On continuing where other authors left off...

[MajorRewrite]

Can an author report an unauthorized spinoff and get it taken down, or does that only work for actual word for word plagiarism?

If the stories were removed, I wouldn’t have anything to complain about anymore. Where’s the fun in that?!?

 

[PeytonMirabelle]

I'm thinking about the Fallout video game series. I loved the original titles, and the collapse of Black Isle Studio was one of the great disappointments of my (comparative) youth.

But I have mixed feelings about Bioware's iterations of the series, and I haven't played the last several entries. Bioware is a decent company, and Fallout 3 was entertaining in its own right, but it didn't authentically capture what drew me to the original. I'm in the same boat regarding most IPs picked up by new creators. Its almost impossible to recreate the original's intent and tone, with new writers. Completely apart from the ethical questions, I don't think its a great idea creatively.

I agree this is pedantic to the larger point, but it was Bethesda Studios, not Bioware, that picked up the Fallout series

Why not just write your own stuff, and build your own creative legacy?

The ethics of the situation aside, I understand why people want to do this, when we are talking about large-scale intellectual properites (IPs). When such IPs exist, they tend to have a lot of fans. A lot of people take pleasure in particiating in that world, in discussing it with like-minded fans, and dissecting every aspect of that IPs existence. (In this sense, I don't think it's much different than fans of sports teams or pop singers.) But if such fans have an urge to create, then the drive to be part of that world they love so much--to contribute to it in some way, to be part of the overall zeitgest--is very tempting. I mean, the sheer amount of fan-fic (erotic or not) that has been written about the Star Wars or Harry Potter universes would indictae to me that it's not about building your own world but being part of something bigger, about carving a little niche in something you already love so much.

As it happens, I wrote a four-part Fallout 4 fan-fic that's posted here. It's the only one I've done on this site and if I think, probably the only fan-fic I have ever written, aside from the stupid excitable comic stuff I wrote as a middle-schooler. It was something fun, and doing the lore research (to make sure I had stuff right) got me involved enough to re-install and play it again. I don't think many Celeb & FanFic stories gets tons of comments, but the few I got mostly indicated the readers enjoyed being returned to the world.

Everything else I write here is my own creation. I also write and publish other genres off site and they are also original (I certainly am not popular enough to be licensed to publish in established properties and if I ever publish anything from this site, I will never attempt to monetize my fan-fic). So that experiment in fan-fic was a break, something different, to join, in my own way, a world I really enjoyed. I had fun with it and it seems like my readers did too.

Maybe that was enough.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The nun certainly didn't!

You're saying she had nun at all?

 

[onehitwanda]

You're saying she had nun at all?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Some scumbag here took one of my FMCs and turned her into a virginal nun, FFS.

Some people have no shame.

Em

Which part did you find more irking, the virgin or the nun part?

 

[onehitwanda]

Which part did you find more irking, the virgin or the nun part?

Nun, I'm guessing. Em looks ravishing in horns...

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm thinking about the Fallout video game series. I loved the original titles, and the collapse of Black Isle Studio was one of the great disappointments of my (comparative) youth.

But I have mixed feelings about Bioware's iterations of the series, and I haven't played the last several entries. Bioware is a decent company, and Fallout 3 was entertaining in its own right, but it didn't authentically capture what drew me to the original. I'm in the same boat regarding most IPs picked up by new creators. Its almost impossible to recreate the original's intent and tone, with new writers. Completely apart from the ethical questions, I don't think its a great idea creatively.

Do I agree with you about the merits of those Fallout titles? Sure do.

Is it possible for a new writing team to recreate the intent and tone of the original exactly? Probably not.

Does that automatically make it a bad idea? I wouldn't say so, and in fact Fallout is a great example of why not, because Fallout 1 itself wasn't really "the original" for that series. It was made and marketed as a successor to an earlier Interplay game, Wasteland, and it reuses a ton of material from that game. AFAIK there was no continuity of creative personnel between those two games, and no, it doesn't reproduce Wasteland's tone perfectly, but it has its own tone and that works for it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

What an unconventional response!

 

[onehitwanda]

What an unconventional response!

Oh, you know, I am a creature of habit...

 

[Pureotica]

I agree this is pedantic to the larger point, but it was Bethesda Studios, not Bioware, that picked up the Fallout series

The ethics of the situation aside, I understand why people want to do this, when we are talking about large-scale intellectual properites (IPs). When such IPs exist, they tend to have a lot of fans. A lot of people take pleasure in particiating in that world, in discussing it with like-minded fans, and dissecting every aspect of that IPs existence. (In this sense, I don't think it's much different than fans of sports teams or pop singers.) But if such fans have an urge to create, then the drive to be part of that world they love so much--to contribute to it in some way, to be part of the overall zeitgest--is very tempting. I mean, the sheer amount of fan-fic (erotic or not) that has been written about the Star Wars or Harry Potter universes would indictae to me that it's not about building your own world but being part of something bigger, about carving a little niche in something you already love so much.

