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I have no idea how Ao3 works ngl but assuming/pretending Ao3 has people in an office managing the Twitter account I imagine something like this

Employee 1: ...oh damn.

Employee 2: What?

Employee 1: Tumblr wants to marry us.

Employee 2: Wait what? I know Tumblr is goofy and all that but they can't just say they're gonna marry all their users–

Employee 1: No, idiot. Us. Ao3.

Employee 2: What?

Employee 1: *shows them the tweet*

Employee 2: Oh... wait that's the official Tumblr account?!

Employee 1: Dude have you been listening to me at all?!

Employee 3: Keep it quiet you two! It's the third time today someone yells about a fanfic–

Employee 2: Tumblr wants to marry us.

Employee 3: What?

Employee 1 & 2: *show them the tweet*

Employee 3:

Employee 3: *calls the boss*

Boss: Vicky I told you those kind of fanfics are quite common in Ao3, I don't think you're made for this job–

Employee 3: Um, we have an emergency.

Boss: Oh, sorry. What is it? A bot or something?

Employee 3: Tumblr wants to marry us.

Boss: Guys I already told you, what happens in another apps is none of our business. If Tumblr wants to marry– wait, us? Ao3?

Employee 3: Yeah, there's a tweet.

Boss: ...are you sure is that what the tweet says?

Employee 3: Well, going steady and a ring sounds pretty obvious to me.

Boss:

Employee 3: Boss?

Boss: FUCKING FINALLY.

Employee 3: Wait wha–

Boss: ANSWER THEM. AND DONT YOU DARE SAY NO.

Employee 3:

Employee 3: I mean, are you sure? Our tweets are usually pretty serious and–

Boss: Look, if you ruin this you're fired.

Employee 3:

Boss: Just kidding. Unless you ruin it. I'm out.

Employee 3: Wait! What do you want me to answer?!

Boss: Oh just... don't look too excited but also not too serious. And be funny.

Employee 3: What does that even mean–?! And they hung up, great.

Employee 1: What does the boss say?

Employee 3: To answer yes but without being desperate but also not too serious but also funny.

Employee 2: So... like normal people.

Employee 3: Yeah.

Employee 1:

Employee 1: That's impossible!

Employee 3: Right?! We're not normal! We're everything but normal!

Employee 2: Guys, we got this. We're Ao3. We may always post seriously but it's all because we value efficiency and don't want to keep our users in the dark. We're totally capable of answering a marriage proposal from Tumblr in a normal, fun way.

Employee 1: You have no idea what to say, don't you?

Employee 2:

Employee 2: Is the twitching eye?

Employee 1: Yeah.

Employee 2: Dammit.

Employee 3: Okay, let's read the tweet again guys we can do this.

*one minutes after*

Employee 2: So... go steady... that means we were already dating?!

Employee 3: What?!

Employee 1: Wait, you're right! How didn't I notice that?!

Employee 3: Okay, that's... something. But we still don't know what to answer.

Employee 1: What about "everyday with you will be crazy"?

Employee 2:

Employee 3:

Employee 1: It was terrible, right?

Employee 3: I can't believe my job depends on these morons.

Employee 2: Look, in our defense, this a tough situation. What do we even say to something like this?

Employee 3: You're right. How would Ao3 answer a marriage proposal from Tumblr?

Employee 1: Well, happily.

Employee 2: And with a warning maybe.

Employee 3: About what? Ao3 is not insanely different from Tumblr. I don't see why they wouldn't get married.

Employee 4: *accidentally hears them* Ha! Like Tumblr could handle Ao3's fanfiction.

Employee 1: Huh?

Employee 4: I mean, Tumblr has fanfiction, yeah, but Ao3 is on another level. In both amount and wild content.

Employee 1:

Employee 1: I got it!

Employee 4: Wait what?

Employee 1: Take a look.

Employee 2:

Employee 3: That's... actually pretty accurate.

