Growing up, I never considered myself a fan of romance. Everything about the genre was off-putting to me. I mean, are you really trying to convince me that these two people who met yesterday are now somehow in love? Those are just the stories in which the protagonists don’t fall into bed the first time they meet. It didn’t matter what the medium was – novels, film, television–the romantic subplots almost always fell short. Either I didn’t connect with the characters, or their stories played out so quickly that the relationship never felt genuine. Add to that the fact that every romance protagonist fell into the same cookie-cutter categories, and the relationships depicted were always painfully straight. It was unrealistic, to say the least. So, for the longest time, I didn’t read or watch romance. 

As I grew older and came to terms with my own identity, my apathy towards existing content only increased. I grew more aware of how queer dynamics were teased but never realized, how toxic behaviour was romanticized, and how love was reduced to lust in fiction. These realizations, more than anything, made me come to terms with the fact that I didn’t have a problem with stories about people falling in love. I had a problem with the way these stories were written. And I’m not the only one. 

For as long as media has been around, so have fans. However, the modern fandom, as witnessed today, has one “new” salient feature that dominates the space–fan fiction. As the name suggests, fan-fiction comprises “stories generated from the settings, plots, and characters of already established fictions […]” (Thomas 2007, 1) whose proponents subvert, reinvent and reinvigorate popular cultural texts. Fans, frustrated with underwritten backstories, underwhelming character dynamics, and unsatisfying relationships, have taken it upon themselves to renegotiate existing source materials to create texts–queer and otherwise–that offer more satisfying narratives. 

Slash fan-fiction and content (defined by the interlinking of two (or more) characters romantically and/ or sexually), specifically, take the canonical story beats and double down on interior character development, allowing for a more nuanced depiction than offered in canon. One needs only look at CW’s Supernatural, MTV’s Teen Wolf, or BBC’s Merlin to see both aspects in action. Teen Wolf’s fandom took one of its most underwritten characters (Derek Hale) and practically built him from the ground up. Supernatural’s fandom was weaving together elaborate romances between two of its protagonists (Dean Winchester and Castiel) for years before its showrunners formally acknowledged any queerness on both their parts in perhaps the most disrespectful way possible in its final season. And Merlin? Well, the undertones were there for everyone to see and extrapolate from.

Fan fiction’s explosion in popularity, therefore, comes as no surprise. The reason people write it and read it with such gusto boils down to a genuine love for the canon characters and a desire to get representation–of more than one kind– right. The distinct lack of creative regulation and monetary considerations frees fan creators from the shackles governing traditional media. Reader familiarity with the world and the characters also helps since they can simply immerse themselves in a story knowing, going in, that they like these people. Everyone already knows the backstory– so authors can play, and readers can enjoy watching their favourites go on new adventures or re-live the old ones without all the plot holes. And you know how sometimes you watch or read something and want more of the exact same thing? Well, fan fiction has that covered too. 

All of this contributes to why I choose to get my dose of romance through fan fiction more often than not. There is something distinctly comforting about being able to revisit characters I love in new contexts. It’s exciting to witness how other members of the fandom re-interpret certain scenes and scenarios and build on them– even if I don’t always see the vision. I find joy in the promise of a happy ending for characters who, traditionally, might have been thrown to the wayside in the most disingenuous way possible. But more than that, I love the fact that people saw a gap and took it upon themselves to elevate subtext to an actual relationship, opposing cis values and problematic depictions of queerness, race, religion, and gender dynamics found in canon entertainment media.

Reference:
Thomas, Bronwen. 2007. “Canons and Fanons: Literary Fanfiction Online.” Dichtung Digital. Journal für Kunst und Kultur digitaler Medien Nr. 37 (Jg. 9): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/17701.