Ranma ½ Frustration

[SimmyC]

To show you what TFF used to be like, and what TFF is now, just compare the reaction to Mage's leaving here and Naruto section.

They all talk about it being a self-moderation democracy... though recently it's quickly turning into an assholocracy.

Forums without moderation don't always instantly die. Some take a while as the assholes begin the outnumber the level headed people. And honestly, TFF is going that way.

 

[Deathwings]

Top that with just this month alone the death of Anifics and the Abh Nation, the earlier this year stopping of stuff on EvaFics, and the later this year dissolution of Geocites... and it seems sometimes the entire fan fiction community is falling apart.

I'm not the only one that came to that conclusion then.

Things are really slowing down in the fanfiction world. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Even Fanfiction.net has been going trough a bad period. Anime Addventure is a barely breathing corpse. TFF productivity has been slow down to a crawl.

What the hell is going on exactly ? Did all the good experienced authors decide to quit at the exact same time or something ?! :huh!:

 

[mgsaintz]

I'm not the only one that came to that conclusion then.

Things are really slowing down in the fanfiction world. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Even Fanfiction.net has been going trough a bad period. Anime Addventure is a barely breathing corpse. TFF productivity has been slow down to a crawl.

What the hell is going on exactly ? Did all the good experienced authors decide to quit at the exact same time or something ?! :huh!:

It happens when RL rears its head, once things settle down you'd sometimes get bursts of updates from several authors for a few months then it'll slow down again. It's a cycle depending on how busy everyone is especially the authors in school, on the other hand the Ranma fanfiction community has been slowing down and new works has gone down in quality.

 

[Xon]

Given David Weber's stance on fanfiction, D, no.

The idea that David Weber, who for legal reasons does not seek out fanfiction of his own work, is going to go reading fanfiction.net is one of the most stupid ideas I've read on this forum.

 

[Deathwings]

I'm not the only one that came to that conclusion then.

Things are really slowing down in the fanfiction world. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Even Fanfiction.net has been going trough a bad period. Anime Addventure is a barely breathing corpse. TFF productivity has been slow down to a crawl.

What the hell is going on exactly ? Did all the good experienced authors decide to quit at the exact same time or something ?! :huh!:

It happens when RL rears its head, once things settle down you'd sometimes get bursts of updates from several authors for a few months then it'll slow down again. It's a cycle depending on how busy everyone is especially the authors in school, on the other hand the Ranma fanfiction community has been slowing down and new works has gone down in quality.

I'm aware that there are "seasons" for fanfictions.

That's not what I was talking about, What I mean is that fanfictions have been in step decline for the last 2 to 3 years. Be it update rate OR quality.

 

[Lost Star]

Everything goes in cycles. Fanfiction is included in this. Besides, everything is relative, there is a good chance that there are still stories being put out, just not in areas you are interested in. *Shrugs*

I don't let it bother me. People have pronounced doom for a fandom plenty of times, and who knows, a few might die. The thing is, more will take it's place. The trick is to realize this, and sometimes, when it is necessary move on.

That said, fandom is slightly different. If you like something, good for you! Maybe some other people like it too. Size doesn't matter for a fan, just the fact that the fandom is fun.

 

[Mageohki]

XON: He IS an Anime fan.

You didn't know? Now, do I THINK he acutally spends very much (if any!) time on FF.net? No.

Now, a HELL OF A LOT of Baen Barflies DO.

To who commented about the comparison: Excatly. While it was Oz's treatment that got the Forum FOUNDED, that I'm moving to, For me... well, it was, is, and WILL BE the Naruto section why I want to go. Admittedly, since what I write is simliar to Oz, at least my current stories, I rather NOT deal wtih the vitrol that sprang up.
A.

 

[ar_ranma]

Can't we all just get along?
Is it really so much to ask for people to settle things in a civilized manner instead of relying on the fight or flight instinct? On both parties parts?


... I suppose it is.

 

[Mageohki]

AR... apparenlty it is, see the NARUTO version of this thread... wow.

A.

 

[goldenarms]

To show you what TFF used to be like, and what TFF is now, just compare the reaction to Mage's leaving here and Naruto section.

They all talk about it being a self-moderation democracy... though recently it's quickly turning into an assholocracy.

Forums without moderation don't always instantly die. Some take a while as the assholes begin the outnumber the level headed people. And honestly, TFF is going that way.

Actually, some don't even recognize him as a Naruto writer like Zeebee.

