Fanfiction, the Oldest Human Tradition
This was one of the free, volunteer run panels the ran at TAGS Festival 2025. The first two minutes of this recording were lost, and so supplemental introductions have been added.
Annabelle owns and runs La Belle Adventure, a bookshop dedicated to French & European comics and graphic novels, often translated into English. She is hosting this panel today.
Ell J Walker is an award nominated comic artist and illustrator who originally emerged from the North Sea. Now Edinburgh based, a lot of their work is inspired by folklore and the ocean - though they are also a big fan of death metal. Their favourite things to draw are horses, guitars and sad men.
Fran Morton is an illustrator and comic creator and also previously worked a little bit in animation too. A lot of her work focuses on the theory surrounding stories and also involves folklore of all kinds.
Annabelle warmly welcomes the audience to the talk, and introduces Ell and Fran. She then launches into her first question:
ANNABELLE. I have my first question. Can you give me a definition of what is fan fiction for you? Please!
ELL. So, for me, fan fiction is anything that has been written — or told — that is a sort of reproduction of something else. So, to me, fan fiction is folklore in that it's a retelling of something. A lot of the time people think of fan fiction and they think, oh, it's just a sexy stories about characters in TV or whatever — which is also true! But it's a way of exploring; I think is a really accessible medium to explore telling stories in a kind of, to me, a kind of traditional way, because you're taking a story that you already know and you're adding to it, or you're changing it, or you're using characters from a previous story to do something new. So, it's like a transformative thing to me.
ANNABELLE. Is that a good definition for you, Fran, or do you want to add something?
FRAN. Yeah, I think that's pretty much how I see it as well. Yeah, I think that's also kind of ties into why I like a lot of Arthurian stuff because that is something, which I don't really see as having a fixed cannon exactly. It's something that's passed through like many hands over hundreds of years and been shaped and changed. And so, it has that kind of like thing in common with fact fiction, I think. It is also kind of odd, because there is no set canon, whereas I feel like modern day fan fiction does usually follow a fixed kind of canon that you're working on and that belongs to someone else. What I like about Arthurian stuff is it doesn't belong to anyone, because there's not that whole thing, like, "private" ownership stuff.
ELL. Yeah, yeah! Something that I find really interesting with fan fiction and copyright and stuff like that is that a lot of people feel really guilty for writing something that belongs to somebody else. But that is the oldest human tradition to take a story and retell it. And the fact that now, this is going to be like anti-capitalist, of course, because stories are now "owned" by people. I know this can be a good thing because, you know, if you write a story you want to protect your story. But when it comes to, you know, like Disney and Marvel, I think it belongs to the people, you know what I mean? Like, you can write what you want to write, and I think that's really interesting about, like, there not being a set canon in Arthurian stuff.
FRAN. That's kind of what I like, because at various points people have introduced new characters who've become really popular in their own ways — like Lancelot — and they've kind of displaced other characters. There's some stories that have lasted and others that haven't and it feels like it's sort of a communal choice of what gets to move forward. Even today, I feel like even fairly recent authors who've written stuff in Arthurian settings have had like huge influence on how people perceive it and how the stories get told from that point forward, like TH White's The Once And Future King is incredibly influential on pretty much, well, the vast majority of modern authors who write Arthurian stuff now. He wasn't medieval, he's a very recent author. I feel with Arthurian stuff, if mediaeval authors could introduce their little character who's gonna have adventures with King Arthur and his knights, I think we could do that too!
ELL. Absolutely. I feel very strongly about retelling folklore stories now —that's fine, that's okay! You can do that. Yes. You're not stealing anything, you're building on it. It's what it's meant to do.
ANNABELLE. You're doing it your own way because you put it modernity into it. In every of your builds, you're taking a main figure or a story that already exists, or a mythology, or very, very local tales, and you're finding your way to tell your story with that. So, why did you choose fan fiction? That's my first question. And is there, after that, a main figure — I don't know, a monster, knight, a princess is distressed or whatever — that you really, really fancy? That's two questions one!
