Fic is play.
One of the most important things I’ve figured out during recent years in fandom is that fanfic is play.
Which means that I’m a lot less judgmental than I was in my teens when I felt that fanfic was like a rehearsal to be a professional writer, so you “ought to” emulate professional writers as much as possible: stick to the themes of the original, have someone edit your stuff before you post it, and that the “best” fanfic could fit seamlessly into the original because it had no OC’s, no AU’s, same content rating as the original, everyone was acting just as they did in the original….
But who the hell puts those kinds of restrictions on play?
And why should everyone who wants to write fic for fun necessarily “ought” to want to make it a career? Why shouldn’t people seek out other jobs if they want and write fic for amusement in their spare time?
It’s no wonder I ended up writing in a OC-filled far-future shared universe exploring scenarios from G to X because that was far more fun.
I also started having a lot more fun when I stopped grumbling to myself about people who didn’t follow “the rules” and started saying “you do you.” Because “the rules” existed only in 1. my head and 2. the opinion pieces I’d chosen to accept as authority.
There’s not a damn thing wrong if you want to write a fic that DOES fit seamlessly into canon, but there’s ALSO nothing wrong with thinking it’s fun to put characters in alternate-universe situations, or deciding you want to write a racy fic (as long as you tag it appropriately), or adding your own OCs to a canon world, or change themes so that a grimdark world becomes light and fluffy (or vice versa), or imagining what it would be like if two characters had a different relationship than the one shown in canon (romance where one wasn’t, a dynamic with the problematic elements removed–or added, interaction between two characters who never meet in the original….the list goes on.)
Fanfic writing is play. It’s supposed to be fun, and if it’s not fun, why do it? It’s not a job, and it’s not a moral imperative.
Granted, I will always appreciate folks who take the time to search their work for unclear sentences, typos, etc., and I will advise people who are still developing their skills in English for whatever reason, or who, like me, can’t always write legibly in the first draft for medical reasons, that it’s much easier for readers to understand and enjoy a fic that’s been edited for clarity–it’s easy to “nope out” of a fic that’s too difficult to read/comprehend. But even professionally published books have the occasional typo or wrong word, and freaking out because 20 edits wasn’t enough to catch the typo is not proportional at all.
Have fun, tag appropriately (your responsibility that your fun doesn’t intrude on other people) and you do you.
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