Oh, okay, tell me how that works out.

[apocalypsos]

Diana Gabaldon, regarding fanfic: "OK, my position on fan-fic is pretty clear: I think it’s immoral, I _know_ it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters."

Three things:

1. See subject line.
2. I'm more turned off than I should be by an adult woman using the word "barf."
3. Immoral? Really?

I will admit that it always amuses me when published authors come out of the woodwork to state plainly that they think fanfic writers are evil and stupid. It's not like she doesn't have the right to say it, but she's complaining about it in regards to a "Support Stacie" auction item, which is kind of skeevy.

It's a futile statement that doesn't do anything but make you look like an ass to a lot of your fans and turn off a large enthusiastic readership, and it always comes off to me like they don't actually deign to talk to "the little people," such as it is. (Contrast the attitudes towards their fanbases between, say, Stan Lee who's pro-fanfic and Anne Rice who isn't.)

So, yeah, see subject line again.

EDIT: I have to go to work in forty minutes. Why has no one started any wank in her comments yet? *pokes with a stick*

(I'm not saying you guys should go start wank. I'm just saying I'm going to go to work, and when I get home and turn on my computer at eight the only thing left after fandom piles on is a dissipating mushroom cloud.)

Comments

[animeartistjo.livejournal.com]

Added my 2 cents on her post.

I adore how so many people who comment agreeing with the post have never actually read fanfic or even know what it is--they're just getting the author's side of things.

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

...wait, how is it immoral to write fanfic, but not immoral to write Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?

[medie]

Oh, it is totally immoral of course, but because of the zombie propensity for brain-eating, nobody can remember that.

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

Haha!

But in the original post, wosshername was all "It's okay if it's out of copyright, but if it's my stuff it's immoral" and I was like, bwhuh? /baffled

[medie]

Oh the immorality argument was priceless. Particularly when you take into account her propensity for writing that is, essentially, glorified rape h/c fic. (Seriously, male and female rape that includes at least one instance of healing sex though, in that one, it was the man recounting his rapes at the hands of a bisexual badguy wherein he'd offered himself up to save the heroine) But, yes, despite all that, fanfiction is TOTES immoral.

The stupid is strong with this one.