I'd rather have comments on my work than just kudos.

So yes I recently discovered I have a real thing for middle aged men getting it on..( which as it seems pretty par for the course here i won't wonder too much about as a historically straight middle ages lass who has tried to experiment but never really got it right) and for a while I was saving threads of suggestions and have been away perusing...and I like such As Slow show..(.who doesn't?) Anatomy (oo la la) , a new one by Caedmon "love to hate you", the loophole by fellish, the longest night by Charlottemadison to offer but a few...but I'd love some more suggestions of Smut with Feels if anyone can help? I'm sure I missed some good threads in my absence, so if u can just direct me that'd be great! Many thanks for any help!!

I am just curious to where you guys prefer reading fanfiction more.

I feel like Louis sometimes, observing people from a distance, but in this case it’s fandoms.

So it’s been 2 months since Engage has been released and between all the gameplay discussions and story discourse which literally boils down to “is it good or bad tho”, some of you may be wondering, how is the content-creating side of the fan base these days? New characters, new stories, new ships, and of course new fanfiction. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I adore fanfics, they can be angsty, fluffy, or even just plain fascinating in how they interpret different characters. So of course I was excited about what sort of fanfics would be cooked up for this game. One problem with that though:

The numbers are moving really slowly, and there isn’t much variety with them either.

Now, I need to preface this, fanfiction is a labor of love and no one should feel obligated to write for something they aren’t interested in. Also, what Engage fics are already out there are very good and this post isn’t to take away from their writing quality at all. I encourage people to read some fics on Ao3 and see what they like, please support fanfiction writers.

I’d also like to say that I’ll try my best to keep 3H comparisons to a minimum in this post. 3H was a huge outlier in terms of fan content for the series, literally more than half of Fire Emblem’s Ao3 tag is 3H related (42,743 out of 71,751 as of this time of writing). So I don’t think 3H would be helpful in this discussion, instead I’ll mostly stick to two other games for comparison: Fates and Awakening

What are the numbers?

Engage currently has 768 fics under its page on Ao3. The ship with the most fics is Alfred/Alear at 73 while the cutoff for entering the top 10 ships is 12 fics. Already we can see that fics concerning ships are low in number considering it’s fairly easy to make a ship enter the top 10 as long as you’re dedicated enough. Here’s the full list:

1. Alfred/Alear (73)

2. Alear/Ivy (54)

3. Diamant/Griss (25, mostly written by two people showing how dedicated fans can boost a ship’s numbers)

4. Diamant/Alear (25)

5. Marth/Alear (24)

6. Diamant/Ivy (20)

7. Diamant/Alcryst (19, yes you read this correctly)

8. Alcryst/Alear (18)

9. Diamant & Alcryst (17, note that the ‘&’ denotes this as platonic/familial)

10. Gris/Alear (12)

From this list, we can see that only the top two are notably ahead of the rest while all the other ships go up and down on a regular basis due to low fic numbers.

In terms of overall growth, I don’t have the exact numbers sadly, but this made a great graph last month showing overall activity for the fire emblem tag. Tldr, Engage’s fic numbers were steady but more 3H fics were still being written a month into Engage’s release.

How do they compare to Fates/Awakening?

It’s also interesting how Awakening (9,064) and Fates (9,077) have almost the exact same number of fics, which makes the side by side comparison all the more fascinating because it really shows the difference between each fanbase’s shipping habits.

I decided to screenshot them because I don’t have much to say on individual ships like Engage’s case. Overall, I’d say Engage is trending much closer to how Fates’ list looks given how the numbers are much more closely packed into each other. Between the 1st and 2nd place ships, approximately there’s a 3:2 ratio of fics, while the rest follow in similar numbers to each other. Both Fates and Engage show this trend, while Awakening has a huge ratio difference of around 6:1 between the 1st and 2nd place ships (or 7:1 for the franchise wide tag, as Chrom/Robin recently surpassed 2k fics under it).

I think by this point we can conclude that Engage isn’t gonna introduce any new pairings into the overall top 10 for the franchise, and it will continue to follow the Fates trend of having a wide variety of ships instead of having 1 ship almost completely dominate the game-specific tag.

Most fanfics are made when the piece of media is at it’s peak hype moment, and unless the DLC story does some crazy shit with it’s plot and characters, then most people would likely fall off by the time this year ends. And if the Geneaology remake rumors are true, then Engage would no longer be at the forefront of the fandom’s mind sooner than later. At the rate we’re going, Engage would be lucky to catch up to Fates and Awakening in terms of fanfiction numbers.

I’m gonna post a second part to this after clearing up some info, also I find that this makes the discussion more focused on certain aspects, so stay tuned! It’s gonna be more focused on why I think the fanfiction numbers have been low for the game

This post is inspired by a of a few people being quite daunted and/or confused by the prospect of finding fanfiction to read even if they are aware of AO3 as a site. I figured this deserved its own post.

Disclaimer: I'm hardly an expert at using AO3. I'm making this post with some basic tips as a starting-off point, and I invite any active AO3-users to contribute in the comments with additional tips and tricks.

