#featured article

This Featured Article should count as your daily dose of research covering the meta essay titled, “Ever so slightly longer but not quite as thick: Toward a quantitative literary sexology of Harry Potter fanfiction” (2006) written by the users blythely (pseudonym Professor Blythe Lee) and circetigana (pseudonym HRM Circe Tigana) originally on Livejournal, thankfully ported over to the lovely AO3 website for registered users to read even with the purge of 2007 of Livejournal. Here our esteemed academics take a methodological approach, rigorous to stand up to any peer reviewer, analyzing the descriptive language utilized in m/m Drarry fics regarding Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter’s intromittent organ (that is jargon for penis). Don’t worry, our authors took into account other sorts of possible descriptions of orifices, gonads, and other possible vernacular within the sexology semantic fields – with citations!

Readers can find a detailed introduction, methods for inclusion into this analysis, and the results for both the qualitative and quantitative data were displayed using lovely color-coded charts ensuring a rigorous and highly thorough interdisciplinary approach to this analysis. Diving into the discussion of the results is thought provoking and calls to action other researchers to expand on these findings, and brings into question the sociological phenomena impacting fanon character descriptions. Even their sources are in ready-to-go APA citations in line with any academic journal in the industry. Much like any good paper, they provide a way to cite their own findings, conflicting interests, and even their peer reviewers (some would say this makes it even better than any Nature publication)!

If you want to see their findings, head over to Fanlore and check out the article!

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Fanlore does not support or condone the views expressed by J.K. Rowling. We wish only to highlight the transformative nature of fandom and the creativity of fans.

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We appreciate the feature in South China Morning Post. It’s so important to have authentic LGBTQ representation and it’s heartening to know that there are those in Asia discovering communities and new ways of personal expression through digital channels.

We hope there can be more sincere discussion in regards to the dismantling of systems which further perpetuate the marginalization of LGBTQ in Asia and that queer expression and acceptance go beyond virtual spaces.

What's your favorite short from the anthology?

Fun extra fact: Two of the shorts, The Duel and Homecoming, were produced by Production I.G., a studio that is also contributing to that Star Wars: Visions with the short The Ninth Jedi!