Things that annoy you in fanfiction discussion

[CritHit]

Oops, sorry, I may have misspoke. I didnt mean to call out BL's community, I was more referring to the Fanfiction community in general.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Pretty much any OC in any fanfiction anywhere has more than even the regular hurdles fanfiction has to overcome and so its just that much more difficult to execute anyway. They have to fit in with the logic of the world. They have to be well-crafted and well-rounded characters. They have to be entertaining to some degree or another. They have to not be a spotlight stealing force if paired with canonical characters. All of this on top of the fact that fanfiction itself is borrowed, the fact that fanfiction itself is often used to get around a lot of regular fiction writing issues, the fact that fanfiction writers are usually amateurs, the fact that fanfiction usually lends itself to being not thought out, done spur of the moment, poorly executed, and all sorts of things.

Like, ultimately, if you want a theorycrafting way of looking at it, the best fanfiction usually goes around or minimizes all of the problems inherent to the medium and maximizes on both the author's strengths and how they mesh with the og setting. Adding in something like OCs that really easily highlights the opposite of the path of least resistance means its just that much more difficult to do well. On top of the regular fanfiction woes of character wanking, powerlevel wanking, narrative wanking, and, well, wanking.

[Mattias]

There's also the fact that in a setting with great world building (Which tend to be the ones to draw out the most in a fandom) there often already exists a character that can fill whatever niche an OC is supposed to fill.

I guess that kind of fits into that whole path of least resistance thing too.

[CritHit]

Those are all far points. I guess it's not that people are completely shut off to the idea of a OC fic, it's just that people are used to them being awful for some reason by default. Sorry for complaining, this has always just been a complaint of mine, from how I've perceived the community. When I create a fanfiction, it's more of a love letter to the source. It's me creating my own story from the elements that have been presented to me, and for it truly to be "my" story, as much as a Fanfiction can be, I find that it works best if I use my characters.

I love Fate, it's literally been my favorite series since 2007, and I'd love to write one of my "love letters" to it. However, so far various communities general attitudes have made me hesitant to even try.

Edit: Also, in regards to Fate stories in general, a bit of wank is to be expected, I think.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

it's just that people are used to them being awful for some reason by default.

They do pretty much because of the reasons stated above, which just means that the medium lends itself toward the bad side. If you assume that the majority of fanfiction is mediocre to bad, and then pile on more hurdles that lend itself to not being good, the odds that some niche section of an already niche medium with a niche number that are considered "good" just means...the odds of the gacha aren't the only terrible odds out there.

When I create a fanfiction, it's more of a love letter to the source. It's me creating my own story from the elements have been presented to me, and for it truly to be "my" story, as much as a Fanfiction can be, I find that it works best if I use my characters.

A couple of things.

If it's your love letter, it's your love letter. Do it however you want.

Do realize, though, that if you're going to put it out for others to consume in some fashion or another, it's also no longer "yours." People can debate all they want on death of the author and how much/important/not important/irrelevant it is, but you are just gonna have to resign yourself to how others perceive things so long as it is public in some way or another. And as fanfiction is mostly a case of readers wanting to read about the characters they love, that's the first and biggest hurdle you've got.

As said too, it can be done, but you just also have to resign yourself to the fact that if you're going to write fanfiction but then handicap yourself in that fashion, you're gonna have to deal with what results, one way or another.

Actual professionals get around this by, well, making their own story, world, whatever, but openly or subtly or whatever referencing the things they love. Fate itself is just a big love letter to Makai Tensho, and it shows, but it's also its own thing.

[CritHit]

Oh, I can, and have produced and even published my own fiction, though I'd hardly call it professional. However, I still want to write my own style Fanfiction about things I love. I didnt actually expect to create a dialog with my whining, but I do appreciate your response. You're spot on with all your remarks, and that's what made me hesitate. I'm mostly afraid that anything I publish will be completely disregarded, more than criticized. But your point does stand. I just wish I wanted to write normal fics, so I wouldn't waste all my time crafting and developing all this stuff. XD
Edit: Wow, my response was poorly composed, sorry about that.

