ao3commentoftheday
AO3 Comment of the Day
this blog is attempting to come back from hiatus
The views expressed in the answers and original posts on this blog are mine alone. I volunteer for the Organization for Transformative Works (“OTW”), but these views have not been approved by, and are not intended to reflect the opinions of, the OTW.
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why write a story if no one's going to read it?
Sometimes you don't want to share a story with others. Sometimes you do want to share it, but no one clicks on the title. So why bother writing it down if the only person you can guarantee will read it is you?
You need to get it out of your head. It just keeps replaying in your imagination on a loop and the only way to get it unstuck is to pin it down on paper.
You need to figure out what the story is. You have a lot of disjointed scenes or lines that you know are connected but you can't quite figure out how.
There's something in the story that's important to you, and you don't want to lose that thing by forgetting it. Future you might find that thing important too.
You want to be able to go back to the story again and again. Maybe to make adjustments over time. Maybe just to revisit a story that gives you the emotional release you need in that moment.
You want to be able to use text-to-speech to read the story aloud to you. Maybe it's a bedtime story. Maybe it's keeping you company while you do errands and chores.
You want to find out whether you can write a story (because not everyone can).
You want to be able to have almost the same story, but a little bit different, and you want to have it 15 times with slight variations. Then you can go through your own personal menu picking exactly the combination of beats that will satisfy you most on this reading.
You enjoy the process of finding just the right words or phrases or scenes to paint the pictures you want to shape the scene.
You want to find the exact rhythm and syllables and structure to make a sentence really sing.
You don't really have any particular reason, but you know you want to write that story down.
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OTW is Recruiting AO3 Support Volunteers
The #OTW is Recruiting for Support Volunteers (Regular and Spanish speakers) to help fans using #AO3! Read on for more or help us signal boost: https://otw-news.org/2p8n3rza
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Do you ever see something like this:
and think, "This'll be a fun little thing to read while I wait."
And then you read it and you're fundamentally changed as a person and you're left staring off into the middle distance as you contemplate life and love and connection and what it all means?
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Another Update Regarding "No Fandom" tags
AO3 Tag Wranglers recently began testing processes for updating canonical tags (tags that appear in the autocomplete and the filters) that don’t belong to any particular fandom (commonly known as No Fandom tags). We have already begun implementing some of the decisions made during the earliest discussions.
By the time this post is published, you may have already noticed some changes we have made. Several canonical tags are slated to be created or renamed, and we will also be adjusting the subtag and metatag relationships between some tags to better aid Archive users in filtering. Please keep in mind that many of these changes are large and require a lot of work to identify and attach relevant tags, so it will likely take some time to complete. We ask that you please be patient with us while we work!
While we will not be detailing every change we make under the new process, we will be making periodic posts with updates on those changes we believe are most likely to prove helpful for users looking to tag or filter works with the new or revised tags and to avoid confusion as to why changes are being made.
New Canonicals!
1. COVID-19
Due to long-standing demand, we will be creating a number of new canonicals related to COVID-19. These canonicals include:
COVID-19
COVID-19 Pandemic, which will be subtagged to both COVID-19 and Pandemics
Alternate Universe - No COVID-19, which will be subtagged to Alternate Universe
Post-COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 Lockdown
Created During COVID-19 Lockdown
How to Use These To Filter For/Filter Out Works Tagged as relating to COVID-19
❌ Filtering Out:
To filter out all works that use tags referring to COVID-19, the COVID-19 pandemic, or the COVID-19 Lockdown, add COVID-19 to the “Other tags to exclude” field in the works filter. This will also exclude works making use of the subtag COVID-19 Pandemic. If you’d also like to filter out COVID-19 Lockdown, you would need to exclude that tag as well.
☑️ Filtering For:
Add COVID-19 to the “Other tags to include” field in the works filter. This will also automatically include the works making use of the subtags COVID-19 Pandemic. If you wish to filter for only the pandemic or the lockdown, you can do so by including either COVID-19 Pandemic or COVID-19 Lockdown only.
