An Exhaustive Defense of Fanfiction

On art, transformativity, and the literary wonders of putting your middle finger up at preps. AND THEN WE DANCED is now streaming on MUBI in the US and Canada. Get a free month at mubi.com/sarahz !
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[@Mrfishybobboo]

Tried testing out sarah's theory that I can find fanfiction of anything and ended up reading nathan for you fanfic for an hour :(

[@fightvale57]

HONEY where is it??!?!?!?!! I want Nathan for me.

[@guardianeris]

I wanted to see if there was any R rated I'm On Observation Duty Huge Man fics, after reading a comment on an YT video about the idea, and was thoroughly disappointed, but I did find a beautiful fic where the reader is consoled, falls in love, and marries Huge Man so that's close enough

[@SarahZ]

Oh, ok

[@Veralidainai]

Sarah is right, I just came across a 100,000 word fanfic romance between Pennywise the Clown and Bill and the worst part of it all is that it was ACTUALLY GOOD.

[@paintingcube3853]

@@Veralidainai 🤣😂🤣😂 oh god no, I have no idea if I should ask for a link to that story or not. On a related subject of being shockingly good: I heard there was also a fan fiction sequel to Neon Genesis Evangelion called Genocide. It's said to be 800 pages long. I still have yet to read it.

[@DuskoftheTwilight]

"Real books don't have Tropes" is the most hilarious attempt at elitism I have ever seen oh my god.

[@CJWproductions]

Serious "only liberals have pronouns" energy lmao

[@legrandliseurtri7495]

My book doesn't only have no tropes, it doesn't even have words! #real books 😎

[@Cheetahgirl_Studios]

I think people tend to misunderstand. Tropes... aren’t always bad. It’s clichés you need to watch out for. If tropes didn’t exist, then stories would be boring and identical to one another because there’s no defining elements to distinguish them from one another.

[@highdefinition450]

Where do they think tropes come from lol

[@zinkheroofyoutube8004]

REAL BOOKS DON'T HAVE TROPES!!! REAL BOOKS HAVE BLACK COFFEE AND BEER!!!

[@ellipszilonq]

I’m a fanfiction purist. Everything is a fanfiction. If it has words, it’s a fanfic of the dictionary.

[@milliecipher818]

Op your brain

[@RowanWisteria777]

Everything is fanfiction of life

[@zinkheroofyoutube8004]

The chad we don’t deserve

[@MondeSerenaWilliams]

dictionaries are just fanfics of speaking.

[@user-vw4xp5nt9f]

biographies are just rpf 🤨

[@yumiswaid9295]

I find wild the "fanfics dont make you do world building" when most of the fics i read are like "so the og author didn't do shit with all this cool stuff so this is my sand pit now and im building this world with my own bare hands"

[@angelfox8]

God I've read some fanfics that would make Lord of the rings and the Silmarillion jealous with their world building

[@L16htW4rr10r]

Or made up a whole new world for the characters in the other media to live in. That's always exciting. And I'm saying this to myself, a self proclaimed fanfiction writer

[@panq8904]

@@L16htW4rr10r I feel you there, legit some of my favourite fics are Modern AUs where characters are the same but living in our world, probably some of the best Game of Thrones fics I've ever read were 'Westeros is a 21st century first world country now but all the character drama is still there!' type shit XD

[@eyeballbucket420]

This is the Hellsing fandom writing fics that feels longer and more complex than the fucking source material LMAO Hirano kept pushing out these amazing concepts and characters but everything just happens so quickly and the characters don't last or we see them for like 3 chapters, sooooo yeah. So many fandoms are basically just sand pits for fanfic writers, in which the source material is just a bunch of concepts never truly extrapolated upon. I love these types of mangas/books bc then I can just go wild with characters that I love!

[@graybirdwoods2264]

I read one Harry Potter fanfic that created so much extra lore, and culture, and added so many more personality to the characters, it was amazing, it was also like 150k words

[@philippon_]

I've read exactly two fanfictions in my whole life: one was a persona 4 fanfiction that ended up being a very deep story about how easy it is to get trapped in an abusive relationship and ignore all the red flags just because you want to be loved, and how it might leave you scarred for live. The other one was My Immortal. So yeah I think I see your point here.

[@Ramsey276one]

WOW Quite the contrast XD

[@channelname7743]

can i please have a link to the Persona 4 one if possible

[@philippon_]

@@channelname7743 I don't have the link anymore cause that was literally 8 years ago but if I remember correctly it was called Sympathy Crime (or Sympathy Crimes?). Major trigger warning for abusive relationship (obviously), sexual assault, suicide/self harm, and grooming too.

[@philippon_]

@@channelname7743 oh and also it has quite a lot of smut. Forgot to put that in the tw

[@channelname7743]

@@philippon_ wow, thank you

[@bentaphid44]

Hot take: we probably wouldn't be having this conversation if things still entered the public domain at a reasonable rate

[@danang5]

yeah we can blame disney for that they use public domain stuff and make their own version,copyright it,and then extend the copyright law to an unreasonable length

[@petwisk2012]

And you can thank Disney

[@HyenaDandy]

Absolute, 100% agreement. This is what I was going to say as well. Part of why I, a 32-year-old living half a century after the publication of "Carrie," am writing "Who Killed Carrie White?" as a fanfic is that only Stephen King or those with his express permission can write stories about Carrie.

[@alliew31]

Very true. Copyright shouldn’t surpass the original creator’s lifetime

[@aces-talking]

So true

[@elliart7432]

people say "fanfiction relies on being familiar with already existing characters instead of creating your own" as if that's easy. Do you know how hard it is to know an already existing character so well that your writing feels true to them? Your fic straight up will not succeed unless you have a strong understanding of the character's motivations, fears, and idiosyncrasies. That to me sounds like excellent practice for media analysis.

[@willslawson9675]

Just ask Warner Bros DC Comics writers how easy that "writing with existing characters is easy" is

[@archermahou8910]

I would argue that writing fanfic requires a very different skill set from an original book: you need less creativity, but a lot more understanding of a previously written work. You can't come up with stuff as you go along, you have to make sure it fits into someone else's lore or the fans will strangle you.

[@low-keydrama1260]

Not to mention if any kind of media have characters that are meant for the viewers/players/etc. to interpret on their own, nothing is wrong, but the fandom of that media will likely dislike it. U can see this character as kind and polite while others won’t or don’t. Especially if there’s an accepted standard by the fandom how those characters will act. Even if you write something truly amazing, there’ll probably be some or a lot of people commenting and criticizing how you write the characters or a certain character when in the original media, they could be open to any interpretation from anyone

[@TheMusicalFruit]

@@willslawson9675 Shots fired.

[@willslawson9675]

@@archermahou8910 I don't think writing within restrictive parameters inherently makes things less creative. That's the basis behind metered poetry like sonnets and haikus--the restrictions of established form incite their own kind of creativity. I think writing within someone else''s pre-established lore works much the same way--it forces you to find creative ways to make things fit together into a canon rather than just doing whatever. It's not less creative, it's just creative in a different way.

[@MrVodka-wb1tw]

This "Fanfiction isn't literature" thing gives me the same vibes as "Videogames are not art".

[@ter2364]

especially when novels were considered a poor mans theatre!

[@freyjathehealer5559]

Roger Ebert is at fault for this and he’s so wrong. His article on it is so dumb because he defines all “traditional games” as not art (Go players disagree but let’s pretend that’s true) he also says that any video games that aren’t games with points and rules are not games and therefore not video games and are something else. Like dude Life is Strange is a video game whether you want to admit it or not.

[@highdefinition450]

I like fanfiction but I personally wouldn't call all of it literature lol. Idk it just feels wrong to call it that for me lmao

[@Mixtil22]

But video games aren’t art - they’re at best at their ‘cinema of attractions’ stage. Craft, for sure, but not art

[@radioactivebeverage]

@@Mixtil22 the graphic designers, music department, concept artists, character designers and animators reading this: 👁👄👁

[@thisismycupoftea3974]

I'm probably gonna regret this, but I wrote so much fanfiction as a teenager and genuinely thought that was the extent of my writing ability. Now I'm 14 days away from my first published book coming out. Without writing fanfiction, I would not be achieving this goal. I had a lot to learn as a writer, and I learned by having an audience who gave me feedback with every single chapter. I grew from fanfiction and I loved every single moment of it. Honestly, the goal is for people to write fanfiction of my original characters, then it'll feel like I've come full circle.

[@Grace86000]

Congratulations!

[@user-is2zg3vi6u]

what’s ur book called, and who’s the author (obvi u but i mean the name on it so i can find it)? i would rly love to read it!!

[@thisismycupoftea3974]

@@user-is2zg3vi6u 'Do You Ship Us?' By Claire Rosalind. It's only available for pre-order at the moment but it's release date is the 20/8/22

[@roman_dimaggio]

you mind if the fanfiction is disgusting? like not poorly writen, but utterly entrail shifting you know? with characters commiting sexual crimes against each other, involving very sick normally disturbing kinks. Would you be cool? I mean it doesn't matter if you are bc since there is no gulag for fanfictioners if anybody wants to, they would absolutely be able to. And if you defend fanfiction this is something you must also defend. I really don't see a strong argument in the "i did it for practice" thing. What about limiting yourself to a preestablished set of lore and characters makes it supposedly easier? And if you're going to change everything what help does it provide by calling it a fanfic? Reach? You can always lie, like JK Rowling or Meyer of Gray, you can say something like "hey, if you like One Direction, you will probably like (t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶n̶f̶i̶c̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶r̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶ ̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶m̶e̶) this completely unrelated story about a boyband that shares a secret love (≖ิ(‿)≖ิ) It'd still be very cringe on the inside, but less so on the outside.

[@BabyCharmander]

@@roman_dimaggio Hey dude did you actually watch the video? Because it... actually addresses like, most of the stuff you're talking about. Also, congrats OP!! I hope your book does well!

[@santiagoporroprofe2745]

It doesn't even matter if fanfictions are badly written. We need to stop associating art with a piece that "holds the potential for artistic significance and great quality" and just... accept that bad art exists. Art as a synonymous for "good art" is something that should have been left behind in the 60s. Just accept the existence of poorly made art.

[@lrose5522]

Yep exactly

[@misteryA555]

And I love bad art! Everyone has made bad art before, and people don't have to be good to make art. I hate that young artists feel ashamed to share their work because it's not up to certain standards. Long live bad art!

[@voidcowboy4327]

What annoys me about that quote is that who are you to decide if my fanfic doesn’t “hold the potential of artistic significance and great quality?” Just cause you read furry smut doesn’t mean every fanfic is that, there are plenty of dramatic, mysterious, scary, action packed & funny fanfics but cause someone on the internet read scaly smut one time back in 2008 somehow all fanfics are bad.

[@GoldieBoots]

@@voidcowboy4327 and furry fics are STILL art. it doesn’t really matter if it’s personal significant to me, but it’s significant to someone and it matters to someone. like, art is art and it’s not up to anyone to decide if it was or not.

[@Horky_Porky]

It depends on how you define art, that's the problem. If it is defined in a normative way, then art has something to do with an inherent quality that some things possess and some don't. But if it is defined in a descriptive way it is defined by its categories. Literature is then (by definition) art because it isn't anything else. Most people mix both ways of thinking which is unhelpful when discussing art or the definition of it. I don't understand this whole Fanfic Literature dichotomy. Why not both? Why do people always have to take a "side" especially, when it seems so obvious that it doesn't have to be that way?

[@LadyEmilyPresents]

I would watch this but I don’t really watch video essays anymore. They just don’t give me the same satisfaction as the fan made lefttube scripts I read online

[@eggnogthespacecadet3392]

Hey! You’re one of the people who made the video!

[@MANGOM1LK]

i got called out before the video was even public, damn

[@jvgreendarmok]

@@eggnogthespacecadet3392 She "edited" (i.e. co-wrote) it.

