everything is... wait what?
a year-long retrospective in discovering my writing ethos, intentionally engaging with fantasy in reality, and reclaiming the word "fanfiction"
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wandered off on my own. Regardless if it’s a symptom of the only-child syndrome, the thrill of new experiences all on my own was a taste I never stopped yearning for. I was uncannily the only kid at sleepaway camp that never got homesick, or even bothered to call my parents at all. Truly savage of me as their only daughter, but why would I feel sad about missing mundanity when the possibility of the unexpected constantly teased me at the tip of my tongue? Wanting to be swallowed whole?
I’ve come to believe that everyone’s natural way of going about life (whether it’s like a bull or like a flower or like another cog in the wheel) is deep-rooted, saturated into your bones since birth. So escaping your own instinctual nature into adulthood is not really possible. Experience shapes who we become and tests our ego’s bandwidth, but after being a nanny and experiencing babies for the first time in my only-child life, those little guys show exactly who they are when they’re born.
I was born needing freedom in order for creation to be possible, and to then live in that fantasy until it’s over. And then it’s on to the next one.
Despite knowing this about myself, I can’t believe I stayed in classical music, one of the most structured and restricting institutions, for so long. I guess I really did love playing and loved the people I was with, and love always makes us do silly things. The classical music world gives an illusion of ultimate creative expression, but that is the thick veil shielding our eyes that not much has changed since the goddamn 1800’s. This notion is particularly amplified here in the states because the arts are not publicly funded up or valued by our government, so it’s a constant cycle of chasing after weird rich people, allowing competitiveness be an innate cornerstone to success, and forever repeating the comfortable rotation of faraway history instead of uplifting something exciting, new, or experimental.
My body knew before my mind caught up that I eventually had to break away from that rigidity, so I did right out of college and moved to the most delusional city on earth. But it’s perfect for someone on a chase, a hunt, for the next bite of exhilaration.
Since that pandemic change-up, the past few years have been a nonstop litany of freelance work and shuffling through some stereotypical odd jobs. The grind can be (and still is) pretty tough, but I continue to do it because of the gift this freedom presents me: having the ability to indulge my years of twentyhood in fantasy. I model my own curated vintage, I can bring the visions of others to life through film photography, I’ve even picked up my viola in a pirate costume for my friend who sang, dressed up in a mermaid tail.
But running forever is impossible. Some time last year, I felt a real mental trigger that what I was doing was not enough. I can traipse through these different masks and have all the fun I want, so why have I not found what I can fully sink my teeth into?
Taking a break to find purpose
Around springtime last year, the burn-out from restaurant jobs and hauling all the shit I own to markets every weekend was really chipping away at my mental health. On top of that, the mosquito-infested, thin-walled Bushwick apartment I shared with my partner with the saddest excuse for a DJ upstairs and rats running in between the walls was enough for me to call it quits. I flew back home to Chicago after our lease was up to be at home with my parents in an attempt to save money, be somewhere comfortable to rest, and sort out the chaotic state of my mind to figure out where I wanted to focus my efforts next.
I always loved my childhood room because it’s at the front of the house on the second floor. Sun pours its radiance through my windows that line an entire wall facing east when I wake up. I feel myself coming alive with how warm it can get. Not much has changed since I left for college; my dresser still has a stain from an old soccer jersey, the wooden trunk sits at the foot of my bed holding my embarrassingly huge stuffed animal collection, the two bookcases stand like guardtowers posted up on either side of my bed. Packed to the brim with the books I grew up reading.
One of these April evenings in bed after eating gummy edible, my high and giddy gaze locked on a familiar book spine. I picked up Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, remembering how it used to be a comfort book I always flipped through maybe twice a year in my youth — a comfort book being one where you know the plot inside and out so there’s no surprises, purely a read for fun & familiarity.
