#if you don't have an AO3 account and you want one then i have a few invites i can give out just lmk!

[onlymollygibson]

You're opening yourself up to bias against longer stories. If a story is 20 chapters long and I read every chapter once, that's 20 hits. And I can leave only one kudos. That doesn't even account for rereads.

I prefer using AO3's filters.

This sidebar pops up when you click Filters

I use the Exclude part the most. Once I'm in a fandom or pairing I like, I exclude anything I don't want to see. Ships that aren't to my taste, warnings for stuff I don't want to see, even tropes I'm not in the mood for.

Now I've got it to the point where each fic might be something I like. Time to read it if it seems good. Doesn't mean you have to finish it if it's not going in a direction you like.

FYI, don't just click on a link, open it as a new tab so you don't lose your now awesome search.

Optional: change the sort option. Default gives you newest first. Sorting by Kudos will give you great fics with no bias for length. Sorting by comments gives you more long fics than short. Sorting by hits usually gets a lot of smut. Sort by bookmarks and you'll get a lot of good fics, but many will be unfinished.

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?

[clarekirener]

I read a post claiming fan engagement doesn't matter. Fan engagement is a factor in 2024, and especially for Amazon Studios, a reactive company. I watched Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime give into their biggest fanbase after years of saying it wouldn't happen.

Amazon has a consumer research department that gives Jennifer Salke head of Amazon Studios feedback about TROP consumers (screenshot below).

McPayne have said they listen to feedback and that S2 was shaped by S1 response- they also make note that S2 was written before S1 (screenshot below).

Just last week, Amazon sent out TROP surveys through Amazon Preview asking opinions on characters, storylines, and what people would like to see in future episodes. They said this feedback would be passed along to the writers.

Amazon has other shows that have responded to fan demand. The rumors around Mrs. Maisel were that Amazon execs mandated making Lenny/Midge canon after years of denial because of the Midge/Lenny fanbase (screenshot below).

The Artful Dodger's showrunner came out citing the show's fan engagement as the reason they got renewed.

I'm plugged into metrics as a PR professional so if anyone wants me to make a post detailing positive engagement for Haladriel via TV publications like The Hollywood Reporter highlighting Haladriel in s1 and missing their scenes in s2, Reddit (yes), Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, I will.

If you don't want to engage in this aspect of fandom, don't. No one can force a stranger on the internet to do anything. And the ship does fine on its own. I disagree with some of the frantic messaging about producing content because we don't need it!

And by the way, no one pays attention to Tumblr or AO3, other than the fairly young on these teams. Social media analytics for entertainment typically include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok, and of course all official accounts. TROP also pays attention to Reddit and Tolkien influencers, as well as TV critics. These all matter just as ratings do. They might not listen to every voice but yes it matters.

Haladriel art is getting 67,000 likes on Instagram in 4 days (screenshot below). Haladriel content consistently goes viral on Twitter, Tiktok and Insta. Interviewers were constantly asking about Haladriel in pre-s2 interviews and the TROP cast and showrunners got questions about them at SDCC in July.

We're fine.

Correction to the original post: It was The Artful Dodger's showrunner who cited fan engagement and TikToks as the reason the show got renewed. Not My Lady Jane.

[skoff-the-artist]

Finished arcane s2 yesterday...

You know what? It's good, okay.

I wish the story had 5 seasons to unfold instead of 2. The end product feels really cramped, unfortunately, and I liked the pacing only in ep7 i think, overall it's very saturated w different major events, and my head was hurting at ep8-9.

I think animators, artists and writers did their best condensing the story into 2 seasons. Could be better w 5, but it's not their fault it's 2 instead, alr. Arcane is beautiful, and as an artist I appreciate it the most.

Powder and Ekko? Peak. My boy had his own multiverse thing going. Episode 7 made me really happy.

Jinx is alive and that's basically a confirmed fact. Loved her design AND her hair changes this season. Did Ekko help her cut her hair extra short like she has it in the last ep, I wonder..🤔god, these two.

Jayce's little silent hill? LEAVE MY CANCELLED WIFE ALONE!!!!!!

Viktors new body? Ehhh. It's too organic for my liking, but I guess it works :p the third arm seems a bit out of place in this design tho

Jayvik? Don't even talk to me. It's peak fiction. Even ao3 could never reach this LEVEL. They be getting FREAKY w it. And it's basically canon too! So much love for them both.

CaitVi? Still don't like 'em, sorry. At least Vi deserves better than what she got imo... I don't really like Cait as a person. As a character she's alright. I was happy when they were happy and was sad when they were sad, but ultimately this ship isn't for me. Maybe if it was done differently, I'd like it more🤔..

Mel is MY WIFE🙏✨got her glow up when I thought she's perfect already. Loved her arc and her new abilities.

