A Genre of Our Own: Fanonization and the Omegaverse

Abstract

This paper studies the processes of canonization that unfold on Archive of Our Own, one of the largest contemporary online fanfiction websites. Fanfiction, on both the production and consumption side, has an unusual dynamic of canonization compared to commercially published fiction, relying on different ‘forms of canonicity’ (Kahane 2016, §6.1). The word “canon” in fanfiction communities usually means “any kind of information that is verifiable from the source material” (Thomas 2011, 218). Fans also use the word “fanon” to refer to “any element that is widely accepted among fans, but has no basis in canon” (Fanlore 2026). Already, this terminology indicates two separate and sometimes opposing forces of canonization: on the one hand, canonization in fandom is a process shaped by source texts. On the other hand, fan communities engage in canonization as a social process independently of the text(s) that initially united them, to create their own subcultural canon.

We use tw large datasets of metadata attached to fanfiction on the largest English-language fanfiction-platform, Archive of Our Own (Kelly 2025, Jing et al. 2025) to study how Omegaverse, a fanfiction-specific genre, becomes established on the platform. Omegaverse stories are characterized by a specific set of rules concerning the reimagination of gender-like hierarchies in the storyworld. The stories often touch on discourses of medication and mental health as well as civility and social norms around sexuality (Popova 2018). The paper aims at tracing this canonization process according to emotional tone and impact as well as the spread across fandoms. Additionally, we examine the emotional valence of stories as indicated through tags because research suggests that these have an important role in reading practices (Samutina 2016) and fanfiction reception (Neugarten 2023). 

References

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