after the ao3 outage i hope we all embrace the practice of letting a creator know when we've enjoyed their work (in this case, fic)!
so the next time you really loved something, leave a comment. i know the daunting part is not knowing what to comment — hell, i'm a writer and i don't even know what to say sometimes after i've had my heart ripped out from a fic. so here's a general guideline on some things that i tend to write when i'm at a loss for words, because creators deserve it:
"that was so good/beautiful/lovely!"
"thank you for sharing your work/time/talent with us!"
your favourite scene (writers love this)
what you liked about the fic/characters/their writing (writers love this too)
how their work made you feel
"you're such a good writer!"
"please keep on writing!" (best encouragement ever!)
big thank you to the tumblypoos for understanding the spirit of this post (the curse of being chronically online and nosy) and not typing one million comments going "yeah! fuck teenagers," as has been the trend on twitter
AO3 has recently seen a rise in guest spambot comments making false accusations about work creators or other users. For example, they may claim that a particular user is discriminating against minorities, trying to hide the fact that they use AI, or are at risk of having their works stolen or deleted.
These comments often copy existing AO3 usernames in order to make their accusations seem more legitimate. They may also try to lure people onto other platforms (similar to the art commission scam), or use fake links that actually lead to pornographic images.
As always, we recommend that you do not click on any suspicious links or give your contact information to scammers. Instead, simply mark the comments as spam or report them so that the Policy & Abuse committee can remove comments left by these spambots.
Learn how to recognize them and what to do below the cut!
How to recognize this kind of spam:
The comments come from guests, not logged-in users.
The comments may start with praise for you and your writing, trying to lull you into a false sense of security. Or they may claim that you are a bad writer, trying to make you too upset to realize that the comments are fake.
The comments may accuse you or another user of promoting discriminatory beliefs, deceiving fans, or similar behaviors that might cause other people to shun or harass the accused individual. They may claim that they checked social media to find that the accused user is "brazenly sharing hateful content" or "bragging about using AI".
The comments are often pleading or angry, asking you to "stop lying to your readers", "don't remove the AI prompts from your work", or suggesting that you "consider adding more diverse characters" to "repair the trust you've lost with your audience".
So far, these comments have all been from guests. Our advice is to flag them as spam to better filter them out.
To help train our automated spam-checker to block similar guest comments in the future:
If the comment is on your own work:
Go directly to the comment on your work, either by clicking on the link in your email or in your AO3 inbox.
Click on the "Spam" button to mark the guest comment as spam and remove it from your work.
Note: The "Spam" button only appears when viewing a guest comment directly on your work. This is because the AO3 comment inbox is merely a copy of the work's comments – deleting a comment from your AO3 inbox does not delete the comment from the work itself.
If you see comments like these on someone else's work:
Feel free to let the creator know the comment is from a bot, and that they should mark it as spam.
You can also report the comments as botspam via the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form linked at the bottom of every page on AO3.
If you are reporting multiple guest comments, please submit only one report, and include all comment links in your report description. (You can get the direct link to any comment by clicking the "Thread" button on the comment, and then copying the URL of that page.)
As of December 2025, bots have also left guest comments harassing users by:
threatening to report you/your fic to the authorities or your employers
alleging security concerns like your email being compromised or spyware on your computer
claiming that they know your address and are going to visit you at your house
saying that you will die alone and unemployed over the holidays
What these bots claim is not true. These accusations do not mean your work will be deleted or that your accounts are insecure. We recommend that you mark these comments as spam following the instructions in our previous post.
These examples also do not represent the full range of harassment comments that you may receive. We will continue to try and keep you updated about trends; however, please note that the exact wording the bots use will continue to evolve.
If you're not sure if something is a spambot comment, you're welcome to contact Policy & Abuse for assistance. Refer to the original post for more information!
fanfic writing culture isn’t “oh dang! I wanted to write about this prompt with this character but someone else already wrote it, so now I can’t”.
fanfic writing culture is always “two cakes is better than one. the more the merrier. there can ever be enough fics of this character with this prompt!”
There was an Aragorn+Legolas writer I used to read who wrote multiple 20k+ fics in which they went on a little mini-adventure and one of them got injured. They had like. At least ten that followed this exact format, and I fucking loved all of them. I’d finish one and be like, “AGAIN!!!” so like. Two cakes is great but it’s even better when it’s ten cakes by the same writer.
I saw a post that said no one reads a fic they love and goes to the author's page saying "that was amazing, I hope they don't have anything else like this one." And same thing is probably true with tags and prompts.
I love it when fan fiction writers are like: “ah shit, this was meant to be one part but I started writing it and now it has to be three”. Like the fanfic is happening to them and not being created by them.
i'll defend fanfic for my whole life. like the joy it brings is genuinely transformative and indulgent in a way unique to the genre. it isn't meant for a market, it isn't meant to be sold or marketed. it is born out of such care and passion for a media that one must write and must share it, so other folks can enjoy it to. for no other reason than love and joy. do you know how special that is? especially in our current social and political climate.