ao3-anonymous

[ao3-anonymous]

Fanfic is a free hobby.

It's one of the last few things we can have as a society that's free. You can engage, for free. People give you things (art, stories, etc), for free.

Don't buy into the consummerism just because it's everywhere else.

You don't have to consume everything you interact with. You don't have to use things, just because they exist.

You're allowed (still, for now), to have things that are enjoyable for free.

Do you realise how insane the world is? We don't have many places where we can just be, for free anymore, but ao3 is. Did you notice we don't have ads in ao3? We don't have pop ups? Where ELSE do we not have that?

Where else can you just go and not have to wait for a commercial to be over or for ads to be on the sidelines?

I don't think the younger people understand, but the whole of internet used to be like this. YouTubers would do Youtube for free, just because. You couldn't monetise your internet presence before.

Ao3 is like a little preserved corner of the internet where the old internet used to be, and it's being attacked by people who do not understand that free things are allowed to exist without judgment.

Please don't ruin this for us.

Some of us need it.

[ao3-anonymous]

I feel like libraries should designate one of their e-book copies for speed readers where you only get like 3 days with it instead of two weeks. People can choose to join the normal line and wait longer or join the speed read line and only have a few days to read it once you get the book.

Mostly because I feel like I deserve a reward for always returning books early. I waited 10 weeks for this book and then I returned it 2 days later so the next person could read it.... doesn't that earn me a skip the line pass or something??

[ao3-anonymous]

hello writers.

[ao3-anonymous]

Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (04/21/2025)

Every week I pull data on how many fics are in each fandom and compare to the previous week, then calculate the percentage increase to determine fastest growing fandoms.  Since this naturally skews towards smaller fandoms, I have included the same data filtered to Over 1k, 5k, & 10k fics.

Overall:

Over 1,000 Fics:

Over 5,000 Fics:

Over 10,000 Fics:

Source: AO3 Fandom Dashboard

[ao3-anonymous]

hey ao3 can you like give the extra $38k you made from this month’s funds drive to charity

[ao3-anonymous]

Any advice for people who have lots of Thoughts™️ about fictional characters but who have not, in the past, enjoyed the act of writing? I was always bad at it in school, which didn't help, and I know ~"you should write it even if it's bad"~ however I am still a recovering perfectionist and this is easier said than done (hence the not enjoying it). Add on top of that that writing fiction is very different from writing a 5 paragraph persuasive essay or whatever else they taught in school, so the little I do know doesn't feel applicable. (I'd just draw fanart instead, but my abilities do not lie there either lol). But I desperately want a way to actually engage in fandoms instead of just lurking in the shadows, and you seem to be quite knowledgeable about writing

Okay so first of all I am SO EXCITED for you because you get to start a new creative pursuit and it's one that comes with a huge community of like-minded people. One of my absolute favourite things in fandom is getting to see people posting their first fic. Truly a magical experience. I am always so so proud of them.

Second, have a quote from Jodi Picoult which is a favourite amongst my beloved writing group:

You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.

The trick with writing is that in order to do it, you have to do it. In this way it is similar to the majority of human endeavour.

If you genuinely hate the process then my sincere advice is to not do this. You've only got, like, 100 years at the outside on this little rock. Better not to spend any of them doing things you do not enjoy in your leisure time, if at all possible. Make playlists or reclists, start conversations, take up podficcing, take up fic binding, write meta about your character thoughts, do something congenial to you (and some part of fandom must be congenial to you or you wouldn't like. Be here.)

However. If you do want to write, and you think you could learn to love the process, or at least want to try, here are some inroads you could take a crack at:

Outline your idea rather than trying to write it as a polished narrative and post that. I do this a lot. Sometimes I then go back and actually write the fic, sometimes someone else writes the fic for me, which is delightful. (This looks like "So I'm thinking about a fic in which Aloysius inherits a haunted mansion..." etc.)

Use an established format. The only one of these still remotely in fashion is 5 + 1 fics, I think (back in my day we wrote songfics and listfics and Very Secret Diaries riffs but I think if you do that last one now Cassandra Clare steals your lunch maybe idk). This I also do all the time, as a way to break the seal on a new fandom. The format is such that you're practically just filling in the blanks. You could do something like this in as little as six sentences.

Try epistolary format (letters/texts/emails/post-it notes/notes scribbled in the margins of a notebook/whatever). This cuts all the tricky bits of prose narrative and allows you to focus on the events of a story using a form of writing you are undoubtedly already comfortable with.

Try a retelling. This is what the pros do when they're stuck & it's just fanfic layered with fanfic, really. Crack open a copy of your favourite fairy tale and just rewrite it. Sentence for sentence if you like, with nothing more than names and details changed. Pick a single scene from something you like and rewrite it for The Characters.

There are probably a million more ways to approach this, but the overall point is to get you to start. You simply cannot do a thing without doing the thing. Once you've started, then you can worry about improvement. Or not. You are not obliged to be 'good' at writing in order to do it. Many professional career writers are fucking awful.

A bonus few things I wish I could personally carve into the inside of every new writer's skull:

You are allowed to write more than one story in your life, the first one does not have to say Everything You've Ever Wanted To Say or contain Every Single Idea You've Had. It's probably better if it doesn't, even!

It is orders of magnitude better to finish a very short story that has a complete arc than to get 10% in to an epic and then stop because you don't know how to continue it. If all your writing practice involves writing openings and then stopping, you are teaching yourself to write openings and then stop. Better to write 100 words and have it be a complete story than 10,000 words of introduction.

There's no such thing as 'good' or 'bad' art and you should be suspicious of anyone who tells you there is. The measure of success in art is that it's what you meant it to be.

You cannot possibly please everyone. The person you should focus on pleasing is yourself, because you are the only person obliged to interact with your work. Might as well be fun for you.

