account dormant, possibly permanently. only keeping it up for personal archival reasons. (it/its,fae/faer,mer/mers) hello you can call me cotton candy or just candy and i write things =). My main fandom is TMNT, esp Rise. I'm 22. Pls read my pinned post before following. (ao3: augustq)
Here's a quick about me post! Call me Cotton Candy, or just Candy, whatever you like best, I'm genderfluid, I use it/its, fae/faer, and mer/mers pronouns, and this is my writing and sometimes art blog! My main fandom fixation rn is Hermitcraft, though I also love Noblesse, TMNT and DC, especially Batman/Batfam. I am a hermitshipper/trafficshipper as well; pls don't follow/feel free to block if that makes you uncomf. Please note that I'm not in the dsmp fandom anymore, nor do I support the actions of certain creators whos characters featured in my fics; my dsmp fics are still up for personal archival and preservation purposes. I also don't write g/t much anymore (still like it, just haven't found much motivation for it) so yeah please don't follow just because you found and liked my old dsmp g/t fics, you won't find what you're looking for.
I'm an adult (22). I don't post n-s-f-w on here, my AO3 however has some 18+ content (mostly related to animes i dont really post about on here). It's all marked as explicit and requires you to be logged in to see. Inc*st fans and prosh*ppers DNI (i'm not going to start fights about this, i just think its gross and don't want to see it. if you disagree just block me, i'm not going to discuss it and will just block you if you try anyways.) Also, this is a sideblog so likes and follows will come from my main, @autumnalguard.
I never use this blog anymore bluh. Not entirely sure I will again. Im gonna leave it up just in case I want to use it and for personal like archive purposes but if you want to see me write uhhh follow @cottoncandyafterdark (18+ only) I like only write anime reader insert these days tho so
My silly little Noblesse doodles are legitimately getting more notes in a few hours than most art I've posted here gets, uh, ever. Incredible. Clearly feeding the smaller fandoms is the way to go
I don’t know about others but the only reason I put both is so that whichever someone clicks on, they will find my fic. So if there is supposed to be rules, I guarantee you that no writer knows these ones. We can barely get people to comment, you think we’re going to specifically choose & or / ? Hell no.
I’ve been in fandom for twenty years, and “/” means romance and “&” means no romance was literally one of the first things I learned. It dates back to Star Trek fanfiction of the 70s. I’m boggled by the fact that anyone who’s been reading fic on AO3 for more than like five minutes wouldn’t know that, and I’m curious as to what fanfic community you come out of.
I don’t think that tagging with both is actually going to get your fic in front of more readers. People looking for romance often exclude the “&” tag if there are too many gen fics tagged with both. People looking for gen often exclude the “/” tag if there are too many fics with both. So rather than putting your fic in front of twice the people, you are in fact more likely to get your target audience ignoring your fic because it has a tag they don’t want.
Also, by overtagging you are more likely to annoy potential readers away from your fic than entice them. A fic tagged both & and / better have both romance and a ton of platonic interaction between the two characters, like a slow burn romance friends-to-lovers arc. If it isn’t, I’m going to be very unhappy because the author lied to me with the tags to try and trick me into reading a fic with deceptive advertising.
When I’m in a fandom and see tagging where some of the tags don’t really apply and are just there to get it in front of more eyes, I’m going to assume one of two things. Either the author is a newb who doesn’t know anything, or the author is purposefully spamming the tags because they don’t care about lying to their potential audience and think that “spray and pray” is an effective tactic. In the first case, their writing probably will not be very good, so why bother reading their fic. In the second case, the fact that I can’t trust the tags to be accurate means I’m not going to read it to see if it’s interesting even if it has a tag I like. Chances are, that tag isn’t actually in the fic anyway, and even if it is, by spam-tagging the author is making the archive harder to use for everybody. Why would I reward bad behavior with attention? No. Far better to mute the author and move on.
More to the point--and no, I will never stop harping on this, because we have GOT to stop leaving our strongest points in the drawer--it doesn't matter if you heard of this convention before joining AO3 or not, because it's in AO3's tagging FAQ.
[id: the "How do I tag a romantic or platonic relationship?" section of the tagging FAQ here.]
"But Jo," you may argue, because you're wrong. "There's no way to find that without digging through site FAQ menus, and that's really inaccessible!"
sure
except
that when you go to post a new fic, and you go to put in those relationship tags, you see this
[id: the Relationships field]
and that tooltip, the one THERE TO EXPLAIN HOW THE FIELD WORKS, links to the Relationships segment of the tag FAQ, which explicitly lays this shit out.
