Fanfic Archive Adds Download Options

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

I read a lot of Star Trek Voyager fiction, and one woman who stands above most & whose work is used to judged all others is Gina Dartt's Just Between series. She now has 2 published works of her own. http://www.northco.net/~janeway/index.htm

Another one who is now published who got her start with fan fic is Gun Brooke. http://www.gbrooke-fiction.com/fiction/index.htm

These 2 are exceptional writers who have given readers hours of enjoyment reading their stories.

Thanks for the recs. I'll check these out.

And honestly I think that other guy was a troll. I also think the cat is out of the bag and with the A03 now hosting over 100k stories I do think it's a good representation of fan fiction fandom.

I'm also a-okay that it's mostly women. Everything else in the world is made for men, I don't see why women have to accommodate men in spaces we've made for ourselves. The guys I know in slash fandom are rather awesome but they didn't come along and try changing things they fit right in.

I guess men can go and use fanfiction.net if they don't want to be affiliated with women that write slash.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Amalthia

I'm also a-okay that it's mostly women. Everything else in the world is made for men, I don't see why women have to accommodate men in spaces we've made for ourselves.

Why do people have to sort themselves out into "men" and "women"? Even in something that should be as inclusive as fan fiction, where we should be dealing with minds, not bodies, some people have to make a distinction. Are we reading the story, or staring through the computer at the person behind the keyboard? Why can't things be made for people?

If someone writes good fanfic, I don't care if they're a man, a woman, or a sheep. And if their fanfic isn't worth the pixels it's printed on, I likewise don't care; nothing about them will make it better. Who the person is doesn't make one iota of difference to me; all I care about is what they write. That's a big reason why OTW bothers me: they want only a specific type of writer, and in large part that type is defined not only by what the person chooses to write (media slash) but by how that person happened to be born (female).

It's particularly offensive when I see someone say, in effect, "we've been mistreated, so now it's our turn to mistreat other people" -- which is how the quote I repeated a couple of posts ago came across to me. One would think that a person who had suffered at the hands of others would be less willing, not more, to repeat their mistakes, since they know how wrong it is. I know, intellectually, that it doesn't happen that way; you only have to look at the world around us, past and present, to see how often the oppressed become tyrants the instant they get the chance. But fen should be better. We should do unto others as we would have others do unto us, not do unto others as different people did unto us in the past. Otherwise, we just perpetuate the cycle of abuse. A abuses B, so B abuses C, and on and on it goes. Do we really have to continue that?

There are all kinds of writers, just as there are all kinds of fans. It makes me highly uncomfortable to see an organization say that female RPF slash writers are "real" fanfic writers but male literary gen writers are not. And yes, they have presented themselves as the face/voice of fanfic; if necessary, I can go dig up examples. If they were just an organization, an archive, I wouldn't care; those, in all forms, have been popping up like mushrooms since the first fanfic was written. It's when they try to define what fanfic is, and what a fanfic writer is -- and when that definition is at odds with what many fanfic writers believe it is, whether it includes them or not -- that I take issue.

I prefer the motto of Valdemar: There is no One True Way.

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Why do people have to sort themselves out into "men" and "women"? Even in something that should be as inclusive as fan fiction, where we should be dealing with minds, not bodies, some people have to make a distinction. Are we reading the story, or staring through the computer at the person behind the keyboard? Why can't things be made for people?

Not sure if you noticed or not but almost everything made for "people" is actually made for men. Good writers do tend to write stories that do appeal to a wide audience.

That's a big reason why OTW bothers me: they want only a specific type of writer, and in large part that type is defined not only by what the person chooses to write (media slash) but by how that person happened to be born (female).

I'm not sure where you're getting your information but I've never seen anything like that. There have been discussion about fan fiction and legal issues and that because slash is so obviously not at all like the canon it may be slightly more protected if there was a lawsuit. From what I understood Gen stories are at more risk than ship/slash fics. I could be wrong on that it's been a while since I've read up on this topic.

It's particularly offensive when I see someone say, in effect, "we've been mistreated, so now it's our turn to mistreat other people" --

I'm not sure that's what the women are saying. No men are being mistreated. They are equally able to create their own fan fiction accounts and post gen/het/slash fics.

I think you're equating not being paid attention to with mistreatment. At least that's what it seems like to me. Most of the organizations posts that I've read seem to want to include all fandom and they don't specify gender of preferred fans or their preferences for Gen/Het/Slash/Femslash.

It makes me highly uncomfortable to see an organization say that female RPF slash writers are "real" fanfic writers but male literary gen writers are not.

I've never seen anyone I know that volunteers on the OTW say something like that. You'd really have to cite your source on this one.

Furthermore, one person who volunteers on the archive who may believe this way does not reflect on an entire organization. There are literally hundreds of fans who've volunteers to help create the OTW archive and each person has their own viewpoints and opinions. But I saw no where on their official statements any endorsement of any kind of fan fic being more legit than another.

