#well it's an irrational norm and I'm pretty sure it's an unfair one too

[firecoloredwater]

(I am, to be clear, not talking about plagiarism here, only the copying of broader concepts and ideas.)

I do agree that it’s the polite thing to ask first about using someone else’s characters, or AU, or very specific headcanons, and to credit them or refrain if they say no.  I don’t want to discourage that.  I’ve been upset when people copied my characters without asking.

But at the same time.

Every time I see posts that are just screeds decrying (usually hypothetical) writers (it is always writers, I don’t know if this doesn’t happen in fanart/fanvids/fan-other things circles or if I just don’t see it) who use another fanwriter’s OCs or headcanons or idea, and how that’s TERRIBLE, that’s HORRIBLE, it should be ILLEGAL, anyone who does this should delete everything they’ve ever done and replace it with formal confessions of their crime and grovel to everyone they wronged and maybe not be forgiven even then, I’m just....

You know we’re in fandom, right?  Talking about fanfic?  Like, already using someone else’s world and characters and plot?  Very often without permission, and just about guaranteed to be so if you go back a decade or more?  That’s the defining point that brings us together?

Why would it be unforgivable for me to copy another fanauthor’s OC, but it’s was also horrible for Anne McCaffrey (as the (formerly) anti-fanfic author whose fandom I’m in) to forbid fanfic and threaten legal action when she discovered it?  Does being given money for her books mean that she’s not allowed to have any emotional attachment to her characters and world and stories, or just that I’m not expected to care about how she feels?  Is it entirely a distinction between legality and manners, so that using someone’s concepts without their permission is always rude but should also always be legal?  Why does it stop being rude if the original work is well known enough?

Sometimes I think maybe it’s a generational thing, enough creators have encouraged or at least been silent on fanfic for long enough now that there’s a generation of fan writers who don’t all get that fanfic has, historically, been defined by existing very specifically and explicitly against the creator’s wishes.  Maybe those fan authors really would stop writing fanfic if they learned the creator didn’t want it to exist.  But that also implies that twenty or thirty years ago most-to-all fanfic writers should have been fine with other writers using their OCs without asking, and I wasn’t around then but I’m guessing it wasn’t the case.

Maybe it’s because fan authors are more likely to find out, but like... as a general trend, sure, but always?  If an unknown fan author copies an OC from a hugely popular fan author who rarely has time to read fic, are they really more likely to find and recognize their OC in a story with 30 hits than a professionally published author is to know that fanfic of their work exists?  Is ‘well it’s okay if you don’t get caught’ really the standard we’re applying here?  Even if you phrase it as ‘what they don’t know won’t hurt them’ and add that creators who go looking for fanfic probably don’t mind the existence of fanfic, fandom is well known now.  Creators that hate the idea of anyone else touching their characters/world/etc still know it exists, so that reasoning doesn’t hold up.

Maybe it’s because that’s just something that comes with having your work professionally published, and I guess in a purely logical, ‘if you do X, Y is very likely to happen, so you should expect it’ sense it’s true, but that just establishes that it does happen, not that it should.  And it really feels like that’s just going back to the ‘well if you get money for your work you don’t get to have feelings about it anymore’ or maybe ‘if enough people care about your work their feelings become more important than yours’ logic, which doesn’t convince me.

I dunno.

I don’t want to change either norm; I agree entirely that fanfic and fanwork generally should be legal, and I agree entirely that it’s rude to take someone’s character without permission.  I’m still going to be upset if someone copies my character again.  I’m still going to write fanfic if I learn the creator wants me not to.  I don’t think anyone else should stop making fanwork or stop caring about whether other people use their own OCs/settings/etc without permission either.

But, man, when I hold those two beliefs up next to each other, they really don’t look like they fit.

I haven’t figured out how to reconcile it yet.

#there is also a variant of this in RP that drives me nuts and keeps coming up #the standard in Pern RPs is to copy the setting but use original characters and plots #because that's what was allowed for decades #and being allowed to do anything else is relatively new #modifying the setting is pretty standard now too #but there's still SUCH a strong bias for original characters only #every time someone tries to bring in a character adapted from another franchise there's A Kerfluffle #it's Bad it's Unacceptable it's Intolerable #and whenever I ask why we eventually get down to Because It's Not Original #WE ARE IN FUCKING FANDOM #WE ARE WRITING FANFIC #AND NOT EVEN INDEPENDENTLY #NOTHING WE DO IS ORIGINAL #if someone can put their own spin on 'my character has a sister who's 19 looks like this picture has these personality traits #and has done these things in my character's backstory' #aka an adoptable which the entire fandom finds acceptable and even encourages #then they can put their own spin on Hermione Granger or Itachi Uchiha or humanized Nala the Lion Queen #the only explanation I've been able to come up with is 'that's the norm' #well it's an irrational norm and I'm pretty sure it's an unfair one too #not to mention the drama that happens when someone suspects one site has copied a plot from another #I don't want to ever touch that and thankfully have mostly not had to