Bimblesnaff Rants

Failed Fandom

People are inspired by the things they love. Many fanatics wish there was more to an idealized subject or franchise and have run away whimsy on the possibilities. These people think up their own adventures for characters to tell -- new destinations, goals, rivals, and even friends. They'd take an established setting and its characters to craft a work in honor of that they loved. You know, fan fiction, comics, etc.

It is, at the heart, basing one form of work on another, like adapting a game into a movie or television series. Don't those always work? I mean, why would a director almost seemingly want to grieve the fans of a well established set of works by completely changing pivotal plot points or key characters? That should spell the end of the endorsement to your second-hand creation by the followers of the initial. At least, you'd think so.

Any series relies on one key aspect: continuity. They differ on this definition and could be just include the general setting, the core characters, the basic storyline, or even a recurring object. If one were to, say, change all of these, an entirely new property is invented. Nothing is connecting the new creation to the past work; however, sometimes you are led to believe the two are tied together if not one in the same. You can pretty much pull out any video game to movie adaptation for an example. At times, all that is salvaged is the most superficial details like character names. Some characters will switch sides, others will be completely redesigned, and pandemonium is unleashed 2006-style. Street Fighter: The Movie is a good example to all of this, but Double Dragon is near perfect.

Sometimes, offical works can be detested by many of the original fans. Called "author suicide", the famous Star Wars Trilogy can be stood next to the "new" trilogy to serve as a great example. Even though made by the same man, something changed over time, and it wasn't that the fans grew up. Several testify that Return of the Jedi marked the beginning of the end. Many younger and new fans see the past as superior to the present. Something changed fundamentally in the movies that was more than CGI over puppets or The Force turning from spiritual to biological. The creator destroyed his creation, and this is the same man in charge of making both sequals and prequals to a continued line of movies. No media form was crossed, and nothing drastically changed outside of the decade the two batches were made. Same man, same creation, but a completely different product and reception.

If so much can turn sour with so many maintained constants, what horrors await when less is certain? What if the creator was only half invested in the product, or barely at all? What if he handed it over to others who had no understanding of that which they were accepting as they crossed it over into a new medium? This isn't merely passing a baton. It's more like catching an arrow midflight.

This is how I view Kirby's animated series. Now, I've made an all-out attack on the show before, highlighting several peak peeves. The bulk of it comes down to a very obvious underlying theme: it's not about Kirby. From the cliché destined savior to the spot-lighted characters made just for the show, all that which makes the pink puff is boiled down to some short battle scenes where Kirby eats and attacks. Mega Man could be put in his place, and it'd be about the same. The the "tl;dr" of my prior rant for those without the time to spare is that the cartoon is a poor adaptation of the Kirby series regardless of the fact that Sakurai, Kirby's creator, was any part of it. He effectively killed it himself.

The Kirby animated series also spits on the aforementioned continuity of Kirby, what little there was, at least. Meta Knight switches sides, a whole new grandeous origin is thrust upon Kirby that completely contridicted his "a brave lad" beginnings, and the protagonist is rendered mute in favor of non-canon characters. That's what I call those created specifically for the show -- non-canon. They don't belong. They're fabricated. They don't even fit with the original designs of characters. For example, Tiff is a complete tragedy who snatched focus away from the reason we were all there. You know, Kirby, the titular character. Some whiny snail was put to King Dedede's right side when an endless cavaldade of existing baddies could have been used instead. Are you telling me that Waddle Doo couldn't have been sniveling? He has a big eye he could have cried from! No, they could have done this. They could have done all of this, but they didn't want to. They didn't care about Kirby. They didn't care about his series. They just wanted to do their thing.

