#fandom never changes

🗡Homer, furiously storms up Hesiod's house, flings the door open with a bang, and shouts, “You shitty, pedantic, bag of wind!”

🖋Hesiod, who had been peacefully writing right up until that moment: “What?! Who– Homer??”

🗡Homer stomps up and slaps down an open copy of The Theogony onto the desk, jabbing an accusing finger at a specific line: “You ass! You said you wouldn't put this bullshit in your obsessive attempt at mythological genealogy! I ought to use this bloody doorstop of a book to knock the teeth out of your lying mouth!”

🖋Hesiod, now getting mad, leaps to his feet: “I never said that! I said I'd think about it! And I did think about it, and decided I wasn't leaving out a character just because it messes with your headcanon, Homer!”

🗡Homer: “Odysseus only had one son because his family line was cursed by Zeus!”

🖋Hesiod, throwing his hands in the air: “You literally made that up!”

🗡Homer, offended on behalf of his ancestors: “I did not! That was how my Grandpa told the story!”

🖋Hesiod: “Then your grandpa is the only one on this whole gods-blessed country who tells it that way! Everyone else knows about The Telegony!”

🗡Homer, pointing a finger at him: “Yeah, and everyone hates it! Do you deny that everyone fucking hates it?”

🖋Hesiod narrows his eyes, but doesn't deny it.

🗡Homer, triumphant: “Nobody ever mentions it— except people who hate happy endings and nerds like you! You never hear a child beg,” here Homer clasps his hands under his chin and speaking in a mocking falsetto, “‘Papa, tell me how clever Odysseus was murdered by his own son. That's my faaaavorite story ever! ‘Cause it’s just. like. Oedipus Rex!’”

🖋Hesiod, hands on hips, ready to die on this hill: “It doesn't matter whether the story is good or not. I am attempting for as much accuracy as possible, and your grandfather is apparently the only man in Greece who believes Odysseus could shack up with two beautiful goddesses and not produce at least one son!”

🗡Homer scoffs and rolls his eyes: “Circe turns men into pigs. Why the fuck would she want a son? Why would she keep one?”

🖋 Hesiod, face starting to turn an alarming shade of red, sputters: “That’s besides the point!”

🗡Homer, feeling the gleeful vindictiveness of a fanboy with a ship and an agenda: “The point is that everyone would be happier if Penelope and Odysseus lived peacefully the rest of their lives, and Telemachus married Nausicaä! That makes much more sense and is more satisfying narratively. We Greeks have enough tragedies. Let’s have some happy endings!”

🖋Hesiod, who's had enough at this point, decides to go on the offensive and hit a sore point: “For someone who claims to dislike tragedies that destroy a couple's happily ever after, you didn't hesitate to end your Troy story with one!”

🗡Homer, shocked by this angle of attack, rallies: “Achilles and Patroclus were not a couple! They were closer than brothers! Their relationship is deep and meaningful, but that doesn’t mean they were lovers! Why does everyone think they’re lovers?!”

🖋Hesiod, willing and able to be petty: “Well, according to my grandpa, Achilles bottomed. Why don't you add that to The Iliad?”

*From this point, all that can be heard are crashing sounds and language that would make a pirate blush. Later, the two writers were seen together at the local bar, both nursing pints and matching black eyes. Hesiod never does retract his belief that Odysseus had more than one son, and Homer never stops being salty about it. Fandom never changes.*

I can actually understand different people having different boundaries around what readers do with their work, but the basic concept of an au??? no, sorry, you don't own the idea of "blorbo from my shows has severe anxiety" or whatever. I get to write that too if I want.

--

Lo these 20 years ago, one of my college friends had a feud with another who "stole" her fic idea...

It was space pirates.

No, not space pirates with some clever twist or combined with something else. Just space pirates.

2.) seeking out illustrations for said romance novel -- aka fanart -- all of which were drawn about 250 years ago....

3.) discovering actual explicitly pornographic fanart, also drawn 250 years ago......

creators: *release content contradicting this since it was never actually canon and they have no obligation to follow fandom’s whims*