"This looks/feels like something out of AF/fanfiction"

[Zephyr]

Can someone explain to me what these sort of complaints are actually supposed to mean?

I see them lobbed at things that people seem to just not like. Some people think that minimalistic designs like Golden Freeza or Super Saiyan God are just "fanfiction" crap. Other people think super-detailed things like Cold's 6th form in DBM are "like something out of AF".

Story idea that's been done a million times? Some people think it's just fanfiction tier garbage. Something that's never been done, and feels like something Toriyama wouldn't do? Fanfiction tier garbage.

There doesn't seem to be any consistent rhyme of reason motivating the label, and I need help seeing if there's anything beyond "I don't like this and I'm too lazy to bother articulating why!".

[lancerman]

99% of the time someone claims that something that is officially licensed is "fan fiction", it translates to "I don't particularly like this, so I'm going to delegitimize it".

[MozillaVulpix]

Well, one way of interpreting is that it's saying "X element is so uncreative and predictable, it's the kind of thing I would have written a story about when I was 12!" The implication being that 12-year-olds aren't the best at coming up with interesting, coherent stories.

[Hellspawn28]

People use it that looks bad or feels out of place in the series. Or something that feels very lazy and unoriginal. The blue SSj forms did remind me of AF fan art when I first saw them.

[Zephyr]

Well, one way of interpreting is that it's saying "X element is so uncreative and predictable, it's the kind of thing I would have written a story about when I was 12!"

People use it that looks bad or feels out of place in the series. Or something that feels very lazy and unoriginal.

The problem is that uncreative, predictable, lazy, and unoriginal are not qualities unique to fanfiction as a medium. So it makes little sense to me to use them as grounds for comparing official material to fanfiction.

It would be like saying that my jelly donut tastes like potato chips because it tastes salty, even though salty is not a flavor unique to potato chips.

[MozillaVulpix]

Well, the idea that fanfiction is uncreative, predictable and lazy is essentially a stereotype. But it's not a particularly offensive stereotype, so people still use it.

[Zephyr]

Yeah, that's another thing. Fanfiction can oftentimes be innovative and imaginative.

I don't know, I might be alone in having this as a pet peeve.

[TheGodfather93]

As MozillaVulpix said, some people tend to stereotype fanfiction as uncreative, lazy and poorly written, often by teenagers. And it is true that quite a lot of fanfics fall into that category, but there are some real gems out there that are worth reading. Unfortunately, it seems that the really bad fanfics, like My Immortal, tend to get the most publicity, so it isn't surprising that people tend to generalise fanfiction as a whole after only being exposed to the negative side of it. For me personally as someone who writes fanfiction, I don't particularly care what the general public thinks about fanfiction writers. People are free to believe whatever they want. As long as other there are people out there who are reading and enjoying my work, I'm happy.

That said, some DBZ fanfics do tend to incorporate ridiculous new forms and Super Saiyan transformations; some of which kinda made sense, and some of which are hilariously outrageous. Heh, I'd actually say SSJB Kaio-Ken is pretty tame compared to some of the stuff I've read.

[TheMikado]

The reason is that fan fiction tends to take existing elements in popular franchises and tweak them in ways where that closely resemble something that was taken from the original without being particularly creative.

Examples in other franchises.
Jedi storm troopers
Female Han Solo
Female chewbacca
Yoda dual sabers after Darth Maul reveal
Goku vs Superman

These basically take existing original characters or ideas and make one of two changes because they seem "cool"

The reason you are seeing it now more than ever if that Super has elements that sound very fanfictiony

I.e.
SSG and the fact that no one has heard of it before.
Beerus being the cause of a lot of events but happened to be sleeping recently
Goku becoming God Tier
Making SSJ blue colored
Making Golden Frieza
Vegeta gets God Tier from special training for a few months
SSB can use Kaioken
Good Guy Frost Freeza race turns bad

Examples of non fanfictiony elements

Vados and Whis
Hit and his cool abilities
The cast of of the other universe except Frost
Oracle fish
Jaco

Looking at the list above you can see some pretty original idea compared to ones that look like rehashes previous to the series.

Even looking at Z, Saiyan lore, SSJ legend, Namekians, Frieza, time travel trunks, Majn Buu. SSJ3. Cell.
Each villain and form is uniquely defined and does not feel like a palette swap or rehash except for maybe SSJ2 but even that is presented in a unique way.

When you start looking at the fan made transformation where Saiyans had red, purple, green, and blue hair long before BoG you can't help but feel like it's uninspired. When ATs ideas were original they really shined and looked very little like what we had seen previously. Even BoG started out ok with the new character designs and one time temporary form. I wasn't personally keen on the lore but in the vacuum it created it was ok.

