Not Tropeworthy: Fuku Fic

Not 100% sure if I'm doing this right, but it's my first time on such submissions, so please bear with me.

I stumbled across Fuku Fic via the random trope button and cannot figure out how or why it exists as its own trope and not simply as an entry under the Fan Works tab of Intercontinuity Crossover. There is currently an entry on Intercontinuity Crossover, but it's nothing more than a link to the Fuku Fic page on the grounds of the popularity of that particular franchise pairing allegedly meriting the creation of the sub-trope.

Ok, so there are apparently A LOT of Ranma/Sailor Moon crossover fics with similar basic plot structures, but other than being used as a directory for such works and a chance to show off a clever(ish) title, I don't see the validity of this as its own trope given that it's entirely specific to just those two franchises. I feel like it should probably be cut and the Fuku Fic link on its parent trope page should instead be retooled into a self-contained comment about the prevalence of such works

Opening this.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

So, we have a clearly established pattern, with enough examples, no demonstrated problems with the page, and you want to cut it? I don't see the validity of that claim. To me it's nothing more than, "I don't like/get it, so let's cut it."

The only thing I'm wondering if it counts as its own genre or if it's a regular trope.

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Umm I want to say it is a fanfic genre but it's quite unique.

It's comparable to the Isekai Genre of Light Novels where the premise is always exactly the same, in the exact same way, just what they do with it is different.

Edit: oh come on Isekai has to exist somewhere..

edited 7th May '17 7:07:59 AM by Memers

This is way too specific to be tropeworthy and just looks like a Fandom-Specific Plot that was given its own page.

edited 7th May '17 2:14:10 PM by Karxrida

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"So, we have a clearly established pattern, with enough examples, no demonstrated problems with the page, and you want to cut it? I don't see the validity of that claim. To me it's nothing more than, "I don't like/get it, so let's cut it." "

It's not that I don't like it or don't get the concept or material. It's that I don't understand how this counts as a trope. To me at least, a trope should be a general convention that has some level of adaptability or applicability across different works. Look at all the other fanfiction tropes that exist. The key thing about them is that they can apply to fanfics from a wide array of originating/source works. You can do a High School AU fic for Star Wars or Dragonball or Batman or whatever. You can make a Dark Fic for <pick a Disney franchise> or My Little Pony or Power Rangers or whatever relatively upbeat franchise suits your fancy. The common thread is that while they may describe a very specific set of story conventions or plot points, they remain open enough to be usable across an array of different source franchises.

Fuku Fic though? It's just "Ranma meets Sailor Moon in this specific way." There's no ability to adapt it or apply it to other franchises. By the trope's own definition, you can't replace Ranma with My Little Pony or Dragonball or Star Trek or Steven Universe or anything else and still call it a Fuku Fic. And if that's the case, I don't see what makes it any different than any of the other examples listed under the Fan Works tab of Intercontinuity Crossover that say "there are lots of X meets Y works out there". That makes this, in my mind, not a trope. It makes it a narrow application of an existing trope.

That's what my problem is. The tl;dr version is that I've always believed that tropes have to have flexibility in their application. A trope that only fits a specific work or specific franchise is too narrow to support itself.

Maybe if it's agreed there are enough iterations out there you could rework Fuku Fic into ANY franchise that has its characters put into a Sailor Moon or similar Magical Girl type universe. That seems more salvageable because then it puts this on par with something like a High School AU. But the way it is now it feels like an invitation to start calling any prolific and specific fanfic crossover into its own sub-trope.

and to the above comment about it being similar to the Isekai light novel genre: It would fit under that umbrella as an "other world" type plot, but Isekai is at least a general term with no franchise specific applicaiton.

The Fandom-Specific Plot comment is a good one. Ranma even has Fuku Fic listed on its own FSP sub-page. And again it only justifies its existence as a trope to sheer prevalence of that fic type. But I still don't think that prevalence of a story type or FSP within a single fandom or franchise is sufficient to merit a trope. It might be just me, but I believe that tropes have to have broader usage than just one work.

edited 7th May '17 4:48:45 PM by The_Nemesis

The argument that it's too narrow falls apart when you look at the number of examples. Something is only too narrow when it's too narrow to have enough examples. This is not it.

This trope is adaptable and flexible. It's just not adaptable and flexible in the narrow way you define adaptability and flexibility.

This trope has existed for many years. How many prolific and specific fanfic crossovers have their own pages? If it opens the door for those, surely there must be tons of them by now.

And what's wrong with that?

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The argument that it's too narrow falls apart when you look at the number of examples. Something is only too narrow when it's too narrow to have enough examples. This is not it.

