On Fanfiction

[elrhiarhodan]

I was alerted to this article - The Boy Who Lived Forever - on ariadnes_string's LJ. It's making the rounds, certainly - but if you haven't read it, you should. TIME has published a remarkably favorable view of fan fiction and the people (mostly women) who write it.

Right now fan fiction is still the cultural equivalent of dark matter: it's largely invisible to the mainstream, but at the same time, it's unbelievably massive. Fan fiction predates the Internet, but the Web has made it exponentially easier to talk and be heard, and it holds hundreds of millions of words of fan fiction. There's fan fiction based on books, movies, TV shows, video games, plays, musicals, rock bands and board games. There's fan fiction based on the Bible. In most cases, the quantity of fan fiction generated by a given work is volumetrically larger than the work itself; in some cases, the quality is higher than that of the original too.

The timing of the article's publication is very interesting - it's to coincide with the release of the final Harry Potter movie. And if you ever thought that White Collar is a substantially sized fandom, consider this - the ff.net archive has over a half MILLION Harry Potter stories.

Comments

[elrhiarhodan]

There is, you know, a Bible/BTVS crossover featuring Spike and Jesus. And it's really not half bad. Can't find the link, pity.

Just sayin'

Nothing's impossible when you've got fanfiction.

[rabidchild67.livejournal.com]

*makes grabby hands*

Spike did say id he had a nickel for every vamp that said he was at the crucifixion, he'd be rich.

You know, Jesus is hot - he's got that swimmer's build...look at him up on that cross...

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, please. If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would've been like Woodstock. I was actually at Woodstock. That was a weird gig. I fed off a flower person and I spent the next six hours watchin' my hand move.

Best line ever.

[rabidchild67.livejournal.com]

I thank you for the correction. It IS the best line ever :-D