Employee 4:

Employee 4: SINCE WHEN ARE WE DATING TUMBLR?!

Employee 5: *in the distance* WE ARE?

Employee 6: *even more in the distance* GUYS WE ARE MARRIED TO TUMBLR NOW?! A WARNING WOULD'VE BEEN GREAT.

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@dimiclaudeblaigan asked for a tutorial on how to begin drawing. Good news! If you can draw a funky looking stick man, you have already started!

I think that stick people are a great starting point for artists because of the things you can learn from them that will be important later on.

If you are able to draw a circle and a couple of lines, you can easily put together a stick person.

Congratulations! You have started to draw. :)

A stick person is a very minimal artistic representation of a real life person. It is simple yet recognizable, and is widely used in art, media, and signage.

But what can a stick person teach us about drawing people that look more like… well, people? Lets have a look!

By simply adding a few more lines, we can add a pair of eyes and a mouth. Maybe even a little triangle nose! Or half circles for ears. We can now draw a face, which provides a basis for all sorts of expressions.

These simple additions can allow us to explore the wide range of human emotion and individuality.

This may seem like the basics of the basics. But that is what we want! In order to get to the point where we are able to draw complex, elaborate representations of humans and objects, we will need to start with simple shapes like lines and circles and build our understanding from there.

For instance, lets give our stick person some cool new features, such as hands and feet. I chose little squiggly circles to represent hands, and triangles to represent feet.

We can go a step further and modify the body of the stick person to include shoulders, hips, elbows and knees. These parts of the human body are quite complex in real life But here, all we need to do is add a few simple lines and dots to our stick person.

The lines provide some additional structural elements to our stick person's body, which are the shoulders and the hips. The dots indicate the points of articulation - elbows and knees, the places where the arms and legs bend!

Now we can use our stick person to show us an even wider range of human movement, action, and expression.

Our little drawing of a human being is evolving! All it took was adding a few more lines and shapes here and there.

By elongating some of the existing lines and making the head an oval instead of a circle, we can give our stick person proportions that resemble that of a real life human.

By this point, we have managed to add more complexity to our stick person simply by using our ability to draw lines, circles, and other basic shapes!

These basic ideas are the building blocks that will enable us to create more complex shapes.

The next part may be a considerable step up if you are absolutely new to drawing, but I have decided to include it in order to show you how complex objects like the human body can be built from shapes that are a bit more complex than circles and lines.

For example. Two ovals and a rectangle can be combined to create a cylinder.

Six squares can be combined to create a cube, or a box. Here, each square is distorted slightly depending on which way the cube is facing.

Note that the back faces of the cube and the bottom of the cylinder are hidden. These shapes allow us to visualize that which should not normally visible.

A sphere from all perspectives can be represented by a circle. But we can make it more like a sphere by adding lighting and shadow if we so desire.

Cubes, cylinders, and spheres are examples of 'solid shapes' because they consist of 3 dimensions.

Lets see how these solid shapes can be used to compose the human body.

By stacking three cylindrical objects, we can create a torso. Two spheres have been added to form shoulders, while a smaller cylinder forms the neck.

An arm is an alternating sequence of spheres and cylinders connected together. Note that the hand has been simplified for this example.

We can apply these solid shapes to the rest of the body to give us a more recognizable representation of the human form. It doesn't even have to be perfect. And just like that, our stick figure now has a silhouette that is unmistakably a person!

In the above examples, notice that we kept the stick person at the beginning while building up the shapes and solids around it. This is because the stick person serves as a guide for positioning the body and its various parts -> also known as posing.

You can do the same thing to everyday objects! Here, I drew a wine glass by stacking these three dimensional solid shapes.

The cup and its contents are two ovoid shapes that were cut in half. The stem is a very thin cylinder shape. The base is a cylinder with a slightly wider bottom.

Solid shapes help inform us how objects and parts of the human body may appear from different perspectives.

For example, a sphere can be used to demonstrate how the human head appears when looking up or down, turned to the side, or tilted at an angle.

