Lunacy Factor
| Synonyms: | |
| See also: | Xena: Warrior Princess, Lunacy, Lunacy's Fan Fiction Reviews, recs, BNF |
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The term Lunacy Factor refers to the influence of a single reviewer's taste on the house style of fanfiction in the Xena fandom. Lunacy had a strong preference for altfic where Xena and Gabrielle don't get together with anyone but each other. The popularity of her review site[1] contributed to the homogenization of the fanfiction that was being written.
The following quote defining the Lunacy Factor is taken from Kym Taborn's Whoosh! article "A Chronological Survey of the Fiction of Bongo Bear":[2]
The Lunacy Factor is a term referring to the famous Xena fan fiction reviewer's rule that she would only read specific types of Xena fan fiction, and consequently only would review those types on her immensely popular website. She required that only Xena and Gabrielle be with each other and that they would be together at the end of the story -- no killing them off, no wild times with others, etc.
Bards who would have liked to allow Xena and Gabrielle to branch out and take other lovers sometimes joked about the Lunacy Factor[3] because other pairings and other types of X/G fiction were almost invisible in the fandom.
Others saw the Lunacy Factor as epitomizing the persistent need for one and only one soulmate in a fandom where Xena and Gabrielle's soulmatedness was taken for granted; the fanfic was strongly driven by romance and the soulmate concept was integral to that.[4]
References
- ^ Lunacy's Fan Fiction Reviews, (Accessed 24 October 2008)
- ^ Kym Masera Taborn. A Chronological Survey of the Fiction of Bongo Bear, in Whoosh! #46, July 2000, (Accessed 24 October 2008)
- ^ Christine Boese. The Ballad of the Internet Nutball: The Xenaverse in Cyberspace, Alternative Fan Fiction Links Readers and Writers as Hypertextual Co-Authors, August 1998, (Accessed 24 October 2008)
- ^ Bongo Bear. Don't Mind the Ladies: Lesbian Fanfic as an Old-Fashioned Romance, in Whoosh! #48, September 2000, (Accessed 24 October 2008)