Fan Fiction

[Hawki]

So there are quiet a few FF writers. What are everyone's specialties and accounts? What's your shame?!

Specialities: Well, I guess this is bragging, but I guess my speciality is taking ideas that may not be groundbreaking per se, but tend to fit outside the norm of the type of stories that usually exist in a fandom. More shameless plugging, but to name some:

-Avatar (James Cameron): Most fics focus on Pandora, either before, during, or after the movie. I wrote a story titled 'Rainbow' which is basically a fan prequel novella, depicting Jake's time in the USMC. Also titled Rainbow because each chapter corresponds to one of the colours of the rainbow in the song 'I Can See a Rainbow.'

-Dead Space: Novelized the 'Thirteen' episode of the ARG that accompanied Dead Space, said ARG not being told in chronological order.

-Firefly: Wrote a story titled 'Seven Deadly Sins', detailing the life of the Operative. Chapters 1-5 are pre-movie, chapters 6-7 cover the movie, and the story corresponds to each of the Cardinal Sins, with liberal quoting of 'The Divine Comedy.'

-My Little Pony: Wrote a story called 'Where Griffons Go to Die', which focuses entirely on the zebras and Zecora pre-series. Allowed me to flesh out their culture and touch on the nature of faith, superstition, and ritual suicide. Yes, this is an MLP story.

This isn't counting oneshots/poems (e.g. one of the more recent oneshots I did was based on Ghostbusters 2016, where the crew encounter the actual ghost of Ecto-1, who's pissed that they destroyed it to defeat Rowan), but, yeah. Bear in mind, there's plenty of 'standard' stories I've done, but the ones above are multi-chapters that I like to think aren't your typical stories that you'd find in fanfiction.

-Shame: Well, awhile back, I set myself a challenge to write a oneshot based entirely on sexual intercourse, after looking up the techniques of how to 'correctly' write a sex scene. That little nugget is a James Bond story titled 'Free', which is my only M-rated fic, and one of the few stories that I classify as romance. It's, um, stimulating. 0_0

Also there's the shame that the oneshots/poems I do get far more attention than multi-chapters, which has kind of affected me. Seven Deadly Sins took about a year to write, and got pretty tepid reception. Meanwhile, I can pop out an Overwatch oneshot of less than a 1000 words, and it'll get favorites galore. It's basically the less effort I put in, the greater the fan reaction. Basically, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

It can sometimes be more of a challenge to believably write an already-existing character into a new situation than to develop an original character from whole cloth. It can definitely be more interesting, too.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I've noticed that at least a few Escapist posters write fan fiction, but I can't really see the appeal. Why not write something original instead? I mean, fan fiction has a pretty bad reputation.

So, why write do you write fan fiction? Or read it?

Matey, I'm glad you asked! I've been writing fanfiction for, oh, going on six and a half years now. Racked up almost two million words worth of fan stories in that time, so it's obviously something I take very seriously. But hey, I am very well aware of the stigma. Even did a research paper on it for an English class. So I think I'm pretty qualified to answer your questions.

"What's the appeal?"

For fanfiction in general, let's leave off the loads and loads of smut out there. The reason that stuff is so popular is pretty obvious. Beyond that, most of the appeal is simply due to "what if's." Most stories take many twists and turns, and though most fans are willing to accept which course a story chooses to take (or not. C'mon, we've all been there), there's still that nagging question of "What if?" What if this character went right instead of left. What if that character didn't open the door? What if this character was chosen instead of that character? And so on and so forth. Oftentimes, these questions become a curiosity, and people start exploring the possibilities in their minds, and sooner or later you have a premise of a fanfic! Granted, they suck more often than not, given how the overwhelming majority of fanfic writers are untested amateurs, but that comes with the territory, and the good ones more than make up for it.

Other times a story will come to its natural end, but people are jonesing for more, so they ask another question. What happens next? There are still more adventures to be had! It shouldn't end like this! So people take it upon themselves to fill that void, and those who want more eagerly eat them up. That's why Firefly continuation fics are (or were) so common, because we wanted more! People still want to know what happens next, and there are certain fans who have a few ideas down those lines.

Then you got those who just wanna see two characters fuck. Self explanatory.

"Why not write something original?"

This is something I see a lot, and there are two answers to this. First is that many people are planning on doing just that. However, original fiction is...very difficult. I spent about five years starting and abandoning rough drafts for about four different novels, each one started and stopped 2-4 times apiece, because I didn't have a clue about what I was doing. Sure, I know what I wanted the books to be about, but I didn't have the right discipline or habits to make my ideas work, and had a lot of bad issues with my writing I wasn't even aware about.

