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• 1 2020-06-10T21:17:52+00:00 Queering Hogwarts 14 plain 2020-07-21T18:33:09+00:00 It’s no secret that fanfiction is used to explore romantic pairings between characters. In fan communities. This is called “shipping.” Regardless of whether these relationships appear in the canon, fans explore different romances between many characters. While these romantic stories feasibly can be about  anything, slash, a term that references the “/” between two character names (ex. Draco/Harry), has been used almost exclusively for homosexual or queer pairings. Slash was a major discussion point for many early fanfiction scholars with the Kirk/Spock pairing, discussing the implications of such a prominent queer pairing in a subculture (Tosenberger, 2008, 186). Slash has come to signify gay male relationships so much that queer slash involving two women is referred to as femslash even though the term slash never explicity excluded relations between two women. 
  
  In the Harry Potter fanfiction community some of the most popular pairings are between male characters despite the general consensus that there are more women who write fanfiction. Early fan studies academics studying Kirk/Spock fanfiction, pointed to a level of “equality” or androgyny between the two men that was not possible within heterosexual pairings in the show (Frazer Lamb and Veith; Russ).  Others are more critical, suggesting that straight women who write about gay man are engaging in fetishization (Brownworth; Foster). Often left out of these discourses, however, is what Tosenberger describes as “the potential to encounter and experiment with alternative modes of sexual discourse, particularly queer discourse,” (2008, 186). While slash often focuses on canon characters, aspects of the self can be seen in the exploratory aspects of slash fanfiction through engaging in the non-canon pairing of characters.
  
  The looming shadow of the Mary Sue may explain, in part, why authors choose to write about men in romantic stories. The genre of romance is one that is typically gendered female and, in an effort to steer away from these stereotypes (or to avoid accusations of a Mary Sue), the authors focus on men. Slash then, is a way to perform romantic and queer possibilities while insulating oneself from ridicule, shame, or discomfort. For some authors, femslash simply may hit too close to home. 

  Queer Characters at Hogwarts

  Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindlewald are the only two characters that are explicitly labeled as queer in Harry Potter. After the confirmation of Albus Dumbledore’s sexuality by the author herself, one would think that there would be a fair amount of fanfiction about the couple. Instead, what we see is the continued popularity of non-canon (or not explicitly canon) pairings such as Draco/Harry and Remus/Sirius. In fact, in Archive of Our Own, Remus/Sirius and Draco/Harry slash boast a total of 15,000 and 32,000 stories, respectively. The Dumbledore/Grindelwald slash tag only contains 3,000 stories (Archive of Our Own). This evidence suggests that representation within the stories may not be the sole reason for writing slash fanfiction.
  
  Many fans would (and often do) argue that there is evidence within the canon for their pairing (Tosenberger, 2008, 196-197; Willis, 6-8). In the case of Remus Lupin, both fans and actors believed that there was sufficient evidence within the text to classify Lupin as queer. Actor, David Thewlis, admitted that he played Remus Lupin as a gay man and that the director of the third movie, Alfonso Cuarón, actually told David Thewlis that Remus was gay “without J.K. Rowling’s knowledge,” (Robinson). To many, Lupin’s lycanthrophy serves as a metaphor for the stigma and social exclusion experienced by queer individuals. Some even go as far as to discuss lycanthropy as a metaphor for HIV/AIDS (Tosenberger, 2008, 197).
  
  “The insistence that slash must transgress the existing canon rather troublingly assigns to the canon a heteronormativity it may not necessarily possess,” explains Tosenberger (2008, 187). Fanfiction does not necessarily seek to represent queer romance for the sake of representation. Often, slash offers an intervention that is not inherently transgressive, but rather exploratory, “supplement[ing] stories in response to what fans view as ‘gaps’ within the canon, offering up an interpretation of what is already in the canon and ‘making space’ for the exploration of topics not expanded upon in the books (Willis, 6). 
  
