What Would We Do Without Our Fictional Characters?

[cuddyclothes]

I just said that to a fellow fan. And then I thought, what would we do without our fictional characters?

Which also made me think, what sort of comfort or coping mechanism do you get from your characters/pairings?

For myself I find writing fanfic (lately only in my head) helps me escape from the hellscape that is America these days. And reading fanfic about my favorite pairing is soothing in a way TV and other forms of reading aren't. It's like getting my emotions massaged.

How do other people feel?

Comments

[mekare]

And reading fanfic about my favorite pairing is soothing in a way TV and other forms of reading aren't. It's like getting my emotions massaged.

That is very cool way to describe it. Same here. Well except for certain types of books which feel the same way (KJ Charles for example).

[sixbeforelunch]

Timely post. I was just thinking that the only time I'm happy right now is when I'm writing fic.

Currently, my happy place is a sort of side universe that I've created that intersects with canon but has all OCs as protagonists and so much of my own world building that it's borderline original fiction at this point. I am really, REALLY fortunate that a few people seem to enjoy my scribblings in that little mini universe and are encouraging me to keep going with it, because right now it's just about the only thing bringing me joy. Even my usual fandoms aren't really doing it right now.

As far as reading fic, I definitely appreciate that it does things that most media can't/won't and will spend thousands of words lingering over slow trauma recovery and platonic relationships and people having good communication skills and doing other things that I mostly only find in fic. Emotional massage is a good description. (Now I really want some Avengers movie night fic that ignores everything that happened after the first movie...)

So, yeah. What would I do without fictional characters? IDK, but probably nothing good.

[onlysmallwings]

In a bizzarro world without my faves? I don't want to contemplate that. I write fic in my head to tell stories I can't see in the games (dragon age has a limited number of options for main character origins, so my headcanon is for something different), to tell stories that linger on things that aren't addressed in canon (the traumas, the joys, all manner of things that get glossed over), and I read fic for all of those reasons and more. Fic lets me focus on sadly underrated women, or on those minor queers, or it allows me to state that certain characters are queer.

[rionaleonhart]

I really don't know what I'd do without fictional characters! I've made so many friends through fandom, one of whom I lived with for several years; it's hard to imagine the shape of my life without those connections.

I also really love writing fanfiction. It's absorbing in a way nothing else is, and in a way I feel it gives me a sense of purpose. If I write something, and twenty people kudos it, that means that in some way I brought a bit of enjoyment into the days of twenty people. It may not seem like much, but I think there's value in that, particularly at times like this, when things are rough and people need distractions.

[suncani]

Twenty people you've affected and had an impact on AND in a way that's tangible is pretty impressive when you think about it. Doing in that in meatspace is pretty rare so valuing it when it happens is definitely a good thing

[minoanmiss]

God, I wouldn't be me. As long as I've known of stories I've been writing my own in my head.

and yeah, I love fanfic most for going where canon doesn't.

[yourlibrarian]

It's almost like fiction has become our daily reality and reality has become the craziest of fiction. Glad our characters are here!

[comet_scout]

I think it's a fun distraction from my problems and responsibilities to put the time in molding or expanding fictional universes and characters, both original and canon ones.

Also very relaxing, when I'm agitated for some reason, theorizing, exploring concepts, or imagining characters in x situations is a nice head brake when I can't get myself to simply not think about things.

Now, without them I probably would just have a different coping material/hobby, just not sure what. I wonder if it would be a more or less important one.

[tei]

I think the thing that's unique and that feels so necessary about fanfiction is that it's an incredible efficient way to translate your thoughts and emotions as a person into a format that's understandable and enjoyable by other people.

That's not unique to fanfiction, of course-- that's basically what writing fiction is. I think of a line from this interview with Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, where she says "Maybe books are the record of everything I’ve been fascinated with for several years," and I think-- if that's what a novel is, a record of where the author has been in their life for several years, fanfiction is that but on an incredibly granular scale.

Novels take years to write and then years to publish; they have to go through layers of editing and reviewing and filtering through the eyes of other people before they reach a reader. The publishing industry is slow-moving, so trends in writing that reflect how humans tend to be thinking about their world also move slowly.

By contrast, fanfiction moves fast. The cycle of "I was thinking about this topic, so here's a fic where x character has y thing happen to them!" takes place on a time scale of weeks or even days. The efficient translation of feelings or events to fiction is, I think, what keeps me writing fanfic; I've written fic while working at a fancy gala about characters working at a fancy gala, I've sat down to write death fic that I couldn't write at any other time while waiting to hear that a family member had died, I've written a few stories about different sets of characters during coronavirus lockdown (and added them to the fic journal of the plague year collection), etc.

