I'm Your Writing Mom And It's Not Debatable

One day I'm gonna read a best seller with your name on it. ❤ My messages are open for a reason, don't be shy! I'm totally and 100% down to listen to you gush about your WIP or characters, or anything else!

[djdangerlove]

Here. Have kudos on that fanfic you wrote in your head while you were in the shower and never typed it out. When I recover from the brilliance of it, I’ll come back to leave a review.

[headspace-hotel]

idea: scene with two characters eagerly stripping each other clearly about to bone, but they keep getting interrupted by finding carefully concealed weapons in each other’s clothing, so they keep just unholstering, revealing and unstrapping increasingly ludicrous amounts of hidden guns and knives as the clothes come off, and it’s lowkey killing the mood a little

[findingfeather]

Alternatively: it's not killing the mood at all but it's totally making both of them giggle like they're twelve and possibly get lowkey competitive in a subconscious way about who has the most to drop.

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

The more that I think of it the more I'm seeing the incredible intimacy of letting someone know where you keep your backup knife.

Like my god, the trust involved in letting someone undress you and learn your secrets instead of popping into the bathroom to change where they can't see and hiding all your weapons under the sink

[headspace-hotel]

...Oh

[brainsforbabyjesus]

second alternative: you go to hide all your weapons under the sink but there’s already a bunch of weapons hidden underneath the sink.

awkward

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

It’s not that there’s already a bunch of weapons hidden underneath the sink that makes it awkward so much as that there’s so many weapons hidden underneath the sink that they fall out of the cabinet with the unmistakable sound of a knife-alanche, and then the other person comes in like “I can explain!” and you’re just dead-ass standing there with your own armload of weapons like “I can also explain.”

[fenrislorsrai]

Married version is shoving your hand in your partner’s clothes when you’re out of weapons because you KNOW where their spare is.  Or wearing a weapon in a spot you can’t draw from yourself because its now spare storage for your spouse’s weapons.

[justlookatthosesausages]

Every single one of you is a genius

[theglitchywriterboi]

I hope every writer who sees this writes LOADS the next few months. Like freetime opens up, no writers block, the ability to focus, etc etc you're able to write loads & make lots of progress <3

[deepslateredstoneore]

AO3 is down

Fanfiction enjoyers have now resorted to actually continuing their abandoned works to fight off the boredom and existential dread that comes with not being able to read about blorbos

[poetry-protest-pornography]

AO3 is down for maintenance, and we're all being so brave* about it.

*crying about it on Tumblr dot com

[angelofthemornings-deactivated2]

While I was in inpatient the main group therapy guy (who looks weirdly like Mads Mikkelsen) asked me what I aimed to do with my writing and I said, "Make people suffer. Some good, cathartic suffering." Which I've struggled with recently because I felt like that was a kind of malicious goal (since, like my friend Dirk said once, I always need to do the math so that I = bad). And he was very pleased with that answer. He said that it was a good thing, that I was introducing children to suffering and the ways that people process suffering in a healthy space (since it's not real) and that makes children feel (and he pointed to the word "safe" on the whiteboard). He told me I was a suffering person who could reach out through my suffering to help others with theirs, and that was good, that was important, it was transformative, and I was protecting children.

I just sat there fighting back tears and quietly said "Oh...I never thought of it like that."

[shabnakh-adyr]

[writing-culture-is]

Me: thEY HURT MY FAVOURITE FICTIONAL CHARACTER

Also me: do it again

[teemctee-deactivated20230105]

Me when I’m writing, and am actively hurting them.

[jezifster2]

You know. Reading is important. Because I'm like always trying to make every line I write this groundbreaking mindfucking art but like. A book is 90% just saying what happened. "I hugged him around the waist." "The chair was brown and overstuffed." "I woke up alone." Etc etc. Like normal ass lines. I just keep comparing my boring, necessary to set a scene lines, with famous authors' absolute best lines and like.... every line doesn't have to shatter the earth. Sometimes someone just sits in a chair and the lines that wreck you come later, one at a time, here and there. It's alright.

