Lengthy gone are the times when fan fiction was handled as a responsible pleasure, completely consumed on a glowing iPad display underneath the covers at evening and by no means to be mentioned exterior of Tumblr. We’re residing in an age the place Supernatural star Misha Collins boasts about Dean/Castiel fanfic stats on Twitter, a Harry Kinds fanfic on Wattpad has been tailored into a significant film franchise, and even Academy Award–successful filmmaker Chloé Zhao overtly admits to writing fan fiction. The interest has change into a cultural phenomenon, referenced casually in exhibits like Euphoria, Solely Murders within the Constructing, 13 Causes Why, and Bob’s Burgers. And who may neglect Archive of Our Personal (extra broadly referred to as AO3) snagging that Hugo Award in 2019?

Born in 2009, AO3 is without doubt one of the greatest fan fiction websites in the present day. It’s an open supply, multi-fandom archive for transformative fanworks that, as of January 2023, is house to roughly 10.5 million works throughout over 55,000 fandoms, starting from huge names like Stranger Issues and Marvel to essentially the most area of interest corners of the web you can think about. AO3 is just about a family title now, at the very least for any Gen Z or millennial with some extent of on-line presence. And as fan fiction has change into extra mainstream, there’s additionally seemingly been a push by some customers for AO3 to maintain up technologically. Extra particularly, for the archive to operate … effectively, extra like TikTok. Image a “for you” web page greeting you as you log in to the archive. It mechanically recommends your subsequent fanfic to learn, like an oh-so-helpful good friend plucking a e-book off the shelf for you that they only know you’ll love.

Let’s be clear although: This concept isn’t going to see the sunshine of day. “An algorithm is rarely going to occur,” Claudia Rebaza, a volunteer for AO3’s guardian group, the Group for Transformative Works (OTW), tells me outright. However the debate about whether or not AO3 ought to have an algorithm reveals what’s particular about fan fiction and the significance of sustaining an area the place inventive works can simply exist.

I get it. As somebody born in 1997, it’s exhausting to recollect a time earlier than algorithms, rankings, and personalised suggestions. It looks like each place on the web is attempting to change into extra like TikTok, from Instagram with its Reels (till Kylie Jenner complained) to Twitter’s “for you” feed. For higher or worse, the world in the present day feels deeply on-line. When almost each side of our lives feels optimized, it is smart that some need fan fiction to maintain up with the occasions too. 

However right here’s the factor: AO3 isn’t social media. It’s merely an area that hosts an unlimited assortment of works. It’s mainly a library in your telephone. Being a nonprofit run totally by volunteers distinguishes AO3 from different fan fiction websites like Wattpad, which is an leisure firm. “AO3 is designed to be an archive, not a social media web site, and we’re a nonprofit that will even by no means run advertisements,” explains Rebaza. “So we’re not attempting to make folks spend extra time on the location or make something go viral.” 

One other side that units the archive aside is its lax content material coverage. Whereas the location nonetheless attracts the road at some content material—express materials of actual minors, flat-out plagiarism—almost all fanworks are allowed. The one main requirement is that customers should tag works containing rape/non-con, graphic violence, main character dying, or underage content material (alternatively, authors can merely tag “Creator Selected To not Archive Warnings”). However so long as it’s correctly tagged, it’s in all probability permitted “irrespective of how terrible, repugnant, or badly spelled we could personally discover that Content material to be,” per the location’s phrases of providers.

It’s a coverage that has been each praised and criticized. However one of many causes for AO3’s hands-off philosophy is that fan fiction has traditionally confronted quite a lot of opposition and censorship. For example, Fanfiction.web (FF.web), one of many first main fanfic websites on the net, banned all works primarily based on something by Interview with the Vampire creator Anne Rice after she reportedly threatened authorized motion. (The legislation because it pertains to fan fiction is murky, however OTW believes nonprofit, transformative works fall underneath “truthful use.”) In 2002, FF.web started implementing a strict “no NC-17 content material” coverage. Then in 2012, the location famously deleted a lot of tales, presumably ones deemed too mature. The transfer was broadly coined the FF.Internet purge by followers, and it sparked considerations about doubtlessly disproportionately affecting authors of slash (same-gender pairing fics).