brightknightie | Entries tagged with ao3

Seen from

thisbluespirit and others:
Meme: Share links to your fics with the most hits, second-most kudos, third-most comment threads, fourth-most bookmarks, fifth-most words, and fewest words.

Most hits:
BSG78: "We Also Serve" (1,913 hits) (2012, ~4K words, T, gen; Cassiopeia & Athena, Starbuck/Cassiopeia)

2^nd-most kudos:
HL: "Legend Has It" (68 kudos) (2021, ~3K words, G, gen; Richie & Darius)

3^rd-most comment threads:
HL: "Inside the Lines" (14 comment threads) (2019, ~3K words, G, gen; Ceirdwyn & Methos)

4^th-most bookmarks:
D&DC: "The Wand of Siora the Wise" (8 bookmarks) (2016, ~7K words, G, gen; Sheila & the whole gang)

5^th-most words:
FK: "True to Life" (~14K words) (2010, ~14K words, T, gen; Nick/Janette)

Fewest words:
I have 20 100-words drabbles, 19 FK (these + this) and 1 D&DC. A little bigger, I have 6 poems (2 TLOZ & 4 FK) and 1 prose ficlet (FK) at 101-200 words.

snowflake_challenge '25: Set some [fannish] goals

I fulfilled last year's goal to freshen my journal's header and default icon -- thus Bradamante-at-dawn replacing Toronto-at-night! And I made a little progress at reinforcing my antique userpic icons... but I want more freshness, so I'll renew my goal to bring my userpic icons into the current decade.

I made partial progress on my goal to take control of which fandoms show "above the fold" on my AO3 dashboard. As you know, that list orders by quantity, and if several have the same count, their order is random (not alphabetical). So I'll renew my goal to ensure that all 5 "above the fold" fandoms show my major/current fandoms, by writing more fanfic for those that I love more but have written less. (One new BtVS story? Two new TLOZ pieces!) (FK, HL, D&DC, and BSG78 are my top four, of course.)

Speaking of writing fanfic, this year I'd like to set a goal of coming to terms with, and giving myself permission to, post more short pieces. I read and enjoy short pieces! But I always feel that I, personally, am shortchanging the reader when I write them -- that I'm not giving her a fair return on the attention she generously invested. Also, relatedly yet separately, I feel that I, personally, am not giving the characters due respect, building the worlds and experiences that TPTB left hanging or harmed. (I wonder if this is partially because I've largely lived in out-of-production fandoms? Or many other more personal reasons.)

Finally, I'd like to post more here on my journal, in comments on others' journals, and in recommendation communities. I love it here on DW and I want to help build up our community. ♥

A few times a year, I check in on Dungeons & Dragons (Cartoon) fanfic on the AO3, hoping to find a new story to enjoy in this dear fandom that is so small at this end of history. I almost always find something added. Yet I much more rarely find something I, personally, want to dip into, and I've been pondering how much of that is for a curious fandom-specific reason and not just my own idiosyncratic pickiness.

I find that in the modest haul of new D&DC fanfic each year, there's consistently what feels to me like a disproportionate need for pre-screening for the fandom itself.

That is, there are frequently authors who seem to accidentally misapply this fandom tag altogether; I hypothesize that they're unaware of the 1983-85 cartoon and think they're tagging something else; perhaps the years should be added into the canonical fandom tag. More authors apply it to documentation for their D&D campaigns or fic about their original D&D characters, in which they used one or more of the cartoon's cast as NPCs, or used a concept or location from the show, or something like that. And many wholly legitimately include this fandom's tag on massive multi-fandom crossover sagas in which one or more of this cast cameos briefly at some point in a mega-long pan-universes romp starring characters from fandoms I'm unfamiliar with.

There are so few total "D&DC only"/"pure D&DC" stories each year that they often seem, to me, outnumbered by these more marginal appearances within the fandom tag. As in every fandom, of course, ratings, content, genres, completion/WIP, writing skill, etc. all thin the herd for picking what to read! Yet I'm not personally familiar with any other fandoms that inhabit what feels like such a comparatively small percentage of the content under their own fandom tags.

No, on reflection, that last is not true. I do know one fandom even more poorly represented within its own tag, though it is crowded out entirely by one rival. The tag for Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (1876) is more than 2:1 for the TV show Hannibal versus the actual classic Victorian novel or even the BBC TV series (2002) based on the novel. With ten works total, the math is easy. Perhaps that is a concentrated version of the same phenomenon, rather than a different one.

A very kind person generously commented on a 2008 story of mine on the AO3 ("Milepost," FK, Tracy & Natalie), and when I re-read it to refresh my memory -- it was a fill in an LJ ficathon for a prompt by Wiliqueen -- I discovered that all the ellipses are gone. Wherever an ellipsis originally sat, there is now a blank space.

Has something happened to ellipses over the years? Some old formatting or code become incompatible? This story is from the days when I wrote in MS Word (presently, I write in Google Docs). Probably, the missing ellipses were the MS Word character for an ellipsis with which it would have automatically replaced the three periods I would have typed.

