Celebrating AO3's 15th Anniversary

Start the party, AO3 is turning 15 today! Join our anniversary celebrations by participating in our 15-day Trivia Game and Prompt Challenge. Who knows – you might win a cool prize! https://otw-news.org/2p8bn9cr

me every single time i’m on the edge of going fully insane about a new fandom: haha what if i just checked ao3. just for fun. just to see what there is. i won’t save anything or get in too deep i’ll just do some recon. i’ll just go see. for fun

me: *writes fic*

me: great! time to post to ao3-

ao3 summary box: *exists*

me: 

ao3 summary box:

me:

ao3 summary box: 

me:

Ooh, this is actually kinda a neat thing, because you can think of it as a checklist:

For example:

Thus, in less than 100 words:

~~~~

The Anatomy of Story by John Truby is a really good book by the by, if anyone’s interested in this sort of thing.

This is super helpful!’

Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (11/05/2024)

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

Not sure about anyone else but I re-read all my favourite AO3 comments when I’ve had a rough day so if you’ve ever taken the time to write a deep, funny, or just kind comment, thank-you.

I’m actually kind of amazed how many people do not understand this concept

anyway the actual point of fandom is to inspire each other. reading each other's fics and admiring each other's art and saying wow i love this and i feel something and i want to invoke this in other people, i want to write a sentence that feels like a meteor shower, i want to paint a kiss with such tenderness it makes you ache, i want to create something that someone else somewhere will see it and think oh, i need to do that too, right now. i am embracing being a corny cunt on main to say inspiring each other is one of the things humanity is best at and one of the things fandom is built for and i think that's beautiful

I liked this post, scrolled for like another minute before I went “SHIT FUCK SHIT” and scrolled back to reblog it

I always reblog this one when I see it on my dash. When someone posts their own art, writing, or music here they are really hoping you will share it.

someone I follow on the bird app just announced they’re starting a very exclusive private fic server because they and a bunch of other people want to talk about how much they love the fics they’re reading, and as an author can I just say that a really great place to talk about a fic you love is in the comments for that fic

I understand that people are trying to create safe spaces, but as the number of comments that I get on my fics dwindles with each passing year, knowing these spaces exist where my fics are being discussed, places that I am excluded from, makes me want to write fic LESS

I mean I guess who cares, right, because if I stop writing, there’s 10,000 other people that will continue…but if you participate in a fic “book club” server and you say nice things there about a fic you loved, maybe copy and paste that into a comment on AO3?

the only thing fanfic writers are asking for in return for hours of hard work is attention. please don’t rob us of the one thing that we hope for when we hit “post”

this is directly related to this post I made about how fanfic authors now are treated like content mills, and not like valued members of a creative community who thrive on interaction. for the past decade, we’ve watched the fandom ecosystem disrupted over and over, as NSFW fan artists seek safety by putting their work behind paywalls, and self-conscious fic readers squirrel away their feelings in invite-only communities

an easy way to do your part to fight against the evils perpetrated by social media is to leave a comment on a fanfic you love

but don’t take my word for it – here are some responses that my fellow authors have left on this post:

The fact I had a fic that was fairly beloved and NO ONE commented on it because it was all being done in a fucking book club server made me want to scream.

I haven’t updated that fic in two years now.

I cannot express enough how imperative it is to show the writer how much you love their work. The comments don’t have to be novels themselves - even just an “I loved this so much!” Or keyboard smashing works wonders to keep the writer going. Please, we need to bring back supporting writers and artists now more than ever!!!

PLUS, plus…if people are talking about fic in private servers and not telling the authors, those people get the idea that the fic writer is “big.” Meanwhile the fic writer is sitting there, staring at a Google doc, struggling to find the motivation to write the next chapter, with 2 comments on a 20k fic.

They don’t feel big. They don’t feel appreciated. They don’t feel motivated. And they might stop writing or shelve their fic, never knowing that people were loving it in private.

Honestly this is the same for social media threads or even on this very app. If you can, tag the author. A lot of us have our socials in our AO3 profiles.

So I hear you all are booping each other…can I get in on this?

The average follower boops you 5.5 times factoid is actually just statistical error. The average follower boops you 1 time. Boopers Georg, who went insane and booped you 100+ times, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.

Reblogged this last night and then been absolutely swamped at work today so haven’t been online. Just signed in to find I’d been the recipient of multiple Boopers Georg attacks and my notifications are absolutely indecipherable 😅.

Don’t know what else I expected…

The average follower boops you 5.5 times factoid is actually just statistical error. The average follower boops you 1 time. Boopers Georg, who went insane and booped you 100+ times, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.