Oh Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us

"Dean: There are "Sam-girls" and "Dean-girls" and...what's a "slash fan"? Sam: As in "Sam-slash-Dean"...together. Dean: Like, together together? Sam: Yeah. Dean: They do know we're brothers, right? Sam: Doesn't...seem to matter."

- Supernatural, "The Monster At The End Of This Book"

One day, you are surfing the interwebs, and you find a fanfic. This one seems to be about... the characters discovering fanfiction being written about themselves. What is this? Has The Masquerade been snapped in two? Has a hero's Secret Identity been leaked?

This is largely a fanfiction trope (yeah, a bit ironic), but can occur in original works. (The Ur Example could be Don Quixote, making it Older Than Steam). This is partially a comedy trope, expect much Squick, raging, and consumption of cleaning products to try to blot out the horrible images wrought by the worst of fics -- Rule 34 in particular stands out. Most often becomes a Revenge Fic type 2, with the characters trying to kill bad fanfiction characters.

A Sub-Trope of Recursive Canon and plays off of the Celebrity Paradox. See Also Who Would Want to Watch Us?.

Anime and Manga
"Celty: [...Where did they get my personal information?]"
 * Durarara!! actually has canon examples of this. Far from being just very vocal shippers, both Walker and Erika have been known to write fanfic (porny or otherwise) of their friends, and don't care who knows it.


 * Happens In-Universe in Genshiken: Ogiue is such a Yaoi Fangirl that she even draws erotic doujinshi of the Genshiken members, casting Sasahara as a Bastard Boyfriend and Madarame as the classic Uke. When Sasahara asks her out, she (reluctantly) tells him about it; he's surprised, but not shocked. Ogiue then shows said doujinshi to Sasahara, who good-naturedly teases her about it.
 * Also a part of her backstory:.
 * In an omake chapter of Girl Friends, Narumatsu-sensei learns that Tamamin has drawn a rape manga of her and some girls in the class. This naturally freaks her out.
 * Student Council's Discretion has an in-universe example: Mafuyu puts Ken into her yaoi doujinshi.

