2023 Research Template

Junior High School Department Gingoog City Colleges, SY 2022-2023
“Dramatistic Methods” of Thai-BL Based Fan-fiction in the Philippines
By
JOSEPH GERSON A. BALANA
Presented to:
Joseph Gerson A. Balana

Grade 10 English Subject Teacher
May 2023
APPROVAL SHEET
This Junior High School research paper entitled ““Dramatistic Methods” of

Thai-BL Based Fan-fiction in the Philippines” prepared and submitted by
Joseph Gerson A. Balana, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the subject
English Grade 10 has been examined and recommended for acceptance and
approval for proposal defense.
JOSEPH GERSON A. BALANA

Adviser
ORAL EXAMINATION COMMITTEE
Approved by the Oral Examination Committee with a rating of ____________.
ALBERT M. LLIDO, MA JOEVANNIE B. ACERA, MA (CAR)

Member Member
KIZZIA JOHANNA R. ADEVA, MA

Chairman
Accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the subject English Grade

10.
KIZZIA JOHANNA R. ADEVA, MA

Subject Area Coordinator
Introduction
One important phenomenon that occurs in fan communities is writing
fanfiction. While not all fans write fanfiction, all who write fanfiction participate in
fandoms. Fanfiction explores, reimagines, and claims democratic ownership over
the source text’s stories, characters, and universes (Messina, 2021) in addition,
fan fiction (or fanfiction, the preferred spelling among fans) can be defined as
“writing that continues, interrupts, reimagines, or just riffs on stories and
characters other people have already written about” (Jamison, 2013, as cited in
Shannon, 2017, p. 35).
Alternate universe (most notably recognized in popular culture as “AU”)
where fanfictions are couched occupies a considerable portion in social media
platforms. In online spaces, fans, defined as individuals “with a relatively deep
positive emotional conviction about someone or something famous” (Duffet,
2013, as cited in Shannon, 2017, p. 132) make use of digital tools and
communication technologies to discuss, share, create, or otherwise respond to a
public performance or figure including, for example, music and musicians,
literature, sports and athletes, theater, television, and film and performers
(Shannon, 2017). Online fanfictions’ emergence is a by-product of user
generated content, as fans become active consumers of literary and
entertainment products. Historically, this occurred through physical media such
as fanzines, fan fiction, and fan art (Coppa, 2006, as cited in Lanier et al., 2015,
p. 283). Today, there is perhaps no better context to understand the instability
and ambiguity of meanings in popular culture than in fan activities in the digital
realm (Booth, 2010, as cited in Lanier et al., 2015, p. 283). This “digital fandom”
occurs via multi-modal platforms that allow any number of participants acting
interchangeably, simultaneously, and anonymously to engage in ongoing,
dynamic, and creative contributions to a popular culture text (Jenkins, 2006, as
cited in Lanier et al., 2015, p. 283).
Before the internet became a household technology, non-professional
fanfiction writers — writers who are not paid for their labors — used to publish,
write for, and read fan-created zines to share their work (Messina, 2021). Print
fanfiction has existed in various forms for many years; however, new
technologies now afford fans the opportunity to ‘meet’ in online spaces where
they can collaboratively write, exchange, critique, and discuss one another’s
fictions (Black, 2006). Most likely because fanfiction or self-publishing have, until
recently, not been considered marketable genres (Pecoskie & Hill, 2015). Today,
the “internet offers a broader public for the kinds of story transformations that
were previously private and internal or restricted to a very small outside
readership” (Mackey & McClay, 2008) wherein “forums are one way for fans to
display fan fiction. Another method is to include the fan fiction stories in a section
of a particular website” (Herzing, 2005). These digital platforms (e.g., the
Internet) have not only created an infrastructure for the diffusion of digital fandom
practices, but their structure also calls into question the traditional concepts of
author, text, and reader via their manifestation in these amorphous virtual
consumption-production environments (Lanier & Fowler, 2013, as cited in Lanier
et al, 2015, p. 283).
Linked significantly to fanfiction is the BL or Boys Love genre in fiction and in
entertainment media. The term BL is used interchangeably with the Japanese
term “yaoi” referring to the stories portraying the love interest of two male
characters (Jirattikorn, 2018). As it traces its roots to the Japanese popular form
of “manga”, the yaoi (conveniently referred in fandoms as Y-series), is an
acronym for the Japanese phrases yama nashi [no climax], ochi nashi [no punch
line], and imi nashi [no meaning]…is also connected to the Japanese slang
connoting to anal sex. Hence, the term suggests elements of pornographic
content….the romantic relationship in yaoi is usually compared to top-bottom
roles in male homosexual partnership (Prasannam, 2018).
In addition, the popularity of BLs in Asia could be attributed to fandoms’
patronage and merchandising. Especially in the Southeast Asian entertainment
industry where Thailand is considered one of the top BL-content producers, it has
influenced viewership and to an extent local productions with Chinese audiences
over the past decade (Shi, 2020). The inherent link to BL fanfiction ‘success’
stems from the fact that fanfiction writing “is a form of reimagining source texts.
Not every fanfiction resists dominant ideologies or subverts systems of power,

