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type1diabetesinfandom · 2 years

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How to Find Fanfics with Type 1 Diabetes in Fandom

A Comprehensive Guide to Navigating the AO3 Collection

Hello again, friends and folks!

I've realized some of the blog’s followers haven’t visited the collection of fanfics with t1d rep over on the Archive of Our Own (currently with 250+ fics across 100+ fandoms. seriously go check it out). It has also been brought to my attention that quite a few people are confused about either how to use the Archive or how to filter and search within a collection. I’m thinking the two are probably connected, so consider this my first attempt at a guide on how to easily do things.

Basically, imagine a little diabetic gremlin hovering over your shoulder and offering advice as you browse the collection. That gremlin is me. You’re welcome.

The primary goal of the collection (and this blog) is to provide easier access to fanworks featuring type 1 diabetes. That means:

NO incorrectly-tagged fluff fics butting in on #actuallydiabetic works

NO t2d fics (they have their own collection)

Diabetic characters that are written as diabetic and not simply tagged as such

Comprehensive tagging

Any fiction-based fandom, any trope, any rating

Every. Single. Fic must feature t1d in some way

You just have to know how to use the tools available to you.

Other people have created several helpful guides on how to use ao3 in a more generalized way, so I’m going to provide links for those and then we’ll get into the nitty gritty of AO3 collections and my personal organizational system.

How to Use AO3--Handy Links

AO3 quick tips and tricks

A Comprehensive Guide to Archive of Our Own Filters

AO3 bookmark search

A quick tip for subscriptions

And the veeery comprehensive FAQs on AO3, which are not difficult to read as they might first appear! Not sure where to start? Try the Search & Browse section.

You can check out @ao3org for updates

Once you feel comfortable using ao3 and want to get fancy with the css, check out @ao3skin

@ao3commentoftheday is less on the technical and more on the user culture, but definitely a good one to follow if you want to get involved with fanfic. Their How to AO3 series is a goldmine tho

Now, disclaimer time! I do not see how many hits the collection gets. This is a hobby project I do on my own time because it’s something I wanted to have available for myself, and I hope other people also find use for it. The collection is something used to promote fics that have the content we want, not the collection itself.

Ok on to the fun part!

WELCOME TO THE TYPE 1 DIABETES IN FANDOM AO3 COLLECTION!

Click on that link. You should see this:

See that? Ok, good. This is the collection’s dashboard. This is where you can find all the different parts to it. If you get lost, click the highlighted link on the left that says ‘dashboard.’ It will take you back to this page.

*Everything is basically the same on mobile, except the menu on the left should be at the top of the page.

Dashboard

The dashboard is set to show you 5 random works and 5 random bookmarks every time you refresh the page. Sometimes I like to refresh for fun, just to see what it gives me this time. Also a good place to start if you’re not sure how to filter.

Note: if you do not have an ao3 account, you will not be able to see fics that are available to registered users only. If you forget to log in and wonder why there are suddenly less fics, this is why. It’s a very slight discrepancy, something like 5 fics, so those without an account don’t have to worry.

The menu on the left side of the page is fairly straightforward.

Profile, FAQ, & Subcollections

“Profile” contains the intro, which is also visible on the top of the dashboard there explaining what the collection is, and also has the FAQ page, which coincidentally is the next item on the menu.

The FAQ is a little messy, but it’s a good place to start. Get a feel for it. See the tags I use. Find out why I started this project (take a good guess. I’ll wait). I also have a brief list of books with canonically diabetic characters, forever incomplete because I forget it exists.

Don’t worry about “Subcollections.” I don’t have any yet. Hence the (0).

Now, we get to the good stuff!

Fandoms

“Fandoms” takes you to a list of every fandom tagged by fics located in the Works section. This does NOT count fics located in the Bookmarks section.

Be forewarned parent tags are at play here. Meaning, this page shows that only 13 fics are tagged with the MCU fandom, but if you click the link provided, way more fics show. Why does this happen? Because a fic tagged specifically with The Avengers (Marvel Movies) is still contained within the larger MCU parent tag and thus will be included when you select the parent tag.

