Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

Originality is such a lonely word…everyone is so un-new

Many thanks to Jintian for summarizing the whole HP plagiarism debate in her blog for those of us who don’t have two hours a day to follow glass_onion when it gets rowdy. Well, you know I’m going to have an opinion. Let me just get out the soapbox…

I give Harry Potterdom a free pass. Let them rip off Buffy. Let them query-replace whole novels. (I recommend Emacs for ease of query-replacement.) Let them steal other people’s fanfic, even. Go ahead, rip me off.

It was Jintian herself, in the case of real people fic, who implied that people who live in glass fandoms shouldn’t throw stones - yet the stones are flying now. So the question that occurs to me is not why plagiarize? but why dost thou protest so much? Aren’t we all just the bottom-feeders of the literary ocean? We “original” fanfic writers use unoriginal characters in our own unique ways. The HP plagiarists use unoriginal characters and unoriginal lines in their own unique ways.

We are artisans, not artists - if you value originality so highly, why not write in a genre that emphasizes it? Insisting on originality in fanfic seems like trying to have your cake and eat it too - you want the ease and accessibility of fandom, plus the glory of having been “original”. I don’t think there’s room in this town for the both of them.

Plagiarism is a term of disapprobation that can only apply in a context where originality was expected in the first place. This isn’t Martin Luther King Jr.’s dissertation, people, this is fanfic. We frown on originality. We abhor the Mary Sue. We shy away from the Delta Fleet. Fanfic is not literature, and cannot be judged by literary standards.

Fanfic is like a troop of Girl Scouts gathered around a campfire, singing the traditional campfire songs (my favorite was always “Green and Yellow”, the tragic tale of a camper who ate a poisonous snake he’d mistaken for an eel), improving the verses that wanted improvement, and adding in original verses. Maybe those verses would get picked up by other scouts and passed on as the One True “Green and Yellow”, or maybe they’d be forgotten, like so much ephemeral J/C flufffic. One thing’s for sure, though - no girl scout would cry plagiarism if she heard her new verse (What color flowers do you want, Jesse my son? / What color flowers do you want, my beloved one? / Green and yellow, green and yellow - mamma come quick ’cause I’m very very sick and I wanna lay down and die…) coming from the next campfire over.

Fanfiction is an open-source movement. Maybe some people don’t want their source spread around, but the common-law history of copyright and the longer history of mankind telling tales around campfires is on the side of the alleged plagiarists. This is what it is to tell a tale - to take the best bits (including the best zingers) of tales you heard before and put them together in a way that pleases your audience. Harry Potter, the fandom, has rediscovered the art of storytelling, and it shall not be taken away from them.

If Joss doesn’t want to be quoted, he can stop broadcasting his best lines. As for the sacrosanct published authors, no one owned their lines until the printing press, and someday soon they’ll be common property again. No desperate clinging to printing-press laws can hold progress off forever. The future will be open-source; the future will be fanfic.

And Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out

(A sequel to Bye Bye Bye. For previous chapters, see Jemima’s Annotated Guide to the Blog Wars.)

Jemima mounted the soapbox that had taken out Seven of Nine.

“That’s enough!” she shouted. “There isn’t room in the van for the boyband, the Britney and the 80 million teenagers. You are hereby banished to one of the frostier circles of Hell.” Jemima snapped her fingers, and the extras disappeared.

“Much better,” Lori said. Seema sent Tom to the wetbar for another margarita as Jemima watched thirstily. Then a lightbulb appeared above her head, and she snapped her fingers again.

A platinum-blond appeared and said, “Bloody hell! This scene again.”

“Spike, take the wheel. As long as we’re in this galaxy, we may as well blow up the Death Star.” Jemima rubbed her hands together eagerly.

“Which one?” Lori asked.

“There’s always one hanging around,” Jemima assured her. “Snape, fetch me a Guinness.”

Snape appeared from behind the wetbar and poured Jemima a foamy one.

“Now this is the life - two poolboys and a perilous mission to save the galaxy.” Jemima dismounted the soapbox and sat down in one of the minivan seats, putting her feet up. Snape retrieved a tray of deviled eggs from behind the wetbar and began serving.

Chakotay cleared his throat. Everyone ignored him. Jemima handed her Guinness to Snape to hold and pulled out her UFO bag - not the unfinshed fanfiction, but the unfinished cross-stitch projects. “Lori,” she proposed, “how about a real round robin?”

“Sean, fetch my crochet bag,” Lori said, and the two stitchers were soon deeply involved in their other common addiction.

“When will you drop us off in the Delta Quadrant?” Chakotay asked.

