Fan fiction

Fan fiction (or fanfic) is fiction written by fans of a property, without the explicit approval of the copyright holder. This allows for many fans to do what they please with the material that they are fiddling, be it to make a serious and epic story or to just plain mess around and play with their little fantasies. Needless to say that not all fanfics are good, but this is up to the reader's discretion.

Topics

Over the years, an incredibly wide variety of Transformers fanfic has been written, including straightforward adventure stories, crossovers with other properties, parodies, incredibly creepy stories in which gruesome acts of Decepticon-on-fleshling violence are described in tender loving detail[1], and of course "erotica" of varying degrees of slagged-upness. Many female humans have taken to writing romantic fanfic either about Starscream and Alexis/themselves, or any given male character with any other male character. Don't ask.

Popular Transformers fanfic topics

• Fan-written episodes. Sometimes these are made to connect within the canon of a given continuity and are used a lot with regard to micro-continuities.
• Romance. These are used to expand upon perceived and/or possible relationships within a continuity. They include Transformer/Transformer pairings or Transformer/human pairings (such as Optimus/Mikaela or Sam/Bumblebee). The sexuality of the parings vary at times (Optimus Prime/Elita One, Megatron/Starscream, etc.).
• Crossovers. The other property used varies at times, and the quality of the story seems directly linked to the writer's skill and the second party used with the Transformers.
• Character-driven stories. Another fan favorite. These can revolve around several different ideas, such as seeing various Decepticons outside the battlefield mindset or Optimus struggling to be a good leader for the Autobots, and can segue into other topics as well.
• What if Transformers were humans? The name say it all. Defeats the entire purpose of Transformers. On the other hand, it's not like it was the fans who started the trend...
• Absolute fanwanking. These types of stories are used by the writer to indulge in various fantasies regarding the Transformers and can range from being slightly silly to completely outrageous. These are not to be taken seriously as a result and can also connect with other fanfic topics. More often than not, these fanfics aren't the best out there.
• Sparklings. These stories often involve the main cast of Autobots and/or Decepticons becoming babies. The strange thing is that they act more like human babies (Sleeping in cots, drinking Energon from a baby bottle, etc). They are often adopted by a human character, mostly female, or a strange Transformer couple (e.g. Animated Jazz & Prowl). There is also the idea of Transformers interacting in certain ways to produce sparklings. Weird.

Hard Work Pays Off

In recent years, a few Transformers fanfic writers have made the jump to writing Hasbro-sanctioned fiction, including Ben Yee, Greg Sepelak, Josh van Reyk and Shaun Knowler, the last two of whom are the co-creators of the fan comic Transformers: Mosaic.

External links

• Fan fiction at Wikipedia
• Transformers Fanon Wiki