Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2023: Week 19

Yet Another Halloween Fic (YAHF) is a trope in the Buffy fandom, stemming from a challenge in the XanderZone mailing list. These fics, usually Xander-centric, are episode tags set during the season 2 Halloween episode where characters "became" their Halloween costumes and were so common in the fandom at one point that they started being referred to as "yet another Halloween fic" or YAHF for short. YAHFs were often some level of crossover, due to the nature of the episode they originate from, but the fandom questioned on whether or not these fics truly counted as a crossover as they often only involved characters temporarily becoming characters from other canons.

This genre of fic was sometimes considered to be badfic because many of the early works in the genre were overly reliant on the events and dialogue of canon and weren't particularly well-constructed. Some fans also accused these fics making Xander into a Gary Stu, due to the tendency to focus on Xander or make him the "special" character when the original episode had more focus on Cordelia Chase (this was probably due to the genre's origin on a Xander mailing list).