#they hated it and never kudosd or commented cause they had their vision and my fic was different i guess

[the-marathon-continues-nip]

I think it's valid to feel uncomfortable and then decide to not give permission going forward for fanfic of your fanfic. Would you be okay with other transformative works such as art, podfics , mood boards?

It's okay to feel one way about something (flattered like you said!) and then when confronted with the reality realize it's not what you thought it would be and a let down. 🩵

How can you learn from this? What feelings were there that caused you to accept and what feelings are there now that you feel disappointed?

It's a lot that you can learn about yourself which is a pretty cool thing!

This is more of a question for the fanfic author community at large. Recently I had someone tell me they were writing a fic based on my fic. I was obviously flattered by it. But when their fic was posted, it was basically a re-write of exactly what I'd written. And that made me feel uncomfortable, because my story was a very specific AU. I know in fandom/fanfic anything goes and people are free to do what they want. Who am I to say 'no you can't write this'? I brushed it off and let it go. But it just got me internally asking: what are some rules of decorum around fics inspired by other fics? Can I as an author say it made me uncomfortable? If author A is writing something based on author B's work, is it expected for author A to tell author B about it? I welcome any other discussion on this topic that I didn't cover in my questions because I'm curious to see what others think! Thanks!

I'm not going to lie to you, anon, this one can be a bit of a minefield.

There's a tradition? (if that's the right word) in fandom of asking permission before writing a work inspired by someone else's fanwork.

While we don't do this with the creators of canon, we also don't share a community with the creators of canon. In fandom spaces, everyone knows everyone to a certain degree. This might be less true now that fandom has exploded in popularity in recent years, but even so.

I personally love when someone writes something inspired by my work, and I've written a few fics inspired by others too. It's part of that community sharing that I value so much in fandom.

But the minefield comes in when the original fan author feels like the "inspired by" fic is a little too close to their own.

Emotions can be fraught in online spaces where tone is hard to convey over text and there tends to be an assumption of the worst motives and interpretations rather than the best.

You're definitely well within your rights to feel uncomfortable about what that other person wrote. I'm not going to tell you that your emotions are wrong or unfounded. In fact, I'd likely feel the same way if I were in your place.

What you do about that feeling is your own decision to make. Do you just sit on it and hope it goes away? Do you reach out to that other author and say something about it? Do you just vent to a friend and get it out that way?

Folks who have had similar experiences, share what happened if you're willing. From either A or B's perspective.