1. Introduction
[1.1] In fan fiction, authors borrow and reorganize elements from the original source text to create something new. Significant scholarly attention has focused on reworking source texts to be homoerotic (Busse 2017; De Kosnik 2016; Jenkins 1992; Popova 2018). Research on how fans rework the same text to examine different themes, relationships, and plots is relatively new (Hautsch 2022, 2023). I seek to understand how fan fiction authors create and develop remediated storylines and relationships of the same source text through fan fiction, with a particular interest in how authors create different plots and versions of characters using the same source text. I utilize fan fiction based on the versions of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and Tony Stark (Iron Man) within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). In the MCU, Peter Parker and Tony Stark share minimal screen time together across four films: Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Tony recruits Peter to help him fight Captain America in the titular war in Civil War, an internal feud between two groups of superheroes. Tony also creates a superhero suit for Peter to use for his vigilante adventures in New York. Later, in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter wants to become a member of the Avengers, but Tony and his bodyguard Happy brush him off. After an incident on a ferry that endangers civilian lives, Tony takes away Peter's superhero suit. Peter still saves the day, prompting Tony to give Peter the suit back and offer him a spot on the Avengers. Peter declines the offer. In Avengers: Infinity War, Peter follows Tony into space to help defeat Thanos, who wants to destroy half of the universe, and Peter dissolves into dust in Tony's arms after Thanos succeeds with his plan. In Avengers: Endgame, Tony helps the Avengers go back in time to defeat Thanos. Tony sacrifices himself to save the universe, and Peter watches him die. Finally, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) features Peter trying to move on from Tony's death while being reminded of his mentor everywhere he goes.
[1.2] Despite their marginal time together on screen, in 2020, the platonic relationship tag "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" on Archive of Our Own (AO3) ranked number eight in greatest gain in total public fan works posted, with 5,729 new public fan works; the romantic relationship tag "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" on AO3 ranked number sixty-seven in greatest gain in total public fan works posted, with 2,051 new public fan works in 2020 (centreoftheselights 2021a). While the platonic relationship tag "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" has been a reoccurring tag in the yearly and all-time rankings (centreoftheselights 2019, 2020, 2021a, 2021b), 2020 is the only year when both the platonic and romantic relationship tags were among the most popular in the same year.
[1.3] Through close reading, distant reading, and metadata analysis, I examine twenty fan fictions selected based on kudos from AO3, ten each with the tags "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" and "Peter Parker/Tony Stark." While previous fan fiction studies have utilized these methods separately (Black 2020; Busse 2017; De Kosnik 2016; Johnson 2014; Rowe et al. 2021), I argue that this triangulation of different pieces helps gain a better overall picture of how fan fiction authors can remediate the source text. Through these methods, I find that fiction shows how both daddy issues and daddy kink can stem from the same base archetypes of masculinity, patriarchy, and complicated emotions surrounding a masculine authority figure. Understanding how fandoms perceive different types of relationships between the same two characters can provide a deeper understanding into how fandoms remediate and expand upon themes present in the canon.
2. Background
[2.1] Many scholars have examined how masculinity is represented through superhero media (Avery 2023; Brown 2020; De Dauw 2021; Hamilton 2021; Kvaran 2017; Roblou 2012). At a basic level, the male superhero's body is physically and metaphorically rugged, muscular, and violent (Avery 2023; Brown 2020; Hamilton 2021; Roblou 2012), exemplifying key aspects of hegemonic masculinity. Superheroes create alternate identities and wear elaborate, skintight costumes and logos, in many ways becoming an exaggerated metaphor for the hypermasculinity they're displaying (Brown 2020; De Dauw 2021). However, at the same time, Jeffrey A. Brown (2020) states that "the emphasis...on ideal bodies and skintight costumes easily suggest a fetishistic side to the adventures and marks the characters as ripe for (s)exploration" (253). And while this aspect is often central to fan-created content like fan fiction and fan art, superhero comics and movies rarely sexualize their male heroes, other than to establish heteronormative relationships with the female supporting character (Brown 2020; Kvaran 2017).
