It’s inaccurate. It should be just “fiction.” The addition of the word fan is not a comment on the writing but a comment on the writer that is being used to project judgment on the writing and set it inherently lower than “non-fan fiction.” This is an unfair, spurious judgment, and we should be less complacent in accepting it.

To begin explaining why, I think we need to start at literature’s roots, before it was literature or even writing. I do believe that our use of language and, most importantly, use of language to tell stories–whether of a successful hunt earlier that day, an ancestor’s triumphs in battle, or a completely made-up account of a colony on Mars–is one of the most important traits that defines us as human apart from our brethren in the Animal Kingdom. Prehistoric evidence shows that, as far as you want to go back, if there were people, then they were telling stories.

All over the world, for example, we see a rich tradition of oral storytelling among preliterate peoples. Because these societies did not yet have writing, then all of their stories were a form of what we now call fan fiction: If I am a storyteller, and I hear something that I like, then I retell that later. Only, because it was not written down, then I am less concerned with fidelity to the original and invent where I might have forgotten exactly how it goes or reinvent when I think that I like a different idea better. Or I reframe an old story so that it is more relevant to the present day: think of all the Christian elements in Beowulf, a poem about a pre-Christian Pagan civilization.

Nor am I the first to make this argument; Natasha Walter gave fandom its favorite quote to validate its existence when she said that “when it comes to fan fiction, the internet is giving us back something like an oral society, in which people can retell the stories that are most important to them and, in so doing, change them.” The SWG uses that quote on its LiveJournal community, and I see it resurface occasionally in an email sig line of some fan defending her dirty habit against the scorn of the literati. Fans are, I have found, really proud to “return to their roots,” so to speak, in engaging in collective and revisionist storytelling as old as the species. But there is actually a return to nothing. Writing based on the words of those to come before us never stopped. We are upholding a tradition of storytelling as old as the species, defending it against commercial interests.

It is hard to find a medieval fictional writing that does not have a source. Religious and Biblical stories, myths and legends, historical accounts, and the work of other writers formed the basis of much of medieval literature. If you look at Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for example, it is a poem made up of two plots, each coming from a different Celtic legend. Even in combining them, scholars can’t agree as to whether this was done first by a French author, and the anonymous Gawain poet was just copying what he’d read elsewhere, or if he’d originated the concept of putting two familiar stories together into one. Or, to put it into “fan fiction” terms: did the the Gawain poet invent the crossover?

That medieval literature largely derived from existing sources makes sense since much of medieval literature began as oral storytelling: Building upon, expanding on, and reinventing favorite stories was how literature was done. Nor was there copyright to complicate things. A story was “owned” by anyone who heard or read it.

But derivative and transformative fiction–fan fiction–did not end in the Middle Ages. The American author Washington Irving is credited with writing the first short story: “Rip Van Winkle.” “Rip Van Winkle,” however, was not Washington Irving’s story. It was a rewriting of the German story “Peter Klaus the Goatherd” by J.C.C. Nachtigal, which Nachtigal had transcribed from a folk tale. Irving liked it, so he retooled it a bit and wrote it in English. Yes, a fan fiction writer invented one of the most prolific genres in literature today: the short story!

Of course, conditions for writers were not ideal in the 19^th century. There was no such thing as international copyright, so an author could publish a story in the United States and discover it reprinted and selling like proverbial hotcakes in England (or vice versa), without ever having given his permission–much less earning payment–for the sale. This is clearly not ideal if we want to encourage a system where writers can make a living on their work (which, of course, allows them to produce more of the work that we love). So maybe one could argue that making copyright stricter in order to protect writers is what made certain kinds of fiction into fan fiction, a genre inferior to its brethren where the connection between it and the sources that inspired it are less apparent.

But fan fiction is not only being written but being published even today.

Neil Gaiman is regarded as one of the most imaginative authors in speculative fiction today. In his last short story collection, Fragile Things, he included a story, “The Problem of Susan,” that dealt with questions raised by C.S. Lewis’s Narnia stories. “The Problem of Susan” supposes a basic familiarity with Lewis’s writings (even though, like most good fan fiction, it can be read and enjoyed without it) and even uses Lewis’s characters. Gaiman could never understand why Susan, of all the Pevensie children, had to remain behind and never return to Narnia:

I read the Narnia books to myself hundreds of times as a boy, and then aloud as an adult, twice, to my children. There is so much in the books that I love, but each time I found the disposal of Susan to be intensely problematic and deeply irritating. I suppose I wanted to write a story that would be equally problematic, and just as much of an irritant, if from a different direction ….
Fragile Things, Introduction.

