#but also i don't want to filter the tag bc i like the friendship :'') so i miss regular gifsets and stuff but idk

[inchidentally]

ouuhh that's not…

I swear I read it three times and looked through their blog hoping they were joking alfhaslfkh nope

BUT I do not want anyone to engage with this so I'm hiding the link - not just because it's ridiculous but because the best way to confine rpf ship drama is to leave it alone. (edit: so I lied abt this asofgsalfga I did reply to one person but only bc they put it in the main tags) I don't rly like blocking but I also don't want to have to create a million filtered tagged posts on my dash - and tbh I don't think anyone I've blocked will care anyway. this way I can still see carlando content for fun but none of the fandom nonsense.

I'm mostly posting this bc up til now I rly wanted to set aside the behavior of the fandom to continue enjoying carlando content but I just can't be bothered anymore. between the larrying and the rampant, disgusting casual misogyny - and ofc the competing with which friendship or fake ship blorbo 1 and 2 are "happier" with asgfjsalfglja. and it's not just this latest thing I get sent tweets and posts abt whole agendas to "prove" that Lando isn't "happy" with Oscar/Martin/insert man who is currently considered threatening to their concepts of Lando's relationships. some ppl even friendzone Max F and Lando and pretend Carlos means more to Lando than him so there's no limits to the insanity.

so for me atp there just isn't enough about carlando to make it worth constantly being reminded that the way too many of it's fans truly believe that these are two men are either as close to each other as they are to their real, acknowledged close friends and/or in a secret gay relationship, that their girlfriend(s) are cold-hearted PR plants/escorts rigged by an evil all-controlling PR department and once the blorbos are freed of homophobic forces (oh god Carlos' old tweets tiktokboom) they can finally have the kind of toxic heteronormative version of a queer relationship that is right with the universe.

like, rpf is only meant to be for fun and more important it is meant to be kept away from anyone involved/the general public !! but when ppl's delu results in the actual women these men choose as their partners being at best aggressively cropped out of pictures and videos* and at worst stalked, harassed, their families and employers harassed, abuse and slander left in comments sections on popular social media and team pages - yea carlando laughing together sometimes and slowed down bro hugging isn't enough lol

it’s also slightly the fact that if you picked a bunch of Lando’s reactions to Carlos and Daniel and no one knew context clues then no one would be able to tell which one he’s reacting to. Carlos/Daniel teases Lando, Lando shriek laughs and goes red, James Corden style gay innuendo, slightly tense undercurrent of men wanting to one up each other with jokes, iterations of bromance that are half sincere and half for the cameras, hashtag hashtag. Lando goes to Daniel's ranch on a whim, dando is special. Lando goes to Carlos' sister's huge society wedding, carlando is special. Lando's family likes Lando which makes carlando special. Lando and Daniel share mutual friends outside of racing which makes dando special. like, it's the same dynamic just rotated around at different times. I enjoy both ships to a certain degree but I'm kind of mystified at ppl choosing to see them as super deep and meaningful and worth fighting over.

side note g o d do I fully embrace that ppl who do these ship competitions and larrying nonsense have ZERO interest in landoscar bc we love Lily and support Lando in his many probable conquests - and bc the Lando and Oscar dynamic isn't a big bromance for the cameras and has no fake gay for fangirl consumption.

like yes pls absolutely consider landoscar inferior to carlando if it means they stay away from inventing conspiracy theories and saying they "just have a bad feeling" about Lily and start attributing everything Lando has achieved to his teammate instead of himself.

also I could be SO incredibly mean using charlos vs carlando and the difference between PR and the public trying to tear one apart but it persisting vs PR and the public being a major factor in the other persisting at all. or the fact that charlos does everything ppl want carlando to do. but there's no point spending more time on people who think that two adult men - who've both said they're as much rivals as friends and the bromance is more what the public sees - are laughing in metrically different and lesser degrees of happiness with their new teammates vs a former teammate.

like, as long as I can now not be exposed to those opinions then they have a perfect right to express them. god knows I'm not saying my blogs is worth a damn but at least I don't trash anyone's gf or try to stunt on other rpf ships for no reason

tl;dr I'm p much done trying to make carlando worthwhile for me to rb or post about. I enjoy seeing it on my dash for myself but that's it! no one will be affected by this change lafhlsahf

*I know there are a few ppl out there who do this bc they have a no-private life policy on their blogs and that's np. they aren't die hard carlando fans tho.

