Fanfic, from the outside

I'm sure I swore off online arguments years ago, but I'm weak so I got into one on fan fiction.

Now I don't write it (at least not since I was 13 and wrote a story about talking brumbies, but I changed the names!) but I am interested in why people write fanfic rather than original fiction. A lot of the reason people give are really *why write* rather than *why write fanfic*

I think I've summarised the reasons as such:

*It's perceived as easier than writing original fiction

*Community/sharing a common interest

*Feedback/acknowledgement from said community

*A desire to explore a situation/setting beyond that which the original creator presented

*This one is more nebulous and I haven't found the right words for it yet, but with original fiction there is always a need to bear the market in mind (word length, subject matter) and then the fun of submission, rejectin. FF obviously doesn't have this.

Yes, I realise it is fun but why?

Port Arthur - Hospital

Back to the touristy stuff :)



My favourite ruin is the hospital, built 1842, with 4 wards to accommodate prisoners and soldiers. There was one ward top and bottom behind the existing gable, so I assume two on the other side as well.

Bought by the Catholic Church for use as a boys home. Burnt down in 1895 bushfire, but they rebuilt. Burnt down again in the second bushfire.

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Port Arthur - Separate Prison

The Model or Separate Prison, built 1848.

'Model' because it was built using the latest ideas in prison reform, was based on the system used at Pentonville, that was based on system developed at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia and would be used in the building of the third wing at Melbourne Gaol a few years later (that which is now the Old Melbourne Gaol museum).


If you're wondering why there's a prison building and the big penitentiary building down by the water: one is for punishment, one is for a barracks for prisoners. Does that make the Separate Prison a prison within a prison within a prison?

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It hasn't even been a year since my last/first post. I thought it'd been longer.

It does occur to me that I could do posts from here and have them automatically crosspost to LJ. That might make more sense, but I think it's the same two people reading in both places so that makes less sense.