A month long writing challenge focused on tropes, tags, and formats that have (for better or worse) fallen out of style.
From May 1st to 31st, creators will post their takes on each of the days' prompts, in any medium. Fan fiction, original stories, poetry, meta-analysis, and (even though writing is in our name!) yes, visual art as well!
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Citrus as a descriptor is often used as a neutral term, or number 0 on the scale, the descriptor of "citrus" simply meant there there is sexual content or queer romantic themes of any level or explicitness in the work, even for what we would today consider G rated fics.
The citrus scale runs from orange to grapefruit, in four tiered levels of increasingly explicit eroticism or graphic sexual content.
The scale runs as such:
Orange - kissing, hugs, and some more touching beyond that that begins to have a hint of sexuality. The appropriate rating on AO3 may be G or T.
Lime - heavy making out and possibly some light groping. Works might not contain any onscreen sexual content, but heavily suggest lemon-rated activities. The appropriate rating on AO3 may be T or M.
Lemon - an explicitly pornographic work, with sexual intercourse described in the text. The appropriate rating on Ao3 may be M or E.
Grapefruit - a not only pornographic, but incredibly detailed smut work. Grapefruit is often used to describe works that contain detailed, graphic kink scenes. The appropriate rating on Ao3 is E.
While there have been slight variations in sub communities of fandom, the above is the most widely accepted scale.
Creation and Use
Beginning in the 1980s, the term "lemon" began being used to describe pornographic fannish works in the anime fandom. The term itself was in reference to the erotic anime/hentai series, Cream Lemon, which began in 1984. Over time, the scale grew around this original euphemism, into the one that was widely accepted as a standard by the early 2000s.
"Lemon" and the associated citrus scale has since become established as a pan-fandom code for rating various types of smut, in an direct response to censorship and bans on pornography in fiction, as well as queer media in general. Terms like Orange and Lime exist so that authors could tag their romantic fan fiction on sites where m/m and f/f works would be taken down, even if they did not contain pornography.
Thus the citrus scale is not just a part of fannish history, but of queer history. Lime and Lemon were the words that queer creators—or cishet authors writing abut queer characters—used. To find each other, our stories, and to hide from the ever-present threat of deletion.
These terms have mostly been laid to rest; with the founding of Ao3 and the promise of no more take downs, terms like "lemon" were retired with honors, replaced by a more direct rating system that needs no decoding.
Out of fashion as it might be, the citrus scale is not entirely obsolete. If has resurgences during times of censorship, and, as stated above, is intrinsically linked to fandom and fannish history. Here at Retro Writing May, we plan to celebrate that history.
During the lead-up to our event, we will be posting histories, examples, and critical analysis on all of our prompts. All of them will use the citrus scale as a lens of analysis.
By doing so we aim not to make fun or light of the historical use of the scale, but rather to educate, and to celebrate our own fannish history.
We know that not all of our prompts for the challenge will work for everyone, so we have supplied a short collection of alternative prompts. Feel free to use these as a substitution of any of the prompts on the main list.
Below is a very brief explanation of each of the alternate prompts.
1 - Eternal Sunshine AU
The film The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind presents a world in which one may surgically have their memories of a specific person removed. What would it look like if a member of your canon cast went to Lacuna for the procedure? Should this system be embraced or dismantled?
2 - Interview/Documentary Format
Do you want to just shove a microphone in the blorbo's face and make them explain what they were thinking in that moment? Yeah. He's the excuse.
3 - Pirate AU
Anything is possible when the Pirates of the Caribbean theme is playing. Explore.
4 - Rags to Riches
You know the movie My Fair Lady? No, okay how about Kingsman? Either way, it's simple. Take the character who grew up in poverty and make them cosplay a rich person for plot.
5 - Zombie AU
Who among us have not wondered how our cast would handle a zombie apocalypse? You should share with the class.
Also known as a Daemon AU or a Golden Compass AU, the daemon fic is a genre of fanfiction that incorporates the concept of daemons from the books series His Dark Materials. The basic premise of the genre is that a person's soul lives outside of their body as its own independent being, in the form of an animal that is the lifelong companion of the individual.
In order to be considered daemon fic, it must not be exclusively a fan work of the His Dark Materials series, and instead must bring the daemon concept to other canons. This can be done via crossovers, or as an AU.
