Forum - View topicChicks On Anime - Fan Fiction (Part 1)
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ArthurFrDent
 Posts: 466 |
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I have fanfic writing friends in a number of genres esp science fiction, so it has always amused me when I run across, or am asked my opinion about their slash work. I always ask how it would be if 2 guys were just, y'know, friends. I guess that it just isn't interesting enough to the writers that way. This may plug into what was said about the 2 duranduran guys just looking right for each other, and then creating a world that revolves around that. I suppose the main question then becomes: what is the writer projecting onto 2 bodies, and how does that relate? What seems lacking often is story. But then as a guy, I'm probably looking at it quite differently. I have had the experience of reading well into a great story, and watching it grind to a halt while 2 protagonists suddenly take a side trip to grope each other... and the story never really comes back. Eventually, I stopped reading much because so many stories went this way.
Out of curiosity I'd wonder what the ratio of female/male fanfic writers is, and also what the ratio of slash vs. Gen/Het... I think it might be oddly sterotypical from the people I know. The few guys write a lot of action, and little reationship. While the bulk of the ladies seem to write a lot of relating, less action, and a subset seem to only write about slash... no cosmic meaning, just curiosity |
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Julia-the-Great
 Posts: 328 |
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I have a theory that if two characters look good enough standing next to each other, there WILL be slash fanfiction for that couple.
(after all, if they look good standing next to each other, think how much better they'll look with their clothes off...) |
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Unholy_Nny
 Posts: 622 |
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After reading this, the concept still confuses me.
Odd note: As a teenager my mother wrote amateur romance stories, but never based off of an already established story. Teenage girls scare me 
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Soul Tsukino
 Posts: 68 Location: Maine |
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In my experience as a long time fan fic writer I've bassically found the difference between men and women writers when writing romance stuff is (with exceptions) women write slash fics that tend to center around the relationship, while guys well...write lemons. And no, i'm not saying that in a negative way. We, even as writers, have different ways of going about things.
As I told Bamboo a while ago. If I had the ovarian fortitude and was at the con I'd love to have taken part in this conversation |
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2094 |
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Soul: what do you mean by "write lemons"? I've never heard that sort of phrase before.
ArthurFrDent: I agree, the lack of fanfics about good old friendship is a little sad. I've never understood that mindset, I mean, people have friends in their life LONG before they begin a relationship, you'd just think it would be natural to write stories about friends. But I guess not.... 
And yeah, I agree, slash between friends is fine, but relatives (like Iroh and Zuko) just seems wrong. Though I kinda laughed at the mention of Snape/Harry. Sure, if it was before the 7th book, it could have logic behind it, but after the 7th one spoiler[it seems to contradict the whole point of Snape's actions, and Snape/Dumbledore would make FAR more sense in terms of slash pairings.] |
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Rednal
Posts: 134 |
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Fanfics, huh...
I used to write them, but to be honest, most of them really sucked. I was young then, and a much worse writer than I am now. I only had, let me think... yeah, two stories that were really any good. One Fire Emblem one that got quite popular, and then a Legend of Zelda "future" fic that still gets the occasional favorite even now, years after I stopped updating... must've done something right.
