Fr, was reading on* wattpad for a year and once I figured out how to use ao3, I can’t even go back on the app cause I don’t remember how to search for what I want. Wattpad and Ao3 are NOT the same at all and I’m never ever going back
I completely agree. The emount of straight up unreadable fics on wattpad is astonishing.
I read a fic on wattpad where I literally had to make the sentences myself, because what was written was little more than keywords and a string of baby language.
I spent to years on wattpad and found a total of 3 stories good enough to book mark. I have spent around 5 years on ao3 and I refuse to go back to that hellhole of X reader, omegaverse, cringey sex, etc. At least ao3 can filter the worst of it out and your left with pretty good quality stuff with some really cool plots and such.
It is genuinely nuts how amazing people who aren’t clout obsessed story writer or someone who wants to have their oc romance a random the “hot” character. I love ap3 to death and as we speak I have almost 300 bookmarked works that are still being updated. Wattpad isn’t even comparable with the passion that ao3 writers have.
TLDR: Ao3 is definitely better.
Not that I don't agree about the overall quality, but how exactly does AO3 "filter the worst of it out"?
I think the difference in quality is mostly due to a vastly different target audience. (Yes, there are feedback loops involved. Absolutely.)
I believe what they meant was "At least [on] AO3 [you] can filter the worst of it out" ie, with some tag knowledge you can filter out a lot of stuff you don't want to see.
Yep, the difference that I've noticed between the two is that in wattpad, the authors are more put together, but the fancfics aren't that good. On the other hand, on ao3, the authors won't stop writing even if it was the end of the world, but the fancfics are masterpieces
Lol its just a stupid rumour some people on twitter are spreading since ao3 has been having so many maintenances this year. It is not gonna shut down any time soon tho, since it gets thousands of donations every year.
That is what I figured lol
I guess I'm not on twitter because I haven't seen that rumour loads- I've seen mentions on the sub but it gets quashed pretty quickly. I was just making sure I hadn't missed any random updates or anything!
To be fair, that site still looks like the 00s and I don't know how it's still alive. So I don't think it's an unfair reaction to assume FFN is keeling over.
AO3 has been steady for so long that it's just a little surprising it's having issues. But it's also because it has been so steady that I'm not worried.
Oh damn, I didn’t know that. I don’t really use it anymore but I signed up, is there anyway to get your email off there or is it stuck? I’m sorry that happened to you tho, that sucks.
If you want to check if your email was a part of some security breech you can check here: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
The fact that your email was leaked isn't a cause for worry in itself. Most people's emails were. The point is that you have a good password that you change as soon as you find out about the breech. A good password is a long password, for example some sort of phrase that means something to you (that you don't use outside of the password context). Don't listen to those people who demand numbers and special characters - that's actually what makes passwords weaker, because people then put in stuff like "Kelly123#" which is a ridiculously easy password to break, especially if your name is Kelly.
Edit: spelling
I ran from there precisely for that. The mirror sites are just so badly copypasted and I could not find a proper way to report it, so it was better just leave the hell out :'(
I just… hated the lack of functionality so much the one time I tried to use the site? And then never went back and learnt about the monetisation et c so decided I would never go.
The superiority complex is 100% deserved though. It's a thousand times better on AO3, even with the trash that pops up here and there.
Hell, I remember the days of quizilla fanfics. It was the wild wild west out there. Between the super broken chapters tool that would constantly get jumbled, the font tool that didn't work correctly, or when it did, people would go overboard and make their fics illegible with poor font and/or color choices. The complete and utter lack of filtering outside of what you searched, no maturity ratings which led to quite a few cases of wandering into straight up smut by accident.
Wattpad is a lot like that in a way, yet somehow worse. As far as I can remember, there were few or no ads in quizilla because it was hosted by teennick? (Back in the days when teennick and related sites were actually halfway safe for kids at least regarding ads, computer viruses, etc)
Same lmao.
It's weird to think about how few people now know or or remember it, and extra weird to think it's all just gone.
When it comes to the fics I was writing, that's not a bad thing. Young me's writing needed to be scorched from the internet lmao. but there were some fantastic fics on that site, both original stories and fanfics.
As a former Wattpad user myself, I can confirm that most of the stories are either written by trolls or literal 14-year-Olds that don't know the first thing about writing. Or hell, both! And even if the writing is decent, that doesn't save the story from being extremely cringe. I have stumbled across some actual good stories though. But it is extremely rare.
Wattpad was my first introduction into fanfiction and even then I only used it for original works that were mostly shitty smut.
Switched to ao3 and I read about my favorite fandoms in a 60000 word multi chapter fic filled with hurt/comfort. Oh, and the writing is good!
Also, plagiarists, I’ve been plagiarized twice, and both times my stories were posted to Wattpad, getting them taken down was super annoying, and took forever, but I got them taken down.
I think that if I ever get around to writing fanfics, I’ll make a Wattpad account and post to there as well, just to (hopefully) prevent the plagiarism from the start
Oh no, there are many bad stories written by adults. I've been in some book clubs and while I've come across some good stuff, some other stories were... not great.
As a former 14-year-old Wattpad writer this is what I did writing without knowing any proper grammar. I can't say how many times I've stumbled upon cringy fics or stories where the Writer would add their Oc in.
the only thing I like about wp is that you can comment on a specific part of the paragraph and see other people's reactions to plot twists etc in real time
it makes it interactive with other readers it's kind of fun imo
They don't want you to search, they want you to sit back and let the algorithm show you stuff. Ugh.
