#like I can embed it by sharing from the AO3 site but that only shares the fic from the beginning and not the chapter link

[mass-convergence]

Slow Burn: Chapter 2 is up

Chapter summary:

Emily rides out with Robin to the crime scene. An awkward and tense conversation ensues.

Fic summary:

When Emily and her team are called to investigate a series of arsons in the Idaho wilderness: She didn’t expect to find her ex-girlfriend leading the fire investigation. The same ex-girlfriend she was about to propose to. The same ex-girlfriend who suddenly left with barely a goodbye. The same ex-girlfriend that took an ax to her heart and left her to pick up the pieces. It's been 20 years. This is fine. She was definitely over it. This is fine. She's not still angry at all. This is fine.

[vidding]

The Best Vidding Safe Haven?

Forgive the "read bait" meme above but if you are reading these words right now that means it worked. If you are a vidding fan then it was worth it. Vidders.net was born July 19, 2010. It is a Vidder-friendly AO3 Embed Certified Vid hosting & streaming site with over 18K vids. Its growth benefited from You Tube's increased use of content ID and the closing of Imeem. It was mentioned in the "Vidding: A History" book by Francesca Coppa. Its members (most who host some great vids there) include:

Luminosity

Lim

Laura Shapiro

Lithiumdoll

Obsessive24

Clucking Bells

Charmax

Bradcpu

thedothatgirl

kiki miserychic

Milly

Hollywoodgrrl

bop radar

Loki (secretlytodream)

Condsdmlk

newkidfan

NCISMelanie

Shoopdancer

Absolute Destiny

SD Wolfpup

Arefadedaway

camelia1986

adfproductions

Astarte

Such Heights

Mithoborien

mresundance

Just to name a few. You may not recognize these names but if you do you know these vidders literally made a name for themselves with the quality of their work during that time. At least in my opinion. The site is a time capsule of awesome vids even if some of the vidders listed are no longer active. Additionally, it hosts vids no longer available on You Tube like "Boom Boom Ba" by Charmax (a classic Xena vid). And yet it can still host new content without the issues faced on some other vid hosting options.

How much does it cost to host and stream all those vids? Well, that is one of the reasons for this post. The assumption I'm making is that if there is a Vidding "community" it's more likely than not that members of it would see a post like this and/or share it with fellow members of the community. Is it worth it to keep a site like this around? It's mostly been a solo operation for these past 13 years but now I am starting to wonder after such a long time.

I'll spare you the obligation of filling out a poll or survey. I'll make it simple. We have a Patreon account at patreon.com/vidding. If you don't feel it's worth keeping up. Nothing to do. Thank you for reading this far. If you feel there is some value based on what was mentioned earlier, then a minimum level of support at the Patreon is $1 a month. You'll not only be supporting the Vidders.net but other projects like the recent purchase of the Vidding.com domain name and more. The OTW October fundraiser drive begins in October and is on track to raise about 250k. Rasing even 1 percent of that amount would be more than adequate. After all Vids on AO3 make up less than 1 percent of the content on there anyway. I've been told by a fellow fan that I should keep it running but if it's not even supported by a community, it's a personal expense at my expense I am on the hook for. Again, there is no survey or poll to take but if you have questions that may help you determine your willingness to support just contact me. If you find value in preserving the site just visit Patreon.com/vidding or get your questions answered. This form of funding is more sustainable than occasional stop and start donation efforts we've done in the past. If you prefer another form of funding let us know.

I will check in by the end of October to see where things are. I am not going to do anything drastic. It's just that it's been 13 years and I started to wonder especially with my current financial situation but didn't want to do anything without communicating the situation. The site costs about $720 a year to run. At about $60 a month to run so it should be doable.

Boom Boom Ba by Charmax

If you liked this post you might like this:

The YouTube Vid Purge of 2021

[livixbobbiex]

Embedding audio in AO3 fics

A few people have asked about me adding atmospheric audio to my fic on AO3, and it took me quite a while to figure out so I wanted to document how to do it somewhere. In this example, I wanted some of the atmospheric background music from Ace Attorney, so I'll stick with that. I'm going to assume limited familiarity with HTML here. You will need to start by pasting your writing into the rich text editor. Now, flicking over to HTML like this I appreciate can make it look intimidating. So a quick 'pre-tip' is to actually click on preview (beside the 'post' button), and then return to edit again. For some reason, this makes paragraphs reappear in the HTML editor, which I just find easier to work with.

Adding your audio

I only directly know how to make it work with Soundcloud, though I think any hosting site that lets you embed like this would work. Be warned that Spotify only allows the first 30 seconds of a song to play, if you're using that.

Anyway, the next step is getting the embed code. This is not a link to the website! You need to go to 'share', and then to 'embed', and copy that code.

By the way, Soundcloud gives you a few options for how you want the embed to appear - with the more simplistic option being paywalled. You can then paste this directly into the HTML editor:

I appreciate this is a scary amount of text if you're not used to code, but fear not! This is actually all you need to do for the bare minimum. See how this looks in my preview:

Technically, you can stop here if you're happy with this outcome. However, especially if you're putting this in the middle of other text, I find this a bit overlarge. Thankfully, despite Soundcloud's paywalls, we can edit the code ourselves.

Refining the code

Going back to edit, AO3 has changed my code slightly (I input a paragraph at the top to show this off clearer):

From this point out, I will just paste the code directly as text here. In order to not make it actually embed into tumblr, I have replaced < and > with [ and ] so keep that in mind.

[iframe width="100%" height="166" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/842658844&;color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"][/iframe][div] [p][a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-338850232" title="Ace Attorney Trilogy OST" rel="nofollow"]Ace Attorney Trilogy OST · [a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-338850232/psyche-lock" title="Psyche - Lock" rel="nofollow"]Psyche - Lock[/a][/div][/p]

Firstly, we don't need anything after the [/iframe] part. All this bottom part is doing is providing additional hyperlinks. So, you can delete everything after the [div]

We can change the numbers to make the player smaller. This is really up to your preference. I have found about 300 for width still looks okay on mobile browser. In this example, I change height to a value of 80.

We can also remove the audio artwork. In the part of the code right before [/iframe] (but still within the "quote marks"), add: & amp ; show_artwork=false

Note that this "& amp ;" part should not have spaces in it, I just have to type it this way to get it to appear on tumblr... If in doubt, look at my screenshots.

You can also just alter the other trues and falses to get rid of the interface showing comments etc.

In my case, I also want to align this button to the middle of the page. This is very simple. You just add [p align="center"] before [iframe], and close the link with [/p]

The final code, again with the caveat that [] need to be replaced by <> is as follows:

[p align = "center"][iframe width="300" height="80" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/842658844&;color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&show_artwork=false"][/iframe][/p]

And this is how the code looks without the weird brackets:

And this is how it looks when you go to preview:

You can mess around with it a bit more, such as changing the colour of the button for example, but I think this concludes the basics of how to achieve this

[faemytho]

some social media interaction culture breakdowns, as far as i can tell this is how these things work :3 i did this for fun and for my own amusement, so i probably got some of these wrong. please do not bite my head off. im willing to make corrections!

the differences between tumblr, twitter, cohost, and pillowfort! as far as i can tell, bsky is a twitter copy/paste, just with better site usage quality.

likes:

tumblr: do nothing. most people use this as either a bookmarking system or a "hey i saw your post and i like it". you can hide them; most do.

twitter: influence followers homefeed and algorithm. you can't hide them.

cohost: do nothing. this is for specifically "hey i saw your post and i like it". they can only be accessed by you; there's no way to make them public.

pillowfort: do nothing. this is for specifically "hey i saw your post and i like it". there is no way to access your own likes at all.

re- blog/tweet/share

tumblr: called a reblog. you can reblog with tags AND commentary, though most only reblog with tags instead of reblogging with commentary (ive seen this described as the difference between whispering to someone in an auditorium vs shouting something in an auditorium for everyone to hear)

twitter: separated into retweets and QRTs. a retweet is a direct share to your followers on their timeline with no way to add commentary, and a QRT is an embed of someone else's post with your commentary at the top, which makes it an original post.

