Archive of Our Own ^beta

We've all built our own personal canons – the fics, vids, art and other works that we love and go back to, time and time again. In January, we told you the theme of this year's International Fanworks Day was Fandom Classics, and we asked you to start compiling the fanworks that you consider to be essential reading, viewing or listening.

Now the time has come, and we'd love to see what you've come up with! This post is where you can share all the works you view as classics of your favorite fandoms. These could be works that have inspired fandoms of their own, works that have inspired you personally, or works that have made you see canon in a whole new light – however you choose to define it!

To participate, just leave a comment below sharing the details of any of the classic fanworks that you think really shouldn’t be missed. Don't forget to link to the work itself, and tell us why you consider it to be a fandom classic. (If you prefer, you can also link to a rec post that you’ve made elsewhere and posted with the #IFD2022 hashtag.)

Of course, the creators of these fanworks deserve to be celebrated, too, so when you go back to grab that link, why not tell them how much you love their work? And don't forget to check out other participants’ suggestions – you just might find a new favorite to add to your personal canon.

Have fun!

It's only a week until the eighth International Fanworks Day and we at the Organization for Transformative Works have a whole lot in store for you all! Please take a look at the events below and join in the fun.

1. Fanworks Challenge

Our theme for this year's IFD is 'fandom classics' and in a post made last month, we invited you to participate by creating fanworks which riff on, remix, or otherwise pay tribute to works that you consider classics of your favorite fandom. You could even write meta about your favourite pieces! We invite you to share your creations using the hashtag #IFD2022 or #IFDChallenge2022 on social media, or 'International Fanworks Day 2022' if you're posting to the Archive of Our Own. There's still plenty of time to participate and we'd love to see what you create!

2. Feedback Fest

On February 13 we'll be making a post that invites you to share recommendations for the classic fanworks that you love the most. Get thinking now and come armed with recs that you can share with your fellow fans!

3. Fanlore Challenge

Get yourself over to Fanlore, the OTW's wiki full of fan history and culture, to participate in their IFD celebrations! The Fanlore challenge runs for a week and includes different editing challenges to complete each day. What better way to honor your love of fanworks than sharing your knowledge with your fellow fans?

4. Games and fan chat

From 21.00 UTC on February 14 to 03.00 UTC on February 16 we will be hosting a chat games session in the OTW's dedicated Discord server. English-speaking OTW volunteers will moderate a series of games including fandom trivia quizzes, 20 Questions, list-making challenges and a whole lot more. It's a great opportunity to get together with fellow fans and share your enthusiasm for the fandoms you love. We will post the link and the full timetable on the day itself so put the date in your diary, come back and check it out!

I. INTERNATIONAL FANWORKS DAY IS COMING

The eighth annual International Fanworks Day (IFD) is on February 15, and the OTW has been busy preparing for the festivities! Communications released a public post revealing this year's theme--Classic Fanworks--and suggesting ways to participate, including a Feedback Fest, writing about what your favorite fanworks mean to you, and joining our short-form fanworks challenge. Behind the scenes, Translation prepared to translate IFD posts in time for the celebrations, and Fanlore began planning its own IFD Fanlore Challenge.

II. AT THE AO3

Open Doors announced the upcoming imports of Echoes from the West, HarryPotterFanfiction.com and My Mongoose Ezines. It also finished importing the Land of Dreams archive. This brings Open Doors to a total of 12 archives (4,096 fanworks) imported and 18 archive imports announced during 2021!

AO3 Documentation uploaded an updated version of the Series FAQ.

In December, Policy & Abuse received approximately 2,600 tickets, and its annual total number of tickets in 2021 reached approximately 29,500 (2020: 19,000). Support received approximately 1,200 tickets, and its annual total number of tickets in 2021 reached more than 16,000 (2020: 18,000). Tag Wrangling wrangled approximately 366,000 tags, or more than 750 tags per wrangler, bringing the annual total number of tags wrangled to approximately 5 million (2020: 4.1 million). Approximately 6,700 canonical fandoms were added in the year 2021.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

The Board of Directors held a public meeting, its last of 2021. Board opened internal recruitment for a Diversity Consultant Research Officer, whose job it will be to find a consultant to contract with on issues of racial bias and inequality within the OTW and its projects.

Communications published the OTW's 2020 Annual Report, which can be found on the OTW website along with all previous reports. Meanwhile Strategic Planning opened the OTW Vision Statement 2021-2024 to internal review, and Webs rolled out a new theme for the OTW's website.

