Warehouse 13
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Warehouse 13 |
| Abbreviation(s): | WH13 |
| Creator: | Jane Espenson & D. Brent Mote |
| Date(s): | July 7, 2009 - May 19, 2014 |
| Medium: | television series |
| Country of Origin: | United States |
| External Links: | Wikipedia official website |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Warehouse 13 was a science fiction TV series that aired on the SyFy network from 2009 to 2014. It ran for three 12-episode seasons along with two Christmas specials, a fourth 20-episode extended season, and a fifth 6-episode season.
Canon
Warehouse 13 is a secret extra-governmental agency known only to a select few. Warehouse agents are tasked with collecting and storing "artifacts," historical objects with strange and often dangerous powers.
Major Characters:
- Artie Nielsen - The agent in charge of Warehouse 13.
- Pete Lattimer - Secret Service agent recruited by the Warehouse for his tendency to get "vibes" when a stuation is off.
- Myka Bering - Secret Service agent recruited by the Warehouse for her attention to detail and eidetic memory.
- Claudia Donovan - A brilliant young hacker whose brother was trapped by an artifact.
- Leena - Proprietor of the B&B that Warehouse agents live at, and capable of reading auras.
- Irene Frederic - Caretaker of Warehouse 13 and liaison to the Regents. Appears not to have aged in decades.
- Helena "H.G." Wells - Victorian science fiction author and agent of Warehouse 12; was bronzed in the early 20th century and de-bronzed in the early 21st. A sometimes enemy, eventual ally of Warehouse 13.
- Steve Jinks - ATF agent recruited by the Warehouse in season 3; a canonically gay character who becomes Claudia's best friend and partner.
Minor Characters:
- Vanessa Calder - Medical doctor who works at the CDC under the Warehouse's employ; acts as the on-call Warehouse doctor. Long-time friend of Artie and eventual romantic partner.
- Adwin Kosan - Head of the Regents and ultimate authority on Warehouse matters.
- Abigail Cho - Psychotherapist, photographer, second proprietor of the B&B after Leena's death, and Keeper of Warehouse 13. She was brought in by the Regents to help Artie and the other agents work through their grief after the effects of Magellan's Astrolabe.
- Jane Lattimer - Long-time Regent, current Guardian of the Warehouse, and Pete's mother.
- Amanda Martin (formerly Lattimer) - Marine Corps Major formerly married to Pete who is, on occasion, caught up in the shenanigans of the Warehouse.
- Hugo Miller - Former Warehouse agent who programmed a now-defunct monitoring system for the Warehouse, and spent years in a mental institution due to the effects of an artifact. Former flame of Vanessa's and good friend to Artie.
- Benedict Valda - Former Regent who interacted with the Warehouse agents a handful of times before dying in the re-activated Warehouse 2. He later appears as a mirror version of himself in an alternate timeline, and crosses over to the Warehouse's reality.
- Joshua Donovan - Claudia's brother who was trapped in and rescued from an artifact. He works as a scientist at CERN and visits Claudia from time to time.
- Claire Donovan - Claudia's sister who was under the effects of an artifact for 15 years. She was taken hostage briefly by an alternate Regent Valda before being rescued and released.
Douglas Fargo, a character from fellow Syfy show Eureka, appeared in the Season 2 episode "13.1"[1], followed by Claudia appearing in Eureka's Season 4 episode "Crossing Over"[2]. As well, Dr. Vanessa Calder appeared in the Alphas Season 5 episode "Never Let Me Go"[3]. These two crossovers indicate that Warehouse 13, Eureka, and Alphas were written to take place in the same universe.
The Fandom
This article or section needs expansion. |
While Warehouse 13 did well in the ratings [4], holding Syfy's record for highest watched show in the company's history, the fandom remains at relatively middling size and rather self-contained.
The growth of the fandom online was rather slow during the first and second seasons, with the show still eligible as a Yuletide fandom during its second season, albeit a popular one. The third season saw an increase in online fandom numbers, particularly after the Season 3 finale cliffhanger. Seasons 4 and 5 saw increase in fandom size, but displeasure with the mishandling and storytelling of the two seasons saw some fans dropping off from the show to focus solely on fanon instead of canon.
