Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

From Fan History Wiki

(Redirected from Buffy)
Jump to: navigation, search


Comparitive size of fandom based on archive sizes from November 2006
Same chart as above only including Quizilla totals from December 2006
Includes data on total stories posted to FanFiction.Net on December 28, 2006 and January 3, 2006, total of new stories added during those periods, number of LiveJournal communities and users with the fandom as an interest, number of news stories on Google, number of episodes on television in a two week period.

Contents

Introduction

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom is web based, fan fiction archive rich. The numbers are staggering and the fandom has consistently added new sites since it came into existence. On January 8, 2002, Buffy Fiction Archive was founded. On August 23, 2002, The Bloody Awful Sandlot, a fan fiction archive, was founded.

Terminology

Below is a partial list of terms used in the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fan community.

Buffy spoiler vegan is a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fan who wishes to not read any spoiler information for episodes they have not watched. This term predates 1998.

Historical themes

The Buffy: The Vampire Slayer has traditionally borrowed general themes from other sources and fan fiction writers engaged popular culture references in their stories. This was done in an attempt to pay homage to the source material which engaged in similar referencing, such as characters referring to Star Wars. Very little of this could be considered plagiaristic because authors generally tried to be diligent about citing their sources, explaining in author notes where they paid homage and were quick to correct readers who mistook the author's sources for the author's work.

The fandom had several common themes, historical references they would play on. One such instance involved Euridyce and Orpheus. Euridyce and Orpheus were characters from Greek mythology. She was a nymph. Orpheus was a minstrel. When Euridyce died, Orpheus went to the underworld to try to rescue her. [1] This sort of reference appeared in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fan fiction occassionally, casy Spike as Orpheus and Buffy as Euridyce.


Timeline

Below is a partial timeline of events that took place in this fandom.

1997 to 2003

  • Buffy: The Vampire Slayer was in its first run on television.

1997

1998

  • Betsy Vera created a page called BEDLAM: About Writing – Beta Reading. Betsy’s page is notable for several reasons. Early on, in the late 1990s, this page was important in terms of defining how to beta read as the page contained examples of various beta reading jobs, giving different perspectives on how people actually went about the process. The story being critiqued and used as an example was from the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer community but the site was referenced in such communities as the Star Wars, Star Trek, Gilmore Girls and X-Men fan fiction communities.

1999

2000

Disclaimer: Not mine, JK's. There are quotes in here from Red Dwarf
(back when it was funny), Blackadder, Buffy, and I realized I'd
criminally neglected Terry Pratchett so far, so made up for it by
nicking several quotes in this chapter at once.
A/N There's a fair bit of telepathic communication in this story,
which is indicated in italics. If you can, read it in Files, where
the italics show up. Otherwise, I apologize if it's at all confusing. [8]

This disclaimer is a bit important as Heidi and Cassandra Claire would later both claim that Cassandra Claire's disclaimers were both okay and properly done, citing the material correctly. This is the disclaimer for the chapter that eventually led to Cassandra Claire's black listing from FanFiction.Net for plagiarism.

  • ! is a symbol that frequently appears between a character name and a description of the character. Example: Leather!Draco. It probably entered fandom from unix users. [9] The use of the symbol dates back to 1996/1997 in the X-Files fan fiction community, [10] [11], Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in 1999, [12] Buffy: The Vampire Slayer in 2000/2001, [13]

2001

2002

2003

2004

2006

2007

A lot of it depends on the particular fandom you're talking about. For example, in the Buffyverse and in Stargate SG-1 you'll see as much het as slash, and occasional femslash as well -- while in due South it's almost all slash; het happens, but it's pretty rare -- and Farscape is heavily het. [33]

2008

Kerfluffles

One of the largest ongoing kerfluffles, rising to epic proportions in S5 through S7, is the ongoing conflict between Bangel shippers (Buffy/Angel) and Spuffy shippers (Buffy/Spike).


Fanworks policy and history

Fans Go Interactive, and Popular Culture Feels the Tremors by Ann Powers in an article from the Washington Post Section H, E-Commerce dated September 20, 2000 says that Joss Whedon once actively supported fan sites but after being satisified by Fox's explanations of their actions in regards to fan sites. [35]

Tunnel Vision says that while Buffy: The Vampire Slayer has aggreesively gone after fan sites, they have totally ignored alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative and much of Buffy ficdom. [36]

Fans Go Interactive, and Popular Culture Feels the Tremors By Ann Powers from the New York Times does mention Fox tactics in dealing with Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fans. The article says:

