Are you a paralegal interested in helping the Legal Committee carry out its legal advocacy mission? Do you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU and US? Would you like to assist AO3 users by resolving complaints? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.
If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW's legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization. We provide confidential legal advice to every part of the OTW organization, respond to fans' requests for general assistance and information, and create educational materials. We also file briefs in lawsuits and advise lawmakers about how to take fans’ needs and interests into account in creating and interpreting the law. And we're looking for a few new members!
We are looking for a paralegal to assist with managing standard questions, tracking issues, and ensuring we adhere to deadlines. If this describes you, please click through to the application form. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Legal Committee Paralegal at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW’s legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization.
We are currently looking for a Trademark Specialist, who will be responsible for trademark registration applications and maintenance and trademark enforcement, generally dealing with platforms and attempts to monetize AO3 via apps or merchandise.
If you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU or US, and can effectively communicate legal issues to non lawyers, click through for the job description and to apply. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Legal Committee Trademark Specialist at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for addressing questions and concerns about potential violations of the AO3 Terms of Service. We determine whether reports are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are. PAC volunteers correspond directly with AO3 users and collaborate on projects both within PAC and with other OTW committees.
Our main goals as a committee are:
We are seeking people who can:
You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. While English proficiency is required, we welcome applicants who are fluent in other languages, especially Brazilian Portuguese (Português brasileiro), Chinese (中文), French (Français), Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), Japanese (日本語), Polish (Polski), Russian (Русский), Spanish (Español), Turkish (Türkçe), or Ukrainian (Українська).
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Policy & Abuse Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
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.
Are you a paralegal interested in helping the Legal Committee carry out its legal advocacy mission? Do you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU and US? Would you like to assist AO3 users by resolving complaints? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We’re excited to announce the opening of applications for:
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don’t see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.
If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW’s legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization. We provide confidential legal advice to every part of the OTW organization, respond to fans’ requests for general assistance and information, and create educational materials. We also file briefs in lawsuits and advise lawmakers about how to take fans’ needs and interests into account in creating and interpreting the law. And we’re looking for a few new members!
We are looking for a paralegal to assist with managing standard questions, tracking issues, and ensuring we adhere to deadlines. If this describes you, please click through to the application form. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Legal Committee Paralegal at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW’s legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization.
We are currently looking for a Trademark Specialist, who will be responsible for trademark registration applications and maintenance and trademark enforcement, generally dealing with platforms and attempts to monetize AO3 via apps or merchandise.
If you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU or US, and can effectively communicate legal issues to non lawyers, click through for the job description and to apply. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Legal Committee Trademark Specialist at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
ThePolicy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for addressing questions and concerns about potential violations of the AO3 Terms of Service. We determine whether reports are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are. PAC volunteers correspond directly with AO3 users and collaborate on projects both within PAC and with other OTW committees.
Our main goals as a committee are:
We are seeking people who can:
You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. While English proficiency is required, we welcome applicants who are fluent in other languages, especially Brazilian Portuguese (Português brasileiro), Chinese (中文), French (Français), Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), Japanese (日本語), Polish (Polski), Russian (Русский), Spanish (Español), Turkish (Türkçe), or Ukrainian (Українська).
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Policy & Abuse Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
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.
Title: Make Me Your Home
Author: Reader115
Canon: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Pairing: Keith/Lance
Rating: Mature [
]
Word Count: 38,145
Summary: “Oh my god, Keeeith,” Lance wheezed. “Keith you’re the best drunk space cadet I’ve ever seen.” “Space cadet,” Keith mumbled. He repeated the words again although his eyes had zeroed in on Lance’s hands and Lance offered no resistance when Keith picked one of them up and pulled it possessively towards his lap. He began to gently trace over Lance’s fingers, sending shivers up Lance’s arm and down his spine. “You have looong fingers,” Keith murmured after a few moments. Keith’s face perked up then, as if he’d just had a brilliant idea, and Lance could almost not wait to hear what new obscure thought had entered Keith’s pretty head. He was prepared to laugh, and instead found himself shivering again as Keith leaned far into his personal bubble, lips practically touching Lance’s ear when he spoke next. “I bet you could reach all kinds of things, Lance.”
Recommendation: I liked this story and enjoyed it enough that I would like to share it with you.
