GR Fanfic FAQ
Version 1.0
by Jessica Krucek
a 4-person cast is like a compass - everyone's at a point, keeping the others in balance by pulling one direction or another.

Doc's the South point on the compass. Warm and cheerful. "Sunny"
Zach's the embittered, but surviving, North. Endures harsh weather, but still demonstrates a lot of grace and beauty

Niko's the "Exotic East." Always something past the horizon, and can have quite an allure. Always facing the rising sun, but a pragmatic point between North and South.

Goose is...you guessed it, "Wild West." Can be harsh, like North, but keeps perspective, like South. Needs a LONG leash, but definitely needs the pull of the other three. While East sees the brightness of sunrise, he knows all too much about sunset and darkness.

Descriptions by J. Krucek




This FAQ covers commonly asked questions about fanfic, and also gets into questions that fanfic writers tend to ask when working in the GR universe. As I found out through personal experience, there are things you'll never askabout a universe until you start writing fanfic.


What is fanfic? What are some of the genres?
What is "second season?" What is "Post Chrysalis?"
Romance? (or "Oh, my God. Honey, look! They've got Goose and Niko having sex!")
Other fanfic terms, and GR list slang
The Fine Art of IRC Fanfic
GR timeline
Character Guide

'WHAT IS FANFIC?'



Fanfic - (1) stories set in an established "universe," (universe being a fan term for the world depicted on a TV show/in a movie/book) written by fans of that series for the enjoyment of other fans (or "fen").
(2) adv. Pertaining to fan writing an its genres.

Examples of fanfic are on my GR website

"http://www.oocities.org/Area51/5072/grstories/grfic.html"


Fanfic can follow the format of a typical series episode, but more often then not (in my experience), the fanfic changes the universe in some way before the story ends.

Some typical genres of fanfic and an idea of it that you might see in the GR universe:

"Hurt-Comfort" - Probably the most common fanfic out there. Basic idea is to take one of the heroes, beat the tar out of him/her, rescue him/her, and have one or more of the hero's friends offer comfort, deepening the relationship (keeping at deep friendship, usually, but slash or straight romance is also very common).

GR universe example: Killbane and the other Supertroopers catch up to Goose and hurt him badly. Niko goes AWOL to get him out. They manage to escape, and Niko helps him until they get back to BETA.

Varients of hurt-comfort:

"Get-em" or "Get" stories - Great deal of pain, little comfort.

GR universe example: Zach's captured by the Queen, and is unable to contact his team (they can be dead or Slaverlords). The story may or may not end with a rescue.
Death Stories (or "wallows") - Common in X-files fanfic, this story involves one of the charaters perishing, and the others' reaction.

GR Universe example: Doc is killed in the line of duty. The rest of the story focus is on the other Rangers coming to grips with their loss.


OTHER FANFIC GENRES



"Filk" - SF folk songs. Can be about anything important to SF fans, but here, a song sung about GR, or sung from the POV of one of the series characters. My page includes a link to GR filk.

"Crossover" - Take the characters of one universe, and have them team up with the characters of another universe (for example, bringing the Rangers to Babylon 5).

"Alternate Universe" - You use the characters, but not the universe. Examples of this would be writing the Rangers as Mercedes Lackey's Heralds, Jewel Riders (hell, I'd LOVE to see that!) or writing an actual "steampunk" (H.G. Wells-style high-tech) Western with translations of the Rangers circa 1868. The recent short "Fedora Hats" casts Doc as a film noir detective, and the proposed story "Blackheart Wallace" puts our guys on a pirate ship in the 1680's.

"Missing Scenes" - Often short, these stories are scenes that seem to be missing from the series episodes, but could have happened. (Quite a few, I suspect, will take place between "Phoenix" and "New Frontier").

Time expansion - Fanfic can be set before the series starts("Pre-GR"), or after the series ends. ("Post-GR"). This can cover stories like the characters' pasts (Waldo and Zozo's first meeting, Niko's childhood on Xanadau, Goose's relationship with Max Singer, Zachary and Eliza as teenagers), or their futures (Doc marrying Maya and retiring to Tarkon).

GR universe varients:

"Pre-Phoenix" - Set before the episode "Phoenix"
"Post-Rescue" - Set after the Rangers rescue Eliza Foxx
"Post-'Chrysalis'" - Set after my story "Chrysalis" - the "second season" of GR, so to speak.
"Second Season" - Heidi and I came up with the idea of a fanfic series that starts with her "Strange Life" and continues with "Chrysalis," keeping continuity with the previous stories in the series. The most dramatic differences between the GR universe and the "Second Season" universe - Goose and Niko are romantically involved, the Queen of the Crowns is dead, and Eliza Foxx is a semi-regular (like Waldo and Zozo).


