#i had to filter my bookmarks so many different ways

[leclsrc]

hi, could you please do the five confessions prompt with charles?

proving my devotion – cl16

genre: fluff, sry charles is a pining yearning mess, title from this

send for five times the receiver almost says ‘i love you’ and the one time they do.

The plates clack against each other, dissonant in the otherwise still evening. Charles stacks one atop the other, awaits his mother’s nosy questioning—the inevitable gamble, every time he brings a girl home—but she’s quiet, humming a song under her breath, the one she always sings when she’s doing the dishes. Something’s different tonight, a slight change he can’t name.

“So,” he starts, because she won’t and the curiosity kills him. His eyes find you, with the ease he’s adopted in the months of knowing you, dancing with Lorenzo on the patio to a Luther Vandross song. “Thoughts?”

“Hmm. Tu es fouineur.” She teases, a glint in her eye. How the tables have turned, she seems to say.

Silently, over the dirty dishes, they both recount the day gone: the lunch moved from noon to half-past-three because Arthur burned the turkey, the dropped bottle of wine you’d gifted because one of Charles’ uncles accidentally let it slip from his hand (you said it was okay, it was just a hundred euros when it was closer to one grand), the guitar performance from Charles.

The way the sun had drowned in a sea of Monaco orange, and with it the stories of weddings, Jules, and Hervé, and the affair moved outside to the patio so Lorenzo could boast his brand new speaker that was so worth the many zeroes on the price tag, maman! And you had quickly found out Charles’ inability to dance was, in fact, genetic.

It’s a new sensation for Charles, a thrilling one, a frightening one even. He squeezes the sponge and watches soap filter through his fingers. He turns, lets his green eyes meet your soft ones. It’s an exhausting effort but he says it anyway, wrenches it out quietly: “I think… I think I…”

“I know,” Pascale says. She presses a kiss to his shoulder. “I see it.”

—

You’d taken home a frayed copy of The Little Prince you bought at a garage sale.

It’s so old, its pages have long yellowed and there’s evidence of past ownership all over it. Most notable of them is a name on the front page, along with a number that’s probably unused now. Isn’t it so quaint—and the words, babe, you’d said with conviction when he questioned your purchase, the words are in French!

You’ve been trying your luck with the language for a good few weeks, but it’s a brick wall—mur de briques, if you go by the textbook on your bedside table. You huff when you can’t translate the last lines of the passage you’re reading, tossing the book onto the empty space beside you that is quickly occupied by Charles’ bulky figure.

“Stuck again?” He asks, opening the dog-eared pages to find where your bookmark is nestled. Under your palms, you groan and nod with frustration.

“Don’t try me,” you say, voice gravelly. “I can’t translate it.”

The rough pad of his index finger traces the yellowed page, and he smiles softly at your many annotations. Verb conjugation, words you found easy, words you still forget now.

His eyes flicker up, to your lying figure, the freckles on your arms, the mole on your hip he can only see because your shorts have ridden down low. His heart swells, seizes, his mind rampant with thoughts of you. Please tell her, he says to himself. Tell her everything. Tell her how you find her in all the passages, in all the French words, in all the books, in all the times she says your name. She’s everywhere, she’s everything. Tell her tell her tell her you lo—

But the realness of it all chokes him, and he says instead, placing a big palm on your abdomen, “I’ll read it for you.”

—

There are few sentences considered odd on a paddock. People say anything on it—driver gossip, car gossip, celebrity gossip, engineer gossip. Charles can guarantee he’s heard some of the weirdest statements and Freudian slips (the one time Christian Horner called Toto ‘dad’) on a paddock. 

“Carlos—pshhfhf—sprayed—pfffsh—whip cream—on my face!” …Okay, that’s. That’s different.

He turns, eyes wide. “What?!”

You stand in the doorway, frozen.

Your face is almost completely covered in white, and bits of your hair have fallen victim to the sweet spray of whip, too. You look frazzled and freaked. “I just got my hair blown out. I did my makeup. Dude. I look like a clown.”

“Oh, my God,” he says, already unable to contain his laughter. “I love you—!”

A millisecond passes him by like an hour. “—r uh, your new makeup hairdo, thing, a-ling. Thing-a-ling. Makeup. Your new makeup.” 

—

There is an angel in Charles’ bed. She leaves a lovebite on his neck.

“Good morning,” he says, gruff. I love— but it stops itself before he can even open his mouth.

—

You get into a minor fight about cooking music.

Charles waves the whisk in the air, claims he will die on the hill of cooking to French jazz. You call it pretentious and crank up the Stevie Wonder. Eventually you fall into a repeated pattern of songs that satisfy the both of you.

“I read somewhere that if you roll basil up,” you say, chewing on a rogue leaf of mint from your pre-dinner mojito and walking up to him, “and chop it, it saves time trying to cut it up by itself.”

“Does it?” Charles asks, entertaining you. You roll your eyes and shove him lightly. He raises the knife in his hand, mumbles careful, baby under his breath. You insist he try, so he rolls up two leaves. Unfortunately, you’re right.

“So now we get to have pesto in five minutes instead of five hours,” you tease, kissing him. It’s minty, there’s French jazz in the background, and you’ve taught him to chop basil in the most affectionate soft-spoken way possible. It’s sacred. He’s afraid, he’s always been, that he would never be able to say it, that it would always be a losing game of wrestling words out of his throat—but now he’s not. 

“I love you,” he mutters. It’s easy, unforced, natural. The words find solace, find home in the warm kitchen. He refuses to open his eyes because God knows what you’ll say then. Run away maybe? Throw all the basil to the ground? Down the entire cooler of mojito?

Your silence is deafening. “Did you hear me?” He opens his eyes.

A foolishly pretty smile greets him. “I got it the first five times.”

#f1 #charles leclerc #leclsrc2000 #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc imagines #charles leclerc drabble #charles leclerc smut #f1 x reader

[rosieethor]

Hi there! I had a quick question for you. You used to have a free post on Patreon that had a bunch of tips for researching agents to query, and I've had it bookmarked for a while, but I can't access it anymore because your Patreon stuff is all down currently. I was wondering if you happen to have that article up anywhere else? I'm about to search for agents for querying round 2: electric boogaloo and I was hoping to refresh myself before diving in. If you don't have it up anywhere, no worries, and thanks for writing it in the first place!

Hello! Happy to repost it here! I took down my Patreon, as it was causing me too much stress to create enough quality content to feel as though I could justify charging folks. Anyway, without further ado, my general overview of how to research and evaluate literary agents when you're in the query trenches: ~~

Lately I’ve been working with some of my mentees to build their query lists. It’s an exhausting process with a lot of research and guess work. In light of some recent discussions and advice floating around to “research” agents, I thought I’d throw together a sort of haphazard guide on how I do that and what I look for. “Research” is pretty nebulous advice and it’s just… not very helpful without any kind of caveat that no matter how much research you do, you’ll never be 100% sure about an agent until they reveal themselves to be a schmagent (shady agent). It’s sort of… Schrodinger’s schmagent, if you will.

This isn’t going to be an exhaustive how-to, but it’s a starting point. I hope it helps you as you figure out who you want to query and who you’re willing to trust with your career.

Depending on what type of book you’re writing, there are many tools the industry has to offer that you can use to figure out if agents are legit, what they are interested in signing, and what books they’ve sold.

MSWL 

Manuscript Wish List is an incredible resource. Agents can upload their wishlists to a profile on the website so you can see up to date information about not only what age categories and genres they’re accepting, but what other sorts of things they’re most interested in seeing like themes and writing styles and ship dynamics etc. This is a great place to start with building your query list and can help you narrow down who would be the best fit for you.

But… it doesn’t filter out schmagents. You don’t have to pass any sort of test in order to make a profile on MSWL except… be… an agent. Of any caliber. There are lots of agents on MSWL that I would never suggest someone query. On the flip side, there are lots of agents who are not on MSWL who I would suggest someone query.

Querytracker 

This is another great tool the industry has to offer. I didn’t use it for myself, but have used it to help others with building their query lists. The gist of it is that you can log all your queries and see when other people submitted and got their responses to see where you are in the queue. You can also see examples of form rejections from certain agents to see if yours was a form of personalized, and there’s a list of pretty much all the agents in existence.

However, this list of agents is not vetted in any way. There’s no quality control of the list, so again it’s just a starting point. There is a tool on the site called “Who reps Whom” where you can see an non-exhaustive list of authors and which agent reps them. This list is sometimes out of date though since authors leave agents sometimes and don’t announce their new representation until their book sells. It also sometimes lists multiple agents for an author when that author has sold different books repped by different agents. It can sometimes help you see which agents are losing clients, but it doesn’t really tell you why and that’s the important detail that will help you see if an agent is bad-bad or just bad for that author.

There is a paid version of QT, which I’ve never used, but I’ve heard it’s a great tool to have while you’re querying, but maybe not before you’re querying.

Children’s Bookshelf 

If you’re a kidlit writer of any age category, you should be subscribed to Publisher’s Weekly Children’s Bookshelf newsletter. It’s a biweekly (Tuesdays and Thursdays) newsletter that includes a deal report. This lists all the book deals from picture book up through YA that are being announced that week.

First of all, you should get on this whether or not you’re ready to start querying. It’s a great, free resource that will help you stay aware of what’s selling in the industry. Keep in mind, though, that books being announced now won’t come out for at least a year or two. They also probably sold months ago. What’s selling now won’t be what’s selling in a few months, necessarily, so be wary of chasing trends.

Mostly, though, this is a great way for you to see who is selling what to whom. See a book deal that sounds cool? Check who the agent was. Then check who it was sold to. Is that a publisher you’d like to publish with? Maybe check out that agent’s wishlist to see if you’re a match!

Old editions of Children’s Bookshelf and the deal reports are available online, too, so if you want to do a bunch of research right now, you can search for those on PW’s website.

Publisher’s Marketplace 

I hate this website very very much mostly because they charge so much money for you to get access to what should be free information HOWEVER it’s a very useful tool with lots of internal connectivity and links that are actually helpful. If you’re willing to shell out the money, you can check up on agents’ sales and see how their sales are.

A word of caution: PM has some “top dealmakers” lists you can peruse. These are misleading and simply list agents who are making the most deals. There’s no vetting of the quality of these deals. There is a well known schmagent who often tops these lists, so just because someone appears on a list, don’t take that as gospel that they are a quality agent.

Avoiding Schmagents

There are a lot of schmagents out there and really they fall into two categories: Bad agents who are out to screw you over and bad agents who don’t realize they are bad agents.

The former are usually a little easier to spot. I say usually because… not always. Sometimes very successful agents turn out to suck at their jobs. *stares at the current situation* But! You can sometimes spot these agents because there will be articles or blog posts about how much they suck. There will be podcasts where the hosts have to call the agent by a rhyming fake name to avoid a lawsuit. Etc.

