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These pictures are killing me

I recommend doing this for any fic you like on ff.net.

Just in case.

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE due to the way ff.net is coded. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE SAVED BY HAND. Which means actively retyping it. Word by word.

IF YOU WANT TO ASSIST WITH THE PRESERVATION OF FANFICTION HISTORY, NOW IS THE TIME TO DO IT.

Pick a fandom. Any fandom. I’d honestly recommend starting with the ones with very small amounts of fic because those are most at risk for complete fandom loss. Start saving. Do it by screenshots, if you have to. Do it comprehensively—start on the last page and save every. Single. One. Make sure you include the header and any author’s notes. EDIT NOTHING, ONLY DOCUMENT. Yes, if that means someone misspelled something or you spot a misnamed character, you need to keep that error. If you can form a “network” with friends to save all of a fandom’s works, DO IT.

Do not skip any fics. We are not the arbiters of what “should” be saved. If you can get access to the forums in any way, save whatever you can access. I know some of that has been saved by the Wayback Machine, but not all. I can already tell you research into My Immortal has been rendered uncompleteable by the loss of the forums. That’s going to be true for ALL fics. Save whatever you can reach.

I strongly recommend using the following format for whatever you save, so it can be indexed later: fandom_fictitle_author_datefirstposted.fileextension. So for example (I’m making this fic up for demonstration purposes, don’t bother looking for it), naruto_blessing_ichigo98_07192009 would be Blessing, by ichigo98, posted in the Naruto fandom on 19 July 2009. This provides all the information needed to see if a fic has been cross posted to the AO3, and to run a search engine to see if it’s archived elsewhere.

We may not be able to save it all, but we need to save as much as possible. I can start a Google spreadsheet or something if people want to have a database to keep from getting the same three fandoms over and over.

As previous people in the chain have stated, the fact that the writing has been on the wall for FF.net for more than a year does NOT mean we were wrong - it means we are running out of time. The administration really does appear to have abandoned the site. So whenever the bill comes due for the hosting (and you can indeed buy hosting and domain names etc in large chunks - like decade-long chunks, in some cases) or whatever, and that doesn’t get paid? The site is going down.

There is no FF.net lead mission to archive or save it. There is no “I hope FF.net’s staff contacts AO3 so the fic can be archived.” If we want it saved, it is up to US to do it, and the time to do it is NOW.

Even if you literally go in there and pick a fic at random, EVERYTHING HELPS. Small fandoms, large fandoms, fandoms you’re sure somebody else has already covered - doesn’t matter. Do it anyway.

Please help. This isn’t a huge and co-ordinated effort. There’s no phone tree. If you are reading this, I am begging you personally to help. Even if you only archive ten things - THAT HELPS!

Resource for saving fics, please reblog because tumblr will eat this out of replies for having links in it!

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FF2ebook lets you download fics, but for some reason won’t let you select pdf format.

FreeConvert lets you convert to pdf or other file formats if you can’t use an e-reader.

Use this to save any fics, not just yours! Get them onto your devices, you can figure the rest out, but this can help with preservation.