Archive of Our Own

Now that our membership drive has wrapped up (thank you, everyone!) we also want to give you a wrap-up reminder of our April Showers fandom celebrations from this year.

Below, we've collected the links to every fandom post we made, along with links to each fandom's AO3 and Fanlore pages, so you can make sure you didn't miss any of them. And the April Showers Recs (2015) collection has recommended works in dozens of fandoms, so you can make spring last as long as you want!

We'd love to thank each and every one of you who reblogged, retweeted, liked, and clicked on any of our tweets or Tumblr posts... but that would take too long and would get in the way of your checking out all the great fandoms listed here. Enjoy!

Highest clickthroughs from the AO3 twitter:

Jupiter Ascending
Gravitation
Kingsman

Most notable posts from the AO3 tumblr:

Jupiter Ascending
Agent Carter
Orphan Black

Highest clickthroughs from the Fanlore twitter:

Redwall
Jupiter Ascending
Kingsman

Week One:

1. Dragon Ball -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
2. Jupiter Ascending -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
3. Redwall Series -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
4. Nabari no Ou -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
5. Snowpiercer -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Two:

6. Over The Garden Wall -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
7. Valdemar Series -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
8. Hellblazer/Constantine -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
9. Alex Rider -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
10. Black Books -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
11. Marble Hornets -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
12. Orphan Black -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Three:

13. Ib -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
14. Cobra Starship -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
15. RWBY -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
16. The Fault in Our Stars -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
17. Shadow Hearts -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
18. Le Petit Prince -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
19. Agent Carter -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Four:

20. Nochnoy Dozor -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
21. Kingsman -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
22. Cabin Pressure -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
23. Gravitation -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
24. The Last of Us -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
25. How to Get Away with Murder -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
26. Carmilla -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Five:

27. Ouran High School Host Club -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
28. Minecraft -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
29. Wicked -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
30. Book of Life -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

In the month of April we hope you'll help us spruce up AO3 and Fanlore by posting forgotten works and dusting off neglected wiki entries.

We are proud to be able to offer an archive for fanworks at Archive of Our Own and we invite you to take the time to post both new works and old works that are languishing in ancient blogs or buried in your harddrive. Add them to AO3 so other fans can enjoy them! You can even backdate them to show their original creation date, and use our pseud system to preserve old fandom aliases.

If you're posting works, use the tag April Showers 2015 so that everyone can find them.

Or, if there's a fanwork already on the archive that you think more people should see, bookmark it and add it to our April Showers Recs collection.

We also recognise that fandom history is far more than just fanworks - Fanlore records decades of fannish activity, from the days before the internet all the way to current events shaping fandom. If you have old zines, or fond memories of a long-ago convention, write about them on Fanlore. If there's new drama in your fandom, or a new trend in fanart, write about those too! Fanlore is open to everyone, and we encourage everyone to edit it and add their own experiences. Fannish history is our history.

If you'd like to edit pages, but you aren't sure how, don't panic! There will be an editing party in the Fanlore chatroom on Saturday, April 4th at 16:00 UTC (when is that in my timezone?). Come and ask questions, familiarise yourself with Fanlore, or just chat with other editors.

There will be a second chat towards the end of the month - keep an eye on the Fanlore community on Dreamwidth for the exact date and time.

To help get you started, we're highlighting a different fandom every day via our twitter accounts; ao3org and fanlore_news. Follow us for a daily dose of fandom!

Now that April has left us for another year, we must also leave behind our April Showers fandom celebrations.

But that doesn't mean that the fun is over! Below, we've collected the links to every fandom post we made, along with links to each fandom's AO3 and Fanlore pages, so you can make sure you didn't miss any of them. And the April Showers Recs (2014) collection has been filled with recommended works in dozens of fandoms, perfect to browse through while waiting for those May Flowers to appear.

We'd love to thank each and every one of you who reblogged, retweeted, liked, and clicked on any of our tweets or Tumblr posts ... but that would take too long and would get in the way of your checking out all the great fandoms listed here!

So, without further ado, here are the celebrated fandoms of April Showers 2014.

