Helenonic

Writing.

I love writing, and the art of putting words down when you can't speak them. Writing experiences you can't tell anybody or thoughts you can't explaiin to anybody.

I love the feelings that arise when I write, whether they're negative or positive.

I love the unfinished drafts and the messy ones that are completed but will stay hidden forever.

I love writing about love and family, and life experiences, and bonding, and I love getting to know myself through the things I write.

I love the feeling of accomplishment I get, even after writing 100 words for that day--it's more than 0 and that's something to be proud of.

Changing the outcome because a reader was like “I really hope this doesn’t happen”, and on consideration you realise that you also hope that doesn’t happen  

Changing the outcome because a reader was thinking further ahead than you are and spotted an implication of a forthcoming plot point that you don’t like the smell of  

Changing the outcome because a reader’s prediction drew your attention to the fact that your planned resolution would have stumbled dick-first into a massive plot hole  

Changing the outcome because a reader picked up on a bunch of blatant foreshadowing and symbolism you didn’t notice you’d put there because your subconscious forgot to send a memo  

Changing the outcome because a reader proposed such an elegant solution to a legitimately thorny narrative problem that it would feel petty not to let them be right  

An Illustrated Guide For Vampires

1. Privacy Tent

2. Antique Chinese Wedding Bed

3. Victorian Box Bed

4. Canopy Bed

5. Full Body Wearable Blanket + Novelty Halloween Mask of Choice

6. Hyperrealistic Black Bear Sleeping Bag (with built in ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature)

7. Tinfoil Bodysuit (For maximized UV protection)

8. Blackout Curtains You Fucking Vampiric Dumbass

Anyone with a name that starts with a “Z”, ends with an “i”, and isn’t some kind of Italian pasta, IS SERIOUS

--

I can't plan a fic to save my life, but I do enjoy writing multi-chaptered works. My longest is 75K, but they're usually in the 20-40K range.

The way I do it is to think of a fairly simple plot (for example, Characters A and B are best friends. They're in this situation. Events unfold to turn them into lovers.) and keep that throughline in mind. They're friends and they're going to end up in love. This is the setting.

The events that transpire to get them there might need some planning, but as long as I keep my end point in mind, the route that I take to get there can be anything at all.

I'm also really bad at taking notes about my fics, so the way I keep it all straight in my head is to just tell myself the story over and over again. I replay the story and the various scenes in my head, often deciding what happens next. Then, since I've thought about it so much, I can remember the details I need to reference in later chapters, and all of my daydreaming means that I have a solid idea of what that next scene is going to look like.

https://ficsex.tumblr.com/post/646460383084888064/welcome-to-fic-sex

You should look at sources. Always. Taking a moment to say “wait, who said that? what happened?” isn’t victim blaming, it isn’t siding with an abuser, its taking a step back to understand a whole picture, in its context. 

When you do this, 

you are actually a better ally than just knee-jerk, superficial, performative support.

you can approach with nuance.

you can avoid speaking over them, and learn how to be a better, more supportive ally.

you can avoid repeating old claims that have already been either addressed or disproven.

you can avoid propaganda and disinformation, which not only serves to undermine whoever its about, but it undermines everyone else. 

This post is about political disinformation, but when people get away with making false allegations about abuse or racism or homophobia or any other gross behavior it undermines the positions of actual victims because people who are prone to bad faith can say “ah, that was a scam, victims are scammers”. When you make false claims about politicians, you undermine the political process and allow people who are prone to bad faith to say “see I don’t need to participate”.

if you need to do something about it, you better fact check, you better keep records, you better use your science brain. otherwise you will just be someone else’s private army.

again, abusers make for more appealing victims than the people they wrong, because they practice it. they’re sweeter, nicer, sadder, their stories make more sense, their calls to action are easier and more satisfying.

‘real’ victims are left confused, upset, fumbling around to try and understand what happened to them, how they were wronged, who hurt them, how badly they’re hurt, what it all means, how much of it was their fault. real victims don’t have a slick and heart-rending story of woe right out of the starting gate. real victims are dealing with mood swings, anger, outrage, resentment, jealousy, confusion, denial, terror. they lash out. they contradict themselves. they blame themselves for being hurt, they blame people who are trying to help them for not doing it sooner or better. they’re angry and uncooperative, or they’re stiff-necked and emotive, or they’re Perfectly Fine Thank You because why should you get to see the damage? who made you the judge?

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.

You can combine existing skins by creating you own skin scroll to the bottom under ADVANCED and then Parent Skins. Example, i use AO3s Reversi and then XParrots Shortening Long Tag Field

Also, you can exclude stories in this area too! I got this from another tumblr post so i can’t take credit for it, nor do i know how to expand it to other things like tags or pairing or author.

.blurb#work_430075 { display: none; }

-In addition to beginning and ending author’s notes for the overall story, there are also beginning and ending author’s notes for each chapter of a multipart story. When you first create the story, before you add additional chapters, it will treat your author’s notes as overall story notes – meaning your “so that’s chapter 1!” note will be kicked to the end of every subsequent chapter unless you move it to chapter 1 specifically.