#download fics on ao3 if you don't want to lose them!!!!!

[sunsetisle]

ppl on my dash panicking bc ao3 isn't working and im just sitting here like. i have over 600 downloaded fics available on my phone i'd be fine even if it didn't come back up in a Week

[anachronismstellar]

I was talking to my girlfriend and she said that she just goes through a tag and sometimes it's hard to find good fics if the fandom is too big or if there's too many fanfics.

So, idk how anyone else does it, but here's my "how to find good fics and lose yourself in madness" guide:

Open our trusted and beloved ao3 on the fandom/ship tag what you wanna read about. Or other site you prefer, but this works best for ao3, I'm old, idk how to deal with wattpad nonsense, sorry

Go through the filters <- LISTEN HERE KIDS, THIS IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE!!! FILTER THE CONTENT U DONT WANNA SEE PLS FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

Find a fic that you like. I tend to stick to long ones, so I filter the word count as well but you do you

Read the fic; kudo the fic; comment on the fic; bookmark the fic; even better, and/or DOWNLOAD THE ONES YOU WANNA READ AGAIN (you never know what the future might bring and again IF THE AUTHOR DELETED THEIR STUFF ITS NONE OF OUR BUSINESS)

Then open the author's profile, click on works AND FILTER IT AGAIN THIS IS IMPORTANT!!! YOUR FAV AUTHORS CAN WRITE WHATEVER THE SHIT THEY WANT AND YOU'RE NOT ENTITLED TO COMPLAIN, JUST MOVE ON

Read all the fics that they wrote for the fandom you're hyperfixating rn, and again, kudo/comment/bookmark/download

Go to the Author's bookmarks. Because we USUALLY write what we like to read, so the author's bookmarks will probably have fics that, if you liked their fics, you gonna like them too.

FILTER. FILTER THE ONES YOU DON'T WANNA READ. USE THE EXCLUDE TAGS FILTER FOR THE LOVE OF-

Read all the fics the author had bookmarked

Find a new author that you liked.

Go back to step 4.

Congratulations, you're late for work/school/family gathering/any other appointments you might have.

Have fun!

[wildpeachfarm]

i don't gatekeep so here are ways i find deleted fics:

-wayback machine: safest option. unfortunately not many fics are there. sometimes it seems like they are but when you actually access them you can't view the full work for numerous reasons

-r/deletedfics subreddit: search there, you'll find many fics. the subreddit has a list of writers who have explicitly said they don't want their fics shared. be aware that MANY dnf writers have added themselves on that list! so, before asking for a fic there, please check if you're requesting an author that is on that list. people won't share work of any writer on that list

-cached versions of URLs: before you do this, please be aware of internet safety. this warning shows up. do it at your own risk

you can use cached URLs from browsers like bing. this is how it works. search an author &/or work + ao3. there's a little arrow on the side, and that will take you to a cached old saved version of that URL

the most effective browser i found: yandex. here's how it works. you search once again whatever you want. click on the 3 dots > saved copy

this is how it looks. as you can see, it's an old version (the one with dnf), since this work was recently changed to original characters. so yeah it works. i do recommend saving an offline version, in case the brower saves a more recent version of the URL, at some point, and you'll lose the fic again

this is a lot of work, so truly what i recommend is download all your bookmarks 😭😭 i think at this point we've learned our lesson. but i still hope this helps someone!

also, you can dm me if you need help finding one, there's a high chance i will have it somehow

!!!

[clairelutra]

so, just a heads up:

I'm going to be removing my stories from AO3 and porting them over to my Dreamwidth.

i'm feeling incredibly sick with upper management and how they've treated the volunteers in their organization, and until the people responsible are gone and changes are made, i'm not going back.

as i have 272 stories public at the moment, along with a number of others scattered across accounts and in anonymous collections, i likely won't do this all at once, or in full completion. nonetheless, if there are stories of mine that you enjoy and don't want to lose, i highly encourage you to download them either manually, or with a tool or scraper.

as I want to keep all the lovely responses and feedback i've gotten over the years, i'm going to leave the fic postings themselves up, and replace the contents, and link to the full stories on dreamwidth.

i'll be starting on or after june 25th, 2023

(note: my stories will still be accessible on dreamwidth; this post is for those who want to preserve or download them as they are)

this is why i'm leaving

this is my dreamwidth that i'll be crossposting to

here's a downloader tool and its instructions

here are instructions for another mass download tool

here is my ao3

[halfmoth-halfman]

updated the navi post for december, some notes:

i'm not fully back, but i am doing some much needed maintenance on this blog so feel free to ignore any masterlists/themes/navi posts as they change in the coming month

there's a possibility of some of my fics being privated or deleted during my blog cleanup and i will be doing the same on my ao3. if you don't want to lose any of them, i suggest going to ao3 and downloading them sooner rather than later

inbox should be getting cleared out and remaining asks answered by this weekend

i want to do some kind of end of year celebratory post, maybe a fic rec list or blog rec list, but i'm open to other suggestions

