From Cakeverse to Hanahaki: Why are Tropes so Prevalent in Fanfiction?
And what are the similarities between them?
Fanfiction has been a thing for decades. Today, it’s more robust than ever, with derivative works like Fifty Shades of Grey and After getting an official release and amassing a following of its own. The number of fanfics continues to grow; Archive of Our Own (AO3), one of the biggest fan sites, is home to over seven million works, inspired by books, movies and even real-life celebrities.
Those millions are coming from hundreds of thousands of original sources of completely different natures. And yet, it’s hard to overlook the part that many derivative works have similarities. And so it seems that everyone, from anime characters to boyband members, eventually find their way to Hogwarts. The best aphrodisiac is a coffee served by a handsome barista, and a surprising number of people likes to see their favourites battle it all out Hunger Game style.
Some call those settings AU (another universe), some call them tropes. But regardless of the naming one cannot underestimate their influence on fanworks. Today I would like to introduce you to four different tropes: Hanahaki disease, Cakeverse, Iceverse and Sentinelverse.
Hanahaki Disease
Hanahaki disease is one of the Internet’s most beloved settings. The mysteriously named illness appeared seemingly from nowhere, prompting beloved characters to lean over the loo and, true to its name, throw up bloody flowers. Hanahaki is a Japanese neologism, standing for “flowers-vomiting”. In fanworks, the Hanahaki disease is portrayed as a condition that touches people suffering from one-sided love. It wreaks havoc on the afflicted’s body and left alone leads to one’s death.
The Hanahaki disease is a creation of Matsuda Naoko (Jūhan Shuttai!), and a focus of her 2010 manga, Hanahaki Otome (Girl Who Vomits Flowers). The readers familiar with the fanwork version of Hanahaki may be surprised to find the original material is much less melodramatic than its derivatives. Hanahaki Otome is not a heartbreaking love story, but a collection of short, unrelated stories joined by the character of Tanedo Arata, an associate professor, who studies the disease.
The disease portrayed in Hanahaki Otome is a medical condition — it’s a virus transmitted by a touch of contaminated flowers.
One of the short stories included in the manga follows a high schooler Asuka, who reveals to her mother she has been vomiting flowers. Her confession brings a tearful apology: Asuka must have touched her father’s flowers. The story reveals Asuka’s father contracted the sickness when he was a child. Shortly after tying the knot with Asuka’s mother, he started vomiting flowers, which implies he fell in love with another woman.
The original work portrays Hanahaki disease as a dormant virus. It may manifest years after contacting the flowers, at the moment you fall into one-sided love; the lucky ones may never experience its symptoms.
The unlucky fellows are cured when love is required and the flowers turn into silver-coloured lilies.
How did the Hanahaki disease transform into the fandom’s dramatic version with hundreds of pages devoted to pinning and the virus aspect disappearing entirely? Nobody quite knows who stood behind the trope’s transformation, but the change had surely happened back when it was a Japanese-only sensation as many people expressed their infatuation with the aesthetic of “vomiting flowers” which turned into bloody, red ones.
Cakeverse
Trends come and go, and so the Hanahaki illness trope has hit its peak. Nowadays, one of the most popular tropes in Japan is an import from South Korea; a deliciously named “cakeverse”.
“Cakeverse” is a spin-off of the infamous “omegaverse” (in which humans are wolf-like creatures, placed into ranks of alpha, beta and omega). Similarly to its predecessor, the cake-verse groups mankind into three categories: cakes, forks and your regular folks.
Forks are the predators. They are humans, who after reaching a certain age have almost completely lost their sense of taste and smell. Their tastebuds can sense only one thing— cakes a.k.a the humans of another category.
It makes cakes’ flesh and fluids (you can see where this is going!) irresistible to forks. “Cakeverse” positions cakes as prey, who often fall dead due to attacks from cannibalistic forks. To make the matters worse cakes are unaware of their classification; only forks, with their enhanced sense of smell, can spot a difference between a cake and a regular human.
At first glance “cakeverse” seems like a mash-up between omega-verse and “Twilight” (where the main heroine’s blood pose a great threat to her vampire lover’s sanity), but the originator of the trope, @Rune_communicat, has made it clear she’s less of a hopeless romantic than Stephanie Meyer and stated: “There’s no such thing like a “fated cake”. After all “when you have sex your appetite doesn’t go away. It’s not like sex will make you stop wanting to eat meat anymore”.
The Cakeverse is free to use and to modify according to one’s wishes.
Iceverse
Japan has since created its own version of cakeverse: the “iceverse”.
If cakeverse was about overcoming your greatest temptation, then ice-verse is an attempt at recreating a Greek tragedy. Japanese writers, the die-hard fans of sad endings, have developed a setting where death seems unavoidable. In “iceverse” the forks and cakes are replaced with ice and juice.
In this verse, juices are the predators. What makes them different from “cakeverse” forks is that they are unaware of their dangerous nature. Juices may go through their lives as regular humans, without realizing their identity, since it only reveals itself if they fall in love with ice.
On the other hand, ices are aware of their disposition because their temperature runs lower than other humans. Oh, and they also die by melting in case of getting in a relationship with ice. The rule in “iceverse” says the relationship between ice and juice will always end up in the death of ice.
Sentinelverse
Just like western works adapted Hanahaki disease, the Asian fandom has scooped an American trope. The “Sentinelverse” has long been a fandom staple. The setting takes its name from SF-show “The Sentinel” (1996–1999), which ran on the now-defunct UPN channel.