With these examples, I hope I have managed to convinced you that if you can draw a circle and a couple of lines, you can draw a person! You just have to train your eye to recognize the simple shapes within complex objects. Try it with everyday objects as well! Or even your favourite media! A drawing subject can be as simple or as complex as you envision it to be.

Once you have mastered that, there are many aspects of drawing you can explore from here that may require you to seek additional resources or a fellow artist's advice.

Last of all, remember that drawing is an iterative process. Even if you draw something correct the first time, you will need to draw it again and again to get it right all times! And by making small changes like the ones we explored in this tutorial, your drawings will gradually transform!

I hope what I've demonstrated here are enough to provide the basics of how to get started with drawing objects and people, and also to help refresh more experienced artists. :) Hopefully I didn't go too off topic with what was requested, and let me know if there are any more questions I can answer.

Cheers :3

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You keep talking about the origins of AO3 as this group effort by an actual group of people who were friends and who spent time discussing this with each other in person. It's kind of blowing my mind. Is there a post or a journal somewhere that specifically keeps record of this?

--

I'm dying.

Nonnie, seriously?

No, that's mean, I know you're serious. It's just flabbergasting how much fandom has expanded and how much there isn't a direct link to the past.

Astolat and Cesperanza floated the idea at Vividcon and various places, I think, though I wasn't going to cons in that era. We were all on LJ in those days, and Astolat made a big post nailing her theses to the door. Discussion in the comments was instant and prolonged.

A LJ com was set up to discuss. It was later renamed to otw_news, but if you go all the way back to the beginning, you can see brainstorming mess instead of official news posts.

Fanlore page linking to Astolat's post and giving a little context.

Early brainstorming: https://otw-news.livejournal.com/2007/05/

For example, here I am collecting links to older archives to look at for research when designing AO3.

Fun fact, we never intended to call it AO3. There was a whole call for name suggestions, but nothing was as evocative as astolat's original post title referencing Virginia Woolf. (For those who haven't thought about it, AO3's name is a reference to A Room of One's Own.)

Here's the name discussion

Here's the poll that came out of it

But also notice how many people voted: 562.

That's how many people cared at the time: a few hundred. Maybe a thousand if you count lurkers, but frankly, that community was not as lurkery as now. It wasn't just ten friends. It was a community effort. But what "our" community looked like at the time was vastly different. It was six degrees of Kevin Bacon astolat, not a vast sea of strangers like fic fandom on AO3 is now.

Here's an early post suggesting we ban the under 18s from the site entirely. Pity we didn't do so, given the rise of antis.

Here's the invite to a fundraising party at astolat's in NYC that following Halloween. I dressed as Amanda from Highlander, not very well.

You can tell we knew each other by looking at those comments on astolat's initial post. You can also tell how discussion-based that part of fandom was back in 2007.

The way my tumblr is now with a ton of text, back and forth, and hopping around between threads of conversation, all featuring a consistent set of faces, is very much like LJ. Most of tumblr is not.

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me every day without fail: I'll do [chore] when I get home

me when I get home:

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I'm so glad to see AO3 making it absolutely clear that none of these things are allowed to even be HINTED at.

Here's some of the language from the new post about AO3's police on commercial promotion:

-

There is a wide variety of things that are not allowed under AO3's non-commercialization rules.

Any other language which one might interpret as requesting or having requested financial contributions, whether for yourself or others. This covers indirect references, euphemisms, or other language intended to get around the TOS. Some examples of this include:

Thanks for the coffee!

My ☕ username is the same as my username here

This chapter is brought to you by my patrons

You know where to find me if you want early or bonus chapters

Check out my Twitter to learn how you can donate to me since I'm not allowed to discuss it here

If you want to hear more about my ideas, talk about fandom, or find more of my stuff for a coin, visit my Tumblr

Solicitation is not allowed, whether it's for yourself or on behalf of someone else.

