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| The nature of many fanfictions; again something difficult to deal with | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 14 2004, 11:47:17 AM (4,676 Views) | |
| Nick22 | Jun 23 2006, 04:20:49 PM Post #61 |
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Resident History Buff
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I Myself am in the B camp, as anyone who has read some of rrs can attest. However I don't see this issue as one of :war' but rather a difference in vision. While I agree that most of us here include non-LBt ekements, we try to keep the non-lbt elements from pre-dominating the story. Many fanfics, unfortunately let that happen. The story becomes a vechile for the release of all their inner passions and feelinds, and they end up having the characters involved in mature or unrealistic situations. Good writers can mitigate this, and produce a story, that while not hewing to a pure LBt storyline, is still an enjoyable read. |
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| landbeforetimelover | May 28 2007, 11:07:04 PM Post #62 |
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Littlefoot
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I was thinking about writing an lbt fanfic where not like people from star wars go and bring the gang on a adventure and the gang gets stuck in a war or whatever, I was thinking about having like some human from the future find out that the government got the ideas in lbt movies from writings on walls made by cavemen and made them into movies to make money. It is now the time of lbt 1,223 and the stories are still great except in the most recent one, the gang got eaten by a sharptooth. The human finds this to be what actually happend 20 million years ago and travels back in time to prevent that occurance and meets the gang and assists them in their struggles through the course of 40 years. Finally, the gang meets the sharptooth and the human from the future helps the gang kill it. In the course of 40 years, they could have many adventures except the gang would have assistance from advanced technology such as transproter capabilities, abitlities to project force fields, and the help from the human from the future since he would have a lazer sword. I sorta like this idea but it would be really hard to explain it all. There would be no sex, blood, or gore. All there would be is the gang having adventures with futuristic technology. Anyone else like the idea? |
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| landbeforetimelover | May 29 2007, 08:23:39 PM Post #63 |
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Littlefoot
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I really hate fanfictions where like Littlefoot and Ducky have sex. That's just disquesting in my opinion. Not to mention that in is physically impossible without causing Ducky serious injury. Has anyone run into that sort of crap? |
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| The Great Valley Guardian | Jun 12 2007, 06:38:50 PM Post #64 |
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Longtail is ALWAYS watching!
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After reading the last 4 pages, I must say I'm impressed with everyone's P.O.V's. It has definetly given something to think about.....however on the subject of non LBT elements in our fan-fics, I believe the closest my fanfic comes to would have to be physical and spiritual re-incarnation....don't worry I will most likely stay within the basic boundaries of LBT Although I tend to aim more towards group A, and pure LBT fanfics, I feel that if an author needs to include non LBT elements, then they sould feel free to do so....but I can only take it so far... But that is the author choice....and I have no say in that And now to shut up!
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| landbeforetimelover | Jul 3 2007, 07:21:28 PM Post #65 |
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Littlefoot
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I think that a person should have the freedom to write what they want to. We don't have to like it though. The only thing's I do not approve of is sexual things relating to LBT, and horrible stories where the gang is murdered or some other crap like that. I think that some of them involving star wars is quite funny, but I don't want them to put anything like that in the LBT sequals or anything. It's sorta fun to step out of the box for a while and not just have LBT, but mix it with other things like star wars. I personally would love to read a Littlefoot/Ali romance so long as there was no explicit details or anything. A kiss or whatever is okay, but that's about it. I'm more interested in their parents reaction to them being in love and their friends reaction as well. It would be interesting to see how they would live together, how they would get along in stressful times, and how deeply their love would go (to an acceptable level of course). Now that would be a good fanfic. |
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| Raptor | Sep 14 2007, 04:37:16 PM Post #66 |
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Ducky
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I'm not quite sure what made me revive this, but I did. Anyways, I have a story that I may or may not post, which has one point where one of the "villians"(a Dromaeosaurid) dies. He is flung off a cliff and is impaled on numerous sharp rocks. However, this is not described. The only clue to what happened is the gang's reaction, written as "They winced as the terrible sound of the Fastbiter's landing tore the air." This, I believe, would be acceptable, because the event is only implied. I do not describe every gory detail, I simply imply what happened. |
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| The Great Valley Guardian | Sep 24 2007, 11:36:58 AM Post #67 |
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Longtail is ALWAYS watching!
