#appel: you should write a fanfic

[mashamorevvna]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤️

(@femmeharel) thank youuuuu to the both of youuuu 🥺🥺🥺

also *voice of a person who has only written five fics* damn, however will i ever be able to select five fics, just five of my beautiful children while leaving the rest out in the cold. (unserious way to say i dont have to sophie's choice my children, so might as well rank them instead)

babygirl numero 1: "it would not be i any longer (it would be we, it would be us)" stricly speaking, my worst stats-wise and the most niche but i love it so dearly. will never not plug my minthara de winter fic bc it is everything i would want to read: crazy psychosexual drama; gothic pastiche; unwell people making ill adivsed decisions. one day it might even be finished too!

babygirl numero 2: "you've a gift for hating (you should know, you're the expert)" the lion in winter-esque adversarial relationship between my two strongest character fixations for bg3, how could i not love it dearly. also extremely proud of the fact that i do, after months, still think the setup and the chemistry just work and are believable. hardest part of writing for non-existant pairs

babygirl numero 3: "I wish the hand of god would come and relieve me of this way" just really love how well i pulled the selene&isobel simmetry here. sincerely incredible result on my part

babygirl numero 4: "the world is not enough (but it's a wonderful place to start)" triangulation of desire: the fic. love it very dearly, it was my first fanfic after something like three years and it still holds up. very bataillean.

babygirl numero 5: "Appel du Vide" really proud of how i challenged myself at writing smut, which im not super interested into and not very good at it besides, and to do it as fucked up as i wanted. incredibly offputting sex, love it tremendously

[mahounonbinary]

Beliaz is trying to find himself

"Oh shit my homie is here! What is UP my li'l man?" Beliaz asked, doing some weird signs with his hands. Were they... magic signs? Nothing really seemed to be happening... Well, except to Beliaz's speech.

"Are... you okay?" Astra asked uncertainly from Snowe's side. She and Erio had come with him on this demonic excursion, and were just as bewildered as he was by Beliaz's behavior.

"Fo' sure, li'l lady! Fo' sure. Comm'on, welcome to my crib!" Before he could step aside, a soggy tea bag hit him in the cheek. He turned to face the tea bagger, face filled with betrayal.

"This is my house. And quit talking like that, you're giving me a headache." Soria took a sip of her tea  before raising a hand to wave at her brother and his humans.

"Hey, sorry about the idiot. He found some of mother's old poetry and he... enjoyed it a bit too much."

Snowe wanted to ask what Soria meant by Zilia's old poetry, but... He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.

"Huh, that explains some of the weird phrases that pop into my head sometimes."

Snowe slowly turned his head to look at Erio. What.

[earlgreytea68]

Heyyyyyy, I bet you were DYING to know stuff about that Google v. Oracle decision, huh?

You may have heard recently about a big deal Supreme Court decision called Google v. Oracle, a litigation that has dragged on for many, many, many years and focuses on Google having copied some pieces of computer programming owned by Oracle and known as APIs. Most of the write-ups I’ve seen about it have focused on its enormous repercussions for the technology sector, which makes sense since it’s a case about computer programming and APIs and other tech-y things.

But the thing about the decision is that it’s a fair use decision. The Supreme Court could have found that the APIs weren’t even protected by copyright. But instead, the Supreme Court used the doctrine of fair use, and this means that the case potentially has ramifications for all fair use situations, including fanfiction!

So, if you don’t know, fair use is a main defense to copyright infringement. Basically, you can use somebody else’s copyrighted work without their permission as long as what you’re doing with it is considered a “fair use.” E.g., you can write a story in somebody else’s fictional universe or draw art of somebody else’s fictional copyrighted characters without their permission as long as your use is a “fair use.”

“What’s a fair use?” is an incredibly complicated question. The long and tortured history of Google v. Oracle illustrates this: a jury found Google’s use was a fair use; an appellate court found that it wasn’t and basically said the jury was wrong; and now the Supreme Court says no, no, the jury was right and the appellate court was wrong. Like, this is not unusual, fair case rulings are historically full of disagreements over the same set of facts. All of the cases reiterate over and over that it’s a question that can’t really be simplified: every fair use depends on the particular circumstances of that use. So, in a way, Google v. Oracle, like every fair use case, is a very specific story about a very specific situation where Google used very specific APIs in a very specific way.

However, while every fair use case is always its own special thing, they all always debate the same four fair use factors (these are written into the law itself as being the bare minimum of what should be considered), and especially what’s known as the first and fourth factors. The first factor is formally “the purpose and character of the alleged fair use,” although over the decades of fair use jurisprudence this has come to be shorthanded as “transformativeness,” and the fourth factor is “effect on the market.”

Most of the energy and verve of a fair use case is usually in the transformativeness analysis; the more transformative your use is, the more likely it is to be fair (this is why AO3’s parent organization is called the Organization for *Transformative* Works – “transformative” is a term of art in copyright law). To “transform” a work, btw, for purposes of copyright fair use doesn’t necessarily mean that you have edited the work somehow; you can copy a work verbatim and still be found transformative if you have added some new commentary to it by placing it in a new context (Google Image Search thumbnails, while being exact reproductions of the image in question, have been found to be fair use because they’re recontextualizing the images for the different purpose of search results). The point is, transformativeness is, like fair use itself, built to be flexible.

