What do the country of Portugal, the city of Seoul, and the Archive of Our Own (AO3) have in common? They are all home to more than 10 million people! That's right: AO3 has surpassed 10 million registered users this month! We at the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW) are delighted to share this incredible milestone with you.
Even as the community is growing year by year, the active exchange of creations and ideas between fans remains as a cornerstone of fan culture. Whether it's gifting each other fanfic, recording a podfic of your favorite story, or putting together a reclist of fics—no fandom thrives without the myriad ways fans share their passion with one another. In today's world, where ideas are just one more commodity, and content is curated for maximum revenue, it's more important than ever to appreciate and celebrate these aspects of fan spaces.
One way to let other fans know you appreciate the love and hard work they pour into their creations is commenting on their work. In celebration of this milestone, we have prepared a Bingo all about comments! Below you can find the bingo cards in both a square and vertical format.
You can fill out as many bingo squares as you want—the more comments, the merrier! Let us know on this post or on social media which Bingos you scored.
Happy commenting, and a huge thank you to everyone who helped us reach this milestone!
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
I knew Prue Leith left GBBO, but I just learned that Nigella Lawson is replacing her for this year's show! I am intrigued! (Note: I still haven't watched the most recent series - I usually save it for my summer vacation.)
I am also considering if I want to try to bake something new this weekend, or just more orange cranberry scones, so my giant bag of cranberries in the freezer slowly gets smaller. I do have plans to try a new pasta recipe and maybe some panko-crusted pork chops, but I hadn't really thought about a baking project. I will have to think on it now.
In work news, some of the stuff I was concerned about yesterday got done, finally, so I feel so much better. I still have to write my stupid review of Assistant J though. I've been putting it off but I can't put it off any longer. Ugh. Such a stupid process.
2025 was a busy year for AO3! The site continued to see rising traffic, with Communicationspublishing an update on AO3 statistics from 2020-2025. In December, Support received 3,589 tickets, totaling to over 40,000 tickets received in 2025, an all-time high. Meanwhile, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 6,357 tickets in December, totaling approximately 47,500 tickets in 2025. Check out PAC's pie chart for more details.
Pie chart of the approximately 47,500 Policy & Abuse tickets submitted in 2025, divided by type of complaint. These categories reflect the subject of the complaint, and (with the exception of Offensive Content), do not indicate whether the report was upheld or rejected.
In the first half of January, User Response Translation translated or betaed 32 ticket requests from Support and PAC.
In December, Tag Wrangling wrangled approximately 598,000 tags, or around 1,300 tags per volunteer. In total, they wrangled approximately 4,944,000 tags in 2025. They also continued work on handling "No Fandom" additional tags, publishing December and January news posts detailing recent changes. In total, Tag Wrangling published nine "No Fandom"-related news posts in 2025 covering around 399 new canonical "No Fandom" additional tags.
In January, Tag Wrangling updated their Fandom Tag Metatag guidelines, including clarifying when a fandom metatag should be made and when to merge closely related fandoms into one fandom tag. Check out the news post detailing the new policy.
As part of International Volunteers Day (IVD) 2025, Communications collected and batched answers to the IVD Q&A by committee, resulting in five committee-specific news posts highlighting Communications, Support, Tag Wrangling, Translation, and Volunteers & Recruiting. Answers across committees, along with additional responses not featured in the news posts, have been compiled in a separate AO3 work.
III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW
Fanlore ran an editing chat to close out 2025, and it was a lot of fun! They also began preparing for their annual IFD Fanlore Challenge and Femslash February event! Keep an eye on their Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr for announcements.
Legal answered many internal and external questions this month.
In January, Communications' Fanhackers wrote about the Transformative Approaches to Fan Identity, and they began a multi-post survey of acafannish research and publishing resources.
IV. GOVERNANCE
In December, Board announced the resignations of two directors: Kathryn Solderholm and Erica Frank. We would like to thank Erica and Kathryn for their service as members of the Board, and wish them all the best in their future endeavours with the OTW.