He writes about Susan’s life, long after Narnia, to address the questions the book raised for him.

This should sound familiar to fan fiction authors. The curtains close on a part of a literary history, only questions, even dissatisfaction, still linger in our minds. So what do we do? We write as though that curtain never dropped and consider the continuation of the story that the author never embarked upon. We use that author’s ideas to make sense of the story’s outcome, or not. My story Rekindling does this: Tolkien never described the ending and remaking of the world into Arda Unmarred. Using some of his early ideas, I consider one possibility. Keiliss’s beautiful and haunting Star’s End is another such story that looks at Arwen’s death and Maglor’s fate. MithLuin’s intriguing novella Lessons from the Mountain takes Maedhros’s story beyond where Tolkien left us at his death and tells of his rehabilitation in the halls of Mandos. Stories that consider Elladan and Elrohir’s choice between mortality and immortality fit as well, as do Legolas and Gimli’s Fourth Age adventures. Maglor in history and Frodo sailing to Tol Eressëa are common enough that they are practically their own genres.

So what is the difference between what these authors are doing and what Gaiman has done? Many of the authors of Tolkien stories like those described above treat the texts on which they are based just as thoughtfully–even more so–than Gaiman’s treatment of Lewis’s works “The Problem of Susan.”

Responding to a story by answering it with stories of our own is a human trait. We have been doing this since we have been. In every literary epoch, even as it dwindles as copyright tightens and “originality” becomes increasingly valued, we see writers engaging stories in this way. It is neither new nor primitive: It is simply human.

This is the first reason why I detest the term “fan fiction.” Until recently, fan fiction has simply been fiction. Creatively engaging another author’s story was no different than creatively engaging a philosophical idea, a scientific concept, or a historical event. That Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” was a rewrite of an existing German story didn’t make it subpar; it was simply a fact about its creation that didn’t impede enjoyment of the story any more than knowing that Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged about a free-market economy or that Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park about dinosaurs and DNA impeded enjoyment of those: These authors are all engaging aspects of their world and doing so creatively. Why is literature–ironically, of all subjects!–roped off from such inquiry?

I believe that the term “fan fiction” has nothing to do with the fiction and everything to do with the fan. In other words, it is not derogatory because of the kinds of stories it produces; I hope that I have adequately shown that these sorts of stories were and continue to be natural displays of human creativity. It is derogatory because of who the writer is perceived to be, and that is why we should be insulted by it.

What is a fan? It derives from the term fanatic: someone who is passionate to the point of irrationality about something. Think packs of men breaking off the necks of bottles to glass the opposing team’s fans after a sporting match. Think animal liberationists who throw fake blood on families visiting the zoo. Think religious zealots who leave tracts as tips as restaurants because they honestly believe that the words and hazy illustrations will benefit their underpaid server more than money to feed her family. These are not people who deal thoughtfully and rationally with anything where their subject of interest is concerned.

Fan derives from that. It has, of course, earned a milder meaning over time. I can say that I am a fan of the actor Ioan Gruffudd without worrying that I might be misconstrued as a stalker who is–as I type this essay on fan fiction–sitting outside of his house, waiting for him to emerge so that I can kidnap him a la Stephen King’s novel Misery. Or I can be a fan of country music, Japanese motorcycles, wine bars, or Marvel comics.

Our fannish interests as humans are unlimited, but they are invariably regarded as frivolous. Once I get into a certain realm of “serious” subjects, I am not longer a fan but maybe a student or a scholar. I don’t say, for example, that I am a fan of medieval literature. In that I enjoy it, in that I spend a lot of time and thought on it, it is much like the fannish interests I just listed. But to say, “I am a real fan of Piers Plowman!” sounds almost as ridiculous as saying, “I spend my weekends reading, fishing, and performing neurosurgery!” I think it is generally assumed that certain subjects eclipse fannishness and become matters of serious study.

