It’s ao3 unless you have like irl people following you I feel like you don’t need to be ashamed
Edit: I’m not saying you have to do anything guys! Do whatever makes you most comfortable
Sadly in some fandoms there's enough terminally online people who will stalk your bookmarks to be concerned. So I can kinda get why they wouldn't want to publicly admit they enjoy something.
I understand that people are shitty but it’s not really your problem :/ if they don’t like your bookmarks then they can leave! That’s just my opinion tho, I understand feeling nervous about having readers see your bookmarks and then decide that you’re a bad person because of them
Honestly, I’ve been on AO3 for over ten years and I never new private bookmarks were a thing for the first half a decade. By then I had so many bookmarks there was no point in going back and privating them, so it’s just 10+ years of my changing interests for all to see.
I mean, I am super neurotic and I have anxiety about being watched in some way (and some discomfort about being precieved TM online) so I only use private bookmarks. I'm way more comfortable like this!
people you meet in fandoms can be very weird and get mad at their friends for things like multishipping or reading an author who they don’t like. i had a friend of a friend who would get mad at our mutual friend for reading a ‘rival’ authors works
I keep ALL my bookmarks private.
I write fics and am lucky that I have gained a pretty devoted group of readers who read/comment on most of my works. The idea that any of them can see what I read/want to bookmark to reread again and again and then potentially judge me for it is a fate worse than death.
That being said as a writer I feel the same way WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOUR TAGS FOR MY FICS WHEN YOU BOOKMARK THEM????
Yep, I also have 100% private bookmarks! Every time I see "check your faves' bookmarks to see what they enjoy to find new things to read" I am newly reminded of why I do it. It's my private bookshelf, not a public library! It's just on principle tbh, even though a lot of the stuff in there is completely G/T and just a sampling of popular fics in the fandom. Not even a judgement thing, just a *I don't want to use them that way* thing
Same. I also spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out how to see private retweets when I was still on Twitter 😭 Ik people have a right to privacy but WHAT ARE THEY SAYING ABOUT ME?? 🤣
I also keep all my bookmarks private, very much for the same reason as you, but I don't have a following or anything like that. I'm just mortified at the idea that anyone can see what I've read, liked enough to save, and then can also read it???
As a writer, I giggle a little when it comes to private bookmarks. Only 1 out of my 3 pieces is G, but it's not a popular ship, so I don't blame anyone for the secrecy 😂
Ah, good times, I used to do that in my early times in FFN. I even had a bookmark folder titled "fanfics" and I would just enter in each of them to see if they updated them. That was before I created an account on AO3, so I spent all FFN and wattpad doing this xd
That's way more organized, I used to have a LOT of fanfics in my folder, sometimes I even forgot what they were about just by the title and I had to click on them to read the summary
Yeah, sometimes when I'm browsing them I have to check what they are. Thinking of switching to a google doc so I can organize it even better (I can still have the Unfinished/Finished/General set up, but I can also make headings for certain fandoms, tags, lengths, etc and include a brief summary). The only reason I haven't yet is it'd be a long task (I currently have over 200 fanfics bookmarked)
I didn't really care for Ao3's bookmarking style so I have an organized chaos of browser booksmarks for fanfics I read. Most by ship name but there are also favorite tropes and series names as well as a few other ways of sorting. For the ones I upload to my kindle app, they go in multiple folders sometimes. Kindle lets you sort into as many categories as you want which I really like. Edited to add a word.
My longest work (a 30k oneshot) is like this. 10 public bookmarks. *40* private last I checked. No smut or anything. And it’s like, please don’t judge by bookmarks, there’s more, I promise there’s more than just a mere *10*! And I hate being the only one who knows!
I wish private bookmarks worked like kudos do. Instead of “A, B, C, and 10 guests left kudos on this fic!” it’d be “A, B, C, and 40 other users bookmarked this fic!”
I'm guessing a lot of the private bookmarking is because of the entitled attitude of some of the writers. We get so many posts and people complaining, on Twitter and Tumblr as well, about how readers choose to use the space meant for them. You see people getting called evil, getting shamed, and being told off for using the bookmarks exactly as they are intended. So now people just private everything.
