runpunkrun: combat boot, pizza, camo pants = punk  (punk rock girl)
[personal profile] runpunkrun in [community profile] fandomcalendar
Photograph with added text: Working Together, at Fancake. Workers in India use wide wooden paddles with long handles to shove a huge yard of drying grains into big piles. The grain, most likely rice, is a beautiful golden color, and there's a mix of western and traditional clothing among the seven men and women.
[community profile] fancake is a thematic recommendation community where all members are welcome to post recs, and fanworks of all shapes and sizes are accepted. Check out the community guidelines for the full set of rules.

This theme runs for the entire month. If you have any questions, just ask!

(no subject)

Jul. 2nd, 2025 02:06 pm
turps: (besties (spuzz))
[personal profile] turps
Pauline asked if we wanted to go out for lunch yesterday, and as it was James' day off, we both went, along with Pauline and her daughter. Pauline had a voucher for a restaurant for 40% off, so as she'd asked us, said she'd pay. Only to find out the voucher terms were a bit misleading and it was 20% off food and 20% off drinks. So, the bill was a bit more than she expected. Which I felt bad about but she refused to budge that it was her treat.

But, despite that, the food was good and the company excellent, so it was a nice time out.

Today it was the first weight management class at the new time and length. I was a bit worried about the doubling of the exercise time, but it all worked out nicely. The extra hour meant the talk part could last longer, and wander more without cutting into the physical part of the class, and while there was more exercise there was still time to finish at leisure before the next class started.

Quite a few regulars were missing, though, which was a shame. I hope it was just one off's, and they come back, and not that the time doesn't suit.

Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-1.png

I'm going to try to do this challenge, so off we go.

Challenge #1

Journaling Prompt: Light up your journal with activity this month. Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025.
Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community.. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


My main goal for this month is to go to the gym at least once a week, ideally twice. Then, with class on Wednesday, that should be an achievable amount of activity.

I was actually at the gym on Monday. Yes, it was another really hot day, but the gym has air con, so it was lovely and cool in there. Bonus, I learned how to actually track the machines I used via the gym app, so now have actual proof of what I did and for how long.

I also spotted they still have the leg press machine I used to enjoy, but it's now hidden away in the free weights section, along with some other machines I hadn't noticed before. Actually, I guess that can be another goal, stop being so intimidated by the people doing free weights and just walk around that corner.

And a final goal, to do at least one creative prompt from this challenge. So, fingers crossed for all of those.
kingstoken: (Clint Barton Comics)
[personal profile] kingstoken in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (tagged both Books and Granada)
Pairings/Characters: Holmes & Watson
Rating: T
Length: 2743 words
Creator Links: RatTale
Theme: working together

Summary: After a long day of seeing patients, Doctor Watson is on his way home when he gets pulled into an alleyway to help one more patient for the night.

Reccer's Notes: When Watson has an unexpected patient, in an unexpected place, Holmes gets roped into helping.  They have to work together for the benefit of the patient.  It's very nice to read a story where Watson is the competent medical professional and is the one in charge instead of Holmes. 

Fanwork Links: AO3

Spooky BigBang 2025

Jul. 1st, 2025 02:47 pm
grimmrow: (pic#17928928)
[personal profile] grimmrow in [community profile] bigbangindex
Welcome to [community profile] spookybang. Where we cross over characters from different supernatural, paranormal and horror fandoms for the sheer joy of it. Author Sign ups are now for July 2025 til August 10th 2025. Other sign ups go much later.


Five Things Rhine Said

Jul. 1st, 2025 04:02 pm
[syndicated profile] ao3_news_feed

5 Things an OTW volunteer said

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Rhine, who volunteers as a volunteer manager in the Translation Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

As a Translation volunteer manager I mostly deal with admin work that surrounds the work our translators do – be it talking to other committees about things that are to be translated, preparing English texts for translation, making sure our version of the text is up to date, or getting texts published once they are translated – along with more general personnel stuff like recruiting new translators, keeping a clear record of who is supposed to be working on what and who is on break, checking in with translators and how they feel about their work, that kind of thing. Having been in this role for some time now, I also help with mentoring newer volunteer managers in how to do what we do, at the scale we do it.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

There isn't one singular stereotypical week in this role, but some different modes with different focuses that are more or less typical for me:

  • Going on-call for a week: Translation volunteer managers work from a shared inbox that serves as a first point of contact for all inquiries related to the Translation Committee. Each week, one or two volunteer managers go on-call as the ones primarily responsible for making sure everything gets actioned and squared away as needed. This usually means spending a couple hours each day working through everything in the shared inbox, including but not limited to assigning tasks to translators, checking on translators who were on hiatus, triaging translation requests from other committees, and responding to any questions translators may have in the course of their work.
  • Working on a bigger project, like a series of high-visibility posts (e.g. membership drive, OTW Board elections), opening recruitment, or internal surveys: When Translation does a committee-wide thing, it'll by necessity involve most or even all of our forty-some language teams, each with 1–8 members. Coordinating all that takes some organisational overhead (and some love for checklists and spreadsheets, along with automations where feasible), which typically means sitting down for a few hours on three or four days of the week and chipping away at various related tasks to keep things moving, including but not limited to asking other people to double-check my work before moving on to the next step.
  • Working on smaller tasks: When I want to have a more relaxed week while still being active, I'll sit down on one or two afternoons/evenings, and take care of a task that is fairly straightforward, like scheduling and leading chats to check in with translators or train people on our tools, creating a template document with English text for translation, drafting and updating our internal documentation, asking others to look over and give feedback on my drafts, and giving feedback on others' tasks, drafts, and projects.
  • Weekly chair training/catch-up chats: We have a regular weekly meeting slot to sit down and talk about the few chair-exclusive things in the Translation Committee, as part of chair training.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I actually started volunteering at the OTW as an AO3 tag wrangler back in 2020, when lockdowns were on the horizon and I felt like I could pick up some extra stuff to do. Growing up bilingual and with some extra languages under my belt, I ended up hanging out in some of the spaces with lots of OTW translators. Then I found out that I could internally apply as a Translation volunteer manager, and the rest is pretty much history. At that point I was missing the feeling of doing some volunteer management and admin work anyway!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

On a high level, I'd say it's striking a balance between the expectations and the reality of the work the Translation Committee does, including the sheer scale. On a more concrete level, it's like this: Being a translator in the Translation Committee is, by default, a relatively low commitment, with a number of optional tasks and rosters that we encourage people to take on, if they have the time and attention to spare. Part of how we ensure that is by dealing with as much of the overhead in advance as we can, as Translation volunteer managers.

This means that for instance, when the English version of a text is updated – which may take about two minutes in the original text – we go through each language team's copy of the text, make the changes as needed in the English copy, highlight what was changed, and reset the status in our internal task tracker so that it can be reassigned to a translator. This way the changed part is clearly visible to the translator, so they can quickly pinpoint what they need to do and make the corresponding changes in the translated text.

For both the author of the original English text and the translator, this is a very quick task. On the admin side, on the other hand, it's the same two-minute process of updating our documents repeated over and over, about 15 times on the low end for frequent news post series that we only assign to teams that consistently have some buffer to absorb the extra workload, and almost 50 times on the high end for some of our staple static pages that (almost) all teams have worked on, meaning it's something that takes somewhere between 30 minutes to almost two hours even when it's a tiny change and you're familiar with the workflow.

(And that's before getting to very last-minute changes and emergency news post translations with less than two days' turnaround time, where we manually track everything across around thirty teams, usually. Each time that has happened, everyone's dedication has blown me away. Thank you so much to everyone who answers those calls, you know who you are!)

What fannish things do you like to do?

I like to read, especially if it's something that plays around with worldbuilding or other things that were left unsaid in canon. I wish there were more hours in the day so that I can pick up some of my creative projects again. I suppose some of my coding projects like my AO3 userscripts and my AO3 Saved Filters bookmarklet also count as fannish?


