I agree that is all pretty weird and hard to understand from an outside perspective, but there are stranger things.
Random comming out of the closet for no reason at all can actually be made to work in some cases if the author tries really hard. Unfortunately often they don't even try to justify it and instead of going after charcters that have somecanon evidence that could be interpreted in terms of latent homosexual tension they create couples out of the most unlikely characters. And for some reason in some circles one of the few female characters that is actually a canon lesbian gets turned hetero in almost every fic that hooks her up with someone. (Look for Willow pairing on Twisting the Hellmouth.)
The worst part are fics that appear to have actively stopped caring for pretty much anything related to canon. Not onyl will they set fics in highschool with everyone being normal students, will turn everyones sexual orientation around on a whim, but will even change some charcters gender to fit their story.
I have never actually dared to read a story like that but I have some across more then one synopsis that contained all those elements. Something along the lines of: "The gang are in highschool. Sasuke is one of the rich kids and Naruto is a bad boy can they get together? (In my story Haku is a girl!)"
Why god why?
Also fun are those AU that are not set in highschool but are in fact retellings of the latest teen-flick that the author saw. They often don't even brother to bring anything into the movie retelling from their fandom besides the charcter names, description of their hair-colors and the ocasional catch phrase. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if the authors didn't always chose such awful movies to cover. Even if the source material is good they will always pick the worst possible version of it seemingly unaware that the movie they adore is a remake of an older or foreign one that used actual actors playing the parts instead of plastic supermodels woodenly reciting the roles of charcters a decade younger than they really are. You can forget the idea that anyone is familiar with novels in this day and age.
Then at last there are stories at places like ficwad that I hesitate to call fanfics that feature not fictional charcters but 'actual' people: Actors, wrestlers, boy-band members. Except that they are not really featuring those people at all but really imaginary characters that sort of look like them except for the eyes because everyone knows that they would look so much better with one green and one gray one. Also they are almost all gay again which is not really justified in more then half of the cases....
Random comming out of the closet for no reason at all can actually be made to work in some cases if the author tries really hard. Unfortunately often they don't even try to justify it and instead of going after charcters that have somecanon evidence that could be interpreted in terms of latent homosexual tension they create couples out of the most unlikely characters. And for some reason in some circles one of the few female characters that is actually a canon lesbian gets turned hetero in almost every fic that hooks her up with someone. (Look for Willow pairing on Twisting the Hellmouth.)
The worst part are fics that appear to have actively stopped caring for pretty much anything related to canon. Not onyl will they set fics in highschool with everyone being normal students, will turn everyones sexual orientation around on a whim, but will even change some charcters gender to fit their story.
I have never actually dared to read a story like that but I have some across more then one synopsis that contained all those elements. Something along the lines of: "The gang are in highschool. Sasuke is one of the rich kids and Naruto is a bad boy can they get together? (In my story Haku is a girl!)"
Why god why?
Also fun are those AU that are not set in highschool but are in fact retellings of the latest teen-flick that the author saw. They often don't even brother to bring anything into the movie retelling from their fandom besides the charcter names, description of their hair-colors and the ocasional catch phrase. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if the authors didn't always chose such awful movies to cover. Even if the source material is good they will always pick the worst possible version of it seemingly unaware that the movie they adore is a remake of an older or foreign one that used actual actors playing the parts instead of plastic supermodels woodenly reciting the roles of charcters a decade younger than they really are. You can forget the idea that anyone is familiar with novels in this day and age.
Then at last there are stories at places like ficwad that I hesitate to call fanfics that feature not fictional charcters but 'actual' people: Actors, wrestlers, boy-band members. Except that they are not really featuring those people at all but really imaginary characters that sort of look like them except for the eyes because everyone knows that they would look so much better with one green and one gray one. Also they are almost all gay again which is not really justified in more then half of the cases....