(Untitled)
This is a continuation of a discussion that I got into over on Lee Goldberg's blog that got severely off track. It's probably not of much interest to the majority of my flist, but click on the cut if you're interested.
( Blathering about etiquette vs. ethics and debate styles )
( Blathering about etiquette vs. ethics and debate styles )
OMFG I hate that word.
:oD
"fic" is a diminutive of fiction. A noun, not a verb. "To fic", "he ficked", "ficking", "to get ficked" - these are not real words, people! Of course you'll notice that it is the anti-fanfic crowd that uses it this way. No doubt the similarity to "fuck" is amusing to them. God forbid they simply call it writing - then they'd have to, in some peripheral way, admit that fans can be writers. */pedant*
Actually I've seen it used in fandom as well, only then it's usually spelled 'ficcing, ficced, ficcer'. I've even caught myself using the verb form once or twice but I was cured of that really quicky - I was talking about fic with my rl friends, using the English expressions as one tends to do, and they looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Unfortunately 'fic' sounds exactly like 'fick', which is German for 'fuck'. 'Ficker' is a schoolyard insult and a pretty nasty word overall. It's really distracting if people spell it that way.
And I normally wouldn't call someone on it - it's too minor. All I said was that writing fanfic without permission is perfectly polite within the fanfic community and that manners aren't relevant to a question of ethics. Approximately 10,000 words and 8-15 posts later, here we are. Proof that no internet argument can ever be settled quickly.
...if ever. The problem here is that a lot of it boils down to gut feeling... a knee-jerk, visceral reaction that doesn't seem to have much to do with logic. Not from where I'm standing anyway.
Take the most recent 'fic without permission is rude' argument. I would argue that an acidic, unflattering parody of a text feels ruder than your average fic. Both can be seen as commentary on the text. The first one is definitely protected under the fair use clause, the second is (possibly) copyright infringement. But legalities should have no relevance in this case, since we were arguing manners. I don't see how someone can think the latter is rude, while the first is not. I mean... ok, I just had a glass of wine, so maybe that's why it just doesn't.make.sense.
And so far I haven't seen anyone argue that parody/persiflage is rude. Of course not, it's unquestionably legal after all, so they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
I just don't see why the form the commentary comes in should matter at all.
By the way, I think you and ey-up seem to have a different view regarding the internet as private/public sphere, which is one reason the 'manners's argument went in circles. I'm getting the impression (I may be wrong) that ey-up thinks that everything on the internet is by definition public, so by that definition an LJ fic community wouldn't be so much a large group of friends and like-minded people hanging out in someones huge back yard (which would be the way I see it), and more like a public message board (sparking the 'publishing on the net is publishing period' argument). Definitions again.
I actually think that the majority of fanfic falls into this category. Long, plotty stories in the style of the original work are really in the minority.
As someone who prefers long, plotty fics to post-ep snippets, I'm inclined to agree. I love long, involved stories that rival or surpass the original in terms of plot, but they are hard to find. Though they're out there, you just have to look. :)
I've noticed an increasing trend for "comment-fic" in several fandoms. SGA and SPN, mostly, but those are just the ones I'm actively reading at the moment. It's incredibly cool to watch people spin off mini-fics in comments, with other people riffing off of them at will. Dynamic and fast and incredibly creative (and often hysterically funny).
I've seen it compared to a jazz jam session. I like that image. And that's one of the things I love about fandom, the spontaneity and the sheer creative energy.
tbc...
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Re: the word ficked
Ok, I may be overreacting there. Now that you point it out, I do see other fans using it so it's hardly fair to criticize non-fans for having picked up on it. It just doesn't get under my skin the same way when fans use it. I guess it's similar to how I don't mind my friends calling me girl, but from strangers it sounds like a dismissal - I'm a woman, dammit! Still don't like the word, but I'm a stickler for language.
Proof that no internet argument can ever be settled quickly.
...if ever. The problem here is that a lot of it boils down to gut feeling...doesn't seem to have much to do with logic...
This is the thing that always trips me up - what the hell do their feelings have to do with ethics? I must be particularly good at compartmentalizing or something, though if you had asked me before all this I would have said I'm more of a gestalt thinker. Just shows that perception is more dependent on your surroundings than on reality - I tend to hang out with scientists and I know I'm on the less analytical arm of that bell curve. The thing that gets me is that people actually expect their emotional reactions to be enshrined in law and general practice, regardless of how that conflicts with reality, human behavior or fairness.
I would argue that an acidic, unflattering parody of a text feels ruder than your average fic. Both can be seen as commentary on the text..
I get where you're going and I agree. Apparently abusive, unfair criticism is perfectly polite as long as it is in the form of a non-fiction review, but a piece of fanfiction of the style and quality of the original is rude, rude, rude. And they call fan writers hypocrites.
