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Do other writers ever get this like, hyper-specific dialogue exchange drop into their brains and you know exactly where these character are standing and what they’re doing and how they’re saying these words but that’s all you get. You don’t have much other context and this specific moment that exists only at this time in your headspace??

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this is purely for fun and I've certainly been guilty of a few of these things myself in my years of fic writing. don't be weird in the notes and don't use this as an excuse to insult someone's writing.

#using descriptions instead of names ahh #I'm definitely guilty of some of these though

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them being goofy jounin on goofy jounin adventures together

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the girls are READDYYYYYYYY

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Orochimaru got audited

A refund baby for @keepyourpantsongohan @kiro-sveta @uintuva

#lmao #please do audit Orochimaru he hasn't paid taxes in decades #more importantly mitsuki needs a new dad

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just sitting here thinking about how incredible kakashi was as a leader even though most people seem to think he was like a placeholder hokage until naruto took over

(spoilers for kakashi retsuden incoming)

listen okay he was hokage for at least 12 years and in that time he not only helped konoha to insanely technologically advance, teamed up with sakura to create a children's mental health clinic but also had time and dedication to develop jutsu that can overpower the element they're weak to

based on the novel, we know for certain that he created a fire jutsu that overpowered a ridiculously strong water jutsu and that he developed a way to make an earth wall resistant to lightning by turning the point of contact into crystal (it's also indicated that he's one of the only people with good enough control to do it)

without the sharingan sapping his chakra and training throughout his entire hokage tenure he also had enough power to hold up an earth wall thick enough to stop cannon fire around an entire village for two straight days

and after all that, he brought down a whole hoarde of hired shinobi non-lethally

kakashi never wanted to be hokage, he didn't think he was worthy of that title, but took it on because his comrades needed him to and believed in him

he dedicated himself to the position and made so much positive change for konoha and for the bonds they forged during the fourth war

people who think kakashi was just a nothing hokage warming the seat for naruto completely misunderstand who he is fundamentally as a person and as a shinobi

okay rant over lmao

#thank you! #he wasn't a placeholder he was marked as Tsunade successor through all of shippuden #this argument has existed since the moment he was announced like...10 years ago though haha

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Sorry for being such a slow writer, it's because I [remembers that self-deprecating jokes are harmful to my mental health and make everyone else uncomfortable] was attacked by dark spirits and washed up on the shore of a mysterious island with no recollection of who I was

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The fun will never end, it's...

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About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

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The 'write for yourself uwu' culture shift has done real damage to fic writers imo. I recently had a post on the importance of strategic commenting break containment and I'm surprised by how many strangers who rb it in agreement feel the need to reassure in the tags that they do write for themselves, but...

There is a kernel of truth in the heart of this sentiment--if you only chase stats, you are unlikely to find joy in your writing. At the same time, I think we've veered too far in the other direction.

It is only natural to want engagement and the write for yourself crowd often overlooks how communal an effort fic writing usually is. So many story ideas are born from casual discussions about h/c's and favourite scenes and what ifs and the comment box is a cornerstone of this process. Not only can the discussions in the comment box be a hub for idea generation on their own, but even when the said idea generation takes place in DMs or Discord chats, commenting is often the first/easiest way into befriending authors; it's where community building starts.

Further, the write for yourself crowd similarly overlooks that the things a writer can write for themselves are often vast and many at any given time, and relative engagement levels across fandoms/ships can play a large part in which of those ideas a writer chooses to pursue--or whether they choose to publish their finished work at all.

In sum, I don't think we need to be this apologetic as writers for wanting feedback and engagement for what we post -- writing is hard work and it's only human that we want something external out of it in turn, however rewarding the process might intrinsically be.

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Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

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I read the newest post-timeskip Boruto chapters and I can only conclude Sakura and Kakashi have gotten lost on vacation somewhere or are both comatose because why else wouldn't they try to help Naruto and Sasuke

#sorry I forgot people over 40 and housewives don't have autonomy #I respect that juggling so many superpowered characters must be hard AF #but just forgetting they exist is the laziest choice lmao #I'm not mad about hokage!shikamaru but ehhhhh #apathy abound #if the manga did actually acknowledge them somewhere I'm happy to stand corrected #vaguely anti-boruto so I won't tag this #I should spare myself and just not read boruto sjdhak #leave it to those who do appreciate it

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Buen día estrellitas. Bendiciones.

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One of the best tips for writing descriptions of pain is actually a snippet I remember from a story where a character is given a host of colored pencils and asked to draw an egg.

The character says that there’s no white pencil.  But you don’t need a white pencil to draw a white egg.  We already know the egg is white.  What we need to draw is the luminance of the yellow lamp and the reflection of the blue cloth and the shadows and the shading.

We know a broken bone hurts.  We know a knife wound hurts.  We know grief hurts.  Show us what else it does.

You don’t need to describe the character in pain.  You need to describe how the pain affects the character - how they’re unable to move, how they’re sweating, how they’re cold, how their muscles ache and their fingers tremble and their eyes prickle.

Draw around the egg.  Write around the pain.  And we will all be able to see the finished product.

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save me early spring sunshine

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writing fanfiction is just. i’m being so creative and original. i’m plagiarizing everyone by accident. i’m a genius. i’m cringe. i’m too angsty. i’m too cheesy. this is not in character. it doesn’t matter that it’s not in character because these are my characters now. i love my hobby. this is the worst possible use of my time. i’m seeking validation. i’m projecting my own personal problems onto this story and i’m barely hiding it. i know so many words and i’m using all of them wrong. im on tumblr posting about it instead of writing it.