Alpha canon is information about a fictional universe given through the medium in which that universe first appeared. For Star Trek, this would be the screen — television and movies. For Harry Potter, this would be books. Alpha canon takes precedence over all other canon.
Beta canon is information about that same fictional universe shared through a medium licensed by the entertainment property owner that is not the original medium for the universe. For Star Trek, this would be officially licensed books. For Harry Potter, this would be officially licensed films and stage plays. For franchises that believe in a multiverse, beta canon can “disagree” with other canon, including itself. Officially, beta canon usually is secondary to alpha canon and can be overruled by it. In practice, some fans ignore beta canon while others prefer it to alpha canon.
Fanworks are fanfiction, fanart, fan films, etc. These works are not officially licensed by the entertainment property. They are what-ifs, a fan or fans’ interpretation of possibilities, and are not canon.
Headcanon is something a person believes about a fictional universe, usually an opinion or interpretation.
Fanon is something a bunch of people believe about a fictional universe, again, usually an opinion or interpretation.
Creator intent is not canon, so anything a creator posted to social media or otherwise shared may be neat (or upsetting) to know, but it’s not the “truth” of the fictional universe if the information wasn’t there already.
Ed/Stede stories today, and the bulk of these stories is some flavor of “what happens once they reunite in S2” and I just wanna say to anyone who is like “oh, so many people have already written this, nobody needs my version of the story” –
WRITE. AND. SHARE. YOUR. VERSION. OF. THE. STORY.
Don’t be dissuaded by the number - in fact, be encouraged! The fandom is devouring “what happens next” stories in great big fistfuls and the party is showing NO signs of winding down. Our Flag Means Death is the golden goose fandom we’re always hoping will come along but so rarely does!
This is EXACTLY what fandom always wants - another story exactly like the stories we’ve just read, except different.
NOBODY IS ANYWHERE NEAR TIRED OF THESE STORIES.
INFINITE CAKE IS FANDOM GOALS.
BRING YOUR CAKE TO THE TABLE.
DO IT.
CAKE.
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS.
Let me tell you a thing. I’m an editor. I just edited a couple anthologies all on the same topic (cryptids) and do you know what? I received 470 submissions and 470 different cakes from that very same, very identically the same topic. Dozens of bigfoot stories. A buncha sea monsters. Lots of mothman.
But never ever the same story. I got a 470 unique stories because every single writer had had a different morning, a different year, a different life than the writer who came before or after them in the queue.
This will always be true, forever. Who you spoke with yesterday, the nerves you felt the first time you said I love you, how you got through a divorce or illness – each one makes you the absolute singularity of YOU, and no one will tell a story the way you do, ever.
So tell us your pirate adventure, or your romance, or your fix-it, or anything at all you like. Fandoms thrive on creativity and yours is a blessing. Yours is cake.
Friendly reminder that fan-made content (fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc) are:
extremely time consuming. Remember someone actually took time out of their life to create that, time they could’ve used to, idk, sleep, for example
entertainment you’re consuming for free. I can’t stress this enough: you’re enjoying someone else’s craft for free. You paid exactly zero money to look at/read/watch it.
S H A R E D with you, not made for you. This is the most important point: someone created that, put it online and you found it. No one forced you to consume that fanwork, you C H O S E to do it.
Whenever you feel like leaving a mean comment, anonymous hate or make a ~clever post about how ‘lol look at all of these overused tropes every fic writer crams into their fics’ remember you’re being a dick to someone who shared their work with you. You’re not being funny, you’re not being edgy, you’re not being brave for calling something out - you’re being a dick.