ELL. That's interesting. Okay. In terms of like things that really grab me specifically, it's the "sad man". A man who is sad. I know that's very broad, but I think a lot of the a lot of fan fiction in general, and fiction, is very focussed on angst. It's a really good and safe way to express sort of volatile feelings through fiction: torturing this little man who doesn't exist. You can get a premade man — that's fan fiction; or you can make you a little man. I'm sorry, this maybe isn't answering your question, but that's how I feel in terms of what's good about writing and creating stories is that it's expressing your own style sadness the way to understand.
ANNABELLE. Fran, is that the same for you?
FRAN. Yeah, I'm very drawn to tragedy, which I think is from, you know, why I really like Arthurian stuff because it is, essentially everything's doomed in the end and there's like lots of individual tragedies within it that are very compelling, you know, like the whole end of the roundtable. It's not just like you know, the tragedy of Lancelot and Guinevere's romance, but also everything that happens as a result of them. Lancelot kills Gawains's brothers, and they used to be best friends; then they end up having a blood feud and that kind of thing. I just enjoyed that kind of like tragedy, and the high emotions and things that you get in that. That's what's kind of fun to explore for me.
ANNABELLE. Cool, cool. So how do you work? Do you do you have all this feeding material that you have inside you and you want to tell that story, or is this the other way around? Is modern life influencing you, with you remixing all that with your appetite for tragedy and sad men to sell the story. So how does it work for you?
FRAN. It's kind of a bit bit of both!
ANNABELLE. Is there a special specific example that you could give us regarding one of your [favourite] stories?
FRAN. I think, um. Well, because I've been working on an Arthurian graphic novel, that's one of the projects I've had going on in the background, I think one of the things that I've been focussing on with that is kind of familial relationships; they're told within this more dramatic kind of setting [but focus on], you know, ordinary familiar relationships, but one of [the characters] is the king and another is their nephew and that kind of thing. I like writing stuff about the ordinary family and that kind of thing, but then having it happen within more, I guess, exaggerated stories.
ELL. It's like putting something that you know in a different sort of social construct.
FRAN. I think, everyone can understand problems with their family or understands the difficulties of familial relationships, but then when you put it into like something where there's greater stakes occurring, it becomes quite interesting to explore.
ELL. When you make Arthurian stories, do you try and loosely retell an older story or do you use the characters to tell your stories?
FRAN. It's a mix of both, I'd say. The present project I'm working on, I've been doing a lot of reading to make myself feel like I have a good basis for things, but generally speaking, because I do also feel that it's quite a fluid thing, I'm also of the mind that I can do what I want!
ANNABELLE. Is it the same thing for you?
ELL. Yes, yeah, I think you shouldn't feel constrained, you shouldn't feel like, "oh, I shouldn't do this or I shouldn't do that". It's all about doing what you want! And that's okay, because, again, fan fiction as a kind of space online or as a community is — I mean, fandom's another story — but if you if you just want to write for yourself, you can write whatever you want. There's no thought police. No one's going to come and get you. You can express what you want to with whatever characters you like, however you like. You know?
ANABELLE. What is your process exactly of working then? You're starting with the idea, you're writing a script, a synopsis, a scenario, and after that, you're [embellishing], you know, around that. So, what is your process for that?
FRAN. I have a very scattered way of working, so I usually start with a very strong scene in my mind, or a basic kind of idea, and then I'm noodling away at it, playing about with it until I it starts to piece together. I'm very bad with the writing outlines and things like that. I can do like a basic summary of what I think this will generally happen, but I don't tend to write very good outlines and I don't really script properly. I think I would probably be a nightmare to work with. It's good that mostly I do stuff on my own. But yeah, [my process] starts with a very strong scene and then I figuring out "how do I get to that point".
ELL. See, I think that's really good, though! That's full-passioned because, like in a foot-forward kind of way, because those original stories were all told, you know around the fire at night to family members. So, to have a scene, and think "I want to tell this scene, how do I start" and then just sort of telling it. I approve! You're doing it right.
ANNABELLE. Is that the same thing for you? Are you working the same way?
