FANFIC RANTING! BAD FANFICS MAKE ANGRY!

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FANFIC RANTING! BAD FANFICS MAKE ANGRY!

Postby Tuisto » Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:32 am

Pardon this:
I'm going to now utilize the bully-pulpit power of the forum to rant, and vent my spleen.
Feel free to add to this venting, with your own personal touch. You know you want to...

I HATE, HATE, HATE!!!! SHORT FANFIC'S!!!
It doesn't matter, what host-site, or fanfic category or theme, no.... not at all, but see, these puerile little twits come along and fill page after page of the crappiest ideas, all 500 words or less! You've seen them, sure you have! The whole "I suk at summaries! Plz R&R OMG LOL GDGDTHRHGDSFG!" Some of these things make me want to SCREAM!
Things like "THIS (from the random fanfic link-o-lator)!!!" ARG! It HURTS us! And YET! And yet... more fawning puerile twits give these crap-fests good reviews! IT BOGGLES THE MIND!
Seriously, at this rate, I'm going to blow, and end up like "Flame_Rising" on FF.net who does nothing but trolling and flaming out bad writers! And that's already looking very appealing...
Now I can't fault people wanting to write up a fanfic, surely not, but WHERE IS THE SENSE to these... these... I can't even call them drabbles... that are whipped up in 5 minutes without planning or forethought? I don't even consider something a chapter if it's under a thousand words, and so oft' a third of -THAT- is authors notes!

AND ANOTHER THING! English isn't my first language... heck, it's not even my 2nd or 3rd, it's my fourth! Now while I do manage to wield english with some measure of proficiency, reading things that aren't on-par with oh... I don't know... entry school reading level... are a PAIN IN THE ARSCHE to try and read! Gopfertöri!!! grrr...
Really, is it so hard to pull your fingers out from your bodily orifices and learn how to bloody spell in your own language! Hell! I'll not fault people for some bad grammar, as I really would be a hypocrite in that regard, but seriously, "THIS!!!!" is a travesty unto the english language!
Hopefully my multi-lingual polyglotal compatriots can agree with me on this, if nothing else.

That's enough for now, while I pause to coagulate my thought mass into something more coherent... and sane... but make no mistake... I'll be back.

/Share.
=Rant.
*Vent.
Have a cathartic moment, and just blow-up at the tiniest little infraction.
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Postby mondu_the_fat » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:02 am

It takes dedication to write a long fanfic, and by the time something gets to a respectable length, the poor ones already have given up. This is why I always set the word filter to >20000 or >40000. I also check the number of words as compared to the chapter -- if it looks like a 1000 words per chapter, I just skip it.

That being said, not all short fanfics are horrible. For example, there's a series of "drabbles" in mediaminer in NGE (forgot the titles) that were pretty good, each probably a thousand words long.

Yeah, poor spelling and grammar irks me, too. English isn't my 1st language, but I try to avoid such errors and would certainly try to correct them before posting on ff.net.


Note: the second fic that you linked (the one with the terrible spelling, grammar, everything) looks like a parody. While I've certainly seen equally bad writing, I have a feeling that was deliberate.
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Postby Jupiah » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:09 am

*applauds loudly*

Amen to that. I wouldn't say it so... violently, but I completely agree with you. People that can't even be bothered to spellcheck their stories have no business uploading them at all. I cannot even begin to comprehend how anyone can praise an author that "suks at summaries", let alone bother to read their story in the first place.

Now for my own personal rant - What the hell is up with all the yaoi fics? I have nothing against homosexuals, but it pisses me off when an author decides to piss all over canon and disrespect the original creator by perverting his/her characters. Nevermind that both men have never shown the slightest romantic interest in each other, let alone in in other men. Suddenly they're all over each, no shame, no confusion, no wondering when the hell they became gay. I wouldn't mind (that much) if the author justified it as being an AU fic where that characters were always gay, but they almost never do that. It's always the guys suddenly becoming attracted to each other out of the blue, and just 'going with it'. It's almost always so out of character it's not even funny.

The most prevalent series for this crime seem to be Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist. I literally stopped reading stories from those series because it seems that 70% of the highest reviewed stories are slash. What the hell? Why do so many people support these things?

First of all, in Naruto, the genin are all too young and emotionally immature to progress past awkward crushes. There shouldn't be an serious romance at all in the series, unless the author is skipping forward a few years in his fic.

