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Happy 6th anniversay, KAT-TUN! Thank you for providing us this useful visual metaphor for what often happens when other communities and fandom, er, collide!

Hi, MB! This is the first of a series of posts about fandom being written in response to a series of posts about fandom. The romance review site Dear Author is holding a week-long examination of fandom and fanfic—with somewhat confusing results. It’s my goal, through these posts, to argue for a more contemporary view of fandom and fanwork that falls more closely in line with a) how fans actually act in fandom, b) how fanwork actually operates and what it actually does, and c) the actual status of fanwork under the law.

Starting with the first post in the DA series, we have “How I Came to Appreciate Fan Fiction.” This is, overall, a fairly positive post, but it has a lot of outdated assumptions about fandom that I’d like to unpack.

To give Sunita D, today’s contributor, credit where it’s due, there’s probably always a moment of shock upon a first encounter with fanfiction, or doujinshi or yaoi, just like there is with any new concept. Like sporks! Or literal cloud computing! We might think of this first encounter as a moment of simple culture shock. Sunita even describes hers:

Of course I’ve hated certain books’ endings, I’ve wished for sequels, and I’ve thought about the off-page lives of favorite characters. But I’ve never written to authors to ask them to keep writing about a particularly loved protagonist. And I’ve never wanted to write my own versions of books. Not because I thought doing so would be wrong, but because it just never occurred to me.

Whoa, hold on a tic. Already we’ve run into the first of what will be many false assumptions about fandom and especially fanfiction in general throughout the Dear Author series on fanfic.

Okay, but most fans haven’t either. Most fans don’t need to, because our interaction with a canon has very little to do with what’s going on in the author’s head. This is a key aspect of fandom that many people outside of fandom get wrong. Many fans get very nervous and gunshy when the prospect of interacting with creators comes up, because those fans prefer as little contact with the makers of their canons as possible. Please note that this impulse is often not, not, NOT out of shame or embarrassment or fear of reprisals, but rather from a desire not to have the gatekeepers poking their noses in our business. There are exceptions, of course, especially in RPF fandoms; we are seeing something of a cultural shift happen as Twitter puts celebrities and fans in touch with each other on a daily basis. But for the most part, fans go about their business with little regard for TPTB (The Powers That Be). Which brings me to the next mistaken assumption:

Most fans don’t want to write their own versions of books either. That’s not what fanfic is. Many people think of fanfiction as the practice of trying to prove a creator got it wrong. Not at all. For most fans, most of the time, fanfiction is not about rewriting canon.

Sure, a fan can write fix-it fic—but then they’ll turn write around and write something completely different. Fans explore their canons and play around with the worlds they’re engaging with in order to do something completely new. Take, for example, what may be the most popular narrative genre of all: the post-canon fic. The canon ends—you write about what happens after. But that’s a story that can be told and retold forever, because the possibilities are endless.

In general terms, fanworks are about expansion, not re-creation.

Happily, this is also the conclusion Sunita arrives at: This path isn’t just about creating new romantic relationships or changing unhappy endings to happy ones. What if you think the most interesting character in the Harry Potter novels is Luna Lovegood and you want to read more about her?…. Even if you adhere strictly to canon, there’s plenty of scope for your imagination.

From this point on, Sunita’s post is a plain, fair and positive view of fanfiction; but it’s a simplistic one. It justifies rather than celebrates. Which leads me to…

My main problem with all of this justification/explanation of fanfic is that it’s just SO DATED. I have been hearing people “defend” fanfic or try to “explain” fanfic in exactly this way for the last ten years. Two thousand-fracking-two, folks (and incidentally those defenses were on the front page of the NY Times, hardly out of mainstream cultural earshot).

And yes, everyone’s experiences are different, and I’m sure Sunita’s explanation is helpful for many people. But REALLY. TEN YEARS, GUYS. COME ON. CAN WE MOVE THIS DISCUSSION FORWARD A LITTLE? How’s this for an advancement:

• Fanwork is dangerous because it challenges your worldview and makes you think critically about pop culture, literature, art, and the world you live in.
• Fanwork has serious repercussions because it operates outside of traditional modes of access to ideas, and it is predicated entirely on a culture of free exchange and non-monetary systems of value.
• Fanwork is complex and diverse. It opens minds, educates, and introduces new cultural experiences to the fan participant. It is anything but shallow.

