Realization · 6:38pm Oct 14th, 2014
Hello out there to anyone who is reading this. I've been on this site and Fanfiction.net for sometime now and I've realized two things one annoys me and the other bothers me greatly bother me.
The first is the fact that when a fanfiction author creates a male OC story on this site it is sort of the immediate instinct of any readers on this site to give the story negative thumbs and then criticize the story in general. I feel that this is unfair though I can understand that creating OC's can go very well or very badly resulting in Gary Sues or Mary Sues the same goes with major alterations to character personalities. However I feel that on this site there are far fewer female OC stories that get slammed despite the characters being Mary Sues. Where as male OC's get slammed a lot more frequently. I don't know if it's just me or that most male OC's on this website are just badly written. I've read some pretty good male OC stories To Love The Moon is one of them kind of raunchy but has well developed male leads that still gets slammed.
Next up is that it seems in any established continuity where lead characters genders can be interchanged (Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, Fallout ...) every author involved seems to develop strong female leads and nothing else. Don't get me wrong I've read plenty of such stories where the female leads are actually interesting and well developed. It just gets tiring; look I read paranormal and supernatural modern adventure books too and it seems like all of the leads are strong independent females, like 90% of the books in this genre are like this. Is it too much to ask for a male lead, that's not the dark and brooding type with a painful past that makes it so he can't love anyone cliche. It would just be a nice change of pace every once in a while. Jim Butcher nailed it with Harry Dresden but so far there are only a couple other male leads like him in this kind of literature. Can some one explain to me why everyone is doing strong females and nothing else, is this like a fad like the Vampire and Zombie craze? Help please
Finally one last thought that occurred to me. I find that fanfiction for shows with male leads but have lots of characters are fine authors create pairings with females of the series or the yaoi pairings; they balance out so it's no problem. Yet if the male lead has one close male friend and a small cast. Every story seems to pair up these two friends despite them being straight. Examples I love Static Shock both the series and the comics yet when I check out the fanfiction page for them it's nothing but Vergil /Richie stories WTF? Richie wasn't even in the original comics and shows up in the show replacing Frieda white chick in show with red hair that ran newspaper as Vergil's main friend. Also I looked into (sigh) My Babysitter's a Vampire nearly every story is a pairing between the male best friends It's insanity Why?
Well that's it I'm done ranting thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read this. Also if anyone can offer any insight it would be appreciated.
people are douches, trust me I know EXACTLY what you are talking about. I made a story that no one had anything but good things to say about, seriously I asked multiple people to give it a real review and they all gave it outstandingly high marks, its original, not a crossover, NOT as self insert, nothing to do with humans, and actually was written by me. but its still sitting at 7/5. NO ONE says anything negative on it, they just vote negatively. Granted its got more positive than negative but still. And one thing I did notice is that it has one OC who is male and several new background OCs that are also male. We could speculate for days and get nowhere, just know that people are assholes and trolls. its just the way they are. Trolls just happen. The best thing you can do for your stories is join a group that is themed with those stories so people who like that will enjoy it. all the while just ignore the trolls.
Heyo Kyubbi, i'm just stopping by since you replied to me on a question I had and, after reading this blog post, I felt indebted to repay the favor. Honestly, I think the biggest, most obvious answer to why most OCs are female dominant is because of the female dominance in the show. The amount of females compared to males in the real show contribute to how most stories branched off of that same idea are written. Since this whole site is supposed to pertain to things held in the cannon mlp universe, it's easier to write about the most fleshed out gender. Not only that, but in a non-romantic relationship between peers, it 9 times out of 10, usually consists of girl-girl and boy-boy friend groups. Creating an OC from scratch with no other good male characters from the show to go off of or gain inspiration from leaves these writers to go with cliches or already thought out male concepts that have become stale over the years. We also have to keep in mind that these people writing these stories, most of them aren't professional authors, and certainly nobody is making profit from creating these stories, which is what keeps us from seeing true golden work. Nothing against the authors of course, i'm glad they do what they do and applaud thembwith their works of art. Hell, even I couldn't write such good stories. It's just that the best authors wont be sitting around here making fanfiction, they will go on to publish their books and make money and win rewards with them. Also, I wouldn't exactly say the majority of the audience wants change, they came here wanting more from what they got from the show, female characters fill that specific want that the readers crave. And if the readers don't crave that identical thing, then they wouldn't be here because then they would dislike the show. Lastly, and this is kind of just my opinion, a pony just doesn't fit the male gender very well. Don't get me wrong, i've seen more good male characters than I can count with my fingers, and it can definetly work. But you can't deny that the builds and colouring they use in the show just scream feminine. When I think of a pony, I don't think of violence, honor, wars, killing, other male stereotypes I can't think of right now... Do they use these kinds of stereotypes in fim stories? Sure, but it's not as frequent, and it also doesn't take the same theme as the actual show, which is what changes what the readers are actually looking for when they look for more mlp, which makes them dislike it. I personally like when stories get creative and different with their stories, but one thing I can't stand is human related stories. I loathe human stories to the point where I don't even read the previews, which I guess is kind of the same feeling the other readers get when authors stray off of the main theme. I hope I answered your question.