And to be perfectly honest, TFF isn't all it's cracked up to be. I've been on for a few months, and, it stinks of rot. Possibly because there isn't a proper mod or three like there was back in the FFML days, and as a result, it's eating itself from the inside out. There are a lot of pricks in the Naruto section, whether be by age or design, and it's hard to find mature heads that'll respond and go over your work, let alone mature as a writer, a creative mind. It's either sink to their level, or move on, and the best aren't going to piss themselves away. Not if they truly enjoy what they're doing, even if no one praised them for it.

So, yeah, I'll be just rolling on, too. I only originally came here looking for the advanced copies of Naruto: Sexplosion (and didn't find it ). If a mod comes around and starts spring cleaning, let me know.

 

[Xon]

XON: He IS an Anime fan.

Go Go random capatalization. This forum does support a bold tags.

And frankly, who cares? 'Anime' is a fairly mainstream thing these days.

You didn't know?á Now, do I THINK he acutally spends very much (if any!) time on FF.net? No.

Hence there isn't an issue.

Now, a HELL OF A LOT of Baen Barflies DO.

So? It is then the issue of those people to regulate how they go about respecting copyright.

Fanfiction is just as illegal as what pirate bay does these days, as copyright owners have complete control over any works recognised as derived works in the USA (the fun of international treaties, enforcement is up to each signatory however). Which is why it is such a legal mindfield for authors/writers to public acknowledge someone else's work which is not in public domain.

And fun fact; translations are explicitly included in those treaties as the sole property of the copyright owners. Which makes things like one manga illegal, and could probably get the owners of those sites a few dozen years in a USA jail if it was chased to the logical conclusion.

Do I agree with this? No, but that doesn't change the fact that copyright is mess around the world.

 

[PCHeintz72]

I'm not the only one that came to that conclusion then.

Things are really slowing down in the fanfiction world. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Even Fanfiction.net has been going trough a bad period. Anime Addventure is a barely breathing corpse. TFF productivity has been slow down to a crawl.

What the hell is going on exactly ? Did all the good experienced authors decide to quit at the exact same time or something ?! :huh!:

It happens when RL rears its head, once things settle down you'd sometimes get bursts of updates from several authors for a few months then it'll slow down again. It's a cycle depending on how busy everyone is especially the authors in school, on the other hand the Ranma fanfiction community has been slowing down and new works has gone down in quality.

Well... we've had forums and archives die before. Fandorium comes to mind, as does some of the Lemon archives and a few others over the years. And at least one other ISP host I'm aware of stopped its hosting years ago.

But no... the slowdowns now are bigger than the mere sporadic surge and dead spots we've had in the past... I did some preliminary checks last month, and here is what I came up with (numbers are for me, but I think likely the fandomes overall are not too different):

FAN FICTION STATISTICS

For Ranma I get the following statistics for non-lemon fan fiction (numbers accurate as of 03/07/2009):

Ranma
- 618 stories track total, 06 stories updated in last month, 065 updated in last year, updated in last year: 10.5%.

Ranma - AA Crossovers
- 187 stories track total, 16 stories updated in last month, 095 updated in last year, updated in last year: 50.8%.

Ranma - Crossovers
- 651 stories track total, 14 stories updated in last month, 110 updated in last year, updated in last year: 16.9%.

Ranma - Oh My Goddess
- 095 stories track total, 02 stories updated in last month, 009 updated in last year, updated in last year: 09.5%.

Ranma - Sailor Moon
- 309 stories track total, 09 stories updated in last month, 045 updated in last year, updated in last year: 14.6%.

Ranma - Tenchi Muyo
- 087 stories track total, 01 stories updated in last month, 006 updated in last year, updated in last year: 06.9%.

Totals for Ranma overall - 1947, 48, 330, updated in last year: 16.9%.

However, the fan fiction declining situation is actually bigger than that, at least for myself.

Of the fan fiction series I read most, are all old, are all established, and all have a lot of abandoned stories for them.

As an example, Neon Genesis Evangelion just recently lost EVAFics.ORG, the sister site to Darkscribes.ORG.

For comparison, I get the following statistics for non-lemon fan fiction (numbers accurate as of 03/07/2009) for the following series:

Love Hina
- 185 stories track total, 07 stories updated in last month, 049 updated in last year, updated in last year: 26.5%.

Neon Genesis Evangelion
- 696 stories track total, 11 stories updated in last month, 118 updated in last year, updated in last year: 16.9%.

Tenchi
- 215 stories track total, 01 stories updated in last month, 013 updated in last year, updated in last year: 06.0%.

You can see... Ranma is overall being propped up by the AA and by all the crossovers. Take those away, NGE gets more updates, even with them, by percentage it barely matches it.

