Because I've beens saying fic is a response to consuming a story

I agree with this. I mean, in the way I mean fic where it is freely distributed though possibly within known communities, the legal status of the original story or characters or people isn't the point. It's a response to or continuation of or different look at the story.

Fic that undergoes another transformation in an attempt to sell the work and probably try to make money off of it is a whole different story. But it's no longer what I'd call fic at that point, so it's irrelevant to me when defining fic.

So is it not the same sort of fic if it predates corporations? Because I've beens saying fic is a response to consuming a story, not to the ownership of the story, and therefore it goes back many a year.

I can see how this is a reasonable way of defining it, but how are we going to convince people that what Shakespeare wrote was fanfic?

I consider the onus on their part. I can't, apparently, resist the argument, so I just list stories, and ask them to tell me why it doesn't count. I don't usually go to Shakespeare, but the premise of any re-used character is good.

Folk tales and folk songs that have as many variations as there are story-tellers and singers - I'm not sure that it is fair to count those as fan fic. And yet I feel sure that the variations come from the same urges that fic emanates from.

Right now everyone seems concerned that there is ownership of characters and environments, and therefore you can't tell any stories about them yourself. I think the key is when this sense of ownership became so key to everything.

I found myself explaining fanfic to one of my nurses yesterday. She wanted to know what I was "learning" on my tablet, and I decided to be actually be honest with her. She was mildly "People do that, huh?" but didn't express any outright disbelief or outrage like some other people I've explained it to out of the blue.

I think the key is when this sense of ownership became so key to everything.

Yeah, ownership is definitely one of the issues. Some people react to the concept of fanfic with the same outrage they'd express if you got your car stolen. "They can't do that!"

Another issue is, I think, the way originality is held up as the ultimate goal of any creativity. If everything about your novel isn't original, you're not being creative.

Now, this is kind of bullshit, because it's not possible to be completely original, and even Dickens and Shakespeare stole ideas, plots, and characters from other sources. And certainly tv writers do the same.

I was describing Castle to my sister the other day, and she said, "Oh, it's like Murder She Wrote!", and I had to agree. It's also like Moonlighting and a dozen other shows as well.

And yet if I tried to sell an original novel with a totally creative plot in which Castle the writer teamed up with Beckett the detective, I'd get sued by CBS or whomever. It really doesn't make a lot of sense.

The difference is now that stories are viewed as something that can be, if not purely owned, a way to make money. And no one wants someone else to make money on the thing they came up with to make money with.

The other difference is that the era of oral tradition is long gone (as in that being the only tradition). Mythology surely changed as people retold it, but with the original written down somewhere for everyone to see, who would know?

I absolutely think the instinct is the same, though.

I think *most* of Shakespeare's plots were based on well known material - far more than Dickens. Britain once had a national theater when Shakespeare was a kid putting out basically crude Tudor propaganda. From what I gather, Shakespeare took the plots of those plays and reworked them into something far better than the original.

I once had someone say indignantly to me, when she heard this, "you mean Shakespeare mostly took old plays and just polished them up". I stole my reply from Clifford D. Simak: "That's all telescope makers do to mirrors and lenses to make telescopes - polish them up!"

Speaking of Murder She Wrote, there's an episode where some guy is trying to enlist Jessica Fletcher's help because someone else "stole my idea!" , not the book, just the idea. He wants Jessica to help him sue or something (I'm fuzzy on the details), So he describes the story to her and she recognizes it and says "but that's Brothers Karamazov!". He said but it was his original idea to modernize it!

... I've been rewatching Murder She Wrote, it's pretty good thing to crochet by, you don't need to pay too close attention, but it's still holds my interest.

People are so weird. A guy who was coming across pretty prudish (didn't like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because it had weird sex in it) just suggested I check out dtiberius fanart porn. Because it's romantic.

So far it's all chicks with dicks (I have no idea how the characters identify their genders--this is just a description of their physicality) deep throating each other. I wouldn't be all "Aroo?!!" if he hadn't specifically said romantic. Hot, if that's your thing, I get, but it's so far just blowjobs.

I'm looking at Wonder Woman buttfuck...Star Sapphire, maybe...who's blowing Hawkgirl, and I feel like I've been punked.