#acafandom

[ao3demographicssurvey2024]

The AO3 Demographics Survey 2024 was an unofficial demographics survey of 16,131 AO3 users conducted in January 2024. We have just finished posting our initial results, so here is just a taste of the graphs and data you can check out now over on AO3!

We will be continuing to work on this project in the New Year, so please make sure you follow this blog or subscribe to the project on AO3 to keep up to date.

A full list of the survey questions with links to the relevant data is below the cut!

Demographics

How old are you?

Do you identify as LGBTQ+ in any form?

What is your gender identity?

Do you identify as any of the following? (LGBTQ+ related identities)

What is your sexual orientation?

What is your romantic orientation?

What is your race?

Is English your native language?

Which geographic region best describes your current place of residence?

Which religious or spiritual tradition(s) do you believe?

Do you experience the following? (Disability, Neurodivergence, and Health Conditions)

Usage of AO3

Which of the following AO3 activities have you done in the last twelve months?

How frequently do you use the following methods to find works on AO3?

In a typical week, how long do you spend on AO3 or reading downloaded AO3 works?

When did you begin using AO3, with or without an account?

When did you create your first AO3 account?

What languages do you use for reading and posting on AO3?

Works You Post On AO3

Which of the following types of works do you post on AO3? (Media)

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works with the following ratings?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works focused on the following types of relationships?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works in the following genres/tags?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post the following types of works? (Format & Miscellaneous)

Works You Consume On AO3

Which of the following types of works do you consume on AO3? (Media)

How much do you enjoy works with the following ratings on AO3?

How much do you enjoy works focused on the following types of relationships on AO3?

How much do you enjoy works in the following genres/tags on AO3?

How much do you enjoy the following types of works on AO3? (Format & Miscellaneous)

Fandom Beyond AO3

Which of the following types of fanworks have you consumed in the last year?

Which of the following types of fandom activity have you done in the last year?

Which of the following websites or apps do you currently use for fandom activities at least once a month?

Which of the following websites or apps have you previously used for fandom activities, but no longer regularly use?

When did you first begin participating in fandom?

How many fandoms have you considered yourself a part of in the last five years?

Which of the following types of media do you participate in fandoms for?

[transformativeworks]

Five Things LianneW Said

In FiveThings LianneW talks about researching acafandom and oral history projects as an OTW Fanhackers volunteer! https://otw-news.org/2p8tztdy

[mllebleue]

It is in my hands! Officially out July 1st from McFarland but on order now. 16 essays on Star Trek novels and their authors.

Table of content:

Introduction: Into the Vastness of the Novelverse ­Caroline-Isabelle Caron and Kristin Noone 1 Official, but Not Canon: The ­Tie-In Writer’s Dilemma David Mack 19 Feinting Forward, Barging Backward: Philosophical Analysis of Spock, Messiah! Anne Collins Smith and Owen M. Smith 37 Growing Up with Deep Space Nine: Recruiting New Fans and Teaching Ideology Through YA Literature Judith Clemens-Smucker 52 “300 ­full-color action scenes”: The Star Trek Fotonovels, Multimodal Storytelling as Paper Television? Caroline-Isabelle Caron 69 Putting the Romance Back into Space Opera Valerie Estelle Frankel 90 “The dream of stars”: Judith and Garfield ­Reeves-Stevens and the Star Trek Epic Geoffrey Reiter 107 Imzadi, (Almost) Happily Ever After and the Female Gothic Tradition Carey Millsap-Spears 124 The ­Tie-In Novels of History: Adaptation and Expansion in Diane Carey’s Star Trek Fiction Kristin Noone 141 “What’s in a life?” Grappling with Genre, Gender, and Liberal Humanism in The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway Mareike Spychala 159 Wind-Riders, Divers, and Merry Whales: Vonda N. McIntyre’s Star Trek Novels Una McCormack 174 “The sheer unpredictability of the insane, demented galaxy”: Peter David’s New Frontier Novels Val Nolan 192 The Hurt and the Comfort in J.M. Dillard’s Mindshadow: ­Tie-In Novels and/as Fanfiction Agnieszka Urbańczyk 209 Surviving the Borg? Exploring Vengeance and Humanity in Peter David’s Vendetta Brian de Ruiter 226 Contaminated Community in Jean Lorrah’s The IDIC Epidemic Leah Faye Norris 243 Kira Nerys: Bajor and Beyond Sherry Ginn 255 A Coda on Coda Caroline-Isabelle Caron 266

[ohmypreciousgirl]

Por que estudar fãs? O papel do campo de Estudos de Fãs na atualidade

Para iniciarmos as atividades do semestre 2024.1 no Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas de Fanfic, eu apresentarei uma palestra sobre a relevância de estudar fãs e fandom na modernidade e as diferentes ondas de Estudos de Fãs.

