thisweekinfandomhistory

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Hello! :) I listened to your ep on fan binding this morning, and I thought I’d weigh in on the topic of using fanfic tropes to describe published books.

I’ve got mixed feelings on this, haha. For romance books, it doesn’t bother me as much because fanfic often uses tropes from romance books, and then there’s a feedback loop of published romance now using some fanfic tropes. You especially see this in subgenres like monster romance or MM romance. Describing the premise of a book with a fic trope can sometimes make it easier to find what you want to read, because you’ve got BookTubers making videos called things like “My Favorite Fake Dating Romance Books.”

But on the other hand, I do get annoyed when I see a promo for a romance book that doesn’t give me any kind of a blurb or synopsis, just a bunch of trope buzzwords. 

I’m totally with y’all on being annoyed about using fic tropes to describe books in other genres, though. You can’t boil down an intricate sci-fi novel like, say, The Children of Time, with a list of fic tropes. 

Thanks for the message! I (V) think I agree -- there's definitely a huge crossover of both audience and authorship between genre romance and fanfic these days, so cross-using terms between those two doesn't bother me as much. But when people try to look at, like you said, intricate scifi novels or tragic contemp YA or historical fiction or something and say that they're, like, "grumpy-sunshine coffee shop AU realness," I want to Maim.

(I've seen people saying that The Hunger Games is grumpy-sunshine. And like... it's. not. It's about killing children. The romance is so secondary that if you think it's what the books are About, you are... the Capitol.)

And I think it's on the Patreon behind-the-scenes episodes more than in this most recent main feed ep, but Emily and I have talked a lot about how much we miss ACTUAL SYNOPSES on the backs of books! I don't care about blurbs, personally, and I care even less about misused fic tags being applied incorrectly to book-books. I want an actual synopsis. Give me that sweet, sweet synopsis. I KNOW they're hard to write, but like, that has to be someone's actual job at the publishing house, right??

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Going once, going twice, sold... unfortunately! This week, Emily and V look at an event requested back while it was actually happening: the 2023 fanbinding drama that nearly ended Dramione- and Reylo's fanbinding communities on Instagram. Mostly, though, it's an episode about people coming into fannish spaces without an interest in fannish community, and people who view fanfiction as "content" to be consumed rather than art to be engaged with or affection bids meant to be answered. We're probably preaching entirely to the choir if you love fandom enough to be listening to a fandom history podcast, but still.

Sources

Fanlore LumenVale on YouTube Bast

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory

You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. 

If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via our website.

Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

status update for the word count for this year: we're at OVER 370k words in the ao3 collection now. Which is an improvement of almost 110k (about 108k give or take a few) since last time I did the maths which is INCREDIBLE.

That is nearly 400k of femslash written for this year alone in rollovers and monthly challenges, not even counting the work our big bang participants have been putting in for their longfic.

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

SEEKING SOUND EDITING HELP!

As you may have noticed, we are woefully behind in releasing episodes this year -- we're recorded up to date, but the time that V took off from editing for bereavement in February just totally fucked us for the entire year and we keep getting more behind. (By we, I mean me, V, specifically. Emily is great and patient.)

If you like the podcast and enjoy editing audio, please contact @aimmyarrowshigh -- if we can get a couple of people to do 1-2 episodes each, we can get the releases back on schedule and live up to the name of the show again! We can't afford to pay anyone, which is why V does all the editing herself in the first place, but if you want to consider it a fanwork or an act of fannish community and would accept payment in "getting to listen to an episode early while editing it," we would be extremely grateful.

Thank you all for listening and for your patience!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

SEEKING SOUND EDITING HELP!

As you may have noticed, we are woefully behind in releasing episodes this year -- we're recorded up to date, but the time that V took off from editing for bereavement in February just totally fucked us for the entire year and we keep getting more behind. (By we, I mean me, V, specifically. Emily is great and patient.)

If you like the podcast and enjoy editing audio, please contact @aimmyarrowshigh -- if we can get a couple of people to do 1-2 episodes each, we can get the releases back on schedule and live up to the name of the show again! We can't afford to pay anyone, which is why V does all the editing herself in the first place, but if you want to consider it a fanwork or an act of fannish community and would accept payment in "getting to listen to an episode early while editing it," we would be extremely grateful.

