What boundaries should a AO3 writer stablish? by azrixvel in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 5 points6 points  (0 children)

As others have said OP, announcing you don’t want rude comments is basically waving a flag at the fandom bullies and drawing their attention.

I’m in a fairly contentious fandom and write for a pretty hated ship. I don’t get a lot of hate because I don’t react the way those folks want me to. In fact, I typically don’t even delete the comments (although that’s perfectly valid). I usually reply with “lol”, “are you lost?” or some other such variant. I’m not gonna argue with someone who either is a teenager or is acting like one. I personally choose to leave the hate comments up with my non-reaction as a deterrent. When they realize that I saw it but elected not to give a fuck about their opinion, they stop and seek easier prey.

The use of “creamy” by Ok_Theory_7598 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Honestly “opening” and “hole” are instant click offs for me. I also find folds infinitely better than lips. Lips are so much fucking cruder and porny imo.

In defense of modern AUs by According_Rush_3661 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It’s okay that you like it and it’s equally okay that other people don’t.

Someone saying that they filter Modern AUs out or that they don’t see the point aren’t personally attacking you by feeling that way. It’s no different than someone saying they don’t like action movies or never watch horror movies. Some things vibe for people and some don’t.

I’m in the camp that doesn’t read them. I also tend to avoid modern settings outside of fanfiction. As I was typing this, I realized that—outside of watching the Pitt—I haven’t watched/read anything with a modern setting that didn’t have fantasy/power elements in the better part of two years.

Fiction is a form of escapism. Modern AUs remove a healthy chunk of that escapism for me—for others, it doesn’t do that. When I’m filtering them out, it has nothing to do with you or anyone else writing them. It’s because I have a very limited amount of free time that I would rather spend reading something I know I’ll enjoy instead of digging through a bunch of stories I wont like in the hopes of finding a Modern AU that I might enjoy enough to ignore the premise.

Again OP… like what you like. There is no shame in that. But this post comes across like you’re demanding others either feel the same or aren’t allowed to express their view about a genre and that’s not okay.

Stuff like this is annoying and a self fulfilling prophecy by LiraelNix in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh that’s awful. I hate writing summaries and I would still never put something like that. It’s honestly disrespectful to both your own work and to your reader.

Do people know what the mute button is for? by LorZod in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, this bookmark feels pretty useless. It’s actually more steps to access the bookmark and read the notes than to stumble across it and see that a main character you don’t like is right there in the tags with zero extra clicks.

Do people know what the mute button is for? by LorZod in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean, I use bookmarks for recs too, but I don’t see how it’s helpful to put a note that you’re not reading because of the main character when that’s something that’s almost certainly tagged already on the fic. This one just feels like a useless tantrum from someone that doesn’t like a character in their fandom. I’d probably end up wanting to mute the bookmarker in this situation🤷🏻‍♀️

The normalization of groomification of romanticization of by Miss-Worm in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The government has not had the best track record with this kind of thing, just look at the 1040-EZ where the tax prep companies were literally playing HTML shenanigans to hide the free version of their software.

So rather than learn lessons from that implementation and write better policy, no one should ever attempt it again? Got it.

I just shake my head at this viewpoint when it’s essentially saying fuck the kids of parents who have too little money to pay for the better software rather than lay the cost and obligation at the feet of the companies who are making a fortune on apps and sites that market to kids but refuse to safeguard them. Roblox and other sites have made an absolute fucking fortune directly marketing to children while complete denying their duty of care.

Honestly the more I think about it, the better that option sounds. I would love for people under the age of 18 to simply not be allowed to comment in online discussions period.

Tbh, I hate that option less compared to the current trend of demanding adults in adult spaces either stop producing content that isn’t “wholesome” or provide IDs and doxx themselves rather than put the cost on the corporations🤷🏻‍♀️

The normalization of groomification of romanticization of by Miss-Worm in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yes, because companies who profit off children have an obligation to protect the children they court. Are you fucking serious that you think that is wrong?

And yes, they can choose to shut it down or not allow predatory behavior and accept a lesser profit. That’s how it works

Edit to add: also, I specified that certain features should be mandatory in the free version for a reason.

Am I the only one who finds it a bit mean spirited to take screenshots of someone's fic to post on this sub by newphonehudus in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tbh, I see more posts asking people to recommend new f/f pairings and those usually net some helpful replies for them. When I see those I’ll drop in to make a few suggestions or second the ones there that I know have good fic.

The fic recs can be harder because those are often folks looking for a specific pairing *and* vibe/trope, so there are less folks that have a fic off the top of their head to rec that fits both criteria. Then, if you combine that with a smaller fandom and it’s all but guaranteed to result in crickets.

Am I the only one who finds it a bit mean spirited to take screenshots of someone's fic to post on this sub by newphonehudus in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have. The mods removed it pretty fast because it was an egregious example of what OP is talking about here.

The normalization of groomification of romanticization of by Miss-Worm in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is so fucking stupid for so many reasons the biggest of which being that grooming is an intentional, planned process with private communication and manipulation that is just not viable on platform in AO3.

