Fan Fiction Writers As Acceptable Targets

I wondered if it was already listed here, so I looked up Acceptable Hobby Targets and, nope... nothing specific. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcceptableHobbyTargets

I did not know where to ask to start a discussion regarding adding Fan Fiction Writers to this list. I think it has not been added yet because it seems to be more of a real world and general internet prejudice that has not yet shown up often in fiction enough to become a proper fiction trope.

I can think of a couple of places off the top of my head that could justify an addition as a hobby-target.

First of all, Bobs Burgers - It's not a show I've seen much of, but I have seen a couple of episodes addressing the fan fiction hobby one one of the main characters. She apparently wrote secret fan fiction for her personal enjoyment, hidden from the family and world and then it turned into "friend fiction" when she started writing secret fan fiction about her school friends. It's "erotic," too, in that she's something like 12 years old and the height of erotic for her is people touching each other's butts, which she is obsessed with. "That will be my next fan fiction! About robots! Ro-butts!" Fan fiction in that animated series is treated as harmless, but it also falls under the stereotype of "People only write it for sex / it's all terrible stuff written by 12 year olds"

Another place I've seen Fan Fic treated as an acceptable target was in Western Animation/Futurama in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" in which the original crew of Star Trek and the Planet Express crew were being held hostage by a gaseous energy creature that was a Trekkie. The episode made fun of the overzealous fanboy sterotype in general, but there was a mention of fan fiction and the horrible play that Melllvar wrote, including himself as a Gary Stu.

And of course, in New Media... New Media/Cracked is very big on not only making fun of fanfiction (finding the worst examples for humor purposes) but of outright bashing fan fiction authors, including sticking their fingers in their ears and going "Lalalal" whenever anyone in their comments sections or forums tries to point out that not all fan fic writers do stuff for sex, (and even those who do pairings aren't always wet and wild and using unicorn horns and wolf-knots) Their latest fan fiction bash-fest over there included stuff that WASN'T EVEN FAN WORK - but cheap Kindle flash-fiction. They kind of lumped it in with "fan fiction" because, because weird sex can only be "fan fiction" in their eyes. Even their last column article that was an interview with a former fan fiction writer hit all of the stereotypes (person interviewing with them was someone who did a thing when he was a kid, didn't pursue) and treated the hobby as some kind of harmful addiction (as if "quitting fan fiction writing" was like quitting drinking or quitting heroin).

So, I do think that Fan Fiction Writers are acceptable targets, culturally, because suffer from a lot of stereotypes. It's not that they are not true some times, but like any black and white thinking, people ignore the grays because... I guess they just think it's funnier?

I think if the Fan Boy and the Fangirl and the Comic Book Nerd in general are troped Acceptable Targets , than maybe for the Internet-generation, the Fan Fic Author should be considered, too.

In which I attempt to be a writer.

I would agree yes. I have noticed media spread around stereotypes on us...and a lot of people believe them annoyingly enough. Even people who do comedic parodies on the fan fiction world have been unintentionally perpetuating this (Even know it's funny to the fanfic writers too).

OC writers get targeted a lot albeit with understandable reasons considering the Mary Sue and/or related tropes

I feel uncomfortable telling others that I write fan fiction. I've done so only several times now and each time I get weird looks or responses; like what I do is somehow taboo. I just don't get it, why is fan fiction any different than writing original fiction like every other author out there? The only difference is that we already have an established world to work with and an established fanbase to cater to. Nothing more.

As I've said time and time again, look at Fifty Shades Of Grey, and then look at Wicked. Fanfiction is fanfiction unless it's good enough to be called an "untold story" or an "alternative reimagining" or, at it's broadest, a "creative adaptation".

Fanfiction has been a dirty word since the invention of Mary Sue 40 years back, and it will most likely continue. So yeah, those associated, readers and writers, are Acceptable Targets, unfortunate as it is.

Being fair, everything is an Acceptable Target for Futurama and Cracked.

A good chunk of Cracked's visible audience actually seems to take Cracked seriously in regards to this subject (amongst others regarding other questionable Acceptable Targets on the internet such as bronies and furries). Hell even some writers in Cracked itself fall into that pit.

Cracked likely means it in good fun but the more vocal non-comedic part of there audience commonly takes what there saying as fact from what I have observed. It's kind of a sad thing to see....

edited 3rd Sep '15 10:05:36 AM by Bleddyn

The trouble with this is that I honestly agree with it and I probably read more fanfiction then non-fanfiction. Actually... I probably spend more time looking though the 90% of crap fanfiction for the 10% of good fanficiton that I actually read. And then re-read several times over because I can't find anything good/interesting.

Which is why I think fanfiction writers are such acceptable targets. So much of it is bad that I feel sorry for people who try to find good fics, especially if the fandoms are for well known series. 'Cause I know that if someone told me in person that they wrote fan fiction, I'd assume they write shipping...