Now that our volunteer's said five things about what they do, it's your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Round 176: Working Together

Jul. 1st, 2025 09:19 am
runpunkrun: combat boot, pizza, camo pants = punk  (punk rock girl)
[personal profile] runpunkrun in [community profile] fancake
Photograph with added text: Working Together, at Fancake. Workers in India use wide wooden paddles with long handles to shove a huge yard of drying grains into big piles. The grain, most likely rice, is a beautiful golden color, and there's a mix of western and traditional clothing among the seven men and women.
Our theme for July is working together!

This round is for fanworks that feature characters working together to achieve a common goal or—and this is not necessarily the same thing—fanworks set in the workplace.

The tag for this round is: theme: working together

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.

Rules! )

Posting Template! )

Promote this round! )

Rebuilding journal search again

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

TOS Spotlight: Commercial Promotion

Jun. 28th, 2025 05:28 pm
[syndicated profile] ao3_news_feed

Spotlight on Policy & Abuse

The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for enforcing the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS). To help users better understand the TOS, we're posting a weekly spotlight series about the TOS and our policies. We'll also be reading comments and answering questions on this and our other spotlight posts.


For our last post in this series, we'll be talking about our non-commercialization policy. AO3 doesn't allow users to engage in commercial promotion of any type, which includes everything from paywalls to tip jars, and quite a lot in between. In this post, we'll discuss why AO3 doesn't allow commercialization, what kinds of activities are considered to be commercial promotion, and what to do if you see commercial promotion on AO3.

Don't go looking for things to report.

Please do not start searching for works to report after reading this post. We know that commercial promotion frequently appears on AO3. However, when people deliberately search for works to report, we end up getting a lot of duplicate tickets about works that have already been reported. Every ticket we receive is reviewed by a PAC volunteer, so we only need one report in order to investigate an issue. We know it seems like sites only respond to mass reports, but on AO3, duplicate and mass reports increase the time it takes our volunteers to investigate.

What is commercial promotion?

Commercial promotion covers all references or links to commercial sites, monetized features of non-commercial sites, and anything else that makes it clear someone is asking for or has received financial contributions.

On AO3, you can't encourage anyone to give other people money, or talk about anyone having given people money in the past. This applies whether you are promoting yourself or a friend, or even if you're collecting donations for other people or causes. If there is money changing hands, then it likely violates AO3's TOS.

AO3 is a non-commercial space.

AO3 was created and is managed by the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), a nonprofit organization committed to the defense and protection of fanworks from commercial exploitation and legal challenges. The OTW is entirely staffed by unpaid volunteers, and AO3 is itself entirely non-commercial. No one involved in AO3's creation or management profits from it. The site is made available free of charge to all fans who wish to share their works with other fans and fan communities.

We understand that many people today choose to monetize their creative activities. However, in order to keep AO3 as the non-commercial space it was designed to be, users are not permitted to engage in any commercial activity on the site.

When you use AO3, you agree to follow our Terms of Service, which includes the non-commercialization policy. This applies to all parts of the site, whether you're posting a work based on an existing source or creating content entirely original to you.

AO3's non-commercialization policy applies to the entire site.

Real-world commercialization is banned everywhere on AO3. This includes:

  • Profile pages
  • Usernames, pseuds, and pseud descriptions
  • Works (including all tags, beginning or end notes, chapter notes, summaries, and titles)
  • Series (including titles, summaries, descriptions, and notes)
  • Bookmarks (including tags and notes)
  • Comments
  • Prompt memes, gift exchanges, and other collections
  • Any other part of AO3

It's okay for fictional characters in fanworks to talk about fictional monetization. For example, it's fine if a character has a fictional OnlyFans or Patreon within the story, as long as that commercial reference doesn't direct the reader to a real-world OnlyFans or Patreon account for the work creator or anyone else.

What are some examples of commercial activities?

There is a wide variety of things that are not allowed under AO3's non-commercialization rules.

Links or references to any commercial site or service. A "commercial site" is any site whose primary purpose is to facilitate the transfer of money. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Storefronts like Amazon or Etsy
  • Crowd fundraisers like Kickstarter or GoFundMe​​
  • Tip jars or membership subscriptions like Ko-Fi or Patreon
  • ​​Payment platforms like PayPal or Venmo

Links or references to the monetized features of non-commercial sites. This covers any site that has features you can enable or opt-in to earn revenue, but the primary purpose of the site is social media, sharing artwork, or anything else that isn't inherently payment-focused. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Paywalls or early-access content like Wattpad Paid Stories or Webtoon Canvas
  • Storefronts like DeviantArt Shop or Instagram Shop
  • Tip jars or membership subscriptions like TikTok Donation Stickers or Twitch Prime

Previews and other promotions for paid content. This covers situations like excerpts or teasers shared in an attempt to entice people to purchase a book or become a paying subscriber. It also includes references to paywalled or early-access content (e.g. "Patreon subscribers get the new chapter one week early before I post it on AO3").

Advertising content or services involving an exchange of money, such as buying merchandise, collecting donations, offering paid commissions, or selling published works.

Any other language which one might interpret as requesting or having requested financial contributions, whether for yourself or others. This covers indirect references, euphemisms, or other language intended to get around the TOS. Some examples of this include:

  • Thanks for the coffee!
  • My ☕ username is the same as my username here
  • This chapter is brought to you by my patrons
  • You know where to find me if you want early or bonus chapters
  • Check out my Twitter to learn how you can donate to me since I'm not allowed to discuss it here
  • If you want to hear more about my ideas, talk about fandom, or find more of my stuff for a coin, visit my Tumblr

Solicitation is not allowed, whether it's for yourself or on behalf of someone else.

Commercial activity is not permitted on AO3. It doesn't matter if you're promoting yourself or a friend, or even if you're collecting donations for other people or causes.

This means that if you paid an artist to create artwork for your fanfic, you're not allowed to mention that they have a Patreon or use any other language that suggests people should also commission or donate to them. If you like a book by a particular author, you are certainly welcome to gush about what a great book it is, but you can't link to the Amazon page where it's for sale or encourage others to buy it.

What is the difference between a commercial site and a non-commercial site that has monetization features?

As mentioned above, a commercial site is a platform that is first and foremost intended to facilitate the exchange of money. For example, while you can use Ko-Fi as a blog, the site's primary purpose is to encourage people to give each other money. Ko-Fi's social features are secondary to its purpose as a donation and paid membership platform. This means you cannot link to or mention your or anyone else's actual Ko-Fi on AO3 whatsoever.

An example of a non-commercial site that has monetization features is DeviantArt, an art gallery that is mainly intended as a place to share artworks. DeviantArt also allows its users to opt-in to additional monetization features, such as the DeviantArt Shop. Because DeviantArt's paid features are both optional and not the primary reason people use the site, you can talk about or link to DeviantArt on AO3 – as long as you aren't directing anyone to a paywalled post or referencing DeviantArt's paid features in any way.

Can I link or mention a social media site where I talk about making money or collecting donations?

You're allowed to link or mention social media like Tumblr or personal websites like WordPress, even if you sometimes post about commercial activities on those sites. However, you cannot reference commercial promotion on AO3 itself, nor may you link, mention, or give instructions for finding an account, page, or post that is solely promoting paid content.

Statements such as "Follow me on social media" or "Check out my Linktree" are fine. Directing people to an Amazon author page or to the Ko-fi link in your Twitter bio would not be allowed. This includes things like "Check out my Linktree to learn how you can support me" in cases where you are clearly referring to monetary support.

Can I post a fanwork created for a charity drive or for-profit zine?

While you cannot promote, solicit, or otherwise ask for donations on AO3, you are allowed to add your work to a collection or otherwise briefly mention why you created a fanwork, as long as you do so in a non-commercial manner. This means you can say "This was created for [Event]" or "Originally Written for [Name of Person/Zine]" as long as you do not directly link to a donation page or ask others to donate to them.

Keep in mind we also do not permit mentions of monetary transactions, regardless of when they occurred. A note such as "This was a $100 bid for Fandom Trumps Hate" would still be considered commercialization.

