Fanfiction was a major part of my earliest online fandoms, and it was a way for me to explore my interests and meet fellow fans. While I no longer read them, I sometimes still think about the things that drove me: how it felt until then like no one else liked what I liked, and how so many works I loved had the most barebone details.

In the years since, fanfiction has become such a major force in nerd media. Putting aside the whole matter of fanfics transforming into wildly successful books and media franchises, there’s just no lack of titles to use for inspiration. What’s more, a lot of popular titles are so obsessed with continuity that there is no shortage of canon to mine. Things like Star Wars and superhero movies just love to fill in every last detail.

I think this is part of why AU fics might be so popular: There’s so much “official” information that it might be overwhelming. By putting something in an AU, perhaps you’re extracting the essence of what you care about most without having all the extra baggage of a messy storyline or a convoluted universe. It’s not really my speed, personally speaking, but I do find it fascinating just how this is almost the opposite of why I pursued fanfiction as a young person. I used to suffer from a dearth of source material, where shows might not even have a real ending, or games might not have any story details other than what was in the instruction manual. 

Lately, I’ve had a bit of an itch to do some fiction writing. Maybe I should try it on some fanfiction first. Though if I do end up doing anything, I might decide to create a new pen name.