#just a typo. also that way it's easier to blacklist as a tag if you dgaf lol)

[meirimerens]

hello Meiri... It has come to my knowledge (saw your tweet about it. on the saturday account) that you at least in some way enjoy what I imagine is girl burakhovsky (burakhovskaya?), which led me to wonder... Do you ever think about girl peterstakh as well? (Petrastakh? I wouldn't even know.) And if you don't, why not? (Asking not because I feel like you should or anything, but just out of curiosity) / And if you do, well... thoughts? Please? what are the thoughts

good  #evening meirination and happy mabon... now... i'm an enjoyer of many things but before anything i'm a #consideror and i do consider woman burakhovsky (burakhovskaya) indeed (also mentioned it here for those. not in the know about the saturday account). i've seen a multitude of it around and while many iterations i kinda don't fuck wit personally because i don't think they'd be that feminine (sorry. butchakovskaya sweep i guess) it's in my brain. i'll say it is yes.

now petrastakh. you know yourself i have considered it. i'm considering it rn. between us and the 3,000 other people who might come across it i considered it yesterday even while writing notes on my phone.

now for the petrastakh, same as for the burakhovskaya, it's a matter of: the same but women now. petra is still as unhinged, still has unhinged of a sister who gets in her business, still sniffs out stanislava (grieving and mad) at the bar to tiptoe to her and be like Has anyone ever painted you. would you be interested in being painted [PSLR events]. stanislava still wants to be artemis' sister, or artemis herself, and have her place as a doctor in this town. etc. petra still killed or had her sister kill an architectural rival (sad! well there will be other architects). petra still came back from being taken by the army to stanislava's apartment naked and covered in blood (if you in the saturday account. you've seen this scene).

you know this?

^ i've used it for peter. made it say "all architects are bi [...]". well know that's petra. no need to change anything. also she still has her unibrow and her plunging V neckline shirts. i know how stanislava feels. i've been here.

now. now listen. i know stanislava has her problems & issues and i think she's shy (not in a 🥺😔👉👈 way. but in a 🧍🧍🧍🧍🧍 way) about being painted. now peterstakh? the normalverse ones? rubin gets painted naked. right. no he does. i'm writing it. he's shy (in the 🧍🧍🧍🧍🧍 way) about it. but then he discovers a whole new world of. shan't even say. relating to oneself and to another. that happens to stanislava. no it does. i'm seeing it.

not many thoughts rn. except this one.

this is how petra stares at stasia while she waits for her to sit comfortably so she can talk to her about gustave courbet's L'Origine Du Monde :

[rjalker]

for new followers, I'm currently writing a story so if you don't want to see my "liveblog" comments about it, you can block the tag "Rjalker writes Julaith the Landlord Slayer". It's based on a dream I had the night before last.

Assuming we'll be watching Babylon 5 when my twin gets home, you can also block the tag "Rjalker watches Babylon 5" if you don't care about that either.

This is pretty much how my tagging system works. If I'm talking about some form of media, it'll be tagged "Rjalker reads/watches/listens to [insert name of media]" as applies. I'm also reading A Journey to the Center of the Earth, so likewise, you can block the tag "Rjalker reads A Journey to the Center of the Earth".

You can check my pinned post for all the tags I use for various things if you need to blacklist them, and you can always ask me to tag for specific things, either by reblogging this or just making a new post and @ ing me.

Asks are turned off because even with anons turned off, too many bigots use it to be assholes. Especially now that tumblr lets you send pictures through asks, even when you supposedly have that turned off -.-

I block very liberally, even if someone is just being annoying but not doing anything harmful. If I have one of your friends blocked, it doesn't mean they did anything wrong, it might just mean, as a very specific example, that I was trying to look for pictures of trees and kept seeing them talk about woodworking or Flight Rising, and tumblr doesn't give us any other way to filter out posts like that once you've already blocked the tags, so sometimes I'll just block people literally just to make searching easier, and then I forget to unblock them.

if I'm making a post from my phone, I'll usually use speech to text, but if I can't for whatever reason, my posts will be filled with typos, because for whatever reason this specific phone is just. fucking impossible for me to type on. I try to tag these posts as "typos" so they can be filtered, but sometimes I literally can't even spell that correctly, so yeah.

If you make fun of me for making typos or spelling things wrong, I will block you. I have dyslexia among other things, and I don't type shittily from my phone for fun.

[starkaryen]

A beginner’s guide to posting fanfic

Before beginning, first of all, this is not a guide to writing fanfic, of course. This is merely a compilation of tips and things I’ve learned on how to post fic and let more people find your workds, that I either learned from other people, or in time, since I’ve been publishing fanfic for a long time now, and regularly for two years. I am not an expert on anything, these are just my tips, and this may not be new or useful to anyone, but I’m not losing by anything sharing this! ^^

And now, let’s begin!

· The timezones and days.

When you’re beginning to publish fanfic and you don’t have people subscribed to your AO3 or an established group of readers, you need to give your fic visibility. A very easy way to do this is simply estimate when you’re publishing the fic, and how many people could lay their eyes upon it when you do. First of all, the days: I found that I had way more readers when I published something on Friday than any other day. It may not be instant, since some people go out on Friday, but it’s also easier to have free time on the weekend, and so people will have around 3 days to read your fic/update, whereas during the weekdays people might be working or studying and by the time it’s Friday, the fanfic has been buried under many other fics.