Thank you all for listening and for your patience!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Grab your floaties! This week, V and Emily travel back 25 years (gross) to the spring of 2000, when the internet was the Wild West and everyone was an asshole. Or maybe not everyone, but wow, this one e-mail list for The Sentinel sure was. We discuss the difference between tags, warnings, spoilers, and censorship, and we also discuss just how much has changed in the fandom landscape over the last 25 years in terms of expectations and norms. Get ready to be kind of mad at people in the past! (Sorry to the requester, @erilyn-oz)

Sources

Fanlore Fanlore again

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory

You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. 

If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via our website.

Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

DestielPutinElection 2: Deltarune Elon-Trump Breakup Cataclysm coming to you LIVE this June 5th, 2025

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Good question! We can't currently afford transcription service (and don't have scripts that we can edit and post because our show is off the cuff conversation), so we don't have transcription other than the automatic read-along captions on Spotify yet. If you have any suggestions for ways to reliably and ethically transcribe our episodes without needing to be making way more money than we do, we'd love to make transcripts available for accessibility!

All hail Punxatawney Phil! This week, Emily and V go back to the rad 1980s and learn about a fandom they'd never considered before: Starsky & Hutch. It turns out these two slashable dudes helped to forge fandom as we know it today, and the publication of the fic "February 2nd" by Alexis Rogers is a big part of why we all love it when a blond man and a brunet man who are a sunshine one and a grumpy one bone down. Have you considered how to trade slash zines when they were "obscene material"? And will you do your part to launch TWIFH's hip new meme?

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Challenge 120

This week's challenge is:

forward

Remember, do with it what you will...take it at face value, twist it into the sublime or the ridiculous, look it up in a dictionary or thesaurus and use an uncommon definition. 100-1000 words. And, if you need them, you can find the rules and FAQ here.

Post your results to the AO3 Collection and submit them here if you want. (See pinned post for instructions on how to submit.)

This challenge does not close, but the intent is to be weekly, so mind your calendars, please.

Note: June 6 marks the 22nd birthday of writers_choice! We started on LJ in 2003 and ran for many years, then took a hiatus and restarted here on tumblr in February of 2023 with the same set of prompts from the original LJ community.

Have some cake in celebration!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

they call me DC Comics cause I also divide my life into pre and post crisis

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

I love fandom. Every day, you see a whole new sequence of words you'd never considered in a million years, but hundreds of other people did consider them and loved them and that's what it's all about.

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

I love this addition so much! 😍

All hail Punxatawney Phil! This week, Emily and V go back to the rad 1980s and learn about a fandom they'd never considered before: Starsky & Hutch. It turns out these two slashable dudes helped to forge fandom as we know it today, and the publication of the fic "February 2nd" by Alexis Rogers is a big part of why we all love it when a blond man and a brunet man who are a sunshine one and a grumpy one bone down. Have you considered how to trade slash zines when they were "obscene material"? And will you do your part to launch TWIFH's hip new meme?

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

We finally learned what Homestuck is! This week, Emily and V look at a very special double-holiday: April 13, the day that Neil banged out the tunes and, also, Homestuck Day. Who is Neil? The greatest pianist who ever lived, that's who. And what's Homestuck? That was our question every goddamn day of our lives until Emily dipped a toe into the extremely deep water that is the Homestuck multiverse and came back alive to tell V about it.

Sources

Fanlore The Entirety of Homestuck in Five Minutes

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory

You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. 

If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via our website.

Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Want to hear all of our thoughts on Thunderbolts* AKA The New Avengers? Want more our Yelena Belova voices? Then check out the newest episode of our Behind-the-Scenes show on Patreon!

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

I rented Casa Susanna from my local library, and I'm watching it, and it's??? so achingly sweet to see these ladies talk about this history of happiness with each other, and what that meant to them and their friends??? thank you for the recommendation!

Aw, I'm so glad that you watched it! American Experience always does a good job/sources really great docs -- SUPPORT PBS! And thank you for supporting your local library, too!