[Fandom] ...in some ways this was inevitable.

[jennaria]

I check AO3 semi-regularly for more Yuri On Ice Stories I Am Interested In, which (as usually happens) are getting thinner on the ground. Unfortunately, this means I'm hitting the stage of the fandom life-cycle where I start to get grumpy.

...specifically, dear fanfic authors: why the heck are you writing stories wherein the only trace of this being a Yuri On Ice fanfic, as opposed to Any Other Fandom Ever, is the names? I don't even mean that I don't agree with the characterization. I mean 'fairy tale retelling' wherein the prince is now named Victor, and the brave maiden who rescues him is now a boy named Yuuri, and the helpful fairy is now (depending on which retelling) either Minako or Phichit, and Russian Yuri appears for at most three sentences to yell at everyone before vanishing again.

If you're going to write a fairy tale retelling, couldn't you maybe pick (a) a non-Disney fairy tale, and (b) think about what putting the YOI characters into the roles would mean? I don't feel like that's too much to ask. Grump.

Comments

[jennaria]

Sometimes the tags are warning enough, and sometimes they aren't, for me - it partially depends on whether the author tags tumblr-style, where you get more information from the tags than from the summary field, or old-school, where it's more 'um, I dunno, what here applies?' :is maybe projecting a bit here, heh:

At one and the same time - yay for people who are putting their toes in the water, fanfic-wise! Hell, YOI is tempting me to write fanfic for something other than Yuletide. But that doesn't mean I can turn off my own critical reader. Unfortunately. (Good luck!)

[king_touchy]

YOI is tempting me to write fanfic for something other than Yuletide.

Oh, let me encourage that thought!