[@michealchow6802]

i love the dissertations where every major point is decided based on a series of reader polls

[@Kriseiri]

It's that lady. Emily, I think her name is.

[@ellipszilonq]

“This photo is a shit painting” is such a fantastic summary of the whole debate.

[@Skywardflare758]

Of course you should read more than just fanfiction, it gives you more context and material for fanfics!

[@Stinkoman87]

The more original works you experience, the more robust your literary vocabulary is for when you write your own fanfic.

[@dreamsicle3113]

Exactly!

[@aazhie]

XDD not at all wrong. All my fanfic starts to devolve into Jane Austin tropes if it goes on too long XD

[@thisisntallowed9560]

I know right, I wish to read books only to improve my writing in fanfictions

[@melissateodola1887]

Yeah, I always take a break from writing fanfic and reading it when I feel like I need to refresh with original works

[@Iratepandabear]

Disclaimer, I'm like 7 mins into the video, but I just wanted to say, if fanfic was a predominately male thing, there would not be this much vitriol for it.

[@bartholomew7852]

I would add cishet male to that, but yeah, definitely.

[@akakiakakievich1837]

Men tend to find great joy in originality and often find themselves acting obvious. Writing obvious as well.

[@beccangavin]

It’s worse than that. They get published. There’s a whole section of what is essentially fan fiction in the SciFi/Fantasy section in B&N.

[@Bluerock121]

I don’t think it’s fair to frame all criticism of fan fiction as neck beards getting angry

[@beccangavin]

@@Bluerock121 I don’t think anybody did. It’s more like the difference between the way people who get emotional over football are thought of as normal and the people who like K-Pop are fan girls. That sentiment isn’t limited to neckbeards. It’s pretty generalized. Was there generalized vitriol before fanfics became dominated by women?

[@neckpeck2738]

If you complain about hastily written, poorly edited mediocre quality fanfiction using the same washed out tropes again and again, wait until you find out about penny novels or the books you find on Walmart shelves. Any book salesperson knows that those clichéd romance novels with the classic book cover of a white man passionately embracing a white woman sell like hot buns, and nobody holds them to the standard of high art. And they don't have to be!

[@michaelramon2411]

I kept thinking "do these supposed literary experts not know about pulp novels?". "Low literature" has been around for as long as printing's been cheap enough to sustain them. (And earlier, if you count things like plays.)

[@amberhernandez]

Even though filet mignon is a phenomenal dish, there'll always be a market for a good ol' McDonald's hamburger.

[@thompkins6796]

I'm a librarian, so fanfiction falls ever so slightly out of my field, but bad printed books absolutely do fall into my job. People have, and will always, love trash and that's FINE. I swear, the amount of little old ladies who read only trope heavy, recycled romance novels is sky high. Not everyone wants to read challenging literature all the time, most of the time people like what they know and they'll keep reading the same thing over and over. Reading can be for entertainment, information, relaxation, enjoyment, and curiosity, it's not just for Big Brain (tm) literary analysis and critique. In 40-50 years, that generation of old readers will still be reading their fanfics.

[@aquilamflammeus5569]

I feel like you have never met them IRL we absolutely do complain about those books as well. Fanfic isn't inherently worse than published books its just much easier to write bad fanfiction not least because it's often an authors first time writing.

[@washipuppy]

Isn't the "Airport Novel" another vector for what would have been penny novels these days? Hell, when I was a kid I read loads of Trash Generic Fantasy which used the world-building of 'Just DnD' or 'Just Tolkien without the fancy language or history stuff' where you were just supposed to assume that the ruling structure was Medieval England, Magic existed and could Do Things, and Dragon's exist. Some of those would get some creativity sprinkled on it, some wouldn't. Characters were stock, conversations were stilted, but evil wizards got stabbed and dragons were scary. High Art they were not, but easily devourable they were.

[@robttore2]

... The person who thinks that all fanfiction is 'light and fluffy' has never read a 'dead dove do not eat' story. God, those are... not light or fluffy in any way.

[@rivermaxwell3834]

Oh god, yes. Fanfic can make innocent cartoons, or a throwaway line into a character's traumatic backstory and I live for it.

[@deaf-tomcat]

also dark! AUs exist. (one could say that After is a Dark! Harry Styles fanfic lol) it's incredibly small-minded to think that fanfic can be so easily describable.

[@rivermaxwell3834]

@@deaf-tomcat Dark aus! Sometimes that just scratch that itch!

[@why9045]

@@rivermaxwell3834 ikr?? i love dark aus so much.

[@Nixahma]

The person who thinks that all fanfiction is "light and fluffy" has never read Autotomy by GoldenThreads (I will forever be traumatized)

[@yodamcyoda]

Love that framing the divine comedy as fan fiction clearly implies that Dante was a fan of Jesus and Christianity rather than like a believer. ”Yeah I’m a huge jesus fan” feels very distinct from ”I’m a devout Christian to me

[@memethemastermonarch9459]

It's even funnier because I read Devil May Cry fanfiction, which is based off Inferno. So basically I would be reading fanfiction, of fanfiction, of fucking fanfiction.

[@tiggerbane4325]

@@memethemastermonarch9459 ​ and then you can make the claim that the New Testament is fanfiction of the Old Testament! So fan fiction of fan fiction of fucking fan fiction of bloody fan fiction :).

[@joelman1989]

This actually makes me wonder though. Like I’ve met some religious zealots that might actually be better classified as Jesus fans than Jesus believers lol

[@prageruwu69]

well yeah, isn't that what being a devout christian is?

[@ThatWeirdo04]

To be fair, I think that argument comes less from the biblical setting of the story and more from the fact that Dante wrote himself and his contemporaries into the story.

[@Kayizcray]

as an avid book fandom person, boy does the convo about "books vs fanfic being better" make me go 🧍‍♂️ wild concept: you can read, enjoy, and write both lmao

[@gregcourtney751]

Or prefer one to the other but acknowledge that others liking the other more is fine.

[@pendlera2959]

I always think of Nostalgia Critic's point about how The Last Airbender movie being bad doesn't diminish or destroy ATLA. It's almost a waste of time to get all frothed up over the movie since the series is as good as it ever was. Same with fanfiction vs books - you can like both or prefer one over the other without getting upset that others don't feel the same way.

[@pearsfears]

the way i saw your icon and went "................is that aftg or am i just wanting to see it everywhere... no its aftg"

[@thepinkestpigglet7529]

Seriously I like fanfics because I liked a book

[@mcflurryfrostie]

Exactly, all of this arguing over which is better is so ridiculous. Just let people enjoy what they want, why is that so hard lmao

[@thegentlethem5867]

my first thought with the "Gatsby was problematic" point was not that the people who read it weren't paying attention to the story, but that their teachers wouldn't allow any analysis that criticized America or capitalism. my Gatsby teacher was actually pretty good, but the teacher that introduced Lord of the Flies did so by showing us a documentary on the Stanford Prison Experiment and repeatedly reiterating this was human nature and wouldn't hear any argument to the contrary. Some of it absolutely rests on people simply not paying attention in English class, but others seem like a reaction against an educational system that's chugging along during the failure of an empire that does not allow for more radical readings

[@gardenvarietyghost4801]

I'm glad I had an English teacher who called us oblivious for not noticing the gay subtext, and enlightened us. "He saw me looking with admiration at his car. 'It's pretty isn't it, old sport!' he jumped off to give me a better view. 'Haven't you seen it before?' I'd seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length..." She also used the term slash fic, our theory was that she'd also written some

[@DrawciaGleam02]

Agree. Like for a while Romeo & Juliet was praised at this perfect romance story.... ..now people are bashing the stupidity of the main characters.

[@Zarsla]

I still thought Gatsby was problematic, and we were reading it in the context of the American dream, and wheter it wad achievable or not.

[@gloop7458]

That's kinda funny because the scientific community (or at least those within with some sense and who has researched it) have actually denounced the Stanford Prison Experiment There's a lot to it but basically: The researchers selectively picked people who had lower empathy and the results were, even then, tampered with by the researchers. If I'm not mistaken, they actually told the "prison guards" to abuse the "prisoners" (the participants didn't know what they were researching) So the experiment is not so much a reflection of human nature but really, the power of authority and the willingness to even do inhumane and cruel stuff when told to by it

[@voidify3]

@@DrawciaGleam02when the truth is neither of those ends of the pendulum swing, but that the feud is the cause of the problems. They were dumb kids sure but if their families weren’t feuding the dumb kids could have courted openly, then either got married with no drama or broke up and married other people. But because of the feud the only way they could explore their teenage feelings was to double down and as a result 6 people died Thank you for giving me an excuse to monologue about this

[@DuskoftheTwilight]

I think a good counterpoint to "Fanfiction doesn't require you to worldbuild," is that fanfiction has a contrary pressure of needing to write in a way that conforms to people's existing expectations of these characters. If you're writing an original work, for example, then as long as your lead character behaves and thinks consistently within the work, it doesn't make sense for anyone to say they're out of character, while in fanfiction it's entirely possible to write a character in a way that is self-consistent within your work, but will get criticized for having that character act out of character. Even if you want to filter things through a commercial lens, this isn't a bad skill to hone. Given that the original creators behind Superman died over a decade ago, any modern Superman work is necessarily being written by people who didn't originally create him, and yet fans will still have various expectations for who Superman is, and they will respond negatively if you write a Superman who doesn't feel like Superman. In today's world of blockbuster fictional works being built on the foundation of stories and characters who already exist in the public conscious, being able to write a character in an interesting way that still conforms to those kinds of expectations is a very important skill that writing wholly original work will not teach you.

[@nikkinewbie6014]

Great point that’s on point. Couldn’t agree more.

[@chaosprince8291]

Also, some fanfiction does world build despite this, or fleshes out the existing world to a point where it becomes "fanon."

[@SandraCuriel-mr1qn]

Wonderful point, damn

[@joshraid1550]

i love how at 7:58 they were like “you think bakudeku mpreg is good, well you must not know what a narrative foil is” like bakugo and deku literally are narrative foils, how does shipping them mean you don’t understand that?

[@gennybaratta2460]

Exactly! I’ve seen many a Zuko/Aang fanfic in my day and have seen (and rebloged) those same authors incredibly well written analyses of Zuko and Aang’s role as foils

[@alliu6562]

I think a lot of people just forget: there are a lot of bad fanfics. But there are also a lot of bad books. We just don’t get to read most of them bc they die in the publisher’s office. Edit: I didn’t think people would notice this comment but I guess they did. I wanna emphasize two things: 1, I said “most” die in the publisher’s office. I’m well aware a lot of “garbage” gets published anyway. 2, I don’t really care if someone reads or makes bad art or writing. It exists, and there’s not much I can individually do about it except avoid what I don’t want to read. Even if some of the stuff out there imo should’ve never been posted, like people need to be a bit self aware about the kind of stuff they post **publicly** (if you really wanna delve into a deep rabbit hole of despair, try the mcyt explicit fics on AO3. It’s bleak how many people wrote explicit fics about actual real minors. Like I’m not exaggerating the way people do about MHA characters, I’m being literal).

[@evi6629]

Yeah. Also, art does not, in fact, have to be good to be art. Bad art is everywhere, it's more common than good art.

[@luciabravo1137]

And also a lot of mediocre to good books started as bad books, they just had years of work with an editor before they were deemed publishable. Fanfics are usually posted the second the author is done with the new chapter.

[@Kirkeyressa]

honestly a lot of the ~Officially Published Canon~ is fucking swill too, lol... the fact that i didnt have to pay to read all those bad fanfics to completion is a great thing, Actually

[@BetterWithBob]

And the deciding factor in traditional publishing isn't usually "is this good?" but rather "is this sellable?"

