Fanfic Guilt

[curlycue]

Lately I've been experiencing this strange upset. I've labeled it as 'fanfic guilt'. The first place I put this ramble was on tumblr, so I'll copy/paste it here (under the cut). If you want to see the tumblr version, it's here.

Ramblings are below. It's pretty long, because it seems I'm not very good in condensing thoughts into less than 500 words.


So lately I’ve been writing a fic (personal fic, not to be posted and only because I enjoy it) about one of my favorite youtubers… shipped with myself. Yeah, celebrity crush and all that, he’s old enough to be my dad and he lives on the other side of the continent… the usual. I see the writing as putting down my fantasies, and it’s really fun, but I’ve started to experience this feeling I call ‘Fanfiction Guilt.’ It applies to other fanfics as well, pretty much any fic that involves a real person or the public representation of that person as one of the main characters.

The point, I guess, is unintentionally focusing on the person’s reaction if they read said fic. Even if the person has indicated that fanfiction is fine with them, or just ignores it, I still feel the guilt when I write them into stories. It feels almost… controlling? manipulating? assuming? Essentially, it feels like changing the person into someone they’re not (in most cases) and having them do things they wouldn’t normally do. It feels kind of weird, stalkerish, creepy…

Coming from someone who loves reading and writing fanfiction, I undoubtedly sound very confused and conflicted. This is true.

Even knowing there’s no way this person could read my fic (because I’m not making it public) and I’m the only one who will ever see it, I feel awkward. Things that make it more awkward include the age gap (about 16 1/2 years) and the fact that I have been crushing, even if it’s just ‘celebrity crushing,’ on him for a long time. The funny thing is that neither of these things matter, because as of right now there is no logical way I could ever meet him, much less talk to him for more than 5 minutes, much less actually become a real friend rather than a passing fan, much less start and navigate through the whole dating thing (how do you relationship?) because I’ll have to wait until I turn 18 and then either move across the country or just skype-date (which sounds so much more my speed but not really an actual relationship) all while trying to get my degree and finding a job. So I don’t have to worry about the age/awkwardness issues, seeing as a real relationship is impossible and all. I can write in peace now, right?

I might not even crush on him in person anyway; I might rather crush from back here where I can make him into the perfect guy for me and not have to worry about talking (how do you social?) and asking for autographs and a picture and then moving on before I hyperventilate because it was so awkward and then being sad I didn’t speak up more.

The real life things don’t bother me. I really don’t mind sitting behind this computer, only knowing the voice behind the microphone and the face in the pictures. My problem is the guilt when I include him in my fantastical imaginary adventures.

Sometimes a little voice in the back of my head tells me, “You’re so unattractive and socially impaired and unstable and inadequate… If he knew who was writing this, he’d puke.” (Oddly enough, my inner bullies like to take advantage of my vocabulary.) Often, something as simple as “I’m so insane,” “I’m so weird,” gross, creepy, etc. will run through my head so fast I barely notice it. Letting these thoughts slide by isn’t good for one’s self esteem, which is not good for one’s overall mental health.

So now, with a nice helping of irrational worries and over-analyzing, we have fanfic guilt. It’s driving me nuts. I’m really enjoying writing my fic, but I keep getting all hung up on things that have nothing to do with me or my story.

One thing to note is that the fanfic guilt gets about 379% worse when any fic (even ones I’m reading and not writing) involve the actual RL name of the internet celebrity. This only applies to those who go primarily by their usernames, if the username is not their actual name in the first place. It feels even creepier to use the real name as opposed to the online persona because it makes it much more real, much more the person and not the public identity, which worsens the fanfic guilt because I feel even more like an obsessed, crazed fangirl.

Has anyone else experienced fanfiction guilt? How has it affected your writing/reading/involvement? Is there a way to smack myself out of it without actually smacking myself?

Or is the guilt right, and fanfictions really are creepy and gross?

For those of you who know me, I’m all about respect. I haven’t yet determined whether average fanfiction lies in the ‘respectful’, the ‘disrespectful’, or the ‘not applicable’ category.. Obviously some fanfiction can be very disrespectful, but if not meant to be (as is 98% of all fanfiction) is it still wrong?




Ok, so at last minute I decided to add this. I don’t know what worm crawled into my brain and chewed through some logic connectors that possessed me to include this, but I guess I’ll put it down.

The guest celebrity youtuber protagonist in my never-to-be-published fic is VintageBeef. No surprise there, for anyone who knows me.

