Why I am going to start writing more platonic content
I am going to focus an writing more friendship aspects of books instead of relationship aspect(though there will still be a lot of that) and here is why.
So a few weeks ago, I was re reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo for English class. This was my 7th time reading the novel and I absolutely loved it. I also love writing essays and was excited for that aspect, there are so many topics with this book you could write about, the whole idea about following your dreams, how life isn’t about taking the easy path and it’s about learning along the way, how the people and cultures you encounter influence your worldview, etc. etc.
The essay was on his relationship with Fatima. For those of you who have not read The Alchemist, The main character meets her and it is the whole love at first sight thing. The girl has like 6 lines total and is a very small part. The entire unit was overtaken by this concept of a love that wasn’t even super developed or important to the character. The whole thing is that he leaves her and goes to collect his treasure. There are tons of characters to choose from in this book to analyze the main characters interactions with and many of them represent bigger ideas like how believing in something can motivate you and how we all learn in different ways. I was disappointed to say the least.
I kept thinking about this because I am an over-thinker and that is what I do and started to apply that to fandom and my fan fiction works. Why do we write so much about love? Take The Camp Half Blood Chronicles by Rick Riordan. Percy and Annabeth are friends for 5 books before they have a romantic relationship but so many fan works are about just the love aspect of their interactions. They had great banter and complemented each other well, by writing about their love you lose so much of their characterization and miss a lot of the dynamic of their friendship. A post about the friendship between Percy, Annabeth, and Grover would be so much more in character and could be about their canon interactions and personalities. A lot of Percy’s character is his loyalty and trust in his friends and Luke betraying him is so much more powerful especially from his point of view.
Another one is The Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare. While these books do have a lot to do with sexuality and I 100% understand writing romantic fan fiction about them what I don’t get is why couples like Gabriel and Cecily would have more content fan works wise then about the friendship and parabatai bond between Simon and Clary. Simon and Clary have like 7 books with the main focus on them including Tales from the Shadowhunters Academy and Gabriel and Cecily have one moment together. Why not write about how it is canon that Simon and Clary set a kitchen a flame while trying to make raisins when they were little. They have so much back story to play into. Cassandra Clare wrote a world where you can have a platonic, sole bonded sole mate and I plan to take advantage of it.
My final example is Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. There is so much focus on the romantic aspects of it I swear if a person just read fan posts they wouldn’t be able to tell it was about 4 deadly teenage criminals breaking into a super guarded government base. This book had an incredible plot and such good character back stories. The focus, in my opinion, should be on the banter between the six of them and the interactions like the whole I’m going to get Wylan’s ghosts to teach me the flute thing. They could also be about how their traumas and hardships got them to where they are and how they are healing and helping each other.
Just a Disclaimer: As always, these are my opinions and I definitely not saying that all fan work has been corrupted by ideals of love. I am just saying that love is a really big part of fandoms and trying to look at a different aspect of these amazing books. I love fluffy stuff and will keep writing it, don’t worry, but I just want to write some more posts about friendships and the characters themselves. If you disagree with anything I have written, I would love to hear why and how you view romance in fan works. The ask box is open. I think it is very important to have discussions about books and literature, everyone takes a different lesson and it might be one I didn’t see before. Just want to also add that fan works are for you to enjoy and are almost solely about your opinion, your thoughts are extremely different than mine even though we read the same book and I think that is really cool.
Thank you for reading all of this!
Lots of Love,
-Sydney