I was just talking to one of my friends on the phone about this, actually! And I completely agree with you. The more I think about it, the more I think the only way it could work as fanfiction would be with the canon characters as outsiders -- there would HAVE to be fully fleshed-out original characters who were just as major characters as the canon ones to make it work even remotely. If you're writing about a tragedy and it is not absolutely central to the characters' identities and to the story itself, then you're doing it wrong. I suppose it's not impossible that you could AU a character's past/experience deeply enough to make said tragedy immensely relevant to that person, but a) I've never seen this done, and b) it seems as though that would start to be hitting on the land of "is this really still even remotely the canon character, and not just some person with Sam Winchester's name?" (Though with J2 there's the whole other issue of how they are pretty much always [sometimes more, sometimes less developed] random people with J2's names. But that's not so very relevant to this discussion, I don't think.)
I suppose, too, no one is really thinking about fanfiction as "this is a way to work out my feelings about this immensely complicated tragedy, and I am using these stock characters as a means to do it." People write fanfic for a lot of reasons, but with J2 in particular a big one seems to be "so I can imagine these two hot white dudes getting it on." And I would argue that as long as that is even REMOTELY a part of why you are writing a story ("because I want to imagine hot gay sex") then you need to have a long, hard think about what business that has to do with writing about tragedy. I'd venture to say the answer is "absolutely shit nothing", so if you feel the need for some h/c or what the fuck ever, make it a personal tragedy, one that is personally experienced by your two white dude characters and that does not co-opt anyone else's experience one bit, and call it a freaking day.
I suppose, too, no one is really thinking about fanfiction as "this is a way to work out my feelings about this immensely complicated tragedy, and I am using these stock characters as a means to do it." People write fanfic for a lot of reasons, but with J2 in particular a big one seems to be "so I can imagine these two hot white dudes getting it on." And I would argue that as long as that is even REMOTELY a part of why you are writing a story ("because I want to imagine hot gay sex") then you need to have a long, hard think about what business that has to do with writing about tragedy. I'd venture to say the answer is "absolutely shit nothing", so if you feel the need for some h/c or what the fuck ever, make it a personal tragedy, one that is personally experienced by your two white dude characters and that does not co-opt anyone else's experience one bit, and call it a freaking day.
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