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WeNeedToTalkAboutMe t1_j6caizl wrote

I once got threatened with a lawsuit because a fanfic I wrote had someone's name in it.

Seriously.

Well, 'seriously' as in "I received an email from what I found out through my research was a legitimate law firm", but I doubt I would have gotten sued. Apparently, this person had an uncommon name (which I had coincidentally just thought up) and the site that hosted my stories was popular enough that my fic showed up on the first page of the Google search, so they were concerned about someone seeing that (the character was a criminal in my story).

So I had to hurriedly write to the host and notifiy them, along with sending an edited version of the story with a different name. That one didn't get noticed, apparently.

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AwayJacket4714 t1_j6d3obs wrote

I mean, their concern is not completely unwarranted.

Yes we know, a smart person googling their name and getting to your fic would easily figure out they are not related, but tbh the average person is not that smart. Plus, employers who look up peoples' names online won't go deep enough to clear any misunderstanding. They will just look at the first result and see it's something they consider inappropriate, and whoosh, there goes your interview. Especially if their name is so uncommon they have trouble to convice people it's just a coincidence.

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