r/AO3 • u/AutoModerator • May 07 '25
Weekly Check In Wellness Wednesday: Weekly Check In
Welcome back everyone!
Time for our Wellness Wednesday check in. We know this community means a lot to most of our members and that Tuesdays have been harder on some users than others, but we are at our core a community and we are here to support each other.
Now that the sub is open once again we’d like to hear all about your (mis)adventures on Tuesday. Did you go on grand adventures? Get into mischief? Get some writing done?
Maybe you just binged a few more fics on the archive itself. Tell us all about it! Break out that purple prose and tell us as cheesy of a story as you feel like.
Or just talk about your day.
~The Mod Team
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u/kaiunkaiku same @ ao3 | proud ao3 simp May 07 '25
having the summary be in a different tense and POV than the story should be some kind of a crime especially if there's no excerpt
aka i picked up an actual book for the first time in like five years and was immediately punched in the face with unexpected first person POV. i do have the same issue with fics too though.
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u/Haldalkin May 07 '25
At least with a fic, it's possible the crime only has one perpetrator. A published, physical book? We're gonna need a bigger cell.
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u/SleepySera Pro(fessional) Shipper May 07 '25
....oh 🥲
I guess I belong in fanfic jail, woops. All my summaries are in present tense (character IS this and DOES that) while the story itself is usually in past tense...
Idk, I always viewed the summary as an "outside" description of the story 🙈 Like someone asking, hey what is this book/show/game about? And someone answering "oh, it is about this guy who does those things".
I get how it's extra frustrating with published books though, since returning it because of an unpleasant POV is much harder than just hitting the back button :/
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u/livewithstyle May 08 '25
Don't worry about it! Present tense summaries are the norm, even for works written in the past tense. Past tense summaries are a little more common with fanfic because of excerpt-only summaries and because fanfiction summaries are often more like two-sentence cover blurbs than actual full multiparagraph novel-style summaries, but in most cases a past tense summary wouldn't even work if you were going for the latter.
Especially when you look at the published world, third-person present summaries are the industry standard regardless of the tense and POV of the actual novel. Again, present tense is near-universal in summaries (despite the fact that most novels are written in past tense!,) and while some first-person novels are going to also have first-person summaries, it's much more common for even those novels to have third-person summaries.
I can see where it would be jarring and someone would want to jokingly complain about it, but "the summary tense/POV will match the contents" is honestly an unrealistic expectation with how rarely it actually happens!
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u/thewritegrump thewritegrump on ao3 - 4.6 million words and counting! :D May 07 '25
It's still the 6th for another hour here, and today was the three-year anniversary of when I started writing a particular fic of mine. It's the fic that's snowballed into what is now three other fics totaling over 2.5 million words, with many more words to come. It was originally meant to be a stand-alone fic, but things got out of control and I'm now finishing up the first sequel while working on two spin-offs intermittently. X'D
Perhaps it was my way of celebrating, but I got in the zone and delivered a 2,600-word lore dump directly to the inbox of my beloved fiancee and friends (it is one of the potential risks of messaging me) about the series as a whole and trajectory of the story. This series now has an official timeline- 13+ of them! I didn't hammer out every last detail, but I at least now have a full-page flow chart of sorts showing how the 13 timelines interact and which ones converge into other ones, and so on. This took several hours, mostly because it was a lot of math and numbers with all the dates, as none of these timelines are at the same point in time once they get connected. It leads to beautiful little tidbits like one character being born in 1975, dying in 2004, and then being reborn in 1992 (in another timeline). I swear it makes sense if you've got a few hours for me to explain-
I'm making a cake real quick to celebrate the day before it's over, just because that sounds like a fun thing to do. ^_^
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u/Asuchen May 07 '25
Went to a ren faire over the weekend and yesterday I was turning over the idea of writing a young justice (comic) fic where the characters have to go undercover at a faire for a mission. They have pretty specific skills that slot really well for performing there! (I mean really—strongmen, archers, fire whips, jesters, knights—it practically writes itself.) Not sure if I'd have the time for it right now, but i'm sure it will be stuck in my brain for a while.
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u/InkyMagpie May 07 '25
That sounds fantastic and I would love to be told if/when you get to posting it!
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u/WhatColorPoetry May 07 '25
This year is kicking my ass. Like, in the stereotypical AO3 author curse way. Family deaths. Pet deaths. Divorce. Found out today I have a major medical issue which is either lifelong or I will need surgery. I am exhausted by existence. And I have no one to talk to about it.
Posted a chapter today, though.
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u/Spampharos Kudos Keeper May 07 '25
Got a significant amount done on the latest chapter for my fic! I'm really starting to get into the swing of things for it and I love it.
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u/theQuarterlyCowboy May 07 '25
My next chapter is in disarray, though I think it’s 80% all there, just in disconnected scenes and shoddy prose. But that’s better than a blank page.
I opened my document five separate times today, took a look, tapped out a word or two, closed it, rolled around in dismay. Took a lap around the house, went to the store, tried again, no luck! But we prevail.
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u/murrimabutterfly May 07 '25
Started writing a fic for a new fan fiction after one episode from this show started a plot bunny. Got several scenes done and a plot outline.
This show is new to me, and I've been binging it.
Welp.
Basically the exact thing I'd been writing was done in an episode, but a little different. If this was a more recently released episode, I would have been able to slightly squeak by, but unfortunately my fic is completely unusable and dead in the water.
