Description: An analytical essay on fanfiction and the culture surrounding its existence.
October 2024: This was written prior to Rowling’s public dedication to being a TERF. I actively oppose this, and no longer engage with her work or anything related to it.
Regardless, I have not modified this essay because it is still reflective of my authentic feelings at the time. Think of it like a time capsule, or a transformative work in itself. Sometimes the things that meant so much to us in the past become dead to us in the future. But that doesn’t contradict the meaning it used to give us, nor should our past be the source of any shame.
Though my beliefs are ever changing, this essay is representative of some beliefs I had at the time; I did some minor editorializing to make them come off a little less judgmental to a degree I’m comfortable with still sharing. But despite the aspects of this essay I don’t stand by anymore, I feel like the thesis is still valuable and important, and remains to reflect my overall opinion on transformative culture.
When I was 8-years old and in love with every fictional protagonist I found even mildly attractive (this also counts Reggie from Rocket Power, even though she’s not the protagonist and I hadn’t even been aware of what a massive crush I had on her at the time), I started daydreaming. I daydreamed my own Harry Potter books where Harry would fall in love with a character based on me. I daydreamed episodes of TV shows where the protagonist would fall in love with my self-insert. I made up LARP games with my friends where the protagonist would fall in love with our self-inserts. And after my love for reading had been fully developed, I even wrote 200-words or so of these self-inserts, before ultimately giving up, as 10-year-olds are wont to do.
When I was 12-years old, I became deeply invested in Harry Potter as an individual source material. I still wrote self-inserts at the time, of course — but as for reading, my interests expanded. No longer was I purely writing out of my self-insert indulgence, but I began to read other people’s self-inserts for the characters of themselves that they created. I began to read fanfiction for (to my mild shame, as I actually never finished it) Naruto, with characters who already existed, no self-inserts at all! I began to ship pre-existing characters, began to seek out fanfiction for them, no longer purely interested in how characters could fall in love with me — but how they could fall in love with each other.
When I was 15-years old, I got most of my head out of my homophobic ass at the time and became invested in shipping characters… of the same gender. Not only that, but due to my being raised in a homophobic background, with this “enlightenment” of shipping (which I admit did, at the time, fall along the line of straight girl fetishization) I began actively researching on modern LGBT oppression and how to argue against homophobic Christians, something with which I now harbor as a hidden talent as my contact with homophobic Christians has diminished significantly since then. I was not the best “ally,” as I identified myself at the time, but I did read and write slash fiction.
When I was 18-years old, I realized I was probably not straight.
When I was 19-years old, I realized that even fanfiction does not have the best track record of caring for characters who are not white. I also could recognize that a lot of slash shippers who were straight girls had a frightening amount of misogyny, both in their stories and attitudes.
(Full disclosure: I spent several years in boy band fandoms.)
There is a modern stigma with fanfiction that has not changed, really, but just gets added to as younger people continue to grow and develop the same type of transformative interests as older fans have. We start with self-indulgence; we move onto self-interest; and afterward we move onto creativity and contextual awareness, which may or may not change how we view the world. And for some reason, the very foundation from which fanfiction arises — indulgence, interest, and creativity — is seen as immature or invasive or just plain illegal. But aside from the latter argument (which I have no say in, I know very little about law), I don’t think many people, even those within fanfiction communities, are aware of why we even create fanworks.
Fanwork is talkback culture. From the moment you consume a piece of entertainment, and you have an opinion, a feeling, a criticism — that is talkback culture. The moment you discuss it with other consumers — that is talkback culture. And so when you draw the characters or write something that you want to happen in the story or imagine happening to the characters — well, that’s talkback culture.
Being a fan has absolutely nothing to do with sitting down, reading or watching, and then simply enjoying. You can certainly do that — but as an imaginative kid, I also wanted to create worlds in my mind as if I was experiencing the adventure. I learned what emotional investment was and imagined branches of the story between pre-existing characters as if the source material was my original idea, even though I knew it was not. And then I learned what homophobia was and saw characters not limited by assumed heteronormativity; I learned what internalized racism was and refused to let white beauty standards determine who I cared about; I learned what misogynistic narratives were and learned to deepen my readings of female characters, both on their own or in relationships (romantic or otherwise) with each other.