Highest clickthroughs from ao3org

Young Wizards – Diane Duane -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
Labyrinth -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
due south -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Highest clickthroughs from fanlore_news
Rooster Teeth
My Little Pony
Dangan Ronpa

Week One:

1. Warehouse 13 -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
2. Dangan Ronpa -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
3. Divergent Series – Veronica Roth -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
4. "Get a Mac" Commercials -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
5. Labyrinth -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Two:

6. Transformers: Prime -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
7. Dishonored (Video Game) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
8. No. 6 – Asano Atsuko -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
9. Rooster Teeth -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
10. My Little Pony -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
11. Pacific Rim -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
12. French Revolution RPF -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Three:

13. Discworld Series – Terry Pratchett -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
14. Hannibal (TV) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
15. Young Avengers -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
16. Tatort -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
17. Legend of Zelda -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
18. Cornetto Trilogy -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
19. Nancy Drew – Carolyn Keene -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Four:

20. Sandman (Comics) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
21. due south -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
22. Elder Scrolls -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
23. Arashi (Band) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
24. Frozen -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
25. Free! -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
26. Young Wizards – Diane Duane -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Five:

27. Bioshock -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
28. The Devil Wears Prada (2006) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
29. Power Rangers -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
30. Welcome to Night Vale -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Here at the OTW, preserving fannish history is a central part of our mission! We're proud to be able to offer fans a place to archive their works on the Archive of Our Own, and tell their own fannish histories on Fanlore. Both of these sites passed major milestones in February and represent works and stories about many thousands of fandoms.

However, we know that there are a lot more histories and fanworks out in the world which haven't found their way to the AO3 or Fanlore. So this month, we invite you to bring us fannish April showers by digging out those old zines, memories of past cons, archived personal webpages, tales of shipwars and fannish events, works on slowly-decaying archives, new works you've been putting off creating, and more! Help us celebrate fandom's history and diversity by uploading your old (and new) works to the AO3 and by telling your tales on Fanlore. When uploading to the AO3, you can tag your uploaded works April Showers 2014

Alternatively, celebrate your favorite fanworks on the Archive by sharing your recs with us. To do so, simply bookmark the fanwork in question and add it to our April Showers Recs collection.

To do this, either create a new bookmark of the work or edit an existing bookmark you'd like to highlight for this occasion. In the Bookmarking screen, scroll to the bottom, check the "Rec" box and add the name "April Showers Recs 2014" in the collection field. When sharing your recs, we encourage you to leave some comments about it in the Notes section, to help guide other fans.

For our part, we'll be highlighting a different fandom for each day of the month through our social media sites:

• AO3 Twitter at ao3org
• AO3 Tumblr at AO3 News
• Fanlore Twitter at fanlore_news

Check them for the hashtag #aprilshowers! We hope to jog your memories about fannish loves of the past and highlight some currently active fandom activity. However, don't feel you have to stick to the fandoms we highlight!

Fanlore editing party!

Keen to add your fannish memories to Fanlore but not sure where to start? Need your hand held as you make your first wiki edits? Or keen to share your skillz as an experienced Fanlore editor? Join Fanlore staff in the Fanlore chatroom for an editing party! You'll be able to get help making your first forays into editing Fanlore, toss around ideas for new pages, and ask questions. Everyone is welcome!

Join them on Saturday, 19 April, beginning at 20:00 UTC. The end time is still to be determined but you can see when the start time is in your timezone.

Here at the OTW, preserving fannish history is a central part of our mission! We're proud to be able to offer fans a place to archive their works on the Archive of Our Own, and tell their own fannish histories on Fanlore. As of March 29, 2013, Fanlore has 24,423 articles which have undergone 439,529 edits, while the Archive of Our Own recently passed 143,000 users, and more than 640,100 works have been posted on the AO3, across over 11,600 fandoms!

We're really pleased and proud to see so much fannish representation. However, we know that there are many, many wonderful fanworks out in the world which haven't found their way to the AO3 - for example the classic television show M*A*S*H has only 264 works on the AO3 while Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman sits at 83. There are even more fannish stories left untold on Fanlore - we'd love to see the fannish activity over the Veronica Mars movie documented as it unfolds! Last year, we welcomed in lots more edits to Fanlore and works to the AO3 with our April Showers promotion. This year, we're hoping to do the same! This month, bring us fannish April showers by digging out those old zines, memories of past cons, archived personal webpages, tales of shipwars and fannish events, works on slowly-decaying archives, new works you've been putting off creating, and more! Upload your old (and new) works to the AO3 and tell your tales on Fanlore.

