Discussion FanFicRecs / PokemonGeneral

OK change the way I see it.

Has been reported in the Wiki Tech Wish List.

Then feel free to start convertin'. Just remember to note in the review titles who originally posted the comment if you can.

We're not supposed to have comments sections at all. That's what the linked reviews are for.

Well. Do you mean that all comments should just be zapped?

And moved to linked reviews if they're appropriate to/substantial enough for the format. Check pages like Neon Genesis Evangelion for how it's done.

I don't think you can submit the comments of another user as a review titled under that user, though.

You can't; people moving comments generally title the reviews "Comment by [troper]" or similar, though the review isn't attributed to [troper].

Yeah. My point is asking if that is an acceptable thing to do.

What Telcontar mentioned is indeed an acceptable thing to do, because that's how it's traditionally done in the comments cleanup.

That whole entry is pretty stupid, to be honest. I haven't read the fic, but haven't any of the people recommending or disrecommending it considered the possibility that it might - in line with most things Farla does - be a Stealth Parody or Deconstruction, where the Pokémon side isn't supposed to be sympathetic?

I point out that Farla once wrote a trainer fic, posted it under a pseudonym on a forum over a period of something like a year, and then ended it with the reveal that it was all an elaborate Stealth Parody of a certain type of subtle Mary Sue that derives her insidiousness from the fact she gets readers to unquestioningly cheer for her along the way when they really, really shouldn't - and therefore couldn't be parodied without going undercover and getting honest readers to follow the story along with no idea of its true nature.

I point out that anyone who cares to look at Farla's reviews of other works - particularly her readthrough of The Hunger Games - should pick up on the fact that her ideas about morality in fiction are not as simplistic as "genocide is okay if you consider yourself oppressed", and thus any claim that that is the moral of something she wrote is at least a bit suspect.

I also point out that she keeps marveling at people not getting it in her Live Journal. Actually, maybe that should be the first point.

In all honesty, I really, really want to delete it because there are three disrecommendations but since Cryptic Mirror recommended it, I have to keep it up there.

And yes, I wrote that original entry and I plan to clean everything up. Yes, I am aware that it is a deconstruction but that is still no excuse for derailing Ash and Gary to the degree seen in the story.

Not to mention, having two characters (Ice and Wildfire) suddenly appear with no description or introduction whatsoever is just plain bad writing.

And finally, the battles are too damn predictable; each and everytime, the pokémon stomp Humanity.

^ That, too, was what I thought. Then she posted something insulting us for saying that it was ironic...

Mostly, what bothered me was that it was Evil Versus Evil or gray-humans versus black-pokemon written as black-humans versus gray-pokemon.

It seemed to me she was facepalming at the insistence it must be black-and-white - that if the author isn't trying to bash your head in with Humans Are Bastards, it must be "mere hot air" from the Pokémon. (Although that was actually a comment on a different fic that she mistook for being about PR because it was so similar to comments on PR.)

As I said, I haven't read the fic, so I wouldn't know how well the story is actually pulled off. What bugs me is the fact is all the disrecommendations complain about the Pokémon protagonists being ridiculously unsympathetic even though that's probably exactly the point. It's like disrecommending A Clockwork Orange because Alex isn't sympathetic. Tropers of all people ought to know that the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians including children in fiction tends to be a way to establish characters as evil if not irredeemable. If the description of the Pewter City scene on the page is accurate, it is practically a neon sign saying you're not supposed to think the Pokémon are in the right (which doesn't necessarily mean the humans are in the right, just that nobody sane should think the Pokémon's actions are excusable). Where does anyone get the idea that they are supposed to be in the right? Just from the fact they're the protagonists? Just because the humans are also bad? Just because Farla has written other fics where training is portrayed in a morally dubious light and therefore she must blindly think anything ridding Pokémon of trainers is a Good Thing?

Again, not trying to defend a fic I haven't read so much as being baffled by the particular complaint that characters who do what appear to be clearly intentionally evil things are unsympathetic.

As I said before, the reason why the fic bothered me was that the Pokémon were written as if they were heroic. They committed numerous atrocities, but were still treated as if they were the good guys. This is particularly evident in the "human trial" scene; the humans who are sentenced to execution act childishly or like dicks, while the humans who join the Pokémon perform a textbook Heel–Face Turn. Quite possibly, the author made some kind of mistake here.

Alternately, the story was written as an Evil Versus Evil fic without a single sympathetic character. If this turns out to be the case, I'll remove my disrecommendation – it's not my cup of tea, but it might be someone else's.

