Has fanfiction reached a new low?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

It seems like the quality has gotten worse and worse. I mean I understand that with such a large volume that anybody can write you're going to get a lot of junk, I can understand the Mary Sues and the bad pacing.

What I don't understand is why people can't run their work through a spellchecker FFS. I've been reading stories and I see like 3 spelling errors per paragraph. For writing that is unacceptable. I could understand in a large 100k word story that you had one here and there, but seeing constant bad spelling just takes me out of the story and looks horrible.

Has anybody else noticed this?

[JACK-2]

Fan works in general have become garbage. It's why I gave up on fandom.

[JACK-2]

TBH, I started to grow cynical when MUGEN became pure garbage. Nobody could get a descent fighter off the ground despite being able to make one rather easily. People kept make horrible broken characters like: Omega Tom Hanks, SSJ Legend Gogeta, and some other wank level characters. It just became about wanking and proving their character was stronger or some garbage. Same with verses, fans had a chance to create something. They took it and let it devolve into garbage. Same with AMVS. Most fanfiction and OC characters are wish fulfilling trash made by fanboys.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jul 6, 2015 10:18:22 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

TBH, I started to grow cynical when MUGEN became pure garbage. Nobody could get a descent fighter off the ground despite being able to make one rather easily. People kept make horrible broken characters like: Omega Tom Hanks, SSJ Legend Gogeta, and some other wank level characters. It just became about wanking and proving their character was stronger or some garbage. Same with verses, fans had a chance to create something. They took it and let it devolve into garbage. Same with AMVS. Most fanfiction and OC characters are wish fulfilling trash made by fanboys.

Yea MUGEN was fun early on, but then it became a nuclear race of who could make the most broken characters for LOL's. Did you see MUGEN Rare Akuma?

What do you mean by AMVS? Anime VS or something?


I understand that with the large amount of content you're going to get a lot of crap, but I remember years ago I used to see some decent stuff, now it's like people can't even spell properly much less write. Just Mary Sues and character inserts abound.

[JACK-2]

AMV's are anime music videos.

Rare Akuma? I gotta check it out. If it's as bad as Broli or *shudders* SSJLegend Gogeta who kills you before the match starts.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jul 6, 2015 13:07:18 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

AMV's are anime music videos.

Rare Akuma? I gotta check it out. If it's as bad as Broli or *shudders* SSJLegend Gogeta who kills you before the match starts.

You had the "S" capital at the end so it confused me.

Rare Akuma was broken, but he was funny, not quite "derp" broken as some. I think he might of beat Broli though, can't remember.

When did you stop watching it?

[Great Dark Hero]

LOL Fanfiction...
Over the past few years, I've only went as far as to read fanfiction just to see how bad they actually are when put on showcase. Otherwise, I am not overly fond of them, because of the fact that most of them are horrible or have really stupid concepts applied to them. About 90.0% of the time, you are not going to find any good fanfiction and here are some reasons why this is relevant and true:

1). Having little to no experience with proper reading and writing to begin with. Individuals making some rather obvious grammar mistakes or even going as far as to use "cell phone" text approaches in their fanfiction. The fanfiction may even turn out to be completely incomprehensible while also having very poor formatting. As if to say, there is a chance that the individual may have never even did a school report or essay before.

2). The person may have some odd sense of pride in whatever fanfiction that they wrote about or they are one of "those" kind of fanfic writers. When I say "those" I mean the borderline, depressing, obnoxious, basement-dwelling and (possibly) juvenile fanboys or fangirls. There is also a likely chance that they have a (albeit disturbing or uncomfortable) obsession with a particular character for some reason. Based on these qualities, the individual is not going to showcase any improvement in their ability to make something that is actually good. Keep in mind that even some adults can fall into this category as well. But, to avoid being to negative, there are times when at some point after (or even during) highschool that the individual ends up realizing how bad their past work was after broadening their perspective on reading, writing, research and other elements that are important for creating additional content.

3). Characters from the source material are probably not going to have the same characterization or even purpose as the normally would because of the fanfiction writer screwing around. Characters will start doing things that they do not normally do. The story in itself ends up getting worse overtime because of the fanfiction writers weird ideas.

4). In relation to the above, there are times when a fanfic writer will get the bright idea to insert a "original" character. And, 90.0% of the time, they are going to be Mary Sue's or have elements that will cause them to qualify as a Mary Sue.

5). The individual may not even know that much about the series to begin with or they did not pay attention to detail over the series that they enjoy.