Naruto likes girls. He hopelessly crushes on Sakura. Sasuke has no intention of ever having a relationship, with anyone, ever. He admits that he doesn't care if Orochimaru steals his body, as long as he gets his revenge against Itachi. He has no right to pursue romance when he plans to die after killing his brother. I am so sick of seeing the accidental kiss between Naruto and Sasuke (that they are both utterly disgusted by) somehow warped into a 'love-at-first-sight' moment.

It's even worse in Fullmetal. Ed and Roy is the most impossible relationship I've ever heard of, and yet it is also by far the most popular. Not only that, but Ed is what, 14 years old? Roy is around 30. Apparantly Roy is a pedophile.

Ed is a scientist, totally consumed by his mission to restore his brother. Until he accomplishes that he won't even think about romance. Not to mention he's still to young to be having a serious relationship, even if he cared to. And Roy is a womanizer. He is famous (or infamous) for stealing the girlfriends of half the soldiers under his command. There is no way he would ever date a man, let alone a young boy. Not to mention that Ed and Roy hate each other. This pairing, more than any other in any series, pisses me off.

Sorry about that. I really didn't intend to rant that much, but once I started it just kept coming.
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Postby Comartemis » Sun Feb 17, 2008 9:46 am

English isn't my first language... heck, it's not even my 2nd or 3rd, it's my fourth! Now while I do manage to wield english with some measure of proficiency, reading things that aren't on-par with oh... I don't know... entry school reading level... are a PAIN IN THE ARSCHE to try and read! Gopfertöri!!! grrr...

It's even worse for those of us who are native to the English language. Fics that people have recommended to me (Wild Cherry Blossom, for instance) have been dropped like a ton of bricks simply because of their writing style being full of errors and generally just not up to par with the work of the masters (See Black Dragon, S'tar'kan, etc). I am very picky when it comes to my fanfics, you see.

The most prevalent series for this crime seem to be Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist.

DEATH TO SASU/NARU! DEATH TO THE YAOI FANGIRLS!

Have I made my dislike for "Dark Crystal Tokyo" fics clear enough? No? Because I really. Friggin'. Hate. People who write that garbage. It's the same problem as with "Suddenly Gay" Syndrome; people ignore the personalities of the characters involved and somehow come to the conclusion that Usagi is going to turn into a Neo-Nazi sometime in her future.

What irks me the most is that I most often see these fics come from otherwise respectable authors who simply haven't done their homework and are essentially taking a shit on the series as a whole by making Usagi prone to corruption.
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Postby lwf58 » Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:00 am

Comartemis, I edited your message. The part I erased was going too far; you mentioned a specific person and criticized them as an individual. It was inflammatory and likely to provoke an argument. That's a no-no on this forum and I don't want to see such a thing happen again.
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Postby Rei-chan » Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:39 am

My only problem is much like the original one here about spelling that wouldn't be acceptable even in a text message on a cell phone. I've ran across more than one fic that had 4 and 2 in them as substitutes for the words for and too or even to. That is unacceptable in any way. I can't say much against some of the misspelling, after all I've gone over my old writing projects in my journals back when I was just entering high school and such and have seen similar in my own work. Then again, the net is where I honed my ability to write and spell anyway thanks to role playing and a few people in Canada who would ride you all day for misspeaking. However, I do not approve of the atrocities of such things as suk or 4 or so on in an English language story. However, one must remember some of these people have neither betas, editors, or the education as well as some were probably too busy to remember to spell check their creation. Most of them were probably written while in a computer lab during a time they should have been doing school work.

All in all, in the world of fanfiction you are going to run into those that think they can write but can't as well as those who are good but just rough around the edges, you can't carpet label them all as terrible and avoid them on principle.
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Postby CRBWildcat » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:01 pm

Bad spelling and grammar I can handle (to some degree; no offense to anyone proficient in it, but I despise leet-speak). It's the plot of the story I care about; I'll read short fics if the plot is even halfway decent.

I have a weak stomach where subjects like blood, breath-wasting profanity (I'm talking about stories where every tenth word is a swear word), over-intensive violence, and romance are concerned. I simply can't handle stuff like that, so I tend to skip over those altogether when I can.
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Postby Kadunta » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:06 pm

I don't see short, complete fanfics as such a bad thing; microfiction can certainly be a good read as well. But when the fics try to accomplish more than they can in such a short length, then they are bad. When it's a multichapter story with chapters mostly under 2kw, I ignore the story.

In particular for Naruto section on ff.net I have set the word count filter for >40000. Granted, this won't keep you safe from everything...

Bad grammar I can for the most part tune out, if I can follow the plot. Bad formatting, in the sense of missing paragraph changes, gets from me an instant Ctrl-F4.

