Rule 34/Creator Reactions
Advertising
- Esurance sidelined its popular animated spokesperson Erin Esurance (her face can still be seen on posters in their commercials, but she no longer appears in animated form) when they realized that the majority of search engine results for "Esurance" were fetishistic artwork starring Erin rather than anything having to do with car insurance.
- While not mentioning Rule 34 specifically, the actress playing Flo in the Progressive Auto Insurance commercials is apparently genuinely baffled by the amount of... attention that her character gets, insisting that she plays her completely asexually.
Anime & Manga
- Japanese manga and anime artists and companies have very little qualms about fans making erotic Doujinshi of their worlds, or even selling them; in fact, many famous manga and anime artists started their careers doing just that, and some of them still dabble in the pastime. This is buffered by the very low print runs of such work (though this is somewhat compensated by most doujinshi being downloadable at sites).
- On the note of many famous manga and anime artists originally working in the Doujinshi industry, CLAMP is notable for doing such. What did they market in? Easy.
- And then we have Miss Maki Murakami. Gravitation remixes... each more explicit than the last. Not to mention Gamerz Heaven. Yeah.
- According to some sources, the second season of Shinkon Gattai Godannar had to resolve funding problems by selling doujinshi of Godannar characters.
- Hellsing creator Kouta Hirano started off as a hentai artist—not only are most of the characters from Hellsing recycled from his previous works, but the plot of the first chapter as well. See Bleached Underpants.
- There is a (while not porn, not work safe) Sonic the Hedgehog anthropomorphic Gender Bender doujin written by Koshi Rikudo.
- Excel Saga also parodies this by having Shinichi Watanabe force Koshi to authorize making an episode out of an earlier porn doujin of his.
- Koharu Biyori's omake at the end of volume 1 features the guy unsuspectingly buying hentai featuring himself with his robot maid because his friend couldn't make it to the con and asked him to load up. He never actually reads it, but his robot girl maid does.
- Kyoto Animation recently lampshaded the practice with a Shout-Out to one of their other works. An episode of Lucky Star had the girls going to Comiket, a real-life Doujinshi convention, with Konata marking all the tables she wanted to see. In the real Comiket of that year, all those tables sold Suzumiya Haruhi Hentai. What's even worse is that she recruited her friends to pick up these doujinshi for her, including titles such as Dripping Brigade Chief.
- This is only funnier when you remember who voices Konata.
- Rei Hiroe, creator of Black Lagoon, openly makes Hentai doujins under the pseudonym Tex-Mex. Apparently he does so just for fun, but never does any based on his own work. However he has published two worksafe artbooks in doujin format about characters from the Black Lagoon series under said pseudonym, with the first one being simply about how he designed the characters and the other being a swimsuit special.
- In an ironic twist, because of publishing them under the name Tex-Mex, these artbooks have found their way into the lists of hentai manga despite being totally worksafe.
- In one of his swimsuit illustrations, Hiroe even invites readers to draw erotic scenes about Roberta.
- Kiyohiko Azuma, author of such decidedly family-viewing-safe, and even wholesome entertainment as Azumanga Daioh and Yotsubato, got his start doing erotic and non-erotic fan doujinshi; mostly under the pen name Jōji Jonokuchi.
- Toshihiro Ono is best known in the US as the author of the Pokémon manga The Electric Tale of Pikachu and the Crest of the Stars manga. In Japan, he's better known as an author of hentai doujinshi with titles like Anal Justice. It's not surprising considering the edits Viz had to make for US release, and even before that his editors in Japan had to clean it up some.
- Shirow Masamune often draws up hentai artwork in between and within his published series like Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell. He actually started out with hentai artwork before moving into serialized productions.
- Genshiken has this rule come up more than a few times, as its cast consists largely of otaku. Saki suffers a bit of a meltdown on learning there are hentai doujinshi of everything early on.
- Fridge Brilliance kicks in once you realize there are hentai doujinshi of everything in Real Life, including her.
- An example of the degree to which this can get carried is also present: Since fair use provisions in Japanese copyright law are much different from those of the US, frequently all references to other anime will need to be bleeped out of the dialog. Since Genshiken revolves around a college otaku club, to avoid having to do this, the writers created a fictional anime named Kujibiki Unbalance that was chock-full of anime tropes and clichés in order to describe anime as a whole. Several of the Genshiken episodes are devoted to the craft of creating, publishing, and selling a ero-doujinshi of this fictional anime. As an example of life imitating art, now Kujibiki Unbalance is actually a real anime and manga, and every conceivable Slash Fic and hentai doujinshi featuring its characters are already being published.
- The increasingly aggressive pursuit of Fan Disservice as Neon Genesis Evangelion progressed, culminating in the heavy application of Squick and Nightmare Fuel in The End of Evangelion, is said to be a result of Hideaki Anno's reactions to Rule 34 - in particular, the masturbation scene is rumored to be a specific Take That against fans who fetishized the characters.
- One could add the whole Kaworu storyline is intended to subvert No Bisexuals while also making fans who "identified with" Shinji's Unwanted Harem uncomfortable.
