Limits of Fanfiction - What is appropriate?

[Mirage_GSM]

This discussion started on the Fanfiction board over the creation of an Iwanako route.
So as to not needlessly clutter up that thread, I thought it would be best to move the discussion to the appropriate board.
If someone can think of a better title, feel free to suggest one.

Iwanako has almost zero characterization,…

The same is true for Suzu, Miki, Ritsu and a lot of other characters where someone wrote a route or at least started to. Also for all OC stories around here.

…and her relationship with Hisao collapsing is the fulcrum upon which the entire storyline pivots.

The storyline for the VN – not necessarily that of every fanfiction.

So Hisao is only allowed to start a relationship with a disabled character? Again why?

Because the series is literally called Katawa Shoujo? Because finding love with a disabled person is the whole point of the entire game?

The VN is called Katawa Shoujo. Finding love with a disabled person is the point of the VN.
I think restricting fanfiction to only using disabled characters is just as bigoted a mindset as the one the VN denounces so much.

Now, a caveat—I'm obviously not inherently opposed to pseudo-routes for non-disabled characters in the setting. If somebody wants to write a pseudo-route for Nurse, Meiko, Akira, Misha, et al—that's okay because those characters are very clearly and cogently characterized, and have distinct personalities and backstories. Iwanako is not.

So, if I understand you correctly it is okay to use fully characterized characters from the VN even if they are not disabled and it is okay to use OCs as long as they are disabled, but it is not okay to use OCs if they are not disabled? I’m sorry, but I don’t see the logic here.

and it would actually be exceedingly difficult to pull off compared to a normal route, something beyond the level of a first-time writer uncomfortable working in the Katawa Shoujo setting.

I agree with you there, and I don’t expect the result to be on a level with themocaw’s or your writing, but so far the author has shown to be receptive to suggestions on how to improve this story (as opposed to suggestions to write another story), so I’m not going to discourage him.

Nope. Seriously, nope. I couldn't disagree with you more about what the point of fanfiction is.
By all means, people are free to explore, distort, contort, deconstruct, reconstruct, and otherwise meddle in the themes, characters, and settings of the work for which they are writing fanfiction. I will absolutely be the first to encourage writers to do exactly that. However, there is a threshold of ideas, beyond which the connection to the original story becomes so flimsy and tenuous that you're essentially writing original fiction of your own. …
Let me give you an example. Suppose I want to write a fic where Hisao doesn't have a heart attack, and accepts Iwanako's confession, and the rest of the story is about their happy relationship. If one was to tell me this story concept was "interesting," they would be completely out of their mind.

I agree with this example, so it seems the only thing we disagree on is where we put the threshold. In this proposed story, Hisao does have a heart attack, he does go to Yamaku and probably will interact with the other characters there. The theme of dealing with one’s disability is still there, even if the love interest is not disabled. For me this is close enough to qualify as a fanfiction, for you it isn’t. Let’s just agree to disagree here.

… there is no avenue through which Hisao and Iwanako could meet to want to rekindle their relationship. You have to mess with the source material to make it work.

That’s true for every story that deviates from the original VN. You had to mess with the source material so Iwanako had the heart attack instead of Hisao. Scissorlips had to mess with the source material so Hisao would fall in love with Suzu, etc.
As for there being no way – Iwanako writes a letter to Hisao in every route, and Hisao reacts differenty in each. Why shouldn’t there be a route in which he decides to renew contact with Iwanako, especially if he hasn’t hooked up with any of the other girls in the meantime? It’s certainly plausible, even if the resulting story does not meet your criteria of fanfiction.

My story isn't a pseudo-route, it's a nail fic. I've been fairly vocal in correcting readers who presume otherwise. The point of deviation solely exists to enable the genre in the first place. If I were to add contrivances at any other point in the fic, it would undermine my whole concept.

I had to look up nail fic… Sure your story is that. Not sure if it isn’t also a route. That depends on your personal definition of “route” as well as how you’re going to continue the story.
And by that token, all routes that don’t lead to one of the canon endings are nail fics as well. At some point they have to be missing a nail somewhere or they would lead to a canon ending. The difference in your story is that the nail is missing right at the beginning and it is a rather large nail.
In my story the initial nail (there were others later) was Hisao giving the cat to Misha instead of to Shizune. In another story, Hisao yelled at both Lilly and Shizune in Cold War and ended up with Miki.

