Why I reject fanfic 'Out.Of.Character'

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alexwarlorn's avatar
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My rejection of the fan fiction 'Out.Of.Character.' is something I can again best express through comparison.

In the anima Yu Yu Hakusho, the super natural video tape 'Chapter Black' is said to run hundreds of hours, showing the worst of humanity and can turn anyone who watches it into a misanthropic. However, King Yama's son informs one of these newly minted misanthropes that that Chapter Black is a one sided argument, and is meant to be viewed as a set (in other words, balanced out by Chapter White). The creator's notes go further into this, that the tapes are about the same length, and aren't meant to be viewed alone nor consecutively, but SIMULTANEOUSLY! 

Out.Of.Character. is likewise a one sided argument where even the most minor or 'harmless' bits of fanon are played for maximum sense of wrongness on poor Rainbow Dash's part. And the worst of fanon is on proud display (including what I assume is an unintentional goof up on the author's part concern that fic Cheerilee's Garden and taking the title of the horror fic too literally). And every character Rainbow Dash encounters is eventually turned into an empty vessel of the author's will. And Rainbow is doomed to an endless cycle of suffering that only ends when the reader stops reading the fic. In other words, like Rainbow Dash, we didn't know how things were going to turn out, so we kept pressing forward hoping against hope that things will turn out alright, or at least we'd manage to soldier on through to the other side of this ordeal, in spite of how insanely bleak things were getting... and like her, we're punished for it. And we're made to feel guilty for daring to hope, while Rainbow is made to just suffer more for daring to hope. 

The prosecution is allowed to make its case with extreme prejudice. But the defense is completely silent. Now argument is made for the other side, which makes the work less a brutal deconstruction of fanon, and more just an over sized accusation fic directed at the fandom's readers and authors. 
© 2016 - 2024 alexwarlorn
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ItsfromPeople's avatar
I have never heard of that story and reading this... I am very happy I haven't. :)