rayraywrites

[rayraywrites]

Ao3 does not need an algorithm, you're just lazy

Ao3 does not need a 1-5 star rating system, you just want to bring down authors writing for FREE

Ao3 does not need automatic censorship, it is an archive, therefore anything can be posted

Writing or reading about something illegal does not mean the author nor the reader condones it, if that were true, you could never read a story involving anything negative

Purity culture is ruining fan culture and you all are fucking annoying

[rayraywrites]

a non-selective plan for the resurgence of fic commissions

[rayraywrites]

Me leaving comments on fics.

[rayraywrites]

do you know where "no beta we die like x" comes from and how it is used?

The term "beta" in this context is short for "beta reader" - a person who reads a fic while it's still in the editing stage and helps the writer get it ready to post. Some betas check grammar. Some check canon compliance. Some are sensitivity readers. There are lots of things that betas can do.

So functionally, saying "no beta" means that the writer didn't get this checked by a second person before they posted it. It's a warning that there might be errors or typos etc. It's mostly used when an author has written something quickly and is posting without doing a lot of (or any) edits first.

As for where it comes from? It all started with a bumper sticker.

This image was an internet meme at one point, and it got meme'd on in the form of "no ___ we ___ like men"

Here on tumblr, one of the versions that got really popular was from now-deleted user @grec1a who created this version:

From there, it migrated to AO3 as the "no beta we die like men" tag, and very often the word men is replaced by the name of a character who dies in canon.

[rayraywrites]

people who let me wake up to this get a special place in heaven. firefly_fox how does it feel to hold my life in ur hands....

[rayraywrites]

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

[rayraywrites]

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

[rayraywrites]

The “That’s immoral you shouldn’t write that, we need to get that taken down” discourse on tiktok right now is PISSING ME OFFF

Wdym you want censorship for a literal ARCHIVE are you fucking stupid

Ao3 was literally founded to preserve works that were largely getting taken down due to censorship

Censorship is the opposite of what Archive of Our Own stands for

The TAGS and WARNINGS are there for a REASON. Use them and stop complaining

The universal rule—don’t like, don’t read

It’s THAT simple

[rayraywrites]

few things more humbling than the realization that you really do write the same fic(s) over and over again

[rayraywrites]

Updated version of Boy Who Cried Wolf but there are actual wolves every single time and no one ever believes the boy - they get closer and closer every time he tries to warn them, until it's too late and the whole town screams at the boy for not warning them "enough", and blame him for the wolves at their door.

[rayraywrites]

Reblog if you’re over 20 and still read/write fan fiction.

I’m curious!

[rayraywrites]

a few reminders because i’m tired and angry

fandom is a hobby, not a form of activism

adult women aren’t inherently creepy for being in fandom and having hobbies apart from raising babies and doing taxes

the vast majority of people pushing back against the worrying trend of instigating harassment over fictional characters and relationships aren’t incest supporters or pedophiles, actually

liking a m/f ship doesn’t make someone a dirty heterosexual invading your space

preferring gay ships doesn’t make you ‘’woke’’ and good

no one owes you a disclaimer that they are a good person who recognizes that their favorite fictional villain’s actions are evil and that they don’t condone those actions irl

liking a fictional villain is in no way comparable to advocating abuse/murder/genocide/etc and you’re a fucking idiot if you believe that

just because a woman is attracted to a fictional villain doesn’t mean she’s promoting toxic relationships or going to end up in a toxic relationship. assuming women can’t tell fiction and reality apart stinks of internalized misogyny 

some rando’s a/b/o fanfics have none of the level of influence that popular tv shows and movies spreading propaganda have

no one owes you a detailed description of their traumas and mental health problems

abusive relationships are not the same as enemies to lovers ships

y’all need to chill the fuck out over people, relationships, actions and events that don’t actually exist and learn how to enjoy and discuss them like normal people

fandom is a hobby, not a form of activism

feel free to add more

[rayraywrites]

Is this a problem?

[rayraywrites]

There are a couple of things about current shipping culture that confuse me.  

1. The focus on whether or not a pairing will become canon as a reason people should ship something or not.  Do you not understand what the “transformative” part of “transformative works” means?”

2. This idea that saying “I ship that” means “I think that, as presented in canon,this is a perfect, healthy relationship that everyone should model their relationship after.” 

