Quarantined Continuum

The author of a story can, at will, choose to block fanfiction from his or her continuum. Such a continuum is referred to by the PPC as quarantined.

Authors who have made this decision are listed here:

If you know of an author who has allowed or banned fan fiction, please let us know.

Theory Regarding the Mechanism Behind Quarantine
Speculation exists about why some continua are quarantined and others are open to all. One such theory posits that an author is practically omnipotent in relation to his (or her) own world; no Mary Sue or author-wraith can ever match up to that level of power. Even the most omnipotent of god-mode Sues can't match the creativity of the omnipotent author, which makes the author intrinsically more powerful than any attacking Sue or author-wraith. If he chooses to block off his world from both good and bad fanfiction, an author can eliminate Sues from his continuum entirely.

Therefore, it might be that an author who has chosen to block all fanfiction from his world's canon may have effectively set up a two-way creativity shield around the canon, stopping anyone from getting in or out--agent and Sue alike. An author who blocks his continuum would force any fan author who wants to write fanfiction anyway to create an entirely new world for it. This new world would be completely unconnected to the original canon. PPCing it doesn't make much sense because the quarantine has forced the fanfiction author to effectively create a piece of (plagiarized) original fiction which cannot hurt the original canon.

When a fanfic author attempts to access a quarantined continuum for any reason, he is blocked and must create his own continuum. All characters within this continuum are essentially original characters, though heavily plagiarized. This applies even to crossovers where only one of the continua is quarantined; even the characters from the other continua will be original characters, since the fic has been shoved by the power of an Author into its own small universe.

That's not to say that blocking all fanfiction is the obvious choice for all authors. An open world is vulnerable to warping by badfic; but it can also be strengthened and made more detailed when good fanfiction is written in that world. An author who allows fanfiction is taking the gamble that the good will outweigh the bad. Secondary effects also protect non-quarantined continua from crossovers that include the quarantined continuum.

Regarding Thursday Next: We're probably lucky that one's closed. Can you imagine the untangling we'd have to do if Jurisfiction agents ever met the PPC?