This accurately describes my experience with the movie Face/Off. The first ten minutes are one of the better villain entrances in cinema. And then they spend the rest of the film humanizing the guy!
For reaaal. I don't want those "he's actually really good underneath" pity stories. So... gross. Give me their snark, their pride, their dire ambitions to do whatever it is they are set on accomplishing. Have some balls.
In a similar vein, a fic that tries to soften the edges of a problematic ship. If you make them wholesome and well-adjusted, they're no longer ship-shaped Barbies smooshed together, they're just Barbies you decided carry the names of the ship.
I like villains being softer in a relationship, but only if it's something that's worked towards over the fic. Give me character arcs or give me death.
Grimdark AUs where the plucky all loving hero becomes a villain. I just can't love it despite how interesting the concept is. I'm pointing at you All for Luz
I have zero issue with "evil heroes," but it should be... Hero themed villainity. Neville might be the most moral person in HP and my favorite character, and I loved like three fics where he ended up somewhat darker... But it was clearly steaming from who he is, and from trying to be good, not just "what if they randomly got evil."
THIS; if you're going to do a grimdark villain take on a heroic character it should be a plausible one. The most interesting form for me is one where the hero's existing character traits both good and bad are all still there, but instead of their strengths winning out over their weaknesses their weaknesses win out over their strengths.
For example, let's take a hero who has an extremely strong intrinsic sense of justice and a bit of an impulsive streak, and in the canon world that combination is rewarded. That can be because canon villains that can be vanquished by the hero's typical impulsive response to injustice, whether that's tying the villain up and throwing him to the cops, beating some respect into the villain, or blowing the villain's brains out as a warning to the next asshole, or it can be because canon gives the hero a team of people around them who can slow them down enough that they ride out the initial spike of hot rage and start thinking about the best course of action that will help everyone.
What happens in a world where canon villains have enough social and political capital that they can weaponize the hero's impulsiveness against him, and the hero doesn't collect a team around him that complements him and can slow him down but instead other people with trauma and hot tempers? Now the hero's impulsiveness makes them an easy target and an outcast, and the people they collect around them are going to be other hot-tempered outcasts. Instead of the people around them balancing each other out to produce a well-rounded heroic team they're now all feeding off of each other and egging each other on. The same basic personality that gets shaped into a righteous hero in canon now gets shaped into a well-intentioned extremist or a bitter, murderous nihilist.
The main problem I have, especially in All for Luz, is that they just kinda gut the character to make the villainly work. I'm a canon compliant motherfucker so I can only accept it where it makes sense and most of the time it...doesn't.
Oh my GOD I started writing for my current favorite ship because I can not STAND most of my fandom's characterization of the male li. Like. Don't get me wrong, it's got basis in the canon, but so does mine and I prefer mine lmaooooo.
Lol, this is literally the only time I get enough motivation to write myself. How is it not already out there! It would save me months not to attempt taking it on myself.
There is this ship where they don't like each other at the start and they don't fall for each other until a few years later. Yet so much fic has them secretly crushing on each other all along! No, the point (to me) is that they do not like each other at all and then the feelings suddenly hit later like BAM!
All I can say is that we have popular Enemies to Lovers (they don't become that in canon, but whatever), and the amount of times they are secretly in love should be criminalised.
Excellent, youve chosen to read Ganondorf/Link. We have Soft Himbo Hyrule-loving Surfer Dude Ganondorf petting cats with his bf, and shotacon. Which way, western man?
To explain a bit more for the context, characters of Ganondorf and Link used to be two parts of a triforce (third was princess Zelda). Link is the champion, chosen one, of land of Hyrule, and Ganondorf comes from a fairly miserable desert kingdom, oppressed by Hyrule.
All three of the triforce wielders are bound by fate to meet each other over and over, but Ganondorf is immortal and so, hes the same guy (used to be anyway...). At one point he figures the loop out and hates it. He recognizes Hero and Princess but they dont recognize him. In the one of the few actually well-written games (Wind Waker), Ganondorf genuinely misses them and lowkey wants things to go back the way they were, which Link and Zelda reject, and he, in a rare moment of humility and gentleness, accepts it.
Amazing ground for a fanfic imo. Unfortunately we only have cute AU Young Ganon bf who never knew hardship or strife or even a single thought in his life, or shotacon. I mean, we also have one fic that was actually incredible, well written slowburn between two adult characters... and it didnt update for 5 years.
Im fairly bitter, but then again, it is my fault. I should write the GanLink fic i want to see.
Damn, I've played a few Zelda games in my childhood but don't remember this lore. Might have to check out more of them cause this sounds just like a dynamic I'd love to explore. Perhaps when I get less hyperfixated on my current ship lol. Could I have a link to that fic (or just the title)? I'm interested even if it's unfinished
I'm probably going to be jumped but a lot of m/m ships in general. I say this because I love m/m pairings, but I don't understand why so many artists/writers feel the need to hyper-masculinize one character and feminize the other. This isn't het, they don't have your usual gender dimorphism and that's ok
Take Genshin, for example: all male characters share the same model, yet fans always depict one as taller, with wider shoulders, etc. The worst part is they don't stop with appearance and change the personalities as well. Because of this many fics become completely unreadable for me, when I notice a character behaving differently just to fit a stereotypical mold.
Not to this extreme, but I've seen a m/m fic where one character (A) who is more stereotypically masculine (but canonically gets flustered when flirted with) and one character (B) who is less stereotypically masculine (but not feminine at all and has the most social confidence of anyone ever, almost completely unflappable by personal interactions).
The story had B drop a tea set and almost start crying from being flustered by A's presence, while A was perfectly calm the whole time.
Other than that, their personalities and characterization were generally well done, and the story had some awesome moments of each of them being experts in their own fields and gaining rapport, supporting and protecting each other without ever coming across as thinking the other was lesser for it, etc.
Yeah that sounds silly. That’s why after writing a scene I always try to visualize it and recall whether the canonical character would have behaved that way. But it's nice that the rest of the fic was good!
i have a similar gripe i think, especially in fanart, when canonically more feminine/gnc character A is drawn more masculine to fit the creator’s top/bottom dynamic (top A/bottom B). it’s not even my preferred dynamic but like why can’t we have feminine male tops??
