A Writer's Life

Am I Satan...

...or just a sad little man with serious self-esteem issues who longs to write fanfiction? You tell me. I am too distracted to decide...I'm very busy working on my FARSCAPE/BATTLESTAR/HARRY POTTER crossover slash epic.

You'll Love My Interpretative Tone Poem Based on HALO

"I'm a writer, too."

(Via Bookslut and my brother Tod).

"Oh, my naughty love, Tod thought. Where could you be?"

My Brother Tod is having lots of fun messing with the fanfic crowd over at Fandom Wank:

Just wanted to pop in to say that, no matter how much you hate Lee or me, I've enjoyed reading all of this and several other posts beneath this one. You guys are exceptionally funny. That you point out the general fucktardery of your particular world is something I can get behind. I'm hooked. Now, will someone write something about me where I'm involved with Dave Navarro, Carmen Elektra and a dagget from the original BSG? Seriously. You write it, I'll put it on my blog. Just make me skinnier and more handsome than I am.

And they've done it.  Tod is brilliant.

They Hate Me, They Really Really Hate Me

My brother Tod stumbled on a seething horde of  people who really, really hate me and he couldn't be happier about it.

They are fucking hysterical. I mean this. I laughed my ass off reading about their hatred of Lee, their dubious thoughts on me (they are particularly upset with my poor grammar and word choice and misogyny, which is basically what Wendy is upset with me about on a fairly regular basis, but someone liked "Simplify" which thrilled me, as that is, and always has been, my favorite story)  and then their rants on other topics happening in and around fandom. I spent about thirty minutes reading this website and I about pissed myself. I've actually bookmarked it.

UPDATE (2-19-2007): Tod only scraped the surface. There's much more Lee-hating to enjoy.

Misrepresented

There's an interesting article in Reason Magazine about fanfic. The only problem with it is that the writer Cathy Young completely misrepresents my views on the topic.

The vehemently anti-fanfic writer Lee Goldberg, who blogs at leegoldberg.com, is the author of several authorized novels based on the TV shows Monk and Diagnosis Murder—a contradiction he defends on the grounds that he does it only for the money.

So I wrote a letter to the editor:

A number of people have sent me Cathy Young's thoughtful and interesting article about fanfiction.  I have written extensively on my blog about fanfiction, particularly my view that the practice of publishing it in print and on the Internet infringes on the original author's creative rights (not to mention the trademark and copyright issues). I've argued that fanfiction writers should get the permission of the author or rights holder before distributing their work. If the original author or rights holder  has no problem with fanfiction based  on their  work, then I don't either. I have also said that licensed tie-in fiction, which I have written, differs significantly on ethical and legal grounds from fanfiction because it is done with the consent, participation and supervision of the original author or rights holder. At no point have I *ever* expressed the views that she incorrectly (and I have to assume deliberately) attributed to me. It's a shame, because her article would have been far more informative, and fair, if she'd bothered to accurately reflect my actual opinions on the subject.

I look forward to seeing a correction in the next issue of REASON.

Do you think they will have the journalistic integrity to run a correction? Or should I assume that they have the same standards for accuracy as  Cathy Young?

UPDATE 2-8-07:  Cathy Young has responded to my email and still misses the point.  I'm not surprised.  She argues that because I said I wouldn't have written the MONK books unless I was hired to do so proves her argument that I believe the only difference between fanfic and  tie-in work is that I'm getting paid for it.  I replied:

I want to thank you for your lengthy follow-up to my email. While I stand by everything you've quoted this time (accurately, I should say), I still take issue with your statement above. I have never said that I write them only for the money. While it's true that I've said I wouldn't have written the MONK or DM novels unless I was hired to do so, I don't think getting paid is what separates fanfiction (the theft of an authors' work without his or her permissions) from licensed tie-ins or other derivative works that respect the original authors creative and legal rights. It's not PAY that is the defining element -- it's PERMISSION. Fanficcers routinely and blithely disrespect an author's creative and legal rights on the grounds that they aren't getting paid for their work.

She also makes the same old, weak excuses for not seeking permission before publishing fanfiction. Like other fanficcers, she takes no responsibility for violating the  creative and legal rights of authors and rights holders -- instead, she believes the  burden should be placed on authors or rights holders to issue a blanket approval or disapproval of fanfiction (not that fanficcers would honor such a statement anyway).  Sadly, her bitter disrespect for creative rights, trademark and copyright are all-too-common among the fanfiction community. 

Links A-Go-Go

I've been away in New York for a few days at the Mystery Writers  of America board meeting and am just now catching up on my favorite blogs. Ordinarily, I'd build whole posts around some of the stuff I've found...but I'm too lazy. So you will have to see for yourself what Emmy Award-winning writer Ken Levine has to say about Aaron Sorkin's dig that he wasn't a "real" comedy writer.  And you'll have to experience for yourself the utterly bizarre "Galactica-A Team-V" crossover fanfic that my brother Tod stumbled upon.

Literary Cannibalism

Here's a new twist on the fanfic debate:   an article in the Daily Telegraph implies that  Thomas Harris stole from Hannibal Lector fanfic for his novel HANNIBAL RISING. The article quotes some fanfic passages and compares them to passages in Harris' new novel.

Trawling through the Lecter fanfic, one comes on other tantalising parallelisms. Six years ago, for example, 'Leeker17', on www.typhoidandswans.com posted a narrative which uncannily forecasts the opening chapters of Hannibal Rising in its detailed description of how the hero's parents and sister met their ends in 1944. So close is it that one might fancy that Leeker17 had some privileged connection with Harris. Or that Harris himself, under a nom-de-web, may be the 'leaker'. Or, like Blythebee, Leeker17 may just have struck lucky.

If an author picks up and uses something from 'his' fanfic is he plagiarising, collaborating, or merely playing games? One thing's certain. Harris won't tell us.

(Thanks to Sarah Weinman for the heads-up!)

Novik on Fanfic

Author Naomi Novik got a terrific write-up in the New York Times today. She's had enormous success with her first book HIS MAJESTY'S DRAGON and her husband Charles Ardai runs Hard Case Crime, another enormous success. This is a couple on a major winning streak in the publishing business.  Novik and I were guests on an NPR radio show about fanfiction a year or two ago.  We were on opposite sides of the debate...our opinions on the subject are very far apart. I was not at my best on the air, though, or in my posts about the show here afterwards. But that said, I was struck by an aside in the article:

Around 1994 Ms. Novik began writing fan fiction, stories based on the characters of other writers. She called it “embarrassing, terrible early work” that could not be published — thankfully, she said — because it would be tantamount to copyright infringement on other authors’ characters.

