#how to ao3

[themirokai]

When you’re 400 pages into a 700 page book and you are going absolutely feral over it so you take a little tiny peek at ao3 to make sure there will be fan fiction waiting for you because you want to inject these characters into your veins…

And the name listed for one of the characters in the ao3 tags is a massive spoiler. 🤦🏻‍♀️

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

people who write their fics directly onto archive of our own site do not fear death by the way

in all seriousness, please always keep backups of your works, write them somewhere else (google doc is a good choice) then copy and paste onto ao3 when you're done, because ao3 itself does not automatically save your works for you, meaning you can lose all of your progress

[jamiemoonymarks]

Normalize leaving unhinged comments on ao3 fics you like. I'm tired of being the only one brave enough to write "I am chewing on this fic" in the comment section. Be weird. Authors will love you for it

[ao3commentoftheday]

Glowy dark mode site skin

🎼 You would not believe your eyes, if 10 million fireflies ended up in the header of your AO3. 🎶

It's been a while since I tried glow effects, but I saw the fireflies and I couldn't resist.

CSS code under the cut.

The code is on github now. Much easier to copy from there.

[not-freyja]

Linked Universe now has its own canonized fandom tag!

This is absolutely amazing, because it makes it easier for us to find each other’s work, and easier for non-LU people to filter by exclude. But there is a small hiccup, a baby little problem. Allow me to explain.

Previously, the advice was given that since there was no canon fandom tag, that works should *also* be tagged with Linked Universe as an additional tag. This tag has over 8k works in it! Damn!

But… the new canonical fandom tag only has 4k works in it. Why? Because about half of the fandom was not using the fandom tag, only the additional tag.

I knew this day was coming, so I tagged LU as the fandom, which paid off! All my fics are now neatly sorted. But if you didn’t preemptively tag a non-canonized fandom… your fics are now a bit lost and unsorted.

This is your notice to go open those works up and fix the tags!

Okay everyone this has been your tag wrangler PSA and GO US!

[snowywinterevenings]

Ao3 Bookmarks

Just a friendly reminder that unless you make your bookmarks private, the fic author can see how you tag their fic and any notes you make about it in the bookmark. So if you say the fic is confusing and the author clearly missed some scenes or you tag it as “passable” the author is going to see it. At best they laugh at it or block you, because they’re writing fic for free and for fun, and you’re being unkind or critical. At worst you’re going to say something that makes someone stop creating or doing something that brings them joy.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, the back button is right there. Or at least make your bookmarks private if you’re going to be rude.

[aconfusedkitten]

do people on ao3 really not know that their bookmarks aren't private, because??

this was a ten thousand word fic, with two pieces of art embedded at the time this was bookmarked. fuck, one of the pieces is still there even if the other one got messed up by a change in how ao3 does image attachments, but that's not the point.

fic writers absolutely do not create things because they want to see bookmarks and comments like this. ignoring the fact that it makes me want to apologize for the length of a three or four year old one-shot, it's dismissive of the time me and my artist put into it.

it was my first fic collaborating with anyone, and at the time, it may have only been my second or third fic to reach 10k words. if i had seen this then, it might have actually crushed me. now, it just pisses me off.

please, dear readers, do not do this.

people are not machines that crank out content for you to enjoy. we aren't endless streams of motivation and ideas and time, so please.

don't treat people like this, especially in places where they can see it.

[caramelcoffeeaddict]

why do I keep getting surprised when I learn that people don't know about the "Share" button on the top of AO3 fics that will create a tumblr post (or a tweet) with all of the relevant information about the fic (ship, characters, rating, tags, word count, summary, etc) and add a link all neatly formatted for you?*

*the Share button is at the top of every fic unless the author has selected the "Hide the share buttons on my work." option enabled in their privacy setting, so you can use to promote your own writing, or even recommend a fic to your followers.

I mean, look how easy this is:

step 1: find a story you want to share and click the "Share" button at the top:

clicking that button will create a pop-up that looks like this:

step 2: you can ignore the html in the text box; you don't need it for this. instead, click the "Tumblr" button, and (if you are logged in to your tumblr account) it will create a tumblr post that looks like this: (*this auto-generated post will automatically use tumblr's default color palette for the preview regardless of what you have your preferences set to*)

step 3: if you like the way the post looks, just click "Post". (*if you have more than one blog, make sure to double check that you are posting to the correct blog before you post it!*) or if you want, you can add an author's note to the post, maybe add a photo or a teaser of the story, or make other edits to it before clicking the "Post" button. the choice is yours.

it's so simple, and only takes a few seconds to do. it's literally just three button clicks: "Share" -> "Tumblr" -> "Post". you don't have to worry about forgetting to add important info about a story in your tumblr post; or rack your brain trying to figure out which information you should include; or even figure out how to format the post to make it look neat and easy to read.

one thing to note: if you (or the author you are recommending) have your fics locked for AO3 users only, the link at the top of the tumblr post will look like this instead:

other than that, the rest of the post will look the same as above with all of the relevant story information, minus the fic title and author name which are normally displayed in the link preview. you can manually add that missing information to the post yourself before sharing, so your followers will know what story they are clicking on.

