#ao3 savior

[moonwaterart]

i saw you talk about an extension that blocks fics with too many tags. can you give the name of extension?

That was from a while back. There was a browser extension I knew of that could block fics with excessive tagging. The issue was that it got hacked and now I think gets used as a data phisher. What people suggest now (if you’re in a fandom with fics that use excessive tagging) if using AO3 scripts/skins that people make in order to block fics with excessive tagging. If you have the time to install the browser extension TamperMonkey, you could probably use them with ease.

The one people use the most is AO3 Savior to which there are loads of tutorials for, so here’s the 3 people seem to use the most for AO3:

[fiercynn]

on ao3's current fundraiser

apparently it’s time for ao3’s biannual donation drive, which means it’s time for me to remind you all, that regardless of how much you love ao3, you shouldn’t donate to them because they HAVE TOO MUCH MONEY AND NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH IT.

we’ve known for years that ao3 – or, more specifically, the organization for transformative works (@transformativeworks on tumblr), or otw, who runs ao3 and other fandom projects – has a lot of money in their “reserves” that they had no plans for. but in 2023, @manogirl and i did some research on this, and now, after looking at their more recent financial statements, i’ve determined that at the beginning of 2024, they had almost $2.8 MILLION US DOLLARS IN SURPLUS.

our full post last year goes over the principles of how we determined this, even though the numbers are for 2023, but the key points still stand (with the updated numbers):

when we say “surplus”, we are not including money that they estimate they need to spend in 2024 for their regular expenses. just the extra that they have no plan for

yes, nonprofits do need to keep some money in reserves for emergencies; typically, nonprofits registered in the u.s. tend to keep enough to cover between six months and two years of their regular operating expenses (meaning, the rough amount they need each month to keep their services going). $2.8 million USD is enough to keep otw running for almost FIVE YEARS WITHOUT NEW DONATIONS

they always overshoot their fundraisers: as i’m posting this, they’ve already raised $104,751.62 USD from their current donation drive, which is over double what they’ve asked for! on day two of the fundraiser!!

no, we are not trying to claim they are embezzling this money or that it is a scam. we believe they are just super incompetent with their money. case in point: that surplus that they have? only earned them $146 USD in interest in 2022, because only about $10,000 USD of their money invested in an interest-bearing account. that’s the interest they earn off of MILLIONS. at the very least they should be using this extra money to generate new revenue – which would also help with their long-term financial security – but they can’t even do that

no, they do not need this money to use if they are sued. you can read more about this in the full post, but essentially, they get most of their legal services donated, and they have not, themselves, said this money is for that purpose

i'm not going to go through my process for determining the updated 2024 numbers because i want to get this post out quickly, and otw actually had not updated the sources i needed to get these numbers until the last couple days (seriously, i've been checking), but you can easily recreate the process that @manogirl and i outlined last year with these documents:

otw’s 2022 audited financial statement, to determine how much money they had at the end of 2022

otw’s 2024 budget spreadsheet, to determine their net income in 2023 and how much they transferred to and from reserves at the beginning of 2024

otw’s 2022 form 990 (also available on propublica), which is a tax document, and shows how much interest they earned in 2022 (search “interest” and you’ll find it in several places)  

also, otw has not been accountable to answering questions about their surplus. typically, they hold a public meeting with their finance committee every year in september or october so people can ask questions directly to their treasurer and other committee members; as you can imagine, after doing this deep dive last summer, i was looking forward to getting some answers at that meeting!

but they cancelled that meeting in 2023, and instead asked people to write to the finance committee through their contact us form online. fun fact: i wrote a one-line message to the finance committee on may 11, 2023 through that form, when @manogirl and i were doing this research, asking them for clarification on how much they have in their reserves. i have still not received a response.

so yeah. please spend your money on people who actually need it, like on mutual aid requests! anyone who wants to share their mutual aid requests, please do so in the replies and i’ll share them out – i didn’t want to link directly to individual requests without permission in case this leads to anyone getting harassed, but i would love to share your requests. to start with, here's operation olive branch and their ongoing spreadsheet sharing palestinian folks who need money to escape genocide.

oh, and if you want to write to otw and tell them why you are not donating, i'm not sure it’ll get any results, but it can’t hurt lol. here's their contact us form – just don’t expect a response! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[frozenfrogz]

Even though my life isn’t going my way, things are tough, and I feel like shit. I have my little sad gay stories to read on ao3 and it makes me feel better.

