Authorfic

Authorfic refers to fanfiction in which the story's author appears in the story and interacts with its characters. Authorfic may have originally gained popularity in Babylon 5 and The X-Files fandoms. The term is used to describe several distinct types of stories:
# A type of metafic in which the author and characters converse, with the characters understanding in a fourth wall-breaking way that the author is the author. Often, the author can exert god-like powers over the characters' world.
# Stories in which the author gets "sucked into" a canon's universe or otherwise appears as a character with a real-world awareness of the canon.
# Obvious or explicit self-inserts, in which the author is represented by a traditional original character.
In any of these scenarios, other fan authors can sometimes appear alongside the story's author, a practice somewhere between fandom RPF and Tuckerization.
==Archive Policies on Authorfic==
===FanFiction.Net===
FanFiction.Net permits most kinds of authorfic and even, until 2002, had dedicated categories for it: an "Authors" category and a specific "Harry Potter Authors" category. The "Harry Potter Authors" category in particular caused a lot of confusion about what kinds of fanfics it was intended for. The FanFiction.Net TOS stated that users may not "upload Author Fiction without prior permission from the parties appearing in the story."
The Harry Potter Author Fics category had 818 stories in July 2001, over 1150 stores in March 2002, and over 1280 stories in July 2002. During this time, it was one of the 50 largest non-original categories at FanFiction.Net.Mary Ellen Curtin a.k.a. Doctor Science, Fanfiction.net Statistics Tables, part 2, updated 14 January 2003 (accessed 10 March 2017). Additional numbers: Peter Meilinger at rec.games.frp.dnd cites 1172 stories in the category as of 15 March 2002 (HP RPG, or lack thereof); Teresa Nielsen Hayden cites 1253 stories as of 23 May 2002 (Literary Diggers).
FanFiction.Net staff announced in August 2002 that it would be removing the "Authors" categories—and all stories in them, leading to user dissatisfaction: 
===FanDomination.Net===
FanDomination.Net did not allow authorfic. Its Content Control and Weeding Guidelines stated:
===ThunderCats Fan Fiction===
ThunderCats Fan Fiction, the archive of ThunderCatsFans.org, has an Authorfic category, described as "Stories that feature an author's avatars or those of their friends." As of 2017, there are six stories in the category, written between 2003 and 2007.
The archive's FAQ defines authorfic and a related genre, "riff":
==Authorfic Examples==
* Goddess by Jessica Mauch. Power Rangers. The author finds herself in Angel Grove with the Power Rangers. Author's note: "This is an Authorfic. I admit it freely. And this is not the sort of fanfic where the author (me) gets incredible god-like powers (see "Twisted Path" and "Undocumented Features" for an example of god-like powers) [...]" (1998 or earlier)
* Interrogation Room 3 by Kelly Moreland, Jemirah, and Andrea. The X-Files. Mulder and Scully interrogate the authors about their fanfics. (2001 or earlier)
* Playing Favorites by Cassatt . Star Trek: Voyager and Law & Order. Metafic in which the author is known as the creator by her characters: 4 she wrote in the past plus 2 she is (was) currently writing. After the six meet for the first time, she challenges them to prove which pairing is worthy of her attention. (2003 or earlier). 
==References==
Category:Tropes & Genres
Category:Fiction Writing