What annoys you in fic?
Open Season, folks. Post what drives you crazy in fanfics, what makes you roll your eyes and go "not again" or fight an urge to stab the author with a rusty knife. It can be general (e.g. "twincest sucks") or fandom specific ("how can anyone have Jedi eat hamburgers?"), long or short. Rant and vent away. Oh, and anonymous posting is enabled, as it always is.
I'll start. My pet peeves:
Song fic
I don't care if you think Celine Dion or Linkin Park is the coolest thing ever to happen to music. Chances are, an ancient Greek or a futuristic alien would have never heard of either of them. Moreover, if all I wanted to do was to read lyrics for a song as opposed to fanfic, I'd read liner notes. If your fic is two-thirds someone else's words, I am forced to conclude you have no imagination.
Author Notes in the middle of the story itself
Should lead to instant strangulation.
We are friends? I am your sister? We shook hands once? It means we are so doing the nasty
No, not everything is about burning secret love, crossing the boundaries of sexual orientation and familial taboo. According to this logic, every person who isn't an orphan and has been on a deserted island his whole life, has had way too much sex. F-R-I-E-N-D-S. And F-A-M-I-L-Y. Look it up in the dictionary. I guarantee neither one has "fuck buddies" listed as synonyms. It is possible to interact for *gasp* hours with another person without wanting to shag them senseless. Oh, and incest fic? Incest is sick, sorry. If you write it as a disturbed thing, fine. But happy flowers and kittens are not for that particular thing.
Bwa-ha-ha. You know how you like those 19th century English Gentry, or alien robots, or Jedi, or Japanese samurai? Well, they are even cooler now because they are in HIGH SCHOOL
High school was boring enough the first time around. Besides, robots would bust metal detectors and so will the samurai, and the gentry have already had a good classical education, thank you very much.
OMG! My arms/legs/neck are broken but I can still have a marathon sex session
Fanfic biology and earth biology have nothing in common. If your arms are broken, you are more likely to holler for painkillers than act out the kama sutra. Come on, stupid fanfic author, I am sure you've had a cold or a flu. Does it make you amorous? No, it makes you want to drink tea and sleep. The only thing these fanfics evoke in me is a strong desire to break the author's arms so she won't get to the keyboard. We can see if her sexual urges will spike when she is in traction.
Corollary: I was raped/horribly abused/mentally tortured. I need the healing sex
I would imagine a person is more likely not to want to have sex or to find an enemy to off, rather than to engage in pillow games with an OTP of their choice. Screwing up a person does not lead to screwing of a person.
Strong women in canon are helpless so the male can rescue them
Why? If you like childlike, helpless women, I guess it's your own business, but why write in fandoms with strong women in the first place? Why are you even attracted to the fandoms? I have lost count of stories which are made AU for the sheer purpose of Buffy being a helpless girl rescued by big strong Angel or Spike, stories where Kara becomes a snivelling, nightmare-ridden girlie to be comforted and impregnated by Lee, or where Misao loses her spunky cheery attitude and weeps while she slashes her wrists, feebly.
M-preg
I've heard of chicks with dicks, but that is going beyond it. Into the "I want to disembowel you with a rusty knife" territory. If a biologist won't get to you first.
Men who have feeeeeelings
Yes, you are a girl. Yes, it's hard to write men believably. This does not mean that you must have them constantly weeping, fainting, confessing emo secrets and discussing said secrets ad nauseam, and generally talking and behaving like 14 year old girls with PMS.
Turning staight characters gay and gay characters straight
Why? I will use Peacemaker Kurogane as an example. It has straight couples, a gay couple, and a huge number of characters where their sexual orientation is not specified so you can write anything you like. But no, we have Tetsu slash (why? He is one of two indubitably straight men in the show) and Okita getting female Mary Sues. Why? It can't be that you want to write slash and can't, or het and can't, without bending canon.
I like het. I like slash. But if you make a gay character straight or vice versa, you better have a better explanation than "All of a sudden, X really liked girls/boys." Ugh.
Fake Japanese
I've discovered this wonderful thing once I got into anime. Characters in canon speak Japanese, not English with Japanese words thrown in. So either you translate the whole thing (in which case your fanfic is entirely in Japanese, good for you) or it's in English. And this is not to mention all the anime where the language wouldn't be Japanese: I doubt the denizens of Gaia or the protagonists of Trigun speak Japanese.
Babies
Lovely creatures. And OK when they exist in canon. But no, Kara isn't suddenly going to want to be a baby factory. The last person who espoused that idea on the show ended up with a broken piece of glass sticking out of his jugular. Warning?
"I love you, Character X, even though we've never spoken in canon"
Harry/Ginny? Great, it's canon. Harry/Hermione? Also plenty of interaction in canon. Ron/Pansy? Unlikely. I have no problem with UC fics of such nature, but they better have some set up. If a fic starts with "I have always loved you, Legolas, whispered Rosie Cotton," I am out of there. And I would love to sic Gollum on the author.
Anyone going to Hogwarts. Who is not created by J.K. Rowling
Do I need to even explain this? If I had a cent for every American transfer student, Elf, or Star Wars who character ended up in Hogwarts, I'd have enough money to close ff.net forever.
I am sooooo dark. Look at my darkness and despair
You are also in eighth grade, mentally. I like good dark fic, but with disclaimers like this, your story's true darkness is only in how bad it is.
"Give me reviews or I won't write"
'nuff said.
"Better than the summary, I swear"
Never is.
Character X changed over the summer. He/she developed breasts/pecs and now everyone wanted him/her."