So why am I a student of medieval literature but a fan of Tolkien’s stories? Actually, Tolkien’s works are a perfectly valid subject of study, and there are people who consider themselves not fans but students of his work. Why am I any different? Because, of course, one of my primary ways of dealing with the texts to this point has been through exploring them creatively: in pondering what Pengolodh’s authorship of The Silmarillion means for that text, I wrote a story about it; in trying to explain the story of Lúthien in mythological and historiographical terms, I wrote a story about that too. Who can take that seriously?

I remember that I once got a comment on a story on FanFiction.net from a reviewer who identified herself or himself as a “Tolkien scholar.” I remember nothing else about the comment except for that (and the fact that s/he misspelled the word gonorrhea). I remember, at the time, finding the comment hugely funny. What sort of “scholar” would come up with such wonky views about Tolkien and what sort of scholar would misspell gonorrhea? And, most importantly, what sort of scholar would waste her or his time debating with a fan-fiction writer? The idea of “scholar” and “FanFiction.net” could not be reconciled in my mind; it was contradictory, along the lines of “fighting for peace” or bombing clinics for “pro-life” causes.

When I think of myself as a fan-fiction writer, I can’t possibly take myself seriously. I see a parody of myself: a squealing little girl leaping up and down and clapping her hands until she faints for a lack of oxygen. That high-pitched squeal is all that I have to contribute to the discussion of his works; I am a fan and lack rationality and the perspective that comes with it. But I know that the study I’ve made of Tolkien’s works has been serious. There has been very little leaping up and down and no fainting. My study and writing about Tolkien has been largely grounded in rationality, in a desire to better understand something that I enjoy. Coupled with the human drive to express myself as a storyteller, my ideas take shape as fan fiction.

So what makes me a fan-fiction writer and Neil Gaiman simply a writer? Well, of course, he had proven himself as a writer long before writing “The Problem of Susan”: He had work published, he won awards, he sold lots of books. He’s earned his credibility in expressing ideas creatively, even ideas about works of literature that would ordinarily be corralled as “fan fiction.” With the few publications to my name all in journals or anthologies no one has ever heard of, I don’t carry that credibility. When I interact creatively with a text, it becomes a frivolity, even a perversion. It becomes something to be ashamed of and treated as subpar to so-called “original fiction” or to the derivative/transformative/(fan) fiction of proven writers like Neil Gaiman.

Even look at how we talk about ourselves. Of course, there is fan fiction and fandom and fannish, all words derived from that word fanatic, with all the implications of hysteria and irrationality intact. Then we are “playing in So-and-So’s sandbox.” We are not engaging the texts as fellow readers, writers, and critics. We are children, making silly artifacts that are easily stomped into nothingness. We are “fangirls” and “fanboys” (except for Juno Magic’s reimagined “fancrones,” which I love): again, children. Again, tiny, insignificant voices piping well below the range of adult hearing, sequestered away at a kids’ table where we need not bother the grown-ups with our nattering. We talk about ourselves as frivolous and in need of growing up but, no, I don’t believe that this is always true. I don’t believe that we have nothing to offer, either in analyzing the stories we write about or as writers of fiction independent of those stories.

I see the so-called “real” world of writing fiction as one where there is a lot of scrambling going on to assert the value of one’s work by devaluing the work of others, often without ever having read it. Genre fiction gets trod upon by the literary genre, and sub-genres get stomped by their mainstream counterparts. (Has anyone else ever heard the sneer in the voice of journals that, for example, accept fantasy and horror but “nothing with vampires or werewolves”?) I see the label of “fan fiction” as another way of devaluing a genre of writing. Except that “fan fiction” is perhaps the oldest genre of writing around; I think it deserves better than this.

And I think that we deserve better than this. The Internet is transforming how we write. No longer do we have to be “good enough” (read: unoffensive enough, mainstream enough, know enough of the right people) to be read. More people have probably read my novel Another Man’s Cage than have read all of my published writings combined. It must be scary, for an industry accustomed to acting as arbiters of quality and taste, to consider us. In reading arguments against fan fiction, it is inevitably mentioned that fan fiction has the potential to take a paying audience from a writer. We are cast as thieves. Implied in that fear is that fan fiction about a story may be better than the original. That as a series creaks on indefinitely, fans dissatisfied with the plummetting quality might get their “fix” of characters and a world that they enjoy through fan fiction, not through purchasing the original author’s books. Whenever I see literary snobbery in action, I hear a note of fear underlying it: that someone who we thought took writing less seriously than we did somehow managed, despite that, to produce a better story. What’s left after that but to discredit the story’s very existence, to claim it as inherently inferior?

