Well, Rexdart I can’t speak for anybody else, but I have on qualms about fanfic for the followig reasons
Unlike some people, I understand that actors are not the characters they play. That’s why it’s called acting, and why I don’t call Marsters “Spike” when I meet him.
Joss Whedon has given us tactic approval. Once he said “I love fanfic” and in response the question “What should people do after the finale” he said “Write fanfic.” If he doesn’t have any moral problems with it, I don’t either.
There is novelizations of the series, ranging from the craptacular to the great. The actors have no control over what happens to the characters in the book. Other than the fact that the author gets paid, how is different?
I don’t care what anybody writes, whether it be Slash or beastiality. I may not choose to read it, but I don’t believe that anything written is bad, wrong, evil, or immoral. Thoughts are not the same as actions, even if the thoughts are revolting to some people.
RexDart, you’re an ass. Most actors are always quick to point out that they are NOT their characters-they are merely actors playing their characters. A lot get annoyed when people meet them on the street, calling them by the name of their CHARACTER.
“Speaking of which, those of you who have admitted here to writing these stories have admitted copyright infringement…I thought it was against board rules to advocate lawbreaking?”
Not one of us fan fic writers ever claimed that the source material was ours. Not one of us tried to sue any original source over ideas. Not one of us here copied/pasted source material and claimed it was ours. Then, there’s the parody exception. Even if laws were broken, they’re not often enforced, except by a few and that’s IF the fanfic is found. Good luck trying to find fanfic in filtered LiveJournals or hidden sites.
Besides, most companies(people) who hold the copyright don’t often bother to do anything and quite a few tolerate fanfiction. Anne Rice is the only one I can think of that is vehemently against fanfiction(others are against it only for legal reasons) and it hasn’t stopped the fanfics, especially ones from obscure fan fic writers.
Besides, this has been debated before and I don’t think anyone has changed their minds over this. I certainly haven’t.
BTW, I don’t write fanfic in the universes that don’t tolerate it anyway. My only problems with fanfic is if the fanfic author makes a profit off it or the person sues the original creator for having a similar idea. Otherwise, I’m not at all bothered and if I don’t like a particular fandom or fanfic, I don’t read it and I don’t complain about it.
"Not one of us fan fic writers ever claimed that the source material was ours. Not one of us tried to sue any original source over ideas. Not one of us here copied/pasted source material and claimed it was ours. "
By here, I mean the Straight Dope Board.
Those of you who are interested in the links I posted that may end up being erased, simply go to my sig.
Yes, but if you read a fan fiction story about Spike you’re certainly picturing James Marsters in your head, because he depicted that character on the show. So when you write a story about Spike and Angel having a weekend love tryst in New York, you are putting James Marsters and David Boreanaz’s faces on those characters and their bodies into those situations (thanks to Marti Noxon, I’m sure the image of Marsters’ bare torso is grilled onto the corneas of just about anybody who watched the last couple years of the show.)
So even the readers of these stories that do have enough of a head on their shoulders to differentiate the characters from the actors are nonetheless going to be placing the actors into the story in their mental picture as they read. So you are still dragging them into your sexual fantasies in ways they might not approve of, and circulating those fantasies by publishing them over the internet.
I don’t call this slash fiction “evil” or “immoral”, because those are labels I toss around very rarely, if it all. But I certainly think this stuff should be strongly discouraged, the sites shut down if they can be under the law, and that the actors who portray these characters may be rightfully outraged that people are using them that way.
BTW, Guin, I don’t really give a fuck what your personal opinion of me is, as I pretty much lost any respect I had for you when I learned in a previous thread that you occasionally wrote some of these stories. The type of person who would intentionally write something that could cause serious distress to an actor and not even consider what their feelings might be as you use their images to fulfill your sexual fantasies, or when you take characters that an author put his/her heart and soul into creating and twist them, warp them, mold them to satisfy those fantasies…well I just don’t have much respect for that sort of person. It’s just disgusting, plain and simple. How you can look at some of those websites and not instantly realize that these people with their little fandoms are sick weirdos, I have no idea. I can only imagine how disgusted and creeped out the actors in these shows are when they come across this junk. If you’re contributing to that, then I could give a fuck what your opinion of anybody else is.
