Developing a Fanfic Canon

I've recently been considering what kind of local fandom-inspired events I could put together and one that really appeals to me is a book club for slash novels and longer zines. A zine club could be difficult to put together depending on the era and availability of the zine but it also present the issue of what zines we would even pick. Obviously new works would be welcome but there's such a richness and history to older works that including them seems natural. Fandom agnosticism is helpful and fun but only to the point that the work is interesting in itself and not just for fans of that show or film. A club I run would probably preclude most anime and manga-based works since Eastern fandoms are a completely different history and context than my areas of study. (And scary big. Like scary big.)

The word canon is particularly fraught inside and outside of fan spaces for numerous reasons. The Western literary canon was drawn at a time when wealthy white men's cultural opinions and influence got to determine what legitimate art meant for the rest of us. To stray too far from a canon - whether in literature or art or film - can mean that one does not have the education one ought to have according to the social group with power. I know this because I am a film major who has never seen The Godfather. (I don't know what example I'm going to use for this once I eventually inevitably see The Godfather. Maybe Rocky.) And hilariously, to fandom spaces canon essentially means word-of-god for the universes we like to inhabit and share. Canon is what happens on the screen which we (mostly) have no control over and all we can ever hope to be is canon compliant.

My intention here is not to tell everyone what they should read or definitely state what the most important fanworks are, but to look at a possible framework for defining what a canon fanwork is. Works that are fairly well-known and well-regarded across fandom lines, have something note-worthy (or notorious) about them, that feel satisfying to read and engage over with others. My first impulse was to after trope namers, the works that started a genre, trend, or trope in fic that represents a significant portion of the fandom. My best example of this is (perhaps unfortunately) Draco in leather pants wherein one story made the idea of leather pants on a troubled "bad boy" character look very appealing and suddenly Draco is always in leather pants and excusably evil in fic. Because of...both authors, actually, I wouldn't want to include this particular story, but it's indicative of the level of notoriety I'm trying to get at. Something like Shoebox Project or My Immortal or Methods of Rationality. God, this fandom is a juggernaut. This sucks.

A lot of early fanworks never got far outside the drawer, though, so a lot of tropes don't have a singular origin. And in terms of fan history, would the gen Spockanalia, the first Star Trek zine, be of interest to anyone outside of the fandom? Or do we start instead with the all slash anthology Thrust over the later first full novel Nightvisions? Does reading a Starsky & Hutch zine that left a lasting influence on hurt/comfort qualify if it's not an adult novel and is, in fact, *gasp* gen? (Gen barely counts in S&H.) Do we include the fic that inspired the word "whump" if the fic itself is not that great? A lot of tropes develop in "offsite" spaces - I can tell a certain era of S&H fic came from a small group of friends because all the fanon backstories for the characters are relatively the same with slightly different interpretations and consequences. So do we read by which fandom established the trope and pick the best example instead of which story sparked the fire?

Obviously a lot of questions with no clear answers yet but as I continue to develop options I will keep everyone updated. Would be excited to hear your thoughts and suggestions, I'm sure every fandom has a Classic I know nothing about.

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