Smallville Slash Archive
| Archive | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Smallville Slash Archive, SSA |
| Date(s): | 2001-present |
| Archivist: | Stone Princess |
| Founder: | Liviapenn and Calysta Rose |
| Type: | Fan Fiction |
| Fandom: | Smallville |
| URL: | smallville.slashdom.net smallville.slashdom.com (via Wayback) Smallville Slash Archive at AO3 |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Smallville Slash Archive was the central archive for the Smallville fandom. Affiliated mailing lists included ClarkLex and ClarkLexFic. As of 2010, the archive was host to over 4000 stories.
As of March 2012, the Smallville Slash Archive has been imported as a collection to the Archive of Our Own as an Open Doors Project.
The Beginnings
The Smallville Slash Archive went live on October 20, 2001[1], four days after the pilot episode of Smallville aired. The original archivists were Liviapenn and Calysta Rose. Dossier also contributed to the archive for a time. The current archivist is Stone Princess.
The ClarkLex mailing list was founded on October 24, 2001.[2] It included both fiction and discussion at first. A fiction-only list, ClarkLexFic, was later created.[3] Using the Automated Archive software, users could post fiction to the archive and to the mailing lists simultaneously.
The 1000th story posted to the archive was "Setting the Rules," by Shimmygloss, posted on August 17, 2002.[4]
Work Categorisation
Pairings
Until late September of 2002, the pairing codes that could be chosen when uploading a story were:
| Clark/Lex | other m/m | other f/f |
| other m/f | Clark/m | Lex/m |
On September 27, 2002[5], the archive was updated to reflect pairings that were being written in the fandom. Authors could now select from the following pairing codes:
| Clark/Lex | Clark/Whitney | Lex/Whitney | Chloe/Lana |
| Lionel/Lex | Clark/other | Lex/other | Other m/m |
| Threesome | Other m/f |
In October of 2002, "Withheld" was also added, for authors who preferred not to use a pairing label.
The archive was updated in 2006 with the following pairing codes, reflecting new characters and fannish trends:
| Clark/Lex | Clark/Jason | Clark/Whitney | Clark/other | Lex/Jason |
| Lex/Whitney | Lex/Lucas | Lex/other | Lionel/Lex | Chloe/Lana |
| Other m/m | Other f/f | Threesome | Other m/f |
Categories, Ratings and Warnings
As well as the pairings listed above, works uploaded to the automated SSA could be categorised (and searched) using the following ratings, categories, and spoilers.[6]. There were no required warnings.
- Ratings: G / PG / PG-13 / R / NC-17
- Categories: Alternate Universe / Angst / BDSM / Crossover / Drama / Established Relationship / First Time / Futurefic / Humor / Hurt-Comfort / PWP / Non-Consensual / Romance / Episode Related
- Spoilers: Episode related stories could be noted that they had spoilers for First Season, All Episodes, None, or episode titles from Pilot (the first episode) through to Vessel (the final episode of season 5).
Exposure
On November 4, 2002, three fans purchased a TWOP banner ad for the SSA. It appeared only in the fan forums, not on any recap pages. A debate over privacy and exposure resulted, with some fans feeling uncomfortable with the potential exposure and publicity. Other fans pointed out that that TWOP recaps had been referring to slash since the recap of the Smallville pilot, and that the SSA was (at that time) the #7 result for a Google search on "Smallville." Since the ad was only up for two days, it did not become a major kerfuffle, although one or two fans did pull their stories from the archive.[7]
Further Developments
On May 30, 2003, a "random story" feature was added to the front page, and on July 23, 2003, an RSS feed called "ssa_new_stories" was created. Users could syndicate new story announcements to their livejournal friendslists. The RSS feed broke down occasionally and finally died for good in July of 2006.
On August 01, 2003, a donations drive was held.[8] The archive had been hosted, free of charge, by Minotaur, for two years. However, the archive had grown to the point where it was using up to 15 gigs of bandwidth per month, and so the archivists asked for donations in order to pay the hosting bills. $214 was needed to pay for one year of hosting; the archivists advised before accepting donations that any extra money raised would either be returned, or donated to John Glover's Alzheimer's Walk. The response was immediate and generous; by the time Liviapenn and Dossier could take down the PayPal button, the hosting bill was paid off, and over $640 was donated to the Alzheimer's Walk charity.
On June 29, 2004, Liviapenn retired as an archivist for the SSA, turning her duties over to Stone Princess, who later turned it over to another fan.
On July 27, 2006, the domain where the archive was hosted shifted from "slashdom.com" to "slashdom.net." Manly older recs lists for Smallville fanfiction now appear to have broken links, but these links will still work if the ".com" in the URL is switched to ".net" instead.
After Minotaur, who provided hosting for the archive on his domain, died in 2009, the archive's future was uncertain. The archivists worked with the Organization for Transformative Works to preserve the site and finally got the archive moved to the Archive of Our Own in March 2012.[9][10] (See Open Doors for quotes from, and links to, some of the fannish conversation around the move.)
References
- ^ Liviapenn, Smallville Slash Archive, October 20, 2001 (Accessed October 2, 2008)
- ^ ClarkLex Mailing List, October 24, 2001 (Accessed October 2, 2008)
- ^ ClarkLexFic Mailing List, November 9, 2001 (Accessed October 2, 2008)
- ^ Shimmygloss, Setting the Rules, August 17, 2008 (Accessed October 1, 2008);WebCite
- ^ Liviapenn, The Smallville Slash Archive: New Features, September 27, 2002 (Accessed October 2, 2008);WebCite
- ^ SSA story uploading form (Accessed 28 February 2016)
- ^ Liviapenn, "Ooooh, Baby's Famous", November 4, 2002 (Accessed October 2, 2008); WebCite
- ^ Liviapenn, The Smallville Slash Archive Site Supporters, August 1, 2003 (Accessed October 2, 2008)
- ^ AO3/SSA = OTP ♥, AO3 News post, 5 March 2012. (Accessed 5 March 2012.)
- ^ Our Doors are now Opening!, OTW News post, 26 February 2012. (Accessed 5 March 2012.)
| Related Links | |
| People | Calysta Rose, Dossier, Liviapenn, Stone Princess |
| Places | ClarkLex, ClarkLexFic, Level Three Record Room, Wild Coyote: The Smallville Het Archive |
| Things | Archive, Automated Archive, Fan Fiction |