Just what do you find in fanfiction that makes you want to hunt down the writer and beat him with a clue stick. What really gets you pissed off?
My pet peeves:
1.) 'Village Cast'
Despite the cast showing mostly hetreosexual tendancies, they entire cast ends up in gay relationships-- many with no explainations as to why.
Ken is gay and he convinces bi-sexual Daisuke to do some loving... I can sort of accpet that.
Daisuke was just confused about Hikari. He was always gay and just loves his Ken-chan. Iori and Takeru are the 'best of friends.' So are Hikari and Miyako, Sora and Mimi, Taichi and Yamato, Ryo and Osamu, etc.... WTF?! If every living person is gay, how the hell do babies get born?
It's mind boogling how many 'the how cast is gay' there are, when canon straight pairing involving them are nearly non-existent. I've seen two Yusuke/Keiko lemons and dozens of Yusuke/some guy. Keiko was freaking screwing Yusuke DURING the series.
2.) Did the author actually see the series?
Characterization isn't just bad, it's horrid. 'Rika sobs because she scratches her knee and Henry kisses away her tears.' The dub didn't fuck Ruki that much. She's still one tough bitch. Her crying about anything is out of character. The sad thing is, there are ficts, yes plural-- as in more than one, posted on FF.net where that is the summary for the fict.
3.) Para-ficts and Para-dialogue.
Para-fict: A fict that's just one long blob of text. Where the author didn't take the time to break it up into appropriate paragraphs.
Para-dialogue: A 'paragraph' where a dozen people speak in it. Each time there's a new speaker, it's a new paragraph.
4.) Ignorance is not bliss
I don't expect the writer to be well versed in Japanese culture, but it gets annoying to see things that go against their society, and especially their laws.
Odaiba is a small island where anywhere you want to go is in walking distance. But Taichi having a car in high school is not only impractical, he's too young to get a drivers license until he turns eighteen. He could have a moped, but that's it.
A little research can go a long way to add realism to a story.
A japanese culture guide might be pretty helpful!
But for most of your points, I really agree. I think that in their quest to discover original subjects, authors sometime come up with decidedly odd and misdirected plots. Of course, I am giving them the benefit of the boubt here by being so nice to them!
I thought this was an Anti-fanfiction.net post, lol. Oh well, with that many fics coming in they can't all be literary masterpieces, can they?
Anyone who writes other authors, or even worse, themselves getting it on with characters from the show. Almost as bad, making themselves ultra-powerful ultra-honorable sword-swinging evil-with-a-bad-past characters. ::Shudders:: Sure it's nice to picture yourself that way, but keep the hubris in the pants, people!
Adding to the points above, I can only think of this one right now:
Missing disclaimers/summaries about the nature/couple of the fic.
Sometimes the disclaimer is like "This lemon includes Guilmon!" and the fic is a horrible "Guilmon fucks Takato, is then raped and tortured by Yamaki, Reika and Ruki and then commits suicide by jumping down the Grand Canyon" fic where the scene when Guilmon's body crashes on the ground is far more detailed than all lemon scenes COMBINED. Yes yes I know. I don't have to read it to the end, but I always hope that the weirdness ends somewhere before the end...
In return I also dislike people flaming authors because they skipped the detailed disclaimer and were then disappointed/disgusted by the lemon.
Okay, those are not really points IN the lemon, but boy do they piss me off.
And no, the example above is fictional as far as I know and no, this is NOT a request! *shudders*
And sorry to all Guilmon fans for using him in this example. I like Guilmon. Not my fav, but he's nice. ^^
Poor grammar is what pisses me off. When I'm reading, I like to not have to pull out my ebonics-english dictionary every two lines. Sometimes, it's even worse than that. It's really easy to click the Spell Check button before you upload a story, and if someone can't even do that, they shouldn't be writing.
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Mary Sue lemons. I absolutelt despise them. Most especially when it's just one author who goes around asking OTHER authors to do fics that have them screwing like whores with characters from the series.
