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Replace the AO3 Content Icons With Text Labels

If you don't like the AO3 icons, or if you always have trouble figuring out what they mean, this site skin might be useful for you!

It replaces the content icons (for warnings, completion status, relationships and ratings) in blurbs with color-coded text labels. Additionally, multiple relationship tags or ratings are no longer grouped together under one icon. For example, you will see an "F/F, F/M, M/M" label instead of the "Multi" icon if both of these types of relationships are tagged in a story.

The label colors and the text that replaces the icons can be easily customized.

Before:

After:

Find instructions for adding and customizing the site skin here on AO3:

The notes are broken. This is what tumblr is all about apparently.

THE NOTES ARE BROKEN!  This has been reblogged so many times, Tumblr just shrugged and said “infinity”

If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

I did not spend months memorising the exact sequence to punch in an em dash just for a heartless company to give it to their harmful pet project by skimming off the works of living, breathing people that just wanted to share their art with the world.

—

Defend the Em Dash!

so i'm currently in my bridgerton brainrot era specifically when it comes to s2 and lately i have been Thinking of a kanthony slightly-to-the-left-of-show-canon (i haven't read the books nobody sue me) au in which anthony, instead of being like "this is the year i find a bride :|" is going "this is the year that i Perfectly Head-Of-Household my sister's courtship & marriage" bc he fucked up so thoroughly with daphne that now he's thinking. time for take 2 with eloise. i'll get a wife when none of my sisters are debuting that year. kate is doing the same thing as canon but well. the tension is a bit different.

this of course means that anthony is Heavily Supervising eloise (violet in the background going "dear, i think you're suffocating her") while continually affirming that he is NOT on the market at the moment thankyouverymuch. his expectations of helping eloise range from worst case "she hates me forever & becomes a spinster" to best case "she marries really well and it's a credit to the bridgerton name" with a begrudging middle ground of "me and mom will wear her down enough to get married next season." so obviously, eloise is not going to get away with writing the names of authors on her dance card. oh no. oh no no no. anthony is introducing her to every single guy with the hopes that eloise is picky enough to pick a good one, he just has to get her in the range of the husbands she's picking. there is still the kanthony morning ride meet cute of course i'm not messing with perfection.

so, at the first ball, anthony has FINALLY gotten eloise corralled into filling up her dance card and she is dancing with some eligible young lord that anthony personally despises for Petty reasons but he's Not Making Daphne's-Courtship Errors Again So She Will Dance With People And Maybe Have Fun. he's watching her like a hawk from the edge of the dance floor because if there's one thing eloise is good at it's sneaking off. when, to his left, he hears a familiar voice say "It appears your matchmaking skills are as deficient as your horsemanship."

ao3 turns 16 today.

reblog if you’re older than archive of our own

tumblr users love reading. you literally stopped for this post just because it has words in it

this is one of my favorite bits about tumblr

the users seem to actually prefer text posts to anything else, and treat it as a chore to play a video especially with sound

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

I couldn't remember the word "doorknob" ten minutes ago.

ok but the onelook thesaurus will save your life, i literally could not live without this website

REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER'S LIFE

LIFE SAVED

REBLOGGING TO SAVE ANOTHER WRITERS LIFE

I use this every time I sit down to write. It's the best tool in the world and I would be lost without it!

my dream for tumblr is that we all relearn the phrase "it's not for me" and we remember that this is different from "it should not exist."

something something likes charge reblogs cast

damn i wish u guys could read this fic i haven't written and this fic i haven't finished writing and this fic i'm putting off outlining and this fic i outlined but haven't started and this fic i'll never write and this other fic i haven't written and this fic that exists only in vague impressions in my head that fall apart every time i try to commit them to the page and th

Not only should it be law that anything AI generated on the internet should be labelled as such but every website, app, and digital service should have a button I can click that removes any AI from my interactions with that site/service. I don't want your AI assistant I don't want your AI-generated ad copy I don't want this insidious little thing that has crept into so much of the internet that I can be using it without even realising or knowing. If you couldn't be bothered to have a human make it I can't be bothered to look at it sorry bye

!!!

memeception

WE’VE HIT TERMINAL MEME

@caesarianconfection

I’ve said “I hate this” so many times on this website, and never actually meant it, because “I hate this” is just shorthand for ‘this is an example of a meme given a twist I wasn’t expecting with intent to surprise’. Which is, in of itself, a meme on this site. God damn it.

But this… This is something else.

The rapidity of a meme’s introduction to its zenith to its decline is so rapid that in ten years, you’ll need a damn twenty-page manual to explain this. It’ll be as unfunny and hard to explain as jokes in Shakespeare plays, except even more inexplicable because fuck, at least Shakespeare’s jokes are usually about anal or fucking your mother, good wholesome sex jokes we can all get behind.

