FanFiction.Net (often abbreviated as FF.net or FFN) is an automated fan fiction archive site. It was first launched in 1998 by software designer Xing Li, and currently has over 12 million registered users.

The site is split into main categories: Anime/Manga, Books, Cartoons, Games, Comics, Movies, Plays/Musicals, TV shows, Crossover, and Miscellaneous. Users who complete the free registration process can submit their fan fiction, maintain a user profile, review other stories, apply for a beta reader position, contact each other via private messages, and maintain a list of favorite stories and authors. There are centralized communities and forums. In lieu of signing up with a new account, the website allows users to use their Google, Facebook, or Twitter accounts. The site also owns a Twitter account called FictionPress where users of the website are updated on changes and improvements made.

While Fanfiction.net is still prolific as a viable source of fanfiction creation, the site has shown a decline in popularity due to a number of factors such as a lack of updates, an outdated system, rampant advertisements, and restrictions on types of fanworks.

History

Xing Li, a software developer from Alhambra, California, created FanFiction.Net in 1998. Initially made by Xing Li as a school project, the site was created as a non-profit repository for fan-created stories that revolved around characters from popular literature, films, television, anime, and video games. Registration was open to all people who claimed to be over 18, and by 2002 over 118,000 people were registered. (The age limit has since been moved down to 13.) At that time, one-third of the registrants self-identified as 18 or younger, and 80% were female.

Features

Fanfiction.net provides a number of options that login users can use to create stories and interact with both fans and fellow authors.

Private messaging

This feature is separated into two categories: Inbox and Outbox. Authors may receive a private message (PM) from anyone who has an affiliated account. In addition to this, there is no report button affiliated with this feature. Fortunately, blocking a user stops them from leaving PMs and reviews. There is also a way to disable private messaging. By clicking on account settings, under Account Options, the author may choose to either accept or decline PMs. Additionally, the site has a feature that filters basic profanity for both incoming reviews and PM messages.

Forums

The author can create up to 10 forums for personal use and can optionally link a forum to a specific category. The site asks that forums must adhere to the rules that both complies to terms and service and creates a nontoxic environment for other users. The rules are:

  1. Forums are not to be used to post stories.
  2. All discussions, language and content, must be suitable for teens.
  3. The owner/moderator(s) of this forum is solely responsible for content posted within this area.

Polls

Authors may create up to 25 polls for personal use. This feature is primarily used to discuss topics within a forum of one's fandom of primary interest. All votes are confidential and protected. Neither the poll creator nor the voters are able to view the individual votes or voters. Only the total number of voters are revealed. The author has the option to enable "blind" polls. In a blind poll, live poll results are not accessible to the voters. Poll result is only available to the public when the poll has been closed.

Reader feedback

Readers can interact with the FanFiction.Net content in various ways. If the reader likes a story and its author, they can favorite both the story and its author. Favorites are similar to likes, hearts or Archive of Our Own's kudos. Favorite stories and authors are displayed on a user's public profile page at the very bottom. A reader can also follow a story or its author. When a reader follows a story, they receive email notifications whenever that story is updated. When a reader follows an author, they receive email updates whenever the author updates any of their stories or publishes a new one. While reviews can be left by those without accounts, it is an option for all writers on the site to moderate "anonymous reviews", made by those who are not signed into an account. Reviews left by signed-in users cannot be moderated or disabled. FanFiction.Net does not operate a screening or editorial board.

As of October 8, 2022, the top 20 fandoms (i.e., the fandoms with the most stories submitted) on FanFiction.Net are (the figures are rounded to nearest thousand):

{| class="wikitable"

!Rank

!Fandom

!Category

!No. of stories

|-

|1

|Harry Potter

|Books

|850K

|-

|2

|Naruto

|Anime/Manga

|442K

|-

|3

|Twilight

|Books

|223K

|-

|4

|Supernatural

|TV shows

|127K

|-

|5

|Inuyasha

|Anime/Manga

|122K

|-

|6

|Hetalia: Axis Powers

|Anime/Manga

|117K

|-

|7

|Glee

|TV shows

|107K

|-

|8

|Pokémon

|Games

|106K

|-

|9

|Bleach

|Anime/Manga

|85.6K

|-

|10

|Percy Jackson and the Olympians

|Books

|80.9K

|-

|11

|Doctor Who

|TV shows

|76.8K

|-

|12

|Kingdom Hearts

|Games

|74.3K

|-

|13

|Fairy Tail

|Anime/Manga

|69.2K

|-

|14

|Yu-Gi-Oh!