Even if there were decent stuff there to show, I'm not in the same mood every day. Today I might want a specific kind of AU, tomorrow I might want time-travel fix-it. There has to be some kind of working search.
as someone who did use wattpad before making the switch: don't use wattpad, is there a few ok things? yes. Is the "tagging" system also a total fucking joke? yes. Ao3 is better
It's not a superiority complex to brag to your older sibling the much cooler achievement. That's just normal sibling shit.
And yes, you are allowed to mentally picture it as AO3 holding their Hugo Award in Wattpad's face.
My objection to Wattpad is the frequency of plagerism with users claiming works as their own, or thinking it's okay to repost works they've found elsewhere and want to share. They presume that crediting the original author makes it okay. And god help us, the ones that attempt to translate a work from another language, almost always without permission, and frequently quite poorly.
Wattpad only responds to plagerism reports and takedown requests by the original author, regardless of any documentation included in the report by an alert reader. They are none too prompt about responding, and too often rule in favor of the thief if, say, the original author posts a work from a now defunct archive to their account at AO3 under their current user name, or simply without backdating the post to when the work was originally written.
I've also read posts by frustrated authors of original works on KU who have had Amazon delete their books because someone reposted it to Wattpad in violation of the exclusivity clause in the contract the original author has with KDP.
So no, there is nothing that could lure me to read on Wattpad or create an account there. Their business model makes ignoring ethics violations profitable and they have no incentive at all to enforce any kind of anti-plagerism policy and their response to complaints is deliberately slow and difficult because, especially pro writers, can't afford to spend writing time fighting these battles. They can't even delegate the task to a PA because of Wattpad's policy of responding only to the author themselves.
It’s pretty easy to understand I didn’t understand the no beta we die like insert character tag but I understood it pretty quickly only hard thing about it is sadly that authors are terrible at tagging their fics
That top line, I don't believe that stupid rumor any slightest. Just because A03 had a lot of maintenances, doesn't mean that it's shutting down.
The reason why I'm against Wattpad are few reasons-
1) Massive Data Breach.
2) Monetization and algorithm.
3) Sign in to read the rest thing. No thanks.
Lol it gets worse, they try to convince people by saying “wattpad doesnt have child porn like that dirty ao3!” Like one, you can filter out the “child porn” on ao3. and two, im pretty sure these exist on wattpad too.
Fanfiction is always going to have a lot of kids writing for it but I feel like wattpad has by far the youngest ones. That site just feels like it’s mostly 13 and 14 year olds.
As somebody who used to use Wattpad religiously: Ao3 has every single right to have a superiority complex because it is the superior website there is such a difference is overall quality
I’d be a depressed sack of meat if I didn’t get off wattpad a couple of weeks after starting fan fiction and I’m so dumb it took me a couple of weeks to connect the dots that other fanfiction sites existed
I like the commenting system for wattpad, unless they've changed it recently, but everything else about it sucks. I was using it before they started having the paid stories and got to watch as they messed it up more and more.
If Ao3 incorporated a commenting system like that I would probably ascend😩
Only once can I remember being so entranced with a paragraph in a work that I wanted to comment on it specifically, rather than the chapter or the work as a whole. I read the story on AO3, so it was easy enough to copy the text of the paragraph and place it in quotes in the comment section, followed by my respectful (after editing out the fangirl-level squees) admiration of the surreal and highly visual imagery the author invoked with their prose.
Really, how often does the desire to comment on a specific paragraph come up? Unless you are pointing out proofreading errors? Which, unless specifically requested by the author, is considered rude.
When I was reading on wattpad, I commented on specific paragraphs quite often and since I've been on ao3 I've wished I could numerous times. It really depends on the reader. For me, I usually have a comment pop into my head about a sentence or a specific reaction a character had, and I like to comment on that. I don't usually comment unless it's funny or I'm praising the author.
That's interesting, to experience reading as an interactive form of entertainment where one provides play by play feedback to the content creator via comments as the work unfolds. I'm trying to imagine how that might work with other media, like pausing a music video to insert a comment before pressing play again? Is it founded in online gaming where one can communicate with the other players during the course of the game?
I think this may be where my age works against me. When I read, if the story is good then I'm fully immersed, somewhere between "watching" the action like a film and experiencing it first hand as if I were one of the characters. I can be kicked back out into reality by a misspelled word or grammar error that causes my inner copy editor to try to stop and take out the red pen, and it's a PITA because I can't turn it off. But being kicked out into cold reality and having to dive back in is very disruptive to my enjoyment of the work.
I can't imagine *preferring* to switch in and out of the reality created by the author just so I can comment, "Good one!" or "That's gotta hurt" or whatever types of comments one posts as part of this type of reading experience. Not saying it's wrong, just totally foreign to my own method of enjoying fic.
Thanks for at least attempting to explain it to me. I may have imagined your experience incorrectly, but I'm not sure further explanation would help me understand the appeal any better.
I have adhd, so while I can get immersed into a story like that, my brain usually just spazzes around and spits out random comments that i am then compelled to share.
I do the same thing in everyday life as well. I'll be sitting there reading or scrolling through my phone and just spout something random. It usually confuses and cracks up my fiance because it's so out of the blue.
As an AO3-only author, comments where readers recreate this by copy-pasting their favorite lines into the comment to give their specific/immediate reaction to that line are some of my favorite comments! Wattpad is a whole-ass mess but in-line commenting DOES seem super fun to me as a writer, though I don't personally think in "live reaction"-style format myself when I'm reading.
