Fanfic Archive Adds Download Options

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I think the two worst fanfics I ever saw were:

1) A Harry Potter fic that was Weasley twin slash. As in, slash---with each other. With your identical twin. Ewwww.

Twincest is one of the big themes in Harry Potter slash. It's common, & there's a lot of it. (I take it the one you saw was not the Snape/Harry/Twins story about Harry coming of age into the BDSM community?)

2) A Joan of Arcadia fic that was Joan/G-d slash. So, the Almighty One not only chooses to manifest on the earthly plane for the purposes of sex, but a) chooses underage girls as their partner and b) chooses underage girls who are their employee. God as the lesbian sexual harassing pedophile. Great fanfic idea! Not.

There's a trope in fanfic of "what's the most extreme pairing or possibility I could imagine... someone should write that." (Neither of these examples remotely qualifies. Malfoycest is a lot creepier than either of these examples, and it's not considered particularly extreme. Icky, but not extreme. Extreme involves the giant squid.)

Fanfic, as an unregulated literary genre, allows exploration of themes and concepts that cannot be done in other arenas. It's very much part of the story that the fanfic *is not real*--it's important that these stories exist in contrast to the original canon; they're not stand-alone stories with random characters. Sometimes the fanfic is pushing an idea of "it might be this way and the author just didn't tell you;" more often it's asking "if it were this way, how would that change the rest of the book/movie/tv show? How would it change the characters, the world, the ending?"

Fanfic is sometimes-to-often a form of analysis & criticism, a spotlight on some aspect of the original that the fanfic author thinks is worth noting. (I'll grant that, fairly often, what the fanfic author wishes to note is "there's not enough sex in this tv show. Let me fix that for you.")

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Twincest is one of the big themes in Harry Potter slash. It's common, & there's a lot of it. (I take it the one you saw was not the Snape/Harry/Twins story about Harry coming of age into the BDSM community?)

I can only imagine how delighted Potter Industries are at all the fan attention their products are getting.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I can only imagine how delighted Potter Industries are at all the fan attention their products are getting.

Rowling approves of fanfic but isn't happy about the explicit stuff. They've filed a C&D order against at least one archive, but were content with it changing its search arrangements and putting a must-be-18-or-older filter on access. Mostly, they were concerned about kids googling for Harry Potter and finding, erm, Harry Potter/Draco slavefic.

[carld]

Found this interesting bit on Jim Butcher's (Dresden Files, Codex Alera) Forums a little while ago. He's gone from an anti-fanfic stance to more of a live-and-let-live view.

Note: This new policy was put in place on the forum several months ago, but we felt it needed to be announced in a more public place!

We are pleased to announce that Jim is altering his stance on fanfiction, much like Mercedes Lackey did last October. Rather than upholding the awkward "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy towards fanfiction he used in the past, Jim is embracing the Creative Commons. Now, fanfiction is to be licensed as derivative, noncommercial fiction under the Creative Commons umbrella.

What does this mean?

A) You can't make money from fanfic based on Jim's work.
B) Jim still isn't going to read it. (Wouldn't you rather he spend that time writing the next book, anyway?) Do not send Jim your stories or story ideas.
C) You need to post a disclaimer on your fic, like this handy example: "The Dresden Files/Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction." In doing so, you waive any rights to that work--you can't sue Jim for compensation if he writes something similar.
D) Fanfic can now be talked about in places that had previously been off-limits, like our forum. We've created a separate "Fan Creations" section of the forum for for this purpose.
E) Ponies and ice cream for everyone!*

* This is not actually a byproduct of the new policy. Sorry.

Happy writing, folks!

[Elfwreck]

Fanlore (a fannish wiki) has a page on Pro Author Policies about Fanworks.

Butcher's sample disclaimer shows a lack of understanding of how Creative Commons works... a work released as BY-NC (non-commercial) would mean that, if Butcher used elements of it for profit, he could still be sued. There is no CC license for "the rightsholder of the work that inspired this one can freely use this one." And there's no CC license for "derivatives are okay but outright copies are not," which is getting to be problematic.

However, fanficcers are pretty much able to sort through weird phrasing from authors & publishers and come up with "you can write fanfic; do not make money off my work w/o direct permission; do not cost me income with your fanfic."

[bridgetostars]

Haha, viviena, I am glad I'm not the only one who gets to missing it too. I sometimes feel silly about it, but... hey. It's very comforting. I've now started a new little collection for myself. Whee!

Twincest is apparently not just an HP thing, although it's definitely where I first saw it. I'm part of a M/M romance reading group on goodreads, and apparently there's a pretty large market for it in published m/m works and live action gay porn, as well. It was very surprising to me!

I think my favorite "worst" fanfic I ever ran across was a Snape/Hermione, where Snape's butt was described as having the color and appearance/texture of cottage cheese. YEAH. Definitely never lost that mental image, unfortunately.

I'm definitely of the opinion that fanfic can have some very interesting things to say that really can't get said in a wider arena, as Elfwreck wisely noted, and I have to say it had a very positive effect on me, especially concerning being open-minded and realizing I'm not the only weirdo out there who ponders some odd odd things. XD I even tried my hand at writing a few, though I never actually posted any.

Of course, I'm not really a person who requires all my reading to be deep or meaningful. Fun is good as well.

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by bridgetostars

I think my favorite "worst" fanfic I ever ran across was a Snape/Hermione, where Snape's butt was described as having the color and appearance/texture of cottage cheese. YEAH. Definitely never lost that mental image, unfortunately.

I would have been happy NEVER having seen that description myself!

I think I need to go find some good fan fiction to recommend. Everyone is bringing up the horror stories but not what's actually good and why people keep coming back to reading it.