As it happens, I wrote a four-part Fallout 4 fan-fic that's posted here. It's the only one I've done on this site and if I think, probably the only fan-fic I have ever written, aside from the stupid excitable comic stuff I wrote as a middle-schooler. It was something fun, and doing the lore research (to make sure I had stuff right) got me involved enough to re-install and play it again. I don't think many Celeb & FanFic stories gets tons of comments, but the few I got mostly indicated the readers enjoyed being returned to the world.

Everything else I write here is my own creation. I also write and publish other genres off site and they are also original (I certainly am not popular enough to be licensed to publish in established properties and if I ever publish anything from this site, I will never attempt to monetize my fan-fic). So that experiment in fan-fic was a break, something different, to join, in my own way, a world I really enjoyed. I had fun with it and it seems like my readers did too.

Maybe that was enough.

I know it was Bethesda. It was a slip. Good catch.

I'm not broadly against fan fic, or other shared universe projects. Lit runs a few shared universe projects. Tales of Lanyere (I may be butchering the spelling I didn't look it up) comes to mind. And FWIW, I don't hate the new Fallout games. I just have to treat them separately from the Black Isle versions, emotionally. They are different in character, and don't quite nail the gestalt I loved about the originals. It's probably nostalgia on my part, but there was a wild flexibility in playstyles in the original titles, while every playthrough in 3 and beyond had a same-y feel, because every character could do more or less everything.

Anyway I was specifically objecting to finishing another creator's projects without permission. Your Fallout Fanfic wouldn't bother me. I have a 'Walking Dead' inspired project which, which probably won't ever get to the top of my priority list. It's not rooted in the IP, and my take on the apocalypse is quite different. It's also played a bit for humor in a genre awareness sense. It's more or less just an excuse to have fun with zombies (mine are different in meaningful ways) and harem smut, and doesn't take itself too seriously. The MC is traveling toward the 'promised land' in an armored Winnebago, gathering new harem girls along the way. It pokes fun at itself and its genre conventions.

It would bother me if someone directly lifted my characters and plot lines without asking. To be honest, If I ever write anything decent enough to inspire fanfic, I'd probably be flattered. It'd still be nice if they asked first, though. I'm fairly reasonable and approachable for the most part. If they asked I'd probably have no issue.

In any case, if my post was too poorly targeted and broadly aimed, that wasn't my intention. I was specifically referring to the OPs question. Sometimes I ramble and wander off course.

 

[PeytonMirabelle]

In any case, if my post was too poorly targeted and broadly aimed, that wasn't my intention. I was specifically referring to the OPs question. Sometimes I ramble and wander off course.

No worries, I probably latched on to one point to drive us off course. You're good.

 

[NoTalentHack]

By allowing people to post rewrites of writers work. There is a story in Lit. "February sucks" It has 107 alternate versions. The first few at least sought permission. 90% didn't.
Lit allows posts of alternate versions that clearly state in the preamble, that they did not receive permission.

A version of one of my stories was targeted by a plagiarist. Thankfully, once I complained. Lit removed the story immediately. For that I am grateful. I didn't see the alternate version. If one of my friends hadn't seen it. I would be none the wiser.

Cagivagurl.

To be fair, George has updated his profile to say anyone can make a sequel to any of his works, given certain provisos.

 

[Pureotica]

Do I agree with you about the merits of those Fallout titles? Sure do.

Is it possible for a new writing team to recreate the intent and tone of the original exactly? Probably not.

Does that automatically make it a bad idea? I wouldn't say so, and in fact Fallout is a great example of why not, because Fallout 1 itself wasn't really "the original" for that series. It was made and marketed as a successor to an earlier Interplay game, Wasteland, and it reuses a ton of material from that game. AFAIK there was no continuity of creative personnel between those two games, and no, it doesn't reproduce Wasteland's tone perfectly, but it has its own tone and that works for it.

I'm aware of the link to the original wasteland title, but I'd never played it before Fallout 1. I've played some of the Wasteland titles since, but they feel different from Fallout. The post apocalypse setting wasn't unique in RPGs at that time. It goes back at least to the table top settings of Gamma World in the late 70s/early 80s. A lot of Steve Jackson stuff touched on the genre. But the Black Isle games leaned into the campy feel of 80s post-apocalypse films like Mad Max series, and the "Escape from-" Snake Plisskin films. The Wasteland titles feel grittier, but don't quite capture the 'Fallout' homage to 80s camp. Fallout 1 & 2 leaned in to the campy feel of those films, while Wasteland played more straight-to-genre.