Why? Because the purpose of copyright is to promote creativity, and sometimes we promote creativity by giving people a copyright, but sometimes giving someone a copyright that would block someone else’s use is the opposite of promoting creativity; that’s why we need fair use, for THAT, for when letting the copyright holder block the use would cause more harm to the general creative progress than good. Google v. Oracle recommits U.S. copyright to the idea that all this is not about protecting the profits of the copyright monopolist; we need to make sure that copyright functions to keep our society full of as much creativity as possible. Google copied Oracle’s APIs to make new things: create new products, better smartphones, a platform for other programmers to jump in and give us even more new functionality. The APIs themselves were created used preexisting stuff in the first place, so it’s not like anyone was working in a vacuum with a wholly original work. And, in fact, executives had thought that, the more people they could get using the programming, the better off they would be.

Which brings us to the fourth fair use factor, effect on the market (meaning the copyright holder’s market and ability to reap profits from the original work). There’s a lot of tech stuff going on in this part of the opinion but one of the points I find interesting from that discussion is that the court thought that Google’s use of the APIs was not a market substitute for the original programming, meaning that Google used the APIs “on very different devices,” an entirely new mobile platform that was “a very different type of product.”

But also. What I find most interesting in this part is the court’s explicit acknowledgment that sometimes things are good because they are superior, and sometimes things are good because people “are just used to it. They have already learned how to work with it.” Now, this obviously has special resonance in the tech industry (is your smartphone good because it’s the best it could be, or because you’re just really used to the way it’s set up?), but there’s also something interesting being said here about how not all of the value of a copyrighted work belongs *to the copyright holder* but comes *from consumers.* Forgive the long quote but I think the Court’s words are important here:

“This source of Android’s profitability has much to do with third parties’ (say, programmers’) investment in Sun Java programs. It has correspondingly less to do with Sun’s investment in creating the Sun Java API. . . . [G]iven programmers’ investment in learning the Sun Java API, to allow enforcement of Oracle’s copyright here would risk harm to the public. . . . [A]llowing enforcement here would make of the Sun Java API’s declaring code a lock limiting the future creativity of new programs. Oracle alone would hold the key. The result could well prove highly profitable to Oracle . . . . But those profits could well flow from creative improvements, new applications, and new uses developed by users who have learned to work with that interface. To that extent, the lock would interfere with, not further, copyright’s basic creativity objectives.”

This is picking up on reasoning in some older computer cases (like Lotus v. Borland, a First Circuit case from decades ago), but I think it’s so important we got this in a Supreme Court case: if WE bring some value to the copyrighted work through our investment in it, why should the copyright holder get to collect ALL the rewards by locking up further creativity involving that work? Which, incidentally, the Court explicitly notes is to the public detriment because more creativity is good for the public? This is such an important idea to the Supreme Court’s reasoning here that it’s the first part of the fair use test that it decides: that the value of the work at issue here “in significant part derives from the value that those who do not hold copyrights . . . invest of their own time and effort . . . .”

This case is, as we say in the law, distinguishable from fanfiction and fanart. APIs are different from television shows, and this case is very much a decision about technology and computer programming and smartphones and how old law gets applied to new things. Like, fair use is an old doctrine dating from the early nineteenth-century, and here we are figuring out how to apply it to the Android mobile phone platform. That, in and of itself, is pretty cool, and it’s rightly what most of the articles you’ll see out there about this case are focusing on.

But this case isn’t just a technology case; it’s also a fair use case that places itself in the lineage of all the fair use cases we look at when we think about what makes a use fair. And, to that end, this has some interesting things to say, about how much value consumers bring to copyrighted works and where a copyright holder’s rights might have to acknowledge that; about the fact that there are in fact limits to how much a copyright holder can control when it comes to holding the “lock” to future creativity building on what came before; about what part of the market a copyright holder is entitled to and what it isn’t. Think about the analogy you could make here: Given the investment of fans in learning canon, which is what makes the creative work valuable in the first place, allowing enforcement against fanfic or fanart would allow the canon creators to have a lock limiting future creativity, which would be highly profitable to the original creator (or, let’s be real, to Disney lol), but wouldn’t further copyright’s goals of promoting creativity because it would stifle all of that creativity instead. And just like Google with the APIs, what fandom is doing is not a market substitute for the original work: they’re “very different products.”

This is not to say, like, ANYTHING GOES NOW. Like I said, fanfic and fanart are very different from APIs. Fictional works get more protection than a functional work like the APIs at issue in this case. And there’s still a whole thing about commercial vs. non-commercial in fair use analysis which I didn’t really touch here (but which obviously has limits, since it’s not like Google isn’t making tons of money, and their use was a fair use). But this decision could kind of remind a big media world that maybe had forgotten that the copyright monopoly they enjoy is supposed to have the point of encouraging creativity; we grant a copyright because we think people won’t create without a financial incentive. (Tbh, there’s a lot of doubt that that is actually a true thing to believe, given all the free fic and art that gets produced daily, but anyway, it’s what the law decided several centuries ago before the internet was a thing.) Copyright is a balance, between those who hold the copyright and the rest of us, and the rest of us aren’t just passive consumers, we have creative powers of our own, and we might also want to do some cool things. And this case sees that. None of us are starting in a creative vacuum, after all; we’re all in this playground together.