Legal thanks the many Hong Kongers who sent in their stories of why making and sharing fanworks has been valuable for them! OTW is a global organization with many members and volunteers in Hong Kong and we are excited to be able to participate in Hong Kong’s copyright consultation process. Our next steps are to continue working with a Hong Konger attorney and copyright expert to frame those wonderful stories in a way that will resonate with the unique law, copyright history, and political process of Hong Kong, and to submit our comments in late February. In particular, Hong Kong’s Public Consultation Paper specifically invites comments on whether to adopt a flexible “fair use” system in place of its current “fair dealing” system, and invites comments on how to adjust Hong Kong copyright law to account for activities such as mash-ups, altered pictures/videos, doujinshi, rewriting lyrics for songs, and other common fan activities. Currently, Hong Kong’s “fair dealing” system allows use of copyrighted works for particular purposes such as parody and satire, and OTW Legal plans to argue for a more flexible system that would suit common types of fan activity.

IV. ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

From 25 November to 23 January, Volunteers & Recruiting received 214 new requests, and completed 218, leaving us with 15 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).

As of 23 January 2022, the OTW has 929 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs: Kirsten Wright (Communications)
New Communications Volunteers: Emily Rogan (Chair-Track), Frankie Krutsch (Tumblr mod), and 1 other volunteer
New Elections Volunteers: viggorlijah (Communications Specialist)
New Open Doors Volunteers: Julie Bozza (Chair Assistant)
New Systems Volunteers: 1 Project Manager, 1 Technical Writer

Departing Committee Chairs: Ori (Translation)
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Chera Kee (Administrative), Scrivener (Technical) and 1 other Technical Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: 1 volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Ari, Arithanas, Cordz, Diana Sakharova, ereshai, IronLucario, Jacinta Klein, Qkat, Timpa, ValerieZA, Waywren Truesong, and 73 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Eimry, J4Y, Kat Mink, and 5 other Translators
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Pebble Lee and 1 other volunteer

For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

In the next few days, we'll be rolling out a new preference to give users more control over who can give them gift works. This change is an important step in our ongoing work to give users more options to control their experience on the Archive and limit unwanted interactions.

The preference will be called "Allow others to give me gift works outside gift exchanges and prompt memes."

When this preference is enabled, any AO3 user will be able to give you a work. That's the current behavior on the Archive, and it will be the default behavior for all existing users.

When the preference is disabled, the only users who will be able to give you works are users who have either been assigned to create a fanwork for you in a gift exchange or claimed one of your non-anonymous prompts in a prompt meme. In other words, if you absolutely do not want to receive gifts from anyone, you can disable this preference and avoid signing up for challenges.

The preference will be disabled by default for accounts created after the roll out. (We'd usually disable any new preferences by default, but allowing gifts is necessary to avoid interfering with ongoing challenges.)

If a user has the preference disabled and you attempt to give them an unrequested gift, you will receive an error message telling you the user does not allow gifts.

The preference only applies to new gifts, so you will still be able to edit any existing gifts without removing the recipient.

Your Gifts page will remain accessible regardless of whether you've enabled or disabled the preference. You will still be able to refuse existing or new gifts.

Wait, what?

• If you're an existing AO3 user, nothing will change unless you update your preferences.
• If you never want to receive gift works, you can uncheck "Allow others to give me gift works outside gift exchanges and prompt memes" on your preferences page and avoid signing up for any challenges.

We'll update this post to let you know when the changes have been deployed.

Update 10:10 UTC 6 February 2022: These changes have now been deployed.

Are you interested in the rescue and preservation of fanworks? Are you fluent in a language other than English? The OTW is recruiting for Open Doors Administrative Volunteers and Translation Volunteers!

We have included more information on the roles below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.

All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.

If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.

Open Doors Administrative Volunteers

Are you interested in the rescue and preservation of fanworks? Enjoy coordinating projects and liaising with people? Still guiltily--or not so guiltily--love the first fanwork that opened your eyes to fandom?

Open Doors is a committee dedicated to preserving fanworks in their many formats, and we’re looking for volunteers to support this goal. The work we do preserves fan history, love, and dedication to fandom: we keep fanworks from offline and at-risk archives from being lost, divert fanzines from the trash, and more.

Our work is largely centered on long-term projects. Each archive import involves completing over 100 detail-oriented steps, and our administrative volunteers take point on multiple imports at once. During waiting periods for one’s archive imports, there are plenty of opportunities for other tasks to claim, such as resolving creator requests, keeping our documentation up-to-date, and assisting with internal projects.

If you want to preserve published fanzines and offline and at-risk archives, are self-motivated, enjoy complex projects with long timelines, and have availability on at least two days a week, the role of Open Doors administrative volunteer may be a good fit for you! If you're interested, click on through for a fuller description of what we're looking for and the time commitment. For your application to be considered, you will be required to complete a short task within 3 days of submitting your application.

Applications will close on 9 February 2022 or once 40 applications have been received.

Translation Volunteers

If you enjoy working collaboratively, if you're fluent in a language other than English, if you’re passionate about the OTW and its projects, and want to help us reach more fans all around the world, working with Translation might be for you!