Como o NEPF está sempre trazendo projetos para introduzir os Estudos de Fãs à universidade, esse semestre não será diferente! Além da palestra, falaremos um pouco sobre os projetos ativos do núcleo e alguns planos para o semestre.

A palestra será online e ocorrerá no dia 05/04 às 19h (GMT -3). O link para a palestra está disponível aqui.

A palestra é aberta ao público! Quem desejar receber uma declaração de participação será disponibilizado um documento no dia do evento para preencher com seus dados para poder receber a declaração.

Eu e o NEPF contamos com sua presença para mais um evento do nosso núcleo!

[lurkingteapot]

It's here! I'm enjoying myself a lot and thought I'd share some bits and pieces, again, starting with the introduction.

Introduction: Boys Love (BL) Media and Its Asian Transfigurations by James Welker, in: Welker (editor), Queer Transfigurations. Boys Love Media in Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2022. p. 1–16. [Jstor]

I took notes by hand while reading, tried to type them up as coherently as possible here.

BL is an umbrella term for all sorts of media (going by volume, the primary mode is still written – prose or manga) that depict male-male romantic and sexual relationships and are primarily marketed to young women. BL has had fans 'around the globe' since the 1980s, especially in East and Southeast Asia, though it really 'dramatically expanded in popularity in the current century'. (p. 1)

Asian BL fandoms do not exist in isolation from the rest of the world (p. 2)

queer as in a) gender/sexuality-related expressions that flout social norms, b) queering norms of (female) sexuality and c) creating breathing room for queer individuals (p. 2)

there's no clear line between BL and LGBTQ media (p. 2)

why 'transfiguration'? -> transit from one culture to another (p. 3)

BL: minor and often underground as a genre, still

4 overlapping attributes of BL and fandoms: 1) transnational + transcultural media phenomenon, 2) useful tool for unsettling gender and sexual norms, 3) cannot be separated from LGBTQ issues including politics, 4) BL is political (p. 4)

note on piracy of BL, its impact on Japanese producers, and how this is rarely discussed (*) (p-5)

1980s/1990s: BL makes it to Taiwan, Korea, China -> category blurring? (p. 5)

shipping as a part of BL fandom (p. 6)

legal issues in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore (p. 7)

shipping/fan works were a part of BL culture from the 1970s onwards (cf. Welker 2015) (p. 7)

seme/uke dynamics + shifts? -> mutability of gender (p. 8)

way of alternatives to masc stereotypes for cishet men (fudanshi) (p. 8)

blurring of gay and straight? (p. 8/9)

taboos around BL in Japan arise because it's often sexual and women engage with it (p. 9)

elsewhere in Asia: BL often serves as 'first conscious contact' for middle-class Indian and Indonesian fans with homosexuality -> may prompt reconsideration of own preconceptions/ideas/religious doctrine. (p. 9)

"representational appropriation" of images of gay men (cf. Ishida 2007) (p. 10)

fans turning activist for queer rights in Taiwan (p. 10/11)

rosy image of Japan among gay male fans of BL in mainland China (p. 10)

BL as progressive force for good (p. 10)

impact of US lawmaking on international fan communities (p. 10)

fan wars in South Korea (odeokku vs hujoshi) ca 2016; -> more recently: SK version of yaoi ronsou? (p. 11)

BL queer in that it flouts and facilitates the flouting of sexual and gender norms, has been pushing cishet fans to think about queer rights and the social standing of queer folks, sometimes even pushed fans to activism (p. 12)

grouping chapters under national/regional headings potentially misleading -> borders not so clear in the lives of fans and the texts they engage with (p. 13)

(*) I would LOVE to read more about this personally, anyone got anything? point me!

