effervescible | 10 Unpopular Fandom Opinions

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10 Unpopular Fandom Opinions

Yeah, I know, this meme was in fashion a year ago or something--but I could never think of ten together. I'd think of two or three at a time but never write them down. Lately, though, fandom has been so insane (I'm looking at you, scary HP fen) that it's inspired a few things in me. Yay?

Some of these might not seem that unpopular, since fandom has such a diversity of opinion that there's a segment of support for anything. So this could also be my 10 Not Universally Agreed Upon Opinions.

1. Mary Sues aren't that bad
Crap-ass Mary Sue fics are annoying when they drown out decent fics with their blather (makes me think of the Peanuts adults) but a lot of Sue-haters really, really need to calm down and breathe. The worst Mary Sue fic ever written hasn't hurt a single person or the fandom as a whole. Nothing wrong with mocking for fun, nor hyperbole for the sake of emphasis (i.e. "it made my eyes bleed") etc. But there are some people out there who really need to calm down the dramatics. That's one reason I don't visit

marysues as much anymore.

2. Incest shippers need to get over themselves and accept that many people think they are weird
Last week, I was reading a comments thread in which one poster made a fairly snappy (and funny imho) remark about a certain fictional character being skeeved about being paired with his son. (If, you know, he were real.) Turned out the OP and a friend were shippers for that pairing--no real flames broke out, but it was clear they were Unhappy about the remark. Meanwhile, I snickered quietly.

The point? We're all (or should be) civilized people and people who ship incest pairings don't deserve a fandom pile-on just because they like stuff that breaks a taboo. At the same time, reasonable people should be aware that if they plan to write stuff that they know wigs people out, they need to accept that they're not going to get rays of sunshine shot up their ass. There's no need for people to be rude, but wigging out about having a Right Not to Hear Anything Negative About Family Fucktime is tiresome.

Most of the people I know who've grooved on incest fic have been cool about this, but it's not like it's a large sample population.

3. RPF isn’t always evil. RPF isn’t always harmless.
There's a big difference between a cute little story about Billy and Orlando having champagne on the flight to New Zealand and an epic novel where David Duchovny is the real father of Gillian Anderson's child, complete with annotations and footnotes. Obviously these are extremes, and I wouldn't even begin to try and point out the line where "harmless fun" becomes "creepy and psychotic," but there are shades of gray--embrace them, people. It's not a choice between Mother Teresa or Hitler.

4. Sometimes psychological issues and the like just don’t belong in fic
It's generally great when people bring real-life depth to fic, but when you explain Miaka's neuroses* with a diagnosis of Assburger's, it smacks of pamphlet-waving. Sometimes it's best to leave the armchair psychology at home.

*I don't know whether that fits Miaka, I've seen like two episodes of Fushigi Yuugi.

5. Original canon is not always best
Elitist fans who put down anime fans with their snots of "Well, it's different in the manga, so the anime is obviously inferior." Creator intent might trump all (I'm looking at you again, scary HP fen) but that doesn't mean it's impossible to improve upon. It does happen. *points frantically to Escaflowne*

6. Subtext is great and all that, but it’s not always (or even often) sekrit hinting. Sometimes it’s just you.
I'm not a huge slasher, but I thoroughly approve who good slash authors can make something interesting out of subtext that may or may not be intentional. (Depends on whether Joss wrote it or not.) Same goes for het, really. But it's really, really annoying when people point to subtext as evidence that something is totally canon and you're stupid if you can't see its burning truth. (Looking at scary HP fen one last time, but now my eyeballs are melting--look, hyperbole!--so I'll stop now.)

Subtext is fun. Enjoy it. It doesn't matter that whether it eventually becomes just text.

7. Well-written OCs are great, but if they overwhelm the fic it’s as much fanfiction as those high school AUs
I heart good original characters. I think one of the reasons Sand and Light is such a good fic is the well-written original characters who fit with the plot and enhanc the story. But when the OCs overwhelm those from canon to the point that they're a minority, I don't see it as being any different from those fics where the only canon element is the use of names. Might be a much higher quality piece of fiction, but the "fan" part just ain't there.

edit: Some comments below clarify my thinking a bit, but I should say that I'm not automatically discounting any fic that's focused mostly on an OC, though I maintain that very long OC-focused fics would probably drift away from really being fanfiction--how the OCs interact with canon environment and plot counts, too. I could see myself being interested in a short fic about an OC SeeD candidate in a FFVIII fic (to use

megmurry's example) but a fic where OC SeeD candidate goes on to have epic adventures unrelated to canon would still probably be better done as an original story imho. ZOMG I cavex0r to pressure!

8. People who read your fic never owe you feedback
Feedback is fab, but readers don't owe any to the author just because they peeked at a fic. I get really, really tired when people practically attack readers on public fora, daring them to justify why they've been so neglectful. That's stupid and just another piece of the massive entitlement syndrome a lot of fans seem to have. Believing you're owed feedback is stupid. That's like putting a basket of fruit out on a table with a "please leave a donation if you can" sign and then running out to scream "YOU BITCH! YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR THAT APPLE!"

