The online platform that shook the fanfiction world will turn 12 in November 2021.

“There’s a new generation of people now old enough to sign up for accounts and take part in fandom who have never known a time without AO3,” Claudia Rebaza, a communication staffer with Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), wrote in an email.

Archive of Our Own (AO3) opened its online doors in late 2009. It is a project that was created by fans, for fans.

As the name suggests, AO3 is an online archive filled with fanfiction readers and writers. Fans are able to write, post, share and read fanworks of their beloved fandoms. AO3 is open for all fandoms.

It gives sanctuary to those without a home. It gives community to those drowning alone. It gives an escape to fans drifting in the wind. AO3 changed the world of fanfiction.

“Fanfiction is a genre in the sense that it’s a way to categorize a type of writing,” said an 18-year-old college student who asked to be identified only as Luna. “It’s literally just a descriptor to describe the kind of writing that people are doing, which falls under creating work based on characters or people that already exist in some way, shape or form.”

For many, fanfiction is an escape.

Writers are able to explore how fan-favorite characters would fare in an alternate universe (AU). “A Debt of Time” is a “Harry Potter” AU fanfic. It follows the story where Hermione Granger is sent back in time after invoking a life debt from Sirius Black.

Readers are able to explore relationships that are hinted at (intentionally or unintentionally) and are commonly celebrated or tabooed. “All the Young Dudes” is another “Harry Potter” fanfic that is canon-compliant with few divergences from the original canon. The story follows Remus Lupin and is called a “slow-burn WolfStar.”

For those not in the fanfiction world, “slow-burn” refers to “a fanfiction genre in which the characters, who are romantically paired, take a very long time to get together,” according to Fanlore. WolfStar is a “Harry Potter” ship and refers to the romantic relationship between Remus Lupin and Sirius Black.

The author of “All the Young Dudes” goes by the username MsKingBean89. In an email, she shared she found fanfiction during a rough time and after rereading “Harry Potter.” She wrote it’s comforting to read about the same characters you love and know well.

“A combination of finding out about fanfiction and attending therapy helped me start wanting to write again – I was inspired, I suppose,” she wrote. “It got my creative drive up and running again.”

Fanfiction is her escape, her creative outlet, her relief. She shared she now makes time to write to help manage her mental health. It’s not always fanfiction she writes, but she admits: “Fanfiction is often ‘easier’ to get stuck into, because the world has already been created, all the heavy lifting is done for you.”

She shared she has been writing on AO3 since 2017. To her, AO3 is very simple and straightforward. When asked why she choose AO3 as her main fanfiction site, she responds with: “It’s where all the good fanfiction was!”

MsKingBean89 said AO3 has a better search function than any other site she has used. Additionally, she appreciates it is non-profit, meaning there are no advertisements. The tagging system is another benefit. It makes it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for.

There are other sites fanwork creators use, like Wattpad. But she dislikes that site’s comment set-up.

“Readers can comment on any line of text within a chapter,” she wrote. “This seems to get used to create a lot of ‘noisy’, unusual comments like ‘lol’ or keyboard smashes. It’s more like social media, and I don’t think that novels/long form stories are suited to being responded to in that way.”

On AO3, readers can comment on chapters as a whole, cutting down the noise.

Before AO3 was the go-to platform for “Harry Potter” fans, its parent organization had to be formed. OTW was founded in 2007. Rebaza wrote the key reasons for creating the organization were: commercialization of fanworks; censorship and control issues; and gender imbalance issues.

Shortly after the formation of OTW, the organization began trekking down the long and uneven road towards the creation of AO3. Before the online platform could be created, several obstacles had to be overcome.

OTW had to take a stand on the legal status of fanworks.

As copyright laws protect original works like “Harry Potter” or “Supernatural,” there was a need for a legal entity to protect the rights of fanwork creators. Therefore, OTW Legal Entity was created to host, defend and speak on the defense of fanworks and fandoms.

OTW Legal Advocacy works to protect the rights of fanwork creators. According to their What We Believe page, the Organization for Transformative Works envisions “a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity.”

Luna believes fanworks should be protected, with some key factors. She said if the fanwork is of a real person, good or bad, the legal protections around those works will be different.

OTW is a nonprofit organization and runs on the donated funds and volunteered time of fans. It has no physical location or headquarters. According to Rebaza, the best way to support OTW and AO3 alike is to volunteer and donate.

“Besides donating and volunteering, I think the most helpful thing fans can do is learn about the organization,” Rebaza wrote. “I’d also suggest being curious about sites like AO3 – go into the FAQs and visit the links at the bottom of each page.”

MsKingBean89 admits fanfiction is easier to get sucked into: “It’s very comforting somehow to read stories about the same characters you love and know very well.”