Oneshots by Gabs~ @gabswrites - Tumblr Blog

This.

I don’t know about others but the only reason I put both is so that whichever someone clicks on, they will find my fic. So if there is supposed to be rules, I guarantee you that no writer knows these ones. We can barely get people to comment, you think we’re going to specifically choose & or / ? Hell no.

beatrice-otter

I’ve been in fandom for twenty years, and “/” means romance and “&” means no romance was literally one of the first things I learned. It dates back to Star Trek fanfiction of the 70s. I’m boggled by the fact that anyone who’s been reading fic on AO3 for more than like five minutes wouldn’t know that, and I’m curious as to what fanfic community you come out of.

I don’t think that tagging with both is actually going to get your fic in front of more readers. People looking for romance often exclude the “&” tag if there are too many gen fics tagged with both. People looking for gen often exclude the “/” tag if there are too many fics with both. So rather than putting your fic in front of twice the people, you are in fact more likely to get your target audience ignoring your fic because it has a tag they don’t want.

Also, by overtagging you are more likely to annoy potential readers away from your fic than entice them. A fic tagged both & and / better have both romance and a ton of platonic interaction between the two characters, like a slow burn romance friends-to-lovers arc. If it isn’t, I’m going to be very unhappy because the author lied to me with the tags to try and trick me into reading a fic with deceptive advertising.

When I’m in a fandom and see tagging where some of the tags don’t really apply and are just there to get it in front of more eyes, I’m going to assume one of two things. Either the author is a newb who doesn’t know anything, or the author is purposefully spamming the tags because they don’t care about lying to their potential audience and think that “spray and pray” is an effective tactic. In the first case, their writing probably will not be very good, so why bother reading their fic. In the second case, the fact that I can’t trust the tags to be accurate means I’m not going to read it to see if it’s interesting even if it has a tag I like. Chances are, that tag isn’t actually in the fic anyway, and even if it is, by spam-tagging the author is making the archive harder to use for everybody. Why would I reward bad behavior with attention? No. Far better to mute the author and move on.

mylordshesacactus

More to the point--and no, I will never stop harping on this, because we have GOT to stop leaving our strongest points in the drawer--it doesn't matter if you heard of this convention before joining AO3 or not, because it's in AO3's tagging FAQ.

[id: the "How do I tag a romantic or platonic relationship?" section of the tagging FAQ here.]

"But Jo," you may argue, because you're wrong. "There's no way to find that without digging through site FAQ menus, and that's really inaccessible!"

sure

except

that when you go to post a new fic, and you go to put in those relationship tags, you see this

[id: the Relationships field]

and that tooltip, the one THERE TO EXPLAIN HOW THE FIELD WORKS, links to the Relationships segment of the tag FAQ, which explicitly lays this shit out.

I don't care if you don't know fandom history. I don't care if you've never heard a goddamn word about the spirk shippers. I don't care if you've never been exposed to fandom culture in your life. It is, frankly, not fair to expect those things of everyone.

What is entirely fair to expect is that you will READ THE INSTRUCTIONS PRINTED NEXT TO THE FUCKING BOX, actually. Forget fandom conventions. It genuinely doesn't matter whether you agree with or respect fandom conventions. This is a site policy. This is explicitly how tagging on AO3, specifically, works.

exhuastedpigeon

Sometimes you hear a song and a fic pops into your head full formed. This is a trap. The fic may be fully formed in your brain, but you still Have to write it down. This is an important step that most people forget about.

clandestinegardenias

My therapist just told me my problem is that I need to write more fanfiction.

clandestinegardenias

This sounds fake but the logic behind it is actually really interesting? She said obsession with a new fandom triggers quick dopamine release when we consume all this related content--it's easy and addictive.

What we're NOT getting is that 'slow dopamine' that's more sustainable and engaging. That's the kind we get from DOING things that take effort but are ultimately rewarding.

So like, she suggested that writing fic and making fanart are ways to balance the quick dopamine of watching a show/reading fic with the slow dopamine of working at something that takes effort.

Moral of the story is you should engage in the process of creation around your favorite things. You'll feel better for it.

owldaughter

Oh.

OH.

destiel-news-network

(Source)

This comes one day after the archive changed their status to “Omega” for April Fools’ Day.

anomalocaris-in-da-clurb

Claim your badge

elikaruna

what if i

transformativeworks

For all the folks who have been begging pleading asking for these in the inbox - behold. User @elikaruna is here to save you.

