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What's Your Fandom Pet Peeve?

misskitten

Hello Sweetie!
Joined
Jun 18, 2011
Location
Norway
I stay away from fanfiction, but it's not like it's completely out of my life. I'll go onto sites like tumblr, see a nice gif of a scene, and then a 30 paragraph long explanation about it. What's worse is that a lot of people don't tag that stuff, so what am I to do? I have this giant *** post on my dashboard that's hard to scroll by, because it's undeniably going to be reblogged by quite a few people -- people I'm following.

I can understand the pet peeve being about fanfiction being posted on sites like tumblr (meaning whole fics and not just a rec/fic info with link). I personally love fanfiction, but I don't think sites like tumblr really is a good place to post them.
 

Dragoncat

Twilit wildcat: Aerofelis
On incest ships: I totally agree...but if its a medieval thing and the characters in question are royals, I can see some of it happening. It's disgusting and wrong by today's standards, but it was common back then because the royalty would refuse to marry anyone below them. And if there was nobody suitable in another country/area's royal family...yeah. I think it was mostly cousins though, but I'm not sure.

That being said, I still disagree with every incest pairing I've seen. Granted I've only seen one: Erika and Ephriam from Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones. They're twins...people ship them. Even though there are tons of other possibilities. FE is a series that has a lot of playable characters in any given game. And Sacred Stones has the most royal playable characters out of the ones I've played. So that tells me that the people who support that pairing...I don't want to read their minds, let's just say that.
 
Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
California
MPreg...
Incest-the minute I see that crap I start looking for a different story, sorry but that's just nasty
Animated Animal on Animal porking, if I wanna see that I'll watch a nature documentary on NatGeo. (Here's looking at you FIM community please keep your freaky beastiality fantasies to yourselves and only to yourselves) I don't want to go looking for some cute vintage My Little Pony toys or custom Ponies only to have my brain tormented by that!
 
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Krazy4Krash

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jun 15, 2010
Location
'straya
I'm not sure how much this applies, since I'm sure most people who do it aren't aware they are doing such, but people who pronounce "Smash Bros." or "Mario Bros." as you spell it. My lord, I cringe every time without fail.

Bros. is short for Brothers; it's shorthand. The period should make it entirely obvious. Pronouncing it as "Bros" is like reading "Dr." as "Der" instead of "Doctor". It's not a word! Don't say it that way! You will never hear any Nintendo representative say "Bros" in a formal context.

I'm fine with the casual abbreviation of brother as "bro" to describe a mate, and in that case, two mates would be "your bros", but not ever when talking about Super Smash Bros. I need to smack the person upside the head when they do that.
 

Dragoncat

Twilit wildcat: Aerofelis
MPreg...
Incest-the minute I see that crap I start looking for a different story, sorry but that's just nasty
Animated Animal on Animal porking, if I wanna see that I'll watch a nature documentary on NatGeo. (Here's looking at you FIM community please keep your freaky beastiality fantasies to yourselves and only to yourselves) I don't want to go looking for some cute vintage My Little Pony toys or custom Ponies only to have my brain tormented by that!
Agreed...
 
Joined
Sep 23, 2013
Location
United States
MPreg...
Incest-the minute I see that crap I start looking for a different story, sorry but that's just nasty
Animated Animal on Animal porking, if I wanna see that I'll watch a nature documentary on NatGeo. (Here's looking at you FIM community please keep your freaky beastiality fantasies to yourselves and only to yourselves) I don't want to go looking for some cute vintage My Little Pony toys or custom Ponies only to have my brain tormented by that!

I agree with you. I really hate it when they do this. Where are your standards, people?
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
I personally hate how clique-y some fandoms get. Take the Tales fandom (Tales of... series, an RPG series developed by Namco): I joined the official series' boards way back in the day. Holy crap, they basically hated everything. Like Tales of Symphonia? Like Tales of Destiny 2 (the real one, not Eternia)? Support the canon pairing StahnxRutee? There was always someone that would tear you apart for your opinion. Sure, you expect some people to disagree, but they could be vicious.

