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Dear fandom,
Please remember, when you're combining beloved fandom characters with a well-known other genre - whether that's Harlequin (≈Mills & Boon) novels, horror movies, noir mysteries, cop shows, or even some specific other movie - that the whole point of that combination is the challenge involved in fitting the characters recognisably into the other world. If you just file the names off of the originals and paste some secondary characters and clothing choices on yey, you might as well not put the story in fandom at all. (In fact, it would be better if you didn't, because then there wouldn't be any confusion about who they were supposed to be.) Characterisation: it's the nourishment, nay, the water of fanfiction! Without it, your writing really will die. And it won't be pretty. It's even more necessary than punctuation.
Please remember, when you're combining beloved fandom characters with a well-known other genre - whether that's Harlequin (≈Mills & Boon) novels, horror movies, noir mysteries, cop shows, or even some specific other movie - that the whole point of that combination is the challenge involved in fitting the characters recognisably into the other world. If you just file the names off of the originals and paste some secondary characters and clothing choices on yey, you might as well not put the story in fandom at all. (In fact, it would be better if you didn't, because then there wouldn't be any confusion about who they were supposed to be.) Characterisation: it's the nourishment, nay, the water of fanfiction! Without it, your writing really will die. And it won't be pretty. It's even more necessary than punctuation.