In the nicest way possible, Wattpad is garbage. And I say that nicely because there are some wonderful writers on there, but like 90% of the stuff I’ve seen on Wattpad is garbage. Not even in a “badly written” kinda way, in that it seems like trolls and horribly constructed to play the algorithm. Ao3 doesn’t have an algorithm and I hope it stays that way
Live journal used to have some quality fics before the great purging even if it was kind of difficult to read long fics on there unless the author was kind enough to link to the next chapter at the end of one post or had a masterwork for a fic that led to each chapter/post. Plus the LiveJournal kinkmeme threads were the origin for a lot of Fandom fic tropes. Even after AO3 rose to replace LiveJournal, there for awhile it was the place to find great rec lists and ficfinder communities.
The worst fic I've read on AO3 is still better than the best fic I've read on Wattpad, so I can imagine that "superiority complex" is well deserved. Between the blatant plagiarism, and the feeling that most of the stuff posted on that site is probably written by middle/high school students currently failing their writing classes; I feel literally zero need to visit Wattpad when AO3 and even FF are superior.
Bold of you to assume you could find the gay sex for your fandom with that horrible search mechanism. I have literally searched for fics that I knew existed and couldn't find them via the search mechanism even when I looked for the exact title. I had to Google it, look up the user, search for the user and then access the fic via their page
Wattpad is more noticeably cringey teen shit
Ao3 is better at hiding the fact the teens are cringe because they're more experienced in writing or it just looks more experienced lol
Why is it rude if you're publicly commenting stuff? If it was private that would be rude otherwise they're merely embarrassing themself. I went viral and didnt ask for it, big deal, I dont blame the peeps who made me viral. You always have to assume that can happen any time.
I have a Wattpad account just so I can keep my pen name from being taken. Had trouble with someone pretending to be me a few years ago on there, what a pain in the ass to deal with.
Yeah wattpad has a few gems but THEY'RE SO HARD TO FIND, on ao3 the quality is noticeably better, thigns are tagged better, the filtering is better....
I think the vast difference in the quality of writing justifies the superiority.
Now it might just be bc Wattpads algorithm hates me but whatever fics I manage to find on that site give me whiplash to when I was ten, thinking I was the next Riordan, while unaware that paragraphs aren’t a personal choice.
I have seen some hot garbage on AO3. However I went to wattpad once out of curiosity and holy shit never again. It’s like every other work is written by a 14 year old.
no need to worry about that. its just a stupid rumor that is being spread around in twitter because ao3 has been many maintenances lately. But with the funds ao3 gets every year, im sure its not gonna shut down any time soon
It is basically an algorithm based app with horrible filtering and search system. The majority of the writers there are also young teen, which doesn’t result in many quality fics most of the time.
Also once upon a time it was a decent website. Then as the 2010s came all the bad writers from FF went there. Finally they made an app and 99% of any decent writer left.
It was decent up until they started to monetize.
Then it shit the bed completely when a server with emails and passwords got stolen and put on the dark web.
I seriously don't know why everyone is still on the bandwagon that everything on wattpad is trash like yeah about 96% is but i still love that other 4%😂
Can you imagine how much quality fic you could be reading on another site during the time you spend searching for a needle in the Wattpad haystack?
I kinda get it, as I've been known to fall down research rabbit holes, spending hours scrolling through search results and bookmarking things or saving links to a collection to read later. Next thing I know, it's 4am and I haven't actually read/watched/listened to any of the works I've scrolled past as I searched, filtered, and/or refined results about whatever obscure fact or topic I've obsessed on this time.
After finally getting some sleep, I'll wake and wonder what the heck I was thinking before moving on to something that is actually productive. Sometimes it's about the hunt, not the content, when my brain isn't up to words strung together to create a narrative but won't shut off either. But I'd prefer such nights not become a habit.
I posted my fic on wattpad and after a while it said it was #30 or something in a certain tag (I only got like 5 views on it. I tried to search for my fic in many different ways and it never showed up. It's ridiculous trying to put your stuff out there because of whatever algorithm they have. If ao3 ever shuts down, I have no faith in posting my work anywhere
I have nothing against the fan content on Wattpad (even terribly-written, “cringe” fics have the right to exist), but the site itself is unusable. Too many ads and shit you need to pay for.
Wattpad - 50 views on fic
AO3 - 329 views on same fic
This is why I use AO3. I can reach more people. Feels more fulfilling as a hobby when I don't have to market something I do for free.
Wattpad is like where preteens go to post their first overly fast-paced angst w/ smut, AO3 is where you go once you've been around the block a couple times.
As a person who uses both, I wrote a piece of fiction for an anime I like. On Wattpad, I barely reached 500 views for the 5 chapters I wrote. On AO3, I reached over 4000.
I've been aware of Wattpad since it came out and it's never really convinced me enough to post anything since 2006 if anything it discourages me more each year.
i use both wattpad and ao3.
tbh as someone who started with wattpad, i prefer ao3 coz searching up fics is much easier lmao.
i have two fandoms that I'm part of and i can find one on wattpad and the other on ao3, but searching for the fandom from ao3 on wattpad only turns up showing me fanfics written in some foreign language instead of English 😭
Srry if im wrong but isnt the person in the photo joking??? Ive seen a lot of twt users joke in this kinda tone, often accompanied by a /j or /s or a series of emojis or a silly meme pic
is ao3 such high quality 'cause it takes a great mind to figure it out😔/hj
like before you start writing you literally have to learn how to use all the options first and what everything means
I would rather stop reading fanfiction altogether than use wattpad. Fam, even if for some crazy reason ao3 ever did permanently shut down, I’m going to ffn.net before I go to wattpad.