Fox has been particularly active in sending cease-and-desist letters to Buffy sites, perhaps because their Webmasters are so avid. Fans have not taken the legal threats lightly. Solo84 has organized a group known as the Buffy Bringers that has mounted peaceful protests, mostly online and through letter-writing campaigns.
Solo84 insists that fan sites comply with the legal guidelines for fair use of material and contends that Fox is overzealous. Such sentiments are common across the Internet. Even many fans trading music through Napster see their activity as a form of sharing and say they doubt that it harms the artists they admire.
...
Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, once avidly supported fan sites, but he has retreated on the subject, having been satisfied by Fox's explanations of its actions, Mr. Melnick said

Science Fiction Weekly had an interview with Joss Whedon where the issue of fan fiction was brought up several times. The following is a quotation from the pertinent sections:

You've developed quite an Internet-based following for Buffy. What do you think of that? Do you read fan comments, and do they influence your thinking about the show? Or do you ignore most of it?
Whedon: I think it's really neat. I haven't had as much time as I used to to check in and see what people are talking about. [But] sure, I'll read the posting board. I'm always interested to see what people are responding to, and what they're not. To an extent it does [affect me]. For example, when I saw that people were rejecting the Oz character when he was first introduced, I realized how carefully I had to place him. I wrote scenes where Willow falls in love with him in a way where fans would fall in love with him too. You learn that people don't take things at face value; you have to earn them. It was clear that David was a popular figure fairly early on.

---

Do you share William Shatner's opinion of the most ardent fans that they need to get a life?
Whedon: I have never had any particular life of my own, so I don't see any particular reason why anyone should run out to get one. Of course, if they're dressing up like Willow and staying in their basement for nine months at a time, that's not good. But the show's designed to foster slavish devotion; it has it from me, and I entirely respect it in others.

---

How do you feel about the cultural impact of Buffy? The comics, merchandise, fan fiction, etc?
Whedon: Again, the show was designed to be the kind of show that people would build myths on, read comics about, that would keep growing. So naturally, I'm wicked pleased that it's entering people's consciousness. I obviously can't read [fan fiction], but the fact is there seems to be a great deal of it, and that's terrific. I wished I'd had that outlet as a youngster, or had the time to do it now.


"Interview with a Vampire Creator" By Amy Amatangelo, TV Gal, written for DishThis.Com [37] quotes Joss Whedon as mentioning fan fiction when he says:

"There are other Buffy projects. I really can't go into them just yet. The universe seems to be expanding. I always wanted to create a universe, not just a show. It expanded when the first person wrote the first piece of fan fiction. People take the mythology to heart." [38]


News - 14th May by Rob Francis [39] for an article on the BBC's web site has a section which deals with the official reaction by the folks who write for Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. The article states:

Keen to explore the relationship between TV writers and their fan fiction counterparts, The Washington Post chatted with Buffy and Angel script writers Marti Noxon and Mere Smith last week.
Noxon is full of praise for the amateur writers. "We're in a weird position with fan fiction," she says. "It's flattering because, something you're creating - a universe you're a part of - has inspired people to go off and continue imagining," she says.
The writers do, however, have to exercise a little caution. A TV story that covers similar ground to a fan could result in accusations of plagiarism. "Because of legal stuff, we have to be really judicious about how much we read," notes Noxon.
Mere Smith started out as a fan writer before landing a full time job on the Buffy staff. A regular poster to the official Bronze board, Smith made some useful contacts whilst at one of the famous Posting Board parties and after a brief stint on another show, ended up scripting Angel.
"It's just so odd because I've been in both places," she says. "I've been in the office at 7 in the morning on the board in New York... And I've done the part where I stand over [executive producer Joss Whedon's] shoulder as he reads the board. It's very strange." [40]

Influential Stories

This section needs more information.

Fandom Members

Fandom size

November 2006

As of November 22, 2006 there were 546 stories on Twisting the Hellmouth [41] and 30,066 on FanFiction.Net. [42]

May 2007

As of May 23, 2007, there were 142 Buffy: The Vampire Slayer stories on FanLib. [43]

As of May 27, 2007, there was 1 story on The Zone~. [44]

As of May 28, 2007, there were 31,009 stories on FanFiction.Net. [45]

December 2007

As of December 8, 2007, there were 274 Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fanworks on FanLib [46][47] and 31,874 on FanFiction.Net.

January 2008

As of January 2, 2008, 234 stories, 30 images, 28 videos, 5 screenplays and 2 poems on FanLib. [48]

External Links

See also


Sources

Below is a partial list of academic, mass media and other sources which can help you learn more about this fan community.



Learn more about the TelevisionFic community by reading the information above. Add more to it by clicking the edit tab and writing more. Use the form to the left to start a new page and share your knowledge of TelevisionFic history with others.


TelevisionFic on FanHistory.Com
This TelevisionFic-related article is a stub. You can help Fanhistory.com by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://www.fanhistory.com/wiki/Buffy:_The_Vampire_Slayer"
sister sites
Toolbox