[2.2] These male bodies are a representation of traditional, hypermasculine archetypes: the hunter, the protector, the warrior. But these archetypes aren't just physical. In many superhero stories, the hero is seen as the outcast or the loner, emotionally closed off to those around him. In part this emotional state arises from the fact that their bodies have gone through tremendous physical transformation, whether it be due to an accident, science, or magic. The trauma these men go through to become superheroes isn't just physical but emotional and psychological (Roblou 2012). Kara Kvaran (2017) argues that many superheroes are hypermasculine orphans with daddy issues: "Most contemporary superhero films evoke father-son drama, thereby emphasizing heroics as masculine and homosocial stories about men as most essential" (219). Some of the most popular superhero characters like Bruce Wayne (Batman), Peter Parker, and Tony Stark lose both their parents at a young age. Much of these characters' beliefs surrounding justice, revenge, and legacy are centered on making the father figure proud, whether that be their dead father or another masculine authority figure (Avery 2023; Kvaran 2017). These father figures encode to the male superhero what the ideal masculinity should be, and recent superhero film narratives utilize this familial dynamic to push these ideals onto the male superhero (Avery 2023; Kvaran 2017). Daddy issues are generally seen as an emotional need to seek approval from a masculine authority figure (Kvaran 2017). This never-ending drive to make the father figure proud propels these daddy issues to be at the center of these characters' ethos. Daddy issue themes are prevalent in many superhero films released in the last twenty years, in part because of how superhero media has changed since September 11, 2001 (Avery 2023; De Dauw 2021; Hamilton 2021; Kvaran 2017), with portrayals emphasizing this need for validation from the male authority figure. Performative masculinity has been embedded in superhero mythos since then, like the revamped Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan's 2005 film Batman Begins (Avery 2023), and it's not surprising this new masculine standard carried over into the MCU. In comparison, daddy kink is a sexual practice with power dynamics between an older, dominant man and a younger, submissive partner (Silva 2023). Daddy kink turns the complex characteristics of power dynamics, dominance, and mentorship of daddy issues into a romantic and sexual experience. One of the overarching goals of this study is to see how fan fiction authors transform daddy issues into daddy kink between Peter Parker and Tony Stark.
[2.3] Like in their comic books origins, both Tony Stark and Peter Parker are orphans by the time they meet in Captain America: Civil War. The MCU canon constructs them as hypermasculine orphans with daddy issues (Avery 2023; Kvaran 2017). Tony's defining moments include taking over his father's company and dealing with the reveal that Bucky Barnes killed his parents. Peter feels responsible for his uncle's death and subsequently sees Tony as a new male authority figure. Despite some emotional narratives between these two characters across the MCU, Peter and Tony share minimal screen time. Much of their friendship is crafted through textual and visual clues, like Tony telling Steve Rogers that he "lost the kid" after Peter was snapped away, a photograph of Peter being Tony's motivation for solving time travel, and Peter's struggle with Tony's death in Spider-Man: Far From Home. But since 2019, the friendship tag "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" has appeared in the Overall Top 100 pairing ranking on AO3 every year (centreoftheselights 2019, 2020, 2021a, 2021b). The tag ranked number forty in 2019 with 10,639 fan works (centreoftheselights 2019), number twenty-two in 2020 with 17,366 fan works (centreoftheselights 2020), and number twenty-three in 2021 with 22,165 fan works (centreoftheselights 2021b). In 2022, "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" was number twenty with 25,763 works (centreoftheselights 2022), and, most recently, number nineteen with 26,868 works in 2023 (centreoftheselights 2023). The friendship between Peter Parker and Tony Stark has been cemented as a popular fan fiction pairing on AO3.
[2.4] In 2020, the romantic relationship tag "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" appeared for the first and only time in a Top 100 ranking chart for the number of fan works posted in one year (centreoftheselights 2021a). While some fandoms do not have a strict separation in which the ampersand is used for the friendship pairing tag and the slash is used for the romantic pairing tag, the pairing tags for "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" and "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" are distinctly separated by friendship and romantic relationship, respectively, based on the metadata that accompanies these fan fictions. Fan fictions in the "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" category mainly include tags relating to found family, Tony comforting Peter, and Tony acting as Peter's father figure. Fan fictions in the "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" category mainly feature tags that revolve around specific sex acts, positions, and dynamics. This case therefore provides an opportunity for a comparative study: How do fan works remediate the same source material into vastly different meanings? Further, given the specific features of these source texts, how do these fan works specifically remix themes of masculinity and daddy issues?
