This is honestly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the interview with Willow – the pieces I felt were most important to share in a discussion on fanfiction as a medium. That’s the kind of dialogue I’m thinking about as well.’įanfiction takes those burning questions, the bonds you’ve formed with characters you’ve found meaning in, and lets you explore them in a medium of creative freedom. ‘You can explore yourself through them, and you can explore them through yourself. Willow describes it as a reaction to the gaps in the narrative, the ‘parts of the story that gripped them and never let go, and filled them with unanswered questions that they themselves are left to answer… Sometimes you meet a character in a work of fiction who says something very powerful about you, and you can take that thread, pull on it, unravel it, and see where it leads. The final takeaway I want to highlight from our conversation is fanfiction’s place in the dialogue between audience and creator. ‘Even if you’re writing “fix-it fic” because you feel like a story went bad at the end, like your favorite TV series just completely whiffed it in its last season, or the final chapter of the book series you’ve been reading left a bad taste in your mouth, there’s still love there.’ There had to be some part of that story that burrowed into your brain and refused to let go.’ You don’t write fanfic for someone else’s story unless you really loved it. ‘I don’t think fanfiction is inherently disrespectful to the creator. When you’re taking someone’s story and writing in their universe, is that a mark of disrespect? I posed that same question to Willow, and I think her response is telling of the care it takes to want to write in someone else’s world. The transgender representation in An Eagle Among Lions is a prime example of this creative freedom in fanfiction allowing for a deeply moving interpretation of an existing story, and Willow’s thoughts on the character Hubert are well worth reading in full.Ī question I’ve been asked before is whether fanfiction is really just derivative, or disrespectful to the original creator. ‘There’s something so wonderful about taking someone else’s story that meant the world to you, and using it to express the very deep and intimate parts of yourself that you might have seen reflected in them.’įire Emblem: An Eagle Among Lions art by Kira/KuroiĪs a result, fanfiction is something of a haven for LGBT+ community content, a subculture that AAA media often still struggles to portray in a respectful or accurate manner. In Willow’s words, ‘with fanfiction, you have a world and characters that are all set up for you, and you can literally write anything you want, and nobody can stop you.’ These creative constraints have led to, for example, the censoring of LGBT+ content for certain countries by major film producers like Disney, and the questionably propaganda-like takes on war in video game franchises, including Call of Duty.īut fanfiction doesn’t answer to those same constraints. It’s undoubtedly true that the stories we experience in popular media are tailored to suit the perceived demands of the market. Read: Why Fire Emblem: Three Houses deserves all the fanfiction it can getĬreative freedom and personal expression are a major draw for Willow and many other fanfic writers when entering the medium. I had the opportunity to chat with Willow – and her thoughts on the qualities of fanfiction, and its place in fandom as a whole, were too good not to share. Written by Willow – also known as AMX004_Qubeley – it comes in at over 1.6 million words of fantastic science-fantasy fiction storytelling, with in-depth explorations of existing characters, and the creation of vibrant new ones that slot perfectly into the Three Houses universe. Imagine my excitement then, when my writing from the perspective of an audience of fanfiction led to an opportunity for dialogue with one of my favourite fanfiction creators.Īn Eagle Among Lions is a colossal work, by far the longest piece of Fire Emblem: Three Houses fanfiction published on Archive of Our Own. Fanfiction writers undertake an act of inspired creation born of strong feelings towards the source material, to explore the aspects they feel most passionate about, and share their thoughts with others. When I first approached fanfiction as a topic, my goal was to highlight its strength as a means of dialogue between the audience and creator.
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