Norman Be Like

For those new to AO3

Authors can see your bookmarks as a default. You have to mark them as private if you don't want authors to see them. There is an argument that bookmarks are a reader's space, but if you don't want authors to see what you are saying, make the bookmark private.

There is no algorithm on AO3. Seriously. It does not exist. Sorting by kudos, comments, length, etc. is the closest thing you will get. It is very much a curate your experience situation. Embrace it because you never know what gems you'll find if you give less popular fics a chance.

Depending on who you ask, kudos are not a good metric to judge a fic on anymore. As to if they ever were is, again, depending on who you ask. There is a spider/web crawler (we call it the kudos bot) who gives a bunch of guest kudos to fics. We cannot summon it and we cannot remove the kudos. At best, we can set our fics to private. So, if you see a fic with way more kudos than views, that's why. Many of us do not want these kudos, but we have to live with them.

Concrit (constructive criticism) is divisive because this is a hobby for many people. There is a culture on AO3 for concrit to be opt-in instead of opt-out, but not everyone subscribes to that. If you do not see an author's note saying concrit is OK, you can ask if it's OK. If they don't say anything, take it as a 'no'. If the author is cool with concrit, great. Concrit away.

Asking for updates is also divisive. Some people want/need that encouragement and some don't. Leaving a polite 'can't wait for the next chapter' is totally fine. If you ask for an update and the author asks you not to, please respect their wishes. You don't know what else is going on behind that screen. We all use fic for our own reasons and it's impossible to tell if that was someone's project to forget about things that they don't want to deal with.

There is a difference between A/B and A&B. A/B is for shipping and A&B is for non-shipping relationships (such as platonic and familial relationships or bullying or work situations). Please tag accordingly and please do not accuse people of writing shippy fic when they tagged it A&B.

Comment totals on AO3 count author responses. It doesn't make a distinction between a response and a new comment thread. Comment thread counts are in the author's stats page only available to them. Authors are not inflating their comment counts by responding to get more views. They are just trying to interact with people who support them.

Not all authors respond to comments. For many older fans, this can be due to years of harassment in fandom, witnessing friends being harassed, not having time, etc. etc. Their reasons are their own and it does not mean you are a bad person or said something wrong if they don't respond to you nor does it say anything about them. Authors do not owe you interaction just as you do not owe them comments. It's your prerogative if you only want to leave comments on fics where the author answers back, but it does not mean the author isn't grateful or doesn't care. You do not know what else is going on.

You cannot take a kudos back. Seriously. It's permanent. If that means you want to wait until a fic is finished to leave a kudos, that's totally fine. To authors, if you see a bunch of comments and views, but few kudos, this is probably the reason. It does not mean your fic is bad; it just means readers are holding kudos back until the fic is finished, which is perfectly legitimate.

Please read author's notes at the beginning and end of chapter updates. This is where authors are The Most Likely to tell you if there has been a change in their update schedule, if they made changes to previous chapters, explained a certain choice they made, etc. Same with checking the tags thoroughly before reading a fic. Most authors take tagging and warning/updating readers very seriously and the spaces they can do it in are the author's notes and the tags.

Because there are so many people from so many cultures on AO3, the categorizing of fics may not be totally even across the board. Tagging might have discrepancies. For instance: some people might view smut as M and not E depending on the level of detail; some might even view it as T. Please exercise caution and look at tags carefully when clicking on a fic. If you come across something you do not like, the back button is always an option.

There is a hard limit of 75 tags on fics, so not all characters that appear in a fic are likely to be tagged. For many of us, we only tag major players, major ships/&-relationships, and background relationships as a courtesy and save the rest of our tags for known triggers and making it easier for people to find our fics by tagging the tropes we use and certain parts of the content (such as 'AU where A loses their voice').

If you hate a character or a ship or a certain trope or have certain triggers, there is nothing wrong with asking a fandom friend for recommendations. If anything, we probably should bring back fic rec lists and you could be doing an amazing service for fandom if you start making one based on your preferences. Don't rely purely on other platforms to lead you to amazing fics; you never know how that person is finding fics and they could be missing out on some really amazing ones.

AO3 currently does not have a messaging system and many users prefer it that way. I am not positive what the future holds, but if any author wants you to get in contact, they will probably leave other socials in their notes or on their profile. They might even tell you to contact them in a comment response. You can absolutely respond to them on other social media platforms and talk fics or art or fandom. The AO3 lack of messaging is a comfort for many people because of previous experiences regarding harassment and, for some, that's the closest thing to a social media that they have. Some fandoms are more than 40 years old and not all of it has been positive for everyone.

Please do not leave 'placeholder' ideas in the fic tags. By this I mean, 'here's an idea I plan to write. Let me know if you like it!' and there's one or two sentences but no actual fic. AO3 is not social media. You can be reported for this and the post taken down as per AO3's guidelines. Fic, meta, and art are welcome on AO3. A plan to write a fic is not.

Lastly, please enjoy your time on AO3. It is an archive that dedicates itself to preserving fandom works, whether we agree with those works or not.

Many young wizards have taken to transmuting swans into humans and marrying them. One day, you are lucky enough to find a swan in the wild, and without hesitating, you turn it into a beautiful lady. Unfortunately, that ‘swan’, was a goose. You have just given a goose a human form.

[TW: Ableism] [TW: Rant]

Begging y'all to not say 'It's a miracle' when someone stands up from a wheelchair or spends 30 minutes without their mobility aid—  I'm so fucking tired of being accused of faking pain, I've already been refused disability accomodations and can't bring my cane out during my work shifts because "you can walk around just fine without it" or "I saw you doing ___ yesterday!"

There's a spectrum of people who need mobility aids.  

Brought this up before in a non-ranty way, but just damn sometimes it gets a lot.  Just so damn much.    It's frustrating knowing that I end up worsening my own physical condition because others don't think I "really need the support."

in case you’re like me and you get sick to death of the old “bruce never acknowledges his kids or tells them he loves them or shows them any support or affection” meme that seems to affect fans and writers alike, here’s some dadbat love.

kill 'character did nothing wrong'. nurture 'character did everything wrong and i was whooping and cheering the whole time'

Doodle of something about Splinter and Draxum and their council archive heist for more information about seers?

They're just a very tired college student intern. They're literally just there for the school credits. They give no fucks. (i said i'd draw them again lol. This is why i usually don't spend a lot of time designing background characters. b/c i get attached too easily. BTW, their name is Morgan (They/them))

Thank you!

Just a SHIT TON of leo and future leo because they are so dear to me oh my god i love them so much

be lucky i spared the angst i could fucked shit UPPP with them-

Tpn manga spoilers

when the kids went to the human world they started attending school right?

what if it was fathers day and the kids were asked to draw their fathers. their teacher remembered that a few of her students were orphans that came from the demon world so she went to tell them they could draw anyone else, their siblings or mother, but as she went up to them she saw them( rossi, mark, alicia, jemima,chris, and the others) drawing two men. one was grumpy with black and white hair, and the other had a scar on his face but had a kind expression on.

See you later!