- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I mean, a story where none of the core three end up dating each other is also totally valid; just because Harry and Hermione know each other well definitely doesn't mean they 'need to' end up together.
Pet Peeves in Fanfiction
- Thread starter LostHourglass
- Start date
Kazuto Morimoto
Order and Chaos: Master-in-training #5603
- Location
- Somewhere in the vastness of Time and Space
Pet Peeve: When they write the experienced, cunning, intelligent and wiser characters as easily outsmarted.
An example would be Alister Crowley from To Aru. I really doubt a random average dude can outsmart him with a "cunning plan" or him ignoring said rando if they are a threat to his plans (what ever it is). His plans which is used as an excuse that the random guy is now part of it (even though they appeared out of nowhere) to not get killed by him early on if they want to take Touma's Imagine Breaker.
An example would be Alister Crowley from To Aru. I really doubt a random average dude can outsmart him with a "cunning plan" or him ignoring said rando if they are a threat to his plans (what ever it is). His plans which is used as an excuse that the random guy is now part of it (even though they appeared out of nowhere) to not get killed by him early on if they want to take Touma's Imagine Breaker.
- Location
- E-Girl Deseret
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Out of the thousands of fanfics I used to read in any series, I saw maybe a half-dozen "talking like adults" breakups. Even when the characters became like, full-fledged 20s and 30s in age, I didn't see a lot of realistic breakups. It was nearly always "I don't like this character, and I want these characters to get together, let's kill the character off/make them go bad". Which was a trope I never liked, just have them go "eh I don't particularly feel attracted/in love with you anymore, let's break up". Or, if you're early on enough in the story, such as in Harry Potter, have them never get together! It's really not hard!
Oh I definitely know the moment, and it felt kind of mean-spirited tbh. Though not so much now that the author's... views have come to light. She's definitely more of a meaner author than most people imagined.
That's also why I started to gravitate to Harry/Luna and Ron/Lavender stories towards the end of my HP fanfic reading period. I could easily see the trio all seeing each other as brothers and sisters and not romantic interests.
That's also why I never liked Harry/Ginny because in my mind, Ginny was essentially Harry's little sister and it didn't seem right to me for him to view her romantically (Harry/Ron was no-go for me for similar reasons as well). Also you could credibly just.. not have the "Golden Trio" be attracted to anyone in their school! Not everyone wants to boink someone in their high school, after all.
But regardless, my point is that I find the "villainize the character standing in the way of your ship" trope to be tired and lazy writing. Unless the canon pairing includes an actual villain. Then I could see just making them a bit nastier to be reasonable. Heck, you could even write a sympathetic villain in canon accidentally doing something awful and the other half forgiving but no longer being attracted to them! To go back to HP for a moment, if Harry/Draco was canon, and you had Draco accidentally kill McGonagall or whoever, I could see Harry going something like "I forgive you but this action has made me fall out of love with you". Again, plenty of real-life people fall out of love in less convoluted ways! Anyway, rant over.
FortePlus
The THRILL from Green Hill
- Location
- Toronto
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I regret to inform you all that """actual""" adults have """unrealistic""" breakups in reality all the time. There are a lot of people who don't talk it out at all, or only talk it out after many years, or over lawsuits and civil court cases over engagement rings.
Two people fighting and deciding never to see each other again is an actual thing that actually happens. The fact that it is often mined for drama doesn't make it less compatible with reality.
Actually, thread tax: people changing things in fiction to be more ~realistic~ without having the self awareness to realize that their world view is hilariously narrow. The formulas that declare two people can't just be close friends are the same ones that declare people can only have a predefined range of responses to trauma are the same ones decide people can't just be averse to murder even in dire situations so on and so forth.
Two people fighting and deciding never to see each other again is an actual thing that actually happens. The fact that it is often mined for drama doesn't make it less compatible with reality.
Actually, thread tax: people changing things in fiction to be more ~realistic~ without having the self awareness to realize that their world view is hilariously narrow. The formulas that declare two people can't just be close friends are the same ones that declare people can only have a predefined range of responses to trauma are the same ones decide people can't just be averse to murder even in dire situations so on and so forth.
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- Location
- E-Girl Deseret
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The last point I'd like to make on this is that my point wasn't that I "always" want to have realistic breakups. Just that I was dissatisfied that it seemed like "all" or nearly all the fanfic I'd seen that focused on relationships went with the absurdly goofy "Ron the Death Eater" kind of breakup. Maybe I've been reading the wrong fics, but it seemed way too common, even with the very good point you make that these kinds of breakups happen in real life. Though I'd imagine most breakups don't happen with one partner being revealed to be a member of the Klu Klux Klan the whole time.
Thread tax as well for me: another trope I dislike is coffee shop AUs. I don't drink coffee so that might be it but please come up with a new setting. Like a tattooists shop, or like, a fandom convention (whoa meta) or something.
Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
If history has taught me anything it's that reality is written by a hack.
The Englanderish
Schrödinger's Kuudere Kitty Caliph(a)
- Location
- Califat de Chats
Harry/Hermione is a blight upon fanfic and must be cleansed. With fire, if possible! 
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Throw out Rowling trash, return to monke Young Wizards
More Young Wizards fanfic would certainly be cool. A better series by a better author.
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
People who write giant "compilation fics" with a "wordcount" in the tens or hundreds of thousands, tagged with every fandom under the sun, are scum.
Just make them one-shots you monsters.
Just make them one-shots you monsters.
An adjacent/subset peeve I've encountered recently is when a character (who doesn't have actual foreknowledge/metaknowledge) is able to see through some manipulator's lies ahead of when the plot twist was revealed in canon in a way that the author is trying to portray as a result of them just being smarter than the people who were deceived, but due to the specificity and pointedness of how they latch onto "clues" it just comes across as them just having read the script and finding some in-universe justification to apply the author's metaknowledge.
The intended takeaway isn't that reveals can't happen ahead of when they happened in canon, particularly when new people are introduced with different experiences and skills. It just annoys me when it seems like the plot and writing is being undermined in order to show that the MC is "smart" or has some sort of innate ability to never be wrong about anything while sometimes undermining an antagonist who appears to have been made less cunning or adaptable than their canon counterpart.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Look, how are they supposed to farm kudos if every fic they post is a 90-word oneshot? Can't trawl the bottom of every fandom in existence with one AO3 fic if you don't do a monster pointless compilation.
- Location
- Finland
Ofcourse lot of smart canon characters are, when it comes down to it, pretty stupid themselves, and only get away with authorial fiat.
This is somewhat understandable, it is difficult to write someone smarter than yourself, and people stretching to write not only someone smart, but a super genius, it becomes near impossible without constant asspulls.
So when an OC or what have you figures out the plot by page 5 out of 200, i don't mind too much provided they are given some excuse for that.
This is somewhat understandable, it is difficult to write someone smarter than yourself, and people stretching to write not only someone smart, but a super genius, it becomes near impossible without constant asspulls.
So when an OC or what have you figures out the plot by page 5 out of 200, i don't mind too much provided they are given some excuse for that.
- Location
- Elsewhere
It bugs me less when they actually do something with the knowledge.
I see a lot of OC characters where the author goes out of their way to show that they aren't fooled, like all those idiot canon characters, but they have absolutely no intention of changing anything because they're sticking to the stations of canon.
"Well obviously Gilderoy is a liar. I cross-referenced all his books and compared them to newspaper clippings on the train ride."
"Did you tell the teachers?"
"No. It was more fun to sit back and smirk at everyone the entire year."
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- Location
- Earth
The way I learnt to deal with this particular dilemma is actually twofold. First is that I may have trouble writing someone smarter than myself, but I have weeks and months to plan how and what they figure out in the moment. This helps mitigate it somewhat. The other part is that I just do not show the process of how they do their smart person thing in detail. Suspension of Disbelief can cover a lot of these things.
Then again, sometimes people also seem to forget that "being smart" is not synonymous with "good at everything that requires thinking".
Related pet peeve for tax season: when the author/character goes into needless detail how X was figured out, be that someone else's plan or when developing something new.
A subset of this extends to worldbuilding, too. Especially in all things magic. Whenever I see several chunky paragraphs dedicated to explaining how pieces of a setting's magic system work, there are generally two responses from me: blankly skim over the stuff, or close the tab.
- Location
- Elsewhere
I have the opposite response.
I like worldbuilding and nuances of magical systems, so I'm often wishing they'd get past their obnoxious, boring, harem protag and get back to the mechanical discussion.
- Location
- Home
I can't help but skim most fight scenes, give me more interesting monologues about the character experimenting with his powers/magic/etc...
- Location
- Finland
Problem with most complicated magic system is that they tend to not lead to anykind of interesting story or world building.
They exist, to exist, and far too often to let the main character to show of their brilliance by figuring them out better than people who are continuing the work of centuries to do so.
Instead of spending ages telling me how magic works, i'd rather writers spend that time showing how magic changes the world.
Teleportation, mind reading, ability to reliably create fire strong enough to melt stone, flying carpets...
What does that do to society and how economy functions?
They exist, to exist, and far too often to let the main character to show of their brilliance by figuring them out better than people who are continuing the work of centuries to do so.
Instead of spending ages telling me how magic works, i'd rather writers spend that time showing how magic changes the world.
Teleportation, mind reading, ability to reliably create fire strong enough to melt stone, flying carpets...
What does that do to society and how economy functions?
- Location
- Earth
This is the crux for me as well, pretty much. I do not mind the worldbuilding itself so much as when it is infodumped on me.