  Through slash, fans have been able to “carve out a space for themselves where they are free to tell the narratives they wish,” (Tosenberger, 2008, 190). The focus on space that both Willis and Tosenberger utilize in their essays on slash, is helpful when conceptualizing fanfiction as performance within this space. Returning to my earlier discussion of the dynamic of fanfiction authors and original producers as that of a playwright and director, slash functions as the venue and supplies the audience, giving a space for writers to explore these relationships and people willing to read these explorations.
  
  Below are two examples of characters that fit into the trope of Mary Sue and one that doesn't. These links are modeled like the fanfiction entries in Archive of Our Own and show which stories the characters come from. Click the titles to learn more!
  

  Irresistible Poison by Rhysenn

  Fandoms: Harry Potter

  30 Jan 2020

  Link to Actual Fanfiction, Gender, Harry Potter, Fantastic Tropes and Where to Find Them

  By far the most famous pairing in Harry Potter fanfiction, this chapter attempts to explain why and how Draco and Harry pairings got so popular

  Language: English-Words: -Chapter:

  

  The Shoebox Project by Dorkorific and LadyJaida

  Fandoms: Harry Potter

  30 Jan 2020

  Link to Actual Fanfiction, Gender, Harry Potter, Fantastic Tropes and Where to Find Them

  How do slash stories function as a space for exploration of queer joy? This famous fanfiction used pictures, drawings, and handwritten letters to tell the story of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin

  Language: English-Words: -Chapter:

  Why Write Slash?

  We see that slash functions as the stage and provides an audience for writers to explore and play with different possibilities. As such, the reasons for wanting to engage in this exploration are necessarily varied. Which begs the question: can we generalize at all about slash? What insights do studying slash fanfiction offer? 
  
  Previous academic research on the topic often focused on the erotic nature of slash, either lauding it as transgressive or criticizing it for fetishizing gay men. Looking at the examples of Irresistible Poison and The Shoebox Project, it becomes clear that we need a better framework. The popularity of pairs that exist outside of the canon even though there is a canonically gay male character in Harry Potter, suggests that queer representation isn’t the only factor at play. 
  
  A YouTuber, Sarah Z, gives a possible explanation about the popularity of slash, explaining that heteronormativity can lead to underdeveloped romantic plots in canon. Because of the assumption that “a man and a woman together is naturally going to equal romance.” The burden of developing that relationship is lighter, “but when it comes to friendships between characters of the same gender it seems like a lot of writers accidentally pen quasi-romances between them.” So when fans see a character end up with another just based on the underlying assumption that women always end up with men, they intervene, exploring a possibility that the canon chose not to entertain (Sarah Z).
  
  In Harry Potter, I find this to be a very compelling argument. The top 5 most popular ships on Archive of Our Own , in order, are: Draco/Harry, Remus/Sirius, Harry/Snape, Hermione/Ron, Hermione/Draco. The only pair that is canon in the series is Ron and Hermione. The two, because they started as friends, had a well-developed romantic arc. It was never deemed “inevitable” that they would get together. On the other hand, Ginny/Harry, is the 7th most popular pairing, having less than a fifth of the number of stories that Draco/Harry has. Why would fans so strongly prefer this story to the canon? Ginny and Harry’s relationship both in the books and in the movies doesn’t get the attention that Hermione and Ron’s relationship does. Ginny is shown as having a crush on Harry in the second book, but after Harry saves her from being possessed by Tom Riddle, or Voldemort (Rowling, 1998). We don’t hear much about Ginny until book six, but by then, Harry is obsessively tailing Draco, suspicious that he may be a deatheater. It is no surprise that the Draco/Harry community gained traction after the sixth book (Rowling, 2005). Fans found the relationship far more interesting than the budding but woefully underdeveloped relationship between Harry and Ginny.
  
  Remus/Sirius also demonstrates this trend but with the added nuance of queerbaiting (Sarah Z). The fact that Remus Lupin was played as a gay man in the films and the close relationship the two shared was read by many in the fandom as romantic. Additionally, Remus Lupin is only seen with a romantic interest after the death of Sirius Black (Rowling, 2007) which, for many, is further evidence. The relationship between the two characters, however, is never fully explored, explaining the popularity of the pairing in fanfiction. 
  
