this is like finding some kind of lesser but important grail

So a bit back, I found an old WD external hard drive, back when 500G was totally the shit (circa 2008ish). And on it I found I'd very sensibly stored backups.

And I found....something else.

Gather round, children; we speak of ancient internet times. We speak of...the years 2000 and 2001.

For those who don't remember, being too young or--fuck my life, not even alive--this was web 2.0 territory. ww3 was only a baby, black background with white text was legit, everrrryyyyone loved iFrames, and automated archives were still Fucking Fancy Shit for the few.

For the rest of us: if you wanted an archive, you learned graphic design, web design including HTML and CSS, paid for a web page or got yourself some geocities accounts (multiple, this is an archive) and you hand-coded everything.

Within my backup drive is a zip. Within that zip file is every story in the X-Men Movie Fanfic Archive (XMMFF). All the handcoded stories. All those handcoded index and information pages. I probably still have the graphics in other folder. Roughly three hundred to four hundred stories. All just--there. My fingers remember all that goddamn coding.

This is so surreal.

ETA: And in an ancient Outlook folder, I just found
1.) every XMMFF fic from when I joined the list until the end of 2001, which could be as much as another 200-500 stories that didn't get into the archive.
2.) everything posted to WRBeta (X-Men, Wolverine/Rogue, reason for creation dramatic as fuck)
3.) some from X-Fiction when I was on that list.
4.) a lot of ASCEML (Star Trek, mailing list mirror of alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated)
5.) PTFever fic and discussion (Star Trek Paris/Torres)

...seriously, what the hell else is lurking around here?

Comments

[misbegotten]

Within that zip file is every story in the X-Men Movie Fanfic Archive (XMMFF)

WOW!

[norabombay]

Wooooh!

That is very cool.

[ithiliana]

WooooooooW!

[mf_luder_xf]

It is amazing you found all those files! And wow, handcoding for hundreds of fics - you are a hero.

[seperis]

I somehow--God knows how, probably blackmail(????)--got people to help do the fic, but seriously, my hands ache thinking about it.

[kernezelda]

Holy cow! Wasn't that when you were writing the Epic?

[musesfool]

Wow. That was...a long time ago.

[seperis]

Due to this, I just did a reorg of my old email because WAY BACK WHEN I moved from Outlook Express to Outlook when I went to work for the state and we got Office free, and express at the time did't play well and it was in its own directory. Now, apparently, it works fine and have access back to when I got email for the first time, circa late 1998/early 1999.

...I have entire mailing list flame wars in those folders. Like, during ML days, I think I just foldered everything and never bothered deleting because I was on dial-up and read mostly in batches. And continued the habit even after I got broadband. It's just--a lot.

[silverflight8]

...I have entire mailing list flame wars in those folders.

I just snort laughed SO loudly at this.

[elf]

Psssst wanna talk to Open Doors about getting the XMMFF collection moved to AO3?

[seperis]

Oh God yes. Email me? seperis at gmail

[lilacsigil]

That's amazing! I remember reading in that archive.

[ratcreature]

Me too.

[devon]

That is so awesome! I think I purged and/or opened up all my old hard drives.

I did transfer my "important" files to each new computer, though. So I have a folder with copypasta fanfic in plain text format. Lots! I also have a really disorganized folder of old flash animations from 2000. Most of which have been converted to real video now and can be found on YouTube. It's wild!

I didn't read much X-Men, but it's so great that you have that archive. :>

[tozka]

Nice!! Double nice that the harddrive was still WORKING, too!

[silverflight8]

Lol. There's a draco/hermione fan who archived (what I can only presume) as much of the fic as she could. I always think of this pairing as the het equivalent of harry/draco and I can't imagine how she did so much of it, she seems to have stuff from MANY different sites...but if it's an old fic you're wanting to read and it's been lost on the internet, she probably archived it and you can still find it there. it used to be hosted quietly and privately on yahoo-smthg, but i think it's been moved to google now (moving with the times!)

I wonder if AO3 would take on your fics (if the site went down subsequently) as part of Open Doors. How does Open Doors reconcile whole content creator etc issue? The original author really only consented to put their fic up on this particular site, what about access to the writing, etc? I DIGRESS.