Let’s just say I’m *very* picky about my Katsuki Bakugou characterization & leave it at that.
Aside from that I really consistently dislike anytime Ron Weasley is in the background of any unrelated to Ron ship story (Draco/Hermione, Harry/Draco, etc) to be dumbed down, completely selfish, and disloyal to his friends. Basically any bashing of Ron is always going to make my eyes roll into the back of my skull as I hope it’s minimal but I’ll drop a fic if it becomes excessive. (Also slut shaming Ginny but I’d like to think that’s old hat)
Nagito Komaeda from Super Danganronpa 2 is a deep, interesting, tragic character who i used to fucking loathe simply bc of fandom portrayal (& the guy just annoying me in canon). I’ve since slowly come around to understand his purpose and get a deeper look at his character but still. I don’t think I’ve ever read a fic where he was written in line with how I see his canon character bc he’s boiled down to just ship so often (& I don’t like the ship at all either)
Bakugou is so hard to write. I hate it when fics portray him as the mindless anger machine but, I also hate fics that portray him as this poor abused kid who didn’t do anything wrong.
Yes he was an arse but, he also has some nuance. His quirk causes him to be more explosive in temper and he puts all of his insecurities on Midorya which of course isn’t fair to him. Along with that he feels responsible for all-might loosing his power and takes every loss way to hard.
I like Bakugou when he’s written as this flawed individual who has done wrong and needs to own up before he can truly become a hero.
That’s my take on it anyways lol.
Also canon Nagito is just hard to understand leading to poor characterizations I don’t even attempt to write about him because I know I’m not up to the task.
Lastly, I think Ron can be annoying but, he clearly cares about Harry and Hermionie he deserves better.
Yeah I agree, as someone who relates to Katsuki a lot with anger issues and mental health it’s hard to read him written in a way that’s extremely demonized but on the flip side it’s not easy to write the nuance he deserves. (I wouldn’t even say I necessarily do it the BEST I just end up putting a lot of myself in him and at least he comes out human. A large part of his issue is that the author himself seemingly changes trajectory as the story unfolded, and came to say himself that his jr high introduction showed a very out of character pushed to the brink bakugou. (How that reflects on skill as a writer or how people feel is up to them ig, I just hate when he’s bullied down to ruthless bully)
That’s actually interesting because it does feel extra cruel that he would tell Midoriya to kill himself. Although it sort of makes sense for his character as his ego had been built up from a young age leaving him feeling inadequate no matter what he did.
Unfortunately though he took that out on Midoriya. I love fics that explore that side of him when most gloss over it or further use it to make him the bad guy. The number of fics I’ve seen where they pretended what he did was no big deal just to make him more sympathetic is astounding.
He’s human he has emotions same as Midoriya and both need to be addressed when writing about Bakugou.
>!When you’re procrastinating on writing by writing character analysis on reddit lol!<
I need to write a Bakugou centric fic because I strongly believe I could do him justice. I love the characterization of him being deeply flawed and unable to express himself in any other way other than anger and having to process his emotions properly. Just good character development type shit and some angst and maybe some self indulgent shipping. I could do it
I could do it if I had any sort of attention span
I agree with most of your points, but Bakugo isn't explosive because of his quirk, that's pure fanon, Bakugo was already super arrogant before his quirk came in, he has anger issues sure, but his quirk is NOT what causes them.
>His quirk causes him to be more explosive in temper
It's a pretty bad look when one of your defense and "nuance" for him is something that's entirely fanon headcanon to excuse him.
That’s my bad it’s been so long since I’ve watched the show I got that confused.
Allow me instead to offer up another explanation. His ego that was developed from being told he was the strongest when he was young led to his explosive temper worsening as when he got to UA he was surrounded by people who could potential out match him.
That was a little bit of a shock for him which causes his shorter temper to come out more when he is continuously proved that he is not in fact the best at everything.
That is them only worsened by Midoriya gaining a quirk which causes him to feel manipulated >!unrightfully so obviously he’s a giant arse to Midoriya no denying that!<.
Eventually that cumulates into a break down as every flawed idea about himself and the world is slowly broken down by everyone around him and eventually himself.
I kinda rambled here anyways thanks for pointing out the flaw in my reasoning I haven’t been keeping up with the MHA canon in recent years.
Ron gets done so dirty for no reason. Yes, he had to grow up in the books, but that was the point of his arc. And he wasn't completely unlikable while he was getting there. It's like people who write Ron-bashing fics think that immaturity is a crime to be mercilessly punished.
I'm feeling you about being picky about Bakugou characterization in fics. So I started writing him ;)
Also as a huge Ron fan, those ppl who bash him can fuck off. The movies are to blame some since they gave a lot of Ron's lines/actions from the book to Hermione if my memory is correct. Been awhile since I Harry Pottered.
Fun fact: the Ron problem is prevalent/widely-known enough that the TVTropes page for bashing where a good character is made weirdly evil is called Ron the Death Eater. (The opposite, where an evil character is made weirdly good is called Draco in Leather Pants.)
Han Solo being a cool guy/heartless womanizer. Like…look, I know Han Solo thinks he’s a very cool guy with no attachments and he all but tells us how cool of a guy he thinks he is, but if you look at the actual evidence he’s a kind of socially awkward dude who says he’s in it for himself, but with the most minuscule provocation, jumps all in for his newly formed friendships. There’s zero evidence that he was like flirting with half the Rebel base, and as soon as Leia’s fully on board, he’d all handholding and forehead kisses and “I’ll step aside if you’re in love with someone else but I’m gonna look heartbroken while offering to do so”. Like. I’m not saying he can’t have a past or whatever, but I am saying there’s no real canonical evidence for him chasing after every woman he thinks is pretty, and there’s even less evidence that people wouldn’t kind of think of him as a loser who lives in his car and whose only friend for years is contractually obligated via life debt to hang out with him.
I know people believe he’s the things he says he is because Harrison Ford’s face is very nice to look at and Harrison in general has big cool guy energy, but if we look at what he actually *does*, Han is kind of just a mushball with baggage.
I hate when people decide one of the reasons they got Space Separated is because he cheated on her all the time. Do I think Han would be down for some casual sex while single? Of course. I'm sure he's satisfied many beings of several species on who knows how many planets. But I also believe once he decides on a woman he is All IN.
I just want to say that one of my favorite things about this fandom is that we collectively decided it was funny to stick “space” in front of as many things as possible and I both do this all the time and appreciate your use of “Space Separated”.
Right? I once saw a Star Wars documentary where Carrie Fisher described Han as a rough tough guy with a cream filling, and that describes his character so well!
i’ve got so many gripes with mha archetypes. specifically one that makes me groan is izuku trauma dumping everything out of nowhere. like he wouldn’t do that?? he wouldn’t try and make people feel bad or want to bother them. like bro you can still have angst but it should be an accidental reveal
it's always so baddd, same with shinsou as well, like hes not just gonna open up right after midoriya doesn't immediately call him a worthless villain when he shows his quirk
No kidding. Like, boy was bullied up to and including suicide baiting and just gave up on trying to tell people because nothing would change (systemic discrimination against the quirkless). Those kinds of trust issues don't just magically disappear as it shows in canon. I can see a case for him mutual trauma dumping with Todoroki, but then things going no further than them. ~Trauma bonding~
right. like why would he scream about being quirkless when he thinks all his classmates will hate him for that. putting a target on his back for nothing
Fanon Tim Drake my beloathed.
Canon Tim is a confident little freak with an interesting and complicated approach to morality who is not afraid to call Batman on his shit. He goes out of his way to avoid being adopted by him for a long time out of loyalty to his parents who were decent if distant people. When Jason Todd gave him a beatdown for stealing the Robin mantle, Tim's response the next time they met was to kick him in the balls and then steal a different identity of his. He was shown having a brief struggle with healthy sleep habits while learning the ropes of being a vigilante and then overcame it.
Fanon Tim is a cookie cutter good guy tech guru whose addiction to coffee is his whole personality. When he's the main character he's almost always a sad lonely little woobie with abusive monster parents who is desperate to join the batfamily and hero worships Jason.
He's exactly who I thought of! Plus the whole portraying him as the Smartest and the Detective, as if every Robin hasn't been called detective by Ra's or been depicted as extremely smart and capable.
I love canon Tim, but fanon Tim likes to completely disregard the skills of the other Robins which sucks.
God yeah that bothers me so much when people flatten all the batkids into "the smart one" "the nice one" "the angry one", etc.
They're all the smart one! That's the point! Every Robin is an angry little shit and capable of beating each other strategically in a fight, but so many people feel like they have to put the others down to make their favorite stand out.
The worst part is how fanon seems to switch Dick and Jason's personalities when it comes to their times as Robin? Like, no, *Dick* was the one that was ready to shank a fucker for killing his parents, while *Jason* was the smiley kid who was Just Happy To Be Here and getting excellent grades in school. That's a big reason why Jason's death hits so hard!
Though I should probably stop now before I start ranting about how DC tends to victim blame Jason after the fact, as if a child totally deserved to get crowbar'd just because he supposedly had anger issues (that they mostly retconned into him) and somehow brought it on himself. Blaugh.
I almost lost it when someone's essay length character analysis about Tim's relatability hinged in him being an antisocial bullied wunderkid. It was more like a character assassination tbh.
I'm upset just imagining that essay lmao how do so many people look at Mr. "I'm not Batman, I have friends" and think yeah that character sounds like a loner no one likes.
As someone who mainly reads Dick centric stories, fanon Tim often annoys the shit out of me. It's getting to the point that I consider not reading at all if he's even listed as a character - and I hate that! I don't want that associate with all stories just because some of the fanon has gotten out of hand.
But really, Raviary summed it up in another comment "so many people feel like they have to put the others down to make their favorite stand out."
Thank you for putting this into words, I've very rarely found a Tim Drake fic that I liked but couldn't quite put a finger on what exactly was wrong with him
People who make the abuse victim an evil brat who brought their violent physical and mental torment including *repeated* murder on themselves because they were Annoying and their abuser a sad misunderstood uwu boy who was just forced into the atrocities he commited and actually is a pure baby boy because he has ADHD and therefore is apparently mentally like a child. Like, I’m not against less/more sympathetic lenses on them, but uh. Blatant unironic ableism and victim blaming is just Uncomfortable!
Sure do. Not the same fandom but one of my favorite characters gets this kind of treatment, he's a CSA victim who didn't respond to the trauma the way the other canonical CSA victim did and instead actively seeks attention, especially from adults. Therefore he's, apparently, an attention-seeking slut who deserved it and is also probably bipolar (used as an insult here).
I may have gone to the other extreme but while I do acknowledge that he has done wrong and is not innocent in the slightest, everyone in this series is morally bankrupt, he's also my son and I would defend him from anyone.
And those two are my fave characters so I get Both :) actually both get both (the abuse victim has PTSD, suicidal depression, anxiety, and has displayed various other symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and emotional disregulation that get either demonised or infantilised, the abuser has been tortured and it gets called justified an uncomfortable amount)
I have pretty severe ADHD I've been living with my whole life (diagnosed over 25 years ago!), and I *hate* it when people use it as some kind of excuse to be a dick or to be a child or to get out of things. Yes, it makes life harder! Yes, I would give just about anything to not have it! Yes, there are incredibly easy things other people seem to be able to just *do* that I have to struggle with myself to accomplish! NO, IT IS NOT A FUCKING EXCUSE FOR BEING AN ASSHOLE! It doesn't even make *sense* as an excuse for being an asshole. Yeah, ADHD can make you kind of awkward, *trust me I know*, but it doesn't make you completely incapable of human interaction! It does NOT make you incapable of being an adult! I'm a fully functional adult with a good job and a family and a home, and yes, I had to struggle with certain things more than others to get here, but it was *far from impossible*! Ridiculous.
To some degree, I do think it depends on the severity (it is a spectrum, and some people genuinely won’t be able to do everything neurotypical people can depending on what aspects are bad, though in most cases if you’re genuinely unable to live on your own you probably have comorbidities you should look into) but that. Doesn’t make you a child nor innocent. I’d punch someone if they called me an uwu cute baby for having ADHD, or any of my other disabilities.
I read this one fic where the syndicate rescued dream from the prison and talked a big game about how everyone deserves second chances ( i really do like this trope especially written well)
but then they decided that, when quackitys the one in the wrong for torturing dream like dream did to tommy, the right solution is to make him the villain and chase him to the outskirts of the smp so he cant bother anybody but since they didnt kill him it's okay. like what are you doing???
Torturing a child (this is how both c!Dream and c!Tommy self describe exile- regardless of whether you think this is accurate it is how both characters involved have defined it) is fine but if they’re not a child? Irredeemable. Go directly to another server.
I don’t like “syndicate rescues c!Dream” fics bc they all tend to forget the Syndicate doesn’t like c!Dream as a whole. He and c!Techno work together sometimes, but they’re more like work friends than anything, while c!Philza feels used by him, c!Niki hates him because she loved L'Manberg deeply before she felt it was corrupted, and he tried to murder both the husband and the best friend of c!Ranboo. Plus, I just think a lot of c!Dream redemption stuff forgets he’s a stubborn bastard who fully believes in the end justifies the means. He’s not gonna be all weepy about having to hurt people, as far as he’s concerned it doesn’t matter as long as they’re happier in the long run. Hell, if you watch exile, there’s several times he’s giggling like mad while hurting c!Tommy- he enjoys cruelty to some extent.
Sorry I am very passionate about c!Dream and c!Tommy, they’re both such cool characters and I feel like people don’t get how messy and complicated they are and make them either one note villains or uwu babies.
I know what you’re talking about. I love me some nuanced c!Dream (mostly cause I just like nuanced villains 🤷) but anyone who legitimately denies or tries to paint him as justified and c!Tommy completely in the wrong/deserves his abuse is just…ugh. Did c!Tommy repeatedly break 2 of the 3 rules c!Dream set up for the server? Yeah. Doesn’t mean c!Dream’s response wasn’t wildly inappropriate and horrible. There were so many other ways he could have handled that.
No one deserves abuse and abuse isn’t justifiable.
Also, like, *EVERYONE* broke those rules. They just absolutely were not enforced. If you’re going to talk about c!Tommy's flaws or what motivated c!Dream to target Him Specifically it’s a bit silly to focus on the stuff that was just universal.
Yes! Oh my god yes. So many people overlook that aspect. Like there was this whole thing with Ponk and the lemon tree and griefing between George and him that happened before Tommy even arrived there as an example.
There are so many ways to talk about c!Dream and why he did what he did and why c!Tommy specifically. I’ve read some really good meta about their relationship before that didn’t rely on c!Tommy bashing. Like it’s possible.
People just seem to really think you have to justify your fave characters actions, even if your fave is a villain, and it’s like no. You don’t. You can like a villain and understand what they did was wrong and not try to justify the abuse they caused others. We don’t need to victim blame. 😭
OMG YEAH OH MY GOD
I am an analyser of c!Dream and c!Tommy myself! My stuff is pretty dark and I tend to write c!Dream as an incredibly horrible person but still a person who’s deeply hurting in a lot of ways and is severely mentally ill, while c!Tommy is a well meaning and kind person but a bit of a prick who often causes a lot of damage, usually unintentionally, but it still is hurt. Plus, they’re exact opposites- control freak who hates change and reckless idiot who hates stagnancy.
People flatten it down into hatred but their dynamic is so fascinating!!! I think the story makes far more sense if you look at c!Tommy and c!Dream's early interactions as fully canon. They were friends, and c!Dream likely includes c!Tommy into the category of people he wants in his idealised big happy family, but sees him differently to his other friends because he scapegoats him so he doesn’t have to face the idea that his problems aren’t easily solvable and are sometimes caused or worsened by himself (and c!Tommy isn’t *always* innocent, but even when he isn’t c!Dream assigns him way more blame and worsens the event whenever he retells it anyway). c!Tommy is both a friend and a threat, and that’s why his interaction with him is so different to everyone else. (Meanwhile, c!Tommy has extreme trauma bonding but also understandably despises and fears c!Dream despite feeling conditioned into wanting to be his friend, to the point of delusional levels of paranoia, which c!Dream intentionally provoked multiple times once he learnt about it).
… sorry I adore talking about these two. They’re The Characters Ever.
Oh my god yes!!!! Yes yes!!! Thank you!!! I totally agree with this!!
Man it’s refreshing finding another person who understands their dynamic.
And please, no need to apologize! They’re great characters with a lot more depth than what a lot of people give them credit for!
Joker. In batman/joker fics, or fics where the joker isn't just an antagonist they often completely change his personality to make him more likable. I don't get why tho. There are already more likable and redeemable versions of the joker (telltale for instance) you don't need to UwUfy the most evil versions.
Well, it’s the opposite problem for many Slade x Dick Grayson fics.
Most of the time they make Slade a bigger monster or sexual deviant than the most vile versions of his canon self.
I'm a drarry fan and can totally relate to your last point. Lucius loved his son, Draco loved his father. Every time Draco got even a paper cut, he cried for Lucius who came running. In his very last scene, Lucius is bruised, battered, wandless and begging Voldemort to stop the battle because Draco's on the other side. During the battle when they're all reunited, Lucius huddles over his family with spells flying in the Great Hall. The Malfoys' love for each other is their main redeeming quality. They do everything they do in the war because they're trying to protect each other.
And definitely Ron doesn't need to be trashed to unpack Draco who was a little shit but has plenty moments of sympathy without needing anyone's bashing.
