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what are your thoughts on gen
1. To the several people on my flist who have been reading Riddle-Master and/or the Perilous Gard, two of my all-time favorite formative fantasies: They're so good, aren't they?? Also I mostly read DW on my phone lately so I lost your posts before I could comment on them but I want to say: yes, I agree.
2. Panel suggestions for this year's con.txt convention close today. If you would like a say on what is discussed at this year's con.txt, get your submissions in now! They still have a very low number so you're at risk of far too many of mine getting in. (you don't have to agree to run them just because you suggest them, btw.)
3. A thing I did not suggest as a panel but I keep thinking about lately so I'm going to just dump my thoughts here:
Has anyone else noticed that it seems like non-romance-focused fic is getting a lot more attention lately? Like when I started in fandom, and for many years after, it was axiomatic that almost nobody reads gen. But as you may have noticed I sometimes like to play around with AO3 stats and I keep noticing that it seems like there are more and more & ships and no-relationship fics ranking toward the top. So here are some not-well-thought out points on the question of "why is non-romance fic getting more prominence lately?"
Anyway that's all very raw braindump and may be completely wrong, anybody else have any thoughts on this?
2. Panel suggestions for this year's con.txt convention close today. If you would like a say on what is discussed at this year's con.txt, get your submissions in now! They still have a very low number so you're at risk of far too many of mine getting in. (you don't have to agree to run them just because you suggest them, btw.)
3. A thing I did not suggest as a panel but I keep thinking about lately so I'm going to just dump my thoughts here:
Has anyone else noticed that it seems like non-romance-focused fic is getting a lot more attention lately? Like when I started in fandom, and for many years after, it was axiomatic that almost nobody reads gen. But as you may have noticed I sometimes like to play around with AO3 stats and I keep noticing that it seems like there are more and more & ships and no-relationship fics ranking toward the top. So here are some not-well-thought out points on the question of "why is non-romance fic getting more prominence lately?"
- It's not, you're just in fandoms that mean you're seeing it more.
TBF in the last few years I have been reading a lot of AtLA and MCYT fic, and both of those are massive fandoms that have been leaning even more heavily gen than anything else on AO3. But the fact that two of the biggest fandoms of the past couple years are heavily gen says something on its own. And looking at stats, of 86 fics with >25000 kudos posted more than five years ago, 6 of them were gen; of 83 fics with >25000 kudos posted more recently, 24 were gen. So I think there really is something here in an increase of readership for gen fic on AO3. - Gen has always been huge; it's just that the gen community has finally made a home on AO3.
I think it's inarguable that gen has always been huge, but for a long period of fandom, gen fans and ship fans moved in very different spaces, and AO3 was definitely founded by ship fans and heavily dominated by them for a long time. But AO3 has slowly been gathering people in, and there are now several generations of fans whose entire fandom experience has been on AO3, and several very large fandoms that have never had a significant fanfic presence anywhere else, so it may be that what we're seeing with more gen is AO3 starting to reflect fandom as a whole better than it used to. - AO3 users have finally discovered the & tag, which has made gen-about-relationships way more discoverable, and opened up a new category of not-romance-but-relationship-focused fic that has always been hard to find before.
I blame the increased use of the & tag on MCYT fandom, because for several years they were the most active fandom on AO3 but basically had completely unusable fandom tags; you could not filter on fandom tags to find the MCYT fic you wanted to read; so people get used to heavily using the & tags instead of fandom tags to mean "this is the set of characters we're writing about". RPF-adjacent fandoms and creator-owned fandoms have always set a bit uncomfortably in AO3's tag-definitions system, but MCYT was particularly bad, and also the largest one to have a not-super-ship-focused fandom, which meant they couldn't fall back on / tags. And once a critical mass of writers on AO3 (spreading out from mcyt) realized how useful the & tags were, they suddenly became even more useful. Now I can suddenly get a reasonable number of results when I search for A&B! Now I suddenly don't have to tag A/B preship in order to get people who like A & B's dynamic together to read my fic, because people are also looking at the & tag! And that meant that people who liked fic about A & B's dynamic but didn't particularly need it to be romantic could find each other much more easily, instead of just searching on character tags and hoping for the best, and another way of doing fandom, centered on non-shippy ships, started to grow. - The growth in fandom puritanism means that people who might have previously shipped a pair are now only doing them as gen.