Pseudo-routes, as well, have (or should have) a single contrivance; the addition of (or the implication of the addition of) a single new option in the course of the normal narrative that leads to a whole new storyline. That's why they're called pseudo-routes. If you're not writing the story that way, you're simply writing a ship fic. (One of my major qualms with the Rika pseudo-route is that it didn't handle this very well, leading to a shaky start. I would have preferred to see the point of divergence.)

I’ve pored over this paragraph for ten minutes now, but I fail to see your point. You seem to say the same thing I do, but apparently you get to a different conclusion^^°

Writing a pseudo-route with multiple contrivances, as this Iwanako pseudo-route is apparently going to do,

We don’t even know yet how this route is going to handle this. I’m not saying monkey will be able to pull it off perfectly and to everybody’s satisfaction – that would be too much to ask of any first time writer – but I’m interested to see the result anyway.

An Iwanako Pseudo-route is too complicated to exist. It fails Occam's Razor. The amount of ass-pulling required to make it believable would be ridiculous.

I don’t think so. Hisao fell in love with Iwanako before. If they go the chance to work through Iwanako’s (presumed) guilt and Hisao’s self-pity that would make an interesting story… I added that to my ideas folder, but I’m afraid I won’t get to write it anytime soon.

That isn't how a pseudo-route works. If you're going to call your story a pseudo-route, the sequence of events leading up to it has to be familiar. Reading the first chapter of a pseudo-route should, ideally, make me think that if I booted up the game, I'd know how to get there. If you're unwilling to do that, you can't call it a pseudo-route...

Again I fail to see your point. Most stories do exactly that. The difference is just when the divergence point happens and how big of a divergence it is at first. Maybe a point could be made about whether the divergence is due to an action of Hisao or due to some external interference. Is that what you mean?

[ProfAllister]

Posted this on the other thread, moving it here for orderliness.

On the "anything goes" side, there's the fact that an excellent writer can take any idea, no matter how terrible, and somehow make it palatable. Most writers are limited in this regard, admitted, but there is the theoretical possibility that even the most depraved neo-Nazi furry torture porn revenge fapfic could, if written well, NOT cause vomiting and eye bleeding. It's still not a good idea.

On the "limited scope" side, I will admit that it rubs me the wrong way when a story could be entirely independent of the source material. As respected and wonderful a story as it is, I feel that "Closure" is actually impaired by its association with KS. And THAT is the real issue with works that depart too much from the source material - it's a bad idea because it doesn't NEED the connection, and the connection only drags it down. It means it has no place in this community, but creative writing circles for original works are actually much more respected than the web forums of some cripple porn game.

So my conclusion?

Write what you will - if it passes Silentcook's muster, it's KS enough. If not, you probably have bigger and better things to look forward to than our humble abode. Or at the very least, you need a new audience to tell you that it needs work.

[Lloyd Snow]

For anyone to start talking about what is, and is not a legitimate premise for a fan-fiction, like their opinion actually has bearing, is pretty damn ridiculous. We write fan-fiction, no one should be riding their high-horses.

[Numb]

The only "limit" I believe fan fiction has is location. Set your story in Yamaku and it can be a KS fan fiction, you don't even need to include any canon characters; Hisao doesn't need to have a heart attack and transfer. Take a look at the library for example, there are multiple non-romance fictions out there, some even taking characters into completely new settings, yet an Iwanako route is an impossibility and wouldn't fit the theme of the VN? The truth of the matter is, as long as a story has one of the characters from KS as a main role, it can be considered fan fiction.

You could move Nagisa Furukawa from "Clannad" to Yamaku and write an entire fiction based on that for example, and that would class as a cross-fiction between two great stories, so why limit oneself to a certain set of characters in the VN? Iwanako is a character in Katawa Shoujo, and as such should be treated like one. We know more about her than we ever did Suzu, Rika or Saki, but the sight of an Iwanako route causes this much commotion? I never got to read what Monkey wrote, but I have given him advice on the KS reddit before, and as a first time route writer: It is incredibly difficult. I made the mistake of rushing the first act, not taking the time to plan things out in full and messing up the timeline, and because of that I'm struggling with burnout and information I never had notes for, leading to INCREDIBLY slow development and thoughts of abandonment.
(Note, I will not abandon the Miki route, I hold the belief that if I can't finish my first long project, then I won't have the discipline to finish the next one, or the one after that.)