I just don't think that it works as a deconstruction. Eon's portrayed unsympathetically, but when I read it, at least, I got a fairly strong vibe (god I hate that word) that you were supposed to see her as the "good guy". Perhaps the dual-author thing caused this problem, or perhaps it's part of some Grand Farla Master Plan that we have yet to learn of, where she'll explain what she's been doing all along, laugh, and berate us for being unsophisticated fucktards...

Either way, here's a link to some of her comments on it.

EDIT: And here's what Charles Rocketboy has to say about the thing. Kinda hard to understand, but looks like he was writing it as either:

1. A Gray-and-Gray Morality Poké-revolution fic with the Pokémon as A Lighter Shade of Gray.

2. A Dark Fic with no good guys at all.

The key difference between these two is fairly simple. If 1 was their goal, they failed miserably, because they created a 2 in an attempt to ratchet up the darkness and atrocities. However, if 2 was their goal, they succeeded, although I personally still don't enjoy the story.

Bottom line, this is a really, really divisive fic, quite possibly a plan by Farla created so she can laugh at all of us, and one that is kind of on the fence for this page until we get some concrete Word of God telling us what was intended here.

Putting this in a reply because I didn't want to mess up the lovely, flowing continuum of my previous post.

I also agree with Dialga X. The battles are too damn predictable. The Pewter City scene is probably the most egregious example here; Pokémon manage to destroy a defense force of humans equipped with miniguns, tanks, and attack helicopters. Aside from bringing up the question of why public battles even take place with the immensely overpowered attacks Pokémon are seen using, the scene also nerfs human weaponry beyond imagination. For example, Fearow manage to outfly military helicopters, and perhaps most egregiously, Pokémon are described as trying (and succeeding at least 50% of the time) to dodge "bullet and rocket and shell".

Well now. An M134 minigun, firing 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition, has a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second (a little more than 9 football fields). A Hydra 70 rocket has a speed of 2,425 fps (8 football fields), however, it does take time to reach that velocity. Finally, a KEW-A1 APFSDS discarding-sabot tank round has a muzzle velocity of a staggering 5,700 fps (19 football fields, and a substantial portion of escape velocity). *

I doubt even Bullet Time would be enough to dodge that shit. *

Either way, the battle is basically skimmed over. There's an explanation of the Pokémon strategy, but it's only enabled by the protagonist's Plot Armor, the Pokémon's inexplicably superpowerful attacks, and the human commanders' inability to employ more suitable tactics than "sit there and shoot at whatever's moving". The whole thing is over in less than a hundred words.

Okay, this is just a mess.

I haven't read the fic, but for all purposes it's probably bad. Given the nature of Farla, it has to be a stealth parody. I've read some of her (?) other works, and she definitely knows how to write. Forgive me for not knowing how to link, but here's a decent Hunger Games fic I've read before I even knew it was written by Farla. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7108894/1/Fox_Games

However, I don't think Fanfic Recs is a place to put these types of fics in - it's a place for "good" fiction. Therefore, I think we should have to remove it. The Unoriginality one is okay as it explicitly states itself as a non-serious work.

I will remove it if there's no objection within a few days. (Really, you guys need to start putting this type of lines in your discussion, otherwise you'll never get things done.)

Footnote: Dialga X, why can't you remove it if it's recommended by Cryptic Mirror? Use your own judgement on things.

You might want to check out Farla's latest LJ entry on the subject.

Clarify on what you mean, because I don't see anything that indicates it was a serious work or anything. Either that or I'm terribly dense and missing the point entirely.

Unfortunately, there's very little to actually discuss regarding that post. She seems to think that any negative feedback about her fic is directly related to backlash against the reviews she gives, to the point of putting words in our mouths. She holds the entire site accountable for the negative reactions of a few people on a wiki that anyone with an account can edit, to the point of anticipating some kind of slippery slope argument ending in Godwin's Law, and lest you think that the correct solution would be to remove the reactions, she treats even that as something to be mocked.

And worst, while she's likely correct that her story involves Black-and-Black Morality and she likely has a point against people not recognizing that (I can't say one way or the other; I haven't read it), I'm not seeing much of an argument from her or any of the positive reviewers that it's worth overcoming the Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy to continue reading it, especially considering her many other works that aren't any less well-written. And wouldn't that mean that it's actually worth reviewing negatively?

There's a point where I simply have to acknowledge that she's become too much of a jerk for her own good and I can no longer care about what she thinks, whether I might have agreed or disagreed with it.

(It would help if I wouldn't keep coming across arguments on various sites about how we should just scrap Fanfic Recs entirely.)

