A rant about entering a new fandom as a fic author and all the emotions and insecurities I didn't foresee.
I have exactly 5 followers on this blog so the chances of anyone seeing this are basically non-existant but I'm gonna vent anyway because I can.
I've spent approximately 15 years of my life writing fanfiction, and 5 of those years a tad more actively. You'd think that after such a long time of writing, I'd be fairly comfortable and confident with putting my shit out there. For the longest time, I was. But entering a new fandom with my fic shook my feeling of stability worse than I expected.
I've always had a recognizable writing style. I've never been good at impressive plots and their twists, I've always been more of a character driven writer. Coming from an RPF fandom, I've written solely AU fics. Because that meant I could build the characters brick by brick the way I needed and wanted to.
Now enter a new fandom (resident evil) consisting of fictional characters that already exist. They have their lore and their personalities already, so I'm standing face to face with the challenge of writing them accurately to canon. However, the chances are that no matter what me or any other author does, to someone they will still be out of character. Because we all project to an extent and we all interpret things differently, especially because lore has gaps we are simply not aware of. Personally, I just don't really care, but have come to realize that a lot of others do.
I'm over here now, wondering what is this feeling that keeps weighing on my chest. It's been there since the moment I decided to publish something for a fandom that is not mine.
Over the years, I gained a supportive community that trusted me, my words, my visions, the worlds I created. I said hey I'm writing this fic, and hundreds — sometimes thousands — of people would like and retweet, tell me how excited they were. That fed my confidence. Over the time I even found a safe space to suck which was a crucial turning point because I was very close to giving up writing altogether.
Now I've kinda circled back to where I originally started, and in my head I have become nothing and no one. Which in itself feels silly to say because I've never seen writing as a competition in which you even have to be anything more than that. I'm not sure if you even can.
All of this is to say that it's been a while since I've felt this vulnerable in the face of my creations. I said hm, I wanna write something light with a sprinkle of trauma, and just have fun with it. I did not see myself second guessing everything and feeling temptation to just take my silly little experiment and run away. Having received my fair share of abuse in the past probably plays a part in this temptation too. But I feel constant urge to keep screaming hey, this is just something I wanted to try, I don't actually write this poorly, I don't actually suck this much, I am actually capable of creating very nuanced and layered stories!
I don't even know why I would have to prove myself to anyone. Or why should anyone, let alone me, even care. But this is just a very odd, unsettling feeling that I am not a fan of, and wanted to get it off my chest.
Anyway if you got this far then muah, let's kiss.
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