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Pet Peeves in Fanfiction

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Fight scenes where the character goes off thinking on tangents completely unrelated to the fight, to the point of complete distraction and losing track of time and what is happening directly in front of them for an indefinite period of time. Especially in a fight where they are barely staying alive. There's no free actions in a fight, it screws up pacing and tension, and honestly, if that trait ever existed in a species evolution would have weeded it out millions of years ago. Because they died. Your character should die from this, in any fight that matters.
 
Speaking of summaries - "this story is a rewrite of X", while technically a summary, does not really tell me anything (unless it's something really well known). Please include the original description... or maybe rewrite it as well. It's a lot less effort than trying to dig up the previous version to see what's it about.
 
I hope this isn't part of the orient IOM law but a focus on shipping/romance above all else.

Like even in fandoms that don't have viable ships then the fandom would contrive them like Gravity Falls.

I have no issue with romance but it's all consumimg
KaPe said:
Speaking of summaries - "this story is a rewrite of X", while technically a summary, does not really tell me anything (unless it's something really well known). Please include the original description... or maybe rewrite it as well. It's a lot less effort than trying to dig up the previous version to see what's it about.
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I suck at summaries so I understand
 
Konradleijon said:
I hope this isn't part of the orient IOM law but a focus on shipping/romance above all else.

Like even in fandoms that don't have viable ships then the fandom would contrive them like Gravity Falls.
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What I think is especially galling, and what I have experienced a lot in feedback to my works is... well. Say you have a story, and it happens to include a romance. But it isn't just romance. It is a story with several themes that happens to include a romance.

You can be sure that no matter what you have written in the current chapters, all feedback will only be on the romance. Nothing on the themes, nothing on the plot development, it's all just about the shipping...

Yeah that can be a bit annoying.
 
Konradleijon said:
Like even in fandoms that don't have viable ships then the fandom would contrive them like Gravity Falls.
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If the fanbase can contrive it, then the ship is viable. "Watchers of the show can see and/or want it to happen" is all a ship takes to exist. Canonicity has never been a requirement.

(also, Gravity Falls has like half a dozen couples that in exist within the text of the show. Like, a third of Mabel's episodes are about her boy troubles, there are enough possible couples there to make a flippin' harem anime. The show even at one point joked about her wanting to marry all of them)
 
people that kill off mother/mother figure characters so the main character can be parented by men instead are missing the point of found family. chosen family isn't about fridging women or being a literal orphan and having no bio family. and it's almost never the other way around, no one ever kills off the dad to give the main character two moms. i just think some people should reflect on that. in general i think people don't understand what blended families or chosen family could look like and instead just make heteronormative structures with different genders.
 
Hologram Killer said:
people that kill off mother/mother figure characters so the main character can be parented by men instead are missing the point of found family. chosen family isn't about fridging women or being a literal orphan and having no bio family. and it's almost never the other way around, no one ever kills off the dad to give the main character two moms. i just think some people should reflect on that. in general i think people don't understand what blended families or chosen family could look like and instead just make heteronormative structures with different genders.
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Oh god, so many mha evil/dead inko fics >.< I always considered it a red flag.
 
Ultimate said:
How come? Aren't a lot of kids missing their fathers?

Or do you mean emotionally?
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How do you convey the effects of that to your readers? Not just tell them that the kid grew up without a father figure but their subconscious seearch for a role model figuring into how they relate to the world? Their falling victim to the rhetoric of predators like Andrew Tate? Or any other random thing that influences them more for lack of an already established father figure. It is as varied a field of possibilities as it is subtle in its influence. And thus it requires considerable skill to portrait well.
 
I remember one book where the MC was a young woman who made several missteps throughout.
The conclusion other people reached was that she was weak to young men with a sob story.
Her conclusion was that she was weak to older father figures telling her she needed to be responsible and help people... who happened to be young men with sob stories and bad plans.

It was very interesting seeing the alternate interpretation of events.
 
