On the note of "Blue Orbs", one time I was chatting to a my older sister about a problem I was having in my writing in that I have a character who has soft pink eyes (I nowadays use candy-pink) but I was struggling to find the right synonym, and the closest shade the internet was giving me was salmon. My sister then uttered the phrase: *"Her salmon orbs."* I still have not recovered.
"Soft pink eyes" already had a nice ring to it in my book, I always say less is more. "She looked at me with her soft, pink eyes, juxtaposed with her sweet, gentle smile." None of that orb carp! (sea what I did there?)
i feel like the "author is every character" situation happens a lot when an author is starting to understand their own voice but also lowkey wants to insert themselves into the story. when I write characters im usually always thinking about it like an outsider looking in on the world and I'm just documenting the happenings so I get shocked when a character (I'm writing about) does something interesting or excited when another character defends people they normally never would and stuff like that. separating yourself from the work in this sense is important for creative growth~
i dont write much but this is fr interesting and i never acc knew it was a problem, i usually express my ideas/stories thru art instead but write occasionally (esp because i have like 5 different oc universes with lore that goes so in depth)
i shock myself all the time. i once brought tears to my own eyes while creating a scene. i could not believe the character i created would do such a thing. i also have the problem of reading my abandoned works and then finishing them and being like “damn, this is really good, i wish i could read the rest of it.”
Oh yeah, that's how you get real good stories sometimes. I do the same thing. Sure I have a self insert, but they themselves are an onlooker to the story, y'know?
I never got into Divergent because I found it super boring and uninteresting from the beginning, even though I love dystopias and post-apocalypse stuff. It was just so... bland.
@spam-el3ee totally fair lmao as an adult I find my teenage interest in it incredibly cringe worthy. I was VERY much a pick me growing up, so I was super into the "not like other girls" protagonists. Surprisingly though I hated twilight lmao
WHEN SHE STARTED READING THE MY IMMORTAL OMG my biggest ick other than the writing about her description is that there’s NO hot topics in the UK. Not even in London. You’re telling me that she travels to america every time she goes shopping? Oh wait this is a HP fic nvrmind..
i LOVE fainting in literature. i think it’s just bc i have a concerning obsession with injuries/illness bringing a typically strong character down to their knees, but it’s just. so good. i can’t get enough of it. obviously though, if they’re fainting constantly, that would get old real quick. but i read a LOT of super short fics and i swear at least half of them are “strong character is no longer very strong due to injury/illness and must be taken care of by a loved one”
I agree with this too. I am a huge fan of whump and hurt/comfort so it will come up often. But I also understand not liking it in longer stories where the protag has no reason to faint just to change location or pov.
Omg I used to be like this 😂 but I really liked it when it showed the character litterally giving everything they could and got me right in the feels everytime
I've found myself using the 'character fall's asleep to transition scenes more than usual' BUT it's because he's literally being starved, tortured and forced to run around and do stuff all the time and so it makes sense to why he'd be constantly exhausted to the point of passing out
@@iseeyou1067 I only torture him because I love him 😈 he’s been captured by a very powerful demon and was essentially forced to give the demon his soul, which allows the demon to essentially do whatever it wants to him with him being unable to fight back. So the demon uses him as it’s personal slave, and he constantly running around delivering messages, cleaning stuff, and being used as a stress reliever (punching bag). Meanwhile he’s trying to figure out how to get his soul back, contact his friends (who think he’s dead) and send important military information to the ‘good’ (not demon, at least) military leaders he knows from eavesdropping on the demons strategy meetings. This of course is exhausting, and he is constantly on the verge of falling unconscious, and I’ve been taking full advantage of that lol
12:04 this happens to me in real life there’s this girl I’m friends with who constantly complains that she’s fat or ugly and yet all the guys at her school (and a few of the girls too 👀) are madly in love with her AND SHE KNOWS IT. But she still thinks she’s ugly. Dgah- WAHT? Gurl you got all these guys fallin’ head over heels for ya, yet ur like: “I’m UgLy-“ WHYYYY?!
What's funny is I started writing a novel in middle school where the main character (who is male btw) just... fainted. I have no idea where I came up with this, because I was not aware of the trope until now. The only maybe source was Nicholas Benedict from Mysterious Benedict Society. I'm still writing it, and still trying to work out whether or not that's an actual character trait... because it can be funny at times, because the other characters make fun of him for it. Like he's supposed to be the voice of reason, and then he's out. Now that I see it, it sounds mean...
@@clumpofdirt1193 After reading Mysterious Benedict Society, I decided he was, but I'd have to research it to do it justice, and have to figure out how to make it not just a random gimmick.
14:12 I totally agree with this. I think it especially shows up in "chatfics", or fanfics written in the form of texts or chats. I think it's a lot easier for the author to parrot themselves or their friends, and these types of fanfics get a lot more chaotic. The characters end up falling under flanderized archetypes or tropes, rather than their true personality.
6:03 i have this done twice in my story, both times are for character building, the first was to give the love interest a character development choice, leavw the female lead, go home and live, or risk his live, where the food dwindled the weather worsened and theres some description in there like for example "with ever shriek of december wind he heard the words 'death' 'death' 'how much longer' 'time dwindling' he pictured the crackling of dead spruces was the rattling of bones of those foolish enough to stay. This snow storm wasnt one to stop, it would slowly bury them alive, thivker and thicker if he continuedhis way into the jagged mountains, and she might not even wake up. What could he even do?" Just to give some credibility to the ship so people care about it. The second is not exactly a faint, but a paralysis state from lack of energy, and the most important death in the series. But none of them are just for spnething small, all of them are shodting into the next peice. And i might not be the best writer, but i try pretty hard. Ps. Not a fanfic writer, just my personal story.
I don’t know for me, the story characterizes the characters, the descriptions we get can be (and usually are) ways to do that, but that point about the description of the characters can be fair (in places) but I think the story and the characters actions tell you more (personally I find the idea of a character in world being the narrator as a dark art not to be used, at least in my stories, how can the audience trust anything the narrator says if they can be wrong? The narrator must know everything on a fact based level, that also means they don’t really care about what the characters usually do unless they are doing it. The narrator’s job and very existence is to close the gap between the audience and story, to help it feed as real as possible.)
Aahaha 😂 I had a male protagonist I knocked out repeatedly for scene chenges and now I'm looking back and laughing. The first time he cried himself to sleep. Second time he fell down a hill and bonked his head on a tree. Third time someone cast a sleep spell on him lmao. Poor guy
4:57 the way almost every book i've read, to change the scene they start a new paragaph, like if two characters were fighting put like 2 spaces and start a new scene
Lav, I’m so sorry. I love the fainting trope in any kind of literature or WEBTOON. Especially when a friend/love interest who’s really close to the fainter helps them. It’s even better if it’s not necessarily a scene change, but a pov change. I love it and it doesn’t make me see the character as weak, more that it accentuates how great their friends are. Great video though!
I never knew there was such thing a fainting trope and literally wrote a scene in which my MC fainted yesterday 💀 however, he is male, and was seriously injured, and I didn't _technically_ change scene
You know a very fun fact about "fainting to change scenes" in literature well... in the Divina Commedia, Dante's work, since the whole "mystical journey" is so very religiously impossible to understand... Dante basically faints every damn Chant change. So much it was a meme in high school that he was like an old age princessy princess getting carried around by Beatrice ahah
I think there's a line between a character thinking that they're so plain, that they'll never be better or never be "beautiful/handsome" the whole entire book/movie and a character starting off not liking themselves, listing things that could make sense on them being insecure, but later finding out they are fantastic or they are beautiful/handsome. Character development in these sorts of situations (or any situations really) is significant in books, movies, or media in general, which I believe many fanfiction authors and/or movie directors forget.
as a frequent roleplayer (i play a bunch of roleplay games), the 'out of character' thing really hit because sometimes, i totally cannot hold character. it's mostly with my 'quiet, stoic' characters because i'm extremely talkative and emotionally vivid; getting better though!! pray for me to actually be a good roleplayer lmfao
10:54 Yesss what's hilarious is even Mean Girls got this right by having Regina kinda just straight up subvert this trope by being very obviously insecure herself such as with the mirror scene and her insecurities regarding her weight. Even at the beginning of the movie everyone recognizes that Katie is conventionally attractive well before her transformation.
For me i don’t necessarily like the fainting troupe as a result of a big revelation however i think in books about war or battle or when a character is so sick they’re delirious them fainting or phasing in and of consciousness can really add to the disorientingness that a character is experienced
I think a good excuse for the fainting trope would be a character with a medical condition like Vasovagal syncope(occurs when people faint because the body overreacts to certain triggers, such as the sight of blood or extreme emotional distress), hypoglycemia, anemia, etc. Or a disorder like narcolepsy(A chronic sleep disorder that causes overwhelming daytime drowsiness). I think it would be interesting to see a story from a somewhat realistic perspective of someone with these conditions.
The ONLY version of the fainting trope I like is in Ascendance of a Bookworm. They don't use it too much and it's so funny and satisfying when they do lol.
I don't remember particularly seeing the fainting trope that much but watching anime, almost in every shojo one there is at least one fainting scene with the heroine waking up in the infirmary at school or in the arms of a love interest lol
One of my pet peeves is when the author only uses one descriptor to describe a character. I can usually stand it when its a relatively normal descriptor like “the man..” or “the brunette…” that at least distinguishes characters from eachother but there was one fic that (where all but one of the main characters were male) described each dude as “the male..” so you’d get a paragraph that said “He watched as the male collected his nerves and slipped back down the hall. John hurried to catch up to the male when he was stopped by James, the male looked quite exasperated…” Or when names/titles or the start of sentences aren’t capitalized. I don’t quite know how to describe it but I feel like capitalization can bring a lot more meaning and power to a statement? Like if you have a lot of characters with the same status and you capitalize one’s title it immediately makes them stand out. Of course it needs a reason but if an author doesn’t bother with capitalization they won’t have the same effect like “the ghost on the hill” compared to “The Ghost on the hill.” . The second you can tell has a reputation and isn’t just any other classic ghost. It has a story, character, and is giving the reader an expectation. Same goes for locations n such. Though when addressing a character by name and capitalizing it also feels like you’re giving that character recognition AS a character whereas without capitalizing it seemingly lacks respect. That may just be me and how I’ve come to learn stuff but idk.
Hm I have always hated the thrope of the main character always saying that theyre unpretty ugly and stuff but ended up being liked by most character just like you said, but is it the same thing for the main character to say that theyre a regular person half of the time even though they know they totally are not normal and live in a place far from the logical human mind, because i see it as a way to cope with chaos or either making the main character oblivious as hell, can anyone give me their thoughts?
Ali Hazelwood has a character in (I think) "Love on the Brain" who faints frequently throughout the book, and I definitely think it was a bit of a cop out in a lot of instances. Like, it would come out of seemingly nowhere.
I’ve only seen an author pull off the “oh, woe is me I’m so pale” thing in a believable way once before, is was because the main character was a platinum blonde, blue eyed, pale as snow girl, who was traveling through a dessert and was constantly super sunburnt. I wish more authors would acknowledge how sunburnt their characters are while they travel across barren dystopian wastelands without even a hint of sunscreen
Im studying dante's inferno and he keeps on FAINTING, I can't with this man it feels too much like reading a fanfic😭 EDIT: guys I know that it is technically bible fanfic because it doesn't follow the canons of the text, but I meant it feels like present time fanfiction, like Ao3 fanfics
Well, technically speaking you *are* reading a fanfic. Canon is the Bible, and the fandom is Christianity. My boy is one of the most influential fanfic writers in the world 😭 90% of classical art is just fanfics and fanarts and 9000 headcanons about Jesus
Shit I just made a similar comment before I saw urs so if u see my comment I did not mean to copy u (I just recently read the inferno section of The Divine Comedy for an English class and I also thought that detail was funny)
As an Italian I can confirm he is the very first fanfic writer: he wrote about entering the sin forest, his literal idol making him go through hell and purgatory all with people he knows and decides where they go, and at the very top there's his childhood love in heaven.