- Gainax's approach to milking the franchise, on the other hand, is pretty much the polar opposite. They've licensed production of Rei and Asuka (and now Mari) figures in pretty much every fetishistic outfit man has ever conceived.
- For Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt on the other hand, Gainax seems to be encouraging doujinshi of the series, asking the creators to "work hard" for the then upcoming Comiket 79.
- Naoko Takeuchi, creator/author/artist of Sailor Moon, enthusiastically encourages and enjoys reading fanworks based on it, including hentai material, and has been known to say so in her manga marginalia. Not to mention she herself drawing Usagi topless (and averting Barbie Doll Anatomy by giving her nipples) in the Doujinshi Pretty Solider Sailor Moon Original Picture Collection Volume Infinity, which is hardly porn but a little racy. Funnily enough the editors at Kodansha were more upset by the picture of Usagi in just her underwear than the topless picture.
- Ryogho Narita (creator of Baccano! and Durarara!!) stated that, while he doesn't understand why so many people want to see Shizuo and Izaya have steamy hatesex with each other, he can't exactly object to it when he himself ships Harumi/Chiri. He's also prone to poking fun at shipping/Rule 34 tendencies in general (Erika's biggest shipping dilemma: Trolls/Fans or Fans/Trolls?).
- Mind you, he even wrote a short NSFW Shizaya fiction, even though it was All Just a Dream, and an April Fools joke.
- Hayao Miyazaki lamented that while he prefers to have female protagonists, "It's difficult. They immediately become the subjects of Lolicon artwork."
- Aoi Nishimata makes a lot of ero doujins. She's an eroge artist so that's not surprising. What is surprising is when she made an incest rape doujin using her own characters from her own non adult series Final Approach.
Comic Books
- Archie Comics aggressively responds to Rule 34, threatening legal action against fanfiction.net if it didn't take down all the slash fics featuring its characters. It's not hard to see why, when you consider that the slash in question ranged from Archie/Jughead to Archie/Mr.Weatherbee.
- Deny, deny, deny.
- Archie is now on the site's list of stories and authors that fanfiction is not allowed to be posted about AT ALL.
- Which is really ironic considering Dan DeCarlo drew hundreds of erotic drawings.
- In-universe example: In Watchmen, the first Silk Spectre owns a Tijuana Bible of herself. She finds it flattering and it reminds her of her Glory Days. After Nite-Owl admits to owning a copy when he was a kid, she offers to give it to him.
- There are a number of fan works that come out of Fred Perry's series Gold Digger, both general audience and a not so general audience. How does the man himself feel? Laughs it off as long as someone's not trying to make a buck off of it. He even makes a good deal of his own upon commission request at conventions as long as it's not distasteful to common senses.
- This has led to some mishaps, however, among them a fan, ardent on getting his copy of Gold Digger autographed, who began discussing an erotic picture of Britney he wanted Perry to draw, much to Perry's attempted denial—which failed miserably when the fan showed Perry a set of earlier commissions he did. (Said fan did this in front of a grandmother and her two children after pushing them out of the way to get to the front of the line.)
Disney
- Disney is a notorious example of a corporation actively against Rule Thirty Four, or any other "unauthorized" use of their characters, for that matter; woe be a fan artist who makes a similar character to one of theirs, or any day care centers who have unapproved murals of their characters on their walls, as they have been known to file lawsuits against such "offenders". The sheer amount of Disney Rule 34 that still exists without incident suggests that at some point they finally realized it was a lost cause.
- An infamous (and probably apocryphal) story from the early days of the studio tells of a staff party where a cartoon was shown of Mickey and Minnie Mouse in an x-rated scene. Afterwards, Walt chuckled along with everyone else, invited the two guys who made the cartoon to come up and be recognized... and then fired them on the spot and ordered the film destroyed.
- Other versions of the story suggest that it was Snow White and her dwarfs having an orgy in the film which was shown at Uncle Walt's birthday party.
- Minnie and Mickey did appear in a few Tijuana Bibles and Snow White, Jasmine, Ariel and Jessica Rabbit are favorite targets of internet porn maestro Julius Zimmerman.
- One popular variation has the gentlemen sneaking a single frame of regular pornography into the reel to see how phenomenal Walt's vision was. Walt spots it, but only slightly chastises the animators, joking "You know, if she weren't naked, I wouldn't have seen her."
- This is in fact famous enough to get a Snopes page (where it is rated "undetermined")
- According to some of the older members of Furry Fandom, back when the fandom was mostly limited to southern California, one clueless artist tried for a job at Disney studios by showing them his portfolio of very creepy Disney erotica — and was banned from the grounds
- Equally infamous is the story of author Harlan Ellison's one and only day working for Disney; Ellison himself tells the story with his trademark mix of humor and outrage (part 3 of the link). According to him, the day started very promisingly but ended immediately after a lunch where he joked about (and acted out) a hypothetical Mickey Mouse porn film.