I've seen authors say their works are commissions. Is this allowed?

You are allowed to gift your work to someone else or otherwise briefly mention why you created a fanwork, as long as you do so in a non-commercial manner. Because not all commissioned fanworks were created for pay, we do permit usage of the word "commission" as long as there is no indication that a monetary transaction was involved in the creation of the work or that you are available to create other paid commissions.

For example, phrasing like "This is a commission for X" is acceptable, but "Commission for my Gold Tier Patron, Julie" or "My client agreed to let me post the first chapter of their commission" isn't. The context makes it clear that both "patron" and "client" are references to a paying sponsor.

I've seen others ask for donations or advertise paid commissions. Why can't I?

As our TOS FAQ explains, we don't review content until it's reported to us. You may have seen somebody else mentioning their paywalled content or otherwise engaging in commercial activities on AO3, but that doesn't mean that it's allowed. All it means is that nobody has reported that content to us yet, or that we haven't finished processing the report.

What will happen if I get reported for commercial promotion?

First, we'll review the reported work to confirm that you violated our TOS by engaging in commercial activities on AO3. If we determine that you did, we'll send you an email telling you to remove the violating material.

If your work can be edited to fix the issue, you'll be asked to edit the work. Your work may be hidden from other users until you do. If you choose not to edit the work, or if your work cannot be edited into compliance with the TOS, it will be deleted.

PAC will only ever contact you by email, and only after we've determined that your work violates our Terms of Service. We will never comment on your work or contact you through social media. Please make sure to keep your account's email address up to date and check it regularly (including your spam folder), or else you may miss our warning email.

If you repeatedly post works that violate our commercial promotion policies, you may be temporarily suspended. Continuing to violate the TOS will result in your being permanently banned from AO3. You can learn more about warnings and suspensions in our TOS FAQ.

What should I do if I encounter commercial activity on AO3?

You can give the creator a heads up by politely commenting on their work and linking to the TOS FAQ or this post. Alternatively, you can report the work to us.

What about spam comments?

The best way to deal with spam comments, commercial or otherwise, depends on whether the comments are from registered accounts or guests.

How do I report commercial activity?

Although we ask that you do not deliberately seek out commercial promotion to report, if you come across commercial activity while browsing, you can report it using the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form, which is linked at the bottom of every page on AO3.

Please don't report more than one user at a time or submit multiple reports about the same user. When reporting multiple works by the same user, please submit only one report with links to each work you're reporting, so that all information about that user is in the same place.

Please tell us exactly where in the work the commercialization is. The best way to do this is to give us a description or short quote that we can search for in order to immediately find the content. If you are reporting multiple works by the same creator, please group all the works into one report and provide this information for each work.

For example, a report of commercial promotion might look like this:

Link to the page you are reporting: https://archiveofourown.org/works/00000000

Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Commercial promotion

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by USERNAME advertises a ko-fi in the end notes of chapter 3.

If you are reporting additional works, please include all relevant links and other information in your report description:

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by USERNAME advertises a ko-fi in the end notes of chapter 3.

Some of their other works also contain commercial promotion:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23456789 encourages readers to purchase their book on Amazon: "If you're curious what else I've been working on or want to support me elsewhere, check out my new short story on Kindle Unlimited!"

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34567890 contains an embedded image with a Patreon watermark. Underneath, the sentence "If you want more like this, click here" takes you to their commissions price sheet.

You can add more details if you like, but this example provides the basic information we need:

  • Who posted the commercial promotion: Tell us their username or if the work is anonymous or orphaned.
  • Where we can find the work(s): Enter one URL in the "Link to the page you are reporting" field, and (if applicable) include links to any other violating works in the description of your report.
  • What violates the TOS: Explain why you think commercial promotion has occurred, for example by including a quote and/or providing context for a comment exchange. A brief description of the situation is fine; you don't need to be very detailed or quote an entire TOS or FAQ section.

You'll receive an automatic email confirming that we received your report, and our volunteers will investigate when they get a chance. Please be patient and do not submit another report about the same work. While PAC investigates every report we receive, it can take several months for us to process a report, and not every report will receive a reply.

What if I have more questions about commercial promotion?

PAC follows a strict confidentiality policy. Therefore, while you are welcome to ask general questions in the comments of this post, we will not give information on specific cases, publicly rule on a work, or update you on the status of a report you have already submitted. Comments on this post that discuss specific works or users will be removed.

If you think you've found commercial promotion on AO3, or if you want to know whether a particular work contains commercial promotion, please report the work to us as described above. For more information, you can read our TOS FAQ on Commercial Promotion.

If you are still uncertain, you can comment below or submit a question through the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form.

[syndicated profile] ao3_news_feed

In May and June, we made some security additions for user accounts by adding email notifications when an account's username or password is changed. We also made some improvements around tag sets and challenge signups. As one more security change, we also permanently disabled image embedding in guest comments.

A special thank you to our new contributors Ashley Tan, dismayonnaise, Grayson von Goetz, Jen Mann, kitbur, and ryelle!

Credits

  • Coders: Ashley Tan, Bilka, Brian Austin, Ceithir, Connie Feng, dismayonnaise, EchoEkhi, Grayson von Goetz, Hamham6, Jen Mann, kitbur, marcus8448, ryelle, Sarken, Scott, slavalamp, weeklies
  • Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, Ceithir, james_, lydia-theda, redsummernight, slavalamp, Sarken, weeklies
  • Testers: Bilka, Brian Austin, choux, Deniz, Eskici, LilyP, Lute, lydia-theda, Maine, megidola, Runt, Sam Johnsson, Sarken, Scott, Tal, Teyris, therealmorticia, wichard

Details

0.9.409

On May 11, we deployed some improvements to tag sets and added an email notification whenever the username on your account is changed.

  • [AO3-5513] - Admins can now successfully create and rename media tags without running into 500 errors or caching issues.
  • [AO3-5714] - When a canonical fandom and a non-canonical character or relationship were added to the same tag set, the non-canonical tags were automatically listed under the fandom. However, this is just how the tags were displayed in the tag set. They weren't really connected to the fandom, which meant they weren't included in autocompletes and couldn't be used in challenge sign-ups. We've stopped automatically listing the non-canonical tags under the fandom and will instead only do it if the tag set moderators set up an association (which will also make the non-canonical tags usable in sign-ups and help ensure they appear in the autocomplete).
  • [AO3-5919] - We updated the code for kudos emails to avoid using a method that wasn't particularly efficient.
  • [AO3-6757] - When an admin hides a comment, any embedded images in the hidden comment will now be replaced with the image URLs.
  • [AO3-6844] - We fixed a whole bunch of display and page structure issues on pages that list the tags in a tag set.
  • [AO3-6977] - We've started spam checking edits to comments from new users and stopped spam checking any comments a work creator leaves on their own work.
  • [AO3-6981] - To improve account security, we now send you an email when you (or someone logged in to your account) change your username.
  • [AO3-6984] - Our dependency updater bumped our version of net-imap to 0.5.7. It's not something we use, but keeping dependencies up to date is good.
  • [AO3-6988] - We started caching the package installs involved in our automated tests, making each test run faster.
  • [AO3-6990] - We bumped our version of the rack gem to 2.2.14 to get the latest security fix.

0.9.410

On May 16, we added an email notification whenever the password of your account is changed. We also made a number of small improvements all around the site.