I say this all now not for mockery (although that is my topping cherry) but to explain a point of view. A series of works, whether created by one mastermind or passed along over time, is not exempt from common pitfalls. At times, the creator can't even keep on the straight and narrow with the birthed concept. People paid to make scripts fumble with borrowed concepts, too, although in these cases they are probably instructed to by a bunch of suits to garner more money from a hapless public. Professionals, people who make a living off of crafting stories, struggle to conform and match with an established work. So, what chance does some twit in their parents' basement have at succeeding where experienced and learned veterans fail? Yes, I'm probably talking about you.

Chances are that any fan work will be, by and large, garbage. This isn't a coin toss for success or even subject to Sturgeon's Law; it's voluntary. They fail since the authors don't care. Your average fan fiction writer is less worried about paying tribute to their beloved franchise than they are to telling their story. This is the same way that a director will whip his rear with a comic or game to turn a buck at the box office. This is why you get out-of-character behavior, absurd storylines, and attention hogging fan characters.

The newly seated power in charge of fan land isn't concerned with petty hurtles like so-and-so being mortal enemies with a now romantically linked-to other character, or even brothers for that matter. If someone is willing to admit that they've taken liberal liberties with well known canon, the matter is slightly improved although still not forgiven. Others, however, act as though they have exceeded the original and pose to cast Uranus' pieces into the sea. Again, this is exactly how I see the animated series.

People have a weird definition of "fan" works. I don't know how many I've seen where a near copy of the main character who is stronger, better, and has spiky hair is the focus while the actual lead, or any original character, is no where in sight. But, it's not like Mary Sues are anything new. So many fan works might as well be an original property. If the characters are absent or completely changed and the plot has no resemblance to the original, you just made your own idea. But, when marketing an idea, affixing it to an already known idea, no matter how vague the connection, always reels more fish in than an unknown. Damn sheep.

I can understand delusional writters not seeing their own flaws, but I don't know how any readers looks past them. Is anyone out there telling the author that they're good? Are these non-elephant fan-fans just as touched in the head? If I was in the market for a good fan work and was presented with something that lacked any but the most superficial ties to series, I'd ignore it. If I was out for a good, original story and came across a fan work that was so distant from that it was fanning, I'd still ignore it for being so fundamentally uninspired.

The purpose of a fan work is to expand on a property one adores. I always saw the aim as to mesh seamlessly. If all the characters are changed from adults to angsty high schoolers, then you're just a whiny emo kid who needs a good, swift kick in the seat/head/both. Done right, a tribute should be like the season or sequal fans never got. Done wrong, and it's like the Super Mario Bros. Movie. Have you ever heard any Mario fan say how awesome that movie was? Ever? What about the American Godzilla? See a trend yet? Doing a property "your way" is the wrong way, and I only say "wrong" since I know no synonym for "horrible, unspeakable atrocity" that starts with W. Actually, "worst" would be acceptable.

When a lot younger, I did some fan creations, almost exclusively with video games. I'd go crazy with new power-ups, enemies, obstacles, and abilities. To me, what you interacted with was the game. I never cared about the less tangible aspects like storyline or plot. I only needed to know that this castle did, in fact, not have my princess to move on to the next level. Of course, games were games back in my day (acting like I'm so old) that put the spotlight on game play instead of being like a movie broken up between short bits of dull grinding. But, like I said before, my goal was to mesh seamlessly when designing a fan work. I didn't want it to clash. It should meld in and be thought to have always been in the game or what have you and not overpower what's already there. Even as I aged, I tried to keep right in line with this view.

That's how Squeaky Bogg was made. He was made simple, slimmed down, and given a full set of game mechanics that wouldn't be that absurd when compared to any other Dream Lander. Two colors, stumpy, low on details, and bald. What's the average Kirby fan character look like? A Kirby copy with a huge, spiked mess of hair, some incredibly detailed headgear and possibly shoes, and a large sword. Always a sword. Or, it's just another Dream Land denizen dipped in another color of paint, maybe with a bow or other accessory, most likely the hair and/or sword. Let's throw some more clichés in there. Dead parents? Last of their kind? Golden!

