Just a pinch of fanfic salt

when ao3 is back up, i want you all to show some love to your favourite writers, favourite fics, or even just the 600 word one-shot that brought a smile to your face that tuesday three weeks ago.

UPDATE: 5/12/2023

OTW has removed the article from OTW Signals but they yet havent clarified their position.

Update to OTW Signal, May 2023 | Organization for Transformative Works

The soft back pedding with regrets about the "opinion of one volunteer" is not good enough. The comments were made by the OTW Legal Chair, who represented them in official capacity in a listening session with US Copyright office.

Please clarify your official position and ensure author works are not used for AI training without their permission.

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Original Post follows:

It is extremely disheartening to see OTW's announcement to use user created fanfics to train AI.

I support WGA strike!

Our free labor of love (fanfics) should NOT be used to train AI so that they can displace humans. I am taking my works private as a protest. I am only one person but I will do what I can.

NO AI Training without the AUTHOR's EXPLICIT PERMISSION. I DO NOT GIVE AO3 PERMISSION To share my free labor to train an AI Bot.

I am making my stories private by adding to this "Protest" Collection. Its unmoderated so anyone can add. Happy to add Co-Owners. Please reach out.

AO3 Writers Protest Against OTW Training AI on Fanfic | Archive of Our Own

More Information on OTW announcement here:

UPDATE: 5/12/2023

OTW has removed the article from OTW Signals but they yet havent clarified their position.

Update to OTW Signal, May 2023 | Organization for Transformative Works

The soft back pedding with regrets about the "opinion of one volunteer" is not good enough. The comments were made by the OTW Legal Chair, who represented them in official capacity in a listening session with US Copyright office.

Please clarify your official position and ensure author works are not used for AI training without their permission.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Original Post follows:

It is extremely disheartening to see OTW's announcement to use user created fanfics to train AI.

I support WGA strike!

Our free labor of love (fanfics) should NOT be used to train AI so that they can displace humans. I am taking my works private as a protest. I am only one person but I will do what I can.

NO AI Training without the AUTHOR's EXPLICIT PERMISSION. I DO NOT GIVE AO3 PERMISSION To share my free labor to train an AI Bot.

I am making my stories private by adding to this "Protest" Collection. Its unmoderated so anyone can add. Happy to add Co-Owners. Please reach out.

AO3 Writers Protest Against OTW Training AI on Fanfic | Archive of Our Own

More Information on OTW announcement here:

It is not a job.  It is not school.  It is not a contract.   Participation in fandom is voluntary and it is not binding (commissions and paid work aside).

Yes, within fandom you should be bound by some sense of ethics or general decency: don’t steal art and fic, don’t willfully deceive people, don’t be a jerk or a garbage human, and so on and so forth.  But everything else?  The writing fic and the doing and the participation?  It is voluntary.

So if you are writing a fic and you’re seven chapters in and you have eight chapters to go and you’re just tired and you don’t want to do it any more?  You can stop.  If you’ve been running a blog and writing about every single episode of every new anime show that’s come out and you can’t for three weeks?  Don’t.  If you told your 5 billion followers you were gonna post a piece of fanart and you’re just sick of it and you don’t want to do it any more?  Give it up.

Sure, people will be disappointed and upset and some will complain.  But life is disappointing and upsetting sometimes, and it goes on, and no one can sue you for not finishing a fic that they were enjoying the hell out of for free.  No one can accuse you of not living up to the terms of your contract when you don’t post that fanart you mentioned three weeks ago.  Because fandom is voluntary.  It’s something that you participate in because it’s fun or fulfilling or important to you, and when it stops being those things, you should stop, too.

You are not bound by the asks in your inbox.  You are not bound by comments on a fic or a piece of art.  You are not bound, in fandom, by other people’s disappointments or their expectations. 

There is a lot of talk on here about how creators on this platform are struggling–either with visibility or motivation or both–because people are more likely to like posts than reblog them. There’s also talk about how note counts are generally lower than what they used to be. I think the frustration around these things is valid, because it’s natural to desire a response from others for the things that we spend time and energy creating.

