I really *wish* people would write fanfiction of my work.

I am an author who writes both original and fanfiction works and I don’t see a difference between the two processes, other than the fact that sometimes fanfiction is less descriptive. Yet, even here, it is up to the author creating that derivative work to make the story accessible, and while many authors believe you can throw out a lot of that basic characterization because ‘everyone already knows about it’, if you want to use fanfiction as an exercise tool, writing it should be approached with the same rules as original fiction. My goal when writing the occasional longer fanfiction piece is to ensure the reader can drop into this already created universe cold and still maintain a certain sense of the general feel of the show, and possibly seek the work it has been derived from out.

Personally, I love it when people write AUs of series and take stylistic risks that otherwise couldn’t happen in the original work. I’ve been guilty of this particular tack myself, and once had a very surreal experience where other fanfiction authors wrote fanfic based on my Alternate Universe characters. Being in contact with these ‘fans’ of the work was a wonderful experience, and opened my own eyes as to how people perceive what you have written with their own personal filters. Yes, there were some stories I didn’t particularly like, but then there were others that absolutely blew my mind with their insight.

Part of the whole issue, I think, is the fragile nature of the writerly ego. We *like* to think we are special and doing something important in creating these stories, but as we set them out into the wide world for all to see, they are now grown and on their own, creating their fledgling stir without us. Telling our stories they aren’t allowed to play with the kids down the street when they are full grown adults capable of making their own decisions tends to make an author appear as a controlling mother whose finger is always shaking and saying ‘no’ and who then wonders why her kids never call her.

Fanfiction, to me, is a love letter to an author, regardless of what squicky, odd, weird perception may be residing within it. The fact is, someone out there was passionate enough about what you’d written, became so enmeshed in the story, that they simply had to continue it in some fashion because it had such a deep hold upon their psyche. Creating that passion in a stranger is a worthy goal for any author.

I think it’s ironic that the pro-fanfic and anti-fanfic sides of things are both afraid of being silenced. It’s the fist/nose problem as usual.

Evaluating this later, I think maybe my nose is also too far out in the street: that should my mind respond with stories, I could find another way to express them in meta-dialog or some other means of communication.

But I’ll second what’s been said quite often: all the myths and legends we know began as fanfic, Dante was writing fanfic for Virgil, and the entire Western literary canon would end here if derivative works were banned. So they can’t be, and shouldn’t be, and if they were outlawed, it would make me an outlaw.

Here’s my new answer: let’s say a person, probably a woman but not necessarily, has experienced traumatic abuse. Their abuser force-fed them strawberries. The smell and appearance of strawberries reminds them.

It’s absolutely wrong to outlaw strawberries. It’s absolutely wrong to outlaw giving people strawberries.

But if you know that person, you won’t give them strawberries, even if it’s summer and that’s what your garden’s making. That’s not a legal argument; that’s respect.

I think I finally understand something I didn’t when I first read that comment and thought, “No! You can’t stop me from growing strawberries!”

I think that’s an interesting and worthwhile point- and I want to add that, as a writer and reader of fanfic, I have run across stories that perform that role for me. Stories that take a once-limited character perspective (think, Pansy Parkinson, a female Slytherin in the HP series) and expand on it, offering a female or alternative view of events and motivations. Honestly, I came to Harry Potter through fanfiction- I wasn’t interested in the books originally, but the sensitive and intelligent analysis I found of them in fanfiction and fandom meta-essays made me reconsider.

I respect the feelings and viewpoints of authors and creators like Jo- and I would refrain from using their work in fanfiction if I knew it personally offended them. And if I’m wrong for bringing up another point of hers, because the discussion should come away from her and on to fandom in general, please ignore this. But she later makes this statement:

“I can’t respond to all of you who are asking politely if I mind if they write fanfic in worlds I’m not still actively writing or whatever, because it all sounds like “Do you mind being raped just a little bit?”

I do have a problem with that statement, though I understand and appreciate her honesty and how hard it must be for her to struggle with the issue- but, to take the pressure off of Jo, I’ve seen statements like that again and again. That fanfiction can be compared to a violent or harassing act on the part of a fan-author. An author’s right to feel that way is absolute. But I also feel I have a right to disagree. One of my main “fandoms” is Doctor Who. It has a canon that spans decades, planets, and entire casts of characters. Within the canon itself, there’s debate over what’s considered in the timeline and authentic- the tie-in novels ? The radio plays ? Only the television series ? The comic books ?

