Disaster struck Pinewood students when the major fan hub Archive Of Our Own, popularly known online as AO3, was abruptly cut off for several hours. Many students across Pinewood Upper Campus were seen “tweaking out” due to their lifeline being severed, their routine addiction ripped from their hands without warning.
The popular fan site, which hosts a myriad of literary works built around an unlimited range of fandoms and character pairings, has seen the occasional shutdown in the past, often lasting only a couple of hours. Yet, these have been, for the most part, planned shutdowns for maintenance of the website. The recent outage was like nothing ever seen before — without warning, without reason, and without a guaranteed return.
“It was like Gojo dying all over again,” eighth grader and avid fanfiction reader Phoebe Huang said. “Except there was no heaven with my ten-year-slow-burn-best-friend situationship waiting at an airport on the other side for me…”
What made matters worse for this particular shutdown was the current cultural zeitgeist in which it occurred. With the continuous release of new media from 2025 to 2026, society experienced an influx of fanfiction. Some notable sources worth mentioning include hit series “Stranger Things,” “Heated Rivalry,” “Jujutsu Kaisen,” and the seemingly immortal “Harry Potter,” which has a fandom that just never dies for some reason. In the depths of this dark period, more than ever, people need fanfiction. Yet of course, like any grand hero, when the people needed her most, she disappeared.
Sophomore Benjamin Bowman was especially impacted by this sudden shutdown, seeming to confuse words and characters throughout the day, which is something he would never do on an ordinary day.
“This recent event was an utter catastrophe, stripping me of my daily nourishment with such violent abruptness that I had to resort to ink and quill!” Bowman said. “All I could think at that time was how my Bakudek — …Doctor Who daleks fanfiction wouldn’t write itself!”
Another student, freshman Joanna Zhao, was seen sobbing in a corner with her phone’s 404 message reflecting in her tear-glossed eyes. When approached, she shot up and started running in place as she spoke.
“300,000 words!” she said. “The author said in the note that when they got back from testifying in court for money laundering, they’d write the cottage chapter. Three hundred thousand words of slowburn. I was SO ready.”
Thankfully, the site was back up and stable in 48 hours, and all students returned to normal. This is a great reminder for all that without the support of proper fanfiction in life, society can fall apart in an instant.
