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AO3 & Non-Fanfic Works

Although AO3 does allow non-text fanworks to be archived on the site, as of now, they do not host any non-text media, which means that images, videos, playlists, etc, must be embedded from other hosts. However, we know that finding media hosts now can be difficult, particularly for fannish and/or NSFW media, so we've compiled a list of potential options for you, based on media type.

Images​

  • Squidge Images

    NSFW Safe, Does Not Allow Loli/Shota

    Squidge.org has been hosting various fandom endeavors from mailing lists to websites and more since 1994. Squidge is open for all fandom uses and allows NSFW fannish content.

Other Good Options​

These hosts have not been used by the moderators personally, but may be good alternatives to Squidge.

  • Catbox.moe

    NSFW Safe, Safe for most fannish/non-commercial uses

    Cannot be used for commercial uses or for video that will be embedded on other sites. Should be fine to embed images for display on AO3, but I would not upload commissions sheets, etc.

  • MediaFire

    Not NSFW Safe, Has Copyright Infringement Provisions

    MediaFire has been recommended by other artists/exchanges and may be safe for use on AO3. We are not currently aware of any issues using MediaFire; however, you should be aware that their Terms of Service have a strong anti-pornographic/obscenity stance and also copyright infringement provisions.

Iffy/Inadvisable/Potential Issues​

  • filegarden

    Placing this in the iffy pile because there is no terms of service, faq, copyright information, privacy policy, or information on who owns and runs this site. It might be fine, but please use it at your own risk.

  • Dropbox

    Likely NSFW Friendly, No Copyright Provisions

    Dropbox's Acceptable Use policy explicitly bans unlawful pornography and CSAM and there are no copyright or intellectual property rules listed which means it is likely safe for use for most fannish images. However, there are very specific hoops to jump through to be able to embed images, and it may take some time and patience to find the correct link. We were successfully able to help someone embed from Dropbox last year, but it did take a couple of hours of experimentation to find the correct URL for the image.

  • Neocities (and other webhosts)

    Although free Neocities has a relatively generous 1GB storage, webhosts are intended to be used for websites and not for direct hotlinking. Hotlinking is when you directly link or embed an image or media file from one site to another site and impacts bandwidth usage. Simply put, all hosts have a limited amount of times they can or will serve certain data (including images) and hotlinking uses up that "time".

    It is possible by hotlinking to Neocities or other webhosts, you will use up your (or their) bandwidth which will prevent them from serving (or being able to serve) the media you've embedded. Hotlinking is typically considered poor netiquette, even though it is required by AO3.

    Although we absolutely recommend Neocities to host your sites (ours is here!), we would discourage you from hotlinking from them as much as possible to ensure that they are able to remain around (and free!) for as long as possible!

    You can read up on hotlinking and bandwidth to understand a little more what we're talking about.

  • Other Social Media Accounts

    Due to the hotlinking issue mentioned above, and how frequently social media sites change things in order to prevent hotlinking, it is not recommended that you use any social media site as a host for your images. Although it may work for now, it is possible links may change or they may intentionally block hotlinking. This includes but is not limited to:

    • tumblr
    • Twitter
    • DeviantArt
    • Pillowfort
    • Instagram
    • Livejournal
    • Mastodon
    • Discord - Please note for Discord in particular, they have made a recent breaking change to their codebase which will cause external file hotlinking to stop working very soon.

Do Not Use​

AO3's FAQ has been updated to include a list of sites which should not or cannot be used to host images for their site. You can find the list here. In particular, we'd like to mention Imgur which updated their Terms of Service in 2023 to explicitly ban hotlinking, and Google Drive which has links that fail when embedded.

Audio & Video​

For audio and video to play inside of AO3's pages you can use a site with pre-approved media players. You can find a list of pre-approved sites in the AO3 FAQs. All of the sites listed here have embed codes which will automatically work.

If you are comfortable with HTML, you may also be able to get other hosts (such as MediaFire) to work, even without them being pre-approved. More information on how to do so is linked in the FAQ above.

A Note On Meta & Fannish Non-fiction​

While not a part of Arlathan eXchange, fan meta and non-fiction such as character analysis, timelines, essays, AO3 skins and how-tos, meta about your own fanworks, and other non-fiction posts are allowed on AO3. When posting fannish non-fiction, AO3's guidelines are that it be non-ephemeral (intended to be relevant for a long time) and not what one would see in a journal or liveblog (i.e. not reactions, summaries, step-by-step replays, etc).

For more details on fannish non-fiction, please see the AO3 Terms of Service FAQ.