Either the reporter is mis-characterizing her views or Novik has significantly changed her very liberal attitudes on the subject since becoming an author herself.

Am I a Fanficcer?

I received this comment from "GMW:"

If we take the published author view then I hate to say it but Mr. Lee Goldberg, according to this you have no talent for writing because you are using a preset universe and characters. You do write fanficiton with legal ability to get it published for money. In my mind that is the only thing separating you from a fanficiton writer. Has writing the ‘DM’ and ‘Monk’ novels helped you in writing your other novels? If yes then why can’t it help others? If no, then why do you write them?

1) I didn't just wake up one morning, burning with the need to write DIAGNOSIS MURDER fanfic and then sent it out a publisher, hoping to sell it. They came to me. I would never consider writing a book about characters I didn't create unless the creator/rights holder asked me to. Why? Because the characters aren't mine.

2) I was an executive producer and principal writer of the DIAGNOSIS MURDER TV series for many years and was approached by the studio and publisher to write the books. In many ways, I shaped, guided, and "controlled" the characters long before I started writing books about them.  This makes me a rarity among tie-in writers. As far as I know, there isn't anyone out there writing fanfic about the shows they wrote and produced.

3) I was writing for the TV series MONK for several seasons when the creator/executive producer of the show approached me to write the books.  I not only continue to write episodes of the show, but I write the books with the executive producer's full consent and creative input. How many fanficcers are also writing for the TV shows they are ripping off?

4) To date, I have only written tie-ins based on TV shows that I also wrote and/or produced. Again, that makes me a rarity among tie-in writers.

5) These are licensed tie-in novels, written under the contract with the rights holders, who have full control over how their characters and "worlds" are used. This is true of all tie-in writers...and no fanficcers.

6) I wrote my own, published novels long before I was approached to write any tie-ins (in fact, they got me the tie-ins) and continue to do so. My recent book THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, which got a starred review from Kirkus and was favorably compared to Hammett and Chandler, is currently nominated for a Shamus Award for Best Novel.

What I do isn't comparable to fanfiction -- which is using someone else's work without their consent or involvement and distributing on the Internet. I don't do it as my personal artistic expression -- it's a job, one that I do to the best of my ability.

Like a fanficcer,  I am writing about characters I didn't create and that are not my own. But, as I said before, unless approached to do so, I would have absolutely no interest or desire to write about someone else's characters. Why? Because...and let me repeat this... the characters aren't mine. I didn't create them. They don't belong to me. I much prefer to write totally original work and if I could make my living only doing that, I would.

Write all the fanfiction you want to for practice -- just don't post it on the Internet or publish it. Or if you do want to post it, ask the creator/right's holder for permission to do so first. How hard is that?

What I have yet to see any fanficcer explain why they won't to ask the creator or rights holder for permission before posting and distributing their work. Or why fanficcers adamantly refuse to follow the expressed wishes of creator/rights holders (for example, Rowling has approved fanfiction based on Harry Potter as long as it's not sexually explicit...but that hasn't stopped thousands of people from writing and posting Potter slash, disrespecting her and her wishes ).

I know the answer, of course. Fanficcers are terrified of officially being told NO... and identifying themselves in case they decide to blithely violate the author's wishes anyway.

The Mainstreaming of Fanfic?

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at fanfic writers who have made the leap to the mainstream.

Fan fiction, stories by amateur writers about characters from their favorite books, movies and television shows, was once mainly a fringe pursuit. Now, it's changing the world of fiction, as Internet exposure helps unknown authors find mainstream success. Some Web sites are attracting unprecedented numbers of readers and, in some cases, leading to book deals...

There's a librarian in Rathdrum, Idaho, who spent 10 years posting her writings about a character from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" online; Simon & Schuster paid her a $150,000 advance to publish the works as a three-novel trilogy. In Brooklyn, N.Y., a free-lance copy editor has become one of the Web's best-known "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" fan-fiction writers, and has landed a three-book publishing deal for a young-adult fantasy series.

Fanficcers are changing the world of fiction? This I had to read. Unfortunately, the reporter relies more on hyperbole than fact. To support his pronouncement, he chronicles two writers in specific, a Potter-ficcer who has sold a book to "Frank Fradella, an author running his own small independent book-publishing company, New Babel Books" and a guy who landed a literary agent thanks to his submissions to an officially-sanction "L Word" fanfic contest. That's, um, hardly rocking the foundations of publishing and broadcast media. (New Babel Books has published six books to date -- four of them written by the publisher himself).

More interesting to me was the reporter's discussion of FanLib, a company that's trying to mainstream fanfic for promotional use. They are the one who staged THE L WORD competition and they have a new one coming with Harper Collins.

FanLib recently launched a romance-writing contest with HarperCollins's Avon imprint. "We're looking for ways to reach the real core readers," says Liate Stehlik, Avon's senior vice president and publisher. To avoid copyright problems, they had writers create chapters of a novel from scratch, instead of basing them on one particular book.

What I don't get about this contest is that readers are being asked to write original work, not something based on someone else's character. So what's the fanfic connection? From what I can tell, there isn't any. And in the L WORD contest, writers were given scenarios by a writer/producer on the show...and the winner would be writing with someone on the show... thus site-stepping the fanfic issue altogether. It seems to me that FanLib is only interested in  exploiting fanficcers  under the pretense of supporting fanfic...which, in fact, they aren't actually doing at all.

Your thoughts?

(Thanks to Kete for the heads-up on the WSJ article!)

The Fanfic Mind

Ah, another fascinating view into the bizarre workings of the fanfic mind from a writer/reader of Potter porn:

To be perfectly clear: I don't give two shits about minors having access to sexually explicit material on the internet. This may well be a byproduct of my own hypersexualized childhood (I started reading romance novels at age 8 and my barbies were doing some very nasty kinds of nasty shortly thereafter), but I don't buy that reading about sex or seeing images of sex is going to warp kids' fragile little minds. Which is why "Won't someone please think of the children?" is one of my chief sarcastic lines. "The children" don't need half the protection we insist on giving them, and I wish prudes would just admit that it's not "the children" they're safeguarding when they're arguing for censorship -- it's their own delicate sensibilities.

But anyway. I do give several large, steamy, well-textured shits about respecting artists and creators. That was part of my oh-so-eloquent and not-wanky-at-all OUTRAGE over fanfic plagiarism.