It makes the numbers look screwy. Don’t stress about it.

Basically, if you want Iron Man fics and ONLY Iron Man fics, click that link and you’ll get everything tagged with Iron Man. If you like the Marvel Cinematic Universe but don’t particularly care if you get Cap or Thor? Select the MCU tag and you can see everything within it. Etc.

Works

“Works” is set up just like any other Works page on AO3. 20 per page, number of fics on the top, filters on the right, fics in the middle.

The filters on the right also work just as they do elsewhere on AO3. You can choose what to include, what to exclude. Ratings, Warnings, Categories. Fandoms, Characters, Relationships, and Additional Tags will show you the top 10 under each, and you filter as desired. Crossovers, Completion Status, Wordcount, and Date Updated options are available at the bottom.

NOTE: Fics in the “Works” page are tagged ONLY by the author. The tagging system described in the FAQ and later here applies ONLY to bookmarks.

If you’re new to AO3 in general, this is where you can play around. Filter to include F/F fics. Exclude Supernatural. Include fics with Established Relationships. Exclude Major Character Death. One filter at a time or all at once! Figure out how it works and then use it how you want.

Bookmarked Items

I do NOT keep duplicate fics. If a fic is located in the works, it will NOT be found in the bookmarks, and vice versa. Any duplicates are accidental and I try hard to remove them immediately.

For readers, there’s not really much difference b/w Works and Bookmarks here, except for the fact I can add my own tags and descriptors to bookmarks and I can’t do that for works. For writer’s, it’s a permission thing. I won’t get into it on this post.

The first thing to notice is the little dropdown I’ve selected on the right of the above picture, within the filters. Date Bookmarked is selected, and underneath is the option Date Updated. Either is fine. The first is when I saved it to the collection, the latter is when the fic was published/updated by the author.

The option to filter by the Author’s tags are still present here, just like the “Works” page. Include, exclude, warnings, fandoms, etc.

There’s also this cool little drop-down beaneath Additional Tags called Bookmarker’s Tags. See it over there on the right?

(If you ever hear me rambling about my precious tagging system, this is what I’m talking about. FYI: you can add tags and notes to your AO3 bookmarks!!!)

The filters on the right show the top 10 tags, just like they do for the Fandom and Character areas. Exclude some, and the next top 10 will appear. Just from the ones in this picture, you probably get the idea I like to tag a lot of things :P. Let’s get wild here and break it all down so you know the options. (Also a good time to refer to the FAQ page.)

Bookmarker’s Tags:

Diabetic Character means a POV character has diabetes. Am considering changing it to Diabetic POV Character, but that’ll take a bit so I’ll let you know.

POV Character Does NOT Have Diabetes. Self-explanatory. Frequently goes with: Secondary Character is Diabetic, which means the POV character is...not diabetic.

Canon Diabetic Character means the character has t1d in the original material. Ex: Stacey McGill from the Baby-Sitters Club and Kyle Broflovski from South Park. Does NOT mean they are the POV character.

Type 1 Diabetes means t1d is specified in EITHER the fic itself OR the author’s notes while Unspecified Diabetes Mellitus is, you guessed it, not specified, but can be interpreted as t1d. If you don’t want to risk it, exclude the Unspecified tag and include Type 1 Diabetes.

NOTE: there is, so far, 1 fic each for Monogenic Diabetes, Cystic Fibrosis-Related Diabetes, and Unnamed LADA. These are still considered T1D by modern medical professionals, but are technically sub-types and can have different experiences. (I’m hoping to get a new LADA tag when someone actually names it in a story, but we’ll see. LMK if you see it.)

Diabetic ___ is used to specify which character is diabetic. Diabetic Original Character or Diabetic Peter Parker. etc. Fill-in at your own risk with these because there’s usually not enough fics per character to get into the top 10 tags.

Series just means it is a series that is bookmarked, and not an individual fic.

