Original Fiction vs Fanfiction.

kafka.:

What could have made you think she's okay for a character in fanfiction being any of those?

If I were a famous person and people wrote me in fanfiction as any of those, I would go out of my way to get a cease and desist order. Nobody's sufferance should be a show to serve as entertainment for others.

Or they'd just laugh it off and say 'damn our fans are weird', and leave it at that. I've written Pierre Bouvier of Simple Plan as a rapist vampire, as a killer as a really evil kind of person. So, what? It's just fiction and I mean no offence.

I've written him as gay as well. And come on he doesn't make matters better by pretending to be gay with David [the bassist of SP] on stage. They even know that fans ship the two of them together. It's called Hot Baguettes. I've seen them mention HB in interviews.

So, no, not all celebrities are going to get mad and want to sue someone for it.

leaf's wierd:

Well, pro-gay/anti-gay aside, when you're taking an already defined character and totally changing some element of their personality... I can see how that could make some people upset, if no one else, the author who made the character in the first place. Some people may be fine with that, sure, but It's pretty clear that some people would get upset too.

Yet, it's okay to change their occupation, where they're from, what era they're set in, how they interact with individuals? Those are all elements of someone's personality. This is just the one that is considered disrespectful. I'm not saying the people who say it are homophobic, just that it's heteronormative to look at a story, see that a character is now gay or that there are a lot of gay people and go 'well, that can't be right'.

dru is powerful.:

Yet, it's okay to change their occupation, where they're from, what era they're set in, how they interact with individuals?

My point remains that if you change any significant aspect of a character, someone is bound to disagree with the change.

People do take more arms against it if it's sexual change, but I'd argue that's because doing that does significantly more than changing a character's occupation.

^
Says who? Most of the slash I read in my fandom is canon based (based in fact).

dru is powerful.:

^
Says who? Most of the slash I read in my fandom is canon based (based in fact).

Sorry? I'm not sure where your going with that.

I'm just saying that if you change the sexuality of a character from what it is in the canon to something else, chances are some of the fans of that character will get upset.

leaf's wierd:

Sorry? I'm not sure where your going with that.

I'm just saying that if you change the sexuality of a character from what it is in the canon to something else, chances are some of the fans of that character will get upset.

Yes, but that's why you label it AU or AR [Alternate Universe/Reality]. Right?

I don't write slash, but I do think that people tend to get their panties in a wad if you write a certain celebrity as being homosexual, whereas I haven't seen as many people get fired up over changing a character in a book or tv show's sexual orientation.

I don't really get the line that's drawn when it comes to RPF. You can tweak and transform any fanfiction character that's from a novel, tv show, or movie, but when you start changing real people, it becomes creepy and/or a problem. You can write a sex scene between characters from a book, tv show, or movie, but when you write a sex scene with a celebrity involved, then that just means you're automatically writing out your fantasies.

Are you saying you don't understand the line that's been drawn by some people?

Because I don't get it either, after all, in a sense real people aren't copyrighted, real people are so complicated you don't really know what they're like and so you can write so many different things, whilst sticking true to the public image they reflect. Characters from movies, novels and TV shows are copyrighted, so you'd think people would have more of an issue with changing their sexual orientations etc.

^ Yeah. I don't get all the divisions, such as the division between OF and FF, and within fanfiction, the division between writing about fictional characters and writing RPF. It all pretty much seems like the same thing to me.

Though I write about both characters from a television show and actors, I don't feel like there's a difference between them when I'm writing it. I don't feel like I'm getting into extra-super-creeper-stalker mode when I'm writing RPF because I'm treating them the same as any other character. I don't know exactly who they are as a person; I'm writing about how I perceive them to be.

And as far as the whole AU/AR thing goes, I don't really see that so much as changing a character's personality. In most of the AU I've read, the characters still have the same personality, their lives just happened to turn out differently. I mean, I could have the exact same personality but just happen to be gay instead of straight

^
That's how properly written FF should be. Any changes created by the FF writer should only affect the character's personality as much as they would in real life. Though some people do enough OOC (out of character) fic, I'm not one of them.

