i often see writers sharing a sentiment of struggling with writing kiss scenes which honestly bleeds into other portrayals of physical intimacy. i see it a lot in modernized styles of writing popularized by the recent trend in publishing to encourage short, choppy sentences and few adverbs, even less descriptive language. this makes intimacy come across awkward, like someone writing a script or clumsy recounting of events rather than a beautiful paragraph of human connection.
or just plane horniness. but hey, horny doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with poetic or sensual.
shallow example: they kissed desperately, tongues swirling and she moaned. it made her feel warm inside.
in depth example: she reached for the other woman slowly and with a small measure of uncertainty. the moment her fingers brushed the sharp, soft jaw of her companion, eliza's hesitance slid away. the first kiss was gentle when she finally closed the distance between them. she pressed her lips lightly to gabriella's in silent exploration. a tender question. gabriella answered by meeting her kiss with a firmer one of her own. eliza felt the woman's fingers curling into her umber hair, fingernails scraping along her scalp. everything inside eliza relaxed and the nervousness uncoiled from her gut. a warm buzz of energy sunk through her flesh down to the very core of her soul. this was right. this was always where she needed to be.
the first complaint i see regards discomfort in writing a kiss, feeling like one is intruding on the characters. the only way to get around this is to practice. anything that makes you uncomfortable in writing is something you should explore. writing is at its best when we are pushing the envelope of our own comfort zones. if it feels cringy, if it feels too intimate, too weird, too intrusive, good. do it anyway! try different styles, practice it, think about which parts of it make you balk the most and then explore that, dissect it and dive into getting comfortable with the portrayal of human connection.
of course the biggest part comes to not knowing what to say other than "they kissed" or, of course, the tried and true "their lips crashed and their tongues battled for dominance" 😐. so this is my best advice: think beyond the mouth. okay, we know their mouths are mashing. but what are their hands doing? are they touching one another's hair? are they scratching or gripping desperately at one another? are they gliding their hands along each other's body or are they wrapping their arms tightly to hold each other close? do they sigh? do they groan? do they relax? do they tense? are they comfortable with each other or giddy and uncertain? is it a relief, or is it bringing more questions? is it building tension or finally breaking it?
get descriptive with the emotions. how is it making the main character/pov holder feel? how are they carrying those emotions in their body? how do they feel the desire in their body? desire is not just felt below the belt. it's in the gut, it's in the chest, it's in the flushing of cheeks, the chills beneath the skin, the goosebumps over the surface of the flesh. everyone has different pleasure zones. a kiss might not always lead desire for overtly sexual touches. a kiss might lead to the desire for an embrace. a kiss might lead to the impulse to bite or lick at other areas. a kiss could awaken desire to be caressed or caress the neck, the shoulder, the back, the arms etc. describe that desire, show those impulses of pleasure and affection.
of course there is the tactile. what does the love interest taste like? what do they smell like? how do they kiss? rough and greedy? slow and sensual? explorative and hesitant? expertly or clumsily? how does it feel to be kissed by them? how does it feel to kiss them?
i.e. examine who these individuals are, what their motives and feelings are within that moment, who they are together, what it looks like when these two individuals come together. a kiss is not about the mouth. it's about opening the door to vulnerability and desire in one's entire body and soul.
There are a lot of different Schools of Zuko Characterization that I’ve noticed, and what I’ve found is that if you want your version of Zuko to be in character, you have to avoid most extremes.
Claiming that Zuko never cries or that he is a huge asshole with no compassion or whatever is both inaccurate and insulting, but if your Zuko is crying every scene that isn’t very accurate either.
Insisting that Zuko is stupid is both hurtful and insensitive because he was frequently told that by his abusers, but it’s not wrong to point out that he has a habit of making reckless and ill-advised decisions. Most of his ideas are a mix of “smart” and “dumb”—take the turtleseal tunnels as an example. It was smart of him to realize that the turtleseals needed to come up for air, but it was reckless of him to not consider that turtleseals might be able to hold their breath for longer than humans. Iroh tells him “you never think things through” and Aang tells him “actually you’re pretty smart” and both of these are statements that can coexist.
Sanding the edges off of Zuko’s temper is annoying, yes, but if you’re writing Book 3 Zuko he shouldn’t be lashing out physically or assaulting anyone. (For everyone thinking about what happened in the finale—that was a completely rational reaction to the rest of the team goofing off and not symptomic of Zuko’s everyday behavior.)