A lot of the current large fandoms that have a lot of & ships have many popular sets of characters that would be "problematic" by modern standards if they were / (teenagers in canon, small age gap, rpf, sort-of-family-ish, power imbalance, fill in the blank here.) If everyone is interested in two characters' dynamic together but is afraid if you ship them you will be ostracized, then fic that focuses on the dynamic but keeps it safely non-ship is going to become more popular to read, write, and rec. (And as a corollary: as there's a growing group of young fans who are vocally uncomfortable with certain types of shipping, there's also a growing group of people who have aged up with internet fandom who are perfectly OK with shipping anything in theory but as they got older no longer *want* to look at younger characters in that way, even though they still like fandoms with young characters.) - There are more canon ships that do the things fandom wants, so people who want that gravitate to those fandoms.
When I started in fanfic fandom, a large part of why we shipped noncanon pairings is that there were no canon pairings like the ones we shipped. There are now a much broader variety of canon pairings people can ship (I now 'ship several explicitly canon 'ships that include ships and have active fandoms, even, I don't have to wistfully think about Kirk/Enterprise or re-read The Ship Who Searched!) If the people who want that kind of pairing just go to the fandoms where they're canon (and canon m/m fandoms often have very little fic that doesn't ship m/m), there's less motivation to take canon dynamics in other fandoms and make them explicitly shippy, so there's more energy to explore the non-shippy canon dynamics.
ETA: with the addition that in some ways we're getting *less* really intense non-shippy (non-queerbaity) relationships in mainstream media than we did in the 90's, partly *because* of the increased availability of queer possibilities, so maybe people who want foreground intense friendship are more likely to have to turn to fic. - Fandom has come full circle around the kind of stories it's for
Sometimes lately I feel like I'm stuck in four different periods of fandom, each a generation apart: on Thursdays I travel back in time to 1968 Trek watch parties with Galactic Journey; they also lured me into joining an APA that was founded in 1937; I spend most of the rest of my time in MCYT fandom, which is sort of the most 2020s of 2020s fandoms; except that I started fandom in the late '90s and all my comfort fandoms and deep-down ideas of what fandom is come from then.
And it sort of feels like: the late 1930s fans were just coming up with the whole idea of a "fanwriter". What if we wrote and published stories ourselves about whatever we wanted not what there was a market for? And then in the late 60s they were starting to ask, the way these two characters act would be romantic if it was a man and a woman, what if we explored that? And in the 90s it was starting to be, hey, *any* characters can be written as romantic/sexual with each other, because they *would* be treated as romantic if they were m/f leads! What kind of stories can we tell if we go there? And I feel like now the new generation is come full circle to asking, hey, what if there was a really intense relationship that *wasn't* romantic? what would that even look like, what stories could we tell? - There's been a growing understanding in the queer-adjacent community that dividing relationships into romantic-sexual(important) and other relationships (unimportant) is reductive and unhealthy, and that's reflected in queer-adjacent fans being more interested in other kinds of relationships
Because the thing that strikes me about a lot of the really popular "gen" is that it's not gen in the sense that I was used to seeing gen in the 90's - "more of" canon sort of plotty adventure stuff - most of it is fic that is very intensely focused on character relationships, they're just friendships or family or found family or mentorship or team or platonic lifemates instead of romance. Like I feel like we started to see this explictly in the ~2012 era when both Homestuck fic and Avenger's Tower fic were huge - they often did have some kind of "ship" that ended up filed under / on AO3 but the real focus of the story was often other kinds of relationship. And we're starting to see that more with canon ships too, in some of the newer fandoms, that have gone past queercoding and queerbaiting to something more like 'does it matter if it's queer? they love each other.' - People are hungry for any kind of real relationship in these isolating late capitalist days, the way they used to only be hungry for romance.
