h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am an avid fanfiction reader - actually I'm addicted to the stuff. And I cannot agree with the way slash fanfiction is treated here. In my experience, slash stories (PWPs aside) tend to go more into detail about the characters.Erm... an example, in Stargate: SG1, Jack/Sam stories usually take it as a given that they are attracted and use the zaytarc incident as proof, while in Jack/Daniel stories there is a lot of soul-searching about the why's and wherefore's of the matter, even in the vignettes. I'm not dissing the J/S stories here, just stating some facts.

Another point - Anime fanfiction is NOT tentacle-rape stories!!! Example: Many Ranma 1/2 fanfiction deal with the psychological damage done to Ranma during his childhood, and their possible results. Some of the stories are really realistic. Slayers (lina, not Buffy) lends itself to some fantastically funny fiction, Rouroni Kenshin and other historical anime, if written well, are an insight to classical Japanese culture.

You have written a nice article, but somehow I get the feeling that you really don't like fanfiction. Why is that?

I honestly have no idea why you should get that impression. I mean, I write the stuff.

As to slash 'soul-searching', what I find it tends to do is start form the assumption that the characters are/become involved, then engage in the same kind of desperate seeking after evidence that you have in het 'ship fiction. In general, I read neither, as it usually represents less an exploration of the characters, and more an imposition of a wish-fulfilment fantasy.

For the record, I have yet to read a Sam/Jack fic - not one that went beyond UST anyway - that I liked, and I've never seen a decent Sam/Daniel fic. I think that the characters, that pair and in fact most of the SG-1 characters, work best as close friends and colleagues. In SG-1 romantic encounters work best if they are with someone outside the group, and thus by that nature SG-1's relationships are transitory, in comparison with the solidity and security of the team/family.

Okay, that's not entirely true. I liked Sho's story, A-Wake, but I still felt that it probably would have been better without the 'ship.

Also I didn't say that Anime fic is all tentacle-rape; I said that I have less wish to go to the land of tentacle-rape fiction than I have to visit the realms of badly-written soft-core pornography assayed by slasher and gen/hetters throughout fandom. I know that anime fic is not all t-r, but I also know that it has a specific word for it, and that's enough to scare me away.

There's also the fact that I don't know nearly enough about anime to write in any way authoritatively, and I simply feel that my life is not long enough to try and change this fact. It's not just the tentacle-rape; it's the brooding, whiny, self-involved so-called heroes with their stellar-scale egos and massive entitlement issues, who moan about their pain while the world explodes. I blame these characters for the fact that Darth Vader now apparently evolves from Harry Enfield's 'Kevin the Teenager' character, and find them about as engaging.

Perhaps I'm just scarred by bad experiences, but there it is.

sooo... I think I should first apologize. Living in an environment where most of my reading material (in and out of the internet) is considered *eccentric* has made my responses to critic a bit harsh

Friendship fics - got to love them. there are quite a lot of them hidden anong the slash fics, and many slash fics start ot as friendship fics. There is no doubt about it - they are the best!

Have you ever read any anime fanfiction from Gregg Sharp? His "bet" started an avelanche, and his "omake" (extra) short fics are hilarious.

Of course you are right - one has to dig among tons of bad fics - and bad spelling, and bad grammer - to get through to the good ones. But they are worth. You write fanfiction yourself? where can I find it?

Typically, if there's a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes - as opposed to typos - it means that the fic has not been beta read, so I usually stop.

Not read any anime fic. Since I don't know anime, I probably wouldn't get it.

My fan fiction is on the same site as all my other writing, The Lost Vegas Public Library ( http://www.prophet.phlegethon.org/Fiction/index.htm ). The fanfic is all SG-1, since I seem to be able to write that, but not anything else. I hope you like it, and even if you don't, so let me know what you think.

off to read...

Great stuff!!! I had read "Vindication" and "Chooser of the Slain" before in the archives, and right now the "Far from Home" - very valid premises, good story line, excellent writing! Continue with the good work!!!!

was it something I said?

No, no. I just only visit h2g2 sporadically over the weekends, and this was a long one (Bank Holiday Monday, so I'm now officially lost and don't know what day of the week it is).

