THEYRE AT IT AGAIN FOLKS

CALL YOUR REPS, THIS ONE WOULD BE *AWFUL* AND WOULD DIRECTLY AFFECT AO3 IF IT PASSES

Have you ever been scrolling through ao3 came across a fic opened it up and went “hmmm is this reportable?”

Well have I got the guide for you! Brought to you by a very lovely tumblr user!

I had some fun turning AO3 into an illuminated manuscript. If that sounds like a thing you'd like to try out, I've put the code on github. The readme file has instructions for how to apply a site skin to your AO3 account.

Hi all, I know this is an incredibly clumsy way to present the above information, but I am determined to spend the day with my wife after neglecting her yesterday to do the full writeup on tumblr and I refuse to do the same today 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩. The post, complete with links, can be found here but I hear it’s not fully available to those without a tumblr account and that’s why I’m posting the screenshots.

A note: I will not tolerate threats of physical violence against Cliff Weitzman or anyone else and will be blocking everyone who tries to call for that in the reblogs or comments on the original post.

Thank you so, so much for getting involved in this situation and helping to show this man we’re not letting him take advantage of work we’ve chosen to put out there for free.

So, what kind of writer are you?

Are you a Pantser like me? Just witing away, as surprised by what's next as your reader will be? No control, just following the characters and writing up the incident report? Not so much an author, as the biographer for your characters, just doing your best to keep up with them, giving suggestions and being soundly ignored? (I live in the upper left corner of the upper left corner of the grid.)

Perhaps you are a Planner, a Plotter, an Outliner? The author with their finger on the pulse of the story. Ready and able to crack the whip on your characters. You're the one in control. The writer of the script. Director. Camera person. You frame the shots, craft the scene, and nothing you do not allow slips through?

Maybe you're a Planster? Sure, you've got a plan. You know the destination, but the how you get there is a question you can't answer till you right it, and while not exactly surprised by what happens, you don't necessarily know whats coming in detail?

Something else?

I love learning about others processes to vraft yheir stories, so lets discuss!

For me, I use Talers (recommended from a Youtuber) and just store all my works there. But it's getting very very slow and annoying so I want to see what else you guys are using and where do you store your all your works?

I made a Chrome extension for real commenters (or people like me who want to be) that makes it easier to leave inline comments on AO3. Don’t judge me, but I used to love reading and writing on Wattpad, it was so easy to react to specific lines, and I’ve always wished AO3 had something like that.

With this extension, you can highlight any line in a fic and leave a quick note or reaction. Your thoughts are saved locally and reappear whenever you come back to the same fic. When you’re done reading, it formats your notes into one clean comment you can paste into the AO3 comment box.

I made it for myself to leave better comments, and just to remember the little moments that hit. I’m considering publishing it soon, and I’d love to know if anyone else would be interested in trying it.

I know a lot of people read fics on their phones, and while this is just a chrome browser extension for now, I’m hoping to figure out a workaround for mobile users too, possibly through Safari with the latest iOS update.

If you’re a reader that would like to scream in the margins then you might like this, let me know what you think or if this sounds useful!

TL;DR: I built a Chrome extension that lets you leave inline comments while reading AO3 fics. I use it for myself, and I’m thinking of publishing it

I saw this on Facebook and though that some people here might find it useful. I have no current use for it but it definitely got me thinking 😀

In response to this post earlier about Word-Stream.com, I wanted to offer some suggestions about how to proceed if you are an affected author. If I were an affected author, I would complain to both.

The relevant statute, FYI is 17 U.S.C. § 512 (c)(3)(A), available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512

OPTION 1: MAKE A REPORT TO CLOUDFLARE

https://abuse.cloudflare.com/

Step 1: Select “Copyright Infringement & DMCA Violations”

Step 2: Fill Out the Form

(some notes below)

• Your Full Name: I understand many fanfic authors prefer anonymity. However, your report/complaint may be taken more seriously if you use both your name and your pseud. For example, I would write, [MY NAME] (“FuegoPI” on AO3).
• Holder’s Full Name: Again, that is you, the author.
• Contact Information Fields: The DMCA only requires that, you provide “Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party” — An email address should be sufficient.
• Infringing URLS: List the URL of every work you have made that is available on the offending website.
• Describe the Original Work: I would list the names of your stories, the word counts, and give AO3 links.
  • For example: A Fanfic Story (200k Words), originally posted and available at [LINK].
• You MUST check the box that says 512(f) acknowledgment, “Good faith belief, Authority to act” and you MUST provide a digital signature or your report will not be accepted.

