Caernnunos

@Caernunnos on Ao3 | Somehow, a real adult | Never grew out of dragons

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

unpopular opinion probably but I actually like that ao3 doesn’t let people take back their kudos.

unlike social media platforms (which ao3 is not) where people unlike stuff whenever they think or find out the original posters’ moral compass doesn’t perfectly align with their own’s or whatever, and “likes” can be taken back at any time, ao3 treats kudos as something sacred. once you give it, it’s the author’s to keep forever.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[caernunnos]

Let it be known that if anyone feels this way about my writing, I do, in fact, accept blood sacrifices.

[unfoldedxo]

good luck to my readers 🫡

blame @caernunnos for what is about to happen

[caernunnos]

Oh I am SO happy to enable. This is going to be FUN

[caernunnos]

My favorite thing about being an acquired taste in terms of writing content (and knowing it) is getting comments where I’ve convinced someone to buy into whatever weird premise because you might not have ever heard of the dish I’m making but DAMN i cooked 😎

[caernunnos]

One of the most popular fics in my genre just started using Claude for something - editing or actually writing I'm not sure. Fuck my LIFE

[unfoldedxo]

i’m scrolling through ao3 trying to find a new fic to read and come across a fic that sounds a lot like my own. mine was published on 6/15/2025 and theirs was published 11/24/2025

- both FMC’s originally wanting to be healers

- both FMC’s parents dying in the rebellion and changing their path’s to the RQ

- both FMC’s being orphaned by the Sorrengails for six years after the rebellion

- both FMC’s having a past friendship with Xaden

okay so far not too crazy. there’s a so called thing as inspiration and that’s not too coincidental.

- both FMC’s wear a dead family member’s leather across the parapet…

now i’m like hmmm.

and this is all from the summary.

so now i’m skimming the fic.

- my fic when the FMC tries on the dead family member’s leathers:

I press my face to the collar and breathe until my chest burns. “Come back,” I whisper into the leather. “Please. I don’t know how to do this without you. I don’t know how to be brave.” If I could crawl inside this jacket, wrap myself in what remains, maybe I could pretend she still braids my hair before bed, still kisses my forehead when nightmares wake me, still tells me I’m brave when my hands shake.

The jacket remembers Mother’s ribs where mine flare too narrow. She was built for speed, all sharp angles and lean muscle. I carry different weight. Father said so often enough, disapproval thick in his voice. Too soft for war, Astrea. Too gentle.

He might have been right. She’s dead and I’m here trying to wear her skin.

I kick the trunk back under my bed. The sound echoes off stone walls.

The shirt catches on my shoulders, pulls tight across places where I’ve grown bustier than she ever was. Mother moved in and out of fights with lethal precision. I stay to tend wounds instead of flying away to make them.

Her leather pants bite into my hips where five years filled me out past Mother’s frame. I zip the jacket. It molds wrong, pulls tight across my chest, but the weight feels familiar now.

These leathers belonged to her for years. Years of flying dragons while I played with dolls, years of coming home bloody while I learned to braid flower crowns, years of preparing for the war that would kill her while I thought her invincible.

Now they’re mine, and I don’t know how to be what she was. I don’t know how to be anything but soft in a world that eats soft things.

- their fic when the FMC tries on the dead family member’s leathers:

The leathers don’t fit me, flaring out in the bodice where they hugged Saoirse tightly, pulling around my waist and thighs when my sister was slimmer than I’ve ever been.

These leathers belonged to her for years. Maman commissioned them after Saoirse earned them by surviving Threshing and my sister kept them safe for the years that followed. Years of flying with Fara while I played with dolls, years of coming home bloody while I learned at Athair’s feet, years of preparing for the war that would kill her while I thought her invincible. My brother kept them safe for me, kept them waiting for six years until I would need them and I hope some of her spirit will merge with my own.