Sometimes shipping something does mean that.  Sometimes shipping something means “Person A is a trash bag who doesn’t deserve person B but I would love to explore how Person A might grow to deserve Person B.” Sometimes it means “I want these characters to live together forever in a conflict free domestic AU.”  Sometimes it means “I want Person A to forever pine after Person B.  Nothing is beautiful and everything hurts.”  And sometimes it just means you like their faces and want to see Person A and Person B bone in various configurations and universes. 

[rayraywrites]

So I thought this was commonly known internet navigation (but apparently it might just be those of us who have been using the internet since the 90’s who still know it). Or so it seems based on… a grumpy comment I got.

When you see an arrow like this:

It means you click it to expand out a hidden section.

It’s an accordion section/menu! It’s useful in web design to hide information that may be overwhelming under specific headers so people can only see what they need.

Here I’m using it for people who need the content warnings to be able to check, but for those who don’t need them and don’t want to be spoiled to just move right past without accidentally reading anything.

It’s still the user’s responsibility to click the arrow and read things as they need! But it is all warned. (And, yes, the all encompassing issues are already a tag on the fic, I’m just providing additonal warnings per chapter.)

[rayraywrites]

This user supports AO3

This user is anti-censorship

This user believes in “don’t like, don’t read”

This user believes in “ship and let ship”

This user believes that fiction tastes and preferences do not dictate moral character

[rayraywrites]

Personally I wouldn’t recommend using the image link from a tumblr draft as I’ve found that there’s on occasion a glitch that deletes them. However, tumblr does allow you to post privately OR I know some have a side blog with private posts for all their images.

If you cross post to tumblr, you can also prep the post with the images (if you will share the images on tumblr too) and the link will hold even from draft to published post.

Ao3 Tutorials: Insert Images

(should I just make this a series where people can ask for help lol)

I’ve been asked quite a few times how to insert an image into your story on ao3 and honestly i get why it’s a nuisance. Really, Ao3 isn’t always super user friendly! So here’s my simple (hopefully useful) tutorial with images included :)

I did this on my laptop, but you can do it on pretty much any device, though phones tend to be a bit more annoying.

Step 1: Open up the work on ao3 that you want to include an image in. Scroll down to where the fic will be posted and you should be able to see two buttons: Rich Text OR HTML. I usually prefer to work with Rich Text so that when I copy my fic from whatever text editor I’m working on it keeps the italics or bolded words.

You can also see that using Rich Text gives you more options that don’t involve knowing anything about html!

Step 2: Click the image button in the options above the text box. This opens up a small popup with 3 slots: Source, Image Description, and Dimensions. Working backwards, the dimensions I usually ignore when I first insert the image. Description is to just name time image if you like. Now source is the most important. You can’t just insert an image from your files but instead you need the image url. 

Step 3: Get image url through a variety of options. 

If you are simply finding the image online, i.e. google images, simply right click the image and click the option of: Copy Image address OR Copy Image URL. This includes copying images from Tumblr, facebook, etc. even email.

Now if the image is saved to your computer you need to first upload it online somewhere. Then you can get the image url from there. My usual option is a website called hostingpics.net. Unfortunately it isn’t in English however with google’s autotranslate option the website is easy to manage.

From there, simply upload your image (make sure to have the size option as “Do not resize”

When the new screen loads there are a lot of options. If you click on the picture of the image you uploaded this should open a new window. You should know that sometims ads will open but they’re simple to close.

On the new window the image loads in the size that you uploaded it as. Here simply right click the image and you have your option to copy the image url.

Step 4: Insert image and resize to fit your story

When you paste the image url into the popup on ao3 the automatic dimensions appear - don’t change this unless you know the exact dimensions you want the image to be. Instead you can change it inside the story.

I should also mention, make sure that your cursor had clicked the paragraph where you wanted the image to be closest to just cause its easiest not to try and move the image. However, when you first insert the image there will be a blue film over kind of like when you copy things. Therefore hitting Ctrl-X and cutting the image and pasting it somewhere else in the story is easy.

The image will be able to be shrunk till you click away and then you have to draw your mouse over it as you would when you’re selecting and highlighting words. The editor should then show up again.

To then move the image to the side as seen below where it’s inserted alongside your words all you have to do is select the surrounding words and hit any of the align options in the text editor.

And there you go! That’s how to insert an image into ao3!

I should also mention that you can insert images into the summary or notes by using the following bit of code:

<img src=”insert image url here”>