Curse you, Beef, for showing up in my ‘What to watch,” box and making me forget everything I knew about Doc, Etho and Guude. Why do you have to be so sweet and kind and teddy-bear-lovable while also managing to be funny? It’s like you’re trying to get people to subscribe to your channel, I swear. (Sarcastic Curly is not good at sarcasm. She is not good at making posts short enough to be read through in one sitting either. Oh well. I don’t like the TLDR people anyway.)


Note: I tagged Beef on this because I am on Salad and I feel comfortable sharing it with you. On tumblr I didn't really want to associate the post with Beef (until the end when I added the confession) so I didn't tag him there.

Comments

[brynae]

I get the fanfiction guilt totally.

I have a few private stories that I wrote about certain Mindcrackers and I, but had to stop halfway through because of that exact same reason as you. I felt like they would be disgusted with what I wrote, not just because it involves my kinks but because it was them as a person.

This stopped me from writing further on the stories for a long while, until I realised that the Mindcrackers were just like actors in movies - for example, people have crushes on Captain Jack Sparrow, a persona of Johnny Depp. Just like him, the Mindcrackers have their personas, and liking a persona is completely different than liking an actual person.

The persona can be attractive, it can be part of the person's actual personality but it always stays separate from the actual person - because it's the persona used in a certain situation, with a certain audience. Even if the persona is referred to with the real name of the person (eg Dan - Beef), the persona is still separate. It's like how people act differently around different people; they have different personas for each different person.

I hope you understand what i'm trying to get at... and I hope this helps you a little.

[curlycue]

I'm so glad you understand. You're right; the persona is completely separate from the person. Thank you, I do understand. I'm trying to keep up the story, because I'm enjoying writing it.

[brynae]

I'm glad you understood that XD

If you like writing the story, keep it up! Practise makes perfect, it'll improve your writing skills for future stories.

Here's a tip I learned off an author:

Stories are like a maze. You start at the beginning, then your characters lead you down certain paths. But with all mazes, eventually you hit a dead end. This is what 'writer's block' is. But it's not truly a block - if you hit the dead end, your characters have led you astray. Go back and find where the characters have started leading you away from where you want to go, then continue from there.

[curlycue]

That's a great analogy. (I'm a sucker for really good analogies. Seriously, someone could probably use a clever analogy as a pick-up line and I would swoon.)

[kurtfan]

Totally understand. For me, I cannot write them as Jason, Jeff, Dan, etc. It always will be Guude, Jsano, Beef. I also am uncomfortable writing about the ones I know do not like it or seem uncomfortable with it. I don't post the little I've written, and I have so many more stories I'd love to write, but just can't bring myself to write them yet and probably because of this.

I guess the best way I can look at it is like with Star Trek fanfic. I write about Kirk and Spock the characters. I'm not writing about William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy--they just happen to be the actors that brought them to life. I hope this makes sense.

[curlycue]

Comparing them to actors is exactly right. Their online identities are not the same as their real-world ones.

The only way I've been able to get myself to write something I feel nervous about is to start writing it in private. You can even put a name on the document that people will overlook if you think anyone will be on your computer. If you ever decide to publish it, you can. Writing is a wonderful thing, and I hate for us to be trapped by guilt when there's little to no reason to be guilty.

I hope you can write those stories one day. It truly is an amazing feeling when you're right in the middle of a story, scribbling/typing away, with the words showing up instantly.

[ajrainbowz]

Yea, I understand the feeling. This 'fanfic guilt' is the main reason I'm not a writer. When I'm writing, I suddenly think 'What if he/she sees this? What would be their reaction? Would they hate me? Am I even portraying them right?' and then I get scared, and then I end up backspacing the entire thing.
Its a scary and sad feeling. I dont like it. T-T

[curlycue]

I completely understand. It's so terrifying sometimes, isn't it? If you enjoy writing fanfiction, I hope you can eventually get over the guilt and write it. I've come to the conclusion that they aren't very important worries in the first place, considering they don't know our true identities. Also, I've found that the mindcrackers seem to be cool about the entire thing when mentioning it. Either they embrace it, they laugh, or they just ignore it. The only ones keeping us from doing what we enjoy are judgmental, close-minded internet spider poops and ourselves.

If you ever want to talk, my skype is Claire (curlycue/CAJ22). You seem a lot like me, actually. :)

[riverer]

It's very interesting to see this topic being discussed. I personally do not suffer from fanfiction guilt, though I do get fearful about posting, reading, or commenting on fanfiction for an entirely different reason.

