Firefly Fanfiction: What Are Your Pet-Peeves?
POSTED BY: Xeyra
UPDATED: Friday, November 30, 2012 02:57
VIEWED: 59700
PAGE 5 of 17
Pet peeves... An excuse to rant! *G*
Wrong characterisation. Always.
I mean, there are always going to be different interpretations of a character, but some things are just facts.
Mal is distrustful of strangers, not a noble hero swooping in to save every damsel.
Inara is a dignified adult woman, not a shrieking, hapless and easily manipulated victim.
Jayne has brains - but not too much.
And so on...
Then there's the Character Punishment Fic, where it's clear the author is writing to make a point of "showing Character X the evil of his/her ways", instead of developing things naturally from constellations given on the show. Making them pointlessly apologetic and others judgmental and angry beyond what is warranted.
Outlandish scenarios. Say, a man sending another man to have group sex with whores "against his will" as a punishment and expecting this to be taken seriously.
Oh God, and Mary-Sues. Mal's long-lost wife/love that he lost because he thought she was dead/she became a Companion (or almost)/her parents separated them, whatever. It burns. And if there was such a thing as a dead wife, it would have come up in "Our Mrs Reynolds" and Mal would sure as hell be more broken up about that than about the ending of the War unless he never really loved her at all, don't you think?
Excess in babies. One of them? Okay. Two of them? Outlandish. All of them? Just how are they going to run the ship??
Rape as an excuse to create intimacy between the victim her her "hero". If Kaylee gets brutally raped, this would likely change her forever. Forever. That's not something you can easily step away from again for a happy ending.
Making Inara look stupid by painting the Guild as some evil cult that abuses its members. She's a smart woman, why would she do that to herself, really? Why would any Companion?
Or writing an ensemble story and completely ignoring certain characters that would normally show up at least once or twice, without a good reason.
Then obviously there are the pairings that I don't want to read, but that's beside the point.
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:)
Okay, I gotta jump in here.
I'm currently in the middle of a project to write every possible character pairing on Serenity, just to see if it's at all possible. (Some of them are posted here already.)
Slash doesn't bother me. Non-cannon pairings challenge us to expand our personal viewing spaces and opinions. I guess because I'm bisexual and a substantial number of my friends are, too, I have fewer hang-ups about trying out different pairings to see if they work.
What does bother me?
BABIES!
Wash was right. Serenity is no place to try to raise a child and any parent in their right mind would get their child as far away from the possibilities of being shot, suffocated, or taken by the Alliance and put in an orphanage as possible!
Pets. Pets got no place on a ship like Serenity. In fact, first hungry spell comes along, you can bet Jayne would eat it.
Just plain bad writing is bad writing no matter what. Some things that really bug me: authors who don't have a feel for the characters; Mary-Sue/Stu's (to be distinguished from original characters who interact with the canon characters in a believable manner); complex side stories that try to explain things that are better left up to Joss (The origin of the Blue Hands, etc), and painfully bad dialogue.
Usually, I can tell if it's just plain bad writing, or if the writer is young or inexperienced but has potential as a writer.
I try to read and encourage the people
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Quote:
Originally posted by Leighkohl:
Good point Leiasky! Crossovers are pretty much a no go for me too. I like the 'verse just the way it is. Oh, and the blue eyes Wash/Zoe baby thing, yeah that's a real pisser.
Actually, this doesn't bother me.
One interracial couple I know has three blue eyed babies with their mama's blond hair. They got their dad's curls and his darker skin, but they are definately blond and blue-eyed.
Throw-backs happen.
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No offence to the writers, people Im sure the stories are actually really good. but I am thourghly fed up of scrolling down the fanfics and seeing nothing but Mal/Inara and Kaylee/Simon.
Never seen any of the slash fics, but damn, they sound scary!!
Gotta say I do love the Wash ones, but I have never, ever seen one all about Book! Where are the Book fans??
A few spelling/grammar mistakes are acceptable,because I'm slightly hopeless at said skills, and typing, but if you know you're truly awful, please use a spell checker!
I love Wash! Bring back Wash!
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Wow. Yikes. I've only crossed a few of the lines in this thread, but now I feel all afraid of posting my monster fic with its many OCs...
OK, I'm overly sensitive. But I hope other writers reading this thread keep writing whatever their muse is telling them, whether or not it's someone's pet peeve!!
That said, let me join the bashing. 