Young people in particular, but also basically everybody since 2020, has been so isolated, and our world generally so socially broken, that the idea of "what if I had a friend I could just. spend time with. in person. whenever I wanted. and I knew they would still be there for me no matter what" has become almost as much an unattainable dream for many, many people as "what if a handsome billionaire swept me off my feet". And so people are writing and reading fic about it the way they used to only write about unattainable romances, just to remind themselves what it would be like.
Anyway that's all very raw braindump and may be completely wrong, anybody else have any thoughts on this?
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1. There are a lot of literal kids in fandom nowadays (yes, even on AO3), who think shipping and romance of any kind is gross. I would have expected (but cannot confirm) that the current wave of ATLA and Minecraft fans to include a lot of minors.
2. As the Ace and Aro communities are becoming more organized, so are Ace and Aro fans becoming a larger presence on AO3, and more vocal about what they like (which for some -- but not all! -- may be gen). I'm not sure this is a big effect, but it might be a noticeable contribution in some fandoms.
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I think it's definitely partly true that fans of different ages are mixed up more in the age of AO3, though. And youngsters are different than they were back in my day! I think part of it's the general shift back toward prudery but also I think like, when I started, shipping at all was kind scandalous and dangerous when you were twelve or fourteen (...partly because there was no way to avoid stumbling on explicit rapefic half the time), slash shipping even moreso, and that was part of the appeal for young people. These days I feel like it doesn't have that same feeling, shipping of all sorts is super mainstream and passe, so it may not have quite the same kind of appeal for young fans.
2. I would like to say it's down to aroace people being cool now (and that's probably some of it) but a lot of the & fic I'm seeing doesn't identify as ace. (even in cases where it would make a lot of sense for the characters.) But I think that sort of connects to my second-to-last point, that in general there's a growing sense that pinning everything on falling in exclusive romantic love with The One is not really that great when it's your only culturally available narrative - and some of that comes from aro people but some of it is from poly and some of it is just that the queer community as a whole has never really been that normative about that kind of narrative as wider culture, like "this person is my life partner even though we broke up years ago and exclusively have sex with other people" I feel like was pretty accepted in the gay/lesbian community for a long time? And I think some of that wider range of possibilities is leaking out to fandom culture.
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Because the thing that strikes me about a lot of the really popular "gen" is that it's not gen in the sense that I was used to seeing gen in the 90's - "more of" canon sort of plotty adventure stuff - most of it is fic that is very intensely focused on character relationships, they're just friendships or family or found family or mentorship or team or platonic lifemates instead of romance.
Which is fascinating. Because I think of gen as per the 90s (basically, when my ideas of fandom were set) as essentially casefic and to be honest, I have canon for the casefic. That's not what I want to read more of in fanfic -- I want the characters and relationships. And the idea that fandom is focusing on relationships, not just the sexual ones, feels in line with the growing awareness of asexuality. It's interesting.
Young people in particular, but also basically everybody since 2020, has been so isolated, and our world generally so socially broken, that the idea of "what if I had a friend I could just. spend time with. in person. whenever I wanted. and I knew they would still be there for me no matter what" has become almost as much an unattainable dream for many, many people as "what if a handsome billionaire swept me off my feet". And so people are writing and reading fic about it the way they used to only write about unattainable romances, just to remind themselves what it would be like.
That is sadly true. Both for young people and for older people (like me, 40+) where life gets busy, there are real-world responsibilities, and you don't have the luxury of just hanging out with local friends. I mean, fandom's full of people who understand online friendships and community -- after all, that where most fannish activity is -- but that dream of a real-life bestie who understands you and spends a lot of time with you... I can see why that would be enjoyable to write and read about.