#inchreplies #wank adjacent #<- tag to block to avoid seeing these in future! #why do ppl want to constantly push things that get proven wrong #like just enjoy your ship and stop trying to edge it closer to them dating irl by competing w other ships it isn't happening #for reference

[dittomander]

Advice for New AO3 Users

In the vein of all those "guide for new tumblr users" posts, bc someone might as well make one, right? ao3 itself has a pretty robust FAQ that goes into far more detail on the mechanics of the site than I can realistically cover, so my main focus is going to be on common concerns/issues I've seen myself:

General Site Notes

or: AO3 is not actually a social media site:

there is no algorithm. there are tags you can search and stats you can sort by, and that's how you're gonna find stuff to read, and that's how readers are gonna find your work. Even tumblr at least has the explore tab; AO3 truly has no "recommended" feature.

like yes, getting more kudos and comments will bump your fic in the "sort by kudos/comments" filters, but this isn't a targeted algorithm pushing your fic toward certain people. there's no way to be "good for the algorithm."

so the way you get people to engage with your work is by presenting it in a way that makes it easy for people to find what they're looking for. You will want to tag your fic appropriately. You will want to write a summary. You will NOT want to be self-deprecating about your skill. Remember, your fic is likely one of hundreds, if not more. If people can't gauge what to expect, or if you tell them to expect nothing, then there's always another fic they can check out instead.

a minor thing, but Wattpad folks, no one on AO3 calls them "books". Like I'm not gonna say you have to stop but just understand that when you call your fic a book, you are advertising to everyone on the site that you are an Outsider.

Tagging Guidelines

honestly I think I see "I don't know how to tag things" with even more frequency than "I don't know how to write summaries" but I'd argue that for AO3 the tagging is probably more important since tags are what people use to actually filter/search for fics, so some general tips on weird things I've seen:

Archive Warnings: these are the major character death/underage/noncon/graphic violence tags, as well as the "chose not to use archive warnings" and "no warnings apply". Those latter two are inherently incompatible with any of the former four. If you say "no archive warnings apply", then using an archive warning anyway is just confusing. Similarly, "chose not to use archive warnings" and any of the actual warnings just... doesn't make any sense. If you're using an archive warning, then you, uh, did choose to use archive warnings. I've seen people tag with all 6 at once. This does not inspire confidence in the quality of the fic, it does not draw people in - it just makes people doubt that you know what you're doing.

Relationships: the "&" is for your platonic/familial/friendship relationships. the "/" is for your romantic/sexual relationships. I've seen people make cases for both for QPRs, but let's be real most fics are not about those so that's a bit of an edge case. Please remember that tags are used for finding and filtering -- when you mis-tag a "/" as a "&", not only will people looking for a romantic fic of your couple have a harder time finding it, but you're also making it so that the people that don't want to see that pairing can't filter it out.

Characters: You probably don't need to tag your OCs by name. Remember: finding and filtering. If you're the only person using them, then having those names in your character list aren't going to actually communicate anything about the fic or help people find it, because people outside of your circle aren't going to know who those characters are. This can also be confusing to the tag wranglers and people new to the fandom, who won't know if those characters are even in the source material or not. The multitude of variants on the "Original Character" tag is fine for most circumstances.

Additional Tags: This is the section for any other information you want to convey about your work, and it's the section I see people struggle the most with. Suggestions for the sorts of things you can cover here include: genre, timeline notes (i.e. pre-canon/post-canon/canon-divergent/AU/missing scene/etc.), tropes, themes, content warnings, and other features of the story. If you're having a hard time coming up with things to tag, AO3 will have suggestions if you start typing something. Remember that the goal is to communicate information about your fic that you think people might want to either find or avoid.

People using the tags for brief author's notes is also a pretty common thing. The keyword is brief, though. Lengthy commentary in the tags can distract from the actual content tags and can mess with screen readers.

Going overboard with tags is also an issue for that same reason. This is a "use your best judgement" type of thing.

Use your best judgement on what you consider "in" your work to tag. If a character only shows up for an irrelevant background scene, for example, does it really make sense to tag them? People looking for that character will be disappointed that they were barely in it, and people looking to avoid that character might just filter out your fic even if they wouldn't have been put off by the cameo.

You can edit your tags after posting a work, at any time. As the content of your story changes, you can update the tags accordingly. You don't actually have to tag everything that you plan to include in your story right at the start, and in fact, you probably shouldn't. See the above bullet for why. If your fic is abandoned or otherwise slow to update, having misaligned tags can be confusing or disappointing.

Also: DON'T CENSOR TAGS. Your fic will not get taken down for having the word "die" in the tags I promise. Censoring tags just messes with the filters and makes it harder for people to avoid potentially triggering content.

Posting Tips and Tricks

bc there's a lot of weird formatting happening in fics lately and I'm not sure how common knowledge this stuff actually is:

there is a pair of buttons in the "Work Text" section labelled "HTML" and "Rich Text", respectively. AO3 defaults you to HTML. The average user is gonna want to switch that to Rich Text. HTML gets you far more direct control over how your work appears, but if you're just using a basic word processor's formatting options, it's gonna be way easier to just copy-paste into Rich Text.

paragraph breaks in the Rich Text editor are already double spaced. You only need one return between paragraphs. If you manually double-space, or if you copy-paste in something double-spaced, there's going to be a ton of empty, floating space between your paragraphs when you actually post.

when you post chapters for a multi-chapter fic, you will generally have the option to add a chapter specific summary and notes. This is not the case for chapter 1. When you post the first chapter of the fic, the summary and notes that you wrote are associated with the entire fic, not just that chapter.

