Writing Pet Peeves · 10:34pm Nov 15th, 2020
Okay, I suppose it's high time I made a list like this. Like, I just want to list and if possible elaborate on certain pet peeves, AKA things I hate or just am annoyed by in Pony stories. Or in general, actually. This is all 'your mileage may vary' and I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but these are the things that irk me personally from a writer's standpoint.
1.
This is one of the big ones. It's the most personal of the lot but I have to list it. People asking me 'how is the next chapter going?' and the like. I don't need that added pressure. I'll update when I update. Like, seriously, I don't like to be pushed and pressured into doing shit. I'm already an anxiety ridden mess at times. So when I get comments out of the blue asking 'when is the next chapter' or the like, It doesn't help me. At all. I admit, I do take my sweet time about things, but the only time I should be bothered is when I take two months or even three to update something.
2.
Twilight being a super genius in fanon. Or, well, anypony near her intelligence level getting hit with the same brush. Like, she can solve anything with the proper magic and do said proper magic. It's just.... gaaaaaagh. Okay, yes, she's hyper intelligent and all, buuuuuuuuuuuutt magic has to require prep time or you actually practicing the spell. Not just picking it up like snap fingers that. Someone a while back mentioned a fic where she fixed a country with magic and magic alone. Like, all it needed was an actual ruler and suddenly it was Equestria but better. We're talking about a country that's gone to crap. A third world cesspit or something. A Queen/Empress/Princess suddenly coming to power won't just 'fix' everything.
There are other examples, like spells that in theory should take a while to learn but she or Sunset or Starlight pick up at the drop of a hat. Yes, their talents are basically 'magic' but there has to be a dash of realism. ..well, as real as magical candy colored unicorns can get. Every fictional universe I've seen has exact laws to how magic works. You can't just disobey those laws.
3.
Heterophobia. This is another one of the big ones. Okay, as a bi/pansexual man myself, this one really irks me. It is okay to be Heterosexual. I know in literally any other fandom I'd be saying the opposite probably, but here... well, everyone has to be gay and only be gay. It's blatantly and lamentably 'lesbians are HAWT' at times and at others just plain ignorant. I'm not sure how else to describe it. The real world doesn't work like that, it's about as bad as saying all gays should burn in hell from a certain perspective. Het ships are very ewwwwww in this fandom, not sure why but I'm sick to death of it. It's a dark form of irony I'm in no mood to appreciate and I doubt others are as well.
4.
Music links. Okay, I know, I'm a bit of a hypocrite about this one as I use these myself, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Music should enhance the atmosphere of a fight or a dramatic moment. Not be the sole part of it. Like, a fight scene or any other moment should carry it's own weight. It shouldn't just stand out because of the music. No, just no. On a similar note...
5.
The pacing of said scenes. Look, if your 'big' fight scene is only 300 words out of a 5,000 word chapter... sorry, just no. It's a huge letdown to your readers.
6.
Sex. Okay, stories like this aren't bad in itself, and no it's not about the fetishes. Though I do take issue with some of those, this isn't what I'm here to discuss. Certain words like, say, 'pussy' erk me. I don't know why, maybe it's because of how I was raised. Also, breast size description. Just... please don't. It's not just disrespectful, it's hilarious when you describe someone with impossibly large breasts and basically make it the very first thing you describe. I'm more interested in the personality, not the boob size. Also, how you describe sex. Overly flowery prose or things like 'huge meat stick'. It's less titillating and more giggle worthy.
7.
Character bashing.
Why? Just why? Don't you have better things to do with your time than salt on fictional characters? It's just simply not worth getting angry over. Grow up, move on.
8.
Fix-Fics.
I've ranted about these several times, but I think you know what my main problem is. You're not going to change what's already happened, and secondly, ...why? You're only reaching out to others who agree with you, and basically shutting up anyone who might have a differing opinion. Pretty rude if you ask me. It never makes a cohesive argument to have one character basically ranting at another. ...especially if your character is normally pretty polite. Just something to consider.
9.
Transphobia. I don't even need to explain what's wrong with this one. We don't want those kinds of opinions here, go away. World's changing. Either change with it, or get lost.
10.
Grammar.
If your story looks like it's written by a 13 year old and you're 21, get a proofreader. There's no shame in asking for help.
11.
Last one, I promise. 'Deep' subjects like suicide being used as cheap drama. I see this a lot in Anon-A-Miss which is a pet peeve in itself. Fuck off. It's hugely disrespectful and proves how little you know about the subject in question.
Bad grammar in fics drives me up the wall.
