brarb-does-stuff

[brarb-does-stuff]

"Deprecated Fandoms" Spam Bot Alert!

If you get a comment that says AO3 is "deleting works to conserve server space", that is a Spam Bot. There is no such thing as "deprecated fandom content", nor is there any limit on the number of works that can be posted to a fandom tag (regardless of how "popular" it is). AO3 has not changed its content policies. We are committed to upholding our founding principle of maximum inclusiveness of fanwork content, and will only remove content that violates the AO3 Terms of Service. While non-fanworks are not allowed on AO3, we consider both original works and real-person fiction to be fanworks. Please don't listen to anyone telling you otherwise.

Unlike the previous round of art spam, so far these comments have all been from guests, so our advice for handling them is different! We're working on filtering these comments out, and flagging them as spam is how you can help. Read more below the cut!

To help train our automated spam-checker to block similar guest comments in the future:

If the comment is on your own work: 

Note: The "Spam" button only appears when viewing a guest comment directly on your work. This is because the AO3 comment inbox is merely a copy of the work's comments – deleting a comment from your AO3 inbox does not delete the comment from the work itself.

Go directly to the comment on your work, either by clicking on the link in your email or in your AO3 inbox.

Click on the "Spam" button to mark the guest comment as spam and remove it from your work. 

That's it! You don't have to do anything else.

If you see comments like these on someone else's work: 

Feel free to let the creator know the comment is from a bot and that they should mark it as spam. 

You can also report the comments as botspam via the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form linked at the bottom of every page on AO3. 

If you are reporting multiple guest comments, please submit only one report and include all comment links in your report description. (You can get the direct link to any comment by clicking the "Thread" button on the comment, and then copying the URL of that page.)

AO3's Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) does not pre-screen content on AO3; they only investigate if they receive a report. All reports are reviewed by PAC volunteers, who are real human beings. You don't need to worry that your or anyone else's fanworks will be taken down due to a baseless report or a mass-reporting campaign. 

If PAC were to determine that you had violated the TOS, you would receive a notification of the violation via the email address associated with your AO3 account—not via comments, social media, or any other method. 

[brarb-does-stuff]

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

[brarb-does-stuff]

European Citizens' Initiative - Ban on conversion practices in the European Union

European Citizens' Initiative is a mechanism to bring issues direct from the people to the EU commission. I strongly urge every citizen of the European Union member states to sign this Initiative to ban conversion therapy and similar persuasion practices.

[brarb-does-stuff]

I miss when I would get Tumblr asks that actually said things and weren't just digital panhandling scams.

[brarb-does-stuff]

I don't usually post my non-fandom craft stuff but I worked for a long time on this tablecloth so I wanted to show it off😌

Because this got popular for some reason I wanted to add the pattern in this version- I used crochet thread and a 1.4 mm hook

And also for those asking I did not track exactly how long i worked on it but it was over the course of a year and a half

[brarb-does-stuff]

Did a moomin plushie crochet pattern, all free, because someone on reddit said the plushies from the brand can be expensive and some people were interested when I said i crocheted mine, so here you go.

First time doing a pattern (so might be hard to figure out, don't hesitate to dm me for help) and don't usually crochet plushies so I helped myself with kosinsqa.handmade's free bunny pattern to understand what I was trying to do.

Something i forgot to say in the pattern is that i do yarn under and not yarn over when I crochet ☝

Now i have two moomins and one is going to change gender and become Snorkmaiden bye

[brarb-does-stuff]

despite being an avid ao3 user for years i have never managed to figure out how to make a collection of bookmarks. i know you can add bookmarks to a collection rather than adding the actual work to a collection, but for some reason i just cannot figure out how.

i’d love to be able to make collections of different types of fics to make it easier to go back and reread favorites with different themes that i can’t easily organize by filtering my bookmarks, but this particular skill has evaded me all these years 😩

Nonnie I have excellent news -

It is so much simpler than you think.

First you make a collection. If you don't know how, or want a refresher, there is an excellent tutorial Here on the FAQ.

Then, all you have to do is edit a bookmark, or make a new one, and there will be a little box that says Add to Collection - just fill in the name of your collection and BAM. Bookmark collection.

(Really I don't think you even have to make the collection first, you can create one right from the bookmarks page, but I have never done it that way because I need to have the exact collection page name copypaste-able or I will forget what I am doing)

Bookmark Collections for EVERYONE!!

I hope this helps, and if anyone else has tips please put them in the notes so we can all see!

~ Mod Remi

[brarb-does-stuff]

Announcing the Discworld graphic novel universe.

We are thrilled to announce that the work of Sir Terry Pratchett is being adapted into graphic novels, to be released by Penguin Books. But what one will we start with? How about three...

Read more at terrypratchett.com.

[brarb-does-stuff]

Adding fics to AO3 collections as a reader

Depending on what other sites you read on, you might think of a Collection as a kind of bookshelf for stories you like. And it can be that, but that's not the only thing collections were intended for.

According to the FAQ, "A collection is a group of works and/or bookmarks compiled together under one theme." They can be used for a fandom fest or challenge. They can be used by an author to organize their works. And they can also be used by readers to organize the stories they've read.

The important thing to keep in mind when adding something to a collection is: are you adding the fic or are you adding a bookmark of the fic?

