There are fanfic writers who want to become published writers of original fiction and are using fanfic to work on stuff in a way that feels fun.
There are also people who write fanfic because they want to write fanfic, and that's also fine.
And I hope the people who find joy, comfort, community, affirmation, pleasure, or distraction from their troubles in either reading or writing fanfic don't even read that person's bad take.
Also, of all the various things that people can create I feel like we're especially moralistic about writing. Maybe it's just because I don't hang out in the right circles, but I've never seen someone who does counted cross-stitch shamed for their "formulaic needlework."
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So since we're talking about music and Joe Biden can I tell you how much the Hamilton song "Wait for It" makes me think about Joe and also about Joe Biden vs. Aaron Burr.
"Death doesn't discriminate / between the sinners and the saints / it takes, and it takes, and it takes."
Weeks after Joe Biden was elected to his first term in the Senate, his wife and daughter died in a car accident.
Of his surviving sons, one went on to die of cancer.
The other, Hunter, has struggled with addiction. To try to hurt Biden during the campaign, someone released texts sent between Joe and Hunter while Hunter was in treatment.
I was pondering the fact that on Tuesday we're going to see 8 gazillion Les Miserable "One Day More" gifs and found this delightful flashmob performance from 2014.
I hope flashmob musical performances make a roaring comeback in 2022.
There are lots and lots and lots of Les Miz gifs for your use on Tuesday but there's also this one with Minions:
And if you want a slightly less ominous/more optimistic song from a musical, there's always:
There are actually a number of additional sites, they just make it very difficult to find them. Check out this page for the state you're in to see if it's recruiting:
I had a few more things to say about the whole "aspiring writers who cut their teeth on fanfic" thing. (I'm not QT'ing the original tweet because at this point that would REALLY feel like punching down.) I want to talk about the writing I did as a kid & teen.
One of the things that got cancelled due to COVID last year was Minicon, and one of the things I was REALLY looking forward to at Minicon was a planned event where a bunch of us were going to pull out our oldest juvenalia for a reading.
The oldest juvenalia I have is from 4th grade, when I had a weekly assignment that was "write 1 page of whatever." The story I spent most of the year working on is about a girl who goes to summer camp and meets a talking horse.
I served food in my high school cafeteria, shelved books in my high school library, and scooped frozen custard for minimum wage. The library job was pretty great. Working at the custard stand sucked rocks through a bendy straw.
When I was a teenager, the minimum wage was $3.35/hour, which over the course of my high school years ranged in current value from $7.85 to $6.48.
I also babysat for $2/hour, which was less than I should have been charging. One parent paid me $1.75 and did not correct this problem when I finally got the nerve up to tell her my rate was $2. I said OK and was passive-aggressively busy every time she called after that.