The Fandom-verse: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[Atom]

The Fandom-verse!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

HEYOOOO! It's Atom here with another fandom discussion! So today I'm here out of general curiosity to gather a few more opinions! Today's topic? The good, the bad, and the ugly! I'm sure most users on the site have delved into a fandom RP at some point or another in their history of RPing, and if you haven't then I highly suggest you do! So, for those of you that have, I'm quite sure we've all had our good times, our bad times, and then those downright ugly times! I'd love to hear about some of them! I want to hear about them all actually! Give me your good experiences, give me your bad experiences, and give me your ugly experiences! Now just keep in mind though that there shall be no naming of names or bashing of opinions whatsoever within this thread. None! At all! Get it? Got it? GOOD!


NOW FEED ME YOUR EXPERIENCES!

 

[izayoiix]

No

 

[Dr Nyx]

*ROLLS IN SO FAST THAT I BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER & FIFTH WALL*


Annyywwayy...Onto my Experiences. They'll go in descending order of Good, Bad and Shub-Niggurath ugly.


My first experience was actually quite a Pleasant one. It was a Tower of God Rp and at first I was like "HAH, TOWER OF GOD FANDOM RP?..THIS'LL DIE FASTER THAN A MOTH FLYING TO THE SUN" Woe and behold though, A day later I ended up pulling the "Oh I know it'll fail, but lets join in anyway." It was actually executed amazingly, All the players had a fair amount of Knowledge on it and everyone had quite good writing skills. Everything was amazing and Rping it was so satisfying because actually Locating a Tower of God Rp is kind of like trying to find actual physical evidence that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon existed, Finding a good one is kind of finding a Winged Unicorn that is naturally neon colored. Course everything comes to an end...An abrupt, Violent end. I'll cut this short and just say a disagreement happened and the Author & Co-Author proceeded to disappear off the face of the earth and take a Swan dive into the endless abyss of nothing. I am and still to this day, trying to locate a Good Tower of God Rp of that caliber....It has not happened. This Rp lasted a very good 8 months.


My second one was an absolute travesty and mainly fueled by the pure hype and action than the story line. It was a Certain Raildex Rp and was absolutely random. It had no plot whatsoever, the author had no bloody clue on what to do and kinda just threw things around like a drunk clown attempting to juggle. It was exciting but the execution was awful; Kind of like a botched beheading where the first strike doesn't actually decapitate the person...Exciting and full of hype but eventually dragged on and got incredibly boring. Exciting and fun in the first stage but awful at the rest. I myself have made plans on initiating a Raildex rp but one with a similar idea to mine was launched very recently; and I really would not like seeming like "Mc I stole your idea, fuck yourself" Guy.


This third one was a wonderful Rp in idea; the anime it going off of being quite glorious and a classic..That being Black lagoon. A wondrous Gun porn anime that included lots of badassery, Surprisingly dark themes and Moral questioning and lots and lots and lots and lots of Guns. What soon initiated once the Rp was launched was a massive clusterfuck of clusterfuckery. Even though It was set in modern times a bunch of people attempted to use futuristic weapons, The people that actually partook in it didn't actually seem to do even a minimal amount of research on the guns they chose and all of them were horrific writers who could be described as that twelve year old shouting obscenities whilst playing Call of Duty on the Xbox. It ended as quickly as it started, having the phenomenal life span of five entire days. I do plan on making a Black lagoon Rp soon...But the only problem is finding people who know of it's existence..


All of these Happened quite a long time of ago and I myself have forgotten what sites I even used, course I had enough memory to recall the experiences.


I am pretty sure however; that Rpnation is a much better Rp site than the ones that the latter two were on.

 

[simj26]

Because I only complain, and just complain, and never do anything to rectify the problems, the general 'bad' for fandoms are:


People never stick to canon.


When they do, people want to self-insert so they interact with their favourite characters.


People want to roleplay as their favourite characters, or an expy (READ: blatant carbon copy) of them.


When they do, people don't know how to play their favourite characters.


Yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi even when it's not canon or even confirmed, because Izaya is gay for Shizuo, definitely in my headcanon, so it must be true.


People don't stick to the TONE of the original content, or overdo it. Rps are either super dank weed, son dark af, too dark, or too light-hearted to be considered.


At least ONE person will minmax his character to have uber stats and/or abilities or a combination thereof if said fandom includes some sort of power/ability mechanic, and proceed to break the entire rp, and claim ridiculous things like surviving a sat laser because OH MY CRYSTAL SKIN GIVES ME UBER SURVIVAL SKILLS.


Lots more to come. Let me think on it.