[@darsynia]

It's also worth mentioning that there are 'hobby versions' of a loooooot of professional jobs, from jewelry-making to carpentry to hand-sewn clothes, but crucially, most of *those* hobbies aren't able to be posted to a wide audience with no regard for quality. Fanfiction gets the same bad rap that Florida gets. Florida Man is a thing because the privacy laws in Florida are different and we get to know who these people are in ways that don't happen in other states. People can post their fic to FFN or AO3 or Wattpad and it's out there for people to stumble on in a way that bad carpentry or handmade clothes just... aren't.

[@emmbea]

“This photograph is a shit painting” is such a good way of describing how ppl often want art to approach *them*, on their terms, rather than the other way around…

[@blixer8384]

The profound irony of people holding up Shakespeare in contrast to mass marketed repetitive story telling is that Shakespeare **WAS** mass marketed repetitive story telling. Very few of Shakespeare’s stories were original stories the vast vast majority of his works were adaptations of older works and that’s what people expected. People didn’t go to the Globe Theater to see new original plays by Shakespeare they went to see his take on their favorite stories. It actually took A Midsummer’s Night Dream a couple decades to catch on because it was **too** original. This really gets at a larger question: what actually separates fan fiction from adaptation? What sepeeates Shakespeare rewritibg the *Tragical History of Romeo and Juliet* from someone rewriting Naruto on the internet?

[@smeebythesea]

I feel like the arguments calling fanfic unpaid labour and corporate worship completely ignore why people write fanfic in the first place. It's so creatively healthy to act on inspiration and write what you feel excited about, and very normal to want to share your work with other people

[@nessie-from-earthbound1601]

It’s also useful in the sense that it provides a safe place to do so, as by using pre-established places, people, and settings, it takes off some of the pressure of having to wholly come up with these things yourself

[@lizabethhampton4537]

I have Dan Olsen's Fifty Shades videos on an endless loop these days and I love the way he phrased it, calling fanfiction an "almost instinctive exercise in creative synthesis" and "naturally what stories pursue, the meeting point between the familiar and the unexpected" and even how he talked about how some characters are their own context (tbh that list is probably longer than a lot of folks want to admit).

[@ryanroche2442]

I want a Sarah Z video essay where as the video goes on the “drink” she’s holding just gets more and more absurd until she ends the video holding a jug of antifreeze

[@cybersearcher1041]

Pls. PLS let Sara see this

[@calebmarmon1310]

That would be a good bit for an April Fool’s essay about incoherent nonsense.

[@fawksilox4892]

Alternatively - a boba tea where the straw starts swapping to weirder and weirder angles to where it pierces the cup

[@mygoldenwitch]

Thanks for making me bark out a stupidly loud laugh at legit 4AM. If my neighbours complain, I'll sic 'em on you.

[@leeyang3502]

idk about that. One of my favorite books as a tween involves a character who attempts suicide by drinking antifreeze... great book if anyone knows what I'm talking about.

[@thainganpham9705]

I have no clue why fanfic is being touted as some sort of advertising and a “worshipping capitalism”. Wouldn’t anything and everything qualified as advertising then??? From online critics to memes to summary vids to articles regarding the scandals of the creators, if fanfiction (or indeed any fan content) is “free advertising” then anything is free advertising.

[@angelfox8]

I agree it's genuinely confusing because most people searching up fanfiction have already read/watched the fiction that they're looking for fics for anyways so it's not like they're attracting new viewers/readers It's like the people who thought re-releasing Morbius after the memes got big would make people want to see it and then it bombed again because no one wanted to see it meme or no meme

[@aquilamflammeus5569]

@@angelfox8 Its still a form of IP worship. I read a ton of web serials and serial publication of original work is clearly the best of both worlds.

[@Foelhe]

@@aquilamflammeus5569 Was the serial publication not sold for money? Is that not capitalism?

[@aquilamflammeus5569]

@@Foelhe No since web serials tend to be self published they are quite clearly not capitalism though I suspect the suggestion comes from you not understanding the definition.

[@Nirax3]

Anything you mentioned can be understood as advertising - and oftentimes, it is. Think about how when a person, franchise etc is canceled (as in boycotted), people often ask their communities to stop talking about the thing / person altogether because even if you criticize something you're still giving it your attention, arguably the most valuable good in digitalized capitalism. Like, say somebody hates JKR for being a transphobic ass and stops supporting her financially but still writes, idk, trans!Draco Drarry fanfic with a passion. Then they're simultaneously transforming, maybe even 'reclaiming' the franchise but also keeping it alive and relevant - which JKR technically doesn't profit from directly but it could lead to someone else reading the fanfic, thereby engaging with the fandom and nourishing the fan feels to eventually buy official merchandise or something. But as other commenters have pointed out, it's not always that simple because framing is still part of the equation.

[@NotParticularlyWitty]

I'd say a pretty rule of thumb definition for fanfiction would be "a work created solely for non-commercial enjoyment that primarily exists within the framework of an existing piece of fiction". And I'd definitely say the only real differences between "fanfiction" and professionally published works are: - Less gatekeeping for better and worse - No profit motive

[@jadenbryant9283]

late but yeah fanfic is basically just the equivalent of fan films

[@Working_Dreamer]

One thing I wish was mentioned more when fanfic gets critiqued by the traditional book crowd is the fact that “spicy fanfic” is not the only kind of fic that exists. Fic isn’t a genre but a medium with every genre that can be applied to similar to that of traditional media. There’s romance, sure, but there’s also sci-fi fics, drama fics, slice of life fics, fantasy fics- the list goes on and on. Plus fanfiction can give a writer a way to express their unique perspective in ways that traditional media sometimes fails. For example, the whump genre is about a character whom gets physically or emotionally hurt by an event and the story is about their journey through that. Sometimes reading traditional books can trigger a reader who have similar experiences but writing fic helps the author control the narrative and find catharsis. The hurt/comfort genre also has similar themes except with more of a positive ending mostly. It’s kinda funny now that traditional media is sort of in the same boat as fanfic where they have to defend their medium by saying, “Not all books are spicy. People need to explore more than booktok.” Well not all fanfiction contains spice. People need to explore AO3. 😉

[@elliart7432]

I would argue fanfiction is GREAT practice if your goal is to be a show writer instead of a novelist. Don't most shows have a team of writers that have to work off of the pre-existing world and characters of the person who actually had the idea for the story?

[@clementineshamaney5137]

Yea. Fanfiction can be challenging to write well because of the research needed done for the original work. I tried drafting a simple Persona 5 fic and the amount of dialogue i had to analyze was tough.

[@mkgaca8721]

@@clementineshamaney5137 non fanfic writers dont understand the PAIN of trying to analyze every little bit of thr source material. i do pokemon stuff, and i have memorized what most of the berrys do just for fanfic.

[@Okok-zk9zf]

i literally want to be screenwriter so you’re so right

[@bearowl4101]

I recently wrote a Gaston x Beast fanfic as an exercise in media analysis. I had recently watched KZbin video essays looking at Beauty and the Beast through a queer lens (including interpretations of the Beast’s story as an AIDS allegory) and I wanted to explore some of these ideas. I also wanted to write a different relationship dynamic than the one between the Beast and Belle and tackle a potential flaw in the Disney movie, that being the protagonist’s relative lack of an arc compared to the Beast. I thought, “If Gaston was in Belle’s shoes, he would be much more judgemental at first, so him learning to love the Beast would be more satisfying.” I don’t even ship Gaston x The Beast in a traditional sense, I just thought it would be an interesting thing to write about. I wish the anti-fanfic crowd could see fanfiction as its own form of literary analysis and critique. Hell, fanfiction’s tendency to make established straight characters gay serves as its own criticism of the heteronormative mainstream media landscape.

[@kashiichan]

This sounds fascinating. Is it published online? I'd love to check it out.

[@natasha8007]

Would love to see it, if published :)

[@bb010g]

Same! I'd be interested in reading this.

[@bearowl4101]

@@bb010g It's called 'No One Loves Like Gaston' and it's on AO3. I tried to link it but I think KZbin thought it was spam. It's under the username 'Meikakuna' (a name my weeb teenage self chose).

[@DeltaCortis]

'I recently wrote a Gaston x Beast fanfic as an exercise in media analysis.' is not something I expected to read today

[@victoriangm7774]

The Tweet at 6:27 was so overdramatic and ridiculous I just had to laugh. I'm not exaggerating, it literally made me unexpectedly snort-laugh. Hilarious. What an absolutely unhinged take. Acting like fanfiction is some sort of capitalist conspiracy by big IPs to crowd-source unpaid labour is the sad-funniest thing I've ever heard. Sometimes, people enjoy things, and they do things for fun, because they enjoy it. Is that hard to understand? God, that person's life must be utterly joyless. Twitter was a mistake.

[@codypower4298]

Twitter hot take brain worms

[@thepinkestpigglet7529]

And they shared this anti corporate message on a website owned by a corporation

[@DeltaCortis]

@@thepinkestpigglet7529 literally about to be (or maybe not anymore who knows?) owned by the richest man in the world

[@Leiliel1]

Honestly, it reminds me of anti-fun communists; the belief that any amount of enjoyment of life is fundamentally anti-worker, because the only thing that enables social change is discontent, and thus joy as a concept is fundamentally the circuses part of bread and circuses, allowing society to continue as is as opposed to listen to the objective correctness of Marxism. You can usually tell when one of these communists is speaking by other communists rolling their eyes and making wanking motions. There's a reason Disco Elysium's ultimate antagonist is one of these people, despite communism as an idea being presented as actually a good one in comparison to ultraliberalism (their name for capitalist libertarianism).

[@andeggbreaks]

That's twitter for you

[@blaireprince3709]

Disappointing with how you used IcarusPendragon’s content without permission or credit, and on top of that completely misrepresented her take on fanfiction and classic literature and took it entirely out of context. She has a bit of response on her tiktok, and reiterates how the point of her video was that fanfiction is more accessible than classic literature, not that she’s anti-literature

[@lilyoftheveil666]

The "fanfiction just reinforces corporate worship" argument is so weird to me because things like Fix-It Fics exist where the author is deliberately critiquing the original work?!?

[@TallulahWard]

one of my favorite fics is a spitefic driven purely by the rage the author felt towards the original work and author. Just a sense of "holy shit this is so bad I HATE IT so much I'm gonna throw my OC I to this setting and wreck evehthing". it's wildly entertaining

[@breadeater1194]

I could buy that it makes the corporations more powerful, but it really is an outlet for coping with mainstream art's flaws.

[@fellinuxvi3541]

It just reeks of the whole "yet you partake in society, curious" argument. At the end of the day, what these corporations provide is necessary, it sucks they have to do it, but we can't just do without.

[@Nixahma]

@@TallulahWard hand it over

[@jimmybalzac6021]

Silence, weeb.

[@rosevirgo5095]

One thing I'm not sure if you mentioned was the emotional argument for fanfiction. Sometimes when I finish a book, I need time to say goodbye to the characters, or if the ending isn't how I imagined, that is when I can turn to reading fanfiction. Fanfiction can give the opportunity to resolve outstanding character issues or time to process the grief of a book ending.

[@zeviv7313]

Exactly! Pretty much any time a story truly engages me, I look for fanfiction after I am done with it, because I want to see more of its characters, the world, etc.

[@HyperfixationPres]

The flip side of the "fan fic is free, therefore better" argument is that, if we don't consume media in a way that pays writers, eventually that well will dry up. Absolutely, partake of free media. But writers also need to keep bread on the table.

[@Arcdeek]

This video made me realize something quite odd: the most analogous medium to fan fiction isn't books, it's video game mods. Both are fundamentally derivative and transformative, both are broadly community driven and have problematic and/or adversarial relationships with their associated capital, and both reward the creator significantly for their ability to operate within a network of pre-existing constraints. Hell, they even both have the same problem having gems of high quality and artistic merit being surrounded by a sea of impossibly horny silliness.

[@artakaworks7821]

Amazing analogy. Imagine if these bestseller authors took the Gabe Newell or id Software approach and actually made these fanfictions canon 😂😂😂😂😂

[@rafaela00002]

Oh that's such a cool comparison!

