Picking up a book called Part Time Girl about a high school kid who switches (physically, magically, inconveniently) back and forth between Being A Boy and Being A Girl, I was like, okay, I know pretty much what the vibes of this are going to be. And the first couple chapters in which protagonist Michael/Kayla worries about a Sort Of Girlfriend and a Hot Boy and I Have Taken This Part Time Job As A Girl But Now I Need Girl Clothes, Bra Shopping! So Stressful!! did not really lead me to think anything different!
Then about 40% of the way through the book our protagonist was suddenly running through the woods from evil wizards, and I'm like, okay, this I did not expect.
It turns out the plot of this book is NOT high school drama and figuring out your complicated gender feelings! The plot of this book is that evil racist homophobic wealthy wizards called the Clan (yes) run the world and you have to team up with your traumatized neighbor to fight them, while also figuring out your complicated gender feelings along the way.
Also, the protagonist and the traumatized neighbor bond by hanging out and watching the 2014 kdrama Healer, the plot and cast of which is lovingly described in text. This is in fact plot relevant because they later use their arguments over which cast member is hotter to prove their identities to each other when it's in question. Now I do love Healer but given that it came out, again, in 2014 and I haven't heard anyone talk about it pop culturally in more than a decade, this possibly surprised me even more than the evil wizards.
I can confidently say that at no point did I predict some of the major turns this book took, and I will put them under a spoiler in case you, too, would like to experience this Experience as I confidently believe it was meant to be Experienced: ( here we go! for the ride! )
Fandom: Heated Rivalry Characters/Pairings: Scott Hunter/Kip Grady, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow, Elena, Carter Vaughan, JJ Dagenais, Eric Bennett Rating: Mature Length: 14,405 Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply Creator Links:toomuchplor on AO3, sweaters_in_the_summer on AO3 Themes: Inept in love, Canon LGBTQ+ characters, Established relationship, Outsider POV, Humor, Happy Endings
Summary: Scott Hunter is just trying to make the most of his closeted NHL career, keep his head down, wait until he retires before he tries find his person.
He doesn't want to know anything at all about these two dumb rookies and what they're getting up to behind the facade of their so-called rivalry... but they're making it really hard for him to ignore them.
Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are not Scott's problem. That's all there is to it.
Reccer's Notes: This is a brilliant and often hilarious fic about Scott and Kip, but also about how Scott keeps catching the two damn rookies giving themselves away ineptly left, right and centre. I love outsider POV and this delivers, and there's also a wonderful portrayal of Scott and Kip's relationship across the years - Scott can be pretty inept in love, as well! I loved the texting and chat between Scott and Kip as Scott overhears yet another Shane/Ilya secret or catches them out somewhere - Kip is so gossipy and funny. There's some angst, but of course a happy ending. So good, and very clever and full of heart.
Welcome to International Fanworks Day (IFD) Feedback Fest 2026! Feedback Fest is when we celebrate fanworks that creators have made on AO3 or elsewhere by recommending them to others and leaving comments for the creators as well.
Our theme for IFD 2026 is Alternate Universes (AUs), where we celebrate all the fun and exciting AUs that fans have created!
Want to participate in this year’s Feedback Fest? Here’s how to do it!
Leave a comment under this post recommending your favorite fanworks that involve an AU. Tell everyone why you love these works and why they should check them out. You can also link to a recommendation post you’ve made elsewhere, or create a new recommendation post on your social media accounts using the #FeedbackFest2026 tag. Keep the diversity of fanworks in mind when making recommendations—you can share fics, podfics, fanart, zines, archives, collections, newsletters, and anything that sparks joy in you about fandom. There’s many wonderful fanworks out there and we want to hear about all of them!
While going through the recommendations, it’s nice to leave feedback—comments, kudos, likes—for the creators as well! Feel free to boost the recommendations from other people that you enjoyed. This year’s Feedback Fest is all about the universes and worlds people have enjoyed placing their favorite characters in, so try and think of your favorite AU fanworks to recommend!
Start your reccing, and we’ll see you on the other side—and once again we wish you a happy #IFD2026!
Back in August of 2025, we announced a temporary block on account creation for users under the age of 18 from the state of Tennessee, due to the court in Netchoice's challenge to the law (which we're a part of!) refusing to prevent the law from being enforced while the lawsuit plays out. Today, I am sad to announce that we've had to add South Carolina to that list. When creating an account, you will now be asked if you're a resident of Tennessee or South Carolina. If you are, and your birthdate shows you're under 18, you won't be able to create an account.