|Anime/Manga

|68.3K

|-

|15

|Sherlock

|TV shows

|59.8K

|-

|16

|Star Wars

|Movies

|58.5K

|-

|17

|Lord of the Rings

|Books

|58.1K

|-

|18

|Dragon Ball Z

|Anime/Manga

|54,7K

|-

|19

|Once Upon a Time

|TV shows

|53.2K

|-

|20

|Avengers

|Movies

|51.8K

|}

Community

Authors can create or edit a community, which are essentially custom archives organized by active members containing hand-picked stories from community volunteers. If an author creates a new community, they will be able to hire and manage a group of community staff members who will moderate entries to the community archive. The author can hire and delete any staff or story in the community while also checking its statistics, which details how popular their community is.

Traffic stats

This feature allows the author to monitor how often their stories, profile, and community are being visited by readers. The author can filter the month they would like to view and even see a breakdown of the number of views and visitors they receive from a different country of origin.

Site content

The stories published to the site can be about new and old existing works. By 2001, almost 100,000 stories were posted on the website. Steven Savage, a programmer who wrote a column for FanFiction.Net, described it as "the adult version of when kids play at being TV characters" and that the content posted on the website serves as examples for "when people really care about something". FanFiction.Net has since become the largest online repository for fan-created works.

FanFiction.Net also hosts one of the longest works of fiction ever written. The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest, a Super Smash Bros. fan fiction written by FanFiction.Net user AuraChannelerChris, gained media attention for its length of over four million words at the time of notice, more than three times as long as In Search of Lost Time written by Marcel Proust. The Loud House: Revamped, a fan fiction published by Jamesdean5842 and mainly centered around the animated television series The Loud House, was written from 2017 to 2024. It was 16 million words long by 2022 and over 30 million upon completion, claimed by The Spectator Australia to be "the longest fiction work in the history of the world".

Writers may upload their stories to the site and must assign them a sub-category, language, and content rating. FanFiction.Net uses the content rating system from FictionRatings.com. This system contains the ratings of K, K+, T, M and MA. The MA rating and explicit violent or sexual themes are forbidden. The ratings are no longer done on the MPAA system, due to cease-and-desist demands from the Motion Picture Association of America in 2005. A list of explanations for the rating system currently employed is available from the drop-down rating menu in each of the individual archives on the site. The MA (18+) rating is not permitted on this site. As a result, it placed restrictions on the types of fan works that could be posted on the site.

Since the site's founding, several professional authors and producers have asked that stories based on their copyrighted or trademarked works be removed, including Anne Rice,

In addition, stories based on real-life celebrities were disallowed around 2003. Fan fiction based on professional wrestling, however, is still allowed, being the number one fandom in the "Miscellaneous" category. This was done because of a high volume of complaints related to certain adult stories.

CYOA (choose your own adventure) and reader-insertion fiction

Choose-your-own-adventure and reader-insertion fanfiction have both been banned since 2005, and the site removed all material that had the potential of inserting the reader into a fanfiction. Under the heading of "Entries not allowed", item #5 says: "Any form of interactive entry: choose your adventure, second person/you based, Q&As, etc."

Lists

The official Fanfiction.net Content Guideline states that lists fall under the line of non-stories, along with bloopers, polls, previews, challenges, author notes, etc., thus they are not allowed on the site.

According to Hitwise, as of August 2007 FanFiction.Net comprised 34.7% of all traffic directed to sites in the Entertainment, Books and Writing category. For the week ending August 25, 2007, the site was ranked 159 out of over in terms of hits.

While the site is primarily used for recreational use, researches have been considering bringing fan fiction use into classrooms. Fanfiction.net provides many avenues of communication for its users, making it a primary subject of consideration. Due to the site's demographics leaning primarily towards women, researchers have also considered fan fiction as an online organization that could potentially be utilized for feminist thought and discussion. However, ultimately, in this current age, online relations have become more prevalent, and the manners of how interaction influences creative thought has been a significant role of Fanfiction.net's user activity from when it was conceived to now.

FictionPress.com

FanFiction.Net's sister site, FictionPress.com, contains over 1 million original stories, poems, and plays. The site has a similar format and rules to FanFiction.Net, except that no fan fiction is allowed.

See also

  • Wattpad
  • Archive of Our Own (Organization for Transformative Works)
  • LiveJournal
  • Tumblr
  • Fimfiction
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan fiction

References