<![CDATA[Fanfiction has never had a federated home: should we just potentially take over SquidgeWorld Archive (or fork the code)?]]>****I (and a lot of other people, I'd guess) read and write fanfiction.

But as far as I know, there's never really been a federated fanfic platform, nothing that plugs into the fediverse the way Mastodon does for microblogging or PeerTube/Loops does for video.

Then I stumbled upon SquidgeWorld Archive (SQWA), an AO3 alternative that actually runs on the same codebase as AO3 otwarchive.

It's got way fewer users than AO3, which honestly gives it a cozier, more small-town vibe.

The devs/maintainers behind it, squidge.org, even run both Mastodon and Bluesky accounts.

The catch: people have posted that fics pulling thousands of views on AO3 get little to none on SQWA. Makes sense, it's just a much smaller pond.

So, two half-formed ideas that I wanted to possibly toss out:

Suggestion #1: "colonize" SQWA.

What if fediverse-native fanfic folks just started actually posting there? Cross-link your fediverse socials, bring your existing following over, treat it like planting a flag. It already exists, the maintainers are clearly fediverse-friendly, it just needs bodies.

Suggestion #2: fork it (and ao3) and actually federate it.

AO3's otwarchive code is open source, which is exactly what SQWA is running on. What if someone forked it and built out real federation, ActivityPub support, the whole deal, instead of just being a second standalone AO3 clone? That feels like the "real" long-term fix, but it's a genuine software undertaking, not a weekend project.

I'd love to take a crack at #2 myself but I don't have the time or the technical bandwidth for something that size right now, so I'm just putting it out there in case it resonates with anyone here.

Curious what this community thinks: is #1 realistic, or does fanfiction just need a ground-up federated archive to actually work?

Edit: Sorry for any mistakes, I'm currently at work

Edit Edit:*** There are also these Ao3 mirror sites and alternatives:

Mirror sites:

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Shields are up! | Archive of Our Own

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(archiveofourown.gay)

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Shields are up! | Archive of Our Own

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(archive.transformativeworks.org)

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Shields are up! | Archive of Our Own

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(insecure.archiveofourown.org)

Redirects:

https://archiveofourown.com/

https://archiveofourown.net/

https://archiveofourown.site/

https://ao3.gay/

https://ao3.org/

Other Alternatives:

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Home | Sunset

Sunset, a femslash archive. A project of Agnes the Alien.

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(sunset.femslash.club)

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Home | Comic Fanfiction Authors Archive

Comic Fanfiction Authors Archive

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(www.cfaarchive.org)

https://www.adastrafanfic.com/
.

]]>https://citiverse.it/topic/8a073aec-aaed-4c18-a145-37af4a266cf9/fanfiction-has-never-had-a-federated-home-should-we-just-potentially-take-over-squidgeworld-archive-or-fork-the-codeRSS for NodeSat, 22 Aug 2026 15:59:53 GMTWed, 19 Aug 2026 14:09:05 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Fanfiction has never had a federated home: should we just potentially take over SquidgeWorld Archive (or fork the code)? on Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:40:13 GMT]]>Ah. That. Right, I didn’t even think about that.

Still, that makes it somewhat similar to Ao3, right?

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25379497https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25379497Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:40:13 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Fanfiction has never had a federated home: should we just potentially take over SquidgeWorld Archive (or fork the code)? on Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:22:28 GMT]]>I'm mostly concerned because it isn't particularly specific about prohibited content, which is one of the major reasons ao3 was created (specifically that wattpad and It's alternatives had over restrictive rules) and having rules that are impossibly broad is almost as bad.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26980681https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26980681Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:22:28 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Fanfiction has never had a federated home: should we just potentially take over SquidgeWorld Archive (or fork the code)? on Wed, 19 Aug 2026 14:49:35 GMT]]>Also, at risk of sounding cynical:

…Are there many fanfic writers/readers on the Fediverse?

Here on Lemmy/Piefed, people here seem more interested in politics and IT than deep fandom niches.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25377629https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25377629Wed, 19 Aug 2026 14:49:35 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Fanfiction has never had a federated home: should we just potentially take over SquidgeWorld Archive (or fork the code)? on Wed, 19 Aug 2026 14:41:44 GMT]]>Some thoughts:

  • …What’s actually different about Squidge? If the code is the same as Ao3, what makes it a more appealing target for “colonization” than just using Ao3?

  • #1 and #2 aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, if the formatting is the same, cross posting to Squidge should be trivial.

  • On #2. Instead of a fork, why not PR otw code? Make the federation link a completely self-contained, discrete module, one that’s not a burden for OTW to maintain. Perhaps architect it as some basic access points in the OTW code, then the federation API support is a completely separate layer. This would massively reduce the dev burden, as it would inherit all the work in OTW code.

  • Yeah, I don’t have the energy for such a huge project myself either, but I might help some.

  • I’ve… neglected a fic for about a year, but it’s still living in my head. I think I’m going to get back to writing today, thanks! And I suppose I’ll cross posting it to Squidge too.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25377453https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25377453Wed, 19 Aug 2026 14:41:44 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Fanfiction has never had a federated home: should we just potentially take over SquidgeWorld Archive (or fork the code)? on Wed, 19 Aug 2026 14:25:40 GMT]]>What’s wrong with the ToS, specifically?

It’s perhaps not as professional as Ao3, but nothing bad jumps out at me.

But yeah, making it signup-required would be terrible.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25377211https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25377211Wed, 19 Aug 2026 14:25:40 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Fanfiction has never had a federated home: should we just potentially take over SquidgeWorld Archive (or fork the code)? on Wed, 19 Aug 2026 14:20:15 GMT]]>the tos for sqwa seems rather immature compared to ao3, and their latest update seems to suggest they want to kill their platform by making it so everyone needs an account to read their content.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26978643https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26978643Wed, 19 Aug 2026 14:20:15 GMT