#even ao3's tagging and filters aren't perfect

[greenfiredragonfly]

*squints*

Most of the top kudosed fics in the Platonic Soulmates tag on AO3 are RPF. Huh. (I am forever boggled by the prevalence youtuber rpf, but whatever floats your boat I suppose.)

My FMA fic is on page three when you sort from most to least kudosed fics within the tag :3

[stashandtell]

Breaking Through a Plunnie-Justification Block

I've been trying to problem solve a compelling baby plot bunny I can't get rid of and I just had a breakthrough that I need to tell someone about.

I've been trying to figure out a time travel story that has Hermione going back to be at Hogwarts with Charlie and Bill-- but where she can't/doesn't have a ton of responsibility for changing the future much. I've been struggling with the following things: 1) What happens that she's thrown back in time to be in the same year as Charlie or the year between Charlie and Bill? Since I don't want to write something where she has to destroy all the horcruxes and she's reasonably school-aged, this means she needs to be sent back mid-canon. With Tonks in the mix, I'm guessing it takes place during OOTP but I need to plot out some things before I commit to that. Might be better to do it between OOTP and HBP. 2) What kind of drama does she get into other than a possible love triangle or two? I mean, of course there's a good chance she's going to catch the interest of Charlie and Bill...but also young Tonks? I always want to read a pairing about Charlie/Tonks or Bill/Tonks but Hermione/Tonks is very compelling. One of my top three all-time faves, Amends, or Truth and Reconciliation by Vera Rozalsky on fanfiction.net has a truly genius and heartbreaking sub-plotline of Hermione's secret/unrequited crush on the deceased Tonks. (This fic is a Hermione/Draco/Neville, Nevmione, Dramione work and it's can be a bit challenging-- but has my absolute favorite Augusta Longbottom characterization.) The more I think about this fic, the more Hermione's crush on Tonks is my headcanon. Hermione may need to deal with things that come before her time-travel trip like the diary (hopefully), the Chamber of Secrets (potentially), and Sirius Blacks imprisonment (definitely.) But, can she do it alone? What if she doesn't have to? I had been trying to figure out if it was worth sending her back with someone, possibly Theo (maybe an Unspeakables accident?), but I have some big Theomione pieces in the works and didn't want to muddy up the love connections. I'm so hard-pressed to not create some kind of romantic tension between Hermione and Theo when I can. The Breakthrough? WELL. IT'S TONKS. HERMIONE AND TONKS GO BACK IN TIME and Tonks has to metamorphmagus-ize into someone else of appropriate age. Probably Hermione's sibling. OF COURSE young Tonks gets a crush on the adult version of Tonks disguised as a kid and OF COURSE Tonks has to play all of the other roles-- appearing as the parents who enroll them in school, the former school headmaster, etc. I AM SO EXCITED AT THIS BREAKTHROUGH! I love a Charmione and a Billmione and I adore reading and writing sentimental teenage stories. I find it challenging to enjoy these pairings when Hermione is in school and the age-gaps aren't thoroughly justified; it takes me out of the story most times. I've been wanting to read stories where Hermione is developmentally well-matched with Charlie or Bill or even outpaces them and living in the world of their younger selves seems perfect. I just want this to be teenage coming-of-age fluff and angst that isn't war-focused where Charlie, Bill, young Tonks, and Hermione get to enjoy being young during relative peacetime. This has completely side-tracked me today and I am SO CHUFFED that my weekend plans for writing are now locked in. If you know of any solid time-travel or other works that lead characters back to teenage Charlie and Bill years, can you leave a comment-rec? I've looked casually but probably don't have the right filters. I've read some, mostly in the Charlie/Tonks or Bill/Tonks tag on AO3 but recommendations are always more fruitful for the good stuff. I will update to the link(s) for this fic when it's posted.

[takaraphoenix]

(Jalec fics ask anon) Hey, now that you said there are names you are happy to see, you should spill the beans :P and wings!fics? I really agree with you, there aren't a lot of them in the fandom (despite the perfect setting!). I think I've only seen like two or three, including your own... Soulmates!AU are great too, but it's true they're really rare. Do you check the tag regularly or only every now and then?

*laughs* I mean, I totally already “spilled the beans” when I did an ask about my favorite authors. xD

Mia_Zeklos, shirasade and MorganD. I suck at remembering names of authors. But yeah, them’s the ones I came to appreciate when I see them pop up in the Jalec tag. Also working hard on trying to make Kimmy’s name pop up more often, but she always gets distracted by the shiny, new rareships, which I can not fault her for.

