Oh Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

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?.

Examples of Oh Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us include:

Anime and Manga

  • 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.

Celty: [...Where did they get my personal information?]

  • 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. And then they kiss, and start dating.
    • Also a part of her backstory: her 'friends' showed the guy she once liked a hardcore yaoi doujin she drew about him. Ogiue is so shocked that she attempts to kill herself.
  • 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

  • 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 Integra ordering Alucard to kill every single writer.
  • 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. And then, after House leaves, Wilson curses the fic writers for correctly guessing his dark streak...
  • 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:

"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?"

  • 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.

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?

Literature

  • 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.

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."

  • 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.
  • In The Scum Villain's Self Saving System, after his resurrection Shen Qingqiu discovers that during the time he spent dead in-universe ballads depicting his relationship with Luo Binghe. The problem is that most of those ballads are highly inaccurate on the facts, adding a lot of sex and more romantic reciprocity than there actually was, and a very mortified Shen Quingqiu can only describe them with the same terms he used in life to describe fanfiction.

Live-Action TV

  • An episode of panel show Mock the Week had Frankie Boyle discussing the Real Person Slash Fic featuring him and team captain Hugh Dennis.
    • Hugh was the receiver.
  • 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.

Dean: That... that's just sick.

  • Wednesday Addams promotes the second season of her Netflix show:

Wednesday: Over the past few weeks, I've been hunted, haunted, and mimicked millions of times across the internet. It's been pure torture... Thank you.

Web Animation

  • 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.

Sonic: Is that...
Shadow: And is that my...
Both: AAARRRRGGHH!

    • The same happens here.

Web Comics

Web Originals

  • 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.

Evan: Oh, the fan fiction?...Keep up the good work.

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.

  • 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. It is revealed that the entire thing is a Fan Fiction by the Ice King and he forced Finn and Jake to hear it.
  • 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

  • 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...

"Oh my God. Honey, you have got to come up here. I do not believe this! They have Goose and Niko having sex!"

    • 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.

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."

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[1] 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.
  1. ↑ Sturgeon's Law applies
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