Canon character made into Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Is there anything sadder?
Gandalf's offspring
Gandalf. Does Not. Have a Daughter. Don't make me hurt you.
Yours?
I'll start. My pet peeves:
Song fic
I don't care if you think Celine Dion or Linkin Park is the coolest thing ever to happen to music. Chances are, an ancient Greek or a futuristic alien would have never heard of either of them. Moreover, if all I wanted to do was to read lyrics for a song as opposed to fanfic, I'd read liner notes. If your fic is two-thirds someone else's words, I am forced to conclude you have no imagination.
Author Notes in the middle of the story itself
Should lead to instant strangulation.
We are friends? I am your sister? We shook hands once? It means we are so doing the nasty
No, not everything is about burning secret love, crossing the boundaries of sexual orientation and familial taboo. According to this logic, every person who isn't an orphan and has been on a deserted island his whole life, has had way too much sex. F-R-I-E-N-D-S. And F-A-M-I-L-Y. Look it up in the dictionary. I guarantee neither one has "fuck buddies" listed as synonyms. It is possible to interact for *gasp* hours with another person without wanting to shag them senseless. Oh, and incest fic? Incest is sick, sorry. If you write it as a disturbed thing, fine. But happy flowers and kittens are not for that particular thing.
Bwa-ha-ha. You know how you like those 19th century English Gentry, or alien robots, or Jedi, or Japanese samurai? Well, they are even cooler now because they are in HIGH SCHOOL
High school was boring enough the first time around. Besides, robots would bust metal detectors and so will the samurai, and the gentry have already had a good classical education, thank you very much.
OMG! My arms/legs/neck are broken but I can still have a marathon sex session
Fanfic biology and earth biology have nothing in common. If your arms are broken, you are more likely to holler for painkillers than act out the kama sutra. Come on, stupid fanfic author, I am sure you've had a cold or a flu. Does it make you amorous? No, it makes you want to drink tea and sleep. The only thing these fanfics evoke in me is a strong desire to break the author's arms so she won't get to the keyboard. We can see if her sexual urges will spike when she is in traction.
Corollary: I was raped/horribly abused/mentally tortured. I need the healing sex
I would imagine a person is more likely not to want to have sex or to find an enemy to off, rather than to engage in pillow games with an OTP of their choice. Screwing up a person does not lead to screwing of a person.
Strong women in canon are helpless so the male can rescue them
Why? If you like childlike, helpless women, I guess it's your own business, but why write in fandoms with strong women in the first place? Why are you even attracted to the fandoms? I have lost count of stories which are made AU for the sheer purpose of Buffy being a helpless girl rescued by big strong Angel or Spike, stories where Kara becomes a snivelling, nightmare-ridden girlie to be comforted and impregnated by Lee, or where Misao loses her spunky cheery attitude and weeps while she slashes her wrists, feebly.
M-preg
I've heard of chicks with dicks, but that is going beyond it. Into the "I want to disembowel you with a rusty knife" territory. If a biologist won't get to you first.
Men who have feeeeeelings
Yes, you are a girl. Yes, it's hard to write men believably. This does not mean that you must have them constantly weeping, fainting, confessing emo secrets and discussing said secrets ad nauseam, and generally talking and behaving like 14 year old girls with PMS.
Turning staight characters gay and gay characters straight
Why? I will use Peacemaker Kurogane as an example. It has straight couples, a gay couple, and a huge number of characters where their sexual orientation is not specified so you can write anything you like. But no, we have Tetsu slash (why? He is one of two indubitably straight men in the show) and Okita getting female Mary Sues. Why? It can't be that you want to write slash and can't, or het and can't, without bending canon.
I like het. I like slash. But if you make a gay character straight or vice versa, you better have a better explanation than "All of a sudden, X really liked girls/boys." Ugh.
Fake Japanese
I've discovered this wonderful thing once I got into anime. Characters in canon speak Japanese, not English with Japanese words thrown in. So either you translate the whole thing (in which case your fanfic is entirely in Japanese, good for you) or it's in English. And this is not to mention all the anime where the language wouldn't be Japanese: I doubt the denizens of Gaia or the protagonists of Trigun speak Japanese.
Babies
Lovely creatures. And OK when they exist in canon. But no, Kara isn't suddenly going to want to be a baby factory. The last person who espoused that idea on the show ended up with a broken piece of glass sticking out of his jugular. Warning?
"I love you, Character X, even though we've never spoken in canon"
Harry/Ginny? Great, it's canon. Harry/Hermione? Also plenty of interaction in canon. Ron/Pansy? Unlikely. I have no problem with UC fics of such nature, but they better have some set up. If a fic starts with "I have always loved you, Legolas, whispered Rosie Cotton," I am out of there. And I would love to sic Gollum on the author.
Anyone going to Hogwarts. Who is not created by J.K. Rowling
Do I need to even explain this? If I had a cent for every American transfer student, Elf, or Star Wars who character ended up in Hogwarts, I'd have enough money to close ff.net forever.
I am sooooo dark. Look at my darkness and despair
You are also in eighth grade, mentally. I like good dark fic, but with disclaimers like this, your story's true darkness is only in how bad it is.
"Give me reviews or I won't write"
'nuff said.
"Better than the summary, I swear"
Never is.
Character X changed over the summer. He/she developed breasts/pecs and now everyone wanted him/her."
Canon character made into Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Is there anything sadder?
Gandalf's offspring
Gandalf. Does Not. Have a Daughter. Don't make me hurt you.
Yours?