The egg came first

welcome! here are what you need to know about ao3 and how it’s the complete opposite of wattpad

trigger warning for the mention of contents that are allowed on ao3 that can be triggering to some.

ao3 is a non-profit organization. it’s run by fans (people like you and me), for fans.

fans donate to the site on their own free will to keep the site up and running smoothly.

ao3 is not a social media. it is an archive.

ao3 doesn’t have ads. it doesn’t have algorithms. it doesn’t have “going viral.”

everything is endlessly free on ao3. there is no “ao3 premium.” you will never see a single ad on ao3, and you can download as many fics as you want to read offline for free.

ao3 doesn’t have an app. and ao3 doesn’t need an app. any “ao3 apps” you see are third-party apps and are not affiliated with ao3, so be careful giving these shady apps your login infos or other personal information.

ao3 was built with the main purpose to 1.) be completely against censorship and 2.) host fics that are banned on other platforms like wattpad.

the reason ao3 doesn’t have an app is because for it to have its own app, appstore and google play store will have to approve it first. and due to the contents ao3 allow, chances are that it won’t get approved. which is actually a good thing. it doesn’t need an app. it works more than fine without an app.

on ao3, every single thing is allowed as long as it is fanfic or fan work (original works, fan art and video edits count as fan works, but if you want to post a video edits on ao3, you will have to post it elsewhere and then link it back to ao3 — ao3 cannot host video edits on its platform due to copyright issues)

by every single thing that is fanfic, I mean every single thing:

the filthiest smut without plot that is written purely for sexual pleasure is allowed. it has its own canonical tag called “plot what plot, porn without plot.”

fics that focus on non-consensual sexual intercourse are allowed, doesn’t matter if the fics glorify or romanticize the act, doesn’t matter if they’re written as kinks. they have their own canonical tag called “rape/non-con.”

fics about characters who are minors are allowed, even if they’re portrayed in a sexual manner, even if they’re non-consensual sexual intercourse. even if the minor characters are romantically and/or sexually involved with characters who are adults. even if they fics are written in ways that glorify and/or romanticize the thing. they have their own canonical tag called “underage sex.”

fics about incest are allowed. doesn’t matter if they glorify or romanticize the relationship. they have their own canonically tag called “incest.” fun fact: the first ever fic that was posted on ao3 was a fic about an incest ship from supernatural.

fics about self-harm and suicide are allowed. doesn’t matter if they glorify or romanticize the act. they have their own canonical tags called “self-harm” and “suicide” also “suicidal ideation”, “suicide attempt”, “implied/referenced suicide”, etc.

fics about violence and gore are allowed, even if they were written for the sake of shock value. they have their own canonical tag called “violence”, “blood and gore”, “blood and injuries”, etc.

rpf is also allowed. doesn’t matter if the content of the fics are dark and taboo. they’re treated the same way as any other fics.

every single dark and taboo fic you can think of is allowed. and it has its own canonical tag. because it is the main reason why ao3 was created in the first place.

“but what do I do if I don’t wanna see fics about xyz?” you can filter out any specific tag, character and/or pairing you want.

“what do I do if I wanna find fics about xyz?” you can search for any specific tag, character and/or pairing you want.

a lot of ao3 users rely on tags to search for specific tags, pairings, characters they want. they also rely on tags to filter out and exclude specific tags, pairings, and characters that they don’t want to see.

ao3’s tagging system is by far the most efficient one I’ve ever seen.

on ao3, our main principles are “don’t like don’t read” — which means YOU have a responsibility to curate your own internet experience. yes, ao3 allows all kind of messed up fics, but they also allow you the ability to NOT see anything you don’t want to see, by filtering out specific fics, pairings and/or characters.

no. you cannot harass authors who write about things that disgust you. you can and will be reported for harassment, and ao3 takes harassment very seriously. they will not take your side. because fucked up fics are allowed on ao3—fucked up fics are the main reason ao3 was created—whereas harassment is a direct violation of their terms of service.

ao3 is a house of the freaks and the perverts (affectionate). you ARE in the house of the freaks and the perverts. so don’t think about harassing or being rude to the freaks and the perverts who built this anti-censorship house and are kind enough to let you in.

ao3 is proship, profic, and anti-censorship.

any writer can write whatever they want, however they want. the only etiquette is that you tag your stuff properly and accurately

mistagging for visibility is heavily frowned upon here, and it won’t get your works more views. people will either block or report you if you deliberately mistag things with the purpose of getting your fic more views. as I’ve said before, ao3 is an archive. it’s not a social media. it doesn’t have algorithms or going viral.

if you come across a fic that has the tag “creator chose not to use archive warnings” it means the fic may or may not contain topics that can be triggering, but the author won’t tell you what these topics are, or if there are any at all. so proceed at your own risk.

that said, because ao3 is a non-profit site that hosts millions of works about others’ copyrighted characters, you CANNOT link a monetization platform anywhere on ao3, you CANNOT mention any donation, commission—or anything that involves money—anywhere on ao3. no, you cannot imply donation, commission, or anything that involves money either. that is against their terms of service.

and because ao3 is a place for fanworks, the “work section” of your post has to actually be fanwork (fanfic, original work, fan art, link to a video edit count as fanwork). anything that isn’t fanwork is not allowed.

you cannot post something on ao3 that is not fanwork. so no political statement, no call-out post, no “I’m looking for fics about xyz”.

ao3 is anti censorship as long as what your post is actually fanwork and as long as you don’t violate their terms of service that I’ve mentioned above.

ao3 has their own team of lawyers to protect them, their users, and every fanwork that is posted on their platform.

last but not least, don’t write directly onto ao3. write and store your works elsewhere before copy and paste them onto ao3 once they’re ready to post!! because ao3 does NOT autosave drafts for you, you risk losing everything you’ve typed if there’s a glitch, if the site crashes or if your device unexpectedly shuts down for whatever reason.

type of shit roman and rem do when they get along

If you look closely you’ll see the wavy ruffles in most of the entries.