I usually re-read my stories in their entirety on posting to scrutinize for exactly this kind of thing. (You know the old truism: Typos are invisible until publication.) Of course, this particular story was uploaded later and backdated -- the AO3 didn't open until 2009 -- and perhaps I was loading several at a time and not paying as close attention as I should.

Could it be that all my vintage stories have blank spaces where their ellipses should be? Eeek. If so... to what extent do I need to go back and fix them, as a courtesy to anyone trying to read them from now on?

Do people put non-fiction on the AO3? If so, what are the customs, conventions, and expectations for non-fiction on the AO3? (That is, what's the best approach?)

I've been thinking of putting my old Forever Knight reference materials -- that is, timeline, main character FAQs, minor character list, location list, etc. -- there, if that's appropriate and acceptable.

Thanks!

Just curious! In your experience and opinion, what is the intended purpose and actual outcome of the anonymous period that has become typical in fanfic exchanges, the time between when the stories are released and when the authors are revealed? I'm thinking not of events with author guessing games or voted awards, but the baseline anon-and-reveal mechanic.

(As I remember it, anon periods were very cumbersome and rare before the AO3 -- though not unheard of: HLH_Shortcuts did it for years, by writers emailing their stories to the mod, who then posted each one -- but became usual and customary with the rise of Yuletide on the AO3.)

Do you, personally, read more stories, more widely, because they are anonymous, or do you purposefully wait until you know the author to read, kudo, or comment? Do you feel differently about reading anon works when you've participated in an event yourself versus when an anonymous story from an unknown event pops up in your fandom's works list? (I will assume that individual fandoms, and multi-fandom versus single-fandom events, differ. They always do.)

Thanks!

Picked up from

havocthecat (post), there's a "personality quiz" meme-ing around for "Which AO3 tag are you?"

If you like, take the quiz.

I got "fix-it." Well-played, quiz! I tip my hat to your deep insight. ;-)

(The quiz doesn't include a gen answer option for its "favorite type of ship" question, though. Those of us who love gen best are few, I know, but I'd hope there are enough of us to merit a multiple-choice option? No? Just me, then. ~grin~)

The recently-new AO3 account

nitelvr has been uploading the author's vintage fic from FKFic-L days. If you were there then, you probably recall this fan; check the profile for the author's self-identification.

Back in the days of my very defunct, not to be revived, "FK recommendation of the month" project (DW tag) (fansite), I recommended 2 of this author's pieces that are now available on the AO3:

"To a New Day" from 1995 (~4K words, PG, gen)

"Lust for Blood" from 1994 (~15K words, PG-13, gen)

This author was reliably Nick-centric and pro-Nick. If that's your cup of Ribena, maybe check out a few stories?

A new version of the "fanfic stats meme" is making the rounds. I saw it most recently from

havocthecat and decided to play.

How to play: Link to your fics with the most hits, most kudos, most comments, most bookmarks, most words, and fewest words. (To get to your AO3 Statistics: from your dashboard, look on the left, in the sidebar, immediately under Inbox and above History.)

Most hits: 1,880.
2012: "We Also Serve" (Battlestar Galactica (1978)) (T, f/m but really gen, ~4K words) (Cassiopeia, Athena, Starbuck)

Most kudos: 68. & Most bookmarks: 15.
2009: "Fortune Prove" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (T, gen, ~13K words) (Willow, Jenny, Giles, Buffy, others)

Most comment threads: 15.
2020: "The Power That’s Inside (We All Live in a Pokémon World)" (Highlander / Pokémon) (T, gen, ~7K words) (Duncan, Methos, Joe, Giovanni, others)

Most words: 58,987.
1998: "Fireweed" (Forever Knight) (T, f/m but mostly gen, ~59K words) (Nick, Natalie, Fleur, Lacroix, Janette, others)

Fewest words: 100.
Most recent of my drabbles: 2019: "A New Year’s Resolution" (Dungeons & Dragons (1983, cartoon)) (G, gen, 100 words) (Eric)

I just cast my ballot in the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) board election.

If you, too, are both an eligible voter (donor) and a chronic procrastinator, you have until Monday, August 14, at 11:59pm UTC. That's about 21 hours from when I'm posting this. See a countdown clock. You should have an email from "noreply@opavote.com" with the subject line "2023 Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) Election" with a personalized link for your online ballot.

It's true that there are now 5 candidates for 5 seats, as some dropped out. That doesn't mean it doesn't matter, as (1) some of those seats are for full and others for partial tenures, and (2) our civic interest and coming together for our common values shows the board, the volunteers, and each other who we are and want to be.

(If this is news to you, check out

endotwracism.)

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I love good guys

Entries tagged with ao3

Descending-order writing-stats meme

Snowflake Challenge 2025 #4

D&DC feels oddly outnumbered in its own fandom tag

Ellipses on the AO3? (Is this a known thing?)

non-fiction on the AO3?

What think you of the anon period in exchanges?

"Which AO3 tag are you?" quiz meme

Nitelvr AO3 account

Fanfic stats meme

~21 hours left to vote in the OTW board election

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