:: what is this site about? ::
Ficirriffic! is a blog-style site devoted to the ramblings of this person, concerning fanfiction, especially yaoi and slash. Rants, raves, and recs will all grace this site; hopefully, most will be coherent.

:: who are you? ::
I just like fanfic. A lot. My affair with fanfiction in an assortment of fandoms has stretched for two years, but it seems like forever since I read my first fic. And there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.

:: what fics do you read? ::
I read a lot of stuff from a variety of fandoms, but I haven't covered a lot of fandoms. I usually dabble in fandoms here and there, but an overwhleming obsession will pop up on occasion. I've read a good deal of gen, het, slash, and yaoi in anime/manga, TV, game, and movie fandoms from Slayers to Smallville.

:: hello? credentials? ::
Sorry, can't give you any. At the risk of sounding cheesy, all I have is a fairly good grasp of the English language and a love of reading and writing.

:: for the record ::
All that I post here is merely my opinion on fanfic. I will be offensive on occasion, but never arbitrarily and without due reason.

:: questions, comments, etc. ::
Please email me or leave a comment on one of the comment boxes if it's specific to that post.

:: contact ::
email: astrael_nyx@yahoo.com
blog: intoxicated gravity

[Thursday, June 19, 2003 | 07:02 p.m.]
[A Little Change]

Just wanted to make note of the fact that I've changed the commenting system now. Unfortunately, all the previous comments are now lost. I have them on archive, but not the site itself.

[Saturday, May 31, 2003 | 04:05 p.m.]
[Badfic Support: Huzzah!]

Oh my. *worships* Badfic Support is an astoundingly fantastic LJ Community. It's exactly what the name says; it's not just one person, it's 131 people (as of this date) who participate in discussion about everything from issues of rapefic to universal plot cliches. They actually have involving, interesting discussion and even if you don't have an LJ, it's intriguing to see what people from a spectrum of fandoms think about cross-fandom and fandom-specific fanfic issues.

[Friday, May 30, 2003 | 12:44 a.m.]
[A Brief Rant on Ratings: R vs NC-17]

I understand that ratings is a rather loose and ill-defined area for some authors when they label their fics, but when people use common sense (and comparison with other fics) when labeling thier fics, it's fairly easy to determine what is R and what is NC-17.

NC-17 means that any reader under the age of 18 is not legally allowed to read a fic with that rating.

A fic usually has graphic sex, violence, sex, swearing, sex, and did I mention sex, for it to constitute a NC-17 rating.

Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that any fic with any sort of graphic sex should be classified as NC-17. Doesn't matter if it "has a redeeming plot" or it's just foreplay, minors are not legally allowed to read any kind of fic with graphic sex in it. So don't slap on an R rating on it please.

[Edit] I'm afraid I sounded rather militant, but it's a point of annoyance for me when authors label something that should clearly only legally be read by an adult as R. (Usually, they do this on ff.net to sneak past the ban on NC-17.) Graphic sex counts as NC-17 material regardless of plot or any other supposed mitigating factors. I know that minors get to NC-17 fics anyway, but let's keep up appearances and not get any authors arrested for corrupting minors or any fandoms banned completely for writing NC-17 fics. (Warnings containing cease and desist orders concerning adult fanfiction from the legal owners of (a) book(s), movie(s), TV series, etc. have occurred before, like Star Wars and recently, Harry Potter.) There is a reason why websites with graphic sexual content (fics, art, etc.) have a warning and formal agreement page in case any minors find them.

[Wednesday, May 21, 2003 | 06:52 p.m.]
[bishonenink: goodfic ahoy!]

A pair of fantastic authors, llamajoy and Tenshi no Korin, can be located at bishonenink. These two are simply wonderful authors and I cannot rave about them enough. They pen their fics in a hauntingly gorgeous, lyrical style. They portray their characters in such a manner to make them close to you with their emotions laid out for your examination, but at the same time, distant because the characters are so beautiful. Both canon and original characters abound, but fear not, no Mary Sues will appear.

They write in a variety of fandoms (FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, Harry Potter, Samurai Troopers, Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Weiß Kreuz, Yuu Yuu Hakusho, Bakuretsu Hunters, and others) in gen, het, slash, yaoi. Read their FFVII and FFVIII story arcs and ready yourself to experience a gamut of emotions from dizzing joy to bitter sadness. Additional rec: read The Politically Correct FFVIII Fic and THE WEDDING FIC. Trust me on these ones even if you're not an FFVIII fan. You will laugh, I promise.