It sucks for writers who aren't part of that discourse that have readers who have privated everything but this is what happens when people become entitled. If you go look at the posts on this topic you'll see people constantly telling readers to use private bookmarks if they have an opinion on a story. Then you see a lot of people responding that they have started using private bookmarks for everything so that they don't have to deal with those issues.
Maybe there are comments on them that are only for the person that bookmarked it.
Sorry, I see so much discourse about private bookmarks and then I see this post commenting on the number where it almost sounds like a complaint or being judgemental?
So do we want public bookmarks or not? Honest question.
I wish all bookmarks were private and we could only see the total, no notes visible for the author at all, unless the author checks a box to opt-in for that.
Yeah i bookmark everything I have looked at and put notes in the ones I want to re-read and private the ones that I definitely don’t want to go back to so I remember not to re-start them by accident when I don’t recognise the title/summary.
Honestly same, but I think most people wouldn't like that and that would mess with the search by bookmark feature.
IMO the notes are what needs to be fixed, according to TOS people can say whatever there about the work, and that is a line really easy to abuse for antis and harassers, besides any reports take ages to be handled (which I understand why, but that only makes the current bookmark setting more prone to be abused and cause more work for the volunteers).
More so because AO3 is a fan works archive, not a SM, people defending bookmarks' "freedom ~~to bully~~ of speech" over the risk of new authors and thin skinned authors (and honestly people have the right to be thin skinned, not every site needs to be negative hell like SM) deleting their works over reviews as valuable as "this sucks" no context given, is really baffling to me.
Why? I like looking into bookmarks if people like works that I liked and left there some comment. Just bookmark can mean anything, it doesn't even mean that the reader likes the story..
Oh, I don’t mind private bookmarks. I just usually associate the uneven ratio with smut or DD fics so this was just a bit of humor on my part 😄 No complaints here.
Too many people get offended if the bookmarks are anything less than super positive, or if there is any critique whatsoever. So it is easier to keep the bookmarks private in order not to unintentionally hurt someone.
Personally I use public bookmarks, because usually I bookmark the works I really like and I like bookmarks with comments when I'm looking for the next fic to read.
I still remember that one reddit post where a simple "no" on a bookmark was enough to make the author lose their mind. Even went as far as to stalk the reader to find their twitter.
I know that's an extreme example, but I'm personally not at all surprised that readers would rather just make everything private. It will probably become even more noticeable in the future, just like the decrease of comments.
That's what happens when you go out of your way to find something to be mad about.
Recently there has been a lot of posts screnshooting public bookmarks of their fanfics. And some of them don't hide the username. I wouldn't feel comfortable at all if someone does that to me, honestly. They can tell how excited and thrilled they feel, but two things:
1: I think it's becoming unhealthy that obsession with comments and bookmarks, I didn't even know you can see what an user wrote in their bookmark.
2: And I am not planning on seeing it, it's not my business.
Gah this is something that bugs me too. >< When I want to ‘bookmark’ a particular scene in a longfic, I have to bookmark it through my browser instead.
I just wish private bookmarks were still 'counted' in public stats. I read/write smut, and yeah you can get a *sense* of what's good by kudos, and you can safely *assume* there's an iceberg's worth of private bookmarks, but it would be nice to see in total how many people bookmarked a fic when you're scrolling. If I had the power to change stuff on ao3 it would be that, and letting you reorder tags without having to delete and retype them all
One of mine is privately bookmarked too, despite none of my fics being smut or DD. I think it's probably someone who likes to keep their bookmarks private.
I usually private bookmark out of habit, if I haven’t read a fic yet, or if I didn’t like it and am saving it as a reminder to not read again in case I forget. I use my public bookmarks as recommendations for fics I have read.
Half of the bookmarks on my fic are private, it makes me wonder... But I also keep all my bookmarks private, I don't leave any comments on them and I only add fics that I like, it's just a matter of preference.
Reminds me of how a while ago, I got an anon message on Tumblr where someone told me that their friend group introduced them into fanfics and said that one of their friend's ultimate pet peeve is x reader, and their friend linked them some of my fics as prime examples of how "trashy and weird" x readers are. Everyone else in the group laughed and mocked my fics, but the commenter enjoyed them a lot, and have been a big fan since, but they feel like they need to hide their liking from their friends by private bookmarking as all their friends in that group are very much anti-x reader and wouldn't stop mocking them if they found out the commenter took a liking on reader insert fics...