Finding a Fandom

AO3 is primarily known for fanfiction, but the site also hosts completely original works. The tag Original Work can be browsed and filtered like any fandom. , if that is what you're interested in. (Original Work, sorted by Kudos, English only)

If you're interested in a specific fandom, there's two easy ways to get there:

• Option 1: On the top left, under "Fandoms", find the alphabetic list of all fandoms of one media type (e.g. Books & Literature). Click the letter your fandom starts with and then either scroll until you find it, or (recommended) use Ctrl+F on PC to find the fandom on that page. On mobile, your browser likely also has a Find in Page option. (Mine is there when I tap the three dots on the bottom right and then scroll down a bit, that's using Chrome on iOS)

• Option 2: Type the name of your Fandom/Piece of Media into the search bar and then click on the Fandom beneath any fic's title and author. : When I type "a court of thorns and roses" into the search bar, the second result is actually a Once Upon a Time Fic with that as a title. If I only want to see fics for Sarah J Maas book series, I click the "A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas" link with the dotted line underneath.

If you're not sure what you are looking for, here are some options:

• Go on the page and browse the most popular fandoms, see if any of that strikes your fancy

• Instead of starting with a specific fandom, you can also type a specific element/trope into the search bar. If you're looking for explicit things, try this with any kink or sex act, and you'll find plenty of stories that feature that thing. You can then further specify your search with the "Edit your Search" button on the top right.

Sorting

By default, fics on AO3 are sorted by when they were last updated. This is helpful for always getting shown something new, but if it's your first time venturing into a fandom (or into fanfic in general), you might want to start with something that's established and somewhat acknowledged. For that, I recommend using the "Sort and Filter" panel on the right of the page to . That way, you get the "best of" for our current search.

Remember to press the "Sort and Filter" button above to actually apply the new sorting.

Filtering Your Search

Once you're on the page of a specific fandom (or character, or sex act, whatever floats your boat), you can refine your search. Particularly useful to know:

• The search is split into Include and Exclude. This means that all tags, ratings, relationships etc. can be used to both filter for, as well as filter against

• This might not be obvious unless you click on it: the Categories search section is used to specify a gender combination, e.g. M/M or F/F or F/M

• If you're looking primarily for smut, filter by Include -> Rating -> Explicit. Note that an explicit rating doesn't mean there won't be anything but explicit content in the fic, but you can use tags such as "Porn Without Plot" or "Eventual Smut" to further specify.

• Open the Relationships section to see the most popular pairings in the chosen fandom or search. Note again, that if none of these strike your fancy, you can simply exclude them in the Exclude section and you'll see the next most popular ones.

• Remember that you always need to scroll back up and press the Sort and Filter button in order for your search parameters to get applied.

Kudos and Comments

Kudos: Kudos are AO3's version of Likes, but the culture around them is a little bit different: From what I've seen, you generally give a story Kudos as a bare minimum of "I read this, thanks for writing it". If you really enjoyed it, leave a comment saying so. If you really really enjoyed it and want to make sure you find it again, there is a bookmark function.

Critique: All work on AO3 is available for free. Respect the authors that put their time and effort into these stories, and remember that for writers much like for readers, AO3 is the place they go as a hobby and for fun. As such, it's common courtesy that Comments on AO3 are not a place for criticism. This isn't goodreads. If you leave a "3/5, the characterization was kind of inconsistent" beneath a fic on AO3, that is generally considered a dick move. Say something nice or move on.

Generally, it makes a lot of sense to just be generous with your comments and your kudos! AO3 comments don't need to be lengthy, but you have the chance to make any fic writer's entire week (and motivate them to write more!) with a simple "I loved reading this, thank you so much!" or any mention of any specific detail about the fic you enjoyed.

Edit for an addition: No fic is ever "too old" to leave a comment on. This is an Archive. You're not expected to keep up with fics as they release, and I promise you every author will find a lot of joy in their old fics getting newly appreciated.

Tags and "DDDNE"

AO3 is famous for a) allowing anything, there's no topic too dark or weird to be written about on this site and b) its extensive Tagging system that allows readers to search for as well as avoid literally anything. As Romance readers, most of us are already familiar with the concept of not yucking other people's yums and just staying out of the genres and tropes we don't enjoy, but on AO3 this goes doubly: If there's types of content you don't want to see (and I bet there is, for everyone), make sure to carefully look at a fic's tags before reading.

This means that you may find fic with tags/contents that are distasteful to you: from unusual kinks, to things like incest or underage characters, to unhealthy/immoral relationships... If you encounter such things, know that it is your own responsibility as a reader to avoid/ignore/exclude them.

The term "Dead Dove do not eat" is sometimes used to express this sentiment, based . What it boils down to is this: if something is tagged with a thing you absolutely don't want to see/support/promote/read about, then simply do not interact with it. Don't like, don't read. Make liberal use of your back button and/or your Exclude search options, but don't make it the problem of the people who do enjoy reading or writing about the controversial thing in question, at least not on AO3 itself.

