2024 October Membership Drive: Preserving fan history

OTW's October Membership drive has begun!  Find out what we do to preserve fan history by reading more at: https://otw-news.org/5n8p54fc

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If you get an error message about a security breach on a work with embedded audio or video, don't be alarmed! The embed is hosted on the Internet Archive, which is under attack by hackers. AO3 is not affiliated with the Internet Archive and has not been directly affected.

Posted: October 11, 2024 03:42 UTC

This is important info to put out there, and I constantly forget that "fandom" as it is now is nothing like the community we had then. This is a good resource for understanding what was going on with the creation of AO3 in particular, but it's also a great example of why older fans say that we miss the Livejournal era of fandom so much.

AO3 is the result of long discussions, hard work, and a dedicated community of fans. Though it isn't is a social media site (and it was never intended to be), it is the only place now that sometimes feels like how the fannish community used to be on LJ--when a good discussion gets going in the comments on a story. But AO3 is for fanfiction et al, and therefore is limited in discussion subjects.

(The ads you'll encounter if you follow those links, though? Did not exist when we were there and were one of the reasons we abandoned the site--not the most important reasons by a long shot as you'll understand if you read more about why AO3 was created, but they were a factor.)

We were a collection of communities, with some-to-significant overlap in members. Fanfiction writers were not "content creators," and people who didn't write fanfiction were not "the lucky audience who should be soooooooooooo grateful that writers deigned to gift us with their incredible talent." We knew each other. Many of us met each other IRL after meeting through fandom (once fandom shifted to the internet there was some hesitancy at first about meeting "online" friends, but that was quickly gotten over). We went to conventions together. We had lunch and dinner and parties and meet-ups IRL outside of conventions.

If you take a wander around from even just that one LJ community (click on a username to check out their personal LJ), you can see how discussions would branch off without excluding anyone the way they do on Tumblr. If you wanted to share something you saw on someone else's LJ, you just linked to it, and people followed the link to read it and join in the discussion (or just lurk). The force of Tumblr splintering is an active barrier to creating real communities.

I really miss LJ. I miss the connection I felt to my community there.

Man I feel this. I grew up when (fan) forums where a huge thing and I met some incredible people on there that I still meet IRL to this day! Discussion were public to everyone and everything was neatly archived and man I miss it. This one particular forum felt like a second home to me in my teens.

when you finish a fic that was everything you could of hoped for and you click on their user to see that they’ve written dozens of fics for that pairing

A couple of our servers have gotten a bit overwhelmed, so we're taking some down time to give them a chance to catch up. We'll be back as soon as possible!

2024-09-02 11:30 UTC

The Archive is back! We've got some extra protections in place while we sync up the third database server, so you may see some Cloudflare messages as you browse.

Posted: September 3, 2024 06:45 UTC

A couple of our servers have gotten a bit overwhelmed, so we're taking some down time to give them a chance to catch up. We'll be back as soon as possible!

2024-09-02 11:30 UTC

*if you wanna tell me exactly how long it is i'll give you a smooch because i'm really curious :3

Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

So happy to see people enjoying these and spreading the love 💖

UPDATE with some suggestions from the replies! And bonus: cookie kudos.

HTML codes under the cut.

let me tell you, I got a ‘kisses your forehead’ kudos and it absolutely made my day

HOW is it possible that I am seeing this for the first time? Now safely installed in my tumblr short cuts folder. I am SO bad at coding that this is a real life saver.

I keep getting comments on WIPs from readers—some who are registered AO3 users—expressing some form of “I like this story and check regularly for updates”. I don’t know if this is a permutation of “I can’t wait for an update” or if people genuinely don’t know about AO3’s Subscribe button.

Subscribing to a story automatically sends an email notification to the subscriber whenever the story is updated.

I don’t want to seem patronizing by mentioning subscriptions, but I also don’t want readers to be working so hard keeping up with a fic when there’s an easier solution. Or am I taking a compliment too literally?

(Please reblog for farther reach)

May you wake up to an inbox full of incoherent AO3 comments

That's the dream.

Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

So happy to see people enjoying these and spreading the love 💖

UPDATE with some suggestions from the replies! And bonus: cookie kudos.

