\[ **BT: [[literature#folk literature|folk literature]] | [[society#fandom|fandom]]** ] --- # fanfiction ## history of fanfiction ![[Popova, ‘Dogfuck Rapeworld’, 2018#^100bd3]] [^1] Fanfiction’s ‘roots trace back to the [[Star Trek]] [[fanzines]] of the 1960s and 1970s’.[^2] --- ## demographics of fanfiction authors > ‘Surveys conducted by the fandom community reveal that \[fanfiction] is produced predominantly by women and non-binary people (Centrumlumina 2013a), a majority of whom identify as non-heterosexual (Centrumlumina 2013b).’[^3] ![[Heggestad, ‘Pregnant Teen Wolf’, 2023#^d678ba]] [^4] --- ## types of fanfiction > ‘idk about you but I find it enjoyable to see how people interpret a character and what facets they may pick up on that I might not have or traits they may emphasize that highlight different parts of their personality. all these nuances and outlooks broaden my perspective. > > it’d be boring if everyone saw a character the exact same way, and if there were no creative deviations from canon. I can appreciate the variations and adopt what I want. deeper character exploration should be fun and freeing.’[^5] --- ### F/F fanfiction (‘femslash’) #### ↬ external resources: femslash - [Why should girlslash be more like boyslash? No, seriously, why?](https://havocthecat.livejournal.com/888183.html) (Meta from January 2009.) --- ### M/M fanfiction (‘slash’) ‘**Slash** is a fandom term used to refer to a type of fanwork in which two or more characters of the same gender are placed in a sexual or romantic situation or relationship with each other.’[^6] [[Inuoe Meimy, on lesbians who like yaoi, says, ‘You’d have to say that among lesbians who like yaoi, there are two mindsets. … it’s just that I like the fact that it’s about two boys and I definitely wouldn’t like it if a girl got tangled up in it.’]][^7] #### ↬ external resources: slash - [Minotaur’s Sex Tips for Slash Writers](https://www.squidge.org/~minotaur/classic/eroc.html) --- ## fanfiction tropes and genres [[The use of tropes by fanfiction writers is conscious, frequent, and frequently subverted.]][^8] --- ### always a different sex or gender (AU) **A question from 2008:** > ‘Hey, why do we call that kind of story “genderswaps”? They aren’t swapping gender -- they’re swapping biological sex. Admittedly, in most cases, they then make some sort of half-assed effort to acquire new gender habits and reflexes…maybe that’s why? We’re more interested in the part of the story where they’re trying to acquire the new gender than we are in the part where they’re suddenly a new sex, and that’s why we call them genderswaps rather than sexswaps?’[^9] --- ### mpreg Mpreg dates back to the 1980s.[^10] Distinct from [[omegaverse]], although the dynamic of male pregnancy can also be present in that genre. > ‘Mpreg has similarly been framed as both women’s writing and women’s experience. Busse, for instance, observes that “the focus on fertility and mating cycles in many fanfictions with male protagonists is certainly interesting when considering that a large majority of the slashers, and thus the writers who use this trope, are women” (2013, 291). If slash and the Omegaverse function as useful spaces for exploring gender dynamics, mpreg becomes a new means for exploring more nuanced narratives about pregnancy and reproduction. This can be a welcome shift, as storylines that feature unwanted pregnancy, marital concerns, childbirth, or chestfeeding scarcely appear on mainstream television … Therefore, in reading the pregnant men of mpreg fics as coded expressions of female characters, these underrepresented topics are brought to light.’[^11] --- ### omegaverse Also known as Alpha/Beta/Omega or A/B/O. [[Rose (2016) sees a potential for ‘transgender readings’ in omegaverse.]][^12] --- ## ao3 tagging meta ![[tumblr - embervoices (comment), date unknown - re. tagging trans or gender-different characters.png]] [^13] ### tagging system 1. **Setting (time)**, e.g. post-canon, pre-canon. 2. **Setting (worldbuilding)**, e.g. AU, Omegaverse, Pacific Rim fusion, etc. 3. **Main Story Elements**, e.g. Living Together, Road Trip, Team as Family. 4. **Tropes & Genres**: There Was Only One Bed, Fake Dating, etc. 5. **NSFW Tags:** Sexual Content, details about that. 6. **Content Advisories**: Alcohol, Smoking, Dubious Consent. 7. **Character Changes/etc**: Omega \[Character], Demisexual \[Character], etc. 8. **Final Warnings if Needed**, e.g. DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT, Angst with a Happy Ending. --- ## fan studies ‘Fan studies is an academic discipline that analyses fans, fandoms, fan cultures and fan activities, including fanworks.’