[@loczek1965]

Interesting take, but in my opinion it's a miss. The main reason being, fanfic is compared to books, because it uses written word for storytelling purposes. At it's core both are storytelling. There is a reason, why not all forms of fan creations are fanfiction. That's why I think that Sarah's music analogy fell flat, because in storytelling there is no space for recreating someone else's work, like there is in music. Retellings are not the same as covers.

[@duskianfae]

Holy shit, that is actually such a great way to put it, I feel like a whole new world has revealed itself to me. Both have creators that try to fix the mistakes of the original, those that try to expand upon the existing material, those that are horny, those that try to change the context of the original, and shitposts. After all, how different is a fanfic about Peppa Pig in Dangan Rompa than the mod that replaces the dragons in Skyrim with Thomas the Tank Engine..? My god..... You are a genius...

[@christopherb501]

KZbin needs a "save" feature for comments like Reddit has; really don't want to lose track of this write-up.

[@pkphyre8920]

I feel like anytime the question of "Is X art?" comes up the unspoken argument being made often boils down to "X isn't art because I don't think it's good enough to be" which to me is just very silly? Like, something can be art and still suck. I don't particularly like fanfiction and I think a lot of the culture surrounding it *is* pretty anti-intellectual, but like... it is an artform lol. Like, it's just writing, which we've all pretty unanimously agreed is art for a pretty long time now.

[@oomreni5820]

People who don't regularly engage with art critically often just see declaring something as art as a measure of its quality. Like with Sarah's first example, Fountain, i'd argue that the quality of the work is pretty low. It's litterally just a toilet with a name on it. But its artistic value comes from the statement it makes, critiquing the contemporary art world. And its artistic value only increased when, as if to prove it's point, the art world shunned it, only to realise the value later. So in conclusion: great art, but you'd have a pretty bad sense of interior design if you want to display a toilet in your living room.

[@jimjimson6208]

I agree, I hate 99% of fanfiction with a burning passion but I feel like it's stupid to say it isn't art. The overwhelming majority of people I have seen trying to gatekeep art don't actually have an (coherent) argument as to why something isn't, most of the time they just don't like how it challenges the artistic status quo.

[@Beaverthing]

I haven't been reading for fun for YEARS, since university has had me reading so much. I've never read fanfiction before, but fell in to a OFMD fanfic hole and am now deeply invested in a fic that has brought me through two? three? naval battles, hanging, imprisonment, all planned and written out in incredible detail and by an author with such skills in writing dialogue and drama. I think it amounts to around 300 pages that I've consumed within days, glued to my screen, ignoring my thesis. What I'm trying to say is: I don't care if fanfiction is art. I enjoy it, and it has brought back my joy of reading. I've even started a list of books that I want to read when my thesis is finished, and I have the time.

[@Companion92]

Hey, can you tell me the name of the fic ? ^^

[@ackbarfan5556]

You honestly can be surprised at time how much amazing stories you can find through fanfiction.

[@astork7769]

the way 1:17:00 is taken out of context, her next words talk about how classics aren’t often accessible to people who don’t have the tools or teachings to understand them unless they receive a higher education. it’s an excellent point and cutting her off, taking her words out of context, and not even crediting her seems lazy. Not to mention the creator is uncomfortable with you using her tiktoks without her username attached to her face, especially in a negative light and taking the meaning from her words.

[@bubbadeedee3141]

It’s not even lazy it’s completely malicious to cut her off before she makes an articulate point about accessibility in literature. Literally manipulating her narrative it’s so disrespectful

[@alleckeyhearst3117]

also she didn't ask for consent which just makes it worse

[@ya9thelatinogringo]

@@alleckeyhearst3117 consent? It's a youtube video, not BDSM. it's fair use.

[@succmoipp1362]

@@ya9thelatinogringo ...you think consent is only needed for kinky sex?

[@NerdyGal28]

@@ya9thelatinogringo it’s actually not. She stole that clip from tik tok without permission from the creator.

[@alexeifiore8573]

I've read some fanfics that made reading them feel ethereal. Yeah, some are bad, but there are many insanely well-crafted fanfics out there--and what's crazy is that a lot of authors are just writing them for fun, because they're so passionate about what they're creating.

[@leonineKelter]

There are fanfics that have made me completely rethink my opinion on fanfic genres. You think of them all the same and then someone takes it and makes it a 4 chapter, tens of thousands of words piece of absolute poetry. I've had to rethink how I look at hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers, hell even omegaverse. The passion that is poured into so many fics and defies so many tropes as well as following then in their own lights and perspectives is so beautiful to me, truly amazing.

[@b.l7491]

@@leonineKelter you can't just say that and go on to not give reccs😏

[@JamesLawner]

One thing that I don’t like about the fanfic world is how someone can make a fanfic that people like and then just abandon it without any resolution; like a TV show getting cancelled right after a major cliffhanger.

[@leonineKelter]

@@JamesLawner to be fair I've done thar before. It does suck to have a fic you love abandoned, but also these are real people doing this for free. This isn't a paid organized job this is one, maybe two people and sometimes you lose inspiration and don't want to keep going. I I try to think about it this way: if they'd never written it in the first place, I wouldn't have been able to read any of it !! I've had to cut many a series short due to losing interest, qnd most of my fans have reacted that way. It's really good to keep in mind that you lose interest in things over time like every other person, as do they

[@kashiichan]

@@leonineKelter Not to mention that sometimes there is a VERY GOOD REASON for that fic being abandoned. We usually know little to nothing about fic authors and their lives! An author I followed for years through multiple fandoms stopped posting; years later, I discovered that their fics were "abandoned" because they had died. We just have no way of knowing what's going on in people's lives. I try to remind myself that ANY fic, finished or unfinished, is a gift that I never expected to receive; I should be grateful for it, not annoyed that there's not more.

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

Fanfiction is all about _playing_ with original material. Experimenting. You can write, adhering to strict rules and try to change as little in initial premise as possible other than intended course correction, you can move through stations of canon (and story would still be good), you can go off the rails completely or you can change any number of background and backstory details and still reach the same beginning of the story... to have it diverge wildly again. As long as you understand what you work with and who you write to, original work is more like a draft you can paint anything you want on top of. Some fanfiction stories are downright bizarre and incomprehensible. Some crossovers make no sense and their authors still decided to give them a go. In a way, fanfiction biggest boon is the lack of expectations and ease of relatability. It's hard to sell an original franchise. It's hard to make your characters instantly relatable.

[@mooonblooom]

A lot of people forget that art doesn't necessarily mean _good._ Art is subjective, and anyone can find something good or bad. Bad art exists - we can't have good without bad, after all. Is a 2-year-old's drawing of a dog _good_ art? Probably not, but it's art nonetheless. Art is a creative medium, including writing, which can extend to fanfiction. Is fanart art? Yes. So why would fanfiction not be considered art? It's still created by someone, transformative or not, just in a different medium. An 11-year-old's self-insert fic probably isn't good, but if they took the time to write it, then who's to say whether it's art or not?

[@elliart7432]

I really do think fanfic should be respected for its accessibility. As someone with adhd and autism who had "gifted kid burn out" with books, it's absolutely amazing I can still enjoy reading without undergoing the mental wrestling match of moving my thoughts away from a special interest for what's supposed to be a leisure activity.

[@jamie-bn5kj]

yes i have adhd too and i find it pretty hard to read any long text which isn't to do with my hyperfixation when ive tried to read books especially classics i often come out with no idea about the plot/characters/meanings which results in a lot of fanfics the only time i've really got into classics is when ive been hyperfixated on them lol

[@Maddy-pb9gl]

mood, adhd gang unite

[@hazeelise]

same!!! with the adhd and autism and burn out with books. I read constantly as a kid, but now I find it so hard to read books. but I still read a ton of fanfic based on my special interest!

[@morinomajou]

Yeah, that is another element to it: writing fanfics (and making other fanworks) can be a really good outlet for neurodivergent people. It is, in effect, a way to turn infodumping about a special interest into an actual creative exercise; I don’t know or particularly care whether or not my old 300k-word slowburn fanfic counts as literature (though technically it DID win a Hugo award...), but I do know that I’ve never in my life felt more confident than I did when I was writing it, haha.

[@SamieHammy]

I completely agree with this. I think I would have left reading behind a long time ago if fanfiction didnt exist. The ability to find a hyperfixation in a fan Fic is the reason I still read.

[@shirab8506]

The phrase you mentioned, “he toed out of his shoes” IS common in published books. It’s common in historical romance. I see so much discussion on tiktok and KZbin about fan fiction’s idiosyncrasies that’s just like this, where the commentator makes a statement about something that they assume is specific to fan fiction because they haven’t read it anywhere else, but actually, what they’re describing is literally just romance novels. I see complaints about a lot of romance novels “reading like fan fiction” when really they just mean “the book was tropey” (like news flash! Genre fiction is all about the tropes! That’s not specific to fan fiction or romance! It’s literally the point of genre fiction!). This is a pretty minor gripe in an overall great video, but I just see stuff like this all over the internet and it bugs me.

[@Hatgooch]

yeah in fairness published works generally don't appear in Google search results so any phrase commonly used in fiction but not outside of it will primarily show fanfiction, surely

[@DetectiveOlivaw]

But did the romance writers get it from fanfiction, or did the fanfiction writers get it from romance? Chicken or egg?!

[@jvgreendarmok]

*someone who has only read fan fiction reading a historical romance* "Getting a lot of fan fiction vibes from this..."

[@lady8jane]

@@DetectiveOlivaw Considering that romance novels are THE biggest literature genre and have been that for a while, I would assume it showed up in romance novels first.

[@theimplications635]

wtf is "toeing out of your shoes"? Taking your shoes off with no hands?

[@cycloneabsol9405]

"You really think Pride and Prejudice is in any way comparable to your 50k word omegaverse high school AU Supernatural BTS crossover fanfiction?" The fact that I understood all of those words is terrifying.

[@Justacravat13]

I find the "all or nothing" nature of fandom communities to be absolutely exhausting. I absolutely love some stories and characters, I have tattoos of them, I watch super in depth videos about "every detail you missed" or "what does x mean" after I've consumed some piece of media I really love, and I get it- it's nice to be able to keep interacting and loving the thing actively after the story is over, and it's nice to exist in communities of people who also love that thing.That said, some people truly make these IPs, ships, etc. their entire personality and hitch themselves to it so tight that if you say one thing that could even be slightly construed as negative, they lose it on you. (Identity-wise I'm not talking about legitimate lgbt+, racial, etc. identities, but like the type of people who have an unhealthy obsession with stuff like BBC Sherlock back in the peak Tumblr fandom days. There is a lot to be said about the lack of diversity in published works, although we're seeing progress being made here, and I do think it's beyond words how important accurate and non-tokenised representation is through all forms of media.) When it comes to fanfiction, people are similarly polarized because they develop a love of these stories, characters, and communities so anything outside of them feels bad by comparison. I think most modern readers will look at "the classics" with a similar disinterest or passion across the subject broadly. I fucking hated Lord of the Flies and, to this day, think it's an awful book with awful messaging. That doesn't mean that every single book is that way- look at The Picture of Dorian Grey, a book with gay-coded characters written by a gay man and largely about the dangers of pride, vanity, and avarice. If you don't like the writing style, fine, but the book itself is a great example of actually good classical writing imo, it's just not often taught in schools because of some more mature themes and events (like opium addiction). I was also just talking to a friend about how it's so nice to have published Adult lit today that feels more like a slightly more mature YA style, where that really wasn't a *thing* when I was younger. This is mostly stream of consciousness at this point but tl;dr books are stuffy, books are casual, books are intense, books are boring, books are exciting and books are a medium. Generalizing all fanfiction or all books as one way is immature and short-sighted. There is amazing fanfiction out there that helps to bring attention to societal issues, helps to give people a platform that struggle to gain one, helps the authors explore their own identities and develop a solid writing style, and more. But also My Immortal exists. It's on a massive spectrum.