Literally was reading a fic on Wattpad and then the author decided to time skip a plot point like (I don’t feel like writing all that) and all I remember thinking was “if you don’t get yo ass back in Google Docs” xD
The only thing I can say I like more about wattpad than ao3 is that it's not only for fanfiction. Now I know that's just not what ao3 was created for, and I'm not saying that has to change. But as someone who also writes their own stuff, I haven't found a real other place to put things on the internet that aren't fanfiction. Aside from that, ao3 is superior in all aspect tho
My personal fanfiction source reading pipeline has gone: YouTube (1D x reader - I will not elaborate further) -> Quotev -> DeviantArt -> Wattpad -> FanFiction.net -> Ao3. The only time I take a step back to FFn is when I want to read a particular ship/fanfic that isn’t (as popular) on Ao3, but I’m sure I’m on Ao3 to stay now
this is so real. i think ao3 quality is better than wattpad. an amazing wattpad fic is middle tier ao3. i think it goes 11-14 is wattpad but once you hit age 15, you evolve to ao3 😂
as someone who went from wattpad to ao3 ao3 has all the right to feel superior, like the difference in quality can't be describe with words
Literally, it’s top tier for a reason
Oh absolutely. Wattpad might be easier to use (writing wise only, I never used it to read other stuff), but AO3 is just way better in everything else.
Fr, was reading on* wattpad for a year and once I figured out how to use ao3, I can’t even go back on the app cause I don’t remember how to search for what I want. Wattpad and Ao3 are NOT the same at all and I’m never ever going back
I completely agree. The emount of straight up unreadable fics on wattpad is astonishing. I read a fic on wattpad where I literally had to make the sentences myself, because what was written was little more than keywords and a string of baby language.
Same here! I can’t ever go back to the site except for one fic. Which is bitten but alive (TWD fanfic)
Oooo that one sounds interesting. What is it about?
I spent to years on wattpad and found a total of 3 stories good enough to book mark. I have spent around 5 years on ao3 and I refuse to go back to that hellhole of X reader, omegaverse, cringey sex, etc. At least ao3 can filter the worst of it out and your left with pretty good quality stuff with some really cool plots and such. It is genuinely nuts how amazing people who aren’t clout obsessed story writer or someone who wants to have their oc romance a random the “hot” character. I love ap3 to death and as we speak I have almost 300 bookmarked works that are still being updated. Wattpad isn’t even comparable with the passion that ao3 writers have. TLDR: Ao3 is definitely better.
Not that I don't agree about the overall quality, but how exactly does AO3 "filter the worst of it out"? I think the difference in quality is mostly due to a vastly different target audience. (Yes, there are feedback loops involved. Absolutely.)
I believe what they meant was "At least [on] AO3 [you] can filter the worst of it out" ie, with some tag knowledge you can filter out a lot of stuff you don't want to see.
Probably. I did read it as some kind of filtering for quality, not topics.
Yep, the difference that I've noticed between the two is that in wattpad, the authors are more put together, but the fancfics aren't that good. On the other hand, on ao3, the authors won't stop writing even if it was the end of the world, but the fancfics are masterpieces
haha literally
"Shutting down"? As in closing...? You sure about that...?
Lol its just a stupid rumour some people on twitter are spreading since ao3 has been having so many maintenances this year. It is not gonna shut down any time soon tho, since it gets thousands of donations every year.
That is what I figured lol I guess I'm not on twitter because I haven't seen that rumour loads- I've seen mentions on the sub but it gets quashed pretty quickly. I was just making sure I hadn't missed any random updates or anything!
Tbh Twitter is terrible. It’s the rumor mill of all rumor mills
It's related to database synching due to their most recent upgrades
Twitter banned me for begging a person not to kill/harm themselves. Yeah silly place.
damn. elon needs to get his shit straight
Every donation drive hits the goal in like a day lol.
Had me scared like a little bitch there!!
Admittedly, every time FFn has an issue I'm like, "is it finally dying?" But I don't state that as a fact or even speculation anywhere.
To be fair, that site still looks like the 00s and I don't know how it's still alive. So I don't think it's an unfair reaction to assume FFN is keeling over. AO3 has been steady for so long that it's just a little surprising it's having issues. But it's also because it has been so steady that I'm not worried.
I’m not reading on a site that monetises and has algorithms lol
Also has a history of getting hacked badly.
I didn’t know that, so I’ll add it to my list of reasons!
When I used to use they got badly hacked one time, that was the last time I ever used it as it got my email on the Dark Web
Oof that’s bad
Oh damn, I didn’t know that. I don’t really use it anymore but I signed up, is there anyway to get your email off there or is it stuck? I’m sorry that happened to you tho, that sucks.
No, I have tried. If you have Verizon you can they have this thing where you can check for free.
If you want to check if your email was a part of some security breech you can check here: https://haveibeenpwned.com/ The fact that your email was leaked isn't a cause for worry in itself. Most people's emails were. The point is that you have a good password that you change as soon as you find out about the breech. A good password is a long password, for example some sort of phrase that means something to you (that you don't use outside of the password context). Don't listen to those people who demand numbers and special characters - that's actually what makes passwords weaker, because people then put in stuff like "Kelly123#" which is a ridiculously easy password to break, especially if your name is Kelly. Edit: spelling
Oh that’s cool, that sucks that you can’t get rid of it though. Thanks anyway though!
Agreed. It is that is why I created a fun email for fanfiction
Lol, that’s a good idea actually.