I was shocked with how bad it was. I suppose I knew it wasn’t an amazing book even when I was a kid, I never recommended it to my friends despite always rereading it. Why the fuck did I do that? The plot circles around a white teenage girl in a small Minnesotan town who discovers a werewolf pack (made up of also entirely white people) and falls in love with a wolf-boy. Clearly this book was riding off the coattails of the Twilight craze that dominated the early 2000’s-2010’s, and was simply less successful (maybe because of the lack of vampires).
But somehow still in my adult lens, I couldn’t put the book down. About halfway through the book when our whimsically named protagonists Sam (wolf-boy) and Grace (white girl somehow more “mature” than the rest of the adults) start dating, there’s a real innocent, too-good-to be true love between them. In the real world, the best case scenario for Grace & Sam is that they’d be the ride or die theatre couple that makes out in the cafeteria and in the worst case, super toxic and immaturely codependent. Their bonded love borders on high fantasy in that way, but as the teenager reading, you eat that shit up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, wanting to believe that’s how love really exists in this world. Pure, unadulterated, willing to go to the ends of the earth for it, wanting to write love songs about it.
Amidst the simplistic writing and questionable plot devices, I found myself tearing up. Was it because I find this type of world changing, life sweeping love with my partner that I am still in awe of to this day? Partly yes, for sure. But I was dumbfounded at the absurdity of how emotional I could get with a basic at best written novel. What was it that was keeping me entranced?
A call from the family desktop computer
Reading that shitty book caused the first, matchbook-like ignition to light up my past. Shiver had me step back into the time when I truly loved to read for pleasure — back to middle and high school when I actually had the time to do whatever the hell I wanted on the internet into the late hours of the evening. The only consequence was going to school the next morning. Not worrying about bills. Not worrying about being hungover for work. Simpler times. Illuminating these deeper, childhood recesses made the infamous tumblr.com slither out into the forefront of my thoughts.
Upon recollection while writing this, it’s astounding to me that for at least four years (circa 2010-2014), I had this alter ego that only came out at night. I would have to wait until my parents went to bed tactfully at 11pm to begin my mission. Absolute precision was paramount in opening and closing the bedroom door, creeping along 10 feet of creaky, carpeted flooring without making a single sound in the hallway. The beast (my very normal dad who would take away my iPod touch) could not be woken.
Then I’d swiftly glide down the hardwood stairs, silently through our living room, and into the kitchen where on the bar counter, the family laptop sat. I was intensely afraid of the dark, but in order to keep my anonymity I had to endure this fear. I knew was worth it. I’d relish in my success after this intense 5 minute period and open up my prize — the blue, fluorescent glow from the Dell laptop screen felt as important as opening the portal to the fucking tesseract in the Marvel movies.
Tumblr was such a unique social media platform in its heyday. It was a tool of expression and a safe space for teenagers to geek their hearts out on the internet without getting bullied. I’m pretty sure one of the first blogs I created was called mermaid-cunt where I reposted pastel grunge aesthetics. Being cool and fashionable when I was a nerdy classical music kid was something I wanted to greatly achieve as a budding teenager (a sentiment I’m sure is widely felt). Back when Urban Outfitters and American Apparel were the blueprint. Y’all I didn’t even really know what a cunt was… I was 13. But it was edgy and fun and I had a glitter graphic at the top of my page that sparked CUNT! for everyone to see. And that was so cool.
No matter on what “side” of Tumblr you were on, you algorithmically always had the potential to be exposed to other facets of the website through reblogs from the accounts you followed and hashtag exploration. The DSLR hipsters would see Dr. Who posts and Merlin watchers would see funny memes and the memers would see thirsty gifsets of Dave Franco. It was all connected. Once I discovered that people had blogs dedicated to books like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, middle-school me knew it was over. These were already the books I obsessively talked about with my four friends in our small class that loved reading dystopian, fantasy novels. But now I had the world of the internet to indulge myself in?!