Fan Works
""Well, there was the one writer who really thought Unit 01 was cute," Asuka says, and shudders, "And...tentacles? Did any story need those many tentacles? Not that he was a bad writer, he was actually fantastic-" "But creepy," Misato adds. "Why was I having sex with Rei in every single one of them?" Shinji asks, "It was either me and Rei, me and Asuka, me and Mom-" "Which is all sorts of wrong," Misato asks, "Especially that one the one guy wrote where you had a three way with your Mom and me." "And I never met Mr. Nagisa!" Asuka yells, pounding her fist on the table, "Why would I want to have sex with him?""
 * Ace Attorney: In fanart form: Here.
 * Avatar: Neytiri looks on the internet in this fanart, and presumably discovers a lot of Rule 34.
 * Avatar: The Last Airbender: A few pages where they discover Shipping. Hilarity Ensues. One, Two, Three.
 * And the page image for Ship-to-Ship Combat.
 * "The Ember Island Players" could count as a canonical example of this.
 * One absolutely hilarious Batman Fanfic affectionately parodied the Batman/Joker pairing, and it revolved around Batman, Batwoman, Robin, and Alfred all discovering that someone in Gotham was posting kinky, steamy, and downright dirty Batman/Joker fanfic. The Twist is that it's The Joker himself who's posting it For the Evulz, though he states that he hates the very idea of him and Batman getting together in that way.
 * Bubblegum Avatar by Craig Reed and the third and fourth installments of Legion's Quest by Ed Becerra, self-insert fanfics set in Bubblegum Crisis, both have the Knight Sabers (or, rather, Sylia) getting their hands on complete BGC fanfiction archives (including lemons), with... interesting results.
 * WilderKaiserin's Emo Corner series began as an exploration of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX characters' reactions to various fanfics, and expanded (and significantly improved) when she decided to include the 4Kids dub and general trauma in the series itself. The latest edition has left the GX fandom to explore Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * One story in the Dangerverse has a copy of Living with Danger in hardbound form fall into a 'verse, and that 'verses vs. of the Marauders (still in high school Hogwarts) pick it up and start to read and discuss it!
 * The Dark Knight Saga fic Last Straw: After his comicsverse-derived Freudian Excuse is leaked to the public, resulting in an outpouring of unwanted sympathy, Draco in Leather Pants, and porn, the Scarecrow makes a televised statement in which he threatens to dose Gotham with extra-potent fear toxin if people keep portraying him as a Woobie.
 * Hellsing Fanfiction, a Hellsing fanfic (of course), has Seras discovering the Hellsing section of Fanfiction.net and frantically reporting it to Integra. It ends with.
 * Heroes And Friends, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan fic, features the turtles finding themselves in our world. Part way through the story, Donatello discovers fan fiction, and after reading one too many Dark Fics, he develops a deep bout of depression.
 * Since House has a huge Fanfic writership, it has many of these. One little gem had House confront Wilson because House had run into a cache of fics in which Dark!Wilson does horrible things to House. Wilson protests that he would never be like that; House says probably, but he wants to be careful.
 * Dr. Drakken and Shego discover Kim Possible Rule 34 art, to their horror.
 * The Mass Effect 2 fanfiction A Harmless Pastime has the crew of the Normandy discover highly sexual fanfiction of them... written by Commander Shephard. Disbelief, disgust and Cluster F Bombs ensue.
 * This untitled fanfic for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic features the cast discovering what /co/ thinks about them. Hilarity Ensues.
 * One of the alternate endings to Cupcakes reveals that the plot of the story is a fanfic written by Fluttershy after listening to death metal. Pinkie Pie appreciates her friend's new-found creativity, but asks that she stop putting the other ponies in her work...
 * This is actually now pretty much tradition in the fandom to somehow find a way for characters to find this fic. Such as this and this. As can be expected, most of the characters don't like it...
 * In Nobody Dies, due to the pilot identities being leaked and the creation of an in-universe anime, the pilots and staff are invited to Evacon '17. They attend a fanfiction panel:

"Mello: Wow, I have to admit, I'm impressed. Who knew all it would take to unnerve the almighty Kira was a couple of pages of poorly written smut?"
 * The One Piece fanfic Revenge is about the Straw Hats finding out about fan fiction and getting revenge. They go to fight a group of real fanfic authors led by the author of the story. And in true One Piece style, most of the authors have Devil Fruits (or have a Devil Fruit enhanced object), one of them is a Fish Man and one is a Magical Girl... for some reason. A sequel was announced but was never written.
 * In this piece of Phineas and Ferb fanart, Phineas, Ferb, Candace, Isabella, Perry, and Baljeet react to the many aspects of fanfictions, respectively a Death Fic, Original Characters (for Ferb and Candace), Copy Cat Sues, Luke, I Am Your Father, and a Crack Pairing.
 * Red vs. Blue Fanfiction PSA by mrfipp. There are reactions on Ho Yay, Les Yay, Lemon, and such.
 * The Regular Show fanfic Regular Show FanFiction has Mordecai and Rigby (and later everyone else) discovering fanfics of them. Soon after, they start writing their own too.
 * The "Revenge Wars" fanfic cycle of the middle-to-late 1990s is based on completely embracing this trope and then running with it for all it was worth. It was started by Scott "SKJAM" Jamison's 1996 fic Sauce, in which the cast of Ranma ½ decide that turnabout is fair play for a certain fic author, but soon exploded into a massive collaborative effort with stories that ranged from whimsical to chilling.
 * On the Star Wars fanfic series Male Bonding, the guys discover a world-wide web. (Only one world? They must be primitive.) Everyone knows their stories. Jokes include:
 * A poll where "Do you think Kyp Durron is sexy?" Kyp grabs the mouse and votes "Yes." He does so again after they're all done.
 * Fanfic. Not so bad, but there's a story about how "Wedge and Corran are the best of friends. SLASH!" Corran doesn't know what slash is, does agree that he's good friends with Wedge, reads a few paragraphs, and gets pissed.
 * They all blame George Lucas in the end. And Luke destroys the Milky Way.
 * Speaking of Star Wars, Expanded Universe canon (specifically Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor) has Luke discovering the existence of a holovid called Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge. Among other things, Palpatine was a good guy misled by Vader.
 * This is probably a Shout-Out to the novelization of the first movie, which presents the Emperor as a normal politician so distanced from the everyday functions of his Empire that he's wholly unaware of its brutality and corruption.
 * Chapters 4 and 5 of the Stargate Atlantis fic Tales of Atlantis has the protagonists stumbling over a fan fic archive created and run by their colleagues all while the entire female population of the base is under the influence of a Fantastic Drug that brings out their inner fangirl. Even T'ealc joins the fun and the fics tend to pop up again in later chapters.
 * From the Tiger and Bunny Kink Meme, there is the HeroTV Forum series that involves the heroes discovering a forum and fan fiction about themselves. Some of them even hang out on the site and write fanfics. Justified as they are stars of a reality TV show. Here's the chronological order of the stories.
 * There's a Touhou doujinshi entitled What's This Thin Book? which is basically this trope. Yukari, upset about not being invited to a party, buys Rule 34 Touhou doujinshi from a shop in the outside world and mails them out as a prank. The characters are particularly puzzled because some of the books mention being sold at the Hakurei Shrine Festival.
 * The 34th chapter of You Got Haruhi Rolled has the SOS Brigade accidentally stumble across Rule 34 of themselves.
 * This fanart of Bakura and Yami Bakura's reaction to a yami/hikari slash site.
 * Zatch Bell and the Fanfiction Adventure, a long-running Zatch Bell fan fiction, revolves around this trope, where they discover everything from Mary Sues to Slash Fics. Hilarity Ensues.
 * Surf The Net by Ceej is about the guys of Linkin Park stumbling across fan fiction for the first time. Hilarity and tears ensue.
 * Things That Can't Be Unseen has the Death Note characters discovering fanfiction.


 * And in fanart form L and Light discover what the fans think of their "relationship".
 * It's How We Roll is a Skins fic about Naomily finding all the fanfic that had been written about them (the work is intended as a tribute to several dozen other fics that had been written over the previous twelve months).
 * In Script Talk, an X-Men: Evolution meta-fic, Kitty, Rogue and Wanda sift through their weekly delivery of new fanfics. Rogue is bored with constantly being shipped with Gambit, while Kitty is disgusted by a femslash story that ships her with Storm.
 * In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Kanae is revealed to have drawn entire hentai doujins of the other members of the SOS Brigade, such as Kyon x Koizumi, Haruhi x Kyon x Kanae, etc. Kyon is not amused.
 * In Equal and Opposite Attraction, a Mahou Sensei Negima fic, Chisame discovers a fanfiction forum for the manga Haruna published that was based off their adventures. She is horrified when the members suggest shipping her and Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
 * Given the extremely meta nature of some actual Supernatural episodes, it's unsurprising that SPN fanfic loves this one. The Fourth Wall series is a particularly well-done example.
 * The Naruto fanfiction The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn has the characters come across another character's doujinshi. About them. And it's pornographic. One is suitably shocked; the other wants to re-enact the scene.
 * Two Codename: Kids Next Door fics, Forums Ain't So Fun When They're About You and Fanfiction, sum up much of the cast's reactions to part of their fandoms, plus a message board, of all things, where fans are discussing the matter.
 * Plankton's Eye View starts with Plankton himself reading One Less Lonely Gurl, a SpongeBob SquarePants Troll Fic written by the same author.
 * In Shadowchasers: Conspiracy Red Feather has quite a lot of online fans in-universe, much to her chagrin. While much of it has to do with the subject of said fan works, she has disgust for the cleaner ones as well, given her  general opinion of the internet.

