Episode 145: The Fic and the Source Material
In Episode 145, “The Fic and the Source Material,” Flourish and Elizabeth review the results of the “Fanfiction & Source Material Mini-Survey,” in which 6,744 respondents shared their preferences on whether they need to know the canon to read the fic. They discuss each of the dozen questions and give their own answers along the way, from Elizabeth’s serial fandom monogamy to that time Flourish read Merlin fic before watching the show.
Make sure to read about and view the accompanying visualizations!
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:03:10] “Sexy Times” the fic is down, but the Sexy Times Generator lives on.
[00:05:58] The open letter to the OTW, which we signed. The OTW responded with this statement.
[00:11:49] A Chrome extension to hide stories with too many tags on the AO3; a skin that does the same thing.
[00:12:33] Our interstitial music is “Evening Glow” from Music for Podcasts 2 by Lee Rosevere, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:13:15]
[00:19:15] Read about the results and see some visualizations (like this one!) in our article “The Fic and the Source Material.”
[00:28:25] If you don’t already subscribe to “The Rec Center,” you should!
[00:30:40] Episode 127, “A Fan of Fandom.”
[00:34:20] “Who is this ee-anto? Eye-anto?”
[00:51:20] The two Merlin fics that convinced Flourish are “Drastically Redefining Protocol” by rageprufrock and “The Student Prince” by FayJay.
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #145, “The Fic and the Source Material.”
FK: Yeah! It’s about this mini-survey that we just ran about people’s habits. Like: do you read fanfic for source material that you have not consumed? And we got like 7,000 people responding to the survey!
ELM: Yeah, it was amazing. So a mini-survey, for context, it was just 12 questions long, mostly multiple-choice, and we didn’t ask for demographic information or anything like that, like we do with our big surveys. It was just to kinda get a snapshot of people’s opinions about the fic they read and how it relates to the source material, and it was inspired by a letter which we’ll read shortly, talking about this. And I’m excited that we were given the fodder to ask kind of some questions that I think that we’ve sort of anecdotally—we’ve gotten anecdotal information about this from like, random people over the years. But it’s really exciting to actually look at this at scale.
FK: Yeah, totally. OK, but before we do that: we got an anonymous ask that requested that we talk about the stuff going on at the AO3 right now.
ELM: Actually, can you read it?
FK: Sure! Quote: “Since AO3 is the topic of debate again, could you maybe discuss it with some nuance (as you have before)? I’m seeing a lot of ‘love it or fuck off, it’s perfect,’ and as an Old, and someone who likes it 90% of the time, I feel like that’s an unhelpful stance to take. Plus, it has such a monopoly this days that leaving probably isn’t a thing one can do.”
So can I—this doesn’t actually explain anything about what’s going on. Can I take a crack at that?
ELM: Absolutely. You go first.
FK: So for those who might be unfamiliar, the Archive of Our Own is the big fic archive, and within this fic archive, it uses a folksonomic tagging system. So people can, like, type any tags they want, and then later on volunteers come and sort of clean it up and try and make it all fit together in a way that makes sense, right.
ELM: Right.
FK: But you can still tag anything you want, and the tags will stay the same, they just sort of get routed to the bigger ones. And you can use as many tags as you want for every fic.
So there has been a fic on the Archive of Our Own, which is a place—this is also important to mention—which has many different subcommunities in it, right? People from all sorts of different places, and people who have never been part of any fanfic community ever before also. So there’s this fic in there which has like, a wall of tags. And not just a wall of tags. Like, a truly excessive wall of tags. Like, so many tags that in certain ways of viewing the Archive, it kinda makes it unusable because you have to scroll past the tags on this fic, right?
And this became a big deal, obviously. The fic is—I can’t say the guy’s name, so… “Sexy Times With Wangxian,” maybe?
ELM: I think it’s “Wang-shee-an,” yeah.
FK: How do you say it? OK.
ELM: So notorious that someone created a “Sexy Times Tag Generator,” where it would give you like five random tags from the giant wall of tags.
FK: From the tags, right.
ELM: And it, you know, it was funny every time I hit generate, so I’m not gonna lie about that.
FK: Right, right. So obviously people have had lots of feelings about this. People have been really mad at the person who did it. People have taken off on it, and someone wrote a fic and put all of The Great Gatsby in the tags. It’s been a whole, whole circus.
So then this became kind of an issue. So as far as I know, they haven’t—no one has officially commented on it from the AO3. But there’s been a lot of rumors and speculation that they are sort of looking into it, trying to address, like, how to deal with this fic, which is clearly a big problem for lots of people.
ELM: Hold on. The fic has been taken down, for the record, because the author began allegedly to threaten people after they complained.
FK: Right. But not because of—
ELM: So problem solved!
FK: —not because of things that were in the tags, just because this person was actually like issuing threats.
ELM: Allegedly. And for further clarification, people were uploading like 1984 and The Great Gatsby into the tags, as far as I understand, in acts of protest, saying “Oh, what, all tags are OK? You like this?” You know.
FK: Right, right.
ELM: That kinda thing. And it’s my understanding that this isn’t even the first time people have done that. This isn’t a unique kind of argument.
FK: Right. Right right right. So, OK. Thank you for those clarifications, that is all correct and very good to my understanding.
So one of the things that this is a problem about, though, is that people have been pointing out for years the ways that people can be harassed using the tags, particularly in the context of like, racial harassment, right? This has been a big problem on the Archive of Our Own and elsewhere, and just obviously—in fandom in general harassment can be a problem, and it’s particularly bad when you’re a person of color in fandom, right.
So. And, people felt very strongly that this was not really being addressed by the Archive of Our Own, because even though the Archive said that they were going to look into these things and institute new policies and figure out how to deal with it almost a year ago, during the Black Lives Matter protests and so forth, there hasn’t been any communication from the Archive since then really about what exactly is going on with that. So people don’t feel great about that!
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But, it’s complicated, because the Archive has a very explicit policy—to this point, that they have not yet updated or changed—about sort of being free-speech maximalist and allowing people to post whatever they want and allowing you to use the tags whatever way you want, so until they update those rules and so on, right, it would be not-great to take down even a fic that’s breaking the Archive, even whatever. They need to, there has to be an actual large change in policy to do anything other than what they’ve already done, right.
ELM: Right. So last June, you know, after a lot of outcry, an open letter that we signed in addition to hundreds of other people saying: you need to say something about Black Lives Matter and to address these long-standing critiques of the lack of attention to racist harassment on the Archive, and how a free-speech maximalist approach inherently is going to mean that fans of color are not, you know—like, free speech—
FK: Protected, yeah.
