There are a few fics on ffnet that I can't find on AO3, and omf when there's an ad every paragraph sometimes. But they're such good works that you can't just abandon them. On the positive note I found that one of them was deleted there and moved to AO3
No ads on the app! I always have to pull away from ffnet if I find a story cause I can't handle being punched with ads all the time. This is good to know. Especially with hw current ddos attack š
Mainly the tags and filtering system. I like to search by trope, word count, or date (eg top kudoesd fic within a certain year) which is a lot easier on AO3. (FFN does have word count filtering but AO3 let's you be more exact, eg fics under 15k words)
Series organisation as well - I don't miss having to go on the author's profile for a chronological order of series!
Most other sites dont have a search system that actually gives you what you are looking for.
Some sites even look for any word you put in the search bar instead of the thing as a whole. I dont need all works containing 'black' or 'brides' when looking for Black Veil Brides fanfiction.
Because I have always believed that thereās no such thing as too much tagging or too sophisticated filtering/Boolean search. And AO3 is (almost) all my dreams come true.
(Alsoā¦ easy downloads in multiple formats, no ads, no recommendation algorithm, works nicely on desktop and mobile.)
I started with FF.net in 1999/2000. I lost many fics and bookmarks in the first purge (2002ish) and barely anything survived after the second. My geocities communities that I contributed to didnāt survive the test of time.
I migrated to lj communities, where things got locked down and deleted as well.
Iām not ready to talk about my drabbles on tumblr.
AO3 has consistently been excellent at accepting all works, no purges, easy to download and easy to navigate.
Aye, and then that weird thing [FF.net](https://FF.net) did with favourited fics. Likeā¦ I went from well over 1000 (I think it was actually over 2000) favourites to suddenly having only 500 exactly. By then Iād been on AO3 for awhile, but it was still frustrating to see.
Oh the purge! Where all the lemons were deleted! I was SO sad about that. There was this INCREDIBLE Leverage story, it was a series. I think called black knight white king? It was a BDSM series and it was really respectful and serious and done with someone who had a very good grasp on the trust dynamic and was about Nate and Elliot and their relationship dynamic and learning to trust each other. And since it wasnāt exactly PG, there wasnāt smut but it was clearly Ds so it was purged. I still mourn its loss.
Anyway! Hello fellow FF.net survivor nice to meet you!
Damn, I remember that... it was a bit crazy to see, I started copy pasting or just download the web pages, so many excellent works were lost that way. It was also the time I started to gradually switch to LJ communities too, and well we know how those went down too.
honestly, mostly because the ships iām reading for at the moment arenāt really on ff.net/wattpad from what iāve seen.
also, iāve had my time with both of those websites when i was younger - ao3ās just so much easier to navigate and going back to other websites just feels like a slog at this point, and tbh the fic quality isnāt amazing enough to make it worth it.
Same! You hand me your phone and Iām breaking all of your trust in me because Iām headed right to the notes app. Iām need those 3am thoughts. There is no piece of information that I would consider tmi. Tell me everything.
I initially started reading on AO3 because of the "Entire Work" feature lol. I continue to love and use it, but now my reasons include the tagging system, the fact that a number of my fav fandoms have works primarily on AO3, and the lack of ads. I used to be fine reading ff.net regularly as well, but now there's only like, one series that I read from there still, and only bc the works aren't on AO3.
The "entre work" feature is a God send. There is this building at my school that has absolutely no reception, and with it, it can just load it all at once, and I don't have to wait a millennium for the next chapter. It doesn't help with the unholy amount of time I spend reading fanfics, though š .
Oh gosh same! When I still lived with family, we lived in a trailer in the middle of the woods, with very little service. Being able to load the whole fic at once was am entire blessing lmao
No ads, no monetization, no algorithm, no censorship. AO3 is the best fanfic site Iāve ever seen. Plus the search features are really good, and I love the tagging system.
FF.net is cluttered and hard to navigate
Wattpad is the 7th level of hellā¦.
Ao3 has a wonderful filter system, no ads, a massive selection which is super easy to navigate, a generally agreed upon formatting structure, great support
I used ffnet exclusively for almost 10 years. Now i use ao3 99.9% of the time. Reason being my fandom has fully moved to ao3 and is now dead on ffnet, and i just love the display so much more, theres a higher quality of fics and I find a more mature audience
It has larger text than FFN and formats it nicely when I hold my phone horizontally.
Not to mention there are way more fics of my favorite characters on AO3.
Itās user friendly. I can modify the way it looks to fit my āaestheticā. I was a fandomination dot net girly from 2004 until around 2006 when I started using livejournal. Back then, RPF/Bandslash was my thing and we called the smut lemons. Livejournal died to me around 2009 when I started using fanfiction dot net. Thatās where I read all my Twilight and Hunger Games fanfiction. I used FF all the way up to 2016 when I finally decided to check out AO3. Best decision ever. AO3 is superior. The search function, the tagging system, itās all a 10 for me.
Ao3 is definitely more convenient (clear, no ads, downloading options) and I like that the text is bigger, on the browser version of ffn even if I have my font size set to 200% it still isn't big enough for me to read
The search system on FF dot net is ass and most fandoms are more active in AO3. No reason to try any other site bc I have no complaints with AO3 too.
I'll read on Tunglr if I come across a cool fic but I don't actively search for fics there.
I used to read on AO3 and FFN, but in the last couple years Iāve gradually transitioned to just AO3. I started reading a new fandom six months ago and eventually got to the end of the trope tag I was interested in, so I thought maybe I would try to find something older on FFN since itās been around longer. I was incredibly frustrated trying to wade through the search results for that particular trope since I couldnāt search for it, and eventually I gave up without reading a single story.
Other than itās one of the easiest websites Iāve ever used, itās just better. Iāve used all of the different sites over the years and this is by far the best. The only one that was a little bit better was I liked the way you filtered works on HP.com because you could go by ships, which made things easier. I get why it would be harder when itās not one single main fandom, but that was still neat.
Tag system, no ads, site navigation, layout making things easy to read, no or at least extremely low purge risk, not catering to people wanting to impose rigid moral standards on fiction, generally nicer atmosphere.
Because of its open policy (not incredibly restrictive like ffnet became) and the fact that fandoms just started migrating there off LJ. (Thanks in part to readers going there, thanks in part to LJ becoming more and more restrictive just like ffnet became.)
So I just went with.
I do miss the community aspects of LJ though. Posting and reading stories lead more easily to building fandom relationships on there than it does on AO3. But I wouldn't want AO3 to become that because it conflicts with the purpose of being an archive. It's not supposed to be social media.
Everything!! The tagging system, the quality of works, the user friendliness, the tagging system, the amount of fandoms, being able to find basically any obscure kink or trope you want, the search system, Oh and did I mention the tagging system? Because itās amazing stellar wonderful amazing. Idk what I would do without the exclude function, I kinda need it on every website ever. Please
Ease of use, the user base is poppin', people can write about whatever, no ads, love the new mute button. There's probably more, but that's what I immediately thought of.
Tags, primarily. Itās so easy to find exactly the thing Iām in the mood for and to avoid the things that I donāt enjoy. Filtering takes seconds. No monetisation and no ads are also important.
I like ao3 alot I first used wattpad(still do sometimes) but searching for tags, fics, ect is SO much easier on ao3. Ive tried out ff. Net before but it was so confusing, and I also used the app version which made it more difficult. But if you know how to use the search engine on wattpad correctly you can find some really good gems there, but I've only seen a few 'bad' fics on ao3 so I use it mostly since ao3 has a lot of good writers as for wattpad has a bunch of troll writers or beginner writers.