Zuko isn’t a “dark mysterious bad boy”—he shared his woes in front of unconscious Aang and a frog, after all!—but he probably won’t be spilling every detail of his abuse unprompted, especially if your Zuko is pre-Book 3.
Nuance is important with characterization, and going too far in either direction runs the risk of OOC (which is not a bad thing if you’re into it! but a lot of people aren’t).
Fanfiction advice and etiquette for both readers and authors
I've noticed a lot of people, myself included, complaining about people not understanding proper etiquette with regards to fandom and fanfiction, especially with regards to new and younger people taking part for the first time.
However, a lot of us take for granted having been around for a while or being in the right social circles when first joining, so the rules have become largely unspoken nowadays.
So, I'd like to help anyone new to fandom by providing a sort of guide to the basic culture and rules for engaging with fanworks, including new advice with regards to how things like AI has changed the landscape and environment of fandom.
Others are free to contribute their own thoughts. My advice is limited to my own knowledge and experience after all, and I'm not going to be able to account for everything or everyone's preferences or get everything right
1. Don't like, don't read
Ao3 is an anti-censorship platform. You are going to stumble upon things on there that may downright disturb, disgust, or upset you.
If you don't enjoy a work, it is much easier and less time consuming to hit the back button or go back to the homepage than it is to leave a hate comment.
If the work bothers you so much that you can't even stand to see it in your search results, then mute/block the author and/or use filters and extensions if that is an option.
Remember: Author Chose not to use Warnings is a adequate warning. It is not the same as Warnings do not Apply. What it means is that the Author acknowledges that there may be things present that fits within one of the warning categories, but doesn't wish to specify, so proceed with caution.
Make sure you read tags before going into a work. If you don't and you find something upsetting, that's on you. But this also comes with it a responsibility on the author's end too:
2. Tag! Tag! Tag!
In order for "don't like don't read" and "curate your own experience" to largely apply, you authors have to make sure you are tagging things correctly. Not only will it make finding your work easier for someone trying to scratch a particular itch, but if you fail to tag your work properly or tag your work incorrectly, you have no leg to stand on when a reader is upset that they came across something dark or explicit in your work without warning.
Yes, improper tagging or untagged works are technically not against the archive rules, however it is a considerate thing to do for the sake of readers and the least you can do in return for readers' etiquette.
This includes proper content warnings, AUs or canon divergence (ex: coffee shop, apocalypse, humanized!, fix-it, alternate timeline, genderbent!, crack and crack taken seriously, crossover, etc), oc tags, ship tags, headcanons about characters, and particular tropes (ex: enemies to lovers, hurt no comfort, whump, fluff, etc)
If in doubt, tag it anyway! Free form is your best friend, you don't have to be intimidated by it. Not only does it provide suggestions but you can literally type whatever you want
Also if you use AI to generate fanworks, please tag that too. I know it's something that is largely disliked by fandoms but there is no rule against it on Ao3. AI generated content won't be removed from the platform, tagging it will make it easier for readers that don't like AI content to be able to avoid it
3. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all/No criticism unless asked
I know some people may like to think they're doing an author a favor by giving their own two cents on a particular fanwork, but regardless of intentions this is not something you should ever do unprompted.
Even if an author does ask for criticism, that is not an invitation to be nasty to them. Constructive criticism is made politely and in good faith, and for good measure make sure you throw in a compliment or two before or after the criticism.
Authors provide these works for fun and it's not always easy. They have lives, they have bills to pay, mouths to feed, classes to take, and people to connect with. They are writing for the sake of it, and all they get out of it is some kudos and the occasional comment.
Someone doesn't have to pursue improvement in order for their work to be seen as worth putting out there, it's all for fun.
4. Authors do not owe you anything
Authors write for their own enjoyment first, and again, authors have lives outside of their writing. They do not owe you another chapter within a certain time frame or have to tell a story to your liking. Even if they have an update schedule shit is going to happen that can get in the way. Authors do not owe you an apology or an explanation for their absence.
You should not be making comments on a work along the line's of "When's the next update?", or when there finally is one after a hiatus "Finally! Where have you been?" You can mention you're excited to see what happens next, welcome an author back kindly, and let them know you're happy to see them without being rude and entitled.
In the same vain you should not ever offer to finish a fic. Or, if you want to write a continuation, make sure you ask the author and not the readers for permission, and give proper credit when you post if it is granted. Ao3 has an "Inspired by" feature, which you can absolute use to credit fics that you may have gotten ideas from.
