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Crazy dream…
Feb. 19th, 2025 12:29 pmThe other night, I had this crazy dream that both AO3 and Wattpad had opened up their own brand bookstores inside my local mall. And that while Wattpad was split into free books and paid books, and looked like any other commercialized bookstore, everything in AO3 was free to take and they made money to keep the store open by selling merch, opening an independent coffee shop inside the store, and of course taking donations. In the dream, I ended up getting lost in the AO3 store for an hour.
And like, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about this dream and imagining how huge a physical archive of fan fiction to look like… like, I know AO3 has literally millions of works, so I imagine they’d have a store larger than the Strand Bookstore in New York rather than an old Barnes and Noble building like I had seen in my dream. I know there are bigger bookstores than that one, but Strand is the largest one that I’ve personally been to…
And like having this weird and random dream made me realize how much of a haven this website has been to me ever since I joined four and a half years ago. Everything is free to download; I’ve downloaded several of my favorite long fics into epub files so that I can read them offline and more like a real book on the Apple Books app. It’s very anti censorship, and I never have to worry about getting my fics flamed or taken down by the clique of critics that plague FF.net (I personally never had an interaction with them since I blocked every active member before they had the chance to find me.)
I wonder if it’s a weird thing to write a fanfic about a fanfic platform… because now I kind of want to write an AU where AO3 is a physical bookstore or library, and explore all the mysteries within in. Seems like such a strange concept, but I’ve always loved books about books and libraries. Stories within stories. And I can’t stop thinking about that dream.
And like, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about this dream and imagining how huge a physical archive of fan fiction to look like… like, I know AO3 has literally millions of works, so I imagine they’d have a store larger than the Strand Bookstore in New York rather than an old Barnes and Noble building like I had seen in my dream. I know there are bigger bookstores than that one, but Strand is the largest one that I’ve personally been to…
And like having this weird and random dream made me realize how much of a haven this website has been to me ever since I joined four and a half years ago. Everything is free to download; I’ve downloaded several of my favorite long fics into epub files so that I can read them offline and more like a real book on the Apple Books app. It’s very anti censorship, and I never have to worry about getting my fics flamed or taken down by the clique of critics that plague FF.net (I personally never had an interaction with them since I blocked every active member before they had the chance to find me.)
I wonder if it’s a weird thing to write a fanfic about a fanfic platform… because now I kind of want to write an AU where AO3 is a physical bookstore or library, and explore all the mysteries within in. Seems like such a strange concept, but I’ve always loved books about books and libraries. Stories within stories. And I can’t stop thinking about that dream.