Even the stories that you don't sit down to write consciously as an extension of things that are on your mind, I think usually come out that way in retrospect somehow. Even a PWP-- maybe especially a PWP-- has the fingerprints of your mind all over it in the way that you justify a character wanting this, in how you decide they react to it. (I think this kink bingo essay does the best job I've read of describing why that is; why zooming in to focus on just the sex or kink aspect of a relationship feels like it so often has so much to say about the world and the shape of our human minds.)

I've thought a lot about how this smooth translation of life to fiction is so easy (for given value of "easy", which is to say "writing is incredibly hard") with fanfiction, but I don't know of an equivalent community doing the same thing with original fiction, and why that might be. I don't think it would be impossible to do with original fiction, but like I said, if you want your origific to be read by people, it often takes a long time between writing it and making that happen. But more significantly, I think the fact that we all carry around in our minds a kind of binder of characters and we already know who might end up in what situation, and why, and what their reaction might be, means that it's possible to skip a lot of the setup that would need to happen to express a point through original characters. You can drop fanfic characters straight into the situation that you actually care about, instead of spending time on the stuff that's less interesting to you at the moment but necessary to make the story work.

Which is a real advantage, if you're someone who writes in their spare moments as a hobby. It enables those of us who probably wouldn't have the time or inclination to express ourselves through writing any other way to create a record of how we were thinking or feeling at a particular time, and then-- best of all-- have it preserved for posterity, read by other people, and discussed with friends.

I've thought a lot, in both a joking/macabre way but also with the awareness that this is literally true, about how of all the things I've done, if I died tomorrow, my fanfiction would be the most obvious, locateable, durable thing that I left on Earth. It's not like a huge number of people read my fic, but based on the fact that I do get kudos or comments on old fic every so often, it's reasonable to assume that that would continue, if I weren't here. The fact that if I were dead, complete strangers would still come across and allow some remnant of my mind to enter into their minds is... astounding, to me.

[caramarie]

of all the things I've done, if I died tomorrow, my fanfiction would be the most obvious, locateable, durable thing that I left on Earth

I think about this too, that my fanwork is basically my life's legacy. (I mean, hopefully I don't die any soon, but if that's what's left of me, that's cool.) My day job might be seen as more worthwhile, but it's not something that's attached to *me* the way my fic or vids are (neither in terms of having my name on it nor in the meaning it has for me).

[vulgarweed]

This is such a great in-depth comment with so much food for thought in it.

I've known for a long time that the community aspect of fanfic is so very important to me, and it's possible in large part because of the shorthand of characters we already know and settings we've already been to. For me there's a balance between applying things relatable to my life, and escapism (when I say escapism, I mean more in the sense of escaping to something rather than from something.) Fanfic so often leads to conversations about reality that shed new light and insight I wouldn't have had otherwise, because (and this is true of fiction in general I think) it enables a writer/reader to jump into the heads of people who are not them, who are often very very different from them, and this opens to the door to seeing multiple points of view. A sort of panopticon, as opposed to the one-direction-facing first-person POV that people generally have in daily life.

[tei]

Yes! I love this idea of this fictional common ground as a vantage point to see each others' experiences from.

[kore]

Wow, this is an amazing comment. Thank you for writing it.

[tei]

<3 Thanks!

[adriennefae]

Like a bunch of other people who have responded, I also don't know what I'd do or where I'd be without my favorite fictional characters. Works of fiction, including fanfic, are a good distraction from the bad things in the world and my own problems. A lot of the specific characters I like are also really inspirational to me--like I can't just give up, because the character wouldn't, or wouldn't want me to. They've been through so much more serious stuff than I have and they care so much about other people and about setting things right--maybe I can't reset the timeline like they do and make all of this go away, but I can do little things in the real world and maybe those matter too.

(And I may also have a super self indulgent AU where I'm a member of the Discovery crew and I'm friends with most of the major characters and I imagine that they care about me and I can be there for them (and vice versa) and they can have the down time and quieter moments canon doesn't always give them. I don't usually share the stuff I make for it with the general public, but I have it)

[sathari]

Cosigning so much of this!

(And especially the part about the super self-indulgent AU--- mine is for the MCU/Devil Survivor 2 crossover I mentioned on this comm before, and I'm a consultant to both SHIELD and JP's and friends with an assortment of the characters from both, lol.)

[polarissruler]

A world without that? I don't want to even imagine it. I live in a pretty homophobic country, so fanfic was my first touch with LGBT culture. If I hadn't that I'd probably end up with pretty bad internalized homophobia. Fanfic basically helped me realize I can be myself and all those things, so without it I don't know what I'd do.

