The largest fan fiction website, Archive of Our Own (AO3), remains unavailable more than a week after a cyberattack. AFP reports this. Since October 29, users trying to access the site see a message about technical work.
"It's all over everyone's feed. People are going through withdrawal," said Joanna Sarrio, a writer and co-founder of the Love Love Books bookstore in Los Angeles.
Fan fiction is amateur stories written based on existing books, films or TV series. Authors rewrite endings, invent romantic storylines or give minor characters their own adventures, and then post them online for free.
Once a niche hobby, fan fiction has now become a springboard for the publishing business. For example, E. L. James's novel "Fifty Shades of Grey" grew out of a Twilight fan fiction, and Ali Hazelwood's bestseller "The Love Hypothesis" came from the Star Wars universe.
AO3 launched in 2008 and became the main home for this genre: more than 11 million registered users and almost 18 million works. In 2019, the site received a Hugo Award for best work related to science fiction.
"We wanted to create a place where fans can engage in non-commercial creativity without advertising, censorship and the sale of data," explained Rebecca Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School who helped found the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), which runs the site.
Fans of romantic stories felt the outage most strongly. "Romance readers read very fast and very much," Sarrio explained. According to her, fan fiction is also a school for future writers: here they hone their craft without restrictions, which later helps them create quality novels.
OTW does not believe that the user database (names, email addresses and encrypted passwords) was stolen, but it cannot rule this out either. "AO3 has not disappeared! The data is not lost, we hope to restore the site soon," Tushnet said.
The organization hopes to bring the site back online within a month. For web developer Johan Mebruk, such a timeframe indicates the seriousness of the attack. The delay may be due to limited resources or the need for a full software update, which he called "a huge job." Well-managed sites keep backups of databases, he added: "If they did everything right, everyone will get everything back."
For now, Sarrio is happy to offer readers an alternative: "Come to Love Love Books and take a novel!" she says, pointing to shelves of paper books.