The Fanfiction Purity Test
How deep into the archive are you? 100 questions about tropes, tags, ratings, reader inserts, comments, writing and fandom life.
Your score
Where your points went
Share your score
The card and the link show your score only, never your answers.
How the Fanfiction Purity Test works
Tick everything you have done. Every tick costs one point: 100 means you have never read a fic, 0 means there is nothing left for the archive to show you.
The format comes from the Rice Purity Test, the test the Rice Thresher first printed in its 100-item form in 1988[1]. The questions are about fandom instead: how much you read, which tropes you know by name, what your bookmarks look like, and whether you have crossed from reader to writer.
What your fanfiction score means
- 100Canon onlyNot a single fic. You might be in the wrong place, but welcome.
- 99 to 90Curious lurkerA few fics read, nothing bookmarked, no feelings involved yet.
- 89 to 75Kudos giverYou read, you leave kudos, you know your tropes.
- 74 to 60Tag readerRatings, tags and real feelings. You have cried over at least one fic.
- 59 to 45Bookmark hoarderReader inserts, community, fandom life. Your bookmarks have folders.
- 44 to 30Deep in the archiveYou write, or you comment like a writer. The fandom knows your name.
- 29 to 15Fic veteranHalf-million-word fics, printed copies, fic at work.
- 14 to 0Archive legendThere is nothing left for the archive to show you.
Our reading of the scale, not an official key. Nobody publishes official score meanings.
Fanfic words used in the test
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| AO3 | Archive of Our Own, a nonprofit fanfiction archive |
| Kudos | AO3's version of a like |
| WIP | Work in progress: a fic that is not finished yet |
| AU | Alternate universe: the characters in a different setting, such as a coffee shop |
| OTP | One true pairing: your favorite ship |
| Rare pair | A pairing very few people write about |
| Crack | A deliberately absurd fic or pairing |
| x reader / Y/N | Fics where you, the reader, are the main character ("your name") |
| RPF | Real person fiction, about real people rather than characters |
| Slow burn | A romance that takes a very long time to happen |
Other tests
Frequently asked questions
What is the fanfiction purity test?
A 100-question version of the purity test about fanfic: what you read, which tropes and tags, how you take part in fandom and whether you write. Your score is 100 minus your ticks.
Is the fanfic purity test the same as the AO3 purity test?
They are the same idea. Ours covers AO3, Wattpad, FanFiction.net and Tumblr, so it works wherever you read.
Is it explicit?
No. It asks whether you have read fics with certain ratings or tags, but it does not describe anything explicit.
Do you save my answers?
No. Your answers never leave the page.
Sources
- Emily Abdow, "Purity Test evolves, spreads beyond Rice", The Rice Thresher, 23 August 2017. Link