Yet another point-by-point post

[nekokoban]

EDIT: Point 6?!

My hair smells like peanut butter.

What the hell.

/EDIT

Point 1!

I have the bestest roommate that ever roommate'd (miss_arel). Yes, even better than yours. Because when I wibbled and couldn't narrow down what I wanted for my birthday to a single choice, she drew me BOTH.

Odin Sphere (Mercedes and Ingway)

and

Dresden Files/Supernatural (bitty Winchesters + so-not-bitty dog)

:D :D :D See how awesome she is?

Point 2!

I am still doing that meme. You remember, from like last month? (Which granted, was only a week ago.) I WILL DO IT THIS WEEKEND. Y'know, once I've got more written on my NaNo. :|b

Point 3!

Am I the only one who notices this weird -- trend, sort of? -- between those who write fic primarily in western TV fandoms versus those who write fic primarily for game/anime/manga fandoms? I'm not talking in terms of nebulous quality; I've seen it argued quite passionately that western fandoms have overall higher quality, something to do with an older group of writers, but I've seen both fantastic and really drektastically awful fic for both sets, and I'm not convinced this is correct.

HOWEVER, there is definitely this weird ... disconnect? I think? It feels like in a blind writing sample, you could point at person A and say, this person is mostly for western fandoms, and B is definitely a game/animanga person. I'd almost classify it as "grittiness" versus "smoothness," though that's not even it, either. It just really feels that way to me, for whatever peculiar reason.

(I was, obviously, never an English student. Maybe if I was, I'd be able to quantify this impression, or at least explain myself better. This is what you get instead!)

... bah.

Point 4!

No, seriously, guys, why isn't there more fic with Allen's childhood among the traveling performers? That'd be sort of awesome. D:

Point 5 (the end)!

I got another smiley face drawn on my Starbucks cup. :) I wonder if I should feel embarrassed that they know my order pretty much by heart, but the smiley face sort of makes me ridiculously pleased. :)

Comments

[halcyonjazz.livejournal.com]

3. I noticed a slight stylistic difference between western vs anime/manga fandom fics. I don't know exactly WHAT the difference is specifically, but there is one. SO YOU'RE NOT ALONE.

4. I don't know. I want fic of Allen with traveling performers. Him being an ex-circus performer is AWESOME but the fandom is obsessed with gay between the three male leads instead orz

[halcyonjazz.livejournal.com]

Also I forget to comment on Arel's post but I want !!!! !!!!! !!!!! all at once at Mercedes and Ingway. They are just <3 <3 <3

[nekokoban]

When she showed it to me while it was in progress I went :D :D :D :D :D at her a lot. She was like, "there was a lot of negative space! So I decided that since Mercedes must be super-light, Ingway took advantage of that," and I was like I APPROVE.

♥♥♥

[nekokoban]

3. That is good to know! I've been reading a lot more in western fandoms these days, but I still WRITE primarily in anime/manga/game fandoms, so the difference feels like it's really apparent, I just don't know how to properly express it. D:

4. SERIOUSLY WTF. I love that bit about Allen's past, and how Mana is always shown in a top hat -- I want to see more of that! But nooooo, everyone seems to want the gay instead. :\ (And granted, looking at Khanda's new sweater, I can see why, but still. Bitty circus-performer Allen! HOW CUTE IS THAT.)

I need an "orz" icon.

[grendelity.livejournal.com]

Point 3 is very interesting to think about, and I kind of want to say it's the same for art styles, though it's easier to see in visual elements. Like manga verses Western comic books; the flow is different, different things are emphasized. I hadn't really thought about it in writing, though, because fandom is so hard to browse through. And...I don't think I've ever actually read Western fandom fic. XD I just...I don't watch TV, that's a big thing. I miss out on a lot of stuff that everyone else knows about. Do you think that Western fandom includes book fandoms, like Good Omens or His Dark Materials, etc? Because writing for a written work would come across differently than writing for a Western live-action thing.