Refer to the series' first protagonist by his English name as opposed to his Japanese name? Them be fightin' words 'round those parts. Strangely, they would refer to the series' second protagonist and the other characters by their English names just fine, but they were VEHEMENTLY against any English names for the first game. Yeah, I get the localization wasn't great, but a lot of them would act like you were SO wrong for using the official English names.

All fandoms can behave like this, though the Fire Emblem boards I was on were MUCH friendlier than the Tales ones. Who knows, maybe the Tales fans settled down by now.
 

Blue Canary

Your Friendly Neighborhood S***poster
Joined
Feb 11, 2012
Location
Right Behind You
Gender
Trash Can
I have a lot. Too many to name. However, I really hate the people who are super competitive about Pokémon and critizize people for trying to have fun and not try to hard. However, I also hate people who think that anyone who is competitive thinks that way.
 

Stitch

AKA Patrick
Joined
Aug 13, 2013
When people ridicule people for not liking the same things as they do or having a different opinion about something than them. This is kind of a pet peeve about people in general, but it seems to get worse when you bring fandoms into the equation.
 

Heroine of Time

Rest in peace, Paris Caper...
Joined
Aug 6, 2011
Location
Whiterun
Gender
Take a guess.
I used to be very involved in the world of Zelda fanfiction, but my interest in it has dwindled in the past year or so. And I think it's because I've become jaded. I can't figure out if it's because I've read all the good stories available -- which it often feels like -- or if I've just experienced so much fanfiction that I've set my standards impossibly high and always end up disappointed. The latter seems more likely, since I have some stories on my favorites list that I would never read now that I haven't even touched in years, that I don't even recall the plot of. I think as I read more and more stories, I started to get a better grasp on what a good fanfiction was like and what I enjoyed about them, so I lost interest in a lot of the mediocre stories on there...

But, since this thread is about fandom pet peeves, I'm going to talk about my biggest one in the Zelda fandom. It's Dark Link. Just... Dark Link in general. I hate him. I like him in the game as an enemy -- I have an Ocarina of Time 3D file that literally just exists so I can go fight him whenever I want to because it's so much fun -- but the fandom has turned him into this really annoying character that I hate so much. He's just supposed to be the "cool" guy, and whenever we get a new game, everyone's BEGGING for him to come back. It's just frustrating now. I like Dark Link as being a mysterious, mindless manifestation of darkness that uses your own moves against you. That's cool. Turning him into a full-blown villain would just ruin his image in my opinion.

Dark Link ruined one of my favorite fanfictions for me, in fact. One of my favorite stories of all time began incorporating him, and I lost interest in the story completely. He was okay at first -- Dark Link was kind of a behind-the-scenes sort of character... but then he took on a major role and I started disliking him and by extension the story more and more before I just stopped reading updates completely. I feel very disappointed in that story -- they had an excellent set-up, beautiful command of language, and, the reason I'm the most disappointed, a really, really good original villain. He had motivation, backstory, personality, and he was simultaneously likable and detestable... He was fantastic. And then they replaced him with the cliché that is Dark Link. It's very annoying when Dark Link gets his own personality in these stories, since in the game, there's not even evidence that he can TALK.

Dark Link CAN be pulled off well, of course. But it's difficult, and I'm very picky. These days I just avoid stories with Dark Link in them entirely. (Well, to be fair, I pretty much avoid fanfiction entirely now, aside from rereading my old favorites every now and then...)

As far as other clichés that I hate go... Well, self-inserts annoy me, but since I don't click on them, I don't know if they're really a pet peeve or not. They're just silly in my opinion and I'm not at all interested in them. And I don't like stories in which OCs are the main character. I'm VERY wary about OCs in fanfics, and if they steal too much spotlight from the canon characters, I tend to dislike the story. But they can be done well, so it's not like they're a general pet peeve.

1) OOC = Out of Character. Yes, fanfiction is a medium that anyone can make an attempt at, and you can do whatever you want in it, but it really, really bothers me when people are half-assed about characterization. They take no time to actually study the character's personality, habits, speech pattern, etc. and instead empty the character of their established personality and just tacks on whatever they feel like.