When I create a new world for an established Doctor and companion to run around in; out of love for the characters and a desire to see them in some fun, exciting, different setting, dealing with new problems and challenges; it would be extremely hurtful to be accused of metaphorically “raping” an author’s canon or worse, the author themselves. Fanfiction, at its heart, is play. It’s play. When children weave new tales out of old, they do so because they’re finding a place for themselves in the universe; figuring out what sort of person they’d like to be, what they admire, what they’ve learned of human nature and of storytelling. We’re adults, so we have to be held responsible for how and when and why we play- but to be told that our creative play is actively harmful is unsettling at best.

We tell stories from our own perspectives and frameworks. I also write original fiction, both poetry and prose. And I consider that play. I do it out of love. And for the same reasons I go to fan communities and write for/with them. It’s a way to process our experiences of living in a world that saturates us with stories and myths and imagery, that demands we experience it; only to turn and tell us that none of it belongs to us- so we should watch, read and listen passively, and then consume the next product. It’s our way of dealing with a world where studio heads can say “no more movies with female leads.” I reject that model. Fanfiction communities aren’t utopia- God, are they not ! They’re a mess, but I think a productive, positive mess. What they are is an honest reaction and reflection of the human experience.

And I’ve rambled too long, apologies.

I love fanfic. I love reading *and* writing it.

There are some authors, studios, etc. that does not want fanfic published due to emotional attachment and/or copyright infringement. Example: Ann Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton have asked the writers at Fanfiction.net and several other large fanfic sites not to publish anything based on their stories. They stopped. For a while Universal and Fox were seeking out fanfic sites like to shut down fanfics of “The X-Files” and the “Star Trek” franchise. The studios backed down when they realized that fanfic helps to keep the franchise alive. I also happen to know that the creator of Disney’s “Gargoyles” appreciates fanfic, but would rather not read it. (”They’re like my children.”)

If you put out anything to be consumed by the public at large, then you should be ready for satire, parody, imitation, and further exploration. The people who write fanfic do so for the love of the franchise; it’s not as though anybody’s making any money off of it.

A derivative work is less of a contribution to the arts than an original one, whether we’re talking about Sweeney Todd the musical or Sweeney Todd the film or Wicked or the latest piece of fanfic.

I agree with Amp when he said that originality is not confined to creating new characters and settings. Originality can be a new interpretation of a well known story. For example, both “The Red Tent” (as mythago mentioned earlier) and “The Mists of Avalon” are derivative, as they take take their characters and settings from the Bible and Arthurian legend, respectively. The fact that these stories are so well known and prominent in Western culture adds to the novels’ power because it forces the audience to reconsider an old narrative in a new, and in the case of these novels, a female, perspective. Had the authors tried to advance the same ideas or themes using original character and settings, they may have produced very good historical fiction and fantasy, but it would not have had the same effect.

Another example, Jean Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea” is a prequel to and a retelling of a well known novel (”Jane Eyre”) from the perspective of one of the book’s characters (Bertha Mason). This case is somewhat different from the previous two works in that it is retelling a specific novel with a known author rather than popular myths or legends; in that sense it could be called fanfiction. Its value as art comes from the fact that it gives a voice to a marginalized character and explores issues (race, colonization, etc.) which are present in “Jane Eyre” but not addressed.

These ideas may have been easier to develop using well known characters rather than creating completely new characters and settings, but that does not detract from their value. IMO, the popularity of the stories and novel increases the power of the derivative works to communicate their themes and message because they have the ability to make readers to reconsider the original narrative in light of the issues raised by the new works, which may cause some readers to apply that same critical eye to other cultural narratives.

Although much fanfiction posted on the internet is badly written and mostly unoriginal, there are some talented and creative writers out there. It’s possible that sometime in the future a story that, for example, explores gender roles and heteronormativity in the Harry Potter universe could serve the same role for
“Harry Potter” that “Wide Sargasso Sea” does for “Jane Eyre” or “The Problem of Susan” does for “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

Just because fanfic does have the positive qualities you mention, along with Tigerlily and others, it doesn’t mean that all fanfic-related activities and opinions are above criticism.

Did any of us say it was?

No one mentioned world-saving either. Or orgasms.

