Fanfiction and alternative worlds

I’ve written and read fanfiction for 20 years. Fanfiction refers to works about characters or situations written by authors other than the original creator of those characters or stories.

When I started, the term was largely unknown even to those who had an internet connection. Nobody had ever told me it was embarrassing to be a fanfiction writer or reader, but I gathered that fanfiction would never be taken seriously; I could write five hundred thousand words on a slow-burn relationship between Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, but these would never advance my literary career, because “fic,” as it’s sometimes called, will never earn the same respect as an “original” work of fiction, which requires more world-building and the conceptualization of completely new characters.

Some fic writers became “legit” and went on to become “proper” authors — Cassandra Clare of “The Mortal Instruments” fame comes to mind — but most fic authors don’t look for real-life fame. I’ve spent two decades content to write stories of Discworld and Harry Potter characters or new Sherlock Holmes adventures, posting them, and discussing them.

The satisfaction of creating content based on an existing work isn’t merely escapist. Sure, I would have liked to see Draco Malfoy have a real redemption arc, or Sherlock Holmes having countryside adventures in his retirement. But ours is a generation that has seen heroes fall one after the other: In our adult eyes, the adventures of Harry Potter lack diversity, a problem that can’t be cured by suddenly casting a black woman to play Hermione in a stage adaptation of a story set in the same universe.

Beloved authors, creators and actors have become problematic. My most recent disappointment was Junot Díaz, Pulitzer prize-winning author, who was accused earlier this year of misogyny and sexual harassment. But there are others I’ve loved who later turned out to be racist, antisemitic or sexist.

Think Woody Allen, who created charming, thoughtful films but who may have sexually assaulted a minor. Think Johnny Depp and his former wife’s claims of domestic abuse. Think J. K. Rowling, who recently revealed that a character in the Harry Potter books — the serpent servant of the Dark Lord — was actually a woman all along, to be played by a South Korean actress in the franchise’s next film. It’s a tone-deaf revelation, clueless about how it appears that an Asian woman — the only Asian in the main cast — will become a mindless, subservient pet of a pseudo-white supremacist.

Our problematic creators make us face the daunting question of how to keep loving a piece of work that is either problematic in itself — in this context a catch-all term to mean racism, sexism, a lack of diversity, or various other –isms — or was created by someone who has been accused of problematic behavior. Anyone who has claimed to have an easy answer is probably oversimplifying the problem.

How to separate a work of fiction from its creator is never easy, a real damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. To continue to support problematic creatives is to ignore the voices of their victims and, at worst, contribute to the perpetrators’ financial gain. But to refuse to enjoy the work is uncritical, simplistic. The middle ground of loving the work while publicly condemning the creators is the usual, not entirely satisfying, compromise.

My solution to the problem is usually sidestepping the question, or the creation of alternative content, hence: fanfiction. I have no way of convincing J. K. Rowling or her million-dollar enterprise to cast someone in place of Johnny Depp, or to rethink the whole woman-as-snake idea, but I can create universes with representation, where manipulative characters and bullies get their comeuppance, where maligned characters who deserve better are given better.

I can write fiction which is then given constructive criticism, because fanfiction readers aren’t passive consumers but active participants in the creation of the content. So, to those who can’t stand our heroes who have lived long enough to become villains, I say: Come with me, and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.

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