The latter are a little harder to spot sometimes because they talk a good game. They sometimes talk about bad agent practices and share their own processes in the name of transparency (lots of good agents to this too!) These agents have the best of intentions and really want to be good agents, but they might have bad training or not enough strong connections in the industry to actually sell your book. They might not know enough about contracts to negotiate a good one, or they might not actually know what is and isn’t industry standard. They think because they are well-intentioned and not out to scam you that they’re not a schmagent.

Basically, the first case is like hiring a con artist to do your plumbing and they come over to fix your sink and break your toilet in the process. The second case is like hiring your really enthusiastic neighbor to fix your sink. They might be excited to do the job, but if they have the wrong tools and the wrong training, a lot can still go wrong.

So how do you know who to avoid?

Google

Okay I know this is going to sound extremely ridiculous but just. Just. Google. Google the agent’s name or the agency and scroll through the first couple of pages of results. If there are public facing horror stories to be had, you’ll probably find them here. Sometimes I see people sign with schmagents and I know if you google their name the second or third result is a detailed and horrifying blog post from an ex client all about her “year with a terrible agent.” A simple google search of the agency’s name would reveal this information, and it hurts my heart to see people signing when there are so many obvious red flags for them to find if they just search.

Writer Beware

This is a great website with detailed accounts of many known schmagents and Schmagencies. It’s not exhaustive by any means, but you’ll see some great info here about bad actors in the publishing industry, what they’ve done, and why it’s recommended that you stay away. 

Red Flags

There are also just a few red flags to look out for. Things like agents charging you up front—never ever pay an agent. Agents get paid a commission off of what they sell for you. They only get paid if you get paid. Money will flow from the publisher to the agent (who will take their 15%) and then to you.

Keep an eye out for agencies that charge a reading fee for queries. Again, don’t pay them money. Be wary of any agency that also provides paid editorial services. The same goes for if an agent tells you to work with a paid freelance editor in order to get signed. (This is different from feedback suggesting you work with critique partners or an editor. That’s a good suggestion. Prescribing that you work with a specific editor and pay them for their services as the conditions to get signed as a client is not okay.)

I am also very wary of any agent or agency that requires exclusivity on queries, partials, or full manuscripts. Exclusivity, to me, reads as though the agent doesn’t believe they stand a chance against other agents if they decide they want to sign you and… that’s a red flag to me. If they don’t think they can measure up, then they probably can’t and you shouldn’t be giving them a chance. (I’ll note that this is different from exclusivity on an R&R, which I think can sometimes be warranted in cases when an agent takes a lot of time to give you notes. Sometimes an agent will give revision notes and ask for exclusive right to consider the revised—be sure to nail down a timeframe for this so you don’t get stuck waiting for them to read for 6 months. Give them a head start of a few weeks or a month, but don’t give them forever to consider.)

Evaluating

When I evaluate an agent for a query list, I look at their sales.

If they have sales, I look to see if they are sales to publishers/editors you would be interested in working with? Likely, their sales are indicative of who they have relationships with. If you are submitting with the hopes of a traditional print deal to a large publisher, but the agent mostly does digital only deals to small presses, that’s probably not going to be the right fit for you. If you’re a middle grade writer but the agent has only ever sold adult historical romance, then… again, maybe not the right fit.

If they don’t have sales, I look at the other agents at the agency. Who has been agenting longer at the agency who might be mentoring them? Look at their sales and evaluate those. It’s possible the new agent you’re querying will make different contacts, but they’re likely being trained by the higher ups at the agency. Make sure you’re comfortable with that.

Check where the agent was trained too. Probably, you’ll see this in their agent bio. You’ll see some former workplaces—do they have prior experience in the industry? At a publisher maybe? A strong internship at another agency? This isn’t necessarily always going to be the sign of a good agent, but it can tell you what their history is and who might have had a hand in training them.

Other things I look at are their client list. Does the agent have a ton of clients already? Do they have a lot of high profile clients? These aren’t necessarily marks against them, but it might be an indicator that their plate is already pretty full. They might not be taking on a lot of new clients—or if they are, they might be overloading themselves and setting you up for very long wait times or even being neglected as a newer client. That’s definitely not always the case, and there are plenty of agents with huge lists full of very successful authors that juggle it all quite well.

This is where the last piece of the puzzle comes in and I realize I’m about to sound just extremely annoying but… do a vibe check. You don’t have to have a concrete reason not to query someone. If you feel at all uncomfortable or you get a weird vibe from someone, it’s okay to just say “Maybe I’ll skip that person.” I skipped an agent who was probably lovely, but gave of a kind of weird ra-ra feminist terf vibe to me that made me feel like maybe that wouldn’t be a safe relationship for me. I also skipped a male agent who I saw tweeting at women in a way that just felt a little uncomfy to me. That agent was later revealed to be a total creep, so… my vibe check war right on point there. Just… sometimes it’s worth taking a risk on a newer agent (it certainlywas for me) but it’s not always worth taking a risk on an agent who just feels off to you. Especially if you’re a marginalized person and you get a vibe from an agent that might indicate they’d try to exploit your identity or just be kind of shitty to you… you’re not obligated to query them! Even if they request in a pitch contest! Even if they slide right into your DMs to ask for your book (especially if they do this omfg this is so inappropriate). Basically… listen to your gut.

Okay so… what am I actually looking for?

There’s not one perfect checklist to use for this that’s a surefire way to weed out the baddies and keep the goodies. Unfortunately, a huge part of this industry is figuring out what works for you and being willing to communicate that. You won’t know what you’re looking for until you find it sometimes. If you’d asked me who my dream agent was before I queried, I would have given you the name of an agent I would never ever ever query if I had to go into the trenches now. Sometimes what you think you want and what you actually need are two very different things, and I’m really lucky that I got what I needed without trying to.

It’s helpful if you keep in mind some stuff about what youwant like:

· Do you want an editorial agent, or do you want to manage the editorial side yourself with CPs etc. and just have your agent sell your work?

· Do you want an agent who specializes in your age category/genre or do you want an agent with broader contacts in case you decide to branch out?

· Do you want a large agency that manages a lot of clients and may have a really strong internal subrights department? Or do you want a more boutique agency where you might be in a smaller pool of authors?

· Do you want to publish traditionally with a large publisher, or are you interested in submitting to some digital imprints or independent publishers?

Keep all this in mind as you do your research on agents. I recommend that you reevaluate these wants as you go along to see if that’s still what you want or if your career plans have changed. But, use these as a way to steer you with your search. Don’t submit to an agent just because their wishlist matches up with your book. Make sure their agenting style matches up with your career plan too.

Dream Agents

Lastly, a plea from me to you: don’t have a dream agent. It’s okay to have like… an idea of what kind of agent you want and the relationship you hope you’ll have but… don’t pick a real agent to have as your dream agent. Nine times out of ten what you’re going to end up wanting in an agent isn’t what you think you want now while you’re in the query trenches, but also it’s weird and maybe a little bit unhealthy to idolize an industry professional who may or may not be doing their job well. Just because you like an agent’s twitter presence doesn’t mean they would be the right agent for you. There are a lot of agents out there who do a great job, so it’ll be better for you in the long run to have a dream type of agent rather than an actual specific dream agent. Keep your options open and dream broadly.

Whisper Networks

There’s a lot of talk about whisper networks in publishing and… basically yeah. These exist. They spread a lot of good information. They also spread a lot of bad information. Basically these are avenues for gossip, so take it all with a grain of salt. I’ve heard things before from the source and then heard a very twisted and garbled version of that story again a few days later from someone else. It’s like a big game of telephone and everyone’s tryingto pass along the right info, but stuff gets twisted along the way. Be cognizant of who your source is and who their source is etc.

Not everyone has access to whisper networks and… unfortunately that’s kind of just by design. The reason we have whisper networks instead of a detailed database is because these conversations can quickly turn into big spectacles that end with a cease-and-desist order and threats of lawsuits. Agents hold a lot of power in this industry—especially the ones with daddy’s money to throw around—and none of us wants to deal with that, especially since we don’t get paid nearly enough to actually fight it. We also don’t want to burn bridges. Maybe there’s a shitty agent out and about, but they rep some authors we really respect or they work at a great agency that we might someday want to query. Until the power imbalance in publishing is more even, it will continue to be dangerous for authors to talk publicly about bad agent behavior—even when it is very clearly unethical.

I don’t have the solution here. Maybe there just… isn’t one… Maybe someone a lot smarter than me will come up with one. Maybe we’ll all just keep circling on this issue for decades to come. At the end of the day, my best advice is to talk to other authors. If you’re having a weird experience, talk to someone else. The best thing we can do is compare notes to see if what we’re dealing with is normal.

In Closing

So… I hope this is useful in one way or another. It’s definitely not a catch all and it’s not a perfect system. These are just the tools I know of and the way I think about agents/agencies when putting together query lists with my mentees. A lot of it is guess work. I think the industry would hugely benefit from more regulation and standardization but… that is another conversation for another time because we’ve crossed over 3000 words on this post and it’s time for bed.

With that… good luck!

#querying #literary agent #publishing #publishing industry #writing advice #querying is hell and i am so sorry

[froggy-day]

tysm for the fic rec 🙏🙏🙏 holy shit i just finished reading it and ouuuggghhh i am on a kurogiri fic kick now im on my way to read everything in the tag. if you have any fic recs (kurogiri centric or otherwise!!) i am All Ears!!! im on a journey to read a bunch of mha fics since i got into the fandom like. a month ago. but if u have any shigaraki fics u like in particular … 👀

Hi anon!! I’m so happy you liked it!!

As for fic recs: hoooo boy I got into bnha 5ish years ago (I’m not proud of how long I’ve been here lmao) so I could go on and on. However, I only really started saving my favorite fics post-Kurogiri obsession, so these will mostly be about him! As for Shigaraki-centric stuff, I actually don’t have much, so sorry about that.

I’m going to try to keep this a reasonable length. I’ve already had to take out so many of my favorite fics from the list, just because otherwise it would be horribly long.

Still, this is about to be a Very Large Amount of fic recs, so just pick and choose based on what sounds appealing!!

Multichapter Kurogiri-adjacent:

it’s plain enough to see, but some of us are living in the past by AllISeeAreKingsAndThieves: Shiggy gets sent 2 years into the past and now has to figure out what to do differently. (Incomplete - 44k.)

Breaking through the storm clouds by Alana_Me: Kurogiri wakes up in the past, 17 years old all over again, back when he was still Shirakumo Oboro. This time around, he promises he’s going to save the League. (Incomplete - 17k.)

Just Shy of Tangible by pretentiousashell: an incredible erasermist fic that is absolutely overflowing with yearning. (Complete - 5k.)

Amalgamations of Ghosts by pretentiousashell: also an incredible erasercloud fic, ft both dadzawa and dadkumo, along with middle-school shindeku. (Complete - 23k.)