[sweetiecutiedarling]

Quick reminder to be very clear, because I write fanfic and have been reading fanfic for nearly two decades: You cannot sell fanfiction. You cannot bind it and sell the bound book. You cannot sell your fanfic ebook. You cannot sell your fanfic audiobook. You cannot sell someone else's fanfic. (Seriously why does this have to be said.) You cannot profit from fanfiction.

Fanfiction is only legally protected because money is not exchanged.

This means that you cannot buy fanfiction either. Most commonly- Don't buy a bound book or an ebook (re: ebooks - AO3 has a download feature and there are third-party apps to download off of websites like FanFiction.net). "I didn't know any better." Fair enough- you do now. "But I want a bound book." Learn to bind it. "But I can't." Hashtag me neither, bad hands gang unite- find someone to ask to do it just like the fanfic author wrote the book for you for free. "That's not feasible to me because xyz." I don't know what to tell you. You can't always get what you want. It's rough like that. You're contributing to the problem when you purchase fanfiction. Don't do it.

It is more than this though, though those of us who were here when Anne Rice was attacking fanfic authors viciously (or even shortly after) know how important this is. The culture of fanfiction, which is so valuable and unique that it has been studied by universities, is built upon the premise of free fanfic works. They are a gift, a personal project, a love letter to the original work, or to what the author believes the original work could have been. (Shout out to the Twilight community for universally hating their author more than any other fandom I've seen, so proud of us.) That's why we don't offer unsolicited critiques, we scroll on. It's why collaboration is so common. It's why we can leave up our old fics, or indeed post them when we know we are at the beginning to learning to write, without the same level of concern that we have to have when we officially publish our writing. There is something so pure about posting and sharing art because we love to do it, why would we risk that?

* By mixing creative work and profits, things get messy and the original intent of the art is often distorted. Example: The difference between Korra and Asami's relationship in the Legend of Korra tv series vs the comics has been cited as due to what could or couldn't get approved in the network.

Writing is an art form like any other and fanfiction is a lovely little bubble that remains relatively unharmed by capitalism. The second we start profiting off of it we run the risk of losing our fanfic websites, facing personal legal consequences, and destroying the incredible community we're in.

Stop. Selling. Fanfiction.

[thebubblyship]

I got permission. And so begins my ranting. Strap in fellas.

So I recently got into printing out some fanfics physically, and the first one I had to tackle was the first 25 chapters of an amazing fanfic called Yuuei Survival Guide. The art and the writing are not mine, but I do plan on actually drawing a custom cover for the last 25 chapters so I don't feel guiltly snagging someone else's art for it.

So that's the front cover! The story heavily focuses on Oboro and Izuku's growing relationship so for the first book (I can only print so much in one book), so I knew right away I wanted for the two of them to be seperated on the front and back of the covers for the first book, and for them to be together for the second book (symbolizing their friendship growing).

That's why I threw Izuku onto the back cover with the description, along with them having the day/night theme. I feel like the day/night cycle symbolizes them pretty well.

Obviously, required spine with title on it so I don't lose it amongst my other books. I meshed their sky colors together with a blend tool and changed their opacity in the middle so they come together for the spine.

Book title with author, very required very cool.

And here is the second page, because I wanted the first page to be the gap page (if that makes sense) in case printing went wrong. I also included a cute piece of fanart I found for the fic along with a quote because I found it rather adorable.

Following is where it gets messy. I was able to download the full fanfic off of Ao3, but the file was so large word just died out on me so I switched over to just copy and pasting, editing while I go. Especially since I wanted to go through and format. That's when I noticed the author has begun to go back and re-edit through the book to update it to their current writing style, because I have such convient timing lmao.

I indented the chapter titles down a good few lines, made the first part of every chapter a bigger font than the rest, and just went to town. I also found a very lovely page break online that I added, since it fit the theme and looked rather nice.

In total, this physical version totalled to about 650 pages for the first 25 chapters. The end page down below, along with some more fanart:

I think in total, making everything took me about a week or two to do? Since I put it into a google doc, I was able to work on it during slow hours at my job and knock it out. Obviously printing and shipping added onto that time, so in total I'd say around a month to produce it?