It's gotten to the point now where if a fandom has over 20k fics on ff.net or on ao3 that I just won't won't look for fics for that fandom. It's a waste of time.

Yeah it's understandable. It's sad how the decent to good writers suffer because the bad ones....

Sturgeon's Law is basically the answer, yeah. Fanfiction has no bar of entry, so you're guaranteed to find a lot of bad works while browsing your site of choice. This makes the negative aspects much more apparent than the positives, especially compared to other mediums where the bad works are harder to find because there's an actual bar (which is usually pretty high).

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

I do not think that the stereotypes about fan fiction are going to ever go away. Sometimes things just really get ruined. There are people who will always think someone who identifies as being vocal about animal welfare as "Peta-nut," or someone not-rich who grew up in the Southern US as a "redneck." Human brains tend to accentuate the negative and to be stubborn about not understanding that which is unfamiliar with us.

And fan fiction is a free and open Internet-thing whereby many people "just try it out" and cut their teeth in writing, and as with everything "You've got truckloads of crap in you before anything you put out starts smelling like roses."

But, even when I was newly cutting my teeth in writing stupid adventure stories about Pokemon and Team Rocket, I wasn't into the sex-fetishes. That seems to be all anyone sees. They assume not only "These are the people who couldn't make it as real writers" and assume that it's something "real writers are supposed to grow out of" - the stereotypers seem to think that we're all a bunch of barely-contained perverts who should be kept away from children and sane people or something.

They'd never dream that a "real" author who sells their work still likes to write melodramatic shit for her favorite videogames or that a fan fiction writer can keep their keyboard from getting sticky.

As said above... some of the poking I find funny. I mean, Futurama was just poking at the worst images of Trekkies in a way that I think most Trekkies would get and laugh at. (My man laughed at it, and he's a Trekkie). Reportedly, the people who work on Futurama are all huge nerds, too, so it's like a group of people aware of the steroetypes making fun of themselves - but it still falls into the Acceptable Targets category in regards to troping.

Cracked having their latest slew of it... Yeah, I think I find it offensive or at least obnoxious because they don't have that attitude - they set out to poke some fun, but both the commenting readers and the writers - especially the writers there - take it far too seriously. It's like seeking out the worst examples at first for fun, but then as a label they slap onto everyone who shits and giggles this way on the Internet. Making fun of the Giant Squid/Hogwarts thing? I don't even read Harry Potter fic and I knew about the "Squidwarts" joke from LIVEJOURNAL... years and years ago. Stuff like that and the "Pong Porn" which are obvious jokes are things they treat with gravity they do not deserve, like "these people are sick!" rather than "these people are trying to be funny!" like they are when they make similarly weird sex-fueled jokes.

I'm not screaming persecution or anything. No one goes to jail or gets their head cut off for this stuff, I'm just wondering if it would be reasonable for someone (who knows the protocol here better than I do) to put in a bid for authors of Fan Fic to be one of those media-acceptable hobby/nerd targets as the butt of jokes and sneering. Because it definitely is... just because there are some good reasons for it to be doesn't mean that the sentiment should be ignored.

In which I attempt to be a writer.

It's funny how fanfiction isn't considered 'real' writing. I read a comparison somewhere (you never know, it could have been here), how you don't sneer when you hear someone playing music written by somebody else or ask them why they aren't writing their own music. Fanfiction is using established characters/settings to make your own story. It doesn't at all diminish the fic for having 'used' merchandise in it.

As I have been irritated about lately, Cracked has been nasty to a lot of groups and defending themselves by calling it comedy. Insulting people and their work is not comedy, and they've done nothing but that to fanficcers. Then they have the balls to point to the audience and shame them for laughing at anybody they happen to sympathize with at the moment.

Eh, it's not quite that simple. Thanks to the Beatles and the Beach Boys, the rock fanbase expects musicians to write their own material. The pop fanbase is generally okay with pro songwriters penning a song, and the musician just performing it, but they still expect the pop musicians to perform new songs.

But yes, in other genres, like traditional folk, jazz, or electronic, musicians performing "someone else's music" is accepted or outright expected—as long as you put an original spin on the song. (Louis Armstrong is one of the greatest and most influential musicians of the 20th century—but he barely wrote any songs of his own, and they aren't particularly memorable.)

And to bring it back to fanfiction: I think fanfiction is more akin to a jazz musician's improvising over a classic, than to a cover version that leaves the melody, lyrics, and overall song structure intact. Good fanfiction doesn't use passages verbatim from the source material, and the fanfics that do either get removed for plagiarism or ignored because they're crap.

In fact, I'd go a step farther than your original metaphor. Dismissing fanfiction because the writers aren't inventing their own settings or characters is akin to dismissing every musician who didn't invent their own instruments.

I didn't write any of that.

So,to be acceptable, we have to invent the Ocarina-Pipes?

In which I attempt to be a writer.