Additionally, most of the sites (archive and forum), have slowed down.
- Temple of Ranma's Seifuku (fukufics) has slowed, while still getting stories, it is not as often.
- GenocideHeart's Be Your True Mind Forum (BYTM), is near dead, though a good concept.
- Anifics, while dead and gone now, was near dead for the last year.
- Shinjis Sharing Inc is still there, but no traffic whatsoever since the mass exodus
- Zorch Central Open FanFic Blog-O-Rama is all but dead, only a handful of posts since last year.
- Niklas Hawk Jonsson's The Fanfiction Forum (TFF), Hawk has not even logged in as of my last check in 3 months, or so his profile states. We've been going on inertia and people seem to finally realize they can get away with a lot more than they used to.
- Ficwad.COM I cannot recall when last time they had a anime story I bothered with.
- Many of the individual author sites are dying off as well.

- Even FanFiction.NET and MediaMiner.ORG have slowed...

 

[Cephir]

Well, the categories you track are dead or dying.

I'm fairly certain its been a good decade since any of those series finished their runs. Right now I'm just glad that Harry Potter seems to be picking up with the new movie coming out (although I truly fear the flood of Harry/Ginny fics that will spawn).

 

[Ike]

You'll be happy when all the other pairings fans fight back with their own fics.

 

[Dreamingfox]

As a fairly new person to TFF I'd have to say that things aren't that bad. Sure, there are some members who might take their remarks way to seriously, but I've found that a lot of people here are pretty good at not being vicious about their comments. But maybe that's just me.

I haven't been here that long, and I obviously haven't seen every facet of the community that is here.

 

[Hawk]

I don't really think that TFF will die just because Hawk hasn't signed in. I've been here actively for around 10 months now, and even before Hawk didn't seem to actively participate in the forum much.

I'm a person that advocates not worrying about basically everything though. My opinion is that things usually work themselves out, and there isn't much point in worrying about it.

 

[PCHeintz72]

Well, the categories you track are dead or dying.

I'm fairly certain its been a good decade since any of those series finished their runs.? Right now I'm just glad that Harry Potter seems to be picking up with the new movie coming out (although I truly fear the flood of Harry/Ginny fics that will spawn).

Well... I speciifcally stated for myself and for those fandoms. I actually watch and read far more. However, most of the fandoms are small. The great grand bulk of my reading material has always been Ranma Crossovers, Ranma, Neon Genesis, Love Hina, and Tenchi. That is easily 80%+ of my reading.

Shrugs... none of the newer stuff I watch/read has much of anything in way of coherent fandoms. Most with just a handful of stories here and there. Birdy the Mighty Decode, Black Lagoon, Happy Lesson, History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, Vandread, others. Of those, only Black Lagoon has more than a handful of really good stories, and even that is not a lot. Vandread would be next, while more stories in the section, less appeal as good.

Fate/stay night and Tsukihime would not be bad, but I have different issues with those fandoms, mainly they are based on material outside the anime.

And of the current popular ones, including the top 16 in the anime area (Ranma is 17th) and Harry Potter at FanFiction.NET... none appeal to me for fan fiction.

- 14605 Prince of Tennis
- 14840 Fruits Basket
- 15107 Death Note
- 15670 Rurouni Kenshin
- 18565 Beyblade
- 22119 Yu Yu Hakusho
- 22586 Card Captor Sakura
- 25887 Bleach
- 26283 Fullmetal Alchemist
- 29323 Sailor Moon
- 30434 Dragon Ball Z
- 31434 Digimon
- 39729 Gundam Wing/AC
- 47402 Yu-Gi-Oh
- 86303 Inuyasha
- 190546 Naruto

I'll probable eventually fade out of anime/manga fanfiction, since less and less appeals, and fewer yet get fandoms of any size.

 

[Hawk]

I'll probable eventually fade out of anime/manga fanfiction, since less and less appeals, and fewer yet get fandoms of any size.

That is quite sad.

I'll be honest though, of those sixteen fandoms I've only read a couple of good Full Metal Alchemist fics and those were crossovers, and one really spectacular Ruroni Kenshin crossover with Star Wars. It was rather bizarre, but somehow awesome.

I kind of like FMA, but not all that much, and the one time I went through that section it was filled with a ridiculous amount of yaoi.

I've only ever read one Inuyasha fic on the Addventure, but I haven't actually gone through its FFN section. The Addventure thread is still one of my favorites and I wish it would be added to.

 

[Nanya]

I'm not the only one that came to that conclusion then.

Things are really slowing down in the fanfiction world. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Even Fanfiction.net has been going trough a bad period. Anime Addventure is a barely breathing corpse. TFF productivity has been slow down to a crawl.

