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community weblog
For anyone who wishes Season 4 of Stranger things had ended differently
A fan fic for anyone who wishes Season 4 of Stranger things had ended differently.
Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Dec 07, 2025 at 1:46 AM
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Registration required with a 17-day waiting list, that's a new one.
Is this AI protection or republican legislation protection?
posted by you at 3:05 AM
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I have an AO3 account and 5 invitations available -- if anyone wants one, send me a private message with your email address.
posted by confluency at 5:04 AM
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(The rationale for invite-only registration is here -- TL;DR, it's to constrain the rate of growth.)
posted by confluency at 5:05 AM
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I have eight invitations if any are needed. Lots of people have totally locked their fic in the last year - mine are archive only now because of the whole AI-scraping too.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:54 AM
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Things that haven't worked:
* archive.today
* bug me not
I've pinged confluency for an Ao3 invite, I'm not sure if I'll just read it or share it or what
posted by Pronoiac at 7:04 AM
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Okay, I have an account but logging on is not working for some reason. Can someone at least give a synopsis while I look into sorting that out?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:24 AM
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The author archive-locked their fic for a reason and it's disrespectful to post these web archive links.
posted by betweenthebars at 8:34 AM
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Yeah, the required login isn't because of the adult content. All fics on ao3 are public by default unless the author chooses to restrict access. I'm guessing chariots missed that the fic was locked (it happens!), but that doesn't mean we should circumvent the author's intention for their work. There are plenty of fics that aren't restricted.
posted by bettafish at 10:10 AM
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betweenthebars: "The author archive-locked their fic for a reason and it's disrespectful to post these web archive links."
Why? We post archive links for other sites.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:33 AM
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I've flagged the comment with archive links. I'm not mad because how would you know, but I think there is an important (sub)cultural point to be made here.
This isn't content published by a professional writer, intended for the general public, that's locked behind a paywall because the publication wants to be paid for it.
This is a story that was written by an amateur writer who chose to lock it behind having a (free) account on AO3 for reasons that we can only guess, but could be anything from wanting to protect it from AI scrapers, to keeping it out of view of the IP's owners, to preferring it only being available to people familiar enough with fandom and fanfic to have an AO3 account. In other words, it could very well be locked for privacy reasons.
It's inappropriate to circumvent that with an archive link in a similar way that it would be inappropriate for me to post a public version of your profile that contains information only visible to members.
I get that fanfiction is becoming more and more mainstream and that we live in a world where we assume everything on the internet was posted as content to be consumed, but for many of us, online fandom is still a subculture, and sharing stories is a way that we engage with each other within that subculture; we want readers, yes, but we are not looking for a mass audience, and we want to be interacted with as members of a community rather as "content creators", which includes things like not reposting our work in places we haven't consented to.
Within the subculture, reposting someone's work is considered incredibly disrespectful and rude. It's becoming a bigger problem as fanfiction is becoming more mainstream and people from outside of the culture are reading it and approaching it as "content," but you should know it makes many unhappy.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:38 AM
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[One comment deleted. While we support users posting links to make certain paywalled content accessible to the community, we do not encourage bypassing restrictions in place to maintain privacy. In this case, we cannot let the comment containing archive links stand.]
posted by travelingthyme at 11:09 AM
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the entire post should be deleted
posted by glonous keming at 11:39 AM
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It turns out that I actually had 8 invites to start with, and I still have a bunch. I've also figured out that I don't need email addresses -- I can also copy a link to share with you. So you can just message me, and I'll paste the link in the reply.
posted by confluency at 11:44 AM
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I think this post should stand. Not every post has to link to a universally freely available resource.
It might be good polite practice when access is limited in such a way to indicate "(AO3 login required)" or something similar so that people can choose whether to scroll to the next post instead.
posted by Songdog at 12:09 PM
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I have to admit that I get the heebie jeebies when I see fanfiction posted outside of fandom spaces, especially erotic fanfiction. There are a lot of layers to that feeling, some of them from an earlier time when fanfiction was much less acceptable as a hobby and sharing someone's fanfiction outside of fandom spaces would be opening them up to mockery and maybe even legal risk. That's changed a lot but the instinct for separation is still there.
But some of the reasons I have resservations still apply. For example, I wonder how a piece that is influenced by the conventions and tropes of fanfiction will come across to a reader from outside that context, and whether readers who are put off will respond unkindly, or will offer unsolicited criticism/review, or will violate boundaries that are well-established within fandom but are foreign to them because they are from outside of it.
Am I overthinking a plate of beans? I guess. Also, I'm not advocating for any rule changes here, just putting some thoughts down.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:35 PM
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It's a well regarded multipart Steve/Eddie season four fixit fic by pukner. There are tons and tons of "Steddie" fixit fics, to the point of the ship drowning out others, in my opinion. Pukner is a good writer and I've enjoyed many a Steddie fic but it's worth interrogating a fandom's obsession with pairing white boys together to the extent of ignoring a very important and often foreshadowed canon death as well as numerous women, characters of color, and lots of other character diversity. If someone wants an ao3 invite code I've got seven of them lying around, but otherwise please read Kutsuwamushi's comment above because it is very, very accurate.
posted by Mizu at 2:19 PM
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the entire post should be deleted
posted by Sebmojo at 2:39 PM
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I love cpbc's posts, but this requires a huge amount of effort to follow, if you aren't already on AO3, so I don't know how appropriate it is for the Blue. Maybe reworked and posted on FanFare?
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:19 PM
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Re. calls for deletion - it's very, very common for posts here to contain material that is geolocked to the Americas. On occasion it's the whole meat of the post. Plenty of Mefites outside the US have been dealing with completely locked posts for years, and frankly if we can live after missing out on a post or two here and there folks outside of AO3 spaces can probably endure too.
posted by Jilder at 4:32 PM
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This is just like when the Mind Flayer sowed anger and distrust among the Scooby Gang so that Vecna could do his evil deeds in peace.
posted by No-sword at 7:05 PM
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so, what is the point of this post again
is there more context to erotic writing that we should appreciate or something
this is certainly for fanfare
posted by eustatic at 7:30 PM
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If it was posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries I imagine that Vecna was killed and eaten by a quokka.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:17 AM
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Does Barb come back? Because Barb's death is still a deal-breaker for me.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:09 AM
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Thanks to those who have explained the concerns regarding linking to fanfic in MetaFilter posts. My assessment is similar, and it's for those reasons that I have changed my habits in the last few years.
My current practice is to ask the fanfic author's permission (via a comment on the fic) to make a public post on MetaFilter linking to it. If they never reply or they say no, then I don't do it. I also check the author's profile info to see whether they have issued blanket permissions or restrictions, as some do. If I noticed that an author had restricted access to logged-in users, I would probably lean towards thinking they didn't want others to link to it outside semiprivate fandom spaces.
posted by brainwane at 8:49 AM
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