Fanfiction is like Sonic fanart: there's really good things out there, but GOD, DOES THE SHIT GET ALL THE ATTENTION.

edited 4th Sep '15 4:08:07 PM by MeetTheNewBoss

You claim that God is opressing us, but I see you opressing others without needing a God.

Honestly I only write fan-fiction because I thought it'd be good practice to establish my writing style before I get serious as a writer.

SUPER POOPER SCOOPERS ARE JUST LEGENDEH!

You forgot about classical music, where a major prevailing view is "the composer wrote the piece, so you perform it the way they wrote the damn piece."

Fanfiction I hate.

Unless you're Guns N Roses, that is.

Having spent a lot of time in orchestras I can attest to this. Several of the composers I've had went over the histories of each piece we played in order to give a sense of how to play them. One does a better job capturing the tone of, say, Dmitri Shostakovich if one knows the context behind it.

My parents are both classical musicians, and my godfather-of-sorts is a composer, so, yeah. doesn't matter if the brass part has four Fs, you play it like it's written unless otherwise instructed.

That said, in the last year I've seriously just sort of lost my ability to be ashamed of this. like being Ace, or my period, or bipolar, or whatever. I'm just like. Nah, this is me, this is what I'm doing, I'm having fun, deal with it. Yeah, I write fanfiction about superheroes but I give them superpowered cats. what of it?

being sick and almost dying'll do that to ya, I guess.

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

To quote every movie speech ever, people fear what is different.

People fear Fanfiction. Sounds retarded, I know, but it's true. They're afraid that they'll be proven wrong about a form of creative expression they dismissed as worthless tripe.

Many of them find no worth in it because they've never tried it. Many of them think that writing good fanfiction is easy, that it's 'easier' than writing your own works (it isn't, actually, because when you're writing fanfiction, you're playing on someone else's playground, and you'll have to play by their rules, and be compared to them, whereas if you're writing original you're playing on your own playground).

Put simply: The people who constantly bash fanfiction writers almost certainly don't actually read any fanfiction.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Of course they don't. If they enjoyed reading fanfiction, they wouldn't see it as something to bash.

Writing fan fiction isn't necessarily easier than original fiction, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily harder, either. Both just require slightly different skills and mindsets. So which one is harder varies from individual to individual.

I didn't write any of that.

As someone who does both fan fic and original, Id say that, for me, original work is harder and usually comes more slowly. This is because I'm not working with someone else's world - I have to build my own worlds and characters from scratch and it can be hard to figure out. That said, after I've gotten a world and characters well-established (the characters are in my head, telling me what to do and whatnot), then original writing can start to become like fan fiction writing, because I have a ground.

I find reading and writing fan fiction to be EXCELLENT for learning how to keep characters in-character, and how far one can stretch characterization in regards to development before it breaks with the character's established core. It's important when you are writing original stories to keep your own characters in-character, too. You can't actually do what you want as the all-powerful author because if you've established someone or a world-rule, you can actually find yourself writing your own creations out of character / not-believable if you're not careful. I had someone in a writer's club I was in point this out to me on one of my works that's now slush-piled ( not for this reason, but for lots of reasons). Many, many fan fictions later, I think I have improved on "keying into established characters."

Then, some fandoms, you have some leeway. I have done a lot of writing for The Legend Of Zelda - Link has some core traits, but has a lot of open-ness, which means everyone in the fandom writes his personality (or personalities, with multiple Links), a little differently. So, aside from worldbuild, writing for some fandoms almost is writing original fic.

As far as "the only people who hate it are people who've never tried it" - I'd say it's probably true in most cases, but one time on the comments at Cracked, I was called a "pervert" and treated like a supremely horrible person for writing fanfic by someone who claimed to enjoy reading it. (I was commenting on an article about movie tropes where the article's author was making jokes about all the little stupid details about people's lives we do not see in movies. I mentioned I write fanfic where that provides a lot of inspiration - I make jokes about how people use pots in Zelda, for instance - and despite the fact that I was explicit that I write genfic, I was accused of having "sick fetishes."

So, I think sometimes, people who hate on fan fic and fan fic writers aren't necessarily those who've never tried it, but people who've only read the poorly-written stuff or who've only read the weird sex stuff. It's kind of like saying that all filmamkers suck because the only movies one has interest in watching are those profiled on Mystery Science Theater 3000 .

In which I attempt to be a writer.

I just stumbled across an interview with someone else who's written both fanfiction and original fiction (which is apparently on its way to publication). It's on a site specializing in My Little Pony fics, but this part struck me as relevant to any fandom.

Source.

I didn't write any of that.

A-frickin-men!

I'd say fanfic is just easy to mock, and that the Cracked articles are amusing to me mainly because, since they've basically no idea what's out there, they've never seen the really bad stuff, just the surface stuff or what they specifically went looking for. Bad fanfic mockery is much funnier with fandom people (mainly because we can recognise the clichés), I'd find, generally.