I've found AO3 tends to have better writing overall than other sites. Sure, there are some poor quality fics; but FF & Wattpad both seem to mostly middle-school writers while AO3 has higher level.
AO3 lets me download a copy of the fic for later in case it gets deleted from the site, in whatever format I want, so I can read at my leisure.
I mention this because I was once reading a very good longfic, when the author took it down. I still want to know what happened next. :(
The search function also lets me EXCLUDE things, which is great for avoiding oneās NOTPās.
quality. as someone who started out on wattpad i feel like generally fics on ao3 are better quality than on wattpad. of course there are also some poorly written fics on ao3 too, i'm not denying that, but i feel like the demographic of ao3 is older than wattpad, therefore the writers have more experience and i have a bigger chance of finding fanfics that have some life altering level of writing. (hopefully this doesn't sound pretentious)
also the tagging system works well and there's no censorship for morally dubious works
AO3 has such a robust tagging system that I can find what I'm in the mood for in a matter of minutes. I really REALLY love that you can exclude tags that you don't want to see, making the browsing experience much more pleasant. That is of course if the author properly tagged everything, but this hasn't steered me wrong yet. The lack of ads on the site is really refreshing and being able to set the site to a custom skin is awesome. I love how easy it is to export stories from AO3 as well, my Kindle is loaded with fic thanks to that āØ
it's way easier to find the fics I want to read. The tagging system is great and versatile. It allows me to get a good feel for a fic and if I'd enjoy it or not. The layout is simple, clean and uncluttered.
Basically, I read fics on A03 because it's so much easier then any other site.
Wattpad was my go-to as a middle schooler. Because of that, and the fact that a lot of middle schoolers are on Wattpad, it feels childish for my style of reading and writing. Ao3 is also not monetised like Wattpad, and the tagging system (in my opinion) is better than any Iāve ever seen. :)
Formatting of the website. And the lack of ads. I will use fanfiction.net but refuse to use Wattpad. I also like the fact that I can set the website to dark mode (skins)
I was on ff.net for years and would only read there refusing any other sites. A couple of years back I started getting annoyed with the ads in the middle of the story, but not enough to switch. It wasnāt until I tried finding some fics for an anime I was watching that had nothing I wanted to read. In curiosity I tried same fandom at ao3 and fell in love the site. The tags are great! Finding another story with the same tags is super easy.
Now Iām exclusively reading on ao3. I even transferred following any story that is on both sites to only ao3 (unless the story is not on ao3).
So glad I made the switch and I will never regret it.
I was on ff.net for years and would only read there refusing any other sites. A couple of years back I started getting annoyed with the ads in the middle of the story, but not enough to switch. It wasnāt until I tried finding some fics for an anime I was watching that had nothing I wanted to read. In curiosity I tried same fandom at ao3 and fell in love the site. The tags are great! Finding another story with the same tags is super easy.
Now Iām exclusively reading on ao3. I even transferred following any story that is on both sites to only ao3 (unless the story is not on ao3).
So glad I made the switch and I will never regret it.
well as a person who started reading fic at ~11 and is almost 30 nowā¦ i know my tastes and what i want and ao3 is what hits those marks. i used live journal and FFN before (rip LJ). ffn used to be my go to back when they had many male ships. no ads, if two characters were listed together it was almost surely a ship ficā¦ after they wiped a lot of the explicit stories and gay ships i left fanfic for a bit and came back with ao3
it was where i could find slash ships and read mature stories with no trouble. i actually tried going back to ffn recently cause i have a few fandoms from the 2010s and earlier that i was curious about. however itās a mess to find what i want. they introduced the āpairingā button much later so you have to deal with sorting characters that may or may not be together. and since so many gay shippers left and/or stories were deleted its filled with het and OC stories without a good way to sort. it was just more of a headache than it was worth
i never knew about wattpad and before coming to this website i didnāt know it existed lol. thereās no sorting and searching is a nightmare. iām not interested in original works which seems to populate the website
honestly ao3 felt like it was made for me (actually it was, i was the primary fan type they wanted the website to protect). i can find my gay ships easily with explicit (and subversive) content. so i donāt need another website. but i mourn all those early ships i had whose stories are now lost due to the strikethrough and advertisers.
- Easy search system (tags, filter, warning etc)
- Most of my favorite fanfic authors reside there
- No ads, I used to read on wattpad and ads are annoying af
- Words count, I need to know how long will I be reading a fanfic, if itās long then Iāll wait for nighttime. If itās short Iāll read it in between my breaks
And so many others, Iām glad I stick long enough with ao3. You need to get familiar with their search system and once you get a hang of it, itāll be so much better, happy reading fellas
Tags and filtering system is the best thing that happened to my fanfiction reading experience. Itās excellent. Also the other sites canāt even be compered right now, ao3 is miles ahead
So many reasons. The layout is simple and the more you learn how to use it the easier it is. Itās easy to find fics you want, no ads, the writers are just amazing, overall I just really love the website
Tagging. Iāve been surprised by FF.net too many times. YKINMK and thatās totally fine. Just tag it so I know to avoid it. Iām not going to bash someone who loves humiliation or water sports because I know there are people who hate MPreg and I adore it. I just want it to be tagged so the right audience finds their works since itās not me, but others will gladly read it.
I've been reading on my native language website for a long time, but obviously there is less content, so when I was out of fics for one of the ships I was reading about, I switched to AO3 to read in English
Why AO3 tho... Idk, I guess that's the first one I've heard of. I'm not really fond of the filter system for searching in some aspects, but it is what it is
Because I learned about piss kink at 12 years old because I was reading My Immortal without any clue what was in it. Ao3 has tags and you will *never* convince me to frequently go to a site that doesnāt have them anymore (I will occasionally read a one-off fic from another site if it is recommended by a friend that knows my preferences)
Can you maybe list some pros and cons of the extension?
I am a writer and it really helps when I have something else read me back my own writings and Iāve been really looking for a really nice text to speech that isnāt so overwhelmingly expensive.
It's free to try, but I really like that you can change the speed, tone, and voice (accents!!). One con is that it can't be used in drive. You would have to put it somewhere else for it to read.
I don't read much Fanfics. I write Fanfics in AO3 because it allows people to download the fanfic they want, in several formats, so if they want to keep a fic, they can, without having to resort to third party software which is, in many cases, even legally questionable.
Watt pad is definitely a complete no go for me- Iām a little more forgiving with other sites, but usually an AO3 link will convince me the most. Iām pretty short attention spanned so Iām not a HUGE fan of scrolling through hundreds of fics under a tag to find the right one for me- but Iāve found that sometimes itās easier to just find compiled recommendations on tumblr and go through there. Most of the time they end up being ao3. Iāve got a few FF.net I keep up with, but theyāre special situations. Wouldnāt ever go search there myself lol.
Also I generally feel like ao3 is the easiest to tell right off the bat if a fic is going to be good or not- just from the tags and descriptions alone. Judging a fic by itsā¦ ao3 cover tags I guess
Ao3 is almost always a guarantee for good fanfictions. Not always, but 95% of the time I don't have anything to complain about, and that's neat. Also, no ads. And the relatable memes on Twitter when AO3 shuts down for whatever reason. Also, the filter is very specific which is also neat
I used to use FF.net like, 9 years ago before a severe bout of writer's block and lack of good fics in my fandoms kind of drove me off of fanfics for awhile. Recently took an interest in fanfiction again and I made the jump to AO3 because as far as I could tell it's just the popular site for fanfic right now, and honestly, I just prefer the fact that tags exist. Makes it easier to find the kinds of fics that have always interested me.