And yes, they have presented themselves as the face/voice of fanfic; if necessary, I can go dig up examples. If they were just an organization, an archive, I wouldn't care; those, in all forms, have been popping up like mushrooms since the first fanfic was written. It's when they try to define what fanfic is, and what a fanfic writer is -- and when that definition is at odds with what many fanfic writers believe it is, whether it includes them or not -- that I take issue.

I think it's very important to have definitions because at some point fan fiction could be legally challenged and so their language has to be clear and it's important to state up front the OTW's position which states that fan fiction is transformative and deserves protection.

Another consideration is that defined terms make it clear what fan fiction is to outsiders who may not know what fan fiction is.

The archive is basically trying to save fan works from being lost and to give a central hosting location that's owned by fans so that we can't be given the boot from webhosts who do not approve of slash fan fiction.

As a gen writer you've probably never had to worry that some bigot would complain about your story to your webhost which would convince them it's better to delete your website than to investigate to see if the story in question truly had questionable content. Many stories have been lost when author's websites were deleted for hosting fiction that contained adult male/male sexual relations.

The archive is there to prevent that from happening again.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Why do people have to sort themselves out into "men" and "women"?

Why do people assume I'm male if I don't specify? Why not assume every person without a gendered name is female until proven otherwise? (How often have people mistaken you for female? I can point to half a dozen refs here at MR where people casually called me "he," and could come up with a dozen or more on other boards.) (Mostly, I am amused by this. Especially when it happened when I was actively breastfeeding.)

Women's identities as women are erased unless we go out of our way to make them known--at which point, we're accused of gender politics, for not wanting to be assumed to be something we're not.

Even in something that should be as inclusive as fan fiction, where we should be dealing with minds, not bodies, some people have to make a distinction. Are we reading the story, or staring through the computer at the person behind the keyboard? Why can't things be made for people?

Women *are* people. What's wrong with making a space comfortable for one group of people, and saying "if another group finds it useful, they're welcome too?"

That's a big reason why OTW bothers me: they want only a specific type of writer,

I have no idea where you got this. The OTW wants to support all fanworks--fanfic, art, podcasts & vids, and possibly other endeavors as they become known. It doesn't favor one type of writer over another. They worked to make their archive welcoming of types of works that have been rejected from other places, but the AO3 doesn't forbid genfic or male authors.

Their terms of service state: "The Archive of Our Own is a place for fanworks, including fan fiction based on books, TV, movies, comics, other media, and real-person fiction (RPF)." (It also says, "You understand that the OTW does not prescreen Content or review it for purposes of compliance with the ToS. This includes but is not limited to story information, story content, text, graphics, comments, or any other material. Content is the sole responsibility of the people who submitted it. You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, or badly spelled.")

It's particularly offensive when I see someone say, in effect, "we've been mistreated, so now it's our turn to mistreat other people" ... often the oppressed become tyrants the instant they get the chance.

In what way is the AO3 or OTW mistreating anyone? Where is their tyranny?

There are all kinds of writers, just as there are all kinds of fans. It makes me highly uncomfortable to see an organization say that female RPF slash writers are "real" fanfic writers but male literary gen writers are not.

The organization as NOT said that. A person, who may be involved with the organization (I don't know current membership or board member identities), may have said that; that belief may be why that person is/was involved in the OTW; that doesn't make it official policy.

George W Bush doesn't think my religion is a real religion; that didn't make it US policy that my religion didn't exist when he was president.

And yes, they have presented themselves as the face/voice of fanfic; if necessary, I can go dig up examples.

I would very much like examples. I know they have claimed to be *an* advocate of fanfic, *a* voice; I don't believe they've ever claimed to be, or to want to be, the only one. (They may have claimed to be the only one intending to provide legal support to fanfic authors; if you know of any others, I'm pretty sure they'd love to know about them & coordinate their efforts.)

It's when they try to define what fanfic is,

The only attempts they've made to "define fanfic" are in regards to where the line is between fanfic and "original fiction," which is technically not allowed on the archive. They're still working on this policy; right now, they don't need any hard-and-fast rules, but they will before they start hosting artwork, because that starts getting into serious bandwidth drain.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Why do people have to sort themselves out into "men" and "women"? Even in something that should be as inclusive as fan fiction, where we should be dealing with minds, not bodies, some people have to make a distinction. Are we reading the story, or staring through the computer at the person behind the keyboard? Why can't things be made for people?

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I tend to notice men not minding being people, it's probably because most people assume a person is male unless told otherwise.

I see nothing wrong with an organization identifying their membership as primarily female. No one complains when the NRA identifies it's membership as primarily male, or that the governments around the world are primarily male.