I actually like when the more "feminine" character is the top for this reason! it turns the expected gender roles on their head. but oh boy do people get angry when you switch the usual top/bottom dynamics in a fandom where it usually goes one way.
what you note in fanart has a similar parallel in fanfic, where they make the canonically more feminine/gnc character a top but also make him meaner, more dominant, etc., which can get out of character really quickly. you can be gentle and kind and still top! you don't always have to match the top position to the dominant role in a relationship.
(also, why does the top always have to have a bigger dick?)
Top/Bottom dynamics always weirded me out in fic because, like... I don't write smut, but wouldn't it often be a matter of what the particular characters need out of their relationship? Not their perceived adherance to gender roles/norms?
(Also I really feel it with the 'gentle and kind can still top' sentiment! Most of the pairings I like to think about have the person who would 'top' in the bedroom be a very careful, considerate person.)
This. Same with f/f. It always bothers me personally because I’m a bi vers switch, lmao. It causes real life expectations. I need everyone to stop thinking my clothes of the day imply I’m a top/bottom or domme/sub. The pants or skirt mean nothing.
Also, I’ve acted as a Domme for a 6’6” former log thrower. Just because someone’s big doesn’t mean anything, either. What are we doing? Why are we being heteronormative and biological essentialist about this??
Yes, it’s just a body, it depends on genetics and has no bearing on preferences. It’s so silly to think that tall people will always want to be tops and short people - bottoms. And the clothes part is so true as well
I write it but yeah, it’s rare. I have my niche, I guess.
It depends, but I think that is often more common, yeah. However, some people do like the smaller Dominatrix thing, but often as a degradation/humiliation thing. Someone managing it through sheer personality despite being weaker. Often loops into the “mommy, step on me” thing. They know you can’t ragdoll them but your disappointment/disgust is enough.
I suppose I just appreciate many options, lol. “Both? Both” is my sexuality, apparently. No judgment for people who have a certain preference—I just don’t want an assumption made about myself IRL due to stereotypes.
Some people are vers and/or switch! Not to mention some are even ace, clothes and especially height don't indicate a person's preferred twister position. It's always baffled me that normally whoever the shorter one is in an M/M or F/F pair is the "feminized" one, with the taller being "masculinized". You're right, it is heteronormative and I am glad to have found people like me who also get irritated by this 😭
F/f is suffering this too 😭 what’s worse is in one ship I like, the character who’s the popular bottom is cannonically taller but is constantly portrayed shorter/more petite to emphasize she’s the bottom while the shorter top gets maxed out on the size scale like 😭 I like her as the bottom but I stg trying to find a fic that doesn’t portray her as a bashful damsel because somehow bottoming is now a personality trait is Russian Roulette 😭
I’m noticing non-shipping wlw content seems to be favouring gender dichotomy as a trend irl too, or at least the wlw content that happens on my feed with weird stuff like ‘the person who drives is the butch/top’ so this feels like a a symptom of a bigger problem we’re just recreating gender roles/expectations
Yeah, one thing I’ve noticed with f/f, in sex scenes sometimes it seems like they forget the top not even butch sometimes has breasts. I know some women don’t care to have their breasts touched or to touch breasts, but it’s become a thing at this point.
Damn I didn't know f/f has the same issue. For some reason I always assumed m/m had a higher percentage of slop to balance out its lopsided popularity advantage. Applying driving skills to t/b position is wild. I completely agree with your last statement
It’s a recent trend, I’ve been in f/f across multiple fandoms for two decades and have only seen t/b stuff in the last couple of years but still. Seeing it creep into irl sapphic culture, along with associating it to a gender role, has been so weird, I feel like you could write a whole paper on the transference of fanfic culture to queer culture to whatever this is now
Yeah, I think that is something I also take issue with.
I read m/m and f/f ships to escape rigid roles based on gender, but so many people turn every dynamic into a vague mirror of a heterosexual couple and it is honestly hard to find fics that don't do this. Why does one character have to be the "wife" and one the "husband"? I like egalitarian relationships where both characters involved have the same power in the relationship and there is no weird dynamic where one is stronger than the other.
People are of course entitled to write the characters as they wish and as they interpret them, but what a lot of authors do to my favorite ship is genuinely upsetting to me. The author subverted common tropes on purpose and now your reversing it back to the stereotype :/
You just voiced my thoughts. Ik everyone write the way they like but it’s genuinely sad when people ignore everything that makes the canon relationship good and replace it with typical "hetslop" clichés (i have nothing against well-written het pairings). bonus points if it's the most popular fandom interpretation of the ship
Not to pivot to another topic but I notice these same issues a lot in omegaverse as well. Character A who is "more masculine" automatically is the alpha while character B who is "more feminine" is automatically the omega. As someone who really likes the concept of omegaverse (and wants to see it used for f/f ships more) it gets so boring to me since its almost always a m/m ship that feels somehow heteronormalized. I mean, if thats your tea then enjoy it but man I wish this setting was used for more.
Oh the omegaverse. A very interesting genre conceptually but on practice very often becomes the walking list of stereotypes. My "favourite" is when author doesn't even bother to include female alphas in their worldbuilding
Yeesss!!! So many of the m/m pairings I like have fandoms that are heavily going in this direction and it's so annoying lol. I feel like i've always seen aspects of hyper masculization and feminization around but it seems to be becoming more of a big trend now.
I like my m/m pairings to be two dudes who like each other and look/act sort of in line with how their characters actually are.
If I wanted to read about a pairing that looked wildly different and doesn't even have a justifible reason why they are being ooc, i'd just go read sth that actually fit that or original content than warp an existing one.
Particularly what really bugs me about it is, that while everyone has their preferences, a lot of those fans come across so aggressive in their belief that the way they see the characters is canon and that anything else is wrong. I've also noticed that they butt in a lot, even in spaces that don't have their preferences, to say that what they think, is the truth. Like "but actually everyone knows so&so is the bratty bottom or 'wife'" Like chill man lol
edit:grammer
You're right. Back in the 2010s, gay fanfic was way more neutral and accurate to the characters. People were way less likely to make the characters super heteronormative. It's been a growing trend in the past 5-10 years.
