I believe, when we write fanfic, that we are guests in the house (world) of the author whose house we are choosing to visit. Some people go into the writers house and rearrange all the furniture (characters) and even some of the pictures on the wall (Canon) to suit the fic that they are writing, which is perfectly fine, there is absolutely no judgment in that. Sometimes it is even necessary to bring in your own furniture (original characters) to supplement the house. And even AU which is to take the authors furniture and put it in to a new house. Many of those fics are brilliantly done and beautiful. HOWEVER... I take great issue with people who walk into an author's house, rip the paintings down and repaint all the walls. They not only rearrange the furniture but completely deface it, bring in their own paintings for the walls often mirrors of themselves. They redecorate the house with almost entirely their own furniture and basically leave a huge steaming pile of shit on the author's carpet. If anyone finds they are doing this, get the out of whatever fandom you are writing in and for goodness sake go write original fic. Oh yes, original fic has sprung from fanfic since telling stories began. And back to all my research. This story probably would have taken me a good year to write and I likely would have ended up abandoning it, because the Tolkien world is very rich, very complex and I personally try to leave the house of an author in much the same shape as I find it. It is the only way I myself feel I can honor the original author for giving us such a beautiful world to play in. |