  • [AO3-5712] - Under certain circumstances, it was possible to sign up for a challenge using a character or relationship that wasn't permitted by the challenge's tag set. Now you'll get an error if you try to do that.
  • [AO3-6267] - If a draft chapter was added to a work in your History, your History would lie to you and say an update to the work was available. Now it will only tell you an update is available if a new chapter has been published since you last accessed the work.
  • [AO3-6627] - Whenever a site admin tried to update the roles for a user who already had roles outside the admin's purview, those existing roles would be removed. (For example, when a Tag Wrangling admin gave the tag wrangler role to a user who had the Open Doors archivist role, the user would lose their archivist role.) We've fixed it so any existing roles will stay in place.
  • [AO3-6994] - We fixed an issue that was causing our spam checker to run on comments from accounts with recently changed email addresses.
  • [AO3-6005] - We used feature tests somewhere we should've been using unit tests, so we changed them over.
  • [AO3-6975] - At some point the admin setting for how long to keep around unactivated accounts had become disconnected from the code it was meant to control. We fixed this so the setting once again affects the right piece of code.
  • [AO3-6970] - When the Policy & Abuse committee hides a work, you get an automatic email to notify you. To prepare for some future changes, we've updated the email text to allow for multiple works in the same email.
  • [AO3-6973] - Another account security enhancement: you'll now get an email when you (or someone accessing your account) change or reset your password.

0.9.411

On May 24, we deployed an improvement to word counts for multichapter works on the Statistics page. We also took steps to fight abuse in guest comments by preventing them from ever displaying embedded images.

  • [AO3-3818] - On some specific browsers on certain devices, leaving comments or submitting support tickets would result in an error. We've now fixed that.
  • [AO3-4190] - Every time invitations were sent, the log on the site settings page updated to say the settings had been modified. We've fixed it so it will only say the settings have been updated when an admin updates them.
  • [AO3-7000] - One of the external links in the Creating a Skin help pop-up pointed to a site that had been taken over by a crypto magazine, so we've replaced it with a new resource for learning about CSS.
  • [AO3-6995] - In a previous release, we tried to drop an unused database column. Unfortunately, we had to put it back when it turned out Rails was still looking for the column due to caching. We've now made a code change that will let us drop the column for real after a future release.
  • [AO3-5270] - The yearly word counts on your Statistics page will now only count words written in chapters posted in that year. That means if you add a chapter to a WIP you started last year, the words you wrote last year will still count toward 2024's total instead of being added to 2025's total.
  • [AO3-5347] - The notification you get when someone cites your work as a related work has now been prepared for translation.
  • [AO3-6092] - A while ago, we unintentionally fixed a bug where the chapter title didn't display in Entire Work mode if the work only had one posted chapter. Now we've added an automated test to make sure we don't unintentionally break it again.
  • [AO3-6684] - The close button on the banner we use for sitewide announcements uses an ×, which typically makes sense if you're looking at the page, but which gets read as "multiplication sign" if you're using a screen reader. That was confusing, so we've made sure screen readers will now say "hide banner" instead.
  • [AO3-6967] - We've added a second save button to the top of tag edit pages to make things a little more convenient when the page is long and a wrangler is just changing something at the top of the form.
  • [AO3-6987] - Under certain circumstances, we strip embedded images from certain fields. We used to just show the image URL when we did that, but now we show all of the HTML.
  • [AO3-6991] - As a safety measure, guest comments with embedded images will always show the HTML instead of embedded images. (This includes existing guest comments.)

0.9.412

On June 5, we deployed a small release with some bug fixes.

  • [AO3-6166] - If you knew the ID of an unrevealed work you could access a few subpages of the work, such as the collections page, and find out the title of the work that way. Since that's meant to be unrevealed, we've changed these pages so you can no longer access them if the work is unrevealed.
  • [AO3-6937] - We changed the browser page title on inbox pages to a format that matches other user pages: "username - Inbox | Archive of Our Own."
  • [AO3-6953] - We made sure you'll get an error message if you attempt to clear your History and it fails.
  • [AO3-6993] - The Edit Multiple Works page will no longer display a bunch of unusable options when you don't have any works. Instead, it will simply tell you you don't have any works.
  • [AO3-6550] - When displaying work titles, we used to call a function on them that had already been called. We've stopped doing that since it's redundant.
  • [AO3-6948] - We added some code to enable us to monitor the performance of the job that sends invitations to people in the invitation queue.

0.9.413

Our June 16 deploy added the ability to embed media from audio.com in works.

  • [AO3-6515] - We fixed an error 500 that occured when a work with end notes was marked as published, but only had draft chapters.
  • [AO3-6912] - We changed the browser page title for unrevealed works to include the site name at the end.
  • [AO3-6437] - We removed some unused database tables.
  • [AO3-6996] - We finally dropped that unused database column and removed the code we added to make that go smoothly.
  • [AO3-6235] - Admins from the Policy & Abuse committee can now turn invitation requests on and off from the site settings page.
  • [AO3-6588] - Admins from the Open Doors and Support committees can now give users the role that disables password reset emails for their account.
  • [AO3-7003] - You can now add embeds from audio.com to your works.
[syndicated profile] ao3_news_feed

Organization for Transformative Works: Elections News: Cast Your Vote!

Candidates Announcement

The Organization for Transformative Works is pleased to announce the following candidates for the 2025 Election (in alphabetical order by given name):

  • C. Ryan S.
  • Elizabeth W.
  • Harlan L.B.

Because we have 2 seats to be filled and 3 candidates, the 2025 election will be contested – that is, the members of the OTW will vote on which candidates fill the seats. The Elections Committee is excited to introduce the candidates to all of the members of the OTW! Included in this post are links to short Bios and Platforms written by the candidates. This post also marks the beginning of our Q&A period, during which we invite the public to submit questions for the candidates. Additionally, we will be holding a series of live chats – dates and times for those are to be announced based on candidate availability. Information on the voting period and how to vote will also be posted shortly. In the meantime, there is a timeline of Elections events available here for your reference. Read on to learn more about our candidates and how you can submit questions for them!

Platforms and Bios

We asked each candidate to provide us with a Bio that sums up their professional and fannish experience, as well as to write a Platform about their goals for their term on the Board by answering the following questions:

  • Why did you decide to run for election to the Board?
  • What skills and/or experience would you bring to the Board?
  • Choose one or two goals for the OTW that are important to you and that you would be interested in working on during your term. Why do you value these goals? How would you work with others to achieve them?
  • What is your experience with the OTW's projects and how would you collaborate with the relevant committees to support and strengthen them? Try to include a range of projects, though feel free to emphasize particular ones you have experience with.
  • How would you balance your Board work with other roles in the OTW, or how do you plan to hand over your current roles to focus on Board work?

You can read both the candidates' answers to these questions and their bios by following the links below.

Question & Answer (Q&A)

To better accommodate the time constraints of the election and the workload for candidates, we are asking voters to limit to one question per message. Additional questions in the same message will be discarded. Limit of three questions per person. Anyone may submit questions via the Elections form. Please submit all questions by 11:59pm UTC on June 29 (what time is that where I live?). All candidates will answer each question submitted, subject to the following restrictions:

  • Questions must be a maximum of 50 words long.
  • Any submitted questions repeating what is already addressed on Platforms will be ignored. This is to allow candidates to dedicate more time to answering new questions.
  • Similar questions will be grouped together to avoid candidates giving repetitive answers. Elections volunteers will decide which questions are similar enough to group.
  • If you have a follow-up to a Platform question, please specifically mention it is a follow-up so Elections volunteers know not to treat it as a repeat.
  • One question per message. Additional questions in the same message will be discarded.
  • Maximum of three questions per person.

The posting date for answers will be chosen depending on the number of questions received. Posts will be spread out, arranged by topic, to make it easier for voters to read all the answers.

[syndicated profile] ao3_news_feed

Spotlight on Policy & Abuse

The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for enforcing the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS). To help users better understand the TOS, we're posting a weekly spotlight series about the TOS and our policies. We'll also be reading comments and answering questions on this and our other spotlight posts.


In today's post, we'll discuss two categories of TOS violations that have a lot of overlap: plagiarism and copyright infringement.

Don't go looking for things to report.

Please do not start searching for plagiarized or infringing works to report after reading this post. We know that plagiarism and copyright infringement can happen on AO3, as on any site. However, when people deliberately search for works to report, we end up getting a lot of duplicate tickets about works that have already been reported. Every ticket we receive is reviewed by a PAC volunteer, so we only need one report in order to investigate an issue. We know it seems like sites only respond to mass reports, but on AO3, duplicate and mass reports increase the time it takes our volunteers to investigate.

