[ SECRET POST #2046 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2046 ⌋

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

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14.


__________________________________________________



15.


__________________________________________________



16.


__________________________________________________



17.


__________________________________________________



18.


__________________________________________________



19.


__________________________________________________



20.


__________________________________________________








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #292.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - spam secret ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[stainless]

As someone who's written one of those 90% OC fics, it always confuses me that more fanfic writers don't. When I first got into fandom and discovered fanfiction, I found the idea of setting a story I wanted to tell in a pre-created world I loved really exciting. At the time, the idea of using canon characters actually struck me as pretty uncreative. To pick a big fandom out of a hat, why write about Harry Potter and his friends and enemies when you could create the whole incoming class of 2012?

I've since grown to really enjoy writing about canon characters, but it's funny to me to think back on that, because so many people think writing about the canon characters is the point of writing fic, where I started off thinking it sounded trite to write about a guy we all know when there's so much world unexplored. Heh.

It surprises me that more writers don't seem to think of that sort of thing, to be honest. I don't think doing that even has a name, it's so rare.

[intrigueing]

That is definitely a perfectly reasonable idea, but tbh, very few fic readers will give a shit about some OCs in a universe that isn't even original. People generally read fic for established characters.

[stainless]

Yeah, I get that most people feel this way. I still don't quite get why. I think the big pull of fandom to me isn't so much the characters but the worlds. They're like sandboxes to play in, only... fucking awesome.

You get settings! And histories! And traditions! And technology, or maybe magic! And even slang!

[(Anonymous)]

I've done the same. I write 99% fanfic but i forayed into writing a ficlet from a OCs point of view in the firefly verse, taking a brief dark look into the Miranda incident. It was short, not at all sweet but fun to write. Never really had the urge since though but it was fun.

[unicornherds]

I started writing with mostly OCs too. I found it way easier to make up my characters and fit them into the world than deal with the pressure of getting the characterization and histories of everyone perfect. I will fully admit that most of my early stories were also self-insert fantasies. Which is why I never shared them with anyone.

[dazzledfirestar]

I found the idea of setting a story I wanted to tell in a pre-created world I loved really exciting.

Yes, I felt the same way! I looked at it as a chance to explore the world past the core five or six (or however many) canon characters we'd met in the source material. I still think of it that way, and by extension I find it a little silly to think that the only people those five or six canon characters could possibly have a relationship with are within that original circle. But obviously YMMV applies by the truck load there.

[(Anonymous)]

I used to do the same thing back when I first came into fandom. I loved exploring the pre-created universes with new characters. Which isn't to say I didn't love the canon characters; I did, I just thought it was more interesting to see things from a wholly new perspective in terms of the characters who were telling the story.

[bat_hawk]

Huh, I always liked to do the opposite, make up really elaborate AUs to put the canon characters into. But world creation is easily my favorite part of writing, and my OCs tend to slip into one of about three archetypes if I don't pay them very close attention, so. I like the comfort of having characters that everyone already loves so I can pay more attention to the fun part in making the universe of the week.

I skip all mainly OC things, just because I have had way too many Mary Sue experiences and it just isn't worth it to me to sift through for the good stuff. I do enjoy a solid OC supporting cast, if they stay out of the main roles (and especially the pairings :P), there's less of a chance of Mary Sues.

[stainless]

I love worldbuilding too, but I really enjoy taking established worlds and fleshing things out. Like, okay, there are Decepticons and they're war machines and like conquering everything. Okay, so what is that like? How's their society set up? What kind of culture does that create when everyone's warlike by default? What's that programming do? How does it manifest in different characters?

I enjoy creating worlds too, but I also building on the established but vague.

If that makes sense.

[littlestbirds]

Huh, so I think I definitely came into fandom feeling this way. I got into fanfiction because of how much I loved other universes and possibilities, and though I prefer stories that do that, I guess I've forgotten that side a little bit.

I think getting to know a character/setting and getting invested in them takes work. Once people get used to how fanfiction operates, how you don't have to do the mental "oh this is how that works and who this is" effort, they get LAZY. I saw on Sarah Rees Brennan's blog today (she used to write HP) that she got hatemail for turning pro because "I thought they liked my writing and instead I was just a has-to-be-free-and-has-to-be-one-special-flavour candy machine." :(

I definitely think of fanfic as my "candy" reading and other original fic as my "nutritious" reading because of that effort. It's not really good, or necessarily true, but I do.

[maiira]

Yeah, a few years ago a few online friends and I started fic from various anime fandoms where we all made OC's and made the story all about them. There were canon characters involved, but they mostly had cameos or were simply name-dropped. It was a lot of fun to do, we didn't really expect anyone to read it but us, and no canon characters were harmed! Everyone wins!

I'm totally okay with authors using a fandom's universe, but creating their own characters within it. Sometimes those fics end up being more interesting than the canon storyline.

[rapunzelita]

Mostly, the sad reality of it is that they wouldn't get many readers - and, while it's true that you can write fanfic for your own enjoyment, when you put them up on the net, I suspect you kind of expect to have at least a few readers.

