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ClaireValdez: It means finding and contributing to a community where we are lucky enough to share our love and imagination for the same stories.
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ClaireValdez: I was a young One Direction fan in middle school, and I was obsessed with their video diaries. I needed more content, but I felt like I'd seen everything possible. So I Googled for One Direction fanfiction, and Wattpad kept coming up. I needed an account to comment, so here I am! Truth or dare, prank war, slice of life, and crack fanfictions were my greatest comforts back then.
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ClaireValdez: Yes! I met my friend Chloe on the Camp Half-Blood Wiki chat, back before it became the Riordan Wiki, and back when it had a built-in chat room instead of a Discord. We added each other on Wattpad in 2012, and we were each other's biggest supporters and grew our following together! We still occasionally keep in touch, and it's incredible how much our lives have changed since then.
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ClaireValdez: I know that if I'm stressed about something, I can always take a break and work on a fanfiction. It's low-stakes, relaxing, and something I'm good at, and in the storyworld I can control everything. Most importantly, writing fanfiction gave me a lot of great friends with whom I can talk about the things that I love <3
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ClaireValdez: There are no rules, so I'm a puppetmaster who can can do whatever I want. Characters can be out of character and I can cut out major plotlines, but the story can still be compelling. Even so, there is something so rewarding about the challenge of entirely preserving the canon of the original work, to the point that my version and the original could technically exist side by side. That limitation is how creativity truly gets pushed to the limit.
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ClaireValdez: I think fanfiction is only going to become more and more mainstream, and I'm proud to be part of its growth. It nurses a passion for writing and being the change you want to see in the story. I hope to apply my skills into a creative writing career someday. After all, so much of published media IS fanfiction. Every time you adapt, reboot, or hop onto a project you didn't start, it's making use of the same skill you flex right here on Wattpad.
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