MadKitsu on Jun 22nd 2011 at 8:46:32 AM
Last Edited By:
MadKitsu on Jul 25th 2011 at 12:53:08 PM
Page Type: Trope
Do We Have This One, Needs A Better Description, Rolling Updates
Fanfiction is a popular medium, and thanks to the nature of Sturgeon's Law, some of it can indeed be quite good to read.
And some of it may actually become so "interesting" by said readers, that they are inspired to want to make "fanfics" based on the writer's story, despite the fact(or perhaps, because of it, in some cases) that said story is fanfiction in and of itself...
This is Recursive Fanfiction.
Care should be taken with this trope, as the story that said fanfic is based on must be a fanfiction as well. If the fiction that it is based on is not itself based on another work of fiction (or fanfiction, which would make the fanfiction of said fanfic fall under this trope as well), then that's a normal Fan Fic, and not this trope.
Examples:
- Nobody Dies has several sidestories written by both the author and others, including Six AIs, One Continent and The Kei Files.
- Methods Of Rationality has the shorter stories Once Upon a Tower and Nightmares of Azkaban.
- Kyon: Big Damn Hero has Traveller
.
- The Private Diary of Elizabeth Quatermain apparently has several.
- The large Harry Potter projects The Shoebox Project and Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness have sub-fics.
- The Lost in Time Series has one called Lost in Time: Destiny.
Feedback: 43 replies
Probably.
Recursive Fanwork?
I've actually written one - it's for the Lost In Time Series, and it's called Lost in Time: Destiny. I wrote it for my friend thelonemongrel because I loved his story so much and I was a present for his birthday. :)
Also, does this mean that this type of page would need a troper tales or something, or just a link to various Recursive Fanfiction (s) under the various categories?
There's a mention of fanfiction of Ethereum Gladiator on its page. And there's this fanfic of Kyon Big Damn Hero.
Why would troper tales be relevant?
I feel like "recursive" is the wrong word here. Second Generation Fanfic?
I was only postulating troper tales a possibility since in all likelihood there's one or two tropers out there who have done this, since fanfiction.net and this site are places where thousands upon thousands of people go to, so it would make sense, but given the new policies on the troper tales page I guess this one might not be needed.
The Private Diary Of Elizabeth Quatermain has this too: on its page there is mention that there are at least three other fanfics based off of it. Oh, and on a semi-related note, my own Recursive Fanfiction (Lost in Time:Destiny) was the first one of its kind done for the Ice Age fandom at ff.net, so that notability makes me proud of it. :) It's still in progress, too...
Fanfiction of fanfiction of fanfiction would be Third Generation Fanfic, though.
Nth Generation Fanfic then? It doesn't sound good though. I like the sound of Recursive Fanfiction, but following the format of tropes for kinds of fanfiction (Log Fic, Crack Fic, Fix Fic, etc.) it should be Recursive Fic
Should be indexed in Fan Fic under "In relation with canon" and Fanfic Tropes
If it ends up as Recursive Fic, something along the lines of 'Not to be confused with Show Within A Show' would need to be included.
I think that one of the things that needs to be put in is the difference between this trope and Fan Verse, because I feel that a great source may come from there otherwise.
Just call it Recursive Fanfic and call it a day.
The Shoebox Project, a well-known Harry Potter fanfic, had a lot of this back in the day. Speaking of Harry Potter, I believe Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness also did, but everything I know about that one I learned from Fandom Wank, so.
^^^^That's precisely why I don't like "recursive" in the title. It just isn't the right word.
Nth Generation Fanfic suggests something more like 'fanfic of Generation Xerox' and Fanfiction Of Fanfiction is a bit cumbersome.
Fanfiction Fanfiction? As in the structure of X Fanfiction, where X denotes the original verse or work. In this case, it'd be fanfiction.
If only there were a way to non-confusingly fit this into the X Fic structure...
Fanfic Fic would be confusing, since it seems like it would apply to all Fanfics...
These would be Alternate Universe fanfiction, so the title could be AU Fic in keeping with the Theme Naming.
EDIT: Wait, I didn't know there was a page for Alternate Universe, and it leads to Alternate Universe Fic. So I think we already have this one since I don't actually see a difference between that and this.
Alternate Universe Fic is 'where one fundamental aspect of the series is completely overhauled from its point of origin.' This is where someone has written fanfiction of a piece fanfiction.