Translation volunteers help make the OTW and its projects accessible to a wider global audience. We work on translating content by the OTW and its projects from English to other languages, such as site pages, news posts, AO3 FAQs and AO3 Support emails. (However, we do not translate fanworks.)

We really need volunteers who speak Bengali, Bulgarian, Estonian, Filipino, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Korean, Kyrgyz, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Marathi, Romanian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovenian, Thai and Welsh—but help with other languages would be much appreciated. If you're interested in starting a team for a language we don't have yet, you're very welcome to!

(Please note that our Afrikaans, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese-BR, Portuguese-PT, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese teams are not accepting new members at this time.)

Applicants may be asked to translate and correct short text samples and will be invited to a chatroom interview as part of the selection process. More information about us can be found on the Translation committee page.

Applications are due February 9, 2022

Apply at the volunteering page!

Open Doors is pleased to announce the completion of 12 archive import projects in 2021, a total of over 4000 works! We hope that you will find old and new favorites in the collections listed below.

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DoyleCordy

Completed: April 2021

DoyleCordy was a mailing list focusing on the Cordelia/Doyle ship of Angel (the Series). Following the closure of Yahoo Groups, the mods wanted to preserve the small portion of the fanfiction they were able to save. Find works at the DoyleCordy AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the DoyleCordy import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the DoyleCordy Fanlore page.

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Rawhide-fic

Completed: June 2021

The fandom for Rawhide, a show from 1959 about a cattle drive, is small but enduring. This collection of stories dates back to the year 2003 when the rawhide-fic group was created on Yahoo Groups. Find works at the Rawhide-fic AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Rawhide-fic import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Rawhide-fic Fanlore page.

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FebobeFic Archive

Completed: June 2021

At the time of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies, Frodo-Baggins-Of-Bag-End (Febobe) became known in fanfic circles for creating Frodo-centric, hurt/comfort fic. So invested was she in the genre that she even set up a Yahoo group called FrodoHealers, in which she not only shared her work but welcomed that of other writers. Sadly, due to her chronic illness, many of her works were never completed, but to protect those that were, Open Doors helped transfer her works to an archive on the AO3, something that she often spoke of doing herself one day. Find works at the FebobeFic Archive.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the FebobeFic import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Frodo Baggins of Bag End's Fanlore page.

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Sarek and Amanda Archive

Completed: August 2021

Sarek and Amanda Archive was an archive for Star Trek: The Original Series fanfiction about the Sarek/Amanda pairing. The original archive, located at shaw.ca, was dissolved, so the archive was moved to AO3 in its entirety with the authors' permissions. Find works at the Sarek and Amanda Archive AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Sarek and Amanda Archive import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Sarek and Amanda Archive Fanlore page.

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The Tom Paris Dorm

Completed: September 2021

The Tom Paris Dorm was an archive for fanfiction about the character Tom Paris, from Star Trek: Voyager. The TPD was created at the end of 1999 under the name of "The Wonderful World of Thomas Eugene Paris". It continued to grow steadily, and held over 1300 works. Eventually the archivist, banshee, decided to close the archive and import its works to the AO3. Find works at the Tom Paris Dorm AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Tom Paris Dorm import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Tom Paris Dorm Fanlore page.

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Octaves of the Heart: Sublime Archives

Completed: September 2021

Sublime Archive is a collection of Buffy/Angel fanfiction originally hosted by Chrislee on her website Octaves of the Heart. On Octaves of the Heart, Chrislee notes she featured stories that she found "particularly beautiful, or awe-inspiring (which is the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of sublime)." Works in the Sublime Archive were originally posted from 2004 to 2012. Find works at the Octaves of the Heart: Sublime Archives AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Octaves of the Heart: Sublime Archives and I Will Remember You Marathon Archive (2005-2009) import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Octaves of the Heart: Sublime Archives Fanlore page.

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I Will Remember You Marathon Archive (2005-2009)

Completed: September 2021

The I Will Remember You Marathon Archive is a collection of works written for the Buffy/Angel I Will Remember You Marathon, which ran from 2005 to 2009. Writers posted fanfiction every day of the month of November to commemorate the anniversary of the 1999 Angel episode "I Will Remember You". Find works at the I Will Remember You AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Octaves of the Heart: Sublime Archives and I Will Remember You Marathon Archive (2005-2009) import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the I Will Remember You Fanlore page.

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The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive

Completed: September 2021

The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive was a large and long-running Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction archive dedicated to the Buffy/Giles pairing. Its nearly 1000 fics now have a permanent home on the AO3. Find works at The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive Fanlore page.