Hey, they made me feel WAFFy over Seifer/Fuujin. If they can do that, they're demi-deities at the very least.

[Saturday, May 10, 2003 | 10:36 a.m.]
[Draco/Harry boring? Ha!]

Harry Potter fic today, a deliciously dark mystery AU set in Los Angeles with the ever delectable Draco Malfoy as a private investigator and Harry as the "damsel in distress" (but not). Reminiscent of a film noir, Nancy's Malfoy, P.I. takes us on a slow walk from the perspective of Draco investigating a case of murder on Harry's behalf. Reason? Harry is accused of murdering his ex-boyfriend and it seems like Harry's guilty except Draco's instincts tell him otherwise.

And no, it is not his libido. Although it does compute into this complicated equation of a fic.

It's not a simple story, even though it borrows from cliches. Those cliches cease to be cliches in Nancy's skilled hands with her own twist on them. The fic's layered and intricate, and even though you may think A is B, B is actually C or C is actually A but with a different spin. It keeps you guessing and gasping with its twists and turns, all the while keeping you hanging. Lies, deceit and half-truths are placed here, there and everywhere to tease and taunt you. For an additional twist of your nose, she adds Tom Riddle at the center of this murder mystery for the ultimate equivocal sinister figure. Original characters fill out the cast, but are more than just fodder for the murderer.

Nancy has taken a film noir setting, made it slashy, sexy, and suspenseful, turning Draco/Harry into a refreshing read. It's not tried and true and certainly not boring with its smooth, coffee-dark mood and deliciously mysterious feel.

I'd like to tell you more about the plot, but that would ruin the story for you, so head on over to Schnoogle and check out Malfoy, P.I.

[Wednesday, May 7, 2003 | 08:51 p.m.]
[For the sake of my sanity, please write a good summary!]

ff.net is a good place where you can scrounge around for unearthed treasures, but finding treasure relies on luck more often than not. However, authors can ensure that their stories are read with a simple thing called a summary to partially nullify that element of chance.

"I do write one!" will come the protesting cry from the writers of ff.net whose idea of excellent spelling is the American dictionary MS Word uses.

Yes, but is it a good summary? Would you read a story that had a summary along the lines of "OOC and S/G warning! Am really bad in summaries.." or "Pg for fighting. Plz R&R." or "no flames pls! my first ficcie, so be nice!" or worst of all "this is such a bad fic. wrote it in ten minutes, but plz read it!" (The first two are actual ff.net summaries.)

I'm not particularly inspired to read any story that has that sort of summary unless I've seen a rec for it elsewhere before. When an author simply cannot tax himself/herself or his/her creative ability further than his/her excellent, wonderful, superb story to write an enticing summary with good spelling and grammar, I'm further discouraged from reading it.

A summary is almost all the advertising any author has for his/her fic on ff.net. Make it work. Don't do a half-hearted "Gawd, i suck at summaries, just read, k? be nice, flames are NOT allowed!" What if Coca-Cola began advertising this phrase since its inception: "This drink isn't that great, but you have to buy it anyway because you have to. So there." Very doubtful that Coke would have lasted a day in the beverage business if it had done that.

However, don't use superlatives all over your summary. "This is a fantastic, great, wonderful, excellent fic! Read it!" is as sufficient a summary as the sketchy, "humble" summary-like things above.

Readers want and need a bit of substantial bait to tempt them to read a fic before actually clicking on that link. There's a word limit, but it doesn't stop any author with sufficient command over the English language from writing a summary that makes sense and makes readers want to try your story at least.

Reiterating what I said above, the summary is an advertisement. Be shamelessly self-promotional. Entice people to read your fic with something like the basic plot premise of your story or a line from it, but be somewhat original. No one wants to read something that sounds exactly like the three hundred other fics they've seen like "Draco tries to declare his love for Ginny". For example, the summary "As a favor, Yohji decides that his next mission is to find Ken a girlfriend...despite the fact that Ken doesn’t want a girlfriend. An accidental occurrence leads Yohji to believe that Ken wants Aya, when naturally he doesn’t...or does he?" from Deena's Constantly Keen made me want to check out her story, even if it was Aya x Ken. I found it wasn't to my taste after I tried it, but she made it sound tempting enough that I went into the fic on my own accord.