ELL. Kind of. It's different for me for writing fanfic versus writing comics, for example. Because for me, writing fanfiction, I will find these characters that I like and I think "I want to put them in this situation where I want to explore the situation that they're already in further". So I just I just go. I just go! A lot of my fanfiction stories are unfinished because I will just go until the energy wanes, so most end up unfinished, which is a shame.
ANNABELLE. In terms of yourself, that's your way, that's your touch. That's Ell's touch.
ELL. Yeah. But in terms of comics — I mean, I do share my fan fiction online — but in terms of like, if I want to sell things, I've got to finish them! So, with comics, I do tend to I work similarly to Fran and I'm kind of scattered way and that like I'll have an idea and try and write out a general outline and then yeah, it's like... Comics are hard because the more you work on them, the longer they get. They always get the really long. You add more and more pages. Just because you have the outline, you're like, "this will happen, then this will happen, then this will happen", and then you have to try and piece the scenes together. And piecing them together takes longer and longer. Yeah, similar process [to Fran], I think,
ANNABELLE. [Do you think of] yourself like a [pathfinder]? You know, the person who [finds] the path to the story? Could that be your definition as a comics artist doing fan fantasy?
FRAN. I feel like I'm being led a lot the time.
ELL. Yeah, me too! I think it's definitely something that you're following [the story] more than leading the way, for sure.
FRAN. I agree, I feel most of the time I'm stumbling around, trying to find my way.
ELL. Something that I find really interesting in, like, fan fiction communities particularly, is what's called "fannon", which is like cannon made by fans. Okay. So, like, things that people will write into their fan fictions that other people will then pick up on, and then it just becomes something that's true about the story. So, for example, like. I can't think the example is now. So, maybe this one character will live in this particular kind of house that isn't mentioned in the main story that this is based from, and then another person will read this fan fiction and then put that house in their own fan fiction, so then it just becomes a "fact", that this person lives in this kind of house, which I find fascinating!
FRAN. Oh, that is exactly how Arthuriana works. You just add a character [to your story] and someone's like, "I like that character so I'm gonna put them in my story too." Then the next thing you know, everything is hinging in this one character and their actions.
ANNABELLE. So there's a real community here, where fan fiction [is about its community]. So, is there a huge community here in Scotland or do you know?
ELL. It's an online thing, so, all over the world, yeah. I was recently added to a Discord server (a chat forum, basically). I was added to one recently with a bunch of other fanfic writers that I really enjoyed, and we're all from all over. One person's from New Zealand, some are from North America, from Europe, Finland, France — it's amazing! I think these communities are very welcoming, for the most part I have found. There can be there's a lot of talk online about, like toxic communities where people will police each other and like, what should and shouldn't be in stories.
ANNABELLE. And that's not the case for fan fiction?
ELL. Well, no, it is. In certain places. It's so broad, there are so many different kinds of communities within fan fiction community. It's a huge, huge thing. But within the ones that I've chosen to be a part of, they're very welcoming! My advice is to hit the bricks. If anyone's trying to tell you what you shouldn't or should or shouldn't be writing.
ANNABELLE. Are you also part of this group?
FRAN. I've been part of a group or two, but not an awful lot of. I tend to have quite intense fixations, so for the moment it's Arthurian stuff. I sort of dip in and out, but like my most recent one was for like a cult sci-fi show Babylon 5 so I wrote a little bit of fan fiction-
ELL. Yeah that's amazing!!
FRAN. -and I met like quite a few interesting people through that as well. There's a [small group] of them because it's quite a small fandom, [there's maybe] like 20 of us. It's very niche. It's very, very niche. Yeah. So that was kind of the last one. I tend to dip in and out, but that was the last time. Before that Star Wars for a bit which was a bit regrettable.
ELL. Oh, yeah, that's a big one.
FRAN. Actually, speaking of canons and things like that, that's one where Disney bought it and there used to be like a massive expanded universe and they just like chopped all [of it out] and were like "that's not canon anymore because we want to make our own stories" when they bought it. So [that chopped canon] is now called Legends and they get some stuff from it but only things that would work with what they wanted to do in the future. And then we had the sequels which were...
