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torachan
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otw_news_feedEvery month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.
On September 23, SenLinYu’s Alchemised joined Rose in Chains by Julie Soto and The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley as the third “Dramione” fan fiction-inspired novel to be traditionally published in 2025. In their article “‘The Year of Dramione’: Fan fiction’s leap to bookstore shelves”, United Press International (UPI) spoke with OTW’s Rebecca Tushnet about the growing appeal of fanworks outside of fandom spaces. Many publishers are fans themselves, Tushnet noted, commenting on the—often fraught—relationship between fandom and traditional media publishing. She also highlighted the deeper, intrinsic worth of fanworks:
… the value in fan fiction writing extends well beyond the potential for publication, Tushnet said.
“To me, it’s never about making the jump to getting paid for it,” she said. “People develop all sorts of skills and passions and connections through fan fiction and I would never want to flatten that.”
UPI posited that it’s perhaps, in part, this passion at the heart of fandom that serves as a beacon for fans and publishers alike. Ali Hazelwood, whose “Reylo” fan fiction inspired her novel The Love Hypothesis, reflected on what binds her to fandom:
“… it’s also just great to feel a sense of community and to get to know people, to find someone who’s like-minded and interested in similar things. It’s very hard to make friends as an adult. And I feel like I truly found my adult friends through fanfiction and through the fandom community.”
Hazelwood’s experience embodies a core purpose of sites like the Archive of Our Own (AO3). “As long as there are humans, they will ask what happens next [beyond canon],” Tushnet said. “The fight we have is their ability to find each other.”
Rae Johnston, presenter of the Download This Show podcast, asks, “What does it take to keep a website alive when every other platform is chasing advertising dollars or subscription fees?” The podcast’s new episode, “How fanfiction took over the world (and stayed free)”, explores how AO3 has risen to the challenge. Johnston spoke with OTW Board Director Rachel Linton to learn more:
The vision was to have a space for fans, created by fans, to make sure that it was a noncommercial space and to make sure that it didn’t restrict content. And those were driven by concerns that were raised by FanLib and by Strikethrough, and trying to make sure that there was a space that people could post what they wanted to write without having that controlled by what corporations wanted to support or promote—and to keep ownership over that work.
… There was definitely a desire to have a very clear vision of why we think that [creating fanworks] is allowed and why this is legal, and as part of that, we’ve had a Legal Committee from the beginning who … exists to support AO3 and to support fans—and make sure that their work is protected and that they know what they are allowed to do and can’t be intimidated.
… On the technical side, [AO3’s] code base was created for the Archive … we own all of our own servers, which is great for having control over the work that we host and the work that we do. … we’re entirely volunteer-run, so any work that we’re doing in terms of coding or in terms of upgrades or anything like that is all done by volunteers. … All of our funding is through donations. … we are essentially completely run by fan volunteers, but also run by the money that fans donate.
An incredible testament to community, Johnston concludes that “Archive of Our Own has managed the near impossible: staying free, staying independent, and keeping the culture alive.”
Looking for more OTW news coverage? Visit our Press Room! Here, you’ll find a catalogue of notable media mentions of the OTW and its projects—dating back to its founding in 2007. Browse articles, podcasts, and more to learn about how the OTW and its work and volunteers have been recognized across the media landscape.
We want your suggestions for the next OTW Signal post! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.
mecurtin
Women's textile production was *even more important* in China than in western Eurasia, believe it or not. The saying "Men till, women weave" was the classic expression of the gendered division of labor for more than 2000 years. Since the time of the Han dynasty at least both men and women were subject to taxation. Depending on the dynasty, either the household had to provide both grain and textiles, or each adult male was assessed an amount of grain, each adult female, textiles.I linked to my comment on Bluesky, and suggested that Chinese peasant households were probably more *efficient* at producing textiles than West Eurasian ones were, because they HAD to produce surplus to the household's needs: enough for the family, plus enough for taxes.
The cash value of the grain & textile taxes tended to be roughly equal (see, e.g. Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China, p. 186), but it's rare to see either primary sources or scholars admit it: the life-or-death significance of the grain tax, and the grain harvest, absolutely dominates everyone's thinking. But (as Bray shows) up until the Single-Whip Tax reform of the late 16thC (after which all taxes were rolled into one, to be payed in silver) women's textile production wasn't just a foundation of the home, it was a foundation of the *state*.
