Discussion Fan Fic Pet Peeves?

I think the redemption of Anakin was complicated by the PT. Vader was the villian in the OT but we had very little information on his background, so when he sacrifices himself to save Luke we accepted his redemption. I think if we knew in 1977 that Vader slaughtered children and tried to murder his pregnant wife he would be seen as less cool. I agree Goodwood, some characters are beyond redemption...at least without a lot of work. Vader saving his son was nice, but if Vader saved the galaxy from the release of a deadly plague, that would be a more convincing redemption.

So I would say fan fiction writers who want me to sympathize with the villain just because he is a cool villain is my pet peeve.

 

Well, Vader did sort of save the galaxy from the release of a deadly plague...if by plague one means the continued existence of Palpatine himself.

But yes, you're absolutely right; the PT did add a lot of dark baggage to Vader's tale.

 

I guess you can look at it that way. I just assumed Palpatine would have died when the Death Star blew up because he would be too vain to believe the Rebels would succeed.

 

Ack! TVTropes! I'm going to be lost for hours in there!

I like some variety in my redemption, but it has to be believable.

My latest pet peeve is backseat writers...not people who make suggestions, but people who demand things.
I just recently started writing again and got a very interesting PM demanding I write my story a certain way. I've only experienced very mild direction in the past (usually "I would love it if this happened, but I'll wait and see!"), but this guy was beyond gentle. He demanded erotica, some crazy plot, and redemption. All in one story. If that wasn't enough, he demanded a reply to the PM. It really bugged me and I am not usually bugged that easily. When did it become acceptable to be a bossypants to fellow writers?

 

In regards to Anakin, as you said before Jedi_Lover ...

"I wouldn't piss on you to put out the fire burning your ass!"

Couldn't find the exact quote.

 

Wow, TrakNar and Admiral Volshe. I'm sorry you ran into those people. The 2% of stinkers in fandom (okay, maybe that's overly optimistic) can be really rank.

 

People attempting to assert demands on writers sucks. I've seen many a review that does that personally and in reading.

 

Admiral Volshe I got a PM like that but I think the guy was posting while drunk. I could not understand exactly what he was trying to tell me to write. I think it involved giving my OC a sex change.

 

Typically I'll get the normal 'hey, think you can add *such and such* in?' reviews. One in particular over on FFN has a fondness for suggesting things.

That's the thing though...they're suggestions. Readers making demands? That's a different level and one I would quickly ignore. If they kept pushing, I would report them. Frankly, I'm fairly liberal about adding suggestions (sometimes they are good). But demands? Yeah, not happening.

 

Indeed tone and manner count for a lot.

 

Has anybody complained to the FFN mods and ever got a response? I had one reviewer swear at me during a looong ranting review because he didn't like the way my story went. I complained and never got a response. Since it was not an anonymous review I couldn't delete it. I blocked him from giving future reviews.

 

I've never had to thankfully. The above post was a hypothetical more than anything.

Oh, and on the subject of peeves...

People demanding faster updates. I can only write so fast folks.

 

Thankfully, I'm not on FFN, so I don't deal with that. Instead, I deal with opinions from people who aren't even following my character's story and still think that they know best for my character.

 

They have mods? News to me don't seem it.

 

FFN is kind of notorious for never moderating anything, so I kind of suspect you're out of luck. That sucks. As far as I know, the only resources authors have for that kind of thing there are to moderate it themselves -- which is kind of limited and doesn't keep trolls from making infinite spam accounts.

 

I've never gotten a response back from a FFN moderator. I didn't know they existed, to be honest.

That's quite the demand.

 

FFN just has groups of people out to delete stories.

 

Force Smuggler, that's what I've heard as well. Your story might be deleted (on someone's say-so, without anyone bothering to check the content) but if you want help with trolls in the review section -- nah!

 

Reading the Books fanfics, fics with music lyrics etc are some of the one's I've seen purged. It's insane over there.

 

All this talk of how much crap FFN is makes me want to never go there for any reason, ever.

Well, never join and post stuff. I still go to read. >.>

 

I don't like FFN for a number of reasons. I had an account there and I posted one of my stories there (mostly because people kept pestering me to after the whole truncation mess) and I did intend to do use it as a back up as sorts, but I had such a negative experience with the first story I posted there that I eventually deleted the story and changed the penname (you can't delete accounts there). I had people constantly bugging me (rudely) for story updates. Yes, the story was done, but I didn't want to post it all at once (I wanted the reviews ). My grandfather ended up dying during the time I was posting it and I ended up forgetting about it, so there was a couple of weeks without an update and people were just so annoying (and not understanding of this thing called REAL LIFE). Another thing that I didn't like is, even though you can moderate guest reviews, you have no way of replying directly to them and in some cases I really wanted to justify my decisions in the story to them (or tell them to shut it and stop asking for an update because I was flying out to a funeral) and I couldn't.

Anyways. That was my FFN rant. I meant no offense if you use it (truth be told, the site does have a better format for reading fanfic as it was designed specifically for that compared to a message board/forum format). But I didn't like many of the users over there.

 

I've never so much as opened that site's main page in any browser ever, much less to make an account or even read stories.

And now I have even more incentive to stay away.

 

FFN is ... interesting. I've had good luck finding a responsive mod, though it's been for mild stuff like asking that a character be added to the dropdown in a menu.

There's a flamer on the site, and proud to be one! who leaves stunningly long and personal reviews on several chapters in multi-chapter stories with x many reviews in a New York minute, and then scoots away. It's a regular signed account, so an author can only block the reviewer.

 

Some day, if I get back to writing, I may use it. However, I don't plan to post my old stuff there, as it'd be a hassle to go and dig them all up from another harddrive. I'd end up using it mostly for non-SW fanfic, anyway.

But, that really depends on if I get writing again and become prolific again.

 

I never had problems on FFN -- but then again, I never needed to contact the staff there and the flamers never came to my stories (yet). When it comes to flamers and other crazies though, my advice is pretty simple: ignore them. If what they want is another story, then they should go and read something else or write it themselves.

About Vader's redemption, I can't say that the extra dark baggage in the PT bothered me so much. First because I found that OT Vader was evil enough as it was (which, I guess, has to do with the fact that I saw the OT as a young child, and I found him terrifying), and second because he still dies in the end. Okay, he returned to the light side and everything, but he didn't get to live happily ever after.