I don’t know how to be what she was. I don’t know how to be anything but soft in a world that praises strength.

the other author didn’t just the concept of inherited leathers, but they retained the sequence of:

1. ownership

2. years of use

3. dragon riding

4. fmc playing with dolls

5. the woman returning bloody

6. the fmc learning something gentler

7. the war that kills the woman

8. the heroine believing her invincible

9. inability to become her

10. softness in a hostile world

changing “mother” to “sister,” “flower crowns” to “athair’s feet,” and “eats soft things” to “praises strength” does not make it independently written

ok so now i’m concerned.

as per canon, violet gets her arm broken by imogen and is taken to the healer’s quadrant

- this is the first time both FMC’s are in the healer’s quadrant

ok not too crazy, but…

- my FMC:

The Healer Quadrant smells like home.

Tea tree and bergamot and the sharpness of antiseptic that means safety, comfort, the promise that broken things can be mended if you know how to touch them gently enough.

Walking through these corridors feels like stepping into a dream I used to have about my future—white walls lined with beds where I would tend to the wounded, where my hands would bring relief, where I could be soft without apology.

My chest aches with longing so sharp it takes my breath away. This is where I belong. This is what I was meant for—using my knowledge of the human body to save lives instead of learning new ways to end them.

But I'm not here as a healer. I'm here as a visitor, as someone who chose violence over mercy and has to live with the weight of that decision pressing down on my shoulders.

Stop, I tell myself, blinking back tears. You made your choice. You don't get to feel sorry for yourself now.

- their FMC:

She leads us into the infirmary, and the moment I step inside, I feel like I can breathe for the first time since crossing the parapet. Lights, smells, and warmth attack me from all sides, but it doesn’t overwhelm me. In fact, I welcome it with the slightest hint of heartache. This — medicines and quiet and aiding all of the riders in these beds around us — could have been mine. It should have.

But it’s not.

so different prose, but the same emotiknal engine and heartache in the same set up. this cannot be coincidence.

- both FMC’s then go off and tell dain to fuck off basically for not believing in violet.

- both FMC’s learn violet has been/wants to poison her opponents

my FMC:

But as I leave the barracks and head toward morning formation, I can't shake the feeling that we're losing pieces of ourselves with every choice we make. That the girls who walked onto the parapet three weeks ago are already gone, replaced by harder versions who know how to poison enemies and dream about kissing people who want them dead.

their FMC:

Something cold lodges in my chest as I speak. Because I know this is how it starts — how this place starts to break us. It starts with small compromises, tiny betrayals of who you used to be. First you poison someone's breakfast to even the odds. Then you learn to fight dirty because clean fighting gets you killed.

there is no way, based off all the other “coincidences” that this author writes the FMC having the exact moral reflection that my FMC does with violet’s canon poisoning.

in the same chapter, xaden is also ignoring the FMC… which makes sense in my fic because they naturally hate each other. there is no plot reason in theirs that i found.

- my FMC is sparring with Xaden and notices him:

Xaden strips off his flight jacket without looking at me. The sleeveless shirt underneath clings to shoulders broader than I remember, arms corded with muscle that used to be softer when I knew him. Scars I've never seen mark his forearms—thin white lines that speak of blade work, of violence learned in the years between us. And on his other arm, the relic that reminds me we’re divided.

He's beautiful, and I hate myself for noticing. Hate that even now, even knowing what he's about to do, my eye catalogues the way those scars healed clean, the perfect symmetry of his collarbones, the way his dark hair catches afternoon light.

- their FMC is watching Xaden spar Violet:

He strips off his flight jacket without looking at me. The sleeveless shirt underneath clings to shoulders broader than I remember and I can see some of the scars we share peek out of his back.