I bring this up because I have come to the realization that it's all about the ability to separate things up in your mind. For instance, I do not fear Mindcrackers reading what I've written, even if it's fantasies involving them with me, just because I have set up a separation in my mind between the characters I write and the real people behind them. For me it's more than just being able to recognize that the characters are fictional, based off the Mindcrackers and are no more different than a published author might base a character off someone they know personally. I naturally have a certain detachment between me and other people. So no guilt there.

However, I do not have a separation between the real person me and the one I portray online, and that scares me. I see myself as a very innocent person in the way that I tend to believe that everyone is forgiving, loving and tolerant. So I realise that this puts me at risk of doing something silly online and have it be linked to real life me and affect my life. I have already given out my email to a stranger, and revealed my real name. And while it all seems harmless at the time, I don’t doubt that there will come a time where I will wish that I had kept me the fanwork lover, me the gamer, me the student, and the real inner me all separated. That is the reason that I would love to publish fanfiction, but have never dared to.

[curlycue]

The skill of separation of virtual interaction and personal interaction is very important, I agree. I've found myself spilling all kinds of information that I know I should keep to myself, at least until I trust the person enough to tell them.

You might publish fanfiction one day, if you feel you can write, publish, and comment on it without making it too personal. Self-inserts are much trickier in that sense.

In my opinion, most fanfiction (and online interaction as a whole) should be used with a good amount of concealer. (I feel stupid saying this, but I don't know if you wear makeup; concealer is the skin colored paste you put over blemishes) You don't have to be someone completely different, but no one needs to see all the details. Also, you have the right to keep things to yourself. The anonymity ruins some aspects of the internet, but it helps in a lot of ways.

[oliviathecf]

i rarely experience the fanfiction guilt. every once in a while it sorta happens but im just like "ah, it's a thing you do just for fun. there's no point in hating yourself over it and, if it becomes an issue with them, you know to stop."

i've never done the self insert thing, so i don't really know how different that'd be.

[fallingonthefloor]

I understand this... Although I only really had fanfiction guilt once when I wrote my first ever fic.

I guess it was because I was terrified that one of the Mindcrackers would see it. But then I found this community.

And I'm glad to say that once I found this place, I was happy to write things because I found out that I wasn't the only one. I, from there joined the community, and I'm happy that I did.

[simba597ty]

I understand where you're coming from. One of the main reasons I didn't write fanfiction for such a long time is because of how grapic my stuff can be. I wondered what would happen if one of my works got really popular and they saw/read it. Then I realized that their charater isn't them, and its not the same that way. I mean, sure their charaters voice is their own voice, but that doesn't really count for me. Once upon a time I had a crush on some 100 subs minecraft gamer guy. He was more my age, but still about 5 or 6 years older then me. I didn't write fanfic about me and him, I don't allow myself to do that. My imagination can get out of hand sometimes, so that was never an option. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is; as long as you don't take it too far, it's fine. Everybody has a crush on somebody and age, sex, looks, etc. doesn't make any difference. You just need to be content that he's not your boyfriend and he most likely never will be. The fact that you're not sharing the fanfiction you've made about the two of you is wonderful. You don't have to deal with people being nasty with you or anything like that. A good thing to keep in mind is the fact that they are youtubers, in a sense. Any person that goes on the internet and becomes well known in a small group or even the internet as a whole, runs the risk of having something written about them. Same goes for things being said about them, untrue rumors floating around about them, etc. etc. There's no need to feel guilty because chances are, someone else has written a fic about Beef/them or Guude/them or whoever really.

Sorry that just all came spilling out at once.. I don't mean to tell you what to do, I just felt the need to say something seeing as I was in more or less the same boat as you a few years back. Hope it helps.


Love,
Simba!~<3

[curlycue]

Oh no, you weren't telling what to do at all! You are right, it's important to keep those things in mind. I never thought about famous people having that risk, but it's true. No matter how much they may push it back, it will be written by someone eventually.

[simba597ty]

Oh good, I'm a bit like a mom when I give advice (Or so my friends say).

*nod nod* Everyone runs that risk. Not as in fanfiction, but strangers thinking you're attractive. They may fantasize about you or something equivalent to "shipping" you with themselves. Not a pleasant thought really, but it's just the way the world works.


Love,
Simba!~<3