Although I was never into the whole slash thing, I did read a lot of fanfic a few years ago (mostly Roswell-related). And 99% of the time, there was a total ban on actorfic. In other words, a story about Michael and Maria would be fine, but a story about Brenden Fehr and Majandra Delfino would not be allowed. In other words, most fanfic writers and supporting sites are careful to keep from writing about real people.
Oh god…RexDart doesn’t respect me because I gasp write fan fiction. How will I ever get on with my life?
Good god, do you think people don’t already fantasize about them, regardless of their being in fan fiction or not?
Dude, you have some serious fucking issues. I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but you really need to get a grip on reality because your stance here does not even come within lightyears of the same galaxy as that wonderful thing known as Reality. You sound, frankly, like some parody of a repressed homophobe. “Sick weirdos”? I’m sad to hear that anyone on the SDMB is actually that much of a shallow-minded bastard.
Crap, sent too soon. And as for comic books, cartoons or video games, rarely are they something that one person has put his/her heart into. They’re created by soulless corporations and interest groups.
In anime, slash ‘fantasies’ are sometimes encouraged (but not stated as canon) to gain a bigger audience. For example, Gundam Wing.
Slash is not merely “fan fiction”, it’s geeky poorly-written erotica that appeals mostly to obsessive weirdos. Anyways, how will you get on with your life? About as well as I do when you call me an ass, which is to say we’ve clearly reached the point where neither of us thinks very highly of the other person and could give a fuck what the other thinks. So be it. Frankly, since I’m not the one who’s invested the time to make an average of 14+ posts per day over the last three years on an internet message board, I’m probably alot less worried about my image on this board than you are. Of course, in your defense, most of those 15000+ posts were just a field of rolleyes emoticons and/or an indignant one-line response, with the occasional off-topic paragraph tossed in, so maybe you aren’t quite as obsessive as it first appears.
LOL. People are out there spending hours upon hours writing and compiling erotic fiction based on obscure TV shows, movies, comic books and - HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! - video games! Jesus Christ, who’s out of touch with reality here? It sure as fuck ain’t me. I’m the guy who realizes how weird and creepy this slash fiction is. The people out of touch with reality are the ones who spend hours and hours submerging themselves in these little fantasy worlds of theirs, compiling collections of stories about (and I kid you not, this is a real example someone linked to on another forum) undressing Roy Orbison and wrapping him head to toe in cellophane. Remember that SNL sketch with Tom Hanks about the Mr. Belvedere fan club, where they talked about capturing Mr. Belvedere and keeping him in a huge jar in their basement? Those guys are the slash fiction fans. And you’re telling me I am the one who’s out of touch with reality?
And don’t go tossing around the “homophobe” accusations here, I don’t give a shit if this stuff is gay, straight, or robot-on-robot, it’s just as fucked up.
I’m sure alot of people have bizzare sexual fantasies. Most people apparently have the sense to realize that, from an outsider’s perspective, those fantasies definitely look pretty strange. You won’t find anyone around here bragging about their new site in some scat-fetish webring, or something like that. The major exceptions to this are furries and slash-fiction fans, who trumpet their allegiances wherever they go and are somehow baffled when people are creeped out by it.
But for all of that, if there weren’t real victims to this stuff, I wouldn’t care a whit if people engrossed themselves in their little fantasy worlds. I’m a libertarian, if you wanna write a story for yourself about Harry Potter slipping the sausage to Ron Weasley, knock yourself out, just don’t publish it or put it on the net. I would just point out how creepy it is, how damaging it might be to someone to become that obsessive about this sort of thing, and the slash fans would just reply that it wasn’t that creepy to them, and we could all move on. But the fact is that there are real victims of this, the actors who portray the characters and are being used as sexual playthings by these slash authors, and the authors of legitimate fiction who have their characters stolen and warped to fit those sexual fantasies.