3. Methodology
[3.1] To collect the sample for this study, both "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" and "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" relationship tags were first sorted by kudos. I chose kudos as the main selection method over website page hits to identify the most popular fan works in each relationship tag because leaving kudos indicates that the reader took the time to react to or like the work. The scope of this analysis is primarily concerned with the most popular themes within these two relationship tags, focusing on the contents within fan fiction that had a popular spike in overall works produced in 2020. The goal was to analyze the most popular fan works to understand the most popular themes present in the fan works posted in 2020. To be considered, the fan fictions had to be complete as of the date of collection, September 30, 2022, and the fan fictions had to be first published in 2020 to fit within the scope of the research.
[3.2] I analyzed ten fan fictions tagged "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" and ten fan fictions tagged "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" through three different lenses: textual analysis, computational analysis, and metadata analysis. Analyzing the text to identify how fans remix and remediate the original source text has been a long-standing practice in fan studies (Busse 2017; De Kosnik 2016). Text mining and metadata analysis are newer techniques emerging in fan studies to analyze fan fiction (Black 2020; Johnson 2014; Rowe et al. 2021). Using all three methods allowed for triangulation by studying different elements—themes, word frequencies and concordances, and metadata—of the fan works. This method is also becoming a common practice in digital humanities spaces (Wilkens 2012). Looking at different elements of fan fiction provides a more complete understanding of thematic narratives, key words, and categorical information present when examining fan fiction.
[3.3] All twenty fan fictions were downloaded from AO3 as PDF files. This was done in case any of the fan fictions were taken down during the study and to perform computational analysis on the words in Voyant. Voyant is an open-source program and free website that can analyze large text-based datasets (Voyant Tools, http://voyant-tools.org/). Based on the textual analysis, which had been performed first, there were a few key words that stood out in both the platonic and romantic relationship categories. In multiple stories in both relationship categories, Tony referred to Peter as "kid." In a few of the platonic relationship stories, Peter referred to Tony as "dad." In the romantic relationship fan fictions, Peter often referred to Tony as either "sir" or "daddy." To further understand how these key words were used and in what context, word concordances on these four terms were done with Voyant. Word concordance displays a few words before and after the key term to efficiently show how the chosen word was used in a sentence. A random sample from each key word was pulled from Voyant. Finally, the metadata on all twenty fan fictions was pulled from AO3, including archive warnings, ratings, and additional tags.
[3.4] In order to navigate ethical concerns that arise within scholarship that focuses on fan communities and their creative output, I follow best practices developed by the Association of Internet Researchers, such as not referring to specific fan works by title or author (franzke et al. 2020). In the case of the slash pairing "Peter Parker/Tony Stark," it must be mentioned that Peter Parker is seventeen years old in the MCU as of the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), and therefore some of these stories represent underage sexuality. While some fan fictions age Peter up to be eighteen years old or older, others do not. I do not aim to support nor judge the nature and content of these fan works. Rather, these fan works offer a look into how the source material is "extrapolated or subverted" into these scenarios (Spacey 2018, 221).
4. Peter Parker & Tony Stark
[4.1] Across both sample sets, authors pick and choose which elements of canon to include, remix, or remove. For the ten fan fictions tagged "Peter Parker & Tony Stark," there were two stories told from Tony's point of view, two from Peter's point of view, five that switched between the two, and one story told from an outsider's point of view. All ten stories took place within the MCU, mostly between Civil War and Infinity War. Two stories focused on the aftermath of the Sokovia Accords and Peter's negative attitude toward the rogue Avengers, with Peter openly defending Tony and disliking Steve Rogers. Only one story existed explicitly in a world where the events of Civil War never happened. One story took place after the events of Endgame, with a twist that Peter used the infinity gauntlet instead of Tony, causing Tony to take care of a sick Peter. In two of the stories, Aunt May, Peter's legal guardian, was dead, leaving Tony to adopt Peter. Two stories used specific elements from Homecoming—Peter almost destroying a ferry and a building falling on Peter—as plot points for Tony's guilt of not being there for Peter. In five different stories, there was an emphasis on Peter being physically and geographically closer to Tony and the Avengers. In the films, Peter lives in Queens, while Tony and the Avengers reside in either Manhattan or upstate New York. In the two stories where Aunt May was dead, Peter moved into the Avengers Compound or into the Stark cabin on the lake. In another story, Peter spent his weekends at the Avengers Compound. While all of the fan fictions stayed in the same universe as the canon, there was a lot of remixing regarding the plot.
