SV has an even problem
- Thread starter logiccosmic
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Sometimes I just want to write a Makoto Shinkai kind of a fanfic where there are no such things as direct applications of violence, everything is character-based and has a slight bittersweet aftertaste to it, but I'm afraid of pushback, and this is fine.
DEMOGRAPHICS, BAYBEE
DEMOGRAPHICS, BAYBEE
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
I agree with that, but from another approach.
See, the audience already knows those characters. And more, they probably appreciate them. If it were a show where they didn't like the characters, they probably wouldn't read fanfiction about it. But that can put the fanfic author in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation: If he makes the characters too competent, well, then you get what this thread is talking about... but if you show the characters making mistakes or not being entirely morally clean, you make yourself open to accusations of character bashing.
And in a pinch, I think the larger part of the audience would rather forgive the former than the latter. They'd rather see the characters they care about be unrealistically hyper-competent, than see them failing in entirely new, non-canon ways.
Arthur Frayn
Fake God by Occupation, Magician by Inclination
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- Land of Do As You Please
- Pronouns
- They/Him
I don't read fan fiction (mostly on principle, partly on time), so I haven't read that much fiction on SV beyond a handful of the cross posted AH.com TL's and some original user fiction, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt the size of an SUV.
I think the problem is that, and I mean this in the kindest way possible, most writers on the internet (in general, not just on SV) aren't very good writers and view stories as a series of interlocking plot events that the characters progress through, rather than medium for exploring themes and ideas. Fan fiction especially has this problem, where the story is about indulging in the power fantasies you wished you could see the characters perform, rather than trying to explore an idea via pre-existing characters. I feel like I've seen this attitude spill over not just from writers, but also in people trying to critique movies/books/tv shows/whatever and treating a story as if it's somehow a documentary about events that haven't happened. I mean, I feel like I can't emphasize this enough; good stories are ones that have ideas and themes baked into them from the get go and are explored via the medium of writing, instead of just having some characters say "Hey, this is an idea, now back to punch punch action!"
A lot of this is just due to the medium; writing a series of updates on a forum is a very different beast than sitting down and writing a story from beginning to end, with the ability to then go back and refine the story so it all hangs together. Even if you sketch things out ahead of time in an outline, or try and stick to a plan, a story is going to get away from you (it's going to happen, don't try and fight it bb). This means that a lot of stuff posted here, or really any site where you don't upload something in its entirety, is going to bump up against that problem. In short, everything is basically one step above a first draft.
On a larger note, stuff like power levels and being obsessed with power and what not, at least for me, circles around to the larger problem I first wrote about (stories being a series of events instead of an exploration of an idea), and I, no joke, blame TV Tropes. TV Tropes is a fun website to browse (and it gave us the glory that is This Troper) but I think it's had a real, demonstrative negative impact on both internet fiction writing and the discussion /critique of fiction. People forget that tropes are just broad labels applied to storytelling devices, and instead look at them like parts that you use to assemble a story. As a consequence, you start quite literally missing the forest for the trees, and adopt the attitude that if you can just break a story down into its correct component parts, you can understand it perfectly and even replicate/reconstruct it. This...is obviously untrue, for a whole host of reasons that are probably off topic and too lengthy to get into right now.
So, uh, yeah, I feel like this kind've got away from me, but the gist of it is that writing is really, really, really hard, and fan fiction doubly so; it's indulgent and silly and oftentimes void of meaning beyond "fuck yeah <insert property here>". SI's are even worse, because again they're viewing a story as a kind of "problem" that needs to be "solved" (see: literally every fucking ASOIAF SI being about some dingus warping into Westeros and stopping every Machiavellian plot via the power of authorial fiat). Writers, regardless of what you're writing, need to imbue their stories with an idea (even if it's a simple one!) rather than just having it sit on the surface while you write out your fantasies.
TL, DR: Writing is hard, fan fiction is an inherently shallow medium, grapple with an idea if you want your work to be improved, TV Tropes scrambled the way people understand and conceive stories.