[facingthenorthwind]

Why does this have "- Freeform" at the end? and other questions about AO3 tag suffixes

Have you ever tagged something only for it to get a suffix like Character, Relationship or Freeform stuck on the end when you hit save? Do you think it's ugly and want it to go away, but don't know how? You probably can't, unfortunately, but there are a few situations where you can.

A tag suffix is a hyphen followed by the name of a tag category. Tags are either Fandom, Character, Relationship or Freeform tags. The reason that a suffix gets put on a tag is that the wrangulator (the part of AO3's backend that deals with tags) can't have tags with the same name, even if they're in different categories. As a solution, it puts the category at the end of tags that have first been tagged in some other category. For example: let's say that someone tags Evil Mark Donk in the characters field because that's where they want it to appear on their work (which is a perfectly valid choice to make!). Then someone else comes along and tries to tag Evil Mark Donk in the additional tags/freeforms field. (That field is shown as "additional tags" on the posting form, but the wrangulator and tag wranglers call it the "freeforms" because that's what it was originally called.) When the second person hits save, it will appear as Evil Mark Donk - Freeform on their fic. This will also happen if someone tags Evil Mark Donk in the relationships field, but there it would appear as Evil Mark Donk - Relationship. It's ugly and it's annoying, but the wrangulator is trying its best.

So how do you get rid of it? Sometimes it turns up because you've accidentally put your tags in the wrong field. Maybe you wrote a fic where you tagged Evil Mark Donk in the additional tags field, and no one else had tagged for it before you, which means it doesn't have a suffix and everything's right! But then you write a second fic, forgot to select the "additional tags" field when posting and now suddenly you've got Evil Mark Donk - Character on your fic. If that's the case, all you have to do is move it. But what if the first person to tag it wasn't you, and they put it in the character field, so you're stuck with Evil Mark Donk - Freeform? You can choose a different phrasing for the tag that wasn't initially tagged in a different field, e.g. Evil!Mark Donk or Mark Donk is Evil.

You may also have the problem that on the first use of a particular tag, you accidentally put it in a field you don't want it to be in, and now even when you put it in the right one, it still comes up as Evil Mark Donk - Freeform! The wrangulator has betrayed you, and you will be stuck with the ugly suffix forever! Not so, my friend. The problem is that even though you deleted the character tag Evil Mark Donk, it's still floating around in the wrangulator, which hasn't noticed that you deleted it. What you have to do is wait for 24 hours (give it a few for leeway) and a part of the wrangulator called "the rake" will delete it. After it's been raked, you can go forth and post it in the additional tags field, and no suffix will appear!

Unfortunately, most of the time it's going to be that someone else tagged it in a category you don't want to tag it first, and you can't change it without changing the phrasing of your tag. Sorry!

Sometimes, taggers will add their own suffixes, and tag wranglers are extremely curious about why. If you've done this, or something similar like put (freeform) in brackets after a tag, please let us know why! What does freeform mean to you? You are of course free to put suffixes on manually if you want -- it's a valid way to tag! We are just fascinated by this practice and don't really understand it. Please enlighten us!

For more information about tags, I've written some other explanations about how tags work, such as how to tell what type of tag something is and tag capitalisation.

[sak-ao3-tips]

How To Creat A Site Skin (super basic)

Site skins can be tricky and intimidating to tackle, but it is also super fun to personalise your AO3s look. Here's what mine looks like v.s the basic look:

Much nicer isn't it? (maybe it's not to your tastes, but that's ok I'm gonna show you how to make it exactly what you want to see)

This is where you go to start:

You will be brought here, and the first thing you need to do is give your site skin a unique name (a keyboard smash works fine if you can't think of anything right away), you can also give your skin a description if you want. This is my testing skin. Next click the use wizard button:

This is where you can input font/text size/e.c.t. (I just leave the other things alone because I don't really care about them). And for colour you can simply look through the handy list provided, there is no real substitute for trying them out and seeing what suites your needs best. I have included my site skin settings incase you already like what I've got going on:

Once you are happy with the colours, text, and layout of your custom site skin you can click submit (this is basically saving it, you can do this earlier in the process if you want as long as all the required* fields are filled out). Once your skin has been saved it should show up under My Site Skins on your dashboard, simply click use and you're good!!!:

You can edit your skin any time simply using the same steps.

