Survival Of The Fittest

Camille, as was her custom, shrugged at the question, a sort of way to buy her time and get her brain whirring to discern answers while simultaneously setting expectations low. Camille was not an expert on the legality here. She assumed that, in text, almost anything was allowed, and if it was allowed to remain in place on a website of any considerable traffic that you could reach just by browsing through Google, it was, at worst, low priority lawbreaking. She was going to tackle the legal question first - not because it was a boring question, quite the opposite, but because she did not see it leading to as many follow-up questions and debates as the myriad of smutty pairings available to discuss.

"The predominant legal question is actually copyright," Camille began, volubly, using more loquacious terminology and a more aloof tone than was normally her style. Such a dry subject, of course, heavily inclined towards such an abstruse mode of speaking. "I do not believe that porn actually raises any unique issues, legally speaking, compared to other fanworks. They're very likely to qualify as fair use, as some sort of transformative work. Parody is a viable defence, too."

"Now, I imagine that wasn't what you had in mind when you discussed illegality, but it is actually the area in which the community faces the greatest risk of a mortal legal blow. You're politically aware, you probably know how badly most members of Congress are with technology and new media," Camille continued, her chain of thought briefly dipping into one of the few areas of politics she felt any special confidence in discussing. "But in terms of what I won't write...well, underage stuff is the big one. Other than that, things are quite libertine. There is this certain...convention within porn that you can depict things that would be unthinkable within real life. Teacher/student relationships, blackmail, very twisted power dynamics..." Camille was, admittedly, self-censoring the most extreme and flagrant depravities that she wrote about, but the message was clear, to introduce Lavender to the abstract philosophy rather than the more lurid actualisations of said philosophy. "The underlying principle is consenting adults can fantasise about whatever, including acts that would be immoral, unthinkable, or physically impossible outside the terms of fantasy."

"The last three fanfictions I wrote are..." Camille smacked her lips and stared at a nondescript spot on the table, trying to think of something. "A parody fanfiction where an anthropomorphised Death Star fucked an anthropomorphised Titanic. A fanfiction based on The World's End where Gary King fucks the head of his...Blank. Really, that premise is impossible to explain unless you've seen the film, and even then it struggles. I also am writing an ongoing series of crack Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire pairings, the latest of which was Gendry and Podrick meeting at a campsite and fucking."

Camille shrugged, as if to say 'and there we are'.

"Interesting," Lavender said, and again it was.

She had a way, way easier time with the legal side of this than everything that came after, of course. Copyright and fair use, that was right up her alley. She could go on about how it was technically legal yet arguably unethical to use music at a campaign rally despite the artist who created that music despising the candidate in question. She could explain that often what prevented such occurrences was less any sort of legal repercussions and more the negative publicity associated with having someone whose image you were co-opting coming out swinging against your message.

As to the definitions of obscenity, that was a whole other can of worms. Lavender was intrigued by the hard line on age-related issues; she agreed with it on an intellectual level, but at the same time thought it an uncommonly enlightened stance from someone who had surely been on the wrong side of that line until very recently. Lavender had actually struggled really hard with the fact that, until her most recent birthday, she was totally fine to actually sleep with anyone within four years of her age but if she sent them a sexy picture by text suddenly they'd both be involved in the exploitation of minors (said minors being her and/or the recipient) and likely end up on an offender registry. At the same time, literature often dived fully into such uncomfortable waters and got a pass as art. But of course, that was because the primary purpose was not to arouse, and indeed such works tended to be more intentionally distressing and negative in their portrayals of adolescent sexuality, which could be damaging in a whole different way. She'd have to come back to that, maybe.

By comparison, Lavender knew what the Death Star and the Titanic were but could not imagine quite how either would have sex. She'd never even heard of The World's End and knew Game of Thrones by reputation, but that reputation was mostly that it was full of explicit rape scenes which had steered her far clear. None of the character names meant a thing to her. But Camille had admitted some of it was parody, so that was something, right?

She took another sip of her soda to cover her fumbling, and then, a bolt from the blue, an idea came to her. Lavender glanced around and lowered her voice further, even though there were still no kids.

"So," she said, "would something like a Great Expectations parody be up your alley?"