cohost: called a share or a rechost, similar to how tumblr's system works, but the commentary culture is different. it's more common to add commentary in the post body, and discouraged to talk in the tags (based on how tagging works sitewide)

pillowfort: called a reblog, similar to how tumblr's system works, but the commentary culture is different. it's more common to share with no commentary before adding commentary, and not really common to talk in the tags. pillowfort replies are mostly where commentary happens.

replies/comments:

tumblr: unlike twitter, tumblr replies ARE NOT their own posts. they're like DMs between you and the OP, except everyone can see these messages and join in on the conversation.

twitter: replies are their own post! they function similarly to how tumblr reblog threads work, but with more limited visibility

cohost: called comments and work like tumblr replies, BUT, are able to be threaded like AO3 comments. these are actually the ONLY interactions visible for anyone to see on a post!

pillowfort: called comments, and work like tumblr replies, BUT, are able to be threaded like AO3 comments.

tags:

tumblr: TAGS ARE VERY FREE. tags are both a sorting system BUT also a way to whisper your thoughts on someone's post that you've reblogged. you can make up your own tags for your own personal blog sorting system, or keysmash your reaction to cute art. tumblr culture involves a LOT of "tag talking", in which people don't actually put their overall commentary in the body of a post, but the tags of it when they're reblogging it. when making an original post, only the first five tags are counted. tags on reblogged posts do NOT show up in tumblr search.

twitter: tags are more formal from what i can tell. they go directly in the body of a post and are an explicit way to sort posts into topics and categories. tags on replies and QRTs DO show up in twitter search.

cohost: tags are more formal like twitter, but function visibly similar to tumblr tags. they go beneath a post and are the only way to search cohost (so its not common to talk in the tags). however, unlike tumblr, all tags from every user in a rechost chain are visible and searchable in shared posts. tags on rechosted posts DO show up in cohost search (from what i can tell, it's discouraged to re-tag a share of a post to prevent accidentally spamming a tag, since the tags of the OP will transparently carry over into the rechost).

pillowfort: exactly like tumblr, without the five tag limit and without the tag talking culture. tags on reblogged posts do NOT show up in pillowfort search.

followers:

tumblr: mean nothing. if you have a lot of followers that's probably bad actually because it means you're infamous. you're the tumblr clown and everyone's watching you flail around. clout doesnt exist. you can also hide who you're following on tumblr like with likes, again, most do hide this.

twitter: clout. clout clout clout. followers is good. followers means you're famous. you can't hide this information, nor can you hide who you yourself are following.

cohost: mean nothing, but doubly so. there is absolutely no way to see how many followers you have, nor how many followers anybody has, nor who is following who. you can view your own followers, but there's no number count and nobody else can view this.

pillowfort: an odd mix of all three of the above. hidden entirely like cohost, viewable numbers like tumblr, and some sense of clout-dignity like twitter. in actuality, most users follow Pillowfort's user-created communities rather than other users specifically.

feeds:

tumblr: if you're an old user, your default is called your dashboard, in which you only get posts from the people and tags you follow. if you're a new user, (allegedly) your default is the "For You" feed. there are separate feeds separated into tabs at the top; other than the "For You" feed, you're able to customize what tabs you want to see and switch between. a half and half compromise between algorithm/no algorithm. it's there if you want it, avoidable if you don't.

twitter: you've got your "For You" and your "Following" feed (also called TL or timeline). im unsure which is set as the default, but "For You" is listed first so it's probably that. while the following feed is self-explanatory, the "For You" feed shows you posts that users you follow have liked as well as posts based on an algorithm around that. the algorithm knows all.

cohost: you also have two feeds here - "Latest Posts" and "Bookmarked Tags". Latest Posts are from those you've followed, while Bookmarked Tags is a feed you can build based on which tags you've bookmarked. there's no algorithm at all!

pillowfort: only one feed, composed entirely of posts from users you follow and communities you're in/following. no algorithm!

search:

tumblr: only the tumblr wizards know how this fucking thing works (affectionate). sitewide search brings up both text in the body of the post as well as tags. clicking on a specific tag will give you posts that have been specifically tagged with the tag. blog search is similar but it breaks often.

twitter: hell. sitewide search brings up both text in the body of the post as well as tags AS WELL AS every post made by a user who has the searched term in their goddamn handle. clicking on a specific tag will give you posts that have been specifically tagged with the tag. profile search does not exist unless you know the secret codes to put in the url.

cohost: the site can ONLY be searched via tags that exist already. blogs here can only be searched via clicking on a specific tag. however, cohost provides toggles within every blog so users can toggle on or off a user's shares, replies, and asks to their hearts delight, which makes blog scrolling customizable to the users preference

pillowfort: sitewide search is how tumblr's search is supposed to work, AND way more stable. blog search can be searched only through clickable tags, but you're also able to view only original posts or only reblogs on someone's blog.

blacklisting, blocking, muting, muffling, making posts with sensitive content

tumblr: you're able to build a blacklist based on tags, and you're able to block users. "community labels" are a predetermined set of labels users can apply to both their posts and reblogs of other people's posts, and can be toggled to the user's preference

twitter: there is no blacklist, but a "muted word" list that you can customize. there is sensitive content filtering, but it's only under a generalized "sensitive content" warning. you can mute a user if you'd rather not block, which means you won't see their posts or when they interacting with you. you are also able to block users outright.

cohost: you can set a customized "content warning" on a post for others to click through, similar to twitter's sensitive content warning, but able to be customized as needed. you can blacklist OR whitelist content warnings. for tag filtering, you can muffle (requiring a click-through) or silence (hide completely). you can mark a post as 18+ very easily. you can toggle and customize the way posts on your feed display.

pillowfort: filters and blacklist are easily accessible on the sidebar rather than hidden in the settings. however, 18+ posts can only be toggled on or off (shown or entirely hidden), there is no click-through option. you can blacklist "words and tags" all at once, or just blacklist tags, to your discretion.

posting:

tumblr: as long or short as you want. tons of different ways to post, images, videos, audio, links, ect. some VERY basic code is allowed. it USED to be go nuts show nuts, but...

twitter: theres a 300(?) character limit and a four images per post limit. you can pay money for more post characters. 18+ is more limited than other sites, but allowed.

cohost: very basic posting editor. you can code html, css, and basic markdown straight into the post if you want to. there's even a preview toggle in the posting editor to see what it looks like before you post it. literally the sky is the limit. YOU DON'T HAVE TO KNOW CODE TO POST ON COHOST, but if you do you can make your posts look cool. there is a "readmore" like on tumblr, but it's a soft readmore based on the post length instead of tumblr's hard readmore. 18+ is allowed.

pillowfort: a rich text editor that's built to support images, videos, links, ect. as long or short as you want. 18+ is allowed.

site-specific:

tumblr: the ability to send asks and submit posts, polls, limited profile badges (most need to be bought), blog coding customization, post blazing, sideblogs

twitter: lists, spaces, circles, and polls

cohost: the ability to send asks, user funded, no ads, anti-AI stance, range of options for profile customization, private notes (able to be left on a user's profile for only you to see), sidepages (built-in sideblogs that function as their own main blogs)

pillowfort: communities (these are in tumblr beta testing currently), user funded, no ads, anti-AI stance, a WIDE range of profile badges (99% are free, 1% are rewarded for donating to the site during specific fundraising periods)

site sign-up and apps

tumblr: free and easy, app in the appstore.

twitter: free and easy, app in the appstore

cohost: free and easy, but posting is limited for a small period of time at first sign-up. you can browse, follow users, and like posts during this period of time, but cannot make your own original posts until cohost greenlights you (they'll send an email when you're able to post; mine was just under 24 hours). they have a progressive web app hosted by chrome that functions and appears as a regular app that bypasses appstore restrictions.

pillowfort: free, but unlike the other sites and more like AO3, sign-up puts you on a waitlist for an invite code, or you can sign-up with an invite code from a user already on the site. no mobile app, but a progressive web app like how cohost has is in the works.

bsky: the twitter copy. sign-up is free, but there's a wait period before you're fully invited to set up your account unless you have a bsky invite from a user already on the site. there's an app in the appstore.

