elderflower--tea - Tumblr blog

[elderflower--tea]

Sketch of a witch in a set of day-to-day robes. I imagine these to be in a lightweight wool or a heavier cotton or linen weave (something with some structure and body to it). The design is largely influenced by a catalogue image of a woman’s shirtwaist from 1916 that I saw recently.

[elderflower--tea]

[elderflower--tea]

Hey friends. Do this:

This probably took this person 3 seconds to do but it immediately told me that they liked my story enough to come back and read it again and they liked it again the second time.

Your favorite writers Do Not Know that you think about their stories after you read them. I generally assume that my stories make people happy for the few minutes they’re reading and then they never think about it again. To know that that’s not the case and that someone has returned just makes my little heart swell with joy.

I needed this today. If you’re the person who left this comment (or if you’ve ever commented on any of my writing) I love you.

[elderflower--tea]

Once again making a plug for the Anonymous collection on AO3. Don’t delete your work! Add it to the Anonymous collection, which will remove your name but allow you to retain control (still receive kudos and comments, still make edits or updates, etc.) No one will know the work is yours, even though it’s still yours.

Orphaning your work is an option, too, but the nice thing about the Anonymous collection (again), is that you get to retain control of your work!

Don’t delete! Make it anonymous!

[elderflower--tea]

[elderflower--tea]

The pipeline from “I’m indifferent/slightly averse towards this popular ship” to “this ship shows up in every fucking unrelated fanwork and post and now I have a personal grudge against it because it’s so hard to avoid” is surprisingly short

[elderflower--tea]

Since lots of people are doing Whumptober and Kinktober and Fictober and other events, I’d just like to put it out there again that drabbles and ficlets and oneshots are stories in their own right. 

Posting them as separate works makes them easier to find, easier to filter, easier to reread. Posting them in as separate works in a series allows readers to subscribe to the series and get notified of each new story you post, just like they’d be notified of each new chapter in a single fic.  

Posting them as separate fics also lets readers know which tags and characters and ships are involved in each separate story so they can better decide which stories are for them and better filter out the ones that they won’t enjoy. 

Plus, you can only kudos a single story once. Let them show you all of their love!

Short fics are still fics. Please consider posting them independently from each other. 🧡🖤

[elderflower--tea]

The AO3 search/filtering system has just ruined me for every other search function ever. I genuinely go onto websites, click 'advanced search' and then look at what paltry options they've given me in utter horror. How does anyone find anything? How do people survive?

[elderflower--tea]

Hey here's a reminder that you're allowed to publish unfinished fics and snippets of fics that you're never going to continue and you're allowed to abandon WIPs and you're allowed to orphan unfinished fics and ficlet collections and you never have to finish a single fic if you don't want to.

And there will always be someone who reads that unfinished work and is happy with it and feels glad that they read it even if it's never continued.

[elderflower--tea]

[elderflower--tea]

[elderflower--tea]

There are many new friends on the archive, and many are young and have only known social media, which is why I wanted to say something!

Ao3 does not have an algorithm! It isn't a social media site, it's an archive.

Posting fics on Tumblr isn't the same as posting fics on Ao3

Ao3 is like a giant virtual bookshelf, and everyone is able to add their own stories to the bookshelf, all stored with different tags and different fandoms. Works are automatically sorted by newest to oldest, but filters, looking at bookmarks, and using the search function can change that.

Certain works are not pushed to the top like social media posts. More kudos and reads don't push a single work to more viewers by some algorithm. Unless otherwise filtered, works will be at the top of the page based on how recent it was posted.

Smaller fandoms get less views, less kudos, less bookmarks, and larger fandoms get more simply because of the number of people inside the fandom.

Ao3 is a giant virtual bookshelf- there is no algorithm, and there is no man behind the shelf pushing certain books forward.

Happy reading, and if you'd like to have more people notice a fic, why not share it with them! Send a dm to a fandom friend and it might turn into one of their favorite fics!

[elderflower--tea]

[elderflower--tea]

[elderflower--tea]

Hey here's a reminder that you're allowed to publish unfinished fics and snippets of fics that you're never going to continue and you're allowed to abandon WIPs and you're allowed to orphan unfinished fics and ficlet collections and you never have to finish a single fic if you don't want to.

And there will always be someone who reads that unfinished work and is happy with it and feels glad that they read it even if it's never continued.

[elderflower--tea]

Every time AO3 makes an update, there’s a chorus of ‘and can we please please please be able to leave kudos on each chapter pleeeeease?!?!’

In theory, this is a nice idea. We’ve all smashed the kudos button on our favourite fics, bemoaning the fact we can’t give them all the love.

But ya’ll, kudos per chapter would absolutely fucking suck.

For readers, it would suck because it would compound the existing problem of making it hard to find fics that are good and not just long - not that a fic can’t be both! But there are plenty of Pulitzer-worthy one-shots out there that are buried way way down the list when ranked by number of kudos, because they’re beneath a bunch of 50/? fics where the author lost sight of where the hell the story was going 30 chapters ago, but their fic has had 50x the chances to be viewed so has more kudos. It would encourage authors to release their fics in lots of little chapters instead of a few longer ones/one-shots as they might otherwise have done (and as might otherwise suit the story).

And for authors it would especially suck, as it would compound the existing problem of people not commenting. Kudos are very much appreciated, but comments make an author’s day; but so few people bother, and frankly, it’s disheartening. Let people just click a button to show their appreciation for each new chapter? The hits:kudos:comments ratio would get even worse than it already is.

You can already ‘give kudos’ for each chapter of a fic on AO3 - by commenting. Hell you can literally write ‘kudos!’ It will make the author smile, I promise.

[elderflower--tea]

opening up my own fanfiction document on my personal laptop to see if the author has updated it yet