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Profiles unlocked (Adding, editing, and recommendation / reading lists.) Reviewing for logged in members should also be unlocked now.

Others...don’t mind the blood stains

No worries, we banter, and do try our best to not be stabby with the newbies And I do try my best to answer questions as best I can too

For all our members who use yahoo.com, the initial run of emails triggered Yahoo’s security protocols. Some of the emails were delayed or just not delivered, because Yahoo decided we’re spammers. If you never got the email, please let us know in the Software > Archive Tech Support thread, in the pinned post, READ ME.

Originals are challenging, because you’ve got to create the world, you’ve got to introduce characters. And in order to do that, you need to create them yourself – and once created, to simply scrap and move onto another project is...well, off putting. Writing up oneshots in the same world help with development, backstory. This is all stuff fanfiction doesn’t necessarily need. However, having delved into originals, when I came back to my fanfiction, I’ve been able to drum up some interesting new characters. For my current potter fanfic, it’s uses GoF as canon (because this story predates the release of OotP), but it covers Harry’s years six & seven. Having original experience on this rewrite, I wanted a foil for Harry helping Oliver Wood with flying lessons for first years. So, I created this boy with issues, introverted, shy, and smart, but doesn’t really know his own father (solicitor trying to get out of his moral obligations), so that Harry spends the entire lesson helping this one boy rather than helping Oliver with any of the other students. Ash, the boy, kept poking his head back into the story, and has become an invaluable insight with a better Hogwarts perspective than I could in the previous iterations of the story, as Harry’s progressively more and more isolated from both Hogwarts and the wizarding world. Overall, Ash was a “happy little accident” that’s made the story better.

My favorite retort… that it’s so corrosive that it’ll eat through granite (given enough time). It’s also found in the blood of autistics and serial killers.

...and I'm probably the user you've seen being somewhat anti-real person fanfiction from a personal perspective. I used to write it. I think I had 12 or 13 stories at one point. Internet being the internet, they're still out there somewhere. I did a couple since then that my muse made me write and those you won't find. They're at the bottom of a well, guarded by a girl with long black hair. Initially I stopped because of various lawsuits and criminal prosecutions against writers of real person stories in various worldwide jurisdictions that made me feel it was not worth the hassle, later I stayed stopped because of things like this, and this, and similarly, with Twitter and the rest of social media it is ridiculously easy for those fics now to be sent to the subject of the story in question by trolls. general nutjobs or anybody with access to Sony's email server. Hell, Jimmy Kimmel has the subjects of rude tweets read them out, and you can go on youtube and see other hosts get the likes of Daniel Radcliffe to read slash. So that's another reason, I just don't like to think how celebrities would feel if they read something I'd written. Especially as many of my stories were at the, uh, less romantic end of the spectrum. Still, other folks have fun writing and reading them and I don't have any problems with that so it's fair to say my opinion is fairly self centred. For me, it's definitely the real person being involved that stops me. Take them out and I'm pretty fine with most content. I'll avoid things with characters below 16 in sexual situations but beyond that I'll try most things. I've even re-written one or two of my old celeb stories into non-celeb stories to re-use the better descriptive passages (that's relatively speaking, of course, better for me is still trash!). Any fantasy that needs to be shared feels, to me, like it can be written with a fictional character, even an "OC" with strong similarities to a famous person. Apart from a RPF gaining additional readers from fans of a specific celebrity, which writing hobbyists always enjoy, there don't seem to be other benefits except, well, folks enjoy writing real person fiction. I did. And that's why, although for my own personal reasons I've stopped I don't hold anything against folks who do still write them or share them, or have them tattooed across their back so that Nathan Lane can read them in that long fantasised chance encounter in Broadway men's room. Look! A RPF ref! Aren't I the most awful hypocrite! Anyway, good luck with your celeb fics and I wish you all the best.

One of our members, and a personal friend of mine, passed away this morning after a long illness. Anesor is one of the people who encouraged me to write, and while the first thing I ever posted isn’t up any longer, she never hesitated to offer support, advice, and friendship while I tried my best to hone my craft. We wrote together, beta-read for each other, and even indulged ourselves in some private commentary on some of the more florid fan fictions in our favorite fandoms. I got the chance to visit her in-person once, and I’ll always cherish that day. It was like sitting down with a family member, because we knew each other so well by then. Her family was warm and welcomed this online stranger with open arms, just like Anesor did when she wrote the first review on my story, and asked me what happens next. I will miss her voice, and her strength, and her sheer determination, but I will always hold our friendship close.