Single chapter, Kurogiri-centric:

hide your face, bury your grief by achievingelysium: oh man I have never been more obsessed with a person’s writing style. Aizawa-centric (but mainly about Kurogiri) erasercloud soulmate/hanahaki au. (Honestly, major rec for every fic ever by this person, especially their kurogiri/oboro-related ones.) (3k.)

we've all got nowhere to go by PitViperofDoom: a kurogiri-centric fic written pre-Kurogiri reveal. Years after AFO kicks the bucket, Shigaraki finds Kurogiri and forces him to reconcile his morals. (8k.)

stay with me (and be a ghost tonight) by YetAnotherGhost: Villain!Mic not only meets Kurogiri, but also learns how he was created. Emotions ensue. (2k.)

Single chapter, Shirakumo-centric:

Honestly, I’m just going to rec you these authors to check out: immaplatypus, dontartichoke, kumogiri, Maebee. All of them write only bangers.

Jangle by Tippytap: idk what it is about this fic that makes me scream with joy, but this is one of my favorite rooftop gang friendship fics. (1k.)

General BNHA:

don’t you just want to go apeshit? By kkachis, MargaritaDaemonelix: crack fic where Todoroki decides he does, in fact, want to go apeshit. (15k.)

Civilian Besties, Professional Enemies by katydid: AFO and All Might become online friends. It goes about as well as you’d expect. (7k.)

Passaggio by kashinoha: the most perfect mic character study ever. I don’t even know where to start with this one besides just: AAAAAAAAAAA. (5k.)

gaze into the cracked mirror by h1lo: this one’s a collection of fics spanning basically the entire cast of characters in bnha. It’s a goldmine full of incredible takes on usually under-developed characters, all in small, easy-to-digest pieces. (The Koda one is my favorite).

Though in my opinion, the best way to get fic recs is to check out ppl’s ao3 bookmarks and then filter those based on what you want to see (here’s mine!). There’s also moderated collections like Behold the Sacred Texts that are full-on goldmines.

Sorry for this being so long. There was an attempt to keep it short. Happy reading!!

#recs to read #bnha #kurogiri #shirakumo oboro #just putting this post out into the void so ppl can add recs if they want

[lost-girl-2021]

(Just didn't wanna show the image in case there were any minors or anything, but it's a ss of a gross AO3 fic summary)

🤢🤢🤢🤢

There's a lot of gross stuff out there, that's why I like using AO3, cuz you can filter out what you don't want to read. I definitely came across some messed up/explicit stuff when I was way too young on another site (starts with a W) because there wasn't a tagging system. I think it's gross that it exists, but we also have to unfortunately acknowledge rule 34 (I think that was it). I don't really like writing/reading anything romantic or explicit in fanfiction and I don't think it's really cool to write explicit messed up stuff, but it's not something we really have any control over. Something that works for me is that I have certain pages bookmarked on my home screen with different AO3 links and before I bookmark them I filter out all the stuff I Never want to stumble across, so that I don't have to go through the trouble everytime. I think it would be cool if there was a permanent tag removal system so you didn't have to do it every time, but as far as I know there isn't (yet).

Obviously, not everything is properly tagged, but it gets rid of most of it. It does make me kind of worried thinking about how young kids are using sites like these, because what I found out at 13, kids now might be finding at 10, but it's not something we can really do anything about as far as I know.

I would suggest everyone just be careful of their filters and to think about what they post (and their audience) before posting it. I'm sure there are a Lot of creeps on the internet, but some of them are probably also confused teenagers who've locked themselves in their room since starting high school and haven't really left since. I'm also sure that with quarantine, a lot of this was exasperated because so many people were home and suddenly had time to join fandoms and catch up on everything they'd missed when they had to leave the house. I think that it can be kind of a cycle, I definitely knew people in highschool who were exposed/started watching/reading really messed up stuff from a young age and became desensitized to all of it/thought it was no big deal as we got older (like, someone showed me a video of someone getting decapitated when I was 14 for shits and giggles).

This ended up way longer than I thought it would be, but I hope I got my point across somewhat. Yes, it's awful. Yes, there are ways to prevent viewing it.

That being said, I'm not some internet expert, I barely even use social media beyond AO3 and Tumblr. This is just my opinion and thoughts on the matter, based on my interactions with incels online and irl. Feel free to comment, but I might not respond just because I think I've said everything I want to and I'm also kinda supposed to be doing school work atm ┐⁠(⁠￣⁠ヘ⁠￣⁠)⁠┌

[pith1a]

Hi, I noticed one of your bookmarks when I looked through the ones of a fic. I noticed that you have a very interesting way of doing those 🥰 mind sharing how you did this?? Or where I can DIY for dummies for me? Would be quite thankful 🙇‍♀️

Hi! Yeah I can explain the logic behind the tags, no problem :D Before I get into that though, some unasked for advice: Please add a profile pic and bio, there's too many bots in everyone's inbox these days so this ask was almost lost in a "report bot first, ask questions later" type rush, before I realized this was an actual question and not spam😂 So, the tags are a new thing for my ao3 account; I've been on ao3 since 2015 and the amount of fics I've read is ungodly- but I didn't have a decent way to go back and look through the fics I had saved (either in private bookmarks, marked for later fics, or spreadsheets even), so there's a small amount of fics publicly tagged compared to how many are actually saved, since I only really came up with this system like this past week. (There's a lot of information so I'm gonna cut the post here bc I probably went into too much detail)

The short Summary and Last Accessed section is from a browser script, it generates those automatically when I press "bookmark". You can find the script here (works with a simple browser add on like Tampermonkey, I use the script with Tampermonkey on both PC and Mobile on Firefox, not sure what other alternatives exist for other browsers).

The tags are all based around being able to look for fics to re-read later; so every tag serves the purpose of letting me know few key things about the fic and also to let me filter works based on niche things.

There's a few "Utility tags" for lack of better word, that I use for things like marking the pov character ("X-Character centric"), and if they're AUs the character or event that the AU is centred around: so "Jon Snow Variant" for Game of Thrones fics where his character is different and "Red Wedding Variant" for fics where the Red Wedding goes differently and the divergence from canon starts there. Some fandoms also get custom tags for the Event Variant tag (because I think I'm funny).

Similarly I might tag the type of AU or content: "Time Travel", crack and crack-ish fics, crack treated seriously, angst, different types of AUs as I come across them.

I'm personally a big Crossover reader, so you'll see a lot of "X Fandom Crossover" in the tags or "Into X Fandom Crossover" (the second version used to signify what canon/world the fic is in). I also use "Get Isekai-ed" for fics where a character gets... Iseakai-ed or transmigrates or gets reborn into another fandom basically. And lastly there's tags I'd categorize as "The impression the fic left me" so if a fic made me cry irl (see: "I'm not crying there's just something in eye I swear"), if I really like the world-building and original characters, if i thought the fic was all around really well developed ("Excellence 🤌" or "5⭐️" the difference here is vibe based, I can't explain it any better), if I was going feral while reading, if I thought a relationship was really well written, so on and so forth.

Really, if you want to start tagging your bookmarks the thing I'd recommend is just not putting too much thought into it. You want your tags to be simple in a way you'd understand while looking through them (or alternatively just use them as comments for the fic, that's how my tag system started).

tl;dr -Use tags you don't need to think about for more than 2 seconds to know what they are -Tag based on what feels right for you and customize your use of bookmarks as you see fit -Have fun with it

I hope this helped :D

#ask

[autumntouched]

I have an unpopular and probably a controversial opinion, but as a fanfic reader, I honestly believe Tumblr is NOT a good fit for posting fanfiction, let alone multi-chapter fics when it comes to engagement of readers for a number of reasons.

First, there is how hit or miss Tumblr can be with posts not showing up in the tags correctly or not getting notifications when you're tagged. Heck, there are several blogs I follow on here that even though I have it turned on to be notified any time they post, I've yet to get a notification when they do.

Second, there's the difficulty of trying to find the first chapter/previous chapter/next chapter of a fic if the writer didn't bother to link the chapters together in some way or use a dedicated tag. I've come across way too many fics on here where I had to spend an inordinate amount of time digging through the writers blog to find the next chapter because they didn't provide any links or even use a dedicated tag for their story. After awhile, I don't care how good a fic is, having to deal with stuff like that will quickly turn me off a fic.

Third, there isn't a unified & connected tagging system here like there is on AO3. I know I'm probably missing some really good fic because it's been tagged in a different way than how I search on here. Also, I hate that fics I don't want to read keep showing up in tags I'm searching because I can't filter out tags.

So with all of that, as a fanfic reader, I much prefer to read and follow fics on AO3. In fact, the only reason I even started to read fics on Tumblr was because for the first few months after TGM came out, Tumblr was really the only place to find TGM fics. Before TGM, I never read a single fic on Tumblr.

And as a fanfic writer, I also prefer to post my fics on AO3. The few times I've posted my one shots on here (in an active fandom), I got very little engagement. And I tagged those fics six ways to Sunday and even reblogged & reposted them a few times.

But on AO3, I have fics I wrote TEN years ago still getting kudos & bookmarks when fics I posted a year ago on here will never see the light of day again unless someone decides to spend a day going through my blog or I decide to reblog/repost them because the tagging system on here either shows you the current stuff or the most popular stuff when you search a tag.

Plus with AO3 I know a kudos means someone read and enjoyed my fic even if they didn't leave a comment. I can see when someone bookmarks or favorites a fic and I can even see how many hits each fic has. I don't have to manage a tag list or run a second "library" blog because on AO3 someone can just subscribe to my fic or follow my account & AO3 will automatically send them an email when I update a fic or post a new fic. I don't have to use a million tags because a dedicated group of tag wranglers makes sure similar tags are connected.

So yeah, I know how much it sucks when it feels like you're just posting into the void on here when all you're getting is likes. And I know there is still a large number of new users on here who think likes on Tumblr work the same way they do on all the other social media sites when they actually don't and that it feels like we're shouting at a brick wall anytime we try to explain that to the new users. But at this point, I feel like fic writers on here are just beating a dead horse with every "ENGAGE WITH MY FICS OR ELSE I STOP WRITING" post I see.

You can't force people to engage with your content. Those who want to will & those who don't will continue to do so and shame posts aren't going to change that. In fact, every shame post I see makes me not want to engage with that writer. Just like us as readers have no right to demand you write & post more, writers have no right to demand engagement of readers.

And if not getting enough engagement makes you want to stop writing, then that's on you the writer and not on us, the readers. Would people miss your writing if you stopped posting? Probably. But that's your prerogative and you shouldn't try to make people feel guilty about YOUR decision.

Fair point about the difference in platforms. There are pros and cons to each, and I think it's also fair for writers to weigh what works for them. AO3 does not have PMs, which makes it way less functional for me to engage as openly as I would like. The readers who have taken the time to get to know me understand and respect that is why I am here and not always on AO3

Talk to Me as an intentional multi-chapter fic is on AO3 for its better functionality for that format and is here on tumblr for anyone who didn't catch it on AO3 and so people drop into my dms to chat about it

This though: "Just like us as readers have no right to demand you write & post more, writers have no right to demand engagement of readers."

