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infriga · 4 years

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Writer tag game

I was tagged by @novantinuum !

Author Name: I’m Infriga on tumblr but I go by Ppleater on AO3 because it’s a username I liked to use in the past lol.

Fandom(s) you write for: Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, and in the past I’ve also written one or two things for Red vs Blue, Gintama, Chuck, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, and SGA. Most of my older stuff is on FFN, where it will stay because it’s old and embarrassing lol. I want to write a One Piece fic some day but christ is it a hard fandom to write for. There are so many puzzle pieces and moving parts and layers to everything in the OP world that anything bigger than a oneshot is daunting. Also Luffy’s mind is an enigma so I can only imagine how difficult he’d be to write.

Where you post: AO3. I used to post on FFN years ago, but not anymore because let’s be honest, ffn kinda sucks in comparison.

Most popular one-shot: My RvB fic I guess. The long cliched title is Five Times Tucker Knew Church Was a Robot, And One Time He Forgot That Church Was Still Human. It’s not all that popular, but it got more attention than any of my older oneshots on FFN haha.

Most popular multi-chapter: My Gravity Falls fic about kid Stan and paranoid Ford, 1 Step Forward, 20 Years Back. It was my first multichapter fic, and boy was I floored by the response it got!

Favorite story you wrote: I’m really bad at picking favourites! I like both my GF fic 1 Step Forward, 20 Years Back, and my Steven Universe fic Aid to Navigation at the moment. They’re both more recent fics and I feel like I’ve shown the most improvement in writing both of them, which is part of why i like them more, but I like them both for different reasons so I can’t really choose between them.

Story you were nervous to post: Man I’m nervous posting everything I write lol. I guess I tend to be more nervous about my hurt/comfort stuff for some reason? Especially the hurt parts. Like the chapter where Stan gets thrown down the stairs by Bill in my GF fic, or the upcoming chapter 5 in my SU fic. I really enjoy writing that sort of stuff, and I love reading it even more, so I’m always a little like >:3c but I can be a wee bit sensitive about stuff I get really into writing because I’m invested in it so I’m also a little like <:3c every time, you know? Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned by getting more involved in fandoms is that it can be worth it to just put stuff out there and own it even when I’m nervous about it, so I usually just force myself to press the post button before I can chicken out. It’s worked out pretty well for me so far.

How do you choose your titles? I’ve developed 2 main methods which, funnily enough, I used for my two recent multichapter fics.

Method 1 involves word play, such as using a pun or a saying that fits one of the themes of my fic, and I adjust it as needed it to match the story. I felt like the saying “1 step forward, 2 steps back” fit the whole portal confrontation in general, and Stan getting turned into a kid involves taking some pretty literal steps backwards, so I changed it to 20 years back to give it a de-aging spin and make it even more of a play on words. That one admittedly came pretty easy to me. I also came up with more puns,wordplay, and jokes for the chapter names to match.

Method 2 involves using symbolism. I like to figure out something I feel would be symbolic of my fic and I look for interesting and relevant terminology or topics related to whatever that symbol is. In Aid to Navigation I settled on lighthouses as the symbolic element because I felt it suited Steven’s character, since he lives on a beach, helps guide people, and literally glows. An aid to navigation is basically any structure that helps ships navigate on the ocean, which includes lighthouses in particular, and it felt really suitable for Steven’s character and the themes of the fic. Other terminology that popped up and caught my interest while looking into stuff related to lighthouses ended up serving as inspiration for the chapter names and some of the story progression.

Of course, sometimes a title just pops into my head automatically and I end up liking it right away, but that’s pretty rare lol.

How many of your stories are complete? 2 on AO3, my RvB oneshot and my GF fic, and an extra 7 oldy moldy ones on FFN which are all oneshots. I technically write more now than I used to, but while my word count has rised drastically the number of individual fics I’ve written isn’t too high yet. I just found I enjoy writing longer multichapter fics a lot.

In progress: Just Aid to Navigation at the moment. I’m the kind of person who usually likes to finish a writing project before moving to a new one.

