Get your own Free Homepage1. What is a PFAQ?
2. What is fanfic/fan fiction?
3. What is a crossover/an xover?
4. What is a milling fic?
5. What is an "MP"?
6. Why is your review called "Destroy!"?
7. What is this InterWeb thing you are always going on about?
8. What is a "surfer"?
9. What is your problem with the X-Files?
10. Why are you always going on about that My So-Called Life page?
11. How do you mark each site/story?
12. I've written some fanfic, can I send it to you?
13. What gives you the right to slate someone elses work?
14. Have you written any fanfic?
15. I want to Destroy! something! Can I send you my own reviews?
16. Why are you so mean?
A "PFAQ" is a Probable Frequently Asked Questions sheet. Most pages have FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) sheets on their sites to answer questions that the visiting surfer might have, questions that are asked over an over again. As this is a new page, I thought that I might answer some questions that people will probably ask. Hence the PFAQ.
Fan Fiction is, quite simply, fiction written by fans about the object of their fandom. Got that? Okay, let's say that you absolutely love Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. After watching an episode, you come up with an idea for a story, let's say Hercules and Iolaus go shopping. You write a story about what would happen if Hercules and Iolaus went shopping. That's it, you've written a piece of fan fiction! Of course Net Fan Fiction is fan fiction that has been posted on the Internet.
Although fan fiction is usually about characters from television shows, it can be about films, radio shows, computer games, even pop stars!
Fanfic is an abbrieviation of fan fiction.
A crossover is a fanfic where characters from two or more shows meet. Imagine a story where the kids from Beverly Hills 90210 meet Axel Foley from the Beverly Hills Cop films. That would be a crossover. Unfortunately, most crossovers are only concerned with the meeting of two sets of characters, and not a plot.
An xover is an abbrieviation of crossover, though it can be used to describe an X-File crossover.
Milling fic (my own term) stands for Mailing List/News Group FICtion. It's a kind of crossover that started life on a Mailing List or News Group, but instead of using characters from another TV show, it uses characters from the mailing list or news group. How? Imagine that there is a mailing list devoted to Sam and Max: Freelance Detectives. All the people on the list are good friends who love to discuss the show. One fan decides to write a fanfic in which her friends on the list become involved in one of Sam and Max's adventures. This is a milling fic. The best milling fics characterise all the "real" people accoring to what they've posted on the list/group in the past, eg Susie loves chocolate ice cream and tends to get overenthusiastic when talking about Brad Pitt, therefore her character in the milling fic is the same. Even better is when the characters are gently lampooned, leaving Susie as someone who stalks Brad Pitt, and can't be without a chocolate ice cream for more than a few minuites at a time. The worst milling fics are where characters are rolled out one by one as little more than cameos, and are not fleshed out at all.
An "MP" (my term) in Fan Fiction is a "multi parter", that is a fanfic that comes in more than one part. These are quite common on the Internet, where stories are often too long to post on one go on a news group or mailing list. Sometimes MPs are written deliberately, with each part being written by a different author. It is customary (and polite) to compile an MP into one long file when it is on the web, so that it is easier to read.
I always wanted to call my website something really violent. Seriously, when a review really trashes it's subject matter, it's said to "destroy" it. Don't worry though, you won't find me saying "This is the worst piece of fiction I've ever had the missfortune to read" over and over - I'm not Mr Cranky, you know!
The InterWeb (my term) is basically the World Wide Web (WWW). Many people refer to the World Wide Web as being the whole Internet - it's not - the Web is a part of the internet.The thing is, most of the rest of the Internet is accessable through the Web. Using the InterWeb is using the Web to get to Telnet, Usenet Email, etc. Confused? Good.
"Surfer" is a term for someone who "surfs" (ie browses) the InterWeb for information. You are a surfer, whether you like it or not.
I don't have a problem with The X-Files. I quite like the show. It's the X-Files crossovers that annoy me.
The show is so popular that everyone and their dog wants to get in on the act. People write crossovers with Mulder and Scully for the sake of it - I've even read an xover which started with Mulder saying "Let's go to [town name]" and that was the whole reason for them being there! Most X-Files crossovers are bad and unoriginal. Surely someone could come up with a better idea!
I keep talking about the My So-Called Life Fan Fiction Page because it is great! It looks good, has lots of extra info, and has some of the best fanfic on the Internet. I love it because it deserves to be loved, pure and simple.
My marking system is available HERE.
Well, I'm not going to stop you, but don't expect to see a review here - I only review stroies freely available on the Internet. Sorry, but them's the rules.
There's no special reason why I should be the one to criticise someone else's work, except that I'm a man who loves to read, and would like to up the quality of fiction available on the Internet. But think about it - what gives people the right to take a load of web pages that people have spent days working on, and call them "The Bottom 5% of the Web".
Yes, I've written a My So-Called Life story called "Perception and Memories, that is available from the So-Called Fan Fiction archive. I'm currently working on an Archangel Thunderbird script that will be posted on the Review sometime soon.
Sure, go ahead! I need all the help in this task that I can get. Just try to stick to my guidelines and *please* don't send reviews of stories that I have already Destroyed. Be honest and concise in your opinions, and I'll post the reviews up here on the site.
I'm not; I'm just being honest. When you consider that there are actual hate pages out there for some poor fanfic writers, this site doesn't come across as too bad. I hope.
© Dan Ness, 1998. So you want to redistribute this, huh? Well tough! This is my work, and it stays here. Link to the title page.
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