I am worried when I see vocal groups of progressive, feminist-identified fans gloating about how they savaged Anne Rice, and how they showed that JK Rowling but good, and Jo Walton had better watch out if she prefers to explore women’s sexuality in published novels rather than the fanfic id vortex…

Um, links please? I for one have never seen gloating about savaging an author, only offhand ‘I don’t care what s/he says, I’m writing it anyway’ towards such people, and sometimes a bit of glee at turning a work to a purpose for which it was not intended (I have a [male] flatmate who is one of those people who take children’s books, make the protagonists all grown up, and then slash them). What you describe is fanfic writers attacking authors, threatening their persons and works - which would be an unusual thing for a fan to be doing. So, please, evidence?

Just because fanfic does have the positive qualities you mention, along with Tigerlily and others, it doesn’t mean that all fanfic-related activities and opinions are above criticism. Fandom is important, but the feelings of specific women and their ability to control their own professional work are also important. I am worried when I see vocal groups of progressive, feminist-identified fans gloating about how they savaged Anne Rice, and how they showed that JK Rowling but good, and Jo Walton had better watch out if she prefers to explore women’s sexuality in published novels rather than the fanfic id vortex… Saying the publishing and entertainment industries are male dominated doesn’t excuse trampling some women in the stampede.

Ya know, I would like to hope that in a feminist utopia, a woman would have the right to decide whether she wants her work to be used for other people’s sexual pleasure.

Why?

I mean, what would be utopian about that? Would the world really be a better place if her fans stifled themselves to protect her fee-fees? Note that statements like this never work in practice, as Anne Rice’s fandom has infamously proved - people are going to go away and process the books themselves, and this often involves fanworks and derivations, and telling them not to has no effect. Would a world in which the author could veto that process, on account of her feelings, really be a better world for anyone other than her?

Note that most fanwriters and fanartists are women, and most of the canons they take on are male-authored/directed. Dressing Walton’s story up with gender dynamics is horribly misleading wrt fandom as a whole. That said, I’m just generally intrigued by the fact that so much of fandom is about straight women giving sexual pleasure to other straight women with the help of utterly unaware men. How do you frame that?

Holly, I agree with Amp when it comes to derivation - the original Sweeney Todd stories would have been lost long ago had Sondheim not made them more than what they originally were. Also, how many great books have had a renaissance following an adaptation? I for one originally read both Les Miserables and Three Kingdoms because of exposure to adaptations and they’re now two of the core books in my life (while I no longer give two hoots about their adaptations). That phenomena has a clear parallel in fan cultures - people really do go out and buy books/DVDs because their favourite fanwriters have migrated to that fandom. It’s a tiny and uncontrollable marketing effect, but it gets people who are otherwise hard for advertisers to reach.

If you can get positive audience feedback on your work by giving them what they want… and what they want is more of the same characters in some predictable permutations (slash pairings, alternate timelines, etc) then that’s an easy way to get your audience fix. You never have to push yourself.

That begs a question - given that, why do some fanwriters push themselves? Why did Mitsugi write that 600,000 -word AU? In general, few fanwriters sit down and say ‘What’s the easiest way I can get more popular today?’ (though some, including Cassandra Clare, clearly do :/ ). Ease and recognition are not the base motivations here.

This isn’t true of all adaptations of course — some are vastly different, but we still always mention the original author for a reason.

Not so.

Aside from the fact that I think creativity is good for people’s psychological and emotional well-being, I also think there’s a positive value in expanding and evolving the kinds of stories we tell, what we tell them about, how we tell them, etc. I really do believe that’s an inherent good — creating new things that haven’t been explored before, even though as we’ve both already pointed out, there’s nothing that’s 100% new. A lot of fanfic, however, is utterly un-new.

But so are a lot of romance novels, or mystery novels, or supposedly original fantasies that are really just set in Tolkienland yet again. I recently saw it posited that that’s why most successful MMOs (and p&p RPGs) are fantasy, even though sci-fi consistently shifts more cinema tickets and TV audience figures; because everyone knows what an elf is and what it is likely to do, and such clichés are conducive to group activities. Fandom reflects that herd attraction to cliché, for sure, but so do published genre works.

As for emotional wellbeing, I agree but I wouldn’t project that onto everyone in the world. People who write tend to do it because it makes them happy in some way. That doesn’t mean that if everyone who doesn’t write began to do so, they’d all be happier. Fandom has unquestionably got a lot of people involved in creating who wouldn’t've otherwise done so (me, to some extent, though I stick mostly to original stuff nowadays), and that’s been good for a lot of us. Ponderosa’s article about how that worked for her is a powerful anecdote. Without fandom, could this new wave of creators have found themselves?

