Enlighten me, please?

[ladywhizbee]

Do any of you know anything about this fanfiction archive:

Archive of Our Own

I've begun to see more and more stories on LJ linked to this site. The format reminds me a bit of FanFiction.net in that every fandom is accounted for (in much smaller quantities) but all of the stories I've read so far have been really, really good (or mostly so).

There is

Comments

[magglenagall]

AO3 is a project of the Organization for Transformative Works, founded several years ago to promote and preserve "fan culture" (Fanlore is another one of their projects).

One of the main driving forces behind AO3 is to provide a permanent home for fanwork - just fic at this point, I think, but I believe they hope to include art, video, etc. down the road. So to that end they've been offering hosting space for endangered archives and personal Web sites (such as when Geocities shut down for good a couple of years ago) plus big fests like Yuletide, which has been hosted there since 2009, I think. It's open to anybody, once you can get a membership code, and as far as I know there are no submission standards.

(This is all very basic FYI. I'm not a fan of OTW or AO3 and thus not interested in promoting them, but I'm not going to tell you to avoid them like the plague, either.)

[ladywhizbee]

(This is all very basic FYI. I'm not a fan of OTW or AO3 and thus not interested in promoting them, but I'm not going to tell you to avoid them like the plague, either.)

Well now you've piqued my interest! Do you not approve of the site for some reason or are you just not interested in it as an archive?

[magglenagall]

There are a lot of little things I disagree with and dislike about OTW & co., but the fundamental reason behind them all is that I'm uncomfortable with the idea of "mainstreaming" fandom and fan culture to the extent that there needs to be a semblance of permanence, of legitimacy, to it. I like the ephemeral nature of fandom and my participation in it, I like its underground, subculture, bootleg aspects, and do not see the point in being dragged out into the full light of day.

I also have a serious bug up my butt about the word "transformative" and the way it's been co-opted by certain segments of fandom, but that's more of a collateral rant.

[ladywhizbee]

ACK! I totally lost my first response to your comment, and now I have to regenerate it. Which sucks because it was so much more succinct than this. Grrr...! I apologize

[magglenagall]

Ha! LJ tried to undo all the work I put into writing up this comment, but I outfoxed it by saving my comment before hitting "Post," and thus nothing was lost

[ladywhizbee]

I am LOVING this conversation