The Warehouse 13 fandom includes a wide range of people, who have contributed a great deal of content back into the fandom. A large portion of fandom is located on tumblr, rather than the historical Livejournal base previous fandoms experienced. New fans are often treated like new agents and given a bit of a training period, with the fandom on tumblr frequently taking up the mantle of "IRS Agents", in reference to the cover story used in the show to hide the true nature of the Warehouse, as a playful sort of run-around when new fans inquire "where the Warehouse 13 fandom is". Fans in the Bering & Wells subset of the fandom created a Manual[5] in the same spirit of the show's Manual, full of information for new fans including places to look for fic, lists of major contributors to fandom in areas of gifs, manips, art, costumes, props, and music, those in the fandom who RP various characters, fandom greeters, fandom archaeologists, as well as some of history of the fandom and the various stages and memes it's gone through. The same Bering & Wells subset of the fandom took on the Cleena subset as their "sister ship", and created a camaraderie between Bering & Wells and Cleena shippers, most notably titling tumblr user Miekhead as Captain of the S.S. Cleena.
During the split, extended fourth season, fans began to have doubts about Syfy and its parent company Comcast ordering a fifth season, and so began to organize a campaign[6] to renew it for a fifth season. The campaign used twitter, tumblr, and direct email to good effect, with fans able to tweet generated messages to ad sponsors relating to that night's episode, as well as "discovering artifacts" around their locations that required neutralizing and sending a "report" to execs with the insistence that a fifth season was needed to snag all the "artifacts". The campaign was so well implemented and received, in fact, that some media bloggers began to wonder if Syfy wasn't behind the call to boost the show's numbers[7]. That implication was unfounded and ultimately false, but it bolstered the fans and made them more determined to have the campaign run to success. The show was ultimately renewed for a final, six-episode season. No official word ever confirmed the effectiveness of the campaign, but unofficial comments by cast and crew give credence to that claim.
Pairings
The Warehouse 13 fandom, by nature of its middling size and self-contained ways, tends to be a very calm, multishipping fandom, with little to no fighting between ships. As such, accepted and lauded ships are perhaps at a higher number than would be found in a larger fandom.
Femslash
- Myka Bering/H.G. Wells - The most popular ship overall in the fandom. Semi-canonical.
- Cleena
- H.G. Wells/Claudia
- Myka/Claudia
- Myka/Leena
- Claudia/Abigail
- Myka/Abigail
- Claudia/Jane
- Jane/Amanda
- Jane/Irene
Slash
Het
- Pyka - The most widely known canonical ship on the show.
- Artie/Vanessa
- Clinks
- Clartie
- Myka/Sam
- Pete/H.G.
- Kelly/Pete
- Pete/Leena
- Amanda/Pete
Multi
Gen
Bold = Canonical, either presently or formerly.
Notable Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Fan Fiction
- An American Warehouse Agent in Paris (And London) by trancer: Myka/H.G., ~18,000 words, rated Mature. History is set in stone. The past can not be changed. Until, one day, Myka Bering makes a wish.. in the Warehouse.
- Post-Its of a Life Well-Loved by mjduncan
- Catalysis by winged_mammal: Myka/H.G., ~14,000 words, rated Explicit. Myka keeps accidentally having sex with H.G.. She's not okay with this. (Except for the part where she totally is.)
- Classification Error by harper_m: Myka/H.G., ~11,000 words, rated Teen and Up. Myka had told Helena that no good could come out of hanky-panky in the Warehouse. And look, here she was, pregnant and right.
- Delivered by a_windsor: Myka/H.G., ~32,000 words, rated General Audiences. “I didn’t sign up for the Warehouse to mess with us like this.”
- The Future An Experiment by thrace: Myka/H.G., ~7,000 words, rated Mature. H.G. settles in at the warehouse. Kind of.
Fan Art
Warehouse 13 (Aug 2012) by ofpink
Fan Vids
Archives and Communities
- Warehouse 13 at AO3.
- Warehouse 13 & crossovers at FanFiction.Net.
LiveJournal Communities
- Warehouse 13, the largest Warehouse 13 community.
- Mysterious Artifacts, a community for any WH13 fanfiction.
- Warehouse 13 Femslash, a community for anything involving WH13 femslash.
- Warehouse 13 fandom recs at Het Reccers.
Meta/Further Reading
- Meeting at Gunpoint: Myka/H.G. Wells, Archived version by lysafan at Shipper's Manifesto (October 2011)