We'll be highlighting a different fandom for each day of the month on our Tumblr ao3org, to help jog your memories about fannish loves of the past and highlight some currently active fandom activity. When uploading to the AO3, you can tag your uploaded works April Showers 2013 - at the end of the month we'll round up all the works with this tag and post stats on how many were uploaded for each fandom. However, don't feel you have to stick to these fandoms - we hope people will reach into their personal fannish histories to preserve what's important to them!

We kick off today by hearing the people sing with the 2012 film version of Les Misérables. Bring your works beyond the barricade into the AO3 and share all of the dreams you dreamed on Fanlore!

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW blog. Find related news by viewing our tag cloud.

It's party time! This April, we've been catching up on some fannish history with our April Showers promotion! For the month of April, we're highlighting fandoms past and present which are underrepresented on the Archive of Our Own and Fanlore - preserve your fannish history by uploading your old fanworks to the AO3 and documenting key fannish tropes and events on Fanlore.

We'd like to celebrate some more. So, it's party time!

AO3 importing party!

Saturday 14 April, 17:00 UTC to Saturday 15 April, 2:00 UTC (see the time in your timezone)

Got any works on other sites that you've been meaning to import or copy over to the AO3? Have questions about how to format or tag any of your works? Feel like cheering other people on as they do some posting? Join the AO3 staff in the OTW Public Discussion chatroom (click the link to access) to ask questions about posting, reminisce about old fandoms, and celebrate as more works are added to the AO3. We'll have a few invitations to share with people who don't yet have AO3 accounts, and we welcome everyone!

Fanlore editing party!

Saturday 14 April, 20:00 UTC (see the time in your timezone)

Keen to add your fannish memories to Fanlore but not sure where to start? Need your hand holding as you make your first wiki edits? Or keen to share your skillz as an experienced Fanlore editor? Join Fanlore staff in the Fanlore chatroom for an editing party! You'll be able to get help making your first forays into editing Fanlore, toss around ideas for new pages, and ask questions. Everyone welcome!

Get wet in the April showers!

Here at the OTW, preserving fannish history is a central part of our mission! We're proud to be able to offer fans a place to host their works on the Archive of Our Own, and tell their own fannish histories on Fanlore. As of March 4, 2012, Fanlore has 18,481 articles which have undergone 351,020 edits by 6,151 registered users, while the Archive of Our Own recently passed 40,000 users, and more than 332,300 works have been posted on the AO3, across over 8,800 fandoms!

We're really pleased and proud to see so much fannish representation. However, we know that there are many, many wonderful fanworks out in the world which haven't found their way to the AO3 - for example Portal and the Alien movies have only 85 fanworks apiece on the AO3! There are even more fannish stories left untold on Fanlore - we'd love to see the fannish activity over The Hunger Games documented as it unfolds! Last year, we welcomed in lots more edits to Fanlore and works to the AO3 with our April Showers promotion. This year, we're hoping to do the same! This month, bring us fannish April showers by digging out those old zines, memories of past cons, archived personal webpages, tales of shipwars and fannish events, works on slowly-decaying archives, and more! Upload your old works to the AO3 and tell your tales on Fanlore.

We'll be highlighting a different fandom for each day of the month on our Twitter @ao3org, to help jog your memories about fannish loves of the past. When uploading to the AO3, you can tag your uploaded works April Showers 2012 - at the end of the month we'll round up all the works with this tag and post stats on how many were uploaded for each fandom. However, don't feel you have to stick to these fandoms - we hope people will reach into their personal fannish histories to preserve what's important to them!

To help you out, we'll also be hosting an importing party on the AO3. From Saturday 14th April, 17.00 UTC to Sunday 15th April, 02.00 UTC (see the time in your timezone), we invite you to join us in a live chat where our staff will answer questions about creating accounts, uploading, tags and more, provide a few invitations for those who need them, and celebrate as new works are uploaded! Stay tuned for more details on this nearer to the time. You should also keep your eyes peeled for news on Fanlore editing parties, where Fanlore staff will walk you through the process of creating and editing pages - no contribution too small!

We kick off today by celebrating adventures on the high seas with the Pirates of the Caribbean! Ghost pirates, rise again – sail your works into safe harbor at the AO3, and tell your seadog tales at Fanlore!

