I understand alot of people might be upset about the wattpad thing, fair whatever.

But using terms like immigrant and migrant in negative terms is starting to come off a bit on the bigoted side especially given today’s political climate.

Like I understand that wattpad users maybe acting a bit childish and annoying but they are real people and we’re being gross about real people over fiction.

If you are the same person who preaches “fandom etiquette” or “fiction doesn’t effect reality” and you find yourself channeling an inner maga and calling people “stupid migrants” (yes ive seen this a couple times already) please step back and maybe go feel the grass between your toes. There are better ways to criticize someone or something without getting crazy.

With the wave of Wattpad users “moving to AO3” (which I’ve only seen complaints about and not anyone actually doing this), I’ve also seen videos about people’s favourite fics being deleted and the comments filled with people blaming Wattpad users for mass-reporting them or something.

1. You can’t mass report on AO3.

2. If it actually got removed from AO3, good. It was reviewed by a real human and it was determined to be plagiarism, not a fan-work, spam or mistagged. Deserved.

3. A missing fic does not mean it’s been reported and removed, that’s actually the least likely thing that’s happened to it. It just got deleted by the author, happens all the time. Stop blaming Wattpad users when it’s near-impossible for it to be anything to do with them.

These ‘Wattpad users’ are real people, I understand there’s discourse around the whole thing but, jeez. Relax. We’re all human.

A new reader found my long-time series and left detailed comments on every single one of my 70+ chapters.

I think I may have reached Nirvana 🥹

What is with this mean girl clique attitude shaming wattpad users and treating them all like they will be guilty of "crimes" they haven't committed.

I wrote a big ass rant but lost it when I minimized the reddit app.

Essentially the point of it was - just stop. This is embarrassing and so disappointing of the community. Even the jokes/memes putting them down aren't funny and clearly unwelcoming.

The volunteers of ao3 won't start censoring content because of some random opinions on tiktok. They won't remove your stories based on false reports. If you're so concerned lock your fics to registered users only. I doubt many people acting in bad faith will really wait 3 weeks for an invite. Stop arguing with people on tiktok or other sites. Hell, just stay away from those posts entirely. Stop giving them engagement. What do you think being hostile is going to achieve? Arguing with people on other sites won't do any good. You aren't going to change their minds. Their posts aren't going to get ao3 shut down.

Let's be excited about all the new stories we're going to receive, the new readers and commenters. Show new users why we love ao3 so much. Let them feel comfortable to ask questions and learn how to use the site that's brought us all so much joy.

(I wouldn't be suprised if this post gets removed, but if it does I hope posts being rude to wattpad users are also removed. It would be a nice gesture for a mega thread to be created welcoming new users and providing resources for how ao3 works. I know some people have created very useful guides on how to utilize the site)

I don't mean why the ship is popular. I'm well-aware of Boostle's subtext and queerbait over the decades.

I'm confused how they are so popular *without* any major adaptation appearences.

In the DC fic fandom, adaptations have a huge impact on how popular a ship will be. Only a fraction of fics are comic based, in comparison to adaptation based and "patchwork fic" mixes. A fic can be hugely popular in the comics but barely have any fics (look at Linda x Wally West vs Jinx x Wally West vs Artemis x Wally West-- add in Dick x Wally West for fanon comparison too).

If not due to adaptations, a ship can become big if it's a b-ship to a popular ship. But Boostle is a JLI ship, not Batfam, Wonderfam, or Superfam related in the slightest. What would it be a b-ship too? If anything, *other* JLI ships are treated like the b-ship to Boostle.

Did I miss something in the DC fandom? Was there some fanartist or fanfic that made the ship popular with casual/non-comic reading fans? Did Teen Titans Go's five seconds of canon Boostle have *that* big of an impact?

In comparison, Beatriz x Tora (an equally queerbaited, if not more so ship) doesn't even have 40 fics tagged under it. And Guy x Tora-- a *canon* ship from the same team-- has under 60.

