exquisacreamcheese:
Okay, here’s the situation:
For those not in the loop, a guest commenter named Alice Harper (or Alice, or Preeti) has been going ‘round the comments of Taskmaster fics on AO3 (I’m only aware of Taskmaster at the moment, but I assume others have been hit as well) to ask if they’re interested in participating in a new show about fanfiction.
The show is real; it will be hosted by Mel Giedroyc and will feature celebrities reading out their own RPF with a focus on smut/erotica, acted out with puppets.
It appears that Channel 4 doesn’t have an AO3 account, so anyone whose fics are user-locked should be safe.
I wanted to let everyone who follows me or reads my fics know that if that should change, I will be backing up and then temporarily deleting my fics. I’ll repost everything as soon as the situation seems to have blown over. (See update)
I can only speak for myself, but I deeply, deeply do not want anyone I’ve written about to ever have to cross paths with my writing. I feel that what Channel 4 is doing is intrusive and ill-advised and would counsel any fellow RPF writers to lock their fics to users-only or at the very least tell Alice Harper to, in not so many words, fuck off.
Update:
Courtesy of some folks in the TM fandom, the list of fandoms that have so far received Alice’s comments are:
Mock the Week, Taskmaster, Pointless, The Chase, Take That, and 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
It spans all ratings and gen, slash, and reader-insert, and fics as old as 2014.
@pandaroboto was kind enough to provide part of her correspondence over email with Alice. I’ve pasted part below; emphasis is my own (for my fellow ADD-squirrels)
We are looking for brilliant fanfiction writers, like yourself, to write bespoke stories about our celebrity guests. We are gathering stories from different writers which we’ll edit into one story.
If this is something that you’d be interested in doing we can give you a few starting points on the other celebrity guests and ask you to write stories about them. As well as using elements of your existing stories too (to be discussed with you).
After being asked about the guests, she added,
That’s correct, our celebs are well known British celebrities. We can give you options, you tell us who you know the most about, we can also give you any additional info you might like on them. We’ll also give you some steers on what we’d like the story to be about.
They are apparently offering to pay only if the story is ultimately used and broadcast.
In summation, Channel 4 is contacting RPF writers to write smut about the guests they’ve booked, based on their prompts, which they will have their own writers stitch into a narrative. Presumably, to be presented to the celebrities under the guise that this is some Internet Weirdo’s Totally Original Work.
You can form your own opinions, but I’m not touching this with a ten foot pole.
To my own followers and readers: I am no longer planning a mass deletion if Channel 4 gets ahold of an AO3 account. Since they’re not using existing work but rather attempting to 'contract’ fic-writers, I’m not worried about them taking what I’ve posted. (And let’s be real, Captains No Social Media and Repression Central are not going to be the first to agree to this show) Carry on as usual.
Yeah here’s what’s going on with the channel 4 puppet fucking thing I mentioned yesterday. I put together that fandom list (it took many many many hours. That’s probably an understatement…). I’m not going to go in to which fics exactly got commented on on here since I don’t know if its a good idea to have that info easily spreadable. I think I know who 3 of the 6 guests might be though