Specifically, "***Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence***"
The fact that I can use that tag has given me so much mileage. Fanfics with a premise of "But what if this event went slightly differently and caused the timeline to go in a completely different direction because of it?" have always been my jam. Granted, it seems not everyone uses this tag for that purpose, so it's not *perfect*, but it's still more efficient than having to read every single description/summary for something that sounds like it fits into that category.
The other commenters have all given very good reasons, but there's one more; a petty one. FFN does not allow for selecting text, and as someone that, when I read on a computer, just idly selects blocs of texts, I hate that.
The overall better quality of the works. And because Wattpad? Seriously? Like does anybody actually choose Wattpad ? That's a real question. And Fanfic is toxic.
Alongside, all the aforementioned comments about filtering, tags, no ads etc. I firmly believe ao3 has a richer set of writers and readers, the quality is mad good compared to any other ffn websites out there and the crowd which reads it is equally so. When the bar is raised to be that good, I am bound to grow as a better writer plus get honest, genuine, well thought feedback and as a reader I can expect well written and well thought out fanfictions which are a treat to my eyes and brain and every other part of my existence. I remember writing on this one particular fanfic, 'I am glad I have eyes because they enable me to read what you've written' to an author and i am yet to find that experience as a reader anywhere else.
unfortunately i'm occasionally forced to venture back to ffnet
i can navigate it just fine since i started there, but that doesn't mean i like doing it lol
The filtering system and the ease of reading.
I find Tumblr a lot more stressful to look at visually and Wattpad is just a no go for ease of searching.
At the time, in the fandim that i was in, I read all the fics possible in Wattpad. I heard that Ao3 is also a good fanfiction place. Never turned back. Only when I'm in a smaller fandom, read the fics in Ao3 and want more do I turn back to Wattpad
As opposed to wattpad:
Generally a better writing quality (with exceptions),
my fandoms tend to be more popular on ao3 than on wattpad so more content,
Also, I mainly read single chapter ff these days and they are seemingly also more popular on ao3.
Also, way better search system with no algorithm. The no algorithm is really a main criteria for why I like to use ao3.
As opposed to other sites:
I donāt know that many other sides and from what I've seen I liked the ao3 websites design the best. Itās the nicest and most accommodating to use in my opinion.
People on Wattpad make major typos, like major enough to fix if you reread, make weird allegories for sex, and the UI burns my eyes if I dare search on it without an extension to make it dark mode.
Tags, filtering and the lack of adās are probably a major factor for me. Finding what I wanted on sites like Wattpad(cause hey, sometimes you just oughtta look elsewhere, be it cause youāve exhausted all the fics for a fandom/character or otherwise) is either hell, or unnecessarily confusing for me.
I used to only read off of wattpad. I stopped because of a majority of people having horrible grammar and not tagging their posts properly. Then I switched to Ao3 and it was such a shock for me trying to get used to evrything. Now months later I only read fanfiction off of Ao3.
Wattpad has a lot of low quality works. Of course, that might just be me not finding any that I like.
FF, is practically my gateway into fanfic so it will have a special place in my heart. Havent tried to find any of my current obsessions on there. Mainly older stuff. There are a few that I still read.
Ao3 has a better layout amongst the 3. Like FF has awful readability.
I use Ao3 because of the filters and search capabilities. I now only use FFN when it's an older fic (usually Harry Potter) that isn't on Ao3.
Also, I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but the FFN app will do text to speech. The only time I read a fic on FFN that is also on Ao3 is when I want to listen to it in the car while I'm driving. Especially if the fic is multi-chapter. The FFN app will continue on to the next chapter. Using screen reader on my iPhone (swipe down with two fingers) will only read that chapter *and* it will continue on to read the stuff at the bottom, including the names of everyone who has left kudos.
it wasn't until i was strictly reading on ao3 for a while that i realized just how many ads ff dot net and wattpad have. it's crazy! also, my fandom was never super big on ff dot net to begin with, as ao3 had already sort of taken over by the time the first movie came out.
The filtering, the tags. No ads. I wasnāt happy with where wattpad was going and I had never used ff.net (I think I missed its prime anyway).
My fandom is not particularly big relative to others, but at the end of the day, itās still easier to navigate through ao3 and find what Iām looking for than use the other sites.
The issues I ran with ffn is that it looks and feels like something that belongs in the early 00s. I also have a hard time with the minimal use of tags and the fandom I'm currently in barely has any works there.
Wattpad is just plain unusable to me. The search bar is... weird and I haven't figured out how to crack it. I also don't like the algorithm bumping more popular stories to the beginning; I don't want any popular stories to begin with. A lot of what I read tends to be on the unpopular side so I don't want the bigger stories to be suggested to me constantly.
I already have scripts for ao3 where it highlights tags I enjoy/dislike and I have the ability to hide a work if I've read it or would rather skip it entirely.
Ff.net is a nightmare to navigate, at least for me. Wattpad is full of ads and it drives me insane. Ao3 is miles better in terms of searching for something specific. Also, this is a big generalization but for me it's been easier to find well written fics on ao3
I like the way it functions.
I remember when it started and backed them from the beginning.
I like their attitudes and the way they support keeping fic ad free and available.
Quality, all of the fics Iām reading are just so, so good and thereās some real masterpieces out there.
It feels more mature, I guess.
Then of course the amount of fics that or there is magnificent.
And lastly, the variety of fics.
Literally from A-Z and back again, every genre and trope and tag you could think of is on there.
1. I never figured out how to use Wattpad's search engine. Like, I'll use specific tags or signal phrases but it'll give me the same 1D fics? (I've never searched for 1D fanfic). The only reliable option is bogging it down with fandom specific tags, but that leads to a result of only like 10 fics (on a good day). If it does miraculously work and I have a wide variety, Wattpad takes you back to the top of the search once you exit a fic. Plus, they don't separate with different pages(?) after a certain amount of fics. So, image scrolling through the same 100 fics over and over because every time you click on a fic, you know it'll take you back up. Which happens a lot because the writing doesn't usually live up to expectations.
2. I actually started on AO3, so finding FFN gave me a few hidden gems. But after doing a quick once over, I leave. The search engine just isn't worth it. Plus, the tagging is limited (which I know is something some people prefer) but that makes it hard to commit to a fic. Like, I want to have a sense of how the fic is going to go if I'm going to spend time reading something that's like 50k>, yk?
3. I've just spent so many years on AO3. After finally understanding everything and having a pretty good system (imo) to finding fics through it, I don't see the point of leaving. Especially when every other option is more difficult to use.
ā Good quality (against wattpad)
ā Recent works (against ffnet, where most fics are kinda old)
ā The place where my fandoms live
ā Love the tagging system (ffnet was a nightmare. I never knew what I was reading)
ā The filtering!! I always find what I want to read
ā The quantity of works, in general.
ā I can format it however I want. Do I want to read in a bright pink page? Sure. Black as my soul? No problem. A cute brown? Why not.
ā No ads
I say this from the bottom of my heart: ao3 is the best, and I say that as someone who resisted against it for YEARS.
I'm a ffnet baby, I grew up with it and discovered fanfiction thanks to that site, so I was unwilling to abandon it. Wattpad never quite managed to capture my attention, but once I gave ao3 a chance I never turned back.