“Fan fiction” is not inferior. It is a continuing form of storytelling that is older than writing itself; it is the way that humans always have and always will engage the stories that interest and inspire them. It is a way that authors celebrate not only their love for those stories but analyze, discuss, and otherwise make sense of those stories. What we do is not inferior or even immoral; this–not the idea of derivative or transformative storytelling–is the novel attitude, and it serves the commercial interest of those who would compartmentalize stories as saleable entities. We should be less complacent in accepting this, beginning by not willfully labeling our work as inferior.

I find the argument of those most vociferously in the NO camp to be a little disturbing.

Because what is an “academic” reading–which, based on the posts I’ve read, is being defined as detailed analysis of whether and why a story works–of fanworks if not simply one of many ways to approach a very broad and diverse topic?

Swatkat24 put it best: “I find the anti-aca/fen debates that make the rounds in fandom every now and then worrisome, and very opposed to that aspect of fannish culture I’ve come to cherish over the years: tolerance of other people’s weird obsessions.“

The argument against “acafen” (those fans who enjoy and engage in academic analysis and discourse about fanworks) seems to revolve primarily around the idea that to analyze a work too deeply ruins it. In K.A. Laity’s original post that spurred this current round of discussion, one commenter put it as, “Funny thing I’ve found– when you cut the living dog into pieces, it never acts the same afterwards, even if you put the pieces back where you found them.” Twistedchick drew a similar parallel with, “I have never liked dissections and vivisections” and goes on to write,

See, when you take all the living bits of a story apart, out of context, skin them and stake them out and dance around them while they’re drying, what you’ve got is something that you’ve killed, and it’s dead. It might make stew, but it’s not a story any more. You haven’t ‘controlled the narrative’, you’ve slaughtered it, and it’s attracting flies and smelling pretty bad. You can say you’ve got Einstein’s brain, in a jar on the shelf, and you can measure it and figure out what shade of pinkish-gray it is this week, but it’s not a living mind any more, is it?

These are pretty extreme reactions, I think, when one considers that under discussion is a single way to read and interpret literature. We are not, in fact, talking about cutting apart living, sentient beings. The argument against literary analysis in no way parallels the argument against vivisection. (Take it from one who has spent a good part of her life firmly in the camp making the latter argument.)

The above arguments fail to account for the fact that a story analyzed by one reader does not leave that story in shambles for subsequent readers. If one takes apart that hypothetical dog, then that dog can be wholly restored for no one. It’s not as though you can cut him to pieces and I can adopt him and take him home, healthy and whole, the next week.

Which gets to a second issue that is being discussed in this context. The comments on Twistedchick’s post reveal both hurt and anger about having work discussed in such a fashion without consent and her own opinions being disregarded because she wasn’t thought capable of understanding the discussion because she was not an academic.

With the latter, I have to empathize … but I don’t think that it’s the same question as to whether academic analysis is appropriate when applied to fandom or fanworks. Such experiences as Twistedchick describes don’t belong to academics. They belong to assholes.

Can academics be assholes? Sure.

Can non-academics be assholes? If ff.net proves one thing, it is that stupid people can be jerks too.

Telling someone that she is not intelligent enough to understand the discussion of a story that she crafted takes a galling amount of condescension. Providing someone with unasked-for critical analysis of a story is a completely different can of worms and not that much different than the ongoing discussion/debate about constructive criticism and whether or not it is polite or appropriate to critique a story where the author has not given his or her permission to do so. Publicly critiquing a story is even more of a touchy issue.

Why should the question be any different if it is an “acafan” talking down to me about my competency as an author or a barely literate commenter on ff.net who can nonetheless lecture me on the myriad complexities of eschatology in Tolkien’s world?

Personally, I’m inclined to write off both as socially inept and possessed of overinflated senses of self-importance and to seek constructive comments from those whom I trust to provide a kind of critique with which I am comfortable.

