Fanfiction themes that creep you out.

[Sith_Happens]

Hey, the good thing about the Doctor is that you can drop him into absolutely anything and it makes about as much sense as the average episode of the show.

My concern is more that the universe likely can't handle the sheer amount of camp and whimsy that would be produced by putting the Doctor in a room with Isaac and Miria.

[Sparda]

Ones with a confusing mid story such as Naruto the huntsman by fairy tail dragon slayer started of well but dissolved into nonsense so quick definitely not his best work

[Psyren]

Giving a character Redemption Through Death isn't rewriting the entire character the way he's talking about. Snape was a jerk for the entire series, and he was a jerk in DH...but DH explained why he was such a jerk, and let him be a decent person for once before killing him off.

Point of order, he was a decent person in the other books too. Remember that he saved Harry from Quirrell in book one, during the Quidditch match.

3) Sci-fantasy racism.

Wait, why is this bad? It can be pretty instructive, e.g. treatment of goblins in OotS, treatment of Quarians in Mass Effect, and treatment of... literally anyone in Dragon Age that isn't a human muggle.

[Lethologica]

Point of order, he was a decent person in the other books too. Remember that he saved Harry from Quirrell in book one, during the Quidditch match.

Snape wasn't enough of an ******* to let Lily's son die (a very selfish sort of goodness), but he was a jerk for the entire series. Bullies in positions of authority are pretty awful, and that's Snape as a teacher.

[Aotrs Commander]

I have spent the last decade or so reading quite a lot of fanfiction (mostly Naruto, MLP: FiM, Harry Potter and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha).

I don't think there's much in fanfiction that creeps me out specifically, on the basis that anythign that might contains stuff I would find objectianle rarely bypasses my initial quality filter - so aside from the obvious topics mentioned further back upthread, I don't really have much to add generally.



So then, for the sake of saying something a bit different, then, one specific thing that I creeps me out a bit (but I'm very slowly learning to tolerate) is shipping Discord (from Friendship is Magic). With, well, anyone really. It has, basically since he first appeared, always made me somewhat uncomfortable (on the basis of his apparent (arguable) mind-rape of the main characters (especially Fluttershy) in his first appearance. It just makes me intense uncomfortable - basiclly, I guess it boils down to the perception of the "abusive relationship" thing mentioned earlier.



As to fanfiction dislikes in general, I am generally not fond of crossovers (they have to work really hard to gain traction, though the standouts can be grand); self-inserts are another turn-off. As are alternate universes that basically completely change everything apart from the names (especially when it becomes "everyone is in high school" which is obtusely not common in Naruto). Also not fond of too dark or gritty or depressing, and I have a strong bias fro humour over drama if forced to have one or the other.

To address some problems specific to some of the fandoms, then:

In Naruto, I am not fond of the stories where he is hyper-competant (unless it is speficially for humour); the ones where simultaneously his character is changed so that he is not Naruto are the ones I fond most egregious. I find Naruto a likeable character because he's an idiot (occasionally a highly skilled, competant and canny idiot), but if he isn't occasionally doing something silly and daft, then he's not really Naruto to me. (Also (as I've vented before at length), don't knock the orange as silly if you're going it ignore the ineptitude in everyone's ELSE's lack of camouflage.)

MLP, I will skip basically anything that involves humans (exception made latterly for the world of the movies); there is also an oddly-specific subset of stories wherein "some person dresses up as a fictional character, ends up in Equestria with that persons powers."

I also am generally annoyed by "immortality is terrible, all your friends die" (something that is not infrequently shows up in MLP because of presence of the alicorn characters) because it strikes me that the authors are missing the point that that is something that will happen to one person of EVERY circle of friends and family; either you die young (and thsu inflict the pain on all your friends and family), or you will live long enough to out-live them. (As it usually tends to be more "how terrible it is to be me being all alone," something that tends to strike me (as an old fogey (in both mind and to a lesser degree body) as being something of a young person preception, perhaps from people who have not actualy really grasped what old age is. (I was so annoyed at one point, it actually drove me to write a story...) And ignores the fact that you can always make new friends.