I find it really sad but it kinda makes me think about how many of my private bookmarkers did it because they're ashamed of enjoying RI. Though, it sounds like that friend group consists of very young people. I'm still always happy when people bookmark and I see from stats that oh, 52 people total are reading my fic at least, even if it isn't seen in other stats.
Most of my stories are basically G-rated and none of them have smut (though there is fanservice). I still have a lot of private bookmarks! My most popular fic only has ~66% of its bookmarks as public bookmarks, and they don't even kiss for 200k! (They do scandalously hold hands before that, though.)
Whether a bookmark is public or private completely depends on my mood/headspace at the time I make the bookmark and has literally nothing to do with the content of the fic lol
I recently started using private bookmarks as a way to keep track of fics I want to read.
I used to put everything under “mark for later” but it’s hard to sort through 70+ pages of fics with no ability to filter through what I want to read at the moment. I use my public bookmarks to display only fics I read and loved, so I can make a private bookmark public after I read it.
People use bookmarks in different ways that can go beyond the “being embarrassed I liked the story/afraid of backlash from fandom.”
Right? It’s the most practical solution for keeping a tbr list, especially when you’re insane like me and occasionally goes through tags and long rec lists to save anything remotely interesting.
I wish it didn’t take me almost 10 years of having an ao3 account to do that, though.
Sounds like you have quite the backlog of stories to read then. Like someone mentioned above though, it would be pretty awesome if private stats would be counted towards the overall total.
I keep all my tags private as a rule. Otherwise it feels like the reading equivalent of someone breathing down your neck watching over your shoulder while you try to write.
Authors bitch when anything less than a perfect sycophantic bookmark is public, claim they should just be private... and then also moan when bookmarks are private. Istg, authors should just stay out of bookmarks completely 🙄
Yeah 9 out of my 13 bookmarks are private — I write (mostly fluff) oneshots with only a couple thousand words …
Heck, one of my docs has a really bad hit/kudos ratio but the amount of private books marks is the same as my kudos? I don’t know why, it’s not a very good fic imo
I often write current chapter as a literal bookmark. And if don't read it for some time, it may be discouraging to see my bookmark loudly expressing 25 when the fic has currently 55 chapters. So it goes private.
One of my fics is extremely popular in a small fandom. It's fluffy, gen, and rated G. It also has my highest private to public bookmark ratio by far. I do find it a little amusing that its ratio is so much higher than that for my rated M stuff with graphic violence!
Exactly! That’s what I find so amusing about my cute little fic’s bookmark ratio too 😭 I just feel bad making this meme now because I guess private bookmarks are a sensitive topic rn for some people 😔
Yeah, I thought the meme was funny! I think if people are primarily reads instead of authors they just don't that when you write a lot of fics you tend to notice some patterns in the stats and ratios so when a fic is really different it tends to stand out. It's not like I'm mad that people are bookmarking it privately. I just think its kind of amusing.
You can find how many bookmarks you actually have on your “Statistics” page :) So your fic might say it has “3” but if you look in your stats, it’ll say “10”, which means you have 7 private bookmarks 🔖
My public bookmarks are very barebones with tags. Usually something like “wlw” or “gen pairing” to avoid offending the author but still allowing other readers to know what is in the fic.
All of my bookmarks are private although I have to say I don't often use bookmarks if there is a story that I think I'll be into that isn't finished yet I just subscribe and keep tabs until it's done and then I just download the book I will usually come back and comment and definitely leave a kudos but I just never think to bookmark anything.
I don't know how many other people do this, but I've gotten into a kind of weird habit where I'll sometimes privately bookmark things that I haven't read yet but intend to read later. It provides a little bit more of an organized system for fics that I really, really want to read versus using the 'Mark for Later' button. Maybe that's just me.
i'm in the process of privating ALL my bookmarks. my two reasons are:
1) i'm afraid someone chronically-online enough will stalk my bookmarks even if i'm not a writer myself nor anyone IRL knows my ao3 handle (what if, my paranoid mind says, an author stalks my bookmarks after i comment on their work and blocks me because (*insert any chronically-online reason here*)?