He's beautiful, and I hate myself for noticing. Hate that even now, even knowing what he's about to do, my eye catalogues the way those scars healed clean, the perfect symmetry of his collarbones, the way his dark hair catches the afternoon light.

ok so again, word for word…

also, if xaden is going to spar with violet, why would he be looking at their FMC? the line makes sense in MY fic because they’re fighting. it makes absolutely no spatial sense in theirs…

along with that, my FMC being orphaned by the Sorrengails MAKES SENSE. their FMC is a marked one. why would a SORRENGAIL orphan a marked one? my FMC’s father was the general before he died. lilith took over his position and the fmc’s family and the sorrengails knew each other.

they also have MANY themes:

someone soft raised to be a weapon.

losing their identity the longer they’re in basgiath.

translating healer knowledge fighting to win sparring matches.

both positioned as someone who thinks violet needs belief rather than dain’s dismissal. which at times feels jarring for the other person’s FMC because they internally make fun of or insult violet (like saying hair doesn’t have feelings or feel anything when violet refuses to cut her hair).

so both FMC’s are counterpoints for dain.

my FMC’s mother was the dead family member and healer. the other author divided her character into three different people, including a sister, but the foundational emotional elements surrounding the three vs the mother remain the same.

both fics emotional thesis is softness is strength and both FMC’s deal with what Basgiath is making them. which alone is normal in a fic, but combined with everything?

yes, there are major differences and yes, a healer joining the RQ is not something i came up with nor claim to have, but with exact prose, fundamental core themes, and transplanted emotional logic, i’m a little sus (or a lot).

the reason i chose healer to rider is because i myself am i nurse. i know the medical field. i know what it is like to have that core identity and wondered what it would feel like to lose that part of yourself when that’s all you wanted for yourself.

here are other small things i notice:

- my fmc crossing the parapet:

The wind tries to tear me off but I let it pass through me instead of fighting it.

- their fmc crossing the parapet:

I let the wind flow through me instead of fighting it, swaying instead of standing against it.

i wrote that particular line because my FMC was also a dancer when she was younger, using something unlikely she had learned to help cross the parapet.

- my author’s note:

This is for the girls who wanted to be soft, but circumstance stole that luxury from them.

You are allowed to be gentle in a world that demands you be hard. Your tenderness is not weakness—it’s survival.

- other author’s note:

She’s going to be soft. She’s going to be a representation that strength isn’t always physical and that it’s okay to be vulnerable.

while it’s not verbatim, it is thematic appropriation

ordinarily, i would never treat “softness is strength” as evidence. it is a widespread theme, but here it becomes significant because the other author simultaneously reproduces it many times in the exact same way i do.

- both FMC’s adapt the “healing knowledge works both ways”

so both FMC’s have previous knowledge and turned that knowledge into their advantage.

while this isn’t obviously something i came up with, and has been used before, it is one of astrea’s defining qualities used often in my fic and the other author reproduces it and shows it off in the almost exact way during sparring but with different nerve bundles.

- xaden recognizes that the softness both FMC’s have can be detrimental:

xaden’s pov throughout my fic:

She just proved she’d rather die than let someone she loves fall, and that makes her the most dangerous kind of person in a place like this.

Dangerous to enemies who think soft means weak.

Dangerous to herself, who doesn’t understand that saving people can get you killed.

Dangerous to me, because watching her choose love over safety makes me remember why I wanted to choose her over everything else.

later in the fic:

People like that build loyalty. Not through fear, but through admiration. She’s not trying to control anyone—she’s making them want to follow her.

She’s building loyalty without trying to… Making people care about her through kindness instead of fear.

Which makes her dangerous.

the other author’s xaden’s POV:

He knows [FMC] is dangerous…

She was dangerous and not just on the mat. And she could very easily put everything he’s been working for in harms way.

She has to be able to focus on herself instead of her foster sister. She’ll end up dead if her focus is always split.

now, my fmc rallying others and being dangerous makes sense because of their divided loyalties at this time. the other fmc is a marked one, and i’m unclear how that could get in the way of what xaden is doing when their fmc attends the marked ones meetings (tho i don’t think she knows venin exist yet. but still. they’re on the same side loyalty wise).

