Pet Peeves in Fanfiction

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Something that I've grown pretty tired of is the whole "immortality bad" trope. Are there circumstances and conditions that can make it miserable? Definitely! But to me it seems rather depressing that to have that much more time to see and experience life and call it nothing but a curse* for is a tad too pessimistic for my taste, especially since life is a mix of good and bad.

*the logic of using immortality as curse is frustrating,stupid, and never makes things better"this guy sure is a problem better give him an unlimited amount of time to gather resources and power, surely he won't become even worse."
 
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I think that fits more in the cliches you don't like thread. I mean you see it in fanfiction too, but I feel like it's more common in original fiction. Though I suppose it depends on what fic circles you frequent.
 
Something from Zootopia fanfics.

Sheeps are treated as either criminals seeking dominance over everyone else, or worse part of large conspiracy. Like, entire movie is about not stereotyping people and how bigotry is bad, and what do fanfic writers do? Stereotype entire group as bad guys.
 
Erebeal said:
Harry Potter then has shit like "the Golden Trio" which just sounds so inappropriately aggrandising. Similarly "brightest witch of her age" - something that as far I can tell was said like once in canon. Both horribly overused and in this really weird way that comes off as very egotistical - it's not something that Hermione should be saying about herself.
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What Remus actually said to her amounted to (paraphrased) "You're pretty smart for a thirteen year old."

Erebeal said:
iirc Ranma fic has a similar thing with the "nerima wrecking crew" or something? though I don't really know Ranma well.
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Not seen that all that much in fanfics, more in fanfic discussions. And there it is a pretty good phrase for a core feature that makes these characters so popular.
 
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Another BNHA/MHA peeve:

If Izuku has a Quirk, or if he does not express a desire to be a hero, Bakugou will have a completely different relationship with him. Bakugou won't bully Izuku if he doesn't express a desire to be a hero, even if he's Quirkless; he also won't bully him if he's got a Quirk but still wants to be a hero. Bakugou bullies Izuku because of his inferiority/superiority complex, because Izuku's goal of becoming a hero even while it's not really possible due to his Quirklessness threatens Bakugou's self-image; if Izuku thinks he can become a hero without a Quirk, what does that mean for Bakugou's worth, something determined entirely by his powerful Quirk?

So if you're writing an MHA work where Izuku has a Quirk, or doesn't want to be a hero, you really need to reconsider Bakugou's role! He might not even interact with Izuku if Izuku doesn't want to be a hero.
 
Brain Spiders said:
Are there circumstances and conditions that can easily make it miserable? Definitely!
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It's particularly bad when the form of immortality is not so immortal.
If they just spent the last 20 chapters slaughtering vampires, and one turns into a vampire, immortality isn't the problem.
There are certainly other problems with being a vampire, but there's no particular reason to jump the gun thinking "I'm doomed to outlive all my friends and family!"

They can't even survive a sunny day, they aren't going to make it to the heat death of the universe.

The timing is an issue too.

If someone is 100 years old and spent the last decade attending funerals, then they might be a bit depressed.
If they are 20 years old, and just became immortal 10 minutes ago, it seems preemptive to start worrying about it.

But the author is in a rush to start the emo-phase, and they can't find anything else to complain about the over-powered super-human status, so the character has to immediately start moping about funerals.
 
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Or when they're like 'I couldn't survive seeing my friends die' when they're friends with people who are 20+ years older than them. Newsflash, buddy, you're gonna see it happen unless you die.
 
New Peeve: "I'm going to ignore you trying to speak with me, because I know what you are going to say, and I don't want to hear it!"

Even when this doesn't turn into "no, they weren't trying to apologize or whatever, they were trying to warn you about an imminent disaster / your friend being in the hospital / whatever, but you ignored it and are now caught off guard", it is still a concept that is rooted in the utterly moronic idea of "my assumptions are better than facts".

Unless you know the future, you won't actually know what someone is going to say before they say it. Pattern recognition can be a guide, but it is not fool-proof, and it only works by you continuing to take in information to refine it. People and circumstances change, and having your character shut themself off from someone they are angry at because they think they know everything that person could possibly tell them is just a way of gluing the idiot ball to your character's forehead.
 
It also has some tricky timing.
It might work if they just don't want to listen to anything the person says, so they approach and get cut off, but in text they usually try to start the sentence and have the person interrupt.
And the interruption is specific to the sentence.
Or even worse, the response requires further calculation.

I don't know about other people, but I'm not that quick off the mark.
When a person starts talking, they can usually reach the second phrase before I catch up.
 
LordCirce said:
New Peeve: "I'm going to ignore you trying to speak with me, because I know what you are going to say, and I don't want to hear it!"

Even when this doesn't turn into "no, they weren't trying to apologize or whatever, they were trying to warn you about an imminent disaster / your friend being in the hospital / whatever, but you ignored it and are now caught off guard", it is still a concept that is rooted in the utterly moronic idea of "my assumptions are better than facts".

Unless you know the future, you won't actually know what someone is going to say before they say it. Pattern recognition can be a guide, but it is not fool-proof, and it only works by you continuing to take in information to refine it. People and circumstances change, and having your character shut themself off from someone they are angry at because they think they know everything that person could possibly tell them is just a way of gluing the idiot ball to your character's forehead.
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Oh yeah. This one appears in non-fanfic too, but I feel like I've run into it overwhelmingly more in fanfic, and it's often deeply annoying.
 
I get that it's a peeve, but it's also... just how a lot of people act in reality? It's (mostly) dumb, but that doesn't make it not something that happens?
 
There's also the fact that fiction tends towards a Heightened Reality, where they are more extreme and more dramatic, and higher stakes, and more absolute positions.