For the love of fuck, how do you explain loss.jpg? How do you explain gun?

….I THOUGHT THIS WAS A YMCA REFERENCE

it is a YMCA reference - that’s one of the 6 memes being represented here

ok let me see if i can break this down easily. YMCA is the easiest place to start - the song itself has become a meme over time with people changing the lyrics to reference other pop cultural events. so YMCA is meme one (1)

this first lyric replacement (”take the breadsticks and run”) is a reference to the tumblr meme ‘stuffing breadsticks into my purse’. i think everyone remembers that one so i wont bother to explain it. that’s meme two (2)

“man door hand hook car door” is a meme of its own, a creepypasta from i dont remember when. it was a terrible stupid retelling of the generic ‘stuck in a car while hook handed man tries to kill us’ story so the stupid title caught on for memorability. that in and of itself is meme three (3)

‘gun’ is… yeah i dont know how to explain gun. long story short you add gun to the end of a phrase instead of what you expect the last word to be. its shock funny. its everywhere but its popular to add to “man door hand hook car door” for.. some reason? gun is meme four (4)

and the thing is, this four meme combo is something thats gone around before. meme combos are, itself, a meme. which means taking this meme combo and mixing in another meme actually becomes meme five (5)

which leaves us at loss.jpg. loss.jpg was a terrible bad comic supposed to be about some tragic event, but it was presented so poorly literally no one takes it seriously, and for some reason recreating the four-panel setup has become popular. so thats meme six (6)

(but i need to add that this is the greatest version of loss.jpg i think i’ve ever seen. the initial ‘young man’ lines up with the guy bursting through the door, and the shock meme ‘gun’ matches the shock scene of the woman in the hospital and idk if OP even thought about that but it makes this just so much better)

I wasn’t going to reblog this, but @pagesofkenna‘s comprehensive meme-by-meme annotation is a thing of beauty and should be shared.

average tumblr post contains one meme, this post, which contains six, is an outlier and should not be counted

it might also just be a coincidence due to loss.jpg’s format but the whole white minimalist four-panel setup is also suspiciously reminiscent of those early 2000’s rage comics

I was getting a political compass vibe too

tag urself im man door hand hook car gun

This works better than I thought it would.

This was in my senior project

I’m not sorry.

EIGHT MEME COMBO

FATALITY

We have officially created a new language 

I just had to do it to em

THIS FUCKING THREAD I’M GONNA CRY

I LOST IT AND MAN DOOR HAND HOOK CAR GUN AND DIDN’T EXPECT MORE I’M SOBBING

M E M E T E N

OwO?

You know I had to

I hope you know this is the most cursed addition to my post, and I love it

THIRTEEN!?

SOMEONE EDIT THIS FROM THE ORIGINAL PHOTO SAYING “this one does not spark joy” TO THIS VERSION SAYING “this one sparks joy”

well i added my contribution : )

why—

IM SCREAMING

This is the most elaborate meme I have ever seen and damn am I concerned by how it makes sense.

“You’re in your 30s, but you still understand all this meme stuff?” “Oh yeah, sure.” “Can you explain it to me?” “I absolutely fucking cannot.”

One does not simply explain this

Edit:

Another freaking layer!!!

16 motherfucking layers

In the future someone’s going to ask me to explain this and I’m going to be at a loss.jpg for words

I’m not reblogging this because I want to. I’m reblogging this because sometimes you’re a witness to history whether you want to be or not, and you have to embrace that. 

GUYS STOP!! IF WE CONTINUE ON THIS ROAD, THE MEME WILL BECOME TOO POWERFUL!

No keep going, let’s see if we can brake tumblr. If we do let’s use it to brake fb and twitter

You’re chaotic neutral I love it

What he said

Struck by inspiriation twice lads

My humble contribution

I love going through the notes of this and seeing my 16 layer version and 24 layer version circulating.

ive added my end of the chaos

Beautiful

@lowkeyjustvibing what the fuck did you just reblog?

I don’t fishing know

Has this been done yet?

had to contribute to tumblr history

Oh my god this is tumblr history

oh my god my mutuals are doing this too

Yes we are✨

my hand slipped oop

fool i posted my meme before you

oh okay then-

someone-

I dare some one to keep going.

I couldn’t scroll past this and not make an addition 😂

Thank you 😝🤣

i spent half an hour on this addition hope y’all are happy

My humble contribution

I made one

This was a journey, and I’m glad I got to experience it

I am sorry to say but the train named,“Last Remnant of my Sanity”, has officially left the station.