  Finally, there is an aspect of slash that Sarah Z. mentions that is often left out of the narrative, identity exploration (Sarah Z). According to the survey by Tumblr user centrumlumina, 42.7 percent of M/M writers were bisexual, refuting the claim that the majority of slash readers are straight women. Bisexual women make up the largest proportion of M/M slash writers and readers (centrumlumina). If, as we have seen in the case of the Mary Sue and self-inserts, fanfiction is a way to perform and navigate identities, M/M slash may function as a way for queer individuals to explore their own sexualities anonymously and comfortably while avoiding having to navigate complex gendered debates around female characters. 
  
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• 1 2020-06-10T21:17:53+00:00 Irresistible Poison 5 image_header 2020-07-15T22:30:37+00:00
  “There really is no such thing as a typical Potter slash story: with such a variety of characters available, the tropes in Potter slash are highly dependent upon the pairing,” explains Catherine Tosenberger (2008, 195). I believe that the Drarry (Draco/Harry) slash community exhibits this clearly. Drarry is still one of the most famous pairings in Harry Potter fanfiction. The slash started early, as both of the characters make appearances in the early books and “after the release of Goblet of Fire, Potter fandom grew to gargantuan proportions.” (Tosenberger, 2008, 192). The pairing itself is an example of “enemyslash” (pairing two known enemies together romantically and/or sexually), and the fact that the two characters cannot stand each other throughout the series is part of the appeal for writers. 
  
  What we see in Drarry fanfiction is the tension felt by both parties as they fall in love with someone they don’t want to (or they’re not supposed to want to). Many stories recount the denial and increased aggression towards each other that comes out of these contradictory feelings. While these stories rarely discuss homophobia, the tensions of falling in love with someone who you’re not supposed to are apparent. 
  
  While earlier scholars discussed women’s desire for sexual equality as a key component in Kirk/Spock fanfiction (Russ; Frazer Lamb and Veith), this idea doesn’t hold in this particular ship nor the Harry Potter fandom as a whole. Draco, even though his family is rich and influential, is a powerless character in many respects. He is hated by his classmates outside of Slytherin, mistrusted by teachers, and marked as the son of a deatheater at Hogwarts and among the “protagonists” of the story. Even among the antagonists of the story, Draco is seen as needing to prove himself and his allegiance to Voldemort. After his father failed to capture Harry Potter in the fifth book and was sent to Azkaban, Voldemort forced Draco, under threat of death, to try to kill Dumbledore as a 16 year old boy. Harry, at Hogwarts, has all the power in the relationship (Rowling, 2005). This dynamic is only exaggerated in Irresistible Poison, through the usage of a love potion. 
  
  In Irresistible Poison, a famous Drarry fanfiction written in 2001, Draco accidentally swallows a love potion and runs into Harry, the first person he sees after swallowing the potion. Much to his dismay, Draco feels the effects immediately and wrestles with the discomfort of falling in love with someone he doesn’t like. Draco finally admits to Harry what happened and Harry, begrudgingly tries to help break the spell. The story covers the conflicting emotions of the two as they try to find a solution. While Harry doesn’t experience the effects of the love potion, you can still see the shame he experiences in even trying to help Draco. Embarrassed and afraid his friends will judge him or hate him for it, Harry only tells Hermione when he can’t think of any other solution (Rhysenn).
  
  While the story makes no mention of homophobia, the two characters experience similar feelings of shame, discomfort, embarrassment, and guilt that queer people must face within homophobiic spaces. This story was written over eighteen years ago, a time when homophobia may not have been as strong as it was in the 20th century, but was certainly more prominent than it is today. The comparison of Draco’s love potion as poison (alluded to in the title) may also play with the notion that homosexuality is still a taboo, despite not being portrayed as one outright in the story. The drama and conflict is only enhanced within the unequal power dynamics between the two characters, both in regard to their characters’ statuses and the love potion. While it is important not to assume the identities of writers on the Internet, especially regarding sexual orientation, what we can see through this particular fanfiction is an exploration of the messiness of sexuality and all the contradictory feelings that come with it.
  
