We, the undersigned, write to express our deep unhappiness with the OTW’s inaction on combating racism within fandom. We strongly urge the Board to take immediate steps to help make fandom a space where all fans, particularly Black, Indigenous, and ethnically marginalized fans from all over the globe, can thrive.
If it can be helpful to get some context for where the letter is coming from, I’ve been putting together link roundups on the discussion about racism in fandom in general and the AO3 in particular:
I took some time to read up on this and I think others should too, but after reading the links, some of the discussions, and the “What’s up” summary, I’m in agreement with the Open Letter.
As far as I can tell it’s in good faith – my biggest worry is that this was antis misusing #blacklivesmatter to try and assault the site, but that’s very clearly not the case. In what I’ve read and in the Open Letter nobody is advocating for censorship on the site, just for stronger antiracist architecture (for example, making certain issues required major archive warnings) and a stronger immediate statement from AO3 regarding the steps they’re planning to take. I’ve signed it and it’s my recommendation both as a fan and as someone who has defended AO3 as a nonprofit in the past that my readers should too.
And thank you both to the numerous individuals who have been engaging in this conversation for a long time and to @for-the-flail for the work you put into providing easy to digest context – I know from experience how much effort that is.
I read the open letter as well and Naye’s post on DW, and it’s a well-made point. Systemic change needs to happen in all places of broad influence, and that includes fandom spheres. This petition is coming from fans and supporters of OTW/AO3, who want their community in fandom to be betterandsafer.
Popular fanmix and fan soundtrack website 8tracks recently announced that it will be shutting down on December 31, 2019. While the site might be available after this date, there’s no guarantee it will stay up - so if you’re a fanmix or fan soundtrack creator (or have created any type of playlist on 8tracks), now is a very good time to save the data from your playlists or make them available on another site.
What can I do to save my playlists?
If you’ve used 8tracks at any point, the site will be sending you an email with the playlist name, art, description and track list from your playlist(s), to help you recreate it/them on another site. It’s a good idea to make sure that you can still access the email address you used to sign up to 8tracks. Be sure to also check your spam folder for the email if you can’t find it in your inbox.
You can also use the Download Tracklist button in the notes of any playlist to copy all of the information from that playlist, and the “Save playlist to Spotify” button on top of the mix art to save a playlist to Spotify. Note that some of the tracks may be unavailable or not matched to Spotify’s catalog, particularly if they are older songs. Please also be aware that if you are saving someone else’s playlist, the playlist will not be attributed to the correct author when saving to Spotify - it will be saved under your name.
Other sites that can be used to create and share playlists of songs include Playmoss (a popular alternative to 8tracks) and YouTube.
Archiving links to fanmixes and fan soundtracks
Another very important thing to do is to use the Wayback Machine to archive the links to your favourite fanmixes and fan soundtracks. This can be done even if you don’t want to or aren’t able to republish the mix on another site. To do this, enter the URL of the mix in the box next to “Browse History” and select the button to see if it’s already archived. If not, you can select “Save this url in the Wayback Machine” to add it to the archive.
Be aware that saving playlists in the Wayback Machine will preserve the creator’s name, the description and the cover art, but not the track list - this can only be saved by downloading the text file.
Link your playlists on Fanlore!
Have you made a fanmix or fan soundtrack that you’re really proud of? Do you want other fans to be able to enjoy the links to your favourite mixes and soundtracks? Please add the links to Fanlore!
You can do this by finding the page for the fandom, ship, character, trope, fic, etc. that you made the mix for and adding it as an example fanwork. Anyone who has an account on Fanlore can edit the wiki - and it’s completely free! Follow this link to sign up to Fanlore, and check out our New Visitor Portal to find out how to get started with editing.
Some examples of Fanlore pages that feature playlists and mixes:
Thanks to vidderkidder , we now have an Excel spreadsheet that will archive the playlist info (note: the playlist text file will be in a json format, but using the spreadsheet is a super fast way to getting the metadata and the covers). **********************
Use the first sheet tab to paste your URLs and click the button to run.