Coming soon:

I’ve tried coming up with future projects but honestly it seems like I tend to just be sort of... Gripped with a sudden idea that just feels right. I always have tons of concepts I like, but most never actually become anything. Only a few strike me as something that I really want to turn into a story right away. I might make a series of connected oneshots for Aid to Navigation involving interactions and scenes that I couldn’t fit in due to there not being enough time to explore every character the way I wanted (like I wanted to write a scene with Lars and Steven for example, but it didn’t seem to fit anywhere), but beyond that I have no idea what I’ll end up writing.

Upcoming story you’re most excited to write: Do upcoming chapters of a current fic count? The chapters I felt most excited to write for Aid to Navigation are the next one which is already finished and awaiting the accompanying picture, titled “Red Sector”, and the following one after that, which will be titled “Leading Lights”. All I’ll say about them is that both types of lights serve as warnings.

Top five favorite authors:

I like so many damnit, it’s hard to choose!

I’ve loved everything I’ve read by @novantinuum

I’ve bookmarked a lot of GF fics by @impishnature

Same with @fanfoolishness and their SU fics

One Piece fics by @taizi are my favourites in the fandom

There’s probably more people I’m forgetting and if that’s the case I’m sorry and I love you all, but if anyone wants to see more authors I’ve read stuff by I have fic rec/fic recs/fanfic rec/fanfic recs tags (wish I could remember which one I use at a given time so I wasn’t so inconsistent about it otl. Someday when xkit is working again I’ll try to organise them better). Also I have like, 400+ bookmarks on AO3 that you can look through as well.

Tagging: Uh, I tag all the writers I mentioned above I guess, if they want to do it and if they haven’t done it already!

#tag meme #fic recs #writing #Steven Universe #Gravity Falls #I'm only gonna tag those two cause I aint tagging the rest of the stuff i've written for lol

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bladekindeyewear · 4 years

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HS^2 bloggin’ bonus 2020-02-01

bladekindeyewear:

Boy that sure is a new HS^2 bonus I should blogread. And there was a commentary on the Patreon for the last proper upd8 too.

I’ll… do it sometime this weekend, not right away. (Had a stomach virus through Monday and Tuesday that’s left me pretty fucked over and still waiting for the aftereffects to flee.)

Alright, taking a crack at both of these now. (Both light on images and quoting, since it’s all Patreon material.) So what’s going on here? Are the bonus chapters splitting into separate stories perhaps, following the lecture in one and the PS^2 crew in another? Also, from the replies on the previous:

gaaraofsburbia said: It was very good and I was very happy

Good to know. Time to read, bonus first! *clicks link*

...the title of a book someone’s holding. Bookmarked (with a red flag?). Uh huh. Good start.

> ==>

“A picture book for young parliamentarians.) ...oh wow, it’s Carapacian even. Did the Mayor have anything to do with this book?

--Wait. Waitwaitwait. This isn’t-- the authors wouldn’t go back in time and show us like-- PM and the Mayor trying to start the-- nooo.

> ==>

Oh shit, never mind. This is a book ABOUT the Mayor. Starting from him farming on Skaia and continuing from there with a focus on societal structures presumably. So, sort of like what I just said but not quite as goddamn heartwrenching, most likely.

You know, this WOULD have been a good opportunity for the authors to finally bring some canon awareness to all the rampant Breath and Blood visual-and-textual symbolism around WV and PM’s arcs, giving people some HINT of their potential importance outside some crazy unproven blog post on some crazy wrong person’s blog. But I’m not really convinced Andrew or his new replacements, er... y’know. Care. About letting us know about all that cool shit. Or even dissuading us if we were somehow wrong. Just gonna... let us haaaang in the breeeze there forever, more likely. :T

...this is still what I’m most bitter about regarding the end of Homestuck, as you can obviously tell. Thinking -- still believing -- that we found something beautiful and deliberate he’d done, but refusing to have canon openly acknowledge any of it so that 99% of readers will never have a clue about it and the few of us who caught on -- if right -- are just regarded as nutters, and if wrong, NEVER have what we need to finally disprove and accept that wrongness thanks to his silence, thus continuing to believe wrongly and be regarded as nutters.