Then I started a Touhou Project fic purely on a whim and...it just sort of took on a life of it's own. For one, every chapter posted is up there for the viewing public to see, no take-backs (at least not without great effort). If you find that you don't like what you've written, then tough. You have to adjust and keep moving. Instant feedback is also useful, especially given that you have a ready audience already looking for stories. It helps motivate you to keep those chapters coming. You don't really get that when you're trying to churn out your first novel. And because that feedback feels good if you get good responses, you start working your way through those bad habits and discipline yourself through trial and error. I myself practically destroyed my health through energy drinks, which was a major wake-up call, and led to a domino effect that caused me to shape up my entire lifestyle. And as such, when you are ready to put the fanfics aside and try something original as I plan to in a few months, you will have a ton of experience that you wouldn't have otherwise. There are plenty of popular authors out there that got their start as fanfic writers, and some of them still indulge now and then.

The second answer is that most people who write fanfics do so purely as a hobby, and aren't pursuing a career as a writer. Many of them are teachers, engineers, cooks, government employees, work at museums, or a myriad of other careers. However, they're all fans of something that they had a story for, and work on those stories just to amuse themselves. Sometimes you just have a creative itch to scratch, and that itch involves someone else's characters.

"Why do you write it? Or read it?"

A combination of all the above reasons. I had an idea for a Touhou Project story pop into my head, so I wrote it out, threw it online to see if it would go anywhere, and it did. Later followed by a Madoka Magica story which also took off. It's fun, and I have freedom to experiment and try to see what works that I wouldn't have otherwise. I also use it for practice for my original stuff, to work out my bad habits, sharpen my skills, and try out some ideas for later use.

As for read it, I honestly don't follow many fics, but the ones I looked into because they had a premise I found intriguing, and for the most part were excellently written. I don't consider them "canon," per se, but they work as their own alternate universe story.

And yes, I know how many crappy fanfics there are, and how much porn there is. Fortunately, there are recommendation lists and methods to filter out the crap and get to the good stuff pretty quickly.

So there are quiet a few FF writers. What are everyone's specialties and accounts? What's your shame?!

Account's right here. Also my two big stories got their own TV Tropes articles here and here, though both haven't been updated in awhile.

Anyway, I mostly do longform stories that are, well, my main influences are things like Animorphs, the Dresden Files, Joss Whedon shows, and Song of Ice and Fire. So, dark and really wacky. The plots can get pretty convoluted at times, but honestly I'm at my best with chaotic stuff. I also take turns doing a Christmas special for each story every years.

As for my shame...I dunno. I mean, I did write a lesbian smut fic once, but that was on a dare and I'm actually pretty proud with how that came out. I do have a major femslash kink, so there's that. There are a few story arcs that were admittedly a bit of a mess, a couple one-shots that I'm not all that fond of, and a lot of my early characterization of Touhou characters is...grating, but that's mostly live and learn stuff.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

I read a fair bit of fan fiction. Mostly it's for IPs I really like that are either officially dead, or have such long gaps between instalments that I want a fix of them from time to time. Obviously, the quality varies wildly from virtually unreadable to highly professions, and they're full of weird ideas, impossible crossovers, crack pairings and all manner of other nonsense, but their lack of rules and sheer breadth of variety from the cringeworthy, to the ridiculous and everything in between makes them good fun.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's just fans indulging.

'Hey, you want those two characters to actually hook up, well here you go.'

I don't write it (nor have I ever felt the urge to), just as I don't draw hentai, but I don't mind sampling it on occasion.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Thirdly, no author can fully expand on the potential of their world. Some are excellent at it or go into such detail (*cough* Tolkien *cough*) that someone reading it can be struck with inspiration that results in a great story. Others however either fail to really achieve the potential of the setting (SAO) or the focus of the story is so narrow (Naruto) that there is a huge amount of unfilled space that an author can work with.

Everyone's already spelled out everything better than I ever could, but IMO this is one of the strongest reasons. This is the specific reason I started writing a Legend of Korra fanfic (nothing yet finished), because the series left me frustrated over it only ever showing glimpses of what its realized potential could have been, and I just like Korra as a character, and want to see more stories with her. And since the rule goes "If you don't find it, make it yourself", who's gonna stop me?

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Aside from the porn?

Mostly, it's when I'm interested in a setting and the setting itself is flexible enough to allow different stories to be told. Warhammer is a really great example; rich, vibrantly detailed setting, but no actual official "plot." I wrote tons of Warhammer fanfiction when I was in high school. You can do the same with the Old Republic setting of Star Wars...World of Warcraft...a lot of MMOs, actually, given that they usually focus on world-building more than RPG-style character plots.