This is when I knew I had to create a fandom blog. Somehow in my blossoming hormonal existence, I also knew deep down that I could not have it traced back to me. Perhaps out of embarrassment. So, I gave myself an alias, lied about my age, and kept everything a secret. A new life, a new persona was being born into the ether of the internet and she was all mine.
To really paint a timepiece picture, see below an actual blog post at this time as well as this fan made picture that I viscerally remember laughing at and even reblogging. The latter was posted 14 years ago… chef’s mf kiss.
The fanfiction elephant in the room
I promise all of that introduction was leading to something, which is my somewhat reluctant but mentally needed confession to the world: I used to write fanfiction on Tumblr. I loved to roleplay. THERE! I’ve finally fucking said it. How cathartic it is to not have to hide behind my past, even with something as trivial as this! There are very few people in the real life flesh I’ve opened up to about this, and now I will with everyone on the internet. I am free.
Something should be said about hiding parts of yourself, your inherent self, from the world. It feels shameful and will only build up little by little, worse and worse over the years if you choose keep it in. We cannot be ticking time bombs.
BUT BEFORE you are able to utter the words, “Ohhh, so you wrote smut,” bear with me! When I’ve opened up about this past of mine and how it’s been an influence in my creative writing journey, the majority of the time I am met with immediate shame, immediate guilt, immediately having to over-explain myself.
Let’s unpack this. Not that I need to prove anything to anyone, but rest assure from my rather asexual teenagehood (losing my virginity at 18 and having one senior year relationship that felt more like a really sweet friendship where we occasionally blew each other), I never wrote or cared to read explicit sex scenes. Probably from lack of experience, the relatability simply wasn’t there.
Instead, I was exploring love I had never experienced yet, testing the bounds of undying friendship loyalty, fighting for good in the face of evil. Was there occasional kissing? Maybe, but that wasn’t the point. Having the immediate thought that fanfiction = smut is rather obtuse, but an understandable perspective with the ease society casts towards shaming internet expression. And… the prevalence of younger folks being able to enter this space doesn’t help the fanfiction cause, for the writing is sometimes not the best and when riddled in typos, loses credibility.
It’s easy to cast aside fanfiction as an actual form of storytelling because really, really bad fanfiction exists out there: if One Direction enslaved you or if Sherlock Holmes impregnated John Watson. Originally, 50 Shades of Grey was sadly a fanfiction about Edward and Bella. You could even say that Twilight is fanfiction about the Book of Mormon! I urge us to think critically beyond these extreme, popularized limitations because what fanfiction has taught me is that you can be anyone, do anything, and experience real joy and loss and connection with others in a world of fantasy. And that’s why everything is fanfiction.
Unpacking and destigmatizing fanfiction
I could not write this next portion of this post without the inspiration and impeccable research done by Teya, better known as Strange Aeons on Youtube. Her channel is incredible and has a plethora of video essays deep-diving into niche facets of internet, especially when it involves Tumblr culture.
I remember exactly where I was when “everything is fanfiction” was concepted in my mind last year. In April I was in Chicago (Tumblr and a calling to write started to creep in my mind), in May I was traveling in Europe (letting myself feel the romance of life), and in June I was back in hot ass NYC (for some gigs). There I was, sweating in the little studio space I shared at the time for Booki Vintage, classically having Youtube open on a really long video as background noise so I could avoid my own thoughts. I was recommended the video “Why Do Women Write So Much Gay Fanfiction?” and it was an immediate click. In my seven years of watching Strange Aeons, I hadn’t seen this one yet.
Here is the quote from that video that stopped me in my vintage steaming tracks:
“Early academic writing focused on fandom tended to come to the conclusions that it was this really interesting, subversive, semi-utopian space. Fandom is a space not gatekept by publishers and their financial interests. There’s no trends you’re pressured to follow, it’s just pure expression… It’s a place where marginalized voices can take control of media and twist it to fulfill their own wishes and reflect their own desires. It’s been called modern folklore before because of the way these communally told stories grow and change and become this creature that doesn’t really feel owned by anyone.”
