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Having trouble finding X-Men fan fiction? Can’t find the latest issue with Rogue and Gambit? Perhaps you just can’t find that piece starring Jubilee? Ok maybe not! But mutant fan fiction has gotten a tighter noose in the past few months.
One only has to look at the top three X-sites, Shifting Sands, X-Men Fanfic Archive, and Fic World, and you’ll see three very different sites from what you might remember.
Although the Editors at Shifting Sands refused to talk to us, we were able to speak to a writer who asked to be anonymous. So for the course of this article he’ll be known as Adam. "I don’t know a lot, but I can tell you that Shifting Sands has all but closed it’s doors to new writers." Adam told us via E-mail. "Although they still talk about submissions, it’s not true. The only way you can get into that site is by invitation or if you already have a series or something."
The second site which has been in a major overhaul is Lori McDonald’s X-Men Fan Fic Archive. This site which closed altogether, had the bulk of it moved to a new location, and new management under longtime fan-fic writer known as Ro. But this site like Shifting Sands, has a "wait to be asked" policy, unless you are already archived. It begs the question, why did Lori quit in the first place? She had a few things to say:
"For myself, I was finding it harder and harder to want to update the site. It took a lot of work and I wasn't even really reading that much X-Men anymore. It felt more like a job than a hobby. When I found out my server space was threatened, the only page I didn't think about how to save was the X-Men one. I kept finding myself thinking it would be a great excuse to stop updating it. At that point I just decided to stop. I never expected Ro to try and takeover. Running an archive as big as mine is a lot of work. I was reaching the point where I couldn't remember who or what I was archiving, and that was just too irritating."
The third site which recently saw the biggest change in the way they archive, was Fic World. Run by Mirage and Jelpy, this site has closed it’s doors to all new regular mutant stories all together. Rather they have done something unique to fan fiction. That is they are giving potential writers "challenges" that use characters in fairy tale settings. So why the change? Mirage had this to say:
"After 3 years we've seen it all. Every type of new-character-joins-XTeam fanfic, the Remy-and-Rogue fanfic, the self insertion Subreality Cafe fanfic, improbable crossovers, or the zillions of bad Jubilee fanfic. This has made us less open to archiving just any story that lands in our inbox. We used to archive anything and everything, even the worst Mary Sues, but as time went on, Jelpy and I got more selective. It came to the point where we decided we only wanted to archive stories that we personally enjoyed and liked, hence the closure to submissions."
By now many people will be asking. "Who do these people think they are? What right do they have to accept or reject my story!" In a recent HEROES poll, we asked over thirty webmasters, branch editors, and Editor in Chiefs a single question. "What (in your opinion) is your view on rejecting stories altogether. Do we have a right to? Seeing how these stories are free, and the characters aren't anyone’s to begin with other them marvel, do we have any right to reject other people's stories?"
After long discussions on both sides of the issue, 93% of those asked felt that yes, people do have a say in the building and upkeeping of a fan-fic site, and that means what type of stories goes in as well.
One person who was vocal about the rights of those in charge was CFAN’s own Kielle:
"Speaking both as the maintainer of several small archives and as someone who regularly plays diplomat for other archivists...definitely yes. Each archive is the personal "property" of the person who puts the hard work into maintaining it, and therefore that person has the right to select or reject stories. Sometimes they don't have the time or the space; sometimes the story does not fit the archive's guidelines; sometimes the story is so bad that it simply is not archive-ready. Every archive has standards -- however, some are lower or looser than others, and therefore I think it's fair for an archivist, when rejecting a story, to at least point the writer in the direction of other archives where their story might be welcome."
But there all those that don’t feel the same way. Kell Carpenter, branch editor at MV1 had a different opinion:
"I can't imagine rejecting a story just because it's poorly written. I mean, who am I to judge that? I can have my own opinion on it, but I refuse to let that be a reason for rejecting a story."
So by now many of you may be asking yourselves, "Where do I go now with my story?" Well your in luck! A new mutant archive has recently opened up, without the strings that many sites have adopted. Currently known as "The Archive," (but they are having a name this archive contest!) this looks like it may be the future go to spot for many hopeful mutant writers.
So will we ever reach a point where we run out of mutant stories? "Not likely," Adam our anonymous writer told us. "As long as Rogue and Gambit are running around, and there are things like the Age of Apocalypse, there will always be stories. It’s a world that beyond imagination, and there are still thousands of stories left to be written. All we have to do think them up....."
