Fan fic? Fooey.

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 19 Jun 2001, 15:23 · from whorl-v0012.mbox · original

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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Subject: RE: (whorl) Fan fic? Fooey.
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 15:23:53
Message-ID: <whorl-v0012-0858 at digest.urth.net>
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Me on parasitism:
> >...the existence of fanfic is completely dependent on, and
> >draws its energy from, the primary creator of the fictional
> >world.

> I'm not certain I'd agree with that. The point of fanfic is
> to create works which fulfill a need that the original
> author's work doesn't fill, whether that desire is to see
> Kirk and Spock doing it or seeing how Xena reacts to meeting
> Patty Duke.

H'mmm. Perhaps rather than "energy" I should've said "power";
in any case, my point is that fanfickers don't have to create
things like characters and settings, they use pre-existing
ones and depend on conditioned responses (their own and other
readers') to provide much of the buy-in. That is: if you keep=20
the characters' behavioral and speech patterns pretty much=20
consistent with what's in their original shows/stories, you=20
can rely on the reader investing them with a lot of the life
(energy, power, whatever) the original writer/director/actor/
whatever gave them. So you don't have to do very much with K=20
and S; set up the right circumstances (the "hurt/comfort=20
scene," a term I'm ripping off from Joanna Russ's essay on
fanfic), and let the biology roll.

> (Besides, the biologists I studied under in college said
> that the term "parasite" was falling out of favor because
> it was impossible to define clearly....)

So are "species" and "organism." ("Ecosystem" and "biome"
actually turn out to be a little easier.) Like "parasite,"=20
the terms are too damn useful (and too damn well-embedded=20
in biological discourse) to go away any time soon.

Perhaps, though, the right word would be "saprophytic"?
(Though I gather that these days fanfic starts before a
show even finishes its run...)

> I would argue that William Shatner's _Star Trek_ novels
> are blatant fanfic. Mary Sue fanfic, at that.

And I would argue that Shatner probably agrees with you;
remember his line in the Shatner-vs-Shatner fight scene in
the last TOS movie:

	Shatner 1: I can't believe I _kissed_ you.
	Shatner 2: It must have been your lifelong ambition.

Whatever else Shatner may be, he is aware of his ego "problem"
and not afraid to have fun with it. (See also "Free Enterprise.")

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