- Location
- Sweden
One pet peeve of mine is ship-bombing. Not so common on fic forums like SB, SV or The Third One due to the structure of the sites, it's more common on sites like FF or AO3.
Basically, it's when shippers see a story with a ship they disapprove of, and then spend multiple pages "updating" their own stories in such a way as to drive the offending fic off the page. Like...often not even adding anything, just using the site tools to push the newer story off the front page so nobody can see it.
It's so annoying.
--
Anyway, a peeve of mine that's actually writing-related (as opposed to behaviorally related) is when people keep writing character names wrong, or invent new names because "The character couldn't possibly be named something that silly/unusual/strange to me/foreign!"
The world is big. There are people out there named Dweezil and Boris (without being Russian). Someone could totally name their child "Buffy" after listening to folk singer Buffy St.Marie or something. It happens. So please, stop renaming the protagonists. It just makes me go "Ah, this isn't even a Character In Name Only, this is an OC".
Basically, it's when shippers see a story with a ship they disapprove of, and then spend multiple pages "updating" their own stories in such a way as to drive the offending fic off the page. Like...often not even adding anything, just using the site tools to push the newer story off the front page so nobody can see it.
It's so annoying.
--
Anyway, a peeve of mine that's actually writing-related (as opposed to behaviorally related) is when people keep writing character names wrong, or invent new names because "The character couldn't possibly be named something that silly/unusual/strange to me/foreign!"
The world is big. There are people out there named Dweezil and Boris (without being Russian). Someone could totally name their child "Buffy" after listening to folk singer Buffy St.Marie or something. It happens. So please, stop renaming the protagonists. It just makes me go "Ah, this isn't even a Character In Name Only, this is an OC".
I'm always confused as to why it needs to be either brother/sister or romantic interest. People can just be friends with the gender they're attracted to.
- Location
- Finland
Good example of an interesting magic system for me could easily be summed in a single sentence.
Anything, for a price.
That basicly states the ceiling of what is possible (anything), explains how (by paying the price), and sets up a conflict inherent to it (what will people be willing to do for power).
A good wizard is one who can "negotiate" a good price for the power they wield, a bad one has to sell their soul to light a candle, and an evil one will steal someone elses.
A few that I hate:
Massive power escalation that with no basis in cannon. I hate when the MC is so powered up that the author has to invent new threats or massively power up existing ones, especially when the implication is that without the OP MC the world would have no chance.
When the story is basically just the original story but OC/SI/Crossover Character is here too! If you're adding a new character, things should change. I'm not saying the original plot should be thrown out the window, but the story should not feature THE EXACT SAME CONVERSATIONS that were in the original unless they're major plot points, and even then they shouldn't be exactly the same.
Inconsistent interpretations of power systems tick me off. This is especially annoying when the wider implications of a system are completely ignored, despite the fact that they should drastically change things.
I find that while I often like SIs (at least SB and SV ones), most MC OCs are much worse. I think it's because SIs feel more realistic, in that they are usually assumed to have knowledge of the setting, which justifies their actions changing it. OCs are fine as long as the fit the setting, but a lot of them just so happen to be better than everyone else at everything. At least SIs of that sort usually have some out of context powers to justify it.
Massive power escalation that with no basis in cannon. I hate when the MC is so powered up that the author has to invent new threats or massively power up existing ones, especially when the implication is that without the OP MC the world would have no chance.
When the story is basically just the original story but OC/SI/Crossover Character is here too! If you're adding a new character, things should change. I'm not saying the original plot should be thrown out the window, but the story should not feature THE EXACT SAME CONVERSATIONS that were in the original unless they're major plot points, and even then they shouldn't be exactly the same.
Inconsistent interpretations of power systems tick me off. This is especially annoying when the wider implications of a system are completely ignored, despite the fact that they should drastically change things.
I find that while I often like SIs (at least SB and SV ones), most MC OCs are much worse. I think it's because SIs feel more realistic, in that they are usually assumed to have knowledge of the setting, which justifies their actions changing it. OCs are fine as long as the fit the setting, but a lot of them just so happen to be better than everyone else at everything. At least SIs of that sort usually have some out of context powers to justify it.
- Pronouns
- Male
What about characters who have multiple canon names/canonically steal a name? Like if I'm writing a Buffy story and it's during her LA stint, I should be calling her Anne for that time period. Angel has 3 different names(, Spike has like 6, and Anne/Lily/Chantarelle go through at least 5 as well. Or in Young Justice Stories, Superboy's name choice should only be Connor Kent under very specific circumstances.
Tax: Finding out which phrases I repeat often enough, I'm surprised people don't mock me with them in real life. Like every few paragraphs I'll try and use the exact same sentence structure, notice it, and then have to change both of them.
- Location
- North America
story has over 500k words but season 1 is only half way done. not season one of the story, no that's too smart. season one of the of the work they are using.
all that time spent writing and for some reason you are still following canon
all that time spent writing and for some reason you are still following canon