I wish there was a way to actually study that. The stats would probably be very interesting.

[nekokoban]

I think with art it's more obvious -- though to be fair, I don't really see as much fanart for western fandoms as much as I do photomanips and such. Also, admittedly, the only western comic books I follow are/were the Sandman and Jhonen Vasquez's stuff; I keep thinking about getting into more (since I live upstairs of a comic shop and a friend in my building collects something like twenty titles? ish?) -- but the point is that I am not terribly familiar with western comic "style" other than some really famous and/or glaring examples. Until about a year ago, the only TV I watched, when I even did, was pretty much, like, Food Network and Discovery Channel; then I got introduced to the new Doctor Who series, and Supernatural, and those are both pretty thriving fandoms. XD

I haven't read a whole lot of bookfic, though; to be honest, most of the book fandoms I'd like to see more of tend to shade towards the quiet/dead fandoms (YET AGAIN WOE). I did notice that Doctor Who fic tends to fall inbetween the "this" of American shows and the "that" of Japanese fandoms; I'm not sure if this is meaningful or signifigant -- I'm not even sure if you CAN quantify it, even, but it's THERE, I swear.

I feel a little better that I'm not the only one thinking it. XD

[nagaina-ryuuoh.livejournal.com]

Point 4: I think a certain amount of the reluctance arises from a) fandom's almost pathological unwillingness to tackle defining Mana Walker in any way and b) fandom's inability to convincingly write anyone below the age of fifteen. :P

That being said, I have a couple Allen childhood fics perculating in my head. It's a slow perk, because I'm living on two hours of sleep a night, but it occasionally puts up a bubble, I SWEAR.

[nekokoban]

... man, I would love to see more of Mana defined -- there's one doujinshika whose stuff I always buy, even though she's primarily Khanda/Allen, because she almost always has a short story at the end with tiny!Allen and Mana, and those are just tooth-rottingly adorable. I can't wait to get caught up on the manga, because I keep seeing your posts theorizing about Mana being the lost Noah (which is something I'd jokingly wondered about, back when the idea was first introduced, then promptly forgot) -- because dude! I'd love to see more of Mana, period.

(Is it also fair to say that fandom doesn't want to write anyone under fifteen, because then suddenly you can't have teh ghei any more? :p)

I think it would be sheer awesome if you wrote anything about Allen's childhood, though. I will cheer you on, once you're more rested! /o/

[sarraceniaceae.livejournal.com]

Point 3: I've actually seen that too, and I think grittiness is about as good a word to describe it as I've seen. Western fandoms (in my admittedly limited experience) seem to focus more on the more somber stuff and more on the everyday nature of life, while anime/manga fandoms seem to focus more on the extremities. I want to say western tv fandoms focus more on a missing episode style of writing while anime/manga focuses more on behind the scenes type of writing. ...That isn't quite right, somehow, and I can't quite figure out what the right thing is. But I have seen this too.

[nekokoban]

Certainly, I've seen more in the trend of "codas" and specific episodic references in western fandoms; a lot of western-fandom fic seems to try and fit itself within the context of the show -- a sort of "hey, this happened between episode X and episode Y" thing -- whereas a lot of animanga fandoms are more ... general? Narrow(er) focus versus wide(r) focus, or something similiar; there's also, I've noticed, a dearth of longer "case" fics in animanga fandom (or, okay, in MY fandoms, but I'm speaking from my own experiences/readings, here *g*), whereas western fandoms tend to do those more.

Also, I don't know what it is, but me personally, I've a harder time picturing a character portrayed by an actor, and visualizing how he/she will react to a situation, versus a drawn character (or a sprite, either/or) -- this might just be my immersiion in anime/manga/game fandoms, but it's one of the problems I have with trying to write in any of my western fandoms. o_oa

[sarraceniaceae.livejournal.com]

I've noticed the lack of case fics too, actually. It isn't quite a matter of lacking longer fics in the anime/manga fandom, since I haven't really noticed that much of a difference in fanfic length over fandoms, it's more... western fandoms seem to put more emphasis on trying recreate the series, while anime/manga tends to put more emphasis on expanding on the base the series gives them. I almost want to blame it on the fact that western tv tends to be a lot more episodic in nature, which makes it easier to write both missing episodes and codas to specific episodes, while anime/manga (at least in my limited experience) more likely to have more of an overarching plotline. But then there's stuff like Saiyuki, and Wallflower, and xxxHolic, that are all pretty episodic as in you can come in at any point and all you have to know is a few basic background facts.

