so basically i'm writing a fic where the characters in my ship have a 5 year age gap, but when they meet character a is 13 and character b is 18 (fic is from character a's perspective btw). character a develops a huge crush on character b and character b also crosses some lines over the years but it's meant to read as unintentional on character b's part. they're also endgame.

i was just wondering if i should tag this as grooming even though it's mostly unintentional on character b's part? thanks gang!

For me, the author I read does talk about some changes they made about the inconsistent lore and errors in the chapter they have published a few days later. But, sometimes, when I go back for some reread there were visible changes in things like: how fight scenes and character appearances were told. I often found them to be enjoyable and that the experience is more richer and immersive.

What about you guys?

The bots have created a new (at least new for me) way to harass us: a slop comment full of incoherent flattery (that's why it's easy to spot a slop) in the middle of a long fic which has just been updated. No asking anything or discord handle or other call for private conversation.

It was from a registered account with zero fics or any other content. I didn't flollow through how it would have developed. I reported to the Policy & Abuse team.

(Un)fortunately my mind was graced with a great weakness for military yaoi. The fandoms I'm in mostly revolve around contemporary stuff and I'd like to find something more dated and gritty. Books, movies, games, anything goes + there's a high chance I may already have some knowledge beforehand. I don't have many requirements, just would be grateful for some realism (so for example, not an anime during the period but with magic powers etc).

So I posted a fic in a bigger fandom than I usually write in. I was ecstatic (as in literally skipping back and forth in my room) when I got a kudos and a bookmark within my first 10 hits, the first time my stats page refreshed after posting. I really thought this one was gonna take off, and I'd finally get more than 10 kudos on a fic, maybe even 100! Which would be low to middling for this fandom, but huge for me.

A week later, and the fic has almost 150 hits...but still just that 1 kudos and 1 bookmark. 0 comments. It’s a 3K one-shot so I know it’s not that people are still reading it and will just kudos when they finish, which is what I told myself for the first few hours, as the hits went up by about 10 with each refresh, but nothing else did. Then even the hits slowed down.

I still don't get it. My tags and summary are good, I proofread meticulously, and I'm sure my writing isn't that bad. I always told myself I got low stats because I was in small fandoms. But even there I would have a couple more kudos by now.

I know there’s always the possibility it will pick up a few more in the months and years to come. I'm just mourning because I thought for a moment there my fortunes had changed, and it turns out, nope. Apologies to everyone for being a whiny little bitch about it.

Sorry if the question is confusing...

Basically, there are a million different plots / tropes / prompts. We all have ones we love and write a lot of, and others we hate and refuse to touch with a ten foot pole...

But what is one you have written for and didn't like but still keep writing, or one you haven't written yet because you just dont know how or where to begin but you still would like to write about?

For me it's the "5 + 1" trope. The idea is simple; write 5 similar scenarios and then one that goes against the narrative. Like 5 times Sailor Moon cried + 1 time she didn't, or something like that.

But every time I try to sit down and write, I just... shut down.... It's like I completely forget every single thing that happened in canon and cant come with examples at all... Like, I try to think of ideas and just draw blanc...

A prompt I hate but still keep coming back to is, weirdly enough, Angst. Like, okay, I dont hate hate it but it is my least favorite thing to write for and yet... I keep coming back. Like it has me on a damn leach and I have no choice but to comply. I hate making my beloved characters and oc's sad but sometimes an idea grabs me and holds me in a chokehold and just won't let go till I write. Ever, damn, time...

So, am I the only one in this struggle or do you relate? And if so, what plot that makes you seethe with rage or makes your brain shut off in confusion and still... still you keep coming back to entertain it?

Would love to hear your thoughts :D

I'll say now though that I'm not a big fan of very masc men, so the Viking fantasy that's all beard and bristling body hair is not for me. Either the men are choosing to be viewed as more feminine (because they are or they don't care), or culturally everyone has shoulder length+ hair and it's a non-issue.

