Not World of Warcraft or Dungeons & Dragons. Not Magic: The Gathering. Not being able to quote The Big Bang Theory and intimately knowing every single fandom they mention. Not being able to speak Sindarin or Klingon or being able to write in Dwarven runes.
... Frequent attendance at Comic-Con is a plausible contender.
No, I'm speaking of fanfiction, and the inevitable stigmas that come with it. As some of you know, I've been writing fanfiction since my senior year of high school, and reading it for far longer, starting in the Lord of the Rings universe and since moving onward. My current fanfiction projects are, in order, Star Wars, SW/KOTOR II, and SW/LOTR fics, as well as riffing the bad fanfics in true MST3K style. Props to all those who understand what I just typed.
However, seeing as I get tired of frequently seeing 10th Walker stories or Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan slash (That will ensue an entire new rant. Don't get me started.), I like looking for new fandoms. Depending on the movie I've just watched or the book I just read, the fanfiction can be plentiful and good, such as the Chronicles of Narnia and Knights of the Old Republic. It can be plentiful and bad, like the Twilight fandoms. It can be meagre and decent, like the Song of Ice and Fire series.
Or it can be completely nonexistent, as in the Mithgar series by Dennis L. McKiernan. I picked up Silver Wolf, Black Falcon at a used bookstore a couple of weeks ago, finally got around to reading it and became emotionally attached to the two main characters enough (NOT fangirling. No. Nu-uh. Even if I do like fictional guys with long silver hair. Maybe that's why I have fangirl crushes on Rhaegar Targaryen and Cin Drallig...) to Google fanfiction for that series. Normally, Google produces at least decent results, most of the fiction from FanFiction.Net or from a specific board, even for the elusive fandoms such as the Codex Alera.
This time, Google failed me by not bringing up ANYthing even remotely pertaining to fanfiction. I strongly doubt Yahoo! will do any better. I did, however, see a Q&A with McKiernan, where he discourage fanfiction for the purposes of copyright and the reasons that if one wants to write, one would be better off creating their own universe.
I am disappoint.
Why does fanfiction (and the people who write it) earn such a negative connotation from others? Is it the excuse that we fanfic writers are obsessive geeks who lack enough creative brain cells to come up with our own stories? Au contraire- while that might apply to the thirteen-year-old Legolas fangirls with nothing better to do (and evidently no Spell-Check on their computers. Those who just blinked in confusion at that are now dared to go into the Lord of the Rings fanfiction archives.), there are plenty of fanfiction writers who have since gone out and created their own fictional universes and stories. I am one of them, even though my fictional works are suffering a severe case of writer's block, and have been since high school.
The copyright worries I can understand. But it is clear that the fanfiction writer does not own the work she (or sometimes he) is writing a story from. The original author/producer/writer/whatever should be able to own the full rights to his or her story. And every person who has created a story that was well-recieved around the world knows all about the fanbase that follows- including the fanfiction and fanart. Some even make use of this, such as the writers of the popular TV show Supernatural, where the main characters Sam and Dean Winchester attend a fan convention in one episode and meet a fanfic writer, much to the characters' bemusement and the hilarity of the watchers who are guilty of writing the same fanfiction that Sam reads online in the episode.
Yet other authors have said that they do not want any fanfiction to be written about their stories. They may be shouting to a vacuum, but sites such as FanFiction.Net have heeded their requests and do not show stories written by certain authors. Other authors, like George RR Martin, have realized that the fans will not be disuaded- FFN hosts several pages' worth of A Song of Ice and Fire fanfics, where the fans speculate over who will be the ruler of Westeros at the end of the series. (My personal hope is that it's Daenarys Targaryen or Bran Stark.) And of course, there are countless fanfics for The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Twilight.
I have yet to try deviantART for Silver Wolf, Black Falcon stories, so there may be something hidden in their archives. If not, then I suppose I shall have to content myself with stories that my over-active imagination will come up with..
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