AO3 is for transformative fanworks

AO3 is an archive for fanfiction and other transformative fanworks. Transforming a work means that you are adding a new expression, different purpose, or alternate perspective to the source work. A transformative fanwork doesn't copy the original source; instead, it uses the characters, setting, or other inspiration from an existing work to make a new, distinct creative work.

Transformative fanworks can be posted without requiring permission from the creator of the original work. When considering whether a work is transformative, we apply the same standards to fanworks as to professional works. This means that a fanwork based on another fanwork is allowed, just as much as a fanwork of a professionally published novel is. You are allowed to write a story or create fanart about someone else's original character, or to use the same general ideas, tropes, or story structures as someone else. Two works can share the same premise, setting, and plot while still being transformative.

However, replacing names, swapping out words for their synonyms, or making other superficial changes to the source work is not considered transformative. A transformative work needs to have a large amount of creative expression that is original to you.

Plagiarism vs copyright infringement

Plagiarism occurs when a person reproduces large portions of someone else's work or very heavily bases their work on another without adequately transforming it, and doesn't credit the source. This lack of credit makes it appear as though the copied work is entirely their own original, unique idea and expression.

To avoid potential issues of plagiarism, you can cite your source by linking back to the original, for example by using AO3's Inspired By feature. However, just because you provided credit doesn't mean you're automatically okay: your work may still be in violation of our other policies, such as copyright infringement.

Copyright infringement occurs when a work reproduces large portions of a different work, whether verbatim or with very little alteration (i.e. not in a transformative manner), without the authorization of the copyright owner. Even if you credit the source, reproducing too much of someone else's content is still a violation of their copyright unless you have the copyright owner's explicit permission.

Permission is not required for short quotations. Use a limited amount that's reasonable for your purpose, such as:

  • 2-3 lines of lyrics per song
  • 2-3 lines of text per short chapter of a novel
  • 10 minutes of screentime per TV episode or movie

If you want to include longer excerpts, you will need the copyright owner's permission. This applies regardless of whether the original work is a fanwork or published professionally.

Permission to reuse fanworks

Some fan creators will give other people permission to reproduce larger portions of their works than would ordinarily be permitted by copyright laws alone. They may do this by granting blanket permissions for particular uses (for example, "Anyone can translate or podfic my work, but I don't allow reposts or nameswaps") or by applying an official license (such as Creative Commons) to the work, which grants various permissions based on terms specific to the exact license.

If permission to reproduce the work is accompanied by specific terms, then you must follow those terms. For example, a creator may say, "You can translate my fic so long as you link back to the original." In that case, if you post your translation without providing a link, you’re violating our policies. In order for your translation to be allowed, you would need to include the link as requested.

Common types of infringement

Unauthorized reposts

If you want to upload someone else's work to AO3, you need to have their permission. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to contact them: even if the original creator posted their work a decade ago and then vanished from the internet, they still have copyright over their own work.

If you can't get permission but you still want to save or share somebody else's fanwork from another site, you can create an external bookmark that links to the work on that site, and add tags and notes to your bookmark so that other AO3 users can also find and enjoy the work.

Minor edits and adaptations

Making minor changes to a work doesn't make the work original to you. If you've only changed the characters' names and/or pronouns, or corrected the original author's grammar or formatting, that isn't transformative. You'll need the creator's permission to adapt their work like this and post it to AO3.

Too many quotes: transcripts and "character reaction" works

Transcripts (whether of TV episodes, movies, plays, video games, etc.) are protected by copyright. You cannot repost canon material on AO3, as this is typically a violation of our copyright infringement and/or non-fanwork policies.

If you're creating a fanwork where the characters are reacting to another piece of media (such as by reading or watching the book, show, or movie that they were originally from), then that is allowed if and only if you don't include too many quotes from the original source. Even if the lines of the original book or script are broken up by the characters' reactions, you still can't reproduce more than a few lines of the original text. If you'd like to post a work in which characters read or watch another work, then we suggest heavily reducing the number and length of your quotes, and/or briefly summarizing the events they're reacting to instead of quoting directly from the original work.

Songfics with lyrics

Song lyrics are protected by copyright, which means you can't reproduce large portions of lyrics without permission. This includes both songfics where the lyrics are interspersed throughout the story text and fics with characters singing songs as part of their dialogue. If the part of the song you want to highlight is more than a few lines, we suggest instead linking to a licensed source, such as the artist's official YouTube channel.

Embedded artwork

Copyright doesn't just apply to written text, but to all types of creative work regardless of the medium. In order to embed or upload someone else's images, audio, or videos onto your AO3 account, you must have the original creator's permission and credit them appropriately.

If you don't have permission, or don't know how to credit the original creator, then we suggest instead using HTML or AO3's Inspired By feature to link directly to the creator's own original post.

Unauthorized podfics & translations

If you want to podfic or translate someone else's work, you need their permission to do so. According to United States law, audio recordings and translations are considered derivative, not transformative. AO3 welcomes fan-podficcers and fan-translators. However, your content must comply with U.S. law for us to be able to host it, which means that you must have the permission of the copyright owner in order to post your podfic or translation on AO3.

Infringing on orphaned works

Orphaning a work does not mean the original creator is giving up their copyright, even if their username is no longer displayed on the work. The only thing the original creator did when orphaning their work was agree to transfer that specific copy of their work to AO3's orphan_account.

Just like with any other work, if you wish to podfic or translate an orphaned work, you will need permission from the original creator. This can come in the form of an author's note on the work or an additional tag such as Podfic Welcome. If the work contains no such statement, and you don't know or can't find the original creator to ask for permission, then you may not podfic or translate the work.

If you plan on orphaning your works and you want to ensure that other users can continue to adapt or translate them, consider adding a permission statement to each of your works before orphaning them.

Posting public domain works

While public domain works are no longer protected by copyright, reposting someone else's work is not transformative. AO3 is an archive for fanworks and for original works created in a fannish context. Therefore, you cannot upload other people's public domain works to AO3.

However, as public domain works are not protected by copyright, some types of derivative works (such as your own translation) may be posted on AO3.

I've seen others post plagiarized or infringing works. Why can't I?

As our TOS FAQ explains, we don't review content until it's reported to us. You may have seen somebody else posting an unauthorized translation or public domain work on AO3, but that doesn't mean that it's allowed. All it means is that nobody has reported that work to us yet, or that we haven't finished processing the report.

What will happen if I get reported for plagiarism or copyright infringement?

First, we'll review the reported work and any provided sources to confirm whether or not your work contains plagiarized or infringing material. If we determine that your work is in violation, we'll send you an email telling you to remove the violating material.

If your work can be edited to fix the issue, you'll be asked to edit the work. Your work may be hidden from other users until you do. If you choose not to edit the work, or if your work cannot be edited into compliance with the TOS, it will be deleted.

PAC will only ever contact you by email, and only after we've determined that your work violates our Terms of Service. We will never comment on your work or contact you through social media. Please make sure to keep your account's email address up to date and check it regularly (including your spam folder), or else you may miss our warning email.

If you repeatedly post works that violate our copyright and/or plagiarism policies, you may be temporarily suspended. Continuing to violate the TOS will result in you being permanently banned from AO3. You can learn more about warnings and suspensions in our TOS FAQ.

What should I do if I encounter a work that contains plagiarized or infringing material?

You can give the creator a heads up by politely commenting on their work and linking to the TOS FAQ or this post. Alternatively, you can report the work to us.

How do I report a work for plagiarism or copyright infringement?

Although we ask that you do not deliberately seek out violating works to report, if you encounter one while browsing, you can report it using the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form, which is linked at the bottom of every page on AO3. The copyright owner or their authorized legal representative can also file a DMCA claim, as explained on our DMCA Policy page.

In order for us to uphold a complaint, we need you to provide us with specific information about exactly what was copied and from where. Without these details, we may not be able to action your report.