[...]Even though I can't point to anything Morally Wrong about copyright-infringing fanfic, even though I'm a pomo slut, even though I would cry if there was never another Blackcest dub-con femslash fic waiting for me on my flist, part of me still wants to concede to artists the right to disallow derivative works that they don't like. It's their sandbox, and all the justifications about "just playing with their toys" don't change that. And so: guilt. Not enough guilt to keep me from reading and (if I ever get my lazy ass past the outlining stage) writing adult-rated HP fanfic. But enough to make me feel dirty. Not in the good hatesex-on-the-Hogwarts-Express kinda way, either.

Let me get this straight -- exposing kids  to kiddie porn is okay, copyright infringement is okay, but she is OUTRAGED by fanfic plagiarism.  Uh-huh. She feels a slight tinge of guilt about violating an author's wishes regarding their works, but not enough to actually stop writing or reading the crap. But fanfic plagiarism -- that's INTOLERABLE (she even wrote this howler:  "In short, fanfic matters, so plagiarism in fanfic matters.")  Interesting set of principles she has.

I've Been Fanficced

I was a writer/producer on SEAQUEST 2032, which was cancelled mid-way through production of  its third season, though scripts were ordered for several more episodes. William Rabkin and I wrote one of those scripts, which was entitled "About Face," and would have been episode 14 of the season. The script has been lost, but a SEAQUEST fan named Rod J. Glasbergen has taken  our one-page treatment for the episode and used it as the basis for his own fanfic story, which he's posted on the net with this byline and disclaimer:

seaQuest 2032: the Continuation is as the title suggest the continuation of seaQuest 2032.  I have for this reason started with episode 14 of the incomplete third season.

About-Face

By Rod J. Glasbergen

Based on an original outline by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin

- used without permission -

Since he admits that he did it without permission,  I guess that makes it okay, right? Fanficcers certainly have a bizarre take on what constitutes copyright infringement.

Rod even lifts some of our lines of description and bad temp dialogue word-for-word and uses them in his story as his own (I can't imagine what Rod would have written, and claimed as his own, if he'd actually managed to get his hands on our detailed outline or our actual script).  He's not some kid, either...he's in his mid-20s and even has the chutzpah to take credit for the creation of the rest of the third season:

SeaQuest 2032: the Continuation and all related materials are the concept of Rod Glasbergen.

I don't think his version of our SEAQUEST 2032 "About Face" story would even qualify as legitimate  'fanfic' to fanficcers. This is simply a blatant  rip-off of someone else's work.

Shame on you, Rod.

(Thanks to Adam for the heads-up)

UPDATE 8-20-2006: I heard from Rod today. He wrote:

I clearly intended no offence to you or Mr Rabkin in my attempt to flesh out ABOUT FACE  as a fan fiction.  The idea behind continuing SEAQUEST 2032 as a multi-episode fanfic was not designed to offend or insult the writters and producers or anyone involved in the making of SEAQUEST. I apologize if my work too closely resembles your own, and if you would like I will remove the episode from my website.

I appreciate his willingness to remove the "episode" from his site (and I've taken him up on his offer). But he still doesn't get what he's done wrong. He's sorry if his work too closely resembles ours? It is ours.  He literally took our story idea and tried to write it himself.  At least he's taking it off the net...

 

 

Is Fanfic Legal?

Author John Scalzi has irked fanficcers by <gasp> saying that he believes fanfiction is illegal which, of course, it clearly is.

it's clear that some portion of fanficcers actually seems to believe that writing fanfic isn't actually copyright infringement, and that therefore it "exists in a gray area" or is actually not illegal via some interpretation of fair use. Some of this belief stems from the contention that there has not been (to the common knowledge) a copyright suit specifically dealing with fanfic, probably because a "Cease & Desist" letter is usually enough to cause the fanficcer to take down his/her fanfic so no court case is necessary. The thinking here seems to be that if a suit does not specifically address fanfic, then the legal status of fanfic is in fact indeterminate.

I can't help but think this is a bit of magical thinking, based on the idea that fanfic is in itself a legally special class of writing (possibly under the "we're doing this for fun" idea), which as far as I can see it's not. It's bound to the same injunctions and restrictions as any other piece of creative writing. Certainly US copyright law carves out protections for fair use, parody and criticism, and equally certainly some fanfic qualifies under a realistic reading of these protections. But I hazard to guess the vast majority of fanfic could not be shoehorned into these protections even under the most liberal of terms.

He backs up his assertion with a lengthy post that quotes an intellectual property attorney and the Chilling Effects Clearing House (a joint project of the Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington Schools of Law) on the subject.  What I found especially interesting was a letter sent by JK Rowling's attorneys to some fanficcers who were writing porno Harry Potter stories.

As you are aware, Ms. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books. Ms. Rowling therefore owns the copyright in the Harry Potter books. The sexually explicit content of the fan fiction available at www.restrictedsection.org, which is plainly based on characters and other elements of the fictional world created by Ms. Rowling in the Harry Potter books, is a matter of serious concern to our client. In addition, our client Warner Bros, which owns the film and merchandising rights to the children's series of Harry Potter books, is concerned to protect the integrity of its Harry Potter properties. For the avoidance of doubt, our clients make no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans.

She's okay with fanfic but is ready to go after people who write sexually explicit material using her characters. That should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that writing about Harry and Ron exploring the magical delights of anal sex is "fair use."

Fanfic Hypocrisy

You gotta love the hypocrisy and idiocy of fanficcers. It seems the "fanfic community" is in an uproar because some fanficcer stole from another fanficcers work. Author John Scalzi sums up the laughably inane situation nicely:

Let's remember one fundamental thing about fanfic: Almost all of it is entirely illegal to begin with. It's the wild and wanton misappropriation of copyrighted material (I'm sure there is fanfic that features public domain characters, just not nearly as much as there is of, say, Harry Potter fanfic). Copyright holders may choose not to see it, or may even tacitly encourage it from time to time, but the fact of the matter is that if you're writing fanfic, you're already doing something legally out of bounds. And, really, if you're already wantonly violating copyright, what's a little plagiarism to go along with it? Honestly. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I recognize this attitude probably won't sit well with fanficcers, but this is really an "honor among thieves" sort of issue, isn't it? If you've already morally justified intellectual theft so you can play with Harry and Hermione and Draco and whomever else you want to play with, I'm not entirely sure how one couldn't also quite easily justify taking juicy chunks of other people's text to play with as well.

