let's discuss!

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

this if for those of you who read fanfic, which is hopefully most of you.

what are your fanfic pet peeves? is there a pairing or genre you won't read? do you hate mistakes in canon?

for me it's more about grammar. i get irritated with bad spelling (use spellcheck!), poor use of punctuation (besides commas because there are about 40 rules. you should know the basics), and capitalization. in posts i don't bother with caps. but when i publish i try to make it as correct as possible.

other things are the use of certain words. there/their/they're, we're/ were/where, bare/bear, lie/lay/laid etc., i/me, overuse of italics and bold. to me italics are good for emphasizing certain words that should be stressed, either in dialog or narration, sounds coming off the television/phone or written words read by the narrator or out loud in dialog, musical lyrics. it just makes it easier to understand that it isn't normal sounds. i only use bold in my author's note, disclaimer, and warnings.

also, i won't even read a fic that has all the text bunched up because someone didn't press enter. or something with only about 200 words.

also, when you address someone it should be like,   Person, blah blah. with the comma there. that just bugs me.

for specifically CM i won't read Morgan with anyone but Garcia. i don't know, i just think they belong together and i love that Garcia is one of very few average sized women on television. in spite of what hollywood wants us to think, most women are more Garcia's size than JJ's.

Comments

[artistic-angle.livejournal.com]

Occasional bad spelling doesn't necessarily bother me because there are many writers out there who are not native speakers. As long as I see that they ARE trying and eventually errors get corrected, I can live with it. I do have issues with the kind of bad grammar where I feel the author should learn the basics of the language before trying to write a fanfiction -- or anything -- (and by that I don't mean overlooking certain things.)

I also dislike OOC. Sure fanfic writers need to take liberties, that is completely fine, but people (well, most) read fanfiction because they like the characters from the show the way they are. So what's the point in going completely out of character, it practically kills the very reason I read a fanfiction for. The characters become different, go write original fiction instead. (It always puzzles me when a completely out of character fanfic gets lots of praise just because certain pairing happens.)

My biggest pet peeve, however, is actor fic. I tried reading one or two and they continue to make me cringe and extremely uncomfortable. They are not fictional characters, they are real people, it just feels really weird to me. So I avoid them altogether. It's absolutely not my thing.

I'm also not into slash. I just don't see anything of the sorts established in canon, so I personally don't read it.

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

i understand your position on real person fanfic. that's going a bit far and is kind of an invasion of privacy. the only fandom i've found where i and most others don't mind ooc is Twilight. parts of the canon are just ridiculous and the vampire stuff can be really boring. as long as the character retains some essential personality traits it's fine with me.

for a canon like CM, the characters are pretty well worked out and developed. i'd go crazy if they changed the fundamentals of each player.

[artistic-angle.livejournal.com]

Well I can't say anything about Twilight because I'm staying as far away as possible (lol), but you do have a point there. If it's a fandom where characters aren't as deeply explored or clearly portrayed and defined as in CM, I guess some additional traits that haven't been present in canon (as long as it does go with what we've seen in canon) can be acceptable. Shows that have been canceled too early, or books with not too deep characterization are good examples. But not CM, no.

[cloudzrshibby.livejournal.com]

I'm totally with you on actor fics. Writing stories about fictional characters is really...weird. I feel the same way about band fanfiction too.

[scarimor.livejournal.com]

My biggest pet peeve, however, is actor fic. I tried reading one or two and they continue to make me cringe and extremely uncomfortable. They are not fictional characters, they are real people, it just feels really weird to me. So I avoid them altogether. It's absolutely not my thing.

"Actor fic" or real person fic is not fan fiction. These are (usually sexual) fantasies about real people who are alive now, who might find it, and who have friends, colleagues, employers and families who could also stumble on it. It's often libellous and usually defamatory (by the legal standards of the countries in which it's written). When it's posted or linked at forums/communities for mainstream fandom its a big problem for those of us who have professional sensitivites and responsibilities - we end up having to leave because we can't risk being associated with it.

I'm not sure whether people who write it would be happy if someone wrote fantasies about them, using their real names, describing them in anatomical, intimate detail, and published it at their workplace/school/facebook, where everyone who knows them, including their parents/boyfriend/husband or whatever could read it.

[artistic-angle.livejournal.com]

I think that really summarizes why I don't like them, thank you. :)

Although I should add, while non-sexual content in actor/real person fic is less uncomfortable for me to read, even PG material makes me feel like I'm invading privacy. Then again I really don't read it much, I probably could count on one hand how many I peeked into just to see what's it about and even those I couldn't get through.

I don't cast judgment on people who write them, but in MY experience some of those authors who write these 'fan' fictions have certain ideas about those real people which seem a bit off and different from reality. I don't mean to offend anyone, I just know it's definitely not my cup of tea and that's the way I see it.

[antoinettemason.livejournal.com]

that sums up my feelings about real person fic completely. it's fine (and completely natural) to have fantasies about real people, but writing those fantasies down and putting them out for public consumption is squicky.

[alyssa22.livejournal.com]

Real person fic is awful. I always wonder what sort of people read/write that. Especially the kind that has someone, say TG, cheating on his wife with whichever one they decide to pair him with, whether it's PB or SM or whatever... Not that I've read it, I just know the sort of thing they write.

There's a reason most RPF operates in closed communities.

Also not into slash of any variety, be it male or female. If there's no evidence of the character being gay/lesbian/bi, it's not canon, IMO.