Conventions
Daemons are fully-formed characters on their own right, with sapience, reasoning, and will. Regardless of the form they take, they are capable and use their capacity for human speech, with fluency in the same language as their human partner. Yet despite their independence, neither daemon nor human can travel far from each other—attempting to do so can cause both members of the partnership incredible pain.
The daemon social life mirrors that of the humans, often engaging in conversation, affection, and combat with the daemon partner of the person which their human is currently doing the same. Contact between a human and a daemon other than their own is seen as highly intimate, and is taboo outside of the family unit.
When a human dies, so does their daemon, and vice versa.
History
While he did not invent the concept of spirits taking the shape of animals, or the notion of souls being external (temporarily or permanently) from the body, Philip Pullman did create this specific rule set and vocabulary with his novel trilogy, His Dark Materials. The first installment was published in 1995, and the series was completed in the year 2000.
The earliest known daemon fic is a Buffy the Vampire Sayer work titled Honest Souls by trinityofone. It's Ao3 posting (the source link in the sentence prior) is a cross-posting by the original author for archival purposes, and backdated to the correct date.
The AU, while never universally popular, did have a brief surge in use after the release of the film adaptation of The Golden Compass in 2007, though the film was poorly received by fans of the novels it introduced the concept of daemons to the wider, pan-fandom community.
A second small spike occurred after the release of the television adaptation, which began airing in 2019.
Citrus Tasting Notes
Orange: oh the daemons are cuddling how cute!
Lime: Oh the daemons are… petting them feels like… interesting!
Lemon: Not only are our literal souls joining but it's getting interesting with the details.
Grapefruit: We have discovered new levels of non-con upon the spiritual plane.
Stats
At the time of this post's drafting, there are 4,672 Works in the "Alternate Universe: Daemons" tag on Ao3.
T is the most popular rating at 40% of the works, closely followed by G at 36%. M ratings are rarer, but present, at 11%, and with only 4% of the tag, E fics are rare.
The majority of works (66%) have no archive warnings that apply, and the most prevalent warning is graphic depictions of violence, at 9% of the works.
The top additional tags associated with this tag (after disqualifying synonymous tags) are:
Angst - 476 works
Hurt/Comfort - 387 works
Daemon Touching (His Dark Materials) - 363 works
Fluff - 349 works
Canon-Typical Violence - 304 works
Today, the top five fandoms in the tag are:
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (913)
Marvel Cinematic Universe (198)
The Avengers (Marvel Movies) (169)
Star Wars - All Media Types (95)
Captain America (Chris Evans Movies) (70)
I would also like to take a moment to shout out the Mad Max (All Movies) fandom for making it into the top ten by the skin of their teeth with 40 works.
Reader Feedback on the Genre
Criticism
Specific tropes and conventions in the AU have received critique, such as the trend of daemon genders saying something about the sexuality or gender identity of their human partner. In the book the AU has sprung from, daemons are uniformly the opposite gender to that which the human is assigned at birth. This has lead to a fanon where gay characters have same-sex daemons. This practice has been criticized as homophobic, transphobic, or as contributing to the erasure of intersex and asexual people.
The originating fandom (of the book series that propagated the term daemon) do sometimes take justified issue with the popularity of the AU genre. While daemon fic is not particularly common, it far outnumbers actual transformative works about the series His Dark Materials itself, and tagging practices for the AU have been inconsistent overtime. This has made fans of the books have to weed through fics for unrelated fandoms in order to access the works they were looking for, to great frustration.
Praise
The daemon fic is a niche AU, yes, but a compelling one. Externalizing the soul of a character allows the type of character-exposing examination that can be difficult to nail down in ways that would otherwise feel natural. Additionally, fic writers' takes on exactly how the daemon and human partnership works can be illuminating, depicting various ways that an author can imagine the soul to function, and can be a fascinating view into potential cosmologies.
After exposure to the pollen of a magical or alien plant, one or more characters are chemically compelled to have intimate relations.
Conventions
As a trope, sex pollen is frequently employed in first time or getting together slash fiction, where the loss of control or chemical compulsion is used to force characters caught in the pinning phase to act.
It is most common in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and commonly includes the "fuck or die" trope.
Many writers acknowledge the dub-con (or outright non-con) nature of the sexual encounters in the work itself, sometimes including cathartic scenes where the characters address the issue after the encounter is complete.