What it will do:
*Extract relevant meta data from the playlist page and put it in your Excel Spreadsheet
*Download the JSON file with the playlist details to a folder on your desktop (8tracks)
*Download the cover photo for each playlist to a folder on your desktop (8tracks) What you should do:
*Paste urls on the first column of the first sheet tab
Create a folder on your desktop called 8tracks Click the button.
When you are done and you want to run a new batch copy the info to the second tab
Clear out the old urls and relevant info on the first tab and paste in the new urls and run again.
If you have any questions let me know. My email is [email protected]. I have assisted on projects to backup tumblr, Yahoo Groups and now 8tracks. I am the admin of vidders.net the largest streaming vidding network online. You can share this sheet with anyone who would like to do the same thing you are about to do Again if there are any questions just email.
Popular fanmix and fan soundtrack website 8tracks recently announced that it will be shutting down on December 31, 2019. While the site might be available after this date, there’s no guarantee it will stay up - so if you’re a fanmix or fan soundtrack creator (or have created any type of playlist on 8tracks), now is a very good time to save the data from your playlists or make them available on another site.
What can I do to save my playlists?
If you’ve used 8tracks at any point, the site will be sending you an email with the playlist name, art, description and track list from your playlist(s), to help you recreate it/them on another site. It’s a good idea to make sure that you can still access the email address you used to sign up to 8tracks. Be sure to also check your spam folder for the email if you can’t find it in your inbox.
You can also use the Download Tracklist button in the notes of any playlist to copy all of the information from that playlist, and the “Save playlist to Spotify” button on top of the mix art to save a playlist to Spotify. Note that some of the tracks may be unavailable or not matched to Spotify’s catalog, particularly if they are older songs. Please also be aware that if you are saving someone else’s playlist, the playlist will not be attributed to the correct author when saving to Spotify - it will be saved under your name.
Other sites that can be used to create and share playlists of songs include Playmoss (a popular alternative to 8tracks) and YouTube.
Archiving links to fanmixes and fan soundtracks
Another very important thing to do is to use the Wayback Machine to archive the links to your favourite fanmixes and fan soundtracks. This can be done even if you don’t want to or aren’t able to republish the mix on another site. To do this, enter the URL of the mix in the box next to “Browse History” and select the button to see if it’s already archived. If not, you can select “Save this url in the Wayback Machine” to add it to the archive.
Be aware that saving playlists in the Wayback Machine will preserve the creator’s name, the description and the cover art, but not the track list - this can only be saved by downloading the text file.
Link your playlists on Fanlore!
Have you made a fanmix or fan soundtrack that you’re really proud of? Do you want other fans to be able to enjoy the links to your favourite mixes and soundtracks? Please add the links to Fanlore!
You can do this by finding the page for the fandom, ship, character, trope, fic, etc. that you made the mix for and adding it as an example fanwork. Anyone who has an account on Fanlore can edit the wiki - and it’s completely free! Follow this link to sign up to Fanlore, and check out our New Visitor Portal to find out how to get started with editing.
Some examples of Fanlore pages that feature playlists and mixes:
Thanks to vidderkidder , we now have an Excel spreadsheet that will archive the playlist info (note: the playlist text file will be in a json format, but using the spreadsheet is a super fast way to getting the metadata and the covers). **********************
Use the first sheet tab to paste your URLs and click the button to run.
What it will do:
*Extract relevant meta data from the playlist page and put it in your Excel Spreadsheet
*Download the JSON file with the playlist details to a folder on your desktop (8tracks)
*Download the cover photo for each playlist to a folder on your desktop (8tracks) What you should do:
*Paste urls on the first column of the first sheet tab
Create a folder on your desktop called 8tracks Click the button.
When you are done and you want to run a new batch copy the info to the second tab
Clear out the old urls and relevant info on the first tab and paste in the new urls and run again.
If you have any questions let me know. My email is [email protected]. I have assisted on projects to backup tumblr, Yahoo Groups and now 8tracks. I am the admin of vidders.net the largest streaming vidding network online. You can share this sheet with anyone who would like to do the same thing you are about to do Again if there are any questions just email.
I promised people some peaky writing & exchanges resources in the peaky exchange survey, so here they are! I’ve used all of them myself at one time or another.
