woke up this morning, from the strangest dream

Recovering academic. Any pronouns, well over 18. My AO3. Blacklist srs bsns to avoid real-world seriousness. More details here. I've been asked enough times that I've set up a ko-fi, if you like the nonsense I yeet into the world and want to drop me a few coins.

[pipermca]

I got another spam comment today on AO3, and I want to share it as a PSA. But before I do, I want you to understand that you SHOULD NOT DO what this comment is asking. Ok? Ok.

See that bit at the bottom? Don't do that. Insert ParamedicGuy.gif going "Don't."

Other malicious spam comments I've gotten seemed designed to make an author question their writing, or outright encourage them to delete their stories from AO3. This one is different, in that it tries to get you to destroy the work on your own computer.

If you ran that command, it basically locates your Documents folder, then deletes everything in it, including all subfolders. It also does it without any prompt, so you have no chance to second guess your actions.

This is just fucking trolling.

Coincidentally, we just did training on a cyberattack similar to this, called a ClickFix attack. You can read about how that works here.

As a general rule, if ANYONE or ANY WEBSITE tells you unsolicited* to do anything in Powershell, CMD RUN, command prompt, shell command, or something similar, DON'T.

*There are legit reasons for running commands in PowerShell or the command prompt, but in those cases you are likely seeking out a solution to a problem you are already experiencing. Don't just run random commands on your computer as recommended by some unlogged-in guest on a fan fiction site.

Always think and consider before taking action, and get a second opinion from a trusted source. When I got this comment I was pretty sure what the command would do, and it took me about three seconds of googling to confirm it.

Be safe out there!

[duckprintspress]

In case anyone is wondering where things currently stand on the "payment processors are censoring shit" front, I got this ~lovely~ e-mail from Kickstarter about the approval of the crowdfunding campaign for Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling.

So we've advanced to "at any point in the process, without warning and apparently without any appeals process, Stripe may just decide to shut down your NSFW project." Apparently it's even possible for this to happen AFTER they've collected funds, and they may not forward those funds. What will they do with them? Refund them? Pocket them? WHO KNOWS?

How. is. this. legal.

Anyway. I have a plan for if this fucks the Press over (it involves a new launch on our own page, and hiring a goddamn lawyer), and in the meantime, I'm going to go forward as planned, because fuck this censorship nonsense.

Want 16 queer monsterfucking short stories? Maybe check out our pre-launch page - I expect to launch the campaign on November 11!

Coming soon: Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling

A collection of 16 erotica tales about monsters and the partner(s) of their choice engaging in courtship and then getting together!

[eatingcroutons]

Oh my fucking god there are two men and two kids at a table on the other side of this beer garden, and one guy is telling the little girl shit like, “Your brain is probably wired linguistically, whereas mine is wired mathematically,” and the girl is saying in a quiet little voice that she got the highest maths score in her grade, and his response is to talk about how men have bigger brains than women and jesus fucking christ someone please tell me why I shouldn’t go over there and pour my beer all over this asshole’s head

[eatingcroutons]

I can’t figure out how to reply to replies on mobile but to summarise: I finished my pint and walked over and said to the girl, “Did I hear you say you wanted to be a scientist?” And told her that I’m a scientist, and maths was always my favourite subject when I was a kid, and wished her good luck, and told her the most important thing about science is to question everything. And she turned to the guy (her uncle?) and was like “Yeah, like I was questioning what you were saying before!”

I reckon she’ll be okay. 

[eatingcroutons]

Nine years later I happen to be in the same part of the country and the same beer garden, sitting across from the same table where I saw that conversation happening. Wherever that kid is now, I hope she's doing great.

[transformativeworks]

"Deprecated Fandoms" Spam Bot Alert!

If you get a comment that says AO3 is "deleting works to conserve server space", that is a Spam Bot. There is no such thing as "deprecated fandom content", nor is there any limit on the number of works that can be posted to a fandom tag (regardless of how "popular" it is). AO3 has not changed its content policies. We are committed to upholding our founding principle of maximum inclusiveness of fanwork content, and will only remove content that violates the AO3 Terms of Service. While non-fanworks are not allowed on AO3, we consider both original works and real-person fiction to be fanworks. Please don't listen to anyone telling you otherwise.

Unlike the previous round of art spam, so far these comments have all been from guests, so our advice for handling them is different! We're working on filtering these comments out, and flagging them as spam is how you can help. Read more below the cut!

To help train our automated spam-checker to block similar guest comments in the future:

If the comment is on your own work: 

Note: The "Spam" button only appears when viewing a guest comment directly on your work. This is because the AO3 comment inbox is merely a copy of the work's comments – deleting a comment from your AO3 inbox does not delete the comment from the work itself.

Go directly to the comment on your work, either by clicking on the link in your email or in your AO3 inbox.

Click on the "Spam" button to mark the guest comment as spam and remove it from your work. 

That's it! You don't have to do anything else.

If you see comments like these on someone else's work: 

Feel free to let the creator know the comment is from a bot and that they should mark it as spam. 

