love fanfiction? have opinions about story craft? time to tell me your thoughts!
eeeeeeeeekkkkkk hi everyone!
i have a really fun academic project coming up and i need YOUR HELP! info under the cut as it will be a long one
I am looking for volunteers to participate in my upcoming interview research project on the conception of story ‘ownership’ in fandom spaces.
The research:
I am looking for a few people to participate in semi-structured interviews for no more than 60 minutes through an online platform (tbc, might be discord or zoom). Questions will concern your views on the value of fanfiction, its relationship to canon texts, the idea of story ‘ownership’ and correlated copyright laws, and both the use and training of generative AI in relation to online digital works such as fanfiction. The interviews will be transcribed and compiled into a research essay on this contentious intersection between fanfiction, copyright, and gen-AI.
Ideal participants:
I am keen to interview people with various perspectives so as to understand any shared values which might inform our approach to gen-AI usage in fandom in future. Ideally this will be people who write fanfiction and actively participate in fandom. I am specifically focused on the Marauders and the Bards of New York fandoms, but depending on numbers I might be open to members of other fandoms as well!
If you are also a creator of original works (especially of a form of collaborative storytelling such as actual-play!), this is even better, but not required.
You must be over 16 years old to participate in this study.
Process:
If you are interested, please send me a DM on Discord (@caitlin_2048) and we can discuss this in more detail! From there, those interested will have the opportunity to review the schedule of planned questions before being asked to complete a few consent forms.
Please note: the nature of academic interview research and its correlated ethics requirements mean it is not possible for either myself or participants to preserve anonymity. However, the identities of those interviewed will be confidential. (I ask that this goes both ways, and you do not discuss my own personal details further either.)
DMing me to express interest DOES NOT mean that you have agreed to be interviewed or that you need to share identifying information.
Given this there are a few more details about the project which I will share only in DMs, because they share more about my location than I am comfortable doing on Tumblr specifically.
one thing about me is i have been holding off getting into hadestown for about seven years now, despite and in fact BECAUSE ive always known ill be insane about it. ive simply never been brave enough to face the inevitable hyperfixation. which means with the exception of a few jack wolfe clips (im in LUV with his vocals hfs) i am gonna go see the proshot and experience hadestown. for the first time ever. with no pre-emptive ideas. and im so excited i might die
sincerely. truly. lovingly. there is NOTHING that can stop me screaming, sobbing, yapping, rambling and crashing out on this blog. ive listened to maybe 1 song total and i already know its going to ruin my life
Please keep interacting with this post because when I come to tumblr to procrastinate, this shows up again in my notifications and guilts me into writing again
one thing about me is i have been holding off getting into hadestown for about seven years now, despite and in fact BECAUSE ive always known ill be insane about it. ive simply never been brave enough to face the inevitable hyperfixation. which means with the exception of a few jack wolfe clips (im in LUV with his vocals hfs) i am gonna go see the proshot and experience hadestown. for the first time ever. with no pre-emptive ideas. and im so excited i might die
nothing can break the bond between a friend who loves spoilers and a friend who just watched an amazing show and needs to tell someone the entire plot from start to finish
alternatively: nothing can break the bond between a friend who doesnt read and a friend who just read an amazing book and needs to tell someone the entire plot from start to finish
nothing can break the bond between a friend who cannot and will not watch horror but is still interested and a friend who just watched an amazing horror movie and needs to tell someone the entire plot from start to finish
personally I'm annoyed by the socioeconomic conditions that made words like "unalive" necessary but simultaneously impressed by the linguistic adaptations young people have made to continue talking about important things while subject to those conditions and I think if you can't hold both of those thoughts in your head you might just be old man yelling at cloud
Two of my niblings (10 and 7) self-censor like this in real life during actual conversations. I tried briefly to explain to the 10-year-old that they didn't have to do that in real life after they said "unalive" out loud in casual conversation, and they just said they preferred to. On the one hand, I'm sad to see them unconsciously and fully without awareness succumbing to the panopticon. On the other... this post.
it's not unprecedented in the evolution of languages to see euphemisms adopted as synonyms or even supplanting earlier terms. lots of people say "passed away" even in situations where there would be no particular social cost to saying "died".
for a particularly strong version of this kind of replacement: the word "bear" comes from a proto-Germanic word meaning "brown one" because there was a taboo against saying the animal's actual name. the taboo is gone but it was so strong in the past that we have no record of what the proto-Germanic word for "bear" even was.
maybe in 300 years the word "die" will be archaic and kids will dig it out of an etymology textbook and start using it because "unalive" is getting censored.
die has actually already undergone this process. die originally meant "flow" (i guess it's like you're flowing out of life or something? or maybe your life is flowing out of you idk). it was (probably) loaned from old norse to displace the now obsolete "swelt". and yes, that is the root word of "sweltering"
The fastest way to accomplish The Project is to cease being afraid of The Project. The Project cannot maim you. The Project cannot kill you. The Project is more afraid of you than you are of it. It is okay if The Project turns out differently from how it was in your head, and it is okay if it has flaws. You are capable of engaging with The Project.
