Some believe fanfic sits in the folk tradition of participatory storytelling, a process responsible for The Iliad and the Arthurian legends, among others. Professor Henry Jenkins, director of media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The New York Times that "if you go back, the key stories we told ourselves were stories that were important to everyone and belonged to everyone. Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk."

cheers

Others, the more commercially minded among us, see it as a straightforward copyright abuse. But the major entertainment conglomerates have not leant as heavily on fanfic as they have on fan sites that use copyrighted images of characters. If you're writing Simpsons stories you're far less likely to receive a lawyer's letter than if you're drawing Simpsons pictures, or using their images to enhance your site. A picture is apparently worth 1000 words, in dollar terms at least.

Okay, the bit in bold rankled, and the whole HP porn intro thing made me cringe, but it could have been worse. Hmph.

I hate that fanfic is so ridiculed, though; I mean, I know there's an awful lot of rubbish, and I know that the whole fandom thing is by its nature exclusive, but I'm still so bloody excited about this medium, and still thoroughly delighted by the proliferation of good writing that is out there. It pisses me off that the genre is looked down upon. I understand it, but it pisses me off. And ditto LJ/blog culture, actually - by its nature it's incredibly insular and specific, but it's also a really vibrant and fascinating form of communication, and within my limited experience it's shown itself a terrific forum for debate about literary style and technique and blahblahblah pretentiouscakes.

But then, I am living in my parents' basement, in the manner of NotSuave!Xander. So possibly I should just shut the fuck up. And get back to writing my assignment. Right. Fine.

grumblegrumblegrumble.

Oh! Before I go - did we ever find any Magneto/Wolverine?

Word on all Dana's comments. My god, how HARD is it to understand fic? It's like going into a bookstore and not understanding shelves are alphabetized by author.

Feh. t insert here canned rant on how all fic is not slash, all slash is not porn, there's plenty of porny het fic as well as PG-rated adventure stories blah blah fishcakes

Also, still quoting Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women? Someone so needs to write the definitive study of internet-based ficdom.

There's a marvelous LJ post here about fanfiction and legality.

Also, still quoting Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women? Someone so needs to write the definitive study of internet-based ficdom.

Looks pointedly at Consuela, Dana, Nutty and Shrift

I thought the article was fair and, being broad and general, got the gist of it. Any complaints of inaccuracy are the same you'd hear from any group being reported on from the outside. It's the difference between the way Riot Grrrl was reported on in the major media and the way the zines themselves discussed it. There will never be an article that gets it entirely right until an insider - again with the pointed looking - writes it.

Dude, I tried. At least, I tried Salon. Someone give me other suggestions of where to pitch it, and I will try again.

Yeah. Somebody pitch and write the contract and give me a deadline, I'll write the fricken thing. Not that, really, I feel the need to explain myself to others, but better I than some dope offa the street.

Someone give me other suggestions of where to pitch it, and I will try again.

Utne Reader? (Which is actually now just Utne, which I find disconcerting.) Might be a good market.

They had a fairly crappy article about it just last summer. Spring? Anyway, recently enough not to want to do it again, I think.

Looked at Utne. They tend to publish summaries of articles that have already appeared somewhere else. Or something like that.

[link]

Now, if she could just write an article on FF....