That's an interesting problem. I...have issues with writing real person fic, and I have noticed it occasionally bleeding over into my occasional attempts at writing about characters portrayed by an actor. Is that the source of your problem, do you think?

[nekokoban]

I would love to see more casefics in some of my fandoms -- tactics most definitely, but HOLiC and Mononoke, too. But we have things like Tsubasa, where CLAMP has actually explicitly said that they've gathered more of Sakura's feathers than the series itself actually shows -- and yet, nine times out of ten, the fic I've found are shipping fic, or short oneshots. And certainly I'm guilty of that, too, but still! I feel like there should be more casefic out there. :|b

And that is definitely a problem of mine. It's not something I think of deliberately, but I am very uncomfortable with RPF, and I suspect I have a hard time, on some subconscious lizard hindbrain level, disconnecting actor from his/her characters. Which is less a commentary on how good the actors are (because in the western fandoms I watch, they're fantastic), and more of "gosh, you're kind of neurotic, aren't you, self?" *g*

Weirdly, this does not extend to my icon-making, as I can gleefully take caps of actors making bizarre faces and substitute them for my own. XD

[jpegasus.livejournal.com]

maybe it has something to do with how anime and manga fandoms seem to be able to take subjects that might be sort of...disturbing, and still make it seem artistic.

whereas if it shows up in western media it's really more for the shock value, or to "challenge your way of thinking" and that, uh, rubs off on the fic?

I dunno. I'm very tired.

and hm, I don't know. MY roomate wakes me up with snuggles, and makes me tasty foods. I think my roomate is pretty damn awesome. ;D

[nekokoban]

Possibly -- I know I do get the feeling of "shock value" a lot more in western fandoms than J-fandoms, but it might also be because, well, I was born and raised in a western society and I see things a certain way? For all I know, some of the stuff that happens in J-fandoms is also deliberately shocking to their original target audience, as well. I'd like to think that the dissonance is getting better, though; Supernatural, for example, handled the whole religion/faith/reality of God and His angels thing extremely well, better than a lot of shows I've seen.

It's like this elusive something, and I'm not smart enough to put it into words.

And I never said other peoples' roommates weren't awesome, because yours is too! But I got my presents last night, I'm allowed to gloat and declare mine bestest in the world. XD

[flamebyrd]

3. I've made that observation myself before. "Grittiness" is definitely a good word, I'm not sure about smoothness.

Hm, my thoughts are... 'Western' fandom is more grounded in reality, perhaps. I get a feeling that it's set in the 'real world', with all its baggage and issues. Even when it's not set in the real world, although offhand I can't actually think of a blatantly non-earth with non-earth-humans fandom I've read in.

Thus with slash you get a lot of dealing with homophobia which is mostly absent from s-ai/yaoi fanfic.

At any rate, my impression was always that 'western' fanfic was intended to be more 'realistic' than animanga fic.

Hmm... From Eroica With Love is a manga series that had a primarily western fandom (ie. not just the animanga types), at least it was when I was reading it way way back, it might be interesting to go back to it and have a think about writing styles.

[flamebyrd]

I'll also agree that "this read just like an episode of the show!" is seldom a priority for animanga fanfic writers. Could it be that they're almost always writing from a translation, which at least to me always has this nebulous feeling of "I have an pretty good impression of what this was about but I don't want to put words into the author's mouth".

*thinks* You know, I'm not sure that actually made sense.