Miscellaneous Tips

• Bookmark (either in AO3 or in your browser) your favorite tags or searches in order to quickly find something specific again. This is increasingly useful the more complex your searches get.

• If you like a thing (be it a character, a relationship, or any other tag/trope/act/kink), you can click on it and see more stories with that tag, character, relationship etc.

• When filtering by relationships, be aware of the difference between / and &: Astarion/Halsin means fic where the characters Astarion and Halsin are romantically/sexually involved with each other. Astarion & Halsin means fic where both characters appear and interact, but not necessarily as a couple. (side note: that's where the term "slash fiction" originates)

• There are a bunch of search field operators that you can use to further filter your searches. Find them here on the

• There are skins for AO3 that you can apply to make the site look different. For example, to view the site in "dark mode". .

• exists and has some further tips, browser extensions and other useful stuff in its sidebar.

• Edit for addition: AO3 very deliberately does not have anything like an "algorithm" to show you content, no "for you" page or anything like that. You curate your own experience, and AO3 doesn't track which tags you enjoy. .

Closing Words and Further Questions

Thank you for reading!! I know this seems really basic if you're already familiar with AO3, but considering that a few of you were so happy about my explanation in the , I believe this post is useful to a bunch of people!

If you're an AO3 regular yourself, please do feel free to chime in with additions, corrections and further tips for what I've missed. I haven't been using the site for that long, so I'm sure there's plenty to add.

Was recommened to make a post about this. Recently discovered you can download an entire stories epub from the site so I've been checking it out. Just finished reading .

RFM stories are definitely in the minority on there, but I'm curious if anyone knows any quality, preferably explicit ones.

Thanks!

I have recently switched to ao3 for posting my fanfiction.

Anyways I’m still new to how this site works since I’ve only ever read and never posted on it before. How do I get my fanfics noticed? They aren’t crazy popular on another site but I do get some attention and I’m proud of them. I’d love to share them on ao3 as well.

Either I'm finally smart for once or a complete dumbass for only realizing it now (because now that I think about it it's so obvious, it's probably the latter lol).

The people who created the website probably didn't want to abbreviate Archive Of Our Own as AOOO (or even just AOO if you disregard 'Of'), because it looks weird.

Since there are 3 O's (Of Our Own), they called it AO3 instead.

Illuminati confirmed *insert dramatic explosion effect*

Not sure what to go for, I usually go for fanfiction because it's easier to navigate.

Okay, no it wasn't actually me that did this. But it's a catchy title.

A few days ago an internet acquaintance of mine sent me this link after tiktok showed it to her. She has never watched or read Good Omens, but had just seen me talking about how I'd finished writing my Good Omens fanfiction. Somehow the great internet algorithm connected some dots, and this video is hilarious.

Or rather, which one of you is this?

"I sent my boss an Archive of our Own link"

คือสงสัยนิดนึงเกี่ยวกับ Archive of Our Own ว่าทำไมคนไทยใช้น้อยกว่า Readawrite,Tunwalai,Dek-D,Joylada,Fictionlog น่ะ ทั้งๆที่มันก็เหมาะกับการเขียนนิยายพอๆกัน

My newest novel, Spinning Silver, comes out today in the US and Thursday in the UK. I like to call it a conversation with the Rumplestiltskin fairy tale, although it’s probably more of an argument. My last book, Uprooted, won the Nebula. I spend my free time writing fanfic, painting D&D minis and terrain, making vids, and coding. I started the AO3 and wrote a lot of code for it. My current obligatory half-finished hacking project is a Harry Potter-style moving portrait that can be controlled with those magic wands you buy at Universal Orlando. I will show pictures of my computer to anyone who holds still long enough.

I'll be answering questions from about 11:30-2:30pm eastern time and will check in a last time for late questions this evening. (Stop by Book Culture on Columbus tonight at 7pm if you're in NYC for the in-person launch!)

Is that enough to go on? I think it is. AMA!

(oops, ETA: Proof: )

ETA: I'll try and check in later tonight or tomorrow and catch some stragglers, so if there's one you'd really like me to answer, upvote it! and I'll do my best. I also try and swing past Goodreads to answer questions there once in a while. Thanks so much for all the great questions and for having me!

I should mention: I'm also going to be at One More Page Books in VA on Wednesday, East City Bookshop in DC on Thursday, then San Diego Comic Con next week, and Harvard Bookstore on July 27 and DragonCon in Atlanta over Labor Day. Hope to see some of you there!

So, I was very surprised to read a review on somebody else's fic that said most people have moved from FFN to ao3. Sure enough, my favorite fandom has over double the fics posted on ao3. Rather than maybe one or two new ones/updates a day, the whole first page are fics from today or yesterday. Naturally I posted my fic on there as well lol. But I'm like brand new to ao3. I've very rarely read on it in the past and have only ever posted on there twice. I'm so used to FFN I find the ao3 interface confusing and rather displeasing to the eye, if I'm being honest. My chapter visually just looks like crap whereas it's nice and tight and neat on FFN.

As long as I've read/written fanfiction, fanfiction.net has been the place to be, so I'm just wondering if ya'll have any thoughts??