ANNABELLE. So I have a question. Is there in the evolution in the topic or in the way of fan fiction, you know, telling the stories around the fan fiction is that, have you seen an evolution these past few years? We're talking about Disney, so there's, I think some level or different ways of fan fiction. So, can you tell a little more about that?
FRAN. One of the thing I've intentionally noticed is that people for some reason think or have an expectation that the "ships" will become real and that the new "ship" [in a series] will become a thing, and that's not how I've ever interacted with [media] when I've been in fandom.
ELL. Are you familiar with ships?
ANNABELLE. No!
ELL. Okay! (Laughing) So a "ship" is a relationship. It's when you take two characters from something and say, "they're in love". A big part of the fan fiction community is pairing people up, and saying that they have a romance or whatever. or more?
FRAN. Some people take it very seriously, hoping that their "ship" will become real in the show.
ELL. And it's often not the case. My belief is that when you love something so much, people can get very invested in what they feel about it is being shown. But, I would encourage disconnecting yourself from it in and trying to enjoy it in your own way without having to be validated by — I think that's what people worry about, the validation of the canon, of the actual fictional piece. It was just some guy in a room who came up with this; you're guy in a room. You can come up with something too! It doesn't matter. It's not right or wrong if the show does something or the TV show, or the game, or whatever it's based on. I think there's a lot of people online who get very upset by things that happen within the community and within the [original] media. But I would encourage this connection in that way. Do what you want to do and if you believe that this character's trans, or these two characters who are in love, you can do that within your own story of the story, if that makes sense!
ANNABELLE. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Does the audience have any questions?
AUDIENCE. How do you find writing fan fiction about in your storytelling and comics and that? Is it always good things? Is it sometimes something you need to work against?
ELL. For me, it's only been positive. It's practice. It's taking. It's exploring characters, it's like actual physical practice writing. Your writing improves, you're thinking deeply about things and it's only helped to improve my storytelling personally. What about you?
FRAN. I mean, it's a bit different because I don't really. Well, when I'm doing fan fiction, that's kind of more prose, so it's a bit different from comics, because it's kind of like, you have to think about different things when you're writing comics compared to when you're writing prose. But yeah, I do think it has helped in terms of some aspects of like storytelling and characterisation and things like that.
ELL. I think it's only a good thing. The more writing you're doing, no matter what it is, the better you get.
FRAN. Yeah, I think even with the world building and stuff like that, because I'm one of those like weirdos who mostly writes like Gen Fic (General Fiction) that's more exploring the world than anything else, it's going to be helpful for that, too. it's very. It's ti things. That was good..
AUDIENCE. Have you ever written a fanfiction where you thought "Oh, I love this character so much, I'm going to make an original character and rewrite the story in my own way?"
ELL. A lot of people have done that. I haven't personally, because I think I'm very attracted to very solidified characters. I'm writing a lot of Disco Elysium fan fiction at the moment which has very, very distinct characters. I couldn't imagine taking them to use for my own. I mean, I am using them. I couldn't imagine rewriting them as original characters, because they very much are the characters to me, you know. It's hard to explain.
FRAN. Yeah, I feel the same. For Babylon 5, I would have to rewrite [these characters] completely because it's kind of very much entrenched in the world it's set in, so it just wouldn't really work. Also, I think if I did try and do that probably, well, I mean, it's very niche show, so not many people have watched it, but if someone had watched it, they'd probably read it think, oh, this is Babylon 5.
ELL. I don't think there's anything wrong with people taking a fan fiction that they've written and do what they call "filing off the serial numbers" to make their own thing. I think that's I think that's valid. It's one of those things where I feel like it's mostly done in like romance and like erotica. This thing that's kind of original about it is the erotica itself or the romance itself, which maybe isn't in the original fiction. I think that's maybe what it is. You know, Fifty Shades of Grey was Twilight fan fiction originally. Did you know that?
ANNABELLE. It was so funny. Huge fan of Twilight. Absolutely with Team Edward. I know what you mean, ha ha.
ELL. It's interesting! It's an evolution of a kind of folklore is your creating new stories from old stories, which I think is fascinating.