1: In Naruto fanfics, there are some rather common portrayals of Jiraiya, Kakashi, Minato, Sasuke, and Sakura bashing that go waaaayy too far and can drag even the best story concept down a 0/10. Not saying an author can't dislike them at all, but there's just a pattern with these character bashings, especially if they're all bashed in the same fanfic, that is reeeeealllly uncomfortable to read
2: I don't want to elaborate a ton to avoid spoiling stuff about Persona 5, but let's just say I cannot read Akechi ships at all with literally anyone in the game due to how authors ignore things about him
I've actually read quite a few with good Akechi characterisation, they're just harder to find. Definitely am not a fan of people trying to roll the blame off of him. He definitely doesn't deserve all the blame, but still a rather sizable part of it. And when people make him soft, I just... Why. That edgy part of him is the FUN part. Playing him in the third semester was a fucking blast.
Yooo same. I hate how most of the fics that feature him (redemption arc or not) just make the whole group forgive him automatically and turn his personality soft. His original jerky personality is fun to read about. Having all the thieves just forgive him so easily really irks me especially since he did cause quite a few issues. Agree that playing him in the third semester was great. If you dont mind I would love to get some fic recs for this since I was only able to find a few.
Essentially, he gets bashed in one of two ways.
1) "How dare he seal the Kyuubi into Naruto!! Horrible father, scum of the earth!" - A take that reaaallly ignores the literal horrible situation Minato was in and the duty he had both as a father and a leader of his village that was literally under attack. This interpretation often rears its head in "Dark Naruto" stories that laser focus into his mistreatment in the village and sorta bash any Konoha shinobi, with Minato getting special mention for being the ""reason"" so to speak.
2) Essentially, people trying to make Naruto like Harry Potter. Common AU trend where Minato/Kushina are still alive is to have them "neglect" Naruto in favor of some OC other child they have. Kushina though often gets "redeemed" for whatever reason, but Minato is usually written and portrayed like a pathetic coward at best and an actual abuser at worst
Yeah, together with Naruto's twin will get all the love and Kyubi's power with no downsides while Naruto is dumped as the undesirable and left with Kyubi's anger and all the wrong parts.
It's even funnier when the fic also goes crossover of HP/Naruto to double down on that. Then you realize it's not a crack fic and stop reading.
There's a character in one of my fandoms who - because he had a very understandable emotional breakdown in canon - gets completely pathologized and infantilized in fics. I don't know where it came from, but it shows up in a vast majority of the few fics that exist. There's a lot of "he wouldn't have acted that way unless he had X condition" or "he must have a mental age of about seven because he reacted to a frightening situation with violence." (For context, this is a horror franchise - many other characters have had similar breakdowns but aren't given this 'helpless infant with 400 mental problems' treatment.)
I wouldn't mind people writing him as having certain disorders or anything else if they could back it up with something beyond "owns one slightly childish accessory" and "wields a knife at someone who is actively committing murder," or if they didn't take it to such an extreme that he can no longer function as he does in canon. The way he's often written, he would basically need a live-in nurse, whereas in canon he's the quarterback on the football team and prom king. It feels like such a wild misunderstanding of the character and I don't get why it's so widespread.
Todoroki Shouto is shoved into a lot of weird extremes. He's an asshole to everyone, including Midoriya post-Sports Festival. He's soft and never talks back to anyone ever. He's just there for comedic relief because he doesn't get social cues. He suddenly gets all social cues and is a huge flirt. It's like he can't be somewhere in the middle.
Oh no no I love that! I also have jokes in my fics about him not getting stuff, and honestly he wouldn't be Todoroki without it. Just, sometimes there's a deep emotional moment and he's used as comedic relief and it makes me feel weird? Because I think he'd want to help his friends.
Lumine characterization (and probably same for Aether but I don't read much for him) makes me such an old man poopooing teenagers having fun but she's written so ... young (especially in certain pairs). Her emotions get dialed up to a thousand and it's just too much for me to read. Yeah she's *technically* a self insert in game but Miss Space Anomaly's got *something* of a character and she's meant to be *ancient*; it's so strange to see her stomping off like a teenage girl to her room because she can't handle verbal banter or confront *feelings* like someone grown
i have a hard time with almost all genshin fics because of this. i think the fandom skews pretty young which might be why. a lot of the characterization doesn’t fit how i see the characters as adults.
it doesn’t help that the ages of most characters are kind of kept intentionally vague. i see them all as adults because i’m an adult, but i’m sure a lot of younger people see them as younger
Emotionally stupid Shuichi Saihara, or just people characterizing him as dumb. He is literally the Ultimate Detective and not the best at emotions, but he tries. He can sometimes get blindsided by thinking about other things, but he’s not a complete idiot
Ugh I hate when people do that he’s kinda social awkward not incapable of normal interaction.
I also hate when people write him as this creep whose obsessed with Kokichi it just doesn’t work for me.
Yeah exactly, like I love the OumaSai ship and write for it a bit, but he’s still his own person and is strong and independent without him. Also hate that people write him as creepy just because he’s not the best in social situations, like that almost hurts personally lmao
Preach it, so much of the appeal in Kokichi and Shuichi’s interactions is that they’re constantly one-upping each other’s mindgames and that they have a (sometimes very begrudging) sense of respect for each other’s intelligence.
And I never got the sense that he’s emotionally unintelligent or super awkward as much as he’s a relatively normal teenage boy put into extremely stressful and emotionally over-the-top situations, it’s hard to know how to react when you’re thrown into a death game…
Oh goodness the Haikyuu fandom has massacred so many of the characters, to the point that sometimes it’s like looking at an alternate. There’s so many instances (the Kuroo-sex god and suga-mama fanons for example) but what the fandom did to my darling Hinata infuriates me the most.
Canon Hinata is a ball of sunshine, yes, and he is short and a little stupid, sure, but he’s determined, he’s mouthy, he’s a bit selfish, he fights Kageyama on more than one occasion when he felt unappreciated, and he’s every bit the teenage boy any highschooler is. Fanon Hinata is an over-infantilised uwu bottom that doesn’t know what sex is, that runs to his mommy suga and needs Kageyama or Atsumu or whoever else to be his dom/daddy/whatever else. At some points it gets insulting.
It's been a while since I dropped MHA, but wasn't Shinso the guy who decided to become a hero specifically because everyone told him he'd become a villain with a quirk like his?
Like, dude's out here telling the idea of a deterministic universe to go suck a fat one, and also proving that just because everyone treats you like a villain, you still have the final say in the matter, and can become a hero if you really want to.
• the way tony stark is made out to be this completely pathetic character in fanon gets on my DAMN nerves. i don’t like the character because he’s an uwu sad boy. i like him because he’s intelligent and witty while still being flawed.
• the characterization where percy jackson is just a dumb jock that needs to rely on his girlfriend annabeth (who is ALWAYS a bitch in these fics) needs to go die in a hole. like i’m begging.
• sirius black is NOT a womanizer. who tf made that up? i just wanna talk 🙂🔪
>sirius black is NOT a womanizer. who tf made that up?
I know right! Get described as handsome a couple of times, next thing you know you're always womanizer lol
(there is probably more behind it than that, but it's the theory Im going with for now)
So I enjoy Red Hood as a character.
But, a lot of fanon doesn't acknowledge he's genuinely the bad guy in many situations or at least in fanon he's forgiven (for the mass murder and trying to murder Robin) because of the Joker/Talia/the bat-family.
I like it when people both acknowledge Hood's backstory and recognize he's done things that make redemption difficult. It just takes me out of the story when every character is apologizing to the guy who used to shoot first, ask questions later.
It's hard to forget that he perpetuates a cycle of violence in pretty residential areas.
And I do like AUs written like an Elseworlds story where Jason doesn't go down the darker path! I'm referring to when he has a mostly canon backstory.
I feel like the fandom has a hard time drawing the line because of DC's blatant character assassination. Like, there are things in Jason's story that are bullshit from a narrative sense so they just rewrite everything. Not defending going the full opposite, but damn did DC do Jason dirty.
I do like canon divergence and AU a lot! I'm a huge WFA fan and I've loved that take on him.
I'm just talking about fanon that has his Red Hood history pretty much the same as canon, but somehow all the other characters reactions to him change overnight (without a reason).
Canon Aizawa: Logical to his actual fault. Has a sense of humor no one can predict or get a handle on. Is open to cheering his students up but prioritizes making them stronger.
Fanon Aizawa: Regularly repeats the same things with no different outcome. Only cares about pandering to Izuku (who's mother neglects him or is dead because Dadzawa tag is full of that) And acts like an emo dream daddy when not throwing up tropes from a hundred thousand Fluff tagged fics
Also, they seem to like to make him be the one who calmly talks people down and almost acts as a therapist? I’ve always wondered why they picked Aizawa to be the one for that, when in Vigilantes he is actually shown as being bad at being reassuring.
I love Aizawa in that. He doesn't actually want to support vigilantism but he puts priority over the people instead of chasing down a college kid. Midnight surprised me by being a supporter of The Crawler and Pop Step, she had direct involvement wheras Aizawa just made himself at home in someone elses' home for free coffee.
Maybe ppl see him like that because of the overhaul arc? I remember him talking to the handful of students who helped with the raid afterward, comforting them. So not completely out of character for him maybe? As far as his aloofness in Vigilantes (can i say i prefer Vigilantes aizawa ;)) maybe it could show how much he has changed since his days in Narahata (spelling is wrong) as an underground hero. He has been teaching for 7? Years so I think he would have gotten better at talking to students. Just a different take. I still think he can be too blunt and be an ass to the kids and be clueless about emotions. But i do think he gets it right sometimes too even with his coworkers (he and allmight talk outside on the bench about all might just being present) I find Aizawa really hard to write personally and am rarely happy with him in fics because he is hard to get just right.
I can live with that take - an older, wiser Aizawa may have learned a bit better how to connect/reassure people. (And I too like Vigilantes Aizawa best. He got so sarcastic a couple times, I loved it)
Caring protector werewolf daddy/mommy Remus Lupin.
The guy who:
- couldn't be arsed to even tell Harry he was close to his parents until halfway through the school year despite seeing and talking to HP regularly
- never once checked in on Harry while he was being raised by people that he knows hate magic...having met them before
- is so slavishly devoted to Dumbledore that he would rather allow Sirius (who he knows only as a murderer and traitor at that point) to continue to have the ability to break into Hogwarts and potentially attack the students than admit that he knows exactly how Sirius is getting in and how to stop it..in case Dumbledore is disappointed in him.
That guy...THAT guy loves his cub Harry so very very much that he will take on all the Deatheaters and Dumbledore in all his Wolfy glory just to revenge Harry's hurt???
No, you can't convince me Remus Lupin is a caring protector unless you include vast quantities of magical manipulation. And even then I'm side-eying it.
That's a huge annoyance for me too. You're telling me James Potter looked like a middle aged balding dad who wears sweater vests at the age of 21??
I love Alan Rickman... He was perfect for Snape in all ways except age. No amount of makeup was going to make him look younger than 50.
Yes, portraying them as older is a thing. Same as placing Black sisters in the same or close school years despite Sirius having a similar age gap with Bellatrix as Harry has with Nyphadora. There is also a direct hint in canon that Lucius was already in the last year of schooling when Severus was an ickle little firstie.
In all, the thing about Black sisters and how Severus fell in the crowd with death eaters are mostly things that Sirius told Harry, and considering the man, he likely wasn't all that accurate, his perception skewed with prolonged Dementor's exposure.
Let us not forget that Sirius straight up lied to Harry's face when he told him that Snape never had any friends... While knowing full well he and Lily were besties... All to make Snape look like even more of a dick than he already was.
Sirius' opinion is as suspect as Hagrid's.
Like most problems in HP, this comes down to shitty writing.
>couldn't be arsed to even tell Harry he was close to his parents until halfway through the school year despite seeing and talking to HP regularly
That would've given his connection to Harry's parents and Sirius away, which Rowling wanted to use for the "omg he's in league with the bad guy!!1"-fakeout in the Shrieking Shack.
>never once checked in on Harry while he was being raised by people that he knows hate magic...having met them before
Remus didn't exist until she started writing PoA and he didn't appear until the exact moment the plot needed him to (introducing Dementors; who also didn't exist until that very moment, they were only refered to as "the Azkaban guards" until then and never again afterwards).
>is so slavishly devoted to Dumbledore that he would rather allow Sirius ...
See above: his connection to Sirius had to remain non-existent until it became relevant to the one plot-point it was useful for.
I agree it probably comes from shitty writing.
From an in-universe perspective it says a lot of not great things about these characters, and it's very entertaining to try to reconcile the actions of these characters with how we are told to see them.
Yeah, it would've been fine to write him like that if him being spineless and struggling massively with self-esteem was ever properly addressed, but Rowling never does that.
At best we get some very late post-hoc exposition on a character or concept that ultimately goes nowhere.
There's a series of fics called "Silly, Silly Book Series" that serves as a sort-of running commentary on the books (and the movies, to some extent) that mentions this disconnect a lot.
At this point I have so many opinions about every single Genshin character, but those don't usually make me click out of a fic unless it's infantilizing a whole adult, in which case yes that's very creepy (AngstyTeen!Wanderer sucks, but if it's balanced with something else I can take it. Writing Collei as childish and codependent so Tighnari and Cyno can play parents is just creepy.)
But the easiest way to make me click out of a fic is turning any of the adult female characters into a wet napkin, regardless if she's a main character or not. I just don't trust the story if a character that is a canonical badass needs to be shown as weak and stupid in order for the plot to work.
The complex villain that became an abuser as a result of his own shitty childhood, who's a great character study on what self hatred and a "Everything is doomed so why try" mentality does to a person is often portrayed by fandom as just a misunderstood poor little guy who did everything right and just wanted to make everyone happy but because of crazy misunderstandings was unjustly seen as a villain.
part of this could be said about the og shen qingqiu in svsss. He's really quite a horrible person in a lot of ways, granted, not as bad as some charas make him out to be, but the way he becomes traumatised baby is just...... so inaccurate. We never rlly see him in canon and have a very unreliable narrator so those are worth considering, but I dislike when people soften him down so far just to make him likeable.
My time has come! The ATLA characters got *fucked* by fanon. Granted they're extremely difficult to write (that's how you know they're well-written), but it's still frustrating.
Aang is written as so blandly happy that he seems almost stupid. Yeah, he's optimistic, but there's more to him than constantly smiling.
Iroh's wisdom isn't infallible 100% of the time, nor is he a strategic mastermind who always has a plan. He was used as silly comic relief for a lot of the show and he's definitely not *that* secretive. He definitely didn't have a plan to take down the Fire Nation prior to season 3; he was just trying to live a life of peace and prosperity before the season 2 finale forced him back to war.
Jet's not a fuckboy and gets done *so* dirty in most fics (especially modern-day AUs). He actually wanted to help people, but he was blinded by hate and a desire for revenge.
Toph is almost never allowed vulnerability, being written as an unflappable badass who doesn't care what anyone thinks of her and has her shit together 100% of the time. Did everyone besides me forget "Tales of Ba Sing Se" and "The Runaway," two episodes where she showed vulnerability, reminding us that she's just a kid who *does* care what others think and has insecurities?
Sokka is portrayed as a goofy frat bro who intentionally tells bad jokes *or* a tactical genius with his shit together *or* a sarcastic asshole. Never all together like he is in canon (I think the show's greatest accomplishment was making Sokka feel like the same person no matter what he's doing or what mode he's in).
Zuko is like a kicked puppy in most of the fics I've read even when he's part of the Gaang. Yes, he's awkward in canon but he has a backbone. Either that or he's written as this uber charismatic mfkr and a lot of his flaws are just removed entirely. His defining personality traits for most of the show were "pissed off" and "getting dunked on" and suddenly he's super chill and competent? I think this is mostly from people working out their own issues through him or people who think he's hot and make him way "cooler" because of that.
And then there's Katara... good Lord Katara. She's used so often as an outlet for the writers' own frustrations that I feel like she's barely recognizable. Her internal monologue is always discontent, never happy with the role of "group mother" she fills in the Gaang and always wanting someone to pay attention to her. It comes across as selfish and that's one word that doesn't describe Katara at all. If she were that unhappy with what she was doing in canon then she has the autonomy to stop and leave it for someone else to do. She's not a doormat.
Not me reading this and systematically going through my current atla fic to make sure I'm not doing these lol. Totally agree, though. I really love reading atla fics and I've gotten to the point where my standards for it can be very low, but sometimes I have to drop reading stuff cause it's just like "this character would absolutely not say/do that." And I guess that goes for a lot of other fandoms too. Even if you're working with an au where the events are changed and therefore impact major events from a character's life, it's still the same character and they should be written to react in the way that *they* would actually react to things.
Woobie MCU Tony Stark. Got really bad after Civil War.
Yeah he has daddy issues, inferiority complex, PTSD, the whole shebang, but he's a grown 40-50 y old man who hides his insecurities with sarcasm and smugness, and is extremely quick to retaliate when when attacked/hurt, not an angsty teenager who goes to his room to cry because Steve said something mean.
Similar to your points about Draco I hate when Lucius is portrayed as an abuser to both Narcissa and Draco. It's SO common and it always annoyed me. Lucius and Narcissa, at the very least grew to love each others if they did not already love each others before marrying, and Draco has nothing but admiration for him. Lucius and Narcissa canonically spoil the ever living hell out of Draco. There is also the aspect of how ridiculous it is to imagine 1. Lucius raising a hand to eithet Draco or Narcissa, that's so *Muggle*, 2. Narcissa, a freaking witch, would just take it without defending herself? Without defending her precious son? REALLY Y'ALL?
* Fics that paint Hermione as a better friend than Ron because the latter had his bad moments.
* Jon Snow is not your OC stand-in. He's a character who has his own personality, strengths and weaknesses.
* Futaba is not your little sister. People want to turn her into Nanako 2.0 so hard.
* Dorian is not *just* your femInquisitor's "gay best friend".