… this took entirely too long and I REALLY need to work on my handwriting, but I hope this might've been interesting to some. If you read this book (or anything else from the realm of BL scholarship), feel free to hmu, I'm an amateur but I love to talk this sort of stuff!

[imwiththefans]

Sökes: svensktalande fanartists till ett examensarbete av ett fellow fan, inriktning bildpedagogik. Hur funkar fandom som läranderum för skapande? Skicka ett meddelande om du kan tänka dig att delta, helt anonymt såklart!

[captains0lo]

no but fun fact though-theres a lot of parallels to be made between fandom and folk culture. Basically, according to several fan studies scholars working as far back as the 90s-when fan studies kinda became a THING because of Henry Jenkins-fandom is the re-folkization of culture: we take mass produced and distributed media and turn it into a popular culture through processes fairly similar to the old workings of 19th century american folk culture. That folk culture of DIY music, stories and crafts all drawing on similar-ish stories passed down orally and always a little changed from version to version had been replaced in the 20th century by cinema, radio, the standardization of stories into a culture of mass entertainment thats distributed to us by studios and producers who put it in front of our passive eyeballs. we ceased participating and it became something different to folk culture: mass culture.

Fan culture is inherently participative-even if you dont write fanfic, you probably participate in discourse to some degree right?-we are an ACTIVE audience, we folked mass culture into our own mythical texts that we appropriate and rewrite for ourselves; thats what popular culture is, mass culture folked and made into myth, a moving text in the hearts and minds of fans. its not insanity, thats literally what fandom is.

on tumblr you can say words such as ‘doctor who is like mythology to me. it’s like an ongoing cosmogonic folktale’ and you will recieve 5 notes from people that are willing to indulge your insanity. in real life you say things like how are the kids and was your holiday fun and the weather’s lovely this morning. and i think that’s beautiful. autism.com/careers

[mllebleue]

Pre-order now: Star Trek and the Tragic Hybrid: Children of Two Worlds from Spock to Soji

[onracismandfandom]

Call for civil inattention: “RaceFail ’09” and counterpublics on the internet

By Jiyeon Kang, Department of Communication Studies, International Programs, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA

Abstract:

Scholarship of counterpublics has long illuminated the rhetorical dynamics whereby the dominant public excludes marginalized groups from the public sphere and labels them undeserving of coexistence. However, the hypertextual architecture of the internet upends this inside–outside distinction, inverting challenges to and opportunities for a counterpublic. As illustrated by the course of “RaceFail ’09,” a debate over cultural appropriation and racism in online science fiction and fantasy fandom, the internet’s architecture makes it easy for a counterpublic to enter and draw attention from the broad public but much more difficult to maintain separation and preserve its boundaries from unwanted encroachment. Here I reread the norms of inclusion and transparency as historically specific constructs of canonical public sphere theories, and propose a consideration of particular challenges that counterpublics encounter online, including imposed labor, difficulty of withdrawal, and unwanted attention. I end the article with a proposal for civil inattention as a potential ethic for coexistence of publics and counterpublics on the internet.

[mllebleue]

For Trekkies and Trekkers, for K/S lovers and fandom afficionados:

Available for pre-order, out early Summer 2024.

[mllebleue]

So the moderately good news is that the ao3 dataset has been "permanently disabled". The bad news is that it's been downloaded almost 2000 times before it was taken down.

ATTENTION ALL AO3 AUTHORS

If you are not already aware, a user by the name of nyuuzyou has posted every AO3 work numbered 1 through 63200000 that was not archive locked to the AI website Hugging Face in a public dataset. This means every work published as of March of this year that isn’t archive-locked is in that dataset.

I strongly advise going to nyuuzyou’s archiveofourown dataset on Huggingface.co and creating a discussion thread reporting the work IDs of your fics to have them taken out of the dataset. As of writing this, 16 discussion threads have been opened, 14 of which are copyright infringement claims from authors, one of which is my own claim.

This dataset has already been an attempted takedown by HF staff, but nyuuzyou filed a counterclaim and the dataset went back up.

Let’s show this AI data scraper who they’re messing with.

[lowrahh]

Hey, remember gaypirates.club?

The little Mastodon server half of the OFMD fandom flocked to back in 2023, when we briefly thought Twitter was about to die?

