Canon and Alternate Universe Fanfictions Overtime
I first graphed a comparison of canon and AU fanfiction works. This was done in Tableau using the additional tags function. For canon works I filtered additional tags for those containing the word canon. This is a good way of catching the tags that contain canon compliant or canon divergent. However, it leaves off fix-it fanfictions, post episode or season works, and others that aren’t tagged properly. It also might include works that say “not canon compliant” or “canon? Never heard of it”. For alternate universe works I filtered additional tags for those containing the phrase AU. This leaves out works with AU written out as alternate universe, it includes works that say canon divergent au, and other works that aren’t tagged properly. The only way to bypass this is to go through the 2,500 fanfictions and their tags, which is too time consuming. So these results should be taken with a grain of salt.
In both graphs there is a peak in 2017 of works with AUs and Canon adherent works. It is likely we can attribute this to the increased amount of published works in 2017. An interesting aspect to point out is the timelines are different on these two graphs. The works with canon tags start earlier (2015) as opposed to 2016 with the AUs. A possible explanation of this goes back to my hypothesis with the LGBTQ+ community role in fandom works. The first season aired in 2015, during this season there were no members of the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t until the second season that Alex Danvers came out and Lena Luthor was introduced, which backs the idea that the LGBTQ+ community is more interested in the characters and relationships than the plot itself.
Another aspect of the graph I’d like to point out is there was a steep decline in AU works and a very slight increase in canon works in 2019. This was when season 4 aired. According to a reddit discussion thread, season four was the best season, which means audiences really enjoyed it (gigifranca). This point contradicts my hypothesis. Since season 4 was a fan favorite, you would expect more AUs to be written because they enjoyed the canon plot line, so they would write more fanfictions focused on the characters. Additionally you would expect less canon fanfictions, since there would be less to “fix”, however this did not seem to happen. Two possible explanations for this is one is that the canon works were about the reveal plot line. One of the biggest storylines in Supergirl is Kara revealing to Lena that she is Supergirl. This was highly anticipated because Lex Luthor became Superman’s archenemy after he learned that Clark Kent was Superman. At the end of season 4, Lena finds out that Kara is Supergirl, however it isn’t Kara that revealed it to her, instead it was Lena’s brother who she had just shot. I think there was an increase in fanfictions that were about the post-reveal plot line and thinking about how Lena would react to the news.
The last two aspects of these two graphs I would like to point out is a peak in 2020 on the AU works graph. On a reddit post with 126 upvotes, author u/PelofSquatch, said that Lena was very out of character (OOC) in season 5 and many redditors agreed with them. This points to my hypothesis that the fans are focused more on the character than the plot with AUs, which makes sense as to why more AUs would be written when a popular character is acting OOC. There was also a peak in 2021 for canon works. This peak makes perfect sense as the show ended in 2021, so there were many alternate ending works. It is very rare that fans are completely happy with the ending of a show, so it makes sense that they turn to fanfiction in order to write their ideal ending. Another reason as to why canon works generally increase after a show’s finale is they just miss the show itself and want to write what they think would happen in the future.
To check the validity of the graphs count numbers I used the split function in Tableau to look at the top ten additional tags. Due to there being so many tags, Tableau had to split the tags twice, which is why there are twenty tags listed. The popular tags for AU works are “Alternate Universe – No Powers”, “Alternate Universe – College/University”, or “Alternate Universe”, which added up to 53 tags. Popular tags for canon works are “Lena Luthor knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl” and “Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence” which add up to 10. It is clear that AU works are more popular than canon works, which matched up with the AU graph having a greater amount of works than the canon graph.
