#ao3 is an archive

[sak-supernatural]

Fanfiction is crazy because you can post 3 smut one shots (like 700-1500 words) each knocked out in a day and they will all out pace your multi-chapter fic you've been working on and posting chapters for a month in less than a week. I don’t know if it’s the premise of the fic that’s just not finding its target audience, or the plague of people who ‘only read completed works’ (if you do this then you are actively killing fandom, and missing out on some of the best stuff out there). Also I have noticed in more recent times a disturbing lack of comments on fics (not just my own). Why is this? AO3 is not social media, please comment on fics that are weeks of months or years old.

[avese23]

Can’t deal with people who act all personally aggrieved that they can’t personalize the entire internet to their personal happy place. Especially people who then go out looking for things to get mad at

(This isn’t about people venting about trolls or harassment. It sucks. I’m sorry. Fuck bullies and bigots. This also isn’t about flash warnings, and anything that keeps people with epilepsy safe)

But like, it’s not other people’s job to read your mind and guess what hyperspecific trigger you have then manually tag everything for one person. I’ve seen people ask creators to tag images with the character their blog is about. Just block the blog. That’s not a safe blog for you.

It’s not other people’s job to explain that fucked up shit in fiction is not real. You’re not a child and we’re not your parents here to hold your hand and reassure you that the actor is only playing dead.

I think a good example of effective content warnings is Hazbin. They’re not gonna put one up every individual episode to tell you a show full of swearing and gore is gonna have swearing and gore. But episode 4 is more graphic than any other episode so it’s given a separate warning. Because someone signing up for the rest of the episodes might genuinely be taken aback by that one.

Or Hashtag Ruthless Productions always putting heavy topics in their politics section. Asking for a warning every episode would be silly when you can just skip the politics section. You know it’s gonna be venting and politics. So don’t be surprised when it’s about politics. But if they talk about dark topics that aren’t typically brought up in that fandom they do give warning. For instance most people wouldn’t expect a discussion about eating disorders when the hosts talk about the cult in Wayward Son. Or a spoiler for Star Trek in a podcast about Buffy. So *then* it makes sense.

It’s social kindness and being stewardess to recognize when you as a creator are putting out something unexpectedly and objectively shocking to people who didn’t consent to it. It’s not other people’s job however, to use common sense for you. Or to read your mind. Don’t click on a video about a movie and get mad at spoilers for that mobile. Don’t read the Bible and get mad about major character death (Christian’s don’t come after me with a ‘well actually’ I haven’t read it 😭)

Speaking of Christianity if you’re someone who gets mad at Christian’s being upset by goths wearing crosses (which is silly) but then get upset by what people are writing about your blorbos on ao3 you might wanna do some soul searching.

So no I don’t care about your DNI list. No I don’t care that you only want virgos to reblog your post about Home Depot. No I don’t care that you can’t tell the difference between an anime character and a person, between real life and a plot point, between internet drama and an actual crime. I find that dude from Friends ugly af to that point I cringe but I’m not gonna go harass fandom accounts or look up every bad thing the characters done and accuse blogs of being bad people. I don’t like a lot of ATLA ships and think both Zutara and Kataang are morally gross af but I’m not gonna say the writers or the fans are sympathizing with pedophilia or abuse. Cuz that’s ridiculous.

When I publish works I’m gonna make it clear what kind of story it is. And then I’m gonna step back and tell the fucking story. I’m not gonna pop up every other chapter to warn people that a gay character calls another gay character a fag affectionately. Or a character in a toxic relationship *shocker* is having a bad time. I’m not gonna tell people that the horror work has gore and a jump scare. It’s horror.

Cuz I’m not gonna infantilize my audience and trust that they can set their own boundaries when it comes to stories they want to consume. No one is forcing them.

Media isn’t sex you don’t have to check in with every escalation. Entertainment isn’t your textbook, Phillip Schuyler is allowed to have no sons. A character isn’t your child they’re allowed to wear what they want and go on dangerous ass quests.

It’s frustrating being told to choose between assholes who project their own privilege onto others and assholes who project their own trauma onto others. Nuance exists.

Now block me dear lord, you’re doing the inventor of the block button a disservice when you get off on being pissed off

[lesbianpoetess]

ao3 turns 15 today

reblog if youre older than ao3

(there's a lot of people asking about this, but the legal age to use social media is 13, except in few countries. so yes, there are people here under 15)

[kyri45]

I didn’t realize you were the person who did the fanfiction tag drinks.

ahah yeah that's meeee!!

They are all available as stickers on my RedBubble shop!

[shyjusticewarrior]

At some point "fanfic can be as good as professional writing" became "fanfic should be as good as professional writing" and that's caused major damage to fandom spaces.

[sentanixiv]

Yeah. And the real treasures are the random fics you find along the way.

Those ones you never would've thought you'd like. But you tried and now? You can't get enough.

“Ao3 needs an algorithm” no it doesn’t, part of the ao3 experience is scrolling through pages of cursed content looking for the one fic you want to read until you get distracted by a summary so cursed that it completely derails your entire search

[bebx]

[becuzmdsaidineededpersonality]

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[basilandthymegarden]

Why are you using AO3 like a social media site???? It’s an archive. It’s hard to do reading fanfic wrong, but you’re doing it wrong. You’ve gotta read the summary/tags to figure out what you’re going to like and take that gamble. It’s like checking a book out of the library. You might be pleasantly surprised, and if you don’t like it, you don’t HAVE to keep reading it.

Another AO3 thing I’m curious about, how do yall decide if something is good enough to read? Usually I follow a rule of 1 kudos for every 10 hits. One because it’s easy math and two it’s yet to fail me. Thoughts? Do you just go for it and pray it’s good?

[sak-supernatural]

Wow I’m having so much fun reading for this new ship!! I wonder what I’ll find, oh a collage party game fic those are always fun!

THEN BOOM…

Seriously, a placeholder fic!! 😡🤬 What the fuck!! That’s it, that was the whole “fic”.

Please, I’m asking fellow ao3 users to join me in reporting this and other “fics” like it. I have a particular distaste for this one as I’m sure you can see why. 🙄😫😩

[sagegarnish]

🦀 Kudos Crab 🦀

If you are scrolling and see Kudos Crab, your fics will be blessed!

You will get good comments and kudos!

You will beat your writers block!

GO AND WRITE!

[dyke-ass-fujoshi]

How I found out about trump getting shot

[artemisdesari-blog]

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[edwardcreel]

reblog if you believe fanfics are as valid as books that were published and sold by authors who write as their main careers. I'm trying to prove a point

[mythicamagic]

One of my favourite things when reading fanfiction is when you click with an author's style so much that you adore the fanfiction you're reading, and once it's over you need more. So you go to their page and hope that there's more for any fandom you might know- only there isn't any. They've written for other fandoms you aren't familiar with and never would've thought about before.

But you're down so bad for their style and talent that they got you wading in like: