working my way through folks' recs...

[hradzka]

And it's interesting. A lot of stuff doesn't work for me, which is okay and was expected, but one reason I asked folks to provide current recs is because I wanted to see to what degree my sense of what fandom was writing was more or less representative. I was surprised to find that it was a lot more representative than I'd expected, in terms of the kind of things folks are writing. I didn't see any *kind* of fiction that struck me as really new. The surprise comes because, in my nineteen-odd years in fandom, I've seen fanfic change quite a bit. When I started, fanfic was mostly gen; you had slash and porn, but it was much less common and was confined to dedicated forums, which was still an increase for that stuff over earlier years. RPF used to be completely anathema, but then became accepted and wildly common (my sense is that it really took off with bandom, because it would be hard to write anything but, but I don't know LOTR fandom at all and I know RPF was *huge* over there, so that might've been where the change occurred -- timelines, anybody?). Fandoms used to start off writing the more gen stuff, and then start to collect more porn and slash as they grew older, whereas now folks come home from the theater and start a kink meme. Fandom used to just write about the pretty white boys, and now fandom still mostly writes about the pretty white boys but there are chromatic challenges and more calls for representation from fans of color. And so on.

Lately, though, I haven't seen fanfic change as much. The change I keep expecting to see is more female-character-focused fic, but while there's been more in recent years it's still lagged behind what I've been thinking I'd see, given feminist fandom's increasing activism. To me, the biggest change in recent years is the increasing prominence of flashfic, with kink memes. But that doesn't seem to have changed the type of things that folks are writing so much as it's changed length. The recent popularity of texting fic is interesting, but I don't know how much of a change it represents. With tumblr, fannish activity has changed -- the popularity of fannish memes is a new kind of fannish activity all its own -- but this still hasn't changed the kinds of stories folks seem to be writing. Fanfic is wildly popular, and it's in more places than ever, but I don't know if it's still changing. Or if it's on a path to being subsumed by something else.

So is fanfiction in stasis? What do y'all think?

Comments

[jadey]

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but when I started in fandom ten years ago (eep!) everything felt a lot more insular between fandoms. Maybe it's because I was still new and generally drawn to either obscure (unimported anime!) or fairly dead fandoms (shows from the 80s and early 90s!), but finding a new fandom always felt a bit like striking out into the wilderness and hoping to stumble across a welcoming enclave of traveller folk willing to share food and a warm spot by the fire.

Now it seems like everything is a lot more blended and rather than thousands of tiny groups, people are more plugged into a pan-fandom subculture (possible evidence: increases in the number of multi-fandom fics and fic challenges? Not sure if this is a thing or my own biased recall). Or maybe I just stumbled out of the wilderness finally. The increase in social networking sites would account for it. Hell, I joined livejournal when it was still invite-only! Before that it was yahoo groups and such. Now livejournal is huge, dreamwidth too, plus tumblr... In the old days there were still cons, but I don't think that con-goers ever were a representative sample of fandom - travel time and cost are pretty powerful selecting factors.

Anyway, if this is a legit observation and not just cognitive bias on my part, I wonder if this might not be having a bit of homogenizing effect? More normative influence on participants and less opportunity for divergent "evolutionary paths" in relatively dispersed groups? (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) I always had a pet theory that creativity, while not exactly something that thrives in total isolation, is nonetheless more apparent/necessary in groups living on the fringe or lacking sufficient external stimulus (replace with internal stimulus!). Perhaps then not stasis exactly, but oversaturation?

[hradzka]

This is a really astute observation. I think you're right, and it used to be even more this way. Fandoms were basically independent ecosystems, and you didn't bounce from one to the other much. Fandom was much more genre-oriented back then, too, and the camps were pretty clearly defined; people got into a fandom and they *stayed* there. Fandoms are much broader and much more ephemeral these days, and there are fandoms about *everything.* This means that if something gets popular, it branches out fairly quickly. (I think RPF may be the biggest example of that: it was anathema until one or two fandoms made it okay, and now it's everywhere.)

[elanya]

I was actually going to ask you, in response to your post, how long you think fandom has been self aware of itself as a phenomenon, and whether/how you think this self-awareness affects progress. Also I think that what grey-Bard says below, about the social justice wars and how that sort of theme is seeping into the fic world is ... well, notable, anyway, but I don't have the experience (in time or breadth of exposure) to judge if that is new/on the rise/really all that prevalent.

[hradzka]

Fandom has always been self-aware, but I think its self-awareness, like society's, is rising to near-terminal levels these days.

[maire]

Yep. Either that, or I'm completely missing where the vibrant new fanfiction is being published (quite possible -- because I don't write, I am out of most loops).