[saiyanvegetable]

Super has essentially been really bad fan fiction from the palette swaps to the nonsense "Super Saiyan God" bs etc. A very legitimate argument tbh

[Gyt Kaliba]

Yeah, that's another thing. Fanfiction can oftentimes be innovative and imaginative.

I don't know, I might be alone in having this as a pet peeve.

Oh you're definitely not alone there. I haven't written a whole lot of fanfics in the long run, but my history with them goes back about as far as my history on the internet itself (though thankfully my original fanfics are long lost to the ether...trust me, this is a good thing). While a lot of them are basically just 'fan wank' for lack of a better term, there's still a lot of really great, well written stories out there. Stories that both cover material that you would never get out of an official entry in a franchise while still feeling true to that universe and characters, and stories that sometimes are actually more creative than the original in some ways. Granted though, you do kind of have to search high and low sometimes to find something that is both well written, and also interesting and worth checking out. Really though, that's not any different than any other media on the internet, or even media in general - you've gotta wade through a bunch of stuff that's not for you to find something that is, sometimes.

So why fanfiction in particular gets such a bad wrap in that regard, I've never really been able to fathom. The issue though, actually goes back farther than the internet, shockingly enough too - a lot of what's written here details the legality issues, but also shows a fair amount on official creator/owners/company's attitudes towards the medium too. There used to be a list of authors and franchises that you couldn't write about and post stories for on FanFiction.net as well, but I can't seem to find that now, so I'm not sure if it's since been retracted, or just re-located, or what. I distinctly remember it listing Archie comics (you know, Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, etc.) of all things no less. It's an attitude I've never really been able to fully understand - I can understand being protective of your creations, and especially can understand being against fan creations of your product being sold for a lot of money, but just the writing itself, out of passion for the product? I wouldn't be annoyed or offended, I'd be flattered that someone liked my story so much that they just had to have more!

Anyway...

99% of the time someone claims that something that is officially licensed is "fan fiction", it translates to "I don't particularly like this, so I'm going to delegitimize it".

Pretty much this, sadly. It ties back in to the way 'fan fiction' is seemingly used as a derogatory term nowadays, and really just seems like a lazy way to say 'yeah I don't like this' nowadays. I can understand it to a degree, especially if it's about the way a character acts or something - if I suddenly see a character acting the way they never really would, and more like they would in someone's fanfic, in an official capacity, it can pull me out of the story pretty fast. That's probably why I can't stand the 'Goku's proposal' bit in the dub in Dragon Ball (but let's not go down that rabbit hole right now). Calling something out for feeling too 'fanfic' isn't a completely wrong critique, but it does seem to get bandied about a little too readily when really what it boils down to is just 'I don't like this so I'm going to pretend it's like something that just some random person would come up with rather than what the original creator did even though they did'.

[BoosterZabi]

If it truly was a fanfiction, we would be seeing Cooler/Freeza fusion, Broly SSJ10, Omega Shenron Buu, Super Powerful Mary Sue Super Saiyan.

People are just upset that there isn't a new overly designed SSJ with a more ridiculous hair style then SSJ3 or 4. Their expectations are more in line that this ISN'T their fantasy fanfiction. Everything in this show feels like a Toriyama project. I especially love how bright and colorful everything looks, more akin to the style that Toriyama uses. Compare that to DBGT where everything looks muddy and dim.

Looking at the list above you can see some pretty original idea compared to ones that look like rehashes previous to the series.

Dude, DB is one giant rehash. Each saga in DB/DBZ is 'I need to get stronger to beat the new powerful villain' where Goku finds a new way to train (Kami's Lookout, King Kai's Planet, Gravity Room RoSaT), learn a new power up (Kaioken, SSJ, SSSG, SSFP, SSJ2, SSJ3 ect), and defeat the new villain that has additional special traits and abilities. Plus, on the foundational level, Dragonball is one giant parody of other peoples work and each character is a pun of food/objects/elements.

I mean, if SSJ2 never happened until recently, would people in uproar of how lazy it is? It's just SSJ with electric sparks.

[NitroEX]

I think the problem is you're lumping every detractor into in single voice when in actual fact different people hate things for different reasons.

In my case, when I see uninspired and recycled villains (i.e. Golden Freeza) or recoloured Super Saiyan hair (hello deviantart!) it immediately makes me think of fanfiction because it's something a fanfic writer would do. Most fanfic writers lack creativity to make their own stories and characters so they borrow from famous works, there's nothing wrong with that but when it comes to new official material I expect more creativity.

I've never personally been opposed to new stories so I can't speak for that crowd. I mean, the most interesting part of GT was the Shadow Dragon arc because hadn't been done before. Execution is a factor that you have to take into account when it comes to new stories however, if it's a good idea that's executed poorly it's understandable for people to hate it.

[Skar]

There doesn't seem to be any consistent rhyme of reason motivating the label, and I need help seeing if there's anything beyond "I don't like this and I'm too lazy to bother articulating why!".

I don't mind if Toriyama ends up using an idea that has already appeared in fanfiction. It's been 20 years since the manga ended so I'm sure fans have already exhausted almost every possible idea out there. I consider it "AF/fanfiction" when it's been used many times in fanfiction and criticized every single time as being lazy. This is what I asked in a different thread about Golden Freeza when it was it praised for being "characteristic Toriyama":

Just curious but what makes Golden Freeza differ from the millions of other AF palette swaps we've seen throughout the years? That's what bothered me most about this form. When Golden Freeza was revealed, I've heard fans saying "wow that's so Toriyama! He really goes against fan expectations!". I mean did anyone ever congratulate the artists of all those palette swaps in the past? They were usually referred to as lazy and unimaginative. I don't get how Toriyama gets praised for something that's so common in fanfiction and has never once been praised before. I understand if you like the form since that's your opinion but I'm just curious why it the reaction to it was so different than every other time something like that has been done.

[Draconic]

Dragon Ball as a whole is a fan letter to martial arts movies, chinese mythology and western sci-fi comics/movies. So calling it fan-fiction fits, since Toriyama was a fan of all that stuff so he created his own version of it.
The Divine Comedy is Bible fan fiction.
Star Wars is Flash Gordon/John Carter fan fiction.
Nothing is original and hasn't been for centuries. Any educated person (or at least a person who reads a lot) can tell you that.

[Zephyr]

Dude, DB is one giant rehash. Each saga in DB/DBZ is 'I need to get stronger to beat the new powerful villain' where Goku finds a new way to train (Kami's Lookout, King Kai's Planet, Gravity Room RoSaT), learn a new power up (Kaioken, SSJ, SSSG, SSFP, SSJ2, SSJ3 ect), and defeat the new villain that has additional special traits and abilities. Plus, on the foundational level, Dragonball is one giant parody of other peoples work and each character is a pun of food/objects/elements.

I mean, if SSJ2 never happened until recently, would people in uproar of how lazy it is? It's just SSJ with electric sparks.

This is another thing. If it's the same thing and people like it, it's more likely to be called "consistent". If it's the same thing and people don't like it, it's more likely to be called a "rehash". It just feels like it would be an implicit value judgment that people aren't aware of, or able to actually articulate. This isn't aimed at you, but the responses I expect you to get made me think of that distinction.

Another thing worth pointing out is how Super Saiyan lacks black hair due explicitly to save time on shading.

I think the problem is you're lumping every detractor into in single voice when in actual fact different people hate things for different reasons.

In my case, when I see uninspired and recycled villains (i.e. Golden Freeza) or recoloured Super Saiyan hair (hello deviantart!) it immediately makes me think of fanfiction because it's something a fanfic writer would do. Most fanfic writers lack creativity to make their own stories and characters so they borrow from famous works, there's nothing wrong with that but when it comes to new official material I expect more creativity.

Bolded part is a very fair point. Underlined part, however, is committing the same error of lumping multiple different people into the same boat. And that's the crux of my problem. Not all fan fiction is necessarily, inherently characterized by....well, anything, sans the fact that it is fan fiction. It's the implication that there are some other supposed qualities that only fan fiction exudes, when the original manga itself has many of those same qualities. Sure, there are many qualities that fan fiction tends to exude, but so does the original manga.

Super has essentially been really bad fan fiction from the palette swaps to the nonsense "Super Saiyan God" bs etc. A very legitimate argument tbh

Just curious but what makes Golden Freeza differ from the millions of other AF palette swaps we've seen throughout the years? That's what bothered me most about this form. When Golden Freeza was revealed, I've heard fans saying "wow that's so Toriyama! He really goes against fan expectations!". I mean did anyone ever congratulate the artists of all those palette swaps in the past? They were usually referred to as lazy and unimaginative. I don't get how Toriyama gets praised for something that's so common in fanfiction and has never once been praised before. I understand if you like the form since that's your opinion but I'm just curious why it the reaction to it was so different than every other time something like that has been done.