[@MathematicPony]

As a fandom musician, I find the conversation about whether fan works as a whole are art or not to be very interestingly inconsistent. There's a lot more debate around fan fiction - no one is saying that what I do *isn't* art. Clearly I rubbed my grubby hands and funny little chords all over these songs, whether or not they're about cartoons (or covers of songs FROM cartoons). They are by nature transformative - but music already has a better culture of acceptance of call backs and references and variations of songs in transformative ways, at least if you take a step back away from the mainstream world (where there are just absurd copyright cases). Jazz, for instance, is just full of references and indeed even whole phrases from songs that came before. I think effectively all art is inherently built on and from what came before, and all art is referential in nature - it's just that some spaces are more accepting of that fact than others.

[@thelittlewateringhole5576]

While you give a good and compelling arguement and reasons fir why you believe one or more certain arguements and, or, narratives, I must disagree with you here or there on a bunch of them. One of the reasons why I do not really trust these so called "pro fanfiction" people, or whatever they name themselves, is somewhat simple: That it is true, that traditionally respected and published mediums and forms of literature are dominated by western, cisgender, hetero-patriarchial, able-bodied and neuro-typical white men, much like how TV shows and forms of animated films and episodic shows were too. However! Having practically all of this fanfiction stuff be heavily created by and consumed, produced and manufactured very majorly and most of the time by the "benevolent" western, more or less, though not always, cisgender, not always hetero patriarchial, not always abled-bodied and neuro-typical white women is ... it is not very assuring about fanfiction, at least from my perspective. I could continue about how I feel and believe that fanfiction is somewhat more vulnerable to forms of biases and bigotry, but then we would be here for far too long.

[@somethingorother9739]

I find this comment super interesting, and it begs the question of why certain spaces are more accepting. To me, writing doesn't seem like it should be inherently less transformative than music (I mean, all art is, to some extent, transforming certain elements of the world we see around us, and this obviously includes writing). But I'm no scholar, so it's definitely possible that there's a layer of nuance I'm missing.

[@samt3412]

To say music has an acceptance of callbacks is an understatement. Rap music as a genre has sampling as an integral part of its history. Covers are so common that pretty much everyone's done at least one. I could go on, but the point is already made.

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

In this case I think it's because it's easier to see the threshold at which music is transformative, to go from repeating the original work in a novel way to effectively being a new work. The middle ground where it is not quite a new thing but definitely not the same is a lot smaller. Maybe it's just that music has far fewer notes than language has words, but vastly more ways of expressing them. Even a quite open phrase like 'so be it' can only have so many emotional tenses put on it, but there's not enough paper to write down all the ways to make the same three descending tones sounds profoundly different.

[@Cat-fz1uu]

This is very true! I see comments on fanfiction not being "real writing" but less comments that fanart isn't "real art". People might say it's lesser but they never question the fact that it's art, the way people question if fanfiction is actually "real writing"

[@galactic85]

I think I remember seeing a comment from comic book writer Mark Waid about fan fiction. He said that the only difference between fan fiction and all the stuff that he has written for marvel and dc is that someone paid him to do it. He didn't create most of the marvel or dc superhero that he has written for, but people still love his comics. He didn't create characters like the flash, but if you ask people "what is the best flash run?" Most will say "mark waid's flash comics." Heck he introduced a lot of concepts that were picked up by other writers, like the speed force.

[@IsacWasHere]

I believe fanfiction should be taken seriously in the sense that it isnt just "steamy stories by teenage girls on wattpat" like its often seen online. I've seen stories that are completely separate to the og canon except for the names of the characters. Ive cried to fanfiction, been conforted, etc. Its more accesible. Its an artform in its own way and a love letter to the og works they derive from.

[@yookee13]

honestly a bit disappointed you didn't get i to the, like, obvious extent to which backlash against fanfiction is rooted in a revulsion to public visibility of deviant sexuality

[@joshraid1550]

Like, there’s a reason why they’re always naming omegaverse, smut, and a gay ship as examples of how bad fanfic is. Like no, kinks you don’t like and gay people just happen to exist in fiction, and sometimes in fanfiction.

[@All-ze9cl]

exactly, fan fiction is predominantly queer because it's mostly people taking something straight or hetero normative and making it queer because that makes it more relatable and interesting to them. Straight couples are normal and represented most often in media, so fan fiction is queer peoples way to do whatever they want with something they appreciate. And, as we all know, the general public hates anything that isn't "normal".

[@AJ-bk5qj]

i would also add that it is rooted in misogyny, as participation in fandom is largely perceived as a “teenage crazy girl” behavior lol

[@All-ze9cl]

@@AJ-bk5qj and the world hates anything that teen girls like, the most common one I’ve seen recently is Taylor swift. Boys and full grown men are attacking her and her fans for being passionate about her music, yet they never seem to care about the boys that are equally crazy about sports, video games, etc.

[@Iratepandabear]

Again, only about 8 mins in now, but I just want to say as a queer black woman, y'all just started promoting books w characters who are queer, black, and either the main character or in a mostly poc cast like, maybe 5 years ago. And for at least the first 3 of those years about 95% of those books were pretty heavily centered around our trauma around racial abuse and homophobia, as literally every movie, tv show outside of sitcoms or shows where we're pretty much just there to be a mammy/designated black friend for the main character, and so for me personally, the whole "all books are becoming soft wish fulfillment bullshit" argument is so painful to hear because it's like, I'm glad that you are tired of having every character in the world look like you and get everything they want Jonathan, but I just started Almost getting books like that like last year. Fanfiction is by no means always an anti-racist or queer friendly area, like, at all, there are dozens of stories that are "reader inserts" that proceed to describe a blonde haired blue eyed woman who's 115 pounds in every other paragraph, but like at the very least I have the option of going into the original black character tag and knowing that every chapter isn't going to force me to relive trauma. Like it's important to discuss these things of course, but not every impactful book needs to be about suffering. More often than not in the media I've seen it ends up just feeling more like torture porn or a minstrel show than feeling like actual representation. We deserve some books where we get to be the princess too, you know? And denying the fact that fanfic has given a lot of us the space to have that is just dumb Edit: just wanna be clear, this is not directed at Sarah Z or Emily, I just get frustrated with dudebros who think every movie needs to have a torture scene for it to be real horror, you know what I mean??????

[@kayleejazz1669]

I have the same problem with modern media, even literature. Oh look at this cool show, oh it’s just teen drama and sex, okay? Is there any variety of this show, no. Okay I’ll just find a fanfic that caters to me. Or hey look at this cool book, look at its cool plot. It’s a love triangle and that takes up most of the plot, I’ll just go online and find someone who can write the story better. Also fanfic writers or more likely from my experience to put with existing disabilities, sexualities and race into already existing media when the big companies who own these show don’t even bother, or do it to be praised for their representation.

[@cosasmalas6896]

It's true that queer representation in books is recent (there are still classics with queer character but not that many) but I think saying that books with black characters that don't use trauma porn are also new kind of erases the rich literature written by black people globally

[@poppaelias4175]

@@cosasmalas6896 they literally did not say that???

[@thelittlewateringhole5576]

@@cosasmalas6896 I am afraid you may have misunderstood some of what the original writer was talking about. Unfortunately, it is either that or you have, some how, intentonally misinterpreted what this author was saying, for some reason.

[@thelittlewateringhole5576]

@@kayleejazz1669 I do not really think you are really engaging with what the original writer was trying to say and communicate in the best way, but I do still think you gave some at least interesting food for thought.

[@swootacusmarie]

My favorite movie called Mona Lisa Smile is about a progressive art teacher teaching a class at a conservative college in the 40s. They literally have this moment towards the beginning of the film where the teacher shows a few slides of art. One of them was a snapshot of her mom and she asked, "Is it art?" And the students replied, "It's a snapshot" and the teacher had said that it was taken by a famous photographer. And a student went, "Art isn't art until someone says it is" which has really stuck with me. Sorry for the long ramble, it's one of my favorite movies and I feel like it fits very well with this video.

[@artemiswolf4508]

I think the idea that fanfiction is “free promotion for corporate products” relies on the assumption that people are just going to stumble unto fanfiction of a specific property and as a result will gain an interest on the original work and that’s just not how it works. The way fanfiction is store nowadays requires that the user has to make an effort to seek it, it’s not like fan art that randomly appears in your twitter feed, you have to actively search for it and if you’re alternative searching for it that probably means you already have an interest in the world. Now I’m not saying no one has ever search for an fanfiction out of curiosity, then enjoyed it so much they decided to check out the original source material, I’m just saying that is not widely indicative of how people consume content on the internet. Like I agree that we live in a landscape where art, media and discussions of said media are dominated by mega corporations and that should stop, but fanfiction is not the cause of it. If you pressed a button that could instantly delete all of fanfiction and prevent new ones from being made that would not lessen the stronghold corporations have in popular culture and viceaversa if the button prevented corporations from producing any art, that would not stop fanfiction.

[@AccaLarentia90]

I think it partially does that job by allowing you to interact with aspects of the product that you probably didn’t so far? Absolutely stupid example but you like idk Stucky and read fics with them where you have a side pairing of Natasha/Bruce and now you realize you might be interested in that as well so you see their movies too. Another option i’ve noticed more often is that it gives people something to occupy their minds during hiatuses. Keeping them interested in the IP longer and more intensely than if they were just trailing off between seasons.

[@helenamcaree8352]

It is if you exclusively read f/f, ime. And ironically I’ve seen that work against IPs as well. RWBY is a notable one where I’ve seen multiple conversations online where someone sees fanart or reads a fic about it and asks if they should check out the source material and they’re strongly encouraged to just stick to the fanworks. Fandom is funny and much more multifaceted than one might initially assume that way.

[@BabyCharmander]

I will say fanfic has sometimes made me go out of my way to seek out something, and it’s always in the case of crossovers. “I really like this author and all their fics but I’m not familiar with the other fandom used in this crossover, so maybe I’ll check it out to make myself familiar.” In one case it was a TV show that I had to watch on KZbin (no other means of watching it at the time), and in another case it was video games that I’d heard many of my friends recommend in the first place and/or that were by developers whose other games I’d already enjoyed and had been meaning to check out more of anyway. Otherwise fanart/fic isn’t usually what gets me into something. If someone I follow suddenly starts reblogging/retweeting stuff for a fandom I’m not in, I just blacklist it so I don’t have it taking up my dash, haha.

[@frauleinfunf]

What gets me about the anti fanfiction rhetoric (and some of the pro fic rhetoric that turns its nose up at most published literature) is that almost all of us fic writers got into fanfiction bc we were already bookworms who enjoyed writing and were excited about the idea of writing stories for our favorite texts.

[@emilybrown148]

It’s rude to include TikToks that involve the creators’ faces but not their usernames or consent to do so, even if this was made in good faith.

[@Julia-qn1dt]

Especially when not showing the full video and taking it out of context

[@lizziebug2000]

Nah she cut icaruspendragon off mid sentence and twisted their words I don't think that was good faith

[@emilybrown148]

@@lizziebug2000 IcarusPendragon themselves said that they were going to assume it was in good faith, but I agree that the presentation of this point was fucked up on Sarah’s part.

[@isabellagrundseth8515]

@banana bread she’s using their face? that’s pretty strong identifying information. Also the original creator is relatively popular and recognizable on tiktok, particularly in fandom communities, which is what this video is about.

[@caitlincarpenter1493]

@banana bread she literally didn't even reach out to ask if she could use the video. Also, if her audience HAD dogpiled it would have been entirely due to her fully misrepresenting their point, so this is a weak excuse at best

[@nenakarra2579]

Americans seeing movies from Russia/Poland/Brazil/Thailand exist: "what is this film snobbery"

[@kierenkowe]

Every country has rom-coms (probably)

[@barthvader95]

@@kierenkowe Am Polish (kurwa kiełbasa 2137), can confirm, we have rom-coms.