As for Magic Knight Rayearth, I did that, too... a semi-ish-bad twist on the story with a couple extra Knights and about a dozen crossover powers. It was kind of fun to write, though, even if it was pretty random. I lost it a long time ago, though... I do original fiction now. Swords-and-sorcery most of the time, but the occasional Superhero story as well. They're surprisingly fun to write. I stopped reading all fanfics except one a long, long time ago... trolling through 25+ pages of Naruto Romance fics trying to find ONE that wasn't Naruto x Sasuke sort of made me abandon all hope. The only fanfic I still look at sometimes is Card Captor Harry (as in Potter), which is about as nutty as it sounds and quite long. If anybody's curious about it, PM me and I'll send a link. I think it's a fine example of the better type of fanfiction. Edit: PM'd the good doctor with the answer to his first question. |
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Soul Tsukino
Posts: 68 Location: Maine |
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Lemons are sexually explicit fan fics. Comes from the old hentai "Creme Lemon". Like i said a majority of female writers write romance fics, while guys write porn. It fills the needs of different requirments There was an article I read a long time back and someone asked why there were far more fmeale writers on Fanfic.net. My answer was all the guys moved to Adultfanfic.net after FF got rid of the adult stuff. As for the non romance stuff. That can go either way. The two most prolific Sailor Moon series I've found are written by guys (mine and TM Chiba's Sailor Moon AR) but you'll find all kinds of stuff from both men and women. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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My favorite types of fanfiction tend to be of the parody/self-referential-to-the-fandom type. Frankly, so much fanfiction is just horribly written that it's been hard for me to ever get into it.
I don't mind slash per se so much as I don't like that there's so much of it. It's like, "where the hell are the girls in all of this?" Of course, the high ratio of men to women in anime helps this, but still! And if I'm gonna read something smutty, I'd rather have a girl in it... helps me put myself in the story. 
Overall, though, i just wish people would try to work on making their stuff actually good. Quality over quantity... |
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Raneth
Posts: 271 |
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I've written the odd fanfic or two, but nothing really worth talking about. I got a bit fed up with the fanfiction community-I just no longer had the time to search through the loads of garbage for the gold.
The thing I got really annoyed by in the fanfic community is the prevalance of the same slash pairings, over and over. People will write 90 million stories about character x and y, and yet there are no stories about character y and z, despite the fact that both pairings are equally unlikely-after all, it is slash. It's almost as if it's considered taboo to pair certain characters together once everyone's mindset is tuned to one pairing. |
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EdoRocksMySocks
 Posts: 56 Location: Kentucky, USA |
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Ah, fanfiction, my past time. My friend and I loved to write self inserts with the ultimate anime crossovers. We kinda lost touch after graduation (last year) but I'm still continuing to write on our story started our 7th grade year (and making it as realistic as I possibly can with no Mary-Sues). I realized how big Mary-Sues we were before I edited and it was...really bad.
The only thing I hate about the fandom world is that even if you have a very well written original character, if he/she falls in love with a canon character, it's a taboo of bad proportions. It never seems to please anyone and I hate that because I love creating OCs and I want people to see that I hate Mary-Sues just as much as they do. GAH. |
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TheTheory
 Posts: 1029 Location: Central PA |
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As a wanna-be writer I've never even contemplated doing fanfics before, although reading this article and thread has made me decide I'd probably do a bloody-awesome job of it. Maybe some day when I'm bored and can't think of something original I'll give it a shot.
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Cait
 Posts: 503 |
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I always feel left out of fan fiction conversations, because while I have and do write fics, I identify myself more as a beta reader, and I feel like when the subject of fan fiction comes up there is all this other stuff to talk about and it never gets to the loyal proofreader. In my personal opinion, many many more fan fic writers need one...
