“Vadeng, ang bato, Darna!:” The Queering Strategies and Resulting Queer Representation in Sapphic TikTok Fan Edits of Darna (2022)

The Filipino teleserye, known for its social realism, offers insights into its viewers’ lives but often presents limited and stereotyped portrayals of LGBTQI+ individuals, including queer women, due to heteronormativity. Fanfiction, specifically slash fiction, resists this by reimagining heteronormative narratives from a queer angle. Despite digital media advancements, Philippine research has yet to analyze fan-led queer representation on digital storytelling platforms, such as TikTok. Hence, following similar research by McGorry (2022), this study purposively sampled fifty sapphic TikTok fan edits of the teleserye Darna (2022) to examine how Vadengs, fans of protagonists Narda Custodio (Darna) and Regina Vanguardia (Valentina), reimagined and reconstructed their canon platonic friendship as a queer relationship. Using a deductive-first qualitative content analysis, informed by Jenkins’ (1992) Approaches of Textual Reconstruction, Perea’s (2018) Markers of Queer Identity, and Goldmann’s (2022) Generic Traits of Slash, this study identifies five themes showing fan creators queer heteronormative narratives through intensified emotions and contextual shifts, while representing sapphic relationships as traditionally conforming, physically affectionate, and emotionally expressive. The findings support that sapphic TikTok fan edits are a form of not only digital but sociocultural storytelling that allows a deeper understanding of queer women experiences, challenges heteronormative mainstream media, and ultimately reclaims marginalized queer women representation. This study contributes to media scholarship and empowers fan communities, LGBTQI+ identities, and media producers by promoting critical media consumption and, more importantly, informing authentic and stereotype-free sapphic narratives in Philippine mainstream media.