Seven Minutes in Heaven
| Tropes and genres | |
|---|---|
| Synonym(s) | Reader-Insert |
| See also | role play |
| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
Seven Minutes in Heaven ("7 Minutes in Heaven") began in the 1950s as a party game for teenagers.[1] In the party game, two people (or more) are selected to go into a closet or other dark enclosed space and do whatever they like for seven minutes, chosen by spinning the bottle or some other random selection. Some participants engage in sexual activity (mild to explicit), simply talk or do nothing at all.
As a fannish term, it refers to a type of reader-insert, often RPF, quiz fic, focused on YOU and a member of a band, an actor, or a character.
The quiz establishes which character you will be paired with; these are often "spin the bottle" arrangements where the fic will describe the seven minutes spent together. Variations: "twenty minutes" or "an hour" or the non-fluff variant, "Seven Minutes in Hell."
Both fan creators and fan consumers of this type of self-insert fanwork tend to be pre-teens and teens, though some older fans also like it.
The original game "Seven Minutes in Heaven" is also used as a plot device in fanfic and is related to the Locked in a Closet or Can't Escape the Room Unless tropes, where two (or more) sometimes reluctant protagonists are forced together in a closet and often end up kissing or having sex. It's a popular trope in romance fanfic and written and consumed by fans of all ages.
The popularity of the game in fanfic may be due to the trope's use in films such as 13 Going on 30, when the character Jenna participates in the game where she does not get the expected result, which culminates in the beginning of the plot. TV Tropes has more examples at Ten Minutes in the Closet.
Popular on Some Sites, Banned on Others
- banned on FanFiction.Net
- was popular at Quizilla
- popular on Quotev
- popular on Wattpad?
Fan Comments
- a fan in 2015 remembers "retaking and retaking ‘7 minutes in heaven’ quizzes so you could make out with all your favorite anime boys" [2]
Some Examples
Fanwork Examples
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
- In Seven Minutes in Heaven by Antigone2, Usagi Tsukino and Mamoru Chiba get shoved into a closed together to play this game once per canon season.
References
- ^ [1], Jet Magazine, August 6, 1953
- ^ the three generations of fanfic