If the work in question is no longer available online, but you have a copy of the work (such as a PDF), please say so. We may ask you to provide that copy to help us in our investigation.

Please be specific in your report. If you send us a link to an 80,000-word fic and say only "This work rips off mine!" without providing any details (such as a link to your own work), that's not enough information for us to act on. We will need to email you back asking for more information, and if you don't provide us with that information, we won't be able to investigate. If we can't verify the infringement for ourselves, then we won't take any action.

Please don't report more than one user at a time or submit multiple reports about the same user. When reporting multiple works by the same user, please submit only one report with links to each work you're reporting (correctly matched up with the original source), so that all information about that user is in the same place.

If you give us a link to one work and say "All of their other works look like plagiarism too!" without giving us details about those works or their sources, that isn't enough information for us to act on those other works. If you give us a jumbled or incomplete list of links, or if you report each work by the same user separately, this makes our volunteers' work much harder.

For example, a report might look like this:

Link to the page you are reporting: https://archiveofourown.org/works/00000000

Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Plagiarism

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by Ernie is plagiarized from Bert's work, "Fifty Shades of Oatmeal": https://archiveofourown.org/works/23456789

The entire thing is copied, Ernie just swapped out Elmo's name for the Count's and changed some of the colors.

If you are reporting additional works, please include all relevant links and other information in your report description:

Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by Ernie is plagiarized from Bert's work, "Fifty Shades of Oatmeal": https://archiveofourown.org/works/23456789

The entire thing is copied, Ernie just swapped out Elmo's name for the Count's and changed some of the colors.

Another of Ernie's works plagiarizes from Big Bird's "If You Give a Monster a Cookie":

Ernie's work (plagiarism): https://archiveofourown.org/works/34567890
Big Bird took down their fic when they published it as an original story. Here's a link to the published version: https://www.monstercookiebooks.com/books/9876543210/if-you-give-a-monster-a-cookie

I also have a downloaded copy of the original fic I can give you if you need it.

The plagiarized section is in Ernie's chapter 2, where it starts at "Every time that Cookie Monster goes to the store, he can't resist going and picking up more chocolate chip cookies."

This is plagiarizing chapter 3 of Big Bird's work, which starts, "Whenever Cookie Monster went to the store, he couldn't resist buying more chocolate chip cookies."

The entire rest of the fic is like that, with only minor edits to each sentence. It's over ten thousand words long!

Finally, this other work contains the full lyrics of "I Love Trash" as sung by Oscar the Grouch: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45678901

Here's a link to the song on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJekxVILnhw

You can add more details if you like, but this example provides the basic information we need:

  • Who posted the violating work(s): Tell us their username or if the work is anonymous or orphaned.
  • Where we can find the violating work(s): Enter one URL in the "Link to the page you are reporting" field, and (if applicable) include links to any other violating works in the description of your report.
  • Where we can find the original source material: Include a link to each original source and tell us what parts of the source were copied, for example by including chapter numbers or quotes from the relevant scenes.
  • What violates the TOS: Explain why you think each work you're reporting is infringing and match each reported work to its original source. A set of links and a brief description of each work is fine; you don't need to be very detailed or quote an entire page.

You'll receive an automatic email confirming that we received your report, and our volunteers will investigate when they get a chance. Please be patient and do not submit another report about the same incident. While PAC investigates every report we receive, it can take several months for us to process a report, and not every report will receive a reply.

What if I have more questions about plagiarism and copyright infringement?

PAC follows a strict confidentiality policy. Therefore, while you are welcome to ask general questions in the comments of this post, we will not give information on specific cases, publicly rule on a work, or update you on the status of a report you have already submitted. Comments on this post that discuss specific works or users will be removed.

If you think you've found a plagiarized or infringing work, or if you want to know whether a particular work qualifies as plagiarism and/or copyright infringement, please report the work to us as described above. For more information, you can read our TOS FAQ on Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism.

If you are still uncertain, you can comment below or submit a question through the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form.

ETA: Edited to improve wording

[syndicated profile] ao3_news_feed

OTW recruitment banner

Would you like to wrangle AO3 tags? Can you read and translate from Indonesian to English? Can you read and translate from Russian to English? Are you interested in actively contributing to the creation and maintenance of a safer volunteering environment within the OTW? Would you like to help your fellow fans use AO3? Are you fluent in Chinese? If you answered "yes" to any of these, you’re in luck: the OTW is recruiting!

We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

  • Tag Wrangling Volunteer - closing 25 June 2025 at 23:59 UTC [or after 130 applications]
  • Tag Wrangling (Indonesian) Volunteer - closing 25 June 2025 at 23:59 UTC [or after 30 applications]
  • Tag Wrangling (Russian) Volunteer - closing 25 June 2025 at 23:59 UTC [or after 30 applications]
  • Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Volunteer - closing 25 June 2025 at 23:59 UTC
  • Support Volunteer - closing 25 June 2025 at 23:59 UTC [or after 30 applications]
  • Support (Chinese) Volunteer - closing 25 June 2025 at 23:59 UTC [or after 30 applications]

We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.

All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.

If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.

Tag Wrangling Volunteer

The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive.

If you’re an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.

Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. For this role, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only, which will change each recruitment round. Please see the application for which fandoms are in need.

Wranglers need to be fluent in English but we welcome applicants who are also fluent in other languages, especially Čeština (Czech), Español (Spanish), isiZulu (Zulu), Italiano (Italian), Polski (Polish), Português brasileiro (Brazilian Portuguese), Suomi (Finnish), Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), Türkçe (Turkish), Українська (Ukrainian), ไทย (Thai), беларуская (Belarusian), 한국어 (Korean) and 中文 (Chinese - we welcome all dialects) — but help with other languages would be much appreciated!

Applications are due 25 June 2025 [or after 130 applications]

Apply for Tag Wrangling Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Tag Wrangling (Indonesian) Volunteer

The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive.

If you’re an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.

Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. For this role we’re currently looking for applicants who are fluent in both English and Indonesian. We welcome all Indonesian dialects. The work will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and translating tags from Indonesian into English.

Applications are due 25 June 2025 [or after 30 applications]

Apply for Tag Wrangling (Indonesian) Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Tag Wrangling (Russian) Volunteer

The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive.

If you’re an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.

Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. For this role we’re currently looking for applicants who are fluent in both English and Russian. We welcome all Russian dialects. The work will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and translating tags from Russian into English.

Applications are due 25 June 2025 [or after 30 applications]

Apply for Tag Wrangling (Russian) Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Volunteer

Are you passionate about fostering a safer and more supportive volunteering environment within the OTW?

As an Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution ("ICCR") volunteer, you will play a key role in maintaining fair and respectful interactions across the Organization. Your work will include reviewing, investigating, and adjudicating complaints, and mediating conflicts. Our team is also in the process of refining the OTW's policies to create a more effective and inclusive volunteer experience. Our goal is to serve as an objective, neutral party for personnel-related issues to help resolve situations with compassion and equity.

Please note that due to the nature of the work, current OTW volunteers who apply for the role will have to resign from all other roles within the OTW to serve on this subcommittee.

Applications are due 25 June 2025

Apply for Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Support Volunteer

The Support team is responsible for handling the feedback and requests for assistance we receive from users of the Archive of Our Own. We answer users' questions, help to resolve problems they're experiencing, and pass on information to and from coders, testers, tag wranglers and other teams involved with AO3. If you enjoy helping others to learn how to use AO3 and figuring out solutions to problems, you might enjoy being a Support volunteer!

Applications are due 25 June 2025 [or after 40 applications]

Apply for Support Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Support Volunteer (Chinese)

The Support team is responsible for handling the feedback and requests for assistance we receive from users of the Archive of Our Own. We answer users' questions, help to resolve problems they're experiencing, and pass on information to and from coders, testers, tag wranglers and other teams involved with AO3.