The instructions on adding such things to your AO3 profile are in the news post (at the bottom) - just replace the url in the example with the url of whichever other thing you are putting there. And probably change the alt text.

allthingswhumpyandangsty

“this writing shit is easy. you just have a story and you tell it to other people”

me doing this writing shit

nondelphic

writing is just sitting in front of a computer and making up problems for imaginary people while ignoring your own. fun and casual hobby.

rowanisawriter

DO NOT DO ANY WORK WHILE ON THE CLOCK OPEN YOUR GOOGLE DOCS ON YOUR PHONE AND WRITE GAY FANFIC. IGNORE YOUR MANAGER IGNORE CUSTOMERS. DO IT ON YOHR PHONE NOW TODAY. START TODAY RIGHT NOW. DO IT NOW

omgcheckplease

Hi! 👋

You know, I like that Tumblr doesn't use The Algorithms, but that means that some of you still don't know that I started a webnovel!!!

JOHN RICH & THE BIG PICTURE ✏️ Rating: Mature Audiences Category: m/m Characters: John Rich, Tyler Hughes Additional Tags: enemies to lovers, enemies to friends to lovers, banter, snark, quips, new york city, romantic comedy Updates: every Friday Words: 28, 963 out of 100,000 Chapters: 7 / 22 Comments: 237 Subscribers: 1,452 Total Views: 34,831

At 28, John Rich is the youngest cover artist in the illustrious history of The New York Review. This means, every week, he draws a portrait of some notable person and this portrait becomes the cover of this very prestigious magazine. But when John is tasked with drawing the supposedly vapid (and obviously gorgeous) action movie star, Tyler Hughes, he discovers that Tyler is the one person he cannot draw.

READ IT HERE ✏️

systlin

purge of 2002? of 2012? what ARE those?

Oh, how quickly the past is forgotten.

They are part of the reason A03 is a thing now. Not the whole reason, but part of it.

The Great Purges of 2002 and 2012 are when ff.net got a wild hair up their ass about THINK OF THE CHILDREN and nuked any fic posted on there that was explicit. Thousands upon thousands of nc-17 smutfics were lost.

It’s what led to the creation of alternate hosting sites for smutty fic…AdultFanfiction was the one I went to…but thousands of fics would never be recovered.

systlin

Shit like the Great Purges and the Strikethrough of Livejournal eventually led to fans banding together to create A03, which I would have absolutely KILLED for when I was 15.

persephonebooklover

Back up ao3 was created by fans?

systlin

It’s…right on the main page.

fanfictionanthology

I love this because I will bet you that persefv has read that bit we are all so inundated with hyperbole and advertising that says that the consumer is somehow in charge of whatever product they are shilling that we all just assumed this was another sales tactic.

naryrising

But we’re not even… selling anything… *quiet sobs*

wrangletangle

No ads. No subscriptions. No data selling.

We are the definition of “what it says on the tin.”

elfwreck

Is there any way to spread this info?

THE OTW WAS CREATED BY FANS SO WE’D HAVE AN ARCHIVE THAT WASN’T SUBJECT TO CORPORATE REVIEW.

Nonprofit, so that nobody could ever say, “this isn’t making enough money; it’s getting shut down.” (See: Geocities, Quizilla, Figment, G+.) With lawyers involved and a firm awareness of the legalities of fanfic, so nobody would decide “we’ve gotten a nasty letter from a megacorporation with lawyers, so we’re hiding because we can’t afford to face a lawsuit. (Jedi Hurtaholics, Trevizo’s Millennium site.) With teams, so that an argument between co-mods didn’t result in the destruction of a whole archive. (Gryffindor Tower, Detention.)

AO3 IS OUR SITE.

It is by fans, for fans. Fans do all the coding. All the legal paperwork. All the abuse/tos violation complaints. Fans make all the choices about policies. Fans decide how to run the fundraisers. Fans write the blog posts. All the volunteer staff are fans; all the people who train them are fans. Fans wrangle all the tags.

(And the other OTW projects, too. Fans manage the entries at Fanlore. Fans run the Open Doors project. Fans publish Transformative Works and Cultures.)

EVERYONE WORKING FOR THE OTW LOVES FANDOM. Wants it to survive. Wants it to be awesome for everyone.

(Knows that it can’t be awesome for everyone; some approaches to fandom just clash hard. But they strive to minimize those clashes as much as possible, because they love fandom.)

AO3 is not some company that decided, “we’ll make a site for fanfic and then…” I don’t know what people are thinking is the reason. Money? Data harvesting? Tax shelter? Amusement and pity?

Nope; AO3 was fans saying, “Livejournal sucks; we’re tired of this fucked-up ‘rebuild every three years’ garbage; WE NEED TO OWN THE DAMN SERVERS.”