- both FMC’s dead relative’s previous dragon were at threshing.

now, this is where it diverges. my fmc bonds that dragon. theirs does not. but, my fmc bonds tairn and the dead relative’s dragon. theirs bonds andarna and another dragon that is not their dead relative’s old dragon.

now, obviously i can’t be certain, but i believe this stylistic choice was done just because they wanted the fmc to bond andarna while i wanted them to bond tairn.

and having them bond three dragons might be overkill. again, i am not the author. i can’t say that for certain, that is just my opinion.

of course, at the end of the day, the two dragon bond isn’t unique. it directly mirrors canon.

- both FMC’s dwell on their hands and how they were supposed to heal, not break.

again, alone, not too crazy of a comparison. with everything altogether?

am i being too crazy? or too critical…

this is the thing that makes authors NOT want to post their work.

[caernunnos]

Yeah fuck this shit. This type of thing ruins the fun for authors like us who spend hundreds of hours over years to write. I've seen this happen to some of my fics recently, and haven't had the energy to call it out. It's been happening with increasing frequency. I'm sorry this is happening to your masterpiece. If you're following these obviously copied fics - think about unsubbing and supporting the original authors. Get 'em, folded!

[caernunnos]

Not so fun fact to start your morning- if someone’s searching for your fics on Google, their automatic AI summary now tries to give an overview of your AO3 profile based on scraping your works.

For some authors I searched this summary included direct links to their instagram and tumblr profiles.

[My own search for example]

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[caernunnos]

Watching AI chatbot companies fall apart under their own greed by upsetting their userbase is fucking delectable.

[livinforthefanfics]

So something wild has happened…

1,000.

1,000 kudos!!!!

Are you fucking kidding me?!?!?!

[caernunnos]

CONGRATULATIONS

[radioactive-earthshine]

Not sure why it's a new trend among fic readers to assume if the fic has not been posted within the week it's inappropriate to comment on it, like the fic has to be hot out of the oven to give feedback for.

I got a comment on a fic that is less than a year old and it was mostly an apology for being a comment on an "old fic" and how late they were in commenting.

Just comment on the fic. Doesn't matter how old it is.

[mysteryteacup]

Fandom is not social media.

Fandom is not trends.

Fandom is a cross between a library and having a slumber party with your friends.

"Old" means nothing to fic.

[sunriseverse]

genuinely i don’t think it’s possible to easily explain the explicit part of online friendships to people who don’t Understand. i don’t mean like, explicit in the sense of “oh you’re sexting” or whatever. no. i mean when you and your friend start gleefully making up explicit sexual scenarios for your shared blorbos and you get giddier and giddier as you add more detail and you’ll be grinning at your screen as you type away at mach speeds. and it’s entirely nonsexual in an interpersonal sense, you’re not really getting Into it, but ohhhhh it’s soooooo fun and satisfying. and you can NEVER tell someone who doesn’t also do this that your mood is actively improved like fivefold because you and your friend played Sexual Tuoys together because they’ll go “what the FUCK.”

[caernunnos]

Like how do I explain I’m texting someone in a different timezone explicit details about something with my morning coffee and there is no interest between us??

[caernunnos]

Shoutout to my aro/ace spectrum friends, you just won me a scrabble game with the word ‘aros’- defined as ‘aromantic individuals, plural’

[caernunnos]

Rare Words #4 - Dout

Dout (v) - To douse or snuff out a light, flame, or fire.

In a sentence: As the lights were doubted, the room fell dark.

I missed posting rare words but I've been busy. Will continue <3

[copperfirebird]

Would you like some tea for Mermay?

Or maybe coffee?

[caernunnos]

These are ADORABLE

[abbielauren2024]

Reblog if you’re grateful for your commenters <3

[caernunnos]

If you dumb motherfuckers are gonna take something unique from someone else’s story, at least don’t use AI to do it.

Let me make it abundantly clear: No one owns an idea. Several authors can come to the same creative decision independently. Collaboration and sharing ideas is to be encouraged.

I fucking love it when authors riff off each other’s ideas, or take inspiration and lore to build fanon together.

Copying another writer’s premise into some AI ‘creative writing’ tool is different. It strips the words of context, turning the original symbolism into a perverted mockery of what it was.

Fucking shoggoths.