5. DO NOT AI WITCH HUNT
Do not use an AI checker if you suspect AI use, you're just feeding it to AI for training. Do not listen to people trying to say there are "tells". AI is going to look like human writing because it was trained with human writing. It uses em dashes because humans use them. Your accusations will hurt more people than it will help
If you suspect it might be AI, then don't read it. Don't make callouts, just hit the back button.
6. Don't let the bots get you down
The rise of AI has lead to a lot of copyright issues due to scraping for training these programs. While OTW has your back when it comes to fighting the legal fight, there are things that can make it harder for a work to be claimed by its rightful owner. A work being orphaned or deleted from the archive by the author will make harder to prove who the copyright owner is when a work is scraped without consent.
With this in mind, there has been a rise in bot comments that are programmed for the sake of discouraging authors to the point of deleting or orphaning their work. They may do things like accuse you of using AI, or say horrible things about your or your writing.
Luckily, you do have options to protect your work and mental health from them.
Archive locking your work give it a layer of protection from being scraped for datasets or targeted by these bot comment. It's not a guarantee as methods evolve, but most of these thieves are not going to wait for an invitation to start training their program and most bots use guest accounts (Very important disclaimer that bots will often steal the names of registered users. Please don't attack actual users because of bots).
If you still want guest engagement on your work but are worried about bot comments, you can also turn on comment moderation. This will require comments to be approved before appearing publicly on your work, so you can delete any spam, scam, hate, and witch hunt comments you may receive
7. Ao3 is a archive, not social media
There is no algorithm on Ao3. Much like tumblr you need to find what you want to see and block out what you don't
Do not use Ao3 to argue with other authors. It is an archive for fanworks, not petty fights
Do not create works as "placeholders" for future works, that's what drafts are for
Do not add tags "for reach" if they do not apply to your story
Muting an author means you won't see their work in search results, blocking an author means they won't be able to interact with your works
Ao3 will not remove works that contain content you think is gross or morally wrong. They will only take action if the work in question contains content or links to content that depicts exploitation and harm of real life people or animals (rpf doesn't count)
8. Fanfiction is not for monetary gain/Ao3 will NEVER be monetized
Ao3 is non-profit and volunteer run
They will take action if you link anything with regard to patreon, ko-fi, paypal, or anything that encourages readers to give you money anywhere on your works or profile. This is because the thing that protects fanworks under fair use and from copyright infringement is the fact that authors are not profiting from them.
You are allowed to link social media accounts, and then post links to donation and tip sites on those accounts, but by asking for money in exchange for fanwork directly on Ao3 itself you are putting that legal protection in jeopardy.
The lack of monetization also protects works from censorship, which is what allows Ao3 to function as an archive in the first place.
When you introduce advertisements to an online space, those advertisers are not going to want their brand associated with certain things, hence they will demand the removal of anything seen as unsavory, ranging from sexualization of underage characters and incest, to even the most vanilla smut and queer characters existing
The whole reason Ao3 exists is because fans were tired of other sites like Fanfiction.net and Wattpad purging adult content and darkfics to appease advertisers.
If you find yourself in any way bothered by the fact that dark and disturbing content is allowed freely on the platform, or the lack of monetization, you have other platform options.
9. Authors write for themselves, but they still like encouragement
Authors write for their own enjoyment first and foremost, but that doesn't mean they can't be demoralized due to lack of engagement.
Your comments will never be a bother, they are appreciated. Even if you don't have the energy for a long insightful comment, something as simple as a "Hey I really enjoyed this" can make someone's day
Engaging with works through comments is also a great way to make friends and find community. It allows you engage in discussions about the source material and get insights on the author's thought process behind a chapter by commenting. You might just discover new perspectives on your favorite characters or the themes and world building of the source material if you take a chance to ask or share your own thoughts
10. Fanfiction is not activism, but that does not excuse bigotry
Fanfiction authors are not corporate entities. They are people writing for the fun of it. They should not be held to the same expectations of providing representation that large companies like Disney and Warner Bros and well known and influential authors are.
Someone's writing preferences are their business alone, and whether you want to engaged with their work or not is your choice.
That being said, as a writer you still need to check your biases and listen if you are corrected by minorities in fandom spaces, and also do your due diligence and be respectful when writing characters that are part of groups and cultures you are not part of. If you can spend hours trying to research types of shoes for a specific time period or how long it takes for someone to bleed out from a knife wound to the stomach, then you can also do research and make sure you're not stereotyping a black character or using slurs to describe an intersex character.