HTML codes under the cut.

let me tell you, I got a ‘kisses your forehead’ kudos and it absolutely made my day

HOW is it possible that I am seeing this for the first time? Now safely installed in my tumblr short cuts folder. I am SO bad at coding that this is a real life saver.

AO3 Planned Downtime

The Archive of Our Own will be down for about 10 hours of maintenance between 07:00 UTC and 17:00 UTC (check what time that is for you). This downtime will allow our AD&T and Systems teams to prepare our search database for a software update.

Date: 07:00 UTC, June 29, 2024

Clarification! The downtime will be on Monday, July 1.

Date: 07:44 UTC, June 29, 2024

Reminder: the Archive will go down for maintenance in 24 hours, starting at 07:00 UTC on July 1 and ending around 17:00 UTC (check what time that is for you).

Date: 07:02 UTC, June 30, 2024

AO3 Planned Downtime

The Archive of Our Own will be down for about 10 hours of maintenance between 07:00 UTC and 17:00 UTC (check what time that is for you). This downtime will allow our AD&T and Systems teams to prepare our search database for a software update.

Date: 07:00 UTC, June 29, 2024

Clarification! The downtime will be on Monday, July 1.

Date: 07:44 UTC, June 29, 2024

I kind of suck at tagging, so I made this infographic to help make it easier.

Hey, thanks for making this!  I’ve never struggled with what to put in tags on my fic, but I’ve never been systematic about it, either–I just kind of put whatever.

The categories seem like a really useful way to think about it–not every fic will necessarily have something for each category, but it’s a good framework for either thinking of things to put, or making sure you don’t skip things that would be good to put.  

Image description: Tags are Tricky…a quick and dirty guide

1 Canon How does it relate to canon? Alternative Universe Canon Compliant Canon Divergence Crossover Fix-it-Fic Future Fic Missing Scenes & Codas Pre-canon/Backstory

2 Format Is it something other than a story? 5+1 Things Art Dialogue-Only Epistolary Online & Social Media Podfic Poetry Songfic Texting

3 Tone How does it make you feel? Angst Crack Fluff Humor Hurt/Comfort Smut and PWP Whump

4 Relationship Describe the relationship Platonic Coming Out, Families, Friendship, Siblings Getting Together Amnesia, Body Swap, Childhood Friends, Different First Meeting, Drunken Confessions, Enemies to Lovers, Fake Dating, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Huddling for Warmth, Meet-Cute, Miscommunication, Road Trips, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Trapped in Elevator PG-13 Cuddling, First Kiss, Kissing and Making out Sexy Times ABO, Dirty Talk, First Time, Kink, Roleplay, Sex Pollen, Sexting and Phone Sex, Voyeurism Commitment Arranged Marriage, Established Relationship, Honeymoons, Infidelity, Jealousy, Kid Fic, Long Distance Relationship, Pregnancy, Weddings & Proposals

5 Theme What is the theme? Activities and Interests Baking and Cooking, Camping, Celebrations, Crafts and Hobbies, Drinking or Getting High, Fashion, Holidays, Pets, Piercings and Tattoos, Religion, Sports, Theater and Dance, Yoga Adaptions Fairy Tales, Historical, Reality Show, TV/Movie/Book/Adaption Character Driven Anxiety and Mental Health, Introspection, Queer Themes Jobs Artist, Celebrities, Crimes and Suspense, Firefighters, Lifeguards, Media and Journalism, Medical, Military, Musiscians, Pilots, Retails, Royality, Teachers Other worldly Apocalypse, Faries, Ghosts, Magic and Fantasy, Parallel Universe, Sci-fi, Shapeshifters, Superheros, Supernatural, Tentacles, Time Travle, Vampires, Witches, Zombies Places Bookstores & Libaries, Coffee Shops & Restaurants, College, Flower Shops, High School, Summer Camp, Wineries

Note: These are examples, not a definitive list, but I hope the categories are useful" end Image description

I don't know who needs to hear this

But if you go into the comments section on AO3

And type

Then replace image url (keep the " marks) with the url of a picture

You can leave fan art in the comments of a fic

if you don't know go to your statistics and it'll be right under user subscriptions smile. rebog and all that jazz