We're currently recruiting for applicants who are fluent in both English and Chinese (We welcome all Chinese dialects!). If you are a fluent Chinese speaker who enjoys helping others to learn how to use AO3 and figuring out solutions to problems, you might enjoy being a Support volunteer!

Applications are due 25 June 2025 [or after 40 applications]

Apply for Support Volunteer (Chinese) at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.


The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

mific: (Tea or coffee)
[personal profile] mific in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Characters/Pairings: Harriet Vane & Mary Wimsey
Rating: Gen
Length: 1951
Creator Links: Beatrice_Otter on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Female friendship, Female characters

Summary: "I was complaining to my brother about how few friends I had, and he suggested that you might be an interesting person to know."

After Harriet is exonerated, she and Mary Wimsey meet for tea.

Reccer's Notes: A lovely, quietly perceptive story about two slightly lonely women finding commonalities and starting to become friends - one of Lord Peter's more successful machinations. It's beautifully written and the author's note at the end is interesting if you're a fan of the Wimsey books.

Fanwork Links: Tea For Two

Deadloch: Keep On Gruckin' by kirazi

Jun. 30th, 2025 09:48 am
mific: (Deadloch)
[personal profile] mific in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Deadloch
Characters/Pairings: Dulcie Collins/Eddie Redcliffe/Cath York
Rating: Explicit
Length: 5010
Content Notes: not kidding about the rating
Creator Links: kirazi on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Femslash, Polyamory, Friends to lovers

Summary: “This is not a good idea, love,” Dulcie says, keeping her tone level. “I know I said I’d try to be more open to change, and I hear and respect your opinion, I truly do, but this is — it’s like the hobby farm. It’s really not going to work.”

“I just think,” Cath says, bright-eyed and earnest, “that it would be a healing experience for me. For us both! To share that kind of intimacy. I am committed to working through my anxiety about you fucking your partner and I’m sure that would be so much more manageable for me if we fucked her first. Together.”

(Eddie needs a gruck. Dulcie and Cath offer to help her out.)

Reccer's Notes: This is a polyamory fic where Cath decides she and Dulcie should have sex with Eddie so as to manage her anxiety that Dulcie might be unfaithful with Eddie (as happened in the past with a former partner at work). There's some nice psychological and historical exploration as Dulcie tries to work out what's going on, and the eventual sex is hot and well-written. What I like most is the character voices and dialogue for the three of them, which are spot on. It's also very funny, as are Eddie's creative takes on the English language.

Fanwork Links: Keep On Gruckin'

(no subject)

Jun. 28th, 2025 02:26 pm
turps: (besties (spuzz))
[personal profile] turps
James' annual leave is nearly over but we've had some good days out.

Monday was class, but we decided to go to the gym before hand, which maybe wasn't the best idea I'd ever had as by the time the end of the morning came, I looked like I'd dipped my head in a bucket of water. Which wasn't the best look as after class we were heading off to Newcastle so James could go to his appointment at the limb centre to check his false leg.

That went well, and a bonus, they've put a liner into his stump cover so he only has to wear one stump sock now, instead of two. Why they didn't do that before I have no idea as it's much cooler for him.

Tuesday, we headed up north to Cragside which is a fantastic National Trust property. It was so beautiful up there and we had a lovely day exploring the house and grounds. I would have loved to check out more of the walks, but sadly, as the name suggests, a lot of the paths were very steep and rocky and no way would James have been able to manage them safely. But, we did walks to the lake and between the buildings and had a picnic in the sunshine before ending with a drive through the one-way Carriage Drive route through the grounds.

Wednesday we took my MiL out for the day. The carvery at Toby was on promotion again, so we went there for dinner before having a drive, ending up at a farm shop/cafe we like. Where there were donkeys to pet and highland cows to look at and very delicious cakes and cold drinks.

Thursday we headed a little south and ended up at Preston Park Museum and Butterfly world. I enjoyed both, and as we got there for opening managed to explore the museum while it was quiet, leading to a long talk to the man in charge of the iron mongers shop. Then a walk through the grounds to the Butterfly building where we spent a lot of time sweating in the heat and admiring loads of butterflies, and especially enjoying the meerkats who had just checked out and were basking in the heat. You can see them in my insta post here. The one in the tube still cracks me up.

Yesterday was a planned cinema day and we went to see F1: The Movie, which I enjoyed loads, even though it was nearly three hours long. Leaving there we called in to see Corey, then went on to Kayleigh's as I said I'd watch Bodhi for a bit as Kayleigh and Lucy first went grocery shopping, then picked up their new kittens, Millie and Mollie.

Today James picked up an overtime community visit shift, which means he's helping run the NE ambulance stall at Sunderland Pride. Last I heard from him he was having a great time, and sent me a picture of him beaming from behind a cut out of a rainbow decked cardboard ambulance front. Meanwhile I've been getting the house in order with Glastonbury as background viewing as I do so. So far, my favourite performance has been Lewis Capaldi, what a return.

I've also been waiting for two parcels, one of which was thrown into the back garden, which baffles me as it would have taken the delivery guy more effort to walk around the house than actually knock on the front door. While the Amazon guy knocked ridiculously hard and then was walking away before I even got to the door. Turned out he'd left the parcel on the front door step so it's good I was actually in being as I have no front garden.

During the week I also heard from Rosie and from the week coming class will be on a Wednesday at 9am, and has changed from one hour to two. She's also going to start running an exercise only evening class from August, which is great, but I must admit, I can't help be a bit intimidated from going from 30 mins exercise to 60, and with another class to come.
reeby10: an old school error pop up that says 'canon error' at the top and 'apply fanfic? ok' (fanfic)
[personal profile] reeby10 in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Midsommar
Characters: Dani Ardor, Hanna, Siv
Rating: T
Length: 4,212
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] Selkit
Theme: female relationships

Summary: In her dreams, dark smudges crowd the edges of the world. One looms larger than the rest, twisting into impossible shapes, morphing into a figure with many faces, all of them howling with rage.

When she jolts awake, the dream-figure lingers. She tries to ignore it. She’s no stranger to nightmares. Her whole life has been one ever since her family’s deaths.

But things are different now. This is a new life. A new family.

Right?

Reccer's Notes: I love seeing what happens with Dani after the events of Midsommar, and this is such a good look at the continued ritual of being the May Queen! I am a known ho for ritual, but especially building off of the existing worldbuilding in such a believable way. I really enjoyed seeing more of Dani interacting with the other women of the Hårga as she learns to be part of her new family and culture. Plus the parts with Maja’s (and Christian’s) daughter were just perfect.

Fanwork Links: on AO3
mific: (Art brushes pencils)
[personal profile] mific in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: original work
Characters/Pairings: powerful mage/warrior bonded to her
Rating: G
Length: n/a
Creator Links: creators have been revealed but the artist chose to make the work anon.
Themes: Female relationships, Femslash, Female characters, Characters of color, Magic

Summary: none provided

Reccer's Notes: Another gorgeous work from the recent Everything is Femslash exchange. It's in a fantasy setting, featuring a mage and her warrior. I love the warm earthy colours, and how, the mage being a little shorter, their faces and bodies fit together perfectly, and the way they're linked by the swirl of the magical bond. Beautiful. (Note that the post is locked to AO3.)

Fanwork Links: Always with you

DCU: Office Meeting by Unpretty

Jun. 27th, 2025 09:06 am
sinesofinsanity: For squeeing (Batman Squee)
[personal profile] sinesofinsanity in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: DC Comics
Pairings/Characters: Pamela Isely/Harleen Quinzel, Bruce Wayne
Rating: Teen 
Length: 1,882 words
Creator Links: Unpretty on AO3
Theme: Female relationships, Canon lgbtq+ characters, humour, superpowers

Summary:
Bruce Wayne deals with supervillains almost as much as Batman does.

Reccer's Notes:
Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy break into Bruce Wayne's office to stop Wayne Enterprises from doing evil corporate stuff. Or kill him. Bruce plays dumb. It's glorious. 
I love Harley and Ivy's relationship in this. They're so true in how they love and support each other but are definitely super-villains who will definitely kill and/or main whoever gets in their way. Also Bruce's line about how Pamela probably wants to kill him because Harley finds him hot :D Bruce being smart by playing dumb is one of my favourite things. 