The modern 'Mad Max' reboots are objectively better than the originals in terms of writing, and have more depth to their storytelling. But they don't recapture the original spirit. The Mel Gibson Films were never brilliant pieces of movie making, but they captured the gestalt of the 80s in a way that few modern writers can. People born post perestroika probably don't understand it, but the threat of nuclear annihilation, however remote, felt real to people of a certain age. The campiness of 80s era films was partly a middle finger to those underlying fears. People needed to poke fun at them as a form of catharsis, because they were ever-present.

I liked Bethesda's Fallout titles, they just weren't Fallout to me. They missed the flexibility of the play styles, and the retro future gestalt of the setting. Technologically, the early Fallout games were dated, even for their time. But you could play the game multiple times and a have a different experience each run. Even when I tried to play differently in 3, I'd wind up feeling the same each playthrough. The perks didn't distinguish themselves in the actual gameplay. It wasn't a bad game in its own right, but if felt like a tribute to Fallout, rather than Fallout itself. I don't know how to explain it precisely. I admit its an emotional, rather than rational sentiment.

I may be too broad in saying it shouldn't be done, but Disney Star Wars makes me skeptical toward nostalgic reboots. I know younger audiences might like the newer films, but I can't even watch Star wars anymore. Disney has ruined even the older titles for me. Plot-wise Star Wars deviates little from a garden variety Hero's journey, but the originals captured an authentic grandeur. even though the formula is transparent, they took the formula and nailed it. The newer film's feel like they're riding the coattails of that success, while undermining the qualities that justified it. Palpatine-is-back feels like soap opera writing. A cheap dodge in order to recycle old themes and tropes verbatim. Nothing about the Disney films works for me. And it isn't the only franchise they've done it to. Disney is the poison tree, and my nostalgic fandoms are its inedible fruit. I try not to take entertainment seriously, but I freaking hate Disney. They gobble up franchises just to pick their corpses.

I thinks its best to tip the hat to an original work, but make it your own, rather than create a pale reflection of the original work. I still wouldn't be cool with someone using a Lit writer's work without permission though. That was my main point, and I sometimes lose my way in trying to elaborate. I'm easily distracted when writing ab lib. Oooh. Shiny...

Anyway, your post was thoughtful, and I respect your viewpoint. Unfortunately, I wandered off on a bunny trail and kind of lost my own plot. I'd best stop waxing philosophical about franchise nostalgia and move on to more productive tasks.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Some scumbag here took one of my FMCs and turned her into a virginal nun, FFS.

Some people have no shame.

Em

I thought all nuns were virginal by definition. Then how about all of those priests involved with various scandals? I don't know; haven't been involved with that religion for many decades.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I thought all nuns were virginal virtually by definition. Then how about all those priests involved with various scandals? I don't know; haven't been involved with that religion for many decades.

In the Catholic Church. You can have a married couple (even one with children) decide to more perfectly serve their maker by the husband becoming a brother and the wife a sister in their dotage old age.

So, no, not all Catholic nuns have to be virgins.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

Which part did you find more irking, the virgin or the nun part?

The former.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

Nun, I'm guessing. Em looks ravishing in horns...

Talking of Emily with horns, did you get to Off the Shoulder yet?

A little more cheerful than A Good Woman.

It’s kinda a Dogma tribute, but with a much naughtier fallen Angel.

Having said that.

Em

 

[djrip]

Talking of Emily with horns, did you get to Off the Shoulder yet?

A little more cheerful than A Good Woman.

It’s kinda a Dogma tribute, but with a much naughtier fallen Angel.

Haven’t said that.

Em

And the other shoulder...

 

[EmilyMiller]

And the other shoulder...

Hey I just posted a Salma vid - jinx!

Em

 

[djrip]

Hey I just posted a Salma vid - jinx!

Em

I figured the two shoulder dwellers should look alike!

 

[EmilyMiller]

I figured the two shoulder dwellers should look alike!

To be strictly accurate, Serendipity is a muse, not an angel. And Santanico Pandemonium is a vampire. But close.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

To be strictly accurate, Serendipity is a muse, not an angel. And Santanico Pandemonium is a vampire. But close.

Em

Cue @AwkwardlySet calling me a [movie trivia] nerd.

Em

 

[Bramblethorn]

I liked Bethesda's Fallout titles, they just weren't Fallout to me. They missed the flexibility of the play styles, and the retro future gestalt of the setting. Technologically, the early Fallout games were dated, even for their time. But you could play the game multiple times and a have a different experience each run. Even when I tried to play differently in 3, I'd wind up feeling the same each playthrough. The perks didn't distinguish themselves in the actual gameplay. It wasn't a bad game in its own right, but if felt like a tribute to Fallout, rather than Fallout itself. I don't know how to explain it precisely. I admit its an emotional, rather than rational sentiment.

