moth

Wahhh 🙈 🙈 thank you Moth!! 😭 💜

Creators do not owe anyone content. Do not ask writers when they will update.

If an author did not ask for [negative] criticism , do not give criticism.

Read the tags carefully before reading a fanfic.

If you ignored the tags and were upset, that is your responsibility, not the creator’s.

Disliking a ship does NOT give you the right to attack people who enjoy it.

Do not tell authors or shippers that their ship is “disgusting,” “wrong,” or “shouldn’t exist.” Shipping fictional characters is not a moral failing.

No one is obligated to justify why they ship two fictional characters.

Headcanons are PERSONAL interpretations, not universal truth.

Dark themes in fiction do not equal real life beliefs or intentions.

Leaving kudos or short positive comments genuinely matters.

Not every fanwork is made for you, and that is okay.

Scrolling past content you dislike is better than engaging negatively

Enjoying a fandom later than others does not make someone less of a fan.

The problem wasn’t what I had access to. It was that I didn’t have access to a safe adult I could actually talk to; someone I could trust to help me without immediately cutting me off from everything and everyone. I remember getting messages from strangers on Skype. I didn’t even respond. But when my parents found out, they banned me from using it entirely. That meant losing most of my contact with friends outside of school. So what did I do? I went behind their backs. And once I was hiding, I couldn’t tell them when something actually dangerous was happening, like when I started being groomed. By the time things escalated, I was already alone with it.

I think about an episode of Scared Straight where a girl was dragged through a prison because she’d been talking to adult men online. She wasn’t doing that because she was reckless or malicious; she was lonely. Her parents weren’t present, she was being bullied at school, and these men gave her attention, told her she was pretty, told her she mattered. She was already being harmed. And the adults in her life responded by terrorizing her. Humiliating her. Calling her a slut. Telling her she deserved it. Breaking her to pieces.

What lesson does that actually teach? Not “this is dangerous, come to us.” It teaches: If you get hurt, we will hurt you more. Do you really think that makes her stop, or does it just make the predators look safer by comparison? They might as well have driven her straight into the jaws of those predators with torches and pitchforks. Because when every path back to safety is lined with punishment, kids don’t run away from danger. They run deeper into it.

If you want kids to be safe, stop treating them like problems to control and start treating them like people worth protecting. Stop ripping away their autonomy the second they make a mistake or encounter something risky. Stop teaching them that honesty will cost them everything.

writing “long” paragraphs is not a sign of AI — it’s a common narrative choice many writers make both in fanfiction and in traditionally published novels, and AI stole it from us.

using an em dash is not a sign of AI. it’s a stylistic sentence choice that’s been an option in place of commas and semicolons for a very long time, and AI stole it from us.

long sentence structures are not a sign of AI, but are yet another stylistic choice writers often make to create a cadence and tone that mimics the flow of poetry, and AI stole it from us.

“YA narrative breaks”? i don’t even know what the fuck this means, but i can guarantee that AI stole it from us.

italics are once again a stylistic choice that many writers love to use to create emphasis, and it’s a more stylistically acceptable and traditional form of emphasis than bold or underline text. oh, and just to be extra clear: AI STOLE IT FROM US.

stop creating fandom witch hunts over AI when you know fuck all about what it means to sit and write a story, and to spend hours fiddling with sentence structure and dialogue to get the exact right tone. writers will stop writing out of fear that their work “sounds like AI” — IT DOESNT! AI STOLE FROM US! AI SOUNDS LIKE US! — and after a while, all that will be available on AO3 is shitty AI-generated fanfiction.

because yeah, people are going to continue to use AI to write fanfiction whether you “call them out” or not. but making a laughable thread on X that uses asinine criteria is not going to fix that problem. it will just push the real writers out because people will accuse them of using AI when they haven’t, and they will (rightfully) stop writing for spaces that attack them.

write insane shit that’s way beyond your perceived ability and skill level even if you don’t finish it even if you think it sucks

In case you haven't noticed, Tumblr's automatic flagging and filtering system has been having a field day this week. Whatever is going on is specifically targeting reblogs and flagging/hiding them, while the original post remains unflagged, meaning the original poster does not receive any sort of notification that their post(s) are affected.

What kind of posts are being affected? I think that this latest flagging spree is heavily targeting posts with images. And by images, I mean any sort of image file. This is only a theory based on my own evidence, other posts may still be affected, too. But in my case, something as simple as a plain black 3 pixel divider triggered it (and I know this to be true because I reblogged a post as-is [FLAGGED], reblogged it with the divider image removed [NO LONGER FLAGGED]).

The only way to see if your post(s) have been affected is to individually go into the notes for any you want to check. In my experience, my affected posts have been entirely random, and some were posted years ago.

Find a post that you know had reblogs with tags

The 'reblogs with comment or tags' section will now be blank if the post has been affected

If you go to 'other reblogs' (blank reblogs) and try to click into them, they will all show up greyed out and hidden on the user's blog

Currently, the only way I can see to fix this is if the users who reblogged your post(s) go to their 'Review flagged posts' tab and submit an appeal. Note that this appeal process appears to be automatic. I tested this several times, and the appeal was approved in less than a minute.