That said, I've never understood the point of fanfiction that's written with the main characters within the plot of the actual source fiction. Like Buffy fanfiction. I don't get into it because as far as I care, it's not going to replace the show and the fact that it's trying to is working against it.

I also have a massive personal grudge against the 50-Shades style of fanfiction. Not the smut - the smut is glorious - but the practice of taking the names of the main characters and then putting them in a completely unrecognisable alternate universe setting. Like, I saw some Attack on Titan fanfiction that had the entire cast in college together and working in a cafe. It took one of the more interesting and mysterious background settings I've found in an anime series and turned it into a generic sitcom.

I mean, you want to write a sitcom, go right ahead, but do you need to call the main character Eren Jaeger? It doesn't add anything to your plot - which, by the way, has jack-shit to do with anything from its source fiction - so just call him Eddie Jacobs and go nuts. If you're not using the setting and you're only nominally using the characters, what you have isn't fan fiction, it's just fiction. Rename the main character Christian Grey and make a billion dollars.

/rant

 

[MiskWisk]

I also have a massive personal grudge against the 50-Shades style of fanfiction. Not the smut - the smut is glorious - but the practice of taking the names of the main characters and then putting them in a completely unrecognisable alternate universe setting. Like, I saw some Attack on Titan fanfiction that had the entire cast in college together and working in a cafe. It took one of the more interesting and mysterious background settings I've found in an anime series and turned it into a generic sitcom.

I mean, you want to write a sitcom, go right ahead, but do you need to call the main character Eren Jaeger? It doesn't add anything to your plot - which, by the way, has jack-shit to do with anything from its source fiction - so just call him Eddie Jacobs and go nuts. If you're not using the setting and you're only nominally using the characters, what you have isn't fan fiction, it's just fiction. Rename the main character Christian Grey and make a billion dollars.

/rant

*Begins remembering repressed Kingdom Hearts fanfics*
Oh god why!?
MAKE IT GO AWAY!

 

[Derekloffin]

So there are quiet a few FF writers. What are everyone's specialties and accounts? What's your shame?!

Specialty is Ranma 1/2, alternate universe (either different history, cross over or both... usually both). Account is same as here. My shame? A ranma 1/2 pokemon fusion that I just had to get out of my head. It thankfully died a quick death once out .

 

[Saetha]

Aside from the porn?

Mostly, it's when I'm interested in a setting and the setting itself is flexible enough to allow different stories to be told. Warhammer is a really great example; rich, vibrantly detailed setting, but no actual official "plot." I wrote tons of Warhammer fanfiction when I was in high school. You can do the same with the Old Republic setting of Star Wars...World of Warcraft...a lot of MMOs, actually, given that they usually focus on world-building more than RPG-style character plots.

That said, I've never understood the point of fanfiction that's written with the main characters within the plot of the actual source fiction. Like Buffy fanfiction. I don't get into it because as far as I care, it's not going to replace the show and the fact that it's trying to is working against it.

I also have a massive personal grudge against the 50-Shades style of fanfiction. Not the smut - the smut is glorious - but the practice of taking the names of the main characters and then putting them in a completely unrecognisable alternate universe setting. Like, I saw some Attack on Titan fanfiction that had the entire cast in college together and working in a cafe. It took one of the more interesting and mysterious background settings I've found in an anime series and turned it into a generic sitcom.

I mean, you want to write a sitcom, go right ahead, but do you need to call the main character Eren Jaeger? It doesn't add anything to your plot - which, by the way, has jack-shit to do with anything from its source fiction - so just call him Eddie Jacobs and go nuts. If you're not using the setting and you're only nominally using the characters, what you have isn't fan fiction, it's just fiction. Rename the main character Christian Grey and make a billion dollars.

/rant

You know, I actually enjoy Modern Au fics if only to see how the author translates the stories and characters to the modern day. What sort of parallels can you draw between ancient god and a college professor? How can you find and establish similarities between the positions? That being said, a lot of modern AUs do suck, and often twist the characters into weirdo OCs with the same name.