What this means for summaries is that if you want a Chapter 1 specific summary, separate from the fic summary, you'll have to go back and edit that in after you post it.

Notes follow the same principle, but I specifically want to mention end notes: If you add your "chapter 1" end notes at story creation instead of editing them in later, those notes are now associated with the entire fic, which means that as you add new chapters, they will no longer appear at the end of chapter 1 and instead get repeatedly pushed to the end of the latest chapter.

Editing an existing chapter won't send a notification email to subscribers or bump the fic in the "recently updated" list, no matter how much you've added, so no one will have an easy way to know there's new content. If you want to make sure people are seeing your work, you'll want to either post your additions as new chapters or just wait to post your story at all until the chapter you're writing is actually finished.

Next to the Post button is a Preview button for seeing what your work will look like before you actually post it. This is extremely helpful, especially if you're using the HTML editor, to make sure everything looks the way you're expecting. There's many a wall of text in the archive that could've been saved if their author had just checked first to see if it looked good.

Feedback Etiquette

readers: 99 out of 100 authors are going to absolutely love getting comments. you do not have to worry about being annoying or not mattering or not knowing what to say. If you leave a comment on someone's fic, you will probably make their day, and it may even lead to more conversation and/or content.

that said, it is generally considered poor form to offer unsolicited criticism on someone's fic, no matter how well-intentioned or constructive it might be. Remember, fan authors are hobbyists - they're writing for the fun of it, and it can be really disheartening when something you're doing For Fun is met with judgement. Try to remember that fic authors are real people, behind the screen. They created something that you can read, for free.

writers: what that means for you is that if you genuinely want concrit on your work, you will have to explicitly welcome it somewhere in your notes.

HOWEVER: writers - you are also not entitled to comments in any way, shape, or form, and the line between encouraging people to comment and guilting them into doing so is actually not that fine. Comments are not some sort of admission price to your work - that's already covered by someone spending their time to read it. Please remember that the people reading your fics are real people, too. They do not exist solely to provide you with validation.

also, frankly... some of you could probably afford to offer some benefit of the doubt to comments outside the mold of what you consider "good". The person who asked when the next update is probably doesn't think you're an automaton that exists to write tirelessly for them - they probably just like your fic and are excited to see more. The person that said your fic reminds them of show XYZ probably wasn't accusing you of plagiarism - they're probably just making connections, which is like, analysis 101. The ideas of "it doesn't matter what you comment just comment!!!" and "these are the DOs and DON'Ts of commenting!" aren't exactly the most compatible. The only reason I even isolated concrit above is because that's actually explicitly critical - most things people list as "incorrect" ways to comment are, uh, probably pretty benign.

look, the tl;dr on comments is just please remember that you are not the only real person on the internet and that communication is hard, so try your best to be kind and support one another.

On Kudos

I'm pulling this out to its own section actually bc the feedback section was getting very long. Anyway:

Kudos is a measure of popularity, not a measure of quality. There's some poorly written stuff out there that's swimming in kudos and some absolute gems that have next to nothing.

Factors that can play into how many kudos a fic gets: the time posted, how many places the fic was crossposted, pre-establishment of the author, fandom size, crossover familiarity, ship/character/trope popularity. Again, there's no algorithm for this - these factors don't affect a fic's relative popularity because of some behind the scenes code that's playing favorites, it's just dependent on what people are most likely to look for or be willing to check out.

the more niche something is, the less attention it's going to get, and that's something you've kinda got to be prepared to accept.

what all this means is there's not really any value in comparing your stats to other writers. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment the second something disproportionate happens - of course Bonnie BNF's fics are getting more attention than yours; she's been writing the fandom's most popular ship for years already. She has ten times your audience out of the gate.

That said, quality is still a factor. It's not the end-all-be-all deciding criteria for what's going to get a fic attention, but it does matter. And I'm not saying this to be cold or disparaging, but to be realistic. I've seen people fall just as readily into the trap of citing their work's subject's unpopularity as the only reason for their lack of feedback, all while ignoring glaring issues with their pacing, grammar, or characterization, as I've seen people fall into the trap of beating themselves up for not being able to match the pace of a fandom's more established authors. Sometimes the answer to "how do I get more kudos" really is just "write better fic."

Look, at the end of the day, though, neither the attitude of "I am but the helpless victim of fandom preference" nor "omg my work must be such shit" is actually very helpful. There's always room for improvement, and fandom can also be a bit of a crapshoot. Your best bet is to just focus on how you feel about your work rather than on how strangers on the internet do, because that's damn near impossible to predict. Yes, validation and feedback is important, believe me, I'm a writer too, I know, but you've gotta have some intrinsic motivation to be happy as a writer.

So that's about all that I personally wanted to cover - like I said at the start, the AO3 FAQ is pretty good, and this post wasn't really meant to be comprehensive. I'm more than welcome to any site veterans that want to add more tips on things they've seen, especially re: posting and tagging advice.