He was laying on his bed kicking his feet and muttering to himself in Italian "and then, when the boat rocks and I am nearly thrown overboard, Virgil grabs me and clutches me to his chest to ensure my safety!" The true father of self-insert fanfic, that man.
My biggest pet peeve in fanfic is when the author has clearly lost track of where the characters' placements are. "She stood with her back to his chest and placed a hand on his shoulder, her knees softly pushing into his elbows. They locked eyes." HOW am I meant to envision this.
My mind just went ⬆↖↗↙↙⤵↘↔↩↪↗⤴, that you for hurting my brain but yeah I really have to agree I hate that a lot!! It was so confusing when I first started reading fanfics, but after a long while my brain just started imaging their positions shifting if the words made zero sense whatsoever to envision.
A tip that I’m trying to use for novels that I want to write is “show don’t tell” tip. Instead of saying “She was shy.” Show that she’s shy “She averts her gaze from the others and held her head down. Not wanting to make more noise than her footsteps.” Saying things can makes the story dry when having them do something or saying something can help the readers understand that the character is shy.
Well, you can show and tell as well. If there's a certain detail that isn't very important, you don't have to give it much explanation. (That's just what my English teacher told me)
I think show and tell is dependent on who is narrating the story. The example is good if it was third person, but first person is based on the perception of the narrator. If the person narrating is blunt, they would think “She was Shy”. If the narrator hate her, “She was a coward, who lack the guts to look at anyone in the eye. A sad excuse for a human being”. If the narrator is in love, “Her innocent eyes looked away from the others, searching and hoping for a comforting prescence. She was silent as to hide herself from their viscious glares”. If the narrator is ignorant and can’t read emmotions, “Ohhh, she was there as well”
Good fanfiction should feel like a love letter to the source material, or at least, a love for it's ideas. Love is a great motivator, but so is spite, and great things can come out of both. A great example of good fanworks out of spite are Miraculous Ladybug fanfics. The actual show is so much "Great Ideas, Horrible execution" and fanfiction is made to address a lot of those executive issues, giving ideas the weight it deserved and exploring things the writing refuses to. Fix-it fics can also feel like a love letter, even out of anger.
Your rant about the "they never talk about how red they get when they blush" sent me back in time and reminded me of one book I read where the girl actually did exactly that. She lamented how she doesn't even just redden, but instead gets uneven red splotches when she blushes, and that it happens so quickly. It really stuck with me back then because I could actually see myself in that. Her love interest was a cute mixed-race nerd who always described his own skin as gravy-colored, which he also didn't like. Of course, she couldn't see any flaw in that. There was a cute scene when she told him that she was jealous of how coolly he took compliments and flirts and he confessed to her that she made him blush all the time, it just didn't show up much on his face. So he could downplay it but secretly was just as jittery as she felt. It was a really cute book, I wish I remembered the title or author.
@@techSoldier141 Yes! I just tried finding it by entering some variations of this quote on google in hopes to find anything, but nothing even remotely connected showed up. I could swear that the word "heart" was in the title, but I don't even remember if the book was originally German or English, so it might have been "Herz" instead...
Was it a kid's book and was there a pug involved? I remember reading a book where the mc described herself in the same way, in the first scene, while she was in the bath
@@cascharles3838 I don't remember if there was a pug in there, but I do remember that it was aimed at a young audience. Felt like intended for tweens/young teens maybe? Bit of a Coming of Age/Oh Shit Puberty Is Hitting kinda story.
I know this definitely isn’t it, as I read this when I was like 12 and cannot remember a single plot point. But did the book happen to be fantasy? The words “German” and “heart” make me think of “Inkheart” by Cornelia Funke. I remember there was some sort of romance between finger-something, but I genuinely don’t remember. I remember Meg being a sort of awkward character. Commenting bc I can’t get this out of my head lol.
Out of Character characters is simultaneously my favorite things and my biggest pet peeve. Taking liberties is fine, but there's a line imo. Shoto Todoroki somehow being a god of video games? Hilarious, interesting take, I like it. Tenya Iida breaking the rules a ton and being actually chaotic? To far ooc, stretching canon so far its non existent, don't like it.
As an MHA fan, I could not agree more! So many of the characters get misrepresented/mischaracterized or even turned into completely different people in fanfiction and other fanmade stuff (like incorrect quotes, for instance), it has bothered me for such a long time.
Know nothing about this characters but agreed. I think I'm okay once something is deliberately change to give the story a twist, not when the character personality changes even though it should be the same as the original media.
honestly this is why i stopped writing fanfiction and started writing "media inspired works". like, im gonna embarrass myself here, but im writing a human!sonic characters fantasy world au to practice writing and creating interesting magic systems and all the characters are so far removed from their source that im basically just taking their most basic concept and twisting it into original content. might as well just change the names a bit and put it on bookshelves and it would pass as an original work. i think creators need to know their limit when it comes to writing in character. my least favourite thing is when someone will tag a story as in character and canon compliant and none of the characters are written accurately. just tag your work as ooc and get it over with
I mean it depends. Iida was canonically nearly homicidal when it came to Stain. Though he did get that beaten out of him fast. I think when push comes to shove he’lI break rules and even the law but I certainly don’t think he would be down for casual rule breaking which is what I assume you mean he was doing.
This is the only kind of self-description in first-person stories that I want to read "I have two eyes and they look like eyes. I am wearing clothes. My hands have fingers. My skin is skin-colored."
@@harpywiththebrownfeathers exactly lol. "How would your describe yourself?" "I have skin? uhh... I have fingers? uhhh... lemme think... I have hair and eyes, too."
Omg I genuinely got asked this by someone, and all I could think to say was “what do you mean.” I had called a provider about getting on paxlovid for the good ole ‘rona, and she asked that towards the end of the call; turns out she just needed my race 💀
The “nice until they’re scary” trope. Like it can be done well if the character is typically gentle and patience but can be physically threatening and has been shown to be capable of standing up for themselves, like a gentle giant that decides they’re going to stop being gentle. But most of the time it’s completely out of character and they pull some insane violence with no repercussions and are rewarded by others for it.
A really good example of this trope being well done is Jet from Juno Steel. He’s a large, calm man who takes things a little too literally. You learn through his backstory how he used to be insane and crazy, and it only really happens when he relapses and goes back into drugs. It’s an alternate state because he’s taking things that alternate his state of mind. I love this podcast so much
My biggest fanfic pet peeve is the Ron the Death Eater Trope, where the canon love interest needs to be written as a terrible person in order for the author's ship to come true in the fic. For example, instead of having Ron and Hermione not date in the first place or have a break up that makes sense to both characters, Ron gets rewritten as an abusive monster towards Hermione so the author has an excuse to have Hermione break up with Ron and start dating either Harry or Draco, bonus if author decides to have Ron try to break the couple up just for drama points. It just feels lazy and even disrespectful at times. Like, why do you needs to make the canon love interest awful? Even if the author hates them, it still feels lazy. Also, it feels disrespectful to both canon character and irl abuse victims, cuz the abuse just feels like a lazy plot device instead of a subject matter that needs to be written carefully. It doesnt help that the canon character ends up getting written as a damsel in distress whose only personality traits are sad, helpless and Rebound, especially if the character is nothing like that in canon.
Agreed. I think I've only seen one fanfic so far that breaks off a canon couple without unnecessarily villainizing the canon love interest, and it would be refreshing to see more of that. Give characters a decent sendoff, people!
I've only read one fic that sort of did this and I liked only because it was quite literally following the plot of an already made movie and that was the closest character they could make them.
Agreed!! I once read a x reader Hamilton fic where they absolutely did Queen Charlotte so dirty when IRL, she's said to be such a sweet person. And there's absolutely no reason why she's even such a jerk in the fic. She just is, because hahah (Y/N) is superior for no reason whatsoever.
For a time I went through a dramione phase and I noticed this a lot too. It just really took me out of the story because even though Ron does have some mean tendencies here and there, I never saw them as bad enough to drive Hermione away. Its such a disservice to a complex character
I know this is late, but, omg, you just spoke to me! This has always seemed so over the top and the easiest and lazy way to get the canon love interest out of the picture. I always end up saying, Why even make them exs in the first place? They could have easily just stayed friends in your fanfic. Is the ex-drama just for drama points? In your case, using Harry Potter, if you simply must have Ron and her be exs, there are tons of reasons why they might break up that could be used. Ron, and she just wanted different things. Hermione has always been a driven and somewhat ambitious character. I can see her and Ron ending it amicably if she decides she would rather focus on her studies or her job. Ron is the lovable idiot; he isn't usually malicious, and if he is, he ends up feeling bad in the end. He has his moments, but he very obviously cares a lot about Harry and Hermione. I can't imagine him trying to actively hurt Hermione; he may say something mean in a fight that he would actively regret after, but he wouldn't try to ruin her life. In canon, while he refused to let them name their kid after Hermione's favorite author due to his first name being the same as her ex, he did concede and let them use said author's last name, Hugo. They balanced each other, and before they got together, they acted like bickering siblings or an old married couple. I wish people kept them in character, and while Ron may need space in a fanfic where he was broken up with, I can easily see them making up and continuing as platonic bickering friends who would fight anyone for messing with each other. Harry viewed the two as his siblings, even though not by blood. I just hate how Ron is the main one people bash and villainize in these stories. I have seen this in Naruto fanfics too, where they make Hinata and Sakura awful to support Narusasu. It is rarer with Hinata, but Sakura falls play to this way too much. I know you don't have to like her, but she canonly views naruto like a brother to her. She loves Sasuke a great deal, and I don't think she would be that petty that she would attack Naruto for a breakup. I mean, a lot of the Narusasu that happens in the Boruto timeline ends up being cheating behind the wives backs, and like, in those cases, she has a right to be mad, just like Hinata. But a peeve of mine is when they have to make the significant other a POS to justify the cheating. There are so many examples of this. When I write, even if I don't like a character, I still try to write it accurately. I often put more depth into characters I don't like because I have to think harder about their motives and why they are like this. The best-written characters aren't necessarily likable, but they are so well written once you look into them.
once I wrote a fan fic between the homophobic guys in my class and they actually ended up dating so you never know when the word orbs will replace the word eyes
Idk if this counts as a fanfic but when I was in elementary school I wrote “lesser known hogwarts tales,” which had no plot, just a bunch of fart and poop jokes about the Harry Potter characters, and then someone got everybody in the ravenclaw common room to start chanting “MALFOY IS SILLY!!!!” which caused Malfoy to get really mad and turn red and smoke come out his ears and then run around punching people and end up banging his head off of a statue and fainting. A great story indeed.
I hate that trope of the girl thinking she’s ugly, but everyone thinks she’s so hot, and it’s written like that to tell the reader “no she’s actually not ugly, thus she’s important!!!” LIKE WE CAN BE UGLY AND STILL MATTER?! And like when they write teenagers, like 14 year olds, they have acne! They have dark circles! They look bad according to society and they still matter!!!!
The thing is is that that trope can still work in, my opinion. For example, a person with a parent that constantly tells them that they are not good looking or that if they keep looking like that no one would want to date them. As someone with experience with that, it really hurts and it takes many years of inner reflection, confidence building, and self love to actually believe that the people who are saying you look good actually mean it and aren't just lying to you.
I had a friend who was self-conscious about being stereotypically beautiful because she felt like people saw how pretty she was before they saw anything about who she was as a person, and some people never saw past that. She'd complain about things like that because they isolated her from genuine connections. I've always read characters like that with her in mind, it makes them a lot more sympathetic. They're just lonely and being pretty can be a curse.
