Dear Interviewers: Please Refer to Wheaton’s Law, Re: Fanworks

Wheaton’s Law: Don’t be a dick.

So this happened. It’s just part of a long pattern of interviewers basically trying to embarrass both actors and fan writers/artists by bringing them forcibly together. (See also: people showing Tom Hiddleston pornographic fanart during interviews.) These people are dicks. Dicks of phenomenal magnitude. I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves, but the very fact that they’re doing this kind of bullshit pretty much shows that they have no shame.

This is the thing about being a fan writer or artist: your creative space is implicitly under the radar, made by the creators of the original work willingly turning a blind eye to give fans room to play. I wrote fanfiction for years and years (and still do, to be honest, very occasionally) and for the most part you do so on the understanding that the creators of the original work will never see what you’ve done. You’re writing for yourself, and for other fans. That’s what makes it fun and joyful. It keeps fan communities strong, which for the most part is a good thing, since yay loyal fan base. No one gets hurt (outside of shipping wars casualties), no harm, no foul, everyone is happy.

Now, it’s different if a creator (or actor) asks for fanworks to be sent to them (like the amazing Trollando Jones asking for fanfic!) or if, say, you come up with something beautiful and tasteful and want to send it as a tribute*. It’s also different if someone actually goes looking for work on the internet. It’s the internet. Enter at your own risk.

But this pattern of taking fanwork and shoving it in the face of people involved in the original movie (etc) is beyond gross. It’s mean-spiritedly shitting in someone’s sandbox for the sake of being a dick. And I shouldn’t even have to say that it’s gross to force something embarrassing on unsuspecting people in public, and megagross when it’s pornographic.

And it’s gross to search out fanworks just for the purposes of publicly mocking them. I feel like I hit my head and woke up back in high school, when the mean girls were stealing my notebook and staging dramatic readings of my horrible teen angst poetry. Fuck you for trying to make the act of creation feel unsafe. Fuck you for punishing people for loving something. No, really, fuck you guys.

And for good measure, fuck everyone who thinks what is basically cruelty for the sake of being cruel is funny.

(Don’t be ashamed of your fanfic.)

*-I shouldn’t even have to say this, BUT: sending pornographic work to someone who hasn’t asked for it is never, ever okay. Kind of like sending other people pictures of your genitalia is never okay. Same principle. Including someone in your sex life non-consensually is never okay.