 

[call me rae]

We'll start with the good. Fandoms are how I got into roleplaying. I literally started out as a N00bish Sue Creature in Vampire Knight, Fruits Basket, and X-men Roleplayes.


I was as terrifying and cringe-inducing as any other fledgling but these are the fandoms that became my building blocks for success. Especially X-men.


My longest running most positive experience in roleplaying came from a four year long X-men Roleplay. I started out as barely literate Sue girl and through the help and support of the community I not only began to create dynamic characters, in depth plots, but I also developed a love and respect for comics that has expanded into my everyday life.


Adverb I believe my mentor's name was and bless his heart he put up with idiot questions, my inability to properly use homonyms, and my one note characters for literally years - a little over 2 - and I owe a good portion of my success as a roleplayer to him.


Now for the bad - I don't know if I can pinpoint any one specific roleplay that had this effect but it's more of a general tone for several of them. That's lack of originality - now look it's one thing to embrace canon and to just move the story along similar lines. But honestly just rehashing the story with new one note stereotype characters gets old in a hurry. Throw in some kind of new twist or else all your going to make me do is binge watch the fandom on Netflix and flake out on the roleplay.


Another thing - people who like make things too elite. Now granted I do this in onexones alot but that's because those are more specific stories and the enjoyment comes from following a specific idea made up between two people. So if one person isn't holding their own then it kind of falls apart. In groups this is less an issue because the story is carried by multiple people. In this instance don't be like too exclusive - don't make some clique-y b.s. between your friends and ignore other people who want to join.


The ugly - people who take fandoms waaaay too seriously or people that are so focused on their OTP that they forget a story needs a plot. And collaboration.


Example - So it was during my annual Halloween bonanaza where it's all Halloween roleplays all the time. I had recently watched a few episodes of Rosario Vampire and I was all pumped to do a similar premise. I post a search looking for Monster High story ( Hasboro fans know where this is going ) and a girl pms me back. I give her my whole pitch about Rosario - even linking the wiki page of the anime to give her a background. She sends me this whole long rant about how I was Mary Sueing her precious fandom and I was obviously an iliterate n00b who didn't know what she was talking about.


Like she stopped just short of talkin' bout my Mama. And I'm sitting there like -- WTF? I literally just pitched the exact premise of the anime. Not only that I showed her the wiki which had the same premise on it. So how the hell am I ruining the fandom?


Turns out she wanted to do something with Monster High the Hasboro thing. Which was fairly new at th time - I think only a handful of webisodes had been released and maybe one book. So I had no idea what she was even talking about.


And I won't even bother trying to count the number of times people have come at me with an idea that is basically - I want ( insert character name ) to make out with me. Make it happen.

 

[Demon]

Good


Bad


Ugly.


The three defining categories for a fandom RP but unfortunately enough its the foundation for not just fandom but rather any form of RP. RP in general can be ruined when the idea or foundation is poorly written. Unfortunately for a majority of newer/inexperienced writers/RPers this is something that happens. It's not even because their idea sucks sometimes, it's just the fact that its explained completely wrong or not visually appealing. Even in writing, visuals is something we all consider and study when we're looking at things (especially interest checks.)


For example:


"A sword art online RP in which we've entered a the universe of a game inside of a game? The mind grabbing experience that has our characters having to create another character as we're not only stuck in this world but another!"


Some would arguably say that's poorly written or just a bad idea in general. Maybe if it was more visually appealing? Or even the idea is just horrible (imo it is).


"A inner guild inside the gameworld of -blank- has been programmed to only free the users if they could solve a variety of puzzles/riddles that would lead them to the guild itself. Take place in this RP as your character is put to its limits, forced to a trial of morals as riddles are to be delivered and deciphered in this horror/fantasy RP!"


Notice the difference?


ANYWAYS, in an attempt to save my post, let's describe my good/bad/ugly for Fandom specifically.


Good: A greatly designed naruto clan (though I hated Naruto) was made with a storyline that could even be considered not related to the anime at all. Wars were constant and village society was core to surviving in this world as you and a variety of other guilds fought for the top.


Bad: That same guild ended in a bunch of drama. Made me quit RPing for 2 years.


Ugly: Pretty much any RP I've seen with horrible ideas or barely any concept behind it. Also with that, RPers who don't give me anything to work with. (I'm incredibly picky with content in your posts.)

 

[Wishfully]

Interesting topic, it's neat getting to read everyone's opinions and experiences I think my response will be somewhat similar to Rae's, but here goes...


