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Archive of Our Own (Website)

 Archive of Our Own (Website)
type
TVTItem
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Archive of Our Own (Website)
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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ArchiveOfOurOwn
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
comment
Archive of Our Own (most commonly abbreviated as AO3) has been running since late 2008, gaining widespread popularity from 2011 onward. It almost exclusively hosts fanfiction.The inception of the Archive started after the decline of LiveJournal as a fanfic hosting platform, especially the notorious Strikethrough '07 incident, where LiveJournal responded to threats from a group of trolls purporting to be To Catch a Predator-esque online vigilantes by deleting a large number of allegedly "objectionable", but in most cases entirely innocent, journals and communities without warning, which resulted in many fans losing the contents of their journals. AO3 as a project of the Organization for Transformative Works was a response to this, and the goal of the 'archive of our own' is to ensure a safe archive that would not purge fanworks due to pressure either from Moral Guardians or aggressive copyright enforcers.To give an indication of how young it is compared to the existing behemoth FanFiction.Net (which started in 1998), AO3 reached one million stories in total on February 15, 2014. The Harry Potter fandom on FFN had roughly 674,000 on its own as of the same day.The rise in popularity has been helped along by the rise of Tumblr as both sites share a similar fandom mentality and outlook, as well as by AO3 being the official hosting site or encouraged posting site for a few popular fanfic fests and events such as Yuletide. It also gained popularity when Fanfiction.net had a crackdown on Mature Content Fics in June 2013 (the last time that website did such a crackdown was back in 2002). AO3 is very popular because it allows users to view fics as one single document instead of the separated chapters and even download stories as HTML, EPUB, MOBI, and PDF files, making it great for people who want stories on the go.It also has a much less restrictive Review system than Fanfiction.net — like LiveJournal or Reddit, it uses comments which may be edited and stacked on at your leisure, rather than having a single use for each chapter that can never be edited, replied to only privately. Other than that, there are also some comment moderation settings: authors may accept all comments by default, only allow them to be shown publicly after approval, or simply turn them off altogether.Also notable is the "Kudos" system, which allows someone to say that they like the work without going to the trouble of a comment, but still better than another tick on the view count.The impressive usability and lack of censorship on AO3 has led to a massive and devoted coterie of users. So devoted that, in 2019, the entire website was first nominated and then awarded the Hugo award for Best Related Work. The Hugo Award is considered by many to be the premier honor in science-fiction, so just being nominated was an impressive feat for a website built and staffed mostly by volunteers. The award was accepted by noted author Naomi Novik, a co-founder and past board member of the OTW, and herself a multiple Hugo nominee.
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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2023-12-01T19:20:58Z
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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2023-12-01T19:20:58Z
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Dropped link to Bowdlerise: Not a Feature - ITEM
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Dropped link to FanWebComics: Not a Feature - ITEM
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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DBTropes
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_30d1e0df
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Full-Name Basis
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_30d1e0df
comment
Full-Name Basis: The canonical character tags use that character's full name, nicknames and codenames included. For example, an Overwatch story might be tagged with "Angela 'Mercy' Ziegler" or "Jack 'Soldier:76' Morrison", or a Gravity Falls story might include "Jesús 'Soos' Alzamirano Ramirez". However, authors are allowed to tag their works however they like, and more minimalist tags like just "Mercy" and "Soos" can be redirected to the full canonical tag if they aren't ambiguous. In the case of stories where a character has multiple identities, they will be separated with a vertical line- for example a Worm fanfic would have tags like "Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver", "Lisa Wilbourn | Tattletale", or "Victoria Dallon | Glory Girl | Antares".
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_30d1e0df
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_36754cc7
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"Freaky Friday" Flip
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_36754cc7
comment
"Freaky Friday" Flip: Has its own tag, with over 9,000 fics under it as of October 2023.