Asks are readers asking for writers to write and post more. And yes, writers voluntarily open their asks but that does not preclude wanting some kind of feedback for the effort they put into provide those stories. I am writing it because I LOVE the collaborative writing process of sharing ideas and getting to write something that will make someone happy. When people tell me exactly what makes them happy, I have the chance to give them more of that. I am asking for something that makes me a better writer for what they asked me for

Also, just to recap what's going on widely, readers ARE demanding that writers write and post more. That's part of the frustration people are trying to address

The Hannix Football Rivalry AU Series was "born" on tumblr (and was never meant to be a multi-chapter fic). It exists SOLELY because of reader requests, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a different level of engagement for that or want people to acknowledge you as the writer in their asks or to ask for feedback to ensure you're on the right track for making people happy

Yes, there are people who comment on and reblog everything I write. And while I deeply appreciate it, that is not at all what I expect or am asking of anyone. Just every now and then letting me know where your head's at, what you're feeling would be nice.

And this is MY controversial opinion, and I am only speaking for myself here. I'm on tumblr to engage with my readers. To me, fanfiction is a community and a relationship. That is what's meaningful about it to me. Knowing what people feel and think. I am here to write for you but also still want to feel like a person doing that. If any readers don't want to have to even consider who I am as a person or have a conversation about how I feel, I'm very comfortable with them no longer reading my work or waiting until I decide what to migrate to AO3. There are enough people in my life who only care about the work I do without caring about me as a person that I don't need that energy in a space I've created for myself <3

#i love your notes #talk to me

[whenyourbirdisbroken]

Hi, I want to ask you how you navigate AO3? I never read any fic before but now i started because you are giving good recs. I'm reading your recs but when i try to find good fic on my own i don't know where to start. A lot of what I see is bad writing or topics i don't like?

Hi anon!

I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying my fic recs. Thanks for letting me know! I'm excited for you that you started reading fic, you have so much fun ahead of you!

I can't tell if you're asking generally how to use AO3 or you want my strategy specifically. Here is a pretty good tutorial on how searching and filtering on AO3 works. I also know there are some youtubes on it if you are more of visual learner.

My own strategy isn't that different from what they talk about here. Click on John/Paul (or whatever pairing you want). A lot of people will sort by kudos or comments, but I like to sort by bookmarks. Sometimes kudos and comments are a little inflated if something is, like, 20 chapters long, it's showing up in the feed all the time and people are leaving comments on every chapter. Not saying it can't still be good but when i see a fic with a ton of comments and kudos that is a one shot, I'm like, ok this must be a good one! And with bookmarks you know it's something people liked so much they want to re-read. Then I just filter out a few things I'm not really interested in (for me that's usually like "major character death" or sexual assault or mpreg). The tagging system is really pretty good that way!

The thing about this fandom is there are only around 3k fics total so it's actually very manageable once you get the hang of it and then you can just read the new stuff as it comes out. The fandom I was in before had like 10 times that many so it could be overwhelming. We don't have many, but we are lucky that we have the MOST talented fic writers.

Good luck anon and let me know if you have follow-up questions!

#ao3 #fic recs

[ladylibido]

List of 18+ Social Media

Since making a comparison post on just art galleries, I decided to make a new one again for just the social media services that allow 18+ sexually explicit content.

BDSMlr - A clunky tumblr-like service, it almost seems to be running a much older version of tumblr but is rather broken and clunky. Their backend image hosting appears to be fixed from the last time I used it. It also has very little customization to speak of. It is pretty active, but most of it's users mostly post/interact with posts/images/gifs related to RL porn, a handful of writers, and other kink interest blogs. Very little in the way of illustrators.

CoHost - Still very new, about a year old as of Feb 2023. As such certain features are thin, no queue, no customization. But so far the service itself appears pretty functional and solid. You can make multiple blogs, have unique follow lists for each blog, and you can either mute or block other users. You can also make private blogs. It also has a content warning system, separate from the tags. Tags can be suppressed, collapsing the post, and you can bookmark tags to follow. There is a draft system you can use as a manual pseudo-queue. They currently only permit 4 images per post, and there's no way to re-arrange them on any part of the post. It will take time to see how it pans out.

Mastodon - I bring this up in relation to the whole fediverse of Mastodon services, rather than listing individual services that use Mastodon that are 18+. It's a sort of 'twitter but better' service, but in doing so it has all the pitfalls of twitter in it's general construction. Awkward tag usage, no tag filtering on an individual's page, no way to separate shares from original posts, and character limits. Some have better character limits than others but still a limit nonetheless. Also if an instance goes down, you've lost your account and you have to find a new one all over again. There is also the problem that many 18+ mastodon instances are blocked from other instances, so the purpose of trying to connect and share with other users is already hindered by Mastodon being what it is, so take that as you will.

NewTumbl - As the name implies, it's another service that is like tumblr. While the name is awkward the service is rather robust. Allows for different blogs, but not different watch feeds. There is also no tag blocking but you can hide 'genres' both clean and pornographic, and you can hide blogs. You can also filter based on the age of the user, so if you wanted to lock out anyone under 25, you can do that. It is the most blatantly pornographic related service as you can apply specific genres to your blog. It also has some customization, but no CSS customization. It also has a built-in access list system that can either be free or you can charge users to access, similar to patreon or subscribe star. It's also surprisingly active, I ghosted my account there for about 2 years and I've had activity on my blog the whole time I've been gone.

Pillowfort - A fusion between livejournal and tumblr, it has different strongpoints and weaknesses of both. It offers the tagging, tag filtering, reblogging of tumblr, but the static entry and comment threading of livejournal. There are no multi-blogs and it still requires an invite to make a new account but invites are easy to get, either from pillowfort's twitter or other users. User blogs have the ability to view original posts and reblogs separately, making it very fast and easy to sort through either one on a person's blog. It has some amount of customization but no css changes at this time. It is somewhat on the slow side but it does have a dedicated userbase and is the only option on this list that allows people to see 18+ posts, without an account.

ReblogMe - Seems to use the same system that BDSMlr users, but with some elements about it cleaned up more and tweaks to the UI I prefer. It does not have much in the way of default themes but it does have a CSS editor. Otherwise it functions similarly to older tumblr, so it doesn't have any of the new ease of use features tumblr has, but it's still a little better than BDSMlr. the userbase is very similar to BDSMlr as well. But it is overall, much more stable.

Twitter - We all know it, we probably all use it, but I just have to put it here to account for it. It's undeniable that it's the most frequented service, and drives the most traffic, but there's always the concern that its acceptance with porn could change at any time. So seek other mirrors and archives where you can.

Waterfall - Another tumblr-inspired service, it has the services you expect and users them fairly well. It has tag blocking, though it's way to lock posts as adult is by using a NSFW tag, not any sort of toggle or button which can be easy to forget. Image posts don't have any sorting or organization, they just display one below the other. There is no customization at this time, and activity is almost non-existent on the 18+ front. Fair warning however, the owner made a post about updating the service and it may involve re-making it entirely so it's debatable if it'll remain as is.

#internet #social media

[treeprince]

hello! ok 1. i love your writing <3 found you from ao3. amazing work *round of applause* 2. i wanted to know how you recommend finding fics / fic recs or promoting your own work? i have heard a lot of ppl say that tumblr doesn’t rly discuss fanworks like they used to and most of that discussion (esp with writing) has moved to discord but i feel like from an outside perspective its hard to stumble upon unless you have friends in the server? idk just wanted to get your thoughts :) have a lovely day!

ive been sitting here on this one all day like,

are... are you in the right place??? did u click on the right blog for this ask??? thank you?????? made my day and also got me v confused

but to answer your questions, ill do it in 2 parts: one for fic recs and the other for fic promos.

theres a couple different ways i look for fics, and im sure both of these are the most common, but the first is using ao3's filter system. i can pare down any particular thing im looking for in a fic with the filter system ao3 runs on, and the tag wranglers (bless them) have made sure that even the vaguely worded tags end up where they need to be under the larger umbrella tag its associated with. you can also peruse the bookmarks of authors on ao3 in their profile and filter those fics down to specific fandoms or pairings or even timeframes it was written!

the second is a combination of using friends recommendations- publically or in private servers- and fic recs on tumblr, usually thru the ship tag (if im following the tag, and if the author chose to promote their fic on tumblr, or a fic rec blog promotes it as some fandoms do)

it also depends on how large the fandom is when you come into it, and what specifically you are looking for, but if you have friends in that fandom who keep bookmarks of their fav fics or know of ones youd enjoy, id recommend going to them if the tag system isnt providing quite what you're after, as id trust a friend over anything else (word of mouth literally is the best promo)

there are also sometimes fic rec blogs, who's entire modus operandi is promoting works at large, so following a few of those (if there are any) can help bring new content to your door as well

as for promoting your own work, you really kind of have the world before you. make a link post on tumblr with a similar tagline to the summary and tag it accordingly. share the link in discord with friends or in fandom spaces. share the link on twitter and tag it so it gets seen. ao3 is not a social media website, so as long as you are the most recent post in the tag, youll always be at the top. theres no algorithms there like there are on other socmed platforms, so really the choice is up to you how and where you want to promote it! reblog the link as many times as you want! its up to you!

and youre not entirely wrong that discussion of fanworks doesn't take place on tumblr anymore, but it really depends on the fandom youre in. i follow several authors and fic rec blogs for one fandom who do regular fic promos of other writers works and gush about them, but in the way that youll see a blurb in the jacket cover of a book. its really just to keep the content coming back to the top here, and helps bring to the surface fics that didnt get a lot of readers in the first run, perhaps bc its an older work or a lesser known pairing.

discussion about fandom works themselves has turned private namely for the sake of reducing drama and hurt feelings in public spaces, and i dont blame them. ive been in ficbook clubs on private servers that were some of the best times ive ever had bc we were allowed to talk freely about an authors work without airing our opinions out for all the world to see, and frankly i much prefer that style of discussion over public ones, but thats me and i cant speak for everyone.

theres also just been a steady shift away from author engagement on socmed bc of how easy it is for them to get hit by negativity there. the culture just isnt the same as it used to be for fic writers as it was in the last decade. hell, in the last year alone, youd be hard pressed to find an author who hasnt experienced some kind of harassment over the course of their career on socmed, if we're being honest. my honest advice to you is: if youre following an author you like, and u want to know more about how they use their creative process, ask them! they may not all answer these days, but it doesnt hurt to try! just be polite, thats all anyone can hope for.

i hope this helps you anon, and thank you for the kind words! if you have more questions or are just looking to get recs, feel free to hmu!

#long answers for long questions im afraid whups #im maybe not the best person to answer these questions either but im also insane about how i browse for fics #catch me in the ao3 filters digging for specific timeline of fics from april 2013 to november 2014 #also curious how you found me thru ao3 lol #and which fic it was that brought u to my door #hope u have a lovely day anon

[guessimabasicnerdgirlnow]

AO3 Unwrapped

I had something very different in mind for this, but apparently you can’t filter your bookmark list based on date so instead I went to my stats page and took a look at what I posted this year!

