Reblog for a larger sample size!

No "show results", if you're not a fanfic writer just be patient.

I saw a post about an anon saying it was embarrasing to have an ao3 account in your 30s (it's absolutely not), so I want to do a poll and see what the age range actually is.

No one tells you this about writing a long fic, but you spend SO MUCH TIME getting distracted reading your own fic.

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

Op's tags

#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op

The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.

Nobody gives the Ao3 team enough credit. Nobody.

💜 Ease Off Print - Informal Interest Check!!! 💜

Wooo! It's getting real!! Time to start thinking about Numbers!!

📗 HARDBACK: 6.69x10.24" (170x260mm), about ~$50-60

📔 PAPERBACK: 5.5x8.4" (140x213mm), about ~$20-30

(The prices are rough guesstimates; photo of the sizes + more info under the cut!)

EDIT: My intent is to have all these options available!! This poll is to get an idea of how many people, not a thunderdome of book versions 😂

Ty everyone for voting!!! this was super helpful to see... back to the printing press i go!!!!!!

I hate the whole discourse of: "fanfic writers need to accept criticism so they can improve". Look, I did not post 5k of men blowing their loads so that I can become Hemingway or something, just don't read it if you don't want to, or do read it and drop your damn thanks in the tin.

Fan fiction truly is one of the last pure art forms because it literally cannot be commodified. It cannot be swayed or altered or sold out and so it will always be exactly what the author wants it to be. There’s no motivation for it to be anything else.

Because it cannot be commodified or made for profit in a world where work is so often taken advantage of, the community of authors at large knows and protects the sacred freedom all authors have to do whatever they want. It doesn’t matter if you don’t finish your WIP, or if your head canon isn’t popular, if the writing makes the story unreadable.

You’re doing it for free, so you get to do exactly what you want. Nothing more, nothing less.

Don’t like don’t read as a principle is essential to protecting this pure art form because you cannot take something so tied to something as unique as human joy and objectively comment on its worth to the individual who created it or anyone else.

Yeah, I gotta say...I'm an editor by profession, and I've worked, off and on, professionally as a writer, both fiction and criticism. I've written fanfiction that I now think is terrible and some that I think is pretty good, but I really neither need nor want anyone critiquing it. I've had work ripped apart in workshops, but the whole point of workshops is exactly that - to make your work better, hopefully with the assistance of people you know and trust. When I edit, I'm giving feedback because that's what I'm paid to do, and that's an act of trust too, because turning your writing over to someone specifically for them to take it apart and help build it back is really hard to do.

Some random person jumping onto a piece of writing you wrote for free, for other people and for yourself to enjoy, is not helpful. I mean, who is that person to criticize? What is their goal? What gives them the right to do something you're not even asking for?

Putting fanfiction out into the world is very much trusting other people, and folks should stop violating that trust.

Yeah people need to remember that not every hobby is partaken in with the ultimate goal of doing it professionally, or making something monetisable. And honestly it shouldn’t be. There’s nothing wrong with making money or a profession from your hobbies if you want to, but it’s in no way obligatory and doesn’t have to be some universal end goal. Creating things just for fun and their own sake is a good and worthwhile thing. Even if you don’t think they’re that good. Leaving unsolicited criticism on fanfiction is like going up to some kids having fun kicking a ball around in the park and saying “you know, you’re going to have to really improve your technique if you’re going to play football with the pros”

And frankly, even if you are doing it professionally, it doesn’t mean you want the fun stuff you do on your time off to be exposed to the same level of scrutiny.

Phew!! The final chapter of Ease Off, Chapter 6, has been up on Patreon for a few weeks, but now it's on itch.io as well!! And I'll upload it everywhere for free around next month, hopefully :) !!

Also working on getting a printed proof to me ASAP and then... physical versions?? omg

sorry forgot to put the itch.io link in the pinned post… updated now!! 💀💦

More comics at  💀💦CULPACOMICS.COM 💀💦

TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | PATREON

— Current Project

🍃 EASE OFF: a 273-page ThanZag + (Pat)Zagchilles fancomic 🍂

Content warnings and tags here PATREON | PROGRESS TRACKER

—————————

🥃✨ DRUNKEN REVELRY

August 2021 | 16+ | PDF  | FULL @ TWITTER | TUMBLR

-

🔥🎀🦋 FREE TIME

April 2021 | 18+ (sfw edit available) | PDF | Tumblr (SFW)  | Twitter (NSFW)

updated with links to Chapter PDF!

some of y’all with printed copies of fanfiction are going to die someday and your books will end up at the secondhand book shop and someone is just going to innocently pick up blorbo/shitto enemies to lovers and when i think of it this way let’s keep printing fanfiction

people are printing their fanfic????? 

People are not only printing fanfic, they are making handcrafted bound books out of it. Look here and under the ‘fanbinding’ tag.

I am opening up pencil sketch commissions to help victims of the Palestinian genocide.

If you DM me a screenshot of a donation receipt of at least 20 USD (dated February 20th, 2024 or later), I will draw a pencil bust of a character of your choice. Larger donations are greatly encouraged and appreciated, but due to my own limitations I cannot do drawings more complex than the examples, even for bigger donations.

I will draw one character per donation. All drawings will be graphite pencil on paper.

I will draw: fanart, OCs, blood, body horror, stylistic representations of real people (i.e. not an accurate likeness)

I won't draw: animals/furries, overly complicated headpieces, accurate likenesses of real people

I will do sketches for donations to the following funds: Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, Hani Altat's fundraiser for Maha Rafieq Alsifie and her family, Crips for eSims for Gaza, Psychological Aid & Support for our People from Gaza, and Human Appeal Gaza Emergency Appeal.

Please everyone witness my shame @ loving a fic, being inspired by it, giving it a shout out, and then immediately forgetting a key endearing point of it 💀💀💀💀🪦🥀 (and read A Bit Of Earth & also Emica’s fic while you’re at it 😌💦)

🌱 EASE OFF: Chapter 5, Part 2 of 2 (pg 26-46)

Thanatos and Zagreus are, finally, inexorably drawn; Achilles returns to Patroclus. Shoutout to @elemmacil's fic A Bit of Earth for inspiring page 31 🥰

CW: making out, suggestive situations.

Full PDF available for free (link in pinned post)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2.1 | Chapter 2.2 | Chapter 2.3 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

<< Prev (Ch 5, pgs 1-25) | Next (Ch 6) >>

🌱 EASE OFF: Chapter 5, Part 1 of 2 (pg 1-25)

Thanatos and Zagreus are, finally, inexorably drawn; Achilles returns to Patroclus.

CW: making out, suggestive situations.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2.1 | Chapter 2.2 | Chapter 2.3 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

<< Prev (Ch 4, pgs 31-39) | Next (Ch 5, pgs 26-46) >>

Pages 1-25 under cut ⤵️