Otherwise though, the main takeaways here are just be nice to people, be honest about your fic's content, manage your expectations, and please preview before you post - your readers' eyes will thank you.

#ao3 #archive of our own #writing #fanfiction #long post #idk someone's probably made something like this already #but every 'how to use tumblr' post under the sun crossed my dash last month #and I didn't see any posts w/ tips on ao3 #i dunno maybe this is all common knowledge and not helpful #but at least in my circles whenever I share the 'html/rich text' or the 'chapter 1 summary' thing someone says its new info

[steel-bunny-archive]

Warning you now that ghost wrote a post about your callout so it doesnt catch you offguard 😟

thank you for the heads up!! the call out isn't mine but I appreciate you letting me know. I actually saw it on my dash unfortunately so I can give a quick run-down on it:

Ghost never apologized to Grimm for misgendering them - his pronouns have always been available in his Discord bio, and Ghost had directly interacted with him many, many times. however I think the point being missed here is that she misgendered him in the middle of viciously attacking a mutual friend of ours under a false assumption she'd made on her own, thinking the mutual friend had been the one who found her comment about non-con. if this were like, casual convo and then she accidentally used the wrong pronouns for him but apologized and corrected herself, none of us would be airing this out bc it wouldn't have been an issue

I don't think Grimm or I have used the terminology she said she's uncomfortable with in the post, but I have to assume she brought it up because someone called her that. I'll double back and make sure I didn't use that language for her, but Ghost never stated her pronouns or language preferences in her Discord bio or in the servers we shared.

Ghost having "no minors" in her bio but not filtering anything out and not interacting with ageless accounts is not enough in a fandom like this one. when you only mention that your account is NSFW in your tumblr bio, it requires a minor to have seen a post from you first and then go to your profile. there are so many tools tumblr provides for us to keep minors safe. I don't expect an adult account to catch every single minor lying about their age to bypass the safety checks, but that's just it - she doesn't put ANY effort into doing so, and she doesn't employ ANY of those safety measures. she shows a clear pattern of not caring about who sees her fetish art as, like I said before, she posts all her fetish art under a general audience label on FA (username is also ghostbellies).

I don't hate that she's adding a filterable tag to her fetish art, BUT I also don't think it solves anything. just like how minors would have to see her posts and then her account before knowing to block her, minors (and others who don't want to see NSFW) are going to need to know to filter this highly specific tag. I would really just advise adding #NSFW to her posts instead, as well as using community labels and/or flagging her blog as explicit.

finally... her post still doesn't address her attack against our mutual friend OR her stances on non-con, which was a huge portion of the call out. I think Ghost recognizes that a lot of people in this space are not comfortable interacting with someone who's okay with non-con, and the longer she can go without publicly stating her stance, the longer she can continue building a following and making friendships with people who openly state "no proshippers" (or similar language) on their profile.

#outgoing mail #cw: ghost callout

[briankang]

i saw that ask you mentioned me in (you're so right btw!!) and even though i literally just woke up i am now In My Feelings about lee know. the thing that pisses me off about the "meanhoe" nickname and the way that some stays treat him is that, and i've said this in the tags of a lot of 2kr gifsets before, but me and lee know have the exact same personality. call it Scorpio Things or whatever, but when it comes to showing affection to the people we care about, lee know and me are exactly the same. i noticed it the most during the 2kr episode with him and chan, watching it felt so familiar because it was like every close friendship i've ever had - the other person would be acting all cute and clingy and i'd be like 🙄😒 but actually i'd appreciate a lot and in return i'd just like...... take care of them? we're the mum friends, like we're ride or die and we'll look after you and we'll love you forever but we're also going to complain about it the entire time. so when those stays act like lee know is actually genuinely being mean and cold it extra breaks my heart because it's so obvious to me that he's not. me and lee know look cold on the outside but on the inside we're made up entirely of heart emojis, we're like cats that show we love you by sitting quietly in the same room as you. and the fact that stays have even said it to him?? like actually told him on vlive that they think he's mean??? unthinkable, that must be so upsetting for him ☹ obviously the members understand him and love him and know that when he's being sassy or threatening their lives he doesn't actually mean it so like, how can people calling themselves a stay not get that? when it's so obviously the case??? idk man

and oh my god don't even get me started on how some stays see hyunjin (i am begging yt creators stop using the same clips from 3 years ago to show that he's a drama queen) and chan (holy shit i have to turn the chat off when i watch chan's room because i cannot believe what people actually say to him) and felix (i know i call him cute all the time but he's my ult so it extra pisses me off when people just straight up treat him like a literal child, and why is it always from stays who are younger than him??) but this ask is already become a novel and i haven't even had breakfast yet 😅

