Fanfic: Fiction by fans, for fans
When I first heard about AO3, I thought it was some kind of Star Wars droid. After Googling it, I learned that it stands for Archive of Our Own, a fanfiction site created in 2008. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue like Wattpad, which launched two years earlier for kids to post vampire romances and K-pop love triangles.
A few years back, upon the recommendation of my publisher, I uploaded Kelly Drake and the Tears of the Dragons, my first young adult fantasy novel, to Wattpad. I had convinced myself that it’s an original story, but I can’t deny that there’s as much Tolkien there (in the landscapes and poetry) as Rowling (in the relationships presented), and probably a subconscious homage to every adventure I’ve dreamed of since my solitary days in our school library.
Am I writing fanfiction or fanfic? Not exactly. But also… kinda? Will I upload again? Highly likely. I’m a glutton for punishment that way.
Let’s get one thing straight: While the term may sound Gen Z, fanfiction isn’t new. If you read enough, you’ll realize it’s not that uncommon.
During the heyday of Ancient Rome, Virgil’s grand epic, the Aeneid, gave Aeneas, one of Homer’s characters in the Greek epic poem Iliad, a whole origin story, complete with gods, war, and a manipulative ex.
Then there’s Shakespeare. Among other plays, the Bard lifted Romeo and Juliet almost wholesale from The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, a 1562 poem by Arthur Brooke; Othello was taken from Cinthio’s Un Capitano Moro, an Italian tale published in 1565; and Macbeth was inspired by Holinshed’s Chronicles, where the historical King Macbeth was actually a relatively stable ruler.
The same goes for the Arthurian legends. From T.H. White’s The Once and Future King (itself based on Sir Thomas Malory’s 1485 work Le Morte d’Arthur) to First Knight (where even Julia Ormond’s Guinevere couldn’t save Richard Gere’s forced English accent as Lancelot) and Netflix’s Cursed, every tale reimagines older myths.
Modern fanfic followed the same path. In the ’60s and ’70s, Star Trek fans created zines filled with alternative endings never considered (or found acceptable) by the studios. Lt. Uhura x Dr. McCoy, anyone? Curiously (or not), women led the charge. Long before the Internet or social media, they wrote, edited, and mailed these stories, probably at great personal postage cost.
Then came Star Wars. Its galaxy was practically designed for fan expansion into galaxies far, far away. (In a later timeline, Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis drew on this force to reimagine a Reylo affair.)
By the ’90s, new content started migrating online, from mailing lists and message boards to dedicated sites like FanFiction.net. Fandoms sprouted everywhere, each with its own digital subculture and drama. For every diehard fan of Buffy, The X Files, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, LOTR, Naruto, Final Fantasy, Sailor Moon, etc., there would be a range of fanfiction to choose from.
With new platforms like LiveJournal, Tumblr, and other similar kids on the block, I heard AO3 remains the gold standard today: no ads, no censorship, infinite tags, and a Hugo Award to its name.
Even Asian storytelling has been fanfictioned: Japanese classic horror film Ringu gave Hollywood The Ring series; Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs became Scorsese’s multi-awarded The Departed; and Chinese wuxia epics have shaped everything from The Matrix trilogy to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Even Akira Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai birthed The Magnificent Seven and inspired George Lucas in more ways than one.
Like anything that starts out as hero-worship, fanfiction has become lucrative for some, and really lucrative for even fewer writers. Fifty Shades of Grey, after all, began as Twilight fanfic. Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments was conceived in the Great Hall of Hogwarts before transfiguring into a bestselling series and a Netflix adaptation. And let’s not forget After, the Wattpad-born Harry Styles fanfic that snowballed into a multi-film franchise and made writer Anna Todd a celebrity in her own right.
So…when fanfic enters the commercial mainstream, is it a triumph or a betrayal of its original ethos?
Fanfiction has long thrived on community, passion, and the joyful freedom of writing without gatekeepers. It’s where marginalized voices have carved out space, where seemingly unwanted tales and niche genres flourish. When these stories get monetized, do they lose something? Is it selling out, or are the fans finally getting what they deserve?
Fans write and read because they care and love. Fanfiction may be messy and even obsessive, but it’s deeply personal and, therefore, human.
Maybe it’s both. Maybe fanfiction is evolving, just like stories always have. Maybe we’re all part of a sprawling, gloriously messy conversation that started the moment someone asked, “What if Anakin never met Padme? Or “What if Jor-El miscalculated and sent his son to Mars instead of Earth?”—and decided to write their own version. Marvel built an entire franchise around that impulse with What If…?, as it injected the multiverse into existing lore.
Of course, not all new storytellers are human.
Lately, AI has entered the scene, nameless writers capable of generating a 20,000-word Draco x Hermione enemies-to-lovers saga in the time it takes me to brew my Nespresso. Impressive, perhaps, if you’re a lazy unimaginative oaf. AI may be able to replicate tropes, echo styles, even passably mimic angst. Yet, it doesn’t know what it’s like to feel and be felt.
Fans write and read because they care and love. Fanfiction may be messy and even obsessive, but it’s deeply personal and, therefore, human. There lies the difference.
Whether you’re imagining Aragorn as a disgraced rock star, rewriting the final season of Game of Thrones out of pure spite, or dreaming up BTS as time-traveling guardians of the galaxy, fanfic is where you go when the story in your heart just won’t let you sleep.
And even if it leads to a book deal, a movie, or a simple like from strangers, fanfiction will be what it’s always been: a joyful, chaotic, beautiful rebellion against narrative limits.
Or, to paraphrase Samwise Gamgee: “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth writing for.”
