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Hey, Answerman! [2007-09-07]

(And yes, Star Wars is an exception—George Lucas doesn't care about contradicting licensed fic. IIRC, he even said so once in an interview. Classy. )

Neverwhere wrote:

Anime_Freak wrote: Pardon my "dumbness" but what on earth is a "moe" anime? I have never heard of this term til today. Really? o.O And yet you're obviously a regular here at ANN...*amused*

Well here is what ANN has on it.

"To be properly moe, a character must be (emphasis mine) eager or perky, not overly independent, and call forth a desire in the viewer to protect them and nurture them."

they must be so addled by reading fantasy and sci-fi falderal by hacks like Mercedes Lackey or Laurell K. Hamilton that they just don't know what good writing is anymore.

Zac wrote:

they must be so addled by reading fantasy and sci-fi falderal by hacks like Mercedes Lackey or Laurell K. Hamilton that they just don't know what good writing is anymore.

You lose 50 cool points for calling Lackey a hack!

Zac wrote:

they must be so addled by reading fantasy and sci-fi falderal by hacks like Mercedes Lackey or Laurell K. Hamilton that they just don't know what good writing is anymore.

You lose 50 cool points for calling Lackey a hack!

Pardon my "dumbness" but what on earth is a "moe" anime? I have never heard of this term til today.

What is exactly missing from North American animation that would make them look like their Japanese counterparts? Is it the shading? The color palette? The backgrounds? The framerates? The closest thing NA has come up with is Avatar, but something still feels lacking. Can you provide an analysis using this show as a basis?

Rurouni Kenshin Oh My God! I hated how Kenshin sounded in the Japanese. verson also Aoshi sounded like a little girl too.

Also I understand at times charcters sound better in the Japanese. voices as well to note a few the entire cast of naruto, Rukia from bleach the entire cast of Eva and those are just a few I could come up wiht off the top of my head.

The translators need to not just translate the words, but also try to grasp, to the best of their abilities, the fundamental concepts and underlying meanings, which are all best noted when viewing the original and seeing how what is said can be interpreted.

So, although I know perfectly well it'd be the kiss of death for sales, I'd be perfectly happy if all the dubs were eliminated. I can't say I've listened to more than one or two dubs on the dvds I've bought, and those only because people said the jokes were better or the lyrics were vastly different or whatever.

Dargonxtc wrote:

I would say I mostly agree with yours and Zac's assessment of fanfic, however... The Xenos wrote: Again, here comes my total distaste for fan fic. It's masturbation. I'm not even talking about the pornographic ones. It's creative masturbation. Instead of creating something of your own, you're taking someone else's characters you like and waking off to them on paper. Excuse my bluntness, but I'm just sick of seeing people wasting time cranking out this fluff. I was just wondering what your, or Zac's if he wants, opinion on published works like like Star Wars*, Star Trek, Aliens, Conan, Halo, etc, etc. *Obviously I am not talking about the authors directly related to the original concept of the story or show, but the many spin-off novels that come off of them.

I echo that statement about teh Star Wars and Star Trek books. They're simply glorified fanfiction after all. My Mom thinks so, too, and she is the one who owns them.

So writing is not as hard as drawing? Excuse me, but as both a fan artist and a writer (of original work) I beg to differ. My average art piece takes about a day, sometimes two days because of my penchant for drawing at four AM. I won't say that I'm the best artist out there, because I know I'm not, but I've been drawing fanart for a number of years and I like to think I've reached a certain level of skill.

Yet, if I were to take one of my drawings and try to write a short story about it, it would take far longer. I spend weeks on a single chapter of the novel I'm writing, just because I continually go back and revise, trying to make it as good as possible. Drawing may look more impressive, but I would have to say that writing takes just as much, if not more, effort.

Of course, there are BILLIONS of bad fanfics out there. There's no denying this; I've read more than my fair share, and as a general rule I don't look at much fanfiction anymore because most of it is utter twaddle. And you're right, a lot of it is just ahuge fan wank. But I've also seen a few genuinely well-written fanfics that are basically just side stories that fit within the realm of the fandom, yet don't impose on it. Not all fanfiction is crap.

