[ SECRET POST #3861 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3861 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #553.
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

[(Anonymous)]

Writers can be super protective of their creations. You invest so much of yourself in the process, it is understandable.

[diet_poison]

I don't get the word "protective" here. Fanfic doesn't undo or destroy canon.

[(Anonymous)]

No, but imagine someone going into your house and messing around with your stuff. Something you created yourself. Maybe they leave it in exactly the same condition, in the same place, but they still did it. Would you feel upset? Violated? It's sort of like that.

I'm probably not explaining it as well as I can, but character creation can be a deeply personal process.

[(Anonymous)]

Except people aren't just waltzing into your house without an invitation. You're basically throwing open the door, saying "come in and stay for as long as you like", and somehow assuming no-one will ever touch anything.

[(Anonymous)]

So come up with a scenario that you can relate to. People who put tremendous amount of time, energy and effort into a creative process can become deeply invested in how those characters are received and treated by others.

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed. But by throwing those characters out into the world, you're giving up some measure of control over how others connect to them. If you don't want anyone to touch the things you've laboured over, keep them in a box where no-one will ever see them. But if you want others to love and connect to your work, accept that you won't be able to control the way they do that.

Being invested in your creations is definitely a thing. But if you're so invested that you can't stand the idea of others playing with them, maybe don't send them out into the world in the first place.

[diet_poison]

This. This is very well-said.

[esteefee]

This is the truth right here, and why I've always side-eyed when butthurt authors refer to their characters as their "children." Well, yeah, and so: when your children are "released" into the world, they have their own lives, and do whatever the hell they want, and you don't control them or who they fuck, am I right? At least, you really shouldn't try. That way lies Tony Perkins with a carving knife.

So there you go. Otherwise, lock your kids in the attic if that's the way you feel. You can't have people know and love and live with your works and not interact with them in their own way.

[(Anonymous)]

No, that still doesn't hold water. The existence of fan creations doesn't negate the version the original creator made. Honestly, if you're so deeply invested in your own characters that you can't withstand people interacting with them in ways that you don't personally agree with-- in other words, seeing your world from a different angle than you do-- then you probably shouldn't let it out into the public to begin with.

[were_lemur]

When an author publishes something, they are literally making it available to the public.

In this metaphor, it would be as if someone invited a bunch of people over to their house, and then got upset because someone moved a chair, even though they put it back.

[(Anonymous)]

Like this person? https://theestablishment.co/bad-advice-on-dining-tables-and-grieving-parents-86fb520d5d42

[were_lemur]

Wow. That's just ... wow.

[(Anonymous)]

That's not a very good analogy, though. You quite reasonably have a certain expectation of privacy and ownership of your house that is not there when an author publishes a book. The whole point of that is to make the universe and characters known to the public. Fanfiction doesn't alter the canon, i.e. nobody's coming into your house and touching your stuff. I guess you might argue that because you've made your house and all its furnishings open to the public, someone might decide they like the look of your living room but they'd prefer a different style couch, or perhaps a green rug instead of a blue rug. So they decorate THEIR living room accordingly. Your living room remains exactly as you arranged it.

[(Anonymous)]

Understandable to an extent, but there's a huge difference between being invested in and protective of your creations, and 'fanfiction is literal identity theft', a la Hobb's rant.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a writer and I don't think it's understandable at all. I think it's pathetic to get up-in-arms about fans celebrating your work, and being so into it that they want to write their own fanworks (or make fanart) for it.

[(Anonymous)]

Writers can be. But let's take a look at the list of writers who have denounced fanfic that we know about other than Robin Hobb. People like Anne Rice, Anne McCaffery, Mercedes Lackey, GRR Martin. (And there are others.) They share one thing in common, they are of the same generation where someone DID take one of them to court to sue them over a fanfic being too similar to one of their books. That's why "Due to legal reasons" most writers don't read fanfic of their own works. It's a legal bogeyman for them!

As a published author who has grown up reading and writing fanfiction, I'm not as protective of my characters. (That no one is reading because marketing is hard y'all.) I know that if my works got popular that I wouldn't be able to keep the fandom from writing slash of two of the male characters or two of the female characters because I wrote chaste kisses as part of the whole culture I've created. It amuses me. It doesn't upset me.

As a writer and a person who has read a myraid of AUs, I know that I can't even be remotely protective of the basic concept. I don't own my concept. (And the stories I've heard about other authors getting pissy if their agents accept anything remotely close to their concept to the agent's list.)

More and more authors are coming out of this pool of young people who have grown up with fanfic or have written fanfic. So, hopefully this attitude about the 'purity' of canon from authors versus fanon and headcanons will be reduced.

Personally, as an author, I don't have the time or energy to care if a 'fan' of mine wrote something with slash in it. I have to invest my energy into writing and promoting my works!

[(Anonymous)]

Who got sued? I mean I remember a thing where a fan got hired as a ghostwriter and then there was a kerfuffle when the contract fell apart in the payment negotiation stage, but I don't remember specifically anyone suing.

[(Anonymous)]

The most famous one I know about was this:
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley_Fanfiction_Controversy

I think it made everyone who watched it go down a little gun-shy about fanfic.

[meredith44]

The only thing I recall is the Marion Zimmer Bradley kerfluffle. I had thought she was sued, but the article says lawyers were involved on both sides but there was no formal suit.

[(Anonymous)]

They also have in common that they're all not terribly great writers.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're thinking of Marion Zimmer Bradley, she wasn't sued. Authors who cite that anecdote are reacting with extreme caution that probably isn't warranted, and you'll note that there are a LOT of writers in "that generation" who aren't as hardcore about fanfiction. It's because they feel pretty darn confident that the law will be on their side and it's not worth losing the goodwill of fans by lambasting them for writing fanfiction.

[(Anonymous)]

Can be? Maybe. Should be. Nah. And I say this as a writer.

Would I be upset if someone took a character I made and completely twisted them into something unrecognizable? Probably. But at the same time, if someone touching the things you've let out into the world for people to enjoy bothers you, then don't go searching for fanfic. Pretend there's no such thing and move on with your life.