#anyway yuri between two women who never interact in canon save me

[bumblingbabooshka]

Overhated Female Character x Underused Female Character [Patreon | Commissions]

[magewardensurana]

Dear Creator Letter

Under the Cut!

First of all thank you so much for taking on my prompts, I’m looking forward to seeing whatever it is you create for me!

Okay, general DNWs:

Racism, homophobia, misogynistic language, incest or pseudo incest, sexual content outside of what would be canon appropriate, pretty much every kink going, imbalanced power dynamics, soulmates, rape, animal or child abuse, animal death, AUs (coffee shop, no powers, highschool/uni etc), Avengers Endgame-Complaint fics.

Now onto my Do Wants

Found family, angst with a happy ending, casefics, bisexual ladies coming to their bisexuality later in life, bisexual ladies who knew all along, bisexual ladies who chose men over women (a given for this event), AUs that take canon and make it a little different.

My writing on AO3 is a good indication of what I like, and feel free to check out my tumblr for a good idea of my kind of jam.

Fandom Specific (honestly though these are just prompt ideas. If you have something else in mind go for it)

MCU

I’m not a big fan of Endgame, or most of Infinity War, so if you want to go ‘to hell with this, everyone lives’ then I am more than okay with that. If you want Thanos to have been killed shortly after GOTG2 because Nebula tracked him down and stabbed him in the dick until he died from it then I’m also okay with that.

Carol/Maria - I’d love something pre-canon with these two. Their backstory is so interesting, especially when you factor in they were co-parenting and dating under DADT. I’d also love lots of interactions with Monica&Carol and Mar Vell and Carol. if you want to go for a casefic then, since I do love Natasha, Carol vs a Red Room Loyal Black Widow?

Carol/Valkyrie - Anything post-Ragnarok with the Asgardians (all of them, even the dead ones. Canon is dead and we killed it) on Earth, Would love: a lot of Carol interacting with the Revengers and Valkyrie interacting with literally any female characters because the MCU is bad at that.

Sarah/May - So much potential with these two. Blended families! Second loves! Dating while older and with kids!  I know Sambucky is a logical sistership to this pairing but I’m not a fan of that ship.

Dragon Age

Cassandra/Literally Any Of The Female Protagonists - Big fan of ‘Cass should’ve been bi’ so I’d like something exploring this. I’d like something set during DAI (so after the death of her boyfriend) with Cass coming to realisations about her sexuality. However you want to write the Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor is fine but my preference is for Surana, Sarcastic/Aggressive mage!Hawke and mage Adaar. I don’t like Anders so if you ever want to throw in some Anders hate then I’m fine with that.

Josie/Bela - I’d love something post-DAI with Josie taking Bela home to meet her family, or Josie as a member of Bela’s pirate crew (and putting her diplomatic skills to good use)

Marquis of Serault/Well Read Pig Farmer - I just want anything involving my favourite former Tevinter magister.

Fire Emblem

Three Houses - my preference is for the Crimson Flower route, but if you want to go the angst route of Byleth and El are fighting against each other then Golden Deer is my favourite path. I also love AUs where the three Lords (or four, counting Yuri) team up with each other to fight against TWSITD. Other than that I have no preferences for what you want to do with any of the ships.

Blazing Blade - I’d love to see post FE7, pre-FE6 stuff, with Lyn and Florina being involved in their friends’ lives. Lyn teaching Roy swordfighting, Florina teaching Lilina how to ride a Pegasus. Plus, lots of interacting with Farina and Ninian (especially if you want to build on the Ninian and Florina friendship). Or if you want to do what they were up to during FE6 I’d love that too.

Awakening - No preferences here.

Resident Evil

Rebecca/Claire - AU where Rebecca is still in Racoon City and teams up with Claire and Sherry? Vendetta AU where Claire is there too? Chris and Jill are getting married and neither Claire or Becca have dates and go together? I don’t really mind. For RE2 canon I prefer the 1998 storyline (Claire A/Leon B) but if you only know the remake then that’s fine, or if you want to mix canons that’s also fine. For past relationships I love the angst Burnfield gives Claire but Billy and Rebecca I see as completely platonic.