Personally, I'm not looking to sell my work, so I have nothing to say with regard to that argument; I would just like it understood that some fanfiction authors write to excersize their skills with familiar characters and get critique on it before moving on to original pieces. Don't lump them in with all the screaming yaoi fangirls.

Fan fiction. I'm probably going to get a lot of hatred for this, but I can't stand fan fiction, and here's why. I'm a writing major in college, and as someone who writes his own stories and is constantly revising and editing my own work, I think its disgusting that someone else can come along and write a story with characters established by someone else. It's hack, there's no talent behind it, and its the easy way out. Coming up with your own characters and plots is hard and a lot of time has to be put into it (unless your R.A. Salvatore or Christopher Paolini). If you want your work to be taken seriously, create something. If all your doing is using someone else's characters for your own story, its essentially plagarism. If I may quote George R.R. Martin "Write in your own universe. If you don't excercise those literary muscles, you'll never develop them."

The distinction, I think, is upsetting to you because you want to be taken as seriously as a professional author; you want people to look at your fanfiction the same way they look at Timothy Zahn's officially licensed Star Wars novels because you don't want to feel like your work is inferior. But the truth of the matter is, we have a publishing industry filled with people who know quality when they see it and are willing to elevate someone from unpublished amateur to published professional, and that's how the system works. If your book is hardbound, printed professionally and placed on a shelf for $17.95, it's because someone in a position of authority to put it there did so. And that's how it works. That's how you get taken seriously as a professional author. It's based on a number of things, and it might not be a totally fair system, but it doesn't have to be. You don't deserve to be taken seriously as a writer; it's something you have to earn, and being picked up by a legitimate publisher is one way to do that. Dumping out some anime fanfiction does not make you an author any more than scribbling on a napkin makes you an artist. These are professions, things people do for a living. You can't erase the line between amateur and professional just because you don't like being called an amateur.

You're also making the serious mistake of comparing today's 400-page internet harry potter yaoi epics to something like Alan Moore's Lost Girls or Christopher Tolkien's Middle Earth books; they're not the same thing, not at all. One has no clout, no backing, nothing to suggest it might have some quality to it. The other has a name, an established presence, the backing of a publisher. They passed the test, they got it published. If Alan Moore rewrites Cinderella and you do the same thing, I'm going to assume Alan Moore's version is better. Why? He's proven himself to be an amazing writer, someone whose genius has captured the attention of millions, including his publishers at DC Comics. He put the effort in to get his work published, he took it seriously enough to be successful. A fanfiction writer is just someone who's self-publishing her own stories on Livejournal or whatever; why do they deserve to be on the same playing field as Moore, simply because they believe they're doing the same thing he is? I'd argue he's operating at a different level than an amateur and his success proves that.

I paint in my spare time. I'm not an artist, I just paint in my spare time. I don't scan them in and post them all over the internet and then say "I'm the same as Picasso because hey we're both doing the same thing and who's to say what's worth your time and money and what isn't". I recognize that Picasso was a master and a professional and I am not. I don't put the effort in to become a successful, serious artist; I make no real attempt to have my paintings shown in a gallery. Therein lies the difference.

Nobody's telling you you can't write whatever the hell you want all day long, but when you ask to be taken seriously or respected the same as a professional author, that's when you're crossing the line. Yes, you can write your own version of Cinderella. No, I'm not interested in reading it. If Alan Moore does it, then yes, I am interested. That's the long and short of it.

"Dumping out some anime fanfiction does not make you an author any more than scribbling on a napkin makes you an artist."

Do all of you complaining about fanfic/art also hate doujin for not being 100% original? I'd mention AMVs, but Zac has already expressed that he thinks using other people's music (or at least Weird Al's) is a complete copout and people should record their own.

What about when Disney reinvents Aladdin and The Little Mermaid? What about Sgt Frog, which uses Gundam left and right? Hell, what about sequels? Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was such a cop out; they should have spent that time coming up with new characters.
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