Existing For the Randomness of life

No, no, and NO.

AO3 does not live in “the cloud” because that is other people’s computers, and other people’s computers are vulnerable to censorship.

AO3 is on its own computers. It does still have to be housed somewhere, and I suppose a determined enough hater could try to find that place and go after it, but it’s a lot harder than sending spurious complaints to Amazon or whomever going “BadWrong things are hosted on your cloud service!”

AO3 is not “in the cloud.” AO3 is stored on physical machines that the OTW owns.

He hears a voice call out "Dinnae drink frae that, meester, it's a' fu' o' coo piss an' shite!".

Turning, the hiker sees a Scottish shepherd leaning on a stick, and he replies "I'm terribly sorry, but could you kindly repeat that in the King's English?"

This isn’t about anything.

This isn’t about anything.

Since he passed away his wife owned everything, including the bookshop (once library) but somehow his children were left all the books. Locked in a fight over who should own it all, the shop was locked up and closed down. Years started to pass and still the doors remained locked. Until I learned to pick them. As a young teen I would sneak in with a large bag and carry what I could out at night. For two years I did this. I was never caught and no one went to the shop. (Part 2)

I donated all the books. Only keeping one for myself. I gave the books to homeless shelters and women’s shelters. I left them in donation boxes for children and random places in town or the coffee shop. One night the shop was burnt down by the owners son for insurance money - angry his dad left books and not money. Nothing survived the fire. I’m much older now and I know stealing is wrong but I’m glad I did because I know the books I stole got a chance to live on in other hands. (Part 3)

Sometimes when I see my kids reading their books I can’t help but smile and think back to the nights I would pick old locks to climb through old windows with a duffel bag much bigger than myself that weighed twice what I did. My kids think I’m lame and silly and only good at cooking spaghetti but they have no idea that the book I read to them at bedtime is my only souvenir of a much dangerous and exciting life I lived so long ago. (Part 4)

For clarification, I was 10 when the shopped closed, 13 when I first broke in and the two years that followed for twice a month every month I would carry out my weight in literature gold. Sometimes I miss being young. (Part 5)

PLEASE WRITE A BOOK

also, we should all carry our weight in literature at least once in our lives

YOU ARE GOALS, NONNIE 

This is your semi frequent reminder that there is no official AO3 app

All those are unofficial and available on the Google play store as of August 13th 2025. They mirror AO3's content and insert ads, for which the developer gets paid by page impression (that's every time the ad appears in the fic you're reading) not just clicks.

No money goes to AO3, nor to the fic writer. It goes to the person who did the bare minimum.

Many of these apps have poorly worded or non existent privacy policies, so they may also be mining as much data as possible and selling that on to unknown third parties.

Really good Twitter thread originally about Elon Musk and Twitter, but also applies to Netflix and a lot of other corporations.

Full thread. Text transcription under cut.