[legobiwan]

Jedi mind trick - you write: 'And why is Obi-wan so damn good at it?' Have you any teories? And do you know any good fanfiction about Jedi mind trick?

Okay, so I will answer your second question first. I don’t know any fanfics offhand that deal with the Jedi mind trick as its main story, although it would be an interesting exploration as a one-shot looking at how various Jedi approach the mind trick considering their inclinations in the Force. (Let’s say, Obi-wan’s empathy, Qui-gon’s relation to the Living Force, Dooku’s ability to read intention, Mace’s relationship to Shatterpoints, Anakin’s sheer strength, etc.) Come to think of it, I could probably do a meta on this. *puts it on the ever-growing list*

But to answer the original question, “Why is Obi-wan so damn good at it [the mind trick]?”

What is a mind trick? According to Wookieepedia, a mind trick is “an ability of the Force that allowed the practitioner to influence the thoughts of the affected, generally to the user’s advantage.”

This sounds a lot like persuasive speech. In fact, the short definition of persuasive speech according to Wikipedia is very similar to a mind trick. “Persuasive speech is used when presenters decide to convince their presentation or ideas to their listeners. Their goal is to convince or persuade people to believe in a certain point of view.”

So the only real difference between a mind trick and persuasive speech is that the mind trick is working partially on a non-verbal level, almost like that wild Roddy Piper movie from the 80s, “They Live.” (which I should really rewatch.) 

Why am I going off on this? Because persuasive speech is a type of selling - you are selling an idea, yourself, a point of view - to someone else. But in order to sell someone this pearl of thought, you need to anticipate how they will see your arguments. What does this other person need? What do they want? How can they be convinced, how can you “hook” them in? And this all means you need to be able to jump into the mindset of your mark, of your audience. This is a kind of negotiation, whether directly, as in contract talks, or indirectly, as in an elevator pitch or even a job interview. 

Who is someone known for their negotiation skills, so much so that they have earned a certain moniker, that their capital ship has also earned the same appellation?

This JERK Jedi Master and High Council Member. 

Because he is so good at Negotiating (and he is, let’s be real), it stands to reason this very same form of empathy, of being able to read other people’s intentions, needs, and wants - and anticipate them - would be the reason is also so accomplished at the Jedi Mind Trick, which is just a partially non-verbal form of persuasion. (Except a little more insidious than that, as Roddy Piper would tell you. Which is fascinating because it also means Obi-wan can be a manipulative son of a bitch when he wants to be, and there lies a fine line between the greater good and some actions that could be construed as grey, at best.)

But let’s take a case study, going back to the Clone Wars animated movie. 

According to my 1.3 second Google search, empathy in negotiation involves the following:

Obi-wan “surrenders” to the enemy forces, allowing himself to be - well, not taken prisoner, but at least be put in a rather vulnerable position. He then invites the opposing commander to sit at an improvised table, feigning a coughing fit so he can request tea. 

He reads the situation and the General’s emotions perfectly, anticipating the General is tired, not really *in* the fight, and more than willing to accept Obi-wan’s easy surrender as the needed win it appears to be on the surface.

Obi-wan tells the General again and again, in different ways, that he is surrendering, that it’s over for Obi-wan. It’s very convincing, to a certain degree, although this General calls him the “infamous” General Kenobi, which - really, my friend, you should have seen this coming. 

“Order your troops to stand down.” Obi-wan never does, instead sidestepping the request to invite the General down to negotiate in a civilized manner. I find this interaction to be vague and unconvincing, Kenobi!

Finally, deflect, flatter, and guess. It’s not hard to imagine a General of the CIS - a much-maligned one it seems, would fall prey to a bit of well-placed flattery. We already know Obi-wan can turn on the charm when he feels like it and that he is a master of deflection. Calling the General a “legend of the Inner Core,” even if it a complete falsehood (or what Obi-wan might refer to as the truth, from a certain point of view, as in the General’s own) is a well-placed educated guess in order to diffuse and delay the situation until reinforcements arrive.

Obi-wan does all of this without a Mind Trick. Now, remember the fact that he is an accomplished Force user with a high level of empathy and it’s no wonder he is the most-referenced character in the Wookieepedia Mind Trick page (canon), only followed by Luke Skywalker. (And what was the first true Jedi power Luke witnessed from old Ben Kenobi? Krayt dragons aside? The mind trick with the Stormtroopers.)

So tl;dr, Obi-wan is great at the mind trick because he is empathetic, which we have evidence of in his negotiation skills. (Now, if he was so empathetic, why didn’t he pick up on Anakin’s turn? Personally, I think he did, but he was deep in denial and we all know Obi-wan had a blind spot as large as a Dantooine moon when it came to Anakin. It’s one thing to be empathetic. It’s another thing to acknowledge that information and accept it.)