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Autoethnography of a Peculiar Community

The paper will be covering many aspects of the Adventure Time online fanfiction

community. Before discussing this community, a few key terms used throughout the paper must

be understood. Adventure time is an animated cartoon that has aired on Cartoon Network for the

past eight years. Throughout these eight years, a diverse audience of viewers ranging from young

children to adults in their late twenties has developed. Among this audience are creative, writing

savvy, reading enthusiasts who have turned to fanfiction to combine their literary talents with

this beloved show as well as connect with fellow Adventure Time fans. Fanfiction, as defined by

the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is fiction involving popular fictional characters that are written

by fans and often posted on the internet. This definition, although accurate of the works of fiction

created by the community, does not define the community itself. The definition of the Adventure

Time fanfiction community is the collective group of Adventure Time fans that read, write, edit,

post, and discuss fanfiction online thats centered around the Adventure Time universe and

characters within it.

Literate Activities of the Community

Like other communities and discourses throughout the world, the AT fanfiction

community partakes in various literate activities. The primary literate activity of this community

is writing various styles of fanfiction centered around the Adventure time universe. Coupled with

this is reading other community members fanfiction stories.

These two activities were the primary causes for the creation of the AT fanfiction community,

but over time, more activities were developed within the community. One such addition was

reading lore, theories, and show-related texts. As the community grew beyond a disconnected
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group and more into a community, editing the grammar/revising the content of others work

became common. Along with this, properly reading feedback, suggestions, and effectively

incorporating it into writing is a very important literate activity. Lastly, the sharing of story ideas,

discussing episode opinions, and just talking to fellow Adventure Time fans through social sites

like Reddit and 4Chan has developed into the most social literate activity among the AT

fanfiction community. Even though these practices serve a primary purpose, many of them can

also serve as ways to identify the literacy sponsors within the community.

Main Literacy Sponsors of the Community

Due to the nature of this community, the obvious primary literacy sponsor within this

Discourse is the team behind the creation of Adventure Time. They serve as the primary literacy

sponsor because through the cartoon, they teach nearly all the information known about the

series originates from the cartoon itself. They also enable as well as regulate all official

information on the show through their control of when the cartoon airs on television. These

creators have two ultimate motives behind being a literary sponsor. The first one is showing the

cartoon, earning them recognition for their work and spreading joy to millions of people. The

second, more tangible motive, is the profit that they earn by creating and showing their cartoon.

A more fanfiction specific literacy sponsor to the AT fanfiction community are the

websites Wattpad.com and Fanfiction.net. These sites serve as a Literacy sponsor in a similar

manner to the bookstore Dora Lopez used on page 78 of Writing About Writing by facilitating

the development of literacy. In fact, they facilitate access to over 12,000 Adventure Time

fanfictions as of 2017. The other motivation is making money through website traffic. Members

are learning a myriad of lessons as a result of this site. This includes how to publish a fanfiction

to the internet, where the correct location to publish an Adventure Time fanfiction, and where to
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find other Adventure Time Fanfictions to read. Both of these sites also allow members of the AT

fanfiction community to send and receive revisions and edits to fanfictions.

The third main literacy sponsor within this community are the active, frequently read

author/revisers within the AT fanfiction community. Unfortunately, their exact identities cannot

be found due to the anonymous nature of writing fanfiction online. ___ Even though these people

do not always directly teach others how to write, read, or understand Adventure Time fanfiction,

they do still act as literacy sponsors. They do this by modeling: how to write fanfiction, how to

use and alter information provided by the cartoon, respectfully edit and revise fellow community

members work, and how to create unique stories. These users can also regulate what they teach

by restricting access to specific content for higher ranking members as well as only revising

specific fanfictions. This hierarchal access being very similar to Deborah Brandts views on

socioeconomic status determining access to better literacy sponsors (Writing about writing, 77).

For these high-ranking community members, the general motivation for being a literacy sponsor

is to help build the AT fanfiction community and make it stronger. With this, the popularity and

status given to them by the community is also a motivator for their actions.

Describing the Discourse

The Adventure Time fanfiction community is very interesting, even though it is only a

secondary, non-dominant Discourse. Some of these interesting components of the Discourse are

the shared values/beliefs that connect its members. The first of such values is the enjoyment of

writing fictional stories. Much like a fantasy football community being brought together by a

shared enjoyment of football. Along with this, the enjoyment of Adventure Time is shared by all

members. These values are responsible for the community members desire for writing and

reading Adventure Time fanfiction; however being a social community requires more than a
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common interest. It requires a universally held belief amongst the Discourse. For the AT

fanfiction community, this unifying belief is that writings should be shared with others. Along

with this, the belief that a strong, cooperative group is necessary for a piece of writing to truly be

great. ___ These values and beliefs are representative of the individuals of the community, but

the actions that these values and belief produce are even more so.