I can’t express how much I admire–and am thankful for–the people who are creating things in my fandom, which is a place I go to relax and feel happy. Although I do write fic here and there, I’m definitely more of a spectator than creator. And although I’m not able to be on Tumblr consistently, when I am I try my best to be supportive of those who are creating by reblogging work I enjoy and commenting on fic. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not perfect about this, but fandom is generally not something I engage in passively; it’s definitely an active thing for me, and sometimes I just don’t have the energy for that but I still want to be here and see what people are doing.

So… as a spectator, as someone for whom fandom is a haven, I kind of want to defend myself against this discourse that I’m seeing about spectators, about reblogging and note counts. When I see stuff about this, here are the things that come to mind:

I am a person with a full life and I don’t exist just for creators’ gratification.

I am not obligated to interact with content in the ways that would most please the creator.

I’m here to have a good time; I don’t want to be made to feel responsible for creators’ happiness, well-being, or desire to create things. I don’t want to be made to feel guilty for the ways I do or do not engage with what other people are making.

If a creator is upset about note counts and talking about that publicly, what kind of message does that send to the people who have liked or reblogged their stuff? Why should I reblog something, or follow/interact with the person who made it, if that person is just going to disregard the people who have expressed appreciation and talk about how that isn’t enough for them?

I don’t agree with the notion that a like or kudos is somehow worth less than a reblog or a comment. It’s admittedly lower effort than a reblog or a comment, but for one thing, someone spent their (valuable!) time with that art or gifset or fic, and for another, maybe a like or kudos is all they can do for some reason that they shouldn’t have to justify or be judged for.

Personally, I think it’s very cool that I can put a fic out into the world and it might be seen or enjoyed by people who never even pop up on my radar. It’s enough for me that I made the thing and it’s out there, that it exists. The fact that it could be positively affecting people and I know nothing about that is amazing to me!

In a way, what people do with or think about what I make is actually none of my business! Because it’s not my place to suggest or demand how people engage with the stuff I make, or even have expectations about it. If someone lets me know that they liked my thing in some way, whether through a like, reblog, kudos, or comment, that’s really cool (and always appreciated). But getting those responses is not my goal when I make things, and this is something I make sure to remind myself of–often.

I know that Tumblr and other social media platforms emphasize numbers and that can be a hard thing to ignore, especially in conjunction with the (natural) desire for external validation. But numbers and external validation are bottomless pits, and bottomless pits make for bad measuring tools. It’s important to not use those things to determine our value as people, or the value of what we make or do. That applies to creators and spectators.

I like to think that whether we’re creators or spectators, we’re joined by “love of the thing.” And I would really like it if that’s what we put front and center in our minds as we do our fandom things. That’s what I try to do. And like I said, sometimes I have to have this conversation with myself frequently. If I’m unable to get into that good headspace, I take a step back–from my fic, my dashboard, my notifications, whatever.

But I don’t want this point to be lost: this isn’t “the other side of a coin.” It’s not a 1:1 direct comparison here. I find this thinking troubling enough to come out of my own long tumblr hiatus and summon just enough energy to respond to this one point.

So you want to archive your work but you don’t want all of it visible to everyone else. What you need to do is make a collection!

Collections have lots of uses, but this post is going to focus on using a collection to make some (or all!) of your works private so that only you can see them. 

1. If you’ve never made a collection before, start by going to your Dashboard and then choosing Collections from the sidebar (on desktop) or the top of the page (on mobile). Then click on the New Collection button and fill in the information.

2. In the Header Section you only need to worry about giving it a name and a display title. This is because you’re just making this collection for yourself. The other infoboxes are there for you to fill out if you’re creating a collection for a fandom event.

The name is what you’ll use to add works to your collection. Choose something unique so that you don’t accidentally try to add your work to someone else’s collection. 

The display title is the name that people will see if they go to your Works page. You can use any name you’d like here, but remember that it will be visible to others.

3. In the Preferences Section, you’ll want to set your collection as moderated and unrevealed. 

Moderating your collection means that the owner (you) gets to choose which works get added. If anyone else tries to add works to your collection, you can refuse. Keeping it unrevealed means that no one can see the works that are inside of it. They can see the collection, but it will look like it’s empty.

You can leave the rest of the sections empty. Those are all for fandom events and informing other people of rules and other information. None of that is necessary in this case. 

