#AO3 discourse

[just-antithings]

no official filtering system, you say?

[the-real-loser-otaku-girl]

I think some people forget ao3 was made by gooners for gooners

[irontinystar]

some of you are unbelievable. ‘I wish good writing was a tag’ people are writing fanfiction FOR FREE and you have the audacity to say shit like this. fandom’s about supporting and paying respect to other people’s work. produce your own content if you’re so picky about it.

[cowboylikeyouu]

saw a tiktok today complaining about podfics. the video itself was fine and more funny than anything, but the comments were brutal, and it genuinely made me want to cry. you're telling me there are people contributing to fandom & making it more accessible by recording their favorite fics, editing for hours, making covers for it, inserting music & background noises, and your only reaction to that is to be a whiny bitch in a tiktok comment section and comment things like:

"podfics are ASS"

"i hate podfics so much GET AWAY FROM ME"

"those belong on fucking youtube, not ao3"

"yeah well sadly only 1 in 100 podfics is good!"

"i see, i'm in the right fandoms bc there aren't podfics"

?????? i will never understand how people can carry so much negativity towards something so harmless & amazing. why is it impossible for some people to appreciate the work behind something & be happy for the people who can enjoy it, instead of calling a whole genre of fanwork trash just bc THEY don't like it??

the worst thing? some people in that comment section were like "oh, i was thinking about recording my fics, but after seeing this comment section? yeah i won't bother."

and that's just so, so sad. i'm not even that into podfics, not really my cup of tea, but i admire everyone who records fics in their freetime and i appreciate you guys so much. don't get discouraged from doing something you enjoy - that at least one other person will enjoy as well - just because some whiny teens on tiktok can't use the "exclude" button correctly <3

podfics are just as great a contribution to fandom as everything else and if people can't see that: their loss.

[xx-slug-xx]

The day that antis learn that “noncon” is absolutely just slang for “rape/sa in fiction” is the day my joints stop hurting tbh

Key phrase is the “in fiction”. Nobody is out here calling real life sexual abuse “noncon”. The very idea that there are people out there who are is just a made up thing antis made up. The only context we’re I’ve seen sex abuse referred to as “noncon” is on places like TikTok where the mere mention of the word “rape” gets your content taken down. Nobody in their right mind would call it what it’s not, but censorship is a bitch and it prevents us from using the proper terms for a very serious subject. When censorship isn’t an issue though, people call it what it is. Sexual abuse and rape.

Noncon is used specifically for fiction though. It’s slang for sex abuse and rape in fiction. Nobody is trying to make it sound like it’s not exactly that. It’s just another word for it and it’s used explicitly in fictional works because it’s not as serious as if it were to happen to a real person. Real abuse and fiction are not equals in any way, and using the term “noncon” to denote that separation is good actually. Noncon fanfics aren’t real, they should not be treated with the same seriousness as sex abuse.

[squidorama]

This is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but as a fanfic reader, you do not owe anyone your kudos and especially your comments.

As a fic writer, yes it's wonderful to see that your work is impacting people. Of course I'm delighted to receive comments, often literally kicking my feet with joy at the email notification. But I'm tired of seeing these moralizing attempts to "bring back commenting on ao3" or just generally shaming the average reader for not commenting on every chapter of every work they've ever enjoyed.

The fact is, fanfiction and fandom spaces are not a transaction where I create a work and in return am entitled to comments or interaction in general. What's so beautiful about fandom is that fanworks are created out of genuine joy on the creator's part. Publishing a fic on ao3 is an act of freely sharing your work to anyone who might enjoy it, not an economic transaction. Fandom is a community, not an economy. And if you're inclined to become an active participant in that community by leaving comments and supporting creators, please do! I am not trying to discourage anyone from commenting in any way. But for those who don't feel comfortable commenting or who simply don't want to, you are completely valid in refraining from doing so.

I know people are going to disagree with me on this, but I feel like it has to be said.