(I derive this mainly from the author known as Christine. i do not hide it when i say that i hate her.) Now, Mary Sue's CAN be done properly, but NOT when they are made to be as stereotypical as they are. if you wanna have yourself in a fic, for god's sake, just dont make yourself the epitome of human perfection. Human flaws go a long way, and it doesnt hurt to keep yourself as a secondary character.
The problem with any original character is that s/he's almost always instantly dismissed as "self-insertion" or "Mary-sue". Sure, most of them are, but not all of them.
Anyway, what I really dislike are cliche plots. You can't avoid cliche all the time, but I can accept it only to a point. (You can all shoot me about that Jyou/Lola now)
Something else I dislike are fanfics in which every character is paired off. That usually results in everyone being gay (except for Takeru and Hikari who are in lurv because they've been together since Season 01), as Lord Archive pointed out, but I dislike this type of fanfic in general.
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Yeah, those are all annoying things, but how about fanfics based on celebrities? You go to www.fandomination.com, and you see hundreds of explicit slashfics featuring the band Good Charlotte. And someone there has been asking for an NC-17 fic about "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell. WHO THE FUCK WANTS TO IMAGINE SIMON COWELL NAKED?! Answer me that!
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...there's nothing wrong with liking Daniel Radcliffe in that sort of way. 7_7
What do I detest in fanfiction? I find it difficult to specify one or two particular things that haven't been mentioned -- two things that will almost always push me out are para-ficts and para-dialogue, and Lord Archive himself said.
On the other hand, I love pairing casts off, when it can be made plausible. In fact, my post-Adventure stories almost always rely on the same set of pairings, that I've already decided on. Taisora, Genmi, Koushiriko, Daitherine, Takari, Kenyako... Those are my main pairings. And I can explain how each of them happened as well, in my own continuity. At the same time, I have an alternate continuity for one of my stories where everything is different -- variety is important.
On the other hand, I hate pairings without reasoning -- the author who will write a story simply because they like the pairing. I know someone who will only write Takeru with two people. I like his work, it's good MST fodder, better for warming up than actually sharing, though. So I guess you could say that I detest Plotless Pairings, those without something to back them, at least int he author's continuity.
I love experimenting. I wrote a Loprena a while back that was tough, but fun. I'm going to be writing a Ryoki that completely turns the tables on expectations, thanks to the March Contest. And I've got one story in work that's going to flip Daisuke's idolization of Taichi to a new degree and end. So experimenting with the new is something I'm always open to.
I hate people who rely on standbys. I don't care how obvious the standby is, I don't like people who rely completely on one set of rules and pairings. Okay, maybe the person will only write what they believe in. Unfortunately, this tends to leads to Takari after Takari, just to give an example. Write something with Daisuke, expand yourself beyond Takari!
I also hate mini-canon. The type of people who write a story, and then write one that follows it, and could as soon just be chaptered off of it. Or write a story, and assume it's events are canon for all of their writings from that point on. Honestly, it disturbs me to see people who rely on writing a story, and then writing another one that relies on the other, despite being "separate" stories. If I do something like that, I tie them into a series, and don't try to make them separate.
I despise writers who give up their work. Imagine reading a story that is great, and ends in a cliffhanger... and the author doesn't write anything after that. It's not a fault of the story, but it originates where all the others do, with the author.
I suppose my biggest hate, though, is people relying on a plot device to make the story move. There are plot devices, and there are "plot devices". One is good, the other is bad. One flows naturally, the other shows signs of author-service, doing things because you (the author) can. A good plot device might be Daisuke realizing Hikari is unattainable, and turning his sights to other girls, or maybe even one in specific. A bad plot device is Hikari and Takeru getting caught in bed by Daisuke, and him pushing harder for Hikari, or forcing himself to another girl, who would probably be the Mary Sue type of character.
I hate bad plot devices above all else -- and I hate recycled ones even more (Daisuke finds Hikari with Takeru... Taichi finds Yamato with Sora... Ken find Miyako with Koushirou... etc., etc.). Authors tend to fall into those kinds of traps, and I try my best to avoid them. I look for authors who do the same.
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