Have you ever fallen in love with a fictional character? Or even worse, lusted after them so much that all else pales in comparison? I’m sure if you have, you’re not alone. At some stage of our reading or film and television experience, I think we all find that special someone who truly appeals to us and whom we wish was in our lives for real.
I did a bit of an experiment. I typed ‘unhealthy obsession fictional characters’ into Google just to see what happened. And boy, did I get a lot of responses. It seems a lot of people out there are worried about their crushes and love affairs which people who don’t even exist. There are forums dedicated to the subject, and plenty of whacky questions and answers flying around. See for yourself.
I guess this is evidenced by the love people have for writing fan- fiction. This is a fascinating glimpse into the world of make believe that has actual roots in the characters and situations created by TV and film and expounded upon by lovers of the genre. There is all sorts of fan-fiction out there. I wrote some myself actually, a short, poignant story based on the TV series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch (of course) and I found it very a very enjoyable endeavour.
My daughter has a total girl crush on Ziva David, the Israeli Mossad agent from NCIS. She writes fan fiction for this, as well as the Stargate Atlantis series, the one with the strong warrior woman persona of Teyla Emmergan. Of course Sherlock, Twilight, Star Trek, all have a base of very strong fan fiction aficionados who write some really good stuff, and I’m sure one day their hope is that some of it might be picked up the TV studio itself. I’m not really talking about the slash fan fiction here but the stories that generally lead themselves to perhaps one day becoming an episode in the series. Slash fan fiction is another topic all together and may well be discussed in a further blog post….
Here are some links to some fan fiction sites in case you’re curious enough to take a look and see what you think…
I couldn’t resist popping a little bit of slash fan fiction in this post and this is one of my personal favourites…I love the Winchester boys..
Have fun drooling over these images of Dean and Sam together….if you know what I mean.
I have to put my hand up to writing fan fic – Star Trek back in the 60s and early 70s an Harry Potter in the early 2000s – but it was the worlds that excited me rather than any particular character. As far as lust goes I have lusted deeply, truly, heartbreakingly because i have wanted to BE certain characters. Francis Crawford of Lymond is the one that I think affected me most deeply, Boromir another, and I was desperate to be Rowdy Yates from Rawhide when I was 3. Admitting to myself that when I grew up I wasn’t going to be allowed to be a boy, let alone an attractive accomplished tragic hero, was the most devastating disappointment of my life.
Try as I might I can’t get my head around Wincest. I think I must be a dyed in the wool prude.
Wow, you learn something new everyday! 😉