ELM: When you are maximally inclusive with content, is the phrase that they use, you inherently are not going to be maximally inclusive with users. Those two things are in opposition and this is an issue across the web. This is not unique to the AO3.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And after—you know, they were a little slow to reply, I understand; it’s a volunteer organization, it’s a very large pool of volunteers, so it seems like a lot of things are determined by consensus and committee. They did issue a response, and it seemed like a good start. Like you said, that was almost a year ago.
FK: And it’s been crickets.
ELM: And in that list, they mentioned that they were working on a blocking feature, which it’s my understanding that’s been in the works long before that and it’s been something that’s been a subject of debate. And I even saw fans of color critiquing the idea of a blocking feature, saying “Well, what if you wanna tell someone their fanwork is racist and they immediately block you?” And it’s like—well, it’s gonna be one or the other.
FK: Right.
ELM: Blocking will keep some racists from being critiqued, but it will also keep fans of color who are the victims of racism from being harmed. So there’s no way around that. There’s no way to have it both ways.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know, they’ve been working on this feature, and I absolutely believe them, and the last reporting I did on the AO3 was explicitly—was for a tech magazine about the tech side. They have very small numbers for the amount of, the kind of lift this site has to perform on a daily basis, and it’s only increased in the last few years kind of astronomically. And I don’t envy them at all the position they’re in—and you have a huge userbase that has no idea how technology works! And kind of assumed that—I’ve seen people saying “there’s no way they could change anything!” [both laugh] You know, and that’s not true! Like—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: It’s not magic! It’s software development, right? But then you also have people seeing what the commercial web is doing.
FK: How hard could it be, Elizabeth Minkel? [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, you know? And it’s like, you see the same kind of people—offhand, and this isn’t even the same overall demographic—saying “Well, go make your own archive,” or whatever. And it’s like: this is a huge amount of work and takes a huge amount of skill, and the people who work on the codebase of the AO3 are professional software engineers, and they know what they’re doing, but these changes are gonna take a lot longer than they are on the commercial web just because of like, sheer resources.
FK: Right.
ELM: And this big volunteer org balancing act of priorities and people from all over the world with different ideas about what should be done on these issues, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: So my overall takeaway—and I love this ask, because I would say I’m an old who is only happy with the AO3 90% of the time. And I get really frustrated when people are like, “If you have something negative to say, why don’t you just go somewhere else?” It’s like—there are bad-faith critiques.
FK: Right.
ELM: Of this site. There’s ding-dongs who write these posts being like “Oh, isn’t that the site founded by pedos?!” And then there’s like 9,000 people write an earnest reply being like “How dare you!” And it’s like: why did you give this person oxygen to—you know?
FK: Right. But then there’s also, like, legit critiques!
ELM: Right. So those are bad-faith critiques that get elevated so, so far out of the scale that they should. But the good-faith critiques are like: it’s baffling to me that transformative fandom, I mean, this is the same thing whenever there’s anything critical in transformative fandom, it’s not unique to the AO3. But this is a subset of fandom who ostensibly critiques the things that it loves. And it’s notable to see where that kind of line, that hard line gets drawn of what is out-of-bounds for critiquing. I really respect and admire the AO3, and I’ve reported on it a lot because I think it’s really serious and important. I think they should be communicating a lot more than they currently do about the work that they’re doing.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think that people absolutely understand, with a volunteer org with very limited resources, it might take several years to implement a block feature. But say you’re working on it, and say why you’re working on it. Don’t say you’re doing it to block “Sexy Times With Wangxian.”
FK: [laughs] Yeah!
ELM: Say you’re doing it to help marginalized fans be safer, and make that clear that that’s a priority, and just continue openly communicating about it, and people will believe it’s something you prioritize even if the actual concrete progress for a user is relatively slow.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So…
FK: Yeah, I definitely agree with that, having worked at a lot of organizations I think that there’s a reason why transparency is really important, and transparency can’t just happen with a single report at the end of the year. Transparency is something that has to happen, intentionally trying to communicate with people about what’s going on.
ELM: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think—I mean, I’m sure we have listeners who work in the technology industry, and you understand the rhythms. I’ve been working in the tech industry for the past few years, and there’s a way to talk about long, a slow development software project. You don’t have to, it’s not like every day you’re gonna be able to show some magical change that you’ve done, you know? I’m not saying, I’m not trying to put more work on any individuals in the organization, but I am just…I really wish they would make it less of a mystery for people.
FK: Well, there’s our take on the AO3.
ELM: I mean, we could talk about this for a whole episode, and I think we will continue to do so. I will say that there are a lot of resources for implementing your own skins and scripts. The Archive was designed to be highly customizable; that’s one of the things that makes it good for accessibility, is it’s a little bit of a blank slate in that regard and you can customize it to suit whatever your needs are in terms of accessibility. And so we can include some links to some kind of workarounds, if there are tags you don’t want to see, if there are users you don’t want to see, there are ways to do that now for yourself. It’s just, you know, in the long term it would be ideal if that was a button everyone could click without having to, like, you know. It’s not that hard to implement this stuff. But it is not as simple as a checkbox, basically.
FK: Yeah, totally. All right, well now that we’ve talked about that, shall we take a quick break before we get on to the survey?
ELM: Yeah, I would love to take a break and then I’d love to talk about the survey.
FK: All right!
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right, we’re back and before we get going talking about the survey, I just wanted to mention that we are funded solely through Patreon.com/fansplaining. That’s donations from listeners and readers like you. So if you’re enjoying this podcast, if you have enjoyed taking the survey and you’re looking forward to hearing about what’s in it, that’s a great way that you can make sure that we can keep making the podcast and keep doing other surveys like this one. And there’s lots of cool rewards for different levels of Patreon support!
ELM: You want me to talk about the rewards?!
FK: I do!
ELM: OK. Well, our most popular pledge level is $3 a month, and if you pledge at that level, you will get—right now! Right now!—some extremely fresh content. So in the past few weeks we have put out two new special episodes. One was the most recent installment in our “Tropefest” series. This was on hurt/comfort, I thought this was an incredible conversation, you taught me so much. Thank you Flourish!
FK: Aww. Yay!
ELM: [laughs] And then the other one, most recently—very recently—is on WandaVision, a show about which we had a lot of thoughts, as you can imagine!
FK: Tons. So definitely you should pledge and listen to those. We’ve also got cute enamel pins, we’ve also got tiny zines we send out, you can listen to the episode early…
ELM: Those cost more, just to. Those aren’t all the $3…
FK: No, pins are not $3 things. Pins cost more money.
ELM: Pins are $5, tiny zines are at $10.
FK: OK. If you don’t have any money to throw our way, that is totally cool too: you can support us by telling people about the podcast, you can support us by calling in at 1-401-526-FANS, you can support us by sending in a question or a comment on our social media or in our askbox or in the, like, form on our site, or by emailing us: fansplaining at gmail dot com. All right, does that cover it?