- Interestingly, Disney chose not to sue The Realist or Wally Wood when he did his infamous Disneyland Memorial Orgy (the image, while not showing explicit depictions of genitalia, is probably not worksafe), on the feeling that it was probably protected as parody (as well as the possibility that the lawsuit would bring unwanted publicity). They did, however, sue the poster company selling unauthorized copies of Wood's work.
- Some animators at Disney actually draw this kind of stuff in their free time at work and joke about it. Unlike the examples above, however, they're smart enough to keep it to themselves and their co-workers.
- Joseph Michael Linsner, in his "Dawn & Beyond" collectible art card set, included two Disney pieces. The first, a topless Ariel seen by a pop-eyed Sebastian, is fairly tame. The second, Beauty getting molested by Beast with Lumiere as a vibrator looking on, is rather less so. Disney went after Linsner, and the set was recalled and is now sold without those two pieces included. To be fair, this stuff was being sold for real money, which of course is copyright infringement any way you slice it.
- An infamous (and probably apocryphal) story from the early days of the studio tells of a staff party where a cartoon was shown of Mickey and Minnie Mouse in an x-rated scene. Afterwards, Walt chuckled along with everyone else, invited the two guys who made the cartoon to come up and be recognized... and then fired them on the spot and ordered the film destroyed.
- On the other hand, for the second season Gargoyles DVD, Disney interviewed a number of Fan Fiction writers for a special feature on fanfic for the show (though only the cast and crew are interviewed). Some of the fanwriters in the special are downright notorious for writing NSFW stories.
- They do seem to have less of a problem if it's framed in the context of Kingdom Hearts but that may be because that targets an altogether different audience.
- The first Disney Power Rangers season, Power Rangers Wild Force includes a joke that was deleted from "Forever Red" about "the stories about [Jason and Tommy] on the Internet" and how they've been awkward ever since. After a gay porn star who looked like Austin St. John surfaced, this became Hilarious in Hindsight.
- The infamous Air Pirates case, where the eponymous 70's counterculture cartoonist group was the target of a massive lawsuit for publishing raunchy Satire, Parody, Pastiche Mickey Mouse comics.
Film
- Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films) has responded positively to finding x-rated fanfic of his character.
- James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley), on the other hand, were suitably disgusted by the Twincest they learned about regarding their characters.
- Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) actually discussed the Harry/Draco pairing on Conan O'Brien, even joking that his brother had a particularly porny photo as the background on his computer and claimed that he took it.
- Ralph Fiennes doesn't seem to know what to make of Harry/Voldemort fiction.
- Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings films) has a sort of amused and creeped out amazement for all the Frodo/Sam, Slash Fic and art out there. Start at 3:00 in. Apparently what makes it so "unbelievably creepy" is the quality of the artwork.
- Eli Roth managed to find the Kink Meme of Inglourious Basterds and passed it all onto the rest of the cast (including Quentin Tarantino). He's apparently quite amused at it all, though the same could not be said for Christoph Waltz.
- George Lucas, upon seeing slash in the Star Trek fandom, aggressively pursued Star Wars slash fiction.
- After Brokeback Mountain became a movie, Annie Proulx, author of the original short story, developed some Creator Backlash due to fans mailing her their fanfic - "They constantly send ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for 'fixing' the story."
- Legal action was brought against the creators of creators of The Three Stooges porn parody.
Literature
- In the Great Fanfic Condemnation Week of 2010, author Diana Gabaldon expressed shock and horror that people on the internet were writing fanfiction of her characters in which "silky thighs" were stroked.
- Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Kingkiller Chronicle, not only actively looked for, but was over joyed to find that fans had slashed his charecters!He was so happy that he ever wrote a blog about it
- Pat happily ends his blog entry,stating "I have truly arrived on the scene as a fantasy author."
- J. K. Rowling has said that she loves reading fan fiction of Harry Potter, but just wants to make sure that "mature" fics are properly given a warning so young children do not read them.
- Naomi Novik responds with gleeful amusement to Temeraire Rule 34 on her Livejournal:
ahahahaha, so yes, I have in fact gotten an (awesome!) porny Temeraire fanart for the contest. *is dying of laughter* I love fandom. \\o/
- Novik, of course, got her start in fandom—she was (and still is) a prominent slash writer in several different fandoms, and her user handle is something of an open secret to the slash community—so she is undoubtedly well aware of fannish activity regarding Temeraire. In fact, Temeraire itself began as an Ascended Fanfic of the Aubrey-Maturin series!
- In the late '80s, Larry Niven granted permission to a fan, Elf Sternberg, to write a fanfic based on Niven's Known Space universe. The story Sternberg wrote and posted to UseNet was, in Niven's words, "a sadomasochistic homosexual gangbang" involving the kzinti, Niven's warlike felinoid alien race. Niven threatened to sue Sternberg, who withdrew the story, but that doesn't stop bootleg copies of it from circulating. Subsequently, Sternberg incorporated some concepts from his fic into his own series, The Journal Entries, which is essentially an erotic Mega Crossover of various SF works with the Serial Numbers Filed Off. Niven would later open up the Known Space universe to other authors in the Man-Kzin Wars series of story collections.
