AO3 Down Since Oct. 29 After Security Incident, Site Says

Archive of Our Own, the fan fiction site known as AO3, has been offline since Oct. 29, when it announced it was down for maintenance expected to last two to four weeks. A day later, on Oct. 30, the site said the shutdown was due to “detected evidence of a security incident,” according to Her Campus. Her Campus reported that no AO3 data, including authors’ works, had been deleted.

Visitors who try to open the site see a message that the archive is down for maintenance. Her Campus reported on Nov. 9 that AO3 is expected back online in the coming days. The time zone of the original announcements was not given.

What AO3 has said

The site first described the shutdown only as maintenance. Its follow-up on Oct. 30 named a security incident and said no data had been deleted. The sources do not say what kind of incident it was, whether user data was accessed, or what caused it. The report also refers to a “potential data breach,” but the site’s own statement as quoted does not confirm one.

Who is affected

AO3 hosts user-made fan works, including fan fiction and fan art. According to Her Campus, it holds more than 18.4 million works across more than 82,900 fandoms and has over 11 million users. The whole site is unavailable, so readers cannot open stories and writers cannot post new chapters.

One writer, a 20-year-old University of Utah student who goes by Sam, told Her Campus they were ready to post a new chapter and a one-shot (a complete story in a single installment) on the day of the shutdown but could not. Sam said they have sent a PDF of the one-shot to some readers directly and are writing ahead so updates are ready when the site returns.

Where readers and writers have gone

Readers interviewed by Her Campus named several other places to find fan fiction:

• Wattpad, which was created in 2006. Her Campus reported that Wattpad said it would go ad-free the weekend of Oct. 30 to host AO3 users temporarily.
• Fanfiction.net and Tumblr.
• “Texting stories” on TikTok.
• Large shared Google Drive folders of fan fiction PDFs, often sorted by fandom and pairing. Readers said they find them through TikTok and X.

Some readers were not satisfied with the options. A 20-year-old University of Central Florida student identified as MJ said content on the alternatives is harder to sort through for quality. Another student, Antonella, said she looks for smaller, fandom-specific drives because she is wary of AI-powered sites that may profit from authors’ free work during the outage.

Why it matters

For regular users, the outage cuts off a daily habit. A 20-year-old University of Central Florida junior who gave the name Adrienne said she checked her bookmarked works every other day and called AO3 stress relief. Writers lose their publishing platform and the community around it for what the site initially estimated as two to four weeks. Authors who upload work elsewhere or share files by hand do so outside AO3’s own system.

Current status

As of Her Campus’s Nov. 9 report, the site had not been restored, and it was expected to return in the coming days. Users can check AO3’s official announcements for updates.

Source: Her Campus