Who Gets Written In? Gender, Identity, and Moderation in AO3’s Celebrity Fanfiction

Archive of Our Own (AO3) is a prominent fanfiction platform widely recognized for its feminist design ethos, with a commitment to inclusive, pluralism and community-driven content creation. Among the content on it, Real Person Fiction (RPF) — creations based on public figures rather than fictional characters — offers a unique lens into how users engage with identity, visibility, and cultural narratives. In this study, we conduct a large-scale computational analysis to examine gender representation, thematic diversity, and occupational portrayals. Our findings reveal a significant gender imbalance, with man characters disproportionately over-represented. The readers themselves are also often portrayed as sexual figures. Overall, the relationship portrayals tend to mirror occupational roles, incorporate sexual elements, and reconstruct gender tropes. We interrogate how these patterns intersect with authorship, identity, and power. This work contributes to ongoing conversations about equity, ethics, and feminist values in digital content ecosystems and feminist HCI development.