So I just keep reading and... vacillating. Vacillating on whether to believe any of this will get brought up in HS^2 canon, or whether to cynically fear they’ll take the worst route: Doing things EXACTLY like Andrew did and dropping only vague hints that keep it an implied-only, unconfirmed mystery forever. Because that’s what made the comic popular! And it’s “safe”. :(

...man, gut issues really bring the pessimist out of you, don’t they. Let’s keep reading. Once upon a time there was a simple farmer...

> ==>

Horrible kings kept fighting and didn’t care about the land, destroying it underneath their war. Right. (Mostly paraphrasing here and from now, mind you.)

> ==>

WV wanted to stop the kings, but the kings had power.

> ==>

That power had to be destroyed too. (Shows the rings.)

> ==>

Hm, the journey that ends up in the rings’ destruction to the desert? Are we going to fill in some context here?

> ==>

--And made friends with curious creatures and powerful people! (Showing the fake Can Town built with Dave and Karkat along the meteor trip.)

Assumedly internalizing all those practice-town lessons, of course.

> ==>

--Oh, cool! So one of the first things WV and PM did upon coming to Earth C to start their founding process was destroy the rings, the temptation of that power, throwing it into the Forge.

EDIT: krixwell said: "I don't know exactly how it reads in the bonus update because I'm not a patron, but WV and PM throwing the rings in the Forge happened before they entered Universe C, and was shown in HS proper (8107-8111, 8123-8126 and at the beginning of [S] Act 7). It was required to light the Forge and send the Genesis Tadpole to Skaia." Ah, file that under more things I forgot about, then.

> ==>

Where once nothing,

> ==>

Earth C was founded/born, etc.

> ==>

Ah okay! So with a backdrop of the Town Hall under construction, we’re getting some context specifically as to how and why the Mayor set up society the way he did on Earth C. Especially the challenging question of who would govern the world and how.

> ==>

Oh shit, text dump! :D

The problem was unfortunately compounded by the fact that when the topic of fair and effective governance is broached, most sparing intellects immediately assume a certain posture. Not one of surrender or admiration, but of abject and interminable boredom.

This fact makes it hard to treat such a fascinating subject with the proper amount of attention and enthusiasm, BUT WE SHALL DO OUR BEST TO UNDERSTAND REGARDLESS.

Alright, loving this.

Also, this’ll undoubtedly put into context just how MUCH the Mayor had to think about how society would work best to have set up -- and how little comparative thought Jane put into the process when just drafting up something United-States-like and familiar. Remember how awful it was the childlike way the Condesce essentially kept trying to recreate her familiar surroundings and rule structure on Earth? It was only natural that her Life-aspected protege would make similar errors, I suppose.

Back to reading this long page... I won’t just quote all the details of this representative system, because that’s up to y’all to pony up for. But I’ll note if there’s anything interesting in it that makes me think. Let’s see...

...Hm! The number of seats each kingdom got in parliament was based on voter turnout... THAT’S a heavy incentive to get out the vote, if your kingdom can literally lose influence if you don’t.

On the happy occasions where the maximum number of seats were allocated in all four quarters, this was known as a "full House".

Oh, fuck you. :)

...oh dear, that was only the beginning of the card slang.

I’m not going to list all of them here. They make sense in context, which is even worse.

Without going into too much detail, consorts all tend to have significantly shorter lifespans than the other citizens of Earth C. Because of this, a large number of House Rules were dedicated to describing exactly what to do if a seat was vacated mid-term due to the death of its occupant.

Not the carapacian kingdom, the consort kingdom. Don’t panic, y’all.

The DELIVERY OF JUSTICE (DoJ) was founded to keep the peace and arbitrate in all legal matters, and its members were the brave soldiers of God in this righteous crusade.

They also took care of the MAIL.

Oooooof course. :)

Unions get their rep, if only for a pun...

Oh, hm. The Mayor’s office is much like a ceremonial-only monarch’s office without serious power. Etc etc...... reading...

So governing Earth C was a complicated affair, and only became more convoluted over time. But the really important thing was that, despite all this complexity, it worked. It really worked. At one point, a whole field of mathematics was developed just to explain why the interim government worked so well, and they ended up proving it categorically. It was theoretically perfect.

Ppfffff

--ah. And then the Mayor has a chill as he looks at the clouds and somehow anticipates something terrible happening to it all.