Live Action TV
- How many fanfics do you know that have caused International Incidents? Agony In Pink was a Power Rangers badfic where the Pink Ranger gets tortured and killed - in lengthy detail - by a monster created by Lord Zedd. It resulted in the newsgroup it was posted on getting banned in Australia, and is believed to be responsible for the complete removal of adult fanfic from Fanfiction.net. The lemon-fics returned to the site, once all the furor gradually evaporated over time, but now they're rated (by which we mean disguised) as "Mature" . However, virtually all of the original lemon-fics which got deleted by the administrators never did get posted again.
- Fortunately for self-proclaimed perverts everywhere, Adultfanfiction.net remains to take the burden off its shoulders. And if Fanfiction.net ever carries out its threat of banning M-rated fanfiction too (unlikely unless there's ANOTHER International Incident), well, AFF.net's rating system can take those as well.
- MythBusters' Adam Savage KNOWS that Rule 34 applies to his own show, and HAS seen things he wishes to unsee. He says so here.
- Joss Whedon is known for encouraging different interpretations of his characters' relationships, or in his words - "ALL the relationships on the show are sort of romantic (Hence the BYO Subtext principle)."
- Joss Whedon even went as far as to lampshade it in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 comic. Guess what Issue 34 is about? Buffy having super-powered sex with Angel. And they show as much as they can without falling into porn territory.
- James Marsters is reportedly amused by Rule34 of his character, Spike. Anthony Stewart Head, on the other hand, is mildly squicked at Giles being paired with Willow.
"Why do they have to do that?"
- Well, then he really should not look for fanfiction for Repo! The Genetic Opera lest he find the Nathan/Shilo section.
- David Tennant has seen Doctor Who porn on the internet, especially Ten/Jack Harkness. He's... bemused, if a little scared, though not enough to keep him from making a crack about one sample coming from John Barrowman's blog.
- Whereas the Estate of Terry Nation leaps into action to ban the occasional Dalek porn flick which shows up every now and again. The most recent was "Abducted By The Daleks", about the Daleks teleporting a bunch of naked lesbians into their ship and groping them with their plungers:
The director of Terry Nation's estate, Tim Hancock, told The Sun: "The reason the Daleks are still the most sinister thing in the universe is because they do not make things like porn. They weren't ever intended to be sexual creatures. It's simple, Daleks do not do porn."
- Of course not. Tasteful art photos, sure. But no porn.
- Victor Lewis-Smith sails as close to the wind as he could in the "Gay Daleks" segments of his TV Offal series (and it's pretty certain that he was trying to annoy the people who had denied him the use of the Doctor Who theme for an earlier TV satire):
"When I was a child and the Daleks were only shown in black and white, they looked to me like frightening Nazis. But then came colour television, and suddenly I could see they were really rather florid and harmless. Indeed, there's something intrinsically effeminate about Daleks; after all, there's the skirt, the plunger that's always getting erect when other Daleks are around, the all-male bonding, the obsession with discipline - isn't it obvious? The Daleks are gay! And this is what they seem like to me: (cue radio jingle)
They're camp!
They exterminate!
Better watch your backs!
It's the Gay Daleks!
- Frankie Boyle seems to view the existence of a Mock the Week fic which slashes him and Hugh Dennis as simply being really good material for jokes.
- In the documentary "Trekkies", Denise Crosby and Brent Spiner (of Star Trek: The Next Generation) discuss some erotic artwork, of the two of them together, that fans have mailed to them.
- In a very surreal scene, the main characters in Supernatural discover all the adult fanfiction about themselves. It's the "Wincest" that really squicks them out.
- Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki found out about fanfiction due to Kim Manners giving them printed copies of Wincest stories early in the show's life.
- Richard Speight Jr doesn't mind his character, Gabriel/Trickster appearing in fanfic - even when the example is Castiel/Gabriel.
- One of the actresses from the BBC mini-series Sherlock, Louise Brealey (Molly), found fanfiction of her character and Tweeted about it. She later Tweeted a second time to reassure the author of the fic that she wasn't offended.
- When Benedict Cumberbatch found out about the significant amount of explicit Slash Fic and Fan Art and being produced for the show, his reaction consisted mostly of being very flattered by the depictions of his character.
- Bear in mind that Ben "found out" about the porn from Martin Freeman. He (and his partner Amanda Abbington) lurk on Tumblr, and he shares what he finds with the rest of the cast.
- When Benedict Cumberbatch found out about the significant amount of explicit Slash Fic and Fan Art and being produced for the show, his reaction consisted mostly of being very flattered by the depictions of his character.
- On 30 Rock, Tracy makes a porn film on the TGS set. Tina Fey hired the porn stars who played them in the 30 Rock porn parody to appear in the actual show.
- Max Adler and Chris Colfer are aware of their Glee characters being paired together. They're fine with it, although Max doesn't want to read anything in case it influences him, and they both think that "Kurtofsky" sounds like a mean, famous, Russian ballerina.