[mamawasatesttube]

man it would really be so cool if there were fics in the timkon tag that were about timkon, instead of 5000 fics about ~the batfam~ that include like maybe one line about tim wearing a superboy t shirt

[chiqelatasblog]

As promised, second chapter is now posted, and it’s from Bi-Han’s point of view!

[thee-horny-thicky]

Savior

So, a few weeks ago @polariae gave me a fantastic story idea! The whole thing can be found on my AO3, but here's a snippet from it, featuring Geto having some ✨alone time✨

Suguru didn’t believe in love at first sight. No matter how strong your feelings may seem, it was impossible to fall in love with a stranger. He did, however, believe that lust had no time frame. You could see a stranger walking down the street and feel lust toward them, without a word ever being spoken. Because, unlike love, lust was based purely on physical attraction. And he knew for a fact that he was lusting after you.

Hard.

After just 24 hours in your presence, he was undeniably intrigued by you. You were a strong, pretty little thing, that was simultaneously meek and assertive. And your body…

The feel of your soft skin hadn’t left his mind since he bathed you, nor had the glimpses of your nude figure. He’d made good on his promise not to peek, but the water could only conceal so much.

The sight of you in his T-shirt and shorts had driven Suguru wild and made the long walk to Nagoya tortuous. The city had millions of people, allowing you all to blend in with the crowd, and was far enough away from the Jujutsu strongholds of Kyoto and Tokyo. He’d kept a straight face, but knowing you were wearing his clothes, which still had his lingering scent made a sense of possessiveness invade him. He barely knew you, but that hadn’t stopped him from being satisfied, or admiring how well you wore his garments.

By the time you all stumbled upon a motel on the edge of Nagoya, he was painfully hard. If it wasn’t for his oversized shirt, the tent his dick had created in his sweatpants surely would’ve been visible.

Being the gentleman he was, he allowed you and the girls to freshen up first. But when you came out of the shower in nothing but a towel, he’d nearly come undone on the spot. At record speed, he hurried to the bathroom, barely remembering to grab himself a towel.

Freezing water cascaded from the showerhead and onto his body, but it did nothing to halt his arousal. Even as he began to shiver, his hard-on remained, giving him no choice but to take care of the problem.

Suguru bit his lip to stifle the moan that wanted to escape as he stroked his cock. One hand was resting against the tiled wall of the shower, while the other was tugging at himself. His hair was down and plastered to his skin, obscuring the edges of his vision.

His eyes were slammed shut, and his breathing grew hollow as he imagined your hands instead of his. It might’ve been the result of his recent dry spell, but he was already dreaming of all the positions he’d put you in. He was sure you were untouched, and the thought of teaching you – corrupting you – only made him harder.

His hand quickened as he pictured you laying beneath him, your hair sprawled onto the pillow, your knees touching your shoulders as he pounded into you. He knew that your fucked-out expression would be delectable, and the sounds you’d make would make his thrusts more frenzied.

A groan left him at the thought of filling you up and watching his cum drip out of you, marking you from the inside. You’d feel so good, he wagered, that pulling out would be an impossible task.

He began to jerk his cock faster, his other hand wandering to his heavy, cum-filled balls as his core began to tremble. His breath grew shakier, and soon, his hand and the shower wall were covered in his seed.

With a sigh, he removed the showerhead and let the water clean up the evidence of his carnal desire. Even when he began to scrub his body, the erotic image he’d conjured of you stuck in his head. He couldn’t wait to find out how accurate it was.

A/N: It was so hard to pick a color for this man, so I just chose the gold and yellow of his robe as the text colors 😭

[duchessonfire]

ONE YEAR OF CEGAN

On this day last year (December 20th, 2023), I posted the first chapter of Nothing Left to Save, the second part of my Savior!Carl AU series. I had completed the first part all the way back in 2021, after binge-watching The Walking Dead again during lockdown, and I hadn't touched it for over two years. Every once in a while, I would re-read part 1 and look at all the wonderful comments that people left on it and tell myself that one day I'd write part 2. For almost three years, I would add little plot lines to the word document in my files. Then, in November 2023, I was finally done with my PhD and on top of absolute relief, I also felt the need to be creative again. I'd written almost exclusively Marvel for the past two years and I felt that my well for that fandom had run a bit dry. So, out of curiosity, I played the first episode of The Walking Dead on Netflix and I opened my Word document for part 2.