Camille observed Lavender's reactions to a sample of some of her premises, watching out for any real emotions of note - curiosity, disgust, a desire to read further, even just recognition of the more obscure characters and concepts. But no, Lavender, just seemed a little bit bewildered by it all, which in fairness was an understandable reaction to first exposure to the fact that people actually wrote these stories. Camille was surprised by it at first, after all. She was even more surprised when she found herself spending hours every other evening writing some of those same stories.

Perhaps she should have started off with a more in-depth discussion of one of her more vanilla stories. She wrote this too.

No, that'd be dishonest. Best to start by giving Lavender a full preview - even if said preview was incomprehensible - of the eclectic array of stories that Camille enjoyed producing.

But even if those particular examples had not been to Lavender's taste, she seemed to have been well-acquainted with the ethos of writing smut fan fic, as her request showed. Camille couldn't help but giggle for a second in response to the request. It was so...odd a request, a piece of text so far away from the works she normally explored, that Camille was disappointed she hadn't thought of it before. "I can do that," she replied. "I've never read it, mind. I've only seen the South Park episode, and that didn't exactly encourage me to read the novel."

"But you've got my interest. What sort of story were you thinking of? The central pairing, length of the story, degree of depravity?"

"You're not missing much," Lavender said. "Seriously. It's not good."

She glanced back over her shoulder for a second, checking on the stuff she'd left behind at her original table. Still there, but it was probably not the most polite to just leave it lying out taking up cafe real estate. The Blue House wasn't overly full, but since she was pretty well situated with Camille now, there was no reason not to grab the rest of her belongings.

"One sec," Lavender said, then stood and did just that. As she returned to Camille's table, she set the book down and gave it a nudge towards the girl. It was somewhat battered, with ragged sticky notes protruding here and there from the sides, passages Lavender had marked to come back to because she put in a little effort even if it was for something stupid.

"Don't worry," she said, "you don't have to read it right now. It's just, okay, so here's my idea."

She took a deep breath, looked around again, checked one more time that there weren't any kids or curious passers-by. An important part of being sexually progressive was practicing good consent, and part of that was not involving innocent bystanders. Plus, Lavender didn't want to get them bounced.

"Basically, the plot of Great Expectations is that the main character, Pip, is being raised to be a gentleman by a mysterious benefactor that he thinks is the guardian of the girl he pines for, named Estella. But it turns out it's actually this crazy convict named Magwitch who he once helped out when he was a kid under threat of death."

It was way more complicated and pointless than that, but Camille wasn't going to write an essay on it, just some porn. Maybe. If she felt like it.

"So I think it's ripe for that same switcheroo. Pip gets a request to meet somewhere secluded in this curly fancy handwriting, thinks he's going to hook up with Estella, then, bam, Magwitch. And then I guess they hook up anyways because that's the point, right?"

Lavender actually felt sort of proud of herself for having come up something that seemed, if not Death Star and Titanic crazy, at least sort of in the spirit of the original work while also being literary sacrilege.

"It could be as long or short as you want, and as depraved I guess. The big taboo thing is a young man thinks he's going to get with a young woman but instead ends up with a middle aged male criminal. And likes it."

Lavender leaned back a little and took a pull from her soda. She didn't even really taste it anymore.

"What do you think?"

Camille took the liberty of pulling up the Wikipedia and tvtropes articles on her laptop as Lavender retrieved her things. Merely scratching the surface, of course, but enough to provide her a handy reference to the most observable themes and enduring narratives of the novel. As her eyes drifted over the tvtropes synopsis, she noted with mild satisfaction that she actually could recall the broad thrust of the story. Pop culture osmosis was a powerful thing, and Dickens's works had proven particularly adept at riding that phenomenon, aided by adaptations both overt and covert. It meant that Camille had very little incentive to actually read the works in question, so it was a double-edged sword in many respects, but it was ripe and fertile territory for some transformative work.

Once Lavender rejoined her, Camille made a token effort of thumbing through the pages, being very clearly not to even threaten any of the precariously placed sticky notes, careful not to exert too much pressure on the binding in case this book was even less durable than it looked. She flicked her eyes over some random passages, making notes of the style and timbre of the writing, the pacing of dialogue, things like that. Emulating an author's style was rarely a smart move except in those works that made the most explicit claims to parody or canon imitability, but knowing what you were deriving ideas from was a good move.

She wasn't going to read it all. Lavender would, of course, forgive that. She'd likely look up the chapter summaries and read the passages that would most help with Lavender's request. Time was limited, after all, and knowing the work too well would risk either putting her off it completely or blooming a million other ideas that she'd feel compelled to put to paper.