KaPe said:
Speaking of summaries - "this story is a rewrite of X", while technically a summary, does not really tell me anything (unless it's something really well known). Please include the original description... or maybe rewrite it as well. It's a lot less effort than trying to dig up the previous version to see what's it about.
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Wouldn't a link just be the easiest solution here?
 
Also, found family doesn't require there to be a found family father, a found family mother, a found family and found family children. It's just an extremely close-knit group with plenty of emotional bonds that go beyond normal friendship but don't require romance or sex.
 
Personally I have some resistance to the term "found family."
The concept is fine, and there's plenty of stories where it works great, but if you ever have to use the phrase "found family" you've probably done a terrible job showing it.

It's one of those memes that when you first hear it, you can instantly point to a dozen examples, but they had never named it before because they didn't need to.

And trying to shoehorn it into some format is completely unnecessary.
It is what it is.
It's only when you start screaming "found family" that people start assigning roles.
 
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PossiblyEnos said:
How do you convey the effects of that to your readers? Not just tell them that the kid grew up without a father figure but their subconscious seearch for a role model figuring into how they relate to the world? Their falling victim to the rhetoric of predators like Andrew Tate? Or any other random thing that influences them more for lack of an already established father figure. It is as varied a field of possibilities as it is subtle in its influence. And thus it requires considerable skill to portrait well.
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ok first of all i promise u most people writing fanfic have some sort of daddy issue and understand fatherlessness firsthand /j

more seriously fatherhood in media is already propped up as some special thing. Theres a lot of noise around young men not having proper father figures in their lives, lots of stories about men learning to be fathers, and lots of focus put on father son relationships. like every sports movie has a subplot like this, a lot of military stories have wise father characters or father figures, there was a craze of "dad games" in the 2010s, robin williams has an entire section of his filmography where he is a lovable dad or father figure. It's a section of our culture that is really focused on, and honestly no its not hard to write because you can throw a rock and find like 50 stories to rip off.

I also think its just so lowkey ??? to imply the only thing stopping young men from becoming bad people is other men. a lot of school shooters have father figures in their lives, a lot of sexist men have fathers in their lives. a masculine presence in your life doesnt fix shit, some people have awful fathers. And having an amazing mother or parent and no father doesnt mean you're inherently disadvantaged.

in general i think the idea of a role model is stupid. people need basic things like love, connection and security in their lives before they need a figure to aspire to. but that's a whole other thing.
 
Personally I went with single dad in my latest misadventure so I could ship single dad with a single mom. 🤷‍♀️ I didn't kill biomom though, she lost custody in a drawn out legal battle pertaining to substance abuse that isn't relevant to the plot. Dad isn't special, he was just the one not smoking crack every day. I definitely don't have dad issues either, my dad's as fine as a dementia patient can be, our relationship is equally fine and so is my mom. As someone who is very much damaged, it's not my parents.
 
Hologram Killer said:
ok first of all i promise u most people writing fanfic have some sort of daddy issue and understand fatherlessness firsthand /j
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No, they don't understand it. People are utter shite at self-reflection.

Hologram Killer said:
more seriously fatherhood in media is already propped up as some special thing. Theres a lot of noise around young men not having proper father figures in their lives, lots of stories about men learning to be fathers, and lots of focus put on father son relationships. like every sports movie has a subplot like this, a lot of military stories have wise father characters or father figures, there was a craze of "dad games" in the 2010s, robin williams has an entire section of his filmography where he is a lovable dad or father figure. It's a section of our culture that is really focused on, and honestly no its not hard to write because you can throw a rock and find like 50 stories to rip off.
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And? In the real world many men are awful at being fathers. These media portrayals help them figuring that stuff out. Because they're just as awful asking for help.

Just try finding a dad support group. They are few and far between.


Hologram Killer said:
I also think its just so lowkey ??? to imply the only thing stopping young men from becoming bad people is other men.
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That's not what I did. Read again.