The idea troubles me for several reasons. First, it would force us to resort some of the fics every time a new recommendation was added, which is unhelpful for following the page over time. Second, it actually adds more weight to the importance of recommendation writeups, when everyone's been previously discussing moving them to the review section rather than keeping them on this page. And third... any sorting system that puts one of my fics at the very top for subjective reasons should be questioned immediately. (Especially since I'm a troper, and I'm actually pretty happy that it was first listed here by someone who didn't know at the time that I was a troper at all.)

Resorting isn't a problem, at least in my opinion. Clarify what "unhelpful for following the page" means, because I don't really get it x: Anyway, I don't see how it puts more weight on recommendation writeups because this method uses the number of recommendations rather than the individual writeups. And if I'm missing something here and it does rely on writeups, we can just change the criteria. I'm not fussed with that. The main reason I suggested this is for easier navigation of those with more recommendations (which most likely mean they are better than others).

The third reason is invalid. THOU MUST NOT BE MODEST. DIE!!!!!!! Seriously, modesty isn't a reason to stop your fic from going to the top :L

So... if there aren't any further objections to this within a few days, I'll carry it out.

I dunno if I like this. Those fics with the most recommendations are more likely to be popular anyway, and anyone scrolling through would probably pick that up from the huge entries. Sticking them at the top just because they've got a lot of readers (like falconpain said, a subjective system) isn't really fair, especially since 'lots of readers' does not necessarily mean 'best of the best' quality.

Yeah, this is a bad idea. If there's a work on here that you don't believe's that great, just link a review for it that explains why you don't like it.

A ranking system is largely unworkable, and assumes a consensus that is not guaranteed to exist.

Two opposing users right after I edit?

Speak out earlier next time. (Or did you come here after looking at the edit history?)

suspiciouscookie, they might not be able to pick it up since we're using number of recommenders rather than large chunk of recommendation check. A lot of readers enjoying it most likely it's a successful piece of fiction, as it wouldn't have gained the praise otherwise. If you disagree with that statement please explain why.

Iaculus, I don't get your second sentence. It seems irrelevant to the topic. A ranking system is indeed hard to work out, but the number of recommenders seem to be the closest we can get.

This is for conveniency for the people who browse. If people do not think it is convenient, I will gladly revert the page back to its original state. (Please be honest.)

Well, the Discussion page doesn't really have alerts or anything..:p

'Number of recommendations on this page' is just not a great way to order it. First, that's assuming the quality of the fic is judged by how much attention it gets on this page and not the site it's hosted on. Secondly, many readers of these reclists are non editors and their opinions are not taken into account. Thirdly, I can't count the number of times I've followed a rec, found the work to be downright amazing, then left a review or kudos on the work itself and not on its entry here. Fourthly, taste is subjective and no, 'more attention' doesn't necessarily guarantee 'better work of fiction'. This provides the sense that fics without four recs are just lesser and might cause underrated fics to be ignored. Placing fics in an impartial order means people scroll through the whole list and maybe find something with less attention than it deserves. Of course this reclist is swimming in mediocre stories and selfrecs as well, but what's stopping people sockpuppeting their way to the top?

The alphabetical sorting system is the easiest way to keep it organised too. I looked at the page and you did miss a few entries with four names beside them...

Well, I'm not a robot that does everything correctly. (Or am I?)

I understand the point that "number of recommendations" is not a very accurate method to judge the quality of the fanfiction. However, even though the only ones that get posted here are ones known by people from TV Tropes, the quantity of people from TV Tropes generally stays constant for everywhere (internet-wise), so that doesn't reduce the reliability of the method.

So, the reason you oppose this is because it's judging system is biased and there are no better alternatives? Not because the page looks messier or this generally being a bad idea?

Of course it's not a reliable method. This is supposed to improve convenience by putting the goodfic at the top so people can find it, right? But it's not guaranteed that they deserve to be there and others don't, for the aforementioned reasons, and putting them at the top does lump all the crap in with the other good stuff that just doesn't have four recs. (Besides, people's perceptions of a work are often influenced by the fact that everyone else is raving about it and so they join in without thinking critically for themselves.) So it doesn't necessarily improve access to goodfic, and it means we're using a subjective system, when a neat objective system - like the alphabet - is just a lot fairer on all involved. Even for the badfic, sadly. I don't see any reason to depart from it :p

Well yes, the number of recommendations is definitely subjective, but if the subjectiveness is applied equally to all others, it becomes objective. And if all other things equal (which is impossible in real life), a fanfic with more recommenders is better.

It's not guaranteed, but it is fairly reliable, which is (in my opinion) good enough.