4. After you have created your collection, you can edit your existing works to hide them. Edit the work and scroll down the posting form until you get to the section called Associations. The first text box in that section is Post to Collections/Challenges. Type the name of your collection into this box and press enter. Don’t worry if it doesn’t show up in the dropdown. As long as you provide the name (and not the display title!), you’ll be fine. 

5. Save your edit and congrats! You’ve successfully made that work private so that only you can see it.

When another user visits your profile, they’ll be able to see you have a collection. They’ll see the display name, and they’ll see the total number of fandoms and works that are in your collection. By clicking the number next to the word Fandom, they’ll be able to see the list of all of the fandoms you’ve written for in that collection. However, if they click the number next to the word Works, they’ll just see a message that says, “This is part of an ongoing challenge and will be revealed soon!”

If you want to see for yourself what it looks like to other users, visit my AO3 profile and see for yourself.

[image: a banner for AO3 ReKudos Converter. between the Kudos button and the Comments button is an Uno Reverse type symbol; an arrow leads from the “You have already left kudos here :)” banner to a comment by “You” reading “This is an extra kudos, since I’ve already left one. :)”]

I made a userscript that will automatically turn a pointless click of the kudos button into a customisable automatic comment on the fic!

>> Get the script here <<

The script was made to work with Tampermonkey, so you may need to change the formatting to work with other JS userscript managers.

You can install Tampermokey for Firefox from here.

[EDIT 6/6/2021] As of 2.53 the script should work on every fic regardless of the amount of kudos or when you’ve kudosed it originally. It now has to wait for reply from OTW’s servers, so if it’s failing constantly, you’ll want to go set “lat” to a higher value (default is 500). Keep in mind that setting the delay higher will make the script take longer to run.

I once received a DM comprised of just that sentence. Nothing else. No constructive criticism or any reason as to why this person clearly agreed with my own view of myself.

For someone who has never told anyone in their real life that they write anything, reading something like this from an anonymous user only solidified in my mind the fact that this person was right.

I’m not a good writer.

After an embarrassing amount of minutes passed, in which I thought about deleting every story I ever posted, I decided to delete the message instead. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean I could delete the feelings it caused or change the fact that I’m not a good writer.

Two weeks went by and I didn’t write anything, let alone post. Then I received a comment on a story I had posted three years prior, one I’d written after a death in our family. The comment read, “Thank you for sharing this heartfelt story. I really needed this. I just lost my mom and this really got me today.”

I stopped thinking about being a good writer after that. I thought instead, “what if I had deleted my stories and that one person three years later hadn’t read it that day?”

Here’s what I realized: no one is a good writer.

Good means to be approved of, but stories aren’t created from approval. They’re built from life experiences, feelings, and emotions Therefore, the impact of anyone’s story isn’t good or bad. It’s a million other things.

Heartfelt.

Sad.

Funny.

Inspiring.

Romantic.

So to all the story writers out there, hold your head up, write what is in your heart, and never doubt that there isn’t at least one person out there that needs to read your story.

So, no.

oh hey new guide thinggg~ some basics on how to practice! there’s SO much I could add to this, so it’s just the basics :O

Admittedly, I don’t have the widest range of experience when it’s come to archery. I’ve only been shooting for a year now, and the time that I do take to shoot have long months between them. Still, I think it’s important to outline the basics for anyone who wants to write an archer in their book and wants to save themselves the embarrassment of having the archer do something that an archer would never do in a million years.

- Archers usually unstring their bow after battle. Unstringing a bow is exactly what it sounds like: removing the string from the bow’s limbs. Usually, archers then wrap the string around the now-straightened bow so they don’t lose it as easily. Archers unstring bows because everytime the limbs are bent by the string, there is a large amount of tension in the limbs. If the string is on too long and the bow has not been shot for a while, the limbs will start to wear down and lose their power, resulting in an archer needing to buy new limbs or an entirely new bow.

- Archers always retrieve their arrows after battle. Arrows are expensive and take a long time to make, so archers want to conserve as many arrows as possible. Sometimes they have a repair kit with them at the ready, in case they find an arrow with a loose arrowhead or broken fletching that can easily be repaired. 

