Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Hakurei Shrine~ => Touhou Addict Recovery Center => Topic started by: Kyaksa on July 18, 2010, 03:20:16 PM

Title: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Kyaksa on July 18, 2010, 03:20:16 PM
LOL... when I read a doujinshi made by a touhou fan I instantly fall in love with the plot (most of the time if not made of crack).

But the thing I notice (i'm still kind of new here) at FF.net where I usually see (and yet to post) that alot fics go unreviewed because touhou fans like a perfect IC of the character and the feeling that is- Gensokyo. But the problem other than that I get the feeling (I'm only a FF.net reader, I've yet to read anything in the Patchouli forum) that a writer and a reader will ever go hand on hand with how they see a character and how they're written (but i admit, FF.net doesn't always have the best writers).

Does anyone feel (or have felt) that way before, when writting a Fic on touhou?

DX *sighs* Forgive me... I was just thinking.
Title: Re: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Iced Fairy on July 18, 2010, 04:06:18 PM
Well first off I'll say right now reviews aren't the best judge of how well a story is liked.  I think I've gotten one review on FF.net for a story that has been favorited twice as much as one of my stories with 4 reviews.

However you're right to a certain degree as well.  Readers are picky.  I'm an especially picky reader myself.  I got into touhou for slice of life with occasional bullets, and while I enjoy an epic tale or a "L ol so random" fic there are still things that totally turn me off to a story and I stop reading.  No matter how good the writing is.  For example I stop reading UDs redo of ESoD around Meiling because the characters weren't the characters I liked despite the name, and I enjoyed actually playing ESoD a whole lot more.  (Marisa's speech impediment was another reason, but I consider that bad writing).

Considering how varied the comunity is you're going to get a number of people like me who don't read things that annoy them (whether that be yuri, OCs or violence) and it's possible that no matter how good a writer you are you won't be able to satisfy those readers.  Just like how you aren't going to make Mystia happy no matter how you prepare that chicken for dinner.  But unless you're idea's on the very fringe, good writing can help a lot in keeping readers.

Of course there's also the fact that 90% of what's on FF.net is utter crap so... well....  Sturgeon's law strikes again.

(You may want to ask for this post to be rerouted to the library by the way)
Title: Re: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Bias Bus on July 18, 2010, 04:28:20 PM
I'm gonna try and see if I get this right, being I'm all in the unknown as to what you're trying to get at here.

First of all, I'm going to say that while Touhou's good for having a setting that's pretty much flexible and thus can suit just about anyone's taste, but that's where we run into this sorta problem alot. You get a whole lot of different variations of characters and shit, and you gotta recipie for people wanting different shit and then the other guys not liking your shit because it doesn't match how they like their shit. It's just one of those (many) flaws of the fanbase really.

Also why FF.net? I'm pretty sure most of the stuff on there is nothing but shit.
Title: Re: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Nobu on July 18, 2010, 04:50:10 PM
Everyone has their own conception of the characters they like and don't like. Sure, while some people have these very rigid constructs for certain characters, others are more malleable. Usually I don't mind too much when an artist takes a character I like a certain way I never expected, and sometimes it even makes me like a character more than I would have.

White Rose (a fic you can find in our fanfic board by one of our esteemed authors) totally overhauled my views on Orin and Okuu in a way I wasn't expecting. Pasteltel does great Aya x Sanae shoujo-ai, as well as having my favorite portrayal of Momiji as a calm older-sister type. These are things I never really thought about myself, but really opened up the characters to me.

So yeah, it really depends on how you look at it. By nature of the Touhou series, people that wish to partake in the fandom fully need to have a certain amount of malleability in their character concepts, or they'll only be able to see the 'flaws' in everything they view. 
Title: Re: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Hello Purvis on July 18, 2010, 05:16:31 PM
The quickest way to see if a writer is full of shit or not is to look at how they do Kisume.

Also, ff.net has been terrible forever. At least it was fun back in the early aughts before the great pr0n purge.
Title: Re: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Kyaksa on July 18, 2010, 05:46:40 PM
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The quickest way to see if a writer is full of shit or not is to look at how they do Kisume.

Well that's kind of true, there's a certain veiw on how a single base... a midboss has a small profile (and you are a die hard fan of touhou wiki) you have in mind (let not forget the flashes/PV) then that's how the character suppose to  be.

Quote
Also why FF.net? I'm pretty sure most of the stuff on there is nothing but shit.

*sigh* well mostly 90% are full of crap but still... it's the only place where you can express, learn, fail and suceed... With or withour reviews... it's like a training dojo for writers, unless the writer knows a BIG community (with a fanfiction corner) of a certain fanbase. I've done varies of types of fandom fics and I've been given useless reviews and once in a while useful critircal reviews.  :ohdear: It was my beginner's place (please my spelling is shit by default, don't mention it... I use Word).


 :ohdear: But still Touhou is very flexiable, and you have a point, readers imagine of one character and some-one see's another.

 :ohdear:

Only Harry Potter, ( ::) The goddamn Twilight), and Touhou (like here and probably ONLY here...) *may be more but idk* have such a huge fanbase that True fans can post their fandom. Other than that there's only Fanfiction.net, Livejournel and maybe evn facebook DX.

Title: Re: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Drake on July 18, 2010, 06:26:04 PM
I dunno, it's always been pretty obvious to me whether or not a fic and writer is pass or fail. There aren't any actual requirements or anything, just quality or writing and enjoyability, really. Note that even original characters aren't bad in nature, but many times quality of writing goes down when badly utilizing an original character. Also, because Touhou is such a malleable universe, it's very easy to not give personality to certain characters, and it's also very easy to overload a character with traits. I know other places criticize the overuse of the Brown Tewi statement, but really that's a big reason why Touhou is so popular and easy to write with. However, because it's almost natural to form views on any character, it's quite easy to have people that don't like works just based on the author's portrayal of a character, like Nobu said.

I find it's much easier to write something totally weird and different than it is to attempt at character interpretations and get away with everyone liking it.

Also, I don't like how you use the expression "True fans".
Title: Re: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Kyaksa on July 18, 2010, 06:35:24 PM
Quote
Also, I don't like how you use the expression "True fans".

>.< I never really went to any of the HP Big group communities to read their fanfiction (i think i read somewhere in wikipedia or something that a person was given an award from J.K Rowlings), It's like people of an actaul community seem to get a better idea of what an IC of HP is...  ::) Still it seems like a true fan (where flexabilty doesn't exist in HP as in Touhou), knows what they're doing and os on and so forth.

*sigh* I'm sorry...
Title: Re: From FF.net... Touhou fans are hard to please
Post by: Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin on July 18, 2010, 08:05:26 PM
I think the point is that if you use the phrase "true fan," you're committing the No True Scotsman fallacy no matter what the point or context is.