WIKIS - basically versions of Wikipedia centered around specific subjects & run by fans
peaky blinders wiki - a great place to go when you’re like “how old is Finn again??? nine? nineteen???” cause it has character biographies, episode summaries, etc
fanlore.org - has articles on fandom terms & history, including all things fanfiction. If any of the things below sound confusing, chances are there’s an article here that will explain it all
Springfield! Springfield! Episode Scripts (Peaky Blinders) - complete transcripts of everything said in Peaky Blinders episodes. They don’t come with “Tommy said” etc, so sometimes you have to guess/use your memory about who’s saying what, but they’re still a good tool if you’re trying to write fic that’s parallel to the canon storyline.
DISCORD - a fun, free groupchat. you don’t need an app for it. great way to meet other people and discuss fandom & writing
The Alfie/Tommy Discord - run by @pure-bastard-extract, this is a chat loosely centered around the romantic/sexual pairing of Alfie Solomons & Tommy Shelby. Has a fanworks channel where you can promote fanwork and a picspam channel where you can stare at an alarming number of Cillian/Tommy and Tom/Alfie pictures.
The Peaky Fandom & Writing Discord - run by me & literally set up today, this is a chat centered around Peaky fandom chat and fanfiction writing. Hopefully people can find betas, RP partners, and friends here, plus we can all scream in the spoiler channel when s5 comes along.
The Yuletide Discord - large & run by multiple people, this is focused on fic exchanges of all kinds, including single fandom exchanges and multi fandom exchanges. You can find beta readers for all different types of fandoms here, as well as casual chat about writing and exchanges. If you enjoyed the experience of the Peaky exchange and you’d be interested in different types of writing exchanges and challenges, this is a great spot. It’s named after the biggest exchange of them all, the Yuletide exchange, which is a multi fandom challenge that runs every winter and had 1529 participants in 2018.
Exchanges After Dark - run by multiple people, this is similar to the Yuletide chat, but it’s smaller, doesn’t have beta readers, and is decidedly NSFW at times. (If you’ve ever got a smut-related writing question, this is definitely the place to ask it.)
me - direct message me at ashling#7490 if you have any questions about exchanges, Peaky writing, discord, life, or whatever (but pls recognize my area of expertise is v small–for instance, I don’t know that much about life)
ARCHIVEOFOUROWN (AO3) - a by us for us fanfiction archive that will never punish you for “female presenting nipples” like Tumblr does. It will let you comment, bookmark, mark for later, and publish fanfiction. It’s the best multi-fandom fanfiction location currently available to my knowledge. No other archive could let you search for “Tommy Shelby” and “hurt/comfort” in the same search, or “Ada Shelby” and the category “F/F”. Great stuff. To get an account, all you have to do is give them an email and wait for a few days to get through the queue (this method is to weed out trolls/fake accounts/bots).
DREAMWIDTH - a by us for us blogging platform, basically a better version of Livejournal that is often used in the exchange world. great place to find new fanworks things to get involved in
fandom_calendar - a calendar of fanworks exchanges, a place where I advertised the first peaky blinders exchange, a good place to keep an eye out for fan writing opportunities
fandom_on_dw - ditto except a bit more expansive; some of the things it promotes aren’t about fanworks at all and are just about fandom (e.g. forums & communities & discussion boards)
If you’ve got questions about any of this, you can message me on hethrewmyheartinthecut.tumblr.com or peakyblindersexchange.tumblr.com or dm me on discord at ashling#7490.
Over the last few days, we’ve seen a lot of fans worrying about the impact of Tumblr’s new Terms of Service on fandom (and non-fandom) communities on this site. We’re concerned, too.
While we don’t know exactly what that impact will look like, we know that we can learn from our history by reading about similar occurrences, such as Strikethrough and BoldthroughandFanFiction.Net’s NC-17 Purges. As this current situation unfolds, editors are documenting the Tumblr NSFW Content Purge so that we’ll have a collaborative record of these events as well.
We’d love for you to add your perspectives, histories, and knowledge to Fanlore. As a project of the Organization for Transformative Works, we’re working to preserve the history of fanworks and fan cultures by creating a living archive of fandom history that’s by and for fans – but we can’t do it without you.
