Fiction Matters*

[eumelia]

Full disclosure: I am a reader of fan-fiction, an occasional writer and have aspirations to be a critical aca-fen.

Now, go forth and read what I have to say about All Of This.
(Screenshot of all three posts and the PS). h/t ciaan

The reason I went online all those years ago, more than a decade for sure, was because I was looking for people like me.

What do I mean, people like me?

Fans of the teevee show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What I found was a sapling of what would be a giant red-wood tree of creativity, community and fun.

I wrote Buffy fanfic before I knew what fanfic was. Blatant self-inserts that I and my BFF at the time, who is also a Buffy fan, put in so that we could talk directly to the characters.
Her character was a manifestation of Energy who became human in search for love (i.e. Dawn).
My character was a vampire woman who was seriously into S/M (something else I had no idea existed at the time, I was sure I was inventing something) and enjoyed tormenting the male vampires and seducing young high school girls (i.e. Vamp Willow, also Faith sans the Vampire part, of course).

When both these characters did in fact actually manifest on the screen all those years later, when we were already in our late teens and little bit more aware of the world and all it's multitudes, we *squeed*.

Look a body switch episode! We wrote that four years ago! *gasp*

And so on. It really felt like we had predicted a huge bunch of events in the show, we even speculated that Joss had hacked into our email accounts and lifted our ideas.

We were so happy and proud.

I remember thinking we couldn't be the only ones. So I went looking. Boy, what a treasure I found.

I couldn't tell you when, or how, I found my first piece of fan-fiction. Most of it was gen (i.e. action adventure plot driven stories, like extra episodes) and I was thrilled to read more adventures of my favourite characters.

But the best was when I found this archive. It is an archive I got back to nostalgically every once in a while, these were the stories that showed me the power that fan-fiction was capable of.
It could fix entire realities.
It could bring people back to life.
It could make those who suffer - suffer a little less, or at the very least, have comfort and know that he suffering was ending.

I realised that canon was just the beginning.

In my searches for fics that helped me get through the grief of Buffy I had also found erotic fanfiction. Buffy and Angel couldn't be together on screen, but they had been multiple times and in multiple ways online. My first Slash was Angel/Spike, my first Femslash was Buffy/Faith.

Those two pairings and those four characters together hold a dear place in my heart.

If it weren't for Buffy fanfic, I would love the actual show a whole lot less.

I have found that I only seek our fanfiction for shows, texts and media that I truly love. Though the other reason is that at times the delivery of amazing concepts is a bit... eh. You know could have been better, needs a little touching up here and there.

Like with Harry Potter. I started reading HP Fanfic during the long hiatus between books four and book five. The richness of JKR's world in amazing and for fuck's sake she didn't do enough with it! Snape got a thousand voices - my favourite character! Not as seen from Harry's eyes. Harry is much improved in fanon as well.
And Hermione, sexually active and book-kinky Hermione... of course she's get it on with Snape.
Mainly because Sanpe would get it on with anyone.

Ahem.

Others in this debate have said that fic is dialogue, reaction and transformative. All this is true, and I myself have donated and am a member of OTW.
But fan-fiction is two other things for me. It is a coded meta-reading of the world that is being written and read, and it is an act of devotion.
We are devoted to the canon and we create our own liturgy, nothing is true and all is permitted.

I don't use those religious words lightly. I am an atheist and if there's one thing I've noticed in my criticism of religion is the fact that prayer itself, is lifted from the canon text of the Hebrew Bible.
We can explain the world, both fictional and not, by devoting ourselves to its ins and outs and yes, on occasion, changing details that enable us to see ourselves in that world we love so much.

I wouldn't know how to be queer without fan-fiction. I do not see myself on the teevee screen that often, unless it is to titillate or horrify the audience it is actually intended for, Buffy is only queer is reading, it is sometimes canonically gay.
Willow showed me that you can be gay.
Snape showed me you can be bi.
Jack showed me you can be queer.

I haven't mentioned Torchwood, mainly because it is my current fandom and I've written a tonne about it regardless of anything.

Fiction has changed my life, fan-fiction is a not a market and anyone can find anything because it is created by those not constrained by editors and target audiences. fan-fiction (and any other kind of transformative work) exists out of a desire for a story that is our own.

We no longer have folk tales. The notion that there is anything original was refuted thousands of years ago - "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV).
When you think about it, Dante Alighieri and John Milton wrote fan-fic.

Bottom line. You can dislike Fan-Fiction as much as you want. You can call it lazy, unoriginal, illegal (which is not the same as unethical!) or any other pejorative you can think of. That is your right, it is so easy not to read it.

Through fan-fic I discovered so much and so many comic books and more original fiction that I would probably have a much smaller book collection than I do. Three book shelves, stacked baby.

Don't tell me that fan-fiction is less meaningful that original-fiction.

Because it's wrong.

*Get the pun? Get it? :P

Comments

[ariestess]

Oh, thank you!