Harry Potter and Nanoha principally boil down to the "don't pick on the good characters" thing. I like Ron and Yuuno, and it both annoys me and makes me cringe to see the flack they get (Ron especially, for no worse crime than Being A Normal Teenage Boy). Dumbledore too. He is all-too-often villified for not having waved his magic wand to literally make Harry's life perfect (at which point their would have been no story). Did the man handle the situation very poorly? In my opinion, yes, but his intentions were good at least. He certain is not More Evil Than Voldemort...

(That said, I have read some satire/parody stories that bashed a character hard but in a way that is was actually funny. There as one particualr involving Ron (I forget what it was called), but it was so utterly silly that it wcame out the other side. But that, of course, takes considerable talent to manage to pull off.)

I will have to admit, though, to not being totally averse to Snape-redemption stories. (Feel free to throw things.) I've read a couple of rather good ones, actually, with him developing a more or actual fatherly relationship with Harry. It's an interesting exploration to read; Snape I find is modestly plausible to be redeemed (unlike most of the other HP villains). (Though I definitely draw the line before SnapexHarry...)

[Nerd-o-rama]

Wait, why is this bad? It can be pretty instructive, e.g. treatment of goblins in OotS, treatment of Quarians in Mass Effect, and treatment of... literally anyone in Dragon Age that isn't a human muggle.

When I wrote that, I more meant "fanfiction authors being actually racist along fantastical lines", i.e. the frequent hatred of Muggles and "promotion" of Muggleborn Wizards like Hermione into having secretly been Purebloods all along. Because that was the point of Harry Potter. Pure magical bloodlines being important.

I mean, Harry Potter as a series is about racism and prejudice in many respects, in the same way OotS is, but both Rich and J. K. Rowling treat it as bad and try to dissect it and then their fans turn right around and unironically engage in the same prejudice. It boggles the mind.

[Traab]

Harry Potter and Nanoha principally boil down to the "don't pick on the good characters" thing. I like Ron and Yuuno, and it both annoys me and makes me cringe to see the flack they get (Ron especially, for no worse crime than Being A Normal Teenage Boy). Dumbledore too. He is all-too-often villified for not having waved his magic wand to literally make Harry's life perfect (at which point their would have been no story). Did the man handle the situation very poorly? In my opinion, yes, but his intentions were good at least. He certain is not More Evil Than Voldemort...

Eh, its just so EASY to portray dumbledoore as evil, you dont even have to change much that takes place in canon, just his actual motivation. So much of what he does comes off as evil, or at least kind of amoral. For example, it would be easy to claim that the simple fact that there was always something going on at hogwarts that seemed to draw out confrontations with voldemort as the actions of a chess master trying to either train up harry second hand so to speak, or to try and force the prophecy to its conclusion. It doesnt even have to be an evil plan of some snidely whiplash mustache twirling evil dumbles. It would make logical sense.

A) The prophecy seems to say that only harry can kill voldemort or vice versa and that things cant be settled till this happens

B) That means the dark lord absolutely cannot be truly stopped until either harry kills him, thus fulfilling the prophecy, or voldemort kills HARRY meaning the prophecy is fulfilled and anyone can finish voldemort off as it is no longer in effect.

C) Therefore, to keep the death toll down, force confrontations as fast and as often as possible so it doesnt drag on for years costing untold numbers of lives.

While I agree that some take evil dumbles too far or in a stupid direction an evil dumbledoore is a character concept that can actually work well and NOT be a massive alteration in character. One that I actually kind of enjoyed, though it got out of hand over the course of the story, was partially kissed hero. Because it tried to create an evil and incredibly COMPETENT dumbledoore. So often evil dumbledoore is face palmingly stupid, or even when not, is easily swept aside by harry the awesome and whoever is helping him out this time. If dumbledoore was really some malevolent genius, he has had well over a century to get really really good at getting what he wants. No 14 year old is going to outmaneuver him more than once before being utterly crushed in retaliation.

[digiman619]

Im talking, "Hi, im naruto, im 130, and I want to go back in time to change things, and hopefully hook up with hinata."