Another slash writer, here. Mostly X-Files stuff. You just know Mulder and Skinner were doin’ it. I’m also a long-time reader of slash, the bad, dirty, NC-17 kind. Long live the smut, baby.
Hey Guin, what color prison jumpsuits do you think we’ll be wearing, us being heinous lawbreakers and all? I hope they’re the blue denim ones. Orange is so not my color.
Sounds good, as long as I don’t get my slash-writing hide blown up.
As for Rex…he’s got his neat little view of the world, and it looks like nothing will change it. It’s really nothing to get steamed over. Judging by the overwhelming response of slash fans in this thread, we’re in good company.
What the fuck? So you are arguing against all fanfiction, not just slash fic? So for example, you find Spike/Buffy, or Angel/Buffy just as disgusting as Spike/Angel? Or is it just unconvential pairings? Like Buffy/Xander isn’t canon, so it’s fucked up? Where do you draw the line? Do you include authorized novelizations? Or are those OK because people are being paid?
How many slash writers do you know personally? I know about a dozen. Most of them are mothers and professionals who read and write it in their spare time. I know a few who are working on becoming published authors. There are some truly talented writers out there.
I’m just truly confused over who your venom is directed at. It seems you don’t like the homosexual aspect of the fiction, but then you point out that it’s not about being gay. You call people who enjoy these types of things awful names. “Them people” are all the people who posted on this thread, so I guess that means we’re all horrible people. You rant aobut how sick “fandom” is…do you include all Internet fans?
Statements like this
truly confuse me. Why am I like those Mr. Belevedere fans on SNL because I want to see Spike go down on Angel?
Furthermore, is it the fact that people share their sexual fantasies that bother you? Who do you resent more? The readers (who enjoy the sexual fantasies) or the writers (who create them?) Is it truly any of your business what gets another preson off? Is the crime inthe writing/reading, or is it also in the thinking? Should people stop fantasizing about other people all together? Should I never think about Spike because James Marsters is a real person? Should I never fantasize about James Marsters? Or should I just not tell interested parties about them? Does it make a difference what gender I am and my sexual orientation at all?
What if the people who play the characters don’t mind? I have apretty good idea what James likes about fandom and what he doesn’t like. He tells us at the dozens of cons he’s done. He’s never once mentioned a problem with fanfic during the Q&A sessions or the cocktail parties, where it’s been brought up. Seth Green thinks it’s funny, and he’s flattered.
It seems to me you are extremely ignorant, confused, and have major issues. You have repeated it’s “weird and creepy”. In order to understand your concerns about the genre of slashfic, I need you to answer these questions you asked, because Ijust don’t get it.
And you know this, how, exactly? Have you actually read any of it? Because I can name a dozen slash writers offhand that are superior to many published authors. Many of them are published authors, for that matter. Calling us “obsessive weirdos” isn’t exactly helping your case either. It makes you look like a complete wanker, actually.
Fine words from a man who’s wracked up 1600 posts in a year and two months. What’s that, almost 4 posts per day? Oh, it’s not 14, but it’s not exactly a shining example of someone with a busy social life either, is it? Mind you, I’d be thef irst one to congratulate Guin for the amount of posts she’s racked up–you go, girl! But it makes you look like a hypocritical ass to comment on it and is very, very bad form, roughly on par with the old “BUT I HAVE A LIFE! AND YOU DON’T!” you can find on any run-of-the-mill message board. We have standards here on the Straight Dope. Tool.
Well, at least they aren’t spending hours each day posting on a message board. Or watching television. Or fantasizing about Angelina Jolie. Or collecting stamps, or whatever else the fuck people do for a hobby.
You know, I’m not 100% positive, but I’m pretty sure this is what we in my country call “a joke.”
Oh, I’m not saying you’re a homophobe–I simply think you sound about as out of your mind with self-righteous pomposity as any gaybasher.
But no one is creeped out in this thread except you, my dear boy. I can only come to the conclusion that this is because your head is in a secure location up your ass.
Seriously, man. I can recommend you some good fic. They write girl on girl action too, you know.