[unpopularfanopinion]

I got distracted earlier and forgot to include this.

Imagine you have someone who is morally opposed to alcohol and it’s consumption. Okay fine. They don’t have to drink if they don’t want to. Nor do they have to allow people to drink in their home or business establishment. That is a boundary they are allowed to set for themselves. But would it be acceptable or appropriate for them to go into a bar(a business pretty much dedicated to the consumption of alcohol in a safe environment) and start demanding that everyone stop drinking while they are there. Harassing and insulting the workers and patrons all while claiming that they’re doing this because of their morals, and they are just setting personal boundaries and how dare the patron disregard them? Or is this teetotaler just being a massive disrespectful asshole, violating the boundaries and safe space of the bar and its patrons?

The recent discourse is about DNI’s being put into the tags on Ao3. Ao3 a space meant to be a safe space for fandom to post all types of transformative works without fear of judgement. Tags meant to insult and intimidate other users of the site. The people using those tags aren’t setting boundaries or protecting themselves. They’re violating the boundaries and safe space of the other users and the overall intent of Ao3. This is not the same thing as putting a DNI on your own personal tumblr, Twitter, or any other website.

[thatmexisaurusrex]

My friend got a "response" to the whole splitting the Captain America tag bullshit and wow they just don't care. Literally twisting themselves in knots to justify inconsistent tagging and how they lazily shoved every fucking fic into the Chris Evans tag for no goddamn reason and saying this is actually for the Sam fans when this was never a fucking complaint. The timing is so bad too still. They didn't explain why it happened now instead of when Sam immediately became Captain America. He's been cap for years and you do this shit now? Love how they'd rather pretend they're helping us and try to make excuses so they don't have to exert effort fixing a problem they caused than actually acknowledging the structural racism they just created, whether or not it was intentional. Also? Splitting the Captain Marvel and The Marvels tag smells of bullshit too. They didn't split The First Avenger and TWS into different franchise tags. They didn't split Ironman 1 and 2 into different franchise tags. I wonder what the fucking common denominator is there, huh?

[perseidlion]

Social media has convinced people that their attention is a commodity. So in that context, it makes sense that people new to fandom would think that just consuming fanwork on AO3 is enough and that it gives the writer something.

But it doesn't. There is no algorithm to feed, so simply consuming the fic does not give the writer any benefit. Unlike when you watch a TikTok all the way through, which does help that person in the long run by serving their content more, which could lead to monetizable opportunities.

"What about the hits?" you might say. You mean the thing that could just be someone clicking on it, reading two sentences, then clicking away? Clicking the wrong fic by mistake? Their browser reloading when they restart their computer a few days later? Hate reading?

Unless they're told, a writer has no reason to believe that people enjoyed their fic (or kept reading it in the case of a multichap.)

AO3 already has an extremely low-effort way to say thank you to a fic writer and prove you're a person. The kudos button is right there.

But social media has trained a whole generation that interacting with something posted on the internet will shape their online experience in some way. So they resist it.

Between that and them thinking they're doing a writer a favour by simply consuming their work (that the writer cannot monetize and was done out of a labour of love to be part of a community) we are seeing the unraveling of the social contract of fanfiction.

Fic writers are being told more and more to produce with no expectation of engagement, and that asking for people to say thank you or acknowledge our work in some way is being entitled. That we should be grateful that anyone wanted to read our stuff at all, even though we can't tell from hits alone if someone ACTUALLY did.

The majority of fic writers post their fic to be part of a community. If that community no longer exists and they're treated like content mills (with no potential to monetize their work) what is the incentive to continue?

We write for ourselves (work we want to see, and to tell the stories in our head) but we post for the community. If there is no community, what is the incentive to post?

And what is the incentive to post regularly? To write 100k+ word lovingly crafted fics with arcs?

There will always be people who will post their work no matter what, but I would bet that the fics these people like the most are the big epics that post on a consistent schedule.

