Talk:Griffon/@comment-188.111.120.5-20160201101259/@comment-27350660-20160416104128

Look, I like Fanfic. I write a lot of it myself. It's fun to do. There's lots of different shapes, colours, and flavours of it. I respect anyone who'll take something they care about, write about it, and put it on the Internet for the withering scorn of the world at large. That said, yes indeed, most of the fics suck. I've written some extremely bad ones myself, so don't think I'm just hacking on others. It goes with the territory. You have to dredge through a lot of muck to get at the jewels.

There's the Massive Crossovers - people who will kidnap characters from each and every fandom. What if a loving and caring relationshp were to develop between Goku, Cinder Fall and Sonic the Hedgehog? Would Major Kusanagi be jealous? Basically, I just shake my head and back away.

There's the Obvious Self Inserts. AO3 really is a breeding ground for Mary Sues. Though I have to say that in the RWBY fandom, they are blessedly rare. There are original characters, but those are usually exercises into building teams with interesting semblances.

There's the "fix the harm" ones. What if Pyrrha and/or Penny survived? Me, guilty as charged. I did a pretty well-received one about How Yang Got A Robo-arm. Which will probably be invalidated by Season 4, Episode 1, the Preview. Such is the way of things.

And then of course there is the international sport of shipping. Yang/Blake is the most popular one by miles. Some of them are too cute for words. Some of them are just plain and simple smut, which has its place. Some of them do work surprisingly well. I've read a pretty good Yang/Mercury one. Dysfunctional as hell, filthy, violent, but I could see it happen. If of course RT would go there, which they won't.

There are a few cardinal sins for Fanficcers. The biggest one is taking yourself too seriously. Some people really think they know better than the original writers. Pissing about with characters is another one. Neo doesn't talk. Blake doesn't laugh out loud as a rule. Cinder does not repent and redeem herself. Next is being too nice to your characters. They need to lose. They need to hurt. They need to die. That is how you can show what they're made of.

Alternate Universes, I'm in two minds about. If I'm being uncharitable, it's just using a name to get views. Which is a survival strategy, I suppose. There's yottabytes of great stories, unknown, unloved, on the Internet. People like things they already know. I suppose it depends on how far removed from the original it really is. But sometimes, you have a great idea for a story, but it's blocked by something canonical. Okay then... carry on regardless.

And then there are times when you click on one of these links, and find someone who can really write, who has a deep understanding of the characters in this series, and a really good story to tell about them. The ones that you read first for pleasure, and then to learn their tricks so you can improve your own writing. That's what makes it worth it to dredge through miles of the worst.