iwillmissourtalks

[iwillmissourtalks]

SEARCHING AO3: A (SLIGHTLY) MORE ADVANCED GUIDE

Disclaimer: This is very very geared towards finding fics about a particular character rather than a pairing. My favourite guys tend to be popular-ish women that appear in a lot of fics but only as supporting characters so I’ve had to become v good at combing for things that actually centre them <3

For this guide we’re gonna use my current hyperfixation: Mel Medarda & see what we can find lol

1. Use the tag filter system as your default! It’s superior in every way to the normal search except for the “any field” section which can be pretty useful but unless you’re using it for SPECIFICALLY THAT, don’t bother.

You can access the tag filter by clicking on any common tag (we’re gonna use “Mel Medarda”) and then hitting filters.

This thing is SO useful! Poke about in the dropdown menus; each of them will have the top 10 associated tags for that category. For example the top additional tags for Mel are Angst; Slow Burn and Fluff because,,, well. yk

+ it shows the number of fics with those tags under the “main” tag of Mel Medarda!

2. Keep an eye out for character specific tags! Now that we’re definitely using the tag filtering system we can start actually filtering through those tags <3

Most characters will have common but specific tags that both name them and imply something about their arc in the fic. A frequent example is something like “X character needs a hug”, or more obviously: “X character centric”.

These are my go-to tags for Mel! Most characters will have a variation of this set + some others (“BAMF character name” is also a pretty common one in older fandoms) and any one of these (INDIVIDUALLY, at most filtered in sets of 2) will lead to a few hundred results. It’s not 100% flawless because a lot of authors over-tag, but a solid 80% of the fics under these tags will at least heavily feature the character you’re looking for.

3. Filter by summary!!

At the bottom of the tag filters there’s a section called search within results. This is your Best Friend.

summary: “_”

^ for easy copy/paste

What this script will do is search for whatever you put in the quotation marks and then only give you fics with that thing in the description. I like to use it for character names but it also does a pretty good job filtering for tropes — try using it for vampires lol

Doing this with Mel narrows down her character tag from 7000+ to just under one and a half thousand fics, all of which at the very least include her name in the description.

4. RAREPAIRS ARE YOUR FRIEND! Canon but only semi-popular ships are infinitely more likely to get tagged in the background than say, for example — melvik (nobody is writing background melvik). This tip only works if you’re willing to multiship for more content of your guy but it is very effective.

5. Related to tip 4: Search by otp! If you’re locked in on a particular pairing that’s more popular, you can search for fics that ONLY include that ship.

otp:true

^ for easy copy/paste (again)

This is super useful and also the main reason I don’t tag side pairings in my own fics! Also remember to use this script with ship tag rather than just a character one — otherwise it won’t work.

6. Parent tags exist! This is less of a strategy and requires more trail & error, but lots of tags filter into each other. For another Mel-related example, filtering by the Only Meljay tag would also being up fics tagged with Jayce/Mel Medarda-centric — despite (potentially) not having the original tag you filtered by. This is because Jayce/Mel Medarda-centric is the Parent of the original tag, meaning ao3 has deemed the two tags related enough to appear in each other’s search results.

This is something done manually by ao3 staff so the consistency of parent tags are a little weird sometimes.

More practically, this is an interaction to keep in mind when blocking tags. If for example you were to exclude “Torture” from your search, ao3 would also automatically exclude —

Implied/Referenced Torture

Physiological Torture

Aftermath of Torture

And probably many more.

Even if the broad category of torture isn’t tagged in a fic, the specific referenced type of torture counts — to ao3 — as a tag of torture by itself.

Interestingly, the “sub-categories” of tag don’t feed into each other this way. You can block Physiological Torture and still see fics tagged with Implied/Referenced Torture or Aftermath of Torture.

Knowing this is useful in the sense that the more specific you get with a blocked tag, the less likely you are to accidentally filter out something you would actually be fine with (or inversely blocking a general category you HATE means you don’t have to obsessively filter out every possible iteration of that thing you don’t like).

You can tell tag is a Parent Category by searching for a Sub Category and blocking what you think is the Parent. This will result in 0 results.

Implied/Referenced Torture tag after blocking the Torture tag.

Each of these strategies are things to be done in waves or in combination with one another. Casting a wide net and then narrowing it down is really important, too many tags and you end up with no results.

Ao3 has an INCREDIBLY robust set of archival tools. It’s an amazing site and if a fic exists and you know what you’re doing, you should always be able to find it.