In January, Board finalized and approved the OTW Procurement & Purchasing Policy. They and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) organised the first quarter of 2026 public Board meeting on January 18 which had 54 attendees. Minutes of this meeting will be available soon on the OTW website. Elsewhere, Board and BAT continued work on document review and archiving board statements, Code of Conduct tasks in conjunction with Organizational Culture Roadmap, and ongoing projects for mental health resources for volunteers, scheduling tools, public meeting best practices and volunteer retention in BAT. BAT also updated their OTW website committee page.
Organizational Culture Roadmap finalized a confidentiality policy in preparation for upcoming external recruitment.
V. OUR VOLUNTEERS
In December, Volunteers & Recruiting thanked all OTW volunteers on International Volunteer Day with their organization-wide email and graphics campaign. In January, they ran recruitment for Open Doors.
From November 22 to January 23, Volunteers & Recruiting received 355 new requests, and completed 378, leaving them with 52 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of January 23, 2025, the OTW has 1,013 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New Subcommittee Leads/Workgroup Heads: Eevee (Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Lead) and megidola (Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Head) New AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Lulu S (Chair Trainee) New Fanlore Volunteers: Elfie, Konsta Morales, Watts, and 1 other Graphic Designer New Open Doors Volunteers: Addiebees, AviLine, feelyx, LeighR, Marie K, meservey66, MetaKass, miffmiff, Mort, pinkconstellations, SleepyJane, Spit, StormySea, Truendz, Vail, and 11 other Import Assistants New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: megidola (Supervisor) and 1 Chair Track Volunteer New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Chelsea Cheyanne, inspiredstork, Sanity, will, and Yrindor (Supervisors) New Translation Volunteers: Rhine and 1 other Chair Trainee; Arushi, athursdayschild, Eirinar, Linarii, Mira8, Niki K, Phoebe B, Pi, Rita P, and 12 other Translators New TWC Volunteers: Fiona M, Yumi, and 3 other Layout Editors; and 2 Outreach and Communications Editors New User Response Translation Volunteers: Eki, f0f8ff, HARRitte, Jules R, Laus, PanPan, rosings, zoy zauce, and 3 other Translators
Departing Directors: Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm Departing Committee Chairs: 1 Communications Chair and 1 Elections Chair Departing BAT Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Communications Volunteers: KW Ukuku (TikTok Moderator), Lori P (Graphics Volunteer), 1 Fanhacker Volunteer, and 1 Social Media Moderator Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Graphic Designer, 2 Membership Data Specialists, and 2 Volunteers Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Discord Moderator, 1 Outreach Analyst, and 1 Policy & Admin Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Pelagia and 1 other Administrative Volunteer, Wynne (Import Assistant), and 1 FCPP Intern Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Support Volunteers: Nary and 22 other Volunteers Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Nary and 1 other Supervisor; Asas Carmesins, Bruno, Eevee, lianneder, Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse, McBangle, Sayornis, Tea Huimyni, and 10 other Wranglers Departing Translation Volunteers: Teelee (Task Assistant); Illiterations and 4 Translators Departing TWC Volunteers: Melanie Kohnen (Review Editor); Courtney Lazore and 1 other Proofreader; and 1 Symposium Editor Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 1 Senior Volunteer and 2 Volunteers
For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
I'm starting to think that I'm never going to get caught up with Critical Role. 🙃
This is why I have to stay up until 2-3am on Thursday nights, no matter how much I need sleep. If I miss an episode, it sets me back for months. Every time. I should know this by now, because it happens every time I skip an episode.
I'm currently three episodes behind, although it will be four episodes by tomorrow because there's no physical way possible for me to catch up before then since three episodes + three Cooldown is about eleven hours. I really need to find the time to catch up. It's just so hard since I can't do anything else while I'm watching, since it's not possible for me to multitask while watching something new-to-me. I have to pay attention and constantly read the subtitles, or I miss what's going on.
It's one thing to set aside four(ish) hours late on a Thrusday night when I'm already tired and don't have the spoons to do much of anything already. It's something else entirely to find four hours to set aside when I have so many other things that I need to get done.
I could talk about how exhausting work is, not for any big thing but just because a regular project of mine has taken about twice as long as usual for a variety of reasons, but I am very close to it being done. I mean, will there be changes? Yes, but just getting it all down and confirmed will be a huge weight off my shoulders. Also, there's other stuff that makes me tired, but that is above my pay grade, even if I've got the new CEO calling me to talk it over(!!!).