Agree with all of these. Especially 1 (this is a real button-pusher of mine, and while I've not cussed anyone out for it, I have gotten pretty testy when some have repeatedly asked me - I'm a person, not a machine!), 3 (note that the focus is on lesbian couples, and not so much gay males, hmm...) 5, 7 (needs no elaboration), 8 (you already have my one comment about those)...
10 is also a big deal for me. I really have an eye for this sort of thing and rampant typos and misspellings can take me out of a good story like little else.
And finally... 11. Dear God, yes. This sort of thing really pisses me off to no end, and I'm not someone who even has to struggle with depression or the like. It's just so... exploitative! So cheap! You might as well put up a flashing neon sign that says "I am a hack," because at least that is a fair shake more respectable than mining that kind of subject for cheap sympathy points.
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Yeah, really I noted Lesbians as that's the main ships in this fandom. Male/Male ships do exist, they're just not as obvious. Point still stands. Heterophobia is as bad as homophobia.
5398894
Fair enough.
Totally agree. Bigotry of any kind is unacceptable. Seriously, can't people just have their preferences, unless it's like, blatantly immoral or gross? Discounting the jackasses who throw tantrums about gay pairings because of bullshit religious zealotry, of course. >_<
7 is one I wholeheartedly agree with, even on the subject of Blueblood and Neighsay. No one wants to tackle these characters as anything more than "Obligatory Bad Pony". Seriously, people go out of their way to make Blueblood do horrendously inhumane things for no other reason than... he was rude in the only episode he really starred in?
1. Yeah, agree. All the way, doesn't help matters. ... especially if you're on the verge of canceling of a project.
3. I may be all for lesbian ships (and have a shit-ton of favored ones
), but there is nothin' wrong with straight shippin'. ^^
6. Only have written one mature story (so far
) but I try to keep proportions as accurate to size and shape as best I can, and not use terms like those which are massively overused.
7. Did it way too much for the evil Sunset in the start of my Shattered series which I am guilty of
11. That's just hell no.
5398906
....yeah, like I actually headcanon he's putting on a mask to ward off gold-diggers.
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To be fair, Shattered is a Mirror Universe and acknowledged as such...
Bruh the boob size tho made me spit out my tea in laughter, bc it's so true. Like I die when ever someone is like She had J sized boobs bc that if anything is unhealthy/difficult to live with. Like people, know which sizes if your going to be describing them (which like you said, please don't) are actually realistic.
I could be completely wrong here, but I've never really noticed a strong sense of Heterophobia here. I always thought the high influx of lesbian ships was a byproduct of how the Mane Six are all females and that MainxMain are always the first go-to's when it comes to ship development in the fandom. That being said, I can think of a few hetero ships off the top of my head: Fluttercord, CherriMac, FlutterMac, TwiFlash (pony version)
But then again, you've been in the fandom long than me, so it's totally possible I'm missing something. I'm not claiming that you're wrong here.
I would like to apologize for tripping your number one.
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Apology accepted.
First off, hello! It's been a while since I have been on this site, decided to return because I felt hungry for more ponies. Anyways, on to your points:
1. Never had or did that kind of thing, but I imagine it must be awful.
2. Yeah, it kind of irks me too. Especially with Sunset, because spending time in the human world has got to have her magic performing the skill in Equestria or even in the human world a little rusty. The show makes a point on it in Mirror Magic on how she forgot to even use her horn because of being a human for so long when she returned. You're telling me she can somehow go Starlight and/or Twilight levels without practicing and re-memorizing magic at all as soon as she enters Equestria?
3. Shipping is not my cup of tea so when it's just shoved in I consider dropping it because my attention gets turned to "why the heck is the ship there?" rather than the story. Just pairing all and every one of the Mane Six in fics, either be it with themselves and/or OCs in stories can drive me up the wall, and I often feel dismayed and consider leaving when it happens, cause now it's all I think about.
It's worse when they are all happening roughly at the same time or are already pre-established in fics that don't have prequels. Give me more of that sweet platonic relationship dynamic please, it the main reason why I love the Manes (+ Starlight, Spike and Sunset) so much, it can so entertaining when done well.
4. Honestly, I don't click music links more than not often so having something like this can often make me bored during scenes because the writer decided not to bother to write the mood and atmosphere because it's in the music they linked. How lazy.
5. Yup, got nothing more to add here.
6. I don't read Sex or any kind of sexual intimacy in most of the stories I read, so I wouldn't know.
7. The saltiness can be both low-key amusing and frustrating to read when the points of hating the character are so shallow and terrible. It's a fictional character at the end of the day, it's not like their presence ruined your life or something. If you want to debate, do it respectfully instead of calling the fictional character a "psychopath" or something that will make it hard for others to take you seriously.
