Adventures in Fanfiction

[WindupAtheist]

So, as should surprise no one, I like me some fanfic. I like reading, I like reading amateur writers, and I like seeing what said amateur writers took away from a given movie/show/whatever that I might not have.

I like good fanfic when it can be found. I like bad fanfic when it's especially hilarious. I have a particular curiosity for straightfaced fanfic based on off-the-wall or extremely obscure source material. Remember the 1992 musical Newsies, with a young Christian Bale? No? Well people have written six thousand stories about it.

Or those categories with only one story in them. Those are interesting. Who's that one person on the entire internet who felt compelled to write a story based on Major Payne, a fourteen-year-old Damon Wayans movie? What the fuck is going on THERE? I don't actually want to read the story through, but it interests me that it exists.

So I thought I would post some curiosities. Not horrible Naruto fanfic where I expect you to laugh at how bad a twelve-year-old's spelling is, or horribly revolting slash posted as a joke, or even every story that I think is good. Just... curiosities.

Stuff like the fact that there is exactly one solitary Fat Albert story on fanfiction.net and the fact that it's actually shockingly well-written. I mean look at that, it's solid. I had a couple people go "LOL WUA you should be a writer" when that Baldur's Gate thing I did was in full swing, but I don't think people realize how many perfectly good writers are just out here toiling away in obscurity, writing about whatever grabs them.

This same guy has a Gilligan's Island fic listed with the description "Seven castaways spend years in a savage paradise. A strange and dark tale of survival as told in the Minnow's log and the journals of an esteemed man of science." I think I have to read it.

[Teleku]

[FatuousTwat]

So, as should surprise no one, I like me some fanfic.

I think I'm surprised anytime someone says that, in fact, my monocle is flying off as I type.

Edit: I've never gotten into that "so bad it's good" train of thought. It can be amusing from time to time but I would really just prefer to be watching/reading something that is actually good.

[Simond]

Obligatory:" http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3886999/1/Shinji_and_Warhammer40k =  " comment.

[Johny Cee]

The only fanfic I've ever thought about reading was Steven Brust's "Firefly" novel.  But then, it's Steven-fucking-Brust.

[WindupAtheist]

It's a fucking weird fascinating little universe, assuming you know enough to ignore the twelve million Harry Potter stories written by children. There are thousand-page novels written about movies you forgot existed and cartoons you've never heard of. Some guy out there right now is piecing together a quarter-million word epic about the Dukes of Hazzard that only like four people in the entire world will ever read. He knows it, but he just keeps plugging away late at night because there's this story in him and goddamn it he needs to tell it.

I have way more (what I think are) good story ideas than I have ever written stories, so I guess in part I just admire their crazy determination.

[schild]

If any of you have ever read any Warcraft, Dragonlance novels not by Weis/Hickman, or anything by Salvatore - you have in fact read Fanfiction already. You may be reading fanfiction right now.

Also, if you bought our book from blurb, well, you know. But it was worth it, imo.

[rattran]

If any of you have ever read any Warcraft, Dragonlance novels not by Weis/Hickman, or anything by Salvatore - you have in fact read Fanfiction already. You may be reading fanfiction right now.

Also, if you bought our book from blurb, well, you know. But it was worth it, imo.

fify

[WindupAtheist]

Or any Star Wars book not by Zahn.

Speaking of which, I have discovered the throbbing nexus of insanity.

In order to understand the story, readers need to understand that ‘the Jedi’ in the story are really the Jews in real life, hence, ‘the Messiah’ becomes ‘the Chosen One’. On the other hand, the Sith represent the enemies of the Jewish people (especially the Romans) and the forces of darkness.

Meanwhile on the "actually pretty good" side of things there's this very small short story written from the perspective of Blair during John Carpenter's The Thing. I think I linked it here once a couple years ago. It's quite nice, and in five years has received a whopping total of four review posts.

[schild]

If any of you have ever read any Warcraft, Dragonlance novels not by Weis/Hickman, or anything by Salvatore - you have in fact read Fanfiction already. You may be reading fanfiction right now.

Also, if you bought our book from blurb, well, you know. But it was worth it, imo.

fify

Eh? Laura & Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis are given credit for Dragonlance as we know it. What is it supposed to be fanfiction of, praytell?

[FatuousTwat]

I think schild was pointing out that Weis/Hickman started DragonLance, and anyone other than them writing DragonLance should be considered fanfiction. Same thing for Salvatore, Greenwood started FR.

[bhodi]

Eh? Laura & Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis are given credit for Dragonlance as we know it. What is it supposed to be fanfiction of, praytell?

The D&D campaign they were in, which is where it all came from?... but that stretches the definition a bit.

[schild]

Eh? Laura & Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis are given credit for Dragonlance as we know it. What is it supposed to be fanfiction of, praytell?

The D&D campaign they were in, which is where it all came from?... but that stretches the definition a bit.

