Fandoms for works that have no "fandom"

[elf]

I've recently uploaded a handful of filksongs to AO3, in light of franzeska's clarification of the TOS FAQ saying that the important measure of "fanworks" is that they were "created in a fandom context for a fandom audience." Yay!

Um. So... how do I tag them? I wrote filk for kink_bingo. Is kink_bingo the *fandom?* That seems... wrong. Is the original tune the "fandom," which would mean adding half a dozen new single-work fandoms? I wrote filk about coffee. Not about sentient coffee (in which case, it could go under "anthropomorphic"), but about coffee. No fandom. No characters. No pairings. It's to the tune of & in the style of a popular Pagan song, which is probably unknown outside of Pagan circles. (The Pagan song is ttto a traditional tune, but it doesn't match the original tone or style.)

I'm not posting to say "help me figure out how to tag my weird fanworks!" They can remain under "no fandom" for all I care; I'm happy to have them all in one place next to my (tiny selection of) fic. But AO3 is eventually going to host art and vids and maybe other stuff, and SSBB fic, and other things that don't easily fit in the category of "what movie, book, game or TV show inspired this?" (*Ponders some of the multi-fandom vids being tagged with every fandom. Shudders.*)

I could put "filk" in the fandom field, potentially along with other fandoms (I have Harry Potter filk), and let that wind up with a category in "Other Media." (That's kinda what I'm leaning toward, actually.) But I'd love to see other people's ideas... what would you like AO3 to do with fanworks that don't fit in the traditional categories? Can you think of other fanworks that don't fit well in the current system?

Comments

[ruuger]

Ultimately, I think what works best is how people interested in your works are going to be looking for it, and I think using 'filk' as fandom is the best is the best solution at least for now - I'd say it's the equivalent of using RPF as a fandom tag.

From a reader's perspective, I think using the original song as fandom would be just confusing because IMO the filks aren't really about the song.

For example, I've written a filk about Babylon 5 to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", and I think that it would be of more interest to fans of babylon 5 than to fans of Queen, and might even irritate people who click on the link expecting to find works about the characters in "Bohemian Rhapsody". Does that make sense?

[elf]

That's what I'm leaning toward... tag the fandom as "filk," and potentially another fandom if one's identifiable. Less sure about filks that mention several fandoms. (Although that one could mention the original song as the fandom.)

Wow, just had thoughts about comment fics... I haven't looked at the comment-fic features yet; not sure how those get tagged for fandom if it changes from the original. (Gah. Am getting distracted.)

I have tagged all my filk in the tags field, but being listed as "no fandom" means they vanish from a substantial section of the archive's nav system. I think eventually AO3 is planning on a "type of fanwork" field, or a whole structure around different types--vids will want to list song title & artist in addition to fandom; art may want to list medium; podfics will want original author & performer, and so on.

(And I think ALL THESE THINGS should be archived at AO3 as much as possible, so the coders & wranglers have content to work with to figure out how to build a structure that works for it.)

Tagging the filks as "Filk" in the fandom field would make them easy to find later for re-sorting if the structure changes for different kinds of fanworks, possibly easier than in the tags field, which could include fanfic that mentions filk.