A fan character is a good way to gauge if someone gets a series. Creating a character in a vein is much like devising a story or scenario; however, the character is much more brief. If they can be accidently overlooked as though they belong there, it's a perfect fit. If a double take is done due to them being mistaken as another character in the series, it's just an uninspired duplicate. If the creation is gawked at with a dropped jaw, it means the maker put goth and vampiric elements into Harry Potter and should be locked outside so that they can never reach a computer ever again.

With the initial banter out of the way (That was just an intro?), let's review the key points touched upon: 1) A series barely manages to sustain itself. 2) "Redefining" an established work is as good as beating it with a shovel. 3) Directors and fan workers alike tend to care less about the property and more about their vision. 4) Fan works should go along with the series rather than sharply contrasting against it. You'd think that last one would be a no-brainer.

My big beef with Kirby fandom and fan works is that they are rooted in nothing. They barely have ties to the puff ball at all. People can't even think straight or logically in the most basic manner: connecting the lines. Have you ever bothered to read people's "fan theories"? They can be found pictured in the dictionary next to the entry "heinous". Now, I'm all for filling in the blanks with well meaning and practical suggestions, but when you claim that Kirby and Meta Knight both came from a distant world were the masked warrior tried to rule as an evil tyrant but was overthrown by Kirby and the two somehow wound up on Pop Star, you literally are making things up. That's not even the worst one, sadly.

Why not make a character who has no hint at being female suddenly a girl in your story based on the animated series where said character is completely defined as male? How about grouping in one family Kirby, Meta Knight, Galacta Knight, and Marx and King Dedede and Blade Knight (that's Kirby's mother, why not, 'cuz gender can be rewritten)? Oh, and Nightmare made Marx betray Kirby, 'cuz remember all that hinting to such given in Kirby Super Star? People claim these are theories, but those have to use and be based on facts. Rather, this swill is just pulling names and events out of a hat, and that hat is worn over the buttocks. Over the top, unfounded, and often contradicting canon, these proposals are nothing but scattered ideas and total tripe.

Speaking of non-sense, what is up with the fan game or RP scene? I see differently colored puff balls with wild hair, big fancy weapons going on adventures that relate nothing to Dream Land, in content or manner, and don't even bother with the slightest hint of Dream Land mechanics (eating, copying, puffing, etc.), yet the makers have the audacity to not only make this but call it a "Kirby fan ____" (fill in the blank, for those slow out there). If you make an RPG with characters who's only connection to Pop Star is looking exactly like Kirby with a hat, it's not a fan game/character. That's just lazy character design. It wasn't bad when it was just Kirby Warrior RPG, but I guess the lack of any other decent Kirby fan games over the years made it the role model for everyone else. Really, what is up with that? Do people just feel the need to play dress up with a sprite sheet rather than using any amount of ingenuity to think up something original? Do people put Mario in armor and have him battle dragons? 'Cuz I don't see what Kirby did to deserve that.

When they do hit closer to the mark, there's still a lot of slack pulled. People like to run wild with the whole "dark" matters. For such a cutesy series, it's amazing how many people only want to extrapolate that fairly minor detail. Some adaptations come across as gritty blood baths which seems far from the fields of fluffs and flowers. Other folks try to marry the two existing camps of canon, which really just leads to an all new set of ruinous rules. As stated before, making stuff up never ends well. No, I take that back. It can't.

Of course, not every fan work is bad. There are some good ones out there, just not many. When they're presented for what it is, a brave but cute puff ball who fights against injustice and food theft, they work. When the author starts to rewrite and reconstruct the fundamentals of the presented and accepted Kirbyverse, things fall apart. Kirby versus Dark Matter? Awesome. Marx came back to life in a scenerio prior to Super Star Ultra's release? Sounds great. A puff named after the ancient and legendary hero of Pop Star, Kirby, who vanquished King Dedede's ancestor? ... What? A green colored puffball wielding two magical swords that battles demons from the netherworld -- just shoot me now, I can't take it anymore.

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