why do people like fanfiction?

If you're a fanfic enjoyer, why do you personally like reading/writing it?

Timestamps:
0:00 - 4:50 Intro
4:50 - 5:43 It's Fun
5:43 - 6:53 Escapism
6:53 - 7:57 Playing With The Source Material
7:57 - 8:52 Potential
8:52 - 9:33 Wish Fulfillment
9:33 - 10:01 It's A Hobby
10:01 - 10:33 Practice and Connection
10:33 - 11:16 It's Cathartic
11:16 - 12:04 It's Psychologically Interesting
12:04 - 13:40 An Exercise In Creativity
13:40 - 14:05 Creative Inspiration
14:05 - 14:38 The Community
14:38 - 15:35 Concluding Thoughts

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Social Media:

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Thanks for watching!

[chaosbeam]

Because it’s fun being insane over characters with random strangers

[KatyR]

I like fan fiction because it lets me forget about reality from anywhere between 10 minutes and 8 hours

[tsifirakiehl]

Here’s why I love fanfic: when I love a piece of media, I need more than what canon offers. Maybe I want to explore a different path the story could have taken, or see more of a character canon didn’t explore. Maybe I just read/watched/played all of canon and crave new content. Whatever the case, I sometimes need something canon can’t give me, and that’s where fanfic comes in. That, and fanfic provides me with a bunch of stuff to read for free! What’s not to love?

[xen]

because canon often doesn't give me what i need

[harshitadas]

I think the fanfiction community is one of the most beautiful phenomenon which humanity has managed to accomplish. Like, a bunch of people, out of their own free will spend their precious time and effort into creating, writing, drawing stuff for the media they enjoy.

Despite all the ups and downs of the legal grey area which fanfiction resides in, the scrutiny it has received by the general public and the sheer improbability of getting people to do things like write novel length stories for other people. Like, it just strikes me every time you know?

Every time I read a 300k fic with 30 reviews, I think of the author who pumped out chapter after chapter, despite not receiving much feedback or attention for the impossibly pure reason that they simply loved the original work.

Every time I read a 300k fic with 3000 reviews, I think about the number of people who sat down and devoted their time into reading something written by a non--professional, a random person somewhere. Authors of original novels have such a wide variety of tricks in order for the reader to come into the bookstore, read the blurb and continue engaging with their story. It's so difficult to command attention, and yet this humongous story written by some 22-year old physics student in Argentina managed to capture the interest of so many people for several hours.

Every time I read someone writing for a small fanfic community with like 50 fics, I think of the dedication this person must have. The loneliness of loving something alone.

Every time I read someone writing for a big fanfic community with like 20, 000 fics, I think about the media and how much power it has. To be able to influence so many people, to inspire so many to create so very very much.

I love fanfiction. I really really really love fanfiction. I think it reminds me a little of early Youtube in some ways. I was never around back then ofc, but I imagine this was what it was like. A niche community full of people super passionate about videos with no scope of monetary gain.

It's amazing. Tears well up in my eyes just contemplating it.

[mitacestalia]

Why people love fanfiction? You see, I love a series, game, story or something. However, I know the canon won't give something I want, and that's fine. Therefore, I produce my own content.

I'm basically writing what I want and just share it to others. It works.

[Ohforgodssakethatsme]

I think it's the combination of extremely strong copywrite laws and the grip that a handful of media companies have over the stories we consume, keyword being consume, that explain the rise of fan fiction.

For millennia, humans had common stories that they could share, tell and adapt to reflect their life. We played in the communal sandbox with ancient myths, folk and fairy tales, Aesop, Homer, Shakespeare, etc. Most of this was either never under copywrite or under a copywrite that wasn't as tight or long-lived as what we have now.

Fan Fiction gives us back the power to share common stories and to have an active part in their telling. We are no longer passively consuming media. We are actively engaging with it.

[Fallenmoon]

When a ship I like isn't canon I must read fanfic.
When my favorite character dies, TO FANFIC!

[metannoya]

okay, but I DID use fanfic on my reading lists in high school, as long as the title wasn't too obvious. My teachers never said a thing lmao

[small_and_dangerous]

One of the things that will often catch me off guard is when an author reveals that they’re married and have kids. Like please, writing fanfiction is for everyone. But with how high quality some of them are I’m often like “You are a working woman who is a wife and mother of three with a fourth on the way and YOURE ABLE TO POST WEEKLY WITH THIS MANY WORDS AND THIS GOOD OF QUALITY?!!”

Like who gave them the right 😂😂

[sincerelynotme]

I just think it's cool to see alternative stories of shows I may or may not like. That's about it. Not really into shipping either, just like seeing people write cool stories.

[Milenia_]

Imagine a world inspired by the fanfic author curse though (when fanfic authors somehow get hospitalized after writing the best fic ever):
Like an ancient magical being who's had texts written about them that have been slowly lost to time. Rarely, people are gifted with the ability to "see" this ancient being's past but only 'qualified' people are allowed to actually write out their visions. Unfortunately anyone who's 'unqualified' falls ill or mysteriously disappeared, but this doesn't stop them from doing it....

[Endless_Galaxy]

literally reading a fic when i got this notif 💀

[everlastingdragon]

It also helps that fanfic is kinda like Legos: you take preexisting pieces and rearrange them into something new. Take, for example, the one time I took a Star Wars spaceship set, took it apart, and turned the pieces into a sea monster.

[sarahlouise]

I love it because there's often lots more queer characters and headcanons, and they're often written by queer creators so I find them really truthful and beautiful representations.

[AmphibianWitch]

The fact that fanfiction isn't marketable is the biggest appeal. The market tells me how a story has to be to sell, and if it's too niche or doesn't follow the proper structure, tension, plot twists, obligatory romance, etc, then it's not going to sell, so they won't publish it. Fanfic tho, tells me the sky is the limit and I can write and read whatever I want because it's about expression and creativity. As a writer, I felt honestly much freer when I stopped worrying about whether my stories were marketable enough and just started writing fanfiction for fun. It reminded me of why I loved writing in the first place.

[persialionheart]

Coley thank you for summing up my entire life

But truly. Fanfiction allows me to see my characters in more than the source gives us. It gives me what I wanted from the original source and tons and tons more whether i'm writing or reading it. It's just so cool to actually see where a story could have gone if the creators made a different decision or if they were in a different universe. The possibilities are endless.

[arrow_of_ravenclaw]

“Everyone look at this freaky fic.”

Honey, I was in the mlp fandom in the early 2010s. Nothing can horrify me

[jazminjenna]

For me personally, it’s mostly about the potential and exploring neglected or just briefly touched on elements of canon. You talked about that briefly, but there’s so much more to it. Especially in the realm of trauma. Like - fictional characters go through so much CRAP and because an original work needs a constantly moving plot to be any good, you don’t usually get to just sit with it and heal.”, or really examine the consequences of things that happen. Fanfiction to me is exploring all the things that canon didn’t have the time to. Canon can only tell one story, but it has the set up for countless others baked in.

[LizzieShiro]

Honestly I love how everyone expresses their creativity. I’ve had some bad experiences with feedback on my Fanfiction (a bunch of adults and teens were mean to 11/12 year old me; like wtf get a hobby) so I was always a bit anxious when posting.
But I’ve recently got back into Voltron, so I’m now in the midst of writing a fix it fic. Lord, give me immense strength, I’m not even done with the outline.