Fic-Privileging on Fanlore and Limitations to Fannish Diversity

[kylara]

Following a discussion in Talk:Tentaclefic, RatCreature suggested bringing the topic up in the community to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully get some more input on what to do about it. The topic began with the suggestion that the "Tentaclefic" article, which address tentacles in fandom and fanworks more broadly than just fic, be renamed to incorporate other mediums of fanwork. This expanded into a broader discussion on what to do about other such named articles and fic-privileging on Fanlore.

I'm mostly from anime/manga fandom. From the discussion it seems that fic is the core of many Western-sourced fandoms which would explain the fic-centricism on Fanlore. Fic is also important in anime/manga fandom, but quite a lot of activity is also focused on visual mediums such as fanart, webcomics, and manga-style doujinshi. Tropes aren't limited to written fiction, and fic-centered terms are not as prevalent.

I'm concerned that when topics (such as tentacles) have articles with fic-centered instead of inclusive names, that this works at the exclusion of other mediums of fanworks. I would like to see more anime/manga information brought into Fanlore, and so far the inclusion has been rather limited (which could be for a number of reasons besides). Still, I would like to see Fanlore remain welcoming to expansion.

So how about it? Ideas on how to be more mindful to non-fic fanworks? RatCreature's also looking for ideas on how to rename topics like "wingfic," "apocafic," and others which are not inherently fic-centric.

Comments

[ratcreature]

I think there are more questions about some of the others, because some elements exist in all media, but I'm not sure they are really genres in all. On the talk page when I brought "Deathfic" up as an other example kylara sensibly suggested calling the page "Character Death" (which hadn't really occurred to me, as I associate that with the warning, not the genre), which is more inclusive, but I'm not actually sure it means the same to show a dead character in fanart, and that it is a genre there as it is in fic.

In general the articles many of the tropes called such-and-such AU are very fanfic focused even if it is also an art trope (Elf AU comes to mind, there's certainly plenty of fanart drawing characters as elves), but is art "AU"? The AU page itself is very fanfic-centric. And calling the page "Elves" is really not the same, as the trope is elf-ication of non-elf characters, not fictional elves in general.

Actually that the trope page itself is called Story Tropes is rather telling, even though a ton of these tropes listed actually are visual as well as plotty, and some even at present have art as well as fic examples on their stubby pages, for example the "Noir Detective AU" article, also the not yet created Regency AU trope page comes to mind for another quite visual one, with the love of period costumes and dressing characters up.

[briar_pipe]

Jumping in here (sorry!)...

Based on several AU and other multi-media challenges I've run and participated in, there is little difference between a D&D AU fic and a D&D AU fanart in terms of tropes, at least not on a broad level. They are both different from a D&D canon fic or artwork, though. I could see creating subpages or subsections within an article to deal with this issue, or simply incorporating the term "AU" that works so well in your Noir and Regency examples.

Maybe this comes from starting in anime/manga fandom, but I don't disassociate the visual from the textual, and I've heard several fanartists express dissatisfaction or irritation at fic-centric language in media fandom. If other communities are making the effort to use inclusive language, Fanlore really should be at the forefront of that, shouldn't it?