[ SECRET POST #3126 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3126 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 056 secrets from Secret Submission Post #447.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Fandom frustrations

[(Anonymous)]

Sort of fandom related but...sometimes there have been people whom into other areas of online writing and apply "fanfiction standards" to them.

On a writing comm that hosts both, a friend and I were talking about characters of ours and one person harassed my friend about the supposed "Mary Sue " traits in her character including things like having certain abilities and status.

Sure, those would have been a problem in a fancharacter. But my friend's character was not a fan character. They were an original fiction character and a main character.

Re: Fandom frustrations

[(Anonymous)]

Original fiction and original characters can have problems with Mary Sue traits, though. I don't know if that's what was really happening with your friend's work, but it's still a legit problem writers have even if it's a fanfic term.

AYRT

[(Anonymous)]

I know that. But a lot of the person's criticisms of the character were based on the assumption that she was a fancharacter for something.

Original Fiction Mary Sues and Fanfiction Mary Sues have a very different list of qualifications and symptoms.

A character that is a spotlight stealer in fanfiction could be a fine protagonist in original fiction. In fanfiction a big issue with OCs is that they can't take too much attention when around the canon characters. This isn't as much of a problem in completely original fic.

Re: AYRT

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not entirely sure I understand, but then I've never had that attitude about OCs in fanfic that a lot of people seem to have.

Re: AYRT

[(Anonymous)]

I mean I can understand why fic readers don't trust an unfamiliar character, and would resent a character they don't know coming in and taking over. But people take it to a ridiculous extreme. Also I suspect that it's common for people to blame the unfamiliar character when the real problem is the author's writing skills.

But at the same time I also detest the line of thinking of "people read fanfiction for CANON characters and people should accept that and not bother writing anything else." because it seems like the same line of thought as typecasting an entire genre because it's what sells.

(I still remember seeing on tumblr this stupid rant a person made because someone asked about writing YA without a romance subplot. They didn't say anything about finding YA with romance inferior. But the person assumed that's what they meant and wrote this ridiculous rant about how they shouldn't write YA because they have no "respect" for the genre and anything they write will obviously be shit and not nearly as good as "silly teen romance stories". A prime example of how silly that attitude of 'well people (I)) read it for this, so everyone should write this")

Re: AYRT

[(Anonymous)]

"Also I suspect that it's common for people to blame the unfamiliar character when the real problem is the author's writing skills."

This. People react negatively to all OCs on the basis that a lot of them are badly done. Well yeah, but that's not a problem with the concept of an original character, it's 100% writing skills or lack thereof. IMO, it's fanfiction, write what you want and take the fallout if it comes. There is no point to following other peoples' arbitrary rules for How to Fanfic because if you tell a good story, you can break lots of "rules". That also applies to original fiction.

DA

[(Anonymous)]

I have to say the logic behind "I've read lots of bad OCs so I hate them all" is kind of faulty.

Yes, because a bunch of 12-18 year olds with little writing experience and no editors fucked up something, clearly it must be a bad idea and nobody should write it.

I mean I can understand a personal bias of "I don't like reading them". But I can't really take the "OCs shouldn't be written period" seriously.

Re: DA

[(Anonymous)]

It's irrational and pretty dumb, but people get super defensive about it. I wrote lots of original fiction before I got into fanfic and this baffled me... well, I guess it still does.