Happy reading <3

[iwillmissourtalks]

No thoughts, only Mel 💛✨

[iwillmissourtalks]

[Image ID: A screenshot of a post on X from the account Gaza notifications reading "BREAKING : The Israeli army has announced that it's forces have begun a ground operation in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip". Under the text, there is a photo of destroyed buildings and 3 people standing among them, under a red filter with "gazanotice" written over it. /.End ID]

This is getting even more dire for people in Gaza, starting from the North. If you can, please consider supporting initiatives and campaigns for people in Northern Gaza !!

One of them is Mahmoud Jomaa, he hasn't received a donation in a while so any help is welcome ! 🙏

Donate here / Vetted by @/gazafunds

[iwillmissourtalks]

quick its 3am post viktor arcane and mel medarda

[iwillmissourtalks]

sometimes it's not even enemies to lovers. sometimes you get handed the leash of a snarling, barking dog against your will and realize with dawning horror that you are now responsible for teaching it not to bite

[iwillmissourtalks]

✦ JUST IN: A LIST WITH PROMPTS HAS BEEN SPOTTED! ✦

A closer look at it confirms our speculations. The list in question is the prompt list for Mel Medarda's very own appreciation week.

It consists of several different sets of prompts assigned from August 21st to 27th. You can do one word, can focus on the sets' title or combine all of them together.

Wildcards can be used any day!

A bonus day on August 28th offers the opportunity to post any of the prompts on the additional day. Overworking yourself or stressing over days is not the goal! So feel free to use the Bonus Day if you need it.

Below you can find the sets of prompts for the Mel Medarda appreciation week.

DAY 1. AUGUST 21ST. HEADLINE.

empathy / compassion / poise

DAY 2. AUGUST 22ND. BOLD FACE.

luxury / elegance / wine

DAY 3. AUGUST 23RD. HOOK.

embrace / vulnerability / disarming

DAY 4. AUGUST 24TH. SENSATION.

era of magic / curse / transformation

DAY 5. AUGUST 25TH. CORRESPONDENT.

youth / exile / outsider

DAY 6. AUGUST 26TH. ANCHOR.

shield / armor / tattoo

DAY 7. AUGUST 27TH. OBITUARY.

legacy / family / inheritance

WILDCARDS. COPY.

mask / puzzle / mirror

✦ CARRD ✦

[iwillmissourtalks]

3 components of worldbuilding:

1. The author’s kinks

2. The author’s power fantasy

3. The author’s political agenda

Plot and logic optional

[iwillmissourtalks]

[iwillmissourtalks]

Handsome Caitlyn week day 2: uniform

All quiet...

(Part of an older WIP in a much larger pile of WIPs)

[iwillmissourtalks]

[iwillmissourtalks]

SEARCHING AO3: A (SLIGHTLY) MORE ADVANCED GUIDE

Disclaimer: This is very very geared towards finding fics about a particular character rather than a pairing. My favourite guys tend to be popular-ish women that appear in a lot of fics but only as supporting characters so I’ve had to become v good at combing for things that actually centre them <3

For this guide we’re gonna use my current hyperfixation: Mel Medarda & see what we can find lol

1. Use the tag filter system as your default! It’s superior in every way to the normal search except for the “any field” section which can be pretty useful but unless you’re using it for SPECIFICALLY THAT, don’t bother.

You can access the tag filter by clicking on any common tag (we’re gonna use “Mel Medarda”) and then hitting filters.

This thing is SO useful! Poke about in the dropdown menus; each of them will have the top 10 associated tags for that category. For example the top additional tags for Mel are Angst; Slow Burn and Fluff because,,, well. yk

+ it shows the number of fics with those tags under the “main” tag of Mel Medarda!

2. Keep an eye out for character specific tags! Now that we’re definitely using the tag filtering system we can start actually filtering through those tags <3

Most characters will have common but specific tags that both name them and imply something about their arc in the fic. A frequent example is something like “X character needs a hug”, or more obviously: “X character centric”.

These are my go-to tags for Mel! Most characters will have a variation of this set + some others (“BAMF character name” is also a pretty common one in older fandoms) and any one of these (INDIVIDUALLY, at most filtered in sets of 2) will lead to a few hundred results. It’s not 100% flawless because a lot of authors over-tag, but a solid 80% of the fics under these tags will at least heavily feature the character you’re looking for.

3. Filter by summary!!

At the bottom of the tag filters there’s a section called search within results. This is your Best Friend.

summary: “_”

^ for easy copy/paste

What script this will do is search for whatever you put in the quotation marks and then only give you fics with that thing in the description. I like to use it for character names but it also does a pretty good job filtering for tropes — try using it for vampires lol

Doing this with Mel narrows down her character tag from 7000+ to just under one and a half thousand fics, all of which at the very least include her name in the description.