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That works very, very well! I actually look forward to reading this, even if you PM to me!
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| jedi472 | May 3 2008, 01:36:00 PM Post #68 |
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Jedi Knight
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Well, this makes me feel better about myself! :lol: |
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| jedi472 | May 3 2008, 01:56:50 PM Post #69 |
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Jedi Knight
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Thank you! I'm personally of mindset B, and I believe LBT is a good and wholesome universe to write about, not to mention compatible. I mean, the characters are perfect for crossover fanfics. They all have had defining experiences of their own and have all gone on many adventures, but they still are young and have much more space for developments in their lives. They are pretty nonviolent, but we have seen they will do whatever they must to win the day. They are usually friendly to any newcomer as well, making them all the more endearing to a crossover. I've noticed violent content as another point of contention about crossovers. LBT is a "childrens" series, and therefore has very little violence of its own, but I don't believe it is that farfetched for battles and fighting to take place regularly in an LBT story, as long as it isn't too gory. Anyone can be pushed to violence, as we see everyday, and if peace or innocents in LBT were threatened, I know anyone from the LBT universe would use every option to ensure the evil would be stopped, including fighting said evil force and killing it. Sexual content, on the other hand, has very little place in an LBT story. Sure, I can imagine Littlefoot and Ali having kids or something, but please, not too much detail in that aspect. I know not everyone will agree to this view, and there will no doubt be serveral critics of this, but everything has its place. Even if a crossover sounds bad, you might want to read it before dennouncing it. (Sorry if this offended anyone) |
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| Rat_lady7 | May 3 2008, 04:33:20 PM Post #70 |
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Littlefoot
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I do understand what you are saying, some of the LBT fanfic writers try to put things that everyone knows would not be in the movies. I think reason why people do that is because they want to write a more mature theme to LBT since the producers never will. And I think the whole Sci-fi/LBT thing is really over rated, I see too many LBT fanfics that have that stuff within them so I really don't bother reading any LBT fanfics. However, I did come across LBT fanfics that were "puritan". Like: Search for Pterano (I seriously could imagine that story being a fanfic, AND it is rated G.) Here's the link:Search for Pterano I'd Give to Change-Here's the link:I'd Give to Change Courage to Believe:Courage to Believe So, yeah, there are still fanfics out there that are realistic for a LBT movie. |
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| jedi472 | May 3 2008, 05:37:14 PM Post #71 |
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Jedi Knight
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Good point. I suppose staying true to LBT is next to impossible with a crossover, but then again, I suppose people have different definitions of "staying true". I personally believe that LBT falls within the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre, and that other franchises in the same genre can go very well with it. Pure LBT fics are great, but I believe a crossover allows you to develop both universes' characters into something greater than they were. And as for the songs, I think if the song even loosly fits the situation, then by all means, have them sing it! I know Littlefoot and the gang might be rockin' out sooner or later in my fic! B) |
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| Serris | May 3 2008, 05:55:06 PM Post #72 |
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General of the Great Valley
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How does LBT fall into that genre? I always though that LBT fell into the "cartoon" genre. Also, crossovers are a gamble. They come out into a thrilling tour de force or a shocking failure. In particular, the chiasma (sorry, my AP Bio student is coming out! :lol) (Here it means the place where the 2 universes meet) of a crossover story can make the story into the tour de force or screw it over. As for why I called it the chiasma: I made a pun with the process in meoisis called "crossing over". |
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| jedi472 | May 3 2008, 06:18:20 PM Post #73 |
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Jedi Knight
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I guess it's fantasy because, as far as we know, it didn't happen! I know crossovers are risky, and some really do suck, but if the writer is skilled and the other franchise is compatible, then it could turn into somthing awesome. As for keeping the original "spirit" of LBT, that's not too much of an issue for me because once LBT is crossed over with something else, the entire mood changes. All you have to do is make sure the change is good.