I don't care if you don't know fandom history. I don't care if you've never heard a goddamn word about the spirk shippers. I don't care if you've never been exposed to fandom culture in your life. It is, frankly, not fair to expect those things of everyone.
What is entirely fair to expect is that you will READ THE INSTRUCTIONS PRINTED NEXT TO THE FUCKING BOX, actually. Forget fandom conventions. It genuinely doesn't matter whether you agree with or respect fandom conventions. This is a site policy. This is explicitly how tagging on AO3, specifically, works.
Also, general note, if you're trying underhanded advertiser tactics because you want as much exposure for your fic as possible? You don't belong in fandom.
Fanfic is not a fucking numbers game. It's not about getting lots of people to read your mad scribbling. If you think it is you're doing fandom wrong.
Fandom is write for yourself and maybe one or two fandom friends who are as crazy about a certain part of a canon as you are and if you get strangers reading and commenting, cool bonus.
After a traumatic transformation into a Watcher, Grian had to scrape together a player body of his own creation. He's gotten used to being a player again, but sometimes forgets just how dangerous a Watcher can be.
When a code accident destroys Grian's player body and leaves him stuck as a Watcher on Hermitcraft, he is reminded very quickly why They are only meant to Watch.
The biggest shame in all of theatre history is that Stephen Sondheim's Assassins has never picked up a massive Hamilton-style online fandom of teenagers sexifying John Wilkes Booth and shipping him with Lee Harvey Oswald
DONT BE AFRAID TO COMMENT ON OLD FICS DONT BE AFRAID TO COMMENT ON FICS IN A FANDOM THE AUTHOR MAY NO LONGER BE ACTIVE IN. IF THE STORY IS STILL UP LET THEM KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS IT MIGHT JUST BE THE REMINDER THAT MAKES THEIR DAY.
SINCERELY SOMEONE WHO JUST GOT A REPLY THAT MADE ME WANNA MAKE THIS POST
I am baffled to learn that there were people who thought that they shouldn't comment on old fics, honestly. We're still commenting on Gilgamesh and Ea Nasir, Sappho and Homer, Tolkien and Lewis. Why wouldn't we have things to say about a five year old fic???
Maybe not my favorite ship in the world, I usually like them slightly better as friends, but I do like it overall!! (I think mostly I just like our specific versions of ethubs in our borrowerverse tbh- fdbhgfdhd)
The Wonderful World of Dollies and Crafting, Chpt 1
Words: ~1k
notes: this au is inspired by my friend @aslitheryprinx's old Ragdoll AU, as well as Toy Story, and my own eclectic doll collection. Also note that there will eventually be shipping (haven't decided which ships yet) and all hermits will be present with no particular "main character" across later chapters. Asks are always welcome if you're curious about the characters or world! Enjoy!
Cleo hummed to herself, putting the last few stitches on the little doll-sized suit jacket she'd been working on. Making the clothes was the final step in the weeks-long project, and she was glad to be near finished.
Not that she didn't enjoy her work, of course, but it had taken a while, longer than she'd expected- what started as a simple test of her skills with epoxy clay, to see how well she could add a bit of muscle mass and tone to a doll, turned into a full customization project complete with repainting and accessories, starting when she accidentally sanded the chest down a bit more than she intended and, rather than try and re-enhance the bust with the epoxy sculpt, decided she was changing directions and making it into a male doll now, too. It spiraled from there.
But here she was now, finally finished- she put the jacket on the doll, and grinned at her finished product. A well-muscled doll, wearing a nice suit- with missing, "torn" sleeves, like he'd flexed them off-, a red tie, painted with scars (to make him look tougher), and a halo affixed to his head with a wire (because why not). She picked him up.
"Hmmm." Most of her customs were quickly listed and sold on Etsy, but this one... She liked him too much. She didn't think he'd sell, anyways- he didn't scream "mass appeal" and she wasn't the most popular doll customizer- not that she really wanted to be. Her Etsy shop was titled "Hermit's Crafts" for a reason. "I think I'll hold on to you."
She looked around the room, her workshop/study/display room, for a place to put him. She spotted an empty place on a shelf, in between an action figure she'd bought at a dollar store and a Heath Burns from Monster High- both items bought with the intent to give them a 'glow-up' at some point, both projects never quite started. Maybe someday.
