Chicken Or The Egg? - This Is How It Started
(this is mostly caused because i misclicked when sorting some tags and i decided to go down this rabbit hole 🥰)
AO3 has been created in October 2008 and entered open beta in November 2009 - so then, why are some works dated as being older than that? The reason is that AO3 is, as the name says, an archive, which allows users to backdate their works. That would make finding out the oldest works difficult - if it weren't for the fact that each work is numbered in the url, in ascending order.
The oldest work, which would have had the number 1 is unavailable - likely due to being deleted or the number having been used up for a test - but we do have the others!
(2) All You Had to Do Was Ask by Élizabeth (watersword)
Fandoms: Dead Poet's Society (1989)
13 Sep 2008
(3) Analysis of the Obvious by Élizabeth (watersword)
Fandoms: Lord of the Rings RPF
13 Sep 2008
(5) Dense Like Chocolate Cake by Ice is Blue (ice_is_blue)
Fandoms: Yami No Matsuei
13 Sep 2008
(6) Dedication by Ice is Blue (ice_is_blue)
Fandoms: Gravitation (Anime)
13 Sep 2008
(7) Dedication by Ice is Blue (ice_is_blue)
Fandoms: Gravitation (Anime)
13 Sep 2008
(8) His Place In the Universe by Ice is Blue (ice_is_blue)
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender
13 Sep 2008
(9) Life With Terrans (Five Things Ronon Notices) by Kass
Fandoms: Stargate Atlantis
13 Sep 2008
(11) Are You Happy Now? by Kass
Fandoms: Stargate Atlantis
13 Sep 2008
(13) An Ordinary Grown-Up Lady by Élizabeth (watersword)
Fandoms: Chronicles of Narnia
13 Sep 2008
(15) Written by the Victors by Speranza
Fandoms: Stargate Atlantis
05 Sep 2007 <(backdated work)
(16) Proximity by astolat
Fandoms: American Idol RPF (Season 7)
13 Sep 2008
(17) Decline and Fall by orphan_account <(oldest orphaned work)
Fandoms: Harry Potter - Rowling
13 Sep 2008
According to the tag search feature, the tags canonized first were, in this order, the Media tags (categories like "TV Shows", "Movies" etc, to which all fandoms belong), Ratings, Archive Warnings, and Categories (interestingly, those consisted only of Gen, F/M, M/M and Other at the time; F/F had been added on later, when "Closer" (23) by zvi needed to use it)
The first "regular" tags (as in: belonging to the four main categories) canonized had been:
Character: Sam Winchester
Character: Dean Winchester
Character: John Winchester
Relationship: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Relationship: Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Character: Viggo Mortensen
Character: Orlando Bloom
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Relationship: Ronon Dex/Jennifer Keller
Character: John Sheppard
Character: Susan Pevensie
Character: David Archuleta
Fandom: American Idol RPF
Relationship: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