I absolutely adore it, it came in this morning and I was grinning like an idiot while I checked it out. I plan on editing the last 25 chapters and making some art myself for it, since I: A. Need to actually draw fanart for this platonic duo, love them, and B. Have a very specific idea for them I want to do for the cover.

Definitely made some mistakes along the way for this first one, but there's only up to go in doing this! I love being able to physically hold it and it's definitely going on my self for a constant read. It's so beautiful!!!!

@lowlywriter I'll figure out how to condense down instructions on how to print it, along with getting a zip file of the cover layout and everything for it. (And I mentioned this earlier but I definitely did see the writing changes, last I checked you finished chapter 4 I believe? So there definitely is a writing tone shift in the book but I don't mind lol).

I'm so happy with the final result and I can't wait to tackle the last 25 chapters aaaaaaaa!!!!!!

[lonelyrosebindery]

What is Lonely Rose Bindery?

Hi!

If you're reading this, you're probably either interested in fanbinding, or a fic writer trying to ensure I'm not some rando on the internet trying to get your personal information or a scammer planning to illegally sell something. Feel free to message me if you have any concerns that aren't answered below!

I'm TS, but you can also call me Rose. I write fanfic on AO3 here and (previously) Fanfic.net here, blog about diabetes in fandom at @type1diabetesinfandom and @yourfavisdiabetic, and flail about misc fandom stuff on my main @too-short-for-my-own-good. I'm also on Discord @ tooshortformyowngood.

I've been in various fan spaces since the early 2010s, and I'll probably keep at until the day I die! I'm multifandom and multiship. Besides writing, I also draw fan art and make podfics, moodboards, playlists, meta, and headcanons. I've attended local and online cons and been to fan meetups.

And, at the end of 2022, I started fanbinding.

Why do I bind fanfiction?

It's March 29th as I write this, and I've read approximately 2 million words of fanfiction this year. I have over 1600 bookmarks on AO3.

I bind fics primarily to preserve them. I've seen many fics be deleted or locked before I downloaded them. (I'm sure we've all been there.) Keeping a copy on my shelf means I don't have to worry as much about losing a favorite story.

A physical copy makes rereading much easier! I get eye strain easily, and some websites just have horrible formatting.

I get to show a writer that I loved their story enough to HAND BIND it. I've met some amazing people this way!

Traditionally hand-binding fanfic pushes back against the notion that fic isn't "real writing."

What to expect on this blog:

Here, I share some of the fanbinding projects I've done, which includes fic, fan studies, meta, freely-available original fiction, public domain works, comics, and zines. Each book is lovingly crafted to honor its creator/s.

As a proud member of the Renegade Bookbinding Guild @renegadeguild, I'm part of a wonderful community dedicated to celebrating fic writers and preserving fandom's dying gift economy. It's an honor to contribute to this cause, and I love getting the chance to give people a bound copy of their writing/art--it's an amazing feeling to get to hold your own work in your hands!

To Authors & Artists:

To all the talented authors and artists whose works I've bound: consider this an open invitation to reach out to me for an author's copy! It's my small way of saying thank you for the joy (and angst lol) your projects have brought me.

I usually try to contact writers/artists directly, but sometimes it doesn't work. Don't be shy! I want to give you a gift!

I don't share any personal information (I would hope that's obvious, but this IS the internet...), and I encourage people to use a PO Box or a friend's address when being offered a fanbinding. Just make sure the friend or other proxy in question is ok with being sent fanfic!

If you don't want to risk receiving a physical copy, I can share the typeset with you instead! The typeset is the formatted PDF, to make the fic itself look like a traditionally published story. These can be plain or artistic, depending on the project and the style of the typesetter.

If there's artwork that's been made for the fic, please let me know! I look for that but it can be tricky, especially when things aren't linked together.

I do NOT share typesets to anyone outside the Renegade Bookbinding Guild, except the author/artist. Even in Renegade, I only share with established members via personal requests unless the author gives me blanket permission to share with the guild as a whole.

Lonely Rose Bindery operates on a NON-PROFIT basis.

Please note that while I pour my heart and soul into each project, I DO NOT accept commissions! I am a hobbyist driven by a deep, deeeeep love for fanfic. I bind purely for the joy of crafting, and the preservation of stories that mean the world to me.

If you are not the author or artist who worked on a specific fic, do NOT request a copy! You are welcome to ask questions and talk about the craft. My askbox is open, and reblogs are turned on.

Message me if you...

are an author/artist who wants to request multiple copies (i.e. for friends or family, or different editions)

kindly want to help with shipping costs (because international shipping is fucking expensive)

have specific colors or themes in mind for your fic

I will not take requests for specific materials, nor accept payment for any materials used.