Do you have favorite, go-to fanworks, or ones you recommend to anyone starting out in your fandom? International Fanworks Day is coming up on February 15 and OTW has some suggestions on how to celebrate. Read more at https://otw.news/international-fanworks-d3b70c
A thrilling “where some courts have gone before but it’s awesome every time” ruling out of Los Angeles today, as a trial court found that the mashup of Dr Seuss and Star Trek entitled “Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go” is a transformative work, protected by the Fair Use doctrine, and not a copyright infringement. Salient sections of the ruling include: “Although Defendants certainly borrowed from Go!—at times liberally—the elements borrowed were always adapted or transformed. The Court therefore concludes … that Defendants’ work, while commercial, is highly transformative. Plaintiff’s argument that Boldly is a derivative work misses the mark, as a derivative work is not foreclosed from being transformative (or constituting a fair use).” Page 31 of the ruling discusses the purpose of the Copyright Act, which is seemingly sometimes forgotten by copyright owners: “[T]he primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but ‘to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.’ To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work.” The ruling strongly supports fanworks, follow-on creativity and parodies (even though this work wasn’t one). Yes, it’s only a trial court ruling, and it can be appealed, but it sets out the law sensibly and structurally and hopefully will be upheld if it goes up on appeal.
There’s more discussion of it on Twitter and you can read the entire ruling here.
Valentine’s Day is a struggle for a lot of aromantic and asexual people out there, including me. So I’m making this compilation of my fics that feature aroace Keith in hopes of providing some comfort, or at the very least, distraction.
There’s also an AroAce Keith Zine! I had the honor of participating along with several other talented writers and artists. It’s FREE TO DOWNLOAD as a PDF and as a Heyzine.
For more AroAce Keith content, check out @justheretobreakthings
So it’s not surprising Tumblr is trying out monetization, because I suspect that ALL user-generated content platforms are headed that way. But I am absolutely gobsmacked that they’re explicitly calling out fanfiction as an example of something that Tumblr users should monetize.
I mean, we all know that norms around commercialization of fanworks are changing, e.g. patreon. And we also know that commerciality isn’t an automatic “nope not fair use now” magic button, but there is a good reason that OTW and AO3 specifically only focus on and allow on the platform noncommercial fanworks.
Like, sure, join the monetizing creators bandwagon, Tumblr, but I absolutely would have expected you to pretend you don’t know people might be monetizing fanworks.
[Caption: “Not reserved only for professionals, or those with 10K followers or higher, Tumblr’s Post+ will push the boundaries of what’s considered money-making content on the internet: Shitposters, memelords, artists, fan fiction writers, all of the above and everyone in between will be able to create content while building their community of supporters, and getting paid with Post+,” a Tumblr spokesperson told TechCrunch.]
Here is a video essay about the results as well as my general musings about the “death” of fandom LiveJournal, the rise of AO3, and the possible future of Tumblr. You’ll also find some TL;DR in the link above, or you can even read the entire resulting paper, published now in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction: “Moving Across Lands: Online Platform Migration in Fandom Communities.”
And for the serious TL;DR here’s the fancy chart again. :)
I’d love to know what you think! Feel free to reblog with how all this tracks to your own experience, or what your predictions are for the future of fan platforms.
I know it can sometimes feel awkward to reblog your own works, but if you’ve spent time making something- a vid, a fic, picspam, meta, rec list, graphics, art, anything- boost it!
If you made it, share it! Doesn’t matter if it’s something you made years ago or just last week, give it another moment in the spotlight and revel in your own creativity.
A while back I was a little obsessed with trying to find all active bingo/writing events/fest going on and it took me ages to find some. So here is an list of all writing/multi fandom events that are currently active. Most of them are pertained towards writers but a lot of them are multi-media. Please read the navigation pages on all these for fine details, I am not affiliated with any of these events just someone collecting them in one masterlist for easier navigation and to promote all these lovely events. If there are others I am missing please tell me, or if there are users who host annual events for general fandom prompts I would love to include those as well .
Hey all, since TV season is approaching, this is my semi-annual call for people to join the fandom discussion board I mod.
It’s an 18+ server for discussion & analysis oriented talk about fandom, fandom meta, fanworks and related topics. Do you have:
1. Strong opinions on symbolism in sci-fi shows, 2. An essay on the costuming in Buffy you’ve been dying to share, 3. A character analysis of Jughead and his family, 4. Any other fandomy topics you’re burning to discuss, really 5. An urge to read deep dives into characters, relationships, visuals, plotlines, portrayed social issues, etc. (like…a bookclub) ?