In other news, I knew Panarin was going, and though I'm not thrilled about the return (I dislike Drury a lot as GM, but it is what it is while Dolan is in charge), I'm glad he's not in Florida. I don't want him in the east at all, so I can avoid seeing him on another team. (It helped with Kreider, too.)
Anyway, what I really want to talk about is the new episode of The Muppet Show that aired tonight. If you are a fan of the original, without spoilers let me say I recommend watching it. Hopefully it does well enough that they make more, because I thought it was 100% in the spirit of the original, unlike some of the more recent projects they've done.
I feel pretty good about this representation, especially since I've read (and mostly enjoyed) the most recent winners for twelve years running, up to last year's which I just haven't gotten around to yet. Also because for the ones I have not read, about half of them are by authors who have written other stories that I did read. But some of them I know I will never bother with, and that's okay.
Well, I didn't do as many snowflake challenges as I was planning. I ended up spending most of January working on edits for book 2. The exciting news is that I've put the first two chapters up to preview!
Title: Chapters 1-2 of Surviving Peace Genre: Science Fiction Rated: PG-13/Teen for violence and swearing - not more than you would see on tv. Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Spoilers for my first book The Dementia (so you know what's going on), Captured/Prisoners, Interrogation, Found family, Fresh Dystopia,
Also also! If any folks out there are interested in being an early reader please let me know!
I'll give you a free advance ebook in mid-Feb, and in the endless chase for reviews, would love it if you leave a review wherever you buy books and/or Goodreads. Surviving Peace comes out March 18. (This whole marketing thing, I swear.)
I'm doing some minor operational work tonight. It should be transparent, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong. The main thing I'm touching is testing a replacement for Apache2 (our web server software) in one area of the site.
So many times, I've sat down, intending to post, but I'm so consumed by anxiety and stress from ::waves hand around:: and my general life crap that I can't seem to do it. There's this part of me that just can't believe--I mean, literally can't believe--what is happening in this shithole country. I don't doomscroll much, but it's impossible to avoid everything.
My mom was from Minnesota, St. Paul specifically but as anyone who's been there knows, it doesn't really matter which of the twin cities you're from, they're just across the river. I've spent a lot of time there, even though the half of her siblings who stayed in Minnesota had families that were never great to those of us out here in the PNW. (It's funny, out of her six sibs, three stayed there and three moved here.) A part of me does kind of want to know what is happening with my cousins, but we've really lost touch, and I think one of the few I've stayed in some vague kind of touch with is pretty conservative, so... So as much as I've tried not to get into a doom spiral, it's really freaking hard. And it's not like these jackboot fucks aren't also in our own cities, especially in these blue states.
I'm considering doing the Fandom T***ps Hate (I hate that fucker so much I can't stand to say his name and it's ruined a perfectly serviceable word) auction, though I'm really struggling with the idea of it. I loved doing the Fandom Loves Puerto Rico auction some years back, and got to do both a vid and a fic. But at this point right now, I don't think I have anything to offer that anyone wants; I haven't found anything to replace Cap fandom and a lot of the smaller fandoms I could write don't even generate other signups at Yuletide. So like a minimum bid of $5 wouldn't exactly help the auction much when I can't generate any interest because of my goofy list of unpopular fandoms. There used to be these Yuletide stalwart fandoms every year like Kings, but a couple years ago when I wrote for it, even people who used to be into it didn't read the fics. I don't know, I can't decide. I'd like to contribute, but I feel like what little I could do wouldn't make much of a contribution.
Part of it, I'm sure, is that I am not into the popular thing, once again. I have not been swept away by Heated Rivalry, and definitely am reminded of that feeling when it seemed like there was literally no other person in all of fandom who didn't love Stargate Atlantis, and how isolating that was. It was kinda nice after Captain America: The Winter Soldier to be in something popular and huge. That's rarely been the case for me--even in hot fandoms, I would always be into the "wrong" ship or something, so Stucky was pretty wild for me.