“Are you still here?” Jemima frowned. “Talk to Seema about tying up that loose end.” Seema saw him coming, however, and had Tom run interference while she started on her third margarita and petted her angst bunny.

“Say, luv, does this van have any armaments?” Spike called from the front.

“There’s probably a freeze-ray around here somewhere - why?” Jemima said.

“Because we’re coming up on that Death Star you ordered.”

“As a neutral country, I must protest,” Liz said, “or at least bravely run away.” Harry, Hermione and Ron gathered around her, drawing their wands and and uncorking a few potions in preparation for a sudden retreat.

“Fine, but leave my poolboy here,” Jemima said. Snape gave her one of those piercing, ambiguous looks that was so much more complex than a vapid Volvo-boy smile, and she sighed contentedly. There was nothing in the world like semi-evil, tortured poolboys who looked good in black.

“It was nice seeing you, Liz,” Seema said pointedly.

Such little hints were lost on Jemima, who added, “And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

The blog war series continues in The Blogger Strikes Back. Lori made my poolboy disappear, which was quite unfair, but she made up for it by straying into yet another fandom. Elsewhere (in the Lori Fan Club, if you must know) Lori links AAA is happening again this year. Though it’s been half a year since I produced any significant J/C, for a lark I looked through my VOY fic to see if I had enough “new” stories to enter. I entered ten last year, out of eleven categories, and I found seven fresh ones already for this year’s mercifully curtailed contest. Nor does that fill the count of my J/C fics. Kahless, but B’Elanna the Canon-Correcting Muse was productive in her day. Buffybot has nothing on her…yet.

So am I going to do it? Do I need one last bad contest experience for old times’ sake? I’m not reading all the (non-smut) entries this time, that’s for sure. Pardon me while I reminisce - AAA is bringing back all sorts of memories of a year ago, when fandom was new (to me) - before C/7, before VOY went off the air, before virtual seasons and bitterness and the mass-unsubscribes as people abandoned VOY for greener pastures.

Ahem. Anyway, I had a few J/C stories tied up in other contests at the time the first AAA was going on, and I wrote a few more, in those last months after AAA and before BOFQ. Although repeat entries are allowed, just for the principle of the thing, I’m not going to repeat any of last year’s entries. Here are my losing fics, both past and planned:

It’s a tighter bunch, anyway, except for The Museum, weighing in at 225k. Since it ate half my year, it deserves to be in there. I may want to switch Thrive with A Light Beyond - what kind of catgory is Friendship/Hurt/Comfort, anyway?

Sorry for the lack of links. The stories are all available on my Voyager fic page.

Take the What Should Your New Year’s Resolution Be? Quiz

Jemima ex machina

(for previous posts, see Jemima’s Annotated Guide to the Blog Wars)

Kira was distracted from Chekov’s heavily-accented attentions by a comm hail, informing her that an unusual ship had requested permission to dock. “Put it on the viewscreen in here,” she told Ops, glad for the distraction.

A large black van was approaching the docking ring.

“What is that?” Kira asked.

“That’s a truck, ma’am,” Tucker informed her. At her puzzled stare, he added, “A ground transport vehicle powered by fossil fuels. Watch that baby fly!”

“That van looks familiar,” Buffy said, climbing down from Worf’s shoulder.

“Is that the Death Star painted on the side?” Xander asked.

“Right-o,” Willow said, plucking a stray leaf out of her hair and edging away from Chakotay. Her witchly senses told her something big was up - a crackle in the air like lightning, in which case she didn’t want to be caught standing under a tree.

“Why is a truck docking at my space station?” Kira asked.

“We picked one up in the Delta Quadrant a few years back,” Chakotay told her. “They get around.”

A hush fell over the conference room, and lasted until the door opened.

“Cool!” said a rather short, dark-haired geek in a Star Wars t-shirt. “T’Pol, Seven of Nine, Kira–”

“Jonathan, what are you doing here?” Willow asked.

“Would you believe following the Slayer around as part of a nefarious scheme to take over Sunnydale?” the short geek asked.

“As if!” Buffy said, and the other Scoobies laughed.

“Fine,” he said huffily. “I’m Jemima’s driver. Warren installed a warp drive in the van, and here we are.”

“Where’s Jemima?” Lori and Seema asked in unison.

“She and Anya stopped at Quark’s for a drink. She said something about always having wanted to try Romulan ale.”

“Anya!” Xander choked out. He let go of Ezri, who fell a full two feet to the floor and sprained an ankle.

“Jemima is on her way,” Jonathan said, wagging a finger at the crowd. “You know what that means.”

“Weddings,” Spike said.