Wing!fics are like... natural for this fandom. I mean. They are literally half-angels. How... How did Clare not give them wings? What do they even get for being Shadowhunters? Runes. Magic. Which, really weird considering their general hatred for Warlocks... you morons literally use magic all the fucking time, gimme a break. Giving them something that is, you know, actually angelic... would have made more sense. *shakes head*

I check the Jalec tag like twice a day. Because I’m a loser. *snorts* But not just the Jalec tag, to be fair. I got four “pre-faced” searches (that is to say, filtering out all my big-giant no-no tags, because I know how AO3 searches work *glaring pointedly at all the pissy whiny brats who seem incapable of filtering*) saved in my favos and I check them like... twice a day (because time-zones are whacky), to see if I’ll get something new to read that day.

[beaniebaneenie]

Y'all wanna talk shit about Ao3 in my house? Y'all are gonna get a lesson.

Are any of you who are moaning about fics you don't want to read on Ao3 old enough to remember Strikethrough? How about Boldthrough?

If those names aren't ringing a bell, do some homework: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Strikethrough_and_Boldthrough

Two times when the pearl-clutching "what about the kidssssss" Purity Brigades got so up in arms over what they felt was Not Appropriate To Write About that massive amounts of fic were irretrievably deleted from the places hosting them.

Back in the day when we didn't have sites dedicated to fic, we wrote them in yahoo groups. And hotmail chatrooms. And fucking livejournal. And the Purity Brigades couched their views as "we're just looking out for the moral health of the community, we don't want people writing about X".... and as a result, hundreds of stories and posts written by rape and assault survivors that they wrote to cope with their own trauma were deemed "as bad as committing the criminal act in real life" by the Purity Brigade.

Hundreds of LGBTQ stories were deleted, because the Purity Brigade didn't want them being written, or being read... often because they "portrayed homosexuality in a positive light".

Are there some stories that you don't want to read on Ao3? I bet there are. Are there some stories that *I* don't want to read on Ao3? Definitely. I've scrolled past them, or if I did click into them and then decided "nope, not for me", I did this cool thing and clicked the "Back" button. Because there's not a law stating you have to finish every fic you start reading.

But Ao3's tagging system is the best out there. When you want to read a fic, READ THE GOD DAMN TAGS. If the tags make you squick out? Literally no one is forcing you to engage with the material. Literally NO ONE.

If something is a trigger to the point where you don't even want to see it, period? Again, Ao3's tagging system and search/filter system EXISTS and can do exactly that for you.

Oh wow, look at that.

Stuff to "Include", AND stuff to "Exclude".

You can change your theme too, for the folks on this post complaining that the red & white hurts your eyes. I get it, it hurt mine too. Hence my "Tweed" theme, brown on brown. Much easier to read, and there are dozens of themes to choose from under the 'Settings' tab. You just have to put in 5 minutes of work to curate your experience.

Curating your fandom experience is and has always been the key here- you are responsible for your own consumption of content. Every time you read a mature work on Ao3, it asks if you're comfortable proceeding. If you clicked 'yes' and then got pearl-clutchy, that's not Ao3's fault. It's yours.

Fiction has ALWAYS been a place for people to explore their own minds. Sometimes that includes a darker side. Something they would *never* do in reality, but is interesting to have a character experience, or a trauma they need to work through, or a million other reasons.

But going down the path of "we will not allow Certain Types Of Fiction due to Nebulous Moral Implications" is a very slippery slope.

There are multiple countries that have flat banned things like 'fiction with lgbt characters' or 'fiction with characters who protest authoritarian regimes' who can post on Ao3, because it's hosted here, and doesn't restrict them.

Could certain things about Ao3 be better? Sure, of course. Nothing is perfect. Are there going to be things that slip through? Sure, again- nothing is perfect. Ao3 is a hell of a lot better than what we used to have. I remember. And they're asking for money because they are a non-profit with no ads and no corporate sponsors.

If you can't or don't want to donate, that's fine too. But not donating to Ao3 doesn't make you a paragon of justice.

And if you like reading or writing any fanfic at all, put some god damn respect on the Archive's name, because in the current world of published fanfiction, they are the Gold Standard, and everyone who works for that registered nonprofit does that shit for free so you can read your online novels of fic that other people wrote for free in their spare time.

alright so it’s annual donation drive time over on AO3, and I’ve already seen the usual “this is ridiculous/this is shady/what are they doing with all that money” so here’s your yearly reminder:

servers are fucking expensive

there are no fees or ads and they’re not selling your information anywhere, so the only money comes from donations

the budget is always public and the 2019 update is here if you want to see for yourself exactly where the money is going