ELM: I think that’s it!
FK: All right! So: on to the survey. Elizabeth, would you read me the letter?
ELM: Oh, it’s quite the letter! It’s long. You ready?
FK: I’m ready.
ELM: OK! And I should say, if you hear a dog battle in the background, some dogs are battling, and… [both laugh] We have limited time. So just imagine it.
FK: Uh-huh. The dogs. Battling outside Elizabeth’s apartment.
ELM: I’ve got visions of what they look like, so fantasy dogs. So.
FK: Great.
ELM: Anyway! “Hi Elizabeth and Flourish! I was introduced to your podcast a few weeks ago, and I’ve been enjoying going through and listening to old episodes. Recently, I’ve gotten to thinking about a couple of sort-of-related topics I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on.
“I’ve noticed over the course of various episodes that both of you tend to approach your fannish experience one primary fandom at a time; at a couple of points (I’m not sure in which episode), you were commenting on this tendency to define oneself as a fan first, with a list of fandoms, some of which might only be active for a month or two after a movie release, etc., rather than one big affective passion, as a more recent development. This was interesting to me, since I’m about Elizabeth’s age and have been active in online fandom for roughly the same amount of time as Flourish.”
As an aside: we’re about the same age and we’ve been in fandom for about the same time. Just for clarity.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Just to clarify that! “—and while I’ve had a few really intensive primary fandoms over the years, I’ve considered myself actively (often primarily) multifannish for most of that time.
“I’m thinking about this in large part because another year of my favorite fandom thing, Yuletide, just wrapped, and some conversations I’ve had around it this year have specifically been about the ways in which fanfiction is in dialogue with/dependent on its canon source material. Yuletide was, I think, kind of a pioneer when it comes to “five-minute fandoms,” wherein people write stories based on things like commercials, or things without a lot of inherent narrative (some songs, individual works of art, memes). While that isn’t really my thing outside the occasionally really excellent Yuletide story, it represents the only kind of fanfiction I’ll consider reading without any prior investment in the source material—oftentimes, it’s not necessary to review the source material at all in order to enjoy that kind of story.
“I’ve had a lot of friends and fannish acquaintances, over the years, who enjoy reading fanfiction for totally unfamiliar fandoms; shows they haven’t watched, books they haven’t read, etc., and I’ve always found it kind of mystifying. Multifannish or not, my primary reason for reading fic at all is the transformative aspect, the way it elaborates on, critiques or explores existing characters and fictional settings and societies. I mean, I’ve enjoyed the odd extremely well-written but totally OOC AU before, but if I don’t know the fandom I’d just as soon go read a book in the relevant genre.
“In my MFA program years back, some of my classmates and I were having a post-crit-session discussion, and I remember someone referring to ‘fanfic for something that doesn’t exist.’ While the out-of-context misuse of the term ‘fanfic’ bugs the hell out of me, in this case what my friend meant was that the story seemed to want to rely on character development that didn’t actually exist, for emotional impact. One of the fun things about writing fanfic, at least for me, is the opportunity to build on an existing framework rather than creating one from scratch; they’re each challenging in their own way, but I think they’re pretty distinct processes. Which again, means that reading fic built on a framework I’m unfamiliar with seems like kind of a hollow experience, however good the writing.
“On the other hand, in the course of sharing Yuletide recs, etc., the fact that some of the fic couldn’t really be understood or enjoyed if you didn’t know the canon seemed to be something of a disadvantage.
“All of this being a long-winded lead-up to asking: what are your thoughts on the importance of fanfic’s intrinsic relationship with its source material, and—do you ever enjoy reading fic for fandoms you’re not only not ‘in,’ but just don’t really know? Are there exceptions?
“Thanks so much for your work, and wishing you both the best in the new year (thank goodness)! Lilith.”
FK: Awesome. Thank you so much Lilith, this was obviously an extremely fruitful letter, because you got an entire mini-survey that 7,000 people answered out of it. [ELM laughs] So like, congrats! You did that, Lilith.
ELM: I mean, this isn’t—you’re saying that like everyone who doesn’t get a mini-survey, like, spawned out of their question has failed, and I wanna make everyone know— [FK laughing] Every question is valid! But yeah, this is great.
FK: So we wrote this 12-question survey, and I think that maybe we can talk about, a little bit about our takes on these things as we go, but we should just like, talk about what’s in the survey first.
ELM: OK, so pause: If you are listening as a patron, if you are one of the extremely faithful who tune in on Tuesdays, you won’t be able to do this. But if you are listening on Wednesday, the normal episode release date, or later—sometime in the future—you can go to fansplaining.com and we have written up the results with visualizations. So you can follow along, especially if you’re a more visual learner, and read more analysis in addition to this. So just wanna have people pause and go over there if they wanna follow along.
FK: All right. So I’m assuming that people have paused and gone over there. So our first survey question was: Do you consider yourself “in” a given fandom, eg, “I’m in the Star Trek fandom,” now or in the recent past? 77% of people said yes, 20% of people said “No, I consider myself just generally in fandom,” and the remainder said “No, I’m not in fandom.”
ELM: How many said they weren’t in fandom? Like less than 10%.
FK: Yeah. Like 3%.
ELM: So, for context too, I mean, one thing that I really appreciate when Verity has analyzed our results on the last few and has written big disclaimers about what this data does and doesn’t show. So it’s taught me to kinda say: we distributed this on Twitter and Tumblr.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And the way that I was framing it when I tweeted about it—I think more me than either you or the Fansplaining account, even when I was the tweeter or the tumblrer—was that it was for anyone who reads fanfiction.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Because I, you know, I know that you probably have in your sphere people who are in fandom, but maybe not fanfiction people for the most part, but have read some fic?
FK: Yep, definitely.
ELM: And in my sphere, I feel like I probably have a fair number of like, literary folks—I’m waggin’ my head back and forth for no reason whatsoever!—who have probably encountered some fic. I have lots of friends who are in the book world who are like “Oh, I’ve read a few fics.” So I’ve made it clear in my tweets: if you read fic in any way, and I guess that might be some of the 3% we got, people who were not in fandom but fic readers.
FK: So this next one is interesting, then, you’re gonna find this interesting. So the next question was: is fanfiction the primary way that you engage with fannish things?
ELM: Yeah, hook me up!
FK: So, 69%—nice!—said “yes.”
ELM: Nice!
FK: Like 29% said “No, because fic is only a small portion of my fannish activity.”
ELM: Interesting.
FK: So those are probably people more in that category who you were saying might follow me, people who are like doing other stuff in fandom—
ELM: I’m sure I have these too, but it’s just because you do different kinds of fandom activities also, you know.