Literature
"The instant Don Quixote heard his own name be started to his feet and listened with open ears to catch what they said about him, and heard the Don Jeronimo who had been addressed say in reply, "Why would you have us read that absurd stuff, Don Juan, when it is impossible for anyone who has read the First Part of the history of 'Don Quixote of La Mancha' to take any pleasure in reading this Second Part?" "For all that," said he who was addressed as Don Juan, "we shall do well to read it, for there is no book so bad but it has something good in it. What displeases me most in it is that it represents Don Quixote as now cured of his love for Dulcinea del Toboso." On hearing this Don Quixote, full of wrath and indignation, lifted up his voice and said, "Whoever he may be who says that Don Quixote of La Mancha has forgotten or can forget Dulcinea del Toboso, I will teach him with equal arms that what he says is very far from the truth; for neither can the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso be forgotten, nor can forgetfulness have a place in Don Quixote; his motto is constancy, and his profession to maintain the same with his life and never wrong it.""
 * Christopher Pike used this in Master of Murder. An author names his characters after his friends, and then the fanfics become canon (i.e., they happen in Real Life). Hilarity doesn't exactly ensue, being a Pike novel.
 * Don Quixote: At chapter LIX of the second part, Don Quixote hears some guys talking about the Fan Fiction Avellaneda wrote about Don Quixote. This is only the beginning of Don Quixote and Sancho's continuous attacks against Avellaneda for the Character Derailment in the rest of the novel. This makes this trope Older Than Steam.


 * This Is Not A Game by Walter Jon Williams is an original-fiction example. The protagonist is stranded in Indonesia when its currency collapses, causing rioting. She enlists the help of a bunch of alternate reality gamers to get her out, not all of whom believe it's really happening. As a gag gift, one of her friends later presents her with a bound copy of the Fan Fiction some of these gamers wrote about her.

Live-Action TV
"Dean: That... that's just sick."
 * An episode of panel show Mock the Week had Frankie Boyle discussing the Real Person Slash Fic featuring him and team captain Hugh Dennis.
 * In Power Rangers Dino Thunder, the Rangers are watching international satellite TV and find that Japan has created a Power Rangers TV show. (The entire episode is a giant Mythology Gag, as what they're watching is a dubbed version of Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger, Dino Thunder's parent show.) Ethan and Kira enjoy it; Conner is upset that they turned the Rangers into a joke but he comes around. They're OK with the fact that the Abarangers are completely different people from them because, you know, Secret Identity, but with that in mind they wonder how the showrunners learned their By the Power of Greyskull phrase.
 * Forever RED (film) was supposed to have a mention of Tommy learning about "those stories about [him and Jason] on the Internet" and how they'd been awkward after that.
 * The cast of Sherlock caused a bit of a scare for the fandom—especially on Tumblr—back in July 2011 when it was made pretty clear that they knew about the porn that their fans were making, thus making it an inversion to this trope.
 * Supernatural: In canon, Sam and Dean discover a man who has written out their entire lives and adventures. The author assumed they were fictional, naturally, leading into him thinking it's a Stranger Than Fiction tale, where he might've been causing these things to happen to them. They also actually find fanfics of themselves -- Slash Fics, to be exact. They are understandably horrified and Squicked.
 * Supernatural: In canon, Sam and Dean discover a man who has written out their entire lives and adventures. The author assumed they were fictional, naturally, leading into him thinking it's a Stranger Than Fiction tale, where he might've been causing these things to happen to them. They also actually find fanfics of themselves -- Slash Fics, to be exact. They are understandably horrified and Squicked.

Web Animation
"Sonic: Is that... Shadow: And is that my... Both: AAARRRRGGHH!"
 * Sonic Shorts: Has a page where Sonic and Shadow look up fanart of each other. Then they look up fanart featuring both of them. Squick.


 * The same happens here.