Lonely Rose Bindery is not just about preserving fanfiction; it's about celebrating the creativity and community of fandom. With each project, I try to honor the stories and art that I love and to promote a gift economy against the rise of consumerism that has recently plagued multiple fandoms.

I look forward to sharing more fanbinds and continuing to improve my bookbinding skills. I never knew how many ways you can make a book until I started this!

Remember, my askbox is always open, so feel free to reach out with any questions, suggestions, or just to say hello. Happy reading!

[omarandjohnny]

SHIPPY SHIP SHIP!

Tagged by @negrowhat <333333333333333333333333333333

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

I didn't really have a fixed ship to hang my hat on in those days (aka the before the internet tiemz), but Buffy and Pike (movie BTVS) were the main couple I fixated on back then (still was figuring out why movie Lestat and Louis made me feel funny in my tummy at that time, so Buffy and Pike were the easier option LOL)

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

Roz and Dan from Night Court; I was 7 and I wanted them married and arguing until the end of time <3

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

(hops in the wayback machine) Pretty sure I was writing for Greg/Nick (CSI) just a bit before Ennis/Jack (Brokeback). Still so very thankful that those four introduced me to friends I'd still have in my life 20 years later!

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

I very clearly remember the Spangel fanvids that took more than day to download from our AOL dialup, yes XD

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

Attempting to nail jello to a tree would be a far more productive use of my time.

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

Can't say anything comes to mind, really.

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

Had to go through my AO3 history, last time I had a clear enough head to attempt to read anything was early autumn last year (oof) and it was a modern AU of Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang that I don't think I finished because I really can't recall any of it. Ah, well.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

Since I can't engage in fic it's hard for me to keep hold of the newer ships, so my brain tends to fall back on old reliables- Loustat/Loumand being at the top at this very moment because the fandom's waking up again for season 2 in May.

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Another one that I can't think of anything.

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

Not Really, if I hated them then I'm sure I still hate them now. (keeping your answer here, Eboni, because same)

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

I'd be cancelled over any ship at any time for anything, such is the nature of this goofball puritanical mindset that has taken over fandom socmed. (I know the problem reaches so much further than that, but I'm not clearheaded enough to write a dissertation LOL)

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

Can't say I've ever had one.

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

20+ years ago I was slowly killing copious amounts of trees and our at-home printer with Spangel fics that I didn't want to lose (have since lost all of the printouts, and the fics are still online in their respective webrings, yikes) So yeah, Spangel would probably still win. Ennis/Jack, and Wangxian would round out the top three, I'm sure.

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

Bastard-coated bastards, pastel/goth, grumpy/sunshine.

15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

Drawing a blank here. Though, I will have a harder time engaging if the source material is mainly written in 1st person POV, which is why I'd be considered a fake Vampire Chronicles fan XD (forever thankful for my friends that actually read the books and school me on what I don't know)

[melissa-titanium]

ur favorite murdered drones fanfiction links perhaps pls hand them over? i liked urs and wanted to know if theres more kinda like it maybe

best. best fic. i have ever read my uzi & n characterization comes from this and rhis alone. it is INFURIATINGLY underrated, it makes me so angry that more people haven't read this. please check it out even if you don't like murder drones, it is fucking AMAZINGLY well written & a great read. i literally have it downloaded & in my md folder on my computer LOL

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nosferatank/works?fandom_id=66531664

IM BIASED BUT... NOSFERATANK FICS🫶🫶🫶 absolutely incredible characterization & writinf, whispers in the sky ALSO inspired a lot of my characterization. i'm a big sucker for fics that take deep dives into parts of canon that aren't explored well within the show itself. i need to finish reading fourth law also, absolutely fucking SPECTACULAR description of the gala scene, makes me lose my SHIT every time.

like the stars & ladydaybreaker fics in general are so good. me & tech liveblogged like the stars in particular to eachother while it was updating, the entire ad astra series is fucking AWESOME & i totally reccomend reading itif you also like khan & nori :) (what friends are for is a personal second favorite <3)

my yuri. not much else to add. yuri says enough

UNFORTUNATELY. this is all i have on hand ... i have one more but its kinda cringeeeee i gotta unlearn shame before sharing... TECHHHH ur ao3 is deleted so icant find tha fic u made but iwould totally put it here if icould. falls over and die.s.

there's not a whole lot of fics ive read that are. like mine in terms of writing ? does thr even make sense. help. like its not that i have a particularly unique style its just that i don't write like alot of othwr people in terms of mental order i guess. but in reference to the above fics i think i take most inspiration from "whispers in the sky" & "the sun and the moon"

[goshen-applecrumbledore]

