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QUESTIONS OF THE MONTH
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THIS ISSUE IS ABOUT FANDOMS. WHICH FANDOMS ARE YOU INVOLVED WITH?
hunger games, digimon, big time rush, land before time, warrior cats -Anonymous
Danganronpa -Anonymous
Voltron, Pokemon, Digimon -Anonymous
All for the Game - a book series by Nora Sakavic -Anonymous
Percy Jackson and the Olympians -Anonymous
You really want a whole list? Good luck, then… Mystic Messenger, Harry Potter (+ Fantastic Beasts), BBC Sherlock, The Shadowhunters Chronicles, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Good Omens. (Can I consider “The Great Gatsby” as a fandom, as well?) I was also in the Percy Jackson and Twilight fandoms at some point. It’s not like I am not into those books anymore, it’s just that it’s been a long time since I last read them. I need more time for my hobbies, I guess. -Anonymous
Doctor Who, Sherlock, Merlin, Archie Comics, Harry Potter -Amée
Fanfiction for star trek, harry potter, marvel mcu, merlin tv, sherlock tv, and various other -Natasha
None yet, as I haven’t identified until very recently. I had no idea there were so many who felt like I did, much less, so much so, that there was an actual name for it. -Thunbo
Murdoch Mysteries, Superstore -M
Not very many, there are a bunch that I check in with occasionally though and these include the video games The World Ends With You and Ace Attorney, the book series about Percy Jackson, the tv series Steven Universe and She-Ra, and the How To Train Your Dragon movies. -Christa
There’s too many to list, but the major ones are: Dimension 20, one direction (yes still, lol), mcyt, Kipo, Andi Mack, stardew valley, and celeste -Anonymous
anime, visual novel games, cartoon -Anonymous
911 & 911:LS (TV) and MCU -Jes
HOW IS SEXUALITY (OF ANY KIND) REPRESENTED IN YOUR FANDOMS? HOW “SEXUAL” DOES THE FANDOM FEEL TO YOU?
Mainly in Voltron, sexuality is heavily represented. And it is an *extremely* sexual fandom. -Anonymous
The fandom is very sexual but also very inclusive. -Anonymous
There are straight, cis, and canon LGBT+ characters; the fandom ships characters a lot. The ace headcanons are usually welcomed by our fandom. -Anonymous
Mmm, not really. I mean, NSFW arts and fanfictions are everywhere, but I respect it. I just don’t read them. Out of all my fandoms, I would say The Shadowhunters Chronicles is the one with more sexual content, but it’s not explicit, so I am super okay with that. -Anonymous
Most of the fandoms are extremely sexualized, despite the media itself not being that -Amée
Cannon-wise, all of them, perhaps with the exception of Harry Potter, have moments of sexual innuendo, some of them not very subtle. In general, I view these moments as tacky since they don’t have a lot if depth or affect the plot and are only there to raise ratings. In terms of orientation, most of them mainly cater to straight audiences and usually don’t bring up idea of non-hetero orientations. I love Star Trek DS9’s queer undertones, but the producers worked really hard to suppress it. Sherlock has gay johnlock shippers, but nothing cannon. Its “A Scandal in Belgravia” was very sexual in terms of very explicit innuendo between Sherlock and Irene Adler.
The fandoms (I mainly interact with fanfiction) are notably more sexualized. Sometimes it is difficult to find stories to my taste, which don’t 100% focus on sex, negate or ignore the plot to focus on sex, worship sex, or make sex the only reason characters can desire to be together. I like more plot or character study than sex. Nevertheless I understand why people desire these sexual types of work when the source material is often regulated by the maturity of target audiences.
