FanFiction: My Guilty Pleasure

So, I have an obsession with fanfiction. It's embarrassing. Quite embarrassing. Understandably, I have never told anybody in my Real Life world. When my mother asks me what I'm doing on the laptop, I tilt the screen further toward my stomach and innocently answer, "Writing," while I minimize the screen to reveal the open and untouched Word Document behind it.

The amount of time I spend on http://www.fanfiction.net is... well, I'm pretty sure it's about equal to the amount of time I spend in school. Which is pathetic and embarrassing. To make it even better, I'm also an author on the same site. Under this pen name, sadly. If you're curious, you can go read a bunch of really good fanfiction from my favorites list. It's mostly smutty and angsty. Which is about when I curl up and die of embarrassment, hoping that you don't know me from my Real Life.

But I happen to like reading it--I'm addicted for a reason, after all. It's... emotionally stimulating. Wait, not like that, sheesh. I mean... well, sometimes. Not that it's the reason I read! No, not entirely.

I read fanfiction because... well, let's start my list.

1. It's free.
2. A lot of it is absolutely amazing writing. Seriously, some of these stories are 450,000 words. Want an example?

I watch them twisting all around me,
I give them what they think they want to hear,
When thunder rolls in and lightning strikes hard
I tell them there is nothing to fear.
My thoughts run cold in daytime,
Whiskey heats up the night,
My heart beats loud when I hear her voice,
Singing baby won't you do me right.
I watch her every movement,
Her every twist and turn
The look she gives me sets my brain on fire,
Damn, what a lovely way to burn.
~Tropic of Virgo, by In.a.blue.bathrobe

3. They make me cry, they make me laugh uncontrollably, they keep me up at night thinking about the possibilities.
4. I like reading incomplete fanfics, because I like thinking ahead in the story and trying to predict the next twist in the plot. It's especially nice when I guess correctly. The complete stories, I love them, really, but the experience of reading them is not the same. I guess I just like the anticipation?
5. If the people on fanfiction are writing/reading this stuff and living normal lives, surely I can too?
6. Oh yeah... I write it myself and I like to compare my work to the work of others.
7. Review system. True, not many of the reviews are helpful for critique purposes, but they make me smile just the same. I like being able to talk to fellow authors and hear back from them, as well as hearing the thoughts of my own readers.
8. Some of these fanfic authors are real published authors! What a gem... read it for free before it comes out on shelves under different names!
9. There are so many stories, and finding the polished jewels in the pile of rubbish is tiring, but worth it.
10. Making friends with fellow authors. I beta, and somehow end up becoming pen pals with people in Canada and France and fellow Californians...
11. It's a place I can post ideas and see how they'll be responded to, even if it is a crappy story.
12. It's an escape from the chains and boundaries of Real Life. My life is so boring compared to these stories...

Wow, I didn't know my list was so long. I'm sure the list against fanfiction is just as long, though...

1. It takes up so much time! Seriously... I'm reading it whenever I can. Sometimes I choose it over my Real Life friends.
2. I have unrealistic expectations from my life and love now.
3. Since I started reading, I am now a smut-lover. And UST? Yeah, constantly searching for sources in Real Life, which is disappointing... because there aren't any.
4. I learn random things, spout them out at inopportune moments in Real Life, and have to blush and stumble my way through lying... "Oh, I just... read it somewhere." "Where?" "Er... um... I mean... I don't remember?"
5. I'm not losing any weight sitting on my ass reading all the time... And I'm lightheaded whenever I stand up from my reading spot.
6. I don't have nails anymore. I can't stop biting them as I read. At least while I'm writing they're occupied and I can't chow down nervously.
7. I would probably die of embarrassment if people from Real Life discovered my secret, read my horrible writings, and read the shockingly-smutty things I read every day and look forward to.
8. The fandom I live in... is probably the worst guilty pleasure of them all. I hate the books, the movies, and yet... the fanfiction is so irresistible. Seriously, what I read is better than the damn hardbacks that started it all.
9. I don't sleep when I have a chapter waiting to be read, or when I'm expecting reviews, or when I've just read something so emotionally charged that it keeps me up half the night imagining what might happen next or in the future.
10. I embarrassed of being embarrassed of it! What the hell?!

So yeah. Somehow, I'm thinking the good outweighs the bad. Not much I can complain about, now is there?

Unless you consider that instead of enjoying The Fountainhead like I've been meaning to do since January--I'm four hundred pages in and currently on hiatus because fanfiction is more appealing at times--I'm reading about the many different--better--versions of the two flattest literary characters of all time.

Damn.

~ hyacinth

Music Rec: Mumford and Sons - "Dust Bowl Dance"