#the relationship we can have with these films and this fantasy AND our own real lives can be so so deep if we let it

[bl00dw1tch]

.

#horse.txt #theres still time for things to get shitty so im going to keep my voice down but. the way things are looking? #lowkey thinkin the Avatar haters are gonna be on the 'wrong side of history' in the future #if it turns out as amazingly as it sounds like it will--bro. its just. oUGH! #i literally Cannot Fucking Fathom how ANYONE can watch these movies and not feel moved. and not feel intrigued. and not Like Them #the flaws are so few are far between and yet deeply threaded into the story enough to almost be ADDRESSED? by the story??? #its a masterpiece. its a masterpiece! #its wishfulfilling and beautiful and heartbreaking and tragic it is at the moment to pinnacle of what storytelling could be #the relationship we can have with these films and this fantasy AND our own real lives can be so so deep if we let it #i dont understand what could bring someone to hate it #i mean i guess i CAN but. i dont know. i guess i just wish we lived in a world where everyone felt like they were Allowed to enjoy it #bc it always seems like the hates comes from a moral stance of 'the movie portrays harmful concepts that we shouldn't watch Ever' #--even if theyre Condemned #im just really excited man. i wish i had more ppl to share this joy with sfdfdygg frgd....

[kanmom51]

Jungkook 28 Feb 2023

*Disclaimer:  this post is written by an opinionated blogger that usually is not afraid to speak her own mind.  I say it now and I also repeat it throughout the post – these are MY opinions, my thoughts.  You can agree or disagree.  Just don’t be an ass about it!!

Cr./ to all the creators of the media used in this post.

28 Feb 2023 started out as a lovely quiet peaceful uneventful day.

Until it was no longer peaceful and uneventful, cause Mr. Chaos himself, a.k.a Jeon Jungkook, decided it’s time to liven things up.

28.2.2023 at 13:31 SKT Jeon Jungkook started a live.

*Anecdote time:

Just for a second here, before I go into the live, I would like to talk about the coincidental numbers playing here.  Yes, we have another coincidence.

From the date:

2+2+2+2=8

8+3=11

8/11

You can also go with:

2+2+2+2+3=11

And the extra 8, bringing you to the same place:

8/11

Oh, and the time: 13:31 – 2 thirteens, mirrored (well the numbers are).

So, yeah, again, one of those strange coincidences that kind of keep happening time and time again with those two.

Moving on to the live itself. 

This time it was on the shorter side, just under 30 minutes, JK letting us know in advance that it probably would be, as he had to leave for work soon. 

And yet, he decided to do the live cause he was bored (and even though he hasn’t washed up yet either, a piece of information he shares with us later on).

J-Hope and JM showed up at the start, in the comments, once again.  JK with his “oh, J-Hope” reaction and his special “JM’s here” one including his unmissable JM smile.

JM's last comment was Hyung is going to a shoot (filming), as in JM is.

And a special prize goes to JK's very special JM smile.

Now, I know there was a whole wave of (add annoying voice effect here): “JK asked JM and Hobi how they are doing” and “JK told them to be well”, followed by, of course: “boo to you, you lose, that means JK hasn’t seen either of them for a long time” and “clearly JK hasn’t seen JM for a while now, heh heh heh, we win”.  If only you could see my rolling eyes at this point.

So, as usual, idiots will be idiots, and of course they twist things up to suit whatever and whichever narrative they want at that moment in time (cause the narratives, they keep changing as well, like constantly). 

I will start by saying that even if that WAS the actual translation or WAS what JK was saying, then: SO WHAT?  In what world can we not ask our significant others how they are or tell them to be well during the day, even if we saw them off to work that very morning?  I mean in the actual living long term relationship world and not in the “we don’t have an idea about what a real relationship is and live in fantasy” world that is.

But you know what?  We didn’t even have to go there, to that real life relationship world.  Because JK, he wasn’t talking to JM and Hobi at that point. 

He was talking to bloody army.  Pity these ‘army’ didn’t realise JK was asking them how they are and to keep well.

So this is how it went down:

JK sees Hobi and JM.  He reacts the way he does (you know, JM smile and all) and then says “it’s nice to see the members”.

Then he moves on to that Japanese word they were commenting about.

And only after that he goes on to say:

“Yeah, everyone, be well.  Are you doing well?” followed by: “I’m growing my hair.  What do you think?”

These 4 short sentences were all connected. The “everyone” is meant for us, the viewers.  I also have to ask, do these idiots think the question about his hair was also meant for Hobi and JM?

Later on, around the 6:54 min. mark he once again asks: “everyone, what are you doing?” was that for JM and hobi as well?? She asked sarcastically…

Before I go on, and because I need to calm down for a second, can someone tell me please….

Is this person real????

Is it actually legal?

Ok, moving on…

JK telling us he doesn’t want to wash up, too lazy, and asks who wants to help him.  Lol, JK, you don’t ask your fans something like that.  I bet that ring at the door was someone coming to help you out… (I don’t believe I’m laughing about that, it was probably a bloody sasaeng…).

But you know, that “I’m too lazy to wash up” did sound a little familiar.

So, let's remember for one second a certain other who stated just that, and a clear solution to it all.

JK explains Bam is in a new training centre, but also that he hasn’t been well.  It seems this is an ongoing issue, well a few issues (stomach, spine, skin).  Poor Bammy, and poor JK too, he does seem really worried (Bam post will come…at some point…I promised and I will deliver).

He talks a little about the new centre and explains that they have camping options on site, and that:

“We’ll gather around all cozy and nice, and drink some beer”.

I’m kind of wondering if this translation is accurate and if it is, then who the “we” is that he is referring to.

JK talks about going out for drinks with friends the night before the live.  He also talks about having a full pork belly delivered and grilling it, so now the whole place smells of meat (me asking: do they not have proper ventilation in the kitchen in such a high end apartment?).

JK says he made himself a hearty meal, but couldn’t finish it off, as his stomach shrunk.

Ahm, yeah, frown.

Editorial:

I, as opposed to those that think JK is great, happy, doing well, don’t think that at all.  I think he is going through something.  Maybe, as a very good friend of mine called it yesterday, a quarter life crisis.  But he’s not ok.  And him calling himself lazy, which he does after saying he doesn’t want to wash up and will someone come help him, and before saying “I don’t want to do anything”,

doesn’t explain it all away.

It doesn’t explain this, for instance, assuming this translation is correct:

Yes, I think Bam’s health is weighing on him.  But I think it’s more than that too.  He told us in the previous lives that he hasn't been working, although he hasn't finished his album yet. There was also a sense of loneliness, talking about how quiet the place is without Bam (read between the lines too). It probably isn't easy for him this new reality, in which he's separated for long periods of time from the person he has been practically connected at the hip to for almost 24/7 almost 365 days a year for 10 years.

That’s my gut feeling.  You can take it or leave it. 

One good thing I did notice and am happy about is that he has put on some weight again.  That last live at the gym, his jaw line, he was unhealthily thin.  Evidently (by him), he’s eating again, so that’s good.

End of editorial.

At this point JK moves on, to the thing that he feels most at ease with, and that’s singing.

He sings “To find you” – a beautiful love song.

A song he says he’s heard recently.  I’d say more than heard once. 

He KNOWS the song. 

And this isn’t the first time he’s singing this song either.  I’d go so far as to say JK knew the lyrics off by heart, well at the very least some of them.  He clearly likes the song. 😊

He starts singing and stopped by the door bell ringing (well, probably not door bell, more like downstairs entrance).- that’s when he doesn’t recognize whoever it was and doesn’t let them in.  He looks at the camera and then comes back to us saying he doesn’t let in someone he doesn’t recognize.  He giggles after saying he should sing a bit quieter, but then he looks back at the monitor (the door monitor), he does that again mid song.  It felt like he wasn’t at ease then, which does makes me think:  sasaeng?

Side note: love the way he just climbs and jumps over the sofa. Not first or last time we'll see him do that in this live, lol.

JK goes back to sing the song.

1st time:

JK sings the song twice, cause the first version felt to him like it wasn’t heavy enough, the backtrack.

Mid 2nd performance he goes, well jumps over the sofa, to fetch another mic, and then continues to serenade us with the 2 mics.

2nd time:

Then he does a Jang Beom June song.  A couple of times, first his version, then imitating him, well trying to in any case, lol.

After those performances JK asks for song recommendations.

And then comes the second bell, and JK talking to whoever that was (from the company probably, because he straight away tells/warns them he’s doing a live).

JK then comes back to explain about a garbage disposal unit that isn’t working (not him causing the damage – but why would that matter if the apartment was his?) and they are coming to take it away.

JK ended the live.  And us mere mortals were sure that’s the end for today.  We got to enjoy our boy.  And when I say boy I mean young man (it’s just enjoy our boy rhymes…shoot me…well actually please don’t, but that’s what you get from someone that has year 4 level poetry). 

JK came to be with us at a normal time of the day, when we are actually still awake (and when I say we I mean me of course), even though he was supposed to be getting ready for work.  I mean, he kept saying on repeat that he was bored and that’s why he started the live, but dude, you have to get washed up, dressed and off to work in no time, so you do a live?  Not that I’m complaining…

But low and behold, Mr. Jeon Jungkook decided that the 28th of Feb 2023 (you remember 8/11, wink wink) is going to be a super dramatic day, and approx. a couple of hours later, Mr. Jeon committed the mortal sin of obliterating his IG account.  Wiping it out.  Deleting it.  Even deleting the app from his phone (his words).

JK came to us a little after that heinous and deliberate act to tell us:

Whoever thinks JK doing this, including letting us know he deleted the app, is not a statement, well idk what to say to that.

Why he did it, only he knows.

Do we take what he said at face value?  We can.  But then, if we think that they tell us everything without embellishment at times or without omitting at times, then that would make us super naïve.

My thoughts?

This is something JK said during the live (again, assuming Weverse translation is correct):

And yes, it was said in the same context of him getting ready, washed up, being lazy.  But it means more than just being annoyed at having to get ready. 

His words:  “annoyed with everything…”

So my thoughts are that just like JK didn’t tell us all the story with the J and M tattoo, the placing, the connection, the meaning, he didn’t tell us the full reason for him deleting his 52 million follower JK branded IG account.

That just like we didn’t take what he told us during the Vminkook live in LA about how he would go to JM’s room 3 times a day because JM’s room was the closest to his, at face value, I don’t think we should with this either. 

And these wouldn’t be the first or last times we’ve been told partial stories/ partial truths, parts of the stories being omitted or maybe even changed to suit our ears (cough hickey cough).

So, I believe this is bigger than just JK being bored with the app.  Also the him being stressed by IG theory is not one I go for, as this was something we were told back in May 2022 when he deleted all his personal posts and turned the IG account into pure business/professional.  Again, back then, in my opinion, not divulging the actual reason for doing so, but it doesn’t take too much to understand what led to it, including the timing of it all.

Just like JM (since around mid 2022) this account was used mostly for promotional purposes only (with a couple of exceptions for JM).  When they had something to promote they posted on IG, otherwise they didn’t.  And he could have continued doing that.  No pressure what so ever. But he decided out of the blue, or not so out of the blue really, to end the game (pun intended -  end game, you know…).

Does it have to do with the invasive video of his posted on IG just a few days earlier?  Does it have to do with the dating rumors circulating?  Does it have to do with his friends/colleagues/and friends of friends being harassed on IG by TKKs and possibly other fans?  Does this have to do with companies following him to get traction and free publicity (cough CK cough)?  Is this some kind of defiant act against the company, a rebellion of sorts?  There could be 1001 reasons why JK did what he did, we will probably never really know why.  But in one sweep of the finger JK deleted a buying force of over 52 million. 

And yes, JK’s brand hasn’t been ruined, it’s not about his brand, it’s about how the company will use that selling power, how they are supposed to reach the audience.  That was one of the biggest reasons the company set up those accounts for the members.  Not out of the good of their hearts.  Not because they wanted to give them a way to stay in touch with the fandom.  MONEY folks.  It’s always about money.  And big money at that.

The IG accounts were there for promotion, for staying in touch with the fandom on a personal level (sells more) now that they were doing their solo acts, but also a lot of money exchanged hands when they opened those accounts (and I'll leave it at that). 

There are those that say “well BH have their own IG account for promotions”, and indeed that’s true.  But be real people.  It lands different when the company is posting and when the idol himself is.  It’s more personal.  It’s the idol himself reaching out to the fans saying “look, this is what I’m up to now, please support me”.  That by itself generates more sales.  But also, the idol posting a pic of himself in a Dior outfit – everyone running to buy Dior.  With no IG account where will said pic be posted?  Weverse?  Twitter? Not every IG follower is an actual fan of BTS.  Many don’t even know what Weverse is. IG at this point has a wider reach than Weverse does.

What I’m saying here is that this action has financial consequences.  And JK knew that.  Stress or no stress, this is something he knew the company would not be happy with.  Because this isn't a decision that affects him alone. It's a decision that affects the company as well. And he did it anyway.

Good for him.

Whatever the reason behind it.

Be it retaliation for his breach of privacy.

Be it a defiant act against the company.

Be it both and more.

Good for him.

I just hope, as impulsive as he is, that he got some form of legal advice prior to doing so, because this could definitely be in breach of contract, something that could have real consequences for him.  This is not going live when told he shouldn’t or without staff present.  This is big.  This involves a lot of money.  This might very well be him breaching a clause of his contract, requiring him to take part in whatever promotional activities the company deems necessary.  And we don’t know what that contract looks like, but I do know that some contracts have set penalties for parties breaching this clause or another. 

All I’m saying here is that it’s not as simple as pressing a delete button. There are complex issues here.

This is an action that can have consequences for JK if this is a step too far as far as they are concerned.

I guess we will wait and see how things work out. 

Will JK keep in touch with us via Weverse?

Will we get more lives from him? And if so, how often? 

Will these lives be from ‘home’, given what he told us in the past about permission from the company?

One thing I’m also curious about is where to now?  Does him deleting IG mean he has no brand deals in the horizon and/or no solo releases planned any time soon?  I'm not going to ask the next question that comes to mind. I think there are quite a few that have thought it already. And I don't think the answers are as cut and dry as some might think. All I'll say is, god I hope not.

I will end this post with my wishes:

I wish for JK to find his way if he is feeling a little lost, be happy, be content.

I wish for all the obstacles that stand in their way as a couple to just fuck off, including effing military service.

And if ms doesn't just disappear, I wish for it to pass as fast as possible and for us to be on the other side of it all. Them and us.

And if I'm already wishing for ms to be over, let's wish to be on the other side of the rainbow and meet them all healthy and happy for Festa 2025 and a comeback.

There are a few other wishes I'll keep to myself, you know, like win the lottery, for one...

I would wish for world peace, and end to racism, bigotry, hate, homophobia, transphobia, and all that crap, but let's be real here, I might be delusional, but not that delusional.

#Jungkook #JK #JK Wlive #JK live #JK IG #Jikook #Kookmin #Minkook #JM #Jimin #Youtube

[filmstudentrambles]

Saltburn and the Liberal Myth that Rich People are Bumbling Idiots 

“If you could press a button that would give you a great deal of money, but it would cause someone you don’t know in a distant part of the world to die, then you would have a good model for how our current economy works.”

-Welcome To Nightvale episode 105

Saltburn (2023) is another quirky ‘eat the rich’ movie that is entrenched with liberal myths. The most predominant myth being that rich people are simply stupid and confused. That naivety and simple-mindness leaves them vulnerable to being exploited  punished by the clever, lower-class protagonist. Like other ‘eat the rich’ movies including The Menu (2022) and Parasite (2019), Saltburn plays into the ridiculousness of wealth disparity. The Catton family lives in a giant estate, while protagonist, Oliver Oliver, presents himself as solidly lower-class. Every shot of the Catton’s sprawling estate seems to say, “Look! All this wealth and lavishness, it’s SO excessive! The Catton’s don’t need this much! They don’t even know how to use it correctly.” That’s the liberal fantasy that ‘eat the rich’ movies love to parade out. Wealth disparity isn’t the problem, the real class issue is that some people don’t deserve the wealth they have.

There is this idea that rich people are naive and out of touch. Their sheltered lifestyle prevents them from developing the shrewdness and ‘street smarts’ of poorer individuals. That people who earn their wealth are good and noble, but their children are now lazy, selfish snobs. This idea that those who start from a place of poverty and oppression can rise above and become a member of the wealthy ruling class is truly one of capitalist Amerika’s most devious lies. It protects the current system from meaningful scrutiny by falsely implying that anyone can become rich and that those who become rich deserve to be rich. It ignores that fact that the wealthy ruling class only achieve their status through the oppression of other people. It implies that those who ‘do their own dirty work’ are good, but those who have since become removed from it, by being born into wealth, are bad. The issue, of course, is that this level of wealth disparity is bad regardless of how one achieves it.