but fanfiction as a community-driven practice provides space for authors to claim
power. Fan authors can examine their positionalities as well as larger social and
cultural systems through storytelling (Messina, 2021). According to Mackey and
McClay (2008), “fan fiction is written by and for people who are already familiar
with the canonical story from which the fanfic is derived. In a derivative story, the
rules of notice operate on a different basis. Readers are already familiar with
main characters, events and themes, and are already watching for their
appearance”, consequently these
“fans use media narratives and pop cultural icons as inspiration for
creating their own texts. In such texts, fan authors imaginatively extend
the original plotline or timeline…create new characters…and/or develop
new relationships between characters that are already present in the
original source…” (Black, 2006).
Some fan fictions are created to prolong and extend a deep immersion in
a story world. Others are written to parody or critique such a world. The Internet
offers a broader public for the kinds of story transformations that were previously
private and internal or restricted to a very small outside readership (Mackey &
McClay, 2008). Messina (2021) further elaborates that “this style of writing
fanfiction and sharing with a wider audience allowed readers to consume and
respond to the text as it was being created and, through their responses and
feedback, for the author to get suggestions from readers and gain a readership
following” furthermore it allows “people [to] share their fantasies, assert their identities,
and negotiate change in their cultural environment” (Jenkins, 2018, as cited in Duggan,
2021, p. 3). Duncombe (2012, as cited in Duggan, 2021, p. 3) argues that the
fictional worlds explored by fans allow them freedom to consider “norms, laws,
and structures” and “imagine alternatives”. Popular culture, by its very nature,
assumes a reflexive perspective of questioning, manipulating, and destabilizing a
text’s authority and meaning (Fiske, 1989, as cited in Lanier et al., 2015, p. 283)
and the fanfiction’s “storytelling creates and shapes culture and community, and
in turn shapes our underlying ideologies and politics (Messina, 2021).
Hard core fans of BL “ships” (BL ‘love teams’) whose fervent following of
their identified “bias” (favourite ‘ship’) possess tendency to write fanfiction
especially in their online interactions related to their fanaticism whereby they as
“users of entertainment media can find complete self expression and break
taboos. Entertainment enables them to safely explore risky situations and release
themselves from role stress (Früh, 2003, as cited in Kamm, 2013), because they
are in control and do not have to fear real world consequences of their thoughts
and fantasies (Kamm, 2013).
In BL, “relationships between males are the genre's defining element, and
those who produce BL especially enjoy playing with the characters and their
masculinities. The main theme of many BL stories…can be summarized as
"What if?" "What if those two got together?"….This playing and empathizing with
media characters has been called parasocial interaction (Horton & Wohl, 1956,
as cited in Kamm, 2013). As these things are found in BL-based fanfiction, it is
worth noting how international fandoms produce localized fanfiction or create
works from foreign text or material and set it their context, in this case, the
Philippine setting wherein “transcultural fandom becomes a critical space for
Filipino fans to learn and develop the literacies that gave them the creative
agency to express their nationality in this supposedly “homogenous” space
through their fan works” (Santos, 2019). Navigating through the world of BL
fanfiction and traversing their respective ‘alternate universes’, readers, writers,
and critics are allowed to examine “whether it is the character, the fan, both, or
neither as fans incorporate aspects of both the character and their own lives in
the virtual identity. In addition, fan-character personas interact and respond not
only with friends, who know that the character is not real but interact with the
character as if s/he is real, but also with other character personas in the voice of
the chosen character (Booth, 2010, as cited in Lanier et al., 2015, p. 288-289).
This paper aims to look into how the “new digital media enable
participation on an unprecedented scale. [Wherein] Individuals may participate in
the digital, interactive media proper (the Internet, the World Wide Web, Web 2.0)”
(“Audience Theories”, 2009).as shown in the ingenuity of Thai-BL based Twitter
fanfictions written by Filipinos and how these works manifest literariness using
the dramatism espoused in Kenneth Burke’s theory.