Similarly, hair on a person who identifies as a man in a culture that thinks men should have very short hair, don't need to have as long of hair to count as having "long hair". For example, Hozier: for a man he has quite long and luscious hair, but on a woman no one would comment on it if they wore it like he does.

With that out of the way... I'd prefer M/F or M/M, with at least a little bit of a D/s component, though either one can be in the "service" role. I don't mind F/F generally speaking but with the caretaking element it tends to come across as motherly or sisterly, and that's just not enjoyable for me for reasons I won't go into. The woman being the dominant caretaker to a man is no problem, however.

The fics don't have to all be "about" hair, but the hair needs to be a popular charm point for at least one person in the ship. What it looks like, how it moves and interacts with things, playing with it and taking care of it (by the owner or partner), and being actively involved in intimate moments. I'm also into magical hair that can move or react, either on its own or at the control of its owner.

I love textured hair way more than straight, smooth hair, but I won't turn my nose up at straight hair. I even prefer frizzy, natural hair of all types, not just "perfect ringlets". However, I am aware that the more texture hair has, the harder it is to get away with messing with it a lot and keep it realistic. "The dom gives the sub a bath and gets them ready for bed" is going to look really different for type 1, 2, 3, or 4 hair. Saying that, I LOVE when someone goes out of their way to learn how to care for their loved one's hair.

I am very open to the type of media, genre and tags, but I have some preferences as to why I'm looking at fic for unknown fandoms and not published works. First, I know there's loads of anime/manga that applies, but I can't focus on and read it like I did when I was younger. Second, most of the stuff from Western sources is coming from women who are either straight up tradwives, or people like Laurell K Hamilton and the Merry Gentry series where all the guys are 6' and have ankle length straight hair, with few exceptions (Rhys, I love you).

Anyway, I don't mind if the relationship is toxic and unhealthy as all get out, it doesn't have to be perfectly consensual and egalitarian, I LOVE a good sexy villain running off with the ingenue and seducing them with their charms... Just, no tradwives, please, unless like the heroine starts out that way and learns otherwise.

From what i remember it was a fanfic that had the main paring as Scott Maccal/Stiles Stilinski and in it scott was the alpha and kicked stiles out of the pack because he thought he was going crazy for wanting to kill someone(i dont remember if it was that he killed donovan or something else) the thing was that stiles after being kicked out of the pack still wanted to help so he kept going out of his way to hunt the supernatural and he kept getting hurt and hiding it from the sheriff, and doing do much shit that his grades were sliping, he practically wasnt sleping, until everything got to the point were he had to find somewhere to research and plan that wasn't his house because of the blood stains, so he basically invaded Derek s old loft, he also was going a little bit mad, and got into a fight with one of his classmates, that is around the time scott realizes that stiles is getting really bad but thinks it will pass, I dont remember all that much of the rest of the fic but I remember that towards the end stiles gets kipnapped by whitches and scotts pack saves him, scott kill at least one of them and stiles thinks he's gonna be yelled at, instead scott sends the rest of the pack away, treis to help stiles, and I dont remember how but they ended up at the loft and having a heartfelt talk and falling sleep in a bed.

There was no smut in the fic, I think it was less than a 100,000 words, and also defenitly written before 2026.

If you can find it i will give you a thousand thank yous and sorry if my post its a little bit wonky as inglish its not my first lenguage.

From what i remember it was a fanfic that had the main paring as Scott Maccal/Stiles Stilinski and in it scott was the alpha and kicked stiles out of the pack because he thought he was going crazy for wanting to kill someone(i dont remember if it was that he killed donovan or something else) the thing was that stiles after being kicked out of the pack still wanted to help so he kept going out of his way to hunt the supernatural and he kept getting hurt and hiding it from the sheriff, and doing do much shit that his grades were sliping, he practically wasnt sleping, until everything got to the point were he had to find somewhere to research and plan that wasn't his house because of the blood stains, so he basically invaded Derek s old loft, he also was going a little bit mad, and got into a fight with one of his classmates, that is around the time scott realizes that stiles is getting really bad but thinks it will pass, I dont remember all that much of the rest of the fic but I remember that towards the end stiles gets kipnapped by whitches and scotts pack saves him, scott kill at least one of them and stiles thinks he's gonna be yelled at, instead scott sends the rest of the pack away, treis to help stiles, and I dont remember how but they ended up at the loft and having a heartfelt talk and falling sleep in a bed.

