Fanfic Shames

[dinosaurjam]

Soooo... am I the only one who wrote well-intentioned but terribly-written Rayearth fic years and years ago when I sucked as a writer and am now constantly paranoid our reestablished fandom here and on Tumblr has read any of it and wants to crawl in a hole somewhere?

*cough* Um, let's phrase this another way. If you were to rewrite any of your fics, what would you change and why?

[suzanami]

IF I REALLY HAD TO WRITE AN ~EDGY~ COMPLETELY FUCKING UNNECESSARY RAPE FIC I WOULDN'T HAVE FUU OF ALL PEOPLE SELF-HARM JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I'M SO GLAD THE WAYBACK MACHINE CAN'T ARCHIVE FANFICTION.NET  MAY THE FANDOM GODS FORGIVE ME

E.T.A.: confess your own sins, sister.  this thread is a place of forgiveness.

[Mokonalord]

Bless my social anxiety for keeping me from making too many mistakes on the internet as a teen. My biggest fanfic regrets usually never made it past notebook form.

I still have a lot of those notebooks, but I made sure certain ones were burned as soon as I realized how bad they were. One of them had a Rapture AU. With a blatant self-insert. Don't do fundie, kids. Seriously.

[dinosaurjam]

E.T.A.: confess your own sins, sister.  this thread is a place of forgiveness.

BUT WHERE TO BEGIN THERE IS SO MUCH

Well there was the one-shot about Umi punishing herself in various self-harming ways (mostly deliberately restricting her sleep) as penance for killing Emeraude and Zagato, that wasn't unnecessary or trying to be edgy or totally offensive in its portrayal of mental illness at all.

I definitely did not write a Fuurio set-in-this-world AU with a bad-online-translator-generated Japanese title where Fuu and Ferio were IN A COMMUNITY PLAY TOGETHER DIRECTED BY FERIO'S UNCLE that I'm pretty sure had some dumb misunderstanding that almost drove them apart but in the end they found love through their lines in the show or some dumb thing like that. (I also seriously did not do either of those sassypants justice.)

And then there's Standing on the Sky. Oh my god. We have:
1. Way too many original characters serving no real purpose (though I insisted they were important to the plot)
2. Antagonists with unclear motives and origins that never get cleared up
3. No plot planning at all leading to gaping plot holes and really shabby attempts at resolving issues in the narrative
4. Just peppered with weeaboo Japanese lingo
5. Really unnecessary levels of character death
6. God like seriously wtf did I do to Presea why was this fic a thing really
7. Also seriously Cerise's will was strong enough to keep the Knights stranded in Cephiro WHY WASN'T SHE FUCKN PILLAR THEN

Although I DID like the expansions into Cephiran culture/daily life I played with (it mostly had to do with food - I literally invented FIVE GODDAMNED CHARACTERS to support innumerable scenes of characters eating so I could blab about Cephiran food). And although I went pretty overboard, I do like that I was willing to venture into Main Character Death. Just... not in such a pointless and badly-written fic.

[Mokonalord]

Any time my plot-convenient asshole OC showed up was a mistake. His name was Craig, and he had no purpose other than to be an all-around douchebag and borderline mustache twirling villain. He was the dick boyfriend, the guy plotting to break up a relationship cause he wanted to get with the girl, the school bully, and he was never given any justification or motivation for his actions beyond that. (Well, I did manage to humanize him eventually, just not in fanfic. One of my original stories does him way more justice)

Also, I regret pretty much any time I tried to write sex. Because wow, teenage virgin who hadn't yet figured out their asexuality and didn't understand why it was so hard for people to just not have sex, you had absolutely no idea what you were doing and it makes me cringe just thinking about it.
Should've just stuck with, "And then they did the sex. It was hot." ala Rev.

[suzanami]

omg Craig, that is a name I never expected to see in MKR fic.

god how about I thought it was original and ~so romantique~ to end an AU getting-together Fuu/Ferio fic with a birth scene?  I mean not in detail, but the whole "okay one more push!", "oh she's so beautiful", "I wuv you so muchy much, Ferio"  just the kind of stuff you think is just part of ~a love story~ when you're 15. :b

[Mokonalord]

You want to know something I really regret, even though it never even made it to paper?