And if your post(s) are affected, the only interim solution I have found is to edit the original post, test out removing images if applicable, and reblog it again to see if the flag has been removed. Unfortunately, it seems this will only help with future reblogs. It will not retroactively fix the reblogs that were flagged.

Why is this a problem for writers (and artists + other creators)?

Something as simple as a plain divider separating the fic summary can trigger this.

Writers are now losing years worth of reblogs that contain meaningful feedback.

Writers have no way of being notified about affected posts, because the flag only triggers in the reblog.

✧ Broken ribs suck. You don’t just “walk it off.” Breathing hurts. Laughing hurts. Existing hurts. Characters with rib injuries won’t be doing heroic sprints.

✧ Concussions aren’t instant naps. Dazed vision, nausea, dizziness, maybe even personality changes, but they’re not going to collapse neatly like in the movies.

✧ Blood loss is sneaky. It’s not just about dramatic pools of blood. It’s dizziness, confusion, and the body getting cold as circulation tanks.

✧ Adrenaline lies. Someone can take a serious injury and not feel it until the fight’s over. That “I didn’t realize I was bleeding until later” trope? Very real.

✧ Twisted ankles are brutal. One bad step and suddenly running is off the table. Even walking hurts like hell. Perfect way to ground a chase scene.

✧ Burns linger. Even small burns hurt more than most people expect. Blisters, infection risk, constant pain, it’s not just a cool scar later.

✧ Dislocated shoulders = useless arm. Characters can’t keep swinging a sword or firing a gun. They’re basically fighting one-armed until it’s fixed.

✧ Shock is a thing. Pale skin, trembling, rapid heartbeat, and eventually disorientation. A character might not even realize how bad their wound is.

✧ Stitches aren’t magic. Getting sewn up is painful and recovery takes time. They’re not instantly battle-ready after a needle and thread.

Broken rib? Yeah once the adrenaline wears off you're down, but until then you absolutely CAN sprint potentially enough to get out of harm's way. Just ask my cousin who got attacked by a bull, cracked a couple ribs, and still made it outside the fence before collapsing (largely due to her military training - muscle memory kicked in and got her to safety).

Whether or not concussions knock you out in addition to the above symptoms depends on where/how you got hit and how hard... like. Let's be real for a second there are people with medical conditions that make them pass out if they stand up too fast. A sufficient blow to the head (or at the right part of the jaw - hello major nerve bundle) WILL put your lights out. It's just worth remembering that if something hit that hard they're unlikely to just shake it off after waking. (With the possible exception of if somebody knows that nerve bundle enough to skip the middle man and just jam a thin blunt object right into it. But similar to getting hit in the solar plexus you are going to be having a bad day until the nerve overload passes.)

As for the dislocated shoulder, I have known people well trained enough in quick and dirty field medicine (*cough* my partner) to shove that fucker right back into the socket and keep on going. So just like. Know your character and what they would know how to do.

Stitches aren't magic but the drugs they give you with the damn things might as well be (to a point). There are people who will get up and cause a ruckus because their pain is dulled enough they just get up and start a fight. They will, however, absolutely regret it later and also probably need to be re-stitched. Also, again, somebody with sufficient combat training MIGHT be able to ignore the pain, get back up and keep fighting - they are just, again, going to regret it later.

Through the power of adrenaline and sheer stubbornness humans are capable of some buckwild shit.

I'm the OP. I'm making this post. If you like, comment, reblog (without comment) on this post, then I'm the one who will see all those notes in my activity page.

However...

If you reblog (with comment), I will get a notification that you did that, but any likes/comments/reblogs (without comment) you get on that reblog will only be shown to you. As OP I won't see them.

If someone adds a reblog (with comment) to your reblog...as OP I won't see that. I won't see any of those notes in my activity page.

Basically, if someone with a large following makes a comment, then they will get all the notes and OP will see nothing. If OP has said something silly because they're, y'know, 21 and it happens, and then someone reblogs it onto the dash of someone with a large following who then dunks on them for fun? OP doesn't see it, doesn't get notes for it, but they're gonna get the harrassment for it in their inbox.

If I, someone with a 5 digit follower count, reblog something to correct misinformation on Ancient Egypt, then OP will never see it unless it was on the original post, but I will continue to get notes on that post even though it's not my post. If I reblog fanart, or just art in general, with a comment like 'Oh this is so lovely!' then OP will not see any of the notes from people reblogging it from me. They'll only see my reblog. So it's possible for an art post by someone else to have 200 notes for them, but 9000 for someone who reblogs it with a comment, and the OP artist will have no idea it's been seen by that many people.

It's killing blow to the community we've built here, by someone higher up who doesn't understand that being able to see all the comments and reblogs is what makes this site the place I keep coming back to.

That's what sucks.