What the hell is going on exactly ? Did all the good experienced authors decide to quit at the exact same time or something ?! :huh!:

It happens when RL rears its head, once things settle down you'd sometimes get bursts of updates from several authors for a few months then it'll slow down again. It's a cycle depending on how busy everyone is especially the authors in school, on the other hand the Ranma fanfiction community has been slowing down and new works has gone down in quality.

Well... we've had forums and archives die before. Fandorium comes to mind, as does some of the Lemon archives and a few others over the years. And at least one other ISP host I'm aware of stopped its hosting years ago.

But no... the slowdowns now are bigger than the mere sporadic surge and dead spots we've had in the past... I did some preliminary checks last month, and here is what I came up with (numbers are for me, but I think likely the fandomes overall are not too different):

FAN FICTION STATISTICS

For Ranma I get the following statistics for non-lemon fan fiction (numbers accurate as of 03/07/2009):

Ranma
- 618 stories track total, 06 stories updated in last month, 065 updated in last year, updated in last year: 10.5%.

Ranma - AA Crossovers
- 187 stories track total, 16 stories updated in last month, 095 updated in last year, updated in last year: 50.8%.

Ranma - Crossovers
- 651 stories track total, 14 stories updated in last month, 110 updated in last year, updated in last year: 16.9%.

Ranma - Oh My Goddess
- 095 stories track total, 02 stories updated in last month, 009 updated in last year, updated in last year: 09.5%.

Ranma - Sailor Moon
- 309 stories track total, 09 stories updated in last month, 045 updated in last year, updated in last year: 14.6%.

Ranma - Tenchi Muyo
- 087 stories track total, 01 stories updated in last month, 006 updated in last year, updated in last year: 06.9%.

Totals for Ranma overall - 1947, 48, 330, updated in last year: 16.9%.

However, the fan fiction declining situation is actually bigger than that, at least for myself.

Of the fan fiction series I read most, are all old, are all established, and all have a lot of abandoned stories for them.

As an example, Neon Genesis Evangelion just recently lost EVAFics.ORG, the sister site to Darkscribes.ORG.

For comparison, I get the following statistics for non-lemon fan fiction (numbers accurate as of 03/07/2009) for the following series:

Love Hina
- 185 stories track total, 07 stories updated in last month, 049 updated in last year, updated in last year: 26.5%.

Neon Genesis Evangelion
- 696 stories track total, 11 stories updated in last month, 118 updated in last year, updated in last year: 16.9%.

Tenchi
- 215 stories track total, 01 stories updated in last month, 013 updated in last year, updated in last year: 06.0%.

You can see... Ranma is overall being propped up by the AA and by all the crossovers. Take those away, NGE gets more updates, even with them, by percentage it barely matches it.

Additionally, most of the sites (archive and forum), have slowed down.
- Temple of Ranma's Seifuku (fukufics) has slowed, while still getting stories, it is not as often.
- GenocideHeart's Be Your True Mind Forum (BYTM), is near dead, though a good concept.
- Anifics, while dead and gone now, was near dead for the last year.
- Shinjis Sharing Inc is still there, but no traffic whatsoever since the mass exodus
- Zorch Central Open FanFic Blog-O-Rama is all but dead, only a handful of posts since last year.
- Niklas Hawk Jonsson's The Fanfiction Forum (TFF), Hawk has not even logged in as of my last check in 3 months, or so his profile states. We've been going on inertia and people seem to finally realize they can get away with a lot more than they used to.
- Ficwad.COM I cannot recall when last time they had a anime story I bothered with.
- Many of the individual author sites are dying off as well.

- Even FanFiction.NET and MediaMiner.ORG have slowed...

Wait... Anifics is dead? :blink:

Damn, I didn't see that.

I really need to get back to writing myself.

 

[SimmyC]

I don't really think that TFF will die just because Hawk hasn't signed in.á I've been here actively for around 10 months now, and even before Hawk didn't seem to actively participate in the forum much.

I'm a person that advocates not worrying about basically everything though.á My opinion is that things usually work themselves out, and there isn't much point in worrying about it.

It's true that Hawk himself is a 'hands off' approach kind of guy. Only butting in (when he still cared about TFF) when he had to.

But keep in mind, he did ban two people before World of Warcraft ate his soul. Also, TFF was a much smaller forum before. It's not the juggernaut that it is now. Certainly it wasn't a forum that was heavy loaded towards Naruto with... people with strong emotions to say the least. Heck, Hawk even contemplated closing the Naruto forums given how many 'problems' he felt that forum had (i.e. breaking his rules. The few he set up since again, he's a laid back 'hands off' kind of guy).