FK: Yeah, totally! Totally, totally. Right. So, and then only .7%—44 people—said “No, because I’m not into fannish things generally,” and basically no one, there might have been one person who said “No, I’ve never engaged with fanfiction,” who got this far into this being like “What? What did I do? What did I do?”
ELM: Also, for the record, if you said “no” to that one, the survey ended for you. So was it literally one person who…?
FK: I think it was possibly zero.
ELM: [laughs] It’d be amazing if it was like one person who was like “That was short.”
FK: Yeah, can you imagine? “OK!” All right. All right.
ELM: OK, that’s interesting. So that’s actually a smaller percentage than I assumed we would get, based on who I think follows us. But you know, this got retweeted and reblogged, you know, thousands of times, so.
FK: Yeah, and I think also like—realistically people who were in that position, who don’t really do fannish stuff but sometimes read fanfic, they might not feel like “Oh yeah, I’m gonna retweet this to my followers and get it out to other people like me,” whereas if you’re in fandom, obviously you’re like “Oh yeah, hey, everybody I know reads fanfic and cares about it a lot. Let’s share that,” right?
ELM: Right, right.
FK: So it doesn’t surprise me—I don’t think that we should take that as any kind of a representation of like, what fanfic readers are like, right.
ELM: Yeah yeah, absolutely.
FK: Just who took this survey.
ELM: Right.
FK: OK. So then the next question: When it comes to fanfiction, what activities have you been involved in over the course of your life? Check all that apply.
So basically everybody said reading. Like 99% said reading. 77% said writing.
ELM: That’s interesting. That’s a lot.
FK: Yeah, yeah! The next biggest was reccing, with 48%.
ELM: Also a lot.
FK: And then betaing, editing, or sensitivity reading, which was like 46%.
ELM: WOW! OK, this is fascinating. It’s such a collaborative medium! It’s like, what other medium is like, most people—I mean, 46% is not half. But you know? Most people either read and write or edit it, you know?
FK: It gets even better. 28% said that they created other transformative works based on fanfic.
ELM: Wow!
FK: 28% of people are like, out their podficcing, or like…
ELM: Making art!
FK: You know, doin’ art, whatever. Amazing!
ELM: Love it. That’s great!
FK: 13% of people modded communities or fests.
ELM: Wow.
FK: 5.5% translated fanfiction.
ELM: Wait, go back. That means like 900 people modded communities or fests, who responded to this?
FK: Yes. Yeah.
ELM: [laughing] That’s a lot!
FK: Correct. That’s a lot of people.
ELM: I mean, I guess there’s a lot of fests!
FK: Yeah, and then about 5% translated, or helps run or volunteer of for an archive. So that’s like 350 people in each case.
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
FK: So that’s a lot of translators, a lot of archive volunteers.
ELM: That’s great!
FK: So yeah, I mean, this is wild, right? This is so collaborative. And so active.
ELM: Yeah! That’s really interesting. So, all right. We should give our answers as we go through. Obviously we are both quote-unquote “in fandom,” and I don’t know if you would say right now that you’re in a fandom. I know you’re feeling a little adrift in terms of primary passions.
FK: I feel like I’m in Star Trek fandom right now.
ELM: Yeah? OK.
FK: But not fanfic fandom particularly. But like some, y’know?
ELM: I think that’s why I’m kind of citing ambivalence here, right? And obviously we know that I’m [sighs] in a fandom currently. [FK laughs] It’s fine, I love it.
FK: But over the course of, over the course of my life I’ve done all of these things except for translating.
ELM: I’ve never created a transformative work based on someone else’s fic. And I’ve never betaed. I’ve written and I have read and—
FK: What!
ELM: Obviously I have—who would I have betaed for?
FK: I don’t know, but I’m gonna make you beta for me—
ELM: Jesus.
FK: —even though you haven’t been in the fandoms that I’m in. I’m gonna be like “Elizabeth, here’s my fanfic. I insist.”
ELM: I would be happy to beta for you. I say this with all sincerity, and I say this honestly, because you are a delight to edit because you love to be torn apart.
FK: [laughs] I do!
ELM: And I think you see that as a sign of the process working, and I’m a professional editor, and so I, I respectfully and lovingly tear apart writing.
FK: I also trust that you would understand the intent of the work as opposed to what you wish I was writing. So if I’m writing a romance novel—
ELM: Yes.
FK: —you’re gonna be like, “You’re clearly writing a romance novel here, let me move forward from that direction.” [laughing]
ELM: I think that all editing, just as all criticism, needs to take a work on its own terms.
FK: Great!
ELM: So I have strong feelings! [laughs]
FK: Wonderful!
ELM: I would be happy to—! I just, I will say side note: I just started to read a book, I almost called it a “flesh book,” which is absurd.
FK: [laughing] Flesh book! No no, hold on. A “flesh book.” I’m using this term.
ELM: What I meant was like, not fanfiction, because I haven’t read a fiction book—yeah, a flesh book! It’s made of paper, actually. I’m like, literally editing every paragraph in my head. So I worry that I’ve actually lost the ability to read and so, that positions me really well to beta, because I’ve just got my editor button just kinda stuck on!
FK: All right, well now I have to write some more so that you can…
ELM: If this inspires you to write more, I would be happy to. Absolutely
FK: All right. Should we move on to the next question?
ELM: Yes please.
FK: I know this is one you’re gonna love.
ELM: I’m ready.
FK: Because the question was, “When it comes to fanfiction, which best describes your reading habits?”
ELM: OH. Let me preface why this one matters to me.
FK: OK, all right.
ELM: She’s not listening to this, but our friend Nozlee [FK laughs] insists I’m the only person in the world who reads in one fandom at a time, and I know she’s joking, but she jokes about it a lot. This was so validating to me I screenshotted it and sent it to her. It’s not just me!
FK: Yeah, but you are in the minority! Anyway, OK. So here’s the answers. Here’s the results!
ELM: Not a small minority! It’s not like 3%! Go ahead.
FK: So, 33% of people say they usually read fic for the fandom they’re in or the fandoms they’ve been active in in the past. Which is me! I’m in the majority. Not the majority. The plurality.
ELM: OK. So fandoms they’ve been in, previous fandoms, but what’s important to them is they read fic for—they have to be in a fandom to read the fic, like, now or in the past.
FK: Primarily, yeah. Not always.
ELM: Primarily. Yeah yeah.
FK: Primarily. So then like 27% said that they were multi-fannish: they think of themselves as being in lots of fandoms at once and they read in all of those fandoms.
ELM: Right.
FK: And then 19% of people say that they read a mix of stuff they’re a fan of and stuff that just interests them.
ELM: All right.
FK: Which is about the same as the number of people who, like you—
ELM: My team! My team! My team!
FK: —read only in one fandom at a time: the fandom they’re active in.