Saltburn (2023) presents human relationships as transactional. Further positioning it as a truly liberal film which cannot imagine a world without capitalism. Barry Keoghan offers an unsettling portrayal of the film’s protagonist. Perhaps the audience’s unease at Keoghan’s performance comes more from seeing themselves as Oliver, rather than Keoghan doing anything actually disturbing. To see plainly, how every relationship Oliver has is superficial and cultivated purely for personal gain is upsetting for those who cannot imagine their existence outside of capitalism. The horror comes from knowing that there is something wrong, but not having any solution. For Jacob Elordi’s role as love interest and son of the wealthy elite, Felix Catton offers a nice contrast to the repulsive desperation that Oliver exhibits. Felix exhibits the cool, sophistication that the wealthy elites are known for. A kind of swagger that only comes from power that poorer folk will never possess. However, Elordi is conventionally attractive and Felix comes across as charitable, and that excuses the major character flaws we see unfold throughout the film.

None of this is to suggest that Oliver is a good person. The film’s ending reveals just how opportunistic Oliver actually is. This revelation weakens the film overall and undermines anything that might have been accomplished earlier. The film spoonfeds audience a play-by-play of how the events actually unfolded. Even without this hamfisted ending, the film falls flat. What is the purpose of Oliver? What is the purpose of this portrayal of rich naivety? The scenes of shocking depravity seem unmoored. As though the creators of this film wanted desperately to say something of substance but couldn’t come up with anything.

Like most ‘eat-the-rich’ films, Saltburn crumbles at the end because what is there to say if one isn’t prepared to actually confront capitalism? Saltburn wants to be a scathing criticism of the current system, but it doesn’t. The film does not examine the relationships between worker and capitalist, between rich and poor, between Oliver and Felix, in any meaningful way. Saltburn provides some shocking sequences and a promising plot, but has all the revolutionary power of liberalism. 

#saltburn #film analysis #liberalism #wealth disparity #eat the rich

[thesihaya]

indigenous rep in modern media sucks and we really need to talk about it.

trigger warnings include: rape, violence, abuse, slurs, and general bigotry against native people

let’s start with the most (in)famous example of indigenous rep in modern film: pocahontas.

pocahontas is the most prominent modern native character and she is terrible, terrible representation. if you’re a part of the native community, i’m sure you’ve already heard of this. but in case you’re not aware, pocahontas is based on a real girl named montauke who was only 11-12 when she was taken from her home, raped. abused, and later forced into marriage with john rofle who she even had a child with. pocahontas was not even her real name, it was a nickname. disney took this story and turned it into a love story between a native girl and her colonizer. even if it wasn’t based on a true story, it’s still incredibly disrespectful and set many terrible stereotypes for native peoples and characters that are still present in modern media.

here is an article on the historical inaccuracies of pocahontas - https://www.theindigenousfoundation.org/articles/the-true-story-behind-disneys-pocahontas

now let’s move onto the general problems pocahontas created for not only native characters, but native people in real life.

pocahontas sends a bad message to not only young native girls, but all people of color by romanticizing a relationship between a woman of color and her oppressor. i’m aware this trope was around before pocahontas, but it was popularized by this movie, and the effects of it are still around to this day. popular examples of this trope are —

the second big problem with this movie is it’s portrayal of natives. the character of pocahontas is basically a walking “magical native” stereotype who talks to animals and communicates with spirits. it’s also important to note how the designs were clearly designed by a bunch of white men who probably did little to no research on natives. sadly i’m not surprised because this isn’t the first time disney has done natives wrong. i’ll save that for another post though.

now let’s get to the sexualization of pocahontas. as i said in my last point, pocahontas was clearly drawn by white men. pocahontas is hardly 18 in this movie yet she’s drawn as a typical white mans fantasy. she has big lips, curves, and long flowing hair. she has next to no native features of the time. of course natives features can vary, but her design makes absolutely no sense considering the conditions and living state of natives in the 1600’s. this is already bad enough on it’s own, but it’s especially bad considering the true story of montauke. a girl who was raped was romanticized and turned into a sex symbol centuries later…

one of the other effects of pocahontas i don’t see many people talk about is how it popularized halloween costumes of native culture (where the sexualization continues). do i even have to explain why this is terrible? OUR CULTURE IS NOT HALLOWEEN COSTUMES AND WE ARE NOT ITEMS FOR YOU TO JERK OFF TO.

last but not least, let’s talk about how it affects natives in general. as a native person, i have been compared to pocahontas my whole life. it’s easy to write it off as harmless jokes or remarks, but i believe we should call this behavior out. these “jokes” are not only in horrible taste, but they’re deeply harmful to the indigenous community. the name “pocahontas” is one of the most common insults for native people.

all this stems from one film, a glamorized & romanticized adaptation of a real girl’s story. to even call it an “adaptation” is a stretch. this film is an insult to the indigenous community and everything our ancestors went through.

#pocahontas #anti pocahontas #disney #anti disney #indigenous #indigineous people #indigenous awareness #native american #awareness

[eat-men-like-air]

Supercut, the only song ever

Melodrama as an album is bare chested and open faced. The song Supercut serves as a thesis statement for the album. It's hypnotic and dizzying, the haunting echoes, the arrangement of the snares and the tongue pops, the song is glamorous and traitorous in equal measure. Even though the song has a cinematic polish, Lorde's vocals really bring the uneasiness of a lost summer to life. The bridge is mutated to sound refractive, as if played from a speaker that has survived a nuclear explosion. The chorus is deceptively addictive and the drums are crisp. The lyrics are not sweet, they're not sad, there's something genuinely young and scary and difficult happening in them. There are things it wants to say and things that it can't say and some of those things are the same and that's something that haunts the listseners.

It's hard to grow up, it's hard to be a teenager on the cusp of realizing that summer is over, this is the last time that things feel safe. This is why I love melodrama, it makes the most personal experiences feel universal.

Supercut as a song is a literary enshrinement of the concept of nostalgia.Nostalgia is the heart's way of reminding you of something you once loved and no matter in what form it comes back to you it always leaves a bittersweet taste.

Amidst all the declarations of love, the song gives us a stark warning of the danger that comes with dwelling in this land of fantasy for too long, a harsh reminder to embrace our real life with all its flaws instead of reflecting back on your life and only wanting to replay that one film reel of the moments you spent with the person you no longer share that deep bond with. The conversation with that one person felt so absorbing so easy that the rest of the world just disappeared into the background. The flow of time never felt linear, seconds and hours became interchangeable. But deep down at some subconscious level you knew that this effortless kinship was not meant to last.

The protagonist of this song finds herself going back to the time she spent with this person over and over because of her love for narratives. There's times when our own stories pull is into depths of misery, her film reel traps her in patterns of behavior that draw her deeper into despair, she makes empty promises with herself thinking that surely, the narrative will be reclaimed by her again, even when we all know by listening to the desperate wailing in the song that the best option for her is to pack her bags and pick up another quest that gives her a narrative to romanticize. Reminiscing over their time together is the only thing that continues to give her life a semblance of meaning.

The bittersweet aftertaste of the song reminds me of the closing line of Dostoevsky's white nights "my god, a whole moment of happiness, is that too little for a whole of man's life?" This small drop of romantic or platonic relationship is the sole moment around which her life revolves.

In my head I do everything right

When you call I forgive and not fight

Because ours are the moments I play in the dark

Wild and fluorescent come home to my heart

These lyrics cement how in a relationship you will feel like you are experiencing a physical and emotional contradiction. There is disappointment next to admiration and anger alongside love. Wanting to make things right but knowing there's no way you can undo the fallouts. When you can't let yourself see that person from the perfect angle but only from over the shoulder because every full glance reminds you of all the ways it could've gone right, all the ways you could've been someone they might have loved. But still knowing that having that psychopathic mutual admiration last only for a day is better than to have never experienced it at all.

#lorde #can you tell that ive never gotten over anything in my life #melodrama #supercut #pure heroine #solar power #ella yelich o'connor #song essay #just girly things #girlhood #girlblogging #im just a girl #desiblr #lyrics #writblr

[puffpasstea]

if you’re still taking requests, do you think you could do a dom/sub piece after Alice and harry become bf/gf? Maybe a punishment or something? So curious how their dynamic would be! Your writing is incredible btw

Hi babes!! Thanks so much for your kindness and for the request! I tried to do something slightly different here, to show their new dynamic, but I’m not sure if it worked or not. So would love thoughts/feedback. Hope you like it! Let me know what you think!

warnings: smut, angst, dom!harry. ——

My relationship with Harry may not have been my first ever relationship, but it certainly felt that way. It was my first adult, long-term relationship. And it was the first time I ever felt genuinely in love with the person I was with. So, everything we did together felt meaningful and special. Especially the first few months. 

The first time that we had sex as a couple, I was an emotional wreck. I’d expected it to be just like all the other times that we had hooked up in the past. But Harry was gentle, sweet, and took his time. He went slow, held me close, showered me with love. Of course he was still Harry. So he made a few silly jokes, smugly reminded me that he can now finally make love to me. Breaking my old rule. 

The intense emotions this induced overwhelmed me. I had no way of navigating through them, as he whispered “loved you from the moment we met. You were always more than sex to me. You’re so perfect,”so I attempted to shut them down. Urging Harry to go faster, harder, to ignore me or be mean. But he only wrapped his fingers around my neck, whispering in my ear that he loved me, wanted me to feel good, wanted me to look him in the eyes so he could see the pleasure I was feeling. Afterwards, he held me to his chest, reminding me that I don’t have to pull away anymore, that it’s his job to look after me now. The release was intense. Physically and emotionally. I sobbed into his chest, but that didn’t seem to faze him. Falling asleep in his arms, and not having to rush out in the morning, or kick him out in the middle of the night, or sneak away before he could wake up was the greatest relief I’d ever felt. 

Our first date was similarly perfect. Almost disgustingly perfect. We dressed up. He brought me flowers. Held doors open for me. Blushed as he flirted, touched my hand gently over the dinner table. Even though it felt like we already knew each other, he insisted that he was doing this “the right way.” Not just for the good of our relationship, whether we break up tomorrow or get married ten years from now, he wanted me to always have this memory as a standard for how I should expect to be treated my a partner. He was unbelievably sweet. I couldn’t believe that perfect moments like this were happening to me. That I got actually experience them. I’d always assumed that love like this only existed in the fantasies of naive adults who had never struggled a day in their lives to know what the real world was like; or in escapist romcoms that were written to be detached from reality and make you forget the cruelty of your own life, if only temporarily. I was never a fan of such fantasies because I always felt like the unrealistic expectations they set only ever ended in disappointment. Not to mention the heightened pain of realizing that my life will never even come close. Suddenly, here I was, living the fantasy. It was unsettling. But you’d be surprised what humans are capable of getting used to. 

Maybe it was the distance. Harry always traveling meant that we could only be together a few weeks at a time, most of the year. Especially if he was coming out with new music, touring, or promoting a film. So, whenever we got to be together, we tended to stay in our happy, little bubble. Savoring every moment, avoiding arguments, sweeping any conflicts quickly under the rug so as not to “sour” the precious time we have left together or waste it on fighting. Things seemed to be wonderful. That is until Harry’s tour ended, and he was finally home. Indefinitely…

***

I woke up in the morning, my heart skipping a beat when I remembered that Harry was home, smiling to myself, I reached over to his side of the bed with my eyes still closed, attempting to pull myself closer to him. My arm landed on empty bedsheets. I felt around for him, but his spot was cold. He’d gotten out of bed a while ago. 

My eyes fluttered open, gradually adjusting to the sunlight peering through fabric of the curtains. Looking around me, the state of the bedroom reminded me of last night. The empty plate on the nightstand had contained the aftercare snacks that Harry had hand-fed me as I laid in his arms, half asleep, barely feeling my legs after the number of orgasms that he’d coaxed out of me. The bottle of lube and nipple clamps on the floor were self-explanatory. My fingers subconsciously ran over my breasts, checking to see if my nipples still hurt. Only a little bit. But the memories made me miss Harry’s body on top of mine, his warmth wrapping us both, his hands around me, whispering encouragement into my ear, “it’s okay, darlin.’ It’s okay to let go. Go on; I’ve got you…you look so pretty when you cum, you know that?” Fuck, I wanted him. Where was he, anyway, and why wasn’t he here right now, holding me the way that he did last night? He usually woke me up with a cup of coffee in bed. It was my favorite thing about waking up every morning. Hearing his voice gently drag me out of sleep, feeling his breath on my face as he’d give me a morning kiss and wait for me to sit up before handing me the mug. Waking up without him was awful in comparison. 

I got out of bed, too impatient to make the bed, wash my face or get ready for the day before I ran downstairs to find Harry, my feet sliding across the stairs dangerously. An involuntary smile took over my lips as soon as I spotted the back of his head. He was sitting in the living room, with his laptop on the couch, typing away. I expected the loud noise of my footsteps to be enough to alert him to my presence, but he didn’t move. 

“M- umm- good morning.” I cleared my throat, my voice still strained from sleep. 

It took Harry a moment, but he eventually turned around as I approached the couch. I could see him more clearly now. His hair had been styled, he was in a hoodie and his staple ripped jeans, his glasses on his face. He looked so good and comfortable. A contrast to the way he had looked last night without his shirt on, his taught muscles flexing as he thrusted into me, his face flushed, meaning in pleasure. The memories replayed in my head again, I bit my lower lip and I swear I felt my thighs clench together. Gosh, the things this man does to me. 

“Oh, hey Alice.” He mumbled, sparing me a glance before going back to his laptop. 

Alice? He almost never calls me that. Had I done something wrong? Had I upset him? I squinted, watching his face for further signs. He did smile at me, briefly, but it took him a while. Like his face had needed to catch up to his brain, or something. A small hint of almost imperceptible anxiety began to creep into my body. Something doesn’t feel right. If it weren’t for the computer in his lap right now, I’d be sitting there, making him kiss me. I thought for a moment before it occurred to me that I still had access to his cheeks and lips. Hesitating slightly, I shrugged off my doubt and went in for a morning kiss. 

“Hi.” He smiled as we pulled away, his dimples flashing. I felt him relax into the couch. 

Okay, maybe things were fine. I perched on the couch next to him, sliding myself under his arm and snuggling into his side as he’d returned to typing. His hoodie smelled of to tobacco, ginger, and vanilla. His signature cologne, no doubt. My mind had come to associate that cologne bottle with warmth and comfort. Harry was ingrained into my subconscious. He smelled like home. We were definitely in it for the long haul. I sighed audibly, closing my eyes, and feeling his chest rise and fall steadily as he breathed. 

“You sleepy?” He asked. 

“No, no. Just…love you.”

“Hmm.”

What, no ‘love you too?’ I guess I was back to worrying. 

“So, have you had coffee yet? I could make us some. It’ll be my turn this time.” I pulled away from him to watch his face for a reaction.

“Hmm? W-wait what did you ask?” He finally stopped typing long enough to look at me. 

“I asked if you wanted some coffee.”

“Oh! Oh, no. I’m all good I’ve already had some.” 

“When?” I didn’t expect that declaration to sting as much as it did. Not only had he not brought me coffee this morning, he’d had some without me. 

“Before I went to the gym.”

“You went to the gym?! When did you do that?”

“What’s with the interrogation, Alice? I went while you were asleep.” He went back to typing once again. 

“Not Alice!”

“Pardon? What’d you say?” He wasn’t even listening. 

“N-nothing.” 

I got up, looking back at him, waiting for him to ask where I was going, but I’m not even sure he noticed that I’d left. I considered going into the kitchen and getting started on breakfast, but I really just wanted to spend time with Harry. I turned around “S-so, what’re you working on anyway?”

“Hmm?”

God, he has no interest in my presence at all. Giving up, I left him to his work and went to get started with my day. 

***

That evening, we had plans to have dinner with Jeff and Glenne. When we arrived at the restaurant, Jeff informed us that Glenne had been feeling under the weather and decided to skip dinner and get to bed early. It was just going to be the three of us. I didn’t mind it too much. I’d developed a certain degree of tolerance for Jeff since Harry and I had started officially dating. He was important to Harry, so it was important that I got to know him. Plus, I really liked spending time Glenne, so it worked out fine. But, the problem with tonight was in the fact that Harry was still being weird. He wasn’t returning any of my regular gestures. In spite of myself, I’d grown accustomed to his normal displays of affections. Even in public, and whenever we were around his friends, Harry always had a hand on my thigh, held my hand in his under the table, or wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to him. Tonight, he wasn’t doing any of it. In fact, he and Jeff had fallen into talking about work, and his arms were gesticulating wildly as he explained something too technical for me to understand and asked if Jeff had gotten his email from this morning. In other words, his hands were nowhere near my body. 

I felt cold and small. I wasn’t sure if it was just the air conditioning vent blasting directly onto my exposed neck, or the fact that I’ve craved Harry’s touch all day. It was certainly, at least a little bit, to do with the fact that I felt like I’d done something wrong. Ever since this morning, the guilt has been growing in the back of my mind. The worst part of it is that I felt guilty without knowing why. Perhaps he’s grown sick of me. Perhaps our honeymoon phase is over. Maybe being at home together 24/7 has finally shown him what kind of person I really am, and he’s having second thoughts about us being together. The idea of Harry no longer wanting me terrified me. I got up, and went to the bar to order a drink. 

***

I was a few drinks in, my surroundings felt fuzzy, but the gentleman across the bar from me had a nice smile, I let him keep the refills coming as we made conversation. He seemed to find everything that I said completely fascinating. 

