All our eggs in one archive
I don't know the ins and outs of the AO3 situation and this isn't about that. I think AO3 is a miracle but this potentially weeks-long outage is a reminder about the putting of all the eggs in one basket.
A while ago I started posting some supplementary fic materials on a site of my own and thought about putting up the full fic when it was finished. This situation is definitely lighting a fire under me.
When I started out reading fic (1998 time) it was all over - on forums, on authors' own sites, on tiny dedicated sites just for that ship, on larger sites for the canon. LiveJournal and Dreamwidth did a lot of heavy lifting a bit later on.
Having everything collected on Fanfiction.net was great, then AO3 was even better. Importing the older archives and saving all that fic is amazing. AO3 was a safe haven through various purges. I started using it after the FF.net exodus in 2012.
There's danger though. We traded ownership and independence for the convenience of tagging and discoverability. Ninety-nine per cent of the time it feels like it's been worth it.
I always thought POSSE didn't apply to me because I don't do social media and whatever but actually yes, a huge amount of my online life is completely out of my hands. It ought to exist with me and then be crossposted elsewhere. AO3 shouldn't be the canonical source - not because it's not great but because it's not mine.
Currently published on Notion is what I call the 'appendices' which are AUs based on my current ongoing fic. Other fics have deleted scenes. I'll put it all together on a Neocities site. Not here on this site, separation of church and state and all that. It'll be fun. Style up some of the pages, add some notes.
Not that people would find my fic but I like the idea of it being available elsewhere and independently. Maybe I can check with a few writers and see if they want a hand doing their own archive.
There are still smaller archives and AO3 forks such as Brennan's fanfiction.lol, Ad Astra for the Star Trek fandom, superlove, Sunset Archive for F/F, F/NB, and NB/NB fanworks, and SquidgeWorld Archive - doing important work that should be supported. There's a lot to be said for the community on smaller, more specific archives.
I'll survive the drought because I have all my favourite fics downloaded. And I have various backups of my own work. Download your favourites! AO3 has one-click pdf and epub downloads! Make backups of your work! Host your own archive!