Sunday, April 21, 2013

Fan Fiction

I think escapism is important. Running away from problems is usually a bad way to solve them, but sometimes being able to focus on something else allows people to find new perspective and hopefully new ways to solve those problems. I could write about my feelings about everything that happened this week in Boston, but I am going to give myself some time on that. Especially since I prepared this whole thing during the week. “Best laid plans of mice and men,” I suppose.

Anyway, fan fiction. That’s right, in the eye of tragedy, I am going to write about fan fiction.

I actually think that fan fiction can be a valuable tool for writers sometimes. Writing using the same characters and settings of another work of fiction (or non-fiction) can be a good starting point for practicing what type of writer the person wants to be. One should be wary of using fan fiction as a crutch, but in the end, there are far worse things a person can spend their time on.

The only fan fiction I ever wrote was in middle school about a wrestling tournament involving video game characters (inspired by that MTV “Celebrity Deathmatch” show), other than that, I barely have enough time to write my own stories. A lot of fiction can be so derivative that I sometimes wonder if a person should just change the names of their fan-fiction and make it their own. I suppose that may lessen the people interested in the work initially, and may also defeat the purpose of the “crutch” in the first place.

Despite my complete lack of want to write fan fiction, that doesn’t mean that sometimes ideas don’t pop into my head. So here for your approval, are my underdeveloped fan fiction ideas.

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
Instead of a clone army, the “clone attack” is actually the ability to make clones of anybody. This erupts in a Cold War-esque conflict of paranoia of not ever knowing who is real. Jedi have an upper hand in determining who is who, but since the cloning process can also manipulate midichlorians and therefore can fool the other person into thinking the clones are the original people. Anakin is a cheerful, good jedi until he gets tricked into killing Count Dooku and  his friends by a clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi. This leads him to the dark side and in the end, the emperor turns out to be a clone of Palpatine with an artificially high midichlorian count (originally Palpatine started the clone project to make doubles of himself to protect himself from the Sith traitor, but it backfired on him when the Sith sabotaged the clone). Also, the reason the emperor looks so weird in the original trilogy is because clones age prematurely.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:
When Voldemort gets resurrected into his body, the process actually mends back his soul and it is so traumatic that it erases all his memories. He ends up being a very nice, though eccentric, wizard. Dumbledore realizes that Voldemort is no longer evil and takes him into his care (because he is going to be murdered anywhere else). Dumbledore even makes Voldemort the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry completely disagrees with this until Voldemort sacrifices himself to save Harry from the newly formed Death Eaters lead by Lucius.

Jurassic Park:
Nothing goes wrong in the park and the entire movie is Jeff Goldblum being awesomely awkward.

Lord of the Rings:
This thing about Tom Bombadil is true.

Doug:
Roger is a recovering alcoholic and, as part of the 12 steps process, Roger meets Doug in a cafĂ© to apologize for bullying him during school. Roger thinks that maybe he had feelings for Doug and only bullied him due to his internalized homophobia. Roger had gotten in such a bad depression after high school that he had to drink to keep feelings deep inside down. Roger is unsure whether this means he is bisexual, homosexual, or if he was attracted to just Doug. Doug doesn’t quite know how to respond to this but he forgives Roger. Doug then begins to daydream and seems to be completely out of it. Roger tries to get him out of his daydream, but leaves lamenting that he was hoping to get more of a reaction from Doug (love or hate, didn’t matter). Roger wonders if Doug is so introverted and self-involved if Roger’s bullying even really reached him. Maybe he only teased Doug not because of his feelings, but because he hated that he didn’t seem to be aware.

Power Rangers:
Rita imprisons the Power Rangers. Rita rules the world for 10 years and then releases the Power Rangers. It turns out that due to her magic powers, Rita has been able to solve most of the world’s problems (world hunger, population, and other problems are solved by the fact that Rita can make things grow in size), but once Rita solved all the problems, the people turned against her. The Power Rangers agree to do an act to seem like they killed Rita and saved the world. Rita escapes and the Power Rangers have to figure out what to do after Rita is gone.

Scooby-Doo:
Remember when they had all those guest stars? Like Mama Cass, Don Knotts, and Batman? Wouldn’t it be awesome if Mama Cass, Don Knotts, and Batman teamed up and solved mysteries? Seems like a missed opportunity to me (though I am a huge fan of Don Knotts so I am biased).

Spiderman 2:
Instead of Doctor Octopus being “crazy,” Doc Ock finds himself with a perfectly sane mind, but with the crimes he has committed by accident (the experiment failing, killing people, accidentally killing people when he was unconscious in hospital) and his wife dead, Doc Ock only lives to turn the failed experiment into a success. Spiderman than has to deal with the fact that there is no way society will forgive him (especially with J. Jonah Jameson making him seem like a monster) and he is a brilliant man that could help the world. Spiderman has to decide if he is more loyal to the society he is sworn to protect, or to Doc Ock, whom Spiderman is much more sympathetic towards.

Spiderman 3:
Just make it a musical. Maybe by somebody other than U2 for safety.

Compartmentalization:
That Gwen would have used that robot suit. Why did she not get the chance to use it? The author was a fool! A FOOL!

The Scarlet Letter:
In this version, the book is terribly outdated and it is only studied to look back on how people judged women harshly for what they did in their private lives, and not because it is as relevant today as it was back when it was written.

Batman:
It turns out there are more than one Gotham City (like there are multiple Springfield) and the Christian Bale Batman chases a villain to the Gotham City that the Adam West Batman protects. Christian Bale Batman then has to figure out how to deal with not just another Batman, but a city that is much brighter (literally and figuratively) than the one he came from.

Real Life:
That I would realize that “fan fiction” doesn’t mean “rewriting popular things in ways that I would have liked them more.” I sort of completely missed the “fan” part. Maybe that is the real reason why I don’t write fan fiction.

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