That’s it for the bonus. I’m guessing the next chapter of this separate bonus story will go over some sort of threat the system endured, while the Mayor was still alive, possibly? Or cut forward to the creators’ arrival and how that fucked a bunch of stuff up? A sort of demonstration on why the gods who create a universe shouldn’t take charge of those living in it or such? Hm.

Alright, if that’s it for the bonus, let’s see what’s available for Patreon commentary... here we go, just the one for the latest mainline upd8 that I knew had come out.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 3, How Are Your Feelings

Before starting into this, I want to note that I do have SOME ray of hope for more Awake Jade involvement to shine against my previous rant -- because that OTHER callie-controlled younger Jade body is coming, which I’d forgotten about. As soon as the pursuit crew arrives in-system and THAT Jade finally gets there through whatever black-hole-powered teleportation magic she’s using (with Aradia and Robodave), it’ll be completely safe for OUR Jade to be awake and active at will. Theoretically.

So... y’know, that’s nice. Whenever that will happen.

So onto the commentary, we’re starting with that stupid ship.

(I think I actually said something along the lines of, "this is stupid, so we're using it." I know my Homestuck history. For those interested, the ship is modelled after a schooner, and continues the Homestuck tradition of spaceships that look like regular sea-faring vessels, only with additional stuff bolted on. - Pip)

...Yeah, can’t blame you there.

This is Jake’s “second best” ship. It makes me really nervous to think about what the third-best looks like.

Flying booty shorts, most likely.

...yeah, I did notice that latest upd8 playing with colors in a way the comic rarely even did, it was pretty nice. Glad to see they appreciate it too.

...Yep, Karkat getting owned just for the sake of it, there.

First off, Jade’s outfit. It rules. Alt!Callie may have violently forced her consciousness inside of this innocent girl’s brain, but damn these threads are sweet. She’s managed to keep Jade pretty on brand, while throwing in a couple embellishments of her own. That’s what we call “making it work”.

Yes, you’d better WELL fucking acknowledge what you’re doing by keeping Jade in a miserable isolated state for three years. A G A I N.

Nice bit about the casual showing of Dave’s eyes as evidence that Dave’s recovering through some of his old mental blocks.

Dave and Karkat are wearing each other’s shirts, which is traditionally a very gay thing to do. Even more notably perhaps is the fact that Karkat is wearing crimson without a hint of complaint. Again, I doubt this was an intentional move on his part. Just, sometimes you’re coming out of the shower, it’s chilly, and your boyfriend’s shirt fits. Busting through mental blocks should typically come across as whispers to me, rather than shouts.

--Hm, never considered the latter angle.

Karkat is being pretty mean to Possessed Jade. Which sucks, but this situation is incredibly stressful, and Karkat tends to react to stress by being mean. Treating Jade like an irritant allows him to put some distance between himself and the reality that he may have lost another friend.

Guh. That one stung :(

Initially the panel directions here were “everybody pauses to contemplate Dirk fucking Strider”

Mhmm, and you figured it’d be more unsettling to reverse it and remind us that the Prince is aware of all of this too.

Roxy’s heart-shaped sunglasses have become such a thing in the fandom that I kind of can’t imagine him without them at this point, so we decided to make it settled law.

Mhmm, I figured that was how they played it. One of the ways they’re incorporating fandom involvement.

Sometimes I feel like it should be Xam who does these commentaries, since there’s so much incredible shit going on with the art here that I’m really only equipped to comment on with shit like “oh wow, look at these colors. Green and purple huh. Wild. There’s also some light.”

It’s pretty understandable to have the writers take the lead on most commentary as opposed to the artists... normally.

But then you’d have the weird places where they’d have to work together without necessarily giving away their game. Like, all that WV/PM Breath/Blood visual representation I mentioned.

I still don’t know if they’re gonna give away the game on that eventually -- or if Andrew even gave them enough to go on to properly REPLICATE that sort of thing in this official continuation, even though my mind keeps telling me it’d make all sense to -- but if they are thinking about it, I doubt they’ll first show their hand in the commentary.

I love Kanaya’s new outfit.

I understand that sure, but will she be sticking with this outfit through the action though? Looking like a mourning nun?