[4.2] Elements of Tony and Peter's dynamics in the canon were also remixed. All of the stories heavily focused on Peter and Tony's friendship, with an emphasis on Tony being Peter's mentor. Two of the stories expanded on Peter's internship at Stark Industries. Tony taking care of a sick Peter was the main focus of three stories. In another story, Tony performed first aid on Peter in front of his classmates. In the fan fictions that were in Tony's point of view, there was an emphasis on Tony being a good mentor to Peter. There was a lot of focus on Tony being a better father than his own. In fan fictions that were in Peter's point of view, there was an emphasis on Peter getting support from Tony. As previously stated, Tony's guilt from previous canon events served as a motivator for doing a better job. In one story, Peter dissolving in Tony's arms at the end of Infinity War played a key role in the plot of the story.
[4.3] In one story, Tony asked Peter to call him "Tony" instead of "Mr. Stark." In two other stories, Peter verbally referred to Tony as "dad," and in another story Peter referred to Tony as "dad" in his point of view narrative. Having Peter refer to Tony as "dad" shows that Peter sees Tony not only as a mentor but as a father figure. In one story, Morgan, Tony and Pepper Potts's biological daughter, referred to Peter as her brother. When Pepper Potts, Tony's partner, was featured in the fan fiction, she was affectionate toward Peter and treated him like her own son. In one story, Pepper referred to Tony as Peter's dad out loud to others. In the same story, Peter referred to Pepper as "mom" out loud to her. In one story, Peter and Tony verbally said "I love you" to each other. In many stories, they physically displayed signs of platonic affection such as hugs, shoulder squeezes, and hair noogies. In two stories, Peter wore Tony's clothes as a way to calm down his spidey sense. There were multiple scenes in the stories in which Aunt May was dead where Peter cried in Tony's arms and was comforted by Tony. When other members of the Avengers were present in the fan fictions, they accepted Peter as a member of the team. In one story, Thor referred to Tony as Peter's "dad," showcasing that other Avengers saw Tony as Peter's father figure, too. When the stories mentioned the rogue Avengers or Steve Rogers almost killing Tony in Siberia, Peter was quick to defend his mentor. There was never any negativity from other characters toward Peter and Tony being close or sharing emotions with each other.
[4.4] The remixing of the characters' personalities and relationship dynamics allowed for a deeper understanding of these two characters. While these narratives featured father-son dynamics present in the source text and in many superhero films (Avery 2023; Kvaran 2017), there was much more focus on healing familial trauma and breaking away from hypermasculinity. These physical and emotional displays of comfort deviate from the source texts by expanding upon them. In many of the stories, Peter relied on his father figure to comfort him in much more complex and open ways than in the source text.
[4.5] For the platonic relationship word concordances, terms "kid" and "dad" were chosen for analysis. The term "kid" appeared 294 times in all ten platonic fan fictions. The word "dad" appeared 105 times across nine of the fan fictions. Each concordance example displayed in the following tables was chosen using a random number generator. Table 1 shows the six word concordance examples are to Peter being called "kid." The first example is in Tony's point of view. The second, third, fourth, and fifth examples are Tony talking to Peter. The last example is someone else referring to Peter as Tony's "kid." All of the examples are affectionate in tone, with compassion toward Peter being referred to as a "kid." This reiterates that in these stories, Tony sees Peter as a "kid" to mentor. All six of the word concordance examples for the term "dad" (table 2) are in reference to Tony being Peter's "dad." The first example is Rhodey, one of Tony's best friends, telling Tony that he is going to be a good "dad" to Peter. The second example shows the key term being used as a response to Tony. Tony says, "I'm so sorry, kid," with Peter responding by calling Tony "dad." The third example is Peter stating that Tony isn't his "dad." This is in reference to Peter coming to terms with the fact that he sees Tony as a father figure. The fourth example is from Tony's point of view, musing on the thought of Peter calling him "dad." The fifth example is a play on a popular dad joke, where the father figure will call themselves what the child just said. In this case, Peter responds to Tony with, "Hi serious, I'm dad." The sixth example is a rebuff of Peter telling someone that Tony isn't his "dad," but whoever he's talking to doesn't believe him.