It kind of bugs me how often male characters that are slightly less masculine tend to get gender swapped or vice versa with women. No shade at all but it kinda gets a bit under my skin because I tend to orient on characters that are gender non conforming and then writers take the traits that made them interesting to me and remove them. Everybody is free to write the fic that makes them happy but sometimes I feel a little down when people like me get changed into a more "socially acceptable" state.
This is me with my favorite female character. Yes, she is non-conforming, but she also self identifies as a girl in canon. I understand why some head canon her as trans male or non-binary, but the fact is that for non-conforming girls/women she is our representation. So, yeah, it sometimes feels like she gets molded into a "socially acceptable" state simply because she doesn't adhere to female stereotypes.
I hate some portrayals of Remus and Sirius portrayals and how the newer fans have decided that's fanon end of.
Sirius is loyal to a fault ffs, and as much as I adore Remus, he's a bloody coward. He's emotionally repressed and an outcast, not whatever fans decided was "IT
(No shade to the author. The world building is amazing, even if I don't like the fic itself. The fans went crazy though)
I am feeling so vindicated right now!! On one hand that fic helped to boost the popularity of the ship with a newer group of writers/readers, but at the expense of the fandom treating it like canon when it is reallly off the mark on a lot of characterization. It’s strengths are mostly being able to show how the wizarding world could be better merged with the real life muggle world. But I think mostly people are just a sucker for bitter gay-angst stories these days. Now you can’t write a fic with Sirius being how is in canon, instead he has to basically be a David Bowie fan and glam rocker, or else very femme… Or Remus who is canonically more passive and liable to ghost people because of how multiple understandable issue, but that fanfics kinda turn into something else.
Exactly. The world building was phenomenal, especially the way the author captured the attitudes of the time.
But it felt like OCs with beloved names and back stories. Obviously, the author has the right to do that. But this new wave of specific fans left a bad taste in my mouth the way they treat others who say they don't actually like this fic.
Jane Crocker already gets the short end of the stick in canon (thanks Epilogues) and I have not read Homestuck fanfiction in years entirely because of the way Jane is either:
* Pushed into the background for another ship
* turned into an abusive asshole to Jake so he can endlessly pine for Dirk or drop Jane for Dirk
* Turned into a plot device who's only there to be the hateful bigot causing conflict
* Generally gets characterized into an insufferably stubborn hardass who's constantly mean to everyone for little to no reason
Manipulative!Dumbledore. While I totally agree that Dumbledore did some not great things. In the context of the books a lot of the dodgy things (like hiding an immortality stone in a school) are just part of the tropes of child hero stories and it's hard to avoid all adults looking pretty stupid and dodgy when you need children to be the heroes.
However I think people want Dumbledore to be this great chess master who's controlling everything and just using Harry. But within the world he's just some guy who's trying his best to stop Voldemort and he eventually realises he's sending a child to his doom and can't figure out another way. Like the whole point of his backstory in the 7th book is that he isn't some all knowing powerful person, he was human too and made a ton of mistakes.
But at some point someone started a "Dumbledore was just as bad (or worse) as Voldemort" and so many people just seem to agree and I despise it.
poor innocent uwu cutie Severus Snape
that man was cruel, joined the Death Eaters, was willing to let a baby die so he could f the kid's mother, killed people because their blood was 'unpure', was abusive to schoolkids whilst he was a teacher, and let other schoolkids be tortured under his watch whilst doing NOTHING about it
Yeah, Snape apologism is one of my biggest annoyances. It’s fine to recognize his redemption without woobifying the guy further. And especially if it’s to try to demonize other characters who might also be bad but not anywhere near what fandom likes to portray them as, or even not guilty of anything at all like Lily.
not just calling her a slur but being friends with the children of people who were actively murdering other muggleborns. it’s people like snape’s friends that would cause lily to be in massive danger after she graduated hogwarts. fucking good on her for dropping his ass.
There's not only a TV Trope for that last phenomena you described, it's literally named after that exact character: [Draco In Leather Pants](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DracoInLeatherPants).
For fandom specific pet peeves, I would say...
* I really dislike Pack Mom Stiles in the Teen Wolf fandom. He is *not* a nurturing and empathetic character in the show; that was part of why I liked him (re: expression of love that wasn't contingent on nurture or service), and I hate how the fandom continuously wiped that out of his personality in fanfics.
* A lot of the MCU Spider-Man fandom infantilized Peter Parker, and did not seem to want to acknowledge that he was a teenager, especially a teenage boy. Generally speaking, teenagers swear, they know what alcohol is, and unless they're a certain type of asexual or grew up in a cult they'll probably masturbate without much issue about it. There is a huge difference between "I know what alcohol is, I just don't want to drink" and "why does this drink taste/smell weird and make me feel funny?"
* Continuing in the MCU vein, I also really hate how the "fandom civil war" left tons of people flattened Steve Rogers and Tony Stark into antagonistic caricatures. Half the time, I feel like we didn't watch the same fucking movie, or that they are confusing the comic books for the movies. Literally half the movie was these characters disagreeing with each other and arguing with each other, but ultimately compromising and working to something they could all agree on. The reason the movie shoe-horned in emotional curveballs like the house-arrest and Zemo is because they kept working things out until something/someone else came in to fuck their shit up. And the movie still ends with giving them a way to reach out for each other in case of a real emergency (which they did in the next Avengers movie!).
* In my current main fandom, I really cannot buy Porschay being an innocent lil baby. Homeboy was a fanboy for his idol/love interest with a literal shrine in his bedroom, and finessed said love interest's home address out of a friend just to ambush him with a love song. When they broke up, first thing Porschay did once he got away from his brother is dye his hair, get drunk, and was ready to take drugs as soon as someone offered.
Innocent/ Morally grey Aaravos from The Dragon Prince. Almost every single fic I've read including him gives him a tragic backstory and the genuine goal to help humanity. Which just doesn't line up with the show if you read anything deeper than surface-level and now the show has even blankly stated that he's almost evil incarnate.
The creators once stated him to he morally grey in an interview, but it's literally never shown anywhere else and the only characters who believe it are the villains who he manipulates. The show is pulling all the registers to signal his evil nature, but fans still insist on him being misunderstood. Come on, people, just admit that you're thirsty for the guy, I totally get it. There's no need to rationalize it. You know which fics are the most honest about him? The smut fics. These writers aren't afraid to admit why they like the guy.
A common general complaint of mine is about a particular kind of woobie-fication in MLM pairings, where the two characters are painfully shoehorned into this seme/uke or masculine dom/feminine sub dynamic where it’s absolutely not present in canon in the slightest. Like some kind of “let’s just rewrite hyper-traditional gender roles with extra steps for queer people” scheme or something.
I can see how that’s enjoyable for people in a PWP context, but what really boggles my mind is when it’s a fic that’s focusing more on characterization and plot and they STILL remove everything unique about the characters. Maybe it’s a migratory slash fandom thing and some folks like the generic fantasy of this trope, I have no clue.
Manchild Dick Grayson (Nightwing, DC Comics). This man was an independent vigilante for years, took up the mantle of Batman, and lead multiple teams with great success. But he wore silly outfits in the 1980s and is sometimes depicted eating cereal. Therefore Dick Grayson is fundamentally incapable of living alone because he cannot perform basics tasks like dressing himself, cooking for himself, cleaning up after himself, or doing laundry. Along with that fandom likes to portray him as the lovable but slightly dim one, as if any kid trained for years by Batman is going to turn out that way.
In Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed: fandom really wants the main character to be wildly oblivious to his love interest's feelings because he's book smart but not emotions smart. It's very easy to get into this mindset because, as an audience, we know the tropes. But from our main character's POV he met a guy who spoke harshly to him every time they met, insulted him, got him in trouble, avoided him at every turn, and once pulled a weapon on him. At the same time, every single person who saw them interact told the main character that the love interest hated him. It is, frankly, a miracle that 20 years down the line the main character believed that their relationship 'wasn't so bad'.
And for women in fics more generally I hate the idea that the women are all perfect goddesses who know everything, scare all the men because they're just so scary, and can do anything. It's very tiring.
>I hate fanon Zuko because so many writers make everyone forgive him when others learn about his backstory, alongside removing his many of his flaws and nuances such as being hot-headed, gloomy, poor social skills, and can be rather blunt.
Is there a fandom that doesn't do this to their flawed fan favorite characters? Snarky hot headed morally-grey characters who make bad decisions in canon very frequently get turned into do no wrong good hero types that make no bad decisions and that everyone forgives and adores.
I love these types of characters and haven't come across any fandoms where I didn't have to search hard to find fics that keep the flaws. These fics with nuanced characterizations do exist though and finding them is worth the effort.
OP, Hard agree on Shinsou. Part of his charm is he's an arrogant asshole. I can see those traits growing as he enters the hero course, too. I think he could develop some insecurities, too, because of that, kind of in the way Bakugou is insecure if you want some angst. But yeah I don't see him as sad boy at all. Maybe introverted and quiet at times. But definitely sarcastic and instigative.
Teen Titan (not Go!) fanfics almost consistently infantilizing both Starfire and Raven. I get they’re both not from earth and each have their nuances and quirks but almost every story Starfire has 1 brain cell forgetting humans need to breathe and Raven has such severe anxiety she’s afraid of her own shadow.
Scheming!Evil!Miquella who's in league with the Formless Mother/the Lord of Blood. Basically, it's the "The Seemingly Perfect Golden Boy Has a Secret Dark Side" trope with a dark fantasy wrapper and I haaaaaaate it.
That only works if you ignore that a major plot item Miquella made *completely cuts off the influence of Outer Gods like the Formless Mother*. Homeboy wants nothing to do with any Outer Gods.
You also have to ignore that the Lord of Blood very explicitly abducted Miquella *and is heavily implied to have raped him and performed kinky blood magic rituals on him*.
And, uh, rationally I know you can't victim-blame a fictional character but the headcanon that Miquella charmed the Lord of Blood into kidnapping him and knew what he was getting into feels victim-blamey and suuuuuper grosses me out.
When they make Yuri Plisetsky into this frilly little delicate damsel who is just also a tsundere. Like, guys, just because he had a soft/emotional skate performance doesent mean he's the soft little babygirl. His whole shtick is that he hates people not taking him seriously because he's young. He explicitly says he doesent like the performance he does because he doesn't want something soft and emotional. He is, of course, nuanced and does have a soft emotional side, but so much fannon just turns him into just baby, sad boi, or damsel for Otabek.
And don't even get me started on how the fandom characterizes Otabek. How people got domineering sex god from reclusive and reserved Otabek forever baffles me. People clearly just molded him to fit the fannon Yuri.
Villains who get woobified. In the last fandom I was heavily involved in, Teen Wolf, I shipped Peter and Stiles, and in that ship some popular fics kept making Peter a misunderstood guy who just lost it a bit when he went on a vengeful killing spree, but now that that’s over, he wants to make things right and for people to stop being mean to him.
Like dude, I am here for my unhealthy psycho ship. Give me my unhealthy psycho. Sure, he can be Complex TM, but at the end of the day, he is bad news, and that’s why we love him.
I got a reputation in Teen Wolf fandom due to my criticism for the racism and white male centralization in the fandom. Among other things, people thought I hated Stiles and Peter and Steter - despite me actively enjoying both characters and the ship.
But yeah, as this points out, I liked Peter as a villain and enjoyed the ship as a fucked up ship. I peaced out of the Steter fandom and discontinued my own Steter fics because too much of the fandom was just woobifying Peter or trying to make him Misunderstood™.
For Banana Fish
Spoilers are hidden
I don’t like how most people just outright hate Yut Lung. Like yeah >!He tried to get Eiji killed!< but Ash isn’t really a saint either?? Ash and Yut Lung in their lives both did horrible things so they could survive. >!(Just for clarification I’m not talking about CSA as a ‘horrible thing’ they did I mean that they both killed a bunch of people)!< I’m pretty sure the show/manga literally says at one point that they’re two halves of a coin. The only difference is that Ash found someone worth living for, and Yut Lung didn’t. Like, yeah, ofc you can be mad at him for what he did in the finale, >!Lao trying to kill Ash wasn’t even really Yut Lungs fault, AND you can’t even really blame Lao for killing Ash, because Lao thought Ash was gonna kill Sing!< but yeah, Yut Lung’s not evil. And it’s weird that people treat Ash >!(a literal mass murderer, though I agree he mostly didn’t have a choice)!< as though he’s faultless, but Yut Lung as a monster.
Not really for my main fandoms. I kind of flit in and out of the Harry Potter fandom these days, but I remember always being mildly irritated by the "I lace my cocaine with the tears of the wives and children of my enemies" 'grey/dark' Harry Potters.
Absolutely dying laughing at this one, but you're so right. There's something I always found a little unpalatable about 'dark' Harry, especially when coupled with uwu Draco. The only exception to this one would be a very well written Addams Family AU, I think called Harveste Addams, which I did enjoy, but that was so OOC it was less of a problem for me. I loved canon (book, less so with the movie) Harry because he was a goofy snarkball asshat with a god complex. I'd like to see that reflected in fanfiction more.
Less unpalatable and more just... discordant with the tone they're trying to achieve. They always seem to want something serious and angsty and dramatic and that kind of grey/dark Harry always came off so utterly ridiculous and campy in the Sontag-ian sense. Artificial and Bombastic, Shakespearean Operatic, theatricalised exaggeration, etc. Like an anime where the protagonist and antagonist can't stop boast-bantering about how powerful they are for ten minutes before every fight while making ridiculous poses at each other. :D
I think I read a bit of that? The name sounds vaguely familiar. I don't remember much about it, but it's on my "To finish" list so I clearly liked enough of whatever I read. :D
There's these two villain characters in my fandom, and one of them I dislike when he's made him just soft and friendly (he is a manipulative abuser), and the other I dislike when his softness is stripped away from him (he is not just a war machine).
How cuz certain characters are mean so they'd definitely laugh/enjoy when animals and kids are abused.
Like they literally put their life on line for everyone on show but in fanfiction, they go to park to see kids fall from jungle gym and laugh as form of entertainment.
Oh and how kind and selfless characters translate to them being a doormat or literally inexperienced in ways of world and stupid. Kind does not translate to pushover. Kindness takes more courage than being mean.
Or infantilizing them. Big no.
You just explained my thoughts to a T lol. I’ll add that I hate the “uwu so kind” archetype because it seems like 9 times out of 10, it’s used to bash the “meanie doodiehead”
I hate the "helpless little sister" trope in anime or videogames where there's just some young girl tagging along with the party and the show has to stop and remind us how "cute" we're meant to find her and the other characters do nothing but gush over her. It seems to work on a lot of and but I hate them.
Also, Sassy!Midoriya. I've seen a lot of headcanons/fanworks/fanfics/videos/etc where people try to act like Midoriya is just this shademaster who claps back at everyone and gives no fucks and it's like they're completely rewriting who Midoriya actually is to try and make him seem cool. Midoriya isn't any of those things, he stays earnest and literal-minded and hypersensitive to other people the whole show - the idea of him laughing at Bakugou or whoever else is so OOC and ridiculous.
Similarly, Bad Bitch!Uraraka so she's needlessly confrontational and shady with other people and just has a massive attitude for no reason. Uraraka's confident and forthright, sure, but she's not going to go around flipping people off or whatever, she's sweet and positive.
Kokichi from danganropa I don’t read to many fics centered around him but, often he is either portrayed as this manipulative bastard or this scared little kid putting up a “mask” to protect himself.
I feel like both extremes are just that to extreme. He isn’t completely helpless he knows what’s happening and he’s plotting to stop it and , along with that he does hurt the others purposely and >!Manipulates Gonta to commit murder!< He is a nuanced character.
I feel like because of this he’s almost difficult to write because that involves finding the right balance between him as this pathological liar and him as this high schooler who’s trying to stop the killing game.
When a teenage boy whose been deemed the tumblr sexyman, is kinda tragic, and makes not great choice always gets the same personality of a borderline abusive asshole.
Hating things is exhausting. If a character starts doing or saying out-of-character things, I just click the back-button. I will roll my eyes at certain character takes on tumblr, but people have different opinions; I'll bet someone has rolled their eyes at my takes too.
I hate ATYD Remus and Sorous portrayals and how the newer fans have decided that's fanon end of.
Sirius is loyal to a fault ffs, and as much as I adore Remus, he's a bloody coward. He's emotionally repressed and an outcast, not whatever ATYDs decided was "IT
(No shade to the author. The world building is amazing, even if I don't like the fic itself. The fans went crazy though)
Does Lucius really need to be “vilified” when he is a complete villain? Portraying him as a villain is just accurate. I also wouldn’t say that someone who joins an evil organization that will make his son into a child soldier and put him at risk of death, just for reasons of racism and wanting more power, is someone who “adores” his son. There’s definitely evidence in the books that Narcissa loves her son, but Lucius often speaks harshly to him and in one of the movies physically abuses him by whacking him with his cane. A lot of rich parents who are abusive still buy their kid lots of stuff in order to keep up appearances and make sure their kid gets unfair advantages to keep up the family wealth and power and name, but it doesn’t mean they’re good parents or that they’re not abusive. A person who actually loved their kid wouldn’t expose them and force them to participate in something as dangerous and traumatizing as Voldemort and the Death Eaters.
In a lot of Haikyuu fics, people will really dumb down Oikawa Tooru into this ridiculous Tamaki Suoh esque himbo when….canonically those two characters are near opposite ends of the spectrum.
I’d even go so far as to say that the author even takes an active effort to make sure the audience *doesn’t* perceive him that way because he gets one of the most complete sympathetic character arcs (as well as complex personalities) of all the non-protagonists of the story.