Show off that you do know how to use an adjective, verb, or noun in the right place or spell the word "please" or "review". Readers pick up on summaries as indications of an author's writing style. If it sounds good, then the chances of a decent story are good. If the summary sounds like it's been written by an twelve year-old whose grasp on the English language extends to "plz", "be nice" and various numerals and letters mixed together to create words, then the chances of a decent story become sub-basement to a reader.

Summaries are advertising, so make the best of it. Don't write a boring summary that inspires nothing but the urge to move onto another fic. There's no need to reinvent the art of summarizing (that'd be would much appreciated though) but there is a need for decent summaries that do the purpose they're intended for. An author benefits from the ego boosts that a reader might give through his/her review and the reader benefits with the good possibility of a good fic. Everyone wins with a good summary.

[Tuesday, May 6, 2003 | 11:35 p.m.]
[Shattered Innocent? More like shattered hopes, instead]

Remember what I said about ff.net as a slag heap with flecks of treasures here and there? Well, here's some slag that seemed like treasure when I first read the summary.

Shattered Innocent (Saiyuki, Sanzo x Goku) is but one of the several fics of Akasha. You may have heard her name through seiji's bitchcave, as her Initial D Ryou/Kei fic Transcendental was reviewed there. I am enormously fond of the bitchcave and highly recommend visiting it for seiji's characteristic wit and ironic humour.

I'm not as snarky or funny as seiji, but I do know somethings about good fics. Unfortunately for Akasha and most readers, Shattered Innocent bears the trademarks of the author's long-winded, verbosely heavy style and OOC characterization, which makes it a badfic, in my opinion.

The fic begins with the usual author's note, typical of Akasha, then this: "R, would be NC-17 except for the redeeming plot!" comes up. This is the time to resist (or not resist) making snarky, rude comments when re-reading.

I'm not an anal-retentive stickler for canon, but there's only so far you can take a character before he or she begins acting completely contrary to his/his original personality traits. At the beginning, Sanzo is his usual grumpy, irritable self, but perhaps a shade on the volatile side. I can accept that. However, he degenerates into a sweet, loving, contrite six year-old girl with old-fashioned sensibilities of *swoon left* romance and *swoon right* love in the body of a chain-smoking, perpetually bad-tempered monk. I can understand how Sanzo, in his own way, cares for Goku in canon and how the relationship could meander into love, but Sanzo would never say the words "Sleep, love. I’m here", even if Goku was asleep. Under most circumstances, except if he was heavily drugged, intoxicated or on the brink of death, he would never say "aishiteru". Even that would be pushing it to the limit and not believable.

Essentially, Sanzo is completely OOC. His basic personality traits are completely ignored in the latter half of the fic so that Sanzo and Goku can be brought together after their tortured angsting to make sweet, passionate, yet gentle love where they probably come at the same time.

Goku. Ah, yes, the cheerful little monkey has turned into a blubbering mass of tortured angst because he can't have Sanzo and Sanzo hates him and insults him, etc. Not to mention Goku has been denying his desire for Sanzo for so long that he's cracking under the pressure and is now into self-mutilation. Goku simply cannot live without cutting himself on his wrists and the blood makes him really horny and he has to jack off when he cuts himself or vice versa. Goku's characterization leaves me doing an open-mouthed idiot impression through most of the fic. He's OOC, but I guess I see what the author is trying to do with Goku's unexplored dark side or something like that. However, Goku angsts far too much to make him believable. Essentially, he's a wimpy uke who needs Sanzo's sweet lurvin' to make him complete or whole or something or other that reeks of overripe Brie.

The redeeming plot Akasha promised would be present? Redeeming...um, not there. Plot...er, more like absence of. Series of events that are connected somehow, yes. Let's see, Sanzo shoots at Goku, misses, Goku angsts, angsts, angsts, cuts himself, angsts, jacks off, angsts, falls ill, angsts, Kanzenon feels the need to see Sanzo and Goku play prison freezetag a.k.a. declare their feelings for one another, bugs Sanzo, who then goes to fuck Goku who is all too happy -- sorry, I mean, declares his feelings and Goku reciprocates. They make sweet, hot, man-love, which causes the world to shake and do a complete 360^o, etc. The End.

There's a Gojyo/Hakkai story running alongside it, but it's the usual established couple story. Nothing of real importance, except their relationship inspires a great, black void of loneliness in Goku, which triggers off his masochistic masturbation technique.