[themirokai]

Girl help, I’m world building in my pornography again.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

so many people not wanting to give kudos to ao3 works that they like if said works contain smut, because they're not comfortable having their accounts attached to the works. and the intention of this post is in no way to guilt trip or manipulate people into doing anything. that being said, I'd like to let you know that if you want to give your favorite authors kudos on their works that contain smut (or works that do not contain smut), but are not comfortable with your name being attached to the works, you can still give them kudos by logging out of your account before doing so. this way your kudos will appear as kudos from a guest user, your favorite authors will still receive your kudos, and your account will not be attached to the works ♡

[maelstrom-of-emotions]

People will sit there, whining about how their “favorite” author stopped writing because they lost motivation, and then admit they’ve never left a single kudos or comment. Not one. And it’s like, listen here you sad excuse of a jellyfish, this isn’t some zoo exhibit. There’s no sign that says “don’t feed the authors.” You starved them, and now you’re mad the cage is empty.

Look me in the eye, you crumbling starfish of a man, and tell me how you have the audacity to demand art from hands you wouldn’t even bother to hold up. You spineless parasite.

[ao3commentoftheday]

so, tagging background ships on AO3. I personally don't like looking for fics ABOUT my OTP and finding 90% fics where my OTP is a background ship and don't even have any moments about them. I feel like it clogs up my results. I know people sometimes want to know what background ships are in a fic for various reasons, but I personally would rather put that information in the summary than clog up tags. I was just honestly curious how many people prefer one or the other or feel the same lol.

I've described ao3 tagging in a few other asks, but I'll give a rundown here again because it's not entirely obvious to people, and people really are just trying their best.

So if you're an author who wants to tag something like minor A/B don't put it in the relationship field. Tag wranglers would have to syn that to the regular A/B tag, thus dropping your fic into the filter results for that ship - that's what anon here is experiencing. Instead, put your minor A/B tag into the Additional Tags field. People will still see it there on your fic, but it won't be filtered into ship filter results.

When you filter for a ship, that filter only applies to the ones tagged in the Relationship field in the work posting form. That's why putting the minor A/B tag in the Additional Tags keeps the fic out of the A/B filter. Same applies for minor Character A. If you put that into the Character field, it will get synned to Character A. If you put it in the Additional Tags, it'll stay out of the filters.

I, personally, don't want minor character information in the summary because I use the summary search trick to find fics where minor characters are actually the main character in the fic. My reasoning is that if their name is in the summary, they must be doing something important in the fic and/or the fic is specifically about them.

If you're someone who wants to try that summary searching trick, I've got a video and text tutorial for it over here.

Also, if you're someone who doesn't want to see A/B or Character A at all, not even in the additional tags, you can remove them by using the Search Within Results box. Just type in -"Character A" and that will remove them.

All of the above is just information for you to do what you like with, but I found it fascinating when I started learning this stuff myself so I hope you at least find it interesting too!

[hollygl125]

On kudos + comments + sharing the love:

On the weekend I was reading some of the notes on one of those posts where people bemoan the inability to leave more kudos on AO3 (second kudos! kudos on every chapter! endless kudos! etc.), so that authors would really know how much their work meant. And I think one of those notes made something in my mind snap a little.

I’ve seen many posts with people bemoaning (seriously or not) the inability to leave more kudos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any authors bemoaning the limitations of AO3’s kudosing system. But I’ve seen many, many posts (and tags, and comments, and so on) with authors begging—pleading, imploring—readers to comment (more). And there’s such a fundamental disconnect in that.

A recent Tumblr poll asked whether AO3 authors would prefer 100 hits, 10 kudos, or 1 comment. 78% of the almost 20,000 respondents chose 1 comment. This was not a surprising outcome.

I’ve always seen those “I want to leave more kudos!” posts as essentially harmless general expressions of support. I assume the vast majority (small caveat explained later) of people making and reblogging those posts have good intentions, and I appreciate them for that. I’ve also reblogged those posts with good intentions.

The note (comment or tag, can’t remember) that made something in me snap a little claimed that the people responding to these kudos posts by talking about comments were like the people responding to posts where someone says they like pancakes and asking, “Yeah, but what about waffles?” And that claim so profoundly misses the point—it misses this fundamental disconnect.

If I were to translate the situation to pancakes and waffles, I’d explain it like this:

A lot of people keep saying they really want to show their support for authors by giving them pancakes. AO3 only lets them give one pancake per story. They love the stories, though, so they really want to show their support by giving more pancakes. And the authors of these stories respond by saying, “Okay, cool, but what we really love is waffles. And we don’t get enough waffles. Fresh waffles with maple syrup, strawberries, and whipped cream are great if you have that in you, but we also really enjoy a toasted Eggo! Heck, we like pictures of waffles! We like the word waffle! We like the waffle emoji! 🧇🧇🧇 We are absolutely starving for waffles. Plus there are no limits on waffles! You can give us waffles every chapter, as many times as you want!” And yet the posts about pancakes continue. And the authors continue to yearn for waffles.

