Lol okay so in the last week I've gotten 2 private message emails from FFdotnet. They're both scams. All generic "I really admire your work!" and "your writing has inspired me!" because anything more specific is too much work for the copy/paste.

And then the bait - "I'd love to make some art inspired by your story!" And asking me what "social media platform you prefer for connecting" like I never mentioned my tumblr in my A/Ns lol.

Part of me wants to respond like "Oh it's so nice you're inspired! Isn't the fandom gift economy wonderful? I have blanket permission for fanart, so you're welcome to draw whatever you like so long as you give credit and link back and don't make any money off of it! :3c"

Another part of me wants to respond like "My dude, statistically speaking anyone you contact on FFdotnet is gonna be too old AND too internet savvy to fall for this, if they're active at all."

But both of those would involve remembering how to log into and navigate FFdotnet and I can't be bothered with that so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've started messaging these people back! I'm getting too many of these not to have my Trolling instincts triggered. I'm asking why they expect this come-on to work with variations of the following message:

"Out of curiosity, why is cold-calling random fanfic authors a thing now for people with artstation accounts? Is artstation sending you all here with the same introduction to copy+paste? Is this an AI thing? Does this actually work?"

One immediately responded back saying they'd contact me on Tumblr, found my account here, followed me, and messaged me about commissioning art. So points for initiative and actually reading my profile page, but a penalty for not realizing what was actually going on.

All the others deny knowing if other people are doing this, that this is a copy+paste thing, that artstation is pushing the strategy, and that AI is involved. One remained positive and suggested we could discuss further on a social media site. The others acted a bit hurt at the accusation but maintained that my writing inspired them and we could work out a deal for art.

I still have hope that one of them will eventually crack.

gdi Loopy, you're making me wish I had the attention span to do this. Truly you are an inspiration to us all.

omg what if we reverse-spammed them? Keep a list of accounts that have been doing this, and then message the accounts that haven't messaged us yet.

"Hi! I am super inspired by your artwork and think it would amazing to meld our styles! PM me back if you're interested in an art/writing collaboration!"

Nice! We can workshop the wording, but we have to leave room in the offer so we can later make it clear that they are commissioning the story to go with their art. We are talented people and we deserve adequate remuneration for supporting their work. ;)

Hmmm, I'm too afraid they'd call my bluff committed to the sanctity of the fandom gift economy to ever suggest commissions for fanfics. So I think I'd just be honest about my writing habits and tell them that I'm totally going to write a story based on their art! But of course it takes me at least 5 years to write anything so I do hope they don't mind waiting! I'm sure they won't tho. As fellow creators who appreciate people's appreciation, I'm sure they'll understand!

Lol okay so in the last week I've gotten 2 private message emails from FFdotnet. They're both scams. All generic "I really admire your work!" and "your writing has inspired me!" because anything more specific is too much work for the copy/paste.

And then the bait - "I'd love to make some art inspired by your story!" And asking me what "social media platform you prefer for connecting" like I never mentioned my tumblr in my A/Ns lol.

Part of me wants to respond like "Oh it's so nice you're inspired! Isn't the fandom gift economy wonderful? I have blanket permission for fanart, so you're welcome to draw whatever you like so long as you give credit and link back and don't make any money off of it! :3c"

Another part of me wants to respond like "My dude, statistically speaking anyone you contact on FFdotnet is gonna be too old AND too internet savvy to fall for this, if they're active at all."

But both of those would involve remembering how to log into and navigate FFdotnet and I can't be bothered with that so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've started messaging these people back! I'm getting too many of these not to have my Trolling instincts triggered. I'm asking why they expect this come-on to work with variations of the following message:

"Out of curiosity, why is cold-calling random fanfic authors a thing now for people with artstation accounts? Is artstation sending you all here with the same introduction to copy+paste? Is this an AI thing? Does this actually work?"

One immediately responded back saying they'd contact me on Tumblr, found my account here, followed me, and messaged me about commissioning art. So points for initiative and actually reading my profile page, but a penalty for not realizing what was actually going on.

All the others deny knowing if other people are doing this, that this is a copy+paste thing, that artstation is pushing the strategy, and that AI is involved. One remained positive and suggested we could discuss further on a social media site. The others acted a bit hurt at the accusation but maintained that my writing inspired them and we could work out a deal for art.

I still have hope that one of them will eventually crack.

gdi Loopy, you're making me wish I had the attention span to do this. Truly you are an inspiration to us all.

omg what if we reverse-spammed them? Keep a list of accounts that have been doing this, and then message the accounts that haven't messaged us yet.

"Hi! I am super inspired by your artwork and think it would amazing to meld our styles! PM me back if you're interested in an art/writing collaboration!"

Turtle ducks!

[ID in alt text]

In 2015 I drew the Gaang with their carved pumpkins, each on individual pages of my small sketchbook. This year I wanted to draw them together :))

Boop

Bad ending

she is the very model of the modern major general

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

#The fact that this had to be said makes me a little sad #Why are we in the bad future? #God I miss just being a lurker and not worrying about being mistaken as a tourist

Ah, but my sibling in fandom, you can't really mistake a lurker for a tourist. For one thing, you'd need to know the lurker exists.