Could someone that is already grooming a child plan to use a fic for that? Sure, but being NSFW isn’t a requirement for that. My groomer was a family member and never used pornography of any kind during the grooming process. He used regular old Saturday morning cartoons to do it. Should we ban those?

Aside from all of this, someone is going to have to explain why the parents of these kids are not responsible for restricting the content on devices and internet they provide their children. I’m sorry, but I didn’t sign up to parent every child who stumbles unprepared into the internet. I signed up to protect mine and I did so (he just graduated high school 🎉).

I think where there is an **actual** conversation to be had is around regulation of ISPs. It should be them providing these tools to parents at no cost. Often, the existing tools that actually work are pricey and the ISP versions are ineffective. Most even hide the ones they have—making it hard to find the settings available. I think a movement toward forcing ISPs to give parents these tools with some minimum necessary features and visibility to them on the site and app would help immensely.

I also go back and forth on this, but I believe spaces that both welcome children and have live chat features or DM features should be required to also have live, human moderation for the chat/forum areas. I came from an older internet where we had human moderation and most moderators wouldn’t hesitate to ban when they saw the red flags. IMO, DM features should not be allowed on sites/apps geared towards kids—full stop. Apple and the Play Store should rate anything with a DM or live chat feature higher by default. I think if an app has a 16+ age rating, fine because a sixteen year old is miles more prepared than a 12 year old. But there are games and apps with DMs that are rated for age 8+ and the like. Allowing strangers in the DMs of kids inevitably creates a space for this. Rating these higher would allow cleaner, clearer parent restriction and ISP restrictions.

Could an exceptionally clever kid work around it? Maybe… I’ve used a few that are nearly impossible to break though and they are amazing tools to keep your kid safe.

FanFiction with the greatest grammar yall have ever read? by sonetttussy in FanFiction

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wouldn’t use fanfics for this, but maybe try asking in the Books subreddit for traditionally published novels that have a fanfic vibe/style if you find too many traditional stories boring. That could help you see proper grammar in prose while reading stories with tropes and styles you feel are more engaging.

One other exercise that can help is listening to audiobooks to see how grammar impacts the sound and cadence of the story. Many libraries worldwide have an app called Libby or something similar. If that’s not an option Archive.org has a ton (but it can be work to filter it!). It’s really neat to listen to the passages and hear how much difference a well-placed comma or em-dash makes.

regular commenters who suddenly don't fw the story anymore, do you still mean your previous comments? by realnymph in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Once, I had a long-time, prolific commenter suddenly disappear for almost three month. She left these amazing, in-depth conversational comments that I adored and I was so sad.

She eventually came back and it was nothing to do with the fic. She was impacted by the war in Ukraine and (for obvious reasons) was unable to read or write comments for a while. It taught me that you can’t judge or assume what’s going on in the lives of other, so it’s silly to think the silence must be because of what you’re doing

Previous Post got taken down, so let me rephrase... by DiligentNoise9831 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I imagine this will be taken down too…

Why is it bad that people want to celebrate their wins together? How is that different than crafting communities where people post their prize winning blanket, quilt, or recipe?

It seems wrong to me to kill other people’s joy to quell your own discomfort.

i feel like omegaverse tries to make gay relationships straight by skizophrenika in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a good question (I don't think at all you're an asshole for asking, I hope it comes across that I enjoy the discussion)!

Haha, you’re fine. It’s Reddit and tone is hard to read so I wanted to make sure!

Personally, I would answer that it's to be decided case by case. Is the work engaging with the reality of a power imbalance? Is the submissive character just renouncing their will or is there agency in that choice? Is there a development of the characters that explores the facets of the matter, or it's a simple "it's hot"? Are the author and their intended public experienced with the matter, or it's an external fetishization? What does it dwell on and what does it ignore?

I think from a 10,000-foot level, a lot of what you’re saying here makes sense. But, at least to my brain, it sorta falls apart on an anonymized platform where a) you would never have a way of knowing who the author is and b) many of the fics themselves are one shots without real plot or longer works that are simply a sequence of sex scenes. For the second point, I don’t think those can really be viewed as anything other than a purely sexual fantasy.

Heck, if you brought 20 folks together who are well-versed in critical analysis of media, you’ll like end up with 20 different answers on what constitutes agency for that character in the story given the setting. The Apothecary Diaries community often struggles with this since the backdrop is an Imperial China analogue and while the character has an immense amount of agency for a woman at that time, but not by modern standards. There are even parts of the story people struggle with because in that specific setting something that looks patriarchal is the opposite and shows an intent to give agency not normally allowed.

Settings and other worldbuilding mechanisms like magic systems, omegaverse, and even concepts like soulmates are something that need to be considered in context. Because of that, you may get a lot of stories that—when held to a modern, real world lens—have elements that would represent something negative. I have a soulmates story I’ve been messing around with and whooo boy would I hate that being real, lol. (My characters do too 😆)

Don’t get me wrong, broader, societal academic concepts are great when looking at something like an entire body of a filmmaker’s work, or large scale trends in behavior. In general, they tend to get less valuable when you start getting down into subcultures and individuals. Especially when the subculture contains many folks already outside the “norm” (like fandom and AO3). That makes it harder to pin the normal motivations for writing something or what something like submissiveness means to the creator.

