If you’re coming from Wattpad, the most important thing to understand about AO3 is that it was built around archiving, not policing what people read.
That’s the culture shock.
The funniest thing about AO3 discourse is watching people discover that a website built by fanfiction writers for fanfiction writers is, in fact, not Wattpad with a different logo.
The tags are not there to protect your innocence. They are there so you can make an informed decision before opening chapter 1.
For those who will be coming from Wattpad to AO3, please listen. 💜⚠️
- AO3 is not going to be filtered automatically. There is an amazing filter system that is easy to learn to use. Please use it and don't be shitty to people who write outside of your filters.
-AO3 will not be making an app for a reason. It keeps them from having to uphold purity culture, censorship, etc.
-PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MIND YOUR MANNERS.
Deer Wattpad users: I feel sorry for you waking up to your new terms and conditions. This sort of purge is exactly what ruined FFN, Tumblr, and LiveJournal.
HOWEVER--if you're going to migrate to Ao3 as a new user you're going to need to get real cool with a lot of things real fast.
Ao3 was founded by a Wincest shipper in part as a response to that sort of censorship. AO3 is an archive and does not permit a very narrow number of things. If you want to clean it up you are wasting your time.
DearWattpad refugees,
1--Archive of Our Own does not have an algorithm.
2--You cannot mass report a fic on AO3.
3--No one receives an email notifying them that a fic they reported was taken down.
4--The person who wrote Ao3's T&C is a leading expert in the First Amendment and a Harvard Law professor.
If you cannot handle the content you are finding on Ao3 stop making up lies and go back to Wattpad before Kinktober.
Y'all are exhausting.
I love the rain, it calms me down. I love to listen to the pitter patter outside my window. I love the scent of fresh earth as the water hits the ground.
How am I supposed to express joy outwardly when my insides are a bubbling raging chaos of rage, sadness, loneliness, disappointment, and painful numbness?