[foxys-fantasy-tales]

This is super common and I wish we were taught when we begin to write that those quoted lines are also in a sea of the same sort of setup we obsess over not being 'good enough'. I saw multiple people drop out of writing courses over this in college. Sure, sometimes you need a better way to describe something prevalent or to pinpoint an emotion, but if EVERYTHING was written in that sort of tone for a whole book it would prove utterly exhausting to read.

[pens-swords-stuff]

Also, if every single line in the book was hard-hitting and mindblowing, then it wouldn't be memorable because it would be drowned out.

The best lines are famous because they stand out.

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

You know what I don’t get?  When fanfic authors apologize for long chapters.  It’s like?  You gave me bonus content, for free, and you’re sorry about it?  Bruh.  I have already named my firstborn after you.  Dude.

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

You know what else I don’t get?  When they apologize for short updates.  It’s like: look at these new words I gave you!  Sorry I didn’t give you even more free words.  Bro, that’s at least two words that I did not have yesterday.  For free.  Dude.  Thank you.

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

And another thing: when people drop out of nowhere with a surprise update and then apologize for it taking a while.  Like, dude, I wasn’t expecting anything, and you gave me words.  I thought this fic was abandoned, but wait: there’s more.  You just popped in and reminded me that this is a Good Fic that I should probably reread.  You made my goshdarn day.

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

Basically fanfic writers are under no obligation to publish anything so when they do update it’s always a net positive because the story is longer now, and I have something to read, so thank you so much to everyone who writes fic at whatever pace or quantity they want.

[aropride]

ur favourite ao3 author definitely has to go back and reread their own stuff cuz they forgot major plot points in their own writing btw it's just a fact

[apricops]

me, every time: Sometimes I get too caught up in trying to be ‘clever’ or get so deep in world-building that I forget about the actual plot and characters. So y’know what, I’m just gonna do something silly and self-indulgent this time. I’m just gonna write a BL about a wolfboy and his effeminate scholarly boyfriend.

me, every time, 1 hour later: oh I’m definitely making a world map for this

me, every time, 2 hours later: the tapestry represents a beautiful but impossible fantasy that we can go back in time to undo the terrible things that happened to us. But while the master-weaver was designing it, she was so absorbed in this image of ‘what could have been,’ imagining her lost husband, that she struggles to take care of her son, who…

[apricops]

conlangs, fantasy worldbuilding, and erotic fiction are all deeply connected in some yet-unknown way

[makadragontamer]

@unpretty

[whatasillyweirdwhimsycalraccoon]

[daitheflu-mx]

[tumblingoverstars]

[madkiska]

[eddiemunsonsmiddlefingers]

I keep seeing fic with words censored in the body of the fic like so: c*nt, f*gg*t, q-slur (seriously, come on), r*pe, *nc*st. I even saw a fic where someone was described as "sitting next to his unalived body" which was so absurd it made me laugh.

I've seen this trend in tags as well, which would be ACTIVELY FUCKING DANGEROUS if AO3 tag wranglers weren't literal, actual angels who make sure that "rape" and "r*pe" (and all such transpositions) are treated like the same tag.

AO3 isn't TikTok. Tag accurately and completely for your fic themes so people can search AND filter. Use the correct words in your fic content so people who use blacklist extensions can actually benefit from the tools that protect them.

If you don't feel comfortable using a word without censoring it, then don't use that word at all. Maybe consider why you're even writing something that contains that theme.

Sincerely,

An actual real life rape and incest survivor who has actual fucking PTSD and really doesn't want to have to stop reading fic for my ship because people think a god damn asterisk is going to somehow save people like me from being triggered.

[dear-ao3]

[holyfoal-moved-deactivated20230]

"middle aged women shouldn't participate in fandom" and you think it's teenagers that are writing those brilliant, incisive 100k fics of your favourite characters

[herotovillain]

Louder.

[librarysilverfish]

Also if you're someone who handles nano by doing exactly 1,667 words every single day..... ..... might i recommend not doing that

Days when you have not much time to write: idk 400 words? 700 might be really good?

Days when you have all day to write/can go to write-ins/have someone to word-sprint with: like 3000-5000 words literally write as MUCH as you can