introduction:
hello and welcome to skaiblue's "how to join the ao3 community" post! this is mainly targeted at c.ai users and stuff, but anyone who likes fanfics, etc are 100% welcome to read!
ai is using up energy for their data centers, and is stealing from fanfiction authors. this goes for chatgpt, c.ai, etc. but what's the real solution? what's a "c.ai alternative" that's not some other chatbot? well, this is the right place!
this is a guide to moving to Archive Of Our Own (i will refer to it as AO3 for ease of making this) and ditching c.ai! i, an avid ao3 author and reader, will also introduce you to the community, how to join it, and some basic memes and terminology popular in the AO3 community! AO3 is a fanwork sharing site that includes but is not limited to: fanfiction, fan videos, fanart, and podfic. AO3 is the source of how c.ai gains responses. it trains off of real fanfiction on AO3. let's hop onto the next chapter.
how to actually leave c.ai:
i recommend c.ai addicts to build their way out of c.ai by researching about the dangers of generative ai and chatbots. to make the research easier, here is a harvard article which is about the environmental impacts caused by ai. by researching, you can build momentum for the switch to AO3. limiting your screen time on it is a good option i heard, as you can treat the time limit reminder as a warning to use it less. limiting your use of it is always the first step to quitting an addiction (i heard the screen time limiting thing from an ex-c.ai addict). in my opinion, watching youtube videos and connecting with ex-c.ai addicts are a great way to gain advice. that method even lets you actually talk to real people who were on the same boat!
how to join AO3:
let's search up "ao3". archiveofourown.org is the correct URL for AO3. when you visit the site, you will be greeted with a homepage that will be similar or the same to this:
on the right-hand side, look for a button that says "Get Invited!". click on that button, and then enter your email. once you have requested your invitation, you can explore the page. the invitation process should not take over a month or two. once you have gotten your invitation email, it should say something in the email like "You have been invited to join the Archive Of Our Own!" or something like that. then, you can set up your account.
how to use AO3:
once you've requested your invite, let's take a look and learn the basics of ao3. under the "archive of our own" at the top left corner should be a red divider thingy. in the divider should be buttons that say "fandoms" "browse" "search" and "about". with the fandoms button, you can choose to find fandoms you want via the categories. the browse button lets you freely browse most recent works in AO3, browse public bookmarks made by people, browse tags via a word cloud, and browse collections. the search tool let's us search the same things you can browse in a more detailed way. via about, you can check the news, FAQ, and even donate or volunteer for AO3! the searchbar on the right hand side of the red divider is pretty self explanatory.
on the main part of the homepage, you can check AO3's bluesky and tumblr, check the news in an easy way and "find your favorites".
with an AO3 account, you can share fanworks, get notified about your favorite works, series, or users update, participate in challenges and keep track of works. you can also use skins and have AO3 on dark mode by scrolling all the way down to the footer, and looking for a button that says "reversi".
for example, this is my AO3. when you have an account, you can personalize the whole page with site skins (i found mine on pinterest) and pin tags to your find your favorites. i recommend searching up how to add tags to your find your favorites.
terminology:
this is a chapter about terminology and memes the AO3 community usually uses.
"if there is a screen, AO3 will be seen" a meme which is all about basically being able to use AO3 on almost every screen you can find. i pulled that meme off more than 3 times. here are some examples of it below, done by the AO3 community:
"you have already left kudos here" is a popup that appears when you try to give kudos (like) to a work again. it became a meme. people turned this into a meme because they want to give kudos to a work again.
"AO3 author's curse" is an inside joke (which is somehow...real?????) usually made by authors in the AO3 community. when AO3 authors usually post a fanfic, they tend to get a consequence such as sickness, or worse. one's AO3 author curse was literally them dying. here is the fanfic: the fanfic.
and anyways.... thats it for now. i will try to update this and if u got invited, welcome to ur first day of being apart of AO3!!!