[osterby]

Youtube and Vimeo are popular hosts, I'm not a vidder so someone else will have to help you there. If you're able to hide the video on the host site or not will depend on that site. On Youtube, I know there'ss an option to unlist a video, which makes it only available to people you share the link with. This will make it display when embedded on a second site like AO3, but no one will find it randomly on youtube.

Once you've got your host selected and your video uploaded, you're ready to post it on AO3.

Your video should have a "share" button with an option for "embed", which will show you a chunk of code.

Here's how it looks on Youtube:

and on Vimeo:

Both sites offer extra settings here (on Youtube you just scroll down, on Vimeo there's an extra link to click), where you can choose things like custom sizes or start times. You don't need to worry about any of that unless you care about changing those details.

All you actually need to do is copy the code :)

Then on AO3, above the box where you put the text of the fanwork, click the button for "HTML"

Then paste your video embed code into the box (I've put both Youtube and Vimeo here to demonstrate) ...

and you're done!

The work will look like this

If you like, after you enter the code in HTML mode, you can toggle to Rich Text to see how the work looks and pretty up any extra text you've added. What really matters is that you paste the code into the box in HTML mode so it shows the video instead of the code itself.

****

For a bit more technical (but still simple) info on what you just did:

HTML is a type of programming language that websites use to tell your browser what to show. It's used for everything from "make this word italic" to embedded video players like this. The HTML/Rich Text toggle on AO3 tells the site to interpret what you put in the box as code or as text.

The embed code you copy from Youtube is a set of instructions that tell AO3 to look on youtube for the video and then show it (it also has instructions for the optional details, what size to make the video).

On Tumblr, all the HTML happens behind the scenes. You use the text editor to make something italic or you click the video upload button, and Tumblr creates the code it needs to display it properly.

AO3 is an older and simpler website, and allows the user to code things themselfs.

When you toggle Rich Text, AO3 behaves more like Tumblr and creates the code for you, so you can click a button to make text italic instead of typing <i>this text is italic</i> yourself, for example. But it's a bit old fashioned and it needs the user to provide the code for embedded video (or audio!).

Sharing images on AO3 is about the same, but the rich text editor can create the embed code for you, so all you need to do is paste the URL for the image into the box that shows up when you press the "image" button in the rich text editor.

i recently heard that ao3 cant actually host videos, that you need to upload the fanwork video to a different site and then do something to put it in ao3? i didnt really undertand well the guides i've seen, so if anyone can explain it to me like im dumb? like what site should be used? how does it translate to ao3 and how do i do it? like what html i need? i guess this depends on the other site i used, does the fanwork will also show in the other site publicly and can this be avoid it (so only people from ao3 can see it)? thank youu!!

-

[dawnfelagund]

Independent Archive Survey

What types of fanworks would you consider posting to an independent archive?

Writing (fanfiction, meta, etc.): 90% Art: 34% Audio (podfic, music, etc.): 23% Video: 9% I would not consider posting to an independent archive: 1% I don't post or share fanworks: 5% Other: Meta: 1% Other: Fanmixes: 1% Total responses: 80

Analysis

Not surprisingly, interest is highest in using independent archives to post various types of fan writing. These fanworks are best presented using a text-based platform, which is not most social media. Even text-centric platforms like blogs can become difficult for longer written fanworks, which benefit from being able to "nest" multiple chapters under the title of a single fanwork.

But multimedia fanworks like art, audio, and video shouldn't be discounted either. There is clearly an interest in these that is not easily served by existing options (i.e., you must host images and other media files externally and link/embed them on most archives). This is possibly an area where small archives would thrive. An enormous site like AO3 understandably cannot be responsible for the cost of hosting large media files (to say nothing of the challenges of moderating visual content compared to written content).

As of this writing, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild (SWG), which despite its name has allowed all types of fanwork for two years now, has forty-eight art fanworks, fifty audio fanworks, and two videos. (Videos are the only files we require to be hosted externally.) To offer a point of comparison, in the past two years, about eight hundred written fanworks have been archived with the SWG—or one out of every nine fanworks posted to the SWG is a multimedia fanwork, not writing.

This doesn't necessarily negate the survey findings; I have posted both art and audio to the SWG but have posted far more writing. However, having run an archive (the SWG) for sixteen years now, I think it's important to go into the endeavor with open eyes, and for potential archivists considering multimedia in addition to writing on an archive (or even multimedia-only archives), these data are important to consider in thinking about the viability of such a project.

What is the independent archive survey?

The independent archive survey ran from 23 June through 7 July 2023. Eighty-two respondents took the survey during that time. The survey asked about interest in independent archives and included a section for participants interested in building or volunteering for an independent archive. The survey was open to all creators and readers/viewers of fanworks.

What is an independent archive?

The survey defined an independent archive as "a website where creators can share their fanworks. What makes it 'independent' is that it is run by fans but unaffiliated with any for-profit or nonprofit corporations or organizations. Historically, independent archives have grown out of fan communities that create fanworks."

Follow the tag #independent archives for more survey results and ongoing work to restore independent archives to fandoms that want them.

Independent Archives Survey Masterpost

[cinnamonest]

Wait lena how do I take antidoxx methods on my tumblr? I also do DC and I REALLY don't want to be found like that 😬

There's probably more, but these are some of the most important I think! This is a general guide to anti doxx measures as well!

1) put your Tumblr under a different email than anything else! Have a separate email address linked to your Tumblr and no other site, make it exclusively for your Tumblr (or things you're ok with being connected to it -- for example I use the same for Tumblr and AO3, but I use a lot of different emails for different socials) -- this sounds simple to some but for a lot of people we forget and may not realize we use the same email for a lot of things. If someone gains access to your email such as a Gmail they may be able to see your full name and have access to other sites you may have it linked it to such as Reddit, Facebook etc, which may contain personal information! This is especially important if you're using the same email for anything financial (Google/Apple pay, apps like Robinhood, anything that might have credit card information). You can change the email associated with your Tumblr in account settings.

2) similarly to #1, use a different password/username for your Tumblr than anything else! If you use the same password for Tumblr and something else, someone who gains access to one will then suddenly potentially have access to tons of other accounts.

Of course the username part does not apply if you *want* two accounts linked -- for example an artist going by the same username on Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr. In that case it's intentional, just make sure you don't post anything on one you wouldn't want connected to the others! And even then it's a good idea to use different passwords.

3) two factor authentication, Tumblr has a guide on how to set it up! There are also third party 2FA apps and sites that can be attached to many socials.

4) if you ever take photos with your phone camera, they most likely have location data attached to them! They embed coordinates in the file metadata. A lot of apps automatically remove it when you post a photo, like Twitter, but from what I quickly searched, (unsurprisingly) apparently Tumblr does not. Here is a tutorial on how to remove location metadata on photos for Android and iPhones!

On Android phones, you can go into your settings on the camera app and turn off the option for "save location", and the camera app should no longer record the data in future photos.

5) this might seem obvious but seriously, do not share private information. Generally some things are ok -- a lot of people share age, major/occupation, interests, etc, even vague general location/country, and while that is personal, it would be very difficult for someone to find you from that alone unless it's someone who knows you in real life and may recognize it. Technically you're at your absolute safest to not share these, but generally they are not going to endanger you and it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to narrow down a single person based on that information alone.

But do NOT, ever, share your real full name, your place of work/school/university (it doesn't matter if you go to a large university -- it still narrows the pool of people down by a LOT), town, etc.

6) Be careful when posting stories, things that have happened in your life, photos etc -- people have been tracked before using things such as single-location restaurants, license plates, landmarks/statues, etc, in the backgrounds of photos. If posting a photo, be sure to look over it, especially the background, carefully and make sure there's nothing in it that could be traced to a specific town or area. If mentioning a place you went, keep it vague if it's specific -- it's one thing to say you went to McDonald's, but don't say a name if the restaurant/venue/etc is a stand-alone place of which there is only one. If you do share a personal story about something that happened to you or the like, it's a good idea to delete it within the next 48 hours -- your followers will have seen it, but antis often stalk people's archive history and the like.