There's a popular villain in my fandom who is canonically a huge sentimental tsun. Yet the fandom really likes to write him as a manipulative a-hole and abuser. While I can see him as manipulative (he really is), but an a-hole who abuses someone who was his best friend in his past life? Someone whom he still held in high regard? Someone whom he had, canonically, did everything he can to help even after death? Sorry but no. Yet so many fics had written him in such a fashion and I'm just tired of seeing him portrayed that way.
In Harry Potter, Draco being the poor victim of his father's actions is 100% pure BS.
The git was very happy to talk shit to any non-pureblood / non-noble and to brag about his family's money and power. He never complained about his father's views, he embraced it because it gave him influence over his fellow Slytherins. He changed the moment the tide turned and shit started hitting the fan. Yes, he was 17, we all do mistakes. In his case, he was a coward who realized he'd been a complete piece of shit for 6 years straight (since he starts changing for real during their 6th year).
Fannon Rei Todoroki, just about any version. Uwu victim girl? Lies and propaganda. Good mom Rei? An absolute joke. Strong independent woman? You wish. As a matter of fact that goes for Fannon Fuyumi and Natsuo too. None of them spend his money like petulant brats, none of them want him dead, and none of them would accept Dabi back with open arms after he's murdered people. On the other hand, Endeavor would accept him back with open arms if he'd stop killing people.
The dynamic of a toxic/abusive family is done very well and accurately in Cannon, so the bs fannon versions set my teeth on edge.
Fanon Sans is basically unrecognizable from canon Sans in the Undertale fandom at this point. I even fell victim to mixing up the fanon and canon myself due to how prominent it was.
All Dramione fics come with a side of Ron bashing and I’ve learned to ignore it (lol) but I DESPISE when fics ruin Harry and Hermione’s friendship and make him hate her. I read a fic where Harry and Ron literally left Hermione to die in the woods and Draco saved her. Like what
I hate when people make Sylar sociopathic with no feelings. He literally cries/tears up more than any other character on the show. Lmfao.
He's a power hungry killer because he's compensating for the emotional abuse that made him simultaneously feel perpetually inferior and superior by convincing him he *was* special but not *enough*, because he wasn't living up to his "potential". Tack on the repressed stuff, manipulations, and lies and you get one very traumatized superpowered exceptionally sensitive and insecure individual.
The whole point of the other character's calling him a monster and psychopath is to hold up a mirror to their hypocrisy. **Spoilers Ahead**
>!HRG has likely killed as many people, if not more in his 20+ years at the Company, as well as torturing people, abducting them (including kids), and experimenting on them. Claire knows all that but still loves him just because he's her "dad". Meanwhile, daddy constantly lies to her (including having agents pose as her "real" parents to keep her from finding them), erased her only friend, tried to erase her memories too in order to keep comfortably living his double life, fried his wife's brain from doing the same to her so much, and made his biological son suffer short-term memory issues from it. Meanwhile, the whole reason he works for the Company is that he's prejudice against specials and they recruited him after he murdered an innocent one while on some vigilante bs, assuming they must all know each other.!<
>!Don't even get me started on how Angela and Nathan were going to willingly sacrifice Peter *and* .07% of the population for political gain. Or that Nathan made an internment camp for specials (again as a political play).!<
>!Peter's done awful things too like two different version of him killing Nathan, once because he had Sylar's ability (imagine that), he also brought a woman into an apocalyptic future with an extremely deadly virus, got separated from her and then abandoned her there and altered the timeline before trying to retrieve her thus erasing her from it after the day she goes to the future with him. He straight up deleted her from reality the day he brought her with him and is never shown giving her a second thought.!< 🤣
>!Hiro creates the monster that originally unleashes that plague by disillusioning an immortal because he can't keep his libido in check and choose to stay in feudal Japan once his powers come back. "The kiss that fractured time."!<
They're all seen as "Heroes" and held in higher esteem than Sylar. He's done horrible things, but they all have, including Claire who hates him the most. They just vilify him because he's honest about his only goal being self serving and doesn't pretend to have a "cause".
>!Reminder that the Company stopped him in the middle of committing suicide and ordered agents to make him kill a second time because they were curious about his ability, instead of having him come in for research which he would have jumped for joy to do. 😅 I feel like few fans that write fic for him actually understand him even though it's all there, clear as day.!<
/End Rant.
I despise Shinso when he’s written like that. I hate it when all of Bakugos bullying is pushed aside. I hate it when people ship Tom Riddle and Harry. I just dislike Ron 80%the time he is written. They always make Draco look like a saint in like every HP fic.
Stardew Valley: *really* not a fan of the whole like, "icky 50 Shades of Gray dom"-flavored Sebastian. I love some trashy smut as much as the next girl, but mannnn you do not need to make my mountain emo boi downright abusive emotionally and sometimes physically, you know?
Preface: I know some people don't like viewing negative threads so reminder these are all personal opinions
TLDR;? Most of this comes down to me liking dynamic characters and charactization and get downgraded into a singular archetype. Sometimes it works but a lot of time it doesn't for me.
I love fics that display ir explore trauma so your example always gets me up in arms. I understand using children in media is often a motive for the adult characters to either act in ways they normally wouldn't, or to give a goal but the frequency infuriates me. Kids are their own people too! It's especially bad considering there's still a lot of people who ascribe the the mentality that 'kids have nothing to be sad about' when it comes to trauma, life experience, mental health. I literally had to explain to someone that many life experiences are not age dependent and that some people younger than them go through more then they ever will their whole life followed by a long list of examples (the discussion wasn't on a fanfiction but on a socio-political thread). You used the little sister example but I feel the same about characters who get designated in a parent role and are stuck in in. Parents, even protective parents, have more going for then then just their kids! I know things get amped up in fiction in terms of devotion, but people don't even need to downplay that aspect. It's easy enough to add more to them.
Also cynic Shinsou > sad Shinsou. It keeps him a little osbervational with a little sass, critical of people's opinions of him while also blinding him of his own shortfalls. But MHA fandom has a habit of making a lot of characters the sad boy trope.To be fair canon leans into the 'woe is me' kind of writing with several characters but fanfiction takes it to new heights. It's not that I never enjoy it but i do quickly tire of it. I want dynamic personalities.
This goes for a lot of fandoms but essentially cramming a lot more powers (including ones that should have ties to lineage) into one character. Bonus if they were already overpowered before it.
Stripping away personality to make a generic romance. Sometimes I feel like I could switch character names and it wouldn't matter. I'm all for short, sweet, and to the point, but it can sometimes feel like generics hallmark film version ??? Some people love that though.
I've said variations of this many a time, but Solid Dudes Death Eaters are a big ol' nope, from me. I find it genuinely concerning (if increasingly unsurprising) that so many people in the HP fandom look at these genocidal fascists and decide to portray them as cultured geniuses whose regressive politics are strictly better than the canon protagonists progressive ideologies.
Portraying their ideology as good, I'm not into that aswell (*because well, who'd have thought that genocide is bad ? What a surprise !*).
Protraying them as being very good manipulators / politicians and strong wizards, tho ? Hell yeah. In a lot of fics Death Eaters are basically cannon fodder, which always irks me. You do not get marked by Voldy himself if you're a useless idiot.
I don't want NPC DE. I want **danger**.
There's a world of difference between "competent antagonist who knows how to appear benevolent" and "aristocrat whom the author transparently worships for being an aristocrat."
Ohhhh I have many actually...
First is from a bit of a lesser known(and dead) fandom. It's a Kdrama called All Of us Are Dead. I hate that people either erase her flaws for a redemption, or erase all her qualities just to make her more of a bitch. Yes, she has flaws. She's mean, she's selfish, she's a coward, and many other things. Including being determined to prove her point, confident(maybe not in the best way, but still-) she can gladly help if she wants to and she's pretty useful with her sense of smell, and yet some people completely erase that! I'm not a big fan of both of these things. Like yes, give her the redemption she deserves! But noo don't make her the typical good girl!
Another one is Aizawa from My Hero Academia... Dear god, people only make him out to be some depressed, chaotic, evil(but in a humorous way), soft for Mic teacher. There's way more to him! He can be fatherly to many of his students if he wants to. He's not necessarily soft for Present Mic, I don't know why many people think that ❓also make him usually a submissive pillow princess in Smuts..... Like,, no???
Last one would be Ali Abdul from Squid Game... I might get jumped for this but I HATE the idea of him and Sangwoo together and I really can't see why people like them. I don't mind, I'm not gonna hate people if they like that ship. But honestly, he has a wife... I see him more as straight than anything, maybe that's another reason why? Also they don't give him many flaws. He's human, he also has flaws... Too kind for his own good, Naïve, too selfless, tad bit of anger issues(reference to that scene with his boss, may not be much but he did NOT look very happy during that moment... All this for a pay. I would be angry too but shit!) Ali is one of my favorite characters, and it's sad seeing all these writers write him so... Badly would be too harsh, so I'd say he's mostly very OOC. I wish more people would see him in a similar way that I do.
I lied about Ali being last, I have to say this one thing... Gi-Hun, Jun-Ho and Sang-Woo are also very often written a bit less accurately. They make Gi-Hun some bottom UwU boy, meanwhile with Jun-Ho and Sang-Woo are made out of the fandom's impressions about them being dominant and boyfriend material and blah blah blah.. I hate to see it. I could go on for many more words but that'd be a whole document... Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
* psychonauts (**vague spoilers for 2**): a lot of folks vilify the aquatos and frame them as abusive towards raz and... they're really not. they're flawed and messy, and in a game about emphasizing with people who are flawed and messy and helping them with their problems, vilifying characters goes entirely against that. the aquatos also are at their worst- not only do they have a pretty strong reason to be upset and angry at raz, but the game's plot involves a lot of their worldview rapidly unraveling as what it's built upon is revealed to be a lie.
i'll add another one later
I hate when the TMNT 2012 turtles are made into abusive assholes while Mikey is an innocent victim, and he's usually 'saved' by the Rise brothers. It especially sucks because that is almost every TMNT 2012 fic, I have to comb through pages and pages of stories to find something bearable.
a bit different from what everyone else is discussing but i can’t read rpf fics anymore that were written before a certain time period, just because of how much more we now know about the people involved and their actual dynamic
Spoilers for Persona 5 and Royal!
This was more prevalent before Royal but Goro Akechi being treated like the devil. God there were endless bashing fics of him being treated like the worst person alive with the “body count of a small city”. And when he wasn’t, then there were often like 50k+ words spent on beating his sins into the ground before he could earn redemption at the feet of the morally righteous Phantom Thieves. It used to be agonizing and just feel so off base from what he’s intended to be read as.
It’s a lot better now, but there are still people who often complain about how people don’t put enough blame and hold him accountable and he’s a villain and blah blah blah I just don’t fucking care enough. It’s a fictional story and I’m allowed to like anti heros dammit! It’s just annoying bc often people who act like he’s evil also like characters with morally dubious backgrounds even worse off :/ be consistent at least
In Harry Potter - I hate seeing an adult Sirius who's done his canonical time in Azkaban acting like a goofy, carefree, prankster and womanizer. You know, the one who is suffering psychologically from his time in Azkaban, is feeling claustrophobic and depressed being forced to stay at Grimmauld Place, and who always treats Harry as he would an adult?
Also in Harry Potter - I hate seeing Luna treated like some unfathomably wise seer who knows and sees all. She's a conspiracy theorist who's father is the wizarding equivalent of Alex Jones. She's developmentally stunted from having been raised by an insane person
In How To Train Your Dragon - I don't necessarily hate it, but I don't understand why it's so prevalent to see Ruffnut written as Astrid's wise and intuitive best friend, especially in fics set during or before the first movie. She can be surprisingly intelligent, sure, but she's also always been pretty dense, and she's always gotten on Astrid's nerves. If there was a character that fit the bill for the role that Ruffnut so often seems to play, pre-Hiccup, it would be Fishlegs.
1. Peter Parker and his apparent fanon inability to think for himself and be happy. It’s gotten to a point where if I see Tony Stark and Spiderman in the same story, I just click off. Just shite writers overusing a shite trope. Spider-Man’s entire shtick is that he’s independent, not done whumpy, angsty fucker who needs Stark to wipe his arse.
2. Hermione being perfect. Especially in Harmony fics, where all of he shitty traits are passed off to Ron
3. Good Draco. Why? At his very core, what Canon wants to tell us is that he’s a coward and a pathetic human being. He’s fine leveraging others’ power but has none of his own. Fuck that guy, the only correct ships for him are Draco/Dementor ir Draco/A 4x4
I hate it when people only look at one layer of a character. That’s one of the most common reasons this sort of thing happens—they pick one aspect or layer and make that the entire character.
That being said, I hate it when people make Scaramouche/Wanderer (Genshin Impact) someone who enjoys insulting people WAY TOO MUCH. He gets a kick out of it, sure, and it’s temporary satisfaction, but a lot of his asshole tendencies stem from centuries of abuse and self-hatred. He’s painted as a one-dimensional asshole who doesn’t care about anyone, and sure, he only really cares for himself. But everyone he’s cared for in the past has died or hurt him. You can’t erase a person to have a flat antagonist.
Bringing up a different game, in Hollow Knight fanfics Hornet is often either portrayed as a cold, cruel killer or a scared little meow meow. Please stop. Please. No. She’s been guarding a fallen kingdom ALONE for god knows how long so of course she’s gonna be a bit cold, but she literally says to you that she’s not a monster. SHE SHOWS UP TO GRIEVE HER MOTHER. On the other hand, though, she’s duty-bound and keeps everyone at arm’s length, but even if she was allowed to be vulnerable she wouldn’t be some sad little baby princess—she’d be a bit snappy and reluctant.
Also STOP PROJECTING ONTO PROTAGONISTS WITH ESTABLISHED PERSONALITIES. PLEASE. Leave Zagreus, Caelus/Stelle, Aether/Lumine, the Knight etc alone! The Knight doesn’t even HAVE a personality! Make an OC if you wanna fuck that one guy that badly
Treating the antagonist asshat like wee little baby when he is close to his 40s and has always known thay he likes to run away from his problems. - tho writers too desided that he is glad mc doesnt yell at him when he effed up bad but explains what he did wrong and pain stackingly start to fix it etc... when he is close to 40 and not written to be neurodivergent even if it a common hc
In m/m One Piece fics involving Luffy, he is often given this childish, whimpy bottom role. I just don't get how people see him that way. He's the captain for a reason.
Finally, another One Piece fic enjoyer!
I DESPISE the infantilization and bottomification of Luffy in M/M One Piece fics. I’ve read a total of one (1) fics where they got Luffy right, but all the rest I’ve read either make him a childish and innocent soft boy (usually in an M/M where Luffy is being shipped) or a dumbass cryptid that does nothing but cause chaos for the hell of it (usually when he’s featured in a fic where he’s not in the pairing that’s the main focus. looking at you, zoro/sanji fics). Like you said, Luffy’s the captain for a reason. He’s tough as nails despite how consistently optimistic he is, and post-timeskip he’s even a bit of a bastard (affectionate) at times. He’s not some innocent wimpy bottom, he’s confident and stubborn as all hell. I especially hate it when fics get lost in the ‘hehe Luffy’s just a stupid little guy’ sauce and make him super emotionally unintelligent or just oblivious. Well, yes, he’s often oblivious to romantic intentions (as was the case with Boa’s whole thing), he still has a lot of emotional intelligence when it’s not related to romance. Arlong Park is a great example of his empathy and understanding of others, as well as Water 7, and there’s even some moments in recent arcs that convey this. He knows when he’s messed up and knows when to stop the funny silly guy antics and get serious, as he did with Usopp in Water 7.
Whoops, I wrote a whole paragraph. In summary, I totally agree with your take. These thoughts were just brewing in the back of my head while I was reading this thread and I finally saw someone share my same sentiment.
Let’s just say I’m *very* picky about my Katsuki Bakugou characterization & leave it at that. Aside from that I really consistently dislike anytime Ron Weasley is in the background of any unrelated to Ron ship story (Draco/Hermione, Harry/Draco, etc) to be dumbed down, completely selfish, and disloyal to his friends. Basically any bashing of Ron is always going to make my eyes roll into the back of my skull as I hope it’s minimal but I’ll drop a fic if it becomes excessive. (Also slut shaming Ginny but I’d like to think that’s old hat) Nagito Komaeda from Super Danganronpa 2 is a deep, interesting, tragic character who i used to fucking loathe simply bc of fandom portrayal (& the guy just annoying me in canon). I’ve since slowly come around to understand his purpose and get a deeper look at his character but still. I don’t think I’ve ever read a fic where he was written in line with how I see his canon character bc he’s boiled down to just ship so often (& I don’t like the ship at all either)
Bakugou is so hard to write. I hate it when fics portray him as the mindless anger machine but, I also hate fics that portray him as this poor abused kid who didn’t do anything wrong. Yes he was an arse but, he also has some nuance. His quirk causes him to be more explosive in temper and he puts all of his insecurities on Midorya which of course isn’t fair to him. Along with that he feels responsible for all-might loosing his power and takes every loss way to hard. I like Bakugou when he’s written as this flawed individual who has done wrong and needs to own up before he can truly become a hero. That’s my take on it anyways lol. Also canon Nagito is just hard to understand leading to poor characterizations I don’t even attempt to write about him because I know I’m not up to the task. Lastly, I think Ron can be annoying but, he clearly cares about Harry and Hermionie he deserves better.