[whitearrow]

My username is gender neutral and I'm confused for a man all the time, especially in forums like AVS and flyertalk that are mostly male spaces (less so here, but I'm sure it will happen eventually). It makes me laugh, and if I'm called "he" I will sometimes gently correct, but yes, elfwreck and amalthia are right -- there is a "male" assumption (and a white and a heterosexual assumption for that matter), and therefore there's nothing wrong with women claiming their community and pointing out "hey, we're here." Fanfic *is* a community that's predominantly female -- there's nothing inherently evil in pointing that out. I could be wrong, but I believe the desire to claim women's history in fandom arose from a number of claims that vidding had started in the 90's on YouTube, and by men. (Actually it started in the 70's... with women.)

If you believe AO3 or OTW is discriminating against men in some way, please be specific and identify it. If any man has been prevented from using the archive (either as a writer or reader), joining the OTW, using its resources, running for the board, being on a committee -- I'd truly like to hear about it.

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

My username is gender neutral and I'm confused for a man all the time, especially in forums like AVS and flyertalk that are mostly male spaces (less so here, but I'm sure it will happen eventually). It makes me laugh, and if I'm called "he" I will sometimes gently correct, but yes, elfwreck and amalthia are right -- there is a "male" assumption (and a white and a heterosexual assumption for that matter), and therefore there's nothing wrong with women claiming their community and pointing out "hey, we're here." Fanfic *is* a community that's predominantly female -- there's nothing inherently evil in pointing that out. I could be wrong, but I believe the desire to claim women's history in fandom arose from a number of claims that vidding had started in the 90's on YouTube, and by men. (Actually it started in the 70's... with women.)

I'd forgotten about men trying to claim they started vidding first when there had already been a 20 year history of women creating fan vids. I think I can see why women are saying outright and upfront that yes we are women and we are doing this.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Amalthia

I'd forgotten about men trying to claim they started vidding first when there had already been a 20 year history of women creating fan vids. I think I can see why women are saying outright and upfront that yes we are women and we are doing this.

I'm a man and I've never made any claims that men started vidding.

Also, I've been mistaken for a female here.

And another thing is that I don't think everything in the world (apart from fanfic) was 'made for men' - handbags for instance .

And another other thing is that there are more than a 'few venues' where womens' creativity is encouraged.

There - I've said it!

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I'm a man and I've never made any claims that men started vidding.

Also, I've been mistaken for a female here.

And another thing is that I don't think everything in the world (apart from fanfic) was 'made for men' - handbags for instance .

And another other thing is that there are more than a 'few venues' where womens' creativity is encouraged.

There - I've said it!

I thought this might help. The Male Privilege Checklist.

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-mal...ege-checklist/

Number 41 seems fitting for this conversation.

"1. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer."

And for the record how many women were nominated this year for the Hugo Awards?

You can say more men wrote more science fiction but it could also be people are more willing to buy novels from men so women writers are excluded at a higher frequency.

And please don't say women always have romance novels...I'm a woman and I like science fiction.

If women do have more "venues" to share their creativity they are not as respected as the venues where men share their creativity. I also do not agree that women have more venues. Sure we have more than we had in the past but it's not equal to what men have.

[Worldwalker]

We have one person saying that women are discriminated against because male authors are more nominated more often for Hugos, and another person saying men are not discriminated against because even though they're told OTW is an organization of and for women, they're not legally prohibited from submitting stories to the archive. Which is it?

Women *are* people. What's wrong with making a space comfortable for one group of people, and saying "if another group finds it useful, they're welcome too?"

So it's okay to make the whole world comfortable for men, and if women find it useful, they can use it too? You're in favor of that idea?

I simply don't agree with defining who something is "for" in terms of what kind of chromosomes or organs someone has. Kind of funny, I suppose, in these days of identity politics, but that's how I roll.

When various businesses said that women could only hold menial or dead-end jobs, such as Home Depot in California back in 1994, I didn't agree with it.

When an OTW board members said "The OTW is an organization created to advocate for female-dominated transformative media fandom and its artworks. That is its purpose," I didn't agree with it.

And the only difference I see between them is one of quantity, not quality. Neither one is looking at the person, only at the chromosomes. They're both judging someone on who they are, not on what they can do or how well they can do it. Home Depot will now hire women (thanks to getting their asses sued off) and OTW will accept works by men (so long as they remember what OTW's purpose is). I can't see either one being a comfortable thing: knowing you are accepted only grudgingly and it's really for someone else, someone who differs from you not in their experience or ability but in their chromosomes.