Hate that Piltover wasn't held accountable for its crimes against Zaun🙂they just glossed over one of the main plot points of the show, smothering it with the noxian war plot or whatever.

So, yeah, that's what I think about it all. I have more things to say, but my eng vocab prob won't let me explain everything the way I want to. Many people on Twitter said it better and noticed more details than I did, so I'll just stick to liking their thoughts for now and pour my heart out on Tumblr instead.

[hime-bee]

Homicipher has a tag on AO3 now, babes, started by this bitch here ✌

Mr. Scarletella is my first victim 😌

[midnight-soulless-system]

*Cutely writes the most fucked up fic for RWRB that I KNOW would destroy me as an introject. Just to fuck with everyone else in the fandom*

[milverton]

Hey, I don’t really want to bother you but I could not find your fics on AO3 anymore. What happened? I have been following them since 2016. I am too attached to your fics. You have no idea how much I love your fics. Please Please Please keep them up. Thank you :)

You're not bothering at all..!

They are still there, but I've locked them for logged-in users only because of AI harvesting.

If you don't have an account, I can give you an invite. :)

(I have several invites so if any follower wants an AO3 invite, I can give you one!)

Also sorry for not updating anything in over a year now. T.T I'm invested in writing something else (multiple "elses") that I don't want to publish at all unless I finish it. 188k+ and counting (among with others)!

Thank you so much for caring! <3 You have no idea how happy this made me..! I'll work harder to produce an update for the fics I'm already publishing..! <3

[sparkles-oflight]

Finishing my story's 5th chapter vs Having to proofread it

[darkforestwarriors]

having conniptions at 3am as I realize that my only fully finished and realized fanfics are a one shot warrior cats vampire AU and a long ass one piece self insert shipfic that no one other than me will ever lay eyes on (probably?)

why am I like this help

[gayangelcrimes]

The thing about my writing is that it tends to be a bunch of broken scene bits stitched together and often ending in a vague stop, not a coherent prose with a proper conclusion like a normal person's writing, so I feel like no one will enjoy that. But I will get over that fear. I will make writings and poast them here for yall to read. Eventually.

[boleynqueenes]

yeah i think that's part of it, but i think part of it is also the divisions in fandom, the rise of 'do not interact if--' has led to a lot of people just., not interacting with anyone for fear of getting screamed at, or getting the wrong attention piled onto them, (i think this is part of comment culture dying off too), (if you don't know who's going to explode on you you just kind of stop commenting at all), but also the ease of messaging someone one-on-one probably factors in too,

You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?

[bittersweetresilience]

i've been thinking about beyond ascension again, since i've been rereading. like most of the other things i posted more than a year ago, thinking about it is incredibly embarrassing. but objectively i know i'm happy with it. posting things just has a way of making them seem cringe. anyway i still find it funny that i watched this terrible show, became irremediably gripped by these terrible villains, wrote this entire thing, and completely totally forgot temutai existed. sorry. that guy can just stay unredeemed.

[cilil]

So today I got a rather unkind comment on AO3 (one could call it hate), but I believe it to be a bot for several reasons:

Guest account, but username attached

Said username exists but person is unlikely to be reading Tolkien fic (according to their Tumblr and AO3, they are in other fandoms)

Two grammatically correct sentences

Super generic text that could apply to any fic:

"I've seen better fanfiction written by a toddler. Get it together!"

I'm curious, did anyone else get comments like this? Let me know.

And to those who have gotten rude comments and are now worried/upset: Maybe it was just a bot too. Either way: You're awesome for putting your writing out there for others to enjoy and you don't deserve to get rude comments for it. If you want feel free to message me to compare cases and discuss details :)

[cicelythereaper]

I can see the logic behind this change. I still want to point out a problem with the way it has played out in the former "Irish Mythology" and "Welsh Mythology" tags. These tags have never been primarily used for fanfiction concerning the pre-Christian beliefs of the inhabitants of Ireland and Wales: the vast majority of the time, they've been used for fics dealing with medieval and early modern literature, and oral folklore, from those places. So we've gone from having misleading tags to having tags that are wildly inappropriate for the majority of material in them. A straightforward 1=1 switch is not going to work here! The previous tags drew no clear lines between "pre-Christian beliefs of a certain region" and "later literature of that region, which may include folkloric beliefs and the supernatural". The new tags specify only the former - so we now have no tags for the latter!

(Sidenote: the Medieval Welsh Literature tag, which was previously synned to 'Welsh Mythology', has now been canonised as its own tag, but is too small to be used to filter works - which means that people can't use it to find things, y'know, the way fandom tags are normally used. Second sidenote: I'm pretty sure 'Llên a Chrefydd yr Hen Gymraeg' is ungrammatical, though I'll defer to more fluent speakers on that one.)

