I don't get what people see in... (ask the fandoms!)

That is kind of what I had thought to.

What's the attraction in Fighting Series?

[up People want to see people be badass against other badasses.

I just think scenarios where characters with oddball, unique powers have to use their powers to defeat someone else with oddball, unique powers, are really fun to see play out.

But what do people like about characters for whom "badass" is the main defining trait? And how do you write fanfic about them?

...is that a common thing? I could probably get behind that, but from the outside it looks more like solving problems by getting new powers, not so much getting clever with the ones they have.

What is it about grimdark and grimderp fics that makes them so appealing to readers? In most fandoms I've written for, darkfics usually have about twice the reviews of other works, at least.

It's the whole Darker and Edgier concept applied to fanfiction. Works that explore darker, more mature themes that are excellent for exploring these themes, especially when deriving from a canon that glosses over things (Say, the fact that Avatar The Last Airbender is set at the end of a brutal 100 year war, there are child soldier aplenty, and you could read PTSD into some characters and other nasty effects of war/abuse/genocide/ect.). Of course, every time there's an excellent fic/story that's darker, people copy the nastiness without realizing the themes and execution of those ideas that made the story excellent in the first place.

In Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure, it is very, very much a matter of "get creative with the powers you have". Suppose your power is to "Fix" things, and you're fighting an Energy Being made of electricity? Throw broken pieces of tire at it afer using your power, so that they will "fix" themselves around the enemy and trap it. And then when he blasts a hole in the tire, laugh as he realizes that the rapid loss of air pressure will send him rocketing into the bay.

Suppose your power is basically just Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs? Well, it's a damn great tool for beating the snot out of bad guys, but there are still situations where you have to weasel said bad guys into a position where you can beat the snot out of them.

Really, Heart Is an Awesome Power is practically the trope of the day in JJBA.

re:"what is the appeal of characters who have badass as their defining trait":

Badassery is pretty much its own appeal.

I would go further and point out that in most works, the (minority of) female characters aren't intended for audience identification, but for Male Gaze or related purposes. So even if you use a female canon character instead of an OC, you have to retool her a bit to make her a viewpoint character, and this can come across as Sueification.

Partly it's Darker and Edgier. But it's also because it provides "balance" to overpowered characters. There's a reason Mary Sue power fantasies are so amazingly common in fanfiction. People like to see their favourite characters kick ass. And they will quickly realize that a powerful character kicking the regular villain's ass gets boring, so the situation the protagonist is in gets worse. It allows for all the Mary Sue power fantasy, while (partially) avoiding the Invincible Hero syndrome. Sometimes.

Most highly rated media (at least now) is dark, aka True Art Is Angsty. Since most of it is dark people make an association that dark=good, it's similar to how people in celebrity culture tend to assume success=intelligence, with dangerous results. It's also usually noted in the summary in some way which is what people see first, sadly you could write the best WAFF fic imaginable but you will still have a significant (and growing) portion of the potential audience that won't even give it a chance because "it's not mature like Breaking Bad, GOT, ect."

It also tends to be safer, at least in my experience. I've dropped many more fics because of boring lack of conflict/drama, than Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy.

edited 2nd Dec '14 2:18:29 AM by Slysheen

I unfortunately share that attitude but what qualifies as 'matue' anyway? Or is it all subjective?

Oh it's definitely all subjective, that's where the lowest common denominator comes in. There are going to be plenty of wild cards in your readership but as a whole it can be expected that a darker fic will garner more attention by pure merit that it's a darker story. Sure there'll be some that go for the lighter fic but they are not the majority.

And there's also snowballing of course. The more people review a fic, the more widely they can spread the word and the more people will be likely to read it. It's why view counts for content tend to be either 23, or 30,000+.

I just find it easier to write dark stuff, but that has more to do with my personality...

People confuse dark stories with mature stories.

See, here's a funnny thing. Actually 'mature' stories don't need to add pointless dark, grim and gritty elements to be mature.

People seem to think that 'Mature = Dark', when it is just blatantly not true.

A mature story doesn't try to be, it just is, and the only way you can write a mature story is by not trying to.

You know you're a mature adult when you want to be an immature kid again.

That's actually a major reason I like watching Western Animation. If a story is mature, it can't be considered 'mature' based on sex and gore; it needs to rely on powerful themes and great storytelling.

I guess mature storylines are those that handle difficult material and complicated situations with decorum, a certain amount of realism, and skill.

Favourite example: Wreck It Ralph and Who Framed Roger Rabbit are very similar in being serenades to a favourite medium of work, but the latter is a basically flat film noir satire while the former concentrates on personal themes and character growth. One is "adult", the other is "mature".

I can definitely can agree with that. One thing I never quite understood was the Cartoons must have lesson tooled for only kids trope always being brought up by a bunch of adults (Mentally? The guys who complain about this certainly are not adults) refusing to watch a show because of how it looks. I have seen countless cartoon shows that had no blood, gore, or sex that had some rather interesting lessons of life considering they were apparently kid's cartoons.

As for a trope in fanfiction that I have never quite understood....Ron the Death Eater. That trope really bothers me as it usually completely derails a good character or a character with some interesting story potential just for what usually is a bad shipping story.

edited 20th Dec '14 7:22:03 PM by Bleddyn

I think it's a case of favoritism and disliking a character warping perceptions of that character. If you think a character is just awful, and use only that to inform your characterization, then you're going to make the character look just plain awful.

You know it just bothers me that Ron Weasley even becomes this trope, he does have his flaws but then against so do the rest of the cast. What did Ron do to get this trope?

Also, what is the appeal of this Dangan Ronpa? It feels too much like Saw meets Phoenix Wright meets Persona 4 meets the other games by same studio. It does have a very good cats of characters but at the same time, the premise makes me want to cringe. I am not a detective and I am not into mystery unless it has some action but that is more personal preference if anything.

Ron got that trope mostly from disgruntled Harry/Hermione fans, who were sore over Ron getting Hermione rather than Harry. I don't get it either. I've said it before that if you don't like a certain character, wouldn't it just be easier to write them out of the fanfic?

I agree that it might be easier for them to just write the character off the fic. I know Shipping is huge deal for fans of the series but they have to realize that Ron isn't a complete monster who took Hermione away,

I would theorize it's because they feel the need to stick to canon as closely as possibly, and thus feel the need to contrive an excuse to, in this case, split Ron and Hermione up (and often Harry and Ginny as well).

I'm not sure if I've asked this already, but why do people like incest so much? (....and if we can yell about specific things, why the hell do people ship Adachi/Narukami from Persona 4?)

Speaking of which, is GAP's avvy a younger Yukiko?