AND can handle opposing opinions and friendly debates? Then this might be for you! Lightly modded as long as the discussion rules are followed, as we’re all adults. We’ve got ~20-30 people right now but I’d love to get some new voices and opinions.
(Originally sprung from a Riverdale group, with channels for Riverdale, Chilling Tales of Sabrina and a variety of requested specific fandoms as well.)
If you’re interested (or have questions!), PM me for an invite, as tumblr hates embedded links!
Tumblr seems to be in potential death throes or at least, incredibly volatile and unreliable lately, but we’ve done some pretty good and informative work on canon analysis and reference guides so I was looking for ways to back it up without losing it…and the solution became obvious to me:
Archive of Our Own, aka AO3.
“What?” you might ask if you are less familiar with their TOS. “Isn’t that just a fanfic archive??”
No! It’s a fanWORK archive. It is an archive for fanworks in general! “Fanwork” is a broad term that encompasses a lot of things, but it doesn’t just include fanfic and fanart, vids etc; it also includes “fannish” essays and articles that fall under what’s often called “meta” (from the word for “beyond” or “above”, referencing that it goes beyond the original exact text)! The defining factor of whether Archive of Our Own is the appropriate place to post it is not whether or not it’s a fictional expansion of canon (fanfic), though that is definitely included - no, it’s literally just “is this a work by a ‘fan’ intended for other ‘fannish’ folks/of ‘fannish’ interest?”
The articles we’ve written as a handy reference to the period-appropriate Japanese clothing worn by Inuyasha characters? The analyses of characters? The delineations of concrete canon (the original work) vs common “fanon” (common misconceptions within the fandom)? Even the discussion of broader cultural, historical, and geographic context that applies to the series and many potential fanworks?
All of those are fannish nonfiction!
Which means they absolutely can (and will) have a home on AO3, and I encourage anybody who is wanting to back up similar works of “fannish interest” - ranging from research they’ve done for a fic, to character analyses and headcanons - to use AO3 for it, because it’s a stable, smooth-running platform that isad-free and unlike tumblr, is run by a nonprofit (The OTW) that itself is run by and for the benefit of, fellow fans.
Of course, that begs the question of how to tag your work if you do cross-post it, eh? So on that note, here’s a quick run-down of tags we’re finding useful and applicable, which I’ve figured out through a combination of trial and error and actually asking a tag wrangler (shoutout to @wrangletangle for their invaluable help!):
First, the Very Broad:
- “ Nonfiction ”. This helps separate it from fanfic on the archive, so people who aren’t looking for anything but fanfic are less likely to have to skim past it, whereas people looking for exactly that content are more likely to find it.
- while “Meta” and “Essay” and even “Information” are all sometimes used for the kinds of nonfiction and analytical works we post, I’ve been told “ Meta Essay ” is the advisable specific tag for such works. This would apply to character analyses, reference guides to canon, and even reference guides to real-world things that are reflected in the canon (such as our articles on Japanese clothing as worn by the characters). The other three tags are usable, and I’ve been using them as well to cover my bases, but they’ll also tend to bring up content such as “essay format” fanfic or fanfic with titles with those words in them - something that does not happen with “Meta Essay”.
- I’ve also found by poking around in suggested tags, that “ Fanwork Research & Reference Guides ” is consistently used (even by casual users) for: nonfiction fannish works relating to analyses of canon materials; analyses of and meta on fandom-specific or fanwork-specific tropes; information on or guides to writing real-world stuff that applies to or is reflected in specific fandoms’ media (e.g. articles on period-appropriate culture-specific costuming and how to describe it); and expanded background materials for specific fans’ fanworks (such as how a given AU’s worldbuilding is supposed to be set up) that didn’t fit within the narrative proper and is separated out as a reference for interested readers.
Basically, if it’s an original fan-made reference for something specific to one or more fanworks, or a research aid for writing certain things applicable to fanworks or fannish interests in general, then it can fall under that latter tag.
- You should also mark it with any appropriate fandom(s) in the “Fandom” field. Just like you would for a fanfic, because of course, the work is specifically relevant to fans of X canon, right?