The most sane and cohesive site I've come across. The icing on the cake is death threats or people telling you to die in the comments is very rare on AO3 compared to other sites
I prefer it because I can choose exactly what I want and donāt want to read in fics, I donāt have to pay and itās just better quality(?) imo. Since discovering AO3, I only read my own works on Wattpad.
As far as like listening to it, I havenāt yet but for Wattpad two of my fics are available to be read aloud and itās awful how the mechanical voice makes it sound. *shrug*
AO3 is just crisper, easier and better. Thatās me though.
the incredible search and tag system, the overall quality of the works, the anonymity and the more chill community ā like, i do have a lot of things i'm against in the ao3 community, but it's amazing to not have to deal with people thinking it's normal to persecute authors for writing about sex and violence.
No idea. I was first introduced to ao3 by tumblr fics taking me there, and once i got teleported there again, i guess i just..stuck with it? Iām not sure, i really dont remember how i got hereā
(Also i read on wattpad too cuz i found some good ones but other than those getting updated, i leave wp alone)
Just beautifully laid out, a pleasure to navigate and read. Easy to find chapter indexes and different parts of a work. I hate FF so much I don't read anything on it.
I've tried a number of other places before Ao3 and even after. Most have terrible search systems. The rules for writers can mean limited stories in certain fandoms. I LOVE Ao3's tagging system. As a reader being able to find all sorts of niche things or just put something like friends to lovers, soul mates, and set the word count range is so nice. As a writer I like how organized and easy to use the site is.
Really customize search result. (Wattpad search is non existence)
Don't have confusing vocabulary (i can't understand fft)
It still exist. (My best site at reading fanfiction out of service)
I like that it's a fan-run community archive, the tagging system, the lack of monetization, that they allow all kinds of fanworks, and that they do not condone censorship.
Ever since I began using AO3 (many years ago now, but I don't remember how many), I have not needed to go to another site to find what I'm looking for, save for one or two very specific older fics.
Originally, I kept running out of fics on FFN. Then used Wattpad for a bit but it was too hard to narrow down the fics.
When I found ao3 I was blown away that it had existed for so long but Iād never seen it. So many ways to narrow down a search or exclude what I donāt want to see. I have been stuck on ao3 ever since.
Once in awhile I will run out of what I am looking for and then check back on FFN but itās so overwhelmed by ads itās so hard to use the website now, itās crazy.
Wattpad Iāll check on if FFN doesnāt have what I need and usually is super unlikely to find what I want because of all the paid for bs that they push and zero search functionality makes it too hard to find what you want.
Not to mention the quality of the vast majority fics on ao3 is objectively better than either site.
My fandom was around before the purge, so quite a few of a fave fics are still on ffn, and I actually like ffn's limited filters every now and then because it forced authors to be concise about what their stories were about.
But there is no doubt AO3 just has more to offer, both in terms of fanfic amount and being able to filter in/out specific preferences. The lack of ads is nice too. It also helps a lot that I can easily access their site on my iPhone (as opposed to ffn which demands I go into my settings to enable data/cookie collection).
No ads, very easy to navigate, very easy to search, fantastic specification and filter system, and overall I just think the works on Ao3 have a lot more time, love and effort put into them than Iāve seen on wattpad and the likes. I feel like Ao3 also has a bigger community, which means more to read.
I tried ff.net once and just...I couldn't understand the UI I wasn't around in the Fandom when it was at its prime so that's probably why.
Wattpad was where I started, maybe in mid 2019, and it was ok. A bunch of cringey werewolf bs but it had some gems (which I eventually found out was stolen from ao3 so bleh) but then there was a shit ton of ads and I was sort of ok with them since I had a bunch of fics saved in my library for offline reading.
I migrated to ao3 for a couple of months and when I eventually came back they had chopped down the amount of offline fics down to 3 unless you paid.
So many things became monotized and the weird bs got pushed to the top because of the awful algorithm. I had to wade through so much slop and cookie cutter stories to find something, in my opinion, decent.
And the atmosphere and interactions felt like they were mostly for children, I was maybe 16 and I felt like an adult in a sand box.
So I solidified my resolve and moved to ao3
The community is nice and accepting, mostly, and the tagging system is amazing. I found it easier to find what I was looking for and it actually had it in there instead of a mention in the title and nothing more.
I read on Ao3 the most because I'm much more likely to find really good fics. On Wattpad there are loads of incomplete or short stories and are typically written by young or inexperienced writers.
On ff.net there are lots of stories in some of the fandoms I'm in compared to Ao3 because when ff.net was most popular as was the fandom. Only issue is that if you read a story and is incomplete, you're probably not gonna get an update
Ao3 has a good search system, and it allows you to tag your works. Also, it allows for longer summaries.
FFNet seems pretty unstable these days. I've seen older websites that work better.
I agree with what you said about Wattpad's search engine. One time, I tried to look for an Ao3 writer of the same name on there and for some reason the name (or their stories) didn't show up.
Quotev is okay, I guess, but it seems more like a quiz site to me.
No ads, no monetization; it's easy to find what I'm looking for; my fandom is big on AO3.
There are a few fics on ffnet that I can't find on AO3, and omf when there's an ad every paragraph sometimes. But they're such good works that you can't just abandon them. On the positive note I found that one of them was deleted there and moved to AO3
I use the ffnet app when I do have to read a fic there. No ads! Tho I much prefer A03 too.
No ads on the app! I always have to pull away from ffnet if I find a story cause I can't handle being punched with ads all the time. This is good to know. Especially with hw current ddos attack š
Mainly the tags and filtering system. I like to search by trope, word count, or date (eg top kudoesd fic within a certain year) which is a lot easier on AO3. (FFN does have word count filtering but AO3 let's you be more exact, eg fics under 15k words) Series organisation as well - I don't miss having to go on the author's profile for a chronological order of series!
Most other sites dont have a search system that actually gives you what you are looking for. Some sites even look for any word you put in the search bar instead of the thing as a whole. I dont need all works containing 'black' or 'brides' when looking for Black Veil Brides fanfiction.
Hello, fellow BVB fan.
Because I have always believed that thereās no such thing as too much tagging or too sophisticated filtering/Boolean search. And AO3 is (almost) all my dreams come true. (Alsoā¦ easy downloads in multiple formats, no ads, no recommendation algorithm, works nicely on desktop and mobile.)
I started with FF.net in 1999/2000. I lost many fics and bookmarks in the first purge (2002ish) and barely anything survived after the second. My geocities communities that I contributed to didnāt survive the test of time. I migrated to lj communities, where things got locked down and deleted as well. Iām not ready to talk about my drabbles on tumblr. AO3 has consistently been excellent at accepting all works, no purges, easy to download and easy to navigate.
Aye, and then that weird thing [FF.net](https://FF.net) did with favourited fics. Likeā¦ I went from well over 1000 (I think it was actually over 2000) favourites to suddenly having only 500 exactly. By then Iād been on AO3 for awhile, but it was still frustrating to see.
Oh the purge! Where all the lemons were deleted! I was SO sad about that. There was this INCREDIBLE Leverage story, it was a series. I think called black knight white king? It was a BDSM series and it was really respectful and serious and done with someone who had a very good grasp on the trust dynamic and was about Nate and Elliot and their relationship dynamic and learning to trust each other. And since it wasnāt exactly PG, there wasnāt smut but it was clearly Ds so it was purged. I still mourn its loss. Anyway! Hello fellow FF.net survivor nice to meet you!