I could never imagine that this would lead to my most creative year ever on AO3. Between December 20, 2023 and today, I wrote almost 400k!! That is mind-blowing to me, especially considering that my total wordcount on AO3 since I opened my account in 2018 is almost 700k. In one year, I wrote more than half of that total wordcount. And all of it was for the Cegan fandom, which is especially insane when I think about how it all started.

More on this under the cut:

One thing that stands out to me most of all is that all these numbers happened in the Cegan fandom, which is a very small community. Back when I was posting part 1 of my Savior Carl!AU in 2021, the engagement was very small and sparse. I think I would get maybe 5 or 10 kudos between updates and two or three comments on each chapter. Back then, I was writing mainly for myself and every update was a labor of frustration as much as love. I had fallen into Cegan hard during my TWD re-watch on Netflix and I had tentatively tried to dip my toe into the Cegan fandom on Tumblr.

(Funny thing: I hadn't created a Tumblr account yet and decided to look at the Cegan tag to see if I could find a community there. What I found instead was harassment and hate spewed by antis all over the tag. It scared me so much that I closed Tumblr and didn't start an account until I got into Marvel. Honestly, I'm probably downplaying how utterly traumatic this first experience was, and I'm so thankful that I kept going anyway and posted my fic on AO3, where, for the first time in my life, I clicked on the 'enable comment moderation' button, because I was so scared that some anti and hater would find my fic and decide to go off in the comment box.)

As I said, I posted part 1 of the Savior!Carl AU in 2021 and by then... Cegan was already pretty much a dead ship already. This might be my skewed memory playing tricks on me, but I remember this being a very small and not really active fandom on AO3. The tag was updated very rarely, mainly by the same people keeping the ship afloat through sheer tenacity. Which makes sense considering season 8 finished airing in 2018, so by 2021, Carl had already been dead for over two years. And yet, in spite of this, I kept writing because I had this very clear idea of the kind of fic I wanted to read and I couldn't find it even after browsing pretty much all of the Cegan tag on AO3 (btw, did you know the first Cegan fic was posted in May 2016, right after the end of season 6 and the first part of the line-up episode? Insane). I knew I wanted a fic that delved into the slow build-up of Carl and Negan's relationship, one set in the apocalypse and which didn't shy away from the fact that Negan was a villain. Two things were most important to me: a slow-build (many fics in the tag where about a love at first sight type of encounter, and it didn't scratch the very specific itch I had back then) and a focus on power dynamics (mostly how unbalanced those dynamics would be when Negan was basically a tank crushing everything and anyone in his path). So, because I couldn't find the fic I wanted, I decided to write it myself.

This is how No Savior to be Found came to life. 45k. 4 chapters (which were supposed to be 3, but even back then I had no self-control over my chapter count...). And, because I was chicken shit about smut back then and because I was still afraid of antis, a Teen and up rating and a Carl & Negan platonic tag. I already knew this was going to be a series, a first introduction into a fully romantic and more sexual relationship between Carl and Negan but I didn't have the courage to write it then so I created the series on AO3 and told myself that one day I'd be ready for the follow-up. I told myself the series would only be 2 parts. A before and an after of Carl and Negan's relationship. If anyone was interested in reading it, cool, but most of my satisfaction would have to be derived from writing it.

This was a very dark and psychologically heavy fic, which I hadn't ever really written before (not in English at least). It was also the first time I tried my hand at flashbacks and a non-linear timeline. Part 1, especially the first chapter, is mainly made up of little vignettes because I wasn't very confident in my ability to write a long fic in English (I had only written one-shots back then, and one Teen Wolf fic which I never finished). It was experimental in so many ways and came with many challenges, first and foremost Negan's voice. As a non-English speaker, Negan's way of speaking was SO DIFFICULT to capture. I remember obsessively re-watching every single episode he was in in S6-8 of TWD to try and get used to the cadence of his words, to his constant delve into the vulgar and obscene. It was a nightmare. Every time I had to write a dialogue with him, I was basically pulling out my hair trying to make it realistic. It was also the first time in my life I ended a fic on a cliff-hanger, but it felt right because this wasn't for shock value or to spike viewer's engagement (what engagement lmao). If you've read part 1, you know the ending I'm talking about and it truly felt like a satisfying wrap on Carl's journey in the Savior AU, from child to man, from blunt weapon to active participant, from survivor to Savior. Honestly, I am still in awe of the courage I had to write an ending like that considering how self-conscious I was about my writing skills in English and what little audience I had. 2021 Duchess, you were a badass.