But let's get back to fanfiction and it's apparent decline. I have gotten a sense that fanfiction is in decline for the fandoms I read. BUT, those fandoms are usually older series and, while it's something I feel shouldn't be a reason for them to decline, people in general, prefer to hook onto the latest popular series.

Note, I said popular. While I love Black Lagoon for example, Black Lagoon is no where near Naruto popularity. Heck, it's not even Higurashi popularity.

And being the 'hit' series now, doesn't always mean great fics are written for those fandoms. Naruto is huge. But the fandom is full of horrible fics. You'd have to dig through piles and piles of horrid crap before you'd find a decent fics. Much less a great fic.

That being said, I will also agree that there is a feeling that the 'truly great fanfic writers'... have moved on. While my list is much shorter than a lot of people here, most of my favorite list, haven't updated in a long time. Plus, I've been hearing from many people I talk to in IMs that their favorite writers, have either slowed their updating, or moved on from writing altogether. Of course, this could be the effect of real life. My own writing is suffering now because, well, besides Hawk's problem (the addiction that is World of Warcraft), going to school and looking for a job just doesn't leave a lot of time for writing.

 

[Himitsu the Hunter]

Yes, the Older vanguard do move on. Its a fact of life. One of the problems i tend to observe is that alot of times instead of trying to guide the newlings into becoming masters themselves many either do one of 2 very unproductive things... mindless praise, which produces more monstrosities.... and giving things the Big AXE for not following the specific formule of directive which they want out of them, not allowing people to explore certain themes and such without jumping up and down on their ideas.

Personally I like this forum alot, you people don't really breed many of the former kind and because the artists can come here and get play by play advice and critique of their works you do help with making alot of improvement. How ever sometimes you DO go overboard on certain topics and become the Big AXEs when you are faced with certain idea directions in certain fandoms, and quite a few of the highly vocal do not practice "If you can not say something nice, at least say it politely or not at all".

It would be a real shame for us to scare off good talent which could be molded and nurtured because we don't like a specific idea they decided to explore. Its not hard to be nice to each other... after all this is the story telling section, we are here to help each other not trying to WIN Arguments (not i said Win, cause having a constructive argument and trying to WIN an argument can be 2 completely different things).

-Himitsu The Hunter

 

[Steel]

The isolation of the 90s and early 2000s is gone. It's easy to find other people in person who share your interests to the same obsessive degree, quite possibly robbing some of the momentum from the fanfiction community.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I couldn't tell you.

 

[Hawk]

After reading the Naruto thread, I can safely call Mage an idiot.

 

[CatOnFire]

And being the 'hit' series now, doesn't always mean great fics are written for those fandoms. Naruto is huge. But the fandom is full of horrible fics. You'd have to dig through piles and piles of horrid crap before you'd find a decent fics. Much less a great fic.

The problem with the Naruto fandom is Naruto as a series is just so... limited. It makes it difficult for authors to do anything but create an alternate timeline or introduce an OC. Most crossovers need for you to break open the series to a point at which you either have to suspend your disbelief or the series stops resembling the Naruto-verse altogether. A good potion of Naruto "crossovers" are barely that as they have characters leaving their original -verse and traveling to another, because creating a fusion that works with canon is stupidly hard to make believable.

 

[PCHeintz72]

And being the 'hit' series now, doesn't always mean great fics are written for those fandoms. Naruto is huge. But the fandom is full of horrible fics. You'd have to dig through piles and piles of horrid crap before you'd find a decent fics. Much less a great fic.

The problem with the Naruto fandom is Naruto as a series is just so... limited. It makes it difficult for authors to do anything but create an alternate timeline or introduce an OC. Most crossovers need for you to break open the series to a point at which you either have to suspend your disbelief or the series stops resembling the Naruto-verse altogether. A good potion of Naruto "crossovers" are barely that as they have characters leaving their original -verse and traveling to another, because creating a fusion that works with canon is stupidly hard to make believable.

It being a limited universe does not seem to either stop forums from bulging with posts or stories swamping the section on FanFiction.NET, nor readers from buying it, as it consistently makes bestseller lists. It currently on FanFiction.NET is some 18 times the size of the Ranma section, is the largest anime section of them all, and nearly 2 times as many stories as 2nd place and 4 times as many as 3rd place.

Personally, I do not get its appeal, as I think it dreadful. I personally will not read it.

But... having stated that... I cannot deny its popularity.

Oddly, the only story I've read quite some time back in the past containing Naruto and somewhat liked... was pulled by the author when outraged fans gave him so much grief over it. Shrugs... go figure.