I understand and sympathize with your friend, and if most female protagonists actually thought like this, I wouldn't be so bothered. Unfortunately, most female protagonists never think this deeply about their appearance and their beauty and denial of their looks stems from the paradox that Haley described. Like, you're supposed to be beautiful but you're also not supposed to be confident that you are beautiful and you are never allowed to want to be beautiful. You should be physically attractive in ways that aren't realistic while not caring about your appearance at all because that's "girly" and never, ever be confident in yourself because the confident, girly, physically attractive girl is always associated with cruelness. This leads to many female leads all having the same exact personality, in which she isn't confident in herself but doesn't really care about her looks, but is described as "capable and smart" by the author.
Its hell because its either isolation through being invisible or isolation through pedestalization. I’d personally pick “pretty” because at the very least I’d benefit from the halo effect.
i love referring to the colour with the irises. like “her irises were a metallic silver” instead of “her orbs were metallic silver” like istg i think i just hate the word (and i love the word iris too anyway). and its accurate to the actual structure of the eye so yeah.
I actually have used the fainting one before. I was writing a character who had narcolepsy. So already you can kind of see why it’s necessary. But I used the frustrations you described with that method so you would put yourself in her place. Going black in times where you were experiencing positive momentum. Missing important moments because the world faded away. Not getting that blissful darkness in times where you desperately wish you would. So I think that we can actually flip that in a really interesting way
To add onto the passing out one, it can also take away from the importance of when a character passes out in an intense scene. Instead of, “Oh no! This character we as the audience are attached to has passed out and they need help!” it turns into “oh, time for this again,” which can really kill a tone.
Your ideas on the pale trope are interesting! As someone who has always been pale, I've never seen a character actually live it. No one constantly asking if they're sick except for when they are sick, no getting severely burned trying to tan to make people less uncomfortable. No struggles with finding clothes that clash or emphasizing the red undertones of the blood under the skin. The paleness making blemishes and dark circles more visable. The struggle is real, lol😅.
The truest statement known to man. Not to mention the whole only “pretty” freckles thing I’d love for an author to have a pale character with freckles everywhere describe themselves and their insecurities as if they actually exist and aren’t a fricking model.
I'm super pale, and I constantly get asked if I'm sick. To be fair, I am - but still, lol. People constantly tell me I'm sickly and I "need some color on [me]". I'm Slavic and ill; how much more color am I gonna get‽
I have redhead skin and burn if the sun looks at me funny. As for freckles, I have very few on my face but loads on my arms. Melanin distribution can get weird. The "I'm so ugly!" trope is painful to see but it's accurate IME. Hating the way you look doesn't have to be rational and both the "I know I'm considered attractive but I'm not allowed to say so or I'll be labelled a narcissist!" and the "People tell me I'm attractive but when I look in the mirror, I don't see it!" are both legitimately common, especially among the primary demographic of YA fiction. Far worse than this trope's prevalence is the fact that so many girls and women find it relatable because of how they've been socialised.
Yes! The sunburn one! Especially if they've got the characters running around playing Quidditch or fighting a dystopian government. Like, no one would ever know they were pale because they would be lobster red the entire fanfic.
For some reason this makes me more inspired to write fanfiction than ever. Maybe because it starts making me think about what I could do to avoid each annoying trope when hypothetically writing about my own headfiction.
i never write fanfiction, but if i ever wrote out my headfiction itd be the worst combination of every trope 💀💀 like i could never read about the stuff im thinking of, bc seeing it physically would make me throw up (im also aroace and hate lemon 😭😭)
I started writing fanfictions which are moreso self contained stories that say “fuck you” to the cannon lore. Usually I’d throw them out once I get bored but my motivation to finish it is getting better
“And the interaction having thus ended, I was in shock, and the impending irrelevance of the next moments to the plot was too much to handle. I fainted.”
As someone who grew up reading books and fanfics, my most hated trope is definitely the self insert trope because it takes away the interactivity you feel while reading x reader because as someone with pale yellowish brown skin, short black hair and dark brown eyes,its kinda hard to imagine myself as a "blond headed, blue orbed, pale skinned white girl"
That could be any character though. Like I wouldn't be able to relate as much to a black female as a main protagonist, whether it is a self insert or not
Pro Tip: If you write a reader-insert fic in either 2nd or 1st person, you can omit the use of Y/N and every other abbreviation through the use of a rather underutilized trope called the *All-Concealing “I”*
With self insert fics I like to imagine Y/N as their own character, not as me. The description is always so off and the personality is never like me, so why not pretend?
@@an0rmalp3rson70”Y/N” just straight up translates as “Why en” in my head 😭 I will verbally say it like it’s the characters name because their always so ridiculous lmao
the over use of physical descriptions, especially in weird ways, or otherwise finding ways to avoid just using the character's name. "the blue eyed one" "the doctor" "the bluenette" "the taller one" "the older one" grinds my gears
@@everyonelicksthesamerocksFR every time I read "bluenette" (or anything similar in reference to unnatural hair colors) I want to throw my phone across the room :^)
@@______________url For example adding extra accessories characters wont wear etc not into the south park fandom though best example I can give is most dangonrompa cosplays
Tell me how when she got to the OOC trope my brain went to some South Park fics I've read before AND THEN IT TURNS OUT THAT'S EXACTLY THE 'SUIT' AND CHARACTER CLOTHES SHE WAS DRAWING I FREAKING LAUGHED SO HARD-
It looked like Wendy in a Cartman suit, which seems fitting to the 'Out Of Character' trope given what I've seen. (South Park has the strangest fanbase)
As a girl who grew up on books, the whole thing about being a beautiful girl that hates themselves has been a real issue for me. To this day I'm not able to admit that I like the way I look without part of me hating myself for it. Honestly its so tired and I'm glad media is moving away from that nasty stuff.
"She blinked her pearls" "She blinked her marbles" My least favorite is ooc, the "He would not fricking say that" mentality is real Also the worst offender for me personally is dragging other characters down for a ship especially if I like this ship. Down backspace. Gone. Quit. Those are pretty correlated tho
Making a character ooc so they'll look worse for the the sake of a ship has been affectionately nicknamed "Ron the Death-Eater" in fan circles, which is hilarious imo.
it's probably even worse than just regular ooc when a character is brought down for the sake of shipping 😭 people love to act like it totally makes sense for a good canon pairing to suddenly become abusive for no reason because they ship something else
My favorite spin on the "eurgh I'm so uglyyyy" trope is "Yes, I know I'm pretty, but that doesn't mean I'm above you. I may be pretty, but you're pretty too." for example, I have a character who's a princess and is in love with a non-royal philosopher. He goes "oh princess you're so gorgeous! you grace me with your presence, please let me know if there's anything I can provide you!" and she was like "hey, you're not...like, a peasant to me. I don't really like being treated like this, it makes me feel weird. I'm not above you. please just be yourself."
I would love to know more about those two🤔 Sounds interesting, and I love learning about interesting things, especially with characters like that who aren't like the trope.
The ironic thing about My Immortal is that it’s at least technically better than Velma! It also became a book on Amazon along with that one Jeff the Killer fanfiction. 😂😂😂
As a fanfic writer, I completely forgot how difficult it is to write original works and I’m thankful every day for the fact that I have a very good idea of what my characters are like
The fainting trope does annoy me, but I’m also a sucker for characters who have magic that physically drains them when they use it lol. My personal solution when writing is that if a character faints because they used too much magic (or really just for any reason at all) I switch to another character’s perspective and have them do something unrelated to the fainting episode so the pacing doesn’t get interrupted, it just continues from another angle. Then when the first character is ready to come to again, I either switch back or have the other character come check on them and continue from there. Either way, there’s still something happening and it’s not just a random interruption.
i love having my characters pass out ngl, the vulnerability, the reaction of their loved ones ugh I restrain myself as much as possible lol and pacing I tackle similar to you since I usually write pov alternating anyway
I practically steal alot of my ideas from books/shows I like, and one of my characters had a power that would drain them of energy, which I used because I was a sucker for Amphibia at the time and just finished the second season when I came up with my character.
i hate the "ooh i'm so plain and ugly because i'm pale and skinny" trope too because i am actually insecure about those aspects of myself and they make it impossible to take seriously, like yeah i'm super pale but i don't like it because you can see all the veins around my eyes and it makes me look permanently exhausted, and yeah being skinny is supposed to be desirable but i'm cold as hell and you can see my ribs that's not pretty it's unhealthy and weird!! but it's always like "yes i am so slender and healthy and angelic and my face glows like the moon" i know damn well your face goes bright pink when it's hot y/n, stop lying to yourself
THIS!!!! I've struggled with the same insecurities, and though I've gotten a little better due to finally finding a good friend group, I still have those days where I wish I could hide away from the world. It happens, and I hate how people overlook the issues with the modern extremities of beauty. You're not alone in this struggle or the frustration that comes with it, and I hope you have a good day! Drink some water, eat if you need to, and rest if you get a chance.
I feel the paleness aspect. I was called a ghost by my grandma for most of my life, and seeing your veins everywhere can get a little wonky. My biggest issue, was I couldn’t really dress for hotter weather, as I would “blind” people with the sun practically reflecting off my skin. It’s how I got the nickname “twilight” as “you are so pale that you sparkle” all while squinting or refusing to look in my direction. (Having people you are close to, refuse to look at you because of how pale you are and that it hurts their eyes can really harm the self image or confidence.) And no one ever mentions that being pale means that 10-30 minutes in the sun turns you into a burnt tomato… Not only is that painful, but definitely doesn’t have any attractive qualities. 😂
I have the skin thing too, translucent I call it. I started putting dots of concealer under my eyes (it was pretty hard finding the right shade though) and I feel like that helps a lot with the veins and I recommend sunscreen, skin care is important but extra important when you look so white
@@straawberryfieldsforever i've considered trying concealer, but i have facial dysmorphia and i worry that makeup to cover things will just make it worse, so i've gone the complete opposite and sometimes just trace over my veins with eyeliner to make it a creepy look, many advantages to being goth! also we both have meta knight profile pics and i think that's lovely
Same. 😭😭😭 At least the second one is justified in mine due to the character having a lot of emotional trauma he goes through and people (especially his cruel stepfather and his followers) are just unkind to him for no reason. There are exceptions but they are the majority of people in his life.
@@ashleyhansen4479 don't worry, the readers usually notice if it's making sense because of the character or if it's an excuse for changing the scene. you got this!
It bugs me most when the fainting trope is used in books and stuff (...Twilight) and made out to be romantic. I've fainted once, and it was far from alluring or romantic. I stood up too fast while taking a medication that made me dizzy, I grabbed my mom to hold onto her because my vision was blacking out (normal for me at that time, I expected the dizziness to go away in a few seconds), and then I woke up on the floor with my head hurting from hitting the coffee table. After that I cried for a bit because that just happens after suddenly losing consciousness. Absolutely nothing romantic about someone falling like a sack of stones, waking up, and ugly-crying on the couch for a while. Also bugs me when characters act calm after passing out- it's quite disorienting. Clearly these authors utilizing the trope have never fainted.
I say this as someone with epilepsy and a fainting disorder, it's honestly something that never bothered me, I get people are different but I usually wake up from an episode giggling because I passed out somewhere stupid- it's not that deep (unless the author makes it weird ig)
Fainting is so disorienting. One time I burnt my feet and passed out in the fucking bathroom. Thank god I didn’t hit my head on the toilet and my mom grabbed me. There was another time I fainted from bleeding and I had no idea it happened until my head was hurting badly. It’s disorienting and confusing and leaves you in shock (at least for me). Nothing hot or romantic here.
I don’t think it’s the fainting itself that people find romantic, rather the opportunity for the character’s love interest to take care of/protect them while they’re vulnerable. At least I think that’s the justification, I’m aromantic so I don’t have a horse in this race.
