Entry tags:

author entitlement, authors, creator wank, doesn't mean what you think it means, fanfic, suck it up and deal, writers are often pompous douches, your kink is not okay

Diana Gabaldon, author of the wildly popular Outlander series, has an opinion on fan fiction: I think it’s immoral, I _know_ it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.

Highlights include:

Writing fanfic is just like breaking into someone's house.
Fanfic is WAY WAY WAY TOO PORNY omg ick people have sexual fantasies!*
What to do about an auction offering fanfic to raise money for a cancer patient? She doesn't want to "seem heartless"! So she seeks advice in the comments. Which are mostly full of "Fanfic? I have never heard of such a despicable load of garbage! Also, CRUSH THAT CANCER PATIENT!"

ETA: Unpublished author Eddie Louise (who cannot write the word "shit" and seems to fail spectacularly at reading comprehension) offers fanfic writers A CHALLENGE! Accept it if you dare, sniveling pedo thieves!

ETA 2: Previously, Ms Gabaldon has said fanfic is like selling your children into white slavery. Well. Now. I don't even know what to do with that.

ETA 3: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has some discussion on the topic.

ETA 4: And bookshop on LJ/DW has a rebuttal.

ETA 5: See what happens when I leave the sweet embrace of the internet for a few hours? Ms. Gabaldon updates her blog!

ETA 6: Evidently Ms. Gabaldon deleted all evidence of her hissyfit, but some wankas have screencaps in this thread.

ETA 7:

kate_nepevu has screencaps and the text of Gabaldon's posts here. And via

alchemynerd, more screencaps available here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/tiz4vp
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ibidpj
http://www.sendspace.com/file/r6zik6
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hlknqo
http://www.sendspace.com/file/d9alsh

Thanks for all the links! :)

MOD REMINDER: Remember, my little wankas, we DO NOT troll the wank. Nor do we write fanfic after the author has specifically requested people not and post it in the comments here, no matter how tempting it may be. Carry on. oh god my inbox ow ow

*Just as a point of interest, I was a bookseller for 12 years, and had several customers tell me about the sex scenes in her books. Some were pro ("My friend told me to read these books for the sex scenes, and she was totally right, they are so hot, this is best thing to happen to my sex life in years!") and some were con ("What is up with all the sex all the time? Where's the story?"), but one thing you can't say about her books is that they're sexual-fantasy free. :D

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	ruffwriter 2010-05-03 06:28 pm UTC (link)
	Sorry, Diana Gabaldon - I already wrote Lord John fanfic. Oops! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	pariforma 2010-05-03 08:06 pm UTC (link)
	points to icon (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rodo 2010-05-03 08:41 pm UTC (link)
	Is it really, really porny too? Lord John just doesn't get enough in canon anyway. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ruffwriter 2010-05-03 10:01 pm UTC (link)
	I wish! I am so not good at porn. He does make out with Stephan, though. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rodo 2010-05-03 10:14 pm UTC (link)
	Frankly, I think the fandom is tamer than the books themselves. We all just want him to have a happy fluffy relationship, but the books give us Percy. And his idiotic pining for Jamie. Also, you misspelled dachshund in your fic. Sorry, misspelt German words are a pet peeve of mine. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ruffwriter 2010-05-03 10:23 pm UTC (link)
	Sorry! No way to fix it on that archive, but I'll keep it in mind if I repost it anywhere else. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

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rodo, 2010-05-03 10:27 pm UTC

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ruffwriter, 2010-05-03 10:34 pm UTC

	irised 2010-05-04 02:39 am UTC (link)
	Percy? There's ANOTHER gay dude pining? Fuck, meet What The. I don't think I read that far. Does Jamie have some kind of gay dude hoarding problem? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

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rodo, 2010-05-04 02:50 am UTC

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irised, 2010-05-04 03:26 am UTC

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rodo, 2010-05-04 03:34 am UTC

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irised, 2010-05-04 04:05 am UTC

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rodo, 2010-05-04 04:15 am UTC

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ekaterinv, 2010-05-04 04:42 am UTC

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rodo, 2010-05-04 04:49 am UTC

	irised 2010-05-03 09:39 pm UTC (link)
	I WANT TO READ IT. I should crack out my books again and write some myself! I always wanted John to find love somewhere. Did he ever find love somewhere? It always galled me he had to being all fricking longing after Jamie for evs and evs. Clearly he needs porn. I mean, love. cough (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	pariforma 2010-05-03 09:53 pm UTC (link)
	Obviously Lord John is TOO PURE AND NOBLE to need porn. It's okay for het couples to have hot dirty sex, but the only good gay people are the ones who abstain. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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irised
2010-05-04 02:02 am UTC (link)
Aww, it's so sweet <3 I really like it. Thank you!
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oconel
2010-05-03 10:08 pm UTC (link)
THIS! I grew tired of Lord John pinning over Jamie all the time and being there only to save the day (deux ex machina)
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eleutheria
2010-05-04 12:17 am UTC (link)
This.

