strixalba

M and I were talking last night about creative output and how it’s not just about art for the sake of art — I mean, it can be — for both of us. Making art is about communicating with other people. It’s about sharing some of yourself in a format where you’re allowed to share yourself, and getting a response.

So when I’m writing fanfiction, I’m sharing a bunch of things:

• what I would like these characters to do
• what I think these characters would do in the circumstances I set
• my opinions and reactions to:
  • canon tropes and norms
  • fanfiction tropes
  • social norms at large
  • social norms in my own community

It’s obviously not entirely conscious. But for example: when I’m writing a genderswapped Supernatural AU, what I’m doing is sitting down and thinking about what elements of Sam and Dean are quintessentially them, and which are informed by their gender and the way they were raised. My answers are going to be biased based on my own background and ideas about gender and socialization. Other people might have different understandings of what cis-female Dean would be like, or how genderqueer Sam would behave and dress.

Sometimes it’s entirely intentional: I don’t like the way that fandom at large has decided a certain relationship should go, or how the most popular stories interpret a specific character. So I’m going to write my own, and it will be written based on my ideas about what a relationship can be, or who a character can be, because everyone else is clearly wrong.

( in which I go through my fics and pick out the themes )