I still think one of the most bizarre political things I've seen in a fic involved a SU fandom-specific plot. Said specific plot, based on a comment by Steven in one episode, is Connie as president. Now, it's not like Connie goes around spouting explicitly political ideology at every turn. However, given the show being pretty progressive and the one politics-adjacent stance she expresses (concern over peak oil) is one that is more commonly a concern amongst the left than the right. This fic, though? It was about Republican presidential candidate Connie Maheswaran. Yeah, I'm just as confused as you. The one potential explanation we could come up with that made any sense at all was that, since SU takes place on an alternate Earth, the parties didn't basically switch platforms at any point...but like, given the current climate of things, explicitly making Connie a Republican regardless of context just seems like a really questionable idea? Kind of a shame, but oh well. There are tons of fics with the same premise that don't have weird conservative undertones.
Some people are really good at ignoring the moral and political content in their media, if it's something they would have disagreed with.
Eta put under spoiler Spoiler: Incest n underage My friend has caught the rick n morty interest again recently so she's trying to look for angst fanfic but to her dismay, RnM ao3 is an incest partytown that's difficult to tag filter cause theres so many goddamn alt versions of rick and morty that are unique tags lol, plus alt self cest versions with unique tags that just make filtering out shit not easy in the slightest! It's kinda funny to my in like, shows where the main cast is mostly like, family, like this will kinda just happen! I'm thinking back to Osomatsu the anime where the 6 main characters are sextuplets, like of course the majority ships will be incest! Theyre the most interest characters in the show where theyre the mains and people love dynamics! It's just amusing But lol I get the rick n morty problem, sounds like a pain in the ass trying to sift through stuff
Spoiler: reply to the incest/underage thing Does your friend have any interest in Gravity Falls, by any chance? Has she watched it, or would she be interested in watching it? I ask because I've had the Rick and Morty bug myself in the past, and in my experience, the only surefire way to avoid the incest ships in that fandom is to dive into the archive of Gravity Falls crossover ships. (Usually Rick Sanchez/Ford Pines, but I'm pretty sure I've seen some Rick/Stan fics around, as well as at least one Dipper/Morty. If she's looking for angst fic specifically, I think Rick/Ford is the ship that leans most in that direction.) A fic that has a crossover ship generally won't have an incest ship, and vice versa. Although I have no idea how to find RnM fics that aren't ship-centric at all................but that's a problem I run into in all sorts of fandoms.
Thanks for the reply! I mentioned this to my friend and she said that yeah, she's defaulted to reading these AUs to satisfy the craving
Pet hate; if a character's going to blackmail someone, maybe make sure the blackmail material involves the victim doing something worse than the perpetrator's spying/hacking/breaking-and-entering to obtain the material?
A weird review gripe: people who say my fic for a canon I really like is So Much Better Than Canon. I know bitching about positive comments is basically the fanfic equivalent of a first world problem, but it rubs me the wrong way. (this complaint brought to you by the person who decided to start ranting about how su ruined characters or some shit in a comment on my longfic)
yeeeeeah your rant about the way canon has fallen short probably isn't an appropriate addition to a positive comment on a fic unless maaaaaybe on a fix it fic or something
The first two chapters of this fic are about McG saving eleven year old Harry from the Dursleys, getting her (Harry is a trans girl, yay!) medical treatment, alerting the ministry of the laws that have been broken wrt child abuse, opening an inquiry in the muggle world as well... All good. She goes to Dumbldore like "This is what you left her to and then never checked up on; i am telling you that I've removed her from the situation permanently and that there's an investigation open with the aurors etc as a courtesy; you will be facing consequences for this" which... eh, I wouldn't have given the warning, but he was horrified by the abuse which will be significant later. She goes and tells Snape, which - no, that's not your private medical information to share - and asks for advice in helping an abused kid, since apparantly slytherin gets more of them than gryffindore, which... let's not unpack that right now. Anyway, first two chapters are mostly good and I enjoyed them. Third chapter: They go to sort things out at Gringotts. Okay, cool. Harry is the heir to a bunch of noble houses - hmm. (The fic author has forgotten that the Potters, while old, are not a noble house.) She's heir to all of the founders' houses, should the magic accept her - hmmm. She's got a soul-shard in her scar, oh no! But don't worry, the Goblins have healers who can remove that - okay, good. She also has a shitton of compulsions and enchantments on her - hmmmm. Placed there by Dumbledore - hmmmmm. She gets those removed and her personality and appearance immediately change - hmmmmmmm. She now knows instinctually how to behave around and communicate in a respectful way with Goblins; they're all, ah, a polite human - :/. The Goblins wave the fees for their help - ://. There's more and more that's just ://///. The first two chapters were cool and interesting and then the third chapter left me just completely :/ like that escalated quickly. But also, not interested anymore. Bleh.