“You teach college students? That’s so cool! How many students do you have in your class?” 

I blushed at the thought of anyone taking an interest in what I do; let alone a complete stranger who had no obligation to listen to me ramble about my job. 

“Like 20 in each. I only just started, so I have to teach three courses. Most established professors will only teach two per semester.”

“So, you’re young then.” He had a hint of something in his voice. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It felt like that statement was saying more than referring to my relative youth in my field of work. 

I leaned in closer to him, brushing a stand of hair from my face. Whatever I’d been ready to say in response went flying out of my mind as I felt a tap on my shoulder. 

“What’re you doing?” Harry’s green eyes were staring down at me, a firm and withholding expression on his face. He wrapped an arm around my waist announcing that “we’re leaving.” Placing a few hundred dollar bills on the counter, he gestured for the bartender to keep the change and walked me out. 

I felt suffocated by his hold. “Get off me!” I shoved him, or at least that was the intent, but it felt like he had shoved me, I could barely stand on my own two feet after pushing that much force into his chest. Harry, on the other hand, barely felt it. He grabbed ahold of me again, stopping me from tripping over my heels and crashing to the floor. 

“You’re drunk.” He said through gritted teeth, guiding me to the car and helping me inside. 

***

The car ride was quiet. In fact, we didn’t even speak at home. We both got ready for bed in complete silence, occasionally crossing paths at the closet or the bathroom. Harry was already in bed by the time that I was ready to crawl in next to him. Seeing me come in, he sat up in his spot and watched me slide under the duvet. 

“Care to explain yourself?” He folded his arms over his chest. 

“‘Bout what?”

“I thought you hated drinking. Thought it made you anxious. So, what’s up with all of this tonight?”

I shrugged, looking down at my hands as they clung to the duvet. 

“What’s going on with you?” Harry wasn’t letting go. 

“N-nothin,’ Harry. Just thought I’d try something new.”

“And you chose drinking and cheating?”

“Well, I’m not wasted! And what do you mean ‘cheating’ who’s cheating?”

“Honey, did you not see how that man was looking at you? And you didn’t seem too mad about it either. You were flirting with him all night! I watched you!”

“Oh, so you do care what happens to me, then? Okay, good to know. Cuz I wasn’t sure about that, to be honest.”

“Alice, what on earth are you talking about?”

“It’s not Alice! Okay? It’s not! Stop calling me that. It’s MATILDA!” Tears rolled down my cheeks, I hid my face in my hands, turning away from Harry and sobbing loudly. I felt pathetic.

“B-baby, what’s the matter? Why’re you crying?” Harry’s voice was softer now, I felt his hand squeeze my shoulder, a shudder traveling down my spine. There was the touch that I’d longed for all day. Harry noticed the goosebumps on my skin and rubbed a finger across them. “Honey, are you cold?”

I didn’t budge. Not because I was trying to be stubborn but because I knew that if I tried to look at him or talk to him, I’d just keep crying. 

Harry sat closer to me and pulled me into his chest with one hand, using the other to pull the duvet up and cover me with it. “There we go. Should warm you right up.” He rubbed circles into my back. “Please talk to me, my love. What’s made you so sad?”

“You!” I blurted out before I could think about my answer or attempt to stop my crying. 

“Me? What have I done?? Hardly said two words to you all day.”

“Exactly!”

“Sorry, what? I don’t follow….help me out here.”

“You’ve been pulling away. We’ve been…falling into a routine. I- I just- I think maybe you’re getting too used to me. I’m not exciting anymore. I’m not shiny and new. I- I wanted to be new again. I wanted you to remember why you’re with me.”

“And you thought the best way to do that was to go spend time with another man?”

Harry’s logic had made my feelings seem like a gross overreaction. I knew I wasn’t the healthiest partner, but this was embarrassing. 

“Yes! No! That part wasn’t- I didn’t-“

“Didn’t what?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I think maybe that part was about more than that. I- you’ve been weird all day. I hate that. I hate feeling like I’ve done something wrong.”

“No, I haven’t…, baby, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You didn’t wake me like you always do. You didn’t bring me coffee like you always do. It’s not that you didn’t have time or you were busy. You made the coffee. You actually made it. You just decided to have it by yourself instead. Without me. You haven’t hugged or kissed me all day. Every time that I’ve tried to kiss you, you’ve been cold. Going through the motions. Just waiting for me to get it over with. You haven’t even looked me in the eye! When we were out, you- you didn’t hold my hand under the table like you always do. Didn’t pull my chair out for me like you always do.”

Harry’s face was twisted in unease but he listened to me rant without interruption. Even when my tears fell again, he breathed and silently waited for me to carry on. 

“If I’ve done something wrong then just tell me! If you’re sick of me then dump me! Please, just dump me and put me out of my misery. I hate this. I hate being treated like this. Makes me feel like I’m a teenager right back in my parents house. Like their love is conditional and I have to earn it by being interesting all the time. I don’t wanna lose you like I lost them. Just toss me aside if you’re done with me. Let me go cuz if you’re just waiting around for me to do it…I won’t.”

Harry’s lips interrupted my crying by kissing me. His kiss was demanding, intense, breathless, he wouldn’t let up, and when I tried to pull away, his hand on the back of my neck pulled me back in. 

 He tore himself away, hesitantly when his lungs had run out of air. Gasping for breath, he mumbled. “you’re so dumb sometimes.” He laughed. 

“W-what?”

“Falling into a routine in a relationship is a good thing. It means it’s getting real. We’re past the fairytale phase. We’re getting into the real life stuff now.” 

I hadn’t thought of it that way. 

“And, for your information, I didn’t bring you coffee this morning because I didn’t wanna wake you. I didn’t wanna wake you because we went to bed real late last night. After the things I did to your body, I thought it deserved some rest and recovery. Woulda stayed in bed with you like I always do, but I had an early meeting this morning! With the label. About starting my next album. Was gonna surprise you with a couple of song drafts if you’d given me a chance to actually finish drafting them before you woke up. Do you hear what I’m saying?  I’m saying I wasn’t intentionally withholding my affection from you as a form of punishment or warning that you were no longer interesting to me! The fact that you’d think that about me is…honestly concerning.”

“Harry-“

“But that’s not what hurts me the most.”

“It’s not?”

“What hurts the most is that, instead of talking to me about how you feel, you not only jumped to conclusions, but went ahead and found someone else to spend your time with. What- were you trying to prove that you’re still attractive? That you could replace me if need be? Or were you trying to make me jealous?”

“I’m sorry.”

“We have rules about communication for a reason. Do you know how much easier this whole thing would’ve been if you’d just talked to me instead? We’ve had this conversation before! Haven’t I always asked you to be honest with me?”

I nodded, too timid to speak. I uttered an apology too meek to be heard, but the sympathy in his eyes let me know that he knew I didn’t mean to hurt him. 

“I fucked up. Like I always do. I….deserve a punishment.” I announced. 

“You do. But not tonight.”

“Why not?! Please, Harry-“

“Won’t do anything with you tonight. Not after you’ve been drinking. For now, you’re gonna spend the night in the guest room. I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

“No, please- Harry, please. Anything but the guest room. Please! Wanna be with you. Want you to hold me, please?”

“If you’d chosen to talk to me like a real human being, maybe we could’ve done that tonight. We don’t get to though. Cuz you ruined it for both of us. Now, off you go.”

***

The next morning, I woke up to Harry knocking on my door with a tray full of food and coffee, alongside it some painkillers and his weird green sludgy hangover concoctions. 

I was feeling pliant and submissive after spending the night alone, thinking about his words, and wishing he were with me. I hardly slept, knowing he was a few feet away from me, knowing that I had hurt him with my actions, and mostly worried that I was too fucked up and broken for a healthy relationship. I felt terrible and wanted nothing more than to make it up to him. I wanted to sink to my knees and beg for forgiveness, to kiss him from head to toe, to tell him to be patient with me as I work this out. I was one stern look away from sub-space, so I did exactly as he told me and waited eagerly for his gentle touch. 

“You feeling alright?”

“Mhm. A bit nauseous but I’m okay.” 

He smiled, handing me the omelette he’s made. “This’ll help. And take those pills after.”

“Yes, sir.” Slipped out of my mouth without even thinking. I reached for the coffee instantly, welcoming the taste and comfort it gave me. 

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. For everything. Last night. And being mad at you. I’m sorry.”

“We’ll see about that.” Harry winked at me, taking his own coffee mug and sipping on it. 

***

We spent the morning together, mostly Harry making sure my hangover doesn’t take over. I let him fuss over me though, only because I wanted to be near him. I was feeling needier than I knew how to admit, and I didn’t exactly know why. But having him order me to hydrate every hour at least gave me the reassurance that he wasn’t angry with me and that he still cared about my well-being. At least I hadn’t completely ruined our relationship. 

We eventually parted ways to get to our own jobs and we met back at dinner. I made all his favorite foods, still attempting to apologize and make it up to him, but we both knew that I wasn’t going to relax until he’d punished me, so, when, after dinner, he told me to go upstairs and strip naked, I almost tripped over my feet running into the bedroom. 

***

“You know I love you right?” Harry’s hand ran up the sides of my body and settled around my neck. “Cuz I’m about to hurt you like I hate you.” So, tell me. 

I struggled to get the words out, and not because he was lightly choking me. The words felt too presumptuous. Like I hadn’t earned the right to say them, but I didn’t want to upset him any more than I already have. “I- I know- you love me, sir.” 

Harry smiled, amused. “Good. Your safe words?”

“Green for good to go, yellow for slow down, and red for stop completely.”

“Good girl.”

Harry spun me around so I was now facing the wall, my hands resting against it for stability. He kicked my legs open. And warned “stay still. Don’t you squirm.”

“Yes, sir.”

I could hear Harry make his way around the room behind me, but I couldn’t dare turn around to see what he was doing. My breath grew shallow in anticipation, my skin tingled. Finally, I heard the rustling and movement of the metal buckles on his belt and braced myself for what I knew was coming. 

The leather of the belt crackled in the air and hit my skin. I swallowed a moan, squeezing my eyes shut and breathing heavily. 

I heard Harry hum in satisfaction at my stillness. 

“T-thank you, sir.” I croaked out, feeling grateful that he was even giving me the chance to make it up to him. 

“Well, that’s  polite of you.” I heard the surprise in his voice. “Won’t make me go easy on you though.”

“P-please don’t, sir. I deserve it-“

My words instantly vanished when the next slap of the belt sucked the air right out of me. 

“Yes, you do.”

Harry delivered one hit after the other, I’d lost count, somewhere after 23, as my head got fuzzy and my awareness of my surroundings began to fade. It was difficult to tell if it was the pain blurring my mind, or the flood of pleasure and submission overwhelming me as I sunk deeper. It gradually became impossible to keep perfectly still, and I was now whimpering and crying, as softly as I could. I still didn’t want to make it difficult for Harry, but I could no longer contain my cries. 

I have no idea how many hits his belt had delivered before I heard it fall to the ground and felt Harry’s hand between my folds.

“You’re wet.” He said, kneeling between my shaking legs and running his finger between my lips. “You seem to be enjoying this punishment a little too much.”

I didn’t know what to say. My body has spoken for me. But it felt disrespectful to acknowledge it. I wasn’t supposed to be having fun right now. This wasn’t about my pleasure. At the same time, I always liked everything that Harry did to me. 

“N-no, sir. I-uh” Harry’s damp fingers had found my clit, gently rubbing it in circles and making me moan. 

“Sure sounds like it, puppy.” He laughed. 

“I-I would never enjoy you being angry with me, sir.”

“That so?” 

My legs were shaking as Harry continued to rub between my legs, I was so close to cumming, but I didn’t think I’d be allowed to. 

“F-fuck, sir-“

Just like that, Harry withdrew his hand and replaced it with a kick from his shoe-covered foot, hitting me squarely in the middle of my cunt. 

With a guttural grunt, I fell to my knees.

“Pathetic.” He shook his head. 

Over the next few minutes, Harry delivered a few more kicks, alternating in pattern and pace to keep me guessing. By the end of it, I was a sobbing, wet mess. 

“Up on your knees, c’mon.” 

I pulled my face off the floor with whatever strength I had left as Harry came closer, his crotch at eye-level with me. I knew what was expected of me in that moment; he was already unbuttoning his pants. I found it difficult to stay balanced on my mushy knees, so I leaned on his legs, nuzzling my face into his thigh and breathing. 

“You alright, my love?” 

I nodded. 

“What’s your color, Alice? Give me a safe word, honey…”

“G-green.” I mumbled after a long pause. Harry wasn’t buying if. He placed his hand on his thigh next to my face. “Take my hand. Squeeze it if you’re good to keep going.”

“I-I’m okay, sir. Just weak.”

Harry laughed. “We’re nowhere near done. You wanna stop here? It’s okay if you want to tap out.”

“N-no, no. Please. Punish me, sir. Please. I- I wanna do this. I can take it. May I suck your cock?” My shaky fingers grabbed the waist of his pants to pull them down. 

“Hey, hey, hold on a minute. Look at me.”

Harry’s eyes studied my face discerningly for a moment. “Alright, go on, then. Do it.”

I pulled Harry’s pants down, and took his hardening cock out of his boxers, wrapping my lips slowly around his tip, his moans a pleasure to my ears. 

“May I touch?” I mumbled around him, my voice on his tip seemingly amplifying his pleasure. 

“F-fuck- yes. Yes, you may…ahhh, that’s a good girl. Just like that.” I wrapped my hands at the base of his cock stroking him in sync with my tongue. Harry’s hips bucked involuntarily, pushing him further into my mouth, causing me to gag. 

“Easy, easy, just breathe through it. Good girl. Get it nice and wet.”

The more I could hear his high pitched moans, the more eager I was to go faster, harder, make him cum. But Harry pulled himself out of my mouth, causing me to whine, and , upon losing his stabilizing presence, I almost fell flat on my face before he grabbed me. 

“Sorry, sir. Uh, my knees-“ 

I felt harry’s arms lift me off the floor as he stood up, carrying me to the bed. 

Tossing me onto the bed so I was laying on my back, Harry pushed my legs apart, lining himself up with me and thrusting in smoothly. 

“Fuck, you’re wet. And tight. Feel so good, baby.” 

All I could do is whine and cry. 

“No cumming!” He warned as he felt me clench around him. 

“N-no, sir. Won’t cum without permission, I - I- ahhhh - promise.”

“Good girl.”

Harry’s thrusts got sloppier and harder quickly, I could tell that he, too, was close. 

“Can- can I come, sir? Please?”

“No.”

“Please, sir. P-please. Don’t think I can hold it much longer. Don’t wanna do it without permission, please.”

“Hold it. Hold it, or so help me god, Matilda!”

I felt my chest bubble with relief, tears rolling down my face.

“S-sir, please?”

“Shut up and take it like a good girl.”

My cunt was already sensitive and bruised from his earlier kicking, it was now unbelievable sensitive.  I screamed in pain every time Harry pulled halfway out only to thrust harder again and again. 

“H-hold- please, hold my hand, sir? It’s too much. I- I need…please hold my hand?”

He contemplated it for a moment before relenting and taking my hand in his. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Harry smiled at me. “You wanna come? Hmm? I’m gonna count down, okay?”

I nodded vigorously, almost crying with gratitude. 

“Three”

He thrust in all the way.

“Two”

Another thrust. 

“One.”

He pulled all the way out and stroked himself to his climax, finishing all over my stomach, and leaving me empty, clenching around nothing, my orgasm ruined. 

“It hurts- sir. Ow, really really hurts.” I broke down sobbing. 

“You’re not cumming for a week.”

#Dom!harry #Harry styles #Harry styles smut #harry styles blurb #harry styles angst #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x oc #dom!harry styles #dom!h

[bengiyo]

Our Skyy 2 x The Eclipse Ep 1 Stray Thoughts

I am unreasonably excited to see Akk, Ayan, and company again. I loved The Eclipse, and continually lament the shortened episode order on the back half. I wanted Golf to complete all of their ideas, so I’m hoping that this gets them a chance to finish. Still, First and Khaotung like working together and care a lot about each other, so I’m excited to see them get to play at boyfriends together for a fun outing.

This is week five and the intro song is not growing on me.

I know we’re all going to make a lot of Brokeback Mountain references, but the first meeting is giving Big Enough.

Of course it was another Akk dream sequence. They’re never letting us live that down.

Love that we are calling out the film directly. Akk is correct. The ending is too sad. If you think Brokeback Mountain is too sad, I urge you to see the director’s (Ang Lee) earlier work: The Wedding Banquet (1995).

Ayan is so cheesy in a way that really works for me. He’s one of my favorite BL boys because he’s grounded in the unfortunate real trauma of losing gay elders that were important to you. He responded to that by loving Akk loudly and directly. Even as he delineates what a place and a space are, he takes the chance to flirt with his boyfriend.

Okay, I don’t normally want to question production decisions, but camping equipment can be so heavy in bulk. Why are they eating on heavy ceramic plates and drinking out of glasses, but they’re sitting on camping chairs and using a foldable table? Also, why is this grill so close to their tent? It’s dangerous to leave food preparation so close to your sleeping area.