Statement of the Problem
This study aims to explore the following:
a.) What are the pentadic elements present in selected Thai-BL based
Twitter fanfiction in the Philippines;
b.) How do the pentadic ratios in selected Thai-BL based Twitter fanfiction
compare to its source texts; and,
c.) To what extent do readers of Thai-BL based Twitter fanfiction in the
Philippines render the literariness of the selected works.

Data Gathering
In order for this study to materialize, five (5) completed fanfiction (AUs)
written by Filipino authors shall be used. In addition, these AUs are those that
were produced and are available on Twitter; noting that Twitter “and literacy
practices for the 21st century involve the production and interpretation of an array
of texts, including print and non-print materials” (McWilliams et al., 2011).
Furthermore, this study shall only focus on fanfiction that are related to the Thai-
BL ‘ship’ couple of Tay-Tawan Vihokratana and New-Thitipoom Techaapaikhun,
most popularly known as “TayNew” with parallel reference and to their “Pete-
Kao” characters in Thai-BL works.
The selected fanfiction shall be read and analysed using Kenneth
Burke’s theory on dramatism as manifested in the analysis of the elements in the
pentad.
Theoretical Framework
Widely referenced in the fandom, media and culture study is Henry Jenkins’
proposition in fandom and participatory culture theories. In his acclaimed 1992
work Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, he “argues
that fans should be regarded not as passive consumers of popular media, but as
active producers of content who ‘poach’ elements from media in order to create
their own stories which address issues they care about” (“Fandom and
Participatory Culture”, n.d.) and thus as an off-shoot of such participation is the
emergence of fanfiction.
Consequently, this study will then look into these fanfiction using Kenneth
Burke’s ‘dramatistic method’ wherein it “examines how human intentions are
manifested through symbolic language” (Lanier & Schau, 2007). Demkiw (20100
explains further that
To assist him in his dramatistic analysis of language, Burke
developed the five key terms of dramatism, otherwise known as the
pentad. He states that when labeling an event, every description ―must