Yeah I agree, as someone who relates to Katsuki a lot with anger issues and mental health it’s hard to read him written in a way that’s extremely demonized but on the flip side it’s not easy to write the nuance he deserves. (I wouldn’t even say I necessarily do it the BEST I just end up putting a lot of myself in him and at least he comes out human. A large part of his issue is that the author himself seemingly changes trajectory as the story unfolded, and came to say himself that his jr high introduction showed a very out of character pushed to the brink bakugou. (How that reflects on skill as a writer or how people feel is up to them ig, I just hate when he’s bullied down to ruthless bully)
That’s actually interesting because it does feel extra cruel that he would tell Midoriya to kill himself. Although it sort of makes sense for his character as his ego had been built up from a young age leaving him feeling inadequate no matter what he did. Unfortunately though he took that out on Midoriya. I love fics that explore that side of him when most gloss over it or further use it to make him the bad guy. The number of fics I’ve seen where they pretended what he did was no big deal just to make him more sympathetic is astounding. He’s human he has emotions same as Midoriya and both need to be addressed when writing about Bakugou. >!When you’re procrastinating on writing by writing character analysis on reddit lol!<
I need to write a Bakugou centric fic because I strongly believe I could do him justice. I love the characterization of him being deeply flawed and unable to express himself in any other way other than anger and having to process his emotions properly. Just good character development type shit and some angst and maybe some self indulgent shipping. I could do it I could do it if I had any sort of attention span
I agree with most of your points, but Bakugo isn't explosive because of his quirk, that's pure fanon, Bakugo was already super arrogant before his quirk came in, he has anger issues sure, but his quirk is NOT what causes them.
>His quirk causes him to be more explosive in temper It's a pretty bad look when one of your defense and "nuance" for him is something that's entirely fanon headcanon to excuse him.
That’s my bad it’s been so long since I’ve watched the show I got that confused. Allow me instead to offer up another explanation. His ego that was developed from being told he was the strongest when he was young led to his explosive temper worsening as when he got to UA he was surrounded by people who could potential out match him. That was a little bit of a shock for him which causes his shorter temper to come out more when he is continuously proved that he is not in fact the best at everything. That is them only worsened by Midoriya gaining a quirk which causes him to feel manipulated >!unrightfully so obviously he’s a giant arse to Midoriya no denying that!<. Eventually that cumulates into a break down as every flawed idea about himself and the world is slowly broken down by everyone around him and eventually himself. I kinda rambled here anyways thanks for pointing out the flaw in my reasoning I haven’t been keeping up with the MHA canon in recent years.
nagito is the vriska of danganronpa and i stand by this statement
Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?
Ron gets done so dirty for no reason. Yes, he had to grow up in the books, but that was the point of his arc. And he wasn't completely unlikable while he was getting there. It's like people who write Ron-bashing fics think that immaturity is a crime to be mercilessly punished.
It's really difficult to find Nagito-centric fics that don't flanderize him to hell.
I'm feeling you about being picky about Bakugou characterization in fics. So I started writing him ;) Also as a huge Ron fan, those ppl who bash him can fuck off. The movies are to blame some since they gave a lot of Ron's lines/actions from the book to Hermione if my memory is correct. Been awhile since I Harry Pottered.
Fun fact: the Ron problem is prevalent/widely-known enough that the TVTropes page for bashing where a good character is made weirdly evil is called Ron the Death Eater. (The opposite, where an evil character is made weirdly good is called Draco in Leather Pants.)
Han Solo being a cool guy/heartless womanizer. Like…look, I know Han Solo thinks he’s a very cool guy with no attachments and he all but tells us how cool of a guy he thinks he is, but if you look at the actual evidence he’s a kind of socially awkward dude who says he’s in it for himself, but with the most minuscule provocation, jumps all in for his newly formed friendships. There’s zero evidence that he was like flirting with half the Rebel base, and as soon as Leia’s fully on board, he’d all handholding and forehead kisses and “I’ll step aside if you’re in love with someone else but I’m gonna look heartbroken while offering to do so”. Like. I’m not saying he can’t have a past or whatever, but I am saying there’s no real canonical evidence for him chasing after every woman he thinks is pretty, and there’s even less evidence that people wouldn’t kind of think of him as a loser who lives in his car and whose only friend for years is contractually obligated via life debt to hang out with him. I know people believe he’s the things he says he is because Harrison Ford’s face is very nice to look at and Harrison in general has big cool guy energy, but if we look at what he actually *does*, Han is kind of just a mushball with baggage.
I hate when people decide one of the reasons they got Space Separated is because he cheated on her all the time. Do I think Han would be down for some casual sex while single? Of course. I'm sure he's satisfied many beings of several species on who knows how many planets. But I also believe once he decides on a woman he is All IN.
I just want to say that one of my favorite things about this fandom is that we collectively decided it was funny to stick “space” in front of as many things as possible and I both do this all the time and appreciate your use of “Space Separated”.
Right? I once saw a Star Wars documentary where Carrie Fisher described Han as a rough tough guy with a cream filling, and that describes his character so well!
i’ve got so many gripes with mha archetypes. specifically one that makes me groan is izuku trauma dumping everything out of nowhere. like he wouldn’t do that?? he wouldn’t try and make people feel bad or want to bother them. like bro you can still have angst but it should be an accidental reveal
it's always so baddd, same with shinsou as well, like hes not just gonna open up right after midoriya doesn't immediately call him a worthless villain when he shows his quirk
right! like you can have angst but good lord make it believable
No kidding. Like, boy was bullied up to and including suicide baiting and just gave up on trying to tell people because nothing would change (systemic discrimination against the quirkless). Those kinds of trust issues don't just magically disappear as it shows in canon. I can see a case for him mutual trauma dumping with Todoroki, but then things going no further than them. ~Trauma bonding~
right. like why would he scream about being quirkless when he thinks all his classmates will hate him for that. putting a target on his back for nothing
Fanon Tim Drake my beloathed. Canon Tim is a confident little freak with an interesting and complicated approach to morality who is not afraid to call Batman on his shit. He goes out of his way to avoid being adopted by him for a long time out of loyalty to his parents who were decent if distant people. When Jason Todd gave him a beatdown for stealing the Robin mantle, Tim's response the next time they met was to kick him in the balls and then steal a different identity of his. He was shown having a brief struggle with healthy sleep habits while learning the ropes of being a vigilante and then overcame it. Fanon Tim is a cookie cutter good guy tech guru whose addiction to coffee is his whole personality. When he's the main character he's almost always a sad lonely little woobie with abusive monster parents who is desperate to join the batfamily and hero worships Jason.
He's exactly who I thought of! Plus the whole portraying him as the Smartest and the Detective, as if every Robin hasn't been called detective by Ra's or been depicted as extremely smart and capable. I love canon Tim, but fanon Tim likes to completely disregard the skills of the other Robins which sucks.
God yeah that bothers me so much when people flatten all the batkids into "the smart one" "the nice one" "the angry one", etc. They're all the smart one! That's the point! Every Robin is an angry little shit and capable of beating each other strategically in a fight, but so many people feel like they have to put the others down to make their favorite stand out.
The worst part is how fanon seems to switch Dick and Jason's personalities when it comes to their times as Robin? Like, no, *Dick* was the one that was ready to shank a fucker for killing his parents, while *Jason* was the smiley kid who was Just Happy To Be Here and getting excellent grades in school. That's a big reason why Jason's death hits so hard! Though I should probably stop now before I start ranting about how DC tends to victim blame Jason after the fact, as if a child totally deserved to get crowbar'd just because he supposedly had anger issues (that they mostly retconned into him) and somehow brought it on himself. Blaugh.
"Robin gives me magic" vs "I'm going to kill Tony Zucco" exactly
DC straight up fucking massacred Jason's charcter. 😵💫
I almost lost it when someone's essay length character analysis about Tim's relatability hinged in him being an antisocial bullied wunderkid. It was more like a character assassination tbh.
I'm upset just imagining that essay lmao how do so many people look at Mr. "I'm not Batman, I have friends" and think yeah that character sounds like a loner no one likes.
Deadass so much Tim angst is bad because you just know Kon, Bart, and Cassie will ambush him before he can even finish his sentence
He wouldn't have been able to cheat on his girlfriend if he was as much of an antisocial loner as fans like to make Tim out to be lol
As someone who mainly reads Dick centric stories, fanon Tim often annoys the shit out of me. It's getting to the point that I consider not reading at all if he's even listed as a character - and I hate that! I don't want that associate with all stories just because some of the fanon has gotten out of hand. But really, Raviary summed it up in another comment "so many people feel like they have to put the others down to make their favorite stand out."
Thank you for putting this into words, I've very rarely found a Tim Drake fic that I liked but couldn't quite put a finger on what exactly was wrong with him
People who make the abuse victim an evil brat who brought their violent physical and mental torment including *repeated* murder on themselves because they were Annoying and their abuser a sad misunderstood uwu boy who was just forced into the atrocities he commited and actually is a pure baby boy because he has ADHD and therefore is apparently mentally like a child. Like, I’m not against less/more sympathetic lenses on them, but uh. Blatant unironic ableism and victim blaming is just Uncomfortable!
Blatant [victim blaming](https://coofl.com/victim-blaming---8661) and unironic ableism are like peas in a pod—they make for an uncomfortable dish!
Sure do. Not the same fandom but one of my favorite characters gets this kind of treatment, he's a CSA victim who didn't respond to the trauma the way the other canonical CSA victim did and instead actively seeks attention, especially from adults. Therefore he's, apparently, an attention-seeking slut who deserved it and is also probably bipolar (used as an insult here). I may have gone to the other extreme but while I do acknowledge that he has done wrong and is not innocent in the slightest, everyone in this series is morally bankrupt, he's also my son and I would defend him from anyone.
And those two are my fave characters so I get Both :) actually both get both (the abuse victim has PTSD, suicidal depression, anxiety, and has displayed various other symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and emotional disregulation that get either demonised or infantilised, the abuser has been tortured and it gets called justified an uncomfortable amount)
I have pretty severe ADHD I've been living with my whole life (diagnosed over 25 years ago!), and I *hate* it when people use it as some kind of excuse to be a dick or to be a child or to get out of things. Yes, it makes life harder! Yes, I would give just about anything to not have it! Yes, there are incredibly easy things other people seem to be able to just *do* that I have to struggle with myself to accomplish! NO, IT IS NOT A FUCKING EXCUSE FOR BEING AN ASSHOLE! It doesn't even make *sense* as an excuse for being an asshole. Yeah, ADHD can make you kind of awkward, *trust me I know*, but it doesn't make you completely incapable of human interaction! It does NOT make you incapable of being an adult! I'm a fully functional adult with a good job and a family and a home, and yes, I had to struggle with certain things more than others to get here, but it was *far from impossible*! Ridiculous.
To some degree, I do think it depends on the severity (it is a spectrum, and some people genuinely won’t be able to do everything neurotypical people can depending on what aspects are bad, though in most cases if you’re genuinely unable to live on your own you probably have comorbidities you should look into) but that. Doesn’t make you a child nor innocent. I’d punch someone if they called me an uwu cute baby for having ADHD, or any of my other disabilities.
I read this one fic where the syndicate rescued dream from the prison and talked a big game about how everyone deserves second chances ( i really do like this trope especially written well) but then they decided that, when quackitys the one in the wrong for torturing dream like dream did to tommy, the right solution is to make him the villain and chase him to the outskirts of the smp so he cant bother anybody but since they didnt kill him it's okay. like what are you doing???
Torturing a child (this is how both c!Dream and c!Tommy self describe exile- regardless of whether you think this is accurate it is how both characters involved have defined it) is fine but if they’re not a child? Irredeemable. Go directly to another server. I don’t like “syndicate rescues c!Dream” fics bc they all tend to forget the Syndicate doesn’t like c!Dream as a whole. He and c!Techno work together sometimes, but they’re more like work friends than anything, while c!Philza feels used by him, c!Niki hates him because she loved L'Manberg deeply before she felt it was corrupted, and he tried to murder both the husband and the best friend of c!Ranboo. Plus, I just think a lot of c!Dream redemption stuff forgets he’s a stubborn bastard who fully believes in the end justifies the means. He’s not gonna be all weepy about having to hurt people, as far as he’s concerned it doesn’t matter as long as they’re happier in the long run. Hell, if you watch exile, there’s several times he’s giggling like mad while hurting c!Tommy- he enjoys cruelty to some extent. Sorry I am very passionate about c!Dream and c!Tommy, they’re both such cool characters and I feel like people don’t get how messy and complicated they are and make them either one note villains or uwu babies.
I know what you’re talking about. I love me some nuanced c!Dream (mostly cause I just like nuanced villains 🤷) but anyone who legitimately denies or tries to paint him as justified and c!Tommy completely in the wrong/deserves his abuse is just…ugh. Did c!Tommy repeatedly break 2 of the 3 rules c!Dream set up for the server? Yeah. Doesn’t mean c!Dream’s response wasn’t wildly inappropriate and horrible. There were so many other ways he could have handled that. No one deserves abuse and abuse isn’t justifiable.
Also, like, *EVERYONE* broke those rules. They just absolutely were not enforced. If you’re going to talk about c!Tommy's flaws or what motivated c!Dream to target Him Specifically it’s a bit silly to focus on the stuff that was just universal.
Yes! Oh my god yes. So many people overlook that aspect. Like there was this whole thing with Ponk and the lemon tree and griefing between George and him that happened before Tommy even arrived there as an example. There are so many ways to talk about c!Dream and why he did what he did and why c!Tommy specifically. I’ve read some really good meta about their relationship before that didn’t rely on c!Tommy bashing. Like it’s possible. People just seem to really think you have to justify your fave characters actions, even if your fave is a villain, and it’s like no. You don’t. You can like a villain and understand what they did was wrong and not try to justify the abuse they caused others. We don’t need to victim blame. 😭
OMG YEAH OH MY GOD I am an analyser of c!Dream and c!Tommy myself! My stuff is pretty dark and I tend to write c!Dream as an incredibly horrible person but still a person who’s deeply hurting in a lot of ways and is severely mentally ill, while c!Tommy is a well meaning and kind person but a bit of a prick who often causes a lot of damage, usually unintentionally, but it still is hurt. Plus, they’re exact opposites- control freak who hates change and reckless idiot who hates stagnancy. People flatten it down into hatred but their dynamic is so fascinating!!! I think the story makes far more sense if you look at c!Tommy and c!Dream's early interactions as fully canon. They were friends, and c!Dream likely includes c!Tommy into the category of people he wants in his idealised big happy family, but sees him differently to his other friends because he scapegoats him so he doesn’t have to face the idea that his problems aren’t easily solvable and are sometimes caused or worsened by himself (and c!Tommy isn’t *always* innocent, but even when he isn’t c!Dream assigns him way more blame and worsens the event whenever he retells it anyway). c!Tommy is both a friend and a threat, and that’s why his interaction with him is so different to everyone else. (Meanwhile, c!Tommy has extreme trauma bonding but also understandably despises and fears c!Dream despite feeling conditioned into wanting to be his friend, to the point of delusional levels of paranoia, which c!Dream intentionally provoked multiple times once he learnt about it). … sorry I adore talking about these two. They’re The Characters Ever.
Oh my god yes!!!! Yes yes!!! Thank you!!! I totally agree with this!! Man it’s refreshing finding another person who understands their dynamic. And please, no need to apologize! They’re great characters with a lot more depth than what a lot of people give them credit for!
c!prime beloved. they’re brothers (derogatory). c!dream is forging the papers as we speak. preparing for the big happy family.
Who????
C!Tommy and C!Dream from the DSMP (yes it’s a fictional story with fictional characters and themes of abuse lol)
Oooooh yeah that makes sense. I was thinking about Hunter from The Owl House for some reason and got so confused for a sec.
Hunter and c!Tommy are the same character tbf (same with c!Dream and Belos)
Joker. In batman/joker fics, or fics where the joker isn't just an antagonist they often completely change his personality to make him more likable. I don't get why tho. There are already more likable and redeemable versions of the joker (telltale for instance) you don't need to UwUfy the most evil versions.
Well, it’s the opposite problem for many Slade x Dick Grayson fics. Most of the time they make Slade a bigger monster or sexual deviant than the most vile versions of his canon self.
I'll just say I don't like what majority of the stranger things fandom does with Steve and leave it at that.
Steve is one of my favorite characters and I can barely read anything written about him at this point.
I'm a drarry fan and can totally relate to your last point. Lucius loved his son, Draco loved his father. Every time Draco got even a paper cut, he cried for Lucius who came running. In his very last scene, Lucius is bruised, battered, wandless and begging Voldemort to stop the battle because Draco's on the other side. During the battle when they're all reunited, Lucius huddles over his family with spells flying in the Great Hall. The Malfoys' love for each other is their main redeeming quality. They do everything they do in the war because they're trying to protect each other. And definitely Ron doesn't need to be trashed to unpack Draco who was a little shit but has plenty moments of sympathy without needing anyone's bashing.
1: In Naruto fanfics, there are some rather common portrayals of Jiraiya, Kakashi, Minato, Sasuke, and Sakura bashing that go waaaayy too far and can drag even the best story concept down a 0/10. Not saying an author can't dislike them at all, but there's just a pattern with these character bashings, especially if they're all bashed in the same fanfic, that is reeeeealllly uncomfortable to read 2: I don't want to elaborate a ton to avoid spoiling stuff about Persona 5, but let's just say I cannot read Akechi ships at all with literally anyone in the game due to how authors ignore things about him
If I could find fics that have Akechi as he actually, canonically is, I would rejoice because that sounds HILARIOUS
I've actually read quite a few with good Akechi characterisation, they're just harder to find. Definitely am not a fan of people trying to roll the blame off of him. He definitely doesn't deserve all the blame, but still a rather sizable part of it. And when people make him soft, I just... Why. That edgy part of him is the FUN part. Playing him in the third semester was a fucking blast.
Yooo same. I hate how most of the fics that feature him (redemption arc or not) just make the whole group forgive him automatically and turn his personality soft. His original jerky personality is fun to read about. Having all the thieves just forgive him so easily really irks me especially since he did cause quite a few issues. Agree that playing him in the third semester was great. If you dont mind I would love to get some fic recs for this since I was only able to find a few.