38 subscribers! Wow, I wouldn’t expect it, specially since I post mostly oneshots. And 500 kudos 🥰

My fic with the most hits was Perfect Host, followed by you’re not worth it but i like you, i would do it all again (you didn’t teach me how to forget you), The Convergence and Shape

Most kudos was also Perfect Host, then you’re not worth it but i like you, i would do it all again (you didn’t teach me how to forget you), I’m closing my heart and Night Visit

By comment threads, the first is I’m closing my heart, followed by Diets, you’re not worth it but i like you, i would do it all again (you didn’t teach me how to forget you), and Culture

By Bookmarks, Perfect Host wins again, then I’m closing my heart, you’re not worth it but i like you, i would do it all again (you didn’t teach me how to forget you) and Culture.

(Interesting to note, Perfect Host is my movieverse symbrock fic, and those three with really long titles are all Symby-centric and intensely symbrock 🤔 I think the fandom knows what they want to read)

By subscriptions, a surprise! First is predictably Perfect Host, but second is King of Second Chances, which is my first Venom fic! Followed by Shape, which showed up before and is about alternate!Anne my beloved, and the you’re not worth it but i like you and… Unsaid, my first Inhumans fic, and the only one to appear in any of these

And word count. My longest was The Convergence, which took forever for me to finish. Then i would do it all again (you didn’t teach me how to forget you), which sure was an experience because the story kept wanting to turn differently from my plan. Then it’s I’m closing my heart, There are many benefits in being Venom’s son and you’re not worth it but i like you. Like i would do it all again, these were all for Symbruary, and one cool thing about working in these is that the the deadline make words flow in a way that nothing else does, and in the end the moments you spent writing are sorta blurry.

I wish I could have done more challenges this year 🙃 oh well, there’s always next year

And here are all my Venom fics of the year with stats, sorted by kudos. This was a hard year and I couldn’t write much, but I am thankful for what I managed to write and specially to everyone who gave it a chance. I hope I could give you some moments of joy

#shut up brock

[birlcholtz]

copying @parvuls @ivecarvedawoodenheart and @bi-ginny-weasley! this gets SO long i recced a lot of stuff so i’m putting the cut after the first 5!

1) first fic you’ve bookmarked (i’m taking to mean ‘of all time’ instead of ‘in 2020′)

Shitty’s Flow/Jack’s Ass OTP: The Samwell Men’s Hockey Team Tumblr by Downward Stroke (casual_distance) (m, 2.3k)

my god this is a throwback. i bookmarked this fic in august of 2016. it’s a detailed imagining of a tumblr run by SMH and it’s exactly as chaotic as it sounds

2) most recent fic you’ve bookmarked

grooves by YourPalYourBuddy ( @ivecarvedawoodenheart) (t, 2k, lardo/ransom)

this weekend was inexplicably Rando Weekend and i ADORE syd’s take on them. this fic is romantic and beautifully written and it has like.... a silver-y glow idk how to describe it. read it

3) a fic from an unusual pov

Señor Bunny by WrathoftheStag ( @wrathofthestag) (g, 2k)

señor bun POV of bitty’s life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! do i really need to say anything more

4) a comfort fic

I’m sorry I said I wanted you dead by Thunderhel ( @dexondefense) (g, 9k, zimbits, background lardo/snowy)

Jack didn’t go to Samwell but plays for the Falconers. Bitty, Ransom, Holster, and Lardo go to a Falcs game, play FMK in the car, and then Jack hits Bitty in the face with a puck. Iconic. (i don’t know why i used proper capitalization for all that but i love this fic sjglhsdjfg)

5) a fic you wish could be a movie

starting to get to me by playingforkeeps ( @mainehoe) (t, 12k, nurseydex)

buzzfeed unsolved-inspired ghost/cryptid/monster hunter AU!! features ‘confess and BOOK IT’ which is one of my favorite tropes of all time

6) a fic you have reread multiple times

In Your Head They Are Dying by peppermintlegs ( @peppermintlegs) (t, 33k, zimbits, nurseydex, shardo)

zombie AU with some KICKASS graphics and a twist that makes me gasp out loud literally every time i read it even though i KNOW it’s coming

7) a fic from your to-read list

like riding a bike by unconventionalturtle ( @unconventional-turtle I’M GONNA READ IT ONCE MY BRAIN ISN’T FRIED IM SO EXCITED) (g, 2k, zimbits)

about how jack never learned to ride a bike, that’s pretty much all i know but i’m excited to read it!!!

8) a fic that is pure tooth-rotting fluff

try a little tenderness by poindextears ( @sincerelyreidburke) (t, 8k, nurseydex)

ohhhhhh my god. nurseydex long distance relationship, dex drives to nyc to see nursey, fluff ensues

9) a fic you wish would have a sequel

something you give yourself by YourPalYourBuddy ( @ivecarvedawoodenheart)

what can i say i love avatar AUs and would gladly read like 800k of plotless rambling about this universe

10) a fic with your favorite trope

Jack Zimmermann is a Masochistic Fuckwit by PorcupineGirl ( @porcupine-girl) (t, 11k, zimbits)

fake dating with an UNGODLY amount of pining. my favorite part is probably every time jack thinks about what he would do if he was smart and/or not masochistic and then does the literal opposite of that

11) a fic with a trope you don’t normally read but still loved

Pen Pals by coffeegoose ( @somethingnurseywoulddo​) (t, 20k, nurseydex)

i don’t always read pen pal fics..... but when i do..... they’re this one

12) a fic with a ship that isn’t your main ship

Seven steps to heaven (but that stairway’s just too steep) by Thunderhel ( @dexondefense) (t, 6k, lardo/snowy)

i ship MANY things so i’m picking one i don’t read a ton of, mainly because there’s not a lot out there :/ anyway i ADORE this fic so much, it’s set at the stanley cup party at jack’s apartment and everything about snowy’s shirt makes me cackle

13) a different meeting au

the road leads back to you by heyfightme (i have no idea what their @ is if they’re on tumblr) (m, 56k, zimbits)

jack didn’t go to samwell, but poots did. jack’s an A for the falcs when he accidentally meets bitty, poots’ secret long-distance bf from samwell (no infidelity dw)

14) a fic that made you laugh out loud

honeys who makin’ money by miastree ( @omgpoindexter) (t, 1.8k, nurseydex)

i don’t even know how to describe this but it’s about sin bin fines and it’s glorious

15) a fic based on a book/movie

best behavior by winchysteria ( @winchysteria who i can’t tag for some reason) (t, 56k, nurseydex)

to all the boys i’ve loved before fusion featuring nursey as lara jean, dex as peter k, and chowder as josh!

OMG TOTALLY FORGOT MY FREE SPACE

16) free space

One Hundred and Ten Percent by writingonpostcards ( @17piesinseptember) (g, 1k, zimbits)

jack saves bitty from a terrible date and they find themselves on the run from the entire soccer team, hilarious and cute!!

good god this post is long. ANYWAY.

my results: tRIPLE BINGO!!!!

#i'm so proud of myself #fic recs #omgcp #fic #also wow this took a LONG time #i had to filter my bookmarks so many different ways #and hunt down the senor bun fic

[olderthannetfic]

Crit bookmark anon had it mixed up on one point, the rule of thumb is that expecting authors to specify what form of feedback they prefer is rude, burdensome, ableist and so that hurts their feelings too, or that's how it's been explained to me.

Personally, I swear when I got into fanfiction around 1998 concrit was the holy grail of feedback that authors asked for with the desperation of a starving populace, but the vehemence to which people say it’s always been this way, that c+c is c+c+cruel, that authors have never needed to state their preferences, to the point of insulting me is actually beginning to trigger my psychosis and make me doubt my own memories.

It makes me nervous to even read fic anymore because I love expressing my love. People tell me they love my reviews because they're "juicy and detailed" since I do my best to put effort into picking out the parts I really loved around and the parts that confused me (if there were any). They’ll thank me for my feedback, and then they’ll say concrit is cruel actually and discourages authors, is ablist because of the possibility for rejection dysphoria, that what I did wasn’t even actually c+c but all I did was analyze their work and review using the crit sandwich. By the very definition it seems to me to be critique but I have no idea anymore! 

Hell, it even makes me feel insecure as an author. Glaring mistakes get complimented, it’s like someone saying my smile is beautiful while I have a huge hunk of food in my teeth. Like I’m glad you said you liked it but are you lying to me? What are your genuine feelings? If you’re an author, why don’t you want to just post your house rules? Is it because I’m just being intrusive? They say I should ask what the house rules are to be considerate about their feelings, but treat me like as a reader I have none to be considered.

It’s got me wrung up, clearly.

I've tried to encourage people to feel safe with c+c in my comment section and other authors still get mad at me for doing it that way too because it's damaging to them as a writer because I’m doing fanfiction wrong.

Has it always been like this? Am I actually delusional? Please tell me I’m not just going crazy and you’ve been noticing this as a cultural shift too, if I’m alone in this I think I genuinely might be sicker than I thought I was.

--

I don't think it's a clear cultural shift in one direction, but yes, I've noticed things.

I think AO3 culture owes a lot to LJ culture and LJ culture was often less into crit because the fic was so visibly in the author's personal space. A lot of LJ authors also had circles of beta readers and good friends who were quite visible, so concrit from others was superfluous and not so helpful. At the same time, LJ being a blogging platform meant that people could rec in their own journals and include concrit in that context easily. AO3 doesn't have much of a space for meaty reviews, though you can try with bookmarks.

Meanwhile, mailing list culture was often pro-concrit, and so is FFN. Forums are often pro-concrit. Some of these are older spaces, but they're also just different spaces from AO3.

A lot of "changes" are simply a change from being used to some other space to AO3 getting so popular everyone's crowding in there. The old culture persists somewhere else.

--

My own view on concrit of my work is that it doesn't hurt my feelings, but I don't find it useful, so I don't think people should waste their time on it. Good concrit is hard and it takes a while to write up.

Once I post a work, it's as done as it's going to get. Many people who've critiqued me in the past have also just had bad quality advice. I've sat in (non fandom) writing groups filtering the often also very bad advice there, and it's not just ego: I have a pretty good handle on which critiquers know their stuff, and most do not. I have a couple of friends whom I let read my pro writing because they know what I'm going for, and I understand and trust their taste.

Now, if someone wants to critique my finished fic in a review, that's fine by me because even though the work is done and not getting edited again, the pros and cons are worth noting for a future reader.

[unforth]

The 2021 Destiel Favs Survey!

The December, 2020 edition of the Destiel Fan Favorites Survey is now completed! I got 340 submissions, the most I’ve received since the first time I did the survey in 2017 (this is the fifth time). Since the inception of the survey, I’ve received 1372 surveys, reflecting the tastes of those in the fandom at the time they did the survey and completed especially with an eye toward highlighting excellent lesser-known works.