have some word that names the Act (names what took place, in thought or
deed), and another that names the Scene (the background of the act, the
situation in which it occurred); also, you must indicate what person or kind
of person (Agent) performed the Act, what means or instruments he used
(Agency) and the Purpose. Through these terms Burke teases out the
motive, implicit or otherwise, in a given situation. How the communicator
has placed these terms assists the critic in better understanding his
attitude to the situation (36).
Accordingly, “Dramatism is a method of analysis and a corresponding
critique of terminology designed to show that the most direct route to the study of
human relations and human motives is via a methodological inquiry into cycles or
clusters of terms and their functions.” (Burke, 1989, as cited in Lanier & Schau,
2007, p. 330).
Definition of Terms
In this paper, the following terms will be used operationally, as follows:
AU. This stands for alternate universe or alternative universe; plural form styled
as “AUs”; this refers to the “descriptor used to characterize fanworks which
change one or more elements of the source work's canon….an AU may
transplant a given source work's characters to a radically different setting, shift
the genre in which their adventures occur, and/or alter one or more of their
professions, goals, or backstories.” (“Alternate Universe”, n.d.)
BL. The acronym BL stands for Boys Love which is used interchangeably with
the Japanese term “yaoi” referring to the stories portraying the love interest of
two male characters (Jirattikorn, 2018); mostly used as attachment in reference
to the country of origin and styled as “Thai BL” or “Thai-BL”.
Dramatism. As a theory in communication, Kenneth Burke’s dramatism
“compares life to a play and states that, as in a theatrical piece, life requires an
actor, a scene, an action, some means for the action to take place, and a
purpose. The theory allows a rhetorical critic to analyze a speaker’s motives by
identifying and examining these elements. Furthermore, Burke believes, guilt is
the ultimate motive for speakers, and…that rhetors are most successful when
they provide their audiences with a means for purging their guilt…Burke…
believed that language is a strategic human response to a specific situation:
Verbal symbols are meaningful acts from which motives can be derived.” He
considered clusters of words as dances of attitudes” (“Dramatism Theory”, 2017)
Fanfiction. Fanfiction refers to fictional stories written by media fans that are
both based on and contribute to the meta-textual elements associated with a
focal text (Bacon-Smith, 1992; Jenkins, 1992, as cited in Lanier & Schau,
2007).Further, these metatextual elements derive from the term “metalanguage –
existent in logics and lingustics –as one of the components of a linguistic
message of a highly specialized (coherent) function… contained in its range
various verbalisations (words, expressions, phrases, sequences of statements),
situated both at the statement level and at the textual level” (Witosz, 2017).
Ship. Ship “in the context of Thai fandom, the practice of reimagining male
homoerotic intimacy is referred to as long ruea [boarding the boat], phai ruea,
and jaew ruea [rowing the boat]. Resonating with the English term “ship/shipping”
which is a shorter version of “relationship”….When used in fandom context, yaoi
couples are described as being in the same boat and the “ship” is tentatively
deployed as a trope to write about the yaoi couple” (Prasannam, 2018).
Trope. Defined “in fandom, the word trope is often used to describe common plot
devices…conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the
audience members' minds and expectations” (“Trope”, n.d.)
Yaoi. The term yaoi “is an acronym for the Japanese phrases yama nashi [no
climax], ochi nashi [no punch line], and imi nashi [no meaning]…is also
connected to the Japanese slang connoting to anal sex. Hence, the term
suggests elements of pornographic content….the romantic relationship in yaoi is
usually compared to top-bottom roles in male homosexual partnership. In yaoi
texts, top (or dominant) is called seme and bottom (or submissive) is called uke”
(Prasannam, 2018).
Review of Related Literature and Studies
This paper banks on the explorations of previously conducted studies in
fanfiction writing and the development of the popular culture in such aspect.
Seven studies presented herein dwell on fanfiction, Burke’s dramatism, and
popular culture texts; while there are explanatory justifications on Burke’s
dramatism in other literature.
In Simon’s article , The Rhetorical Legacy of Kenneth Burke (2004), he
said that according to Kenneth Burke “the most important and most accessible
facts about human beings are not to be found in what they do, or in their
biologies and chemistries (as some maintain), but in their language, and in what
they say about what they do (Burke 1966, as cited in Simon, 2004,
p.154).Furthermore, Simon presented that central to Burke’s own theory of
rhetoric is the concept of identification, understood broadly to include appeals –
both conscious and unconscious – to common ground and selective namings of
a thing’s ostensible properties (p. 159). This was then further attested in
Demkiw’s study Taking rhetoric to work: A dramatistic analysis of organizational
leadership in The Office (2010) wherein he carefully elaborated Burke’s pentad.
The pentad, as the name implies, encompasses five elements that Burke states
are present in every description of a situation. He states that when labeling an
event, every description ―must have some word that names the act (names
what took place, in thought or deed), and another that names the scene (the
background of the act, the situation in which it occurred); also, you must indicate
what person or kind of person (Agent) performed the act, what means or
instruments he used (agency) and the purpose.
In Sanna Lehtonen’s Writing oneself into someone else’s story –
experiments with identity and speculative life writing in Twilight fan fiction (2015),
the study explored “on gender identity construction in self-insertion of fan fiction
texts…based on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels….the paper examines female
protagonists in selected self-insertion fanfics categorized as heterosexual
romance and relates these representations to reader’s comments about the
stories” (7). As she examined these Twilight-based fan fiction, she delved into the
projections of the authors into how much of “themselves” were portrayed into
their works and how these represented not just their ‘individual’ desires but those
of the readers and commenters as well. The reflected consciousness of online
fan fiction writing and the participatory nature of fan fiction writing over a closed
group of individuals engaged therein manages the manifestation of a ‘collective
desire’. As she therefore construed that:
Constructing textual selfhood…is intersubjective activity where the
public representation of the gendered self is not only the writer’s creation
but instead a textual construct negotiated together with readers and
regulated by the norms and expectations of a particular online space and,
more broadly, gendered discourses circulating in the surrounding society.
(p.15)
Although quite the polemic of the Thai-BL (which is male homosexual based
fan fiction), Lehtonen’s study offers a good point of interest wherein we can place
dramatism’s fundamental tenet, on character and identification. It presupposes
that
“the identity of the persona is inherently ambiguous as we are perpetually
unsure of… there is no way to disambiguate this identity or subsume one
identity into another. The meaning of the character and the person behind
it will always remain ambiguous. In addition, this confusion of identities
sets in motion an additional destabilization of meaning by allowing fan-
character to enact both role-appropriate and role-inappropriate behavior
vis-a`-vis an ongoing archive of activity within the ecosphere of a SNS
[social networking site]” (Lanier et al., 2015).
As gender identification and role-taking is evident in BLs, this highlights the fact
on how do these characterizations are project into the fanfics/AUs and the
perspective and life-experiences consistent of the male homosexual ‘universe’;
noting that a higher percentage of fanfic consumers in fandom of TayNew are