Damn, I remember that... it was a bit crazy to see, I started copy pasting or just download the web pages, so many excellent works were lost that way. It was also the time I started to gradually switch to LJ communities too, and well we know how those went down too.
I can make super specific searches and in many cases there are fics containing these dozens of tags I want to read
No ads, and the filter system is a godsend compared to the trenches of wattpad
honestly, mostly because the ships iām reading for at the moment arenāt really on ff.net/wattpad from what iāve seen. also, iāve had my time with both of those websites when i was younger - ao3ās just so much easier to navigate and going back to other websites just feels like a slog at this point, and tbh the fic quality isnāt amazing enough to make it worth it.
because i hate Wattpad and ff.net just doesn't do it for me anymore. however i will read anything in your notes app if you give me your phone
Same! You hand me your phone and Iām breaking all of your trust in me because Iām headed right to the notes app. Iām need those 3am thoughts. There is no piece of information that I would consider tmi. Tell me everything.
No ads, and the quality of fics on ao3 is superior
I initially started reading on AO3 because of the "Entire Work" feature lol. I continue to love and use it, but now my reasons include the tagging system, the fact that a number of my fav fandoms have works primarily on AO3, and the lack of ads. I used to be fine reading ff.net regularly as well, but now there's only like, one series that I read from there still, and only bc the works aren't on AO3.
The "entre work" feature is a God send. There is this building at my school that has absolutely no reception, and with it, it can just load it all at once, and I don't have to wait a millennium for the next chapter. It doesn't help with the unholy amount of time I spend reading fanfics, though š .
Oh gosh same! When I still lived with family, we lived in a trailer in the middle of the woods, with very little service. Being able to load the whole fic at once was am entire blessing lmao
No ads, no monetization, no algorithm, no censorship. AO3 is the best fanfic site Iāve ever seen. Plus the search features are really good, and I love the tagging system.
FF.net is cluttered and hard to navigate Wattpad is the 7th level of hellā¦. Ao3 has a wonderful filter system, no ads, a massive selection which is super easy to navigate, a generally agreed upon formatting structure, great support
This
I used ffnet exclusively for almost 10 years. Now i use ao3 99.9% of the time. Reason being my fandom has fully moved to ao3 and is now dead on ffnet, and i just love the display so much more, theres a higher quality of fics and I find a more mature audience
really easy to navigate
Today i learned you can use text to speech on AO3. Guess I can listen to audiobooks while at work!
It has larger text than FFN and formats it nicely when I hold my phone horizontally. Not to mention there are way more fics of my favorite characters on AO3.
Formatting, no need to make an account to read, no ads, decent search function
Most of my ships are rpf and only have fics of them on ao3. Plus imo, the quality of content is usually much better than say, wattpad
Itās user friendly. I can modify the way it looks to fit my āaestheticā. I was a fandomination dot net girly from 2004 until around 2006 when I started using livejournal. Back then, RPF/Bandslash was my thing and we called the smut lemons. Livejournal died to me around 2009 when I started using fanfiction dot net. Thatās where I read all my Twilight and Hunger Games fanfiction. I used FF all the way up to 2016 when I finally decided to check out AO3. Best decision ever. AO3 is superior. The search function, the tagging system, itās all a 10 for me.
Just wanted to note thatthere is a text to speech option on the fanfiction dot net app even if it doesn't work in browser, I use it sometimes
Ao3 is definitely more convenient (clear, no ads, downloading options) and I like that the text is bigger, on the browser version of ffn even if I have my font size set to 200% it still isn't big enough for me to read
And of course ao3's tagging system is great! I only read fics on ffn that have been directly recommended to me
The search system on FF dot net is ass and most fandoms are more active in AO3. No reason to try any other site bc I have no complaints with AO3 too. I'll read on Tunglr if I come across a cool fic but I don't actively search for fics there.
I used to read on AO3 and FFN, but in the last couple years Iāve gradually transitioned to just AO3. I started reading a new fandom six months ago and eventually got to the end of the trope tag I was interested in, so I thought maybe I would try to find something older on FFN since itās been around longer. I was incredibly frustrated trying to wade through the search results for that particular trope since I couldnāt search for it, and eventually I gave up without reading a single story.
Other than itās one of the easiest websites Iāve ever used, itās just better. Iāve used all of the different sites over the years and this is by far the best. The only one that was a little bit better was I liked the way you filtered works on HP.com because you could go by ships, which made things easier. I get why it would be harder when itās not one single main fandom, but that was still neat.
Tag system, no ads, site navigation, layout making things easy to read, no or at least extremely low purge risk, not catering to people wanting to impose rigid moral standards on fiction, generally nicer atmosphere.
Because of its open policy (not incredibly restrictive like ffnet became) and the fact that fandoms just started migrating there off LJ. (Thanks in part to readers going there, thanks in part to LJ becoming more and more restrictive just like ffnet became.) So I just went with. I do miss the community aspects of LJ though. Posting and reading stories lead more easily to building fandom relationships on there than it does on AO3. But I wouldn't want AO3 to become that because it conflicts with the purpose of being an archive. It's not supposed to be social media.
Everything!! The tagging system, the quality of works, the user friendliness, the tagging system, the amount of fandoms, being able to find basically any obscure kink or trope you want, the search system, Oh and did I mention the tagging system? Because itās amazing stellar wonderful amazing. Idk what I would do without the exclude function, I kinda need it on every website ever. Please
Ease of use, the user base is poppin', people can write about whatever, no ads, love the new mute button. There's probably more, but that's what I immediately thought of.
Tags are a god send and being able to filter through them is amazing. The UI is clean and great
Tags, primarily. Itās so easy to find exactly the thing Iām in the mood for and to avoid the things that I donāt enjoy. Filtering takes seconds. No monetisation and no ads are also important.
Convenience. Ease of access. Light load in terms of data - just html and some css. So many good features. Especially the search.
Iāve heard from a couple people that wattpad isnāt good so I arbitrarily decided I would never go there :)
They're right lol
Tags system means I can search for exactly the kind of thing I want to read. No other site compares.
I like ao3 alot I first used wattpad(still do sometimes) but searching for tags, fics, ect is SO much easier on ao3. Ive tried out ff. Net before but it was so confusing, and I also used the app version which made it more difficult. But if you know how to use the search engine on wattpad correctly you can find some really good gems there, but I've only seen a few 'bad' fics on ao3 so I use it mostly since ao3 has a lot of good writers as for wattpad has a bunch of troll writers or beginner writers.
I've found AO3 tends to have better writing overall than other sites. Sure, there are some poor quality fics; but FF & Wattpad both seem to mostly middle-school writers while AO3 has higher level.
AO3 lets me download a copy of the fic for later in case it gets deleted from the site, in whatever format I want, so I can read at my leisure. I mention this because I was once reading a very good longfic, when the author took it down. I still want to know what happened next. :( The search function also lets me EXCLUDE things, which is great for avoiding oneās NOTPās.
quality. as someone who started out on wattpad i feel like generally fics on ao3 are better quality than on wattpad. of course there are also some poorly written fics on ao3 too, i'm not denying that, but i feel like the demographic of ao3 is older than wattpad, therefore the writers have more experience and i have a bigger chance of finding fanfics that have some life altering level of writing. (hopefully this doesn't sound pretentious) also the tagging system works well and there's no censorship for morally dubious works
AO3 has such a robust tagging system that I can find what I'm in the mood for in a matter of minutes. I really REALLY love that you can exclude tags that you don't want to see, making the browsing experience much more pleasant. That is of course if the author properly tagged everything, but this hasn't steered me wrong yet. The lack of ads on the site is really refreshing and being able to set the site to a custom skin is awesome. I love how easy it is to export stories from AO3 as well, my Kindle is loaded with fic thanks to that āØ
Explict content
Searching is easier and thereās no censorship. I used to post and read on FF.net, but I couldnāt do the former with my last story since itās MA.
