Recs Lists Q&A
Jul. 27th, 2025 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doranwenBelow is more information about my recs lists, in Q&A format:
Are the links valid?
At the time I saved them from the Internet (which was before the time stamped on the rec list document), the fics existed at the links given. In some cases, I attempted to locate them again when I entered them into the database (with varying levels of success). I make no claims to having checked them since. If you find one that doesn't work, please let me know. (Keep in mind that a few are friends-locked journal entries or archive-locked fics. While you can get an account at AO3 to read the latter, the former may prove more difficult; let me know if you have tried contacting the author to get permission to read and have not heard back from them.) If you follow a link only to discover it is dead, comment here to let me know. Fics that can only be read using The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine should be marked with a tombstone picture.
How did you decide on fic ratings?
I used the ratings from the fics themselves and mapped them to a single system. I used the traditional five-point rating system from G to X (which is shorter to type and read than NC-17), and assigned rating equivalents based on which site they came from. Fics from Fanfiction.net were assigned ratings from G (for fics marked K) to R (aka M), and fics from AO3 were assigned ratings from PG (General Audiences) to X (Explicit), with the rare G if I thought a "General Audiences" fic was child-friendly enough to warrant it. Fics from personal journals were assigned whatever rating the writer gave it. For fics on AO3 and personal journals that were marked Not Rated or not given a rating, I assigned U for Unrated.
Which info about the fics came from you?
I chose the character and ship tags as authors over- and under-tagged them, and I chose the themes I thought were important. Fics appearing on themed lists may or may not have been tagged by the author with a tag about that theme (more often not). Some authors tag for everything under the sun, but most under-tag themes. I also tagged fics for Gen or Ace-friendly, and categorized ships.
What is your criteria for Gen/Ace-friendly fics?
I decided on the following criteria:
To be classified as Gen, there should be no main romantic relationships (background ships at best).
To be classified as Ace-friendly, there should be no sexual content, even a kiss on the lips (a kiss to the forehead was not considered sexual). I'm aware many aces (such as me) can handle reading various levels of sexual content (and most don't consider a lip kiss very sexual), but some cannot, so this was a deliberately strict criterion to make it easy to generate a list. (If you're requesting a particular list to be made but don't want to restrict it as far as that, you could ask for the Sex / Making Out theme to be blocked, as that will rule out anything beyond basic kissing. This will give a wider range of fics than the ones tagged Ace.)
How did you categorize ships?
Fics with ships were tagged as M/F (het), F/F (femslash), and/or Other (which included any M/M, poly, or nonhuman ships), being tagged for all ships that appeared in the fic. These groupings were defined by the relative probabilities of them in my fic collections. For instance, I have a lot of het, lesser amounts of femlash, and very few fics that would have ships in the Other category.
Are there warnings of any kind for fics?
In my regular lists, no, but if you have issues with a particular theme, I can make sure that no fics including it are present in a particular list. As far as AO3 warnings go, I have themes for Underage Relationships (most have some sort of reference to sex but I also use this theme on fics that just involve a romantic relationship between an adult and someone under eighteen), Rape/Non-Con, Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, and Violence / Wounds, which (the last in particular) may or may not coincide with the author's use of AO3's warning of such. (Which characters are considered major vs. minor has to do with their presence in each fic, which is somewhat subjective, and I rarely read or save fics as gory as one that would require warning for violence on AO3.)
If you request a list made for you, I typically will list all themes (unless you tell me not to), which will let you see which of the warnings would apply to any given fic.
What have you marked as favorites?
All of the fics (that I've entered so far) which I enjoy reading enough to want to re-read. (Note that this includes some – but not all! - of my own fics.)
I have not marked, however:
- all the well-written fics
There are fics marked as favorites that are not all that well-written, and there are very well-written fics that I have not marked as a favorite.
- all the fics you will enjoy
Everyone's tastes are different. What appeals to me may not appeal to you. You may have squicks I don't, or enjoy things that squick me.
- all my favorite fics
It will be a long time before I have all of the fanfics on my hard drive entered. For some fandoms I only entered one fic during testing and haven't entered any since. See the completed fandoms post for info on which fandoms are in my database currently.
Is (a particular) list complete?