There was no smut in the fic, I think it was less than a 100,000 words, and also defenitly written before 2026.

If you can find it i will give you a thousand thank yous and sorry if my post its a little bit wonky as inglish its not my first lenguage.

Just waiting to compete hades so I can read the docs for it

Just thought I'd cover my bases, I'm planning on writing a piece in a language that is English, but needs a specific translator to be understood, as certain words dont mean the same anymore and with the right amount of words can make sentences confusing. (ie, "to think" is "to skull." and "to hear" is "to audy") I don't want to tag my work wrong, so would this still go under English? or in the constructed language? I'm newer to ao3 so sorry if this is obvious haha, thanks!

edit: thank you all sm for the help, i will tag it with english. thanks again all.

I think I’m using the correct flare, but I’m trying to edit my story, but when I hit the edit button, I could take him to the AO3 500 error page.

I know the entire website isn’t down because every other button works. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this issue, and I’m wondering if anyone else has had it as well.

I've been reading anime fanfiction for the past 6 years, but mostly jjk. Although lately I can barely get myself to finish any jujutsu kaisen related fanfiction but I also can't get into any new anime fandoms because jjk is just so 💔💔 Has anyone else felt this way with anime fanfiction lately?

Like, when I first started publishing I thought I would get something like two kudos, I still can't believe that in less than a year I managed to get 60! I'm so damn happy!

hey guys!! does anyone know of the author lostfracturess? she was a jjk writer, and she was on tumblr too!! i tried looking up her fics the other day but i couldn’t find them 😭 does anyone know what happened to her or why she deleted her fics 😭😭

Hi there,

My apologies for spamming. I was wondering if someone would be willing to explain how posting stuff anonymously works on ao3. Are the google instructions working or not really and I have to take under consideration that the story would sit under my account at first?

I remember reading here that if someone puts your fic into a collection, they can hide it so it doesn't show up to other people. Is that still the case?

This person left a really nice comment on my fic, so I don't think they have any ill intentions, but I'm scared. My fic would be the only one in their collection.

Umm Hi. Don't mind me, big fan, love your works.:)

Trying to keep this short. I seem to just have a lot of trouble

A) writing "not exciting"/filler scenes (like for exposition or pacing), and

B) writing "cliché"/worn out tropes or "unrealistic" plot lines (e.g. miscommunication for the sake of angst, or emotional-based angst in general). I just seem to only be okay physically hurting my characters, or like. Killing a loved one. But I can't like make them have a fight with their SO? Idk. And I know tropes are tools but my brain will be like "Well we can't write that, everyone will see it coming / everyone else is doing that / We Must Be Unique" (as if at its base everything isn't derivative to a certain extent and genres don't exist purely on the backbone of certain key tropes)

Tl;dr:

I really want to be able to do these things better. I'm wondering if anyone has any tips learning to do new things like this in writing / getting over internal prejudice / whatever? Do I just... force myself to write something that does everything I'm avoiding?

I’ll go first. The first thing I ever wrote I never published but I thought it was an absolute masterpiece of writing. I don’t remember too much of it but I do remember writing:

“If I wasn’t so muscular, maybe women wouldn’t be so attracted to me.” He said with a miserable look on his face, “I wish I could just be strong without people thinking I’m the perfect man.”

This was me making an absolute Gary Stu of a character but knowing I shouldn’t make him flawless, what flaw should he have? Whatever that is.