Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2

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Archive
Name: Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2, fkff2,
www.fkfanfic2.com
Date(s): 2001 - 2006 (active period)
Archivist: Jarvinia
Founder: Anita K. Blake
Type: fan fiction archive
Fandom: Forever Knight
URL: Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2
(original pre-2003 version)
Screen capture of the index page of Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2.
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[1]Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2 (or www.fkfanfic2.com) is a Forever Knight fan fiction archive hosted by Jarvinia. The site was created on 8 May 2001 after it became clear that Mel Moser, the owner of www.fkfanfic.com (for several years the main archive for the fandom), would not be updating her site for the indefinite future. A footnote at the bottom of the index page says, "We just wanted to have a place for new stories to be archived until she can update again." Indeed, for a while it was sometimes referred to as "the interim archive".[2]

The site continued to actively archive new fiction until October 2006, when Mel officially announced that she had rebooted the original archive.[3] As of 13 October 2006, the second archive features some 700 stories from 98 authors.

Site Design

The index page of the archive uses a large screen capture from Forever Knight as its background graphic. This shows the Toronto skyline at dawn.

Stories are indexed alphabetically by title and by author. In addition, there are separate sections indexing series, works in progress, filk, crossovers, challenges, and poetry.

The site also hosts:

  • a collection of FK embroidery designs by A. K. Blake[4]
  • a humour page listing a variety of sig lines for characters from the series.

Site History

Over the period of active archiving, Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2 moved from a free webhosting service to its own domain name, and underwent shifts in graphic design.

Original Version

Screen capture of the original version of Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2.

The "interim archive" was originally located at http://fkfanfic2.50megs.com. At that time, it was co-owned by "Anita K. Blake".

The original background to the index page was a small screencap of the sunset behind buildings, repeated over the page. Halfway down the page was the following note:[3]

Hey everyone, this is a companion to Mel's original fiction site. Since many fans and authors would like to see their new fics in one area, a few of us got together and made this area. We're not trying to replace Mel's site, just take over archiving until she is able to update again.

Below that were the indices to the contents of the site, with a copyright disclaimer at the very bottom of the page. By 15 August 2001, the site held 178 stories.

11 September 2001

Screen capture of the index page of Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2 after 11 September 2001, with a notice commemorating the terrorist attacks.

After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001,[5] sympathetic notices were placed on the index page. Specifically, the message, "FOREVER KNIGHT FANS AROUND THE WORLD OFFER PRAYERS AND CONDOLENCES TO THOSE INVOLVED IN THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK", was run continuously across the middle of the page in a billboard placed between two sad "smiley faces", with notices about new stories on the attack plus a pair of commemorative banners underneath. This pushed the "interim site" notice to the bottom of the page.

There were 225 fics in the archive as of 19 September 2001.

By June 2002, the site had been formally given the name "Forever Knight Fan Fic 2" in a logo at the top of the index page. This logo is a large animated transparent gif in which, when the page loads, the words (written in the immajer-FK font) drift into place in the centre of the screen. The addition of the logo did not displace the commemorative message, which continued to run across the middle of the screen.[6]

New Location & Domain Name

A month later, Anita moved the archive to http://www.fkfanfic2.gryffonslair.com, to be hosted on Jarvinia's site. She posted the following notice to FORKNI-L on 1 July 2002:[4]

Please send me any fics that you would want on the site, I'm working on doing an update within the next two weeks.

I need them in the following format:
1- text document (no size limit)
2- author's name & email addy included in email
3- SUMMARY OF FIC & any warnings as to content

If you need help or anything, feel free to email me. The site is now at: http://www.fkfanfic2.gryffinslair.com[7] so please be sure to update your links and bookmarks. I will also need reminding of any links I myslef need to change, email addies or url's that have gone extinct, you get the idea.

-- Anita K. Blake in "Update to FKFF2 Planned", posted to FORKNI-L on 1 July 2002

Shortly thereafter, a domain name for the archive was purchased, courtesy of Janice Cox. (The site was first recorded at this URL by the Internet Archive on 4 August 2002.) Graphically, however, the archive remained unchanged. A large notice under the "interim site" message, said:

THANKS TO JANICE FOR THE HOSTING, AND TO JARVINIA FOR BEING THE FKFANFIC2'S NEW CO-OWNER!

This notice remained up for several months, but was shifted to the bottom of the page by 24 November 2002. By that time, the site name on the logo had been altered to the more formal "Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2". The new version of the logo took up less space, being written on a single line; but it was still animated and written in the immajer-FK font. The original message about Mel's archive was positioned immediately underneath.

Screen capture of the index page of Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2 after it moved to Jarvinia's site.
Screen capture of the index page of Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2 from late autumn 2002.

The site debuted at its new location with 332 stories.[5] By comparison with Mel's original archive, growth was relatively slow, reflecting the diminishment of the size of the fandom. Only five stories had been added by 16 October. Over the following year, the archive gradually increased: to 355 stories by 27 November,[6] 372 by October of the following year,[7] and 443 stories as of 30 August 2004,[8]

Current Design

The current design of the site debuted on 30 August 2004.[8] The notice about the site being interim while Mel's archive was down was removed from the upper part of the page and shifted to the very bottom, where a slightly rewritten sentence to much the same effect was appended to the copyright notice/disclaimer.

At that time, there were at least 443 stories in the archive.[9] By 4 September 2004, there were 548;[10] 602 by 15 September 2004,[11] 627 by 23 January 2005,[12] 648 stories by 22 October 2005,[13], and 702 by 13 October 2006,[14] around which time the archive ceased to be active.

References

  1. ^ The contents of this article are from the article "Forever Knight Fan Fiction 2" in the Forever Knight Wiki.
  2. ^ For example, on 22 June 2001, Sharon Scott posted to FORKNI-L asking, "Would someone either post or send me email the URL for the interim fkfanfic site?"[1]
  3. ^ In 2006, when Mel Moser resumed archiving on www.fkfanfic.com, the substitute archive ceased. Its owners, deferring to the larger, older archive, had no way of knowing that Mel's rebooted version—requiring authors to upload stories themselves—would prove a failure, at least in terms of archiving new fiction. Nevertheless, even when this became clear, they never resumed updates to www.fkfanfic2.com.
  4. ^ The embroidery was run as a business; and fans could order the designs machine-embroidered on a variety of fabrics, e.g. on totes, towels, duffle bags, and the like.
  5. ^ The commemorative notices about the terrorist attack were recorded by the Wayback Machine on 7 December 2001.
  6. ^ The 50megs version of the site still remains unchanged on the web as of June 2015.
  7. ^ The typo on the link caused minor initial problems until it was pointed out the following day.[2]
  8. ^ This can be dated quite precisely, since the Internet Archive has a copy from the 29th with the old background and another from the next day with the new one.