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.

That's romantic? I think you've been trolled, ita.

I say, return fire with cafe de labeill and romantisize the hell out of him.

It's not like he's new, or anything--we've talked before, quite a lot. And it's not like I'm a good target (even on IO9) for grossing out with porn--I did start the conversation, after all.

*So* weird. I have no idea how to respond.

I think Swift settled things in Battle of the Books with his spider and bee allegory. [link] He was talking about basing derivative works on writings of the "ancients," not Merlin or The Avengers. But fanfic based on Aristophanes is still fanfic.