Rant: FanFiction
Yes, I am a huge FanFiction fiend, so here's what brought this to mind:
Today, I was looking in the Mentalist FanFiction archive at FF.net. I was attempting to find some Cho stuff. To my surprise (and annoyance) I found four stories. Only four. Four of the six hundred some stories on FFdot-freaking-net had Kimball Cho as one of the characters. So then I put in Teresa Lisbon and Patrick Jane as the character filters. There was sixteen pages of the stuff, but I could only find four Cho stories, one of which I had written.
Uh, what the heck?
There are things like this almost every fandom. It starts with a bunch of innocent authors who like a pairing, or a character, so they write about it/them. A lot. I don't mind it that much when there's a group of people who like a different pairing or character, because then there's a balance between them. The main problem with this is the canon hints.
Take, for instance, Squirrelflight/Brambleclaw in the Warriors fandom. Though many people see them as "soulmates," they seem to forget that, way back in Moonrise, when the Erins wrote from Stormfur's POV, someone (AHEM-Stormfur-AHEM) had a little crush on Squirrelpaw, while at the same time he was dealing with his feelings about Feathertail and Crowpaw's relationship. StormSquirrel has very little following in the Warriors fandom, and SquirrelAsh has even less. Why? Because that relationship happened while Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw were fighting, and, if you remember, they had already started to show canon hints.
Which brings me to my next problem. Very few authors will stray away from any pairing that A) is a canon pairing, or B) has canon hints. So Megan/Don stories in the Numb3rs fandom are rarely touched, while Don/Robin, which is completely canon, is written about often.
It's called FanFICTION for a reason. You are the fan. You are writing FICTION. You can write whatever the hell you want. I really don't care. It seems that the people on FF.net have the same problem high school girls have: doing everything the crowd does.
So if you're one of those people, branch out a little. Look for a character who is so often abandoned, or a pairing without canon hints. You may find that the pairings you never would have thought of could be your favorite pairing ever.
Wow, that end sounded cheezy.
teh FISH is OUT ^_^
Today, I was looking in the Mentalist FanFiction archive at FF.net. I was attempting to find some Cho stuff. To my surprise (and annoyance) I found four stories. Only four. Four of the six hundred some stories on FFdot-freaking-net had Kimball Cho as one of the characters. So then I put in Teresa Lisbon and Patrick Jane as the character filters. There was sixteen pages of the stuff, but I could only find four Cho stories, one of which I had written.
Uh, what the heck?
There are things like this almost every fandom. It starts with a bunch of innocent authors who like a pairing, or a character, so they write about it/them. A lot. I don't mind it that much when there's a group of people who like a different pairing or character, because then there's a balance between them. The main problem with this is the canon hints.
Take, for instance, Squirrelflight/Brambleclaw in the Warriors fandom. Though many people see them as "soulmates," they seem to forget that, way back in Moonrise, when the Erins wrote from Stormfur's POV, someone (AHEM-Stormfur-AHEM) had a little crush on Squirrelpaw, while at the same time he was dealing with his feelings about Feathertail and Crowpaw's relationship. StormSquirrel has very little following in the Warriors fandom, and SquirrelAsh has even less. Why? Because that relationship happened while Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw were fighting, and, if you remember, they had already started to show canon hints.
Which brings me to my next problem. Very few authors will stray away from any pairing that A) is a canon pairing, or B) has canon hints. So Megan/Don stories in the Numb3rs fandom are rarely touched, while Don/Robin, which is completely canon, is written about often.
It's called FanFICTION for a reason. You are the fan. You are writing FICTION. You can write whatever the hell you want. I really don't care. It seems that the people on FF.net have the same problem high school girls have: doing everything the crowd does.
So if you're one of those people, branch out a little. Look for a character who is so often abandoned, or a pairing without canon hints. You may find that the pairings you never would have thought of could be your favorite pairing ever.
Wow, that end sounded cheezy.
teh FISH is OUT ^_^