Ayan definitely knows about Akk’s birthday, and likely already has something planned. I think he’s teasing him to see if Akk will bring it up on his own because Akk consistently struggles with expressing what he actually wants.

Golf has so much to say in their work. This quick debate about how much, how often, and how hard to care about others feels like a deep meditation upon which we’ve not even scratched the surface.

Nobody told me we was frolicking!

It’s 2023 and we all verse now! I see what they did with that rider conversation.

Oh, I just got sad that this might be the last time we see Neo and Louis paired.

Pawin stays busy, let me tell you. He’s 3/3 right now with Our Skyy 2.

I love seeing work from filmmakers who love film. Golf going out of their way to highlight and bring attention to the Thai Film Archive warms my heart.

Fun fact: Khom Khongkiat, who we are familiar with for his work on KinnPorsche and The Promise and the role of Uncle Tong in Bad Buddy, was a screenwriter on Ong Bak.

Ong-Bak, but make it gay, was not on my bingo board for Our Skyy 2, but it probably should have been.

I see we’re still doing the Wat and Teacher Sani plot.

Everyone clearly had such a fun time making this fantasy sequences calling back to classic Thai film.

I know we’ve seen Mork’s actor before, and it’s bothering me that I can’t remember where.

Look at Wat starting shit. First, encouraging this split, and then making them sleep apart. I’m here for this drama.

Genuinely loved the cross-cutting between the pairs talking about their relationship problems. Not sure if the translation of Akk feeling like Ayan only focusing on himself is coming across clearly to me, but I am reading it such that Akk feels that Ayan is not sensitive to the way his actions and words impact others.

I’m okay with how often they’ve been taking off Neo’s shirt.

I like how unsubtle the political themes are, and how they’re being expressed textually through the couples’ current tension. It works for me because these issues do cause problems in people’s real relationships.

So glad this show got to do product placement this time.

I need Akk and Ayan to talk to each other properly. They’re both so stubborn and tend to dig in their heels.

I really like the way Neo and Louis kiss. Excited to see Neo in Only Friends.

The fake moons in BL always bother me.

First and Khaotung are so good at yearning at each other, but I am worried about Akk and Ayan long term. I don’t think Akk was wrong to talk about how he feels like he gets pushed around by Ayan.

I am so glad to be back with these boys. The Eclipse had some really clear ideas in it that are still present here, and I’m always happy to see Golf continue to work out their ideas in their fiction. Can’t believe I get to see them again tomorrow!

#our skyy 2 #the eclipse series #the eclipse meta #thai bl #bl series #Ben watches

[smww4ever]

The Nephilim and Damsel in Distress Tropes

The Nephilim Trope and The Damsel in Distress Trope

This is the driving mechanism behind the Superman/Lois relationship and why it's been in the forefront and psyche of our comic pop culture for so long. You often hear of their 80-year romance and how that itself confirms it's virtue. Understand that yes his creation was based on Moses, a savior to the Hebrews and his creators were Jewish. The humble origins of this character gave hope to the creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. It is my understanding that the Lois Lane character was inspired by a dominant female person in their lives. Think it was a spouse or a real-life feisty reporter. Either way, Superman has evolved over the decades in the Silver Age, Golden Age, Post-Crisis, Infinite Crisis, New 52, Rebirth comics even in the Snyder films, he mirrors a Christ-like figure in scene motifs of the church and space by sacrificing himself.

Yet his story plays out more as a Nephilim type. It is sold as that in the Rebirth and TV shows where he marries a human woman and has children with her.

As a god from heaven that fell for a human woman and saves her. For some this may sound romantic which is why these types of stories are repeated over and over again. People romanticize something greater than themselves. They are stories that rescue them out of futility. Unfortunately for the story of Nephilims was not a good one. It too originates from Old Testament times where angels who’s job was to be watchmen over humanity decide to leave their posts and have sexual relations with human women. This in turn produces giants or men of reknown like an alien-human hybrid. They weren’t good but evil.

Angelic Heroes and Wings

I explored this concept of angelic heroes in a previous series which is why I decided to put wings on Superman. And Wonder Woman as well. Her wings were different from the golden eagle armor costume. Even tho one rendering made them look like it. The intention was angelic wings. I extended the wings to bring in the Greek myth of Pegasus in a later series. (The AI struggles with it in some cases so I made edits as best as possible).

Let me be clear, I don’t see Superman or Wonder Woman as evil beings. The wings truly represented them as angels that save and help mankind. Which is why when I saw that concept being copied on IG by other AI peeps, they weren’t doing it because of this reason but because it looked cool and would garner them likes and clicks. I found it especially repulsive when they hashtagged their work with “SuperLucifer”. I hope you understand why I was pissed. But IG is rampant with intellectual theft. Heck Mark stole the idea for FB so this spirit carries on. Reddit has numerous horror stories. I've done makeup blogging and photography work, so I have horror stories of my own.

But back to why DC dropped SuperWonder. The Nephilim myth carries weight in popular culture. Kal and Diana almost mirror a “Zeus and Hera” dynamic. In one way, yes they are like gods but you don’t want them as that couple. Zeus was a philanderer.* Which is another aspect to this why you see people say they don't like it because they would be overpowered. Humanity at it's core is selfish and easily threatened. People who say stuff like this, whether consciously or subconsciously see these characters as "golem" meaning they are mythical beings that should serve humankind only. That they should be centered around a single human love interest or they will go off their leash, off the rails and destroy everybody. It's a strange fantasy. Almost like a psycotic desire to be saved and destroyed by the same superhero. We really have issues with ourselves. Frankly I can understand this, the world is so messed up. The Nephilim and Damsel-in-Distress is a bubble that people want to run to. They don't want mature stories. And DC isn't capable of that. They have a formula like a cookie or fried chicken recipe and they don't want to muck it up. In the case of Gunn, they want Marvel's recipe but I don't think the seasonings pair well with the offerings of DC. Time will tell but the whole thing stinks. Trust your nose guys. Some of you are hip to senses like smell. :D

* I also should say that being the SMWW pair are equals, they could be new Zeus and Hera creating their own new pantheon of gods. But there can be so much more to that. They really are made for each other.

Also wanted to add that again DC isn’t as creative as they think they are and are scared of this couple. Easily manipulated by rabid "Nephil-Damsel" fans on X. Every time I look at my feed, it's back and forth war between Snyder and Gunn fans. Knowing that they just do that to farm impressions to get paid makes it all the more vile when you look at it. It would take time to shift the general population over to seeing SuperWonder as a viable couple. It's so ingrained in the movie and comics world that when you see Superman, you automatically think of Lois Lane. Many consider it abhorrent to think of this character with anybody else. So much so that they've lifted Miss Lane up to a level of godhood. This Nephilim trope also applies to Wonderbat. Bruce is a mortal albeit heroic man. Diana is a demigod/goddess. That doesn't work either because I've explored explained that in another post.

Really the only way is Kingdom Come but with who we have at the helm of DC, I wouldn’t be holding my breathe.

I've worked at Cons. I've seen the people who create the comics and the general vibe. Our whole society is shifting into dark areas and comics reflects that. We've gotten The Boys, Brightburn and even the Snyderverse is considered "dark", so it's not surprising that the Gunnverse is promising to lift everyone out of that abymssal void to a form of inspirational, fun heroism. Snyder should have finished his verse, it's just going to. be another gaping hole like SuperWonder is. Marvel and many other cherished properties are experiencing an erosion in interest and fatigue from the general audience.

There would need to be a serious paradigm shift to get people to see SuperWonder. Part of the reason why I did an exploratory in the AI with Diana and Clark which we have never seen in any live-action. And I say see SuperWonder because I was a Superman-Lois fan, I consumed, watched repeatedly all the shows and movies. (Except for Smallville and new show Clois show, couldn’t get into that). I immersed myself into that but felt that something was amiss. I don't even remember when I saw Superman and Wonder Woman together but it clicked and made complete sense. Like scales coming off the eyes. Seriously. I respect differences. My daughter isn't a SuperWonder fan, but she supports me and will wear my art. It would be great to call a truce between the two ships but that might take a while. That takes maturity and right now there isn't much of that going around.

Until next time… ✌️

#SuperWonder

[chattingwiththelightkeeper]

What Is Your Favorite D/S Movie?

Do you have a favorite movie that delves into the world of Dominance and Submission (D/S)? I certainly do, and for me, it's the 2002 film "The Secretary." But that is not the only cinematic exploration of this intriguing theme that has captured my attention over the years. Today I will share my top three favorites, each offering a unique perspective on D/S relationships and dynamics.

Before we delve deeper into our cinematic exploration of D/S relationships, it is important to remember that all the movies

mentioned in this list are works of fiction. While they may offer intriguing insights and thought-provoking perspectives on the topic, they are ultimately products of creative storytelling and artistic interpretation. Real-life D/S relationships, like any other, are highly individualized, consensual, and should always prioritize the well-being and consent of all parties involved. It is crucial to approach these films as a form of entertainment and not as educational resources for understanding the complexities of real-world D/S dynamics. Always seek accurate information and engage in open, honest, and informed discussions when exploring such topics in your own life.

1. "The Secretary" (2002)

Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, "The Secretary" is a groundbreaking film that explores the world of BDSM and D/S relationships in a way that is both captivating and thought-provoking. The story follows the complex relationship between Lee Holloway (Gyllenhaal), a young woman with a history of self-harm and emotional turmoil, and her enigmatic boss, E. Edward Grey (Spader). As Lee becomes Mr. Grey's secretary, their professional dynamic takes an unexpected turn into the realm of BDSM.

"The Secretary" is a film that does not shy away from the intensity of BDSM dynamics. It presents them with depth and relative authenticity, portraying the emotional complexities that can be involved. Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance is exceptional, earning her critical acclaim and making this film a standout in the D/S genre.

2. "Belle de Jour" (1967)

Directed by the legendary Luis Buñuel and starring Catherine Deneuve, "Belle de Jour" is a surreal exploration of the secret desires and fantasies of a young housewife. Séverine (Deneuve) leads a seemingly conventional life with her husband but harbors hidden desires and a fascination with submission. She embarks on a journey of self-discovery by working in a high-class brothel during the daytime while her husband is at work.

"Belle de Jour" is a visually stunning and psychologically complex film that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. It delves into the themes of power, desire, and sexual exploration in a way that challenges societal norms.

3. "A Dangerous Method" (2011)

Directed by David Cronenberg, "A Dangerous Method" explores the intellectual and professional rivalry between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), with their relationship further complicated by the introduction of Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a patient who becomes entangled in their world of psychoanalysis and, indirectly, their own D/S dynamics.

The film delves into the intricate web of power dynamics, both in the field of psychology and in personal relationships. "A Dangerous Method" offers a unique perspective on how dominance and submission can manifest in unexpected places.

Now, I have shared my top three favorite films that incorporate D/S themes. But I am curious to know what yours are!

Have you seen any of these films, or do you have other favorites that have explored D/S dynamics? Share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below. Let's open up a conversation about our favorite portrayals of D/S in cinema and discover more kinktastic gems together.

If you enjoyed this, I invite you to give my podcast a listen 'Chatting With The Lightkeeper,' a top 25% most-followed podcasts on Spotify but available on all the major podcasting apps and follow my socials for more exclusive content: Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) for a deeper dive into the wonderful world of D/S.

As with all of my thoughts, please see this disclaimer.

©TLK2023

#bd/sm community #d/s community #bd/sm lifestyle #Kinky Movies #The Daily D/S #my writing

[species-id]

[Donated essay. Anon. ]

Yknow, maybe an essay, mb a rant but yk i want out of nonhuman content that isnt writing so bad? You SEE the things we deal with daily. Urges, and how they color our lives how maybe a crow says i dont feel human at all and it us SHOWN how its urges color every aspect of its world including its dating life, how it gives shiny things to its trans crow partner, how they make it work and how they caw or give preening gestures to eachother. This is what they all call cringe, but its reality, and i dont see why visual arts can beautifully portray that. Not for the masses. Fuck the masses. Give me a good transspecies indie film. A sunlit park, its golden hour, a trans-macaw female meets up with her best friend, another femme, trans macaw. Theyve had nonhuman relationship tensions, yes-- but they admit their love with their own mating gestures. imagine those scenes in shows full of human body language that just goes over me everytime, but avian mating gestures embedded in this everyday life scene-- because we know that its how things are for some of us. What if we could have visual art for once that doesnt use facial expressions the typical way, vocalizations the same way heck, gift giving and this entire usual thing we see in visual media for humans, heck, i would nom that shit right up. Give me the weirdest ones, so i learn what insects go through, invertebrates. The fluffy, the scaley, the feathery, the swimmily. Im tired of seeing human relationdhips in human worlds, or fantasy nonhumans in fantasy worlds. We are real and we are Nonfiction, even if theres dragons. Gimme a transdragon in college. Gimme a transunicorn trying to find its place in a fashion industry. i want a nonhuman relationship , a nonhuman life in a realistic human world expressed artistically on screen, realistically and not as a point of debate. Just existing.

#nonhuman #transspecies #Nonhuman media #alterbeing #otherkin #nonhuman alterbeing #therian #zoos dni

[gaildaley]

WHAT IS YOUR WRITING GENRE?

Before we get started with the descriptive genres we need to get familiar with some abbreviations used in book descriptions.

Abbreviations Used In Book Descriptions

I actually thought I was familiar with all the abbreviations used in book descriptions until I found this list. Some of these things I’ve never heard of before! They are often used by reviewers and some writers in book descriptions, so I think it behooves ignorant writers like me to at least know what they are.

PNR is the acronym typically used for paranormal romance: Shifters and vampires and mermaids and so much more. Shifters are people able to become various animals. Vampires are simply vampires. It depends on the writer whether they are good or bad. The one thing most of them seem to have in common is drinking blood or sometimes life essence. A few writers of fantasy like Ilona Andrews (husband and wife writing team) treated them as another species (theirs don’t drink blood).

PWF Paranormal Women’s Fiction. These books will have adventure, passion, and LIFE. And they’ll kick ass, just like all our books already do! We are not inventing books with 40+ heroines. We are hoping to define a place for them amongst other genres.

OTP: One True Pairing (that couple that you will root for till the end of time)


NOTP: (Pronounced No-TP) Basically the opposite of an OTP. You do not want this couple together!

BROTP/Bromance: A friendship (between guys) that you adore!

Ship: If you ship a couple, it means that you want them to get together (comes from the word “relationship”).


HEA: Happily Ever After


Book Boyfriend/Girlfriend: The fictional boy (or girl) you only wishcould be your real-life love.


Insta-love/Insta-lust: The phenomenon that happens all too often in books when the couple meets and instantly falls in love (or, sometimes, lust).


Love Triangle: When the main character can’t decide between two romantic partners—most frustrating when this is drawn out for multiple books in a series.


Slash Fiction: A type of fan fiction where two same-sex characters are paired together (often guys). Sometimes slash can just refer to the imagined pairing of two same-sex characters (not necessarily within fan fiction).


OMYM/OWYM: Older man, younger woman/Older woman, younger man

M/M Male/male romance

F/F female/female romance

RH reverse harem - typically one woman several men

MC: Main character (book is told from their POV).


POV: Point of view (the perspective that the book is told from).


POC/BIPOC: People of color/Black, Indigenous, and people of color


Daphne: A female character who has to be rescued all the time (in reference to Daphne from Scooby Doo)


Mary Sue: A character who is too perfect and/or too good which, strangely.


Manic Pixie Dream Girl: A type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist.


Twist: An unexpected event in a book—typically one that changes the direction of the plot or characters dramatically.

Info-Dump: When the author gives you lots of background information all at once via narration or dialogue.


Bechdel Test: a set of criteria used as a test to evaluate a work of fiction (such as a film) on the basis of its inclusion and representation of female characters. the term was popularized by American Cartoonist Alison Bechdel so it was named after her. Alison Bechdel never claimed to be the originator of the test. In fact, she never gave it a name. She credited her friend Liz Wallace for the idea, but also the work of author Virginia Woolf in her essay “A Room of One’s Own”.


Unreliable Narrator: A narrator whose POV is not trustworthy (could be due to lying, misinformation on the part of the MC, mental health or memory issues, etc.).

GT
Agent: a person who acts on behalf of an author, negotiating with publishers and promoters.

Alpha Reader
The first reader, usually a non-professional, who provides feedback on a writer’s work.

ANT
Antagonist: the adversary or competitor to the hero/protagonist of any story.

APS
Associated Press Stylebook: a writer’s and journalist’s reference manual for rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviations, and word and numeral usage.

ARC
Advance Reader Copy: free copy of a book given by a publisher to media, librarians, or other readers in advance of official publication.

ASIN
Amazon Standard Identification Number: Amazon’s unique identifier for each book they sell.

AU
Alternate universe: a fictional universe in which recognizable details are changed in order to create the story.

Beta Reader
A reader, usually non-professional, who provides feedback on a book after a writer has made revisions inspired by alpha readers.

BG
Bad guy: the Freddy Krueger, Lord Voldemort, or Darth Vader of your narrative.

