All characters are property of their repective owners
Motivation by MegaZone
Wow - I guess some people just don't have anything better to do with
their time. I'm kind of flattered that we actually pissed someone off
enough that they'd do this. I've made a life out of tweaking other
people's taste and perceptions, then seeing what falls out of it.
I know I started this by offhandedly saying exactly this: "If you
don't like NXE, don't read it. If you want to see him dead, write
your own meta-fic. We can't stop you. I'm sure Ben would be cheesed,
but that's the only way you'll get to see DJ dead." I didn't expect
you to actually do it, since it is completely pointless, but I was
wondering what it would be like if you did. Especially since, in the
volumes of email you've sent to us, you've made it obvious you've
completely missed nearly every salient point in the story to date.
Even when we've tried to point you in the right direction you've
veered back. You seem to have some fairly strong preconceptions of
what NXE is, or what is should be, and so can't rectify that with what
it really is.
I was kind of hoping this would be at least a decent satire, or have a
decent narative, or *something*. But no - just another run of the
mill, very poorly writt,en revenge fic. Take character, stick
character in a pointless, futile situation, torture character.
Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. I could probably write a Perl
script to generate stories like this, if I didn't have better things
to do.
But it doesn't really bother me at all (certainly isn't going to
change anything in NXE). Baffles me is more like it. It just doesn't
make sense to me that someone would actually be motivated to waste the
time on writing something like this (though by the writing I'd have to
say it wasn't much time at all) just because they don't like someone
else's story.
Revenge fics, anit-fics, whatever you want to call them, have always
seemed pointless to me. If you don't like a story it is far more
constructive to tell your own than to waste the time and energy on
berating another author's work. If you think an NGE fic should be
different - write the different fic. Same with derivative fics - why
would an author want to copy another fanfic and just change the window
dressing. I've seen that done (and it happened to UF).
It is like the stupid anime con wars from the early 90s. Anime Expo
just focus on providing the best con the could to the fans. Pretty
much ignored Anime America as much as was possible.
Anime America was motivated by revenge and ego, and was focused on
beating Anime Expo.
AX is now the largest anime convention in the US, AA is defunct.
You know, I've probably read more anime fanfic than most people,
having read most everything out from 1991 to 1996 (the years I was
moderating) - except most of the Ranma stuff. There was so much of
that I got completely sick of it. The only reason I don't read much
these days is that I have a a busy career and don't have the time I
once had to read stories all day. The little spare time I have I
prefer to use living a life, working on my own writing, or reading
material by authors I know I like. I still skim RAAC and read things
at random when they seem interesting.
I haven't said much on my opinions of fanfic in general because I'm
mainly a 'do my own thing and let others do theirs' kind of guy. But
lately it seems like pick on Eyrie time or something. You know, when
I read a fanfic that I don't like I'll usually push on to see if it
changes, but if it doesn't I'll just stop reading. The number of
threads on RAAF and RAAM by people who don't like NXE confuse me - why
waste so much time on something as trivial as a fanfic you don't like?
What *really* gets me is the people who say that the problem is NXE
seems like an SI fic and people don't like those, etc. When the fact
is NXE is the only fic we've released to date that *isn't* a blatant
SI! When, in fact, the only real life character we've inserted is
Truss, and that was done as a *joke* long before Truss ended up as one
of the authors. And, to this day, John never writes himself. Aside
from Truss, who basically has manerisms like those of his real life
counterpart, NONE of the characters are like the authors.
Anyway, I got on a tangent, I was going to express some opinions...
Frankly, most fanfic just isn't very good - lack of character
development, lack of plot, just plain bad writing - whatever. And a
number of fics with potential are ruined (at least for me) by lack of
editing. Typos, bad formatting, awkward language - anything that
interrupts the narrative and impacts the reader's involvement in the
story universe is detrimental to the overall quality. When I was the
moderator of RRAS/C I would return any story that was poorly formatted
to the author with an explanation, and if a story was just unreadable
because of typos I'd return it too. If the author was just stubborn
and insisted it be posted as is, I'd do it - but most of them were
glad to have someone give them that little slap and point out how, in
a textual medium, what your text looks like is your first impression.
Of course, there are also some incredibly good fics.
But my real point here is that I don't understand, at all, why anyone
is so worked up over NXE. I mean, some of the mail we've recieved
from people who don't like it is bordering on the insane. The best
part is most of them appear to be from clueless people who have missed
blatant, billboard sized story points. We've been accused of
characters saying, doing, or being things that absolutely are have
not, or are not. People seem to be so fixated on hating DJ, or
expecting everyone to be fucking everyone else, or some other
misconception that they don't read what is on the page, but what they
think is there.
Or - "Well, I have to say their writing is extremely well done - but I
absolutely hate this story." Ok, we certainly never expect to please
everyone. But, if you hate it so much - why the hell do you keep
reading it? I don't understand why people who claim that reading
*anything* pains them, makes them ill, infuriates them, etc, keep
doing it. Masochistic tendencies?
I'm all for constructive feedback - I like to get it and try to give
it as time permits. What I don't understand are fixations with
disliking a story or a character. Or the outright competitiveness
I've seen some fans or authors display. My advice to anyone is to do
your own thing, and do your best. Write your own stories, and focus
on doing a good job and the audience will be there. Don't waste a
second of time and energy on trying to show someone else up, or on
competing with someone else's work. That is time and energy you could
have used to improve your own work, and therefore your work suffers by
the waste.
I love MST3K (well, the first few years anyway), and I love a number
of the MiSTings I've seen over the years. But the ones I've liked are
those done, as with the original, in the spirit of good hearted poking
of fun. Those that have been unabridged vitriol fests have been a
real turn off, especially those that stoop low and attack the author
directly.
I guess I just don't see the attraction in the concept of
Revenge/Anti-Fics. I'd rather spend the time in doing something more
constructive, like telling my own stories. And if people like them,
are entertained by them, all the better. If someone dislikes them,
well, they don't have to read them.
-MZ