We're very sorry to have to do this, and especially on such short notice. The reason for it: on Friday, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law, with an effective date of immediately. The law is so incredibly poorly written it took us several days to even figure out what the hell South Carolina wants us to do and whether or not we're covered by it. We're still not entirely 100% sure about the former, but in regards to the latter, we're pretty sure the fact we use Google Analytics on some site pages (for OS/platform/browser capability analysis) means we will be covered by the law. Thankfully, the law does not mandate a specific form of age verification, unlike many of the other state laws we're fighting, so we're likewise pretty sure that just stopping people under 18 from creating an account will be enough to comply without performing intrusive and privacy-invasive third-party age verification. We think. Maybe. (It's a really, really badly written law. I don't know whether they intended to write it in a way that means officers of the company can potentially be sentenced to jail time for violating it, but that's certainly one possible way to read it.)
Netchoice filed their lawsuit against SC over the law as I was working on making this change and writing this news post -- so recently it's not even showing up in RECAP yet for me to link y'all to! -- but here's the complaint as filed in the lawsuit, Netchoice v Wilson. Please note that I didn't even have to write the declaration yet (although I will be): we are cited in the complaint itself with a link to our August news post as evidence of why these laws burden small websites and create legal uncertainty that causes a chilling effect on speech. \o/
In fact, that's the victory: in December, the judge ruled in favor of Netchoice in Netchoice v Murrill, the lawsuit over Louisiana's age-verification law Act 456, finding (once again) that requiring age verification to access social media is unconstitutional. Judge deGravelles' ruling was not simply a preliminary injunction: this was a final, dispositive ruling stating clearly and unambiguously "Louisiana Revised Statutes §§51:1751–1754 violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution", as well as awarding Netchoice their costs and attorney's fees for bringing the lawsuit. We didn't provide a declaration in that one, because Act 456, may it rot in hell, had a total registered user threshold we don't meet. That didn't stop Netchoice's lawyers from pointing out that we were forced to block service to Mississippi and restrict registration in Tennessee (pointing, again, to that news post), and Judge deGravelles found our example so compelling that we are cited twice in his ruling, thus marking the first time we've helped to get one of these laws enjoined or overturned just by existing. I think that's a new career high point for me.
I need to find an afternoon to sit down and write an update for dw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability.
In cases like SC, where the law takes immediate effect, or like TN and MS, where the district court declines to issue a temporary injunction or the district court issues a temporary injunction and the appellate court overturns it, we may need to take some steps to limit our potential liability: when that happens, we'll tell you what we're doing as fast as we possibly can. (Sometimes it takes a little while for us to figure out the exact implications of a newly passed law or run the risk assessment on a law that the courts declined to enjoin. Netchoice's lawyers are excellent, but they're Netchoice's lawyers, not ours: we have to figure out our obligations ourselves. I am so very thankful that even though we are poor in money, we are very rich in friends, and we have a wide range of people we can go to for help.)
In cases where Netchoice filed the lawsuit before the law's effective date, there's a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, the court hasn't ruled on the motion yet, and we're specifically named in the motion for preliminary injunction as a Netchoice member the law would apply to, we generally evaluate that the risk is low enough we can wait and see what the judge decides. (Right now, for instance, that's Netchoice v Jones, formerly Netchoice v Miyares, mentioned in our December news post: the judge has not yet ruled on the motion for preliminary injunction.) If the judge grants the injunction, we won't need to do anything, because the state will be prevented from enforcing the law. If the judge doesn't grant the injunction, we'll figure out what we need to do then, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.
I know it's frustrating for people to not know what's going to happen! Believe me, it's just as frustrating for us: you would not believe how much of my time is taken up by tracking all of this. I keep trying to find time to update dw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to.
I look forward to the day we can lift the restrictions on Mississippi, Tennessee, and now South Carolina, and I apologize again to our users (and to the people who temporarily aren't able to become our users) from those states.
You poor, poor people. For Valentine’s Day this year, we’re going dark and airing some of your most unpleasant break-up stories. Like the woman who learned her husband was cheating on her when she saw the tattoo he got of the other woman’s initials on his leg. That sort of thing. You’ll hear a few … Read More »
I had a great time at Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather last month in Washington D.C. For those who don’t know, MAL is an annual fetish event for gay men. There is a lot of socializing in the lobby of the host hotel and a lot of kinky play in the rooms. One of the highlights for … Read More »
By sheer coincidence, I ended up reading Alix Harrow's The Everlasting almost immediately after The Isle in the Silver Sea. Both books are ringing changes on the same big themes -- the narratives of nationalism, fate and tragedy, Spenser and Malory, depressed lady knights and evil girlbosses -- and from what I had previously read of both Harrow and Suri's work I was tbh quite surprised to find myself liking The Everlasting a bit better.