Number of examples represents depth, not breadth. There are 26 main-level bullets on the examples list on the Fuku Fic page. However, every single one of them is identical in premise and significant elements (Ranma ends up in the Sailor Moon universe, gets powers and ends up as a Magical Girl.) The exact contents of the story may change, as might the tone and specifics of which characters are involved, but nothing changes about which franchises are involved or the major plot points it will hit.

Comparatively, take High School AU has almost 60 main-level bullets under its Fan Works tab, and every single one of them represents fanfiction involving a different source franchise (Naruto in high school. Star Trek in high school. Batman in high school. Sonic the Hedgehog in high school. The entry for Sonic even states that it is a franchise that has had a truly prolific number of works, yet doesn't seem to warrant making it its own trope.) That is breadth. It covers a wide array of works, not just one work (or pair of works) in significant depth. That is what I mean when I say narrow. It's many different things which are largely the same in all important ways.

Not A Trope even has an entry for this sort of thing: The Same But More Specific. It's Intercontinuity Crossover, except it only deals with Ranma/Sailor Moon crossovers of a very particular type (girl Ranma goes to the Sailor Moon universe, gets powers, becomes a Magical Girl). There's nothing about the Fuku Fic that is materially or significantly different in its application from Intercontinuity Crossover (or the other sub-page I'll get to later on here, Common Crossover) except that it's being limited to just the Sailor Moon and Ranma franchises.

This trope is adaptable and flexible. It's just not adaptable and flexible in the narrow way you define adaptability and flexibility.

It's not adaptable because it's The Same But More Specific.Its specificity precludes adaptability. By the wording on the trope's page, you can't have a Naruto Fuku Fic, nor one with Batman characters, nor one with Doctor Who characters. The definition precludes that by specifying that it exists for those two source materials and those two only. How is that not narrow or inflexible?

This trope has existed for many years. How many prolific and specific fanfic crossovers have their own pages? If it opens the door for those, surely there must be tons of them by now.

I don't know, how many have their own trope pages? My quick pass of the Fanfic Tropes index shows none. Popular sets of fan works have their own media page. That's where they belong when it's a work by a specific author or authors or a set of works set in a specific sprawling and shared universe. But as I said, it's a media page, not a trope one. I don't see another instance of there being a trope page for "there are lots of fanfics of this particular type involving specifically these particular franchises". It's also not really a genre because genres are broad.

What I do see though is Common Crossover: which might be an even better final resting place for Fuku Fic since the latter is a pair of particular franchises which inspire a lot of crossover fanfiction.

As to the part about there not being other trope pages like this, the fact that they don't exist yet doesn't mean that the existence of Fuku Fic doesn't provide potential future validation or justification. And the lack of current examples of such also doesn't invalidate the complaint that Fuku Fic is The Same But More Specific instead of its own stand-alone trope.

edited 8th May '17 3:23:33 PM by The_Nemesis

In addition, because of the age of these fandoms nowadays, this holds a significant risk of becoming a "dead" trope.

The majority of crossover fanfics start as "hey, wouldn't it be cool if..." ideas in someone's head. As the Ranma and Sailor Moon fandoms begin to dry out, it is likely that anyone who wants to write this crossover has already done so.

Personally, I feel that this is no different than any other Common Crossover. The only reason to keep this trope would be if it could be proven to have major impact on fanfic in general, and the very definition of the trope prevents it from spreading far beyond its source.

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Of course those are identical in the premise, since that's the trope. They're not identical in the execution, however. Those fics can run across any number of major and different plot points, contrary to what you claim. Your definition of "breadth" is "number of works". Which is really nothing other than depth.

The Same, but More Specific includes in its definition, "...if the added qualification is clear enough that the result serves a distinct narrative function from the original — then it becomes a Sub-Trope." And in the same way as your own argument, there's nothing materially or significantly different in the application of High School AU from Alternate Continuity. It's just set in High School.

As I said, your definition of narrow is narrow, and not the one defined on TV Tropes. Your argument is just as arbitrary as saying that a High School AU is too narrow since it can't be applied to anything that isn't set in a High School setting. Read Tropes Are Flexible to learn about other ways a trope can be adapted. Or just read The Same, but More Specific, which you should be familiar with, as it states that something is too narrow if it fails to establish a pattern. There's a clear pattern here, so claiming it's narrow isn't using the definition of the page you're citing.

If you can't show any pages this might've inspired, any concerns about it inspiring more pages is imaginary.

A trope dying isn't any reason to not have a page on it. TV Tropes isn't just about current tropes.