It was finally coming all together for me. Something I have not yet divulged in this post is that as a fanfiction writer, I mainly wrote in the perspective of a male character (typically wooing a lady). Some introspection informs me that it was because I wanted to be the version of a lover I always imagined for myself.
It’s no surprise that the domain of fanfiction is almost entirely made up of women and queer people. These demographics have been historically excluded from mainstream media, so it makes sense that fanfiction is a device used to fulfill these desires unseen in other forms of writing. It’s extremely common for women to write gay m/m fanfiction not because there’s a fascination with having two white men bang, but because it removes gender as a governing factor in the love relationship. There’s equality because one partner doesn’t have an “inferior” sexual rank in our sexist society. These are just women who fantasize about finding someone who values them as an equal.
Something I will briefly touch upon but that I think is significant to address in exploring fanfiction, is the omegaverse (PLEASE NOTE: I literally only wrote Harry Potter fics… this shit goes down a whole other rabbit hole). This is a genre where human characters have personified, biological qualities akin to that of wolves in a pack — alphas, betas, and omegas. I’m truly just skimming the surface in informing you of subject matters like alpha men impregnating omega men, the biological need to have elongated periods of sex while being a human with a conscience, how written worldbuilding deals with the medical necessities of this biological function.
As Teya states, genre fiction has always confronted the absurdities of our own societies, of actual injustices, and expanded our understanding of what is possible by asking, “what if it was different?” Gender based violence, reproductive rights, medical trauma — these are all subjects the omegaverse can address. How is identity formed by biology? Is biology destiny? How does it feel to have a body that is not in your control? Omegaverse is a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy, and like all genre fiction, is a reflective tool.
It is easy to look at the surface level of eccentric, pseudoscientific porn and judge it as an abomination to the craft of writing. But if we as a collective can LOCK IN and see beyond the literal, it is clear that fanfiction transmutes personal struggle into a removed and safe medium.
I highly recommend watching the two Strange Aeons videos in their entirety that I’ve referenced in this portion, found here and here. They’re both so entertaining and dives wayyy deeper into this internet lore.
Everything in my life is fantasy and it will be forever
So much of my identity growing up was involved with classical music, so when I stripped that facade from myself, I stood naked in front of the possibilities of my adult life. So I dressed up.
I was a nanny to roleplay as a caring older sister instead of a selfish only child.
I was a hostess to roleplay what it’s like getting treated like shit for money.
I was a vintage seller to roleplay working as an adult but acting as a child, dressing up my dolls in tangible history.
I was a barista to roleplay how to smile while having the worst UTI of my life and never letting anyone know that internal pain.
I was, and still am, all those people wrapped up in one skin casing with infinite more masks to adorn inside of me as well.
I am and have always been a writer because I want to roleplay in a world outside of my own, but also in one that exists in the magic of my mind.
Fanfiction can be reclaiming your trauma. Fanfiction is creating a safe world in your control. The internet is infinite, and in that infinite space, smutty gay impregnation fanfiction can exist.
Merch plug & the end
If you’ve read this far, I love you. It took me awhile to write this because as silly as all of this is, it’s incredibly important to me. Felt like writing a short story lol.
In terms of crossing all aspects of my life together because I am and will always be these many masks, I’ve loved making merch for “everything is fanfiction.” I showed it off at my 27th birthday party a few weeks ago and that felt like a big milestone. Thrifting vintage clothes to then upcycle by my own hands, to create something completely new and still imperfect out of the old is really cool to me.
I created this side Substack to advertise these merch drops (whenever they happen) as well as be a separate space for me to explore fanfiction with some people in my past. Don’t worry, this booki writes ༄ page will publish more than fanfiction thoughts!
Subscribe to that here! THANK YOU FOR READING!
“I am and have always been a writer because I want to roleplay in a world outside of my own, but also in one that exists in the magic of my mind.”
love this🫶
You have such a beautiful way of expressing yourself🥹💕💕