8. See, this is why when I think of episodes (in my case a movie) I want to "fix", I got to have positive feelings about said episode/movie, so I end up with more of an alternate take of the plot rather than a rant trying to be a story. It's also a lot more fun when you're thinking on how the plot could go this way instead and how it would play out. Notice how most good " fix-fics" often don't immediately state they are fix-fics? That might be why.
9. Is this prominent in fics? I haven't ready fics on this site for while. But anyway, yeah. We should love all kinds of folks here.
10. It can turn me off of fics almost immediately, which can be a shame when they have an interesting plot. If you can't spell the title right, then what makes you think I'll stick around for the actual story? Grammar mistakes are distracting, I can let by a few but if there's a mistake in every paragraph it can really bring me out of the story.
11. Screw Anon-Miss and more with this cheap kind of sadness. If the only purpose of these "depressing topics" is to send sadness and sympathy, then don't write for goodness sake. It is very easy to detect if it's being used for cheap sob points, highschool kids these days are much more masked when showing their dislike towards someone (speaking as one currently), and I see so many Hollywood-born cliches in these kinds of fics instead.
If I may add...
2: Twilight's special talent is magic, and when we look at things she's done in the past, Twilight is at her best when she uses her magic creatively. Like the anti-gravity spell in Season 2 for instance. It's true Twilight is academically smart (from the song in the same Sombra episode as the anti-grav spell), but much of her appeal comes from her cleverness, and that is something you as the author have to set up before hand and maybe foreshadow. That said, Twilight does seem to have the uncanny ability to replicate magic she's only seen once. (Hey! I'm pointing your attention back towards the Sombra episodes again! Also the Starlight finale.) But in those cases, both times she was either outsmarted or at an impasse and had to find an alternate solution. "Magic fixed everything" is rarely if ever a satisfying outcome.
3+9: Shipping wars are called such for good reasons. That said, as a reader, it's not your obligation to shit on ships you don't like. If you don't like it, then the ship may not be for you. If it's part of a larger work which isn't primarily romance, I understand that can be distracting, but if it helps, mentally slap the fic with the AU tag and just keep reading. You might find a new ship you actually like, or you will at least have the rest of the fic that you do like.
7: I don't know if it's just a pony thing or if it's a more broad thing that I'm just seeing in pony bc that's the fandom I'm deepest into, but there seems to be a super edgy clique around most redeemed villains that are all about "punishing" the character or "giving them what they deserve," normally bc somebrony's waifu got imprisoned or something similar for a few minutes of screentime. If you don't like the character, that's fine, but bashing what others like simply bc you think they shouldn't like it is not valid. Neither is dumping your entire rehearsed seventeen-point argument in their comments unprompted.
8: Occasionally, there is a piece of professional media that fails so hard I'm reluctant to call it "Professional Fanfiction" because that would be an insult to actual fanfiction. (Modern Star Wars for instance.) That said, most of the time, you don't know better than the director/writer/whoever. I know I'm saying that to a community of writers and readers and the odds of that statement being false for any one of you is slightly higher than for a truly randomized group of Internet folk, but it's still true in enough cases that it works more often than not. Lots of good fics have been born from a simple "what if" question. Why not put a positive spin on the question rather than a negative one?
10: If there are severe grammar and/or spelling errors in your story's description, I'm not even picking it up. Point blank. I'm only typing this one up because I just can't stress this enough. If you have a good idea for a story but grammar just isn't your strong suit, have someone give it a once-over. Your sibling, your mom, your English teacher, your Internet friend, your dog, just find someone slightly more knowledgeable than you. And with this, I know criticism of your work is sometimes hard to bear. I remember my first time; I wanted to stop writing forever. But remember that everything they catch is something you can fix before an actual reader gives you a list of typos in your comment section. (Yes, that's something that happens rather frequently; yes I've been on both ends of that. (I'm sorry, I was a young and naïve reader.))
But yeah, the rest are pretty solid and I don't have much more to add.
5398906
May I present a Blueblood redemption arc which doesn't change his actions at all, but rather explains them. Five out of five stars. Loved it. (7.7K words, completed)
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Trust me, it's not just a Pony thing. There's a bit of it in the She-Ra fandom as well with Catra and I know it's happened in other fandoms as well. See the MANY salt fics in Ladybug's fandom. And I've seen DA posts with 'rehearsed' seventeen point 'arguments' dropped in the comments, it's... annoying when all we came for is to look at art and show our love for it.
Also... YES THANK YOU. That last bit, so much yes. The butterfly effect can lead to some *great* stories.
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Yeah, you see fics with Trans or Non-Binary characters get downvote bombed at times, or even just the comments showing positive support for said characters getting downvoted. Bleagh.
Also, welcome back to FIMfic!
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Yes, totes agreed. I get the feeling these people have never seen a real woman before.