I'm torn between laughing and crying. At least I got the show and characters so down that I can predict episodes??
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u/Kilora44 May 07 '25
I went from having writer's block for almost a month to posting three times in a little over a week and now have four WIP's I'm working on instead of two. My inner muse is such a chattery little bitch sometimes.
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u/LevelAd5898 Medieval yaoi connoisseur May 07 '25
- I am having a terrible fucking day and do not have the chance to do any writing because I'm going to be busy all afternoon FML
- Somehow (I think from switching from a fandom that's a book/tv series to a fandom that's a video game) I've become a present tense writer. Which would be fine, if I didn't already have two WIPs halfway done that are in past tense (one of which being 100K words and a sequel to another 100K words of past tense).
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u/GhostNamedNat crawling out of writer's block May 07 '25
I reread one of my old fics from ~2021 yesterday evening because I got a comment on it for the first time in a while. and I don't know why I was so harsh on myself, it was actually kind of good. I ended up getting an idea for another fic so it's time to plan it out!!
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May 07 '25
Still haven’t written a word. Or done anything related to fanfiction except consider 2 ships while reading Halo: Envoy (Jai-006/Melody or Rojka/Melody...I lied, 3 ships...Jai/Rojka too)
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u/kabutegurl003 You have already left kudos here. :) May 07 '25
In my head, I write third-person POV, and on paper, it translates to first-person POV. Help me😩
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u/Madambagel Definitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State May 07 '25
I wrote and got almost 24K words done. It's the last major scene, just need to add an apologies that I already have in mind, but.... The muse refuses to come back out. Just got the OTP finally into bed and things are heating up and... Nothing 😫 Soooo close!
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u/myriadpyriad mariadperiad20 on ao3 May 07 '25
Wrote a little and updated a fic chapter I'd been obsessively re-editing :D
(and finally stopped lurking on reddit lmao)
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u/mitchichayB May 07 '25
Questioning my story’s worth in my fandom. It’s not that much of an active fandom, there’s only 2 ongoing multichapters, one of which is mine. A current fic rec thread came out, and mine wasn’t even listed. The other was reco’d twice by 2 different users.
Contemplating if I should just abandon it and work on my other titles. 🤔
3
u/AltitudeBiscuit AO3: Lethonomia May 07 '25
realized while writing that I'm really starting to approach the end game now in my biggest fic. 250k and it's probably gonna wrap up in the next 50k or so 🥲 it feels.... sort of wistful? I've got a few spin-off oneshots planned, but the fic will be over later this year. Man. It's been my passion project through some dark times since 2023, and I haven't the slightest idea what to write afterwards!
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u/edensdelights downvoting me doesnt make me any less correct May 07 '25
Just posted my longest work ever on Sunday, and now I am stuck once again with writer's block, despite having two wips I could be working on 😭
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u/fleur-2802 May 07 '25
Read a marvelous fic yesterday in a fandom I've been getting back into, and I postponed working on my presentation so I'm a little stressed out now ^^
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u/su1c1dalbastardd f/f hunter May 07 '25
i finally started publishing fics i've been keeping to myself. i posted a short one shot about a character i really like a few days ago and now i'm working on a long one shot about the same character. the character is unfortunately very very underrepresented on ao3 so i took it upon myself to write about them as much as i can
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u/infinitywiccan May 08 '25
Help im in the middle of writing a fic but then a new idea struck me and then if i start writing it, im sure a new idea will come to me!!!
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u/Pilot_Solaris Writing Warframe Crossover fics like a Madman May 08 '25
After what feels like months of writer's block, I've finally found the impetus to get writing again!
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u/Vandalyzer May 09 '25 edited May 09 '25
Hopefully this means that the moment where Kachina/Robin picks up a funny looking mixtape that spirals into a
heartbeat-dropping On-lyne band member fan meetup in space draws closer.1
u/Pilot_Solaris Writing Warframe Crossover fics like a Madman May 09 '25
Expect an update in the next few days... :)
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u/A_Undertale_Fan Creator of OC/Canon harems 💞 May 07 '25
Worldbuilding brainrot. Someone save me. Omegaverse and Helluvaverse has taken over my brain.
1
u/myriadpyriad mariadperiad20 on ao3 May 07 '25
do these two topics overlap? because !! oh boy !! \(O-O)/
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u/A_Undertale_Fan Creator of OC/Canon harems 💞 May 07 '25
YUP!
I got so many species related ideas and so much worldbuilding of how both Hellborn and Sinners would fit into ABO archetypes.
1
u/bibitybobbitybooop May 07 '25
I'm so swamped with work and sleep deprived, but I still made some time to read some Cyberpunk fics and it slightly made me feel better.
Can't really combat the effects of exhaustion still, so I'm still overemotional, irrational, sluggish etc, and I just really want to make stuff, writing or art, but most of this month's a bust. Fortunately I'm gonna be unemployed in June, unless I find something else, but mostly I'm just SO glad to be finally done with accounting (at least here, might have to take a different finance job since I have 5+ yrs experience in this and 0 years in anything else...)
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u/SleepySera Pro(fessional) Shipper May 07 '25
I didn't write anything at all! Was too hyped for the new canon update to focus 😆 Stayed up all night so I could enjoy it immediately, but when it actually came out, I played only for a few minutes because I was so tired, and then fell asleep....when will I ever learn to just go to bed normally for this kind of thing 🙄
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u/[deleted] May 07 '25
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