[@KayKayon]

A bit late but, Americans hearing non-American accents and complaining.

[@tatehildyard5332]

One thing I'm slightly baffled by with the TikTok "film-bro" credence cited in the video is that I don't think that even fits the culturally recognized definition of a film bro. In my experience, a film bro is someone who boastfully claims unique, eclectic taste as a point of personal superiority when fact is, the films they champion in their canon are still very pedestrian and mainstream and their appreciation (what they consider the peak of depth in cinema) begins and ends with that slim canon. They're not going to watch a 12 hour movie about the Polish government through the eyes of a pigeon because that's beyond the depth of their canon.

[@evansquilt]

A far, far better example that really *is* ancient fanfic: The Aeneid. Virgil wrote it specifically because Augustus wanted to connect his ancestry to the Iliad.

[@fredranzalot4849]

"...Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk.” ― Henry Jenkins

[@SlapstickGenius23]

I do feel in a similar way about this. We’re in a (rather boring) corporate dystopia, and that’s without most of us even knowing about its inner workings whatsoever.

[@guy-sl3kr]

I feel this a lot when I encounter arguments over what is and isn't canon. Feels like an especially bourgeois mindset to have because it's lowkey acting like you're a copyright attorney. I mean, have you ever looked into cultural anthropology? Past humans were plagiarists to the extreme

[@dyingforeddiemunson]

i just can't say how thankful i am you commented this!! I'm writing on this topic (funny coincidence ), especially in regards to queerbaiting and queer representation, so this is just wow like- the exact thing i wanted to say lmao so thank you!!!

[@noviatoria2436]

+

[@lelepixel]

the tiktok used at 1:17:00 was taken out of context and cut down! no where in that video did the original poster say that they hated classics or that people shouldn’t read them :)

[@whoogh]

in a reaction video she said that they're boring to her, so I'm pretty sure she (and this is totally fine) might prefer fanfiction and modern literature. which most people do. I agree the cutting down was pretty bad though, definitely not something a journalist should do.

[@athenadominguezcastillo2752]

@@whoogh she loves classic literature, it's literally what she studied. She wasn't dissing it personally she was literally just saying that people need to be taught how to interpret it in order for them to be seen as interesting reads.

[@jbennett5634]

when we were 13, my best friend wrote a fanfic about "In The Night Garden" (a kids bedtime tv show), where Makka Pakka had to win over Upsy Daisy, so she'd leave Iggle Piggle for him and to this day, its the best fanfic I've ever read. True proof of fanfic as art.

[@voidify3]

Oh my god someone else who watched that show as a kid!!! Hello

[@oranges7706]

​@@voidify3not OP but yes, I never hear anyone talk about it even though I watched it so much as a kid! That show was a core memory istg

[@vickibarkley2810]

Sentences is like these are why I love fanfic😂😂😂

[@tecc]

Tbh, I think the medium of published story telling that most closely resembles fanfic isn’t TV, but comic books. Particularly if we are looking at the superhero genre. Well established, popular characters with no one single definitive cannon. New publications or reboots pick and choose which previous works to build off of and which ones to retcon or pretend never happened. Multiple timelines, crossovers, alternate universes, new interpretations of existing characters…Avengers, anyone?

[@joannaellis7890]

"Fanfiction doesn't challenge its readers and only serves to make them feel warm and fuzzy!" Looks like someone's never searched for the "hurt no comfort" tag on their third glass of rose saying "let's get messed UP tonight"

[@nicolecampos4153]

Or the case fics, or angst, or slow burns, or major character death or tragedy or the long fics that revolve around reshaping and analizing canon

[@joannaellis7890]

@banana bread issa joke lol not a serious take on the intellectual merit of fanfic

[@athenadominguezcastillo2752]

Which is just... Wrong? Like so much of it does to that but every Draco Malfoy Fixit Fic I've read genuinely challenges a lot of white readers. And there are tons of examples like it, where they literally just take a bad book and make it a good and challenging book.

[@Nixahma]

@@nicolecampos4153 ACE ATTORNEY CASE FICS HAVE SHATTERED ME

[@konstantinriumin2657]

Those serve to make you feel better by contrasting you with misery of others.

[@owouwu8892]

why would you take a person out of context it completely diminishes your argument and your lack of understanding on intersectionality with accessibility is so telling of you as an individual.

[@NemoK]

I like this discussion because it reminds me of a similar thing that happened about a decade ago in the video game community. There was a relatively new genre of game that was gaining popularity, dubbed the "walking simulator", with games like Gone Home and Dear Esther. These games were quite controversial at the time, considered by many to not be "real games." They focused more on narrative and storytelling rather than exciting gameplay and flashy visuals, and this was just something you didn't really see before then - yes there were the famous audio logs and whatnot in games like Bioshock, but that was never the real focus of these games. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that these games that were basically all about the audio logs and lore notes you could find were initially mocked relentlessly for supposedly being too simplistic and not worth the money. I remember a video of a guy who managed to "complete" Gone Home in just about 60 seconds after which he started staring directly into the camera for another few minutes as reviews from people praising the game were mockingly presented next to his face implying: "How could anyone like a game that is so short and easy?" Nowadays the stigma against these games is pretty much gone, although they're still quite niche. I really enjoy games like What Remains of Edith Finch that expertly combine a strong narrative with gameplay elements that tie directly into the story being told. You even have masterpieces like Outer Wilds which are also kind of "walking simulators" but that take the concept much further. I hope the medium of fanfiction can also break out of this stigma and people will just allow it to be its own thing rather than seeing it as a danger to the literary medium as a whole. Anyways, that was my Ted talk for today.

[@NothingOfNoteToSeeHere]

What remains of Edith Finch was great.

[@BiDisaster327]

I know this comment is over a year old but, man, Gone Home is so fucking good. I 100% it a few months ago, it's on steam and they added achievements. There are exactly 3 that acknowledge the fact you can beat the game as fast as you can. 1. Homerunner - Complete the game in less than 1 minute with no Modifiers enabled. 2. Speedreader - Complete the game having found all 24 journal entries, without Modifiers, in less than 10 minutes. 3. Behind the Scenes - Activate all Commentary Nodes with the Developer Commentary Modifier enabled. The third one, with all the developer commentary, includes the devs themselves talking and laughing about how interesting people were about speedrunning the game- they loved and appreciated the creativity behind it! There are so many reasons why this game fucks, and honestly trying to downplay it by showing you can beat it fast is such a strange concept of the past, like you said. I'm glad it's become more accepted and understood, I guess it's part of out culture growing up and expanding.

[@NemoK]

​@@BiDisaster327Hahaha I love that from the devs. I should go back to that game some time.

[@daianstyle9213]

I still think the Divine Comedy is fanfic, but not because of all the biblical stuff. To me its the “just me and my favorite poet going on an adventure to meet my crush”

[@dieflattermaus617]

As someone who enjoys both books and fanfiction, I personally believe that there is no inherently inferior medium . Although I do agree with some of the arguments made by both sides. Books and fanfics each have their own strengths and weaknesses and what is best for one person might not hold true for another. In the end it comes down to personal preference. It's not productive to shame people for whatever they choose to read or write, as neither medium is completely flawless or superior to another. So I hope that eventually everyone can have a civil discussion and not insult each other over such a harmless topic. This is basically just a long-winded way of saying: Let people read what they want without screaming at each other. P.S. have a great day/night to whoever is reading this.

[@Cat-fz1uu]

Agreed 👍 I read and write both and the gatekeeping people have in the writing/literature world is ridiculous

[@isbammoi3358]

Thank you. I'm in the same space. Fanficiton among other things, like painting, or music, help and comfort people tremendously when nothing else can, and have all done so for me. Same as fanfiction. Fanwork of all kinds is powerful and important. Not everyone can afford this or that, and in fanwork is this shared little subgroup encouraging each other in something they love, for the sake of loving it. And that joy is easy to access, and you can grow skills in a space you feel safe. Everything has it's downsides and upsides as you've said, every pro and con an outlier or exception. I just... the good parts are so impactful and wonderful, It's so important to me.

[@MRuby-qb9bd]

Edit: deleted because I accidentally responded to the wrong thread. Have a nice day.

[@Man-ej6uv]

yeah, all of it is writing, and writing can vary.

[@RainWelsh]

@@Cat-fz1uu it never ends, does it? Fanfic vs traditional books, traditional publishing vs self-publishing, planning vs pantsing. So few people these days seem to be able to go “I prefer this, but I’m happy you’ve found what works for you”. Everything has to turn into some aggressive us vs them battle and it’s fucking exhausting. I’ll read something I like and then zoom over to AO3 to see what’s up, it’s not mutually exclusive.

[@bell7860]

Hey intellectual honesty, that’s a weird way to crop that clip at 1:17:00 when the next sentence is “unless they’ve been given the tools, through something like I don’t know, higher education”

[@diamondsandblueberries]

Omg fr!!!

[@leostootired]

Where’s the clip?

[@smallcrabfrog5008]

@@leostootired the clip has been edited out now

[@leostootired]

@@smallcrabfrog5008 ok thanks

[@theautisticguitarist7560]

To be fair, out of context means it fundamentally changes the meaning of the statement. This doesn't. In the clip as it was, she says they're inaccessible and lists some reasons. That's just a different reason.

[@LonkinPork]

I think the core of fanfic discourse boils down to casting judgment on the fact that fanfic is primarily made by and for teenaged girls, using properties and tropes that teenaged girls like. One can intellectualize that as much as they so desire, but that's the crux of it.

[@snitcheyes411]

Can we talk about how the tagging system in fanfiction which serves as both trigger warning and work description came out of its roots as media-distributed-via-internet and has started being adopted by traditionally-published books? Because that's pretty awesome and great, imo.

[@channelwhatchamacallit2614]

I agree it's rad, the tagging system can be super helpful in knowing what you're getting into and there's nothing wrong with using these sorts of tags for published works

[@TerLoki]

Okay, so I'll admit it, I'm one of the "The Divine Comedy is fanfic" crowd with a... Varying degree of sincerity. But I do NOT say that because "oh Dante took characters from the Bible, therefor it's Bible fanfic." No no, I argue it's (again, somewhat sarcastically but also not really because art is complicated) fanfic because it's a work in which the author teams up with his all-time favorite writer on a journey to be with his crush in heaven while simultaneously dunking on DOZENS of people-both fictional and real-and institutions that he didn't like, up to and including multiple Popes and the Catholic church in general. Yes it's a masterful work that basically invented the concept of world building and defined the Christian view of the heaven, hell, and everything in between for literal centuries, but it's also a work where the phrase "VIRGIL-SENPAI I'M YOUR BIGGEST FAN!! :D" could be put in a modern adaptation and a very much non-zero number of literary critics would just laugh their asses off because of how accurate yet absurd it is. It can be both, that's perfectly fine and plausible, because art-just like the people who make it-can be both incredibly insightful and amazing while not precluding the possibility of being stupid or hilarious. I think part of the main problem is that people tend to lump art into categories like "the classics" and "high art" and "modern art" and treat those labels like they're some immutable box that creates a magical almighty hierarchy. Shakespeare had dick and fart jokes, Virgil wrote the Aeneid as propaganda while taking potshots at Emperor Augustus, Aristophanes was basically the South Park of ancient Athens, Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in part so he could tell people he hated to LITERALLY go to hell. It's foolish to think that a work is "better" than another just because it's in a textbook or valued as worth so much compared to the effort put into it that it's probably less art than a lazy money laundering scheme, when there are just as many works in categories like fanfic that work just as well but simply aren't as well known or don't have the same cultural influence built up around them.

