The gay fanfiction problem

It is well-established in academic research and individual practices that fanfiction is a medium for persons involved to explore their fantasies, desires, and predilections—sexual or not.  

For example, in French,* third singular possessive pronouns don’t make any distinctions for the gender of the person they refer to (i.e. “her book” and “his book” is both “son livre”).

However, it is important to note that slash fiction still occupies a significant position in the fanfiction community. He caught his next punch, and he caught his.

I think you can see the problem.

Of course the people who complained loudest enough about this issue are the gay fanfiction writers. No one will be signing up for your Level 3 package!

In trying to understand the role of fanfiction and its communities in facilitating development, and parsing through multiple papers, it has become evident that there are primarily three salient and interdependent domains that benefit from participation (Waggoner 2012; Garner 2016; Mixer 2018; Floegel 2020).[1] The first, the ability to enable one’s sexual development; the second, the opportunity provided to engage with one’s queer identity; and the third, in finding secure queer communities to further foster growth and change.

We can hypothesize that over the years with the increase in registered users—AO3 registered only 247, 000 users in 2013 (AO3 Statistics)— in conjunction with an increase in awareness of queer identities and the effort undertaken to visiblise these identities, the numbers might have increased, therefore establishing AO3 as a community populated by queer individuals producing, disseminating, and consuming queer fanfiction.

More creative, less repetitive. Quickly rising to popularity, as of 2020, AO3 has over 2.5 million registered users and almost 6 million works distributed over 37,600 fandoms, making it the most common fanfiction website used by fandom communities (AO3 Statistics). Blue Eagle. Blue Eagle. No one will be signing up for your Level 3 package! Furthermore, it also cannot take into account the queer representation that is available in the zeitgeist.

*cough*. Your scam is over!”

Upon hearing his latest scheme had fallen to pieces at his hands, he summoned a dozen plant vines from the ground. King Venus. How do we solve the Gay Fanfiction Problem?

Obviously, we don’t solve it with the Straight Fanfiction Solution. https://www.google.com/search?q=fanatic&rlz=1C1CHBF_enIN915IN915&oq=fanatic&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i20i263i433j46i67j0i67i433l2j0i67l2j69i60.2587j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.

Oxford University Press.

Blue Eagle.

But was it exhausting to read? And it’s not perfect, but it’s better than some of our other options – like dividing people into groups of tall and short people, or young and old people or something like that.