The premise of The Everlasting: it's more or less the second-world equivalent of the 1920s and we have just had a Big War. Our protagonist Owen has a radical pacifist alcoholic father that he doesn't respect, a war medal that he didn't really earn, a academic career that doesn't seem to be going places, and a face that makes it pretty obvious that at least one parent came from The Other Side. However, his messy relationship with the war has not in any way altered his ardent passion for the greatest figure of his country's nationalist mythology, the knight Una Everlasting, who fought at the side of the nation's founding queen a thousand years ago and died tragically to bring the country stability.
Then he finds a book that purports to be the True History of Una Everlasting, and gets summoned to a secret meeting with the country's minister of war, an evil girlboss who immediately sends him back in time to experience and document Una Everlasting's Last Quest first hand. He gets to write the nationalist myth himself! What fun!
Alas, it turns out that the great knight Una Everlasting is violent, brutal, and extremely burned out about all the people she's killed as part of the bloody process of nation-forging: at this point the citizens think of her as a butcher and she's inclined to agree. Nonetheless, fanboy Owen convinces her to take on this one last quest for the sake of her honor & kingdom & legacy &cetera, with the promise of peace at the end of it, knowing full well that the end of the quest will in fact mean her death.
This is the first section of the book and tbh I enjoyed it enormously. Owen is writing the narrative in first person and his voice is used to great effect: he's a twisted-up and self-contradictory character who shows the problems of nationalism much better as a guy who's genuinely trying to convince himself that he believes in it than he would if he started out already enlightened. I love his embarrassing radical pacifist dad and his judgmental thesis advisor, and, as heterosexualities go, I am absolutely not immune to the allure of large violent depressed woman/weaselly little worm man whom she could easily break in two who is obsessed with her but also fundamentally betraying her. If the book had ended at the end of its first section, I think it would have been a phenomenal standalone novella.
However, the book does keep going. I continued to have a good time, more or less, but the more it went on the more I felt that it had sort of overplayed its hand. Alix Harrow is extremely a Power of Fiction author in ways that didn't fully work for me in the other book of hers I read; I do appreciate that this book is the Power of Fiction [derogatory] but I still think that perhaps she is giving fiction a little too much power ... For the length of ninety pages I was willing to role with the importance of The Great Nationalist Myth, but the longer it went on and the deeper and more recursive it got with its timeloops the more I was like 'wait .... we only have one founding myth? changing the myth really directly and immediately impacts the future in predictable and manipulable ways and is in fact the only thing that does so? Hmm. Well."
Also I enjoyed the evil girlboss right up until it was revealed that every evil girlboss in the country's whole thousand-year-old history had been the very self-same evil girlboss and no other woman had ever done anything. You are telling me you have built up a whole thing about this country's founding myth of the Queen And Her Lady Knight from scratch and that didn't change the country's relationship to gender at all? NO other woman was ever inspired to do anything with that? I am not sure that's as feminist as you think it is ...
Anyway, I do think this book and The Island In the Silver Sea form a sort of spiritual duology and I'm glad to have read them back to back: for such similar books they have really interestingly different flaws and virtues.
In late 2024, after weaving a shawl, I decided I wanted to weave something I could sew with. Only one tiny obstacle stood between me and my goal: I had zero sewing skills.
Buttons I attempted to sew back on always inevitably fell off. My mother had once, apparently, sewn her own maternity clothes when she was pregnant with me, but the pillow I'd sewn in elementary school with the stuffing poking out between every stitch was the pinnacle of my skills.
Not one to be deterred by a lack of knowledge, I decided to enroll in a class. (Alas, for me, passion and interest always fail in the face of unstructured learning and procrastination. To ensure success, I seek out classes, co-learning, and similar situations).
In late 2024, only one class in all of Chicago had an opening. Unlike other classes, this one didn't have a curriculum. Instead, the classes are capped at 6 people and the instructor helps you complete whatever project you bring, teaching you new skills as you need them. Considering I did not yet have a project, I very swiftly found a dress pattern online I didn't hate that was simple enough for a first project.
Since that first dress (which I still wear, but usually under a sweater so it looks like a very fully green skirt), I've made a button-down (...just need to finish the buttons...), a pencil skirt, two skorts (LOVE these), a failed dress that I 'rescued' into a top that is nearly indecent, a tank top, several bags, and a headband.
Sewing a precise distance around a curve still confounds me. I sewed my first zipper last night (into a welt pocket; I screwed up the first one and had to re-cut the lining piece and pocket to try again). I've learned that sewing with rayon is a pain and that basting is never to be underestimated. I now own both a sewing machine and a serger, and have used both.
When I was laid off, I stopped sewing. Partially I was frustrated because I could not get my woven tank top to fit right. Partially because doing something fun when I had jobs to apply for and a story to write filled me with icky guilt feelings, even as I reminded myself how irrational those feelings were.
As my machines gathered dust and my planned projects (a pair of sunny linen trousers!) fell off my to-do list, I started wondering if sewing was going to be like other interests and hobbies: an intense rush of interest and obsession followed by apathy.