External Source means the fic is located off AO3, usually FFN but sometimes Quotev or possibly Wattpad. I can’t remember. Your choice to include or exclude, but don’t be surprised if you click through a link and it takes you elsewhere. NOTE: AO3 will warn you underneath the fic’s title if it’s located externally, but you can’t filter with that warning. You can filter with my tags.

The Wordcount tags are self-explanatory.

T1D-specific tags I use/created for filtering are:

Insulin Pump

Multiple Daily (Insulin) Injections

Continuous Glucose Monitor

Diabetes Alert Dog

T1 Diabetes Diagnosis

Glucagon

Diabetic Ketoacidosis

Diabulimia

Diabetes Camp

Diabetic Burnout

Artificial Pancreas

Be forewarned that the Diabetes Alert Dog tag has some, uh, creative interpretations when super-powered noses are involved.

So now that we know what is usually tagged, let’s try filtering with them! Let’s say we want a Diabetic Character with Type 1 Diabetes who uses an Insulin Pump. We’ll include those 3 tags on the filter on the right, and exclude External Source, because we want to stay on AO3 right now.

You can’t see it on the page, but that brought us right down to 9 fics (I’m logged out.) Much easier to read through in one sitting than 180 fics!

Now, maybe we’re not done. Maybe you want to go to the Fandoms drop-down and filter there. Exclude the ones you’re not familiar with, and so on. Include the Fluff fics under the Additional Tags drop-down. Your choice.

Or...you can check out the other Bookmarker’s Tags that have suddenly found themselves in the top 10 tags of this new filter.

Selecting Canon Diabetic Character, for me today, brought me one Stacey McGill fic and one Kyle Broflovski fic. If I don’t like either of those characters, easy peasy, I’ll remove CDC from the include and put it under exclude.

Or what if I don’t care if the diabetes if specified so long as it’s there, or if I don’t care if the fic is on AO3 or elsewhere, but I really, really want a fic where the character has both an insulin pump and a CGM?

Clear your other filters, make sure Insulin Pump and Continuous Glucose Monitor are both included, and ta-da.

Or maybe I’ve already scoured the Insulin Pump tag, and I want to see what else there is now, but I don’t want the fics I’ve already seen to get in my way. What then?

Exclude Insulin Pump from your search. Abracadabra.

Another thing you might notice while browsing is an extra little box at the bottom of each bookmark:

See where it says “Bookmarked by ___” ?

Everything below that is added by the person who made the bookmark. Everything ABOVE it was entered by the author. Don’t be confused.

This will allow you to see, although not filter, every tag on the work. For this particular bookmark, we can see I used: Diabetic Character, Diabetic Obi-Wan Kenobi, Insulin Pump, and Unspecified Diabetes Mellitus. I didn’t put the wordcount in for some reason. Possibly because the fic is a WIP and being actively updated. We won’t worry about that.

We can decipher from the tags here that Obi-Wan Kenobi is a POV character with diabetes. Although the type has not yet been specified in the fic, we can also see that he has an insulin pump and a CGM.

(I also know this author has written several fics featuring diabetes, and always writes about type 1. That’s something you'll get a feel for as you read more fics.)

The bookmarker can also enter a comment here, usually drawing attention to a specific thing (or marking which chapter I last stopped reading at, which you don’t have to worry about :P). For this fic, I chose to put a brief excerpt from the fic itself. I do that because my memory is unpredictable. You can ignore these.

Disclaimer: the bookmarker’s tags are meant to be used WITH the author’s tags, NOT in place of. I do not tag genre, other characters, fandoms, etc. except in very rare occurrences.

Randoms Items & People

Moving back to that little menu on the left of the Dashboard, “Random Items” doesn’t really do anything since the Dashboard is already set to randomize Works and Bookmarks. Sorry. :)

The “People” section shows collection members. I’ll make another post about members eventually, but basically, members can add their own works and their own bookmarks without moderator approval. Anybody else needs to submit the fic/bookmark and wait for me to check. (Which you can totally do.)

Tbh the “People” tab really doesn’t hold that much for readers, with the chance possibility of introducing you to other people who are interested in the topic. It’s really just another permissions thing.

And, finally, we come to the last tab on the menu...