CloverReef

My stuff varies on the main characters, sometimes they’re gay or bi, sometimes not, depends on the story.  Though, my Dale’s Game does have the main characters as gay (in a homophobic world), so if you’ve not read it @CloverReef, feel free to read and review it    I am planning a sequel and it does have a short prequel in the 2016 holiday stories.  
For me, by relaxing the requirement for perfection, it lets me actually post, and posted material is much better than holding out for “perfect”.  When I wrote The Repair Guy, I deliberately experimented by going for short chapters and one-pass proofreading; the result was, I finished that story in a couple of months, not years, and I’m overall happy with how it turned out.

I would like this comment a thousand times if I could. I fucking love Dorian. 

 
To me, there’s shit on this site that is totally perfect. Especially the vulgar stuff. Thanks to the subjective nature of our craft, we get to redefine perfection every friggin second for ourselves. If your story is gripping, you have characters I root for and it’s not bogged down with way too many excess words, to me, that’s perfection. (Oh and the mains have to be gay kuz I don’t stan a cishet dude. Just saying) And vulgar helps. 
Of course when people don’t review, I start to get in my head about what’s wrong with it until I go crazy and see issues that might not even be there, even though I reassure my friends all the time that review counts and dragon prints have nothing to do with quality. And I whole-heartedly believe that claim. It’s just the crazy happens. 

I would like this comment a thousand times if I could. I fucking love Dorian. 

 
To me, there’s shit on this site that is totally perfect. Especially the vulgar stuff. Thanks to the subjective nature of our craft, we get to redefine perfection every friggin second for ourselves. If your story is gripping, you have characters I root for and it’s not bogged down with way too many excess words, to me, that’s perfection. (Oh and the mains have to be gay kuz I don’t stan a cishet dude. Just saying) And vulgar helps. 
Of course when people don’t review, I start to get in my head about what’s wrong with it until I go crazy and see issues that might not even be there, even though I reassure my friends all the time that review counts and dragon prints have nothing to do with quality. And I whole-heartedly believe that claim. It’s just the crazy happens. 

I did download the mod to let my male Wardens romance Alistair… 
And in Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian. That’s all I’m saying.

Full listing?  I’m in….
Well I’m not, I’ve got 100+ of the fucking things. I don’t have all week.
Samahlen (combined one-shots): 22260 / 105  – Now this is a good story. Literally so good it got me to play a game that I then loved and wrote a bit of fanfic for myself. [off topic] Alistair should totally have been a male warden romance option. And Morrigan a female warden option. And Dog for both of… Ok, ok, I’ll shut up now[/off topic]
I respect that. I guess I get squirrelly at the thought of someone’s first impression of my writing being something I’m not 100% proud of. 
That kind’ve sums up alla my writing to be honest… Nothing’s perfect!
Multiparters definitely seem to have more chance of picking up reviews. And, yep, genre definitely makes a differene. That’s sort of the point I was making with the HP stories I have – some of them are really bad and some are kinda ok to good, but there’s only one of them that never got a review. Even that unfinished scat fic I wrote got reviews and that was just me being vulgar. 
As for story pulling: I pulled all my Real Person Fic stories years ago from AFF, but have re-written and expanded some of them to be about non real folks. I also have a few stories – some of drabble or micro fic length – that I’ve never really put up on AFF for one reason or another. The reason I pulled all my early JD stuff originally in like 2006 I can’t fully remember now. 12 years ago! I think one of the old mods said or did something that irritated me. This was pre-current forum days, I think, though possibly after… was it yahoo group? There was that AFF livejournal for a bit too... For my old username I took ‘em all down because of the one username rule, and because some real world folks saw some of my writing, but later on I asked DemonGoddess and she said it was ok to have my old username stories under my old username so I re-loaded some of the best of them. Probably coulda stuck a few more up but I doubt I will now. Maybe one of these days.