Then, the instructor from my class in 2024 and 2025 emailed out new dates for the winter sessions starting in January. I didn't have the money, but my mother convinced me to use the money I'd saved for buying Christmas gifts (and then didn't spend because I basically skipped Christmas this year) on the class. I'm so glad I did. I finished my third or fourth session this past Saturday.
When I went in, I bought the muslins for that tank top I never finished and explained what I'd worked through. The instructor complimented the work I'd completed so far and then helped me fix the last one. One more muslin and I finally had my pattern (note: It is a Cashmerette pattern, but several points weren't right on me).
That tank top (light yellow, covered in butterflies) is what I finished during class yesterday. This energized me to try making a bag I'd long put off. That bag was finished just before 4am this morning. I love it. The shape and size fit my body well. The pockets are generous. The outside is a cotton canvas printed with maps; the inside is scrap muslin. My computer fits easily.
I used scrap this morning to make a headband.
This hobby fuels my needs to learn and create. Classes give me a weekly social outlet. How did I almost lose this?
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis Pairings/Characters: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay Rating: Mature Length: wc 5541 Content Notes No AO3 warning apply Creator Links:AO3 profile Theme: Inept in Love
Summary: "We had a fight and he dumped me." Foofy humor.
Reccer's Notes This is a funny and delightful gem that just goes to show you that even when in an established relationship, John and Rodney (esp John) are horribly inept in love.
February 15 is almost here, and it’s time to get ready for the 12th annual International Fanworks Day (IFD)! This year’s theme is Alternate Universes (AUs), and in honor of #IFD2026, the OTW has quite a few activities planned to celebrate with all of you. Check out the list below to find out how you can get involved!
Feedback Fest: It wouldn’t be IFD without our annual Feedback Fest! This is your chance to share your favorite Alternate Universe fanworks and get some great recommendations for yourself in return. Look for our Feedback Fest post on February 13, and leave a comment with 10 fanwork recommendations for your fellow fans. On social media, use the tag #FeedbackFest when posting.
Share your fanworks: Tag your own AU fanworks on AO3 with International Fanworks Day 2026, or share them on social media using the #IFD2026 or #IFDChallenge2026 tags!
Fanlore Challenge: The festivities aren’t limited to AO3! Fanlore, the OTW’s fannish history and culture wiki, will be celebrating as well! From February 10-16, join Fanlore for a new editing challenge to complete every day. To participate, refer to the IFD 2026 Fanlore Challenge page for more information.
Games and Fan Chat: On February 15, we’ll be opening the gates of the OTW’s once-a-year Discord server. Join us between 21:00 UTC February 14 (What time is that for me?) and 03:00 UTC February 16 (What time is that for me?) to play games and chat with other fans! The chat room will be moderated in English, and we’ll post a detailed schedule on the 15th.
We also invited you to send us your community events for this IFD, so in addition to what we’re doing, here are some fan-led events:
The Fandom Melodies, Intertwined Edition
(in English, some small parts in other languages allowed)
This event is already running, and ends on February 28. You can submit entries in any form, though written material is preferred.
This event will run from February 1 to February 28. It’s meant to motivate people to comment more on fic (new and older!), especially since February is the month with the lowest amount of commenting! There are multiple challenges and there are also fun things one can do to spice up their comment a little!
This event will run from February 15 to February 28. You can participate however you like, and there will be a set of questions provided for people to reminisce about and share their fandom experience!
Festivids reveals have SNUCK up on me they are happening TOMORROW and I have NOT had time to watch all the things I wanted to watch but! here are some things I very much liked anyway!
First, my own three (3!!!) beautiful vids:
Sharp Dressed Man, for Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born, a glorious celebration of Theatrical Fashion
Touch, for the film Phantom, tense & wistful lesbian tragic romance!
and Ready to Fight, also for Phantom, TRIUMPHANT KINETIC ACTION
I did not expect to receive vids for either of these sources and they are all beautiful and perfect to me!!
And now, an incomplete list of other vids I really really liked and/or was impressed by and/or laughed my ass off at:
Fandom: The LEGO Movie Pairings/Characters: Finn, The Man Upstairs Rating: Gen Content Notes: No AO3 Warnings Apply Length: 735 words Creator Links:AO3 profile Theme: Inept in Love
Summary: A brief fic focusing on Finn and The Man Upstairs after the events of the first movie.
Reccer's Notes: This is a simple, effective story about Finn and his father repairing their relationship, and reflecting on the story Finn created and what it meant to them both. I always found the implications of what their father-son relationship is like in the first movie really interesting, so it was nice to find a fic that delved into it.