I am not perfect and I do make some mistakes on occasion, especially when it comes to literature, whether it is based on real life events or if it is in a fictional setting. But, there is no use in acting like a moron or not improving on your skills as a writer if the person can help it.
Later on today, I am going to talk about something else that is relevant to this topic and it has to do with some of the video game plots that I have been reading and watching recently as I play some of them. I have quite a bit to talk about...
Because, there are some video game story lines that could easily be mistaken for fanfiction but this is a argument that I will provide soon.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jul 6, 2015 17:03:06 GMT -5 Great Dark Hero said:

LOL Fanfiction...
Over the past few years, I've only went as far as to read fanfiction just to see how bad they actually are when put on showcase. Otherwise, I am not overly fond of them, because of the fact that most of them are horrible or have really stupid concepts applied to them. About 90.0% of the time, you are not going to find any good fanfiction and here are some reasons why this is relevant and true:

1). Having little to no experience with proper reading and writing to begin with. Individuals making some rather obvious grammar mistakes or even going as far as to use "cell phone" text approaches in their fanfiction. The fanfiction may even turn out to be completely incomprehensible while also having very poor formatting. As if to say, there is a chance that the individual may have never even did a school report or essay before.

2). The person may have some odd sense of pride in whatever fanfiction that they wrote about or they are one of "those" kind of fanfic writers. When I say "those" I mean the borderline, depressing, obnoxious, basement-dwelling and (possibly) juvenile fanboys or fangirls. There is also a likely chance that they have a (albeit disturbing or uncomfortable) obsession with a particular character for some reason. Based on these qualities, the individual is not going to showcase any improvement in their ability to make something that is actually good. Keep in mind that even some adults can fall into this category as well. But, to avoid being to negative, there are times when at some point after (or even during) highschool that the individual ends up realizing how bad their past work was after broadening their perspective on reading, writing, research and other elements that are important for creating additional content.

3). Characters from the source material are probably not going to have the same characterization or even purpose as the normally would because of the fanfiction writer screwing around. Characters will start doing things that they do not normally do. The story in itself ends up getting worse overtime because of the fanfiction writers weird ideas.

4). In relation to the above, there are times when a fanfic writer will get the bright idea to insert a "original" character. And, 90.0% of the time, they are going to be Mary Sue's or have elements that will cause them to qualify as a Mary Sue.

5). The individual may not even know that much about the series to begin with or they did not pay attention to detail over the series that they enjoy.

I am not perfect and I do make some mistakes on occasion, especially when it comes to literature, whether it is based on real life events or if it is in a fictional setting. But, there is no use in acting like a moron or not improving on your skills as a writer if the person can help it.
Later on today, I am going to talk about something else that is relevant to this topic and it has to do with some of the video game plots that I have been reading and watching recently as I play some of them. I have quite a bit to talk about...
Because, there are some video game story lines that could easily be mistaken for fanfiction but this is a argument that I will provide soon.

I always enjoy reading your posts because you put it in great perspective with awesome detail. I think you're being generous with the 90% though, probably about 95%-99% lol.

The grammar and spelling is just the worst. What does it say about a person when they can't even present their work properly. It's like the really fat woman. If the presentation is bad I'm not going to want to give the work another try. It completely removes me from the story and looks sloppy. Can't they use a spellcheck?

The other issue is as you said. People are diehards and want to make the characters in the story something else or show off their fascination with them in odd ways (especially fangirls). They'll often have characters act WAY out of character or have a character in a relationship with their character canon wise act completely monstrous to the point where you end up rooting for the other side because they write them with no redeeming qualities. They then insert themselves as a Mary Sue to have a relationship with their favorite character. For instance people who try to make Karai look worse so they can get with Leonardo or something else silly.

I've read a few good stories but they've been getting steadily worse and I'm just going to start deleting them from my phone and read manga or something. Honestly I hadn't even read fanfiction in a few years but I got into it. I have a few friends who write stuff and ask me to edit it and I never had a problem with it. But now it's gotten horrible on these sites.

[Great Dark Hero]

There was something I needed to discuss. Story line elements, though I will be using video game examples.
What I meant to say before was that there are some official fictional story lines in video games that can actually come across as fanfiction because of how terrible the said stories were done. I am going to list some rather specific examples to get an idea. In fact, I will even go as far as to showcase videos to make sure everyone here on this thread understands what I am referring to.

Let's... look at Sonic 06 (as soon as mention this, some of you guys are going to have horrible flash backs. The fortunate individuals are the ones who did not even play the game. And, I am one of them). Now, let us talk about Sonic 06 story line. But, first let's briefly highlight the general consensus. It is a messed up game. Arguably one of THE worst games ever made along side many others that reach that point. Keep in mind that this is a Sonic game we are talking about. An extremely well known video game mascot with an attitude. The game consisted of a lot of glitches and horrible design choices (i.e. Some of Gem power ups, Knuckles/Rouge practically sticking to the wall and NEVER being able to jump off from them, clipping through segments of the game very often, Silver's infamous pool ball segments, Mach Speed sections, stage rehashes, moves not even working the way they are supposed to, etc, etc, etc). Another thing to keep in mind that this game was meant to be a strong start to a possible "reboot", making even Super Sonic playable and doing things such as utilizing the Sega Genesis games as a reference... No. Sega lied about that unfortunately. I don't think we got ANY of what Sega was trying to showcase in those trailers fro Sonic 06. Water under the bridge now. I digress. On topic, the story mode (you will play as Sonic, Silver and Shadow. Within these characters' story lines you will periodically play other characters... even the first three playable characters within each others story line... for some reason). But, I need you guys to take a look at the spoiler below get a basic gist of... the "story" if you can even call it that. See the spoiler for pretty everything you need to know about the story line (and game play for those who are... morbidly curious). I warn you the video is long, but the reviewer (a pretty good game reviewer at that, usually starts off with the story first).

