Subject: Speaking of Anne Rice (probably controversial)
Author:
Posted on: 2023-03-03 14:27:04 UTC
As continuum quarantine is based on respecting authors' wishes, what is our stance on quarantining for authors who have passed away?
I can understand the rules against adult content and real person fics. But all the other items banned by ff.net are legitimate forms of storytelling. Script format: That’s the works of Shakespeare banned. Songfics: How many tv series and films make use of nondiegetic song lyrics to give greater meaning to the story? Choose-you-own-adventure: Heck, I’m a veteran of Giving Myself Goosebumps! These rules are arbitrary and silly, and enforcing them doesn’t make the site better; it just limits the creative options of writers, and reduces the variety for readers.
Following rules isn't inherently right or moral, and it's definitely not right when they're used as an excuse for harassment.
—You are reading this doctorlit signature in second-person perspective right now.
I mean, using rules enforcement as an excuse for constant harassment pretty much puts one into Evil territory right there. They remind me way too much of StGRB.
Some of the more adjusted members might have been Lawful Neutral, but the harrassers are definitely Lawful Evil.
—doctorlit, Neutral Good, but toeing the line into Chaotic
an StGRB equivalent for fanfiction (shudders). For those not in the know, it stands for Stop the Goodreads Bullies, a notorious group of authors who "exposed" reviewers who left negative reviews on Goodreads by hunting down sensitive info on them, up to and including what dining establishment they liked to frequent and at what time, and sharing the info publicly on the Internet alongside disparaging comments about the reviewers' character. The group's website was shut down in 2015.
Both a) work best in a non-text-based medium, and b) lend themselves to extremely lazy and poor quality text-based works far more often than not.
Stageplays are meant to be acted. Songs are meant to be sung. In text form, both are somewhat less than the sum of their parts, and they don't work well. (See: how people can enjoy The Cursed Child in person while its flaws are glaring in text alone.)
Meanwhile, it's real easy to bang out lines of dialogue and call it a scriptfic, and it's real easy to jot a few words between copy & pasted song lyrics and call it a songfic. Hence, most of them are plotless, proseless tripe hardly deserving the label of "fiction." I don't entirely blame Fanfiction.net for asking people to post actual fiction, like with a narrative and stuff, on their fiction site.
... But that said, I agree 100% that spending time and energy policing people's style choices is a jerk move. If it sucks, by all means give critique, but reporting instead of critiquing is just as lazy as most scriptfic or songfic. {= P
~Neshomeh would be interested in any reports of actual fan stageplays or screenplays seen in the wild!
I am attempting to get a script together for an adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, because I reckon that most of the adaptations out there have too much unnecesary romance and other unnecesary bits as well. So far, I am mostly taking my dialogue from the book, with a few changes and a scene or two which I thought up myself. When I get it up to scratch, I am hoping to use it to make a radio theatre/audio dramatization.
They typically at least need to start out as writing. Even Shakespeare needed to provide his actors with a script! And while you can argue that they're meant as directions to the actors, and not as content to be consumed in and of themselves, there's nothing wrong with making them available to be read. I've certainly read far more screenplays than I've seen performed, even as movie adaptations. (And I got decently invested in Cursed Child when I read it last year! I agree that a lot of the character moments fell flat without having narrative prose around the dialogue, but many such conversations were still quite good, and the overall plot didn't suffer for it.)
Bah, I've veered off quite a bit, haven't I? My point is, the perception of the Pit's founders that "scriptfic bad" shouldn't have wormed its way into the site rules and cut off an avenue of expression, especially for, you know. Literal teenagers who have no resources to produce actual stage performances!
—doctorlit: clicks "Preview," then "Create Post"
I got curious as to when certain types of fic were banned on FFn, so I did a bit of research.
25 April 1999 - "Fanfic only" rule enforced, removing polls, questions, announcements etc
20 May 2001 - Anne Rice fanfic removed
1 April 2002 - Lists removed (they previously had their own category)
1 April 2002 - MSTs banned
7 April 2002 - Actor-fics banned
12 September 2003 - NC-17 fics banned
12 September 2002 - "Chat room or keyboard dialogue based entries" banned
6 February 2003 - Original fiction moved to FictionPress
22 March 2004 - Poetry category removed; original poetry banned
19 April 2004 - Clarification that the no-chat-dialogue rule means none at all, including author notes
30 April 2004 - "Original superheroes" category removed
27 July 2004 - Clarification that script format === chat dialogue
27 July 2004 - Clarification that CYOA and 2nd person are banned as interactive fiction
27 April 2005 - Clarification that pasting song lyrics into fic is banned
That's all I can find. Notably, I don't see any indication of when interactive fiction was banned - it may have been a founding condition of the site. Similarly, they don't ever seem to have explicitly banned song lyrics - just clarified that they already were banned.
Script format is rolled up under chat format, and banned on the simple grounds that it's usually bad. At least they're honest?
hS
about a song he heard in a movie. It's weirdly personal and kinda hilarious.
-Ls
Edit: My speculation was entirely wrong, had the months backwards.
-Ls
As continuum quarantine is based on respecting authors' wishes, what is our stance on quarantining for authors who have passed away?
Well, I think this is the first time an author with a quarantine has passed away during the PPC's existence(?), so that is ultimately up to the community overall to discuss and decide. In my opinion, we should definitely continue to respect the wishes of an author after their death, and keep such continua quarantined.
Now, when I pulled up Rice's Wikipedia page to check what you meant (as I said, not having realized she was dead), I found this quote by her, from a 2012 online article that has since been deleted:
"I got upset about 20 years ago because I thought it would block me. However, it's been very easy to avoid reading any, so live and let live. If I were a young writer, I'd want to own my own ideas. But maybe fan fiction is a transitional phase: whatever gets you there, gets you there."
Soooooo . . . are Rice's works quarantined? That is also a matter the Board will have to discuss, I guess! It sounds to me like her main worry was being exposed to ideas in fanworks, which she then wouldn't be able to use in her own stories, but since she can't produce any more, and doesn't seem to have minded fic as much these last ten years, I think we could probably de-quarantine?
—doctorlit, very aware of current events in the literary world
...and the fact that she was stated to have softened her stance on fics (including slash fics, which I think was part of her reason for banning fic earlier?), I would favour de-quarantining. But I don't actually have much of a horse in the race, since I haven't actually read her books.
And then someone should tell the Discord it's happening so they can participate.
~Neshomeh is recovering from an illness and is not volunteering.
It only targets copy-pasting copyrighted song lyrics. Songs in the public domain are okay.
. . . although reading a songfic is hardly a replacement for listening to a song, so they're not in actual competition. "I was going to buy the new Taylor Swift single, but then I read part of the lyrics in a crossover Enjolras/Sherlock Holmes fluff, so I now I don't need to!" Just never happens.
—doctorlit has an extensive library of song lyrics stored inside the folds of his brain
blink blink
—and doctorlit will likely do it again