How much petitioning do we need to get a Wario story or two–or that Johnny Bravo thing from last week? Do you have something against writing characters that aren’t yours?

I am just not into fan fiction to be honest. I understand the appeal, but I have so many original ideas rolling around in my head at any given moment that using characters made by someone else always feels…uninteresting? That’s not the right word really, because I do think it is interesting, but it doesn’t feel true to my writing. I’d get a small way into it, and the characters would be going sideways, and I’d end up with something entirely different that no longer even made sense as fanfic, or I’d just get frustrated, burnt out, and end it prematurely. 

The question I always ask myself, is what does the story gain by featuring these pop culture characters? What do I get out of using Wario and Mario, as opposed to an original character? What do my readers get out of it? I mean, people must get *something* out of it more than usual, given the sheer amount of fan fic in existence. But I also feel like the real world is so fucked, that I’d rather try and write about this shit where we really live, about the things that bind us here, about the ways we’re all so broken and miserable, about other ways of existing outside and beyond these systems that I detest with so much of my being, that I can’t see the worth is spending time making pop culture characters dance a sexy jig. 

I mean, maybe none of it matters, maybe nihilism cancels out everything. But the shit I write makes me feel better about the world, in some fucked up sense. It makes me feel like I’m grappling with how much I hate it. The stuff I write feels like survival in a way that is probably impossible to explain without spilling several thousand more words, but I’ll try and cut to the chase. Fanfic feels like escapism to me. That’s not meant as a slap or an indictment; escapism is fine, that’s what a lot of people thrive on, but not me. I’d rather wallow in ruins, I suppose, and fantasize about dragging other people down with me. Wario can’t give me that. J.B. can’t give me that. I have nothing against people who want to do that, but it just isn’t my drive.

That said, I think there is some absolutely exceptional fanfic out there that does work, and works really well. The best example I have, is the Steven Universe Shattersong AU developed and illustrated by @todayilust4 (a.k.a. Blazing Cheeks). It’s sweet, and it’s beautiful, and like that show, it taps into something really marvelous in reality too. It can be done! I just don’t think I’m the person to do it.