On the latest survey, 336 different authors were listed as favorites! 165 of these authors were added to the list for the first time. Across all five times I’ve given this survey, 700 authors (on the nose!) have been listed as favorites. You can view a list of all those authors, and links to their accounts, here!

On this survey, an astonishing 1,448 stories received a vote!! The majority - 891 works - were added to the collection for the first time, which is absolutely thrilling to me. 253 of the authors of these works had never been listed before, and now know - they’re someone’s favorite. How awesome is that?

Since the inception of this survey, 3,544 stories by 1,365 different authors have been named as someone’s favorite. All of these works are assembled in a collection that you can view on AO3 here! (works that aren’t on AO3 are bookmarked, as are the works of author’s who chose not to accept the invite to the collection; 210 invites are still pending from the 2021 survey; if authors don’t add their works by next weekend, I’ll bookmark them). Alternatively, you can view a list of every work in the collection, and a link to access the work if it’s still available online, here!

By far, the best way to navigate the collection is to go to the AO3 Collection and use the tags searches and filters to find works that appeal to you. That said, I know some people are curious about results. It’s outside my ability to make lists that include every work, and so I do in general compile some of the data and share those who got the “top” results (not in a ranking, only in alphabetical order). If you’re interested, keep reading...

(read more)

if you are having trouble seeing the links on this post, please access it on pillowfort here: https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1967244

In the past, I've done an annotated "Top 20 Authors" list, where I list (in alphabetical, not ranked) order the authors who received the most votes and every work they have in the collection. I will not be doing that this year. I'll give the top 20 list, but not list all their fics - it's too much, and too many of these authors are the same as previous years. The goal of the Collection is and always has been to highlight the works of authors who don't get as much love and aren't as well known, and I've come to feel the Top 20 list doesn't serve that goal effectively. As such, I will instead be doing a "Rookies of the Year" list, listing 10 authors who have not been on the top 20 list previously, and a "Top New Stories" list, with the 10 most popular stories added to the collection this year.

You can see the past top lists at these links:

January, 2020

June, 2018

March, 2017

I also have done a number of rec lists based on the data, but not since the last two surveys (the collection has grown too big, and I don’t have time any longer). These are also all available on pillowfort.

All lists are in alphabetical order! These are not rankings!

Rookies of the Year! A list ten authors who’ve scored highly for the first time on the survey, and every work they’ve written that received at least one vote in the survey!

Desirae

After the Darkness (Series) (26,438 words, 6 works). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Canon divergent AU where Dean goes missing.

Angel Bridge (55,944 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Paranormal writer Dean meets Wiccan Castiel.

Autumn in His Eyes (50,452 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Artist Castiel, retreating to seclusion to avoid the paparazzi, meets small-town Dean.

The Bond-Breaker Murders (75,696 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Detective Dean and his partner Castiel hunt a serial killer. 

The Deal (29,094 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Business owners Dean and Castiel meet soon after Castiel’s divorce.

Finding Home (42,828 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Bakery owner Dean and writer Emmanuel aren’t sure what’s drawing them together, but they’re sure something is.

Ghosts (Series) (71,676 words, 2 works). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Paranormal investigator Dean Winchester doesn’t believe in ghosts and definitely doesn’t believe scam artist Castiel.

I'm the Only (25,121 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Professor Dean and tattoo artist Castiel look back on how they meet.

Lojacked (28,393 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Guidance Counselor Dean is kidnapped days before the anniversary of his marriage to Detective Castiel.

Loved You Forever (Series) (98,896 words, 21 works). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Mechanic Dean has been in love with his best friend Professor Castiel since they were children, but has never told.

Parking Lot Confessions (3,820 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Castiel gets hit with a truth spell, and Sam learns far more than he expected.

Remember Me After the Storm (47,425 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. After a car accident, Castiel doesn’t remember the past 13 years of his life with Dean.

Duckyboos

Bitch Better Have My Money (Series) (247,834 words, 4 works). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Dean’s suburban life goes to hell in a hand basket after he meets a devil with the face of an angel.

The Card Cheat (3,101 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Dean and Castiel are hitmen who hate working together.

Chronicles of a Serial Killer (Series) (52,760 words, 2 works, second is a work in progress). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Detective Dean Winchester is intrigued by the newest serial killer operating in his jurisdiction.

Dial "M" for Monster (23,809 words). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Baker/Vigilante Dean investigates the haunted rooms at Castiel’s motel.

I Only Come When You Scream (Series) (23,117 words, 7 works). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used, Graphic Depictions of Violence. Three serial killers meet over coffee.

Interview with the Vampire's Wife (6,040 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. A vampire’s wife walks into PI Dean’s office.

Lock Stock and Two Smokin' Winchesters (29,392 words). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Boxers Dean and Sam are fucked when they run afoul of Crowley and his prize fighter Castiel.

Murder Ballads (Series) (97,416 words, 3 works). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Serial Killer Castiel sets his sites on Dean.

My Whole Existence is Flawed (6,388 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean accidentally flirts with Castiel, with whom he had a relationship in high school.

Number 1 Crush (103,891 words). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. College friends Dean and Castiel meet up with some college buddies just as Dean’s college stalker comes after him.

Stone by Stone (37,269 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Teacher Castiel and student Dean find trouble together.

EllenofOz

Baby Whispering 101 (2,835 words). Gen. No Warnings Apply. Castiel has to bring his daughter to class, but Professor Winchester doesn’t mind.

Bunker Files (30,519 words, work in progress). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Canon Divergent AU, where the British Men of Letters hear more than they bargained for.

Dark Blue, Dark Blue (36,112 words). Mature. No Warnings Apply. Online friends Dean and Castiel come to meet in person after Castiel’s meatspace life puts him in danger.

A Demon Like Him (24,595 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Warlock Dean isn’t sure if he should work with incubus Castiel.

Drunk Texts and Midnight Snacks (4,589 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. College AU. Dean keeps sending Castiel drunk texts...until he stops.

Felix in Aeternum (23,837 words, work in progress). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Castiel meets Dean at a Halloween festival and learns maybe there’s some supernatural in the world after all.

For a Dream's Sake (28,511 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU during season 13. Castiel falls into a djinn dream.

Lonely Eden (Co-written with Threshie) (44,091 words). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Dean and Sam deal with the aftermath of the Croatoan outbreak until they meet a lone uninfected man, Castiel.

Profound Magic (Series, Co-written with Trenchcoatbaby) (227,233 words, 2 works). Occult student Dean runs into trouble with his strict thesis advisor, Castiel.

Season Z (by multiple authors). (220,673 words). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Canon Divergent AU, post season 14, with zombies.

Undercover Angel (Series) (44,716 words, 3 works). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU where Dean discovers that Castiel has a panty kink.

emmbrancsxx0

Departure Strategy (Co-written with choranaptyxic) (39,778 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean and Castiel meet when Mary decides to contact Castiel’s employers for their help assisting her suicide.

Castiel Novak's Office, This is Dean (121,472 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean and Castiel have a one night stand...and then Dean finds out Castiel is his new boss.

Evangelist (334,398 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Wealthy business heir Castiel meets poor Dean.

Five Ways to Wake Dean Winchester (without Getting Shot) (1,598 words). Mature. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. “Sometimes, Dean’s dreams are violent.”

Halloween Horror (Series) (117,399 words, 4 works). Canon divergent AU. Castiel and Dean discover a haunted house while cataloguing a Men of Letters library.

Ipamis Ol Olpri (56,418 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Castiel and Jack need John Winchester’s blood to kill Michael.

On Falling (996 words). Unrated. No Warnings Apply. “He had fallen, further and faster than any angel before him.”

Saint's Hollow (Co-written with sleepinnude) (43,718 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Five years after Castiel and Dean are estranged, they’re forced to meet each other, and their shared past, again.

The Shawnee Trail (166,094 words). Unrated. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Stagecoach messenger Dean and Doctor Castiel have to deal with outlaws in 1887 Lawrence.

everandanon

All Things in Succession (313,468 words). Mature. No Warnings Apply. A/B/O Dynamics. Omega Prince Castiel is bound to Alpha Knight Dean in an arranged marraige.

At Midnight (8,516 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Dean’s been pining for his best friend Castiel for a decade, and tonight he’s determined to kiss him.

By Any Other Name (6,785 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Dean doesn’t want anyone to see his soul mark...but Sam sees, and tracks down Castiel.

Casicorn (56,649 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Detective Dean gets a new, mysterious roommate.

Expectations (418,319 words). Explicit. No Warnings apply. A/B/O Dyanmics. Omega Castiel is infuriated that his sister is to be wed to the Alpha crown prince Dean, whom they’ve never met.

I'll Be Home for Christmas (3,872 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Castiel’s family has vastly misunderstood his relationship with his college roommate.

Issues (Series) (252,401 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Childhood best friends Castiel and Dean have a falling out that leads to them pretending to date.

Quarantension (129,289 words, work in progress). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. College roommates Dean and Cas quarantine together - strictly platonic, of course (yes, that includes the orgasms).

With Interest (161,935 words, work in progress). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. High School AU. Bad-boy Castiel bets he can make nerdy Dean fall in love with him.

FagurFiskur

All Been Blown Out (1,908 words). Explicit. No Warnings apply. Stripper Dean and mafioso Castiel have sex sometimes.

Anything You Can Do (21,087 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean, who is definitely straight (right?), is determined to prove by any means necessary that he’s better at sex than Castiel.

Becoming (4,924 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Dean develops a relationship with the android, Castiel, who owns the coffeeshop down the street from him.

Don't You Cry No More (5,094 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. A rewrite of 15x20.

I Leave in My Heart (3,343 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Office workers Dean and Castiel are just friends with benefits...aren’t they?

Make It That Much Better (2,469 words). Gen. No Warnings Apply. Four times people mistook Dean and Castiel for a couple.

The Novak Hickey Mystery (1,540 words). Gen. No Warnings Apply. Professor Castiel’s class isn’t sure how he got a hickey.

Picture Perfect (13,356 words, work in progress). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Castiel is attracted to a man he sees in an old photograph...and then they meet in real life.

You Start to Grow Wings (10,911 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Dean and Castiel have a relationship when they’re young, part ways, and meet against twenty years later.

LoversAntiquities

Beautiful Mess (12,849 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean grows wings, and has to deal with all the issues that arise thereafter.

Dean Winchester: Monster Fucker (30,358 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Cursed Dean finds himself disturbingly attractive to monsters...and Castiel.

Doubting Thomas (40,184 words). Mature. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Two months after disappearing, Dean and Sam appear in Castiel’s garden, and they’ve been made into angels.

Forget the Sky (26,392 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Dean wins big on a scratch off ticket, and he and Castiel go to Japan.

Heart Like a Wheel (24,921 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. College student Dean decides to model for Professor Castiel.

If Love Was a River (17,364 words). Mature. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Orion is missing a star, and Castiel has fallen from the sky.

A Kite (720 words). Gen. No Warnings Apply. “Two gold bands burn a hole in his pocket - he doesn’t think he can wait any longer.”