boy, having your personality and appearance change and being told that that's cause you've been healed of a number of enchantments that have been on you for much of your life, and also once these enchantments are off you are immediately more polite and respectful towards the folks what removed them, like, instinctively, sounds so fucking sus to me. Does Harry (and her guardian(s), more importantly), like, trust these strangers??? wild.
I'm baffled by the point where it's like. "Lady Potter, you are the heir to a ton of noble houses, including all of the founders, and presumably coming with this is a shitton of wealth. But hey! You don't have to pay us the perfectly normal fees we charge to people with far less wealth than you." Like. This is a person who absolutely can pay the fees. Different wish fulfillment for different folks, and all, but one of my aspirations in having wealth is the ability to pay things without second guessing the expense.
Also, my understand of Goblin culture in HP (such as it is) is that waiving the fees would be an insult.
Spoiler: csa mentions current gripes: stories with little boys under 7 being sexually attracted to... (why, just why) exclusively adult women or pornographic material of adult women (because the icky gays are the problem, somehow) that is played for laughs in a "boys will be boys" way straight out of rape culture rhetoric (both the "Boys Are Just Like That and the feeeeemales have to get used to it" way and the "you can't rape boys, they're boys they aaaaaaaaaaaalways want sex" way) like its the most natural thing in the world to happen without any goddamn warning as a sign that Life Is Good for the characters because Good Things are happening i just.... and i have noped out of no less than 50 GODDAMN FICS WITH THIS PROBLEM IN THE SHITTY NINJAS FANDOM JUST IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS DO FUCKING BETTER FANDOM GODDAMN
yes but...fuck maybe i'm just spoiled by the whole ao3/tumblr crowd i hang out with but MOST OF WHAT I KNOW DON'T DO THAT SHIT, and then i go looking for new fic from people i haven't read the stuff of before and its just
incredibly small and specific gripe, but nonetheless: the only person who still writes my OTP for an older fandom has an incredibly mechanical approach to how they use pronouns vs repeating a character's name that makes their fic unreadable to me. (specifically, they use the character's name in the first sentence of the paragraph no matter WHAT.) it isn't in itself bad fic, but it's so awkward and unnatural-sounding that I can't stand to read it. it's the mental sensation of like... you get into the bath expecting a nice smooth standard bathtub, but then the bathtub is actually made out of brick! it's rough and not super pleasant by itself, but in the context that it appears in it veers straight into horribly unpleasant.
Not so much a fic gripe as a theorising gripe, but... the standard "tentacular hermaphrodite" anatomy in Homestuck fic isn't canon. We never get a clear description of what's in their pants at all in canon, Hussie almost certainly wasn't picturing anything different from human anatomy, and it's implied in Kanaya's dialogue that trolls aren't anatomically hermaphroditic (even if their gametes are all the same, but that's a different issue) because when she says humans are like Alternian livestock "Without The Hermaphroditic Biology" that sounds to me like she's thinking of gendered anatomy as the default. The fact that they do have gender dimorphism brings up all its own problems, but yeah, the fanon isn't canon.
Who cares if it's not canon? That's what fandom is for. We're having fun. If I wanted to suffer through canon I'd be reading HS^2.