Tertiary concern here. What makes for a palette swap? Is a palette swap simply just....a palette swap, where only the colors are different, and Literally (capital L, actual literal dictionary definition literally, not hyperbolic literally) nothing else? If there are small changes here and there to the line work (Golden Freeza's case) or the aura (Super Saiyan Blue's case), is it still a palette swap, or is it a minimalist design? Do people understand that there's a difference when they're using that as a point against the designs? If they do, are they intentionally using incorrect terminology to take a dig? I'm not saying that people can't dislike minimalist designs, but if you dislike that its minimalist, say that you dislike that it's minimalist. Don't complain about a quality that isn't actually true to the design (although in Blue's case, without an aura, that would indeed be a palette swap).

And what makes for something lazy and unimaginative? Does context not matter at all? Does the fact that Toriyama is only just now able to mess around with color for the first time not make any sort of difference in context behind the creation of such forms? I mean, he could have been a lot more lazy and unimaginative. He could have not changed the line art on Golden Freeza, not changed the aura on Super Saiyan Blue, and could have literally made Blue just "the next stage when you power up from 3". That to me would be zero thought put in. The product is not the only thing that matters. Otherwise, the manga's various plot hiccups would be substantially more damaging. Imagine if you didn't realize how much of Dragon Ball was written on the seat of Toriyama's pants, how much less impressive it would overall be.

The reason is that fan fiction tends to take existing elements in popular franchises and tweak them in ways where that closely resemble something that was taken from the original without being particularly creative.

This is different from the manga how exactly? As others in the thread have pointed out, Toriyama took a variety of different things from already existing series, and he relied on a very similar story structure throughout a large portion of the manga's run.

[LightBing]

Can someone explain to me what these sort of complaints are actually supposed to mean?

I see them lobbed at things that people seem to just not like. Some people think that minimalistic designs like Golden Freeza or Super Saiyan God are just "fanfiction" crap. Other people think super-detailed things like Cold's 6th form in DBM are "like something out of AF".

Story idea that's been done a million times? Some people think it's just fanfiction tier garbage. Something that's never been done, and feels like something Toriyama wouldn't do? Fanfiction tier garbage.

There doesn't seem to be any consistent rhyme of reason motivating the label, and I need help seeing if there's anything beyond "I don't like this and I'm too lazy to bother articulating why!".

The underlined is what one should assume, if people don't bother expanding their point. It's really just a common stab at Super/Mr.Toriyama for people who just want to criticize without actually having a discussion.

Regarding the validity of such a statement, it's like saying "that movie was as boring as a book". Thoughtless generalization, again if people don't bother forming a solid opinion.

[BoosterZabi]

Should be noted that Freeza's final form is his most recognized form in the media. It's been that way for over 25 years. In terms of of a 'new form', you don't want to stray too far from the original design or make a bulky meathead mess (Cooler 5th form). Freeza's golden form is his form of a Super Saiyan. He purposely chose gold as a way to mock Goku and to show himself off as once again the most powerful being in the universe.

[Pantalones]

Can someone explain to me what these sort of complaints are actually supposed to mean?

I see them lobbed at things that people seem to just not like. Some people think that minimalistic designs like Golden Freeza or Super Saiyan God are just "fanfiction" crap. Other people think super-detailed things like Cold's 6th form in DBM are "like something out of AF".

As far as things like Golden Freeza or the Super Saiyan God forms, some people see them and are reminded of the "Super Saiyan 5 has silver hair, Super Saiyan 7 has blue hair, Super Saiyan 28 has rainbow hair" line of things -- there used to (probably still are?) a lot of pictures out there where people have edited official images of the characters in order to create "new" Super Saiyan forms... which usually just end up being palette-swaps of SSj/SSj2/SSj3, sometimes with something different done to the eyes or weird markings added onto the face or something, but usually just a different hair color and aura.

I guess the AF comparison with things like Cold's 6th form in DBM relates back to designs like the "SSj5 Goku" that was going around (which I believe was actually intended to be a different character all along, people just mistook it for Goku because it had something close to his SSj3 hair?), which looked like silver-haired SSj3 with SSj4 fur and complicated blue-and-green vaguely-Kaioshin-esque-but-not-quite-the-same outfit. Also, the "spikes EVERYWHERE!" element which is not uncommon for fan-made Freeza/Cooler/etc. forms (pretty much going off of Cooler's own 5th form and adding more spikes from there.) When the "AF" and similar character/form designs weren't just lazy palette swaps, they threw a TON of random details in.

That's basically where people are coming from when they throw out those comparisons, as far as I can tell.

[successoroffate]

I think the only thing that would fit such description are Youtube Clickbait thumbnails, remember "The 12 Gods of Destruction"?

On a side note, at least Toyotaro's AF is pretty consistent and well made if you ask me.