I sort of expect my Games fandom stories to not get reviews. I don’t write for “popular” games, and that’s fine. But in posting order, with hits/reviews:
Alchemy: 1086/ 16
Samahlen (combined one-shots): 22260 / 105
Stormborn: Book 1: 3103 / 7
Stormborn: Book 2: 949 / 0
In Lord of the Rings, I have a co-authored work, writing with the inestimable Pippychick:
The Lost and the Hidden City: 1430 / 4
And my Originals:
Almost Home: 358 / 4
Special of the Day: 513 / 4
Harrison Winter: 1109 / 4
The Accident: 270 / 3
Play It Safe: 452 / 5
Missing: 623 / 3
Compassion: 799 / 2
Culloch’s Rest: 2640 / 36
Hazardous Duty: 706 / 7
Hunting Elysium: 700 / 6
The Brownstone: 371 / 3
First Step: 973 / 6
Indigo: 520 / 4
Punch Line: 784 / 4
A Good Morning’s Sleep: 596 / 6
The Scapegoat: 1540 / 2
Surrender: 1190 / 5
Masking Intentions: 1780 / 19
Buggered if I know why some get more than others… 
 
 

I respect that. I guess I get squirrelly at the thought of someone’s first impression of my writing being something I’m not 100% proud of. 
 

I’m not nearly as prolific as a lot of writers, and most of what I write never sees the light of day, so my unreviewed things were years ago, and I took them down because of the lack of interest. Though I do have a recent one where I got just one review that pretty much just sounded confused, so I don’t know if that counts, lol. I’m not sure why readers are more vocal about some stories than others. I mean, sometimes I think that they’re less vocal about the more masturbatory stories because they just cum and go, but then I stumble upon smutfests with hundreds or thousands of reviews and it blows my theory out of the water. 

More often than not, the stories I see getting very little attention are among the better written. Maybe they don’t cater to the particular audience here? But that wouldn’t explain the mass of dragon prints some of these unreviewed stories collect. Maybe it’s just not cool to support authors anymore? I don’t know. It drives me crazy. You guys are awesome writers. I personally think I’m a fucking awesome writer, and even if we weren’t, the time and energy we put into crafting free content certainly deserves a word or two. 
 

I respect that. I guess I get squirrelly at the thought of someone’s first impression of my writing being something I’m not 100% proud of. 
 

I’m not nearly as prolific as a lot of writers, and most of what I write never sees the light of day, so my unreviewed things were years ago, and I took them down because of the lack of interest. Though I do have a recent one where I got just one review that pretty much just sounded confused, so I don’t know if that counts, lol. I’m not sure why readers are more vocal about some stories than others. I mean, sometimes I think that they’re less vocal about the more masturbatory stories because they just cum and go, but then I stumble upon smutfests with hundreds or thousands of reviews and it blows my theory out of the water. 

More often than not, the stories I see getting very little attention are among the better written. Maybe they don’t cater to the particular audience here? But that wouldn’t explain the mass of dragon prints some of these unreviewed stories collect. Maybe it’s just not cool to support authors anymore? I don’t know. It drives me crazy. You guys are awesome writers. I personally think I’m a fucking awesome writer, and even if we weren’t, the time and energy we put into crafting free content certainly deserves a word or two. 
 

As one whose first fanfic had a non-canon character, I can’t go against that    In the end, I’ve kinda sidelined that non-canon character, making her a refuge for Harry from the wizarding world, good girlfriend (+wife) with benefits.
On the pragmatic side, writing an OC can be a good spot to build confidence to start into full originals too.

It depends on the source and your tastes. I generally prefer a majority of characters to be canon, but some settings that really isn’t possible. I attempted writing for the Neverwinter MMO setting, but those plots and characters were so loosey goosey within the setting that, aside from mentioning an event or character in passing my story didn’t even feel much part of that setting. By the time I had created that many OCs to be the entire cast, I realized I wasn’t writing fanfic anymore but an original fiction. I wasn’t attached to the canon-weak characters and events that I didn’t want or need them, I was doing ALL of the work of writing an original story without being able to take credit. It wasn’t hard to file off the original setting. (BW knows that hiatus’d story) MMOs with the generic nature of character interaction and repetition, seem very unlikely to build a gripping foundation for fanfic.  The original Guild Wars had the bones for some gripping sequences, but with the very fluidity of the interative and constantly retconned canon, it’s not stable enough or even accessable years later to refresh the canon.
Now single player games like NWNights and Dragon Age are released in large enough chunks they are stable enough for replay for fun or research as you have a copy of the game you played on disk. Canon characters are far better developed and rich for exploration and use in fiction. Few games have made as good characters. Too many characters mean they aren’t 3D enough to tempt my muse. I had hopes for project eternity game, but the supporting cast was too generic and boring, 
I believe that it is the canon characters (and lesserly- events) who drive my interest in fanfiction. If the significant cast is all original, I know I’m not as interested in reading. Writing about the adventures on the SS Vanguard that has no impact on the world just feels futile. What would be different if this happened instead of canon? Sometimes I’ve read even a single OC who can break the setting completely, the OCs need to play mostly by the setting rules too. (and not outshine canon)  Some settings have so many minor characters that there’s usually an existing character for most any purpose, and these characters are already woven into the setting,
OC’s need more work to get them to fit seamlessly into the setting and existing cast. (A small part of why Rey is a Sue is that her background is basically to be plopped into a saga that deals heavily in lineage and fate. She’s a rehash of early Luke without any real past, brought forth from the brow of the Mouse with less past than the leads of computer games) A good OC needs to be part of the world and have a good significant reason for why the character was offstage during canon.
(wandering away again, sorry) I like using canon characters, and the challenge to keeping them in character but still have them deal with new problems and people. Banter and interaction with OCs is fun. It’s very therapeutic to have someone slap someone who’s being stupid in canon.  But then many good stories can just reshuffle canon, like one where Kirk might have kidnapped Edith Keeler to the future. Few canon characters are that developed that you cannot develop them in a new way... or just better depicted than canon. We can show their thought stream better than video. In practice, my OCs seem to hold below about 25% of the significant cast. Mainly because the canon cast is as much a part of the settings as phasers and mithral.
I find I cannot keep up with stories about the characters I like, and by definition I don't know OCs in OC laden stories. So I move on.