What do the country of Portugal, the city of Seoul, and the Archive of Our Own (AO3) have in common? They are all home to more than 10 million people! That’s right: AO3 has surpassed 10 million registered users this month! We at the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW) are delighted to share this incredible milestone with you.
Even as the community is growing year by year, the active exchange of creations and ideas between fans remains as a cornerstone of fan culture. Whether it’s gifting each other fanfic, recording a podfic of your favorite story, or putting together a reclist of fics—no fandom thrives without the myriad ways fans share their passion with one another. In today’s world, where ideas are just one more commodity, and content is curated for maximum revenue, it’s more important than ever to appreciate and celebrate these aspects of fan spaces.
One way to let other fans know you appreciate the love and hard work they pour into their creations is commenting on their work. In celebration of this milestone, we have prepared a Bingo all about comments! Below you can find the bingo cards in both a square and vertical format.
You can fill out as many bingo squares as you want—the more comments, the merrier! Let us know on this post or on social media which Bingos you scored.
Happy commenting, and a huge thank you to everyone who helped us reach this milestone!
Some might consider Daniel a very lucky man. He brought one of his 4 girlfriends to a sex party where the men wore tuxedos and the women wore…nothing at all. Oh, and it was a Christmas party. Hear all about it. If you did something totally bonkers and want to tell the wide world about … Read More »
Struggle Session is a bonus column where I respond to comments — just a few — from readers and listeners. I also share a letter that won’t be included in the column and invite my readers to give the advice. Q7 in this month’s Quickies column was from a bisexual woman who wanted me to … Read More »
2025 was a busy year for AO3! The site continued to see rising traffic, with Communicationspublishing an update on AO3 statistics from 2020-2025. In December, Support received 3,589 tickets, totaling to over 40,000 tickets received in 2025, an all-time high. Meanwhile, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 6,357 tickets in December, totaling approximately 47,500 tickets in 2025. Check out PAC’s pie chart for more details.
Pie chart of the approximately 47,500 Policy & Abuse tickets submitted in 2025, divided by type of complaint. These categories reflect the subject of the complaint, and (with the exception of Offensive Content), do not indicate whether the report was upheld or rejected.
In the first half of January, User Response Translation translated or betaed 32 ticket requests from Support and PAC.
In December, Tag Wrangling wrangled approximately 598,000 tags, or around 1,300 tags per volunteer. In total, they wrangled approximately 4,944,000 tags in 2025. They also continued work on handling “No Fandom” additional tags, publishing December and January news posts detailing recent changes. In total, Tag Wrangling published nine “No Fandom”-related news posts in 2025 covering around 399 new canonical “No Fandom” additional tags.
In January, Tag Wrangling updated their Fandom Tag Metatag guidelines, including clarifying when a fandom metatag should be made and when to merge closely related fandoms into one fandom tag. Check out the news post detailing the new policy.
As part of International Volunteers Day (IVD) 2025, Communications collected and batched answers to the IVD Q&A by committee, resulting in five committee-specific news posts highlighting Communications, Support, Tag Wrangling, Translation, and Volunteers & Recruiting. Answers across committees, along with additional responses not featured in the news posts, have been compiled in a separate AO3 work.
III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW
Fanlore ran an editing chat to close out 2025, and it was a lot of fun! They also began preparing for their annual IFD Fanlore Challenge and Femslash February event! Keep an eye on their Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr for announcements.
Legal answered many internal and external questions this month.
In January, Communications’ Fanhackers wrote about the Transformative Approaches to Fan Identity, and they began a multi-post survey of acafannish research and publishing resources.
IV. GOVERNANCE
In December, Board announced the resignations of two directors: Kathryn Solderholm and Erica Frank. We would like to thank Erica and Kathryn for their service as members of the Board, and wish them all the best in their future endeavours with the OTW.
In January, Board finalized and approved the OTW Procurement & Purchasing Policy. They and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) organised the first quarter of 2026 public Board meeting on January 18 which had 54 attendees. Minutes of this meeting will be available soon on the OTW website. Elsewhere, Board and BAT continued work on document review and archiving board statements, Code of Conduct tasks in conjunction with Organizational Culture Roadmap, and ongoing projects for mental health resources for volunteers, scheduling tools, public meeting best practices and volunteer retention in BAT. BAT also updated their OTW website committee page.
Organizational Culture Roadmap finalized a confidentiality policy in preparation for upcoming external recruitment.
V. OUR VOLUNTEERS
In December, Volunteers & Recruiting thanked all OTW volunteers on International Volunteer Day with their organization-wide email and graphics campaign. In January, they ran recruitment for Open Doors.
