Fanficforum Frankfurt

Samutina - Fanfiction as World-Building

• focus on the transformative aspect of fanfiction
• existing models of transfictionality help explain some aspects of what fanfic does to an existing text (/the canon) but struggles when more than one source text comes in as in the case of crossover fanfics or potentially AUs
• fanfic as fictional anthropology, striving to understand the human psyche
  
• problem: Samutina's focus on fanfiction's originality doesn't help her overall argument and neither do the survey answers
  

Persuasion-Crossovers

• Austen's novel does very different work here
• Sherlock fanfic seems like somewhat nostalgic escapism, could also be queer inscription into British (literary) history
• Sherlock fanfic prioritises fidelity to the text over fidelity to the ideas
• Sherlock fanfic reveals conflict in textual politics regarding gender: Persuasion is in some ways more progressive than Sherlock (BBC) ant the fanfic ends up being conservative too, applying heteronormative stereotypes to a homosexual relationship while claiming gender equality
• Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / Untamed fanfic shows a continuation of the oppressive structures Persuasion criticises into the modern day, is less "true" to Persuasion in terms of words and character constellations but more "true" to the political ideas
• in crossover fic, classics can be used as model for idealised romance but also as models for human emotions, thinking and acting more generally
• classics also provide cultural capital, they attract readers and provide a mold for (already enjoyable) plots