I was sort of rooting for the kangaroo to make a goal… 

I think it’s important to do fan fiction your own way. And being that this is really your first official foray into fanfiction that I’m aware of, if you want to ease yourself into canon characters or never really utilize them at all, that’s perfectly valid. It’s your story. It’s your decision. 
That being said, when I was a reader in the Tekken or Star Ocean fandoms, I never read fan fics where the main character or the love interest were OCs. I went into those fandoms for the characters, the universe was only a small part of the appeal. So a story without the canon character would defeat the purpose for me. Of course, it would be a little different if I was looking for fics in game fandoms where the main player character is an OC by design, like neverwinter and DA. With MMORPGs, it would be more about the universe and the cultures. That sounds more fun to write in than read in, for me though, since there wouldn’t be much in the way of established characters to draw me in. But for rich RPGs like DA with a semi OC main, that lies somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I would probably still kinda avoid OC fics, but would be much more open minded. 
I understand not wanting to limit yourself with canon characters, and that’s perfectly valid. If I go into it expecting to be reading fan fiction, I’d probably have a problem with it, but I go into it expecting original fiction so it doesn’t bug me. 
 

The answer depends heavily on the fandom. The Star Trek universe is so thoroughly fleshed out that you could write an engaging story without using any canonical characters (CCs); as long as you include familiar alien races, technology, etc, and otherwise follow the “rules” of the Star Trek universe. (But you couldn’t do that with, say, Brooklyn 99, because that show is all about the characters, not the world it’s set in. )
The broader point here is that readers will probably accept a fair number of OCs in a fic as long as they are engaging and fit in with the fandom and its characters. I included several OCs in my Star Vs the Forces of Evil story “Star’s Crossed Lovers,” and readers generally liked them because of the way they interacted with the CCs. 
 

I think it’s important to do fan fiction your own way. And being that this is really your first official foray into fanfiction that I’m aware of, if you want to ease yourself into canon characters or never really utilize them at all, that’s perfectly valid. It’s your story. It’s your decision. 
That being said, when I was a reader in the Tekken or Star Ocean fandoms, I never read fan fics where the main character or the love interest were OCs. I went into those fandoms for the characters, the universe was only a small part of the appeal. So a story without the canon character would defeat the purpose for me. Of course, it would be a little different if I was looking for fics in game fandoms where the main player character is an OC by design, like neverwinter and DA. With MMORPGs, it would be more about the universe and the cultures. That sounds more fun to write in than read in, for me though, since there wouldn’t be much in the way of established characters to draw me in. But for rich RPGs like DA with a semi OC main, that lies somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I would probably still kinda avoid OC fics, but would be much more open minded. 
I understand not wanting to limit yourself with canon characters, and that’s perfectly valid. If I go into it expecting to be reading fan fiction, I’d probably have a problem with it, but I go into it expecting original fiction so it doesn’t bug me. 
 