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...I think you and ey-up seem to have a different view regarding the internet as private/public sphere...I'm getting the impression (I may be wrong) that ey-up thinks that everything on the internet is by definition public, so by that definition an LJ fic community wouldn't be so much a large group of friends and like-minded people hanging out in someones huge back yard (which would be the way I see it), and more like a public message board...
Actually, I think the opposite - the internet is public, no question. But public and "out in the open for all to see" are not the same thing in my mind, and I think they are in hers. I meant the leather bar example quite literally - it's a public place for all that it's behind closed doors. It's a reasonable expectation that you'll have control over who comes into your backyard - not so for the leather bar. Anyone can walk right in and be "assaulted" by the sight of someones naked ass in leather chaps and a thong. But they would have no right to criticize because no one forced them to go in there. Its mere existence may offend some people's sense of propriety or morality. Too bad. If they don't want to see it, they don't have to go looking. If someone clicks on a link to a slash story that is labeled as such they have no standing for the complaint that "they're talkin' 'bout homosexuals in there!" And if an author is so emotionally attached to their characters that it's traumatizing to see them in someone else's fiction, well then they shouldn't read it.
*rant* This is the point at which someone usually jumps up with an argument of "but what about the childrens! [Sic]" I have no respect for those sorts of arguments. First of all, older children are both far more resilient and inventive than people give them credit for. If you take all the adult content off the internet they'll find it elsewhere or make it up themselves. Frankly, there is equally explicit material available in their supermarket checkout lines or local bookstores. (Have these people ever actually looked inside a mass-market romance novel? It was certainly a revelation for me when I read one for a class at Uni.) And people who let younger children freely wander about the internet unsupervised have bigger things to worry about than fanfiction - cults, racists, hardcore porn, terrorists, etc. I would no more allow a child in my care to surf the internet unsupervised than I would allow them to wander alone around Times Square at midnight. As far as I'm concerned, the content warnings that people put on their fiction and adult archive gateways is more than sufficient for any adult to make a decision before reading. The internet is an adult venue and I don't see any point in trying to dumb it down so that other people can abdicate their responsibilities as parents. */rant*
I actually think that the majority of fanfic falls into this category. Long, plotty stories in the style of the original work are really in the minority.
As someone who prefers long, plotty fics to post-ep snippets, I'm inclined to agree. I love long, involved stories that rival or surpass the original in terms of plot, but they are hard to find.
I'm with you there, although I tend to prefer those that have a unique style or offer insights into the character that go beyond what can be shown on screen. It's the nature of a written medium that you can go into more depth in some ways than in an episodic tv show - just as there are things you can do with a visual medium that just doesn't work when you translate it into text.
Then again, I also read stuff just because it's funny. Something else that gets lost in these debates is that an awful lot of fanfiction is humorous. In SGA fandom they have people turning into gay penguins! And made it work! Why does all character analysis have to be deadly serious?
I've noticed an increasing trend for "comment-fic" in several fandoms...Dynamic and fast and incredibly creative (and often hysterically funny).
I've seen it compared to a jazz jam session. I like that image. And that's one of the things I love about fandom, the spontaneity and the sheer creative energy.
Yes! Yes, exactly. I like that comparison.
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Yeah, it completely rubs me the wrong way if I seem the anti-fic crowd use it that way. Personally I think it's extremely rude if someone calls me 'ficker'. And yet, I couldn't call them on it... it probably didn't even cross their mind that they were being rude, because in their own circle calling us 'fickers' might not be considered bad manners.
I love the smell of irony in the morning.
I'll have to look that one up (haven't been over to metafandom in months - looks like it's time to dip in again).
Metafandom linked lots of interesting discussion re fanfic and author's wishes ... must be that time of year.
The above mentioned poll
cereta's follow-up post, with lots of interesting discussion in the comments.
Tamora Pierce posts about Moore/Gebbie's Lost Girls. I find that particularly interesting, because while she is very critical of certain kinds of derivative fiction - she said she cried when she read about one of her character getting raped in a fic - she argues nonetheless that it shouldn't be censored just because it makes the author or others uncomfortable. I didn't know TP used to write ff, too.
I think I have more to babble about, but first I want to finish my last page of pencils.
Oh, but first I have to ask: gay penguins?? I don't read SGA but I'd love a link for that.
In Buffy fandom, there's a very poetic story written entirely from the POV of a tree. And it works.
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The above mentioned poll cereta's follow-up post, with lots of interesting discussion in the comments.
I found that after you pointed me at Metafandom. I love cereta's posts - she always make's me think (even when I don't agree) and she can say what I mean to say in about half the space and elegantly (I really kind of hate that years of scientific literature has made my writing extremely didactic).
Re: Tamora Pierce and Lost Girls by Moore
Wow - that discussion hit a lot of buttons with me, and not because I agree with her at all. I actually wrote quite a bit in response, but I'm still up in the air as to whether I should comment over there or here or at all, so I'll have to get back to you on that.
