Dive Deep into Creativity: Discover, Share, Inspire
- readers, make an ao3 account to look at fics, it’s free, encourages artist to privatize their work to protect it without fear of losing their follower base.
- comment! interact! if you liked something specific in the fic don’t be shy to tell the author, building and strengthening fandom community will help the authors and other creators.
- authors, lock your fics, I know it’s scary and it’s ultimately up to you what you think is right but locking fics discourages data scrapers, and if they do get the gall to make an account to steal fics it helps ao3 track data scrapers more efficiently.
- fandom, do not be afraid, i know its hard right now but ao3 is an amazing resource as an archive as well as an accessible library of amazing fan works and others. the community poured time effort and money into ao3, it’d be a shame if it had to be shut down over something petty as this, working together is how we will make ao3 a safer and stronger place for creatives.
- lastly dear authors, i know it’s the worst when your hard work is scraped and fed into something as soulless as an ai. two years ago my whole profile on instagram was scraped for an ai by one of my close online friends, that is the main reason why i completely transferred to tumblr. it hurts but do not give up, you have amazing creative souls, and despite everyone calling fanfiction cringe, authors like you breathe life into fandom and franchises altogether.