9:59 Or when the character is good looking, has the worst trashy personality and still the mc cries over them. When the second lead is obviously the better option, a literal angel. 😅
Biggest pet peeves: "You had (E/C) eyes and (H/C) (Hair Length)" always pissed me off. I know what I damn well look like, knock it off. It always just ripped me out of whatever I was reading when that would happen. Even worse was putting extra specific characteristics that weren't listed in tags or the description. Like, "uh oh! BTW, you don't have legs and you wear glasses! This does nothing for the plot, but whatevs". That's not a reader fic, that's just an oc fic with extra, annoying steps. And then when I want to read a gender neutral or gender ambitious reader fic, for some unknown reason, they still slap them in dresses and skirts when it's completely unnecessary.
Kinda bouncing off the last point, but I hate it when the writer makes the reader GN but gives them specific genitalia, and doesn't mention it in the tags.
I feel like there is a fine line when it comes to reader inserts and descriptions of their main characters. What you listed as your biggest pet peeve is actually a way for reader instert fics to allow you to put yourself in. They give you an option to describe yourself. Then you pivot into saying that not giving you choice in how your character looks like is also bad because it wasn't put in the tags? I am a little lost on the part of tags, because I can agree that looking for a reader insert fic and finding a story with an OC is annoying. I feel like it would be more appropriate to remove the "reader insert" tag from such stories, but that is just my opinion, so I guess we are on the same-ish page here. Like I said, writing reader inserts is not easy and finding the fine line between giving too much freedom and taking it away is difficult. Some people need that establishing line of "Your name is Y/N, you have e/c eyes and your hair is h/c, h/l" in order to allow themselves some definition of a character that they don't really know how they will look like for the reader. It's not easy to describe someone you have no idea how they look like. Just sayin, cut some writers some slack if they need that intro line and then manage to make the flow somewhat decent despite having to put in those "h/c" or "e/c" into sentences.
I do actually like the fainting trope in a whump context. It’s the difference between “I don’t know how to change the scene so I’ll just knock out the main character”, and the fainting/injury/poison/whatever being the main appeal. And it often leads to good hurt/comfort which, I think a lot of us want someone to take care of us when we’re vulnerable so I appreciate the wish-fulfillment aspect. I’m more critical of this trope outside of a fanfic concept, where it isn’t being advertised as “alright everyone come get your blorbo torture!” Hope that makes sense lol.
I'm working on writing a character who only gets from place to place via the knockout trope. I've just gotta work on coming up with new ways for his knockouts
i agree with this, but i only like it when its used sparingly (like once or twice is fine). So like when shit starts getting bad, and you know the mc needs help.
@@towerofgodfan4107 I've got a few fun ones written 1. Blood drive- naturally, blood donation go brr 2.narcolepsy- kind of a GOOJFC- (Get out of jail free card) just make him go sleep nini 3. Blunt force trauma- the ol' 1-2 knockout 4. Intoxication - alcohol or otherwise, blacking out is common 5. Amnesia - another GOOJFC, if I skip the scene, and he simply doesn't remember it, it means I can write the rest of the scene as him trying to figure out what happened when he temporarily experienced anterograde amnesia 6. Sedation or surgery- naturally, I can just go "y'know what, blowdarts" if I get real desperate Those are just a bit of what I have planned, and I'll work on the scene transitions when I need to lol
Ah yes, everyone’s favourite “Very famous fanfic.” - the minute I heard that, I knew it would be My Immortal. She’s just described so unevenly, like, chunks of her character are so distinct and vivid, and then the rest is just kinda left to you.
Another pet peeve: When the writer tries to make you support the "main ship" of the fanfiction but you end up realizing the main character has more chemistry with the antagonist or side character then the actual relationship the author wants you to care about and takes as far as to shove it down your throat even though if they even have chemistry, it's not enough to show these two can realistically be together.
YES THIS UGH I'm in the middle of one rn and like, I'm kinda invested so i wanna see how it turns out but the side ship involves a character i like more and who is just nicer and more respectful in general to the mc, plus they're more accurately written to canon, it pisses me off.
Miraculous Ladybug. The two “alternative” love interests who are supposed to prove how the main two a perfect for each other are the actual better love interests and better characters than the main two. It’s as pathetic as it sounds.
Happens in original/publishable works too. I think the problem is that the author is thinking of romance as an end goal for a relationship. Like 'I don't have to do anything else here because they're together now; what else is there?' They think being together expresses everything that needs to be expressed between two characters.
I have seen one very well written Y/N type character that was basically their own character. It was a Diarmuid Ua Duibhne (from Fate/Zero) x Reader fanfic. One of the most memorable things I've ever read on Ao3.
for me, when i change a scene i have a breif explanation for why the characters are somewhere else, i.e. "the two men get in the car and drive to somewhere safer"
ohhhhhh the South Park ref at 16:00 it happens a lot. I don't like sp fanfics(even the good written ones), most of them are also very ooc. kyle being too feminine, stan being too much of an asshole, Kenny being a manwhore, and cartman being ...skinny and hot. it's so weird
Regarding the "blue orbs" thing: For the story I'm currently writing, I tried using different levels of details in the narration depending on the pov character of the chapter. So it's kinda like: Character A: The intricate carvings on the otherwise smooth white paint coated wooden door- Character B: W h i t e d o o r
Yeah, that's just the basic principle of making your POV characters distinct. I'm assuming you're young, so good job for figuring this out, but as a writer & a reader myself I can tell you that this is a basic principle in good writing
My biggest pet peeve is when there are OC's, self inserts, ext, but other than that absolutely nothing changes. The story stays the exact same and after a while I didn't enjoy it anymore because nothing new was happening. The end can stay the same, yes, but putting a new character in while change things, even just a little bit
@@fatimazafar8907 I think it’s one of those things that are fun to write, but boring to read. Also if the character in question is significantly different from the character they’re replacing, it kind of hard to believe that the story would go the exact same way.
I'm the opposite- I'm not a big fan of fanfics that stray too far from canon. Especially when I'm writing OC fanfics. If I'm including canon characters/events, I don't like changing too much-it feels like I'm making me and my characters the center of attention too much and detracting from the existing story.
vol 2 is out!!!! publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com/book/unfamiliar-2/
the fact that this came out a minute ago
YAYAYAYAYAYYY
Definitely going to go buy it!!
VOLUME 2 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
The last pet peeve especially
On the note of "Blue Orbs", one time I was chatting to a my older sister about a problem I was having in my writing in that I have a character who has soft pink eyes (I nowadays use candy-pink) but I was struggling to find the right synonym, and the closest shade the internet was giving me was salmon. My sister then uttered the phrase:
*"Her salmon orbs."*
I still have not recovered.
ah yes, "they stared deep into her salmon orbs, seemingly looking into her soul." i feel like i've heard that term though.
The idea of her having eyes of a salmon is killing me to death
"Soft pink eyes" already had a nice ring to it in my book, I always say less is more.
"She looked at me with her soft, pink eyes, juxtaposed with her sweet, gentle smile." None of that orb carp! (sea what I did there?)
@@masterjunko I feel like “pink eyes” sounds like she has pinkeye
I usually use irises tbh or just straight up eyes
The way I gasped when Lavendertowne started reading "My Immortal" 😭😭😭💀💀💀
SAMEE
Imagine if she did a dramatic reading of that...
Yessss!!!!
The way I slowly saw your comment become top comment
NO WHAT
i feel like the "author is every character" situation happens a lot when an author is starting to understand their own voice but also lowkey wants to insert themselves into the story. when I write characters im usually always thinking about it like an outsider looking in on the world and I'm just documenting the happenings so I get shocked when a character (I'm writing about) does something interesting or excited when another character defends people they normally never would and stuff like that. separating yourself from the work in this sense is important for creative growth~
Im really struggling tho with how to seperate myself from my characters. Do you have any advice on it?
i dont write much but this is fr interesting and i never acc knew it was a problem, i usually express my ideas/stories thru art instead but write occasionally (esp because i have like 5 different oc universes with lore that goes so in depth)
@@hi.241Fr 😭 part of that is because my friends and I make self insert oc lore a lot for fun soo.....
i shock myself all the time. i once brought tears to my own eyes while creating a scene. i could not believe the character i created would do such a thing.
i also have the problem of reading my abandoned works and then finishing them and being like “damn, this is really good, i wish i could read the rest of it.”
Oh yeah, that's how you get real good stories sometimes. I do the same thing. Sure I have a self insert, but they themselves are an onlooker to the story, y'know?
The moment you brought up the "I'm so plain but everyone falls for me" trope just screamed divergent in every way
I never got into Divergent because I found it super boring and uninteresting from the beginning, even though I love dystopias and post-apocalypse stuff. It was just so... bland.
@spam-el3ee totally fair lmao as an adult I find my teenage interest in it incredibly cringe worthy. I was VERY much a pick me growing up, so I was super into the "not like other girls" protagonists. Surprisingly though I hated twilight lmao
@@LatulaArts We live and learn :]
@@LatulaArts Because it was not-like-other-girls to dislike Twilight!! Also it's just meh
Bella Swan has NO CHARACTER and she constantly describes herself as ugly- now name all the boys who fell for her.
WHEN SHE STARTED READING THE MY IMMORTAL OMG
my biggest ick other than the writing about her description is that there’s NO hot topics in the UK. Not even in London. You’re telling me that she travels to america every time she goes shopping? Oh wait this is a HP fic nvrmind..
I'd say online shopping if it wasn't written so early in the internet's life.
I could’ve swore there was another comment here I was trying to reply to.
@@Chikenuget i think i saw another in my inbox too. Probably got deleted
@@mixedbagmixesmusic1967 same though I would say she could’ve teleported but since she’s still in school she wouldn’t have been able to.
This is such a small and specific, yet hilarious issue the mess that is my immortal
i LOVE fainting in literature. i think it’s just bc i have a concerning obsession with injuries/illness bringing a typically strong character down to their knees, but it’s just. so good. i can’t get enough of it. obviously though, if they’re fainting constantly, that would get old real quick. but i read a LOT of super short fics and i swear at least half of them are “strong character is no longer very strong due to injury/illness and must be taken care of by a loved one”
I agree with this too. I am a huge fan of whump and hurt/comfort so it will come up often. But I also understand not liking it in longer stories where the protag has no reason to faint just to change location or pov.
@@KidaKFr
Omg I used to be like this 😂 but I really liked it when it showed the character litterally giving everything they could and got me right in the feels everytime
Have any of y'all read October daye (by seanan McGuire) or Mercedes Thompson? (by Patricia Briggs) both have that vibe, they aren't fanfic tho
*cough cough* All Might *cough cough*
when i heard "hi, my name is ebony darkness-" i full on burst out laughing cause i lowkey forgot about my immortal 😭😭😭😭
i want to read it, it couldn't read it when i was in my fanfic phase because i didn't knew english, but this soud so funny
I've found myself using the 'character fall's asleep to transition scenes more than usual' BUT it's because he's literally being starved, tortured and forced to run around and do stuff all the time and so it makes sense to why he'd be constantly exhausted to the point of passing out
Also me hiding under the desk during that part. My character is actively turning into a zombie okay?! HE NEEDS NAPS.
Your poor character what the heck do you do to him 😭 I overly use car drives or spaces that capture two or more characters in a private conversation
@@iseeyou1067 I only torture him because I love him 😈 he’s been captured by a very powerful demon and was essentially forced to give the demon his soul, which allows the demon to essentially do whatever it wants to him with him being unable to fight back. So the demon uses him as it’s personal slave, and he constantly running around delivering messages, cleaning stuff, and being used as a stress reliever (punching bag). Meanwhile he’s trying to figure out how to get his soul back, contact his friends (who think he’s dead) and send important military information to the ‘good’ (not demon, at least) military leaders he knows from eavesdropping on the demons strategy meetings.
This of course is exhausting, and he is constantly on the verge of falling unconscious, and I’ve been taking full advantage of that lol
@@saffi_taffi That poor guy 😭 but that's a really cool storyline you have there, the concept of it is so cool!