LKSDJGLKDSGKL i need u to know i mean this in a positive way. thank god someone else is willing to write novels about this shit i feel less alone now KLEWJDSGLKDSJGJLKK BUT NO!!!!!!!!!! LITERALLY EVERYTHING HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok but ur so right about the scorpio thing bc some of my favorite people are scorpios (maybe its bc its also my rising sign) and this is. just how y'all are (affectionate) i love it sm....it's so fun to play off of esp as a libra (christopher and i act the exact same way LEKSDJGLKJLK like. ok astrology is not real but also.........)!!!!!!!!!! wait i had no idea people actually said that to him i feel................lol at people who just say shit like that to those boys there's NO tact and ONCE AGAIN!!!!!! acting like they're not people!!!!!!!!!!! WITH EMOTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!

lksdjglkdsjlk i always turn off chat if i happen to catch chans room but i usually dont watch (not bc of him obviously but) bc he always at some point reads smth so off the wall that makes me wonder who let these people have internet access there is NO filter!!!!! at all!!!!!!! the best moments end up in gifsets anyways i trust u all to filter out to pull out the best LJDSLGKLDSK but omg.....i had already made my last ask too long but felix.........god he gets. some of the weirdest mix sometimes i want to do a study and dissect the brains of some of these people. a lot of people tend to baby him and jeongin (but...not seungmin which is ????????) and i know its bc they have a generally cuter vibe (i usually will be like ah!!!!!! there's my son!!!!! but i'm....5-6 years older than them so its moreso affectionate.......like baby brothers y'know) but......some people will literally act like those boys are not young men in their 20s who are v capable of taking care of themselves AND YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT IN THAT IT DOES COME FROM PEOPLE USUALLY YOUNGER???? i do not understand it. again. i want to study these people under a microscope

but also i hope u have a good morning LKSJGLKSDJLKSD I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#asks #geniaparadox #fandom culture and perception is one of my fav things to talk about i love Observing idk if u guys have noticed

[kuiinncedes]

,,,

#me being annoying and maybe something i shouldn't post lol so we'll see #but it's all just me like if u think this applies to u technically it does but idc keep doing you yk #it's just like when people ship something romantically that i only ship platonically and they post a lot about it #so i filter the tag bc i don't want to see it and i'm not gonna say like lmao stop posting aboutthem #bc tbh someone's probably thought that about me and quinntina idk #but also i don't want to filter the tag bc i like the friendship :'') so i miss regular gifsets and stuff but idk #i just don't want to see the romantic stuff but i'd love to see the platonic stuff :( #anyway all that to say nothing lol i'm just gonna filter another one tonight XD #it's really just Me not being open to other ships lmao 🤪 no one has to stop y'all do your thingggg #i can't tell if this sounds mean lskdhgljf but it's nottt i'm not trying to be mean i'm just lamenting my own limitations #lmao idek what that means #don't take this too seriously 🤪 idk as if anyone's going to??? idk i'm a mess lmao bye #jeanne talks #in other news i was walking in my yard and got a sudden idea for a scene for the j atp au #and then i had to come back inside and then the fucking house phone rang #and i couldn't understand the person very well bc it was chinese and also very bad quality #so i had to gve the phone to my mom and then wait and hold the phone while she went and got my dad who was also outside XD #and then i think i forgot most of my idea #like the Main idea is there but it was pretty general #it was just one of those times when like WORDS popped into my head #so it would've been great if i could've written them down immediately lol #i got someof it :P idk kadhjfgfs anyway

[northern-passage]

I don't want to rehash old news, but I need to say this and others need to hear it. I am so tired of people demanding IFs to be more of the same! This and that choices, this and that characters. It is INTERACTIVE FICTION. nowhere does it say that every game is a self-insert (which is an issue on its own). if you're playing a predetermined person who you can guide... It is STILL interactive fiction!! Driving me crazy. and to end it nicely; One of the best IFs ever! Love love love

yeahhh no i totally agree. no shade towards cog here but they have a very basic formula pretty much every one of their very popular games follow and bc cog sort of has this...iron grip on the IF genre due to being so mainstream, like on the app store and on steam, people think this is like.... the end all be all of interactive fiction and people compare Everything to the same three games over and over again.

and it’s not the end all be all at ALL there is SO much more interactive fiction out there. i actually got into IF on itch.io, and in the beginning i only read visual novels because i’m a child and love looking at pretty pictures. i do think the fact that i found IF this way and not through cog has been what’s influenced my style and the way i approach IF. i didn’t start reading cog until last summer, and honestly i prefer most of the wips i’ve read over actual published content. that’s what pushed me to write my own. and it sucks that cog won’t share choicescript bc it’s SUCH a good starting coding language, it’s so accessible and easy to learn. 

and i’ve said before i’m just not interested in writing a flat, blank slate character. that’s SO boring for me as a writer and i also don’t like it as a reader.

i think seeing how your decisions change a character is so much more interesting than just having a generic, over-powered, essentially faceless character. now, i DO know why people enjoy that - we all love a good self-insert from time to time - but i really wish readers would break out of this mold cog has made.