[@dolfuny]

I definitely unironically think the divine comedy is fanfiction for many of the reason states above and you mentioned vigil's the Aeneid which I also think is fanfiction because it's taking taking the Trojan war epic cycle and adding onto it kinda like some fanfictions. And don't get me wrong the Aeneid is really good, it's the first ever Latin poetry that I had read and it's just fascinating to read. I feel like you can also argue that the entirety of the Trojan war epic cycle is in some form or another fanfiction because many authors were taking this already established story that was spread through word of mouth and they wrote in the popular stuff but each author also added in there own stuff but that's a bit more of a stretch. It's just that since there was no copyright in the ancient world people just wrote the same characters in different situations or expanded on more of the story

[@rafaela00002]

the thing about dante being guided by virgil is that that's a common feature of the literary device called dream vision

[@DAsrada]

TOBY: (hears the term Bible fanfiction) I feel like becoming relevant again!!

[@moogleydoot]

it's the 'self insert protagonist that has cool/horrible things happen to them involving some celebrity or historical figure' trope that makes me think it's a fanfic lol. then again i don't know the book that well

[@matteomonellini2345]

The thing that sealed it for me is Argenti, the" brute" that Dante knew in real life and he places in hell, and how it really reads like the nerd taking his catharsis out on a bully. It's kind of funny.

[@ForeignManinaForeignLand]

Damn. First CJ drops that subjectivity of art and now you coming with this heat? The Artification of Video EssayTube

[@sundalius]

CJ?

[@sclecter2757]

@@sundalius CJ The X

[@alisaboersma811]

I LOVE HIM

[@thelittlewateringhole5576]

He's here!! The ... er ... erm. The 'Foreign Man' himself!! _HEEE'S HEERRRREEEE!!_

[@malcolmmackenzie9799]

100% agree with everything said here. I also think--- and I know we've talked about this a bajillion times before-- it continues to be relevant that most distate for fandom and fan culture is pretty directly linked to a distate for teenage girls and anything teenage girls like. Fanfiction is wrapped up in this. It's seen as anti-intellectual because a revialed demographic loudly enjoys it, and then is it any surprise that said demographic doubles down and attempts to return the fire by devaluing published literature?

[@andrewdiaz3529]

In regards to many people saying they just can't read most published fiction, there is another element; Many Neurodivergent people do in fact experience this, where the standard structure of writing that is ubiquitous in publishing since its standard just flat out doesn't make any sense. A couple Self published authors I know off have said they also had struggled with this and it was painful, and a lot of them said it was also a major factor in their choice to pursue self publishing; With self publishing they could honestly tell their editors that the changes that they suggested flat out made it so they, the AUTHORS of the work, could not understand their own work anymore, whereas standard publishing would've forced the changes among other things. These authors also say they regularly get comments and messages from fans saying they loved their books precisely because they could actually read it and it was the first things they could read in years and that they thought they were stupid because they couldn't read anymore etc.

[@luxxlenore1006]

was a big fan but i’m really disappointed with how you treated icaruspendragon in this video. cropping the vid so only part of her argument is shown? not cool or honest.

[@thasmin]

the existence of doctor who alone is enough to question what defines a fan fiction. a show that’s spanned numerous executive producers/show runners, writers, main cast members, etc. in it’s nearly 60 year life. plus there’s the expanded media (audios and books) still licensed but not technically canon to the show. how is this show anything other than fan fiction of the first three seasons

[@Appletank8]

I have a neat anecdote from a friend who took screenwriting classes, and while she was a fanfiction writer accustomed to writing in existing IPs, it was surprising to find someone else struggling with that concept.

[@rga1605]

It's like the paradox of the ship of Theseus applied to fanfics, the fanfic of Theseus

[@lexismith8325]

Star Wars is the same way! Even pre-disney, the EU (now legends) had media that was AU, imo. Any media that is old but continuously popular will have that.

[@galactic85]

Same with marvel and dc comics. Been published consistently for over a decade. have had hundreds of writers adding to each universe and creating new characters that are in turn written by other people.

[@orbitalpudding3420]

i was just thinking about comics the other day in this context. i basically said “it’s crazy how comic writers get to make their ocs canon to marvel/dc/etc”

[@JetstreamGW]

"... As a Buffy fan I would argue that half of the Buffy fandom's conversations are about which parts of the show they hate and how much they hate the creator..." I have observed that there is very little that Harry Potter fanfic writers hate more than the Harry Potter series.

[@JackedThor-so]

And the Game of Thrones fans... by God, those poor people.

[@JetstreamGW]

@@JackedThor-so I was much happier once I "realized" that the original book, _Game of Thrones,_ actually never had any sequels. Such a shame it ended on a cliffhanger. OH WELL.

[@Thesharktemptress]

This is a really GREAT and nuanced take. Both fanfic and published books have their place, and they scratch different itches at different times. I write both fanfic and original content, and again. Different itches. Seeing people bash one or the other pisses me off. I'm also really glad you touched on the Pro-fic/anti-pub crowd completely missing the point of pieces of literature. Like, fuck gatsby, fuck most of the straight white male canon that they use in most schools..... but not every book is like those. There are a LOT of great books out there in every genre. (there are also a lot of bad ones too) and you just have to !!! find the ones you like. anyway thank you for your spendidly spicy hot take, I wish you many bags of salt and vinegar chips and none of the ouchy mouth feeling from eating too many.

[@katiejohnson558]

Big shoutout to all the fanfics I've read that have so many AUs put into them that they are only recognizable as a preexisting world or character in name alone (complimentary)

[@katiejohnson558]

@ that phan fanfic I read a couple years ago where it was a post apocalyptic, omegaverse, dictatorship AU where they were already in a commited relationship... and were goth. For all that I care, that's an original work with original characters who just happened to be named Dan and Phil.

[@TheLatokuivaaja]

"Foreign language films are so hard to understand!" Me, whose first language is not English: .... Man, what a dilemma.

[@kassiopeaandromeda4826]

yeah I think people who have english as their native language rreeeeeaaaaaaaalllyyy have a blind spot on a whole part of the film industry. Like most american films from my chilhood where either dubbed ( hence were out later) or with subtitles. I've been reading subtitles since i was 8 😂

[@TheLatokuivaaja]

@@kassiopeaandromeda4826 lol same.

[@leon_atrewo]

Oh yeah. It must be so Hard to have the majority of movies be translated into your native language AT ALL, while we have to learn English (!) to access both the American fiction, and fiction from other countries :"D

[@kashiichan]

@@kassiopeaandromeda4826 As someone whose native language is English, you're completely right. We are treated as "default" in a way that just basically doesn't exist for any other language speakers. It's been a problem for a long time, but has definitely gotten worse with the proliferation of the internet. I really wish my fellow EFL (English First Language) people would try to move outside of their comfort zones more and listen to ESL (English Second Language) people when they point out solutions. Having accurate subtitles available in your language (yes, this includes English!) is good, actually! Having accurate dubbing in languages that aren't English is also good, actually! ESL speakers practice English with media; EFL speakers could absolutely benefit from the same! This assumption that English is somehow "better" than all other languages is just yet another result of classist colonialism, and I hate how it's been combined with capitalism; it just makes people's lives harder. :(

[@hollys.garard8451]

Literally every time Sarah says “an all or nothing situation,” or some permutation thereof, I imagine that picture popping up, you know the one

[@vickibarkley2810]

No, I don’t can you explain?

[@jeanne5135]

I started this with the absolute certainty that I woud not relate to any of the fandoms you mention, because I'm in a very specific fandom that I never see get mentioned. Then you went and talked about Batfam slice-of-life and I felt personally called out.

[@deaf-tomcat]

is it so niche? offical comics are being made now lol

[@jeanne5135]

@@deaf-tomcat definitely not niche for people who are already into comics, but I never see the batfam fandom being mentioned in videos about fanfiction lol

[@aceofspades3533]

Hi. Fanfic author here. I haven't seen the entire video yet, but as someone who's written a Star Wars fic that's longer than the entire Harry Potter series, I'd argue that at the very least, fanfic shouldn't be dismissed. I've no intention on ever getting published, but I do love writing as a hobby, and even for something that's not my own creation, I've put so much time and effort and creativity in crafting a narrative that much of it feels like my own. I think there's a lot of value in taking an existing piece of media and shifting an aspect of it to see what new or different thing can come of it. At the very least, it's an exercise in creativity, and I think that's enough to be respected.

[@ilexdiapason]

congratulations on the sheer volume of creation

[@Author.Noelle.Alexandria]

I think a lot of the ire around fanfic is that a lot of writers of it do think that their work is amazing enough that any publisher should want it. I’ve seen so manu fanfic writers over the years get furious when agents and publishers don’t want their stuff. I’ve written fanfic longer than Sarah’s been alive, and was around to witness the change from fanfic being something fun to fanfic being sneered at, and that big jump really came with Fifty Shades. The line really was in taking someone else’s original property (even a dumb one) and trying to piggyback for monetization after doing as little as possible to make anything original. That’s when fanfic took on the rep of being lazy. I write in a niche fandom, but it’s gotten so original that it’s been actually openly debated if my story even counts as fanfic anymore.

[@rogue_one87]

I hadn’t read a book in over a decade because my ADHD made it nearly impossible. I love Star Wars and came across some fanfics 2 or 3 years ago and it’s allowed me to read almost every day since then. Now I’m in a few other fandoms too, but finding something I know I like and authors expanding on those ideas or creating their own stories out of characters I already love is something I absolutely cherish. It absolutely deserves respect and I’m so thankful to come across that community.

[@embop1266]

damn that is so impressive man congrats

[@angelicaherrera703]

kind of weird for you to use someone's video (that shows their face nonetheless) without their permission and take what they say out of context to prove your point (1:17:00). i generally enjoy your content but this is disappointing to see, makes me wonder how many other things you've taken out of context in your videos.

[@NosebleeddeGroselha]

I remember when I saw someone saying the best fanfiction can only compare to mediocre published books. I couldn’t disagree more, I’ve read fanfiction that’s so great it could, unironically, be compared to great books. And they said they already read quite a lot of fanfiction. That person must be really unlucky to just find mediocre-level fanfiction…

[@user-xm5ry2ld1j]

I’d be inclined to agree and I’m still a strong defender of fanfiction. Once the writing quality is good enough to be comparable to actual books, if you’re comparing fanfiction to books you would have to judge it by the metrics you’d judge a really great book, the writing pacing and characterization are great yeah, but how does it handle its theme, is it effective in trying to say what it’s trying to say? There’s definitely some that deserve to be judged on that level (and obviously I haven’t read every fanfiction on the planet) but I can’t say I’ve seen any really get there. Comparing it to other serial released forms of writing though, I can probably count on one hand the number of TV shows that successfully communicated their theme and only one that wasn’t adapted from a book and it only had one season so maybe that’s just not the right metric to judge serial fiction. Maybe that means books and film will always be better at really having something to say and saying it effectively without contradicting their own points.

[@maxdonovan4117]

I feel like there's a lot of benefit to be gained from an analysis of the classism and elitism inherent to how stories are told as well. Take Cyrano De Bergerac, for example: just about every long-running television show has an episode that uses the fundamental story of Cyrano, and nobody decides those episodes are less valuable or artistic than more original concepts. The only difference I can perceive between, for example, the Bob's Burgers Cyrano episode and a Supernatural or Doctor Who fic where the skeleton of that tale is used is that one is written in a persons' home, while the other is developed in a writer's room. There's a fallacy of authority at work here, and I think it's costly to our consumption. Also there's the Sinatra effect. Frank Sinatra was super popular with young women, and was largely dismissed until he died, when men started picking his work up. The Beatles were initially loved predominantly by women as well, and didn't get taken properly serious until they were noticed by men. I think there's a lot to be said on this issue about the gender makeup of fanfic writers, and why we might be ready to dismiss it as less artistic than another given piece.

