Before we start this adventure into the world of fanfiction. Here is a helpful dictionary for those who know nothing about it.
Fanfiction terminology
- Fic: Fiction
- Canon: Original story pairings. (Ginny X Harry from Harry Potter)
- Ship or Shipping: Putting two characters together, either canon or non-canon ones. (Draco X Hermione)
- Tags: The descriptions for what are going to be in the fic. (Angst, romance, happy ending)
- Ratings: Just as movies are rated, so are fan fictions. (G – General, T – Teen and up, M – Mature, E – Explicit)
Archive of Our Own (AO3 specific)
- Kudos: Likes from readers
- Hits: The number of readers that have looked at the fic.
Have you ever wanted to read a fanfiction? Do you ship non-canon characters? Then listen up! I will explain everything from what site is best, how to use them, and what site creates the best community outside of those websites. So, sit back, relax, boil your tea, snuggle up – and let me take you on a journey through the world of fanfiction.
My obsession with fanfiction bloomed in the year 2014, after reading the Vampire Academy series. I needed to know what happened next. Unbeknownst to me, while searching for an officially released chapter, I read a fanfiction instead. This led me down a rabbit hole that I have not got out of, ten years later.
The world of fanfiction is vast and never ending, with many websites offering up stories for the curious to read. The main three websites being: Wattpad, Fanfiction.net (ff.net.) and Archive of Our Own (AO3). A fanfiction veteran will experience each one – however! I will not let you dear readers make that mistake!
Archive of Our Own (AO3) – 9/10 📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
Archive of Our Own has existed for nearly two decades, and has been the go-to for fanfic readers like myself.
Usability
Compared to both Wattpad and Fanfiction.net, AO3 has the best usability of the three. The search ability on AO3 is the easiest and quickest. You can go broad with the type of book, movie et cetera, or maybe you can pick a certain character. But then you can go even deeper, with ‘additional tags’ these can include: angst, romance, fluff, et cetera.
This means that for both readers and writers, the stories are easier to find, and stories are easier to describe. You can also whittle it down even further, and search by comments, kudos, date updated and more. This means if you want to read the highly rated Dramione (Draco X Hermione), you can very easily look it up.
Community reputation
One the great things about AO3 is the sense of community that has been built on the site. A couple of times a year, AO3 does a fundraising event for the site, where readers and writers can donate to help keep the website functioning. In 2024, the fan fiction community raised $207,088.91 USD, a whopping number from the original $50,000 USD. This helps the sites security, usability and overall functionality.
This fundraiser also added more people on the member list for AO3. In business terms, it is kind of like a governors board, but for AO3 it is about keeping the site fan-made. AO3 being run by fans ensures a massive community who want to contribute to the longevity of AO3.
The July 2023 hacking of AO3 was the best way to show how big the community is. It demonstrated how affected the world was when the site was down for a few days. The community showed their shock after the attack by posting videos to TikTok. Views on the videos reached as high as 220.9K, with the majority getting around 10K views. AO3 had been down before for maintenance, always with a warning, but this was the first time the whole website was shut down for an extended period of time. Reactions ranged from anger, distress, desperation and overall dismay at those that hacked the beloved site.
Overall, the hacking only seemed to make the community stronger, and the need to protect this precious piece of internet forever.
TikTok has also played a big role in the building of the AO3 community. Outside of the comments on the fics that we read, there was no other place for readers to interact. Thus the birth of fanfic Tok. Filled with recommendations of particular shipping stories (for myself it is Dramione), to reactions of well-known stories (Manacled).
TikTok has deepened and broadened the AO3 community to not just individuals reading their favourite fics. Or fighting over which ship is best, but for readers to meet and build connections.
Wattpad – 3/10 📚📚📚
Wattpad was my first introduction into fanfiction, the site was easy to use, and readers could put their comments next to any paragraph. This meant that if something dramatic happened, you could read other people’s reactions.
This built a sense of community around the story, as readers could interact more freely with each other, but also the author. However, the past ten years have greatly changed the useability of Wattpad.
