A Fanfiction Archive

When people talk about fanfiction outside of fandom circles, I feel like there is a certain association or connotation with it. Oftentimes, I find that fanfiction is seen in a humorous context — whether it be whatever people are writing on Wattpad or legitimately published novels like Fifty Shades of Grey, these stories are not always taken seriously – and sometimes for good reason. Despite that, my personal relationship with fandom and fanfiction in particular has been extremely transformative and I wanted to share some of the works, fandoms and pairings that has in one way or another become part of the person I am today.

I can’t say for sure when my own personal history with fanfiction started. As someone who was a Tumblr kid who consumed a lot of media, there really wasn’t a lot of representation to be seen in the things I was interacting with. I got deeper into fandom and fanfiction because of the desire that I had to find parts of myself in the stuff that they enjoyed. While the source material was restrictive and had many limitations, fanfiction was a way to explore an alternate reality outside of the “canon” established by the original creators.

As someone who was very much confused and figuring out their identity as a teenager, fanfiction offered a space for queer readers like me to see the characters I admired struggling with the same things that I were. Even if they weren’t relatable, it’s hard to put into words how important it was for me to read things that showed me that it is possible for any kind of character, hero or villain, to be queer and how that would impact the narrative. It was—and still is—so easy to default to assuming that a character is cisgender or heterosexual even when its never outright stated and fanfiction offered a space to explore the possibilities outside of that. These stories and character explorations outside of the established canon can be self-indulgent but are oftentimes handled with so much excitement and care. At the end of the day, many fanfiction authors are writing for fandom and for free.

I have selected a small selection of fics that I’ve personally read over the years, from fandoms I have either been involved in, or from material that have been a big part of my life. To narrow down on the material, I decided to focus particularly on gay pairings from different video games. I feel like the gay half is kind of self-explanatory, with how seemingly straight a lot of male video game characters are. In terms of the focus on video games, it is both an ongoing personal interest and offers an interesting angle for exploring fanfiction. With how often video games are catered to a straight, white, male audience, there can be some really interesting explorations of masculinity and internalized homophobia when writing about the male characters in gaming, especially when they’re paired together. These stories can also get pretty explicit—especially in some of the fics I've included—though that's not necessarily the norm.

Even if you don’t end up reading any of these, I hope that it at least gives you a new perspective on fanfiction. There's so much variety in terms of content and length, and can be a different way to engage with the things you consume. Although transformative work can be controversial—the ethics of Real Person Fiction being one example—I think that fanfiction contributes greatly to fandom culture and is an important practice for authors and audiences to explore the content the consume in more imaginative and satisfying ways. It's transformative nature is why I adore fanfiction and continue to read it now.

Jayce Nguyen