Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
I was today years old when I learned that when you type “otp: true” in AO3 search results it filters out fics with additional ships, leaving only the fics where your otp is the main ship
For those not in the loop, a guest commenter named Alice Harper (or Alice, or Preeti) has been going ‘round the comments of Taskmaster fics on AO3 (I’m only aware of Taskmaster at the moment, but I assume others have been hit as well) to ask if they’re interested in participating in a new show about fanfiction.
The show is real; it will be hosted by Mel Giedroyc and will feature celebrities reading out their own RPF with a focus on smut/erotica, acted out with puppets.
It appears that Channel 4 doesn’t have an AO3 account, so anyone whose fics are user-locked should be safe.
I wanted to let everyone who follows me or reads my fics know that if that should change, I will be backing up and then temporarily deleting my fics. I’ll repost everything as soon as the situation seems to have blown over. (See update)
I can only speak for myself, but I deeply, deeply do not want anyone I’ve written about to ever have to cross paths with my writing. I feel that what Channel 4 is doing is intrusive and ill-advised and would counsel any fellow RPF writers to lock their fics to users-only or at the very least tell Alice Harper to, in not so many words, fuck off.
Update:
Courtesy of some folks in the TM fandom, the list of fandoms that have so far received Alice’s comments are:
Mock the Week, Taskmaster, Pointless, The Chase, Take That, and 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
It spans all ratings and gen, slash, and reader-insert, and fics as old as 2014.
@pandaroboto was kind enough to provide part of her correspondence over email with Alice. I’ve pasted part below; emphasis is my own (for my fellow ADD-squirrels)
We are looking for brilliant fanfiction writers, like yourself, to write bespoke stories about our celebrity guests. We are gathering stories from different writers which we’ll edit into one story.
If this is something that you’d be interested in doing we can give you a few starting points on the other celebrity guests and ask you to write stories about them. As well as using elements of your existing stories too (to be discussed with you).
After being asked about the guests, she added,
That’s correct, our celebs are well known British celebrities. We can give you options, you tell us who you know the most about, we can also give you any additional info you might like on them. We’ll also give you some steers on what we’d like the story to be about.
They are apparently offering to pay only if the story is ultimately used and broadcast.
In summation, Channel 4 is contacting RPF writers to write smut about the guests they’ve booked, based on their prompts, which they will have their own writers stitch into a narrative. Presumably, to be presented to the celebrities under the guise that this is some Internet Weirdo’s Totally Original Work.
You can form your own opinions, but I’m not touching this with a ten foot pole.
To my own followers and readers: I am no longer planning a mass deletion if Channel 4 gets ahold of an AO3 account. Since they’re not using existing work but rather attempting to 'contract’ fic-writers, I’m not worried about them taking what I’ve posted. (And let’s be real, Captains No Social Media and Repression Central are not going to be the first to agree to this show) Carry on as usual.
Yeah here’s what’s going on with the channel 4 puppet fucking thing I mentioned yesterday. I put together that fandom list (it took many many many hours. That’s probably an understatement…). I’m not going to go in to which fics exactly got commented on on here since I don’t know if its a good idea to have that info easily spreadable. I think I know who 3 of the 6 guests might be though
When you think it can’t get worse…
The source for that is the sun and its not reported anywhere else so I’m really not sure I believe it
I’ll add that my RPF fics are locked and I have not been contacted. It does seem like the channel 4 show runners are contacting people whose fics are public and inviting them to write original work, which isn’t as bad as it could be, but it’s still gross.
So I’ve already documented my interactions with them in this post. I think I must have been one of the first people they hit. These people have absolutely no idea what the fuck they’re doing. They expressed shock that I told them to fuck off, and I actually sent them an email after this explaining that television only exploits fans and they will continue to get negative responses, just ones that weren’t as mean.
I haven’t locked anything except that specific story, because fuck em if they can’t take a joke, but here we are.
underappreciated fandom moment: when you read a fic on ao3 and see a lot of familiar names in the kudos. like. the gang’s all here ❤️
there are likely hundreds of fics out there with my name right after @andrandiriel ’s on the kudos list, because they sent it to me immediately after reading it
Video description: a tiktok video discussing AO3’s new comment blocking feature.