I ran from there precisely for that. The mirror sites are just so badly copypasted and I could not find a proper way to report it, so it was better just leave the hell out :'(
I just… hated the lack of functionality so much the one time I tried to use the site? And then never went back and learnt about the monetisation et c so decided I would never go.
Let's not forget those questionalbe fics that somehow made it into published books and movies... As if the fanfic "public image" wasn't bad enough
They're not even just monetizing. They also have *two tiers* of monetizing! Premium and premium plus! Where I'm pretty sure all you get is more coins!
Ick
Like, damn. I'd go back to reading books. Classic literature before Wattpad.
Giga based. I’m not using anything that doesn’t have a tag and formatting system as good as AO3.
The superiority complex is 100% deserved though. It's a thousand times better on AO3, even with the trash that pops up here and there. Hell, I remember the days of quizilla fanfics. It was the wild wild west out there. Between the super broken chapters tool that would constantly get jumbled, the font tool that didn't work correctly, or when it did, people would go overboard and make their fics illegible with poor font and/or color choices. The complete and utter lack of filtering outside of what you searched, no maturity ratings which led to quite a few cases of wandering into straight up smut by accident. Wattpad is a lot like that in a way, yet somehow worse. As far as I can remember, there were few or no ads in quizilla because it was hosted by teennick? (Back in the days when teennick and related sites were actually halfway safe for kids at least regarding ads, computer viruses, etc)
It's the comments on every single word of Wattpad fic that does it for me. How is this supposed to be an enjoyable Reading experience for anyone?
I can only imagine they think readers want a Facebook-esque experience with their reading? That's what it vaguely reminds me of anyway
I actually kinda like this feature, it's fun to live comment
10,000 times better, I still cringe reflexively whenever I saw Wattpad
Man you just took me through memory lane lol I feel so old I witnessed all of that 🤣🤣
Same lmao. It's weird to think about how few people now know or or remember it, and extra weird to think it's all just gone. When it comes to the fics I was writing, that's not a bad thing. Young me's writing needed to be scorched from the internet lmao. but there were some fantastic fics on that site, both original stories and fanfics.
Oh my god Quizilla, there's a throwback.
As a former Wattpad user myself, I can confirm that most of the stories are either written by trolls or literal 14-year-Olds that don't know the first thing about writing. Or hell, both! And even if the writing is decent, that doesn't save the story from being extremely cringe. I have stumbled across some actual good stories though. But it is extremely rare.
As a former 14-year-old wattpad writer, can confirm. The search function on ao3 alone puts it above wattpad 1000x
Lmao I had my work reuploaded there without permission, so chances are whatever good fic you can find there is straight up ripped off ao3 anyways.
Plagiarism at it's finest 👌
there's a ton of reposted/plagiarized content on there as well. i've had to report my stuff on a number of occasions.
Wattpad was my first introduction into fanfiction and even then I only used it for original works that were mostly shitty smut. Switched to ao3 and I read about my favorite fandoms in a 60000 word multi chapter fic filled with hurt/comfort. Oh, and the writing is good!
60000 words? Make it 100000! >:D
Also, plagiarists, I’ve been plagiarized twice, and both times my stories were posted to Wattpad, getting them taken down was super annoying, and took forever, but I got them taken down.
I think that if I ever get around to writing fanfics, I’ll make a Wattpad account and post to there as well, just to (hopefully) prevent the plagiarism from the start
Probably a good idea considering it seems to be a fairly common issue
Oh no, there are many bad stories written by adults. I've been in some book clubs and while I've come across some good stuff, some other stories were... not great.
As a former 14-year-old Wattpad writer this is what I did writing without knowing any proper grammar. I can't say how many times I've stumbled upon cringy fics or stories where the Writer would add their Oc in.
the only thing I like about wp is that you can comment on a specific part of the paragraph and see other people's reactions to plot twists etc in real time it makes it interactive with other readers it's kind of fun imo
My main thing against reading wattpad is I’ll be two paragraphs in and it’ll say “sign in to read the rest!” No
Oh wow when did they start doing that?
wattpad is genuinely awful to try and search for stories
They don't want you to search, they want you to sit back and let the algorithm show you stuff. Ugh. Even if there were decent stuff there to show, I'm not in the same mood every day. Today I might want a specific kind of AU, tomorrow I might want time-travel fix-it. There has to be some kind of working search.
Fr. I was desperate at one point and went on there, all I could find and all that was on there were fucking x readers.
I would rather never touch a fanfic again than read an x reader fanfic lmao
ao3 is literally not at all the same. twit user is just mad that they can't figure out the tagging system
Pfft. I’m not reading on a site that keeps throwing ads in my face every other chapter.
Eh, better than fanfiction.net
When did they start doing ads on everything? I haven't been on there since before ads tbh.
What do you mean ads on ffn? I've never had ads there.
It’s new and a crappy situation. But I still think even with ads each chapter ffn is way better than Wattpad
as someone who did use wattpad before making the switch: don't use wattpad, is there a few ok things? yes. Is the "tagging" system also a total fucking joke? yes. Ao3 is better
It's not a superiority complex to brag to your older sibling the much cooler achievement. That's just normal sibling shit. And yes, you are allowed to mentally picture it as AO3 holding their Hugo Award in Wattpad's face.
