Fanfiction Awards

[chronodekar]

I have been spending the past few days scrummaging through the 200+ pages of the " Recommended Fanfiction" thread (upto 56 pages now) and I came across something that I had forgotten about.

Do we have anything similar to the old "ChickenBall Awards"? Or you know, any "award" for fanfiction writing? If so, can you post links? I'm looking for some good anime fanfiction.

If it doesn't exist, do you think we could make it some kind of half-yearly event here on TFF? Honoring the best fanfiction stories out there on the internet that have been updated in the past 6 months?

-chronodekar

 

[Watashiwa]

Hmm... I can't recall TFF ever doing awards. I mean, there's the Iron Fic/(metal) Fic contests, which are contests, but I don't believe I was ever around for these "ChickenBall" awards. I'm aware of the idea, just in singular fandoms. The Evangelion Tako Balls stand out in my memory, oddly enough.

 

[eliar]

If I remember correctly there were some awards years ago when the only fandoms of any size were ranma, SM, EVA but when the fanfic scene exploded with thousands of fandoms and tens of thousands of fics any effort to try and give out fanfic awards became an exercize of futility.

 

[Master of Squirrel-Fu]

I have asked this before, though to be fair I might have deleted the thread.

 

[Python453]

We should have an awards again. Seriously. We need SOMETHING to contrast all the MSTs out there...

 

[eliar]

And who exactly is gonna be giving out those awards and on what kind of criteria? Back in the RAAC days where they gave out fanfic awards on the Ranma fandom for a few years the debate was so big that it became the biggest flame war of the time at the internet.
If someone is both crazy enough to read for example ALL the halfway decent fics on lets say the Naruto fandom and try to give out awards I predict that the weight of the flames will be so big that the hosting servers will colapse in a mini black hole.

 

[Lord Raine]

I'll do it.

 

[Python453]

I'll do it.

Misc. or just Naruto fics?

 

[Lord Raine]

Whichever fandom you guys decide to nominate.

 

[Python453]

Whichever fandom you guys decide to nominate.

Okay. I nominate BLEACH.

That should make it easy for you, should it win.

 

[Lord Raine]

Whichever fandom you guys decide to nominate.

Okay. I nominate BLEACH.

That should make it easy for you, should it win.

Protector's Pride sweeps everything.

Just kidding.

 

[Python453]

Whichever fandom you guys decide to nominate.

Okay. I nominate BLEACH.

That should make it easy for you, should it win.

Protector's Pride sweeps everything.

Just kidding.

:snigger:

You laugh now... wait until that fic is the only winner.

 

[WizardOne]

I nominate Lord of the rings and Twilight crossover fics.
That is to say, where they're crossed over with each other.

Specifically, WHERE EDWARD AND ARAGORN AND GOLLUM GET IT ON.

PS:'It' is a euphemism for sex.
PSS:Mansex to be exact.

 

[Python453]

I nominate Lord of the rings and Twilight crossover fics.
That is to say, where they're crossed over with each other.

Specifically, WHERE EDWARD AND ARAGORN AND GOLLUM GET IT ON.

PS:'It' is a euphemism for sex.
PSS:Mansex to be exact.

Oh my God, that's... no. That shouldn't win awards; hell that shouldn't even be written.
Even if you're joking about nominating that's... just no.

 

[chronodekar]

And who exactly is gonna be giving out those awards and on what kind of criteria? Back in the RAAC days where they gave out fanfic awards on the Ranma fandom for a few years the debate was so big that it became the biggest flame war of the time at the internet.
If someone is both crazy enough to read for example ALL the halfway decent fics on lets say the Naruto fandom and try to give out awards I predict that the weight of the flames will be so big that the hosting servers will colapse in a mini black hole.

I wasn't around back then, but I can understand the flame war problem.

Ok, let's try it this way - lets first nominate a few fandoms, some "award categories" and about ... 3 judges per fandom. To be a judge, you'll need to be a TFF member and NOT suggest/recommend a fic.

Hmmm... the rules will take a bit of time finalizing but to start off I'm interested in the follow fandoms,

Ranma 1/2
Love Hina

For categories,

Best Overall Fanfic for 2nd half of 2011
Best Romantic Fanfic for 2nd half of 2011
Best Adventure Fanfic for 2nd half of 2011

I think I'll need to check the old chickenball award pages to see what other categories they had. As for prizes, the only thing we can offer is acknowledgement, possibly a cool "award picture" and bragging rights for being approved by TFF.

I have tests going on now, but they should get over within a week and I could make some public web page somewhere, to make it all look more official. I'm thinking google sites right now.

We'll finalize the rules as the discussion goes on.

Of course, this all depends on overall reception to the idea.

And not to forget, we can have Naruto and Bleach sections as well. Even though, I don't really read those fics.

-chronodekar

 

[eliar]

Ranma and love hina are both great fandoms but they both have the same problem.
They are both to old.
Everything and I mean EVERYTHING has been tried and has been crossed with Ranma 1/2 and there are many good fics that have tried every single pairing or multiple pairing of love Hina.
Off course there are still Ranma fics produced since many of the newer fanfic authors have read the old classics or even the newer efforts and they feel somewhat compeled to write a ranma fic or the dreaded ranma/sm cross but usually they are just parroting older and in almost all cases better fics.
The love Hina fandom is pretty much dead I think.

