FANFIC RANTING! BAD FANFICS MAKE ANGRY!

Where stuff about fanfiction that doesn't fit into any other category goes. Try to make sure that new topics here actually couldn't actually go somewhere else.

Postby Tenebrae » Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:42 am

My chapter length cut-off tends to be between 1k and 1.5k, although some authors I'll allow more leeway than others. Most of the time I pick up new fics from C2's, or from here and TFF.
Warning: the above post is the result of brainpan leakage. Do not take seriously or ingest.
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Postby Gaming Ikari » Thu Apr 23, 2009 12:21 am

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned fics which announce the pairing right off the bat yet. So I guess I will. *rubs hands*

It's a spoiler. It's just as big a damned spoiler as announcing "Character X is the story's Big Bad" or "Character Y is going to freaking die". The only time I can even stand it is when the FOCUS of the story is on the two characters and their interactions, and not necessarily a promise that they'll wind up romantically entwined.

Sorry, part of the reason I read a story is for the conflict. The "Will he or won't he?" of the main character. If Rumiko Takahashi had slapped "Ranma winds up with Akane!" right on the first page of Volume 1, would anyone have read the series? Heck no! It would have undermined every other romantic entanglement which wandered into Ranma's life. The reader wouldn't have worried about (or cheered for) Ukyou, or Shampoo, or Kodachi, or Shinnosuke, if they'd KNOWN those characters would fail.

Now, we strongly suspected that Akane and Ranma would be the default pairing. But suspecting isn't the same as knowing.
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Postby Drawde » Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:04 am

Often the pairing will be mentioned because some people prefer reading that pairing, and some people refuse to read that pairing. Just like some people don't want to read a slash (male/male) fic, and would prefer that warning so they can skip it.
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Postby mondu_the_fat » Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:57 am

I agree.

While the best written fanfics I've read does not blatantly mention romantic pairings in their summary. there are some pairings I simply do _not_ want to see in a fic (especially if very graphic), and would appreciate some form of advance warning so I can avoid them entirely.
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Postby Gaming Ikari » Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:02 am

Like I said, I understand that in the context of romance stories: You want to know if the story you're going to be reading is about characters you like or not. However...

How is it relevant to Action/Adventure stories where the romance is, at best, a minor side-dish and constitutes a heavy spoiler? I guess the reason I bring it up is the sheer number of reviews I've seen for various stories (my own and the stories of others) which state "Awesome story, but it'd better be CharX/CharY or I'll hate it!"

If it's an awesome story, why are you suddenly going to hate it if the author develops a certain romance? If you've enjoyed their writing up until that point, why would you assume you wouldn't enjoy their writing in the future?
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Postby mondu_the_fat » Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:28 am

Gaming Ikari wrote:Like I said, I understand that in the context of romance stories: You want to know if the story you're going to be reading is about characters you like or not. However...

How is it relevant to Action/Adventure stories where the romance is, at best, a minor side-dish and constitutes a heavy spoiler? I guess the reason I bring it up is the sheer number of reviews I've seen for various stories (my own and the stories of others) which state "Awesome story, but it'd better be CharX/CharY or I'll hate it!"

If it's an awesome story, why are you suddenly going to hate it if the author develops a certain romance? If you've enjoyed their writing up until that point, why would you assume you wouldn't enjoy their writing in the future?


In one Highlander fic I read (labelled Action/Adventure), the plot was very engrossing.

Up until somewhere along chapter 5, where I get a sudden dose of hot, extended loving action out of literally nowhere other than two characters having to share a room together.

Hey, I was willing to skip a chapter, since I liked the plot... but the plot was completely dropped. For the next several chapters I get more hot love, some consensual, some not (an even bigger squick for me), all in excruciating detail.

So, yes, it's very significant. And, yes, I will stop reading.

(editted to be less graphic)
Last edited by mondu_the_fat on Thu Apr 23, 2009 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Spokavriel » Thu Apr 23, 2009 9:36 am

Mondou (Edit: Thanks for the edit.)

The other thing is many people who write Fanfiction will make their fic a relationship fic no matter what Genre they claim. Often times just regurgitating part of the Genre from something they are dropping in the cross.
Last edited by Spokavriel on Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Gaming Ikari » Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:19 am

Some authors don't give pairings much thought. Hell, the first story I've written with a pre-planned love interest for the protagonist is my most recent... and given all the time travel involved, it might wind up being subverted anyway.

I'll admit not wanting to see some pairings is understandable. Your genre-shifted man on man Highlander action, for example. That's just bad storytelling. However, I think a large problem with the fanfiction community is how far people will take their One Ship to Rule Them All attitude. (Oh, and for the record, I hate that use of the word Ship. With a fiery hellpassion. *shudder*)

I've seen people who refuse to read an Ukyou and Ranma story, for example... No matter how well written. That's taking the attitude to blind extremes. Sure, Takahashi has given ample evidence in the manga that Akane and Ranma are the one true couple, but she also left things open-ended enough that pretty much anything could happen. (Probably the reason Ranma 1/2 is such a popular target for fanfiction, but I digress...) Thus, there's a lot of good fanfiction written for a wide variety of pairings.

Heck, go ahead and read Kunoification. The next bit is White-texted if you've not read it. Kuno and Ranma? Nine times out of ten, NO. Just... NO. However, for that story, it worked. Which is why excluding certain pairings or demanding to know the pairing beforehand bothers me so much.

It's usually pretty easy to tell, within the first few chapters, whether or not a story's going to be your thing or not. And if it starts to sour your interest later, who cares? We've all got plenty of fics we enjoy despite the fact the fact they will never be finished. Daniel Ruth's The Journey ranks right up there with my favourites, yet I don't consider it a waste of time to read even though it's not finished. So really, how is reading a story and deciding half-way through that it's gone in a direction you don't like any different?

We read this stuff for enjoyment, right? So how does a lack of enjoyment of later chapters spoil our enjoyment of earlier ones?
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Postby Spokavriel » Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:51 am

Well really when it does the shift like in that Highlander example it's worse than an incomplete fanfiction. Because there is no hope after a few chapters of trash that the plot that was so good once will be able to be resolved in a way you can stomach getting to reading. At least with unfinished stories there's always that hope until the author dies. And even then others can take up unfinished tales and do. But when it switches genre to trash allot of the time it's left to rot.
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Postby Spokavriel » Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:11 am

I just ran into a reminder of my least favorite kind of attempt at a fanfic. Stories where everything about how a character is in cannon is ignored and everything happens instantly. Ranma doesn't mind being girly boom we instantly have a giggly girlie girl who's having trouble remembering what it was like being a guy. Not even saying if any time passed.

3 sentences saying that some time passes where Ranma and Akane were having troubles then boom half a chapter of how they are sorry about all of it without showing any of the conflict.

Doing something like that through life changing circumstance like in the case of a Pregnant Ranma and the behavior can be attributed to hormones for a bit but doing it repeatedly completely kills any of the cannon character being in the fic and breaks the realm of believability.

And right now I'm suffering a headache from a fic that almost had characters drop a hint with an atomic bomb about how they think a situation should change and then there wasn't even a sleep on it the advice was followed and things were better. Instantly. I mean literally story time instantly the comment from the advice was used after meeting Akane in the waiting room of a Psychiatrists office and they were perfectly harmonious with Akane Weepy before they got into the car to go home in.
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