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I think it's fine. Maybe this wouldn't cut the mustard in TLP today, but it's worth noting because seriously, it was really prominent at one point. Like, inescapable on fanfic websites... and I didn't even actively look for fics from either of those franchises. Maybe I don't think we should expend energy, time, and effort to make this page if it didn't already exist, but I really don't think it's worthwhile to expend energy, time, and effort to undo it when it has some value.

And I think that the page is useful for... not preserving that, but sort of explaining it. Almost as a Useful Notes for tropers who stumble upon fanfic archives and wonder why the hell half of them are this plot. It being essentially a Dead Horse Trope actually makes it more valuable, in my opinion. If it's something that the average person wouldn't know why or understand the trope itself, then documenting the Dead Horse Trope is really useful (similar to a lot of old cartoon gags... they're Dead Horse Tropes for sure, but they're useful to have documented since the works are still in circulation and modern audiences may have no idea the meaning behind the tropes).

Basically, my argument amounts to "there's something resembling value here. At least enough that I think it would be a waste to put effort into destroying it."

edited 9th May '17 7:16:50 AM by Larkmarn

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covers my thoughts on the matter pretty well. There is some value to having the page, and no benefit from nuking it.

I agree with 11 and 12 and would like to add that there's over 1500 inbounds. The page was created in 2007 and the inbounds number reflects the traffic from 2012. I would imagine that this reflects sustained interest in this article for five years (from '07 to '12) and after 2012, there was still enough interest in this topic to accrue 1500 inbounds.

While this doesn't tell us whether there is still current interest, I think this number supports the idea that people were extremely interested in this topic at the time, and — as Larkman said — anyone doing an archive search will likely find this genre.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

If people want to say this is a dead horse to be preserved for that reason, fine. In that sense it feels more like a useful note or a piece of trivia regarding the history of the particular crossover/plot on the Intercontinuity Crossover or Common Crossover trope, but my major question remains:

How can a trope only be applicable to one franchise (or in this case, two inexorably linked franchises) and no other ones?

This trope existing separately and distinctly Common Crossover feels like having Laser Sword as a trope, but then having a different trope specifically for the Star Wars lightsaber and nothing else Or having a trope that you can point to examples of in 20 episodes of one series, but no examples from any other series besides that one. I can't imagine a trope that narrow passing muster.

Fuku Fic would make sense to me as "characters get sucked into a Magical Girl world and gain Magical Girl powers" (though the name doesn't work as strongly without the Sailor Moon-dependent ties since the sailor fuku isn't codified as a Magical Girl uniform in all or even most examples of the genre . It doesn't make sense as "Girl Ranma and nobody except Girl Ranma gets Sailor Moon powers (and only Sailor Moon powers. Not, say, Madoka Magica powers. Or Pretty Cure powers. )"

Just to pull from my avatar: If The Transformers was the one and only franchise that had examples of Transforming Mecha, I would not expect the latter to be a trope. It would be the quirk of the franchise that separates it from other mecha or Mechanical Lifeforms type franchises out there. Even though there have been like a dozen different iterations of The Transformers (g1, beast wars, the 3 japanese series, animated, prime, the live action movies, comics from no less than 4 companies, etc) The trope exists because there are dozens of different entirely separate and unrelated franchises/series/novels/media that use the general idea of robots turning into something else (like vehicles or objects) differently.

Also I still feel like Another Duck is misunderstanding my depth/breadth explanations.

Your definition of "breadth" is "number of works". Which is really nothing other than depth.

No. My definition of breadth is number of different works (different in the sense of franchises or source works it can be based on or used for). Depth is number of resultant works using the same source. Breadth demonstrates that you can use the trope in a wide array of settings and a number of different sets of characters. That the trope is endemic to the telling of the story no matter what form that story takes. Depth demonstrates that you can use the trope in a number of ways involving the same basic setting and same characters, but you're not escaping the use of those characters, that setting, or that franchise.

Breadth says High School AU can have 50+ different universes (Batman, Naruto, Dragon Ball, My Little Pony, Marvel Comics, Supernatural, James Bond, Star Trek, etc) plugged into it and still function. Fuku Fic's depth says you can get 25+ stories out of "Ranma gets Sailor Moon powers", but doesn't let you use the trope for anything except Ranma/Sailor Moon crossover fics.

Consider stores.

Store A is a fruit stand. It sells apples and oranges and bananas and grapes and mangoes and more

Store B is also a fruit stand, but it only sells apples. It might sell 20 different kinds of apples, but there's not an orange or banana or anything different to be found. The only kind of fruit you can get is an apple. It doesn't matter if you grab a red delicious or a honeycrisp out of the bin, it doesn't change the fact that it's an apple and nothing else.