[theirlovewasreal]

Frequently Asked Questions: Fanwork Challenge

How do I submit my work?

Glad you asked! We’re asking people to do two things:

Post their work on tumblr, tagged #TheirLoveWasReal, and mentioning our blog. 

Post their work to AO3 with the #TheirLoveWasReal tag, then add it to our collection  Their Love Was Real: a Destiel & Saileen Fanworks Challenge.

What’s the difference between this challenge and the Twitter trend?

Technically, they are all part of the same event. The Twitter trend is like the opening ceremony, and day 0 of the challenge. As such, you can participate in the Twitter trend by sharing any and all works you have, old or new (tweeting links to tumblr or ao3, for instance). To participate in the challenge proper, you should follow the submission guidelines stated above, and post/submit new works that fit our day 0 prompt: Carry On.

Is there a minimum of maximum length for submitted fics?

Fics should be at least 500 words, but can be a long as you like. 

Do you accept WIPs?

Yes, we do! If you have an idea that would span multiple chapters or is simply longer than you could write before the challenge ends, feel free to post and submit only the first chapter or part. 

Can I submit an old work to this challenge?

Depends. Because we want to help boost activity in the AO3 tags, we ask that you only submit works that you have never posted on AO3 before. 

I don’t write fic or draw fanart, can I still submit my fanwork?

Absolutely! You can post whatever kind of fanwork you want, so long as its the type of thing you can post on AO3. Here are the guidelines from the Archive itself:

You can post fanworks that consist of text, images, video, or audio files, or any combination of these. You can also post Spotify and 8Tracks playlists.

Currently, the Archive is only able to host text. Other file types need to be hosted on an external website. You can then use HTML to embed the externally hosted file in an Archive post. You can also post a link to the site where the file is hosted.

So, even if you made non-digital art, we still want to see it! Made a collage or a model? Take a picture and submit it! Have a super cool fanmix about Destiel pirates and Saileen solving crime? Submit that too! 

I saw an amazing work done by another fan, and I want to submit something based on it, can I do that?

If you approached the original artist/writer/mixer/vidder and got their consent, then yes, you can. In fact, we encourage it! 

Are podfics and fic remixes allowed?

If you have the consent of the original writer, go right ahead. 

Can I submit more than one work for each prompt?

Yes!

I want to make a gifset for the challenge, can I submit those?

We’re not sure how well gifsets translate to AO3, but go ahead and post them on tumblr. If AO3 lets you post them there, too, go right ahead with your cool self.  

[star-wars-multishippers]

Get to Know Me(me) - The Members of SW Multishippers!

This was an event hosted on the Discord server to do a sort of re-introduction of both old and new joiners to the server. Everyone who wanted to participate filled out the survey below to share a little about themselves and about their faves in fandom.

Survey (for anyone who wants to join in below in the comments):

Who Am I? - Name, username on other sites, mini bio if you'd like Where do I fit into the SW fandom? - Prequels, Sequels, EU, etc. What do you do? Fic, art, lurking and reblogging? My Top Faves - 2 or 3 max please! My Own Stuff - 1 or 2 max please!

MBlair

Who am I?

MBlair both on Discord and on AO3, maggzblair on Tumblr (MBlair, maggzblair)

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

Mostly lurker/reblogger/occasional writer, mostly Original Trilogy and Sequel trilogy.

Fics I Love to Rec

Of Queens, Knights, and Pawns (and associated fics) by chancecraz

Hand of Fate by sweetestcondition

My Fics I Love to Rec

Reyuxmas 2019

A Wonderful Winter on Hoth

I’ll Love You ‘Til the Suns Burn Out

feckyeslife

Who Am I?

Feckyeslife#2003 on Discord, firelord65 on AO3

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

I'm pretty solidly a Sequels fan, but I have a special place in my heart for the Prequels. I'm a fic writer who dabbles mostly in canon universe AUs, what ifs, that sort of stuff. Primarily my fics have Rey with a tendency to focus on the First Order characters and plots.

My Top Faves

A classic Reylo fic from an old friend - Beneath the Facade. It technically has a prologue fic before it in the series, but this piece was the one that I really enjoyed way back in the EARLY days of Reylo.

Because I'm an insufferable Reylux fan, I have to rec at least one. This piece by @every-day-is-star-wars-day  a oneshot that ever so masterfully crushes my heart every time - Thread

My one Original Trilogy rec, this is a beast of a long fic but so, so good - Dark Times

My Own Stuff

Reylux, medieval AU - La Vita Primus - is the first in a small series of this AU

Reylo, TROS Fix-It - Oh but it's a dark future, my star. Oh but it's a soft morning for us soon.

apple-au

Who Am I?

Call me apple. she/her/hers. I’m gold_pen_leaps on dreamwidth, ao3, and pillowfort. @gold_pen_leaps@tenforward.social on mastodon. I am doing my best to boycott tumblr, but I've been known to use a tumblr link embed on pf from time to time. (gold_pen_leaps (DW), gold_pen_leaps (AO3))

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

I’m mainly into the Sequels and the Mandalorian. I joined the server for Hux/Kylo/Rey and all the combinations of the characters in my ot3. I can edit better than I can write. Sometimes I comment on fics.

My Top Faves

A Dance of Titans by @lucidlucy is a really long reylux fic. The delicious slowburn makes all the flavors combine in an amazing way. Love how they battle the main villain!

My Own Stuff

I helped give feedback on the second part of a series. Does that count? This is knight_of_dance's fic. It's really cool to see writers' takes on Modern AU, and this one has influenced my ideas of what sort of kinks those characters have. :smirk: Switch Up

Mizz

Who Am I?

 hi! tho im much more...a lurker around here im mizz (she/they/he). im badarmada on tumblr, badwrong-gimme on pillowfort, gimmemrss on twitter, badwrongprincess on ao3 (i have so many usernames XD, ive got a dreamwidth, wordpress, and art insta too if youre interested lol)

(@badarmada, gimmemrss (twitter), badwrongprincess (AO3))

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

i liked the prequels as a kid (still do kinda), rouge one, i do like clone wars tho i havent finished it and the sequels (well tfa and tros tho only one of them is good imo) i reblog stuff mostly and read fanfic, tho i write some stuff too. finn is my fav and pretty much my center character (ie the one i focus on the most) and i like most finn ships (favs being finnhux, finnlo, finnrey)

My Top Faves

the things we do for love by glare is an unfinished finnlohux fanfic that i love a lot

worlds are built for two by synergenic (Losseflame). this is a poefinn fic from finns pov

My Own Stuff

um...im still working on this fic -(Be More Chill, Hux) very slowly this year has been super hard on me writing wise and ive been drawing ocs and for another fandom mostly but I will finish this one day!

Arsanimo - Marion

Who Am I?

Hi, I’m Arsanimo, self taught artist and nerd from Germany that’s mostly lurking. You can find me with this username on tumblr, twitter and instagram. I draw mostly Reylo at the moment. ( @arsanimo, Arsanimo (Twitter), Arsanimo (IG))

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

I‘m in my thirties and an OT fan since birth, because my dad was obsessed with Star Wars and we watched it a lot as kids - they are the go to christmas movies in our family. Even as a very small kid I loved Vader. I didn’t like the ST quite as much when it came out in cinemas but still watched them multiple times. I’m much more fond of them now. But my love for Star Wars really got renewed with the ST. I really liked TFA and TLJ a lot. Not a great fan of TROS though, but to each their own. I recently started watching TCW, if you haven’t go watch it! The Mandalorian is also great and feels more like the OT for me, which I love. Oh, and R1 was awesome, I loved that one! Solo also was good. I think I will be a lifelong fan because it’s such a rich universe and everybody can pick a favorite. I’m also good at ignoring the parts I don’t like, lol. But I‘m mostly exhausted about all the drama on social media, so at the moment I take a bit of a break from social media and only post from time to time. And I’m of the firm believe to ship and let ship and if the art and fics are good, you can also find me enjoying ships outside of Reylo (honestly, some Kylux art out there, woah... and Finnrey is always so tender but Stormpilot has two hot guys in it... and don’t get me started about Finnrose! You probably get the gist)

My Top Faves

It’s hard to name so few, there are so many good artists out there. But Winter of Her (Twitter) has some outstanding art in her own style. Than I really like the style of Khallion (Twitter), check her out.