If you, as a reader, try to add an author's fic to your collection, that author will get an email asking them if they want to let you do that. A lot of authors will say no. This is because the owner of the collection can hide all of the works in a collection, making them invisible to anyone else on the Archive. This feature exists to support fandom exchanges, challenges, and fests where all of the works get revealed on the same day.

If you, as a reader, want to create a collection then I recommend bookmarking the fic and checking off the box in the bookmark form that says "Add to collection." This will add just your bookmark to your collection, not the fic itself. You will not need the author's permission, and nothing you do will affect the fic itself or hide it from the rest of the Archive.

Collections of bookmarks can be a great way to organize your favourite fics, and you can add a bookmark to more than one collection at a time. You have a fic that is about your favourite character AND it's fluff AND it's canon compliant? You can add it to a Character Collection, a Fluff Collection, and a Canon Compliant collection and then no matter which of those moods you're in, you'll still have it right there waiting for you to read it.

You need to create your collection first, and it will take a couple hours for the collection to appear for you to add bookmarks to it, but once you've got your collections set up, you can just keep adding bookmarks to them pretty much forever.

tl;dr collect bookmarks, not fics and organize your bookmarks in a whole new way

addendum: if you are an author and you have allowed your work to be added to a collection, you can remove it at any time

[brarb-does-stuff]

Minecraft Face Blanket, a free crochet pattern designed by Kara Michelle on Ravelry.

[brarb-does-stuff]

Woolly Aesthetic

feat. handspun corriedale and merino/sari silk as well as leicester longwool locks. Hopefully I can turn this into a woven scarf!

[brarb-does-stuff]

I crocheted a sheep bag for the stardew valley concert I'm gonna go to.

Her head is a small pouch and it can be detached and used as a keychain :D

It was freehanded completely, but credit to knottedneon for the original design/idea.

[brarb-does-stuff]

Row 31/31, 496/496 pieces

It is done!!!! I finished sewing (see my earlier post) and managed to get a nice sunny picture of the whole blanket as well 🥰 incredible. I haven't measured it but I'd say it's more than the envisioned 2m in length 😅 not dramatically more though and it's a really nice length as well, so I'm very happy ❤️

This doesn't mean the blanket is finished though. First order of business is to clean up the sewing. There's places where either the seams have come undone or I forgot to weave in the end or the end is tiny and I now have to magic knot on a longer end to properly secure the seam - as well as the edge seams that have come undone quite a while ago. I've already started on this in the afternoon (after taking this picture 😁). Second order of business is to crochet a border around the whole thing so a) the edge is really secure and b) it looks more cohesive and finished (like it's framed 😃). Both of these make it kind of hard to have a cat in your lap while you're doing it though, so let's see how well Tilly lets me progress on this 😁 I still have to look up which crochet stitch will look good for this and then probably practice a bit before committing on the blanket. I've dabbled a bit in crochet before but it's not really my thing, so I'm not super great at it. Any suggestions for edging stitches are welcome!

To celebrate this milestone we have two Tilly pictures in the blanket 🎉🎉🎉

I started sewing this together on 14.08.2023 and finished today, 06.04.2025, which means this took me 1 year and almost 8 months. In the grand scheme of this project, that's nothing 😁

Thank you everyone for your enthusiasm for my little project, it's really nice to see other people being excited for this thing I started almost 10 years ago ❤️❤️❤️ Here's to finishing it off by November! I'll keep you posted 😊

As always, the pattern is "Puzzle Pieces" by Megan Ellinger and can be found on Ravelry. Find my other progress posts under the tag "#puzzle pieces blanket".

[brarb-does-stuff]

Let me give you, the internet, and mostly myself, some executive function advice.

Sometimes, when you find yourself somehow unable to do a thing you need or want to do, one issue might be that your brain has subconsciously tacked on extra tasks, and those tasks are making the whole thing too overwhelming!

Tl;dr: don't do that!

For example, I like to track the books I read and I've been meaning to add a few books I've recently finished. But my brain has added that I should also write a review, and the exact dates I read them (which I can't even remember) and oh by the way I should finish moving my stuff over to storygraph and before I know it that 1 task has turned into 4! And my executive functioning says no.

In fact, while I was getting the idea to write this post, my brain went "wouldn't it be nice to also write a post about y and tag them all properly and go back through my posts and find all mental health posts and tag those too" and wouldn't you know it. 4 tasks.

Discard those extra tasks. Don't even write them down. They don't matter. Strip it down to the 1 task you started with and only do that.

Sure, you won't have achieved some theoretical better end result but that end result was never gonna happen anyway. It was paralysing you from getting the initial task done. And maybe once that initial task is done, you can get to one (1! not 4!) additional task. Later. Not now.

Half-assing is better than no-assing.

[brarb-does-stuff]

Hey i’m a fashion design student so i have tons and tons of pdfs and docs with basic sewing techniques, pattern how-tos, and resources for fabric and trims. I’ve compiled it all into a shareable folder for anyone who wants to look into sewing and making their own clothing. I’ll be adding to this folder whenever i come across new resources

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16uhmMb8kE4P_vOSycr6XSa9zpmDijZSd?usp=sharing

[brarb-does-stuff]

Bumble Bee Backpack, a free crochet pattern designed by Erangi Udeshika on Ravelry.

[brarb-does-stuff]

Die Polizei wurde zu einem Einbruch in der Pfannenfabrik gerufen. Sie trafen dort zwar auf den Täter, konnten ihn jedoch nicht festnehmen. Er hatte sich rechtzeitig antihaftbeschichtet.