Conclusion

As a category of fan translation, fanfiction translation in the most generic sense is unique in that it’s missing the aspect of opposition to the “official” translation (such as is the case of fan subtitles, fan computer game localizations or even fan book translation, as was mentioned in reference to the amateur Harry Potter translations) and operates fully within the realm of fandom and the fanfiction writing scene, mirroring its demographics and using its structures, networks, and practices.

The main motivational forces behind fanfiction translation, as they were identified in the Chapter on the pre-2000 era – an expression of personal attachment to the original world and its characters, the need to share more information and fan speculation about the original world, and the joy of using one’s skill to enable others to access texts they wouldn’t otherwise be able to read, all had a certain “educational” dimension – the translator was not just translating, but also informing what fanfiction (a concept possibly unknown to many) is, organizing writing contests, encouraging other fans to translate and offering help to those who didn’t feel confident enough. Even at the risk of oversimplification or generalizations, it’s possible to see a parallel with what we may consider to be the role of official translators – mediators between different worlds.

All these aspects, including the “educational” dimension, also remained in the new, modern fanfiction era, and remained successful. These aspects are, again with some level of simplification, represented by the moderated story archives, by fan groups who organize writing or translation contests and other activities or individual translators who enjoy translating theoretical texts, or by online initiatives that combine collaborative approach to translation with beta reading, creating a supervised online translation environment.

But as fanfiction became massively popular in the new century, so did fanfiction translation, and the “educational” aspects perhaps made way for fanfiction translation as a more spontaneous activity, which is probably demonstrated best by all the questionnaire responses that simply stated “fun” as their main motivation factor. This was recognized by various community sites that do not necessarily organize activities from above but provide only the basic technical features necessary to allow the users to generate, share and store their own fanfiction translation related content – story archives with minimum level of moderation or other sites that allow their users to share recommendations and news and updates.

Apart from the basic online community hubs (story archives and other sites), fanfiction translation also shares with fanfiction translation the “beta reading” practice, creating a similar dynamics between the translators and their “betas” as between writers and their beta readers. When browsing the main Czech and Slovak archives and community sites, it’s possible after a while to identify nicknames that fulfil multiple roles, both in the writing and translation segment.

The strong emphasis on fanfiction translation as a language learning practice, as seen in many questionnaire responses, significantly accentuates the individualistic nature of this activity, but from the broader perspective, fanfiction translation seems to be truly a community practice, which uses and in turn shapes the existing structures of the online fanfiction space. At the same time, that doesn’t mean it is homogenous in its individual approaches and practices, because even the seemingly generic and repetitive questionnaire responses reveal a lot of richness and interesting small details, which would be worth exploring on a smaller scale. These include fleeting comments about “having an exclusivity” on some stories or authors, sharing similar values with admired authors, imagining how a beloved story would feel like in Czech, not actually posting the translations publicly, striking up online friendships with the authors or only translating those stories that fit a certain pattern or characteristic.