Submission Guidelines

Fanmusing is intended to be a collaborative project. If you have an idea for an article, feel free to pitch it to us! So long as it's about fandom, we are all ears.

Here are some examples of things we would accept:

• A guide about how to get started in a fandom space.

• An article about one aspect of fandom culture as a whole.

• A literary analysis of a specific piece of media.

• A brief history of a fanfic trope.

• A fandom manifesto.

• An opinion piece about a trend in your fandom.

This is, of course, a non-exhaustive list. If you're unsure about whether or not we'd accept your idea, well, you have nothing to lose by pitching it!

All that being said, we do have some rules for when you'll write your article proper:

No bigotry.

This goes without saying. Fanmusing intends to be a place that welcomes all fandom dwellers. That includes fans of color, disabled fans, queer fans, and many more.

Be kind to your fellow fans.

We don't expect every article on this website to be full of positivity. Perhaps you cannot talk about your chosen fandom without the disclaimer that the creator has the habit of being rather inconsistent. Perhaps you want to discuss racism in fandom as a whole. Perhaps you want to write a response to a different article published here, because you do not agree with its content.

All of these are fine and welcome here. However, we do expect you to respect your fellow fans writing these. Remain polite and refrain from vitriol.

Unacceptable:

• "The author of this previously published article is a dumbass."

• "Femslash has historically been overlooked by fandom, because it is full of braindead misogynists."

Acceptable:

• "I think xyz article previously published overlooked some important things, here is my take on it."

• "Femslash has historically been overlooked by fandom. One of the factors at play here is likely misogyny. Here are my thoughts on the topic."

No AI writing.

Plenty of other sites have better explanations on the environmental and social impacts of large language generation models. We just aren't interested.

If you could not be bothered to write it, why would anyone be bothered to read it?

Put your soul and ass into it, as the teens say.

No misinformation.

It is common for fans to speculate, theorize, or otherwise spread ideas which do not have any verifiable source. Perhaps this or that ship was intended to be canon, but the network censored them. Perhaps the author meant for this or that character to be more important, but she removed them due to fan backlash. Perhaps this or that writing decision was prompted by the showrunner's argument with his wife.

Some of these theories might be true, and others might have been important to fandom development regardless of their veracity. Still, try not present something that does not actually have a verifiable source as if it were truth. Changing your wording into "so and so is widely accepted as true in fandom due to this and that piece of evidence" goes a long way in preventing the spread of misinformation.

You don't need to show a source for every single one of your statements, but you do have to be honest about whether something is verifiably true, or if it's a broad assumption.

Try to be accessible for those who might not be familiar with your domain.

Things that might be obvious to you as a fandom goer might not be to someone who doesn't dwell in your specific fandom.

Yes, you want to write about all the subtext pointing to your blorbo being gay; but does the average reader know your blorbo?

Yes, you want to write about a fanfiction trope you have strong opinions about; but does the average reader know that trope?

Yes, you want to talk about popular tools for fan editing; but will the average reader know what those tools are?

There are fans out there who have never interacted with any of the big popular fandoms. There are fans out there who have never read a fanfiction, or made a .gif, or opened Dreamwidth, or even know what the different file types for an image are.

If you are diving into something a little niche, consider adding a line or two to put things in context. Something as simple as "here is my fanfiction recommendation list for Chrobin, which is the ship Chrom/Robin from Fire Emblem: Awakening" can go a long way in ensuring people know what you're talking about.

Now that you've made it this far, feel free to pitch us your ideas using this CryptPad.fr form. We will reply as soon as we are able. Fanmusing being ran as a hobby, life might slow our answers down sometimes.