The other issue is the timezones. Timezones are HELL, we all know that, but I did some research when I began posting fic regularly, and I found that there is an hour when I could aim for almost all time zones (not all, but as many as I could). Since the language I write in is English, I always try to aim for the European + USA’s time zones, and I found that at 6-8pm (ish) my time zone (CEST), I could reach Europe and both USA’s coasts (in the east coast it’s around 1pm, and in the west coast 10pm, sort of. Here is a very good time zone converter if you want to make your own estimation). It’s probably not the best time for other parts of the globe, and maybe if you already live in the USA and you don’t care about reaching other time zones, this isn’t very useful to you, but it’s up to you if you want to aim for more time zones than yours ;)

· The tags.

The tags in a fic are very important for two main reasons: the first is because people need and want those tags. Fanfiction is about sharing and having fun, so nobody wants to read a work and find something that may traumatize or trigger them. That’s why tags are always important whether it’s fluff, daddy kink or noncon (especially with the heaviest kinks or tags; even if you’re very used to them, have in mind that not everyone likes the same stuff! And that’s the beauty of fanfic, there is something for everyone!). Be polite and always try to tag everything, even if you think it’s a spoiler for the story; if the fanfic is good, people will read it despite a few spoilers in the tags (and people who don’t want to be spoiled at all and don’t mind reading without tags, can choose to skip them); however, people might not read your fics again if you leave a fanfic untagged for something that triggers them.

The other reason is that tags will help people find your fanfics. Some people search for specific tags like ‘hand holding’ or ‘first kiss’, so even if you think “well, this is very obvious”, tag it! Like lube, there are never too many tags, so use them! ;)

· Less is more when it comes to titles.

The titles are one of the enemies of a fic writer (or, at least, it is one of mine). Sometimes you decide the title before even beginning the fic (rarely), other times it comes to you while writing it, and other times you finish the fanfic, you’re super happy about it, and then when you’re about to publish you realize: “I don’t have the damn title...”

So as a person that usually gives her fanfics very simple titles: don’t stress too much over giving your fic an incredibly meaningful title. I used to do this, and I ended up giving my fics very simple titles (I mean... Sensates... xD) and being very nervous about it, but then I realized it doesn’t matter that much. The least thing I care about a fanfic when I’m reading it, is the title, and so do most people. Yes, sometimes it’s cool having a title with double meaning that makes you go “ooooh, I get it now!” when you’re halfway through the story, but again: don’t stress too much over it. Just write, and worry about the title later, or just decide a simple one and throw the fic out into the world for people to enjoy it.

· Chapters/Fanfic Length.

This is something I only learned with time, and after publishing a fanfic with +10k words per chapter (yes... xD). If you’re publishing a fanfic, the chapters length is very important, both for the readers and for you.

From your point of view, the writer, it may not seem as important, but if you’re publishing/are planning to publish your fic as you write and edit it, it ends up being much easier and not as tiring to edit shorter chapters than a 14k words chapter (talking from my own experience). It becomes a very hard task, and you may skip more errors and typos if you’re editing something THAT long (and if you have a beta, same goes to them) than if you’re editing a much shorter thing.

From the point of view of the reader is even more important. In time, I’ve learned that people, including me, prefer a chapter that is neither too long nor too short. A short chapter may leave the reader thinking “that’s it??”, whereas a too long chapter may become tiring for the reader. Think of it as a tv show’s episode. When a show has +50 minutes episodes, sometimes you can’t watch it because you don’t have enough time, sometimes your attention span won’t let you watch more than half the episode before you start losing your interest (and not because it’s not good), and in the end, you can’t even remember what the last chapter was about. Same goes for fics; if the chapter is too long, you may lose the reader halfway through it, they may have to stop reading and resume later, and not remember where they were, etc. After asking people and a bit of intuition as a writer, I’ve learned that the ideal length for a fic/chapter is around 3k-6k words.

This, though, doesn’t mean that you have to write your fics being scared of exceeding or not reaching the number of words, at all. Writing has to be, above all, something that flows naturally. So if the story asks you for the chapter to be longer or shorter, let it be! To me, it ended up being organic, and when I end a chapter, it’s usually around that scale, but I never cut or add something from a chapter because of the number of words: the story is always the priority.

· The AO3 spaces of hell!

If you’ve published something on AO3, you’ve probably encountered the problem that when pasting your fic on it to post it, it looks a bit too much spaced. If that’s happened to you and you don’t know how to fix this, I have a quick and easy guide to solve this HERE.

I believe other people have other methods, or they write differently on Word so they don’t have the same problem, but if someone writes as I do and has the same problem, that guide will be your friend.

· Advertise through social media!

This may sound way too obvious, but if you want people to find and read your works, a very good way to advertise them is through Tumblr and Twitter. I know some readers navigate through the fandom or pairing’s tag directly on AO3, but a lot of other people don’t (like me), and they just read what they find through Tumblr, Twitter or recs. That’s why it’s good to post summaries and links of the fics on social media, so more people can find it.

And exactly as I said in the above section, always use tags. The same applies to Tumblr; people can blacklist the tags they absolutely don’t want to see, and other people like to search through the tags of the show or pairing, so make sure you add them! (Though I think Tumblr only searches for the first 20 tags, so if you add more, your post may not show up in the Tumblr search with those that exceed the first 20 tags!)

Another tip is, try to add pictures to those posts or tweets! Things with an image are always always more attractive to people, so either add an edit from photoshop, or if you don’t know how to use photoshop, a simple photo edited (or not) on your phone will do.

· Participate in the fandom’s events.

This is an individual decision, of course, but participating in your fandom’s events is always a very good way to “find new readers” (and also for yourself to find new fics and writers!).

In the case of my fandom, Hannibal, we have lots of events every single month. You can find the ones I help organize at @hannibalcreative, but I know there are many more you can find and participate in ;)

That’s all for now, I think! As I said, these are just *my* tips, so you may have other methods that work way better than mine :)