No. I won't pretend to have links to all of the fics for any fandom. There are three reasons why I might not have a fic listed:
a) The writing was terrible. (I can tolerate reading poorly-written fic to a point, but only to a point.)
b) It contained something I don't care to read (e.g., crossovers with fandoms I'm not interested in, M/M, certain kinks, etc.). While a few exceptions have been made for some of those, in general I didn't bother saving them.
c) I haven't gotten to adding it yet, or haven't run across it online. (Fics hosted only at personal journals, Tumblr, etc. are likely to fall into the last category.)
I won't publicly state which is the reason why a fic is not in my database, but if you're wondering about yours, please don't take it personally! If I have seen your fic and chose not to add it, chances are good that it's just a mismatch between my interests and your fic, and it likely has nothing to do with how good the fic is. We aren't all into the same things and that's okay.
On that note, this is your warning that there are fics in my database—even ones marked as favorites—that have themes that are known squicks or triggers for some (underage relationships, pregnancy, etc.). If you are squicked or triggered by one or more themes in my themes list, you may not want to browse my recs lists indiscriminately, but rather ask for a filtered version that excludes those themes, or lists all themes under the fic so you can make your decisions on what to read from that. (Note that listing all themes will definitely spoil some plot points.) See my themes post on how to do that.
Will you make a list for (INSERT FAVORITE FANDOM HERE)?
Unless I already know and love it, no. It takes time to enter fics into the database, so I'm doing this only for fandoms I love. If you want to do it yourself, see the intro post for my fic database for more info.
Can I ask for a specific list to be made?
As long as it's for the fics already in my database, sure! Comment here or on my themes post with the criteria for the list. For instance, do you want a specific fandom only or will any fandom do? Do you want a specific rating or rating range? Do you want only het (or some other category)? Do you want only fics marked Gen or Ace? Are you looking for all fics on a particular theme? Are you trying to avoid any themes? Are you wanting fics to be sorted by how they tie into canon, such as which episode or era a fic is set in? (By default, all lists contain the fandom—unless a single-fandom list—author, title, wordcount, and link for each fic.) In order to create a query that will provide the right data (presented in the right way), I have to know what data you want.
How do I tell you about this awesome story/fic collection/fic archive that's missing from your lists?
Comment with the link and I'll be happy to take a look at it. I make no promises as to how soon I'll get to any of them – or whether I will, indeed, like the story/stories in question, but I will definitely take a look!
Are the links valid?
At the time I saved them from the Internet (which was before the time stamped on the rec list document), the fics existed at the links given. In some cases, I attempted to locate them again when I entered them into the database (with varying levels of success). I make no claims to having checked them since. If you find one that doesn't work, please let me know. (Keep in mind that a few are friends-locked journal entries or archive-locked fics. While you can get an account at AO3 to read the latter, the former may prove more difficult; let me know if you have tried contacting the author to get permission to read and have not heard back from them.) If you follow a link only to discover it is dead, comment here to let me know. Fics that can only be read using The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine should be marked with a tombstone picture.
How did you decide on fic ratings?
I used the ratings from the fics themselves and mapped them to a single system. I used the traditional five-point rating system from G to X (which is shorter to type and read than NC-17), and assigned rating equivalents based on which site they came from. Fics from Fanfiction.net were assigned ratings from G (for fics marked K) to R (aka M), and fics from AO3 were assigned ratings from PG (General Audiences) to X (Explicit), with the rare G if I thought a "General Audiences" fic was child-friendly enough to warrant it. Fics from personal journals were assigned whatever rating the writer gave it. For fics on AO3 and personal journals that were marked Not Rated or not given a rating, I assigned U for Unrated.
Which info about the fics came from you?
I chose the character and ship tags as authors over- and under-tagged them, and I chose the themes I thought were important. Fics appearing on themed lists may or may not have been tagged by the author with a tag about that theme (more often not). Some authors tag for everything under the sun, but most under-tag themes. I also tagged fics for Gen or Ace-friendly, and categorized ships.
What is your criteria for Gen/Ace-friendly fics?
I decided on the following criteria:
To be classified as Gen, there should be no main romantic relationships (background ships at best).
To be classified as Ace-friendly, there should be no sexual content, even a kiss on the lips (a kiss to the forehead was not considered sexual). I'm aware many aces (such as me) can handle reading various levels of sexual content (and most don't consider a lip kiss very sexual), but some cannot, so this was a deliberately strict criterion to make it easy to generate a list. (If you're requesting a particular list to be made but don't want to restrict it as far as that, you could ask for the Sex / Making Out theme to be blocked, as that will rule out anything beyond basic kissing. This will give a wider range of fics than the ones tagged Ace.)
