#html tryhard

[mackerel-cheese]

changing the game

i coded an interactive game thing on AO3. in the spirit of sam reich, i made a bunch of my friends play this before i posted it :)

sam, i see why you do it now. i get it.

extended A/N and spoilers under cut

i'm pretty sure i've once again broke the ao3 end notes.

making this work has actually been insane. as much as this fic is my own work, it has been influenced by so many other people too.

i remember watching the rick perry documentary on dropout when it first came out. it kind of restarted something in me that i have long forgotten.

you can draw a straight line from me watching that documentary to me learning to code for fanfic reasons.

this entire thing has been an exercise in connecting with other creatives in various fandom spaces to make something i found cool and fun.

i mean, sudokus on ao3??? who would have thought.

making the connections game was really fun too. i learnt so much about combinators, its wild. i feel like a part of my brain has been unlocked.

anyways, i hope people have fun and read this.

in another life, i was a game dev for real.

[jihnari]

@html-tryhard my second entry for the html tryhard 2025 event, behold: a clicky button

sebastian/farmer, 6k, slightly funny slightly angsty, idk i had fun

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62271195

[html-tryhard]

HTML Fic Event Week

Prompt Sheet Generator | AO3 Collection | html tryhard on AO3

HTML is a markup language used to tell a web browser how to display content. You might be aware of simple uses of HTML, such as bold and italics but HTML can be used to do so much more! Do you like r/AITA stories? Have you ever been interested in including realistic text messages into your fics? Did you like choose-your-own-adventure books as a kid? HTML can be used for all of these things and more!

Join us for HTML Tryhards 2025, where we bully our friends (and you? 👀) into making fanfiction super extra shiny using the power of HTML.

AO3, a fanfiction hosting platform, supports the use of HTML, and that's where submissions for this event should be posted. We have a collection for you to post to, but please use the tag #HTML Tryhard on your work as well!

On Tumblr, @ this blog or use the tag #htmltryhard2025, and we'll reblog your posts.

Prompts

There are two (optional) prompts per day, one to influence the format and one to influence the story. You can generate your own custom prompt list here. Use as many or as few of the prompts as you like.

Rules

All fandoms welcome.

Submissions must include a significant portion of HTML. We'd prefer the entire work be HTML, but mixed prose and HTML is also acceptable.

Submissions MUST be HTML and not images or screenshots of text logs/tweets/etc.

There is no required minimum word count, but the suggested minimum word count is 500 words.

The prompts are OPTIONAL, use as many or as few as you'd like.

HTML/CSS guides are accepted (and encouraged!) as submissions.

Submissions should include the #HTML Tryhard tag on AO3.

Submissions should be added to the collection on AO3.

You can start posting submissions January 13th. The last date of the event is January 17th, though if you're running behind you can still post to the collection after that date.

Follow us!

If you don't know how to use HTML but it's something you're interested in, give us a follow! In the days leading up to the event, we'll be sharing works that have utilized HTML, as well as helpful tutorials. The difficulty of these tutorials will vary, and we'll post things we hope will be helpful for tryhard veterans and beginners alike.

You can also send us your HTML questions and we'll do our best to help you out!

[bone-byrd]

I coded a fully interactive phone into Ao3 and it feels like my head has been bashed in at Terminal Velocity

This bad boy -Plays a song -Has multiple text convos for you to read -Lets you send messages -Gives you multiple dialogue options -Changes notif display based on what you've already clicked

Check it out!

[voiider]

Slay the Robin

a Slay the Princess style "Jason's attack on Titan's Tower" fic

This was written for the HTML Tryhard 2025 fic event week!! This is the first time I've messed with work skins on ao3 since my dark Homestuck past, and let me tell you this was a doozy (for me) other people participating in the event were so nice tho and helped me quite a bit so tysm!!

[yuureitheghost]

Title: The Misadventures of Sakura-chan

Fandom: Detective Conan/Case Closed

Summary:

That day at Tropical Land, Kudou Shinichi disappeared and was never seen or heard of again. Or was he?

There we go

I don't want to look at this anymore :'D

[a-teenagers-self-reference]

You don’t know how much I loathe your existence while basking in the glory of being in your presence.

Your being there builds me and destroys me at the same time.

[hatsukoi-neidhardt]

Guess who has written something in forever! Wanna thank the mods of @html-tryhard and @mackerel-cheese for encouraging me down this fun rabbit hole. I’ve already got a few other things planned, so I’m hoping that I can finally write more after a LONG multi-year hiatus (oops)

This was super fun and janky in honour of how much I love both games, so I hope everyone else enjoys the read too!

[amphibianauthor]

Average Permit Office Experience

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64347664

You try your hand at actually getting a permit from the Permit Office. How hard could it really be?

(This is my Last minute April Fools Shenanigans, as an excuse to play with more HTML <3 Hope you enjoy

[wordsofwilderness]

I figured out how to load CSS snippets into my writing software so I can see what my fic will look like with the workskin and everything live as I write

[jihnari]

this is how i spent my week 🤡 (pure html/css mock of a character's phone notifications)

i added in the "notification settings" and "clear" buttons for accuracy, and then had the terrible thought "but what if the clear button cleared the notifications"

it does that now! i dont want to talk about how long it took to get it to do that. but. it does that now ✨

[html-tryhard]

And that's a wrap!

The inaugural HTML Tryhard 2025 Fanfiction Event Week has come to a close. Thanks so much to everyone who participated! All entries for this event can be found on the AO3 collection.

This year, we had a total of 21 works spanning 24 fandoms. The biggest fandom to participate was Harry Potter, which currently has total of 555,256 works on AO3, and the smallest fandom to participate was Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes, which has a current total of 2 works on AO3.

Y'all contributed to create exactly half of this fandom tag.

The biggest overlap was the Batman - All Media Types fandom, at 3 entries. A majority of entries were the only entry for their fandom. It really goes to show that writers from all fandoms are finding fun and innovative new ways to tell stories.

It's almost like you tried to actively avoid each other.

We only had 2 HTML tutorial entries, but that means we had 19 story entries! That's a lot! Not only did people write chat fics and fancy new-age epistolary stories (with in-universe posts from Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat, and even Yikyak), they also wrote choose your own adventure stories (with multiple endings!), and works that were completely unique that pushed the boundaries of storytelling.

The event collection will be officially closed on this coming Sunday (1/26), but if you have additional entries to add, just let us know.

That's all for this year. Hope to see you all again next year!

[mackerel-cheese]

thanks for inspiring this fic. ur struggle was not in vain

no one talk to me i just figured out how rich text works on ao3 and i feel like a new man

[voiider]

turtles all the way down

ok but what if jason todd and donnie tmnt kissed actually???

^click the link and it'll take u to the fic

they don't do that in this fic but they do hang out!!!

Written for the 2025 HTML Tryhard fic event week check out some of the other works they are so cool!!

[acaciapines]

watch this space. new acaciapines deltarune fic coming to you probably tomorrow if the anchor links arent Hell to figure out.

[mystyrust]

Hi, wrote an html fic for @html-tryhard

i know i normally dont write for amphibia, but ive been deeply unwell about it since the series finale, and wrote an outsider pov fic

as you can see, theres interactive easter eggs in there

anyway go read it, and read the rest of the fics from this event too!!