I could consider adding something popular like The Pitt, but I'm also not sure if I could write in it; I haven't been reading fic much, for some reason I can't concentrate enough for that, and so I don't know what I might be able to do in it. There are definitely shows/movies I'd love to try to write but don't feel like I could. I have always admired people who can come up with ideas for just about anything they like, I'm so envious of that. I don't know what's wrong with me!
In non fandom news, I'm still mostly hanging in there: my numbers are holding steady and I think the cancer part is mostly okay, it's just the other weird stuff that's plaguing me. There's something really weird and wrong with my knee, and my hands are so bad and constantly painful that I'm not sure what I am going to be able to do about it. But I have chemo on Thursday so I am planning to talk to my oncologist about it all. Sometimes the obvious things are things I can't do because of the cancer or the drugs.
I had been in the middle of a Schitt's Creek rewatch when I heard that Catherine O'Hara died, and I am just so heartbroken. She has been one of my all-time favorites for so long, and there were two wonderful things she did in the early '80s when there was that short-lived revival craze of anthology shows such as the '80s Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, The George Burns Comedy Week, and this movie a lot of the SCTV crew did called Really Weird Tales, that I think few people ever saw, let alone remembered. If you want to laugh and enjoy her as much as I do, you can watch both of these on YouTube, they're not the best quality but I loved them so and it's great to know at least one or two other people remembered these shows. Her segment of Really Weird Tales is called I'll Die Loving and the George Burns one is called The Dynamite Girl (the link to RWT is the whole movie, but the George Burns one is her segment alone).
I've been slowly making my way through some of the new vids from this year's Festivids and, oh, do I miss vidding. A song that I used in a vid myself years ago came up on a Spotify playlist earlier, and I could still pretty much see the entire vid playing in my head as I was listening to it.
Part of me really wants to try to get back into it, but I know that I don't have the spoons for it. Not right now. I'd basically be starting from scratch when it comes to the various programs needed to properly vid, and even if I were to somehow get the spoons together to go to the trouble of getting everything I'd need? I'd still have to find the time for it. I barely have time to write fanfiction sometimes, and I can fit it in at work or on the bus - neither of which would be an option with vidding.
Beating the final boss of Dark Souls puts you straight into New Game Plus, so you need to do the DLC first, but yeah. I have in fact completed the base game up until you enter the last area. And there is a general consensus that the final boss is not the hardest in the game.
The DLC bosses are all substantially harder than the base game ones, and I have two more left, so it remains to be seen whether I can beat them, but at this point the odds look decent that I will at least be able to finish the base game.
I would like to remind you all that my initial goal was to see if I could beat the tutorial.
AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.
In this round of updates, we began adjusting existing canonical "No Fandom" tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships. We also continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.
None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.
In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.
New Canonicals
The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:
Additionally, this month we began making adjustments to existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.
While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:
While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.
You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:
For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.
In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.
Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven’t gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least three months from now to give us adequate time to do so.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
So yeah, I definitely think this season has been firing on all cylinders (excellent musical choices as well, especially the Paramore cover), and thankfully we only have to wait a few weeks for part 2.
*
Current Mood:pleased
Current Music:Stray Italian Greyhound - Vienna Teng
Festivids went online. I can't create vids myself, but I love watching them. Here are some which especially caught my eye this year:
Babylon 5 : I loved all three of this year's B5 vids, but Marching On really is a love letter to the entire show, and I adore it.
Conclave : The Devil you know : in which there is scheming, rise and fall, and gorgeous cinematography. Captures the spirit (and performances) of the movie really well.
Elementary: Read my mind: my favourite incarnations of Holmes and Watson get a superb outing in this one.
Foundation: So it goes: captures the grandeur, the insanity, the messed up parent/mentor/child (protegé) relationships really really well. (No material from the third season used as far as I can tell, if anyone hasn't watched it yet and doesn't want to be spoiled.)
Knives Out Movies: Now you know: Sondheim/Knives Out OTP! Witty and moving take on all three leads, their stories and the connecting elements.
Star Trek: Prodigy:Find your people: which is what our young heroes do so very well in this lovely show - and in this vid.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
ao3_news_feed
![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}