itch.io can be a little overwhelming at first, but honestly it has a really nice tag and filter system (which is critical bc itch.io DOES have a lot of nsfw, though i’ve never had any issue w the safe filter on) to find stuff you like. also, if there’s an author you follow who has work on itch.io chances are they have favorites themselves listed on their profile, or will give out recs if you ask. in fact, i’ll list some of my recs right now:

we know the devil - one of the first VNs i bought and read. if you enjoy this one, def check out pillowfight’s other work

lookouts - one of my favorite short pieces.

lake of voices - a lot of people are familiar with Our Life, by GBpatch, but i absolutely love lake of voices. voiced characters, a little bit of angsty romance, death, and horror...mwah

love is strange - a CLASSIC. i played this before i even played life is strange. so imo you don’t even need to be that familiar with the original game it’s based on.

ebon light - i watched this game come to life while i followed the author’s process and saw how much love and time was put into it and i just can’t not recommend it. a dark fantasy game w romance and politics

a mortician’s tale - very different. a game about death. i’m a big fan of the order of the good death, and i actually got this game for free at some point, but it made me feel. emotions.

contrition - this one is so good. put on head phones, turn out the lights. great use of sound and music and just really good atmosphere.

cowgirl boots - love love love this one. more of a narrative than IF but it’s short and you should read it anyways. makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

is it that deep, bro? - another one that stuck with me for a while.

what girls do in the dark - this one takes me back to the old school text adventure games, but with a twist. found this one through john wolfe’s HQ residential house game jam and really enjoyed it.

the shadows that run alongside our car - another short conversational story. stuck with me for a while after i played it.

a tale of crowns - a chapter by chapter tale where you are the long awaited crown. really enjoy this one, very refreshing to read fantasy written like this. love the setting and the characters

crosshollow - multiple games, sort of like an anthology, all sharing the same setting. surreal and emotional

heartforge - some of you may already be familiar with heartforge, having started in choicescript then moved to twine. multiple games, all very different, all very good

the eight years revolution - full transparency, i’m friends with this author and we talk frequently. set over a span of eight years, you are starting out as a sheltered and naive royal, a young monarch running from a rebellion...

wayfarer - a fantasy game where you play as a wayfarer, with lots of customization options and a very interesting story

love & friendship - another author i am friends with and talk with often. love the humor in this game and the take on the regency genre.

scout - one of my all time favorites. set in an apocalyptic future, you are a scout from a small community, frequently running missions for supplies and information..

there’s this girl - whew. a short one, but emotional. this creator has quite a few works on itch.io, though some of them tend to lean towards the heavy, emotional side. recommend though if that’s something you’re looking for.

emily is away - again, one of the first IF games i played. it’s been years but it’s one that stuck with me. i think it’s worth mentioning simply to show what IF games can be like

birdland - genuinely think this is the first IF game i ever played. i have a soft spot for it because of that, as well as the story itself, which meant a lot to me when i first read it.

whew! i am certain i am forgetting some games and will curse myself later, but this is getting to be a bit long. i really encourage yall to just click around on itch.io in the interactive fiction/visual novel tag and see if you can find something you like. there is SO much out there...

#i read a lot of games yall LOL #other games #ask #anonymous

[5ummit]

With the tagging thing, I think it’s less “don’t tag this as ship bc that’s not how I intended it” and more “don’t tag this as ship bc if you do it will be walled off from everyone who has that ship tag blocked and will hurt my target audience exposure and likely make them think I’M the one who tagged it as such”, which is also ultimately tumblr’s fault for not making the blacklisted tags op’s tags only. It’s yet another thing that makes accurately curating one’s own experience harder.

I don't know how common the "don't tag as [ship] because I don't want to hurt my potential exposure" reasoning is, I suppose there are people out there who feel that way and I can kinda understand it (though I certainly don’t think making OPs tags the only blacklisted tags is the solution as that causes its own set of problems). But I've definitely seen multiple instances of people demanding that their post not be tagged with a ship specifically because they don't ship it or didn't intend for it to be perceived that way. This is especially prevalent with "problematic" ships like thorki.

Many people hate the idea of Thor and Loki having anything other than a purely brotherly relationship, and I get that. I do. The problem is, if you post some art you drew of the two of them cuddling or something and I choose to interpret that as non-brotherly, you don't get to tell me I can't just because it wasn't your intention. I'm sorry, but once you put something out in the world, you no longer have control over it, and you don't get to tell people how they’re allowed to feel about it or interpret it. That's, like, the first rule of being a creator. That’s how art works. If something being interpreted in a way you didn't intend bothers you so much, the only solution is either not posting it at all or only posting it in a closed environment with a select few people who you know share (or at least respect) your opinions. Tumblr is not that place.

Also, OP has no idea how other people's tagging systems work. For example, I generally tag all posts involving two characters interacting with their ship name, regardless of whether it could be interpreted as friendship or romance. Sure, this may result in some people who have that ship blacklisted not seeing it, but it keeps me from having to constantly make judgements about if the post is meant to be romantic or not (which works out well because most of the time I don't care to make a distinction between friendship and romance anyway) and it lets me keep all of the posts about that particular character interaction collected together in one place. But my specific reasoning is not the point.