- Training arrows are not the same as battle arrows. Training arrows have thinner shafts and usually blunted tips so they can easily be removed from targets. Thinner shafts break more easily, and the blunted tips – whilst they can pierce skin – usually won’t get very far in the flesh. They’re also easier to make. Battle arrows are thicker, and their heads are pointed at the tip and have two pointed ends at its sides. This arrowhead is designed to easily pierce through flesh, and is incredibly difficult to pull out because its two pointed ends snag onto flesh. If you want to pull it out, you’d have to tear the flesh away with it, which can lead to an even larger wound.

- Arrows are fatal, and one can incapacitate a soldier for the rest of his life. Arrows are not easily snapped off like you see in movies. The draw weight is too strong, and they can sometimes be as strong as bullets. They will pierce through bone and tendons, which do not easily heal. Furthermore, if you want to remove an arrow, you either have to go through surgery, parting the flesh away from the arrowhead so it doesn’t snag onto anything, or you have you push – not pull – it all the way through the body.

- Bows are not designed for hitting people with in close combat. The limbs are specifically made to flex. Imagine hitting someone with a flexing piece of wood. If you hit with the middle of the bow, it still does very little because there is no weight behind the bow, and so you might as well be hitting them with a pillow. It might be annoying to the opponent, but it won’t save you. Archers need a secondary blade in close combat. They cannot strike people with their bows and expect to win.

- Draw weight affects speed, range, and impact. Draw weight is measured in pounds, at least in America, and it is measured in how much weight must be pulled when you draw back the string. A high draw weight means stiffer, thicker limbs that can shoot further and hit harder. But, this is at the cost of speed. A low draw weight means thinner, more flexible limbs that can shoot smaller distances and have low impact, but can be shot faster. Before you acrobatic fanatics immediately seize the smaller bow for its speed, understand that a bow’s advantage is in its range. No one can hit an archer from 300 meters away with their spear or sword. The archer has complete dominance over the battlefield in this way, and their arrows can kill anyone who gets too close. Not hurt. Not annoy. Kill. And a higher draw weight means a better chance of piercing through specific armor, then flesh, then bone. A lower draw weight means less range and, even worse, a lower chance that the arrow would even pierce through armor if the arrow even hits its target. 

- Bows will always be outmatched in close combat against any other weapon. Bows take too long to draw and shoot, and at such close range, the opponent has an easier chance to dodge oncoming arrows. I already explained that the bows themselves cannot be used to take down a foe. 

- Bowmen on horseback are utterly terrifying. Archers usually can’t move from their spot because range is more important than mobility, and at such a long range, you usually don’t need to move from your spot anyways. Bowmen on horses, however, are closer to the battle, and worse, they are faster than almost anyone on the battlefield. Not only are they difficult to hit, you have no way of predicting where they will shoot next because they can circle around you in confusing ways. If you want an interesting archer character, I’d advise trying these guys out.

- Archers should never rest the tip of their bow on the ground. Dirt and dust can wear away the tip, which in turn can eat away at where the string notch is. If the string notch is worn away in any shape or form, the string can fall off or the bow not shoot correctly.

- ARCHERS SHOULD NEVER LEAN ON THEIR BOW. This is the same as keeping the bow strung when you’re not using it. Leaning on the bow causes the limbs to flex, which can be damaging when you’re not shooting anything.

- Never shoot a bow when there is no arrow notched. This is known as “dry firing,” and is incredibly damaging to the bow. Because there is no arrow to transfer the energy of the shot through, the energy instead shivers down the bow. If it is a strong enough energy, the bow can shatter.

- When any archer is shooting at a target, everyone is instructed to stand beside or behind the archer. This is common safety sense, as archers’ fingers might slip and the arrow is shot in a different direction than intended.

- It is incredibly rude, as well as dangerous, to shoot near another person simply to show one’s skill. Unless the person voluntarily agreed with the archer to stand in place and is willing to be shot, it is incredibly rude to shoot near someone to prove one’s skill. It would be the same as a gunman shooting at another person to prove he can hit a can at their elbow. The gunman, as well as the archer, would be thrown behind bars.

- Archers use an “anchor point” to aim. Archers rest either their index or middle finger at their chin or the side of their lip when drawing the bow.  This is known as their “anchor point,” and it is used to steady the hand as well as aim. If an archer does NOT use an anchor point, his shot can go wild. If you see actors holding their fingers behind their chin and hanging in the air, you’ll know that they are not an archer.