The "Second Season?"



As I mentioned earlier, Heidi Reckel and I came up with the idea. GR only lasted one season, and ended without tying up some loose ends.
So, out on IRC one night, we decided somehow to put or stories in the same timeline, and incorporate other stories that didn't clash with it, all while continuing the series on our own terms. These "terms" include some pretty drastic changes to the GR series.

Heidi's story, "Isn't Life Strange" (the first "Second Season" story), ends with a few changes to the universe, most notably Daisy O'Mega leaving her criminal lifestyle to become a bounty hunter and the beginnings of a romantic relationship between Shane Gooseman and Niko. In "Chrysalis," I treated the events in Heidi's fanfic as if they were a "canon" episode, and made a LOT more changes - including the Queen's death and the recovery of Eliza's crystal. Building on that, Tim Morrison wrote "Darkness," following up on the fate of the Supertroopers. About 6 more "second season" stories are in the works, introducing new villians, new friends, and a new era of danger and opportunity for the Series 5 team.

So, do I have to write in the second season universe?


NO!!! It's just one alternate timeline. Whatever you want to write is just fine, please don't worry about stepping on toes. We need the fanfic, and want to welcome anyone with an idea and half a writing skill.
But if you DO want to write a second-season story, or branch off on a sequel to ANYONE'S fanfic, please ask them first.



ROMANCE? (or: "Oh, my God. Honey, look...They've got Goose and Niko having sex!")




A common varient of fanfic is to give the characters a love life. Or at least a semi-stable romantic relationship. Romantic fanfic is indicated by a "/" symbol between the character's name, or initial:

"Straight" or "het" - Refers to a heterosexual pairing. The three most common you'll see in GR are...

G/N - Goose/Niko
Z/E - Zachary/Eliza (working in the "second season" or pre-"Phoenix" stories)
D/M - Doc/Maya

You might also see:

G/f - Goose/(a fan author's original character)
D/f - Doc/(original female character)
N/m - Niko/(original male character)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Creating original characters and putting them in a series universe is a dangerous proposition. You must be careful not to fall into the dreaded fan insult category "Mary Sue." Mary Sue is an idealized projection of the author, usually an adolecent projection, who does things better than the heoes, and wins their hearts, but often dies by the end.

MARY SUES CAN LEAVE YOU WITH AN INBOX FULL OF FLAMES - TRY TO AVOID WRITING THEM! STICK TO ESTABLISHED CHARACTERS IF YOU'RE JUST STARTING!

"Slash" - A homosexual pairing, usually male/male. Common as dirt in most fandoms, but probably NOT something you'll ever see in GR. Short definition - G/N is "straight." G/D would be "slash."

"First Time" - The most common type of Romantic fanfic. The characters discover their attraction to one another and initiate a sexual relationship ("Endgame" by Tara O'Shea is a pretty good example of a "first time" G/N story, as is Heidi Reckel's "Strange Life").

"Old Married Couple" - Sets the romance in the bond of a long-term relationship (not necessarily marriage, but a long-term committment). Z/E will always fall here, as will quite a bit of G/N currently being written. :-)


Oh, for the record, I WILL NOT put NC-17 fanfiction in the GR archive. This is out of prior experience with an open archive and explicit material, plus the fact that my 8-year-old niece will read anything GR.


OTHER STUFF:





There are also special slang terms thrown around the GR list:

"The Harem" (Short for "Goose's Harem") - Any of the ladies who Goose has charmed/was charmed by on the series. Includes Annie O, Maya, Darkstar (sometimes), Daisy O'Mega, and Niko.

"Drool Bucket" - If a list member confesses that they find one of the series characters cute, we "break out the drool bucket"

"MF" (Short for "Mind-Fry" or "Mind-Fuck"): A scene or idea that messes with a character's head. (The nightmare sequences in "Psychocrypt" are a good example of MF). Also used as a verb. ("The Queen really MFed Zachary.")

"Jesset Dal'Kest" - the "second season" name for the Queen.

"The Evil Writing Team" - The IRC room regulars.


The Fine Art of IRC




The #galaxyrangers chatroom was established in October 1996 for the purpose of being a "writers' meeting" for GR fanfic authors to swap ideas and write fanfic. Since then, it's become a general "list hangout."

We still write scenes while we're in the room sometimes. Someone (anyone with a fanfic idea can start it) pitches a scene idea out, tells the participants the set-up leading to it, and tosses out an opening line. From there, someone else writes a line, and it continues, people writing lines that they think come next (I'll send a transcript if you'd like), until the scene's finished.



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