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“nice blog”

thank you im really good at clicking reblog

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You should get an AO3 account

With the rise of AI and the well known epidemic of AI companies scraping Ao3 for training data most authors on Ao3 have locked down their fics to logged in users only. This is unfortunate for authors and readers. As an author I've noticed a steep drop in readership on fics restricted to logged in users and when recommending fics to my friends I've noticed that the folks without an account can't find the fics. The logged in users only toggle, not only keeps people without an account from reading a fic, but also from seeing its listing at all. More than 50% of fics I come across have this setting turned on. So, you should get an AO3 account. I know this seems daunting and unfair because it's an invite only system but, you can invite yourself through the homepage if you don't already have one, and in the past few years I've never heard of someone who requested an invitation through this method, not getting one. And for those of you who are hesitant because you don't write, that's okay. It's not weird at all to click on a commenter username and find that they have 0 works and 10,000 bookmarks. It might take a week for the invitation to actually show up, but I can almost guarantee you will get one, just keep an eye on your email. It's free to join and donations are optional. You'll have more to read if you have an account and maybe give your favorite author the chance to protect their work from AI without a loss of readership and feedback.

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saw an elderly woman walking around with a tote bag whose design were the four AO3 fic category squares and she very excitedly asked if i was a reader or a writer bcs nobody else at the con had recognized it, and after telling her that i've been writing fic since fanfic.net, she solemnly nodded and explained that she'd been reading fic since "the days of personal websites" but that she only started writing fanfic when she was 47 and oh my god when i tell you that i genuinely teared up on the spot!!!!! like!!! HELL YEAH???? LITERALLY NEVER TOO OLD TO START WRITING. NEVER TOO OLD TO WRITE AND SHARE YOUR FIC.

her enthusiastic "i'm a very nice and bubbly person, i swear! but i love writing angst and major character death :)" nearly took me the fuck out.

icon. legend. diva. i wish her nothing but a kajillion million comments and kudos. i hope her fic updates crash AO3. i hope she knows i'm promoting her to my personal patron saint of AO3.

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This is one of those true, declassified government things that always sounds made up but one of the things Henry Kissinger did with his career was use the CIA to help turn small, prosperous socialist nations into fascist dictatorships just to keep those nations powerless and possibly to keep socialist systems *looking* doomed and futile to the American public, like maybe just to scare Americans out of demanding better infrastructure or universal income. Yes it sounds like an insane conspiracy theory a maniac would invent. It also happened multiple times and several generations of people around the world are still living in misery because of it.

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again and again and again and again

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My Good Omens Fan Fics - A New Addiction?

I have a folder of ideas, two silly one-shots, and a long human AU I'll start posting as soon as my betas finish reading. Thought I'd post my works--presumably I'll have more to add soon? CW: 18+ Links below the fold for graphic with photos of sex toys.

First Fic - Will You Ever Stop Surprising Me? (M)

Settling into life with Aziraphale after again averting the end of the world, Crowley wonders if he could become bored. Are there any surprises left between them after 6000 years?

Second Fic - Reunited (T)

In which CuriousPupsicle decides to toss off a quick bit o'fluff but keeps getting interrupted by an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other. Apparently the two have "things to say." 

Third Fic (Coming Attraction) - Anchored (M)

Anthony J. Crowley has it all. He's captain of the world-class sailing yacht Hellish and famous for his daring, viral stunts. Sponsored by the wealthy fashion empire Scratch, Crowley can't spend his earnings fast enough. And fans throng wherever he appears. Why does it no longer feel like enough? Does it have anything to do with Aziraphale Fell, his rival in the upcoming Bilton & Scaggs Round the World Classic Sailboat Race? Subscribe on AO3 to get updates when I post Anchored or other new fics.

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To get back to the fanfic recs (I’m working on a longer post, or maybe two, about recs for the fandom classics, but this will need a little bit more time), I have some recommendations or longer fics that are relatively new, so I hope they are also new for some of you.