Tracy and Laura created the world before TSR had anything to do with it.

[WindupAtheist]

Oh, well then not so much Zahn by that definition. Then again I don't have a problem with fanfic, so whatever.

[rattran]

I was mostly being snarky. The Weis and Hickman Dragonlance stuff reads like fanfiction. Sure, it's all loosely based on their group's campaign, but it reads like fanfic.
SNARK

[Yoru]

There is one last word in fanfiction. And that word is Christian Humber Reloaded.

Reading it is like staring into the swirling eyes of Madness itself.

[WindupAtheist]

At first I thought it was pretty crazy, but not as crazy as the Jedi/Bible crossover.

Then Adolf Hitler and Sonic the Hedgehog both turned up in the space of one paragraph.

Then it got even less coherent.

Then I realized I there was like another hundred fucking pages of it still left to go.

Jesus.

[pxib]

Christian Humber Reloaded always makes me think of Henry Darger.

[Ingmar]

These discussions always make me think of The Eye of Argon, even though technically it isn't fanfiction I guess.

[WindupAtheist]

I just read a piece of Gilligan's Island fanfiction and it was really good. Of course it really just takes the same set of characters and goes off in this crazy dark Lord of the Flies direction with them. I was seriously reading this one, eager to see how it ended. This guy is a diamond in the rough.

Prof. Roy Hinkley’s journal. 10/22/65

Mr. Howell is dead. We were alerted to this by a bloodcurdling shriek of Ginger’s that sent us all bolting into the jungle ‘til we came upon the scene. There, in the boughs of the tree overlooking his wife’s grave, hung the Giant of Industry by an Italian leather belt-made-noose. Ginger had been looking for him since sunset for what purpose I would rather not speculate when she found him there, dead for probably hours, his head bent horribly to a side and his face a grotesque mask of burst capillaries obscuring even the “gin blossoms” he wore cavalierly across his proboscis.

Although I cannot understand what relationship (if that’s even the correct word to use) Howell had begun with Ginger, I believe I can appreciate the emptiness the death of his wife left behind. And although I cannot fathom the life this man once knew, I can relate to the despair that led him to that tree.

Gilligan cut him down and the Skipper and I dug the grave. There were a few tears this time but there was no eulogy. Thurston Howell III had been a difficult acquaintance at best and, though there was sympathy amongst us, there were no kind words.

I am left to wonder if this is how we will each end our time here, as the weeks become months become years, as all hope is quashed by the open sea and endless sky. A resolution here in print: tomorrow I will begin my planning in earnest to see that my fate takes an alternate course – steered by myself towards a more welcome shore.

On the radio today, somewhere amidst the nonstop rotation of Gilligan’s favorite band “The Beetles” (whom he prefers to call “The Mosquitoes” because, he informs us, he thinks beetles are scary), came a news report with the briefest mention that Bob Woodward has won the Nobel prize for organic chemistry. Meanwhile his former pupil is huddled in a corner of a bamboo hut, scratching in this journal by torchlight, ignoring the tentative rapping at my door by Ginger Grant, and it has just begun to rain. Enjoy it, Bob.

Log of the Minnow: Jonas Grumby, Cptn. Oct. 22, 1965

Howell’s dead now. Killed himself. Put him next to his wife. Mary Ann said it must have been a broken heart that did him in. I said it was having to shit in the woods & wipe his ass with leaves that did it. Gilligan laughed.

[Yoru]

These discussions always make me think of The Eye of Argon, even though technically it isn't fanfiction I guess.

The Eye of Argon is a classic. They still have readings of it at the scifi convention I used to help run; the winner is whomever can read it aloud the longest without pausing, cracking up or fucking up the words.

CHR, really, is Internet-brand insanity voltroned up with the Eye of Argon.

[Murgos]

I'm pretty sure that in a real life Gilligan's Island the only things getting off the island are The Skipper, Ginger and Mr. Howell's last will and testament leaving everything to Ginger.

[schild]

These discussions always make me think of The Eye of Argon, even though technically it isn't fanfiction I guess.

They still have readings of it at the scifi convention I used to help run; the winner is whomever can read it aloud the longest without pausing, cracking up or fucking up the words.

Trivially easy. Where is this event. I'll even do it in a poorly constructed voice.

[WindupAtheist]

 

[Yoru]

These discussions always make me think of The Eye of Argon, even though technically it isn't fanfiction I guess.

They still have readings of it at the scifi convention I used to help run; the winner is whomever can read it aloud the longest without pausing, cracking up or fucking up the words.

Trivially easy. Where is this event. I'll even do it in a poorly constructed voice.

Do you really want to travel to upstate NY in the dead of winter to read old sci-fi in a small room full of nerds who haven't washed for 48 hours despite playing board games all night and Dance Dance Revolution all day?

It's your funeral.

Edit: Goldspam deleted, please don't quote that stuff.