Webcomics

 * Adventurers!: This strip, in which our heroes find out what Adventurers! fansites contain. (Adventurers! fan-made - and author-made! - hentai actually did exist once.)
 * In RPG World, Eikre finds yaoi of him and Hero. Eikre doesn't take it too well, but Hero just goes "Hey, it's us!"
 * In this scene from Scary Go Round, Shelley encounters obsessive fans of herself. It gets quite awkward, especially when the guy named Harry starts to read out loud Purple Prose Shelley-fanfiction. (It sounds ambiguously erotic and involves Magic: The Gathering...) Shelley later comments that she has "looked terror square in its single, milky eye!"
 * Head Trip had a page where Batman and Superman see Green Lantern happily waiting to become more popular and promptly cut his wings by explaining all he didn't want to know about "those fans".
 * Does Not Play Well With Others, when Seth mentioned to Falchion things fans on the internet write about him and Tekmage, not realizing that his roommate was blissfully ignorant of the fact. The bog of Too Much Information gets only deeper from this point over the next few pages.
 * Sandra and Woo: after Ye Thuza became a local celebrity for using her mad guerilla skillz while cosplaying a superhero, this happens. Later with replacement writer who happened to be "an experienced fanfic writer" — after one look at a script, Sandra burned the whole laptop.

Web Originals
"Evan: Oh, the fan fiction?...Keep up the good work."
 * Everyman HYBRID, like some other examples, toes the line between this and Rule 34 Creator Reactions. The main cast have discussed the fanfic they've attracted in live-streams without ever breaking character. They find it both flattering and disturbing.

"Drizzt: Look, buddy, I don't even HAVE a movie, and I'm in this club... you want to see some really disturbing shit? You should read up on that poor Link bastard, the girls really fuck with that poor kid."
 * The Legion of Net.Heroes once dealt with a boy with telepathic powers who was accidentally broadcasting his LNH slashfic across the city.
 * The That Guy With The Glasses crowd is well-aware of their fandom. At one point Bennett actually analyzed some on Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre.
 * Also one of the scenes from the Atop the Fourth Wall Warrior #2-3 review features an alternate Dr. Insano pawing at the alternate Linkara (both based on Johnny from The Room), who tells him to stop giving the slash ficcers material.
 * Iron Liz and Linkara once went through some High School AU fics of their online personas. On Twitter, she wondered why she was always written as the semi-popular one.
 * This is parodied in one fic, which details the cast of the site finding the Hookerverse fanfiction and being horribly disgusted by it. They end up getting revenge by reaching out of the computer and attacking the author.
 * The Nostalgia Chick, Todd in the Shadows, Obscurus Lupa, Nella, and Paw Dugan have acted out a shipping fic.
 * Spoony was asked about the popular pairing of him and Linkara at a con, and decided to feed it by responding "I want to know how they knew so many details."
 * Doug and Rob had an interview where they admitted to intentionally feeding their Incest Subtext, and Rob even demanded more fics (with 1,000 word minimum). Doug has also made fun of people expecting him to be horrified at the amount of Gorn fic and art that he and his characters have.
 * Search String Normandy by pokketmowse at Deviant ART, on Mass Effect crew doing "another sweep of the fan art quadrant".
 * Legolass Nuada Drizzt comic by RollerBoyjeremy presents the "Vapid Fangirls Stalk Me Because I'm a Hot Pretty Elf-boy Club".


 * From SCP Foundation, there was SCP-835-JP. A Keter Class SCP. She was an assassin trained and empowered by an enemy of the Foundation, and she never failed. Her victims, always SCP researchers, never saw it coming, she would reach out of the shadows and grab them, leaving nothing behind but blood splattered on the wall and floor. Eventually, however, a bored desk jockey working for the Foundation drew some manga stories with SCP-835 as the protagonist, naming her Keteru Yamiko, depicting her as an evil Joshikousei, a common stereotype in manga. While he was reprimanded by his superiors, they discovered that attacks by SCP-835-JP started to wane. They decided to encourage more of these fictitious stories about SCP-835-JP, the character in them becoming part of her official profile and many of the stories released publicly. Many other fanfics sprouted up, many of them depicting her as a Magical Girl, Dojikko, and various other Stock Japanese Characters. Eventually, this publicity of her image caused SCP-835-JP to cease her attacks altogether. Maybe it was because her cover had been compromised, she had been embarrassed, or had been insulted; possibly SCP-853 was, in fact, a living embodiment of fear, and turning her into a popular media figure caused everyone to stop fearing her, causing her to lose her power. Although, seeing as her final victim was the desk jockey who started the “fad”, it's hard to say.

