About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

Also by having an account you can:

And you have the history function. So if your browser/computer crashes while you have 16 open fic tabs, there's at least some chance you can find them again!

no writing workshop can help you improve your writing as much as this screenshot can

So I just saw a post by a random personal blog that said “don’t follow me if we never even had a conversation before” and?????? Not to be rude but literally what the fuck??????????

I’ve had people (non-pornbots) try to strike conversation out of nowhere in my DMs recently, and now I’m wondering if they were doing that because they wanted to follow me and thought they needed to interact first. I feel compelled to say, just in case, that it’s totally okay to follow this blog (or my side blog, for that matter) even if we’ve never talked before.

Also, I’m legit confused. Is this how follow culture works right now? It was worded like it’s common sense but is that really a thing?

Saw a sharp increase in my follower count after posting this. The legitimacy of it is driving me nuts so I also feel the need to say that you can follow anyone on here regardless of whether you’ve interacted with them or not. People like the above mentioned blog are exceptions. Perhaps they themselves think they aren’t and therefore will act like they aren’t, but they are, trust me.

Just follow anyone you wanna follow. The worst thing that can happen is maybe getting soft-blocked by the other person, but if they do soft-block you, then they were never that worth following in the first place.

wow. really hope this isn't actually a norm taking hold with new users! this isn't facebook, you don't need to know people before following them

this is the '10 year mutuals you've never spoken to once' site

Honestly? My main piece of advice for writing well-rounded characters is to make them a little bit lame. No real living person is 100% cool and suave 100% of the time. Everyone's a little awkward sometimes, or gets too excited about something goofy, or has a silly fear, or laughs about stupid things. Being a bit of a loser is an incurable part of the human condition. Utilize that in your writing.

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats  🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?  🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love 🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that? 🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis 🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help? 🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love 💌 ⇢ how many unread emails do you have right now?  🌻 ⇢ tag someone you appreciate but don't talk to on a regular basis 🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both?  🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before 🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time?  🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings 🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual? 🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now 📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?  🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character 🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project? 🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on ❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best? 🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity 🥐 ⇢ name one internet reference that will always make you laugh  🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work? 🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate 🥝 ⇢ do you lie a lot? what's the most recent lie you told? 🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately  🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?  🍅 ⇢ give yourself some constructive criticism on your own writing 🐚 ⇢ do you like or dislike surprises? 🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here ☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username? 🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them 🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them 🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it 🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

(uses the “make your character say something while not actually saying it” writing advice i saw on here once)

(character interactions are now 200% more fun to write)

holy shit what

Pray tell, how does this advice work? For a friend

The way I’m familiar with it is:

Before:

And now, when neither Sarah nor the narration are allowed to directly say that she’s tired or doesn’t want to go to school:

Reminder for folks who

1: are new too writing

2: struggle to remember all this stuff WHILE they’re writing, and/or

3: feel like their writing is lacking even when they know this stuff

THIS IS A TIP BEST SAVED FOR REVISION!! A lot of stuff like this is! When you’re writing a first draft, the only thing you should be worried about is getting the message on the paper. My “first draft” usually looks more like a rough outline and jumps around between eloquent prose, emojis, sincere dialogue, and sometimes things like “blinking white guy dot gif”. Because that gif has a very specific emotion, right? But it’s hard to put into words, it’s time consuming, and when I’m just trying to get my thought out before it slips away from me, I don’t want to stop and ponder how best to go about it.

In your first or second pass, it’s okay and normal to say “I don’t want to skip school. I’m tired.” As long as the improved/revised version makes it to the final product, you’re a-okay. 👍

PS: if you’re a fanfic author and you’re just creating for the fun of it, you can disregard this entirely if you want. I looked at this and thought “yeah but that’s a lot of work” and then remembered that I don’t have to do it when I’m not Writing Professionally. Is it objectively good advice? Yes. Do I HAVE to do it when I’m just posting things on the internet for free? Absolutely not.

