Winterhawk Reader Program @whreaderprogram - Tumblr Blog

RINGO is Closed

Thank you for participating in the WinterHawk Reader Program. We made this to build community and I hope you found new fics you loved and new friends. We will be back with you in the fall!

For those who sent in their cards, you have been sent your badges so please check your emails.

In the next few days, the badges will be posted for all the see. We’ll have a new recommendations list. And the dates for round two will be posted.

#whreadersprogram #winterhawk event #winterhawk reader program

If badges are being sent in June, are cards due by the end of this month?

Hi! Yes, cards are due by June 1. Badges will go out next week!

Coming to a Close

Hi RINGO participants! Thursday is June 1st, which means we are ending our event. I hope you all enjoyed reading new works this year and widening our community interaction.

Please submit your cards by Thursday to earn your badges. They will be going out next week (June5th). You can email them in or send them to the tumblr.

#whreadersprogram #ringo #event ending #winterhawk #winterhawk event

themandylion

If you ever feel like you don't contribute to fandom because you "only" comment—

A regular serial commenter just joined a fandom Discord server I'm on and people are coming out of the woodwork to thank her for her service to the fandom, expressing how much joy her comments on their works bring them.

Remember—they're never only comments.

themandylion

If you're a reader who gets nervous about leaving comments, please take a moment to read the notes on this post. The tags alone have been giving me life for the past week, and it's honestly lovely.

word-wytch

I think there's something that needs to be said about encouraging readers to leave feedback.

For me it's not about "tell me my writing is amazing and stroke my ego"

It's more about "please engage with me so that I can experience your joy secondhand and foster a connection with you"

I understand that not everyone wants this in their reading experience, some people are shy and a million other reasons why maybe someone wouldn't want to engage and that's perfectly fine!

But what I'm trying to steer away from is being a passive content creator with passive consumers. What I want to steer toward is fostering a community that is essential to fandom. I want to see your reactions because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something.

On encouraging reblogs —

I understand that not everyone is comfortable reblogging, especially explicit content. This is ok!

But just consider that the only reason you were able to enjoy a fic or fanart is because someone else shared it, and by not sharing it yourself you are potentially robbing someone else of the opportunity to enjoy it as much as you did.

As OPs our reach only goes so far and this website relies on reblogs in order for anything to truly get seen by a wider audience.

So that's really it! That's why I encourage these two things at the end of every story I post. Not because I'm trying to be demanding and "make people feel bad" if they don't do it.

I know most other social media sites encourage mindless content consumption and that's just the way of the world nowadays, but I am from a time when community was at the heart of fandom and I just don't want to lose that.

aimmyarrowshigh

orlissa

Do you sometimes read a fic writer’s work, and just… thank all the gods this person managed to get obsessed with the same fictional people you did?

darktiger57

YOU THERE! YES YOU! FIC READER!

I just read a fic from 2013 and left a comment on the end. The author responded within 3 hours.

Please leave comments on fics. It doesn't matter if you don't know what to say I literally made a joke about a space worm. Please comment on fics it'll make the authors day even if its from 9 years ago.

the-yearning-astronaut

A few weeks ago I read and commented on a fic that had been posted to AO3 in 2013 but had actually been written in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The fandom itself is for a show from the mid 90s and afaik there is no active presence on Tumblr at all.

Both authors responded to my comment by the next day, beyond thrilled to have received it. Both expressed joy in knowing the fandom still lived on in some form and that my comment reminded them of how much fun they had writing the fic together over two decades ago.

Please please please comment on fics -- especially older ones -- even if it's just to leave a heart emoji or a key smash. Doing so really does mean a hell of a lot to the authors.

cellarspider

All of this. Fanfic and fan art are not like advertizer-focused social media, where posts are eaten up by the void within hours or minutes, and novelty is not only encouraged, but expected. Not even like Tumblr, where old posts that circulate are usually those that have remained popular. Fanfic is a smaller space. Outside of specific foci of popular interest, authors aren’t getting bombarded with messages. Your comment can be seen for what it is--the thoughts of a real, live person who took the time to look at something they created.

And that can really brighten somebody’s day.

copperbadge

I still get comments on Stealing Harry (the bulk of which was written prior to 2005 and is dated as such in AO3) or even my earlier Discworld fic, and it’ll be absolutely delightful and very flattering comments that will start or end with something like “I know this fic is super old and I don’t know what you’re doing now....”

And I’m like *Tony Hawk Voice* “Thank you! I am here. Doing this.”

Absolutely do leave comments on old fics, authors love it!

But also if you love a fic, like, go ahead and click that author name because the dumbass who wrote that fic you like in 2003 is possibly writing gay romance novels you will enjoy in 2023.

fangirleaconmigo

Angst fics can help people come to terms with their own grief, begin healing, or give people that good cry that they need.

Smut fics can help people affirm and accept their sexuality. It can help them explore their sexuality in a safe way. They can also just be fun, and having fun is a drastically undervalued way to improve your mental health.

Dark fics can help people face their fears or process their trauma. It can make them feel safer and more secure. It can help them find their courage.

