fanfics vs original fiction

[guy that does things]

i noticed it a while ago, but never felt the need to ask until i completely exhausted all the giantess sneeze content that i could find.

but fanfics seem to be not as diverse in terms of what fandoms are involved as i thought, and they also seem to be mostly male sneezes, as opposed to original fictions very female focused stories. does anyone have any idea why?

(also, if you happen to know any female giant or giantess sneeze stories from the fanfic section, a link would be very much appreciated)

[SleepingPhlox]

I swear on my LIFE there is at least one fanfic about a woman giant character from a show called The 7 Deadly Sins, but I can't find it via the search.

The reason I'm so sure it existed is because I don't know or watch that show and randomly seeing a sneezefic of it is how I heard of it!

You might be able to find it somewhere out in the wide world of the internet, maybe Archive Of Our Own.  That fandom might be a good place to look, since it does have a canon giant female character, which isn't all that common!

 

[prohistamine]

If I had to guess I’d say it’s probably because most fanfic writers are women, and most women are straight. In basically all the fandoms I’ve been involved in, even for media with a large male fanbase, the vast majority of people writing fanfic are women, so that might explain it. 

[SnzDreams]

5 hours ago, prohistamine said:

If I had to guess I’d say it’s probably because most fanfic writers are women, and most women are straight. In basically all the fandoms I’ve been involved in, even for media with a large male fanbase, the vast majority of people writing fanfic are women, so that might explain it. 

While there 100% are straight women around here that write fanfiction, this is funny to me because damn near EVERY woman I know who writes fan fiction in this community is queer to some extent (myself included) lol. I do think there seems to be a higher level of women writing fan fiction compared to men, though, at least from what I’ve seen. 

I think this is a fetish community just happens to have a wider range of women in it too- there are a lot of other fetish communities I’ve noticed are dominated by men, but this one seems to be more balanced? I’ve heard it come up before as a topic in the past too, so I know it’s not just me haha. It’s interesting either way!

[SleepingPhlox]

8 hours ago, SnzDreams said:

While there 100% are straight women around here that write fanfiction, this is funny to me because damn near EVERY woman I know who writes fan fiction in this community is queer to some extent (myself included) lol. I do think there seems to be a higher level of women writing fan fiction compared to men, though, at least from what I’ve seen. 

I think this is a fetish community just happens to have a wider range of women in it too- there are a lot of other fetish communities I’ve noticed are dominated by men, but this one seems to be more balanced? I’ve heard it come up before as a topic in the past too, so I know it’s not just me haha. It’s interesting either way!

Bisexual fanfic writer here to give this whole post my stamp of agreement!

Fanfiction in general, everywhere on the internet, has a HUGE queer presence (And I want to acknowledge my trans and asexual homies here too!). It's not surprising, really.  Media is getting better in recent times with certain representation (I swear I shed little tears of happiness every time I see lesbian characters in cartoons presented like it's normal and no big deal, I'm SO happy kids today can grow up with this!), but this is a very VERY recent thing and historically people who wanted to see certain things represented had to turn to their own imaginations and writing it themselves. Fanfiction communities have long been a comforting place, where people who felt underrepresented elsewhere could safely explore their feelings in the company of like minded people and find support.  It's beautiful, really!

So, extrapolating from that, it wouldn't be surprising that fanfiction would seem to be dominated by women (straight or queer).  They might find that they enjoy a piece of media but the themes and stories might feel lacking from a female or queer perspective, or the main internet spaces devoted to that media don't feel friendly to female or queer people.  So, safe little pockets are created where people can interpret the media in ways that feels more friendly to them.

And I love it! Fanfic people, keep doing what you do! You rock!

[SnzDreams]

7 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

Bisexual fanfic writer here to give this whole post my stamp of agreement!