From November 22 to January 23, Volunteers & Recruiting received 355 new requests, and completed 378, leaving them with 52 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of January 23, 2025, the OTW has 1,013 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New Subcommittee Leads/Workgroup Heads: Eevee (Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Lead) and megidola (Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Head) New AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Lulu S (Chair Trainee) New Fanlore Volunteers: Elfie, Konsta Morales, Watts, and 1 other Graphic Designer New Open Doors Volunteers: Addiebees, AviLine, feelyx, LeighR, Marie K, meservey66, MetaKass, miffmiff, Mort, pinkconstellations, SleepyJane, Spit, StormySea, Truendz, Vail, and 11 other Import Assistants New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: megidola (Supervisor) and 1 Chair Track Volunteer New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Chelsea Cheyanne, inspiredstork, Sanity, will, and Yrindor (Supervisors) New Translation Volunteers: Rhine and 1 other Chair Trainee; Arushi, athursdayschild, Eirinar, Linarii, Mira8, Niki K, Phoebe B, Pi, Rita P, and 12 other Translators New TWC Volunteers: Fiona M, Yumi, and 3 other Layout Editors; and 2 Outreach and Communications Editors New User Response Translation Volunteers: Eki, f0f8ff, HARRitte, Jules R, Laus, PanPan, rosings, zoy zauce, and 3 other Translators
Departing Directors: Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm Departing Committee Chairs: 1 Communications Chair and 1 Elections Chair Departing BAT Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Communications Volunteers: KW Ukuku (TikTok Moderator), Lori P (Graphics Volunteer), 1 Fanhacker Volunteer, and 1 Social Media Moderator Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Graphic Designer, 2 Membership Data Specialists, and 2 Volunteers Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Discord Moderator, 1 Outreach Analyst, and 1 Policy & Admin Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Pelagia and 1 other Administrative Volunteer, Wynne (Import Assistant), and 1 FCPP Intern Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Support Volunteers: Nary and 22 other Volunteers Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Nary and 1 other Supervisor; Asas Carmesins, Bruno, Eevee, lianneder, Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse, McBangle, Sayornis, Tea Huimyni, and 10 other Wranglers Departing Translation Volunteers: Teelee (Task Assistant); Illiterations and 4 Translators Departing TWC Volunteers: Melanie Kohnen (Review Editor); Courtney Lazore and 1 other Proofreader; and 1 Symposium Editor Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 1 Senior Volunteer and 2 Volunteers
For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.
Dan interviews, argues and politely spars with gay evangelical Christian Matthew Vines, author of “God and the Gay Christian.” Vines, who is married to his husband since 2022, was a potent advocate for gay marriage. Now he and Dan have a debate about the role of monogamy in gay life and society in general. They … Read More »
Fandom: YouTube RPF / Fantastic Foursome RPF Pairings/Characters: Dan Howell / Phil Lester, PJ Liguori Rating: Teen and Up Content Notes: No AO3 warnings apply Length: 147,120 words, 25 chapters Creator Links: AO3 profile Theme: Inept in Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers
Summary: From AO3:
"Daniel Howell is 21 and Britain’s newest star. He’s just been cast in the much-anticipated film adaption of Last Man Standing, the popular teen fantasy novel with a huge fanbase hanging off his every tweet. In other words, Dan has made it big.
Phil Lester couldn’t care less. He’s a stressed out PHD student working part time at a bookshop while he struggles to get into post-production. He’s 26 and still lives in a tiny flat on the fifth floor of a building with a lift more broken than it is in use. He loves books, but he thinks big film adaptions screw with the plot too much.
Needless to say, Phil is less than impressed when Last Man Standing is getting filmed in his hometown. And he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with obnoxious, arrogant, so irritatingly perfect leading actor Daniel Howell."
Reccer's Notes: This is genuinely one of the best fanfic experiences I've ever had. Not only is it hilarious and heartwarming, it depicts Phil as asexual and explores that side of his identity really well, with lots of nuance and care. It was deeply meaningful for me to read as I came to grips with my own identity, and I have nothing but fondness for this story.
I'm doing some minor operational work tonight. It should be transparent, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong. The main thing I'm touching is testing a replacement for Apache2 (our web server software) in one area of the site.
1. I’m an 81-year-old heterosexual woman whose husband died last May. I have found that my 56-year-old gardener of fifteen years can make me sexually happy. But now after four months he says he’s not respecting his wife by having sex with me. He relates this to going to a Catholic priest for confession. He … Read More »
Yip! Yap! Bite! A woman’s little, nasty, needy dogs are anything but “comfort animals” and her girlfriend isn’t having it. She refuses to move in with the caller while those tiny beasts are around. Are they fundamentally incompatible? A British woman learned that her husband had sexual experiences with other boys at his British boarding … Read More »
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Elizabeth Weir, Carson Beckett, Aiden Ford Rating: Explicit Length: 8100 Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply Creator Links:astolat on AO3 Themes: Inept in love, Friends to lovers, First time, Favorite fanworks
Summary: In which Rodney and John fail to pay attention.