I know for a fact you have had multiple support tickets come in about this. I also know Support staff are eternally busy and especially busy and stressed recently, and this is far from the most urgent thing on AO3's plate right now, so I'm not in a hurry. But I would love to hear an acknowledgement that the people making these decisions are aware of this problem and plan to at some point think about what to do about it.

Updates to AO3 "Mythology" Fandoms

Hi AO3 users! You may have noticed that recently, fandoms previously canonized as "Mythology" are being updated to "Religion & Lore". This renaming project is part of a wider ongoing process on AO3 about respectful treatment and naming of various religions, spiritual beliefs, faiths, and collections of folklores belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. This includes both major and minor religions, as well as reconstructionist, ancient, and modern religions.

In the coming months, the term "Mythology" is being phased out of canonical fandom names. This is because of its potential for use as a disparaging term, and the way in which it is used primarily for religions which are already under-represented. Since "mythology" has connotations of being fictional or inferior to the religious beliefs of the speaker or writer, and is unfortunately used in this way by some, the decision has been made to replace this term with something that the Wrangling Committee believes is more inclusive and less derogatory.

After extensive discussion between individuals from varying religious backgrounds and beliefs, including wranglers representing the various fandoms which were being covered, it was felt that "Religion & Lore" was an appropriate and neutral way to describe the bodies of faith, belief, knowledge, and tradition associated with many of these religions which were ancestrally imparted and regional in nature. It is also hoped that this will decrease ambiguous or confused use, allowing people to more accurately describe their works and find works in which they are interested moving forward.

The use of "Ancient" in many of these fandoms' names reflects that these countries still exist but now have different predominant religions or spiritual beliefs. For example, Ancient Greek Religion & Lore (as Greece is now a predominantly Christian country) or Ancient Egyptian Religion (as Egypt is now a predominantly Muslim country). Because "Norse" does not refer to an extant country, region, or culture, it is not necessary to specify that it is historical or ancient in nature.

The names of these fandoms will also have the native language piped, if the English-language demonym is significantly different from the native-language demonym or if there is a culturally specific term based on consultation with individuals who speak these languages as a first language. We hope to give representation to the language of the source culture by doing so.

Each of these changes has been and will continue to be carefully researched and discussed with traditional knowledge keepers and researchers from the cultures represented in the fandoms under discussion.

Many religions face the issue of texts being written long after their events occurred. Unfortunately this is something which is shared across many religious fandoms; AO3 seeks to treat these religious fandoms equally. Care has been taken in researching characters relating to these fandoms, and character tags will be canonized or made a synonym on a case-by-case basis. Fandom tags that are currently synned to the Ancient religious fandoms have been checked as thoroughly as possible to ensure that they are not referring to modern folk tales, and where possible such relatively modern folk tales are canonized as their own fandoms.

(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)

[avaantares]

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

[andhumanslovedstories]

for people who also have a mild impulse shopping problem, I've found it useful to identify the itch I want to scratch: is it spending money or is it getting things? If it's spending money, I trick my brain by paying off something I owe. Like a few years back when I was feeling dangerously shoppy, I would drop a big chunk of change as a student loan payment. When I was buying an entire new mouth of teeth, I'd transfer money from my checking to my secret ultra hard to access tooth account.

If paying myself or paying a debt doesn't work, I find a charity or gofundme that's worth supporting. (You gotta be careful with that last one, it's really easy to be spend way more than you should, budget-wise, because it makes spending money feel good morally, which can be an incentive to keep going.) I also like to keep cash on hand so if I see someone who needs money, I can give it to them. It's a financial decision made impulsively for an opportunity I won't get again (giving $20 to this exact person at this moment of need). All this soothes the spending beast inside of me, and I don't deal with the Money Shame that comes with $100 of amazon orders.

If I want to acquire things, I download a lot of research articles I know I probably won't read, or I get an enormous stack of books from the library that would be impossible to finish before I have to return them, or I'll download a bunch of albums I tell myself I'll get to someday. Sometimes it's enough to just make a list of things of things I want to do or own. A list of one hundred movies I've curated from best of lists that in this moment I feel motivated to watch. Add tv shows to my watch list on netflix. Add fics to my "to read" list on ao3. Anything that feels like I'm adding to a hoard.

If I still want to shop, well, I'm probably gonna spend more money than I mean to, but I at least make sure I'm deliberate about my spending. If I'm gonna blow my cash on something, it should at least be worth it. That means either very cool or very useful. And honestly, the things you tell yourself are useful while in the shopping haze are never that useful, so you might as well go for very cool.

This is all to say I fell into a trance last night and this morning woke to receipts and tracking info from etsy dot com. And I am like "yikes." But I did get something that is so so so stupid that I can't wait to show it to you all when it arrives.

[bogunicorn]

If by some chance somebody who follows me reads fic on AO3 and doesn't have their own account, send me an ask or a message and I'll send you one of my invite codes.

About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.