May has arrived, and our April Showers Challenge has drawn to a close! Through the month of April, we were highlighting fandoms in need of love on the Archive of Our Own and our sister project Fanlore. We've been enjoying all the fannish May flowers which have appeared as a result.

595 works were posted on the AO3 under the April Showers Challenge tag. People didn't confine themselves to the fandoms we highlighted - we were happy to see people archiving works in more than 80 fandoms, including Captain Future, Starsky and Hutch and Monty Python and the Holy Grail! In addition, 2,122 works were posted in the fandoms we highlighted. See the full list below!

On Fanlore, fans took the opportunity to fill in some of their fannish history. The Fanlore team created a bunch of memories pages for the featured fandoms - memories pages are designed as an informal place to record your defining memories of a particular fandom, without worrying about exactly how to categorise them. Check them out and add your fannish history! Other April Showers activity on Fanlore included updates about the history of the fan convention. You can read more about what Fanlore have been up to during the challenge at their April Showers posts.

April Showers - The Masterlist

• Star Wars - 142 new works posted! Star Wars on the AO3 | Fanlore's main Star Wars page | Star Wars Memories
• Sailor Moon – 27 new works posted! Sailor Moon on the AO3 | Fanlore's Sailor Moon page | Sailor Moon Memories
• Figure Skating RPF – 7 new works posted! AO3's Figure Skating works | Fanlore's Figure Skating page | Figure Skating Memories
• The X-Files – 43 new works posted! X-Files on the AO3 | X-Files on Fanlore | X-Files Memories
• Diana Wynne Jones - 11 new works posted! Diana Wynne Jones on the AO3 | Fanlore's DWJ page | DWJ Memories
• Mass Effect - 19 new works posted! Mass Effect on the AO3 | Fanlore's Mass Effect page.
• The Losers - 4 new works posted! Losers on the AO3 | Fanlore's Losers page
• Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler - 5 new works posted! Black Butler on the AO3 | Fanlore's Kuroshitsuji page
• Johnny’s Entertainment - 39 new works posted! Johnny's Entertainment on the AO3 | Fanlore's Johnny's Entertainment page | Memories of Johnny's Entertainment
• Xena: Warrior Princess - 4 new works posted! Xena on the AO3 | Fanlore's Xena page | Xena Memories
• Jane Austen - 5 new works posted! Austen on the AO3 | Austen Fanlore page
• Final Fantasy - 130 new works posted! Final Fantasy on the AO3 | Fanlore's Final Fantasy page | Final Fantasy Memories
• High School Musical - 1 new work posted! High School Musical on the AO3 | High School Musical on Fanlore
• X-Men - 32 new works posted! X-Men on the AO3 | X-Men on Fanlore
• Backstreet Boys - 19 new works posted! Backstreet Boys on the AO3 | Backstreet Boys on Fanlore | Backstreet Boys Memories
• Sports Night - 57 new works posted! Sports Night on the AO3 | Sports Night on Fanlore | Sports Night Memories
• A Song of Ice and Fire - 10 new works posted! A Song of Ice and Fire on the AO3 | ASOIAF on Fanlore | ASOIAF Memories
• Kingdom Hearts - 39 new works posted! Kingdom Hearts | Kingdom Hearts on Fanlore | Kingdom Hearts Memories
• Inception - 225 new works posted! Inception on the AO3 | Inception on Fanlore | Inception Memories
• Naruto - 115 new works posted! Naruto on the AO3 | Naruto on Fanlore
• Disney RPF - 34 new works posted! Disney RPF on the AO3 | Disney RPF on Fanlore
• Doctor Who - 431 new works posted! Doctor Who | Doctor Who on Fanlore | Doctor Who Memories
• JRR Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings - 150 new works posted! JRR Tolkien/The Lord of the Rings on the AO3 | The Lord of the Rings on Fanlore | LOTR Memories
• Pokemon - 13 new works posted! Pokemon on the AO3 | Pokemon on Fanlore | Pokemon Memories
• The Fast and the Furious - 40 new works posted! The Fast and the Furious on the AO3 | on Fanlore | Gundam Wing on the AO3 | on Fanlore | Gundam Wing Memories
• Big Bang (Band) - 0 new works posted :(. Can you give Big Bang some love? Big Bang on the AO3 |Big Bang on Fanlore | Big Bang Memories
• Highlander - 253 new works posted! Highlander on the AO3 |Highlander on Fanlore | Highlander Memories
• Stephenie Meyer/Twilight - 57 new works posted! Twilight on the AO3 | Twilight on Fanlore
• Dragon Age - 138 new works posted! Dragon Age on the AO3 | Dragon Age on Fanlore