[...]Out in the real world, I take plagiarism rather very seriously, but then, out in the real world, I take appropriation of copyright seriously as well. If fanficcers want me to oblige their outrage about fanfic plagiarism, I suppose I would have to ask how it is essentially more serious than the appropriation of copyrighted characters and settings, and how if I must criticize one why I am not also therefore obliged to criticize the other.

(Thanks to Jim Winter for the heads-up on this).

She Really, Really Cared

Tari Akpodiete pointed me to this posting on BoingBoing:

SF writer Lynda Williams sez, "My daughter (18) cared SO much about the ending of the Animorph series 'selling out' the readers that loved it with a nasty ending, that she has taken a whole year off school (sigh! be careful what you model!) to write an alternative ending as good as the books ever were! And she did it despite knowing it had to be considered fan fic and couldn't be a way to start a writing career -- just because she really, really cared."

She took a year off school to write fanfic? Good God, how stupid.

I'm sure some of you will say that I'm being a jerk, that the girl took a year off to hone her writing skills and complete a novel.

And to you, I say, it's fanfic.  I can see how you might write a short piece of fanfic for yourself  (ie not posted on the Internet or distributed to others) as a writing exercise. That could be useful and instructive. But spending a year toiling on a fanfic novel? That's just pathetic.  It's one step removed from becoming a Jareo.

It's shame her mother, a professional writer,  couldn't have given her daughter better guidance instead of encouraging her in this masturbatory and pointless pursuit (and, worse, being proud of it). 

Williams could have taught her daughter something about intellectual property, copyright and the importance of respecting the creative rights of other authors. It doesn't say whether the work was posted on the Internet...but I hope it wasn't. But if it was, I hope that Williams didn't congratulate her daughter on that, too.

Williams could have encouraged her daughter to channel her passion for "Animorphs,"  and the way she felt the story should be told, by creating an entirely original work of her own that perhaps embodied the same ideals and explored the same themes. That would have been a worthwhile, enriching, constructive use of her time, effort and passion.

Wouldn't it have been great if Williams' daughter took a year off and ended up with a finished novel of her own?  Now that would be something to be proud of. 

But an 18-year-old spending a year on fanfic?

I wouldn't be proud of that. I'd be embarrassed. 

"Please, please plunge your magnificent Starsky in my eager Hutch..."

Every so often, I check out my stats to see how readers are finding their way to this blog... which is how I discovered Hurt/Comfort Recommendations , a site that explores the s&m fantasies of fanficcers who like to see their favorite characters beaten, injured, or stricken with a deadly disease and then sobbed over and soothed, preferably while the characters are nude and sticking their tongues in each other's orifices. There are several "essays" about hurt/comfort on the site and recommendations to fanfiction like this:

Picking Up The Pieces by Annie (Starsky/Hutch, NC-17)- This is the definition of yummy for me :-) It follows a rather typical plotline (that I am certainly guilty of following in several stories, myself) but the overpowering hurt/comfort elements and adorable characterizations really save this. The hurt at the beginning is wonderful- it's got all the elements that I adore. And when the comfort portion comes around, it does so with understanding and emotion and hot hot sex. Who could ask for more?

Here's a sample of the yummy:

"No?" Starsky queried. "How many guys who didn't love you would touch you the way I do, as often as I do? How many guys who didn't love you would hold you in their arms and let you puke all over them after you'd been hyped on Horse, huh?" Starsky smiled to take the sting from his words but his eyes were grave and steady. "How many guys who didn't love you would be so glad when they found you alive pinned under your car that it was all they could do not to kiss you then and there? Huh? Tell me, babe. How many?" He leaned forward and slowly pressed his mouth to Hutch's, placing the lightest of caresses there.

I'm ready to puke and I'm not even hyped on Horse.  Just imagine her take on how Huggy Bear earned his name...

You Just Know This Idiot Loves FanFic...

My brother Tod has a weekly feature on his blog in which he skewers the "fucktards" who write Letters to Parade seeking answers from the fictional Walter Scott. Well,  Tod could probably do the same with some of the people who write to TV Guide.

Take Susan A. Davis of Newport, Vermont for example.

She's peeved about the season finale of CSI, which showed Grissom and Sara in bed together in the closing moments of the episode. TV Guide called it a shocking season finale. But since I only watched two episodes of CSI this season, I didn't realize I was supposed to be shocked. I just figured the two characters were doing the nasty monkey together now. I wasn't shocked. In fact, I didn't care. But let's get back to Susan A. Davis of Newport, Vermont. She wrote:

The writers ought to sit in a corner with their faces to the wall and chant the following: Don't mess with canon. Don't mess with canon. Don't mess with canon.

"Canon" is a term that fanfic writers like to use to refer to the backstory established in the TV shows, movies, books and comics that they are ripping off.  So what makes Susan A. Davis of Newport, Vermont a raging fucktard is that she doesn't seem to grasp that  she was watching  the actual, original, CSI tv show...not reading CSI fanfic or CSI/X-Files cross-over fic or CSI slash fic or even the William Petersen Real Person Slash Fic that she probably loves.  Because if she did comprehend that she was watching the actual, original, CSI tv show, then she'd know that canon is whatever the creators of CSI say it is.  The writer/producers decide who the characters are and what they are going to do...they create the canon.

You may not like what the writer/producers come up with, you may think they've jumped the shark and fucked it, too... but it's what's happening on the actual, original, CSI tv show, which is still written and produced by the same folks who did the pilot, and that, Susan A. Davis of Newport Vermont,  makes whatever they do "canon."

So, I submit that Susan A. Davis of Newport, Vermont, should sit in a corner with her face to the wall and chant "I am a fucktard, I am a fucktard, I am a fucktard..."

Fan Fliction

The New York Times reports today that lots of fans are making their own STAR TREK movies and episodes -- which I hereby dub fan fliction-- and that Paramount has turned a blind corporate eye to it as long as no one tries to make a buck from their work.

Up to two dozen of these fan-made "Star Trek" projects are in various stages of completion, depending what you count as a full-fledged production. Dutch and Belgian fans are filming an episode; there is a Scottish production in the works at www.ussintrepid.org.uk.

There is a group in Los Angeles that has filmed more than 40 episodes, according to its Web site, www.hiddenfrontier.com, and has explored gay themes that the original series never imagined. Episodes by a group in Austin, Tex., at www.starshipexeter.com, feature a ship whose crew had the misfortune of being turned into salt in an episode of the original "Star Trek," but has now been repopulated by Texans.