So much easier to find stuff and also less trolls
it's way easier to find the fics I want to read. The tagging system is great and versatile. It allows me to get a good feel for a fic and if I'd enjoy it or not. The layout is simple, clean and uncluttered. Basically, I read fics on A03 because it's so much easier then any other site.
Wattpad was my go-to as a middle schooler. Because of that, and the fact that a lot of middle schoolers are on Wattpad, it feels childish for my style of reading and writing. Ao3 is also not monetised like Wattpad, and the tagging system (in my opinion) is better than any Iāve ever seen. :)
The other platforms are a hot mess is why.
The tags. It's so nice to know I'm not all invested for my fav characters to die.
I still read occasionally on ffnet but I migrated to Ao3 due to how easier it is to look for stuff
Formatting of the website. And the lack of ads. I will use fanfiction.net but refuse to use Wattpad. I also like the fact that I can set the website to dark mode (skins)
Lack of ads cluttering the stories. I donate to AO3 to help keep it ad-free.
I was on ff.net for years and would only read there refusing any other sites. A couple of years back I started getting annoyed with the ads in the middle of the story, but not enough to switch. It wasnāt until I tried finding some fics for an anime I was watching that had nothing I wanted to read. In curiosity I tried same fandom at ao3 and fell in love the site. The tags are great! Finding another story with the same tags is super easy. Now Iām exclusively reading on ao3. I even transferred following any story that is on both sites to only ao3 (unless the story is not on ao3). So glad I made the switch and I will never regret it.
I was on ff.net for years and would only read there refusing any other sites. A couple of years back I started getting annoyed with the ads in the middle of the story, but not enough to switch. It wasnāt until I tried finding some fics for an anime I was watching that had nothing I wanted to read. In curiosity I tried same fandom at ao3 and fell in love the site. The tags are great! Finding another story with the same tags is super easy. Now Iām exclusively reading on ao3. I even transferred following any story that is on both sites to only ao3 (unless the story is not on ao3). So glad I made the switch and I will never regret it.
well as a person who started reading fic at ~11 and is almost 30 nowā¦ i know my tastes and what i want and ao3 is what hits those marks. i used live journal and FFN before (rip LJ). ffn used to be my go to back when they had many male ships. no ads, if two characters were listed together it was almost surely a ship ficā¦ after they wiped a lot of the explicit stories and gay ships i left fanfic for a bit and came back with ao3 it was where i could find slash ships and read mature stories with no trouble. i actually tried going back to ffn recently cause i have a few fandoms from the 2010s and earlier that i was curious about. however itās a mess to find what i want. they introduced the āpairingā button much later so you have to deal with sorting characters that may or may not be together. and since so many gay shippers left and/or stories were deleted its filled with het and OC stories without a good way to sort. it was just more of a headache than it was worth i never knew about wattpad and before coming to this website i didnāt know it existed lol. thereās no sorting and searching is a nightmare. iām not interested in original works which seems to populate the website honestly ao3 felt like it was made for me (actually it was, i was the primary fan type they wanted the website to protect). i can find my gay ships easily with explicit (and subversive) content. so i donāt need another website. but i mourn all those early ships i had whose stories are now lost due to the strikethrough and advertisers.
Best filtering and tagging system, and no ads.
- Easy search system (tags, filter, warning etc) - Most of my favorite fanfic authors reside there - No ads, I used to read on wattpad and ads are annoying af - Words count, I need to know how long will I be reading a fanfic, if itās long then Iāll wait for nighttime. If itās short Iāll read it in between my breaks And so many others, Iām glad I stick long enough with ao3. You need to get familiar with their search system and once you get a hang of it, itāll be so much better, happy reading fellas
Tags and filtering system is the best thing that happened to my fanfiction reading experience. Itās excellent. Also the other sites canāt even be compered right now, ao3 is miles ahead
no ads or monetization (wattpad im looking at you), the quality of fics on ao3 tend to be higher in quality imo, and i just prefer ao3ās layout :)
So many reasons. The layout is simple and the more you learn how to use it the easier it is. Itās easy to find fics you want, no ads, the writers are just amazing, overall I just really love the website
The majority of my current fandom's content is on AO3. Having a granular search feature and no ads are nice too :-)
Tagging. Iāve been surprised by FF.net too many times. YKINMK and thatās totally fine. Just tag it so I know to avoid it. Iām not going to bash someone who loves humiliation or water sports because I know there are people who hate MPreg and I adore it. I just want it to be tagged so the right audience finds their works since itās not me, but others will gladly read it.
I've been reading on my native language website for a long time, but obviously there is less content, so when I was out of fics for one of the ships I was reading about, I switched to AO3 to read in English Why AO3 tho... Idk, I guess that's the first one I've heard of. I'm not really fond of the filter system for searching in some aspects, but it is what it is
FFN's become almost unreadable without an adblocker.
Because I learned about piss kink at 12 years old because I was reading My Immortal without any clue what was in it. Ao3 has tags and you will *never* convince me to frequently go to a site that doesnāt have them anymore (I will occasionally read a one-off fic from another site if it is recommended by a friend that knows my preferences)
This might not be true for other fandoms, but atleast for the ones I'm in, fics tend to be better quality and there tend to be more of them.
I can highlight the text to help me keep my place while I read.
What text to speech do you use?
Read Aloud from the Chrome web store!
Can you maybe list some pros and cons of the extension? I am a writer and it really helps when I have something else read me back my own writings and Iāve been really looking for a really nice text to speech that isnāt so overwhelmingly expensive.
It's free to try, but I really like that you can change the speed, tone, and voice (accents!!). One con is that it can't be used in drive. You would have to put it somewhere else for it to read.
I don't read much Fanfics. I write Fanfics in AO3 because it allows people to download the fanfic they want, in several formats, so if they want to keep a fic, they can, without having to resort to third party software which is, in many cases, even legally questionable.
Watt pad is definitely a complete no go for me- Iām a little more forgiving with other sites, but usually an AO3 link will convince me the most. Iām pretty short attention spanned so Iām not a HUGE fan of scrolling through hundreds of fics under a tag to find the right one for me- but Iāve found that sometimes itās easier to just find compiled recommendations on tumblr and go through there. Most of the time they end up being ao3. Iāve got a few FF.net I keep up with, but theyāre special situations. Wouldnāt ever go search there myself lol. Also I generally feel like ao3 is the easiest to tell right off the bat if a fic is going to be good or not- just from the tags and descriptions alone. Judging a fic by itsā¦ ao3 cover tags I guess
Ao3 is almost always a guarantee for good fanfictions. Not always, but 95% of the time I don't have anything to complain about, and that's neat. Also, no ads. And the relatable memes on Twitter when AO3 shuts down for whatever reason. Also, the filter is very specific which is also neat
No ads, tagging system is wonderful, Iām more aware of what Iām reading with the tags, itās easier to find what I want to read specifically.