[caramarie]

I feel like even just getting to sleep would be more tedious if I didn't have characters to imagine scenarios for. Sometimes long self-insert fantasies to imagine myself interacting with them (although then I also have to think about, like, how I survive being isekaied into Kirkwall or wherever!)

Maybe this seems like a jokey answer, but I'm not very good at falling asleep!

[sholio]

It's such a pleasant, necessary escape for me. I also have lots of original worlds, but fanfic is so much lower pressure compared to origfic. It's like the difference between having to plan and cook a meal from scratch, and having someone give you fresh baked cookies. And also, as others have mentioned, most of the people I'm currently friends with are friends I made through fandom. Most of my professional opportunities have also been by way of people I met in fandom. My life would be so different without it that I can hardly imagine it.

And yeah, I'm one of those people who tells myself super-iddy fanfic stories to fall asleep at night. I've been doing it ever since I can remember.

[megpie71]

I have the characters living in my head. They argue with me, they're there to help me out when I need it, they give me someone to talk to and explain things to, they act as my honour guard when I'm having to deal with stressful situations, and they're joining in with everyone else who cares about me to make sure I actually perform self-care, rather than abandoning it for later. If I didn't have the boys in my head looking out for me... well, I'd probably be more of a mess than I already am.

(Yes, I have my own little self-insert AU where the characters live in my head and pass comment on my life).

[china_shop]

I don't know if this is quite what you meant, but one of the things I've always appreciated about fandom is that I can roll around in all the vicarious feelings my characters have for each other, and it's incredibly gratifying without being RL messy. Like, in the past, upon occasion, getting RL crushes has been wildly inconvenient, but having fictional vicarious crushes is THE ABSOLUTE BEST and gives me somewhere to put my excess romantic energy without any downsides. :-)

[firecat]

I'm new to writing fanfic and still trying to work out why the urge suddenly leapt on me and what I'm getting out of it. ("Escape from hellscape" is undoubtedly part of it, since it started during quarantine.) This entire thread is very helpful for me.

[daryl_wor]

Sorry to respond to this a bit late. (Funnily enough I didn’t notice it earlier due to working on a fanfiction show.)

I didn’t really get too much into fanfiction for a long time, I was so invested in whatever original fiction ideas I wanted to achieve as well as the massive wealth of fiction over all, how to maintain my attention on it to enjoy it, and finding the ability to choose what really appealed to me. (Our world gets us so wiped out with distractions that clear thinking becomes very troubled!)

I rather lost my muse for regular fiction due to bad life-experience. Things got so terrible that most models of escapism didn’t bring much relief. As I finally escaped for real to a much less stressful environment I got caught up in an old show loosely based on classic novels. The format wasn’t based on resolution so I figured I wouldn’t care about any of the characters. Oops! I found myself deeply caring about the characters to the point I, at first whimsically, wanted to give them a format that would resolve. Also my sweetheart and I were cracking so many jokes while we watched a new creation would easily be very fun. (I kept writing many of our heckles in a notebook as we went forward, too.)

As with my original fictional works, it seems I am very often compelled to start with farce and wind up with passion. (A good friend tells me, “Hey, that beats getting it the other way around.”) Now I’ve rather invested my current life on that continuing work because I noticed that as the characters lives changed for the better so did mine. I’d been feeling regularly awful for about 8 years and it was quite quickly lifting. It’s pretty easy to devote oneself wholeheartedly to something when getting such marvellous results.

It took ages to find enough solid friends to share the work with in order to get some dialogue over the details, as I’ve reached creating it in audio. What I anticipated would happen did: They told me, “When I listen to this and enjoy it, I feel a lot better!” or “This is making feel really good!” I found I’d created a show based on problem-solving, a lot of self-discovery between characters and tons of laughs.

I usually didn’t share any of my writings with anyone. (And in the 1990’s, why bother spending all your money at Kinko’s only to have copies of your fiction sitting in someone’s closet?) Privacy was a big deal, but I wanted to share what came out in my fanfiction to find people of like-mind and enjoyment, both with who liked the original content it was based on as well as what I was putting together. (Unfortunately I discovered just how much of a “hellscape”, as you say, we have on our hands when I did share, but I thankfully I found a way back to sanity in recent years. ...knock on wood...)

So, I suppose I do it for fun, friendship, discovery, dialogue, therapy, and overall good health. All of those important principles many vow to prefer but get distracted away from.

Man! I really got into answering this! I’m glad to have found the question today. Thank you!