Diseases of the Common Fanfic Writer, V. 1.0
(crossposted to my journalfen)
Arteesteflammaris: The conviction that one is not just a fanfic writer, one is An Arteest, and must be treated so.
Common Symptoms: Author pulls a usual "temperamental artist" act, insisting that she will not write if certain conditions apply (such as someone asking her when the next chapter of a fanfic will be out). Author has delusions dreams of being published despite the often utter crappiness of her writing. In extreme cases, the author believes she knows the characters better than the canon creator. Many sufferers of Arteesteflammaris also suffer from Poetic Disease (q.v.).
Common Treatment: No known cure. Most Arteesteflammaris sufferers continue in their delusions, surrounded by adoring fans and providing much entertainment to watchers on the sidelines.
Communicable?: Probably not; it seems to arise spontaneously in each case.
Fangirliensis: Infatuation with a canon/character/canon creator to the point of fainting and squealing whenever it is mentioned.
Common Symptoms: Inability to spell. Use of netspeak or "creative" misspellings, such as "hawt" for "hot." Use of the word "Squee!" and many exclamation points. Inability to tolerate criticism of the object of fangirling.
Common Treatment: Time. Education in the canon material, for those willing to work with a particular fangirl. Occasionally, the Almighty Bitchslap, if administered hard enough, will make the fangirl wake up and realize what an idiot she's being.
Communicable?: Yes, as smallpox.
Heterophobia: Dislike and distaste for fanfic depicting heterosexual relationships, often leading to the insistence that het fanfic is just bad/disgusting/too mushy/degrading to women.
Common Symptoms: The above arguments. Refusal to read het fanfic. Refusal to stop making generalizations, or realize that much slash is just as bad.
Common Treatment: Falling in love with a few het pairings can lead a heterophobe to realize that not all heterosexual relationships are evil.
Communicable?: Yes, among slash readers.
Special Note: It is often impossible to tell if someone is a "true" heterophobe, as some slash fanfic writers will proudly claim this disease as a way of making fun of suffers of slashophobia (q.v).
Lamentasis: The inability to be cheerful about one particular aspect of writing fanfic, whether that be a wrinkle in canon, other fics being more popular, or the whiner's victim's horrible, horrible status as a BNF.
Common Symptoms: Making long posts that do nothing but whine. Starting threads at any fandom message board that do nothing but whine about the hard life of a BNF writer/how no one ever reads her fics. Crying for months and months over the death of a fictional character.
Common Treatment: Usually, only time can cure lamentasis. The victim is likely to keep on whining until she finds something more interesting to whine about, or until she realizes that no one is listening to her anymore. So long as one person says, "I understand! I love you!" the lamentasis will be inflamed.
Communicable?: Through weeping and wailing of other fans.
Mobilifandomus: The frequent use of threats of leaving the fandom, usually to get something the sufferer wants, such as 50+ replies begging her not to leave.
Common Symptoms: Declarations of leaving the fandom. Complaints of the fandom's harshness and how it was better "back in the day." Never actually leaving the fandom quietly, or dropping acquaintances there, but sticking around to whine.
Common Treatment: For the sufferer's friends, reassuring her she is loved and wanted. Unfortunately, this usually only prolongs mobilifandomus. Pointing and laughing is not a sure cure, but entertaining for the people who don't take mobilifandomus victims seriously.
Communicable?: Rare.
Plagiarism Paraonia: The irrational conviction that any story similar in title, tone, summary, or pairings to an author's fic is a copy of her fic. In the more acute stages, the author is likely to report plagiarism without actually having read the story in question.
Common Symptoms: An ego big enough to believe that anyone would like to copy from her. Running title and summary searches at fanfic sites just to locate similar fics. Filing plagiarism reports or writing angry e-mails to "plagiarizing" authors without actually having read the story.
Common Treatment: Usually, proving conclusively that the plagiarism paranoiac is only making up the similarities will suffice. In the more acute cases, however, plagiarism paranoia often spreads out to the author's friends, and makes them sure she must be right, and that everyone wants to steal her fic because, OMG, she is a genius. Pointing and laughing is here recommended as well.
Communicable?: Yes, to fans of a particular author who has it.