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Gilmore Girls Adult Fic

Completed: October 2021

From 2002 until 2016, GilmoreGirlsAdultFic strove to be a safe place for writers to write about their favorite Gilmore Girls couples without the limitations of the most prominent fic archive of the time, but also provided moderation and proper rules so that those who only wished to write misogynistic works about the Girls were not welcome. Though time has passed and Yahoo Groups no longer exists, the fandom and their ardor to see more about their characters than what broadcast television allowed has not. Find works at the Gilmore Girls Adult Fic AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Gilmore Girls Adult Fic import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Gilmore Girls Adult Fic Fanlore page.

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Gilmore Girls Slash

Completed: November 2021

From 2001 until 2016, GilmoreGirlsSlash was a mailing list which encompassed all femslash and slash couplings in Gilmore Girls, and stories from authors who saw the chemistry between Rory and Paris, along with Lorelai and her various flirtations with women. The fandom which ships these incredible and fulfilling women has not disappeared. Find works at the Gilmore Girls Slash AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Gilmore Girls Slash import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Gilmore Girls Slash Fanlore page.

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Land of Dreams

Completed: December 2021

Land of Dreams was a fanfiction archive dedicated to the actor Oded Fehr and characters he has played. Find works at the Weaver of Dreams AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Land of Dreams import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Land of Dreams Fanlore page.

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Twice Bitten

Completed: December 2021

Twice Bitten was a fanfiction archive for stories based on the TV show Blood Ties. Find works at the Twice Bitten AO3 Collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Twice Bitten import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Twice Bitten Fanlore page.

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We want to give a huge THANK YOU to all of the archivists and volunteers who made these imports possible, as well as all the creators who have transferred or claimed their works! We look forward to importing more archives in 2022.

Commenting on this post will be disabled after two weeks, on February 11. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding these imports after that date, please contact Open Doors.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with one of our Fanhackers staffers on our Communications Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

Our organisation’s mission is to preserve and provide access to fanwork and fan culture, and part of that work is describing this culture. By now, fandom studies as a discipline is well established with its own conference and journals, such as our very own Transformative Works and Cultures. It is not a question anymore whether this culture is distinct or valuable enough to have academic discourse about it.

This recognition from academic circles came early because fans themselves started to describe our own communities, modes of creation, genres, and how we accumulate social and cultural capital. No wonder that after honing our skills on so-called metas, analysing the cultural products we are fannish about, that discourse about this culture is also a typical work made by fans. Yet, despite fannish academics and essay-writing fans, there is work to be done in connecting these discourses. Of course, that happens many times already, but my project -- Fanhackers -- work is to provide tools that make these connections happen more easily, and more frequently.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

My work consists of long hours of reading and then the arduous work of talking about what I read with other people. It’s basically like being fannish and organising fannish events, but with academic texts. I have the honour of working together with talented and motivated people and I only have to encourage their writing and ideas.

It is my dream to work together with guest posters, to have people send us questions and suggestions for the kind of posts they want to see, the kind of texts they want us to cover, the kind of tools we should provide. We also have a bibliography of past and present fan studies work that I hope will move more into the spotlight in the future.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I know that I might not be able to stay within academia, but I wanted fandom studies to still be part of my life. This way, I made it other people’s jobs to kick my butt if I slack off.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

With my background, I mostly work with people who have a deeper understanding of fandom studies and more academic experience, and with people who have a deeper understanding of fandom discourses. I have too little understanding for both of their tastes, but at least I can rely on my lack of understanding to see where there might be a gap that needs to be bridged.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I am a fanfiction writer, so writing circles are where I am active. I participate in more exchanges, auctions and fests than what my beta would like to allow me. I also co-mod a Dreamwidth community. I am also just getting into ficbinding, and it is yet to be seen what my work in that area will be like.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Right now, Hong Kong is in the process of reviewing and proposing changes to its copyright law, and has put out a public call for consultation. OTW Legal will be submitting a comment in response to this request, recommending that Hong Kong's copyright law be made more flexible to allow more freedom for fans to create and share fanworks.

Here's where you come in! As we've done in many countries, including Canada, Australia, the U.S., South Africa, and New Zealand, we'd like our Hong Kong submission to include first-hand accounts from Hongkongers about the benefits of laws that promote the creation and sharing of transformative works.

If you're in or from Hong Kong and have expressed yourself, gained skills, been part of creative communities, or otherwise experienced the benefits of being able to create transformative works, we'd love to hear your stories. They can be long or short--just give us some specifics about why making and enjoying fanworks matters to you, so we can include those stories in our submission. If you can send your stories in English, that will be even more helpful, since the submission will be in English.

The deadline is approaching quickly! Please send your stories to us by January 30 using our contact form or e-mailing us at legal [at] transformativeworks.org. (Feel free to use a pseudonym if you don't want us to share your personally identifying information.)

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.