Fanfiction in general, everywhere on the internet, has a HUGE queer presence (And I want to acknowledge my trans and asexual homies here too!). It's not surprising, really.  Media is getting better in recent times with certain representation (I swear I shed little tears of happiness every time I see lesbian characters in cartoons presented like it's normal and no big deal, I'm SO happy kids today can grow up with this!), but this is a very VERY recent thing and historically people who wanted to see certain things represented had to turn to their own imaginations and writing it themselves. Fanfiction communities have long been a comforting place, where people who felt underrepresented elsewhere could safely explore their feelings in the company of like minded people and find support.  It's beautiful, really!

So, extrapolating from that, it wouldn't be surprising that fanfiction would seem to be dominated by women (straight or queer).  They might find that they enjoy a piece of media but the themes and stories might feel lacking from a female or queer perspective, or the main internet spaces devoted to that media don't feel friendly to female or queer people.  So, safe little pockets are created where people can interpret the media in ways that feels more friendly to them.

And I love it! Fanfic people, keep doing what you do! You rock!

Yes, all of this!!! I wanted to elaborate myself but just couldn’t find the words- you put this super eloquently though and I love it! 

What I’ve found too as a bisexual woman (although questioning lately if I might just be gay) is that the majority of my attraction to men stems entirely from fiction. I’ve realized I don’t really have a ton of interest in dating men irl, but when it comes to fanfiction, I almost exclusively write and read things about male characters, often times within ships that are between two men. And that’s within fetish fanfiction and otherwise! I’m learning that this experience isn’t exclusive to me either- I have several friends and mutuals in this community that are as sapphic as it gets, and yet enjoy reading and writing fictional men almost exclusively. I can’t completely explain the “why” of all that, especially because I’m sure everyone that falls into this category would explain it differently for themselves- it’s a very fluid experience from person to person. It definitely shows that our habits within fiction and even within the fetish in general don’t always define the labels we feel best describe us in our day to day lives. So to say the average woman in this community writing fanfiction about men is straight just simply isn’t (always) true haha. 

[prohistamine]

On 3/16/2024 at 8:03 PM, SnzDreams said:

While there 100% are straight women around here that write fanfiction, this is funny to me because damn near EVERY woman I know who writes fan fiction in this community is queer to some extent (myself included) lol. I do think there seems to be a higher level of women writing fan fiction compared to men, though, at least from what I’ve seen. 

I think this is a fetish community just happens to have a wider range of women in it too- there are a lot of other fetish communities I’ve noticed are dominated by men, but this one seems to be more balanced? I’ve heard it come up before as a topic in the past too, so I know it’s not just me haha. It’s interesting either way!

This is very true! I knew even as I was writing my first response that it was overly simplistic, since most people I’ve personally known who write fanfic are in fact queer. It’s interesting though that the majority of fanfiction is about men, even most of the lesbians I know who write fanfic mostly write about queer men. I think @SnzDreams has a good point about the comfortability of exploring attraction to men through fiction.

[solitaire-au]

Historically, I think there's been a different reason for women writing male/male fanfics, as opposed to today.

In the past, the vast majority of media was male dominated. Even today, the Geena Davis Institute of Media Studies found that if there are 5 male characters and 1 female one, most people interpret that as "equal" male-female representation! And if the characters were actually a 50/50 split, many viewers interpret that as being a "female-dominated show!"

We've been conditioned for so long that men are the men characters and women are window dressing. In the past, women weren't even the supporting characters! They existed solely to be the love interests and damsels in distress, to showcase the male characters. Look at movies and TV and the further back you go, the more this was true.

As a result, I think a lot of female fanfic writers balked at writing about female characters, especially canon ones shoehorned in by a committee of writers to act a love interest. When all the main characters were male, writing m/m pairings felt more natural and true to the characters, regardless of the sexuality of the woman writing it. 

[AxelCode]

I dont really have and idea as to why, but atp i just wanna send a huge thanks to all the writers of m or mxm fanfics 🙏🙏 You all are absolutely great and habe done my day multiple times •́⁠ ⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠,⁠•̀