I don’t know how I keep timing these so that I finish my audiobook and my paper book one right after the other. This weekend I also wrapped up The Black Fantastic, an anthology compiled by Andre M. Carrington. Thank you to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque for bringing this one to my attention! This is a collection of “Afrofuturist” stories by Black authors. If you want more detail, Pauraque has done individual reviews of each story which you can read here; I won’t get that specific.
With the usual caveat that all anthologies vary in quality, I enjoyed this one. There were a lot of very different stories, from some really fantastical stuff to ones that are just a little bit to the left of the world as it stands. On the high end of things, pieces like A Guide to the Native Fruits of Hawai’i by Alayna Dawn Johnson, where the protagonist grapples with her decision to collaborate with a group of vampire invaders to prey on the locals (and the metaphor of vampirism for the way Hawaii is treated by wealthy Americans is not lost in the shuffle); or The Orb by Tara Campbell, which was both strange and unexplained, choosing to focus not on the “why” or “how” of the situation but again on the moral quandary of its main character.
On the lower end, ones like The Ones Who Stay and Fight by NK Jemisin, which felt…narratively unclear, to say the least. It is either a satire of the kind of utopia writers create where its status as utopia is essentially dependent on eliminating any disagreement or contact with the outside world…or it’s a whole-hearted endorsement of that view. And if I can’t tell which, I tend to think the author’s failed at their purpose; or Ruler of the Rear Guard by Maurice Broaddus, which seemed to end just as it was getting to the plot.
Overall, I had fun with this anthology. SFF short story collections, done well, are such a scintillating showcase of creativity and I felt that here.
![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png){kind=icon}
blueskies_chin On Sunday I finished The Tainted Cup, the first book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. This is a fantasy murder mystery with an element of political thriller.
The main character is Ana Dolabra, an eccentric but brilliant investigator, and I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen a woman fill this role. The wacky but effective investigator is of course a very well-known stock character, but has always been, in my experience, a man. I found Ana delightful; strange but not off-putting, and without coming off like the author was working to hard to make her quirky.
However, our point-of-view protagonist is Din Kol, Ana’s put-upon assistant, on whose shoulders falls the managing of her many idiosyncrasies. They’re a fun team to watch work, and in this first book we get to see their working relationship unfold, as they’ve only recently teamed up at the start. Din is fine, but mostly I appreciated him as a lens for Ana.
Bennett’s fantasy world is characterized by fantastical use and manipulation of plants and the human body. Din, for instance, has been modified to be an “engraver”—someone with an eidetic memory. For obvious reasons, this serves him well as aid to an investigator.
I think Bennett does a good job of throwing you into the world and letting you use context to figure most of it out. I get bored with SFF novels that feel the need to hold your hand, as if you might be a first-time SFF reader who never encountered a magic system before, so I was relieved when Bennett just started telling the story and letting me figure the world out as it went along. I’d rather be a bit lost at times than be toddled along, but I never felt lost here.
The novel touches on some things that I feel are pretty keenly relevant, like the ability of the wealthy to avoid justice and their willingness to inflict suffering on the rest of society to better their own position (and then justify it to themselves).
I don’t read a ton of murder mysteries, so I may not be the best judge of this, but I also felt that Ana worked well. It’s a tough trick writing a character who’s meant to be much smarter than the rest of the cast (perhaps even than the author!), and it can fail a couple of ways: the supposed “brilliant” deductions are obvious to the average reader, making the rest of the cast look painfully dull for not seeing them; or the machinations are so obtuse with so little evidence the reader simply won’t believe the detective could have figured that out without an ass-pull from the author. I didn’t think Bennett fell into either of these traps and every detail Ana referred to in one of her deductions was something that had been mentioned before.
I enjoyed this book and I plan to read the next one. Very interested to see where Ana’s adventures take her next!
Our February releases included new admin tools for our Support and Policy & Abuse teams, as well as a bunch of challenge and collection fixes and a host of small updates and improvements. We also upgraded to Rails 8 and Elasticsearch 9!
Many thanks to first-time contributor Shel!
On February 2, we deployed a major Rails update.
On February 9, we introduced a way for our Support team to add information to the support form without disabling the form, and deployed a bunch of miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
Our February 17 deploy included various small fixes and updates.
