Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2023: Week 34

Masquerade can refer to a type of fanfiction writing challenge where the goal is for fanfic authors to conceal their identity in an anonymous work, while fans try to guess who wrote each work. The first iteration of this event was hosted by Gumi in 2019 for the The King's Avatar English-speaking fandom, however, the concept has been independently coined before in different fandoms, going by different names. A similar writing challenge called Guess the Author is popular particularly in Good Omens fandom. From 2006 til 2016, Hikaru no Go had Blind Go, inspired by Prince of Tennis's Subrosa Tennis (2004-2009), similar challenges run over Livejournal.

Usually, the event takes place in two stages, writing and guessing, and moderated through a Discord server. Customarily, roughly a month is allocated for authors to write and submit their piece to an anonymous Archive of Our Own collection (which also gives new writers time to obtain an Ao3 account). Once written, authors can submit their piece at any time. After the month of posting, guessing periods take place, where guessing may be split into multiple "rounds" in order to reduce the volume of fics a reader must read. At the end of each guessing round, the authors and the top guessers are revealed, though the collection is usually only de-anonymised at the end of all guessing periods (Some authors may then re-enter their fic into an anonymous collection if they wish to keep the work anonymous).

Polite public speculation, reading through participating fic author's previous works and analysing writing style, use of technology, and a community read-aloud are not necessary parts of the event, but popular and encouraged activities. The event is very much something held as part of a community, as an understanding of the other author's writing style and preferences greatly assists in guessing - naturally, interactions outside of the direct rules also become part of the chaos and fun.