User blog:AustinDR/My Views on Fanfiction

In all honesty, I hated fanfics or fan works in general. Now, while I do confess that there are some fanfics that are generally well-written, engaging, and dare I say poignant, that is not true for all fanfics. The majority of fanfics I have seen were simply terrible. Some were badly written or grammatically incorrect, some were grimdark written by hacks who thought they were being edgy. That doesn't even begin with what these writers tend to do with children's shows. They would either attempt to make the work darker and edgier than their canon series either by introducing mature themes that were clearly not inherent from the original program, or by demonizing canonical characters. If you are going to take a morally upright character and make them turn evil, you'd better have a good reason for their drastic change. With that being said, that's why I hated Yandere!Luan. Now, when I had originally reviewed the Loud Comic or I Love My Brother by JumpJump, I criticized the fact that Luan just seemed to become a murderous psychopath for little rhyme nor reason other than the plot calls for it. Now, as I figure that every LH fan is familiar with the fan comic, I won't go into full details, but that was one of my many gripes with the comic. One particular scene that I absolutely despised was that moment that Lynn shared with Lincoln. It doesn't add anything to the story (well, it does kind of explain Luan's distaste for Lynn, but that's about it); all it does is just indicate that the author added this scene just for the sake of adding it in. It's especially bad, because Lynn didn't express having feelings for her brother prior to this infamous scene. Now, as many of you might know, but JumpJump did not like my review on his comic. I don't know, maybe it's because I was being critical of his comic, and he also accused me of not fully understanding it. So, I'm not going to bother talking about that comic again. Even though I absolutely hate Loudcest, I will admit that the artwork is pretty decent, and the plot - though wrong - is morbidly fascinating. I wasn't trying to let my hatred for Loudcest cloud my judgment, but it's obvious that it was written for the shippers in mind. At least that comic was removed from TV Tropes.

Sometimes the opposite is true as well. Now, I personally like Ronnie Anne: granted, she is kind of a bully, but that's not even getting into how most fans tend to play up her bullying to extreme lengths. One fanfic I've read (featuring Lincoln x Lucy) actually has Ronnie Anne be a domestic abuser who holds a firm grasp over Lincoln's life, and she even....uh......well, I don't want to say what she does to him due to it being wrong in so many levels, but trust me, it's messed up. That's the thing, though: several fans who ship Lincoln with any of his sisters tend to portray Ronnie Anne in a negative light so that they could feel justified with writing about Loudcest. But, back to why I hated fanfics.

Now, as I've said, I hated fanfics because they were either poorly written, demonized canon characters for no reason other than it being "edgy," or they warped canonized shows to make them more dark because of shock value. However, my idea towards fan works began to change once I had began to read Requiem for a Loud by UnderratedHero. Now, as I have talked to death about this fanfic I'll keep it brief. While I was browsing TV Tropes, I came across this fanfic and thought to myself, "well since I feel down already, this will be a piece of cake." But I was wrong. This fanfic...this fanfic did one of the few things that any story or movie hardly ever did to me. It actually made me feel emotional. Even though there's some broken English here and there, the fanfic was truly sorrowful. I wanted to stop reading it, but I couldn't even take my eyes off of it. Normally I criticize fan works for being dark, and clearly this work is dark. I mean, the idea is that Lincoln is dying from brain tumors, and he has 2 - 3 weeks to instill fond memories to his sisters. Of course it's dark. But like I've said before, it's dark from a realistic standpoint in that the author has a legitimate reason for writing this tearjerker. Basically, it's to show what would happen if Lincoln - who is the emotional support for the family - were to die? How would his family ever hope to move on without him? I'm serious, I wasn't even a minute into the fanfic, and I began to cry. No story hardly ever makes me cry. Sure, they may pull at my heartstrings, but I barely bawl at them. The fanfic left such an impact on me, that I almost couldn't watch the actual show. Every time I looked at Lincoln, I just couldn't stop thinking about his oncoming faith in Requiem, that it made me sorrowful. Just everything about the fanfic is depressing as heck. From the sisters' reaction to the news, to Lincoln making a bucket list....great, now I'm tearing up again. On the other hand, the fanfic tends to take long to read, as well as to be uploaded, so I eventually gained some strength to drop the fan work. I mean, let's face it: we all know how it's going to end. But with that being said, I do commend UnderratedHero for invoking this kind of reaction from me, but I'm also mad at him for pulling my heart out and smashing it like a grape.

This particular work actually inspired me to write a response to the fanfic. I didn't think too much on it at first, but then UnderratedHero himself actually contacted me saying that he liked my interpretation of the story, but he wished that I would've published it after he was finished with Requiem which admittedly, I should've. I'll say this now; when I first did that story, I was obviously not trying to reach the beats that he did with his story because "Remembering" is understood to take place years after Requiem ended so that everything that happened in that fanfic was in hindsight. Admittedly, I tried to work on it as much as I could, but some complaints I received were either that it was too rushed, or that it wasn't near the emotional level that Requiem  was even though I adamantly said that I was not going to try to mimic UnderratedHero's style. I admit that it isn't a good story, and there are some flaws that can be pointed out, but I only wanted to make it out of gratitude that UnderratedHero actually inspired me with his story. He probably hates me now, because I said a few sarcastic quirks when he was giving me nuggets of wisdom, but I don't really mind as I don't personally know him.

And then another good fanfic was written by Omega Ultra (someone I do know about slightly) named Stories and Tales from Dimension 63. Basically, Lincoln switches bodies with Linka, mass hysteria and humor, etc. It was genuinely funny to read, though there were a few certain aspects of it that I don't like. And then there's a few fanfics on this very site that I have enjoyed. There's some of the stories written by AnimationFan15 for instance. So far, the two stories I've read from this user was "Whitewashed" and "The Diary of a Loud." In "Whitewashed," Lincoln's sisters discover a comic book that Lincoln had made, only to become enraged when they think that it was written to make them look like fools. They burn his comic, and Lincoln says the most horrifying of swear words known to man that results in him getting beaten to a pulp by his enraged sisters, and his mouth is washed out with soap. Angered, he vows to stop talking to them.

In 'Diary of a Loud," Lola reads Lincoln's private journal to her classmates at show-and-tell thus causing Lincoln and Clyde to become laughstocks. Worse, Ronnie Anne actually breaks up with Linc over this embarrassment, and when he finds out that Lola was the one who blabbed.....he One Punches her down the stairs causing her teeth to fall out and for her to receive a black eye. Now, apparently Lincoln doesn't get grounded because the parents aren't in the story, so I guess that's fine. As I have said several times, while I don't think that Lola is the worst character from the series, I do find it cathartic that she gets some sort of punishment. Of course, everything is relatively back to normal in the end, and there's also an epilogue to explain away Ronnie Anne getting back together with Lincoln, but that's pretty minor.

So overall, what do I think of fanfics? Do I still hate them? Yes, I still hate aspects of them to an extent, but it did make me see that there are some fanfics out there that actually have thought put into them. They burst with creativity, that it is actually inspiring. That is all that I wish to say about this subject. Thanks for reading.