Fandom is something special. A community that pushes us to be creative. Or as Anna Borges puts it in her book The *More or Less" Definitive Guide to Self Care :
One form that this creativity takes is fanfiction. I am an avid reader of fanfiction and even have written several fanfics that I have shared with a few family and friends. I have seen fanfiction provide the space that others need to process their own lives and the lives of those they care about.
I have also seen fanfiction provide the room to explore the full range of human identities and intersectionalities. In this capacity, I have seen fanfiction take the problematic aspects of works and face them head-on and explore what these universes would like without the problematic aspects.
For some works by authors who hold problematic views (Racist, Homophobic, Transphobic, Sexist ... views) become problematic themselves. For others works that edit out or omit the complexities of a time period or a creative universe are an issue. There is no right or wrong way to wrestle with these issues in our fandoms but this wrestling is important.
This is shown in the following tweet by Lin-Manuel Miranda in response to critiques of the show Hamilton which has recently been released on Disney+.
Fandoms can be amazing. Fandoms can be problematic. Both are true. So keep the parts that are affirming to you and debate and challenge and critique the parts that are not. Critique does not mean something is "bad" or "evil" just that it is flawed like everything in life. So enjoy your fandoms and work to make your fandoms even better.
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