Table 1. Word concordances for the term "kid" in the platonic category
Before | Term | After |
from side to side but the | kid | was out like a light |
kind of stress? You're a smart | kid | Peter, a really smart kid |
squeezing Peter's shoulder. "Thank you, | kid | . You did me a real |
nearly killed me. You're my | kid | and I couldn't protect you |
held his harm. "Oh, shit | kid | ," Tony's laughter was gone as |
some random kid. He's Mr. Stark's | kid | ." or: the interns at Stark |
Table 2. Word concordances for the term "dad" in the platonic category
Before | Term | After |
"You'll make a good | dad | ," Rhodey says. Pepper is restless |
too. I'm so sorry, kid." " | dad | ," Peter whispered, voice breaking |
is not, in fact, his | dad | , that he lives with his |
didn't care. Peter had called him | dad | . Peter hummed around the spoon. |
serious, Peter." "Hi serious, I'm | dad | ." "I'm ignoring that," Mr. Stark |
you, Mr. Stark isn't my | dad | ." "Uh huh." "I'm serious! I've |
[4.6] Out of the ten fan fictions tagged "Peter Parker & Tony Stark," eight of the stories were rated General. Two of the stories were rated Teen. All ten of the fan fictions were labeled as not having any archive warnings, meaning there was no graphic violence, major character death, rape or noncon (short for nonconsensual), or underage sex in any of the stories. Eight out of ten stories in the platonic relationship category were tagged with "Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure." Two stories were tagged with "Dead May Parker (Spider-Man)," meaning that Peter's legal guardian was dead in the story. Many of the most used tags that were used in this category were related to the type of story being told. For example, "Mild Hurt/Comfort" and "Family Fluff" are tags related to how it will make the reader feel. "Tony Stark Has a Heart," "Peter Parker Needs a Hug," "Precious Peter Parker," "Hurt Peter Parker," "Protective Tony Stark," and "Worried Tony Stark" speak to the narrative or themes present in the stories. Table 3 sorts these tags by frequency.
Table 3. Platonic tags sorted by frequency
2020 Platonic Tags | Count |
Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure | 8 |
Tony Stark Has a Heart | 7 |
Peter Parker Needs a Hug | 6 |
Precious Peter Parker | 6 |
Hurt Peter Parker | 4 |
Protective Tony Stark | 4 |
Mild Hurt/Comfort | 3 |
Worried Tony Stark | 3 |
Dead May Parker (Spider-Man) | 2 |
Family Fluff | 2 |
[4.7] Most of the stories tagged "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" continued the narrative from a specific spot in the MCU timeline. Much of the focus was on filling in the gaps of the narrative with an emphasis on Tony being Peter's mentor. Two stories took that a step further by having Tony adopt Peter as his son. In all of the fan fictions where Aunt May appeared, she didn't play an important role in the plot. She was either killed off to allow Tony to legally adopt Peter or just in the background supporting Tony's mentorship of Peter. This continues the narrative in the canon text, with Aunt May dying in No Way Home and in other superhero films where the mother figure is pushed aside in favor of the father figure and is only used as a plot point (Kvaran 2017; Scott 2013). Aunt May was always second to Tony.