I think the problem is that, and I mean this in the kindest way possible, most writers on the internet (in general, not just on SV) aren't very good writers and view stories as a series of interlocking plot events that the characters progress through, rather than medium for exploring themes and ideas. Fan fiction especially has this problem, where the story is about indulging in the power fantasies you wished you could see the characters perform, rather than trying to explore an idea via pre-existing characters. I feel like I've seen this attitude spill over not just from writers, but also in people trying to critique movies/books/tv shows/whatever and treating a story as if it's somehow a documentary about events that haven't happened. I mean, I feel like I can't emphasize this enough; good stories are ones that have ideas and themes baked into them from the get go and are explored via the medium of writing, instead of just having some characters say "Hey, this is an idea, now back to punch punch action!"
A lot of this is just due to the medium; writing a series of updates on a forum is a very different beast than sitting down and writing a story from beginning to end, with the ability to then go back and refine the story so it all hangs together. Even if you sketch things out ahead of time in an outline, or try and stick to a plan, a story is going to get away from you (it's going to happen, don't try and fight it bb). This means that a lot of stuff posted here, or really any site where you don't upload something in its entirety, is going to bump up against that problem. In short, everything is basically one step above a first draft.
On a larger note, stuff like power levels and being obsessed with power and what not, at least for me, circles around to the larger problem I first wrote about (stories being a series of events instead of an exploration of an idea), and I, no joke, blame TV Tropes. TV Tropes is a fun website to browse (and it gave us the glory that is This Troper) but I think it's had a real, demonstrative negative impact on both internet fiction writing and the discussion /critique of fiction. People forget that tropes are just broad labels applied to storytelling devices, and instead look at them like parts that you use to assemble a story. As a consequence, you start quite literally missing the forest for the trees, and adopt the attitude that if you can just break a story down into its correct component parts, you can understand it perfectly and even replicate/reconstruct it. This...is obviously untrue, for a whole host of reasons that are probably off topic and too lengthy to get into right now.
So, uh, yeah, I feel like this kind've got away from me, but the gist of it is that writing is really, really, really hard, and fan fiction doubly so; it's indulgent and silly and oftentimes void of meaning beyond "fuck yeah <insert property here>". SI's are even worse, because again they're viewing a story as a kind of "problem" that needs to be "solved" (see: literally every fucking ASOIAF SI being about some dingus warping into Westeros and stopping every Machiavellian plot via the power of authorial fiat). Writers, regardless of what you're writing, need to imbue their stories with an idea (even if it's a simple one!) rather than just having it sit on the surface while you write out your fantasies.
TL, DR: Writing is hard, fan fiction is an inherently shallow medium, grapple with an idea if you want your work to be improved, TV Tropes scrambled the way people understand and conceive stories.
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And I strongly, strongly disagree with that.
Because I don't think we can really call "fanfiction" a medium. Indeed, look at culture as a whole. We live in a world of fanfiction. We live in a world where the largest film franchise ever takes a transformational fanfiction approach to the Marvel comics franchise, taking established facts and components and gutting them to tell new stories from the organs and severed tendons. The only way to separate fanfiction from the affairs of the corporate entities that produce most of modern media is to invoke IP rights - and that's not a property of the medium. We live in a world where licensed novels are big money and where Episode VII of Star Wars was a fanfic-grade plot.
Now, yes, there are problems - gaping ones - with the serialised format that most internet fanfic uses on SV. But that's not inherent to it, and it's certainly not evidence of it being shallow. Yes, many people write puerile shit that regurgitates the stations of canon - often while being an SI. So what? Plenty of trash gets made with official mediums too. But plenty of great fanfic is written, which is a reaction to and commentary upon the work; reflecting it through new lens, answering questions the work raised but didn't answer or giving different answers to, or simply telling another path.
tldr; we're all sons of the
(Also, embrace transformational fanfic. Don't bitch about canon; bitch about thematic integrity and narrative arcs. Fuck canon if it gets in the way of a good story)
logiccosmic
the Prince of Word Crimes
- Location
- the Hague, formerly
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And that's kind of my questioning here - is how to develop and nurture that, well, artistic talent. I don't mean to rag, dismiss, or otherwise belittle any artist here, but I think that writing is one of the hard forms to get critically reviewed. Partly because of content, and partly because of medium. It's easy to listen to a song, watch an episode or movie, or view a picture or painting. But reading something requires investment, and a desire to keep going, if only because humans are so visual.