I really have no problems with either genre. Sometimes I get a story idea and it just doesn't work with original characters. Sometimes the story is suited better to fanfiction.

Personally, as a writer, I'd be flattered if someone wrote fanfiction of my characters. Even if it was some out of the ordinary crackship. Actually, I think I would prefer crackships. I'd like to see how creative people can get while staying, for the most part, in character.

As per RPF, my main fandoms are the HBO war trinity and The Social network. They're both fictitious tellings of real events. And even if HBO is far more accurate, it still takes liberties with the characters and plot, and 100% of the fanfiction of it I've seen follows the characters in the mini-series, not the actual war vets. They're not meant to be true, and I don't think anyone can realistically take them that way.

Well, I'm more into fanfiction of my favorite bands. I don't like the type where you met them on Warped Tour and they asked you to join the tour and you fell in love with band member, because it's not realistic and I've seen storylines like that so many times and it's cliche. Nor do I like the "I met them at a meet & greet and became their best friend" type because again, it's not all that realistic.

I like fanfiction if it's one of my favorite bands with an original storyline. Most of the fanfiction I read, the bands don't even exist. I like that. It's like my favorite characters in a movie.

As far as slash goes, I don't read it. I don't call people out for writing it, to each his own. I'm not homophobic or anything, I just personally think it's a little weird.

CoolStory.Lynn:

I like fanfiction if it's one of my favorite bands with an original storyline. Most of the fanfiction I read, the bands don't even exist. I like that. It's like my favorite characters in a movie.

How is that even fanfiction?

leaf's wierd:

How is that even fanfiction?

I think she means if the real people from a real band are written in a story, they're not in the band in the story.

For example my story Shadows Creed, the guys from Avenged Sevenfold aren't in Avenged Sevenfold. A7X doesn't exist in the story.

^Ah. Alright. It was the way she worded it that made me question what was going on. I thought it was referring to fanfiction about fictional bands, which wouldn't really be fanfiction.

I prefer original fiction, but I read fanfiction too, though not as much. All the plots seem to be identical, and I find that really boring. though I guess you could say the same for some original fics too.

The Pies Endure:

Or they'd just laugh it off and say 'damn our fans are weird', and leave it at that. I've written Pierre Bouvier of Simple Plan as a rapist vampire, as a killer as a really evil kind of person. So, what? It's just fiction and I mean no offence.

I've written him as gay as well. And come on he doesn't make matters better by pretending to be gay with David [the bassist of SP] on stage. They even know that fans ship the two of them together. It's called Hot Baguettes. I've seen them mention HB in interviews.

So, no, not all celebrities are going to get mad and want to sue someone for it.

You might mean no offence, but that doesn't mean you won't cause a lot of offence and a lot of pain. 1 in 4 people are sexual abuse survivors, just because most people don't talk about it doesn't mean that people making jokes or stories about it doesn't affect them. It's just a painful topic, I think it's extremely inconsiderate to ignore that fact.

I think one of the most ridiculous debates I had about this topic, was when someone told me that they'd read one writer's fan-fiction, and claimed it was 'the only good fan-fiction. Otherwise, it's bad'. If one fan-fiction writer can write well regardless of where it's original or fan-fiction, surely others can do the same.

kafka.:

You might mean no offence, but that doesn't mean you won't cause a lot of offence and a lot of pain. 1 in 4 people are sexual abuse survivors, just because most people don't talk about it doesn't mean that people making jokes or stories about it doesn't affect them. It's just a painful topic, I think it's extremely inconsiderate to ignore that fact.

In that case, shouldn't one never write about anything triggering because it might set a percentage of readers off?

the same dru.:

In that case, shouldn't one never write about anything triggering because it might set a percentage of readers off?

Well, it's one thing to joke about it, it's another to write about it as a meaningful element of a story, in a serious manner.