time isn't after us, same as it always was
as a librarian and archivist, fanfiction about goncharov is FASCINATING. as far as i can tell, this is the first time a fandom tag has been applied for a source material that doesn’t exist. obviously fandom tags have been used in interesting ways before, from the most conventional conundrum of crossovers (that alliteration was accidental! oops…); to fanfiction for fanfiction (e.g. DTA fanfiction); to fanfiction for a broader work which has several manifestations (e.g. “Marvel”, which is more of a conceptual work than a real source text, since it manifests differently in comics, movies, TV shows etc.); to original content (which just gets its own fandom tag). but has there ever been a case where a fandom is created for a source text that never existed in the first place?
and is there a duty on the part of ao3 cataloguers/archivists to represent that unreality in the description? does ao3 ever provide contextual description for standard tags? normally (for example - the tag description for 9-1-1) it just says what category the tag falls under. i’m sure i could read more about it in cataloguing/classification journals but if anyone has insight lemme know :)
i’m so normal about him