Reccer's Notes: For me, this is the ultimate "inept in love" fic. It's clever, very funny, and brilliantly written, as Rodney bounces blithely from assumption to oblivious assumption, with John startled by the sudden sex they're having, but somehow never managing to communicate clearly that Rodney's got it all wrong about them being in a relationship - until it's finally totally clear that they both are. An all-time classic!
AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don’t belong to any particular fandom (also known as “No Fandom” tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.
In this round of updates, we began adjusting existing canonical “No Fandom” tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships. We also continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic “No Fandom” tag announcements.
None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.
In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3’s auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.
New Canonicals
The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:
Additionally, this month we began making adjustments to existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.
While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you’re intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you’ve never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here’s a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month’s new canonical tags:
While we won’t be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you’re interested in the changes we’ll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.
You can also read previous updates on “No Fandom” tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:
For more information about AO3’s tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.
In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.
Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven’t gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Lastly, we’re still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least three months from now to give us adequate time to do so.
I finished Tasha Suri's The Isle in the Silver Sea yesterday and I am wrestling with profoundly conflicted feelings about it. It's an interesting book, it's an ambitious book; it's a book with a great deal to say, sometimes with a sledgehammer; it went in places I didn't expect, and appreciated, and also I think it maybe fails at the central task it needed to succeed at in order to make it actually work for me as a book.
The premise: we're on an island, and this island is composed of Stories About Britain. London is there, constantly caught between Victorian London and Elizabethan London and Merrie Olde England depending on what sort of narrative you're in. The Glorious Eternal Queen reigns forever with her giant ruffs and bright red hair. Each bit of the island is tied to a bit of story, and that story attaches itself to particular people, Incarnates, who are blessed/cursed to live out the narrative and keep the landscape alive with it. At this point this has been going on for so long that incarnates are usually identified pretty early and brought to live safely at the Queen's court where they kick their heels resignedly waiting for their fate to come upon them.
Sometimes immigrants come to the island. When they come, they forget their language and their own stories in the process. They are not supposed to get caught up in incarnation situations, though -- in theory, that's reserved for True Born Englishmen -- but unfortunately for our heroine Simran, she appears to be an exception and immediately upon sighting the shores of the isle as a child also started seeing the ghost of her past incarnation, indicating that she is the latest round of the tragic tale of the Witch and the Knight, who are doomed to fall in love and then die in a murder-suicide situation For The Realm.
Simran's knight is Vina, the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy noble, who is happy to be a hot and charming lesbian knight-at-arms but does not really want to be the murderous Knight any more than Simran wants to be the Witch. However, the plot begins, Simran is targeted by an Incarnation Murderer who kidnaps her best friend and challenges her to meet him on her Fated Mountain, and they of course have to go on a quest where they of course fall in love despite themselves and also learn more about why the current order must be overthrown because trying to preserve static, perfect versions of old stories is not only dooming a lot of people to extremely depressing fates but also slowly killing the Isle. This quest makes up the first part of the book.
I am very interested in the conversation that Tasha Suri is using this book to have about national narratives and national identities and the various stories, both old and new, that they attempt to simplify and erase. Her points, as I said, aren't subtle, but given Our Current Landscape there is a fair argument to be made that this is not the time for subtlety. I also think there's also some really good and sharp jokes and commentary about the National Narratives of Britain, specifically (evil ever-ruling Gloriana is SUCH a funny choice and the way this ends up being a mirror image for Arthuriana I think is quite fun as well).
On the other hand, the conversation is so big and the Themes so Thematic that they do end up entirely overshadowing the characters for me, which I do think is also a thematic failure. The first part of the book is about Vina and Simran's struggle to interact with each other and their lives as individuals, rather than the archetypes that overshadow them, but as Vina and Simran they also never quite felt like they transcended their own archetypes of Cranky Immigrant Witch and Charming Lesbian Knight With A Hero Complex. Which startled me, tbh, because I've liked several of Tasha Suri's previous books quite a lot and this hasn't struck me as a problem before. But I think here it's really highlighted for me by the struggle with Fate; I kept, perhaps unfairly, compare-contrasting with Princess Tutu, a work I love that's also about fighting with narrative archetypes, and how extremely specific Duck and Fakir and Rue feel as characters. I finished part one feeling like I still had no idea whether Vina and Simran had fallen in love as Fated Entities or as human beings distinct from their fate, and I think given the book this is it really needs to commit hard on that score one way or another.