SHIT JUST GOT REAL AKA THIS IS THE COOL PART OF THIS POST

In lit-crit terms, fandom is the living, breathing embodiment of Bakhtin’s ideas about dialogic imagination. Canon is monologic, expressing a single worldview, because usually canons have single or very few creators with one narrative goal in mind. But fandom? Fandom creates fics within communities, fics that are partly meta-commentaries, fics that arise out of passionate debates, fics that get reworked and turned into original fic, fics that offer serious literary critique, fics that seek to actively engage other fans in responding to them. Fandom is dialogic imagination.

Canon has to stick to the narrative parameters that define its medium. (Unless you are Homestuck and you are your own medium. Yeah, yeah, we know.) But fandom has no defined parameters and expresses itself any way it wants. Fics written in fictional languages? Have several! Fanart? totally and 100% canon compliant! Fanvids? How much is that geisha in the window, Joss?

Fandom constantly critiques privileged narratives, challenges established sociocultural ways of thinking, and expands the parameters of a particular established worldview. Have some of my favorite examples of fics that critique canonical narratives:

• a fic in which the character of Mary Poppins is reworked as an Indian ayah in order to offer an important critique of British colonialism.
• A fic written around Avatar: the Last Airbender which tells a post-canonical story of struggles for equality through a simple description of museum artifacts from various cultures within the Four Nations.
• A Hikaru no Go fic that realistically portrays Hikaru coming to terms with his sexuality despite his best efforts.
• An Inception fic that redeems the character of Mal (the protagonist’s dead wife) by imagining she was right all along.

WTF is this b.s. about fanwork being derivative? To quote Lev Grossman in his amazing Time magazine article, which you don’t get a link to because you have to SLOG YOUR WAY THROUGH THIS MESS WITH ME FIRST, these works “talk back to canon.” And they show their teeth.

We could have ended this post here (and I could have saved you 500 words, look, I tried, guys), because Sunita was on the right track! We could have worked with this! ugh, we were doing so good, Sunita. we could have been pals.

Except then we arrive at the money quote:

I hope that at the end of the week Rebecca Tushnet will come along with her shining orb of Transformative Justice and articulate this idea as part of the DA series much better than I ever could (ETA: YESSSS she has!), but in her stead: There are absolutely no court rulings on whether a work of not-for-profit fanfiction is legal or not. None. That means all fanfiction is legal under the fair use clause of U.S. copyright law, safe and legal until proven otherwise. This protection will most likely last as long as the Fair Use clause exists. To quote the OTW, “current copyright law already supports our understanding of fanfiction as fair use.” And as long as current copyright law supports fanfiction, fanfiction is legally transformative.

It’s dishonest to talk about fanworks as if they pussyfoot around the law when they don’t. The ‘sliding scale’ train of thought implies that “transformative” fics have narrowly succeeded in evading the clutches of copyright law while “derivative” fics are just hanging around waiting to be slapped with a Cease & Desist. This train of thought implies shame, illicitness, wrongdoing, and flat-out genre snobbery and elitism. Most importantly, since presumably all fanfics (in the U.S.) currently enjoy legal protection, many fans don’t act as though they’re engaged in something that’s illegal. So the “sliding scale” perspective doesn’t even apply to us.

For comparison, look at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. You don’t see them going “Manga is not a crime! Except for the really, really dirty yaoi, and the shota, and okay, maybe we could really really do without the vore and the bukkake because honestly, people.” Their argument is simple: either all licensed manga, in all its forms, is legal and deserves protection, or none of it does.

By the same token, fanwork does not “succeed” or “fall short” by managing or failing to qualify as transformative.

