In Defence of Fanfiction

There is nothing quite like the feeling of refreshing Archive of Our Own (AO3) and finding out that someone wrote literally the perfect fic for your OTP (one true pairing, aka your favourite ship, aka your favourite relationship) or OT3 (think OTP but with polyamory). Knowing that another person loves the same fictional characters and understands their relationship dynamics and their world the same way that you do, and reading a story that feels like it was literally written for your brain, gives a dopamine rush like no other. In many ways, reading fic is often more appealing than reading original fiction because it allows you to bypass the initial stage of getting into a piece of media. You already know and love the characters, meaning you have near-unlimited opportunities for customisation in terms of story, setting, and progression for your favourite blorbos (your favourite character that you love to put in Situations).

In many ways, the fanfiction community is a world of its own, set apart from the rest of the media world by offering its own language, community, norms, and writing and storytelling styles. AO3, fic, OTP, OT3, blorbos; these words are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the modern fanfiction lingo starter pack. Yet, despite that complexity, the opportunities that fanfiction offers writers to learn and grow in their creative abilities, and the spaces it opens for marginalised groups to write their own representation, fanfiction is often denigrated as a “lesser” form of writing. Fanfiction is seen as the realm of second-rate authors incapable of producing their own ideas, and of weirdos and nerds who get entirely too attached to fictional characters.

The beginning of fanfiction is often attributed to the fan community surrounding the original Star Trek series. Fans, who tended to be women, wrote fiction set in the fictional universe of the series, or about its characters, and collected it in printed booklets known as fanzines. Although this period kick-started modern fanfiction culture, including popularising the term “slash” fiction, which was first used to describe stories placing Kirk and Spock (K/S) in a romantic relationship, it was not the first instance of fan-written stories based on source material.

For hundreds of years, it has been common for writers to pull inspiration from other writers — and occasionally to repackage their ideas wholesale. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for example, drew heavily from earlier vampire fiction, such as John Polidori’s The Vampyre and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Camilla, stories that drew on even older legends and myths. In other cases, an entire lineage of fiction can be created by following chains of inspiration. For example, the legends about the real Johann Georg Faust inspired Goethe to write his famous play, Faust. Goethe’s character, the demon Mephistopheles, then inspired the character Mr Mistoffelees in T. S. Eliot’s 1939 poetry book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which Andrew Lloyd Webber famously turned into the hit musical Cats. Chains of transmission like this are ubiquitous in literature — just think about all of the works of fiction inspired by the Bible!

One of the primary differences, however, between these older modes of literary adaptation and the modern idea of “fanfiction” is that fanfiction is written by and for a primarily female and gender non-conforming, queer, marginalised audience. Based solely on its affiliation with these groups, fanfiction is often viewed as silly, frivolous, and overly sexual, focused primarily on “pairing” fictional men together, writing self-insert stories full of “Mary Sues,” or self-insert female characters, or writing straight-up porn. These offhand dismissals ignore the fact that many pieces of fanfiction explore complex themes, broach difficult topics, and push the boundaries of writing. I’ve read works that stitch together over 100 years of comic book discontinuities to write a beautiful and complex portrait of what family is. I’ve read incredibly well-researched pieces of historical fanfiction, including one that might as well be a textbook on the naval theatre of World War I. I’ve read fics that explore incredibly difficult topics like suicide and self-harm in a way that is both mature and hopeful. In my experience (and trust me, I have a LOT of it, as my 5,828 bookmarked works can attest), the work that fanfiction does as a genre is serious, important, and contributes to writing as an art form. Fanfiction served as a launching pad for many published authors — most notably, Heated Rivalry’s first book began life as a Stucky (Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes) fanfic, and Fifty Shades of Grey (somehow) started as a Twilight fanfic. Furthermore, it has pioneered many of the “tropes,” that have become extremely popular in modern literature, including the concept of “coffee shop AUs,” stories in which characters have meet-cutes in coffee shops, and other “fluffy,” or cute, story settings, which have contributed to the rise of “cozy fantasies.” Additionally, fanfiction has normalised the inclusion of sex and conversations about sex in media, leading to a rise in traditional fiction that includes explicit conversations centring around sex, consent, kinks, and other important topics in healthy sexual relationships.

Beyond its literary merit, however, fanfiction and fanfiction publication venues, such as AO3, offer opportunities for writers to share work that might otherwise be censored or considered taboo in more mainstream writing circles. This can include a wide variety of subjects, such as explicit sex and sexuality, graphic violence, taboo relationships, suicide and self-harm, and physical and mental health issues. The self-published, decentralised nature of fanfiction means that it is a space that offers nearly limitless free speech centred around the norm: “don’t like, don’t read.” While writers have the responsibility to “tag” stories with relevant triggers, readers are responsible for heeding those tags and building a self-curated experience that allows them to interact with fans, stories, and communities they feel comfortable with, without policing what others are allowed to think or write. Ultimately, this creates a community open to a wide range of topics while still providing a space that is comfortable for everyone to engage with.

This openness to stories outside the mainstream means that fanfiction offers people from marginalised communities the opportunity to create the representation that traditional media fails to provide. The world of fanfiction allows fans to “headcanon” characters however they wish, including in ways that align with their deeply held identities. Although it still has many of the shortcomings of traditional fiction, fanfiction offers more of an opportunity to see marginalised aspects of yourself — racial identity, gender identity, disability, queerness — uplifted and celebrated in a non-tokenising way. At the same time, the medium also offers writers a chance to explore heavier themes related to these identities. Many writers work through traumatic experiences by writing fanfiction that puts characters through those same experiences. This allows authors to explore and work through their experiences without directly reliving the trauma, a process known as “writing therapy.” At the same time, publishing those stories can help others who have experienced similar trauma feel seen, or even help them work through their trauma.

Setting aside these other reasons, however, fanfiction is a worthy form of media simply because it offers joy to both its readers and writers. Diving into the world of fanfiction allows anyone engaging with the medium to delve into media, story formats, themes, and ideas they find compelling. Literature doesn’t need to be deep and profound to be worthy of respect. Sometimes, what you need on a bad day is a fluffy one-shot featuring your blorbo (a happy short story about your favourite character, for those who don’t speak AO3). Sometimes, a piece of media connects to you so deeply that you don’t want to let it go yet. Sometimes, you just want to read something that feels like coming home. Whether fanfiction calls to you because of its deep and profound writing, stories of marginalised people, willingness to engage with complex themes, or feel-good nature, the fanfiction community is here for you. Just open AO3.

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Valli Pendyala is a Junior in the SFS majoring in Regional and Comparative Studies: SWANA & South Asia. In their free time, Valli enjoys perusing the depths of Archive of Our Own, cooking, or watching niche YouTube essays.