Fics bring lulz
I’ve been researching lately. I’m one of those academic nerds who does this sort of thing for fun. Usually it’s music-related stuff, but I’ve been drawn back into one of my previous interests as of late.
Fan fiction, or fanfic, for us dorks. Fanfic is just what one would assume – fiction written by fans about whatever show/movie/book/cartoon/whatever they happen to be into. It was largely started with the slash fics about Star Trek (the term comes from a pairing written like Kirk/Spock) and has since snowballed. It’s an interesting phenomenon.
First off, what drives people to write fic in the first place? My current round of geeking out has been centred around (don’t laugh) Sailor Moon fic. Specifically that of the shoujo-ai variety. I have been an avid fan of Sailor Moon since my early teens and I have to honestly say that I see zero subtext that would potentially give a reason to write highly intense, romantic stories featuring Ami/Makoto or Minako/Rei (which are two of the more common pairings I’ve encountered). In a way, yes it could possibly be argued that there was a tension of sorts (not saying what, specifically) between Usagi and Rei, but that in and of itself would hardly be grounds to write epic stories with these characters. So is it subtext that creates this drive, or is it something else? It could be subtext, but I have a feeling that it would be a very small percentage writing based on that. I think that, for the most part, it comes from wanting to see your own desires brought to life. People don’t write for the shows/books etc, but they interact with it on an extremely deep level and can therefore feel like they “know” the characters. And yes, I’ll admit that some of the stories I’ve come across have dialogue that reads like it came from the show. People want to see some of their favourite characters meet in romantic ways (or they want that experience themselves but can’t quite get there so they project that desire into fic which they can control) and since in a lot of cases, it won’t happen, they take control.
Which leads me to question, is there a point at which a text becomes the possession of not just its creators and producers, but of the fans themselves? If one simply borrows characters for the amusement of a group of people online, is it technically stealing? Because people can engage so fully in a text, does that entail them to have some sort of ownership over it? And at what point does a fan shift from passive viewing to serious engagement with a text or medium? I’ve watched Sailor Moon for years as I mentioned, but left my interaction with it at that. But now that i’m researching fanfic and getting involved on that side of it, am I changing from simply viewing it for what it is to something more intense?
