The rise of the AU genre follows the development of fanfiction from time to time
Written by Rahma Yulita | Read in Indonesian
E. L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey,” Anna Todd’s “After,” and Cassandra Clare’s “City of Bones”; these three are several novel titles that have been successfully adapted into movies. Then, what makes them interesting? Yes, the fact that these three stories started from fanfiction stories.
Fanfiction is defined as a work of fiction created by fans, involving characters in a franchise (in a movie/series) or public figures, with varied story backgrounds for fandoms to enjoy. Fanfiction is also part of fan-works.
Fan-work itself has many forms, such as fanart in the form of drawings, fanmade video (FMV) in the form of videos, and fanfiction in the form of writing. This time, we will discuss the development of fanfiction which has existed through many platforms, and the presence of genres such as alternate universes (AU) which are increasingly popular today.
The development of fanfiction, dominating fandoms from then till now
Apparently, since the time of Jane Austen around the 20th century, fanfiction has started to appear. A member of the Jane Austen ‘fandom’ who called themselves the Janeites, Sybil Brinton, published an imaginary sequel inspired by Jane Austen’s works in 1913.
The presence of fanfiction expanded when the book “The Enchanted Duplicator” by Walt Willis and Bob Shaw, which was called the world's first 'fanfic book', was released in 1952. To this day, more and more fans have become fanfiction connoisseurs and writers, to the extent that fanfiction has become part of the fangirling/fanboying culture of fandoms.
Then, what about the platform journey that has existed from the beginning until now?
Nikky, a fanfic writer since 2002, talks about fanfiction platforms that have been around thus far. They include:
GeoCities is a web hosting service that allows users to create and publish websites for free. At the time, GeoCities was used by fandoms to publish works of fiction that fans submitted via email.
Fanfiction.net began to exist and be known by fandoms around 2004 and was initially much in demand by anime fandoms. At that time, the stories published on Fanfiction.net were very diverse and more numerous than GeoCities.
LiveJournal: A blog that was released in 1999, rose to popularity around the 2000s. What was unique compared to other platforms at that time was that LiveJournal had a forum for fandoms and was very focused on writing. This platform is one of the favorite platforms for fans of fanfiction.
Wattpad: Since its release in 2006, Wattpad can be assumed as a “heaven” for writers, both fanfiction and original story writers. It's not uncommon for stories published on Wattpad to eventually be monetized into books and films.
Tumblr: The easy tagging system, adding images, and other features make Tumblr easier to use and are still a fandom favorite to this day.
Archive of Our Own (Ao3): The Ao3 platform is an open source platform for hosting fanfiction. This site was created in 2008 by the Organization for Transformative Works and opened in 2009. Now, the Archive of Our Own has accommodated 10 million works of fiction written by more than 53 thousand fandoms.
Twitter: Even though Twitter has been launched since 2006, its popularity as a platform for publishing new fanfictions mainly began around 2018. Then, entering 2019, many fanfiction writers with the AU genre published their writings here. The fandoms that publish the most fictional content on Twitter are K-pop and anime fandoms.
Seeing its development in line with technological advances and fandom regeneration, it is no wonder that nowadays more and more people are investing time to read fanfic on platforms that are easily accessible with a wider variety of formats.
Alternate universe with a new format
Fanfiction exists with various genres, one of which is alternate universe or more popularly known as AU.
Ayu, a fanfiction writer on Ao3 said, “Alternate universe is a genre of fanfiction, and not all fanfiction works have AU as the genre. The indicator is whether the content has the setting in accordance with the canon (original) materials or not.”
Meanwhile, Nida, an AU fanfiction writer on Twitter said that AU is a story written by changing several factors of the original characters. For example, she wrote plenty of fictional works about Lee Jeno, a member of a boy group from SM Entertainment, NCT.
AU stories that exist today on Twitter are quite different from the AU of old times. Especially considering that this genre has been known since the 90s as ‘alternate history’.
One of the most famous AU in the 90s is the story “Anno Dracula” (1992) written by Kim Newman. The story was inspired by “Dracula” (1897) by Bram Stoker, where Kim Neman’s Dracula is able to defeat van Helsing, the vampire hunter.
Now, the AU genre popular on Twitter is packaged with a social media format which is more practical and has minimal writing. The flow of the story is visualized more with pictures and videos as introduction. The plot is also not as long as written fiction, so that fans can catch up more easily with the story.
One of the interesting things about fanfiction with the AU genre is how the story plot is delivered by presenting screenshots of WhatsApp or Instagram chatroom chats, so that readers can feel closer with the characters of the story.
Because the AU genre is very popular in the K-pop fandom, it is not uncommon to find stories of the AU genre that present the background of a local version of a K-pop idol. For example, Mark Lee, who should be a member of NCT, is visualized as a final year student in Bandung who is active in organizations and is currently working on his thesis.
Stories that fall under real person fiction (RPF) like this often make writers fearful in developing the story. According to Nida, "AU readers are increasingly diverse and it is possible that they have experience and knowledge that are broader than what the authors have, sometimes I'm afraid to write something that may turn out to be wrong. So I have to do a lot of research beforehand so that what I write will also be of use to the readers.”
Even so, fanfic with the AU genre, which is increasingly being posted on Twitter, can be said to be today's favorite, especially for those who are part of the K-pop fandom. It is undeniable that some of the stories have attracted the attention of publishers and filmmakers, to the extent that a number of them have been adopted into books and films.
Cemented as part of pop culture
The presence of fanfiction is increasingly followed and liked by many people around the world. This has established fanfiction as part of pop culture.
Fanfiction influences pop culture by appealing to fandoms, so much so that these fictional works can reach more people and be enjoyed just like the original story. Because of their popularity, the relationships featured in fanfiction sometimes influence how the fandom sees the characters in the original stories.
As an AU RPF fanfic writer, Nida has concerns about this, so she always evaluates the story because she does not want the characters she creates to have a bad impact on the idols whose visuals she uses.
The previously mentioned “Fifty Shades of Grey”, “After”, and “City of Bones” are also only a small part of the fanfiction stories that have been adapted into books and films. Often questions arise regarding whether fanfiction violates copyright. Because once again, fanfiction is a derivative work inspired by pre-existing works.
Ayu believes that monetization of fanfiction is still in the grey area, because the author uses other people's characters, even though the story is made by the authors themselves. This is why fanfiction works that are turned into books or films often change the names, visualizations, and even the backgrounds of the characters.
According to a fanfiction writer on Ao3, Narya Agnynusa, fanfiction works that are monetized to such a large extent can lead to copyright infringement. She said, "This [monetized work] can set a bad example for many writers, because the nature of fanfic that is for fun and is meant to release one’s imagination can now be seen as a mere cash cow."
It turns out, monetizing fanfiction is already regulated in Article 113 paragraph (2) of the Copyright Law, where if someone other than the copyright owner adapts, arranges, or transforms someone else's work for the purpose of monetization, then that is considered as criminal acts.
Violations can also be punished with imprisonment of maximum three years and/or a maximum fine of Rp500 million. Therefore, developing fanworks must be done very carefully!