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| jedi472 | May 3 2008, 06:39:22 PM Post #74 |
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Jedi Knight
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This is a quote from Malte from a few years ago. he makes some very valid points as to why the majority of crossovers suck.Yes too much blood and gore can sour a story(but certainly not a movie. I cite 300 as an example), and those damned WWII atrocity stories drive me up a tree with their pointless seriousness and overall aura of disgust. But there was one thing he said that disturbed me a little. Here it is. There is nothing more pointless as mere repetitions of storys that have already been told. That statment is odd, considering that I could say that all modern movies, including LBT, are the same old stories in different packaging. While I do not believe this, I think that repitition is a useful tool in storytelling and can be used to great effect if the story combines many different elements from other tales. Just because something is repeated in other stories doesn't mean all the other stories who use roughly the same scene are crap and just clones of one story.(Example:someone in my English class told me Star Wars was just a sci-fi copy of Homer's epics. I quickly proved them wrong.) P.S. What is N54? |
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| Serris | May 3 2008, 06:51:20 PM Post #75 |
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General of the Great Valley
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It's one of the LBT forums that this links to. It's link is above the fora proper. |
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| jedi472 | May 3 2008, 07:04:52 PM Post #76 |
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Jedi Knight
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Thanks! |
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| Malte279 | May 4 2008, 04:28:23 AM Post #77 |
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I'm a historian. I MUST be like that!
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Hi jedi472! That statement I made is somewhat ambiguous. What I meant to say is that I do agree with the supporters of LBT stories that are mixed with non-LBT elements that it would be pointless to just repeat exactly the same LBT stories over and over again with just minor changes of character names and nothing really new happening at all. I do agree that if basically the same story is told over and over again it is bound to become dull. However, many of the supporters of non-pure LBT fanfictions also claim that it is practically impossible to write LBT stories within the limits set by the movies and still avoid exactly that kind of repetition. This is where I strongly disagree. Of course it is a lot more difficult to write a land before time story within the limits set by the movies, but it is quite possible to do so without merely repeating stuff. I admit that with the many elements told by now through the TV series it has become much more difficult than it was by the time when I made the statement, but it is still not impossible. Looking at the ratio of LBT stories with non-LBT elements and strictly LBT stories it seems like hardly anyone wants to bother writing a land before time story that could theoretically be turned into an LBT movie. There are really very, very few stories where this would be possible. The N54 LBT Forum is the oldest successful land before time forum existing (for all I know). It was very active for several years and the roots of the GOF partly go back to the N54 forum. Many of our members used to post there. Meanwhile it has fallen mostly silent as the GOF is just more suitable for the larger number of members and is a lot more clearly arranged. Nevertheless the N54 forum still includes many interesting old messages and discussion threads. The earliest posts there date from 1999. One thing that should be noted with regard to violence in LBT is, that in spite of LBT movies being made for children in particular, the stories are not without violence and a purist LBT fanfiction certainly doesn't have to go without it either. Just imagine what the Pterano incident of LBT 7 or the Mysterious Beyond landscapes from the original movie and LBT 2 and 3 (very dark places full of decay and dinosaur skeletons) would read like in a story? In many cases however violence is put into LBT stories in a manner that just doesn't fit. The LBT characters are no humans. I really don't believe they would think in a manner so similar to us when it comes to "war" (a concept which they probably wouldn't understand at all). For example sharpteeth would have absolutely no benefit from attacking the Great Valley in large numbers trying to kill everyone. That would be a very human thing to do. The sharpteeth however don't want to eradicate leafeaters. If they hunt down a good "piece of prey" they have no reason to attack anyone else anymore until the prey is consumed. The larger sharpteeth are very unlikely to form large herds (or an "army" as described in many fanfictions) as it would require just much more prey than they are likely to