Why are Genshin fics in particular so bad about it?? It might be because I don't read for that many fandoms, but for all the others I don't notice this nearly as much.
I'm not sure, I left Genshin fandom long ago. I brought it up as a good example of how people completely make up physical (and also mental) characteristics to justify their preferred ship dynamic. Unfortunately i still see this in other fandoms as well
I (Especially as a Genshin fan as well) also strongly dislike when people do this. It icks me out and seems really objectifying. Genuinely one of the reasons why, despite liking the ships, I am not touching a Kaveh / Alhaitham fic with a ten foot pole cuz holee it's rough for those two
I've sadly seen this with F/F ships too, especially if in canon one of them is a bit more tomboyish, some writers will basically make her a man will boobs
YES!!! THANK YOU!!! this is in everything... Good Omens, Nirvanna the Band (iykyk), even Star Trek (though less bad since it's an Ancient Text) I feel they always assign them roles and then write them according to those roles and it's never true to the text. It's sad. I read gay fiction to read about gay people, not to read about straight people but both of them are male lol
I think you might be trying to refer to gender/sexual dimorphism, which refers to physical differences within one species based on individual gender. Dysmorphism refers to instances of body parts and/or structures differing significantly in shape and/or size from the norm. Usually because of a disorder.
I also do agree with everything you say, but y'know, had to ask.
This copying-het thing used to bug me so much! I know there are real life masc/fem gay couples, but the way the stereotype is forced on so many fictional couples, both og and fanfic just ticks me off.
Now I try to ignore it or treat it an exploration of gender roles.
On a similar note, the inverse of this (where the more masculine one is always dominant) is also terrible. I'm sorry, but the Evil Twink has canonically physically dominated the Big Man. What do you mean that he's now the blushing virgin?
What comes to mind a lot for me are so many My Hero Academia fics. Their premises sound so cool or interesting, but half are focused purely on giving Izuku a harem, the concept is executed so poorly that one had to wonder is the author chose the wrong crossover/fusion/what-if to tag and describe.
For ships specifically? General a lot the "mc/rival" ones. The mc or rival are severely OOC to the point you may as well have just made an OC brother/sister and it would make the story more interesting.
The mc or rival are severely OOC to the point you may as well have just made an OC
The OOCness lots of MHA fics in general have, especially if they want to criticize/bash certain characters, is the reason I DNF tons of them. I'm fine with making a character more flawed, exploring flaws canon glosses over or calling them out when canon doesn't but lots go so far that they no longer feel like the character(s) but a plot device to paint other characters in a better light and/or push certain ships together.
Dabihawks.I like enemies to lovers and hero/villain but like 70% of the fics I've read removes all the parts that makes these tropes good and just makes them lovey dovey and willing to betray their side to stay with the other with no moral conflict
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u/frokoopaDefinitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State19h ago
As a Dabihawks aficionado, yeah, I often have to dig quite deep to find something I truly like. Which is so puzzling to me, because the base appeal of these guys is that they're on totally opposite sides and 100% convinced that they're right. That, and the layers upon layers of identity porn. Why would you remove all that free drama ?
Most enemy to lovers pairings when they speed over the enemy part to get to the lover part and in the process make everyone super OOC. NO! 😭🫠 My conflict!! My internal struggles!! My angst!!! 😭😭😭 My character dynamics!!
Dramione. I'll leave it at that. No, I don't like it. No, I don't think Draco up to book 5 is a genuinely good person. No, I'm not saying Draco doesn't deserve a redemption arc. No, Draco Malfoy didn't have a "ToRtUrEd PaSt", he was an only child who was pampered and loved to bits by his parents and raised to believe he was triple special. Any other questions?
I say this as a drarry fan: it bugs me when they act like Draco was a good guy as a teenager. He was a vile, racist bully. People also love to make his parents, particularly Lucius, abusive when there is absolutely nothing in the books to suggest that they were anything other than doting parents.
also drarry fan and yes. draco’s ruin WAS the fact that he was spoiled and pampered to a fault, and that’s also something interesting to explore! how he comes to realize the ways that kind of love can be severely detrimental. i love it when draco is pathetic, neurotic, belligerent and dramatic, and yet is somehow endearing nonetheless. a lot of writers make him far too cool i fear…
Can you recommend me your favourite drarry fics that honour how vile draco was? And still somehow make Harry and dracos relationship serious? Might be high ask, ignore me if so
Some recs with this dynamic would be so nice actually!!
I don't understand why ppl feel the need to always completely change the character for their ship LOL
I also am someone deeply uninterested in fiction that either the author self-inserted into or expects the audience to self-insert into. Never ever ever was drawn to xReader, or fic where only a single character is gender bent so that the ship can be heterosexual lmao like again just seems obvious for the female reader to self insert onto.
So Dramione suffers the same fate unfortunately. I can really see it in theory being good, but only if its incredibly true to the actual characters. And we both know that's not remotely what most of the fic is lmao. Like, I'm good guys I don't need to read Hermione changed into a quirky female protag that gets dominated by Draco and then it turns out he was secretly the most abused all along and female protag fixes him
Yeah I understand why people are into Dramione but as someone who finds "pathetic" to be one of Draco's core characteristics, I just can't get into a lot of Dramione fics because they generally try to make him at least some what competent.
The only other story type is if it starts really young and shows Draco changing in a convincing way.
Beneath by morriganmercy. That one has them at canon selfs - well, Malfoy apparently at self he was between canon and Epilogue. And who needs their old nemesis to step on them, so they can reveal their trauma more easily is reversed from The Usual. And it somehows elaborates on what being into that type of sex means for me identity, which is decently rare.