After I finished part 1, I pretty much lost interest in TWD. I was still incredibly proud of finishing it but I had no desire to get started on part 2 anytime soon. My PhD was taking up more and more of my time, I fell into Marvel hard, I created a Tumblr account to interact with the Stucky fandom, I got a Discord, I participated in Marvel events, I met wonderful Stucky people, and all around had a fantastic time in the Marvel fandom. Every once in a while, I'd get a comment on part 1 of Savior!Carl and... they were all so nice? I remember being actualy shocked by how sweet and how detailed those comments were, dropping in my inbox every few months, telling me how much they loved the fic and how they screamed at the ending. Whenever I received a comment, I would check the fic and get stunned at seeing the stats rise, more and more people engaging with it over the years. With every comment, my belief that I would one day go back to the Savior!AU series and write part 2 became stronger. I knew it would happen some day, it was just a matter of when.

And then, November 2023 rolled around. I defended my PhD and started a new job. Winter had come to Paris, and everything was dark and wet, and my new job had insanely long hours which left me very antsy when I came home. I knew I wanted to write something to distract me and be creative, but I had only written Marvel for two years and yet neither Stucky nor Stony called out to me. I knew I was craving something angsty and violent so I thought, you know what? Let's re-watch TWD on Netflix and see what happens. And lo and behold, I spiralled right back into my Savior!AU. A month later, I was posting the first chapter of part 2.

Honestly, I didn't expect anyone to still be interested in this fic 3 years later. I answered every single comment on part 1 and told each commenter that I had posted the first chapter of part 2 in the hope that someone would be curious enough to check it out. Marvel ships like Stucky and Stony were very active back then so I'd gotten used to a certain amount of stats on my fics, but I knew Cegan was a very rarepair in comparison and so I steeled myself for a return to very low engagement. And you know what? I couldn't have been more wrong. In terms of numbers, sure, it was barely a fraction of what I was used to. But in terms of comments? Of people interacting with the fic and telling me what they thought of it? Cegan was miles ahead of Marvel. To this day, some of the most consistent, most thoughtful comments I've ever received have been in the Cegan fandom. And it's not even a question of length either. I have people who have been commenting nothing but heart emojis on every chapter of my Cegan fics for the past year and I love them to death.

There is no word that can encompass how grateful I am for the Cegan community. I remember how scared I was back in 2021, terrified of antis and people criticizing the ship over, frankly, dumb matters (it's all fiction, enough said). 2021 Duchess could never imagine what today Duchess knows: that I have found so many loving and encouraging people to share my stories with. In one year of writing Cegan, I have met new friends, new readers, new writers, and all around incredible people. This is what fandom is about and I can only say thank you to everyone who has commented on my fics and reached out to me on Tumblr to talk to me about Cegan. This is worth more to me than any stat or number ever could.

2024 has been a fantastically productive year and I don't know if I'll write as much in 2025 but I know it doesn't matter, because more than a wordcount, this year has been about community. Thank you again to everyone who has been with me on this journey, from the bottom of my heart thank you. I couldn't have done any of this without you.

Love,

Duchess

PS: thank you so much @louferignojr for the tag. I'm tagging other people who might want to fill out the AO3 wrap card by Spicedrobot on Tumblr with the blank card at the bottom if they want to :)

@sparkagrace @confusedhockeyslut @lovelythunderstorm @ryisbread @ex0rin

@livefasteattrashh @honestlydarkprincess and anyone who wants to join in!!

[spicypepperjack]

Me when a longfic that I've been following finally ends:

[luckyduckydino]

[btrzfreitas]

opening a 200k smutty smut polin fic to survive the family weekend trip

[basilpaste]

slay the savior might be over but now that it is i feel like i can probably share some of the routes i thought about that didnt make it in!

if you let the sacrifice struggle with their restraints, all his fussing will eventually lose him his head! if you go to leave without the head, youll be thrown out the other side into Chapter III: The Prop. the prop is a puppet restrained by strings. he does not speak, far too wrapped up in their role to bother deviating. the additional voice in this route is the voice of the restless.

if you allow the varmint to consume you, you find yourself in Chapter III: The Chase. the chases domain is that of high walls and open space. it isnt long before they gnaw their way to freedom and force you to flee. turning around to fight wont save you, much to the dismay of the additional voice you gain on this route — the voice of the dogged.

if you do not turn around at the end of muse, you walk out into Chapter IV: The Muse. if you still refuse, you open your eyes to Chapter V: The Muse. you do it again. and again and again and again until you have no option but to turn around and see them. theres really no such thing as a happy ending for the two of you. you gain no new voices. nothing changes but your own desperation and the saviors pleas to just end this already.

theres others but these were the three most fleshed out! yippee!

