Good riddance. JMO, of course.

Thanks for this link, Simon.

[ edited by menomegirl on 2008-07-24 19:24 ]

menomegirl | July 24, 19:10 CET

I've never really been a fan of FanLib.com, but it's still sad to see it go. We don't really have a nice fanfiction archive site at the moment. FanFiction.Net has some of the worst writing I've seen, it's difficult to find anything of quality there. LiveJournal is usually the best place to go, but it's not designed with fanfiction in mind, so there's no central database, searching is difficult, friends-only posts, etc.

Here's to hoping that one day we get a nice, multi-fandom, uncensored fanfic site with some sort of moderation. The trouble I see at the moment is that reviews are essentially meaningless, in that there are always people who give poor stories 5 stars, for whatever reasons. It'd be nice if only certain people could vote, ranking the stories based on quality of writing alone and not on plot points or whether their favourite characters are in there.

MattK | July 24, 19:14 CET

I,for one,am glad to see it go.
When it first started and it seemed just another fan-run archive I went and posted my fics. Then I read some awful things about it and left. I mostly use livejournal. I rather use something like the OTW...we'll see how that goes.

okelay | July 24, 19:20 CET

I've never visited Fanlib before, and from what I'm reading, I'm not sure I'd want to. But I agree with MattK; there just isn't a quality site devoted to fanfiction right now. I started off on fanfiction.net, but got tired of sifting through all of the crap to get to the actual good. When I do read nowadays, I go to LJ, but it gets so frustrating looking for the fics you want to read when there's no proper search function especially for fanfiction. Hopefully this will change in the future, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

deepgirl187 | July 24, 19:38 CET

Yeah, I don't expect to see anything new on LJ soon. It isn't as good as it used to be in some respects, they've become very much a business now, and they're censoring all sorts of content on there now.

As for FanLib, it sucks for the people who do use it who might not see this notice until it's too late to get copies of their work off there (if they don't have backups), or who use it to communicate with other writers who they'll now be out of touch with. Hence being sad to see it go.

MattK | July 24, 20:17 CET

I've never been into those fan fic sites, usually the people there don't care that much about quality and just throw up any old rubbish just to make their favourite characters into their own sex puppets.

Not sure what the policy on advertising is here (so I expect this post to be deleted ASAP), but Virtual Mutant is as good a site as any for Jossverse "fan fic" (in script form and presented as a virtual season of scripted episodes, rather than prose, with actors and actresses "cast" in the show to make it seem more real, but they ain't actually involved).

The greatest asset is the community aspect (check the forums), making the site just as much as a place to hangout and a place to learn as well as a place to air writing. There's nothing holier than thou or pretentious about it, just a bunch of people who love to write and want to improve themselves, while entertaining others.

Sorry for the cheap promo, but there's a lot of great work there that deserves more eyeballs.

[ edited by Vaughn on 2008-07-24 20:40 ]

VaughnOfTheDead | July 24, 20:39 CET

If it's in context plug away. I remember when Buffy and Angel ended (damn you WB), we plugged a few virtual season 8 and season 6 fics and communities.

And regarding good fics, you will find them on LJ but you will have to look really hard for them. Unfortunately changes at LJ did worry a lot of really good writers and so a lot of the stuff is friends locked.

Simon | July 24, 20:44 CET

MattK & deepgirl187, Depending on what you're searching for, your might find some worthwhile gen fics at one of these livejournals (or perhaps a rec to some):

ats_endofdays, ats_nolimits, buffyverse1000, buffyversetop5, chosenfics, cya_ficathon, fantas_magoria, gen_storyteller, lynnevitational, open_on_sunday, su_herald, all_fics_btvs, ats_btvs_fanfic, au100, btvsangel_canon, btvsats_love, cordychaserecs, could_be, facets_of_faith, fire_fiction, gen_storyteller, general_buffy, hyperion_lobby, joss100, jossversecinema, londoncalling_, spangel_, spike_fics, spring_with_xan, spuffy_fics, still_grrr, summer_of_ats

menomegirl | July 24, 21:12 CET

Thanks for the community recs, menomegirl, I look forward to checking them out. I absolutely love the names for some of the ships, spangel amuses me a lot for some reason -- it's been a long time since I heard that. The last time I used LJ extensively it was for FF fic, but one of my favourite communities is now friends locked, so I haven't read it in a long while now (could always just get an account, of course).

MattK | July 24, 21:41 CET

You're welcome. I think all those communities are not f-locked at all. I left a lot of the slash comms off that list. There are usually good gen fics found on those, even if some will have older posts on them.

Ship names are funny things, although I hardly ever use them myself. The two that amuse me the most are Spred (Spike/Fred) and Spawn (Spike/Dawn).

menomegirl | July 24, 21:55 CET

Ooh, thanks menomegirl. There's a few comms there I haven't tried yet...

deird | July 24, 21:59 CET

There is of course the BTVS writers' Guild, altho most of my stuff there has been hacked out of existence (sniff) there's lots of other material of, well, comparable quality ahem*. And they have a very flexible search engine.

(*does this ego stuff come across as funny in print as when Berle or Shatner did it on film?)

DaddyCatALSO | July 24, 22:07 CET

You're welcome.

You guys might also try UCSL, which houses over 7130 pieces of fanfiction in its archive and Better Buffy Fiction Archive. All the stories contained in this archive have, at one time, been recommended on the Better Buffy Fics list and comprise a large cross section of varying tastes, styles, and genres, both adult and gen stories, slash and het, with ratings from G to NC-17 from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series.

menomegirl | July 24, 22:26 CET

What about Skyhawke? Is that still going?

MegL42 | July 25, 02:22 CET

I believe it is, yes.

menomegirl | July 25, 04:03 CET