#tka fanfic opinions

[enlightened-lord]

i'm kind of crying but in hopes of getting an answer from the void (or maybe remembering it after posting this)

what fic was it that it was a cross between a steampunk au and a qing dynasty ish au??? wu xuefeng was sent to protect ye xiu and ye qiu was kind of the prince and ye xiu was the runaway prince and there were paper kites that wang jiexi sent AND OMG IT WAS SUCH A COOL UNIVERSE BUT I FREAKING FORGOT THE TITLE I WANNA REREAD IT STAT

ahahhahahaha omg i feel so crazy

ejkrofmtlf

updated draft:

omgggg i found it!!!!!!

aaaaaaaaa after 30+ mins

T^T

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

i found it omg i'm so

(i'm 20+ tabs longer than my internet open tabs used to be omg)

(going thru the search is like: "i read this, i read this, ooh i have not read this *opens new tab* *continues* i read this, i did not read this but i am not interested, etc etc")

(BUT I FRIGGIN FOUND IT)

(also, in the back of my head, I kind of knew who the author was but JOKES ON ME I DONT TRUST MY MEMORY THAT MUCH SO)

(anyway, if anyone is interested in a steampunk au that sort of reminded me of the qing dynasty era hit up "The City is Full of Secrets (And Secrets are Stranger than Lies) by madmaenad)

it's really good

and i

just

a

[kyogre-blue]

@almurz said: 

Well…should I say “I knew it!” I mean reading fanfics, how can you tell that it’s not 90% of ficwriter’s fantasy and making up to suit their headcanon? I can tell one thing- they added funny moments in manhua and in animation -as in ‘comic scenes’. The novel doesn’t lack its funny scenes as well :)) Same looking faces-that’s the problem of the big cast and…maybe specifically animation studio (1st season). OVA made everyone look …childish/younger?

And in OVA i had trouble with telling apart Ye Xiu, Wang Jiexi and Yu Wenzhou. I know it is slice of life as in close to the reality animation…then everyone should have black/brown hair…and totally not such bright blue/purple eyes. But my complaint about Chen Guo and Tang Rou was that they are different in personality but their hair color is the same-i will not delve into the difference in shades lol but in general that was my complaint.

BUT as there many complaints there are many things in TKA animation that good. One for sure- the first chinese animation about gaming (better than isekai anime/manga/novels- i’m sick and tired of)

:))) and as you are not “the reading type” - I am the type who “read original first” type. And fanfics shouldn’t be used instead of canon

I guess we just fundamentally disagree. The fact is, I get several times more enjoyment out of fic vs original material for basically any series that leaves an impact on me. I’ll watch the anime, then read fic for like 10x the hours for greater variety and pleasure. This isn’t a judgement on the quality of the original or anything, I genuinely love some of the original source and greatly enjoy it in itself, but fanfic just adds so much more depth and breadth to the entire experience of being a fan of the series, since the source material is, by nature, singular and more limited, while fic can be an entire spectrum of genre and content. 

And because I’m interested in the “transformative” aspect, I don’t care that much about whether it’s the fic-writer’s fantasy or headcanons. I mean, it’s interesting to know, that’s why I went back and read the manhua, but it’s not ultimately that big a deal even if they totally rewrote huge swaths of canon. In fact, those fics can be outright superior to canon in some cases because of the passion and thought that goes into them. (That being said, my favorite kind of fic is definitely the one that uses canon details in a new and interesting way. Canon divergence, canon-style, universe alteration, whatever you call it.) 

The same looking character designs are definitely an issue of trying to make the designs vaguely realistic. I mean, Naruto has a massive cast, but you’re not going to get the more central few dozen characters confused basically ever because they have distinctive styles. I think the other series I’ve seen suffer from this issue are predictably sports anime, where the main cast might be distinctive, but the more background rival team members definitely start blurring together (unless they’re wildly overstylized). But having several actually important central character be this alike is definitely kind of a low? 

Personally, I wouldn’t really praise anything about the TKA animation as a standalone. Like, you can praise it for being the first Chinese animation about gaming, as a concept kind of thing. But it did an absolutely terrible job conveying anything about how Glory works, which you’d think would be a central thing in a gaming anime, and it murdered the source story (I’m not sure my opinion of Ye Xiu will ever recover from how poorly his OPness was handled there). The animation was admittedly very good on the technical level, but that prettiness didn’t really... accomplish anything? Like, the fight scenes weren’t memorable enough to justify it, they did quite badly at conveying expressions of characters, the compositions of the shots didn’t do much in terms of emotional impact, etc. (Admittedly, I might be harping on this too much because overly pretty animation getting too much praise is a pet peeve for me. Ufotable!!) 

In terms of genre, it’s personal preference, so it’s probably a useless point to argue much. But I would say the opposite. While isekai is a terribly overdone genre, I still prefer it (at the core, not in terms of specific examples) to sports anime, which this basically is. Like, TKA overall has good points, it seems to be solid. But it can’t actually escape the ultimate issue brought about by its genre -- that there’s no real tension or serious stakes. Normally, you’d balance that out with humor or human drama, but.... I would not call either a strong point (so far).