BS
Backstory: history or background that occurs before the current events of a story.

Character Arc
The inner journey and transformation in personality of a character between the beginning and the end of a story.

CMOS
Chicago Manual of Style: a writer’s and editor’s reference manual for grammar usage, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviations, and word and numeral usage.

Cont
Contemporary (genre): a genre that, although fictional, depicts realistic events that could happen in today’s society. An example: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

CP
Critique Partner: a writer who provides feedback on a fellow writer’s work.

Drabble
One hundred words that tell a story. Drabbles, because of their brevity, demand strong verbs, zero redundancies, and minimal showing. They usually require more time to write than longer stories.

F & SF
Fantasy And Science Fiction (genre): make-believe worlds and characters combined with narrative that is based on scientific principles. Think Star Wars by George Lucas, et al.

FF
Flash Fiction: very short fiction, usually containing fewer than 1000 words.

FN/Fant
Fantasy (genre): stories about mythical worlds often populated by magical creatures. Example: Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling.

GMC
Goal, motivation, conflict: important elements for engaging stories.

GN
Graphic Novel (genre): stories that are told using a combination of graphic panels and text. Although a graphic novel may be similar to a comic book in format, it usually encompasses an intriguing plot with character growth. Example: the Logan’s Run graphic novels by William F. Nolan, et al.

HC
Hardcover

Hook
An element that is unique to a story. Always memorable, it may also be controversial.

HR
Horror (genre): frightening stories that often include elements of fantasy. Examples: Children of the Corn by Stephen King and The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.

Indie
An independent writer who maintains creative control and who is not associated with a major publisher.

Juv
Juvenile (audience/genre): usually geared to children under twelve years of age. Example: Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White.

LI
Love interest

Logline
A brief summary, usually one sentence, that presents the main conflict or storyline, often combined with a hook to stimulate the interest of readers.

LOILetter Of Introduction

#writinggenre #indie #GMC #JUV #FF #ARC

[denimbex1986]

'Grief can be as beautiful as it is soul-crushing. Each person is surrounded by ghosts: loved ones, old friends and places that exist now only in memory. Or do they? Director Andrew Haigh explores, and reckons with, this question of ghosts that follow us in his recently released fantasy/romance film, “All of Us Strangers.”

The film follows Adam (Andrew Scott), a lonely, middle-aged writer living in London, in a ghost story about childhood, queerness, grief and loneliness.

“All of Us Strangers” is riddled with complex feelings and multiple realities. It seeks to explore grief over the course of time, while following Adam through various scenes from his childhood and disorienting, dreamlike vignettes of his current life.

The film begins with Adam rebuffing the drunken advances of one of the few other people that live in his building, Harry (Paul Mescal). However upon meeting again, Harry and Adam begin a relationship that grows quickly from sexual to deeply emotional. The two men bond over the specific brand of queer isolation they feel, as well as a lack of support from anyone else in their lives.

As Adam grows closer to Harry, he attempts to share a secret he’s been keeping: he’s been visiting with the ghosts of his parents, appearing just as they were in his childhood home before they died when Adam was 12.

As Adam meets with his parents, he is able to share aspects of his life he was never able to. Although Adam’s parents are stuck in their own time in many ways, he is able to share parts of himself and make peace with various childhood traumas. By having a second chance to speak with the dead, he is able to live more peacefully with himself.

As Adam tries to introduce his ghostly parents to Harry, he is seemingly mortified at Adam’s claims and runs away in confusion.

Adam later makes up with Harry and lets his parents move on after accepting they cannot be with him forever.

The true twist (and major spoiler) for the film comes at the end, when Adam arrives back at his apartment building after saying goodbye to his parents. He enters Harry’s apartment and finds Harry’s corpse, just as it was on the night that Harry was drunk at Adam’s door in the beginning.

Harry then appears and asks Adam why no one had found his body yet, as he had been there since the night Adam rejected him. Adam, already dealing with grief, simply lays with Harry in bed. The final shot of the movie zooms out from them into a night full of stars.

“All of Us Strangers” is a confusing film in some respects, but emotionally, it more than resonates. Was Harry a ghost? Was he only an illusion created by Adam to deal with grief? Were Adam’s parents’ ghosts ever really there?

These questions don’t matter so much in the end. What matters is love’s ability to get people through impossible times in our lives. Although the film is deeply heartbreaking on many fronts, and perhaps offers no ending or explanation, Adam’s story of chasing after love and closure is something extremely powerful.

Andrew Haigh’s hazy, heavy and unconventional ghost story is one that won’t be forgotten soon.

Grief often has no end, but neither does the love the world, and perhaps the world beyond, has to offer. If ghosts are real, maybe they are all around us, guiding us through the hardships and hurts of daily life until we all become one with the stars.'

#Andrew Haigh #Paul Mescal #Andrew Scott #All of Us Strangers

[laoyangtutor]

老Yang教员组今天为大家整理一篇优秀的paper代写范文- A big fish，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了电影《大鱼》。《大鱼》是一部色彩清新、叙事温和的影片。男主角爱德华在生命中不断重复着他那让人难分真假的奇幻旅程，直到生命终结。在影片的最开始，爱德华在儿子的婚礼上重复讲述着神秘的大马哈鱼，儿子作为主角却被忽视。后来他与父亲断绝了联系，直到父亲病危之际才重新回到家中，通过数日的沟通与整理，他曾经想要弄清的事实都得到了解答。儿子一直在以局外听众的身份和普通的思维方式去分辨真实与虚幻，如果我们放下对这条明确界限的执念，或许我们可以更多维度地理解生命的多样性。

同时有需要essay润色查重、辅导代写、托福GRE考试保分、网课全方位包课的家人们可以联系老Yang微信（Wechat ID: ymf2531）进行咨询喔~

  Tim burton is a famous director of fairy tales. He often combines fantasy and memory in his films to reflect on the value of people, the relationship between people and society and the philosophical level. "Big fish" focuses on the hero Edward's self-described life, which reveals and explains the above thoughts.

Tim burton is one of the most distinctive directors in the contemporary American film industry. His early experience as an animator at Disney made "fairy tale" a major part of his later films. He is good at explaining philosophy and enlightening people in fairy tales, so that viewers can go further into the story on the basis of fantasy and reality. This paper will take "big fish" as an example to analyze the above views.

"Big fish" is a film of fresh color and mild narration. The hero Edward in life repeatedly repeated his hard to tell the truth of the fantasy journey, until the end of life. At the beginning of the film, Edward repeats the story of the mysterious salmon at his son's wedding, while his son is ignored as the main character. He cut off contact with his father until he was critically ill and returned home. Through days of communication and collation, all the facts he had wanted to find out were answered. If we let go of our obsession with the boundary between the real and the unreal, perhaps we can understand the diversity of life in more dimensions. Just like Edward's experience, he knew how he died at the very beginning, so the rest of his life was full of trial, exploration and subversion. The value of life brought by these unscrupulous carnival is undeniable to us.

Memory is deceiving, and in this statement, memory dominates. But if we make memories active and editable, we have the ability to reconstruct the past. As the owner of memory, we can tamper with it at will. As time goes on endlessly, the past without trace can disappear forever, and the unexperienced experience can appear out of nowhere. Such a memory is not a documentary, but it is a person's own choice, and only it will affect the present and the future. Edward sees his own death in the witch's glass eye, but this passage is not shown in the film, not only making it impossible for the audience to know, but also for Edward himself. But his "belief" in death kept him alive, and "this is not how I died" became his strength again and again to escape danger. He negotiates courageously with giants, calmly escapes from dark woods, tactfully escapes from wartime Korean barracks and does his best to win over blondes without fear. It didn't matter whether the witch's glass eye was real or not. It had been there throughout Edward's life, allowing him to talk about it at the end of his lingering sickbed. Such insistence touched his closest, but also the most unfamiliar people, the son in his father's funeral witnessed his oral legend, but in fact, the giant is not beyond the ordinary people tall, Hong Kong sisters are twins rather than conjoined. Father's imagination changed their form, but such a change is understandable, because it is only the embellishment of the story, is a reasonable change of memory.

Complex reality can inhibit people's thinking, but fantasy can build a pure world, so as to intuitively show the appeal of the spirit. Why do people exist? What do people want? What should a man do? One answer may be found in the bizarre fantasies of big fish. Edward felt that he did not belong in this small place, and he wanted to get out, even though he had nothing and knew nothing about the larger world. In Edward's view, the purpose of his existence is to save the world, and god makes him different, so he should do what no one else will do. He entered fengdu, a utopia with a clear choice, where the grass was soft and the protective shoes lost their meaning, where there were poems and bonfires, and goddesses bathing in the water. But Edward left, knowing that he was "too early" and that he had not yet reached the point in life where he should stop. What he wanted was a heartstring tugging in return for three years of unpaid labor. What he wanted was daffodils stained with blood shed for love. What he wanted was a white fence house in return for a long separation from his wife. In Edward's mind, not everything has a definite reason, but his understanding of the value of people allows him to maximize the possibilities of people.

Everything has two poles. Samsara, always, stillness and movement, like Edward's true and false stories, make the dividing line unnecessary. When Edward was a boy, the witch was old; But when Edward grew old, Jennie, ten years his junior, became the witch of the ruined town of fengdu. The deranged timeline connects the beginning and the end of the story, as if twisting a straight line into a circle, realizing the definition of the cycle of rebirth. The salmon in the river are always swimming and can always slip away from the fisherman. Edward catches the salmon no one else can catch, but in the end he turns into a salmon himself. The salmon is in motion for the fisherman, but still for the running river, just as Edward passed by everyone who appeared in his life, but remained in the long river of time. So the salmon and Edward are in a static relationship. Edward needed water and was obsessed with it, for breath, for the salmon, and for the water goddess he had met twice. The townspeople said it was not a girl, but a fish. Different people will see different scenes. The beautiful girl is Edward's understanding and expectation of the world. The two different moods also reflect his growth. Young Edward in the chase, in the exploration of the unknown, the first entry to the capital, in the face of the girl disappeared in the water, he was full of confusion; In middle age, many mysteries had been solved. He was no longer obsessed with where the girl out the window had gone.

Fengdu is the paradise in big fish, but the town, which stands aloof from worldly affairs, is finally invaded by the bubble economy, with closed shops, messy streets and no symbolic green grass. Although people do not actively pursue the train of the industrial age, the train's hurricane will also carry people blindly. But when people have no strength to walk, can only lie on the ground, do not know the direction. The final salvation of the town came from the power of Edward and the poet's capital, which was destroyed by the economy's eagerness for success and restored and maintained with a powerful force. It seems that big fish has no better answer to the question of how people should treat nature in an industrial society.

Man is the product of society. Had Edward, who had strayed into fengdu at the age of eighteen, remained permanently there, would he have found himself useless and bored one day, and would he have been as helpless and indifferent as all the inhabitants of fengdu to the end of its decline? For them, fengdu is the enjoyment of life and the sustenance of spirit, but only struggle and reality can make people cherish the beauty of utopia more. When Edward left, he did not expect to find a better place than fengdu, but after decades of experience and training, fengdu was still in his heart, and in reality, he also had his own fengdu -- a happy family living in a white fence house.

Lu xun in middle age wrote "chaohuaxishi", by the time of sunset to pick up the opportunity to look back on the past life of the flower, although no longer with dew folding flowers, but can see the sunset flowers another warm color. Edward has found his true self in the reconstructed space and time. When he looks back at his life with memories in his later years, he can leave no regrets for himself, his family or the society.

 老Yang留学教育原创版权郑重声明：原创优秀范文源自编辑创作，未经官方许可，网站谢绝转载。对于侵权行为，未经同意的情况下，老Yang有权追究法律责任。我们主要业务有essay代写、assignment代写、paper代写、作业代写、论文代写、雅思考试、托福考试、GRE考试、网课包课等。

老 Yang 为留学生提供靠谱隐私的留学学业服务，亲们可以进入主页了解和获取更多优秀范文，有需要可以咨询老Yang微信（WeChat ID: ymf2531）。

[eiirisworkshop]

The Fanfic Author's Guide to Metatext

(As Used on Ao3) by Eiiri

Also available as a PDF here. This thing is 13,000 words.  The PDF is recommended.

Intro: What is Metatext?

Metatext is everything we fanfic authors post along with our story that is not the story itself: title, tags, summary, author's notes, even the rating.

It is how we communicate to potential readers what they're signing themselves up for if they choose to read our story, how we let them make informed decisions regarding which fics they want to read, how we get their interest and, frequently, how they find our story in the first place. A lot of metatext acts as a consent mechanism for readers, it's the informed part of informed consent.

Since most of us who write fanfic also read it, we understand how important this is! But, for the most part, no one ever teaches us how to use metatext; we have to pick it up by osmosis. That makes it hard to learn how to use it well, we all suck at it when we first start out, and some of us may go years without learning particular conventions that seem obvious to others in our community. This creates frustration for everybody.

Enter this guide!

This is meant to be a sort of handbook for fic writers, particularly those of us who post on Archive of Our Own, laying out and explaining the established metatext conventions already in use in our community so we (and our readers!) are all on the same page. It will also provide some best-practices tips.

The point is to give all of us the tools to communicate with our audience as clearly and effectively as possible, so the people who want to read a story like ours can find it and recognize it as what they're looking for, those who don't want to read a story like ours can easily tell it's not their cup of tea and avoid it, nobody gets hurt, and everybody has fun—including us!

Now that we know what we're talking about, let's get on with the guide! The following content sections appear in the order one is expected to provide each kind of metatext when posting a fic on Ao3, but first….

Warning!

This is a guide for all authors on Ao3. As such, it mentions subject matter and kinds of fic that you personally might hate or find disgusting, but which are allowed under the Archive's terms of use. There are no graphic descriptions or harsh language in the guide itself, but it does acknowledge the existence of fic you may find distasteful and explains how to approach metatext for such fics.

Some sexual terminology is used in an academic context.

A note from the author:

This guide reflects the conventions of the English-language fanfiction community circa 2021. Conventions may differ in other language communities, and although many of our conventions have been in place for decades (praise be to our Star Trek loving foremothers) fanfiction now exists primarily in the realm of internet fandom where things tend to change rather quickly, so some conventions in this guide may die out while other new conventions, not covered in this guide, arise.

This is not official or in any way produced by the Archive of Our Own (Ao3), and though some actual site rules are mentioned, it is not a rulebook. Primarily, it is a descriptivist take on how the userbase uses metatext to communicate amongst ourselves, provided in the interest of making that communication easier and more transparent for everyone, especially newer users.

Contents

How To Use This Guide Ratings Archive Warnings Fandom Tags Category Relationship Tags Character Tags Additional Tags Titles Summaries Author's Notes Series and Chapters Parting Thoughts

How To Use This Guide

Well, read it.  Or have it read to you.

This isn't a glossary, it's a handbook, and it's structured more like an academic paper or report, but there's lots and lots of examples in it!

Many of these examples are titles of real media and the names of characters from published media, or tags quoted directly from Ao3 complete with punctuation and formatting.

Some examples are more generic and use the names Alex, Max, Sam, Chris, Jamie, and Tori for demonstration purposes. In other generic examples, part of an example tag or phrase may be sectioned off with square brackets to show where in that tag or phrase you would put the appropriate information to complete it.  This will look something like “Top [Character A]” where you would fill in a character's name.

This guide presumes that you know the basics of how to use Ao3, at least from the perspective of reading fic. If you don't, much of this guide may be difficult to understand and will be much less helpful to you, though not entirely useless.

Ratings

Most fanfic hosting sites provide ratings systems that work a lot like the ratings on movies and videogames.

Ao3's system has four ratings:

General

Teen

Mature

Explicit

These seem like they should be pretty self-explanatory, and the site's own official info pop-up (accessible by clicking the question mark next to the section prompt) gives brief, straightforward descriptions for each of them.

Even so, many writers have found ourselves staring at that dropdown list, thinking about what we've written, and wondering what's the right freaking rating for this?  How do I know if it's appropriate for “general audiences” or if it needs to be teen and up? What's the difference between Mature and Explicit?

The best way to figure it out is often to think about your fic in comparison to mainstream media.

General is your average Disney or Dreamworks movie, Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon shows, video games like Mario, Kirby, and Pokemon.

There may be romance, but no sexual content or discussion. Scary things might happen and people might get hurt, but violence is non-graphic and usually mild. Adults may be shown drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco, and some degree of intoxication may be shown (usually played for laughs and not focused on), but hard drug use is generally not shown or discussed.  There is little to no foul language written out and what language there may be is mild, though harsher swears may be implied by narration. There are no explicit F-bombs or slurs.

Teen is more like a Marvel movie, most network television shows (things like The Office, Supernatural, or Grey's Anatomy), video games like Final Fantasy, Five Nights at Freddie's, and The Sims.

There might be some sex and sexual discussion, but nothing explicit is shown—things usually fade to black or are leftimplied. More intense danger, more severe injuries described in greater detail, and a higher level of violence may be present.  Substance use may be discussed and intoxication shown, but main characters are unlikely to be shown doing hard drugs. Some swearing and other harsh language may be present, possibly including an F-bomb or two.  In longer works, that might mean an F-bomb every few chapters.