12:04 this happens to me in real life there’s this girl I’m friends with who constantly complains that she’s fat or ugly and yet all the guys at her school (and a few of the girls too 👀) are madly in love with her AND SHE KNOWS IT. But she still thinks she’s ugly. Dgah- WAHT? Gurl you got all these guys fallin’ head over heels for ya, yet ur like: “I’m UgLy-“ WHYYYY?!
What's funny is I started writing a novel in middle school where the main character (who is male btw) just... fainted. I have no idea where I came up with this, because I was not aware of the trope until now. The only maybe source was Nicholas Benedict from Mysterious Benedict Society. I'm still writing it, and still trying to work out whether or not that's an actual character trait... because it can be funny at times, because the other characters make fun of him for it. Like he's supposed to be the voice of reason, and then he's out. Now that I see it, it sounds mean...
he could be narcoleptic?
I might be a terrible person for finding that hilarious, but... I guess I will just have to live with being a terrible person.
@@clumpofdirt1193 After reading Mysterious Benedict Society, I decided he was, but I'd have to research it to do it justice, and have to figure out how to make it not just a random gimmick.
@@jasminreyes1278 Oh, I might be a terrible person too :3
I embrace my inner antagonistic friend when writing those scenes
i did the same with my first novel, i think it's just something some of us like lol
I loved the south park reference in the out of character part 😭
14:12 I totally agree with this. I think it especially shows up in "chatfics", or fanfics written in the form of texts or chats. I think it's a lot easier for the author to parrot themselves or their friends, and these types of fanfics get a lot more chaotic. The characters end up falling under flanderized archetypes or tropes, rather than their true personality.
As a writer, giving my characters distinct voices is honestly something I really struggle with. It is *super* hard.
6:03 i have this done twice in my story, both times are for character building, the first was to give the love interest a character development choice, leavw the female lead, go home and live, or risk his live, where the food dwindled the weather worsened and theres some description in there like for example "with ever shriek of december wind he heard the words 'death' 'death' 'how much longer' 'time dwindling' he pictured the crackling of dead spruces was the rattling of bones of those foolish enough to stay. This snow storm wasnt one to stop, it would slowly bury them alive, thivker and thicker if he continuedhis way into the jagged mountains, and she might not even wake up. What could he even do?" Just to give some credibility to the ship so people care about it.
The second is not exactly a faint, but a paralysis state from lack of energy, and the most important death in the series.
But none of them are just for spnething small, all of them are shodting into the next peice.
And i might not be the best writer, but i try pretty hard.
Ps. Not a fanfic writer, just my personal story.
Them being out of character is one of the reason why I read the fic. Some characters HAVE to be out of character for me to enjoy reading.
My fix for the "im plain" Trope is make them a ship with a person with the ego sized of eifle tower
I don’t know for me, the story characterizes the characters, the descriptions we get can be (and usually are) ways to do that, but that point about the description of the characters can be fair (in places) but I think the story and the characters actions tell you more (personally I find the idea of a character in world being the narrator as a dark art not to be used, at least in my stories, how can the audience trust anything the narrator says if they can be wrong? The narrator must know everything on a fact based level, that also means they don’t really care about what the characters usually do unless they are doing it. The narrator’s job and very existence is to close the gap between the audience and story, to help it feed as real as possible.)
Aahaha 😂 I had a male protagonist I knocked out repeatedly for scene chenges and now I'm looking back and laughing.
The first time he cried himself to sleep.
Second time he fell down a hill and bonked his head on a tree.
Third time someone cast a sleep spell on him lmao. Poor guy
AHHHH
Long Live the Pumpkin Queen EMBODIES THIS
We understand that Sally is anxious and insecure we FUCKING GET IT
NOW MOVE ON
4:57 the way almost every book i've read, to change the scene they start a new paragaph, like if two characters were fighting put like 2 spaces and start a new scene
Lav, I’m so sorry. I love the fainting trope in any kind of literature or WEBTOON. Especially when a friend/love interest who’s really close to the fainter helps them. It’s even better if it’s not necessarily a scene change, but a pov change. I love it and it doesn’t make me see the character as weak, more that it accentuates how great their friends are. Great video though!
So true 😔 completely agree
I agree as long as it's not overused like almost all scene changes. Cuz i do fainting tropes as well, so i can't rly hate them lol
Oh my god I found my people 😂
As long as it’s used sparingly, it’s so powerful
I never knew there was such thing a fainting trope and literally wrote a scene in which my MC fainted yesterday 💀 however, he is male, and was seriously injured, and I didn't _technically_ change scene
You know a very fun fact about "fainting to change scenes" in literature well... in the Divina Commedia, Dante's work, since the whole "mystical journey" is so very religiously impossible to understand... Dante basically faints every damn Chant change.
So much it was a meme in high school that he was like an old age princessy princess getting carried around by Beatrice ahah
love your videos your such a huge inspiration for me♡
I think the only time I’ve done the "fainting to change scene" is when all the main characters in my story got knocked out and kidnapped lol
Fainting to change scenes:
I used to do that ALL THE TIME.
For me yes it came from a place of not knowing how to change the scene
The fainting to change scene thing- I’ve seen that first hand, creepypasta, Jane the killer’s origin story, it’s almost funny to think about
I think there's a line between a character thinking that they're so plain, that they'll never be better or never be "beautiful/handsome" the whole entire book/movie and a character starting off not liking themselves, listing things that could make sense on them being insecure, but later finding out they are fantastic or they are beautiful/handsome. Character development in these sorts of situations (or any situations really) is significant in books, movies, or media in general, which I believe many fanfiction authors and/or movie directors forget.
as a frequent roleplayer (i play a bunch of roleplay games), the 'out of character' thing really hit because sometimes, i totally cannot hold character. it's mostly with my 'quiet, stoic' characters because i'm extremely talkative and emotionally vivid; getting better though!! pray for me to actually be a good roleplayer lmfao
I like listening to your videos as well as the detail diatribes from OSP because it helps with character analysis and storytelling
10:54
Yesss what's hilarious is even Mean Girls got this right by having Regina kinda just straight up subvert this trope by being very obviously insecure herself such as with the mirror scene and her insecurities regarding her weight. Even at the beginning of the movie everyone recognizes that Katie is conventionally attractive well before her transformation.
Surprised no ones noticed the southpark ref at 15:57
For me i don’t necessarily like the fainting troupe as a result of a big revelation however i think in books about war or battle or when a character is so sick they’re delirious them fainting or phasing in and of consciousness can really add to the disorientingness that a character is experienced
When you started reading "My Immortal" I had a huge shiver down my spine
I think a good excuse for the fainting trope would be a character with a medical condition like Vasovagal syncope(occurs when people faint because the body overreacts to certain triggers, such as the sight of blood or extreme emotional distress), hypoglycemia, anemia, etc. Or a disorder like narcolepsy(A chronic sleep disorder that causes overwhelming daytime drowsiness). I think it would be interesting to see a story from a somewhat realistic perspective of someone with these conditions.
The ONLY version of the fainting trope I like is in Ascendance of a Bookworm. They don't use it too much and it's so funny and satisfying when they do lol.
I don't remember particularly seeing the fainting trope that much but watching anime, almost in every shojo one there is at least one fainting scene with the heroine waking up in the infirmary at school or in the arms of a love interest lol
5:44 Marinette from MLB Fr /lh
THE BLUE ORBS 💀💀💀💀😊💀💀😊💀💀💀💀💀😭😭😭😭😈💀😈😭💀💀😈💀😈😈
One of my pet peeves is when the author only uses one descriptor to describe a character. I can usually stand it when its a relatively normal descriptor like “the man..” or “the brunette…” that at least distinguishes characters from eachother but there was one fic that (where all but one of the main characters were male) described each dude as “the male..” so you’d get a paragraph that said “He watched as the male collected his nerves and slipped back down the hall. John hurried to catch up to the male when he was stopped by James, the male looked quite exasperated…” Or when names/titles or the start of sentences aren’t capitalized. I don’t quite know how to describe it but I feel like capitalization can bring a lot more meaning and power to a statement? Like if you have a lot of characters with the same status and you capitalize one’s title it immediately makes them stand out. Of course it needs a reason but if an author doesn’t bother with capitalization they won’t have the same effect like “the ghost on the hill” compared to “The Ghost on the hill.” . The second you can tell has a reputation and isn’t just any other classic ghost. It has a story, character, and is giving the reader an expectation. Same goes for locations n such. Though when addressing a character by name and capitalizing it also feels like you’re giving that character recognition AS a character whereas without capitalizing it seemingly lacks respect. That may just be me and how I’ve come to learn stuff but idk.
Hm I have always hated the thrope of the main character always saying that theyre unpretty ugly and stuff but ended up being liked by most character just like you said, but is it the same thing for the main character to say that theyre a regular person half of the time even though they know they totally are not normal and live in a place far from the logical human mind, because i see it as a way to cope with chaos or either making the main character oblivious as hell, can anyone give me their thoughts?
The cart man hoodie 😳💀
If I read the phrases/descriptions "wooden portal" or "orbs" for eyes I just straight dip.
5:45 Ah yes! Fainting when you need to change scene, the Dante Alighieri special
Ali Hazelwood has a character in (I think) "Love on the Brain" who faints frequently throughout the book, and I definitely think it was a bit of a cop out in a lot of instances. Like, it would come out of seemingly nowhere.
I’ve only seen an author pull off the “oh, woe is me I’m so pale” thing in a believable way once before, is was because the main character was a platinum blonde, blue eyed, pale as snow girl, who was traveling through a dessert and was constantly super sunburnt. I wish more authors would acknowledge how sunburnt their characters are while they travel across barren dystopian wastelands without even a hint of sunscreen
THIS. That's amazing
What book?
I think I know what book is being referenced, but I'm not entirely sure.
Dude, that’s great XD
W h a t b o o k i s t h i s
The blue orbs are a fanfic classic.
real
Yes
yess
yes
200 like
nobody:
blue eyed main characters in fanfiction: 🧿👄 🧿
I have a teacher who has blue eyes and her makeup makes her eyes look terrifying
HELP-
the first one gives "her skin was like a cup of coffee, which was mostly milk because she was white" vibes...
stop I'm wheezing
Omg I swear I saw a short about that
@@seraphywang4638 Maybe... 🤫
Her nickname was abs, no one noticed her
@@naolucillerandom5280 But I noticed her
I don't think I've had as big of a fight or flight reaction as when Haley started reading My Immortal and I literally got hit by a car this week.
Oh my goodness, I hope you are okay?
TRANS LESBIAN SPOTTED!
You alright? I hope you’re ok! 😊
Oh my gosh - wishing you a healthy recovery 🙏
Without context on their pfp it sounds like u are implying trans lesbians get into car accidents weekly XD
Im studying dante's inferno and he keeps on FAINTING, I can't with this man it feels too much like reading a fanfic😭
EDIT: guys I know that it is technically bible fanfic because it doesn't follow the canons of the text, but I meant it feels like present time fanfiction, like Ao3 fanfics
Well, technically speaking you *are* reading a fanfic. Canon is the Bible, and the fandom is Christianity. My boy is one of the most influential fanfic writers in the world 😭 90% of classical art is just fanfics and fanarts and 9000 headcanons about Jesus
@@towerofgodfan4107 ooooh it would be sooo fucked up with only the gore in the XXXIII chant like cannibalism/gore/starvation and all that
Shit I just made a similar comment before I saw urs so if u see my comment I did not mean to copy u (I just recently read the inferno section of The Divine Comedy for an English class and I also thought that detail was funny)
As an Italian I can confirm he is the very first fanfic writer: he wrote about entering the sin forest, his literal idol making him go through hell and purgatory all with people he knows and decides where they go, and at the very top there's his childhood love in heaven.
He was laying on his bed kicking his feet and muttering to himself in Italian "and then, when the boat rocks and I am nearly thrown overboard, Virgil grabs me and clutches me to his chest to ensure my safety!"