The show follows a US Army Ranger turned policeman, Jim Ellison, who has been born with supernatural senses. During one military mission, he lands in Peru and comes into contact with a desolated tribe. There his powers awaken and he learns to hone his senses with help from the tribe’s shaman.
Jim comes back to Cascade, Washington where he meets Blair Sandburg, an anthropology graduate student, whose area of study is, of course, “Sentinels” — humans with supernatural powers. The two join forces fighting crime, with Blair helping Jim to control his powers, and even share a house.
The main hero is incredibly overpowered — his range of skills could make superheroes go green from envy. Not only is Jim capable of hearing at extremely low range and seeing things in near pitch-black; he can also communicate with the dead (and even pull his friend from death’s claws); has a badass spirit animal (a black jaguar) and can predict the future.
Jim’s powers come with a downside: his incredibly acute senses are super-sensitive to common things like spicy food or coarse materials.
How did a cop show create one of the most popular romance tropes? The comments on fanlore website paint “The Sentinel” as a mix of less than stellar writing and great chemistry — aka the perfect recipe for developing a robust fandom.
However, it’s important to note that similar to the “Hanahaki disease” trope, the fanwork seen in East Asian spaces resemble fan work, rather than official series.
For once, Blair has never been formally declared a guide — the word has been uttered once in a show and fans ran away with it. In fanworks, Guide acts as a Sentinel’s support. Guides help Sentinels with controlling their violative powers and support them with reaching higher power levels.
The greatest influence came from Susan Foster’s “The GDP Series”, published sometime between 1999–2004. “The GDP Series” was a groundbreaking fanwork, introducing social structures to the fandom. Gone was the hidden lone wolf; Sentinels were now known to the public.
In “The GDP Series ” Sentinels are valued members of society who often operate above the law. On the other hand, Guides are on the very bottom of the social hierarchy, since they exist solely for Sentinels’ sake. Their daily lives are controlled by the eponymous GDP (Guide Development Program).
The two heroes of the story reluctantly join hands and bond, which means they touch a lot and Jim evens sniffs Blair on many occasions. Curiously despite heavy physical contact, the story doesn’t feature romance. As one commenter on Fanlore put it: “It’s basically slash where the author doesn’t realize it’s slash.”
As big of influence “The GDP Series” had on the fandom, the East Asian works differ in a few key places.
For once, Guides and Sentinels are playing on the same field. Sentinels are still creatures of great powers, but their sanity is dependent on Guides’ presence. The Sentinels deprived of Guide’s help see their mental health deteriorate, which can make them go rogue and eventually die. Meanwhile, Guides are perfectly capable of living on their own. Some of them can even help a few Sentinels at a time.
Guides provide help in two different ways. The first way is through physical touch. The other, much weaker method, is by emitting “guiding energy”. It does however allow for the pair to have some personal space.
The relation between Guide and Sentinel has to be bound by a contract, called a “seal”, which lasts a lifetime. It’s important to choose wisely; the big power difference between Guide and Sentinel can land them in death threatening situations. The seal can be created at a national organization, or, if paperwork seems like too much work, a good tumble in sheets will solve the problem.
There is one loophole to Guide-resistant Sentinels: medicine. However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The medicine comes with a serious downside: overdosing may cause Sentinel to go rogue and lead to his death.
It’s not the end of fandom implemented features. Another new addition is the introduction of ranks. Both Sentinels and Guides are sorted into levels: with “SS” being the highest one and “E” the lowest. The most powerful levels are the rarest. One of the guides to Sentinel-verse places the “SS” and “S” level heroes as 0,1% of the population. The next tier of “A” and “B” make 3,5%. The vast majority occupies the “C”, “D” and “E” levels.
The levels greatly differ in powers. The lower level Sentinels don’t impact everyday life that much, but sentinels of range A and above can cause a natural disaster. Hence levels C and below can live a normal life, but those of levels B to SS have to stay at a sentinel dormitory. It’s worth mentioning there are no hard rules determining what power goes into which category and some creators choose to skip certain levels (for example in many works “A” is the highest Sentinel tier). The skillsets vary; they include control of primal elements, healing, hypnosis, teleport and reading minds. The downsides are similar to those portrayed in the show.
In several fanworks, only the most gifted of Sentinels are regarded as heroes. Their work goes beyond the police force and into “Avengers” territory. The less talented ones are relegated to minor work and often treated with disgust.
The popularity of the trope has even led to official publications. To avoid copyright claims the Sentinels in official works have been referred to as Espers.
The popularity of the tropes is not a surprise considering the fanfiction’s role. Fanworks are mainly created to fill the gaps left in the official works and the themes revolve around character studies and romance.
The tropes serve as short-cuts; they solve all the problems an aspiring author has to deal with: timing, worldbuilding and conflict. Let’s take “Sentinelverse” as an example. The trope provides the setting (sentinel dormitory) and establishes a connection between two characters (Sentinel and Guard). It also allows an author to explore the popular “enemies-to-lovers” dynamic.
All popular settings swirling around the Internet are essentially the two sides of the same coin. In the first one, the loving couple is held apart by the threat of death (Cakeverse, Hanahaki) and the other has enemies kept forcibly together, also by the threat of death (Sentinel, Soulmateverse).
The question is how creative the fan creators can get with the tropes. Is there still a way to create new settings without repeating the same themes?
