Fandom Discussion

[silawen]

Reviewing.You know, I'm having much more of a hard time with this reviewing every day thing than I was expecting. Not because the reviewing is difficult, but because it's hard to find fic that I can get through and review. No, not because of the quality, but because of the subject or where they're posted. I want to review here at LJ, but a lot of

Comments

here comes Rae, spamming your lj again~

[ravens_rising]

I think it's just the difference between how people approach series. :) I'm always get into a series/movie/book/etc for the characters. Even in my original fiction, the characters come to me first, and the world building comes after that. So to me, the point of fanfiction is to explore how characters would react to events that would not or could not happen in canon- whether that's a pairing, or taking it further into a complete AU. That's the same thing, to me.

It's just a matter of perspective, I guess *g*. You said to blue_eyesgirl that "If I wanted to write something, then I'd try my hardest to make it work in the canon setting. If it wouldn't work together, then I wouldn't want to use it either."

For me, just because it doesn't work with canon doesn't mean that I stop wanting to use the idea :).

I do usually like the setting and plot in a series that I'm into, but that's not the end all be all. I'll work within canon when I can. Trust me, I've come up with 9285035 elaborate scenarios to fit in a situation I wanted into something that would fit with canon. But there are situations I want to see that are impossible to fit into canon events.

The new AU that has recently eaten my brain was first sparked when I wanted to have a situation where Ukitake and Shunsui weren't the 2,000 year wise, old mentors, where they were on basically equal footing with Renji and Ichigo. How would the dynamics be then? To me, that's the same kind of question as- how would these two characters act in a relationship in their canon environment? Every single fanfiction that was ever written was based off of a "what if".

If that makes sense? ^^

And in your post you said "Changing everything except their name and basic personality - though even that changes, sometimes - just seems strange to me. It's almost as if you're changing 90% of canon just to write someone as a lawyer."

That's not how it is, to me. The most important thing to me is the characters personality. To you, it seems like a huge 90% change, but to me it's like... a 10% change, or something. The personalities are what I write fanfiction for, not the setting. Yes, the setting comes with it, but the setting isn't what inspires me to write ;) It's the personalities and putting them through different situations and seeing how they'll react.

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In some ways I agree and disagree with misumisu's saying that fics based on canon are stagnant and boring.

There are... limits on what you can write within canon. There are some things you just can't do. So yes, in a larger fandom like Bleach, most (not all!) fic tend to go along the same general lines. So that can get repetitive and sometimes boring.

(prepare for Rae insane babbling)

At the same time, I think a lot of fic authors don't get creative enough ^^. They go with the tropes. This tendency frustrates me so much in the ShunUki fandom. There's so much to work with there- 2,000 years worth of stuff to work with. But 70% of the fics written for it is established relationship h/c Ukitake-is-sick in the present canon, and the other 30% is bbf they're sharing a dorm Academy fic. But nowhere in canon does it even say the went to the Academy together, or that they were best friends. :P I'm not saying I don't like many of these fics- because I love a lot of them! Just... some variety, please? xD I have so many ideas of ideas that change all that up; I'm definitely writing them someday. :) And hopefully that'll encourage other people to think too. *g*

Now, onto something you said I completely agree with: "I find that characters who are turned into housewives and live for their children just don't work for me as well as their kick-ass persona before."

Yesssss. Oh my god x_x. Especially when it's a yaoi/slash story. That almost always ends with someone being an OOC weepy girl uke. Yeah, no. But then, in general I don't like established relationship fics either. I love, love, love get together, first time fics. And there are like 10 of those in the entire ShunUki fandom why couldn't my OTP be something else T___T.