Let's See You Do Better: The Problem With Fix Fics

 Like most consumers of works of fiction, I have my own ideas as to how things could have been done differently. In fact, I wrote a blog entry about how to improve Octopath Traveler's final dungeon, albeit one that mostly leaves the story unchanged and only expands on some plotlines while making the game less frustrating.

That said, one has to wonder whether these visions, from a list of ideas to "fix fics" that rewrite the story according to the author's wishes are necessarily able to surpass the original. Like most ideas, they can be done well or done poorly, but even the best ones have a few recurring problems that are inherent to the concept.

To examine this phenomenon, I will look at the Stalking Zuko series, an Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic trilogy of Stalking Zuko, Not Stalking Zuko and Not Stalking Firelord Zuko. Here are the basic facts about the trilogy, and why it makes a good case study.

1. It takes place from just after when Zuko joins in "The Western Air Temple" to some time after the end of the series. It ignores the spinoff comics. 
2. The author makes no secret of the fact that she dislikes the Katara/Aang("Kataang") and Zuko/Mai("Maiko") pairings and wishes Katara had gotten together with Zuko.
3. Despite that, it includes all canon events that were shown onscreen, even the part when Aang and Katara kiss at the end. (For context, Katara believes the best socially acceptable choice for her is to marry Aang, although she reconsiders).
4. Most importantly, the author says, in Chapter 23 of Not Stalking Zuko, "I think both Katara and Aang deserve better than each other. So I am making my own fic to make the ending more palatable to myself and hopefully you guys too!", which is the clearest and most concise description of her goal for this fic.

Basically, it's a fic written with a clear goal in mind- pairing Katara and Zuko- and follows canon closely apart from what is involved with those changes, making it a textbook example of a fix fic.

One problem with fix fics is that the original work's author has done most of the work, from establishing a setting and characters to writing the plot. As seen in Bullet 3, the Stalking Zuko series follows (albeit expands greatly upon) canon until midway through the final installment. Even if one assumes that Zuko and Katara have better chemistry with each other than they do with their canonical love interests, the creators of ATLA were the ones who made them in the first place. Unlike the creators, the fans have the benefit of knowing how certain creative decisions were received and having some idea of how to improve upon them. After all, the writer of the Stalking Zuko series is not the only one who ships Zuko and Katara, and knows that there is demand for a Zutara fix fic. In all fairness, fix fic writers often have legitimate complaints, although the fics they write to make the changes they want ultimately require less creativity than the original work.

Another related problem, which may come off as a personal pet peeve of mine, is that readers of the fix fic gushing over how much better the fix fic is than canon comes off as disrespectful to the original work's creators. The expectations for an amateur writer are usually lower than a professional-quality work people pay money to see, which, combined with the fix fic writer's ability to react to fans' complaints, means the deck is stacked in the writer's favor. There may be times when the fix fic writers do make improvements, but many of their fans don't fully appreciate the time and effort required to make a professional-quality work.

The third main problem, expressed in Bullet 2 and supported by Bullet 4, is that the author's biases, along with their impact on the final product, can be rather obvious. In the Stalking Zuko series, the author makes Aang significantly less mature than in canon, resulting in his relationship with Katara being much worse. Additionally, fix fics' narratives sometimes bend over backwards to accommodate the author's visions. The author's dislike of Aang sparing Ozai is driven home by several added scenes showing how dangerous Ozai still is, and virtually everyone besides Aang himself disapproving of the decision. Furthermore, while the fic's relationship between Zuko and Katara develops organically, it also manages this by greatly expanding upon the period of time between the Day of the Black Sun and the arrival of Sozin's Comet to allow for many bonding moments that weren't possible in canon.

Lastly, similar to what I expressed in the first point, the fix fic isn't really the author's work. They follow canon to varying degrees, but in the end, they're the author's revision of an existing work, rather than their own original product. The same can be said of all fanfics, but at least most of the non-fix fanfics try something new.

In conclusion, there's nothing wrong with writing fan fiction, but it should, ideally, be your own visions that expand on the creator's original work, rather than simply rewriting it according to what you wanted to see.