[^14] ![[Largent et al., ‘Toward Some Fanons of Fan Studies’, 2020#^f43e8e]] [^15] [[In fan studies, best practice encourages the protection of individual fans and fan authors.]][^16] --- ## ↬ external resources - [Transformative Works and Cultures (Journal)](https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/index) - [A “Fan/Fandom Creed” from 2005](https://grayout.livejournal.com/63861.html) - [On Being a Village Elder: An Essay on Community Responsibility](https://fanlore.org/wiki/On_Being_A_Village_Elder:_An_Essay_On_Community_Responsibility) (also [here on Dreamwidth](https://oliviacirce.dreamwidth.org/250242.html)) - [Women/Writing 1: How Fanfiction Makes Us Poor, by cupidsbow (2007)](https://archive.md/20121130161309/http://cupidsbow.livejournal.com/239587.html) - [Why should girlslash be more like boyslash? No, seriously, why?](https://havocthecat.livejournal.com/888183.html) - [Minotaur’s Sex Tips for Slash Writers](https://www.squidge.org/~minotaur/classic/eroc.html) + [AO3 Tagging Inspiration](https://www.tumblr.com/insanitysilver/723288666671300608) [^1]: Milena Popova, ‘[[Popova, ‘Dogfuck Rapeworld’, 2018|“Dogfuck Rapeworld”: Omegaverse Fanfiction as a Critical Tool in Analyzing the Impact of Social Power Structures on Intimate Relationships and Sexual Consent]]’, *Porn Studies*, vol. 5, no. 2 (2018), p. 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2017.1394215. [^2]: Xiaoyan Yang and Federico Pianzola, ‘[[Yang and Pianzola, ‘Exploring the Evolution of Gender Power Difference Through the Omegaverse Trope on AO3 Fanfiction’, 2024|Exploring the Evolution of Gender Power Difference Through the Omegaverse Trope on AO3 Fanfiction]]’, in *Proceedings of the Computational Humanities Research Conference 2024*, eds. W. Haverals, M. Koolen, and L. Thompson, CUER Workshop Proceedings, vol. 3834 (2024), p. 906. https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/exploring-the-evolution-of-gender-power-difference-through-the-om. [^3]: Milena Popova, ‘[[Popova, ‘Dogfuck Rapeworld’, 2018|“Dogfuck Rapeworld”: Omegaverse Fanfiction as a Critical Tool in Analyzing the Impact of Social Power Structures on Intimate Relationships and Sexual Consent]]’, *Porn Studies*, vol. 5, no. 2 (2018), p. 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2017.1394215. [^4]: Jon Heggestad, ‘[[Heggestad, ‘Pregnant Teen Wolf’, 2023|Pregnant Teen Wolf: The Border Wars of Mpreg Fics]]’, ed. Jennifer Duggan and Angie Fazekas, *Transformative Works and Cultures*, no. 39 (13 March 2023), 3.2, https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2023.2193. [^5]: black-quadrant \[pseud.], ‘idk about you but I find it enjoyable to see how people interpret a character …’, *breathe you’ll pull through* (Tumblr blog), 12 September 2023, 4:33 PM, https://www.tumblr.com/black-quadrant/728236479827116032/idk-about-you-but-i-find-it-enjoyable-to-see-how. [^6]: ‘Slash’, Fanlore, last edited 29 April 2025, 17:38, https://fanlore.org/wiki/Slash. [^7]: Inuoe Meimy, in Katsuhiko Suganuma and James Welker, ‘[[Suganuma and Welker, ‘Celebrating Lesbian Sexuality’, 2006|Celebrating Lesbian Sexuality: An Interview with Inoue Meimy, Editor of Japanese Lesbian Erotic Lifestyle Magazine Carmilla]]’, *Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context*, no. 12 (January 2006), http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue12/welker2.html. [^8]: Milena Popova, ‘[[Popova, ‘Dogfuck Rapeworld’, 2018|“Dogfuck Rapeworld”: Omegaverse Fanfiction as a Critical Tool in Analyzing the Impact of Social Power Structures on Intimate Relationships and Sexual Consent]]’, *Porn Studies*, vol. 5, no. 2 (2018), p. 6, https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2017.1394215. [^9]: sherrold \[pseud.], ‘why ask why?’, *sherrold* (Livejournal blog), 26 August 2008, https://sherrold.livejournal.com/127691.html. [^10]: Jon Heggestad, ‘[[Heggestad, ‘Pregnant Teen Wolf’, 2023|Pregnant Teen Wolf: The Border Wars of Mpreg Fics]]’, edited by Jennifer Duggan and Angie Fazekas, *Transformative Works and Cultures*, no. 39 (March 2023), https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2023.2193. [^11]: Jon Heggestad, ‘[[Heggestad, ‘Pregnant Teen Wolf’, 2023|Pregnant Teen Wolf: The Border Wars of Mpreg Fics]]’, edited by Jennifer Duggan and Angie Fazekas, *Transformative Works and Cultures*, no. 39 (13 March 2023), 3.5, https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2023.2193. [^12]: Milena Popova, ‘[[Popova, ‘Dogfuck Rapeworld’, 2018|“Dogfuck Rapeworld”: Omegaverse Fanfiction as a Critical Tool in Analyzing the Impact of Social Power Structures on Intimate Relationships and Sexual Consent]]’, *Porn Studies*, vol. 5, no. 2 (2018), p. 14, https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2017.1394215. [^13]: embervoices \[pseud.], in a comment on Tumblr, of which I took a screenshot on the 25th June 2024, but which I now cannot find for Proper Referencing Purposes. Sorry. [^14]: ‘Fan studies’, Wikipedia, last edited 13 December 2024, 23:22 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_studies. [^15]: Julia E. Largent et al., ‘Toward Some Fanons of Fan Studies’, *Transformative Works and Cultures*, no. 33 (June 2020), 1.1, https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/2013/2549. [^16]: Milena Popova, ‘[[Popova, ‘Dogfuck Rapeworld’, 2018|“Dogfuck Rapeworld”: Omegaverse Fanfiction as a Critical Tool in Analyzing the Impact of Social Power Structures on Intimate Relationships and Sexual Consent]]’, *Porn Studies*, vol. 5, no. 2 (2018), p. 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2017.1394215.