(apologies in advance if this ask is overly personal or presumptuous or anything else along those lines. i do not wish to make assumptions or project onto your work and process, this is a clumsy, grammatically poor attempt at appreciation that i am feverishly typing while waiting for my train home)

despite being fandom...aligned(?) for well over a decade, i've never been able to enjoy fanfiction the way many seem to do. i'm not really a big Shipper, at least not in a "i want my faves to fuck and get married and be endgame" way. if anything i've always gravitated towards messy gay unspoken divorce between dependent freaks who were never even married in the first place. right person wrong time or whatever tumblr would consider that hybrid of vulnerable possession and rehearsed disgust.

back in 2020, i was losing my mind over not being able to read any books that i hadn't already committed to memory, so i opened ao3 for the first time since high school and stumbled across your Yakuza fics and read them all in one sitting. reading your fics and your interpretation of kazumaji (and daigo's entanglement with that) almost brought me to tears at 3:00 am on a monday morning. it was the first time i saw someone represent their relationship in a way that made sense to me, in a way that felt *real*.

flash forward a bit later and i am overjoyed to see your Venture Bros fic, falling in love with your interpretation of brock/rusty just like i did with kazumaji (i have this fic downloaded, i revisit it at least once a month and think of it an embarrassing amount).

and just now, i finished reading both of your fics for The Bear. once again-- loving your interpretation of them as well. and also somehow only now seeing you have a tumblr.

this is all a very insufferably drawn out way to say that i truly adore your writing in every aspect! specifically, the way you write sex is nothing short of beautiful. it's a display of communication, something teetering between impulse and years of planning-- wholly vulnerable and oftentimes sickeningly selfish. an act that exposes your core in a way so specific to its nature that you can devour someone and still look them in the eyes afterwards and deny you even care. i adore your use of time during these scenes as well. physically, fucking (generally) doesn't take that long, but there's a mental battle of trying to stay in your body to commit every touch to memory when your head is floating off to think of every conversation, every glance, *everything* that led to that moment.

i was only able to read the preview chapter of a yakuza original book you had linked in the notes of one of the Yakuza fics and i believe it has since been removed, but i'll be waiting for whatever book you write in the future. patiently and with all the love a reader can possess <3

hello! wow this is all so incredibly kind, thank you. I don't even know what to say. I like my yakuza fics a lot, I'm glad they still hold up. and that venture bros fic is somehow one of my favourite things I've written, not sure why.

your paragraph about writing sex is so eloquent that I'm like, bashful over it lol. that is very much what I'm trying to get at- vulnerable, selfish, devouring. getting stuck in your head or checking out. I don't think I always nail it, but it's great to hear that I do sometimes. I'm never totally confident in my sex scenes especially.

that book is not for sale anymore, it's something I came up with when I was young and self-published it and I don't sell anymore. it was about a gang of goons in a city in ontario that I don't think I explicitly say is thunder bay. it does have a goodreads page, which I'm thrilled by but which obviously SUPER over-rates it cause it's got gay content that tumblrinas love. it was not a good book. my next one will be good and real. thank you for your enthusiasm

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi, so I'm a crisis here.

I'm planning to write approximately 3 fics, they're in a series to be specific, and no matter I create drafts on ao3 for the first story, and I say that I'll post the first chapter, I never post that chapter and that draft automatically deletes one month after. I became frustrated at myself for failing to post and giving false promise to readers.

Now, there's a story that just popped into my head and this story takes place after the first story of the series and I'm urged to write it but I haven't write the first story yet! What should I do?!

I guess my question would be why you're writing these drafts in AO3 in the first place? AO3 isn't meant to be used as writing software, so you're taking a big risk by writing your story there. There are many free alternatives in the way of online writing software and downloadable writing apps. Google Docs, SmartEdit Writer, Manusrkipt, yWriter, Wavemaker novel writing app, and FocusWriter are some examples. You can even just use Notepad or similar which comes free on most laptops/PCs. If you're using someone else's PC/laptop to write your story, one of the online editors is a good choice. This way, you can take all the time you want to write your draft without promising it to readers, then feeling like you're disappointing them if it gets deleted or you lose interest in finishing it.

That would be my recommendation going forward. Write down the information in your head pertaining to this new story, then go back and write the first story in this series in a dedicated writing app/software so that you don't lose it along the way. Then, when the first story is finished, you can post it and start on the second, and so on.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

Learn more about WQA

Visit my Master List of Top Posts

Go to ko-fi.com/wqa to buy me coffee or see my commissions

[ballsballsbowls]

Saw a post the other day talking about a fic author who is very upset to know that people are talking about their fic in Private Exclusive Discord Servers and they feel "excluded" and it makes them want to write less. I obviously do not want literally ANYONE who'd participate in that discussion on tumblr to see what I have to say, which is going to lump fic and published books together, because I am one on those mean meanies who HAS a private discord book club of sorts and we do both published books AND fic.

