Futurefic
| Trope · Genre | ||
|---|---|---|
| Synonyms: | ||
| Related: | pastfic, kidfic, next generation | |
| See Also: | open canon, closed canon, Aged up | |
| Tropes · Slash Tropes · Tropes by Fandom | ||
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | ||
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Futurefic (noun) is a type of fan fiction set in the future in relation to current source text canon whether or not the source is still ongoing or "open" (such as a show currently on the air and creating new canon) or has ended or "closed" (such as a show that has ended and no longer creates new source in the same medium).
Example: I wrote a futurefic about Clark and Lex taking their three-year-old daughter to school.
Usage
Futurefic is a popular genre in Smallville fandom. In the beginning, it allowed fans to age Clark Kent forward from 15 or 16 to an age where they felt more comfortable putting him in sexual situations. This is no longer relevant now that Clark's old enough to vote, but changing Clark's age isn't the only reason why the genre's so popular. A Smallville futurefic might put Clark in college, working at the Daily Planet, or a hundred years in the future. It gives fanwriters the opportunity to play off events in Superman and DC Comics canon and marry them with elements specific to Smallville.
Futurefic is popular in fandoms without Smallville's unique crossover issues, too. In open canons, it allows fans to set stories far enough in the future that the next season won't immediately joss their story, it opens up the possibilities of the canon (sure, now they don't have any -- friends, money, choices, whatever -- but maybe in the future they will), and allows a writer to speedbump specific things they may not like about the current canon storyline. Futurefic is especially common in sources with very 'tight' canon -- shows like 24 and movies like Die Hard that are set in a single day or two, where there's no room to write stories within the actual time of the show or movie.
Futurefic is often combined with other fannish story tropes. In crossovers between disparate fandoms, one or both timelines have to be adjusted, or pushed into the future. Futurefic often combines with kidfic, and Apocafic.
Notable Futurefic
- Phoenix Burning by Yahtzee is a novel-length episode tag to a Buffy episode... that starts 350 years later.
- Rumor by florahart is an HP slash futurefic, written when Harry and Ron were still children, but set after they are more appropriately aged.
- Synecdochic's Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose is a famous SGA story set after the (non-canonical) death of a major character.
- Tiffany Rawlins's The Long Run and its related stories are popslash futurefic, set in a future where Chris owns a bar, Lance is a mogul and the group members have scattered to go their own ways.
- Firimar by Ithilwen is a far-future vignette in Tolkien fandom, where futurefic (often termed 'Fourth Age' fanfiction) is a very common genre.
