Subject: Fic trends often rooted in fanbase.
Author:
Posted on: 2012-01-05 17:29:00 UTC
Not to say the fanbase is bad, or any individual fan is bad, or that we can assume the exact motives of any given fan writer. But I think this kind of phenomenon is comparable to when something, say a book, comes out as a movie. Suddenly you have a vast new fanbase, and as a result, a fanfic explosion.
A lot of the pony fan community, I think, is still trying to hammer out its identity and reconcile the fact that many of them came from places totally different from pony. Hence a lot of tone and canon clashes that go beyond just stylistic interpretation.
For Lord of the Rings, the fandom issue was 'I have never read the books, but I saw the movie once and want to write about it!'
For pony, it might be, 'I rarely delve into a setting this lighthearted and now I need to adapt from writing about zombie apocalypse to writing about Rainbow Dash and baked goods.'
Of course, it's wrong to assume this holds for all people or all fans, or that we can assume any individual fan motive. But this does seem to be a trend...