Wattpad is no longer a small site where teenagers could upload their most inner thoughts, it is now a full-fledged publishing site. For example, the novel ‘After’ was originally a Harry Styles fanfiction on Wattpad.
Usability
Wattpad’s useability runs mostly on writers using hashtags. This means that if a reader wants to specifically look for Harry Potter fics, they will have to search using the tags. The browse section only breaks down the genres, you can’t search from the original source. I find that this can be very difficult if you want to narrow down what exactly you want from a fic, but it can also be very time consuming. Because of this, I no longer use the website to find fanfictions anymore.
Wattpad also now has a premium subscriptions – where users can either pay $7.60 AUD or $11.79 AUD a month. With some perks being, no ads, unlimited offline stories and a small amount of Wattpad Original stories.
Not only has the site turned commercial, but it is also littered with ads. Ads between chapters in the stories, but also ads throughout the main website as well. I find this to be extremely frustrating, compared to my 2014 experience where it felt like I was reading stories from everyday people, it now feels like a business. Wattpad may be the biggest story telling community, but for fanfic lovers, it has taken out the fun of where everyday people can read and write fics.
Community reputation
The reputation of Wattpad for fanfictions has decreased as well over the last ten years. Readers in the community think it is a place for subpar stories. For young teenagers to write out their angst, a place for young writers to spread out their wings. But this also means that for the community, Wattpad is the butt of numerous jokes.
The most common one being that if AO3 is down, and the readers are desperate, they will go to Wattpad as the last resort. With others feeling so desperate for the fanfiction kick, they resorted to redownloading Wattpad to get their buzz.
Fanfiction.net (ff.net) – 5/10 📚📚📚📚📚
The oldest fan fiction website in this review, launched in 1998, and originally a school project, is Fanfiction.net. Throughout its lifespan, ff.net has gone through many ups and downs.
From being the site that has created some of the most well known fan fictions of the modern era, to it now being the ugly sibling, you can’t not mention the website that started it all.
Usability
Unlike Wattpad which has a generally easy-to-use website, the usability of ff.net is clunky and hard to navigate. One of the main reasons is that the website has not gone through many updates. Both AO3 and Wattpad have gone through significant website upgrades throughout the years, but ff.net is still stuck in 1998.
Similar to Wattpad, ff.net is not an easy site to narrow down the exact type of fic you want to read. The only saving grace is that the readers can browse stories from their original source material (shown in image above). On ff.net the only information you are given before the story are the ratings (G, T, M or E), as well as what genre the story is (tragedy, romance et cetera).
There are also no hashtags for writers to describe the story, and this makes it harder on the readers. Not having this feature means the usability is very low – it can take up to minutes or hours to find the perfect story.
Community reputation
On social media, ff.net is almost the middle sibling. The community is aware of it – Harry Potter has 847K fics on the site, but no one wants to acknowledge its existence. Even though the highly successful Fifty Shades of Grey was posted to the site (originally a Twilight fanfic), that spanned into a multi million dollar movie franchise.
Another success story is the Mortal Instruments series. A Young Adult series written by Cassandra Clare (City of Bones) the first instalment, was originally a Draco X Ginny fanfic. Clare has stated that the origins of City of Bones was taken from her Harry Potter fanfics, and that Jace and Clary, the two main love interests, were based off her Draco and Ginny characters.
Throughout the infamous 2023 hacking of AO3, ff.net was barely mentioned as a desperate attempt to read fics. Unfortunately, I did try, but wading through the many fics to try to find one that has great writing, but also a compelling story was extremely difficult. I gave up almost immediately and went to watch TikTok’s about the 2023 hacking instead.
Regardless of which fan fiction site you deem to be the best for you, fanfiction is more than just readers wanting to continue their favourite stories. It has built a community of dedicated fans that are passionate about their fan fictions, sometimes even more than the original piece of work.
Archive of Our Own, will forever be my safe place, with its superior website usability, to its flourishing and vibrant community that has transcended the website. It will always be a place I can call home.