Akasha has some potential in her to write decent stories. She could drop the verbose style, which is reminiscent of Victorian novels, except it's heavier than a gold brick. I don't want to read Sanzo/Goku in the style of a less descriptive, awkward Tess of the D'Urbervilles. The OCC, overly dramatic characterization that she is so fond of is in need of an injection of canon. Characterization that sticks so rigidly to canon that you can't peel it off without abrasive chemicals is not needed. I just don't want men like Sanzo reduced into teenage girls who use fangirl Japanese to expresss their feelings because they're really in touch with their emotional side after declaring their love for their lifelong partner/boyfriend/lover. I have no issues with her spelling and grammar and formatting; they're heaven-sent in the realm of paragraph-less and un-beta'd works.

Overall, this fic made me wince and groan quite a few times. Not in a good way. I'm extremely thankful that Akasha knows how to use her spellcheck, but I'd be even more grateful if she stops her attempt at imitating Thomas Hardy and starts writing in a style that flows more smoothly.

[Tuesday, May 6, 2003 | 09:47 a.m.]
[Against the Watch]

Contrelamontre is the brilliant brainchild of Zarah. She established this LJ community and mods it, putting up challenges almost every week. It's any fandom, more often than not it's slash (not yaoi, but those pop up on rare occasion) and Lotrips, but I've seen James Bond, HP, and Arthurian. Lots of one-shot fics to read, although LotR RPS has been a bit too prolific as of late, but people have been making an effort to post different fandoms. And did I mention it's almost exclusively slash? Rareslash finds its way to Contrelamontre quite often and I'm always checking it for short fics that are good for a quick fic fix. Anyone can join to post, all you need is an LJ.

It's an excellent site with lots of rare goodies to find, especially Lotr RPS. If I were restricted to reading only one LJ community, this would be the one I'd choose.

[Sunday, May 4, 2003 | 02:01 a.m.]
[An Introduction]

Welcome to Ficirriffic! This site will be devoted to ramblings and recs about fanfiction, fueled by a need of fics. It's not just a hobby; it's an addiction. Or at least, in my case.

I've dabbled in a good deal of fandoms over the past two years and I've seen a lot of fanfic. Good, bad, ugly, and excellent have all crossed my path and there's still more out there for me to read. I love fanfic and if I could, I'd die happy reading fanfic.

This site is still undergoing construction, so please bear with me. I've a rudimentary list of fanfiction and fanfiction-related sites to the right and I'll build it up as I progress.

It is my firm belief that a fanfic (or two or ten) a day keeps the doctor away, even if they do cause unwonted stress when a fic isn't finished or I stay up until the early hours reading. Okay, so maybe they don't. However, fanfic is always good for soothing the soul.

I think I'll start things off by rec'ing Fanfiction.net, which I'm sure plenty of fanfic readers and authors have been to or heard of.

I have a love-hate relationship with this site. It's massive, which I love. It contains a smorgasbord of fandoms, from anime to TV shows, because authors can upload their own fics without going through a webmaster. However, because of that capability, anyone can upload almost anything, which results in one huge slag heap with little nuggest of ficcal treasure buried in it. No major offense, but trying to find good fanfiction on ff.net is sometimes like digging for gold in garbage.

The administration, on the whole, is admirable. There are pop-up and banner ads, but you can block them. They managed to build up ff.net to its mammoth size now when years ago, people didn't even know what fanfiction was. It's an easily navigable system with categories, ratings, lengths, and dates. It enables people to keep author profiles, their favourite stories and authors, and leave reviews, which I find is often the most useful tool in determing whether I'm going to take the plunge in reading a fic.

However, the administration has also banned all NC-17 fics, which is quite irksome when you consider that its ban on NC-17 resulted from people complaining about minors reading NC-17 when there was always a pop-up box that asked you if you were over the age of seventeen before letting you continue. Obviously, the system was based on honour code and it wasn't very effective. However, full responsibility did not lie with ff.net, the minors were at fault for lying about their ages.

Secondly, ff.net has a history of its server going down at strange intervals. I always find myself antsy when it's down. Granted, I just tell myself it's just a website, then I start going into anxiety mode when I think about the latest update to so and so's fic that I know happened yesterday, but I didn't get to. It's irritating in that manner when you're in the middle of a fic at chapter 4 and you click the link to chapter 5 and it doesn't work.

A lot of people, especially authors who write, dabble or read in realms like RPS, NC-17, etc., aren't fond of ff.net. I'm sort of one of those. Like I said above, it's a love-hate relationship, entirely one-sided, I might add. Howevever, on the whole, it's an addiction. You can't live with it; you can't live without it.