ELM: Yeah, so the—sorry, the group you just cited before my group is the one I often think of when I think about the readers of “The Rec Center,” even though I know it’s not—I bet “The Rec Center” skews more in that direction and probably broadens the number of those. Because I’ve talked to a number of people who subscribe who are just interested—they want an interesting-sounding rec, you know.
FK: Right, totally.
ELM: And so like—I have a lot of friends who are like this. I certainly, I get it.
FK: Right.
ELM: I mean, I don’t get it one a deep level. I’m aware of it.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Whatever!
FK: OK, but then the—the group that I wish I knew more about who these people were, was almost 1% of people said: I mostly read stuff that interests me, but that I’m not in the fandom for. So I’m curious if those are people that feel like they’re not in the fandom for anything, but they occasionally read fanfic, or if those are people who are in fandoms for things but just happened to like, when they read fanfic read things that are outside of their fandoms for some reason?
ELM: So like, I’ve definitely encountered these folks. I tend to—when I encounter them, it tends to be on the more literary side, and they’re interested in like, interesting writing, right? And it’s just like—I’m interested in this as a literary form, and…
FK: Right, right, and when someone writes something that’s interesting…
ELM: Yeah, right. And it’s much, it’s not about the affect of “Oh, I saw this movie and I was like oh, give me more!” You know?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. All right, all right. Now there’s also some groups in this next question that you’re gonna be like, “What’s goin’ on?”
ELM: All right, I’m ready.
FK: You ready for it?
ELM: I’m ready.
FK: So the question is: Do you read fanfic for source material that you’ve consumed—that is, that you’ve read or watched or played or listened to—but that you aren’t a fan of.
ELM: Right.
FK: So right, in this case I hope contextually it’s clear that this means not “I’m not a fan” as in “I disliked it,” although that could be the case, but “I’m not a fan” as in like, “I’m not obsessed with it.”
ELM: Right.
FK: OK. 16% said “never, I don’t ever read fanfic for source material that I’ve consumed but that I’m not a big fan of.”
ELM: That’s me, by the way, in case you were wondering.
FK: 35% said “rarely.”
ELM: That’s you.
FK: 44% said “sometimes.” Actually almost 45% said “sometimes.” And 3.5% said “always.”
ELM: I love it.
FK: Chaos choice!
ELM: The people who are not in—they don’t really think of themselves in fandoms or fans of things, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: One of the issues with that question is I think “I’m a fan of,” unfortunately, is a a term that we’ve discussed in our “Fan of Fandom” episode—that term, I think, is open to interpretation. I was hoping that in the context of all the other questions it would be clear that we meant, this is just another, like, a grammatical way of structuring this. [laughs] But like, it is what it is. I’m sure that, you know.
FK: Right. This is also part of the things about the mini-surveys, right? Like, because they are not maxi-surveys, we don’t necessarily run them through like, hundreds of people—
ELM: [laughing] I’m sorry, maxi-surveys!
FK: —like with our maxi-surveys! [laughs] No, genuinely what I’m saying, right, when we’ve done really big surveys we usually do like a pilot with sometimes like 100 people critiquing it, and I think that if we did that with every survey we might have rephrased a couple of these questions—
ELM: Maybe!
FK: —but we didn’t, because we prioritized getting it out and like, you know, actually running a survey instead of—
ELM: Right right.
FK: —messing around for months.
ELM: Yeah, absolutely. I mean like, y’know, with all these surveys I tend to think: it’s not a test that you’re being graded on, and it’s totally fine. Whatever, this isn’t, this is close enough or whatever. Or like, I understand that some people are going to interpret this question a little differently than others and it is what it is. We got 7,000 people…
FK: Right.
ELM: Somewhere in there we’re gonna get an overall sense, y’know?
FK: Right, right. OK.
ELM: I’m not analyzing every individual result.
FK: Correct. We are definitely not doing that. OK. So the next question is: generally speaking, do you read fanfic when you aren’t familiar with the source material?
ELM: OK.
FK: Right, so…
ELM: This is the big one, right?
FK: Yep.
ELM: This was the starting point of this.
FK: Yep, yep.
Em And unfamiliar—we just started with a general question, we just said “unfamiliar,” we didn’t say what that meant.
FK: Right. So 25% of people say “I never do this.”
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I would never do that. Wait—
FK: 43%—
ELM: Pause! Would you do that? Unfamiliar. Utterly, like, or whatever. I don’t wanna go too much into the next—
FK: I would say I’m in the “rarely” category.
ELM: Whoa! Flourish, really?
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Wild! OK.
FK: So 44% say “rarely.” 28, 29% say “sometimes.” And 2.3% say “always.” The chaos muppets!
ELM: That is the chaos muppets. Wow.
FK: All right. But then we dig in closer to this, right?
ELM: So let’s take an overall percentage. So what percentage said sometimes or rarely? That’s most people.
FK: Yeah, that’s most people.
ELM: That’s fascinating!
FK: Like, 70%.
ELM: Right.
FK: So sometimes. Like, occasionally.
ELM: Not to draw too many conclusions too soon, but it really—I’m thinking back to the like, “what activities have you done.” Despite only 69—nice—percent of people saying they were in fandom or whatever, or in a specific fandom—is that what it was? Clearly a huge portion of the people who took this survey are like extremely fanfiction people, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: These people are in it, they’re betaing, they’re translating, they’re podficcing, whatever, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so it’s like—am I surprised that kinda a large majority of people will read stuff that they don’t even know because they’re like, in it for the fic, you know what I mean?
FK: But there’s also a question of what does “familiar” mean, right? So I will give you an example: the fandom that I have read stuff in that I would say that I certainly was not familiar with when I started reading was Merlin. And of course I’d seen some gifsets and things, you know what I mean.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I knew that there was a dark one and a light-haired one, and I knew that it was about King Arthur, right.
ELM: Sure.
FK: But I don’t consider that being “familiar” with it.
ELM: Right right right.
FK: But other people might! Other people might say “Oh, that’s familiar. That’s enough.”
ELM: OK, but hang on, there’s a distinction here: so I will say that the reason I joined the Torchwood fandom is because a whole bunch of the Remus/Sirius writers in Harry Potter, when the series ended and they were really mad because they were both dead and it’s in a stupid way, a lot of them had moved on to Torchwood fandom, and so I started and I was like “Who is this ee-anto? Eye-anto?”
FK: But you watched Torchwood first?
ELM: And so then I—but I noticed how a bunch of writers I really respected were now writing this ship, and I remember one person in particular on their LiveJournal had along the side, can you—you can envision this, I’m sure, so well.
FK: Oh yeah.
ELM: 2009-era, tiny-ass little gifs, all along the side of the LiveJournal, and I was like “Is that them? Eye-anto?” But I didn’t read it! And I think a different person, many fans would’ve clicked on it and read it first, but I was like—
FK: “I’m gonna watch it.”