Mature is, in American terms, an R-rated movie* like Deadpool, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Exorcist, and Schindler's List; certain shows from premium cable networks or streaming services like Game of Thrones, Shameless, Breaking Bad, and Black Sails; videogames like Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and The Witcher.

Sex may be shown and it might be fairly explicit, but it's not as detailed or graphic or as much the focus of the work as it would be if it were porn. Violence, danger, and bodily harm may be significant and fairly graphic. Most drug use is fair game. Swearing and harsh language may be extensive.

Explicit is, well, extremely explicit. This is full on porn, the hardcore horror movies, and snuff films.

Sex is highly detailed and graphic. Violence and injury is highly detailed and graphic. Drug use and its effects may be highly detailed and graphic. Swearing and harsh language may be extreme, including extensive use of violent slurs.

Please note that both Mature and Explicit fics are intended for adult audiences only, but that does not mean a teenaged writer isn't going to produce fics that should be rated M or E.  Ratings should reflect the content of the fic, not the age of the author.

Strictly speaking, you don't have to choose any of these ratings; Ao3 has a “Not Rated” option, but for purposes of search results and some other functions, Not Rated fics are treated by the site as Explicit, just in case, which means they end up hidden from a significant portion of potential readers. It really is in your best interest as a writer who presumably wants people to see their stories, to select a rating. It helps readers judge if yours is the kind of story they want right now, too.

Rating a fic is a subjective decision, there is some grey area in between each level. If you're not quite sure where your fic falls, best practice is to go with the more restrictive rating.

*(Equivalent to an Australian M15+ or R18+, Canadian 14A, 18A or 18+, UK 15 or 18, German FSK 16 or FSK 18.)

Warnings

Ao3 uses a set of standard site-wide Archive Warnings to indicate that a work contains subject matter that falls into one or more of a few categories that some readers are likely to want to avoid.  Even when posting elsewhere, it's courteous to include warnings of this sort.

These warnings are:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Major Character Death

Rape/Non-Con

Underage

Just like with the ratings, the site provides an info-pop up that explains what each warning is for. They're really exactly what it says on the tin: detailed descriptions of violence, injury, and gore; the death of a character central to canon or tothe story being told; non-consensual sex i.e. rape; and depictions of underage sex, which the site defines as under the age of 18 for humans—Ao3 doesn't care if your local age of consent or majority is lower than that.

In addition to the four standard warnings above, the warnings section has two other choices:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings

These do not mean the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably. “No Archive Warnings Apply” means that absolutely nothing in your fic falls into any of the four standard warning categories. “Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings” means that you the author are opting out of the warning system; your fic could potentially contain things that fall into any and all of the four standard warning categories.

There's nothing wrong with selecting Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings! It may mean that some readers will avoid your fic because they're not sure it's safe for them, and you might need to use more courtesy tags than you otherwise would (we'll talk about courtesy tags later), but that's okay! Opting out of the warning system can be a way to avoid spoilers,* and is also good for when you're just not sure if what you've written deserves one of the Archive warnings. In that case, the best practice is to select either the warning it might deserve or Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, then provide additional information in other tags, the summary, or an initial author's note.

Unless you're opting out of using the warning system, select all the warnings that apply to your fic, if any of them do. So if a sixteen year old main character has consensual sex then gets killed in an accident that you've written out in excruciating detail, that fic gets three out of the four standard warnings: Underage, Major Character Death, and Graphic Depictions Of Violence.

*(Fandom etiquette generally favors thorough tagging and warning over avoiding spoilers. It doesn't ruin the experience of a story to have a general sense of what's going to happen. If it did, we wouldn't all keep reading so many “there was only one bed” fics.)

Fandom Tags

What fandom or fandoms is your fic for?  You definitely know what you wrote it for, but that doesn't mean it's obvious what to tag it as.

Sometimes, it is obvious! You watched a movie that isn't based on anything, isn't part of a series, and doesn't have any spinoffs, tie-ins or anything else based on it. You wrote a fic set entirely within the world of this movie. You put this movie as the fandom for your fic. Or maybe you read a book and wrote a fic for it, and there is a movie based on the book, but the movie is really different and you definitely didn't use anything that's only in the movie. You put the book as the fandom for your fic.

All too often, though, it's not that clear.

What if you wrote a fic for something where there's a movie based on a book, but the movie's really different, and you've used both things that are only in the movie and things that are only in the book?  In that case you either tag your fic as both the movie and the book, or see if the fandom has an “all media types” tag and use that instead of the separate tags.  If the fandom doesn't have an “all media types” tag yet, you can make one! Just type it in.

“All media types” fandom tags are also useful for cases where there are lots of inter-related series, like Star Wars; there are several tellings of the story in different media but they're interchangeable or overlap significantly, like The Witcher; or the fandom has about a zillion different versions so it's very hard, even impossible, to say which ones your fic does and doesn't fit, like Batman. Use your best judgement as to whether you need to include a more specific fandom tag such as “Batman (Movies 1989-1997)” alongside the “all media types” fandom tag, but try to avoid including very many. The point of the “all media types” tag is to let you leave off the specific tags for every version.

In a situation where one piece of media has a spinoff, maybe several spinoffs, and you wrote a fic that includes things from more than one of them, you might want use the central work's “& related fandoms” tag. For example, the “Doctor Who & Related Fandoms” tag gets used for fics that include things from a combination of any era of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

And don't worry, from the reader-side of the site the broadest fandom tags are prioritized. The results page for an “all media types” or “& related fandoms” search includes works tagged with the more specific sub-tags for that fandom, the browse-by-fandom pages show the broadest tag for each fandom included, and putting a fandom into the search bar presumes the broadest tag for that fandom.  A search for “Star Wars - All Media Types” will pull up work that only has a subtag for that fandom, like “The Mandalorian (TV).” You don't have to put every specific fandom subtag for people to find your fic.

If you wrote a fic for something that's an adaptation of an older work—especially an older work that's been adapted a lot, like Sherlock Holmes or The Three Musketeers—it can be hard to know how you should tag it. The best choice is to put the adaptation as the fandom, for instance “Sherlock (TV),” then, if you're also using aspects of the older source work that aren't in the adaptation, also put a broad fandom tag such as “Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms.” Do not tag it as being fic for the source work—in our Sherlock example that would be tagging it “Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle”—unless you are crossing over the source work and the adaptation. Otherwise, the specific fandom subtag for the source work ends up clogged with fic for the adaptation, which really is a different thing.

By the same token, fic for the source work shouldn't be tagged as being for the adaptation, or the adaptation's subtag will get clogged.

The same principle applies to fandoms that have been rebooted. Don't tag fic for the reboot as being for the original, or fic for the original as being for the reboot. Don't tag a fic as being for both unless the reboot and original are actually interacting. Use an “& related fandoms” tag for the original if your fic for the reboot includes some aspects of the original that weren't carried over but you haven't quite written a crossover between the two. Good examples of these situations can be seen with “Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)” vs. “Star Trek: The Original Series,” and “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)” vs. “She-Ra: Princess Of Power (1985).”

Usually, this kind of mistagging as a related fandom happens when someone writes a fic for something that is or has a reboot, spinoff, or adaptation, but they're only familiar with one of the related pieces of media, and they mistakenly presume the fandoms are the same or interchangeable because they just don't know the difference.  It's an honest mistake and it doesn't make you a bad or fake fan to not know, but it can be frustrating for readers who want fic for one thing and find the fandom tag full of fic for something else.

In order to avoid those kinds of issues, best practice is to assume fandoms are not interchangeable no matter how closely related they are, and to default to using a tag pair of the most-specific-possible sub-fandom tag + the broadest possible fandom tag when posting a fic you're not entirely sure about, for instance “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.”

The Marvel megafandom has its own particular tagging hell going on. Really digging into and trying to make sense of that entire situation would require its own guide, but we can go through some general tips.

There is a general “Marvel” fandom tag and tags for both “The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom” and “The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types.” Most of us who write Marvel fic are working with a cherry picked combination of canons from the MCU, various comics runs, both timelines of X-Men movies, and possibly several decades worth of cartoons. That's what these tags are for.

If your cherry picked Marvel fic is more X-Men than Avengers, go for the “X-Men - All Media Types” tag.

If you are primarily working with MCU canon, use the MCU specific tags rather than “all media types” and add specific tags for individual comics runs—like Earth 616 or the Fraction Hawkeye comics—if you know you're lifting particular details from the comics.  If you're just filling in gaps in MCU canon with things that are nebulously “from the comics” don't worry about tagging for that, it's accepted standard practice in the fandom at this point, use a broader tag along with your MCU-specific tag if you want to.

Same general idea for primarily movie-verse X-Men fics. Use the movie-specific tags.

If your fic mostly draws from the comics, use the comics tags. If you're focusing on an individual run, show, or movie series rather than an ensemble or large swath of the megafranchise, tag for that and leave off the broader fandom tags.

Try your best to minimize the number of fandom tags on your Marvel work. Ideally, you can get it down to two or three. Even paring it down as much as you can you might still end up with about five.  If you're in the double digits, take another look to see if all the fandom tags you've included are really necessary, or if some of them are redundant or only there to represent characters who are in the fic but that the fic doesn't focus on. Many readers tend to search Marvel fics by character or pairing tags, it's more important that you're thorough there. For the fandom tags it's more important that you're clear.

If you write real person fiction, you need to tag it as an RPF fandom. Fic about actors who are in a show together does not belong on the fandom tag for that show. There are separate RPF fandom tags for most shows and film franchises. Much like the adaptation/source and reboot/original situations discussed earlier, a fic should really only be tagged with both a franchise's RPF tag and its main tag if something happens like the actors—or director or writer!—falling into the fictional world or meeting their characters.

Of course, not all RPF is about actors. Most sports have RPF tags, there are RPF tags for politics from around the world and for various historical settings, the fandom tags for bands are generally presumed to be RPF tags, and there is a general Real Person Fiction tag.

In order to simplify things for readers, it's best practice to use the general Real Person Fiction tag in addition to your fandom-specific tag. You may even want to put “RPF” as a courtesy tag in the Additional Tags section, too. This is because Ao3 isn't currently set up to recognize RPF as the special flavor of fic that it is in the same way that the site recognizes crossovers as special, so it can be very difficult to either seek out or avoid RPF since it's scattered across hundreds of different fandom tags.

On the subject of crossovers—they can make fandom tagging even more daunting. Even for a crossover with lots of fandoms involved, though, you just have to follow the same guidelines as to tag a single-fandom work for each fandom in the crossover. The tricky part is figuring out if what you wrote is really a crossover, or just an AU informed by another fandom—we'll talk about that later.

There are some cases where it's really hard to figure out what fandom something belongs to, like if you wrote a fanfic of someone else's fanfic, theirs is an AU and yours is about their OC, not any of the characters from canon. What do you do?! Well, you do not tag it as being a fanfic for the same thing theirs was. Put the title of their fic (or name of their series) as the fandom for your fic, attributed to their Ao3 handle just like any other fandom is attributed to its author. Explain the situation in either the summary or the initial author's note. Also, ask the author's permission before posting something like this.

What if you wrote a story about your totally original D&D character? The fandom is still D&D, you want the “Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)” tag.

What if there's not a fandom tag on the Archive yet for what you wrote? Not a problem! You can type in a new one if you're the first person to post something for a particular fandom. Do make sure, though, that the fandom isn't just listed by a different name than you expect. Many works that aren't originally in English—including anime—are listed by their original language title or a direct translation first, and sometimes a franchise or series's official name might not be what you personally call it, for instance many people think of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series as The Golden Compass series, so it's best to double check.

What if you wrote an entirely new original story that's not based on anything?  Excellent job, that takes a lot of work, but that probably doesn't belong on Ao3!  The Archive is primarily meant as a repository for fannish content, but in a few particular circumstances things we'd consider Original Work may be appropriate content for the Archive as well. Double check the Archive's Terms of Service FAQ and gauge if what you wrote falls under the scope of what is allowed. If what you wrote really doesn't fit here, post it somewhere else or try to get it published if you feel like giving it a shot.

Category

What Ao3 means by category is “does this fic focus on sex or romance, and if so what combination of genders are involved in that sex or romance?”

The category options are:

F/F

F/M

Gen

M/M

Multi

Other

The F/F, F/M, and M/M categories are for stories focused on pairings of two women, a woman and a man, and two men, respectively.  These refer to sexual and/or romantic pairings.

The Other category is for stories focused on (sexual and/or romantic) pairings where one or both partners are not strictly male or female, such as nonbinary individuals, people from cultures with gender systems that don't match to the Western man-woman system, and nonhuman characters for whom biological sex works differently or is nonexistent, including aliens, robots, and inanimate objects or abstract concepts. There are some problems with treating nonbinary humans, eldritch tentacle monsters, sexless androids, and wayward container ships as all the same category, but it's the system we currently have to work with. Use Additional Tags to clarify the situation.

Multi is for stories in which several (sexual and/or romantic) relationships are focused on or which focus on relationships with multiple partners, including cases of polyamory, serial monogamy, strings of hookups with different people, and orgies.  A fic will also show as “Multi” if you, the author, have selected more than one category for the fic, even if none of those are the Multi category. Realistically, the Archive needs separate “Multiple Categories” and “Poly” options, but for now we have to work with this system in which the two are combined.  Use Additional Tags to clarify the situation.

Gen is for stories that do not contain or are not focused on sex or romance. Romance may be present in a gen fic but it's going to be in the background.  While rare, there is such a thing as a sexually explicit gen fic—solo masturbation which does not feature fantasizing about another character is explicit gen fic; a doctor character seeing a series of patients with sex-related medical needs following an orgy may qualify if the orgy is not shown and the doctor is being strictly professional—but such fic needs to be rated, otherwise tagged, and explained carefully in the summary and/or author's note.

Much like the warnings section, category is a “select all that apply” situation. Use your best judgement. For a fic about a polyamorous relationship among a group of women, it's entirely appropriate to tag it as both F/F and Multi.  A poly fic with a combination of men and women in the relationship could be shown as both M/M and F/M, Multi, or all three. A fic that focuses equally on one brother and his husband and the other brother and his wife should be tagged both M/M and F/M, and could be tagged as Multi but you might decided not to just to be clear that there's no polyamory going on. If you wrote a fic about two characters who are both men in canon, but you wrote one of them as nonbinary, you could tag it M/M, Other, or both depending on what you feel is representative and respectful.

When dealing with trans characters, whether they're trans in canon or you're writing them as such, the category selection should match the character's gender.  If there's a character who is a cis woman in canon, but who you're writing as a trans man, you categorize the fic based on his being a man. If there's a character who is a cis man in canon, but whom you're writing as a trans man, he is still a man and the fic should be categorized accordingly. When dealing with nonbinary characters the fic should really be classed as Other though, by convention, fics about characters who are not nonbinary in canon may be classed based on the character's canon gender as well or instead. When dealing with gender swapped characters—i.e. a canonically cis male superhero who you're writing as a cis woman—class the fic using the gender you wrote her with, not the gender he is in canon.

Most of the time, gen fics should not be categorized jointly with anything else because a fic should only be categorized based on the ships it focuses on, and a gen fic should not be focusing on a ship in the first place.*

*(One of the few circumstances in which it might make sense to class a fic as both gen and something else is when writing about Queerplatonic Relationships, but that is a judgement call and depends on the fic.)

Relationship Tags

The thing about relationship tagging that people most frequently misunderstand or just don't know is the difference between “Character A/Character B” and “Character A & Character B.”

Use a “/” for romantic or sexual relationships, such as spouses, people who are dating, hookups, and friends with benefits. Use “&” for platonic or familial relationships, such as friends, siblings, parents with their kids, coworkers, and deeply connected mortal enemies who are not tragically in love.

This is where we get the phrase “slash fic.” Originally, that meant any fic focused on a romantic paring, but since so much of the romantic fic being produced was about pairs of men, “slash fic” came to mean same-sex pairings, especially male same-sex pairings. Back in earlier days of fandom, pre-Ao3 and even pre-internet, there was a convention that when writing out a different-sex pairing, you did so in man/woman order, while same-sex pairings were done top/bottom. Some authors, especially those who have been in the fic community a long time, may still do this, but the convention has not been in consistent, active use for many years, so you don't have to worry about putting the names in the “correct” order. Part of why that died out is we, as a community, have gotten less strict and more nuanced in our understandings of sex and relationships, we're writing non-penetrative sex more than we used to, and we're writing multi-partner relationships and sex more than we used to, so strictly delineating “tops” and “bottoms” has gotten less important and less useful.

The convention currently in use on Ao3 is that the names go in alphabetical order for both “/” and “&” relationships. In most cases, the Archive uses the character's full name instead of a nickname or just a given name, like James "Bucky" Barnes instead of just Bucky or James. We'll talk more about conventions for how to input character names in the Characters section. The Archive will give you suggestions as you type—if one of them fits what you mean but is slightly different from how you were typing it, for instance it's in a different order, please use the tag suggested! Consistency in tags across users helps the site work more smoothly for everybody.

This is really not the place for ship nicknames like Puckleberry, Wolfstar, or Ineffable Wives. Use the characters' names.

