[ SECRET POST #3335 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3335 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.
(Red Dead Redemption, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt)


__________________________________________________



02. [repeat]


__________________________________________________



03.
[Star Trek: The Next Generation]


__________________________________________________



04.
[One Direction, "What Makes You Beautiful"]


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.
[Hanayome wa Motodanshi]


__________________________________________________



07.
[Driver: San Francisco, Jun and Ayumu]


__________________________________________________



08.
[Naruto]


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.
[Ash Ketchum/Professor Oak]


__________________________________________________



11.

















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 070 secrets from Secret Submission Post #477.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

11. http://i.imgur.com/9ZYote7.jpg

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

There's a writer in my fandom who's decided to sell her fanfics on Kindle.

She's changing the names of the characters only for copyright reasons and assures people that it'll always remain Pairing A/Pairing B at heart. She’s already removed all of these fics from AO3, most of which were unfinished.

I'd like to think I'm a well read person, I find her writing basic, barely average at best, but problematic as hell. (Various trigger subjects frequently written with no context/care at all.) Needless to say, a lot is left to be desired. But because she's prolific, she always gets a steady stream of comments and followers. (Quantity over Quality is starting to sound pretty mainstream here.)

I don't know what makes my eyes roll more, all of her self gratifying posts about ‘getting published’, her delusions of grandeur, or that she's so driven to make money (and a name) off of something that is anything but original. She wants to be a serious writer guys!

I'm all for the spirit of fandom but this really rubs me up the wrong way.

[(Anonymous)]

One thing I'd consider before I judged this or not is how close the actual fics were to canon. Were they completely AU? Far removed from the original plot? Then you know what, I say go for it.

And also - if she's self-publishing her fics after making them original (assuming they aren't blatant plagiarism and such) then I hate to say it, but good for her. She's already gone a step farther than most of us wanna-be writers. Everyone says they want to publish something, but far fewer people actually do. I get how she's probably alienating her fandom, and maybe the only people who buy her fics will be her hardcore fans who are only reading it because they ship the fandom pairing. Does it feel a little sleazy? Sure! But if it's not reminiscent anymore of the original series, then it actually is her material. Who cares if she isn't the best writer. Plenty of "not very good" writers have become billionaires with their work.

[(Anonymous)]

This type of fanficcer ought to be publicly tarred and feathered. Eventually some original author is going to sue, and that might be the end of fanfic as we know it. We, as fans, need to come down heavily on any ficcer who even looks like they might be charting this course. Do it for the fun, or don't do it at all.

[(Anonymous)]

lol you're kidding right?

[(Anonymous)]

You do realize original fic authors have cracked down on fanfic before, and ~fanfic as we know it~ didn't end, right?

[raspberryrain]

2/10, just because some fans seem to actually think this way.

[(Anonymous)]

You are talking about Jaybie, she should be tarred and feathered. There ya go Case, we named her so you can shut this fucking piece of shit down.

[(Anonymous)]

Depends how AU it is really. If you file the serial numbers off, most fic authors aren't anywhere near good enough to capture the characters they're trying to write.

[kallanda_lee]

Eh, you know what? Everyone has the right to try. Writing is a time-consuming activity, even if you love it, and sort of difficult to combine with a full-time job if you actually want to write every day.

So yeah, I can get why a prolific fanfic writer would choose to try and make some money off it, since she's likely spending a lot of time on it already.

She might fail horribly, of course, but it's not unreasonable to give it a shot.

[(Anonymous)]

And yet plenty of people manage to create their own worlds and characters and write every day and publish their writing professionally while still having full time jobs.

If you can't create your own stories from whole cloth, you have no business publishing for money. You're piggybacking on others' fame.

[sparrow_lately]

This is cringey as shit, but not that annoying--unless she's being really obnoxious as hell about it, and then hoo boy, OP, do I get it.

[(Anonymous)]

To be honest, even though you think her writing is basic, others may enjoy it. And she may actually make money. And there's nothing wrong with that. She might also crash and burn but I don't think you need to worry either way. She is not going to destroy literature.

[(Anonymous)]

Urghh

I swear I'm hugely pro-fanfic and will always defend it, but seeing fanficcers be just as horrible back to original writers and being so anti-original anything makes me unsure at times.

Can we just grow past the "choose us or them" attitude that people seem to have.

[(Anonymous)]

I concur, OP. But don't worry, if she's as bad as you say she is and suffers from delusions of grandeur, as the saying goes, see you on the way down!

[(Anonymous)]

I must admit, I really don't like the idea of authors rewriting fanfic to make it original fic. It just seems a bit skeevy, like they are trading off someone else's hard work. If they go in on an original piece of work after building their own fanbase and sharpening their skills on fanfic then that is okay.

[(Anonymous)]

Sounds like your buddy is another one of those who wants to get on the Cassandra Claire gravy train and will find out it's a lot harder than it looks without a well-connected lawyer buddy who can get you movie and print rights.

Maya (Sarah Rees Brennan) wrote some good Harry/Draco fics and took them all down 10 years ago and has since published ... uh, a trilogy I've never even heard anybody mention like, ever.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, everyone deserves a chance to try. *shrugs*

People like E.L. James and Chuck Tingle have revealed there is a market for ship fic, even the questionably written kind.

[(Anonymous)]

Unless she write ID-tastic stuff, that's bound to end in disappoint for her.
It doesn't seem like the fandom is losing much anyway, so whatever.

[(Anonymous)]

You should examine your own motivation for holding this grudge in stead of spending your energy being jealous. Might lead to some creation from your hand, you'll never know.

[(Anonymous)]

There are two lines of though having read this.

One is if she is middle of the road writing wise put prolific, then it will shake out in the market and she might be surprised how much she doesn't sell. People are much more forgiving of fanfic than they are about "original" fic that they are paying money for. Things that they just gloss over in fanfic become problematic trying to sell to a public that doesn't read fanfic.

Two is that authors have been filling the serial numbers off of their work for years. Neil Gaiman has used folktales and the like much to his advantage through out his career. How many times have authors basically rewritten the Odyssey? Or Shakespeare? And speaking of Shakespeare, most of his work was based on previous works of fiction that he had read or poems or the like.

It's a tale as old as time and if it is well written I will read it and pay for the price for it else there is always the library to pursue new works or reworks of old works.

[caerbannog]

Well, if s/he can make it work for them, then good for them! No matter what personal opinions of their writing skill.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah fanfics are pretty terrible. That sounds like a really lazy thing to do, delete her ao3 fics and then rename the characters and try to sell it as something original. A real writer would go back and try to actually write something different, or be compelled to create something new. It's really easy to get crap e-published nowadays, so yeah she really does sound over-confident.

[(Anonymous)]

see I don't even care about the find-and-replace names, the thing that would make me sit with OP and feel awkward about this is if the author is going around claiming that she's been "published" when she's really just self-pub. There's a world of difference between shopping your tale until it finds a backer and simply uploading something onto kindle with a shittyass bad photoshop cover. We all know there's a million and two of the latter giving self-pub a bad name.

[(Anonymous)]

She wrote the fanfics. She can do whatever the hell she wants with the product. Go get a damn life and quit being jealous.