The tags have always been and always will be for organizing your blog however you want and being as unhinged as you want since, unlike reblog comments, their transience means they don’t have any lasting effect on OP’s intentions. Just because tumblr now broadcasts the tags in the notes doesn’t really change that. As far as I’m concerned anyone who’s that bothered by other people’s tags can simply turn that feature off (just go to the activity filter and uncheck either “show tags added in reblogs” or “reblogs with comment”) and they’ll never have to see me tag their cutesy brotherly Thor and Loki art as thorki ever again.

Edit: Just to be clear, I definitely still believe in basic tagging and reblog etiquette. You do NOT have the right to be rude and insult the OP or their work in your tags or reblog comments. I’m specifically talking about the right to use tags however you want for blog organization and other innocuous commentary.

#do I get people saying some weird shit in the tags of my posts? sure #and that's their RIGHT #tumblr #asked #my words

[evilvarric666-archive]

This is gonna be long, so sorry in advance, but as someone who enjoys long fics here are my two cents:

I get why some ppl may not want 75 tags in fics, but this is gonna hurt long fic writers. On a long fic there are probably gonna be more relationships that are central to the plot that aren't the main ship. And side pairings that may be a squick to some ppl. Not to mention trigger warnings and tone tags.

For example: a long fic with the pairing Y x Z. Z had an abusive relationship, and that's gonna be explored. So the author tags abusive relationship, bc that's a trigger, but an explanation next tag saying "not current ship" or smth.

Then Y has very important friendships with some of the cast. These are central to the plot so they're tagged too.

Turns out, character W is controversial in the fandom, but they're central to the fic too. The author is gonna tag after the character tag W positive/negative; so ppl who don't wanna see positive/negative things about W can skip this.

And guess what? Ship A x B appears in this fic too. Maybe it's not that central, but this ship is also disliked by some people, so the author will tag it, so ppl can filter through.

Another problem is with media that has different mediums, like, the media Y, Z, etc are from has movies, and books, and games and a tv show. All these things actually have different stories, different enough at least that ppl may only want to see fics written for the movies! But the author wants to take plot from the movies and the books. So instead of just tagging the all media tag for that media, they also tag media (movies) and media (books)

These tags end up accumulating. And especially in long fics. The author could make the first chapter a list of tws and stuff that they keep updating, but that destroys the purpose of ao3 tags: you can't filter content like that, you can only filter tags.

I honestly think they should just find a way to delete the fics with the trolling tags, or make a readmore thing so it doesn't hurt the browsing. At the very least make the tag limit longer.

sorry in advance that this is going to be rambly and weird. I have a lot of thoughts.

I get where you're coming from but I also still disagree. Like it's definitely going to change the way longfic writers tag, but I really don't think it's going to hurt them. I think it's going to encourage more effective tagging and that that's going to be better for everybody in the long run. If anything, I think that overtagging is what's hurting longfic writers, it makes their works look unappealing, and actually important information gets buried in a wall of text.

i will admit though that I do understand better now why less room for trigger tagging is going to be an issue. My preferred tagging style is "General/umbrella warnings in the tags, with whatever elaboration/specifics the author deems necessary in an author's note/author's notes at the beginning of each chapter" (example: "animal death" in the tags, so that the filters catch it + people who can't handle the subject At All know to keep scrolling, and then the author's note specifying that its in the context of game hunting & not a pet death, so that people who were uncertain and needed more info could click in and get the specifics.) and I thought that preference was pretty universal? But apparently a lot of people use the tags as an exhaustive list of warnings, which I didn't know because when I see a work with more than, well with more than 75 tags, I just start scrolling until it's gone.

(this is a tangent and I get that my experiences are not universal. but I genuinely dislike full warning lists in the tags because, for me at least, it makes it harder for me to figure out if the story is something I can/want to read. The things I Really Do Not Want To Read about are rare, and rarely tagged the same way twice, so the exclusion filter isn't really helpful for me. I have to actually read the full list of warnings and if the things I'm looking for are sandwiched inbetween a bunch of trope/character tags in a big wall o text I am going to miss it. This has happened to me multiple times.)

I think that that's an ineffective tagging style, basically. Lots of tags is kind of the opposite of useful tags, imo. Short, to the point and consistently worded warnings are better and I think having less space will encourage people to do that. I understand why people do this other style, though, and also why it would frustrate them that they can no longer do that. I think it really sucks that ao3 let everyone wild west their website for so long that it managed to spawn like three distinct groups of people who all use the website in completely incompatible ways, and now it's at the point where any new rule implemented is going to screw a lot of people over no matter what. But I digress.

Anyways, as long as someone isn't putting Revolutionary Girl Utena levels of warnings in their tags (and if your fic needs that much... maybe you should just put yur top 10 biggest warnings on there and slap a Dead Dove Do Not Eat on the end there, yknow?), I think that 75 tags will fully accommodate them. I get that tags start adding up, but also I think a lot of people are underestimating how many tags 75 tags is.