 

[Lord Raine]

Of course the Love Hina fandom is dead. Akamatsu killed it when he let fucking Naru win. Pretty much no one was rooting for her. Even the people who didn't hate her still thought she was overdone and annoying. The series would have been a whole order of magnitude better if the ultimate pairing had just been left ambiguous. Then the fans can be free to fill in the blanks wherever and however they want, which will spark debate and keep the fandom alive, plus as a bonus you've got legroom for a sequel if you ever have the time and inclination to try.

But instead we got to watch Naru the domestic abuse machine strongarm her way into marrying the protagonist, and cosmic justice everywhere wept bitter, bloody tears.

 

[chronodekar]

-sigh-

Well, it looks like the only thing I've proved so far, is that I'm an old-schooler. Oh well ... so much for my "proposition" with this thread...

-chronodekar

 

[shit_happens23]

-sigh-

Well, it looks like the only thing I've proved so far, is that I'm an old-schooler. Oh well ... so much for my "proposition" with this thread...

-chronodekar

It was a beautiful dream chronodekar but, as with all dreams, reality fucks it over. Just ask Emiya Shirou.

 

[Lord Raine]

Who said it's over? Of course it'll die if you expect everyone to do it for you. People are finishing shit up. Kids in college have finals, adults out of college have jobs and aren't on vacation yet. If you send up a Bat Signal for some kind of mass ôsort the fanfiction and hand out gold starsö project when people are occupied with IRL and not bored during vacation, of course nothing will happen. IÆll be more than happy to sift through piles of looking for gems and lambasting the stinkers. IÆm pretty sure IÆve got a decent stack of cred as far as that goes. IÆve got a track record and everything. But IÆm busy right now. Give it a week. Or donÆt and give up on it, itÆs your call.

 

[bissek]

You also might need a set of rules as to what qualifies.

Do you mean written in H2 2011, started in H2 2011, updated in H2 2011, or finished in H2 2011? There are quite a lot of stories out there that take several years to complete, which complicates whether or not they would qualify.

 

[chronodekar]

Hmm... your right! I can't give up without even starting. It's a bit late right now, but give me a day or two and I'll have some rules and stuff listed out.

-chronodekar

 

[Fenrir]

Once again, I'm late, but, yeah, don't be so quick to give up.

Even if there probably won't be a surge of people into LH any time soon, that doesn't necessarily mean that the section is going to just straight up die. Even though these are established fandoms you're considering, it doesn't mean that good, interesting stories won't appear at any given time..

That said, you also have to be realistic. Like one of the previous posts mentioned, you have to define what criteria clears a story to be considered and, then, you have to be clear on what parameters you use to judge. If you donate the necessary time into making it something worth looking forward to in the furture, then you may find that good and beginning writers alike come out the woodwork to make stories for your contest.

 

[goldenarms]

And who exactly is gonna be giving out those awards and on what kind of criteria? Back in the RAAC days where they gave out fanfic awards on the Ranma fandom for a few years the debate was so big that it became the biggest flame war of the time at the internet.
If someone is both crazy enough to read for example ALL the halfway decent fics on lets say the Naruto fandom and try to give out awards I predict that the weight of the flames will be so big that the hosting servers will colapse in a mini black hole.

To be fair, The Ranma Awards had a voting system, so it's not like there was a tiny room with three judges reading every piece of fic that came across the desk -- that was left up to Taleswapper, who was reviewing every Ranma fanfic and rating them, which was eventually dropped because of FFnet and the sheer volume of fics that roared out.

Anyway, all Ranma fics posted within the month were up for nomination, with people voting on them, and the three highest vote-grabbers were then dubbed 1st-2nd-3rd for the month of _____ and automatically entered into the end of the year contest, where again, they were voted upon and the Top Ten for the year were revealed.

And yes, I did win a few TASS awards back in the day -- go me! /horn

If anyone felt X fic shouldn't have won, there's no one to really blame but the voters who voted for it, and sure, you have some fics that boasted controversy like Daigakusei no Ranma. But, then again, it prompted some people to step up their game a bit, since things actually mattered.

So, if anything, it'd have to be a monthly award at the very least, because you will have a deluge of fics to wade through, especially if you're going to cover fandoms like Naruto or Harry Potter. I wouldn't categorize the fics by Best Action/Best Romance/etc. since that's a lot of pointless book keeping at times, and you will be debated about what goes where. Also, in the end, it wouldn't really make much of a difference -- good stories will inevitably come out on top more and chapters would be getting uniformed exposure anyway, so they can be followed in whole or parts. Plus, you can also see trends in fanfiction much more readily on a monthly basis.

Now, the real problem is where do you cull from, since FFnet would be next to impossible to track, especially with people that like to repost chapters just to top the list again.

 

[Nanya]

If you wanted to get stuff that's not just run-of-the-mill, you could try message boards where people post their stuff before it goes up on their website/ff.net

TFF, AnimeSuki, Spacebattles, Fukufics and some others like them would be good places to start.