At the mention of marriage McCoy and Chekov, sixties characters to the core, filed out the door of the conference room. Riker was edging towards the exit himself when a tall, buxom, blonde woman strode through the doorway, carrying a box marked Ivory. She placed it on the ground in front of the crowd.

“Is that Jemima?” Kira whispered to Willow.

“No, that’s just Anya.”

“Anya…honey…how was your trip?” Xander asked. His fiancee eyed the gnome on the floor, then dragged Xander into a corner for a good scolding.

Suddenly, everyone noticed a figure framed by the heavy Cardassian architecture of the doorway. She was of average height, with wavy, flowing locks and flashing eyes of indeterminate hue. “Hi, Lori,” she said, and “Hi, Seema - fancy meeting you here.”

“Welcome to DS9,” Seema replied. Lori gave Jemima the secret handshake.

“Now, about this blog war…” Jemima said as she mounted the soapbox. The poolboys tensed, Buffy drew her best stake and Spike’s fangs appeared. Willow began replicating wedding dresses. “When someone says war, I expect to see photon torpedos and Genesis waves and Chakotay weeping over Janeway’s apparently-dead body - whole planets assimilated by the Borg, species wiped out, redshirts bleeding profusely, and Harry Kim dead again.”

Buffy cleared her throat.

“Oh, yes,” Jemima added, “and giant snakes eating the high school, Earth getting sucked into an unknown hell dimension, Spike saving humanity just because they’re so snackable, and Buffy dead again.”

“Sounds messy,” Seema observed.

“That’s the idea. So the next time you declare war, I want to see a war, not a round robin.” Jemima caught Lori’s eye. “Is that so much to ask?”

“I guess not,” Seema said. Lori shook her head, but there was a sparkle in her eye that made her poolboys nervous.

“Now that that’s settled, we can move on to the weddings. Kira, will you do the honors?” Jemima asked. The Bajoran agreed to perform the wedding ceremony, hoping to appease this Victorian Prophet and get her station back as quickly as possible.

“Thank you. Now, when I call out your names, pair up and don your formalwear.” The crowd shuffled nervously as Jemima took a little purple notebook out of her pocket and opened it. “Crusher and Riker…” Riker turned pale and Beverly looked positively ill. “You two are dismissed. Lori has pairings prepared for you when you get home.”

Lori raised an eyebrow as Beverly and Will fled the conference room in relief.

“Anya and Xander,” Jemima announced, and Anya squealed in delight. Xander shrugged on the tuxedo jacket Willow was holding out for him, looking resigned.

“Tucker and T’Pol,” Jemima said next. Tucker gave out a whoop.

“This procedure is highly illogical,” said T’Pol, “yet strangely fascinating.” Willow replicated a pecan pie with a tiny bride and groom on top.

“Worf and Ezri Dax,” Jemima announced.

Seema protested. “What about those trill rules?”

“You’re the ones who were bashing the writers,” Jemima explained. “Do you expect me to follow their idiotic rules?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but named the next couple, “Chakotay and Seven of Nine.”

Chakotay maintaned his arboreal calm, but Seven protested. “I have no established interest in Commander Chakotay.” Captain Janeway would be highly displeased, as well. “May I marry Ensign Kim instead?”

“No,” Jemima said, with a touch of regret.

“The Doctor?” Seven suggested, but the matchmaker merely shook her head. “Axum?”

“Sorry, Seven, but you and Chakotay are canon.”

“I will…adapt.” Seven pulled a white dress on over her catsuit.

“Last but not least,” Jemima pronounced, “Buffy and Spike.”

“Bollocks!” Spike exclaimed. “Wait a minute - this means I get to move in.” Willow helped the lucky vampire into a tuxedo with tails.

Buffy watched in shock, then approached the soapbox. “I can’t marry Spike,” she said. “He doesn’t have a soul.”

“Don’t talk back to the author,” Lori warned her.

Jemima was tired of the soul excuse. “You’re not doing your Vamp Tramp of the Hellmouth routine in my blog, young lady,” she said. “It’s high time you settled down.”

Buffy frowned, but took the dress Willow handed her.

“What about me, o bloggy one?” Willow asked, eyeing Kira Nerys. Jonathan hid himself under the conference table.

“Sorry,” Jemima replied, “it’s the Season of Evil Willow. I can’t marry you off until you clean up your act.”

“What about Kira?” Willow protested.

“Seema can handle Kira.” Seema nodded, and Willow pouted. “I can give you Evil Jonathan under the table there,” Jemima offered, relenting slightly.

“I’ll pass,” Willow said.

