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renelfchildHere's one of the most distressing sentiments I hear on a regular basis from newcomers to Pop Culture Paganism: I guess I should probably stop writing/reading fanfic of these characters if I'm going to work with them as spirits.
Everyone's going to have a different perspective on these things, of course, but personally, I feel like that goes against the entire ethos of PCP. If you think back to what got you interested in this form of Paganism in the first place, it's probably the organic connection you formed with a piece of fiction through normal fan activities. If you cut yourself off from the source of your inspiration, what is your practice going to consist of?
I've seen (and had!) this problem in my established Polytheism as well, and Apollon shut it down hard the instant He noticed it was happening. I'd started to feel afraid of any modern fictional depictions of Him about a year into our relationship. It was a vague, formless, all-consuming fear that I didn't know how to put words to. If I had to try, I'd say it was an intense cringe response underpinned with the deep terror of offending a God by enjoying unholy media that my Baptist upbringing had instilled in me.
In response, Apollon told me to search for Greek Mythology fanfiction on AO3 and read it, even if it made me uncomfortable. He told me to listen to an ASMR roleplay video someone had done as Him, even though it was horrifically cringey at first. He told me to expand my mind and try to see the beauty in modern stories where He's portrayed as a stupid fuckboy or a terrible villain.
Not only is it easy to start feeling like "your version" of a deity is better and more valuable than their popular cultural image, it was incredibly easy for someone with my background to feel like I'd committed a sin by having complex feelings about That One Star Trek Episode instead of just wholeheartedly condemning it in every way. You certainly don't have to read or watch anything you don't want to, but my inability to engage with depictions of Apollon at all was extremely detrimental to our relationship.
You're not a serial killer just because you like slasher movies, and you're not impious just because you read and enjoyed Lore Olympus. No, really, you're not. It's your actual behavior around the Gods that matters. They don't own the thoughts that pass through your head or the feelings you have about fiction.
Some context for how this ties into Pop Culture Paganism: My earliest spiritual experience with fiction didn't involve worshiping any distinct fictional characters, but rather fiction itself. I thought about "The Stories", not Galadriel or Naruto or whomever. This wasn't a relationship with a person, but rather a form of animism involving a very broad spirit of place. I was living inside of fiction.
I don't have to personally speak with every tree in the forest near my house to build a good relationship with said forest. If I'm picking up trash, that's good for the forest, full stop. That's enough.
I didn't have a worship relationship or even true spirit companionship with the vast majority of the fictional characters I loved growing up. I had imaginary friends that I went on self-insert adventures with. I changed them for the better and made them worse and killed them and tragically died in their arms, and none of it carried any real weight unless I wanted it to. I had dark, edgy characters that I projected all my trauma onto and used for catharsis. I'd watch a movie and immediately get to work cutting it up in my mind, tearing it to shreds like a dog with a squeaky toy and putting the squeaker inside my own life experience.
Then I grew up and I met other PCP practitioners. Most of those relationships were wonderful and many of them have carried over into the present day, but some of them had an uncomfortable edge that I didn't know how to express my discomfort with. My version of this character is the only real version, and they hate all the stupid, cringey fanfiction teenage girls are writing about them on Wattpad. I'm the only person who really understands them. Nobody else takes them seriously. I'm not just a "fan" of theirs, I'm better than that. I'm a real worshiper.
Not only is it incredibly cruel to say that kids shouldn't have a harmless coping mechanism just because it goes against your subjective spiritual beliefs, there's a degree to which I think this approach harms the spirits it's aimed at as well. This refusal to let the spirit in question exist outside of you, or in any way that you don't personally like, is the exact opposite of respectful.
Fictional characters within Pop Culture Paganism are both real and not real, in much the same way Jesus is fully man and fully God. To decry their "not real" identity - their function as a safe zone for self-discovery - as worthless is to fundamentally reject an important part of who they are. In my practice, this manifests as "zooming out" versus "zooming in".
It's an imperfect metaphor, but let's say that you're planting native shrubs in the forest and picking up trash. You're not conversing with individual plants because you're too tired and busy, but that doesn't really matter, because you're still building trust and love with the forest in general. Then, after you've gone home and had a shower and a nap, you go for a walk in the forest and feel drawn to a particular tree. You meditate next to it and it tells you that it wants you to take a branch to use as a wand.
This one-on-one personal connection isn't at odds with the broader, less "spiritual-looking" work you were doing before - far from it. The second one springs naturally from the first, and it would be counterproductive to stop picking up trash forever just because you have an individual tree friend now.