As is usual for premodern technology, most of the technical innovations Dr Devereaux mentions above were invented in China several centuries (at least) before they appeared further west. Originally, Chinese tax textiles were hemp in the north, silk in the south. Cotton became important starting around the time of the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty, and spread rapidly. I don't know enough about the workflow for hemp and cotton textile production to know how much of it went to spinning. The workflow for silk production is very different: silk is "reeled", because it comes off the cocoons as long threads, several of which need to be twisted together to make a workable floss.
torachan
aetheltozka🎬 Black Barbie: A Documentary: Directed by Lagueria Davis. With Lagueria Davis, Beulah Mae Mitchell, Maxine Waters, Shonda Rhimes. Tracing the origin of the first Black Barbie doll to the filmmaker’s aunt, who asked why Barbie couldn’t look like her, this documentary explores her quest for representation and diversity. 🔗
I really enjoyed this! It’s a combo of Barbie history and social history, with a focus on Black American history and culture (obviously).
Has interesting interviews with people directly involved in the creation of the original “Black Barbie,” people working on the then-current Barbie line, and kids who do or do not play with Barbies. I also liked that they talked about other Black dolls available before/after Barbie came out.
It’s a very personal documentary, too, as the director’s aunt was one of the creators. And there’s personal thoughts/statements about Barbie from the director threaded throughout the doc, which I also liked.
Recommended!
💗 Film’s website / All Watched posts
Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.
mecurtin
The standard description of the demographic transition has a important counterexample. Birth rates in France started falling in the 18th century, before industrialization or a drop in infant mortality. Guillaume Blanc's 2023 paper, The Cultural Origins of the Demographic Transition in France, begins with a quote from Malthus, in fact. Blanc presents preliminary evidence that France's demographic transition was the result of secularization & anti-clericalism.
A reasonable level of birth control could be achieved using only materials found in the home (mutual masturbation, coitus interruptus--not to mention oral sex, sodomy, or the other thousand & one fun activities that are not PiV), once French people stopped worrying what God wanted them to do. The assumption that premodern people *had* to have as many offspring as possible is not supported by this evidence.
Faustine Perrin (2022) suggests that the Enlightenment/the Revolution/anticlericalism led to a rising level of felt equality for French women in marriages, so that they were better able to assert their desire to bear fewer children.
In the present day, this ties into the work of 2023 Nobel Prize winner Claudia Goldin, whose article on The Downside of Fertility I just read because she talked about Bujold's Vorkosigan series in an economics podcast. TLDR: Bearing & raising children is hard work, labor even, and women are reluctant to do it if they don't have help.
torachan
tozkaLife Updates
This week has fairly flown by but honestly I’ve been spending most of my time petting the cats, wandering the neighborhood, reading fanfics, and doing a BIT of work.
It’s a very enjoyable life, but at the same time I wish I’d gotten more done than I had. Oh well! There’s always next week…
Media Consumption
📺 Tried watching several movies and nothing much caught my eye, so instead have been putting Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes on in the background. Some of the newer episodes– including the very newest ones that were audience-funded– are now available on the Shout TV streaming channel (or Tubi) which is interesting because there’s a whole new host!
📖 Currently halfway through a very fun Star Wars fanfic, The 212th Attack Battalion’s Guide to Staging Rescues by antigrav_vector and Quarra, and am very much enjoying it.
🎮 I have my (hacked) 3DS with me, and am currently playing a fan translation of Rocket Slime 3 (not as fun as Rocket Slime 2, but okay) and Animal Crossing: New Leaf (which will get its own page on my website eventually).
I also have Sanrio Characters Picross going, which is super cute– you get “stickers” for finishing puzzles and can use them to decorate the backgrounds IN the game.
I’m planning on writing a post later about my 3DS because a) I decorated it and want to show off, and b) there’s some fun homebrew stuff which came out recently and has made the 3DS community more active than it was a few years ago when I first jailbroke it.
Food & Dining
Went to the farmer’s market and splurged on a few things, including a packet of “Reaper” flavored cheese from a local dairy farm and a $10 loaf of jalapeno cheddar sourdough (yum).
Also stopped by a coffee truck and got a honeybun latte, which was good but perhaps just a little overpriced ($7+ yikes).
Web Updates
I need to get back into the habit of posting again! I have so many drafts, but very little energy to finish them. Until then:
Looking Forward
Next week is several fun local events, including a flea market. I’m also planning to go to a thrift store and perhaps a Little Free Library. And of course, reading lots of fanfic (and maybe finishing a book or two).
Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.
torachantorachan
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