Feeling The Aster

use & for friendships, colleagues, familial relationships and use / for romantic or sexual relationships (or encounters)

not everyone reads fic. Lots of people use screen readers, and screen readers can’t see what’s on images. use descriptive text to help them out.

lots of people download fic to read on other devices, not all downloads capture images too.

there’s a big difference between No Archive Warnings Apply (NAWA) and Author Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings (CNTW). NAWA means that there’s nothing in the fic that needs to be warned for using the official Archive Warning system. CNTW means there might be something that requires a warning and the author is either avoiding giving out spoilers or they are unsure how to interpret their plot point with respect to the official Warnings. (in both cases, additional tags are where it’s at - you can explain yourself there) 

the reason why the number of bookmarks in the fic is different from the number of bookmarks on your stats page is because your stats page number includes bookmarks that are hidden

there’s a preference setting where you can receive emails with your own comments/replies.

there’s a site skin that hides stats so you don’t have to see them

writing in rich text format makes my life easier

knowing html allows me to do fun things in the comments section like comment/reply with reaction gifs

knowing html also allows me to do interesting formatting in my fics that I can’t do with rich text alone

those little blue bubbles with the question marks in them will answer my questions a lot of the time - and also teach me something new

the FAQ is linked under the word About in the header

if you write your fic in the draft window, you might end up losing it so make sure you copy the text before you hit Post, just in case

The Anonymous collection will allow you to post anything you want and retain ownership over it.

Your identifying information will not be anywhere within the fic to any other reader. Though you will see it from your end when looking at it as a logged in user.

When you reply to a comment, it will anonymize you, so feel free to respond to your commenters!

You can take your fic off Anonymous at any time

When you are signed into AO3, you can easily access your Anonymous fics by looking at the “Works In Collections” tab on your page. Nobody else will see these Anonymous works on this page.

Works can be added to the Anonymous collection at any time

Just because a fic is Anonymous does not mean it is Abandoned or Orphaned.

Speaking of Orphaned fics:

If you have posted a story and for whatever reason you no longer want it on your account or associated with you, you can Orphan the fic.

Orphaning fics will remove all of your control and ownership of the story.

Orphaning fics is not a reversible process. Once a fic has been Orphaned it cannot be taken back. You cannot delete it. You can’t check stats and it does not show up on your Works page anymore.

there’s a big difference between No Archive Warnings Apply (NAWA) and Author Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings (CNTW). NAWA means that there’s nothing in the fic that needs to be warned for using the official Archive Warning system. CNTW means there might be something that requires a warning.

Writers, if you use both these tags on the same work, I have no idea which one you actually mean, and will likely skip your story if you haven’t explained somewhere.

This is not metaphorical. I mean actual, literal pieces of paper/plastic/metal/whatever explicitly erected to inform the public.

“How did you know this was the right trail?” I read the sign.

“Wow, how did you know what that flower is?” There’s a SIGN.

“How did you know we needed to use the side door?” THERE IS A SIGN POSTED ON THE FRONT DOOR.

Just…why are we having such different experiences of the world? People can read. I KNOW they can read. There’s nothing wrong with their vision.

Just. READ. THE. GOD. DAMN. SIGN.

This also applies to:

Syllabi

A mouth-watering fuck-ton of hand angle references.