Besides not being sure there's any relation between "talking about stuff you're reading on discord" and not openly leaving comments or reviews or anything on the works themselves, which feels a little "every pirated copy of my song is someone who would have purchased it and I have actively lost the cost of the album for every single download." (And it's deeply, unquestionably fucked to say outright that people should blame themselves if you quit writing because they didn't comment enough.) Part of the reason I went from talking about books I read on tumblr in extremely coded language to not discussing them at all is because when there's no private internet places anymore, the only people who truly lose are the people who want to complain about things, even a little tiny bit.

To be clear, all references to "criticism" from here on in will NOT mean, "The author should be sent to break rocks on a penal colony on the moon so they never have a chance to write dogshit like this again," we're talking "This was good but they need better editing." Or a "This was fun but it was 10k too long" sort of criticism that balances "I read this to completion and it was a net good and I enjoyed it" vs a mild but understandable critique.

You are Not Allowed to have even tepid criticism of a work on AO3 (or in reviews on indie books) because The Author Might See It, and you don't know whether they will vague about you or blame you for them not writing x thing. There's always another Indie Author harassing people who leave reviews that are even marginally negative.

You are Not Allowed to collect fics to recommend to other people using AO3's bookmark feature if you leave mediocre notes because The Author Can See It.

You are Not Allowed to have a middling review on social media because The Author Will See It. If you set it to private, someone will screencap it and email it to the author.

If you compile book or fic recs where people can see it, some stranger (rarely the authors) will take umbrage with your choices. Then you either get hate mail or someone will email them to your boss.

I don't want people hounding me and I don't want people mad at me, so I moved everything to a more private venue. I comment and review when the spirit moves me, but I think long and hard about whether the review could be construed as negative and keep it to myself if it does. I can control who is seeing what I have to say, and these are people I trust implicitly to have my best interests at heart and know that an opinion like, "I don't know why they bothered with sex scenes at all" will be taken at face value.

Besides there's only so many times I can discuss a book on tumblr and pretend it is a book titled "Half Vampire Half Angel All Stupid" and lampshade the plot points so it's not recognizable because god forbid the author has a tumblr and sees me saying that their book's incredibly bad and that I read the entire thing.

If knowing people are discussing your work in a discord that you're not allowed in turns you into a shivering critter in a Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercial, I'm not sure what to tell you, other than, whether you are writing for fun or for money: I genuinely think that people who liked your stuff should comment/review more

and I also think our lives were both made worse when every place I could go on the internet to say "I spite-finished their new work but I didn't care for it. I'm going to read the next one once it's out and see if I hate it less" disappeared so that I am forced to have this convo right within earshot of you. I think that hurts us both.

[zaharya]

Scrivener 3 to AO3 – expanded export format (with download link) P2

I hope you find this guide and the provided export format to download useful! To enable me to make more such resources, and make them available for everyone, please consider supporting me via KoFi! I love sharing my stuff freely and don't want to paywall anything, but I also have to eat – every contribution helps and is greatly appreciated!

Hello friends! This is a continuation of this post here, for people who use more complex formatting than just italics, and still want to export their fics into AO3 directly from Scrivener without losing that formatting.

Now, it should be said first that there are levels to this, and depending on what kind of formatting you are using, you'll need to go through more or fewer steps.

You only want italics and a horizontal rule between scenes (requires manual line-spacing by using empty lines in your draft)

You want all the above, as well as automatic line-spacing (without having to keep empty lines in your draft)

You want the above, as well as existing paragraph styles such as centered or right-aligned text and blockquotes

You want the above, as well as not predefined paragraph and character styles such as bold or underlined text and strikethrough

The first two can be achieved by following my previous post about this (or by downloading and importing my format – import instructions in the other post). The other two expand the same principle that is used to achieve 2, but are more "sensitive" to inconsistencies. This post here is going to provide the additional steps to achieve the paragraph and character style HTML formatting on compile. It will also include further explanations of certain steps where people often tripped up.

Let's go then. Follow this previous post up to the heading Assign Section Layouts, or download and import the provided .scrformat file that is linked there.

If you import the provided .scrformat file, and you have not deleted/renamed Scrivener's built in text styles, two paragraph styles (Centered Text and Block Quote) should already work for you! I recommend reading the explanation of how to set it up anyway though, in case you want to add a different paragraph style to the format at some point.