[Walnut Sparks]

Right now I've been following yet another Matou Rin fic. What made me interested in it is that, unlike most of them that I've seen, Rin so far doesn't appear to be a vengeful psycho, so I'd like to see what direction the story takes her relationships with Sakura and Shinji.

But the writing is stilted. I don't want to insult the author too much, but, honestly, it reads like it was written by a 10-year-old. How do you talk about that in a review? It's not like someone can develop a mature style on demand. In the meantime, I can't think of any concrete suggestions other than to look out for grammatical errors.

[FishyFod]

I am fairly certain I know exactly which fic you're following, and I completely agree with your assessments. But I can't really think of any helpful review to point that out without sounding insulting, especially when there's a fair chance the writer is actually quite young, or that he doesn't take his writing seriously. For some people, writing fanfics is how they improve their writing through self-reflection, and the self-reflecting part takes time.

I'd love to criticize that particular fic myself, for many reasons aside from the stilted writing, but it's hard to tell when the author would accept criticism or not. It's easier in this forum, but not so much in ff.net or ao3.

[Mattias]

I started reading a fanfic that begins with a large rant about the author hates when people write fics of that series because it's either bad porn or an In Name Only re-write of the character in effort to make them badass and cool, and that doing so is pointless because you remove what made that character unique. They then proceed to have their omnipotent self insert OC meet a young MC and do that exact same thing. Not even a full chapter before it happens. I know I shouldn't be surprised given the author's other works tend to be sub-par, but the irony was killing me. So I read the whole thing. Not too bad for a standard curb-stomp justification. Just skip over any of the terrible Deus Ex Machina OC and you could have a fic that might have been good.

[You]

link?

[Mattias]

It's a Highschool DxD fic by Third Fang.

[forumghost]

I mean going into a TF fic and not expecting godmode-sue OC mentor figures meeting INO rewrites of the MC to try and make them Badass Mc'Cool is... yeah, you're kinda asking for it.

[You]

It's a Highschool DxD fic by Third Fang.

i'll read the "rant" but not the fic

[RoydGolden]

I read the first chapter + rant, and to be fair, he actually seems to recognize the irony of it. Far as I can tell, TF considers it what he's doing to be developing Issei in a different direction from canon while still leaving his core personality traits (perversion, wants a harem, protective of his friends, etc) intact, not rewriting the character outright. Ymmv on how well he accomplished that obviously.

[Rafflesiac]

Third Fang.

Pinpointed: The exact part where you should've stopped and closed the tab.

[You]

it was... bad to say the least
so this is the legendary "third fang"

[RoydGolden]

it was... bad to say the least
so this is the legendary "third fang"

I thought you said you wouldn't read it. Couldn't resist opening up Pandora's box?

[You]

I thought you said you wouldn't read it. Couldn't resist opening up Pandora's box?

i read the rant
it was bad

assuming the rant was the whole OC thing with his self-insert god

[Mattias]

Pinpointed: The exact part where you should've stopped and closed the tab.

Yeah, but I was itching for a decent DxD fic so I was giving almost everything in the TvTropes Rec section at least a chance. Sadly it was still one of the better ones.

TF considers it what he's doing to be developing Issei in a different direction from canon while still leaving his core personality traits (perversion, wants a harem, protective of his friends, etc) intact, not rewriting the character outright.

That's the thing though, he dosne't leave them intact. He gives him a dark and tragic event offscreen which causes him to become an antisocial NEET, who watches so much porn he apparently is bored by it.

[RoydGolden]

That's the thing though, he dosne't leave them intact. He gives him a dark and tragic event offscreen which causes him to become an antisocial NEET, who watches so much porn he apparently is bored by it.

That's how the author himself described what he was doing. I'm not arguing he succeeded by any means, but he was at least aware of the difficulty involved to some extent. It's always threading a needle to introduce major diversions in a canon character's backstory (especially a main one) while keeping them recognizably "themselves", and I'll admit that TF doesn't seem to have pulled it off exceptionally well.

While his Issei clearly had some of the original's traits intact (like wanting to be the "Harem King"), his sullen smart-aleck demeanour is so different from the Issei we know and love that it just made the whole thing come off as a little depressing. Still, I only read the first few chapters, which were presumably going out of their way to highlight what had changed from canon, so for all I know he ends up acting more like "our" Issei later on.