I'm done explaining why fanfic is okay.

Note: this post was originally made in 2010 in response to Diana Gabaldon’s epic rant about fanfiction. The original version is still being updated. I’m reposting it to Tumblr by request, but if you have any additions, please feel free to drop a comment at LJ so they can be added to the masterpost!

Dear Author of the Week,

You think fanfic is a personal affront to the many hours you’ve spent carefully crafting your characters. You think fanfic is “immoral and illegal.” You think fanfiction is just plagiarism. You think fanfiction is cheating. You think fanfic is for people who are too stupid/lazy/unimaginative to write stories of their own. You think there are exceptions for people who write published derivative works as part of a brand or franchise, because they’re clearly only doing it because they have to. You’re personally traumatized by the idea that someone else could look at your characters and decide that you did it wrong and they need to fix it/add original characters to your universe/send your characters to the moon/Japan/their hometown. You think all fanfic is basically porn. You’re revolted by the very idea that fic writers think what they do is legitimate.

We get it. 

Congratulations! You’ve just summarily dismissed as criminal, immoral, and unimaginative each of the following Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and works:

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“I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem.” ”

—Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber

“I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower’s stem.”

—Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber 

“When the day shall come, that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'--ye'll ken it was because I didna have time.”

—Diana Gabaldon, from “The Fiery Cross” (thanks, amberger93)

“And the world was all around us, new with possibility.”

—Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (thanks, mischa-mash)

“I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem." ”

—Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

“ "Cut me," I said urgently. "Deep enough to leave a scar. I want to take away your touch with me, to have something of you that will stay with me, always. I don't care if it hurts; nothing could hurt more than leaving you. At least when I touch it, wherever I am, I can feel your touch on me.”

—Diana Gabaldon Dragonfly in Amber

“It wasn't a thing I had consciously missed, but having it now reminded me of the joy of it; that drowsy intimacy in which a man's body is accessible to you as your own, the strange shapes and textures of it like a sudden extension of your own limbs.”

—Diana Gabaldon, Voyager

“I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem. ”

—Diana Gabaldon

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“”Nothing is lost, Sassenach, only changed.” 

“That’s the first law of thermodynamics,” I said, wiping my nose.

“No,” he said. “That’s faith.”” - Drums of Autumn (Diana Gabaldon)

one of the saddest things that happens to me on a regular basis

is when i’m scrolling through the channel guide and i see a movie called Outlander

and it isn’t based on the Diana Gabaldon book

SERIOUSLY WHY HASN’T THIS BEEN MADE YET

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