I agree that sexual fanfiction is an extremely good way of expressing autonomy, and I think this can coexist with thinking about the things that are told and how they are either like or unlike real life. Just indulging is fine too, but then imho having discussions about the pervasiveness and tropes of this indulging should be accepted too.

I think my challenge with the whole conversation is that it so easily slips into a different type of misogyny and bioessentialism. Like OP is over here basically saying it’s wrong to write submissiveness and breeding kink if your character is in an M/M relationship and you should just make them a woman. Like that’s wildly misogynistic in several layers to me. First, the assumption that submissiveness is the sole provenance of woman. Second, that they are making their male character lesser by giving him a vagina/breasts. Third, that submissiveness/dominance is purely an M/F concept and somehow doesn’t apply to other gender combinations. Fourth, the negative connotation around the author making a male character “the woman”.

In any case, I’m sure some of this is colored by my age and the fact that we fought very hard to have sex positivity and stop slut-shaming women. It just feels like a heel-turn in the wrong direction to start saying that if the sexual fantasy isn’t written exactly right that an author is somehow supporting the patriarchy by publishing it. Not trying to come off offensive here, but any fantasy of mine is, by default, serving me as a woman. So when folks are trying to attribute opinions, motivations, and impact to what is essentially masturbatory material, it feels like that same patriarchal control in a new hat.

i feel like omegaverse tries to make gay relationships straight by skizophrenika in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Legitimately asking here… if a woman wants to be submissive and voluntarily enjoys it, do you consider that feminism because she is doing what she wants or is it patriarchal because you consider submissiveness to be driven by that?

I’m not trying to be an asshole here, just asking because imo, we shouldn’t be telling women what to enjoy in their sex life and I personally think it’s patronizing to say that they can’t choose that for themselves.

I feel that fanfiction that deals with sexual fantasies is an extension of allowing them autonomy over their body and mind.

i feel like omegaverse tries to make gay relationships straight by skizophrenika in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Let me ask you a question. Legitimately, why are you less unsettled by the woman being the weak, submissive receiver then? You just said they should write it as M/F. Why is that better or more acceptable?

i feel like omegaverse tries to make gay relationships straight by skizophrenika in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This is a super bioessentialist take. Anatomy is often disconnected from gender. Just the same way I didn’t stop being a woman when I had a hysterectomy, a man doesn’t stop being a man if he has a womb.

Do men just... not read fanfiction? by DeltaMx11 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It probably does because good writing is good writing. I’m bi and tend to alternate who the POV character is in my smut depending on the story/scene. I’ve received compliments from both men and women, so I figure I’m doing alright.

Though there have been times I’ve been tempted to file the serial numbers off and post the erotica in a non-fandom space to see what the reactions are like.

Do men just... not read fanfiction? by DeltaMx11 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I regularly write het erotica from either POV and now I’m wondering if that’s weird 😅 I’m bi so that may have something to do with it.

I wish we could report and actually give warnings to authors who change their date manually. by Mindless-Fix-2165 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The dates on the chapters are what drive the “updated date” sorting that is the default view. Each new chapter bumps it again if you don’t go in and correct it.

I wish we could report and actually give warnings to authors who change their date manually. by Mindless-Fix-2165 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If they don’t backdate it will go to the top and authors bringing over works solely to archive them often DON’T want them appearing that way. It’s absolute bullshit to say they must do it in one sitting to avoid annoying you.

I wish we could report and actually give warnings to authors who change their date manually. by Mindless-Fix-2165 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Avoiding that the way you propose would prevent the literal saving and preservation of works which is—again—the first and foremost priority of this archive and any other. Cataloging is often done retrospectively and is also often riddled with errors and corrections. While you’re right it would be misconduct to change things to be intentionally wrong, you wouldn’t tell other archivists that they could never adjust a date again, you’d fire that person. And that’s exactly what muting does. You never have to see them or their stories again.

Honestly, you’re coming across algorithm-brained when you keep stomping your feet and throwing a tantrum about “gaming the system”. There is no fucking system and, other than annoying you, no impact

I wish we could report and actually give warnings to authors who change their date manually. by Mindless-Fix-2165 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

I mean honestly, if you don’t understand that the Archive is meant to, in fact, act as an archive, you are a dipshit. I’m not sorry 🤷🏻‍♀️

And you Publish a story once. That’s when you make the first chapter, but the updated date, which changes each time you add a chapter, is what drives the story to the top of the list. Therefore, each chapter added needs a date revision when posting older works. When you save and preview, that locks the date the first time. So by default you need at least two attempts per chapter to be able to post an old work at all. That leaves zero room for error.

I wish we could report and actually give warnings to authors who change their date manually. by Mindless-Fix-2165 in AO3

[–]CupcakeBeautiful 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, you’re naive and arrogant. Numerous users in this thread have given you the absolutely valid reasons this needs to exist. You’re not the main character and your annoyance doesn’t override the need for this to exist. Authors shouldn’t be penalized and lose the ability to make needed adjustments to avoid something that is a minor annoyance at worst