Gratuous Poetry Post

Les Yeux d'Elsa

Tes yeux sont si profonds qu'en me penchant pour boire
J'ai vu tous les soleils y venir se mirer
S'y jeter à mourir tous les désespérés
Tes yeux sont si profonds que j'y perds la mémoire

( à l'ombre des oiseaux, c'est l'océan troublé )

Legitimacy of inspiration, borrowing, and stealing in writing

I have a friend, Nicky, who wants write a novel out of an aborted campaign at a roleplaying game he was mastering.

So he talked to me about it, saying he was going to do that, and I was immediatly scandalized. Nicely, but scandalized all the same. "You can't do that ! You can't my character and the others' and use them in your story without asking for our permission first !"

Anyway, Nicky got a bit mad at me in the first place. Found me too preachy and moralisating on this, and said he would have asked the others anyway, and he didn't like my attitude, and it made him want to give up on it all. Apart from that, we didn't stay mad at each others or anything, and now he's asking me for the permission to use my character, now that he's got the others' agreement.

And I'm not sure what to answer.

On the one hand, I don't want to say yes because from all i've seen, I don't have the feeling that he would respect the character's integrity has I've written him.
This is a character I liked especially, one I'd written in the background of other characters, one i've written small fictions about. One I tried to put in other chronicles when his was over because he discontinued it.

For Nicky, it's just inspiration, he doesn't even believe he needs my agreement. He definitly doesn't want to stop writing what he wants to write if I don't give a permission. He's just asking by politeness. He's just going to take some features of my character, his background and his personnality, and adapts them for his new setting (since he doesn't plan on using the official setting of Exalted - he wants to be able to try selling this novel professionnaly)

So, on the other hand, how much do I care about this character ? I mean, it's just a roleplaying character, and Nicky is one of my friend. I'm probably splitting hair in four (hey, I'm a Virgo, after all) over some flimsy pretext, and I'm just being overly possessive of my character.

But you know, this thing matters for me. Not so much because of the character, but on a question of principle. Is that hypocritical of me for someone who's immerged in the culture of fandom and fanfiction ?
Actually I think that's fanfiction that makes me so sensible to this thing.
Because in fanfiction we might borrow, use and abuse things to our heart's content, but at least we aknowledge that we do so. We put that disclamer above it stating that these characters and this world doesn't belong to us, that we are, indeed, borrowing it. We don't change the character's name, at least, not without good reason ^^ we don't lie about what we do. It might mean jack from a legal point of view, it's still illegal if the author cares enough to sue us, but from a point of view of legitimacy, I feel like it matters.

In the first place, the idea of using a story created for a specific, licenced world, and changing it to become original sorts of shock me. I find it a bit dishonnest intellectually. Why not write as is and let it be a fanfiction for Exalted ? It's not the first time I'm thinking that, as I once gave the same advice to a writer of a fanfic I love because even if it looked little like the original work it was a fanfiction of, it was written with those specific characters in mind, and simply changing their names and features wouldn't change that. It's just a way to avoid legally crediting the person you borrowed them from.

I don't think that for my friend Nicky, all these subtlelities matter. He wants to take my character and make it his character, take what he wants and abandon the rest, in the same way that he'll take what he wants of the Exalted setting and give up the rest. And that bothers me. It also bothers me that he's only pretending to ask, that he doesn't give any legitimacy value to my permission... in other word, I feel pressured to agree just because he's my friend and he wants it, without having any real and actual control over my character. If someone asks for my permission, I want my permission to actually mean something, if you see what mean.

Some of my friend's arguments are about inspiration, which happen all the time and in all kind of direction in artistic matters. We create characters that are inspired from famous one from there or here all the time. I know that myself, i 've made lots of characters for RPG that were translated from various characters I liked in movies, books and mangas.
So what's the difference ? What's the difference between taking inspiration from, which is legitimate whether you aknowledge the source or not (or is it only when you do ?), and with borrowing ? What's the difference with borrowing from someone you know, who might be mad if you use their work without asking; and borrowing from a famous source like in fanfiction where a mere disclamer might be enough ? When is it considered as stealing to take something, characters, or situations, to use them for your own story ?

I feel like there is one, between all those things. I have a hard time exactly pinpointing what it is. Do you think i'm out of my bound and I should give my agreement anyway, so my friend can write the story he wants to write ? Or should I do it only if I feel like my friend is going to respect my vision of the character I wrote ?
Do you have any advice, or anecdotes to give me relating to this kind of subject ?

And de meme & quizz

stolen from theladyfeylene
"If you could hook me up with any one person--including celebrities and fictional characters--who would you hook me up with? And why?"


( quizz from xochiquetzl )