[Silentcook]

if it passes Silentcook's muster,

For the record, Four Leaf Studios' collective decision was to allow any and all KS-related fanfics on the forums. If I remember correctly, I had to remove a grand total of one completely unrelated fanfic from what I'd call a fairly confused individual. There's stuff aplenty that makes me go and/or stretches the limits of "related" to breaking point, though.

Also for the record, we set a practically non-existent bar on quality, and you actually need to work at getting your stuff deleted - even the crappiest crap only gets a lock. What deletions happened were on author's request and even those were rarely granted.

Actual OPINIONS might appear later.

[Leaty]

This discussion started on the Fanfiction board over the creation of an Iwanako route.
So as to not needlessly clutter up that thread, I thought it would be best to move the discussion to the appropriate board.

Let me know if you do stuff like this; I never go to any part of the forums but the fanfiction section, so I didn't realize you were replying to me.

Iwanako has almost zero characterization,…

The same is true for Suzu, Miki, Ritsu and a lot of other characters where someone wrote a route or at least started to. Also for all OC stories around here.

At least in Miki's case, I'd argue that she gets characterized in canon to at least five times the extent that Iwanako is. I might even argue that Suzu is better characterized than Iwanako, on the grounds that prior to the release of the game her identity was explored deeply in the fandom and in various semi-official artwork—and, like I've said, she's actually disabled, which to me is really the crux here, because disability is such an important theme of the game. The same goes for Rika and Saki.

Beyond that, I think basing a route around the cameo characters (Lelouch, et al) is a bit silly. I've always found it hard to maintain my suspension of disbelief when the grounded story that I'm hoping to read starts having mirror universe characters from mecha anime running around. In almost all cases where a writer has tried to adopt them, I've found myself wondering why they couldn't simply make an OC. And I don't know how I led you to believe that I had a problem with OCs when I spent all that time getting monkey to write one instead of a route that I thought was a waste of energy. OCs are fine and encouraged, as long as they're not Mary Sues and they don't become huge spotlight-hogs. I do, however think that, in this community, an OC that enters into a romance with Hisao is better off disabled, because it's consistent with the themes of the VN.

…and her relationship with Hisao collapsing is the fulcrum upon which the entire storyline pivots.

The storyline for the VN – not necessarily that of every fanfiction.

No, not of every fanfiction—but certainly every pseudo-route. We're not talking about Sisterhood or Reconciliation or Mendacium. We are talking about stories written in such a way that they resemble additional content added to the VN through previously unselected choices.

Jane Austen wrote an unfinished story called The Watsons in 1805. It's only five chapters long. Every couple of decades, some author or other has published a completed version of the novel; collecting them all would almost certainly require you to collect some seriously antiquated material. All of these various iterations of the "completed" work are different, taking the plot in (conceivably) completely different directions. The one thing none of these iterations had in common? None of them changed anything about Austen's original five chapters. Because that would, conceivably, defeat the point, yes? So why should a pseudo-route be any different? They're basically the same thing in every meaningful way.

The VN is called Katawa Shoujo. Finding love with a disabled person is the point of the VN.
I think restricting fanfiction to only using disabled characters is just as bigoted a mindset as the one the VN denounces so much.

Again—are we talking about fanfiction, or are we talking about pseudo-routes?

If you check Helbereth's one-shots thread, you'll see that I, myself (well, Helbereth and I) proposed the plot to a Katawa Shoujo fanfic that went AU, featured zero disabled characters (except for Hisao, who died) and didn't go anywhere near Yamaku. What I did not then propose is that the story then become an Iwanako pseudo-route where she becomes a stockbroker and falls for a jewel thief, because at that point we are well and truly past the threshold of fanfic.

If you write a pseudo-route, you are catering to what is actually a very specific desire; the desire of somebody who has finished all of KS to experience more of that game. This is why Rikabro's route is excellent—it caters to that desire better than basically any other pseudo-route I've read (not that it is without its flaws, or that there aren't other fanfics that are just as good.) If you remove the disability element from the story, you are diluting the elements which the reader is specifically looking for. And, yes, writing an OC that lacks a disability as a love interest constitutes a partial removal of the disability element, and therefore a dilution.