History
Originating in the 1967 episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, This Side of Paradise, sex pollen has been with the Trek fandom since it's inception. The episode features an alien plant that releases spores which lowered inhibitions, and centers a romantic subplot for Spock. Later, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, a 1987 episode titled The Naked Now put a slightly different spin on the idea. Rather than inhibition-lowering spores, the crew is afflicted by an alien virus, and Tasha Yar and Data have a sexual encounter.
The term "sex pollen" itself comes from the DC Comics fandom, initially as a descriptor for fics where Poison Ivy uses her mind-control and psychoactive plant compounds to create an un-combatable sexual urge in its victims.
Over time, the term widened its definition, and the tag is applied to works where characters are compelled to have sex, even if the compulsion comes from places other than literal pollen or spores.
Citrus Tasting Notes
Orange: there is a pollen or a drug or a fever and it’s making people loopy and friendly! Perhaps it’s cuddle pollen!
Lime: perhaps this is cuddle pollen and it causes g rated intimacy. Perhaps it’s sex pollen, but the sex is fade to black. If it could be on prime time tv it could be here. The world is your oyster!
Lemon: by golly this pollen makes people have sex! And it’s shown!
Grapefruit: if you can dream it, this pollen will make them do it.
Stats
At the time of this post's drafting, there are 18,951 Works in the "Sex Pollen" tag on Ao3.
The tag is, by a land-slide E rated, with 84% of works marked as such, with another 10% mared as M. Only 0.3% of works in the tag are rated G.
The top additional tags associated with this tag (after disqualifying synonymous tags) are:
Anal Sex - 4,341 works
Dubious Consent - 4,071 works
Oral Sex - 3,113 works
Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot - 2,749 works
Multiple Orgasms - 2,284 works
Today, the top five fandoms in the tag are:
Marvel Cinematic Universe - 938 works
僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) - 692 works
Batman - All Media Types - 688 works
The Avengers (Marvel Movies) - 517 works
人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù - 479 works
Reader Feedback on the Trope
Criticism
Most of the main criticism of the trope come from people who are not fans of non-con or substance use in general, however that is not the only source of critique.
One anonymous writer interviewed for this project had a more direct criticism, in that she found it to be a potential shortcut to lazy character dynamic building, a short-cut to doing the relationship work. In her own words:
"…using it lazily means someone is just writing to throw two people together without considering any of the circumstances around the pairing. They don't have to try to make the relationship work (or not work, depending on your take) and you don't have to put any thought into why they might be having sex in the first place. It can be a lazy way to get two unlikely characters to have sex together."
- Anon 1
This idea of sex pollen being not inherently a disliked trope but an often misused tool.
"Poorly done sex pollen is just a pastiche over characters doing what you already wanted them to do without having to actually give them any motivations or personal desires to make the ship work.
You just push them at each other, say Fuck and A WIzard [sic] Did It"
- Tumblr user @batrogers
Praise
That does not mean that the trope is not without its defenders or fans. When it is written well it is a particularly beloved trope in the smut-writers repertoire. As one one such anonymous writer who has used the trope put it:
"It's a great way to lower inhibitions in a character! with a range from 'on purpose' to 'character would never in a million years' […] it also lets you bypass any emotional or intellectual hangups the character might have and focus on the feelings of fucking... or focus on the delicious agony of the character knowing they'd be feeling differently if they weren't under the influence
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Despite the variety of names (twenty facts, twenty ways, 20 moments) the twenty truths fic is a brilliantly simple concept. At it's heart, a 20 truths fic is a list of facts about a character, a short series of events, or a historical bullet-point list of the in-canon universe, the 20 truths fic is a format meant to get right to the point of the matter at hand.
Conventions
The only true rule to the format is that the list must be twenty items long, and that they must have a central theme. The twenty truths could be about a character's backstory, or their relationships to other people in the cast. The truths may be lore, or meta-text. The list could be a narrative that builds to a conclusion, or a form of poetic prose.
It is often popular to use the format to deliver headcanons or canon-divergent fanons.
History
My attempts to track down the origin of this format failed me. However, I do not come to this report entirely empty-handed.
Reaching what seems to be it's peak popularity on Livejournal and Fanfiction.net (FFN) in the mid aughts, this format was the most concentrated in the Naruto fandom, and therefore in some adjacent anime fandoms as well to a lesser extent.
As the time is also made a decent headway as a standard format into the Harry Potter fandom, due to that fandom's contemporary popularity.
This format, while never truly disappearing, had a very short burst of popularity, and has remained relatively unused as a tag or named format for the past two decades, even though the format is still used.