Part two, I think, is much more interesting than part one, and changes up the status quo in unexpected ways. If I pretend that part one landed for me then I'm much happier to roll with the ride on part two, though there is an instance of Gay Found Family Syndrome that I found really funny; you can fix any concerning man with a sweet trans husband and a cottage and a baby! genarti will argue with me that she thinks it was more complicated than that, to which I will argue, I think it could have been more complicated IF part two had had room to breathe and lean into any of those complexities. Making part one half its length and part two double its length would I think fix several of my problems with the book. "but you just said that Vina and Simran don't feel specific enough" yes that's true AND they take three hundred pages to do it! I'd be less annoyed about them feeling kind of flat if we were moving on more quickly to other things ...
Anyway. I didn't find this book satisfying but I did find it interesting; others may find it to be both. Curious to talk about it with anyone else who's read it!
Sidenote: the Tales and Incarnations are maintained by archivists, who keep the island and the stories it contains static and weed out any narratives they think don't belong. This of course is evil. I went and complained about the evil archivist propaganda to genarti, who read this book first, and she said 'read further.' So I did! It turns out that in contrast to the evil archivists, the woods are populated by good and righteous librarians!! who secretly collect oral histories and discarded tales that have been deemed subversive by the archivists but which of course the island needs to thrive. I do appreciate that not all institutional memory workers are Evil in this book and I understand the need in fiction to have a clear and easy distinguishing term between your good guys and your bad guys, but Tasha Suri, may I politely protest that this is in fact also archivist work --
Sidenote two: v. interesting to me that of the two big high-profile recent Arthurianas I've read the thing I've found most interesting about both of them is their use of the Questing Beast. we simply love a beast!!
Fandom: Good Omens Pairings/Characters: Aziraphale/Crowley Rating: T Length: 5437 words Creator Links: iamtheenemy (Steph) Theme: Inept in love
Summary: Crowley gets orders to seduce Aziraphale to the dark side. It goes about as well as you might expect.
Reccer's Notes: Crowley gets orders from Hell to seduce Aziraphale, and Crowley can't really bring himself to try, despite some half-hearted attempts. That's the first half of the fic, the second half is the two of them after the almost apocalypse, and it's very sweet, even if Crowley's brain stops functioning a few times.
Bring out your failboats! Our theme for February is inept in love.
These fools are unlucky in love—whether it's due to inexperience, obliviousness, social anxiety, or their own terrible choices—or are so in love they can't function properly. This trope is sometimes called "Idiots in Love," but as "idiot" is an ableist term, I ask that you don't use it in your recs, and just as there are all kinds of love, this theme is for all kinds of relationships.
The tag for this round is: theme: inept in love
If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.
not much in the way of medical TMI this time, but still, content note for cancer treatment details.
Healing (external) looking good. The scar is as long as my little finger, and quite dark (almost like a lightly faded black permanent marker). It is no longer raised or itchy. Little bit red either side, possibly because it is difficult to get the breast in a position to see the scar, and it means I was pulling on the skin. I continue treating with the scar therapy gel, in hopes that that decreases my chance of it going stiff (I have a history of cheloid scarring on my knee, which the doctor that did the surgical tidy up of the scar attributed to issues with the original stitching / treatment)
Internally I'm assuming there is still a bit of healing to go because there is infrequent discomfort, mostly if I end up in an odd position and the breast is not supported. Also noticeable last night while chopping veggies, so I may need to look at what is wrong with my posture there.
I'm still wearing the surgical recovery bras; I've now moved to not using them at night because my skin was getting quite irritated under the band. Of the four I started with, I have misplaced the good one, and one is a size too large. Fortunately, I have found an old sports bra which is appropriately soft and has no underwire to wear while the two are in the wash. A couple of times I have tried wearing one of my usual, which I think of as soft, but have underwire; in each case the surgical area has become noticeably sore. I'll keep doing that every few weeks until it isn't an issue, then transition back to my usual bras. I have decided against going to the specialist bra shop to get more, mostly because I don't have the necessary time + energy.
radiation: appointment one with the radiologist, who was all 'this is your choice, ...' and then gave info that summed up approximately to 'given your age/situation, I'd do it anyway'. Also implied, I think, was the fact that there were cancerous cells further from the cancer site ('the margins'), necessitating the second surgery; my take from that is that it was moving quickly. Thus I am skipping over the expensive test and going straight to radiation. I think if the cancer site had been elsewhere in the body, it might be different, although I did not get a feel for which way the likelihood went. But being in the breast duct, there is a lot of potential for cancer cells to have moved a long way and be starting up again. Thus, radiation of the whole breast.
Appointment two with the radiologist is Monday. They can treat me at the local public hospital (literally next door to the private one I had the first surgery at). It will be three weeks, multiple sessions. Likely noticeable side-effects are sun-burn like sensation and some other minor discomfort. Slight change in the breast tissue (ongoing) may occur, so it might feel different to the other, but as it already does, eh. And there is a slight chance that a small bit of the lungs behind will be damaged, but in a way that I am not likely to perceive.
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