ABSTRACT
Fanfiction, the unauthorised adaptation and re-writing of media texts, is the fastest growing form of writing in the world (Mirmohamadi 2014, p. 5). Fanfic is typically freely shared, makes no money and, though it has an analogue history, now exists primarily on the internet. Early academic interest in the subject tended to be quite utopian, seeing fandoms as a democratic and socially progressive response to increasingly homogenized and corporate media industries. Gray et al. called this the ‘Fandom is Beautiful’ phase of academia (2007, p. 1). It is generally now accepted that fanfic is neither automatically transformative of media texts, nor a peacefully democratic and supportive community. It is a complex and contested arena of textual production with its own hierarchies, norms and structuring practices (Scodari 2003; Thomas 2005; Hills 2013, p. 149). Moreover, despite and because of the laissez-faire attitudes to fanwork by TV auteurs like Buffy's Joss Whedon and Supernatural's Eric Kripke, fanfic still negotiates a subordinated relationship to its canons (Scott 2011).
