Editorial

11 pages, 457 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Roundtable: The Past, Present and Future of Fan Fiction

by Lincoln Geraghty, Bertha Chin, Lori Morimoto, Bethan Jones, Kristina Busse, Francesca Coppa, Kristine Michelle “Khursten” Santos and Louisa Ellen Stein

Humanities 2022, 11(5), 120; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11050120 - 22 Sep 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4098

Abstract

Fanfiction as a cultural practice has rapidly evolved in recent years, from a community-based form of social interaction to a globally recognised form of narrative world-building [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

Research

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16 pages, 939 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Danmei and/as Fanfiction: Translations, Variations, and the Digital Semiosphere

by JSA Lowe

Humanities 2024, 13(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010020 - 23 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1496

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, Chinese internet publishing has seen a surge in literary production in terms of danmei, which are webnovels that share many of the features of Anglophone fanfiction. Thanks in part to recent live-action adaptations, there has been an influx of [...] Read more.

Since the late 1990s, Chinese internet publishing has seen a surge in literary production in terms of danmei, which are webnovels that share many of the features of Anglophone fanfiction. Thanks in part to recent live-action adaptations, there has been an influx of new Western and Chinese diaspora readers of danmei. Juxtaposing these bodies of literature in English in particular enables us to examine the complexities of how danmei are newly circulating in the Anglophone world and have become available themselves for transformative work, as readers also write fanfiction based on danmei. This paper offers a comparative reading of the following three such texts, which explore trauma recovery through the arc of romance: Tianya Ke, a danmei novel by Priest; Notebook No. 6 by magdaliny, a novella-length piece of fanfiction based on Marvel characters; and orange_crushed’s Strays, a fanfiction based on the live-action drama that was, in turn, based on Tianya Ke. The space described by Lotman’s semiosphere offers an additional model in which these texts reflect on one another; furthermore, along the porous digital border between fanfiction, danmei in translation, and fan novels based on danmei, readers and writers negotiate and vex contemporary culture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

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24 pages, 5727 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Look Back in Angria (The Brontë Family Fandom)

by Anne Jamison

Humanities 2022, 11(5), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11050114 - 05 Sep 2022

Viewed by 2251

Abstract

Transhistorical accounts of fanfiction often refer to the Brontës’ juvenilia, but such references are largely cursory even as they make a claim about the siblings’ Angria and Gondal writings that needs more careful consideration. This essay offers a more thorough examination of what [...] Read more.

Transhistorical accounts of fanfiction often refer to the Brontës’ juvenilia, but such references are largely cursory even as they make a claim about the siblings’ Angria and Gondal writings that needs more careful consideration. This essay offers a more thorough examination of what it means to claim “the Brontës wrote fanfic”, analyzing their family- and site-specific mode of creative production and consumption in relation both to established definitions of contemporary fanfiction and to their own sources and environment. Archival research has enabled me to situate some of the Brontës’ earliest texts in their original tiny, hand-produced format alongside the print periodicals and physical books that the young authors read and transformed. I analyze how the siblings’ books mimic the multiplicity and flexibility of authorship modeled in their local newspaper and how their drawing, marginalia, and corrections accentuate the interactive nature of the printed book. Viewing the Brontë siblings as a family fandom enthusiastically devoted to the creation and appreciation of transformative works helps make visible a model of authorship they share with contemporary fanfiction: authorship not just as collaboration but as play and exchange among diverse materials, sources, activities, media, writers, and readers. Then, as now, this mode exists simultaneously with commercial authorship but is distinct from it, as the siblings recognized, altering their plots, practice, and presentation for their novels. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

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13 pages, 685 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“It’s All Bread, All the Way Down”: The Baby-Sitters Club Club as Hyperfanfiction

by Suzanne Scott

Humanities 2022, 11(5), 103; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11050103 - 25 Aug 2022

Viewed by 1531

Abstract

In February 2016, co-hosts Jack Shepherd and Tanner Greenring launched their comedy podcast The Baby-Sitters Club Club. The “joke” at the center of the podcast was, of course, that two adult, cishet, white men were exhaustively recapping and dissecting a book series [...] Read more.

