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I wrote so much fanfiction in high school, and yes the majority of stories I was simply adding more female characters to the cast. Of course teenage girls love fanfiction, it's often the only place we can read about girls that are actually like us.
Edit: now that I think about it my friends and I included a ton of dark subject matter. I think we were basically using creative writing as therapy for stuff that had happened to us. Sharing the stories and helping edit, brainstorm, etc was a lot like casual group therapy.
[Deleted]April 12, 2021
i still read fanfiction a lot, sometimes i read so much that the real world gets so boring (and it is). I read to escape reality 🤷🏻♀️
Oh same! I let my imagination run wild.
Sometimes I'll be watching something and just feel so... ripped off? Like I'll see a wasted opportunity for character growth or a character interaction. I know it's not canon (meaning it doesn't actually count, for all the non fanfiction readers out there) but filling in these little interactions makes the movie/TV show more "fulfilling". (if that makes sense)
Like seeing two characters who hardly ever interact and being like... uh they would totally be best friends!
tiredofeverythingApril 13, 2021
Me, too. I've put published fiction down for not having shit tagged because now that's a requirement for me, AO3 has spoiled me. :)
Wow. This resonated way too hard.
Same.
I wasn't into fandom, but there's a lot of my angry Mary-sue fiction on some hard drive in a pile of electronic waste at some dump, somewhere! YA at the book store never cut it for me. I liked the excitement and polish of media made for men, but just could not stomach the male gaze crap and lame female characters. So I guess I just had to make up my own stories goddamit!
Oh, I wrote way too much fan fiction! Actually had a nice little following, too!
But the thing that I think I came all the way back to, was being tired of fighting. Every now and then I get a spurt of energy, but mostly I just can't stand the fight anymore. And I see it in many of my friends, too. We're all pushing 40, and the fight has taken a toll on all of us.
I think we ought to have a stories circle - not to discuss books we've read, but to talk about these stories we've dreamt up! I would love to hear about them!
Ooooo, a creative writing circle?!
Edited: We could share links/resources, do daily or weekly writing prompts, etc. It could be for fanfiction, poetry, essays, whatever!
Yes! It can even just be a flair under books, so we know this is original content that we can add onto.
Sorry, edited after the fact, but yeah it could be a great resource area. I always like writing prompts, seeing what other people come up with, etc
I would love this!
Omg I would absolutely love this!!
It doesn't even have to be entire stories. There was this Tumblr thing (idk if they have sub or circles or whatever. I got everything via pinterest) about humans being space orcs that was great. Sometimes the ideas were just ridiculous, but sometimes it shed some interesting light on humanity. It also brought the world Mister Stabby. Then there was this concept of a family who has had the bad luck of always living in a haunted house (I guess they were a bit supernatural themselves), so instead of freaking out when the ghosts show up, they just take it in stride. I could just imagine it being a sitcom, where the family is again in a haunted house, and they just have to get through every day while the ghost annoy them or help them understand themselves or something. Kind of friends meets sabrine the teenage witch meets ghost whisperer. I would love a circle like that!
Same! I'd join in a heartbeat
Oh I love this idea so much!
I am also pushing 40! And tired!
I used to participate in Nanowrimo but stopped long ago because of my masters degree, and then upon returning, just found the wokey-doke atmosphere (though I had not peaked yet) just way too much! There's an old story I wrote for Nano that I would love to redo from a red fem perspective - even though I wouldn't exactly identify as rad fem. Like, I wrote this whole story about some dipshit guy and I would love to turn it around where he in fact does not complete a character arc of growth - but rather the female characters in the story DO. As time has gone on, in my head I play with those gal's stories often and I'd like to put it to paper finally!
Screw that guy. What was I thinking? I hope they leave him on the vampire planet this time.
This concept is wild! I did not see "leave him on the vampire planet" coming! And, yeah, it's always the men getting the arc, and women just learning to live with the new and improved man (literally every Adam Sandler movie).
Right?!? It's always, check out this goofy but lovable (and we don't know what's lovable about him, just go with it) bastard, watch how he screws things up and then realizes the error of his ways, but still loves belching contests and boobs! He gets the hot chick at the end!
I don't know how even I, being quite critical of gender tropes in media, managed to fall for it in my own writing!
In my head, vampire planet is now a matriarchal society that employs their ulnar bones like the scythes of mantises. They could live without the blood of humans - it's just their weak males that still crave it. They help the human women take back Earth. I'm just thinking out loud here LOL.
I'm all up for a matriarchal vampire society!
Same. Off-topic, but it's exhausting to be almost middle aged while the media still talks about our generation like we're still in uni.
We could do a smaller version of Nanowrimo, just short stories. Or poetry. I dunno, no wrong answers in brainstorming!
It would be so fun to have our own smaller Nano - no rules, just writing and sharing!
I feel you - being considered an older millennial means people think we grew up with social media when we were the last generation to have a half-way analog childhood!
I didn't have a cell phone until I was 18, and it was a metallic pink Razr flip phone!
I had a pager that I absolutely didn't need at 17. We'd sneak out of class to use the pay phone just outside the school to call each other's pagers to leave the message 80085 (BOOBS).
I didn't have a cell phone until about 18 as well! It was always dead because I have phone-phobia anyway so who knows why I got one!
There was this one fan fiction author- MyxNyx- who I would read anything she wrote, she wrote a CSI one called “Journey of a Lifetime” that was like, the female characters weren’t just besties or jealous of each other with one issue in their lives. They were fully fleshed people. Definitely overshadowed my terrible attempt at it.
One day she just stopped replying when we spoke. I always wondered what happened to her.
Maybe she decided to create original content, and she had a book published?
She said she planned to, based off of her ff, but I have looked and never found it.
Can I just say I really hate how much the concept of "Mary Sue" is hated? I can't figure out exactly how to express this right now, but it just seems like yet another attack on teenage girls self esteem. We've been cut down so many times in life by the time we're 13/14 years old, sometimes you just want to imagine yourself as capable, beautiful, intelligent, strong, and loved.
And if you were all those things and male, you'd be the protagonist of most media.
It's another double standard.
Especially when just about every piece of man-made fiction of any format is a Harry-Stu! And no one calls it out!