Camille showed no emotion as Lavender laid out her idea, instead diligently typing up every aspect of the request in a private Facebook message to herself, just nodding along periodically to indicate that she was listening. Once Lavender had finished her pitch, Camille turned to her and nodded. "That sounds rather in keeping with my interests, if I must confess." She didn't want to get too explicit, but trickery, orientation play, age differences? Everything about that premise was not only brimming with creative opportunity, but it was quite hot too. "A very fine request. You sure you haven't requested fanfiction porn before?" Before Lavender could answer, Camille had one last question. "Any particular kinks or sexual acts you'd like to see included?"

"I, uh, yeah, I guess I'm just a natural," Lavender said, and laughed lightly.

Okay, this was the other side of the pride in coming up with something good. It wasn't like she'd requested what she had because it turned her on. It was Great Expectations which was about as unsexy a topic as existed; that, actually, was the whole point. It was a juxtaposition and an exercise in absurdity. Applying the basic plot of one of literature's most inexplicably-beloved works to lowbrow pornography was a matter of parody and commentary, something that in effect elevated the work above its medium and raised questions about the actual value of the original by recontextualizing it as primarily for titillation, which was in fact exactly what it had originally begun its existence as. That was how Lavender thought of it, at least.

It wasn't that she didn't ever consume or appreciate erotic material (or, yeah, straight up porn). She'd dabbled in several contexts, and certainly could appreciate the value of a narrative that went beyond simple pretense, but she was more private with her personal interests. With a boyfriend, sure, she'd talk it over or watch something together, but with a platonic classmate that didn't feel quite right. She turned that realization over in her head, examining it to see if it was simply due to social conditioning and whether or not her stance was worth challenging, but put full deliberation off until later. Snap decisions were bricks in the road to regrets.

And as to Camille's second question...

"And the content can be anything. I think the real meat is in the situation, and I don't want to micromanage."

That was a polite enough way to duck the question, right? She was realizing she'd definitely signed herself up to read this when it was done, but that was fine. She was honestly interested, not from any prurient motivation but because she felt like it'd be easier for her to understand Camille better with an actual sample of the girl's work. How good was she? What sort of spin would she give the corruption of the classics? It was quite the thing to contemplate.

Camille smiled and nodded. There were plenty of kinks evident within the premise - of unorthodox power play, of acts of dubious morality that were permissible only in fantasy, of playing around with sexual orientations and age differences and the like. Plenty more kinks were technically optional, but far too tempting, and far too easy to harmoniously slip into the narrative, to pass up on.

There were two things left, however. Two disclaimers, as it were, that it would be amiss for Camille not to make crystal clear before embarking on this project. She imagined Lavender was not taking this too seriously, speculated with some credibility that this was a sort of spiteful rebellion against the school's mandated reading, but she wanted to be one hundred percent sure on that front. When dealing with potentially sensitive or triggering topics such as these, that was the prudent, not to mention decent, approach.

"Two final questions, if I may," Camille began, typing these notes up so she could meet the specifications to the best of her ability. She took pride in her work, after all. "Firstly, my instinct with this is to treat it as a...quite flagrant parody. Would that be amenable to your interests?"

For her next question, Camille leaned back to write it up as she asked it, something that she found was useful with asking about potentially difficult subjects or navigating potentially tricky terrain. She was used to asking these questions via text, especially when asking people she didn't know incredibly well (a category Lavender fell into), so it also had a calming effect on her nerves. Camille was usually too understated to have her nerves be too obvious, but when they reared their ugly head, they were atrocious. "Secondly, because this premise involves deception, while there will be no physical force, it will not meet any meaningful real-world standard of consent. You should be aware of that. Are there any other topics you wish for me to avoid?"

"Yeah," Lavender said, "yeah. Parody sounds like exactly what I had in mind."

There was one concern taken care of. They were on the same page, now, with the fact firmly established that Lavender was interested in the Great Expectations porn parody more for the parody and less for the porn. Though come to think of it, wasn't that a pretty common excuse? She wasn't totally sure (and would have to make a note to look it up later) but suspected rather strongly that the whole point behind labeling porn parodies as parodies was to escape copyright lawsuits by claiming fair use.