My Own Stuff

And last but not least two pieces of mine that turned out pretty good

https://twitter.com/arsanimo/status/1275789997426311173?s=21

https://twitter.com/arsanimo/status/1258757927910989825?s=21

Knight_Of_Cookies

Who am I?

Allo allo, I go by many names but many know me as cookies here. Lol I'm from the US and I've been a lifelong A+, gold star , nerd my whole life. I love writing among 5 million other hobbies. I am on Tumblr and A03. (@knight-of-cookies, Knight_of_Cookies (AO3))

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

It all started with the prequels which I fell in love with and even wrote my first fan fic on. (I dragged it from fanfic.net to A03 for my own form of personal torture) I dropped out of star wars until I was in Japan and a close group of friends got me to watch Roque One and play a star wars based table top role playing game, which dumped me back into this fandom hardcore. I fell in love with the sequel trilogy and now I'm stuck forever. Lol

I have been writing on A03 for around 2 years now for star wars and it's been the most productive and progressive work I've ever done thanks to ya'll.

Also, hey, I created this multishippers discord, because multishipping rocks and everyone should do it. :P I know I've never active enough but I love this space and the people in it! My fav part about multishipping is how I'm always discovering yet another ship that is awesome. It never ends. ^^

My top favs - (of things no one should be surprised by)

Beastie by @feckyeswriting. It spawned a written series(multiple actually)

Glutton by Witchoil. Just very good dark and wonderful kinky smut. Always go back to this one.

In the house that skywalker built by @aicosu. This story got me into Reylux in a way I'll never recover from.

My own stuff

Nothing but Themselves - This is my favorite beast of a story I've ever written and it will be beautiful when I finish it. One day. Lol

Tanzaku - One of my most polished pieces thanks to the Reylo Anthology. My best combo of: insert culture nerding here and captive Ben as personal tropes.

[lclrgsl]

fandom: marvel pairing: kastle words: 1.7k rating: T

read on ao3

Hi! @ravingliberal I am your Kastle secret Santa! I am so sorry for being this late! I wish you a Happy New Year and I hope you’ll have an amazing year. I really hope you will like it! 

Pete’s life is a cup of black coffee in the morning while listening to the radio. It’s grabbing the New York Bulletin on his way to work to read it during lunch, two sandwiches and another coffee. 

He needs the routine, he needs it to fight the silence. Freedom’s silence. The silence of a man who has no more wars to fight but who still has rage boiling in his veins.

Pete’s hands are dry and blistered, dirt under his nails. Hard working man. No ammo in his pockets, but an evangelist flyer, because Pete Castiglione takes what’s handed to him as pretext to exist once again. 

He knows he could simply put on the vest and go back to the war zone. The prospect of it is even reassuring, but getting involved means painting a white skull once again, it means forgetting his new life and the pardon. 

It means seeing her again but for the wrong reasons. 

It means a lot of things that he can’t share to the veteran group. 

So instead, he takes out his two triangle sandwiches and unfolds the New York Bulletin, tries to forget what it meant to be Frank Castle.

But they come, one day, walking in the dust with their varnished shoes, long coat and white handkerchiefs covering their mouths. Three cardboard replicas. Their shark teeth shine when they smile, even more so when they hand him a card and Frank asks "You’re some fancy lawyer?"

They puff out their chest, suddenly reminded of the crown on their heads. "Our client wishes to discuss with you." 

Frank sneers, "Who’s that?"

"Wilson Fisk. You’re good friends, right?

Frank remembers an imposing man, wearing an orange jumpsuit. He remembers blood and shiv. He remembers getting out with two words from him, release him. 

Another man adds, "He is eager to working with you. Again."

"You owe him that." 

Fisk wants a guard dog that barks and bites at his will. "I ain’t interested." He simply answers, handing the card back. Frank knows there are many wars in New York, and he has enough rage to fight all of them, but he has fought other people’s battles too many times before. 

Kill your way to justice, he would tell him again. His justice. 

The man doesn’t take back the card and doesn’t lose his smile, "We will keep in touch" he says, before leaving the construction site. 

Frank grabs the newspaper again and bites into his sandwich. 

Frank’s hands are red and shaking. 

There are two bodies near the diner he goes to every Thursday, because they shouted his name, and threw fists and knives. Because of Frank’s hands around one man’s skull, smashing it against the wall. Because of the other aggressor’s own knife deep in his neck.

He’s holding the phone and scrolls down his short list of contact. 

K. 

Karen, I am leaving town for a while. Not business, or anything. Just don’t get into trouble, huh?

But he doesn’t even press the green button. 

Leave, for a little while, whatever he has in New York. Frank would rather do that than taking pleasure in the smell of blood over again. It’s easier to be revengeful than to be a free man, but that’s exactly what Fisk wants. And shit, he was starting to believe in this after she was talking about. 

He asks Micro to keep an eye on her, and checks if there are flowers on her windowsill. He grabs some bills, the last Bulletin and a gun, and leaves with a promise and worries embed in his head.

Frank drives for hours but can’t go any further. There are some ties, and he’s stretching them to their limits. He can’t afford being further away from New York. He stops at a shitty motel at the North Carolina state’s border, big squared building, pale yellow and blue, surrounded by trees. 

The owner is a nice man, who lets him stay for nothing if he plays handyman. The blood on his hands had disappeared and there are only smudges of black from fixing the plumbing. Frank changes the lightbulbs, fixes the AC and checks on the residents who are running away from some ghosts too. It keeps his mind out of things. 

The waitress at the diner near calls him by his name and winks when she serves him coffee. It tastes bad and the eggs are overcooked but Frank still eats there every morning religiously. She hands him warm food and the local newspaper. They don’t have the New York Bulletin here, there’s no reassuring Karen Page written in black letters. 

Amy, a runaway teen who stays in the motel, told him he could read the Bulletin on the internet, but Frank has never been good with machines. He only asks her about what shit Karen has been digging into this time, and she only answers in front of a plate of pancakes. 

"Who’s Karen Page anyway?" Amy asks one day, crossing her arms, with the confidence of a teen used to confronting adults.  

Frank turns his head to the window. He knows what she is not, Karen. She is not an enemy. She is not bad or evil, but he knows she’s not an angel. She is scars and troubles. She is questions and answers. "She’s a good friend." Frank only says, and it almost doesn’t sound like a lie. 

"Did you have sex with her?"

Sneering, Frank points at her plate full of pancakes and syrup, "Eat before it’s cold."

The way she smirks, he tries not to think too much about it, about how old his daughter would be today, if she would wear black nail polish, rings and bracelets like her. If she would try to push his buttons, with the typical teenager insolence. 

One day, Amy tells him what’s on the first page of the Bulletin, "Fisk is out. He’s helping the FBI, or something."

Frank is not surprised, Fisk is too big of a man for jail, he told him himself. "Did Karen write anything about that?"

Amy shakes her head. 

Frank keeps his gun near, always, waiting for more men to come banging at his door, ready to put the leash around his neck.

He learns it from Micro, one night, while he is sitting by the diner with a cup of coffee, looking at the imposing trees all around, not unlike the New York buildings. "There was an attack at the Bulletin," and Frank jumps off the bench, and starts pacing like a wild animal, his coffee spilled on the grass. 

He hears, before his ears start ringing, "Karen was there." Frank recognizes this feeling, it makes him clench his fists and jaw. It’s familiar. "She’s fine," Micro quickly adds, but it doesn’t stop the coldness, the panic spreading.

It’s more of a growl than words when he asks "What happened?"

