Today I discovered just exactly why the MLP writers are forbidden to read fanfic · 1:19am Nov 21st, 2012
Today I discovered just exactly why the MLP writers are forbidden to read fanfic
I’m going to have to step back just a bit to describe what happened, bear with me.
Timeline:
September 27: EqD has an excellent video called “Children of Faust” that portrays Chrysalis as in the role of Esmeralda of ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame” to the song ‘God Help the Outcasts’. Very touching, puts the changeling queen in the position of begging God for help to save her people. After wiping off my manly tears, I thought about it for a bit and typed out about two pages. Over the next month or so in odd bursts I fleshed it out, under the theory that Chrysalis is such an arrogant creature that the only thing that could bring her to beg would be the inevitable end of all of her kind. So I write that she is mortally wounded, and the only surviving changeling in all of Equestria is a baby that she took with her on the invasion, so that after taking over the kingdom, she could teach the child how to restrain her base urges and maybe eventually break the changeling curse. Of course, things go to heck for her and any overdose, even love, can cause serious mental issues.
Nov 17: I put the last bit onto the story, leave it at a crushing clifhanger (seriously thinking about extending it, but having issues getting the same emotional impact as the original), and post to Fimfiction. No biggie, won’t get looked at until 3am probably.
Nov 17 10:00pm I get a note from Wanderer D that it’s been published. Woot, people will actually read it! Of course I’m not such an egomaniac that I sit and keep pushing refresh to see my page views go up (Oh, no!). Really. Well, no more than once every 10 min or so. Bump, bump, bump, up it goes, and so goes my ego.
Nov 18: My story is still on the sidebar, and views keep going up. Little bit of a flamewar in the comments, just enough to warm my heart. :) I go browsing around for other stories. Oh look, there’s another one in the sidebar called ‘The Changeling Queen’, think I’ll read it.
Oh look, it’s by Wanderer D. Gee, that’s coincidental.
Oh look, it has a mortally wounded Queen Chrysalis. Oh, he had the same Idea I did.
Oh look, her entire race is dying. Oh horseapples.
Check the date. August 31. Before mine. Before I saw the video.
Oh crap. Did I read his story, and then forget about it until the video got me started writing, and write exactly the same thing? Does Wanderer D think I plagiarized him? Why does my mouth taste like dust?
At this point, I realized just exactly what would scare the shorts off any major cartoon/movie/TV executive. If I had copied his story, even if by accident, sunk a couple million into a movie/tv show, and all of the sudden he comes to me with proof positive that the story I just invested millions of OPM (Other People’s Money) into was completely unsellable without his signature on a contract, even if the writer did not realize what they had done.... Ouch.
There is a happy ending to this story, I had not read Wanderer D’s fic yet, and other than the two entry plot points being the same (Chrysalis is dying, and so is her race) it went in a completely different direction. *Whew*
Moral of this Story: If you like MLP fan fiction and you want to be a writer for the show, you’re going to have to pick one over the other. I don’t have to make this choice, my writing is only blah and if anybody asked me to become a writer on the show, the first thing I would do is pinch myself really hard! Then after I woke up, I’d go watch more!
-Georg (with CC to Wander D)
Children of Faust on Youtube
I fail to see where you address the Samuel L Jackson issue?
But seriously, if you didn't read it, and since it is fiction, no harm no foul. Besides, not everyone follows Wander D
A good story is good regardless of basic similarities to another, and no idea is any less simply because someone else did something similar before.
522631 Nobody is perfect
522747 if we were, it would be a truly dreadful and boring place stuckinoz.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/dscn0545.jpg?w=489&h=366
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