Plagiaritis: The irresistible urge, seemingly closely related to kleptomania, to steal someone else's work (original or another fanfic) and claim it as one's own.
Common Symptoms: Open theft, with only names altered- or not altered at all. Horseshit excuses, such as admiring the work so much they had to use it, or somehow "forgetting" that the work is not their own. Using really shitty ideas despite the fact that they are really shitty ideas.
Common Treatment: Fandom usually deals with it by shunning the author. Unfortunately, there are sometimes a small and determined group of fangirls who keep up with the author and defend her, and in that case there is nothing to be done.
Communicable?: No, or unknown.
Poetic Disease: Describing everything, even the simplest of actions, like a kiss, in terms that would be better-suited for Romantic poetry by Shelley. The bad Romantic poetry by Shelley.
Common Symptoms: Use of "learned" words, such as argent, titian, Pythagorean, where much simpler ones would do. Never actually describing action directly, so that a fic could be about white elephants as easily as two people kissing. Claiming that this is written in the style of Hemingway/John Updike/other famous author.
Common Treatment: Good concrit that rips apart the fic and exposes the ridiculousness of it. Alternatively, reviews by people so confused by the story that the author finally changes it.
Communicable?: By emulation of similar fics.
Romance Rot: The inability to write romance fics without concepts such as first love, soulmates, the Evil Other Woman/Man, and many other common clichés of romance. (For a much fuller description of some romance clichés, see www.mrsgiggles.com).
Common Symptoms: Author not only uses common scenarios (such as having a character be raped and find comfort in another character's arms) for fic-writing value, but actually takes them seriously and believes they happen in real life. Characters who are adults act like high school teenagers. All love in the author's fics is perfect and untroubled, or troubled only by Evil Other Bitches/Bastards and stupid misunderstandings, and sex never goes through any of the predictable problems even if one of the characters is a virgin.
Common Treatment: Again, time is the only known treatment for romance rot. Many of the authors who write this way are young, and grow out of it. Positive reviews, however, are counterproductive, tending to lengthen the disorder; romance rot victims also seem incapable of seeing that there is anything wrong with their story if someone praises it.
Communicable?: By emulation of similar fics.
Slashophobia: The disgust and distaste for fanfics depicting homosexual relationships, usually on the basis that it's disgusting/wrong/against the reader's religion/has no basis on canon.
Common Symptoms: Using arguments like the ones listed above. Conducting furious debates on the "morality" of slash fanfiction. Maintaining a quiet double standard under which non-canonical het is admitted, while slash being non-canonical is justifiable grounds for its being excluded.
Common Treatment: Introducing the slashophobe to good slash fanfic. However, some sufferers never change their minds. In this case, listening to their whining with amusement is encouraged.
Communicable?: Yes, particularly among members of a particular religion or fan subgroup.
Ultrafeminization: The turning of a male character in any fic (though usually a slash fic) into a weeping, wailing teenage girl with a dick.
Common Symptoms: Author describes character as "feminine," "delicate," or "ethereal," even if he is regularly depicted as very masculine or muscled in canon. Character glows, cries often, seems incapable of putting up a fight, or all three at once. Character suffers from romanticized versions of issues that plague teenage girls but have never touched the character in canon, such as anorexia, cutting, and suicidal wishes.
Common Treatment: Exposure to a wider variety of canon fields, and time. Most authors will eventually grow out of being fangirls and realize that there does not need to be one "feminine" and one "masculine" partner in a relationship to make it work.
Communicable?: Yes, as plague.
"YSINMS": Your Squick Is Not My Squick, under which the sufferer declares not only that she doesn't like a particular kind of fic (slash/het/gen/rapefic/incestfic/RPF/furry fic/anything you like), but that no one else should, either, and that it should not exist.
Common Symptoms: Stating not only dislike but the desire to clear the Internet of said squick. Declaring people who write fics starring said squick as immoral/rapists/worse than Hitler/baby-killers/like the pilots on September 11th. In the more severe cases, YSINMS causes absolute loss of the sense of humor.
Common Treatment: Very rare. Sometimes a YSINMS sufferer can be argued into tolerating the squick, but quite often they are beyond reason. Pointing and laughing from the sidelines is encouraged, as is enjoying said squick if you enjoy it.