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And it's not even just getting older and getting more busy (there have always been 40+ fans) but like, there's a lot of discussion lately about the lack of "Third places" in modern life. You could go hang out at the bar or the park or mall or for a lot of people their religious center, and those have just been slowly seeping away over the last generation or two. Even the ones that still exist - like the gym or the coffeeshop - the social customs have often swerved sharply away from using them as open social spaces to places where you go to do stuff and not talk to strangers. Even for older people, people who twenty years ago might have gone out somewhere they could interact with other people in a public space often instead stay home and talk on discord. And that's not entirely worse! But it's different. (And for teenagers of course there's the increasing aspect of they can't go anywhere without an adult to take them anyway. It's like you get a few years in college where that kind of hanging out is easy and simple, if you're lucky, and that's it.) I feel like a lot of the popular fandoms these days are heavy on the "people hanging out and being friends" because it's just a lot harder to do generally than it was thirty years ago. Even without the pandemic.
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I think you're right. Being constantly connected by devices has definitely come with far less face-to-face socialising and that feeling of... hmm. That you don't have the time to just hang around talking. It's a weird thing but you're right that social spaces are steadily decreasing.
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Fascinating! I never experienced that. Gen was always popular around me, even if often not with the same groups of people as shipfic.
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tbf "nobody reads gen" mostly came up in the context of "why didn't people like my genfic as much as my ship fic?" And the answer was really "your usual readers are shippers and *shippers* don't read gen." But AO3 leaves you a lot less dependent on finding readers in the same subcommunity as usual.
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I am one who just read Riddlemaster! Glad to know you loved it too.
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I don't know if what I'm saying here is actually accurate but it's subjectively what I've been seeing.
Riddle-Master was super formative for me! I should really do a re-read.
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I also wonder if it's not just the young antis going "ick sex" but also the old people like me who have found their interest waning as their, uh, interest wanes. Also, I agree with those who say "but gen has always been here!" because it has.
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But a lot of 17-year-olds also seem to be having the "oh no tiny children" reaction to other 17-year-olds these days, which is definitely different.
The increase in & tags is definitely noticeable and also great, thought, that was so sadly underused for so long.
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Also, more exchange fics, that have the same thing: gen exactly tailored to your tastes.
Like, you were talking about AtlA, and after I finished it I had some needs, like, more Iroh and Zuko making me emotional, or Toph and Bumi interacting. Before AO3, how was I even supposed to start to look?
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....I need to go look for Toph and Bumi fics now, brb
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As far as gen goes:
Lately I've been in fandoms that are very team-focused, which leads to both a lot of fodder for gen fic and yet also (because the canons are themselves very gen) gives a lot of intense close relationships that are easy for people to read as shippy, and people like writing those shippy explorations. But there's also a bunch of gen stuff! So it's partially fandom-dependent, but beyond that I do think you're right that there's more overlap in what any individual wants to read. (Or write! Writers are also less likely to be writing Only One Ship now, I think.)
Regardless of why, I do appreciate the growth of & fic (and of hard-to-categorise fic that could be either & or / depending on how the author thinks about it).
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Team fic is so! I agree too that writers are less likely to write Only One Ship (or Only Slash, Only Het, or Only Gen, for that matter.) I think that's partly a result of AO3 too though, when your only engagement with a fandom was for the This Pairing mailing list or This Pairing LJ Comm, there's a lot more motivation to stick with just the one pairing!
The hard-to-categorize fic is a good point - we used to have, like, smarm, which was intense friendship fic that was basically romance-but-not-queer!!!! and I feel like a lot of what I'm reading now is a sort of modern equivalent that's intense friendship fic that's queer-but-not-romance!!!!
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3. hot damn, ARE people using & tags more on ao3?! I have been ignoring them for so many years due to their lack of use that I hadn't even thought to go look to see if that's changed! that's so exciting though, if it's actually getting some traction these days!
also I enjoyed reading your other thoughts about gen's presence/popularity. I do not have any useful data or thoughts to provide because I am bad at noticing trends myself, lol. especially around romance because I'm bad at noticing romance!
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3. They are! I'm sure there are still some large fandoms that haven't figured it out but across the archive it's gotten so much better.
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I think if you liked Perilous Gard you would like it though, it has a very similar feel even though the rest of it is very different.
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(that post is also responsible for The Thurb Revolution being on my tbr list, and I just stumbled across a copy of that book in a used bookshop last week, so it might actually get read someday within the next few years or so!)
