i know a hawk from a handsaw

- filter your searches like you would on a library website or in an online catalogue

- don’t post placeholders, fic searches, or recommendations as fics. DON’T! It’s against ao3 TOS

- there is no algorithm. ao3 sorts by date posted/updated unless you filter with specific search criteria

- ao3 is a non profit. that means it doesn’t sell ads to make money — it only survives on donations. this is why it can show you so many fics without ever flashing an ad or pop up at you!

- report fics that break TOS when you see them (I.e., placeholder fics, searches) to help other users navigate better

- the tag “dead dove, do not eat” doesn’t equate to gore/awfulness automatically. it is a complementary tag that enhances current tags. E.g., if the fic is tagged “gore” and “dead dove, do not eat” the author really wants you to mind the gore tag

- most fandoms have a variation of “no beta, we die like (x character)” and they all link back to the “No beta” tag

- publishing a new fic sometimes means it won’t show up in the fandom/pairing tag for a few minutes

- subscribers receive update emails at different times, depending on when you update/publish your fic. there’s no good way to predict when an e-mail will be sent — it can be in 30 seconds, or two hours later

- some fics are restricted by authors to those with ao3 accounts only. if you see a blue lock in the upper right corner, that fic is only visible to logged in ao3 users

- you can block commenters now! this didn’t use to be a thing

- if your fic includes original character/s or reader insert or y/n or etc, then TAG THOSE IN THE CHARACTER TAGS. Not just in the relationship tags!! They are characters in the story, so include them in the character tags. Failing to do so means people who want to find fics with those tags won’t be able to, and people who want to exclude fics with those tags won’t be able to.

- NEVER EVER EVER ADD A LINK TO A PATREON OR KO-FEE ACCOUNT OR ETC. Ao3’s entire legal protection hinges on the fact that no one is making money from fics. If you start commissioning fics or linking to a monetary platform, you are in breach of the Ao3 terms, risking legal action, and risking ao3 as a whole. There are loads of authors/companies who WILL sue if they think you’re making money off their intellectual property.

there are no best times to post but generally sunday and monday are a good zone for traffic

you must double check and make sure the publication date matches the day a chapter is posted or it won’t show up on the first page of updates. sometimes you have to physically edit the posting date multiple times for this to be fixed.

on that note: artificially editing your publication date so your fic shows up at the top when you haven’t added a chapter is the dickest of moves and will make you a pariah. do not do this. yes everyone will notice.

editing existing chapters doesn’t count as updating a fic and won’t change the publication date.

ao3 usually adds weird spaces after italics if you copy and paste in your writing pre-formatted. it doesn’t add these until after you’ve saved a draft or posted so you have to re-edit.

check the “add space after paragraph” option in your word precessor of choice to avoid having to delete an extra space between all your paragraphs on ao3.

when you add a second chapter to a one chapter fic, your original start/end authors notes will now be appended onto the notes of every chapter unless you move them to the now extant first chapter notes sections. this is confusing, but you’ll see what i mean.

to post on anon: add your fic to the anonymous (anonymous) collection. it’ll take up to fifteen to minutes to show in the tag once posted. it’ll show up (to you) as AUTHOR NAME: fic title. no one else sees it this way. it will never show up on your own dashboard unless you go to your stats page. if you ever de-anon, all your subs will get an email about it as if it were just posted.

if you update multiple fics at once, ao3 will group the updates into one email.

to transfer a fic to a new ao3 account: make a new account, make the new account a co-author, remove the old account as co-author.

you cannot mention money changing hands for fic on ao3, ever. don’t say commissions. say a fic was requested if you must say anything. your fic can get taken down for this.

reply to comments or never complain about engagement in fandom.

per that: EVERY TIME YOU EDIT A COMMENT, THE AUTHOR GETS A NEW COPY OF YOUR COMMENT IN THEIR EMAIL. we can see all the edits. be aware.

tagging is both a warning and an enticement, do so accordingly. you really don’t need to tag things that fall outside that unless you want to.

on that note: please don’t do the “short fics for 300 different fandoms in one fic” thing. no one wants to scroll past that. i mean you can but it just makes it harder for people to find the thing you’ve written that they want to read.

if you are really bad at summaries just think of it as a movie tag line and don’t say you’re bad at summaries. don’t neg your own fic.

Remember the Block and Mute feature. Block means that someone cannot interact with your works. Mute, however, means you will not see the person’s works in the search. If you don’t want to see fics by a specific author, mute them.

Basic html works in comments. If you want to add an image, use <img src=“URL”> with the image url replacing URL. Keep the quotation marks.

Comments are not for critique. Unless the author specifically asks for critique, you are a jerk if you start pointing out everything you dislike. It doesn’t matter how vile you think the content is. If you don’t like it, just back out without saying anything.

If you do not want a work attached to your account at all, you can Orphan it. When you Orphan a fic, you can no longer edit it or delete it. This cannot be undone. If you just want to be anonymous, use the Anonymous feature described above.