I can actually see a story like that working. Here's my pitch: In the story's 'original' timeline, Naruto fell in love with Hinata but she died before they could be together. He swore to never love another woman and stayed single for the rest of his life. Near death, some divine agency sends him back to his kid self to get another chance. With this new chance, he vows to get her love, and prevent the tragedy that took her life the first time.

Oh and as a side note, for those of you that feel that the random pairings are crazy, I advise you to look into Ranma 1/2. The main character had curse that changed his gender whenever hot or cold water hit him (this was played for laughs rather than for drama). This lead, to in addition to the standard crazy pairings inherent to harem anime, every pairing had one or both of them as a different gender. It's THAT weird.

[Drascin]

About the only thing that really creeps me out, instead of just going "ick, not for me",is revenge porn. You know, all those fics that seem to basically exist so that someone who has an axe to grind with a character can swing it at said character until it's nothing but mush. There's a level of sheer hate involved in so many of them that rather puts me off.

Well, that and the ever famous romanticizing of horribly abusive relationships. That also rates pretty highly in the creepy-meter.

But you find both of these in published stories, and plenty of them. They're not really just fanfiction trends.

[DomaDoma]

The way that, once something is tagged for sex scenes, it instantly devalues the readership into drooling lustbots. I mean, chances are excellent that your typical thriller will contain at least one sex scene, but the audience is still in it for the convoluted terror plots in the end. No idea why this happens, but boy does it ever. And qualifying the sex as non-consensual in no way helps.

[Traab]

I can actually see a story like that working. Here's my pitch: In the story's 'original' timeline, Naruto fell in love with Hinata but she died before they could be together. He swore to never love another woman and stayed single for the rest of his life. Near death, some divine agency sends him back to his kid self to get another chance. With this new chance, he vows to get her love, and prevent the tragedy that took her life the first time.

Oh and as a side note, for those of you that feel that the random pairings are crazy, I advise you to look into Ranma 1/2. The main character had curse that changed his gender whenever hot or cold water hit him (this was played for laughs rather than for drama). This lead, to in addition to the standard crazy pairings inherent to harem anime, every pairing had one or both of them as a different gender. It's THAT weird.

But the thing is, even with that justification, he is still a really old person trying to hook up with a teenager. Thats what bothers me about it.

[Winter_Wolf]

Lemon fanfic just makes me grit my teeth in disgust, because there's a very good chance nowhere did the author/host indicate what it was before I started reading. I mean damn if I want porn I'll just go find porn. I don't need to read borderline (and often overt) rape fantasies of fictional characters in what are typically thought of as shonen comics series.

Call me innocent, but I'm really just down for stories that can deal with themes other than sex. I've hit my saturation point with using sex to sell stuff/entice views.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The way that, once something is tagged for sex scenes, it instantly devalues the readership into drooling lustbots. I mean, chances are excellent that your typical thriller will contain at least one sex scene, but the audience is still in it for the convoluted terror plots in the end. No idea why this happens, but boy does it ever. And qualifying the sex as non-consensual in no way helps.

Lemon fanfic just makes me grit my teeth in disgust, because there's a very good chance nowhere did the author/host indicate what it was before I started reading. I mean damn if I want porn I'll just go find porn. I don't need to read borderline (and often overt) rape fantasies of fictional characters in what are typically thought of as shonen comics series.

Quite a conundrum.

Call me innocent, but I'm really just down for stories that can deal with themes other than sex. I've hit my saturation point with using sex to sell stuff/entice views.

Sex can be used to establish personality of the characters and strengthen themes. My favorite piece of fiction is Katawa Shoujo, Lilly's story. I can see how it would often be used poorly in fanfic, and there's a lack of proper distinguishing between "stories that don't pull punches" and "this is porn". Katawa Shoujo manages to do sex scenes while keeping things fairly minimal, though definitely still at mature levels.

[russdm]

Aside from the Slash Fic, and Porn of stuff (Which I have looked at and read some of, will admit that), the main thing that creeps me out is the "My Little Pony"-Ification of nearly every series in which the characters are changed into ponies that you would encounter in that show, which not everyone actually ever watched.