4. RAREPAIRS ARE YOUR FRIEND! Canon but only semi-popular ships are infinitely more likely to get tagged in the background than say, for example — melvik (nobody is writing background melvik). This tip only works if you’re willing to multiship for more content of your guy but it is very effective.

5. Related to tip 4: Search by otp! If you’re locked in on a particular pairing that’s more popular, you can search for fics that ONLY include that ship.

otp:true

^ for easy copy/paste (again)

This is super useful and also the main reason I don’t tag side pairings in my own fics! Also remember to use this script with ship tag rather than just a character one — otherwise it won’t work.

6. Parent tags exist! This is less of a strategy and requires more trail & error, but lots of tags filter into each other. For another Mel-related example, filtering by the Only Meljay tag would also being up fics tagged with Jayce/Mel Medarda-centric — despite (potentially) not having the original tag you filtered by. This is because Jayce/Mel Medarda-centric is the Parent of the original tag, meaning ao3 has deemed the two tags related enough to appear in each other’s search results.

This is something done manually by ao3 staff so the consistency of parent tags are a little weird sometimes.

More practically, this is an interaction to keep in mind when blocking tags. If for example you were to exclude “Torture” from your search, ao3 would also automatically exclude —

Implied/Referenced Torture

Physiological Torture

Aftermath of Torture

And probably many more.

Even if the broad category of torture isn’t tagged in a fic, the specific referenced type of torture counts — to ao3 — as a tag of torture by itself.

Interestingly, the “sub-categories” of tag don’t feed into each other this way. You can block Physiological Torture and still see fics tagged with Implied/Referenced Torture or Aftermath of Torture.

Knowing this is useful in the sense that the more specific you get with a blocked tag, the less likely you are to accidentally filter out something you would actually be fine with (or inversely blocking a general category you HATE means you don’t have to obsessively filter out every possible iteration of that thing you don’t like).

You can tell tag is a Parent Category by searching for a Sub Category and blocking what you think is the Parent. This will result in 0 results.

Implied/Referenced Torture tag after blocking the Torture tag.

Each of these strategies are things to be done in waves or in combination with one another. Casting a wide net and then narrowing it down is really important, too many tags and you end up with no results.

Ao3 has an INCREDIBLY robust set of archival tools. It’s an amazing site and if a fic exists and you know what you’re doing, you should always be able to find it.

Happy reading <3

[iwillmissourtalks]

This is not what I planed to do when I first got the idea but here you have a biker Caitlyn. Also didn't mean to do it right as handsome Caitlyn is happening but here we are!

[iwillmissourtalks]

Forever thinking about how Ambessa calls training with her grandfather the best part of her life and still doesn't really try to replicate that upbringing in her own children's childhoods.

Because it wasn't all Azizi. Mel isn't opposed to violence because her gentle father spoke out against the lessons of her warrior mother. Ambessa calls Azizi a good Noxian. He might not have been as brutal as she was, but I don't think he was fundamentally opposed to the whole "might makes right" ideology.

Mel says it herself: she grew up protected because of her mother's reputation and her father's money, and that's why she doesn't really know pain the way her mother does.

Menelik made sure Ambessa knew suffering. Ambessa didn't do the same for Mel and Kino.

And why didn't she ? Ambessa believes in Menelik. Even when he is an old man on his deathbed, who can't loom over her anymore, she sees him as the sun whose light she followed her entire life.

Did she look at her children and realise that Menelik's parenting techniques just weren't compatible with the love she felt for them ? Maybe. The problem is that she can never apply that to her own childhood. She never allows herself to consider that, maybe, Menelik was wrong. She doesn't let love guide her. Never says the things she wants to say. Rarely ever reaches out (like when she stops herself from comforting Rell after her first battle). The impulse is there, but she just can't follow it.

Instead, she lives with this constant internal conflict between the love she has for her children, that won't allow her to be as cruel as Menelik was to her, and the closely held belief that weakness means death and suffering makes you strong.

The "Because you weakened me" line isn't meant to shift the blame to Mel. Ambessa is blaming herself. She is saying "I love you" and "My love for you prevents me from doing what needs to be done." She is admitting to weakness.

