ChibiRisu-chan
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Below are the 4 most recent journal entries recorded in the "ChibiRisu-chan" journal:
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12:03 pm
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Well, I guess I've arrived? Musings on the sources of fanon / how weird it is to realize you are one
I just read a story that had a piece of FF7:AC fanon being used as though it were canon.
What was really funny, though, was that it was a piece of fanon I'd made up. For a series that's only got three posts in it so far. I'm half flattered (people think it's plausible enough to take!) and half embarrassed (it's fanon that's GOT actual canon in its place that I just didn't use, which is a bit more awkward to try to explain than fanon that's making up for a gap in canon).
It's happened to me before -- I made up the 'four days in Wutai' story as part of the explaining-Sephiroth's-uniform fic I wrote for Ciceqi, and someone else took that and made references to it as though it were canon rather than mine.
It's just a little odd to see things that you totally invented because you didn't have background to work with being turned around and relied on as authoritative by other fanfic writers? Especially since they didn't know that what they were picking up wasn't canon.
For the record?
'Four days in Wutai,' the photographer, the PR lady, the raincoat, and everything else in here is fanon I made up. Except the character names, of course.
Likewise, the 'Strength, Wisdom, and Vessel' division is fanon I made up for the 25-streetsigns fics. Their canon divisions are that Kadaj is Sephiroth's cruelty, Loz is his strength (I kept that part because it was just too perfect), and Yazoo is his beauty/his allure. I think that distinction came out of the Ultimania guide.
I've got to admit I made it up because I thought Yazoo needed SOMETHING to make him distinct and to give him a personality, because 'beauty and allure' is pretty much surface and doesn't really give a writer a personality to get hooks into. Which with his, what, two or three lines of dialogue in the whole movie? Yeah, I kinda had to make it up in order to *give* him a headspace to get into... ^^;;;
But I wouldn't want people to go around thinking it was canon, when it's just something I'd structurally needed to make that series work. I feel badly about using something counter-canon and having it get taken for authoritative...
ETA: All smoothed out -- writer & I have chatted this one over! There are a lot of parallels between the motorcycle-ride/comic-blackmailing-Seph/OT4 picnic/Aeris-as-pie-baker sequence in this fic, when I wrote that series of events for Ciceqi in the Terrorist Activities fic she was kind enough to make part of her Mascotverse. But the writer says that it wasn't intentional and will give a reference, so I'm cool with that.
Anyway. Gotta get back to work. Just thought I should mention it, because it's really, really bizarre being taken for canon when you haven't even had the chance to play the game itself...
Tags: ffvii, fic advice, fics, wtf mate
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09:34 pm
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Advice for fic writers 101: Look up your character's name FIRST.
I was clicking around the Pit of Voles and my brain came to a screeching halt at a FF.net summary. Yes, even more than usual.
...I didn't even read the fic; the summary itself was enough to strip all the gears in my head.
The writer in question invented an OC, and slapped a Japanese name on her (despite the fact that nobody has an actual Japanese-language first name in FFVII, not even Yuffie, but that wasn't the brain-stopper; I'm used to seeing that level of lack of attention to detail all the time).
No, the show-stopper was that the fic writer apparently picked Japanese sounds at random and came up with something that sounded like it could be a name.
...Only she basically named her love-interest OC 'stinking cheap whore.'
Kusami - 臭み - means "stench."
Yasune - 安値 - means "cheap to buy."
I didn't even read the fic; I probably should have, but I just had to go "uh... do you know what you just did?" even more urgently. And I don't think I COULD read a fic involving Sephiroth-romantic-love-interest-OC named "cheap stinking whore." I just couldn't make my brain not make that association with those sounds.
...It's like asking someone to read a fic with a character named Sunny Bluebell who's supposed to be an emo cutting goth. The image presented by the name's connotations so completely overrides whatever's presented in the story that it's mental whiplash.
So I'm passing along this tidbit of fanfiction writing advice, for the collections of Asuka and anybody else who's assembling "fanfiction 101 tips" for newbies:
DON'T just pick sounds and use them for names. And DON'T just pick names out of a baby name book. Especially in an Asian language. Because when you end up writing the characters in romaji, you're going to end up with something that probably sounds like half a dozen other words that may well be more common than the reading you thought you were using. LOOK UP THE NAME ITSELF in a DICTIONARY, not just a baby name book. Half the writers of those things never did their research anyway.
It really helps to know some basic conjugations while you're at it, but even if you don't know any conjugations, several online dictionaries would have given you these readings from this pronunciation.
Please, aspiring fic-writer-wannabes, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE look things up. Those of us who actually speak the other languages you're targeting will thank you.
Current Mood:  ...gobsmacked
Tags: fic advice, wtf mate
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12:03 pm
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brain hurts
I've just read fic that makes my brain hurt. And if it makes MY brain hurt, that's kind of scary.
The author's logic apparently went like this:
Sephiroth and Cloud are obviously made for each other but they can't do anything because they're both ew BOYS so I know, I'll make Cloud a girl and oh yeah also Sailor Moon, and then it'll all be good! **hearts and sparkles**
I've seen some odd ways to get around yaoi aversion, but I think this takes the cake.
I wish I was kidding about Cloud being Sailor Moon under an alias. She doesn't call him/her Sailor Moon, but she's got long blonde hair that gets part tied up in buns on either side of her head and she wears a white princess dress and a tiara (while romping in the mud with kids no less) and she's bubbly and outgoing and feminine and... and...
whimper.
I have no business being squicked by nearly anything, considering my writing history, but... but... I write FANFIC. I write fanfic because I like the characters for who they are. Iruka is still Iruka, still throws explosive temper tantrums and worries about Naruto and anyone else in range and he has a solid sense of who he is. I didn't turn Iruka into, say, someone from Azumanga Daioh, or Fruits Basket, or anything else.
I guess my advice to wannabe fanfic writers everywhere would be: If you want to write a Final Fantasy/Sailor Moon crossover, just write a Final Fantasy/Sailor Moon crossover. Please don't do bloody violence to fundamental canon personality facts just because you're in denial about whether or not you're considering writing about what would be a homosexual pair if you hadn't turned him into Sailor Moon...?
whimpers more...
Tags: fic advice, wtf mate
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12:13 am
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KILL MAIM DESTROY
My latest review:
Asa ReMe
abgelus_dieing@yahoo.com
2005-11-18
ch 2, anon. Dude, do you understand or even know what the word update means? The means adding a new chapter to the story you've writing and not yet finished, so why don't you do just that, hmm? I would really like to know what happens next.
.........There are no words for how pissed off I am right now.
Fuck it, I'm going to sleep, and I'm saying screw FF.net for a full month beyond whenever I finish a next chapter on anything because I am SO GODDAMN SICK of these idiots with their entitlement issues and the idea that fanfiction is some kind of right rather than something I do when time allows because it DAMN WELL DOES NOT PAY MY BILLS.
Thanks for pushing me right over the edge, you ungrateful son of a bitch. Even the death threats didn't get me this pissed off.
Current Mood:  so damn far beyond furious...
Tags: fic advice, side effects, wtf mate
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