All graphics are made by me. Art will eventually be commissioned for the main banner & individual fandom pages—look forward to that :)
The plugins used are:
I hardcoded (or implemented via hard-coding) night mode, the javascript drop-down, the mobile site, and the mobile site sliders. The funky text icons come from Font Awesome. This site is (proudly) powered by WordPress, and all that jazz.
Do not use my writing (or code, for that matter) for any sort of AI training or generative AI purposes. Similarly, I will be caught dead before I use generative AI for writing.
Why don’t you change characters’ names in fic where their genders are different?
I personally don’t believe in gendering names if I don’t have to, especially within the realm of fiction. If I can make some characters kiss in my stories, I can also make a more masculine name regarded as a unisex (or feminine) one in the world of the story as well.
Do you accept constructive criticism?
In terms of beliefs: yes. With regards to my fanfiction at this point in time and in terms of publicly posted comments by strangers, however: no. I make good use of my beta readers or else privately seek someone out for critical feedback, if I wish for it. Additionally, many of my fics are older and any criticism they warrant are usually not relevant, much less applicable, to my writing today. Of course, I support everyone’s freedom of taste, expression, and ability to give feedback. But in the same vein, don’t expect me to be grateful for criticism I haven’t asked for.
Do you care about something being incorrect in your fic?
Not really. I definitely care while writing, but once it’s released to the world I care a lot less. If I care enough to fix something I realize is incorrect, I will. If I don’t, I won’t. Mistakes can be pointed out to me, but I will fix them at my own whims, should I choose to.
Why doesn’t [fic] have [tag I’ve used on another fic, but not this one, even though both apply]?
Don’t worry about it. If I feel the need to retroactively add tags to certain fics, I will. I don’t really intend to be super consistent with my tagging, save for the really big ones. If I’ve forgotten to tag ‘anal sex’ on a fic that’s already tagged pwp, for example, I think people who want to read anal sex smut can still find it via other methods, such as browsing the pwp or Explicit rating tags.
Why did you imitate AO3’s format when displaying fic?
Most of my readers come from AO3; I figure it’d be easier for me to lay out fic metadata similar to the website, so people don’t have to learn a new way of reading metadata when browsing my website, as it’s likely they’d use AO3 to read other people’s fic, anyway. Some may call it lazy. Some may call it smart UX design. I call it both.
Will you add something like a “kudos” to your fic site?
Though I have considered it, I have decided not to. This is primarily because I don’t want to be able to quantitatively evaluate my fic, even if it’s in my head. And even if I adore comments, I do not mind a lack of them – I write and share fic out of my own personal fulfillment more than anything else.
What do I do when I’m browsing on night mode and go back, and the site stays in night mode but the switch is toggled to day mode?
If you intend to continue browsing on night mode, don’t worry about it. It’ll stay on night mode when you continue browsing, until you toggle it again. If you want to switch to day mode, just toggle it twice (back to night mode, then to day mode), and it’ll switch to day mode.
Why and how did you make this site?
Check out my documentation! But in short: after having brute forced myself into learning code for 15 years I had enough indulgent-learned knowledge in web development, design, and coding. In 2012 I had taught myself how to make themes for and fully use the WordPress CMS (which, for clarity, is much different than WordPress.com in being primarily a flexible and customizable port of the backend system), which this site runs on. I’d been wanting a site for my writing in some way since 2009 but it didn’t occur to me until 2017 to make WordPress operate like AO3; and then another 6 years after that (in 2023) to sit down and have the proper motivation and energy to actually do it.
This site uses a lot of plugins (see above) to make it work in the way it does. I own multiple websites so this is “just” a folder in my aroceu.com domain. The theme is the bulk of how it operates, which I made and tested locally in XAMPP, though without the plugins. You can imagine I’ve had quite some time to think about how I wanted this site to work since vaguely wanting it to exist since 2009, so by the time I tackled in 2023 it was largely about bringing that years-long vision to life.
Anyway, I mostly have this site out of necessary vanity. But in all fairness, all of my websites are like that.
aroceu's fic