And thus, how do we do this tricky thing. How do we, and speaking for myself here, the well, crappy writers learn? It's not enough to imitate - there has to be understanding.
I think your illustration of stakes is a great takeaway. Much like you pointed out DBS, the fact that you were able to sit down and watch a single episode and yet be invested, speaks highly too it.
So perhaps what really kills the low end of fanfic, or at least in my opinion is a lead weight on it is kinda two things: a lack of agency, and a lack of stakes, more than any sort of power levels. Super crazy power levels are just the symptom.
Good shit there. It's something to be aware of, I think. A character is not the composite of the end.
Good advice, I followed it here: Politics - Privatized Social Security | Page 6
Arthur Frayn
Fake God by Occupation, Magician by Inclination
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Perhaps "genre" is a better label than "medium", but saying "We live in a world of fan fiction because Marvel Movies and The Force Awakens" is to rob the word "fan fiction" of any meaning; you're conflating adaptations/interpretations with fan fiction on the grounds that they're both ostensibly inspired by an existing work. What differentiates fan fiction is right there in the name; it's un-official stories being written by fans. TFA might have a plot that leans a little too hard on ANH but saying that it's effectively indistinguishable from fan fiction is ridiculous. There is a literal world of difference between something like Captain America: Civil War (which draws its primary inspiration from the comic run of the same name) and a fan written story on AO3 (that's the abbreviation, right?). Even if we disregard IP laws (which always always always come up when people want to defend fan fiction), Civil War is a film that's re-interpreting a story from one medium to another (comic to film) and is using the original story as a springboard to tell another one. I don't doubt that there's the .0000001% of fan fiction that manages to make that leap and bring something new to the table, but to defend fan fiction as a whole by claiming that the Marvel movies, the new Star Wars films, etc. are effectively the same is no defense at all.
Moreover, what I meant by "shallow" was two fold, and it's not really related to how stories are written out (more on that in a second); what I meant was that almost all fan fiction, even that rare .00000001% that manages to bring something new to the table, is indulgent. It's rooted in a desire to get more of something you love, a desire to spend more time with characters you like, to see them fuck, to have them hang out with you, to have them fuck you, etc. Unless you're sitting down to write a story that's deliberately going to upend and critically examine a setting, fan fiction is about baking yourself a chocolate cake and then eating it. It's borderline masturbatory (and I mean that literally), and while I don't think there's anything wrong with that (sometimes you want to see these characters bone or do goofy shit, I get it) fan fiction is likewise restricted by the fact that it has to somehow stay "true" to the essence of the original work. What that means is that the characters get reduced to caricatures, because the reader needs to immediately understand "Oh yeah, this is that character I love doing that thing I love!" Again, there's nothing wrong with this, but it is an inherently shallow and indulgent approach to storytelling.
Now, what I meant by the problems with the serialized formate was that writing a novel (or even a short story) is an inherently different writing process than posting chapter-by-chapter updates on a forum (or anywhere else). The serialized format, and the immediate feedback it provides, means that a work is always evolving in the telling (which isn't a bad thing!) and unless you're a really talented writer (which probably isn't the case) you're going to have difficulty finishing up where you start. Your readers are going to respond to things that you couldn't anticipate, and are going to ask you to include more of this or less of that. Again, there's nothing wrong with this, but what that means is that the writer is going to have an even harder time sticking to their original idea, let alone continue to bake in those themes and ideas which are necessary for a work to really, well, work. Again, most writers are bad writers, and aren't up to the challenge.
Basically, there's nothing wrong with fan fiction being a big dumb gooey chocolate cake, but we shouldn't try to legitimize it or say that it's the equal of the original work. This is what bothers me so much about things like headcanons and the like; it's elevating the individuals relation to and interpretation of a work above the original, which is (IMO) completely backwards. It's quite literally rejecting reality (or in this case the original work) and substituting your own. I think there's totally a place for fan fiction; like I said it can be fun and goofy and an interesting way to see writers explore an existing world and see what they come up with, but at the end of the day its almost always empty calories. Eating a chocolate cake is fun as hell, but it's not very good for you.
