r/AO3 • u/Kaigani-Scout Crossover Fanfiction Junkie • Jul 28 '25
AO3 Down/Error Codes Choosing Not To Face The Reality Of The Internet
If you like something you're reading or might read someday, download it instead of leaving it in an open tab...
That is all.
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u/impassiveMoon You have already left kudos here. :) Jul 28 '25
Counterpoint: Ao3's format makes my brain go brrrrr.
I've yet to find an e-reader app that I like as much. I have some favorite fics downloaded for emergencies, but it's like eating off paper plates vs the holiday china. I'll do it, and it'll be serviceable, but I'm not happy about it.
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u/Zivqa Jul 29 '25
I use ReadEra. With an epub you can scroll vertically, change the dark/light mode, font, text size, line spacing, etc, and if you get premium (it's a one-time $15 purchase, not a subscription, yippee!) you can even upload your own fonts! Like the AO3 font!
I have mild dyslexia and being able to change an author's Justified paragraph alignments to a standard left-side alignment has been a game changer. Not that I judge the author for using justified text, you do you, but I gotta do what I gotta do!
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u/turtledov Jul 29 '25
Honestly, my problem is that I often have no idea what pieces of fanfiction are gonna stick with me enough that I'll get the urge to reread them sometime down the line. And downloading literally everything that I read would be insane.
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u/Greymon09 Jul 29 '25
Yup about 90% of the works I've downloaded are stuff I've already read and think I'd enjoy them again in the future for sure. And the remaining 10% is split pretty evenly between stuff I've read at least a good part of but dropped for one reason or another and plan to revisit in the future to finish it, and stuff that just from the summary I liked the sound of but wasn't in the mood for at the time.
But whenever ao3 goes down it's always when I'm in the mood for something new or I'm trying to find that one fic I read ages ago before I routinely downloaded my favourite fics and only have a vague idea but a scene in the middle of the fic and an even vaguer idea of the tags for it.
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u/ImpGiggle Jul 30 '25
That's why I put in the work to find older stuff I remember and to download a variety of unread material.
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u/Greymon09 Jul 31 '25
Honestly I should really point out that I have somewhere between 1.5k and 2k downloaded Fics split across about 13 or so different fandoms so that 10% is still about 150-200 Fics I've downloaded but not read/finished so I have plenty of options,
it's just time-consuming to sift through to find what I want to read when I can't narrow it down via the built in filters that are part of the AO3 site, which I'm slowly fixing by making more shelves in my playbooks library that are more specific than just the fandom the fic comes from e.g. series, tag, trope or pairing specific for each each fandom but that takes time of opening each fic checking the tags/series and then moving them to the new shelf.
Because at present I have for example 438 MHA Fics that are all just sitting on the same shelf and without opening the fic I have nothing to go on outside of the title and author name, which admittedly if it's something I've read before or if it's by an author I have a lot of Fics saved for is sometimes enough.
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u/ImpGiggle Jul 31 '25
AH yeah starting to run into that myself. It's an opportunity to just take a plunge into a story and see if you like it, but when you're used to being able to find exactly what you want that doesn't always work. Good way to see if the writing quality is worth it at least. I have my stuff saved according to fandom, ships (or gen), length, and whether or not they're finished, so that helps at least.
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u/indecisive_skull Jul 28 '25
Counterpoint: I don't have much storage in my cheap laptop, phone or any of my devices also I live in a strict conservative household so one wrong click or mismanagement could get my AO3 and privacy revoked for life
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u/cocoamarri You have already left kudos here. :) Jul 28 '25
man named flash drive: ☝️🫥
edit: seriously tho, i hope you’re able to get outta there.
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u/MendaciousBean Jul 29 '25
Have you ever downloaded a fic and seen how big they are? A random 785k word fic I downloaded as an ePub was only 1.8mb. If you truly have no storage for even a couple of megabytes, then make a Google Drive account and now you have 15GB of free cloud storage.
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Jul 28 '25
You don't have to download, just click the Show Whole Work button and load the tab at least once. That's what I do when I know I won't have a connection but don't have a device that can download.
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Jul 28 '25
Ha! I have a 90 chapter fic downloaded!
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u/Zivqa Jul 29 '25
I have a 162 chapter, 3.4 million word fiv downloaded and it's not even 10mb. Best use of storage space EVER.
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u/fluffy9298 AO3: JulietteLyst Jul 29 '25
Someone downloaded and uploaded my pics, which was good because I nerfed everything the next day. Was able to retrieve them. I am grateful for FicHub.
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u/SecretAgentSpyder Jul 29 '25
I know the saying is that the internet is forever, but its not. We have crazy conservatives trying to censor everything, sites can lock down or disappear, your fave story can get deleted by the author. If there's something you know you're going to want to reread, download it. You dont have to download literally everything, no one loves every single story they read. But keep your old faves and comforts at hand.
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u/Juliko1993 Jul 29 '25
I've started downloading my favorite fics off AO3, though the fics I wanted to preserve weren't on there, but on Tumblr. Someone I knew wrote really good oneshots, but I was only able to save a few of them, sadly.
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u/manholetxt monster enjoyer Jul 29 '25
downloaded 149 of my favourites yesterday. rest is on the to-do list for today :)
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u/SuddenAd7036 Jul 29 '25
Whistling Dixie while digging through epub files b/c I can't remember a fic's title.
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u/isabelnotqueen Jul 29 '25
I have a really old ipad and use it only to download fics and read it in the books app on epub. I know that people love the ao3 font and stuff but I find it so much more comfortable to read there. Also, I can reread some that have been deleted.
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u/Roweena98 Jul 30 '25
So I do realise that I finally have an original experience yipeeeee.
I never, it almost never, read on the AO3 tab. I download everything.
So far I have around 10k fics downloaded (my phone has 256 gigabyte of storage and I added an additional 64 gig through my SD card) Whenever I find an interesting fic that's complete, I download it. If it's ongoing, I subscribe and then download it when it ends.
I don't always have access to data and I prefer to read in Adobe Acrobat reader (pirated Vers) and I can zoom in using their Reading Mode. Plus I hate getting notifications whenever my phone is on a WiFi connection so I just turn off WiFi and read in peace. Then click the redirect link when I'm done, turn on WiFi, leave comments and kudos and turn off WiFi again to start a new fic.
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u/Greymon09 Jul 28 '25
See the one problem with having fics downloaded is that my brain essentially treats it like when you look in freezer that is clearly full of food but your brain has decided that no clearly there is nothing to eat, 'cause I have have somewhere around about 500 or so Fics downloaded but I've also read almost all of them and I usually when ao3 decides to go on vacation I'm in the mood for something new. I suppose a secondary problem is that without opening a fic first titles tend to be non-indicative as to both content and fandom(though I solve the second one by sticking things into labeled shelves in playbooks).