2. Isekai and Transmigration
Given the similarities of the concepts, we will be creating a single canonical tag to cover both concepts to allow for easier filtering. Additionally, we will also be creating a canonical for the concept of Reverse Isekai and Reverse Transmigration. This tag will be subtagged to Isekai and Transmigration.
As with the COVID-19 canonicals above, you will be able to use these tags in the works filter to filter for or filter out these concepts. If you filter for/out Isekai and Transmigration it will filter for/out both Isekai and Transmigration as well as Reverse Isekai and Reverse Transmigration. If you would like to only filter for/out Reverse Isekai and Reverse Transmigration, you can just filter for that tag instead.
3. Mommy Kink
This oft-requested canonical will be canonized as Mommy Kink.
4. There Was Only One Bed
The ever-popular trope is now getting its very own canonical and all relevant synonym tags from Sharing a Bed will be moved over to this canonical, which will be canonized as: There Was Only One Bed.
Renaming Outdated Canonicals!
The Archive has been around for a long time, which means there are a lot of canonicals that make use of old and outdated terminology.
6. Asperger Syndrome
One of these canonicals is Asperger Syndrome, which is an outdated medical term which is no longer acceptable, and so will be de-canonized and made a synonym of Autism Spectrum.
7. Fantastic Racism
In the early days of the archive, the tag Fantastic Racism was canonized as a tag that was meant to represent Racism specifically concerning Fantasy or Science Fiction races (e.g. Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Vulcans, Phoenocats, etc.). To correct this particular issue, this tag will be renamed to Fantasy and Fictional Setting Racism to clarify the actual purpose of the tag and will remain subtagged to Racism.
Fantastic Racism in particular is a case of exceptionally poor choice of phrasing for what should have been a relatively straightforward concept. The tag wrangling committee is working hard to continue to develop a robust and sustainable collaborative discussion format for making decisions in regards to the canonization of canonicals which are not specific to any fandom in the hopes of avoiding such mistakes in the future.
Reorganization of the Gender Tree and Genderswap/Genderbend Freeform Canonicals!
We will also be re-organizing a number of tags related to the concept of Gender in the coming weeks. The early days of the Archive saw the canonization of a lot of similar concepts which makes searching and filtering for these concepts needlessly complicated and difficult to navigate.
To help eliminate one such complication, we will be merging Genderbending, Genderswap, Gender or Sex Swap, and Sexswap into a single canonical and renaming this new canonical to Changes to Gender or Sex.
Similarly, we will be making a number of other similar renames to bring related canonicals in line with this change:
Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex will become Alternate Universe - Always a Different Gender or Sex.
Canon Genderbending will be renamed to Canon-Typical Changes to Gender or Sex
We will also create a new canonical for the concept of temporary gender or sex changes: Temporary Changes to Gender or Sex.
Other gender-related changes freeform tags we will be making in the next few weeks include:
Transgender, Transexual, and Alternate Universe - Trans will be de-canonized and made synonyms of the Trans canonical.
A canonical will be created for Medical Transition.
These are just some of the freeform tag changes being implemented. While we won’t be announcing every change, you can expect similar updates in the future as we continue to work toward improving the Archive experience. You can also check out some of the other recent changes we have made in our previous update on No Fandom tags. Feel free to follow us on Twitter @ao3_wranglers or keep an eye on this Tumblr for future announcements.
Thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue our work!
(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)
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What do AO3's Archive Warnings mean?
Archive Warnings can be confusing to new users, both readers and writers alike, so let's take a moment and break them down. We'll start at the top of the list - which is ordered alphabetically.
Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings - when AO3 was being designed (by fans, for fans) there was a debate about requiring warnings. At the time, they were not a standard expectation, so some people didn't want warnings to be mandatory on every individual fic on the Archive. Other people did.
