Gifts

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Synonyms: Gift Fics
See also: Fic Commission, Gift Economy, Gift Exchange
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Sending fanworks as gifts is a fannish way of bonding or expressing group identity.

These gifts can be an informal exchange between two fans, or part of a gift exchange as a more organized activity.

Betas are often gifted the story they have betaed as a thank you for their work and support. Another common gift is for fan artists to provide cover art or illustrations for a fanfic, such as these covers gifted to Kadorienne.

On Archive of Our Own

On the AO3, artists and writers can gift their works while making new posts to the archive. [1] If the recipient accepts the gift, their name will be displayed on the work, right under the byline. It is possible to gift a work to several recipients. Both registered and unregistered users of the archive can be given gifts, but only registered giftees will be notified that they have been selected as recipients of a work. Gifts to an AO3 user appear under the "Gifts" section of their profile for easy reading[2].

Although many fans are using gifts as a tool for bonding, there have been instances where the gift option was abused as a means to harass people by sending them hateful gift fics. [3]

There is a native option on AO3 to create gift exchanges, however many fandom gift exchanges are organised separately and simply uploaded as a collection on the archive as all of the prompting would have to have been done through the site too.

Fan Comments

The tradition of gift fic is seen as central to the feeling of community:

I don't know how many times in this last post Zcon week of frantic reading that I have heard fans say something like, "and the end of the story I was laughing out loud thinking how much 'X' was going to like that ambiguous/comforty/death/happy/unhappy ending." When Tina and I went to one of the most recent Zep concerts we weren't sitting next to each other: we know each other's tastes so well, that we spent the concert thinking, 'I bet she's squealing NOW.' Thinking of their fun adds to our fun.


We don't read in a vacuum. We don't write in one either. I don't know how many stories are written as prezzies to other fans, or more casually, how many times it goes through a writer's mind, 'why not have them _X_.' I have friends that cream for that...[4]

Some writers find gift fics a source of inspiration:

I *like* writing stories "on demand". For me, it's a "craft" thing--as long as I'm not asked to make the characters so far outside what I know them to be, then it's just a matter of nudging them down this clearly defined path. If that path was defined by someone else, then it's doubly fun, first because it's a challenge for me, and second because I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from writing a story I *know*, at the onset, at least one person is going to ADORE. (I let the person(s) edit the story too, afterward, so it can be honed to meet their wants and desires as exactly as possible.) Having said all that, let me make it clear that I've only done this three or so times... :-)

I know that one of the stories (I wrote it for [J]) I'm quite fond of, but not because I like the actual *story*. It's a Tris/Alex, and it was *really* cool for me to realize I could write the characters well enough to pass a "true fan's" muster. It was also fun (from the craft/experiment point of view) to really wrap my head around the things [J] finds sexiest and most emotionally moving, and be able to express those things in an effective way.

Would *I* ever read the story for pleasure? No. Am I proud of it? Yes. Does that make any sense? [5]

Sometimes, writers find themselves writing stories they wouldn't normally write, or even want to write:

[the author]: Which story of your own do you like least and why?

This is easy. Westering Home, because I did it as a present for someone, which meant including rape and them getting married: rape doesn't press my buttons, I actively dislike rape-as-seduction stories (anyone want me to start on the Due South rape story? Didn't think so!) and as for them (gag) getting married (choke) with Cowley delighted about it all (puke), well...

[...]

Westering Home doesn't work for me because I think that Bodie should never forgive Doyle, not in a million years (even though several people thought I kept them apart for *too long* in the story! Oh, yeh, Bodie's such a little victim, if someone rapes him, he'll apologise for being such a temptation and they'll live happily ever after). The ending, if it'd been my own story, would have been bitter and dark, or very bittersweet, if I'd taken it far enough into the future to allow the worst of the wounds to heal: Bodie would have recovered--and be involved with someone else. [6]

Emma: So as a writer, do you really appreciate challenges like that or are you really glad that you did it, or in retrospect would you just assumed have written something else?

f: I'm glad that I did it and I would probably do it again, because it proves to me further that, in Harry Potter fanfic of any sort, you can do anything. You can really take any character and do what ever you want with them, provided that you think about why. Because for me, the biggest part of writing this story was selling it to myself because if I don't believe in it, how can I write it? And I actually made myself believe that if the events were to unfold this way then this might happen. That's very important for me when reading and when writing, and so I think that it was basically a lesson in humility where you kind of have to remember that your interpretation and the way you prefer to write things is not necessarily the one, true way. If you can put your own preferences aside and write something for someone else because they prefer it like that and make it believable in any way, even if only one person believes it and that's you, then, you know, that's pretty much all fanfic is about.

Emma: That's really generous too, when you think about it. I mean, it's generous for you as a writer to say, "This isn't my thing, but because it's for somebody else I'm going to stretch myself and create something for somebody else..."

f: I don't think it's generous, I think it's- I don't know. I think it's only common sense. I mean, if somebody- If you're writing a gift, like if you're giving somebody a gift, you're not going to give them something that, you know- that you might like. You've gotta give them something they might like. Which is how I approach these challenges.

 [7]


Others may discover a new fandom by writing a gift fic for someone else:

I had written a few RPS fics as gift fics, because I'm generally biddable, but I just posted them flocked. The first RPS I wrote that wasn't a specific request was a tiny little drabble thing that popped into my head completely unbidden while I was standing at a bus stop. It wasn't even slash! I'd say that was the start of a slippery slope, but really, pretty much all of my RPS has been written on someone else's request through memes or whatever. If I recall correctly, the thing that prompted me to finally unlock all of it was sadcypress asking if she could do a podfic of Punch Drunk. Which is just about the only story that I wrote just because the plot bunny bit my ankle. [8]

Gift Fic and Concrit

Due to the fic being a gift, the subject of concrit can be a difficult one: some believe that being critical of a gift, especially when it's not for you, is disrespectful. Others believe that once a fic is posted to a public forum (zine, mailing list, Tumblr, etc), it is subject to the same rules as any other fic. For more on this, see the following posts:

Examples of Gift Fanworks


References

  1. ^ It's also possible to add a giftee by editing an already posted work.
  2. ^ For example, Artmetica's gift section
  3. ^ see also AO3 & Censorship
  4. ^ ...and sealing wax... by Sandy Herrold, Virgule-L October 29, 1995
  5. ^ from Virgule-L, quoted anonymously with permission (4 Mar 1996)
  6. ^ from Virgule-L, quoted with permission (2 Mar 1996)
  7. ^ talking about Unintended, Slashcast Insider Interview with furiosity, September 9, 2006
  8. ^ from Ask the Author: rivers bend, Supernatural Roundtable, 2008
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