- Kevin McHale has earned himself the nickname of "Kevin McTroll", and is known in the fandom for visiting Tumblr (often tweeting coyly about his visits). He's stated that he's aware of a lot that goes on in the fandom, though he doesn't read fanfiction, saying that he's seen snippets that scare him.
- Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter are at least aware enough to know that their Portmanteau Couple Name is Candy. It's been referenced on Conan a few times
- David Duchnovny and Nicholas Lea have apparently found slash fic of Mulder/Krycek and reportedly found it vastly entertaining.
Music
- Musical duo The Indelicates actually ran a contest claiming that it was inevitable that someone would make it and they'd rather be involved.
- Rock band My Chemical Romance are aware of the erotic fanfiction and fanart with them in it, and they talked about this in an interview once. Frank Iero, while creeped out at the thought of him being a character, is glad that the fanbase is being 'creative'. Meanwhile, Ray Toro is less than pleased and wants the fans to "stop making us have sex with each other". And then there's poor Mikey Way who stumbled upon an incest fic of him and Gerard. Needless to say, he was terrified.
- And yet, the brothers continue to creatively use candy bars in their shows.
- Yesung from Super Junior stated in an interview that he's read fanfiction about the band and said he didn't understand why they (the members) had to be paired up with one another. Or why he's always paired up with Ryeowook. Overall, he was rather embarrassed by it, if not a little indignant.
Newspaper Comics
- Josh Fruhlinger, aka The Comics Curmudgeon, linked to a Rule 34 of Slylock Fox in his blog that included Cassandra Cat and other characters. Bob Weber found out after it was posted, and was a surprisingly good sport about it — he thought it was funny, but politely asked it to be taken down so that kids couldn't find it.
- Weber himself then did a picture of a bikini-clad Cassandra Cat, which he allowed Fruhlinger to put on Comics Curmudgeon merchandise, just to show how good a sport he was about it.
- Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker was way ahead of his fans on this one. He once drew Ms. Buxley nude and released the drawing as a limited edition series of art prints. Walker and his staff also make several dirty gag strips that never make it paste the sketch level. Mostly, they do this for their own amusement, but some of the strips has been published in Scandinavian magazines. With Walker's blessings, of course.
Video Games
- Valve seems at least a little aware of the massive amounts of shipping and Rule34 in Team Fortress 2 communities, but doesn't do much outside of taking potshots or jokingly Ship Teasing ("Beaux and Arrows" Achievement? Kill a Heavy/Medic pair with the Huntsman, a bow) in order to mess with fans.
- On that same note, Epic Games is fully aware that people have noticed a Ho Yay subtext present between the main characters of their Gears of War series, Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago, and have included achievement names with mocking titles such as "Dom-curious."
- Bayonetta's creator Hideki Kamiya wasn't happy with smutty depictions of the character. Not because there's erotic work of her, but that it usually makes her submissive. In his eyes, Bayonetta should always be a dom.
- It is sadly a common case, too. A depressing amount of Rule 34 for just about every Action Girl you care to name is like that.
- Surprisingly, the doujin fandom responded by making Bayonetta the one in power in most dojins now.
- A rare exception to the general attitude of Japanese companies to doujins was a Pokémon doujin that involved Satoshi (Ash) turning into a werewolf and doing unspeakable things to Pikachu. Nintendo came down hard on that one.
- Heh. Hard on. More seriously, Nintendo has been anti-Rule 34 since the early days; that Nintendo Seal of Approval was partially because Digital Piracy Is Evil and partially because pirates had made porn on the Atari 2600.
- Not as hard a line as they're sometimes portrayed as—most of Nintendo's hyper-family-friendly image comes from Nintendo of America during the NES/SNES era. Suggestive or gory games date back all the way to the Famicom in Japan. It's actualy Sony that has the hardest line against pornographic content, which caused problems for the PlayStation 2 version of the infamously terrible BMX XXX. Sega is no longer in the console business, but didn't have a policy against pornography at all when it was—the Japanese Saturn actually had some eroge officially released for it.
- When they were initially released, Nintendo bought out the Super Hornio Brothers porn parodies to make sure they never got any further distribution.
- Heh. Hard on. More seriously, Nintendo has been anti-Rule 34 since the early days; that Nintendo Seal of Approval was partially because Digital Piracy Is Evil and partially because pirates had made porn on the Atari 2600.
- Reportedly, one of the reasons that Dizzy (the Guilty Gear character, not the egg) exists is to provide a sort of porn bug zapper for the rest of the cast of Guilty Gear. She's three years old, almost naked, has wings and a tail, and the most oblivious fan in the world would probably wonder if she was banging May. Thus, she provides so much low-hanging porn fruit that the creators hoped fan artists would gravitate entirely towards her and stay away from the other women in the cast. It appears to have been at least partially successful.
- This becomes an enormous mind screw when you take Bridget into account...
- ZUN, creator (and everything else) of Touhou, is like most things regarding the fandom well aware of the gargantuan amount of sexual material starring his characters, and the only thing he's requested is that if fans make it then they don't try to mass produce it or sell it outside amateur comic outlets. Surprisingly, this request has been pretty unanimously followed.