As you will see with most of my recs, I prefer human AU’s, so these all fall into this category.

You're the Bad Guys (Rated E, 91643 words) by @alphacentaurinebula

I really love this fic. It is a lovely story with a really great characterization of the two ineffables but what it sets the story apart is the setting and that you can feel all the research the author put into it. It takes place, true to the Cold War setting of the book, in Berlin in the early Eighties and it is a really good depiction of this time and place. I was alive back then, and living in East Germany and I really loved to see our two in the role of spies and to navigate this complicated setting. This is a lovely spy story, with all the love, the misunderstanding and shenanigans we expect from a GO story, enriched with a good history lesson.

Author summary: Berlin, 1981. MI6 Agent Aziraphale has never been good at one night stands, but why not give ‘em another go in the middle of a mission in Cold War Germany? What could possibly go wrong?

Agent Crowley goes along with the KGB as far as he can. But how far might he be willing to go for a certain British secret agent with blond curls and a penchant for waistcoats?

Heaven's Calling (Rated E, 87350 words) by @sixbynine-da I followed along with this in parts really heartbreaking story and it really staid with me. It is sweat and kind but has a really heavy topic (please be aware of the emotional/psychological abuse tag). But from my point of view the story was never to heavy, but it was earnest in regards do the topic. I was particularly impressed with the ending, or to be more precise the last couple of chapters. But to say why would spoil this, so I hope this will find some more readers.

Author summary: Aziraphale Whitegate is a cellist, the pride and joy of the wealthy and well known, God-fearing, Whitegate family. He is front and centre of their church community, representing everything the family stands for. Talent, dedication, class, subservience and above all else the image of perfection Gabriel has carefully crafted for them.

Crowley hates him the second he meets him. From the tip of his polished shoes to his perfectly buttoned shirt Aziraphale represents the worst of society as far as the guitarist is concerned. Now he’s expected to play alongside him and make nice, even though Aziraphale isn’t exactly making it easy.

But people’s lives are a lot more complicated under the surface.

Punks without pants (Rated E, WIP) by @playdohangel

And one WIP to add to my recs, which is currently waiting for an update, just to give the author some love (but absolutely no pressure) because I really enjoyed reading along and especially learn about the English punk scene of the past. There is so much research and love in the scene involved in this fic and I also appreciate the literature recs in the notes.

Author summary: This is an AU based in London around the end of 1978 to 1979 known as ‘the winter of discontent’. Strikes, protests and political upheaval were the norm. Crowley, a self confessed rich spoiled little shit, is more discontented than anyone. Running away from his life of privilege he lands in a squat with Hastur a dodgy student who makes "art" from found metal. Has Crowley told anyone where he came from? Has he fuck. He's spiked his hair, torn his jeans and signed up for the dole, he listens to punk and is pretending he's as ordinary as everyone else....

Az an avid follower of the Northern Soul music scene is having a pretty shitty time of it. His dads been laid off and he's had to come down to London and work for his uncle who owns the punk venue Dingwalls. He spends his nights breaking up fights and serving pints to groups of pretentious "punks" who have more hair gel than manners...

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Oh, I'm really looking forward to read this!!

You do valuable work, and I often refer to your recs. But... I also love reading your stories. Can I expect to read something new from you soon, or is now not the right time?

Sorry if you've already mentioned this and I haven't read it! 🩷

Hey! ♥️

First things first: do NEVER apologise to me for asking me about my writing or if I'm going to post something new soon! You put a big smile on my face, thank you!

I'm glad you enjoy my recs! The fandom is so incredibly talented and there is always something for what each of us needs at a particular time!

As for me, I've kind of been working on a story, very slowly, but got distracted by stupid/boring/necessary/sometimes pleasant life things. I was hoping to start posting early July, but now it looks more like late July (hopefully). But if you want to know what it'll be about, it's a story inspired by the fact that Peter Hinwood, the actor who played Rocky in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, didn't continue acting, but became an antique dealer instead. So in my story Aziraphale and Crowley played respectively Angel and Demon in The Angel Horror Show over 20 years ago, then they went their separate ways, Aziraphale becoming an antique dealer and Crowley becoming a successful movie and theatre actor and director. Guess who's putting on a new production of The Angel Horror Show just round the corner from Aziraphale's shop?

