Some time ago, I read Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness. If you've been hanging around HP fan fiction communities at all (anywhere except MNFF, which by the way I think should stop trying to pretend they're the only site where HP fan fiction exists, since I really don't think your Mugglenet overlords are paying attention anymore anyway), you've probably heard of it. It's written by
DAATYOD tells the tale of Neville and the D.A. during their seventh year. It's the story about what was going on back at Hogwarts under Snape and the Carrows, while the Trio was on their camping trip.
I found it to be pretty good.
But, there's a reason why whenever someone asks for fan fiction about Neville and the D.A., this is the one that almost always gets recommended.
I stopped reading the sequel, Sluagh, about halfway through, because I thought the story was beginning to bear no resemblance whatsoever to Rowling's world. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but while I think thanfiction is a good writer, he's not so good that I'm interested in his original fiction. Also, he seemed to be trying to escalate the level of blood and grit from DAATYOD, until Sluagh became almost carnographic at times.
Anyhow....
I followed
I got the feeling that he was, perhaps, embellishing his life story a bit, because things just didn't quite add up. Eh, whatever.
He also was a bit wanky. He posted a rant on fanficrants once about how PO'ed he was that someone was using "his" version of Terry Boot (from DAATYOD) in a way he didn't approve of.
Ummm....
Okay, I sympathize. I'd be annoyed to discover people writing bad fan fiction about Alexandra Quick, too. But I also recognize that legally, there's diddly squat I could do about it, and really the only reasonable action I could take is to ask the author to knock it off. If Rowling suffers the existence of Snarry fics, I think it's a bit pretentious for HP fan fiction authors to act as if they own "their" versions of her characters.
Then thanfiction announced that he had hardcopy versions of his fan fiction for sale on Lulu.
Fan fiction... for sale.
He claimed that he was charging only printing and shipping costs just to make the hardcopy versions available to those who wanted them. Now, when several people (including me) pointed out that you still can't charge money for fan fiction you effing idiot!!!, he took them down. Still... how do you become a BNF and not grasp this essential principle?
Well, whatever. He's a decent and very prolific author, he has a large fanbase, and he's kind of prone to doing stupid shit.
Boy, I didn't know the half of it.
Wow.
I find this epic wank fascinating, and a bit tragic. From what I've seen, this person has legitimately earned BNF status in more than one fandom. And yet, a trainwreck.