Fluff fics can give people rest and respite and comfort. It can give them hope that soft places exist and that maybe there is one out there for them. It can bring up their mood, which, if they have depression, can be a life saver.

And every fic people write makes someone feel less alone.

Point being, just because a particular thing doesn’t serve you, doesn’t mean it lacks value.

This is not to say that we have to consume all fic uncritically. Of course not. It is just to say that entire “genres” aren’t trash or lacking value just because they don’t serve you.

mylittleredgirl

i think we should normalize hopping into other people’s comment threads on ao3. one of the joys of livejournal was seeing something in someone else’s comment that sparked a thought about a character or the fic and adding onto it (whether with actual additional thoughts or an “i loved that part too” or just exclamation points). amazing feeling as a writer to get to eavesdrop on other people talking to each other about your fic. nice for readers to develop a feeling of community and running into each other in different fics. opportunity for more emails from ao3 for all.

writtenbyevie

you ever read a fic so good you want to sit around and discuss it with people english class style

airlocksandaviariesarchive

2 genres of fanfiction:

1) put that guy into situations

2) take that guy OUT of situations for the love of GOD let them REST

#especially in this fandom #hot damn

postmodernmulticoloredcloak

Pals. Friends. Hellsitemen. The hits-to-engagement ratio on ao3 is meaningless. A low amount of kudos compared to the amount of hits doesn't mean people read your fic and disliked it, or just didn't care enough to bother leaving kudos.

Personally I've clicked on a million links to fics on tumblr posts that recommended a fic or under fanart inspired by the fic, opened the fic in a tab, looked at the tags, went "okay not for me/not what I am feeling right now" and closed it.

That's it! The hit can just come from someone who came in and figured out they were not in the mood for that fic, or the tags included something they are not into, or squicks, or anything.

Who knows how many times this has happened on the same fic? It's not like we can remember the title of any fic we opened and chose not to read.

Don't obsess over hits not turned into signals of engagement. No fic is everyone's cup of tea (or even the fic one feels like reading in a specific moment!), and to figure out if a fic might be your cup of tea you often have to open the tab and read the tags in the fic page.

orionsangel86

This. Also hits are counted literally everytime the fic is opened, if one person somehow opens the fic 10 separate times, thats 10 separate hits. You can only give a fic a total of 2 kudos if you have an AO3 account and then also give a kudos whilst logged out.

Kudos are the important metric, which is why it is so heavily encouraged that you give kudos to every fic you read. If you read a fic all the way through, please give it kudos! Even if you didn't LOVE it, you loved it enough to finish it and that button takes less than a second to click.

mittensmorgul

also, folks who post serially will have an artificially inflated hits-to-kudos ratio! Every time an update is posted and everyone comes back to read the new chapter, all those new hits are generated but the readers can’t leave any more kudos! So if ten people read every chapter of a 20 chapter fic, over the course of 20 weeks as it posts, that’s potentially 200 hits! but still only 10 kudos (20 if they all bothered to log in/out to leave kudos anonymously and logged in)! 200 distinct original readers didn’t read it and just fail to leave kudos!

Also, for folks like me who have probably too many fics open in tabs because I haven’t had time to read them... if it’s been a week or so and the page reloads, it generates a new hit, even if I haven’t had time to read the fic yet and engage with it (sorry...)

All reasons I think of ao3 stats as a general guideline, and not some sort of concrete proof of engagement.

thayerkerbasy

Also also, if someone loves your fic and comes back to reread it, that generates another hit. They can't leave kudos again, so that alters the balance. Sometimes extra hits are good.

#please use kudos!#fanfiction #bookmarked fics also show a lot of love when you hashtag them #and don’t forget to comment

ritshoe

Kudos to fanfiction writers for writing about all the trauma and emotional and mental turmoil that the original content creators dont acknowledge when putting characters through hell

saltoftheao3

This has evolved to one of fanfiction’s major assets in my eyes. To every author that cares enough about the characters in their stories to examine trauma, but also the slow, tedious processes of healing and recovery: your stories mean so much to me and other persons with mental health problems. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

yesmadamepresident

Fanfic writers really said "in any universe, in any scenario, despite any obstacle, these people would love each other" and I think that's very cool of us

chrisflemingslegs

hey kids who read fic, listen up

it’s annoying to me as a Fanfic Elder that y’all don’t understand how consent works in regards to reading fanfic

last night I saw a fic that had EIGHT of my favorite tags included and a great summary BUT it also contained a tag for a topic that bothers me. I weighed the pros/cons and decided NOT to read the fic because the ONE tag I disliked was something that could trigger a panic attack if the scene went into any sort of detail - it wasn’t worth risking the eight good tags.

from the first moment I noticed the fic to the moment I decided not to read it, the entire experience was MY RESPONSIBILITY. the author tagged the fic correctly, I knew what my limits were, and I respected them.

if you find a fic with tags you don’t like, JUST DON’T READ IT

don’t harass the author, don’t post a big whiny rant about it on Tumblr, just keep scrolling

that is your job as a reader.