Communicable?: Unknown. YSINMS victims very rarely convince anyone who does not already agree with them.
Arteesteflammaris: The conviction that one is not just a fanfic writer, one is An Arteest, and must be treated so.
Common Symptoms: Author pulls a usual "temperamental artist" act, insisting that she will not write if certain conditions apply (such as someone asking her when the next chapter of a fanfic will be out). Author has delusions dreams of being published despite the often utter crappiness of her writing. In extreme cases, the author believes she knows the characters better than the canon creator. Many sufferers of Arteesteflammaris also suffer from Poetic Disease (q.v.).
Common Treatment: No known cure. Most Arteesteflammaris sufferers continue in their delusions, surrounded by adoring fans and providing much entertainment to watchers on the sidelines.
Communicable?: Probably not; it seems to arise spontaneously in each case.
Fangirliensis: Infatuation with a canon/character/canon creator to the point of fainting and squealing whenever it is mentioned.
Common Symptoms: Inability to spell. Use of netspeak or "creative" misspellings, such as "hawt" for "hot." Use of the word "Squee!" and many exclamation points. Inability to tolerate criticism of the object of fangirling.
Common Treatment: Time. Education in the canon material, for those willing to work with a particular fangirl. Occasionally, the Almighty Bitchslap, if administered hard enough, will make the fangirl wake up and realize what an idiot she's being.
Communicable?: Yes, as smallpox.
Heterophobia: Dislike and distaste for fanfic depicting heterosexual relationships, often leading to the insistence that het fanfic is just bad/disgusting/too mushy/degrading to women.
Common Symptoms: The above arguments. Refusal to read het fanfic. Refusal to stop making generalizations, or realize that much slash is just as bad.
Common Treatment: Falling in love with a few het pairings can lead a heterophobe to realize that not all heterosexual relationships are evil.
Communicable?: Yes, among slash readers.
Special Note: It is often impossible to tell if someone is a "true" heterophobe, as some slash fanfic writers will proudly claim this disease as a way of making fun of suffers of slashophobia (q.v).
Lamentasis: The inability to be cheerful about one particular aspect of writing fanfic, whether that be a wrinkle in canon, other fics being more popular, or the whiner's victim's horrible, horrible status as a BNF.
Common Symptoms: Making long posts that do nothing but whine. Starting threads at any fandom message board that do nothing but whine about the hard life of a BNF writer/how no one ever reads her fics. Crying for months and months over the death of a fictional character.
Common Treatment: Usually, only time can cure lamentasis. The victim is likely to keep on whining until she finds something more interesting to whine about, or until she realizes that no one is listening to her anymore. So long as one person says, "I understand! I love you!" the lamentasis will be inflamed.
Communicable?: Through weeping and wailing of other fans.
Mobilifandomus: The frequent use of threats of leaving the fandom, usually to get something the sufferer wants, such as 50+ replies begging her not to leave.
Common Symptoms: Declarations of leaving the fandom. Complaints of the fandom's harshness and how it was better "back in the day." Never actually leaving the fandom quietly, or dropping acquaintances there, but sticking around to whine.
Common Treatment: For the sufferer's friends, reassuring her she is loved and wanted. Unfortunately, this usually only prolongs mobilifandomus. Pointing and laughing is not a sure cure, but entertaining for the people who don't take mobilifandomus victims seriously.
Communicable?: Rare.
Plagiarism Paraonia: The irrational conviction that any story similar in title, tone, summary, or pairings to an author's fic is a copy of her fic. In the more acute stages, the author is likely to report plagiarism without actually having read the story in question.
Common Symptoms: An ego big enough to believe that anyone would like to copy from her. Running title and summary searches at fanfic sites just to locate similar fics. Filing plagiarism reports or writing angry e-mails to "plagiarizing" authors without actually having read the story.
Common Treatment: Usually, proving conclusively that the plagiarism paranoiac is only making up the similarities will suffice. In the more acute cases, however, plagiarism paranoia often spreads out to the author's friends, and makes them sure she must be right, and that everyone wants to steal her fic because, OMG, she is a genius. Pointing and laughing is here recommended as well.
Communicable?: Yes, to fans of a particular author who has it.
Plagiaritis: The irresistible urge, seemingly closely related to kleptomania, to steal someone else's work (original or another fanfic) and claim it as one's own.