[@truebornseeker9767]

The idea that fanfiction is asking mainstream media to be repetitive, tropey, not challenging, etc etc etc is so insane to me It’s very clear that that critique in particular has only heard of the classically bad Y/N wattpad fanfiction, and has never read an AO3 fanfiction with major character deaths, massive takes on race and capitalism, with horrific scenes of trauma, all within a fic that’s the length of the entire LOTRs trilogy And tbh- kinda same with the weird “fanfiction is idolising corporations” feels like something that could be a fair critique, but also misses an entire genre of fanfiction that is rewriting problematic works (like the MANY Harry Potter rewrites), and the general side of fandom culture that fucking hates the fandom’s source or hates the company behind the fandom’s source, and that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that, ya know, a lot of people in fandom are anti-capitalist Liking a thing doesn’t mean you like how that thing came to be, or the people behind the thing

[@thepopculturejunky]

fan fiction is some of the only easily accessible modern fiction that is produced almost entirely without worker exploitation. Virtually every piece on AO3 is created from passion for something, not creating value for your boss that happens to also be a piece of art but exists mainly to make your boss $$$. I wish there were better platforms for original fiction created in a similar way (completely without thoughts of monetary compensation, just love for the work you are creating). It’s sad it’s mostly for cooperate bs (because it’s sad most of our culture is corporate bullshit), but it’s what we got for now. I’d much rather spend my energy criticizing the paint by number TV shows fics are based on than people taking the tiny sparks of inspiration the Hollywood machine forgot to scrub out and running with it

[@morinomajou]

@ThePopCultureJunky some people do use AO3 to publish original work as well! Amber Skies is a pretty popular example.

[@christopherb501]

"Liking a thing doesn’t mean you like how that thing came to be, or the people behind the thing" I like lightbulbs; I hate Edison. I like contraceptive pills; I hate the process thru which research was done to make them. I like chocolate; I hate the exploitation involved. I like Disney-owned works; I DESPISE Disney itself.

[@Zabe_B]

i would even argue that slice of life romance isn't like that. at least not all the time. i outright refuse to read anything tagged with major character death because i can't handle it, and i dont tend to read things that address broader themes or even have much of an overarching plot but that's not the focus of them, the focus is on the characters and the development of their relationships. even with the same group of characters, it's very interesting to see how different people write them and their conflicts and resolutions differently. its just an entirely different, completely character focused genre.

[@lunasuji]

it also ignores the amount of people writing fic for stuff that isn't huge corporations. most of my friends write for super niche or dead franchises, inactive/disbanded music acts, obscure musical plays, etc. not everyone of us is writing MCU fanfiction and trust me, Disney execs really don't like the amount of debauchery online about their wholesome hetero characters.

[@regularjoe5517]

Sarah Z discussing Duchamp’s Fountain as an intro for an hour and a half long video about fanfiction is truly a work of contemporary art in its own

[@reis5011]

towards the end of the video i had the thought of "i wonder if anyone in the comments is going to complain that sarah is making a comparison between Fountain and fanfic in this video" before i realized how incredibly ironic that would have been

[@VioletEmerald]

Exactly...

[@willowjohnson8553]

honestly, the critiques that fanfic doesn’t make you come up with settings and make you care about characters is ridiculous when you look at the plethora of AU fics that have absolutely nothing to do with the IP but the names

[@UnknownFlyingPancake]

Honestly the way the US education system pushes those books as the Highest of High Art and Should Never Be Criticized For Any Reason Ever it's really not surprising that teens would act that way. I mean, I heard similar views being expressed back when I went to HS in the late 2000's, it's just social media wasn't the huge thing it is now. The whole 'the curtains are blue' thing makes perfect sense in the context of how schools try to force kids to just take the teacher's word as law with no explanation to the reasoning behind it, and questioning things or having an alternate interpretation was treated as insubordination. It's really a natural reaction to things being treated this way as most schools don't actually teach any sort of actual literary critique or analysis until college. I don't think 'teenagers acting like teenagers' is such a widescale problem here. Rather the issue is poor education. Also, the negative stigma about fanfiction isn't a new trend at all, it's been there since at least the early days of the internet.

[@thisisapictureofmydog.isnt9208]

THIS!

[@a.c.1839]

YES! Like, when Sarah was complaining about that person making an accurate analysis of Gatsby while attempting to shit on the book... That means something. There's no point in just pointing at what's obviously a symptom of a larger problem and condemn it as "anti-intellectual". It's a reaction to a systemic problem. Is it a healthy reaction? No. But is it a bigger issue than the one that caused it? Absolutely fucking not. Classics being taught poorly, and being heralded as "high art" and inherently more challenging and valuable than folk art is the root of all this us vs them circus show. People who are sick of books as a concept most likely had their enjoyment of an entire artistic medium beaten out of them by a system that completely alienates them from their own innate ability to analyze and interpret a narrative. It's why so many of them end up applying those analyzing skills to fanfiction instead: it's the one literary medium that wasn't gentrified by the education system, where people are allowed to organically interact with a story without being told how they're SUPPOSED to interact with it.

[@Duiker36]

I've seen this a bunch in the videogame indie scene, where people rail against old game developer luminaries, not for their own sake, but mostly because their teachers made them read these guys. It's a whole thing.

[@crimsonvale7337]

Once again I'm reminded that despite how chronically online I am, there will be forever more niches filled with many, many people who need to touch grass as urgently as me. There will always be art snobs who are art snobs, but the online ones give out some pretty unhinged takes, and a good number of the the anti-snobs are just as braindead.

[@jimjimson6208]

for real dude, almost every online discourse I have ever seen eventually devolves into two rabid extremes so entrenched in their views that there is literally no point to even debating anymore.

[@kashiichan]

@@jimjimson6208 The majority of us end up in the middle going "Wow, check out these Takes™ huh? Wild"

[@ElBailes]

Hottake: everything is art. All doodles are art, all writing is art, and any collection of hums is art. Just getting up in the morning is a form of performance art.

[@nonnac1695]

Then what’s the point of labeling something as art? The term becomes meaningless

[@StarlightPrism]

@@nonnac1695 Yep. Art is usually defined by having some significant meaning, and not everything does. That doesn't mean it's bad.

[@gracethome6959]

oh love this take

[@gracethome6959]

@@nonnac1695 or maybe it could inspire you to look for meaning in the smaller part of life?

[@PJRageQuit]

@@nonnac1695 that’s the entirety of the modern and post modernist art movement. What is art? Art is completely subjective it can be about skill, creation, process, thought or a mix of everything. While I vehemently despise the modern and post modernist era of art as a whole it’s an interesting concept and argument. Art itself is just a concept with already loose definitions 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

[@KarateNinja13]

I think it's important to bring up doujinshi in the context of this essay. While doujinshi is a catch-all term for self-published manga, a large portion of it is fanfic, and it's incredibly popular. I believe comiket is the largest con in the world at this point? So, I don't really think western readers have the privilege to discuss the merits of fanfic, it has already been legitimized in the east and is an incredibly popular market.

[@rachelk7784]

Yeah it's such a completely different situation in Japan. Often being a doujinshika is seen as a legit pathway to becoming a mangaka, and there is just a lot less tension regarding doujnshi/mangaka/and Japanese companies.

[@ChookaaFindlebean]

Wonderful, wonderful opening. People don't seem to understand that art is art because the emotions it illicits, not because of what it literally is. If you ever wanna see how someone views art, or really life itself, ask them about the Fountain.

[@jimmybalzac6021]

What an odd way to find out shitting my pants is considered art. Ya'll liberals are something else.

[@Melioaw]

Using TikToks with peoples faces without their permission seams a bit weird and cutting them out of context is even weirder I’m a fan of sarahs but taking things out of context doesn’t strengthen her point it detracts from the overall video

[@lizziebug2000]

She cut icaruspendragon off mid sentence and twisted her words.

[@pluhhhhhh]

she took the tiktok and made @icaruspendragon look like an anti-intellect which is not what they were saying at all

[@taylor3093]

This is what I came here to say. I am usually a fan of Sarah’s work, but was really disappointed to see this.

[@sadlittleratboy]

She's also deleting comments about them, and she didn't even ask. Turns out she has a habit of doing this. Can't say I'm a fan anymore tbh

[@sadlittleratboy]

@@Rick-fn5qg My first comment is gone.

[@goosewithagibus]

Disappointing that you completely changed the context of that TikTok. She was making a really good point.

[@Hermiju98]

really good video and I agree with all your points but I was waiting for you to comment on how hollow the "fanfic is better because it's diverse" argument is when fan spaces are so hostile to fans of colour and tend actively shut down discussions or fanfics unpacking those topics. your video was almost two hours so you already did more than enough for the discussion but those are my two cents

[@SarahZ]

Very good point!

[@damianthorne2532]

I do see a lot more queer relationships in fanfic than in basically any other medium, so in that sense yeah, but I still agree.

[@parkerwalker377]

@@damianthorne2532 OP was talking about the ramped racism that is often found within fan fic communities. for example, the intense backlash creators can receive for switching the race of a fictional character, discussion of microaggressions in original work, or even general commentary of racist wrong-doings of the original writers along with other things. Not about homophobia that, in this case, doesn't overlap at all

[@damianthorne2532]

@@parkerwalker377 Yes -- my point was that fanfic is more diverse, but in a very limited way. By the way, do you have any recommendations for PoC fanfic writers?

[@raro344]

@@damianthorne2532 If I have to guess why it happen is because there is an aspect people often critize of art: intention. With publish fiction is this non verbal agreement you have to do something good, Or a least try to craft a engaging story, meanwhile while fan fiction this idea stand, people can give a sort of leeway to read whatever the author want to read, fanfic is transformative but is VERY self indulgent in way publish fiction cannot. So why I said this probably because is why racist exist, people can forgive if you dont care about canon, but if you atack "their canon" taste thing get wild, you said racism which is true but let said, I make adora and catra(who end being a thing) stright woman who are only good pals.....the reaction would be....wild.

[@jerden3285]

"Buy my book, It's like if Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl were boyfriends in the hunger games universe and had Doctor Who powers" Sarah, when is this going to be published, take my money!

[@kaydivision]

I think a lot of these problems with "is X art" could be solved if the people who are most invested in that discussion could realize that not everything has to be art to have value. I see people praising and tagging scientific discoveries that are aesthetically pleasing as art and then turn around and bash the math and technical knowledge that brought it into existence. Like okay, then the Rennaissance and the centuries of color theory, composition, material experimentation, and the general mechanics of why we find things pleasing is science. But calling a painting science "devalues" it in their eyes, because calling science art is elevating science while calling art science is an insult to it. Such BS.

[@Catdramaticstatic]

also important i think iz the other side of the coin, tht not everything has to "have value" to be art. the idea that something Being Art iz conditional on some inherent Goodness is just. very very very deranged i think. poorly done art is still art. even if i thought fanfiction was a bunch of irredeemable garbage i would still consider it art because it is still a work of human creativity if i dont like it. seems pretty deeply solipsistic to think otherwise

[@TheHopperUK]

@@Catdramaticstatic I heartily agree with your position. Something can be art even if it's terrible. 'Art' doesn't imply something is good.:)

[@Kris-wo4pj]

@@Catdramaticstatic reminds me of the is video games art bs. yes it is but just cuz ya didnt enjoy a game doesnt make it not art. its just art ya hate. i dont like contemporary art its still art even tho i hate it.

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

The problem with any 'is X art' question is that it is almost never asking whether a given thing meets the criteria of art, but is coded language for whether something is worthy. Frankly, it's just another form of the way people try to cloak subjective, normative claims in the language of objectivity. It just seems like an increasingly common defense mechanism in the internet age, where having an earnest opinion on a subjective matter is somehow feared as weakness. I was a lot happier after I accepted it was fun to have endless hills to die on rather than trying to redefine all my hills as actually just valleys.

[@SoulDevoured]

If the movement of a body can be called art (ie martial arts) then anything can be art. I think that art is some systemic pleasure of our subconscious and it's incredibly hard to define. A sunset is not art. But a photo of that sunset can be art. It has to have an element of human creation and some other human has to be pleased by the appearance and process of creation.