- Casey Hudson, creative director of the Mass Effect series, seems to have heard of the Defictionalized Fornax magazine. His reaction seemed to be a mixture of surprise and disgust/amusement.
- Toby Fox, creator of Undertale, has as his only petition to the fandom that any adult fanwork based on the game to be tagged "Undertail" for easy blacklisting purposes. So far, the fanbase has complied. He himself is quite lax on his views on Rule 34, as this tweet proves:
me: (scribbles a shitty cartoon dog w/ swords* in the margins of my class notes)
internet: I want to Fuck that
me: Cool
- The game itself has several obliques references to Rule 34, due to the fanart that surged between the demo and the full release. The most notorious is this double entendre jab to the Furry Fandom:
Sans: [after buying several hot dogs and one "hot cat" from his illegal hot dog stand] ... you really like hot animals, don't you? hey, i'm not judging. i'd be out of a job without folks like you.
- Temmie Chang, the creator of several monsters for the game, has gone on record saying that she is uncomfortable with seeing erotic fanart involving Temmies (which are based on her Self-portraying caricature) and that she would intervene on blogs posting it. Knowing that her disapproval won't stop the pornographers, she asked that at least the people making or posting it tag it "Temmoi" instead of "Temmie".
- Hato Moa, the creator of Hatoful Boyfriend, has said on twitter "I myself allow sexual Hatoful fan arts of course. Have fun!". She herself post only worksafe fanarts, but many of the artist she reblogs had also made more erotic art and even pornographic doujinshis.
Webcomics
- Through some mishap of how search engines work, the webcomic Mac Hall somehow got associated with Digimon porn. This resulted in a large number of people coming to the site for this exact purpose. As a joke, the writer posted a few spoofs to make fun of this... which resulted in Internet Search engines and furry sites associating them with Digimon porn even more. Then there was one last indignity that just made it look like the universe has it in for them.
- The creators of webcomics CRFH and Queen of Wands politely asked their fanbase that if they were going to produce porn based on the webcomic to please not post it or links to it in the comic's forum as the creator didn't want to see it. Both fanbases complied.
- The Walkyverse fanbase, on the other hand, is the complete opposite, with much of the explicit material contained in the site's own fanart gallery.
- Likewise, the author of Keychain of Creation has a separate adult fanart gallery. (Granted, it only has one picture so far, but that's not bad for a Stick Figure Comic.) He's also drawn some himself.
- The author of Narbonic once publicly lamented that no one cared enough to make homoerotic fanfiction with her characters. To her delight, several examples appeared in her inbox the very next day.
- There are two threads based around this trope on the The Order of the Stick forums: "Fanservice" and "House of Horrors". Let's just say the latter is labeled NSFW. Made even more disturbing by the fact that they're stick figures.
- Both have been locked on a permanent basis for a while now. Rule 34 material is not allowed on the OOTS forums.
- The author of the Blade of Toshubi had no problem when the author of the adult comic LOVEMAGIC asked to use his main character in a story.
- Both Tim Buckley and Fred Gallagher threatened to discontinue their respective webcomics if they found pornographic drawings. They both re-thought their threats after realizing what a powerful weapon they'd given anybody who didn't like their comics.
- In the case of Gallagher, it was even more damning, because as soon after he issued his threat, dedicated internet dwellers dug and found a fansite full of erotic fanart Gallagher has drawn of the heroines from several works from Key Visual Arts.
- This Xkcd strip probably explains the process behind this phenomenon. Needless to say, wetriffs.com exists. According to a Wired interview, it existed six months before the comic, the domain registered by creator Randall Monroe.
- Eric W. Schwartz is somewhat notorious for producing a document listing exactly which of his Sabrina Online characters are and are not allowed to be depicted nude or in porn. As with the Disney example above, he's probably given up trying by now.
- Back in its Keenspot days, someone pointed out that the Rule34 website had El Goonish Shive porn. Everyone started discussing it. Dan's reaction: Just don't link to the forum.
- When asked about drawing hentai based on Aoi House, creator Adam Arnold said he'd like to see it.
- Flipside, which has more recently had some occasional nudity in strip, has had a hidden gallery of nude fan pics of the characters.
- The Penny Arcade creators have gone on record saying they have nothing against people drawing porn of their characters, and actually think it's kind of awesome. "I am honored that people would like the characters enough to want to see them fuck." - Mike Krahulik.
- Does that include Annarchy? Because it exists.
- Possibly the message of this scene from Scary Go Round where Shelley encounters obsessive fans of herself. It gets quite awkward.
Shelley-Fan: Dennis, show her your tatoo.
Shelley: Um, that's lovely, Dennis. Maybe it overflatters my flexibilty and unicorn riding abilities.
- Andrew Hussie of MS Paint Adventures seems to take a sort of perverse pleasure towards Jossing all the shipping and fanfic his fans write. Except for the people who ship him. From his formspring [dead link] ;
Q: Can you send me some of your DNA so I can forcibly impregnate my sister with your children?
A: I am calling the police.
