Is the “AO3 Curse” real (astrologically)?
Our beloved site was born (went live) on November 14, 2009 at 5:00am in Manhattan, NY!
Scorpio sun, Libra moon, Scorpio rising
(I did email them and ask for a birth time lmao and I used NY bc that’s the state law they go by)
Here is the chart!
Oh so the Destiel site has a taboo sun, relationship moon, taboo rising?? Who’s surprised?? lol
For a website where people write stories which are often about pairings that are out of the norm it’s fitting that it’s a 1H Scorpio stellium! You can also be pretty anonymous on there and we know Scorpios love their privacy.
Sun and Mercury are in Scorpio within 5deg of each other and it’s a site filled with stories which are ruled by Mercury. Venus is in Scorpio as well and these stories are often about love and relationships and tend to explore themes that are taboo in society or in the referenced work. It’s a place that was created to give people a space to freely explore these topics through writing!
Mercury in the 1H and it’s an archive! This can also highlight organization and technicality which we see in the way AO3 has an intricate filtering system. It’s in Scorpio so it’s not the simplest system to use when you first try but the more you tinker with it you realize it’s capable of a lot more and you can find very specific fics!
Moon in Libra is so cute and I’m shamelessly biased bc that’s my moon sign! It’s in the 12H so it lives in the house of healing and the subconscious. The stories are born out of strong feelings for the characters where people just love them so much, hate them so much or identify with them so much that they have to create! They also learn so much more about these characters to the point that tags were created to notify people that there are out of character things in the fic bc it’s like that character would NEVER do that but I thought it would be interesting to write lol Libra moons study relationships like breathing but they can also be detached which allows people to be able to put their favorite characters through the most gut wrenching situation LOL for the plot! Without that detachment they would be too protective of their characters. The result of this is almost always a deeper understanding of the relationships!
An Aquarius IC/4H is also chef’s kiss since the internet is the home! The whole concept of fandoms is also represented by Aquarius bc it’s a community. Just being on AO3 reading and writing is being part of a community! We all have basic things in common like: we are fans of something, we want to engage with it in other contexts and we want to be around people with similar interests! Even further than that there are so many different fandoms on AO3 that you can be in and Jupiter in the 4H represents that bc jupiter expands. It’s kind of like the limit doesn’t exist to how many fandoms can really be on there bc every new book, show, movie or whatever that comes out a new fandom is created lol
The way that people deep dive into the characters’ psyches by putting them into these crazy ass situations is also very Neptune in Aquarius lmao bc wtf do you mean they figured out they’re gay bc they got abducted by aliens?? Crazy premise but it’s the perfect place for that and the readers are like yep that makes complete sense pls drop the next chapter! Pushing boundaries!
I didn’t know anything about Lilith in Aquarius but I read this and I was cracking up bc that’s AO3! It’s also interesting to me that although it’s in Aquarius, in the placidus chart it sits in the 3H and not the 4H with the other Aquarius placements which to me fits more the users of AO3 fics rather than the actual fics.
“Lilith in Aquarius look for new erotic sensations in which fantasy plays an important role.” LMFAO is that not why most people sought out AO3? You engage in media and you’re like mmmm okay this is amazing but what if they were fucking??? Don’t worry there’s already a fic waiting for you!
“Perhaps, you never had any idea of what a sexual relationship is. And suddenly you marry and go from sexual ignorance to intense knowledge, in which case you become prey to numerous temptations.” BRUH is that not a common thing with people on there who haven’t had any experience at all or no experience with a specific aspect of sex? Like you only knew the birds and the bees and now it’s seven thousand different positions and they’re underwater. Do people discover new kinks after joining AO3? Probably!
“Sexual desire becomes a goal. You confuse friendship with sex.” LOL I think anyone who’s shipping characters that are friends have had this conversation with people who don’t ship them! Bc Lilith is still an asteroid that represents where there is shame in the chart there is this sense that you want to keep your ship to yourself irl to avoid shame but you still have that online community that thinks the same as you.