Fanwork Links: Office Meeting
Also has a podfic
 

mific: (spock-dog)
[personal profile] mific in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot
Characters/Pairings: James Kirk/Leonard 'Bones' McCoy
Rating: G
Length: n/a
Creator Links: storietellers on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Domestic, Femslash

Summary: "Having fun, Bones?"
"Just working out the tension. You really keep it all in your wrists. Keep reading, darlin'. I wanna know what happens next."

Reccer's Notes:
The 'Everything is Femslash' exchange has just revealed creators, and this is a gorgeous artwork of Rule 63 (always a girl) Kirk and McCoy chilling out. The lighting is warm and their likenesses are really well done. It's relaxing just to look at.

Fanwork Links: Relaxing
full_metal_ox: Escher’s “Print Gallery” as a rotating TV image. (TV)
[personal profile] full_metal_ox in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Neuromancer | Sprawl Trilogy - William Gibson
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Sally Shears | Molly Millions & Yanaka Kumiko
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 1,225
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply (but a character’s dark backstory is hinted at.)
Creator Tags: Cyberpunk, razor girl, Friendship, Mentors, Mentor & Protégé, Yakuza, Missing Scene, Female Friendship, Backstory, Fanon
Creator Links: (AO3) [archiveofourown.org profile] LizzyChrome; (BlueSky): [bsky.social profile] lizzychrome; (DeviantArt) [deviantart.com profile] lizzychrome; (Facebook) [facebook.com profile] LizzyChrome; (Instagram) [instagram.com profile] lizzy_chrome
Theme: Female Relationships, Backstory, Book Fandoms, Female Friendship, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Older Characters, Worldbuilding

Summary: How do Molly's claws and lenses actually work? Kumiko pries. (Missing scene from "Mona Lisa Overdrive.")

Author’s Notes: If you havne't read MLO yet, I won't spoil anything. I'll just set the scene, without giving anyway any important story elements: Molly is now middle-aged, goes by "Sally Shears," and is working as a body guard for a Japanese girl named Kumiko.

I do not own "Mona Lisa Overdrive."

This oldie was written probably over ten years ago. I originally posted it to Fanfiction.net, then took it down, feeling it was pointless. But in light of the new "Neuromancer" show coming out, I want to preserve this little ficlet, to see how my fanon explanation for how Molly's claws work compares to what (if anything) the show gives us regarding that explanation. After a quick re-read, I decided that no edit was needed. What you see here is what I originally posted ten or eleven years ago.


Reccer's Notes: This vignette expands upon an exchange in Mona Lisa Overdrive between aging cyborg mercenary Sally Shears (AKA Molly Millions, Cat Mother, Steppin’ Razor, Rose Kolodny, and Misty Steele—this lady’s got more names than a Wuxia hero) and her charge Yanaka Kumiko; Sally confides measured bits of her backstory to the crushstruck Kumiko, including stripping to bare a torso-long scar (from a near-fatal cagefighting injury, kept “to remind her of being stupid.”)

It’s a precious moment of trust, an elusive commodity in both women’s lives; LizzyChrome elaborates upon this to let Sally hold forth on how her prosthetics work—a question that Gibson chose to bury under Rule of Cool, and that’s challenged two generations’ worth of illustrators and cosplayers.

With the upcoming Neuromancer series on Apple+TV, Molly finally leaves the roster of visually iconic SFF characters not yet defined in the popular imagination by a screen adaptation (1). The Molly in my head admittedly didn’t resemble Briana Middleton, but I look forward to seeing her interpretation of the role (as well as how faithful to the spirit of the book the script gets to be, now that Hollywood has gotten their hands on

(A) a Beloved Property™,

(B) whose cyberpunk dystopia is feeling uncomfortably real in a number of respects—thanks in no small part to megacorporations like Apple.)


(1) Gully Foyle from The Stars My Destination and Elric of Melniboné also come to mind.


Fanwork Links: Shears, by [archiveofourown.org profile] LizzyChrome.
mific: (Teyla serious)
[personal profile] mific in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: (attraction only) Teyla Emmagan/Sora, Teyla Emmagan/Elizabeth Weir, Laura Cadman/Teyla Emmagan, Teyla Emmagan/Kate Heightmeyer, Sam Carter/Teyla Emmagan
Rating: G
Length: 2928
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: tielan on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Female characters, Friendship, Ambiguous relationships

Summary: Desire is a fine line. Five women in Pegasus walk it with care.

Reccer's Notes: This is a well-written exploration of how five women on the Atlantis expedition or elsewhere in Pegasus feel about Teyla. As a twist on the title, they all do or did want Teyla, even if they can't pursue that attraction for a number of reasons. It's also unclear if Teyla reciprocates any of their feelings. Excellent character pieces that ring true.

Fanwork Links: Five Women Who Never Wanted Teyla Emmagan

(no subject)

Jun. 22nd, 2025 02:18 pm
turps: (beach)
[personal profile] turps
We're finally out of a run of 29c temps here and while it's warm today, it's nicely so. Poor James really didn't cope with the heat wave. His meds mess with his temperature regulation anyway, so he was like a wrung out rag for a lot of the time.

Things I've done in the last few days.

Went for a walk along the riverside to check out two new Ray Lonsdale sculptures. Photos on my insta if interested.

Went along the coast to go and spot seals at St Mary's island, and actually saw them, which was cool.

Walked at the Wetlands.

Went to class and my one to one check in with Rosie -- I plan on posting a flocked post about that later.

Went to Pauline's for tea.

Went with James to two hospital appointments in one day, hours apart.

Went to meet the in laws at an Italian restaurant for a birthday dinner for my niece.

Had a very frustrating Thursday.

Went to see Twenty Eight Years later, which I actually enjoyed despite me being a wuss. While it's not my usual genre of film I watch, a lot of it was filmed in my localish area, so it was fun spotting places I knew.

Tried to keep up with the garden, including making my own banana plant water, which is apparently good for the tomatoes. Sounds exciting, but it's just me shoving banana peels into water and letting them seep.

Okay, the Thursday cut for length ).

James' hospital appointments were both routine, one to check his new splint and take the old one in to be adjusted as a spare. The other to see his AMC consultant, which I also expected to be an in and out, but he was sent to x-ray to see why he still can't get his hand to his mouth. Apparently there's a build up of bone around his elbow joint, and she thinks it could help with the movement to get it chipped away, but only if the build up is at the front of the bone and not the side, so he needs a CT scan to find out which it is.

Honestly, I'm wary of him having the op even if it is in the front. It's his dominant arm and James has always said no more operations unless emergencies and while a minor op, this one would stop him driving for a while, which deeply depressed him last year. But, guess we'll see after the scan, and obviously, it's his decision.

To end this sum up, have some hot cats from yesterday behind here )
sinesofinsanity: Because Batcow (Batcow)
[personal profile] sinesofinsanity in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: DC, technically the Justice League (2017) movie, but can reasonably fit with most DC timelines
Pairings/Characters: Martha Kent, Atlanna
Rating: T
Length: 2,909 words
Creator Links: susiecarter 
Theme: Female Relationships, Female Friendship, Gen, Minor Characters, Superpowers 

Summary: There's a very unusual woman on the train, when Martha boards just outside Metropolis.

Reccer's Notes: I love depictions of Martha Kent where she is no-nonsense and kind, but ultimately human. She is out of her depth in the superhero shenanigans but perfectly suited to handle any and all human things before and after. I love how she immediately clocks Atlanna as "strange and possibly dangerous" and so decides to strike up a conversation. It's lovely to see these two women bond over their sons even before they really know who each other is. Also Alfred cameos at the end which is always fun. 

Fanwork Links: not far from the apples on AO3

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risha: Illustration for "Naptime" by Martha Wilson (Default)
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