To Clarify About Fan Fiction

to clarify about fan fiction

to clarify something chuck said in post about being PRO FAN FICTION, some buds have asked if i misspoke when i said ‘fan fiction is part of the original art’. i did not misspeak. i really truly believe this.

if i write a story and you read it an this moves you to paint a picture of snabe and harriet porber, that WHOLE EXPERIENCE FROM ME TO YOU is its own mixed media piece. the medium is motion (getting up and getting the paints) visual (painting) literary (reading the book in first place and then writing your own commentary when you post about it later). it is drama and performance. it is meditation. it is dance in its own way.

i very much mean this: art does not begin and end on the canvas or the page. it is what you had for breakfast the morning you wrote those words, or the story that stuck in your head after watching a show the night before. art is the buckaroo who was moved to pen a whole five page romance story about your characters having a kind picnic in the part.

we are here to create as we push back against the blank empty void, and we prove love is real every time we fill this blank space with little pieces of us. i will not stand in the way of that, and it is an honor to fill this space with this web of inspiration from one bud to the next. ALL OF THIS TIMELINE is a piece and we are one big writers room. there is no shame in this and it is a group project i am proud to be a part of.

Was so baffled at people claiming there’s only porn on AO3, so did a quick stats search. 

This is how the ratings look at the moment of counting, over the total 9,3M works on the archive (9 380 645 to be exact, atm)

Explicit: 1 551 860 (16,54%)

Mature: 1 409 093 (15,02%)

Teen and up: 2 834 938 (30,22%)

General: 2 651 772 (28,27%)

Not rated: 932 982 (9,95%)

Even combined, Explicit and Mature works barely overtake the total percentage of T-rated ones. That’s the overall stats on AO3, but fandom to fandom the landscape would differ greatly, of course.

The Underage tag, which is used to justify the witch hunts against the archive as a whole, returns only 222 748 works (2,37%).

EDIT: Look at the follow-up to see the ratio of Explicit and Mature works that contain sexual themes.

If someone asks me if it’s okay to [swat/doxx/start a harassment campaign against] some group on the internet (usually racists, pedophiles, etc) my answer will always be no.

First, because bad things happening to bad people almost never makes the world a better place.

But more importantly, the internet is full of vicious little assholes who want to hurt people, and the second they get the impression that a certain group is fair game, they will stop at nothing to paint anyone they dislike as a member of those groups to justify their own bloodlust.

I refuse to enable that, even if the target is someone I happen to dislike.

i was piling ref into the corner of my image and it made a neat collage.

Things I wish people would put on their AO3 profiles

Where else can I find you?

Add your URLs! A lot of writers go by different usernames on tumblr or other social media, where they still talk about their fanfiction. I’d love to follow you and hear about your process outside of the finished fanfic you post.

This is how you can add a direct link on AO3: <a href=“URL” >blog title</a>.

Can I message you?

If you’ve added your URL, it would be awesome if you state whether you actually welcome asks or direct messages. People are shy! They need that extra encouragment to actually go ahead and interact.

Podfics and translations

The Blanket Permission tag is great but many people either don’t use it, think it’s too broad or don’t know what it means and thus don’t add it to their works. Firstly, what does “blanket permission” mean?

Basically, it refers to the fact that the author gives anyone the permission to go ahead and create podfics, remixes, translations, fanart, or even fanfiction of a given work. So if you just give “blanket permission” for that, people might go ahead and create any of the given examples.

More relevant, and something I’d love to see on AO3 profiles, would be whether people allow translations, podfics, and fanart. It can be something as simple as:

Blanket permission for fanart, podfic, and translate as long as you credit and tell me afterwards :D

Or you can also put up:

I do not allow any podfics or translations to be created of my fanfiction.

It’s good for people to know where you stand so they either know not to ask or what precisely to ask for.

Collections

AO3 Collections are amazing! People can just decide “Hey, I want to create a collection of Star Wars time travel fanfics” and you can go ahead and browse what is basically a mini library in a way that’s a bit more concrete than tag surfing at times.

It would be great if people stated on their profiles “I allow my fanfiction in collections” or “I will check out a collection before I allow my work to be added so it may take time”

And that’s it! Feel free to add more things you’d love to see on an AO3 profile. These are just main useful navigations that make interactions a lot smoother.

felt like recoloring this sketch of Vinnie, (age 27/ prns: she/her) 

the main human character in one of The Other Happy Place stories i’m working on

the green ribbon around her neck and going down her back, is a tattoo, and it is based off of the creepy tale/legend The girl with the green ribbon. 

There’s themes in the story about “losing your head”.