[iwillmissourtalks]

quick its 3am post viktor arcane and mel medarda

[iwillmissourtalks]

SEARCHING AO3: A (SLIGHTLY) MORE ADVANCED GUIDE

Disclaimer: This is very very geared towards finding fics about a particular character rather than a pairing. My favourite guys tend to be popular-ish women that appear in a lot of fics but only as supporting characters so I’ve had to become v good at combing for things that actually centre them <3

For this guide we’re gonna use my current hyperfixation: Mel Medarda & see what we can find lol

1. Use the tag filter system as your default! It’s superior in every way to the normal search except for the “any field” section which can be pretty useful but unless you’re using it for SPECIFICALLY THAT, don’t bother.

You can access the tag filter by clicking on any common tag (we’re gonna use “Mel Medarda”) and then hitting filters.

This thing is SO useful! Poke about in the dropdown menus; each of them will have the top 10 associated tags for that category. For example the top additional tags for Mel are Angst; Slow Burn and Fluff because,,, well. yk

+ it shows the number of fics with those tags under the “main” tag of Mel Medarda!

2. Keep an eye out for character specific tags! Now that we’re definitely using the tag filtering system we can start actually filtering through those tags <3

Most characters will have common but specific tags that both name them and imply something about their arc in the fic. A frequent example is something like “X character needs a hug”, or more obviously: “X character centric”.

These are my go-to tags for Mel! Most characters will have a variation of this set + some others (“BAMF character name” is also a pretty common one in older fandoms) and any one of these (INDIVIDUALLY, at most filtered in sets of 2) will lead to a few hundred results. It’s not 100% flawless because a lot of authors over-tag, but a solid 80% of the fics under these tags will at least heavily feature the character you’re looking for.

3. Filter by summary!!

At the bottom of the tag filters there’s a section called search within results. This is your Best Friend.

summary: “_”

^ for easy copy/paste

What this script will do is search for whatever you put in the quotation marks and then only give you fics with that thing in the description. I like to use it for character names but it also does a pretty good job filtering for tropes — try using it for vampires lol

Doing this with Mel narrows down her character tag from 7000+ to just under one and a half thousand fics, all of which at the very least include her name in the description.

4. RAREPAIRS ARE YOUR FRIEND! Canon but only semi-popular ships are infinitely more likely to get tagged in the background than say, for example — melvik (nobody is writing background melvik). This tip only works if you’re willing to multiship for more content of your guy but it is very effective.

5. Related to tip 4: Search by otp! If you’re locked in on a particular pairing that’s more popular, you can search for fics that ONLY include that ship.

otp:true

^ for easy copy/paste (again)

This is super useful and also the main reason I don’t tag side pairings in my own fics! Also remember to use this script with ship tag rather than just a character one — otherwise it won’t work.

6. Parent tags exist! This is less of a strategy and requires more trail & error, but lots of tags filter into each other. For another Mel-related example, filtering by the Only Meljay tag would also being up fics tagged with Jayce/Mel Medarda-centric — despite (potentially) not having the original tag you filtered by. This is because Jayce/Mel Medarda-centric is the Parent of the original tag, meaning ao3 has deemed the two tags related enough to appear in each other’s search results.

This is something done manually by ao3 staff so the consistency of parent tags are a little weird sometimes.

More practically, this is an interaction to keep in mind when blocking tags. If for example you were to exclude “Torture” from your search, ao3 would also automatically exclude —

Implied/Referenced Torture

Physiological Torture

Aftermath of Torture

And probably many more.

Even if the broad category of torture isn’t tagged in a fic, the specific referenced type of torture counts — to ao3 — as a tag of torture by itself.

Interestingly, the “sub-categories” of tag don’t feed into each other this way. You can block Physiological Torture and still see fics tagged with Implied/Referenced Torture or Aftermath of Torture.

Knowing this is useful in the sense that the more specific you get with a blocked tag, the less likely you are to accidentally filter out something you would actually be fine with (or inversely blocking a general category you HATE means you don’t have to obsessively filter out every possible iteration of that thing you don’t like).

You can tell tag is a Parent Category by searching for a Sub Category and blocking what you think is the Parent. This will result in 0 results.

Implied/Referenced Torture tag after blocking the Torture tag.

Each of these strategies are things to be done in waves or in combination with one another. Casting a wide net and then narrowing it down is really important, too many tags and you end up with no results.

Ao3 has an INCREDIBLY robust set of archival tools. It’s an amazing site and if a fic exists and you know what you’re doing, you should always be able to find it.

Happy reading <3

[iwillmissourtalks]

I wish Mel and Viktor’s relationship was like this, I think it would have been hilarious.

[iwillmissourtalks]

She will remember their names

Just draw new wallper for myself ^^ add some animated version on twitter