In February 2016, co-hosts Jack Shepherd and Tanner Greenring launched their comedy podcast The Baby-Sitters Club Club. The “joke” at the center of the podcast was, of course, that two adult, cishet, white men were exhaustively recapping and dissecting a book series from the 1980s and 1990s that was predominantly popular with adolescent girls. What began as a podcast designed to poke fun at the co-hosts’ serious “fannish” analysis of a nostalgic series of novels for girls, evolved into an elaborate string of “fan” theories, literary close readings, and (inter)textual expansion. Building on Paul Booth’s discussion of hyperfans, this article theorizes the absurdist worldbuilding, mythology and character development, and intertextual play performed by the hosts of TBSCC as a form of hyperfanfiction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

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20 pages, 4076 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fanfiction, Self-Publishing, and the Materiality of the Book: A Fan Writer’s Autoethnography

by Ludi Price

Humanities 2022, 11(4), 100; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11040100 - 12 Aug 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2926

Abstract

This interdisciplinary paper presents an autoethnography of an author who self-publishes her own fanfiction via print-on-demand (POD) services. It reflects upon the subject of fan writer as self-publisher, touching upon shifting notions of authorship, the format of the book, and literary practice, with [...] Read more.

This interdisciplinary paper presents an autoethnography of an author who self-publishes her own fanfiction via print-on-demand (POD) services. It reflects upon the subject of fan writer as self-publisher, touching upon shifting notions of authorship, the format of the book, and literary practice, with implications for both fan studies and Library and Information Science (LIS). While its findings cannot be generalised to the wider fan community, the paper posits five reasons for this practice: (1) the desire to publish a work that is technically, if not necessarily creatively, unpublishable (due to copyright laws); (2) the physical presence of the book bestows ‘thingness’, physical legitimacy, and the power of traditional notions of authorship to one’s work; (3) the materiality of the book and the pleasure afforded by its physical, tactile, and haptic qualities; (4) books can be collectible (fan) items; (5) self-published books can act as signifiers both of the self-as-author and one’s creative journey. The paper recommends further study be conducted on a wider scale, engaging other self-publishing fanfiction authors in their own practice to test the conclusions presented here. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

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9 pages, 202 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Examining Collaborative Fanfiction: New Practices in Hyperdiegesis and Poaching

by Abby Kirby

Humanities 2022, 11(4), 87; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11040087 - 12 Jul 2022

Viewed by 1867

Abstract

This paper focuses on how collaborative fanfiction has taken on new practices to accommodate fans as they gather new spaces for online communication as well as desire a deeper sense of community. Collaborative subcultures involve large groups of fans who work together to [...] Read more.

This paper focuses on how collaborative fanfiction has taken on new practices to accommodate fans as they gather new spaces for online communication as well as desire a deeper sense of community. Collaborative subcultures involve large groups of fans who work together to create expansive world-building for their fanfictions, or even create new fandoms from scratch. In order to accommodate the vast amounts of ideas and stories that enter their communities, they have adapted hyperdiegetic narratives in order to write stories that are “believable” for a concept rather than adhere to a rigid canon. They also develop a culture of inter-fan poaching, which allows them to borrow an idea from another fan for their own stories, without the need for permission. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

31 pages, 916 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Self-Insert Fanfiction as Digital Technology of the Self

by Effie Sapuridis and Maria K. Alberto

Humanities 2022, 11(3), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030068 - 30 May 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 5669

Abstract

Self-insert fanfiction is a long-established but still controversial mode of writing, even within the already marginalized genre of fanfiction. Moreover, many of the specific terms and practices used to describe this kind of writing have not been formally explored or theorized. We maintain [...] Read more.