How did you categorize ships?
Fics with ships were tagged as M/F (het), F/F (femslash), and/or Other (which included any M/M, poly, or nonhuman ships), being tagged for all ships that appeared in the fic. These groupings were defined by the relative probabilities of them in my fic collections. For instance, I have a lot of het, lesser amounts of femlash, and very few fics that would have ships in the Other category.
Are there warnings of any kind for fics?
In my regular lists, no, but if you have issues with a particular theme, I can make sure that no fics including it are present in a particular list. As far as AO3 warnings go, I have themes for Underage Relationships (most have some sort of reference to sex but I also use this theme on fics that just involve a romantic relationship between an adult and someone under eighteen), Rape/Non-Con, Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, and Violence / Wounds, which (the last in particular) may or may not coincide with the author's use of AO3's warning of such. (Which characters are considered major vs. minor has to do with their presence in each fic, which is somewhat subjective, and I rarely read or save fics as gory as one that would require warning for violence on AO3.)
If you request a list made for you, I typically will list all themes (unless you tell me not to), which will let you see which of the warnings would apply to any given fic.
What have you marked as favorites?
All of the fics (that I've entered so far) which I enjoy reading enough to want to re-read. (Note that this includes some – but not all! - of my own fics.)
I have not marked, however:
- all the well-written fics
There are fics marked as favorites that are not all that well-written, and there are very well-written fics that I have not marked as a favorite.
- all the fics you will enjoy
Everyone's tastes are different. What appeals to me may not appeal to you. You may have squicks I don't, or enjoy things that squick me.
- all my favorite fics
It will be a long time before I have all of the fanfics on my hard drive entered. For some fandoms I only entered one fic during testing and haven't entered any since. See the completed fandoms post for info on which fandoms are in my database currently.
Is (a particular) list complete?
No. I won't pretend to have links to all of the fics for any fandom. There are three reasons why I might not have a fic listed:
a) The writing was terrible. (I can tolerate reading poorly-written fic to a point, but only to a point.)
b) It contained something I don't care to read (e.g., crossovers with fandoms I'm not interested in, M/M, certain kinks, etc.). While a few exceptions have been made for some of those, in general I didn't bother saving them.
c) I haven't gotten to adding it yet, or haven't run across it online. (Fics hosted only at personal journals, Tumblr, etc. are likely to fall into the last category.)
I won't publicly state which is the reason why a fic is not in my database, but if you're wondering about yours, please don't take it personally! If I have seen your fic and chose not to add it, chances are good that it's just a mismatch between my interests and your fic, and it likely has nothing to do with how good the fic is. We aren't all into the same things and that's okay.
On that note, this is your warning that there are fics in my database—even ones marked as favorites—that have themes that are known squicks or triggers for some (underage relationships, pregnancy, etc.). If you are squicked or triggered by one or more themes in my themes list, you may not want to browse my recs lists indiscriminately, but rather ask for a filtered version that excludes those themes, or lists all themes under the fic so you can make your decisions on what to read from that. (Note that listing all themes will definitely spoil some plot points.) See my themes post on how to do that.
Will you make a list for (INSERT FAVORITE FANDOM HERE)?
Unless I already know and love it, no. It takes time to enter fics into the database, so I'm doing this only for fandoms I love. If you want to do it yourself, see the intro post for my fic database for more info.
Can I ask for a specific list to be made?
As long as it's for the fics already in my database, sure! Comment here or on my themes post with the criteria for the list. For instance, do you want a specific fandom only or will any fandom do? Do you want a specific rating or rating range? Do you want only het (or some other category)? Do you want only fics marked Gen or Ace? Are you looking for all fics on a particular theme? Are you trying to avoid any themes? Are you wanting fics to be sorted by how they tie into canon, such as which episode or era a fic is set in? (By default, all lists contain the fandom—unless a single-fandom list—author, title, wordcount, and link for each fic.) In order to create a query that will provide the right data (presented in the right way), I have to know what data you want.
How do I tell you about this awesome story/fic collection/fic archive that's missing from your lists?
Comment with the link and I'll be happy to take a look at it. I make no promises as to how soon I'll get to any of them – or whether I will, indeed, like the story/stories in question, but I will definitely take a look!