It gets done in crossovers or as the show actually happening so that the "My Little Pony" effect can play full bore. It's disturbing on many levels.

The other thing is the sheer number of Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossovers. I'm sorry, but that show wasn't exactly that great in my mind, but really, crossing it with everything possible?

[8BitNinja]

Yaoi is disgusting

all fanfiction is disgusting to me, but this is by far the worst

end of story

[digiman619]

But the thing is, even with that justification, he is still a really old person trying to hook up with a teenager. Thats what bothers me about it.

And if they met when he was 20, she died when he was 22, and he got sent back a month later, that'd be OK, right? The whole idea of making him an old man is that he has a lifetime of regret and sorrow, thus giving the pathos more depth.

Yaoi is disgusting

all fanfiction is disgusting to me, but this is by far the worst

end of story

Sexual preferences aside, I'll say that whenever an author changes a character's sexual orientation (for NO GOOD REASON) in order to ship always irks me.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yaoi is disgusting

all fanfiction is disgusting to me, but this is by far the worst

end of story

I may avoid it, but I don't look down on yaoi's existence because approximately half the world's population is attracted to men.

[Lethologica]

And if they met when he was 20, she died when he was 22, and he got sent back a month later, that'd be OK, right? The whole idea of making him an old man is that he has a lifetime of regret and sorrow, thus giving the pathos more depth.

I'd expect an old man with a lifetime of Hokage-dom to have more sense, honestly. This does sound like the sort of thing a grieving 22-year-old would do, though.

[YossarianLives]

Yaoi is disgusting

all fanfiction is disgusting to me, but this is by far the worst

end of story

Why are you such a hateful person?

[Winter_Wolf]

Sex can be used to establish personality of the characters and strengthen themes. My favorite piece of fiction is Katawa Shoujo, Lilly's story. I can see how it would often be used poorly in fanfic, and there's a lack of proper distinguishing between "stories that don't pull punches" and "this is porn". Katawa Shoujo manages to do sex scenes while keeping things fairly minimal, though definitely still at mature levels.

I won't try to argue that point, because I agree with it. What I'm saying is that sometimes I just need a break from it. Speaking as a hyper sexual person in real life. Maybe not on satyriasis or sex addict levels, but maybe a little more than is strictly healthy. Perhaps strangely, the best love scene I've ever read was almost thirty years ago, in a book for adolescents. The whole scene was culminated in a sweet kiss for the boy/narrator from the girl next door. Like I said, "innocent".

[8BitNinja]

Why are you such a hateful person?

How is what I said considered hateful, I never targeted anyone when I said this, I just said that I don't like certain things. Am I not allowed too have opinions?

[Razade]

How is what I said considered hateful, I never targeted anyone when I said this, I just said that I don't like certain things. Am I not allowed too have opinions?

Sure you are but you called a niche entertainment form "disgusting" which conveys some level of hate or revulsion. Yaoi revolts you and you didn't really say why so it makes it seem because the source material and themes are what makes you think it's "disgusting". You're saying you don't understand that?

[Hiro Protagonest]

How is what I said considered hateful, I never targeted anyone when I said this, I just said that I don't like certain things. Am I not allowed too have opinions?

You didn't use any tact or perspective when you said that. The words you used conveyed something beyond a simple dislike.

[Bobbybobby99]

Contrary to many on this thread, I actually quite like slash. I'm also a gay male, so.... I suppose you can see the reason for that . I do have to say that Yaoi is often rather insulting, however. With it, I get the vague impression that my social group is being used as a caricature to titillate the minds of teenage girls, which is just deeply disturbing in so many ways.

[8BitNinja]

You didn't use any tact or perspective when you said that. The words you used conveyed something beyond a simple dislike.

I'm sorry, I'm not good at properly expressing when I dislike something

[Razade]

Contrary to many on this thread, I actually quite like slash. I'm also a gay male, so.... I suppose you can see the reason for that . I do have to say that Yaoi is often rather insulting, however. With it, I get the vague impression that my social group is being used as a caricature to titillate the minds of teenage girls, which is just deeply disturbing in so many ways.

I'm a fan of BL and Yaoi manga even if the portrayals of gay relationships in them are absolutely not targeted at me as a gay male.

