I only read it for the plot! Maturity Ratings Affect Fanfiction Style and Community Engagement (2025)

Abstract: We consider the textual profiles of different fanfiction maturity ratings, how they vary across fan groups, and how this relates to reader engagement metrics. Previous studies have shown that fanfiction writing is motivated by a combination of admiration for and frustration with the fan object. These findings emerge when looking at fanfiction as a whole, as well as when it is divided into subgroups, also called fandoms. However, maturity ratings are used to indicate the intended audience of the fanfiction, as well as whether the story includes mature themes and explicit scenes. Since these ratings can be used to filter readers and writers, they can also be seen as a proxy for different reader/writer motivations and desires. We find that explicit fanfiction in particular has a distinct textual profile when compared to other maturity ratings. These findings thus nuance our understanding of reader/writer motivations in fanfiction communities, and also highlights the influence of the community norms and fan behavior more generally on these cultural products.

## introduction fanfiction is typically defined as transformational works of text that build upon an existing storyworld @xcite . fanfic, as it is commonly known, exists in a dynamic, reciprocal relationship with the community who produce it. in one sense, fans' desires, norms, and values are shared in the form of written (generally narrative) discourse; this discourse in turn shapes the norms and values of the community over time @xcite @xcite . as such, the study of fanfiction is simultaneously the study of fans. a unique feature of fanfiction as a linguistic artifact is that it is regularly accompanied by community-produced metadata related to the content of the text, including proposed maturity ratings which indicate suggested readership. in this study, we are interested in how the maturity ratings added by the author and used by users to filter their searches might express different reader/writer desires and motivations through their textual makeup. we know that fanfiction from different fandoms differ with respect to their linguistic features but are texts with more explicit maturity ratings also written differently from those suitable for general audiences? if so, what are these differences and does this constitute an explicit style? are there some aspects of fanfiction culture that transcend the norms of the specific communities and can be said to generalize across separate fandoms? ## results the findings are visualized on figure 2 , which shows the mean dimension score for each maturity rating across fandoms. a regression table showing the specific outputs from the models can be seen in from a visual inspection, there is a clear change from ga to explicit for each of the dimensions, which is present across all three fandoms. most strikingly, the explicit group looks quite distinct in its textual profile compared to the other groups. the following model summaries allow us to disentangle these visual patterns more definitively. the findings for involved versus informational discourse (d1), shows five significant main effects and one significant interaction effect. with ga fanfics as a baseline, teen fanfics are slightly more involved, while mature fanfics are more informational, and explicit fanfics are the most informational. the one significant interaction effect shows that lotr has a slightly smaller difference between ga and explicit fanfics as compared to hp and pj. worth noting then is that the general pattern of change in maturity ratings remains similar across groups despite the fandoms having significantly different levels of involved/informational discourse (d1). the model for the second dimension, which describes the degree of narrative concern (d2) in the texts, shows four significant main effects and two significant interaction effects. for the main effects for maturity ratings, compared to ga, teen shows no difference, whereas mature has a slightly looking at the interaction effects, there is again generally the same pattern of change in maturity ratings across fandoms. the only exceptions occur in the mature category for pj and lotr, which compared to hp, respectively, have a greater degree and lesser degree of narrative concern when compared to their respective ga fanfics. for the third dimension, context-(in)dependent referents, we find only significant main effects and no interaction effects. this means that although the different fandoms have distinct levels of contextdependence, across the maturity ratings the degree of change is similar. as the maturity ratings go from ga to teen, mature, and explicit, so do the referents in the texts become more contextdependent. this means that fanfics become more here-and-now oriented. this is surprising, as more context-dependent referents (low d3 score) are typically associated with a more involved style (high d1 score) @xcite but we find the opposite pattern across maturity ratings. for the fourth and final dimension, overt expression of persuasion, we find four main effects and three interaction effects. for the maturity ratings, there is no difference between ga and teen fanfics. mature fanfics, however, have less overt persuasion than ga, and explicit continues that trend with the least overt persuasion. the interaction effects indicate that these patterns are slightly dependent on the fandom. specifically, for lotr, the explicit group has a positive interaction effect meaning less difference between ga and explicit than for hp. for pj, there are two significant interaction effects. these show that, compared to ga fanfics in pj, teen and mature show even less overt persuasion than teen and mature from hp and lotr. so, in contrast to the other dimensions where the change across ratings was similar, we find that the different maturity ratings in pj have a quite different change in overt expression of persuasion (d4) than the other two fandoms. ## discussion these findings indicate that although general preferences can be found across fandoms, what is desired from one's fanfiction is quite dependent on the flavor of fanfiction that is sought out by the reader. explicit fanfiction is so clearly distinct from the other three maturity ratings in ways that, for the most part, are similar across groups. this particular result alone adds significant nuance to the established conception of fans' desires @xcite @xcite , both as writers and readers. specifically, the general focus on characters and their interpersonal relationships are still generally present, but the way these interactions are characterized changes drastically dependent on the genre of fanfiction. the writing style of the fanfics are thus not only dependent on the source material of the specific fandom. instead, there are norms that transcend the individual community as to how specific "genres" are to be written, regardless of the specific fandom. for explicit fanfiction, the greater information presentation is situated within the story's context which is subsequently what creates the unique combination of dimension scores, i.e., both informational discourse and context-dependent referents. the texts are descriptive and action-focused but not necessarily meant to drive a plot or be carefully planned. the action and the descriptions are focused on the here-and-now, indicating that character interaction is still the main focus of these texts, but the way character interactions can be focal to a story is not only confined to dialogue. in these cases, the actions speak louder than the words. these findings also call for a nuanced interpretation of the different labels for the four dimensions of variation. explicit fanfiction is not typically known to be a genre that is, for example, plotdriven, which one might otherwise expect based on the greater degree of narrative concern (d2) within the texts. in their overview of so-called pornographic transformative works, joseph et al. ( 2024 ) not only show the myriad of ways fans re-contextualize the source material, they also highlight that explicit or pornographic fanfiction often has a lesser focus on plot. this is sometimes known within fandom as pwp fics or "porn without plot" / "plot, what plot?" fanfics @xcite , highlighting how both readers and writers of fanfiction go into texts well knowing what to expect. as such, biber's narrative concern (d2) does not necessarily only cover "narrative" in the classic sense of plot and story structure. what this study shows is that these dimensions also lend themselves to further interpretation. for example, dimension 2 can also be understood as a focus on character movements and actions. ## conclusion together, this study paints a picture of explicit fanfiction as standing out from those with lower maturity ratings. it appears to be a genre of its own with a conventional focus on descriptions, actions, and here-and-now orientation. the patterns of dimension scores found for explicit fanfiction are unusual in that they combine features that are not usually correlated in earlier work. explicit fanfiction thus nuances the findings from previous quantitative studies that take a more general look at fanfiction. while it is true that fans in general might prefer fanfiction stories with a more involved style and less narrative focus, the different maturity ratings show us that fans' motivation for reading and writing fanfiction is as much colored by the source material they build upon as it is on the distinct genre of fanfiction they wish to contribute with. when taken together with the bias that engagement metrics might incorporate towards explicit fanfiction, it is crucial that future research take these dynamics into account when making statements about the writing style of successful or popular fanfiction.