I
find Catherine Tosenberger’s essay quite interesting because I am kind of familiar
with the term of fanfiction, although
not necessarily Harry Potter fanfiction. As Tosenberger states, internet gives
a chance for Harry Potter fans, especially teenagers, to explore literacy by
sharing their stories to each other who have the same interest. For some
reasons, reading or writing fanfiction of any story offer the fans some
pleasure and enjoyment.
According
to the essay, which I agree, by participating fandom and writing fanfiction,
“adolescents can hone their writing skills.” Despite without any financial
benefit, the fanfiction authors gain the pleasure to publish their works and
know that others be able to read them. Besides, there are no control by adults
to publish the stories, which is both good and bad, because everyone can access
the internet. The authors, mostly teenagers, need to “satisfy their own
desire,” and probably reading and writing fanfiction is the only way which is
free from adult’s supervision. That is why it is good and bad at the same time.
The
fans can depict what they actually expect to happen in the story. When we read
a story, we usually have our own imagination about the characters and the
plots. It can be the gap between the plot that does not be told in the original
story and the characters who is not the focus in the original story can be the
lead in the fanfiction, or even completely a new plot. The fans sometimes hope that there is a romantic relationship between two characters. Besides friends, the
pairings also can be enemy, which Tosenberger
called as “enemyslash”, since love-hate relationship is popular in
romance stories.
Therefore,
fanfiction is a facility for the fans to express their own imagination where
they can have fun without any restriction. In addition, it also can be an area
to interact with other fans.