I, too, expected more women, but if one looks at our society, it honestly hasn't changed all that much in 20 years, when it comes to women's rights, and fiction tends to reflect society in a lot of ways.

[hradzka]

It's not so much about the society as the fandom, I think. Slash fans got more vocal while slash was exploding, but nobody got into writing slash out of a desire to do justice to queer issues; they got in because it was fun and hot and they liked it. (If anything, slash inspired people to go the other way and get interested in queer causes in RL.) Outside of XENA fandom and challenges, I haven't seen nearly as many people writing women for the fun of it. Folks keep vowing to write more women or characters of color like they're saying they'll eat more vegetables or something. "It's good for me, I know, so I'll go on even though *I don't really like it.*" Which, y'know, *points at icon.*

[ambyr]

Mm, I think you may be looking at a somewhat narrow subset of fandoms? There's certainly places beyond Xena where female-centric stories are the norm. I mean, Rizzoli and Isles? Warehouse 13? Fringe? Once Upon a Time? The L-Word? Even bigger fandoms--yeah, Buffy has more than its share of slash, but it's got more het. A:TLA is overwhelming het and female-focused gen (although I admit the most popular character is a dude, on account of two rival het ships both involving him). The most popular character in ASoIaF fanfic fandom--by an order of magnitude--is Sansa. Even fandoms that look very slash-dominated on AO3, like HP, end up looking more het-dominated once you move off into ff.n and other territories.

[hradzka]

Before answering this point, can I just say it's amazing how many fandoms there are now? 'cause it is. A lot fewer shows got fanac back in the day.

That said, many of these have seemed like very small fandoms to me. Rizzoli and Isles has 163 fics on AO3; Warehouse 13 has 260. I know Fringe was bigger, in that I've seen a lot more fannish reaction to FRINGE. I know Once Upon a Time had the most stories at Yuletide, but how big is the fandom? It's got 233 works on AO3. The L-Word seems bigger, but it also seems like it's in its own little universe -- I don't see widespread fannish reaction or squee to it. I'm very unfamiliar with the fandom, but from a quick look it seems to resemble the femslash work out of corners like Pink Rabbit Productions -- ie, HUGE in its corner of fandom, yet surprisingly slow at transmitting its trends and approach to other fandoms. Maybe all the folks who want femslash are drawn to a few magnets of f/f fandom and staying there? (L-WORD fans are welcome to chime in with their take!)

BUFFY had its peak before the slash explosion. People were still writing gen for BUFFY, first thing.

ASoIaF sounds like an interesting case. I wonder why Sansa is so popular there? Before the series came out, from my limited recollection and the comments of other folks, it was HEAVY on the Kingslayer, with Jaime/Brienne fic being especially popular. Maybe it's that Sansa is a nexus who can share scenes with any number of different characters. You'd have to really work to get (say) Robb Stark and Cersei in a room together, by contrast.

Even fandoms that look very slash-dominated on AO3, like HP, end up looking more het-dominated once you move off into ff.n and other territories.

This is a really good and interesting point. I wonder where the het writers are having their conversations?

[maire]

That's why I think it's the society. As long as people in general have strong social assumptions about how men and women act, men and women will keep acting in ways defined more by their gender than by their personality. And then writers will apparently be more interested in writing about one gender.

[musesfool]

I think until there is a major shift in popular sources - until there are canon gay and lesbian relationships at the forefront in popular genre shows (and not hidden away in webisodes or deleted scenes, I'm looking at you, BSG), for example, instead of bromances that the PTB back away from with a horrified "No homo" while simultaneously pandering to a fanbase that wants to see the relationship as queer, and until there are a lot more shows with a lot more women in them - fandom in general is going to keep writing the same types of stories, because for many (not all, obv.) fans, it's about what canon doesn't/won't provide.

[hradzka]

This is actually something I spend a fair amount of time wondering about. What happens when that major shift in popular sources occurs? If fandom is providing what it doesn't get in canon, when it *does* get it in canon, what will fandom write about? There are lots of folks writing slash who really want more queer roles, and others who don't care and just want the hot. (I remember the days of slash fans arguing that they *didn't * want the queer relationships they wrote about to show up on TV, because the show would just screw them up. Do slashers still do that?) If there are people writing just because they don't get something, what'll they do when they do get it? Change focus, or walk away?