Tourist fans don't lurk in the beneficial way lurkers do. Instead, they perform the action of lurking on our fanworks while they tour our community and then go back to the big Content City and talk about how weird and quaint we are and wonder if they can just import our fanworks so they don't have to deal with us directly.

A lurker like you or me actually enjoys and respects the community and, if we de-lurk, knows how to behave according to community etiquette.

You can tell a tourist by how they talk about fandom.

If a fan doesn't want to be clocked as a tourist, they should probably just stay quiet for a while and take some time to observe so they can figure out how to blend in with the community. Or, in other words, lurk more.

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Love your garden metaphor, that's exactly it! I also locked my fics because of the lore.fm mess but intended to unlock them again in a couple of days because there are really nice guests who leave kudos and comments and I don't want to lock them out. But you're right, creating an account cannot be that difficult, can it? People have to create accounts for so many things on the internet to be able to see and do stuff on a site. And I guess that most guests do not only read this one fic but use Ao3 repeatedly, so it would be a good thing to find out how to "open the garden gates" anyway, right?

Sometimes readers kudos a fic as a guest, too, although they have an account, often because it is an explicit one and they are a bit shy to do it with their username. So these fics might get less kudos/comments than before, which is a bit of a pity. But maybe the one or other lurker who now gets an account starts to kudos and maybe even writes the one or other comment, who knows?

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on this!

Like I said, I can think of some reasons why someone maybe can't make an account, and I really am sorry to leave those folks behind.

But if someone can make an account...I'm not sure why they'd insist on only ever commenting as a guest. I understand being shy about commenting, especially on smut, but if that's the case just make up a username that has nothing to do with any of your other online personas. If you did that it'd be pretty hard to find out who you are and harass you elsewhere, and AO3 doesn't have a private messaging system so other users wouldn't be able to harass you that way either. And if you aren't posting fic, people wouldn't be able to harass you via your comment section. If you make an account you never connect to any other version of yourself online and never post a fic, you can kudos, comment, and bookmark to your heart's content, and the only way people would be able to bother you would be by replying to the comments you leave...which they can also do to your guest comments. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

me on April 30

me on May 1

Every year I forget I made this until people start reblogging it lol

behold the avatar

Firestarter

i know that a lot of people take issue with the fact that pakku only agrees to teach katara because he realizes that she’s the granddaughter of the woman he tried to get with a bajillion years ago, but i actually see that moment of him realizing that kanna left to escape their marriage as a moment of self-reflection from him. like, imagine having to contend with the fact that your rancid vibes drove the love of your life away after having just publicly humiliated her fourteen year old granddaughter who was begat on the literal other side of the earth because how that’s far she went to escape him. sokka gets the moment of realizing “oh, men and woman are ontological equal in their capacities, and divisions between genders are socially assigned and arbitrary,” but that isn’t really pakku’s deal at all. pakku’s deal is more like, “oh, my unyielding insistence on adhering to and imposing unjust patriarchal traditions actually makes me deeply unpleasant to be around and drives my loved ones away. maybe I should take a fucking chill pill perhaps.”

like, the fact that katara ultimately loses the fight and nothing she actually says or does persuades him is interesting, because it means that his reflection is internal, his moment of revelation not brought about by didactic moralizing, but through taking a long, hard look in the mirror, and realizing that being kind is more important than being right. and that’s why he seems to make an effort to be friendlier and more helpful, more so than making any effort to become a male feminist and fight for women’s rights. sokka, for example, initially has a narrow view of gender because his worldview is limited and then it expands, but pakku, by contrast, is literally a member of the white lotus; he is old and worldly, so he clearly already understands that their tribe’s traditions are not ontologically necessitated, but he nonetheless supports them because they benefit him. it is only when he learns that the love of his love literally escaped their tribe and left behind everything she ever knew just to avoid him that he decides to reevaluate his staunch insistence on clinging to his patriarchal values. and who wouldn’t. i mean, that’s gotta fucking hurt!

i know that katara’s fight against him does feel like a grand feminist moment as she fights for her ideals and her rights as a girl, and to her (and to us as the audience) it certainly does feel that way, but to pakku, his change of heart is one of realizing that he should probably stop being an asshole to every woman he’s ever met while he still has a few good years left. a core motif of katara’s arc is that she cannot actually preach her ideals and simply enlighten every asshole she meets, as much as she’d certainly like to; enlightenment comes from within. and so it is pakku’s regrets that motivate him to be kinder, because it’s never too late to change for the better. and that’s kind of beautiful actually.

Summary: 86 years pre-series. At age 14, Prince Azulon finds himself completely alone in the Fire Nation's royal court after the latest round of political scheming takes away every family member he thought he could trust.

Author: @caelum-in-the-avatarverse

Note from submitter: This one-shot is part of a larger series full of all sorts of Fire Nation Royal Family drama and political intrigue. It's very interesting and well-written and I highly recommend it!

I appreciate the thought of whoever submitted this! But oh my GOD the ratio is KILLING me and is also completely expected. XD

Like, this fic takes place decades pre-series. It's 95% OCs and worldbuilding and politics I completely made up. Only two canon characters are in it and in canon they were minor characters and antagonists who no one is ever gonna search the character tags for.

Idk, I think this is beautiful and hilarious. I love seeing how niche my fics are. I can't believe there's 6 days left to vote on this oh my GOD. XD