heterosexual females. As Lehtonen further puts it, “the likeability of the
character…is negotiated together with readers, which makes the whole process
rather different from private day dreaming and more like other public interactions
where we learn to construct our identities in relation to other people and social
norms” (p. 16).
Juli J. Parrish (2007) in her doctoral dissertation, Inventing a universe:
Reading and writing internet fan fiction, examined the writing techniques found in
an internet fan fiction archive, Different Colored Pens. The study posited that
“internet fan fiction as the work of amateur writers drawing on composition
studies work on discourse communities…[and] share an explicit collaborative
project of using fan fiction to help one another as readers and writers…to focus
on and analyse fan fiction feedback practices, specifically…to the rich and
growing literature on the ways that online communities…collaboratively develop
their writing skills”. In this study, Parrish used three fan fiction from the above
mentioned fanfic archive of slightly different narrative style and conventions but
all are off-shoots of the hit American television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer;
the contention of this study is on the underlying collaboration between readers
and writers engaged in an online fan fiction writing space. More than that of just a
sharing and distributing site for fanfics, Parrish analyses that these products of
the archive, Different Colored Pens, are creative melting points between the
authors and the audience playing more active roles as readers and writers as
they shift from one over the other seamlessly.
In the virtual space of the Twitter ‘universe’, dedicated accounts are created
by fan fiction writers to display and publish their works. As an interactive micro-
blogging social media platform, Twitter AUs are replete with interactive
mechanisms on reader’s feedback and responses to fan fiction. The spread and
mileage of Twitter AUs extend beyond the site as more and more of them get re-
created for Wattpad versions and some fortunate ones get published in print.
This dissertation by Parrish is in concert with this present paper’s endeavour to
thresh out the creative and innovative ways in which Thai-BL based Philippine
fan fiction texts are heavily guided and reliant to consumer-generated feedback
in the development of the work.
In Jendrzey’s (2019) study, the focus on cross-cultural adaptation of
fanfiction and it focuses on “transposition [which] implies a simple re-situation of
the text in a new frame of reference, such as a new narrator or setting...simply
the work that results from that process, and these definitions allow for content
changes during the process to suit the culture into which the product will be
presented....The second type of adaptation analyzed is the cross-cultural
adaptation. These adaptations place an existing story in an entirely different
cultural context, acknowledging the changes that this reframing would create.
While this may be moving between years, as time does change the culture of a
place, it is more often changing the location of the story and/or the race or
ethnicity of the characters….They seek to give the selected culture a connection
to the existing work, allowing them to claim an ownership of the text through
relatability. They may also serve to instruct cultures other than the culture of
adaptation as to what matters to that intended audience, giving outsiders an
insight into a culture with which they are not familiar.
As has been shown, a close analysis of adaptations can shed some light on
ideas held by the adaptor. However, these adaptations can also be used to
understand ideas held by the audience as well. In any medium, the creator of a
work wishes to find some kind of common ground with their audience. In
adaptation, this rings true even more often, as adaptations are created
specifically to appeal to the audience. This is a kind of narrative based
confirmation bias, as audiences are given not media that challenges their beliefs,
but media that reaffirms them. It stands to reason, then, that these same close
analyses could be used as a tool to examine the culture for which the adaptation
was produced (108). However Jendrzey found some limitations formed through
the use of Burke’s pentad as a tool for organization rather than a theory with
which to explore. One of Burke’s uses for the pentad was examining which point
was being emphasized in order to decipher a character’s motives. Applied here,
a change by the adaptor to one of these points could be analyzed not just in the
sense of the change itself and the effect it had, but why the adaptor changed that
aspect. This could provide further insights into their process of adapting and what
ideals and concepts were guiding their work. In addition, Burke pointed out that
there are many combinations that could be created using pairs of items on the
pentad. Some of these could help with the understanding of some of the more
nuanced changes between the two scripts, which could have fallen into multiple
categories (110).
In A grammar of consubstantiality: A Burkean feminist rhetorical analysis
of third-person identity constitution in science-fiction television (Chambers, 2018)
audience reception was crucial as it exposes that “when an audience is receptive
to the rhetor’s offering of perspective as well as the invitation for an exchange of
perspectives within that safe environment, they may offer their own perspectives
as well, leading to that chance for shared understanding…. These discussions
may happen within interpersonal communities or online through a range of sites,
including those devoted to the series themselves, discussion-based communities
like Reddit and Facebook, and news and opinion sites like The Huffington Post
and Jezebel (201). Furthermore, Chamber’s study looked into the medium where
these writing of fanfiction takes place especially on digital and social media as
“such discussions occur largely spontaneously, with participants continually
choosing to opt in or opt out. But these discussions can also happen more
formally, as when they occur in the classroom or in other similar forums” (202).
In the 2016 study of Roberts, “We the women of Juarez are strong”: A
rhetorical analysis of Diana, the huntress of bus drivers”, the Burkean theory was
aptly discussed. Roberts argued that “at its core, dramatism invites critics to
understand how audiences will perceive messages and discourse” (5). Often,
when analyzing a text or artifact through a Burkean lens, multiple elements of the
pentad are explored. In other words, two or three elements of the pentad may be
competing for equal attention, or what Burke would call ratios. He writes “Using
‘scene’ in the sense of setting, or background, and ‘act’ in the sense of action,
one could say that ‘the scene contains the act.’ And using ‘agents in the sense of
actors, or actors, one could say that ‘the scene contains the agents’” (Burke,
1945, cited in Roberts, 2016 p. 9). When describing the scene-act ratio, Burke
furthers, “...the scene-act ratio either calls for acts in keeping with scenes or
scenes in keeping with acts -- and similarly with the scene-agent ratio” (Roberts,
2016). Moreover, Roberts signalled that ‘although multiple ratios exist, singling
out certain elements of 8 the pentad allow the critic to explain how the drama
influences the audiences. Pinpointing the pentadic elements at play isolates the
most important aspects of the overarching drama. Also, when analyzing a text
with the idea of ratios in mind, each element must seem correctly reasonable to
be considered with another (p. 7-8).
Muñiz, K. (2012) further expounded dramatism through Burke’s pentadic
elements. He posited that the rhetorical theories of Kenneth Burke remain a

