scones and evil: On Fan Fiction
tywinning asked you:As a professor, may I ask you what you think about fanfiction?
I think fanfiction is literature and literature, for the most part, is fanfiction, and that anyone that dismisses it simply on the grounds that it’s derivative knows fuck-all about literature and needs to get the hell off my lawn.
Most of the history of Western literature (and probably much of non-Western literature, but I can’t speak to that) is adapted or appropriated from something else. Homer wrote historyfic and Virgil wrote Homerfic and Dante wrote Virgilfic (where he makes himself a character and writes himself hanging out with Homer and Virgil and they’re like “OMG Dante you’re so cool.” He was the original Gary Stu). Milton wrote Bible fanfic, and everyone and their mom spent the Middle Ages writing King Arthur fanfic. In the sixteenth century you and another dude could translate the same Petrarchan sonnet and somehow have it count as two separate poems, and no one gave a fuck. Shakespeare doesn’t have a single original plot—although much of it would be more rightly termed RPF—and then John Fletcher and Mary Cowden Clarke and Gloria Naylor and Jane Smiley and Stephen Sondheim wrote Shakespeare fanfic. Guys like Pope and Dryden took old narratives and rewrote them to make fun of people they didn’t like, because the eighteenth century was basically high school. And Spenser! Don’t even get me started on Spenser.
Here’s what fanfic authors/fans need to remember when anyone gives them shit: the idea that originality is somehow a good thing, an innately preferable thing, is a completely modern notion. Until about three hundred years ago, a good writer, by and large, was someone who could take a tried-and-true story and make it even more awesome. (If you want to sound fancy, the technical term is imitatio.) People were like, why would I wanna read something about some dude I’ve never heard of? There’s a new Sir Gawain story out, man! (As to when and how that changed, I tend to blame Daniel Defoe, or the Modernists, or reality television, depending on my mood.)
I also find fanfic fascinating because it takes all the barriers that keep people from professional authorship—barriers that have weakened over the centuries but are nevertheless still very real—and blows right past them. Producing literature, much less circulating it, was something that was well nigh impossible for the vast majority of people for most of human history. First you had to live in a culture where people thought it was acceptable for you to even want to be literate in the first place. And then you had to find someone who could teach you how to read and write (the two didn’t necessarily go together). And you needed sufficient leisure time to learn. And be able to afford books, or at least be friends with someone rich enough to own books who would lend them to you. Good writers are usually well-read and professional writing is a full-time job, so you needed a lot of books, and a lot of leisure time both for reading and writing. And then you had to be in a high enough social position that someone would take you seriously and want to read your work—to have access to circulation/publication in addition to education and leisure time. A very tiny percentage of the population fit those parameters (in England, which is the only place I can speak of with some authority, that meant from 500-1000 A.D.: monks; 1000-1500: aristocratic men and the very occasional aristocratic woman; 1500-1800: aristocratic men, some middle-class men, a few aristocratic women; 1800-on, some middle-class women as well).
What’s amazing is how many people who didn’t fit those parameters kept writing in spite of the constant message they got from society that no one cared about what they had to say, writing letters and diaries and stories and poems that often weren’t discovered until hundreds of years later. Humans have an urge to express themselves, to tell stories, and fanfic lets them. If you’ve got access to a computer and an hour or two to while away of an evening, you can create something that people will see and respond to instantly, with a built-in community of people who care about what you have to say.
I do write the occasional fic; I wish I had the time and mental energy to write more. I’ll admit I don’t read a lot of fic these days because most of it is not—and I know how snobbish this sounds—particularly well-written. That doesn’t mean it’s “not good”—there are a lot of reasons people read fic and not all of them have to do with wanting to read finely crafted prose. That’s why fic is awesome—it creates a place for all kinds of storytelling. But for me personally, now that my job entails reading about 1500 pages of undergraduate writing per year, when I have time to read for enjoyment I want it to be by someone who really knows what they’re doing. There’s tons of high-quality fic, of course, but I no longer have the time and patience to go searching for it that I had ten years ago.
But whether I’m reading it or not, I love that fanfiction exists. Because without people doing what fanfiction writers do, literature wouldn’t exist. (And then I’d be out of a job and, frankly, I don’t know how to do anything else.)
i went to ecc comic-con today and got to meet andrew hussie
but the only signable thing i had with me was a scott pilgrim book
it was a great moment
Those are some bloody cute oven mitts
More than that, Finn’s an outstanding friend.
FP is trying to cope with living in a world where she’s essentially disabled. She can’t directly interact with most things, as nothing is made to withstand her. Can you imagine not being able to touch anything around you? Just think of how isolating that would be.
She probably can’t leave her home without careful planning, because any sudden rain shower could kill her. And even if she stays inside her house, her safety isn’t assured, because her house is also partially made of fire. Essentially, she’s living in a place so alien to beings like her such a basic thing as the weather is a hostile force.
She can’t even touch other people, because doing so would injure them. Think about that. Think about not being able to touch anyone or anything that wasn’t made of stone or metal. And think about how she’s at most twelve years old and dealing with all of that. Can you imagine how lonely she must feel?
But then, she gets this fantastic friend who does all of these little things for her and with her, and shows FP that she’s not alone. When she nearly destroyed a kingdom, he stopped her without hurting her. When she ran away from an abusive home, he helped build her a new one. When she wanted to hug him without hurting him, he found a way. When her unstable chemical makeup almost destroyed her and the world, he saved both. When she was feeling homesick, he brought her things to make her new home better for her. When she had to struggle just to play a game with him, he struggled with her, just so she wouldn’t have to feel bad.
That’s more than just being an awesome boyfriend, that’s Finn being an actual flawless friend.
reblogging again for awesome commentary
Tokyo, Japan-based mother Aya Sakai has been charting the adventures of her young son and his best friend, which just happens to be a French Bulldog. Ayasakai on Instagram and Facebook via [Reddit]
In case you missed it, MRAs are trying to start #INeedMasculismBecause trending on Twitter, and awesome people are trolling the tag like it’s nobody’s business. This tweet here pretty much exemplifies, in my opinion, why men’s rights activism just shouldn’t exist.
“masculism”
What a great batch of trolling.
“no d December” lmfao okay if that’s your attitude towards women with body hair, you better get ready also for the rest of the year
just yourself January
five finger friend February
Must touch yourself March
Ask yourself why you’re so alone April
Masturbation May
Jizzin’ alone June
Jackoff July
Awfully Still Alone August
Sexless September
Oops still alone October
Never gonna get any November