"She went after Fisk."

Frank packs his bag hastily, taking with him only what is useful, and leaving for Amy some bills and an advice — this place ain’t your home, call your parents, go back to school — his phone number too. She brings her arm around him, whispers "Thank you." 

Frank pats her shoulder and says "Take care."

Frank Castle leaves North Carolina, perhaps Pete stays. 

He drives too fast but the journey back to New York is too long. Too long for Frank and his thoughts. 

All heart, Karen Page, a muscle no one can control.

Frank opens one eye and doesn’t move. There’s a cross on Fisk’s head and he’s ready to shoot. The angle is wrong, the bullet could very well go through his skull and touch Karen. So he’s waiting, for a move, for a hand raised. He curses Karen, who’s attracted to troubles like insects to a bug zapper. He curses Fisk, he curses any threat to Karen. 

Fisk is standing, but before Frank can put a bullet in his skull, men come in, stops him and brings Karen out. 

He could meet her, even call her. He would tell her to leave New York, to stay out of troubles, and remind her that if she doesn’t take care of herself, he’ll do it himself. If she knew he was here though, she would try to fix his problems before erasing the target she has painted on her forehead. She’s stubborn like that. 

Instead, Frank decides to keep his sniper rifle pointing at Fisk’s window, to stay close to the bug zapper. He asks Micro to keep him posted about Karen’s moves every hour, every half hour if he can.

Micro tries to make it sound better than it is, "She’s hiding, Frank."

"And you lost her." Frank growls.

"She was -" David tries to defend himself, "Must have learned some things from you."

It’s a diversion, but he learns it too late. Men, with knives, clenched fists and willpower. Petty criminals, confidence fattened by Fisk’s money. No heavy weapons, no strategy. Just to keep him away from the Church where Karen is, caged and chased like a mouse. 

He has to use his left arm to call Micro because there’s a knife deep in his upper right arm. 

"They think she escaped. But I am not sure she even got out."

"She could still be in the church ?" he asks, while holding tight to the knife, ready to pull it out. 

"I don’t know, yeah, it’s possible."

"I gotta get in."

"Frank, you can’t. You do that, and there’s no pardon. No more Pete."

There probably never was any Pete, he thinks. It all seems fake, superficial now, to try to get back to a normal life, when even his name is fake. "I don’t give a shit." 

Frank only sees a shadow of her. She’s being escorted by the NYPD and Frank doesn’t know if he should be reassured or not. 

"Shit," he mutters, pacing back and forth down the street by the church. He holds his wrist, it’s shaking, because if anything happens to her - 

Fisk knows he’s here, he most likely has someone looking after him. He still doesn’t get why he’s only sending some bullies. Fisk does what he did in jail, feeding the dogs until they bite. Maybe that’s what he wants from him. 

Frank takes his phone and scrolls down his list of contacts. It’s a simple K. 

He presses the green button this time. It’s her voice mail and it makes it easier for him to say, "Karen. I need to know if you’re ok. Stay safe, ok? Stay away from Fisk and from troubles. I’ll be around. Always."

Frank knocks on her door and immediately hides his hands in his pockets, as if there was blood on them still. In his pockets, a small knife, money, no brochures. Pete is gone.

He stayed away from Karen for too long, never too far, just enough. He was near the crowd of journalists when she made her declaration, near the shit hole Murdock brought her to. Never too far, even if it didn’t feel that way. 

He can’t explain what made him knock on her door. 

"Frank," she whispers, and she puts her arms around him. No matter if it is shame and blood embed in his hands, he still cradles her neck and holds her closer. 

It’s a long embrace, Frank closes his eyes, takes her in, alive. Karen steps back opens her door wider. All heart, Karen Page, a muscle he can’t control. 

Karen says the flowers from last time are dead, that she forgot to water them, that she still has the pot somewhere, and the mold is dry. "I didn’t hear from you" she says, handing him a bottle of beer "I wanted to put the flower out -" she adds but never finish her sentence. 

"A lot happened."

"Yeah." Karen sips on her beer and sits down on her couch. 

He sits beside her, carefully. He had been forced to watch her from afar for too long, too far for him to see if there was cuts or bruises on her face. He doesn’t find any. 

Karen bites her lips and shakes her head, she wants to say something but doesn’t dare to. "Kare - "

"Where were you?" Frank can’t tell what’s in her voice, if it’s reproach or worries, maybe a bit of both. 

"I was gone for a while." He doesn’t tell her why, though. "I came back as soon as I could." His mouth ticks as he says, "Wasn’t fast enough." He takes a sip of his beer, trying to swallow down his guilt, "I tried to keep you safe. I put on the vest, Karen."

"I didn’t want you to."

"I had Fisk. Could have shot him. But I didn’t want to —» To disappoint her, maybe. "I would do it again. Better." Frank admits easily, "I need to." He doesn’t tell her how good it felt to hold a sniper, to fight, taking his mind out of things. 

"Need what? To put on the vest? To be the Punisher?"

"No," he almost shouts, standing "I need to protect you, Karen. I can’t lose —"He’s cut off by his own treacherous mind, playing tricks on him, making him see images he doesn’t want to see. 

"I don’t want to be the reason for your actions, Frank."

"But you were. Working, the veteran group. Trying to be this normal guy. You were behind everything Karen." Frank looks at her, "Fighting loneliness, remember?"

Karen nods and finishes her beer. She passes a hand on her mouth, then eyes, now rimmed with red. He could have missed it, if he wasn’t so close, so focused. "I thought I needed you." Karen whispers. "I called my dad, and —"She stops, "I wanted to call you, but I was right not to."

"Why?"

"For what you said. The vest, the Punisher. I didn’t want you to go back to that. I didn’t want you to do it because of me." Karen stands up, takes two steps to the kitchen and puts her two hands on the counter.

"I should have been there, shit Karen, if anything had happened to you —"

"I am fine," she says, turning around and leaning against the counter, trying to give him a smile despite her eyes still red. "Nothing happened to me."

Hard headed woman who only lies about herself. That one is the biggest. Frank might not know everything about her, but she has the hard eyes of someone who fought many battles. She has always been virtuous but not guiltless. 

"Fisk tried to get you killed. I’m gonna find this shitty copy of Red, and make him regret ever going after you." She seems ready to scold him, with that way of hers, a frown and carefully chosen words, but he doesn’t let her, "That’s what I do. What I need to do. Protect people I care about, ok?"

Karen raises her hand and replies, "You’re so stubborn, Frank."

"Look who’s talking." 

Karen has a small smile, right there, then a long sigh. He has a lot of questions, why she went after Fisk and if that’s a hint of purple he can see on her cheekbone. He hopes they’ll have the time for that. 

"You know, I sometimes wished you killed him. Fisk. I wished I killed him." 

Frank frowns, clenches his jaw. Not because he believes she couldn’t, but because she could have. 

Karen adds, "Not my first rodeo, remember?"

So much left to unwrap about Karen Page — he hopes they’ll have the time for that. 

"By the way," she goes to her desk, puts her hair behind her ear and digs in the drawer. "I had to change my phone number."

She writes something down and hands him a post it with her new phone number. "Easier than flowers."

Frank promises he will call her. Another promise, just like the message she never got. 

He takes a step forward and takes her in his arms, "Take care, Karen. Stay out of trouble." Frank kisses her cheek, exactly where he thought he saw the bruise. 

He puts the post-it in his breast pocket, hides his hands in his pockets. 

Frank’s new life is unlike Pete’s. It’s picking his own battles — his name is Poindexter, Fisk’s dog; Billy, and nightmares. But it’s also beers and pizzas every Thursday, it’s lipstick stains on a coffee cup. 