valuable tool in the critical, rhetorical analysis of pop culture texts. Identification,
the dramatistic pentad and the representative anecdote can all be utilized when
trying to find the motivating factor of a show and how it connects to the audience
(p. 60). And to fully grasp Burkean dramatism, further on in this study, it delved to
fully understand dramatism, [that] one needs to understand Burke’s definition of
motive, which he describes in A Grammar of Motives (1945), first posing the
question: “What is involved when we say what people are doing and why are
they doing it?” (p. xv). In order to answer this question, Burke made a distinction
between action, something controllable that people do as part of voluntary
behavior, and motion, behaviors that do not hold purpose or meaning (Burke,
1945; Cohrs, 2002, as cited in Muñiz, 2012, p. 16).
Spence’s Disney world, the mythic space, and the Disney company
mythology (2019), “examines how a space can be politicized and transformed
into a place, it is vital one examines Burke’s notion of the pentad and the scene-
agent ratio…The scene is “the background of the act, the situation in which it
occurred” and the agent performs the act. The scene-agent ratio is a relation
between the person and the place. Burke emphasized the elements that are
“prior” in their respective ratios. For instance, a scene-agent ratio suggests that
the scene is acting upon the agent. Essentially, the scene shapes the agent’s act
within and outside the scene. The quality of the agent is matched to that of the
quality of the scene. For instance, if a scene possesses supernatural qualities,

