In Defense of Fanfiction

Fanfiction.

There was a time in my life when that single magical word spelled out my ecstasy and misery. The beautiful combination of "fan" and "fiction" fed my dreams and nurtured my spirit. 

It was my key to my personal dream-realm where my imagination knew no bounds. I was a part of an underground movement, a secret society of literatis that were lauded and applauded. 

Fanfiction was not a hobby but a lifestyle. My first step into fanfiction started with a pink notebook, a cute but cheap pen and a burning desire to imitate the more established writers. 

I had always wanted to write but I was too scared to create characters. Fanfiction was the answer for me. It was simply the easiest and cheapest way to get published without inviting any real hard work.

Just write, put it up on any given website and you might wake up to realize that you've become a literary superstar overnight! It was that easy! 

It was such a fluid and creative medium that will allow a budding writer to take on an established franchise along with its characters and stories as far as it would go. It allowed people to imagine "What if that happened...", "What if they got together?" and "This is an interesting angle!" 

They will take it as farther than the creators could even imagine. There are legal debates over fanfiction and its existence but that's another subject entirely. 

Fanfiction was just harmless fun and productive exercise on the side of the young writers. You can post your stories anywhere actually. But I joined the largest fanfiction archive, Fanfiction.net, on March 23, 2003 simply because I wanted my literary idols to notice my existence and it had the best readership coverage. It still holds that title but AO3 is catching up.

I wrote my first story for a very popular anime and shoujo manga fandom, Cardcaptor Sakura, that summer for a couple that was so popular that people mistook them for being canon. That's the power of EriolxTomoyo for you!

In fanfiction terms, that meant that they were officially recognized by the creators and blessed and sanctioned. Take a look at Finchel, KataraxAang and even RossxRachel.

I still remember the ecstatic rush of receiving my first ever review. It was awesome like I just had chocolate injected into my bloodstream and a delicious French kiss at the same time, only better! 

Even though I only received a total of five reviews for that particular story, it meant that people read my story and paid attention to me. It meant that I had managed to catch their interest. I could write! You don't know how valuable that experience was to me. It practically changed my whole life.

So I lived off from fanfiction for my daily dose of humor, angst, fluff and romance. I adored it more than television actually. The Internet was a great source of stories to satiate my reading needs. 

There are lots of gems but you have to dig through large amounts of dirt before you get to the good stuff. Yes, I hate to admit this but since there were so many would-be writers out there and no actual structure that quality got sacrificed for quantity sometimes. 

Grammatical errors, impossible and illogical plots, out-of-character characters and even mild murder of the English language could be found everywhere. So it's really quite a feat to make a name for yourself in a vast throng. 

Over the years, I established a solid reputation and fan base in the fanfiction world. That's because I always kept the characters in character, maintained the quality of my stories and never ever alienated my new readers by bringing in too much of the "inside" story that might confuse them especially if they have never heard of that particular fandom before. 

I maintained class from crass, kept treasure from trash and strove harder than ever to make a name for myself. My profile page and even blog can be considered as an accurate curriculum vitae of my growth as a writer. 

My great source of pride was the fact that I've been called "talented" more times than I could count. From the mediocre cliche-laden mini-stories to the dramatic novels of late, you can see my improvement and my slow success. 

A great writer-friend of mine once remarked, "The earlier it is, the crappier it gets." Wise words indeed. Thank God I get better in every story.

Through the years that I spent wandering around the web, I met some truly remarkable writers from the Philippines and other countries who displayed a stunning amount of talent and skill that I can only hope to emulate. 

Let me introduce to you the things that I have learned about love, romance, humor and even angst through the world of fanfiction.

1. Fairytales can be funnier if you put a spin to it.

"Once upon a time, in a far, far away kingdom—as in really, REALLY far that it was totally inaccessible through aircraft, bullet trains, cruiser ships and Mars space probes—there lived a dashing young man who incidentally was also the newly crowned prince and ruler of Kingdom Inaccessible. This was Uchiha Sasuke, a young man who carried an aura of enigma around him. He never spoke much, even when destructive rumors involving him circulated in the whole kingdom. Rumors saying that he apparently killed his entire clan to obtain the throne..." - The Frog and The Princess, syaoran no hime 

2. Love is a contradiction: both ecstasy and melancholy.

"I'll love you all my life, she tells him. There ought to be tears streaming down her face but there aren't any. Her eyes are shining, though. He cherishes that." ~She Goes Her Way, Ekai Ungson

3. The simple truth was that everyone knows who belongs to whom already.

"The simple truth about Heiji and Kazuha was that everybody thought - no, knew - that they were meant to be. It was written in the stars, it was written on their palms, it was written in every crystal ball in the entire universe. Their parents knew it the moment the two babies first met and baby Kazuha smacked Heiji on the head and cried, and when baby Heiji retaliated by yelling a variety of baby-curse-words at her. It had been love at first sight, they all said." ~ The Simple Truth about Heiji and Kazuha, fireblazie

4. You get birthday gifts in the form of fanfiction.

"She sat there at what was once his "fortress of solitude", trembling because of the cold wind brushing against her pale skin. She rubbed her hands together to bring even little warmth to her fragile body. It proved futile because the night was far too cold for her and she wrapped her arms around herself as a last resort." ~Of Birthdays and Fever, ximena-chan

5. Collections contain more treasures than you can imagine. 

"Eriol still remembers the first time he kissed her. It was mid-December and the first snow of the season had fallen that morning. He had walked her home. Then, somehow, his hand was lost behind her hair, touching the small of of her neck, and he kissed her. He remembered how warm she was; remembered the surprise in her eyes that transformed into something soft." ~Drops in the Ocean, Haina

In the end, I am still writing fanfiction more than a decade later. I don't think I'll ever stop writing them because I still love them.