Fandom tends to be considerably more queer than canon sources. Queer ships gain even more popularity over the canon-straight couples, probably because people who don’t find enough or any representation in media create their own representation in fandom. By far the most common lgbtq+ ships are usually gay. Examples of very popular ships are Drarry, Remus/Sirius, Johnlock, Merlin/Arthur, Bashir/Garak, Bucky/Steve. -Natasha
Can’t answer that yet. -Thunbo
Murdoch Mysteries has(had) TWO GAY CHRACTERS!!! Sure it’s set in the early 1900s, but GAY FOR THE WIN
Superstore has a gay character too -M
Most of the fandoms I’m involved with are aimed at kids, so there is very little sexual content, which is perfect for me! -Christa
The content the fandoms are based around aren’t overly sexual. Some of mine are literally around kids media, and the ones that aren’t really only have passing remarks, quick jokes, or “fade to black” moments. Most of them do show or have canon queer relationships or canon queer characters, but not all of them. The fandom communities themselves are complicated when it comes to how “sexual” they feel. For the most part I don’t see those sides of the communities because I don’t go searching for them (and they’re fairly isolated to their own pockets of the internet, so that’s the only way to find them), but some of them there’s a lot of tension between the non-sexual and sexual parts of the community and it ends up being dragged out into the open. -Anonymous
Sometimes, I’ll see mildly sexual/risque images of ships to do with a show, but nothing ever excplicitly sexual. When people discuss ships, people don’t really look at the sexual aspect, and more at their personalities and chemistry with eachother, so more of a romantic point of view. -Anonymous
The Old Guard (mild spoilers, nothing groundbreaking): The canon is actually super queer! Joe and Nicky are two men who have been in love for nearly one thousand years, and the fandom responded accordingly which is great to see. I mainly interact by reading fanfic, and while most of it is outright porn there’s always enough emotional intimacy and otherwise good writing that I can skim it and not feel cheated. Another relationship, arguably more important to the plot, is between Andy and Quynh, both women; Andy is word-of-god pansexual. Quynh does not appear much in the movie, but will likely feature much more in the rumored sequel.
Marvel (spoiler-free, I’m talking about a this ship that fandom entirely made up): The larger fandom is a beast I cannot describe. My corner is Winterhawk (Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton) which has some basis in some of the comics but none at all in the movies. My understanding of it is that it came almost entirely of one fic author writing a massive Winterhawk story and dragged a lot of us
into the dumpster with her. There’s a lot of sex in the fanfic (it’s... fanfic) but also a lot of exploration about how two people who are broken in different ways fit into each other. Both are canonically disabled and have been brainwashed and deal with the trauma in different ways, and there is a lot of emotional intimacy (which I am always going to be here for) and trust and fun.
Good Omens (...medium spoilers, probably?): Two of the main characters, an angel and a demon, are canonically described as “sexless, unless they make an effort.” One of them consistently presents as a man, the other as both a man and a woman; there is no overt romance or sexual relationship between them but fanon took that in predictable and marvelously queer directions; again, lots of porn :D Two other main characters (man and woman) actually have sex in the book/on the screen, because the girl’s many times great grandmother said they would. I honestly haven’t seen a lot of fan interaction with the scene, except some giggles about the encouraging comments the descendants have left for the pair through the years. -Anonymous
911 has a lot of good queer representation because the cannon does, as well as some well-loved straight pairing. I’d say the fandom’s pretty typically sexual; a lot of the discourse is dominated by shipping (and the most popular pairing is a non-cannon M/M ship) and about a quarter of the fics on ao3 are mature/explicit.
MCU fandom’s most popular pairings are definitely queer M/M ships and that usually seems to be the focus of the fandom. -Jes
DO YOU SEE ASEXUAL REPRESENTATION IN YOUR FANDOMS? IF YES, EXPLAIN HOW ACES ARE REPRESENTED.
No. -Anonymous
yes! ibuki mioda and rantaro amami from danganronpa 2 and danganronpa v3 r both asexual-coded! -Anonymous
Yes but it was an uphill battle, especially concerning a certain very popular who is in the two most popular ships. But now slowly more
aces have come in and write and draw more content. -Anonymous
Yes because the main character is demi-sexual -Anonymous
Yes. The Hunters of Artemis and Reyna are canon asexual characters. -Anonymous
I tend to headcanon all my favorite characters as aces, lol. But if you are talking about some real representation, well, then Good Omens is probably the best fandom ever, by this point of view. Its main characters are clearly in love with each other and the author, Neil Gaiman, said it’s perfectly okay for him to see them as asexuals. This is not really stated, though, neither in the book, nor in the series, but for once, I don’t mind that. It’s just so clear they are aces, to me. I especially love the fact that, for once, we get to see an asexual couple, since being ace is not the same as being aro and many allo people seem to forget that.