That little server is shutting down at the end of this month (announced by @unicorndeathrace last week), and I'm here to urge everyone who has an account there to migrate that account to a different Mastodon server, even if you're only semi-active or abandoned your account long ago.

Mastodon lets you keep your follower & following lists – if Bluesky and/or Tumblr ever go down or fully enshittify, it'll be good to have your Mastodon account as a backup, with as many of those connections as possible still intact. The more people do this, the easier it will be to find your fandom friends in the next social media apocalypse!

It's actually a pretty simple process, and I wrote a step-by-step guide to explain how it works. You can read the whole thing here, but I'll share an abridged version here, aimed specifically at folks who aren't super familiar with Mastodon!

Part 1: How to find a new server (= instance)

The part people tend to struggle with is picking a home for their new account, so I've dedicated the largest chunk of this guide to that, but I'll also give some recommendations in case you find that part too overwhelming.

No matter what instance you choose, you'll be able to connect and interact with folks on all the other instances, unless their instance is blocking yours or vice versa!

The most important things to consider are:

What kind of community you want most to connect (if your answer to that is fandom, scroll down for a list of fannish instances!)

What kind of content you want to post/see

What you don't want to see

👉 Have a look at your potential new instance's “About” page (for example, gaypirates.club/about) for its individual Server Rules, Community Guidelines, and blocked (“moderated”) servers.

If you want to post smutty fanart or fic, make sure the server rules allow not just nudity/NSFW but also ~erotic content~! You should also check the exact conditions – for example, most instances will require a CW and/or tag, and some don't allow NSFW content in public posts.

You'll find lists of selected instances, sorted by category, at the links below. There are instances focused on fandom, queer community, specific regions/languages, instances for artists, writers, gamers, musicians – you get the idea!

If all that sounds overwhelming or just too hyper-specific, have a look at the “General” category!

If scrolling through lists isn't your thing, this little wizard can give you suggestions based on what you're personally looking for in a server:

❤️ If you just wanna hang out with fellow fans, I recommend joining another fannish instance! ❤️

Personally, I chose blorbo.social! If you're curious as to why, check out this post – it mostly boils down to “I like their server rules, and some of my moots are there already.” (hi @xieliansbignaturals & @ofmdrecaps & most recently @hamykia ... and anyone else I forgot, sorry I can never remember who all is on Tumblr XD)

Having said all that, I also encourage you to check out other fannish instances! Below are a few I've come across but am less familiar with than blorbo.social.

❗Note that this is not an endorsement of any of these servers – I skimmed their server rules but don't really know enough about any of them to say whether I'd personally recommend them! That said, if you happen to know that any of them are actually horrible, please do let me know and I'll remove them.

FederatedFandom.net:

Adult-only “server for the girls & the gays & seeks to provide a trans-inclusive, anti-racist space”;

NSFW images must be under a CW;

no “AI” content allowed.

fandom.ink:

18+ instance

“small instance designed for lovers of fanfic, fan art, fan meta/acafandom, fannish communities, and blorbos of all kinds”

erotic content limited to followers-only or unlisted posts

no auto-crossposting from other platforms

retro.pizza

Queer-run “poly-fandom nerd culture server”

NSFW, spoilers & potentially triggering content must be under a CW (see sever rules & their “Director's Cut” for examples/details)

fandom.garden

“queer, anti-racist, anti-ableist space”

Nudity allowed, erotic content restricted to followers-only posts from 18+ accounts

Runs on a modified version of Mastodon (glitch-soc) that has extra features but is potentially less stable

FanGlitch.space

Adults-only

“no anti-shipper/pro-shipper nonsense” allowed

“adult content” must be under a CW

Otherwise pretty minimalist server rules

Runs on glitch-soc.

Part 2: How to create a new account

This part is so simple I wasn't even sure whether to include it, but it's been a while since most folks signed up, so I figured I should, just in case it helps anyone 🤗 Otherwise, just skip to part 3!

Many instances have a manual review process in place to keep out spam bots, but if you have an invite link from an existing member, your account will get approved automatically! So if you want to join blorbo.social, let me know and I'll send you an invite! 💖

Go to your new instance's website and click “Create Account” or use your invite link.

