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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36243 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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"AO3" is insane because it appears to be one of the most legitimately dangerous websites with the potential to gigafry your brain but is exclusively read by literal turbonormies who unironically want to like "read Dramione angst squee fic" and basically get oneshotted by it.

I'm joking but I also think it might be true in a certain sense. I have seen some stuff on AO3.

basically get oneshotted by it

As in, dies_from_cringe.gif or slipping off the degen slope? Or some combination thereof?

I freely admit I have no firsthand knowledge of AO3 and zero interest in actual fanfiction, even having technically genned it on the regular for like two years straight. I already cringe too much at machine-generated text to ever try reading human-generated stuff, I do however like the general informal style and the cute OOC-ish "afterthoughts" conferred by explicitly prompting fanfic, it's a pretty good antidote to corpodrone bullshit.

Actually now I wonder what R1 can output if prompted for xianxia-style shit, its flavor of schizophrenia seems apt, but I have even less experience with that.

Some combination thereof but also the degen slope. Femgooners (and also just gooners).

See my earlier exchange on some of the stuff that's really popular on AO3 (never mind the more niche parts where the smut comes thick and fast): https://www.themotte.org/post/877/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/187490?context=8#context

There are some fanfic classics: HPMOR, Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux, Harry Potter and the Natural 20

I read a little xianxia, started Dao of the Bizarre Immortal (interesting and original but didn't quite hit the high-fantasy button for me), Outside of Time (too generic), Lord of the Mysteries (also interesting but too slow IMO though everyone raves about it and its getting an anime). Reverend Insanity is by far my favourite, uniquely original, clever and thematically interesting too with the metanarrative stuff. Very long and unfinished due to a ban, RIP. Selfmadehuman liked it a lot too.

Problem with writing is that even R1 (with my crude and admittedly poor prompting) suffers from a lack of soul. It rehashes too much, it rehashes well (and a lot of authors only rehash too) but I want more soul. If you ask it to be creative, you get generic machine creativeness. And when it does behave a bit more genuinely creative things get loose and kind of dreamlike, you're on its wild ride. It'll make up bizarre formats. Still quite fun though.

What is AO3?

What is Google?

Look, yes I can talk to algorithms and chatbots all day long, but I'm on The Motte to do something that is not quite but mostly similar to talking to actual people. I don't want to do research and come to incorect, incomplete or irrelevant conclusions. Not when a simple question can do the job, and gets me an answer that keeps the context here in mind. If this annoys you, then you don't have to be the one to answer.

AO3 stands for Archive Of Our Own. It’s a repository of fanfiction and original works, made in response to some long-ago incident where a company tried to claim copyright over its predecessor (I think).

It’s slowly become the number 1 specialist fanfic site, beating out the original fanfiction.net, because it’s much much better built. The tagging system is excellent and allows you to filter on or exclude any tag or combination of tags. Which you need, because 90% of it is hot men adopting kittens or distracting themselves from shared trauma with angst gay hate-sex.

Because the tag system is very powerful and the moderation is literally nonexistent, it is also full of depraved stuff. Want to read stories about cannibalism? There’s a tag for that. Probably about 10,000 stories. Etc. Want “lesbian” AND “werewolf” AND “age gap”? Probably a fic. Niches proliferate.

Want to read stories about cannibalism? There’s a tag for that. Probably about 10,000 stories.

47,475

Want “lesbian” AND “werewolf” AND “age gap”? Probably a fic.

83

Good man. I applaud your dedication to evidence-driven debate.

Archive Of Our Own (hence O3), it's a fanfic repository.

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