If you wish to make a collection of fic that includes all of the fic you have read, consider making a collection of your bookmarks instead. Not every author wants their work to be in a million collections, but you don’t have to ask permission to make a collection of bookmarks.

The “Inspired By” option is great if you draw inspiration from another author’s fic. And it helps give credit to other amazing fanfic writers.

Fic can be downloaded in many different ways. If you want to download a fic and use it like an ebook, go for the EPUB version. But all versions have their merits.

I LOVEEEE these kind of headcanons heheheeheeee

they defo the type to share food and not give a single fuck about sharing germs. like they're sharing and ice cream, they're sharing a lollipop, they're sharing everything and they dont care theyre so gross

the grossness ups its ante when they get sick as well. especially when will gets sick, mike doesn't really get aversive about will being ill bc he's seen it quite a lot in his life, so he is totally fine with taking care of all of his grossness for him (wiping his nose, not giving a fuck if will coughs on him) - also yes he is kissing will even when hes sick

they got drunk one time and mike was like ummm what if we just got a vial of each other's blood and wore it lol ahahaaahaa and will was like yes. do it.

another fun thing they do is that thing where they just share each other's drinks. as in spit their drink in each others mouths when drunk yes ik its gross yes idc

mike's behaviour in s3 goes hand-in-hand with the fact that he sees will as not wanting to grow up. read it as "it's not my fault you're falling behind and stuck in childhood while we all grow up" instead of "it's not my fault you're gay", which he doesn't know, and it all makes sense. mike frames everything as what they’re SUPPOSED to do — "we're not kids anymore", he says. he’s been made to get rid of old toys, they’re getting older, they’re supposed to get girlfriends and put aside games, the other boys are always talking about hot girls and lucas and nancy said he like-likes el and then he lost her and crammed all that guilt and grief inside, and now he’s got her back, so things have to be perfect.

anyway. for a straight or gay kid this is a weird time full of pressure. he's trying to be in a grown-up relationship when all he needs is to be a kid, and he's positioned himself as the boyfriend and, in the first season, the caretaker of el — he needs to be needed and feels worthless when he's not taking care of everyone. add that to the fact that he and the others are all traumatized by something that forced them to be much more mature than they should be (most of all will — one of the reasons why he’s so desperate to play d&d and go back to normal. it’s not [just] about being gay while your friends get girlfriends, but mike just saw this "childish" behaviour and didn't understand, or couldn't face, the why), and how mike was always soft for will, always a safe space, but he started to be scared and intensely protective in a new way due to their trauma — after s1 he was aimless until will was in distress, and now mike had someone to save again — except now things are normal and he's supposed to be normal and caring that way isn't normal (from "i'm the only one acting normal! i'm the only one who cares about will" to shoving him away and acting like he's ignoring him all the time), and you'll see that of course he overcompensates. with all of this going on, it makes sense that mike’s struggling to grow up the way he feels he must.

this is why will scares him — mike spits at him that he can’t possibly expect to sit in the basement and play games and never grow up and be together for the rest of their lives (because that’s not what they’re supposed to want) and will… says he DOES want that. he’s able to admit something that makes mike feel inadequate and immature, and possibly a bit broken. that’s threatening to mike, who’s not quite so good at breaking out of conformity, free of expectations. though he never respected them, he started internalizing them anyway. like when his father fixes mike's tie — it chokes him, and ted says it's supposed to. but this is why his return to d&d at the end of the season is significant — it marks him embracing his identity, his interests, his passions again, letting himself exist rather than trying to grow up too fast and be someone he’s not. even then, he's still embarrassed about it once he's with el (but not when he's with will), saying "sorry. that made me sound like a seven-year-old" after expressing excitement about christmas presents, though el does nothing to make fun of him and most likely has no real concept of this stuff being humiliating anyway, meaning he's enforcing this shame on himself and on her. maybe he's simply nervous around her, but it's interesting. and she does often seem disinterested in the things he likes, or like she's tolerating it. (it's also why it's interesting that when will brings it up again — getting rich, never working again, just playing nintendo together for the rest of their lives — mike says YES this time. maybe it's just a fantasy, but to mike, he hopes it's a possibility: "i wanted this then, and i still want it now. do you?" "yeah, i do. i always did.")

now, all of this makes the “mike’s trying to be as normal as possible” stuff in season 4, the “shitty knockoff” comment once he arrives at the airport, read as very odd, since… he’s back to playing d&d. he’s a nerd. he's proud to be a freak, doesn't care to be popular. so what is he hiding now, the second he arrives in california, if it's not the fear of growing up anymore?

well, number one, it’s important to acknowledge that he WAS still trying to conform in his hellfire era — trying to conform to eddie’s idea of nonconformity, trying to impress him, trying to fit in with hellfire. and he was again, like in s3, abandoning his morals, his loyalty to the party, to lucas, for this. he only starts to find his true self, the heart of the party, again because of will and the painting.

and number two, he's very insecure around el in a way he isn't with anyone he feels truly seen and valued by (similarly to how he admires eddie but isn’t his authentic self around him), so he's trying to be what she wants him to be so she doesn't see him for who he is and not like what she sees. additionally, like i said in the linked conformity post above, there's an interpretation that leads us back to s4 gay mike... but i'm not talking about that right now. either way, things aren't going great for mileven.