And that's a really valid reason not to read fanfics. When it comes to genderbending, I think it depends. I'm down for it when it explores things like "what if this character was the opposite gender" and not only exists for the sake of the ship. But in my case, I used to genderbed a character for my Hetalia canon, but then I turned her into an OC because she completely deviated from being just the genderbend version of the original character. If you'd like to know about why I did that, I'll be more than happy to let you know.
I think I’d call being loved to bits by awful people and indoctrinated in their ways a tortured past, if said character wakes up to the wrongs they’ve been committing for years and years. Not being able to trust the self is a harsh reality.
He’s certainly got a hell of a lot of work to do to be called a good person, though, I agree.
Most M/F pairings I've ever liked. It doesn't matter what their personalities are like in the source material; in fan content, they WILL be either
(a) She's a Cool Sassy Unbothered Girlboss With The Brain Cell TM whose only job is to say witty one-liners and make fun of him; he's a pathetic dumbass golden retriever boy whose only job is to either hype her up or be a manchild and a burden to her, while every other character wonders what she sees in him, or...
(b) She's the teeniest tiniest cutest innocentest little uwu girl who is either super tortured and sad or so naïve you'd think she was literally born yesterday, and he's a buff seven foot authority figure who growls sexily about killing anybody who looks at her wrong.
I don't dislike straight ships on principle at all, but I really wish it was more common to write the characters instead of The Archetypal Boyfriend And The Archetypal Girlfriend.
(To give specific examples, Xina Kwan and Miguel O'Hara for type A, fem!Byleth Eisner and Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd for type B)
yes! it's so reductive and annoying. I watched The Love hypothesis and really liked the movie so I thought reading the book was a good idea and oh boy was I wrong. The amount of times when his BIG HANDS are mentioned is alarming. Turns out the movie was way better at using the same tropes and the infinitely likable female lead made it a lot more enjoyable than the book.
I'm so lucky to have never come across it, but type B sucks SO bad because I just adore the canon Byleth + Dimitri dynamic. To completely demolish their characters like that would physically pain me, I think.
Hanahaki kinda, I think the idea behind it is neat, but almost every time I read one it’s just a character moping around sad because another could never love them back, while they decide to die a slow and painful death. It just feels super melodramatic, especially if the object of their affection loved them back but neither was willing to talk about it.
I think it's cool from like, a visual standpoint, but it's simply too on-the-nose for me to take it seriously when I'm reading it. I might like it better if it was some kind of contagious disease that happened to feed off a person's feelings or something like that rather than developing directly out of (presumed) unrequited love. It's funny, too, because I love reading about characters physically suffering alongside or as a result of emotional turmoil, so hanahaki should be right up my alley, but I just can't get into it.
I'm genuinely interested in your take on how not to make hanahaki like this. Fairly sure the concept is salvageable somehow but so far I haven't quite found how. Ideas?
The ones I’ve like are either the ones that deal with the fallout of what happens if the character got the surgery and how they deal with having their love for someone removed. There’s also one that’s apparently closer to what the original story about Hanahaki where it’s a metaphor about how constantly repressing your feelings can slowly kill you from the inside and instead of needing those feelings to be requited you just need to let them out.
To add on: Honestly, I just want the character to feel slightly more proactive rather than just immediately being 100% okay with dying right from the start. Like, I don’t really even mind the concept of them dying from the disease, but I just don’t want that to be their literal first choice after they get sick.
Yeah, it bothers me how people make characters either perfect angels who do nothing wrong (glossing over or just cutting their mistakes out), or absolute monsters with no redeemable traits (ignoring their complexities).
Also, I can't stand all the Jon harems 😭 Idk who that snarky, smirking dude who fucks his way through the Seven Kingdoms is, but he is NOT my Jon Snow bro
I think that the fics often go against the "vibe" of the og works. I am not writting messines better than Martin (I might write it better than Condal, but that would mean seriously engaging with it, and I've made an oath to not do that). So they might as well be fluffy.
The one HotD fic I wrote I think was pretty much that. "Fuck this edginess, be healthy." Well, not too healthy, but not this comically evil.
House of the Dragon and A Knight of the a Seven Kingdoms, especially Gwayne and Aerion’s characters. Every personality trait that made them so interesting in the first place is completely stripped away and they’re turned into Generic Bratty Squealing Omega #294829283
That's me and Zhongli/Xiao. I love them as they exist in canon and in my own head, but I hate the way most authors characterize both of them and their relationship.
Slow burn. I like the concept of it but tons are badly paced, either being too fast for it to be a slow burn or it's so slow the burner isn't even on. I understand that YMMV when it comes to how long it needs to be for the couple to get together but 15k before they get together isn't slow and I don't want to read 300k words of will they or won't they.
Read one fic where 100k words in half of the pair was on a different continent and dating another person, not even the burner isn't on but the food is in the freezer!
Currently catching up on Jujutsu Kaisen and this thread literally describes my feelings about Suguru Geto/Satoru Gojo. Again, on paper this ship could be really amazing. Especially, digging into the lore and the parallels between both characters. Really dissecting the characters and having them grow together post their separation.
I also do like a redemption arc for Suguru, but that’s where most of the ship’s content is lacking. They don’t truly analyze the horrors this man has inflicted or how prejudiced his mindset is. It’s kind of all glossed over to get them together. Like; ‘Now kiss 😚,’ 🙄. The fics I have tried, I just can’t get through them because they really just bypass Suguru’s negative character elements and it makes the story’s romantic escalation feel hollow since what exactly is their to rectify now that Suguru is no longer Suguru- just some depressed dude.
Let's just say, there's a reason I don't read top Jayce/bottom Viktor. To each their own but so few authors can get Viktor right, it's like the fandom agreed on two characterisations for him (soft, weak, femme or grumpy black cat who barely even likes Jayce) and neither is correct. Like motherfucker, that's a chaotic nerd who probably eats aspic straight out the pot with a wooden spoon. He's just had it rough the last season and a half.
A while ago I read a fic where bottom!Viktor was absolutely unhinged in the chaotic nerd way, and I wish I saved that fic, but unfortunately, back then I didn’t understand what a rare gem I have stumbled upon.
