Such questions assailed me repeatedly after finishing Kugane Maruyama’s Overlord, currently a 16-volume “light” novel telling the story of Suzuki Satoru, a salaryman-turned-monster who is unwittingly pushed down a path of world conquest.

Reading the series again and again did little to alleviate the sorrow that came with finishing it for the first time – the sense that I would never see any of the characters who had become so dear to me grow and develop further or accomplish anything new. I continued down this spiral for a while, rereading the same books until I had drained every possible ounce of dopamine from them.

As my desperation culminated, I set out to seek any entertainment that could rival the original, and stepped into a foreign and hostile land, the realm of fanfiction. I certainly got my wish granted.

That story, Robert Butler’s God Rising: The Cult of Ainz was just the beginning of the rabbit hole. During a pandemic-haunted summer, discovering more Overlord proved to be the perfect distraction.

Page after page, chapter after chapter, I got closer to Neia Baraja, following her through the brutal Slane Theocracy, cheering for her as she led rebellions against the slave owners and mad paladins of the Southern Holy Kingdom. In one moment she was razing Wenmark to the ground, and in the next she was facing trial for her crimes, her tale coming to an end before I could even notice. Once I finished that story, I moved onto the next, and then the next, until I felt like I ran out of good fanfictions. But by that point I was in too deep. I had been swallowed up by the depths of that place, and there was no chance of escape.

By then, I had a decent idea of how this fanfiction community worked. Overlord had some truly outstanding authors, something I have subsequently learned is the case with most fanfic groups. Even more remarkably, I learned that the fanfic community offered significant interaction between creators and readers – I was and am able to talk regularly with writers I admire. Unlike traditionally published authors, shielded from fan interaction by agents or publishers, the creators of fanfictions are most often within easy reach.

As I learned more, I discovered that the Overlord group had developed as an online hub created largely around the work of Butler, the first author I read. From there, the group chat blossomed into a full-fledged community dedicated to writing. When I wanted to talk to any of the authors, I found they were often in the same group as myself, just a message away. I could never dream of playing a game of DND with Kugane Maruyama, but if I wanted to play with one of my favourite fanfiction authors, all I would have to do is send them a direct message.

In our sizable group chat, now numbering in the thousands, we have areas called channels dedicated to any writer who asks for one. There readers may chat with the author, access the latest chapters, or simply hang out. Making friends due to the fact that you both read the same author, or read each other’s work, is quite common.

Despite how fun the idea sounded and how much we all enjoyed riffing on it, no one seemed ready to write the story. What the hell, I thought. Why not write it myself? So I did. Probably due to its premise with wide appeal, the first instalment surpassed my several-month-old work in only a few hours.

Reviews and comments flowed into my channel, first in a trickle, then in a flood. People aside from my regulars began appearing in my channel, asking questions, trying to squeeze the next chapter out of me – and of course, threatening me with bodily harm or death should I ever harm their favourite character. Classic fanfiction stuff.

At first, I was delighted (I still am) to have people enjoy my work, but very soon, I learned that readers could be volatile and bloodthirsty creatures. If I had to take my chances against a dragon in battle or against some of my readers in a battle of wits, I would choose the dragon.

Each reader is unique, both a blessing and a curse. Staying true to my own creative vision while accommodating (enough of) the diverse expectations of my readers is like tiptoeing a tightrope over a boiling vat of ink while juggling my own offspring. One major concern is the degree to which a writer sticks to canon. If the fanfic strays too close, readers will complain that there is no difference from the source material, but if it strays too far, the same readers will howl that characters are out-of-character, or OOC for short.

Early on, I had a moment where many readers accused me of OOC. As reluctant as I am to admit it, my readers were probably right. Trust me that my admitting such a thing is vanishingly rare, for my readers are only right when the stars align once every few millennia – and then only when they are not busy asking the same question for the twelfth time or debating levels of power between characters.

Alas, here I agreed: the chapter did not come in at the right point of the story and felt out of place, forcing me to rewrite it.

This exemplifies the odd and wonderful relationship between fanfic readers and writers. You have to keep one another in check. On one hand, I have to temper my readers’ expectations and nudge them in the direction I want the story to go, and in turn, they have to exert a steady pressure on my direction-finding, so that the azimuth does not lead us too far afield.

Whatever they say publicly, the vast majority of the authors I know read all the reviews. That orange button is there every time we wonder how our story is performing, taunting us and whispering in our ears, ‘Come on, don’t you want to know what they think?’

The answer is always the same: I do want to know! Even if it will cause me immense pain to watch as they miss every piece of intentionally obvious foreshadowing again!

There can also be a darker aspect to writer-reader interactions within fanfic, beyond the typical small joys and minor frustrations. In some cases, the relationship between reader and writer serves to fuel the latter’s creation of filth.

Several tropes are consistently present in the worst offenders. There are three I would like to particularly focus on.

Firstly, in the most lurid tales, the character is often a self-insert (SI). An SI mirrors the author themselves, as if they were in the story. SIs tend to go one of two ways, either pillaging and raping their way through the world, or becoming martyrs and dying as a form of critique (of whatever the author wishes). SIs are typically powerful beyond belief and graced with every skill and advantage under the sun. Of course, SIs do not always mean a bad story; they can be done in fun and interesting ways. However, in most cases, overpowered SIs exist only for the author to indulge themselves.

The second point, one which often ties itself in with the former, is the incorporation of a harem of some sort for the main character. Again, a trope like this does not have to ruin a story, but it often serves no purpose other than author wish-fulfilment. I imagine the thought process to run something like: “I already inserted myself in the world, so I might as well get all the girls!” – though, in fact, I do not understand the phenomenon or why it appears to be so popular.

Third is the implementation of the isekai (異世界) genre in a story. Popular in Japan, isekai literally means “other world”. One reason for isekai’s popularity, particularly in combination with SIs, is obvious: escapism. Who would not want to be ripped from the mundane world and translated to a fantastical realm as the hero? Again, such a trope does not inherently kill a story.

Within fanfiction, and within most fandoms, one can find brilliant stories of love and political intrigue, along with interesting hypotheticals. However, such stories are eclipsed many times over by these monstrosities that litter fanfiction communities, contributing to their infamy in the broader culture.

Perhaps it is because the typical SI is so bland that any reader can read themselves into the SIs place – become the cool knight who gets all the girls – even if the story has no substance and the quality is poor. It may just be that people turn to such stories because they are desperate to escape their mundane lives, though that is just a theory.

This is an eternal mystery of the fanfiction community: How and why do these stories become so popular? How do people even muster up the courage to post such things?

I suppose the phenomenon speaks to the variety of people one finds in the dark corners of the internet. On one hand there are snobby readers who will drop a story at the first hint of any of the tropes I have mentioned; on the other, there are readers who apparently genuinely enjoy stories that I consider to be vile. Authors also exist at both extremes.

The community is a spectrum, a place where it sometimes seems we have only one thing in common: we come to these stories with the same desire, to find more Overlord content and live, if only for a few pages more, in a world we love.