Oh, boy, here we go again.

So this article, In Defense of Fan-fiction (courtesy of the metafandom del.icio.us feed), which is kind of hilarious coming in on the heels of the whole OTW thing and the discussions about fan works and how fandom is becoming more public.

So I think I need to check my biases here, because my first reaction is to say, "who the fuck are you to represent fandom? You post on ff.net" Which of course is silly to say, because ff.net is part of fandom, and it has its own fannish communities, and to say that her fannish experience is invalid is totally a douchey thing to do. So I won't do that.

What I will say is this:

1. There are a lot of reasons to write fanfic.


2. No reason for writing fanfic is more valid than the others.


3. This paragraph:
   

   
   Some people think that fan-fiction is purely voyeristic (spelling?!) – in that people like to imagine their favourite fictional couples together, and that’s the end of that one… and on some levels, yes; I agree. A lot of if is voyeristic. But, to counter that, a lot of it isn’t. True, “romance” is probably the most popular genre on fanfiction.net, for example, but I have to say that probably has a lot to do with the people writing and reading it. Sadly, I fall firmly into this category – teenage girls who can’t really help themselves but let their daydreams carry them away.
   

   
   
   makes me flinch, because I believe that we should not be ashamed of writing fanfic. Yeah, I write romance. Yeah, I even write porn. Yeah, I did this as a teenage girl. And yeah, I sometimes daydream about characters. None of this should mean that my writing -- our writing -- is automatically worth less than that of some fanboy who daydreams about being Paul Atreides and about things blowing up and writes a script about his daydreams and then gets it turned into a movie. I am looking at you, James Cameron.
   


4. Fuck the need for outside validation. If other people want to pretend that we are all stupid and giggly and can't write for shit, then it is not my job to educate them or convince them they are wrong. (And, of course, they are.)


5. I haaaaaate the "Why don't you write original stuff?" question, because my answer is, "I don't want to." I love taking things that already exist and turning them inside out and playing with them to see what they do. I love mashups. I love remixes. I love fan films. And I love fan fiction as a means of reclaiming stories and turning them into stories that are written for us. I have better things to do with my time than to write stories I don't really care about, kthnx.


6. Kirk/Spock is hot, and I think Kirk totally loves to bottom.


7. I think I could give a list of fics that I think define fandom to me, what it is, what it can do, how it operates, how it can be transcendent. But I don't trust my motives in doing so, so I won't.


8. I love fandom, you guys. I love what we do. <3
   
   No shame.