Lights (2,671 words). Mature. No Warnings Apply. Pre-canon Dean meets season 5 Castiel.

Lonesome Roads (Series) (12,934 words, 2 works). Mature. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Terminally ill Castiel merges with the earth to heal, and returns many years later.

Me in Honey (6,520 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. A/B/O dynamics. Castiel goes into heat, and Dean gets more than he expects.

Rooms to Let (Series) (32,962 words, 2 works). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Hunter Dean finds an angel crucified to a cross.

The Rosary (9,082 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Castiel escapes from a home for stray angels and is found in the forest by a stranger.

The Safest Place (5,312 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. A/B/O dynamics. Dean feels the urge to nest.

Through the Mists of Time (Series) (24,689 words, 2 works). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Dean is sent back in time 700 years and lands in the bedroom of the handsome Scottish Lord Castiel.

We Fly By Night (15,672 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. A/B/O dynamics. Business owner DEan can’t get rid of a strange mark on his arm.

We Gave Love a Chance (5,210 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Team Free Will gets a chance to rest on a Florida beach.

MandalaRose

Cupcakes and Kittens (73,937 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean finds himself with an abandoned kitten, and Castiel finds himself in a baking class, and fortunately, they also find each other.

Hot Gym Guys (Series) (18,805 words, 2 works). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean can’t keep his eyes of the sexy owner of Healing Hands Spa and Gym.

Interrupted (5,818 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean loves his kids but is ready to do just about anything for some alone time with his husband Castiel.

It's in His Kiss (7,877 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Hockey player Dean gets put on the kiss cam while standing next to his best friend (and secret crush) Castiel.

Netflix and Chills (15,503 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Team Free Will tries to figure out if the coronavirus is Chuck’s next move.

New Holiday (6,258 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. A finale fix-it.

Paparazzi (7,004 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Hockey player Dean Winchester gets caught sleeping with billionaire Castiel.

The Shots We Don't Take (56,534 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. College senior Castiel hooks up with hockey player and playboy Dean.

Stay With Me (Series) (162,055 words, 4 works). Explicit. Graphic Depictions of Violence. Firefighter Dean rescues injured Castiel from his mangled vehicle after a car crash.

What I Need Most (32,397 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Who does Dean really need most? 

Y Tu Dean Tambien (6,909 words). Teen+. Archive Warnings Not Used. Dean has managed to keep his crush secret from absolutely everyone...except his crush, Castiel.

PallasPerilous

Baby, Baby (728 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Musician Castiel and Engineer Dean meet ugly.

Boneless Wings (4,333 words). Mature. No Warnings Apply. Castiel’s wings aren’t always as sexy as Dean might wish them to be.

Fifty Ways to Lose Your Lover (1,106 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Fix it for 15x18.

Funny Bone (4,933 words). Mature. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Dean would give a lot to know why the posed skeleton is admiring his ass.

Occursus (4,341 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Post-canon/15x20 fix it.

Piledriver (1,815 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. 15x18 coda.

Twenty Questions (1,246 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Castiel and Sam have a chat about Dean.

tiamatv

(Atypical) Love Story (13,360 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. A/B/O dynamics. Castiel is shocked when Dean is attracted to his scent.

Biological Imperatives (or Not) (29,103 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. A/B/O dynamics. Charlie convinces Dean to go on a date with her awkward professor friend.

Deference (9,981 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Criminal Castiel makes torturer Dean kneel.

Epistolary (9,408 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Castiel leaves an unexpected note for Dean.

Intangible (13,927 words). Explicit. Major Character Death. Mechanic Dean loses his soulmate, and gets him back as a ghost.

Koinophilia (Series) (31,139 words, 2 works). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. A/B/O dynamics. Dean refuses to talk about why his heats come so infrequently.

The Neighborhood Watch (Series) (31,628 words, 6 works). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Castiel and Dean are husbands living a happy suburban life.

Nightshade (3,111 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Rowena accidentally feeds Dean a cursed aphrodisiac.

Pigment (1,573 words). Gen. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Dean takes up painting.

South Side Swing (Series) (75,859 words, 6 works). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean, boss of the Chicago outfit, runs into trouble with Castiel, head of the Bratva.

Stripes (Series) (32,368 words, 3 works). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Castiel insists that he and Dean are not soulmates.

Tentacle Husbands (Series) (23,658 words, 3 works). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Octo Castiel and Prince Dean are happily married.

Top 20 authors over all: aeli_kindara, almaasi, bendingsignpost, castielslostwings, Desirae, Duckyboos, EllenofOz, followyourenergy, komodobits, ltleflrt, MalMuses, MandalaRose, NorthernSparrow, riseofthefallenone, saltyfeathers, sharkfish, tiamatv, tricia_16, whelvenwings, xylodemon

All authors who’ve ever been in the top 20: 60r3d0m, aeli_kindara, almaasi, Annie D (scaramouche), anyrei, bendingsignpost, castielslostwings, CloudyJenn, deathbanjo, Desirae, dothraki_shieldmaiden, Duckyboos, EllenofOz, emwebb17, followyourenergy, imogenbynight, jemariel, jhoom, jupiter_james, K_K_TiBal, komodobits, ltleflrt, MalMuses, MandalaRose, microcomets (formerly mishcollin), MittenWraith, museaway, NorthernSparrow, orange_crushed, ozonecologne, pantheon_of_discord, PersephoneShadow, quiettewandering, riseofthefallenone, saltnhalo, saltyfeathers, SaltyWords (agent4hire22), seperis, sharkfish, thepinupchemist, tiamatv, Trenchcoatbaby, tricia_16, unforth, VioletHaze, violue, whelvenwings, WinJennster, xylodemon, youaresunlight

The Top Ten Newly-Inducted Fics in 2021:

The Care and Feeding of Castiel by MalMuses (24,190 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Canon divergent AU. Castiel starts acting strange.

The Courtship of Combat by bendingsignpost (18,250 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. A/B/O dynamics. Castiel lies about his feelings for omega Dean to avoid an arranged marriage by his king.

Cupcakes and Kittens by MandalaRose (linked above)

Bitch Better Have My Money by Duckyboos (linked above)

Fire and Ice by Castielslostwings (189,629 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Firefighter Dean falls into bed with his best friend, EMT Castiel.

A Fish Out of Water by MalMuses (42,966 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean goes undercover at Brock Pleasure Ranch and discovers that merman Castiel is less a monster than he’d imagined.

Ghosts that We Know by dothraki_shieldmaiden (89,411 words). Explicit. Archive Warnings Not Used. Hunter Dean could wish that the best partner he’s ever had, Castiel, wasn’t a ghost.

Option C by followyourenergy (63,310 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. Dean and Castiel fake a relationship during their senior year of college to get rid of their asshole third roommate Vaughn.

Starstruck by peanutbutterjelly-pie (146,461 words). Teen+. No Warnings Apply. Castiel used to live next door to movie star Dean, but doesn’t think much of it...until he does.

Welcome to Pine Shores! by andimeantittosting (20,901 words). Explicit. No Warnings Apply. After retiring from hunting, Dean and Castiel buy a motel together, and they run it for years, and Dean pines the entire time.

The Top 20 fics of 2021:

And This, Your Living Kiss by opal_bullets

Angel’s Wild by LimonadeGaby and riseofthefallenone

Bitch Better Have My Money (series) by Duckyboos (linked above)

The Breath of All Things by KismetJeska

Cinderwings by bendingsignpost

The Courtship of Combat by bendingsignpost (linked above)

Cupcakes and Kittens by MandalaRose (linked above)

Fire and Ice by Castielslostwings (linked above)

A Fish Out of Water by MalMuses (linked above)

Four Letter Word for Intercourse by bendingsignpost

Not Part of the Plan (series) by Annie D (scaramouche)

Down to Agincourt by seperis

Ninety One Whiskey (series) by komodobits

Riptides by sharkfish

Russian to the Altar by MalMuses

So Says the Sword by komodobits

Stay With Me (series) by MandalaRose (linked above)

A Turn of the Earth by microcomets (formerly mishcollin)

Wild (series) by Castielslostwings

With Understanding by apokteino (not available online)

And may I just say, this is the first year that Twist and Shout didn’t make the top 20 list, and I am thrilled.

All Fics that Have Ever Made the Top 20/Top 10 List:

All Things Shining by Askance (doomcountry) and standbyme

And This, Your Living Kiss by opal_bullets

Angel’s Wild by LimonadeGaby and riseofthefallenone

A Beginner’s Guide to Communing with the Dead by suspiciousflashlight

Bitch Better Have My Money (series) by Duckyboos (linked above)

The Breath of All Things by KismetJeska

Broken Reflections (series) by anyrei and mugglerock

Carnival Oasis (series) by violue

Carry On by TamrynEradani (deleted)

Cinderwings by bendingsignpost

The Courtship of Combat by bendingsignpost (linked above)

Cupcakes and Chlamydia (series) by violue

Cupcakes and Kittens by MandalaRose (linked above)

Dean (and Cas’) Top 13 Zepp Traxx by pantheon_of_discord

The Dean Winchester Beat Sheet by saltyfeathers

The Dick Pic Verse (series) by Dangerousnotbroken

Down to Agincourt (series) by seperis

Fire and Ice by Castielslostwings (linked above)

A Fish Out of Water by MalMuses (linked above)

Flight by NorthernSparrow

Four Letter Word for Intercourse by bendingsignpost

Get a Whiff of This by bendingsignpost

The Graveyard Shift by riseofthefallenone

Hideaway (series) by thepinupchemist

Hooked on Your Love (series) by Ltleflrt

I Wanna Get Outside (of Me) by emwebb17

I’d Do it Over and Over Again (series) by tricia_16

I’d Rather Have You (series) by Ltleflrt

Kiss the Baker (series) by Ltleflrt

The Meaning on My Skin by saltnhalo

Not Part of the Plan (series) by Annie D (scaramouche)

Ninety One Whiskey (series) by komodobits

Oddly Shaped Empty by jemariel

Out of the Deep (series) by riseofthefallenone

Painted Angels (series) by WinJennster

The Path of Fireflies (series) by museaway

Protect and Serve by jupiter_james

PWP: Pie Without Plot by MajorEnglishEsquire and orange_crushed

Redemption Road (series) by multiple authors

Riptides by sharkfish

A Room of One’s Own by NorthernSparrow

Russian to the Altar by MalMuses

Satin and Sawdust by Ltleflrt

So Says the Sword by komodobits

Stay With Me (series) by MandalaRose (linked above)

Traveling Light by sharkfish

A Turn of the Earth by microcomets (formerly mishcollin)

Twist and Shout by gabriel and standbyme

Vagabonds by chevrolangels (formerly amarillogrande)

The Walk (series) by Persephoneshadow

What has Eight Tentacles and Isn’t Allowed to Eat Pie? by Annie D (scaramouche)

Where the Weeds Take Root by deathbanjo

Wild (series) by Castielslostwings

With Understanding by apokteino (not available online)

You Can Keep Holding On by NorthernSparrow

#spn #destiel #destiel favs survey #well that took almost four hours #gaaaaah #but it's finally done #so much for accomplishing anything else today

[bigphatpussylips]

AO3 Fic Finding Strategies: Notes from a fanfic enjoyer

I've been actively reading fanfiction for a long time now and I noticed some of the different ways I choose to browse my preferred fanfiction platform, Ao3, and have given them silly names.

