Once a Stranger

does anyone know why sakuraragi has deleted her journal?

Maybe she announced it and I've been careless. If anyone got any new just tell me she's okay, please.

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 ?

from mamadeb

If you read this journal on a regular/semi regular basis, leave me a comment and let me know.

Then post this in your lj and find out who reads you.

In fact I'm also curious about :

- why/how did you friend me ?
- is it the same reason why you're still reading ?
- what do you look forward to/like reading on my LJ ?
- what are you not interested / pass over ?
- is there any specific criticism you'd make of my LJ/ my interaction with you on LJ in general ?
- do you have any specific question for me and my LJ, something you've always wanted to know ?

but those are purely bonus questions if you want to answer them ^^

This is being a very busy week and i don't think it's going to change soon so, instead of trying to find again all those entries I meant to answer, I'm gonna do some ( call out )

Anyway all is good for me. I'm just very busy with school and work and trying to face my responsabilities for once.

My little cousin Yael from Israel has just arrived to our house. She's going to stay with us for three monthes until she gathers enough money for a trip to Australia. I'm very glad of that, she's a very sweet girl I had missed a great deal since her family did their alyah.

Book wise, finished reading the Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes yesterday. Great book. It's good solid fantasy. Nothing too original, but it's well written, the characters are endearing (even the rebellious princesses and those usually annoy me extremely) and this second volumes gain in ambiguity and nuances in the plot. And there's some genuine original good ideas, like the whole process of gaining powers fromt the "saints" by walking a pilgrim through special places.

Yesterday my friend Isabelle was insisting for us (as in her, friends of her, and I) to do a cosplay of Kyou Kara Maou to some future french con. I told her I had to watch the anime before (she lent me the first episodes but no time to watch anything right now) but that FMA would be better ^_^

( TB quizz and anime meme )

If I could write you any story, within my capacity to write it, of course, what would you have me write?

and

I give colours to everyone in my flist to recognize them. Wanna know what colours I gave you ? (they don't really have a deeper meanings like Xyn's do)

EDIT :
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Tammaiya

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heavenlychaos

</td>

Hiragizawa

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Momijizukamori

</td>

Nataku_chan

</td>

cygna_hime

(actually it's not exactly that colour for the background... I think I handpicked it at the time so i can't find the hexadecimal number for it anymore)
</td>

Elihice

</td>

Link621

</td>

saria621

</td>

skuldchan

</td>

skuldfeed

</td>

skulddrabble

</td>

grayMM

</td>

Shadow_lynne

</td>

Shineko

</td>

Janamichan

</td>

GoldenH

</td>

Linoleum_roses

</td>

Choffman

</td>

Crazylittleme

</td>

Kakushiko_Miko

</td>

stanayitnuh

</td>

Agent420

</td>

Wingblossom

</td>

Su_chan

</td>

Shisakura

Happy belated birthday to flowright and atpolittlebit !!!

Sunday I had the chance to meet Maya, aka chaineddove, and that was a riot ! She's very sweet, fun, adorable, and did I mention... gorgeous. We met at St Michel and I at once recognized her from the lovely blond curls she had told me about ^^ She was with a friend, and since we spent the whole afternoon fangirling like crazy, the poor boy must have been bored deeply but he never complained (how stoic of him !) Well, we talked alot of all things manga/anime, she mentionned an hillarious YnM which she gave me the link of, many Fruit Basket deliriums, and we're supposed to watch Gravitation together this weekend <333
Much fun, despite the bad chinese food we had (too be fair, only mine wasn't good :( )

I barely had the chance to study this week end all around (not Maya's fault, more that of my parents before that) so I wasn't surprise to screw much of my International Business exam. (I'll be happy if I end up with a C) It turned out Mathematics wasn't for Monday, though that's what the teacher had say *rolleyes* and Accounting was so-so (I'm just unhappy i couldn't finish it) So, next Wednesday I've got still the English Composition and the Math exam. That's less work at least.

We had planned to go see Resident Evil 2 with Isabelle on Monday evening, but she never answered my e-mail when I proposed another time, so I decided not to wait 1h30 around Paris to see if she turns up or not. Turned out she did go >_>

Well, this evening I've got Japanese class so no movie either !

Saturday evening, I did go to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with my parents (remember what I said about blaming them about no time to study?), which surprised me by being very good. As I said on flowright's journal, very genuine characters, nuanced motivation and (true) romantism in a cynical world.
Otherwise, with my parents, again, we started to look out for an appartment in Paris to buy for me. Which does excite me a lot, but maybe doing that on Sunday before my Mid-terms week (glares at parents)

Yeah I know I could have said no, but they did insist a lot despite my protest and parents aren't supposed not to be tempting, especially when they'll have no qualms blaming you for the results.

I made a first attempt for this week's theme at clamp_icontest :

But I think this will hurt eyes too much to work as an icon XDDD