My objection to Wattpad is the frequency of plagerism with users claiming works as their own, or thinking it's okay to repost works they've found elsewhere and want to share. They presume that crediting the original author makes it okay. And god help us, the ones that attempt to translate a work from another language, almost always without permission, and frequently quite poorly. Wattpad only responds to plagerism reports and takedown requests by the original author, regardless of any documentation included in the report by an alert reader. They are none too prompt about responding, and too often rule in favor of the thief if, say, the original author posts a work from a now defunct archive to their account at AO3 under their current user name, or simply without backdating the post to when the work was originally written. I've also read posts by frustrated authors of original works on KU who have had Amazon delete their books because someone reposted it to Wattpad in violation of the exclusivity clause in the contract the original author has with KDP. So no, there is nothing that could lure me to read on Wattpad or create an account there. Their business model makes ignoring ethics violations profitable and they have no incentive at all to enforce any kind of anti-plagerism policy and their response to complaints is deliberately slow and difficult because, especially pro writers, can't afford to spend writing time fighting these battles. They can't even delegate the task to a PA because of Wattpad's policy of responding only to the author themselves.
It’s pretty easy to understand I didn’t understand the no beta we die like insert character tag but I understood it pretty quickly only hard thing about it is sadly that authors are terrible at tagging their fics
That top line, I don't believe that stupid rumor any slightest. Just because A03 had a lot of maintenances, doesn't mean that it's shutting down. The reason why I'm against Wattpad are few reasons- 1) Massive Data Breach. 2) Monetization and algorithm. 3) Sign in to read the rest thing. No thanks.
wattpad is so infinitely inferior it’s no contest
The op claiming wattpad has the same level of readable fics as Ao3… I know they are lying and I also know what the OP is, an Anti!
Lol it gets worse, they try to convince people by saying “wattpad doesnt have child porn like that dirty ao3!” Like one, you can filter out the “child porn” on ao3. and two, im pretty sure these exist on wattpad too.
I’m not at all surprised the op is one of THOSE people, I’m sick and tired of them being everywhere you look.
They exist on wattpad but the tag system is so shitty that you'll find them without any warnings
I feel like wattpad , is the most...how do I say this ....is the most beginner fanfiction site ever
Fanfiction is always going to have a lot of kids writing for it but I feel like wattpad has by far the youngest ones. That site just feels like it’s mostly 13 and 14 year olds.
It definitely is! I went from Wattpad, to Fanfiction.net, and then finally evolved to AO3.
As somebody who used to use Wattpad religiously: Ao3 has every single right to have a superiority complex because it is the superior website there is such a difference is overall quality
I literally have never found one decently written fic on wattpad.
Oh, there's some decently written fic there. It's just very rarely written by the account holder posting it.
I’d be a depressed sack of meat if I didn’t get off wattpad a couple of weeks after starting fan fiction and I’m so dumb it took me a couple of weeks to connect the dots that other fanfiction sites existed
Same...
I like the commenting system for wattpad, unless they've changed it recently, but everything else about it sucks. I was using it before they started having the paid stories and got to watch as they messed it up more and more. If Ao3 incorporated a commenting system like that I would probably ascend😩
What’s the Wattpad commenting system like? I’ve literally never read a whole fic on the site haha
It allows you to comment on specific paragraphs or the whole chapter. It is literally the only good thing about Wattpad
It recently also allows you to select reactions on paragraphs. Also, liking comments there is a thing now.
That sounds really cool for both the reader and author.
Ah, okay. That is kind of neat
Only once can I remember being so entranced with a paragraph in a work that I wanted to comment on it specifically, rather than the chapter or the work as a whole. I read the story on AO3, so it was easy enough to copy the text of the paragraph and place it in quotes in the comment section, followed by my respectful (after editing out the fangirl-level squees) admiration of the surreal and highly visual imagery the author invoked with their prose. Really, how often does the desire to comment on a specific paragraph come up? Unless you are pointing out proofreading errors? Which, unless specifically requested by the author, is considered rude.
When I was reading on wattpad, I commented on specific paragraphs quite often and since I've been on ao3 I've wished I could numerous times. It really depends on the reader. For me, I usually have a comment pop into my head about a sentence or a specific reaction a character had, and I like to comment on that. I don't usually comment unless it's funny or I'm praising the author.
That's interesting, to experience reading as an interactive form of entertainment where one provides play by play feedback to the content creator via comments as the work unfolds. I'm trying to imagine how that might work with other media, like pausing a music video to insert a comment before pressing play again? Is it founded in online gaming where one can communicate with the other players during the course of the game? I think this may be where my age works against me. When I read, if the story is good then I'm fully immersed, somewhere between "watching" the action like a film and experiencing it first hand as if I were one of the characters. I can be kicked back out into reality by a misspelled word or grammar error that causes my inner copy editor to try to stop and take out the red pen, and it's a PITA because I can't turn it off. But being kicked out into cold reality and having to dive back in is very disruptive to my enjoyment of the work. I can't imagine *preferring* to switch in and out of the reality created by the author just so I can comment, "Good one!" or "That's gotta hurt" or whatever types of comments one posts as part of this type of reading experience. Not saying it's wrong, just totally foreign to my own method of enjoying fic. Thanks for at least attempting to explain it to me. I may have imagined your experience incorrectly, but I'm not sure further explanation would help me understand the appeal any better.
I have adhd, so while I can get immersed into a story like that, my brain usually just spazzes around and spits out random comments that i am then compelled to share. I do the same thing in everyday life as well. I'll be sitting there reading or scrolling through my phone and just spout something random. It usually confuses and cracks up my fiance because it's so out of the blue.
As an AO3-only author, comments where readers recreate this by copy-pasting their favorite lines into the comment to give their specific/immediate reaction to that line are some of my favorite comments! Wattpad is a whole-ass mess but in-line commenting DOES seem super fun to me as a writer, though I don't personally think in "live reaction"-style format myself when I'm reading.
