Remove ads

Pet Peeves in Fanfiction

Reader mode
WallFlower said:
Sounds as if it could be a fun premise: Si gets stuck in a timeloop where they try to Fix the timeline. Only for the stations of cannon to keep repeating no matter what they do.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I've seen that before.
It's really, really not fun.
Since the meta-effect is outside the "story" the rules are completely arbitrary and out-of-context.
That means they can't figure out any rule or overcome it, it's just inflicted on them randomly.

The end result is just a person standing around whining about how everything is hopeless until something randomly changes and they can finally fix things for no discernible reason.
 
Blaflaix said:
The end result is just a person standing around whining about how everything is hopeless until something randomly changes and they can finally fix things for no discernible reason
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's because the author made them whiny. So if the author doesn't make the MC whine about everything... Then it could turn into something like that one episode of Doctor Who with the time loop prison.

Edit: plus, it's the thing about the MC that they need to be relatable about being a "normal" or "average" person. Where if it's "us" we'll whine and despair about everything as well.
 
Last edited:
Willemine said:
When a misspelling is used to indicate a mispronunciation, but it would be pronounced exactly the same. Like, you write "frend" instead of "friend", or "there" instead of "their", and then some smartass breaks the 4th Wall and corrects the speaker. Even when it's done ironically I hate it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Anaja said:
I have seen stuff like that turn into arguments over accents before. Some people saying that two things are pronounced the same, and others that they're clearly not.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I can attest "frend" and "friend" are not pronounced the same to me!
 
I'm not a fan of second person prose, even though that's what I'm most known for. There's a constant struggle in y/n stories between the author wanting to flesh out their viewpoint character and keeping said character as generically relatable as possible. (As an aside, I hate the placeholder "y/n" for a variety of reasons.)

Honestly, most of my pet peeves are about my own work which isn't really on-topic for this thread.
 
Ophelia said:
(As an aside, I hate the placeholder "y/n" for a variety of reasons.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I read somewhere in another discussion thread (and then just to make sure I wasn't disseminating unverified rumors I looked it up, and) that's actually a placeholder thing for a browser plug in, and for people who prefer that stuff they have a little script that replaces it with their actual name.
 
I dislike y/n because to me it looks as if the text wants me to answer a yes/no question every time it pops up.
 
I dislike it because a proper Second Person point of view would be; you moved about idly, taking in the sights.
 
Sign me up for the "hating y/n" club. I mean, the end result is that I just don't read them, but... does the reader insert character having a name really stop any readers from imagining themselves in their place? It certainly doesn't stop me.

On an unrelated note, when two canon characters have an amazing, deep friendship, tested by fire, and are unambiguously not attracted to each other, but almost every fanfic about their most emotionally charged moments treats them as a pairing, I gnash my teeth so hard.
 
BurnBright said:
Tbh, like, what counts as 'unambiguously not attracted to each other'? Unambiguously is a very strong term.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hints that they might not be attracted to each other:
-They say "I am not attracted to them."
-They express absolutely no attraction or romantic interest in anyone and reinforce that verbally.
-They have multiple other relationships, with a clear 'type' and behave completely differently with the person in question who does not match the type.
-They deceive/betray/attempt to murder the other multiple times, with a clear motivation and personal conviction from their philosophical beliefs which they consistently apply to their lives and clash over.
 
BurnBright said:
Tbh, like, what counts as 'unambiguously not attracted to each other'? Unambiguously is a very strong term.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
"Anyone with a shred of reading comprehension will be able to see that they are not attracted to each other" is the mark I use to call it unambiguous. Anything further is particular to the source material.
 
On the one hand, I'm theoretically sympathetic. On the other hand, there are a solid number of ships where I would not be surprised if someone said something like that about them, where I would quite emphatically disagree.
 
Blaflaix said:
-They say "I am not attracted to them."
-They express absolutely no attraction or romantic interest in anyone and reinforce that verbally.
-They have multiple other relationships, with a clear 'type' and behave completely differently with the person in question who does not match the type.
-They deceive/betray/attempt to murder the other multiple times, with a clear motivation and personal conviction from their philosophical beliefs which they consistently apply to their lives and clash over.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They're in denial
They're just shy
They're attempting to hide how into X person they are
Playground bullying, they MUST be into them !

Never underestimate the ocean of justification some people will draw on to realize their pairing. All the things you have named are not only not unambiguous indicators of a lack of attraction, they are indicators of an existing attraction !

And that's how you get stuff like 'Edelgard X Rhea' or 'Taylor X anything other than massive trust issues and martyrdom'.

