I joined the fanficcing fen proper in 2001, but I'd been writing fanfiction long before then. Stingray, a cheesetastic action show from the 80's, was the victim of my first efforts, and the stories I turned out were vastly improbable feats of Mary Sue heroism that Mary Lou Retton couldn't have achieved, let alone a scrawny kidlet sidekick. To be fair, I was nine, and my characters were no more over the top than the characters of the show themselves. I was just trying to fit into the world as I saw it, and I got a high from finally finding something I could do with a modicum of talent, something not thwarted by the restrictions inherent to my disability. I couldn't walk or manipulate a pencil, but by God, I could pound those keys, and I did. Page after page and ream after ream of dot-matrix printer paper rolled off my presses. Forests were felled in the name of my fic, and I loved it.
Yes, the fic was awful, dreadful, in fact, but that was beside the point. The point was that I was doing something other than just sitting in my wheelchair and feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't play with other children. I was finally engaging with the world around me in a tangible, meaningful way. I was expressing myself and my desires through the characters created by others. I was co-opting their whole, healthy bodies to stand in for my own. It was, perhaps, unfair to the characters I used, but it was my first experience with true agency. I was no longer passive. I was creating, exerting my will.
Other fandoms followed: New Kids on the Block(shut up; I was caught up in the craze and hornier than a howler monkey on a Viagra high), Friday the 13th: The Series, pro wrestling fandom(Once again,shut up; men in spandex are my weakness. Actually men in anything make me weak in the knees, so never mind). These stories were equally bad in terms of plot and characterization, but the themes and subject matter were maturing. At thirteen, I wrote hilariously bad porn, but at the same time, the bad pornicatin' was a revolution because it was the first time I'd ever dared to express wants or even curiosity about sex and sexuality. My mother found it and showed it to my aunt. My aunt thought it was healthy; my mother called me a pervert and destroyed it. I didn't write fic again until I was in college.
2001, and my introduction into online fandom and fanfiction. Someone-
siriaeve, maybe, or maybe
eilan-directed me to Fanfiction.net, and I was off like a shot. I registered my account in August 2001 and have been posting ever since.
Since then, I've learned the intricacies of fandom, the rules of social discourse and currency in this wonderful, mad, endlessly paralleled world. But the first rules I learned were hard and fast and childishly simple: You always cited your source and credited the author or creator of the source material, and you never, ever tried to profit from what you wrote. Fail to adhere to the first rule, and you might get called a dumbass; break the second, and fandom would ride you out on a rail.
The third rule I learned was really a part-and-parcel corollary to the first. You could create derivative fic based on the characters and settings of other folks' worlds, but it had damn well better be your vision and not cribbed from another fanficcer. Homage was fine; homage was what brought us all to the party. Plagiarism, on the other hand, was not okay. It was strictly verboten, and if you got caught, you were free to go join the idiot profiteers in their excommunication corner.
These are the rules I have lived by in fandom, and I have always considered them the price of admission into the fandom dance. As long as you abided by them, you were welcome here. If you couldn't or didn't, drive safely and come back when you can behave.
Now Fanlib is claiming that those rules, the rules that have kept the fannish community safe for all these years, don't apply to them. They want to take our ideas, reshape and repackage them, claim them as their own, and sell them for a profit in active, flagrant violation of two of the three sacrosanct rules of the dance.
Why is it that big business cannot follow the simple rules we were all taught in school? Why are they allowed to take our ideas and claim them as their own? If a ficcer tried to claim a world or character as his or her own and it was untrue, they would rightly face fandom censure and possible legal action. Yet the entertainment industry expects to be allowed to use the fandom at large as its think tank with no compensation or even acknowledgment, not even one so simple as a writing credit?
That's what bugs me about the Fanlib proposition. They want to use me as free labor, exploit my creativity and love for a show, take the credit for any success my idea might have, and give me a kick in the ass for my pains.
Well, fuck you.
Whatever comes out of my keyboard is mine. I imagined it, I wrote it, I refined it, I posted it, and I edited it again three days later when the afterglow faded and I noticed the zits and syphilis sores. The characters might be yours, but the idea for my story was not, and that you can't have. Not without proper credit. You like what I did with your characters? Great. I'm truly flattered and consider that the highest compliment, but you still don't get to put your name on my paper and turn it in. Putting your name on it won't make it yours. If it did, I could be running CSI:NY by now with a few keystrokes.
The same goes for the bilge and aborted ideas that vomit out of my brain from time to time. You don't get those, either. I own my dross as readily as I own my gold. If I didn't, Fate of Empires wouldn't still be on Fanfiction.net for the world to see. My crap is still my crap, and at least I grant it the dignity of ownership. You don't have the right to rob that from me or anyone else.