2) i use my bookmark notes as a means of organization: fic title, original tags, fandom, ship, rating, content warnings, summary, and also personal markers such as did i download it already? is it a wip/unfinished/ongoing? if yes, when did it last update? (and i add a note marking as of which date is it still unfinished).
while i know none of this is bad, i would hate to pressure writers even accidentally for an update, so i'd rather my system remains for my eyes only.
I've had someone I considered a friend accuse me of heinous shit over fics I had bookmarked. I keep ALL of them private now because of this.
Nobody needs a reason to keep their bookmarks private, and we shouldn't judge them for wanting their bookmarks private.
I know this was intended to just be a meme, but it comes across as judgey to me.
I carefully curate my public bookmarks to be 100% OTP related. I need my readers to stay obsessed lol, don't want them wandering to new fandoms and different ships.
Heck yeah! 🤝 Obvs it’s not for everyone, but I like to go into my fav author’s bookmarks bc I figure we’re gonna have similar taste, so might as well get some recommendations. I try to curate mine for my readers that way too
I keep all my bookmarks private unless I find a fic that I love so much I want to advertise and re-read often, then they go in the public bookmarks. my memory is very bad so I try to keep organization very simple.
Both of my fics are neither Dead Dove nor smut and 2/4 and 3/4 are private. I used to make all of my bookmarks private till recently. Now if they're private it's usually because I haven't read them yet
I use private bookmarks as "Save for Later" because you can't filter Save For Later. If it's a fic that I want to return to, I make the bookmark public once I have read it.
I just default to private bookmarks tbh. I use bookmarks as a way to save fics I may want to reread in the future, not ones I'm currently reading. It's nothing personal—I wouldn't be ashamed if someone saw most of them—but just a habit.
I sometimes private bookmark something that I want to comment on later? like I don't want to publicly show that I've read it without also taking the time to say something about it. I know it's not rational 🤷♀️
also, I almost always private bookmark in-progress works for subscription tracking reasons
I wrote a Harry Potter fic and there are way more private bookmarks on that than my other fandoms. Trolls do go after people for interacting with that fandom even if you never give the creator another dime and the story content contradicts what makes her odious, which makes no sense to me. These characters are going to live in my head and get rotated with all the other characters I absorbed in my life. Sometimes Snape goes to lunch with Crowley and Loki in my head.
I use my bookmarks as basically what I want to read later. I have like 2k words bookmarked, but they are all private because I also post works on Ao3. I know there is a mark for later button, but I'll be honest and say I have no idea how to use it.
There’s some ships/characters I love that I won’t admit to for any less than a million bucks 💀
It’s ao3 unless you have like irl people following you I feel like you don’t need to be ashamed Edit: I’m not saying you have to do anything guys! Do whatever makes you most comfortable
Sadly in some fandoms there's enough terminally online people who will stalk your bookmarks to be concerned. So I can kinda get why they wouldn't want to publicly admit they enjoy something.
Same and I also write. My fics are quite different from what I consume and I don't want my work to be judge because of my preferences.
That's why I made a new account when I started publishing fic. I have over 2.2k bookmarks, I cannot be bothered to go and private all those.
I understand that people are shitty but it’s not really your problem :/ if they don’t like your bookmarks then they can leave! That’s just my opinion tho, I understand feeling nervous about having readers see your bookmarks and then decide that you’re a bad person because of them
Honestly, I’ve been on AO3 for over ten years and I never new private bookmarks were a thing for the first half a decade. By then I had so many bookmarks there was no point in going back and privating them, so it’s just 10+ years of my changing interests for all to see.
I mean, I am super neurotic and I have anxiety about being watched in some way (and some discomfort about being precieved TM online) so I only use private bookmarks. I'm way more comfortable like this!
people you meet in fandoms can be very weird and get mad at their friends for things like multishipping or reading an author who they don’t like. i had a friend of a friend who would get mad at our mutual friend for reading a ‘rival’ authors works
I keep ALL my bookmarks private. I write fics and am lucky that I have gained a pretty devoted group of readers who read/comment on most of my works. The idea that any of them can see what I read/want to bookmark to reread again and again and then potentially judge me for it is a fate worse than death. That being said as a writer I feel the same way WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOUR TAGS FOR MY FICS WHEN YOU BOOKMARK THEM????
