Fanfiction is one of the most enduring and democratic forms of storytelling. Defined broadly, fanfiction refers to stories written by fans that expand upon or reinterpret existing works of fiction, including books, movies, television shows, video games, and even real-world celebrities. While often dismissed by critics as derivative or self-indulgent, fanfiction is, in truth, an essential cultural practice. It’s a form of creative continuity that bridges generations of fans, sustains the emotional and imaginative life of communities, and resists the erasure of beloved worlds from collective memory.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of video games, where fanfiction acts not only as creative expression but as preservation. As technology evolves and titles become inaccessible or forgotten, fanfiction keeps characters and worlds alive through text, ensuring that their stories endure.
From Fanzines to AO3: A Brief History of Fanfiction
Fanfiction predates the internet by centuries. Readers have always reimagined the stories they love, from early Christian apocrypha to 19th-century “unauthorized” sequels of popular novels. When Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in 1893, fans protested so fiercely that they began writing their own Holmes adventures. It was a testament to the character’s hold on the public imagination. Doyle eventually resurrected Holmes in 1903, but the impulse of fans to “fill in the gaps” between canonical stories continued.
Modern fanfiction, however, took shape in the 1960s and 1970s, fueled by the rise of science fiction fandoms and mimeographed fanzines. The Star Trek community was a major turning point: fans circulated stories exploring the adventures (and often romantic subtext) of Kirk and Spock. These early zines were grassroots publishing ventures, created, edited, and distributed by fans, primarily women, long before digital media made such sharing effortless. Fanfiction became both a creative outlet and a means of claiming interpretive power over stories largely controlled by corporations or male-dominated creative industries.
The arrival of the internet in the 1990s democratized fanfiction on an unprecedented scale. Mailing lists, message boards, and early archives like FanFiction.net allowed writers to reach global audiences instantly. With the launch of Archive of Our Own (AO3) in 2009, fanfiction entered an era of legitimacy and self-governance. AO3, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), was built on the belief that fan creativity is a form of cultural labor deserving of protection. It formalized fanfiction as an art form instead of simply a pastime.
Fanfiction as Transformative and Political Practice
Fanfiction thrives on transformation. Through alternate universes, gender-swapped retellings, or romantic reinterpretations, fans explore the “what-ifs” that creators often leave unanswered or unexplored. This transformative impulse carries political and cultural weight.
In a media landscape dominated by corporate franchises, fanfiction redistributes narrative agency. It allows marginalized voices—especially women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, people of color—to insert themselves into stories from which they’ve historically been excluded. A queer reinterpretation of a superhero, a feminist reworking of a fantasy epic, or a tender exploration of trauma and recovery within a horror franchise are all acts of reclamation. These stories resist the limitations of mainstream media’s representation by crafting new possibilities of identity, love, and community.
The Digital Afterlife: Fanfiction and Video Game Fandoms
Video games occupy a unique position within fan culture. They are both stories and worlds shaped by interactive narratives and player choices. Yet, they are also impermanent by design. Games tied to outdated hardware, delisted digital titles, or franchises abandoned by studios often vanish into obscurity. Servers shut down, technology evolves, and the source material itself becomes unplayable. What remains are memories… and fanfiction.
In this context, fanfiction functions as digital preservation. When a beloved RPG from the early 2000s can no longer run on modern systems, or when a multiplayer game’s servers go offline forever, the fans’ written works keep its spirit alive. The emotional resonance of a game is sustained in text long after games fade.
Consider titles like The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, or Mass Effect. Each of these games fostered deeply emotional relationships between players and characters, relationships that persisted far beyond their original release cycles. Fanfiction provided a space to continue those stories: to write post-canon reunions, alternative endings, or quiet slice-of-life moments that the games themselves never rendered.
For me personally, my very first Dragon Age fanfiction stands as an example of this process in action. Through writing that story I not only explored the emotional landscapes established in the game but also extended them beyond the official narrative. I wrote about the characters I loved in new settings and situations, and thus participated in the preservation and evolution of that fandom. My fanfic became a small but meaningful node in the network of fan-works that keep the Dragon Age world alive beyond its official lifespan.
Emotional Continuity and the Communal Archive
The heart of fanfiction lies in community. Fan writers and readers form collaborative networks of creativity, offering feedback, encouragement, and shared emotional experience. When a franchise ends, the fanfiction community keeps its pulse going. The stories act as emotional bridges between people, allowing new fans to discover old fandoms through transformative works long after the original media has faded from relevance.
This communal archive is remarkably resilient. Even as official servers go down or companies dissolve, fanfiction archives remain accessible, maintained by volunteer librarians, archivists, and coders. This work is rarely acknowledged in cultural discourse, but it’s an essential form of preservation, something akin to maintaining oral histories or restoring lost films.
The Ethics and Legitimacy of Fanfiction
Critics have long questioned the legitimacy of fanfiction, arguing that it infringes on intellectual property or lacks originality. Yet this perspective misunderstands both the purpose and the tradition of transformative works. Storytelling has always been iterative: Homer’s Odyssey inspired the Aeneid, Shakespeare reimagined Plutarch, and countless folk tales evolved through retelling. Fanfiction continues this lineage, using modern media as its mythology.
Legally, fanfiction often exists in a grey zone, but ethically, it operates on an implicit social contract. Fans write not for profit, but for passion and participation. Their works are acts of love. They’re gifts to a community that understands the emotional architecture of the source material. This gift economy stands in stark contrast to corporate content cycles, reminding us that art thrives not just in production, but in reinterpretation.
Fanfiction is both archive and rebellion, memory and innovation. It keeps fandoms alive, it preserves worlds, and it empowers fans. It is, in the truest sense, the infinite game, one that continues not because it must be won, but because it must be played.
What are some of your favorite fanfiction stories? What fandoms are you a part of?