Jemima looked down upon the collection of couples in their tuxedos and white dresses, and saw that it was good. “Make it so,” she instructed Kira as she dismounted her soapbox. Kira began the traditional Bajoran group wedding ceremony, and Jemima opened her box and placed five bottles of Bajoran blue wine on the conference table, next to the pecan pie.

“Where did you get those?” Seema whispered to her.

“Quark’s,” Jemima whispered back. “My work here is done, ladies. If you need a lift, my van’s parked on the docking ring.”

No, I’m not complaining that the Blog War has sunk even lower than Seema’s realpeople fic level. I was in Trek a little too long to be shocked at the sight of a Mary Sue.

That’s not my woe, but woe are we, for Psyche’s Transcripts are gone! Has the long arm of the law reached all the way to Germany? Why, oh why, didn’t I download when I had the chance? And who will replace Psyche, now that she’s 404 not found?

I volunteer, English Chick - I have offshore accounts and I’m not afraid of lawyers or Cease and Desist orders. There are no bandwidth limits on me. Let me be your happy hostess…

Armabloggen [5/?]

(see previous post for…previous posts)

“Aren’t any of you demons?” Buffy asked.

Xander pointed at the gnarly creature passed out on the floor. “He looks like a demon.”

“He’s my tactical officer,” said one of the men in red pajamas, striking an indignant pose.

“He’s my tactical officer,” said the woman with the scrunchy nose and the name that sounded like one of those diseases Xander came home with after a particularly bad episode.

“He is a Klingon,” the starving woman with the pointy ears explained.

“Don’t mind Worf,” said the woman who’d come in just as Lori had left. “He always acts that way. I’m Beverly, by the way.”

“I’m Buffy. But I still don’t understand who you people are.”

“I’m Chief Medical Officer of the starship Enterprise.”

Xander snorted. “Right, and I’m Mr. Spock.”

“Hey! Dr. Phlox is our CMO,” drawled the man who’d been running around with a pecan pie. Now he was eating it.

Kira Nerys shook her head. “Please keep the Temporal Prime Directive in mind, people.”

“There is no Temporal Prime Directive,” T’Pol argued.

“It applies retroactively,” Kira lied.

“Will?” The annoying man in red looked up at Buffy. “Uh, Willow…” Buffy poked the redhead, distracting her from her admiration of Kira’s earrings. “Geekiness is your area - can you tell us if these people are really Star Trek characters?”

“Well, I was a Voyager girl myself, back when they were on the air - ship of the Valkyries and all that, you know. So I can vouch for Seven of Nine over there.” Willow smiled shyly at the Borg.

The man with leaves in his hair cleared his throat. No one paid any attention, so he added, “I’m also from Voyager.”

Willow dragged her eyes away from Seven’s implants and tried to focus on the large, pajama-clad man. “Sorry, I don’t remember you. I missed part of second season…”

“I’m the first officer!” the leafy man insisted.

“Were you?” Willow replied. “I thought the Vulcan was first officer.”

“I was captain of the Maquis ship!”

“You mean Seska wasn’t the head of the Maquis? I liked Seska…until she turned evil, of course,” Willow added, glancing at Buffy nervously.

“I…”

“Anyway,” Willow interrupted, “if you’re from Voyager, where are Captain Janeway and B’Elanna Torres? I’m sure they could settle this war right away.”

“Is Captain Janeway a good mediator?” T’Pol asked.

“Mediator?” Willow laughed. “Janeway would blow Lori halfway across the Delta Quadrant just for looking at her funny, and B’Elanna would slice Seema into tiny little bits with her bat’leth - because you know, Seema is just two letters away from Seska, and Seska was bad.” She glanced at Buffy again.

The Slayer took the opportunity to cut to the chase. “Ok, assuming you’re all from Star Trek, how did you get involved in the Blog Apocalypse?”

“Do you mean the Blog War?” Kira asked.

“Whatever.” Buffy twirled her stake, waiting for an answer.

Kira cleared her throat. With Worf unconscious, security was at a low ebb, and that stake looked awfully pointy. “We’ve all gathered here to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the blog war. Although with Lori claiming there never was a war–”

Spike crushed out the cig he’d been smoking. “Ok, mates, there’s your first mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Riker asked, puffing out his chest.

“I mean there’s your first mistake - trying to settle things peacefully,” Spike said. “That’s why all you blokes are off the air–”

“We’re still on the air,” T’Pol interrupted. Tucker mumbled agreement around a mouthful of pecan pie.

“Give it a few months,” Spike replied dismissively. “You were always trying to play nice with the bad guys. Negotiate. Compromise. Very bad idea. Like that whole treaty with the Cardassians - look how that blew up in your faces.”

“Hey, Captain Picard negotiated that treaty,” Riker said.