Chocolate guy has learned how to make corrugated cardboard. he is a powerful eldritch being who cannot be contained. The only reason we seem to be alive is because his interests are exclusively in the making of delicious lifelike desserts.

PACKING TAPE?? fucking PACKING TAPE??

This was a whole thread, here are some of my favourites:

Shout out to all the Black ppl that can no longer participate directly in the fandom they love because of the stresses of racism 👍🏾 you contain multitudes of value and I'm sorry that the color of your skin and the power of your voice makes people not want to acknowledge that.

Yes, nonblack people can reblog. I'd appreciate it, in fact, if y'all took the time to vocally support your Black friends/fans in fandom.

A little advice from someone studying extremist groups: if you’re in a social media environment where the daily ubiquitous message is that you have no hope of any kind of future and you can’t possibly achieve anything without a violent overthrow of society, you’re being radicalized, and not in the good way.

If the solution to your problems sounds like “we need a blank slate” it’s a lie. There are no blank slates, and the closest approximation people can generally imagine is “burn it all down and let God/fate/history sort it out”.

That’s not problem solving. It’s barely catharsis, in practice. It doesn’t just create more problems than it solves, it destroys more solutions than it creates.

Put the apocalypse down, and back away slowly.

Real solutions to complex, systemic problems are not so easily reduced to “us good, them evil; kill them.”

[image transcript:

Voting as Fire Extinguisher

When the haunted house catches fire: a moment of indecision.

The house was, after all, built on bones, and blood, and bad intentions.

Everyone who enters the house feels that overwhelming dread, the evil that perhaps only fire can purge.

It’s tempting to just let it burn.

And then I remember:

there are children inside.

—Kyle Tran Myhre. end id]

petition to rename the usa ‘south canada’

what about alaska

are we then normal canada

canada a bit to the left

What about South America? Is that just America? Or South South Canada?

i cried my ass of laughing

WARM CANADA

i caN’T BREATHE OH MY GOD

I’m not even from Canada but I approve this change of names

M ILKY E H

IT HAS RETURNED

FOUND IT

IT IS AN HONOUR TO HAVE THIS GRACE MY DASH

reblogging from myself bc i found this when scrolling through my blog

Reblogging again because this is too god for not reblog

this is one of the few posts you have to reblog or else you’ll never see it in a million years besides screenshots

@sparklecryptid

@hellsite-hall-of-fame just in case you don’t have it yet

it is an honor and a privilege to have this on my blog now

it is an honor

and a privilege to have

this on my blog now

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them.

Writing is a process that often undergoes heavy edits… that includes responding to feedback. 

I had no idea this post would resonate with so many people. I let my vitriol surrounding several comments I received on a recent update get to me and it spilled out into .gif form and it’s now morphed into the most widely shared thing I’ve ever posted. So many comments and tags have said things along the lines of, “This was why I quit writing” or “This is why I hate writing fanfic.” And that’s soul crushing to hear, but I can relate. 

But while there are some crappy and entitled readers, there are also many brilliant ones and I’m so grateful for them. The huge response to this post made me go back and skim through the comments on my old stories, and comments like the one below are about half the reason some of those stories got finished, even if it was months later. 

Comments like these are so rare, but when they do come up, they leave me staring at my computer screen, drumming my fingers on the keyboard, struggling to convey my feelings about how their words have touched my heart. These are the comments that take the longest amount of time to respond to and the ones that cause me to wear out my backspace key the fastest. 

It’s easy to complain, but it’s literally just as easy to praise, so I just wanted to take a moment to recognize all those dear and dedicated readers who have propped me up when I wanted to quit. Readers like you are why I keep writing, and why I even feel honored to do it on rare occasion. 

And fellow writers, keep your heads up if you can. :) 

I have nothing to add to this.

Hmm, no disclaimer about being nothing to do with Doctor Strange. Hope they don’t wind up hearing from his lawyers…