fanfiction.net: oh

[greenjudy]

It's been so long since I've spent more than, say, fifty seconds looking at ff.net, that I had no idea what was there anymore. There's Turks!fiction in there, by actual writers.

I feel kind of dorky now.

Comments

[flecksofpoppy]

FF.net regularly makes me want to die, and then feel exhilarated. It really is the land of polar opposites. I have read some incredible fics on there that I haven't found anywhere else; I have also spent hours sifting through horrifying Reno/Rude or Tseng/Rufus fics in my desperate search for more that I haven't read, that use all the obvious, old, AWFUL cliches. Etc.

Frankly, I think the issue with FF.net is the disparity in age. I've noticed that with older fandoms, the writers are generally...well...older. And when I say older, I mean, like...adults, and not high school students. (Some can write; many cannot. I mean, I couldn't when I was 15. Good lord, I totally wrote FFVII when I was 15 and it SHAMES ME TO THIS DAY.) On the other hand, I've read some of the most incredible Turk fics I've ever seen on there. It's just...a matter of sifting. So much sifting. But there are diamonds in the rough...only it's like, sparkly shiny wonderful diamonds in a garbage dump that smells really bad.

[greenjudy]

(This reminds me of our old vow to produce a back-of-the-fridge FFVII challenge.)

I think I backed out of ff.net after a few too many eyeball-scarring reading experiences, but what I never encountered, because I wasn't around long enough, was the reviewing culture, which in many respects seems to be fantastic (as LAS notes, above). I'd like to see more reviewing like that go on at AO3.

I'm interested in your impression that FFVII writers might be on the older side. Do you think the Compilation has shifted the demographic? There seem to be a lot of Zack fans out there in their teens.

[flecksofpoppy]

Well, I think one reason that the reviews are decent on FF.net is because there are a lot of people on there, so the opportunity for good C&C is greater. Also, sometimes I think that people are more likely to comment on something if other users have as well. Some readers feel insecure about leaving comments. I don't have this problem; just a huge mouth, but I know that this is an issue for some people.

However, unrelated to quality of content, one huge reason that I spite FF.net is its formatting process. It makes want to die. Their user interface is so bad. But...it can't be denied that you get more readers, some really decent C&C and can find some amazing fics. I'll be the first to admit that--for real, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite Reno/Rude plate drop fics I've ever read was found on there. It shocked me so much after sifting through crap for hours that my heart nearly stopped

[pennies_4_eyes]

Notraffic has written some of my favorite Rude/Reno fics of all, so I had to chime in. :P

[greenjudy]

Hi, thank you for posting, and welcome.

What do you think of AO3? There's a bit of a Sherlock boom over there; I think the demographics match what you describe above pretty much to a T. I don't know if AO3 will develop a similarly robust archive of FFVII stuff yet; it seems to be growing much more slowly than other things. FF.net really does seem to be FFVII Central.

Do people have any feeling about the virtues or lack thereof of LJ comms for FFVII fiction-sharing?

I have looked at your stuff - booyah, PLEASE link me to some Reno pieces. And please do not hesitate to post whatever writing you produced. I'd love to read it.

[pennies_4_eyes]

LOL! The only stuff I have up right now is at Deviant art. I put a Reno character experiment up the other day. Though I am working on pairing based stuff in between posting on LJ tonight. (Must stop typing....*drool

[greenjudy]

Hmmm...tagging. Important on personal journals as well as comms. I like the winding, living-room-conversation quality of LJ, which I don't feel at all on ff.net or AO3. I'm too new to the GA forum to say for sure what that feels like to participate in, but I am used to the thread structure at LJ, and find it a little easier to parse.

As for quality at AO3...I've seen outstanding Sherlock fiction there. And a few really fine FFVII pieces, but then, I read Turkfic almost exclusively (no! I'm not in a rut!), so I can't speak for all the offerings for the fandom. My experience at ff.net is that the badfic is much, much worse than anything AO3 has produced.

It may be that I have a taste for OG work rather than Compilation-based fiction, and there are some rather antiquated pieces over at ff.net that I fell in love with a long time ago.

I love the treatment you gave Reno and look forward to more.

[greenjudy]

This jibes with my experience, too, although I have never been really active in FFVII fandom (of an interactive sort). I remember when people posted to Behind Closed Doors on a reasonably regular basis...now, there's a post every six months or so.

Over at the Genesis Awards forum, which I've begun to frequent, there appear to be writers who work with different canon layers, and everyone seems to cohabitate without too much rage or angst.

How do you feel about the Compilation material? I was 27 when I first played FFVII, and to this day I haven't played Crisis Core. (To say nothing of Before Crisis. How I longed to play Before Crisis.) I dip (sparingly) into Dirge of Cerberus, primarily for the WRO and its relationship to Rufus, and have wiki'd around in order to get a little grasp of Veld and of Tseng's relationship with Zack. I guess I look for data in the Compilation, but I let the original game set the tone for me.