Kanaya’s nursery story is, of course, The Little Prince, a French fairytale from the 1940’s. It tells the story, rather appropriately, of a young Prince traveling through space looking for something he believes he has lost.

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

I’m not sure why I keep thinking about this quote. Probably some shit that has to do with “themes” or something.

Hinting that once he’s beaten down and likely dying from this stupid exodus plan, at least some part of Dirk may finally realize that any fulfillment and purpose he was looking for with this megalomaniacal nonsense was left behind in the peaceful life he fucking ruined for everyone to do all this. The Heart-blind bastard.

God, Dave is just losing family members left and right, isn’t he? Really makes you think.

Gdi. :(

“Maybe it was naive to think a bunch of twenty something trauma victims could run a society.”

There it is. That’s the whole Epilogue.

And Andrew just had to let us ruin our naivety.

Wow. There really are just a whole lot of feelings in this chapter, aren’t there? It’s very aptly named. And it’s also actually the first part of HS^2 that got drafted; at least the first part that actually made it into the final draft. I wrote it earlier in 2019 when we were still kicking around ideas of what an Epilogue follow-up would actually look like.

Huh. Yeah, I can imagine when writing all this it would make sense to write/use this chapter first, as a knee-jerk reaction.

I do really think Karkat would have been a great president. He would have hated it, but he would have been good at it.

I’m glad the authors are in agreement with everyone else with a brain on this one.

Did you guys know that Karkat still feels immense survivor’s guilt for murderstuck?

Yes. Yes we did.

(Some continued remarks about how Karkat’s self-loathing is like a singularity that draws all blame onto himself in his mind etc.)

Apparently there was a metal gear reference in this second-to-last conversation? Don’t tell me, I don’t care.

Eat the fucking pancakes, dude.

A good place to end the commentary. See y’all when there’s more content!

#Homestuck #hs2 #upd8 #Homestuck Liveblog #Homestuck Commentary #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots

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luckyfaeth · 5 years

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2018 fic roundup

tagged by @chloebeale! thank u cole

ficlist under the cut this got long i didnt realize how much ive done whoops

Total 2018 Word Count: 125,140

Total 2018 Hits: 33,367

Other 2018 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 2,410 Comment Threads: 237 Bookmarks: 300 Subscriptions: 287

Links & Titles to 2018 Works:

talk about your taste in women (triple treble coffee shop au) (7000 words)

in the middle; (triple treble drabbles) (6213 words)

we're spinning with the stars above (triple treble good place au) (14560 words)

what a beautiful wedding (bemily week: fake dating) (1608 words)

I've been here the whole time, I'm just small (bemily week: height difference) (1024 words)

open up my eager eyes (bemily week: love triangle polyship) (662 words)

we're not bruised (they're just party tattoos) (bemily week: soulmate au) (1950 words)

I think that I found myself a cheerleader (she's always right there when I need her) (bemily week: marching band/cheerleader au) (3170 words)

hey honey you could be my drug (...all this trash talk make me itchin') (bemily week: free choice/competing acapalla teams au) (4168 words)

across fields full of lilies (mitchsen flower shop au) (10555 words) (WIP)

family matters (rare pair week (junksen): meet the parents) (2778 words)

we are one of a kind, irreplaceable (steca fluff) (835 words)

you were out of my league (got my heartbeat racing) (sk8er au: steca) (16333 words)

am i still on her mind? (i've been undone) (sk8er au: junksen pov) (6576 words)

every night, I live and die (meet somebody take 'em home) (mitchsen princess? au) (1265 words)

pynk like your tongue going round, baby (chemily fluff/smut) (1898 words)

think we kissed, but I forgot (b99 gina/amy smut that canonically happened) (1441 words)

in those rare moments you and I were brilliant (we were gonna be alright) (staubremily fluff/smut) (1767 words)

there's something lonesome about you (something so wholesome about you) (bemily soft angst) (4301 words)

maybe I should stop and start confessing (stemily week: fake dating) (1548 words)

now all I see is colour (like a rainbow in the sky) (stemily week: soulmate au) (1325 words)

have you no idea that you're in deep? (stemily week: fwb) (7121 words)

scared of pretty girls and starting conversations (junksen week: fwb) (3241 words)

can't stop my heart (when you're shinin' in my eyes) (junksen week: hogwarts au) (1750 words)

couldn't hide from the thunder (in a sky full of song) (junksen week: royal au (knight/princess au)) (8839 words)

the electronics of your heart (see how fast they fall apart) (junksen abducted au) (11476 words) (WIP)

standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset (tswift series: chacie + wildest dreams) (1736 words)

