User blog comment:Wilfredcthulu/Does anyone else hate Ed, Edd n Eddy fanfiction?/@comment-224939-20141109074627

As a semi-former fanfic writer, I too must admit that a good majority of fanfiction is utter crap (Sturgeon's Law, baby). After years of viewing such drivel I've come to the conclusion that the majority of fanfiction is written either to:

A) Fulfill a fetishistic desire of the author. B) Mash one beloved show/book/game with another show/book/game that the author enjoys, regardless if whether or not the two properties are compatible.

Then there's the other big issue that most authors tend to disregard all the traits and personalities of the characters from the main source while taking a big steaming dump over the canon. If one doesn't keep the cast "in-character" then what is the point of using established characters when you might as well be writing original fiction? (Glances above at the two bullet points) Oh yeah...

In my own work, I've tried my best to ensure each cul-de-sac kid is "in-character", hoping to avoid the mistake so many others make but even then my story falls into category B; being something that I wrote just because I thought, at the time, it would be cool to mash two of my favorite properties together despite the fact that a kids' cartoon and a gritty post-apocalyptic videogame aren't exactly like PB&J. Even I admit that my story is no different from, let's say, an Ed, Edd n Eddy/Super Smash Bros. crossover (a competently written one, that is).

Still, there's an upside to the influx of terrible fanfiction; some of it is so bad that it actually makes for a hilarious read. Seriously, for me at least, sometimes reading the keyboard vomit of a cocksure 13-year old who can't even grasp the basics of relationships, plot composition, or even spelling just brightens my day. Heck, just recently I discovered a twitter account that posts nothing but "so-bad-it's-good" excerpts of fanfiction. Heck, I JOINED twitter (a website that's been around since 2006, mind you... Yeah, I'm the kind of guy who is always late to the metaphorical party) just so I could follow this guy. (Here's the link . Yeah, yeah, I know this is a shameless plug but hey, at least it's something positive.)

As for actual good fanfiction? Well in all my time browsing Fanfiction.net I've only ever come across a handful (as in, you can count the number of good fanfics on your hand) of actually good fanfiction that managed to meet my criteria:

A) Featured a competently written plot that seemed like it could be its own episode of the show B) Kept all the kids in-character C) Wasn't a crossover

If I had to give a ratio of good-to-bad fanfiction I'd say it's about 1:50. Yeah... It's cold and dark out there, isn't it?

In summary, authors doing the things above is the reason why the majority of fanfiction sucks, some bad fanfiction can be really funny, and sometimes you can find a diamond in a mile deep mound of doo-doo but it's not really worth diving head-first into. Also, on the topic of anime-style artwork of things that are not anime, two words: F**K ANIME.

[Good grief, I just now realized that I wrote a overly-long reply to a year old blog post that most people by-now probably stopped caring about. Again, always late to the party, I am.]