*EDIT* Reading back on this, I think I could have distilled all of this down to a single sentence: fan fiction needs to be original. I know that sounds contradictory, but I think if an author wants their piece of fan fiction to be something more than a big ol' chocolate fuck cake, it needs to bring something new to the table. Cast a critical eye on the universe/setting/story/whatever, explore a characters emotion that you thought was given short shrift in the original, something. Just mindlessly repurposing and regurgitating the original work is the death of art.
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- secret base
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- She/Her
I think what fanfiction writers need to ask themselves is whether they write to become popular or they write something they truly want to write from start to finish. But that's not the be-all and end-all as there exists an entire spectrum. Some write purely because they want to attract attention and praise, which results in meaningless pandering without any care about theming or consistency. Sometimes, there's a small soupçon of an original idea hidden within an attractive, bright package of mediocrity. Sometimes, it's something that is more original than not, with small pieces of oh-so-attractive averageness added here and there to serve as guideposts for common readers. Then, there are things that blow your mind.
In the end, most often than not, rather than wanting to create something original, people just want to be praised. They are either not interested in originality or improvement or consistency or theming or challenging themselves. Because my animal brain tells me that this big number near my name I see every time I open this forum is good and nice and we should totally get more of that.
I, for one, was once afraid of creating something original because it breeds uncertainty. You can become the next big thing which other writers will try to capture and squeeze the magic success juice out of, or you can be smashed into paste by the unfeeling boot of apathy, your self-confidence shattered into tiny pieces.
In the end, most often than not, rather than wanting to create something original, people just want to be praised. They are either not interested in originality or improvement or consistency or theming or challenging themselves. Because my animal brain tells me that this big number near my name I see every time I open this forum is good and nice and we should totally get more of that.
I, for one, was once afraid of creating something original because it breeds uncertainty. You can become the next big thing which other writers will try to capture and squeeze the magic success juice out of, or you can be smashed into paste by the unfeeling boot of apathy, your self-confidence shattered into tiny pieces.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Power fantasies are also much more preferable for society than the Angry Young Man demographic actually going out and doing something about it.
The one psych professor I had who actually talked about it say he's fairly certain that the ventilation theory of anger management is total bullshit.
(At a conservative-by-general-US-standards christian college, mind you, so using profanity at all automatically invokes OOC is serious business)
I mean yeah, we don't want them to act out, but whether fantasies discourage or encourage or have no effect on actual levels of acting out is...
Afaik, not really known for lack of data/study.
Synthesis
Special Mobile Suit Troops, U.E.S.A.
- Location
- Luxembourg City
Oh, well, I know my fanfiction (and in fact, original fiction!) answer to that: I write stories about the power deficient. Wham, problem solved.
No, seriously. Insomuch as the last three or four major fanfics I wrote/am writing are concern, in the application of political or military power (or both), my protagonists have been people with some genuine power, almost always institutional in nature, who exercise it in a professional way, and almost immediately find themselves dwarfed by people with much greater "powers" than them. Oswald Walker (fanfiction), is 19, the equivalent of a captain in the Mobile Suit Troops (not bad!), and has a handful of subordinates whom he tries to manage and direct in a competent manner--and is immediately dwarfed by people who I really hammer down on having both more power, and being more capable of wielding that power, than him. He's surrounded by majors and colonels who are sometimes "aces", have a stronger grasp of tactics, or are just flat out better pilots than he is. Konstantin Novikov (original, with copious cameos in my other works), is 29, a major in a Soviet Army motorized rifle division whose career is clearly on the down slope, and is quietly (and generally contently) watching what power he has become increasingly ceremonial in nature--and doesn't particularly mind, preferring the genuinely "less power" of being a Suvorov School instructor, where his power is mostly over boarding school teenagers that he sees a lot of himself in. Alan Chandrasekhar (fanfiction) is middle-aged, and much of his story is that of his steady progression of particularly un-meaningful promotion in the Terran Space Forces while all of his meaningful power is stripped on him for what are seen as his wartimes failures and inadequacies to the point where he's little more than a glorified diplomat and guest of the foreign polity that pounded the Terrans into submission (in large part ruining his career), the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, and actually prefers them to his Terrans.
