Put In The Tags The Accessory That You (almost) Always Wear 

A Collegiate Cat

Just a wonderful poem about a cat, but make it old and fancy sounding – found on Smithsonian

Hello, I am Ahmed. The war destroyed my life. Can you help me? I need 3 things from you: Share, repost, and donate if you are able to donate. Thank you for listening to me

My post link 👇💕

https://www.tumblr.com/ahmed4palestine/756439898525974528/urgent

My GFM link 👇🔗

https://gofund.me/1d8bb3df

free free?

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE SHEET MUSIC THIS IS WILD I JUST FOUND IT BY ACCIDENT THANK YOU

all this talk about goncharov but i dont see anybody posting the soundtrack??? like how are you gonna talk about this movie without the music

It never feels like enough and it's so exhausting. There's so much fucking human suffering and it's fucking infuriating. A war criminal spoke in congress today and everyone was expected to sit around and act like what he was doing wasn't heinous. A group of Jewish protestors wearing shirts that say, "Jews say stop genocide" got called anti-semitic. For calling for a ceasefire. And all the while we're raising money for these gofundmes and all of them are over 30k because we're trying to get whole-ass families out because some fucking cunt named Ibrahim Al-Organi decided a genocide was the perfect time to become an extortionist. These people are running for their lives, trying to get to a place where they have access to medical care, and this fucking monster is lining his pockets all the while. Where the fuck is the rest of the infrastructure being put in place to get these literal fucking children out of a warzone? You look for refugee programs that might get Gazans to the United States rather than Egypt and the first google result is some xenophobic NIMBY shit. Jesus fucking christ.

hi here’s a cool bird I betcha didn’t know existed, ✨the wallcreeper✨

it literally looks like a monarch butterfly it’s so cute

lighting a cigarette off the rim of my guardian angel's halo and they have to watch and let me shorten my lifespan by smoking it even though they're assigned to protect me from harm. because of free will.

Dropping this here for anyone who may not already know about it. paywallreader.com

Now this. This is what I wanted to say but couldn't word.

A Brief Guide to Supporting Authors

As a minor change of pace, I’d like to share some information about how to support fanfiction authors. Many readers don’t believe that their comments, kudos, or bookmarks are important to authors, but they are. 

So, great! Now, let’s talk about the various ways to give feedback - including those other than comments and kudos - as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each method. 

(Note: this guide is focused on ao3, but many parts apply to other platforms.) 

Bookmarks

Summary

Bookmarks let you keep track of a story for reference, re-reading, or just because. 

Public bookmarks are displayed on the story’s main bookmark count, and private bookmarks are not. 

Authors can see the total number of bookmarks on a story, both private and public, from their stats page. They cannot see who has left a private bookmark, or when it was made. 

Works can be sorted/filtered by the number of bookmarks. 

Bookmarks can be tagged, annotated, etc. 

The bookmark feature also as a “recommendation” option

Pros and cons

Pro: a bookmark serves as a more specific form of feedback than kudos, because it also means the reader likely wants to come back to the story later, and/or that they recommend this story to others. 

Pro: if a bookmark is public, authors will probably see it (we check those!). 

Pro: because notes/tags/annotations on bookmarks are optional and not intended for the author, readers feel less pressure to have a specific depth or format - anything goes. 

Tips and tricks

how to use the bookmark tool to create a rec

how to tag bookmarks

Kudos

Summary

Kudos are the easiest way to let an author know you like their story. 

You can only give kudos once per account, or once per IP address if you’re logged out. You cannot remove kudos. 

If authors have enabled this notification, they will get one email per day that lists who has given kudos on which works. These emails are magic. 

Kudos serve as a method to sort/filter fics, and readers often use the number of kudos or the kudos/hits ratio to determine whether or not to start a story. 

Pros and cons

Pro: quick and easy 

Pro: more kudos make other readers more likely to read the story

Pro: authors do tend to see kudos, whether via email, their stats page, or the story page itself. 

Con: kudos are a one-time thing, so if you leave them early in a multi-chapter story, the author has no way of knowing if you’re still reading. If you wait until the fic is complete (since kudos can’t be removed), the author won’t know you’re reading/that you enjoy the story until after it’s complete - and a perceived lack of reader interest is a leading cause for abandoned WIPs. 

Con: authors tend to interpret kudos less positively than readers. Therefore, if you leave kudos and mean “I love this story so much!!” the author doesn’t know that, because people leave kudos for many different reasons. 

Con: they’re not specific. The impact of praise tends to increase with specificity. For example, “this fic is great” is nice to hear, but “your dialogue and characterizations in this story are great” is more specific and will generally inspire more emotion in the author. Because kudos are both the lowest effort and lowest specificity form of feedback, they don’t have the same impact as other methods. 

Tips and tricks

If, for some reason, you don’t want to leave kudos on your username, you can quickly leave guest kudos without logging out by copying the address, opening a private browser session, and leaving kudos as a guest.

You can also do this if you want to leave multiple kudos 

Subscriptions 

authors can see how many users are subscribed to a story from their stats page

authors cannot see who is subscribed to their story 

authors do not know if a subscriber is still reading, or if they are inactive/not checking updates 

subscriptions to authors do not show up in the story subscriptions count 

subscriptions can give an author a general indication of their audience for a multi-chapter story, but it’s almost exclusively a tool for readers rather than a feedback mechanism. 

Comments

This has been covered in depth before - check the links for more info. 

Your Guide to Reviews

Appreciation Without Anxiety: Commenting 101

How to Write A Good Review on FFN (most of this also applies to ao3)

tips and tricks for commenting on mobile

Why People Don’t Comment

“Can I Say This?” Culture, Comments, and Concern

101 Comment Starters

Recommending and Sharing Fics

Simply posting a link to a fic on tumblr is a great form of feedback, if the author sees it - it’s fine to leave a comment on the fic saying “I recommended this story!” with a link to the post, or to tag them on tumblr if you can find their account. 

If an author shares their tumblr account, liking and reblogging their story-related posts is a great way to show support, because it means that you enjoy their story enough that you want other people to read it. 

Authors on tumblr will often check both their notes and the tags people add, and tagging it with something along the lines of “I love this story” or “please read this” will make an author cry happy tears. 

An easy way to create rec lists is to bookmark fics or use the mark for later feature as you read them, and once per week, make a list via tumblr post. Generally, you’ll want to list the title, author (tag them if you can find them on tumblr!), fandom, pairing(s), and character(s). A brief description is nice but not necessary; if you want to add more but you’re not sure what, simply copy-paste the author’s summary from ao3. Then, if you haven’t tagged the author, leave a comment on the story with a link to your rec list. 

I don’t actually have words to describe how amazing it is to find that someone has recced my fics, but wow. I have literally cried. 

Misc.

if you can find an author on tumblr, feel free to tag them in posts (for example, “this photo makes me think of your story, @author!”) or send asks about their fics. 

If you’ve written or drawn something inspired by their stories, let them know! Don’t worry about whether it’s “good enough,” because I promise they will love and appreciate it (and you!). 

If you’ve made playlists, moodboards, metas, etc, also let them know! 

If you see someone else recommending or mentioning their fic, tag the author - they likely haven’t seen it. I’ve only found out about several things like this after a friend saw the post and sent it to me. 

If you see someone posting negatively about their fic, don’t let the author know - it’s stressful, upsetting, and they can’t do anything about it. 

This guide is not exhaustive, but I hope it’s given readers a bit more information regarding how authors receive and interpret feedback!

- Mod Rose

Ok I can’t find it now but I saw someone suggesting the Barbie meme with these two and I just had to do it