enchantedsleeper

Here it is... the long*-awaited Pillowfort Post 😆

So, it's not exactly news by now, but a few weeks ago blogging and social site Pillowfort announced that it would be closing down on 4th December 2026.

Even though it wasn't exactly unprecedented – I'd felt a strong sense of doom when Pillowfort's team previously (in July) said that Pillowfort would be transitioning to a nonprofit model, both because it was an acknowledgement that Pillowfort couldn't continue as it was and because I knew this would be very difficult to accomplish – the news still came as a blow.

Despite everything, I'd thought – hoped, really – that Pillowfort could continue to muddle along for at least a couple more years trying out the nonprofit model. The lack of updates wasn't a great sign, though, and in the announcement post about Pillowfort's closure, Pillowfort founder Julia revealed that the sticking point was finding someone to take over as the head of the site; this surprised me not a bit, because it really has to be a labour of love, and realistically, few people do want to take ultimate responsibility for a social network and blogging site in the current age.

It is amazing that Julia was able to keep Pillowfort going for as long as she did (we celebrated a 10th anniversary of sorts (because it's difficult to be precise) for the site back in April) and I salute her for it, and she deserves to be able to step away even if it's hard.

But this isn't a post analysing the reasons for Pillowfort's closure, just a post about how I feel about it. I already posted a kind of tribute to Pillowfort/look back over my time there on Pillowfort itself, so this is more of a big-picture reflection.

I always knew that I wanted to make a post of some kind to Dreamwidth reflecting on what Pillowfort's closing signified, and my original idea was basically a post along the lines of, I'm so fucking tired of this. I'm really tired of fannish spaces closing down or becoming a shell of what they once were and having to scramble to save what might otherwise be lost in their wake.

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Also, three posts in quick (ish) succession, what is this, 2024?? It probably won't last, but I'm riding this wave of blogging energy while it lasts. Though, apologies if I take a while to come back to any comments: my blogging and discussing come from the same pool of energy, and sometimes the pool is empty no matter what, but I really love the discussions I've been having so I don't want that to discourage anyone!

...Well, I sure picked an eventful month to make my return to DW 😅

I was originally planning for my next post to be about Pillowfort, which announced its impending shutdown in early December just two days after I posted my October update linking to a bunch of stuff I did on PF 🙈 It wasn't totally unprecedented, but I'm still having a lot of emotions about it. And in a way everything that's happening at the moment feels linked together - I'm spending more time on DW and Mastodon because of the influx of Pillowpeeps and associated activity (mostly to Dreamwidth, but I've been paying more attention to fandom social spaces generally) - and so I'm also joining in discussions there/here about the AO3 Situation (as well as on Pillowfort itself, Tumblr, and the fannish Discords I'm a part of). It just feels like there's a Lot Happening.

But I want to give Pillowfort its own space in a separate post and in the meantime, I have more thoughts that are bubbling up about the AO3 situation, so here we go.

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*blows dust off my blog*

Hi, everyone!

You've probably seen or heard the news by now, but if you haven't, yesterday it was revealed that Archive of Our Own had made the final list of nominees for the 2019 Hugo Awards in the category of Best Related Work. Yay, fanfiction!

The fact that this has kicked off some wank probably doesn't come as a surprise to anyone.

You can get a sense of it just by searching for "AO3 Hugo nomination" on Twitter (if you do Twitter), but the tl;dr is that there's some confusion as to whether the Hugo Awards are solely for written literature (they're not - there are categories for Best Dramatic Presentation, Best Fan Artist, and Best Graphic Story among others) and whether the nomination is for the fanfiction on AO3 or AO3 the project/platform. This led to many folks trying to set the record straight by emphasising that AO3 qualifies for the award as a platform and a project built by fan labour - but has also led to some gatekeeping-type comments about who the award is "for" and who "gets" to be happy that AO3 was nominated for a Hugo.

Fanworks creators who have a work published to AO3 want to celebrate being a part of AO3's success (there are lots of jokes going around to the tune of "Well I guess my fics are nominated for a Hugo now" and people updating their bios to read "Hugo nominated") - and they should! The whole point of AO3 is that it was built by fans, for fans, and the entirety of fandom celebrating that is exactly what should happen. People also want to make sure that the volunteer love and labour that goes into running AO3 isn't overlooked. As a volunteer for the OTW myself (I should probably mention that as disclosure), I'm pretty happy about that too.

I think there have also been some derisive comments about how AO3 doesn't merit a Hugo nomination because "ew fanfiction", but frankly those people are just out of touch.

Anyway, it wouldn't be fandom without some wank, but out of the morass of slap-fighting have emerged some truly lovely comments and threads that celebrate fanfiction, fanworks, marginalised creators, and the labour of love that is AO3. So I wanted to round up some of those in a blog post. (Apologies for the crappy formatting - I tried to embed the tweets, but this was the best that Dreamwidth could manage. Click on the date to view the original tweet).