I've run across this multiple times; they tend to be crazy awesome (if not awesomer than the originals). See "West Side Story", a fanfic of a Hetalia Genderbend AU (ow, my brain).
Name it "Recursive Fanfic" or "Fanfic of Fanfic". There's no reason to get any more complicated.
I second "Fanfic of Fanfic" myself and um, I have one question - I see the other examples listed, but why isn't Lost In Time Series and Destiny up there? Doesn't it count? And honestly, I've done no Entry Pimping for that story, not even on the Lost In Time Series page, where it is only mentioned briefly as being the fanfic of the fanfic and used to corroborate another example on the Fanfic page created for the Lost In Time Series... so.... *confused*
^^^^ This qualifies as being just another facet of Alternate Universe Fic simply because 1) Basing it on another fanfiction implies that the fanon is different from the canon, making it AU. And 2) all AU does not need to abide by your definition see the AU fic page, bullet points 2 and 3 which don't alter things about the point of origin, but still create an alternate universe by way of relying on things different from canon, no matter how small.
I really think this should just be added to Alternate Universe Fic unless there is something I'm really missing...
Nth Generation I like...Prototype fanfic or Archetype fanfic...
^^ My definition was a quote from the first paragraph of the AU fic page
A Continuation of a Continuation would be this trope but not automatically an Alternate Universe Fic, so far as a Continuation isn't, in itself, an Alternate Universe Fic.
Additionally, a fanfic of a Cross Over isn't an Alternate Universe Fic, since a Cross Over isn't an AU fic as far as the page itself is concerned.
Pre-Ejaculatory Singularity
Someone once had a YKTTW that was the same thing, except their working title had been Fanfiction Squared. I like that title, but Recursive Fanfiction is pretty good too.
fanfic-ception?
Oh, does MS Ting count as a sub-trope?
Another example: Although In Flight doesn't have any full fledged fanfics, between updates it has spawned hundreds of short omake snippets (some not so short, and some multi-part) written by the readers. One compilation of them, which is by no means complete and will not continue to compile, had over 250 different omakes and 200k words.
How about Second Generation Fanfic? This has nothing to do with recursion. I don't want you to get angry emails from Douglas Hofstadter...
Well, technically, "Second Generation Fanfic" would only work if the following is true:
Fiction -> Fanfic -> Fanfic
If the following condition occurred instead, such as:
Fiction -> Fanfic -> Fanfic -> Fanfic
Then the Fan Fic that be at the end would be a "Third Generation Fanfic" rather then second. That's why I used the term "Recursive Fanfiction", since, to be fair, Fanon is actually developed and perpetuated when fanfics can and do influence other fanfics, all in a recursive cycle. "Recursive Fanfiction", therefore, is when a fanfic directly draws from another story that is in and of itself a fanfic (ideally, said fanfics would state that it actually does so and what fanfic(or fanfics, as the case may be Crossovers that some how do this, but let's not get ahead of ourselves) that this story is based on, but I would not be surprised if some writers might forget some of those details), regardless of how many "generations" have come before it.
Come to think of it, was there a trope where a character from one fanfic ends up being used in another person's fanfic(with possibly the original person's permission where possible), because such a trope could possibly be used in comparison with this one...
Also, who in the world is Douglas Hofstadter, because I have never heard of him...
Edit: As for the "Recursive Fic", "Fanfic of Fanfic", and stuff like that, maybe putting those as alternate names for this trope would work? I'm so new at all this...
The thing is, such fanfics don't call themselves, like this:
The thing is, such fanfics don't call themselves, like this:
The thing is, such fanfics don't call themselves, like this:
The thing is, such fanfics don't call themselves, like this:
...
Then we can just say that it's not to be confused with a Fanfic that calls to or repeats itself, if such a trope even exists.
^ It's not about "confusion", it's about the fact that this is not what "recursive" means.
Then, may I ask what word would have the proper meaning to this trope, because I would use that word instead, if it would help.
I believe the term for these are "Fanfan Fics", or it was when I was still following Fanficrants at Live Journal.
Curiously, "Fanfan" sounds like "Phanphan" or something, but that's just me...
I can put it as an alternate name to the trope, if it helps...
Oh, and it looks like it's ready to launch now, so I'll do just that, since it means that it can be used now(hopefully)...
Would fanfiction based on fan art or short comics count as Recursive Fanfiction.