The true father of self-insert fanfic, that man.
My biggest pet peeve in fanfic is when the author has clearly lost track of where the characters' placements are. "She stood with her back to his chest and placed a hand on his shoulder, her knees softly pushing into his elbows. They locked eyes." HOW am I meant to envision this.
My mind just went ⬆↖↗↙↙⤵↘↔↩↪↗⤴, that you for hurting my brain but yeah I really have to agree I hate that a lot!! It was so confusing when I first started reading fanfics, but after a long while my brain just started imaging their positions shifting if the words made zero sense whatsoever to envision.
twister
XD
I envisioned it and I don’t want to anymore
That makes zero sense honestly....unless the girl's legs are inverted backwards to make such a pose.....
The “Hi, my name is Ebony Darkness-“ Immediately made me spit my drink I did not expect My Immortal to suddenly drop in a Lavender Towne video 😭😭😭
Same
Fr, like I feel like I should have expected that, but it seriously caught me off guard!
Same like I was expecting it, but the words still hit me like a truck..
Absolutely, curled me 😂😂
I died of laughter
A tip that I’m trying to use for novels that I want to write is “show don’t tell” tip.
Instead of saying “She was shy.”
Show that she’s shy
“She averts her gaze from the others and held her head down. Not wanting to make more noise than her footsteps.”
Saying things can makes the story dry when having them do something or saying something can help the readers understand that the character is shy.
Well, you can show and tell as well. If there's a certain detail that isn't very important, you don't have to give it much explanation. (That's just what my English teacher told me)
@@Cloverfield77 personality: show
Little things like eye color: tell through a realistic way
I think show and tell is dependent on who is narrating the story. The example is good if it was third person, but first person is based on the perception of the narrator. If the person narrating is blunt, they would think “She was Shy”. If the narrator hate her, “She was a coward, who lack the guts to look at anyone in the eye. A sad excuse for a human being”. If the narrator is in love, “Her innocent eyes looked away from the others, searching and hoping for a comforting prescence. She was silent as to hide herself from their viscious glares”. If the narrator is ignorant and can’t read emmotions, “Ohhh, she was there as well”
@@Bluedragon-iz3oo narrator giving very descriptive words about people and then goes “oh and Pete was there”
@@Cloverfield77 Ever heard the expression "show don't tell"? Explaining everything for the audience and not letting them figure out anything is boring
Unpopular opinion: a good fanfiction is basically an unofficial spin-off
Huh, I haven't really thought about it like that. That is an Interesting take there, DaviRed_.
facts
The StarWars universe before Disney razed everything:
ha those were all my fanfics when I was 11-12, I just wrote spin-offs and my own endings 💀 but they were still bad
Good fanfiction should feel like a love letter to the source material, or at least, a love for it's ideas.
Love is a great motivator, but so is spite, and great things can come out of both. A great example of good fanworks out of spite are Miraculous Ladybug fanfics. The actual show is so much "Great Ideas, Horrible execution" and fanfiction is made to address a lot of those executive issues, giving ideas the weight it deserved and exploring things the writing refuses to. Fix-it fics can also feel like a love letter, even out of anger.
Your rant about the "they never talk about how red they get when they blush" sent me back in time and reminded me of one book I read where the girl actually did exactly that. She lamented how she doesn't even just redden, but instead gets uneven red splotches when she blushes, and that it happens so quickly.
It really stuck with me back then because I could actually see myself in that.
Her love interest was a cute mixed-race nerd who always described his own skin as gravy-colored, which he also didn't like. Of course, she couldn't see any flaw in that.
There was a cute scene when she told him that she was jealous of how coolly he took compliments and flirts and he confessed to her that she made him blush all the time, it just didn't show up much on his face. So he could downplay it but secretly was just as jittery as she felt.
It was a really cute book, I wish I remembered the title or author.
if u remmeber can u update da comment cuz i wanna read dis book pls
@@techSoldier141 Yes! I just tried finding it by entering some variations of this quote on google in hopes to find anything, but nothing even remotely connected showed up. I could swear that the word "heart" was in the title, but I don't even remember if the book was originally German or English, so it might have been "Herz" instead...
Was it a kid's book and was there a pug involved? I remember reading a book where the mc described herself in the same way, in the first scene, while she was in the bath
@@cascharles3838 I don't remember if there was a pug in there, but I do remember that it was aimed at a young audience. Felt like intended for tweens/young teens maybe? Bit of a Coming of Age/Oh Shit Puberty Is Hitting kinda story.
I know this definitely isn’t it, as I read this when I was like 12 and cannot remember a single plot point. But did the book happen to be fantasy? The words “German” and “heart” make me think of “Inkheart” by Cornelia Funke. I remember there was some sort of romance between finger-something, but I genuinely don’t remember. I remember Meg being a sort of awkward character. Commenting bc I can’t get this out of my head lol.
Out of Character characters is simultaneously my favorite things and my biggest pet peeve. Taking liberties is fine, but there's a line imo. Shoto Todoroki somehow being a god of video games? Hilarious, interesting take, I like it. Tenya Iida breaking the rules a ton and being actually chaotic? To far ooc, stretching canon so far its non existent, don't like it.
As an MHA fan, I could not agree more! So many of the characters get misrepresented/mischaracterized or even turned into completely different people in fanfiction and other fanmade stuff (like incorrect quotes, for instance), it has bothered me for such a long time.
Know nothing about this characters but agreed. I think I'm okay once something is deliberately change to give the story a twist, not when the character personality changes even though it should be the same as the original media.
honestly this is why i stopped writing fanfiction and started writing "media inspired works". like, im gonna embarrass myself here, but im writing a human!sonic characters fantasy world au to practice writing and creating interesting magic systems and all the characters are so far removed from their source that im basically just taking their most basic concept and twisting it into original content. might as well just change the names a bit and put it on bookshelves and it would pass as an original work.
i think creators need to know their limit when it comes to writing in character. my least favourite thing is when someone will tag a story as in character and canon compliant and none of the characters are written accurately. just tag your work as ooc and get it over with
I mean it depends. Iida was canonically nearly homicidal when it came to Stain. Though he did get that beaten out of him fast. I think when push comes to shove he’lI break rules and even the law but I certainly don’t think he would be down for casual rule breaking which is what I assume you mean he was doing.
@@pappanalab they were making him okay with underage drinking 😭 i couldn't keep reading after that
Just came up with the most genius interaction:
"How would you describe yourself?"
"I have hair."
This is the only kind of self-description in first-person stories that I want to read
"I have two eyes and they look like eyes. I am wearing clothes. My hands have fingers. My skin is skin-colored."
@@harpywiththebrownfeathers exactly lol.
"How would your describe yourself?"
"I have skin? uhh... I have fingers? uhhh... lemme think... I have hair and eyes, too."
Omg I genuinely got asked this by someone, and all I could think to say was “what do you mean.”
I had called a provider about getting on paxlovid for the good ole ‘rona, and she asked that towards the end of the call; turns out she just needed my race 💀
"how would you describe yourself?"
"my description doesn't contribute anything to the story, so i dont have one"
"sometimes I sleep"
The “nice until they’re scary” trope. Like it can be done well if the character is typically gentle and patience but can be physically threatening and has been shown to be capable of standing up for themselves, like a gentle giant that decides they’re going to stop being gentle. But most of the time it’s completely out of character and they pull some insane violence with no repercussions and are rewarded by others for it.
A really good example of this trope being well done is Jet from Juno Steel.
He’s a large, calm man who takes things a little too literally. You learn through his backstory how he used to be insane and crazy, and it only really happens when he relapses and goes back into drugs. It’s an alternate state because he’s taking things that alternate his state of mind. I love this podcast so much
My biggest fanfic pet peeve is the Ron the Death Eater Trope, where the canon love interest needs to be written as a terrible person in order for the author's ship to come true in the fic. For example, instead of having Ron and Hermione not date in the first place or have a break up that makes sense to both characters, Ron gets rewritten as an abusive monster towards Hermione so the author has an excuse to have Hermione break up with Ron and start dating either Harry or Draco, bonus if author decides to have Ron try to break the couple up just for drama points.
It just feels lazy and even disrespectful at times. Like, why do you needs to make the canon love interest awful? Even if the author hates them, it still feels lazy. Also, it feels disrespectful to both canon character and irl abuse victims, cuz the abuse just feels like a lazy plot device instead of a subject matter that needs to be written carefully. It doesnt help that the canon character ends up getting written as a damsel in distress whose only personality traits are sad, helpless and Rebound, especially if the character is nothing like that in canon.
Agreed. I think I've only seen one fanfic so far that breaks off a canon couple without unnecessarily villainizing the canon love interest, and it would be refreshing to see more of that.
Give characters a decent sendoff, people!
I've only read one fic that sort of did this and I liked only because it was quite literally following the plot of an already made movie and that was the closest character they could make them.
Agreed!! I once read a x reader Hamilton fic where they absolutely did Queen Charlotte so dirty when IRL, she's said to be such a sweet person. And there's absolutely no reason why she's even such a jerk in the fic. She just is, because hahah (Y/N) is superior for no reason whatsoever.
For a time I went through a dramione phase and I noticed this a lot too. It just really took me out of the story because even though Ron does have some mean tendencies here and there, I never saw them as bad enough to drive Hermione away. Its such a disservice to a complex character
I know this is late, but, omg, you just spoke to me!
This has always seemed so over the top and the easiest and lazy way to get the canon love interest out of the picture. I always end up saying, Why even make them exs in the first place? They could have easily just stayed friends in your fanfic. Is the ex-drama just for drama points? In your case, using Harry Potter, if you simply must have Ron and her be exs, there are tons of reasons why they might break up that could be used. Ron, and she just wanted different things. Hermione has always been a driven and somewhat ambitious character. I can see her and Ron ending it amicably if she decides she would rather focus on her studies or her job. Ron is the lovable idiot; he isn't usually malicious, and if he is, he ends up feeling bad in the end. He has his moments, but he very obviously cares a lot about Harry and Hermione. I can't imagine him trying to actively hurt Hermione; he may say something mean in a fight that he would actively regret after, but he wouldn't try to ruin her life. In canon, while he refused to let them name their kid after Hermione's favorite author due to his first name being the same as her ex, he did concede and let them use said author's last name, Hugo. They balanced each other, and before they got together, they acted like bickering siblings or an old married couple. I wish people kept them in character, and while Ron may need space in a fanfic where he was broken up with, I can easily see them making up and continuing as platonic bickering friends who would fight anyone for messing with each other. Harry viewed the two as his siblings, even though not by blood. I just hate how Ron is the main one people bash and villainize in these stories.
I have seen this in Naruto fanfics too, where they make Hinata and Sakura awful to support Narusasu. It is rarer with Hinata, but Sakura falls play to this way too much. I know you don't have to like her, but she canonly views naruto like a brother to her. She loves Sasuke a great deal, and I don't think she would be that petty that she would attack Naruto for a breakup. I mean, a lot of the Narusasu that happens in the Boruto timeline ends up being cheating behind the wives backs, and like, in those cases, she has a right to be mad, just like Hinata. But a peeve of mine is when they have to make the significant other a POS to justify the cheating.
There are so many examples of this. When I write, even if I don't like a character, I still try to write it accurately. I often put more depth into characters I don't like because I have to think harder about their motives and why they are like this. The best-written characters aren't necessarily likable, but they are so well written once you look into them.
once I wrote a fan fic between the homophobic guys in my class and they actually ended up dating so you never know when the word orbs will replace the word eyes
You not a fic writer, you a prophet wtf
Wait, seriously? 😂 I want that to be true.
Write more stories about that, that is an amazing power.
Does everyone do this? I keep seeing this exact same type of comment EVERYWHERE 😭
Fanfic becoming canon?
Isn’t that the plot to one of the episodes of TAWOG?