It does dump the other fairly good things with the relatively worse things, but isn't dumping them all together even worse?

The reason is to help those who aren't committed enough to read through everything :p

Which one's the badfic :x

??? If it's not guaranteed, it's not objective. And a subjective system, well, isn't fair. Another point is, you know how much of the stuff with the most hits/reviews on fanfiction hosting sites are giant longfics with time to build up a following? That applies to this page as well. Most of the fics in the 4+ recs section are indeed longfics, which gives them an inherent advantage over oneshots.

No, it's not, because it doesn't have the appearance that we're trying to give things on this list an objective measure of worth...and, you know, I don't think that 'Latias' Journey' is better than 'Xanthic Growlithe Contract' or 'Morphic', but one is at the top and the others are not. :p So it goes.

...I sense that we are at a stalemate here, because apparently I don't count as plural 'people' XD It would be lovely to get some more people's opinions as well.

Oops, I meant 'badfic' in the plural. Lots, I'm pretty sure. :/

Yeah, I see your point about the oneshots. Didn't think of that.

(As well as the length of the fic which shouldn't matter.)

Changing it back.

This sentence is nothing interesting. Just because I'm bored

You may be spot on with the assertion that Autophobic led to this fic's success, as everyone who recommended your fic here also signed their name on the "sequel".

Still, two things should be pointed out. First, those are the opinions of three tropers. This page doesn't work upon overall consensus, and certainly your fic's presence here doesn't imply that it is universally beloved by tropers. Certainly not enough to conclude that anything else recommended here must also be overrated. (Some of your listed favorites are also on these pages, after all.)

And second, we would be considerably more know-it-all and elitist if any of us said "this story got several recommendations, but we think it doesn't deserve them, so we're removing it anyway".

Your reply is most appreciated. Indeed, it is a feeling of a false accomplishment knowing it's on the behalf someone else's talent. It is an indirect hit to an ego one tries to keep as nonexistant as possible.

I apologize for my outburst. It may or may not be related to bad experiences and memories getting triggered.

What I will say is that while these are good recommendations, I foresee an inevitable problem if the rec section becoming crowded. I doubt I'll make any recommendations; my taste is not considered the better.

I can at least wish luck on this section of TV Tropes...

Be Bold, chief. Be Bold.

I'm a little hesitant to start this, because there are a TON of fics here. I don't have time to read, or even analyze, every single one here, and have limited computer access, so I could kick start the project, but I couldn't necessarily finish it.

EDIT: Someone called "yiran" alphabetized them, so it should be easier to browse. Thanks, Yiran!

I didn't even realise people appreciated my work O_o. In fact, I thought some would be annoyed, lol.

Well, in that case, you're welcome! :)

Helpful tip: Check the page history and look at the edit reason. It will tell you why any edit was made.

In this case, your rec was deleted because it was a self-rec, i.e. you recommended your own story. If you browse through the recommendations already on the page, you'll notice that for all of them, the names in the "Recommended by" are different from the name of the author of the fic in question. The reason for this is that this page is for recommending good fics you've read, not for advertising your own. It doesn't tell anyone a thing that the author of some fic thinks you should read it; of course they do, because they wrote it. Only an outside reader can decide whether your fic is worth recommending.

Another question. I see that you edited that one little line, one stating a Troper can recommend his/her own works. I understand why it was done and where you are going with this, but I am not totally convinced that what you stated is the same exact interpretation for the full intent of this page. Was that one little statement mirroring the intent of the first Troper who wrote it or was it an error made by another Troper at one point? It will be nice to see other opinions for this.

I detect a bit of a flaw in the previous explanation regarding that all fanfics on this list have been signed by other people besides the author. I have seen at least one other self-recs on this page. I will list them:

• Pokemon Black: Enter Chaos by Venamisa • Pokémon Watchers by Juptile

I would like to take a closer look on the page history for a confirmation but it appears it will not let me move too much further back. The first listed appears to be simply a rec by the author. The second listed appears to be a rec by the author and another user. If this page follows strictly to other recommendations rather than the authors', then why are these two still listed?

Because no-one's removed 'em yet. Though if the second's got a rec by an independent user, that should be enough to save it.

You're right; those two seem to have slipped under the radar. I've removed them. Pokémon Watchers did seem to have another user's recommendation, but as the "Status" bit pointed out (why on earth did somebody update the status with this without removing the rec?), the fic had been removed and replaced with an author's note anyway, so there wasn't exactly anything to recommend anymore.