You can also report the comments as botspam via the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form linked at the bottom of every page on AO3. 

If you are reporting multiple guest comments, please submit only one report and include all comment links in your report description. (You can get the direct link to any comment by clicking the "Thread" button on the comment, and then copying the URL of that page.)

AO3's Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) does not pre-screen content on AO3; they only investigate if they receive a report. All reports are reviewed by PAC volunteers, who are real human beings. You don't need to worry that your or anyone else's fanworks will be taken down due to a baseless report or a mass-reporting campaign. 

If PAC were to determine that you had violated the TOS, you would receive a notification of the violation via the email address associated with your AO3 account—not via comments, social media, or any other method. 

[voxofthevoid]

Wow, now there's a bot going around on Ao3 telling people that the "moderators" will delete works from "deprecated" fandoms and impose bans.

Fearmongering bullshit, but it's fearmongering bullshit that seems to be taking advantage of the recent spotlight series in order to trick authors into deleting their fics.

Just. Why.

What the hell does anyone get out of making these bots.

[xemylixa]

There's a theory already that this makes it easier for copyright infringers to steal fanfics because you can't prove the authorship of a deleted work.

This is pure evil

Spread the word

p.s. The comments look something like this:

p.p.s. There's no "new" policy that bans original works, either. Everything that was allowed, is still allowed. This is a "please read our TOS ffs" awareness campaign - not a surprise rugpull. Don't delete anything, please. It's an archive.

[eatingcroutons]

Everything that was allowed, is still allowed

[eatingcroutons]

The Disproportion of One's Designs (M, Gen)

Ascension has given Astarion the freedom he's so desperately yearned for, for so long - from fear, from pain, and from his past.

(Hasn't it?)

---

My piece about Ascended Astarion's messed-up little brain (squishes it) that I wrote for @astarion-fanzine is now on AO3!

It's got a lot of unacknowledged and unaddressed personal trauma on the part of our unreliable narrator because that's how I roll.

[vancozine]

❇️ MOD SPOTLIGHT ❇️

Meet our Writing Editor CROU (any pronouns)!

🧪 Find her on Tumblr: @eatingcroutons  | Ao3: @ eatingcroutons | Bluesky: @ eatingcroutons

[eatingcroutons]

Reminder that contributor applications are open until 5 May! Come sign up for this zine, it's gonna be great!

[vancozine]

‼️ ATTENTION ALL ZAUNDADS ARTISTS AND WRITERS ‼️

Contributor applications for Legacy of Zaun: A Vanco Zine are now OPEN! We’re looking for page artists, merch designers, and writers. Applications are open from April 5th, 2025 to May 5th, 2025, so be sure to submit your application before the due date!

🧪 Applications for ARTISTS (page and merch) are here: https://forms.gle/LYBbrktZLNssFSux9

🧪 Applications for WRITERS are here: https://forms.gle/y1zZZUFVnxRuRX4r7

🧪 For guidelines and more information about the zine, feel free to check out our Carrd! (linked here and also in our description!)

[time-traveling-fetus]

As much debate as there is about tone tags, 90% of the issues would be solved by just typing the word. Like instead of typing /gen or /hj you can just write (genuine) or (handjob) and you'll be doing pretty much the exact same thing.

[transformativeworks]

NOTICE FROM THE OTW PAC

EDIT: To clarify, we'd like to reassure our users that there is no indication that AO3 has experienced a data breach. In all cases, PAC was able to determine that the affected users' login information had been compromised in other ways, such as by accidentally downloading malware to their devices and/or by re-using the same email/password combination on AO3 that they had also used on a compromised website.

The Policy and Abuse Committee (PAC) has gotten several tickets where folks have lost access to their AO3 account because someone else has logged in and changed the email/password.

This was possible because folks were reusing the same email/password combo across multiple sites, and one of the other sites was compromised.

From PAC

Due to recent data breaches of other websites, many email/password combinations stolen from those sites are now circulating the internet. If you’ve ever used your AO3 password on another website, we recommend that you immediately change your password: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/your-account#changepassword Security reminder: You should never reuse the same email/password combination on multiple websites. Please keep your AO3 account email up to date, so that we can contact you if there are any issues with your account. To change your AO3 email: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/your-account#changeemail AO3 accounts are always free to create and use. You can request an invitation here: https://archiveofourown.org/invite_requests

Don't let this be you - make sure your AO3 password is unique to your AO3 account!

[eatingcroutons]

Hi friends, please take this announcement seriously. PAC has seen multiple AO3 account hijacks in recent weeks. If you've EVER used your AO3 email/password combination on another website, change your AO3 password NOW.

[softest-punk]

Tiny bit of Silco meta that might be a simple error but I am choosing to read as intentional because it does so much for his character: Silco is Doing An Accent the entire time. Specifically he is doing a much posher accent than Vander or Benzo speak with. His vowels are markedly more clipped than theirs, which gives the impression of being significantly more upper class.