[An Enemy Spy]

How is what I said considered hateful, I never targeted anyone when I said this, I just said that I don't like certain things. Am I not allowed too have opinions?

The way you worded it took it beyond opinion and stated it as an objective fact. I don't like yaoi either. I don't like any fanfiction whose purpose is to just pair up two characters.

[8BitNinja]

I was actually turned away from fanfiction a while ago, after it disturbed me so much I could not read anything fanfiction again. I used to actually like it. I started by reading stories that people made about their own made up characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I also read some about the MOTHER series, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., and a bunch of other games I enjoyed. This was also when I did not know much about terms that the fan of "them animus and mangoes" use. I read one that said something about "lemon." Unfortunately, I didn't think to check Urban Dictionary or internetslang.com for what it meant. I read about halfway through, but then I was so disgusted I couldn't read any more. I remember it was some kind of Zelda slash fiction, but what it was about I'm not sure anymore. I just remember that it was creepy, disturbing, and gross. Never again did I even think to venture to the accursed website known as fanfiction.net.

So that's where my bitter feelings come from.

[AvatarVecna]

A lot of it comes down to exploitation for me: sex stuff in fics doesn't really interest me as much as it did when puberty had me by the short hairs, but it doesn't really creep me out unless the sex concept itself is just creepy. Nonconsensual stuff, mostly, in the sense of "one or more participants did not choose to participate", in the many flavors that comes in; I think it's perfectly fine for younger teens to do stuff with youngers teens, but I skip past those parts or just stop reading if I come across them, because reading about two first years playing doctor in the HP-verse is a lot creepier than it was when I was 11. Changing characters gender or sexuality doesn't really bother me, unless they're keeping major parts of canon that contradict that (if it's a major plot point that the Princess of Countria Generica never sleeps with anybody, and the fic has her sleeping with everybody, but everything's still the same, it's ignoring the plot for the sake of porn).

Other exploitation that...well, it doesn't "creep me out" as much as "disappoint me" is pointless gore. The best example I can think of is "Cupcakes", a rather infamous MLP fanfic that I found rather...boring. Hell, I would have at least laughed if, at some point, the normally 4th wall observant character Pinkie (who stars in that story) had turned to the camera and had lampshaded just how gory the story was for the sake of being gory, or if the gore had been so over-the-top (like in anime, where every character has some 200 gallons of blood in their body just waiting to hilariously geyser out), but that never happened. Stuff like that, with sex, or gore, or really just about any other "edgy" addition to a fic just bores me. Gore can be done well in the written medium, as can sex, and both can be used to make a more serious story feel more real, to help immerse you in the world, to help you feel more invested in the characters, and instead it's being used for a cheap thrill.

[Lethologica]

I was actually turned away from fanfiction a while ago, after it disturbed me so much I could not read anything fanfiction again. I used to actually like it. I started by reading stories that people made about their own made up characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I also read some about the MOTHER series, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., and a bunch of other games I enjoyed. This was also when I did not know much about terms that the fan of "them animus and mangoes" use. I read one that said something about "lemon." Unfortunately, I didn't think to check Urban Dictionary or internetslang.com for what it meant. I read about halfway through, but then I was so disgusted I couldn't read any more. I remember it was some kind of Zelda slash fiction, but what it was about I'm not sure anymore. I just remember that it was creepy, disturbing, and gross. Never again did I even think to venture to the accursed website known as fanfiction.net.

So that's where my bitter feelings come from.

It sounds like you are maybe taking a small sample of bad experiences and making broad generalizations from them? Again? Only this time you've already done the equivalent of watching Record of Lodoss War and you still decided the entire category sucks.

I'm sorry, I'm not good at properly expressing when I dislike something

This is a learnable skill. I'd say you actually did a decent job of expressing your dislike in the above quote. The main issue has been that your initial statements of dislike are over-general and under-explained, forcing you to backtrack and qualify yourself as people pick away at your initial assertion. You can improve this by reviewing your experience of the thing you dislike and trying to specifically describe that, instead of using a broad label that doesn't necessarily reflect your experience.