Now that you know how to format the relationship tag to say what you mean, you have to figure out what relationships in your fic to tag for.

The answer is you tag the relationships that are important to the story you're telling, the ones you spend time and attention following, building up, and maybe even breaking down. Tagging for a ship is not a promise of a happy ending for that pair; you don't have to limit yourself to tagging only the end-game ships if you're telling a story that's more complicated than “they get together and live happily ever after.” That said, you should generally list the main ship—the one you focus on the most—first on the list, and that will usually be the end-game ship. You should also use Additional Tags, the summary, and author's notes to make it clear to readers if your fic does not end happily for a ship you've tagged. Otherwise readers will assume that a fic tagged as being about a ship will end well for that ship, because that's what usually happens, and they'll end up disappointed and hurt, possibly feeling tricked or lied to, when your fic doesn't end well for that ship

You don't have to, and honestly shouldn't, tag for every single relationship that shows up in your fic at all. A character's brief side fling mentioned in passing, or a relationship between two background characters should not be listed under the Relationship tag section. You can list them in the format “minor Character A/Character C” or “Character C/Character D – mentions of” in the Additional Tags section if you want to, or just tag “Minor or Background Relationship(s)” under either the Relationship tag section or in the Additional Tags section.

There are two main reasons to not tag all those minor relationships. The first is to streamline your tags, which makes them clearer and more readable, and therefore more useful. The second reason is because certain ships are far more common as minor or background relationships than as the focus of a work, so tagging all your non-focus focus ships leads to the tags for these less popular ships getting clogged with stories they appear in, but that are not about them. That is, of course, very frustrating for readers who really want to read stories that focus on these ships.

If your fic contains a major relationship between a canon character and an OC, reader-insert, or self-insert, tag it as such. The archive already has /Original Character, /Reader, /You, and /Me tags for most characters in most fandoms. If such a relationship tag isn't already in use, type it in yourself. There are OC/OC tags, too, some of which specify gender, some of which do not.  All the relationship tags that include OCs stack the gender-specific versions of the tags under the nongendered ones. Use these tags as appropriate.

For group relationships, both polycules and multi-person friendships, you “/” or “&” all the names involved in alphabetical order, so Alex/Max/Sam are dating while Chris & Jamie & Tori are best friends. For a poly situation where not everyone is dating each other you should tag it something like “Alex/Max, Alex/Sam” because Alex is dating both Max and Sam, but Max and Sam are not romantically or sexually involved with each other. Use your judgement as to whether you still want to include the Alex/Max/Sam trio tag, and whether you should also use a “Sam & Max” friendship tag.

Generally, romantic “/” type relationships are emphasized over “&” type relationships in fic. It is more important that you tag your “/”s thoroughly and accurately than that you tag your “&”s at all. This is because readers are far more likely to either be looking for or be squicked by particular “/” relationships than they are “&” relationships. You can tag the same pair of characters as both / and & if both their romance and their friendship is important to the story, but a lot of people see this as redundant. If you're writing incest fic, use the / tag for the pair not the & tag and put a courtesy tag for “incest” in the Additional Tags section; this is how readers who do not want to see incestuous relationships avoid that material.

Queerplatonic Relationships, Ambiguous Relationships, Pre-Slash, and “Slash If You Squint” are all frequently listed with both the “/” and “&” forms of the pairing; use your best judgement as to whether one or the other or both is most appropriate for what you've written and clarify the nature of the relationship in your Additional Tags.

Overall, list your “/” tags first, then your “&” tags.

Character Tags

Tagging your characters is a lot like tagging your relationships. Who is your fic about? That's who you put in your character tags.

You don't have to and really should not tag every single background character who shows up for just a moment in the story, for pretty much the same reasons you shouldn't tag background relationships.  We don't want to clog less commonly focused on characters' tags with stories they don't feature prominently in.

You do need to tag the characters included in your Relationship tags.

A character study type of fic might only have one character you need to tag for. Romantic one shots frequently only have two. Longfics and fics with big ensemble casts can easily end up with a dozen characters or more who really do deserve to be tagged for.

Put them in order of importance. This doesn't have to be strict hierarchal ranking, you can just arrange them into groups of “main characters,” “major supporting characters,” and “minor supporting characters.” Nobody less than a minor supporting character should be tagged. Even minor supporting characters show up for more than one line.

If everyone in the fic is genuinely at the same level of importance (which does happen, especially with small cast fics), then order doesn't really matter. You can arrange them by order of appearance or alphabetically by name if you want to be particularly neat about it.

Do tag your OCs! Some people love reading about OCs and want to be able to find them; some people can't stand OCs and want to avoid them at all costs; most people are fine with OCs sometimes, but might have to be in the mood for an OC-centric story or only be comfortable with OCs in certain contexts. Regardless, though, Character tags are here to tell readers who the story is about, and that includes new faces. Original Characters are characters and if they're important to the story, they deserve to be tagged for just like canon characters do.

There are tags for “Original Character(s),” “Original Male Character(s),” and “Original Female Character(s).” Use these tags!  If you have OCs you're going to be using frequently in different stories, type up a character tag in the form “[OC's Name] – Original Character” and use that in addition to the generic OC tags.

Also tag “Reader,” “You,” or “Me” as a character if you've written a reader- or self-insert.

You can use the “Minor Characters” tag to wrap up everybody, both OC and canon, who doesn't warrant their own character tag. Remember, though, that this tag is also used to refer to minor canon characters who may not have their own official names.

Just like when tagging for relationships, the convention when tagging for characters is to use their full name. The suggestions the Archive gives you as you type will help you use the established way of referring to a given character.

Characters who go by more than one name usually have their two most used names listed together as one tag with the two names separated by a vertical bar like “Andy | Andromache of Scythia.” This also gets used sometimes for characters who have different names in an adaptation than in the source text, or a different name in the English-language localization of a work than in the original language. For character names from both real-world and fictional languages and cultures that put family or surname before the given name—like the real Japanese name Takeuchi Naoko or the made up Bajoran name Kira Nerys—that order is used when tagging, even if you wrote your fic putting the given name first.

Some characters' tags include the fandom they're from in parentheses after their name like “Connor (Detroit: Become Human).” This is mostly characters with ordinary given names like Connor and no canon surname, characters who have the same full name as a character in another fandom, such as Billy Flynn the lawyer from the musical Chicago and Billy Flynn the serial killer played by Tim Curry in Criminal Minds, and characters based on mythological, religious, or historical figures or named for common concepts such as Lucifer, Loki, Amethyst, Death, and Zero that make appearances in multiple fandoms.

Additional Tags

Additional Tags is one of the most complicated, and often the longest, section of metatext we find ourselves providing when we post fic. It's also the one that gives our readers the greatest volume of information.

That, of course, is what makes it so hard for us to do well.

It can help to break down Additional Tags into three main functions of tag: courtesy tags, descriptive tags, and personal tags.

Courtesy tags serve as extensions of the rating and warning systems. They can help clarify the rating, provide more information about the Archive Warnings you've used or chosen not to use, and give additional warnings to tell readers there are things in this fic that may be distasteful, upsetting, or triggering but that the Archive doesn't have a standard warning for.

Descriptive tags give the reader information about who's in this fic, what kind of things happen, what tropes are in play, and what the vibe is, as well as practical information about things like format and tense.

Personal tags tell the readers things about us, the author, our process, our relationship to our fic, and our thoughts at the time of posting.

It doesn't really matter what order you put these tags in, but it is best practice to try to clump them: courtesy tags all together so it's harder for a reader to miss an important one, ship-related info tags together, character-related info tags together, etc.

There are tons and tons of established tags on Ao3, and while it's totally fine, fun, and often necessary to make up your own tags, it's also important to use established tags that fit your fic.  For one thing, using established tags makes life easier for the tag wranglers behind the scenes. Using a new tag you just made up that means the same thing as an established tag makes more work for the tag wranglers. We like the tag wranglers, they're all volunteers, and they're largely responsible for the search and sorting features being functional. Be kind to the tag wranglers.

For basically the same reasons, using established tags makes it easier for readers to find your fic. If a reader either searches by a tag or uses filters on another search to “Include” that tag, and you didn't use that tag, your fic will not show up for them even if what you wrote is exactly what they're looking for.  Established tags can be searched by exactly the same way as you search by fandom or pairing, your off the cuff tags cannot.

Let's talk about some well-known established tags and common tag types, divvied up by main function.

Courtesy

A lot of courtesy tags are specific warnings like “Dubious Consent,” “Incest,” “Drug Use,” “Extremely Underage,” “Toxic Relationship,” and “Abuse.” Many of these have even more specific versions such as “Recreational Drug Use” and “Nonconsensual Drug Use,” or “Mildly Dubious Consent” and “Extremely Dubious Consent.”

Giving details about what, if any, drugs are used or mentioned, specifying what kinds of violence or bodily harm are discussed or depicted, details about age differences or power-imbalanced relationships between characters who date or have sex, discussion or depictions of suicide, severe or terminal illness, or mental health struggles is useful. It helps give readers a clear sense of what they'll encounter in your fic and decide if they're up for it.

One the most useful courtesy warning tags is “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” which basically means “there are things in this fic which are really screwed up and may be disturbing, read at your own risk, steer clear if you're not sure.” This tag—like all courtesy warnings, really—is a show of good faith, by using it you are being a responsible, and thoughtful member of the fanfic community by giving readers the power and necessary information to make their own informed decisions about what they are and are not comfortable reading.

Saying to “Heed the tags” is quite self-explanatory and, if used, should be the last or second to last tag so it's easy to spot.  Remember, though, that “Heed the tags” isn't useful if your tags aren't thorough and clear.

“Additional Warnings In Author's Note” is one of only things that should ever go after “Heed the tags.”  If you use this, your additional warnings need to go in the author's note at the very beginning of the fic, not the one at the end of the first chapter.  If your additional warnings write up is going to be very long because it's highly detailed, then it can go at the bottom of the chapter with a note at the beginning indicating that the warnings are at the bottom. Some authors give an abbreviated or vague set of warnings in the initial note, then longer, highly detailed, spoilery warnings in the end note. It's best to make it as simple and straightforward as possible for readers to access warnings.

Tagging with “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,” “Heed the tags,” or “Additional Warnings In Author's Note” is not a substitute for thorough and appropriate courtesy tagging. These are extra reminders to readers to look closely at the other warnings you've given.

While most courtesy tags are warnings, some are assurances like “No Lesbians Die” or “It's Not As Bad As It Sounds.”  A fic tagged for rape or dub-con may get a tag assuring that the consent issues are not between the characters in the main ship; or a fic with a premise that sounds likely to involve lack of consent but actually doesn't may get a tag that it's “NOT rape/non-con.” A tag like “Animal Death” may be immediately followed by a freeform tag assuring that the animal that dies is not the protagonist's beloved horse.

Descriptive

There are a few general kinds of descriptive tags including character-related, ship-related, temporal, relation-to-canon, trope-related, smut details, and technical specifications.

Many character- and ship-related tags simply expand on the Character and Relationship tags we've already talked about.  This is usually the place to specify details about OCs and inserts, such as how a reader-insert is gendered.

When it comes to character-related tags, one of the most common types in use on Ao3 and in fandom at large is the bang-path. This is things like werewolf!Alex, trans!Max, top!Sam, kid!Jamie, and captain!Tori. Basically, a bang-path is a way of specifying a version of a character. We've been using this format for decades; it comes from the very first email systems used by universities in the earliest days of internet before the World Wide Web existed. It's especially useful for quickly and concisely explaining the roles of characters in an AU. Nowadays this is also one of the primary conventions for indicating who's top and who's bottom in a ship if that's information you feel the need to establish.  The other current convention for indicating top/bottom is as non-bang-path character-related tags in the form “Top [Character A], Bottom [Character B].”

Other common sorts of character tags are things like “[Character A] Needs a Hug,” “Emotionally Constipated [Character B],” and “[Character C] is a Good Dad.”

Some character-related tags don't refer to a particular character by name, but tell readers something about what kinds of characters are in the fic. Usually, this indicates the minority status of characters and may indicate whether or not that minority status is canon, as in “Nonbinary Character,” “Canon Muslim Character,” “Deaf Character,” and “Canon Disabled Character.”

Down here in the tags is the place to put ship nicknames!  This is also where to say things like “They're idiots your honor” or indicate that they're “Idiots in Love,” maybe both since “Idiots in Love” is an established searchable tag but “They're idiots your honor” isn't yet. If your fandom has catchphrases related to your ship, put that here if you want to.

If relevant, specify some things about the nature of relationships in your fic such as “Ambiguous Relationship,” “Queerplatonic Relationships,” “Polyamory,” “Friends With Benefits,” “Teacher-Student Relationship,” and so on. Not all fics need tags like these. Use your best judgement whether your current fic does.

Temporal tags indicate when your fic takes place. That can be things like “Pre-Canon” and “Post-Canon,” “Pre-War,” “Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “1996-1997 NHL season,” “Future Fic,” and so on.  These tags may be in reference to temporal landmarks in canon, in the real world, or both depending on what's appropriate.

Some temporal tags do double duty by also being tags about the fic's relationship to canon. The Pre- and Post-Canon tags are like that.

Other relation-to-canon type tags are “Canon Compliant” for fics that fit completely inside the framework of canon without changing or contradicting anything, “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence” for fics that are compliant up to a certain point in canon, then veer off (maybe because you started writing the fic when the show was on season two but now it's at season four and you're not incorporating everything from the newer seasons, maybe a character died and you refuse to acknowledge that, maybe you just want to explore what might have happened if a particular scene had gone differently), and the various other Alternate Universe tags for everything from coffee shop AUs and updates to modern settings, to realities where everyone is a dragon or no one has their canon superpowers.

The established format for these tags is “Alternate Universe – [type],” but a few have irregular names as well, such as “Wingfic” for AUs in which characters who don't ordinarily have wings are written as having wings.

If you have written an AU, please tag clearly what it is! Make things easy on both the readers who are in the mood to read twenty royalty AUs in a row, the readers who are in the middle of finals week and the thought of their favorite characters suffering through exams in a college AU would destroy the last shred of their sanity but would enjoy watching those characters teach high school, and the readers who really just want to stick to the world of canon right now.

Admittedly, it can get a little confusing what AU tag or tags you need to describe what you've written since most of us have never had a fandom elder sit us down and explain what the AU tags mean. One common mix up is tagging things “Alternate Universe - Modern Setting” when what's meant is “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence.”  The misunderstanding here is usually reading “Alternate Universe - Modern Setting” and thinking it means an alternate version of the canon universe that is set at the same time as the canon universe, but is different in some way. That's not how the tag is meant to be used, though.

The Modern Setting AU tag is specifically for fic set now (at approximately the same time period it was written), for media that's canonically set somewhere that is very much not the present of the real world. This can mean things set in the past (like Jane Austen), the future (like Star Trek), or a fantasy world entirely different from our own (like Lord of the Rings or Avatar: the Last Airbender). Fic for a canon that's set more or less “now” doesn't need the Modern Setting AU tag, even if the world of canon is different from our own. If you're removing those differences by putting fantasy or superhero characters in a world without magic or supersoldier serum, you might want the “Alternate Universe - No Powers” tag instead.

Some of the most fun descriptive tags are trope tags. This includes things like “Mutual Pining,” “Bed Sharing” for when your OTP gets to their hotel room to find There Was Only One Bed, “Fake Dating,” “Angst,” Fluff,” “Hurt/Comfort” and all its variants.  Readers love tropes at least as much as we love writing them and want to be able to find their favorites. Everyone also has tropes they don't like and would rather avoid. Tagging them allows your fic to be filtered in and out by what major tropes you've used.

Explicit fics, and sometimes fics with less restrictive ratings, that contain sex usually have tags indicating details about the nature of the sexual encounter(s) portrayed and what sex acts are depicted. These are descriptive tags, but they also do double duty as courtesy tags. This is very much a situation in which tags are a consent mechanism; by thoroughly and clearly tagging your smut you are giving readers the chance to knowingly opt in or out of the experience you've written.

Most of the time, it's pretty easy to do basic tagging for sex acts—you know whether what you wrote shows Vaginal Sex, Anal Sex, or Non-penetrative Sex.  You probably know the names for different kinds of Oral Sex you may have included. You might not know what to call Frottage or Intercrural Sex, though, even if you understand the concept and included the act in your fic. Sometimes there are tags with rectangle-square type relationships (all Blow Jobs are Oral Sex, but not all Oral Sex is a Blow Job) and you're not sure if you should tag for both—you probably should. Sometimes there are tags for overlapping, closely related, or very similar acts or kinks and you're not sure which to tag—that one's more of judgement call; do your best to use the tags that most closely describe what you wrote.

Tag for the kinks at play, if any, so readers can find what they're into and avoid what they're not. Tag for what genitalia characters have if it's nonobvious, including if there's Non-Human Genitalia involved. Tag your A/B/O, your Pon Farr, and your Tentacles, including whether it's Consentacles or Tentacle Rape.