"I guess I need to settle on a name now, if I'm keeping you." She muttered to herself- well, to the doll. But it's not like he was going to talk back, it was the same as talking to herself. She had been thinking about names while working on him, and she had a shortlist- they ranged from silly to plain, and you know what? She was feeling a bit silly today. "Alright, I christen you... Skizzleman." She smiled and set him down on the shelf. "I'll take photos to post later, working on you tired me out."
She took another look at Skizzleman, admiring her own work just one more time, before stepping out of the room.
The door shut behind her and her footsteps faded down the hall.
"... Okay, looks like she's gone, I think we're good for now." a large action figure standing across the room said in a posh British accent that didn't quite match his armored appearance. He wasn't quite life-sized, but he was tall enough that he was stood on his own on the floor, and definitely wouldn't fit on any of the shelves.
Skizzleman looked around, turning his head for the first time in a while. He'd hardly had time to move at all while Cleo was working on him. All across the room, he could see more toys, more dolls, doing the same as him- looking around, stretching, starting to chat with their friends.
"Hey! Hey, dude, you okay?" He jumped a little and turned to see the action figure he was stood next to, looking at him with mild concern.
"Uh?" Skizz responded.
"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to scare you." The action figure adjusted his position- which Skizz could tell was no easy task, he didn't have much articulation- to face Skizz. "Just wanted to check on you, that was a pretty intense custom job she did on you."
"Oh, yeah, it was." Skizz shook his head. "It didn't hurt or anything, though. Felt a little weird when she wiped my face off, but she painted the new one on pretty quickly, so it wasn't that bad."
He heard a sigh of relief from behind him- he turned to see, of course, that Monster High doll. "Everyone always says that, but it's so nice to hear. The idea of being worked on like that still makes me so nervous."
The action figure laughed. "You worry too much about that, Tango. It's been years since we got here, she's never going to do anything with us."
"Tango?" Skizz said, a bit confused- he'd seen dolls like that across the aisles at the store, he hadn't gotten to talk to one, but he was pretty sure the name on the box was "Heath".
"Yep, that's me!" The Monster High doll, Tango apparently, replied, "The name I came with didn't really, fit, I think? So I just picked my own." He raised his arms in something like a shrug.
The action figure nodded. "Yeah, Cleo still calls him Heath, but we all know he's Tango. It's the same with me, Cleo never really gave me a name and my box didn't say anything either, so I go by Impulse now."
"No, the box said something, it just said, what was it? "Super Cool Hero Man"?" Tango was clearly barely keeping himself from laughing.
"Oh, shut up," Impulse waved him off, trying to keep his tone lighthearted, but clearly a bit embarrassed. "Anyways, yeah! Nice to meet you! Cleo called you, uh, Skizzleman? Think you'll stick with that?"
Skizz thought for a second, then nodded. "Yeah, I think I will. It suits me."
Impulse put his hand out and patted Skizz on the back. "Alright, well hello, Skizzleman! Welcome to the Hermit's Crafts family! Remember your spot on the shelf, because Cleo will. You can move around wherever, just make sure you're where you're supposed to be when she gets back. She seems really nice, but, you know-"
"Yeah, I know, you can't let humans see you move."
Impulse nodded. "Yeah. Just seems like a bad idea. So, be careful, I'm sure you can figure out the rest. How about I show you around and introduce you to everyone?"
Skizz smiled. "That sounds good."
Impulse smiled back.
Skizz got the feeling he was going to like it here.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I wrote a fic! Imagine that! Here is the first chapter in my Living Dolls AU.
Word Count: ~1k
Summary:
"
Cleo hummed to herself, putting the last few stitches on the little doll-sized suit jacket she'd been working on. Making the clothes was the final step in the weeks-long project, and she was glad to be near finished.
She looked down at the doll. "I guess I need to settle on a name now, if I'm keeping you." She muttered to herself- well, to the doll. But it's not like he was going to talk back, it was the same as talking to herself. She had been thinking about names while working on him, and she had a shortlist- they ranged from silly to plain, and you know what? She was feeling a bit silly today. "Alright, I christen you... Skizzleman." She smiled and set him down on the shelf. "I'll take photos to post later, working on you tired me out."
The door shut behind her and her footsteps faded down the hall.
"... Okay, looks like she's gone, I think we're good for now." a large action figure standing across the room said."