then the agents within the scene will partake in that supernatural quality. There is
a consistency between the scene and the agent because this consistency allows
the motives to be easily understood by those who are hearing the narrative.
Through this ratio, the agents do not act in the scene, but instead, are moved
because their actions are influenced by the scene in which they reside (p. 41-42).
Lastly, Clinton D Lanier Jr. and Hope Jensen Schau’s Culture and co-
creation: Exploring consumers’ inspirations and aspirations for writing and
posting on-line fan fiction (2007). It is through this work that the researcher would
like to take on the lens in looking into the context of Thai-BL based fan fiction in
the country. In Lanier and Schau’s work, they highlighted the theorist Henry
Jenkins’ work on popular culture fandoms and participatory culture. While
banking on the method of Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic method to analyse three
fan fictions based on JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, they explored how the
writers of AU manifest their inspiration and aspiration in their work. How these
permeates in the respective fanfics can be revealed using Burke’s analysis
technique of looking into the ratio on the producer’s perspective and comparing
such to the ratio in the fan fiction output. The pentadic ratio on the five
dramatistic elements - act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose – and their
possible combinations thereof constitute the analytic component of the work.
Using the same strategy, this current paper will put under the pentadic lenses
the selected Twitter fan fictions of Thai-BL inspired Philippine fan fiction. As this
would ensure an objective way of assessing this relatively burgeoning aspect of
literacy in the digital platforms used in fan culture studies. As Lanier and Schau
(2007) concluded that fanfic writers “are not constrained by the pentadic ratio
emphasized by the original author….for fan fiction authors to write these types of
stories is to expand the meaning of the primary text by emphasizing a different
pentadic ratio” (p. 339).
Without discounting the fact that the studies mentioned above showcase
western canonical focal texts, this current paper, in latency, also aims to put forth
a contribution to the Southeast Asian context and research literature by
employing the techniques of the aforementioned studies. As Shannon (2017)
puts it that subsequently, research into online or computer-mediated fanfiction
practices has focused on two main areas: feedback and writing development,
and identity work and empowerment (p.135) which Filipino fanfiction writers seek
to attain as this is an emerging and fast-rising popular culture genre, fan fiction
mainstreaming into a wider discourse and eventually as a canon in itself is a
venture worth researching.