Technical specification tags give information about aspects of the fic other than its narrative content.  Most things on Ao3 are prose fiction so that's assumed to be the default, so anything else needs to be specified in tags. That includes Poetry, Podfics, things in Script Format, and Art. If it is a podfic, you should tag with the approximate length in minutes (or hours). If a fic is Illustrated (it has both words and visual art) tag for that.

Tag if your fic is a crossover or fusion.  The difference, if you're not sure, is that in a crossover, two (or more) entire worlds from different media meet, whereas in a fusion, some aspects of one world, like the cast of characters, are combined with aspects of another, like the setting or magic system.

If the team of paranormal investigators from one show get in contact with the cast of aliens from another show, that's a crossover and you need to have all the media you're drawing from up in the Fandom tags. If you've given the cast of Hamlet physical manifestations of their souls in the form of animal companions like the daemons from His Dark Materials but nothing else from His Dark Materials shows up, that's a fusion, the Fandom tag should be “Hamlet - Shakespeare,” and you need the “Alternate Universe - Daemons” tag. If you've given the members of a boy band elemental magic powers like in Avatar: the Last Airbender, that can be more of a judgement call depending how much from Avatar you've incorporated into your story. If absolutely no characters or specific settings from Avatar show up, it's probably a fusion.  Either way, if the boyband exists in real life, it needs to be tagged as RPF.

Tag if your fic is a Reader-Insert or Self-Insert.

You might want to tag for whether your fic is written with POV First, Second, or Third Person, and if it's Past Tense or Present Tense (or Future Tense, though that's extremely uncommon).  For POV First Person fics that are not self-inserts, or POV Third Person fics that are written in third person limited, you may want to tag which character's POV is being shown. Almost all POV Second Person fics are reader-insert, so if you've written one that isn't, you should tag for who the “you” is.

A fic is “POV Outsider” if the character through whom the story is being conveyed is outside the situation or not familiar with the characters and context a reader would generally know from canon. The waitress who doesn't know the guy who just sat down in her diner is a monster hunter, and the guy stuck in spaceport because some hotshot captain accidentally locked down the entire space station, are both potential narrators for POV Outsider stories.

Other technical specifications can be tags for things like OCtober and Kinktober or fic bingo games.  Tagging something as a Ficlet, One Shot, or Drabble is a technical specification (we're not going to argue right now over what counts as a drabble). Tagging for genre, like Horror or Fantasy, is too.

It's also good to tag accessibility considerations like “Sreenreader Friendly,” but make sure your fic definitely meets the needs of a given kind of accessibility before tagging it.

Personal

Even among personal tags there are established tags!  Things like “I'm Sorry,” “The Author Regrets Nothing,” “The Author Regrets Everything,” and “I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping” are common ones.  Tags about us and our relationship to the fic, such as “My First Work In This Fandom,” “Author is Not Religious,” and “Trans Porn By A Trans Author,” can help readers gauge what to expect from our fic. Of course, you are not at all obligated to disclose any personal information for any reason when posting your fic.

The “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag is common, but probably overused. Tagging is hard; very few of us have a natural feel for it even with lots of practice.  It's not a completely useless tag because it can indicate to readers that you've probably missed some things you should have tagged for, so they should be extra careful; but it can also turn into a crutch, an excuse to not try, and therefore a sign to readers they can't trust your tagging job. Just do your best, and leave off the self depreciation. If you're really concerned about the quality of your tagging, consider putting in an author's note asking readers to let you know if there are any tags you should add.

You might want to let readers know your fic is “Not Beta Read” or, if you're feeling a little cheekier than that, say “No Beta We Die Like Men” or its many fandom-specific variants like the “No Beta We Die Like Robins” frequently found among Batman fics and “No beta we die like Sunset Curve” among Julie and The Phantoms fic. Don't worry, the Archive recognizes all of these as meaning “Not Beta Read.”

The Archive can be inconsistent about whether it stacks specific variants of Additional Tags under the broadest version of the tag like it does with Fandom tags, so best practice is usually to use both.  You can double check by trying to search by a variant tag (or clicking on someone else's use of the variant); if the results page says the broader or more common form of the tag, those stack.

There's no such thing as the right number of tags. Some people prefer more tags and more detail, while other people prefer fewer more streamlined tags, and different fics have different things that need to be tagged for.  There is, however, such a thing as too many tags.  A tagblock that takes up the entire screen, or more, can be unreadable, at which point they are no longer useful. Focus on the main points and don't try to tag for absolutely everything.  Use the “Additional Warnings In Author's Note” strategy if your courtesy tags are what's getting out of hand.

Tag for as much as you feel is necessary for readers to find your fic and understand what they're getting into if they decide to open it up.

A little bit of redundancy in tags is not a sin.  In fact, slight redundancy is usually preferable to vagueness. Clear communication in tags is a cardinal virtue. Remember that tags serve a purpose, they're primarily a tool for sorting and filtering, and (unlike on some other sites like tumblr) they work, so it's best to keep them informative and try to limit rambling in the tags. Ramble at length in your author's notes instead!

Titles

Picking a title can be one of the most daunting and frustrating parts of posting a fic. Sometimes we just know what to call our fics and it's a beautiful moment. Other times we stare at that little input box for what feels like an eternity.

The good news is there's really no wrong way to select a title. Titles can be long or short, poetic or straight to the point. Song lyrics, idioms, quotes from literature or from the fic itself can be good ways to go.

Single words or phrases with meanings that are representative of the fic can be great. A lot of times these are well known terms or are easy enough to figure out like Midnight or Morning Glow, but if you find yourself using something that not a lot of people know what it means, like Chiaroscuro (an art style that uses heavy shadow and strong contrast between light and dark), Kintsukuroi (the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold), or Clusivity (the grammatical term for differences in who is or isn't included in a group pronoun), you should define the term in either a subtitle, i.e. “Chiaroscuro: A Study In Contrast,” or at the beginning of the summary.

As a courtesy to other writers, especially in small fandoms, you may want to check to make sure there's not already another fic with the same title in the same fandom, but this is not required. In large fandoms, there's no point in even trying. After all, there are only so many puns to be made about the full moon and only so many verses to Hallelujah.

It may be common practice on other platforms to include information such as fandom or ship in the title of a fic, but on Ao3 nothing that is specified by tags belongs in the title unless your title happens to be the same as a tag because, for instance, you've straightforwardly titled your character study of Dean Winchester “Dean Winchester Character Study” and also responsibly tagged it as such.

Summaries

Yes, you really do need to put something down for the summary. It might only need to be a single sentence, but give the readers something to go off of.

The summary is there to serve two purposes: one, to catch the interest of potential readers, give them a taste of what's inside, and make them want to know more; and two, to give you a space to provide information or make comments that don't really fit in the tags but that you want readers to see before they open the fic.

We've already talked some about that second function. When you put an explanation of the title or clarification about tags in the summary, that's the purpose it's serving. You can also put notes to “Heed the tags” or instruct readers that there are additional warnings in the author's note here in the summary, rather than doing so in the tags.

The first function, the actual summarizing, can be very hard for some of us.  It's basically the movie trailer for your fic, butwhat are you even supposed to say?

There are two main strategies as to how to approach this: the blurb, and the excerpt. Blurbs are like the synopses you at least used to see on the backs of published books, or the “Storyline” section on an IMDb page. Writing one is a matter of telling your readers who does what, under what circumstances.

Depending on the fic, one sentence can capture the whole thing: “Sam and Alex have sex on a train.” “Tori tries to rob a bank.” “If anybody had mentioned Max's new house was haunted, Jamie wouldn't have agreed to help with the move.”

Sometimes a blurb can be a question! “What happens when you lock a nuclear engineer in a closet with a sewing kit, a tennis ball, and half a bottle of Sprite?”

Of course, plenty of blurbs are more than one sentence. Their length can vary pretty significantly depending on the type and length of fic you're working with and how much detail you're trying to convey, but it shouldn't get to be more than a few short paragraphs. You're not retelling the entire fic here.

An excerpt is a portion of the fic copied out to serve as the summary. This, too, can vary in length from a line or two to several paragraphs, but shouldn't get too long. It should not be an entire scene unless that scene happens to be uncommonly short. It's important to select a portion of the fic that both indicates the who, what, and under what circumstances of the fic and is representative of the overall tone. Excerpts that are nothing but dialogue with no indication of who's talking are almost never a good choice. Portions that are sexually explicit or extremely violent are never ever a good choice—if it deserves content warnings, it belongs inside the fic, not on the results page.

Counterintuitively, some of the best excerpts won't even look like an excerpt to the reader if they don't contain dialogue. They seem like particularly literary blurbs until the reader reaches that part in the fic and realizes they recognize a section of narration.

Some of us have very strong preferences as to whether we write blurbs or use excerpts for our summaries. Some readers have very strong preferences as to which they find useful. Ultimately, there's no accounting for taste, but there are things we can do to limit the frustration for readers who prefer summaries of the opposite kind than we prefer to write, without increasing our own frustration or work load very much. Part of that is understanding what readers dislike about each type so we know what to mitigate.

Blurbs can seem dry, academic, and overly simplified. They don't automatically give the reader a sense of your writing style the way an excerpt does. They can also seem redundant, like they're just rehashing information already given in the tags, so the reader feels like they're being denied any more information without opening the fic.

Excerpts can seem lazy, like you, the author, don't care enough to bother writing a blurb, or pushy like you're telling the reader “just read the fic; I'm not going to give you the information you need to decide if you want to read or not, I'm shoving it in front of you and you just have to read it.” That effect gets worse if your tags aren't very informative or clear about what the plot is, if the excerpt is obviously just the first few lines or paragraphs of the fic, if the except is particularly long, or, worst of all, if all three are true at once.

A lot of the potential problems with blurbs can be minimized by having fun writing them! Make it punchy, give it some character, treat it like part of the story, not just a book report. A fic for a serialized show or podcast, for instance, could have a blurb written in the style of the show's “previously on” or the podcast's intro.  Make sure the blurb gives the reader something they can't just get from the tags—like the personality of your writing, important context or characterization, or a sense of the shape of the story—but don't try to skimp on the tags to do it!

Really, the only way to minimize the potential problems with excerpts is to be very mindful in selecting them. Make sure the portion you've chosen conveys the who, what, and under what circumstances and isn't too long.  You know the story; what seems clear and obvious from the excerpt to you might not be apparent to someone who doesn't already know what happens, so you might need to ask a friend to double check you.

The absolute best way to provide a summary that works for everybody is to combine both methods. It really isn't that hard to stick a brief excerpt before your blurb, or tack a couple lines of blurb after your excerpt, but it can make a world of difference for how useful and inviting your summary is to a particular reader. The convention for summaries that use both is excerpt first, then blurb.

If you're struggling to figure out a summary, or have been in the habit of not providing one, try not to stress over it. Anything is better than nothing.  As long as you've written something for a summary, you've given the reader a little more to help them make their decision. What really isn't helpful, though, is saying “I'm bad at summaries” in your summary. It's a lot like the “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag in that it's unnecessarily self depreciating, frequently comes across as an excuse not to try, and sometimes really is just an excuse. Unlike the “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag, which has the tiny saving grace of warning readers you've probably missed something, saying you're bad at summaries has no utility at all, and may drive away a reader who thought your summary was quite good, but is uncomfortable with the negative attitude reflected by that statement. Summaries are hard. It's okay if you don't like your summary, but it's important for it to be there, and it's important to be kind to yourself about it. You're trying, that's what matters.

Author's Notes

Author's notes are the one place where we, the writers, directly address and initiate contact with our readers. We may also talk to them in the comments section, but that's different because they initiate that interaction while we reply, and comments are mostly one-on-one while in author's notes we're addressing everyone who ever reads our fic.

The very first note on a fic should contain any information, such as warnings or explanations, that a reader needs to see before they get to the body of the story, as well as anything like thanks to your beta, birthday wishes to a character, or general hellos and announcements you want readers to see before they get to the body of the story. On multi-chapter fics, notes at the beginning of chapters serve the same function for that chapter as the initial note on the fic does for the whole story, so you can do things like warn for Self-Harm on the two chapters out of thirty where it comes up, let everyone know your update schedule will be changing, or wish your readers a merry Christmas, if they celebrate it, on the chapter you posted on December 23rd but is set in mid-March.

Notes at the end of a fic or chapter are for things that don't need to be said or are not useful to a reader until after they've read the preceding content, such as translations for that handful of dialogue that's in Vulcan or Portuguese, or any parting greetings or announcements you want to give, like a thanks for reading or a reminder school is starting back so you won't be able to write as much. End notes are the best place to plug your social media to readers if you're inclined to do so, but remember that cannot include payment platforms like Patreon or Ko-fi.

As previously mentioned, warnings can go in end notes but that really should only be done when the warnings are particularly long, such that the length might cause a problem for readers who are already confident in their comfort level and would just want to scroll past the warning description. In that case, the additional warnings need to go in the note at the end of the first chapter, rather than at the end of the fic, if it's a multi-chapter fic; and you need to include an initial note telling readers that warnings/explanations of tags are at the bottom so they know to follow where the Archive tells them to see the end of the chapter/work for “more notes.”

When posting a new work, where the Preface section gives you the option to add notes “at the beginning” or “at the end” or both, if you check both boxes, it means notes at the beginning and end of the entire fic, not the beginning and end of the first chapter. For single-chapter fics this difference doesn't really matter, but for multi-chapter fics it matters a lot. In order to add notes to the beginning or end of the first chapter of a multi-chapter fic you have to first go through the entire process to post the new fic, then go in to Edit, Edit Chapter, and add the notes there.

Series and Chapters

Dealing with Series and Chapters is actually two different issues, but they're closely related and cause some of us mixups, especially when we're new to the site and its systems, so we're going to cover them together.

Series on Ao3 are for collecting up different stories that you've written that are associated with each other in some way. Chapters are for dividing up one story into parts, usually for pacing and to give yourself and your readers a chance to take breaks and breathe, rather than trying to get through the entire thing in a single marathon sitting (not that we won't still do that voluntarily, but it's nice to have rest points built in if we need them).

If your story would be one book if it was officially published, then it should be posted as a single fic—with multiple chapters if it's long or has more than one distinct part, like separate vignettes that all go together. If you later write a sequel to that fic, post it as a new fic and put them together in a series. It's exactly like chapters in a book and books in a series. Another way to think of this structure is like a TV show: different fics in the series are like different seasons of the show, with individual chapters being like episodes.

If you have several fics that all take place in the same AU but really aren't the same story those should go together as a series.  If you wrote a story about a superhero team re-cast as school teachers, then wrote another story about different characters in the same school, that's this situation.

Series are also the best way to handle things like prompt games, bingos, or Kinktober, or collect up one shots and drabbles especially if your various fills, entries, and drabbles are for more than one fandom. If you put everything for a prompt game or bingo, or all your drabbles, together as one fic with a different chapter for each story, what ends up happening is that fic gets recognized by the Archive as a crossover when it isn't, so it gets excluded from the results pages for everyone who told the filters to Exclude Crossovers even though one of the stories you wrote is exactly what they're looking for; and that fic ends up with tons and tons of wildly varying and self-contradictory tags because it's actually carrying the tags for several entirely different, possibly unrelated stories, which also means it ends up getting excluded from results pages because, for instance, one out of your thirty-one Kinktober entries is about someone's NoTP.

Dividing these kinds of things up into multiple fic in a series makes it so much easier for readers to find what of your work they actually want to read.

If you've previously posted such things as a single fic, don't worry, it's a really common misunderstanding and there is absolutely nothing stopping you from reposting them separately. You may see traffic on them go up if you do!

Parting Thoughts

Metatext is ultimately all about communication, and in this context effective communication is a matter of responsibility and balance.

Ao3 is our archive. It's designed for us, the writers, to have the freedom to write and share whatever stories we want without having to worry that we'll wake up one day and find our writing has been deleted overnight without warning.  That has happened too many times to so many in our community as other fanfic sites have died, been shut down, or caved to threats of legal action. Ao3 is dedicated to defending our legal right to create and share our stories. Part of the deal is that, in exchange for that freedom and protection, we take up the responsibility to communicate to readers what we're writing and who it's appropriate for.

We are each other's readers, and readers who don't write are still part of our community. We have a responsibility as members of this community to be respectful of others in our shared spaces.  Ao3 is a shared space. The best way we have to show each other respect is to give one another the information needed to decide if a given fic is something we want to engage with or not, and then, in turn, to not engage with fic that isn't our cup of tea. As long as our fellow writer has been clear about what their fic is, they've done their part of the job. If we decided to look at the fic despite the information given and didn't like what we found, then that's on us.

Because metatext is how we put that vital information about our fics out in the community, it's important that our metatext is clear and easy to parse. The key to that is balance. Striking the balance between putting enough tags to give a complete picture and not putting too many tags that become an unreadable wall; the balance between the urge to be thorough and tag every character and the need to be restrained so those looking for fics actually about a certain character can find them; the balance between using established tags for clarity and ease and making up our own tags for specificity and fun.

Do your best, act in good faith, remember you're communicating with other people behind those usernames and kudos, and, most importantly, have fun with your writing!

#THE GUIDE #metatext #fandom meta #fandom etiquette #Eiiri made this