#ao3 meta

[anxious-m3ss]

“I hope this email finds you well”

First of all the only emails that ever find me well are from AO3

[inoghmia]

Ruined a life today

[olderthannetfic]

Whoops. Just deleted my post. Go me.

I wanted to pop this out because I think it’s an interesting cultural point. Many die-hard AO3 fans probably don’t even think about this because they never use search.

How do “all” fic archives work? Obviously, you go to the fandom listing, which is probably by media type, click on your fandom, and add whatever kind of metadata filtering the site allows. That’s how it always works, right? Right?

Or at least that’s what you think if you’re from the Before Times.

On AO3, you don’t even have to start from the fandom tag. You can start from any tag and filter from there.

My guess is that a lot of people, like me, start typing in AO3′s URL and click on whatever autocompletes. In my case, The Rightish Reasons in BTS fandom. From there, they click on tags in the header to take them where they want to go, assuming their autocomplete wasn’t their favorite tag in the first place.

Here’s my front page, for example:

Once at the tag, you’ve got the SIDEBAR, which is the real reason nobody likes search.

The default sort is by date updated, but you can pick others:

If you want to add ~engagement~ back into your searching, you can sort by kudos/comments/bookmarks/hits, but it’s not the default.

Lots of people leave it in date order and just exclude or include tags to get results down to a reasonable number of pages.

This sidebar and the paginated view of everything that you get by starting from a tag beats AO3′s work search page and every other fic archive’s search by leagues.

As for the ‘best match’ thing, it’s something like closest text string match. It doesn’t look at engagement. It doesn’t have any parameters that the site admins tinker with to try to influence user behavior. But people in the replies weren’t even thinking about it because they literally never look at that page.

[ellionwrites]

How come I can write a 50k word fanfic, but writing a 1250-character fic summary has me crumbling?

[thankyouforthefunny]

Absolutely insane how teen wolf has 140,000 fanfics and they’re completely off the radar on tumblr, the fanfiction website. I couldn’t even tell you who the main guys from it are but I’ve been absolutely pummeled with supernatural content on here from day 1.

I’ve seen more content about fucking Dracula (1987) than this mainstream show that ended less than a decade ago

[roleplay-fan]

You know, I'm surprised I never saw Optus trending on here.

I mean, think of all the potential that could've been made it.

Optus, one of the largest network Companies in Australia, suddenly going down with 10 million customers relying on it like it was the last stop of water in the desert. It's freaking out because it lost it's power and no one knows why (my bet is hacked), with other users freaking out about having no internet.

And then there's AO3, who is a veteran. And it's just sitting there in the corner as it's taking a drag of it's cigarette (or Vape pen, I guess) and it tells you how it's been through it's wars (With Tags!)

Like AO3 Tumblr users had the opportunity to take the piss out of Optus and missed it!

[thalialurksalot]

Whelp, I just changed my AO3 icon for the first time in 10+ years. Johnlock owns me now.

[aibhilin-atibeka]

So it could take a week for ao3 to come back online (just had an enlightening chat with an IT professional about DDOS attacks and solutions to these), talking optimistically here.

Could be two weeks, depending on ao3's engineers' expertise, free time to dedicate to solving this (they all have Real Lives to deal with on top of that), ao3's size (y'all know how many fanfics etc there are), plans and strategies being implemented to prevent a similar attack and the DDOS' group's next plan of attack, among a ton of other things.

Let's be patient, consider donating and support the hardworking engineers at ao3!

[pulsarex]

Me when there's billions of masterpieces on Ao3 but my fandom only has a few dozen fics and I've already read them all:

[touchoffleece]

As a reminder or PSA for new fanfic readers this is what "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat." references:

When used in tags for fanfics it is as a trigger warning to: take the other tag(s) seriously/to take the tag(s) warnings at face value. It is a term meant to highlight the other trigger warnings in the tags. By itself it does not mean much, besides referencing this scene of Arrested Development, where someone ignores a very clearly stated warning and regrets their actions. I've seen a fair amount of newer gen of fanfic readers misinterpret it as an actual type of writing trope when it's not, and because of that people venting about its use in tags by fanfic authors are coming off as: "I dislike the author telling me what to do (that being to pay attention to the other tagged warnings for a fanfic)" or "I dislike the author trying to highlight or put up trigger warnings for their fic".