- Then again, he did once retweet a (non-explicit) fanart of himself and Ryan North, with whom he is friends in real life. Honestly, it'd be better to say that he enjoys screwing with his fanbase, whether it involves Jossing ships or ShipTeasing them. That's probably the best explanation for throwaway lines like this:
TG: i should probably text him soon
TG: see whats up
TG: because
TG: i love him
- He did once draw actual Rule34 of his own comic. Of Lil' Cal and Colonel Sassacre. For the record, the former is a ventriloquist's dummy and the second is a parody of Mark Twain.
- It pretty much seems he doesn't care all that much and/or likes joking around about it:
"How does seeing 'adult fanart' of your work make you feel (I assume you've seen some)? I just discovered mspachan tonight; been reading Homestuck from the start and I am... a little weirded out."
"Why don't you just embrace all the boners they are giving you, and stop bothering me about it?"
...
"How do you really feel about Homestuck porn?"
"It sure is full of naked fictional people having sex."
- Most recently he said this:
ialsolikestrawberries: SO WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT ALL THIS PORN OF YOUR NEWLY INTRODUCED CHARACTERS, MR HUSSIE
Andrew Hussie: The pornos happen fast, I will give them that.
Thank GOD I aged them up to the ripe year of 15. Conscience totally fucking ameliorated.
- The author of Bittersweet Candy Bowl did this to her poor characters long before anyone else did, and is aware of the various works her fans do.
- Christian Chandler apparently felt no qualms towards naked drawings of his characters, and even did drawings himself. However, he was driven up the wall when drawings surfaced portraying his female characters as hermaphrodites. He's also reported to have a vehement hatred of Slash Fic.
- David Herbert of Domain Tnemrot once said no one was famous until this trope was inflicted on them.
Web Original
- The people of TGWTG.com are aware that their fans can be and are slightly mental. And they're willing and cheerful enough about mentioning and hanging Lampshades on this fact. Linkara even left a comment on aunt_zelda's Apocalypse!fic (also featured in Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre) claiming that he, while slightly disturbed, isn't planning on raising a big fuss about it. And does this through scaring the writer half dead.
- And even before that (when the fandom didn't exist and the Nerd/Critic battle was just starting) Doug said that he and James were sent fanfic and fanart links and said while it was a little weird, they mostly found it really funny.
- More recently he said that while he doesn't go searching for slashy stuff, it'd be silly for him to be offended and worry about what kind of people watch him.
- Lindsay has said she mostly reads the Slash Fic, but has a laugh over all the Chick/Nella femme!slash. And Nella has actually filled a (art with her saving Scarlett from a tower) prompt on the Kink Meme.
- There was a livestream recently which was all about the fanfic. They found the Kink Meme and to much delight and/or embarrassment, they read out prompts and fic and even proclaimed some of it really hot. They even requested stuff!
- Marz Gurl also took part in Benzaie's Let's Fap of 3D Custom Girl... in which they made a doll of her.
- Todd in the Shadows says in his review of Rihanna's "S&M" that sadomasochism isn't so weird, considering he's seen porn of himself.
- Diamanda Hagan even joined the fun—when a fanfic of her, Marz Gurl and The Nostalgia Chick was proposed, she stated she was "amused." When it surfaced, she did a dramatic reading of it.
- Several of them have been prone to making requests...with length requirements. On official DVD releases:
- And even before that (when the fandom didn't exist and the Nerd/Critic battle was just starting) Doug said that he and James were sent fanfic and fanart links and said while it was a little weird, they mostly found it really funny.
Bennett the Sage: I expect 2,000 words within the week this [the Suburban Knights DVD] goes up, or you have FAILED!
- And Rob Walker, even though in fic he's mostly fucking his little brother, wants the minimum for fanfiction involving him to be 1,000 words.
- Kyle Kallgren mentioned finding something on his Twitter and, a few posts later, tweeted "Hey, to the people on tumblr I mentioned earlier - I really don't care. I found it flattering! Please continue as you were." and "I mean, jeez, I didn't want to send people running scared..."
- Less enthralled by the guro, however.
- Captain SNES had a whole parody where Relm was a Yaoi Fangirl who couldn't stop slashing football players together. Fantasy football was Ruined FOREVER for Alex.
- The Everyman HYBRID guys are aware, in-character, of the Slash Fic they've attracted. Their reactions were fairly tame, although Evan describes it as being simultaneously disturbing and flattering.
- Reportedly, Jadusable was not amused. Since a lot of the potential Rule 34 for the fandom involves Ordinary College Students getting it on with either Eldritch Abominations or a very literal Fandom Bicycle, this is fairly Justified due to the persistent No Yay factor.
- The creator of My Name Is Zytherys plays the eponymous character and is a bit Pettanko. This has led to a good number of the fans assuming the blog is run by a male. After reading a slash fic running on this assumption, she bemusedly commented in a PM that she wasn't aware she was so well-endowed.
- In an episode of the Rooster Teeth weekly podcast, Geoff (voice of Grif) and Gus (voice of Simmons) mentioned how yes, they know there's Grif/Simmons slash fics out there, and yes, they've read some. And wished they hadn't.