A bunch of gem updates went out on February 21.
On February 28, we upgraded to Elasticsearch 9.
In early April, we announced that AO3 is exiting open beta!
AO3 has grown and changed a lot since open beta launched in 2009! We've gone from 347 users to over 10 million and from 6,598 works to over 17 million. We've also introduced many features in that time, including the tag system and tag wrangling, additional privacy settings that allow creators to restrict their works or comments to logged-in users, downloads for offline access to fanworks, and more.
Since AO3's software has been stable for a long time, this change is mostly cosmetic and doesn't indicate everything is finalized or perfectly working. Our volunteer coders and community contributors will still be adding to and improving post-beta AO3 every day.
For more information on AO3 exiting open beta, check out the announcement for details.
In March, we celebrated AO3 reaching 17 million works! \o/
Beyond exiting beta, Accessibility, Design & Technology also performed two important upgrades in March: updating Elasticsearch to version 9 and Ruby on Rails to version 8.1. With these two upgrades, AO3 is on the latest version for two of its most important pieces of software. They also published January’s release notes.
Systems published a postmortem on early March's AO3 downtime.
Open Doors announced the import of SlasHeaven, a Spanish-language slash fanfiction and fanart archive, as part of their Online Archive Rescue Project.
In February, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 5,674 tickets, which is over 2,000 fewer tickets than the previous month and marks the first decrease in PAC's backlog since 2024. PAC also coordinated with Communications on a news post describing various spambots seen on AO3 and how we're combating them. Also in February, Support received 3,031 tickets, and User Response Translation completed 42 requests from PAC and Support.
Tag Wrangling announced 31 new "No Fandom" canonical tags in their March round-up. On the @ao3org Tumblr, they announced changes to Critical Role fandom tags, creating an overarching fandom metatag for the Exandrian Universe and having specific campaigns or other media split into subtags. They hope these changes will help users better tag and filter for the works they want to see.
In February, Tag Wrangling wrangled over 543,000 tags or approximately 1,200 tags per wrangling volunteer.
Communications has updated the OTW News by Email service! You can now subscribe specifically to recruitment posts. If you're already subscribed to OTW News by Email and would like to change what emails you receive, please contact Communications via their contact form.
In March, Fanlore ran a monthly editing challenge inviting users to archive external links on a page.
Legal answered a number of questions about pending and newly enacted laws around the world, as well as dealing with internal requests from OTW committees.
TWC released No. 47 of Transformative Works and Cultures, a special issue on Gaming Fandom edited by coeditors Hayley McCullough and Ashley P. Jones.
Board and Board Assistants Team continued work on ongoing and newer projects, including making progress on the OTW website project with Communications, supporting Accessibility, Design & Technology with their documentation, and supporting Finance with streamlining messaging policies. They also began preparing for the next public Board meeting scheduled for April 18.
In March, Development & Membership caught up on their recurring donation gifts and put in more regular procedures for them going forward. In conjunction with Communications and Translation, they're now preparing for April's Membership Drive by getting graphics and new gifts ready.
Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for three committees this month: Communications (News Post Moderation), Translation, and User Response Translation.
From February 21 to March 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 160 new requests and completed 159, leaving them with 66 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of March 22, 2026, the OTW has 992 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New Committee Chairs/Leads: Becca Bun and Jules Moon (Fanlore), Rebecca Tushnet and Stacey Lantagne (Legal)
New Communications Volunteers: LinnK, Jahnavi, and 3 other Social Media Moderators
New Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin and 1 Social Media & Outreach
New Open Doors Volunteers: Andrea T and 4 other Import Assistants; Kathy and 1 other Technical Volunteer; adyn, Seren, Claire M, and 2 other Administrative Volunteers; and 1 Liaison
New Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
New TWC Volunteers: 1 Symposium Editor
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: miffmiff, PippaLane, and 2 other volunteers
Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Open Doors Chair, 2 Fanlore Chairs, and 1 Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Lead
Departing AD&T Volunteers: 1 Senior Volunteer and 1 Liaison
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Social Media & Outreach
Departing Finance Volunteers: 1 Bookkeeper
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: 4 Tag Wranglers and Soppon (Tag Wrangling Supervisor)
Departing Translation Volunteers: Ito, Polyxeni Foutsitsi, and 3 other Translators; 1 Chair Trainee; and 1 Volunteer Manager
Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 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.