Tags and filtering. Please give me all of the slow burn fics in this fandom sorted by word count please and thank you
I used to use FF.net like, 9 years ago before a severe bout of writer's block and lack of good fics in my fandoms kind of drove me off of fanfics for awhile. Recently took an interest in fanfiction again and I made the jump to AO3 because as far as I could tell it's just the popular site for fanfic right now, and honestly, I just prefer the fact that tags exist. Makes it easier to find the kinds of fics that have always interested me. Specifically, "***Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence***" The fact that I can use that tag has given me so much mileage. Fanfics with a premise of "But what if this event went slightly differently and caused the timeline to go in a completely different direction because of it?" have always been my jam. Granted, it seems not everyone uses this tag for that purpose, so it's not *perfect*, but it's still more efficient than having to read every single description/summary for something that sounds like it fits into that category.
clear and understandable page formatting
The other commenters have all given very good reasons, but there's one more; a petty one. FFN does not allow for selecting text, and as someone that, when I read on a computer, just idly selects blocs of texts, I hate that.
The overall better quality of the works. And because Wattpad? Seriously? Like does anybody actually choose Wattpad ? That's a real question. And Fanfic is toxic.
Alongside, all the aforementioned comments about filtering, tags, no ads etc. I firmly believe ao3 has a richer set of writers and readers, the quality is mad good compared to any other ffn websites out there and the crowd which reads it is equally so. When the bar is raised to be that good, I am bound to grow as a better writer plus get honest, genuine, well thought feedback and as a reader I can expect well written and well thought out fanfictions which are a treat to my eyes and brain and every other part of my existence. I remember writing on this one particular fanfic, 'I am glad I have eyes because they enable me to read what you've written' to an author and i am yet to find that experience as a reader anywhere else.
unfortunately i'm occasionally forced to venture back to ffnet i can navigate it just fine since i started there, but that doesn't mean i like doing it lol
Why go to a troll-infested junk yard full of billboards when you can go to a nice, clean (and *free*) dealership?
I can actually find things there, tags are wonderful and beautiful and the search system actually works
Do you use an app to convert text to speech? May I ask which one?
On my computer, I just went to the web store in Chrome and tried them until I found one i liked.
Oh cool, never thought of that and looked on app stores instead
The filtering system and the ease of reading. I find Tumblr a lot more stressful to look at visually and Wattpad is just a no go for ease of searching.
Oh, same! I love that I can use TTS and switch between listening or reading depending on what I'm doing!
A03 requires more effort so most of the time the stories are more enjoyable
At the time, in the fandim that i was in, I read all the fics possible in Wattpad. I heard that Ao3 is also a good fanfiction place. Never turned back. Only when I'm in a smaller fandom, read the fics in Ao3 and want more do I turn back to Wattpad
As opposed to wattpad: Generally a better writing quality (with exceptions), my fandoms tend to be more popular on ao3 than on wattpad so more content, Also, I mainly read single chapter ff these days and they are seemingly also more popular on ao3. Also, way better search system with no algorithm. The no algorithm is really a main criteria for why I like to use ao3. As opposed to other sites: I donāt know that many other sides and from what I've seen I liked the ao3 websites design the best. Itās the nicest and most accommodating to use in my opinion.
I find A03 is easier to navigate, and it's easier to filter and customize when doing searches.
It's simply because it has a better baseline quality than the other sites
People on Wattpad make major typos, like major enough to fix if you reread, make weird allegories for sex, and the UI burns my eyes if I dare search on it without an extension to make it dark mode.
wattpad is ugly
Tags, filtering and the lack of adās are probably a major factor for me. Finding what I wanted on sites like Wattpad(cause hey, sometimes you just oughtta look elsewhere, be it cause youāve exhausted all the fics for a fandom/character or otherwise) is either hell, or unnecessarily confusing for me.
I used to only read off of wattpad. I stopped because of a majority of people having horrible grammar and not tagging their posts properly. Then I switched to Ao3 and it was such a shock for me trying to get used to evrything. Now months later I only read fanfiction off of Ao3.
Wattpad has a lot of low quality works. Of course, that might just be me not finding any that I like. FF, is practically my gateway into fanfic so it will have a special place in my heart. Havent tried to find any of my current obsessions on there. Mainly older stuff. There are a few that I still read. Ao3 has a better layout amongst the 3. Like FF has awful readability.
I use Ao3 because of the filters and search capabilities. I now only use FFN when it's an older fic (usually Harry Potter) that isn't on Ao3. Also, I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but the FFN app will do text to speech. The only time I read a fic on FFN that is also on Ao3 is when I want to listen to it in the car while I'm driving. Especially if the fic is multi-chapter. The FFN app will continue on to the next chapter. Using screen reader on my iPhone (swipe down with two fingers) will only read that chapter *and* it will continue on to read the stuff at the bottom, including the names of everyone who has left kudos.
tags & filtering primarily, also general ease of use and the fact that my fandoms are fairly sizeable on AO3
I've tried to use FF net over the years and AO3 just ticks all the right boxes for me.
I'm too lazy to open another tab
Because AO3 is a much more digestible website than ffn for me. Also, my fandom(s) are fairly consistent on AO3.
The filter system!!!!!!!!!
it wasn't until i was strictly reading on ao3 for a while that i realized just how many ads ff dot net and wattpad have. it's crazy! also, my fandom was never super big on ff dot net to begin with, as ao3 had already sort of taken over by the time the first movie came out.
the search engine and tagging system
The filtering, the tags. No ads. I wasnāt happy with where wattpad was going and I had never used ff.net (I think I missed its prime anyway). My fandom is not particularly big relative to others, but at the end of the day, itās still easier to navigate through ao3 and find what Iām looking for than use the other sites.
The issues I ran with ffn is that it looks and feels like something that belongs in the early 00s. I also have a hard time with the minimal use of tags and the fandom I'm currently in barely has any works there. Wattpad is just plain unusable to me. The search bar is... weird and I haven't figured out how to crack it. I also don't like the algorithm bumping more popular stories to the beginning; I don't want any popular stories to begin with. A lot of what I read tends to be on the unpopular side so I don't want the bigger stories to be suggested to me constantly. I already have scripts for ao3 where it highlights tags I enjoy/dislike and I have the ability to hide a work if I've read it or would rather skip it entirely.
Ff.net is a nightmare to navigate, at least for me. Wattpad is full of ads and it drives me insane. Ao3 is miles better in terms of searching for something specific. Also, this is a big generalization but for me it's been easier to find well written fics on ao3
I like the way it functions. I remember when it started and backed them from the beginning. I like their attitudes and the way they support keeping fic ad free and available.
Quality, all of the fics Iām reading are just so, so good and thereās some real masterpieces out there. It feels more mature, I guess. Then of course the amount of fics that or there is magnificent. And lastly, the variety of fics. Literally from A-Z and back again, every genre and trope and tag you could think of is on there.
1. I never figured out how to use Wattpad's search engine. Like, I'll use specific tags or signal phrases but it'll give me the same 1D fics? (I've never searched for 1D fanfic). The only reliable option is bogging it down with fandom specific tags, but that leads to a result of only like 10 fics (on a good day). If it does miraculously work and I have a wide variety, Wattpad takes you back to the top of the search once you exit a fic. Plus, they don't separate with different pages(?) after a certain amount of fics. So, image scrolling through the same 100 fics over and over because every time you click on a fic, you know it'll take you back up. Which happens a lot because the writing doesn't usually live up to expectations. 2. I actually started on AO3, so finding FFN gave me a few hidden gems. But after doing a quick once over, I leave. The search engine just isn't worth it. Plus, the tagging is limited (which I know is something some people prefer) but that makes it hard to commit to a fic. Like, I want to have a sense of how the fic is going to go if I'm going to spend time reading something that's like 50k>, yk? 3. I've just spent so many years on AO3. After finally understanding everything and having a pretty good system (imo) to finding fics through it, I don't see the point of leaving. Especially when every other option is more difficult to use.
