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Throughout the Draculae miniseries, about the Swedish and Icelandic translations of Dracula that played fast and loose with the original text, I've been wondering a couple of questions: why are cover versions of songs and remakes of films so normal and acceptable, whereas cover versions in book form cause such a stir? And do these Scandinavian Draculae count as fan fiction? And if not, why not? Fansplaining.com's Elizabeth Minkel explains what fan fiction can mean.
This is the fourth and last part of the Draculae miniseries, but it is more inspired by than directly connected to the other episodes, so you don't have to listen to them beforehand. But do listen to them, they're very fun and intriguing!
Content note: this episode contains some references to (but not descriptions of) sexual content and sex slavery. There is also mention of J.K. Rowling. Let there be no doubt: here at the Allusionist, we want to protect trans rights and trans lives.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
fanlore.org is very useful resource about, well, fan lore - such as the history of Real Person Fiction (RPF)…
…From which I learned the Brontë siblings wrote military RPF!
A timeline of the History of Copyright in the United States.
Transformative Works and Cultures, the journal about and by the fan community, published by the Organization for Transformative Works.
In the first half of 2025, at least 30 female writers of danmei – gay love and sex fiction – were arrested in China. (Where, interestingly, danmei has also been big business in the mainstream: in 2021, sixty danmei were optioned for screen adaptation.)
And this year, a Russian woman was convicted and incarcerated for writing gay K-pop fan fiction.
There are lots of links to other recent writings on fan fiction in Alyssa Morris’s work about the mainstreaming of fan fiction - part 1 and part 2. “What does it mean that so many of the most popular fanfics right now are essentially queer YA novels? Are they compensating for the fact that there has been a dearth of big YA novels, particularly contemporary novels, over the past several years? Does it all just circle back around to yearning?”
“The Reylo and Dramione booms function like media franchises for book publishing, banking on and extending the reach of reliably lucrative IP. For publishing houses, it’s a clear win. These books can cash in on fannish enthusiasm through an always plausibly deniable connection to the fannish property.”
Stephenie Meyer wants to rewrite Twilight because she’s “a better writer now”.
Rachel Reid, author of Heated Rivalry: “I desperately wish I’d never posted that fan fiction… I know it’s still circulating, and it’s bad. It’s so embarrassing. I hate thinking of people reading it because I just rammed a bunch of extra Marvel characters into the story for no reason.”
The Fanthropologist: “Heated Rivalry proved there was an audience for hockey romance that actually had something to say. The industry’s takeaway was that the audience wanted more hockey…. And what does that backdrop get used for, in the shows that followed? In Off Campus, the male leads are practically canonized for clearing a bar so low it’s underground: they don’t assault the women they’re interested in.”
Manacled/Alchemized author SenLinYu: “When I came into fanfiction, I wanted to write something, and I knew that whenever I tried to write something original, I would hit two or three chapters in, and I would just be consumed with self doubt… So when I decided to write fan fiction it was specifically because I thought if there are people reading this because I’m posting this online, I’ll feel obliged to keep doing it, and I won’t abandon it. I would feel too guilty to abandon it, so I have to finish it.”
“The rapid growth of public AI models like ChatGPT has left experts in almost every sector concerned about copyright, intellectual property, and lack of disclosure of training materials. But fan fiction — which itself straddles the line between copyright and fair use laws — has the disadvantage of being a distinctly online product. It’s not illegal or hard to plagiarize, just incredibly bad form, and goes directly against the community’s understood values of credit, fairness, and creativity.”
Before the Harry Potter Lexicon lawsuit, J.K. Rowling’s US editor had said: “We referred to the Lexicon countless times during the editing of [Harry Potter 6], whether to verify a fact, check a timeline or get a chapter and book reference for a particular event.” Some of the movies relied upon the Lexicon, and it got a shoutout on J.K. Rowling’s own site.
Billionaire romances were mentioned in this episode, which reminded me that in early 2017, I made this episode about romance novels, and at that time, billionaire romance was a very popular genre, so we were wondering whether that might be about to take a steep dive. Did it, though? Hmmmmmm.
Also, here’s that other old episode I mentioned, A Novel Remedy, about literary comfort in times of mass distress.
I’ll be one of the performers at the comedy night Say Wha?! Readings of Deliciously Rotten Writing in Vancouver on 28 July 2026. Also! If you’re in Canada, Australia or the UK and want to book in an Allusionist live spectacle, get in touch.
Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes glimpses about every episode, fortnightly livestreams with me and my dictionaries, and the Allusioverse Discord community.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
puissance, noun
1: a competitive test of a horse's ability to jump large obstacles in showjumping.
2, archaic or poetic/literary: great power, influence, or prowess.
CREDITS:
Elizabeth Minkel is the co-curator of the Rec Center newsletter about fan culture, and she is the editor of Fansplaining, featuring smart writing about fan culture – analysis, essays and criticism – plus there’s a deep back catalogue of the Fansplaining podcast, all available at fansplaining.com.
Iris Ichishita is a documentary-maker, and the producer, writer and host of the Powers of Darkness podcast, a very comprehensive examination of these books. She is also the cohost of Oh Whatever Movies podcast. Listen to her in Draculae episode 3.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… Essentially: if I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow.
Back in a couple of weeks with a new episode - HZ.
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