Ficstuff

[puddingcat]

Heavens, I almost forgot to submit prompts for springkink! I've resubmitted 6 that weren't picked last time, and dreamed up 8 new ones. I think there's some good daegaer and louiselux bait in there to ease my first few weeks in my new job... < / puppydogeyes > ;)

This time, I will be good. I know I can't do more than a couple of short fics, especially with a move & everything associated with it. Please feel free to kick me if I appear to be doing otherwise.

ETA the bit I originally meant to write:

With all the LJ fuss about underage characters in fanfic / fanart, I'm not sure quite what to think of Jilly Cooper's latest (Wicked). I *like* Jilly Cooper, with all her 2-dimensional expositions and lack of understanding of anyone without a £200k house in the country. It reminds me of growing up during the Eighties :)

I'm less sure how to take sex scenes (not graphic, but certainly R-rated at times, in comparison with much of the fic out there) between schoolchildren. I *know* a large percentage of kids have sex before they're 16, but I'm still not comfortable with it being made sexy in a bestselling book. And, of course, why is it ok for a published author to write things that would get the user kicked off LJ?

Comments

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Because she's Jilly Cooper, she's not publishing that on 6As servers and if her publisher is in the UK, then the US Obscenity laws that LJ said they were going to be ruling things by may not apply to said book, at least not in the UK.
LJ doesn't have to let the fanfic be on here at all, remember.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I'm aware of all the 6A / LJ / US law stuff (I like to think of myself as being in the "not a silly teenager" 5% of fandom ;) ). I actually agree with LJ's crack down on fandom; my issues both times were with the way they handled things, rather than the substance of what they were doing.

It's the "Because it's Jilly Cooper" that makes me uncomfortable. Whether it's people writing about 14 year olds in the UK, 16s in the US or 10 year olds in Japan (ew), I have a problem with undeage sex being glamourised, with none of the related problems even being hinted at.

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

The first time? Badly done. The second time? Warnings of how things would be done were given in news posts, large amounts of fandom ignored said info.

Sadly, 'because it's Jilly Cooper' is probably the reason she can get away with it. Which is stupid.

[matgb]

Or, alternately, the US laws are a lot more liberal than ours are, but they still have lines that can be crossed—there is an artistic/literary merit test, they've stated that it'd be very hard for fic to cross that line, but pictures can and do do so a lot more easily.

If Jilly's book came attached with graphic pictures? They'd probably still let it through because it (scarily) has literary merit, whereas the two pics that were the cause of the problem really didn't have much merit at all.

Plus the idiots searching for and reporting stuff can spot an obscene pic when they see one, but readin' thos wurd fings?

LJ messed up, big time, and broke their own procedures as well, but the UK laws, last I looked, would clamp down a lot more on such images. Fic would be different though, and is pretty safe (now).

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

The obscenity laws that 6A keep quoting are pretty clear. Thing is, when it all first exploded and LJ were trying to fix the mess, they said that they'd be abiding by US obscenity laws (which say stuff about no graphic sexual depictions of people under 18, fictional or not, apparently), they quoted all this, and then the screaming fankids ignored it and claimed that LJ had never mentioned this when the user got banned for the Snarry pic. Giving them links is quite funny, things were clearly stated. This doesn't mean that LJ went about things the right way, but the info was in the news posts, ignoring it doesn't mean it doesn't apply to you.

The US obscenity laws are harsher than the UK ones.

[scribblemoose]

I think because she's published in the UK, primarily. If the LJ servers were in this country, things would be a lot saner, imho.

Except the site would probably go down at 4pm each day for tea. ^_^

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

IAWTC

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

*Points up* What I said to madwitch.

Posisbly I've been spoiled by getting into the grown-up side of fandom, but where issues like underage sex have been a part of fics I've read, they've been dealt with intelligently. The "sex is great, nobody gets upset or regrets it, STDs don't exist and single motherhood at 13 is fun" spin that Cooper put on it is, IMO, irresponsible.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it wouldn't matter if the site went down. All its readers would be havng tea as well ;)

(Quote from an ex-partner at work: "A server is something that goes down on you on a Friday afternoon.")

[scribblemoose]

*laughs* I must share that one with my IT colleagues ;)

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Is that meant to sound so dirty or is it just me?

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Oh, it had a whole room of accountants falling off their chairs :) I don't think she intended it, though!

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

I adored Wicked! (reviewed it on my LJ last year and have been pimping it to whoever would listen ever since)
As a product of a private school and a teacher (now thankfully retired) in the state system, I can say she got it all exactly right and if people /authors use sex to sell serious ideas to the general public, good luck to them! I think the story will tell a lot of people a lot about education without them realising they're being lectured to.

Her research was truly phenomenal and whilst she uses stereotypical characters she does so for a purpose. Actually, from my own teaching experiences I could almost say that the kids from the state school had been through my class... I could even give you their names.

I was perfectly comfortable with the book,and with the sex. Reality, after all.The only under-age sexy bits were between kids within a similar age range; the adult-child sex was terrifying and the perpetrators got their just deserts; the gay teachers were shown not to be paedophiles; the adult het sex was 'normal'.

I'm less comfortable with people who object to sexy pictures of Daniel Radcliffe who is over eighteen and has appeared nude in Equus.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, springkink. I will see what I can do. :D

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Yay!

(I didnt ask for cravats *or* riding boots. Aren't I good?)

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

But did you ask for ancient history AUs? :-)

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

ancient history AUs

Not *quite*, no...

Coming along very very late to this...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I have to say, btw, that my personal experience of underage sex (as in - I was underage - just - and my partner was a year older) is that it can be very good fun, with no angst and actually considerably less drama than a lot of the overage sex I've had!

My High School Sweetheart (tm) was a love, we had a lot of fun, and some quite good sex. We broke up with some teenage angst, but wound up still being friends eleven years later.

I guess by 'problems' you mean teen pregnancy? I agree that is a scary scary thing, but most of my friends were sexually active from their mid teens onwards and no one got pregnant. I think it's all about the context - teenagers shagging is part of growing up. I think shagging much older people, or where there's an abusive edge/uneven power balance it is much ickier. I must say - I've always been horribly freaked out by some of the Hermione/Snape stuff out there, even when there wasn't graphic sex attached!