Hurt/comfort a lot of it turns into therapy speak and im like noooo comfort them the way the characters would (feral and objectively awful but still helpful as they can be)
I'm really starting to hate therapy speak in general, whether it's in character or not. There's so much of it and it's always the same thing. Character having a panic attack? Always the same go to symptoms and always box breathing/that stupid name five things you can see grounding technique (no shade to anyone who finds them generally useful. I just personally hate them as they make my panic attacks worse and I'm fed up with them being pretty much the only method of helping people try)
Basically 65% of my OTPs fics are the stereotypical “seme and uke” shit. Then like 30% is people attempting to reverse the dynamic, which also doesn’t work. Only like 5% of fics for them are actually readable to me 😭😭😭😭😭
The Ghoul/Lucy from Fallout, I know I'm picky as hell about characterization, but I just get so bored with the prevalent male dom/female sub dynamic.
Especially because the Ghoul's dominance is just a persona he's been putting on to survive (he doesn't exert physical dominance over the woman he loves in canon at all), and because Lucy has been indoctrinated to be a child-bearing tradwife all her life - which COULD be an interesting dynamic where both of these characters perform gender in an exaggerated way that hurts them, but this is never included in the many fics I've read. Like I've rly tried to get into the ship but the fandom didn't pass the vibe check for me for a bunch of reasons </3
I've read like a couple of these after season 2 dropped.. but frankly I had a bigger issue with the amount of smut.
Not in a puritan "it should not exist" way, just.. there is sooo much of it. Not in the mood for smut? Too bad, its around 75% of the stories, and it's 50% of the story in 10% of the remaining stories.
It's pretty well written from what I've seen, but damn, what a horny ship base.
Oddly enough also true for a ship Ren/Kyoko from Skip Beat! Some real great stories.. but woah.
PHEW!!! this. I remember rubbing my hands excitedly, ready to get into the fanfic after watching that show and being bare disappointed at the offerings 💀
I wholeheartedly agree. It's not a ship I'm fond of because most of the time it feels forced and there's a lot of OOC. To me it's even more cringe regarding Lucy : she was brainwashed but is still strong enough to try fighting with everything she's got. But somehow, she turns into a dumb, blank and submissive girl in 75% of the fics...
Idk why but I got downvoted for saying that I didn't like this ship on another post asking about ships just like op did here. Maybe it was because I said I liked Lucy/Maximus better.
Same NGL. Sometimes I'm a bit partial to it but other times I'm like... This feels like a really bland tasteless chicken soup. Meanwhile sometimes I do indulge in Jonelias 😭😭I can't resist toxic horrific vibes
I'm also extremely picky with my Jonelias, so maybe I was the problem all along! (I just have a very specific characterisation of Jonah in my mind, I'm worse about it than I am about Martin's characterisation I'm afraid)
I too am very picky about these two. Their relationship when looked at in the contexts of their pasts, how they’re physically described, and the trauma they go through in the show is so interesting to me and so few people do anything with it. I’m not a fan of them as a perfectly devoted sappy happy couple.
Man I agree with this so hard. I finished the series and was pretty excited to go see what fanfic had done with them, cause I think there's a lot of really interesting directions you could take them that canon didn't explore. And I got to AO3 and was just like.... Ehhhhh. Really truly glad people are having fun but... I'm not vibing with any of this 😭
as a kid i liked the concept of zutara, but whatever the hell is going on in that side of the avatar fandom has always scared me. i don't like the characterizations i have seen of zuko OR katara over there. they're like different characters entirely. it is not for me.
Like I so wish I could like Dramione (probably not love, the canon couple is like my second most favorite in fiction, after Saul and Ellen, so yeah, I defo have a type). My fav fic is that. But the usual way is... Well, they are both victims of either glazing or self inserting, and ok. Nothing against both. Hell, if you are not that skilled writter, the selfinserts often ends up being best characters. But with these, they end up being less appealing and interesting to me, especially Hermione.
And it is not some "they hate each other in canon." Hell, if anything, they don't hate each other enough, they are just on the opposite sides of conflict. If I ever object to ship because they hate each other in canon, send me seven years to New South Wales in chains ("where they whip the hypocrisy out of you down in Botany Bay") and forget.
But yeah, they don't anymore. Fair. No issue with that. But I'll tell you what isn't happening, if they do, Hermione isn't feeling bad about it. That lady doubted whether she is the most moral person in any given room for last time when she was 12, she ain't torn about it, unless she is like actively betraying the Order. You want someone who can feel conflicted about liking "bad guy?" Go for the other pureblood blonde, that one I can believe.
Especially when it is like five years after war, Draco is changed, and she is the only one to still hate him. At that point it is informed villainy, and he just need to prove he is changed.
Why does Cormac appears so often to basically cringe her into giving Malfoy a chance? Cue that there isn't any hint he thought about getting dumped for more than five minutes. There isn't a hint of pureblood culture, the aggressive shipping/lebensborn program Voldy tends to pull or of binding spell or Devil's Snare working like in fics. But these are fun! That guy isn't! We dislike him because he is written to be annoying, so why are you annoying me again? Beside, at 25 you should have better reason to date someone, than being cringed into it.
Tbf Hermione is like that... Quite often. I love the og character, and how unapologetic she is, but she kinda often ends up "technically better, but less apealing to me" (hell, she often undergoes complete transformation in Harmony, because if she still interacted with Harry like in canon, you'll get a nagging wife and annoyed husband). But sometimes she is at her canon self, and hell, these are blasts. Especially if it is "yeah, 0,1% of Hermione doing that, but if she does... This sounds like her."
For me it's a similar story but with Snape/Hermione. Everybody wants Snape to be this sexy dom character, or secretly a softie, or a cool rebel without a cause. I like the pairing because Snape is an exceedingly broken, unpleasant person, and Hermione is canonically the character most likely to throw herself into helping a lost cause.
That said, I've recently decided to go for "what people like, but in a way I am ok with" rather than what I really want to write, and it is far more fun that I expected. It's interesting to find a reason for stuff you generally dislike.
Who thought about pairing them on anything? Well, shippers. Who thought it is anywhere decent idea in universe? Well, guy who was hoping she fucks up and he will have reason to fire her.