So if two friends get into an argument about the last microwave burrito and one refuses to listen, that's one thing.
When a fictional character is talking about cracking the planet in half, and refuses to listen, it's something else.

Normal behavior can give a different impression in abnormal circumstances.
Is the character insane? Stupid? Mind controlled?
 
Why is it that any fictional heroic character would join up with the xenophobic Imperium of Man?

"The Bloodiest and Cruelest regime imaginable"

The Doomslayer attacked his superior and was sent to Mars as punishment because he refused to attack civilians.
 
Konradleijon said:
Why is it that any fictional heroic character would join up with the xenophobic Imperium of Man?

"The Bloodiest and Cruelest regime imaginable"

The Doomslayer attacked his superior and was sent to Mars as punishment because he refused to attack civilians.
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Because the other options are
A) The demons who eat babies
B) The mushroom men who murder people because they find it fun
C) The space elves who think you're little better than cattle
D) The evil space elves who torture you because they derive nourishment from your suffering
E) The planet devouring space locusts
F) The genocidal robot skeletons
G) The blue space people who sterilize anybody they can't mind control.

Yes, the Imperium is fucking awful but the other options are definitely steps down from that low bar.
 
Konradleijon said:
Why is it that any fictional heroic character would join up with the xenophobic Imperium of Man?

"The Bloodiest and Cruelest regime imaginable"

The Doomslayer attacked his superior and was sent to Mars as punishment because he refused to attack civilians.
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Because Black Library books are Imperium centric and you want your characters at least somewhat likeable so people forget that the Imperium is the literal worst.

And also people who take the in universe propaganda as fact, as shown by the post below yours.
 
UltimateGrr said:
Because the other options are
A) The demons who eat babies
B) The mushroom men who murder people because they find it fun
C) The space elves who think you're little better than cattle
D) The evil space elves who torture you because they derive nourishment from your suffering
E) The planet devouring space locusts
F) The genocidal robot skeletons
G) The blue space people who sterilize anybody they can't mind control.

Yes, the Imperium is fucking awful but the other options are definitely steps down from that low bar.
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I mean, that's thing isn't it?

GW wants to have their cake and eat it.

To be in the Imperium of Man (as per basically every WH40K product ever) is to "live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable".

...Apart from all the icky aliens, they're totes worse and more cruel, and more bloody, just trust us bro.
 
Terpsichorë said:
I mean, that's thing isn't it?

GW wants to have their cake and eat it.

To be in the Imperium of Man (as per basically every WH40K product ever) is to "live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable".

...Apart from all the icky aliens, they're totes worse and more cruel, and more bloody, just trust us bro.
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Sort of. The Imperium is only the least shitty if you are actually human. The Craftworld Eldar are great people, as long as you're also an Eldar. The Orks are happy with how their society works and enjoy their lives. The Imperium sucks even if you are human.
 
UltimateGrr said:
Because the other options are
A) The demons who eat babies
B) The mushroom men who murder people because they find it fun
C) The space elves who think you're little better than cattle
D) The evil space elves who torture you because they derive nourishment from your suffering
E) The planet devouring space locusts
F) The genocidal robot skeletons
G) The blue space people who sterilize anybody they can't mind control.

Yes, the Imperium is fucking awful but the other options are definitely steps down from that low bar.
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The Tau do not sterilize loyal Gu'vesa. The incident yoyr referring to happened in a Non-cannon Dawn of War ending. What happened in the ending is that a population of humans that has recently been put under Tau rule revolted when the IOM came back and the humans started killing their Tau neighbors.
After the Tau got control back they imprisoned the humans for high treason and put them in single sex prisons. Where they couldn't breed because single sex prision.

The mind control thing has never been confirmed and even if they did it would only work with Tau.

Why does that myth spread.

The Craftworld Eldar or Tau seem much more appealing to people like Doomguy.
 
The Craftworlders are also not all xenophobic. The most xenophobic and militaristic one once encountered humans trying to settle a Maiden World (something precious), and gave them the choice to leave or die. Can you imagine any Imperial doing that?

But I can imagine the T'au doing that, too. So here's your two better choices to help than the Imperium.
 
Somic said:
The Craftworlders are also not all xenophobic. The most xenophobic and militaristic one once encountered humans trying to settle a Maiden World (something precious), and gave them the choice to leave or die. Can you imagine any Imperial doing that?

But I can imagine the T'au doing that, too. So here's your two better choices to help than the Imperium.
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Yes the fanbase seems to despise the Tau and Eldar and always try to portray them in the worse way possible.

Not helped by many fans never actually reading the lore from Codexes or books and just get it from the memes.

They say the setting has "no good guys" but then try to justify everything the IOM does while demoize the Tau and Eldar for doing far less evil actions.

Even the idea of Eldar who consider themselves superior to filthy Mon'Kiegh is while true far more complicated. Craftworlders have to train themselves into a war mask to be able to kill and feel bad about killing anything even Mon'Keigh without.

Also the IOM regularly attacks and kills Eldar and sends their souls to the wanting maw of Slaansh and otherwise fuck shit up.
Even the Dark Eldar known for their belief in Eldar superiority hardly treat other Eldar much better. They have also been known to form alliances with other species if it benefits them like using Slyths as bodyguards.


I want to see a 40k/insert franchise crossover fanfiction where the characters see the IOM decide they are fucked up and then hang out with the Eldar or Tau instead for being less xenophobic bastards.
Renu said:
The Gue'Vesa are also happier than Imperial humans.
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Yes they have a basic standard of living that would be considered high quality when compared to modern day earth. Even if Gu'vesa are treated as less than Tau they are still treated far better than 99.99% of Imperium populace. Heck the Tau treat people who rebelled against their Empire far better then how almost anyone else treats loyal citizens.
 
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