Favorite Fic: god, i feel like sk8er au is the obvious choice because that’s my baby, but i’d also say abducted au (26), stemily fwb (22), junksen royal au (25), and the bemily soft angst (19) would be in my top faves

Hardest Fic: definitely abducted au or junksen royal au because they required the most like outlining and stuff because they’re more plot than character driven which is something i tend to not do as much (which is why, even tho sk8er au is the longest it’s not here because there is virtually no plot its just me having a good time)

Do you plan on taking prompts in 2019? maybe? i already have so many stuff in progress that im working on sjdlkfjsldjf hopefully later in the year ill take prompts again?

What was the best thing about 2018? well i only really got back into writing this year so uh, that! but seriously, coming back into being a content creator for a fandom has been such a good experience for me, and I hope that i dont lose that motivation to again because I’ve met so many awesome friends through the fandom this year

What was the worst thing about 2018? a lot of big writing slumps because of my mental health fluctuating

Any last thoughts for 2018? no

Goals for 2019:

finish abducted au, or at least make decent progress with it

finish junksen week lmao

finally write bellas inc. !!! still haven’t done that even tho it was my first big au!!! fuck!!!!!

put out more in the tswift series! i enjoy writing them and i have one in the works rn that i hope to get out in the next week or so

get at least one chapter of my chaubrey gravity falls au publishes lmao i forgot i even had this started i hate me

pup perfect @emilyjunk 👀👀 (i hate us) (this is not furry content dont @ me)

rewrite/finish mitchsen flower shop au; i started rewriting it a while ago and liked the feel of it a lot better so we’ll uh see

write junksen girl next door au! i love it so much and literally all of it is planned im just terrible!

i literally have so many things on my to write list sjdlfkjsdlkfj

ive been wanting to write stuff outside of pitch perfect so maybe more b99 stuff? i have a sort of idea for a dianetti fic that i might try soon idk

work on original stuff!!! develop your OCs, dumbass!!!!!!!

not tagging anyone bc anyone id tag has already been tagged i think lmao but i love u all and this has been a great year of writing for me and seeing the progress i made and meeting so many great people!! i love u all little bumblebees and i’m sorry i haven’t been as active creating stuff in the past few months of 2018 but that will CHANGE! mark my worms

#writer tag #sylvie writes #27 fics!!! im proud of myself i didnt think i had that many!!#i would have MORE if i ever FINISHED ANYTHING

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beatrice-otter · 6 years

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An Open Letter to AO3 Regarding Fandom Tagging Changes

ETA: Checking the archive this morning, I found that the Wonder Woman (2017) tag no longer redirects to DCEU, but takes you directly to Wonder Woman (2017). Also, someone said that even last night, you could (from the DCEU page) click on the "Fandoms" list on the sidebar and filter to just Wonder Woman (2017), but I don't know if that worked last night when the tags were merged, because in my poking around in disbelief, I forgot the 'filter by fandom' option on the sidebar. I am writing another message to support thanking them for fixing the issue.

ETA 2: @melannen checked with the DCEU taggers and confirmed that redirecting the Wonder Woman (2017) tag was a mistake and not part of an overarching plan for DCEU or any other megafandom. Somebody clicked the wrong button, I guess, and they fixed it as soon as they figured out it had happened. Thank you to all the people working hard at tag wrangling and support to keep the archive going, and fix problems like this.

My original letter is below the read-more.