[discodeviant]

Over the Bottle, Under the Bridge

Billy/Steve | Teen | 2.1k Hurt/Comfort, No Upside Down + Mentioned Alcoholism and Drunk Driving

And so it begins >:) Combining prompts for the above two cards and very excited about it, so I hope you look forward to them and enjoy this one <;3 <3

Made for @steveharringtonbingo and @billyhargrovebingo! Also on AO3

Most days, he couldn’t look at Steve anymore, and Steve couldn’t look at him. Pain swam in his eyes like it did back in high school. Refused Steve’s help like he did back in high school when he thought he didn’t deserve it, and Steve screamed into his pillow every night back in high school because he was in love with a goddamn mountain of a boy who swore it wouldn’t be anything but glances and handjobs in the back of his car. But even Billy couldn’t keep himself away from hands that held him so gently, lips so sweet and comfortable against his. He fell right into Steve’s heart just the same as Steve fell into his, and Steve missed him. He missed Billy’s eyes when they were full of spunk and glowing in excitement. He missed Billy’s smile and kisses and breaths in his ear when he whispered, “Always and forever, Stevie-boy.”

It had been a month since they shared the bed. One month since he came home from the hospital. Almost. Twenty-six days was painful enough for Steve to lay without him, especially when he insisted on the couch. More of Steve than there was of him, he said, and neither had the energy to argue. The bed didn’t smell so much like Billy—a little bit, but his hairspray didn’t permeate into the pillow and sheets anymore, and his body wasn’t there to make it comfortable at night or for midday naps. Maybe Steve cried sometimes when Billy was asleep in the living room. Steve’s heart ached for him. Robin said it would take time, but it was so long already. Too long, too long.

He told Billy he would be back from the store soon with his medicine. Some painkillers and anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, antidepressants, it was too much for too goddamn long, and Billy hated it. Made a point to grunt with every handful he swallowed down with beer in spite of his doctors telling him not to drink. He was still alive; that was good enough. Steve didn’t think so and told him as much every damn time, but he’d grunt, and he’d complain, and he’d look in the distance somewhere to avoid Steve’s eyes and his own ailment. Every time. Every damn time—but, when Steve opened the apartment door with his grocery bag in one hand, keys in the other, it was too quiet.

“Billy?”

Neither the radio nor TV were on, and Billy wasn’t reading on the couch or the balcony. Steve’s heart leaped up to his throat in a flash of panic before he took his shoes off, put his coat up, breathed. The bedroom door was closed, so he knocked. “Billy, you sleeping?” Oh, he hoped so, and he wished that had been what he walked in on when he turned the knob and pushed the door in, but his heart squeezed tight and deflated in the same breath.

“Can I not just have one goddamn day when—where you don’t fucking wait on me, Harrington?”

Billy sat in the center of the bed in a tank top and underwear, hunched over himself with both legs out. His left foot just hung off the end as he stared at the space where his right should have been. Instead his leg ended just below the knee—stitches mostly fallen out by then, but he still had scabbing that Steve found him picking at once in a while. Now, though, both hands were balled in fists at his sides and trembling with the rest of him. “Oh, baby…” Steve slumped and put everything on the floor before he rushed to sit right next to him.

He tried to push away. “Fuck’s sake, Steve,” he said with no bite, only sorrow, and he gripped tightly to Steve’s arm anyway as fresh tears shone in the waning daylight. They didn’t say much more for a while. Billy let himself be held without words or any more comfort than that: Steve’s arms around his shoulders, face in his neck, heartbeat against his arm that his own synced up with before he got a chance to realize he was crying again. When he spoke up, it was a broken whisper. “I hate this.”

“I know you do, baby,” Steve said, lifting his head just enough to readjust. “I know.”

“God, I’m so sorry…”

Then he looked up, turned to look into Billy’s eyes for the first time all day. “Hey, what are you apologizing for? Hm?”

