And luckily, as my main fandom, SGA provides enough effortless fic via newsletters and rec lists to provide more than enough reading material. And that's actually one of the reasons why I feel that archives are necessary. Because, yeah, it's great for us, we're at the height of a big fandom right now, but that's not always the case. Take, for example, the Due South fandom. That show was aired from 1994-1999, and while it was airing it had a nice fandom for the show, that kind of died out when the show finished airing, but then a few years ago the DVDs were released and suddenly fandom is starting up again. Now, they are probably turning out enough fic that you can go by newsletters, but just think of all the fic that was written while the show was still airing that the new fans are going to miss? As I was saying to equusentric above, there is a really different quality to fics written while a show was airing compared to fics written after the show has ended. There seems to be a little less exploration, since they've already seen things resolved (a little harder to write "what happens next" fics, when you already know what happens next) and you see the character fully grown too, and don't really have the opportunity to examine certain aspects. If the fandom doesn't have an archive than the fans to come are going to miss out on all that, because the BNF fans that wrote the first ground breaking stories, may be unknowns now, or are writing in other fandoms, so if you were to go to their LJs, you wouldn't be able to tell/find that they have writing for that fandom in the past. I just feel that archives can offer that kind of stability, even more so than personal webpages, because sometimes people let their personal webpages go. Archives are sometimes let go, but there are generally people willing to take it over, and, once the OTW is up and running, they have a program that they are implementing where they will take on the maintenance of older archives if no one around is interested in running it anymore. I just feel that LJ is great for the here and now, announcements and comments, but it just isn't built for any kind of longevity, and fandoms don't just die when the show is over. Think of all the renewed interest in SG-1 as SGA gains more viewers? Or brought new viewers into the franchise when it started up. Or all the people that wanted to check out Farscape when Ben and Claudia joined SG-1. I've seen Traders or First Monday fic crop up now that David and Joe are on SGA (although I'm not sure how much of a fandom was there originally). I'm sure starting up Dr. Who again brought a renewed interest in the older fandom, or the people flocking to the comic book fandoms after all the movies that have been released. Or books even, and not just from movies, I just discovered Good Omens, and I know it has a fandom out there, but I don't think they have a central archive, which has made it kind of hard for me to find fic in that fandom, and it takes quite a bit of searching. If you're (general you here) the type of person that is only in a fandom once it's well established and is at its peak, then yeah, LJ is just fine for you, but if you are interested in fandom anywhere outside of that shortish time frame, especially if you're a veracious reader, it can be an awful lot of work finding what you want. raxhel is one of those people, and at any one time she's active in literally *hundreds* of fandoms just because she'll read whatever she can find that's worth reading. And that's not even really bringing up fandoms outside of the media fandoms (I mentioned books). Anime fandom is hugely different, since a lot of the shows over there are only 13 episodes, or similarly short. There aren't all that many animes that go on for seasons (although some of the popular ones do like Inu Yash, Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist to name a few off the top of my head). People find these shorter animes at different times (there are different times between when they air originally, when they are fan translated, and when they are legitimately translated, all points bringing in new and different fans) so the fandoms have different, and multiple peak points.
Changing Fandom 2
And that's actually one of the reasons why I feel that archives are necessary. Because, yeah, it's great for us, we're at the height of a big fandom right now, but that's not always the case. Take, for example, the Due South fandom. That show was aired from 1994-1999, and while it was airing it had a nice fandom for the show, that kind of died out when the show finished airing, but then a few years ago the DVDs were released and suddenly fandom is starting up again. Now, they are probably turning out enough fic that you can go by newsletters, but just think of all the fic that was written while the show was still airing that the new fans are going to miss? As I was saying to
I just feel that archives can offer that kind of stability, even more so than personal webpages, because sometimes people let their personal webpages go. Archives are sometimes let go, but there are generally people willing to take it over, and, once the OTW is up and running, they have a program that they are implementing where they will take on the maintenance of older archives if no one around is interested in running it anymore.
I just feel that LJ is great for the here and now, announcements and comments, but it just isn't built for any kind of longevity, and fandoms don't just die when the show is over. Think of all the renewed interest in SG-1 as SGA gains more viewers? Or brought new viewers into the franchise when it started up. Or all the people that wanted to check out Farscape when Ben and Claudia joined SG-1. I've seen Traders or First Monday fic crop up now that David and Joe are on SGA (although I'm not sure how much of a fandom was there originally). I'm sure starting up Dr. Who again brought a renewed interest in the older fandom, or the people flocking to the comic book fandoms after all the movies that have been released. Or books even, and not just from movies, I just discovered Good Omens, and I know it has a fandom out there, but I don't think they have a central archive, which has made it kind of hard for me to find fic in that fandom, and it takes quite a bit of searching.
If you're (general you here) the type of person that is only in a fandom once it's well established and is at its peak, then yeah, LJ is just fine for you, but if you are interested in fandom anywhere outside of that shortish time frame, especially if you're a veracious reader, it can be an awful lot of work finding what you want.
And that's not even really bringing up fandoms outside of the media fandoms (I mentioned books). Anime fandom is hugely different, since a lot of the shows over there are only 13 episodes, or similarly short. There aren't all that many animes that go on for seasons (although some of the popular ones do like Inu Yash, Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist to name a few off the top of my head). People find these shorter animes at different times (there are different times between when they air originally, when they are fan translated, and when they are legitimately translated, all points bringing in new and different fans) so the fandoms have different, and multiple peak points.