The line as it was was just clumsily worded; it said "feel free to add a fanfic of your own", but it was meant in the sense that you could make your own additions to the page, not that you could add your own work. For comparison, you'll notice that the main Fanfic Recommendations page, which all the subpages are based on, words it as "Feel free to recommend your favorite fanfics here", which carries no such implication. It was also not worded like that, as far as I can remember, before the Pokémon recs page was split up, so presumably that wording originates with the person who did the splitting.

It is really common sense that a recs page is not for advertising your own work. You can't possibly be qualified to tell people your own work is good because you're inherently and obviously biased. It doesn't matter how good it actually is; somebody uninvolved has to make that judgement in order for it to mean anything.

Very well then. I went by the literal meaning of what was previously stated before and I apologize for it. Thank you for taking the time to come up with thoughtful responses.

But now there leaves the question on how I may go about this list. As you can see, I am quite determined to make it on this list for a portal to proper exposure for willing readers. Though countless times have I requested people in person to ask what they think of the story, it seems most have never really gotten far into it and ultimately I am left with little bearing to why this happens. It could be because of lack of time or other distractions, but if it were because of a lack of interest... I would like to make the proper amendments for it. However, another problem is that very few people do a full-scale review on it (as in a detailed commentary regarding story, setting, character, etc.) so I am finding problems with tweaking parts (such as erasing plot holes) of the story as well.

I would like to note that this story was previously very popular in a Pokémon forums (a community holding hundreds of people) before I went along with a decision that it should be an independent site of its own. The reasoning for this is to give us ample space (a personal forums) for a large quantity of notes as well as a storage medium for previously written stories. It has been very difficult for us to gain the proper exposure though since people seem more interested in reading stories in mainstream sites such as fanfiction.net. I have indeed published copies of the story parts in fanfiction.net, deviantart.com, writing.com and various other Pokémon forums but I am still unsatisfied with the very little responses we get despite the number of visitors we get. After all, we put in a lot of effort into this and I don't want this work to go to waste.

May I ask for tips on where and how I can attract more readers and acquire more reviews? Perhaps this is not the proper place for it but I will like to ask now while we remain on the topic of recommending stories.

The best way to make this list is to be a good work of fanfiction.

Sorry to be blunt, but this page is a tool for readers, not authors, and TV Tropes is not your own personal advertising agency.

You can always make a works page for your stories. Nothing to stop a creator doing that, just as long as it isn't heavy on the gushing, is honestly descriptive with its tropes, and you don't get upset when other tropers edit the page.

At the same time, while we keep an index of Troper Works, I believe that the people who have such pages should make an effort to be tropers.

(Does anyone remember what happened with Kira Is Justice? The author not only self-recommended the work on Fanfic Recs, but wrote the fic's page, its Characters page, its Quotes page, its Laconic page, its WMG page, its Heartwarming page (!) and its forum topic. There are ways to try to get your fic noticed, and then there's that. The author considers it an Old Shame now.)

I admit to writing up the page for my own fic, but even I asked if it deserved one before doing so, and it was after a surprisingly large number of tropers had recommended it. Then again, we have the There Is No Such Thing As Notability policy, so maybe I'm the exception.

Interesting. I guess you could say I have gone to that Old Shame point previously. This is on the same work by the way. Because of my lack of experience previously, many of my older writings were shorter, sometimes awkwardly worded, had bland dialogue and even had different writing formats. Some still remain by the way and I intend on re-writing later at some point. Back then, it simply started off as a random series of short stories before a plot became more distinct. Needless to say, once you get a scene in your head the writing part is easier said than done.

After a little bit of experience, I've gotten large leaps of inspiration and ended up taking a lot of notes down. From that point on, I placed more thought into atmosphere, character development, natural flow of events, etc. I also revised my older writing style to use various literary elements more commonly. That was when the project started becoming more ambitious.

It has crossed my mind that I could write down a page for Stray here but it also occurred to me that it might somehow be anti-productive. It takes longer than needed to simply read a list of tropes on a page, so deconstructing a story to its foundation and writing down its Tropes might as well be another time-consuming and unsatisfactory process. It is like when looking back too many times, you acquire a feeling of futility because the previous ideas are getting "stale". What is considered stale though is relative, so a sensible solution is to continue with what you have and see if something better can be found along the way.

^ I did the exact same thing (minus selfrec, WMG, Heartwarming, and forum topics) for my original fic (which, by the way, does not exist. Never existed. There has never been a story by the name of "Ignorant Armies Clash By Night".) Fortunately, I had a My God, What Have I Done? moment and ended up getting the page cut. Damn, that was an embarrassing moment.