And let's be totally honest here: Hisao is a nondescript character. He is at his most defined once placed in the context of one of the canon love interests. On his own, divorced from all outside context, a story about Hisao could really be a story about anybody. If you were, for example, to write a fic where Hisao goes to Hogwarts (or Iris Academy from Magical Diary,) how are you even going to make that feel like a Katawa Shoujo fanfic? I submit that no matter how strictly you maintain his canon characterization, that fic will never feel like a Katawa Shoujo fic. And I feel that a fic in which Hisao dates an OC without a disability (maybe even an OC that doesn't go to Yamaku!) is similarly troubled, to a lesser extent, and I do not think this concept is compelling as a Katawa Shoujo fanfic.

So, if I understand you correctly it is okay to use fully characterized characters from the VN even if they are not disabled and it is okay to use OCs as long as they are disabled, but it is not okay to use OCs if they are not disabled? I’m sorry, but I don’t see the logic here.

Characters who are "born of clay," (i.e. created by the developers and tied to the greater narrative of the VN) don't have the problem that OCs have, because they're inseparably an aspect of the Katawa Shoujo experience. OCs are not, so their inclusion represents a step away from that experience. An OC with a disability is thematically consistent with the VN while not being a part of the greater narrative, so their inclusion, when handled correctly, can constitute an enhancement of the basic experience. Again, we're talking about the threshold separating fanfic from a poorly-concealed original story—writing an OC love interest without a disability constitutes approaching that threshold.

Is it completely impossible to do correctly? Obviously I'm not going to say it isn't, but I'd like to provide a quite from Thoreau: " . . . instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them."

so far the author has shown to be receptive to suggestions on how to improve this story (as opposed to suggestions to write another story)

I'm going to refrain from speaking on this subject, other than to say I couldn't disagree with you more.

I agree with this example, so it seems the only thing we disagree on is where we put the threshold. In this proposed story, Hisao does have a heart attack, he does go to Yamaku and probably will interact with the other characters there. The theme of dealing with one’s disability is still there, even if the love interest is not disabled. For me this is close enough to qualify as a fanfiction, for you it isn’t. Let’s just agree to disagree here.

It qualifies as a fanfiction just fine—where I part ways with you is that I don't believe it is a worthwhile fanfiction. But fine, we'll leave it there.

That’s true for every story that deviates from the original VN. You had to mess with the source material so Iwanako had the heart attack instead of Hisao. Scissorlips had to mess with the source material so Hisao would fall in love with Suzu, etc.
As for there being no way – Iwanako writes a letter to Hisao in every route, and Hisao reacts differently in each. Why shouldn’t there be a route in which he decides to renew contact with Iwanako, especially if he hasn’t hooked up with any of the other girls in the meantime? It’s certainly plausible, even if the resulting story does not meet your criteria of fanfiction.

Every good story in the pseudo-route genre has a point of divergence of which Hisao possesses sole agency—he (and therefore the "player", who is in this context just a reader) makes the decision to move the story onto it's new tangent. Stories where something different just magically happens aren't in that genre (and represent a betrayal of that genre—not in an inventive way, but in a clumsy way,) so yes, if somebody screws that detail up, I'm not going to be particularly happy. Frankly, I feel that every fanfic belonging to that genre which fails to do this would be an objectively better story if it did. Now, obviously it's not a fanfic author's job to cater to my desires, but if they want my attention and my criticism, they've got to prove themselves worthy to me.

Obviously, I don't know everything, and if Guest Poster, Helbereth, Robnonymous, etc. were to try to write an Iwanako pseudo-route, I'd be tentatively interested, even though I think the idea is bad, simply because I know that those authors are very good and I think there'd be an awesome twist. But when one's story could simply be characterized as "Lilly's route + good end, but with Iwanako instead," I already know I'm completely wasting my time. Especially when there's no obvious statement or moral in the concept—it's a random events plot, Hisao and Iwanako make up and get together and there you go. When I decided to write MTB, I had a specific goal in mind—I wanted the reader to critically reexamine Iwanako as a person, and to overcome the bias they would have developed by solely having access to her via Hisao's recollections. Without a mission statement as strong as that (and monkey told me that his was to "write something that people haven't seen before and make them smile when reading it,") I definitely think it's pointless.

Now, outside the pseudo-route framework, I still don't think an Iwanako/Hisao ship fic would be particularly compelling if the goal was to end the story in a manner similar to the Good Ends of the canon love interests—we discussed in the other thread some unique scenarios in which an Iwanako romance could be interesting. I'd like to postulate another: a continuation of Rin's bad end in which Iwanako responds to the letter Hisao sent her in that route, in the vein of Developments. Again, these ideas are salvageable as long as you don't insist on hewing too closely to Rikabro's framework (and as long as you know how to follow a style guide.)

