[research] All fanfic and dojinshi samples selected, whew

[unjapanologist]

Originally published at Academic FFF. You can comment here or there.

'Textual Echoes: Fan Fiction and Sexualities' was absolutely fantastic and deserves a long separate post. While I'm working on that one, a bit of news for everyone who didn't catch me crowing about this on Twitter: I've completed selection of the 100 dojinshi and 100 fanfics that I'll be comparing over the next couple of years.

The selection process was arduous and time-consuming, and is described in all boring detail here (kindly let me know if you catch me failing maths at any point in that text). You can see the dojinshi data set here, and the fic dataset here.

I've already entered data about genre (slash/het/gen), pairings, and whether characters are top/seme or bottom/uke in slash/yaoi pairings. Data about other narrative and visual elements to come. You can use the search function at the top of both datasets to filter data, but I'm currently doing battle with Zoho to create an interface where it's easier to compare data from the two sets. Here's a couple of things that struck me after a cursory first comparison of the datasets:

Genres (slash, gen, het)
    Fanfic: 16 gen, 61 slash, 24 het (note: doesn't add up to 100 because some samples contain more than one kind of genre)
    Dojinshi: 5 gen, 95 slash, 2 het (those 2 het djs involved Snape in a biologically female body, not Snape in a relationship with a woman)

Populair pairings (two most popular)
    Fanfic: Snape/Harry 34, Snape/James 0
    Dojinshi: Snape/Harry 10, Snape/James 61

'Division of labor' in slash pairings
    Fanfic: Snape bottom/uke 11, Snape top/seme 35 (plus many 'undetermined': it's much harder to figure out these roles in fic than in dojinshi)
    Dojinshi: Snape bottom/uke 94, Snape top/seme 1 (this feels skewed, I think I saw more Snape as seme than this. Will reconsider)

Food for thought. If you're the author of one of the works mentioned and don't want me to use your fic or dojinshi for this research, please let me know and I'll remove the entry from the dataset (see research ethics).

Comments

[mithen.livejournal.com]

Really? I obviously need to read more slash outside HP, I'd always gotten the impression that absolute insistence on the preservation of these sexual roles was more a yaoi fandom than a slash fandom thing. Or would the bogggling be more about Batman being given a uke personality (with lots of blushing and "iya, dame")?

In this case the latter--not so much that there's a rigid assumption that Superman can't be seme but because seeing Batman blushing and welling up with tears is particularly out of character for him. Superman's the more demonstrative and emotional of the two, so I think many people wouldn't recoil quite so hard from the traditional uke treatment in his case (although it would still be quite odd!)

SupermanxBatman is a very niche pairing in Japan--it doesn't get much play simply because it's darn hard to get comic books; the manga industry renders them superfluous and a bit silly. On the other hand, because the characters are so iconic you don't really need to have read any comic books to "get" it, so it crops up here and there.

Perhaps Snape really had been coded as uke so thoroughly by the time Snape/Harry became popular that this encoding managed to override him being the older, larger man, and Harry's social superior?

Interesting. Is it possible that people who are fundamentally JamesxSnape fans are using HarryxSnape as a sort of..."James II?" There's a lot of love for fated lovers replaying roles in different generations, so maybe people see Snape as so struck by Harry's resemblance to his father that he intuitively falls into his traditional role there?

Hee, now I'm curious if Snape/Draco fans also code Snape uke...although if they do it may well be because there's a fair amount of Lucius/Snape and then Draco once again steps in for his father...poor Snape, haunted by the sons of men who made his life hell...

[fanficforensics.livejournal.com]

Incredibly curious about SupermanxBatman dojinshi now. I'll see if I can pick up any in Osaka next month.

It's equally hard to imagine Superman getting an uke makeover as Batman. Any character not originating in a Japanese source work getting the uke treatment tends to baffle me a little, at least initially. I often need to flip a mental switch to recognize Snape as 'Snape' in many dojinshi. (First HP dojinshi I read was about Snape, and I actually didn't recognize him at all until another character called him by name.) Fanon in dojinshi really can be wildly different from English-language fic fanon.

Fated lovers.... Yes, that might well have much to do with it. There really is a lot of that in anime/manga. I should go consult TV Tropes and also find its Japanese equivalent. But not half an hour before bedtime, the vortex will suck me in. Tomorrow!

I just recalled that Dumbledore actually mentioned Snape having a life debt to James in the very first book. Perhaps this one factlet was powerful enough to launch the James/Snape ship for dojinshika?

Re: Snape/Draco... Not sure who's uke there, I haven't seen much Snape/Draco djs. Will keep an eye out. There are definitely suggestions of Snape/Lucius in some of those James/Snape djs, for sure.

Say, I'm adding a dataset to my site keep track of all these ideas, and who said what. I want to keep that file public so people can consult it to see what's already been discussed. Is it okay if I put (mithen) next to whatever you mentioned? I can make an invisible column for names too, if you'd prefer.

[mithen.livejournal.com]

It's equally hard to imagine Superman getting an uke makeover as Batman. Any character not originating in a Japanese source work getting the uke treatment tends to baffle me a little, at least initially.

Ah, true. The uke dynamic comes from his secret identity as Clark Kent, in which he's shy and stammering. :) Similarly, Batman as an uke tends to focus on his Bruce Wayne (spoiled pampered playboy) side. It does tend to create a lot of flexibility in how you write them!

Citing me as Mithen should be fine! Thanks for asking! And keeping a database for where you get thoughts from is a cool idea. :)