Écoute, Chérie

Yesterday, I was out digging in my front yard (I'm rewilding my lawn) and a truck pulled over. A 62-year-old woman gets out, thanks me for my sign, and admits how scared she is to put up her own Democratic lawn sign. She's a registered Republican who hasn't voted for Republicans in more than a decade. We talked for half an hour and I just texted her about the VP Debate watch party this Tuesday.

Things learned:

Not all registered Republicans are actually Republicans.

Boomers and Gen X age voters are changing their minds.

Having a yard sign makes a difference.

Same for works on AO3. Sure, maybe some of us have some old works that aren’t up to our current standards of writing. But I, personally, am never going to look at a kudos email and think “ew omg I can’t believe someone found this fic from 2016 why are they liking it”. In fact, I am entirely going to go “nice! people are still reading some of my older works too, I’m glad they enjoyed it”. It’s an archive, it is meant to be a collection of transformative works, old and new, and you are meant to find them. 

In fact, if you find a work that is from five years ago and you really liked it? I bet the author would love a comment even then.

Stories are written to be read. 

Part of why there’s sortable searches at AO3 is to let you find fics for a now-dormant fandom, fics that are no longer canon-compliant after the new episodes, fics that work with fanon tropes that are no longer popular, fics from authors who are no longer actively writing… and just fics that weren’t written recently.