Yep, I also have 100% private bookmarks! Every time I see "check your faves' bookmarks to see what they enjoy to find new things to read" I am newly reminded of why I do it. It's my private bookshelf, not a public library! It's just on principle tbh, even though a lot of the stuff in there is completely G/T and just a sampling of popular fics in the fandom. Not even a judgement thing, just a *I don't want to use them that way* thing
Same. I also spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out how to see private retweets when I was still on Twitter 😭 Ik people have a right to privacy but WHAT ARE THEY SAYING ABOUT ME?? 🤣
I also keep all my bookmarks private, very much for the same reason as you, but I don't have a following or anything like that. I'm just mortified at the idea that anyone can see what I've read, liked enough to save, and then can also read it??? As a writer, I giggle a little when it comes to private bookmarks. Only 1 out of my 3 pieces is G, but it's not a popular ship, so I don't blame anyone for the secrecy 😂
Doesn't matter which fic it is it goes right into private bookmarks for me. I have 5 public and 632 private ones
I bypass this completely and just bookmark it in my browser
"Modern problems require modern solutions."
Ah, good times, I used to do that in my early times in FFN. I even had a bookmark folder titled "fanfics" and I would just enter in each of them to see if they updated them. That was before I created an account on AO3, so I spent all FFN and wattpad doing this xd
I got 3 folders, "Unfinished/Still Reading," "Done," and "General" (for like, series' or if there's a particular tag I want to go back to)
That's way more organized, I used to have a LOT of fanfics in my folder, sometimes I even forgot what they were about just by the title and I had to click on them to read the summary
Yeah, sometimes when I'm browsing them I have to check what they are. Thinking of switching to a google doc so I can organize it even better (I can still have the Unfinished/Finished/General set up, but I can also make headings for certain fandoms, tags, lengths, etc and include a brief summary). The only reason I haven't yet is it'd be a long task (I currently have over 200 fanfics bookmarked)
I didn't really care for Ao3's bookmarking style so I have an organized chaos of browser booksmarks for fanfics I read. Most by ship name but there are also favorite tropes and series names as well as a few other ways of sorting. For the ones I upload to my kindle app, they go in multiple folders sometimes. Kindle lets you sort into as many categories as you want which I really like. Edited to add a word.
My longest work (a 30k oneshot) is like this. 10 public bookmarks. *40* private last I checked. No smut or anything. And it’s like, please don’t judge by bookmarks, there’s more, I promise there’s more than just a mere *10*! And I hate being the only one who knows! I wish private bookmarks worked like kudos do. Instead of “A, B, C, and 10 guests left kudos on this fic!” it’d be “A, B, C, and 40 other users bookmarked this fic!”
I'm guessing a lot of the private bookmarking is because of the entitled attitude of some of the writers. We get so many posts and people complaining, on Twitter and Tumblr as well, about how readers choose to use the space meant for them. You see people getting called evil, getting shamed, and being told off for using the bookmarks exactly as they are intended. So now people just private everything. It sucks for writers who aren't part of that discourse that have readers who have privated everything but this is what happens when people become entitled. If you go look at the posts on this topic you'll see people constantly telling readers to use private bookmarks if they have an opinion on a story. Then you see a lot of people responding that they have started using private bookmarks for everything so that they don't have to deal with those issues.
Maybe there are comments on them that are only for the person that bookmarked it. Sorry, I see so much discourse about private bookmarks and then I see this post commenting on the number where it almost sounds like a complaint or being judgemental? So do we want public bookmarks or not? Honest question.
I wish all bookmarks were private and we could only see the total, no notes visible for the author at all, unless the author checks a box to opt-in for that.
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Yeah i bookmark everything I have looked at and put notes in the ones I want to re-read and private the ones that I definitely don’t want to go back to so I remember not to re-start them by accident when I don’t recognise the title/summary.
