Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Croft Codex, a Tomb Raider fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had work on The Croft Codex
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

Founded in 2005 by HeidiA to house stories formerly archived at an archive known as Lara Croft’s Tales of Beauty and Power, The Croft Codex was a fanfiction archive for all kinds of Tomb Raider fanfiction. It ran until 2008, when the archive went offline as a generational shift in the fandom began. This coincided with fic culture shifting to sites such as fanfiction.net where authors managed their own work instead of sending them to curated, specialised smaller archives.

Open Doors will be working with HeidiA to import The Croft Codex into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanfiction currently in The Croft Codex will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages. The exception will be stories the authors of which have AO3 accounts.

We will begin importing works from The Croft Codex to the AO3 after January 2021.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on The Croft Codex?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work. Creators who might have used their real names in the original archive will be credited with their initials to protect their identities.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your The Croft Codex pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your The Croft Codex account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the The Croft Codex mod to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection The Croft Codex

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of The Croft Codex on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve The Croft Codex!

- The Open Doors team and HeidiA