If you’re using your own stuff that nobody’s ever heard before, you have to work much harder to sell it, rely more on word of mouth — and with more readers engaged in consuming fanfic as opposed to original work (and reading time is certainly a scarce resource) there are fewer people to spread that word of mouth.

There are counterexamples to this - such as John Dies At The End, which after being available free on the web for several years (and still is) has now shifted hundreds of print copies. See also webcomics and web cartoonists (hello Amp!), though webcomics consume less of the reader’s time than original fiction and it’s easier to instantly see if you’re going to like it. And written porn - writing non-fan porn will get you a web audience and it will be a wider audience than if you’re writing in fandom, with a greater ratio of readers to writers.

Given that, I don’t think you can use the audience reception argument alone to explain why people write/draw fan stuff. I see it as more of a creative urge - to explore a story as part of a group, often a group that’s all-female or damn near it. I feel like you’re underrating the communities that make it possible for both fanworks and original works to thrive on the web - you seem to be casting them as a passive audience whose role is merely to reliably dispense feedback and popularity, rather than as fellow creators all.

Lose too much originality, and you end up like earthworms endlessly gobbling the same circle of mud, looking for the last shreds of nutrients. And although not all fandoms are like that, many are disturbingly close.

Yes, they are, and so (imo) is Hollywood.

Amp:

And there’s value in creativity that is relatively noncompetitive, too; many more people, including the gloriously talented but also those without much talent, can share “the prize” in fanfic than in professional fiction writing.

Ever read Women/Writing 1: How Fanfiction Makes Us Poor? I’m not 100% with that essay (for one thing, the first fic community I was ever part of happened to be the only majority-male one I’ve ever seen, and maybe that’s shaped my views on how gender affects fandom), but I think it raises an interesting counterargument to the idea that the “prize” of fandom is a real prize.

What follows is my interpretation: She writes when what a story needs to be is clear to her. It’s a very specific vision. (I use visual metaphors because that’s the way my mind works– I’m not sure it’s the most accurate description.)

That’s why she doesn’t want other people modifying the story or expanding on it– what they’re doing violates what the story *is* to her.

This isn’t about sexually oriented fanfic. It isn’t about copyright law. It isn’t about why other writers do or don’t want fanfic based on their work. It’s about what one writer needs to want to continue to publish.

It’s tempting to believe that everyone’s mind is pretty much similar, and pretty much like your own, or at least their minds *should* be like yours, but this just isn’t true. Other people’s minds are stranger than you can imagine, but you only find this out if you give them room to be different.

Once she shares it with somebody, a draconian copyright enforcement policy might manage to keep fanfic from being distributed to the general public. But there’s no way in the world to keep people from writing it in the privacy of their own homes, or from thinking of it in their own heads.

If you don’t want people to share in your writing, then don’t share it with them. You can’t have it both ways.

/me goes off to find some Malcolm/Jayne/Vera slash. Hope Joss doesn’t mind.

I don’t know if you have some kind of sound plug-in to the Internet, but I know for damn sure I didn’t put my voice on it. Which is to say, the “condescending tone” was entirely in your imagination.

If you think I’m wrong, then criticize me on that ground, not because I’m not author enough to really get what it’s like, ya know

Oh, for crissakes. I don’t even need to post. Carry on pretending that you can read my mind and make up my half of the conversation; you’re clearly enjoying it so.

If you think I’m wrong, then criticize me on that ground, not because I’m not author enough to really get what it’s like, ya know, really like to have written something which people might fanfic about.

In your last comment, you attempted to conflate these things.

Oh, please, Mythago. In a condescending tone, you deigned to explain to me that a book is “not just a thing” to “an author.”

Authors are different.

Amp reminded me this afternoon of a time when Sailorman lectured you on the nitty gritty of the law with the assumption that you were ignorant on it. He put his foot in his mouth then; you’ve put yours in your mouth now. I know full well how “an author” feels, and since there’s more than one of us, we feel differently.

A good deal of fanfic, in my experience, is written as a contribution to a community, as well as an artistic statement. For example, after an episode of a TV show, lots of “post-ep” fanfic appears, as a discussion of the episode. It would be hard to argue that artistic originality is the primary purpose or even a useful tool for assessment of these fanfics.

The community of communicators is great to some degree. It’s also limiting. There are probably writers out there who have more potential than writing fanfic, who don’t take the risk of really trying to push their own original ideas because they’re getting some level of audience gratification via borrowing others’ characters. To me that’s a loss. It’s nice that they have a small safer pool to swim around in, but the world is a little bit poorer.