[gay-robot-boyfriends]

This morning, my son kept me prisoner in his room for 3 hours while he built Lego, so I had plenty of time to draw and polish this! asdkhas It's all based off of Fallen Savior (go look on Ao3)! I didn't do Axl quite right because I didn't have access to references, so don't use this to draw him! I might have gotten X's helmet wrong too. I can't remember! RAAAH!!

[mx-myth]

Okay so mlc hanahaki au except when fang duobing leaves li lianhua when he discovers he's li xiangyi (because that's about where I am in the show rn) he starts coughing up stuff afterward. He's like wtf is happening I got better things to do but then suddenly he's keeled over feeling like he's hacking up his lungs but all that come out are seeds and slender white petals stained with blood. Finally he starts researching and oops, he's in love with someone? This is where he notices that his seeds look suspiciously like lotus seeds. He's in love with LI LIANHUA? Seriously? Baby boy is so furious but he eventually decides to keep this to himself. (Something something lotuses meaning honesty and goodness and the sick irony of xiaobao's feelings about llh at this moment and the petals being stained with blood)

Fast forward to post-canon. He never told llh. The flowers are slowly taking over his lungs and his meridians are slowly decaying due to the disease. For months he's been throwing up pieces of lotus pods. He chokes out whole lotuses sometimes.

Does this mean llh is still alive out there somewhere? Or is he yearning after a dead man? Xiaobao doesn't know which one is true.

Di feisheng totally knows about this (I don't actually know what happens post-canon so they're living in the lotus tower with huli jing). They don't talk about this. He doesn't know the flowers are for llh but come on, xiaobao, it's not that hard to guess. But he makes xiaobao tea to soothe his throat and cooks sometimes. They sit together in the mornings quietly and they both know they're wishing for llh to be back.

And then one time when dfs is out fdb coughs up red petals mixed in with lotus petals. This can't be happening, he thinks. He does a little asking around when he goes out for groceries and they're camellias. It makes him want to throw up a little when he's told they mean devotion and care (and in China it symbolizes two lovers which I thought was a little funny).

No one else stands beside him but dfs. No one knows him like he does. No one knows dfs like he does. The one person who knew them both truly is dead. They're connected by their devotion to a dead man. They've cared for each other through their ups and downs. Xiaobao knows that dfs isn't the cruel villain of the jianghu. Xiaobao himself is no longer a wide-eyed naïve little detective.

Who else could it be besides dfs? Who else could he love besides these two men who know (knew) him like no one else does? It's a sick parallel that, just like llh, he only has so long to live.

Does dfs know? If he reciprocates, does it truly change the fact that fang duobing (fang xiaobao) will die? The love was there but did it truly change anything? Did it save anyone?

Edit: guys you'll never guess what I just finished writing

[caorl]

"Kyle?” Stan speaks. Kyle turns to him.

"Can you read to me?”

Pour my love out, spill it on the ground by sleep2thefr33zing

(version without the text!!)

[stealthetrees]

Me: *comes home from classes exhausted after staying up late reading fics, opens to the tab from last night and continues binging fics like an addict chain smoking, after four hours realizes I had NOT in fact searched a tag but was going through an authors entire body of works and read/kudos/bookmarked/commented on almost every single one, and the rest I marked for later*

[chiqelatasblog]

I think one of the things I enjoy most while writing is exploring the emotional development of the characters. Bi-Han has been through a lot since the first story, and he is actually one of the most challenging characters for me to write. Balancing his reactions without breaking character is difficult, but it’s also why I find him so rewarding to write. Introducing emotions to an emotionless man while staying true to his character is a challenge in itself, so I’m choosing my words carefully and writing based on Bi-Han’s logic. This chapter is nearing 5k words and I’m only halfway through. Just like in the first story, each chapter will probably be around 10k words or more, so I hope you’re ready for some long reads! 😅

Here’s a small sneak peek from Bi-Han’s pov;