ELM: I’m gonna watch it so I could read it, right?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. I didn’t do that with Merlin and when I did finally watch it I was like “This is not for me,” so I didn’t even watch a full episode, so.
ELM: When I watched Torchwood I was like, “This show is absurd and it’s definitely for me!”
FK: OK. Well, let’s get on to the next one though, because this is sort of about exactly what we’re talking about.
ELM: Yeah yeah yeah.
FK: So the next question was, at a minimum how familiar must you be with the source material—that is, the show or the book or the film series—the fic is based on.
ELM: Right. So this question was important because I think that the conversation of like, “What does familiar mean?” Every time I’ve ever talked about this with anyone, everyone like, wildly diverges here. Which I think we saw in the results, right?
FK: Right! Exactly. So how familiar do you have to be with the source material in order to read fic about it? And yeah, exactly: people seriously widely diverged. This looks like a pizza. [ELM laughs] It looks like a pizza cut up into portions.
ELM: A correctly sliced pizza.
FK: Yeah, pretty close! There’s someone who’s a little greedy, and there’s someone who’s on a diet, but like, it pretty much looks like a pizza that people are eating! OK. So, going from the smallest slice to the largest slice: so 8% of people say, “I don’t need to have even heard of the source material.” Full chaos, goin’ in, don’t care, that’s what Google’s for. Right?
ELM: I love it, I love it.
FK: Also 8% say, “It’s all right if I’ve heard of it but I’ve never engaged with it at all.”
ELM: Sure.
FK: OK. Then 30% say, “I need to be familiar with the basics from reading summaries or wikis or hearing about it from other fans.”
ELM: That makes sense.
FK: Like, my friend’s obsessed—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —they tell me about it, that’s enough.
ELM: You read a post on Tumblr—
FK: Right, yeah, exactly.
ELM: —that summarizes, that funnily summarizes the show.
FK: Right. And we’re good. About 15% say, “I need to consume just a little bit of it,” right. So that’s the like, “I saw an episode,” or a little bit of it, or something like that. And then 25% say, “I need to have consumed the majority of it but not certain parts.”
ELM: Sure.
FK: So like, “I saw a lot of the seasons but not the most recent ones.”
ELM: We hear a lot about this with serialized shows where they’re like “I watched the first 10 seasons but I’m still reading the fic!” You know. “I gave up,” I’m not talking about one particular show.
FK: [laughs] Right. OK. So then 10% say they need to have consumed all of it.
ELM: Me!
FK: And then 3% say they need to have “consumed it and studied all of it carefully, I know it like the back of my hand.” Which is a very intense statement and I’m pleased to see that 3% of people feel that way.
ELM: Yeah, and it’s interesting to see too what—when you actually dig into individual fandoms, like when I think about my own experiences, right, I’m in the fandom for a film franchise that ostensibly has—I guess, I don’t know, 12 parts maybe? Right? But I’m really engaging with fic that’s written around ostensibly only a couple of them. And so I’ve seen those films like multiple times and I know them pretty well.
FK: Right.
ELM: Right? But do I know all of it? Does it matter? I don’t know. I’m also in a very loosey-goosey kind of fandom, right, where it’s like…
FK: You’re in a, you’re in a fandom that’s much more like… yeah, how do you define that.
ELM: People pick and choose and you read the author’s notes and they’ll be like, “This is just like some of the movies and some of the comics and some of the ’90s cartoon. We’re havin’ fun!”
FK: Right, why not! Mix ’em all up and have fun. Great!
ELM: I mean, they’re, fundamentally all the characters have their schtick and they just do it, you know? So that’s what, that’s what’s—so it’s weird to think about, it’s been very different depending what fandom I’ve been in the way these questions can even be framed.
FK: Yeah, yeah, totally.
ELM: What is knowing it, what is seeing all of it, right.
FK: Yeah. Hopefully people weren’t thinking that deeply or else they would’ve got really in their head about this question.
ELM: I mean, it’s interesting to think about without—I mean, my policy on this is just answer the question, but also you can think a lot of thoughts about it, right?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, for sure.
ELM: That’s the way I would recommend going about these things, so.
FK: Yep. OK. All right. So actually the next one is interesting, the next question is interesting, which is: in a large franchise, eg, Star Wars, if you’ve consumed the main canon, like the Star Wars films, do you ever read fanfic for other extensions, like The Mandalorian, without having consumed those extensions? And it was like straight down the middle here. It was like 50/50. 49/51.
ELM: This is the one where we got a few people being like, “I’m not in large franchise fandoms!” And it’s just like, “All right, then just take a guess.”
FK: Then guess!
ELM: How would you feel? You know? And it’s also like—I don’t know. Yeah! Imagine if your very small fandom, based on one show right now, suddenly spawned a cinematic universe!
FK: Right, what would you feel about that.
ELM: Would you need to see the new show to read the fic set in that world? You know? That kinda thing. So. I mean, for me personally, like, I just gave my example—again I’m in kinda a weird fandom in this regard—I don’t feel like I could just read X-Men comics fic and really understand what was going on, y’know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Cause it’s a massive comics fandom with like a bazillion installments and all this plot and stuff like that, right? I don’t know, I would feel like I was missing something. You know what I mean?
FK: But you might not need to, depending on where you’re—OK, OK. Then we go to like, what people’s actual habits are on this, which is: If you’ve ever read fic that you haven’t consumed the original source material for, how did you find it? And we asked people to check all that apply. OK?
ELM: Mm-hmm.
FK: So I’m gonna go from the things that people did most to the things that people did least—
ELM: Sure.
FK: —and then we had people write in stuff, so I’ll talk about some of the most common responses in that. So, 53% said “Written by an author you like.”
ELM: That makes sense.
FK: 38% said “Recced by a friend.”
ELM: Mm-hmm.
FK: 37% said “Searching by trope or tag,” which surprised me. I mean, I knew that people did this, but I was like “Wow, that’s a lot of people!”
ELM: Can I just say how many times I’ve cited our 2018 or whatever letter-writer who said they searched by trope—
FK: I’ve been “this is a small percentage of people, surely!”
ELM: No, but I’ve said “I bet there’s a lot of people like this! I don’t know how many!” And now it’s like look, I can show!
FK: Yeah! It’s in fact more—
ELM: It’s at least several thousand people.
FK: Yeah, and in fact more! Only 32% of people said “written by a friend,” so that’s kinda wild to me. 29% said “seen on a rec list,” or a blog or whatever. 28% said “I heard about or I saw images from the source material and I went to look it up and figure out what’s going on.”
ELM: Yeah, sure.
FK: 27% said “Pure chance.” 23% said “Found by, bookmarked by someone you trust.” 20% of people said “Absolutely not applicable, I don’t read fic without consuming the original source.”