And many people who might never have shown their writing or art to anyone else will find an audience, and be encouraged to create more, and the world is a little bit richer for it.

(And how many frustrated, “original” but ultimately mediocre artists, who never find any publication or recognition for their countless hours spent creating, would have been happier if they hooked up with a fanfic community instead?)

No fanfic (except absolute cut-and-paste plagiarism) is utterly un-new. At the very least, it gives the authors the pleasure of creating. Not everyone is driven to create their own universes; some people find it more fulfilling to fill in the gaps in someone else’s work.

A derivative work is less of a contribution to the arts than an original one, whether we’re talking about Sweeney Todd the musical or Sweeney Todd the film or Wicked or the latest piece of fanfic.

This is an odd example to discuss, and not — I think — one that supports your case. Sondheim, the songwriter of Sweeney Todd, is arguably the best musical writer of the last century; he’s certainly in any reasonable critic’s “top 5″ list. But most of his musicals are derivative.

I think you’re trying too hard to find a hard-and-fast rule where there’s none. I think that originality is part of what determines “contribution to the arts” — but originality can be expressed in more ways than just making up characters and settings, and sometimes — as in the case of Sweeney Todd — the work added later can be the more important and original work.

The best creators tend to produce original characters and settings is because that’s where you can find respect and recognition. In fields — like musicals — where it’s not considered second-rate to adapt other people’s work, it’s common to see highly respected creators doing both adaptations and original (well, y0u know what I mean) work.

I do agree with you that there’s value in creating new characters and settings, but there’s also value in community, and in using creativity as a means of sharing beliefs and thoughts about a common work of art. And there’s value in creativity that is relatively noncompetitive, too; many more people, including the gloriously talented but also those without much talent, can share “the prize” in fanfic than in professional fiction writing.

My point is not that fanfic is somehow going to gain you a huge audience. It’s that fanfic is more instantly gratifying, because you will get more recognition to start out with than if you were producing original works. No, you’re not going to hit the bigtime with fanfic (and in fact you’d probably encounter a lawsuit if you did) but at the tiny beginning level, it’s much easier to get some attention, some cheers, some excitement from readers, if you are borrowing characters and settings they’re already attached to. If you’re using your own stuff that nobody’s ever heard before, you have to work much harder to sell it, rely more on word of mouth — and with more readers engaged in consuming fanfic as opposed to original work (and reading time is certainly a scarce resource) there are fewer people to spread that word of mouth.

The community of communicators is great to some degree. It’s also limiting. There are probably writers out there who have more potential than writing fanfic, who don’t take the risk of really trying to push their own original ideas because they’re getting some level of audience gratification via borrowing others’ characters. To me that’s a loss. It’s nice that they have a small safer pool to swim around in, but the world is a little bit poorer. Or in other words, what you said:

But you’ll be confined to your tiny pool, and no one outside that pool will ever have access to what you’ve done (or care).

A lot of people create not only for themselves, but for some kind of audience. If you can get positive audience feedback on your work by giving them what they want… and what they want is more of the same characters in some predictable permutations (slash pairings, alternate timelines, etc) then that’s an easy way to get your audience fix. You never have to push yourself.

And why is getting more people into writing or drawing inherently good from your POV, rather than just being a moral neutral?

Aside from the fact that I think creativity is good for people’s psychological and emotional well-being, I also think there’s a positive value in expanding and evolving the kinds of stories we tell, what we tell them about, how we tell them, etc. I really do believe that’s an inherent good — creating new things that haven’t been explored before, even though as we’ve both already pointed out, there’s nothing that’s 100% new. A lot of fanfic, however, is utterly un-new.

Of course all creative work is derived from something — reality, history, other stories, etc. But:

There’s assuredly a difference there, because everyone knows what a fanfic is and what an original fic is, but I don’t think it’s a hard line in the sand.

There actually is a relatively hard line in the sand when it comes to legal definitions of what a “derivative work” is. You can show if something’s derivative or not. A work is not derivative if it just uses plot structures or ideas or techniques from another work. But it is if it has the same characters, places, etc. I think there are some fairly bright lines there even if they’re not “hard” (I’m suspicious of hard lines) — and not coincidentally, they’re the same kinds of things that attract fandoms to fanfic. Recognizable characters. Recognizable settings.

