u/PeaOk6848

Hello! This year I noticed there are a lot of fests going on. I even noticed for the first time that one of my favorite fics of the last years, The Most Splendid Thing [https://archiveofourown.org/works/61054984/\] was written for a fest. I've tried to investigate further but I don't really understand how these festivals work. So, some questions:

-what is the purpose of a fest?

-what are your favourite fest fics?

-why some fests say that art must be betad? I mean, how do you even beta a drawing?

-Can you recommend your favorite Harry Potter M/M fests?

A year ago I started posting my first long story on AO3. By then I'd already been writing it for almost two years, and I was so excited that I uploaded two or three chapters a week without ever looking back. Once a chapter was posted, it was gone from my mind.

Around chapter twenty-something, people started accusing me of using "the tech". Honestly, I barely cared. I knew I'd written every word myself, and I'm old enough that random strangers on the internet don't bother me as much as my bills do.

Life got in the way around chapter fifty. The story had reached some very dark emotional places, and I was in the hospital at the time. I simply couldn't keep writing it. Instead, I wrote something completely different: a ridiculous, filthy comedy.

To my surprise, that fic took off. It became fairly popular in the fandom, and nobody accused me of "the tech" ever! That annoyed me far more than the original accusations bacause I had been fully prepared for another round of comments, and when they never came, I found myself wondering if the readers had actually been reacting to something real. Maybe the issue wasn't "the tech era" and distrust at all. Maybe it was my writing! 🤔

So I went back to those first chapters. I nearly died laughing.

I'm an engineer, and those chapters read exactly like the technical manuals I work with every day: tiny sentences and extremely controlled grammar. Every paragraph was trying so hard to avoid mistakes that... it forgot to sound like a human being. I had accidentally written documentation instead of fiction!! 🤣

Were those chapters generated by a bot? Of course not. Were they good? Also... no.

Looking back, I could see what features of the writing these readers had reacted to. Their conclusion was wrong, but the stiffness they had noticed? Yeah, that was real. So I started rewriting the early chapters using the voice I'd developed over three years of writing that same story.

That experience taught me something I think we forget whenever these discussions come up: human writing evolves. If you spend years on a project, your chapter one and your chapter eighty probably won't sound identical. Growth is part of the process.

So. In the end, those accusations probably made me a better writer, even if they arrived in the least constructive way imaginable.

I also know I had an advantage. I wasn't insecure enough to believe them. A younger writer, or someone just starting out, might have had a very different experience.

So, if you come across writing that feels awkward or artificial, consider that you may simply have encountered inexperienced writing.

If you genuinely want to help the community, offering thoughtful feedback will always do more than jumping straight to "this is written by tech".

Anyway, I just thought it was a funny story worth sharing.

I found it some days ago (thanks reddit for the rec).

Came for the ridiculous premise. Stayed because... honestly, Draco Malfoy is the dumbest man alive here.

Harry gets Draco's soulmark. Draco doesn't get Harry's. Draco knows someone out there has his soulmark and spends months searching for his soulmate while repeatedly looking straight past Harry (ouch?). Harry responds in the most Harry way possible: he decides Draco doesn't want him and covers the soulmark up.

It's funny as hell, surprisingly sweet, very, very horny, and somehow makes all of those things work at once!!

Highly recommended if you want a romantic comedy full of pining, very oblivious idiots and a bit soulmate nonsense.

So a couple of days ago I read this fic basically right after it was published and thought: wow, okay, this is filthy, weirdly funny, and somehow still emotionally convincing...

I already trusted the author because I follow their longfic, but now I’m stuck craving more stuff with the same vibe.

Can anyone rec me fics that have:

-shameless explicit smut

-actually in-character dynamics

-some humour / banter

-genuinely good writing

-anonymous sex / hidden identity / “who is this person” vibes (optional but I loved this about this fic)

-preferably Drarry or Snarry

But NOT:

-minors

-gender-swaps

For reference, the fic was called "The Veiled Gate"

I’m trying to find a fic I read on AO3 and, like an idiot, I told myself I’d bookmark it later 🤦🏽‍♂️

Obviously I did not.

...

What I remember is mostly vibes, but very specific vibes:

-Harry goes back in time, but not in a cute fix-it way

he’s mentally much older.

-Other people came back too: Neville, Luna, and maybe one of the twins?

-Harry had some kind of secret identity thing going on

-it was Snarry and Ron/Draco

-dark tone, war trauma, very competent Harry energy

-also very smutty. Last scene I remember reading involved Snape and Harry at the teacher table and I had to briefly stop and stare into space

...I’m pretty sure it was a WIP but don't know for sure, it was long like +100K for sure because that's one of my filters always.

Does this sound familiar to anyone, or did I hallucinate the whole thing at 2 a.m.?

Please help!