Self-insert fanfiction is a long-established but still controversial mode of writing, even within the already marginalized genre of fanfiction. Moreover, many of the specific terms and practices used to describe this kind of writing have not been formally explored or theorized. We maintain that self-insert fanfiction can be understood as a digital technology of the self, building upon Foucauldian roots and extending into digital platforms and their affordances. We begin by making connections to the precedents established by “Mary Sue” characters, then continue by tracing the shifts from those conversations to more explicitly self-insert subgenres of the present day. Then, drawing on a survey of self-insert fanfiction conducted across four platforms (Ao3, FF.net, Tumblr, and Wattpad), we explore how such works can be discovered, read, and engaged with, and we offer specific observations about self-insert subgenres, as drawn from a selection of these works. Ultimately, we maintain, self-insert fanfiction expands the possibilities offered by other digital technologies of the self (avatars, blogging, etc.) by attempting to create a self that can be open to any reader who encounters it, although this expansion is not without its own limitations and drawbacks. We conclude by offering potential directions for further work in this area that fall beyond the scope of this initial exploration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

18 pages, 715 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reframing Monetization: Compensatory Practices and Generating a Hybrid Economy in Fanbinding Commissions

by Kimberly Kennedy and Shira Buchsbaum

Humanities 2022, 11(3), 67; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030067 - 25 May 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2422

Abstract

Monetization of fan-made crafts and texts remains a contentious issue in fandom. The existing literature documents fans’ rejections of explicitly for-profit, authorized spaces for fanfiction publication, such as Kindle Worlds and FanLib, but tenuous acceptance of crafts and practitioners who demonstrate adherence to [...] Read more.

Monetization of fan-made crafts and texts remains a contentious issue in fandom. The existing literature documents fans’ rejections of explicitly for-profit, authorized spaces for fanfiction publication, such as Kindle Worlds and FanLib, but tenuous acceptance of crafts and practitioners who demonstrate adherence to gift culture principles. Fanbinding—the practice of binding fanworks into codex form—brings to the fore concerns of author permission, intellectual copyright, and compensation for artistic labor prevalent in arguments regarding fanfiction monetization. Our research draws from survey data collected from thirty-one fanbinders and examines how they justify their decision-making on taking commissions through perceptions of acceptable fannish behavior and definitions of gift culture. We found that binders who do take commissions overall reject an explicitly for-profit enterprise and instead reinvest funds back into their craft, strengthening binders and commissioners’ ability alike to contribute to the fandom gift economy. Here, binders offer a concentrated model for how to navigate competing concerns about fannish self-preservation, gift economy, and sustaining a costly craft, offering insights into how practitioners of other fancrafts might similarly navigate a third-space hybrid economy to justify compensation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

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13 pages, 2789 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reading Serial Killer Fanfiction: What’s Fannish about It?

by Judith Fathallah

Humanities 2022, 11(3), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030065 - 24 May 2022

Viewed by 5789

Abstract

We have come to a point where the field of fan studies must acknowledge darker, more pathologized and potentially more sinister forms of fandom than we have heretofore. Serial killer fandom is, simultaneously, one of the most visible and least-academically discussed form of [...] Read more.

We have come to a point where the field of fan studies must acknowledge darker, more pathologized and potentially more sinister forms of fandom than we have heretofore. Serial killer fandom is, simultaneously, one of the most visible and least-academically discussed form of fandom, despite a general recognition that certain serial killers are, undeniably, celebrities. Serial killer fanfic is relatively rare, but it certainly exists. In this article, I build on some of the work I have already done on Real Person Fiction, specifically importing the lenses of metalepsis and multimodality as well as the self-conscious intersection between fiction and reality, to look at an example of serial killer fanfic on three platforms—Ao3, Tumblr and Wattpad. The article asks what we can learn from applying a fan studies approach to this phenomenon. Is there anything uniquely problematic about serial killer fanfiction, or is it the same process as what so many already do as a mainstream cultural practice, hypothesizing and imagining the ‘backstage’ of famous serial killers, as we do with all other celebrities? I compare the 2019 film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile which focuses on Bundy’s private relationship with his long-time girlfriend, his circus-like televised murder trial and his eventual death sentence, with a selection of Ted Bundy fanfiction. Of course, the film does not call itself fanfiction (though several critics have considered it to glorify its subject). I will argue that the distinction between ‘serial killer fanfiction’ and authorized, industrialized and popular forms of serial killer media, actually, has very little to do with the content of the text, and is based on a complex network of assumptions regarding its author, context and modes of production and reception. If this is so, the questions we should ask of serial killer fanfic are, in fact, much broader questions regarding our cultural fascination with serial killer media, challenging the pathologization of a specific, feminine-coded and extremely stigmatized fannish practice. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction)

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