Western Animation

 * Sort of happens in Adventure Time in the episode "Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake", which is a genderflipped version of the series.
 * In one episode of Voltron Force, the cadets meet a ridiculously nerdy fan of the Voltron Force who has written creepy fanfics featuring himself and Princess Allura. They're not exactly thrilled.
 * Inverted in Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette and Adrian are actually flattered by fanfiction (and an animated movie) about their heroic alter-egos. Adrian actually provides Cat Noir's voice for said movie, in an odd case of secretly acting As Himself.

Real Life
""Oh my God. Honey, you have got to come up here. I do not believe this! They have Goose and Niko having sex!""
 * Youtubers Alex Day(Nerimon)and Charlie Mcdonnell(Charlieissocoollike) have at least one video each in which they discuss fanfics of themselves that they've found. Charlie is noticeably disturbed when he finds "Cherimon" slash, but Alex embraces the concept and decides to write a (fairly tame by fanfic standards) slashfic about two of his other youtuber friends under a pseudonym, before linking said friends to the site and recording their reactions as they read the fic. He then reveals to them that he was the one who wrote it. Cue Horror.
 * Not to mention all the youtubers that are part of the livejournal community and/or have requested certain stories via twitter. It's a mad fandom, to be sure.
 * The band Franz Ferdinand once did a Shout-Out to Slacken Ties at a concert; Slacken Ties are a Franz Ferdinand Slash LiveJournal.
 * Galaxy Rangers writer/story editor Chris Rowley found the fan sites. No big deal there. Then... he found the Fanfic. According to his wife, the reaction was along the lines of...

"Me and @simonpegg once wrote some Nicholas Angel and Danny Butterman slash fiction. It was called HOT FUZZ...(applause)" "@simonpegg I too am deeply flattered by the slashers. I say all power to hand-stitched homoerotica.""
 * To which everyone at the table did a Face Palm—she was sitting at a table full of Fanfic writers, many of whom had written a ship fic or three.
 * Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth both discovered all the Fan Fics and Rule 34 of Inglourious Basterds, and were ecstatic about it. And decided to forward as many fanfics to their parents as possible. Before discussing how unrealistic they are. ("Everyone knows that the Bear Jew is a pitcher, not a catcher.")
 * There's also the part where they comment on the Kink Meme, where Tarantino's is basically "WTF the Bear Jew always tops!" Which they show to the rest of the cast.
 * Another Real-Life example, which in turn inspired a fic: first, the hosts of Britain's Friday Night Project surprised David Tennant with dramatic readings of explicit Doctor Who fic. Tennant's absolutely shocked reaction spawned this story.
 * Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg discussed Hot Fuzz slash once... and they approved of it.


 * Thus inspired, they also wrote some short slash themselves:

""I cannot say how much we all enjoyed writing these. You slash fiction writers are having way too much fun.""


 * Judging from the blog posts, strips and pictures, Hidekaz Himaruya is at least aware of fanfics and works based on Axis Powers Hetalia...and he seems to be pretty cool with that. He even thanks the fandom for those.
 * There is this internet phenomenon in Nico Nico Douga called "Utatte mita", or: people doing their cover version of songs they like, usually from Anime and Video Games. Many of them are surprisingly good and/or have exotic voice, and some of those people develops into elaborate internet personae and have avatars of them drawn by their fans. Naturally, the next step is slashing them. Since this is inevitable (and is a measure of notability), most of them are cool with it.