That I somehow considered, even for a moment, writing a fic- In which Ascot was allergic to fur. Like HOW? *slams head against wall*

[Revolutionaren]

I have never ever written any terrible fanfic. Never. Nope.
Thankfully, it was mostly for other fandoms? I wasn't massively active for MKR, instead I just cheered on Camisado's fic writing.
Actually, that's a lie, I just checked my ff.net account and saw fic I've forgotten about and now I'm cry. Self-inserts and trying too hard to be EDGY. Urrrrrgh.

I legit never attempted to write smut as a teenager because I was firmly ace from a young age and didn't care for it. But now, at the ripe old age of 25, I'm attempting it and MY GOD, I write one rude word and then have to go hide in shame somewhere. I'm terrible.

[suzanami]

I definitely did not write a Fuurio set-in-this-world AU with a bad-online-translator-generated Japanese title where Fuu and Ferio were IN A COMMUNITY PLAY TOGETHER DIRECTED BY FERIO'S UNCLE that I'm pretty sure had some dumb misunderstanding that almost drove them apart but in the end they found love through their lines in the show or some dumb thing like that. (I also seriously did not do either of those sassypants justice.)

~*~ Yunikon Serenade ~*~

[shinomu]

Oh man, may Mokona forgive us all. XDD But I think it's a great evolution to realize how the problematic stuff from some of old fics (that went right over the head at some point in the past for me, at least). So we're all repenting. XD

I still have one fic up on ff.net that I just look at and shake my head the rest was blissfully erased long ago I no longer have any tracks thank aaaall. I just- man, trying to be edgy in your teens - specially when you're yer regular good kid - is so... ugh. I shouldn't go there again I hope.

[Somariel]

Nothing in Rayearth fanfic, thank god. My very first fandom was Star Wars and there was a particular character in the EU that I absolutely adored, so on a Star Wars only fanfic archive, under another username, I have an unfinished fic featuring that character as the main character and there were so many problems with that fic, in part because it was my very first fanfic ever.

[Down]

Nothing in Rayearth fanfic, thank god. My very first fandom was Star Wars and there was a particular character in the EU that I absolutely adored, so on a Star Wars only fanfic archive, under another username, I have an unfinished fic featuring that character as the main character and there were so many problems with that fic, in part because it was my very first fanfic ever.

Star Wars!! Which EU character? (I got halfway through the new Jedi order books before I stopped buying every single one and devouring them. Still grumpy they just declared the entire EU non-canon, and I wish the new films were an adaption of at least the Thrawn trilogy. But then I really want the xwing books to be a TV series...)

My fanfic shame needs a keyboard. Though only a little is online. Apart from the start of Protecting You which  THE PLOT HOLES BURN ME and Mils will never let me forget that I thought LaFarga was LaFargo.

[Somariel]

Nothing in Rayearth fanfic, thank god. My very first fandom was Star Wars and there was a particular character in the EU that I absolutely adored, so on a Star Wars only fanfic archive, under another username, I have an unfinished fic featuring that character as the main character and there were so many problems with that fic, in part because it was my very first fanfic ever.

Star Wars!! Which EU character? (I got halfway through the new Jedi order books before I stopped buying every single one and devouring them. Still grumpy they just declared the entire EU non-canon, and I wish the new films were an adaption of at least the Thrawn trilogy. But then I really want the xwing books to be a TV series...)

My fanfic shame needs a keyboard. Though only a little is online. Apart from the start of Protecting You which  THE PLOT HOLES BURN ME and Mils will never let me forget that I thought LaFarga was LaFargo.

Mara Jade. The very first EU book I ever read was The Last Command, when I was in seventh grade, and I sort of imprinted on her for a while. Also, I'm still grumpy about the "EU is non-canon" thing, too.