- Pretty much the main reason behind Germaine's Flanderization by the author, J.I. Mathers, in Neurotically Yours was in order to lower the amount of this. Needless to say, it didn't work.
- When the topic of rule 34 of Demo (a female being wih no arms, blue hair, and a face that consists solely of a giant eye) being made came up on the talkhaus forums during the development of A Super Mario Thing, Raocow, her creator, could only utter a Flat What in response.
- John Green of the Vlog Brothers mentioned on a livestream that while he liked fanfic of his books, he wished he didn't know about John/Hank Slash Fic.
- Quite famously, Jesse of Jesse Cox encourages the large amount of Slash Fiction that accumulated from his Terraria Let's Play with Total Biscuit.
- TB is mostly just disturbed.
Jesse: "Also, continue writing your creepy Total Biscuit and Jesse Cox Slash Fiction, the only thing missing are tentacles, and Warcraft Females."
TB: "All Fan boys must die."
- The Runaway Guys are well aware of the Slash Fic their fans generate, especially Proton Jon. He seems to find it somewhere between funny and disturbing.
Western Animation
- Butch Hartman condemns those who draw porn of Danny Phantom characters in addition to the works of shippers in general as not being true fans. He even went as far as to claim a toon porn artist on his forum was a pedophile and had attempted to seduce a girl forum member.
- Rumor has it that some animators of the children cartoon show The Raccoons drew their characters in adult situations, put the drawings on the walls of the Hinton Animation Studios and later even created print collections for themselves entitled "Off the Walls" vol. 1, 2 and 3.
- Craig McCracken, of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends fame, while answering to frequent questions on his Deviant ART account, said "Yes I have seen the porn. Let's just leave it at that."
- Especially when you consider that Frankie Foster was based on his wife, Lauren Faust.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- When Lauren Faust's turn into dealing with the Rule 34 in the fandom for her own show came, she has this to say "I'm a big girl. When stuff gets too icky I just find something else to do."
- http://fyre-flye.deviantart.com/journal/FAQ-276161988 That's an animation FAQ with a section on My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. It reiterates her stance about R34.
- Though when she discovered that fans were making porn of her Pony OC she said word for word, "Gotta admit, that kind of gives me the creeps. I'd rather not know about it."
- Tara Strong, on the other hand seems to take a more relaxed approach to her character Twilight Sparkle in a bikini for example.
- Calvin Wong, one of the storyboarders for Regular Show, said that he knew Mordecai/Rigby slash would happen from the get-go, but added, "If anything we're happy that people care that much about the characters more so than any other emotion."
- According to an interview that's no longer online, a cartoonist working on the Beetlejuice animated series drew some Beetlejuice/Lydia porn in which BJ fingers Lydia while she's on her period and ends up with a red finger tip. The crew found it so funny they made BJ's fingernails red in the cartoon as an inside joke.
- According to that same interview, Rule 34 was rampant in that studio, and included everything from softcore fluff to things that were, to quote, "Bad. Sand-worm bad."
- Furry artist Klaus Doberman was forced to remove his Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron porn from his profiles after Dreamworks Animation started threatening him with a lawsuit.
- Hanna-Barbera filed lawsuit against artist Jab for making naughty art of their characters. Jab has not drawn a piece of any Hanna-Barbera character since the attempted lawsuit.
- Galaxy Rangers fandom is an odd case. The fandom takes a dim view of Rule 34 because several writers lurk on the main fan list. That didn't stop Chris Rowley from inverting this Trope by commenting the writers themselves had some unsavory speculations about the villainess's sex life.
- How did the Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy pairing of Edd and Eddy happen? One of the STORYBOARD WRITERS drew porn of them and somehow leaked it onto the internet!
- Pen Ward generally appreciates all types of Fan Art for the show, even if it's pornographic; he just likes that people care enough about the show to draw it.
- Like with Disney above, Warner Bros isn't a terribly big fan of this trope, as evidenced by this cease & desist letter from their lawyers.
- For the episode about shipping in South Park, the creators actually asked fans to sent fanart of Tweek X Craig to be used on this fashion.
- Steven Universe: Allegedly, the producers of the show are okay with fans doing adult fanworks because, on their words, "The writers room talks we have about the actual canon is waaaay sicker". The creator of the show, Rebecca Sugar, has actually drawn soft rule 34 fanart before her professional career.
- Gravity Falls’ creator Alex Hirsch is more than a little squicked by the Rule 34 of the series, not only because the most popular ships are incestuous in nature, but because these characters are inspired on him, his sister and his grandfather. He is similarly weirded (but more accepting) of the ships that involve Bill Cypher, but only because of the rampant Self Fanservice on fanarts of said character.
Other
- While not exactly porn, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America did sue the manufacturers of a poster depicting a pregnant girl scout with the words "Be Prepared," above her. The poster was judged as a work of satire protected by the first amendment free speech laws by a federal court. Evidently, somebody was listening to a certain song by Tom Lehrer.
Go back to Rule 34, but somewhere the original creator's soul is dying.