Congrats to Bay. Now, if only I could find the same drive.
Actually, how about I make it another topic to throw into the emboldenizer?
Gasp! Plot bunnies are on the attack, but you've got a brainchild to save! How do you keep from wandering off onto those other stories and leaving a poor abandoned fanfiction neglected and in the cold?
I'd answer this myself... except I actually have a problem with this. *whistles innocently and puts up yet another promise to finish MKD*
When they rip out the story and make a chapter full of random garbage.
...How many fanfics actually do this? Because I've only been reading chapters with relevant content. O_o
Except those ones that spout random crap to begin with, complete with the author's excuse being "I was high on sugar." That used to be the in thing to do. Now they just don't care enough to use an excuse at all, much less any sort of plot. Or humor. Oh, random fics. I used to write you all the time.
Anyway.
What do you hate most in fan-fictions?
Uh... wow. That's a broad topic right there.
So, instead, I'm going to break it down.
Jax's Fanfiction Rants In a Nutshell
Now with 30% more tangents!
Author's Attitude
1. Kids bragging about their fanfiction, saying they were well received elsewhere. We don't give a crap because we're not the same as an almost unheard-of board. Sorry, but it's true.
1a. Likewise, kids saying, "omg, my fanfiction is better than anything else here." Chances are, it's probably not.
2. Kids saying, "It's fanfiction, so I can do whatever I want!" No, you can't. Sorry, but that's the entire point to the word "fan" right there.
3. Kids saying, "No one cares about grammar/spelling!" Yes, we do. Seeing text that essentially says, "omglolololol and then she got a evie n said omg u r my pkmn!" is fine if you're doing one-liner posts in a chatroom. However, seeing an entire page of it makes people want to choke things cute and fluffy.
3a. So does, for that matter, people who use a disability, disorder, et cetera as an excuse. That's what a beta-reader is for. Sorry to say it, but I know someone who's practically blind and can barely see the screen for long periods of time and can still write awesome fic quite frequently.
Formatting
1. Anything but the default. Sorry, but I came to try reading your fanfiction, and if I can't because you decide to make your story
*~*~*~*pretty*~*~*~* because it's
*~*~*~*artistic*~*~*~*, chances are, what you're really doing is making me want to claw my eyes out because it actually physically hurts to read your story. Keeping in mind that I'm usually drunk, tired, hungover, in a dark room, or a combination of the above when I decide to fulfill review requests by going to your story, so yes.
Characterization
1. Lead character + lead character = OTP. It happens all the time, and while that floats a
lot of people's boats, I cringe when I see a male and a female character decide to travel with each other now because of this. It does
not, however, make me decide against continuing. I'm just saying it makes me cry because I know where this is going.
2. Recycled characters. If I have read an earlier work of yours (
including RPGs) and am now reading a completely different and unrelated story that features the exact same character, that makes me hit the back button because it feels uncreative and like a lead-up to a Mary Sue, considering this must be your *~*favorite character ever*~*, given you won't let the stupid thing go.
2a. Canon characters don't count, nor do fanfics in the same universe. Obvious reasons here.
3. Badass male leads. Badass females are fine by me because I'm a bit of a feminist (or I enjoy watching men get beaten up by women), but to have a badass male -- usually dressed all in black and sporting kung-fu skills, firearm mastery, incredible talents with either magic or pokémon, or some combination of these or other traits that make them badass -- is just playing too much with masculine stereotypes. It's like the guys
have to be awesome and hard in order to be main characters, but no, really, they don't. In fact, I much prefer my men to either be classy or wusses. Or even both. (Oh, Bill. I love writing about you.) Point is, it's just overdone and, frankly, not as interesting as watching a badass woman (and
not the kind that just look pretty and give the badass male a hard time) and/or a not-so-hard man.
4. For that matter, predictable villains. Is your villain clearly evil? Are they trying to take over the world with a basic "capture this pokémon or get this mystical item + ??? = PROFIT" plan that isn't further detailed except to rape a prophecy or two? And is your clearly good character going over to try to stop them? Yeah, uh, sorry. While canon is full of these, it captures my interest even more if the actual antagonist
isn't clearly defined. Mindscrew is awesome, guys, when it's done right. If you want a classic example, try The World Ends With You, where you don't know who's actually the villain until literally the last five minutes of the game. The ending made me flail and play that chapter over and over and over again, just because it's so awesome I can't even begin to describe it. (Not that I should because of its status as MASSIVE SPOILER HOLY CRAP.)
Oddly enough, I'm not as against general Mary Sues as I used to be. The reason why is because they just amuse me now.
Plot
1. Same plot, different names. As in, you read a fanfiction and say to yourself, "Oh, that's really cool! I'm going to do the same exact thing, only the names will be different! :D" Uh, please no. I can't tell you how many variations of essentially the same story have popped up since the advent of this fandom. Yes, the fandom is old. No, that doesn't mean you can't come up with something new and original. After all, how many fanfics have you read in this fandom about alien parasites that turn their human hosts into mutant, bloodthirsty (literally), sociopathic pokémon? If the answer is more than one, I'd like a link to the other one. No, seriously. This fandom needs more hard sci-fi. You'd think we'd have more of it because there's a lot of BS and Disney science, but unfortunately, no. (Come on, guys. There were people in the anime who are convinced pokémon came from space.
Space, guys!)
1a. This includes, "I was inspired to do this by X's fanfiction." Yeah, uh, to me, that just says, "I'm too uncreative to come up with my own plot, so here's a rehashing of a fanfiction by someone who did it better."
1b. This also includes, "I'm going to be taking the standard tropes of this genre and
not make a parody out of them because that's what makes this kind of fanfiction." For example, the kids in OT plots waking up late and getting unconventional starters as a result. Seriously, guys, are you
all Ash Ketchum? You... you really can't think of any other way to start your story? Really?
2. PWP. It works for smut fic, not for anything serious.
3. Pointless comedy, usually stuff that relies on drugs, sex, swearing, and bodily functions to be humorous. No, saying the F word is not funny by itself.
There's probably more, but that's basically what makes me really cringe when reading a story.