AO3 News

Celebrating AO3’s 16th Anniversary

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Published:
2025-11-14 17:25:23 UTC
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AO3 16

AO3 is turning 16! It's been another year of growth for AO3. Since this time last year, we passed both eight million and nine million registered users! We also passed 14 million, 15 million, and 16 million fanworks on the site, including one million works in Mandarin Chinese—the first non-English language to reach this milestone!

AO3's committees have also done a lot of important work this year! Accessibility, Design, & Technology published multiple important code releases, including security improvements like sending you an email when you or someone logged in to your account changes your username, password, or email as well as new features like allowing you to use CSS custom properties in site skins or add tags to your collections!

AO3's Tag Wranglers published four updates on "No Fandom" tags, which are tags that are not associated with any particular fandom. Many of the new tags they've made canonical (marked common) include commonly requested ones like Breeding Kink, Mind Break, and Rivals to Lovers. Check out the full list of new and modified No Fandom tags!

OTW Open Doors announced the import of five fanwork and two zine archives to AO3, including fanworks related to fandoms such as Harry Potter, Inuyasha, and Star Trek: The Original Series. You can look through all old import announcements by browsing AO3 news for the Open Doors tag.

Policy & Abuse published a series of important Terms of Service (TOS) Spotlight news posts that answered common questions about violations of AO3's TOS. Check them out here:

We're so excited about all the wonderful things that have happened this year and we can't wait to see what future years bring!

Prompt!

To celebrate AO3's 16th birthday, we want to prompt you to post a fanwork featuring 16 in some way! This could be a work about Season/Series 16 of a show, or a character with 16 in their name like Android 16 (Dragon Ball), or even a character celebrating their 16th Birthday. We encourage you to get creative! When you post your works on AO3 or social media, tag them #AO3Celebrates16!

Comment!

If you don't feel like creating a work, that's okay! Instead, celebrate this anniversary with us by commenting on 16 fanworks and recommending your favorite in the comments!

Thank you for celebrating 16 years of AO3 with us!

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.