The video begins by showing a tweet from the Ao3_status twitter account. The tweet reads, “Comment blocking is now live! 🍾” and is responding to the tweet linking the AO3 News post announcing that comment blocking is coming.
The narrator then goes to the comments section on one of her works and points out that there is a new button available. On comments from other users, you can now see a button labelled “Block.”
She taps on the Block button and it takes her to a confirmation page. The confirmation page outlines what blocking will do: stop a user from commenting on your works and stop a user from replying to your comments elsewhere on AO3. It also outlines what blocking will not do: hide that user’s works or bookmarks from you, delete or hide their existing comments on your works, hide their comments elsewhere on the site.
She confirms that she wants to block the user and then returns to her comments section. The button that formerly said “Block” now says “Unblock.” She says you can remove the block on a user by pressing that button again or by tapping on your username at the top of the page and selecting My Preferences from the dropdown menu that appears.
On the My Preferences page, there is now a button labelled “Block users.” After tapping that button, she goes to a new page. On that new page, you can see the user she just blocked and a button next to their username that says “Unblock.”
She taps that button and it takes her to a confirmation page which outlines what will happen if she agrees. Unblocking a user will allow them to comment on your work or to reply to your comments elsewhere on the site. She confirms.
The screen goes back to the Blocked Users page found in My Preferences, and the narrator explains that you don’t need to find a comment from another user in order to block them. If you’d like, you can type their name into the text box provided and block them directly from that page.
Not shown: you can also block a user from that user’s profile page.
If you’d like to know more about more blocking and muting features that are planned, read the News post linked above.
[ID: ao3 author notes: “I tried to post this once with a self-deprecating joke in the author’s note and ao3 completely collapsed and wouldn’t load anything, so I am going to compliment myself to appease the ao3 gods: this is a good fic and I did a good job :)”]
If you are an author worried about harassment on ao3, there are some things you can do to protect yourself. All images are described in alt text.
When you’re initially posting your work, there’s a section of the posting form that’s all about Privacy. As always on AO3, you can tap on the blue bubbles with question marks in them to get a pop up with more information. You have various options in this section of the form.
1) Restrict access to logged in users. This means that only people with ao3 accounts will be able to see your work, and only if they are logged in on their device. People who are logged in will see a blue lock next to the fic’s title. People who are not logged in will not be able to see the work at all, even if they are given a direct link to it.
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2) Enable comment moderation. You will still receive comments in your ao3 inbox (and in your email, if you have that preference turned on), but the comments won’t appear on your work unless you allow them to. You will have the ability to delete them before they ever appear on your work.
3) Restrict who has an ability to comment on your works at all (moderated or otherwise).
Below the previous two options (which you can use either together or separately) are the options related to comments.
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The default option is both registered users (people who are logged in) and guests (people who are not logged in).
Authors can choose to only allow registered users to comment, which means that any comments will be tied to an AO3 account.
Authors can also disallow all comments by choosing the setting No one can comment.
4) Moderate comments after they appear on your work.
After your work is posted, you still maintain control of your comments section. No matter what settings you chose in the Privacy section of the work posting form, you still have the ability to delete comments on your own work.
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Every comment on your work will have buttons that allow you to reply to the comment, visit the thread on a separate page, freeze the thread (even if you are not participating in it), or delete an individual comment (even one in the middle of a thread).
Freezing a thread keeps the comments in place but locks the ability for anyone to reply in that thread. Deleting a comment removes the comment from AO3.
oh my god it got approved to add to someones collection and that person made the collection private, therefore removing passerine
WHAT.
is this not a known thing anymore? please god if youre a fic writer DO NOT LET RANDOM PEOPLE ADD YOUR FIC TO A COLLECTION!!!!!
if you are a READER who enjoys bookmarking fics, you can put your BOOKMARKS in a collection, which can be privated without hiding any of the original works
ITS BACK BUT LISTEN TO THE PERSON ABOVE ME
I will say you can also revoke permission and remove your fics from collections
A good thing to remember. Check your collections, my friends.
TO CHECK :
Go to your profile, click works, then click “works in collections”
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If a work has be hidden, it will display like this :
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Then, if you wanna remove a collecting, go to edit, scroll here, and click the x on the relevant one
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