“Everything.” Such a sad little laugh; it broke Steve’s heart. “I put you through too goddamn much, man. Always been a fuckin’ freak, and now look at me.”

“Come on, don’t say that.”

“Why not? Fuck. Can’t surf, can’t drive, I can hardly walk.”

“It hasn’t even been two months, Billy. You will.” He let Steve’s fingers glide through his hair, catch and untangle curls that hadn’t been tended to in days.

“Wish I’d have just taken the normal fucking road—“

“Billy—“

“How the fuck would I know!”

“Hey, hey, you couldn’t,” Steve said, moving his hand from Billy’s scalp to his back, rubbing between his shoulder blades to try and ease his rising anxiety. “Baby, you can’t ever know. You can’t see the future. It's not your fault, you know that.”

“This isn’t fucking Hawkins, man!” There he went again, sobbing with every word, lip trembling, fingers gripping around Steve’s shirt to keep him afloat. “Had a damn beer, I didn’t have to worry about anyone being on the road at midnight, especially not in your bougie-fucking-neighborhood.” Steve couldn’t help the hint of a smile pulling at his lips, remembering the flutter in his chest when Billy rolled up with a swagger that he had with or without booze. A smile that wanted to see him and kiss him, a body that wanted to love him. “I could have done this shit to someone. Took this long and a guy in a fucking semi to knock my head into place, and I still can't go a day without a fuckin' beer." He sniffed hard and rubbed at his eyes with his palm. "Christ. Fuck, I’m so sorry—“

“Billy, hey, shh… it’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” he said. “I thought I was doing so good too.”

“You’re still doing good!”

“Is this good?!" He gestured, big and loud and stiff, to his leg, the two empty beer cans behind him on the pillow, the cloud of matted darkness over his head. "I’m not that guy anymore, Steve. I can’t. I’m not.”

“What guy?”

“Whoever the fuck you fell for in high school.” His eyes fell even further, then, somewhere deeper inside him where he didn’t want Steve to look. “Shit, I hated myself then too, but not like this.”

“Billy.” Steve sat up, shifted in front of him with a hand on his cheek.

“What…”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me, Billy. Please?” he asked, and his voice was so sweet that Billy couldn’t keep his gaze away even if it hurt to look. Steve might have cried too if he wasn’t so determined. “Listen to me, okay?” Billy only leaned into his hand more, no longer resisting the thumb wiping away his tears. “Listen, you’re different in a lot of ways. A lot of good ways. And so am I. But you’re still you. You’re still Billy. My Billy.”

“Hardly.”

“No, completely. You are still the sweetest, most charming asshole I’ve ever met,” he said, and Billy finally smiled, laughed a real laugh. “See?”

“Yeah, whatever…”

“I’m serious!” They laughed a little more, then came down from the high, still with smiles and eyes for each other. “I will always love you, Billy Hargrove. No matter what. Tell me you know that.” Billy sighed. “Billy.”

“I know.” He whispered into Steve’s palm, and maybe he still didn’t quite believe it even seven years later, but Steve proved it time and time again. “I love you so much, Stevie, I’m sorry…”

“You don’t need to be sorry, baby, I know. I know.”

Their foreheads touched. Steve leaned in to kiss his cheek, and Billy stole one for his mouth right afterwards. Something familiar and comfortable that made his doting stomach turn. Whispers got lost over each other’s tongues, and Steve’s tears couldn’t hold back much longer than that. They were both salty, overwhelmingly so, with the last month having built up behind hardened outer walls and unbreakable shells, and Steve still smiled against Billy’s lips. One hand tugged at the back of his shaggy mullet in the way that made him croon; the other held his arm, then his hand, then his waist and down to his thigh, which made him flinch.

