"I love fandom, even if I struggle with what it has become these days---I believe in a fandom where we talk about > things that bring us joy, things that we love, and uplift others while doing so. I believe in a fandom that is a supportive and equal community first and foremost. I want to help make it that way. "

Welcome & What's New, femslash.club

I wrote this in August of this year. Barely a damn month ago. Already, I am struggling to believe it.

When I first began Sunset Archive, I was confident I could create a better place in fandom. I believed I could make a difference and cultivate a space within fandom that was positive, uplifting, and beautiful, where everyone is taken in good faith and everyone treats others with respect. I faced some hardships, like my site being blasted to the public when I thought I was ready but truly wasn't—and that lead to people accusing me of wanting to dox M/M shippers, people accusing me of being a data harvester, people questioning whether or not I'm a transphobe simply for having an F/F site (and being accused of only pretending to care about transfeminist causes because 'my f/f ships aren't popular'), and worse. I've faced harassment and name calling and vagueposting for who I am, for the pronouns I use, for my name, for my sexuality. But the worst and most hurtful thing that has happened so far was an accusation made against me claiming I censored mentions of Palestine on the site, when in reality I created Sunset partially out of disdain for AO3's anti-Palestinian sentiments.

What actually happened is that someone wrote a fanfic about Palestine intending to "educate others", but the fanfic read as deeply dehumanizing and objectifying to a Palestinian friend of mine. When that Palestinian friend told this author that, they doubled down saying it wasn't their intent so it was fine to write a fic where every character voiced by Tara Strong sits down to have a conversation on Palestine that ends with the main character saying ""See you all next week. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Mess", sitting in a cushy leather chair wondering how she can get her show's rating up next. (I mean, it is fine, technically, in the free speech sense, you just can't complain when people find it offensive.) My friend spoke up, this person kept being unbearably rude to my friend—claiming to care about Palestinians, but actually refusing to listen to one they were directly speaking to, felt deeply offensive and unacceptable in my book so I banned them. I did not "ban them for mentioning Palestine" as they claimed, I banned them for harassing my Palestinian friend. And frankly it's my site and I'm not sorry for it. If you're going to harass Palestinians for simply criticizing your behavior, you're going to face the consequences. I don't care. It's my site and I can do whatever I want.

(That doesn't mean I'm going to ban anyone I don't like. I actually hate banning people. I prefer to take people in good faith at all possible times—it just wasn't possible here and I am not just saying that. If you're going to harass Palestinians, you get banned. Simple.)

This person then went on to claim I am pro-censorship, and these claims were parroted by a blog that conflates proshippers to rapists in their DNI, saying directly that I am anti-Palestine when that is so far from what happened it is actually insane. And I'm offended, because it fucking hurts to be accused of supporting a horrific genocide when I don't. That is an actual fucking disgusting thing to do to someone and I don't think people realize the seriousness and breadth of that claim. And see, it doesn't fucking matter, because writing fanfics about Tara Strong learning her lesson does nothing to help ACTUAL PALESTINIANS. Me being offended doesn't matter either. What matters is donating and spreading awareness for the people who are actually fucking suffering under the most horrific conditions imaginable.

Here are some places to donate to:

https://connecting-humanity.org/ < - esims

https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject < - The Sameer Project

https://pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/forms/gaza-relief <- Children's Relief Fund

(if you have links to add/commentary about these links, please leave them below.)

Anyway, this has made me really reconsider what I want to do with Sunset going forward, because what I have cultivated is only bringing me stress. People have told me my community is life-changing for them—why can't I focus on that? I just keep thinking about what I'd do differently if I could restart Sunset with what I know now. I can't seem to find a way to let the good outweigh the bad. I genuinely love Sunset, but at times I feel like I've created a big pinkorange monster. I never wanted it to blow up on Reddit or Tumblr or anywhere. I wanted a chill, community-focused space—like my friend Melo of Superlove and like Steff of Ad Astra have cultivated. I don't know how to make Sunset into something that brings me joy to run. At 585 users, we're the third largest OTW-Archive site after Squidgeworld (I believe?), and I find myself only experiencing dread when I open the admin panel.

If I could do Sunset over again, I would keep it to only science fiction femslash. A friend of mine made a great point; why host an archive of things I'm not familiar with? (No hate—I love y'all—but I don't know most medias on Sunset.) Science fiction is the love of my life. I also find that sci-fi fans tend to be more chill in general—it wouldn't have lead to my site being noticed by rabid antis because they'd know the site wasn't for them.

If I could do everything all over again, I'd keep it invite only. You can only post to my site if I invite you or if someone I invited invites you. That way I'd have full control over my site and who uses it. I have been far too lenient with who I let in—it's how that rabid anti who parroted that lie about me got in. (And they still have their Sunset profile link in their pinned post…)

I think I really need to think about what I want to do with Sunset going forward. I'm keeping the invite queue closed for the time being. Not forever. But for a while. I'm in my 5th attempt at my freshman year of college and I need to focus on that. I also want to focus more on my original creative work going forward. I'm getting really into making TTRPG rules and I want to write one. I also want to write a novel. On my 2026 Bingo card I have write at least 15k on the same project and I just. I have to get it done. I have to. I have to be more of a person.

So, yeah. There's that.