Jill/Ada - Normally I’m a strictly Valenfield and Aeon kind of woman but I have a weakness for this ship. Jill is heavily associated with the colour blue, has blonde or brown hair depending on the game and is completely on the side of justice. What I’m saying is: she’s Ada’s type. I love the idea of Ada being at the police station early and running into Jill while she’s there in RE3. I’m also a fan of Ada trying to save Jill in RE5 when she realises it’s her actions in Spain that led to Jill’s brainwashing.

Ace Attorney

I don’t have any preference just as long as there’s no Franmaya, which is my NOTP or the Bad Cykesquill (Simon/Athena. Not only is the age difference too high, but they have a sibling relationship and Simon is clearly gay). I tend to headcanon Klaiver and Ema used to date but Mia and Godot never did. Background Wrightworth is always a plus.

FMA Manga//Brotherhood

Oliver/Maria - Honestly it’s not hard to see what I like when it comes to this ship because the AO3 tag is 99% written by me. Put Olivier in suspenders and holding a sword and I’m a happy woman.

Rose/Paninya - a woman whose town was destroyed in riots and a woman who has found a love of doing repair work? And they’re both friends with Winry who is more than happy to play matchmaker? The pairing writes itself. I know that the 03 anime gave Rose a dead boyfriend, but the manga never specifies. They’re lesbians, Harold.

Dishonored

Emily/Alexi - Wyman? I don’t know her! I love AUs where Alexi lives and is on the Dreadful Wale during the events of the game. Also a big fan of Jess Lives AUs if you want to have Emily attempting to court her childhood best friend/bodyguard while her amazingly embarrassing parents cheer her on. And I love the AUs where both Corvo and Emily are the co-protagonists (especially marked!Corvo, flesh and steel!Emily). I ignore the canonical age difference between Corvo and Jess and put them both as being in their late teens when they met. Basically anything where Alexi is still alive and not going to die is a good fic. If you want to include Wyman at all my preference is for female Wyman since I see Emily as a lesbian. Either she and Emily are exes on good terms or have always been just friends.

Anyway, I think that’s everything. Thank you again!

[archiveacademics]

Introductions and Definitions

Hello and welcome to Archive of my Academics the site where I, Chris, Master’s student at the University of Arizona and self identified nerd, attempt to dive into fanfiction culture to understand it better. 

I should start with a little background. I’ve always been a fan of things (Harry Potter, Twilight for half a second, the MCU, and Yuri!!! on Ice to name a few) but I don’t necessarily know that I’ve always participated in fandom (though that depends on your definition of fandom, which I’ll get to in a second.) Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written fanfic before, but I was never super participatory in whatever culture and conversation might have been going on in my fandom, aside from following a few tags on Tumblr, and maybe a few specific accounts I found by searching those tags. I never even read much fanfic, to be completely honest. Only four or five in recent memory.

Given all of that you might be asking yourself, “Chris, why did you agree to explore the topic of fanfic for class for a whole semester? It doesn’t even seem like you’re all that invested in it.” And that, dear reader, is where you are wrong. I absolutely adore the few fanfics I read, and I really enjoyed the few that I’ve written. I’m just...not a joiner. My social circle has always been small and that pertains to my online presence as well as IRL. But just because the volume of my participation is low does not mean my enjoyment of and investment in the community is. 

So with that out of the way, let me get to the main event.

What the heck is fanfic anyway? Definitions are important, a way to place borders on subjects so I don’t lose my mind amidst a pile of miscellaneous academia and the internet. To that end I’m going to attempt to define “fanfic”, a task which turns out to me much more herculean than I’d originally thought. 

Let’s start with the easiest definition first:

Merriam-Webster saves the day again. What would we do without the dictionary? 

Well, for one thing, we might have less discourse regarding the difference between fan fiction and fanfiction. (I’ll be referring to it as fanfic for the duration of my study.) 

Back to the definition. This one from the dictionary was lacking, to me. It doesn’t capture the complexities of the genre. Would you just define romance as books about people in love? Or science fiction as books about time travel? No, the definitions are more nuanced. So, too, is fanfic. So I moved on and left the dictionary behind. 

