#fandom try not to accuse others of lacking critical thinking skills for having fun challenge

[crispycreambacon]

The advantage of being in a small and probably dying fandom is that no one will yell at me or call me a racial slur for babygirlifying one of the main villains for fun and I think that's a major win y'know

[illegiblewords]

Fan Fiction VS Original Fiction

I don’t know how long this post will go, but this is an old question and I think I can actually examine it better at this point in my life.

As a teen, I saw a lot of people treat fanfic as if it was something shameful. Like it was less worthy of respect and easier than original fiction. At the time, that made me feel very indignant in part because I’d read plenty of shitty original fiction works and plenty of gorgeously executed fanworks. After I got more into comics, where the name of the game was essentially corporate-approved fanfiction with a rotating roster of writers and artists, the policy against respectability seemed dumber and dumber. Same with anti-OC mandates. Every single character had been an OC at some point, why should one human being be inherently more capable of doing a good job than another? Because of who a corporation chose to hire? What about all the shit comics and comic OCs out there?

If it all just comes down to craft and how cohesive, how powerful the story is at the end of the day, then I just didn’t see why fans should be given less respect as a person than any professional simply because one is getting paid. You have to earn respect by doing good work, and unfortunately not all professional creators do good work. Corruption is a helluva thing.

Whether fanfiction or original fiction is easier depends very much on what you’re trying to do, in my opinion. Each mode of storytelling carries its own challenges. You need to be a chameleon in fanfiction, and sometimes you need to be an architect or a repairman. You can’t get away with characters reading randomly OOC without getting critique or at least losing some traffic. If OOC happens because you are using critical skill to address a flaw you recognized in canon that can be a gamble all on its own.

Original fiction you’re not being compared to canon, but you have to build everything up from scratch. You are going to be judged based on if your characters are credible, if your societies are credible, if the world as a whole is consistent and has tangible stakes. You need to research whatever you need to research, there’s no one else to guide you, everything depends on your own choices. There is freedom, but you are also subject to even heavier quality standards in some ways due to the multitude of technical elements you are now responsible for.

Each form can be judged harshly according to its own criteria. They are related for sure, but not perfectly identical. Even trying to argue which deserves more respect or which is harder seems completely irrelevant because 1) depends what you’re trying to do 2) its such a petty, superficial thing to judge works on. The question itself to me suggests the person asking doesn’t actually have a true understanding of how fiction operates.

IMO this is a point in history when we need fanwork more than ever, and we need it to be uncensored and experimental, enthusiastic and unapologetic. I think it needs to happen for every medium that exists. Historically it’s a huge venue for writers to challenge themselves and each other in terms of craft. Right now though, we are in a period where fan work is becoming increasingly scarce and increasingly policed. What is put out is often homogenous and lacking in ambition while believing itself to be edgy in uniform ways.

This isn’t true of everywhere of course. But it’s more than I’ve ever witnessed in the past.

The places I’ve seen doing the best at avoiding this trend have been games that require some degree of character creation and roleplay, because they’ve let people know IT’S OKAY TO MAKE AN OC, IT’S OKAY TO DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY AND MESS AROUND. WE’LL EVEN SET IN SOME STRUCTURE SO YOU CAN FEEL MORE CONFIDENT THAT YOU’RE NOT GOING COMPLETELY OFF THE RAILS. HAVE FUN!

Dungeons and Dragons accomplishes this. Frankly, a lot of Bioware games do this too. So do Bloodborne and Dark Souls. So do Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon’s Dogma.

I don’t think critique is what caused the fandom problem so much as authoritarianism. Entitled people who harass, insult, or accuse creators for making something not catered to THEIR individual taste. People who want to push anything not to their individual taste off the internet because they find it annoying, or frustrating, or even distasteful. This includes people who would flame and shame the shit out of Mary Sue authors. It also includes people who say stuff like...

“If you don’t make character X with Y quality you’re a coward!”

“So sick of seeing all these [insert superficial biological quality] characters smdh”

“If you portray X character with Y quality you are Z insult. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

It’s destructive. It terrifies people into silence and it’s killing fandom activity. Rather than generating more content in the vein of what entitled individuals want, it just makes less on the whole. The response never should have been to give creators who are making something for others to enjoy free of charge any kind of grief. Dissatisfied people should try making things themselves.

It might not always get attention. It might be hard, and it might not turn out exactly how you want. But if you are truly invested, if you pay attention to your technique and learn from both your own mistakes and the mistakes of others, if you practice regularly and do exercises to improve your weak points, you can get there. The targeted creators certainly had to do it.

Talent is, like respect, something you have to earn.

I don’t understand how anyone could have the GALL to demand another person do something for free that they aren’t ready to do themself.

Meanwhile, if you’re not sure how to start the creative process with an approach you haven’t seen before... just ask people! If you need research books or writing guides or art references or whatever, all the tools you need to succeed are there. Some is viewable for free on the internet. If you care to, you can have it.

But yeah, long story short the older I get the less important it is whether something is fan work or original work. A human being came up with it either way. Which one is the higher quality story in terms of technique matters to me, but for individual audience members I think as long as you aren’t trying to control another person you can let whatever version you want occupy space in your head.