Slash Fiction on the Internet as Heterotopic Space and Queer Resistance

Abstract

This article focuses on some subgenres of fan fiction and explores how they challenge fixed gendered, sexual and subject positions prevalent in the normative society. One particularly strong strand among these subgenres is slash (same pairing): the sexual or romantic pairing of two same-sex characters who in the original story are heterosexual. Drawing on the concept of rewriting we analyze a corpus of slash texts in Portuguese (from Brazil and Portugal), published on the online communities “Archive of Our Own” and “Spirit Fanfics e Histórias”. These fan stories rework and reinvent narratives of heteronormativity through placing their favorite characters into alternative settings, and thereby exploring the means of being queer in terms of individual agency and power. By rewriting their favorite narratives (canonical and popular) and favorite characters, fan-writers inscribe them into new situations and subjectivities that challenge the discourses of heteronormativity, thus configuring the elements for a queer heterotopia.