[Down]

Mara Jade is AWESOME aaaaaaaaaaaaaah I think from what I remember that one of the biggest reasons I got irritated with the NJO books (aside from the fact they felt like they were just trying to - make everything BIGGER and SCARIER and MORE DEADLY and stuff than before, which just made it feel like Dragonball Z or something where everyone just keeps levelling up and it's a NEW EPIC LEVEL and then occasionally killing people off to make it EDGY and stuff and - ER YES WHAT WAS I SAYING (...I didn't like the style of several of the writers at the time I think, too, but.) ASIDE FROM THAT I remember being irritated that Mara jade didn't seem to get to do anything of her own?? More like she was a side-character in Luke's storylines than a main character in her own story.

But then, I haven't reread any of those for about a decade so I might well be VERY WRONG in my recollections XD

.........TO GET BACK ON TOPIC.

FANFIC SHAME!

...ahahahah okay so aside from the gratuitous self-insert fic (because no one APPRECIATES CLEF ENOUGH so he was dying for reasons and the totally-not-me-nope character came BACK FROM EARTH to YELL AT EVERYONE ABOUT IT and then take him away so he would HEAL.

...................................

(which got about three chapters in and then I realised I couldn't make it work for various reasons but that was also when I worked out that I ship Umi/Clef. ...it was a learning experience. XD)

ASIDE FROM THAT THERE ARE ALSO in various places mostly in notebooks (Mils has witnessed me finding some and cracking up. Also telling the cats the plot of some of this crack): (please be warned half this nonsense dates either to me feeling ill and being drugged off my head entertaining myself, or me being 16. OR BOTH. XD)

-Clef is a vampire who refuses to eat people

-Clef is - I actually can't remember what the logic was but a member of an older race which were basically elves with wings?? and then there is a war in Cephiro and the next thing the knights know is Clef landing in Umi's back garden with Ferio because he dragged him through dimensions with powers he shouldn't have because people don't like that race so he was pretending to be human. OR SOMETHING. At which point he is half dead and also can't hide his wings on earth. ...I'm not sure where that one even came from.

-Above fic but without the ~CLEF IS A RANDOM ELF-WITH-WINGS nonsense!~

-Clef is the PERSONIFICATION OF A METEOR FROM THE SOLAR SYSTEM. Who was in love with the-man-who-is-the-personification-of-Saturn. Only that was looking ABOVE HIS STATION and THE SUN - who was Mokona, obvs, didn't like him and banished him to a different solar system and there's a whole thing where this comes out because they find a spaceship and it has Saturn's last message to him?? And it's Mokona going LOOK HE'S NOT HUMAN DON'T TRUST HIM but they all turn on Mokona and - I have no idea, I was obsessed with Sailor Moon and reading all the greek and roman legends again and decided that the planets were the gods and went to earth occasionally or something um.

-UMI IS TURNED INTO A SIREN accidentally there's a rock she's drawn to which she's not meant to touch, DAMMTI UMI - and the villagers try to kill her/Clef who is protecting her. And they run away through a snowstorm. (And eventually end up living in the water shrine as outlaws while Ferio and Fuu and Hikaru work on changing laws and culture and stuff? And Umi and Clef have ISSUES with LIKING EACH OTHER because Umi's terrified she's accidentally compelling Clef into wanting to sleep with her!) (Because I have no shame I am terribly tempted to pick this one up again when i'm in weird moods.)

-MEASURE FOR MEASURE AU. Zagato is Angelo. Who has gone insane because of Emeraude dying in childbirth or something I can't quite remember. .....Clef's Isabella. (Ferio is Claudio). It's terrible. Also Umi is a cross-dressing pickpocket and Clef's an assassin. \o/

-That One Where The Mashin Go Into Heat And Take A Human Form To Find A Mate Every Hundred Years One At A Time SORRY SELECE I AM SO SORRY er. (It's Selece/Clef/Umi)

There are VARIOUS THEMES WHICH REOCCUR apparently I was convinced no one appreciated Clef enough also he should be non-human because then everyone would HATE HIM as well as not-appreciating him and I could make the Few Righteous Characters Who Did make STIRRING SPEECHES about HOW AWESOME HE WAS and then go to war over it! ...........................

[suzanami]

-That One Where The Mashin Go Into Heat And Take A Human Form To Find A Mate Every Hundred Years One At A Time SORRY SELECE I AM SO SORRY er. (It's Selece/Clef/Umi)

Down, I was to a point where I thought you couldn't surprise me anymore and yet here we are.