Why I, as a general rule, despise fanfic

[daidoji_gisei]

So I've been looking around for some Naruto fanfic to entertain myself with and have confirmed what I had feared from the beginning: what isn't outright porn is romance. So. Frustrating. If I wanted porn I could go out and buy professionally-produced porn with real copy-editing. And another thing: You have a setting tailor-made to explore the tension between duty and emotion and what do people do with it? Nothing. Except obsess over who is sticking what in whose orifice. The waste of potential makes my teeth hurt. And it's clear I'm never going to find a fanfic that will speculate on the what was going through Hatashi's mind as he realized he had killed Haku, and not Zabuza. Or whether in part 1 if he ever laid awake at night wondering, should the seal on Nine-Tails completely break down, if he would have to kill Naruto. Arrg.

I wish I could say this is a failing of Naruto fandom, but having gone through this exact same cycle of search and disappointment with other fandoms I have decided it is a general flaw in humanity. Or maybe I am the flawed one for thinking that sexuality is only part of a character's make-up and sometimes not the most interesting part of it. *sigh*

Comments

[yhlee]

I think this probably depends on the fandom--specifically, on the audience that fandom attracts. I don't mind reading fanfic that is basically pr0n, but I frequently want to read things where people blow each other up. A fandom where there are strong possible character pairings is going to attract the shippers, which is why I don't look in Buffy for fic that is overwhelmingly about tactics rather than who's doing whom. (That, and Buffy sucks at tactics, although you'd think this would inspire some fix-its.) On the other hand, I've had some small success finding Warhammer 40k fics about people blowing stuff up, and also Battletech fic seems overwhelmingly to be about mechwarriors blowing stuff up, and if relationships come into it it's more of the "having a family as a soldier is hard" variety or "we're soldiers that respect each other but on opposite sides" variety than the "let's have lots of angsty sex" variety. (In fact, I should get to reading more Battletech fic so I can have some recs for you.)

[daidoji_gisei]

As you know, I am a fan of blowing things up, so that would be sweet! Thank you.

[yhlee]

I'll step it up, then. I have to wonder if there's some kind of gender thing going on. I'm strongly under the impression that most Battletech fans are male.

I have to lockedly post excerpts from this adorable series of merc company fics, however, wherein instead of having a Mary Sue (Marty Stu, whatever) protagonist, it's more of a Marty Stu merc company that always fights for right & justice & never blows up civilians by accident &c.

[daidoji_gisei]

Also: Having had time to drink a mug of tea, it occurs to me that maybe I should modify my position from hating fanfic to hating shippers. Since they are the ones who are writing all the fanfic I don't want to read.

[usagi_k1]

This. Shippers are the sum of all that is wrong in fandom, and why I don't want to be associated with it.