Fish, the Force, and Fanfiction

As kettles of fish go, none get much stranger than fanfiction. While many denizens of the aforementioned bucket are nothing out of the ordinary - an alternate ending, an additional character, an entertaining crossover with a related (or, often, unrelated) world or storyline - there are also some very very strange fish. Like the ones with two heads, a leg, and the bizarre ability to speak Elvish. Backwards.

I myself have never written fanfiction - it's a comfort issue. As much as I am happy to express my views on what could / should / might happen in a given story, every time I contemplate writing out my musings on paper, I feel like I should be arrested for breaking-and-entering. Or kidnap. Or some other form of metaphysical felony. It's all very well wreaking havoc and making huge booboos in my own worlds, but in someone else's? It just doesn't feel right.

And yet, for some strange reason, the idea of fanfiction fascinates me. I peruse several fandoms (a fandom, by the way, refers to the body of fans of a given TV show, book series, movie, whatever, usually found in cyberspace). Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, a Song of Ice and Fire, and multiple crossovers related to them are my usual haunts. Despite being a die-hard fan of all of the above - especially the last - I don't really have an issue when people decide to have a little fun. Fanfiction is, after all, supposedly an expression of love for the thing in question. 

I'm not using this post to damn fanfiction - I honestly have no problem with it. Heck, some fanfiction authors, I reckon, ought to be off writing their own stories because they honestly have a good head for plot, consistent characterisation and interesting dialogue. Sometimes the fanfiction - especially parodies - is genuienly very good, too. I've been known to sniffle a little when reading a particularly touching fic, or laugh hysterically during a good rib-tickler.

Unfortunately, as with all things - notably the moon, the toast from my school toaster, and the Force, fanfiction has a dark side. Sometimes the things one finds in there are not only implausible, illogical, and sometimes downright unsavoury, but they can be downright scarring into the bargain.

I don't just say this because I'm a terrible canon Nazi - I'm not, most of the time. It's my own fault, really, that I enjoy perusing the dark corners of fanfiction to find the worst of the worst. It's a subtle dance, somewhat akin to swimming in a tank of large sharks, tickling them in the hope one will roll over and let you tickle its tummy. Unfortunately, said shark may be one of those who would rather use your arm for a squeaky toy.

Sometimes I envy the fate of that lost arm.

Below, I list some of the weirdest, creepiest, and most scarring things I have encountered in the world of fanfiction:

• A Harry Potter fanfiction, whereby Severus Snape was miraculously pregnant ... with the child of Sirius Black.
• A Doctor Who fanfiction where The Doctor ended up marrying a fifteen-year-old girl who, by all the rules of the long, convoluted and utterly nonsensical plot, should have ceased to exist after ripping open a hole in the universe, stealing the TARDIS, riding it through the aforementioned hole, and somehow come back with the destroyed world of Gallifrey in tow - complete with everything else that followed it into the void, presumably.
• A LotR fanfiction where Gimli and Legolas had mysteriously suffered a sex change and ended up marrying Pippin and Aragorn, respectively.
• A Harry Potter fanfiction where Harry fell in love with Firenze, and ended up giving birth to a foal that, in the words of the fic "was the size of a five-year-old".
• Many more fanfictions, in all fandoms, involving male pregnancy.
• A Song of Ice and Fire fanfiction stating origins of Jon Snow's parentage whereby Ned Stark pulled a Jaime Lannister and slept with his sister Lyanna before she died.
• An even more disturbing Song of Ice and Fire fanfiction, which resulted in a three-way orgy involving Jaime, Tyrion and Robb. Set against the backdrop of Book Five, I might add.

And, last, and the most horrifying and eyeball-gouging of all:

• Crossovers. My Little Pony crossovers.

I could go on - I could launch into a list of the most disturbing character pairings, or the most ludicrous plot twists, or the most irritating Mary Sues who have inevitably made it their quest to hunt down and destroy the personality of the most desirable characters in every conceivable fandom known to mankind.

But, as I said before and will say again, these horror fics are a minority - and I really do bring them upon myself. Curiosity killed the Charley. Almost literally, in the case of a few demented fic-induced heart palpitations.

What do you guys think of fanfiction, though? Ever written any yourself? Where do you draw the line between unsettling and kill-it-with-knives-and-a-flamethrower?

- Charley R