AUDIENCE. Do you find any particular challenges in moving what you're working on in folklore, which as a material is often orally told or recorded in period texts, and moving that into comics, so bringing that back into the visual — is that something that has a particular challenge?
ELL. Oooh, that's a great question.
FRAN. It's difficult!
ELL. You've made Arthurian comics before, right?
FRAN. Yeah. Well, sort of. Um, I haven't actually really thought about that kind of aspect of it. A few of the comics I've done have kind of had a kind of narration to them, so it's kind of like a story is being told. And that is one way that comes across. But yeah, I think that I don't actually think about that at all, I'm sorry!
AUDIENCE. I mean that's interesting in itself, right? You move so naturally into that.
ELL. Yeah, totally. Because I suppose oral orally told stories have kind of something in common with comics a little bit in that they're very accessible. To me, you know, it's kind of like someone's telling you a story and you're seeing it in your head. I don't know. Sorry! (Laughing) I think they feel similar somehow to me. I can't quite explain how. I was going to go on and talk about the sort of we touched on sort of erotica and stuff like that, and I know fan fiction definitely has a... reputation... for being very...
FRAN. "Spicy".
ELL. Spicy, yes... And that's certainly true. And I think the majority of fan fiction is generally quite erotic. Erotic? And I think that's really interesting because it's another way of people funnelling their interests and their inner worlds. So this is really interesting to me; a lot of fan fiction authors that I know are asexual or aromantic, and yet they write the filthiest smut I've ever read! It's fantastic! And I just again, in Disco Elysium specifically, specifically, I think every single fan fiction writer I know is also asexual, which is so interesting. It's so interesting. And I think it is like, it's something about it being a safe way to explore sexuality, in a space that, you know, isn't real. It's real in a way, but it's not physical. That's just something I've noticed and have thought a lot about because it's fascinating to me. I think it is like an expression of something.
ANNABELLE. Like a mirror of yourself, your intimacy, or something that you really, really really feeling inside of you.
ELL. It's something that you're exploring in a safe way. Something that you can express. And, I mean, that's, I think that's probably true for me as well. But, to me it's more about the feelings and the angst and stuff for me personally, which is another big part of fanfiction is really putting these people through the mill. I'm grinding them up. There's been a lot of studies written about fan fiction as a thing, but I guess I wanted to just talk today about how it is innately human to just take stories and tell them in your own way and explore things, your own way through characters.
ANNABELLE. That would be a good advice for someone who wants to make comics in fan fiction and that's your advice to this young generation of new comics artists. [Fran], what would be your advice for them if they want to discover or explore a little more comics in fan fiction?
FRAN. Yeah, I think you should just do what you want, really, and explore things. Yeah. That's how I feel about it anyway. People should just do what they want and try to tell the stories that interests them. I think it's a mistake to worry too much about what other people want to hear in the story because you don't actually really know and you'll meet people who are interested in the same things as you and who want to hear those stories and tell the stories you want to tell.
ELL. I think if you have passion for something, it will always shine through in the stuff you make. You know, you hear people say, oh, "I'm so sorry, this is so self- indulgent". Like, good! It's gonna be good then, because you're indulging yourself! So many so many artists and writers, I know will share something with me and say, oh, "this is so self-indulgent, I'm so embarrassed, oh, it's terrible", and I'll read it, and it's the best thing I've ever read, because they are being self-indulgent, and I think every artist should be self-indulgent all the time.
ANNABELLE. Do you have some work in in mind that has really influenced you or really hooked?
ELL. At the moment, just Disco Elysium, the video game. It's very multifaceted, with very good character writing and political writing. I can't in good conscience recommend any specific fan fictions, just because of the way that the community is. The fan fiction website, AO3 (Archive of Our Own), is where most fan fiction [is uploaded], and it has a very robust tagging system. Every story that is put up there is has tags with what is included in the story, so that you can safely read stuff. So if you don't want to read erotica or you don't want to read it something specific, you can avoid that, which I think is a fantastic way to curate an online space because it means that it's accessible for everybody. The freaks can find what they want to find — it's said with love, because I am also a freak! The people who maybe just want to read gen fic or like world building stuff or whatever can find what they want to find which I think is fantastic. If you're interested in fan fiction, you can go visit Archive of Our Own and look up the different things that you want to read about. You know, I would say, go with caution, because there is so much and there are so many, it's wonderful, but it is also, you know, it's a space where people are able to express themselves, they can explore, you know, triggering things and so there can be some horrible stuff there. But it's all tagged so you can avoid that.
