Referring to entry of June 1st, on possible poached concept

[bktheirregular]

I wanted to send a note to the person who wrote the two fics referred to in my last post - "Visionary" and "Bane of Anubis" - and nudge them over where the concept of the "Tarith'na" came from.

But I don't dare do it.

See, when I read them, I did mental comparisons to fics I consider to be good - from people like taraljc, yahtzee63, rheanna27, the HC's, and a slew of others - and those two fics came up seriously wanting.

And I don't want to come across as conceited - asking everyone whose fic I read to measure up to those standards, the way I push myself to measure up to those standards. Plus which, the huge problem is that the point of comparison which I have is my own work - and to castigate someone for not measuring up to what I do is the height of conceit.

Not to mention, I don't know if I have the right to lay claim to a concept that, if one merges the Buffy and Stargate canons, seems to be self-evident. Even if I did manufacture a name for it, which got snurched.

But on the other hand, it feels like I've been stolen from - and it seems to have diminished the impact of my work, when people say that it bothers them that they'd seen the concept used elsewhere. It bothers me.

But I don't feel like I can really give the answer that it needs.

Does that make any sense?

Comments

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

I sympathize, and I've had this problem a couple of times myself. The only occasion I took action on was when someone who had been dropping mentions in her stories of one of my OCs (without permission) decided to write an unauthorized sequel to one of my stories with the OC as a major character. That I stopped. When people email me and ask if they can use original elements in my fanfic, I've always said yes. Grabbing without permission always makes me crazy.

Like you and others said, it is possible that you both came up with the concept on your own. But the word Tarith'na definitely came from you, and personally if it was me, I'd call her on it and ask that she acknowledge that in an author's note. If only to let her know that that kind of thing really isn't acceptable. For one thing, she could just be clueless and end up getting herself in a lot of trouble taking stuff from people who won't be nice about it. Anyway, that's my two cents.

Theft, in all its forms...

[takaal.livejournal.com]

The concept? Since other people own the two universes, maybe not.

But the word *is* yours. Inform the youngster of the fact, and ask for a nod in the author-line. Yeah, it could be convergent evolution... but I really, really doubt it.

The author may not know any better; they may even see it as a compliment, that they 'borrowed' your term. Or they might figure what the heck, they won't get caught.

A gentle nudge is certainly in order. You may someday want to use the
term "Tarith'na" (hey, it could happen) in purely 100% all-yours fiction. Start your paper trail now... so if the little critter dares to challenge you when you're Lord High Great Author (once you give up the law gig?), you can appropriately flatten them.

[bktheirregular]

I'm thinking I may do that. Either through e-mail or leaving a review noting that the term came from another author's fic, not the Stargate canon, and it's a good habit to acknowledge the sources of such things. I know of at least one university president whose career was broken over less.

On the other hand ... the villain in my piece had the same name as your delightful sorcerer. (Unless Kheper the sorcerer came out of the Herc/Xena canon somehow?) I back-tracked the name Kheper through Egyptian mythology before I settled on using it for my villain, just to establish that there might have been an Egyptian god of that name ... but I worry that maybe I did something a little similar.

(Though I can't see how anyone could mistake Kheper the sorcerer from LTLJ with Kheper the snake-head from "Scarab", I still worry that I might have a bit of a glass-house thing going. As in, maybe I shouldn't be so quick to throw a stone.)

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

but I worry that maybe I did something a little similar.

That honestly never occurred to me, since that is an Egyptian name and it's not hard to run across in any good source. When you're playing with canon that draws on real mythology, that's just going to happen.

If you haven't seen it already, there's even a Kheper.net (http://www.kheper.net/kheper/kheper.htm) :)

[bktheirregular]

Hee! Didn't know about Kheper.net - cool!

I did get the idea for using the name "Kheper" from reading When Hellmouths Collide and the other stories that formed its back-story, though. I just traced back the name, and built the character from the mythology talking about both a beetle-headed god and a symbol of Ra. (Which kind of led to me adding an inferiority complex to the ubiquitous God complex.)

So, in a real way, WHC served as inspiration for "Scarab". :)

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

Well I'm glad it actually inspired something good for once! :) Mostly it inspires bad Herc/Buffy crossovers.

[bktheirregular]

Thanks! That's sort of like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for fic. :)