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Heads up, River Twine tribe!
The Council has recently been discussing future prospects for the club, and one of the things that came up was an interest in reaching out to fandom more, particularly greater fandom beyond the usual EQ haunts of the official website and EQFanArt. We feel that keeping some flow of new blood is important to the future or River Twine, and that right now with the Final Quest ongoing is a good time in which to try and garner interest from new circles, where people may be creating fanwork without being aware of holts and traditional fandom. For this purpose, we'd like to open official Tumblr and Archive of Our Own showcase accounts for the club.
What are Tumblr and Archive of Our Own?
Archive of Our Own, or AO3, is the second-biggest (after fanfiction.net) multiple-fandom fan fiction archive in existence today. Unlike ff.net, it's run by fans for fans, and has an excellent reputation as an archive. AO3 allows automatic uploading of stories, although it has a large team of volunteer moderators, and also allows for the posting of art. AO3's ElfQuest category currently has 179 stories.
Tumblr is a blogging site extensively used by many online fandoms, which allows the posting of multiple kinds of media - text, pictures, sound, video, etc. Users open blogs and can follow other people's blogs, and can also reblog content from other blogs. Tumblr also makes extensive use of tags, which can be used to browse the site and find content on other blogs that the user isn't following. It's a lot like Livejournal, except without the possibility of closed posts or communities - posts are either totally private or totally public. This has some disadvantages, in that you can't control who will see or repost your content, but also some advantages in that it's easy to get attention from new people. , if you want to see what an account looks like - you can see original content as well as content I've reblogged from other places. Here is , namely, where you can browse posts tagged "ElfQuest". There's some nice stuff in the tag, though beware that some of it is Not Safe For Work!
Shared-universe storytelling similar to RTH, where a number of people create fic and art together in the same storyworld, is quite popular on both Tumblr and AO3. Our art and stories should fit in just fine.
The proposed accounts will be used to post art, stories and other fanwork from RTH, in order to showcase the club and hopefully attract interest and possibly new contributors and members for the club. Before setting out, though, we'd like to gauge interest and see what the current membership thinks of the idea. Here are a few key details about how the accounts will run:
1. Both accounts will be publicly open; members must note that in Tumblr, this will likely mean art and fic will get reblogged and spread around, and either way, will mean comments from non-RTH members.
As mentioned, we can't control who reblogs posts or what they say about them. Note, though, that reblogging doesn't remove the identity of the original poster and all reblogs show where the post was originally made, so this is not the same as plagiarism! While there is some risk of art theft on Tumblr, as everywhere, the site's community of artists is very zealous about shunning plagiarists and making sure art is not posted without credit and permission.
2. We will only post pieces from writers and artists who have given us approval to post them. Members may give blanket permission for all their work to be posted, give permission only for specific works, or refuse permission entirely, in which case we will not post their work at all. We will also of course remove any post if requested by a member at a later time, although this will not affect reblogs on Tumblr - basically once content has been reblogged, we're afraid it's out of our hands.
3. Everything posted on the accounts will be individually credited to the writers and artists who have produced it, and if they desire, linked to their own personal accounts on the same websites or elsewhere (such as DeviantArt.)
4. AO3 has a feedback system of reviews (i.e. comments, to which we can respond, and moderate) and kudos (similar to "likes" on Facebook); we will keep members informed of any feedback they get on the site. On Tumblr, we will tag posts by the member's (chosen) name, so members will be able to enter their tag and follow up on any reblogs of or comments on their work.
5. It will be the Council's responsibility to handle any wank resulting from posts on either accounts. We don't foresee this happening, but just in case. Sofia and Joan are both old hands at both websites by this time and have some experience handling these issues, so we've got your backs!
If you have any questions, or would like to indicate your position on whether you'll be willing or unwilling to volunteer your work for sharing on these new accounts, please let us know here!
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Joan M., Brightwood's typist
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