But the reality of publicly posting online is that, with it, one opens himself or herself to public comments and “use” of the material as inspiration, example, and so on. I touched on this in a previous post, The Many Faces of LiveJournal, about how some LiveJournal users want their public posts to remain available to a public readership … but to simultaneously inhabit some nebulous twilight realm as far as commentary and fair use of that material goes. My feelings on this remain mixed, to an extent, but I find myself leaning toward regarding this outlook as an example of wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too: If public authorship confers benefits that locked/limited or private authorships do not–such as an increased readership and level of discussion or positive attention from peers–then it seems a bit unfair to ignore the negatives that come with public authorship, such as negative attention or fair use of one’s words for purposes with which the author may not necessarily agree, as when one LJer discovered that her public LJ posts had been referenced in a published book. At the same time, I do understand that a nuanced understanding of commenting on and using another fan’s work–even when that work is public–has been not only tolerated but encouraged in fandom. So while I find myself raising my eyebrows at the writer who would publicly share a story and yet expect that story to remain off-limits for certain kinds of critique, then I nonetheless do understand from where such an attitude derives.

Rolanni brings up a related point about the appropriateness of academic study and discussion of “genre” fiction, particularly science fiction, also related to Laity’s original post. I think this is relevant to fan writings. “Genre fiction” has long been derided by many in the “literary fiction” arena; my writing program in university made its utter disdain for “genre” shamelessly explicit. But authors of both types of fiction have found common ground in their hatred of “fan fiction,” those derivative works that are subpar and escapist at best and theft at the Robin-Hobb extreme of the worst. It is a typical example of defining ourselves not by what we like but by what we hate and stomping down other people’s work to make our own stand taller.

Yet, despite the long loathing, both genre and fan fiction have found academics suddenly peering past thresholds they once wouldn’t be caught dead crossing. Rolanni writes, “Science Fiction has had an Inferiority Complex almost since its mass market birth, when it was viewed (by academics, my mom, high school English teachers, and other Right Thinking People) as being on the same intellectual level as porn, and was often displayed on the same spinners in the newstands,” and goes on to argue for the value of escapist fiction.

With which I would agree wholeheartedly.

But, again, I am puzzled by the assumption that a piece of writing must be one or the other–either worthy of analysis or simply “escapist”–and cannot exist as both to different people or even the same person. I read Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness for pleasure and loved every minute of it. I didn’t attempt to analyze it or figure out what it means. Yet it is a science fiction novel that could definitely be analyzed and could also hold its own against many works of so-called “literary” fiction. Likewise, I was rivetted by the plot, characters, and world-building of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, not with trying to figure out what she was trying to say. She was definitely trying to say something, but it wasn’t why I read the book. Oh, and Margaret Atwood is definitely a “literary” author.

For that matter, are novels so easily dichotomized as “literary” or “genre”?

Part of the reason that I insist on using the annoying quotation marks each time I type those words is because I don’t believe in the pure existence of either form of fiction. Really, what separates “literary” from “genre”? When I inquired in one of my writing courses about how science fiction is defined, I was told that it takes place in a dystopian future and uses “formulas” of the genre, like unrealistically perfect protagonists. In this case, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (which is celebrated in literary circles) can be dismissed as “genre” because it takes place in the future (and that future is definitely dystopian)?

And the acceptable “literary” stories written by my classmates–which inevitably dealt with divorce or alcoholism or prematurely dead friends–no matter how bland the writing and tired the subject, were not formulaic?

The more I write and the more I study literature (and–full disclosure–I am not an academic: I have one Bachelor’s degree in psychology and am working on a second in English, and my money is made doing work related to neither for the government; I do, however, hope to earn advanced degrees in my studies someday), the more I balk at classifying literature as one or the other of anything. Literary, genre; serious, escapist; original, derivative … I think that every story falls somewhere on a continuum between these extremes (and where on this continuum will vary from reader to reader), and no story can be wholly one and none of the other.

So, my point is that while I won’t fault Rolanni for her pride in her “escapist genre fiction,” I think that attempting to define what this is is essentially pointless: It will vary from person to person. For example, plenty of people write off Tolkien as escapist, genre tripe. And yet plenty of people also see Tolkien as a serious author with Something to Say that is worth studying.

Therefore, excluding a work from study because it meets one individual’s classification of “escapist genre fiction” is just as pointless. I may think that your escapist genre fiction really and truly does have something to say.

But, later in Rolanni’s post, she goes on to say,

What seems not to be understood is that academics don’t study and write articles in order to Validate the object of their study. Academics study and write articles in order to Validate themselves. As more and more people become academics, they must look further and further afield for subjects, and lo! suddenly Science Fiction isn’t genre trash anymore; it’s a way to secure tenure.

