All Purpose General Fanfiction Posting Thread

Hey, this question just popped in my head.

How do you deal with transplanting a pre-existing character into a time/place where his most familiar name cannot be used without breaking Willing Suspension of Disbelief? For example, say that I want to transplant the cast of Ranma ½ into the Ancient Greece of Classical Mythology; it would make no sense for any of them to retain their Japanese/Chinese names, given that Ancient Greece has never had any contact with Japan or China. On the other hand, while translating their names into Greek (or the closest equivalent) may be doable — e.g. Ataktippos (meaning "unruly horse") for Ranma — it runs into the problem of the audience being completely unfamiliar with said names.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Refuge in Audacity

Either just have them all Clark Kenting it, or else make everyone have Japanese names. God knows stuff like that happens often enough in Anime. (Stuff like that being where people in otherwise European settings having perfectly Eastern names.)

edited 12th Oct '13 10:16:18 PM by dnc

Perhaps I should've clarified that when I said "transplant", I meant "have them be born as natives to the time period". You know, a variation on Alternate Reality — like, "what if the man who in Ranma ½ was born in the late 20th century as Ranma Saotome was instead born in Ancient Greece as a Greek native?".

Examples?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

.... Dude, I would just use the Japanese names.

<Face Palm> Did you even look at my explanation of why I think that is a terrible idea? To elaborate on the point, had this been an animated or even just an illustrative work (e.g. a webcomic), I wouldn't have worried about the issue since I'm giving visual input to the reader/viewer in the form of the characters' faces ^note which, obviously, would be drawn more or less "identical" to what they normally look like, since as we all know, ethnicity and the like are practically non-existent in the realm of drawing fictional characters in any way that doesn't deliberately seek (near-)identicality with how real faces look, and thus they'd have a much easier time associating new names with those familiar faces.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Yes. Yes I did. I then decided that a) you're likely putting far more thought/concern/worry/etc. into it than 90+ percent of potential readers, and b) I'm a lazy ass and would use the Japanese names anyway, even if it were for a webcomic or animation or whatever.

You could turn the fact that these characters are using Japanese names in Ancient Greece into a big Meta joke.

This is Ranma One Half. It's not known for its seriousness after all.

One Strip! One Strip!

You could translate the names, but that would probably be more effort than it's worth and just confuse your readers.

Do what Canon Urusei Yatsura did when its characters played roles in old legends and treat the thing with the occasional Fourth Wall Breaking moment hinting at the Animated Actors nature of the whole story. You can't justify such a thing and trying to play it seriously, but who reads Ranma for Serious Business anyway?

I only used Ranma as a hypothetical example. My case actually would involve the Evangelion characters in Ancient Greece.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I suggest you just have fun and use Butcherede Olde Greeke. So, that's Shinjicles, Asukaone, Reiole, Misatodes, Ritsukomemnon…

For a comedy piece, sure. Wouldn't work as well for more serious pieces, though.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

So? Why let that stop you?

Because I sure as hell don't like how it looks or sounds, and wouldn't want to resort to it unless I have a compelling reason to do so or am dissuaded by a compelling argument.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

All right: it's Evangelion. It's going to be depressing enough. At least give your readers string to smile about. And at least they can tell who's who at a glance. Using 'translated' names will make them seem like OC, no matter how much you try.

But don't forget to at least make the comic relief memorable. Remember, one of the most loved episodes of EVA is the one where Shinji and Asuka have to play DDR so they can beat an Angel that can split itself.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Shinjicles,

I once got yelled at for using the Dub names in a digimon fic.

I didn't end up listening, as I'm much more comfortable with the dub names. And no one else has complained about that choice. ( complained about my cliffhangers, yes.) but in your case.. I'd stick with easily recognized names. you don't want to be like My Immortal, with the "goff" names, do you?

Got a degree in Emotional trauma via fictional characters aka creative writing. hosting S'mores party in Hell for fellow (evil) writers

Perhaps trying to translate Shinji's meaning into Greek would work? I mean, they're all Meaningful Names.

I also don't usually read Digimon or Pokémon fanfics because of this. When I tried to read, I Always asked, "who the hell is Yamato? There was no one name Yamato!" then I leared that Yamato was Matt.

My work is here. Current main fic: Tengen Toppa Gurren Solvernia

Well, my fics use Matt and Tai and the other English names, if you ever feel like taking a look. It's plot centric, not much romance but action and emotion and kidnapping and stuff.

Got a degree in Emotional trauma via fictional characters aka creative writing. hosting S'mores party in Hell for fellow (evil) writers

That is one of the options that I laid out, actually. Maybe I didn't phrase it clearly enough, though.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

It seems that there's supposed to be a standard Description for the Fan Fic Recommendations pages, but no-one's made a standard. I came across the idea when I saw a consistent edit that looked like bad grammar, and discovered a few issues that had been established as an issue, but the clean-up wasn't finished.

What I'd like to do, is come up with the standard description template, so that the template can be applied to all existing Fan Fic Recommendations, as well as for any newly created ones.

Should that go under Wiki Talk or Projects: Short Term?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I'm not sure what you're referring to as "description" here. Are you talking about the template for posting new recs? Or something else?

Author of The Second Coming (NGE) and The Coin (Haruhi).

• FanficRecs.The Order Of The Stick
• FanficRecs.Marvel Universe
• FanficRecs.Lupin III
• FanficRecs.Romeo And Juliet

The description is the part above the line that sometimes has "Authors and Websites". An old thread identified "Do warn when a fanfic may head into homosexual or non-canon territory." as rude+inflammatory. Plus, "Nobody would back up the rec." doesn't really belong on the individual recommendations page. Not all of the pages have the wicks they should have.

edited 20th Oct '13 12:44:26 PM by crazysamaritan

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Is it just me, or has FanFiction.Net adopted some sort of measure that prevents highlighting (and thus copy-pasting) the text of its stories?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.