WAGs
| Synonyms: | Wives and Girlfriends |
| See also: | Mysterious Wife Plague |
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WAGs, short for "Wives and Girlfriends", is a term popularized by British tabloids during the 2006 FIFA World Cup[1] that found its way into bandslash RPF circles, but is mainly used in Hockey RPF and other sports fandoms. WAGs are the canon/real-life significant others of celebrities in a male field and are often not public figures, but are nonetheless somewhat known to fans by association.
In RPF WAGs present a moral quandary--whether to include them in stories because they are canon, or to omit them because they are not public figures. RPF writers have often (but not always!) made the decision to leave out non-famous real people.
Removing WAGs from slash
In RPF, a common solution to the problem of inconvenient canon WAGs in slash is to simply pretend that they never existed. This approach works in RPF due to the guideline to leave out non-celebrities. In FPF, an AU might be required to achieve the same effect. Writing female characters out entirely is considered by some fans to be less misogynistic than writing them as the Evil Ex or casually dispatching them within the story a la Mysterious Wife Plague, although it wouldn't win the writer any feminism award. Another method of explaining away canon WAGs--exposition explaining why they broke up/got divorced--can become tedious if repeated in too many stories.
Fannish Links
- RPF Wives and Girlfriends, Archived version by hector rashbaum (2007)
- In Defense of Wives and Girlfriends, Archived version by fairestcat (2007)
- No WAGs AU and No Spouse AU tags at AO3