"I think the networks — Paramount, CBS — I don't think they're giving the fans the 'Trek' they're looking for," said Mr. Sieber, a 40-year-old engineer for a government contractor who likens his "Star Trek" project, at www.starshipfarragut.com, to "online community theater."

"The fans are saying, look, if we can't get what we want on television, the technology is out there for us to do it ourselves," he added.

And viewers are responding. One series, at www.newvoyages.com, and based in Ticonderoga, N.Y., boasts of 30 million downloads. It has become so popular that Walter Koenig, the actor who played Chekov in the original "Star Trek," is guest starring in an episode, and George Takei, who played Sulu, is slated to shoot another one later this year. D. C. Fontana, a writer from the original "Star Trek" series, has written a script.

I've seen "Star Trek: The New Voyages" and, as I posted here in December, I was very impressed:

The acting and writing are cringe-inducing but everything else is amazing. I can't believe what these imaginative and extremely talented film-makers were able to accomplish on a shoe-string budget (though it helps to have the FX pros from STAR TREK ENTERPRISE over-seeing the effects).

[...]Watching the first two episodes of NEW VOYAGES makes you realize what ENTERPRISE should have been:  a return to the STAR TREK we all fell in love with. Note to Paramount: It's not too late. 

"I can steal from you, but don't you DARE steal from me!" Part 2

UPDATE 6-3-06: I offered to remove this post if "Shadow Of The Wolf" took her fanfiction, which violated the copyright of novelist Lydia Joyce, off-line. She did. So I have removed my post as well.

Attacking Copyright

One of the big arguments fanficcers like to make is that copyright is too restrictive and that the rules should be loosened up. Once something is published, they argue, it should belong to the world.

The fanfic take on copyright is one championed, oddly enough, by proponents of Google's effort to digitize books into their database. The New York Times ran a piece a week or two ago in which Wired contributor Kevin Kelly argued in favor a digital library that would make all books available for free to people around the world. He believes that the original purpose of copyright was to give authors an incentive to keep working, but that now that intent has been warped to benefit the commercial interests of corporations. Books, Kelly argues, should now become public domain shortly after publication for any derivative use you can imagine. On this issue, he wrote, in part:

But the 1976 law, and various revisions and extensions that followed it, made it extremely difficult to move a work into the public commons, where human creations naturally belong and were originally intended to reside. As more intellectual property became owned by corporations rather than by individuals, those corporations successfully lobbied Congress to keep extending the once-brief protection enabled by copyright in order to prevent works from returning to the public domain. With constant nudging, Congress moved the expiration date from 14 years to 28 to 42 and then to 56.

While corporations and legislators were moving the goal posts back, technology was accelerating forward. In Internet time, even 14 years is a long time for a monopoly; a monopoly that lasts a human lifetime is essentially an eternity. So when Congress voted in 1998 to extend copyright an additional 70 years beyond the life span of a creator—to a point where it could not possibly serve its original purpose as an incentive to keep that creator working–it was obvious to all that copyright now existed primarily to protect a threatened business model. And because Congress at the same time tacked a 20-year extension onto all existing copyrights, nothing–no published creative works of any type–will fall out of protection and return to the public domain until 2019. Almost everything created today will not return to the commons until the next century. Thus the stream of shared material that anyone can improve (think “A Thousand and One Nights” or “Amazing Grace” or “Beauty and the Beast”) will largely dry up.

Sara Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly, took exception to this and I agree with her views. She said, in part:

Such a suggestion, frankly, disavows the amount of work—the amount of time!—it actually takes to create a book, not to mention the lack of financial reward that comes, even in this era of inflated advances, during that sometimes lifetime-long process. Why shouldn't generations of Joyces or Morrisons or, more pointedly, Richard Yateses, benefit from the work that the authors scraped by to produce? Believing that your book could become a source of enlightenment for generations is a great thing, of course. Knowing that it might provide some comfort for your own great-great-grandchildren ain't such a bad incentive either.

[...]Yes, it's hard to keep track of copyright, especially when publishers (who, essentially, "lease" copyright from the author) disappear and morph and merge, as they do [...] But as books become digital files that require few warehouse fees, and the whole notion of "out of print" becomes moot, copyright should be similarly simplified: it should rest with the author, or his descendants, for way longer than they both shall live.

Your thoughts?

Back to the Future Vampire Fanfic

Tales to Astonish has stumbled on some truly bizarro fanfic:

Does anyone else find Back to the Future fan fiction strange?

Would you find it stranger if all of the characters were vampires?

I would, but then again I write Matlock/Star Trek fanfic in my spare time, where they’re all towering robots from a dark cybertronic dimension.  Who am I to judge someone for having strange passions?

I couldn't resist something as unbelievably inane as  "BACK TO THE FUTURE vampire fanfic"...so I had to take a look:

I'm Flaming Trails, the web-mistress. You've probably guessed from the title of this web page that this isn't your standard BTTF fan fiction fare. It isn't. I don't generally write the more "normal" fan fiction. My areas of expertise are vampire versions of Doc Brown; worlds that don't contain Clara, Jules, or Verne; intense angst; and humor stories that would make poor Doc wake up screaming.

Me, I'm Flaming Entrails, and my area of expertise is writing "Desperate Housewives Time Travel Lesbian Porn" that would make poor Eva Langoria wake up screaming.

(Thanks to Andy for the heads-up!)

"I can steal from you, but don't you DARE steal from me!"

UPDATE 6-3-06: I offered to remove this post if "Shadow Of The Wolf" took her fanfiction, which violated the copyright of novelist Lydia Joyce (among others), off-line. She did. So I have removed my post as well.

The Jareo Hits the Fan

The Lori Jareo flap has begun drawing the attention of the mainstream print media after raging in the blogosphere for the last week. As the Dayton Beach News reported:

After it was pointed out by writer Lee Goldberg and spread around by a growing network of bloggers it became very obvious that Ms. Jareo's circle of friends, family, and acquaintances was about to include the entire LucasArts legal team. Reading the assorted posts this weekend was like standing amongst a crowd of people watching a swimmer cheerfully strap on raw meat before diving into the shark tank.

The newspaper notes that her biggest critics were fanfiction writers themselves, who worried about the implications for them of her stupidity.

When you know that what you are doing is, at best, tolerated by creators you respect who can make you stop at any time, you get very annoyed when someone walks up and slaps them. All it would take is for enough authors to start yelling: "That's it, everyone out of the pool," and the online world of fan fiction would fade away.