For example, I love Cassandra Clare and I am really grateful for her wonderful books, but in her Shadowhunters Chronicles, her only ace character is actually aro. The books never say he is aromantic, they only say he’s asexual. I mean, of course aro people deserve representation as well, but maybe not by confusing them with aces? Another character by Cassandra Clare is actually demisexual and in love with a girl, though, even if it is never stated in the novels he is demi, it’s the author who said that later (just like Dumbledore and JKR, if you want). He just quickly, deeply falls in love with his friend and no one else catches his eye, that’s the representation we got. But I appreciate it nonetheless.
Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorite characters of all time and I think he may be a good representation of alloromantic asexuality, even if, actually, I still don’t understand what the creators of the show really want to do with him. He may be aroace, he may be gay, he may even be straight (Irene Adler, anyone?). Who knows? Certainly not the fandom. Maybe that’s one of the many, many reasons why the show keeps being interesting. Anyway, he sounds as a demiromantic ace to me.
The truth is that actually, most of the representation I personally get is by people who haven’t got a love interest *yet* in the story. (e.g. Loki. I don’t dare to hope they’ll stay that way, with their show coming.) Maybe it’s a bit sad, but it’s better than nothing. -Anonymous
Jughead Jones in the 2015 revival of Archie Comics is wonderful representation, and the reason that I finally accepted my asexuality. Unfortunately, with the series being adapted for TV (Riverdale), his asexuality was completely erased and he was made straight. Another example of asexual representation is Sherlock Holmes, who was asexual in the books, and is very ace-coded in BBC’s Sherlock. The show is often aphobic and implies many times that some sort of partnership is required to be human, and the fandom very much sexualizes Sherlock. The only character that is really widely accepted as ace that I can think of is Charlie Weasley from Harry Potter, who only shows up in a couple scenes in the books, and doesn’t appear in the movies at all. -Amée
Never explicitly in canon. To me, Charlie Weasley, who is mostly absent from HP, is aroace because he’s more interested in dragons than dating. I see Sherlock as aroace, although nothing is explicitly sure and many people disagree for various reasons. The way I see it, he simply isn’t interested in anything sexual or romantic and feels no sexual attraction, so he spends his time obsessed with other things such as solving crime. When John asked him first about women and then men, he shut the conversation down by saying “I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work.”
Some authors will write a couple of stories where a particular character is made to be ace-spec or aro-spec. This is where I find most of my asexuality representation anywhere in fandom. These works live at the edge of fandom in their own little niche, but bring a large amount of comfort.
The fact that I enjoy reading many characters as ace is affected by my bias. I tend to unconsciously read people as aroace until evidence to the contrary is presented. Even in real life. I subconsciously think “sex/ romance isn’t important” about someone I just met, until they talk about a crush, their orientation, etc. Then I think, “Oh this person is straight/gay/ bi/interested in this person.” This bias is a-normative rather than heteronormative I suppose. -Natasha
Not really -M
Steven Universe has Peridot, who is canonically aroace, and She-Ra has Double Trouble, also canonically aroace. It’s nice to have a little representation, but I would love to see more! -Christina
Only one of the main fandoms I’m in has a canon asexual character. In one of the campaigns that Dimension 20 produced, one of the player characters officially came out as asexual to his father because there was a lot of ongoing tension due to how different they were and it was a way of clearing the air. In other campaigns there’s a few suspected but unconfirmed Ace characters, and all of them are given complexity and traits outside of just being asexual/suspected asexual. Otherwise, there aren’t any other fandoms based on fiction that have canon Ace characters. There are a couple irl content creators who have come out as ace though, which is cool. The communities have a large amount of asexual fans and I always love seeing them interact, and they cheer on the ace or suspected Ace characters with me. -Anonymous
Not much. There’s no specifically asexual representation in the 911 cannon, though they got close with one character and I’ve seen some of the fandom embrace that, particularly right after that episode. -Jes
HOW DO YOU THINK ACE REPRESENTATION CAN BE EXPANDED IN YOUR FANDOMS?