If it discusses sensitive topics, or particular characters, etc., you should probably tag for those. E.g. “death” or “mental illness”, “Kagome Higurashi”, etc.
Additionally, if you are backing it up from a Tumblr you may wish to add:
- “Archived From Tumblr “ and/or “ Cross-Posted From Tumblr ” to reference the original place of publication, for works originally posted to tumblr. (I advise this if only because someday, there might not be “tumblr” as we know it, and someone might be specifically looking for content that was originally on it, you never know)
- “Archived From [blog name] Blog ”; this marks it as an archived work from a specific blog.And yes, I recommend adding the word “blog” in there for clarity- Wrangletangle was actuallydelighted that I bothered to tag our first archived work with “Archived From Inu-FictionBlog” because being EXTREMLY specific about things like that is super helpful to the tag wranglers on AO3, who have to decide how to categorize/”syn” (synonym) various new tags from alphabetized lists without context of the original posting right in front of them. In other words, including the name AND the word “blog” in it, helps them categorize the tag on the back end without having to spend extra time googling what the heck “[Insert Name Here]” was originally.
Overall, you should be as specific and clear as possible, but those tags/tag formats should prove useful in tagging it correctly should you choose to put fannish essays and articles up on AO3 :)
Oh, and protip sidebar for those posting, especially works that are more than plain text: you can make archiving things quicker and easier for yourself, but remember to plan ahead for tumblr’s potential demise/disabling/service interruptions.
The good news: You can literally copy and paste the ENTIRE text of a tumblr post from say, an “edit” window, on tumblr, straight into AO3′s Rich Text Format editor, and it will preserve pretty much all or almost all of the formatting - such as bold, italics, embedded links, etc!
But the bad news: keep in mind that while AO3 allows for embedded images and it WILL transfer those embedded images with a quick copy-paste like that, AO3 itself doesn’t host the images for embedding; those are still externalimages. This means that whether or not they continue to load/display for users, depends entirely on whether the file is still on the original external server! As I quickly discovered, in the case of posts copied from the Edit window of a tumblr post, the images will still point to the copies of the images ON tumblr’s servers.
What this means is that you should back up (save copies elsewhere of) any embedded images that you consider vital to such posts, in case you need to upload them elsewhere and fiddle with where the external image is being pulled from, later.
Personally, I’m doing that AND adding image descriptions underneath them, just to be on the safe side (and in fairness, this makes it more accessible to people who cannot view the images anyway, such as sight-impaired people who use screen readers or people who have images set to not automatically display on their browser, so it’s win-win)
The Granada TV adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories (1984-1994) are many people’s favorites, and though no adaptation has entirely satisfied me, they are pretty great. But the principals were too old by far when the series began (Jeremy Brett, who played Holmes, was 50!) to ever adapt the first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet. So it’s one of the few canon stories to not be filmed with Brett in the lead role. Which is a shame.
So I figured out what year the story would have needed to have been shot in order to put Brett and Burke near the ages of Holmes and Watson at their initial meeting (taking the more conservative Morley timeline, as the Granada series seems generally pretty conservative in its interpretations), and that would be the early-mid 1960s. I also figured out who would have been the right age (and at the right stage of their careers to do TV) to play the more prominent supporting roles.
So, here you go, a poster for the nonexistent 1963 Granada Television production of A Study in Scarlet!
![hohogwarts: favorite otps: [2/?]↳ finn&poe - rebellious boyfriends “The bruises on your thighs](https://64.media.tumblr.com/659fdc181c6f180ab1bba2cd3f76e38a/tumblr_o0n4poEyjQ1rlpsjno1_1280.jpg "hohogwarts: favorite otps: [2/?]↳ finn&poe - rebellious boyfriends “The bruises on your thighs")
![hohogwarts: favorite otps: [2/?]↳ finn&poe - rebellious boyfriends “The bruises on your thighs](https://64.media.tumblr.com/be752aca0b4b89825546318ec131310c/tumblr_o0n4poEyjQ1rlpsjno2_1280.jpg "hohogwarts: favorite otps: [2/?]↳ finn&poe - rebellious boyfriends “The bruises on your thighs")