A has product breadth. B has product depth. That's the difference. A is High School AU (or almost any other trope I can think of). B is Fuku Fic.

edited 9th May '17 11:39:57 PM by The_Nemesis

If you want a X character becomes a Magical Girl from another series fanfic trope I would not name it Fuku Fic.

That kind of trope would be fine to YKTTW under another name but not this one, the name is very specific to this one.

The name itself just means 'uniform fic' from the whole Sailor Fuku thing that is also school uniforms and what the Sailor Senshi wore in the show. Most Magical Girl do not wear Sailor Fuku at all as seen on Frills of Justice.

edited 10th May '17 12:03:51 AM by Memers

Magical Girl AU seems like an obvious name for that. I also don't think this theoretical trope would strictly need to take place in a Fusion Fic or Crossover Fic to work.

edited 10th May '17 12:06:01 AM by Karxrida

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That would cover actual Magical Girl A Us, 3 real ones come to mind.

• Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei's whole Magical Girl AU bit with these 3◊ as Lily Cure and Itoshiki was the big bad.
• The Nisekoi Magical Girl spinoff about Onodera Magical Patissiere Kosaki Chan.
• Hell the Nanoha franchise itself is an AU of Triangle Heart.

That would not cover crossover fics where X character will became a member of Y Magical Girl team, which is what this trope is about.

edited 10th May '17 12:26:00 AM by Memers

Going to have to agree to disagree on that, but regardless, it's irrelevant. A trope does not by definition have to be "broad". The only thing that it says is that it has to be not so narrow that it doesn't show a pattern. That's not the same as saying it has to be "broad", let alone any arbitrary definition of "broad". Tropes Are Flexible describes what "not narrow" means in the context of tropes. It also says that tropes can be very narrowly defined.

It still remains that this is a clear pattern that many different authors have used while writing fanfics. Fanfics are separate works of their own. Even if they draw from the same source work, they're not all the same setting, contrary to your claims. Just to begin with, there are two settings to choose from, and that's just if you write with relatively few differences.

If you think there's a Missing Supertrope, feel free to start a TLP entry for said supertrope. That doesn't mean the subtrope is invalid.

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That has to do with the definition of "trope". Here's a quote from Too Rare to Trope:

The current debate is really more of a Lumper vs. Splitter split. Proponents of the Fuku Fic apparently believe there is meaning in that particular iteration of examples. A Magical Girl AU could certainly be made as supertrope to the current page. A genre-change like that should be meaningful enough to trope.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If I can give my own two cents here, how about instead of having it specific to Sailor Moon Ranma crossovers, we expand the trope into covering all examples of extremely specific crossovers? Like a Fandom Specific Crossover or something like that? I can think of several common-crossover examples that could qualify.

In fact, that's why this trope always struck me as weird. It honestly feels like an example of Unintentional Period Piece back when both shows were really popular. Heck, the sheer number of FiM and Doctor Who crossovers could easily eclipse the examples on this page three to one, yet we don't have a trope for that, though, do we?

I vote Too Rare To Trope and/or broaden the example to include all common fan crossovers between franchises.

edited 19th May '17 9:29:58 AM by TokoWH

Too Rare to Trope means there aren't enough examples for a meaningful pattern. If that's what you're arguing, you're willfully ignoring over a page of examples that demonstrate it's most certainly not too rare.

"Other pages have or don't have this," is not a particularly good argument.

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Well, even if it isn't Too Rare To Trope, I'd still like to argue that a rebrand to encompass all examples of Fandom Specific Crossover would be a better trope overall.

Compared to some other Trope pages, there are enough examples that there's clearly a trope here but at the same time, not enough to where it feels like a 'professional' quality Trope, if that makes sense. Again, this feels like a Trope that came about when this was ridiculously popular and now feels like an Unintentional Period Piece of a bygone era.

In my mind, there are two easy fixes here. Have the Trope page expanded into covering Fandom Specific Crossovers in general or we could have Super Trope for Fandom Specific Crossovers and have this be a sub-trope. I know, for me at least, this trope wouldn't seem so weird if we had a super trope and this was a sub-trope.

I believe you're describing a Dead Horse Trope.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I just want to note that even though its a Dead Horse Trope in general that doesn't preclude that these are not made anymore, they are still made its just not as common and/or try to deliberately do it differently.

edited 19th May '17 3:38:06 PM by Memers

Either way, I still stand by my proposals. The trope as it now definitely does have a substance problem when compared to most other tropes.