[quill-of-thoth]

So I briefly adopted dreamwidth in the days immediately following the collapse of livejournal, and if you were looking for Livejournal 2 with several extra features it worked well! But around the same time there was tumblr and the rise of fandom twitter, which was great specifically for artists because it lowered the barrier of entry for images. You see, anybody who knew where the real text editor was on dreamwidth could put out a well formatted essay or fic or even (Although that was less the style) a two line shitpost. But to embed images you had to make accounts with image sharing sites, upload images there, copy and paste their embed codes into the image adder in the blog (or in html into your comment) and then six months later when fucking photobucket decided that there were no free accounts anymore do it all over again or have nobody ever engage with that work again. (This was especially bad in the sims 2 and 3 fandoms because the stories were half screenshots. But if you've ever seen a fic on AO3 with a fancy photoshopped header? We all used to be nuts about those, and everyone who had ever pirated photoshop or one of it's clones, or gotten free picture editor software with their digital camera, could make average quality illuminations for their blog.) So most of fandom, and the more meta fandoms, and a decent amount of original fiction for fun and profit moved over to tumblr, with the idea that of course we'd all do our stupid puns and our art and our recommendations lists there, and when we advertised people would click through for the properly formatted essays and fic and lovingly captioned birthday present gifsets in Baskerville Old style. They'd leave the personal happy birthday messages and the debates (actual debates, like with two sides respectfully outlining their opinions) in the comments there. And then smartphones became the only phones you could get, every social media became an app that you had to download to even get into the site on your phone and nobody ever clicked through again, or at least, not enough compared to either the old days or the information firehose of social media. The conversations moved here until everyone realized that it took zero work compared to blogs and forums to have randos yelling at you in your own blog here and we all became strangers again. And you can't find an old post for shit, so the only reading lists that survive are fandom rec blogs that largely link to other sites (but fandom has enough people they can afford to have a tenth or less of the people seeing a post actually click through: people who want to talk about writing don't) Also, and I think this may be key: If you were a giant piece of shit in public in the days of blogs and forums you very easily lost access to fandom and writing content. Because people could block you, entire sites could ban you, and reblogging was not a big thing. It's not like that kind of moderation always happened, but it easily could. Nobody put up a TERFS DNI, not because we were not aware that they were shitheads, but because when some lady came screaming into your blog about how you were a disgrace to womanhood you didn't have to know there was a vast political history of her precise brand of shittiness, you (especially if you were a rec list or forum admin) could prevent her from getting to see the work you made basically ever again, and often the work of other people too. And it also took a lot more work to start an argument over whether or not you liked a book.

Do you think that an internet writing community of an old-fashioned sort might be better built up on Dreamwidth than social media these days? Your recent post made me wonder, as you brought up livejournal (and also because of how DW kinda forces a specific type of "interact or this site is useless" environment)

I've never used Dreamwidth, so I honestly have no idea. Someone with more experience with that would have to comment.

I know Critique Circle tries to require engagement, but I don't think it really works well in my experience. The old NaNo site and its forums were good, but they redesigned the site and the forums and lost a lot of it, and I don't like what they did with the place. There was an active writing community on AQC for a while that I was part of, but it's long since died. Absolute Write has one, but I'm fairly certain it's less active than it used to be; the same with the forums on Query Tracker.

Forums just seem less popular than they used to be, and a lot of community building and the kinds of communities it fostered have died with it.

There's some sites even today that have active comment communities--hell, even things like Ask a Manager do. I actually had old-school style comments enabled on my blog for the longest time, but you have to actually go to the blog post to actually access the comment threads, and...no one uses those on Tumblr? So I just stopped bothering and ended up removing it during a blog theme retooling.

I just wanna have a conversation with people, and it's getting so, so hard to find anywhere online that allows for it.

I think what would be good to help foster an older-style writing community would include the necessary requirements:

A place where people can post their own work or about their own work in a categorized way

A place to have public comments that are easily accessible from the work/post itself and easy to thread comment conversations.

A violation of the current temporalness of posts online: things need to sit around and not get locked and still be willing to comment on old things and threads.

DMs enabled

Encouraged posting of multiple topics and multiple formats, not just the works themselves

But I think the real problem is that the internet culture has just...changed. People get anxious talking about their writing and work these days. People get weird about being genuine about things. People get weird commenting on older things or letting things sit. People forget about older stuff. People get weird talking in depth about intellectual things. A lot of writing internet communities have taken a total fandom bent and fandom culture would have to be removed from it.

I don't know that internet culture has taken the steps in the direction to foster the kinds of thing I want. People use fanfic for all of their "silly" writing or practice writing or trying new things and all of their original writing is Serious and Important and Very Secret and quite possibly doesn't actually exist.

Forum culture enabled a way to have users talk about multiple things in an organized way that was neatly archived. It enabled conversations of more than one reply without drowning a "feed." It enabled a different kind of culture than most websites today do.

[shinelikethunder]

disconnected thoughts on fandom and the indieweb

Recently I discovered the IndieWeb project, and I... think I am a lot more intrigued by it than by other Better Social Media Platform pipe dreams and decentralization projects I’ve seen? Because it’s not a monolithic platform that has to be all things to all people, or even one that has to gain a critical mass of userbase before it’s useful for anything. It’s just a bunch of people, making sites that work for them, and banging out protocols so their sites can talk to each other and hook up to the social-media hangouts du jour.

The basic idea:

- Have a personal website, preferably a personal domain name, that is the hub for your online identity and stuff. Posts, tweets, pictures, links, reading list, events, whatever you’d normally be posting to social media. You host it, you control it, you own it. You tweak it to fit your needs, no Xkit required.

- Once the original archival copy is up on your personal site, cross-post it to whatever social media sites it belongs on. You don’t have to quit your Tumblr habit, or convince your friends to quit theirs, or give up the audience you can reach on a large site.

- Use a pingbacks-on-steroids tool to collect all the responses (likes, reblogs, comments, etc) from the various sites you’ve cross-posted to. Ideally, display them at the bottom of the post back on your website.

As an idea, I like it a lot. In practice, a lot depends on what tools are already available, how useable they are, how capable you are of coding/templating/configuring to fill in the gaps, and how difficult large sites make it to push/pull from them automatically. That’s pretty much what I’m interested in exploring in the near future, for my own use if nothing else. I already have most of my Tumblr content backed up to a Wordpress install on my own shared hosting account, so I’m kinda curious see how much IndieWeb compatibility I can manage using plugins and template tweaks.

Indieweb and fandom:

As a potential tool for fandom to wean ourselves off the various hellsites we’ve inhabited over the years... okay, it’s an interesting thought. One with lots of unanswered questions, but interesting.

Lots of unanswered questions, so the rest of this is going under a cut.

- Upside: I know a lot of older fans are still nostalgic about the early blogosphere and even--heaven forfend--the Geocities days. Many things about them were shit, but the archipelago of personal fan shrines, indie blogs, having a personal site with a personal archive of your work, etc. was awesome. And the “own your own creations” ethos fits in nicely with AO3′s “we have to own the servers” philosophy.

- Enabling factor: Fandom builds and customizes stuff like crazy. Yes, including the younger generations who weren’t around for the “build it yourself” days and seem to think AO3 burst fully formed out of the forehead of a long-lost deity. What, you haven’t noticed that even on a hobbled hellsite like Tumblr, teenagers are using the relative freedom of the theme system to spontaneously rediscover all the sins of Geocities web design? (I rib with affection, as someone who definitely had a page with flaming torch gifs and a sparklecursor back in 2001.) Full, out-of-the-box, point-and-click setup is necessary to get fandom to adopt something in any decent numbers. But once we’re there, a disproportionate number of us start tinkering with anything that’s customizable, and when someone with actual coding skills comes out with a useful tool to supplement missing capabilities, it spreads like wildfire.

- Gaps and directions to expand: Indieweb principles include “scratch your own itches,” so here are my itches, which I’m going to shamelessly project onto fandom at large.

Import--needs rock solid LiveJournal-clone and Tumblr support if your site is to serve as an archive. I don’t know if there even is a working Wordpress plugin to import from LJ or Dreamwidth. The best-supported Tumblr->Wordpress importer is actually better than most standalone Tumblr backup tools, but it still mangles video posts/embeds. It’d also be cool to have import tools for AO3, Deviantart, and other major fanwork repositories.