“Your sexual instinct is anarchic and destroys all taboos.” Self explanatory! I don’t think there’s one aspect of the human sexual experience that is untouched on AO3 and that’s bc people on there have had all kinds of experiences lol
The 3H is writers so maybe that’s where we see the types of people who come to AO3 to write fics and the 11H can represent the readers as the audience. A Capricorn 3H with Pluto on the cusp and a Virgo 11H with Saturn (in placidus)…so for one both writers and readers are STRICT lollll but it’s a beautiful relationship! The writers put out stories that transform (Pluto) the characters and the readers. Most also take their job very seriously by making sure their work is tagged correctly bc they understand that for the filter system to work you have to work with it.
The readers can be a bit critical at times especially to less skilled writers and sometimes they offer unsolicited advice lol but if the writer asks them not to they do respect that! That’s pretty much Saturn in Libra and understanding that you have to work up to being good at something and part of that is receiving feedback and integrating it. It’s just that sometimes the writer’s goal isn’t to become better they just wanted to put that out lol when it’s a good story a Virgo audience is very good at praising the writer bc they will leave very detailed comments about how much they loved it!
Chiron (the wounded healer) in Aquarius in the 4H is that in exploring all these topics people are healing themselves and others! They are discovering new aspects of themselves that they didn’t understand before and realizing that they’re not alone in those feelings. Writing is also therapeutic so by the time you get to the resolution in your story you’ve worked through a problem and come up with an explanation or solution.
Right across from the Aquarius IC/4H there’s a Leo MC/10H conjunct Mars in Leo within 5deg omg passion! creation! romance! sex! kids! Mars in Leo opposite Jupiter in Aquarius: mpreg???? lol masculine energy (Mars and Leo) expanding (Jupiter) in an unconventional way (Aquarius)??? But I think it’s so funny that Scorpio rising charts have a Leo MC bc they end up in the public eye and people want in and they’re like no! my secrets!! This has been happening more for AO3 recently with someone discovering it and the video goes viral and more people want in and the fallout is almost always the same with the new people wanting to change how things work on there or wanting to monetize it and the members fighting for AO3’s honor in the comments lol but it’s short lived bc Mars isn’t sustainable long term action it’s more short bursts.
AO3 has Pluto in Capricorn at 1deg which means that it has only known how to operate with Pluto in its own sign until last year when Pluto went into Aquarius in its 4H where all those Aquarius placements are! I wonder how Pluto is going to shake up AO3s foundation bc it can’t be perfectly contained forever bc it’s tempting and exciting. There’s already been issues with AI infiltrating and people having to lock down their fics and celebrities engaging with their character fics in interviews or just admitting that they have read fics. I also wonder if maybe what’s considered taboo is going to change and therefore change the stories we tell on there!
Jupiter has also been in Cancer for almost a year now transiting the 9H and there’s been conversations around censorship and how to protect kids from seeing mature content like whose responsibility is it really? The website? The writers? The readers? The reader’s parents? Then this summer Jupiter switches to Leo and will transit the 10H so maybe that’s going to push AO3 to the public in a whole new way!
Nowww is AO3 cursing their writers??
If you didn’t know the curse is basically something insane happening to writers that keeps them from updating or finishing fics whether that’s an illness or an accident or imprisonment! I have been personally victimized as well lol I literally got so sick I had to have surgery!
Before anything, you gotta applaud the tenacity of AO3 writers! Nothing except death will keep them from posting a fic and sometimes not even that bc they’ll have someone who takes over the account and finish the fic! No one is more dedicated!
(obvi this is all just for a fun observation and the website cannot actually curse you and you are not actually cursed lol)
I’ve been thinking a lot about fate lately and I wonder if writing as a creative process attracts people when they are intuitively feeling like something is going to change for them. On the Virgo/Pisces axis, health and creativity go hand in hand! Especially writing (Virgo ruled by mercury)! It’s the sense that something is about to happen but you don’t know what which can put you into a space where you try to control things around you to get rid of the uncertain feeling. Writing a story can appease that feeling for a bit bc you’re in control of every single aspect of it as a writer. It’s also a creative outlet that doesn’t require a lot of physical energy so naturally it would attract creatives that are feeling less agile, already sick or about to be sick. Could be a chicken and the egg situation!