By learning the values and beliefs of the Discourse, a proper look at its unique actions

and behaviors is possible. The first of these actions is the public posting of Adventure Time

fanfiction to the internet. It is very uncommon to post an unpublished piece of writing online for

any individual, but for an entire Discourse to participate in this action is almost unheard of.

However, as one of the communitys literate activities, not only do some members of the

Discourse participate, all do. Along with this, once a piece of writing is posted, a small group of

people will assist the author to make their story better. This is done by one of more people

revising the work, editing its grammar usage, and making further suggestions to the author. This

paper is not suggesting that having a paper peer edited is unique. However, the process of an

anonymous stranger or strangers taking time out of their day to read a piece of fanfiction, revise

it, edit it, and make additional story suggestions to someone for the sake of helping a fellow

author and to improve the community is unique.

After becoming acquainted with the values, beliefs, and unique actions/behaviors of the

community, the attitudes of the Discourse are revealed. The positive attitude toward community

is unquestioned by the Discourse. This can be seen by breaking down the unique actions of the

Discourse. The action of freely sharing stories with all fellow group members coupled with their

willingness to give their time, abilities, and friendship to others is a prime representation of this

attitude in action. The attitude of mutual respect is also held very high. This is shown by the
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nature of the critiques given to fellow writers. Whenever a story is revised or critiqued, neither

the author nor the reviser is cruel, insulting, or disrespectful. ___ These attitudes are very

positive and relatively easy-going, but this contrasts very heavily with the Discourses approach

toward literacy.

Even with the Discourses overall caring and supportive attitude, its approach toward

literacy is rigid and highly dependent on the use of particular words. This rigid approach toward

being fluent in this secondary Discourse is necessary due to the high volume of writing and

community-specific communication. This is seen within the common literate activities of the

Discourse, including: writing fanfiction, reading fanfiction, editing/revising others work, and

talking to other members about story ideas, theories, and episode opinions on online forums. The

AT fanfiction community also has a unique set of particular words within its Discourse, making

a rigid approach toward literacy even more necessary. Examples of these words are: WC, rating,

grade, gender-swap, OC, lemon, characterxcharacter, one-shot, etc.

To an outsider, these would have either no meaning or an incorrect meaning due to their lack of

exposure to the community, which is why the approach toward literacy is so harsh. If it is seen

by members of the Discourse that someone does not understand these words or have not met

literacy standards, the person will be viewed as a pretender or someone who doesnt belong.

Much in the way that James Gee didnt belong in his neighborhood bar when asking May I have

a match, please? (Writing About Writing, 276).

Examination using the Rhetorical Situation

Due to the nature of the Adventure Time fanfiction community, fanfiction writing is the

primary literate activity done by its members. By breaking down the four constituents of one of
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these works of fiction, defined by Keith Grant-Davie on page 492 of Writing About Writing, a

truer understanding of not only the writings themselves but also of the community from which

they originate will be possible. This discourses exigence is writing and sharing new stories of the

characters/universe of Adventure time. On a far more fundamental level, its exigence is giving

fans an opportunity to express a love of fiction writing and Adventure Time with others. This

discourse is needed to find people who enjoy Adventure Time, creative writing, and most

importantly a combination of both, which can be very difficult. Ultimately, the purpose of the

discourse is to connect creative, fiction story writing, Adventure Time fans and enable them to

transform into rhetors and share their passion with others.

In order for these works of fanfiction to exist, there must be rhetors to facilitate their

creation. The original rhetor for AT fanfiction is the author or authors of the fanfiction.

Additionally, the numerous editors and revisers that assist the author also hold the role of rhetor.

This rhetorical team is collectively responsible for the final version of the fanfiction. Similar to

Keith Grant-Davies example in Writing About Writing of how a corporation, advertising

agency, actors, and script writers are rhetors of a companys discourse.

The intended audience of AT fanfiction is fellow fanfiction writers and casual fans of

Adventure time. The actual audience will usually include people who are not fans of Adventure

Time, but of fanfiction of all genre as well as casual readers who stumble upon the fanfiction.

Interestingly, the audience also participates in the literate activity of reading AT fanfiction and

completes the discourses purpose stated earlier in the paper as well as acting as a constraint.

As any other piece of writing does, AT fanfiction is constrained directly and indirectly

by several factors. This includes the amount of time its rhetors can devote to it, their focus when

working on it, as well as the amount of interest in that particular story theyre working on.
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Additionally, the community can place constraints on the writing. This could be things like what

type of AT fanfiction they want to read and what topics they want to read about at the moment.