The more likely result, as Publisher's Weekly notes, will be more intense scrutiny of POD titles by online booksellers. So far, only one person has come out publicly in support of Jareo, NPR commentator Lev Grossman, who dubbed her an "unsung hero" of the wired universe.  Jareo has remained silent.

No HOPE for this Fanficcer

Lori Jareo, a self-published author, is selling her fanfic STAR WARS novel ANOTHER HOPE as a print-on-demand title on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites. Apparently, neither Amazon nor Barnes & Noble looked at the book before they listed it for sale.  Jareo talks about the obvious copyright violation issues in a Q&A on her website:

Q: Having set Another Hope in an already existing universe, I find myself wondering if there was any concern on your part regarding copyrights?

No, because I wrote this book for myself. This is a self-published story and is not a commercial book. Yes, it is for sale on Amazon, but only my family, friends and acquaintances know it’s there.

Q: I also wonder how far a writer is allowed to write in a world and to use characters introduced by another author?

If it’s not a commercial project, I don’t see any problem.

It's not a commerical project...but she's selling it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble (and offering it for sale on her website). What a moron.  She even had the chutzpah to copyright her novel. She offered this disclaimer on the book:

The characters in this book are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. The publisher of this book is not affiliated with Lucasfilm.

As if those two sentences would make it okay to publish and sell a STAR WARS novel without permission from Lucasfilm, the rights-holder. The stupidity of the author and her publisher (which is herself) is mind-boggling.

I'm told by sources in-the-know that LucasFilm and Ingram, one of the nation's largest book distributors (and the folks who supply B&N and Amazon) are now aware of the infringement and aren't happy about it.  I don't think you'll see this fanfic listed on Amazon or Barnes & Noble for much longer.  And in the wake of this embarrassing episode, I believe the major online booksellers will be seriously rethinking their system for listing P.O.D. titles...

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get to work on my self-published sequel to THE DAVINCI CODE. I don't think Dan Brown or Simon & Schuster will mind.

UPDATE 4-21-06: Lori's ANOTHER HOPE site has been shut down. That was fast. Lucasfulm must have hit her like a nuclear bomb.

UPDATE 4-22-06: How many different ways can you call someone stupid? Check out what the blogs are saying about Lori Jareo.

Here's a sampling of some of the blog headlines:  "The Stupid Is Strong With This One," "Behold: The Greatest Story of Stupidity Ever Told," "I Bet She Finds Our Lack of Faith Disturbing," "Feel The Stupid," "The World's Stupidest Human," "Soooo Amazingly Stupid," "Good Lord, How Stupid Can A Person Be?" and "Face Palm, Head Desk, and a Generous Smattering of WTF?"  GalleyCat reports that she even listed her fanfic STAR WARS novel in her bio for a poetry conference!

In this case, the fanfic community and I are in total agreement.

UPDATE 4-26-06: ANOTHER HOPE is no longer listed on Amazon. It's still listed on Barnes & Noble, but with the note: "A new copy is not available from Barnes & Noble.com at this time." I have to wonder how anyone at B&N could have read the material submitted for the ANOTHER WORLD listing and  not  realized that it infringed on Lucasfilm's trademarks and copyrights. Here's the B&N listing:

The MARCH Goes On

There's a fascinating debate happening over at Jeff Mariotte's blog regarding the Pulitzer prize winning novel MARCH by Geraldine Brooks. Is it a tie-in? Is it fanfic? Is it a literary homage? Or is it an entirely original work? Be sure to check out the lively comments to his post.

Punishing Yourself

I leave the country for just a couple of days and the nation falls into anarchy. I got this email while I was away:

Your friend James Kosub has posted some damn fine -- and damn patriotic -- PUNISHER fan fiction on his blog. I've read it and, well, it made me think and it moved me on an emotional level.  And, of course, he mentions you in the premamble to the post...

Jim is, afterall, the President of my fan club. So I took a peek at his introductory comments:

It isn't the greatest thing I've ever dumped out of my brain and onto paper, but it's still a solid, post-9/11 action/commentary story.

[...]Coupled with my very positive experience playing The Punisher on the Xbox, and finally seeing the new movie with Thomas Jane, I figured now was as good a time as any to share.

And already the critical raves are coming in...from his wife.

Still a powerful and effective piece, and it could easily be expanded beyond the "Punisher" main character.

I haven't read the fanfic, but I doubt anything could capture the enormous cultural, political, and emotional impact of 9-11 quite as well as some of James Kosub's fanfic stylings. But I'm with Jim's wife on this one. It's a crying shame that he chose The Punisher as his muse instead of Willy Wonka. 

Fanfic Fool

From my brother Tod's blog today:

The other day, my friend Alex told me that in a creative writing class he teaches at UC-Riverside, someone turned in Willy Wonka fan fiction and wasn't totally clear why that wasn't allowed in a college creative writing class.

The student would be much more at home in a creative writing class at Texas State University taught by Dr. Robin Reid, champion of "Real Person Slash Fanfic." Not only would she accept that assignment, but probably one about Gene Wilder getting his Willy Wonked by Johnny Depp, too.

THE F WORD

Showtime is staging an unusual promotional event, inviting fans of THE L WORD to help a writer on the show pen a spec script for an episode. The press release calls it "the first network-sanctioned collaborative fan event."

During the sponsored, multi-week event, the show's millions of fans will be invited to collaborate on an original script for the show.  Each week, fans will write short scenes based on an instructive "scene mission" provided by the writer from THE L WORD.  Each week, fans will vote on their favorite scenes.  At the end of each week, the winning scene will be added to the script in progress. The process will repeat each week with a new "scene mission" until the entire script is complete.

Once the script has been pieced together, the L WORD writer will perform a final polish to complete it. Contributors of highly rated scenes and other winners will be featured prominently online during the event, giving them a taste of online fame. FanLib's innovative system enables Showtime to maintain control of THE L WORD brand while establishing an incomparable consumer generated media community where fans can interact with each other and with their favorite show.

A couple of people who emailed me about this called it a "breakthrough for fanfic." It's not. The key phrase in the release is that the program "enables Showtime to maintain control of THE L WORD brand."  In other words, this "fan event" is a licensed tie-in, done with the full participation, consent, and control of the network, studio and writer of the show.