I think it’s important to do fan fiction your own way. And being that this is really your first official foray into fanfiction that I’m aware of, if you want to ease yourself into canon characters or never really utilize them at all, that’s perfectly valid. It’s your story. It’s your decision. 
That being said, when I was a reader in the Tekken or Star Ocean fandoms, I never read fan fics where the main character or the love interest were OCs. I went into those fandoms for the characters, the universe was only a small part of the appeal. So a story without the canon character would defeat the purpose for me. Of course, it would be a little different if I was looking for fics in game fandoms where the main player character is an OC by design, like neverwinter and DA. With MMORPGs, it would be more about the universe and the cultures. That sounds more fun to write in than read in, for me though, since there wouldn’t be much in the way of established characters to draw me in. But for rich RPGs like DA with a semi OC main, that lies somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I would probably still kinda avoid OC fics, but would be much more open minded. 
I understand not wanting to limit yourself with canon characters, and that’s perfectly valid. If I go into it expecting to be reading fan fiction, I’d probably have a problem with it, but I go into it expecting original fiction so it doesn’t bug me. 
 

My fanfictions are game-based for the most part—Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age, to be specific. So, in essence, my player character is a form of OC to begin with, since I decide how the PC will respond over the course of the game. It’s not a huge leap to turn that into fanfiction, especially when I think the writers for the game were short-sighted, or narrow-minded.
I do try to keep major canon characters in character, but there are always those less-explored non-player characters who catch my attention, and I won’t promise not to write them a full back story, and drop them into a few twists of my own devising… 

A half million tits?    … oh, “hits”, my rx needs updating. 
My current highest is shy of 9k hits, with only two reviews.  Yeah, I understand the dearth of reviews; thus, I’ve taken to recording my hits on a daily basis.  While I write for fun, there’s a little extra “polish” I do because it’s being posted, so it’s nice to know that effort is appreciated. 
Though if I get that half million hits/flock, I’m not sure how I’d react, though I’m willing to find out.

Thanks all. I have never had a review like that. I generally don’t get many reviews but I know that it’s really hard to get people to review original fiction so I’ve come to accept the stagnation of reviews. That being said, the review I experienced was extreme pomposity and arrogance. Like I said, I looked at the reviewer’s profile (hardly anything there. Only five stories, no background information or anything) and I read a part of one of the stories. Two paragraphs was all I could do. There were grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, etc. and while I am not the best at spelling (I am, but some errors slip by me and it drives me crazy when I find one in a chapter I’ve posted. Yes, I go back and reread mine and from time to time make slight changes) I do not make as many mistakes as that person did.
 
I’m also not trying to garner half a million hits and a huge following. A few more readers would be nice but I don’t put things up with the expectation that I’m going to get a huge flock coming to my name. I mean, there’s so many other people here with varying degrees of skill and if a few people like what I do, that’s fine. I’m not doing it for notoriety.

When warranted, we do ban former members.
The repeal of net neutrality, if and when it actually happens, will not have any effect on our policies and procedures. The age verification page you reference was not an absolute method of ensuring new members were of legal age, and we have always done independent verification. Our methods work, as evidenced by the original poster’s protests over being caught out yet again.

I’ll chime in.  Thank you mods, like @BronxWench, etc, for keeping this site running.  AFF is the only website I’ve actually hit that donate button on, and not regretting it (so far).

We  are an age-restricted site. That means, from a legal standpoint, that we are required to make every effort to check the ages of anyone joining our site. We also have, like every other website, Terms of Service, which are the rules governing the use of our website. We enforce those Terms of Service, unlike many other websites, and we state very clearly, in a number of places, that we are an actively moderated site. For anyone who actually bothers to read the Terms of Service, we make sure they know we monitor all activity on this site. And yes, in order to do that, we maintain records of all actions we take, and of all infractions for which we issue a warning. That is prudent, and good practice.
It is entirely unlikely that we are making any mistake in terms of identifying you. We are well aware of the previous email addresses, previous pen names, previous user names, and other unique identifiers you have used while interacting with our site. We are not unique in collecting this information. You are however free to disagree, and you are free to post your work elsewhere. 

Sadly some users just never got into toilet, blood or rape content. It’s a weird world out there, but I wouldn’t hold it against FrankT to not like that stuff.

That sounds like an application for a position as one of my moderators.
If the author doesn’t remove all of their stories in the said story-universe once published, either they have an extremely lenient publisher, or they’re taking a radical approach to marketing themselves. But since they are the author of the original world, the work remains in Original Fiction. Any fan fiction based on that original work goes to the Books subdomain, in the category for that particular work or series.
Clear as mud?