Answered On Reddit Already But Still Reblogging This Great Initiative ! Loved Taking A Trip Down Memory

answered on Reddit already but still reblogging this great initiative ! loved taking a trip down memory lane <3

Interest in hobbyist archival research into *Artemis Fowl* online fan communities (2000-2012)

I'm working on a post about online AF fan communities in the early 2000s, and I am curious to hear whether anyone on here participated in or was aware of some of these groups (FWIW, I cross-posted this on Reddit and have a few notes regarding the francophone fansphere!).

Criminality (Fanlore Wiki link) was a fanfiction archive (2003-2016) where community members would share recommendations, create fanfiction prompt challenges, host fanfiction exchanges/events, and discuss the AF fan community (e.g., Mary Sues. Personally, I couldn't care less about the "quality" of people's OCs, as if I don't like a work, I simply stop reading it, easy-as, but fandom culture at the time was... fractious, to put it lightly, when it came to Mary Sues).

It's no longer possible to access the Criminality webpage; I can't even find much online about "breakthepressure", which was presumably the content management system (CMS) for Criminality.

Around the time Criminality came into existence, the Orion Awards collection was created on Fanfiction Net (~2001). Each year, fans would nominate fanfictions that they particularly enjoyed to be archived in the Orion Awards collection. Although I was too young to participate in fandom/use the internet at the time, my understanding of events (based on what I can find on the Wayback Machine) is that the Fanfiction Net Orion Awards community predated the Orion Awards webpage. The Fanfiction Net Orion Awards collection houses some, but not all, of the Orion Awards winners.

For the Orion Awards, fanfictions would be nominated and awarded across particular categories. Using the Wayback Machine to access the now-defunct breakthepressure Orion Awards webpage, I found the categories for the awards, which I have attached in screenshot form below.

Around 2007, the community on Criminality moved to the breakthepressure site for the Orion Awards.

What I have shared in based in research rather than personal experience with any of these communities, so I would be curious to hear about whether any fans remember what it was like to be a fan online between 2000-2012, as well as whether there are any other fan sites/communities beyond Criminality and the Orion Awards that you remember!