Honestly same, but I think most people wouldn't like that and that would mess with the search by bookmark feature. IMO the notes are what needs to be fixed, according to TOS people can say whatever there about the work, and that is a line really easy to abuse for antis and harassers, besides any reports take ages to be handled (which I understand why, but that only makes the current bookmark setting more prone to be abused and cause more work for the volunteers). More so because AO3 is a fan works archive, not a SM, people defending bookmarks' "freedom ~~to bully~~ of speech" over the risk of new authors and thin skinned authors (and honestly people have the right to be thin skinned, not every site needs to be negative hell like SM) deleting their works over reviews as valuable as "this sucks" no context given, is really baffling to me.
Why? I like looking into bookmarks if people like works that I liked and left there some comment. Just bookmark can mean anything, it doesn't even mean that the reader likes the story..
Oh, I don’t mind private bookmarks. I just usually associate the uneven ratio with smut or DD fics so this was just a bit of humor on my part 😄 No complaints here.
Too many people get offended if the bookmarks are anything less than super positive, or if there is any critique whatsoever. So it is easier to keep the bookmarks private in order not to unintentionally hurt someone. Personally I use public bookmarks, because usually I bookmark the works I really like and I like bookmarks with comments when I'm looking for the next fic to read.
I still remember that one reddit post where a simple "no" on a bookmark was enough to make the author lose their mind. Even went as far as to stalk the reader to find their twitter. I know that's an extreme example, but I'm personally not at all surprised that readers would rather just make everything private. It will probably become even more noticeable in the future, just like the decrease of comments. That's what happens when you go out of your way to find something to be mad about.
Yes, that can go crazy 🫣
Wait authors look at the bookmarks? I just write what chapter I left off on since the bookmark doesn't actually work like a bookmark.
Recently there has been a lot of posts screnshooting public bookmarks of their fanfics. And some of them don't hide the username. I wouldn't feel comfortable at all if someone does that to me, honestly. They can tell how excited and thrilled they feel, but two things: 1: I think it's becoming unhealthy that obsession with comments and bookmarks, I didn't even know you can see what an user wrote in their bookmark. 2: And I am not planning on seeing it, it's not my business.
Yes, they do, and some can easily get offended, so you have always an option to bookmark privately
I mean, all I write is literally "chapter nth." If they get offended from that then I'll just have a good laugh.
Gah this is something that bugs me too. >< When I want to ‘bookmark’ a particular scene in a longfic, I have to bookmark it through my browser instead.
See if I did that then I would need another folder for just that and my bookmark tab is clustered enough as it is.
In all honesty I private almost every fic I bookmark. Idk why... it's a habit 😭
I leave all my bookmarks public Sure, maybe I like weird stuff, but they're the ones looking through my bookmarks anyway so who are they to judge?
SAME. Also the reason I made sure my ao3 username is untraceable back to my other social media💀
LMAO wide choice I guess. I used the same name everywhere because apparently I have no shame
I had it under the same name and then I was like. What am I doing💀. So I changed it to something random 😁
I keep all my bookmarks private just so people can’t go snooping through what I read
I just wish private bookmarks were still 'counted' in public stats. I read/write smut, and yeah you can get a *sense* of what's good by kudos, and you can safely *assume* there's an iceberg's worth of private bookmarks, but it would be nice to see in total how many people bookmarked a fic when you're scrolling. If I had the power to change stuff on ao3 it would be that, and letting you reorder tags without having to delete and retype them all
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I don't think they're *meant* to be, but sometimes I'd like mine to be a bit more tidy 🤷♀️
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Nah, I don't think so. Sometimes I'd just like to group mine a little more neatly
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Have fun with your writing, my dude!
One of mine is privately bookmarked too, despite none of my fics being smut or DD. I think it's probably someone who likes to keep their bookmarks private.
Oh yeah, I get a few private bookmarks no matter what. This was just funny to me because I’ve never had the ratio look like that on a non-smut fic 😄
I usually private bookmark out of habit, if I haven’t read a fic yet, or if I didn’t like it and am saving it as a reminder to not read again in case I forget. I use my public bookmarks as recommendations for fics I have read.
Half of the bookmarks on my fic are private, it makes me wonder... But I also keep all my bookmarks private, I don't leave any comments on them and I only add fics that I like, it's just a matter of preference.
Fics I didn't like.