after will moves, mike doesn't call much. now, in lucas on the line it's suggested he is depressed and self-isolating. in the show, however, we don't actually... know why he didn't call. we can guess, though, that it was depression, since he seems to clearly be depressed throughout the series, and losing will to california hit him hard (as seen by his reaction to the move being paralleled to will's "death". they've been attached at the hip since kindergarten. now he's a billion years away, and it's intended to be forever, except for some trips to visit. so yes, it's that serious).

so, mike didn't reach out much. called a couple times. will felt like he was losing mike, so he pulled away as well — "maybe you should have reached out more", mike said (in fact, the original script suggested will didn’t reach out at ALL). sure, the joyce was taking up the phone line, but in addition to that... will confirms in the van scene that he was pushing mike away or being mean to him to rip off the bandaid. so he's probably not calling much either, anymore, which is fair. he starts making the painting likely as an outlet for his feelings (and maybe as an olive branch, to try and salvage their friendship. possibly hoping there's an explanation for all this.)

now, mike had pulled away, but then he found out from el in a letter on some random day (likely in january, which has crazy implications — he was rereading, right before his trip, the one letter mentioning will’s crush?) that apparently will might like some girl enough to make a painting for her (which makes his obliviousness in the van scene a little confusing, as finn pointed out, but whatever), and this had NEVER happened before (“it’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”), and will didn’t tell him anything. "we used to be best friends" indeed! this is a big change! so mike starts calling like crazy, trying to fix his screw-up, and can't get through. but then he finds out about joyce's telemarketer job (el mentioned in the will-painting letter that joyce had a new job, but didn't say what it was — surely mike casually asks in a subsequent letter, not expecting it to be the answer to the silence) and "won't stop whining about it" to the rest of the party.

mike was VERY interested in this painting — the script states he was about to interrogate will further at the airport before they were interrupted — and even if it's not jealousy for queer reasons... he’s probably feeling hurt. obviously, we know who the painting is really for, but from mike's perspective, will's got a crush on some mystery girl and he's brought her gift here! yes, mike blames himself, but he's also a weird little defensive possessive creature, so him being jealous and upset and pushy about getting answers... makes sense. especially since he's mr "binder of will's drawings under my bed". he loves will's art, hangs it on the walls, and probably is jealous that some girl is getting all this work from will now. (especially when will's never given mike a painting before, and now this girl gets one?) and! he's also feeling guilty because he thinks he lost will’s trust by saying that thing he said in the rain (he didn’t mean will was gay, just that he’s not growing up like he’s supposed to, but clearly it was taken the wrong way... and he knows it was still bad enough even when read as he intended it) and that’s why will didn’t mention it. like he said, mike feels like he lost will, and blames himself.

it's definitely not suggested he thought the painting was for him until will gives it — in fact, his surprise and delight at receiving it suggest otherwise. why did he let will turn away and cry alone? well, for one, will was clearly trying to hide it, so mike likely thought it was the polite thing to do to pretend he didn’t notice — he most likely wouldn’t want to be called out in a vulnerable moment like that. and two, it's awkward, and confusing, and he probably just did not know what to do, especially since he's confirmed to not know will was lying or had feelings for him, so he... literally has no idea why will is crying? maybe he has some theories, but generally it's a confusing scene for him. plus he's clearly having a lot of thoughts (and looks disappointed/taken out of the moment by the mention of el, and brought back to the turmoil of everything between them), so he's likely doing his usual thing of just pretending everything is fine while he retreats because he can't deal with everything (confirmed coping mechanism btw)

anyway. after this confusing, upsetting, paralyzing six months, of course mike didn't say, during an argument, "oh btw i called you all the time but the line was busy". because then he'd have to explain the time before joyce got the job, and... whether it was for gay reasons or depression reasons, he really can't. the latter being because... he's likely ashamed. he missed will a lot. we know this. but in the end he does tell will hawkins isn't the same without him. so he says it, really. and of course he was awkward hugging will, even if he weren't freaking out after half a year of knowing he was in love with him — he's worried he's ruined their friendship, and is having Many Feelings about that damn painting.

AH. yes. that's in general the biggest problem with css, and especially ao3 skins. Ao3 has a.... mmmh. not really clean html. the page itself is kind of a mess and a lot of elements (yes, it is indeed the right word!) do not have classes or ids, so it’s literally almost impossible to target them without affecting 78 other things in the same page (and then probably completely break a different part of the site that shouldn’t have anything to do with what you are doing).

I took your ask and decided to make a starting tutorial. Maybe you'll already know several things I talk about, but I think it could be helpful for people to start working on skins! Also, I'm using a very non-technical language because A) still not a programmer B) I want this to be understood by people who have very little knowledge.

ALSO IT BECAME REALLY LONG so I'm hiding this behind a cut.

A non-extensive guide on how to start creating a skin for ao3.

What worth is there in the paltry existence of one useless female?