When you are a “fan” (a term that came in the late-nineteenth century as an abbreviation for “fanatic”) you do not simply consume. You talk back. Sometimes it’s not done in the best way, where you shower a piece of media with praise and create excuses for its flaws. Sometimes it’s done as wish-fulfillment, where two characters have so much chemistry in the source material that you want them to romantically end up together, despite the low realistic chances, so you find your own words instead. And sometimes it’s a raunchier kind of talkback, where you take a children’s show and decide to draw porn of it and post it on the internet.
While I have a complicated relationship with what may be more exploitative forms of transformative work, I think it’s important to recognize that fandom — and specifically (but not exclusively) the fanfiction community — is founded in this idea that we respond to the source material. I have a friend who absolutely hates the seventh Harry Potter book, and only reads Harry Potter fanfiction “that could never be canon.” I have many friends with whom that despite how much we love the last two seasons of Legend of Korra, we never fail to remark and call upon all of the show’s flaws. I have read so many analyses of Harry Potter characters and relationships; and within the fanfiction community I have read essays where fans analyze our own racism and misogyny, within fanworks or among fans.
In the realm of fanfiction, there is no such thing as a flaw that goes unnoticed, a detail that goes unanalyzed, or an idea that goes unexplored. We talk back to the source material; we talk back to other fans; we talk back to ourselves. Where everyone else can consume and move on, we discuss what was wrong, what we liked, character dynamics and motivations, well-written narratives with a flawed rhetoric, flawed narratives with a well-intended rhetoric, forced heterosexuality, evident characters-of-color shafting. We criticize characters; we defend characters; we discuss what relationships we think could work or not work, based on our own interpretations and preferences. We analyze, and analyze, and analyze some more.
Honestly, this should be any literature teacher’s wet dream.
The fact is that, at the end of the day, fanfiction gets this connotation of shame attached to it outside of fannish circles. “What’s creative about writing about someone else’s characters?” they may ask. “Why don’t you write your own original stories?”
I find this to be a misleading question, as fanfiction writers either a) are already writing their own original stories and don’t need the suggestion; or b) have no intentions of writing their own stories and only write fanfiction for fun. Either way, while an aspect of fanfiction is founded in creativity, it is not its only foundation.
Fanfiction writers see the potential of characters or character dynamics and make it so. They see the potential of a story that could take that risky, unsatisfying leap — and they take it themselves. Fanfiction writers, especially LGBT ones, understand that in mainstream media there is a drastic underrepresentation of same-gender romantic/sexual relationships that will likely never happen — so they decide to create the representation themselves. Fanfiction writers redeem female characters who get sidelined or killed off. Fanfiction writers try to treat the story that they love — or the characters that they love — or the relationship that they love — with respect. (And no, “disrespect” does not equate to “sex,” so don’t bother with any “but icky slash fandom and all their perverted gay sex!”) Fanfiction writers write what the straight or white or male original writers would never write; fanfiction writers see the canon perspective of someone else’s world and establish their own view of it.
There is personal investment, of course, as there is with most things creative. But fanfiction is never a lack of originality or a waste of time: it’s critical thinking, and it’s imaginative. While I can’t vouch for every fan creator having harmless intentions, I can say that it at least is an example of individual analysis, even if not always the best type. Fanworks are evident of a unique reflection and perception based on something pre-existing, a product of what happens when people use their hearts and their fingers and, sometimes, their brains. And what comes with it is self-discovery, self-criticism, self-satisfaction, and creative growth.
Though I highly doubt that I’m capable of changing the shame and fake underground culture of fanfiction with a single essay, I do want to say that it’s okay to have a voice in response to a published creative work. Discussions of legalities aside, the fact is that fanfiction has never been based solely on selfishness. The way fans understand a story, or a character, or a dynamic, always plays a significant role in the fanfiction they read or publish; we care, and that’s why we read or write it. We want to escape, and that’s why we read or write it. We love — and that’s why we read or write it. Even if my motivations as an 8-year-old in love with Harry Potter differ from myself as a 22-year-old who thinks that Draco and Harry should kiss, my heart is in the same place.
Of course, writers could also draw fanart, but I personally suck at drawing.