Creating your account
It’s easy to get started on Fanlore! Check out our tutorial for new users and then create your account. We’ve seen a lot of fans suggest creating a user profile page on Fanlore as one way to help other fans find you across platforms, and we think that’s a great idea. Make sure to use the user profile template and check out this help page for more information on setting up your user page.
Resources for new editors
We know that wiki editing can be a little daunting at first, especially if you’re new to it – that’s why we have lots of resources for new editors! Stop by our New Visitor Portal, and read more about our missionandpolicies. We’ve also got answers to lots of frequently asked questions.
Once you’re ready to start editing, check out the recent changes to see what other editors are working on. We’ve also got our FanloreProjects, where groups of editors work together as a team to improve a specific part of Fanlore – like our Youtube Fandom pages, or our Meta articles. If you’re not sure where to start, check out our stubs. These are short articles that need to be expanded, and you might be just the right person to do that!
Contact us
If you’ve got questions, or if you want to know more about Fanlore, please get in touch!
SOMEONE WENT TO A STAR TREK CONVENTION IN THE 1980’S AS SPOCK AND KIRK’S PENISES I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP
THEY PERFORMED SPIRK THROUGH INTERPRETIVE DANCE
If you haven’t read the fanlore page yet, here’s an excerpt from the founding mothers of our fandom constitution.
KF: Well, four of us in Phoenix saw that. And, it was PJ, Carol, Donna and I, and thought, well they are so wonderfully entertaining to us, we have to do something back for them. But, y'know, we’re really not singers, we’re really not dancers, what can we do? So we sat around with a bottle of wine cooler. And, I don’t drink, and I said, well, how about if we distill down the basis of the cock of the, ahum, Kirk and Spock— (laughter)
KF, MS: —Freudian slip, Freudian slip! (laughter)
KF: Yes, ah, down to their basics, and how ‘bout if we do a cock show? And—
MS: I have that on tape, too.
KF: I have it too. Luckily Dixie Owen would come with her video machine, and I ended up putting together a video from the two years. But the first year we ended up going there, and we had a huge seven-foot, and a six-foot cock. Kirk of course was a little shorter and thicker, Spock was taller and thinner—
MS: Was very green—
KF: —very green with two, with a double ridge on the top. What we did basically is, we took this foam that was used in couch cushions, very dense foam, and we’d sculpt it with an electric knife—
MS: Electric knife— (laughter and coughing)
KF: —so that we had the proper shapes. Carol, who—a little insider—ended up working doing the— In the beginning, for the Barney TV show? She actually did the animals and things and the costumes for Barney. Anyhow, she was our designer who—
MS: (laughter) Sorry.
KF: —made the fabric that came down from the head all the way down— And then for the balls, we’re thinking, “Well what are we going to use?” And I said, “Well, listen, we gotta carry ‘em on the plane. How about if we use beach balls covered in fabric, ‘cause then we can deflate them.”
MS: Yes.
KF: And then of course we had pipe cleaners for the hair and furry bits.
MS: I remember when you brought them. Oh my god.
KF: And we figure, so we— And I put together a list of songs, and we had little snippets of songs. We started out on the stage with Spock all kind of bent over and just kinda hunched. And he had the little song, y'know, “I am a rock, I am an island.” And of course you hear from off-stage the signs of “Macho Man.”
All: (laughter) (indistinguishable shouts)
KF: —Pick one—
MS: “Macho, macho man"—
KF: —and on the stage Spock goes “Huuunh?” and immediately his two balls come out— (squeals) —yeah, from underneath—
MS: —from underneath, boing!
KF: —and his head starts coming up a little bit, and coming up a little bit, and then the Matt Davis song, “I want you to want me, I want you to need me.”
MS: The entire auditorium was in hysterical—
KF: And then of course the finale is the 1812 Overture climax with the cannons going off!
MS: Complete with, was it—
KF: It was, it was—
MS: —did you use confetti that time?