Idk if this counts as a fanfic but when I was in elementary school I wrote “lesser known hogwarts tales,” which had no plot, just a bunch of fart and poop jokes about the Harry Potter characters, and then someone got everybody in the ravenclaw common room to start chanting “MALFOY IS SILLY!!!!” which caused Malfoy to get really mad and turn red and smoke come out his ears and then run around punching people and end up banging his head off of a statue and fainting. A great story indeed.
As a fellow writer of HP fanfic in elementary school, I absolutely have to commend your naming sense, that's a way better title than mine XD
@@86fifty what was your harry potter fanfic like
@@KatietheKreator I wrote myself into Book 4 and married Cedric Diggory LOL He seemed nice!
@@86fifty understandable
You were clearly a child prodigy.
I hate that trope of the girl thinking she’s ugly, but everyone thinks she’s so hot, and it’s written like that to tell the reader “no she’s actually not ugly, thus she’s important!!!” LIKE WE CAN BE UGLY AND STILL MATTER?! And like when they write teenagers, like 14 year olds, they have acne! They have dark circles! They look bad according to society and they still matter!!!!
Yes!!!!
PREACH 👏
AND THE GLASS THING, PPL WITH GLASSES ARE SO CUTE, PRETTY, HANDSOME, WHATEVER ELSE
@@saix_unicornI lobe you
The thing is is that that trope can still work in, my opinion. For example, a person with a parent that constantly tells them that they are not good looking or that if they keep looking like that no one would want to date them.
As someone with experience with that, it really hurts and it takes many years of inner reflection, confidence building, and self love to actually believe that the people who are saying you look good actually mean it and aren't just lying to you.
I had a friend who was self-conscious about being stereotypically beautiful because she felt like people saw how pretty she was before they saw anything about who she was as a person, and some people never saw past that. She'd complain about things like that because they isolated her from genuine connections.
I've always read characters like that with her in mind, it makes them a lot more sympathetic. They're just lonely and being pretty can be a curse.
I understand and sympathize with your friend, and if most female protagonists actually thought like this, I wouldn't be so bothered. Unfortunately, most female protagonists never think this deeply about their appearance and their beauty and denial of their looks stems from the paradox that Haley described. Like, you're supposed to be beautiful but you're also not supposed to be confident that you are beautiful and you are never allowed to want to be beautiful. You should be physically attractive in ways that aren't realistic while not caring about your appearance at all because that's "girly" and never, ever be confident in yourself because the confident, girly, physically attractive girl is always associated with cruelness. This leads to many female leads all having the same exact personality, in which she isn't confident in herself but doesn't really care about her looks, but is described as "capable and smart" by the author.
this reminds me of yuzuki murashige from the manga skip and loafer :0
reminds me of aoi akane from jibaku shounen hanako kun !
S
Its hell because its either isolation through being invisible or isolation through pedestalization. I’d personally pick “pretty” because at the very least I’d benefit from the halo effect.
I once read a fanfic that was incredibly written, had a beautiful story, and an amazing plot, but exclusively referred to the characters eyes as orbs
It has happened before that I am 40k words into a fic and I get sucker punched with 'orbs' and I am stun locked for a bit before continuing on.
Would you rather we call them peepers 👁👁
@@leafyztartbh, yeah 😭 if i have to read “orbs” one more time in a fic im going to throw myself off a cliff
@@leafyztar yes 😌
i love referring to the colour with the irises. like “her irises were a metallic silver” instead of “her orbs were metallic silver” like istg i think i just hate the word (and i love the word iris too anyway). and its accurate to the actual structure of the eye so yeah.
Starting with mentioning my immortal was the best choice LMFAO
I actually have used the fainting one before. I was writing a character who had narcolepsy. So already you can kind of see why it’s necessary. But I used the frustrations you described with that method so you would put yourself in her place. Going black in times where you were experiencing positive momentum. Missing important moments because the world faded away. Not getting that blissful darkness in times where you desperately wish you would. So I think that we can actually flip that in a really interesting way
To add onto the passing out one, it can also take away from the importance of when a character passes out in an intense scene. Instead of, “Oh no! This character we as the audience are attached to has passed out and they need help!” it turns into “oh, time for this again,” which can really kill a tone.
oh my god yes! even actually realistic reactions can feel like too much because of all of the unneccesary ones.
Your ideas on the pale trope are interesting! As someone who has always been pale, I've never seen a character actually live it. No one constantly asking if they're sick except for when they are sick, no getting severely burned trying to tan to make people less uncomfortable. No struggles with finding clothes that clash or emphasizing the red undertones of the blood under the skin. The paleness making blemishes and dark circles more visable. The struggle is real, lol😅.
The truest statement known to man. Not to mention the whole only “pretty” freckles thing I’d love for an author to have a pale character with freckles everywhere describe themselves and their insecurities as if they actually exist and aren’t a fricking model.
I'm super pale, and I constantly get asked if I'm sick.
To be fair, I am - but still, lol. People constantly tell me I'm sickly and I "need some color on [me]". I'm Slavic and ill; how much more color am I gonna get‽
I have redhead skin and burn if the sun looks at me funny. As for freckles, I have very few on my face but loads on my arms. Melanin distribution can get weird. The "I'm so ugly!" trope is painful to see but it's accurate IME. Hating the way you look doesn't have to be rational and both the "I know I'm considered attractive but I'm not allowed to say so or I'll be labelled a narcissist!" and the "People tell me I'm attractive but when I look in the mirror, I don't see it!" are both legitimately common, especially among the primary demographic of YA fiction. Far worse than this trope's prevalence is the fact that so many girls and women find it relatable because of how they've been socialised.
Yes! The sunburn one! Especially if they've got the characters running around playing Quidditch or fighting a dystopian government. Like, no one would ever know they were pale because they would be lobster red the entire fanfic.
@@olgs37 No more color than the healthiest Irish
For some reason this makes me more inspired to write fanfiction than ever. Maybe because it starts making me think about what I could do to avoid each annoying trope when hypothetically writing about my own headfiction.
no i'm thinking about how to satyrically include them lol
i never write fanfiction, but if i ever wrote out my headfiction itd be the worst combination of every trope 💀💀 like i could never read about the stuff im thinking of, bc seeing it physically would make me throw up (im also aroace and hate lemon 😭😭)
I started writing fanfictions which are moreso self contained stories that say “fuck you” to the cannon lore. Usually I’d throw them out once I get bored but my motivation to finish it is getting better
@@TamWam_ never agreed with someone more, same
“And the interaction having thus ended, I was in shock, and the impending irrelevance of the next moments to the plot was too much to handle. I fainted.”
please, I'm begging you, write a book
@@mer_acle8101 as I’m responding to you I’m finishing the second version of my first chapter.
I really appreciate your comment, it’s very encouraging.
you said that perfectly.. (typed?)
Has anyone made something of a narcoleptic character? And either a realistic depiction of it or more of an exaggerated case for comedic effect?
@@bleakautomaton4808 not that I’ve heard of
As someone who grew up reading books and fanfics, my most hated trope is definitely the self insert trope because it takes away the interactivity you feel while reading x reader because as someone with pale yellowish brown skin, short black hair and dark brown eyes,its kinda hard to imagine myself as a "blond headed, blue orbed, pale skinned white girl"
That could be any character though. Like I wouldn't be able to relate as much to a black female as a main protagonist, whether it is a self insert or not
Lol, mine's a white tabby cat. Like, a regular house cat.
Good luck!
i have this problem but i'm a dude, so i can't read x readers bcs they're always girls lol
Pro Tip: If you write a reader-insert fic in either 2nd or 1st person, you can omit the use of Y/N and every other abbreviation through the use of a rather underutilized trope called the *All-Concealing “I”*
With self insert fics I like to imagine Y/N as their own character, not as me. The description is always so off and the personality is never like me, so why not pretend?
@@mintytrash i end up just giving them a random name, or just the character they're based off's name
@@an0rmalp3rson70”Y/N” just straight up translates as “Why en” in my head 😭 I will verbally say it like it’s the characters name because their always so ridiculous lmao
@@Nerodotnet yes that's what I do
@@NerodotnetI call them “Yin” lol
the over use of physical descriptions, especially in weird ways, or otherwise finding ways to avoid just using the character's name.
"the blue eyed one" "the doctor" "the bluenette" "the taller one" "the older one"
grinds my gears
i don't mind "the taller/younger" kind of thing but you even saying "bluenette" makes me unreasonably angry lmao
Literally came down to the comments to find this sentiment. Amen and amen, such an easy trap to fall into.
Yes! Specially when it more complicated then the name, like??? It's hard to not overuse a characters name but people sometimes seems afraid to use it.
@@everyonelicksthesamerocksFR every time I read "bluenette" (or anything similar in reference to unnatural hair colors) I want to throw my phone across the room :^)
Oh my gosh that one p!sses me off, too.
i love how the drawing depicting how the author is every character was basically just a person doing south park cosplays
FOR REAL when you look at most south park cosplays you feel like the character would not wear that
@@soupasouupbut the whole point of cosplays is dressing up *as* the character 😭😭 what are you talking about
@@______________url For example adding extra accessories characters wont wear etc not into the south park fandom though best example I can give is most dangonrompa cosplays
YE
the problem w/ south park for cosplaying is that th designs are way too bland soooo cosplayers will put some accesories on@@Vamptre
1:27 You left out the most iconic part! "Author's note: If you don't know who that is, get the hell out of here."
Tell me how when she got to the OOC trope my brain went to some South Park fics I've read before AND THEN IT TURNS OUT THAT'S EXACTLY THE 'SUIT' AND CHARACTER CLOTHES SHE WAS DRAWING I FREAKING LAUGHED SO HARD-
It looked like Wendy in a Cartman suit, which seems fitting to the 'Out Of Character' trope given what I've seen. (South Park has the strangest fanbase)
As a girl who grew up on books, the whole thing about being a beautiful girl that hates themselves has been a real issue for me. To this day I'm not able to admit that I like the way I look without part of me hating myself for it. Honestly its so tired and I'm glad media is moving away from that nasty stuff.
atp i cant tell if im pretty or not, i only notice my flaws, people call me pretty but i truly dont believe them. though ofc, i am grateful :)
@@TamWam_ Beauty is observed, not analyzed. There is no one type of beauty, so there is no need to think too hard about it. ❤
Oh yeah, I really hate myself. Everyday looking at mirror I see myself as a clown. But I see myself as the whole circus.
it's also like, romanticizing self-hatred/insecurity, right? Which seems unhealthy.
"She blinked her pearls"
"She blinked her marbles"
My least favorite is ooc, the "He would not fricking say that" mentality is real
Also the worst offender for me personally is dragging other characters down for a ship especially if I like this ship. Down backspace. Gone. Quit.
Those are pretty correlated tho
In spanish poetry, pearls are the equivalent to teeth... Basically I read "she blinked her teeth" XD
YES! I _despise_ OOC with a fiery passion unknown by even the most brilliant stars in the known universe.
@@Amiyuu0 Eww =n= 😨🤢
Making a character ooc so they'll look worse for the the sake of a ship has been affectionately nicknamed "Ron the Death-Eater" in fan circles, which is hilarious imo.
it's probably even worse than just regular ooc when a character is brought down for the sake of shipping 😭 people love to act like it totally makes sense for a good canon pairing to suddenly become abusive for no reason because they ship something else
My favorite spin on the "eurgh I'm so uglyyyy" trope is "Yes, I know I'm pretty, but that doesn't mean I'm above you. I may be pretty, but you're pretty too." for example, I have a character who's a princess and is in love with a non-royal philosopher. He goes "oh princess you're so gorgeous! you grace me with your presence, please let me know if there's anything I can provide you!" and she was like "hey, you're not...like, a peasant to me. I don't really like being treated like this, it makes me feel weird. I'm not above you. please just be yourself."
