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X Reads Y Stories

Discussion in 'Fanfic Discussion' started by Nemrut, Sep 25, 2015.

  1. Nemrut

    Nemrut The Black Mage ~ Prestige ~

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    So, I am curious, has anyone ever read a good/decent story where the cast of fandom X is reading their own books/fanfics or whatever? I know there are tons in the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson fandoms, where the cast is locked in a room by some stupid entity, tossed the books and they read it with clichéd, cheesy and mostly dumb reactions to what they are reading.

    Getting angry or sad when they see the tale of woe of the main character play out like that. Or spouting self-celebrating lines when they've said something funny or whatever.

    Recently, I have found fanfiction of fanfiction that does that, namely for Dreaming of Sunshine and the Jen Black/Princess of the Black stories, where the cast of these fanfics read the fanfic.

    I mainly ask, because that is the one type of story that seems completely original to fanfiction, I have never seen its equivalent in a published book or story or whatever.

    To my knowledge, there is no book on Achilles reading the Iliad or Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere reading The Once and Future King. There is no official EU book where Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, and all are reading the Star Wars books.

    Everything else, be they timetravel, OC/SI, alt power, revenge, continuation, AU or whatever, those you can find, but not this, at least not that I know. Maybe in a comic book plotline or in a cartoon at most, and even there, that's not quite the same.

    On one hand, the fact that I have not found one that exceeds being a guilty pleasure at best. As far as I can tell, there are many reasons for that. One, almost always that they have too many characters in these sessions. When you have 10+ people in a room, reading a book, you can't have everyone react to every important thing.

    Even if you cut the cast down to a more manageable size, like three or four, there is still the problem that there is just not much to do there, except react with pity, scorn, anger, amusement or whatever emotion is appropriate for the scene.

    I have never seen big conflict rising from this among the cast, simply because they have to sit down and continue reading the damn thing. You can't just have them abort in the middle of chapter 7 because something fucked up happened and have them excessively deal with that when there is still 20 more chapters to go, where said problem is probably going to be addressed again.

    It is just as dumb, however, to ignore the fact that a character has done something outright evil or big to someone else and people are okay with that, show no reaction or whatever the problem there can be.

    On the other, I still believe that a good enough author can pull off even the seemingly dumbest of ideas, and I kinda want to read a good one. I just wouldn't know how a good X reads Y story would be like, tbh.

    Presumably, if you keep everyone in character, without any cheesy lines or stupid, forced reactions, you could have some interesting interactions but nothing really more than that, unless I am missing something. Or you could go full crack/humour but even there, there is only so much you can milk that joke.
     
  2. World

    World Oberstgruppenführer DLP Supporter Retired Staff

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    Well, you basically answered your own question there. It's not done because there is not much to do but for the author to try to come up with witty reaction lines or cliched interactions. And it's basically a rehash of something you have already read yourself.

    What could be interesting is to transfer the knowledge to the characters without slogging through things that you've already read and have them actually act on them and face the consequences of these things. In other words, not have an X read Y story at all. Knowledge transfer usually uses other plot devices.

    And, if you're an actual writer, this would basically mean throwing out your already written (and presumable successful) work and resetting the whole timeline. Which seems to be par for the course if you're a comic book, but not so much for regular literature.
     
  3. ScottPress

    ScottPress The Horny Sovereign –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    No.

    /10char
     
  4. Pure Infinity

    Pure Infinity High Inquisitor

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    For good reason. Just like a lot of the repeated story ideas on ff.net, this is complete shit. No legitimate author would honestly delve into this style of story. I don't mean to sound like an arrogant asshole, but the only reason something like this exists is because someone was lazy enough to attempt it, and it got popular enough that other people who also wanted to write popular stories without putting in any effort also attempted it. And it's just gone on and on from there in an endless cycle.
     
  5. Moridin

    Moridin Minister of Magic DLP Supporter

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    I think there's potential in this kind of stuff, but it's too difficult to actually come to anything. I had a period where I looked for this in the MCU, particularly. I'd love to see a story with Fury shitting bricks while watching the MCU, because of both the security issues and the information within, desperately trying to lock down the materials so they don't get out and also catalogue everything that he learns. Instead what I found was shitfics where the Avengers sat around and cracked wise about the first Iron Man and then got teary and went to 'comfort' Tony at how hard he had it.

    I think World hit the nail on the head there, the interesting part of such things wouldn't be the reading at all, it'd be the acting on it. In which case the knowledge transfer is more easily done through other means (like SIs and stuff).
     
  6. Sn0rkack

    Sn0rkack Professor

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    Wasn't there a genocide of these stories on FF a while back?
     
  7. Moridin

    Moridin Minister of Magic DLP Supporter

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    Also, link?
     
  8. Nemrut

    Nemrut The Black Mage ~ Prestige ~

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    It does have fundamental flaws. I think the closest thing I have seen to that was a Dr Who episode where they brought Van Gogh from the past to a museum now where he heard a lecture on how amazing he was. Was a nice scene and I think there is potential there, as World said, to confront characters with knowledge they have no real way of fully getting otherwise and see them react to it.

    However, there is a reason why that scene was not long and while it was touching, it can't really sustain itself for a longer time.

    I guess it is really something that is best attempted with other formats. SI is a good method but doesn't really fit the same mould as the reading stories. an SI or OC with knowledge is not the same as the characters learning various stuff about each other.

    Reading Dreaming of Sunshine for example, does this... and I am really not happy with it. Has all the cardinal flaws. Too many characters, dumb reactions and then there is stuff like learning that Shikako is reincarnated and they are mostly "meh" on it.

    And yet, the prospect of a character, not necessarily an SI, revealing secrets like that, and stuff they never mentioned and kept from certain parties, that I find interesting.

    I guess you can do the same with blackmail story lines or having a telepath running around. Dunno, it is such an odd niche and such a weird idea. Even if I have yet to find even a decent one, still have some hope that there will be a good one.

    There was this Naruto fanfic way back, like, 6 years ago, I think where the Naruto cast read fanfiction and the whole point was pure crack. it was written terribly, but there was some amusement in the prospect of the cast looking into various badfics of the time. And I think spacebattles had a thread where Naruto and Sakura were reading Chunin Exam Day but I am honestly not sure on that one.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2015
  9. Heleor

    Heleor EsperJones DLP Supporter

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    This does have its precedent in other fiction - it's basically a riff (ha!) of MST3k and RiffTrax.
     
  10. Moridin

    Moridin Minister of Magic DLP Supporter

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    Yeah, that story exemplifies my problem with this.

    "You're from another world?" Huh, wow, she's so old.

    "Why is it called the Narutoverse?" Heh, that Kiba, such a kidder.

    "Konoha was invaded twice." Dammit, she knew about the invasion? Why bother mentioning the 'twice'.

    I mean, yeah, I have to imagine she's going to be heavily interrogated about everything she's mentioned, but, well, that's what I want to see from fics like this. Names like Madara, Kushina, just glossed over.



    This isn't quite the same, it's not the cast reading fics but rather Sasuke from the end of canon Naruto multiverse-hopping into various fanfics. It's occasionally hilarious, the format and length are big pluses to something of this nature.
     
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