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Spreading the word because the original post is gone now (screenshots from a post I saw earlier today):
TLDR: ao3 is currently under attack, and you need to stay off the site to give the volunteers a chance to fix things
reblog this as much as you can!!
EDIT:
So it seems that there’s no reason to believe the reasoning behind the attacks coming from the group attacking ao3. I’ve seen countless other sources saying that they’ve lied during other attacks and this is no different
another update: the ao3 social media accounts have started to say that if it’s up for you, you can use it. If it’s not working for you though, you probably should stop reloading your page over and over again. That’s still going to overload their system
SECOND EDIT:
looks like ao3 has just been entirely shut down for now (9:02 pm PST)
In the mean time, let me dust off my google books and scribble hub librarys (and webtoon's too)
HELP WHILE Ao3 IS DOWN SOME PEOPLE ARE POSTING FICS IN THE DOWNDETECTOR COMMENTS 😭😭😭
I’M SCREAMING
https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/727841287119814656/ehh-generally-they-were-like-ask-specifics-about Can you expand on writer’s block not being real?
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Sure!
I think everyone who's ever made art has hit points where it's hard to go on making art or where a particular project isn't moving. So from that perspective, sure, a version of it is real...
But there's a particular version of it that's what a lot of people mean where you're A Writer™ and then the magic inspiration gnomes come and steal your inspiration juice. This is mostly nonsense, and quite a few author types who've actually finished long projects will tell you so.
When you sit down to a blank page and it stubbornly stays blank like your head, that's a symptom of something... and the something in question is often either depression and overwhelmed feelings that are taking over your whole life or an entirely correct instinct that your project is flawed and the next step is not writing that next scene.
Many people try to be pantsers instead of planners, get maybe a quarter into a project, and then choke. It's because they started with the kind of concept that requires planning, but they haven't planned. If your plot revolves around the characters eventually learning the meaning of life, you'd damn well better start with what you, the author, think that meaning is and work backwards. Same if your characters are solving a twisty mystery or complicated thriller conspiracy: you will not come up with a genius idea that ties everything together just by writing by the seat of your pants. If you don't go in with the ending in mind and some waypoints to write towards, you're going to choke. This is exceptionally common in grandiose fic concepts that are like "What if this true blue hero were a viiiiillain, oooooh!" where it's neat, but 99% of the point is showing us the work of getting from A to B. People write the prologue showing us the big concept and then flash back to how it all started... and then stop.
I see it a lot in projects that start with a character sheet for RP. Yeah, for RP itself, noodling along and figuring out what X would do in situation Y is great fun... but for many longfic/novel plot types, you will not arrive at a workable plot this way. You'll end up with a mess that can, at best, be used as brainstorming and completely rewritten from the ground up, using only key cool images or character observations. There are authors that start from individual characters and then see where they go. In my experience, they don't tend to be working in the genres that fic fandom types tend to want to work in. It's also something that often takes a lot more experience and skill than starting with a basic plot outline, and inexperienced writers often overreach.
It's not writer's block. It's a project that needs to be taken out back like Old Yeller.
Even the salvageable projects that are making you pause usually have some other issue like you not being clear on the central emotional themes even if you've outlined some factual plot. Or you've demanded that your characters do a particular thing for plot convenience, but you know deep down that it doesn't ring true. You can't write the next scene because there is no next scene. You need to rework the forced part till the rest can make sense.
And even more common than any of the above is people thinking that just because Danielle Steel sits down every morning and writes for eight hours, that means they can and should with no warm up or experience. Trying to force yourself to be a type of writer you're not—majorly overdoing it on any work, in fact—just leads to burnout and inability to function.
Download fics you really like because you never know when you’ll need them
Support and donate to sites you use a lot (ao3 is a knee-jerk reach daily for me and basically the whole internet and I will be donating to them next time that season rolls around as I hope many others are)
Ao3 volunteers are under appreciated without question for all they do for this site
Please show the site some love once it’s back up and thank the vols too
The way Puss is followed by two dogs and one teaches him to accept death and the other teaches him to appreciate life
My favourite of these is definitely the third one with the three girls.
They look like PowerPuff girls but as adult goths.
Favorite art from 2023 :)