Sorry if you were offended, and I'm glad you like my fanfics, although each little ego-boost like that makes it less and less likely that I'll one day manage to stop writing the things.

Just this weekend I came up with loose plans for four more fics, all SG-1, and one of them using Erwin Rommel as a character. This is a dangerous habit.

Not Offended – the interval between the two messages was so short I thought you might have missed the second one. Rommel – that means world was II, doesn't it? Should be exciting. Do you do crossovers?

Well, the series I've just completed - King Solomon's Naquadah Mines - is a sort of H. Rider Haggard crossover, and the one with Rommell in it does cross over with the computer game Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Raiders of the Lost Gate and The Angel of Chaos will both be set in WWII, although the one that actually has Rommell in it (Never Outfox the Fox) is modern day.

Other than that, no, and I doubt I'd ever do a straight crossover featuring characters from two or more mythoi. I mean, I might do an SG-1/Atlantis crossover a couple of years down the line, but that would be as far as I'd be likely to go.

WHY CAN'T WE HAVE SOME OF THIS STUFF ON HERE?!

probably because of copyright and PG (although what our friends here at h2g2 sometimes get up to beats the pants off some of the slah stories I have read <grin&gt

You've seen the drool thread, right?

Yes; the reason fanfic is not posted on h2g2 is that the legality is deeply questionable. Fanfic archives operate with the tacit approval of the copyright holders - by which I mean that they probably could sue, but it's not worth it, so they let it lie - and on an explicit policy of claiming no rights to the material, but h2g2 draws a non-exclusive copyright on all posted material.

THEN I REFER YOU ALL TO MY WONDERFUL 'FRAGMENTED' STORY.....

SEARCHING WILL BE INVOLVED.... I'M OBLIVIOUS TO THE LINK THING...

So...None of your false modesty here then.

The title of a story is useless as a search item unless the word is unique; fragmented would turn up too many hits to be useful. If you want to post a link, simply type the URL in the body of your posting and it will be converted automatically - remember to include the http:// at the beginning.

Point of order, by the way; typing in all caps is considered offensive; the forum equivalent of shouting beligerently the whole time. It's also more difficult to read.

EvEn ThOuGh FrAgMeNtEd Is ThE FiRsT oN ThE SeArCh LiSt???

AND IT'S NOT 'FALSE MODESTY', IT'S CONFIDENCE.

PEOPLE JUST HAPPEN TO KNOW WHEN THE THINGS THEY'VE DONE ARE GOOD OR NOT!!!

Let him be, Prophet, he's still excited, he will come down from the caps soon. The MOST difficult "writing" I personally faced here was that of a teen-aged member who not only wrote without punctuation, but went off tangent ALL the time - by the time I finished reading one of her postings I was out of breath

What drool-thread? I was thinking about the RPGs Galaxy Babe and the others are up to, there is a link from my page to one of them - The Royal Bedchamber. Personally, I'm right now busy drooling over fanfiction from "The Sentinel" - and, Prophet, I have NEVER seen the series - doesn't stop me from enjoying the fanfics. I think the fics are a good way to find out if you want to see something - especially for people like me who have to get movies etc. the hard way.

The drool_thread: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/F42604?thread=139168 It now runs - as of a minute ago - to 2000 posts. I think fan fiction is a bad way to find out if you want to watch something, since it can give you entirely the wrong idea about the series. I have - on occasion - come across stuff that is well-written in itself, yet is absolutely atrocious as fan fiction for series X. Pythonist: People actually have no idea whether what they write is good or not. Sometimes they might spot that it's bad, but you only have to read a little fan fiction to know that autonomous quality control is a faculty sadly lacking in at least 95% of the species - hence Sturgeon's Law (A419203) and Jeffrey Archer. Moreover, describing your own work as wonderful - especially in all caps - is a good way to make sure that no-one reads it. For future reference, h2g2 articles can be linked simply by typing in the article number. For example: Fragmented (A815384), or the Sturgeons Law link above. As to the search, since we were talking about fan fiction I assumed that was what you meant, and that the search would be external to the site. My mistake.

Actually I agree with Nim here. After all, I very rarely watched SG1 until I started reading your fanfic, and now look at me!

It's all your fault!