What are you reading?

[Anastasia]

This should be a no-brainer, but how many fics are there where the writer has obviously seen or read little or none of the original series? Or if they have seen it, they sure didn't pay attention.

There's a third reason here: The author has lost track of canon in favor of fanon. Not all fanon is bad, but it can be easy to let bullshit slip in after the tenth or twentieth time you've read it.

[Dracos]

As an interesting alternative, they may also have rejected the canon.

I know there's several series I do that with at this point.  Naruto fanon is far more intriguing usually than the canon.  I flat out ignore the continuation of Nanoha stuff, pretending the canon ended where it was still fun.  And while I can't remember other cases, I know there are there.

It's a complicated play.  Louise and Saito's interplay in canon is meant to appeal to certain things 'fantasies'.  A great deal of folks aren't really down with that, but willing go with some replacement for Saito that completely destroys that dynamic, converting louise into a significantly different character from the very get-go.  Hill of Swords seriously contributed to folks doing that a lot more.  It's an element of canon that folks find inconvenient, so they wipe it away when they want to do fanfiction there.

[Brian]

I call it the "Everyone likes to see their favorite characters get powerups and do awesome things," principle, or "the principle of concentrated awesome" for short.

On THAT note, thanks to Drac's suggestion, I'm reading A Few Angry Words (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4251989/50/A_Few_Angry_Words).  To be honest, I have no idea how much of the stuff that the author is drawing from is based on Naruto canon I gave up on (quit after the timeskip -- that was when they dropped the pretense they were anything other than a DBZ clone in terms of pace and plotting).  I'm still enjoying it, if I'm somewhat staggered by the sheer volume of reviews it's received (/jealous).

It is not without its flaws -- the matchup is incredibly early into the story, so there's not a lot of dramatic tension on that count.  This is easily explicable because the story was intended to be a oneshot, not a series.  From there, my main complaint is that the author on occasion writes sidestories that are AU to his own fic (basically Bummer Flashforwards).  Non-cannon stuff about the premise of the fic failing.

I know I could give the fic an actual summary instead of being vague about it, but the truth of the matter is I can't think of a better summary of the story than reading the first chapter. :p

[Dracos]

Most Naruto/Hinata fanfics that I've encountered have the matchup very early and play off of other reasons why they might fail to get their happy ending.  I believe they do this because really the matchup does have a lot of legitimate and interesting conflicts to overcome with accepting the 'they just click' premise.  One character is unaware and the other is terminally shy.  Whatever.  Fine.  Someone breaks the ice, now you have your somewhat happy couple.

But wait.  Naruto in fanon is easily played up into a target, a political catspaw, an outcast demon, an unloved orphan (His clan unknown).  He has a whole swarm of very dangerous enemies outside the village, and with fanon involved, often inside the village as well.  Basically, a bunch of reasons to interfere with the match and capable dangers.

Hinata meanwhile can nicely drift between unattainable clan princess and abused child.  Sometimes both at the same time.  She can easily have folks that would disrupt the matchup both in her own family and just to screw with her clan.  She also has generally the overhanging axe of being unworthy and getting branded, which while non-disruptive tends to give the new couple a huge challenge to overcome.

In other words, the success of the romance can easily be pushed into question without there being direction conflict between the primary participants, so rarely do they choose to make the actual romance the conflict.  It falls into something more akin to a Romeo and Juilet setup: Sure they love each other.  Fine.  Now can they get married without everybody killing each other?

[Edward]

I suppose I've mentally accepted that an SI that is warped in for whatever reason to a universe they already know is less annoying than one where it's taken for granted by everyone that Cologne has a superpowerful niece that just happens to have always been there, even though they're both SIs.

I'll agree that an unabashed SI is better than a SI masquerading as an OC, but only the worst OCs are as bad as an SI.

An SI is always the center of the story, they're always too powerful, almost always too popular, usually have no logical reason to be involved, typically have no flaws, and often serve as a vehicle for the author to rant their views about the characters, real world politics, or religion.

An OC may not have any of these problems and when they do, they're usually less bad than an SI.

For good OCs you need look no farther than Brian Randall's works. From the supporting military characters in Process of Elimination, to Ranma's cousin in And Lo the Mighty Have Fallen, none of them have any of these problems. None of his OCs are Annoying New Characters and I wish more people followed his example.

Basically I think the conceit of 'knowing what is going on' and/or the conceit of 'knowing the tropes of the universe (and they work for you!)' can be fun as fic concept and is sometimes conveniently accessible by using an author narrative for it.  It's also almost always averted with 'So you know what's going on, but now that you've acted on it, everything you know is wrong' or 'You don't belong.  You really don't belong'.

I've never seen it averted  People who indulge in wish fiction are all about feeling smarter, cooler, more powerful, and more popular than they are in real life.  As you pointed out in an ECB, they're the types who think a sporting event where the home team scores ten times as many points as the losers do is somehow better than a tense game that anybody could have won before the home team comes from behind and wins by a single point.

