Annoying Clichés in Fanfiction

Oh, yes, that definetly.It also bugs me when people do self-inserts and pair themselves with a character who gets with someone canon later in the story. -_-
And in Pokémon stories, I hate when people automatically give their character like, a Mew or a Dragonite.
Ugg.
And marysues......do not get me started on marysues.

 

--Angst for no good reason
--Sob stories for a backstory (granted, they can be done right, but far too often they are done very wrong)

 

Not exactly a cliche, but the thing I dislike most is when people try to hide behind the excuse of "you just don't understand right now but I'll explain it later in the story." This irritates me greatly. Sure you need to withhold some info for suspense and so that your story is interesting, but throwing out something entirely new and without explanation then saying "I'll explain it later" is just lazy.

The true cliche I hate most though is shipping a canon character with an oc for no reason, or having your oc immediately be friends with the main characters. Just... just stop.

 

I hate seeing this, too. ;; Bonus points awarded if said OC has nothing interesting or original to them other than being little more than a copy or genderbend of the canon that the author is trying to ship them with, which I've seen a lot in one fandom in particular, or if it would normally be uncharacteristic for said canon to fall in love with just anybody to begin with.

- Flat characters are also pretty common in some fics. It can make a story dull to read when the protagonist(s) never go through at least a little bit of character development once in a while, unless there's a good reason for their experience or pieces of their personality/life views and opinions on matters never changing.

 

I hate it! I absolutely hate it that Ash has a stupid Lucario in almost every freaking fanfiction! Hello? Can we stop it with the Lucario? He doesn't have one, so stop giving him one!

 

Hmm, I don't know about it, but probably really, really stupid shippings between two characters or really weird self insert relationships with canon characters... Although I can't tell if that's what I'm doing with my fanfic is going that road already... uhhhhhhhhhhhh, *walks away quietly*

 

"And then... it was all just a dream..."

NOOOOOO WHY WOULD YOU END IT LIKE THAT?!?!

 

What a delightful thread! Okay, the most annoying to me is when someone's OC is related to a canon character. Don't do it, don't do it, don't d o i t. && I'm not talking like a long distant relative or something, but a sibling. A sibling to an only child canon character. I cannot deal with it.

 

Ohh man... There's a HUGE list of these...

-Stoic/'Emotionless!' Characters. God, I hate these. Is it so hard to make a character with, I don't know, a PERSONALITY!? These are not new or dynamic in any way or kind and are frankly becoming an absolute nuisance to read. Some people use the excuse 'oh, he had something tragic happen to him in the bast that was so bad he needed to push away his emotions' and BAM we have a Mary-sue. Jesus. Then we have the person who is this way for NO REASON. I don't think it's cool, I think it's just lazy. Open your damn eyes and write a character that has emotion beyond folding his arms.

-Post-Apocalyptic World. This was good, untill EVERY OTHER FANFIC became this. Like, really. Why is everyone SO EAGER to write a DESTORYED WORLD. Seriously. Most just take The Walking Dead and remove cannon and BAM you have a fanfic. Not to mention when this happens, half the time the cause of it makes no sense! It's to the point that fanfics that are ACTUALY good are being overlooked because of this one, overused aspect.

-SYOC (Send Your Original Characters). This is a little bit of a lesser one, but I wanted to mention it anyways. Certain fandoms are riddled with these. Take Danganronpa for example. There is SO MEANY SYOC's on there it's not even funny. I mean, is it so fun to write other people's characters? Then, on top of that, half of these fics tint even get finished. They get scrapped mid-way through because of laziness. Then, all that hard work and thought you put into your OC is gone and rotting, and the story is noting more than a few chapters.

There's more, but I could go on for hours about this.

 

It's because Ash, frankly, is a failure in the anime, but he can use Aura, just not well. People want to make him a badass, so they use Lucario (the universal symbol of badassery) because it's awesome and can use Aura.

My biggest issues are poorly written betrayal fics (the Pokémon fandom is surprisingly full of these), really overdone stuff, any major character that lacks backstory, and OC self inserts that aren't done well. There are only three good self insert fics I can name off the top of my head, and one is a sequel to the other.

Also, harems bug me. I'll read some of the good ones, but most are, frankly, shit. Mary Sue's piss me off as well. I used to like those types when I was younger, but recently I've been purging my favorites list of all the ones that aren't really worth it. Still have a lot of work to do on that front.

 

My biggest complaints that i have with the fan fictions i read are of coarse Mary sues/Gary stus, over reliance on OC's or just a completly OC cast to begin with as i read stories about characters i already have an interest in only having OC's defeats the purpose of the fanfiction.

 

A boring main protagonist. It ruins the story completely when the hero is as fleshed out as burnt toast. Mary Sues are also annoying.

 

Don't even get me started on romance-genre fics, if you could even call them that. I don't have a problem with straight-up romance if it's done well and there are a few really good romance fics out there. However, the rest are nearly identical and hard to separate from one another. (I mean the cliches that they use, not necessarily the plots, though those can be similar as well.) As someone who often writes romance, it makes me want to rip my hair out.
Also, they make kissing seem dangerous. XD

 

Yeah, as a self proclaimed writer I find myself constantly striving to stray from ever creating a fanfiction, mainly because all the fanfictions I've ever read (Most of which pertained to a topic of my interest) had some kind of graphic, unnecessary romance between the canon characters that conform to the ships of the fanbase, and it rather irks me and makes the original content less enjoyable.

 

--a canon character's OC sibling
--Canon character's kids

 

I think my most hated fanfiction cliche is whenever an author writes an "allegorical" story about the "evils" of the company that created the source material (such as all those fics Bronies wrote about Button Mash destroying a Hasbro ersatz, all because of the C&D that happened to Button Mash Adventures).

 

The one that drives me the most insane is when the main character never loses... Especially in an OC based story. Where is the character growth in that? They need to make mistakes to grow. Another one I have to agree with is when a character gets an over powered Pokémon right off the bat. I can understand if a character captures a fully evolved Pokémon in a battle, but make them work for it at least.

 

A collorary to the above: If the main character does lose at all, it is usually to a rival or a lucky shot by the main character's opponent.

 

One cliché I've noticed is the main character being nearly killed right from the start of the story.