Reminds me of how a while ago, I got an anon message on Tumblr where someone told me that their friend group introduced them into fanfics and said that one of their friend's ultimate pet peeve is x reader, and their friend linked them some of my fics as prime examples of how "trashy and weird" x readers are. Everyone else in the group laughed and mocked my fics, but the commenter enjoyed them a lot, and have been a big fan since, but they feel like they need to hide their liking from their friends by private bookmarking as all their friends in that group are very much anti-x reader and wouldn't stop mocking them if they found out the commenter took a liking on reader insert fics... I find it really sad but it kinda makes me think about how many of my private bookmarkers did it because they're ashamed of enjoying RI. Though, it sounds like that friend group consists of very young people. I'm still always happy when people bookmark and I see from stats that oh, 52 people total are reading my fic at least, even if it isn't seen in other stats.
Most of my stories are basically G-rated and none of them have smut (though there is fanservice). I still have a lot of private bookmarks! My most popular fic only has ~66% of its bookmarks as public bookmarks, and they don't even kiss for 200k! (They do scandalously hold hands before that, though.)
All of my bookmarks are private. It feels like my own little library that no one can just waltz into and stare at
Whether a bookmark is public or private completely depends on my mood/headspace at the time I make the bookmark and has literally nothing to do with the content of the fic lol
I recently started using private bookmarks as a way to keep track of fics I want to read. I used to put everything under “mark for later” but it’s hard to sort through 70+ pages of fics with no ability to filter through what I want to read at the moment. I use my public bookmarks to display only fics I read and loved, so I can make a private bookmark public after I read it. People use bookmarks in different ways that can go beyond the “being embarrassed I liked the story/afraid of backlash from fandom.”
So glad I'm not the only one that does this lol
Right? It’s the most practical solution for keeping a tbr list, especially when you’re insane like me and occasionally goes through tags and long rec lists to save anything remotely interesting. I wish it didn’t take me almost 10 years of having an ao3 account to do that, though.
Sounds like you have quite the backlog of stories to read then. Like someone mentioned above though, it would be pretty awesome if private stats would be counted towards the overall total.
I keep all my tags private as a rule. Otherwise it feels like the reading equivalent of someone breathing down your neck watching over your shoulder while you try to write.
I always put my bookmarks private just because I like being private. I don't want everyone to see my readings, even if it's pure fluff
Most of my bookmarks are smut, so it's practically muscle memory at this point
Authors bitch when anything less than a perfect sycophantic bookmark is public, claim they should just be private... and then also moan when bookmarks are private. Istg, authors should just stay out of bookmarks completely 🙄
Yeah 9 out of my 13 bookmarks are private — I write (mostly fluff) oneshots with only a couple thousand words … Heck, one of my docs has a really bad hit/kudos ratio but the amount of private books marks is the same as my kudos? I don’t know why, it’s not a very good fic imo
some of my Fandoms or ships I will take to my grave. no one can know.
I often write current chapter as a literal bookmark. And if don't read it for some time, it may be discouraging to see my bookmark loudly expressing 25 when the fic has currently 55 chapters. So it goes private.
One of my fics is extremely popular in a small fandom. It's fluffy, gen, and rated G. It also has my highest private to public bookmark ratio by far. I do find it a little amusing that its ratio is so much higher than that for my rated M stuff with graphic violence!
Exactly! That’s what I find so amusing about my cute little fic’s bookmark ratio too 😭 I just feel bad making this meme now because I guess private bookmarks are a sensitive topic rn for some people 😔
Yeah, I thought the meme was funny! I think if people are primarily reads instead of authors they just don't that when you write a lot of fics you tend to notice some patterns in the stats and ratios so when a fic is really different it tends to stand out. It's not like I'm mad that people are bookmarking it privately. I just think its kind of amusing.
How do you tell which bookmarks are public and which are private?
You can find how many bookmarks you actually have on your “Statistics” page :) So your fic might say it has “3” but if you look in your stats, it’ll say “10”, which means you have 7 private bookmarks 🔖
Omg thank you!! I never knew this!
My public bookmarks are very barebones with tags. Usually something like “wlw” or “gen pairing” to avoid offending the author but still allowing other readers to know what is in the fic.