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• 1 2020-06-10T21:18:02+00:00 The Shoebox Project 3 image_header 2020-07-15T22:32:55+00:00
  On the other side of the spectrum of popular pairings lie Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, also known as Wolfstar slash. Unlike Drarry fanfiction, the premise of Wolfstar is the deep boyhood friendship between the two characters. These stories typically center around the Maurauder’s Era, during the time in which Harry’s parents went to school and before their deaths. 
  
  Wolfstar follows more closely the types of slash focused on in the 80s, “buddyslash.” Like Kirk and Spock, there is a deep companionship between Remus and Sirius and these stories explore this companionship in a different way. A key difference between these pairings, however, is that it subverts a common romance trope, the happy ending.
  
  “[T]he buddyslash pairing Remus/Sirius can never, post–Order of the Phoenix, fit unproblematically within the discourse of the genre romance, as their relationship trajectory in the books is one of mistrust, betrayal, despair, and Sirius’s senseless and preventable death” explains Tosenberger (2008, 195). The tragedy of the couple is that, if fans are to follow the canon, Sirius Black is sent to Azkaban after being framed for the murder of his friends James and Lily Potter and, once he finally escapes, is killed by his own cousin in the fifth book. Remus falls in love with another wizard and has a child with her, but, they too meet their tragic end, killed by Deatheaters in the Battle of Hogwarts. 
  
  There is a subsection of fanwriting known as “roleplay,” in which a group of individuals come together to collectively write a story through writing as different characters in real time: a sort of literary improvisational performance. This type of performance can often lead into being archived as a fanfiction, such was the case for “The Shoebox Project,” a well-known multimedia fanfiction detailing the romance between Sirius Black and Remus Lupin that occurred before Harry Potter was born.
  
  The two authors that co-wrote this piece were Jaida Jones, who went as her pen name, LadyJaida, and an author under the name of Dorkorific. Both of the authors were women and while little is known about Dorkorific, Jaida Jones has gone on to be a professional writer. Jaida Jones co-wrote the fanfiction “The Shoebox Project” during her time at Barnard. Today she continues the tradition of co-authorship with her wife, Danielle Bennett (Jones and Bennett).
  
  “The Shoebox Project” is not just a written fanfiction. The story was told also through drawings, photographs, letters, hand-written notes, diary entries, and short stories. The piece itself was supposed to be the contents of an old shoebox that Remus Lupin kept under his bed that contained various memorabilia from his time at Hogwarts. The content was posted chronologically and began in 1975, when the Marauders were in their fifth year at Hogwarts (LadyJaida & Dorkorific). 
  
  The story does not start out with an erotically paired Sirius and Remus. In fact, it starts out with the boys as friends, unaware of any feelings they have for each other. The fanfiction itself covers their friendship and the friendship between all of the marauders. It tells the story of boys growing up together and facing incredibly difficult situations at a young age. Remus Lupin, canonically, a werewolf, must learn how to rely on his friends, especially during the time of the full moon and trust that they will keep his condition a secret. The beginning chapters show a friendship and an underlying feeling of immense love between Sirius and Remus , though  this love is not of the romantic variety. It is not until the 12th chapter as the two are parting for summer that they, unexpectedly, share a kiss:

  “Sirius makes a noise that's kind of a laugh and kind of a groan and then presses his lips against Remus' without any warning. Or with ample warning that Remus is only just now beginning to decode. He hasn't shaved and his hands are sweaty… Kisses, Remus has learned, are wet, nervous, compelling, terrifying things. He makes a sound. Sirius jerks away,” (LadyJaida & Dorkorific)

  
  This kiss, however, doesn’t start a relationship between the two, rather an idea. The two do not revisit this moment until Chapter 23 when Remus finally begins to realize that the questions he has had about his relationship with Sirius are questions about sexuality (LadyJaida & Dorkorific). The first kiss the two share is a rather unremarkable one. It does not fetishize gay relationships, but, instead, portrays how awkward they can be, especially among adolescent boys unsure of their sexuality. The fanfiction not only shows the erotic aspects of homosexual relationships but also the young exploration of queer identity. Even the later romantic scenes between Remus and Sirius are written more as curious explorations than erotic literature. 
  