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_4f9892c3
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Fan Translation
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_4f9892c3
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Fan Translation: The archive allows you to publish translations of fanfiction and has a few settings available that makes it easier to give the original authors credit.invoked
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_55baac26
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Alan Smithee
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_55baac26
comment
Alan Smithee: If authors want to disassociate themselves from a work but don't want to take it down, they can choose to orphan the work. All orphaned works are moved to "orphan_account". Users who still want to retain some degree of control and be able to reply to new comments are advised to either add the works to the 'anonymous' collectionnote which is modified such that any mentions of the author's username are replaced with "Anonymous" and the work isn't shown on their profile anymore, or transfer ownership to a throwaway account using the "co-author" property. invoked
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_68f81ea8
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Real-Person Fic
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_68f81ea8
comment
Real-Person Fic: Unlike FanFiction.Net, fics involving real people are allowed on the Archive.
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_6a32e019
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Omegaverse
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_6a32e019
comment
Omegaverse: "Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics" is a tag. At over 165,000 works and counting (of which just over 3,000 are Original Works, the rest being fanfiction), AO 3 has one of the largest collections (if not the largest collection) of Omegaverse stories on the entire internet.
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_808cbaeb
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Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_808cbaeb
comment
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: There are multiple statements in AO3's Terms of Service reiterating that the website isn't responsible for any content that harms, disturbs, or triggers the user, often rattling off a list of intense adjectives describing said content that always ends with "grammatically incorrect" or "badly spelled".
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_808cbaeb
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_83444b89
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MST
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_83444b89
comment
MST: Unlike FF.net, this is allowed on the site and even has a legitimate tag dedicated to it.
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_83444b89
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_a70b0af0
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Script Fic
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_a70b0af0
comment
Script Fic: Unlike FanFiction.Net, fics that use script instead of prose format are allowed on the Archive.
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_a70b0af0
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_aa8f52c7
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Porn with Plot
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_aa8f52c7
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Porn with Plot and Porn Without Plot: Both tags on the site.
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_aa8f52c7
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Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_aa8f52c7
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_b21ddb6b
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Content Warnings
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_b21ddb6b
comment
Content Warnings: The Archive has four primary content warning flags: "Graphic depictions of violence", "Rape/non-con", "Major character death", and "Underage". Authors can also choose to select "None of these warnings apply", indicating the story has no major content warnings, or "Choose not to use Archive warnings", indicating that they have chosen not to forewarn readers as to the content. Additional content warnings may also be provided in the tags.
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Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_b21ddb6b
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_c1da78ef
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Soulmate AU Fic
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_c1da78ef
comment
Soulmate AU Fic: 32,000+ of them, sorted into subcategories based on whatever Red String of Fate is prevalent.
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_c1da78ef
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_dca6a9d
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Start My Own
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_dca6a9d
comment
Start My Own: Essentially the reason for the site's existence, with a dash of deliberately learning from history. The site is entirely funded by donations (no ads means no dealing with advertiser content policies), retains legal counsel (just having a lawyer on speed dial is often enough to fend off spurious legal threats to legitimately transformative works), and has a broad, clearly defined leadership structure with conflict resolution procedures (to prevent a site leadership implosion from taking the whole thing down from the top). All of these are lessons learned the hard way from other fandom sites.
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_e2cfb212
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Fake Relationship
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_e2cfb212
comment
Fake Relationship: Has its own tag, with over 40,000 fics written as of November 2022.
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_e2cfb212
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 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_f010f6b4
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Adjustable Censorship
 Archive of Our Own (Website) / int_f010f6b4
comment
Adjustable Censorship: If you don't want to see certain content, archive warnings, ratings, or pairings as a reader, you can set the search to filter whatever you don't want to see from the results. It's one of the most comprehensive filtering systems of any fan-fiction archive, making it easy to find whatever you're looking for even outside of triggering or sexual content, such as a specific pairing, characterization, or AU scenario.
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Archive of Our Own (Website)

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Welcome Reality + Equestria / Fan Fic
seeAlso
Archive of Our Own (Website)
 Alone Together (Fanfic)
seeAlso
Archive of Our Own (Website)
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Advertised Extra / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Alan Smithee / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Banned in China / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Boring, but Practical / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Common Crossover / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Content Warnings / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Crack Fic / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Died During Production / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Fake Relationship / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Fandom-Specific Plot / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Foe Yay Shipping / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Full-Name Basis / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Magical Girl Warrior / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Newbie Boom / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Omegaverse / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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One True Threesome / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Perpetual Beta / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Sick Episode / int_e6a2610e
 Archive of Our Own (Website)
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Spoiled by the Format / int_e6a2610e