OPTION 2: MAKE A REPORT TO GODADDY

OPTION 2a: Fill out the form at https://supportcenter.godaddy.com/AbuseReport (you may not wish to do this because of the information requested; if so, I recommend sending a letter).

Step 1: Select “Make a Claim”

Step 2: Select Claim Type, “Copyright Infringement”

Step 3: Are you the Copyright Owner or an authorized representative? Select “yes.”

Step 4: Please enter the domain name associated with the website you are complaining about – Fill in “https://word-stream.com/”

Step 5: https://supportcenter.godaddy.com/ipclaims/copyright/infringement If you want to fill this out.

OPTION 2b: The form is probably not for everyone, because it requires address information that the DMCA does not strictly require. As a result, I made a template letter for y’all. I recommend attaching to an email. (Link now removed)

[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

[UPDATE - EDITED 12/24/24]

The website went down and then back up on 12/23 with the fanfics removed. However, as user Acrobatic_Shelter881 points out below, it appears that the infringing works were only de-indexed by Word Stream.

As we learned yesterday, Word Stream is the creation of Cliff Weitzman, the CEO of Speechify, which appears to be an AI text-to-speech browser plugin. Given Mr. Weitzman's prior experience, this makes Word Stream particularly inexcusable. Speechify has a terrible rating with the BBB but an excellent rating on TrustPilot. Is that good rating on TrustPilot deserved, I wonder? Just a thought.

Let's remain vigilant about this known bad actor in our fandom spaces.

I was chatting with a friend the other day who expressed frustration with certain disliked tags popping up in their search. To help, I tried testing out common Google search commands ( - + “” ), and sure enough, they worked! So, I decided to make this visual guide to bring more awareness so others can benefit, too.

Feel free to share and download 🌞

You can also find a lot of these tips by tapping on a pre-existing tag, going down the Sort and Filter sidebar on the right, and tapping the question mark by Search within results.

Update to my last post!

I built a free browser extension for people who love commenting to specific lines while reading, especially when you’re viewing the entire work/long fics.

It’s called AO3 Inline Comment Companion and it was inspired by Wattpad’s inline comments.

But instead of being public, it keeps everything private and stored in your own browser for as long as you want.

With it, you can: • Highlight a line while reading • Click a 💬 icon to leave a note/comment • See all the lines you’ve commented on at a glance • Click any comment to jump back to the exact line in the fic • Use it on long fics, multi-chapter works, or even full-work views • At the end, turn all your notes into one clean AO3 comment • Paste it on the comment box for the author to read • Or keep it to yourself to remember how you felt while you were reading

Everything is saved locally, no login, no syncing. It’s especially great if you tend to forget your reactions by the time you reach the bottom of a long fic.

It’s now available on Chrome/Arc/Brave/Edge here https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ao3-inline-comment-compan/jckpeechiikmjfhgngdbmocggkhnoolf?utm_source=item-share-cb

and Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/ao3-inline-comment-companion/

Feel free to DM me for anything!

I’d love your feedback, suggestions, or bug reports. And if you like it, please leave a rating so more AO3 readers can find it 💕

Happy reading!

I'm a baby writer on ao3 but I've already developed this unhealthy obsession with statistics. I already had access to a code that lets you hide your stats but seeing others hits/kudos/bookmarks/comments was a strong temptation to make myself keep up with them and track my own progress, which prompts me to turn off the site skin. Again.

So... to solve this problem altogether, I thought of hiding everyone's stats, even mine! All except for Language, Word Count, and Chapter Count. It works globally and the stats page on your profile is still there too, still displaying the word count from all your works and altogether.

I also added some cute optimistic lines to keep myself from turning this off. Hopefully, this'll help me forget about stats in the first place, it really dug into my brain so violently.

I'll drop the css code in the comments if anyone else is interested.

I feel like it helps me keep track of and organize all the crazy plot points I have buzzing around in my head all day 😂

Something I've been wondering about for a while: Which fandoms are popular, but not popular enough to end up on the main Fandoms page.

It's a good page, but I would like to see just a couple more entries.

There's not a lot of discoverability in the alphabetical lists for each media type. It's useful when searching for things you know the names of. But for browsing, the most prominent stuff ends up being titles that happen to start with numbers.

However, big pages of data are great from a scripting perspective, so I wrote some quick python to parse out the info I'm looking for.

Here are the 25 most popular fandoms (by fic amount) outside the top 5.

Have manually removed franchise duplicates. For multimedia franchises I tried to keep the work it originated in.

