naanima: (Default)
witty, somehow ([personal profile] naanima) wrote2003-12-02 12:19 pm
Entry tags:

Why I don't like AU fanficton, or wank, wank, wank.

I don't like AU fanfiction. When I say AU I mean fanfiction where the author place the characters in another time/place/fantasy/different Universe with new pasts, new names, new identities. For example, the GW fandom seems to be the most prominent in the production of this type of AU, the boys lives in Medieval/fantasy setting where they are priests, magicians, warriors, blah, blah, or they are your normal average teenagers with normal average problems set in present day, etc., etc.

I don't like these fanfiction because the author ultimately changes the characters' past and everything that made them who they are. I'm a sole believer that the only thing separating one person from another is their experience (okay, their biological predisposition also plays a part, but these predispositions will mostly occur when people are living in an environment where it allows these predispositions to develop), thus, by changing a characters' experience, or what has happened in CANON, you are in effect making a completely different person, where the only thing that is recognizable is the characters names. Thus, you might as well be writing original fiction.

When I read fanfiction I want to read about the CANON characters involved in adventures with ALL of the CANON experience and memories that made them who they are. I don't want to read fanfiction where the only thing that is similar to my loved characters is the way they look and their names. For example, I like reading post-series fanfiction, which I know is classified as AU by some, these fanfiction I like because the characters are still themselves with all the memories of what has happened to them in the past (i.e. during the series), they act accordingly to what happened to them, or at least act in a way that is similar to ways similar to past actions.

In conclusion, no, this is not an attack on people who write this type of AU or people who like reading them; it is just a statement on my own personal taste. Okies, I think that's enough ranting on my part.

[identity profile] ayatsujik.livejournal.com 2003-12-02 02:03 am (UTC)(link)
AMEN.

It _is_ a matter of pesonal taste, but I sparkle at finding people who share the same opinion. It's especially bad for series like sports ones, I think - when a large part of who the characters *are* is built around their love of a game, or a specific ideal, or *something* anyway, you remove the setting in which they use that thing and you don't have the same character(s). End of story. It becomes the transplantation-AU person's orichara(s), more or less, and the quality of the AU itself aside, as you said, that wouldn't interest me. Like, Ryoma-tachi without tennis are *not* Ryoma-tachi, however engagingly you change their environments and them, and just - period. ^^; (I know, I know, Bowling no Oujisama eps and the like, but those were *funny* fillers.)

[identity profile] naanima.livejournal.com 2003-12-02 04:10 am (UTC)(link)
*NODS vigorously*

Exactly. Quality of writing aside, AUs make me sad (and lose my interest almost straight away, unless it's in the name of comede) because what make me love certain characters has been taken away.

Ryoma without tennis, would be like DragonBalls without the constant resurrection and fights. And seriously without tennis, Ryouma is like a snot nosed kid with no redeedim feature (ok, he's cute, and the snark is good, but there is no tennis). Also, Bowling no Oujisama had class (ok, cheese, but good cheese) ^__^