There’s a cultural spectrum here rather than a simple divide between originals and fanworks; we’ve already been talking about Wicked; and we don’t say that films or TV series based on books or comics are unacceptable (the sole difference there being that someone has paid someone else for the right to make that film/TV adaptation, and not even that in the case of the Sweeney Todd or Pride & Prejudice films).

Nothing we’re talking about here is “unacceptable” by any means. But all of these things are derivative works, and I think we really do regard derivative works differently than original ones. If I were to “faithfully” adapt a book into a film, I don’t have total copyright in the screenplay, it’s a derivative. People would not talk about it as if the screenplay was entirely my creative work. All I did was “port” it as if making a mobile phone version of a PC video game. It’s often considered “hack work” even when done by very skilled writers, and that’s for a reason. This isn’t true of all adaptations of course — some are vastly different, but we still always mention the original author for a reason.

A derivative work is less of a contribution to the arts than an original one, whether we’re talking about Sweeney Todd the musical or Sweeney Todd the film or Wicked or the latest piece of fanfic. It doesn’t mean a derivative is bad or icky or that I wouldn’t want to read it. But especially as fandoms have grown and grown over the last few decades, I sometimes start to feel as if we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that there IS value in originality, even if there is no such thing as “pure” originality, only a spectrum. Lose too much originality, and you end up like earthworms endlessly gobbling the same circle of mud, looking for the last shreds of nutrients. And although not all fandoms are like that, many are disturbingly close.

If you borrow someone else’s stuff, you are guaranteed more recognition and often a ready-made community of people interested in those properties. You don’t have to think of your own stuff and you’re not going to suffer the slings and arrows of people calling your material unoriginal, uninspired, or stupid, because it’s not your material. At most they’ll criticize your execution and flair and faithfulness and maybe how interesting it was. I guess that’s good in some ways (getting more people into writing, drawing, whatever) and if even 2% of derivative creators eventually move on to making their own works, it’s worthwhile as a stepping stone. And it’s probably higher than 2% in some areas (illustrators, for instance).

I disagree. Fanfic writing doesn’t and can’t guarantee more recognition than original writing; what it guarantees is membership of a community of communicators. If you’re half-decent you’ll get a small amount of instant feedback. But you’ll be confined to your tiny pool, and no one outside that pool will ever have access to what you’ve done (or care). Writing original stuff is the only way to gain a wide audience.

As for the 2% - I think most fan-creators also make their own stuff (I know a mere handful who don’t), but very little of that stuff will even be submitted for publication away from the internet. People who write or draw as a hobby have always existed; fandom just gives them a way to be communal about it, often while they keep working on their non-fandom projects. Is writing for a fanfic community inherently less good than writing original stuff for just yourself? And why is getting more people into writing or drawing inherently good from your POV, rather than just being a moral neutral?

But as challenging and creative as all of that may be — coming up with concepts and struggling to get unfamiliar new worlds across to readers is ALSO an important and difficult part of writing.

How many published authors do that? Don’t most write about real or real-based locations rather than imaginary ones? Don’t most of them explore existing cultural niches rather than carving out new ones? How many of them base characters on real people they’ve known, or on parts of themself? There’s assuredly a difference there, because everyone knows what a fanfic is and what an original fic is, but I don’t think it’s a hard line in the sand. There’s a cultural spectrum here rather than a simple divide between originals and fanworks; we’ve already been talking about Wicked; and we don’t say that films or TV series based on books or comics are unacceptable (the sole difference there being that someone has paid someone else for the right to make that film/TV adaptation, and not even that in the case of the Sweeney Todd or Pride & Prejudice films). Meanwhile fandom works dot all over the landscape - not all fanwriters are Cassandra Clare, and many do things that are as tenuously connected to someone else’s canon as Wicked is. (I’m thinking of Bridlewood Manor as much as anything - over 600,000 words of AU in a historical setting, with decreasingly little connection to the anime it’s supposedly a fic of, written for an audience of mere dozens). Such things are fandom because they’re part of a community - a culture, even - of other fanfics and the people who read and write them. Wicked is not part of fandom, for the exact same reason. But it is fanfic.

However, although I certainly wouldn’t want to use her as “an icon,” I don’t think that someone who makes a statement in public — especially a statement regarding a very controversial issue — can reasonably expect other people to refrain from commenting on her statement to disagree. I don’t think that Ms. Walton had any such expectation; but you seem to have such an expectation, and I disagree with you on that one.