Ouch.

Considering that she froze and eventually made invisible the comments to this post, I suspect that I’m not the only one who takes umbrage at this point.

Clearly, if I think your escapist genre fiction has something to say–or your fan fiction, for that matter–then if I wish to study it, then this has little to do with my own enjoyment as a reader or curiosity as a researcher as it does attempting to strike into new territory and being hailed as pioneer in my discipline, presumably with great personal gain (i.e., tenure). This sort of broad-sweeping ad hominem attack is not only untrue but terribly unfair.

And, here, I think the argument about academia and fandom comes full circle.

The heart of the debate really has nothing to do with ruining fiction by “dissecting” it or ignoring its escapist purposes to search for something deeper (which, apparently, does not exist, no way, no how). It has to do with an intense dislike of academia and academics and–perhaps beyond that–intellectualism or finding pleasure in analysis. Here is where I come back to my original point that this is a disturbing argument.

It is disturbing because, as Swatkat24 pointed out in the above-referenced quote, fandom is obsessively tolerant of all sorts of people and ideas. While it is generally accepted that everyone be permitted their preferences in what they do and don’t like to read, it is frowned upon in most fan communities to attempt to bar someone from writing what they wish, be it smut or slash or AU. Or academic “dissections” of stories. People are trusted to avoid what they don’t like. And fandom especially stresses the importance of critiquing stories and not authors. Attempting to exclude a person from participating in fandom as an author or a reviewer because of his or her sexual orientation, race, religion, marital status, or gender identity would cause an uproar.

So why are fans sitting idly by and allowing fans to be excluded based on their chosen careers, fields of study, and level of education?

If I stated that people without college degrees should refrain from commenting on stories because their comments are inevitably shallow, uninsightful, and useless, I would (rightfully) be derided because I am not judging a review but a reviewer, much as telling an author that “Young authors like you should wait until you have more life experience before trying to write love stories,” I am not critiquing the story but the writer, and we generally accept that this is irrelevant and wrong.

Here, I find a rather intriguing connection to real (read: outside of fandom) life, at least in the United States, where there is lately an ever-escalating debate on “intellectualism” that increasingly attempts to cast the opinions of those deemed as “intellectuals” as unwelcome or inferior to those of “ordinary folks.” As the current presidential campaign really got underway, I found myself baffled at how many people I heard scorning Barack Obama’s “intellectualism” as somehow making him unfit to serve as President of the United States. “Why so?” I often wanted to ask; it seemed to me that devoting one’s life to careful thought and reasoning and problem solving was an asset in a presidential candidate.

But, as I delved deeper into this debate, I found aspects of it striking … and remarkably similar to the “acafen” discussion going on in fandom. It seemed that many people proudly titling themselves “anti-intellectuals” often spoke of suffering hurt and condescension from those whom they considered intellectual. Slate magazine’s XX Factor blog had a discussion about this, and conservative blogger Melinda Henneberger wrote of how “I did work for an intellectual at one point—and I know this because he spoke of it constantly; in fact, he talked so much about his own heapin’ helpin’ of smarts that one wondered, as he would have said, how wide-ranging his great thoughts really were.” Rachael Larimore–also conservative–wrote that, “What makes people angry, and blood-thirsty, if we must go there, is when elites and intellectuals condescend to everyone else and belittle their views.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

And whether applied to politics or fandom, this view is troubling because it excludes people based on perceived intelligence or preferred way of interpreting information. It does not analyze the merit of what they have to say but judges that, whatever is said, it will be offensive simply because of who is saying it. Being an “academic” isn’t a guarantee of asshattery, nor do academics and intellectuals hold monopoly on being jerks.

I don’t believe that all authors need to encourage or even welcome an academic reading of their work. Just as intellectuals aren’t the only pains in politics, I’m sure we could all name certain kinds of review(er)s that we find annoying or detestable and would prefer not to receive. In some spaces–like on LiveJournal–an author can control this, screening or deleting comments that she or he finds contrary to her or his purpose in writing, and I would not protest that right. But I think that it is quite a leap–and a dangerous one–to say that a certain type of thinking or people who enjoy that type of thinking are wholly unwelcome in fandom or their preferences any less worthy than anyone else’s.