Simply said, fan-fiction opened horizons and truths for me while my classmates stayed blind and ignorant (they still kind of are at this age? I don't even anymore.)
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Age 16
16 was the age that I stopped writing and publishing fics on fanfiction.net. instead I posted them on my livejournal or on groups there for specific fandoms.
I was a flourishing writer of poetry and short stories, even recognized by some school authorities as a very prominent gift that I had, my weeaboo-ness was diminished and was starting to blossom into a much more-culturally aware and sensitive view of Japanese culture, I was starting to get into Metal Gear fandom in a much more meta-oriented manner as opposed to just playing it, I was reading Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and was engaged in a healthy discussion of it on online yahoo groups and chatrooms, but most of all, I was socially not trapped to school-church and home.
I had made many a friend on the internet via my fandoms and my other hobbies and even made a very special group of literary friends that I still talk to, to this day. I even penned a short original novella at the same time I was writing a fanfic series. I was flourishing as a writer and no one knew that it was all thanks to fan-fiction.
Although I was still considered an "outcast" by my own classmates (I was never really close to them due to my "geeky" interests and tendency to talk seriously over topics.) I was excelling outside of the walls of our school. On the internet I was a fan-fiction writer that wrote collaborations or joined role-playing groups on livejournal to exercise my writing prowess, until I transitioned into college and met that professor...
She was schooled in a traditional view when it came to literature and despised anything involving writing for fandoms. She drilled it into our minds that fan-fiction was a means of polluting our talent. She pointed out that it was illegal, it was disgusting and vile. How supposed fans of certain pieces of work bastardize and destroy characters they supposedly loved.
I had always thought that fan-fiction was a great way of exercising ones writing muscles, that it helped you develop your own style and made you use your creativity and imagination for your self-expression and as a means of showing your fandom love. And now I was in a class that discouraged it. Abhorred it and rubbed it into my face that I was doing something wrong, illegal even.
I stopped writing fan-fiction then. I lost my taste for writing, I hated how wrong I was and how naive as a writer I was. I wasn't good, I was just deluding and crippling myself. I started drifting away from anything involving it and even avoiding friends who wrote some of it.
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Age 23
At 23 I was a literary bum, I focused on other hobbies and kept away from any writing as much as possible, despite folks encouraging me to write; I remained absolutely certain that I would stop writing anything I liked and stuck to writing for academic reasons. Blogging was a thing I did in a scientific and business-like manner and my poetry was limited to writing for the dead. Fan-fiction, weather writing or reading, disgusted me but at the same time made me feel jealous and insecure of other writers who were doing something that they loved while I couldn't.
Sure, I still did one-on-one roleplaying but it was never in a long-paragraph form. It never involved intricately planned out plots nor did it involve writing anything for a fandom. It was mostly original things that involved some OCs of mine and my partner's. This is where the character of Caius, my ball-jointed doll/resin child evolved from. Yes, you can argue that this was still a crude form of writing creatively but it was never written down for the enjoyment of other people, but rather just for ourselves.
Enter the Metal Gear Rising fandom and a couple of writers I shall not name *wink wink nudge nudge*.
I was slowly creeping back into Tumblr and getting into this spin-off of the Metal Gear Solid series (Platinum Games working on it was my main reason for getting it, FYI.) I started surfing around for it, trying to look around for some screenshots for cosplay references when I stumbled upon a very interesting fanfic. It was set in an Alternate-Universe that involved the protagonist of the game working side-by-side with his rival. I snorted derisively at it, telling myself that I shouldn't waste my time on it, only to be teased by my best friend, who told me that I couldn't possibly survive reading all of the author's works regarding that AU.
In one hour I read all of the writer's works and I was hooked. It was so well written that I even started liking the author's main ship, much to my best friend's amusement. I started looking around for other fics, other pairings, there was so much talent in this fandom. I started reading another fic, a speculative one that involved the protagonist's escape from his captors after his augmentation, pre-Metal Gear Solid 4. Again, I fell deeper into the fandom.
It was then that I decided to try my hand at getting back into roleplaying in a fandom setting. It started off pretty shakily, as I was completely rusty in writing, not to mention my shyness and awkwardness in terms of socializing with people. But the folks in the community were nice and supportive enough to cheer on an awkward duck like me.
A few threads later I was inspired to write my first fanfic in 7 years. So on I went, it wasn't exactly the best thing I've ever written but it was definitely a start. I then went on to writing something a little more mature, which was a complete surprise to some folks and an utter delight to some. People constantly encouraged me to write some more, which I did and still try to do.
I think if it wasn't for writing fanfiction for my roleplay blog/ the MGR fandom, I don't think I would have had he courage to write for my university's student publication. I would have remained quiet and watching from the sidelines. I wouldn't be working with the university bookclub and writing articles such as these.
So am I thankful for my fellow fanfiction writers? Yes, I really am.
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I try to tell folks that there's nothing wrong with writing or enjoying them. It's a form of showing your love for your fandom, just like cosplaying or fanart. It's not for everybody, yeah. But it's something we genuinely enjoy and love. And coming from someone who abandoned it long ago and came back, I don't regret indulging in it.
If I could go back in time to talk to my 16 and 1/2 year old self on the day she was discouraged to write fanfiction, I would tell her that it gets better and that she'll fall in love with it again in due time.
And maybe tell her to stay clear from certain fandoms.
-C
