The year is 2002...

Legal Issues - 2002

• FanFiction.Net banned all fan fiction rated NC-17 from their site. This left parts of the fannish community in turmoil as the fan fiction community has never been a cohesive group with a single group understanding. [FanFiction.Net]’s policy change said NC-17 was banned but the site took no action in defining what the difference between material rated R and NC-17 was.
• By the end of the year of 2002, there were 8,958 Lord of the Rings stories published on FanFiction.Net. (http://www.khazaddum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1866-p-2.html)
• On September 12, FanFiction.Net removes all Real Person Fic from the site.
• By this time, the term drabble is being used in the Anime, Harry Potter and Stargate fan fiction communities.
• On May 15, slashpuppets was founded. It was one of the first, possibly the first, LotR RPS role playing community. (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=slashpuppets&mode=full , redpanda: http://www.livejournal.com/community/fanthropology/65512.html )
• Between December 2001 and December 2003, the Lord of the Rings RPS fan fiction community began a massive expansion after the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
• On September 12, FanFiction.Net removed all Real Person Fic from the site.
• The Good Charlotte fan fiction community reached a critical mass.
• Wired News published an article about real person fan fiction on June 13, 2002. Among other people quoted were Henry Jenkins who says that people who first conceived of fan fiction would probably be troubled by RPS.
• The LiveJournal community, fanficdotnet, was created as an alterative place to post stories after FanFiction.Net banned RPF.
• By 2002, the definition of Mary Sue began to change as Mary Sue became further and further removed from her roots. In communities like Good Charlotte, Mest, AFI and Simple Plan, and on sites like FanDomination.Net, the community took their understanding of Mary Sue, which was filtered through several layers of various fen, and came to a new understanding. In communities where there was a distinct absence of canonical female characters and where members of the community were in their first fandom, Mary Sue began to be defined as any original female character in fan fiction.