...On the other hand, I'd argue that fanfic that preserves the original setting but borks the character anyway isn't any better than an OOC modern AU. It's the personality that makes the character, not the setting.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Like so many others have said, I write it for fun (that is to say, I've written it for fun). I haven't written any in years but back when I did it was because Celebrity Deathmatch had ended and Screw Attack hadn't begun producing Deathbattle (Guess what used to write about?). I would also write fan fiction as a sort of warm-up exercise. It's something that would get me writing and thinking in general.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

You know, I actually enjoy Modern Au fics if only to see how the author translates the stories and characters to the modern day. What sort of parallels can you draw between ancient god and a college professor? How can you find and establish similarities between the positions? That being said, a lot of modern AUs do suck, and often twist the characters into weirdo OCs with the same name.

...On the other hand, I'd argue that fanfic that preserves the original setting but borks the character anyway isn't any better than an OOC modern AU. It's the personality that makes the character, not the setting.

It works with certain types of narrative. Shakespeare is a great example; it's incredibly easy to adapt a Shakespeare play to a modern setting, because the focus is more on the characters and the dialogue than the setting.

What shits me about it is that these people aren't adapting Shakespeare. They're taking shows with interesting settings and bog-standard characters, dumping the setting, and then twisting the characters so that they can write a romance novel or whatever. I don't want to read a Fallout fanfiction that has a bunch of characters reimagined as hormone-addled teenagers on a road trip, or a Dragon Age fanfiction that drops the dragons so it can write a taut legal suspense thriller.

These are narratives with characters who make no sense once separated from the setting they were created for. Eren's entire personality in Attack on Titan is pretty much "titans ate my mother, I will kill them all." How does that work if your setting has no titans?

 

[Cap'nPipsqueak]

I once wrote a story about getting shitfaced drunk and trying to seduce a bush.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I once wrote a story about getting shitfaced drunk and trying to seduce a bush.

Link or it didn't happen.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I once wrote a story about getting shitfaced drunk and trying to seduce a bush.

Junior, senior, or Jeb?

 

[Saetha]

You know, I actually enjoy Modern Au fics if only to see how the author translates the stories and characters to the modern day. What sort of parallels can you draw between ancient god and a college professor? How can you find and establish similarities between the positions? That being said, a lot of modern AUs do suck, and often twist the characters into weirdo OCs with the same name.

...On the other hand, I'd argue that fanfic that preserves the original setting but borks the character anyway isn't any better than an OOC modern AU. It's the personality that makes the character, not the setting.

It works with certain types of narrative. Shakespeare is a great example; it's incredibly easy to adapt a Shakespeare play to a modern setting, because the focus is more on the characters and the dialogue than the setting.

What shits me about it is that these people aren't adapting Shakespeare. They're taking shows with interesting settings and bog-standard characters, dumping the setting, and then twisting the characters so that they can write a romance novel or whatever. I don't want to read a Fallout fanfiction that has a bunch of characters reimagined as hormone-addled teenagers on a road trip, or a Dragon Age fanfiction that drops the dragons so it can write a taut legal suspense thriller.

These are narratives with characters who make no sense once separated from the setting they were created for. Eren's entire personality in Attack on Titan is pretty much "titans ate my mother, I will kill them all." How does that work if your setting has no titans?

You can't, really. I know there are quite a few characters that just can't be conceivably transported to a mundane setting without either substantially changing their story or giving up and introducing magic/Titans/whatever anyway. One of my favorite characters, for instance, I've never really read a good modern AU for them, because there's just nothing in real life that can really parallel their history.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I don't read fan fiction, but apparently I wrote a couple of Mario RPG and Legend of Zelda fanfics back in elementary school before I even knew what fan fiction was. I was never much of a writer and it was pretty dreadful stuff.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

To be fair, I've only written fanfic on one IP: Bleach, and this was during the Arrancar first arrive to about when Ichigo defeats Aizen.

I do write my own works, that range from sci-fi to psuedo fantasy (medieval-esque without relying on magic), from everyday life to out of this world experiences (both literal and metaphorical), but Bleach is something different entirely.

In terms of writing fanfic, I just like to pour my ideas/thoughts into an IP that I really enjoyed. None of my fanfic works are sexual or over-the-top: one work focuses on a cast of new characters that investigate the appearance of Arrancar at a different city around the time the Arrancar first show up and the other is a what-if scenario that takes place 25 years after Ichigo defeated Aizen, dealing with matters involving the children of the heroes.

They were both very extensive, especially the 25 years later one, but after Bleach continued on with Ichigo and Xcution, it sort of got me too angry to continue on.

I don't really read other's fanfic because I have my own original works to keep me entertained

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I actually just thought of something pretty funny; I'm the go-to DM for my local group of friends - which actually sucks ass because you never get to play the game, you're always running it - but I have this one campaign, that I guess a lot of long-term DMs have, which is just "that campaign." The one that's been running for years, you can't remember how it started and you can't imagine how it's going to end, but you sure as shit can't stop now.

