writing sucks because after i share what i wrote i wanna be like "hey did u notice this technique i used? did you notice the repetition here? let me write you an analysis on my own work."
As the go-to "person who knows about AO3" for quite a few people who read fanfic but aren't really linked-in to wider fandom culture, I've fielded a lot of questions about how to do certain things on AO3 to which my best answer is "you should really start your own archive!" I think, in general, more fans starting their own small archives would be a net good for fandom. AO3 was never meant to be the only archive for all fandom, or even the main archive, and the more spread out and backed up we are the more resilient we are.
But of course I have to be reminded that a lot of fans these days don't really have any idea how little "you should start your own archive!" really involves. (Also, that I should practice what I preach.) So I am now making my own fanfiction archive, and writing up this post as I do it to tell people how to make theirs!
Congratulations! You now have your very own personal private fanfiction archive that you are 100% in charge of and make all the rules for. It's at least as good as half the ones I was reading on when I started reading fanfiction and will serve its function well as a way to let people read your fic. You can link to it from anywhere you want! (Including your AO3 profile.)
Anyway, here's my beautiful new fanfiction archive made using this tutorial:
(I am honestly way more disproportionately proud of finally making that than I expected to be. It's nice to have your own archive.)
If you make one, share it here ! I want to see!
Everyone is born with a hole where their heart should be. This hole shrinks the closer you are to finding your purpose and grows the further away you get from it. Yours has been steadily growing for the past ten years, and soon you’ll disappear altogether if it doesn’t stop.
Flower Fairy
1905 | dir. Gaston Velle


he overworked himself. again.