The fanfiction community has lost one of its main resources: Archive of Our Own, known as AO3, is offline, and its expected restoration date keeps shifting. The library, which holds about 18.8 million stories across thousands of fandoms, from Harry Potter and Heated Rivalry to K-pop and boy bands, was taken down on October 29 for maintenance. It was initially reported that the outage would last about 12 hours, but within a few hours an update announced a longer break.
The site is run by the non-profit Organization for Transformative Works, which is fully staffed by volunteers. In an update, the organization wrote: "We estimate that it will take about 2 weeks to restore #AO3, but it could take up to 4 weeks." Thus, according to the organization's own forecast, the site's return could stretch to nearly a month from the time it went offline.
A day later, the organization reported that it had identified a "security incident." No details were disclosed, and the team is still determining the scope of the incident. The update stresses that the site's data has not been deleted, so decades of fanfiction are preserved. At the same time, users' personal data may have been compromised. The organization says it does not yet consider the user database to have been stolen, but cannot rule it out. The database stores usernames, email addresses, IP addresses, and password hashes, so users were advised to change their passwords on all services where they used the same password.
While the site is unavailable, AO3 is keeping users informed through its updates page, Tumblr, and Bluesky. Readers themselves are responding to the outage with jokes. One user on X wrote that all countries preparing for outages advise stocking up on water and canned food, but nobody thought to download a month's supply of AO3. Another remarked: "Fourth day without AO3, this is total chaos." A third joked that they had sent a carrier pigeon to the archive but feared the bird would meet the same fate as the dove. There was also a political joke: one user asked what Mamdani's plan was for bringing AO3 back, and another suggested that without the archive, women around the world would start thriving as never before and a cure for cancer would even be found.
Competitors and neighboring platforms have also joined in. Tumblr, known in the 2010s as a home for niche fandoms, wrote on X on October 29 that while AO3 works on restoring service, the platform is ready to fulfill all fanfiction requests. On Monday its account added: "while our spouse AO3 is on break, share your favorite fics and authors to fill the void." Wattpad, which earlier this year had to apologize over a misunderstood update to its rules on explicit content and at that time faced fears of a ban, also offered support: "We're here to support you during this difficult time." The platform published a guide for AO3 users who want to move to Wattpad. It acknowledges that the archive cannot be replaced and that the tagging system may differ, but offers a "new home" for reading and writing stories.