1Within the digital wilds, online communities, including communities of fans, represent a rich source of inspiration for the development of computer-mediated tasks and activities that can support alternative and creative approaches to language teaching and learning (Sauro, 2014). Fans, defined as people with a strong positive relationship to someone or something famous (Duffett, 2013) participate in a wide variety of online activities that allow them to engage with things they love while also developing their own abilities and skills, including their knowledge of a second or foreign language. Perhaps the best-known fan practice is fanfiction, defined as stories that transform, reinterpret and reimagine characters and universes other people have already written about (Jamison, 2013). By its very nature, fanfiction grows out of fans’ deep engagement with a television series, book, movie, performer, band, or other source of media. A challenge facing teachers and researchers who are interested in bringing fanfiction from the digital wilds into the language classroom is incorporating the enthusiasm and innovation inherent within these online spaces into a formal educational context. This presentation, therefore, introduces recent research on language learning in the digital wilds, including language learning in and around fanfiction. This is followed by an overview of research and pedagogical projects that have explored the development and implementation of fanfiction-inspired teaching materials in the English as a foreign language classroom. It then introduces research carried out by the FanTALES project (https://www.fantales.eu/), a collaboration among language researchers and secondary school foreign language teachers in Belgium, Germany, and Sweden, on the development and implementation of multilingual interactive digital storytelling activities based on fanfiction for secondary school language learners. The presentation concludes with an overview of materials developed by the FanTALES team, including learning through doing modules for teachers, storytelling prompts and assessment materials that can be modified for different levels of language learners, and the teacher handbook, which contains guidelines and resources for language teachers interested in developing digitally mediated creative storytelling projects for different learner populations.