But anyway - and this is why I brought it up - sometimes we get long gaps between games because someone's overseas or some other real life bullshit, so to pass time (and to fill in plot holes) I actually write short fiction in the campaign's setting, which is mostly there for the player's benefit. And even though I invented the setting, and it's technically original work, I can't stop thinking of what I write as fanfiction. My friends are all like "dude, it's not fanfiction. you made it all up, it's fiction." And I don't listen to them, because in my head "fanfiction" includes basically all amateur creative writing, including any text more than a page long written for a roleplaying game. It's like, in my head, the term refers to the work's level of professionalism and not its inspiration.

What I'm getting at here is that I think it's weird that I've internalised the shitty reputation that fanfiction has to such a deep degree that even original works become "fanfiction" in my perspective. And then you get ass-jizz on the other end of the scale like 50 Shades, which is actually just fanfiction but which got published after a quick control-F, and is now a published novel with all the pseudo-authority that implies.

I'll be honest, I'm pretty drunk right now, so I'm probably rambling, but what I mean to say is that my half-assed D&D setting kicks the everloving shit out of 50 Shades, and E.L. James can go smoke a bag of crack.

(with all respect to E.L. James; she did write a very successful novel.)

 

[Frankster]

Never thought too much about fan fiction, though did actually write one which was hum...NSFW to put it midly xD
Basically for context this was when I was part of a 40k community, and was some fanfic which made the rounds on the forum there, some star wars 40k crossover where you had jedis and their clone troopers pwning the forces of chaos on their home turf.
The biggest object of ire was the mary sue jedi protagonist soloing chaos sorcerers and champions and utterly humiliating them with long winded lectures and how their gods were nothing next to the power of the force and the jedi.

So a forumite asked me if I could write something in response, and I was like ok that sounds fun (i was practicing my writing at the time, trying out new things), and I just played "I have no mouth and I must scream", the bad ending of which struck me as a suitably horrible punishment for a haughty jedi who thought herself above the gods of chaos.

Ended up writing a short story about what I thought would "really" happen if a star wars ground army fought on a chaos world in the eye of terror, and let's just say it really wasn't pretty. I like clone troopers so i portrayed them as best as i could and tried to be fair to the jedi and their armies but ultimately i'm biased in that i think such a force invading the eye of terror is seriously screwed (sometimes literally, as i said it was really nsfw especially when the slaneeshi daemons turned up). The last 2 paragraphs were about how that particular chaos sorcerer who was humiliated in the original fan fic dealt with the captured jedi mary sue character... And yeh skipping the details, she ended up the same fate as the bad ending of I have no mouth and must scream.
Never uploaded this to any site, only got passed to a few other people (i couldn't post it on the 40k site itself because of its contents), and the original text. was on an old laptop that has since been lost in time so it's pretty much gone for good unless one of those forumites saved it. For what it's worth my audience REALLY enjoyed it!

That was the one and only time i wrote fanfic.
I only got curious about reading some myself many years later when i had finished all the Game of Thrones books+watched all of the show and was having a bit of a need for more and resigned to the fact that it would take years for either the show or the book to resume the story, i gave GoT fanfics a go.

Was an..interesting journey, you truly have some for all tastes and there are some nice "what ifs".
For example there's actually a what if fanfic where Robert Baratheon married Catelyn Tully and Eddard Stark married Cersei Lannister one that i've been meaning to check out and now will since i've just reminded myself of it.

I've read some fanfic that attempted to end the GoT story entirely, and some are really well written and close enough to R.R's style that i found it quite enjoyable. Ultimately i always came out disappointed because the ones i've read ALL end the same: Daenarys Targaryen arriving to a land that is already weakened, screwing over the remaining powers quite easily (poor Stannis, can't get a break even in fanfic. Whilst daenarys was pondering how to kill him once the war with the white walkers is over, he dies trying to fight the night king in single combat and hoping he really is the chosen one and his flaming sword would kill the fiend..spoiler: it doesn't) one way or another, faces no real challenge due to having deus ex dragonis and ends up queen of westeros and all her decisions and actions are awesome and wonderful and she is so awesome, etc.. For the curious I believe the particular fanfic I'm thinking of here which is usually accepted to be quite decent is the one where "what if Ned didn't get beheaded?".

I guess i'll have to lookout for decently written fanfics where Stannis comes out on top for once, or the Lannisters.

Oh also read a few about the Navi' homeworld being invaded by the 40k imperium. Those were fun.