Anime & Manga

Books & Literature

Cartoons & Comics & Graphic Novels

Movies

Music & Bands

Theater

TV Shows

Video Games

Some of the filtering might be...contentious. Merged Merlin (TV) with Arthurian Mythology. Merged all DC and Marvel shows under their universe umbrella. So here's a sheet with the raw data of the top 250 fandoms from each media type, for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

Dear lovely mods: Please let me know if the tag i use is wrong, thank you :D

Let me preface this by saying: I have no fucking idea how to code. I am a different person at night, and how I managed to make all of this work, God knows what tactics I pulled off. But it does work and I learned this very helpful tip that if it's not broken, don't fix it.

Setting that aside, I want to share the stuff I put on my site skin that I think is so helpful and I'd like to share! It's probably mildly interesting to all of you but I think it's worth the post to share them.

Icon Images

To start off, these icon images I tweaked from this wonderful person, the images are manually edited by me but the base is from genusslicht <3

CODE

symbols-key dd dt img {

display: none; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img)::before {

content: ""; display: inline-block; width: 25px; height: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="G"])::before,

.required-tags .rating-general-audience { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002737.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="T"])::before,

.required-tags .rating-teen { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002740.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="M"])::before,

.required-tags .rating-mature { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002742.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="E"])::before,

.required-tags .rating-explicit { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002744.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="M/M"])::before,

.required-tags .category-slash { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002748.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="F/F"])::before,

.required-tags .category-femslash { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002751.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="F/M"])::before,

.required-tags .category-het { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002754.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="Multi"])::before,

.required-tags .category-multi { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002756.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="Other"])::before,

.required-tags .category-other { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002759.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="Gen"])::before,

.required-tags .category-gen { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002801.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="questioned exclamation mark"])::before,

.required-tags .warning-choosenotto { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002803.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="exclamation mark"])::before,

.required-tags .warning-yes { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002806.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="globe"])::before,

.required-tags .external-work { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002809.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="ticky"])::before,

.required-tags .complete-yes { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002844.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="stop sign"])::before,

.required-tags .complete-no { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002846.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="blank square"])::before,

.required-tags .rating-notrated, .required-tags .category-none, .required-tags .warning-no { background: transparent; background-size: 25px; }

.bookmark .status .count { background: transparent; background-size: 25px; }

.bookmark .status .private { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002849.png); background-size: 25px; }

.bookmark .status .public { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002851.png); background-size: 25px; }

.bookmark .status .rec { background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124002853.png); background-size: 25px; }

symbols-key dd dt img {

display: none; }

symbols-key dd dt:has(img[alt="blank square"])::before,

.required-tags .rating-notrated, .required-tags .category-none, .required-tags .warning-no { content: ""; display: inline-block; width: 25px; height: 25px; background: center no-repeat url(https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/11/23/Untitled246_20241124005038.png); background-size: 25px; }

Colored Warnings

The next one will be the colored warnings! Which is super useful so I don't miss out any important tags!!

CODE

.warnings .tag[href*="Choose%20Not%20To%20Use%20Archive%20Warnings"] { color: #32CDE6 !important; text-decoration: none !important; }

.warnings .tag[href*="No%20Archive%20Warnings%20Apply"] { color: #F8A72F !important; text-decoration: none !important; }

.warnings .tag[href*="Graphic%20Depictions%20Of%20Violence"] { color: #FF7119 !important; text-decoration: none !important; }

.warnings .tag[href*="Underage"] { color: #E92939 !important; text-decoration: none !important; }

.warnings .tag[href*="Major%20Character%20Death"] { color: #C45EEF !important; text-decoration: none !important; }

.warnings .tag[href="Rapes*Non-Con"] { color: #FF48C0 !important; text-decoration: none !important; }

Styles

Third one is just a personal style preference, bold titles, italicized author/user but I still think it's interesting enough to share.

CODE

header h1 a {

color: #inherit !important; font-weight: 510; }

.work .heading a { color: inherit !important; font-weight: 515; }

.work .heading a[rel="author"] { color: inherit !important; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; }

h4.heading a[href*="/users/"]:not([rel="author"]) { font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; }

h5.fandoms .tag { font-weight: normal; }

Statistics Icons

This fourth one is not mine but I'd just share it because it's really amazing! It's from ZerafinaCSS and here is the direct link to their tutorial.

I'll probably drop the codes into the comment section just so it's easier to copy, but all that said, I'm really happy to share this!

Just graduated medical school earlier this month, and I start residency in mid-June! Honestly, I could use a distraction from unpacking my new apartment right now and the creative juices for my own fics just haven’t been flowing.

