Fanfic Discourse - Tumblr Posts
"Why can't the freaks on AO3 just go and make a site for all the gross stuff and leave AO3 alone."
Because AO3 is that site. Because AO3 was that site long before you decided AO3 was better than the sites you bullied us off of before, and I can promise you if someone somehow comes up with a fanfic site you like better specifically for the 'gross stuff' you'll try to bully us off that too so you can benefit from it.
AO3's specific core purpose is to preserve fanfiction, yes, but it was also instigated as a host site for the fanfiction that kept getting yeeted off other platforms like Wattpad. Its designed to preserve all fanfiction, not just the fanfiction you, personally, think is 'allowed' to be written.
AO3 is the site for all the gross stuff the freaks make. We've been there just as long as you. We've been funding it just as long as you have. AO3 has specifically said you have a place here. The timeline was literally:
Wattpad/FF.net/LiveJournal purge fanfics > AO3 is born > The people who's fics got purged moved over to AO3 > AO3 gains popularity as the best functioning site > The people who pushed for the fics to be purged off Wattpad move to AO3 > The same people try to push for AO3 to purge fics.
AO3's source coding is open-access. You go make a polished, strict, rigid site where nothing 'icky' is allowed. You go make a site where you can control what is hosted. We already have our space.
Tags and summaries are actually part of your storytelling. Please, for the love of god, stop making summaries that are just things like;
Read for the story
Idk I'm bad at summaries lol
Non-ownership disclaimers*
Character/Character slash fic
DON'T LIKE DON'T READ
[Ship name] highschool AU
[character] meets [character] and they work together and fall in love
Read the tags and check it out
*Which, by the way, you don't need to do, because AO3 does it for you. You don't need to tell people you don't own Marvel on AO3. AO3 would bodyslam Anne Rice for you.
Please. For my sanity. Even if you just copy and paste an interesting paragraph from the story. Your summary is supposed to summarise the story. Its supposed to tell you about the story. Your tags are also designed for that purpose; to tell the reader what you've written.
Is it an AU? Canon divergence? Crossover? Fusion? Who's dating who? Who's gay and who's just a himbo on thin ice? Is it 90s slasher gore or just a little MTV style blood splatter? First person? Third?
You don't have to tag every single aspect of the fic, especially if you want to keep some parts of it secret to not give away scenes or plot points, but please, at least give the reader enough to have a general idea of what they're going into. At least give them enough for them to decide if the fic is something they want to check out, because I know I'm not alone when I say I'll just scroll past a fic that has absolutely no visible information or detail. No matter how high the wordcount.