Alternate Universes: Popular fanfiction tropes as sites for theorizing queer possibilities

• In Event: Literature, Queer Theory, and Resistance

Abstract

This paper introduces fanfiction tropes as sites for theorizing queer possibilities. Focusing on the website Archive of Our Own (AO3), this paper identifies popular fanfiction tropes through AO3’s tagging system and connects them to concepts such as Michelle Murphy’s “alterlives,” relationality, and speculative fiction. The tropes examined allow for individuals, both writers and readers, to theorize beyond their physical means and personal limitations to explore the queering of one’s identity and relationships through tropes such as the queering of non-queer characters, “genderbending,” “OT3” and nonmonogamous relationships, and found families.

Presenter

• Lowella Genev Lucero Lobaton, The George Washington University