Talent isn't real. Anyone who appears to be 'talented' has put a lot of hours of work into doing the thing they're doing.

If you take no other advice from this list, take this piece: read more. Read widely. Read old books, read new books. Read people's dropped grocery lists. Read amateurs, read professionals, read poetry and lyrics and the backs of shampoo bottles. The more words you absorb, the more you have to draw from when you sit down to write.

All that said: please imagine me rolling out the welcome mat and blowing a party whistle while eagerly beckoning you to come in and join the wider writing community.

[ao3-anonymous]

And:

Source

[ao3-anonymous]

okay but there is something disquieting about this urge to cast fan writers as altruists. they give us all this for free!! well, no.

they’re sharing

it’s a key difference in perception. fic isn’t given. it’s shared. it’s part of a fandom community— in which readers are also an integral part.

it’s probably inevitable mission creep from the increasingly transactional nature of the internet and fandom-as-consumerism, which was always gonna happen after corps worked out how much bank there is to make from those weirdo fan people

but like. fandom is sharing. i think we’ve lost that somewhere.

[ao3-anonymous]

Archive of Our Own (ao3), the internet

[ao3-anonymous]

for april fools we’re deleting this entire site sayonara you weeaboo shits

[ao3-anonymous]

If you see someone with a really bad fandom take, I’m begging you to open your emails and write a strongly worded missive to your local government official about something bad happening in your community or country.

If you’re in Canada you could email a rep about concerns about Elon musk interfering in our next federal election.

If you’re in the US the list is endless.

If you’re in the UK you could email about trans health care.

If you’re in Australia, what about dental care in Medicare?

If you’re in Europe, look into some EU initiatives of particular concern. Perhaps something to do with nature and biodiversity? Idk

Just today I emailed my local mla about coal mining in the Rocky Mountains and tomorrow I’m going to pick something else and do it again

[ao3-anonymous]

I was looking at my bookmarks on ao3 when I found a fic with no title or summary. Instead of the title was "mystery work" and instead of the summary was "This is part of an ongoing challenge and will be revealed soon!" But I bookmarked it in 2019, do it should be revealed if the challenge was ongoing. And I can't click on it now so I can't bookmark it, how did i do it then?

I'm so very confused, has it happened to someone else before? Do you know what is happening? thanks

I've had this happen to me too with something I've bookmarked. I'm not 100% sure, but I've always assumed this was something authors do as an alternative to deleting fics (in case they change their mind later). I think they just create a challenge that they own and put their own fic in it.

So unfortunately I wouldn't count on the fic ever being "revealed" -- there is one in my bookmarks that has been like that for years.

But you do still have the link to the fic! And while I obviously always want to respect the author's choices, I can't say I've never used Wayback Machine to access a fic that's no longer available (with a decent amount of success). I think as long as you only do this for personal use and don't share it with anyone or post about reading the deleted fic, there isn't much harm. Many authors give warnings before deleting or "archiving" a fic so that people can download, so I think oftentimes they just no longer wanted it associated with them or their online presence.

Hope that helps! (Also if any of my followers have more insight, please chime in!!)

[ao3-anonymous]

Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (03/24/2025)

Every week I pull data on how many fics are in each fandom and compare to the previous week, then calculate the percentage increase to determine fastest growing fandoms.  Since this naturally skews towards smaller fandoms, I have included the same data filtered to Over 1k, 5k, & 10k fics.

Overall:

Over 1,000 Fics:

Over 5,000 Fics:

Over 10,000 Fics:

Source: AO3 Fandom Dashboard

[ao3-anonymous]

Was not quite as fast as promised, but the new post is up!!

Aye where u been with the ao3 stats? U doing okay?🥺 I'm just gon take this opportunity to say that I appreciate your work

Aww thank you for asking! I am totally fine but I moved across the country about a month ago and then then the apartment building I was supposed to move into had some issue and so I still can't move in for another week (at least).

Fortunately I've got some family and friends in the area I can stay with, but living out of a suitcase for that long is a pain, let me tell ya.

Anyway, the computer that runs the fandom stats analysis automatically is an old one that I had set up in my last apartment, but it's currently packed away. So I missed a week or two of stats in there unfortunately....

but the good news is that I was able to run the stats manually last week and again today which means.....drumroll please....we should be getting a stats post today!!

[ao3-anonymous]

Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (03/17/2025)

Every week I pull data on how many fics are in each fandom and compare to the previous week, then calculate the percentage increase to determine fastest growing fandoms.  Since this naturally skews towards smaller fandoms, I have included the same data filtered to Over 1k, 5k, & 10k fics.

Overall:

Over 1,000 Fics:

Over 5,000 Fics:

Over 10,000 Fics:

Source: AO3 Fandom Dashboard

[ao3-anonymous]

Aye where u been with the ao3 stats? U doing okay?🥺 I'm just gon take this opportunity to say that I appreciate your work

Aww thank you for asking! I am totally fine but I moved across the country about a month ago and then then the apartment building I was supposed to move into had some issue and so I still can't move in for another week (at least).

Fortunately I've got some family and friends in the area I can stay with, but living out of a suitcase for that long is a pain, let me tell ya.

Anyway, the computer that runs the fandom stats analysis automatically is an old one that I had set up in my last apartment, but it's currently packed away. So I missed a week or two of stats in there unfortunately....

but the good news is that I was able to run the stats manually last week and again today which means.....drumroll please....we should be getting a stats post today!!

[ao3-anonymous]

One of the great things about fandom is that sooner or later you will think to yourself: I would never write/read x kind of story, I would never ship x kind of pairing, I would never do whatever fandom thing, and then, if you stick around long enough, you will 100% become a clown of your own making. It’s inevitable and I love it.