Citrus Tasting Notes
Orange: Here are twenty facts about a character!
Lime: Twenty facts about a character's love life!
Lemon: Twenty facts about what the in-universe sex toy market might be like!
Grapefruit: This is a BDSM dungeon evening itinerary.
Stats
At the time of this post's drafting, there are only 46 Works in the "20 Things" tag on Ao3. Alternatively, using that term and synonymous terms gets a total of 1,487 works on FFN. Unfortunately getting any further metadata from all of those search parameters combined on that site is a task beyond my scope at this time. So the below stats come from the much smaller sample of 46 works off of Ao3.
The top additional tags associated with this tag (after disqualifying synonymous tags) are:
Angst - 5 works
Future Fic - 4 works
Character Study - 4 works
Post-Canon - 3 works
Introspection - 3 works
Today, the top five fandoms in the tag are:
Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball - 3 works
Avatar (Cameron Movies) - 3 works
Kyou Kara Maou! - 2 works
Hunter X Hunter - 2 works
Teen Wolf (TV) - 2 works
Reader Feedback on the Format
Criticism
With such a niche format there is not a lot of specific criticism that I could find. What is there is similar to that of the other numeric list format on our prompts, the 5+1: boredom with formulaic writing, as well as distaste for specific tropes.
Praise
Those that use the format appreciate the structure that it provides and the ability to convey complicated ideas in deceptively simply formats.
When an adult character is reverted to being a teen, or a teen character is reverted to being a child, or an adult character is reverted to being a child, or a—you get the idea.
A de-aging fic takes a character and makes them younger. Not by just having them be younger in the form of an AU but by actively turning back the clock on the character, returning them through fantastical means, to a younger age.
Conventions
As a trope, the rules of de-aging (also known as age-regression) may be clear, but the conventions are not. Some works preserve the adult mind of the affected character, others have them fully revert to the mental state that they had at the age they have returned to. Some let the character keep their adult memories,others do not.
Tone can vary wildly as well. It can be done as humor, or as horror. It can be crackfic or a serious essay on child liberation or the power imbalance of age gaps in relationships. As a trope, it is wildly versatile, and fan creators are well aware of this.
The transformation can be fully physical and mental. It can also be a physical transformation that leaves the adult mind in a younger body; or the opposite, where the mind is reverted to a child-like state, but the body remains as-is. De-aging is the opposite of aging characters up.
It is a popular genre in fandoms that allow for magic, such as Harry Potter, or have science fiction technology. De-aging can be written as humor, even crackfic; or as hurt/comfort, forcing characters to take care of each other. The story can also be a serious examination of changed power dynamics in the character's relationships.
History
"Oh To Be Young Again...!!" That is the title of the oldest fanwork I could find that employs this trope, penned by Louise Stange for the 18th issue of The Crewman's Log, a Star Trek TOS fanzine, wherein Spock is transformed into a baby.
De-aging as a trope has remained relatively popular in pan-fandom, though it has has its waves of popularity over the years. It was particular prevalent in fan fiction for the television series Stargate Atlantis from 2004 to 2009. And before anyone goes "why are we talking about Stargate on a retro trope blog?" I must regretfully inform you that that was twenty years ago. That's right, most of your de-aged Rodney McKay stories are past the age of majority now.
Citrus Tasting Notes
Orange: Oh, they got turned into a kid and they are so sleepy and cuddly!
Lime: So they got turned into a teenager and teenagers are horny sometimes!
Lemon: So they got turned into a teenager, and we are going to be discussing exactly how horny teenagers can get in detail.
Grapefruit: Did you read the tags? Are you sure you read and processed the tags "underage," "non-con," and the rest?
Stats
At the time of this post's drafting, there are 40,543 Works in the "Age Regression/De-Aging" tag on Ao3.
The top additional tags associated with this tag (after disqualifying synonymous tags) are:
Fluff - 11,171 works
Non-Sexual Age Play - 10,365 works
Hurt/Comfort - 8,037 works
Angst - 4,121 works
Emotional Hurt/Comfort - 3,568 works
Today, the top five fandoms in the tag are:
僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) - 2,097 works
Video Blogging RPF - 2,060 works
Minecraft (Video Game) - 1,693 works
Marvel Cinematic Universe - 1,508 works
Batman - All Media Types - 1,424 works
Reader Feedback on the Genre
Criticism
In stories where only the character's mind is affected, the trope can come perilously close to AU stories that depict real mental disability with all the risks of ableism that comes with that territory.
