*sigh*
I started out here and wound up on this page, Fanfiction as Vehicle. After an apparently racist RPF set in post-earthquake Haiti offended a lot of people and caused a lot of fandom wank, the very intelligent author asked this:
To me, an interesting part of the discussion around this story is the ongoing conversation on whether or not fanfiction -- as opposed to original fiction -- is ever an appropriate vehicle for the exploration of real-life natural or man-made tragedies, particularly in non-white and post-colonial settings. The Haiti earthquake, 2004 tsunami, genocide in Rwanda, the reign of Idi Amin or the Khmer Rouge, the war in Iraq. (Or even fictional scenarios that are stand-ins for specific real-life tragedies.) This is clearly not to say that original fiction has carte blanche in its exploration of these topics, but: is there something inherent in the structure, audience or culture of fanfiction that makes it unsuitable for this purpose?
There were a lot of very intelligent comments, and for some reason (WHY? I ALWAYS KEEP MY OPINIONS TO MYSELF WHYYYYYYY) I decided to chip in with my 2 cents, because, despite not having anything inherently wonderful to add, being an h/c'er who writes scenes of torture while still translating and interpreting the real-life stories of people who have been tortured might be, I don't know, useful, if she wanted some input from someone where I am. So I wrote this loooooong post, with A, B and C, and 1, 2 and 3...
...and touchpad drift struck again, and it was swallowed up.
Like I'd have had anything to add to the discussion anyway. 'Sides, it was back in 2010.