Talking in Tags and Notes

Home Forums Week 3 Forums Tuesday’s Class (7/7): Method Talking in Tags and Notes

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    Danielle Puccio
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    I loved this reading and am definitely interested in checking out the work as a whole. I am in the Rhetorical Studies concentration of the Communication Studies major and it was really great to see theorists and methods cited here that I am familiar with from those courses. I am not sure if this counts as analyzing fanfiction, but I would love to look at informal comment tags and notes descriptions on fix-it fics. For example, in The Witcher fandom many people write post-scene fic for an argument between two commonly shipped characters in episode 6; on fic sites and Tumblr it’s commonly referred to as “the obligatory mountain-scene fix-it” or “post-break-up scene fix-it.” I really like the idea (although it’s said jokingly) of a fix-it being obligatory, that writers within a fan community recognize general discontent with canon that is enough widely spread to cause many people to feel compelled to offer a solution to canon. Another thing related to this is comments referencing or directed at authors/actors/producers/etc. AO3 allows for individual tagging which leads some authors to talk in their tags like people do on Tumblr. Although AO3 as a platform prefers people to talk in the notes sections of fic, writers often use their own voices to give prospective readers a hint at what their fic is inspired by or their feelings about it. One Finnpoe fix-it includes the tags “thanks oscar isaac and john boyega for your validation and blessings” and “a fix it for jj the coward,” clearly situating the author in their praise of Isaac and Boyega as well as spite at Abrams (it is also important to note that the fic was published the day after TROS was released). These comments are always such fun and are found most commonly in notes, but seeing them as tags happens pretty often. I like how Fathallah remained committed to discursive and ethnographic research methods as well as centered their experience as a fan and showed how that identity shaped their approach to the research. I think it would be really fun to go off of their idea in analyzing fic with attention to the context of outside situations and look at fic with specific dates of posting, like if there is an influx of fix-its after the release of a movie or an increase in tags/comments referencing producers after an interview or trailer announcement or some fandom-relevant event.

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