Just because something's good to do doesn't mean not doing it is teh ev0l.

9. Anyone who labels a segment of fic/fandom as being bad because “most of it is bad” is stupid. Most of EVERYTHING is bad.
Sturgeon's Law, y'all. It is v.v. annoying when proponents of a ship/genre/fandom/etc. bash whatever they see as a threat to their chosen one by saying that most examples of it are bad, so it must be bad as a whole. People who can skip merrily through the internet without realizing that most things online are steaming piles of crap are beyond me.

10. When people say a fandom has gone way downhill it’s almost never true. Usually it just means the seedy underbelly that was ALWAYS THERE is simply more apparent.
Fandom is full of bitches, psychos, and crap-ass writers. This has always been true. The moment the first good fic for a fandom is posted, the first idea for an awful fic is planted in someone's head. It's like fandom equilibrium. It's best to just sigh heavily, accept it, and look for a good recs comm.

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*cheers, whistles and throws underwear*

The only one I'm not sure I 100% agree with is the fandom going downhill thing. Many times, when a fandom starts out, it catches the attention of the more intelligent people, or the people who are smart enough to understand how to get at it (i.e. BitTorrent etc.) These folks are often the first to produce fanworks, and because it's all new to them, topics stay lively. Once a fandom gets popular, and goes into wide release, it levels the playing ground. In come the n00bs, and often they want to discuss all the same topics that all the experienced fans talked about six months ago. The oldsters get annoyed, the n00bs squee with other n00bs, and the talk starts about how the fandom went to hell.

Would say more, but dinner now. :)

Woo, underwear! Is it a thong?

I do agree with what you say about the life cycle of fandoms--I admit I was running out of things by then. It was aimed more at those people who moan about how such-and-such is "ruining fandom" and how back in the old days such-and-such made it much better...that just makes me want to snap "Dude. Shut up. CRAP IS ALWAYS THERE." So I suppose thos one depends.

Yay discussion!

Too true--I think that also, when a fandom gets popular, people are less likely to read the available material on a subject/pairing, leading to about a billion different fics which say the same damn thing. Gets a bit old, s'all I'm saying.

You can't really apply the manga-is-better argument to Escaflowne anyway because (a) the series came first and (b) which manga would you use, anyway? They were both pretty craptastic. =P But if someone was trying, I'd be interested to watch and laugh.

I actually didn't know that about Esca--w00t, new facts are goodx0r. There are probably better examples out there anyway but when I wrote this it sprung to mind as the most extreme ratio of awful manga:keen anime.

Also not sure about number seven, come to think of it. If I wrote a fic about J. Random SeeD from FF8, in which Quistis appeared as an instructor and there's a reference or two to Squall being around, but otherwise focuses on this really neat organization that Square created, is that no longer fanfic?

I have to agree; I personally think if you're using the world that was set up by the original creators extensively, it's still fanfic. I think if I write a story about my OC becoming a Pokemon trainer, using the Pokemon and the rules from the games and/or the anime, it's still a Pokemon fanfic. (It might not be a good fanfic, especially since you can't move in that fandom without tripping over an original trainer fic, but you get what I mean.)

I should go back and edit this--I stand by my Unpopular Opinion (since hey, it is unpopular) but a couple comments here have made me realize that the environment and plot of the canon are vital story elements as much as canon characters it are, so it depends on how the SuperOC!fic touches on them, as well--see below for a better explanation of what I was thinking.

Also I should say that I'm not trying to be the arbiter of what is real fanfiction--but there are those stories that, while well written, I don't know why they're fanfiction because they don't seem to want much to do with it anymore.

You might want to reedit your edit. Forgot an I in FFVIII.

Word to #5. OMG word. I'd break out my play/actor analogy, but you've heard it a million times before.

I think there are definite exceptions to the rule--this one might be interesting, depending on the writer. I think it probably also depends on the plot of the OC-laden fic. I think an OC SeeD candidate could be pretty cool because it's exploring the canon environment we know. As an example for the kind of thing I was talking about, I once read--or tried to--read a fic that had sort of an epic sci-fi spinoff of the original canon. It was obvious that the author was talented, but the focus was very much on the OCs and how they affected the familiar environment, to the point that I was no longer interested in reading it.

I know it's a crappy answer to say "it depends," but it's true that things are rarely black and white, and no point in being more obstinate than usual. :) Damn you. Now I want OC SeeD candidate fic.

I'm with #7. It would be hard to write a story void of a OCs, but I don't care for the ones where the new character becomes front and center, and usually all too easily. One of the reasons I like to read fanfic is that I like the canon characters, so OCs just don't hold my interest. It's all up to taste I guess.

For example, there's the Trigun fic Blackfire and Gunsmoke, which I'm really not into for many reasons, including the presence of Dark!Vash. However, there's an OC who becomes a main character and I just couldn't get interested in her. Her presence was overwhelming, not to mention that she seemed near a carbon copy of Meryl. The fic isn't poorly written, it just happens to contain several of my Trigun pet peeves.

I agree strongly with virtually all of this. Especially #5. I enjoyed the Hellsing TV anime even though they messed with it, changed stuff, threw in Incognito, Kohta Hirano didn't like it, blah blah blah. I don't need to hear every five seconds about how ___ wasn't in the manga, (and won't be in the new OVA). I know.

