#orphan fics

[smol-warrior-1258]

I think it would be really sweet if ao3 had some sort of function where you could adopt orphaned fics. Like it would have some signifier next to your name in the author section to indicate it was an orphan and/or that you adopted, and you couldn't edit the original (though maybe you could continue an unfinished fic? I'm still trying to work out how that could be indicated appropriately & clearly separate from the base piece) but it would have a place to exist beyond the void of orphan_account.

Idk I just sometimes wonder if fic authors who orphan works ever look them up later on to check in, and that makes me a little melancholy to think about. I know there's a lot of reason fics get orphaned, but I just can't help feeling like they end up so lonely. Wouldn't it be nice to look up a fic you'd parted with and see that someone else loved it enough to claim it as their own? Or even to come back to a fic you thought you didn't want and reclaim it in some way?

[livmightlive]

I think the idea of orphaning fics on Ao3 is really funny bc it’s like… mama doesn’t love you anymore 💔 and then they’re cast to the streets.

And almost every orphaned fic I come across is a. A genuinely dangerous or way out there kink/fetish that the author definitely doesn’t want their name tied to b. An obviously old work that probably isn’t the best example of the authors skill set or degree in writing and then c. Dream smp fanfics 😔

Fly high you little orphans

[allyunabridged]

That feeling when you fall in love with a WIP fic you absolutely know won’t be finished because it’s an orphaned fic—that’s where I am right now. This could be one of my favorite fics of all time, and I will never know how it was supposed to end. 😭

[justpendule]

I finally decided to read some specific fics that had been sitting in my emails for months, only to realise that the author deleted them and ahhhhhh, that makes me so angry!! I understand that sometimes you don't like your past fics, but why not orphaning it instead of deleting it? Even if you don't like your work, other people might!

Sometimes I'm lucky enough to find the fic in the Wayback Machine, but really, it's so frustrating when you've been waiting for the good time to read a fic, only for it to have...disappeared.

Please, orphan your fics, don't delete them.