[nekokoban]

[laughs] A few months ago, I had another moment of writing meta where I wondered about how the language of characters is different, depending on whether you're writing for characters who are already speaking English (i.e., western fandoms, less of J-fandoms that are supposedly set in western settings) or translated characters. There is a certain flavor, at least for Japanese translations, that feels very distinct to me; it's the way they talk, which is certainly a lot more roundabout and less blunt than, say, you or me. *g*

I think it's very cool to think about all the different ways people talk, I'm just not very good at expressing it more than flailing and going BUT GUYS I THINK IT'S NEEEEAT. XD

[nekokoban]

I'm starting to think it may be the "reality" thing -- certainly, within the context of a story, the reality is the one the characters are in, two-dimensionally drawn or not, but there's still that feeling of being one step removed, because they ARE drawn/computer-generated.

I think it'd be interesting to compare where there's bleedover -- animanga types in western fandoms and viceversa -- and see where the styles of writing change depending on the fandom, or even if it DOES change. (I think it does; I suspect most of the reall good writers at least try to change their tone and HOW they write something to match the feeling of the series they're working with.)

I'd be curious to know what you think about the Eroica fandom, after consideration; that's not a series I ever followed, though I'm vaguely familiar with it -- and I do remember it wasn't your usual crowd of animanga fandom people (though this was yeeeeears ago, things very well may have changed) who followed it.

[harukami]

re: Point 3

I think what it is is that, overall, Western fandoms are mostly TV shows/movies, and even the ones based on the fantastic are supposed to be grounded in "reality", and as such, authors strive for a style that falls in line with the style of "realism". Meanwhile, no matter how realistic an anime/manga is, it's drawn and has a particular art style. And the authors who write in anime/manga tend -- or at least, so it's seem to me -- to aim to get a literary style that will compliment the art style in some way, find some way to get their writing style to portray the same setting/stylistic emotions in a text based medium that the art does in the anime/manga. For example, Loveless uses a lot of water-colour-based colouring, very fine lines, curls instead of straight lines, sylistic clothing choices, so fic for that fandom often takes on a slightly dreamy, vaguely meandering around the point to highlight the point. In contrast, Saiyuki is drawn with a lot of sharp edges, characters who glare a lot or, if they smile, do so with high energy or lazy smirking and no in between, lots of screentoning, lots of blood, so overall the Saiyuki fandom tends to have a lot 'blunter' text, more to the point (unless it's focussing on a character like Hakkai, who kind of talks in symbols a lot).

which is a looooong rambling way to say that my personal theory to that is that anime/manga writers attempt to convey the medium through text, while the majority of western fandoms are, well, live-action, so they're attempting to write in a traditionally realist style.

[nekokoban]

That's ... actually a really good way of putting it; I don't know if it's something one does consciously (but then, a lot of my writing habits are things I rarely think consciously about; I just sort of go with it *g*). About the only western fandom I can remember writing in recent memory is Firefly, and those were all River POV fics, and she's a sort of rambly disjointed dreamy speaker to begin with.

--and that's kind of a lie, what I said before; I know when I write Okami fic, I want the scenes to come across like they're animated in the game, all blunt rough lines and using a little to convey a lot. I admittedly haven't read a whole lot of Saiyuuki OR Loveless fic, but I could see that being the case. (The interesting thing, at least for me, is where the line of "reality" falls in these western fandoms, no matter how fantastical/weird/sci-fi-effect-y they are -- I suspect a lot of my problem for writing in western fandoms is that, on some level, I am uncomfortable with writing RPF, and some lizard part of my brain sees these actors portraying characters -- with possibly very little of their actual selves in the character -- and recoils from writing them, because I'm afraid of crossing that line. *g* That, however, is more of my particular issues with things rather than the original issue at hand.)

[harukami]

Yeah, I think in some ways it's conscious ("This series makes me feel like *this*, like the setting's all dreamy and slow, and I want to capture that!") and some ways it's really just something you do because when you're writing fanfic, you want it to feel 'genuine' to the original series and you're working for that without thinking about it so much.

Heh! The RPF thing is interesting. I just haven't had interest in writing for western fandoms myself, and I don't know why. I like to read in them, and things like that, but I've just not felt like writing. I honestly don't know why.

[nekokoban]

It's my opinion that the really good ficwriters are able to adapt subtly -- they change their styles depending on the story without changing their style, you know? It's something I'm still working on. XD

It's sad, because I would really like to write for Supernatural and/or Doctor Who, but. Every time I try, it's like there is this giant mental block, and the only thing I can think of that would trip me up is the RPF thing. Otherwise, it's like, I've got ideas, I've got about all the references I could want for both, but ... nothing.

On the other hand, a new animanga fandom, and there I go! Whoosh!

My head is a strange place sometimes. :|b

[moonsheen.livejournal.com]

MERCEDES AND INGWAY. Yes. I'm sorry I absolutely forgot to comment on your halloween ficbit with them but I will comment now to say how much I absolutely loved. And once again consider that shameful, shameful EVERYBODY LIVES AU I really shouldn't on good conscience ever write down.

I think there is very much a different...mind set, between western media fen and anime-fen. It shows especially when you get someone who comes primarily from one suddenly crossing over to write fic for the other. You can very much tell the difference in...tone. I'm not really sure what it is. All I can think is that often time fics based on television shows/books tend to definately be a lot...blunter, maybe? There's a different set of sensibilities being brought to the table, in the end.

[nekokoban]

MERCEDES AND INGWAY ARE SO CUTE♥ I'm glad you read and liked the Halloween fic, at least, thank you for doing so! ♥ (And I dunno, I totally think you should write the EVERYBODY LIVES AU. I really do. :Db)

There is definitely a disconnect of mindsets, I think, and I don't think it's even a conscious "this is how we think" and "this is how they think" -- it just seems to be there. It's peculiar. o_oa

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I've noticed the difference in anime vs western fic myself. It's hard to quantify and not absolute by any means, but it does show up. Some elements have been pointed out in comments above - Western fic tends to deal with situations and characters from a more 'realistic' aspect, while anime fic tends not to be so concerned with realism (though Western fandoms are usually either real-world or scifi, while as the majority of anime fandoms have some fantasy element, so that might be a function of interpreting canon?) Western fic also does seem to be more canon-focused - casefic, etc, creating "new episodes" fitting in canon, or missing scenes to eps; while anime fic is more likely to be AU or futurefic, extrapolating from canon (again, though, I wonder if this is a function of anime vs western or of the canon itself, since Western series tend to be more episodic while anime series tend to be more arc.)

I also think there's more gen in Western fandoms - it seems to me that in anime fandoms, "gen fic" generally refers to action or plot-based stories without much emphasis on character, and character-based stories are usually concerned with pairings; while many Western fandoms have gen contingents with stories focused on platonic character relationships (in addition to oodles of pairing stories, of course - but gen h/c is a staple of many Western fandoms, and all but unknown in most anime fandoms. Or maybe it's just the fandoms I've been in?) Then there's the differences between slash fic and yaoi fic (I mean Western-fen yaoi, which is different again from Japanese BL...)

I wonder myself if my own fic style comes across as more anime or more Western - I suspect Western, since that's where I started, and to be honest I tend to prefer Western-fandom fic myself. But I've written more anime fic than most Western-fanfic'ers, I'm pretty sure...

[nekokoban]

I think I would definitely go for the "realism" argument, though my feelings of "gritty" still seems to fit as well; a western fic will have the characters swearing more, with earthier harder language than you see in a lot of anime/manga fic (or game fic, for that matter) -- and again, it may go back to a translation issue, of how a character actually talks and how it gets translated for English-speakin fandom.