I'm so not a fan of weddings and babies. Not my thing. And actually, I don't like having characters be happy for long, it's just not the Jossian way. Conflict and drama, yay!!
I really dislike pairing River with anyone on Serenity. She's too young! And younger than 17 really, because she hasn't had so much practice being social. I'm guessing there wasn't a great dating scene at Brainfry Academy. She may be crazy and may read sex stuff in other people's minds, but I don't see her turning 18 and going seductress on Jayne or Mal. Icky ick!
Let's see... other than that... I don't mind slash, although it needs to be carefully done to shift the characters from their non-sly BDS selves, and build a believable rapport with their sly partner-to-be.
I don't like endless adventures with little or no character development. FF is not a star trek adventure, it's about the people and what they've been through and what they go through and how their relationships change. My mind gets numb to endless battles and new planets and etc. I want long, addictive character arcs!!
OK, stopping now. But all you baby/Rayne/RiverMal/adventure writers don't be offended, and keep writing, okay??
m4p
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I'm the president. I don't need to listen.
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Forgot to add: real short (1 or 2 page) chapters that are part of a series are real annoying. Prologues and Epilogues are that short, a chapter is not.
Short stand alone stories are fine but short chapters, that the author just likes to 'get out' quickly instead of combining a bunch of them into one long chapter, are annoying as well.
"A government is a body of people usually notably ungoverned."
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Just a side question - is there a word for River/Mal?
Malver?
Whatever. There's no good word because it just shouldn't happen!
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I'm the president. I don't need to listen.
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Wow. Yikes. I've only crossed a few of the lines in this thread, but now I feel all afraid of posting my monster fic with its many OCs...
OK, I'm overly sensitive. But I hope other writers reading this thread keep writing whatever their muse is telling them, whether or not it's someone's pet peeve!!
I'm glad you said that. My intention when I created this thread was not to discourage anyone from writing. Everyone has their opinion, their tastes, and what may be one man's garbage is another's treasure, so if you're not into, I don't know, Jayne/River, or Jayne/Kaylee, someone will be! What is one person's opinion may not be another's, so if one has a certain pet-peeve, it doesn't mean others have it too.
I just wanted to know what kind of things in a fanfiction might make you turn away instead of reading and so far I've seen quite a lot of opinions, some of which very different from one another. It's so great to see that we're all fans of this 'Verse but have different opinions regarding it, insofar as fanfiction is concerned.
So, yes, mal4prez, you said it well: let no one be discouraged. Including you. I am one of those whoe don't mind OC's, as long as they're well-written, well-incorporated into the 'Verse and don't fall into a Mary Sue/Marty Sue complex. So don't be afraid of posting your story -- you'll find lots of fans around, I'm sure. :)
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Wash: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Mal: Define "interesting".
Wash: [deadpan] Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?
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Blue eyes in Zoe and Wash's baby do not bother me. Zoe's eyes could still be just as brown while she carries the recessive blue eyed gene, which would give her and Wash a 50% chance of having a blue-eyed baby. The real issue would be the likelyhood of Zoe carrying the recessive gene, but even that is not a stretch, IMO.
I can accept almost any storyline or pairing if the characterization is good, or at least in line with my own perception of the characters. Conversely, a story could be completely within canon and be unreadable for me due to poor characterization. Unintentionally bad grammar can be a nuisance, but overlooked if the characterization is good.
I just hate it when Mal sounds like a dumb hick. Joss's characters' ways of speaking tell so much about the character - who they are and where they are coming from. To lose that in a generic overly dumb-hick sounding accent brushed onto anyone but the core-worlders robs them of these defining characteristics. I am thrilled when an author can come up with dialogue that carries the same kind of poetry as Joss's.
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Ain't. We. Just.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SameErtia:
:)
Pets. Pets got no place on a ship like Serenity. In fact, first hungry spell comes along, you can bet Jayne would eat it.
OMG! I laughed out loud and scared the dog when I read this!
As for my pet peeves:
slash
incorrect spelling, grammar (I'm a teacher)
OC's
and eveyone pairing up like it's the Love Boat! Honestly, I only see Kaylee and Simon being together. Mal has too many issues to really make a go with Inara. That said, I am a shameless Jaylee reader! I love those characters, but can only see them together in the fics not the show (is that weird?)
*****
Mal:We're still flying.
Simon: That's not much.
Mal: It's enough.
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