Transformation Story Archive

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Transformation Story Archive (TSA) was a website archiving amateur fiction featuring a personal physical transformation or its aftermath. The archive was created by Austrian web designer Thomas Hassan, who intended it to be a premier showcase for transformation-themed fiction and a showcase for amateur authors. The TSA was operating at least as early as May 1995,[1] leading to claims of being the earliest Internet archive for fiction of this genre.

Included content

Although a wide variety of metamorphoses were considered suitable content for inclusion,

fanfiction. One of the biggest of these, Tales from the Blind Pig, was represented by hundreds of stories contributed by dozens of authors over the life of the archive. Some stories on the archive contained controversial themes, such as age regression or overtly sexual content
.

History

During its heyday, the TSA inspired the creation of countless similar sites, often with narrower focuses. Its high volume of amateur fiction also led to its inclusion in lists of

USENET community that pioneered modern therianthropy[4] to creators of webcomics such as Zebra Girl.[5]

Accusations

The success of the TSA accounted for a significant portion of the Internet traffic of its non-profit server in Vienna, run by hosting service

mirror servers
.

Server relocation

However, the TSA would never recover as a community from the server relocation. The shift from Austrian to North American hosting led to the departure of Hassan from the project; he went on to join Austrian software developer Public Voice Lab, eventually earning a seat on their board.[8] Posting of new content to the archive finally stopped in July 2003 and the archive's users have largely moved to other websites or dropped from public view, although the site remains available as of October 2022. Much of the content has been redistributed, both during and after the TSA's active existence, however. Its sister-project mailing list continued under separate administration long after the stagnation of the actual web archive, and an ezine continued for some years, hosted on the current TSA server (and still there for archival purposes). And, despite its long inactivity, the TSA remains on most lists of sources for furry, transgender, or metamorphosis-themed fiction, and still receives occasional mention in wider indexes of online fiction sites.

Archive

Although the original archive has been inactive since 2003, the TSA Mailing list still sees new stories added regularly by old members of the TSA community, as well as newcomers. A project by members of the mailing list to produce a successor to the original Transformation Story Archive was started in 2007 at Shifti.org.

References

  1. ^ Linger, Doug (May 15, 2002). "Transformation Story Archive Mailing List FAQ Table of Contents Version 4.2". Retrieved 2006-10-01.
  2. ^ "eSCENE 1997 Nominated Stories". 1997. Retrieved 2006-10-03.
  3. ^ "Welcome to ANTHRO #7!". 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-01. - specifically "A Good Run of Luck" and "A Tale of Sand and Ice"
  4. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions for alt.horror.werewolves". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2006-10-02.
  5. ^ England, Joe. "Zebra Girl". Retrieved 2006-10-02.
  6. ^ Brown, Janelle (1998-09-06). "Is it Sex or is it Art?". Salon. Archived from the original on 2006-09-01. Retrieved 2006-10-02.
  7. ^ Flor, Micz (1998-11-27). "Sex slaves to public opinion - Public Netbase kicks back..." Crash Media. Retrieved 2006-10-01.
  8. ^ "The History of PUBLIC VOICE Lab". Public Voice Lab. Retrieved 2006-10-02.

External links