The Good:


I got my start as a roleplayer thanks to fandoms, so they will always hold a special place in my heart. For about a year, give or take, I only RPed 1x1 fandoms because that's honestly just the way it was on the site I was using before I came to RPNation. Although I started out with Sue characters and being content with mediocre/unoriginal plot lines, I had great experiences and partners in most of my fandom RPs to the point that it made me stick with roleplaying and develop my writing.


The Bad:


Personally, I don't think I've had many bad or ugly experiences with fandom RPs that don't apply to RPs in general. But as mentioned by some others on this thread, canon can sometimes be problematic in fandom verses. Using canon characters and keeping them in character doesn't always work, and I think it especially tends to happen in 1x1 romance doubles. A majority of my early RPs were such (say what you will- I have no regrets), and though I can't recall a specific incident of OOC-ness, I understand how it could easily become an issue in that sort of story- too much focus on romance and making your partner happy can undermine the quality of the characters and plot.


I've had problems coming up with new plot ideas or settings (AUs and such) and my partners didn't normally have many ideas either, so we'd stick to canon. Where I don't mind playing it safe and keeping a universe and elements we clearly both enjoy, I've had a couple RPs that felt like I was literally replaying every event that happened in the canon story- just with OCs. For me, there's a difference between using the canon universe and plot outline and re-creating the story that has already been written. But I'll admit- I know I'm equally at fault for this as my partners are, and coming up with unique plots for fandoms has always been one of my weaker points, so it's something I still need to work on and overcome.


The Ugly:


The only "ugly" I can think of is a personal case where a partner expected me to play several canon characters and my one OC while they played their three OCs and a couple canons (the canons I specifically said I'd be comfortable/interested in playing, of course). When I tried to compromise and express my concerns, they got mad, ranted at me, and then left me before I could try to calm things down and talk it out. I accidentally ran into the same person and tried again before realizing it, but this time I struggled to find inspiration and received no help from said partner- and when I said I wasn't really interested anymore, they ranted at me again and left again.


The Good Again:


Well I hate to end on ugly notes, so I must say that my only ugly experiences were not because of fandoms themselves, but because of cooperation/communication issues with a singular person, and my stated "bad" notes were really learning experiences to help me in the future rather than mistakes I regret making or being a part of.


Since I joined RPNation, I kind of stopped roleplaying fandoms as much- I mostly started in fantasy and then moved to modern, only joining fandom groups or 1x1s every once in awhile. However, I am still very much in touch with my "fandom roots"- I'm currently involved in two fandom 1x1s with the same partner, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. My partner and I are best of friends and communicate very regularly both about our ideas for the RPs and about life in general, even when we're slow on responding to one another.


Meeting spectacular RPers and seeing how their ideas and your ideas can work together to turn a great story into an even greater and unique experience is the magic I love about fandom roleplaying and fandoms in general!

 

[Dr Nyx]

Because I only complain, and just complain, and never do anything to rectify the problems, the general 'bad' for fandoms are:
People never stick to canon.


When they do, people want to self-insert so they interact with their favourite characters.


People want to roleplay as their favourite characters, or an expy (READ: blatant carbon copy) of them.


When they do, people don't know how to play their favourite characters.


Yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi yaoi even when it's not canon or even confirmed, because Izaya is gay for Shizuo, definitely in my headcanon, so it must be true.


People don't stick to the TONE of the original content, or overdo it. Rps are either super dank weed, son dark af, too dark, or too light-hearted to be considered.


At least ONE person will minmax his character to have uber stats and/or abilities or a combination thereof if said fandom includes some sort of power/ability mechanic, and proceed to break the entire rp, and claim ridiculous things like surviving a sat laser because OH MY CRYSTAL SKIN GIVES ME UBER SURVIVAL SKILLS.


Lots more to come. Let me think on it.

amg, tis the gospel of Fandom truth.


I do say, all of that is incredibly true. < _ <

 

[Sunbather]

I honestly haven't had bad experiences so far. I'm sure what was said above occurs, but I personally haven't come across it yet. Sometimes, you have someone who just wants to combine everything cool that ever happened in the canon-story into one, and then there needs to be some intervention, but otherwise? No, it's been fine so far. I guess I'm pretty lucky in that regard.

 

[Atom]

*Devours all the replies!!!!*


Mmm yes! Very good replies! I enjoy reading them all!

 

[Interstellar Bun]

I love fandom things, really, it's my favorite type of RP.


The Bad/Ugly


I'm a tumblr RPer at heart and I've jumped around from fandom to fandom but I have to say the most amusingly bad experience I ever had was in a particular video game fandom. Now, I had been there for about a year, I played a very loud, funny, but emotionally stunted character who would flirt with anything that had a heart beat but run at the first sight of commitment. We'll call her Red. She was aggressive and known for breaking teeth, and I adored her.