We've really enjoyed seeing people delving into their fannish history (recent and not-so-recent). Remember, you don't have to wait for a special occasion to archive on the AO3 or record your fannish history on Fanlore. Anyone who is interested is welcome to post their recollections (atany time) on Fanlore itself or to the Fanlore dreamwidth community posts linked in this post. Don't worry about formatting - their trusty team of wiki gardeners are eager to help out! On the AO3, you can use our import function to easily upload work hosted on other sites. If you don't have an account and you want one, then just add your email address to our invitations queue (wait time currently less than a week).

Enjoy fannish May flowers, and the wealth of fannish histories we share!

We're getting close to the end of our April Showers importing challenge! We've had a great response, and we've seen a lot of new works in a variety of fandoms - check out the challenge tag for some of those. You have a couple more days to import your existing works... and, of course, we encourage everyone to keep posting through the rest of the year. :D

Here are some of the fandoms that we featured on our @ao3org Twitter account. Read some of the works that people have posted, and see if there's anything you can add to the Fanlore page for any of your fandoms!

GROUP 3

• High School Musical | High School Musical on Fanlore
• X-Men | X-Men on Fanlore
• Backstreet Boys | Backstreet Boys on Fanlore
• Sports Night | Sports Night on Fanlore
• A Song of Ice and Fire | ASOIAF on Fanlore
• Kingdom Hearts | Kingdom Hearts on Fanlore

GROUP 4

• Inception | Inception on Fanlore
• Naruto | Naruto on Fanlore
• Disney RPF | Disney RPF on Fanlore
• Doctor Who | Doctor Who on Fanlore
• JRR Tolkien/The Lord of the Rings | The Lord of the Rings on Fanlore
• Pokemon | Pokemon on Fanlore

We love preserving fannish history, so we're having tons of fun here at the Archive of Our Own and over at our sister project Fanlore with the April Showers Challenge! For those of you just tuning in, April Showers is our month-long challenge dedicated to encouraging people to store old bits of fannish activity - whether it's dredging up a few fics from your first fannish LJ or that old BB Board thread, scanning in your very first fanart which is still languishing in the back of your school exercise book, or documenting the great ship wars of your fandom over on Fanlore, we want to hear from you. And if you don't have anything old to store, but your current fannish activities have yet to be represented on the AO3 or talked about on Fanlore, we want to hear from you too - today's hot new fandom is tomorrow's history!

So far we've had 266 works posted on the AO3 under the April Showers Challenge tag - we've also seen lots more older works being uploaded in various fandoms. If you want to flag up that you're uploading as part of this challenge, then you can use this tag (but we love all your uploaded works regardless!)

All fandoms are welcome in the April Showers Challenge, but to provide a little inspiration we're highlighting a different fandom for love each day on our Twitter @ao3org. You can check out the first six highlighted fandoms in our last round-up post; our second batch is listed below!

The Losers - There are few things in life a liberal application of fandom won't fix. Get your Losers works on the AO3 or spin some stories on Fanlore's Losers page.

Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler - The most beautiful death in the world? Not if fanworks are lost - happily you can get your Black Butler works on the AO3 or document dark and beautiful death on the Kuroshitsuji page of Fanlore.

Johnny’s Entertainment - Love Arashi, Kanjani8, KAT-TUN & the rest of the Johnny's Entertainment boys? Enjoy Johnny's Entertainment works on the AO3, or add to Fanlore's Johnny's Entertainment page.

Xena: Warrior Princess - Making the subtext text: see the many histories of Xena on the AO3 or tell tales of your fannish experience on the Xena Fanlore page.

Jane Austen - It is a truth universally acknowledged that a fanwork must be in search of a home. Austen fans, find an abode of good repute among the Austen works on the AO3, or contribute to the drawing room conversation on the Austen Fanlore page.

Final Fantasy - YOU SPOONY BARDS! Preserve your tales for posterity among the Final Fantasy works on the AO3, or recount epic stories of fannish exploits on Fanlore's Final Fantasy page.