This problem has gotten so dire that some writers have resorted to setting bars for engagement in order to post more quickly, or to post at all. That is not a community-minded attitude either and I do not endorse it, but it's a problem people who refuse to engage with work have created.

Writers always have done the mental math when it comes to engagement. If people are loving it and kudosing and commenting, we will be inspired to write more quickly. If people engage less, the updates will probably be slower. If the engagement stops, that fic may be abandoned or even deleted. This has always happened. Writers are just saying the quiet part out loud because of the disappearance of a give and take of the community.

It's not wrong to want to know if someone likes a fic. It's not entitled to wish that the people who are getting enjoyment from the work tell us they're a person. This is not a call to gas up every fic writer you see and stroke their egos or something. But if you got some joy from it, please give us some joy by telling us. It doesn't even take a lot of people doing this to keep us going and to keep community alive.

Fic is one of the last places where creativity cannot be monetized. You can't treat it like a platform where work can be monetized.

[just-antithings]

Good luck! I look forward to seeing yall tear each other apart in the process

[werewolf-cuddles]

Can we please have one AO3 donation drive where people don't post stupid, idiotic hot takes about how awful it is for a website that doesn't run ads to ask its users to donate so they can pay server costs?

Is that too much to ask?

[kissk4m]

the pitt fic article has me even more convinced that every ao3 writer needs to start publishing under Registered accounts only. between bots scraping fics for AI training, and random journalists throwing fic writers under the bus just bc writers deemed to imagine a character as trans in their fanfic, sorry but the risk is just too much.

if ao3 writers start posting their fics so only registered users can view them, bots can't scrape their work for AI and journalists wouldn't want to link their fic for a humiliation piece bc their target audience won't have an ao3 account. it's a win-win.

i feel for guest readers but if you genuinely like reading fanfics, apply for an ao3 account, wait a week, get ur invitation and start reading. it's genuinely such a better experience to have an actual account. and less guest interactions (guest kudos guest comments, etc) means authors won't feel guilty abt restricting and safeguarding their work.

[dilfgmancoolatta]

i hope everyone on either side of the ao3 debate can agree there should not be porn of real living breathing children on there yeah

[cowboylikeyouu]

istg if i see another person being like "aw man i wish ao3 would add a feature that lets you give kudos on every chapter, so that we can show the author that we're sticking with their story and just how much we love it!!!" i'm gonna lose my fucking mind

the comment box is RIGHT. THERE.

leaving a simply comment saying "loved this!!" or "*extra kudos" or even just smth like "💜💜💜" achieves the EXACT. SAME. THING. as kudos per chapter, without completely messing up the "sort by kudos" page.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

People are allowed to make art you don’t like. People are allowed to make art you find disgusting, deplorable, and morally bankrupt. You don’t have to engage with that art, but you also don’t get to tell them not to make that art because it makes you personally uncomfortable. And you certainly don’t get to label people subhuman and deserving of violence for making art you don’t like. That’s it. End of story.

[brettdoesdiscourse]

God, some of you all are so fucking stupid I'm surprised you can survive your daily lives.

Ao3 is an archive, not a social media. It's not for raising awareness for anything. It's exclusively for fanworks. If you post a non-fanwork, you're breaking TOS regardless of the content of it.

The only acceptable way to "speak up" about something on ao3 is by adding it to the author's note on a legit fanfic. I've never seen any legitimate fic being taken down for simply mentioning something like this in the author's note.

Judging by the fact OP unironically uses the phrase "pornsick" and bitches about people donating to ao3, I'm going to assume it's a problem they created in their own head.

And I sincerely hope, since OP has an issue with companies needing to make money to stay in operation, that they never use any companies. There's always an atrocity occurring somewhere in the world and there's always companies that need to make money to stay in business (yes even during genocides.)

OP better not be at any coffeeshop, any restaurant, they better not be buying any non-necessities, they better not be buying any treats or luxuries.