SPOILER: Click to show

The story could easily pass for a fanfiction. Seriously, look at Princess Elise. The said character seems to be the self-insert of some weird fangirl who was... really, really, really, really, really, really, really...

SPOILER: Click to show

... really, really, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY...

into Sonic the Hedgehog to the most disturbing degree possible. If you look at that story line, it can easily can mistaken for a fanfiction. A very horrendous fanfiction written by a hopeless fanboy and/or fangirl that which I described above. This is also something that really needs to stop when it comes to game development. Keep in mind that the story is just the tip of the ice berg on just how terrible the game really is.

Soul Calibur V
... Um... Yes. This is still a fighting game. We know this. Because, I play them religiously. Now having said that, this one really takes the cake. SCV is actually well known for having very nice offline single player content which the player can easily have fun with from time to time when they are not busy going to tournaments for fighting game events and whatnot. All fair and good. Soul Calibur V was a relatively solid game with pretty decent online features. But, there was notable absence of offline content and replay value. Many players... especially the more reasonable fans and tournament players... will also notice that absence of some really good characters. The said good characters are replaced by... these... peskier characters (Oh, Taki... why did you have to be replaced by some jailbait, blatant Naruto-influenced, weird ass girl...? Why Taki?! Why?!) So, players like us would try the story mode. We notice that it was not done in a traditional fashion. Many elements introduced in within the SCV section made little to no sense. Very weak protagonist(s). That is a understatement. Very weak boss characters (Nightmare being relatively redeemable as a boss but the general approach was done in a horrifying manner).
The new protagonists... they are known as Patroklos and Pyrrha. The children of... Sophitia. In retrospect, Pyrrha was essentially becoming a distaff female counter to Nightmare (which was a bad idea). Patroklos was a rather annoying protagonist, even after getting a hold of his Omega fighting style in the storyline (yes, secondary versions of pre-existing characters). Patroklos had to save his sisters life. The way they interpret and showcase both of these characters in the story can be rather... uncomfortable to say the least.
Namco clearly had some time constraint issues... (and so did Sega) which is part of the reason why the game turned out the way it did. But, for a basic summary of the story, look at the video below.
The SCV story was so badly done that it doesn't even make any sense... which can be related to how a fanfiction writer approaches the story.
(playing the game myself, I was busy trying to keep myself from laughing).

SPOILER: Click to show

These are not really fanfictions. But, these are elements that could easily pass off as fanfictions written by an individual. The storytelling is horrible in the games that I mentioned above and I am 100% confident that there are a lot more games that suffer this from his "fanfiction"-like writing. Granted, I am not saying that many other well known games have a particular noteworthy story (for example, Tekken... Mario... etc, etc, etc series) but they are far more passable than the ones that I mentioned above. As if to say, they have stronger premises and potential. Ones such as Sonic 06 or SCV for example just come across as exceedingly weird or (in some cases) disturbing, as if a really bad fanfic writer actually got involved with these gaming projects without realizing how bad their story looks.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

If Sonic was well made the cheesy story might have made it endearing in certain ways but that game was a trainwreck.

I know SCV changed the female characters because it was in the future and as you and I know old women don't sell. I do miss Taki though.

Many games seem to have the need to fit some tacked on story in there for the sake of it. They have also removed the interactive style of gameplay in favor of more gameplay that does the work for you. This is also bad.

[JACK-2]

I never really cared about Story in games or I should say the stories were always passable because the meat of the experience for me is gameplay. Some games did have interesting stories but eventually jumped shark like: Soul Calibur which I loved until 3. The problem with fanfiction is they don't have gameplay to fall back on. So, if you hate the story there's nothing to tide you over.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jul 7, 2015 14:47:23 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

I never really cared about Story in games or I should say the stories were always passable because the meat of the experience for me is gameplay. Some games did have interesting stories but eventually jumped shark like: Soul Calibur which I loved until 3. The problem with fanfiction is they don't have gameplay to fall back on. So, if you hate the story there's nothing to tide you over.

That depends on the genre. I mean if you just play fighters then it doesn't really matter as much because fighters are meant to be competitive first and foremost. With RPG's a good story is critical because without it you don't have the motivation to really play. JRPG's can be light on story and strong on grinding though.

Even fighters want to add more single player content because it gives you more to do. I don't like Capcom's approach where you just have arcade, versus, training, and online. I like when I had more to keep me busy. They seem to be rectifying that in 5.

I'd like a game that did it all well while not babying the player with silly mechanics.