So, I was talking with some people in my discord *cough* You should join and come talk about Sterek with us. *cough* and realized that I had some feelings that I wanted to share. I'm just copying this from what I posted there, bc I don't have the brainpower to better adjust it for tumblr:
I was talking to my husband about how conflicted I feel about being a writer/about the way stuff is viewed within media as 'plagiarism' or 'stealing.' And Furthermore, how that view interacts with the recent issue we've been seeing within media re: Random Plot twists for the sake of "The shock factor."
I know that it's been a common idea/theme that people within the TW fandom (and I know this occurs in lots of big fandoms, that's part of my point) believe that things from fic or fic writers were seen by TW creators and stolen to be used for the show, without giving the Original writers/fans any credit. And I'm not trying to say that they're explicitly wrong. There's no proof either way, and it IS entirely possible that that's occurring. I think SPN is the one people think of the most, because they had an entire episode about SPN cons and used a ton of stuff from the fandom to do with ships and costume choices and headcanons without really acknowledging that they took those ideas from fans who had already created it, which left a lot of fans feeling cheated and Outright made fun of.
So, again, I'm not saying that people who believe that are Wrong, and I'm not saying that it isn't something that's actually happened before.
With recent superhero movies/shows/MCU stuff, people have gotten Super upset lately because of random plot twists that got thrown in the end. I'm not gonna list them because A) i don't watch that shit so i don't know many and B) they're from the end, so they'd probably be spoilers for people. But its a valid issue.
It's incredibly frustrating as a reader to follow a show's plotline and themes and arcs, only to have everything Obliterated in the last episode or two because the creators wanted to be 'original.'
But I get why they do that?
As a writer, even just a fic writer, when I see people headcanon things or point out really obscure meta that I Already HC'd or thought about and either have a WIP about or was going to create a WIP about it, sometimes I get fucking scared.
Because of accusations like I first described. Because even if I already thought of it, if I didn't say it FIRST, but then try to present it as something from my own head, there's fear that someone will accuse me of stealing an idea from another fan.
We talk about how having a plotline that people can guess the ending to doesn't always mean it's bad, it means it makes sense. But then, if we guess the ending, and accuse people of stealing the idea when they DO use that ending, of COURSE they're going to start throwing in fucking plot twists out of the blue, because they want to avoid getting told that they took the idea from someone else.
And I know that some of the stuff is Really specific, but it's also REALLY logical. This is a show with millions and millions of fans, and millions of fics and blog posts and meta ideas. SOMEONE is going to guess the right thing eventually. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was stolen by the show, it means that fan Happened to guess it.
Jeff Davis told fans a lot earlier on that Stiles' name was polish, and hard to pronounce, which is why so many fics had about a billion polish names for him. One of them just happened to be right. It's a fitting name, since it means "sword of glory" and that's dramatic as fuck, just like some of the other names used.
Stiles' jeep being called roscoe is a fan thing, it was never confirmed within canon, even though I think some of the actors said that they liked the name. The fact that it belonged to his mom makes sense because it's an old car, he's SUPER protective of it, and his mom died when he was young. It's the same reason people guess that the Camaro was Laura's or that Derek's jacket was his dad's.
And while it does seem suspicious that the show had a storyline that'd been written about before...it's been written about because it's a Very Popular storyline. Tons of shows, especially ones dealing with magic like TW do the plotline of someone being completely forgotten and having that One Person who remembers them bc True Love or bc Family. I know Stargate has an episode on it, and I'm pretty sure Buffy did too (and davis said buffy was part of his inspiration for the show). So did Charmed. And since TW is established as a show that pulls from a bunch of real, often celtic/nordic myths, using the ghost riders Also makes sense. Even having Lydia be the one to remember him makes sense because she was framed as a love interest for Stiles since the start of TW, even if we weren't fans of it/it wasn't done well.
Again, I'm really not trying to say that people who believe it was taken from fans are Definitely wrong. I won't pretend that there haven't been instances where it Really Did Happen with other shows/media bc it HAS, and TW fans have every right to be suspicious of it.
But I personally am torn, because while I find it incredibly frustrating when we get stupid plot twists out of the blue, I also have the urge to do that with my own FICS bc I saw someone randomly guess the ending/plot point and I'm terrified that if I continue to write it the way I had planned, I'll get accused of stealing the idea from them. We can't simultaneously ask writers/creators to give us logical/reasonable plotlines, and then accuse them of stealing them when they do and we randomly guess what was going to happen.