It's hard to call these power fantasies, I think, though all three obviously have some power. Walker is constantly reminded that he will never be the best pilot (or anywhere near the top), having made his career in the shadow of Zechs Merquise, and now serving as an instrument of the likes of Emi Ogasawara, Soris Armonia, and other actual aces. More than one of them saves his life, in a clear demonstration of superiority of power. He might be an exceptional engineer, but he's not clever enough to somehow leverage that into genuine power--and he doesn't seem to recognize that a lot of his miseries (like being forced into a massive military revolt against his will, or losing multiple battles) might be prevented if he could. In some cases, he might as well just be a very clever design computer for all the good his own strength does him (and he does attempt to resign the MS Troops for related reasons). Come the Strangelove War, Konstantin Novikov actually finds himself thrust into power (that of a battalion commander), and is fairly capable of it, but only insomuch as he stands in the shadows of far more powerful individuals, including the Chief of the General Staff (who has deftly manipulated him into serving her goals), WWII heroes like Akhromeyev, and fighter and armour aces that he knew in peacetime--but it's a short, pointless war anyway, so who cares? Novikov spent the last part of it sitting uselessly in a POW camp while Americans tried to convince him to switch sides. For Chandreskhar, even the appearance of power (which is as close as he comes to it) is inseparable from misery--he was infinitely more happy as a frigate commander than as a vice-admiral with life having kicked his ass repeatedly in the intervening time and destroyed any sense of human patriotism that he had.
Of course, these three characters follow a mold. I've been trying to write fanfiction linking Dominion Tank Police and Ghost in the Shell, focusing on the Puma Sisters--they have power, insomuch as they're nigh-indestructible bio-roids with built in targeting computers, a penchant for guns and explosives and, unlike the above, very little concern for petty human morality. But they also spend the first half of their lifetimes as glorified booth babes, organized crime commodities and then robotic sex workers, in approximately that order. They get power by turning to crime in earnest, but not after a few long lessons in humility (which they learn very little from).
So I think I avoid the problem of idolizing power in that respect. None of these people are superheroes in any stretch of the imagination (even the Puma Sisters would get crushed by a proper set of power armor, or for that matter, an anti-tank attack helicopter that by itself was a much better use of money than they were, and they're more frightened of being shot and blown-up than they should be considering their resilience). The others could all be killed falling off any tall enough ladder or slipping in the shower (pretty easy for Chandrasekhar, who spends his later life suffering from poorly hidden "cardiovascular events"), and maybe more importantly, they exist in institutions where greater wielders of power are very clearly identified, and they are subordinated to them constantly (military hierarchies make that easy). All of them become resentful of power, on occasion, but not enough to actually "do anything about it" in the sense of bridging said gap--if anything, power just becomes more repugnant to them the more deficient their own becomes.
Or I'm misunderstanding the problem, and I haven't presented any solution at all.
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We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
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- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Yeah, that generally sounds like the kind of story that very much does not interest me. I like reading (and writing!) about characters who actually have a major impact on the world around them, thank you very much.
Synthesis
Special Mobile Suit Troops, U.E.S.A.
- Location
- Luxembourg City
Yeah, but they're not power fantasies!
(Which honestly isn't really a concern to plenty of people.
)Though I suppose I should add that Walker, Chandrasekhar, and Novikov all do have an impact on the world around them--but not in a way that couldn't be said about hundreds or thousands of other likewise-trained men in their particular professions, many of whom die and are swiftly replaced by the institution (which includes them in turn).
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- Location
- secret base
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- She/Her
That's your opinion, and I recognize that. The stories I want to read and write about usually have such a small scale they don't leave any kind of impact on the world around them. In the best case, they affect other characters in some form, changing their perception of themselves in a meaningful way, but sometimes even that doesn't happen.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
One of those stories is apparently about a guy teachingand mentoring the next gen.
If that doesn't count as having an impact, I wonder what even does in your view?
- Location
- secret base
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- She/Her
A literal impact. If your characters didn't turn at least one mountain into a valley, you're doing this writing thing wrong.
Apotheosis
Lucifer
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A literal impact. If your characters didn't turn at least one mountain into a valley, you're doing this writing thing wrong.
this but unironically
- Location
- secret base
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Are you writing Dragon Ball Super GT or something?
Synthesis
Special Mobile Suit Troops, U.E.S.A.