Common Symptoms: Open theft, with only names altered- or not altered at all. Horseshit excuses, such as admiring the work so much they had to use it, or somehow "forgetting" that the work is not their own. Using really shitty ideas despite the fact that they are really shitty ideas.
Common Treatment: Fandom usually deals with it by shunning the author. Unfortunately, there are sometimes a small and determined group of fangirls who keep up with the author and defend her, and in that case there is nothing to be done.
Communicable?: No, or unknown.
Poetic Disease: Describing everything, even the simplest of actions, like a kiss, in terms that would be better-suited for Romantic poetry by Shelley. The bad Romantic poetry by Shelley.
Common Symptoms: Use of "learned" words, such as argent, titian, Pythagorean, where much simpler ones would do. Never actually describing action directly, so that a fic could be about white elephants as easily as two people kissing. Claiming that this is written in the style of Hemingway/John Updike/other famous author.
Common Treatment: Good concrit that rips apart the fic and exposes the ridiculousness of it. Alternatively, reviews by people so confused by the story that the author finally changes it.
Communicable?: By emulation of similar fics.
Romance Rot: The inability to write romance fics without concepts such as first love, soulmates, the Evil Other Woman/Man, and many other common clichés of romance. (For a much fuller description of some romance clichés, see www.mrsgiggles.com).
Common Symptoms: Author not only uses common scenarios (such as having a character be raped and find comfort in another character's arms) for fic-writing value, but actually takes them seriously and believes they happen in real life. Characters who are adults act like high school teenagers. All love in the author's fics is perfect and untroubled, or troubled only by Evil Other Bitches/Bastards and stupid misunderstandings, and sex never goes through any of the predictable problems even if one of the characters is a virgin.
Common Treatment: Again, time is the only known treatment for romance rot. Many of the authors who write this way are young, and grow out of it. Positive reviews, however, are counterproductive, tending to lengthen the disorder; romance rot victims also seem incapable of seeing that there is anything wrong with their story if someone praises it.
Communicable?: By emulation of similar fics.
Slashophobia: The disgust and distaste for fanfics depicting homosexual relationships, usually on the basis that it's disgusting/wrong/against the reader's religion/has no basis on canon.
Common Symptoms: Using arguments like the ones listed above. Conducting furious debates on the "morality" of slash fanfiction. Maintaining a quiet double standard under which non-canonical het is admitted, while slash being non-canonical is justifiable grounds for its being excluded.
Common Treatment: Introducing the slashophobe to good slash fanfic. However, some sufferers never change their minds. In this case, listening to their whining with amusement is encouraged.
Communicable?: Yes, particularly among members of a particular religion or fan subgroup.
Ultrafeminization: The turning of a male character in any fic (though usually a slash fic) into a weeping, wailing teenage girl with a dick.
Common Symptoms: Author describes character as "feminine," "delicate," or "ethereal," even if he is regularly depicted as very masculine or muscled in canon. Character glows, cries often, seems incapable of putting up a fight, or all three at once. Character suffers from romanticized versions of issues that plague teenage girls but have never touched the character in canon, such as anorexia, cutting, and suicidal wishes.
Common Treatment: Exposure to a wider variety of canon fields, and time. Most authors will eventually grow out of being fangirls and realize that there does not need to be one "feminine" and one "masculine" partner in a relationship to make it work.
Communicable?: Yes, as plague.
"YSINMS": Your Squick Is Not My Squick, under which the sufferer declares not only that she doesn't like a particular kind of fic (slash/het/gen/rapefic/incestfic/RPF/furry fic/anything you like), but that no one else should, either, and that it should not exist.
Common Symptoms: Stating not only dislike but the desire to clear the Internet of said squick. Declaring people who write fics starring said squick as immoral/rapists/worse than Hitler/baby-killers/like the pilots on September 11th. In the more severe cases, YSINMS causes absolute loss of the sense of humor.
Common Treatment: Very rare. Sometimes a YSINMS sufferer can be argued into tolerating the squick, but quite often they are beyond reason. Pointing and laughing from the sidelines is encouraged, as is enjoying said squick if you enjoy it.
Communicable?: Unknown. YSINMS victims very rarely convince anyone who does not already agree with them.