I say he's doing it because it slips at least once. It slips, specifically, when he's doing his drowning monologue.

You can hear it slip here, at 5:51, particularly in whispering which comes out as whisperin'—it's the most momentary blip, which again may or may not be intentional, but I choose to assume it is because the thought makes me insane.

Beautiful broken baby pretending so so hard to be something he's not, armoured down to the vocal chords, aspiring to what he thinks of as more down to the voice he speaks with. No one gets to see who Silco really is.

I am unwell about him.

[eatingcroutons]

YES I LOVE THIS DETAIL

There are a WHOLE BUNCH of inconsistencies in Silco's accent. Sometimes his Rs are rhotic, sometimes they're not. Mostly his vowels are southern English, but sometimes he drops in a flat A which doesn't fit with that at all. There's that bit in 1x07 when he says "We aren't due for an assembly," and pronounces it "doo" rather than "dyoo". I had an alternative interpretation of why this might be - to quote what I said on bsky a while back:

I fucking love the idea of Silco having picked up verbal idiosyncrasies from all over the melting pot of Zaun, from all the people he knows and interacts with, in a way that makes his accent elusive, unidentifiable, and thus fundamentally Zaunite in and of itself - because that's what Zaun is, a complicated mess of people with complicated ideas about identity. And that's what Silco is, trying to reconcile and integrate wildly disparate views and expectations into some kind of a concept of a nation. And I don't know if Silco's fluctuating accent was intentional but I LOVE the meta implications of it, so I'm damn well gonna take it as canon and incorporate it into my understanding of Silco as a character.

...but the interpretation that he's intentionally trying to shift his accent is also a very juicy one :D

I've actually been meaning to do a rewatch and take notes on all the variations in his accent because that's the sort of ridiculous thing I'm apt to do

[lcvelessness]

Zaundads / Vanco from 'The Art and Making of Arcane' (2024), text and doodles removed! / Young Vander&Silco — Last Drop and miner days + AU family portrait. Arts of their younger selves are header sized (3:1 ratio) for Twitter/Bluesky ♡

Credits appreciated if reposting ♡

[eatingcroutons]

Soooo remember when I was like "yeah Ascended Astarion is absolutely going to have fucked-up trauma responses in ways he is absolutely not equipped to handle"

I was accepted to write for @astarion-fanzine and so of course I had to Do The Thing. If you like the way I write angst then you may be interested in my contribution to this zine! The fundamental premise of it is, "Ascension does not, in fact, magically heal 200 years of trauma" *waggles eyebrows*

Here's a preview:

And you only need to donate USD$5 or equivalent to get a copy of this entire digital zine! The mods handle no money themselves; you just need proof of your donation and you'll get my self-indulgent foray into Ascended Astarion's mental health spiral as well as literally hundreds of pages of other fanworks 😙

Preorders close on 3 March! Go check them out!

[eatingcroutons]

Once again I am poking my #bg3 and #astarion fandom frends to be like, hi, would you be interested in supporting this zine?? :3 I do think I wrote a pretty good and sad thing. Always gotta put our favourite boy in Situations.

[eatingcroutons]

Soooo remember when I was like "yeah Ascended Astarion is absolutely going to have fucked-up trauma responses in ways he is absolutely not equipped to handle"

I was accepted to write for @astarion-fanzine and so of course I had to Do The Thing. If you like the way I write angst then you may be interested in my contribution to this zine! The fundamental premise of it is, "Ascension does not, in fact, magically heal 200 years of trauma" *waggles eyebrows*

Here's a preview:

And you only need to donate USD$5 or equivalent to get a copy of this entire digital zine! The mods handle no money themselves; you just need proof of your donation and you'll get my self-indulgent foray into Ascended Astarion's mental health spiral as well as literally hundreds of pages of other fanworks 😙

Preorders close on 3 March! Go check them out!

[eatingcroutons]

Soooo remember when I was like "yeah Ascended Astarion is absolutely going to have fucked-up trauma responses in ways he is absolutely not equipped to handle"

I was accepted to write for @astarion-fanzine and so of course I had to Do The Thing. If you like the way I write angst then you may be interested in my contribution to this zine! The fundamental premise of it is, "Ascension does not, in fact, magically heal 200 years of trauma" *waggles eyebrows*

Here's a preview:

And you only need to donate USD$5 or equivalent to get a copy of this entire digital zine! The mods handle no money themselves; you just need proof of your donation and you'll get my self-indulgent foray into Ascended Astarion's mental health spiral as well as literally hundreds of pages of other fanworks 😙

Preorders close on 3 March! Go check them out!

[zaunite-viktor]

Writing Silco's face expressions means fighting against the suggestions

[eatingcroutons]

Hahahahaha, the number of times this has happened to me when writing about Iorveth...

(If I had a nickel for every time I've ended up fixating on a blorbo who's a one-eyed war criminal determined to achieve sovereignty and independence for his people I'd have two nickels but it's weird that it's happened twice)

[rcntlydcccased]

There’s more. Read it btw