- Location
- Luxembourg City
A literal impact. If your characters didn't turn at least one mountain into a valley, you're doing this writing thing wrong.
For some context (and "context" here meaning "shamelessly pimping out my own work"), Novikov (born 1969) rose to "fame" if you could call it that as part of the Tamanskaya Division in Moscow during the aborted August Coup in 1991--the whole division, and indeed the whole Military District (so, tens of thousands of men) were credited with averting a disaster by rejecting both the State Emergency Committee (Communist hardliners) and Yeltsin Clique (nationalist liberal separatists) to support the Supreme Soviet and the party (boring status quo), and was promoted to captain (in large part because one of his superiors, a armor battalion commander, became an iconic symbol of political restraint while sitting in his tank on the streets of Moscow and made a lieutenant colonel). Since he was something of a smart-ass, after a short civil war he eventually left the division and accepted an academic position at the Moscow Suvorov School, teaching via his Candidate of Sciences in medicine. Then he was promoted to major and sent to an overseas scientific establishment (because he was still a smart ass and spoke foreign languages well), where he and a few hundred other soldiers stand around trying to look busy while scientists actually perform world-changing experiments in inter-dimensional travel.
In the end, he looked at his time as a teacher the most fondly (even though he was one of a faculty of hundreds of officers at that school alone, much less nation-wide). As a major, he gets to watch scientists breach holes into other universes while he tries to make sure nothing gets stolen or broken by foreign spies, or that they don't earn the ire of the local population--the last thing he expects is to fight in another war.
And honestly, that's the optimistic part of those stories. It gets actually depressing (comparatively speaking) when things start to go wrong. So basically, all my "heroes" are the anti-One Punch Man. Men? Man.
They're definitely not stories for people don't enjoy reading out people who sit around in the shadows of genuine prodigies (even though Novikov is really too smart for his own good) and think hard about their limitations in life, weighing the choices of morality and duty in a philosophical manner.
Oh! And all three are straight and not very good with women. Like, in a sad, plainly indecisive, clearly unintuitive (and possibly stupid) kind of way. Chandrasekhar is the lone non-bachelor, and his marriage lasts all of one chapter of his story (and produces a very gifted youngster that leaves him wishing he wasn't such an embarrassing father). So, zero sexual power too, at least by the likes of something like Bastard!!! which is always a fun benchmark.
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Synthesis
Special Mobile Suit Troops, U.E.S.A.
- Location
- Luxembourg City
Pausing from my useless self-promotion, I suppose a reliable (?) way of avoiding the power fantasy dilemma (let's assume it is one) is plain, simple, and clear manipulation. Right on the label.
(Okay, in retrospect, this is where the shameless self-promotion resumes.)
Chandrasekhar, Novikov, and Walker (in alphabetical order this time) all took oaths or affirmations in armed forces hierarchies. But aside from that system, all three of them are clearly use/manipulated by others--usually the more powerful, the more capable, and sometimes the more ruthless--in pursuit of greater goals. Goals more often than not aligned in the interests of said system, of course, otherwise those people wouldn't last too long either (though in Chadrasekhar's case, the Terran Space Forces is such an incompetent order before the events of Outlaw Star, it's hard to tell). Walker, in particular, is an above-average pilot (in the sense that he's not good enough to not get shot down three times so far, but good enough to get his share of kills and somehow lucky enough not to die ), but possesses unique training and skills in mobile suit design (and is a primary designer for the Gundam Epyon). So it's not surprising that the charismatic, hyper-competent squadron commander in a much more elite unit than his own would put him to good use. And he's more than happy to agree to it, at least at first, and a lot less when she turns out to be leading a revolt against the very military command he's served in following Treize Khushrenada's resignation. He's experiencing greater (military and political) power than he's used to, but primarily in the sense that he doesn't have a choice (because he was dragged into a revolt that he agrees with on principal but disagrees with in practice, and counterrevolutionaries are even less forgiving than revolutionaries). That same charismatic commanding officer, the focus of a schoolboy crush that never became anything, becomes the target of a great deal of resentment and even hatred. Power flowed from her, but only to serve her goals and ambitions (political as they are), and not power he ever consented to.
