Subject: I've read what Tolkien had to say about Morton Grady Zimmerman's "adaptation" of LotR.
Author:
Posted on: 2022-05-14 13:34:52 UTC
Imagine if he'd seen C*l*br**n.
BTW, a few months ago I ran across someone who claimed to be married to twenty-seven different characters of a certain series (five of whom are already taken in canon, and another of whom is very much out of the picture). Tungsten-Tritium-Fluorine?
We generally avoid talking about the ficcers around here, but I need to talk about the actions of this one author because she genuinely scares me. This is also the reason why I won't mission still-online fics written by this author in order to avoid drawing attention to them.
Before I became a PPC writer, I did MSTs of badfics and bad OCs. This author created a few of those Suvians too, super glittery and married to canon characters and so on. That's not the scary part; what set this author apart from everyone else is the fact she was known to claim her fan works to be canon multiple times. This wasn't in jest either, as one person came to me with testimonies of more questionable behavior from her, and the ficcer herself sent me a rather long PM decrying me for suggesting that her implausible OCs and their equally implausible relationships with canon characters were not creator-acknowledged official material. Claiming to own the source material is iffy enough on its own and something most fanwork creators know not to do ("I do not own work XYZ"), but this is also the kind of stuff that 1) makes the fandom look bad, and 2) can destroy goodwill between creators and fans and even lead to quarantined continua. That's the scary part; not the badfics themselves, not her PM to me, not even her threats to sue me for defamation, but the fact her actions can cause great consequences on the fandom, up to and including barring everyone from creating fanworks for that continuum ever again. I know the chances of this continuum's quarantining is very low, what with its popularity and doujin market, but still.
It's been a while since this incident, and I can do nothing but hope the canon creators don't find out about this.
Imagine if he'd seen C*l*br**n.
BTW, a few months ago I ran across someone who claimed to be married to twenty-seven different characters of a certain series (five of whom are already taken in canon, and another of whom is very much out of the picture). Tungsten-Tritium-Fluorine?
So, this is why the Tolkien Estate and creators in general are pretty much obligated to state that fanworks are not officially authorized: so that if a fanwriter does try to claim the IP belongs to them, the IP's actual copyright-holder is empowered to take legal action. They probably would still choose not to in this case, since it doesn't sound like there's much chance of this person actually convincing anyone they own whatever canon and profiting from it, but if that ever became the case, that person would rightly earn a Cease & Desist.
You're right not to draw attention to them. It sounds like they're living in a delusion, not actually trying to steal and profit from an IP. Best to leave them alone.
~Neshomeh
I’ve heard of the work of an original fiction writer who has behaved worse, but that’s neither here nor there.
I sit in a couple of writing circles, and you reminded me of a horror story I heard. Names changed to protect the innocent and guilty.
One man, Oscar, has a story, and a couple of characters, and although I haven't seen his actual draft he seems reasonable enough an author. Another man, Michael, is not so reasonable. I've seen a couple of his drafts and the only thing keeping them from being PPC fodder is the fact that they are original fiction. I in fact sporked two of his things and was in the process of sporking a third before stopping it.
Michael's poor writing ability (rife with Gary Stus, implausible events, terribly undescribed environs, paper-thin characterization and awful worldbuilding) isn't the focus of this story, however. Instead, the story is thus:
Michael grew fond of a character Oscar wrote, and said to Oscar that one of his own characters (to clarify, one of Michael's characters) could seduce the character Oscar wrote.
There are worse stories of misconduct that I know of, but none that are as personal as this one.
Well, the guy I was referring to (who, by the way, I have never met, even online) has written a badly disjointed, illogical story with an obvious Mary Sue; a story he then self-published. However, the part he is notorious for is his inability to take any criticism whatsoever, to the point of calling anyone who doesn't like his story an "internet troll". It's actually kinda sad.