I love writing fanfiction in English and using cute pet names like "love" or "dear" or "darling" because there's just so many nice terms of endearment and I'm German. There is like, one German pet name that's actually cute and the rest you can come up with is the equivalent of walking into the office in an ahegao hoodie on a Monday morning and announcing to all your colleagues that your partner names your body parts after beloved Disney characters. I'm convinced that when you're German and you die and go to the 9th circle of hell, Satan personally hands you a "welcome home loser" leaflet that starts not with your name but with "Dear Knuddelbär" to make it abundantly clear just what kind of place you walked into and that you're never getting out. When I was 15 I had a boyfriend who called me Schnucki once and I had such a visceral reaction of discomfort that I could not take that person seriously from that day forward and broke up with him a week after. Back in my early days of fandom in the year of our lord 2013 someone in the Blue Exorcist fandom asked me "oh what are some cute German things you can call your partner, I tried googling but I don't know which of these I should use" and for a moment I wanted to delete this person's entire search history, unplug their wifi router and do a cleansing ritual for our poor mortal souls but eventually settled for "call them Schatz and roll with this throughout the entire work. Alternatively, use something in English."
Alright, to ao3's soon to be arriving Wattpad Refugees, a basic guide to general user culture:
1.) Unlike Wattpads vote system that let's you like each chapter, the ao3 equivalent kudos only allows one per work. Everyone is generally quietly annoyed about this. To engage with each chapter, you're heavily encouraged to comment. Trust me, it makes people's day.
2.) Ao3 has no algorithm. By default it's latest updated work first. You can find things to your taste through searches, filters and tags.
3.) 'No archive warnings apply' and 'user has chosen not to use archive warnings' mean two very different things. No archives warnings means the work is free from any content that could require a warning tag (character death, graphic depictions of violence, non-con, etc). User has chosen not to use archive warnings means it could contain any of the warning content, be it hasn't been explicitly tagged. Treat it like an allergen. No archive warnings apply is allergen free. User has chosen not to use archive warnings, may contain traces or whole chunks of the allergen. If you're likely to have a bad reaction, maybe don't take the risk.
4.) Speaking of warnings, ao3 has very few restrictions on the type of work that's allowed. Whatever your personal thoughts or feelings on that are, thats how the site is. You're likely to run across some dark subject matters and a lot of people are uncomfortable with reading that. You're well within your rights not like these works and have your opinion on whether they should be allowed, but harassing the authors of such works (or any works) is more likely to come back on you than them. Ao3 operates on a strong policy of 'don't like, don't read'. Use the tagging system to your full advantage to only engage with the kind of works you want to see.
We look forward to welcoming you all and seeing the fantastic works you create. Happy writing!
I recently had surgery, and at the time I came home, I had both my cat and one of my grandma's cats staying with me.
- Within hours of surgery, I wake up from a nap to my cat gently sniffing at my incisions with great alarm.
- I was not allowed to shower the first day after surgery, and the cats, seeing that The Large Cat is not observing its cleaning ritual, decided I must be gravely disabled and compensated by licking all the exposed skin on my arms, face, and legs.
- I currently have to sleep with a pillow over my abdomen because my cat insists on climbing on top of me and covering my incisions with her body while I sleep (which is very sweet but not exactly comfortable without the pillow). She also lays across me facing my bedroom door, presumably on guard for attackers who may try to harm me while I'm sleeping and injured.
[Id. an image of a pale yellow snail, sitting on a pinecone and looking up at a stem of small white flowers. Above and below the snail there is text that reads "The world is a scary place right now", "but the flowers are still blooming", "and the birds are still singing", "and the snails are still here", "and when this is over", "the snails, and you, will still be here", "alive". End Id]
the flowers and birds and snails continue on in spite of it all and so, too, shall i