You want my idea? I'd be thrilled to pieces to contribute to the canon I love to bits, but I'm not letting you steal one of the few things in this world that are truly mine: my creativity. Acknowledge my contribution with a writing credit and the three cents said credit would likely pay. I'm your devoted fan, not your crackwhore slut. There is a difference, and if Fanlib's blundering incursion into fandom hasn't taught you that, TPTB, nothing will.
You own everything else in my world, but you're not getting this. Not without a fight.
Yes, the fic was awful, dreadful, in fact, but that was beside the point. The point was that I was doing something other than just sitting in my wheelchair and feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't play with other children. I was finally engaging with the world around me in a tangible, meaningful way. I was expressing myself and my desires through the characters created by others. I was co-opting their whole, healthy bodies to stand in for my own. It was, perhaps, unfair to the characters I used, but it was my first experience with true agency. I was no longer passive. I was creating, exerting my will.
Other fandoms followed: New Kids on the Block(shut up; I was caught up in the craze and hornier than a howler monkey on a Viagra high), Friday the 13th: The Series, pro wrestling fandom(Once again,shut up; men in spandex are my weakness. Actually men in anything make me weak in the knees, so never mind). These stories were equally bad in terms of plot and characterization, but the themes and subject matter were maturing. At thirteen, I wrote hilariously bad porn, but at the same time, the bad pornicatin' was a revolution because it was the first time I'd ever dared to express wants or even curiosity about sex and sexuality. My mother found it and showed it to my aunt. My aunt thought it was healthy; my mother called me a pervert and destroyed it. I didn't write fic again until I was in college.
2001, and my introduction into online fandom and fanfiction. Someone-
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Since then, I've learned the intricacies of fandom, the rules of social discourse and currency in this wonderful, mad, endlessly paralleled world. But the first rules I learned were hard and fast and childishly simple: You always cited your source and credited the author or creator of the source material, and you never, ever tried to profit from what you wrote. Fail to adhere to the first rule, and you might get called a dumbass; break the second, and fandom would ride you out on a rail.
The third rule I learned was really a part-and-parcel corollary to the first. You could create derivative fic based on the characters and settings of other folks' worlds, but it had damn well better be your vision and not cribbed from another fanficcer. Homage was fine; homage was what brought us all to the party. Plagiarism, on the other hand, was not okay. It was strictly verboten, and if you got caught, you were free to go join the idiot profiteers in their excommunication corner.
These are the rules I have lived by in fandom, and I have always considered them the price of admission into the fandom dance. As long as you abided by them, you were welcome here. If you couldn't or didn't, drive safely and come back when you can behave.
Now Fanlib is claiming that those rules, the rules that have kept the fannish community safe for all these years, don't apply to them. They want to take our ideas, reshape and repackage them, claim them as their own, and sell them for a profit in active, flagrant violation of two of the three sacrosanct rules of the dance.
Why is it that big business cannot follow the simple rules we were all taught in school? Why are they allowed to take our ideas and claim them as their own? If a ficcer tried to claim a world or character as his or her own and it was untrue, they would rightly face fandom censure and possible legal action. Yet the entertainment industry expects to be allowed to use the fandom at large as its think tank with no compensation or even acknowledgment, not even one so simple as a writing credit?
That's what bugs me about the Fanlib proposition. They want to use me as free labor, exploit my creativity and love for a show, take the credit for any success my idea might have, and give me a kick in the ass for my pains.
Well, fuck you.
Whatever comes out of my keyboard is mine. I imagined it, I wrote it, I refined it, I posted it, and I edited it again three days later when the afterglow faded and I noticed the zits and syphilis sores. The characters might be yours, but the idea for my story was not, and that you can't have. Not without proper credit. You like what I did with your characters? Great. I'm truly flattered and consider that the highest compliment, but you still don't get to put your name on my paper and turn it in. Putting your name on it won't make it yours. If it did, I could be running CSI:NY by now with a few keystrokes.
The same goes for the bilge and aborted ideas that vomit out of my brain from time to time. You don't get those, either. I own my dross as readily as I own my gold. If I didn't, Fate of Empires wouldn't still be on Fanfiction.net for the world to see. My crap is still my crap, and at least I grant it the dignity of ownership. You don't have the right to rob that from me or anyone else.
You want my idea? I'd be thrilled to pieces to contribute to the canon I love to bits, but I'm not letting you steal one of the few things in this world that are truly mine: my creativity. Acknowledge my contribution with a writing credit and the three cents said credit would likely pay. I'm your devoted fan, not your crackwhore slut. There is a difference, and if Fanlib's blundering incursion into fandom hasn't taught you that, TPTB, nothing will.
You own everything else in my world, but you're not getting this. Not without a fight.