2) Applying own habits/convictions to a character regardless of what is established. This can be little things, like having a character say "Oh my Gosh" instead of "Oh my God". I actually asked an author once why they did it, and they replied that they found it improper for the character to say "Oh my God" (I wish I was kidding). Sure, it's a minor thing, but for me who tend to hear the voices in the characters, it ends up "sounding" off when I know fully well it's not something the character would say/do.

3) "Let's put everyone in high school" - to this I just have to ask; really? Here we have an interesting world, filled with characters who are interesting thanks to their established backstory and life experience - and you want to reduce all that into a teen soap? I see this happen in every single fandom I've been a part of (and I've been a part of a lot)... and it's not just human character, either. I just want to ask each and every person who does this, why they then are part pf this particular fandom - and not one of the many teen-oriented fandoms out there, if all they're interested in is making everything a high school experience...
It's funny some of the things you've mentioned. I actually like out of character stories a lot. Well, many of them can be terrible, especially when the characters are OoC for no reason at all -- but when there is an explanation or it's an AU, I really like them. There is this one story called Sacred Reliquary that I used to love (but I haven't read it in a long time, and as I've said, my standards have changed) that placed numerous Zelda characters together in a single AU Hyrule. All of the characters had vague references to the original source material, but their personalities were very different -- Rusl in particular I remember, because I could definitely see hints of his Twilight Princess personality in his character, but he was basically a bad guy for the whole story. He was a very tragic character and quite interesting to read about. (I can't really say why without spoiling anything, so...)

As far as authors placing their own habits on the character... That's complicated. In the above case, I think I'd normally take the authors side; personally I'd never say "oh my god" and it'd be hard for me to write a character saying that. But if it's the character's personality, or if they say that phrase often in the source material... then yeah, I could see where that might get annoying.

And then for the high school thing. Yes, most of them are terrible. But I highly suggest reading Hit List by zestycrouton. That story is a high school fic that excellently incorporates all the legends and magic that make Zelda what it is. It starts out a lot like any other high school fic but it really does make a comeback. It's such an enjoyable read with great characters (who, I'll add again, are slightly OoC but still fantastic) and a really good plot.
 

misskitten

Hello Sweetie!
Joined
Jun 18, 2011
Location
Norway
It's funny some of the things you've mentioned. I actually like out of character stories a lot. Well, many of them can be terrible, especially when the characters are OoC for no reason at all -- but when there is an explanation or it's an AU, I really like them. There is this one story called Sacred Reliquary that I used to love (but I haven't read it in a long time, and as I've said, my standards have changed) that placed numerous Zelda characters together in a single AU Hyrule. All of the characters had vague references to the original source material, but their personalities were very different -- Rusl in particular I remember, because I could definitely see hints of his Twilight Princess personality in his character, but he was basically a bad guy for the whole story. He was a very tragic character and quite interesting to read about. (I can't really say why without spoiling anything, so...)

As far as authors placing their own habits on the character... That's complicated. In the above case, I think I'd normally take the authors side; personally I'd never say "oh my god" and it'd be hard for me to write a character saying that. But if it's the character's personality, or if they say that phrase often in the source material... then yeah, I could see where that might get annoying.

And then for the high school thing. Yes, most of them are terrible. But I highly suggest reading Hit List by zestycrouton. That story is a high school fic that excellently incorporates all the legends and magic that make Zelda what it is. It starts out a lot like any other high school fic but it really does make a comeback. It's such an enjoyable read with great characters (who, I'll add again, are slightly OoC but still fantastic) and a really good plot.

I think we have very different perspectives on this because we read different types of fandoms. I read TV fandoms, and you read Gaming fandoms. And in Gaming fandoms you can get away with more of this because at least in some Gaming fandoms the characters aren't as defined as TV characters are. In the Zelda fandom you have some text dialogue and some actions, but the characters are more open for external input. But in a TV fandom the characters are very much established, they have distinct personalities, speech patterns, thought processes, behaviour and more.

I still think the high school thing is just unnecessary in most fandoms and for the most part just reduces fleshed out characters into stereotypical teens and it just makes me ask why?
 

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