End-of-series-Akane goes back in time and effortlessly solves all her problems is about as exciting as reading the phone book.

End-of-series-Akane goes back in time makes a bad situation worse could be a great fic. Maybe only Akane's spirit goes back and her past self thinks she's developing a split personality and going insane. Maybe Akane's spirit ends up in Kodachi's body. Or Sentaro's. Maybe Akane goes back physically, but the early version doesn't believe her and does things that make it worse.  Maybe both Akanes end up rivals with each other.

Maybe someday someone will write that fic. It could be good.

[Edward]

There's a third reason here: The author has lost track of canon in favor of fanon. Not all fanon is bad, but it can be easy to let bullshit slip in after the tenth or twentieth time you've read it.

That still falls under my point that they need to read the original series. If an author chooses to uses fanon, that's okay. If an author is having trouble knowing what is fanon, they need to spend more time reading the original series.

As an interesting alternative, they may also have rejected the canon.

Authors who merely make changes to the setting do not leave the readers wondering if they have never read the original series. All fic authors change the original setting. My objection is not to change. My objection is to it being badly done.

If an author thinks the Phoenix Mountain storyline was too much darkness and drama for the Ranma series, then they need to credibly manipulate events so it doesn't happen in their story, not pretend Ms. Takahashi never wrote it.  If an author wants their favorite character to be a peerless saint and their most hated character to be soulless monster, they need to credibly show how the characters became that, not pretend fanon caricature-ization is canon.

I'm talking about authors like Skysaber or Kaiphantom who substitute their own version for the setting and think it's canon. Or that Ranma-LotR cross that featured a stupid and annoying Ranma-shaped entity that had a fanon distain for weapons and mindlessly clung to it even after people started dying. The typical fic that substitutes canon with fanon does it with all the subtlety of a train wreck.  (Or Kaiphantom with the copy-paste function.)

[Edward]

I call it the "Everyone likes to see their favorite characters get powerups and do awesome things," principle, or "the principle of concentrated awesome" for short.

Actually, most powerup fics suck since they miss the second half of that. Watching your favorite character get a powerup and do nothing with it is boring. Watching your favorite character get a powerup and effortlessly beat people who used to be a challenge turns your favorite character into a pathetic bully.

Your fics are notable and excellent exceptions, but they are exceptions.

[thepanda]

Really, reading the original series should be required. The only problem is when you have multiple continuities. Like how after the first season Ranma anime only barely resembles the manga, and don't even let me get started on Sailor Moon. Especially anything concerning Stars.

[Dracos]

You go after 'easy' ones.

There's a handful of anime that have 3 or more active continuties.  Such as Tenchi.

[Edward]

Or El Hazard.

But even with multiple continuities, there are authors who don't seem familiar with any of them. Near as I can tell they base their fics on other fics or online rants.

[thepanda]

Or El Hazard.

But even with multiple continuities, there are authors who don't seem familiar with any of them. Near as I can tell they base their fics on other fics or online rants.

More or less the entire Gundam Wing fandom before cartoon network aired  it. People writing characters based on fics based on other fics based on dodgy plot summaries and characters shrines. Or Yu Yu Hakusho, come to think of it. Yaoi fangirls are a terrible force.

[Brian]

Phil, being an aspect of evil incarnate, has declared war against my productivity.

So.  Incomplete:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/1/Team_8

Naruto gets switched with Kiba when teams are picked out.  How does our kyuubi-sealing prodigy deal with being partnered with Aburame Shino and Hyuugu Hinata?  (This one is trying for the Principle of Concentrated Awesome, but depending on how the author handles things, it MAY go the character-shaped-entity route -- amusing so far.)

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644/1/bTime_b_bBraid_b

A little bit of Naruto meets Higurashi, actually--  The chunin exam loops around like Groundhog Day, and Sakura is tired of being such a fragile wuss....  Probably, everyone's terribly OOC, but then, give them a few years of living the same months out over and over again, and it all seems justifiable to me.  A bit, ah, risque in places (kinda surprised me), but generally, quite fun.

These may have been linked elsewhere, but they're what I'm reading. :)

[Dracos]

Time Braid is regularly being updated on usually a <monthly scale.

Team 8 is more along every 3 months I think?  It does give fairly meaty chapters though.

[Dracos]

Rez lured me into some Harry Potter as a Sociopathic Scientist Mage fic.  It is ridiculously long.

I am some 20something chapters into it.  It's also fairly amusing.  On what it currently appears, harry would try and obliterate the mage world to protect the modern world.  If push came to shove.

[Brian]

Harry Potter and the somethingsomething of Rationality?

Yeah, that's mentioned on dozens (probably hundreds, now) of tvtrropes pages.  Despite the fact that this makes me and the author of this story indirect rivals (to use more tropes), I haven't read it.

I've manged to resist reading potter fiction (which is especially funny to me, since I've actually read all the books).