Existing (Paragraph) Styles

Alright, so in the last post, we went into the Styles tab of the Format Settings, added a new paragraph style (Regular Text), and defined the Paragraph prefix/suffix. Now, Regular Text wasn't based on any of the existing Project Paragraph Styles, which is also why it didn't matter what you called it. This matters now!

While you're still in the Styles tab, click again on the + in the top right corner to add a new paragraph style. However, unlike with Regular Text, this time you choose one of the existing Project Paragraph Styles and override it. (Don't worry about losing anything, you're in a plain text format anyway.)

This will create a Style with the same name as the Project Paragraph Style you chose. This is important, if they're not named the same it won't work. If you rename one, you have to rename the other as well.

Anyway, there are four fields again: Prefix/suffix and Paragraph prefix/suffix. Put the HTML code required for your desired style into the Prefix/suffix fields – e.g. the HTML code for block quotes is < blockquote > and < /blockquote >. For Paragraph prefix/suffix, put the same code as you did for Regular Text!

Why isn't the blockquote code the Paragraph prefix/suffix? Well, paragraph styles may span multiple paragraphs, right? You might have a whole letter in block quotes, which contains several line-breaks. We want the style to include all of it, and we want our line-breaks within the style to still function properly. Therefore, we still want every individual paragraph to be surrounded by the p and /p code, whereas the blockquote and /blockquote code should go at the very beginning and at the very end of the whole section in this style.

Prefix/suffix go where the style begins and ends. Paragraph prefix/suffix goes at the beginning and end of every paragraph within this style.

Based on this principle you can now add any paragraph (or character) styles you want that are already defined in Scrivener.

Important: In order for this to work, you need to actually apply these styles within your editor as well. So if you're wanting centered text, do not just hit the center-align button in your format bar! If you do it like that, the style of that paragraph will still be No Style, and it won't add the HTML code you just defined. Instead, select the style Centered Text from the project text styles to center your text.

This goes for all styles! If you want it to actually be applied on compile, it must also be applied in the editor. Makes sense I'd say.

New (Paragraph or Character) Styles

"But V, what if I want a style that isn't already defined in Scrivener?"

Yes, let's say you want right-aligned or bold text – but there's no preset Paragraph/Character style for that. The solution is simple enough: We'll define it then!

At the bottom of the drop-down menu for the text styles in the format bar, choose Show Styles Panel. This opens, you guessed it, the Styles Panel with all available styles in this project. To define a new style, format your paragraph as you want it in the editor (e.g. hit the right-align or bold button) and then click the little + at the bottom left in the Styles Panel. This will open a little window where you can define a new style.

Now, note here that you can choose which attributes are saved, which brings us to a quick explanation of Character vs Paragraph vs Paragraph+Character Styles.

Let's take three examples: Bold text, right-aligned text, and centered italic text (e.g. for a letter).

Bold text is a character style; all relevant attributes (i.e. the boldness of the font) work on a character level. You can make a single letter or word bold without affecting the rest of the paragraph – which is also how bold text is commonly used.

Right-aligned text is a paragraph style; all relevant attributes (i.e. the text alignment) work on a paragraph level. You cannot right-align a single word within a paragraph – it's the whole paragraph or nothing. The font itself is unaffected.

Centered italic text is a paragraph style with specific character attributes; the relevant attributes are on both paragraph and character level.

This distinction is mostly relevant when you're trying to define Character styles, or paragraph styles with specific character attributes. If you save all information on a paragraph style where there's no particular character attributes applied anyway, it'll turn into a normal paragraph style. For Character styles, however, this is important! Let's say you want to define Bold text – if you save all formatting, it'll always apply bold text to the whole paragraph rather than the specific word(s) you want.

Anyway, as you might've figured, you can now define all the styles your heart desires. Bold, strikethrough, underlined, specifically formatted block quotes – if you can achieve it with your editor, you can save it as a style.

"But V, that's just in my editor, I thought this was about the export format?"

Well, technically you already know how to apply the HTML code to these styles – the same way as for the preset styles. Go back to editing your export format, into the Styles tab of the Format Settings. Just like we selected Block Quote to override earlier, we can now also select any of the new styles we created in the project, e.g. Bold Text.

Again, you put the required HTML code for the respective style into the Prefix/suffix fields. Note that Character styles do not allow you to put anything into the Paragraph prefix/suffix fields! This is because the beginning and end of character styles are usually within one paragraph.

Assign Section Layouts

And here we are again, back with the previous post. In order for any of this to actually be applied, you need to assign your section layout to the section types you are exporting.

Since this step apparently caused some confusion for many people, I'll try to explain why we need to do this.