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Junior High School Department Gingoog City Colleges, SY 2022-2023

“Dramatistic Methods” of Thai-BL Based Fan-fiction in the Philippines

JOSEPH GERSON A. BALANA

Joseph Gerson A. Balana

This Junior High School research paper entitled ““Dramatistic Methods” of

JOSEPH GERSON A. BALANA

ORAL EXAMINATION COMMITTEE

Approved by the Oral Examination Committee with a rating of ____________.

ALBERT M. LLIDO, MA JOEVANNIE B. ACERA, MA (CAR)

KIZZIA JOHANNA R. ADEVA, MA

Accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the subject English Grade

KIZZIA JOHANNA R. ADEVA, MA

One important phenomenon that occurs in fan communities is writing

fandoms. Fanfiction explores, reimagines, and claims democratic ownership over

“writing that continues, interrupts, reimagines, or just riffs on stories and

Shannon, 2017, p. 35).

Alternate universe (most notably recognized in popular culture as “AU”)

where fanfictions are couched occupies a considerable portion in social media

platforms. In online spaces, fans, defined as individuals “with a relatively deep

positive emotional conviction about someone or something famous” (Duffet,

communication technologies to discuss, share, create, or otherwise respond to a

public performance or figure including, for example, music and musicians,

(Shannon, 2017). Online fanfictions’ emergence is a by-product of user

generated content, as fans become active consumers of literary and

entertainment products. Historically, this occurred through physical media such

p. 283). Today, there is perhaps no better context to understand the instability

interchangeably, simultaneously, and anonymously to engage in ongoing,

dynamic, and creative contributions to a popular culture text (Jenkins, 2006, as

cited in Lanier et al., 2015, p. 283).

Before the internet became a household technology, non-professional

were previously private and internal or restricted to a very small outside

of a particular website” (Herzing, 2005). These digital platforms (e.g., the

consumption-production environments (Lanier & Fowler, 2013, as cited in Lanier

et al, 2015, p. 283).

Linked significantly to fanfiction is the BL or Boys Love genre in fiction and in

entertainment media. The term BL is used interchangeably with the Japanese

of “manga”, the yaoi (conveniently referred in fandoms as Y-series), is an

connoting to anal sex. Hence, the term suggests elements of pornographic

content….the romantic relationship in yaoi is usually compared to top-bottom

roles in male homosexual partnership (Prasannam, 2018).

In addition, the popularity of BLs in Asia could be attributed to fandoms’

patronage and merchandising. Especially in the Southeast Asian entertainment

influenced viewership and to an extent local productions with Chinese audiences

Not every fanfiction resists dominant ideologies or subverts systems of power,

but fanfiction as a community-driven practice provides space for authors to claim

cultural systems through storytelling (Messina, 2021). According to Mackey and

appearance”, consequently these

the original plotline or timeline…create new characters…and/or develop

new relationships between characters that are already present in the

original source…” (Black, 2006).

assumes a reflexive perspective of questioning, manipulating, and destabilizing a

in turn shapes our underlying ideologies and politics (Messina, 2021).

their identified “bias” (favourite ‘ship’) possess tendency to write fanfiction

especially in their online interactions related to their fanaticism whereby they as

and fantasies (Kamm, 2013).

masculinities. The main theme of many BL stories…can be summarized as

as cited in Kamm, 2013). As these things are found in BL-based fanfiction, it is

worth noting how international fandoms produce localized fanfiction or create

Philippine setting wherein “transcultural fandom becomes a critical space for

agency to express their nationality in this supposedly “homogenous” space

fanfiction and traversing their respective ‘alternate universes’, readers, writers,

participation on an unprecedented scale. [Wherein] Individuals may participate in

(“Audience Theories”, 2009).as shown in the ingenuity of Thai-BL based Twitter