There is a lot of unchecked bigotry in fandom spaces that gets overlooked and brushed off, which creates hostile environments and alienation for POC, disabled people, queer women, aspec people, intersex people, and many others.
It takes effort to make fandom spaces welcoming and safe for everyone.
Hopefully I covered everything well enough. Remember you are free to add to this or expand upon anything I mentioned here. Thank you for reading and have fun!
been a little while since i bumped the discord server! for those who are unaware, i run a death note fanfiction writer’s discord server with writers from all corners of our fandom where we chat about everything from the writing process and editing to headcanons and general discussions ♡ there’s even something of an irregular fanfic book club i run in one of the channels.
i know joining a server sometimes feels a bit intimidating but i think the community is really lovely and supportive, and for me at least it has been a wonderful resource for beta reading and asking questions about fanfic logistics. there is no pressure to participate beyond what you desire to.
this server is 18+, but otherwise open to everyone and anyone, whether you’re a writer or just want a space to talk about death note. you can always message me on discord (my username is vamphorica) or here beforehand if you have any questions!
here’s the link!
Check out the death note writers community on Discord – hang out with 54 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
The Problem of Religion in Harry Potter (or, what is Wizard God?)
tl; dr: I wish more hp fics did something with religion and the wizarding world
so to state my credentials up front: I've read a lot of hp fanfiction, a little on the Reformation and religious history--like, I have probably more background knowledge than the average person but I am very emphatically not an expert and have never actually taken a class specifically on any kind of religious history, and I'm an ex-Catholic who did ten ish years of religion classes. There are probably a LOT more people more qualified to talk about this than me but whatever I've never actually seen very much meta written out on this specific issue so I'm giving it a try. (if you have written or read such meta, please send me recs)
ahh the Problem of Religion one of the great unsolved mysteries of the hp world building (similar issues include What the Fuck is Going on with Ireland, How Does the Ministry Actually Work, What is the Population, etc) and I call it 'unsolved' because the fandom has no massively popular solution (like Lordships for the Problem of the Wizengamot) and in general tends to just not think about it, much like JKR originally did. Now IMO she probably intended most wizards to be, like, generically Church of England or whatever without much investment--basically copying the Muggle equivalent whenever it isn't spelled out how the two worlds differ, which is I think a lot of her un-filled-out world building is meant to be. Which. OK. You can do that, but, you know, religion is a very very important aspect of worldbuilding and in my opinion ignoring it and expecting it to be just the same as 1990s Muggle Britain is uninteresting and lazy.
This (wizards are meant to be some kind of Christian and probably Church of England just for simplicity's sake) is evidenced by things like Hogwarts having Christmas and Easter breaks, James and Lily having a Bible quote picked out by Dumbledore on their tombstone, and Draco Malfoy, most emblematically wizard of wizard characters who can be taken as a potential baseline, automatically saying things like 'Good God'. Which, you know, implies that the idea of a single God, and probably the Judaeo-Christian God because that's the same cultural background as the rest of Britain, is taken for granted by wizarding society. It doesn't necessarily imply anything about Draco's or even the Malfoys' personal beliefs, and of course you have other characters saying things like 'Oh my Merlin' and "Morgana" and things like that. Which in my opinion wasn't meant to be indications of some kind of Merlin or Morgana worship but more quirky and fun flavor things of the kind jkr loves to include without thinking out the implications. But you absolutely can take those statements that way--this post is absolutely not meant to dictate how people want to headcanon and I am absolutely here for giving wizards a well thought out pagan or Non-Christian religion, I just don't think that was the author's intent. There's also plenty of other things that imply Wizarding cultural Christianity that I'm not remembering off the top of my head.
And, of course, much better writers than me have extensively discussed all the Christian themes in HP. Of course, themes don't need to affect how people worldbuild in fanfic.
So: with HP canon, we are looking at a society that is probably culturally Christian and probably (key word) intended to be Church of England. But, because JKR wasn't putting much thought into it and basically just took a Chrisitian bedrock of society for granted, the implications of this are not really explored at all. So what I'm interested in is how fandom deals with it.