I think we're mostly agreeing here. A fanwork (going to use that term very broadly here without fussing over definitions) is very unlikely to capture the vibe of the original, and for that reason, fanworks which have no aspiration beyond "I liked that story and I want more of the same" are likely to disappoint.

(Or, specifically in a computer gaming context, "I liked that game but what it really needs is 3D graphics". Don't get me started.)

But "I liked that story, and that gives me an idea..." has potential. I'd put Fallout 1 in that category, or for a film example, "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion" which are homages to earlier works but don't just ride on their coat-tails.

Or, as a variation, "I have a problem with something in that story, and I'm going to explore that within its own universe".

I may be too broad in saying it shouldn't be done, but Disney Star Wars makes me skeptical toward nostalgic reboots. I know younger audiences might like the newer films, but I can't even watch Star wars anymore. Disney has ruined even the older titles for me. Plot-wise Star Wars deviates little from a garden variety Hero's journey, but the originals captured an authentic grandeur. even though the formula is transparent, they took the formula and nailed it. The newer film's feel like they're riding the coattails of that success, while undermining the qualities that justified it. Palpatine-is-back feels like soap opera writing. A cheap dodge in order to recycle old themes and tropes verbatim. Nothing about the Disney films works for me. And it isn't the only franchise they've done it to. Disney is the poison tree, and my nostalgic fandoms are its inedible fruit. I try not to take entertainment seriously, but I freaking hate Disney. They gobble up franchises just to pick their corpses.

Ah, @Kumquatqueen's Law arrives to the conversation ;-)

Sequels are always going to be hard if they're done for the wrong reasons - those reasons being "somebody demanded a sequel" rather than "I had a great idea for a sequel". We frequently discuss here how readers will beg for "one more chapter" on a work that's already hit The End, because they liked the way that story made them feel, and want to feel more of that.

If the original did a good job of tying up loose ends, the sequel often ends up undoing that in order to create its own tension, and that can easily feel like undermining the original that people loved. (Aliens 3 would have worked fine as a stand-alone, but for IP-related reasons it opened by undoing Ripley's victories in #2, and that's hard to forgive.) It's very hard to find a happy middle ground in between aping the original and pissing on its legacy.

The SW sequels suffered from all of that, exacerbated by the curse of expectations both from the fan base and from the money men. I talked about this a little while back in the context of Bond - when you have a property that's been a huge success, nobody wants to be the person who wrecked a billion-dollar franchise, and that can lead to creative cowardice. Re. the plotline you mention - to me, one of the few fresh moments in those sequels was the idea that maybe not every story has to be about hereditary royalty, maybe somebody could be a powerful Jedi without being from a Jedi bloodline. But they got smacked down hard for even that mildly adventurous idea, and the reveal you mentioned was the sound of them backing away from it fast enough to break the sound barrier.

One of the things I enjoy in amateur fanfic is that it's generally not labouring under all that weight of expectations, it's just authors writing a story they actually wanted to write, often because they had an idea they thought interesting that wasn't just "this looks like something people will pay for".

I thinks its best to tip the hat to an original work, but make it your own, rather than create a pale reflection of the original work. I still wouldn't be cool with someone using a Lit writer's work without permission though. That was my main point, and I sometimes lose my way in trying to elaborate. I'm easily distracted when writing ab lib. Oooh. Shiny...

I am familiar with that feeling!

But now I'm trying to figure out why I feel more comfortable with the idea of fanfic of big-name works, professionally published stuff, than of Literotica stories, and hoping it's not just because I'm a Literotica author and not a big name myself ;-)

I think part of it comes down to the reach of those properties. If I were to make a movie about a war in space, say, it would inevitably be compared to Star Wars. I'd get yelled at for recycling tropes from Star Wars, I'd get yelled at for not recycling tropes from Star Wars, potential funders would look to Star Wars to figure out whether they want to back it... there's just no escaping SW's influence on that genre. Telling people "you have to live in a world where everything you do is going to be compared to Star Wars, but you can't ever directly acknowledge that in your own creations" seems kind of unreasonable. Even more so for... certain other famous properties... whose authors have parlayed their fame into political influence that affects people's lives, often for the worse.

 

[Bramblethorn]

To be strictly accurate, Serendipity is a muse, not an angel. And Santanico Pandemonium is a vampire. But close.

Em

Santanico Pandemonium is tragically underutilised, is what she is.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Cue @AwkwardlySet calling me a [movie trivia] nerd.

Em

I realized I am totally lacking a nerd emote for posts...