Macphisto as an alter for Bono in fic...
I could ramble at length (be not embarrassed about your rambles, L&L!), but I'm posting from work and am nervous enough about the IT guys tracking my access here. *L*
I've always loved writing, and since I was a teen I've written reams of stories of varying quality. I actually wrote something that had an element of real-artist fic in it before I even knew what fanfic was. I showed that to my best friend at the time, and she correctly pointed out that it was a huge (100+ handwritten pages,
) excersise in wish-fulfilment. Did that bother me? Not particularly.
Before I became a U2 fan, I got into writing in a pre-established fictional world (Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, if anyone knows it), and really got into that for many years. When I finally found this place, I admit I was startled that people wrote stories about U2, real people. I figured, Pern fic is one thing, the world is fictional and the characters are all original. (I must have conveniently forgotten about that thing I wrote as a teen.)
But once the idea of U2 fic was in my head, I eventually had to give it a try. I was so embarrassed about it that I used an alter to post the first couple of mini stories in this forum.
But people were nice, and I started getting ideas for much longer stories... I actually showed my first long U2 fic to a friend from the Pern fic club, and she was very supportive and not judgemental at all. (I'm not sure how serious she was in her claim to have a bit of a thing for Edge - I was trying to convert her to U2 fandom too!) I think she actually went as far as joining interference so she could comment on the story when I finally posted it. *L*
But anyway, she was the only non-PLEBAn who has (to my knowledge) read any of my U2 fic. I was on the brink of showing something to a non-PLEBAn interferencer friend last year, but I chickened out in the end... besides, they know I've written fic, and they can read it here if they're that interested. *L*
Basically, I write U2 fic because I love/need to write, and for whatever reason, for the last three years or so, the vast majority of my creativity seems to be coming out via U2 as characters. (I just find them fascinating, and I don't pretend that the characters I write about bear any great similarity to the real personalities of the band members. We only know their public personae, after all.)
This frustrates me sometimes (the U2-only creativity), as I would love to have been writing all these words towards something I could conceivably publish one day, but there it is. The Pern fic was unpublishable too (not cos it was naughty, just for copyright reasons - same as U2 fic. I haven't yet written any naughty U2 fic and I don't think I will... it's just not my thing.)
I also have a twinge of unease sometimes - I am sure that if the band knew that fans wrote fic, it would freak them out. Put yourself in their shoes; it would freak me out! But as long as I don't know whether they know, and I don't know what they think, and I don't think they'll ever know that I'M writing it, I can ignore the moral dilemma and indulge my U2-related muse. I figure they're never going to read it and it's not doing any harm.
... and I wasn't going to ramble.
My point, if I ever had one, is that I guess it all depends on who you're showing it too. Some people won't judge or point and laugh, and others will. My personal feeling is that I don't think most of my non-PLEBAn friends would understand, but my friend from the Pern club proved me wrong in one instance.