One last post on AO3 and fanfic archives, then I’m done (at least, until the next drive)
Because frankly, I’m tired of repeating myself and beating this dead horse and hopefully the next time AO3 has a drive P!llowfort will have taken off and we can all have our separate comms again.
I took a look at a few other places that used to be big to see. I’ll start with Adult Fanfiction dot org to see how their monthly drive is going:
Oh, look at that! Nothing! In fact, I haven’t seen one solitary dime get donated there in the years since they’ve started taking donations, not the least of that being because the site actually hasn’t updated it’s layout ever in it’s sixteen years of existance, except to change from a purple to tan layout and an age filter that was added around 2006. You can barely even navigate that site and it was a headache and a half to use, even way back then.
And there’s Media Miner that sorta co-existed with FF dot net for a while, and was big with anime fandom. This too was a site that never did much to keep up with the times. I would never use that site, except for the fact that one of my favorite authors still has a WIP there and somehow had not heard of AO3 until I told him about it upon reaching out last month:
Note that they use ads, and that there ads are obnoxious as fuck, even with ad block.
Again, apart from the layout of the theme, there’s not much in the way of user-friendly features, either. The search feature is better than AFF’s, though.
However, my search, I came across a number of older archives that could no longer afford hosting costs, or find anyone with time to keep up the archive that decided to transfer all their works to AO3 rather than just delete outright (as was common in the old days of free Geocities sites). Many of the other active ones, like the HP Archive asked for donations to cover server costs. For that site specifically, $750 covered them for six months.
In summary: there’s a reason we defend AO3. Hell, the scattered websites and email circles are the reason why even ff dot net was a godsend twenty years ago for rarepair shippers, niche writers and teenage girls like me who were far too broke to create my own webpage. It was a way into fandom and that is an idea worth defending.
Bonus:
I’m gonna add links to a few of the archives I came across for those that would like alternatives:
Asian Fanfics: dedicated to Asian fandom and Asian centric works. Looks like the tag system is pretty straightforward and may be a good place to find fic for titles not well known in the West.
Ficwad: pretty small and I don’t think it allows anything above an R rating. Still in beta and maybe will be glad for increased traffic from those who want to not use AO3. They even have a suggestion box for new categories for fandoms and/or characters.