Natalie mentioned in the discussion how she used to love certain fics and then years later would go back to them and be amazed that she ever did. I've had that experience, too, and also, interestingly enough, in CLAMP fandom. I've only been into fandom on the internet for a scant three or four years now, but I remember devouring everything within certain fandoms, pairings or whatever. Like, I had my favorites and I would read whatever I could find of them. Recently I've gone back and reread a number of those fics and not only have I realized my tastes in types of fic have changed, but I have become much more critical of writing form and style. I've become a lot more discerning about characterization and when an author takes a character's manners of speech and dresses it down (as in, makes the character sound the age of the author, regardless of the character's actual age), it irritates me. I know when they teach writing dialogue in school, they emphasize that speech should sound "natural," like the way people actually talk, but they don't mean the way you actually talk. But I'm digressing. I think what I'm trying to get at is that because I feel like I have "matured" (I'm struggling to find the right word here) in fandom, and possibly because I have spent over three years looking over fics for other people with a fine-tooth comb, I've become a little more critical, a little more particular and possibly a little less excited by the fandoms that I used to obsess over. I wonder if it is some kind of life cycle of a fandom, or if I'm just changing? Also, hearing that Natalie has broken into a new fandom is a bit bittersweet. I know the joy of finding a new fandom to fic over, and I'm happy for her for that, but at the same time I have to wonder if ever there will be a day when she will finish Sakura and Snow... [EDIT] I'm also incredibly particular about my own writing and will read over my own message board posts and fix typos incessantly... |
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LKK
 Posts: 426 Location: Virginia, USA |
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I don't know why you think male writers are responsible for the majority of fanfic lemons. Nearly all of the fanfic lemons I've seen have been written by females. |
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Dahling
Posts: 49 |
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Wow, it was fun to read not only the actual article but also all the comments! (Usually I force myself through the first page then make my own comment.) Can't wait for part two!
Anywhos, I felt a little weird looking at all this because even though I love writing and have TONS of fanfic material I have never considered myself really part of the fanfic community. In fact I generally dislike reading fanfics, but then I only look at fanfiction.net. I got tired of looking at the bad in search of the good, though that was rare enough. My favorites were invariably one-shots that stayed short and sweet. Of course, I still love writing. I've always sorta known about fanfiction but it's hard to remember when I started writing it. My first real attempt at writing one that I remember was a Naruto fic who's main character was invariably MSish. (She's currently on her fourth revision and finally leaving behind the traces.) I just came up with lots of characters (something I love to do; and I love hearing about other people's characters too!) and wanted to write out about them. Over the past couple years I like to think I've gotten better, I took down what little work I put up on my fanfic.net account because I deemed it unworthy. Of course, my favorite fic I've written (from a series I hate!!) is probably a Winx fanfic. I dislike the series and really dislike the characters, but I still made up my own. She grew and I made an entire cast to go with her, and now I love them all to death. Funny, huh? There's also Naruto, to date I've come up with (to my best estimate) fourteen individual, named characters for my fics; each with their own personality and fighting style. Something about that show makes it so fun to write characters!! Don't count me as just a weirdo Naruto fan though, I have something like a megabyte on my computer for fanfics of all sorts of series. How to continue this ramble? I doubt anyone's read this far. Well, about yaoi then.... I've actually never written any slash stuff and generally don't read it. I LOVE crack fics when they manage to stay funny, but other then that I can't really accept romance-driven stories. They need at least a semblance of plot! Back to slash; all my stuff has stayed het, probably because I'm straight myself and it's just how I think. Honestly, I don't know how to get inside the head of slash characters. And honestly a lot of those pairings just seem... silly. Of course, I can be plenty silly. How can I forget the brainchildren of me and my best friend, Itachimaru and Kisabuto? (If you don't get it, shame on you!) Umm, sorry for wasting the life of anyone bothering to read down to the bottom! ^-^; And for those curious for your studies on fanfic writers or whatever, I'm female. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8502 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Speaking as a freelance writer (see: still mostly unpublished) I used to write fanfiction for anime I enjoyed (lol, I even wrote a Pokemon fanfic, it's as bad as you think), but I eventually saw that writing for other people's characters had so little little artistic integrity I couldn't continue.
Now, I'm not saying that there isn't any good fanfiction out there, but it's a rare beast, and not really worth seeking out. A lot of it is just fangirls expressing their over overzealous obsession with characters they couldn't possibly have had the creativity to create by putting them in situations which are completely out of character or completely contrary to the shows they came to in elements of storytelling or plot development. Not that there's a problem with just writing for fun for characters you enjoyed in a television series (it doesn't have to be a brilliant masterpiece), but I hate running into folks who take their fanfiction as seriously as if they were writing their own original series. |
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