This warning - stating that the author was making a choice not to provide a warning - was a compromise. A creator could choose not to apply a warning to their fic and readers would then know to be wary because it would be possible that any of the warnings might be needed, or multiple of them, or none of them.
This warning (which I'll abbreviate to CCNTW from here on out) is also a good catch-all for other things that a creator might want to warn for that don't have a specific Archive Warning. Authors can also provide warnings of different kinds in the Additional Tags on a work, so it's a good idea to read those carefully as well.
You can read up on more of the history of this warning on Fanlore.
Graphic Depictions of Violence - This applies to stories where the descriptions of violence are very detailed and probably gory. The violent scenes will likely be brutal and easily imagined. This warning is generally accompanied by a rating of either M or E - meaning that the content in the work is aimed at adults only.
Some authors find it difficult to decide whether the violence in their fic is graphic enough to warrant using this warning, so they use CCNTW instead. For some fandoms, the source material is already full of graphic violence and so they might also use an Additional Tag to give more information such as, "canon typical violence"
Major Character Death - This can be interpreted in different ways. It might mean:
a character dies, and that character is a major character in canon (even if they might be a minor character in the fic).
a character dies, and that character is a major character in the fic (even if they might be a minor character in canon).
the character death in the story is a major component of the story or a particularly intense part of the story.
It is possible that the character who dies does not stay dead in the fic, in which case the author may decide to use an Additional Tag like "temporary character death" to provide more information.
It is also possible that an author will decide to use CCNTW instead because they want to avoid giving spoilers for the story.
No Archive Warnings Apply - This means that none of the other warnings in this list apply to this fic. The fic may still be given a rating that indicates it is for an adult audience.
Rape / Non-Con - This refers to different scenarios in which a character does not consent to sexual activity.
Non-Con is short for non-consent, which is a term from role-playing communities in which not giving consent is part of the sexual game. Non-con can also refer to the fact that in a fictional story, we might see a character verbally state that they don't want to have sex and then read their inner monologue in which they express that they do.
The various interactions and interpretations involved in consent can get very complex and nuanced, and some creators might use CCNTW because they aren't sure if what they're writing rises to the level of this warning.
Underage - This warning refers to stories that describe sexual activity (more than just kissing) involving characters who are under 18 years old. This one is also up for interpretation when it comes to creatures, monsters, mythological beings, aliens that live for thousands of years, etc.
---
All of the above warnings will be used a little differently by different creators and by different fandoms, and as you read more on the site you will likely notice these differences.
However, if you see a work on the Archive that should have one of these warnings but doesn't, you can report that work to the Policy Questions & Abuse team by scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking the link to their reporting form.
To help the volunteers who manage these reports, you can give them some additional information. If it's a multi-chaptered work, let them know which chapter to look in or give them a keyword or phrase they can search for to find the relevant scene(s). If the volunteer decides a warning is required, they'll contact the creator and ask them to add it. If they decide that it doesn't, they'll let you know.
If the work has Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings on it, that includes all other warnings and that fic shouldn't be reported for missing one.
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how to get dark mode on AO3
Step one: log into your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can get invited here.
Step two: scroll all the way down to the bottom of any page on AO3 and tap on the word Reversi in the footer
Congratulations! You're now in dark mode! 🎉
Your AO3 will continue to be in dark mode until you log out. If you want to continue being in dark mode after logging out and logging back in again then
Step three: tapping on Reversi will take you to a new page showing the code for the Reversi site skin. Scroll allllll the way to the bottom of that code and tap on the Use button.
This will make Reversi permanently attach to your account until you remove it by changing to another skin or reverting to the Default.
#welcome wattpad#how to ao3#easier than it's ever been before#who's going to be one of today's lucky 10000?
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I think I like this option best actually. Thanks, @drewadoodle-dandy !
I'm in the midst of writing a *very* long post about how to find things on AO3 where I go into the details of both Searching and Filtering. I'm worried about destroying your dashboards, so here's a poll:
a "cut" is the Read more link that shortens the post visible on your dash. To read the rest of the post, you'll need to visit the page on my blog.