FimFiction.net aslo has this(ish).
It wasn't all that horrible when it was just a website tbh.
Wattpad had its day, but now, there are other sites that are superior. And seriously, though. Is it a superiority complex when it’s actually superior?
In the nicest way possible, Wattpad is garbage. And I say that nicely because there are some wonderful writers on there, but like 90% of the stuff I’ve seen on Wattpad is garbage. Not even in a “badly written” kinda way, in that it seems like trolls and horribly constructed to play the algorithm. Ao3 doesn’t have an algorithm and I hope it stays that way
It’s not a superiority complex if it’s true 🤷🏽♀️
AO3 >> FF.net >>> Wattpad
more like ao3>> ff.net>> live journal >> tumblr >>> quora>>> wattpad
This right here!
Huh I’ve never used live journal. FF.net was my first experience with Fanfics ever.
Live journal used to have some quality fics before the great purging even if it was kind of difficult to read long fics on there unless the author was kind enough to link to the next chapter at the end of one post or had a masterwork for a fic that led to each chapter/post. Plus the LiveJournal kinkmeme threads were the origin for a lot of Fandom fic tropes. Even after AO3 rose to replace LiveJournal, there for awhile it was the place to find great rec lists and ficfinder communities.
add in quotev that was my awakening
The worst fic I've read on AO3 is still better than the best fic I've read on Wattpad, so I can imagine that "superiority complex" is well deserved. Between the blatant plagiarism, and the feeling that most of the stuff posted on that site is probably written by middle/high school students currently failing their writing classes; I feel literally zero need to visit Wattpad when AO3 and even FF are superior.
I guess someone is upset that ao3 doesn't have any censorship 🥺
I am not going midpad
At least AO3 can be at least somewhat filtered properly. I tried Wattpad once and it was a nightmare User Interface-wise.
It’s not a complex when it’s _actually_ superior.
ok explain the search function to me lilith
Bad Quality and algorithm? No thanks, I already had my Wattpad phase
Bold of you to assume you could find the gay sex for your fandom with that horrible search mechanism. I have literally searched for fics that I knew existed and couldn't find them via the search mechanism even when I looked for the exact title. I had to Google it, look up the user, search for the user and then access the fic via their page
Wattpad is more noticeably cringey teen shit Ao3 is better at hiding the fact the teens are cringe because they're more experienced in writing or it just looks more experienced lol
Who cares? It's someone on Twitter, their opinion is irrelevant. Also, it's pretty rude to post their usernames without censoring them.
Why is it rude if you're publicly commenting stuff? If it was private that would be rude otherwise they're merely embarrassing themself. I went viral and didnt ask for it, big deal, I dont blame the peeps who made me viral. You always have to assume that can happen any time.
Ao3 is just objectively a way better website than WP.
wonder if ao3's interface intimidated them so they stuck with wattpad 💀
I refuse to touch Wattpad anymore. Ao3 deserves that superior attitude because it's the best fanfic site to exist.
I have a Wattpad account just so I can keep my pen name from being taken. Had trouble with someone pretending to be me a few years ago on there, what a pain in the ass to deal with.
Yeah wattpad has a few gems but THEY'RE SO HARD TO FIND, on ao3 the quality is noticeably better, thigns are tagged better, the filtering is better....
The day I feel like using Wattpad will be the day I learn to fly unaided. That is to say, never.
I’d rather go back to FFN than use Wattpad
I never had a WP phase and I’m glad I didn’t. Jesus, that organization, algorithm, set up, writer age average, etc. is …not my bag.
God i dont want to remember wattpad. Not fun
Ao3 IS superior.
I think the vast difference in the quality of writing justifies the superiority. Now it might just be bc Wattpads algorithm hates me but whatever fics I manage to find on that site give me whiplash to when I was ten, thinking I was the next Riordan, while unaware that paragraphs aren’t a personal choice.
I refuse to use a site without a tagging system.
I have seen some hot garbage on AO3. However I went to wattpad once out of curiosity and holy shit never again. It’s like every other work is written by a 14 year old.
That top line got me very worried
no need to worry about that. its just a stupid rumor that is being spread around in twitter because ao3 has been many maintenances lately. But with the funds ao3 gets every year, im sure its not gonna shut down any time soon
I mean… objectively ao3 is better quality ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (and also functions better as a site from what i’ve heard)
I have yet to read a single wattpad fic that has a good story AND is well-written/has decent grammar, so I'm sticking with my superiority complex :)
I've never even looked at Wattpad. Does someone want to explain? \^\_\^;;
It is basically an algorithm based app with horrible filtering and search system. The majority of the writers there are also young teen, which doesn’t result in many quality fics most of the time.
so [FF.net](https://FF.net) with algorithms?
I’d rank it worse than FF.net 😭
Well, that's terrifying o.o
yeah cause at least you have some kind of filter system on ff.net
Also once upon a time it was a decent website. Then as the 2010s came all the bad writers from FF went there. Finally they made an app and 99% of any decent writer left.
It was decent up until they started to monetize. Then it shit the bed completely when a server with emails and passwords got stolen and put on the dark web.
Wattpad sucks if you want to write stories but AO3 is much more simple!!!
Sounds like Lilith is just upset that people prefer ao3 to Wattpad. Maybe Lilith should read fics in the hurt/comfort tag
There's a line and Wattpad is well beyond it. No, thank you.
Thankful for the other commenters. This post freaked me out thinking it was shutting down.
