2003-06-26 - 1:50 a.m.
#119: No Need for Fanfiction
Note to self: Wow, I've got three entries up in the space of a month! Technically! I'm on a roll! Booya!
I feel the urge to write. Fiction. In a fan-like manner. Of an anime-style. So some kind of anime fanfic. Or just something based upon writing longhanded prose for a story in general. Only problem is: I don't know what to start on. I would like to know what I'd be able to complete with only a minimal amount of coaxing, as opposed to a maximum amount of procrastination that befalls many of my fanfiction ideas that start, then stop, then disappear from my hard drive completely in a botched WinXP installation. And on top of everything else, I can't really think of one show in recent memory where I thought to myself, "You know, I can think of just the PERFECT thing that I could add to this show that would open it up to entirely new concepts that'll make it even cooler than it already is!". It's not that every anime show I've watched recently is perfect in every detail, it's just that I have no real interest in messing around with them. They work just as well as they are, and if I were to try to work something into them that wasn't there before; I might as well just let it grow into something new and entirely seperate from the show that inspired me. But that would require me to do some actual work in terms of building a world around the characters I've created (I always build characters first when writing some kind of fiction. Call it wish fulfillment, but I need to have some avatars I can send roaming around the set I would create for them and see through their eyes) and I'm always afraid that what I do isn't nearly enough for the world to be SUBSTANTIAL enough that they can explore and not be completely bored. Or the ones who'll have to read through all that text, for that matter.
The only series I feel like going through and doing something fanfic-y for and have only the original cast are the ones which INHERENTLY inspire fanfiction. None of that consciously hip and sophisticated shows we see more of these days, but back when anime being marketed to a western audience was still very prototype and touched by the last remaining sparks of the 80s. I'm talking Ranma 1/2, Tenchi Muyo and Bubblegum Crisis (I'd mention Dirty Pair as well, but I didn't have the same opportunity to get into them as the three mentioned before) back when women in high-heeled armour was considered a sensible idea for a sci-fi series, the "harem anime" concept was still fairly young (or at least spritely) and hadn't been spun off over and over again into shows of lesser and lesser quality (I just can't crack a smile at Love Hina. Or Mamotte Shugogetten. I just CAN'T) and crossdressing was as simple as getting doused by cold or hot water. Admittedly, back then EVERYTHING in anime was new to me and I wanted to see and collect as much as I could. And also dream up of many different story ideas as I could (most of them involving the lesbian subtext in Bubblegum Crisis. hee). So nowadays, when collecting anime is marginally easier (made even easier with the power of the CREDIT CARD! ooh-eer) and I see a lot more than I can consistently digest, a lot of story ideas don't develop because everything gets mixed into one big pot of gooey grey matter. So while I'd like to think that Hellsing, Rah Xephon, Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar, The Jungle Was Always Nice and then Came Guu and many other stuff I've seen recently could be rife with any number of fanfic possibilities, I really can't think of anything that would inspire me to write. Except possibly for Guu. The possibilities are just endless for Guu. She's the perfect deus ex machina for anything and it's quite hard to forget a character like her. I think I'll just add her to any fiction I may write from now on because it amuses me.
One story idea I have running through my head is the adventures of an incredibly unlucky person (based on my own experiences as an incredibly unlucky person, naturally) who gets transported into a anime-fantasy style world and has to go save it from the forces of darkness because he, and a conglomerate of other similarly transported people have been chosen by whatever passes for gods on that world. To go save it, if you haven't caught on. Thing is, that sort of thing has been done before and done well already. Not only in terms of fanfiction (Unreal Estate doesn't quite fit the mold but since it's on my list of fastlinks...) but also official stuff like Fushigi Yuugi. There's no NEED to do it again, especially if there are superior works out there already. It's a creatively stagnant field of stagnant mildew and stagnant ponds that breeds all sorts of things that are unoriginal and most importantly STAGNANT. Unfortunately it won't leave me alone. I think if I were seriously going to write fanfiction right now, it'd be set in an "original" world like mentioned above rather than using any specific anime series as a source. Besides, right now I can't remember anything specific about many a series so writing a fanfiction with that kind of half-assed knowledge base would be a mistake. And I don't mean just filled with factual and continuity errors, I mean it'd be all out trite and shallow. Then again, considering the lowering standards of what passes for fanfiction I see nowadays, maybe I wouldn't be taking too much of a dive that way. Hmmm.
I think I'll finish this entry now. I think I've said enough on this matter that I can decide for myself whether or not I'll go ahead with that whole "getting off my ass and get some writing done" plan I could have going for me. Oh, getting a job would be nice, too (I likes getting paid for menial labour), but since I feel that's more beyond my control than writing is, maybe I'll stick to my small goals first. Yes, perhaps one day I too can become a best selling novelist who began life as a web journal! And on that day Elvis will crash a UFO into the Loch Ness Monster in the middle of New York! Why is my life composed of nihilistic pain?