“This,” Steve said, running gentle fingers along his leg and to the rounded stump, “doesn’t change a fucking thing. I promise.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

Steve kept his palm over Billy’s knee and what remained below it, slowly caressing even though it was still numb to the touch. Billy felt the heat coming through his skin and up the rest of him, shooting into his heart with an intensity that he kept simmering just below the surface. God, he missed Steve, and he felt silly for ever being ashamed when he could still be touched like this. Still loved so closely, so intimately. “I couldn’t wait to come home that night,” he said, still whispering, still basking in the good part. He held Steve’s hand as it ghosted over his leg, trying to accept it, trying to understand.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” It was so hard, but Steve made it feel so easy. “I wanted to ask you to marry me in the restaurant, but there were so many people, I chickened out.” They both laughed from their noses again, bigger smiles against each other’s cheeks. Steve’s heart melted and fell right through him. “So I wanted to come home, take a shower, get into bed…” He followed Steve’s hand higher up his thigh, closer to the middle where he still hesitated to let it go any further. “You looked so fucking good in that shirt.”

“It was yours.”

“I know.” More laughs; he started to feel okay. “I just… I wanted to make you feel like you never have, you know?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I know.”

“God, you’re my fucking world. And now you’re my damn nurse. I’m so sorry… I still wanna make you feel that, Stevie, so bad.”

“Hey. You wanna know something?”

“Do I?” Billy asked, and they laughed, and Steve told him anyway.

“I feel that every day.” Billy’s brow raised—a question that Steve nodded to answer. “Every day of my goddamn life, and it’s all your fault.” He leaned over Billy a little further, kissing him slow and deep enough to push him onto his back with no fight. Steve smiled, Billy cried some more and tried to ignore the tingle in his toes that wasn’t really there. Steve’s hands rode up from his thighs to the bottom of his shirt and pushed it over his belly. “C’mon, you’ve been doing your crunches.”

Billy chuckled—“Shut up”—and let Steve slide his shirt off anyway, ever-mesmerized by the body he’d been so lucky to love. Steve’s knuckles pressed into his sides and back; Billy sighed in short huffs, embarrassment and pleasure, a blend they’d perfected over the years. Kisses along his chest and abdomen, down to the waistband of his briefs where he gasped and exhaled a long, shaky breath.

“It’s okay,” Steve told him, eyes up, nose down, lips moving further down his left leg. Knee, shin, ankle. “Still got your tattoos.” A thumb rubbed the underside of his toes as loving eyes watched them wiggle away from being tickled. Then to the sole, Steve kneading into it gently and kissing the side of his foot before going back up and across to the other knee. Billy swallowed hard. Trembling hands found their way to Steve’s hair, somewhere they knew they could settle and be safe, fumble and fidget without consequence.

“Steve.”

“Hm?” He looked up into Billy’s warm, glossy eyes, though his lips didn’t move again, so Steve slid back up to touch their noses and say, “You’re just as perfect as the day we met.” Billy smiled, shook his head. “You are. Listen, we’ll go slow, okay?”

And Billy fucking whined. “I don’t wanna go slow.”

“Billy…” Steve gave him that look, the devious one that said his word was final and Billy would have to put up with it. Not that he ever complained. Much less when Steve’s knee pressed against his groin after not going near it since the night before their date, before everything went wrong, before Billy lost his goddamn leg and thought he’d lose Steve too. “Let me give you this, okay?” he asked, right up against exhausted lips, and Billy nodded, kissed him hard, breathed in as much of him as he could. “And, hey. I’ll say yes when you’re ready. I’m yours.”

He thumbed through Steve’s hair, tucking it behind his ear and pushing it away from his face. Whispered when he asked, “Always?”

“Forever, Billy.”

[phdmama]

So apparently there’s some stirring of the top bottom stuff going on and since I... really like numbers, I thought I’d take a look (also because I’m so concrete it would literally never occur to me that someone would send me an ask that wasn’t... you know, genuine!).

Charts below break!

Data Collection:

AO3, searched within fics tagged as Harry Potter fandom and then tagged with Harry & Draco as a relationships, only fics tagged E. Four categories of search per year: 

Include Bottom Harry Potter, Exclude Bottom Draco Malfoy (HP !DM)

Include Bottom Draco Malfoy, Exclude Bottom Harry Potter (DM !HP)

Exclude Bottom Harry Potter, Exclude Bottom Draco Malfoy (!HP !DM)

Include Bottom Harry Potter, Include Bottom Draco Malfoy (HP DM)

I did not include 2022 numbers as the year is not over. As a check, I also noted total fics per year and total fics tagged explicit and made sure my four mutually exclusive groups added up to my total explicit count.