This is what I just sent off to AO3's Support. Hi! First, before I get started, I want you to know that I have loved AO3 since its beginning. I know how huge an endeavor it is, and how much work goes on behind the scenes (all of it on a volunteer basis), and I am grateful for it. I also understand that there are situations where there is no good answer to a problem because of either technical issues behind the scenes or conflicting needs/wants of users, and I actively try to be charitable in how I interpret the decisions the archive makes, for the reasons stated above. I know that large fandom trees were straining your servers, and you needed to find a solution. The flexibility of the tagging structure on AO3 is about 90% of the reason I love the archive. And by that I mean, the ability to use tags to find EXACTLY what I want to read, instead of slogging through hundreds (or thousands, in some fandoms) of fics I am not interested, is THE MAJOR THING AO3 has always (until now) done better than any other fic archive or website. My main frustrations with the archive have been when tags aren't granular enough--when I want them to be more specific than they are. For example, when I wish that character tags were filtered by whether someone was a major or minor character in the story, or when I'm trying to find fic specifically about X-Men: Days of Future Past and get redirected to all XMFC fic. And I don't think I'm alone in this. So any change to make them less granular, even when it might make the back end run smoother, is a big problem for me. In particular, your that solution to current tagging woes (merging sub-fandom tags into one over-arching fandom tag) has broken the archive for me in some of my fandoms, and (if it is rolled out across other fandoms in the same way) will break all of those fandoms for me, rendering the archive virtually useless for doing anything other than reading fic I have already bookmarked. As a first step, merging the individual movies of the Star Wars Original Trilogy together into one tag is a pretty good decision, and I was actually surprised that it hadn't been done already. It works because the three movies of that trilogy tell one unified story with pretty much the same characters. There may be people who love one movie in it and hate the others, but I've never met any; and the fandom has not historically split along intra-trilogy lines. There are very few people who, when they click on "Return of the Jedi" and get all OT fics, are going to be seriously upset or discommoded by it (and many who would actually PREFER to get all fics in that trilogy). So when I saw the tumblr post saying you were going to do that, I went, "oh, yeah, good idea, that makes sense," and went about my day. I assumed that other instances of merging things would be similarly merging things that were already a unified fannish category with little individual distinction and went on about my business. Then I found out that all of the DCEU movies have been merged together into one fandom. That, my friends, is WHOLE DIFFERENT BALL OF WAX. Unlike the three movies of the OT, there are NO characters that are shared between all DCEU movies. There are no overarching plot threads between them all. There are MAJOR differences in plot, characters, theme, and many other points, between these movies. It is quite possible to love one movie, and hate, loathe, and despise another. There are LARGE swathes of the fandom that don't overlap. There are many people, like me, who love one movie, like another, and actively try to avoid other movies in that megafandom. This is quite common for megafandoms. Every megafandom I'm familiar with--Star Wars, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, MCU, Stargate, DCEU, Star Trek--is too varied for people to like all of it equally; you end up with a handful of people who genuinely like the whole thing and most people who focus on parts of it. Except now, there's no way to separate out the stuff you ACTUALLY want to see from all the OTHER mass of stuff in the megafandom. And while that's not that big a deal in a small fandom where there isn't much fic to sort through anyway, it's a pretty BIG problem in a megafandom with is, you know, MEGA, with lots of fic. For example, I LOVE Wonder Woman (2017), am only occasionally interested in in the DCEU Superman and Justice League movies, and am only willing to read Suicide Squad fic if it's a Harley Quinn story that's mostly comics canon with a few Suicide Squad details. With the old way the archive was organized, this was not a problem. I could regularly look through the Wonder Woman (2017) tag for new fic, dip into Superman and Justice League on the rare occasions that I was in the mood for Batfleck and Cavilman, and pretty much never have to deal with anything Suicide Squad. Now, I click on Wonder Woman (2017), and instead of getting pages of exactly what I want, I get the entire DCEU. On that first page of 20 fics, there are currently only four that I would even be interested in considering reading. Your tag change has dropped my rate of finding interesting things from 100% to 20%. That is an 80% reduction in my ease of finding fic. An 80% reduction in how useful your tagging system is. Let me repeat that: your new tagging system has decreased the usefulness of this archive by 80%. We're not talking, "oh, a small reduction in user satisfaction for a HUGE gain in back-end functionality." I don't know how much easier this makes things on the back-end for you, but it is a FRICKING HUGE