Hate, in the snuggly puppy spoon-feed you soup kinda way.
I don't have much of a problem with fluff in principle. It's not my particular cup of tea, but hey, that's just a matter of taste.
But fanfiction writers, I....I beg of you. Think before you fluff. If the pairing isn't already inclined to sidling up next to each other in parkas and sharing cocoa or buying each other chocolates... you are going to have to put in a little bit more effort to make it work. Dem's the breaks.
Take, for example, Marluxia and Vexen. Marluxia is a power-hungry, Machiavellian nobody with a calm-exterior and a habit of waving his scythe around when diplomacy fails. Vexen is an arrogant intellectual with little sympathy for the focuses of his experiments and despite his rigid belief in respect, seems to have no problem insulting those he considers beneath him.... which appears to be everyone but Xemnas.*
How does a fanperson see these two interacting, and think, well hey. I bet they write beautiful poetry to each other and have the CUTEST pillowfights. X3!!!
The thing is... you can make fluff work. Even for this pairing. I've seen it done. In fact, to do something so improbable and do it well is more enjoyable a read than just mere extensions of canon. It's downright /creative/.
As long as you DONOTDONOTDONOT cutback on proper characterization in order to do so. An AU? Fine. Playing around a bit with some open-ended or interpretative bits of canon? Coolio.
But if you don't have them in character then what, honestly, is the point? If you have to fundamentally alter who a character is in order to please yourself or your story, then either something is fishy with your plot or you really simply do not like the characters for who they are. You like who you think the character *should* be, or only for aesthetic value.
And if you write an AU, a fluff piece, or anything..even just for mindless self-indulgence, you have to realize that others don't click a story claiming to be about Xigbar or Xemnas or whoever with the desire or expectation to read about someone else who happens to look like them and share a name.
Not so much an issue by my own logic, right? I mean, let the writers do what they want if it makes them happy, no skin off my back to backclick on a badly done fic. Except that has anyone ran a search for 411 lately?
D:
Fluff seems to be the default for this pairing nowadays, which makes little to no sense to me**. Sure, the non-con stuff can get get as hackneyed as anything, but at the very least if not being more probable or likely than fluff it can*** be done with Marluxia still being a dick.
Some of these authors are still probably young, and I can forgive that, but I do think that there are lot of fluff authors out there (and conversely, hardcore non-con authors who write about more benign characters raping and murdering each other on a regular basis for no discernible reason) who really need to stop and think about whether or not they actually like these characters. Because I do believe you have to, to some degree, accurately understand or grasp a character's personality or motives in order to actually, truly like them
/rant that has doubtlessly already been ranted.
*see: me acknowledging that is my personal entirely fallible grasp of canon
**le ditto ^
***operative
But fanfiction writers, I....I beg of you. Think before you fluff. If the pairing isn't already inclined to sidling up next to each other in parkas and sharing cocoa or buying each other chocolates... you are going to have to put in a little bit more effort to make it work. Dem's the breaks.
Take, for example, Marluxia and Vexen. Marluxia is a power-hungry, Machiavellian nobody with a calm-exterior and a habit of waving his scythe around when diplomacy fails. Vexen is an arrogant intellectual with little sympathy for the focuses of his experiments and despite his rigid belief in respect, seems to have no problem insulting those he considers beneath him.... which appears to be everyone but Xemnas.*
How does a fanperson see these two interacting, and think, well hey. I bet they write beautiful poetry to each other and have the CUTEST pillowfights. X3!!!
The thing is... you can make fluff work. Even for this pairing. I've seen it done. In fact, to do something so improbable and do it well is more enjoyable a read than just mere extensions of canon. It's downright /creative/.
As long as you DONOTDONOTDONOT cutback on proper characterization in order to do so. An AU? Fine. Playing around a bit with some open-ended or interpretative bits of canon? Coolio.
But if you don't have them in character then what, honestly, is the point? If you have to fundamentally alter who a character is in order to please yourself or your story, then either something is fishy with your plot or you really simply do not like the characters for who they are. You like who you think the character *should* be, or only for aesthetic value.
And if you write an AU, a fluff piece, or anything..even just for mindless self-indulgence, you have to realize that others don't click a story claiming to be about Xigbar or Xemnas or whoever with the desire or expectation to read about someone else who happens to look like them and share a name.
Not so much an issue by my own logic, right? I mean, let the writers do what they want if it makes them happy, no skin off my back to backclick on a badly done fic. Except that has anyone ran a search for 411 lately?
D:
Fluff seems to be the default for this pairing nowadays, which makes little to no sense to me**. Sure, the non-con stuff can get get as hackneyed as anything, but at the very least if not being more probable or likely than fluff it can*** be done with Marluxia still being a dick.
Some of these authors are still probably young, and I can forgive that, but I do think that there are lot of fluff authors out there (and conversely, hardcore non-con authors who write about more benign characters raping and murdering each other on a regular basis for no discernible reason) who really need to stop and think about whether or not they actually like these characters. Because I do believe you have to, to some degree, accurately understand or grasp a character's personality or motives in order to actually, truly like them
/rant that has doubtlessly already been ranted.
*see: me acknowledging that is my personal entirely fallible grasp of canon
**le ditto ^
***operative