This all brought to mind an interaction I had on another website, several months ago, with someone who seems to have built their whole social media presence around supporting fic and (ostensibly) authors. And this interaction actually made my head want to explode. Here’s how it went (transcribed verbatim):

OP: i wish ao3 copied tinder and once a day it’d let me leave SUPER KUDOS on fics. i'm holding the authors by the shoulders and saying HELLO I CARE SO MUCH ABOUT YOUR WRITING 😭 Second poster: [Poster agrees they want fic authors to know how much they appreciate the beauty fic authors have brought to their life.] Me: I know y’all know this, but in case anyone doesn’t: Literally type this into the comment box, and the author will be thrilled. The author *does not know* you spend all that time thinking about their work. They will be ecstatic. 💛 OP: its not the same guys Me: As an author, if someone typed, "SUPER KUDOS" for me, it would certainly make *my* day. Me: Like, I will definitely feel more loved by someone bothering to type something than by someone pressing a button—and isn’t that the point? OP: thats so not the point. you can comment and still want to press a shiny button. [And that is when my head almost exploded.] Me: Your responses are making it patently clear that you care more about pressing the shiny button than you do about supporting authors who are telling you how much they appreciate comments. Super disappointing. [And that is when I blocked OP.]

I was not the only person to suggest politely that authors would be happy with comments; I was also not the only person to whom OP replied that leaving comments was “not the same.”

I mean, you can like pressing shiny buttons. (Who doesn’t, really?) But don’t claim you want to press that shiny button because you care so much about the authors’ writing and want to hold the authors by the shoulder and tell them that and then say in the end that authors’ feelings are “so not the point.”

I assume the vast majority of people are not being disingenuous and self-serving (e.g., building a brand around supporting authors rather than actually caring about supporting authors) when they make these kinds of posts. But it’s in this light that I find the fundamental disconnect—authors begging for comments while others continue to post about wanting to leave more kudos—so frustrating. Because, if it’s really about supporting authors, then what will make authors feel the most supported and engaged and loved and not just incredibly and overwhelmingly lonely really should be the point, shouldn’t it? (It will, for the record, certainly be what encourages authors to keep writing and posting, and I really think that’s what best serves everyone involved, don’t you?)

As a final note for this post, this comment made me think about what it would mean in reality to have more kudos options, and I realized that, while I very much and very truly appreciate each kudos I receive . . . I really don’t want more options for readers to leave kudos.

Comparison is the thief of joy. For this reason, I already hide all stats on AO3. I don’t want any more metrics for comparison. I don’t want to be wondering why a particular chapter didn’t get more kudos or a story didn’t get second kudos. I like that, as I move further into a multi-chapter story, I don’t have to think anymore about whether I’m getting kudos.

The particular post I was reviewing thought authors deserved more than 200 kudos for 100k stories. I post in a quiet little corner of AO3. I’ll almost certainly never get anywhere even close to that, and that’s okay. It’s all relative anyway (again, comparison!). So changing the number of kudos a story can receive will simply change what seems like a lot or a little.

Moreover, I predict that giving additional kudos options would result in even fewer comments than the already small number (as, e.g., people felt they could express their chapter or reread appreciation with additional kudos, thereby becoming even less in the habit of leaving comments). And that’s really not what authors want.

So, yes, if you at all have it in you (and I know it can feel like work, and I know it can seem difficult or daunting, and I know sometimes you just don’t in fact have it in you), please support AO3 authors by listening to what we actually want. (Comment. We want people to talk to us about this stuff we adore and into which we have poured parts of ourselves! Please come share in the love with us. 💛)

I’ll be back with some of my thoughts on how to leave comments, because that only seems fair.

[not-freyja]

You seem more knowledgeable on this so I have to ask: how is the LU fandom tag any better than the “Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda)” additional tag method? Wasn’t the main issue with the additional tag method that people forgot to tag it making it difficult to filter for LU fanworks? Won’t this still be an issue with the fandom tag as well?

Not trying to be a bummer but I keep seeing people celebrate like this fixes the issue of filtering out LU content when looking for LoZ content and I don’t understand why because to me it seems like it will be the same. But I’ve never posted to ao3 so maybe I’m lacking some context.

You can filter by exclude fandoms. If people tag the fandom correctly this fixes the problem entirely!

And unlike the additional tag field, the fandom field is mandatory when posting a fic, so now there isn’t the “forgot” option.

Here is the general LOZ tag:

Now go over to sort and filter and scroll down to exclude, click fandom, then select LU

Problem solved! Have fun!