More aces feeling comfortable with expressing themselves and allos learning not to be combative and aphobic. -Anonymous
While having canon asexual characters is good, the representation could be better. -Anonymous
By explaining that asexuality and aromanticism aren’t the same thing and by introducing characters who show that you can deeply love someone - whatever “love” means to you - even without feeling sexual attraction. I think we also need aro people who are in a queerplatonic relationship as well as aros who don’t want to get involved with anyone (I may be aro, that’s why qprs are so important to me). Most of all, we need to understand that love comes in many forms and that there isn’t a “most intense” one. I would like to see an author or a creator finally clearly talking about all these things. Well, one can dream, right? -Anonymous
I would say that it’d help so much if the ace characters would be explicitly acknowledged by the creators, but this doesn’t always fix things. In the case of Jughead Jones, his asexuality and aromanticism were explicitly stated, but that didn’t stop people from completely disregarding it, to the
It is difficult because asexuality is not very well-known. Plus authors have to be careful not to further common misconceptions. It is easy to dehumanize asexuality, especially when writing Data from Star Trek or Voldemort from Harry Potter.
I want to see more people recognize the difference between abstinence or celibacy and asexuality. Yes, many asexual people are abstinent. But some asexual people are sex-indifferent or sexfavorable. Some have sex. Media likes to conflate these things, just serving to further inaccurate stereotypes and misconceptions. There is no “one type of asexual.”
Also, I would like to see more aces who aren’t white. Black aces exist, Hispanic aces exist, Asian aces exist, where are they represented? Why don’t we get any stories about them? Again, there is no “one type of asexual.” -Natasha
I think having main characters that are aro or ace would be lovely to see!!! -Christina
It’s hard for some of my fandoms, because they’re based around real people. If it’s a group that’s never going to expand or add new members, there isn’t really much they can do besides acknowledge the asexual fans.
For the ones that are fictional, there’s three main things. First, they can obviously confirm characters to be ace if it’s something that’s suspected anyway, though they should specifically focus on doing that in the content itself and not just having the creators do so afterwards. Next, add asexual people to the creative team. Generally it would just help the team to see the possibility of asexual characters more directly. Finally, unsurprisingly, they can add characters to be representation. They need to be careful that being ace isn’t the only thing about them, but adding a character who’s allowed to say the word, and mean it, is and important step. I’ve only heard the word even be said in two pieces of media and I (plus this community in general) need so much more. -Anonymous
Hard question. It’s difficult to add ace representation in fandoms when there’s so little in media to model from. I would love to see
the 911:LS fandom embrace the almost-cannon ace character as fully ace and think there’s hope of that. But even as an ace fic writer myself, I haven’t written anything like that (yet at least). -Jes
HOW HAS YOUR FANDOM BEEN IMPACTED BY COVID-19? HAVE YOU HAD MEETUPS OR CONVENTIONS IN DIFFERENT WAYS?
Not sure, never met up in real life. -Anonymous
No. -Anonymous
I’ve never been to a convention even before the pandemic, so I am afraid I am not the most suitable person to answer that question. -Anonymous
I am only part of the fandoms online, so this question doesn’t really apply to me -Amée
not really -Natasha
Nah I never went to meetups to begin with. -Christina
For me specifically there hasn’t been that strong of an impact. I’m very introverted, and otherwise have limited money and transportation, so I never went to meetups or conventions anyway. The fandoms as a whole have definitely been impacted, a lot of content creators don’t get much opportunity to meet each other in person (although when they do it’s always very exciting), or meet fans. A lot of fans have found ways to still make friends within the communities, they organize themselves in tons of different discords and group chats and make names for their section of different social media platforms. Even with that, creators and fans alike have regularly talked about how excited they are for everything to be safe again, and for conventions and travel to start back up. -Anonymous
Before, I would meet fans of my favourite shows through conventions
exclusively, but this has really been halted due to covid. The last convention I attended was in February, 2020, and it is a shame to not be able to meet artists in real life and discuss things. Everything just continues on forums without any planned meet ups. -Anonymous
my participation in fandom was already online, so I haven’t noticed an impact in how people interact, though seems like there’s an increase in fic reading & writing during covid-19. -Jes