I had to look up nail fic… Sure your story is that. Not sure if it isn’t also a route. That depends on your personal definition of “route” as well as how you’re going to continue the story.
And by that token, all routes that don’t lead to one of the canon endings are nail fics as well. At some point they have to be missing a nail somewhere or they would lead to a canon ending. The difference in your story is that the nail is missing right at the beginning and it is a rather large nail.

I shouldn't have said nail fic. That implies that somebody could have made some choice somewhere that would have resulted in the world being exactly the same, except that Iwanako was born with arrhythmia instead of Hisao. That's completely impossible for a myriad of reasons. My fic is just an AU fic. But again, I'll insist it's not a route. If you'd like me to define precisely what my vision of a route is, I'd be more than happy to do it.

You're right, pseudo-routes are a genre of nail fic in which the nail is strictly limited to Hisao's own decisions.

I’ve pored over this paragraph for ten minutes now, but I fail to see your point. You seem to say the same thing I do, but apparently you get to a different conclusion^^°

That's because I fucked up. My opinion is that a nail fic is good because a nail fic is only caused by the single nail. Pseudo-routes are great because they (ideally) restrict themselves to a very specific kind of nail. To complicate that whole deal by throwing a bunch of other random crap into the mix and making it an AU represents a watering down of both concepts and it's almost invariably a bad thing. Put too many ingredients in a soup and you're not going to taste any of them.

We don’t even know yet how this route is going to handle this.

I'm pretty sure monkey explained the premise. I just checked and yeah, it's there.

An Iwanako Pseudo-route is too complicated to exist. It fails Occam's Razor. The amount of ass-pulling required to make it believable would be ridiculous.

I don’t think so. Hisao fell in love with Iwanako before. If they go the chance to work through Iwanako’s (presumed) guilt and Hisao’s self-pity that would make an interesting story… I added that to my ideas folder, but I’m afraid I won’t get to write it anytime soon.

Interesting maybe, but I don't think that's possible, given what we know about Hisao. And I can't help but think this idea isn't too different from a story about Lilly entering a romance with that teacher she had a crush on or Emi getting back together with that boyfriend she dumped.

The only "limit" I believe fan fiction has is location. Set your story in Yamaku and it can be a KS fan fiction, you don't even need to include any canon characters

By this logic, Sin City is a Kill Bill fanfiction, because Miho's katanas were crafted by Hanzo Hattori. And they're both Shadow Warriors fanfics, because Tarantino intended for Hanzo Hattori to be the descendant of Hanzo from that movie.

Hell, by that logic, Katawa Shoujo is an NYPD Blue fanfiction, since they're implied to take place in the same universe by virtue of the fact that nothing in Katawa Shoujo contradicts NYPD Blue. You have to draw a line somewhere.

For anyone to start talking about what is, and is not a legitimate premise for a fan-fiction, like their opinion actually has bearing, is pretty damn ridiculous. We write fan-fiction, no one should be riding their high-horses.

Wow, look at this cool guy, with their dismissive two-sentence opinion on a complicated but esoteric subject. Man, I sure feel the fool now, with my ardent and elaborate perspective on the issue. They sure showed me.

[Lloyd Snow]

Wow, look at this cool guy, with their dismissive two-sentence opinion on a complicated but esoteric subject. Man, I sure feel the fool now, with my ardent and elaborate perspective on the issue. They sure showed me.

But it's not a complicated issue. If the question is, what is an appropriate setting, or setup for a fanfiction, then the answer is anything that adheres to the source material. People can do whatever the hell they want, as simple as that. If you, or I, or anyone, do not like a particular fanfiction, don't read it. It really is as simple as that.

Does that mean that all settings are good ideas for fanfiction? Of course not. But that certainly doesn't mean that if someone writes a fanfiction about a mix between Predator: Concrete Jungle and Katawa shoujo, it won't be good.

By this logic, Sin City is a Kill Bill fanfiction, because Miho's katanas were crafted by Hanzo Hattori. And they're both Shadow Warriors fanfics, because Tarantino intended for Hanzo Hattori to be the descendant of Hanzo from that movie.