At the conclusion of the event, Showtime and FanLib will publish a free commemorative eZine (a downloadable digital magazine) featuring the completed script, plus a number of alternative scenes and editorial features including profiles of the winning contributors and other participants. Each fan whose work is included in the eZine will receive an exclusive gift package from the show and the sponsors of the event. The eZine will be distributed online to all of the participants and voters and other members of the show's online community as a pass-along memento of the event.

Though the script will not be produced as part of the show's upcoming third season which will have wrapped production before the start of the event, Showtime and the producers of THE L WORD have the option to produce the finished script in the future.

It will be interesting to see how "event" works out, if the fans embrace the corporate managing of their fanfic, and if the cobbled-together script is the least bit readable. My guess is that the L WORD writer is going to take a pretty heavy pass through the material and that it will probably never be shot.

How Dense Can a Person Be?

Anybody who reads this blog knows I'm not a supporter of "fanfic," that I think it violates the legal and artistic rights of authors, and that I take every opportunity to point out how inane and offensive most of it is.  So you can imagine my amusement when I got this  email today:

Hey Mr. Goldberg--
I know this is going to seem really random but there is no way around it. You made a post a while ago about a fanfic writer named 'cousinjean'. I don't really care about the whole situation surrounding her asking for money, more I was wondering if you knew any way to get in contact with her. I don't want to harass her, I just wanted to know if she still had a site up with her work on it because some of it I never got to finish reading and the link doesn't seem to work any longer.

This request is really bizarre. It's sort of like asking a Jew to direct you to some really rocking anti-Semitic screeds. Yeah, sure, Trish, I'll be glad to.

"t3h ebil fanficcers"

There was an interesting comment that somebody calling himself  Inside Fandom left in the "Masturbation" post. I didn't write it, and I don't know who did, but I didn't want it  to get lost in the clutter:

"t3h ebil fanficcers"

Fanspeak. Sort of like jive, but with wurz speling. In fandom communities the presumption is that anybody who isn't really a fan - they actually refer to it as 'passing' - can possibly get it, when they say 'get it' they mean 'fandom in general'.

In other words, youse either with us or you don't get it. Sorta like what we used to tell our parents when we were teenagers and they wanted to know the names of the kids we were 'hanging' with, and what funny smell emanated from our clothes, or how pretty the plant with five leaves growing on our windowsills was and how nice we'd taken an interest in horticulture.

At some point, the childish stuff ends. That happens when we grow up. When we just get older and we don't grow up, we look for fanfic about TV characters masturbating so that we can masturbate to it. We continue to have the hots for David Cassidy in all his 15 year old glory on the Partridge Family. We have intense and heated arguments with others over the characterizations of cartoon characters.

We keep doing that even after we get degrees and jobs and look perfectly normal to the outside world. Whenever somebody questions our proclivity to invade the sexual privacy of real people, or why we like to write fanfiction about children having sex, we trot out the degrees and the jobs and we call what we do 'scholarship' and wonder what sort of pervert the person questioning the action is. That's called transference.

The most intense discussion of what happens here on Mr. Goldberg's blog takes place in LiveJournal land in threads that are largely protected.

Authors, scholars, whoever, do not make any statements here because who wants their publisher or tenure committee to know that they used to write, and maybe still do write, lies about real people's sex lives. Heaven forfend they know we get off on writing stories about underage people having sex. How about it coming out that the author of that hot new fantasy series still gets off on Mutant Ninja Turtles slashfic and spends her off hours making fun of people on Fandom Wank under an assumed name then TALKS about it on the journal she keeps under her real name?

There are academic papers to be had in all of this, but the only ones taking it seriously are the ones with a vested interest in making it appear harmless.

This rings true to me. How about you? And I may be revealing my vast ignorance (which I do here daily) and the limitations of my well-thumbed edition of Websters Dictionary, but is there really such a word as "forfend?" Is there a reason why the "fen" don't use the word forbid?

Masturbation!

"MarytheFan"  defends her search for masturbation fanfic and is applauded, in later comments on her blog, for being a classy gal ("Just wanted to say that I fangirl you madly at the class you're showing").  Anyway, MarytheFan writes, in part:

I have zero interest in a discussion with someone who functions on the middle-school level that equates masturbation with something stupid and pathetic that only losers do because they can't get anything better, rather than as one perfectly valid, healthy and fun sexual option in a smorgasboard of sexual options. Maybe if my actual masturbatory experiences had consisted solely of sad, pathetic situations in which I was a loser who was only masturbating because I couldn't get anything better, rather than situations in which I was enjoying my own body because holy good god, that felt good, I'd think it was a pathetic and loser activity. Guess what? You also don't go blind or have hair grow on your palms, in case anyone out there was still functioning furtively in the shadow of those old myths. Well, unless you poke yourself in the eye, I suppose, in which case, wow. Bendy, aren't you?

I have no problem with masturbation, Mary. It's healthy, feels good, and keeps Cinemax in business. What I find pathetic are people who masturbate over fanfiction that portrays TV and movie characters masturbating, and the people who write fanfiction about fictional characters masturbating, and people who would announce to the world that they are searching for fanfiction about TV and movie characters  masturbating that they can masturbate to.

This would also probably be a good time to, once again, mention Lindsay Lohan's nipples.

Potter Pedophilia

Fanficcers think authors should be flattered by their work. Using their inane logic, JK Rowling should be overjoyed by "We Are the Women Who  Love The Boys of Harry Potter," a LiveJournal community "created for the sole purpose of discussing the beauty of the Harry Potter boys."

If you are of legal age (18 years old or more) and feel more than just a little attraction to the lovely boys of the Wizarding World, then WELCOME! :-D You will find your kind here.

We do conceed that this community does show that we are, to some small extent, pedophiles. Well you would be too, if you just looked at the boys! :-) We just enjoy beautiful things. We can't help that! :-D

Between Real Person Slash, DUE SOUTH Masturbation stories, and Harry Potter Pedophilia, what isn't there to love about fanfic?

(Thanks to "Maggie Thatcher," who provided the link in her comments on my Wank Fic post)

Wank Fic

The new, living definition of  "pathetic":  someone who searches the Internet for masturbation fanfic:

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to search for wanking fic? I mean, are there any useful search terms to use? Googling "masturbation" and "fanfic" turns up things from Lee Goldberg and his ilk, with the yadda yadda about how it's all some poor, unimaginative substitute for ... no, I'm not going to go there.  At any rate, OMG, rec me some fanfic with masturbation in it. Any fandom. It just needs to be hot and to involve someone touching themself in sexy ways.