ANNABELLE. Is there something Fran that you could advise to our audience and that's really inspired your work?
FRAN. Yeah, I guess like one Arthurian novel that I really liked, and that I always recommend to everyone is Exiled from Camelot by Cherith Baldry, because the woman who wrote that is absolutely obsessed with Sir Kay and it's great. You can totally tell that she just loves him, and she's written a bunch of short stories as well around it. The novel itself is really excellent. I like it as an example of Arthurian writing because she's not trying to retell the entire legend. She's just taken one incident that occurs in, I think, the Lancelot Grail cycle, and is just expanding on that and is centred on the character of Sir Kay. You can tell that is her like glorbo, and that she adores him. I really like that, and that's how I want to write Arthurian stuff, just to let myself be completely obsessed with certain characters and, you know, just be as indulgent as possible with it, and follow my ideas where they go, which is what I think she did and it's really, really good...
ANNABELLE. Are you working on something specific right now?
FRAN. A couple of things! I have the other very reference novel, which is sort of taking away in the background, because I'm kind of working slowly on that, but then I've also been working on another of the comic, which originally when I wrote the outline for it was about 13 pages, and now it's probably going to be upwards of 80.
AUDIENCE. (Audible wincing).
ELL. Aaaaans that's comics.
FRAN. That one I'm in the middle of thumbnailing it. It's a historical fiction set in the 18th century with a little bit of supernatural stuff going on as well.
ANNABELLE. Do you know how many pages going to be, how long it's going to take you?
FRAN. I'm hoping to finish it around 80 pages and get it done next year at some point. I do have a title for it; so it's called Blood Sport. Someone gets hunted for sport.
ELL. (Enthusiastically) Yes!!!
ANNABELLE. Is there something for you cooking?
ELL. Not really, I'm mostly just writing fan fiction. I'm not going to share it right now, but I'm sure you can find it if you try hard enough!
ANNABELLE. Or you can all stop by Ell's table and...
ELL. ...and I'll whisper it in your ear!
ANNABELLE. Ah, do you have a question?
AUDIENCE. Um, how did you first come across fan fiction, or the idea of it?
ELL. Oh, I don't know... around.
FRAN. Lord of the Rings.
ELL. (Gasping) oh, Lord of the Rings!
FRAN. Yeah, I was looking at fan sites, I randomly came across some fan fiction online. And that was how I found it. I was like, 11 years old.
ELL. Whoa! You've been reading fan fiction longer than I have.
FRAN. Well, I don't read it like regularly. It's like it's spats, whenever I'm obsessed with something. I read Lord of the Rings stuff for a bit when I was like a teenager and then stopped for a while and then got into Star Wars was and read Star Wars stuff, and then stopped for a while and now it's Babylon 5.
ELL. Yeah. I don't remember. I just feel like it's always been there.
ANNABELLE. Are you just the kind of obsessional in the way that you engage, just staying with one universe or one specific character that you really, really love?
ELL. Again, I have the phases.
FRAN. There are people who are always writing fiction and just bounce from thing to thing. It's always be something where it dips, where for a few years I won't read any at all and then suddenly I get back into it.
ELL. I think generally it was probably through Tumblr, the social media side that I found people saying, "I've written this", and then me going "ooh. Ooh!"
ANNABELLE. There's a lot of to discover, lots of things to discover! Oh, yes!
AUDIENCE. I have a question, which I'll form up a little bit. You said that we should tread carefully because there's so much [difficult, problematic, triggering or graphic media] out there [in fan fiction]. But I feel like this could be said of any fiction member, that's all books that attracts certain people and other. I think fan fiction have been omnipresent, even in the mainstream world, like Dante's Inferno famously could be labelled as fan fiction. There's even like Greek retellings that could, technically speaking, also be in a way considered fan fiction. I do feel like the word [fan fiction] tends to have to have this [negative] preconstructed idea from people, where something is published and just called a retelling [rather than fan fiction].