ELM: Sure.
FK: And then 12% said “Through a multifandom fest” or, you know, challenge or whatever. But then what’s interesting is, we’ve also got all of these people who basically were saying like, you know, “I’m gonna write in. I’m gonna say what it is.” And out of those people, a lot of the people who wrote in things said that they found fic through crossovers, which made perfect sense and we didn’t put on there.
ELM: Well, so, it was interesting to see that this was the most common write-in. This was the only question that had a write-in other than the two short responses, for the record. Crossovers and fusions, to me, I mean, maybe we should have done a whole additional question about this, because reading a Harry Potter/Supernatural [laughs] Random giant fandoms. Harry Potter/Supernatural crossover to me—
FK: There is a famous one!
ELM: Yes, I’m sure there are many actually, cause this is two giant fandoms! But like, yeah I guess you’re reading a Supernatural fic, but like…I’ve read fusions for things I haven’t seen, I’ve read Pacific Rim fusions, I’ve read Firefly fusions. I kinda didn’t know what was going on and I was kinda like, OK, whatever, because I knew what the characters were.
That’s not really the same thing, to me, as going to read just straight-up where you don’t have that in. But if you take than and go start reading—
FK: Yeah, so a lot of people—yeah. So that was actually a critique of this question that a lot of people had, which was to say basically: this assumes that I am just like, finding that fic for the first time, and in reality I have a lot of times where I am now reading in a fandom that I have never encountered the source material for, and so how do I find fic for that fandom? Obviously I just go to the Archive of Our Own and I look for fic in that fandom now. Now I’m in, it’s not about discovery for me at that point.
ELM: Sure.
FK: So a lot of people were saying, like, yeah: I read a crossover and then it turns out that I really liked this Supernatural/Harry Potter crossover…
ELM: Yeah yeah yeah.
FK: And now I’m reading Supernatural fic. So that was interesting.
ELM: Well yeah! I’m curious if people read like an Inception AU or something and they were like, “I love this dreamsharing idea,” if they would then go and read a bunch of Inception fic.
FK: There evidently were a bunch of people who felt that way.
ELM: To be fair, how many write-ins were there? Like a couple hundred total. So this is only a small percentage of people, it’s not like everyone was finding stuff via crossover.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But yeah, I think that was the biggest omission. It seemed like a lot of other people had slightly more granular versions of the answers that were…
FK: Yeah, yeah. And then it was interesting because there were a bunch of people who said—the other big thing that people said was that they saw other fanworks, like they saw like, fanart or you know, they saw that there was podfic for this fandom or something like that, and then that got them into the broader fic thing.
ELM: That’s interesting, yeah.
FK: Then there were a couple people who said that they had [laughs] they’d clicked by mistake and just kept reading.
ELM: Love it.
FK: I felt like that was very relatable like, “welp…”
ELM: I once read a 600,000 word fic—you know which one I’m talking about, it’s taken down now so I won’t tell anyone any more details about it. I had a long day with a lot of downtime, and I was trapped in a place, and so I just clicked on this fic without actually reading any of the tags… [both laugh] And I started to read it and I was like “Wait, what?” And then I was in. And I read the entire thing.
FK: So you know how that vibe goes.
ELM: In a week. It was a very fraught week of my life.
FK: [laughs] All right. So then our last, like, sort of multiple-choice question, or not—choose, not write-anything question, was: if you’ve ever read fic that you haven’t consumed the original source material for, has it led you to consume the source material?
And half the people said “yes,” 27% said “no,” and 23% said “this doesn’t apply, I don’t read fic without consuming the source material.” And that kinda makes sense, right, because there are probably some people who like, have read fic like, once and they’re like—so don’t, yes, the number of people who picked that changes, but that’s fine.
ELM: Yeah, if anyone—including you, Flourish—wants to crunch a few numbers, this is the one where I’d love to see if there’s connection between the ways that they found it and whether they continue. Like, if an author you love is—I know you’re not going to do this. Anyone who wants to do it. If the author you love is the way that you got into another fandom, I can see that it’s more likely that you would then consume it, because you know.
FK: Yeah. Totally.
ELM: As opposed to—or if you were like, intrigued by the gifs or whatever. Just like me in reverse, right? Whereas if you were searching by tag, unless you truly fell in love with the characters and the world, it’s probably more likely that you’re there for the fake dating and the good vibes than like, you know, the intricacies of Merlin.
FK: Yeah, totally. OK, OK. So then, then, we asked people to give us some long-form answers to two questions. So the first one was: If you’ve ever read fic without knowing the source material, do you ever feel like you’re missing some context, and if so, how?
So what’s interesting about this is, right, there’s a bunch of them that are the things that you pretty much have already said or would expect, right? People saying like, some things are much more important in the fanfic than they are in the canon, so you’re like “Oh, all the fanfic is about these two guys and it turns out the story is not about them,” right?
ELM: Right.
FK: And then there’s some people who are like “Well, I’m not critical of people’s characterizations if I don’t know the source, so it’s fine,” right? People basically being like “I like it because I can turn my brain off, because I don’t have to critique the characterization.”
ELM: Interesting!
FK: And obviously people say, “obviously, you know, there’s references and jokes that go over my head.” And then it was very interesting because there were people who said, like, you know, that they really enjoy not knowing everything and piecing together, like, the elements of the story.
ELM: Wild.
FK: That for them, it’s really fun to read something and be trying to figure out what’s in the original thing, that they’re seeing it as the negative space of a fandom, you know. Of what’s in the source material.
ELM: You know, it’s just so foreign to me. I’m sure that any long-time listeners can guess that I’d be saying this, as someone who’s opined at length about how much I love canon-divergent AUs and feeling the weight of the two texts on top of each other, right? And how much I love post-colonial literature, of that, having both things exist like, simultaneously? And that’s not something you can, you know—I can read a post-colonial work that’s a transformative work of the colonizer’s text or whatever and think it’s great writing, but I won’t get that commentary. I’ll never get that unless I read the original and know the original context.
FK: And I kinda think some of these people were almost saying that they enjoy going the other direction. They enjoy, like, reading the fic and then going and seeing the original thing, and being like “OH! Now I’m reading this with the fandom layered over it,” and that that’s a different kind of pleasurable. Anyway.
The other thing I thought was funny was there were a bunch of people who said, people who used the same comparison. So people who said like, “Reading fanfic without knowing the source is like reading the second book in the series without reading the first.” And all of the people who said that they did indeed like reading fanfic that they didn’t know the source for were like, “Yeah! It’s not a big deal, most of the time I can enjoy it without missing a beat!” [both laugh] And the people who were in the other perspective were like, “You would never do this. It’s never possible to read a—” so. Y’know. People, it turns out there’s lots of different opinions.