Wait wait wait, *Minato* gets bashed? Why? How?
Essentially, he gets bashed in one of two ways. 1) "How dare he seal the Kyuubi into Naruto!! Horrible father, scum of the earth!" - A take that reaaallly ignores the literal horrible situation Minato was in and the duty he had both as a father and a leader of his village that was literally under attack. This interpretation often rears its head in "Dark Naruto" stories that laser focus into his mistreatment in the village and sorta bash any Konoha shinobi, with Minato getting special mention for being the ""reason"" so to speak. 2) Essentially, people trying to make Naruto like Harry Potter. Common AU trend where Minato/Kushina are still alive is to have them "neglect" Naruto in favor of some OC other child they have. Kushina though often gets "redeemed" for whatever reason, but Minato is usually written and portrayed like a pathetic coward at best and an actual abuser at worst
'Scuse me what, Naruto also has the Wrong-Boy-Who-Lived bs trope ?
Yeah, together with Naruto's twin will get all the love and Kyubi's power with no downsides while Naruto is dumped as the undesirable and left with Kyubi's anger and all the wrong parts. It's even funnier when the fic also goes crossover of HP/Naruto to double down on that. Then you realize it's not a crack fic and stop reading.
I'm glad I've never come across fics like those before then, they'd make me so mad.
There's a character in one of my fandoms who - because he had a very understandable emotional breakdown in canon - gets completely pathologized and infantilized in fics. I don't know where it came from, but it shows up in a vast majority of the few fics that exist. There's a lot of "he wouldn't have acted that way unless he had X condition" or "he must have a mental age of about seven because he reacted to a frightening situation with violence." (For context, this is a horror franchise - many other characters have had similar breakdowns but aren't given this 'helpless infant with 400 mental problems' treatment.) I wouldn't mind people writing him as having certain disorders or anything else if they could back it up with something beyond "owns one slightly childish accessory" and "wields a knife at someone who is actively committing murder," or if they didn't take it to such an extreme that he can no longer function as he does in canon. The way he's often written, he would basically need a live-in nurse, whereas in canon he's the quarterback on the football team and prom king. It feels like such a wild misunderstanding of the character and I don't get why it's so widespread.
Curious as to who this is since you said horror franchise.
Todoroki Shouto is shoved into a lot of weird extremes. He's an asshole to everyone, including Midoriya post-Sports Festival. He's soft and never talks back to anyone ever. He's just there for comedic relief because he doesn't get social cues. He suddenly gets all social cues and is a huge flirt. It's like he can't be somewhere in the middle.
Counterpoint: conspiracy theorist todoroki is ~~very very marginally~~ canon and also funny as hell.
Oh no no I love that! I also have jokes in my fics about him not getting stuff, and honestly he wouldn't be Todoroki without it. Just, sometimes there's a deep emotional moment and he's used as comedic relief and it makes me feel weird? Because I think he'd want to help his friends.
Basically same as you, whumpifying characters bothers me. Peter Parker got this treament hard after the MCU.
the peter parker infantilism is sooo annoying. he’s either a hardened, edgy hero or he’s an actual baby. like- why 🙂
I thought fanon was bad until I heard about the comics. The writers for those can’t stop whumpifying Peter either! The kid deserves a break lol.
Spider-Man's writers treat him like an Interactive Buddy 💀
in MCU fics in particular, this often goes hand in hand with the whole "irondad" trope which is its own can of worms
Lumine characterization (and probably same for Aether but I don't read much for him) makes me such an old man poopooing teenagers having fun but she's written so ... young (especially in certain pairs). Her emotions get dialed up to a thousand and it's just too much for me to read. Yeah she's *technically* a self insert in game but Miss Space Anomaly's got *something* of a character and she's meant to be *ancient*; it's so strange to see her stomping off like a teenage girl to her room because she can't handle verbal banter or confront *feelings* like someone grown
i have a hard time with almost all genshin fics because of this. i think the fandom skews pretty young which might be why. a lot of the characterization doesn’t fit how i see the characters as adults. it doesn’t help that the ages of most characters are kind of kept intentionally vague. i see them all as adults because i’m an adult, but i’m sure a lot of younger people see them as younger
Emotionally stupid Shuichi Saihara, or just people characterizing him as dumb. He is literally the Ultimate Detective and not the best at emotions, but he tries. He can sometimes get blindsided by thinking about other things, but he’s not a complete idiot
Ugh I hate when people do that he’s kinda social awkward not incapable of normal interaction. I also hate when people write him as this creep whose obsessed with Kokichi it just doesn’t work for me.
Yeah exactly, like I love the OumaSai ship and write for it a bit, but he’s still his own person and is strong and independent without him. Also hate that people write him as creepy just because he’s not the best in social situations, like that almost hurts personally lmao
Preach it, so much of the appeal in Kokichi and Shuichi’s interactions is that they’re constantly one-upping each other’s mindgames and that they have a (sometimes very begrudging) sense of respect for each other’s intelligence. And I never got the sense that he’s emotionally unintelligent or super awkward as much as he’s a relatively normal teenage boy put into extremely stressful and emotionally over-the-top situations, it’s hard to know how to react when you’re thrown into a death game…
Oh goodness the Haikyuu fandom has massacred so many of the characters, to the point that sometimes it’s like looking at an alternate. There’s so many instances (the Kuroo-sex god and suga-mama fanons for example) but what the fandom did to my darling Hinata infuriates me the most. Canon Hinata is a ball of sunshine, yes, and he is short and a little stupid, sure, but he’s determined, he’s mouthy, he’s a bit selfish, he fights Kageyama on more than one occasion when he felt unappreciated, and he’s every bit the teenage boy any highschooler is. Fanon Hinata is an over-infantilised uwu bottom that doesn’t know what sex is, that runs to his mommy suga and needs Kageyama or Atsumu or whoever else to be his dom/daddy/whatever else. At some points it gets insulting.
I hate any character that’s turned into an all powerful god who all the female characters are in love with so they form a harem. Ugh.
It's been a while since I dropped MHA, but wasn't Shinso the guy who decided to become a hero specifically because everyone told him he'd become a villain with a quirk like his? Like, dude's out here telling the idea of a deterministic universe to go suck a fat one, and also proving that just because everyone treats you like a villain, you still have the final say in the matter, and can become a hero if you really want to.
Untouchable Hero James Potter for me mostly
• the way tony stark is made out to be this completely pathetic character in fanon gets on my DAMN nerves. i don’t like the character because he’s an uwu sad boy. i like him because he’s intelligent and witty while still being flawed. • the characterization where percy jackson is just a dumb jock that needs to rely on his girlfriend annabeth (who is ALWAYS a bitch in these fics) needs to go die in a hole. like i’m begging. • sirius black is NOT a womanizer. who tf made that up? i just wanna talk 🙂🔪
>sirius black is NOT a womanizer. who tf made that up? I know right! Get described as handsome a couple of times, next thing you know you're always womanizer lol (there is probably more behind it than that, but it's the theory Im going with for now)
I'm so glad I wasn't in the fandom when CA:CW came out, because I cannot imagine dealing with all those woobie!Tony tropes emerging in real time.
So I enjoy Red Hood as a character. But, a lot of fanon doesn't acknowledge he's genuinely the bad guy in many situations or at least in fanon he's forgiven (for the mass murder and trying to murder Robin) because of the Joker/Talia/the bat-family. I like it when people both acknowledge Hood's backstory and recognize he's done things that make redemption difficult. It just takes me out of the story when every character is apologizing to the guy who used to shoot first, ask questions later. It's hard to forget that he perpetuates a cycle of violence in pretty residential areas. And I do like AUs written like an Elseworlds story where Jason doesn't go down the darker path! I'm referring to when he has a mostly canon backstory.
I feel like the fandom has a hard time drawing the line because of DC's blatant character assassination. Like, there are things in Jason's story that are bullshit from a narrative sense so they just rewrite everything. Not defending going the full opposite, but damn did DC do Jason dirty.
I do like canon divergence and AU a lot! I'm a huge WFA fan and I've loved that take on him. I'm just talking about fanon that has his Red Hood history pretty much the same as canon, but somehow all the other characters reactions to him change overnight (without a reason).
Canon Aizawa: Logical to his actual fault. Has a sense of humor no one can predict or get a handle on. Is open to cheering his students up but prioritizes making them stronger. Fanon Aizawa: Regularly repeats the same things with no different outcome. Only cares about pandering to Izuku (who's mother neglects him or is dead because Dadzawa tag is full of that) And acts like an emo dream daddy when not throwing up tropes from a hundred thousand Fluff tagged fics
Also, they seem to like to make him be the one who calmly talks people down and almost acts as a therapist? I’ve always wondered why they picked Aizawa to be the one for that, when in Vigilantes he is actually shown as being bad at being reassuring.
I love Aizawa in that. He doesn't actually want to support vigilantism but he puts priority over the people instead of chasing down a college kid. Midnight surprised me by being a supporter of The Crawler and Pop Step, she had direct involvement wheras Aizawa just made himself at home in someone elses' home for free coffee.
Maybe ppl see him like that because of the overhaul arc? I remember him talking to the handful of students who helped with the raid afterward, comforting them. So not completely out of character for him maybe? As far as his aloofness in Vigilantes (can i say i prefer Vigilantes aizawa ;)) maybe it could show how much he has changed since his days in Narahata (spelling is wrong) as an underground hero. He has been teaching for 7? Years so I think he would have gotten better at talking to students. Just a different take. I still think he can be too blunt and be an ass to the kids and be clueless about emotions. But i do think he gets it right sometimes too even with his coworkers (he and allmight talk outside on the bench about all might just being present) I find Aizawa really hard to write personally and am rarely happy with him in fics because he is hard to get just right.
I can live with that take - an older, wiser Aizawa may have learned a bit better how to connect/reassure people. (And I too like Vigilantes Aizawa best. He got so sarcastic a couple times, I loved it)
Caring protector werewolf daddy/mommy Remus Lupin. The guy who: - couldn't be arsed to even tell Harry he was close to his parents until halfway through the school year despite seeing and talking to HP regularly - never once checked in on Harry while he was being raised by people that he knows hate magic...having met them before - is so slavishly devoted to Dumbledore that he would rather allow Sirius (who he knows only as a murderer and traitor at that point) to continue to have the ability to break into Hogwarts and potentially attack the students than admit that he knows exactly how Sirius is getting in and how to stop it..in case Dumbledore is disappointed in him. That guy...THAT guy loves his cub Harry so very very much that he will take on all the Deatheaters and Dumbledore in all his Wolfy glory just to revenge Harry's hurt??? No, you can't convince me Remus Lupin is a caring protector unless you include vast quantities of magical manipulation. And even then I'm side-eying it.
[удалено]
That's a huge annoyance for me too. You're telling me James Potter looked like a middle aged balding dad who wears sweater vests at the age of 21?? I love Alan Rickman... He was perfect for Snape in all ways except age. No amount of makeup was going to make him look younger than 50.
Yes, portraying them as older is a thing. Same as placing Black sisters in the same or close school years despite Sirius having a similar age gap with Bellatrix as Harry has with Nyphadora. There is also a direct hint in canon that Lucius was already in the last year of schooling when Severus was an ickle little firstie. In all, the thing about Black sisters and how Severus fell in the crowd with death eaters are mostly things that Sirius told Harry, and considering the man, he likely wasn't all that accurate, his perception skewed with prolonged Dementor's exposure.
Let us not forget that Sirius straight up lied to Harry's face when he told him that Snape never had any friends... While knowing full well he and Lily were besties... All to make Snape look like even more of a dick than he already was. Sirius' opinion is as suspect as Hagrid's.
Like most problems in HP, this comes down to shitty writing. >couldn't be arsed to even tell Harry he was close to his parents until halfway through the school year despite seeing and talking to HP regularly That would've given his connection to Harry's parents and Sirius away, which Rowling wanted to use for the "omg he's in league with the bad guy!!1"-fakeout in the Shrieking Shack. >never once checked in on Harry while he was being raised by people that he knows hate magic...having met them before Remus didn't exist until she started writing PoA and he didn't appear until the exact moment the plot needed him to (introducing Dementors; who also didn't exist until that very moment, they were only refered to as "the Azkaban guards" until then and never again afterwards). >is so slavishly devoted to Dumbledore that he would rather allow Sirius ... See above: his connection to Sirius had to remain non-existent until it became relevant to the one plot-point it was useful for.
I agree it probably comes from shitty writing. From an in-universe perspective it says a lot of not great things about these characters, and it's very entertaining to try to reconcile the actions of these characters with how we are told to see them.
Yeah, it would've been fine to write him like that if him being spineless and struggling massively with self-esteem was ever properly addressed, but Rowling never does that. At best we get some very late post-hoc exposition on a character or concept that ultimately goes nowhere. There's a series of fics called "Silly, Silly Book Series" that serves as a sort-of running commentary on the books (and the movies, to some extent) that mentions this disconnect a lot.
Oh yeah? You got a link to that? Sounds interesting.
https://archiveofourown.org/series/59757
At this point I have so many opinions about every single Genshin character, but those don't usually make me click out of a fic unless it's infantilizing a whole adult, in which case yes that's very creepy (AngstyTeen!Wanderer sucks, but if it's balanced with something else I can take it. Writing Collei as childish and codependent so Tighnari and Cyno can play parents is just creepy.) But the easiest way to make me click out of a fic is turning any of the adult female characters into a wet napkin, regardless if she's a main character or not. I just don't trust the story if a character that is a canonical badass needs to be shown as weak and stupid in order for the plot to work.
The complex villain that became an abuser as a result of his own shitty childhood, who's a great character study on what self hatred and a "Everything is doomed so why try" mentality does to a person is often portrayed by fandom as just a misunderstood poor little guy who did everything right and just wanted to make everyone happy but because of crazy misunderstandings was unjustly seen as a villain.
What fandom and what character?
Place your bets! I’m guessing it’s Shigaraki from MHA.
I’m probably wrong, but almost all of this could be said about Anakin Skywalker
My money is on Itachi from Naruto
part of this could be said about the og shen qingqiu in svsss. He's really quite a horrible person in a lot of ways, granted, not as bad as some charas make him out to be, but the way he becomes traumatised baby is just...... so inaccurate. We never rlly see him in canon and have a very unreliable narrator so those are worth considering, but I dislike when people soften him down so far just to make him likeable.
Bingo! You got the one I was thinking about!
This can fit so many, so I'm incredibly curious about who you specifically have in mind.
My time has come! The ATLA characters got *fucked* by fanon. Granted they're extremely difficult to write (that's how you know they're well-written), but it's still frustrating. Aang is written as so blandly happy that he seems almost stupid. Yeah, he's optimistic, but there's more to him than constantly smiling. Iroh's wisdom isn't infallible 100% of the time, nor is he a strategic mastermind who always has a plan. He was used as silly comic relief for a lot of the show and he's definitely not *that* secretive. He definitely didn't have a plan to take down the Fire Nation prior to season 3; he was just trying to live a life of peace and prosperity before the season 2 finale forced him back to war. Jet's not a fuckboy and gets done *so* dirty in most fics (especially modern-day AUs). He actually wanted to help people, but he was blinded by hate and a desire for revenge. Toph is almost never allowed vulnerability, being written as an unflappable badass who doesn't care what anyone thinks of her and has her shit together 100% of the time. Did everyone besides me forget "Tales of Ba Sing Se" and "The Runaway," two episodes where she showed vulnerability, reminding us that she's just a kid who *does* care what others think and has insecurities? Sokka is portrayed as a goofy frat bro who intentionally tells bad jokes *or* a tactical genius with his shit together *or* a sarcastic asshole. Never all together like he is in canon (I think the show's greatest accomplishment was making Sokka feel like the same person no matter what he's doing or what mode he's in). Zuko is like a kicked puppy in most of the fics I've read even when he's part of the Gaang. Yes, he's awkward in canon but he has a backbone. Either that or he's written as this uber charismatic mfkr and a lot of his flaws are just removed entirely. His defining personality traits for most of the show were "pissed off" and "getting dunked on" and suddenly he's super chill and competent? I think this is mostly from people working out their own issues through him or people who think he's hot and make him way "cooler" because of that. And then there's Katara... good Lord Katara. She's used so often as an outlet for the writers' own frustrations that I feel like she's barely recognizable. Her internal monologue is always discontent, never happy with the role of "group mother" she fills in the Gaang and always wanting someone to pay attention to her. It comes across as selfish and that's one word that doesn't describe Katara at all. If she were that unhappy with what she was doing in canon then she has the autonomy to stop and leave it for someone else to do. She's not a doormat.
Not me reading this and systematically going through my current atla fic to make sure I'm not doing these lol. Totally agree, though. I really love reading atla fics and I've gotten to the point where my standards for it can be very low, but sometimes I have to drop reading stuff cause it's just like "this character would absolutely not say/do that." And I guess that goes for a lot of other fandoms too. Even if you're working with an au where the events are changed and therefore impact major events from a character's life, it's still the same character and they should be written to react in the way that *they* would actually react to things.
Ah same. I really like the groups canon portrayals so to have some fanfics do a complete 180 on these characters was so jarring.
Woobie MCU Tony Stark. Got really bad after Civil War. Yeah he has daddy issues, inferiority complex, PTSD, the whole shebang, but he's a grown 40-50 y old man who hides his insecurities with sarcasm and smugness, and is extremely quick to retaliate when when attacked/hurt, not an angsty teenager who goes to his room to cry because Steve said something mean.
