So, yeah - I find it infinitely less troubling than RPS, which is a genre that I think Plei's totally comfortable with.

Well, I'm totally comfortable with some forms of RPS, not all of them. Though my issue with actor fic is less about morality, more about my personal tastes.

Is my issue with Sandman fic related to how often I read Neil's blog? Well, probably at least in part. It feels disrespectful to me. I don't know the man from Adam, but there you have it.

I would also feel uncomfortable writing fanfiction based on someone else's fanfiction, remixes aside. (With the remixes, there's the consent issue out of the way, for one. Why I have consent issues about literary works, I've no idea, but I do.) It is one thing if they've invited me to play in their 'verse, but a whole 'nother if I'm just reading and riffing.

I'd also say that Sandman leaves thousands of threads

Yes, this. There's so much mystery there.

The idea of playing wholly in most written ficworlds is scary ... I get that much of Sandman would be crossovers. Comparing one's written word to the original ... I'm certainly not that brave.

I'm with you on that feeling about book-based fanfiction

At my last writing class for the summer, one of the women read a poem she wrote that was midrash (I hope that's how it's spelled) -- which she defined as "a story from the Bible written from a different perspective." Her poem was from Sarah's POV.

And I thought "that's Bible fic!" But I still couldn't out myself as a ficwriter.

Heh. Yeah, midrash is a really interesting tradition, from a ficcy POV.

And I thought "that's Bible fic!"

Snerk. I had that same midrash=Bible fanfic revelation a few years ago, then got frustrated that I couldn't share it with anyone, because I couldn't think of anyone I knew who knew what both midrash and fanfic were, and having to explain either one of them seemed to ruin the "Hey cool! Look at this!" factor of it.

Hey, L.A. types...

How long does it take to get from "what used to be the heart of Hollywood." to Reseda?

Also, anyone have some Reseda details to share? What was the weather like in July last year?

Much appreciated.

What used to be the heart of Hollywood? I drive through Reseda, pretty much. It's in the west Valley, and it's hotter than hell, but less hot than Ventura county.

Also ... time to get there depends severely on time of day, what with the 101/405 up in there.

People? Is it a really bad idea of me to ask Gaiman in his journal FAQ thing about whether he'd be upset, hypothetically speaking, about people writing fanfic based on his works?

What used to be the heart of Hollywood?

Beats the fuck out of me. Whatever mythic place just west of Cordelia's Silverlake apartment they declared as the Hyperion's location.

We drove through Reseda on our way out of L.A., but I can't remember how long it took us to get from Burbank to Reseda because I was fiddling with the MP3 player so we could play Screenwriter's Blues. (There was a vague temptation to get off the 101 to look around, but as we were on our way to Camarillo for the night, it didn't happen.)

People? Is it a really bad idea of me to ask Gaiman in his journal FAQ thing about whether he'd be upset, hypothetically speaking, about people writing fanfic based on his works?

IIRC, he has been asked that before, and I think he's slightly wigged by the notion. But, this is old memory working. I'd email the divine Roz, and ask her instead.