ELM: That’s really funny.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yeah, that’s really interesting.
FK: And then like—not to get too into this, but the people who don’t read fic if they aren’t familiar with the source, there’s a lot of things that I sort of expected to hear from people, right? Like, you know, whatever, “I’m hyperfixated on this thing that I love, so I wanted to have more of it.” You know. “I’m not in this because I, I’m in this for reasons,” like you, Elizabeth, “I liked seeing the overlay.”
But then, one thing that was interesting was a lot of people saying that they have aphantasia, or they can’t like, visualize things, so they can’t picture things on their own without something to base it on. There were many people who said this.
ELM: Interesting!
FK: And so they would never do it.
ELM: Wow, how many? Like dozens of people?
FK: I haven’t done a count, but there was at least 10, maybe more.
ELM: Wow, fascinating!
FK: And then [laughing] people said, I’m gonna quote one person here: quote: “I’m not on AO3 for new stories, I’m on AO3 because I need something that gives me serotonin and my brain is too tired for new stories.” There were a lot of very quotable little bits like this, so you know, there we go.
ELM: Very relatable. Yeah, I mean, I know in the previous question—in the “why would you read”—also people kinda citing different kinds of stories. Like, “I don’t need to know the source if I’m reading PWP.”
FK: Yeah yeah yeah! There were a bunch of people who said that, yeah.
ELM: Sure!
FK: Like I—yeah.
ELM: Maybe you wanna look at—if it’s a visual source material, maybe you wanna look at them. Maybe not, you know? Maybe you just wanna, people read erotica and they don’t need to see visuals, you know.
FK: Yeah, and there are people who said “I follow my favorite actors, so,” and I’ve actually observed this, specifically with James McAvoy actually, your fave.
ELM: Yeah, I’m sorry.
FK: People who clearly have just like followed him and been like “I think he’s hot, so I’m gonna read all the fanfic about things with him in it,” and like—that’s cool.
ELM: Uh, this obviously happens within fandoms. You know, like, there was a contingent of Sherlock fandom then writing Bilbo/Smaug.
FK: Oh yeah. “Smauglock,” I believe, was the term.
ELM: And then random white guy government agent from the MCU/Dr. Strange. I know that Martin Freeman’s character has a name, but I don’t know what it is.
FK: “The white guy.”
ELM: “The one of the two white guys in Black Panther.” Yeah, I’ve just encountered this in X-Men fandom the other day. It was Michael Fassbender’s character from Shame.
FK: Great.
ELM: And one of James McAvoy’s earlier roles. And I decided I didn’t want to read that. I am interested in their characters.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Not in their fa—I mean, I am interested in their faces, to be honest.
FK: [laughs] OK, let’s wrap this up. Let’s wrap this up then.
ELM: OK. So what I’m curious about when you have done this: do you feel like you’re missing something?
FK: Well…
ELM: Go back. Sorry. Before that, why have you done it? Is it—answer that question.
FK: The real only main reason that I have done it is that I had recommended to me a couple of Merlin fics that were in tropes that I was really into—and in fact, a lot of Merlin is in tropes that I’m really into, because I’m into like royal AUs, and if you’re doing Merlin, there’s all these contemporary royal AUs. I really love a contemporary royal AU! And so I’ll read across fandoms for that sometimes, if it’s really good. And because I knew the Arthurian legends, I was like “How hard can it be? This is one of the cases where I’m just gonna guess that I know. It’s probably fine.”
ELM: Right.
FK: And I don’t feel like I lost—I mean I’m sure that I did miss things! But frankly I didn’t like Merlin very much when I watched it, blessings to those who do like it, I really appreciate you guys, shine on you crazy diamonds, it’s not for me, so I didn’t feel like I was missing much personally, and you know, I enjoyed the fics that I read, and that’s it, you know?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But I don’t make a habit of this and I think it would be a lot harder for me—I would be much more likely to do this for something where I knew things that were associated with it. Like a Sherlock Holmes variant, you know. Than I would for something that I had no context for, or whatever.
ELM: Yeah, right. And I think that, you know, we’ve discussed this with AUs, we’ve discussed this with our characterization conversations—I think past me has had some even more strident opinions about this that I would now modify based on being in an AU fandom and writing a bunch of AUs, you know? So like, past me: read some more, is what I’ll say. But like, I think that we can talk in absolutes about how often—when things are OOC and how much you need to know and internal consistency with characterization and stuff, and I think it really varies, you know?
So the kind of stuff that people are describing in here is really interesting. So much of it is in the eye of the beholder about even what feels—like, there’s so much stuff that people… I’ve seen things for fandoms I’ve been in recced in “The Rec Center” and described as “in-character,” and like, canonically loyal or whatever, and I’ve been like “I’ve read that and I would never describe it that way,” you know?
FK: [laughs] Totally.
ELM: So it’s like—I don’t know. It’s interesting. It’s interesting in that very subjective way.
FK: And you never do this, because you only read in the fandoms that you’re in, so I’m not going to ask you any questions about this, because I don’t believe I’m going to get any answers beyond “Nope! Not my thing.” [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, well I mean to say—aside from the things that I really love about transformative works in general, and how much pleasure…yeah. And thinking about it too, I think I read Wide Sargasso Sea before I read Jane Eyre… No. Maybe I, I think I read them in conjunction. But I think those texts are richer and much, both of them are richer in conversation. I think that Wide Sargasso Sea makes Jane Eyre much richer, and I think people who’ve read Jane Eyre should read it, you know?
That being said, I don’t know. Like, I’m not a romance novel reader, and while I enjoy a good tropey fic from time to time, that is not my primary interest in fandom, so this sort of like “I read by trope” or whatever, that’s never gonna work for me. If I’m going to read something random where I don’t know where the characters are, I’m probably gonna read a book, honestly.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: It’s just not my bag, you know? But I absolutely respect it. Lots and lots of people are really interested in specific tropes, y’know?
FK: Yeah, I do.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: All right. Well, I’m really glad that we did this survey, I feel like it was very instructive, and I’m—you know, I’m excited to see what other people do with the data, because it is open to everybody. So go forth!
ELM: Absolutely, and like, as always—these surveys are meant to kind of be conversation or like, conversation in your head starters…
FK: Yeah! That’s their real point. Much more than any data point.
ELM: Absolutely. I really really love—and this happened this time, and it’s happened every time we’ve run a survey—we get comments being like, “Oh, these questions are interesting, really made me think about these things that I just do!” Right? And that’s extremely validating and we love that. So yeah, absolutely. Write us your thoughts, additional questions. Everything’s welcome! Just send it in. Fansplaining at gmail dot com.
FK: On that validating note, I guess I’ll talk with you later, Elizabeth!
ELM: OK bye Flourish!
FK: Bye.
[Outro music, thank yous and credits]