In “The Promise and Potential of Fan Fiction”, Stephanie Burt explores what fanfic can mean to a wider audience. She quotes Francesca Coppa, author of The Fan Fiction Reader who defines fanfic as “creative material featuring characters [from] works whose copyright is held by others.” This definition is definitely narrower, but is it right? That would mean every canonical/in universe novel written about Star Wars but not by George Lucas would be fanfic, which isn’t quite true either. 

I think the best answer to this question can from the podcast Fansplaining. In 2017 Flourish Klink (who’s name makes me want to write a short story about a witch who lives in a cozy cottage in the woods drinking tea with her cats, but that’s neither here nor there) and Elizabeth Minkel posted a survey asking their listeners what fanfic actually is and boy howdy did their listeners respond! Over 3,400 people answered a few multiple choice questions then held forth in long answer form on what fanfic meant to them. 

The answers ranged from funny to serious, from hard lines to soft edges. Some find, like the dictionary, that any story written by a fan is fanfic. Some think that fanfic must be written by someone active in the fandom. Others maintain that you must receive no money for your work. Some, like Elizabeth herself in the episode where the two hosts discuss the survey, hold that it’s all about intent. Did you intend to write a transformative* story about the characters you love so dearly? Congratulations, you’re a fanfic author!

By some of these definitions I have written fanfic, while by others I haven’t. Is this the part where I should introduce the shrug emoji and move on with my life? Maybe, but I want to offer a few more thoughts first.

Part of defining fanfic means defining the term fandom, and even the term fan itself. In another episode of the podcast, Flourish and Elizabeth debate the definitions of both terms. Is fandom comprised of only people who interact with each other about the topic in question? That would mean lurkers (which I kind of consider myself to be) aren’t really part of it? But they’re still fans, as long as they like the thing, right? Or do you have to interact with the fandom (even just lurking) to be considered a fan? Would someone living on an ice floe with a copy of Pride and Prejudice really be considered a fan if they couldn’t at least stand at the border of the community and see what’s going on?

The answer the two come to, which I fundamentally agree with, is that it’s all in the intent. If you like the thing and you think you’re a fan, congratulations and welcome to the tribe! The fandom is yours for the taking! But just like the geographical kingdoms of yore, fandom is comprised of many counties, each with their own culture and interpretation. And there are many fandoms, not just media fandoms but sports and bands and inanimate objects (yes, there is a candle fandom.)

So there it is. A confusing, not at all settled definition of fanfic. But a definition is not the thing. A definition doesn’t necessarily tell you what the thing means. So that’s what I’m going to spend the rest of the semester trying to figure out. What is fanfic, what does it mean to the people who write it and read it, the people who laud it and denigrate it? 

I’ll leave you with this section from Burt’s article, describing what fanfic can be:

“What is fan fiction especially, or uniquely, good at, or good for? Early defenses presented the practice as a way station, or an incubator. Writers who started out with fanfic and then found the proper mix of critique and encouragement could go on to publish “real” (and remunerated) work. Other defenses, focussed on slash, described it as a kind of safety valve: a substitute for desires that could not be articulated, much less acted out, in our real world. If women want to imagine sex between people who are both empowered, and equal, the argument ran, we may have to imagine two men. In space.

It’s true that a lot of fanfic is sexy, and that much of the sex is kinky, or taboo, or queer. But lots of fanfic has no more sex than the latest “Spider-Man” film (which is to say none at all, more or less). Moreover, as that shy proto-fan T. S. Eliot once put it, “nothing in this world or the next is a substitute for anything else.” It’s a mistake to see fanfic only as faute de mieux, a second choice, a replacement. Fanfic can, of course, pay homage to source texts, and let us imagine more life in their worlds; it can be like going back to a restaurant you loved, or like learning to cook that restaurant’s food. It can also be a way to critique sources, as when race-bending writers show what might change if Agent Scully were black. (Coppa has compared the writing of fanfic to the restaging of Shakespeare’s plays.)

Fanfic can also let writers, and readers, ask and answer speculative and reflective questions about our own lives, in a way that might get others to pay attention. What will college be like? What should summer camp have been like? How can an enemy become a friend? Should I move to Glasgow? What would that be like?”

What would that be like? I’m going to take some time to find out.

*I’ll be discussing the meaning and importance of the word “transformative” in the one of my next posts. Something to look forward to!