The other issue was a bit of a prickly one. Lavender was actually quite pleased it was something Camille was so sensitive to and aware of; the girl had impressed thus far throughout the conversation and this just further established her as a morally-sound purveyor of smut. It tended to be the most liberated (or depraved, depending on who you asked) who were also the most conscientious of sexual ethics. Of course, Lavender could come up with some situations that would probably alleviate the consent concerns in this particular setup, but that would involve getting way, way more in depth with this than she was intending to, and even then there could be a lot of debate about the fringes of law, what legal system should even apply, and so on. On an ideological level, though, it was clear: in the real world you didn't trick people into anything at all related to hooking up with you.

"And that's fine," she added. "Like you said, as long as it's legal to write, we're good. I think the parody aspect should keep you safe from any obscenity suits anyways, or at least give you a good leg to argue artistic merit. At least in America, I mean."

Was this the time to get into Kathy Acker and German censorship? Maybe not, but if it wasn't then they might never reach that point. It really depended on where Camille took things.

Camille nodded. They were both on the same page, and there could be no doubt about that. When venturing into potentially sensitive or triggering topics, Camille was one for warnings and communication. They were important to maintain between real people, even if you were flagrantly denying them to fictional characters - or even fictional representations of real people. She had received a couple of RPF requests, and read a fair few, and she wasn't quite sure how she felt about the morality of that. To be on the safe side, she tended to be more strict with her limits in that area.

That wasn't really the safe side, now she examined it cogently and with a clear mind as to how others would perceive it. Ah well. She'd already committed to that path. Better to be hung for a sheep than a lamb. Was that how the saying went? No matter.

Camille offered her hand out, for Lavender to shake. "You'll have your request within the week, if that's okay for you. Do you have a preferred place to send it to, or would you rather me post it publicly on Tumblr or Archive of Our Own?" They were her two favourite sites for uploading her work, though she had to admit that she preferred Ao3 for written erotica and Tumblr for the more adventurous visual porn. A world without either one of them would just be ghastly.

"Also, you sound like you know a lot about the...legal side of all of this. I would certainly be interested in discussing that further with you."

"Oh," Lavender said, "it's fine if you post it for everyone. Or I can give you my email or Facebook. Either works."

She actually sort of hoped Camille would share the story semi-widely, if only because she'd feel like she was wasting the girl's time if it never went beyond the two of them. Then again, would anyone else care even a little about parodic Dickens porn? If there was an audience for some of the other stuff Camille had mentioned, like warships engaging with battle stations, then probably there was somebody out there who'd be interested, but it couldn't be a huge group, and how would they even find such a thing?

Fortunately, the discussion swung back to territory Lavender was a lot more familiar with.

"And yeah," she said, "law's a big deal to me. Both my parents are lawyers. There are a lot of little intricacies and work-arounds, and nothing's ever as clear-cut as it seems."

What she didn't say was that all but the most flagrantly unacceptable behavior could probably be spun properly with a good enough defense attorney. Art was an area in which lawsuits turned out unexpectedly all the time; there were still ripples from the "Blurred Lines" ruling and a lot of other musicians were worried that a decision they saw as ignorant would have dramatic, lasting, and chilling precedent. Lavender got that, but on the other hand fuck "Blurred Lines." It was a difficult situation to come to a definitive conclusion about.

Camille nodded. "I'll post it on my accounts then - without divulging your identity, of course." She looked back at her screen, yet carried on speaking, even as she typed with an almost eerily frenzied pace that was a stark contrast to how nonchalant everything else about her demeanour was. "I imagine having Charles Dickens Rule 34 tied to your name is frowned upon by most prospective universities and employers." That was something she would have to consider at one point. Ah well. Not for now.

"Oh, I can only imagine." She paused her typing again, taking a sip of the bottle of orange juice she had by her side. "I imagine law is even worse at handling ambiguities in areas with such rapidly evolving technological foundations and social norms."

"But yes, I am interested in this topic. Admittedly from the perspective of a self-interested autodidact, but..." She paused, and grimaced, and looked at the label. It said there were bits in it. She hadn't felt a single one. Most disappointing. "But I would be interested in further discussions along these lines."

"Mm," Lavender said, "mm hm. Yeah. It doesn't help that a lot of the people making the laws have no idea what they're talking about. Lots of politicians barely understand computers, let alone the internet."

