The Genre War

The Genre War is a term presumably coined by LiveJournal user tumbling_down in her post of the same title in Hanfic Rants. It refers to the period of animosity and discord between writers of het Hanson fanfic and cest that reached a head during the spring and summer of 2009.
==Background==
Hancest has been present in the Hanson fandom since nearly the beginning of the fandom, gaining in popularity as the band and fans aged and explicit fic became less stigmatized. In the earlier years, with the fandom massive and spread across private websites and mailing lists, it was possible for fans who were opposed to incest in fics to avoid it entirely. As the fandom became more centralized around LiveJournal and Hanson's official website, this became more difficult.
Debates about hancest frequently occurred on Hanson (LiveJournal community):
Eventually, the moderators were forced to comment, explaining that despite some users' complaints, discussion of hancest would not be banned from the community, but that rules would be put in place to insure readers were properly warned of what a fic or post contained.rueishness in hanson: REGUARDING HANCEST AND OTHER "OFFENSIVE" TOPICS
In May 2006, Rule 15 was officially implemented on Hanson's official website forums, banning all discussion of fanfic from the site. Though authors of all stripes had used the site to promote their fics, it seemed that cest writers bore the brunt of the blame. They retreated to LJ, where they could control who read their stories and thus avoid further controversy. 
By late 2008, hanfic appeared to be waning in popularity. When one fan on the Various Artists forum asked why that might be, another fan offered this short, dismal assessment:
==Challenging Challenges==
The community that formed around Just Shy of Reality, with its zine and forum, set the tone for het hanfic in the late 2000s. Few of the authors and readers who made up this community were fans of hancest and were not afraid to express that opinion publicly. 
In early 2009, Renee C. and Renee P. hosted the Hanfic Genre Challenge. The rules for the challenge contained the following rather combative statement about hancest:
It's worth noting that their wording the following year was much more accepting, though their personal views had not changedprettyzombiegrl in hgchallenge: HGC 2010: RULES/INFO
Later that year, The Spark Inside ran for a summer round. Brittney always chose a different type of challenge for each round; for this one, authors were paired together to collaborate on a story. Renee C. was paired with Amanda W., who wrote all genres. Since those genres included cest, that set a contentious tone for their collaboration. Ultimately, the two dropped out, citing writers block.writefiction: What did I do wrong?
==And the Winner Is...==
While these challenges were going on, Nat and Renee P. were also in the middle of hosting the Hanson Only Awards. These awards were focused on honoring characterization, with categories based on common tropes for each of the brothers. Once again, hancest was excluded, with the explanation offered that any fic featuring one of the Hanson brothers engaging in incest would be, by its very nature, out of character. This, naturally, angered many cest writers who felt their stories were just as well written as het stories. The LiveJournal community Hanfic Rants was created during this time and featured a now-deleted rant by Jayde about the self-congratulatory nature of the awards frequently hosted by het authors. 
The exclusion of hancest from these awards led to some attempting to organize hancest only awards. These were to be hosted on LJ and called the Endless Haze Awards, but few nominations were received and the community has since been deleted.
Bethany also hosted awards in the fall of 2009, with the intent that all genres would be allowed. At first, she planned for separate categories by genre, but when this received pushback from members of Just Shy of Reality (Renee C. specifically stated that she would not participate under this format), she opted to just made it clear that the awards were inclusive to all. These became the Thieves and Liars Awards, and were the first step toward the creation of the all-inclusive site PlaceToHide.net.
==Fan Reactions==
A number of authors took Amanda W. and Bethany's lead and made it clear that it was possible to write and enjoy all genres. Although some authors retreated further into their own insular friends groups or left the fandom entirely, others grudgingly accepted that it was possible to find common ground. There has been no real resolution to the genre war, but the growing popularity of hancest has mostly drowned out the complaints of those who object to it.
===Fanworks===
As a reaction to the complaints against hancest that seemed to suggest it couldn't be well written, Jayde wrote and posted the shockfic Kittens Are Either With Us Or Against Us, which cast Taylor as a cannibalistic serial killer. The fic was originally posted anonymously, but its purpose was clear even before the author claimed it and reposted it to AO3.
===Communities===
Though the owner hasn't come right out and said that the genre war inspired her, it's clearly that Hanfic Rants creation in the middle of it all was no coincidence:
===Comments===
Throughout this war, hancest continued to grow in popularity and eclipse het, whose authors clung to private websites and did not embrace LJ, AO3 and Tumblr in the way cest authors did. This 2018 joke from Shit Hanson Fans Say sums up how little has changed in the overall fandom discourse since the height of the genre war:
==References==
Category:Hanson
Category:Hanson Fandom Glossary
Category:2009 Events