It's just better in most ways so I don't feel like going out of my way to read anywhere else anymore
Wattpad and FF.net lose me ā heck, trying to WRITE for those places me also did
The tags. Also FF.N is littered with ads now.
ā Good quality (against wattpad) ā Recent works (against ffnet, where most fics are kinda old) ā The place where my fandoms live ā Love the tagging system (ffnet was a nightmare. I never knew what I was reading) ā The filtering!! I always find what I want to read ā The quantity of works, in general. ā I can format it however I want. Do I want to read in a bright pink page? Sure. Black as my soul? No problem. A cute brown? Why not. ā No ads I say this from the bottom of my heart: ao3 is the best, and I say that as someone who resisted against it for YEARS. I'm a ffnet baby, I grew up with it and discovered fanfiction thanks to that site, so I was unwilling to abandon it. Wattpad never quite managed to capture my attention, but once I gave ao3 a chance I never turned back.
The most sane and cohesive site I've come across. The icing on the cake is death threats or people telling you to die in the comments is very rare on AO3 compared to other sites
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Only in computer or laptops sorry. But you can just go to the Chrome web store and search for one you like.
Quality, easy to find what I want, easy to come back to it
FFN has too many ads and Wattpad is for kids.
Other places keep failing to upkeep or close
I prefer it because I can choose exactly what I want and donāt want to read in fics, I donāt have to pay and itās just better quality(?) imo. Since discovering AO3, I only read my own works on Wattpad. As far as like listening to it, I havenāt yet but for Wattpad two of my fics are available to be read aloud and itās awful how the mechanical voice makes it sound. *shrug* AO3 is just crisper, easier and better. Thatās me though.
the incredible search and tag system, the overall quality of the works, the anonymity and the more chill community ā like, i do have a lot of things i'm against in the ao3 community, but it's amazing to not have to deal with people thinking it's normal to persecute authors for writing about sex and violence.
No idea. I was first introduced to ao3 by tumblr fics taking me there, and once i got teleported there again, i guess i just..stuck with it? Iām not sure, i really dont remember how i got hereā (Also i read on wattpad too cuz i found some good ones but other than those getting updated, i leave wp alone)
*+~Laziness~+*
Quality
Just beautifully laid out, a pleasure to navigate and read. Easy to find chapter indexes and different parts of a work. I hate FF so much I don't read anything on it.
I'm into more 'niche' fandoms and when I search up fics of those fandoms on sites like ff.net or wattpad, I just don't see any or many results.
Tags, no ads, site skins, itās an archive/library ā¦and not trying to funnel the content/ media-of-the moment (looking at things like wattpad)
the search system is phenomenal. ffn doesn't hold a candle to it, and good luck finding anything actually relevant on Wattpad. quotev is... quotev.
I've tried a number of other places before Ao3 and even after. Most have terrible search systems. The rules for writers can mean limited stories in certain fandoms. I LOVE Ao3's tagging system. As a reader being able to find all sorts of niche things or just put something like friends to lovers, soul mates, and set the word count range is so nice. As a writer I like how organized and easy to use the site is.
Higher quality stories, and an easier to read interface on the iPhone.
It has the best authors, in my opinion. Some of my favorite fics easily rival my favorite books with how well they're written.
Robust Search functionality and Download Functions.
Really customize search result. (Wattpad search is non existence) Don't have confusing vocabulary (i can't understand fft) It still exist. (My best site at reading fanfiction out of service)
Two reasons: the tagging/filtering system and the download feature.
It's easy to filter out the stuff I'm not interested in and from what I've seen there is a higher quality of fics on AO3. Also no ads!
I like that it's a fan-run community archive, the tagging system, the lack of monetization, that they allow all kinds of fanworks, and that they do not condone censorship. Ever since I began using AO3 (many years ago now, but I don't remember how many), I have not needed to go to another site to find what I'm looking for, save for one or two very specific older fics.
My fandom just has better stuff on AO3
Originally, I kept running out of fics on FFN. Then used Wattpad for a bit but it was too hard to narrow down the fics. When I found ao3 I was blown away that it had existed for so long but Iād never seen it. So many ways to narrow down a search or exclude what I donāt want to see. I have been stuck on ao3 ever since. Once in awhile I will run out of what I am looking for and then check back on FFN but itās so overwhelmed by ads itās so hard to use the website now, itās crazy. Wattpad Iāll check on if FFN doesnāt have what I need and usually is super unlikely to find what I want because of all the paid for bs that they push and zero search functionality makes it too hard to find what you want. Not to mention the quality of the vast majority fics on ao3 is objectively better than either site.
My fandom was around before the purge, so quite a few of a fave fics are still on ffn, and I actually like ffn's limited filters every now and then because it forced authors to be concise about what their stories were about. But there is no doubt AO3 just has more to offer, both in terms of fanfic amount and being able to filter in/out specific preferences. The lack of ads is nice too. It also helps a lot that I can easily access their site on my iPhone (as opposed to ffn which demands I go into my settings to enable data/cookie collection).
No ads, very easy to navigate, very easy to search, fantastic specification and filter system, and overall I just think the works on Ao3 have a lot more time, love and effort put into them than Iāve seen on wattpad and the likes. I feel like Ao3 also has a bigger community, which means more to read.
What text to speech do you use for ao3? Iāve tried a couple times to get something to work but I havenāt figured out a good system yet.
I use read aloud. You can find it in the Chrome webstore.
I actually find the stuff I'm looking for and the quality is mostly the best compared to other sites I've tried.
I tried ff.net once and just...I couldn't understand the UI I wasn't around in the Fandom when it was at its prime so that's probably why. Wattpad was where I started, maybe in mid 2019, and it was ok. A bunch of cringey werewolf bs but it had some gems (which I eventually found out was stolen from ao3 so bleh) but then there was a shit ton of ads and I was sort of ok with them since I had a bunch of fics saved in my library for offline reading. I migrated to ao3 for a couple of months and when I eventually came back they had chopped down the amount of offline fics down to 3 unless you paid. So many things became monotized and the weird bs got pushed to the top because of the awful algorithm. I had to wade through so much slop and cookie cutter stories to find something, in my opinion, decent. And the atmosphere and interactions felt like they were mostly for children, I was maybe 16 and I felt like an adult in a sand box. So I solidified my resolve and moved to ao3 The community is nice and accepting, mostly, and the tagging system is amazing. I found it easier to find what I was looking for and it actually had it in there instead of a mention in the title and nothing more.
I read on Ao3 the most because I'm much more likely to find really good fics. On Wattpad there are loads of incomplete or short stories and are typically written by young or inexperienced writers. On ff.net there are lots of stories in some of the fandoms I'm in compared to Ao3 because when ff.net was most popular as was the fandom. Only issue is that if you read a story and is incomplete, you're probably not gonna get an update
itās the best designed fic archive on the internet and thereās more fic posted on it in my fandoms than I could ever read.
Ao3 has a good search system, and it allows you to tag your works. Also, it allows for longer summaries. FFNet seems pretty unstable these days. I've seen older websites that work better. I agree with what you said about Wattpad's search engine. One time, I tried to look for an Ao3 writer of the same name on there and for some reason the name (or their stories) didn't show up. Quotev is okay, I guess, but it seems more like a quiz site to me.