HAPPY SOLSTICE! Have some meta to wake up from the longest night!

[elfwreck]

Reply to http://community.livejournal.com/otw_news/16030.html in regards to the first line of the anti-fanfic bingo card available here.
These five are in two overlapping categories: crime and literary ethics.

Comments

[elinor]

::applauds::

You = brilliant

the pull to art cannot be set aside because someone else doesn't like it. Nor because someone's going to sue us for it.

Bucket-loads of YES!

There's room here for a line about "fanfic is my sexual orientation," but that's another essay entirely.

I'd love to read that essay, too.

[saralogan]

You win the internets. Not just two or three internets -- all the internets. This was all wonderful.

"Fanfic is my sexual orientation" really needs to be an icon.

[elfwreck]

I should get some use out of my InsaneJournal 300 userpic limit. (I will not, however, make it one of my six icons here.)

[brock_tn]

Let me throw an idea into the mix here:

If the principle drive that produces a lot of fanfic is a fascination with the canonical story and characters that borders on obession/compulsion, is it healthy to continue to pander to that obsession?

[elfwreck]

This is the drive that brought us some of Shakespeare's plays, added Lancelot to the Arthurian legends, made a hundred variations of "Little Red Riding Hood." This is the drive that made the movie "Forbidden Planet." That the Jewish midrash is based on. That brings us new hymns and ballads from old legends, that brings us the "What's Opera Doc" Bugs Bunny cartoon ("Speaw and Magic Helmet!"), that brings us Bored of the Rings and Doon and the cartoon series Drawn Together

[elfwreck]

Not even "taken farther." Some fanfic is indistinguishable in literary tone and style from derivative classic literature... the only difference we can spot is that fanfic deals with stuff that's under the protection of recent copyright law. ("Recent" as in "100 years ago, the law did not apply to this kind of works at all, and what it did apply to was going to be available in a couple of decades anyway.")

But we're told that basing a work on one a hundred and fifty years old is "art," but basing it on one released fifteen years ago is "theft." Not just illegal (though as I mentioned, that's debatable), but unethical and uncreative.

It's also oddly interesting how a poem or song inspired by a novel is considered okay, but a story is not.

Whoever's deciding on these "ethics" isn't bothering to explain them to those of us who don't immediately see the problem.

[elfwreck]

I know that's most of what I'm doing here. At worst, I'm sorting out my thoughts for those fairly rare times when I'm in a position to "defend" fanfic from claims that it's illegal or unethical. (Like with my friend brock_tn above, who I know respects my judgment enough to really listen to me, even if he thinks I'm being a damned fool about the topic. Or in things like Scalzi's blog posts, where I think most of what I accomplished was convincing some anti-fanficcers that the "pro" side aren't all incoherent raving bitches, and that some of us are trying to understand the issues they bring up--even if they think we're going about it all wrong.)

[sexgodclari]

Pardon my being late, I was just linked here by a friend.

To put it simply: no.

No.

No.Fandom is fun. I enjoy it. If you told me to stop writing fanfiction on the Internet, I'd be sad. I would keep a journal somewhere and write in that, maybe. It wouldn't be the same, but I'd be able to deal with it, because fandom is a hobby of mine, and I do it for its own sake. I don't need a bunch of people gushing over it to achieve validation or a sense of satisfaction. It is what it is

FIAWOL.

[elfwreck]

Fandom's been part of my life longer than sex has. It takes up more of my life than sex does, and I can do a lot more of it in public. As much as I would miss sex if it weren't part of my life... I can't say I spend a dozen hours a week on it. (I do not think a dozen hours a week is an obsession-level amount of time to put into a hobby.)

Ermm... do you really think fans should be spending more energy on sex than on fandom? I mean, other than maybe during their late teen years?

it is supposed to be FUN. A diversion. Entertainment. A hobby.

It is all of those things. I like my diversions to be intense. I want them to overwhelm me while I'm doing them. I also like my orgasms to be near-blackouts. I consider these to be related traits. Other people are free to relate to fandom, or whatever their hobby is, at whatever level of intensity they desire.

I like fanfiction, in part, because it allows me to explore intensity that modern American society (and other places, I gather), with its Puritanical ideals built deep in the culture, tells

oh for fuck's sake you worthless cunt

[sexgodclari]

You will never in a million years convince anyone besides your own group of weepy failures that fandom is a sexuality; that very phrase signifies a complete misunderstanding of both terms

Re: FIAWOL. Still.

[elfwreck]

Awww, how cute. I've got my very own wanktroll. I wonder whose sockpuppet you are? Are you trying to break into fandom_wank? There are easier ways, and people easier to annoy.

I'm not trying to "convince" anyone that fandom is a sexuality. My erotic interests are my own; nobody else is required to share them. Did you miss the memo? Kink is no longer a thoughtcrime unless it has negative impact on one's life. Since I have a good job, happy family, RL and online friends, and am able to interact coherently and politely with strangers (a skill you apparently lack), my kinks are allowed to flourish at my will.