When Your Friend Is Teaching You How To Use The In-game Emotes.

out of boredom i decided to scan a stuffed shark. here are the results.

You keep talking about the origins of AO3 as this group effort by an actual group of people who were friends and who spent time discussing this with each other in person. It's kind of blowing my mind. Is there a post or a journal somewhere that specifically keeps record of this?

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I'm dying.

Nonnie, seriously?

No, that's mean, I know you're serious. It's just flabbergasting how much fandom has expanded and how much there isn't a direct link to the past.

Astolat and Cesperanza floated the idea at Vividcon and various places, I think, though I wasn't going to cons in that era. We were all on LJ in those days, and Astolat made a big post nailing her theses to the door. Discussion in the comments was instant and prolonged.

A LJ com was set up to discuss. It was later renamed to otw_news, but if you go all the way back to the beginning, you can see brainstorming mess instead of official news posts.

Fanlore page linking to Astolat's post and giving a little context.

Early brainstorming: https://otw-news.livejournal.com/2007/05/

For example, here I am collecting links to older archives to look at for research when designing AO3.

Fun fact, we never intended to call it AO3. There was a whole call for name suggestions, but nothing was as evocative as astolat's original post title referencing Virginia Woolf. (For those who haven't thought about it, AO3's name is a reference to A Room of One's Own.)

Here's the name discussion

Here's the poll that came out of it

But also notice how many people voted: 562.

That's how many people cared at the time: a few hundred. Maybe a thousand if you count lurkers, but frankly, that community was not as lurkery as now. It wasn't just ten friends. It was a community effort. But what "our" community looked like at the time was vastly different. It was six degrees of Kevin Bacon astolat, not a vast sea of strangers like fic fandom on AO3 is now.

Here's an early post suggesting we ban the under 18s from the site entirely. Pity we didn't do so, given the rise of antis.

Here's the invite to a fundraising party at astolat's in NYC that following Halloween. I dressed as Amanda from Highlander, not very well.

You can tell we knew each other by looking at those comments on astolat's initial post. You can also tell how discussion-based that part of fandom was back in 2007.

The way my tumblr is now with a ton of text, back and forth, and hopping around between threads of conversation, all featuring a consistent set of faces, is very much like LJ. Most of tumblr is not.

Ch🤪

Raise your hand if you love your friends' OCs and can't hear enough about them

🌌Flying to the Stars 🌌

When the Halfling Druid casts Summon Swarm

there HAS to be a reason for this

So maybe you’re a writer or maybe you’re in a fantasy RP group, maybe you just want to make maps. Either way, with the right guidance the process is pretty easy. Here’s some Photoshop and research resources I've compiled to make your life easier.

WORLD MAPS How to generate a map in Photoshop (video) How to create (mountain) brushes (video) How to create trees (video) How to create mountains and hills (video) How to create swamps and deserts (video) Tolkien-Style Map Brushes (1)(2) Parchment Textures (1)(2)(3) Calthyechild’s Fantasy Map Tutorial & Resources World Maps to inspire you (1)(2)(3)(4)

CITIES City Map Generator Clevergirlhelps’ Brilliant Post on City Planning Thewritingcafe’s Brilliant Post on City Planning Streets VS Monuments How to create a grid in Photoshop City Brushes Cities to inspire you (1)(2)(3)(4) MISC. Ship Plans How Geography Affects Climate How Streets Evolve as Cities Grow History of Building Materials Climates R. Steves’ Europe (Videos) NEED A NAME? Location and Setting name generator Pirate Ship name generator Ship name generator

“I’m going to make a vow of enmity against the pyjamas.”

Hozier - The Humours of Whiskey (Traditional, a cappella)