The Author Stalker- Take that author whose work you liked and go though every available work/bookmark/collection/tumblr ect. You can find. 

I find most of my "diamond in the ruff" fics this way. I don't know how many amazing fics I would have never found if I didn't click on someone else's bookmark simply because I thought they had good taste based on their writing. 

My preferred method of fic finding on most days.

Fresh Fish- Sort by "date updated". Refresh obsessively.

I use this when I'm searching for the serotonin that comes with an update notification in my email. Really good for those looking for active authors/fics. Makes me feel vaguely passive in a way, like a bear trying to catch a salmon by standing still with their mouth open. 

The Indecisive Girlfriend-  Load any and all tags/filters ect. you know you don't want into that handy exclude box. I often add more as I encounter them while I browse. 

Ever ask someone where they want to eat and they say "anything", but every restaurant you suggest gets turned down? Yeah. Sometimes you have to use (and abuse) the process of elimination. Can be exceedingly laborious depending on the amount of tags you wish to avoid that day. Often well worth it though.

The Tall Order - An opposite to The Indecisive Girlfriend method. For when you know exactly what kind of fic you want to read. Add every possible tag/filter/archive warning ect you can think of for your hypothetical fic. If you don't get any results the first time remove tags until you do! 

While not always successful, I usually find something similar enough for the effort to be worth it. Akin to going to Starbucks and ordering the most cracked sounding drink you can think of just to see if they'd actually make it. 

Rainy Day Fund- Going through your Marked for Later folder.

I often send fics to the "marked for later" folder for a variety of reasons. Either the fiction wasn't what I was looking for but sounded interesting or it sounded promising but I wasn't sure. Regardless, I often let this collection of fics accumulate until I'm having a dry spell and re-reading my bookmarks isn't doing it for me. This has saved my poor, dopamine starved, ADHD-riddled brain from content starvation on many occasions. 

Tag jumping- Exploring the fandom specific tags. 

I don't ever start out browsing this way but I end up doing it often enough. Clicking through fun looking tags leads to some weird rabbit holes but I find the BEST au's this way. 

Testing Murky Waters- Giving previously passed over fics a second chance.

For when I'm feeling brave. Or I've just passed over this particular fic a hundred times already and I'm curious. 

The Catalog- I sort by kudos but you can use any sorting option. Exclude any triggering tags. Start on "page one" and scroll through every fic till you reach the end. I call this strategy the catalog because I'll write down what "page" I'm on so I can pick up where I left off.

I only do this if I intend to sort through every fic I can get my hands on for a specific fandom tag. Hyperfixations baby. 

Does anybody else do shit like this? How do you find you fav fanfic?

#Ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic #rambles #tell me how u use and abuse this website #im curious #textpost #long post

[snapefics]

Writers, if you have fics on AO3 that you’ve been meaning to go back and edit the tags for, we know readers would be incredibly grateful to you for doing so. Searching tags is great way to find fics but it only works if the fics have been tagged. Tags can be edited at any time (just like any part of your fic!). Additional tags can be essential to helping readers find fics, so let’s have a look at them.

If you’re in need of inspiration, consider that there is the tag: Severus Snape Needs a Hug (it has over a hundred fics!). There’s also Bisexual Severus Snape. The well loved: Severus Snape Lives. Not to forget Severus Snape is Lord Prince or Dark Severus Snape. Or even Happy Severus Snape. Perhaps you want to guide readers to Spinner's End (Harry Potter) or Cokeworth. It might be that you want to guide readers to your fic which is about Teenage Severus Snape or Asexual Severus Snape. How about Pureblood Severus Snape or adopted Severus Snape. The tag Sad Severus Snape is there for all your angst needs, too.

Another example of the difference tagging can make: there are (as of right now) 51 fics tagged with Trans Severus Snape but we know there are more fics out there where Snape is trans which have the character tag of Severus Snape and only have the additional tag of Trans Character. When searching and filtering by additional tags, Trans Severus Snape will get readers directly to fics where Snape is trans. A character tag of Severus Snape and an additional tag of Trans Character only guarantees that the fic contains Severus Snape and a character who is trans, which means a lot more fics for readers to wade through involving other characters who are trans to get to the Trans Snape fic they’re after.

From a recent ask about fics where Snape has asthma, this would be a great opportunity for writers to start some iteration of the tag Snape has Asthma.

We’ve also had several asks about Snape as a parent. This would be a great opportunity for writers to use the tag Parent Severus Snape. This tag currently only has 189 fics - we know there are many more fics than that on AO3 where Snape is a parent. This is another instance of the difference it can make to use the additional tag of fatherhood or parenthood vs Parent Severus Snape. Even with the character tag of Severus Snape, readers won’t be able to find fics where Snape is a parent as quickly as if the tag Parent Severus Snape was used.

The additional tags are also a great place to mention those minor/background or past relationships which don’t fit in the Relationships Category. Perhaps Minor Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape or Past James Potter/Lily Evans Potter is that tag which would help your readers.

Writers, you may not want some details in the summary, but by putting them in the tags, you’ll be making your fics much easier for your readers to find. And you can phrase tags however you like. It does help if there is already a canonical tag in use, but any tag is better than none!

One note we’d urge people to remember: try and separate ideas in your tags so they can be wrangled properly. So instead of Bisexual Severus Snape needs a hug tag Bisexual Severus Snape and  Severus Snape needs a hug. And instead of Happy Sev is a parent, try Happy Severus and Severus Snape as a parent. See more here at: How do I tag my works to make them easy to find?

Readers! You matter, too! Tagging your bookmarks is a great way to help people find fics. When someone searches for a tag on AO3, they can choose to look at Works or Bookmarks. By putting tags in a public bookmark, you can help people find fics (remember writers can see public bookmarks of their fics, but not private ones).

Using the Tag Search on AO3 is a great way to find out what tags are already there. Writers and readers, let’s make fics easier to find!

P.S. Because this is worth saying: tags are also a great way of showing courtesy in fandom, and we know readers also appreciate writers tagging which allows them to filter and avoid fics. Tagging really helps everyone!

Let us know in the replies and reblogs which Snape tags you love and look out for or want to see used more!

#snapefics #housekeeping

[wehavespikes]

I've been really into graphic design lately and I want to start! do you have any tips?

Hey, thanks for asking, I guess I do have some tips

• For absolute beginners I'd recommend first looking into graphic programs and finding the best fit for what you want to create - the adobe cloud is great but to start out there are many free alternatives. If you're into drawing as well I'd recommend checking out Procreate.

• Study the basics - e.g. look at the difference between vectors and pixel graphics, file formats (jpg vs png vs tiff etc.), look up different methods to cut out images as it's something you'll probably need at some point, and maybe also have a look at recent design or color trends (that's always fun, too). Also advisable as a beginner is to study general do's and don'ts (for example working with text, website design or layouting have some clear rules for what works and what doesn't - most people already have a sense of aesthetic but it's always a good idea to prevent creating some graphic design is my passion meme stuff, see r/crappydesign or the likes).

• If you want to create with the intention of publishing your works effectively on certain platforms (like Instagram) it's always clever to look up which formats work best (1080x1080 is standard square for Instagram for example). If you want to create wallpapers look up common sizes and set up your canvas accordingly.

• Find inspiration and ideas - of course you need at least a rough idea about what you want to create. I for example love all things 80s, so for inspiration I look up 80s media, technology, fashion etc. to find things I could incorporate in my designs (e.g. patterns, color schemes, shapes, fonts etc.). An amazing platform for this is Pinterest of course, but I also frequently use unsplash.com (free to use gorgeous photography that you can use right away for your designs), youtube (for tutorials mainly) and lots of tumblr blogs.

•  If you want to use photos make sure you know about copyright and fair use - platforms like Pinterest mostly feature copyrighted images, so never just use an image without considering this. Always ask first and give credit.

•  Watch lots of tutorials - in the beginning I had no idea about the capabilities of graphic programs and was often wondering how artists were able to create certain things. So of course you need to learn somehow and watching tutorials on youtube is a great way to do so. It’s also fun to just look through random design tutorials until the algorythm shows you something you really like and want to recreate or use for your own works. Like this I also learned lots of basics (advanced working with layers, clipping masks, transparency, layer styles, filters and all kinds of photoshop tools).

• Familiarize yourself with the graphic program of your choice. Check out which tools are available and try to use them. Experiment with shapes, brushes, text, gradients, etc. Set up your workplace according to your needs and look through all options, settings and tabs to see what your possibilities are. Play around with a photo and try to edit the hell out of it. Like this you’ll probably already find some tools or settings that inspire you and ways you might want to incorporate them into your designs.

• Recreate and adopt. Recreating artworks that inspire you or designing along tutorials is the best way to learn in my opinion, as it is with drawing as well. As you learn new techniques you can begin to incorporate more and more of them into your own artworks, your drafting process will change as you’re able to consider more ways to reach your design goal, and you will also gain lots of new inspiration as well. When I discovered the possibilities of layer mixing I began designing with them in mind and just playing around yielded some amazing results; I made note of my favourite styles and now am frequently using them in my designs.

• Draft and save inspiration. I always carry my sketchbook around and doodle things when I have a few minutes of time or when inspiration hits me. You often see things in the real world that strike you as interesting, so make sure you don’t forget about them later when you want to design. This can be posters, flyers or other design works but also nature, people, clothes, etc. Taking written notes also works great for me. For collecting inspiration online I mostly use Pinterest (create artboards for specific aesthetics and pin all images that fit and inspire you in some way so you can look them up later as reference), but I also have lots of bookmarks neatly organized to save images that aren’t on pinterest. I never just copy and save on my computer because I might not know who to credit later.

• Refine your own aesthetic, polish your artworks and take challenges. Try to design outside of your comfort zone (I’m really not a fan of working with Adobe Illustrator for example but need it a lot for my job so I decided to use it more at home for my own art and am now quite fond of some of the tools) and challenge yourself - e.g. you can try to design within a certain decade’s aesthetic, participate in online design challenges, ask for requests from friends or followers, etc. Keep up with design trends (especially if you’re planning to sell your artworks in some way at some point).

• Less is more. Edit edit edit. Something I still struggle with given that the 80s aesthetic I love always screams more is more. Train your abstraction ability (making pixel art or super minimalist things is a great way to practice). Learn what an artwork / layout / website etc. really needs and what can be scrapped. Don't be afraid of blank spaces. Never bedazzle just for the sake of filling space.

That’s all I can think of right now, hope this helps ♡ if you have questions about specific things you can always hit me up.

#ask #ty #♡ #design #graphic design #tips #ascz #wehavespikes