Now that we have people talking about a different fanfic platform, it's a great opportunity for Ao3 users to learn about a feature that is often overlooked despite being one of the reasons for the creation of the platform.

I'm talking about External Bookmarks, of course.

What are External Bookmarks?

External Bookmarks are a special type of bookmark that Ao3 users can create: rather than bookmarking an existing fic on Ao3, it allows users to bookmark fics that have been published on other websites. These include (but are not limited to) fanfic platforms like FFnet or Wattpad, forums, personal websites and yes, even blogs!

How do I use them?

It's easy! Once logged in, go to Your Profile and select My Bookmarks. On the right side of the screen you will see the "Bookmark External Work" button. Fill in the required information: fanfic name, author, link to the fic...and presto! You now have a bookmark to you favourite fic from your old platform!

Ok but what's the point?

The point is that fandom doesn't need to be centralised. There are countless places where people write fic, and as amazing as Ao3 is, we can't possibly move every fic there. When people leave platforms behind, sometimes they leave authors too, people that used to be active there until one day when they never logged back. These literary treasures can be forgotten if people don't keep their memory alive, and it's frustrating to see people complain about the lack of fics for a fandom or ship, knowing those fics are out there and nobody knows about them...

But by using the fabulous Tagging System on Ao3, we can make the search for obscure fics accesible to everybody! No more "somebody reuploaded my fic onto a different platform without permission" or "there are no fics for this old fandom! this show was never popular!" And specially, no more "I can't use [platform], the search system sucks! There's nothing good there anyways!": we can now bypass tedious search systems by directly linking to these fics, just like in a recommendation list!

How come I've never heard about this?!

The reasons are twofold:

Firstly, many people ignore the FAQ, which is a shame, as there are tons of tips and info on the platform!

But second, the centralisation of fandom has had the negative effect of people forgetting why Ao3 created the Bookmarks feature to begin with. One does not need Ao3 to bookmark fics for oneself, any internet browser nowadays has that function (for free!). The reason Ao3 implemented Public Bookmarks by default was due to Social Bookmarking: the idea of sharing links among your community to help eachother find things that would otherwise be difficult to find. In an era where algorithmic recommendations were non-existent and fandoms were often times not centered around one particular platform, sharing links was the only way to find stuff that might exist outside your orbit.

At the time, the role of these fandom archivers was greatly appreciated, and with the launch of Bookmarking Services, entire communities dedicated themselves to the classification and preservation of fanfic links: these people wrote out summaries, implemented detailed tag classifications and kept track of updates to keep everything up to date. This is because often times, authors did not add summaries, warnings, tags, or any key information to their fics, hence why the responsibility fell on readers and bookmarkers. It was a joint effort, by readers, for readers, even against the wishes of those authors who refused tagging due to spoilers or twists.

Sadly, as it tends to happen, these platforms rarely last forever, and many were lost to time due to new owners, increasing monetisation, advertiser friendly policies and the like. Fandom decided they couldn't rely on third parties anymore, hence the inclusion of a Bookmarking Feature, meant to share links among users of a new platform that never sought to become the one stop for all fanfic.

But that is precisely what happened: victim of its own success, Ao3 became so popular nobody ever used other platforms anymore, and so the role of bookmarkers was lost to time. The use the feature became increasingly personal, used as a reading list (despite the Mark for Later feature) as well as a tracker of sorts, which prompted users to ask for a Private Bookmarks option, and that leads us to...today.

So next time somebody asks "where's all the [something] fic?" or "why aren't bookmarks private by default?" and even "bookmarks are not a readers' space, what does that even mean" you remind them of all the people in fandom that contributed to the search for fics, the people who wrote fics in the past that haven't yet been forgotten, and hey, perhaps you direct them to the Bookmarks section to start a new recommendation list! Find your new favourites, and help others find theirs too! 💕