Its also important to consider what topics are allowed to be written/posted on the websites

primarily used for AT fanfiction, like Fanfiction.net and Wattpad. This could mean an age block

on profanity or forbidding the topic of abuse within a story entirely. ___

Traits of the Community within Myself

After being a member of the Adventure Time fanfiction community for about six years, I

see several components of this community within myself. Even so, the trait that I see most in

myself from this community is collaborative writing. Throughout middle school and almost all of

high school, the process of writing is very solitary. Save for the occasional writing workshop

or peer review day, the entirety of an essay, book report, and creative writing story would be

only worked on by one person. By becoming a member of the AT fanfiction community, I could

write and publish a short story with another person and have half a dozen people edit it for us.

Then after this, an older writer could send me a report on what I could do to revise the story

while my co-author was discussing new plot ideas in a forum on reddit. By the time a story was

re-published, ten other people could have helped improve one piece of writing and my writing

skills. Not only did this teach me how to write collaboratively, it also taught me how to properly

read, revise, edit, and re-write a paper more effectively.

I also believe that being in this community has shaped my literacy, reading, and writing

abilities in a positive way. Due to how rigid this communities approach towards literacy was, my

literacy within this Discourse became fluent. A secondary benefit to this was that it now allows

me to develop meta-knowledge that helps me improve my literacy and overall rhetoric in other

Discourses, similar to James Gees example of how studying a second language can help
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improve your first language (287, Writing About Writing). Along with this, being a member of

this community changed how actively I would read. Before I was a member of the AT fanfiction

community, I would almost strictly read books for completion and not look at writing beyond its

literal meaning. This changed once I began partaking in weekly talks with other Adventure Time

fans about specific fanfictions. We talked about specific stories, reading for content, including

actively thinking about the story and taking notes on important events, shaping my active reading

skills into what they are today. My final observation of how being in this group changed my

literary abilities is the length of my writing. During English class, the recurring criticism of Not

long enough and Need more content would appear on my papers. Due to my membership in

the AT fanfiction community, my ability to write longer papers, present more content, and

expand on my ideas and thoughts more transferred over to my academic writing. By looking

back on my literacy, reading, and writing, its clear that much of my development was caused by

the Adventure Time fanfiction community.

My Writing Process

My planning process for writing, especially for my academic writing, tends to stay the

same for all the papers that I write. Once I receive or decide the topic of a paper, I look over any

information I have on the topic and write it down ___. This helps me remember the information

Ill be using within the essay, report, etc. that Im writing. By studying these notes and learning

exactly what Im writing before I start my paper, I can keep the core details of my topic in my

head, allowing me to write faster and more efficiently. After this, I write a very basic outline.

This outline includes; what the topic of each section is going to be, and in what order it will these

topics appear. Thus, concluding the planning stage of writing.

After my planning process, I type out my first draft. Usually this takes place at night. I

do my writing so late because it allows me to write in a low light environment. Then, I get rid of

any distractions I can, especially objects that produces white noise. This includes turning off the

radio, television, asking siblings to leave me alone, and even turning off a ceiling fan if its too

loud. Once this preparation is complete, I try to type as much of my paper as I can in one sitting.

Usually this ends up being one and a half pages before I have to stop typing for a short amount of

time. Working in extended sessions allows me to form a more natural writing flow in my paper

that I cant maintain if I take too many breaks during my writing. I also write from beginning to

end. Its far more difficult to try and assemble disconnected, out-of-order paragraphs into a paper

than just writing the paper from introduction to conclusion.

Once I conclude my paper, I go through a lengthy revising process. First, I use Microsoft

words review setting to find any glaring spelling and grammar mistakes. Then I will look over

my paper purely to identify and correct any missed grammatical errors. I then take a long break

before reading my paper all the way through to see if it has a natural flow and reaches a coherent

point. If the paper feels disjointed or unnatural, I sit back down and change what I need to for it

to flow properly. Once I reach a point that makes me satisfied with my work, I ask either a

classmate or a friend to read it and make any suggestions or point out any errors. After all these

steps, I consider my paper complete.

References
Brandt, D. (2017). Writing about writing: Sponsors of literacy, 68-81. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.
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Gee, J. (2017). Writing about writing: Literacy, discourse, and linguistics, 274-289. Boston, MA:
Bedford/St. Martins.
Grant-Davie, K. (2017). Writing about writing: Rhetorical situations and their constituents, 484-500.
Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.
Merriam-Webster online, Retrieved September 18, 2017, from https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/fan%20fiction.