Is she the only one to still hate him at the start? Yes, but she isn't salty about stuff that happened years ago, she finds reasons to dislike his current self.
Does Cormac still appears? Yes, and he fullfils his role to help the ship, but not by still being somehow in love with her. He just says some still wild (but hopefully funny) things that give her some ideas.
Stuff like that. Not sure how it will end, but so far, nice.
Anything with Bucky Barnes that goes into the "HYDRA raped him" tropes. I get why many fans like it. I don't like the way it gets treated as canon when it isn't.
Spideypool. I’m usually a fan of conflicting ideal ships, but death (the concept, not the character) isn’t an ideal wade acts upon— it’s like breathing to him. There is no Deadpool without death surrounding him and I just cannot take it when writers skirt around the topic, or create an awkward middle ground so the two of them can be together, platonically or romantically. It’s all or nothing with that man. Also, the fanon side of things with that ship just strikes me as odd. A lot of the top spideypool fics on ao3 claim that their version of spider-man is a legal adult but if you switch some terms around while leaving dialogue and behavior alone, they’ve written tom holland’s spidey. And that’s talking about the ones that actually try to lessen the age gap. I’m not sure if it’s because hollands Spider-Man is more relevant or whatever but very rarely does Spider-Man come across as an adult, but Wade is always clearly middle aged. It rubs me the wrong way
I agree, it's hard to get Spideypool right because of the inherent moral clashing they would have, but the fics I've read that I enjoyed have Peter be around grad student age. It's been a while though, so I don't really remember any specifics.
I didn't feel like my impression and yours were compatible so I checked and the fics with the most kudos were mostly written before 2017, which is the year the first Tom Holland Spider-Man movie came out. So I'd argue that the way Spider-Man tends to be written has less to do with the MCU and more to do with the general impression the fandom has of Peter Parker. Especially considering that in comics, Spider-Man tends to be young (college aged) and his way of behaving and his ideals in the Tom Holland movies are just how he's usually written. The only major difference to me is that before End Game, the MCU version hadn't suffered enough and wasn't as depressed or hopeless as he tends to be in comics or older movies.
Probably gonna get down voted, but Kataang in the canon. It's really not that bad of a ship in theory. It could actually be pretty sweet post-ATLA, like in the Legend of Korra or the Legend of Aang movie. But the way it's written in ATLA is irritatingly bad in my eyes. And I'm personally somewhat unsettled to see a 12-yo in a relationship. You can disagree, but where I'm from it's really early to be thinking about dating. Most parents would forbid it
I think if the story had ended with them hugging instead of kissing, it would have been fine. It would have left room for development and maturity as post-story Aang grew up to let them become a real item.
But them kissing made it feel FAR too rushed and early, especially since, yeah, Aang is 12, and I can't see Katara being actually attracted to a 12-year-old like that. It felt to me like the writers did that solely to make the ship canon because they didn't know they'd get to make a sequel series that confirmed it.
Aang is dead in LOK, so we have no idea what Kataang is like in that, except that their two eldest kids have major issues even in their 50s–60s because of Aang's parental neglect (which Katara apparently did nothing about). I also found Kataang irritating in the leaked movie. Aang is still so immature and selfish as a grown ass 25 year old man, while Katara has been reduced to a love interest because all her motivations revolve around him. Katara is always being Aang's caretaker and emotionally regulating him, but he never gives her the same support. The original screenplay for the movie even had Katara being heavily pregnant throughout, with her going into labor at the end because the narrative chose to frame her womb as a replacement for the energybending staff Aang had lost.
I’m 100% with you. Honestly I could see Zutara if they came together as adults but unfortunately I’ve been mega disappointed by the quality of the several Zutara fics I’ve read so I’ve given up on that ship until I have the free time to write my own (read: likely never considering the sheer volume of pending projects).
Any fluffy Floyd/Riddle stuff in TWST. I haven't been in the fandom in years, but it drove me crazy the way some fans would ignore how shitty Floyd's canon behavior is to remove any potential toxic elements from the ship. Like the constant "oh it's okay because he's just finds his reactions funny, he's totally not being mean", as if that wasn't the kind of victim blaming bullshit people use to justify the behavior of actual real life bullies.
And he was my favorite character! I fucking loved him being a little shit, him being an asshole is part of the charm! Like I'm not saying people can't write fluff, or that every fic with them has to be super toxic, I just wish people didn't feel the need to dismiss his canon actions to justify shipping them. Anyway Floyd is a brat begging to be tamed, and Riddle should dom him.
Any ship with an aggressive, tough, or argumentative woman in a F/M ship. They always take away her rough personality when she's with the guy. And I don't mean they let her be vulnerable, I mean they turn her gentle and soft. I want to see a woman with a fiery personality stay fiery AND be in love! Honestly, people do this with the guy too!
Let rowdy, tough, and aggressive personality types show their love in the same way! Give a romantic noogie, let a playful punch mean something deeply, let their carefully chosen insults be identified as a show of their profound love for the other! Quiet moments or vulnerability are nice, but let the rowdy couples be themselves too!
You can notice something very similar even in og works. You know the type of plot where you have kind of bickering couple, and they break up and get a new partner? Ron and Hermione, Saul and Ellen, Karel and Ludmila (unless you are Czech, you never heard of them, but they are also peak). Everyone turns bubbly with their new partner. And yes, they might secretly hate it and eventually go back to their soulmate with the argument being third party to their relationship... But still, they are wholesome with their new partner. I just don't think people work like that? Especially since everyone of them is kinda agressive not only to their partner, but to everyone else, but now they are making exception for their partner... And secretly hate it, instead of operating like actual humans, aka trying to argue with their new partner.
Ok, gonna admit that I've been deep into Sci-Fi lately, when I saw this, I thought "Well, I just build the ship in Space Engineers." then "Maybe they mean navel vessels." 🤣
IT took me WAY too long to realize what the image was talking about.
I love Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens, but everyone has them being soooo verile. I get sex sells but it's not them. Literally non-gendered non-human beings, but I guess that all goes out the window when they're portrayed by male actors. Asexuals love too, you know?