reduction in foundational ease-of-use for the entire site. This is not a minor change. This makes the most basic function of the site--finding fic to read--80% harder. The only scenario in which I would view this as a workable solution--not a good solution, mind you, but one that I could accept--is if it was literally a choice between this and closing the archive. Let's talk about what my use of the archive would have to look like going forward if this change is maintained and expanded, so you can see what I mean. Up until this change, if I wanted Wonder Woman fic, I clicked on the tag and got it! Now I can't do that. So my options are: 1) slogging through the entire DCEU, 80% of which I don't want. This is the only way to be sure I see every Wonder Woman fic I actually want. Problem: it will take me at least 80% longer to find stuff I ACTUALLY want. So, I would be less likely to look for new fic, and more likely to just go re-read old favorites, because it's so much quicker to do. As a reader and a writer, this is a problem for me, because I do want to read new fic, and I want other people to be able to find MY new fic. 2) putting together a long string of boolean search terms, probably based on characters. So, for example, I couldn't just search for "Diana (Wonder Woman)" because she appears in too much Justice League and Batman Vs. Superman fic (which I very seldom want to read). Searching for her would be better than just DCEU, because I wouldn't get Suicide Squad, but it would still be a ton of slogging through fics I don't want. I could search for "Diana (Wonder Woman)" and use the "Search within results" box to exclude Justice League and Batman and Superman. But that would miss any fics about Etta Candy or Steve Trevor or Hippolyta or any other Amazon in which Diana didn't appear. So, then, maybe use boolean search terms for Diana OR Steve OR Etta OR Hippolyta, and eliminating Justice League and Batman and Superman. Except that would still miss any fic that is, say, general worldbuilding for Themyscira, that doesn't have Diana or Hippolyta in it. And I love worldbuilding, but not everybody tags for it. Do I have to build up a boolean search string for EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE in the hopes of catching everything? How many boolean terms can I use at once? Or do I need to run several separate searches, which would mean sorting through a lot of these fics multiple times, as they would pop up under multiple search strings? I would STILL probably end up missing things that I would be interested in, and it would take A SHIT-TON of extra effort on my part. Far more effort, for less reward. And, again, as both a reader who wants to find new fic and as a writer who wants other people to be able to find MY fic when I write it, everything about this is terrible. 3. Use AO3 Savior to do some of the filtering for me. I don't know, blacklisting some tags would probably cut down on the number of boolean terms to rack up, but then I would have to go in and un-blacklist things on the rare occasions I actually wanted to read Batfleck fic. But this would become of less and less utility as people stopped tagging for individual movies and just tagged everything with the current canonical metatag for DCEU. Also: there is only one site I know if in which browser extensions are required to make the site useable, and that is tumblr which is a shambling hellscape of a site. Is that AO3's new goal? To become as user-hating as tumblr? Because while I appreciate how hard you guys work, that's what this change feels like. Now, I know you may be reading all this and going, "well, yeah, Wonder Woman fic is a problem, but you won't even notice the changes in most fandoms!" Let me present to you a list of the fandoms I have read the most of over the last year: Star Wars (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Star Trek (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) MCU (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Wonder Woman (but not the rest of the DCEU) DC Comics (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Rivers of London And much as I love Rivers of London, I've spent a LOT more time reading fic in those other fandoms, because there's simply so much more of it, even when you only count the small pieces of each megafandom I'm interested in. What this means is that if you keep this tagging change and roll it out to other megafandoms, you will SERIOUSLY AND FUNDAMENTALLY BREAK how I use the archive. And given a) how many other people on this archive are in megafandoms and b) how large a percentage of the people in megafandoms only read fic in one corner of that megafandom ... you are seriously and fundamentally breaking the websites functionality for a very large percentage of your userbase. At one fell swoop, you turn AO3 from an archive I love and support (including financially) to an archive I hope is replaced (soon) with something better, because it's a pain in the ass pretty much every time I try to use it. Please, please, please, find some other way to fix the problem. If you need money for more servers, or to hire a professional coder to do some serious backend changes to make things workable with the old tagging structure, I'd be fine with that and I would contribute to any fundraiser you did. Your current choice is not a solution, it's a nightmare.

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#archive of our own #ao3 #wonder woman #fanfic #fanfiction

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