Presumption Is Guilt
I got a letter from a Keltiad reader the other day, bemoaning the fact that the series is pretty much dead in space. Which was of course both flattering and gratifying to hear.
However.
She saw fit to sign herself “Aeron the Queen,” which, as you might imagine, did very little to endear her to me, and also pretty much guaranteed she was not getting a response. Or at least not the response she might have been hoping for…read on.
Even though the Keltiad is gone, I still have a ginormous problem with people doing stuff like that, and an even bigger one with the people who not only do stuff like that but think I will be okay with, or even approving of, them doing stuff like that.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh so very very wrong.
Just because some genre authors don't mind fannish grabbiness is no reason to think all such authors share that sentiment. From the first 1984 pages of “The Copper Crown” to the last 1999 ones of “The Deer's Cry”, I have consistently and implacably discouraged Keltic fanfiction, Keltic fannish gibber and Keltic wannabes glomming on to my creation and helping themselves to whatever they fancied.
My attitude was possibly quite contributory to the series' demise, despite its considerable fan base. If I'd let readers appropriate it to their hearts’ content, there might have been a lot more of them, with the power of many webrings and such, and they might have helped me save it from extinction at the bloody paws of HarperCollins.
But that's not the way I do things. I'm a control freak—oh, come on, like you haven't guessed?—and I like things my way or the highway (to the end of the night or anywhere else). When I can’t have them, frankly, I’d rather not have anything at all.
And when I can’t get myself the Keltic online handle of my choice on LJ or Lycos or Gmail because someone has already taken it (stolen it…), then it seems to me I am justified in my attitude.
Aeron is mine. Athyn Blackmantle is mine. ANY Keltic character name that I created and envisioned and wrote is mine. Sure, many of them are real names, and as such you’re as free to use them as I was. BUT in conjunction with any title or affix that alludes to Keltia, no, you’re not. (And you could at least have the courtesy to ask first…)
If anyone is going to call herself Queen Aeron, or Aeron Ard-rian, or Athyn Anfa, or any other permutation of any other Keltic character name, it will be their rightful, lawful and only Creatrix.
And you know how Athyn deals with people who meddle with what is hers… But, of course, that’s just fiction—isn’t it?
However.
She saw fit to sign herself “Aeron the Queen,” which, as you might imagine, did very little to endear her to me, and also pretty much guaranteed she was not getting a response. Or at least not the response she might have been hoping for…read on.
Even though the Keltiad is gone, I still have a ginormous problem with people doing stuff like that, and an even bigger one with the people who not only do stuff like that but think I will be okay with, or even approving of, them doing stuff like that.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh so very very wrong.
Just because some genre authors don't mind fannish grabbiness is no reason to think all such authors share that sentiment. From the first 1984 pages of “The Copper Crown” to the last 1999 ones of “The Deer's Cry”, I have consistently and implacably discouraged Keltic fanfiction, Keltic fannish gibber and Keltic wannabes glomming on to my creation and helping themselves to whatever they fancied.
My attitude was possibly quite contributory to the series' demise, despite its considerable fan base. If I'd let readers appropriate it to their hearts’ content, there might have been a lot more of them, with the power of many webrings and such, and they might have helped me save it from extinction at the bloody paws of HarperCollins.
But that's not the way I do things. I'm a control freak—oh, come on, like you haven't guessed?—and I like things my way or the highway (to the end of the night or anywhere else). When I can’t have them, frankly, I’d rather not have anything at all.
And when I can’t get myself the Keltic online handle of my choice on LJ or Lycos or Gmail because someone has already taken it (stolen it…), then it seems to me I am justified in my attitude.
Aeron is mine. Athyn Blackmantle is mine. ANY Keltic character name that I created and envisioned and wrote is mine. Sure, many of them are real names, and as such you’re as free to use them as I was. BUT in conjunction with any title or affix that alludes to Keltia, no, you’re not. (And you could at least have the courtesy to ask first…)
If anyone is going to call herself Queen Aeron, or Aeron Ard-rian, or Athyn Anfa, or any other permutation of any other Keltic character name, it will be their rightful, lawful and only Creatrix.
And you know how Athyn deals with people who meddle with what is hers… But, of course, that’s just fiction—isn’t it?
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 3:20 PM
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