An advantage of being in a fandom where the villain with the most sympathetic motives is ugly as sin is that I've never had to see that crap in the tag. :::PPP But yeah, I was really surprised when I first played FF7 because there's this whole phenomenon of Sephiroth fangirls and perception of him as fangirl-bait, and yet there's all these bits early on where he's genuinely terrifying.
Imagine trying to write a canon-accurate Seph and constantly getting hate because he's 'too mean and scary'. There's a very good reason I literally cannot write fic on my own any more. Also, don't even get me started on the three clone-boys in Advent Children. I have PTSD FLASHBACKS of trying to RP them realistically and getting yelled off forums for not making them simply woobified eye-candy. (Yes, they are all very beautiful, my child. But then, so are cobras.)
AH YES the old fashioned 'why are you writing him so MEAAAAN' its real funny when you get it hurled at your cronus by a mituna rper
Write shota/loli/the nonbinary equivalent? (Does that third one exist?) I don't much want to see it, but you do you and I'll fight for your right to. Suggest any nurturing male characters, or even ones who aren't nurturing but end up in charge of a kid for some reason, must be child molesters purely because you can't imagine a man would want to take charge of children otherwise? Then I'll fucking fight you. I am serious.
Been reading a lot of TF2 fanfic, and a lot of people write about a respawn system, so that they can keep a lot of the over the top violence and silly missions and stuff without having to stop and bring in an all new OC Scout whenever he gets gibbed. It's fun. What's not fun is when authors completely fail to explore the implications of such a system. Like, "I saved your life you owe me" is fucking silly when if you'd just mercy killed the guy he'd be up again, fully healed, in fifteen minutes instead of sitting crippled in a hospital bed. There's just, so many problems that could be solved if one dude took any sorta measure to off himself or off his buddy, so many threats that mean absolutely nothing to a guy who is effectively immortal within a certain area.... it's fucking obnoxious. I like the respawn system stuff, and i like the cloning stuff, I like the weird devaluation of violence and how that affects how the characters treat each other, and it's so fucking annoying when an author brushes up against that stuff and refuses to dig any deeper than surface level.
YEAH okay like, i'm not in that fandom but i bonk into it over and over in other fandoms. there's a factor in the universe that radically changes some basic human equation and 90% of the authors just totally don't even pause to think about it. it drives me nuts. i mean, okay, any universe with ghosts. like— what the fuck?? what the FUCK. that's terrifying. that's incredible. humans have souls and sometimes the soul hangs around having an afterlife, it's been proven, there's evidence, that's a ghost. human souls confirmed. and no one ever actually sits down and freaks the fuck out about it. it gets even worse when characters just shrug off angels or trips to hell. if i found out hell was real i'd have an absolute screaming fit, because that is just totally the worst news ever to receive. that is like the absolute last thing i want confirmed about the universe, that there's a hell and humans can get sent there. like wow, no??? and then ghost rider in the marvel universe just goes cruising around, like 'yeah so i made a deal with satan, turns out satan's a thing' and no one really has any reaction other than 'you are scary'. like no, a guy with a flaming skull head and a motorcycle is cool. the theological confirmation of satan actually existing is what's scary. eta: also A/B/O where everything is exactly the same except for your two favorite dudes have a butt baby. like, come on.
That coffee shop aus outnumber western aus by far is maddening. Especially in fandoms with characters that are especially apt for the western. WHY HAVE COFFEE PEACEFULLY WHEN YOU COULD HAVE A TENSE STARE DOWN THAT ENDS IN HONORABLE VIOLENCE. Piss on your croissants, GIVE ME VIGILANTE JUSTICE.
dualscar fics that try to mix cronus's speech patterns in with eridans and just make him sound like a fucking pirate
They are delicious. But so much delicious is the stench of dirt as it's picked up in the wind. Two men look each other in the eye. You see their faces, their eyes in particular. They are filled with the knowledge that on this day they may die. Yet neither backs down, for that is cowardice. And they know they can't back down anyway. It has come to this point. Honor demands that someone die. And someone does die. We the audience know who will die beforehand and yet we wait with bated breath for the gunshots and to see who falls. We're so tense about an outcome we already know. The death is just that weighty on us.
ACTUALLY DEAR SIR I HAVE BEEN RESEARCHING FOR MY PAPER ON THE WESTERN. GOD. (i honestly don't look at mccree/hanzo and what not at all)
lol I was actually thinking it would make AMAZING reaper76 but YES THAT TOO :P (Give me more bitter grounds old-married-kismesis Reaper76 I PRAY FOR IT EVERY NIGHT.)
i was about to say, UNSONG actually does feature some people who respond appropriately to the news that there is a hell and people can get sent there @tinyhydra YES, i love tf2 fics that include the respawn system and examine how that would change someone's behavior (oh, a minor injury? might as well just off myself! (which tangentially reminds me of this awkwardzombie comic)) and i'm less fond of the ones that use it but then ignore it completely :|
"well this has gone completely fucking pear-shaped, there's no other way out of it, you're going to have to decapitate me"
Okay but does it only work for injuries or is sickness also a thing cured by respawning? And is this a power everyone has? Is the general population aware of it? If respawning heals you and everyone can respawn, what is the motivation for medical science to advance? I'm only even tangentially aware of what the fandom is but now I have to know the answers to all of this. Edit: I can't stop thinking about this. When you respawn, is there a set template that you return to? Are you functionally immortal because when you respawn you return to your template cellular age? Can you stave off sleep deprivation or hunger by respawning, if you did return to a "base" state? Are terminal illnesses still a thing, but you can constantly respawn to stay in the beginning stages of the illness? Someone link me to meta I need it omg Spoiler: dark If you are functionally immortal, how do you maintain stable population rates? What age do you get the respawn power? If there is a base state but someone is pregnant when killed, they would lose the child, right? So is medical science focused on how to keep a pregnant person alive as long as possible no matter what? If dying and respawning is common how do children reach adulthood? Do many just... Not? And that's how stable population is achieved? This is eating my brain alive omg
Ah, speaking of fandom specific gripes and respawn systems, ive only ever seen one borderlands fic that talked about it in any depth/the characters discussed it and it was for one scene and all the characters were wildly ooc
Well, the thing is that the Team Fortress 2 "canon" is mostly comics, which do not feature the respawn system. However, for a long time there wasn't much in the way of an actual storyline, and we just had the game itself and the "Meet the Team" videos to go on; it's the game that features a respawn system (cause, y'know, videogame.) In the fanfics that acknowledge the respawn system, generally it is an invention which the giant corporations that sponsor the teams (RED team and BLU team) possess. There's usually never any indication that this invention has spread beyond the use of "infinitely respawning mercenaries fighting over near-useless plots of land," possibly because it is too expensive, possibly because the respective heads of the corporations in question are idiots. So, whether it includes illnesses is up to the fic writer, but it almost never is applied beyond the mercenaries and the general population is not aware of it.