There was a diatribe brewing about private email servers, but Lavender tamped it down. The truth, of course, was that she wasn't an incredibly technical person either. She knew how to use her computer and her phone. She knew what a .exe was on a vague level (a program) and why not to run one without being sure what it did (sometimes people made nasty programs that hijacked your computer, impersonated the FBI, and tried to extract money from you on false charges of having accessed illegal material), but she couldn't go much beyond that. Still, she knew enough to know when she had to go do more research. She held herself in check, always on guard for the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

"A lot of it's precedent," Lavender continued. "Most of the time, laws take more solid form by being tested, but the legal system is very slow. Cases can take years, once you factor in appeals and mistrials and so on, and so by the time there is precedent it may already be obsolete. And that's not touching on juries."

There was another discussion to be had there, about the selection process and how it could be advantageous to actually remove anyone with notable experience in the relevant field, but going down that path was probably jumping the gun.

Camille nodded, sharing a quiet exasperation about the hopelessly ill-informed attempts of legislators to mold and regulate something they didn't understand. Rather than taking that lack of knowledge as a reason for caution and leniency, this ignorance seemed to motivate an even heavier hand. The potential for disastrous consequences, possibly malicious but more likely inadvertent and borne from incompetence, was worrying. It was why Camille was such a methodical believer in backing up. If the internet were to collapse, she would be the archivist of unconventional porn.

Not the most heroic of roles, but a necessary one nonetheless.

She nodded as Lavender began an introduction to the subject, clearly moving over it at an abbreviated and abridged pace, more overview than comprehensive doctrine. Not that Camille didn't appreciate the thoughtfulness behind such a move. Providing an overview was always the best way to avoid boring tangents and unwanted conversational focuses. Camille did not anticipate any of these tangents being boring to her, but she was grateful for the emotional intelligence it indicated.

"Well, what's the situation with juries?" Camille asked.

"Ooh, okay."

Excellent. Lavender was more excited than she probably should've been about Camille expressing interest in the jury selection process. She knew, of course, how to convey her excitement and interest without going into a long boring monologue, knew that getting a really in-depth dissection of the issue was probably not in the cards for any number of reasons, but it was still nice to have someone at least a little interested.

"So," Lavender continued, "basically, during jury selection, both legal teams get to send potential jurors home. They do this for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is getting rid of anyone they think will be predisposed to rule against them. In theory, the jury should be impartial, but in practice lots of people have little biases."

She paused, gave a small shrug, and took a sip of her drink. There wasn't too much left by now, even with its funky flavor and her slow pace. She set the cup back down, noting idly that it had left a small circle of condensation where it rested.

"In theory, both teams getting rid of everyone biased against them creates a situation where the jury is close to neutral. And there is a limit to how many jurors each side can send home; you can't just keep going forever. But if you have a trial centering around technology—the internet, say—then probably one side or the other or both will want to remove anyone who actually knows about the subject, because their knowledge may predispose them towards some fact or other or else mess with the expert witnesses the lawyers have lined up. Over the course of the trial, they're probably going to try to teach the jury how things work in such a way as to best support their case, and that doesn't work if you have some webmaster guy who already thinks he knows everything there is to know about the net. But that means that the people who most know what they're talking about can be among the least likely to actually make the final jury."

Lavender had tried to keep that pretty succinct, but was self aware enough to register the perceptible shift in her personal level of comfort, the way she no longer felt compelled to glance over her shoulder to see if any little kids were nearby listening in.

Camille nodded along with Lavender's explanation. She had read just enough pulpy law novels to know that jury selection was a thing - of course, said novels were never consistent about the rules of juries, sacrificing accuracy for a short-term infusion of lazy cheap drama at whatever turn. It was interesting, then, hearing a full account of it from someone who had a degree of expertise in the subject. Perhaps not a professional level of expertise - Camille highly doubted any of her peers were professional at anything - but Lavender certainly had the potential to become smart at this.

The implications for the world of the internet were...well, chastening. There was, of course, a certain logic to the matter, but it was a perverse logic, one that undercut the notion of being tried by a jury of one's peers. Camille frowned as more and more details became apparent, but at the same time, her interest was building. There was a lot of potential, for investigative work or exciting stories, in this area, and Camille was always interested in finding out the potential for new stories and dramas in esoteric fields.

The conversation continued for quite some time. Camille spent much of the time throwing legal 'what ifs' at Lavender. Many of them were legal quandaries she herself had pondered, when writing a particularly sordid or copyright infringement heavy fanfic.

When Camille got home, she started writing Great Expectations smut. A fine way to spend an evening.

((Camille Bellegarde continued elsewhere.))