Archive of Our Own


You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, triggering, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, grammatically incorrect, or badly spelled.

—Clause from the Terms of Service

Archive of Our Own (also known as AO3) is a Fanfic/Fan Works web site; in addition to the written word it also hosts other media, such as Fan Vids, Fan Art and podcasts. The site itself has been running since late 2008, but only started to become widespread and popular from 2011 onward. To give an indication of how young it is compared to the existing behemoth Fanfiction.net, AO3 contains, as of July 2019, over 5,000,000 fanworks in total. To compare, Fanfiction.net, its main competition and predecessor, is estimated to host about anywhere between 10 to 20 million stories. The rise in popularity of AO3 was helped along by the rise of Tumblr, as both sites initially shared a similar fandom mentality and outlook; when the fandom ambient in Tumblr changed on the late 2010s to be more restrictive, AO3 began to serve as a fandom haven.

Part of the reason AO3 has comparatively less fanworks than other sites, even taking account for age and traffic, is because the site only accepts new users by invitation. While nowadays they have an easy button to get one and the queue of acceptation moves quite fast, at the beginning the only way to get an invite was by other user inviting you, and the first users were BNFs. That, and the fact that their initial main focus was into backing up fanfic archives in danger, gave the site the reputation of being "elitist" and "full of actually good quality fic". Due to having been funded by survivors of content purges in several other sites (more notoriously the FF.net purge of NC-17 fanfics and LiveJournal's deletion of fandom blogs in 2007), Archive of Our Own allows writers to publish any content, so long as it is legal. Yes, including Lemon fics and Rule 34. Of course, just like with any other fanfiction site, there are talented writers, and then there are some who are less talented.

The main differentiating features of the site are the "kudos" button (a version of the "likes" in Facebook, except that you don't need to be registered to give one), its "collection" system (that lets the authors link fics together as part of a "series" and to group together fics produced by different authors for particular criteria like fandom events or themed challenges) and its tagging system (very similar to Tumblr's own, and with similar ups and downs). The site encourages users to use the tag system as a complement of Media Classifications, to add content warnings for controversial contents (like "Death of a major character" or "Rape/Non-Con") and so reinforce the informed version of "Don't Like, Don't Read". AO3 also let the authors orphan (i.e. dissociate their name/online identity from) their fan works and to lock their fics to be viewed only by registered users if they wish to, which serves as an alternative to deleting everything in case the author wants to leave their fandom identity behind. The site has several usability improvements not present in other sites, like providing in-site color schemes designed for easy reading, showing the full fic in a single page instead of chapter by chapter, and downloading the fanfic as an e-book for offline reading.

As of 2018, the most popular fandoms on the site include Haikyuu!! Harry Potter, Homestuck, Supernatural, Doctor Who and its spinoffs, Marvel and The Avengers (mostly centered on the Marvel Cinematic Universe incarnation of the franchise), DCU, Star Wars, Real Person Fic (usually centered on K-pop bands, One Direction and Videogame YouTubers), and Sherlock Holmes (mostly because of popular adaptations like Sherlock).

In April 2019, AO3 received a Hugo Award for "Best Related Work".

Tropes used in Archive of Our Own include:
  • Alan Smithee: If an author wants to abandon a work but not delete it, it can be orphaned. This is the next step before deletion and allows for the work to remain visible, but the author cannot edit, modify, or delete it any further.
  • Broken Base: The Archive has had several Broken Bases of their own, but the most prominent ones are arguments for and against illegal/taboo sexual acts such as rape, incest, and pedophilia, regardless of the marked Content Warnings. The critics say that it should be banned, while the writers back up the free speech principle of the site.
  • But You Screw One Goat!: Played straight, unlike Literotica. Bestiality is a recognized tag.
  • Censorship Bureau: None whatsoever. The Archive allows for complete freedom in what people choose to write and release. Depending on the quality of the content, however...
  • Content Warnings: There are four required warnings for the Archive ("Major Character Death", "Graphic Depictions of Violence", "Rape/Non-Con", and "Underage".) The fifth warning is basically saying that none of these apply (i.e. "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings".)
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Inevitable, considering that fanfictions are available for downloads as PDFs, EPUBs, or JPGs.
  • Lemon: Given the type of site, this should come as an inevitability.
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