Which is like... fine, I guess ? There's no rules for fanfiction, but we invented the Coffeeshop/College/Hospital AU for a reason.
 
Edelgard/Rhea is more a case of people finding it interesting, from what I've observed, rather than something that's observed to exist in the feelings of the characters in the actual game. So they have fun trying to contrive it. Honestly, I respect trying to do that more than just falling back on the highschool AU thing or whatever.
 
Last edited:
Somic said:
On an unrelated note, when two canon characters have an amazing, deep friendship, tested by fire, and are unambiguously not attracted to each other, but almost every fanfic about their most emotionally charged moments treats them as a pairing, I gnash my teeth so hard.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Somic said:
"Anyone with a shred of reading comprehension will be able to see that they are not attracted to each other" is the mark I use to call it unambiguous. Anything further is particular to the source material.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Part of the fundamental problem is that whether you mean it to refer this this or not, this argument is fundamentally coded. Same-sex couples continually get this standard applied to them when opposite-sex couples simply never do. The entire concept of "burden of proof" is inherently slanted against a particular kind of pairing, while heterosexual couples very rarely receive that burden of proof, and fiction regularly will pair two characters up because their main charaters of the opposite sex- movies are especially guilty of this.

You might not like that either, but it feels worth pointing that this entire frame of argumentation is typically used to elevate a skewed standard, that will frequently be paired as a dismissal of any evidence made by the other party as "reaching" or "reading too much into the material".
 
Bea said:
Part of the fundamental problem is that whether you mean it to refer this this or not, this argument is fundamentally coded. Same-sex couples continually get this standard applied to them when opposite-sex couples simply never do. The entire concept of "burden of proof" is inherently slanted against a particular kind of pairing, while heterosexual couples very rarely receive that burden of proof
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How is the original argument coded? Somic could easily have been talking about an opposite sex duo that are friends but are continously shipped as lovers.
 
Ultimate said:
It's definitely more common for same-sex couples. However, my mother reported that she was worried about the same thing happening with her own straight characters.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Query, let's say that theoretically, drunk drivers get in accidents massively disproportionately compared to regular drivers: If I see that someone got into an accident, and therefore point out that that person was quite likely to be drinking because of the disproportionate factor, is "my brother was concerned he'd get into an accident if he started driving, even when sober" a relevant response?
 
Most cannon romance misses that romantic spark or connection. I think that this is why it's so hard fr some people to tell the difference.
Like take Ranma and Akana for example. They are betrothed, but their constant squabbling makes them feel more like siblings to me than potential love interests.

This is while the relationship between Ranma and Ryoaga has in my mind been defined by the fact how Ranma was willing to endure multiple days of being stood up for his duel with Ryoaga. And Ryoaga's obsesion with Ranma.

Comming to think about it Genma and Soun are very addemant about even though those children give heavy sibling energy. It kind of feels like they want a excuse to live together with their 'best friend' with whom they have couple some mild married couple energy.
 
The place where I draw the line come down to "No means no."
If someone says no, and the other decides they're in denial and just need constant harassment, then it's a catch-22.
It doesn't matter if they are right, it isn't a good relationship because they aren't listening to the other person.

There are ways to write around that while respecting their ability to make choices, but lots of fanfic authors seem to avoid those. Not dramatic enough.

Expanding that to the story as a whole, if things are presented one way, there is a difference between a fanfic saying "What if things were different" as opposed to "What if everyone was in denial and needed to be corrected."
You can lay the groundwork to show things growing in a certain direction, but if they get impatient it can easily slide into really forced scenarios that aren't nearly as romantic as the fanfic author apparently thinks.

"See? They really loved each other all along!"
"Or they're just humoring the crazy person until they can escape."
 
Bea said:
Query, let's say that theoretically, drunk drivers get in accidents massively disproportionately compared to regular drivers: If I see that someone got into an accident, and therefore point out that that person was quite likely to be drinking because of the disproportionate factor, is "my brother was concerned he'd get into an accident if he started driving, even when sober" a relevant response?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was trying to be a devil's advocate. Apologies if it came off as something else, or if it was unwarranted.

WallFlower said:
Most cannon romance misses that romantic spark or connection.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I often have that problem. Popular relationship like Deku/Ochako, and Calvin/Susie, just don't appeal to me for being too vanilla. Or in Calvin/Susie case, the opposite, where they obviously hate each other, and there's not even a hint at attraction. Meanwhile hated ships, like Danny/Sam or Marinette/Adrien are ships I like that probably everyone hates.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top