Once your Tumblr posts are in, there's no way to automate the very first thing I’d want to do upon liberating my data from the vise-like jaws of What Tumblr Wants You To Do With Its Site: separate out posts I created, posts I added comments to, and posts I just shared via reblog. A nice addition would be the ability to copy Tumblr tags to a metadata field that’s separate from Wordpress tags--WP tags tend to be organizational, whereas on Tumblr, tags are often a sidechannel for comments that don’t propagate on reblog, thus filled with all sorts of crap.

On that note, Itch #3 is mass-organization tools. Select all posts that fit certain criteria and do a mass edit on their tags, categories, post types, or other taxonomy data. Lots of fandom folks have years or decades worth of content from various sites, making organizational tasks highly impractical to do manually. I’ve dicked around with a few Wordpress mass-edit plugins, but none of them seemed to work that well.

Not sure how well the existing backfeed tools support Tumblr notes, but for fandom to bite, the Tumblr support oughta be pretty damn slick. And the cross-posting should ideally support all the features of a native Tumblr post, because by god, we will use them, and we will notice if an expected one is missing. I can spot IFTTT cross-posts from AO3 without even reading text, and tbh my eyes usually skip right over them, unfair as that may be.

If this project extends to feed readers/aggregators, the embrace of multi-site cross-posting implies a need for deduplication. Preferably getting rid of Tumblr’s charming “barf the full post back out onto your dashboard every time someone you’re following shares/responds to it” behavior in the process. For fandom use, it’ll need a blacklist feature. And I’d love some more heavy-duty filtering, selective subscriptions (like to just one tag of a blog), creating multiple feeds based on topic or on how much firehose you want...

This may be a personal itch, but at least for personal archiving needs, I’m sick, sick, sick of the recency bias that’s eaten the internet since the first stirrings of Web 2.0. Wikis are practically the only sites that have escaped chronological organization. It would be cool to have easily-manipulated collections with non-kludgey support for series ordering, order-by-popularity, order-by-popularity with a manual bump for posts you want to highlight, hell even alphabetical ordering. None of these things are remotely unsolved problems, but they’re poorly supported on the social-media silos most people’s content lives on these days. Fandom’s suffered from this since at least the days of LiveJournal, which had the ominous beginnings of what’s since become the Tumblr Memory Hole. Relentless chronological ordering + the signal-to-noise ratio of any space with regular social interaction = greatest hits falling down the memory hole unless a community practices extensive manual cataloguing. Hell, LJ fandom did practice extensive manual cataloguing, but even within that silo, there was so much decentralization that content discovery was shit if you didn’t know the right accounts to search through. Like, fuck, at least forums bump threads to the top if they’re still active--LJ and blogs have the same "best conversation evar falls inexorably off the map as new posts are added, no matter how active it is” problem that InsideTheWeb forums did in 1999. (Anyone else remember InsideTheWeb? AKA 13-year-old me’s first experience with platform shutdown, frantic archiving attempts, and massive data loss. Fun times.) Tumblr and Twitter, meanwhile, spam you with duplicates of the original post every time someone you’re following replies to/shares it, a key component of the endless firehose of noise drowning out any attempt to hang on to the signal.

All those itches are things I could probably code myself if I got a stubborn enough bee in my bonnet, which might well happen. On the other hand, I have some deeper doubts, ones that aren’t going to get addressed by Wordpress plugins or shiny backfeed support:

The whole concept of IndieWeb fails to address (and might even worsen) what I suspect is the core dysfunction of social media. Which is the degradation of community spaces, and their replacement with a hopeless snarl where all content lives in individual accounts. There are a lot of weird effects that arise when the “social” sphere is built entirely upon the one-on-one connections created when someone subscribes to another account or gives someone else permission to view their restricted posts. Echo chambers, shame mobs, out-of-context remarks going viral, popular accounts setting off harassment storms whenever they disagree with someone, the difficulty of debunking hoaxes once they’re out in the wild... all of those are either created or made much, much worse by the lack of any reasonable, stable, shared expectation of who a post’s audience is.

Basically, if “own your content and host it on your site” also applies to your comments, interactions, etc, it starts running counter to one of the strengths of the Old Web. Which was community contexts where you explicitly weren’t posting to your own space or addressing everyone who might be looking at the main clearinghouse of all your different stuff. You were posting to the commons shared by a particular group with a particular culture and interests, not all of whom were people you’d necessarily want to follow outside that limited context, some of whom you might disagree with or dislike, but in any case you knew what audience you were broadcasting to. You knew what the conversation was, how similar conversations had gone in the past, and the reputations of all the main participants--not just the ones you yourself would subscribe to and the ones attention-grabbing enough to get shared by the people on your subscription list. And you weren’t spamming all your other acquaintances with chatter on a topic they weren’t interested in.

Shared spaces can also establish whatever social norms they need and moderate accordingly. (Plus, plurality of spaces = plurality of norms for different needs, which would solve a LOT of what’s currently ailing fandom.) Peaceable enforcement of a code of conduct, beyond the “minimum viable standard” sitewide abuse policy, is fundamentally impossible on social media, where individual muting is the closest thing you can get to moderation. That + unstable audience = any social norms that exist are so unenforceable it turns people into frothing shame-mob zealots, ratcheting up the coercive pressure on everyone the more it fails to work on the handful of unrepentant assholes who would’ve been permabanned from any self-respecting forum within a week. Moving onto personal sites with beefed up syndication/backfeed capabilities ain’t gonna fix that. Meanwhile the truly heinous dickweeds who’d ordinarily run afoul of the sitewide abuse policy will have the same capabilities, minus any risk of getting banned.

If there haven’t already been epic drama meltdowns caused by the “reply in your own space by making your own post, which includes a copy of the original post for context” model... it’s only a matter of time. You don’t even need malicious actors, just a human conflict where one party has overprotective subscribers. Or information turns out to be faulty and in need of correction. Or an argumentative type stumbles on the permalink of an acrimonious reply post that was actually resolved amicably several replies downthread. Or someone edits an apology into their controversial post and someone who’s been attacking it refuses to update their copy because tilting at strawmen is more fun. Or someone tries to make an embarrassing post go away by deletion and their co-conversationists don’t cooperate. Tumblr’s “reply by reposting in your own space and adding commentary” system already spawns endless floods of drama and misunderstanding, and that’s a system with some limits on the participants’ control, and relatively disposable accounts/identities if the shit hits the fan.

Basically, I’m all for personal websites as archives of your creations, but seriously dubious of them as archives of your interactions. Especially if the interactions aren’t well-segregated from the regular content feed that goes out to everyone who follows you. Yes, abuses of moderator power when interaction is all taking place on a site the mod controls are a thing. But if those sites are an archipelago of indie spaces rather than a monolithic platform, shitty mods don’t thwart the development of a healthy social ecosystem, they just drive everyone away to a competing space whose mod sucks less.

(Private/access-restricted archives of your interactions might be a compromise? You still have your stuff in case the other site goes down, but it’s not out there replicating the ill effects of the Tumblr reblog-to-respond model.)

Leaving aside all that, the IndieAuth component--using personal sites as stable identities you can log in with--is just as workable for community platforms as it is for cross-blog commenting. Proliferation of unlinkable accounts was one of the downfalls of forums, after all. That said, one potential point of friction is that fandom is far more pseudonym-centric than the devs and tech hobbyists who’ve coalesced around IndieWeb so far. But stable pseuds with years of reputation behind them have social effects that resemble real names more than anything else, so as potential culture clashes go, I’d hope that’s fairly surmountable.

As noted in the musings on LiveJournal archiving above: CONTENT DISCOVERY IS A BITCH IN DECENTRALIZED COMMUNITIES and that’s a major stumbling block for fandom. OTOH, platform-agnostic protocols with customization potential = room for experimentation with independently-run discovery/search/tagging layers. (Life goals: stay uncool enough that my “Like Uber, but for ___” elevator pitch ends up being “It’s like Technorati, but for fanfiction of Kirk drilling Spock.”)

Okay, that’s it, jesus christ it’s time for me to go to bed.