And here’s the ultimate kicker—a concept that this series of DA posts sadly seems to completely miss: the meaning of ‘transformative’ creative work extends beyond purely legal contexts. It involves the power of creative expression to change the creator and the audience. To many fans, the act of conceiving and creating fanwork is a transforming act, before you ever write the first word. They are transformative because they transform the reader. You and me.

Fanworks Cited:

arboretum. “A Resolution of Territory.” Livejournal. May 5, 2008.

Dhobi ki Kutti. “Promise of the पुरवाई.” An Archive Of Our Own. June 30, 2010.

electrumqueen. “i am the hero of this story (i don’t need to be saved).” Livejournal. August 14, 2010.

eruthros. “Ephemera from the Avatar Collection at Republic City University with notes and commentary by the archivists.” An Archive Of Our Own. February 7, 2012.

Glock. “one last thing about Supernatural fanwork” and “Sam and Dean Winchestgopal.” Dreamwidth. June 15, 2010 and July 1, 2010.

Lierduoma. “How Much is the Geisha in the Window? (Firefly).” Youtube. July 24, 2009. (Fanlore listing.)

Shirozora. “So if Castiel was Zoe Saldana…” Dreamwidth. June 10, 2010.

Various authors. “Victorsverse Art and Artifacts. including the Ars Atlantiadae as well as Earth documents.” trickster.org. February 16, 2011.

Hi, MB! I’m Aja! I’m your newest columnist and I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’ve been brought on board primarily to give a pan-fandom perspective to the work being done on this site, and to regularly infuriate you all with my hastily conceived opinions! So let’s just dive right in, shall we? :D

This is F(X)! This is going to be a long post, HERE, HAVE SOMETHING FUN TO LOOK AT.

I’ve been in fandom for 14 years. I’ve been active in lit, media, RPF, and Asian fandoms, writing het, slash, and femslash. If this is all fangirl Japanese to you, please let me know, guys, because I am going to be spending a lot of time talking about fandom in this column (which is why it’s called FANBATTE! is that not the greatest name ever) and I want to make sure I start from the same place as the rest of you! I feel comfortable claiming a general acquaintance with fandom history and culture regarding literary fandoms, “western media” fandoms, comics fandom, sci-fi/fantasy fandoms, anime/manga fandoms, and Asian pop fandoms. I don’t claim that my knowledge is universal (lol what is gaming fandom, what is Vocaloid, what is Homestuck*), but I’m here and this is my column, dammit, so it’s enough to be going on with!

My mission statement, in a nutshell:

Not just okay, but amazing. I believe that participating in fandom is a way of engaging in critical discourse about something you love, and I also believe that fanfiction is part of a huge, centuries-old cultural tradition of recursive literature. Fandom is so cool, and I hope you’ll stick around to talk about it with me, because I’m still learning so much and I hope ! :)

The focus of this column will most likely shift between general topics and discussions of specific canons. I have no idea what those topics and canons will be yet, so if there’s something you’d like me to discuss, please let me know, because I would love to!

* lol j/k no one can explain Homestuck

Now. Let’s talk for a second about Fandom Perspectives. oh wait hang on MJ said this should be a header

Fandom Perspectives~

This week, the respected romance review site Dear Author is doing a series on fandom and fanfiction. Unfortunately, they’re doing it wrong. So, so wrong, you guys. It’s like they’re trying to have peace talks while hemmed in on all sides by barbed wire. FACEPALM.

In most of the posts so far, the panelists’ starting assumptions and their conclusions actually highlight many of the problems you run into when you generalize about fandom. And since part of what I will do in this column is generalize about fandom based on my personal experiences, I want to start by talking about why such generalization is tricky.

Dear Author has obviously tried to round up differing perspectives and different topics related to fanfiction, so kudos to them for that, really. However, they have not secured a plurality of experience or even knowledgeability about fandom, so their discussions are proving very unsatisfying to many actual fans I’ve talked to who’ve followed along.

There are 3 main reasons for this disconnect between us (as fans) and the representations of fan experience in the DA posts:

1. So far, all of Dear Author’s assumptions seem to be built around the idea that fanfiction has to defend itself, that by way of existing it is encroaching on someone else’s space. This is not only a false dichotomy but completely antithetical to the way most fans do fandom and think about their fanfic.