So the obvious take from this is that the majority of fics are not being tagged with who bottoms. In the cases where they are tagged, Bottom Draco fics are tagged more than Bottom Harry fics every year I looked at. The ratio gets smaller and smaller every year, but even in 2021 the ratio is 1.73, with over 100 more fics being tagged for Bottom Draco than Bottom Harry. The ratio droped substantionally in 2015, and I am not sure why (maybe a new archive was imported with different tagging conventions?).

To get a better sense of how it looks, this is the chart without the “neither” fic numbers included:

This chart gives a sense for each individual year, how the fics are labeled (not to be compared to each other, of course):

Also just because I think it’s sort of interesting, here’s a comparison of the proportions of of E/Non-E fics, definitely looks like there’s a downward trend in E fics there.

The one other thing I was interested in was the claim that there was a trolling incident that led to this reversal of dynamics (which, as we can see from the data, didn’t happen). I went back and looked and my own rage-written fic was posted on April 28, 2021). So I looked at the montly stats for Only Bottom HP/Only Bottom DM/Total E fic posted by month and then eyeballed the proporations. So, it is true that May of 2021 is the only month where Bottom HP fics were higher (both in absolute numbers and proportion of total E fics), but that’s the only month that happens (4/2020 to 4/2022). Over that timeframe, about 6.56% of E fics are exclusively Bottom HP, while on average, exclusively Bottom DM are ~14%. In the months following, in fact, in general the Bottom HP numbers are pretty low.

So, what (if anything) does this mean? For me, for one, it solidifies that I personally really dislike reducing fic to this particular dynamic. I think it would be really interesting to do some investigating into why authors do or do not tag their fics for this dynamic, since I’m guessing most of us are aware that it’s a hot button topic (and has been in every fandom I’ve ever been in or hung out near). I know why I don’t, but I wouldn’t want to assume. Maybe I’ll write a survey.

I find the downward trend of E fics in general vs the upward trend of proportionally more fics being tagged for Bottom HP interesting, but it’s definitely not the majority (May 2021 notwithstanding).  

Purely on a personal level, it was interesting to see the huge increase in sheer numbers of fics being written and posted to AO3, which is probably why I feel so overwhelmed haha.

caveat on the data: this is absolutely not a representative sample, nor is it random sample in any way. This does not account for all the fics that are not labeled but do have one dynamic or the other present but the idea of doing that data collection is absolutely fucking beyond me. So who knows what the actual numbers look like. This is simply an overview of how things are specifically tagged on AO3. In addition, this doesn’t take into any fics tagged solely by who tops.

[naomitess]

Question for fanfic authors

Almost every creator says they don't read fanfic of their work, but a certain percentage of people who say this are in fact lying, especially if it's a "closed canon," i.e. they're not planning to write any more in that setting.

If an author finds your fic of their work and likes it, should they tell you? Or should they stick to the "oh, of course I never read fiction of MY stuff" approach if they'd rather not make fic authors feel self-conscious?

(I'm fine with authors finding my fanfic and commenting on it, but since I am also a professional author, I have a pretty high tolerance for being perceived, just in general.) (Please feel free to reblog this, I'm not sure how many followers I have on here but it's not very many.)

[thecompletebookworm]

If I click “Subscribe” to an author on AO3, they’re basically stuck with me forever. Like there are at least two people who I haven’t shared a fandom with in about 5 years, yet I squeal when I get an email notification from them. Sometimes our interests end up aligning again but most of the time it’s just a little reminder that people I love are out there creating.

[adelacreations]

Not ao3 saying that people publicly speaking about that GOP lady's PUBLIC views about stuff is "harassment"

How long before we need to make another ao3, with the pro Ai person on the legal team. The fact we had someone openly say we need to get rid of the queer content so ao3 can be unblocked by the Chinese government and now this announcement?

Good lord