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I also feel like I've seen a HUGE trend of parentally focused fics over the past few years (specifically usually men being surrogate fathers for main characters), for example in my main fandom (My Hero Academia) there's a lot of fic involving various heroes/teachers like Aizawa or All Might becoming father figures and taking care of or even adopting students. In other fandoms I've passed by I see a lot of similar things happening, like in Stranger Things I think there's a teen dude who becomes a father/babysitter-type to a lot of the main elementary-aged kids, or Tony becoming a surrogate father to Peter in some MCU fics, or in The Owl House traumatized kids getting basically adopted by another character's mother or other cool adult figures... I don't think I know enough fandoms to pin it down (those examples aside from MHA are what I've seen from a distance, I'm not in those fandoms so maybe I'm misinterpreting fan cocepts I've passed by), but I feel like adoption fics (whether legal or just emotional) seem to satisfy a very particular desire distinct from typical shipping desires, but no less potent.
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The most apt BNHA canon description I have ever read... 😂
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I was reading melannen's post and thinking "yeah, I *do* use & tags for searching now, that wasn't possible years ago because no one used them" and the last & tag I clicked on was "Lan Qiren & Wei Wuxian". For non-MDZS/Untamed fans, Lan Qiren essentially ends up as Wei Wuxian's father-in-law against his will. There's a lot of fic interested in the post-canon situation and how they might find common ground, but there are also a lot of AUs where LQR *doesn't* fixate on how WWX is a disruptive student and a bad influence, but takes on a parental/good teacher role when WWX is a kid or teenager. It's a whole subgenre!
Interestingly, I'm not sure I'd have pegged most of those LQR & WWX stories as "gen", because there's usually Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji happening as well. But the & tag indicates to me, as a reader, that the platonic relationship is at least going to *share focus* with the main pairing. Sometimes the romance is so far in the background that it seems silly to categorize it as pairing fic; sure, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are having an Epic Romance, but what the story is *interested* in is whether or not Lan Qiren can get over his preconceptions (and his trauma) and appreciate his gremlin son-in-law-to-be for who he is.
The old categories don't cleanly explain the kind of fic that's out there, and maybe that's another sign of things changing. Slash and gen don't need to be quarantined from each other, stories don't need to "pick a side" between slash and het, etc.
And I am definitely hoping that the trend of giving lots of time/space/story focus to intense platonic relationships continues to grow! Long live the & tag!
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Of course I don't think this is a universal designation (and some gen-lovers might screech at a fic with any romantic relationship not being marked with a romantic category, even if the romance is not the central point), but I find it useful. I try and search a lot of femslash in BNHA which is abysmal to search, but I've noticed with "common side F/F ships", some people WILL pretty clearly tag the category as just M/M instead of M/M + F/F, so even tho both pairings appear in the relationship tags it's clear at a glance which relationship will be the focus (and I can narrow down easier with an "include F/F" search that then excludes those M/M-exclusively focused fics). I find that helpful for me at least.
On the other extreme end there are the people who tag literally all the categories but then don't even tag any relationships that could apply to... like they're tagging for traces of nuts and not even saying what nuts there might be traces of. Grinds my gears when searching the F/F category in general and there are huge fics that don't have a single F/F ship mentioned in tags/description, but unfortunately I don't get to define everyone's tagging conventions XD.
Sorry to go off on tagging nitpicks, but I do ultimately think it's a good thing that AO3 lets you tag multiple categories, and that the "&" tag exists to clearly delineate and search for specific platonic pairings, and that ppl are actually using the & tags!! Makes it much easier to find those specific flavors
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Because the thing that strikes me about a lot of the really popular "gen" is that it's not gen in the sense that I was used to seeing gen in the 90's - "more of" canon sort of plotty adventure stuff - most of it is fic that is very intensely focused on character relationships, they're just friendships or family or found family or mentorship or team or platonic lifemates instead of romance.
I had not thought of that but thinking back on it it rings true; e.g. the two main genres of SGA gen fic that I can remember are whump but mostly casefic/adventure-focused fic.
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