- It is both unnecessary and damaging to pull the bow’s string further than your chin. It has a higher chance of breaking or bending irreversibly than shooting further, faster, or higher by drawing the bow string further.

- You use your back muscles the most when drawing a bow. Most people assume that you’re using primarily your arm muscles. Whilst the muscles in your arms are incorporated, the back muscles are used to pull back the weight of the bow moreso than your arms.

- It is easier to swing a sword than shoot a bow. I’m certainly not talking about skill or practice. Swords and bows each have their own difficulties to overcome, but there is a common misconception that bows are lighter than swords. The weight of a sword varies, but most sit between 2 to 5 pounds and are well balanced so you don’t feel the weight of the sword pulling at your tendons. Bows, on the other hand, have a draw weight that varies from 20 to 100 pounds, sometimes more. Whilst different muscles are used to do different things, it’s clear that bows take far more strength than expected to use.

- A proper bow needs proper care. Damages are common after use, no matter what you do. The string may fray, the string’s nock locator might fall off, the arrow rest may wear down, and so on. Archers, therefore, should bring wax, which keeps the string from fraying, an extra nock locator, and perhaps a kit that can either repair the arrow rest or replace the entire thing.

okay no shade at all I just want all of u to learn and grow and become better writers! so here’s a handy tip list!

we don’t stutter on every word. okay, sometimes it can seem it, but honestly, we don’t, so leave a few words in there to give your readers some breathing room.

we stutter more on specific sounds. for me, f and s sounds are big ones. everyone has their thing and most stutterers have sounds that are harder to get out.

we don’t just stutter at the beginning of words and sentences. okay, honestly this is a big one for me. sometimes, a word starts off really well and goes down the drain at the second syllable! and the stutter doesn’t disappear once we’ve made it past the first word - it clings in there, so don’t forget it.

some of us don’t always stutter. some, not all, of us have what’s known as an anxious stutter, which generally comes alongside anxiety disorders. so, while it may be usually present, when a person with an anxious stutter is particularly comfortable with a situation, it tends to get better (or even almost disappear).

we don’t stutter when we swear. this is why some of us can stutter and stutter and stutter on a word and then shout fuck and everything’s cool. as far as science knows, this is because swearing is from a more primitive part of the brain, and so it bypasses the bit that makes us stutter! it’s so cool honestly.

we don’t stutter when we sing. the biggest two reasons for this one is 1) music comes from a different part of the brain to talking (language=left; music=right), and so it once again bypasses the stutter, or 2) ‘easy voice’, which is the voice that people sing in, is softer and smoother, and the sounds are longer so there’s less opportunity to stutter. either option is way cool but we don’t stutter when we sing.

sometimes, we give up on words. after a certain amount of stuttering on a certain word, you may see a stutterer take a deep breath and either try again, or replace it with a synonym. sometimes that word just won’t fit right in our mouths!

we hate it when people try to guess what we’re trying to say or try to speed us up. this might be a more personal thing for me, but there’s nothing I hate more than that clicky sound people make or the weird hand gestures or being told to “spit it out.” because we can’t control this shit and it gets tiring. it’s better just to let the person get it out and take their time with it, so when you’re writing, keep this in mind!

it gets worse when we’re anxious or stressed, and when we’re excited! I get really really stuttery when I’m enthusiastic about the topic of conversation, because I know so much about that thing that I try to talk really fast and my mouth can’t keep up! it’s the same when I’m anxious or stressed - when there’s more on our minds, the more everything gets a little muddled.

Smut fans: *gasp!!!!!*

Writer: So They Spooned All Night And The Brooding One Allowed Themselves To Feel Vulnerable For The First Time In Years And The Chirpy One Got Some Quality Snuggles

There was only one bed and so they lay there together, only inches apart physically but it may as well have been miles for neither could muster the courage to tell the other the true depth of their feelings and so they lay there sleepless in their mutual pining

Angst fans:

Hurt/Comfort fans:

My sleep deprived ass:

Me, who just wants domestic curtains found family fic:

Enemies to lovers fans

My OT3-loving ass: