Tuesday 12 February 2008

An exploration of Fanfiction.Net: Part 1

The other day, I decided to take a gander over to Fanfiction.net and see how much had changed. Despite the fact that I have been posting fanfiction, I haven't explored the categories lately.

Naturally, being the gamefag I am, the first category I went to was 'Games'. I just skimmed down the list and noticed with shock and surprise that the Devil May Cry category now has 1,536 fanfics. With the very recent release of DMC4, expect the number to double. I remember about three or four years back when I wrote/submitted DMC stuff, there were only a couple of hundred fanfics. And now, BOOM. It's one of those fandoms where you can tell that 95% is slash, 3% is Mary-Sue and the remaining 2% is... general stuff. Romance, action, Dante being a cockhead and the like.

This is the same case with American McGee's Alice. When I submitted my piece for that game, there were about 20 fanfics. It's since ballooned into 252. I dunno, maybe everyone's gearing up for the movie?

Oblivion has 374 fanfics, which is basically a resemblence of how many people can be assed writing out their character's journey. Noteable fanfic is: 'I dont know what to do when he makes me sad' by DuRiechstSoGut98.

A MARY SUE FOR VICENTE? It's very likely. It also portrays Marie Antoinetta as a giggling idiot who enjoys makeup and all that other woman jazz. I always thought the Dark Brotherhood were more serious. Going around and being tough. Killing people while they sleep and whatnot. I'm serious, I could really spork this fanfic.

It weirds me out that the category of Solitaire (21) has almost as many fanfics as Killer7 (24) does (and yes, I'm still the sole contributor of Killer7 on FF.Net. To be fair, everyone plays Solitaire while pretty much no-one played Killer7. On the flip-side, how the fuck do you write Solitaire fanfiction?

While on the topic of slash fanfiction, I wish to state my confusion at the lack of slash in the Gears of War category. I mean, come on. Big, muscley men? Three women in the entire game? Sure, it may not appeal to the majority (ie. about 95%) of slash authors/artists, due to the fact that they are not skinny, beautiful men, but I can't be the only one. If I am, looks like I'll have to take things into my own hands.

Incidentally, guess which fandom has the most fanfics? Kingdom Hearts takes the prize home once again! But don't worry, FFVII! You're just a little over ten thousand away! Remember, you FFVII fans, don't rest until you hit that mark!

More insight into this AMAZING CULTURAL CENTER soon, maybe.

4 comments:

Syphen said...

The Link is A bit, off, its WWW.FanFiction.Net, apart from that, well yea.. lol
P.S. the thing about RR is that.. The Expectations, it IS a pretty sweet game, but when i got up to the 3rd race of the 1st.. Big 3 Races or whatever, they wanted me to get first... in a smaller track, and it takes me so LONG to get to 2nd and 3rd.. etc etc

Anonymous said...

"Sure, it may not appeal to the majority (ie. about 95%) of slash authors/artists, due to the fact that they are not skinny, beautiful men, but I can't be the only one. If I am, looks like I'll have to take things into my own hands."

This game appeals to me precisely because they are not skinny, pretty men. Please take things into your own hands.

GoW slash has the potential to be golden, because it will be free of all the stereotypical female attributes that are usually globbed on to the "skinny & beautiful" males in slash fanfiction.

Marcus wouldn't cry and ask you to just hold him. Marcus would take it like a man.

Anonymous said...

See, I'm into Yu-Gi-Oh slash, but Gears of War? I dunno, the characters just don't seem to have that relationship in my opinion. With YGO there is a lot more interpretations you can take, whereas in GOW, I can't see any slash pairings because no two characters seem to match up.

House MD, I'm starting to see the appeal of Hilson (HousexWilson)...

Maybe it's just personal tastes.

One thing that gets on my tits though...when slash fans portray the canon female characters as idiots who just try and wreck things.

Anonymous said...

I agree. I looked the other day and noticed the GEARS fiction has doubled, but it surprisingly only has a couple slash fics. As far as I could see, there wasn't any good Dom/Marcus, either. You'd think there would be a crap load of them.

The only story I found that was written well and everyone was pretty much on point called "GreenEyed Monster" by Tyrann. It's a Marcus/Baird one, though.

Like you, I'm sorely tempted to write a Gears fic of my own. I'm not normally into muscle men, but I do see the appeal of Gears slash. I've noticed Marcus is always a pushover for Dom, too. >XD But yeah, pretty men are nice, but it gets old. Let's see some real men for once.

I've also noticed that the pretty men fictions always have a strictly seme/uke (top/bottom) relationship, but in reality, that's not how it works in America. It may be like that in typically in Japan, but in America and other places in Europe, gay men take "turns." So yeah, I can see Dom/Marcus, Marcus/Dom.

Anywhos, do write that story. Believe me, if a few people work on it, it'll catch on.