I am an avid fan fiction read, I have been reading fan fiction my whole life. I think it's the best kind of thing we have, because it is kind of a mentality — I don't know if you would agree — that a lot of it was made for free out of creativity for people who consume it for free. It's like a very loving environment, even if people have strong opinions of such things. But I really wonder about, like the point of view, [where] we don't always include it in the big literature space we have, because it just kind of exists out there because we have moved to a more digital world, which to me is a very natural way of reading things. It's a very natural way of interacting with things. [Fan fiction] is accessible because it's free (mostly), which even e-books can now be priced quite high. But I do feel like there's a lot of [inaudible] as well, like every year when the [copyright to an old work expires] and it's opened up for people [to play with], usually people's brain will go around and a few years [and then] after you'll see them your writing about that [material that is now in the public domain]. Even movies you see it as well, like two adaptations of the same thing will happen at the same time.
I think it's really interesting how there's spaces of phases. I think we talked about monoculture, that is a bit lost at a moment, with people watching the same thing. reading the same thing, immersing in the same world. But I feel like fandom never lost it. I reintroduced it to a lot of people, because we shared a singular love for a character in one moment.
I think I was thinking about this when you talked about Star Wars. I know that Adam Driver, who played Kylo Ren, essentially made up a script and an entire team to produce something for Star Wars, and then presented it to Disney only for them to turn it down. Which I think is crazy, but then it's essentially fan fiction, I assume of his own character. He's written it and is trying to put it into the world and I think it's very interesting that, like, not every interview sees this in the same way.
I was wondering if you feel like this is something that is a present of [in your understanding of the scene]. Like, if it feels scary to say "I write fan fiction", but it doesn't feel scary to say "I read comics", [even though they're basically] the same thing that you can do.
ELL. I completely agree. I, yeah, I agree with everything you said. Because fan fiction is human nature, it's folklore, it's like you say, it's storytelling! It's just storytelling. Because it's a community, a free community and resource and mind. Like you say, it's accessible. Anyone can write fan fiction. There's some stuff up on there that, you know, isn't great, but that's okay because somebody was expressing themselves and that's fantastic. And I just think that there's a lot more, I know in the literary world, there's a kind of uprising of like romance and erotica, sort of "trash books" being published, which I kind of feel is a little bit of a continuation from like fan fiction, because a lot of them are fan fiction authors who are now starting to publish their own works. And that's great. I think it is literally fan fiction has just been pushed to this corner of the internet because it is often copyrighted work that people are, you know, copyright characters or whatever. And again, it's a capitalism thing, like, you're not going to get sued because you're just publishing it online for free, but like, the fact that you might is ridiculous!
AUDIENCE. Yeah, like people want to be more in control of their own work. I'm reading fan fiction about the Odyssey right now, which I think is funny, right? But then you have a lot of content about Greek Mythology right now that's very being continuously published and being reintroduced, and characters are like sometimes trying something new. [Publishers are using language that presents these retellings as new and novel], and I do feel like I feel like fan fiction is just as exciting as whatever is getting published [by mainstream publishers]. It's just that [fan fiction] has existed in its own world exactly. Sometimes I wonder about the weird double standard of "it must not be as good [because it's amateur/unpublished]", though I think [fan fiction] is better.
ELL. Oh, way better!
AUDIENCE. You know, not every writer wants to be published either, which is a very interesting position to be in?
ELL. You're awesome, you should be here with us [on the panel]!
ANNABELLE. Is there another question? No? Well, I invite you to go to Ell's table, and I was expecting Fran to have a table, you're just here for the talk, so thank you for being with us this morning! Thank you, everybody for joining us for this talk and I hope to see you in the next one this afternoon. Don't forget that if you want to support TAGS, you have a donation jar at the exit. I thank you for your support in advance!
This talk was transcribed by Brian Tyrrell.
