Masterlist
| Synonyms: | collection, thematic list |
| See also: | recs |
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A masterlist (or master list) is a collected list of everything that falls into a particular category. The category can be broad or narrow, such as:
- "everything in the fandom", such as the Invisible Man Master List
- "all the fanworks in the fandom", such as the Dead Zone Masterlist or Tagging Bay City
- "all of the fanworks on a specific theme across fandoms", such as the Issues of Consent link collection (via Wayback Machine)
- "all of the fanworks on a specific theme in a specific fandom", such as the McKay/Sheppard threesomes and moresomes master list
- "all of a specific type of fanwork in a fandom", such as the Kirk/Spock Zines list.
- "all of the fanworks in a specific challenge."
Unlike a recs list, a masterlist generally doesn't imply anything about the quality of the works it lists -- it simply notes their existence to make them easier to find. Sometimes the list creator also chooses to mark her/his favourites, though.
Some masterlists may involve a degree of quality control, but often that is limited to making sure that the author is competent at such basics as spelling and grammar or excluding WIP.
Masterlists may be simply titles, authors, and URLs, but many also provide other information, such as a summary, characters or pairing, warnings if relevant, and/or a rating. They rarely include reviews or quotes from the story.
In journal-based fandom, the term is often specifically applied to a post that a fan makes of their own fanworks with links to each one and sometimes summaries or other header information. The post is usually set as a "sticky post" so that it is easy for fans to find a creator's works by simply clicking on their journal name.
Fandom Masterlists
- Bonanza
- Bonanza Master Fan Fiction List (Wayback Machine save)
- Dead Zone
- Die Hard
- Die Hard Master List (Wayback Machine save)
- Earthsea
- Invisible Man
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
- Little Women
- Shakespeare's history plays
Thematic Masterlists
Occasionally the term 'thematic list' is used to apply to lists of fics featuring a particular character or pairing, or of a certain era, style of writing, etc; however, its more accurate meaning is a list of stories which share a similar theme or plot.
- Due South
- Due South master lists (Wayback Machine save), covering roughly two dozen different themes.
- Harry Potter
- Themed Lists (saves on archive.is), with dozens of themed Harry Potter fanfic lists.
- List of Lists (Wayback Machine save), a collection of links to dozens of Harry Potter thematic lists.
- Stargate SG-1 & Stargate Atlantis
- Stargate List of lists (Wayback Machine save), a collection of links to dozens of Stargate thematic lists.
- Thematic Lists in SG-1 and SGA fandoms collected by the maintainers of Stargate Search.
- Crossroads, the Stargate Atlantis Slash Index, a thematic list index covering dozens of themes.
- Supernatural & Supernatural RPF
- The X-Files
- The X-Files Lost and Found Category List (Wayback Machine save)
- Multifandom
- The Listing -- Links centre for listings of fanfiction, a livejournal community that lists collections of links (for recs and thematic lists) to dozens of fandoms.
- Thematic Lists of Fanfiction, lists for MCU, Daredevil, Supernatural, and Merlin
Guides to Creating Thematic Lists
- Guide to creating a thematic list in the Harry Potter fandom by painless_j
- The Guide rewritten for the Stargate fandoms by lothy (should also be worth glancing through for thematic lists in other fandoms)
Other Types of Masterlist
- Buffyverse
- The Jossverse Poetry Masterlist, Buffy and Angel fan poetry.