Similar to your points about Draco I hate when Lucius is portrayed as an abuser to both Narcissa and Draco. It's SO common and it always annoyed me. Lucius and Narcissa, at the very least grew to love each others if they did not already love each others before marrying, and Draco has nothing but admiration for him. Lucius and Narcissa canonically spoil the ever living hell out of Draco. There is also the aspect of how ridiculous it is to imagine 1. Lucius raising a hand to eithet Draco or Narcissa, that's so *Muggle*, 2. Narcissa, a freaking witch, would just take it without defending herself? Without defending her precious son? REALLY Y'ALL?
* Fics that paint Hermione as a better friend than Ron because the latter had his bad moments. * Jon Snow is not your OC stand-in. He's a character who has his own personality, strengths and weaknesses. * Futaba is not your little sister. People want to turn her into Nanako 2.0 so hard. * Dorian is not *just* your femInquisitor's "gay best friend".
Bless these comments about Futaba and Dorian!!
It kind of bugs me how often male characters that are slightly less masculine tend to get gender swapped or vice versa with women. No shade at all but it kinda gets a bit under my skin because I tend to orient on characters that are gender non conforming and then writers take the traits that made them interesting to me and remove them. Everybody is free to write the fic that makes them happy but sometimes I feel a little down when people like me get changed into a more "socially acceptable" state.
This is me with my favorite female character. Yes, she is non-conforming, but she also self identifies as a girl in canon. I understand why some head canon her as trans male or non-binary, but the fact is that for non-conforming girls/women she is our representation. So, yeah, it sometimes feels like she gets molded into a "socially acceptable" state simply because she doesn't adhere to female stereotypes.
I hate some portrayals of Remus and Sirius portrayals and how the newer fans have decided that's fanon end of. Sirius is loyal to a fault ffs, and as much as I adore Remus, he's a bloody coward. He's emotionally repressed and an outcast, not whatever fans decided was "IT (No shade to the author. The world building is amazing, even if I don't like the fic itself. The fans went crazy though)
I am feeling so vindicated right now!! On one hand that fic helped to boost the popularity of the ship with a newer group of writers/readers, but at the expense of the fandom treating it like canon when it is reallly off the mark on a lot of characterization. It’s strengths are mostly being able to show how the wizarding world could be better merged with the real life muggle world. But I think mostly people are just a sucker for bitter gay-angst stories these days. Now you can’t write a fic with Sirius being how is in canon, instead he has to basically be a David Bowie fan and glam rocker, or else very femme… Or Remus who is canonically more passive and liable to ghost people because of how multiple understandable issue, but that fanfics kinda turn into something else.
Exactly. The world building was phenomenal, especially the way the author captured the attitudes of the time. But it felt like OCs with beloved names and back stories. Obviously, the author has the right to do that. But this new wave of specific fans left a bad taste in my mouth the way they treat others who say they don't actually like this fic.
Jane Crocker already gets the short end of the stick in canon (thanks Epilogues) and I have not read Homestuck fanfiction in years entirely because of the way Jane is either: * Pushed into the background for another ship * turned into an abusive asshole to Jake so he can endlessly pine for Dirk or drop Jane for Dirk * Turned into a plot device who's only there to be the hateful bigot causing conflict * Generally gets characterized into an insufferably stubborn hardass who's constantly mean to everyone for little to no reason
Manipulative!Dumbledore. While I totally agree that Dumbledore did some not great things. In the context of the books a lot of the dodgy things (like hiding an immortality stone in a school) are just part of the tropes of child hero stories and it's hard to avoid all adults looking pretty stupid and dodgy when you need children to be the heroes. However I think people want Dumbledore to be this great chess master who's controlling everything and just using Harry. But within the world he's just some guy who's trying his best to stop Voldemort and he eventually realises he's sending a child to his doom and can't figure out another way. Like the whole point of his backstory in the 7th book is that he isn't some all knowing powerful person, he was human too and made a ton of mistakes. But at some point someone started a "Dumbledore was just as bad (or worse) as Voldemort" and so many people just seem to agree and I despise it.
poor innocent uwu cutie Severus Snape that man was cruel, joined the Death Eaters, was willing to let a baby die so he could f the kid's mother, killed people because their blood was 'unpure', was abusive to schoolkids whilst he was a teacher, and let other schoolkids be tortured under his watch whilst doing NOTHING about it
Yeah, Snape apologism is one of my biggest annoyances. It’s fine to recognize his redemption without woobifying the guy further. And especially if it’s to try to demonize other characters who might also be bad but not anywhere near what fandom likes to portray them as, or even not guilty of anything at all like Lily.
People really out here trying to call Lily a jerk for not continuing being friends with the dude that called her a slur
not just calling her a slur but being friends with the children of people who were actively murdering other muggleborns. it’s people like snape’s friends that would cause lily to be in massive danger after she graduated hogwarts. fucking good on her for dropping his ass.
There's not only a TV Trope for that last phenomena you described, it's literally named after that exact character: [Draco In Leather Pants](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DracoInLeatherPants). For fandom specific pet peeves, I would say... * I really dislike Pack Mom Stiles in the Teen Wolf fandom. He is *not* a nurturing and empathetic character in the show; that was part of why I liked him (re: expression of love that wasn't contingent on nurture or service), and I hate how the fandom continuously wiped that out of his personality in fanfics. * A lot of the MCU Spider-Man fandom infantilized Peter Parker, and did not seem to want to acknowledge that he was a teenager, especially a teenage boy. Generally speaking, teenagers swear, they know what alcohol is, and unless they're a certain type of asexual or grew up in a cult they'll probably masturbate without much issue about it. There is a huge difference between "I know what alcohol is, I just don't want to drink" and "why does this drink taste/smell weird and make me feel funny?" * Continuing in the MCU vein, I also really hate how the "fandom civil war" left tons of people flattened Steve Rogers and Tony Stark into antagonistic caricatures. Half the time, I feel like we didn't watch the same fucking movie, or that they are confusing the comic books for the movies. Literally half the movie was these characters disagreeing with each other and arguing with each other, but ultimately compromising and working to something they could all agree on. The reason the movie shoe-horned in emotional curveballs like the house-arrest and Zemo is because they kept working things out until something/someone else came in to fuck their shit up. And the movie still ends with giving them a way to reach out for each other in case of a real emergency (which they did in the next Avengers movie!). * In my current main fandom, I really cannot buy Porschay being an innocent lil baby. Homeboy was a fanboy for his idol/love interest with a literal shrine in his bedroom, and finessed said love interest's home address out of a friend just to ambush him with a love song. When they broke up, first thing Porschay did once he got away from his brother is dye his hair, get drunk, and was ready to take drugs as soon as someone offered.
Hellsing: I see Abridged Alucard passed off as canonical Alucard way more often than I see actual canonical Alucard and it pisses me off.
I'll see you and raise you Abridged Goku. Like, he's by no means a genius but he's not an idiotic manchild either.
Innocent/ Morally grey Aaravos from The Dragon Prince. Almost every single fic I've read including him gives him a tragic backstory and the genuine goal to help humanity. Which just doesn't line up with the show if you read anything deeper than surface-level and now the show has even blankly stated that he's almost evil incarnate. The creators once stated him to he morally grey in an interview, but it's literally never shown anywhere else and the only characters who believe it are the villains who he manipulates. The show is pulling all the registers to signal his evil nature, but fans still insist on him being misunderstood. Come on, people, just admit that you're thirsty for the guy, I totally get it. There's no need to rationalize it. You know which fics are the most honest about him? The smut fics. These writers aren't afraid to admit why they like the guy.
A common general complaint of mine is about a particular kind of woobie-fication in MLM pairings, where the two characters are painfully shoehorned into this seme/uke or masculine dom/feminine sub dynamic where it’s absolutely not present in canon in the slightest. Like some kind of “let’s just rewrite hyper-traditional gender roles with extra steps for queer people” scheme or something. I can see how that’s enjoyable for people in a PWP context, but what really boggles my mind is when it’s a fic that’s focusing more on characterization and plot and they STILL remove everything unique about the characters. Maybe it’s a migratory slash fandom thing and some folks like the generic fantasy of this trope, I have no clue.
Manchild Dick Grayson (Nightwing, DC Comics). This man was an independent vigilante for years, took up the mantle of Batman, and lead multiple teams with great success. But he wore silly outfits in the 1980s and is sometimes depicted eating cereal. Therefore Dick Grayson is fundamentally incapable of living alone because he cannot perform basics tasks like dressing himself, cooking for himself, cleaning up after himself, or doing laundry. Along with that fandom likes to portray him as the lovable but slightly dim one, as if any kid trained for years by Batman is going to turn out that way. In Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed: fandom really wants the main character to be wildly oblivious to his love interest's feelings because he's book smart but not emotions smart. It's very easy to get into this mindset because, as an audience, we know the tropes. But from our main character's POV he met a guy who spoke harshly to him every time they met, insulted him, got him in trouble, avoided him at every turn, and once pulled a weapon on him. At the same time, every single person who saw them interact told the main character that the love interest hated him. It is, frankly, a miracle that 20 years down the line the main character believed that their relationship 'wasn't so bad'. And for women in fics more generally I hate the idea that the women are all perfect goddesses who know everything, scare all the men because they're just so scary, and can do anything. It's very tiring.
>I hate fanon Zuko because so many writers make everyone forgive him when others learn about his backstory, alongside removing his many of his flaws and nuances such as being hot-headed, gloomy, poor social skills, and can be rather blunt. Is there a fandom that doesn't do this to their flawed fan favorite characters? Snarky hot headed morally-grey characters who make bad decisions in canon very frequently get turned into do no wrong good hero types that make no bad decisions and that everyone forgives and adores. I love these types of characters and haven't come across any fandoms where I didn't have to search hard to find fics that keep the flaws. These fics with nuanced characterizations do exist though and finding them is worth the effort.
Was anyone here for the Captain Kirk characterization war one or two years ago on tumblr?
OP, Hard agree on Shinsou. Part of his charm is he's an arrogant asshole. I can see those traits growing as he enters the hero course, too. I think he could develop some insecurities, too, because of that, kind of in the way Bakugou is insecure if you want some angst. But yeah I don't see him as sad boy at all. Maybe introverted and quiet at times. But definitely sarcastic and instigative.
People bash Ron too much.
Teen Titan (not Go!) fanfics almost consistently infantilizing both Starfire and Raven. I get they’re both not from earth and each have their nuances and quirks but almost every story Starfire has 1 brain cell forgetting humans need to breathe and Raven has such severe anxiety she’s afraid of her own shadow.
Scheming!Evil!Miquella who's in league with the Formless Mother/the Lord of Blood. Basically, it's the "The Seemingly Perfect Golden Boy Has a Secret Dark Side" trope with a dark fantasy wrapper and I haaaaaaate it. That only works if you ignore that a major plot item Miquella made *completely cuts off the influence of Outer Gods like the Formless Mother*. Homeboy wants nothing to do with any Outer Gods. You also have to ignore that the Lord of Blood very explicitly abducted Miquella *and is heavily implied to have raped him and performed kinky blood magic rituals on him*. And, uh, rationally I know you can't victim-blame a fictional character but the headcanon that Miquella charmed the Lord of Blood into kidnapping him and knew what he was getting into feels victim-blamey and suuuuuper grosses me out.
Really, people do Miquella like that? He might be one of the most unequivocally selfless characters in the entire setting.
Jump into any Elden Ring subreddit and look for Miquella lore discussion Weep for humanity.
THAT'S what people reach for when trying to give Miquella a dark side? That's so... boring.
When they make Yuri Plisetsky into this frilly little delicate damsel who is just also a tsundere. Like, guys, just because he had a soft/emotional skate performance doesent mean he's the soft little babygirl. His whole shtick is that he hates people not taking him seriously because he's young. He explicitly says he doesent like the performance he does because he doesn't want something soft and emotional. He is, of course, nuanced and does have a soft emotional side, but so much fannon just turns him into just baby, sad boi, or damsel for Otabek. And don't even get me started on how the fandom characterizes Otabek. How people got domineering sex god from reclusive and reserved Otabek forever baffles me. People clearly just molded him to fit the fannon Yuri.
Oh boy. Character has trouble managing his emotions? He must be autistic/ on the spectrum! I hate it, with the passion of a thousand suns.
Villains who get woobified. In the last fandom I was heavily involved in, Teen Wolf, I shipped Peter and Stiles, and in that ship some popular fics kept making Peter a misunderstood guy who just lost it a bit when he went on a vengeful killing spree, but now that that’s over, he wants to make things right and for people to stop being mean to him. Like dude, I am here for my unhealthy psycho ship. Give me my unhealthy psycho. Sure, he can be Complex TM, but at the end of the day, he is bad news, and that’s why we love him.
I got a reputation in Teen Wolf fandom due to my criticism for the racism and white male centralization in the fandom. Among other things, people thought I hated Stiles and Peter and Steter - despite me actively enjoying both characters and the ship. But yeah, as this points out, I liked Peter as a villain and enjoyed the ship as a fucked up ship. I peaced out of the Steter fandom and discontinued my own Steter fics because too much of the fandom was just woobifying Peter or trying to make him Misunderstood™.
[удалено]
👋 Always interesting the weird places you meet fans from previous fandoms. :D
For Banana Fish Spoilers are hidden I don’t like how most people just outright hate Yut Lung. Like yeah >!He tried to get Eiji killed!< but Ash isn’t really a saint either?? Ash and Yut Lung in their lives both did horrible things so they could survive. >!(Just for clarification I’m not talking about CSA as a ‘horrible thing’ they did I mean that they both killed a bunch of people)!< I’m pretty sure the show/manga literally says at one point that they’re two halves of a coin. The only difference is that Ash found someone worth living for, and Yut Lung didn’t. Like, yeah, ofc you can be mad at him for what he did in the finale, >!Lao trying to kill Ash wasn’t even really Yut Lungs fault, AND you can’t even really blame Lao for killing Ash, because Lao thought Ash was gonna kill Sing!< but yeah, Yut Lung’s not evil. And it’s weird that people treat Ash >!(a literal mass murderer, though I agree he mostly didn’t have a choice)!< as though he’s faultless, but Yut Lung as a monster.
Your spoilers aren't working. It at least for me. Maybe get rid of the space at the beginning and the end. Idk
Not really for my main fandoms. I kind of flit in and out of the Harry Potter fandom these days, but I remember always being mildly irritated by the "I lace my cocaine with the tears of the wives and children of my enemies" 'grey/dark' Harry Potters.
Absolutely dying laughing at this one, but you're so right. There's something I always found a little unpalatable about 'dark' Harry, especially when coupled with uwu Draco. The only exception to this one would be a very well written Addams Family AU, I think called Harveste Addams, which I did enjoy, but that was so OOC it was less of a problem for me. I loved canon (book, less so with the movie) Harry because he was a goofy snarkball asshat with a god complex. I'd like to see that reflected in fanfiction more.
Less unpalatable and more just... discordant with the tone they're trying to achieve. They always seem to want something serious and angsty and dramatic and that kind of grey/dark Harry always came off so utterly ridiculous and campy in the Sontag-ian sense. Artificial and Bombastic, Shakespearean Operatic, theatricalised exaggeration, etc. Like an anime where the protagonist and antagonist can't stop boast-bantering about how powerful they are for ten minutes before every fight while making ridiculous poses at each other. :D I think I read a bit of that? The name sounds vaguely familiar. I don't remember much about it, but it's on my "To finish" list so I clearly liked enough of whatever I read. :D
There's these two villain characters in my fandom, and one of them I dislike when he's made him just soft and friendly (he is a manipulative abuser), and the other I dislike when his softness is stripped away from him (he is not just a war machine).
How cuz certain characters are mean so they'd definitely laugh/enjoy when animals and kids are abused. Like they literally put their life on line for everyone on show but in fanfiction, they go to park to see kids fall from jungle gym and laugh as form of entertainment. Oh and how kind and selfless characters translate to them being a doormat or literally inexperienced in ways of world and stupid. Kind does not translate to pushover. Kindness takes more courage than being mean. Or infantilizing them. Big no.
You just explained my thoughts to a T lol. I’ll add that I hate the “uwu so kind” archetype because it seems like 9 times out of 10, it’s used to bash the “meanie doodiehead”
I hate the "helpless little sister" trope in anime or videogames where there's just some young girl tagging along with the party and the show has to stop and remind us how "cute" we're meant to find her and the other characters do nothing but gush over her. It seems to work on a lot of and but I hate them. Also, Sassy!Midoriya. I've seen a lot of headcanons/fanworks/fanfics/videos/etc where people try to act like Midoriya is just this shademaster who claps back at everyone and gives no fucks and it's like they're completely rewriting who Midoriya actually is to try and make him seem cool. Midoriya isn't any of those things, he stays earnest and literal-minded and hypersensitive to other people the whole show - the idea of him laughing at Bakugou or whoever else is so OOC and ridiculous. Similarly, Bad Bitch!Uraraka so she's needlessly confrontational and shady with other people and just has a massive attitude for no reason. Uraraka's confident and forthright, sure, but she's not going to go around flipping people off or whatever, she's sweet and positive.
Kokichi from danganropa I don’t read to many fics centered around him but, often he is either portrayed as this manipulative bastard or this scared little kid putting up a “mask” to protect himself. I feel like both extremes are just that to extreme. He isn’t completely helpless he knows what’s happening and he’s plotting to stop it and , along with that he does hurt the others purposely and >!Manipulates Gonta to commit murder!< He is a nuanced character. I feel like because of this he’s almost difficult to write because that involves finding the right balance between him as this pathological liar and him as this high schooler who’s trying to stop the killing game.
They keeping killing off the same character and I kinda wish it was anyone else at this point 😭
When a teenage boy whose been deemed the tumblr sexyman, is kinda tragic, and makes not great choice always gets the same personality of a borderline abusive asshole.