Online, I don't have an identity as a man. I don't have an identity as a woman. I don't have an identity as transgendered. I have an identity as Worldwalker. Why do people keep trying to ignore Worldwalker and figure out who Worldwalker's poster is and what pronoun they should use for me? Do you agree with my ideas? Then you agree with Worldwalker. Do you disagree with my ideas? Then you disagree with Worldwalker. You're not agreeing or disagreeing with what bathroom the person sitting between my keyboard and my chair uses -- you're agreeing or disagreeing with me. I'm not what anyone expects of whoever I am; I'm Worldwalker. Look at what I say, not what you think I should say based on who I am (and if you're deciding what I'm really saying based on who you think I am, let me remind you that the possibility exists that you may have guessed wrong).

I've many seen people in many places say that the answer to them being on the bottom is for them to now be on the top (if you don't believe me, consider the public statements of your least-favorite political group). But that's not the answer. Our mothers weren't as dumb as we thought when they told us two wrongs don't make a right. They don't; they just make two wrongs where there was one before. If there is a history of discrimination against women in a given field, the answer is not to codify some different discrimination. The answer is to eliminate discrimination, so that nobody is judged by anything but what really matters: who they are, not what they are.

That's where I disagree with OTW. This is 2010, almost 2011. Nothing should be for men, or for women, or anyone else. Things should be for people, and we should be able to say that what happened decades ago -- or days ago -- is in the past, and we're not going to repeat the mistakes of the past going into the future. A just and fair evaluation of the past of fanfic will show who the people involved were. People that matters to will know. But the future should be based, not on men or women, young or old, any religion or none at all, or anything else -- the future should be based on writing. That is, after all, what fanfic is about.

(and I will get some links up when I've had something more closely resembling sleep; my current level of consciousness is bordering on "un-")

[BexBits]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Why do people assume I'm male if I don't specify? Why not assume every person without a gendered name is female until proven otherwise? (How often have people mistaken you for female? I can point to half a dozen refs here at MR where people casually called me "he," and could come up with a dozen or more on other boards.) (Mostly, I am amused by this. Especially when it happened when I was actively breastfeeding.)

While I get what you're saying, in your case I think it is the avatar, which does look male. I tumbled pretty fast to you being a woman because I never assume if I don't know so I was looking for clues. But I could totally see just glancing at the face next to your posts and assuming you were male.

[Enola]

I signed up for beta on the Archive back when it first was formed, and donated money to help start it up (I observed the LJ fiascos in the HP fandoms, saw some writers I liked get banned for fuzzy reasons). Though to be honest I haven't been as active on it as I should, and went a long time without looking at it at all. I have posted to it recently, though, as part of refamiliarizing myself with it and looking at how far its come.

There's no gender identification question on the registration, nor any restrictions to 'slash only' when you post a fic (you can identify if a fic is M/F, M/M, F/F, Gen, Multi, or Other, or not label it at all). You can pretty much post any sort of fic, but they do encourage tagging it appropriately if you've got mature or explict themes.

The opinion of one person (or even a small group of ppl) affiliated with the archive doesn't reflect the policy of the entire site. Every group/forum has its loonies/snobs/trolls, and someone on the archive who stated the archive is only for female-authored slash falls into one or more of those categories. If what you saw was ever a disclaimer on the site, it must have been smashed very quickly. The ToS is very gender and content neutral.

The ToS is here: http://archiveofourown.org/tos

I'll definitely have to play with the new download feature when I'm not exhausted (I probably shouldn't be posting at all right now)

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

My username is gender neutral and I'm confused for a man all the time, especially in forums like AVS and flyertalk that are mostly male spaces (less so here, but I'm sure it will happen eventually). It makes me laugh, and if I'm called "he" I will sometimes gently correct, but yes, elfwreck and amalthia are right -- there is a "male" assumption

That is how English works, the male pronoun is also used as the markless one, for something of definite but unknown gender. Referring to you as he does not necessarily imply the poster thinks you are male.
Is this antiquated, maybe, but that is the fault of the language, not those using it.
I tend towards the singular-they solution, even though it can be rather ambiguous in some circumstances. Certainly beats 'it', or any of the invented pronouns. As:
In Elfwreck's case, the reason they are mistaken for male may be that 'they have' a masculine-appearing avatar. (Rather than 'he has')

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Amalthia

You can say more men wrote more science fiction

More men do write science fiction. In another thread someone was giving as an example of discrimination that most of Baen's authors are male. Hello, they publish a large amount of military fiction, which tends to be written by men.
Personally some of my favourite genres are mystery, golden age and historical. Women dominate both.

but it could also be people are more willing to buy novels from men so women writers are excluded at a higher frequency.

Anything 'could be'.
But when there is a really obvious reason (lots more books by men), why look for imagined ones? Should I assume that people are more willing to buy mystery books by women, and so men are excluded?

Personally for years I has assumed that LE Modesitt was female (perhaps because of the use of initials), until I saw his wikipedia page. I enjoyed the books neither more nor less when I found out he was male, nor was I more or less likely to buy another one.