Also #6. I try to just step away from people who insist something is canon when it isn't, because there's no point arguing, but sometimes I want to say "Just because they like to stand around together doesn't mean their OMG totally doing it! Even if I like to read stories where they are too!"

I'm really looking forward to the new OVA, and more of the manga when I am less poor. But just because some things were different/arguably not as good doesn't mean other parts didn't seriously kick ass. Because they did.

I really, really don't get the canon thing. Maybe it's because my first ever ship, Mulder/Scully, DID become canon and look at the crapfest that resulted! (Not that I blame the downfall of XF on romance. I blame it on Carter.) Canon doesn't guarantee happiness and it sure as hell won't make proponents of other ships convert, so why bother?

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the OVA, but there were certain manga developments I'm not that fond of, and I'm kind of glad I have a canon I can write from where other things happened instead.

But I can't believe I just wrote "their" for "they're." Ack.

And what I didn't say is that I agree on the incest thing too. And I say that as a person who does read it (albeit on pretty rare occasions.)

first of all, may I say that Right Not to Hear Anything Negative About Family Fucktime gave me quite the laugh. If I remember freshman american government correctly, isn't that the newest constitutional amendment? ;)

secondly, I could not agree more about numero eight. I know people who are perfectly nice and talented writers, but yet I want to smack them around every time they post fic because they will inevitably start whining about not getting enough feedback/not getting the exact comments they wanted/not getting feedback from whatever person they were secretly trying to impress with this fic. And I mean, I definitely want all the feedback I can get and do cartwheels when someone 'got' what I was getting at or loved the line that had me in hysterics. But I realize that once I put something out in a public forum, that's my cue to leave it up to the public and accept whatever reaction I get or don't get.

And as someone who reads/writes a lot of RPF in a few different fandoms, I disagree slightly with number three (although I agree with the overall point you were trying to make). My main problem with RP ficcers are the ones who absolutely cannot separate fiction from reality. I know people who have gotten absolutely livid because someone they write RPF about played a character in a movie who was in love with someone who wasn't their chosen pairing. If you can't separate a real person from the characters they play, let alone what goes on in your head from what goes on in RL, you need to be taken out and shot because you're making the rest of us look bad. That being said, I know people who have written epic RPF's that were actually good (which is somewhat amazing in itself) but were very down-to-earth and didn't stay in bed for a week when the person did something IRL that they didn't like, and vice versa. So I don't think it's so much about the type of fic they write (although incest RPF will always make me raise an eyebrow) as the attitude they have about the fandom. Whew, I've said too much :P

*applauds*

10. When people say a fandom has gone way downhill it’s almost never true. Usually it just means the seedy underbelly that was ALWAYS THERE is simply more apparent.
Fandom is full of bitches, psychos, and crap-ass writers. This has always been true. The moment the first good fic for a fandom is posted, the first idea for an awful fic is planted in someone's head. It's like fandom equilibrium. It's best to just sigh heavily, accept it, and look for a good recs comm.

Well put. No fandom has ever been 100% pure and perfect. The bad side of a fandom is like the air: Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Love you.

Although I do think fandoms go downhill over time (had you told me before GoF came out that HP fandom would become what it has in the last few weeks, I would have laughed in your face), I do believe the bottom feeders always exist in a fandom from the very beginning. It's just that their numbers grow over time, especially as popularity grows.

Yeah, I've got to agree with you on these ones. They seem like pretty common sense to begin with--I think most fandom kerfluffles all occur over stupid things like being overly-sensitive or over-generalizing. If everybody just took a nice, big step back once in a while...

an epic novel where David Duchovny is the real father of Gillian Anderson's child, complete with annotations and footnotes

i'm afraid to ask if such a fic actually exists.

Yeah, back before any moron got cable modem, and back before anyone could get AO-Hell...fandom was smarter. Because the internet was smarter. Hey, long ago and far away the internet hotties were sci-fi/fantasy chicks. Now they are porn starts. And we will never get back the real internet -- the elitist internet. People need to realize this and get over it.

I feel the need to make a Mensa joke. My OBSSE roots are calling.

9. Anyone who labels a segment of fic/fandom as being bad because “most of it is bad” is stupid. Most of EVERYTHING is bad.
Sturgeon's Law, y'all. It is v.v. annoying when proponents of a ship/genre/fandom/etc. bash whatever they see as a threat to their chosen one by saying that most examples of it are bad, so it must be bad as a whole. People who can skip merrily through the internet without realizing that most things online are steaming piles of crap are beyond me.

I agree with this on every single fandom I've come across except one: Fruits Basket ficdom. I write of 96% of it across the board. And don't think I haven't tried really hard-- that's why they get a 4% acknowledgement.

Nevertheless, the fandom itself outside of the fanfic seems to be okay, at least the parties I've met on LJ. But the fic... ::shakes head:: it's soooooooooo bad. Makes me disapppointed and unhappy. But in that I've found them to be the except to the general rule of 65% bad, 20% good, and 5% great.

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