It's easy to view Gods and spirits as simply humans without physical bodies, especially if they're fictional characters who are canonically human. However, I think it's important to remember that the lived experience of a fictional spirit is vastly different from your own, and you should try to treat them with genuine respect based on the type of being they actually are rather than just imagining how you'd want to be treated if a bunch of teenagers were writing self-insert fanfic about you on Wattpad.
This is an interesting topic for me as a fictionkind individual whose 'type has an entire romantic subgenre dedicated to him ("Legomance"). It's true that these stories go against what I know to be true about myself. I was completely aromantic in that life, just as I am in this one, and I know I would have been deeply suspicious of a self-professed time-traveler if they'd showed up in the Greenwood while Sauron was camping out in our backyard.
However, just as all those old-school fanfiction disclaimers used to say, I do not own J.R.R. Tolkien's collected works. I have no more right to say what is and isn't "true" about the character of Legolas than Wattpad fic authors do. I'm not better than them.
If one of my neighbors started posting similar content about me, about this current physical incarnation of me, I would feel violated. If one of my neighbors started posting Legomance fanfiction on AO3, it would be absolutely none of my goddamn business. I don't have the right to deny them the same joy and catharsis I've always gotten from fan activities. I can bitch to my friends about (what I view as) particularly egregious mischaracterizations, but that's as far as it should ever go.
Similarly, I don't have the right to tell other people that their characterization of Erik, my closest spirit companion, is insulting because my Erik doesn't like it. Fiction is my home, but it doesn't just belong to me. It's not a house that I purchased. It's a whole, expansive, infinitely complex ecosystem that benefits from a wide variety of relationships with it, up to and including those I find distasteful.
To be clear, I'm not saying that you can't have complex and negative feelings about popular fanon as a fictionkind individual, or that pop culture spirits can't do the same. This is about behaving in a way that implies you think someone else's relationship with fiction is less valuable than yours.
If you feel at peace with the idea of classifying fanfic as a religious taboo, more power to you. But you're not the person I'm writing this for. I don't want people to come into Pop Culture Paganism thinking they need to take a sledgehammer to the solid foundation of love, trust, and inspiration they've built with fiction over the years.
The "fictional" part of fictional characters doesn't need to be cut away in order to make them fit for spiritual practice. Rather, I think that's central to what makes Pop Culture Paganism so special.
Everyone's going to have a different perspective on these things, of course, but personally, I feel like that goes against the entire ethos of PCP. If you think back to what got you interested in this form of Paganism in the first place, it's probably the organic connection you formed with a piece of fiction through normal fan activities. If you cut yourself off from the source of your inspiration, what is your practice going to consist of?
I've seen (and had!) this problem in my established Polytheism as well, and Apollon shut it down hard the instant He noticed it was happening. I'd started to feel afraid of any modern fictional depictions of Him about a year into our relationship. It was a vague, formless, all-consuming fear that I didn't know how to put words to. If I had to try, I'd say it was an intense cringe response underpinned with the deep terror of offending a God by enjoying unholy media that my Baptist upbringing had instilled in me.
In response, Apollon told me to search for Greek Mythology fanfiction on AO3 and read it, even if it made me uncomfortable. He told me to listen to an ASMR roleplay video someone had done as Him, even though it was horrifically cringey at first. He told me to expand my mind and try to see the beauty in modern stories where He's portrayed as a stupid fuckboy or a terrible villain.
Not only is it easy to start feeling like "your version" of a deity is better and more valuable than their popular cultural image, it was incredibly easy for someone with my background to feel like I'd committed a sin by having complex feelings about That One Star Trek Episode instead of just wholeheartedly condemning it in every way. You certainly don't have to read or watch anything you don't want to, but my inability to engage with depictions of Apollon at all was extremely detrimental to our relationship.
You're not a serial killer just because you like slasher movies, and you're not impious just because you read and enjoyed Lore Olympus. No, really, you're not. It's your actual behavior around the Gods that matters. They don't own the thoughts that pass through your head or the feelings you have about fiction.
Some context for how this ties into Pop Culture Paganism: My earliest spiritual experience with fiction didn't involve worshiping any distinct fictional characters, but rather fiction itself. I thought about "The Stories", not Galadriel or Naruto or whomever. This wasn't a relationship with a person, but rather a form of animism involving a very broad spirit of place. I was living inside of fiction.
I don't have to personally speak with every tree in the forest near my house to build a good relationship with said forest. If I'm picking up trash, that's good for the forest, full stop. That's enough.