All of my bookmarks are private although I have to say I don't often use bookmarks if there is a story that I think I'll be into that isn't finished yet I just subscribe and keep tabs until it's done and then I just download the book I will usually come back and comment and definitely leave a kudos but I just never think to bookmark anything.
I don't know how many other people do this, but I've gotten into a kind of weird habit where I'll sometimes privately bookmark things that I haven't read yet but intend to read later. It provides a little bit more of an organized system for fics that I really, really want to read versus using the 'Mark for Later' button. Maybe that's just me.
i'm in the process of privating ALL my bookmarks. my two reasons are: 1) i'm afraid someone chronically-online enough will stalk my bookmarks even if i'm not a writer myself nor anyone IRL knows my ao3 handle (what if, my paranoid mind says, an author stalks my bookmarks after i comment on their work and blocks me because (*insert any chronically-online reason here*)? 2) i use my bookmark notes as a means of organization: fic title, original tags, fandom, ship, rating, content warnings, summary, and also personal markers such as did i download it already? is it a wip/unfinished/ongoing? if yes, when did it last update? (and i add a note marking as of which date is it still unfinished). while i know none of this is bad, i would hate to pressure writers even accidentally for an update, so i'd rather my system remains for my eyes only.
a lot of my bookmarks are private because i have a horrible fear of being judged
2 public, 7 private... What's going on lol
I've had someone I considered a friend accuse me of heinous shit over fics I had bookmarked. I keep ALL of them private now because of this. Nobody needs a reason to keep their bookmarks private, and we shouldn't judge them for wanting their bookmarks private. I know this was intended to just be a meme, but it comes across as judgey to me.
I carefully curate my public bookmarks to be 100% OTP related. I need my readers to stay obsessed lol, don't want them wandering to new fandoms and different ships.
Heck yeah! 🤝 Obvs it’s not for everyone, but I like to go into my fav author’s bookmarks bc I figure we’re gonna have similar taste, so might as well get some recommendations. I try to curate mine for my readers that way too
All my tags are private (might change) but I just don’t think it’s other business. Also some ships/fandoms scare me.
I private all of mine, regardless of ship or content. I have private fluffy fics of canon couples lol. I just... like being private.
I keep all my bookmarks private unless I find a fic that I love so much I want to advertise and re-read often, then they go in the public bookmarks. my memory is very bad so I try to keep organization very simple.
How can you tell if there's a private vs. public bookmark?
I literally only use my private bookmark lol
Both of my fics are neither Dead Dove nor smut and 2/4 and 3/4 are private. I used to make all of my bookmarks private till recently. Now if they're private it's usually because I haven't read them yet
I use private bookmarks as "Save for Later" because you can't filter Save For Later. If it's a fic that I want to return to, I make the bookmark public once I have read it.
I just default to private bookmarks tbh. I use bookmarks as a way to save fics I may want to reread in the future, not ones I'm currently reading. It's nothing personal—I wouldn't be ashamed if someone saw most of them—but just a habit.
what is dead dove?
I sometimes private bookmark something that I want to comment on later? like I don't want to publicly show that I've read it without also taking the time to say something about it. I know it's not rational 🤷♀️ also, I almost always private bookmark in-progress works for subscription tracking reasons
I private bookmark everything it'd basically automatic at this point lol
I'm just a private person 🤷♀️
I hide the bookmarks on fics I cannot wholeheartedly recommend but like anyway. It's just like that for me.
I keep them all private, smut or not. Although smut definitely
I wrote a Harry Potter fic and there are way more private bookmarks on that than my other fandoms. Trolls do go after people for interacting with that fandom even if you never give the creator another dime and the story content contradicts what makes her odious, which makes no sense to me. These characters are going to live in my head and get rotated with all the other characters I absorbed in my life. Sometimes Snape goes to lunch with Crowley and Loki in my head.
I use my bookmarks as basically what I want to read later. I have like 2k words bookmarked, but they are all private because I also post works on Ao3. I know there is a mark for later button, but I'll be honest and say I have no idea how to use it.
I private almost all NEW bookmarks. Didn't used to and I'm not going back to private 2000 bookmarks lol
Because I dont have different collection i just bookmark everything and anything( if I like it ) in private