In your draft, you have different files and/or folders. Based on their structure, Scrivener assigns certain Section Types to those files; e.g. folders are Chapter Headings, files within folders are Scenes. When you compile your draft, each Section Type is assigned a specific layout within the compile format you're using. For example, if you compile a Paperback PDF (preset), the folders will create chapter headings based on the folder name, and the files will create the scenes containing the text in the file itself. [Details about this can be found in the Compile Tutorial, here.]

With Scrivener's preset export formats, these section layouts are already assigned. Since we made this format new, our section layouts are not already assigned – we gotta assign them ourselves.

When exporting for AO3, we generally don't need any headers. All that matters is that your Scenes have the Section Layout "Text Section" assigned to them. This is necessary to actually apply all this HTML formatting we defined.

And that's it!

Here's a link to download my updated format that you can import as explained in the first post. It includes the most common paragraph and character styles already added to the export format – note that you will still need to create the text styles for some of them if they are not Scrivener presets!

❗️IMPORTANT: After importing the format, you still have to assign the section layouts!!!

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A continuously updated Masterlist with all my Scrivener 3 tutorials can be found here.

Part 1 | Tutorial Masterlist | KoFi

[ao3-helper]

I’ve got a question regarding ao3 and I’m not sure who to ask so I figured I’d start with you.

Do you know of anyway to sort bookmarks by word count? An extension maybe?

I bookmark any fic i even kinda enjoyed just so I don’t lose them and have everything in one place but I can’t figure out how to sort them by word count if that’s even possible. Any ideas?

The saddest news ever is that AO3 doesn't allow you to search the bookmarks by wordcount because the search system for those is different that the overall search system and would require to change it and well... This is AO3, it's a team of volunteers and things to change have a degree of importance. So yeah, maybe one day, but not today.

So! I looked for other options... And started to make a whole ass post before finding the best one right under my nose...

Best option: right in AO3, script required, ordered from bigger to smaller

The best option I could find is a modified version of the "AO3 Review + Last Chapter Shortcut + Kudos-sortable Bookmarks" script, which was a comment from 2019 and added a sort by word count option. To run the script you will need an extension like Tampermonkey, click on the pastebin link, copy the code, create a new script and paste it.

The original script add two clickable links right beside the title box allowing you to get to the last chapter right away and to download but also, if you go to the filter box, "Kudos" will be added in the dropdown list for "Sort by". The modified script, however, do not have that download button, but, it does add the option "Word Count" after "Kudos" in the "sort by" dropdown menu.

Once you've selected it and sorted by, it will display the work from bigger to smaller only. I unfortunately am not familiar with javascript so I can't modify anything, but I guess it's better than nothing.

I also do have to drop this post that links to a video which explains how to add plugins to firefox nightly on android because like that you can also have that option when you don't have your PC.

Hope this is what you were looking for!

If anyone wants, the other (lesser) options are under the cut.

Option 1: right in AO3, nothing else required, no order

When you bookmark works, you can add tags and notes. When on your bookmarks tab, you can search for those. Which means that you can add tags for a number corresponding to the word count of the fic. (say, 1000-2000, 2000-3000, etc) which means that you can look for the right tag for the word count you want.

This also means that you cannot sort them from bigger to smaller (or the contrary) but will still have an estimated length to help your search.

Option 2: right in AO3, needs a script, no order

Another option would be to use tampermonkey (or other similar extension) and add the "AO3: Estimated reading time" script. This script displays directly on the fic's box the reading time and you can let it display a colour depending on the level (colour that you can change to you wishes).

If you want to dig through the code, you can very easily change your wpm (I think it's set to 250 by default) and how many minutes changes the colour (for me, under 30 minutes will be green, between 30 and 90 will be yellow, above 90 will be red), but less easily add new levels. (but I guess you could modify and test things around to your wish, do remember to create a copy of the script so you can go back to original).

This means that you can browse through your bookmarks and have a visual help to know how long they are. But again, no order.

Option 3: out of AO3, needs an app, ordered

This option is nice if you read fanfictions on other site than just AO3, but it doesn require some works.

I found this tutorial on how to add work on Calibre (a free ebook reader) and add plugins so you can add fanworks and display a word count, that will therefore be ordered.

This is the second best solution, in my opinion, because it also downloads the works you want and like that you can always have them on hand, but I'm pretty sure it's only for pc.

[daughterofhecata]

I've been doing my best not to follow the debate, so I don't know if this has been said before.

But, if you have favourite fanfictions written by German users on ao3, that you want to reread and that you don't want to lose, download them now. Ao3 has in-site ways of downloading fic, use them. Especially if it's PWP/tagged as underage, but also in general. Because people have already started deleting their fics or entire accounts.