I don't think that fandom is writing because it wants to see more queer relationships and more female characters. I think it's more about the fun and hot. If (for example) fandom wants shows with more women, it has a damned funny way of showing it. I may be wrong, of course. Folks kept happily writing TORCHWOOD, when Jack/Ianto went canon (even though there were people who were so oblivious they actually argued the stopwatch gag) and folks write GLEE. OTOH, SPARTACUS has strong and varied roles for women, canon gay relationships (a new pairing this season), and nobody's writing SPARTACUS fanfic (88 at the pit of voles, 33 at AO3).

[maire]

Precisely. It's not because there are no fandoms available with queer characters.

[saralakali]

Hm. I can't really answer your question because I haven't been in fandom that long. Oh, I've been a fan for almost thirty years, but I only became aware of fanfiction and other fannish things as a social activity rather than a solitary one in the last twelve. If I've noticed a stagnation in fic, I've attributed it more to developments in canon than an actual shift in fandom.

Or maybe that's just me.

[hradzka]

Developments in canon? How so?

[saralakali]

Well, hardly anyone is writing nuDCU that I've found. They're either writing pre-reboot or they've moved off into other fandoms. I came into fandom through Harry Potter. After the epilogue of the last book and Rowling's post-series revelations, nobody seems to be writing any HP fanfic at all. I've only seen a few Star Trek fics since the reboot and there's nothing thematically new about any of them.

But as I said, I've only twelve years of fandom experience and I don't always find (or look for) the fandoms for the properties I'm interested in.

[grey_bard]

I don't think we're in stasis, but I do think we've hit a bit of a lull. There have definitely been periods of about five years or so of slowed change before and I suspect we're in one.

What I have seen an explosion of (blame Sherlock Holmes) is asexual fic, which makes sense, as fandom becomes more educated in the complexities of human sexuality, and that topic tends to interest fans.

My guess is that the mental energy that drives fannish change is currently being channelled into the mindfulness and social justice wars. A new one appears to be kicking off over "Is it domestic abuse if they're both guys what do you mean my idfic is not romantic how dare you". I think there's only so much fannish zeitgeist to go around, and it doesn't always channel directly into fic. And usually, something needs to set it off. I feel like the next N'Sync or Smallville or Supernatural is around the corner, ready to Change Everything OMG, but these things can't be predicted. I'm sure it will surprise us all.

[hradzka]

I think there's only so much fannish zeitgeist to go around, and it doesn't always channel directly into fic. And usually, something needs to set it off.

This is a good point, and an interesting one. I am not sure what that setting off would look like, though. If SHERLOCK did not set off a new wellspring of different and interesting fandom (more than broadening the sphere of fannish conversation to include fic about asexuality), I am not sure what would. It seems to me to by and large follow in the SGA/SPN mold.

What's another period of slowed change that comes to mind?

[grey_bard]

The periods of slowed ficcing change... I'd say about 94-98 when most of the changes were technological, and in the early eighties after zine and slash fandom had gotten established.

Supernatural set off changes because it violated previous fannish taboos but was still id-crack. SGA didn't really set off changes so much as be a mega-fandom that served as a playground for changes set off by other things, and amplified by the huge concentration of BNFs - much higher even than in Sherlock.

[ivorygates]

No, fanfiction is in its usual state of wild ferment and evolution, honest. It's just hard to see from the middle of it. New, we're seeing fusion in addition to crossover, and there's a groundswell in the direction of sound editing. We don't see a lot of Machina at this end of fandom, but it's essentially a creation of new narrative in ways that can be indistinguishable from primary source. In vids, I see an upswing in willingness to use non-canonical elements, elements from other fandoms, and even elements outside of fandom to create vids that are not merely a dramatization of song lyrics, but a unique narrative with music. Some vidders have successfully vidded outlier fandom creations, such as the vid "Half Jack" which was a vidding of the fic "A Howling In The Factory Yard". And as fan-owned archives (or even *a* fan-owned archive) develops a more pervasive presence in pan-fannish life, I'm sure it will also drive additional change and possibly spark new forms. We're already seeing a resurgence of "drawn" illustration as opposed to manips, which I believe is partly due to having a safe place to put them [and to the new accessibility of scanning technology of course].

But the main thing I want to bring up, though I know it's a matter of debate in some circles, is my asseveration that fandom actually began with bandom RPF, so neither RPF or bandom is new. The fans who began publishing Star Trek fanzines in 1966 had spent the previous two years publishing Beatles fanzines that were specifically fic-driven. Those young women (their ages would have ranged from 18-25, as fandom used to skew not only entirely female but significantly older) would take the various skills they learned in what we can only now identify as the first bandom fandom and use it to create fandom itself...

[NOTE: In all uses of the word "fandom" in this post I am pretending that print media driven SF Fandom, or "trufandom", which dates from the 1920s, does not exist. It's easier that way.]