r/AO3

163K archived posts · Mar 2016 – Sep 2026

Archive Of Our Own

r/AO3

An unofficial sub devoted to AO3. The Archive of Our Own (AO3) offers a noncommercial and nonprofit central hosting place for fanworks. We are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. We preserve our fannish economy, values, and creative expression by protecting and nurturing our fellow fans, our work, our commentary, our history, and our identity while providing the broadest possible access to fannish activity for all fans.

Created Jan 24, 2016

225KMembers (last snapshot)

163KArchived posts

Celebrating AO3, the OTW, and fandom on Reddit!

This subreddit is dedicated to the website archiveofourown.org (AO3). AO3 is a database project of Organization for Transformative Works that hosts fanworks (fanfiction, podfics, fanart, etc).

Please note: this subreddit is not official or sanctioned by the admin of AO3. Some of the moderators or commentors may be volunteers but anything a volunteer says here is their own and not official. The best place to get official help with AO3 is by contacting the Support team via their form on the bottom of any page.

Feel free to modmail us any suggestions or comments!

Rules:

Flairs Required - Every post has to have a correct flair. Report posts with incorrect flairs and we’ll fix the flair. Correct flair helps with searching/sorting/only seeing the kinds of posts you are interested in.
Use the Megathreads - We have megathreads for Self-promotion/Reccomendations, Invite requests, and sometimes other special topics or events. Please keep these topics to their respective megathreads. We won't be allowing individual posts on these topics.
Personally Identifying Information - Please do not include personally identifying information (usernames, titles, photos of a person's face, etc) in your posts or comments outside of a work finding request or recommendation.
Don't search for works from here - Please do not try to find works mentioned in the subreddit (outside of work search posts of course) using the limited details in the posts. This is a form of brigading and keeps causing harassment issues and/or mass reporting problems. If someone breaks this rule by commenting on the work on AO3, please report it via modmail, not by reporting the post that lead to it with the report system. (We won't ask how you found out about said comment) Obviously doesn't apply to promo/exchange threads.
Commercial Promotion/Solicitation Rule - It's generally not allowed but some kinds of discussions are. See this post for the actual details.
Fic/Work Search Rule - Please make your own post to look for a fic/work. Do not comment to ask people to help you find a fic/work on another person's post. It clutters things and makes it harder for everyone.
Spam Comment/Webnovel Posts Moratorium We are imposing a ban on making posts sharing that you got one of the webnovel spam comments. We are not banning posts asking about them though. This is just a ban on the posts where the OP clearly knows about the issue already and is just posting that they got one.
Moratorium on AI posts/comments - Only posts about actual updates related to AI (either affecting AO3 or things like copyright law) and posts about novel subjects that we haven't seen in the subreddit before will be allowed for the time being. Please search the subreddit before posting anything related to AI.
Have you checked the pinned posts? - If you can't make a post, check the pinned posts before sending us modmail. We aren't going to enforce this 'rule', it's just informational to help direct people to the likely relevant information without having to go through modmail and wait for one of us to respond.
Don't fake report things that should be modmail - Don't report something to make a suggestion or a complaint about the sub on a sub-wide scale. Don't report something to ask us to change things. The correct thing to do in those situations is to send us modmail. If you don't know how to do that, please check this mod post for instructions.
Research Studies are allowed - Research Studies are allowed to be posted here and you do not need to ask prior to posting. All posts are subject to normal sub rules. Please use the 'Research Studies' flair for all studies and/or results. Studies must be related to something fandom, literature, or sexuality/gender, etc. in some way. If you have questions, feel free to send modmail.
Moderator Discretion - We are very open to what kinds of things can be posted here but we leave most things up to moderator discretion. The mod team discusses most changes and moderating decisions and ultimately everything is on a case-by-case basis. There are too many edge-cases to account for every situation. If something becomes a continual issue we will make a written rule about it.

Official AO3 presence on social media:

Twitter: @AO3org; status update twitter is @AO3_Status.
Tumblr: ao3org
Tag Wrangling Specific Twitter: @ao3_wranglers; Updates on certain tags that will be experiencing changes, and occasionally answers to questions about Tag Wrangling.

Helpful Stuff:

Useful Websites

Down For Everyone or Just Me? Determine whether a website is down or if it's just your faulty connection. Also @AO3_Status on twitter gives site status updates.

AO3 Tag of the Day - tumblr blog. Cataloguing some of the most hilarious fic tags on AO3 on a daily basis. Also AO3 Comment of the Day features a lot of great tips & info. (Run by an AO3 Volunteer but is an unofficial blog). Lastly, AO3skin A collection of site skins and tips for making them, for use on AO3

Browser Extensions

AO3's list of unofficial browser tools!

AO3rdr: rating system and block by tag system for Archive of Our Own

Extension of Our Own: Improved subscription list for Ao3 - Google Chrome only.

InteractiveFics: replaces Y/N & other variables in Reader Insert/second person fics with words of your choice. - Google Chrome only

Fanfiction Organizer: Mark stories as like or dislike to color code and organize on fanfiction.net and archiveofourown.org. - Google Chrome only

Userscripts

^Full ^list ^of ^AO3 ^userscripts ^available ^on ^greasemonkey ^here)

AO3 Savior is a script that allows you to permanently blacklist tags from your search results. Here's a solid tutorial on how to install/use it.

AO3 Crossover Savior is a script that allows you to hide fics in your search results that contain too many (you set the number) fandoms.

aooonewcrap: Highlight titles of new fics in a search results page (since the last time you visited it). Credit to u/slash_arr_slash, who made this script due to a thread here in r/AO3!

Bots

FanfictionBot. You can PM u/fanfictionbot fics and fanfictionbot will reply back with fic details & download links.

Unofficial Mobile Apps

This used to be a list of links to unofficial mobile apps. This is now a reminder that there is no official AO3 app and likely never will be. If you have downloaded a 3rd party app, we likely cannot help you with troubleshooting, and AO3's support definitely cannot. You will likely have to reach out to the app developer for any help with any unofficial app you may have.

Software

Calibre, free and extremely customizable e-book manager.

Related Subreddits:

r/FanFiction
r/FFdotNet
r/DeletedFanfiction
r/FanfictionExchange
r/TransformativeWorks
r/tumblrhelp
r/Fandom
r/Fangirls
r/SlashFanfiction
r/FanartforFanfics
r/AO3Recommendations
r/ZeldaFanFiction *^Note, ^we ^only ^add ^fandom ^non-specific ^subreddits ^here. ^Previously ^added ^fandom ^specific ^subreddits ^were ^grandfathered ^in ^when ^the ^current ^mod ^team ^took ^over.

Other communities

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