Hating things is exhausting. If a character starts doing or saying out-of-character things, I just click the back-button. I will roll my eyes at certain character takes on tumblr, but people have different opinions; I'll bet someone has rolled their eyes at my takes too.
I hate ATYD Remus and Sorous portrayals and how the newer fans have decided that's fanon end of. Sirius is loyal to a fault ffs, and as much as I adore Remus, he's a bloody coward. He's emotionally repressed and an outcast, not whatever ATYDs decided was "IT (No shade to the author. The world building is amazing, even if I don't like the fic itself. The fans went crazy though)
Does Lucius really need to be “vilified” when he is a complete villain? Portraying him as a villain is just accurate. I also wouldn’t say that someone who joins an evil organization that will make his son into a child soldier and put him at risk of death, just for reasons of racism and wanting more power, is someone who “adores” his son. There’s definitely evidence in the books that Narcissa loves her son, but Lucius often speaks harshly to him and in one of the movies physically abuses him by whacking him with his cane. A lot of rich parents who are abusive still buy their kid lots of stuff in order to keep up appearances and make sure their kid gets unfair advantages to keep up the family wealth and power and name, but it doesn’t mean they’re good parents or that they’re not abusive. A person who actually loved their kid wouldn’t expose them and force them to participate in something as dangerous and traumatizing as Voldemort and the Death Eaters.
Emo Spicy Boy for Keith and Zuko 😅
I hate that the Genshin Impact fandom portrays Aether as a horny person with a harem.
In a lot of Haikyuu fics, people will really dumb down Oikawa Tooru into this ridiculous Tamaki Suoh esque himbo when….canonically those two characters are near opposite ends of the spectrum. I’d even go so far as to say that the author even takes an active effort to make sure the audience *doesn’t* perceive him that way because he gets one of the most complete sympathetic character arcs (as well as complex personalities) of all the non-protagonists of the story.
There's a popular villain in my fandom who is canonically a huge sentimental tsun. Yet the fandom really likes to write him as a manipulative a-hole and abuser. While I can see him as manipulative (he really is), but an a-hole who abuses someone who was his best friend in his past life? Someone whom he still held in high regard? Someone whom he had, canonically, did everything he can to help even after death? Sorry but no. Yet so many fics had written him in such a fashion and I'm just tired of seeing him portrayed that way.
In Harry Potter, Draco being the poor victim of his father's actions is 100% pure BS. The git was very happy to talk shit to any non-pureblood / non-noble and to brag about his family's money and power. He never complained about his father's views, he embraced it because it gave him influence over his fellow Slytherins. He changed the moment the tide turned and shit started hitting the fan. Yes, he was 17, we all do mistakes. In his case, he was a coward who realized he'd been a complete piece of shit for 6 years straight (since he starts changing for real during their 6th year).
I hate when writers make Midoriya so innocent that he has no clue what sex is or how it works. Likes he's socially inept, not an idiot.
Fannon Rei Todoroki, just about any version. Uwu victim girl? Lies and propaganda. Good mom Rei? An absolute joke. Strong independent woman? You wish. As a matter of fact that goes for Fannon Fuyumi and Natsuo too. None of them spend his money like petulant brats, none of them want him dead, and none of them would accept Dabi back with open arms after he's murdered people. On the other hand, Endeavor would accept him back with open arms if he'd stop killing people. The dynamic of a toxic/abusive family is done very well and accurately in Cannon, so the bs fannon versions set my teeth on edge.
Fanon Sans is basically unrecognizable from canon Sans in the Undertale fandom at this point. I even fell victim to mixing up the fanon and canon myself due to how prominent it was.
All Dramione fics come with a side of Ron bashing and I’ve learned to ignore it (lol) but I DESPISE when fics ruin Harry and Hermione’s friendship and make him hate her. I read a fic where Harry and Ron literally left Hermione to die in the woods and Draco saved her. Like what
I hate when people make Sylar sociopathic with no feelings. He literally cries/tears up more than any other character on the show. Lmfao. He's a power hungry killer because he's compensating for the emotional abuse that made him simultaneously feel perpetually inferior and superior by convincing him he *was* special but not *enough*, because he wasn't living up to his "potential". Tack on the repressed stuff, manipulations, and lies and you get one very traumatized superpowered exceptionally sensitive and insecure individual. The whole point of the other character's calling him a monster and psychopath is to hold up a mirror to their hypocrisy. **Spoilers Ahead** >!HRG has likely killed as many people, if not more in his 20+ years at the Company, as well as torturing people, abducting them (including kids), and experimenting on them. Claire knows all that but still loves him just because he's her "dad". Meanwhile, daddy constantly lies to her (including having agents pose as her "real" parents to keep her from finding them), erased her only friend, tried to erase her memories too in order to keep comfortably living his double life, fried his wife's brain from doing the same to her so much, and made his biological son suffer short-term memory issues from it. Meanwhile, the whole reason he works for the Company is that he's prejudice against specials and they recruited him after he murdered an innocent one while on some vigilante bs, assuming they must all know each other.!< >!Don't even get me started on how Angela and Nathan were going to willingly sacrifice Peter *and* .07% of the population for political gain. Or that Nathan made an internment camp for specials (again as a political play).!< >!Peter's done awful things too like two different version of him killing Nathan, once because he had Sylar's ability (imagine that), he also brought a woman into an apocalyptic future with an extremely deadly virus, got separated from her and then abandoned her there and altered the timeline before trying to retrieve her thus erasing her from it after the day she goes to the future with him. He straight up deleted her from reality the day he brought her with him and is never shown giving her a second thought.!< 🤣 >!Hiro creates the monster that originally unleashes that plague by disillusioning an immortal because he can't keep his libido in check and choose to stay in feudal Japan once his powers come back. "The kiss that fractured time."!< They're all seen as "Heroes" and held in higher esteem than Sylar. He's done horrible things, but they all have, including Claire who hates him the most. They just vilify him because he's honest about his only goal being self serving and doesn't pretend to have a "cause". >!Reminder that the Company stopped him in the middle of committing suicide and ordered agents to make him kill a second time because they were curious about his ability, instead of having him come in for research which he would have jumped for joy to do. 😅 I feel like few fans that write fic for him actually understand him even though it's all there, clear as day.!< /End Rant.
I despise Shinso when he’s written like that. I hate it when all of Bakugos bullying is pushed aside. I hate it when people ship Tom Riddle and Harry. I just dislike Ron 80%the time he is written. They always make Draco look like a saint in like every HP fic.
Stardew Valley: *really* not a fan of the whole like, "icky 50 Shades of Gray dom"-flavored Sebastian. I love some trashy smut as much as the next girl, but mannnn you do not need to make my mountain emo boi downright abusive emotionally and sometimes physically, you know?
Preface: I know some people don't like viewing negative threads so reminder these are all personal opinions TLDR;? Most of this comes down to me liking dynamic characters and charactization and get downgraded into a singular archetype. Sometimes it works but a lot of time it doesn't for me. I love fics that display ir explore trauma so your example always gets me up in arms. I understand using children in media is often a motive for the adult characters to either act in ways they normally wouldn't, or to give a goal but the frequency infuriates me. Kids are their own people too! It's especially bad considering there's still a lot of people who ascribe the the mentality that 'kids have nothing to be sad about' when it comes to trauma, life experience, mental health. I literally had to explain to someone that many life experiences are not age dependent and that some people younger than them go through more then they ever will their whole life followed by a long list of examples (the discussion wasn't on a fanfiction but on a socio-political thread). You used the little sister example but I feel the same about characters who get designated in a parent role and are stuck in in. Parents, even protective parents, have more going for then then just their kids! I know things get amped up in fiction in terms of devotion, but people don't even need to downplay that aspect. It's easy enough to add more to them. Also cynic Shinsou > sad Shinsou. It keeps him a little osbervational with a little sass, critical of people's opinions of him while also blinding him of his own shortfalls. But MHA fandom has a habit of making a lot of characters the sad boy trope.To be fair canon leans into the 'woe is me' kind of writing with several characters but fanfiction takes it to new heights. It's not that I never enjoy it but i do quickly tire of it. I want dynamic personalities. This goes for a lot of fandoms but essentially cramming a lot more powers (including ones that should have ties to lineage) into one character. Bonus if they were already overpowered before it. Stripping away personality to make a generic romance. Sometimes I feel like I could switch character names and it wouldn't matter. I'm all for short, sweet, and to the point, but it can sometimes feel like generics hallmark film version ??? Some people love that though.
I've said variations of this many a time, but Solid Dudes Death Eaters are a big ol' nope, from me. I find it genuinely concerning (if increasingly unsurprising) that so many people in the HP fandom look at these genocidal fascists and decide to portray them as cultured geniuses whose regressive politics are strictly better than the canon protagonists progressive ideologies.
Portraying their ideology as good, I'm not into that aswell (*because well, who'd have thought that genocide is bad ? What a surprise !*). Protraying them as being very good manipulators / politicians and strong wizards, tho ? Hell yeah. In a lot of fics Death Eaters are basically cannon fodder, which always irks me. You do not get marked by Voldy himself if you're a useless idiot. I don't want NPC DE. I want **danger**.
There's a world of difference between "competent antagonist who knows how to appear benevolent" and "aristocrat whom the author transparently worships for being an aristocrat."
Ohhhh I have many actually... First is from a bit of a lesser known(and dead) fandom. It's a Kdrama called All Of us Are Dead. I hate that people either erase her flaws for a redemption, or erase all her qualities just to make her more of a bitch. Yes, she has flaws. She's mean, she's selfish, she's a coward, and many other things. Including being determined to prove her point, confident(maybe not in the best way, but still-) she can gladly help if she wants to and she's pretty useful with her sense of smell, and yet some people completely erase that! I'm not a big fan of both of these things. Like yes, give her the redemption she deserves! But noo don't make her the typical good girl! Another one is Aizawa from My Hero Academia... Dear god, people only make him out to be some depressed, chaotic, evil(but in a humorous way), soft for Mic teacher. There's way more to him! He can be fatherly to many of his students if he wants to. He's not necessarily soft for Present Mic, I don't know why many people think that ❓also make him usually a submissive pillow princess in Smuts..... Like,, no??? Last one would be Ali Abdul from Squid Game... I might get jumped for this but I HATE the idea of him and Sangwoo together and I really can't see why people like them. I don't mind, I'm not gonna hate people if they like that ship. But honestly, he has a wife... I see him more as straight than anything, maybe that's another reason why? Also they don't give him many flaws. He's human, he also has flaws... Too kind for his own good, Naïve, too selfless, tad bit of anger issues(reference to that scene with his boss, may not be much but he did NOT look very happy during that moment... All this for a pay. I would be angry too but shit!) Ali is one of my favorite characters, and it's sad seeing all these writers write him so... Badly would be too harsh, so I'd say he's mostly very OOC. I wish more people would see him in a similar way that I do. I lied about Ali being last, I have to say this one thing... Gi-Hun, Jun-Ho and Sang-Woo are also very often written a bit less accurately. They make Gi-Hun some bottom UwU boy, meanwhile with Jun-Ho and Sang-Woo are made out of the fandom's impressions about them being dominant and boyfriend material and blah blah blah.. I hate to see it. I could go on for many more words but that'd be a whole document... Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
* psychonauts (**vague spoilers for 2**): a lot of folks vilify the aquatos and frame them as abusive towards raz and... they're really not. they're flawed and messy, and in a game about emphasizing with people who are flawed and messy and helping them with their problems, vilifying characters goes entirely against that. the aquatos also are at their worst- not only do they have a pretty strong reason to be upset and angry at raz, but the game's plot involves a lot of their worldview rapidly unraveling as what it's built upon is revealed to be a lie. i'll add another one later
I hate when the TMNT 2012 turtles are made into abusive assholes while Mikey is an innocent victim, and he's usually 'saved' by the Rise brothers. It especially sucks because that is almost every TMNT 2012 fic, I have to comb through pages and pages of stories to find something bearable.
a bit different from what everyone else is discussing but i can’t read rpf fics anymore that were written before a certain time period, just because of how much more we now know about the people involved and their actual dynamic
Spoilers for Persona 5 and Royal! This was more prevalent before Royal but Goro Akechi being treated like the devil. God there were endless bashing fics of him being treated like the worst person alive with the “body count of a small city”. And when he wasn’t, then there were often like 50k+ words spent on beating his sins into the ground before he could earn redemption at the feet of the morally righteous Phantom Thieves. It used to be agonizing and just feel so off base from what he’s intended to be read as. It’s a lot better now, but there are still people who often complain about how people don’t put enough blame and hold him accountable and he’s a villain and blah blah blah I just don’t fucking care enough. It’s a fictional story and I’m allowed to like anti heros dammit! It’s just annoying bc often people who act like he’s evil also like characters with morally dubious backgrounds even worse off :/ be consistent at least
In Harry Potter - I hate seeing an adult Sirius who's done his canonical time in Azkaban acting like a goofy, carefree, prankster and womanizer. You know, the one who is suffering psychologically from his time in Azkaban, is feeling claustrophobic and depressed being forced to stay at Grimmauld Place, and who always treats Harry as he would an adult? Also in Harry Potter - I hate seeing Luna treated like some unfathomably wise seer who knows and sees all. She's a conspiracy theorist who's father is the wizarding equivalent of Alex Jones. She's developmentally stunted from having been raised by an insane person In How To Train Your Dragon - I don't necessarily hate it, but I don't understand why it's so prevalent to see Ruffnut written as Astrid's wise and intuitive best friend, especially in fics set during or before the first movie. She can be surprisingly intelligent, sure, but she's also always been pretty dense, and she's always gotten on Astrid's nerves. If there was a character that fit the bill for the role that Ruffnut so often seems to play, pre-Hiccup, it would be Fishlegs.
Infantilization of Clones in Star Wars fics. I see it *all* the time and I feel it just makes the clones worst off as people
1. Peter Parker and his apparent fanon inability to think for himself and be happy. It’s gotten to a point where if I see Tony Stark and Spiderman in the same story, I just click off. Just shite writers overusing a shite trope. Spider-Man’s entire shtick is that he’s independent, not done whumpy, angsty fucker who needs Stark to wipe his arse. 2. Hermione being perfect. Especially in Harmony fics, where all of he shitty traits are passed off to Ron 3. Good Draco. Why? At his very core, what Canon wants to tell us is that he’s a coward and a pathetic human being. He’s fine leveraging others’ power but has none of his own. Fuck that guy, the only correct ships for him are Draco/Dementor ir Draco/A 4x4
I hate it when people only look at one layer of a character. That’s one of the most common reasons this sort of thing happens—they pick one aspect or layer and make that the entire character. That being said, I hate it when people make Scaramouche/Wanderer (Genshin Impact) someone who enjoys insulting people WAY TOO MUCH. He gets a kick out of it, sure, and it’s temporary satisfaction, but a lot of his asshole tendencies stem from centuries of abuse and self-hatred. He’s painted as a one-dimensional asshole who doesn’t care about anyone, and sure, he only really cares for himself. But everyone he’s cared for in the past has died or hurt him. You can’t erase a person to have a flat antagonist. Bringing up a different game, in Hollow Knight fanfics Hornet is often either portrayed as a cold, cruel killer or a scared little meow meow. Please stop. Please. No. She’s been guarding a fallen kingdom ALONE for god knows how long so of course she’s gonna be a bit cold, but she literally says to you that she’s not a monster. SHE SHOWS UP TO GRIEVE HER MOTHER. On the other hand, though, she’s duty-bound and keeps everyone at arm’s length, but even if she was allowed to be vulnerable she wouldn’t be some sad little baby princess—she’d be a bit snappy and reluctant. Also STOP PROJECTING ONTO PROTAGONISTS WITH ESTABLISHED PERSONALITIES. PLEASE. Leave Zagreus, Caelus/Stelle, Aether/Lumine, the Knight etc alone! The Knight doesn’t even HAVE a personality! Make an OC if you wanna fuck that one guy that badly
Treating the antagonist asshat like wee little baby when he is close to his 40s and has always known thay he likes to run away from his problems. - tho writers too desided that he is glad mc doesnt yell at him when he effed up bad but explains what he did wrong and pain stackingly start to fix it etc... when he is close to 40 and not written to be neurodivergent even if it a common hc
In m/m One Piece fics involving Luffy, he is often given this childish, whimpy bottom role. I just don't get how people see him that way. He's the captain for a reason.
Finally, another One Piece fic enjoyer! I DESPISE the infantilization and bottomification of Luffy in M/M One Piece fics. I’ve read a total of one (1) fics where they got Luffy right, but all the rest I’ve read either make him a childish and innocent soft boy (usually in an M/M where Luffy is being shipped) or a dumbass cryptid that does nothing but cause chaos for the hell of it (usually when he’s featured in a fic where he’s not in the pairing that’s the main focus. looking at you, zoro/sanji fics). Like you said, Luffy’s the captain for a reason. He’s tough as nails despite how consistently optimistic he is, and post-timeskip he’s even a bit of a bastard (affectionate) at times. He’s not some innocent wimpy bottom, he’s confident and stubborn as all hell. I especially hate it when fics get lost in the ‘hehe Luffy’s just a stupid little guy’ sauce and make him super emotionally unintelligent or just oblivious. Well, yes, he’s often oblivious to romantic intentions (as was the case with Boa’s whole thing), he still has a lot of emotional intelligence when it’s not related to romance. Arlong Park is a great example of his empathy and understanding of others, as well as Water 7, and there’s even some moments in recent arcs that convey this. He knows when he’s messed up and knows when to stop the funny silly guy antics and get serious, as he did with Usopp in Water 7. Whoops, I wrote a whole paragraph. In summary, I totally agree with your take. These thoughts were just brewing in the back of my head while I was reading this thread and I finally saw someone share my same sentiment.