I feel conflicted.

[eleanorjane]

I feel a little bit bad about using archive.org to retrieve fanfic that has been otherwise left to die by its owner? Obviously, I'm not going to distribute it, but the culture of fandom is such that if they don't want it out there any more, I feel at least a bit bad for going back and getting it.

On the other hand, some of this fic has immense nostalgia value for me, because it was a lot of the earliest fic I read after discovering that fanfic was a thing. So regardless of what the author thinks of it, I have many fond memories, and I'd rather save it now for my personal re-reading in future rather than possibly never be able to read it again.

I still feel a little guilty, though.

Comments

[rthstewart]

This really resonated with me. Early in my fic career, I yanked something from the one public archive that had it. There were reasons, and at the time, they seemed good. It was a mistake though and eventually I rectified that and recently went back and put it on AO3 and ff dot net. In re-posting I learned that people from 15 years ago remember the trauma of the day that story, Stuff, disappeared, and how that felt. Fan fic does not exist in a vacuum of author and well, author. Readers build connections to each other, to the stories, and the authors. And so are communities born. As you say, you have many fond memories and personal connections to the work. Even if stories are flawed, well so is the creative space they inhabit. Enjoy, I say!