Like to just add up how many tags are used in your example: three / pairing tags, lets go crazy and say three more & pairing tags, tag every character tag in those pairings that's twelve, #abusive relationship + #not main pairing tags, three fandom tags bc multiple source mediums, a #[controversial character] positive tag... that's 24 tags. Like all the necessary character & pairing tags are handled in less than a third of the space given (and personally I consider this slightly over tagged. I think the only character tags you should put on a fic are the very mainest/pov characters, but yknow) and honestly if you can't then figure out a way to communicate the rest of the necessary information about your fic in 51 tags and a 1250 character summary then I really don't know how to help you. I personally would have to really push myself to figure out how to put more than 75 tags on one fic, regardless of the length of the fic. And I can't help but notice that a lot of the fics I could find with over 75 tags while searching last night had a lot of... unnecessary duplicate tags, often for information that could've been easily otherwise intuited (tagging #mandolorian #mandolore #mandolorian character and #mandolorian culture on a Jango Fett pre-series fic, for example)

I do have some criticisms about the current change though. I think it would've been better to have individual tag number limits for each individual field (x number of fandom tags, x number of character tags, etc.) instead of a 75 tags over all limit (or make a "warning tags" field that's separate from "additional tags" but that's a separate essay and would... probably mean overhauling the whole site. so not very practical.) A readmore option would be good too, and I'm not sure why they didn't go for that? I also think that this change will be most effective if done in combination with other changes. Like posting very loosely or not at all enforced official tagging/style guides for the site. I really think that even a tepid attempt at standardization will increase the site's usability like, A Lot.

I'm not sure how cohesive that was. TL;DR I appreciate hearing your thoughts, mine are that I still think this is a step in the right direction. And that cutting back on overtagging will lead to more concise, effective tagging which will make browsing and filtering easier in the long run.

#ao3 tag

[stardust-make-a-wish]

how's organizing all the boooooooookmaaaaaaarks? c: c: c: how does your system work? ~hua, who is unsure of whether you know her main blog or not and doesn't want to be weird if you don't by being off anon

it’s slow going!!!! :’)) i started by just going through all of them, but it was getting real confusing to remember what I was tagging for certain things, so I decided to go by fandom— I p much just organized by which types of fics I’d be more likely to read often (ya ik this isnt gonna fix my entire problem but I can only come up with so many tags before getting tired of it/distracted shshdhdjvj)

ex. for izuocha I sorted by established relationship/ whether their friendship was focused on bc I Would Die for those two things in an izch fic, & for more gen bnha fics, I used stuff like “bnha but they’re a lil older” or “bnha but pro hero edition” so I could find the class 3a fics/ones where they’re pro heroes etc. I also tagged the diff squads & ones where it’s just class shenanigans bc I adore those

Overall I kinda tagged for things to include rather than exclude in filters ig?? Like when I search for fics I typically go into the relationship tag so then I could just include the tag I wanted??

anyway somethings I tagged for were the 5+ 1 thing fics bc I lov, I did some “plot but make it romance” for those romance centered long fics..!! & smth I like to call “evolution of [redacted]” (when it’s like snippets/over a long period of time/a certain thing over time etc)! also “oof ouch my heart” bc yknow. angst ;w; unfortunate downside to this,, is that I need to actually remember what happened in most fics p clearly LOL (reread all 570-something?? no thank youuuuu ((although now I hv to reread so many just bc I remembered how good they were agdhdh)))

idk why I have so many modern AUs bookmarked??? agshdjjv that one is prob to filter out bc while I do enjoy them, I rlly don’t reread them enough to warrant that many 😔 oh also I went through a couple fandoms & found my favs (limited to like 2-3 per each :c) and tagged those bc I honestly reread them more than I’d like to admit NFHDHDHB,,, and I tagged my fav longfics for easy access 👉👉 (and Those long one shots. yknow the Ones)

in all honesty I’m not super satisfied w what I have so far, but!!!!! It’s only been one day and I have two (2) weeks to spend however long I want tweaking it! either way it’s much much much easier finding stuff lol ty

#stardust.ask #fanfiction #OK IM PRETTU SURE YOUR MAIN IS @RUBBERBANDBALLQUEEN BUT NOW IM NOT SURE SHSHSGFH PLS CORRECT ME IF IM WRONG GHS #thT would be mortifying agdhdhdhcjv #long post #(sorry) (but also not) #currently ive only partly finished bnha & most of kny maybe?????? hyouka sect is good 2 go i think #honestly ao3 hyouka fandom is the real mvp every fic ive bookmarked is solid #its 1am!!!!! but i finished rereading my favorite krbk fic of allll time (worth a thousand words by awareoftheconcept) #(its got minor supporting izch & literally my fav lil class jokes/interactions) (i also tagged for izch/krbk solidarity bc i lov btw lol) #anyway i finishef reading it n came here to finf the authors tumblr but then i saw this ask #what can i say i love talking about myself 👉👉 #mmmMM SLEEP TIME FR AHHHAHHAHDHDH