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I'm in the midst of writing a *very* long post about how to find things on AO3 where I go into the details of both Searching and Filtering. I'm worried about destroying your dashboards, so here's a poll:
a "cut" is the Read more link that shortens the post visible on your dash. To read the rest of the post, you'll need to visit the page on my blog.
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The original "two buttons" meme image.
Description: A two panel comic. In the first panel, there are two buttons and a hand hesitating between them. The button on the left is labelled "BE A DICK" and the button on the right is labelled "DON'T BE A DICK". In the second panel, we see a person wiping their brow as they perspire heavily. They are tortured by indecision.
#I love hunting down these things#how else would I learn that the person who made this meme image#also animated cuphead
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When you're posting a work on AO3, one of the options you have is to add relationship tags to your work. Sometimes you'll see tags that look almost exactly the same and you might wonder what the difference is.
A/B indicates that person A and person B have a romantic or sexual relationship in this fic.
A&B indicates that person A and person B have a non-romantic and non-sexual relationship in this fic - they are friends, colleagues, family members etc. who have a platonic relationship.
If you want to add more specific information about what kind of relationship the characters have in your story, you can use the additional tags or the summary to let readers know more about what they're in for.
Editing to add: Oh yes! And it doesn't matter which character you list first in your tag. They both filter the same way in the site's database.
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new user guide to posting on AO3
This video walks a new user through the required steps to post a work on AO3. It does not cover the entire New Work form.
To begin, the narrator is on AO3's home page. They zoom in on the header, specifically the word Post. They instruct the user to tap on that work and then select New Work from the dropdown.
On the Post New Work page, they zoom in on the words * Required information and they point out that only sections that are in red are required. The rest of the information is optional.
Next, they zoom in on the word Rating. They say that any time you are confused by something, you can tap on the question mark icon to open a pop up with definitions and examples.
In the Archive Warnings section of the form, they explain that the first item in the alphabetized list of Warnings, Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, means that any of the other warnings may be present in the fic. If an author wishes to let readers know that none of the warnings are present, they should select No Archive Warnings Apply.
For the section requiring the user to indicate the work's Fandom, the narrator points out that users should enter the name of the TV show, movie, comic etc. and not the name of a particular character or ship. It's not said in the video, but the reason for this is because AO3 has a separate area where you can tag the ship(s) and character(s) in your story.
They next tell users to give their work a Title and choose the work's Language (they open up the menu and scroll to show how many there are available). Then they scroll down to the Work Text box, which is where authors enter the text of their stories.
Their recommendation is to use Rich Text instead of HTML so that the interface looks more familiar. They do not explain that choosing HTML requires you to manually enter the HTML tags to format your work.
Finally, they scroll to the bottom of the page and zoom in on the Preview and Post buttons. They explain that selecting Post will make your work go live on the Archive for everyone to access immediately, while selecting Preview allows you to look at your work first and reread it for typos or test the formatting.
#welcome wattpad#how to ao3#this video is already 2 minutes long#which is why I didn't go through the optional stuff
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If you're interested in reading up on the history of content purges in fandom, Fanlore has an article linking a lot of the major ones in a timeline that begins in 1977.
The Wattpad purge is listed as occurring April 2024, and that article links out to a post on Wattpad about the site's moderation.
I heard that wattpad is doing a purge of NSFW works, so I'm going to be posting some general orientation type videos and some how to's to help folks learn more about Ao3.
If you want to follow (or avoid) those posts, I'm tagging them as welcome wattpad
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If you find it difficult (or annoying) to post on AO3, considering changing from the default HTML to the more familiar Rich Text. You can find these buttons at the top right of the box where you enter the text of your fic.
If you dislike the Rich Text format, or if you're having issues when you copy/paste from somewhere else such as Google Docs, then I have a post over here with a tool (and instructions) that will convert your fic into html for you so you can just copy/paste it in without any worries or additional effort.
