Fictional Fans

I'm not going to come up with a definition, but I will ramble about definitions and what I think they are good for. I don't think drawing hard and fast boundaries around genres is useful, that way lies nitpicking and gatekeeping. (See for example various conversations about what is Science Fiction featuring definitions constructed exclude most things not written by cishet white men)

Which isn't to say that I don't think we should define genres! Two ways of looking at genres that I have found helpful and lead to interesting conversations are 1) genre as works in conversation and 2) genre as setting reader expectations.

Both of these seem to have potential to offer us insight into fanfic. Fics are very much in conversation with each other both within and across fandoms. Think of the many many cross-fandom tropes, and also about how characterization and fanon develops across fics in the same fandom. Looking at works as in conversation is useful for understanding them in context and for seeing change over time.

I think fic is also doing interesting things in how it sets reader expectations. Obviously fic at least on AO3 provides a lot more metadata to set expectations, but there are also unspoken conventions. It would be interesting to how expectations get set across genres.