Chris/Kurt requests and recommendations

ACITW, Fanworks, and Blanket Permission

cacophonylights
January 20th, 13:47
Hi!

Let me preface this by saying I’m not back, not really. It’s been a long time, and I know from personal experience as a fan of other authors that long absences can make the heart grow frustrated more than fond, for which I do apologize. There is a lot in my life that has changed, and a lot of reasons for me stepping back from fandom this past 18 months, but this part of my life – where I found all of you and found myself – is still hugely important to me. I wanted you all to know that, at least.

More importantly the reason for my post! My friend, and former beta for ACITW, has recently told me that there are still a lot of people who are either trying to get in touch with me or looking for permission to write in the ACITW universe. As I don’t check this askbox anymore at this time, and rarely use my old email for those who had it, I’ve obviously been hard to reach. So what I wanted to do was basically make a post giving blanket permission to anyone to play in the ACITW world, or really the world of any of my stories. Below is more information about that permission, and at the end you can find some ACITW specific info if that is all you are after.

Back before I disappeared completely, I read a post on Gyzym’s blog that really spoke to me. It’s a post about her feelings on fanworks of her fanworks, you can still read it here, and it opened my eyes to a place of sharing and creative community that felt right to me. Basically most of her thoughts encapsulate my own at this point so take a look at her post, but here are my key feelings on the subject:


· Please, please feel free to jump into my world and write about it, sing about it, rp about it, translate it, whatever! I think it is amazing and so flattering that you care enough about the stories I write and the characters I create (or recreate) to want to use them in your own creative endeavors. My work is playing in someone else’s sandbox already, so I feel it would be hypocritical to tell you not to play in mine.

· You do not need to ask my permission to do so, consider this post your permission. In fact, given how often I am unreachable it would be quite the feat if you could get in touch with me at all, so don’t worry about it. Likewise, don’t feel that you need to send me links to your work once it is complete, you absolutely can do that if you want but it isn’t necessary!

· Having said that, I’m terrible at follow up communication, especially these days, so there will likely not be a lot - or any - feedback from me about your work, or your questions, or your ideas at this point even if you do send them to me. This isn’t because I don’t think your work/questions/ideas aren’t valuable or worth my time, it’s because I probably won’t even see them! So know it isn’t a snub or a lack of caring on my part, it’s that I am not in a place in my life right now to engage in that sort of discourse.

· Please be kind to each other. Everyone will likely interpret this permission in slightly different ways, with slightly different boundaries, and some might take it to a place where others feel uncomfortable. There might even be people who do something with it that you feel would make me uncomfortable. All I ask is that you try and be kind to each other about the fanworks of my fanworks, whether you be the creator or the consumer.


Finally, none of this means I’m never going to write in the ACITW universe again. I’ve said it before, though I don’t know how many believe it any longer, but it has always been and continues to be my intention to finish this story at some point, even if no one is reading anymore but me. I may be taking George RR Martin lengths of time to do it, but I do know how it ends and I do intend to write that ending myself for you all someday. That doesn’t mean you can’t write your own ending tomorrow if you want, or that you can’t reinterpret my version of Kurtbastian’s past, present or future. It just means that for those of you to whom an ‘official’ ending is important, you don’t have to lose hope – you just have to have patience J

Thank you all for being the sort of people who are still on this ride after all this time. I wish you all the best in your personal and fandom lives, and hope you know just how much you continue to mean to me.

Sincerely,

Cacophony