KF: No, it was white candies wrapped in plas— in cellophane which I then threw up by the handfuls for—
MS: Yeah. Woooo! Multiple overlapping voices: —for the climax.
KF: For the climax, yeah. And, the audience was hysterical.
“Kirk of course was a little shorter and thicker, Spock was taller and thinner-“
I have read this description in a fic on AO3 THIS WEEK. I love fandom.
Fandom has always been fucking bananas, and I’m so grateful for our foreparents in the Star Trek fandom for launching what fandom’s become today.
It is nothing, nothing compared to this… but I remember being at a convention masquerade (I think it was even a Worldcon) and two people came down the runway dressed as the Enterprise and a Klingon cruiser… and then they got into a brilliantly staged fistfight, wound up grappling with each other, and fell off the runway into the audience.
I don’t think anyone in that room could breathe for a good while, they were laughing so hard. It’s astonishing to me to this day that ambulances didn’t have to be called.
…But yeah: Trek fandom. For half a century and more, willingly going where no one has ever, EVERgone before. :)
I rise out of the depths of tumblr avoidance to set the record straight about something that probably doesn’t matter to anyone but me, but what is the Internet for, if not explanatory narratives about something nobody needed explained?
OKAY SO, Fanlore attributes me writing soulmate fic to a post I made WAY BACK IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2014 (here is the post, reblogged by me on May 22nd, in case anyone was curious [https://web.archive.org/web/20170707232038/https://amusewithaview.tumblr.com/post/86538169905/cinderlily-parnela-lansbury-kenezbian]).
HOWEVER, I have always alwaysalways said, whenever anyone asked, that I got the idea for First Words Soulmate Stuff from a post in the Les Mis fandom, so seeing my inspiration INCORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED annoyed me because like—give credit where it’s due, you know?
So I finally hunted down the Originating Instigating Post, the one I STILL REMEMBERED all these years later, and here it is: [https://amusewithaview.tumblr.com/post/85267114295/yo-so-i-just-read-that-post-about-couferre-and]. Discerning readers will note that I reblogged this Les Mis fandom post on May 9th, 2014, a whole 13 days before I reblogged the post that Fanlore currently sites as my likely inspiration.
I’ll grant you, IDK where THEIR inspiration came from, and frankly I do not currently care enough to hunt through their back catalogue of posts circa 2014 and find out, but I WAS INSPIRED BY THIS LES MIS POST.
@dameferre — hi, I cannot for the life of me remember whether we actually interacted at one point or if I was just one of many Internet goblins following you way back in 2014, but—for better or worse—none of my Darcy soulmate stories would exist were it not for you.
On a whole other note—my first soulmate story with soulmarks was posted on AO3 in 2012, in the Teen Wolf fandom, but idk if that’s relevant to the “first words” debate.
And there we go, an explanation—WITH SOURCES!—for something you probably never needed explained.
Fanlore, the OTW’s collaborative wiki about all things fandom, has reached a huge milestone: one million edits! Find out how you can join our celebratory scavenger hunt, with the chance to win a Citrus Scale sticker set: https://otw.news/fanlore-celebrates-7ec90
I love-hate editing Fanlore articles, because on the one hand there’s something extremely soothing about repetitive writing that does not require anything new from me–but on the other hand, it’s hard to stay focused because I keep saying “oh, wait, that article I was going to cite doesn’t exist yet, better write that one first” so I end up zigzagging back and forth between tangentially related topics like a crazy person.
So, basically it’s Down the Wiki Hole every time except I have to write it first.
In this month’s OTW Signal, Legal chair Betsy Rosenblatt spoke to fans via podcast and a town hall about copyright and other legislation that could affect fanworks and fan sites + promoting your favorite Fanlore pages! Read more at https://otw.news/otw-signal-f8025a
Ahoy, matey! It’s nearly time to set sail on the high seas for Fanlore’s annual Bingo Challenge! From June 6th to June 19th, you’ll have two weeks to complete the tasks on your Bingo cards (there’s one for beginner editors and one for seasoned sea dogs, but you can complete both for a Total Blackout!). Get Bingo, Blackout or Total Blackout to earn our exciting pirate-themed badges (and find the treasure!)
ALT