Oh, but first I have to ask: gay penguins?? I don't read SGA but I'd love a link for that.
Heee! It's part of the Animallia sequence by Leah, set in the PegasusB alternate universe (talk about a jazz session - PegB is an amazing shared universe. Warning: tons o'slash) You might want to read the Universe summary before proceeding (This is a good place to start.), but IMHO it's not a prerequisite to enjoying the stories. The first one is Tarsiidae (Or a simian vacation). The second one is the one with the penguins - Pygoscelis (Or, a Gift of Pebbles). Both stories are brilliant.
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"So, that gets us exactly, where?" Jack asked. *Gay penguin sex*, his brain supplied helpfully. Jack put his hand over his eyes.
*snicker*
Wow - that discussion hit a lot of buttons with me, and not because I agree with her at all. I actually wrote quite a bit in response, but I'm still up in the air as to whether I should comment over there or here or at all, so I'll have to get back to you on that.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. I read only parts of that discussion so far, not being familiar with 'Lost Girls' in the first place. Apart from that, there are so many interesting meta discussions lately that it is getting hard to keep up reading.
In a way that makes sense, since he's a single author in that case (although wouldn't the artists have separate copyrights to the artwork?) although I wonder how that works, since he's using essentially the same universe as Buffy? But then, he's the single creator of the "Buffy-verse" isn't he, even if others have claims on the show scripts? So maybe it's not so complicated. Hmmm. *thinky thoughts*
AFAIK, comics art in the US is usually work for hire. Not supposed to be that way, but that's the way it's handled. So the artists wouldn't have a separate copyright. No idea how Whedon managed to retain sole copyright for 'Fray'. Maybe he has enough clout by now to hammer out this deal.
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*snicker*
You're welcome :-)
This may be tl;dr, but you did ask ;-)
I haven't and am not going to read Lost Girls. Reviews I've read have varied from lauding its innovation (as if derivative porn were something new) to criticizing its art. It seems that for a lot of people, it doesn't succeed as porn - but that's a matter of taste.
Not only do I disagree with Pierce's premise, but she's contradicting herself. I didn't want to get into it over there because while her reasoning doesn't make sense, she's gotten increasingly shrill with people who disagree, even those who are simply asking for clarification.
She's adamant that she's not making a call for censorship. But she didn't say "this makes me uncomfortable and this is why" she said it's wrong and bad, implying there's something wrong with anyone who disagrees with her. Further, the reason she makes for this moral judgment doesn't hold up.
She says she has no problem with fanfic (she's a former fan writer herself) at the same time she's trying to make an argument for "respecting the intentions of the author." She takes it as given that this is a good thing, despite the fact that it's usually impossible to know, even were it desirable. Later she tries to argue that she agrees that the text is more important for analysis, but she doesn't admit that these two concepts are contradictory. Apparently it's ok to use an author's characters without permission when their intentions cannot be known, she makes no argument for why we should take note of their wishes when they are known - she just asserts that we should. I don't know about you, but I don't find unsupported assertions to be at all convincing.
The fact that she's completely condescending of fanfic, calling it "training wheels," is a whole other argument for another day.
She says she has no problem with porn - that Lost Girls would be fine had it been written with original characters. It's the fact that these are characters from children's literature that is the problem. Now I could see where she could make an argument against the content of the book in terms of it's explicitness, treatment of women, especially young women, whatever. But those things wouldn't change if it were written with original characters.
She dismisses the idea of fiction as criticism on the grounds that it's difficult to do successfully. I disagree - I've seen some excellent derivative fiction which functions as commentary on the themes of the original - but since when is difficulty of the task an argument about its morality? She can argue that Lost Girls is unsuccessful as commentary, but that's not a reason it shouldn't have been written in the first place.
So it comes down to the fact that they are characters from children's literature. But why is this objectionable? I could buy an objection on the grounds that it is objectifying children by putting them in sexual situations - except that it's not. Lost Girls doesn't feature children - it features characters who's childhood we are familiar with, but who are grown up in the context of the work. I could also buy an argument that children might be attracted to it (given that these are familiar characters to them) when it's clearly inappropriate for them, except that there is little to no chance of a child running across Lost Girls by accident. It's porn. It's marketed as porn. The author identifies it as porn. Little Johnny is not going to accidentally find it in his local library unless they are also in the habit of leaving Playboy out with the other periodicals.
So basically this hits her squick, but why is that an argument for why it's "wrong"? If it bothers her, she may not be able to do much to control her visceral reaction. I can't watch or read about knee surgery - it makes me want to hurl. So I don't. But that doesn't make orthopedic surgeons bad people. But her expectation that others would feel the same, without providing any better reason, is just...bizarre to me. There may be plenty of reasons that Moore's work is offensive or dangerous but co-opting characters from classics to do it is not one of them.
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