Review & accept the server rules.

Enter your details and set a new password.

If you don't have an invite, you may now be asked to share why you want to join. For example, you can mention that you're moving from gaypirates.club because it's shutting down soon; for fandom instances, just mentioning your main fandom is usually enough to get you approved! Once you've filled everything in, click “Request account”/“Sign up”.

Wait for your confirmation email.

If there's a manual review process, keep in mind that most instances are run by a small team or even just one person, so they may not be able to approve your account immediately. You may find more info about how long the review process typically takes on the instance's About page.

Congrats, you're in! 🎉

You may now want to fill in your new profile by copying over your bio, profile pic etc. from your old account. But you won't lose any of that in the migration process, so you can still do this later if you prefer!

Part 3: How to export & transfer your account data

The actual account migration requires a bit of switching back & forth between your two accounts, so this part will be easiest if you have them open in two separate tabs/browser windows on your PC.

Step 1: export your data from your old account.

Go to gaypirates.club/settings/export

Download all the CSV files (see screenshot – yours won't be 0 Bytes, that's just cos I used my new account 😉).

I highly recommend you also download the archive of your posts & uploaded media! While these unfortunately can't be imported to your new account, there are tools that make it very easy to look at all the stuff in your archive once the server has shut down, without being some kind of tech wiz! I'll add a fourth part shortly to talk a bit more about the archive – that step isn't time-sensitive once you've downloaded the file, so just make sure you do that before the end of this month!

Step 2: link up your two accounts by creating an “account alias”.

Log into your new account and open the Preferences menu.

Go to Account Settings, scroll down to “Moving from a different account” and follow the link to create an account alias (or just navigate directly to [instance URL]/aliases).

Enter your old handle and click “Create alias”.

This action is completely harmless and will not disable or transfer anything yet.

Step 3: import the CSV files you downloaded earlier.

In your new account, go to Preferences → Import and Export → Import.

From the drop-down menu, choose which file you want to import, then click browse, select the file, and upload it.

Repeat the previous step until you've uploaded all your CSV's.

The number of accounts you're following might not match up with your old account immediately after import, since some may need to manually accept your new follow request. You can easily open those CSV files in Excel, Google Sheets or something similar to see all the accounts in your list, and you can always re-import them if anything goes wrong.

Step 4: transfer your followers & deactivate your old account.

This final step will deactivate your old account, put a redirect notice on it, and transfer all your followers over to your new account.

Until gaypirates.club goes down (cries), all your posts will stay right there, and you'll still have access to your data exports.

Once you're ready to move to your new account:

Go to gaypirates.club/settings/migration

Enter your new handle and the password for your old account.

Click “Move Followers”.

Don't panic if some of your followers aren't transferred immediately. This can apparently take up to a few days (in extreme cases), depending on which servers your followers are on.

✨ And you're done! Now, anyone who visits your old account will still be able to see your posts, but they'll be shown a link to your new account.

[transformativeworksandcultures]

TWC 44: Centering Blackness in Fan Studies [Special Issue]

Editorial

Alfred L. Martin Jr., and Matt Griffin, Putting the "Black" in fan studies

Article

Mel Monier and Kristen Leer, "Since the moment pictures could move, we had skin in the game": Black horror podcasters as fans, critics, and creators

Osarugue Otebele, The (anti)fan is Black: Consumption, resistance, and Black K-pop fan vigil labor

Allyson F. Smith, Black fan evangelism and transactional fan participation space in the Hillman Bookstore

Kadian Pow, A true sista: Exploring intraracial fantagonisms among Black women fans of Scandal

Interview

The onus is not on us: Race and fan studies ten years after "African American acafandom and other strangers"

Symposium

Francesca Coppa, Vidding and the oppositional gaze: The pleasures of critique

Cara Marta Messina, "Missandei deserves better": A case study on loving Blackness through critical fan fiction

Onyinyechukwu M. Chidi-Ogbolu, To love and to labor: The Black female fan experience

Book review

Brandon Blackburn reviews "The privilege of play," by Aaron Trammell

[mllebleue]

Out in 2024 (probably second quarter) Strange Novel Worlds: Essays on Star Trek Tie-In Fiction.

[mllebleue]

🎶🎵Memories....🎵🎶

we should call it this again