[4.8] The platonic relationship fan fictions presented more nuanced expressions of masculinity compared to the films. Tony's mentorship was rooted in Tony being a better father figure than his own. What appears only as visual and textual clues in the canon is expanded greatly in these fan fictions. This included physically showing affection toward Peter, allowing Peter to cry on his shoulder, and in some cases, becoming his legal father. While Aunt May is shoved aside to aid in the platonic relationship between Peter and Tony, it's done with complexity not seen in the source text. Instead of using the physical and emotional hypermasculine traits present in the MCU and in other superhero films, fan fiction writers remediated the source text by transforming daddy issues into a more nuanced, supportive father-son dynamic. Peter never sought approval from Tony, and Tony never pushed Peter to be like him; in many of the platonic relationship stories, Tony explicitly fought against passing down what he learned from his father.
5. Peter Parker/Tony Stark
[5.1] The other side of this duality is the romantic and sexual relationship between Peter and Tony. For the ten fan fictions tagged "Peter Parker/Tony Stark," there were four stories in Peter's point of view, one story in Tony's point of view, and five stories that switched between Peter and Tony's points of view. There was a split between stories focused on both narrative and sexual elements and stories mainly focused on sexual encounters between Peter and Tony—also known as porn without plot. Four of the stories featured an aged-up, nineteen-year-old Peter in college, either at NYU or MIT. In three stories, Peter was seventeen years old and still in high school. One story didn't specify Peter's age, but the author referred to Peter as young in the author's note and used the underage archive warning. Two stories never mentioned Peter's age, with no reference point from the source canon to guess how old Peter was in the fan fiction. Many of the stories used Peter's Stark Industries internship as a starting point for Peter and Tony's romantic relationship, some set in a world where Peter was Spider-Man and some where he wasn't. Only one story referenced Infinity War.
[5.2] There was also a clear divide in the interactions between Peter and Tony across the stories. Five stories featured more playful flirting and banter, while the other five positioned Tony as obsessed with Peter. Six stories showed varying elements of dominant/submissive dynamics, with Tony always being dominant and Peter always being submissive. Peter lost his virginity to Tony in four of the stories. In one story, Tony was jealous of Peter's boyfriend. Only two stories featured Tony trying to be a good mentor to Peter, in conjunction with the Stark Industries internship. In two stories, Tony internally struggled with being attracted to a seventeen-year-old Peter. One story featured a very abusive Tony who kidnapped Peter, and another story was about mob boss Tony Stark who takes in a homeless Peter.
[5.3] In stories that featured May Parker, Pepper Potts, or other members of the Avengers, they were mostly accepting of Peter and Tony being in a romantic relationship. In one story, Peter was a member of the Avengers. He and Tony flirted in front of the other members, and everyone was okay with it. Three stories used paparazzi, catching Peter and Tony out on romantic dates. In the story where Tony kidnapped Peter, the other Avengers knew what he was doing to Peter and didn't intervene. In two stories where Peter was still in high school, Aunt May was initially angry that he was dating Tony; she eventually accepted their romantic relationship. Similar to the platonic stories, Aunt May functioned as a plot device to highlight the male main characters (Kvaran 2017; Scott 2013).
[5.4] Explicit daddy kink was prominent in half of the stories, while implicit in the other five. In two of the stories, Tony became Peter's sugar daddy. Multiple stories had Peter consistently refer to Tony as "sir" or "daddy." In one story, Tony was biologically Peter's father. In the stories that used the Stark Industries internship as a plot device, Tony was his direct supervisor or boss. In three stories, Peter thought about his body being made to be used by Tony. Only one story positioned Peter as sex-positive and having previous boyfriends. Three stories utilized alpha/beta/omega dynamics, a popular fan fiction trope grounded in sexual power dynamics (Busse 2013); Tony was always the alpha, and Peter was always the omega. In one of those stories, Peter became pregnant with Tony's child. Once the child was born, they referred to Peter as "mom." In all ten stories, Peter was positioned as being the submissive one in the relationship, with Tony being in charge. The daddy issues present in the source text were remediated into dominant/submissive daddy kink, with Peter seeing Tony as his authoritative father figure in a sexual way.