A kind of paradox of simultaneously more and less power, or something. It's not half bad manipulation if I say so myself. Especially most of it is in plain sight (him being 19 didn't hurt).
(Okay, in retrospect, this is where the shameless self-promotion resumes.)
Chandrasekhar, Novikov, and Walker (in alphabetical order this time) all took oaths or affirmations in armed forces hierarchies. But aside from that system, all three of them are clearly use/manipulated by others--usually the more powerful, the more capable, and sometimes the more ruthless--in pursuit of greater goals. Goals more often than not aligned in the interests of said system, of course, otherwise those people wouldn't last too long either (though in Chadrasekhar's case, the Terran Space Forces is such an incompetent order before the events of Outlaw Star, it's hard to tell). Walker, in particular, is an above-average pilot (in the sense that he's not good enough to not get shot down three times so far, but good enough to get his share of kills and somehow lucky enough not to die ), but possesses unique training and skills in mobile suit design (and is a primary designer for the Gundam Epyon). So it's not surprising that the charismatic, hyper-competent squadron commander in a much more elite unit than his own would put him to good use. And he's more than happy to agree to it, at least at first, and a lot less when she turns out to be leading a revolt against the very military command he's served in following Treize Khushrenada's resignation. He's experiencing greater (military and political) power than he's used to, but primarily in the sense that he doesn't have a choice (because he was dragged into a revolt that he agrees with on principal but disagrees with in practice, and counterrevolutionaries are even less forgiving than revolutionaries). That same charismatic commanding officer, the focus of a schoolboy crush that never became anything, becomes the target of a great deal of resentment and even hatred. Power flowed from her, but only to serve her goals and ambitions (political as they are), and not power he ever consented to.
A kind of paradox of simultaneously more and less power, or something. It's not half bad manipulation if I say so myself. Especially most of it is in plain sight (him being 19 didn't hurt).
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- Location
- Britain
Why does fanfiction have to stay true to the essence of the original work?
Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
I think that fanfiction has to stay true to something of the original work. Characterization, world building, "thematic essence", any combination of the three... But in the end, if it has nothing in common... Well, congratulations, for you just wrote your first original fiction.
Arthur Frayn
Fake God by Occupation, Magician by Inclination
- Location
- Land of Do As You Please
- Pronouns
- They/Him
Yeah, fan fiction is an attempt by fans of a given property to replicate some aspect of it in a new, ostensibly original way. Fan fiction that doesn't try to replicate a given aspect of the original work is...well, something else.
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- Location
- Britain
Okay, but like...why does it have to stay true to the 'essence' of the original work. Putting aside what 'essence of the original work' even is for a moment, like...let's take a look at @EarthScorpion 's Worm fanfic, for example. It doesn't really use much of anything from the original Worm, other than some names and general ideas. It's clearly not original fiction.
But I wouldn't class Imago as staying true to Worm, at all. Why should it have to?
Synthesis
Special Mobile Suit Troops, U.E.S.A.
- Location
- Luxembourg City
It's very catch-all, or at least I think so--which is useful at times at least. When writing about Star Wars I doubt I'm staying very true to the "essence" of the story at all, especially not in the Aesop's fable sense, but instead building on a rather broad setting from that mythology--locations, institutions, events, etc.. The actual characters of that film are all completely absent, even in references. Furthermore, I'm using a very "outdated" version of that mythology, because that's the one I enjoy writing about.
But it's not original still. Maybe that's a sign of "bad fanfiction you should just change a few words around and become plain fiction."
But it's not original still. Maybe that's a sign of "bad fanfiction you should just change a few words around and become plain fiction."
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Writing is hard, yes, but I'd say that storytelling is actually the hardest thing. The themes, the characterization, the creation of emotional engagement with your audience is the even harder part.
Practice, and practice with short stories. And this is advice that I'm definitely not following. But readers and writers can't evaluate an incomplete story for its story elements. Also, it should help practice planning, both theming and characters, and plot.
Agreed. And the serial format is pretty much intrinsic to most ways of sharing fanfiction. There's always this pressure to just... throw whatever you've written right out there, as opposed to finishing the story and making sure everything fits, and you haven't missed anything.
On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have gotten as far as I have if I hadn't been encouraged by feedback.