   I can’t say this enough. To most fans, what they do is not shameful, it’s natural. And why shouldn’t it be? People have been reworking their favorite stories for centuries. Why is fanfic somehow any different? But if you start your deliberation of fanfic from the perspective that fans have something to be ashamed of, then you color the entire discussion with all kinds of icky assumptions and negative stereotypes. What I will be doing, in my first week here at MB, is unpacking some of these assumptions and attempting to offer a more balanced and nuanced examination of what fandom is and how it operates in various cultural corners of the internet.

2. There are no fans from non-western fandoms represented in DA’s list, nor are there any queer fans (at least none I saw representing themselves as queer fans) or femslash fans. If the only voices you hear coming from fandom are from people who are culturally closest to you, then you won’t ever have a well-rounded discussion on what fandom is.
3. The majority of the DA discussion about fandom is being had by people who come either from outside of fandom, or from within primarily het fandoms. By “primarily het,” I mean fandoms for which major emphasis is given to canon heterosexual ships within the source pairing, and whose discourse encourage their fans to adhere to canon relationships. (This doesn’t mean that there aren’t subsets of alternate pairing fans within those fandoms, but those other fans don’t typically interact with the rest of the fandom.)

   Among these primarily het fandoms, the major ones claimed by the panelists tend to be isolated pockets of fandom that don’t have any interaction with other fandom communities. Fandom, like every other corner of the internet, is as diverse as the people who are in it. So you can have whole communities within fandom that never talk to other communities, and then you can have whole corners of fandom that are focused around being multi-fandom hubs and pan-fandom hubs (like Livejournal or formerly Delicious), that also have their own limitations and cultural expectations that don’t translate out to the “satellite” communities of fandom. And that can become a problem because you can wind up with people who have drastically different conceptions of: a) what fandom looks like; b) what fans are doing fandom for; c) who is in fandom; and d) what kind of fanworks are produced by fandom.

   D) is especially important because the fanfic that you find on, for example, AFF, looks nothing like the fanfic you find on AO3. By the same token, someone who is in an archive-based fandom would not have the same conception of what fandom is as someone who is involved in primarily livejournal communities, or for example Tumblr, where there are natural overlaps and discourse between all kinds of fandoms and fans. The Austen and Twilight fandoms are both represented several times on the panel, probably because of their close ties to the romance industry. While these fandoms are totally different in many respects, they are both well-known for being primarily archive-based rather than pan-fandom-community based. This means that pan-fandom fans don’t talk to them, and they don’t talk to us, which leads to a huge disconnect on both sides about what fandom is for everyone involved.

   As an example, for years every time rare fandom nomination came up during Yuletide, people attempted to nominate Pride & Prejudice, and every year those of us who actually knew anything about Austen fandom would have to explain that Pride & Prejudice is in no way a rare fandom; that it actually has thousands upon thousands of fanfics and hundreds more published fanfics to its name–they just were all tucked away in archives and not in spaces that the typical Yuletide participant played in. So this disconnect hurts communication on both sides of the divide.

All of this translates into a need to recognize that your experiences are not universal. I’m going to spend a lot of time counter-arguing many of Dear Author’s other posts from this week, so I’ll just point to their post “Fan fiction: a personal perspective” as an example of an open-minded post about keeping your own experience in perspective.

If only the rest of their posts took this advice! Instead, the overall impression of fandom that I and others are taking away from this series is that fandom is primarily shamefaced, defensive, and poorly attempting to justify copyright infringement.

To all of which, over the next week, I will be merrily calling bullshit.

Whew! Okay, so that’s me finished for now! What about you guys? WHO EVEN ARE YOU PEOPLE? Where do you come from? What perspectives do you bring to your corner of the internet? Are you in fandom? (Hint: are you reading this site? Then yes.) Oh my god this post is 1300 words long. HERE, HAVE ANOTHER K-POP GROUP.