[5.5] For the romantic relationship word concordances, the words "kid," "sir," and "daddy" were chosen for analysis. The term "kid" appeared 415 times in eight of the fan fictions. "Sir" appeared 362 times in seven of the fan fictions, and "daddy" appeared 102 times in seven fan fictions. Each concordance example displayed in the following tables was chosen using a random number generator. All six of the word concordance examples for the term "kid" (table 4) are in reference to Peter. In the first example, Peter tells Tony that he should stop using that term when referring to him. The second, third, fourth, and sixth examples are from Tony's point of view, referring to Peter as the "kid" in his head. In the fifth example, Tony verbally refers to Peter as a "kid." All six of the word concordance examples for the term "sir" (table 5) are dialogue quotes with Peter referring to Tony as "sir." The first, second, third, and sixth examples demonstrate hesitation or shyness in the use of that term, while the fourth and fifth examples seem more enthusiastic.
Table 4. Word concordances for the term "kid" in the romantic category
Before | Term | After |
probably stop calling me | kid | ," Peter continues, pushing his luck |
into Peter's mouth, letting the | kid | taste himself. Peter let himself |
watching himself fucking the | kid | is truly a delicious sight |
ready to go further. The | kid | was horny and not thinking |
to speak. "Look at me, | kid | ." Peter obeyed immediately. "I want |
finger over Peter's prostate, the | kid | shrieks. "Good or bad?" Tony |
Table 5. Word concordances for the term "sir" in the romantic category
Before | Term | After |
"W-what should I do, | sir | ?" "Surprise me." It's obvious what |
you understand?" "I won't fight you, | sir | ," Peter whispers in defeat, only |
answer." "I, I don't know, | sir | ," Peter says. "Life is – it's |
I sort of have another idea | sir | ." "What's that?" Tony knitted his |
come. I want it. Please, | sir | ." Tony let himself go, fucking |
p-please don't punish me, | sir | ." Tony's lips curl into a |
[5.6] All six of the word concordance examples of the term "daddy" (table 6) showcase Peter using the term toward Tony. The third and fifth examples are in response to Tony, combining the terms "yes" and "daddy." The second, third, fifth, and sixth examples are explicitly sexual in nature. The first example is from Tony's point of view, referring to asking Peter to call him "daddy." The fourth example is from Peter's point of view, referencing that he called Tony his "daddy" in front of other people. Comparing how the same words are used in the friendship fan fictions and the romantic relationship fan fictions reveals an emerging trend. Peter is referred to as the "kid" and Tony is referred to as "dad" or "daddy." These word concordances corroborate the narrative themes discovered in the textual analysis of these stories by always positioning Tony as the mentor and Peter as the mentee—just in different contexts. Peter calling Tony "daddy" in all six word concordances also reiterates their sexual age gap power dynamics as daddy kink (Silva 2023).
Table 6. Word concordances for the term "daddy" in the romantic category
Before | Term | After |
ask you to call me | daddy | . Although I admit that some |
a firm, trembling line. His | daddy | kept doing it, rubbing his |
want to feel it." "Yes, | daddy | ," Peter responded in a breathy |
called Tony Stark my sugar | daddy | in front of actual people |
cheeks flushing, he says, "Yes, | daddy | ." "Good boy. On the bed |
"Am I being good for you, | daddy | ?" Tony sits up and takes |
[5.7] All ten fan fictions tagged "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" were rated Explicit. Five of the stories were labeled as not having archive warnings, meaning there was no graphic violence, major character death, rape or noncon, or underage sex in any of the stories. One was labeled that the author chose not to apply warnings, meaning there could be any of the five archive warning categories in the fan fiction, but the author chose not to tag it. Compared to the platonic relationship category, the tags used in the romantic relationship category were more concerned with tagging the sexual content present rather than narratives or themes present in the stories. Five of the stories were tagged with "Bottom Peter Parker," and four were tagged "Top Tony Stark," referring to the dynamic of their sexual encounters. "Daddy Kink" was tagged in four stories. "Age Difference" was tagged in two stories. Table 7 sorts these tags by frequency. Stories tagged "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" showed a divide in the narratives. About half of the fan works used an aged-up Peter that was seemingly more on equal terms with Tony, while the other half featured an underage Peter sexually and emotionally submitting to Tony.