We're halfway through the month - have you told any of your fannish history? Help us make it pour April Showers!

This month, we're all about the history on the Archive of Our Own and sister site Fanlore! During our April Showers challenge, we're encouraging all fans to document their fannish history (recent or long past). Maybe you have zines which have been sitting in a drawer for the past 40 years, or maybe you have a bunch of things you've posted to your LJ in a fannish frenzy over the last few months - either way, if you have yet to upload it to the AO3 we'd love to see you share (and store) it here. While you're at it, why not record some of the awesome community or fannish controversies that have made your fandom what it is on our sister site Fanlore.

April Showers is an open call for folks of all fandoms - if you have unarchived fanworks or untold stories we want to see them! We're highlighting a few fandoms that we think are currently underrepresented and need a little love (you can keep track of our daily picks on our Twitter @ao3org). The daily picks so far:

Star Wars - Use the Force to preserve your fannish history! Check out the Star Wars works on the AO3 and Fanlore's Star Wars page.

Sailor Moon – Fighting evil by moonlight? Share the love by daylight! There are awesome Sailor Moon works on the AO3 and history on the Fanlore Sailor Moon page.

Figure Skating RPF – Preserve your fannish triple axels for posterity! 6.0 for the AO3's Figure Skating works and Fanlore's page.

The X-Files – The fic is out there! See the evidence: X-Files works on the AO3 and X-Philes history on Fanlore.

Diana Wynne Jones - Love the many worlds of Diana Wynne Jones? Celebrate the inspiring influence of this late, great and much-beloved fantasy writer: Diana Wynne Jones works on the AO3 and the DWJ fandom history on Fanlore.

Mass Effect - Game on: check out Mass Effect works on the AO3 and histories on Fanlore.

In addition to contributions in all these awesome fandoms, we're been excited to see people taking the opportunity to dig out other things in their back catalogues during this challenge. Check out the works on the AO3 tagged April Showers challenge - so far c. 30 fandoms are represented!

Have you uploaded works for the challenge or added something to Fanlore? Comment to this post with links!

Happy April! Thanks to everyone who made our March happy with donations to the OTW! We hope we'll have an equally happy April with our April showers challenge!

Here at the Archive of Our Own we love seeing the numbers of works and fandoms grow! Since we entered Open Beta in November 2009 we've added 7567 fandoms and 148,092 works - we love being able to come to the AO3 for a quick fix of all sorts of fannish love! However, there's a whole host of fannish deliciousness which hasn't found a home here yet. There are tons of wonderful Sailor Moon fanworks out there, but only 174 Sailor Moon works on the AO3. The X-Files had a thriving fannish community on Usenet back in the day, but only 1088 X-Files works have made it over to the AO3. Figure skating RPF has a lively presence on Livejournal and elsewhere, but there are only 288 Figure Skating RPF works to be found on the AO3. We love the way fandom has found a home in all sorts of places - each fannish community has its own culture and its own hangouts - but we also want to help ensure that all that fannish awesome doesn't disappear when sites go down.

This is where our April showers promotion comes in! For the month of April, we hope you'll shower the Archive with your old works! If you have works sitting on a harddrive, buried in your old emails, tucked away in a box of zines in your basement, or filed away on your Livejournal, now is the time to upload. You can use our handy import feature to grab them easily from elsewhere on the web (many thanks to coder Rebecca who recently spiffed up the importer to make it work better), backdate them to show when you first wrote them, and use our pseuds feature to post them under your old fannish names (mulder4eva1993, anyone?).

Fandom isn't just about the fanworks, but about the awesome culture surrounding them! If you'd like to document your fandom in other ways, why not add something to our sister project Fanlore? You could create a profile of an awesome fan from your fandom, add details of the great fandom debates you have seen, give details of the major archives and challenges, or just add in a few characters' names. Record your history for fans of the future!

We'll be highlighting a different fandom for importing love every day of April! Follow our Twitter @ao3org to check out the fandom of the day! (You can also add works in fandoms not on our list - the more the merrier!) Tag your uploaded works April Showers Challenge - at the end of the month we'll round up all the works with this tag and post stats on how many were uploaded for each fandom.

We kick off today with an oldie but goodie - Star Wars! Use the force, fandom!

April showers of fannish love! Bring us your history!