Hell, by that logic, Katawa Shoujo is an NYPD Blue fanfiction, since they're implied to take place in the same universe by virtue of the fact that nothing in Katawa Shoujo contradicts NYPD Blue. You have to draw a line somewhere.

At first, I was going to point out how petty an argument that was because you were twisting Numb's words. But then I realised, he even specifically said that it can be, and not is a fanfiction. So, by his logic, Sin City could be a Kill Bill fanfiction, if that was it's purpose. Not that it has to be a fanfiction. In either case, I fail to see your point. It seems as though you're saying that Numb's logic is too vague, and that everyone lacks the cognitive capacity to separate what is and isn't fanfiction without carefully defined rules.

[Leaty]

But it's not a complicated issue. If the question is, what is an appropriate setting, or setup for a fanfiction, then the answer is anything that adheres to the source material. People can do whatever the hell they want, as simple as that. If you, or I, or anyone, do not like a particular fanfiction, don't read it. It really is as simple as that.

We're not debating what is and isn't fanfiction. I could prepare steak tartare in my kitchen and bullshit together some reason why doing so is fanfiction. We're debating what fanfiction uses the format meaningfully and what does not.

[Lloyd Snow]

We're not debating what is and isn't fanfiction. I could prepare steak tartare in my kitchen and bullshit together some reason why doing so is fanfiction. We're debating what fanfiction uses the format meaningfully and what does not.

Equally, you could prepare steak tartare and bullshit together a couple of reasons why it uses the fanfiction format meaningfully. I could swoop in and tell you why it doesn't. And we could argue to the end of time.

[Leaty]

You're being willfully dense. If you don't think a conversation deserves to be had regarding the nature of what material is best suited to writing fanfiction and that which is best taken elsewhere to be worked into an original story, then I don't want to live in your world.

[Lloyd Snow]

You're correct, I don't. It's purely opinion driven, provides no real answers, and in the end, whether the material is turned into an original story or fanfiction is up to the writer. Accessible advice should exist for people with ideas for stories who want to know how they should approach it, or whether they should approach it at all. And it does, this however is not it.

[Leaty]

EDIT: Forget it, I lost my temper. Let's move on with the discussion.

[Lloyd Snow]

That's not what I think. What I am trying to say is, if you want to express your opinion, and try and affect the way that people write their fictions, which is what you're saying you're trying to do, then advise people. Express your opinion constructively.

It's interesting to see you call someone else condescending.

You've caught me though. I'm here to boost my post count on the Katawa Shoujo forums. God knows that's what's important.

But whatever, man. I wrote my first post under the misconception that this was about what is appropriate for fanfiction, and I stand by it. I'm going to peace out so I don't end up clogging the thread with our asinine argument.

[ProfAllister]

I have to admit that I agree with Leaty, Lloyd. Your comment is unfairly dismissive.

Because it's something I like to do, I will present an analogy, and stretch it to the breaking point.

KS is a Big Mac. KS fan fiction is a burger. People are discussing what makes a burger. Leaty holds that a burger can't stray to far from two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions – on a sesame seed bun. Mirage is saying that you don't necessarily need ALL of those ingredients, and you can potentially switch out some for others and still argue that it's a variety of burger. Leaty doesn't disagree, but thinks it's stretching it when you take away the sesame seed bun, replace the all-beef patties with chicken breasts, and swap out the condiments for pasta and alfredo sauce (and I'd put the specific discussion of crippled love interest as Leaty arguing that replacing the beef parties with chicken breasts make it a chicken sandwich, not a burger). I personally think we should be looking at entrees as a whole and take into account that you can do all sorts of changes and still CLAIM it's a burger, but most "burgers" that are sufficiently divergent and retain any quality are probably good enough that the burger name is holding it back. Then you drop in and (this is my reading; apologies if it is not what you meant) argue that burgers generally suck anyway, so who cares about the ingredients - just shut up and make/eat your burgers.

Hopefully you can see why people might not find this constructive.

(Edit: On reflection, KS is a Big Mac, fan fiction is burgers, and fiction overall is entrees. Revised accordingly.)

[Lloyd Snow]

More like, I agree with Leaty that Big Macs can't be Big Macs without two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions – on a sesame seed bun, you take a piece of meat and chuck it between two buns and it's a burger. And while I might eat that burger, and not think it is as good as a Big Mac, it's still a burger. And other people might like that burger.

My point from the beginning is that everyone deserves a chance, no matter how retarded their burger might be.

(I really want a Big Mac now.)