Enjoy, and please add your own suggestions in a comment!

lovingnikiforov

elitists: fanfiction isn't real writing

ao3: explain my hugo nomination then

elitists: pic.twitter.com/MIOdzuyVq7

— gin appreciation hours 🌸 (@lovingnikiforov) April 2, 2019

I enjoy this tweet by @lovingnikiforov immensely, because even before I was involved in the OTW and the wider world of fandom, I railed against the people who dismissed fanfiction as childish, badly-written porn. Sure, there's plenty of that about (and not just in fanfiction), but there's so much more than that out there. Fanfic is goddamn art, you guys. Hugo-nominated art.

tehnakki

hugo awards: ao3 is nominated
me: OH WOW, my fics about fictional people banging is now art!! I am hugo nominated author!
me: ^_____^
me: *updates twitter bio* pic.twitter.com/zcqvaqnUbD

— 5.4e-5% of a hugo nomination (@tehnakki) April 2, 2019

I have to give @tehnakki props for putting "5.4e-5%" in their name on Twitter 😂 It's just brilliant. That is all.

LeeFlower

The platform that is AO3 is built and maintained by actual web developers, many of whom are women, which is REMARKABLE for an OSS project. Can we please let them have their moment instead of making "lol all fanfic writers are hugo nominees now" jokes?

— Annalee (@LeeFlower) April 3, 2019

While I don't agree that the jokes about fanfic writers being Hugo-nominated in any way detracts from AO3's achievement (and Annalee also clarified that they didn't mean to come across that way), I love this thread by Annalee/@LeeFlower that celebrates how remarkable AO3 is as a female-built and driven web development project, in the context of a very male-dominated industry.

englishmace

fuckin' this, folks.

and I mean you KNOW I am here for fanfic, now and always, but that is NOT what this nomination is about! do you know how advanced an archival system ao3 is? the ways its indexing and DB structure improve discoverability for MILLIONS of readers? https://t.co/S4vlUZazPi

— Macey || Jennifer Mace (@englishmace) April 3, 2019

@englishmace/Jennifer Mace's thread builds on the original tweet by LeeFlower and goes into more depth about the technical phenomenon that is AO3, including its filters, free-form tagging system, user interface, and the fact that the fans behind it respond to feedback and take it on board. As Jennifer says, "how much Big Tech can say as much these days?"

GretchenAMcC

I have cited AO3's taxonomy and archiving systems as models at academic linguistics conferences because they are IMPRESSIVE as usable, durable, well-designed systems, and frankly academia could stand to learn from fandom here https://t.co/3VvOvBojfx

— Gretchen McCulloch (@GretchenAMcC) April 3, 2019

And again building on the tweet by Jennifer Mace, Gretchen McCulloch celebrates AO3's taxonomy and archiving systems, and points out that academia could stand to learn from fandom. My favourite tweet from further down the thread is where Gretchen comments that, "AO3 has solved tagging using a solution that tech companies generally refuse to consider: "Sounds like a hard problem requiring many subtle judgement calls, let's throw a bunch of humans at it permanently and value them highly""

teaberryblue

I have so many feelings about the @OTW_News Ao3 Hugo nomination. Though I haven't written a ton of fic in the last couple years, it's such a significant part of my life and it means so much to me and the home it has given to so many people is so important.

— Tea Berry-Blue (@teaberryblue) April 2, 2019

This lovely thread by Tea Berry-Blue, a former OTW volunteer and the co-author of the second-most-commented fic on AO3, sums up her feelings regarding AO3's Hugo nomination and the labour of love that is the Archive.

fcoppa

I want to add another layer of awesome: content yes! software & database & servers, yes! BUT ALSO: the NONPROFIT, AD FREE, DATA-PRIVATE context, and also the CLEAR TOS. For which we should shout out Susan Gibel and @rtushnet among others who did heavy lifting early on.

— Francesca Coppa (@fcoppa) April 3, 2019

Organization for Transformative Works co-founder Francesca Coppa gives a shout-out to two of her fellow co-founders, Susan Gibel and Rebecca Tushnet, for their roles in creating AO3's user-friendly terms of service, and the fact that the Archive is non-profit, ad-free and data-private.

VMellifera

I’m seeing a lot of backlash this morning regarding the Hugo-nominated author jokes fanfic writers are making. I disagree. These jokes aren’t detracting from the fact that what AO3 has done is a huge accomplishment. Personally, I can appreciate the work behind AO3 & joke with

— 2019 Hugo Nominee Vulpesmellifera (@VMellifera) April 3, 2019

This thread by @VMellifera eloquently expresses why no-one should talk down to the fanworks creators who are celebrating AO3's success by joking about being "Hugo-nominated" - and why that doesn't diminish the importance of the nomination.

ChuckTingle

seen many talks on HUGOS AWARD nomination for fans fiction site name AO3 (dang archive of our own) saying: thats silly those are books about captains america and handsome bob downy kissing. GUESS WHAT YOU DONT GET TO DECIDE WHATS SILLY THEY DESERVE THIS PRAISE CONGRADUTAIONS AO3

— Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) April 2, 2019

I'll let FELLOW HUGO-NOMINATED BUD Chuck Tingle have the last word on this, in his wise and clever response to anyone who suggests that AO3 doesn't deserve a Hugo nomination. CONGRADUTAIONS indeed. xD