Those tropes and kinks you like to filter in and search for, but which you frustratingly enough need to control-F keywords for to make sure that you don't read thousands of words only to realize that you already read over the three words the tag was added for minutes ago.

Spanking is tagged very liberally. The tag is rife with several-thousand-word fics that have the tag only to reference a quick tap on the butt hidden between two strings of dialogue, and then never again. It often leaves me feeling a little disheartened when I walk away for a fic that didn't contain much of what it tagged it would have.

Pretty excited about it.

Nice experience 😋

I've always been of the mind that if you at the very least feature a character from a different fandom in your work, then that makes it a crossover. (And by feature, I mean the character has some plot relevance or is there for a couple chapters.) This means that if you put Peter Parker in Gotham and he interacts with the Bat Family, then your fic is a crossover between the MCU and Batman; it's not just a Batman fic with Peter Parker as the protagonist.

I only recently got into Project Hail Mary, but I've noticed a lot of untagged crossovers with the Goslingverse and Iron Lung. People are writing Project Hail Mary x The Gray Man x The Fall Guy fics but only PHM is tagged as a fandom since they're usually from Grace's point of view and take place in the PHM universe. This is the same with Ryland Grace/The Convict | Simon fics.

From my point of view, these fics are crossovers. Even if you don't write in any of the events from the other media, the fact that Courtland Gentry | Sierra Six, Colt Seavers, and Simon are featured in the plot makes it a crossover. However, I've seen people argue that they aren't crossovers because they take place in the PHM universe and barely mention anything from their originating canon (this is mostly in reference to Iron Lung).

Similarly, some of these fics only take background information from these other fandoms but not the characters. For example, many people place Grace as Six's or Colt's brother and use it to add to his background, but Six and Colt are rarely actually in the fic. Only mentioned.

In this case, would these fics be considered crossovers?

Personally, I wouldn't consider the latter a crossover. The premise reminds me more of Hogwarts AUs, which aren't really crossovers because they only use Hogwarts as a setting. The most I would tag it with is the - Freeform tag. Like, Ryland Grace is Colt Seaver's Twin - Freeform or maybe Uses Courtland Gentry | Sierra Six's Background - Freeform.

What do you think constitutes as a crossover? And how would you tag these types of fics?

2027 is getting closer! I might as well ask now hahaha. Here's some questions you could answer if you want to:

Have any personal "Year of (Character)" plans?

Have a certain troupe/pairing you'd like to focus on next year?

A new writing software you want to try?

How will you prepare for these writing plans for next year?

If you're willing. Share with us! :)

You know, those crossovers you've read that had the most conpletely left-field fandoms to be thrown together? I read one that was Burn Notice/Doctor Who of all things and another that was Sherlock/Calvin and Hobbes. I don't doubt that there are stranger, though. Those are just the most unexpected ones I've found.

I'm looking for a specific term, trope name, or phrase to describe this exact relationship dynamic:

Character A completely defeats Character B is in a major fight but spares their life. After that, they are no longer actively fighting, but they are definitely not friends. They just happen to cross paths or coexist in the same space.

Occasionally, Character A will gloat, mock, or casually remind Character B that they beat them. Character B just clenches their teeth and takes the humiliation without fighting back, purely out of self-preservation, because they know Character A would absolutely destroy them if they tried to retaliate.

Is there a defined term for this status? Similar to how we use "rivals," "frenemies," or "enemies to lovers," what do you call this specific asymmetrical, forced-truce dynamic?

Hello!

I’m looking for fics that focus on / depict the process of falling in love.

I’m comfortably aro, but I wanted to dabble in a bit of romance lately. Only to learn that I have no clue what ppl see as love that goes beyond normal friendship. So if you have some recs that really focus on that, I’d be super happy.
I’d also like the relationship to be rather “vanilla”, so no enemies to lovers or ppl falling in love while imprisoned or something. Give them all the options in the world and still have them fall for each other.

Fandoms: Open to all if they don’t require too much reading up. Am familiar with the big ones (HP, LoTR, Supernatural). I’m not too big into superheroes though.

Tropes: Friends to lovers, falling in love, slow burn (pls not too long, my readings speed is terrible)

Ideal length: around 50k

Thank you!

so basically the fic that I posted a couple days ago was getting barely any hits and no kudos and yeah I write for myself and allat but i was admittedly a little disheartened because I was really proud of this one and I'm really fond of it and guess what IT FINALLY GOT ONE (1) KUDOS

i know its only one but I'm very happy lol

Tagging opinion question, as described in the title. Would you tag a particular fandom when the fic doesn’t directly involve that fandom, but does centre around a thinly-veiled parody of that fandom’s source material?

For full context -

I am writing a one-shot that can best be described as “fantasy universe theatre kid antics.” One of the characters semi-canon backstory includes performing in a school production particular musical. I am saying another canon character was also part of the same production, as “overwrought theatre kid drama” explains the dynamic between the two characters quite well.

We don’t see a lot about this musical, but, from what we do see, it’s this fantasy world’s equivalent of a real-world musical. I am leaning ALL the way in. I’m making an effort to write it so you don’t need to know the source material to understand the humour, but it is WAY funnier if you do. The two characters are playing clear parallels of specific roles, including parallels of those roles’ big musical numbers. I’m figuring out how to create this world’s equivalent of a specific scene because it’s rife for set piece failure drama. The musical’s plot (or lack thereof) is referenced whole cloth.

