In the wake of fanfiction repository Archive of Our Own (AO3) announcing a weeks-long security incident outage, readers and writers are reflecting on why the site is important to the fanfiction community, and how they’re coping with the downtime.
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they → announce → downtime
On Thursday, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), the non-profit organization that runs AO3, posted that the site was down for maintenance, eventually updating to say the site restoration will take around two weeks, but could take up to a month.
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restoration → run → month
OTW confirmed in an updated status report Friday morning that this outage is due to a security incident.
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outage → confirm → incident
Some have speculated that the outage is a result of the PHP scramble this week that led to several sites going down to update their security, but AO3 doesn’t use PHP.
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AO3 → speculate → PHP
An OTW representative told CNET: “I can let you know that this is not related to the PHP security issue as the Archive uses Ruby on Rails.”
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Archive → tell → Rails
A lot of people are grieving the loss of Kinktober, AO3’s annual group writing exercise where writers upload a chapter or fic every day throughout October based on a prompt of the day.
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writers → grieve → day
(The prompts are horny, if that’s not clear.)
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that → ’ → ?
Several of the writers and readers who reached out to me following the outage brought up the poor timing around Kinktober.
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who → reach → Kinktober
One writer I spoke to who posts her writing and reads others’ writing on AO3, told me that she was in the middle of racing to finish a work that was deliberately timed to Kinktober and Halloween when the outage happened.
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outage → speak → Kinktober
She was hitting “next chapter” while reading a fic on Wednesday night when she got the message that the site was down for maintenance, “which I initially took as a sign from the universe to go to bed,” she said.
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she → hit → bed
“The outage hasn’t derailed my desire to write.
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outage → derail → desire
If anything, I want to have more chapters ready to go so my readers can eat good once it’s over,” she said.
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she → want → ?
Some writers are considering posting elsewhere while they wait for AO3 to return, but it’s not an ideal workaround.
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it → consider → ?
AO3 author who goes by Selkie Myth told me they’re moving to Space Battles, another fanfiction site, during the outage.
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they → go → outage
“I'm shrugging and just posting on SB [Space Battles] while the site's down.
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site → shrug → SB
Hopefully I'll remember to post the chapters over on AO3 once it's back up — the story is projected to end during the outage.
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story → remember → outage
I anticipate the same is true for a lot of other authors,” they said.
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they → anticipate → authors
Some people have said they’ll try fanfiction.net in the meantime, but it’s a much more bare-bones website.
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it → say → meantime
Fanfiction site Sufficient Velocity added a banner to its homepage welcoming AO3 refugees: “We’ve had a big influx of guests due to the AO3 outage.
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We → add → outage
If you've been affected by the outage we're sorry to hear that and hope that they're able to get that fixed soon.”
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that → affect → that
Wattpad, which many fanfiction writers and readers really, really hate for reasons I won’t get into here, posted on X: “we're here to support you during this difficult time.”
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we → hate → time
Overwhelmingly, the replies are from people telling Wattpad to go away.
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replies → tell → Wattpad
Another AO3 writer who goes by Ren told me she has two long works in progress right now with nowhere to post them.
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she → go → them
Posting elsewhere poses continuity and discovery problems, as some of these fanfiction works span chapters and hundreds of thousands of words of character and worldbuilding.
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some → post → character
“I could technically keep posting updates on sites like tumblr through the downtime, but both of these fics are quite long and I haven't been posting them anywhere other than AO3
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I → keep → AO3
— if I drop a new chapter for my 130k Pokemon Black and White fanfic on Tumblr completely out of context, people just now finding my work aren't going to be able to read the rest for a while
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people → drop → while
:(“ she told me in an email.
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she → tell → email
“I have seen other authors posting their gdocs and Ellipsus reader links in the meantime, but my draft files aren't exactly presentable...
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files → see → meantime
I will keep marinating but what will probably happen is my wips [works in progress] will just be on hiatus for a bit.
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wips → keep → bit
My readers are used to hiatuses at least.”
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readers → use → hiatuses
Another writer said she’s not considering posting elsewhere.
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she → say → ?
“Wattpad can piss off,” she said.
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she → piss → ?
“But I may go back to fanfiction.net to save and physically print some of my favorite fics from way back in the day (the ancient/sacred texts, if you will) to ensure I have copies of those somewhere.
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I → go → those
This outage is a good reminder that things can vanish in the blink of an eye, whether a website crashes or is hacked or an author decides to suddenly delete their fic.
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author → vanish → fic
If you love something, smash the kudos button, comment on it, bookmark it, subscribe, and consider downloading it.
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you → love → it
You never know.
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You → know → ?
A reader who emailed me following the outage said they’ve been enjoying getting into AO3 as a new fan.
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they → email → fan
“I was a big fanfic skeptic, but that’s changed lately.
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that → change → ?
I’ve found some truly excellent writers, and real creativity.
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I → find → writers
The free nature of it in this increasingly horrifying stage of capitalism is refreshing,” they said.
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they → say → capitalism
…and 16 more, not listed.
The Aporia
