The Organization for Transformative Works @transformativeworks - Tumblr Blog

Contacting the OTW

In order to assist our volunteers in getting fans to the OTW team best able to help them, questions will not be answered via this account. Instead please direct all questions or information you're sharing with us to our contact form https://www.transformativeworks.org/contact_us/

For help with AO3 please visit https://archiveofourown.org/support

#otw #organization for transformative works #fanlore #transformative works and cultures #asking for help

ever-fawn

Mark in his boo sweater :((((

He means so much to me I’ve been so emotional about it lately AHHHGG

#fanart #queue a little dance

kritzenkriegen

*thinks up an idea for a silly quick piece* okay haha let's whip something up real quick

*idea gets more complicated*

oh no

#queue a little dance

fanlore-wiki

Featured Article: Sussex Retirement

Our Featured Article this week is Sussex Retirement!

A popular trope in Sherlock Holmes fandom, Sussex Retirement imagines what happens after the great detective leaves Baker Street behind. Inspired by canon references to Holmes retiring to the Sussex countryside, fans have spent decades reimagining his post-detective life, often with Dr. John Watson by his side. Whether Watson retires with Holmes, joins him later, or reunites with him for one last case, Sussex Retirement stories blend domesticity, nostalgia, romance, and mystery.

The trope appears across countless adaptations, from the original stories to Sherlock Holmes (2009), BBC Sherlock, and more. For many fans, Sussex Retirement represents the ultimate happy ending: a chance for Holmes and Watson to find peace together after years of adventures. The setting has inspired everything from emotional reunions to late-life love stories, making it one of the most enduring concepts in Holmes fandom history.

Want to learn more? Check out its Fanlore page!

------

We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!

quasi-normalcy

I think that Xena, for all of its ridiculousness and cheesiness, did a better job of conveying the allure of evil than just about any other series I've ever seen. Like it understands that violence, no matter how justifiably it starts out, is addictive, and that hatred poisons you until you can't feel real joy anymore, and it's strange to me that I've never seen it laid out so simply elsewhere.

rachandroll

...so THAT'S what sleeper cell activation feels like. Because yes, YES, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS, because Xena is such an interesting lightning-in-a-bottle-case study! While I would never discount the work done by the writers, Xena as a show is almost perfectly positioned both historically and structurally to consistently explore that theme.

The first puzzle piece is that Xena was a syndicated show at the tail end of syndication's total dominance of a distribution model. For those too young to remember a time when ongoing plots and prestige dramas weren't the norm, syndication is big part of why older television shows almost entirely kept plots contained to one or two episodes rather than having them span seasons. See, when a show is syndicated, it is licensed out to individual television stations/affiliates to be aired as reruns. The individual station chooses when to air them and in what order, and whether to just skip episodes they don't like in favor of the ones most likely to draw eyeballs, etc etc. The more a show is licensed, the more money you make on it, so there is an incentive to make each episode standalone to make them appealing to each station by enabling them to toss on whatever episodes they like without it being a problem for the casual viewer. Also, before streaming, easy access to dvds and episode recording, and the like, a show could not assume that even its fans would have necessarily have seen every episode. "Catching up" was not an easy thing, and reserved for the most dedicated, doing shit like physically mailing bootleg tapes! Therefore, shows needed to have a consistent formula that didn't lock out the person who couldn't watch last week for whatever reason. Characters remained within more of a status quo. Xena is a "monster of the week" style show, like X-Files. I mention X-Files intentionally, because it was one of the first to really break that no-ongoing-plots structure, and that shift affected its contemporaries, like Xena, who also started to follow suit.

That alone doesn't account for Xena being so primed to explore those themes, of course. Even staying within the same fictional universe, Hercules (which Xena is a spin-off of) and Young Hercules don't even come close to Xena's complexity on the subject. But that's because Xena's premise is perfectly positioned to interact with those practical constraints for this outcome in a way those shows aren't. The status quo that syndication demands remain mostly in intact is that 1) Xena was evil and really good at it, 2) she is trying to do good in the world now as penance but can never undo what she has done. Every episode is about Xena trying to save people while dealing with the consequences of her actions as a warlord. The fact that she was evil cannot be changed or diluted nor can the fact that she must continue trying to redeem herself, otherwise the show is over or is unrecognizable to the casual viewer. But this is also an action show, sometimes cartoonishly so, so she must also be fighting consistently! The core spectacle is violence and the core story is why violence is often evil. There is an inherent tension there that the writers either needed to interrogate earnestly or ignore, and they chose the honest, interesting route. They gave Xena a costar who is innocent and principled but loves Xena, and had her always asking why and trying to understand how Xena could be that person, while being put under similar pressures herself. They had Xena continue to use the tools she has, including violence, for good ends, and wrestled with the answers as to why that was ok, why the violence she did then and the violence she did now were different—and sometimes decided they weren't. They showed Xena struggling with falling back into those old habits because they are seductive and easy.

If someone asked "are there so many episodes of Xena where you find out someone tried to get her to change her ways many years ago and failed because that is a really great standalone premise, or because violence as a tool and power and vengeance as motivators are corruptive and hard to stop using once you start," the answer is yes. The show is cyclical because violence is. But also because it is syndicated.

It's fucking rad and interesting.

#important Xena history

dailynarnia

is jake gyllenhaal gay??

why would you ask us, a narnia blog, this

#happy pride #queue a little dance

motherblackcap

I heard it was that time of year again.

#happy pride!!#described in alt

hattersarts

gossip rag

ace-cyclic

[ID: Drawing of Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada smiling as Andy Sachs leans in to whisper something to her. Both are outdoors and may be stepping into a cab.

The drawing is above a newspaper headline and article. Text reads:

RARE SMILE FROM FASHION QUEEN: The Ice Queen Seen Yesterday Stepping Out with Former Assistant

By Christina Hatchet

Have you ever seen such a sight? We didn't know the ice queen could still smile but here it is in color. Not much is known about Priestly's former assistant Andrea Sachs, 29. She has worked for numerous publications including The New York Times, Rolling [article is cut off].

End ID]

#fanart #queue a little dance

nondelphic

writing tip: put words on page. hope this helps. i will not be taking questions because i have not done this

#directions unclear #now the local knight is cross with me for defacing his servant #and the young man in question has stolen my sharpie and will not give it back #please advise

coffeeecatss

Chill Touch

jadeandquartzes

[id: art of occtis tachonis. he is drawn in front of a night sky with a crescent moon, a stone tower, and fog; the art is at an angle. occtis has one hand clenched in a fist by his side, and the other held up, glowing with green energy. its bones are visible, and green energy wafts off the fingers. occtis's eyes and potion bottles glow the same color. end id.]

#fanart #id in reblog

nondelphic

writing is just sitting in front of a computer and making up problems for imaginary people while ignoring your own. fun and casual hobby.

#sometimes you can give those imaginary people problems that are analogous to your own #and then it helps you with your problems!#and sometimes you just put them in the cheese grater for the vibes #there are Options is what i'm saying

Updates to "No Fandom" Additional Tags, May 2026

AO3 tag wranglers have canonized some new "No Fandom" additional tags and revised subtag and metatag relationships of existing "No Fandom" canonical tags. Check out the latest news post for details: https://otw-news.org/y8pvnu7j

#organization for transformative works #otw #ao3 #archive of our own #no fandom #tag wrangling changes