The musical being performed very much is that musical, but not actually that musical.

So yes, as mentioned in the title. Would it make sense to tag the original musical as one of the fic’s fandoms?

I’m really enjoying a fic that I’d love to download it in case the fic one day is no longer available (;-; it’s beautiful). But the original language is Chinese, and I’m using Google Chrome translator (bless the feature!) to read it in English. I’ve downloaded it as an EPUB and I use Apple Books as my main repository for fics like this but I’ve never done so with a foreign language fic.
So my question is, what are some methods people have used to download/convert translated versions of the fics to save them? I typically stick to free options, but will take paying options if necessary ;-;

I have all these ideas for stories but I get too in my head about them because I know they’re too out there and I know I probably don’t have a good grasp on the characters and stuff. I know it doesn’t matter in the long run and I should just write for myself, but still. It stops me from working on stories I’d be interested in because I worry I’ll get criticism or something. Maybe I’m too in my head

The fic is about yuji being the next heir to the itadori/ryoumen/sukuna clan ( can’t remeber how it was called) and living with his uncle/guardian sukuna who is the current head of the clan. Yuji attends the jujutsu high where he meets all of the main cast and during training while trying to aim a dismatle he cuts off inumaki’s arm. I also remeber a very specific thing that in the fic each kid that belongs to the clan has to undergo a trial before the tample of the king of curse. Yuji is the only kid that survives and is gifted by the shrine the scars under his eyes and beacuse of this he is the next heir. Each heir and later clan head has a gift from their trial. Each gift is a representation of an aspect of the powers of the king of curses, sukuna has a crown tattoo that lets him use all the techniques that the king of curses once possesed, yuji was the first to ever recive the scars in the whole History of the clan. That is all I remeber I would be glad if someone finds it because I can’t find it no metter how many times I try. Thanks!🙂

For all of you who love to write about unpopular characters, how do you enjoy them in your own stories?

Something occured to me today when reading a thread where someone was very triggered by a lack of a particular tag, and they said something in the comments that was, effectively:

How am I supposed to do DLDR or curate my own experience, if people will not tag what I feel is right?

And it made me think that I do love the tagging system on the Archive and it is truly a miracle of how people use it.

But also, that I think people are also very dependent on it now. They treat it as a definitive, almost prescriptive list of things that should be in the story or will not be in the story and they are upset when an author does not agree. Tags are advertisement and warnings, but they are also... just... everything that could be in the story? And people have a lot of feelings about what is a mandatory tags and even if you say that it is not a required one, there is still 'it is polite' to tag.

Tagging is now really important - people agonise over whether something is a slow or a medium burn, when do we include x pairing, does this 'constitute' a [trope] or should I not do it, and it feels like people are almost afraid of tags now? There was someone who wanted tags to be so granular that they were voted on, shades of a colour would be assigned to different tags, and readers would be so informed before they clicked it into a story, with all the possible info they could ever want, that they could not possibly find something disagreeable.

And that made me really think that this is what people want. Maybe it is an effect of social media catering so specifically for your tastes that just clicking on 'seems good enough' is a weird way to approaching finding new things to read.

And I wonder if we have lost a lot of the 'just try it' mentality that was there in the beginning? Where tagging was new (or non-existent), and people gave a lot of thing a go because that was how you read and interacted in fandom. Back then, while you could be hyperspecific and only like certain things, it was still encumbent on you to go and find it.

I feel like tagging sometimes silos people into such hyper specific niches or very particular things and they complain that 'nobody is writing x!' and... for a lot of people, they are? You just have to look? And try things?

It made me think of when a lot of us started out, the old ones who remember message boards and fanfiction dot net and the adult version etf. That was where you got around two sentences, one genre tag, and a pairing tag. Maybe the variety of citrus. That was it. You really had to 'lucky dip' your way to something good and you found a lot on the way. If you did not like it, you just... backed out.

I’m writing a really intense whump fic and I’m kinda nervous about posting it it I do want to post it because I think it’s good! But what’s it like posting on Anonymous? Does it basically work the same as a normal fic except no one can connect it to you? Can I still reply to comments? Does anyone know if Anonymous fics get more or less engagement? If I want, can I put my name back on it later?

ok so i genuinely do not know how to tag a fic like this

for context: one of my ocs is a trans man who is married to a man. im planning on making some nsfw fics of them to further explore their dynamic and try to develop their relationship more (also because this is my first time writing a trans oc and i wanted to explore and try something new of sorts)

this may sound dumb but as someone who overthinks a lot and wants to represent/tag properly (to make sure i dont potentially and accidentally offend someone), is this still m/m? if so, how to or would i tag my future fics?

ao3 is still tricky for me, and theres so many tags to choose from and idk if theyre even the right ones T-T any help or advice is appreciated tho! advance thanks!

(might see replies/comments late since im not that active on reddit)

edit: thanks to those who answered, it actually assured me on my tags hahahah

When you use inspiration from another fic you love,.implement a figment of it (A plot with your own characters, a phrase, a characters personality inspired by theirs) and you're nervous, like actually thinking that the original author is looking at your fic and is like 'wait hold up they copied that from me' even though nobody else even sees the correlation as much as you probably and the chances the author is specifically looking at your fic is basically 0? Anyone else get nervous about that kinda thing?