See, maybe it's showing my fandom roots, here, but I do tend to think of "gen fic" as action/plotty stories (case fic, if you will), and I think of it as a separate character from, say, character-centric stories. Under a broader umbrella, you can argue that, but in my own head, at least, I almost feel like they're two separate categories. (And to be entirely honest, I'm not used to h/c in most of my animanga fandoms in general -- not in the strictest sense of "A is badly hurt in some fashion and B cares for him" -- the h/c tends to be a flavoring, I guess? to a longer story, or people are just writing the "c" part after the "h" happens in canon.)

I've honestly not read much of your fic recently (the Supernatural/Dresden Files snippet aside), since you've been posting in fandoms I don't recognize, but I don't recognize as much disconnect when reading your fic as I do when reading people in primarily western fandoms.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

The translation issue is a big one...it's weird writing Western fandom dialogue after I've been doing anime fic for a while, because with the Western stuff I can actually imagine the character's voices saying the lines, rather than just approximating.

See, maybe it's showing my fandom roots, here, but I do tend to think of "gen fic" as action/plotty stories (case fic, if you will), and I think of it as a separate character from, say, character-centric stories.

Ah-ha, that really is a major difference of definition, then. In most Western fandoms I've been in, gen fic is any fic that doesn't have pairings, and can be character-oriented or not (yet again, this might be because of differences in canon - a lot of anime fandoms have canonical couples, or very close; while the majority of Western fandoms - action and scifi, anyway - will have UST but few developed relationships.) There's often a divide between gen/smarm and slash fen - this divide isn't as common in animanga fandom, or if it is it tends to be between yaoi and het shippers.

So when you read my anime fic, it didn't strike you as being in 'Western style'? Hmm...

[nekokoban]

See, I don't pretend to know a lot of Japanese, but a lot of times in my head, I can easily hear the characters saying what I'm writing, and it's like ... it IS in Japanese, but not? It's their voices saying the dialogue, but it feels more intuitive rather than stricly one or the other language. On the other hand, I do think the lost-in-translation accounts for a lot of strangness.

I think there's also a lot more of the obvious "A and B are going to get together" as an accepted fact in J-fandoms than western fandoms, which like you said, seem to go more for the UST that mayyyyy or may not come together. I DO get the idea of gen fic being fic without pairings -- and when you get down to it, that is how I'd define it, but it feels like there are separate categories of gen, and they're very different beasts.

Like I said, it has been a while -- and I think you're a lot more strongly western-style influenced (if that makes sense) than, say, harukami, but it's "more familiar," in a way, than if I were to go pick up some random Supernatural fic, whose author is firmly entrenched in western fandoms, and read that.

[karcy.livejournal.com]

I think you hit a point about anime vs. western fic. I simply cannot write Western fic.

I *think* that if I were to write a Western fic, I would have to imagine if this character/person/actor would really do this thing; I'd have to imagine them really walking across a room and then describing them walking across the room. I have this problem when I'm writing original fic based on supposedly RL settings. When I'm writing based on anime, I'm not concerned by what the characters do or how believable they are. The 'themes' that I want to convey come first, and the movements and things said by the characters come second.

[nekokoban]

It makes me kind of sad, really! *g* I would really like to write for more western fandoms (or, at least, the live-action TV shows), but ... as I mentioned above, I can have ideas and drive and all the source material I'd need for reference, and it just ... goes nowhere and/or feels awkward, and I can't manage it. :\

Though for me, fic is primarily about getting your characters right; I would argue that's the reason one writes fic in the first place -- to expand on the wacky misadventures of characters they enjoyed in canon. *g* On the other hand, I do think that theme and mood are also really important to the fic, and should be taken into consideration, too.

But I am still oddly weirded out by the "real person"-ness of it all. XD;

[sharky-chan.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about this western vs anime/game fandom thing. Do you have any specific examples of differences in style?

[nekokoban]

Not anything hugely off the top of my head, honestly; I've been reading a lot of Supernatural fic these days, though, and it's not like the basic plot is much different from some of the J-fandoms I follow, but the styles people use just feel different, in reading.

I would say "maybe it's just me," but there are enough people agreeing with me that I'm not sure that's the case. XD