That’s the “of our own” part of the name. OTW isn’t a “them” running the site “for us.” It’s “us” making places for “us” to share what we love with others of “us.”

mromitosen

I am a PASSIONATE commenter on fanfiction, but sometimes it slows down my reading because I don't want to read if I don't have the mental energy to leave the long comments I want to

Still, as an author, I know even a short note can mean the world.

So, I put together a little guide with different “levels” of comments, so it’s easier to leave something without overthinking!

Hopefully this helps someone else too!

curlicuecal

for maximum impact with minimum effort can I strongly recommend the quick highlight?

copy pasting a particular line and your reaction to it is a phenomenal way to quickly provide specific, unique feedback!

it can even just be a keysmash or an emoji response to the quoted bit

authors have SO many micro decisions and careful word choices that go into the writing process and that they'll almost never get to see a specific reaction to

it's so fun to get even one of these things highlighted

mialhell

@justleaveacommentfest

justleaveacommentfest

THIS RULES!!!!! THIS SMASHES ONE OF MY LEAST FAVORITE EXCUSES "I DONT LEAVE COMMENTE BECAUSE I NEVER KNOW WHAT TO SAY" TO SMITHEREENS!!!!

soulwriter-sp

marinellas-blog

Writing sad scenes while listening to music, knowing you have to choose the most miserable, most soul-sucking playlist to get into the right mood.

allthingswhumpyandangsty

a reminder that ao3 was created as an archive. not a social media.

ao3 is run on fans’ donations. it’s a nonprofit organization, run by fans, for fans. it has no ads. no capitalism or algorithm bullshit.

ao3 allows works that depict all kind of taboo, morally questionable, disgusting, socially unacceptable subjects, no matter how graphic, how explicit it is being portrayed (that’s what tags, warnings and ratings are for!).

ao3 does not have censorship, nor does ao3 allow censorship.

luna-azzurra

Ways I Show a Character is Emotionally Burned Out (Before They Even Realize It Themselves)

I love writing characters who think they’re fine but are actually walking emotional house fires with bad coping mechanisms.

They stop doing the things they used to love and don’t even notice. Their guitar gathers dust. Their favorite podcast becomes background noise. Their hobbies feel like homework now.

They pick the path of least resistance every time, even when it hurts them. No, they don’t want to go to that thing. No, they don’t want to talk to that person. But whatever’s easier. That’s the motto now.

They’re tired but can’t sleep. Or they sleep but wake up more tired. Classic burnout move: lying in bed with their brain racing like a toddler on espresso.

They give other people emotional advice they refuse to take themselves. “You have to set boundaries!” they say—while ignoring 8 texts from someone they should’ve cut off three emotional breakdowns ago.

They cry at something stupidly small. Like spilling soup. Or a dog in a commercial. Or losing their pen. The soup is never just soup.

They say “I’m just tired” like it’s a personality trait now. And not like… emotionally drained to the bone but afraid to admit it out loud.

They ghost people they love, not out of malice, but because even replying feels like too much. Social battery? Absolutely obliterated. Texting back feels like filing taxes.

They stop reacting to big things. Catastrophes get a blank stare. Disasters feel like “just another Tuesday.” The well of feeling is running dry.

They avoid being alone with their own thoughts. Constant noise. TV always on. Music blasting. Because silence = reckoning, and reckoning is terrifying.

They start hoping something will force them to stop. An accident. A missed deadline. Someone else finally telling them, “You need a break.” Because asking for help? Unthinkable.

geneticdriftwood

honestly? abandoned/on indefinite hiatus/very slow to update fics, even and especially AUs and longfics, are often some of my absolute favorites. and people who refuse to read them are missing out!

for one, stories don’t have to be finished to be enjoyable and worth reading. but also? an unfinished fic is a whole little universe that just keeps on existing in my head! their world stays alive for me in a way that doesn’t always happen with fics I binge read and finish, and i love it. i don’t know how their story ends, so it just keeps going! and even when those stories DO update and finish years later, they’ve been in my head for so long that they stick around like old friends.

so to any author with unfinished works: thank you SO much for sharing what you had without waiting to finish it first. you’re just giving me the gift of getting to spend more time with your story and your idea. if you do update again someday, i’ll be delighted to jump back in! but if you don’t, just know a little piece of your world still lives on in a beloved tiny terrarium in my brain. i promise i’m taking good care of it :)

i don’t normally ask this, but if this resonates with you please reblog it, so it can reach the authors who need to hear it <3