  While there are real and valid critiques of fetishization within m/m pairings in fanfiction, these critiques don’t capture the diversity of the genre, often resorting to an oversimplification that reinforces the dichotomous radical/exploitative narrative associated with fan studies in general. Victoria Brownworth wrote a scathing piece about the problem with m/m fiction compares the genre to lesbian porn created to cater towards the male gaze. She writes, “In M/M fiction, there is an inherent disrespect of the gay male relationship,” (Brownworth). While this is true of some m/m fanfiction, she and countless other critics fail to account for the existence of thousands of slash stories written by members of the lgbt community (Foster; centrumlumina). Further, data about M/M writers and readers doesn’t seem to back the notion that straight women comprise the majority of writers or readers. A tumblr user, centrumlumina, surveyed over 10,000 users on Archive of Our Own and found that a majority of fanfiction writers and readers did not identify as straight women. Many identified as queer, bisexual, pansexual, or asexual. Bi/pansexual women and nonbinary people made up the largest demographic of the readers and writers (centrumlumina). 
  
   What we see, in the Shoebox Project, is not a fetishization of gay men, but an exploration of queer adolescence, the journey from friendship to romance of two boys from age 11 to 17. The impulse to create such a story seems less about gleaning voyeuristic pleasure from writing or reading an erotic story catered to the desires of straight women, but rather an express naming and acknowledgement of a relationship that was never expanded on in the books. As discussed in a previous section, many fans see Remus Lupin as being a canonically queer character. “ Fans cite Sirius and Remus’ curious canine compatibility (Sirius’ animagus form is that of a giant, black dog), as well as numerous moments in canon as evidence to support the pairing,” explains Jaquelin Elliott in her essay on queer monstrosity and lycanthropy (98).  Some could even accuse the series of queerbaiting or “attempting to attract an LGBT audience by hinting at same-sex relationships between characters, though they’re never actually consummate,” (Mitchell). Not only are Remus and Sirius never explicitly named as a couple, their entire arc in the books is marked by the tragedies of their lives after Hogwarts. Rarely do readers see any positivity or joy in this implied relationship.
  
  Despite the fact that the fanfiction depicts adolescence during a time of war and uncertainty, there are many moments of joy. The tongue-in-cheek letters exchanged by Sirius and Remus in the beginning chapters of the fanfiction show a sort of innocent boyish love so often left out of the genre. Below is an example of “letters” written between the two boys, reminding readers that these characters are still young. 

  “My MOST Esteemed Messr. M...
  REMUS J LUPIN I WILL GET YOU ON THAT MOTORBIKE IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO. Moony you can't IMAGINE how wild it is, it just PURRS when you get it up there, James calls it the Vibrator because he is a foul-minded little hag, but honestly it is the best thing I have ever experienced, never was bribe money put to better use. You will be tied to the seat if necessary. ..
  Until our meeting, I remain, In all things your most obedient servant,
  &c., &c.,
  Sirius Procyon Mirzam Aschere Black, esq.
  The Backyard
  Devonshire
  My MOST Grammatically Challenged Messr. Black… 
  In response to your most delicate suggestion that I spend some time getting better acquainted with your Satanic motorbike, I must politely decline… The answer tomorrow is also going to be no. It doesn't like me, Sirius, and don't tell me I'm being stupid because it doesn't. And I don't like being high up. And it's going to try and throw me just like a broom only worse. And it isn't funny. Stop laughing, I mean it.
  Until I send you right back where you came from on that motorbike, I remain, In all things your most obedient Moony,
  &c., &c.,
  Remus John Lupin
  The Study
  Next To The Window,” (LadyJaida & Dorkorific).

  In the letters between Remus and Sirius, the realistic and awkward intimacy they share, and the resistance to fetishization, “The Shoebox Project” offers an example of an exploration of “alternative modes of sexual discourse.” It offers queer joy in a dark situation. It shows both positive and negative aspects of young queer sexuality, allowing for it to function as an exploration of identity rather than a solely erotic piece.
  
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