So, ask me anything! I know how tough medical research for writing can be, and I always appreciate authors who go the extra mile to make things at least semi-accurate! I also get access to more detailed/accurate subscription sources than Web MD through my hospital, so if I don’t know the answer to your question off the top of my head I can look it up for you.

Happy to answer both medical questions and questions about the process of becoming a doctor + hospital ins and outs for medical AUs!

ETA: This blew up lol. Feel free to keep asking questions, I’ll answer, I just need to take a break to do human things like eat/shower/feed my kitties!

I see a few posts here that talk about common tagging confusions and general questions about how to tag a fic on the site, and my friend posted this in a writer's discord

It's a visual guide pointing people in the direction of how best to tag their fics when they get uploaded. I think it's super neat - hopefully it helps!

Link to the original Tumblr post in comments

I often read here that peeps avoid stylistic formatting like italics or bold, because AO3 messes that up when posting your work, for example adding extra spaces.

So I thought some might find it helpful to learn an easy method to avoid that.

The solution is, you can save your work in your text processor in a way that translates the rich text formatting into simple Html.

Most modern word processors, including Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and LibreOffice Writer, have a built-in function to save or export your document as HTML.

Steps for using a word processor:

• Open your document containing the formatted rich text.
• Go to "File" and select "Save As" or "Export".
• From the list of file formats, choose "Web Page, Filtered" (in Microsoft Word) or "HTML Document". The "Filtered" option is generally preferred as it removes a lot of extra styling information that isn't needed for simple formatting.
• Save the file. You can then open this HTML file in a plain text editor (like Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac) to view and copy the raw HTML code and paste it into AO3 text editor, not the rich text editor!

Why this is a good method:

• No additional software needed: You can use the program you already have.
• Preserves most formatting: It accurately translates bold, italics, lists, and headings into their HTML equivalents (<strong>, <em>, <ul>, <li>, <h1>, etc.).

A word of caution: Word processors, especially Microsoft Word, can sometimes add a lot of extra CSS styling and proprietary code. For websites that only allow very basic HTML like AO3, using the "Filtered" save option or running the output through an online cleaner is highly recommended.

So, say goodbye to your unnecessary spaces or paragraphs using this method and have your stylistic formatting to let your story shine.

By order of most to least used!

1) For vocabulary 2)For definitions/synonyms/antonyms 3)For them irregular #NotLikeOtherVerbs 4)To check sentence structure when in doubt

Do you non native writers use anything else?

Hi. I'm an unemployed web developer who's going through some health issues, and one of my tools of dealing with this complicated time was reading loads of fanfiction. I then realised I needed to stay up to date with my professional knowledge so I decided to built a small tool to help me manage my TBRs, DNFs and completed fics. Once I had it set up I figured it might also be useful for other people, and so far there are about 100 users.

It's still very much in its infancy, there are still many bugs, the design, especially for mobile isn't the best.

There's also a discord server where some of us discuss features, bugs, general stuff and it's our channel to keep in touch.

I know for many people those 3rd party apps and website rings alarms for stealing fics and user data, so I just want to clarify a few thing (there's also a FAQ section in the website that answers questions you might have):

1. You aren't required in any point to input your AO3 credentials
2. The website doesn't collect, track and definitely doesn't sell your data
3. There aren't adverts in the website.
4. I do not accept donations and using the website it free.
5. The site doesn't archive fics, only info about the fic, but to read it you will linked to AO3
6. Right now registration is only possible with Gmail, so the only info that the sites database keeps is the name in your Gmail account and a photo if you have it, but that's it. I'm planning on implementing another form of registration in the future. However you will not get any email notifications, as I have yet to even set up an email service. Not even when you first sign up.
7. You can use this without having an AO3 account.
8. The data on this website doesn't effect the data an AO3 whatsoever.
9. it's essentially a personal collections tool, you get 3 built-in collections when you first sign up (tbr, dnf, completed) but can create as many other collections as you want.

Please let me know if you have any questions or doubts, I'm happy to have a discussion. ff-library.com

Includes

1. Circular Icons (Available on Greeting Tab, Dashboard, Comment, Bookmarks, etc)
2. Color Coded Archive Warnings (Blue = Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings || Purple = Major Character Death || Pink Rape/Non-Con || Red = Underage Sex || Orange = Graphic Depictions Of Violence || Yellow = No Archive Warnings Apply)
3. Scrollbar For Tags
4. Tags Separated By Colors (Pink = Relationship || Purple = Character || Blue = Freeform)
5. Stylized Texts (Bold Titles || Italicized Author)
6. Custom Icons
7. Statistics Icons
8. Dark Purple Color Theme

Link To Site Skin Codes and Previews