But I wanna talk about Roman and his design, specifically his face.

You might be saying "They have the same face-" and you'd be right! But they have accessories they put on themselves that make them distinct from one another.

Logan and Patton have Glasses;

Virgil has eyeshadow, and so does Remus alongside his mustache; and

Janus literally has a snake face!

Among all the sides, Roman is the only side who looks the most like c!Thomas! No extra makeup, no accessories, and no other characteristics other than Thomas' face!

Which makes a lot of sense since he's literally c!Thomas' ego! His hopes, his dreams, his creativity, everything that he associates are the best of him/the things he love. So it would make sense that c!Thomas perceives (and therefore manifests) Roman as himself or atleast an ideal version of himself!!

About what "Protect the youth" has become. Idk what it was like in other countries and I know that it very likely could have been stricter than it was in my country back then. But generally:

He was like "When I was 16, there were two kinds of adult content: Horror movies and explicitly depicted sexual content. The first made me have nightmares, the latter (as in what you could get in video rental stores) generally wasn't of much interest to me because it wasn't something I, as a 16 year old, could relate to. And other sexual content that was interesting (and/or helpful) WAS freely accessible. So whenever I saw an "18+" label somewhere, I just completely ignored that content because I knew it wouldn't be interesting at all to me.

But NOW, what's declared 18+ is even an excessive amount of swear words in streams! NOW, when I see an "18+" label, I don't know if it's horror movies that'll give some 16 year olds nightmares, if it's completely unrelatable porn, OR if it's educational sex ed, a 20 year old talking about their really healthy relationship with their partner (that includes intimacy), education about consent in BDSM (which affects 16 year olds as well, there's no age limit to curiosity), a live stream of wholesome musicians who happen to drink a couple of beers during kind of therapeutic talks, or simply people who aren't puritans and say "fuck" a lot! An 18+ label isn't worth anything anymore!"

And yeah... That's just it.

People who talk about body changes during their (first!) puberty are even labelled adult content. Even though puberty very much happens BEFORE adulthood. It's helpful content for minors. And it's labelled "adult" to "protect the youth".

cant stop thinking about madk lately take some heinously sloppy warmups

looking at what the actual attacks are, this is janus's first against patton:

Right, because making Thomas feel inadequate for not dying in someone else's stead isn't tough at all.

and his second:

Here's the thing, Patton: Pushy is pushy. That faux-flexible rhetoric that you're using to "soften" your approach doesn't change your intentions. It just... disguises them.

(the speech bubble that hits starts at the word doesn't, but i'm including the full phrase for clarity.)

these are both directed at patton's specific approach to thomas in this episode. the first pointing out how he's actually making thomas feel, and the second comparing patton's way of attempting to soften things to the kind of lying and disguising janus might do. it makes sense that these would hit home for him.

then there's patton's attack. the actual word bubble that he attacks with is this:

And I don't know if I can believe whatever you tell me.

and this is his intended attack, and it's towards janus. and yes, this is directed at janus, but this is nothing he hasn't heard before. it's what they've been saying to him this whole time. it's an easy thing to dodge. 

but what's the preceeding dialogue to this statement, for context as to what patton is not believing, exactly?:

What I'm saying is Thomas has a really good life that other people... don't. You're over there talking about putting on your oxygen mask before helping another passenger, but we're not in a crashing plane! If the situation was that serious, then sure, he can focus entirely on himself... but does he deserve it? I don't know.

so what patton is saying he's not sure if he can believe, partially because it's coming from janus, is the idea that thomas deserves to focus on himself outside of a life and death situation, that he can focus on himself then, but even in those circumstances, patton's is unsure if it's something he'd deserve. and that he doesn't believe janus, who is advocating for thomas here.

from a metaphorical perspective, of course this hits thomas and not janus!!! he's basically the unintentional target of these words. patton is so focused on janus and the idea of being a good and selfless person, that he doesn't realise that these words are far more damaging to thomas than janus, doesn't see that he's hurt thomas until janus points it out.

on a second point: both of the health bars change to reveal thomas's mental health, not just the one on janus's side. how much does it matter that thomas specifically gets hit? it's metaphorical, and they're all a part of him.

the thing that has always been the problem is the sides arguing. anyone getting hit will be damaging to thomas's mental health. the physical attacks are just a slightly more direct version of the arguing that was already happening. before the lilypadton scenario is established, patton is still saying things that are just as damaging to thomas, they just aren't shown as literally until now. thomas was going to get hurt no matter what here. the physical hit against him just makes it a lot easier for janus to show this to patton, that he has the capacity to hurt thomas in such a direct sense, makes the emotional physical, where it would have continued to only be emotional (but just as damaging) had janus taken the hit himself. in that case letting thomas take the hit here may not even be that big of a sacrifice for janus as self preservation to make!

(i can't say i know how physically damaging a hit from the personification of your morality who is currently a giant frog would be, but the apartment seemed fine afterwards, at least.)