NOTE: This is a living document and will be updated in response to changes and new types of spam as observed by OTW volunteers.
LAST UPDATED: March 30, 2026
As AO3 continues to grow, there has been an increase in the amount and variety of spambots that attempt to harass or scam users. Spambots may try to imitate other users and even AO3/OTW volunteers to appear more realistic. This post shares a brief update on how we're working to combat this issue, what types of spam we've seen, and what you can do if you encounter spam comments on AO3.
Protecting our users from scammers and bots targeting AO3 is important to us, and we are actively working to combat spam on the site in a variety of ways—both visible and not. We will not share a detailed list of every change we've made (so as to not provide spammers with information about how to circumvent these measures), but some examples include introducing comment rate limits for logged-in users, changing the default comment setting on new works to "Registered users only", spam checking comments and comment edits from new users, and making a variety of improvements to the admin tools used by our Policy & Abuse volunteers to handle reports and remove spam comments.
We continue to consider and undertake additional technical changes to help prevent and improve our response to spambots. However, it is important to us that any anti-spam measures we implement do not substantially harm users who are browsing or attempting to comment normally. Many more aggressive anti-spam measures would make AO3 less accessible, particularly for users using assistive devices such as screen readers.
In addition to taking technical steps to help address the issues, we continue to post updates about spambots and other important changes to AO3 on our Tumblr, Bluesky, and Twitter/X. We encourage you to follow us on these platforms to stay informed about what's going on.
Below is a list of different types of spam comments that have been posted on AO3 over the last year. We intend to maintain this list and add new types of spam to it as they are identified; however, this list may not include every type of spam comment that could possibly be received. We encourage you to remain vigilant and follow internet safety best practices.
If you're not sure if something is a spam comment, you're welcome to contact Policy & Abuse for assistance. Before doing so, we encourage you to click through the links below to learn more about each type of comment and use your best judgement to determine if a comment appears to be genuine or could be a scam.
None of the accusations these spam comments make are true. The bots are merely spamming false accusations in order to alarm or harass AO3 users. It is generally safe to ignore these comments once you've removed and/or reported them as outlined below.
Do not engage in conversation with spam commenters. Do not provide your email or social media contact information to a commenter who asks for it. Scammers try to get you to talk to them privately, because it is often easier to deceive or manipulate people in a one-on-one conversation.
Do not click on any links, run any code commands on your computer, or search out and harass any users named in these comments. Scammers often copy the username of a real AO3 user on their guest comments to make them look more real. Pay attention to the "(Guest)" indicator which will appear next to the name of anyone who comments while not logged in.
For spam comments on your own work, the best way to handle them depends on whether they are from registered accounts or guests. Refer to the instructions below on how to handle Spam from a Guest User or Spam from a Registered Account.
If you see a spambot comment on someone else's work, you can report the comment as spam to Policy & Abuse (even if it's a guest comment) as you would a comment on your own work. You can also let the creator know the comment is from a bot and that they should mark it as spam.
Please don't report comments that have already been deleted. As part of handling a report about spam comments (whether from guests or registered accounts), we will remove other comments made by the same bot. If the comments have been deleted, the bot has already been actioned and no further reports are needed.
If you receive a spambot comment on your work which is posted by a guest:
To prevent future guest spam comments, you may also want to consider disabling anonymous commenting or restricting your work to registered users only.
If you are reporting multiple guest comments, please submit only one report and include all comment links in your report description. (You can get the direct link to a specific comment by selecting the "Thread" button on the comment and copying the URL of that page.)
If you are receiving dozens of guest spam comments in a short time period, we recommend turning on comment moderation and providing us with a link to the unreviewed comments section of the affected work(s) instead of reporting the comments individually.
If the spam comment is posted by a registered AO3 account:
Please don't report multiple spam accounts in one report. Each account is actioned separately and listing more than one account per report delays our response to you.
In general, please follow internet safety best practices and be cautious of unsolicited advertisements or harassing comments on your work. For some advice on other ways you can protect your AO3 account, take a look at this internet security guidance from our Policy & Abuse volunteers.
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.
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![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}