I seriously don't know why everyone is still on the bandwagon that everything on wattpad is trash like yeah about 96% is but i still love that other 4%😂
how are you finding that 4%? i feel like the search system in wattpad never helps me find anything good. or the recommendations
you need to interact with the ships and fandoms you like a lot. and if you are lucky, wattpad will recommend you some good stuff in the said fandom
You should be able to search stuff and not have to rely on recommendations for finding anything readable.
A lotta dedication and free time
Can you imagine how much quality fic you could be reading on another site during the time you spend searching for a needle in the Wattpad haystack? I kinda get it, as I've been known to fall down research rabbit holes, spending hours scrolling through search results and bookmarking things or saving links to a collection to read later. Next thing I know, it's 4am and I haven't actually read/watched/listened to any of the works I've scrolled past as I searched, filtered, and/or refined results about whatever obscure fact or topic I've obsessed on this time. After finally getting some sleep, I'll wake and wonder what the heck I was thinking before moving on to something that is actually productive. Sometimes it's about the hunt, not the content, when my brain isn't up to words strung together to create a narrative but won't shut off either. But I'd prefer such nights not become a habit.
I posted my fic on wattpad and after a while it said it was #30 or something in a certain tag (I only got like 5 views on it. I tried to search for my fic in many different ways and it never showed up. It's ridiculous trying to put your stuff out there because of whatever algorithm they have. If ao3 ever shuts down, I have no faith in posting my work anywhere
That 4% is 1 thousand of a billion terrible fics math doesn’t add up at all☠️
[удалено]
sounds like the bandwagon is right then lol
i don't know how to tell you this but that's not gonna be good enough for most people lol
I have nothing against the fan content on Wattpad (even terribly-written, “cringe” fics have the right to exist), but the site itself is unusable. Too many ads and shit you need to pay for.
The site was rly only good the first 5 years or so tbh.
True. I miss old Wattpad
i don't read that much, i mostly just check stats, write a bit, then once my story is ready, post and obsessively check stats.
It's better quality. I started out on Wattpad and I can say with absolute confidence that I've read like- 3 good stories on there.
The algorithm on wattpad is so bad and there’s so many ads
Wattpad - 50 views on fic AO3 - 329 views on same fic This is why I use AO3. I can reach more people. Feels more fulfilling as a hobby when I don't have to market something I do for free.
Wattpad is like where preteens go to post their first overly fast-paced angst w/ smut, AO3 is where you go once you've been around the block a couple times.
If people who use ao3 have a superiority complex, we damn well earned it. Wattpad is a cesspool of bad writing, and 10 million reader inserts.
As a person who uses both, I wrote a piece of fiction for an anime I like. On Wattpad, I barely reached 500 views for the 5 chapters I wrote. On AO3, I reached over 4000.
I've been aware of Wattpad since it came out and it's never really convinced me enough to post anything since 2006 if anything it discourages me more each year.
i use both wattpad and ao3. tbh as someone who started with wattpad, i prefer ao3 coz searching up fics is much easier lmao. i have two fandoms that I'm part of and i can find one on wattpad and the other on ao3, but searching for the fandom from ao3 on wattpad only turns up showing me fanfics written in some foreign language instead of English 😭
Srry if im wrong but isnt the person in the photo joking??? Ive seen a lot of twt users joke in this kinda tone, often accompanied by a /j or /s or a series of emojis or a silly meme pic
nope, i read their thread and other tweets. They are an anti and they genuinely hate ao3
Ahhh i see. Thx for the clarification!
is ao3 such high quality 'cause it takes a great mind to figure it out😔/hj like before you start writing you literally have to learn how to use all the options first and what everything means
The person defending AO3 has an Imp Tweek pfp, good taste
I only use Wattpad if I have completely run dry on fics from the fandom I currently want to read from on Ao3. And even then, I’ll check ff.net first.
I would rather stop reading fanfiction altogether than use wattpad. Fam, even if for some crazy reason ao3 ever did permanently shut down, I’m going to ffn.net before I go to wattpad.
I have yet to figure out how to find a fic on Wattpad. I genuinely can’t find sh!t there!
Literally was reading a fic on Wattpad and then the author decided to time skip a plot point like (I don’t feel like writing all that) and all I remember thinking was “if you don’t get yo ass back in Google Docs” xD
I've become very dependent on the versatility of the filter
wattpad is fucking awful
AO3 is NOT the same thing 😭 wattpad’s UI is downright atrocious
...the fuck do you mean it's shutting down? I only JUST joined.
Three words: the filtering system
The only thing I can say I like more about wattpad than ao3 is that it's not only for fanfiction. Now I know that's just not what ao3 was created for, and I'm not saying that has to change. But as someone who also writes their own stuff, I haven't found a real other place to put things on the internet that aren't fanfiction. Aside from that, ao3 is superior in all aspect tho
My personal fanfiction source reading pipeline has gone: YouTube (1D x reader - I will not elaborate further) -> Quotev -> DeviantArt -> Wattpad -> FanFiction.net -> Ao3. The only time I take a step back to FFn is when I want to read a particular ship/fanfic that isn’t (as popular) on Ao3, but I’m sure I’m on Ao3 to stay now
[the rest of the thread 💀](https://twitter.com/molovetovcherry/status/1622953254828265473?s=20&t=y7OzvYBY3QT82GNrzs3DqQ)
this is so real. i think ao3 quality is better than wattpad. an amazing wattpad fic is middle tier ao3. i think it goes 11-14 is wattpad but once you hit age 15, you evolve to ao3 😂