Like I said upthread, it's like Gabaldon wants backpats for writing a gay character, but won't let him actually have a relationship, have sex, etc. There's got to be a trope for that, lesbian or gay main character whose love interest died/left/was murdered and the character never moves on, and therefore, the books get to have a gay character without risking squicking their more conservative readers with an actual gay relationship.
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cinnamonical
2010-05-04 01:16 am UTC (link)
There's got to be a trope for that, lesbian or gay main character whose love interest died/left/was murdered and the character never moves on, and therefore, the books get to have a gay character without risking squicking their more conservative readers with an actual gay relationship.

Relatedly, you also have bisexual characters who may have had homosexual relations in the past, but the "present" story focuses on their heterosexual romantic life, and there's no indication that they are physically/sexually attracted to members of their sex within that "present" story. (Dante Valentine and Marla Mason, I love you both, but I'm looking at you two!)

And yes, I know that depictions of bisexual characters is such a minefield because it seems like no matter what path you choose, you're always gonna lose somehow, but...
(Reply to this)(Parent)

irised
2010-05-04 02:04 am UTC (link)
He did have sex in a spinoff book, but it was with some faceless prostitute, so.

I remember when I was first reading it I had the impression that poor John had got the shit end of the ~true love is forever~ trope: he was in true love, so it was forever, but because it wasn't returned that meant unrequited love forever. Which sucked, but did make sense to me in the context of the style of the books.
But then as I kept reading it was like ... everyone was getting like STUPIDLY perfect happy endings, like really improbably "Oh come ON" happy endings tied up with bows ... except John? And I stopped reading, for a bunch of reasons, but one of them was because I just didn't want to find out that she never gave him anyone who loved him. Sooooo annoying.

In conclusion: Yeah, makes sense what you say. Preaching (singing?) to the choir, of course, but the one thing she doesn't give him - actual normal romantic love - is the one thing that would really be threatening. I'm sure homophobes are quite comfortable reading about a gay man pathetically pining, checking out other men's dicks, having a bit of random sex, etc because that still lets them easily look down on him. But love? That would be like he was a normal person!

Now I'm all depressed and I want to give John a hug :( and take him home and give him tea and a boyfriend and really nice biscuits and a special chess set :( augggggh. Going to go read ruffwriter's fanfic again.
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mockingbird
2010-05-04 11:34 am UTC (link)
But Lord john does have sex:

With Nessie, with isabella, with Brianna and even with Claire....
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eleutheria
2010-05-04 01:39 pm UTC (link)
Not in the two books I listened to.

(Sounds like he's only having het sex from this...?)
(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - mockingbird, 2010-05-04 07:07 pm UTC

ariadne484
2010-05-04 09:30 pm UTC (link)
So NO ONE ELSE has to: I just spent an hour rummaging TV Tropes to see if there's a named trope for this. I do think there's some article there about sexless gay and lesbian characters, but I couldn't find it.
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mneiai
2010-05-05 10:15 am UTC (link)
I think "Pet Homosexual" is either it or very close to it (I haven't read the books, so I don't know the exact details).
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anonyrat
2010-05-04 02:17 am UTC (link)
Is this the same Jamie as in the Outlander books?

'Cause, if what I'm gathering from other threads is true...

Did Gabaldon write one book wherein a time-traveling woman has loads of sex with a proxy of the author's husband (crossed with her favorite Dr Who character), and another book where a gay dude pines after the proxy of the author's husband?

That's kinda weird, to be quite honest.
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irised
2010-05-04 02:37 am UTC (link)
Yup, that's the one - it's a series that's still going as far as I know rather than just one book - and correct!

I was confused for a bit because I always knew them as the Dragonfly in Amber series rather than Outlander ... but yeah.

Jamie's the husband-proxy (I'm guessing the woman is the author proxy, she'd have to be) and Lord John is the gay dude who pines after him.
(Reply to this)(Parent)

irised
2010-05-04 02:38 am UTC (link)
Or apparently there's another dude who pines after him called Percy? Jesus!
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irised
2010-05-04 04:08 am UTC (link)
Ignore my last comment!
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winter
2010-05-04 03:22 pm UTC (link)
And wonderful fanfic it was *still loves Yulegift*
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ruffwriter
2010-05-05 08:33 pm UTC (link)
Well, fancy meeting you here! So glad you liked it - it was a blast to write. ♥
(Reply to this)(Parent)

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