The Hoard Potato: Perry the Platypus is Best Pony

[athelind]

Recently, I've had several conversations with different people about franchise fiction, why it becomes popular, and why so many franchises develop followings and fandoms far out of proportion to their literary merit (at least as perceived by the arbiters of such intangibles

Comments

[leonard_arlotte]

I am going to have to quibble with one point. Babylon 5 has a storyarc with Important Characters, but it is still set in a universe that is every bit as robust or Star Wars. It would be entirely possible to have your weird alien character pass through Babylon 5 on some business or other. Hell, that's the whole CONCEPT of the Babylon stations

[hoodahdc]

It also makes it easy to self insert when you don't even need to draw hands and feet! Stumps for life!

[the_gneech]

I think you're certainly on to something with this. Another good measure of this phenomena might be, "How easy would it be to make an RPG for this setting?" 'cos, really, what are RPGs, especially RPGs in established universes, if not "collaborative realtime fanfic?"

-TG

I gotta be me!

[normanrafferty]

Rafferty's Extension to the 2nd Law of Transformative Works:
The popularity of a franchise can be directly proportional to what could be told, instead of what is being told.