Table 7. Romantic tags sorted by frequency
2020 Romantic Tags | Count |
Bottom Peter Parker | 5 |
Anal Sex | 4 |
Daddy Kink | 4 |
Top Tony Stark | 4 |
Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics | 3 |
Alternate Universe – No Powers | 3 |
Eventual Smut | 3 |
Knotting | 3 |
Rimming | 3 |
Age Difference | 2 |
[5.8] The romantic relationship fan fictions remixed daddy issues that were present in the canon into sexual daddy kink. Tony was positioned as traditionally masculine, pursuing Peter as something to be obtained. Peter was positioned with more feminine traits, submitting to Tony in all aspects of their relationship. The stories also perpetuate pederasty, or when an older male has sexual relations with a younger, inexperienced male. Ashton Spacey (2018) notes that dark slash fan fiction has the ability to both subvert and conform to heteronormative society. The latter occurred within "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" fan fictions. While there were a handful of fan fictions that featured more playful flirting and seemingly more equal power dynamics, all of the romantic relationship fan fictions conformed to traditional patriarchal dynamics of daddy kink. Peter was always submissive, and Tony always did the ravishing. Henry Jenkins (1992) notes that a lot of the remediation work that happens in fan fiction is to dismantle patriarchal norms that are present in the source text. When it comes to same-sex couples depicted in fan fiction, these remediations have the ability to blur the lines between ideas of masculinity and femininity (Fowler 2018; Jenkins 1992; Popova 2018; Spacey 2018). However, all of the romantic relationship stories reinforced traditionally masculine archetypes typically seen in Western superhero media (Avery 2023; De Dauw 2021; Hamilton 2021; Kvaran 2017) by coding Peter as feminine and Tony as masculine, transforming the canonical daddy issues into daddy kink. Mel Stanfill (2020) argues that "slash fiction often upholds gender hierarchies through being implicitly or explicitly misogynistic" (451). The romantic and sexual Spider-Man fan fictions here show that this is still the case.
6. Conclusion
[6.1] By utilizing textual analysis, computational analysis, and metadata analysis, researchers can get a better and more complete understanding of remixed meaning-making (Hautsch 2022, 2023) that fans create through fan fiction. In the case of Peter Parker and Tony Stark, both the platonic and romantic fan fictions utilize the same representations of masculinity and daddy issues to create new narratives that diverge from the source text and that fall outside of the traditional depictions of superhero media in the last two decades (Avery 2023; De Dauw 2021; Hamilton 2021; Kvaran 2017). While the platonic and romantic fan fictions utilize vastly different characterizations and tropes to examine these themes, both categories inherently arrive at similar meanings. In all twenty fan fictions, Peter Parker is always positioned as the younger male character trying to please the older male authority figure, and Tony Stark is always the older male authority figure to Peter. The dichotomy between the words "kid" and "dad/daddy" highlights that while the words are being used in different ways, they still position this power dynamic between Peter and Tony to create new meaning to these representations of masculinity and daddy issues.
[6.2] While this study used overall works produced in a single year as the starting point to analyze how fans remix daddy issues and masculinity in fan fiction, it only looked at the most popular fan fictions in each relationship tag instead of all the fan fictions posted in each tag in 2020. This was due to the sheer number of fan works posted with the tags "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" and "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" in 2020. This study cannot account for events within the fandom that led to these types of fan fictions being produced. Abigail De Kosnik (2016) analyzed spikes in fan fiction produced and compared those spikes to events that occurred in the fandom and in the original source text. There was no new MCU Spider-Man content in 2020 to externally spark interest, which suggests the phenomenon was fandom-related. There might have been "Peter Parker & Tony Stark" and "Peter Parker/Tony Stark" fandom spikes happening concurrently on other social media platforms like Tumblr and Twitter, but none of the twenty chosen fan fictions were tagged as being part of a fandom writing challenge or exchange. The COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdowns could account for some of the spike, but it's difficult to pinpoint. Future research, like social media analysis or a survey, could be done to understand the authors' perspective on remixing the source canon in opposite directions. The platonic mentor/mentee versus sexual dominant/submissive remix duality could be studied in other fandoms, like DC's Batman and one of his Robins. Analyzing fan fiction provides valuable insight into how fan fiction writers decode the source text and remix themes present in the source text.