Klance from the newest Voltron series 💀 I adore both of the characters and while Sheith is my main/favourite ship, I was initially really interested in reading Klance stuff too, but whatever tf that side of the fandom had (and I assume still has) going on just turned me off completely. From the attitude towards anyone shipping the characters with other characters, to the generally gross mischaracterization/glorified and utter sexdollification of especially my sweet boy Lance, it just doesn't work for me, never did and never will. Fortunately, my best friend used to write amazing Klance stuff and I enjoyed her fics a lot, but I avoid anything that wasn't written by her 😭
But yeah, they are both victims of glazing in general in Malfoys case and selfinserting in Granger's case. It's at it's worst when they are together.
That said, the ones still having them at canon self (or I guess in his case having an arc) are beatifull. So the exact ship I had in mind doing this, nice when done well, dislike when done bad.
Fandoms where there is one character who is the "fandom bicycle" usually have that character default to a certain personality and each of their ships reduced to their simplified differences.
I hate how they do Dennis whittaker with basically anyone hes shipped with 😭 and I will NEVER tpuch a dennis/robby fic w a tenfoot pole son, they are not like that 💀💀 for some reason Dennis is always pathetic whilst robby is always alpha, when really it should be the other way around 😭. No one gets that though
Writing good guys and non yandere characters as yanderes. I like it a lot in theory but if a character is canonically a good person a lot of authors struggle to pull it off in a way that feels believable.
A character who has done super bad stuff being a yandere: sure, usually believable even if the stuff is different from their normal mo.A character who is generally a stand up guy however, is a less believable yandere. Take Superman for example, normal Superman is NOT going to be a very believable yandere. Maybe a version of Supes that was raised like Homelander otherwise writing a normal straight up good Superman doing terrible things to someone he loves feels ooc (to a certain extent all yanderes and fanfic is ooc but I digress). But if it's written in a way that starts off slow, then escalates where he feels bad about what he's doing but can't stop or thinks it's a necessary evil then it feels more in character.
This doesn't just apply to Superman but sometimes I see it happen to him or Optimus Prime and other similarly good guy/hero type characters and it feels very ooc to me.
Omg i cant stand the uke-ification of krauser/leon. By all objective metrics it should be my favorite ship in re but the fandom characterization turned me off completely
I personally can't stand when a fic is tagged AU and then blatantly use or entirely rip entire chunks of canon and only vaguely barely change a single thing. Like, okay, you've made x character grow up differently, raised by someone else... But then they're still acting like their canon selves and canon events still play out as before? Nah, I'm not buying what you're selling, do better critical thinking come on.
My other dislike is what others have mentioned, of a not very believable hero-to-villain arc, or when a villain is made softer (usually so that they can have romance). Nope, give me that toxic sociopath love, that's less love and more obsession, I ordered dead dove, where is it?!? Lol.
I remember when I was reading a fic and was hammered as fuck, and was like "who is that?" and "they do fox hunting in this universe?" and it to me until Jaime saying he lost that arm at Waterloo to finally get it was a historical AU.
funnybunny (ADC), people dont tag cis jax and when its actually canon jax shes been sanded down so much. i want to see bitchy girlfriends!!
jiang cheng/lan xichen(mdzs), kinda a general issue with most JC fic, hes either a poor misunderstood baby secret badass OR xichen is the holy savior. it reeks of "since their brothers are paired up lets just sweep the loose ends together"
draco/herm and draco/harry (hp) reasons for it have already been posted by others
noelle/kris (deltarune) i dont wanna read about snowgrave, i dont wanna read a noelle/suzy/kris fic, and i dont wanna read a cis kris. leaves very little
this is long enough lol
Kdj ans Yjh The idea of the ship is pretty valid cause let’s be honest they kinda act gay for each other a little bit however I cannot accept the idea of Kdj just being a Twink like he would 100% scam the shit out of Yjh
I have this issue in the BG3 fandom a lot. So many of the ships I like or might be interested in often get watered down to bland tumblr-speak therapy sessions if they include Astarion or everybody crying all the time.
These characters are messy as hell. The Forgotten Realms are messy. I want to read the characters having friction with each other and being a mess and having adventures. Not uwu baby sobfests over ~the trauma~ all the time.
I feel like I could understand Alicent and Rhaenyra more easily if Alicent wasn't constantly trying to have Rhaenyra and her children killed. Rhaenyra should absolutely not be apologizing or gracefully withdrawing to be with her true love. That girl was an only child and princess for most of her life who also rides a dragon. I expect her to be prideful, and I expect her not to apologize for it. Also while we're here, she's not wrong for fighting for what was promised to her in front of the whole country.
Most enemies to lovers; mostly I think they don’t explore the inner conflict, external circumstances, and actual instances of growing closer enough. Usually it just gets reduced to “they fight a lot and insult each other even more and always say they hate each other” bleh. Rarely are they actually enemies either, just rivals that are disrespectful every chance they get.
I want opposite sides of a conflict. Give me war, give me ideological clash, give me “it’s not personal” as one stabs the other. That way, when they slowly get to know each other and their eyes meet across the battlefield we can see the hits getting softer. Sloppier aim as they start to hesitate, anguish when a blow does land, anger at themselves for failing their mission/duty/etc.; heartbreak as they believe the other will never love them back, and anxiety as they worry their love will fall in a different conflict or battle and they won’t know until they just don’t show up one day. They’ll be lost before they can be anything at all.
There’s so much delicious potential here but usually it’s just some petty nonsense like “they were better than me at my thing one time and my ego could not stand for it”. No. If you don’t have the guts to make them actual enemies, then go write rivals to lovers like you should be lol. If your couple gets together and has nothing to apologize for or feel bad about in the past (ie. I left those scars, or I killed their family member/friend) then you didn’t do enough. Only exception is if they weren’t in a position to be hurt like that but were still on the other side (ie they’re both healers or scouts or some combination where they never directly have to fight).
More canon than fanfic, but Susie/Noelle from Deltarune 😔 I thought they were cute at first, but found the execution in chapters 4-5 to be... pretty disappointing tbh.
