More Than An Ending
More than an Ending
By Jenica Amalita
What is it about a story ending that we can’t accept? What is it about the limitation of a book or show that causes us to search within ourselves for more?
When I first started reading, my days were filled with tales woven by Enid Blyton. I would travel with Joe, Beth, and Fanny up the Magic Faraway Tree to meet Silky and Watzisname and the Saucepan Man. I loved it. But as time passed by, I didn’t want to wait for Joe, Beth, and Fanny. I wanted to go there myself. I wanted to experience these places alone, to interact with the characters without having to rely on the narrative in the book to do so. It was this feeling that led me to create my own stories, to write my own fiction that allowed me to consort with the characters outside of the author’s perspective. To say that coming up with my own picnics and tea parties with the residents of the Faraway Tree was my first attempt at fanfiction, however, would be a lie.
By the time I was four, I was already nagging my mother with Red Riding Hood’s mother’s story and rewriting other fairy tales as I saw fit. While everyone around me eventually tired of my ramblings, I began to collect more stories so I could create more worlds and connect them together. I would construct my own Faraway Tree that only I could reach and explore, and I would have marvelous adventures, provided that I came back down the tree before the land shifted away. I wasn’t writing them down for the world to see, but my ideas were, in a way, invoking oral tradition.
Until recently, I never questioned the way I lived. I was present in the real world, with those I loved and cared for. Eventually, though, I would retreat to explore these new worlds, carrying out a story as far along as I could before having to descend back to my mundane every day. But one day, the question arose…
I know so many people who are content with the way a story goes. Even if they’re unhappy about it, they never question the author. Even if they wanted a segue into a part of the story they liked, they move along with the author’s hand, pausing where he does, placing the period where it’s already been placed, peering into the novel through the character’s eyes. So, why was I discontented? Why did I want more? Why did I insist that I meet the characters, that I get to move them like pawns on a chessboard, that I get to dictate some part of their story?
I admit my musings were purely philosophical—plain curiosity at my unwillingness to conform to the author’s master plan. But as I grew, I found others who refused to conform as well, those who wanted much more than the author offered. They wanted to enter the author’s mind and create more. They wanted to see a character who was more than just a character—they wanted a person, someone who they felt they could relate to and understand beyond the constraints of a page.
Fanfiction seeks either to blur or eliminate the line between what is real and what is imagined. It is our collective effort to place ourselves in the shoes of a character, imagining ourselves to be them. After reading The Diary of a Social Butterfly by Moni Mohsin, a satirical novel that follows the main character, Butterfly, through the years as she deals with the trials and tribulations of being a shopaholic and socialite, thereby subtly criticizing Pakistan’s patrician values. Throughout the book, I kept imagining introducing Butterfly Khan to my all-too-serious friends. The more I read, I realized that I wanted someone like her in my life. And not just her; I want my own Grandpa Joe, my own Lorelai Gilmore, my own Daiyu, my own Myeol Mang, my own Regina Mills. I wasn’t content with simply flipping through pages or hitting the pause button to hold onto a moment. I didn’t want to have to see the words ‘season finale’ or ‘epilogue’.
When we watch a show or read a book, we don’t need to do the dirty work. We’re watching a life being lived, a character being tested, a promise being made or broken, a heart learning to beat, two hands finding their way to each other. We are limited by our seeing someone or hearing about them. We don’t have to figure out what they will mean to us, whether they will mean anything to us at all—it is all handed to us bare. We are given a character, and we are given access to their innermost thoughts, their desires, their habits, their conflicts, their nightmares, and their dreams. The characters are inevitably subject to the author’s choices.
Fanfiction, as I have come to see the art, is my choice. When I read fanfiction or write it, I am not simply doing it because I want to rebel against a story; but because I recognize that the intersection of my life with a story leads to a divergent path. If a butterfly’s flapping can contribute to a whirlwind, I am convinced that my imaginings, my ability to feel for another, and my greedily wanting more can have as big an impact on my perception of the world as the original piece does. This choice is open, not only for me, but for everyone who wishes to go beyond the limits of reality.
