What is fanfic?

Fanfiction is fictional work based on existing characters and settings. It’s written by fans in an amateur capacity and is posted episodically like a modern-day Dickens serial—or as a one-shot—to sites like Fanfiction.net, Wattpad, or Archive of Our Own. 

Inspiration could be a popular book series or tv show, anime, video game – the possibilities are as endless and unhinged as the human imagination. Which is to say: very. 

In the first episode of Disney+'s new television show Percy Jackson and The Olympians, Sally Jackson imparts to our titular hero, “Not everyone who looks like a hero is a hero, and not everyone who looks like a monster is a monster.” I had already been anticipating this adaptation for months, but that was the moment I knew I was going to love it. Neither the scene where Sally takes Percy to see his namesake’s statue at The Met nor that thematically on-point quote are in books, but (and I will fight Rick Riordan on this) both feel like they should have been. And that’s exactly what a good adaptation should do.