Now for the chaos part I don’t know the correlation lol I don’t think that someone would start a fic bc they intuitively feel like their house is going to blow up…
Let’s work through this together bc I have no idea how to find curses in the chart lmfao It feels like a vedic astrology type of question and I don’t study that so idkkkkk but I decided to look at some health and negative asteroids and see if there’s anything there since it seems that something bad happens to people or their health declines.
These are the ones I decided to look at
Asclepius (4581): Healing, medicine, welll-being, miraculous transformation
Hygeia (10): Health, well-being, cleanliness
Lucifer (1930): Rebellion, ego, transformation
Medusa (149): Cycles of destruction and rebirth
Their placement in the chart
Asclepius: 12H Libra 23deg
Hygeia: 10H Leo 21deg
Lucifer: 8H Gemini 29deg
Medusa: 3H Capricorn 4deg
Hygeia is an asteroid of health and well-being. It’s in Leo in the 10H of the chart so if the writers are represented by the 3H then that’s the writers’ 8H using derivative astrology. The 8H is death, destruction and transformation so the health asteroid in that house can show significant illness for the writers that affect what’s published (AO3’s visibility/10H) on the site.
Asclepius is also a health and well-being asteroid and it is conjunct the Moon in Libra in the 12H of the chart/10H from the 3H. How the writers are feeling about their well being and health affects their career (10H) and if the effect is negative the information is usually hidden (12H) from AO3 bc initially no one knows why a work was unfinished/abandoned; it just was.
Asclepius is also miraculous transformation and it is sextile Hygeia so the writers overcoming serious illness against all odds is like a miracle which gets announced (no longer hidden from AO3) when they get back to posting (writer’s 10H).
Lucifer shows where there’s a lot of pride and where you might push yourself beyond your limits and it’s in Gemini in the chart’s 8H. There’s a lot of pride within AO3 that they’ve been able to maintain some exclusivity bc you have to wait to be let into the site and outside of fandoms it’s not widely known. The content is also known for being taboo and pushing limits of the reference media, society and even physics! The 8H is also other people’s resources and AO3 thrives off of and exists because of other people’s time and energy spent reading, writing and sharing fics. All three ruled by Gemini!
The 8H is the writer’s 6H so it’s their job to keep filling the site with content but with Lucifer there they might end up overdoing it and burning themselves out especially if they’re getting good feedback. It’s very tempting to keep posting to get more praise! With the 8H being Gemini you can also become overwhelmed by too many ideas. There are so many writers on there that overwork themselves writing multiple fics at the same time.
Lucifer is opposing Pluto on the cusp of the 3H showing that the writers probably think they are more in control than they are about how much of themselves they are pouring into writing fics. It’s very easy to reach an imbalance so naturally aspects of your real life are going to be negatively impacted if you’re not tending to them as you should aka making yourself sick.
Medusa the asteroid of cycles of destruction is conjunct Pluto and in the 3H of the chart/the writer’s 1H. This can show destructive/dramatic events happening to the writers that fundamentally change them. With Pluto on the cusp of the writer’s 1H this could show that the writers are using writing as a coping mechanism for trauma. That can explain the seemingly random destructive events happening to writers bc they likely already have tumultuous lives and are using writing as an escape. So it’s not that writing cursed them lol the trauma probably just interrupted the publishing schedule they put themselves on causing them to disappear for a while and regroup.
In conclusionnnnnn is the AO3 curse real? A little bit yes!
It’s no secret that creativity is often born out of hard times so it makes sense that writers on AO3 would have that in common. The readers are probably experiencing similar things but we just don’t know bc they’re not posting a note updating everyone about it.
I love it! I think it’s great that everything fell into place for AO3 to become a thing and now people have a pretty safe place to escape to where they can read about their favorite characters overcoming similar obstacles or write about it and find people going through the same or just be on there for a good laugh. Laughter is healing!
Extra: The 2H is the writer’s 12H and they don’t get paid for writing lol and whenever writers do try to get paid they are shamed and outcasted and seen as an enemy (12H) of the site lolll
Also the chart has a Leo 10H lol tell me it’s not similar to the logo! A stretch?? Maybe! idc lol