Also, AO3 recommends that you don't write your story directly in that AO3 form because your work isn't saved until you hit the button at the bottom of the page. To avoid the risk of losing your work, consider writing your story somewhere else and copying it over into AO3.
#welcome wattpad#how to ao3#I have so many meme-related ideas for presenting information XD#how do you do fellow kids?
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Calling Game of Thrones fans with knowledge of the fandom's history! [see also: Supernatural version]
I'm in the midst of putting together some fandom deep dives as part of my analysis of TV Fandom Fix-Its on AO3, including GoT. I'm trying to give context for how many fanworks the fandom was producing overall, and when overall spikes in fandom activity were happening, and I could use help.
Specifically, I'm trying to label AO3 activity spikes with what episodes/events seemed to contribute to them. But I'm probably missing important context. E.g., I know there were other events like fanwork exchanges happening that might have been contributors to some activity spikes, or things the show creators said/did might also have contributed sometimes.
If you have theories about why the red spikes between seasons happened near the following dates, that would be excellent:
Dec 28, 2020
May 11, 2020
Oct 5, 2015
Sept 29, 2014
July 21, 2014
And if you think I'm missing important context for some of the other spikes, or I made goofs on some of the labels, please LMK!
This was posted on April 10, 2024; I'm hoping for relevant replies in the next few days.
If you prefer to look at the raw data, it's too long to list here, but you can read it in this spreadsheet. And you can view the graph and labels bigger in this slide.
Thanks so much in advance!!
(If you have questions or critiques, please click through and read more context on AO3 or click through to the OP version of this post, which I will update with clarifications as needed.)
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I heard that wattpad is doing a purge of NSFW works, so I'm going to be posting some general orientation type videos and some how to's to help folks learn more about Ao3.
If you want to follow (or avoid) those posts, I'm tagging them as welcome wattpad
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A video that shows the Ao3 homepage with the user not logged in. The narrator says, "This is what Ao3 looks like when you don't have an account."
The background changes so that Ao3 is in dark mode (Reversi) and the narrator says, "This is what it can look like when you do have an account."
Upbeat music begins to play and the video shows the homepage of Ao3 with various different skins applied. Each skin is listed below.
Peachy Keen site skin
Glowy Dark Mode site skin
Rainbow site skins (light and dark)
Pink and Green Frog-Themed site skin
Game Changer site skin
Minimalist (purple) site skin
Art Deco Light Mode site skin
unpublished site skin that is inspired by Simply Twilling
Dark Mode Galaxy-Themed site skin
If you don't yet have an account and you want one, go to the Ao3 homepage (by tapping on the site name at the top of the page) and tap on the Get Invited! button.
You need to provide an email address in order to get an account. This should be your own address and one that you can access. Your email is the only way that Ao3 will ever contact you. I recommend not using a school or work email address to sign up for Ao3.
Invitations are sent in batches, and they're currently sending out 6000 per day. They limit how many they send in an effort to reduce spam on the site. You can see where you are on the waitlist by entering your email address on this page. Right now, the wait time is about 11 days.
You can still read fic on the site without an account, but you need to have an account to change the site's appearance, to post a fic of your own, to save bookmarks of fics and various other things. You can leave kudos and comments without an account, but your kudos will be listed as guest. Once you get an account, it will list your username instead.
#welcome wattpad#I'm gonna do some orientation posts and videos and stuff for folks coming over#figured I'd start with the basics#ao3#how to ao3
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thank you @bugswarm for pointing out my syntax error! to filter for works that have more than one chapter, you should use either
expected_number_of_chapters: >1
or
-expected_number_of_chapters: 1
For anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.
summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.
Examples:
summary: Bruce
summary: "Bruce Banner"
summary: Bruce OR summary: Banner OR summary: Hulk
You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.
The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.
expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.
You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.
otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false
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