Hologram Killer said:
a lot of school shooters have father figures in their lives, a lot of sexist men have fathers in their lives. a masculine presence in your life doesnt fix shit, some people have awful fathers.
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Yes, and?
Hologram Killer said:
And having an amazing mother or parent and no father doesnt mean you're inherently disadvantaged.
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Yes, and?
Hologram Killer said:
in general i think the idea of a role model is stupid. people need basic things like love, connection and security in their lives before they need a figure to aspire to. but that's a whole other thing.
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You have a lot of learning to do about childhood development.

And now a reminder to everyone: The actual question before above poster derailed it with their "we don't need no dads" nonsense was, "Why is a dead mother so much more common in fics than a dead dad?"
And the answer to that is: Because the effects are more subtle and harder to write.
 
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PossiblyEnos said:
And? In the real world many men are awful at being fathers. These media portrayals help them figuring that stuff out. Because they're just as awful asking for help.

Just try finding a dad support group. They are few and far between.
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I think you are missing the point.
The issue is not showing being a father (or just a parent) being difficult.
It is over stating the importance of having one.
completely ignoring all the perfectly well adjusted people from families with single mothers, or two mothers, or any other family composition that just does not include a father.

And the issue is not that such stories exist, it is a perfectly valid story to tell.
The issue is how ever present such stories can be, and how they exaggerate the "need" for people to have male role model in their life to become a well adjusted individual.
 
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I haven't really encountered this singling out fathers. Not too any really noticeable degree at least.
I've come across plenty of getting the parents out of the way entirely in a full orphan fashion. Perhaps not dead, but out of the way for one reason or another.
 
PossiblyEnos said:
And now a reminder to everyone: The actual question before above poster derailed it with his "we don't need no dads" nonsense was, "Why is a dead mother so much more common in fics than a dead dad?"
And the answer to that is: Because the effects are more subtle and harder to write.
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First of all don't misgender me, and fix your attitude. Second of all, I'm not saying people don't need dads, I'm saying it's sexist backwash to imply that not having a dad is way worse than not having any other parent. Since beating around the bush isn't working I'll take a big swing here: I think people are used to female characters getting killed off for angst or character development, and stories about adoptive mother figures are more rare than adopted father figures because of sexism.
 
Hologram Killer said:
First of all don't misgender me, and fix your attitude.
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Sorry, corrected.

Hologram Killer said:
Second of all, I'm not saying people don't need dads, I'm saying it's sexist backwash to imply that not having a dad is way worse than not having any other parent.
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Which NOT something I said. Tell me, how the fuck do you construe "not having a dad is worse" out of "the effects of having no dad are more difficult to write"? How?
 
PossiblyEnos said:
"the effects of having no dad are more difficult to write"
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You keep claiming this, and have mentioned reasons why those effects may be difficult to write, but unless I missed something, you have not yet provided any for why doing would be harder than writing a missing mother. So I'm curious, why do you believe that it's harder?
 
PossiblyEnos said:
Sorry, corrected.


Which NOT something I said. Tell me, how the fuck do you construe "not having a dad is worse" out of "the effects of having no dad are more difficult to write"? How?
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Because you're implying that being fatherless is inherently more complex than being motherless. Which it isn't. You're giving fatherlessness some special quality that it quite frankly doesn't have. Grief and loss is inherently complex regardless of gender.
 
SturmOgre said:
You keep claiming this, and have mentioned reasons why those effects may be difficult to write, but unless I missed something, you have not yet provided any for why doing would be harder than writing a missing mother. So I'm curious, why do you believe that it's harder?
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Go back in the thread. I already told you why. The effects are more subtle and fewer readers believe a cause-and-effect when shown in crude, broad strokes. You simply get away with shittier writing when blaming something on a missing mother. THAT'S why it's harder to write.
Hologram Killer said:
Because you're implying that being fatherless is inherently more complex than being motherless.
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No, I'm not. I'm saying the effects are less clear to convey in writing.

Hologram Killer said:
Which it isn't. You're giving fatherlessness some special quality that it quite frankly doesn't have.
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No, I'm not.
 
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