catch. This is just one example. The only thing I can think of that might get LBT dinosaurs into a kind of fight that may bear some resemblance to a human kind of war is the racism which we have seen in various degrees since the original movie. I have been writing on a land before time story about this topic which I think goes as far in this direction as possible (and I am not always certain if I didn't exaggerate it myself). As for crossing overs, I do not deny that they may be well written. Jason wrote a land before time crossing over with such narrative quality as I can barely hope to ever obtain. It is a story though that mixes LBT with elements from Resident Evil, Zelda and I think several more stories. I really must say that, in spite of the excellent style of the writing, I could not see such a mix as a real LBT story. The same goes for LBT and Star Wars. I love LBT and I really, really like Star Wars a lot, but I don't think they make a match. Maybe I'm ranting louder about non-pure LBT stories than most people would like me to, but there are just so few people who write pure LBT stories and so many who would want anything to be mixed with LBT. If two tasty but totally different and unrelated kinds of food are mixed the result would all to often not be tasty. |
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| jedi472 | May 30 2008, 07:42:05 PM Post #78 |
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Jedi Knight
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Yeah, I guess everybody likes their own thing. (BTW, Battle of the Sacred Essences was a huge inspiration for my fic. That right there is the single best crossover I've ever seen!) |
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| landbeforetimelover | Mar 17 2009, 05:53:33 AM Post #79 |
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Littlefoot
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Look...I can see and support many different things in fanfictions, but things I just can't stand or tolerate are: *Fanfics with horrible grammar *Fanfics that are all one mashed paragraph *Fanfics that don't use quotes when a character is speaking *Fanfics that involve explicit sex scenes (in my opinion, there's absolutely NO reason why words such as d***, p****, or f*** should be used in a so called "romance" fiction. That's not romance. That's a disgusting sex fic that's written so people can get off on it.) *Fanfics that involve any type of sexual relations between two different species. I'm not against inter-species relationships, but PLEASE don't include any sex! That's just sick and unrealistic. If you want them to be in love that's fine, but that doesn't mean they need to be engaging in physical relations. *Fanfiction authors who mold the characters to their story instead of their story to the characters. The characters are already set in stone. You shouldn't be allowed to change them too much. If they do something they would never do in the book/movie the fanfic is based off of, it's just not good anymore. *Really short fanfics. If you're gonna write a fanfic, at least make it more than 500 words. It's just stupid. I didn't go to FF.net to read a paragraph about a couple of characters in a book/movie. Unless you can get 10,000 words or more then don't post it. If you can't get that many words then you need to develop the story a little more or add more details. *Fanfics that have two different species mate by having one of them transform. It's just too unbelievable and the transformed character is no longer the character that's in the book/movie the fanfiction is about, so what's the point? Instead of doing this, why not develop your own fictional character that's similar to the two characters you want to be in a relationship and make them the same species? Sure it'd be harder, but transformation is just ridiculous. Other than that I can pretty much handle anything. Big list of things I don't like, but there's a lot of crummy fanfics out there too. Didn't want to leave anything out. |
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| jedi472 | Mar 17 2009, 05:11:40 PM Post #80 |
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Jedi Knight
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Thanks for the tips, LBTlover. Those seem like pretty good guidelines for any LBT story, and I think I follow most of them, except perhaps for 6. I'm not quite sure if I've changed the LBT characters personalities in my story. I don't think I have, but I am a little biased in this situation. |
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I know crossovers are risky, and some really do suck, but if the writer is skilled and the other franchise is compatible, then it could turn into somthing awesome. As for keeping the original "spirit" of LBT, that's not too much of an issue for me because once LBT is crossed over with something else, the entire mood changes. All you have to do is make sure the change is good.
) But what business do they have in LBT. Another message their told about a dream in which littlefoot lost his lower left leg beneath the knee. I would not be surprised to read this as part of a fanfiction soon. 

7:50 PM Jul 10