I didn't have a worship relationship or even true spirit companionship with the vast majority of the fictional characters I loved growing up. I had imaginary friends that I went on self-insert adventures with. I changed them for the better and made them worse and killed them and tragically died in their arms, and none of it carried any real weight unless I wanted it to. I had dark, edgy characters that I projected all my trauma onto and used for catharsis. I'd watch a movie and immediately get to work cutting it up in my mind, tearing it to shreds like a dog with a squeaky toy and putting the squeaker inside my own life experience.
Then I grew up and I met other PCP practitioners. Most of those relationships were wonderful and many of them have carried over into the present day, but some of them had an uncomfortable edge that I didn't know how to express my discomfort with. My version of this character is the only real version, and they hate all the stupid, cringey fanfiction teenage girls are writing about them on Wattpad. I'm the only person who really understands them. Nobody else takes them seriously. I'm not just a "fan" of theirs, I'm better than that. I'm a real worshiper.
Not only is it incredibly cruel to say that kids shouldn't have a harmless coping mechanism just because it goes against your subjective spiritual beliefs, there's a degree to which I think this approach harms the spirits it's aimed at as well. This refusal to let the spirit in question exist outside of you, or in any way that you don't personally like, is the exact opposite of respectful.
Fictional characters within Pop Culture Paganism are both real and not real, in much the same way Jesus is fully man and fully God. To decry their "not real" identity - their function as a safe zone for self-discovery - as worthless is to fundamentally reject an important part of who they are. In my practice, this manifests as "zooming out" versus "zooming in".
It's an imperfect metaphor, but let's say that you're planting native shrubs in the forest and picking up trash. You're not conversing with individual plants because you're too tired and busy, but that doesn't really matter, because you're still building trust and love with the forest in general. Then, after you've gone home and had a shower and a nap, you go for a walk in the forest and feel drawn to a particular tree. You meditate next to it and it tells you that it wants you to take a branch to use as a wand.
This one-on-one personal connection isn't at odds with the broader, less "spiritual-looking" work you were doing before - far from it. The second one springs naturally from the first, and it would be counterproductive to stop picking up trash forever just because you have an individual tree friend now.
It's easy to view Gods and spirits as simply humans without physical bodies, especially if they're fictional characters who are canonically human. However, I think it's important to remember that the lived experience of a fictional spirit is vastly different from your own, and you should try to treat them with genuine respect based on the type of being they actually are rather than just imagining how you'd want to be treated if a bunch of teenagers were writing self-insert fanfic about you on Wattpad.
This is an interesting topic for me as a fictionkind individual whose 'type has an entire romantic subgenre dedicated to him ("Legomance"). It's true that these stories go against what I know to be true about myself. I was completely aromantic in that life, just as I am in this one, and I know I would have been deeply suspicious of a self-professed time-traveler if they'd showed up in the Greenwood while Sauron was camping out in our backyard.
However, just as all those old-school fanfiction disclaimers used to say, I do not own J.R.R. Tolkien's collected works. I have no more right to say what is and isn't "true" about the character of Legolas than Wattpad fic authors do. I'm not better than them.
If one of my neighbors started posting similar content about me, about this current physical incarnation of me, I would feel violated. If one of my neighbors started posting Legomance fanfiction on AO3, it would be absolutely none of my goddamn business. I don't have the right to deny them the same joy and catharsis I've always gotten from fan activities. I can bitch to my friends about (what I view as) particularly egregious mischaracterizations, but that's as far as it should ever go.
Similarly, I don't have the right to tell other people that their characterization of Erik, my closest spirit companion, is insulting because my Erik doesn't like it. Fiction is my home, but it doesn't just belong to me. It's not a house that I purchased. It's a whole, expansive, infinitely complex ecosystem that benefits from a wide variety of relationships with it, up to and including those I find distasteful.
To be clear, I'm not saying that you can't have complex and negative feelings about popular fanon as a fictionkind individual, or that pop culture spirits can't do the same. This is about behaving in a way that implies you think someone else's relationship with fiction is less valuable than yours.
If you feel at peace with the idea of classifying fanfic as a religious taboo, more power to you. But you're not the person I'm writing this for. I don't want people to come into Pop Culture Paganism thinking they need to take a sledgehammer to the solid foundation of love, trust, and inspiration they've built with fiction over the years.
The "fictional" part of fictional characters doesn't need to be cut away in order to make them fit for spiritual practice. Rather, I think that's central to what makes Pop Culture Paganism so special.