The genre is also, when done poorly, criticized for its ageism, and its infantile presentation of children who are more mature than their alleged age is written in the work.
There is also the response from those that are vehemently against all works with underage sexual activity, for this is a topic that occasionally is relevant in works of the genre.
Praise
For fans of humor, this is a beloved subgenre of comedy. Watching a fan favorite character being subject to childhood and its various ordeals, or having a character suddenly have to pretend to be their friend's parent, these are concepts with a lot of room for laughs.
Kidfic enjoyers are also fans of this genre, having a great time watching the rest of the cast deal with not just a child, but a child that the characters have a complicated relationship to.
And for the fans of age-gap or underage works, this is a genre that offers them the opportunity to explore how an otherwise adult or non-age-gap ship dynamic would change.
A drabble is a format of writing that is original to fan fiction, it is sometimes called the haiku of prose, with a word count requirement of precisely 100 words, title not counted.
There are some fans that are newer to fandom that label any ficlet with the term drabble, thinking it to mean 'particularly short fic.' This is not the correct use of the term.
From start of this section to the end of this sentence, you, dear reader, have read exactly 100 words: for this prompt, we ask that you write a fic of exactly the same length.
Conventions
The word limit is absolute, and unyielding, yet that is the only constraint on the drabble.
A drabble can be quite funny, or rather sad. It can be slash fiction, or gen fic. It can contain any trope, be a written into any genre, about any character or topic an author can imagine. It can make a reader laugh, or cry, or cringe at the very bad grammar executed to pull off that sentence on target for the perfect 100 words. Conversely, it can make a reader's mouth drop open in impressed shock, that the author sis actually manage to do that in 100 words. Not one more, not one less.
…give or take a hyphen.
History
The term drabble itself comes from Monty Python's 1971 Big Red Book, wherein a word game by the same name was presented in which up to four players race to write a novel.
Drabbles, as the fannish concept, originated from the the science fiction fandoms of 1980s Britain. The Birmingham University SF society, a university club, is credited with the institution of the hard 100 word rule.
On the founding of the format, David Langford said:
"Others – notably the Birmingham University SF Society, who are to blame for what follows – reckoned that 100 words was the most comfortable figure. This, gentle reader, is the Drabble. (Once again the word count must be precise, though up to 15 extra are allowed for a title. 'Hyphenated-words-are-argued-about.') One dark day in 1987 I wandered into the Novacon convention hall to find it crammed with people scribbling and counting obsessively on their fingers. Drabblemania had begun."
And drabblemania did instead spread. Rising quickly to pan-fandom popularity, the drabble became a tried and true method to run challenges, to do flash exchanges, and, quiet frankly, to flex how well an author can bend the written word to their will.
Overtime, variations did crop up, with the 200 word long double drabble (sometimes called just a Double) as one example. However, the drabble remains, a simple an yet alluring format, that resists alteration by dint of its elegant simplicity.
Citrus Tasting Notes
Orange: A short piece, with light G rated feelings.
Lime: A quick dip into the higher ratings.
Lemon: A particularly detailed snapshot.
Grapefruit: Okay so how graphic can we get in a hundred words, really? I want to find out.
Stats
At the time of this post's drafting, there are 320,090 Works in the "Drabble" tag on Ao3. Many of these works have word counts that are not mathing correctly, I feel the need to point out.
The top additional tags associated with this tag (after disqualifying synonymous tags) are:
Fluff - 63,758 works
Angst - 31,761 works
Established Relationship - 23,158 works
One Shot - 18,002 works
Double Drabble - 16,669 works
Today, the top five fandoms in the tag are:
Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling - 17,416 works
Marvel Cinematic Universe - 7,211 works
Supernatural (TV 2005) - 6,798 works
僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) - 5,464 works
Original Work - 5,121 works
This Author's Feedback on the Format
Yes, I said this author. Because I tried very hard to be impartial and I failed. So while the rest of this series is presented—to the best of my ability—without bias, the following is my sole (correct) opinion.
Criticism
Nothing. This is the perfect form. Please god let me have an excuse to shut the fuck up.
Praise
I love them I love them I love them, and the next person to mislabel an non-drabble a drabble just because it is a ficlet is going to catch these hands I swear to fuck, I fucking swear.
