Fanweek

Synonyms:	fan week, fandom week, character week
See also:	Challenge, Prompt
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

A fanweek or fandom week is a week dedicated to character(s), pairing, or fandom. They are fan-run and provide inspiration for fans to create fanwork, notably fanfiction and fanart. The general purpose of most fanweeks is to encourage more fanwork for the character(s), pairing, or fandom in question.

Most fanweeks are modelled after the format created by Zutara Week, which came up with a list of daily prompts, either decided by the moderator or voted on by potential participants. These prompts vary in format, whether single words, AUs, quotes, tropes, or pictures. Participants are encouraged to post on the day of the prompt, but are also free to post on other days or after the week is over. Fanweek submissions are posted on participants' individual blogs (or any other social networking platform) and in the fanweek tag, rather than being treated as a formal "submission."

Fanweeks are almost always hosted on Tumblr, although they originated on DeviantArt. Organizers of the fanweek usually create a dedicated blog, on which they introduce and promote the event beforehand. On the day of the prompt, fanweek blogs usually reblog every entry posted in the tag corresponding to the daily prompt.

Occasionally there are fan months or fan weekends, rather than a fanweek. Some fanweeks also are longer than a week; for example, for 10 days. Increased length usually correlates with larger popularity of the focus, such as a month broadly dedicated to an entire fandom, and thus more fan-created content. Fanweeks are often repeating annual events that take place around the same date, but this may vary, usually depending on the moderators or organizers.

Origins

The Newsies held "character weeks," which could be focused on either a character or a ship. Lute's Snitch Week is thought to have been the first of these, happening in April 2003, but queenitsy's four-year Blink Week from 2003 to 2007 was the most prominent. A number of other character weeks have been referenced, including David Week, Spot, Week, Race Week, and Specs/Dutchy Week, all occurring before the concept entered the general fandom consciousness.

In 2006, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild held a Finarfin Appreciation Month "to honor the neglected King of the Noldor in Valinor and writings related to him."

In the Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom, DeviantArt users GreenifyME and trishna87 introduced Zutara Week in early 2008. Zutara week introduced a list of daily prompts that users could vote for every year, and it had moderators who would accept fanworks known as "submissions". Zutara week is often credited as the first modern fanweek as all fanweeks that came after adopted the format it established. The first Zutara Week event happened in July 2008 and subsequent Zutara Weeks have usually been held during the Northern Hemisphere's summertime to maintain this tradition. The idea for fanweeks branched out into several other ATLA ships and then anime fandoms, through the overlap between ATLA fans and Western anime fans.

Early fanweeks that began their lives on Tumblr include Dragon Age Fan Weeks in 2011. They may have become further popularized with the Haikyuu fandom in 2015, in which fanweeks correspond with set "ship days" based on the characters involved. Twitter has emerged in recent years as a popular site of fanweek content for fandoms that are active on Twitter.