And so did this guy we'll call Tor.


Tor decided that his character was in love with mine after two replies of them talking. His character proclaimed his love for her and, while laughing, I wrote a reply of Red being horrified and leaving.


Tor proceeded to rewrite my reply so Red kissed him and cried in his arms because "Someone had finally truly understood who she was."


Needless to say I didn't write with them again. However, "someone" continued sending me anon messages about Red's relationship with him for the next six months.


The Good


Literally everything else.


I've made amazing friends doing fandom threads and I've come to love them more than I can say. I've spent endless nights staying up until dawn sobbing over emotional scenes because I've gotten really lucky with my partners. Its great to see what people can come up with and now the restrictions of a premade world can make people more creative in the end.


Sure there are duds, people who twist canon (or refuse to acknowledge it), and write canon characters incorrectly, but I haven't had to deal with that at all here on RPN.

 

[Meredith]

Reviving an old discussion thread!


I'll start with the good. The Harry Potter Hosted Project is one. *winkwinknudgenudge*


I love Pokemon roleplays, but usually dark Pokemon - yes, I'm that person.


The bad....


Alright. So I actually really got into roleplaying doing acting with my friends. Basically improv/roleplay. Thing is... my friends are and were both self-insert carbon copies and godemoders. I sweartogodifLeafisshovedover'beforeshecanreact'onemoretimeIwillkillyou.


Black Butler and Mortal Instruments Fandom roleplays were most of what they roleplayed at first. Blue Exorcist and Full-Metal Alchemist after. (Never got into the latter two, no point.)


Long story short... I ran away to RPN. xD

 

[Bacon is fluffy]

The bad: mainly canon


It's hard to do a fandom because a lot of people respect the canon so much, that it bogs things down. I rather love a lot of series like Pokemon, dbz and so on and so forth. However I will never touch the canon characters and often times want to do a fan fiction route as an rp plot, but it's always met with opposition.


Especially when stories like fate stay night, despite the hentai, are complex. Lol I learned that if you tweak the premise of the grail even a little, diehard fans will point out things which make the rp plot useless xD


It's not even a revolt against the plot, it's more like other magics could blow the Grail away.


Which is why I despise fandoms, because I like to stray away from the source material while only using the canon as a frame work.

 

[Pariah Stark]

I find myself primarily drawn to the fandom section here, buuuut, I'm pretty sure that's because I find a lack of solid Modern Fantasy roleplays. It just seems to be an untouchable genre RPN has yet to capture in my opinion. I'm involved in quite a few fandoms, and for various reasons. Probably foremost above all reasons is that most fandoms exist in a preexisting universe. Structure exists. I dislike an absolute lack of structure; sandbox roleplays, as I call them, don't seem as enthralling to me as something that has define themes, rules and guidelines. I prefer to innovate and find intuitive new ways to use established content or generate brand-new content that still fits the themes of the universe. This can only happen with a preexisting universe, and fact is, you find that most often in fandoms. Find it in a fantasy? Few GM's ever take the time to backtrack and create informational posts for their 3,000-some-odd post-long IC of a roleplay so that you can get in easily, and by the time you finish that novel, there's another 50 pages. Science fiction? Not as bad, honestly, but it's not my normal cup of tea. Hard science fiction, I mean. And, soft science fiction gets silly to me or almost always involves time travel, which gets old. I don't do slice-of-life, so there goes that.


With that said, even Fandoms do have their drawbacks. And, of course, they do breed special problems that don't exist or do so far less frequently in other genres.


The Good

As I said, I love having a preexisting universe to work with. This works for me as a GM and as a roleplayer. This is the number one benefit to fandoms in my opinion, but it's not the only one. Probably the real true strength of fandoms exists right in its name: 'fan'dom. It exists because of fans of a franchise. Many people, as stated in this thread, find their beginnings in roleplay through fandoms, and while that doesn't apply to me whatsoever (Tabletops here; Bards ftw), you have to respect anything that can bring so many people into a community. And, then there's that: fandoms bring together fans of a fandom, and often times, you meet wonderful new people that share in similar interests as you. If you think about it, few other genres do this so efficiently. Fantasy is a broad, broad subject, science fiction can be all over the place and the modern/realistic world is its own entity, but Fandoms bring people who enjoy the same world together to roleplay in it and enjoy it. It brings together people for a specific form of media they like and encourages them to interact in that way. To share their passions. That can be a glorious thing at heart and even if its not entirely original or from their very core, it can still result in making friendships that last longer than a single roleplay - and that's what being part of a community is about.


