I love my skie

Interactive games: I have a whole post here about the various games on ao3, but pokemon, dating sims, minesweeper, cardgame mimics, character creators and an animated point and click adventure game are some real highlights!

The (currently non-canon) HTML Tryhard tag. Filled with many many cool fics that utilize workskins to tell stories or fics that have tutorials with them. (If you'd prefer to search with filters, a good chunk of fics are in the 2025 or 2026 HTML Tryhards Event collections)

Generators -- When I was starting out, workskins were intimidating, but some folks have made generators that allow you to input your text and get the HTML and CSS to just copy and paste. Including Twitter posts, Simple Texting, Minecraft Chats, iOS texting (instr.), Tool Tips & Footnotes (instr.) and Choose Your Own Adventure (instr.)

Anyway, I hope my ramblings can show off some of the REALLY cool things Ao3 allows us fans to do and maybe inspire more to try making things with workskins.

I am in awe! Truly! And I actually poke around and look for these things sometimes!

[...How disgusting are you...?]

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I’ll tell you what I look for in a fic rec list and then we’ll see what everyone else thinks is good :)

all one fandom, and if it’s shippy then all the same ship

titles of the fic link over to AO3

include the rating of the fics and a brief description (or the reason why you like it)

tag the authors so they know they’ve been rec’d

I’ve definitely seen fic rec lists with a specific theme to them as well, for example “[ship] hurt/comfort recs” but I’m personally good with just the description and picking from there. 

All one fandom is good, but it doesn’t need to be all one ship. I don’t have anything against multifandom rec lists, but the odds of me being familiar with multiple fandoms on them are slim. The important thing is to be clear about the rec list’s theme before you actually list the recs themselves (e.g. random works I liked, coffee shop AUs in small fandoms, m/m slash in Specific Fandom, etc).

The reason you like it, or the reason you think other people should read it, is absolutely 100% necessary, and ideally it consists of at least a couple sentences (unless it’s a 100-word drabble you’re reccing). Without this, and especially if I don’t know anything about your taste in fic, it’s not any different than skimming a work listing.

If there’s something that you had to overlook while reading the fic, or something that made you hesitate to rec it, mention it! If I know the reccer would usually consider a lack of empty space between paragraphs a dealbreaker, I might be willing to give the fic a go despite the fact bad paragraph spacing is usually also a dealbreaker for me. But if I just click on a link and find a wall of text, I’ll probably back button from not just the work, but possibly the rec list as well.

I agree that single-fandom (or theme) blogs are more preferable to find, but think about what you want to run also. I wanted a place to archive all my favourite works, and I definitely don't have the energy for multiple blogs so this blog is multifandom. It's not for you (random folk on tumblr) it's for me (person having fun making the blog)

similarly, think about the maximum amount of effort you can spend on the task and still complete it. It would be nice to create a highly polished blog with a written summary and full tags and clear themeing, but that is actually a lot of work!

I've gone with a bullet point summary of author, rating, fandom, ship and then my own thoughts. You can check out the about pages for more information on how I'm organized.

I disagree strongly on tagging the author for a couple reasons - for one, you then have to go through the effort of finding the author (do yourself a favour and avoid giving yourself additional work)

also because as sarking mentioned, it's good to bring up both flaws and personal taste in a rec that may end up being very rude to mention to an author. If I'm reccing you something with the caveat that I really don't like how [important side character] was handled, it would be super rude to tag the author!

Additionally:

Think about longevity! I publish one rec a day through my queue, which means I don't have a lot published yet, but also means my queue is very full and I can chillax between doing a few recs in a row

if you are doing a specific fandom or ship rec blog, it is entirely possible to actually run out of good fic. Don't rush to publish a whole bunch of works just to keep your blog from looking empty! it'll fill up!

tags are your friend, but they can also be your enemy. Don't go overboard on keeping things organized - again! keep your work manageable!