All Souls' Night

"… beguiling the tedium of the way by describing to him in detail the various exhibits he had that morning seen at Merlin's Mechanical Museum. These included such attractions as a juggler, an aerial cavalcade, Merlin's Cave, and a set of Antique Whispering Busts (very ingenious); but these had not interested Felix as much as a hydraulic vase, a band of mechanical music, an mechanical cruising frigate. … he meant next to visit an exhibition at Spring Gardens, where Maillardet's Automaton was to be seen. This marvel … was a musical lady, who was advertised, rather alarmingly, to perform most of the functions of animal life, and to play sixteen airs upon an organized pianoforte, by the actual pressure of the fingers."
    -- Frederica, Georgette Heyer

Felix, a twelve year old boy and one of the minor main characters, is interested in steam power. Over the course of the story, in addition to the above passage, he looks for (but fails to find) one of Trevithick's railway locomotives called the Catch-me-who-can, visits a Soho foundry with a pneumatic lift, takes a trip down the river in a steam boat, and rides in a hot-air balloon.

The story itself is set in London, 1818.


( This is the ranty part )

( So, the HP/MP thing kind of bothers me... )

So there.

Alright, I realize that I'm spoiled, but come on, people! Text rotation and text direction. I want them. ( I do databases. Not spreadsheets, databases. )

The trouble with fanfiction as a term is that, for many people, it's become derogatory. However, technically, what Shakespeare wrote was fanfiction. So obviously, if you think that being fanfic makes it automatically bad, then you'll see where I have trouble with the term as it's used today.

So we need something else to call the serious stuff that borrows someone else's story/world/idea and runs with it. It's not like we don't do that all the time anyway.

Fanfic is the fannish stuff. The stuff that was written by fans in a moment of OMG this story! orgasmic glee, and that can't possibly be any good (note the sarcasm. More like fanfic gets a really bad rep because there's no one to go through the slush pile and pick out the stuff worth reading and throw the rest away. Anyway). The other stuff, the serous stuff, like Shakespeare, and all the people who retell folk tales and fairy tales and all that, and also the really, really good stuff out there that I'm tired of seeing derided despite the obvious quality and original plot and good characterization and absolutely wonderful ideas because maybe it borrows a bit from something else and has the decency to admit it – the stuff that has to make shift with the term "fanfiction" but doesn't deserve the flak – that's world-borrowing.

So yeah. I've got a new term to separate the flailing stuff that can't stand without the original story from the stuff that's original but borrows bits (IC bits only, please) from someone else. The first is fanfiction. The second is worldborrowing. Or worldplay, that's easier to say but a little more confusing. Plus it sounds an awful lot like wordplay. Still, I think I like worldplay as a term a lot. We'll see.

Wah, blather.

Argh. You know how it is when you find something out and then want to tell people? Yeah. Still not doing it. Yes, it's upsetting; yes, I'd like someone to talk about it with; no, it's not about me. Therefore, it's not really my business. Diskworld people either already know or can find out for themselves, and I refuse to just repeat things as I hear them. Grah.

Will not talk.

Well, obviously, I may have prompted some questions in other people, but I haven't actually said anything myself. So there.

Okay, now I feel better.