The sheer power of this thread has me quaking

I’ve reached rockbottom and here we are

Ok but I need someone who can actually make a meme to add on but do the Thor ragnorak meme where tumble is Hela and she’s like you can’t defeat me and Thor is that first original plane white meme and he says I know but he can and the fire guy is the most recent one. Thanks

you ask and you shall receive

I’m so glad this made it to my dashboard

So I decided to contribute as well…

I love how by the last ones the meme is almost unrecognizable in the layers

34 💖💖💖

We must never let this end

There are, SO MANY LAYERS to this meme, and I’m going to add more of them by fusing a few of the deepest memes I’ve seen so far XD

The memes here come from the following chains, starting from the bottom right:

I wonder, how many layers does this meme have now with this fusion of memeceptions, 28, 36 or 43?

here you go

What the fuck is happening

the circle of life

@hellsite-hall-of-fame

ok this is the best thing i've ever ever ever seen everyone watch immediately

I had to look this up; the kid's name is Olly Pearson, and he's from Wales! He is 11 (!) years old and was on Britain's Got Talent this year. (He finished fourth.) He's on YouTube as Guitar Olly.

The lead singer is Mickey Callisto (he took his stage last name from one of the moons of Jupiter), who was also on BGT. (He made it to the semi-finals.) He's from Sunderland in the UK.

The trio in the window are DDKN, a group from France. I can't add fun facts here because duckduckgo gave me nothing. Rude honestly.

The flashmob video on youtube is mostly the same as the tiktok but it's still fun to watch bigger.

And now you know. the rest. of the story.

on “the blond,” “the older man,” and other crimes against third-person limited

You know that thing where a story is written in tight third person limited — we’re meant to be inside someone’s head, seeing the world through their thoughts — and then suddenly the narration says “the blond frowned” or “the shorter woman sighed” about a person the POV character knows really well?

That’s called antonomasia — using a descriptive label instead of a name. And it’s fine when we’re talking about strangers: “the cashier handed her the receipt,” “the tall guy blocked the door.” The POV character doesn’t know their names, and we just need a quick way to tell people apart.

But the moment it’s used for someone the POV character already knows, it breaks immersion. Because that’s not how our minds work. We don’t think “the older man smiled at me.” We think “Mark smiled.” Or maybe “my boss” if that relationship matters in the moment.

Third person limited means the narration sits inside someone’s perception. Their inner monologue is the story’s voice. So when you switch from “Mark smiled” to “the blond smiled,” you’ve pulled the camera away from their mind and turned it into an outside shot.

If you want to create distance or irritation, you can do it on purpose —

“The idiot from accounting emailed again.”

That’s character voice. That’s judgment. That works.

But otherwise?

As soon as your POV character knows someone’s name, use it. While we do tend to worry about repetitions, names rarely register as such to the readers.

If you need variety for rhythm, use relational or emotional identifiers that make sense in their head: her friend, his partner, their teacher, the person they loved.

Because inside someone’s thoughts, there are no “blonds” or “brunettes.”

There are only people they know.

Really good explanation of the fundamental problem with this type of writing.

(and why it's one of my huge pet peeves)

Yes, this is a really good explanation!

In addition to this, let's do some troubleshooting:

1. the text reads repetitive

When a text reads repetitive, this is most likely caused by a monotonous sentence structure. A common example for this is, when most sentences start with a name or pronoun. It can also mean that the narrative is lacking in details.

In this case, replacing names and pronouns with epithets won't help.

Instead, it's better to try some of the following stuff:

2. the text is confusing

This can happen, when multiple characters in a scene use the same pronouns, and it's not clear who a pronoun is referring to.

The thing is: Adding epithets will probably not work. Each epithet will give readers another variable to juggle when deciding who is who. Now, they don't just have to remember names and pronouns (and maybe nicknames), but also epithets.

At worst, epithets will make a text more confusing. This tends to happen, when multiple epithets are used for the same character or when epithets are not destinct. Common culprits are epithets that are based on height (most franchises don't come with height charts or have pretty small height differences between characters) and hair color (most franchises will feature multiple characters with the same hair color).

If a text is confusing, it's besser to look at the POV itself. Chances are, it's not clear enough. Narration in third person limited is almost as close to the POV-character as narration in first person. Or, to phrase it differently: As an author, you want to breathe down your POV-character's neck.

This means:

Also, if you really want to use a descriptor, consider making an aspect of them relevant in the moment.

Instead of "the green-eyed man looked up at him," say "green eyes widened," and follow it up with the relevant dialogue.

If there's a height difference, don't say the tall one, work in one of them looking up at the other, or a head tucked under a chin.

Turn it into a descriptor of familiarity, rather than the kind of description you would use to indicate a stranger.

suck, and i cannot stress this enough, my cock to the fucking base

oh no! i dropped this screenshot that explains how to bypass this with a free adblocker! you shouldn’t reblog this or anything; it’d be terrible if people used this advice to watch ad-free youtube!!

(Actually works.)