What are your fan fiction gripes?

Today I remembered an old fanfic I ran across where the lead character was both evil and an insufferable smug douchebag about it, and I've been irritated for hours just by remembering it. Regarding the tags on said fic, it may just be my own preconceptions talking, but I'd say an amoral protagonist would simply not turn down the option to do something wrong, while an immoral protagonist would actively seek out the opportunity to do so? Either way, this one was the latter.

 

'the only one of its kind'

 

When I think of riveting dialogue like that I know those two are my first go tos.

 

Reminds me of the, uh, masterpiece that turned up in one of FFA's Summary Execution threads a while back.

Spoiler: NSFWish

(Spoiler: it was full of the usual cliches. Also, meme got very hung up about what on earth "china cup" meant.)

 

...
that actually makes me want to tell this person hey, ao3 allows original fic, you don’t need to pretend they’re sokka and zuko..... pls........

 

Okay but to be fair, I'm pretty hung up on that too. :P

 

maybe something about being as gentle and delicate about all the goings on as one would be with expensive china cups?

 

that was my thought, excessive gingerness and delicacy

 

That was one of the prevailing theories, yes.

 

god, i just love it when authors tell you not to read their work

 

i guess it works if an author is trying to make their readers feel special and elite because they're not like those fanfic readers who enjoy all those terrible cliches (which are i guess exclusively the domain of women.............)

 

Ah, but you see, of course they are, because no other gay man has ever written fanfic before This Dude. (This is not me strawmanning, there were actually author's notes to that effect.)

 

I have seen so many other dudes parrot that shit... even in spaces almost exclusively occupied by gay men.

 

Well gee willikers, author, thanks for being upfront about your misogyny I guess. And yes, I will probably find it boring, though I do sincerely hope your spouse enjoys it very much.

I really do enjoy the bafflement of observing authors who think they’re the first person to have discovered the idea of writing their premise in a way that doesn’t suck. So unique! Because everyone else thought that bad writing was the ideal outcome, and not part of a learning process I guess? Nobody has ever, ever written this well before, and that’s not because it’s challenging but because they thought bad was ideal?

 

also what the fuck does straight coded mean
if
they're gay dudes
they
aren't straight...
that's like
implied
by the two dudes part

 

'Not blatantly stereotypical'.

 

I would guess it means seme/uke-type stuff where Het Gender Roles(TM) are being kind of invoked? But that might be being overly generous.

 

(Also, I'm sorry, but I just noticed this typo and can we please appreciate it in the context of a smutfic description:

)

 

I’ve seen that before, it’s glorious