General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

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tehprognoob
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

technically, the setting is pre-cb era 00, but i suppose the concepts should be the same. Eh, right, i m readind IVDVB right now; it's quite long, but frankly the amount of general info in it on history and music are quite impressive. I dont suppose a story about a bunch of Union screwups and their bribed-into-the command hotshot commander isn't too cliche?
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

As with most ideas, it will depend on the execution. Frankly, it's very difficult to come up with a genre-shaking new concept, because as a species we've been telling fantasy stories for thousands of years, and science fiction ones for between five hundred and a thousand.

Bunch of Union screwups? The group-of-screwy-characters is one of the oldest tropes in the history of storytelling. The reason it's still around, however, is because it's entertaining when it's done well. A bribed-to-command officer? Why does this hotshot need to be bribed, or why do The Powers That Be think this is the commander for them? It's how such issues play out that will likely determine how successful you are with the story.

Pegasus brought up a good point on themes. Any story with a coherent plot needs a theme it's trying to get across. Some stories without coherent meta-plots (sitcoms, for instance) may or may not have an overall theme. Much of fanfiction attempts to have a plot, and tends to break down when it doesn't. What the theme is should influence how the characters behave and grow.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

MBF-06/ZGMF-X12A Arbiter wrote:I've been poking around on the UC Gundam section of FF.net and I have only found a few good fics among some 10 pages of fics. Why do you suppose that is?
I'd say it's because unlike most fandoms, writers have some sort of antipathy to using the wonderful UC characters we're given in canon, for some reason.

Now why is that?

I want to read about Tomino's characters; I don't want to read about "yours".
Vent Noir wrote:I get that he PO'd a lot of people in Destiny, but by this point I feel people should give him a break, if only because it's become a cliche.
True; much as I sincerely dislike Kira, even I've gotten to the point where I can feel things like pity instead of/and/or/in addition to disgust...
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

harotype wrote: I'd say it's because unlike most fandoms, writers have some sort of antipathy to using the wonderful UC characters we're given in canon, for some reason.

Now why is that?
Actually you've hit the nail on the head of what i was mainly driving at. I think I've found... maybe a dozen fics that have to do with the actual characters of UC Gundam. Ah, make that a dozen good fics.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

I can only speak for myself but I never felt comfortable using the characters from the existing Gundam stories. Also for the most part the stories for those characters had already been told so there was nothing substantive for me to add.

I also felt that it was the job of a fan fiction writer to pad out the universe. For example just what the hell was most of the AEUG during for the Gryps Conflict? From the TV series they didn't seem to do much at all. I chose to set my main fic during the Gryps Conflict to try and give it some of the depth that I felt was missing from the series.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

MBF-06/ZGMF-X12A Arbiter wrote:
harotype wrote: I'd say it's because unlike most fandoms, writers have some sort of antipathy to using the wonderful UC characters we're given in canon, for some reason.

Now why is that?
Actually you've hit the nail on the head of what i was mainly driving at. I think I've found... maybe a dozen fics that have to do with the actual characters of UC Gundam. Ah, make that a dozen good fics.
Part of it could be that not everyone thinks Tomino's characters are "wonderful." I, personally, believe that characterization is one of Tomino's weak points (right up there with, you know, plot construction). But, as Pegasus points out, most of the characters in the animation have their stories told in great detail. We know what Amuro did in MSG, because he was always shown doing it. Are there holes for other characters, the people who aren't traveling with Our Hero? Sure. Someone could write about the first half of Char's patrol which ultimately culminates in him stumbling across White Base. I've never been interested in that, personally, because I think Char's a boring douchebag. So maybe someone could write about Matilda Ajan, and all the places she goes to do resupply missions that aren't the White Base, except that'd probably be boring as hell. Where's the hook for Ramba Ral-in-Space? At that time, there weren't any Federation MS for him to tangle with, so the battles would probably be boring. It'd have to be a politics-based conflict, him trying to get himself promoted, and getting smacked down because his father was a traitor to the Zabis. Doesn't sound very promising, either, and with a lot of potential for making Ral less sympathetic as a character (after all, half his motivation for being on Earth in MSG is because he's angling for a promotion...).

Authors don't necessarily write to gratify specific fan desires. There are a lot who do, of course; that's what the entire "Fan-wanking over romance" category I mentioned is. However, these stories trend to being lower-quality, because the authors capable of telling interesting stories seem to prefer telling stories about their own characters. The much-touted In Vain Doth Valour Bleed, for example, uses it's own cast of characters, while the canon Gundam cast is off doing their own thing. This could be an intellectual propriety issue. I write my own characters because they're mine. I don't write Tomino's characters because they're his. When I think about doing Star Wars stories, I also avoid the established characters there; they're not mine, either, and I'm not so arrogant as to believe I know more about them than their creators. All too often I see criticism complaining that fanfic authors mis-characterize or mis-use canon characters. And a fanbase as vocal as Gundam's tends to make that worse. This adds a whole additional level of disincentive for using established characters in fanfiction. Sure, you can't please everyone, and one great truism of fanfic writing is that Someone Will Always Think It Sucks, and tell you. Probably without explaining why they think that way.

The stories I want to tell aren't those of the established cast, but those of other people and what they do during the established events, and how those events impact them. If you, as a reader, aren't interested in reading about anyone other than the established cast, that's fine. Feel free to not read my work; that won't bother me in the slightest.

Of course, the constant danger here is making original characters who are more badass than the established cast, who are largely famous in-universe for being the biggest badasses around. This is the problem I credit with why there are so few good fanfiction stories. Too many people (authors and readers alike) believe that the only way to make a character appealing is to make them take multiple levels of badass. Curiously, I've also seen readers complain that characters who are likeable are too badass, even when said character finishes a seven-part story with only three MS kills, while multiple other characters have a dozen or more. I found that amusing, because it seems like the badass = likeable thing is assumed to go in both directions; only badasses are likeable, so anyone likeable must be a badass, regardless of demonstrated abilities.

Some story ideas that would be interesting, using the established characters...Amuro, Hayato & Karaba attacking the New Guinea base; it's what they're off to do when Kamille leaves them on Earth the first time. And it would give Amuro a chance to strut his stuff. Or the failed attack of Amuro & the EFSF/AEUG fleet against the Rock Zeeks during ZZ, which I've considered writing about before; I just can't find a good plot hook to make it something more than a description of a battle where everyone already knows how it ends.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

A quick note: when you're doing non-profit fanfiction for kicks, it isn't really an intellectual property issue unless you claim the original characters as yours which you can't do anyway. ;) Only if you end up publishing will you have to get into some discussions with the owners of the intellectual property rights.

Pretty much everything Black Knight said applies. Most writers don't feel confident that they can do justice to canon characters, while others, like myself, feel like there is so much untapped potential there that I simply have to use them. Of course this will open the door to comments like "Yzak would never do that, r0wrz!!" but if you have made the psychological profile of the character in your end, you can withstand all but the most brainless whining.

You're also likely to use some original characters of your own, even in a rewrite, so you feel like you're contributing yourself. Why not, just as long you don't write a character into, say, UC, who is like the combination of Char and Amuro and thus all different kinds of awesome. That's boring. ;)
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

There's always a chance to misconstrue preexisting characters in fanfiction. When you're spinning someone out of whole cloth, you dictate exactly what that character will or will not do, so there's much less error for out-of-character moments.

As also pointed out, there's little point in going over characters who already have so much attention devoted to them. What is there to be said about Amuro that two series and a movie haven't already said? I suppose you could do a character piece about his growing isolation after the One Year War, but most people--both writers and readers--would likely find it boring. It would almost certainly have to be downbeat, slow-moving and confined to an ending we've all already seen coming because we know where he is by 0087. On the flip side, you do have authors like Kishiria who can take those intensely character-focused notions and spin them into gold, but not everyone has her knack.

Most simply, Gundam is far-flung enough to set a precedent for this sort of thing. There have been countless spin-offs covering the "lesser" aspects of the universe. If Sunrise is willing to back stuff like MS IGLOO and 08th MS Team, it makes people think, "well, I might as well write my own story about the common Zeek/Feddie on the front line, too."
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

Yeah but your argument could apply to the rest of the Gundam sections as well. If you look at the SEED, Wing or 00 sections of FF.net, most of the fics there, good or bad (mostly bad in SEED and Wing's case) are about the pre-existing characters. This phenomenon we're discussing seems to be unique to UC Gundam, at least on FF.net.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

Wing in particular, though also CE to an extent, doesn't have that wealth of side-stories fleshing out the minor doings of the universe. Moreover, AC's overall story is about the war waged by a handful of individuals, while in UC the animated works tend to be large-scale wars, but with the events focused on a handful of characters. One of those paradigms is clearly more condusive to using new characters, while the other is not.

CE seems to be an outlier in this idea, in that it's set during a wider war, but if most fanfic authors are keeping the established characters, it might be because of any other contributing factors, such as the -black-and-black morality of the major factions making them not attractive for stories, or the fact that this being Gundam, most people want Gundams in their stories, and Gundams are notably scarce in the CE universe, while the Gundam proliferation in UC started early and has only accelerated.

Look at this, too; most of the AC & CE fanfics, when are they set? Are most of them during the TV runs for their shows, before, or after? CE has good background info, for an AU, but it still lacks a lot of the detail of the UC era, while AC has very little compared to the others. But the level of detail can impact authors and when they set their stories, and possibly whether they feel it practical to use their own characters or the established cast.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

Another point to remember for Wing is that the characters are, in fact, the main attraction for many, if not most of the fans. If you were around the fandom at its height, you would have noticed the enormous interest in the characters, mainly the five Gundam boys, and writing about them and arguing over where they prefer to put their dicks, and very little relative interest in the mecha or setting or anything else. So it's not surprising if there's less general inclination among Wing fans to go concocting their own characters; they showed up for the established characters in the first place.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

Arguing over where male characters stick their dicks is kind of a staple for fanfiction almost everywhere except K-ON and stuff. Shipping wars like the Evangelion Asuka VS. Rei issue will probably never end. But I have to say that when so many tsundere-loaded lovefics/harem fics pop up it gets so annoying that I want to read depressing stories like I Knew Him When just to change it up. But you're right that Wing fics especially focus on the characters. Even in the show, much mechababble was reduced to "the doktors did eet" or "the pilots made it for themselves so don't ask why a mobile suit can OHKO a colony," but there was a surprising amount of character development (Heero's "I will Kill You," Treize's plans, Quatro's change during the first Wing Zero fights, and of course the G-boys' personal attachments to their machines.) Sure, all shows do some of that, but something about Wing made it much more obvious.
This kind of leads to my question: character emotional development. I find it very hard to make emotional transitions smoothly, and sometimes my fics come out weird in their emotional development, as if the characters are undergoing radical changes to their baseline personality every other chapter. Any advice?
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

Foreshadowing can be your friend. The same is true of the "slow burn."

If you're afraid of radical changes, don't make the change too suddenly or too severely. Let your character grow into the mold you would like him or her to fit over time. A traumatic event may have a profound impact on someone, but that's more PTSD than actual character development.

If a character is prejudiced against Spacenoids, let that character slowly come to the realization that not all Spacenoids are like Zeon through a series of interludes that chip away at the presumption. Don't have the character meet one decent Spacenoid and shout, "Oh, how could I have been so wrong!?"
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

ShadowCell wrote:Another point to remember for Wing is that the characters are, in fact, the main attraction for many, if not most of the fans. If you were around the fandom at its height, you would have noticed the enormous interest in the characters, mainly the five Gundam boys, and writing about them and arguing over where they prefer to put their dicks, and very little relative interest in the mecha or setting or anything else. So it's not surprising if there's less general inclination among Wing fans to go concocting their own characters; they showed up for the established characters in the first place.
Yes, I DO remember that. And, after eleven years, the question still hasn't been settled! :roll:

Actually there was a very nice website back in the day called Aishiteru: Gundam Wing Fanworks, which had a VERY strict no yaoi policy. I guess it was an attempt to impose some rationality. Sadly, it shut down a few years ago, probably becuase it couldn't keep up with FF.net.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

This is an outline I'm working on for a rewrite of MSG. First, let me start by saying that I have nothing against the original Mobile Suit Gundam. It's a classic and a ground breaker in anime history. This is just a little experiment of mine that will likely live in outline format for the foreseeable future. See if you can spot the changes I made.

Mobile Suit Gundam: A New Translation

Episode 1: Gundam Rising

It is the year Universal Century 0079. The war between the democratic but elitist Earth Federation and the fascist Principality of Zeon has been going on for nine solid months now, with no end in sight. It has quickly become the single most devastating conflict in human history with nearly three billion people dead, mostly space colonists. Unfortunately, after the furious initial battles in January, the war has slowed to a standstill. The Zeon have occupied large portions of Earth, but they remain deadlocked with Federation ground forces.

October 1, UC0079. At the space colony Frontier 25, Side 7, Fraw Bo checks up on her boyfriend Amuro Ray. Amuro is a quiet, socially awkward young man that relates better to machines and his few close friends than he does other people. The two discuss some of the war and Amuro shows Fraw the information that he’s hacked from his father’s files, detailing that the Federation is secretly constructing their own MS prototypes here on the colony. Fraw is worried that this will involve them in the war and doesn’t want to see a massacre like the ones that occurred at Sides 1, 2 and 4. Amuro doesn’t think that will happen. Fraw then reminds him that Hyato was going to take them to the race today. Initially Amuro tries to pass it off that he forgot about it but Fraw wheedles the truth out of him. She finally manages to get him out of the house when Hyato arrives.

Outside the colony, a transport ship carrying a number of Federation officers and supplies docks with the colony. Among the Federation personnel onboard are Ensigns Bright Noa and Connor Hawke. Bright is recently graduated from Officer Candidate School and this is his first major assignment. Connor is an RB-79K Ball pilot.

At the race, famous driver Kai Shiden shrugs off one of his many girlfriends when his manager tells him to get his butt out to his car. Elsewhere, Hyato, Amuro and Fraw arrive. Amuro is given food duty and bumps into a blond girl while trying to balance hot dogs, fries and sodas. When he asks Fraw who she is, she replies that the girl is likely a medical student at their school by the name of Sayla Mass. The race begins and Kai is supremely confident that he’ll win. Amuro for his part is bored within five minutes.

Outside the colony, behind a resource asteroid, a pair of Zeon Musai-class cruisers quietly observe the colony. The captain of one of the ships, Dren, informs mobile suit commander Char Aznable that information leaks from the colony have been proved accurate and that the Federation is indeed making their own MS. Char decides they will launch a covert operation to destroy the prototypes and the new battle cruiser built to carry them.

On the colony, Amuro’s father, Tem Ray, passes the race and wonders if his son is there. A Federation officer warns him that information about Project V has possibly been leaked. Tem replies that they should move the prototypes and all materials onto the White Base immediately.

Char’s infiltration unit enters the colony and quickly locates the factory block where the MS and White Base are located. They hurriedly attach bombs to the gantries surrounding White Base and then move out into the factory block. The bombs blow, killing a large portion of the White Base’s crew but failing to destroy the ship. Outside, two teams of three Zakus attack the colony. One team remains outside while the other moves inside. The Ball squadron that Connor is part of moves to intercept the three Zakus. The Zakus inside the colony decide to get things started by launching an attack on the Federation garrison near the factories. Chaos ensues as the Zeon commandoes attempt to finish their mission but are forced to retreat. The civilians at the race stampede out of the track stadium. Amuro runs off to find his father with Fraw Bo trailing him. Hyato gets caught up in the crowd and separated.

Amuro finds his father amidst the chaos but Tem tells him to get to a shelter and continues supervising the evacuation of the mobile suits. The Zakus arrive and start spreading destruction across the factory block. Amuro and Fraw take shelter inside a hangar, not knowing that Char is already inside. Char confronts them and hesitates to shoot Amuro, both because he is shielding Fraw and because he is a civilian. An impact from a Zaku machine gun sets off several fuel containers in the hangar and Char is knocked down. Amuro, realizing that one of the prototype MS is inside, takes Fraw and climbs aboard. Realizing that the Zakus intend to demolish the hangar, he begins powering up the suit. The display screens identify the suit as the RX-78-2 GUNDAM. Char looks up in awe as the new Federation mobile suit activates.
Outside, the Zakus approach the hangar but are blasted back as Gundam emerges from the smoke and begins literally beating them up. Amuro at first tries to use the head vulcans but eventually discovers the Gundam’s beam saber. He slices up one Zaku and stabs the second. Unfortunately he slices the third in half and that compromises its fusion reactor, blowing a hole in the colony, sucking Tem Ray out into space. Amuro and Fraw barely manage to escape and then look on in awe as the White Base blasts out of its secret hangar.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

I don't know; I can't tell yet, but will the story ultimately deviate from the plot, theme and message of MSG to be its own story, or will it basically tell the story with different physical circumstances?
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

I'm trying to keep the theme of MSG but it will be deviating from the original plot, or rather the path of the original plot.
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

Shadowcell is going to love me for this. :)

Some of you may remember that I proposed the idea of this fic I wanted to work on called Mobile Suit Gundam: Rogue Squadron. I came up with this about three years or so ago and in it's most watered down form it was supposed to be a super Gundam crossover featuring characters from almost all the Gundam productions (except for stuff I hadn't seen at the time like Igloo and Unicorn and DEFINITELY NOT G Saviour) and they formed this super Gundam team and kicked bad guy butt. Cliff's Notes. Now it's not that I didn't work on it at all these past three years, I actually have 3 1/4 notebooks filled up with ideas, notes, lists and outlines of stuff that I wanted to do. But about 6-8 months ago when I finally sat own to do some hard writing on Rogue Squadron, I inexplicably found that my passion for the concept had died out and this is probably a good thing. I heaved a sigh and went to work on my other Gundam projects. That is, until I started playing Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3. My passion for a crossover was reignited and now I'm hard at it again.

Now, this new project isn't going to be Rogue Squadron. I acknowledge that that story had its flaws and while I'm going to use some of the ideas I came up with, this is going to be much different, more of a partial novelization of the story of DWG3. Basic premise: A mysterious signal lures Gundam characters in and then deposits them on a strange parallel Earth where they have to survive and find a way home, strange alliances are formed, characters who normally wouldn't meet have to put up with each other etc. Hopefully I'll have the prologue and first chapter up in a couple of days.

Also I have a couple of fics that I discovered on FF.net that I'd like to share with y'all. The first is Macross Frontier: United We Stand. In short, it takes place after the main series and mostly focuses on Klan Klan, Nene, some of Ozma and Cathy, a little bit of Sheryl and Ranka and a lot of OCs. Before you groan too much I think the OCs fit in well for the most part. It also largely deal with how Klan reacts to Michael's death.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Deikun's Army. This one is an MSG what-if? In short, Ghiren wins A Boa Qu, murders Kycillia and takes over the Earthsphere. Amuro and the White Base leave the EFSF, Char and M'Quve team up, Lalah is still alive (so far) and former enemies must ally with each other.
The Macross one is about 46 chapters so far while Deikun's Army is up to six I think. Enjoy!
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

Huh. Justice league of Gundams? I don't know if that's been done before but it sounds interesting, even though I'm not a big fan of superheroism (preferring instead an efficient and powerful police.)

Question of my own: is the whole idea of a coup d'etat by members of the high aristocracy to overthrow a thousand-year old government that isn't necessarily an "evil empire" or even weak or stagnating--in fact, it's doing just fine in most fields--doomed to fail? It's a large empire, prospering (more or less) under the control of a thousand-year old parliamentary monarchy that runs some shady operations and antagonizes an important figure (by which I mean imprisoned the person in a secret political prison hidden from the common eye where guards have zero restraint and are let loose to do whatever tortures they wish to inflict on their prisoners, who were sent to disappear there anyway--the person in question survived 10 years, broke out, fled to a friend's home, and days after the person left the friend's family was slaughtered down to a child by the secret police chasing after the person) who raises troops from border provinces eager for independence and more or less assassinates the incumbent monarch to put herself at the head of a new government. Bear in mind that the old regime was somewhat liked for its stability and prosperity. Given this situation, what do you think would really happen, barring the cliche defeat of the empire in favor of the glorious heroes?
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Re: General Fanfiction Discussion 2: Electric Boogaloo

@tehprognoob
I don't see why any idea should be doomed to failure if it has a reasonably skilled and diligent writer behind it. If you put forth the effort, the time, and the thought it takes to write any good story, you should come out fine on the other end.

That idea in particular doesn't strike me as any exception. "Well-tolerated but crusty and imperfect old order is usurped by sinister forces, whose changes to the system prompt a rebellion" is a pretty common historical occurrence and storytelling device. Star Wars does it, for example, in how the Galactic Republic becomes the Galactic Empire and breeds a backlash in the Rebel Alliance. The details are yours to work out, of course, but the basic idea of a tolerable old order being replaced by an evil new one and prompting a rebellion is pretty common and hardly "doomed to failure." A person burned by the system seeking revenge by leading a rebellion isn't an automatically bad idea either. See V for Vendetta, for example.

Of course, the story might actually turn out badly. But if it does, it wouldn't necessarily be because you chose a poor idea for the overall plot. It would be due to a whole host of things, like poor characterization or pacing or detail or plot holes or poor writing.
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