So, as you can see by me getting embarrassingly carried away, and to stress my previous point, you really don't need to apologise for asking me about my fics! 😆

Thank you so much for this ask and I hope you have a lovely week! ♥️

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Good Omens Fan Fiction Friday (7/4/25) - Memory Loss

Fic writers have penned amazing memory loss fics after its central role in season two of Good Omens. Some are heartbreakingly tender. Others are ridiculously silly. Whether set in the canon universe or a human AU, stories of memory loss are amazingly rich. Here are a few of my favorites.

First up is Save Me (T) by atimefeeler/@atimesfeeler. Anthony wakes up in the hospital suffering from a concussion and no memories. He also finds a note, written in blood, threatening him. While trying to figure out who he is, he decides to keep his memory loss a secret. After all, anyone in his phone contacts could be a potential killer. Even the mysterious "Angel." This is a tense but also tender story. It's a lovely example of how our favorite demon and angel are drawn together even when one of them doesn't remember why.

In ain't no cure for love (E) by @may--hawk, Crowley experiences strange things in the bookshop after Aziraphale returns to heaven. This is a thrilling story I don't want to spoil any more than I already have by including it on this list. But it makes smashing use of Terry Pratchett's L-Space. Definitely worth a read--especially if you need a speculative season three to tide you over until the finale arrives. A couple sit at a table reading a note that says one of them is an angel and the other is a demon. They have half an hour to figure out which is which or face the consequences in guess who (T) by attheborder/@areyougonnabe. It's a silly bit of South Downs fluff.

Aziraphale wakes as a 38th order scrivener missing his memories with a cryptic note he left for himself in Light the Corners of my Mind (G) by cyankelpie/@ineffable-kelpie. He has to figure out what happened. Unfortunately, the one being who might be able to help is avoiding him. This is one of a series of amnesia flicks by cyankelpie that I haven't read. But I loved this one. It was tender and emotional.

@eggysoupy writes about Crowley telling Aziraphale he loves him through the ages in everything i've had but couldn't keep (T). But for some reason, he never remembers doing it. It's as sweet as the song that inspires the title.

After the Armageddon't, Crowley arrives at the bookshop to pick up Aziraphale for their date. But the angel has no memory of him. Strangers Again (patria sine memoria) (M) by doric_column tells the story of Crowley trying to figure out what happened. It's such a clever story that evolved as the writer watched season two. And it finishes in such a satisfying way. I loved it!

Moving on to human AUs, we have How Could I Forget (E) by JessnotJessie. Aziraphale and Crowley love each other and have never admitted it. When Crowley falls and suffers a head injury in his plant shop, bookseller Aziraphale stays by his side. Surprisingly, the injured man with brain damage is not the only person forgetting things.

Grab your tissues. You'll need them when reading A Little Life (E) by @gaiaseyes451. Professor Crowley and bookseller Ezra fall in love and create a long and wonderful life together. No spoilers. But mind the tags.

Let's finish with a WIP I've been enjoying quite a bit, Still We Know Each Other So Well (E) by @paperclipninja. More than half way finished, this story asks the question, "What would happen if both Crowley and Aziraphale lost their memories?" It's an engaging mystery. Give it a look. Hope you find some enjoyable reads. Of course, they're a small selection. Please reblog and share your favorite memory loss fics in the comments. Support our wonderful fandom writers by leaving comments and kudos. I'll be back next Friday with more great fics related by theme. In the meantime, check out my other favorite fics on this pinned post of weekly Good Omens fan fiction recommendations. And if my faves appear to be your faves, check out my bookmarks on AO3--all the fics I rate in my top 10% of everything I've read.