such as: can’t write anything that’s about the government, the military, the police, “sensitive history”, “race problems”, which is… you basically can’t write anything that might be used as a tool to criticize the government (as many novels did).

This recent development really hurt the chinese fanfic writers. They can’t write anything without the fear of being put on the guillotine by the government to show their control. Most of them don’t even think that deep politically, they just want to write slash fictions. But there are no platform safe in China, that’s why the sudden influx of chinese users to AO3.

https://howtofightwrite.tumblr.com/post/162104997961/how-do-you-write-a-fight-scene-without-becoming

https://referenceforwriters.tumblr.com/post/38923518237/how-to-write-a-kick-ass-fight-scene-by-susan

https://brynwrites.tumblr.com/post/162531161729/all-about-writing-fight-scenes

And a big list:

site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition 

site that gives you words that rhyme with a word

Because you love it

Because you want to write

Because you want to get better

Because you want to create something

Because you love your characters

Because you love your world, society, or whatever it is you love

Because you want to write a book

Because it’s fun

Because it’s a skill

me: hey there- i just wanted to you to know your work is amazing. i love reading your writing. please continue! it is so eloquent. your wording and command of the english language are just incredible. you show such a deep emotional intelligence.

Just because your manuscript wasn’t what I was looking for at the moment doesn’t mean it’s not what other literary agents want. Don’t give up!

Survive Said The Prophet | WIP INTRO

“There are as many who’d kill for information as there are those who’d commit murder for revenge.”

It was 1989 when a mysterious research facility closed its doors to the public; it was 1996 when those doors were blown, sky-high.

Looming from the edge of Yokohama’s doorstep, an explosion and a series of catastrophic events nearly wiped the city before suddenly, it all drew to an end. Although the military had written the incident off as “an error in protocol”; at the height of the Great War, such devastation could only be viewed as a terrorist attack. Following the aftermath and now wandering the streets were not only the ghosts of the survivors, but the brick and mortar of murmurs and conspiracies. Salvaged from the ruins became the bricks for Suribachi City, those that knew the truth soon lost their lives in neither grace nor glory, and the sole survivor from the research facility knew nothing about the unfortunate line of dominoes that had led to the event.

However, after the publication of a certain book and a series of disappearances nearly twenty years later, perhaps there was more to the story than one could overlook. For the tale to unfold, there were two survivors. One was a vessel for a minor god; the other needed no other credential than the ability coursing through his blood.

GENRE: Supernatural Mystery + Sci-Fi elements

RATING: Explicit/Adult Fiction

FANDOM: Bungou Stray Dogs

STATUS: Outline (ongoing), elaborate preview

FEATURES: Origins & Nature of Supernatural Abilities, Battle of Wits & Ideology, Established Relationships, Canon Divergence

MAJOR THEMES: Facing Reality & Overcoming The Past, Human Nature vs. Individuality, Desires & Self-Sacrifice 

CONTENT WARNINGS: Dubious Ethics & Morality, Implicit/Explicit Descriptions of Violence, Character Deaths