3783127 Thanks for the insight, I get that ponies and female leads regarding mlp are more of a go to kind of thing and I've gotten over and accepted that. I thoroughly enjoy some stories like that. There are a bunch of very creative stories involving a lot of the main female cast that I can totally get behind, I generally steer clear of romance unless it's well written. less than 40,000 words I won't do it unless it's a 1 or 2 shot. As for the OC leads and supporting characters in stories I've found, most of them are gems. To love the Moon by IndigoEclipse is a great story mature but fantstic. It paints Luna in a glorious light and the lead Starstep is extremely well developed. Another series character is Fine Crime created by PaulAsaran, Very flushed out. Heck even a few HIE stories have well developed male leads from time to time. I've come to appreciate characters like Idol Hooves from Changeling of the Guard by vdrake77. Idol is hilarious and well written. These characters along with the gems that are already existing male ponies given well flushed out personalities compensate for the many female dominated fanfics. Note this extends to all fanfiction not just mlp but Harry Potter, Naruto, Spider-Man mostly when the males are well thought out it makes for a better story Team 8 for Naruto is great along with Vox Corporis for Harry Potter saddled with TSA: The Amazing SpiderMan vol1 and 2 by Nomad88.I highly recommend them if you are interested . You are right in that females tend to be more prominent in smaller characters casts and thus make more interesting leads; I won't dispute that. I guess my hate is directed more towards the actual industry itself and not fanfiction. Like my previous statement the problem for me is there are too many female leads in modern Fantasy/SciFi. Also again why do people like brooding/angst in men taken to 100? Where having a girlfriend leave you makes you broken and unable to love despite it happening 10 years ago, or you have a massive amount of power that's impossible to control and the female lead threatens to destabilize it, and you've been around for 200-2000 years. Did you stop and think "maybe I should learn how to control this power I've got a bit of time on my hands seeing that I'm immortal" I get it normal and every day is boring but broken,brooding, emotionally distant, hostile, irritable, and self loathing are attractive. I get it a woman wants to save a broken man from the darkness. The problem is there's far too much of it to balance out. though this tends to be in urban fantasy and less in urban scifi or high fantasy. Tad Williams wrote the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn tetralogy was amazingly complex, Wheel of Time, Seeker of Truth. My favorite is the Novels of Tiger and Del, chronicling the adventures of two leads and watching as their relationship develops over the course of several years. Oh well aside from those few nuances I've found a niche of valuing the good male characters I find and respecting the female leads, while tolerating the angsty male/females as long as they have a good reason to be brooding. Thanks for responding. I'd love to hear more of your ideas and thoughts. Thanks for listening to my complaining and B**ching about this subject. What subject did I respond to exactly, I've forgotten(sorry) terrible memory.
3783680 We were talking about how i can sit and read fanfiction, but I can't pick up a single paper or hardback and enjoy it the way im supposed to.
3783716 oh okay I remember now I think it's easier to read a fanfiction b/c we're scrolling down a page as opposed to flipping through pages lined with 10 point font. any thoughts on my previous post? I rather enjoy long drawn out explanations. I'm just weird like that I guess