After "MarytheFan" posted her fervent plea on LiveJournal, someone enthusiastically recommended DUE SOUTH masturbation fanfic.

I haven't read them in a while, but I recall there being a few damn hot ones in there.

I wonder if they include the dog.

(Thanks to Tig for the link)

Teach Your 14-Year-Old How To Write Gay Fanfic Porn

Skrike discovered a lengthy primer at Fanthropology on teaching 14-year-olds how to write better explicit gay fanfic.  Here's some of their advice:

So how do you make a fourteen year old write better fan fiction? More important, according to a fourteen year old acquaintance, how do you make your fourteen year olds write better m/m slash?

Sex and intimacy, important components of slash and good slash. Another component is fan fiction, m/m slash culture. The last component, and possibly the most important one, is putting all of that stuff together.

Teaching all this is not a simple thing. Remember, this age group isn’t always the most receptive to valuing feedback in certain forms, isn’t necessarily writing to learn about writing to become better writers. They write for fun, like feedback, can and do use it to become better writers.

But hot damned, how do you teach a person to write in character? How do you teach your teenage m/m slash fan to write in character in the context of a story involving two guys going at it? There are two options that come immediately to mind.

Sex and intimacy. Ouch and wow. My fourteen year old Good Charlotte slash writing buddy’s answer to teaching her teen friends on how to write better slash? Pop them all in front of a television, watch a little gay porn and they should be set. My reaction to that as a twenty-five year old not interested in gay porn was horror. There is this double edged sword here. Younger writers can teach their own, to a certain degree, about the sexually explicit material and how to write it using those examples. Adults teaching a fourteen year old how to write erotic or pornographic sex scenes featuring two guys, citing pornography and adult material, this might be a bit of an ethical nightmare and legal liability.

The next thing to do is create general rec lists of stories featuring m/m sex scenes. To cover your butt legally, make sure the story ratings and contents are spelled out and don’t explicitly label your rec list as “Read these teenage writers! Read them and behold the writing of good m/m slashy sex scenes that will make you wet! Yeah!” Try for something a bit more subdued and less obvious. You get good examples out there and no one needs to be the wiser that you have ulterior motives of teaching the teeny fangirls how to become better m/m slash writers.

If it wasn't for the good people at Fanthropology, imagine all the poor kids who wouldn't have a clue how to write convincing fanfic sex scenes for Kirk and Spock, Harry and Ron,  and Willy Wonka and friends. Thank you, Fanthropology, for this important public service. I'm sure pedophiles everywhere appreciate it.

Maybe now professor Robin Reid will write an article for kids on how to write "Real Person Slash Fanfic." Wouldn't that be nice?

Roald Dahl Would Be So Pleased

There's nothing more complimentary to an author than fanfic...or so I am told by fanficcers. I can only imagine how flattered Roald Dahl would be by this Willy Wonka fanfic:

Mr Salt and Mr Wonka had only been standing like that, caught in a mutual stare, for a couple of seconds. It only felt like much longer for both of them, and someone was bound to end it.

Willy did. “P…” he mouthed quite inaudibly, “p…” and then helplessly slid to his knees before Mr Salt, embracing him like that. Quite the picture of Hamlet in his renaissance bob and velvet coat he tried to rest his chin against Mr Salt’s groin, which put his head in a rather awkward angle due to the brim of his top hat being in the way.

(Thanks to Brad for the link)

Exploring Strange New Worlds

First there were those "slash" stories about Kirk and Spock exploring the strange new world of anal sex....now Defamer reports that a new generation of Shatner Slash fans can read about Denny Crane and Alan Shore exploring their legal loopholes. How about some hot girl-on-girl stories about their Emmy statuettes going at it? 

The Horror of Being a Smurf

The AV Club visited Fanfiction.net on a mission to probe the "outer limits" of fan fiction and found, among the REBA and SCHINDLERS LIST fic, stories about THE SMURFS.

Sample: Not so "Raven Child2," whose sprawling trilogy ("The Smurfette Village!", "Return to the Smurfette Village," and the still-in-progress "How Things Smurf") follows Hefty Smurf on an epic journey that spans several centuries. Separated from the other Smurfs after a devastating flood, Hefty happens on a village that reverses the male-to-female ratio of the patriarchal Smurf Village. Can he find true love with his female analog, Toughette? Will he ever be reunited with his Smurf friends? Can they adjust to modern times when they're whisked into the 21st century?

Representative quote: "Many of the smurfs didn't even try to block away their tears when Papa Smurf reminded them of the horrors they witnessed."

Sexual tension: Moderate. Smurfs can only be so sexy, but there is a distinct sensuality to Raven Child2's descriptions of Toughette.

Critical response: Mixed. While most reviewers offer vague words of encouragement ("Keep smurfin'!"), "Jinglette," author of "Harry Potter And The Search For Michael Jackson," isn't so kind: "You have no life... Writing about Smurfs... GO EAT A MUFFIN OR SOMETHING!" Ouch. And is it constructive criticism or passive aggression when fellow Smurfs fanfic writer "Rowhena Zahnrei" points out, "Proper tense use is vital if you want readers to be able to follow your story easily"?

(Thanks to Bookslut for the heads-up)

The Fanfic Follies

I've become the subject of another fanfiction dust-up, this one over at the Monk message boards, where I've been accused of calling fanficcers rapists and murderers...but other than that, nothing new is being said you haven't read here before ad nauseum.

Here's a story of a man named Brady

I make the mistake of joking about  Partridge Family slash fanfic and what happens? My brother Tod finds this:

"Greg. Greg Brady." Greg proffered his hand to be shaken and Keith [Partridge] held onto it a little too long.

"You're touring with us, right?"

"Uh huh." Greg licked his lips and wondered why his pants suddenly felt so tight.

"We should be getting ready."

"Yeah." Greg shook himself out of his reverie and said, "You have nice hair."

"Thanks. So do you."

"Maybe we could--" Greg started tentatively.

Keith smiled slowly. "I know a place."

"We could get caught. I mean--" Greg's cheeks flamed bright red and he ducked his head to avoid Keith's probable scrutiny.

"Not if we hurry. Come on."

Keith knew where all the dark places to hide were. He had to. He had an overprotective mother and more siblings than he could count.

At Least it's not The Partridge Family

There's a Livejournal community dedicated solely to slash fiction about the alternative music duo Insane Clown Posse. It's about time.

(Thanks to Jeffrey Hitchin for the heads-up. I'm not gonna ask how he found it)