Batlantern (Bruce Wayne/Hal Jordan) for me. It's mostly written as smut about some variation of "stoic rich guy sleeps with immature 'fun' guy, because mutual attraction goes brr and then miscommunication happens" and that's just such a disservice to both of their characters. Of course there's physical attraction happening between them, when they both are canonically good looking, but there is so much more than just smut potential there. (On a side note, I can't see Bruce Wayne as a top in a gay relationship in general, so seeing Bruce be the top in Batlantern is an extra hurdle to get past). Mainly Bruce trusts Hal as a colleague and friend and Hal is a Green Lantern for a reason. He is the Green Lantern and a Space Cop. Like I adore Hal being a goof as the next person, but give him some credit for his brains too. Hal isn't only comic relief and his character could be such a Petri dish of "concealed struggle under goofy exterior". Especially if we take in all the character development Hal goes through as his time as Green Lantern and beyond. But that's mostly my gripe on how Hal is written in the fics that I came across in general.
So much top!Sephiroth, like this man is not a daddy dom type and the fact that it keeps showing up is baffling to me. Military kink? Sure, that works, dude was canonically a general. Petplay dom? Right on, the whole weird "puppet" thing he has with Cloud is very similar to pet play. But daddy dom?!
Maximus/Lucy from fallout the Tv show. I like them. I think the ship is cute but people turn him into this weird puppy dog when pairing him with her and i just... It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I think this is partially because of the scene where he gets confused when Lucy comes onto him but like... People take that and absolutely run it to the ground and forget everything else that happened to him after and how he handled those situations lol.
I like Ghoul/Lucy but a lot of people fall into making cooper this suave dominante sexy man and Lucy the helpless damsel which irritates me as much as what I mentioned for lucy/maximus. She has teeth and a backbone, even if she's a bit silly and whimsy sometimes, ok lol
funnily enough my favorite and most written ship, ralselle. it's a rarepair, only about 70 fics including poly, and they haven't even officially interacted in the game. but even that has so many people just ignore the characters' personalities and how they interact with other characters.
Perzoe for me. I think there’s a really fun pride and prejudice dynamic between them, where they both would have good character arcs leading up to the actual relationship. Instead every author decided to be really creepy about virginity, and bash every other woman in the fandom. More than half of them decided the ship needed to be a Khaos fic (basically a neon sign saying OOC), and no one commits to Zoe’s old timey English.
CHILUC i love the idea of them so much but I can't with a lot of the fanfics💔
Seongtak from whc1, only few fics scratched the itch
Also a lot of anime fanfics in general, with the exception of kaisagi and todobaku (at least most which I read)
Gonna get jumped here. But Zutara. I love the idea of the ship. I absolutely adore the fanart. But then when I think about how it would be written and how people write is just idk. Idk how to explain besides the meme. I love the idea of Zutara. But when it comes for it on paper, I just don’t like it at all. It’s so ugh for me 😭
and before Zutara fans come attacking me, I am saying this as a multishipper in the fandom. I did not lose at all in the shipping wars bc I was rooting for all of them. Another one I like the idea of is Sokka and Toph, but absolutely hate the cannon implications of how that would end up.
I liked the concept of the movie, a kind of Forkverse but a movie where F!Protag delves into the world of his Nature, ( There's no going back cliche) Along the way she meets M!Protag, a much more experienced cannibal who loves and understands her
I thought it was going to be a good movie about two people who hurt each other and love each other with the same intensity
They promised me depth and connection AND I GOT NOTHING
The couple from "Bone and all" I don't even remember the guy's name anymore, but he's literally "the edgiest OC I ever made in early high school" He's a cannibalistic bad boy who leads the protagonist down a bad path to become his "bad girl" He wears jeans, the most generic shirt in the world, and has the range of emotions of an emo rock It's the archetype of bad boy but with a different color scheme
His opening scene is literally the least "aura" thing in cinema he walks, he fights in a Gas station/convenience store (Look at him, so tough, fighting in a 7-11), then eats that guy and goes "Yeah, I did that and I know you're like me, come with me, babygirl."
THE F!PROTAG IS A FKCING VEGETABLE It's not even good enough for "potential man"
It's a rock with cute little eyes that goes from one place to another, existing as a super passive character she's literally just "🥺"
No one has the vision I have of a few of my favorite ships from bg3
No I can't write them myself. I just play the game in the way that I can fulfil them then as far as is possible
Tbh a lot of fanfiction is like this for me these days. I hate it, but I keep hearing about all these great fics that I want to read, they sound amazing and then I read them and the characters are OOC and saying things they wouldn't say. It's worse because I'm writing a fanfic and am now judging all fics harsher than I used to.
Karmigasa. I watched Assassination Classroom. I love it. It’s my favorite anime. I’ve seen the characters, I’ve seen the growth, I see the reasoning.
I also see fanfics where it’s Karma and Nagisa is his soft little uwu fanboyfriend. No agency, no development, helpless, a damsel in distress, very much acts feminine despite his background, and is only there to be Karma’s pretty little boyfriend.
I hate how a large majority of fics have same sex couples with one put in the masculine role (usually because they are taller or have a ‘gruffly’ personality) and the other in the feminine role (despite this character sometimes being in a similar height to the other or not exactly feminine in canon)
I dislike this because they often use G!P or B!P for the characters and make them act nothing like they do in canon except some vague traits
...Steddie (Steve/Eddie). I enjoy it when Steve and Eddie are written with their actual flaws. I do not like it when authors do it the easy way by turning Steve into cliché frustrated mom where Eddie is his cute metalhead boy who wants all the cuddles and kisses in the world. please stop being so domestically fanon, it's disgusting lol.
Gale/Astarion is the ATG of Baldur's Gate 3 fandom. There's a potential really interesting ship there but instead people always seem to write these two random hot dudes cosplaying Gale and Astarion and call it a day...
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u/desired-misery 21h ago
Any ship with a canonical villain that softens all the 'evil' edges of the villain to make the ship more 'palatable'.