[Worldwalker]

Those are the people who said that the fanfic community was and should remain female, and that only slash was "real" (transformative) fanfic (the latter in one of their founders' statements, the former in their pronouncements). Thanks to that group, I won't even buy Naomi Novik's books. I read fanfic and I write fanfic, but I will not go near their sexism, and I prefer gen.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Amalthia

I would have been happy NEVER having seen that description myself!

I think I need to go find some good fan fiction to recommend. Everyone is bringing up the horror stories but not what's actually good and why people keep coming back to reading it.

Fanfic is what I read on my pc for years until I got my reader at the beginning of this year! There is a ton of good fic out there, and the good ones really stand out.

I read a lot of Star Trek Voyager fiction, and one woman who stands above most & whose work is used to judged all others is Gina Dartt's Just Between series. She now has 2 published works of her own. http://www.northco.net/~janeway/index.htm

Another one who is now published who got her start with fan fic is Gun Brooke. http://www.gbrooke-fiction.com/fiction/index.htm

These 2 are exceptional writers who have given readers hours of enjoyment reading their stories.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Those are the people who said that the fanfic community was and should remain female, and that only slash was "real" (transformative) fanfic (the latter in one of their founders' statements, the former in their pronouncements). Thanks to that group, I won't even buy Naomi Novik's books. I read fanfic and I write fanfic, but I will not go near their sexism, and I prefer gen.

Umm, could you retranslate that so that I can understand what they were trying to say please.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Those are the people who said that the fanfic community was and should remain female, and that only slash was "real" (transformative) fanfic (the latter in one of their founders' statements, the former in their pronouncements). Thanks to that group, I won't even buy Naomi Novik's books. I read fanfic and I write fanfic, but I will not go near their sexism, and I prefer gen.

They've rephrased, maybe recanted the claims about the fanfic community being female--they were trying to say that it *is* a majority-female space, one of the few venues that actively welcomes & supports women's creative endeavors. (Romance fiction is another, but that one is fairly strict about what kinds of creativity are accepted.)

Do you have a reference for the claim that slash is the only real/transformative fanfic? Because I can't believe Naomi Novik would say that; it sounds like a phrase taken badly out of context.

[ficbot]

Interesting replies. I have dabbled in fanfic writing myself and while people say my writing is of very high quality and when I do get feedback, it's always very enthused and flattering, I have never achieved critical popularity because I don't do slash and I don't do extremely graphic violence. Most of my stuff is very introspective. My best two stories are probably a story I did for the Buffyverse where a future Buffy becomes a caretaker for a badly injured Giles and helps him through a therapy that involves Willow doing therapy with him telepathically, and a Sarah Connor Chronicles story that follows Sarah, Ellison and Savannah post-series. Buffy/Giles has its following, but it is not as big a following at, say, Buffy/Angel or Willow/Tara. And most of the TSC people who did post-series stuff were more interested in John, or else John/Kate from the Movies. And I did see a few slashfics where John-in-the-future meets his dad, does not know it's his dad and slash ensues (ewwwwww). Not too many people seemed very interested in following Sarah

[Worldwalker]

It wasn't Naomi Novik -- it was one of her cohorts, and I'd have to do a fair bit of digging to sort out which one. It did make something of a stink at the time, though, which is how I found out about it and read it. I was quite dismayed that a group that aspired to become the gatekeepers of fanfic would decide, or accept and promote the ideas of a person who decided, unilaterally, that only "real" form of fanfic was her particular preference. It was quite clear from the beginning that my ideals and OTW's were very different.

I didn't get involved with the big LJ fight, and I prefer to keep it that way. However, I do want to mention this statement from one of their board members:

"The OTW is an organization created to advocate for female-dominated transformative media fandom and its artworks. That is its purpose."

It has its purpose, but its purpose is not my purpose, and I would prefer that it not present itself as representative of all fanfic writers. They don't represent me. I just write fanfic.

[crich70]

Writing fan fiction can be a good exercise in practicing for writing original works too I think. I mean the setting and the characters are already there, but you still have to come up with an original plot that isn't too unbelievable. And you can take what you learn there and apply it towards your own original works with characters and settings that you come up with yourself of course. The plot is the hardest thing to come up with I would think.

[crich70]

How does that work? I mean do you have to be signed on as a member to see such options or what?
Edit: Never mind I finally found the download button.

Originally Posted by whitearrow

The Archive of Our Own (a fan-owned and run fanfic archive) had added downloadable options -- you can download any story as .html, .mobi, .pdf or .epub format.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

... aspired to become the gatekeepers of fanfic ...

"The OTW is an organization created to advocate for female-dominated transformative media fandom and its artworks. That is its purpose."

I would prefer that it not present itself as representative of all fanfic writers.

They don't claim or attempt to represent all fanfic writers. They're not trying to be the gatekeepers of fanfic.

They're trying to host a stable archive, one that won't change its policies based on advertiser preferences, that won't delete content based on "someone finds this offensive," that won't vanish overnight because the moderator broke up with her best friend. They're trying to inform fanfic writers & pro authors what the legalities of copyright law are, in regards to fanfic. (As far as anyone can tell: it's blurry. Very blurry.)

Oh, and they have an academic journal, because a lot of the founders are in academia, and they think that's a fun thing to do. (At least, that's what I can figure out the purpose of the journal is. It's volunteer-run and pretty much self-sustaining; it's not like aca-journals are a major drain on anyone's server resources.)

They're not preventing other archives from existing -- quite the opposite; they're creating open-source code that anyone can use for an archive, and including features they're not using themselves. (They're coding in restriction possibilities they have no intention of using.) They're not judging what is and is not "real" fanfic, or "real" transformative works.

There's a whole lot of opinions among the membership, but none of those is definitive for the organization itself. Part of the reason for having a nonprofit org is to prevent any one person or tiny clique's opinions from becoming law.