“My point exactly.” Spike lit another cigarette, and continued his argument. “Do you want to know why we get the ratings, the Emmys, and the big, big bucks?”

“Yes,” Seven of Nine said.

“How big?” Riker asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Xander told him sotto voce.

“Because,” Spike said, “we kill the bad guys. Buffy here stakes them right through the heart.” Buffy made a demonstrative staking motion, and several pajama-clad people backed away. “That’s what you people need,” Spike explained, “stakes, crossbows and throwing knives. No negotiating. No more wanking around.”

“That’s all it takes?” Beverly asked.

“Well, that and the occasional apocalypse,” Willow said. “Lucky for you, we brought our own. One Blog Apocalypse, coming up. I’ll just replicate some stakes, and you’ll be ready when Lori and Seema come back in.”

“We could certainly use the ratings,” Tucker said.

Jemima’s Annotated Guide to the Blog Wars

(Note as of mid-January: the Guide has moved into the wiki. Check there for new skirmishes.)

Note: Since Seema still hasn’t republished her archives, the Seema links may be a little funky. Page up instead of down.

Armabloggen [2/?]

The gang gathered at the Magic Box to brainstorm. Jemima must be saved from the mindless electron-slaughter of this “blog war” at all costs, so that she could return to her peacetime occupation of writing Buffy fic. Anya was especially anxious to eliminate the demonic threat of Lori and Seema - she’d heard about Jemima’s prediliction for wedding-fic, and she figured no cold feet of Xander’s could stand against the great Victorian fanfic writer in the sky. Even Spike, usually too surly for this sort of Scoobie do-good project, was willing to help a writer who never, ever, under any circumstances, allowed the poofboy into her fic.

Buffy, however, splashed cold water on their plans. “From what Xander has told us about this ‘blog war’,” she said, “Lori and Seema are just average human beings. I can’t go over there and stake them. I only do demons.”

“We know that, luv,” Spike said. Buffy glared at him.

Anya found the enemy sufficiently demonic. “They’re obsessed with cheesy TV programs that were never all that popular and now seem to be”–she paused dramatically and whispered–“off the air.” The Scoobies gave a collective gasp.

“Maybe we can have Lori and Seema committed,” Dawn suggested. “Buffy knows plenty of people over at Social Services.”

“I’m the Vampire Slayer, not the Blog Warrior. I say we let Jemima and William James handle this on their own.”

“William James is dead, luv,” Spike reminded her.

“As if that ever stopped anyone around here.”

Willow cleared her throat. “I think this blog war may be your kind of thingy after all, Buffy.” She flipped open one of Giles’ dustiest old magic tomes to the section on blogs. “It says right here: ‘In the last days, the Two Horsewomen of the Apocalypse will appear, their bright eyes of indeterminate hue flashing, and their posts flaming, to bring an end to all blogs. And their names shall be called Libel and Slander.’” Willow shut the book, looking quite pleased with herself. “Get it? Libel and Slander - Lori and Seema! They’re bringing on the Blog Apocalypse.”

“We have to stop it!” Anya added.

“Why?” Spike asked.

“Because that’s what we do,” Buffy replied. “We stop Armageddon.”

“No armageddony stuff on her watch,” Willow echoed.

My lovely sister Veronica has been chiding me for getting behind on the Demon Casablanca Blog. War is hell, sibling unit… Nevertheless, I’ve added the newest two links, though I haven’t read them myself. Sigh.

Seema fixed the blog (but not her archives, apparently), and Lori is contemplating. I have Blog War Subway Fic forthcoming, as soon as I can get it typed up…

Armabloggen

“Spike! Spike!”–a pause, in which the object of such outcries dared not hope his pursuer had left the upper level of his crypt–”Spike!”

The vampire in question climbed halfway up the ladder, bleached-blond head-first. His visitor was unlikely to get a warm welcome from his room-temperature host. “Bloody ‘ell, Harris, can’t you see we’re shagging down here?”

“You were not ’shagging’ Buffy,” Xander replied.

“Why not?” Spike demanded. “Because I’m a demon? Because I have no soul? Because I’m not dark, bulky and brooding like poof-boy?”

“No,” Xander said slowly and clearly, “because this is Jemima’s blog. There’s no shagging allowed.”

“Then where do young bloggers come from?” Spike asked, curious despite himself.

“They lure them in with candy.”

Spike nodded sagely. “Like the Shakers…”

“The who?”

“Never mind, monkey-boy. Say whatever you came to say and let me and the Slayer get back to…patrolling.”

Xander cleared his throat. “It seems Jemima has a little problem on her hands.”

“And that would be…?”

“Lori and Seema, Blog War Criminals.”