tl:dr Preexisting universes, making friends


The Bad

Fandoms have their issues, as I said, and one of the biggest that I want to bring up is the diversity in fandoms. Some what to stick strictly to what is preexisting while others tree it like the Pirate's Code: more of a guideline. This isn't black and white, either. It's a spectrum. Some people might disagree, but come to terms on an agreement. Others might be so polar opposite that they take distaste in the roleplay style of another, but I won't call that bad - I'll explore that topic more in the Ugly, because I feel that it does one of the worst things that can happen in a community. Anyone who knows me personally is very well aware of where I am on that spectrum, so I'm probably the exact type of person most people complain about in being 'too strict'; and that's actually something I want to bring up. There's very little tolerance for varying degrees of adherence to canon. Some people believe it should be there way or its wrong instead of just going, "okay, this might not be what's best suited for me because I prefer to" while others might down right refuse to even try. I find that bad specifically because it creates a very narrow-minded viewpoint of how things "ought" to be instead of how things "are for that player" - it creates this schism between GM's and players where sometimes they forget the other is another human being behind a screen. Moving on, some other bad things are overplayed tropes or clichés, but at the same time, those aren't necessarily bad things. It's when they're overused that's a problem. Other bad things involved these wonderful creators of fantastic lore and integrated story that just look fantastic! ...but have no idea how to run an active roleplay or moderate people. I've seen many incredibly designed roleplays that are wrote and fleshed out beyond belief, but they are almost immediately DoA because the GM is more of an author than a roleplayer and/or GM. Lastly, there's the GM's that keep a roleplay alive more through having a small group of people continuously edit its OOC information than actual IC. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I see it as more of pure collaborative writing than roleplay. This one is a bit of miscommunication that some people don't even realize that they do, and it can be killer for roleplayers.


tl:dr Different opinions on roleplay management, diluted plots, low versatility


I would note that some of the most amazing things I've ever seen in terms of Fandoms aren't from one single amazing GM that does it all, although those do exist, but from those that exist as a team. While some stories are too diluted, those GM's have the plotting and people skills to make it work. A tiered system of roleplay management can end up making amazing worlds and really take the load off of one person's back. It also makes for a more rich, diverse community. However, while I should list this as a good thing, it can be equally bad for the same reason having a single Roman Emperor was advantageous during wartime; too many people making individual decisions can kill and splinter a roleplay, defeating the entire purpose to begin with. So, this point is more of a neutral observation.


The Ugly

Fandoms can completely polarize fans. Fans that otherwise would sit and talk for hours about how they love a fandom. Why? Because they believe things should be handled differently. In no other genre do I see OOC politics and the way a GM runs a roleplay so integral to the health of a roleplay. Of course it's important, but in fandoms above most other categories, this divide is evident. Some people just don't understand that there are different ways to reach the same goal. Some people don't understand that post count, post rate, post length, and other various statistics aren't all that matters to a roleplay. On the other hand, quality of posts might not be the biggest thing either. People come here to enjoy themselves and I have seen both sides of this argument: some people believe that the overly harsh roleplayers, GM or just fans in general, that are hypercritical or enjoy adhering to the canon closely are just elitist jerks that want to prove their better or have some superiority complex; while, on the other side, I've seen both those exact elitist jerks, but I've also seen true hardcore fans that feel like creating characters that don't abide by the premise or themes of a roleplay don't do it justice, and just reject any other notion of such to the degree they will leave a roleplay if they feel it is warped 'too' far. These are extremes of the spectrum, but they exist, and they do cause problems. While many roleplayers never encounter this issue because they can simply say, "okay, your style isn't compatible with mine," or they at least give it a try before politely declining, others have a recurring habit of this. This is one of the worst things I can see in a community because it is the opposite of one of the best aspects of fandoms: bringing together fans of a franchise. It brings them together just to rip them apart. Lastly here is the fact that some people are incredibly passionate about a fandom, so this is already an emotionally charged area. Arguments and disagreements can explode far past what they need to be. A simple miscommunication on agreeing sides could even cause backlash. It's often a high-strung environment compared to other categories.


tl:dr Can bring out the worst in people, creates incorrect 'images' of roleplayers, can explode simple miscommunications


I know my preferences and I generally stick to my own very specific devices, but I don't just force my way where it's obviously not the norm. And, generally, that's the way fandoms go; there's an informal level of self-segregation there. Most problems arise when those lines are blurred, and there's really no polite way to explain it.