I began my writing journey on fanfiction.net after a fan page on wetpaint.com went down (wetpaint was my OG springboard for all things fanfics, then ff.net, livejournal and tumblr). I still visit it from time to time, reading fanfics that are not present on AO3.
What about you? Do you still visit ff?
Ahh that’s true. I think AO3 caters more to ships and romances. So many gen fics on ff.net but man, the people there rarely reviews anymore. At least in my fandom, people are quicker to comment on AO3. I still get notifications from fics I wrote 2 years ago. And that says a lot about the level of engagement (or maybe the amount of users) in AO3. I like that it’s community driven and run by donations too, unlike Ff which is run by ads and we all know how twitter and reddit turns out.
I only fear that so many of the fics I love will disappear if the owner of ff.net somehow decided it’s no longer profitable.