Does slash mean more than a sharp cut or a symbol to you? Does lemon mean more than a fruit to you? Are you familiar with the terms angst and crossover? Then you need no introduction to the fan-fiction phenomenon that has taken over the virtual world. For the uninitiated, fan-fiction or fan-fic is fiction based on popular works of fiction, be it books, movies or serials, written by fans. While most fan-fiction remains restricted to the Internet, some, like Fifty Shades of Grey (written as Twilight fan-fic originally called Master of My Universe) and Beautiful Bastard (Twilight fan-fic originally called The Office), get their own publishing deal, and, sometimes, become Fifty Shades bigger than the original.

Most fan-fic is about wish fulfilment and can range from alternative endings to your favourite stories or different pairings between central characters to completely new stories using the same characters. It is often clubbed with fan-art where fans draw scenes depicting fan-fiction elements. t2 takes a look at some fan-fic story arcs and artwork spawned by popular stories.

harry potter

Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger

Hermione and Draco: Extremely popular across fan-fiction sites, these stories have the typical girl and boy hate each other but fall in love anyway feel. In fact, Hermione gets paired with all sorts of people from Harry, of course, to Blaise Zabini, Severus Snape, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and even Tom Riddle.

The Marauder Era: How Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs became friends, how they discovered Moony’s secret and became Animagi, the writing of the Marauder’s Map, Lily and James Potter’s story and Wormtail’s deception are popular themes.

Next Generation Stories: From Teddy Lupin to Hugo Weasley, every child that J.K. Rowling mentioned in the epilogue finds a place in fan-fiction. How they deal with the constant attention, how Teddy comes to terms with his parents’ death, who they marry (the Rose Weasley-Scorpius Malfoy pair became a hit almost as soon as Ron told her not to get too friendly with him), and what happened in the 19 years between the battle and the epilogue have featured as themes in many stories.

The Marauders and Lily

Same-sex pairings: A lot of the pairings in Harry Potter fan-fics are same-sex ones, from Sirius-Remus and Harry-Ron to Harry-Draco (popularly known as Drarry); even James-Sirius and James-Remus do the rounds.

Alternate universe versions: Some change the whole Harry Potter universe by letting Sirius kidnap Harry from the Dursleys or allowing James and Lily to live. There are even stories where Harry is raised by the Goblins at Gringotts, by Snape and even Voldemort.

Time Travel: Obviously, the time-turner sequence in PoA (Prisoner of Azkaban) really appealed to the fans because time travel forms the most important part of fan-fiction with everyone travelling to different times, even after they’re dead! This allows people to know the future and basically makes the alternate universe easier.

Twilight

Edward Cullen and Bella Swan

Alternate universe settings: We already know about Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. Then there are corporate bigwigs and ambitious interns and movie stars. The settings and characters that Edward Cullen and Bella Swan occupy as humans in fandom are endless.

Alternate pairings: There are stories where Bella ends up with Jacob, sometimes Edward is paired with Jacob and Bella with Alice. The Bella-Jasper pairing is also popular.

Fast forward: A lot of the fan-fiction also deals with life after the battle in Breaking Dawn. The relationship between Jacob and Renesmee is a very popular theme. Then there are stories of the werewolves Leah, Paul and Seth finding love.

sherlock (bbc)

Johnlock: About 90 per cent, make that 95, of fan-fiction around the popular BBC series is about the Sherlock Holmes and John Watson pairing. Known to the fan-base as Johnlock, the stories and artwork range from fluff to smut with everything else in between.

Hurt/comfort: Mostly Sherlock and sometimes John fall ill or get hurt and one has to take care of the other leading to romance between the two.

Alternate universes: John and Sherlock are students at university, or they meet during John’s stint in the Afghan war or John and Sherlock are neighbours.

Fillers: Many of the stories are about the time in between cases — between A Scandal in Belgravia and Hound of Baskerville, between The Blind Banker and The Great Game — and then there are stories of how Irene Adler affects Johnlock.

Tech-romance: There are a lot of stories told just through blog entries and comments and through SMS exchanges between John and Sherlock.

Fast forward: How John copes with Sherlock’s death and how the two are reunited are two of the most popular themes in the Johnlock fandom.

Other pairings: That between Mycroft and Lestrade is the second most popular fan-fiction theme. The Sherlock-Molly and Molly-Lestrade and Molly-Moriarty pairings are also sometimes written about.

Bollywood

Aman and Anjali in KKHH

Twenty years later: Bollywood fan-fiction relies heavily on the fast-forward button and is about the characters several years after the story of the film. Aman and Anjali end up together several years after the events of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Tabu’s character reflects on her relationship with Amitabh Bachchan, 25 years after they got married in Cheeni Kum.

Happily ever after: Fairytale romance for even the most insignificant of characters is also popular. Who Komal and Preeti, from Chak De! India, ultimately end up with, for instance.

Scene backgrounds: What characters were thinking during a scene is also written up, like the scene in Fashion, where Priyanka Chopra wakes up in bed with a stranger or Rani Mukerji writing letters to her daughter in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

Alternate pairings: Rewriting love triangles are, of course, very common, like in Kal Ho Naa Ho where Aman and Rohit are paired!

The item girl: What was Helen’s character thinking during Mehbooba, mehbooba? Did you realise that Nandini had a life beyond the Dekh le song in Munnabhai MBBS? Fan-fiction explores more about your favourite dance babe.

fandom glossary

Here are some words that you need to know to understand the world of fan-fiction:

AU (alternate universe): Where stories are written with canonical characters but in a different reality like imagining Sherlock and John as college students or Harry without magic.

AH (all human): Where characters such as vampires, witches and werewolves are written about as humans.

Angst: Stories in which characters go through angst due to relationship break-ups, death, etc.

Crossover: Where characters from more than one story inhabit each other’s universes and interact.

Dark: Stories that deal with death, betrayal and loss or stories in which some characters turn evil.

Fluff: Stories with happy endings or happy contents.

Lemon: Stories with explicit sexual scenes.

Lime: Stories with sexual scenes that are not necessarily explicit.

Name smoosh: Denotes a pairing in fan-fic by intertwining names (Draco+Harry= Drarry)

Shipping: Pairings are often referred to as ‘ships’ (short for relationship) and those who favour a pairing are called shippers.

Slash: Stories that deal exclusively with same-sex (especially male) pairings.

Smut: Stories where sex is main, over and above the plot.