Usually, it's the authors that drive me up the wall rather than their fics. In particular I hate authors who can't handle getting a critical review (even if it is to the point of being harsh, but not going to an attack on person), and then start ranting about the review(er) in their ANs. Likewise, authors that insert ANs inside the main text:
"Mendokuse (if you don't know what that means, why are you reading a Naruto fanfic?)"

(This is something I made up myself, but I recall reading a fic with comments very much like that.) Or authors who just think too much of themselves, and start stating ridiculous demands. (I'm expecting anyone of you now to mutter "Hypocritical bastard.")
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Postby Dumbledork » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:07 pm

What I can't stand is when writers constantly butcher the names of the characters or fighting techniques (e.g. 'Fluer' in HP fics or 'Nadoka' in Ranma fics as well as spell names in HP fics). You should at least know a minimum about a series if you write a fic... and the names of the characters is the strict minimum.

Same goes for mistakes like 'kunia', ABNU or 'shrunken' in Naruto fics.

What I don't like either is spelling mistakes in the summary or the title.
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Postby nuriko » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:19 pm

Myself, I tend to dislike the short fics (though I'll still give them a chance), especially if they're as short as that link. That wasn't a chapter, it was a SCENE!

There's also spelling/grammer (here and there I can deal with, but if it's too much, I'm not reading it), weak plot (and this is a biggie) and poorly-explained OOC...
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Postby Tovath » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:39 pm

Comartemis wrote:
Have I made my dislike for "Dark Crystal Tokyo" fics clear enough?


Yes you have, but you haven't responed to my last post on Crystal Tokyo revisited thread.

I will agree that people who don't do their research are among the most annoying authors around though. Even more anoying then grammar (and most spelling) errors because it is easy to make grammer and not notice
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Postby bissek » Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:42 pm

One of the things that fanfics authors do that peeves off a lot of people (including other authors) is saying 'I won't post the next chapter until I receive at least X reviews'. The only time I consider that appropriate behavior is if X=1.
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Postby Dumbledork » Sun Feb 17, 2008 3:14 pm

bissek wrote:One of the things that fanfics authors do that peeves off a lot of people (including other authors) is saying 'I won't post the next chapter until I receive at least X reviews'. The only time I consider that appropriate behavior is if X=1.


And I also don't like it when people don't answer to reviews, except if they get more than 30 reviews per chapter. But I think that writers who only get about 10 reviews per chapter and are asked legitimate question should answer the reviewers.
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Postby Comartemis » Sun Feb 17, 2008 3:54 pm

What I don't like either is spelling mistakes in the summary or the title.

Amen to that. I won't even give a second glance to a fic if the author can't even spell the title of his/her own fic. The old "I suck at summaries" line doesn't cut it with me either. If you can write a sentence, you can write a summary, even if it isn't all that descriptive or unique. Announcing your incompetency in this way proclaims that you are new to writing and will more than likely make people skip over reading your fic when they wouldn't have otherwise.

Yes you have, but you haven't responed to my last post on Crystal Tokyo revisited thread.

Because I'm not interested in arguing for or against Usagi's competency as a ruler; the purpose of that thread was to debunk the so-called "facts" behind Despotic Crystal Tokyo, and it's done that quite well.

One of the things that fanfics authors do that peeves off a lot of people (including other authors) is saying 'I won't post the next chapter until I receive at least X reviews'. The only time I consider that appropriate behavior is if X=1.

That just shows that the author doesn't have his heart in his writing. The best authors are the ones who write because they enjoy it, not because they want opinions on their work. Those who depend on their reviews are the ones who will most likely abandon their writing at the first hint of a flame.
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Postby CRBWildcat » Sun Feb 17, 2008 4:42 pm

Amen to that. I won't even give a second glance to a fic if the author can't even spell the title of his/her own fic.

Or (as one author I used to read did once) if he/she points out that "all spelling errors are to be ingored", but let's not go into this.

That just shows that the author doesn't have his heart in his writing. The best authors are the ones who write because they enjoy it, not because they want opinions on their work. Those who depend on their reviews are the ones who will most likely abandon their writing at the first hint of a flame.


I agree with this one. I've been writing stories, mostly of my own characters (although I started on the fanfic road before Y2K) since '92 or thereabouts. I never really cared what others thought of my work; I wrote because I enjoyed it, it was fun and because it didn't degrade anyone. Positive opinions were only bonuses.

This includes the stuff I've already sent to the 'Net; they didn't get a lot of reviews, but I didn't care. I was working with something I liked, and I was willing to run with it.
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