It IS a damn shame, though - I'm a tabletop RPG player (World of Darkness pls), and I have heaps upon heaps of characters I love to bits, and I write tons of fic about them all, but I don't think anyone outside of my RPG group would read them. which is fine! Though sometimes I fantasize about writing a really big fanfic in the setting I play in (like, novel-length and all that), because there is potential for telling a really good story. But the simple idea of having to do all the exposition of what the world is like, along with the heap-tons of research for historical accuracy (Victorian era or 1920s, depending on the setting) is a bit staggering. So I just keep writing my ficlets and posting them on GDocs.

[stainless]

True, but my point is that I sometimes think part of the reason they don't get many readers is because it's part of fandom culture that the point of fic is "canon characters doing things," to the point where people seem almost offended if you suggest it needn't be about the canon characters. When people say "I'm here to read about my favorite characters," they often say it snippily, as if everyone is expected to see that that's just self-evidently the point of all this. Which seems odd to me, not because I think it's wrong to care more about established characters than established worldbuilding, but because I wonder why there's so much of one and so little of the other.

My point is just that I'm wondering fandom culture could easily have grown up differently, as a bunch of people who decided to play in established worlds.

Thoughts on an AU of reality, really. :-)

[rapunzelita]

I agree with you! It's a bit of a shame, really. I really love OC-centric fic (provided they're well-written, but that's true of all fic anyway). What I love most about a story is very often characters, but that doesn't mean I won't enjoy a character-centric fic about OCs! It is interesting though that the majority of fandom does seem to take OCs almost as an insult to canon characters... As though creating OCs diminished the worth of canon characters because the focus is not on them.

Another mildly unpopular (or less popular) type of fic is crossovers - and I love those so much! Some fandoms are just *made* for crossovers (like The Sandman for instance, or His Dark Materials), and it's a shame that it's not a more popular genre. I really like finding convoluted ways of linking two completely different fandoms in creative ways - it's a really nice mental exercise, and seeing it well-executed is always a joy.

Interesting thoughts, anyway :)

[stainless]

I don't usually like crossovers but I don't see anything wrong with them. I had a lot of fun dragging Megatron to Phyrexia once. :-)

[rapunzelita]

Crossovers can be really interesting, I think, because sometimes you have to think really hard about hw you're going to make the two universes fit together. It's like one of those really difficult wooden puzzles that you have to assemble again: you take two things that have a few common points but also very wide differences and you have to make them look united and smooth like they're just one thing. IT's a very interesting way of exploring the world-building of both worlds. Of course, it's made easier sometimes, for instance when alternate universes are stated to exist in canon (think of Sliders-like stories), or simply when both stories are set in the "normal", non-supernatural contemporary Western World.

But, to take a wonderful example, "A Study in Emerald" by Neil Gaiman is an amazing crossover between Sherlock Holmes and the H P Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos. Those two things do no go together very well (Sherlock Holmes is super-rational, Cthulhu is super-irrational to the point of being nihilistic), but Gaiman (who is, I'll admit, my favourite writer) assembles them in such a way that makes them fit together seamlessly.

So yes um I like crossovers very much. Sorry about that.

[brooms]

but because I wonder why there's so much of one and so little of the other.

for the same reason that in any given fandom, for every gen fic, there are probably around 200 shippy fics.

could easily have grown up differently, as a bunch of people who decided to play in established worlds.

idts. fandom culture is the way it is because for a lot of people (i'm tempted to say the majority *), fandom journey begins when they watch or read something and become really into the idea of a certain relationship between canon characters (or canon characters and themselves).

from kirk/spock, to mulder/scully, to bella/edward, to draco malfoy/self-insert.

eta: * - at least the majority of those interested in reading and writing fanfiction. of course, another truckload of people find their way into fandom through their love of comics or pokemon or final fantasy or w/e and become all about collectibles and never touch a fanfic in their entire fandom lives.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it depends how you do it. I'm currently reading a story that's well over 75% OCs in it's a sequel and it's lost the magic of the first which was predominantly canon characters. Not only has the author a) rushed introducing the OCS, b) sacrificed the original storyline but c) it seems like a wanking fantasy with all the characters paired to OCs or sudden relatives to them. Whereas it could have been excecuted well as a story not a sequel to the first and without a and b too.

If you've got a link to your fic that's not like that, but is playing in the verse then I'd love to give it a read but even my favourite OC fic is becoming very Mary Sue with the character being immune to *everything* with no flaws and no wrongs. I think it's very hard to write OCs as good protagonists in an existing verse unless it's years later or something or most of the original canon characters are just mentions. But that's my personal opion.

I do enjoy fanfic exploring characters we already have because although a lot is repetitive plot wise (which can be interesting with different authors styles) every now and again something sweeps through and makes me dwell more on a character's motives or actions.

[stainless]

http://archiveofourown.org/works/444939/chapters/760896

I tried very hard to give her flaws, as well as to make the story interesting and the details rich even for those not in my fandom. I don't know if you are or not, but especially if you're not I'd love to know what you think.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure I love Transformers, that was the fandom i was referring to above. I'll definitely give it a read, thanks, will get back to you this weekend :)