Mostly, that is...not at all, either taking cultural Christianity in the Wizarding World for granted the way JKR does or by ind of handwaving that wizards have evolved beyond the need for religion and that's just how it is. And that's perfectly fine! Not everyone wants to come up with a full, working, wizard society, and even if they are trying to worldbuild some aspects of wizarding society religion is often ignored, because people don't want to deal with it for often valid reasons (religious trauma, just disinterest, grew up agnostic, not Christian but thinks wizards probably are etc, etc, etc, ) Personally I wish more fics delved into what wizarding religious belief actually is, but to put it bluntly, that's just me. And I have never dealt with religion in my own fics. So don't takethis as judgement at all.
But there are interesting headcanons when people do choose to try and worldbuild religion in HP.
Fom what I've seen, one of the major ways to deal with religion in HP (aside from not dealing with it at all) is to give wizards, often pureblood wizards, some kind of pagan, often Celtic-inspired, religion. And this is quite defensible! Sometimes this is badly executed and/or turned into Death Eater apologia, but the idea of wizards having a different religion is really interesting and a good deal more interesting (IMO of course) than just not mentioning religion at all. Most fics that I've seen don't delve too deeply into, like the actual history and theology of these religions, but there are definitely some that do. (Also if you know any PLEASE send me recs). So if handled well, this is a great way to add some religion worldbuilding in the world of Harry Potter.
However, my personal favorite set of possibilities--obviously I have some personal bias as a history nerd with a long standing if never as deeply researched as I would like to interest in the history of Christianity and as an ex-Catholic--is that, well, we know the statute of secrecy started..when, exactly? 1690. So this much is obviously a result of JKR's Hollywood understanding of witch hunts (a subject for another time and someone far more qualified). For interested wrodlbuilders, we can take this as a guideline at best, as personally I think it would have taken a good deal longer than one year to agree on and implement something like the Statute and I tend to take 1690 as an end date, not a start. I also tend to take the Statue as a largely European phenomenon, at least at first. But, uh, what was happening in Britain at the time..oh, right...the Glorious Revolution....what was happening that created the conditions for the Glorious Revolution...oh, the English Civil War...which was because of...oh yeah, and what was also happening on the continent, maybe it involved, wait, thirty years..oooh, the Thirty Years War...wait weren't there a whole bunch of massive social shifts happening in Europe at this point in time isn't that funny but surely the stature of secrecy could be considered a part of these massive social shifts...all of which was heavily influenced by...you guessed it, the Protestant Reformation.
Wait. So. Maybe, the separation of Wizards from Muggles, at least in Britain, wasn't actually about Muggles hating wizards or wizards hating Muggles. Maybe it was about religion. Now personally I find this ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING. The possibilities, the possibilities...
Wizards had a massive religious civil war that created the blood status system in its modern form? Particular families have wildly different denominations? Excellent. Religion both in terms of level of religiosity and in terms of denomination is a blood status marker? Excellent. Purebloods are all Catholic (what does this do to both Catholic and not Muggleborns?) Excellent. Purebloods are all Puritans? Weird, but if you can pull it off excellent. Purebloods are all one of the wacky new denominations that sprung up after the Reformation and then either died out or conquered the world? Excellent. Pure bloods are all Lutherans who really hated Henry VIII? Excellent. One of my favoirite ways to create a wizarding religion was someone who had most pure bloods follow a denomination that split off from Catholicism in the Great Schism and then a small minority being Catholic, with the worlds splitting around the Reformation. Even the paganism headcanons can be incorporated: the Reformation could conceivably have made it much more difficult to keep practicing wizard paganism causing separation of the worlds.
Personally I would love to see a world that used the history of the Protestant Reformation super well, but it's not the only way to relate a Wizarding religion or a Wizarding religious history. I just wish more people tried to do that at all. Let wizards be religious! Or let them be irreligious but have thought about it, instead of just ignoring religion at all as something that might conceivably have influenced human societies. Maybe Wizarding Britain has state sponsored atheism. Just say that outright!
Another thing I'd like to see more fic doing is theology: how does having magic impact people's religious doctrine? Does every major religion essentially have a wizarding branch with its own theology because magic impacts their view of the world so much, or do most wizards simply follow the majority Muggle religion in their country with no modifications? if so, why? Do some wizards disagree, potentially violently, over how to incorporate magic into their religion? Do some people refuse to use magic because they think it goes against their religion? Etc etc etc you could go on forever. I've seen fic, which randomly enough was about Regulus Black, do this pretty well (or I thought so as a non-Jew) for Judaism, and I'd love it if done with other religions.
Anyway. Now I have to figure out how the hell religion works in the Wizarding Britain of my own headcanon.
