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Arthur has been raised since birth to believe that sorcerers are The Big Evil. anyone who uses magic cannot be trusted, are the scum of the earth and must be killed without mercy. he has a vision of magic and sorcery in his head and Merlin does not match it.

he's not going to put two and two together because Arthur sees Merlin as a weedy little guy. he's clumsy and sarcastic and loving and trustworthy and loyal and a big ol' adorable dork who could never hurt a fly. he's witnessed him cry over unicorns and dragonlords he's known for less than a day. he hates hunting and hurting innocent creatures. he'll help anyone at the drop of a hat. his loyalty never falters. Merlin is soft, there's no way he uses magic aka the most evil thing in the universe.

not my tweet or my fic (and there’s a good chance of this comment being a bot) but yeah, don’t do this. sure, some writers wouldn’t mind having fanfics (or direct continuation) of their fanfics written by someone else. some may even be thrilled and happy. but the fandom etiquette is that if you want to write a fanfic or a continuation of someone’s fanfic, YOU POLITELY ASK THE WRITER FOR THEIR PERMISSION. not their readers.

So it's been a challenging year or more for writing for me. I'm not the only one - a lot of the friends I write with have found it tough for various reasons. There has been A Lot of Stuff going on that has made it hard to find time and headspace, and I've fought to stay in love with my fics sometimes. I've worked damn hard to put out the things I have managed to write, and I have a lot more bits of fics going on behind the scenes that I'm trying to get to a point where they're ready to put out there. It's been a while and it has been hard.

Having someone, whether it's a fake bot or not, saying something like "It's been five months, I'm going to continue this myself" and someone else going "Yes!" would be a huge motivation killer. What I would hear in that is that the commenter has no respect for my voice and the way I tell this story - anyone could come in and finish it. What I would hear is that the gift of my time, creative energy and work is not appreciated - the reader just expects more content. I just keep imagining getting a comment on a fic of mine and being excited that someone said something, and then reading... this.

Hey! Just a reminder! AO3 does NOT have an app. This garbage was made by theives who steal fan artist’s work and sell it back to you.

“Oh, but it’s free!” There are ads. They are making money off of this. They are stealing from the creators you love and you are hurting those same creators if you use this app or any similar app.