I would love to know more about those two🤔 Sounds interesting, and I love learning about interesting things, especially with characters like that who aren't like the trope.
Man I did not expect to get my immortal jumpscared today
nice pfp
The ironic thing about My Immortal is that it’s at least technically better than Velma!
It also became a book on Amazon along with that one Jeff the Killer fanfiction. 😂😂😂
As a fanfic writer, I completely forgot how difficult it is to write original works and I’m thankful every day for the fact that I have a very good idea of what my characters are like
Tfw you apply dialectical materialism to both your fanfiction, the original works, and the real world.
The fainting trope does annoy me, but I’m also a sucker for characters who have magic that physically drains them when they use it lol. My personal solution when writing is that if a character faints because they used too much magic (or really just for any reason at all) I switch to another character’s perspective and have them do something unrelated to the fainting episode so the pacing doesn’t get interrupted, it just continues from another angle. Then when the first character is ready to come to again, I either switch back or have the other character come check on them and continue from there. Either way, there’s still something happening and it’s not just a random interruption.
Yeah I think the fainting works in a more action-based context, where there’s physical/magical exertion involved.
i love having my characters pass out ngl, the vulnerability, the reaction of their loved ones ugh
I restrain myself as much as possible lol and pacing I tackle similar to you since I usually write pov alternating anyway
@@mer_acle8101oh fun 😅 i LOVE making my characters die and nobody caring about it like « oh no, he dead! anyway, next one! » 😅
I practically steal alot of my ideas from books/shows I like, and one of my characters had a power that would drain them of energy, which I used because I was a sucker for Amphibia at the time and just finished the second season when I came up with my character.
i hate the "ooh i'm so plain and ugly because i'm pale and skinny" trope too because i am actually insecure about those aspects of myself and they make it impossible to take seriously, like yeah i'm super pale but i don't like it because you can see all the veins around my eyes and it makes me look permanently exhausted, and yeah being skinny is supposed to be desirable but i'm cold as hell and you can see my ribs that's not pretty it's unhealthy and weird!! but it's always like "yes i am so slender and healthy and angelic and my face glows like the moon" i know damn well your face goes bright pink when it's hot y/n, stop lying to yourself
THIS!!!! I've struggled with the same insecurities, and though I've gotten a little better due to finally finding a good friend group, I still have those days where I wish I could hide away from the world. It happens, and I hate how people overlook the issues with the modern extremities of beauty. You're not alone in this struggle or the frustration that comes with it, and I hope you have a good day! Drink some water, eat if you need to, and rest if you get a chance.
very good point, and very good sass in the end there, you made me chuckle
I feel the paleness aspect. I was called a ghost by my grandma for most of my life, and seeing your veins everywhere can get a little wonky. My biggest issue, was I couldn’t really dress for hotter weather, as I would “blind” people with the sun practically reflecting off my skin. It’s how I got the nickname “twilight” as “you are so pale that you sparkle” all while squinting or refusing to look in my direction.
(Having people you are close to, refuse to look at you because of how pale you are and that it hurts their eyes can really harm the self image or confidence.)
And no one ever mentions that being pale means that 10-30 minutes in the sun turns you into a burnt tomato… Not only is that painful, but definitely doesn’t have any attractive qualities. 😂
I have the skin thing too, translucent I call it. I started putting dots of concealer under my eyes (it was pretty hard finding the right shade though) and I feel like that helps a lot with the veins and I recommend sunscreen, skin care is important but extra important when you look so white
@@straawberryfieldsforever i've considered trying concealer, but i have facial dysmorphia and i worry that makeup to cover things will just make it worse, so i've gone the complete opposite and sometimes just trace over my veins with eyeliner to make it a creepy look, many advantages to being goth! also we both have meta knight profile pics and i think that's lovely
"Hi, my name is Ebony Darkness D'mentia Raven Way" the way I burst out laughing immediately
I‘m going to listen to this intently, to make sure I dont accidentally make these mistakes in the fanfics I will never show anyone anyway🙌
SAME
Me too girl
same 😭
Same. 😭😭😭
At least the second one is justified in mine due to the character having a lot of emotional trauma he goes through and people (especially his cruel stepfather and his followers) are just unkind to him for no reason. There are exceptions but they are the majority of people in his life.
@@ashleyhansen4479 don't worry, the readers usually notice if it's making sense because of the character or if it's an excuse for changing the scene. you got this!
It bugs me most when the fainting trope is used in books and stuff (...Twilight) and made out to be romantic. I've fainted once, and it was far from alluring or romantic. I stood up too fast while taking a medication that made me dizzy, I grabbed my mom to hold onto her because my vision was blacking out (normal for me at that time, I expected the dizziness to go away in a few seconds), and then I woke up on the floor with my head hurting from hitting the coffee table. After that I cried for a bit because that just happens after suddenly losing consciousness. Absolutely nothing romantic about someone falling like a sack of stones, waking up, and ugly-crying on the couch for a while. Also bugs me when characters act calm after passing out- it's quite disorienting. Clearly these authors utilizing the trope have never fainted.
I say this as someone with epilepsy and a fainting disorder, it's honestly something that never bothered me, I get people are different but I usually wake up from an episode giggling because I passed out somewhere stupid- it's not that deep (unless the author makes it weird ig)
@@fatimazafar8907 i can understand that. for me it was unexpected and confusing in addition to unwanted. that probably didn't improve the experience.
Fainting is so disorienting. One time I burnt my feet and passed out in the fucking bathroom. Thank god I didn’t hit my head on the toilet and my mom grabbed me. There was another time I fainted from bleeding and I had no idea it happened until my head was hurting badly. It’s disorienting and confusing and leaves you in shock (at least for me). Nothing hot or romantic here.
I don’t think it’s the fainting itself that people find romantic, rather the opportunity for the character’s love interest to take care of/protect them while they’re vulnerable.
At least I think that’s the justification, I’m aromantic so I don’t have a horse in this race.
@@sylvanticx Yeah no I get that, fainting isn't fun I get wym
9:59 Or when the character is good looking, has the worst trashy personality and still the mc cries over them. When the second lead is obviously the better option, a literal angel. 😅
Biggest pet peeves: "You had (E/C) eyes and (H/C) (Hair Length)" always pissed me off. I know what I damn well look like, knock it off. It always just ripped me out of whatever I was reading when that would happen.
Even worse was putting extra specific characteristics that weren't listed in tags or the description. Like, "uh oh! BTW, you don't have legs and you wear glasses! This does nothing for the plot, but whatevs". That's not a reader fic, that's just an oc fic with extra, annoying steps.
And then when I want to read a gender neutral or gender ambitious reader fic, for some unknown reason, they still slap them in dresses and skirts when it's completely unnecessary.
fully agree and I love “gender ambitious” that’s me from now on
Kinda bouncing off the last point, but I hate it when the writer makes the reader GN but gives them specific genitalia, and doesn't mention it in the tags.
@@wallewonks ment to say gender ambiguous, but autocorrect works in mysterious ways
Gender ambitious is hilarious 💀
I feel like there is a fine line when it comes to reader inserts and descriptions of their main characters. What you listed as your biggest pet peeve is actually a way for reader instert fics to allow you to put yourself in. They give you an option to describe yourself.
Then you pivot into saying that not giving you choice in how your character looks like is also bad because it wasn't put in the tags? I am a little lost on the part of tags, because I can agree that looking for a reader insert fic and finding a story with an OC is annoying. I feel like it would be more appropriate to remove the "reader insert" tag from such stories, but that is just my opinion, so I guess we are on the same-ish page here.
Like I said, writing reader inserts is not easy and finding the fine line between giving too much freedom and taking it away is difficult. Some people need that establishing line of "Your name is Y/N, you have e/c eyes and your hair is h/c, h/l" in order to allow themselves some definition of a character that they don't really know how they will look like for the reader. It's not easy to describe someone you have no idea how they look like. Just sayin, cut some writers some slack if they need that intro line and then manage to make the flow somewhat decent despite having to put in those "h/c" or "e/c" into sentences.
I do actually like the fainting trope in a whump context. It’s the difference between “I don’t know how to change the scene so I’ll just knock out the main character”, and the fainting/injury/poison/whatever being the main appeal. And it often leads to good hurt/comfort which, I think a lot of us want someone to take care of us when we’re vulnerable so I appreciate the wish-fulfillment aspect. I’m more critical of this trope outside of a fanfic concept, where it isn’t being advertised as “alright everyone come get your blorbo torture!” Hope that makes sense lol.
Exactly… I’m here to see my blorbo absolutely tortured
I'm working on writing a character who only gets from place to place via the knockout trope. I've just gotta work on coming up with new ways for his knockouts
My immediate thought when the fainting trope was mentioned, I immediately went ‘ah yes, WHUMP’
i agree with this, but i only like it when its used sparingly (like once or twice is fine). So like when shit starts getting bad, and you know the mc needs help.
@@towerofgodfan4107 I've got a few fun ones written
1. Blood drive- naturally, blood donation go brr
2.narcolepsy- kind of a GOOJFC- (Get out of jail free card) just make him go sleep nini
3. Blunt force trauma- the ol' 1-2 knockout
4. Intoxication - alcohol or otherwise, blacking out is common
5. Amnesia - another GOOJFC, if I skip the scene, and he simply doesn't remember it, it means I can write the rest of the scene as him trying to figure out what happened when he temporarily experienced anterograde amnesia
6. Sedation or surgery- naturally, I can just go "y'know what, blowdarts" if I get real desperate
Those are just a bit of what I have planned, and I'll work on the scene transitions when I need to lol
Ah yes, everyone’s favourite “Very famous fanfic.” - the minute I heard that, I knew it would be My Immortal. She’s just described so unevenly, like, chunks of her character are so distinct and vivid, and then the rest is just kinda left to you.
BE HONEST: Who else knew exactly which fic it would be at 1:06
Me
Ayyyyy
Another pet peeve: When the writer tries to make you support the "main ship" of the fanfiction but you end up realizing the main character has more chemistry with the antagonist or side character then the actual relationship the author wants you to care about and takes as far as to shove it down your throat even though if they even have chemistry, it's not enough to show these two can realistically be together.
YES THIS UGH
I'm in the middle of one rn and like, I'm kinda invested so i wanna see how it turns out but the side ship involves a character i like more and who is just nicer and more respectful in general to the mc, plus they're more accurately written to canon, it pisses me off.
Miraculous Ladybug. The two “alternative” love interests who are supposed to prove how the main two a perfect for each other are the actual better love interests and better characters than the main two. It’s as pathetic as it sounds.
@@OEBlackman Agreed
Happens in original/publishable works too. I think the problem is that the author is thinking of romance as an end goal for a relationship. Like 'I don't have to do anything else here because they're together now; what else is there?' They think being together expresses everything that needs to be expressed between two characters.
and this is why I primarily write bromances
y/n is either like an angel on earth or a super edgy vampire-werewolf hybrid. there is never any in-between
The holy name of Yun
I have seen one very well written Y/N type character that was basically their own character. It was a Diarmuid Ua Duibhne (from Fate/Zero) x Reader fanfic. One of the most memorable things I've ever read on Ao3.
for me, when i change a scene i have a breif explanation for why the characters are somewhere else, i.e. "the two men get in the car and drive to somewhere safer"
Thank you! Some actual advice for this problem !
Hearing Haley read My Immortal was not something I knew I needed today
You officially have the best name Holy crap I'm dying
right 😭
Bro has the gender stealing ability. They will steal your gender and use it to their advantage.
@@blankcanvasstudios3463 i first thought the name said "iwillstealyourgrandma"
@@MrFourchordsGranny Goblin 😭
ohhhhhh the South Park ref at 16:00
it happens a lot. I don't like sp fanfics(even the good written ones), most of them are also very ooc. kyle being too feminine, stan being too much of an asshole, Kenny being a manwhore, and cartman being ...skinny and hot. it's so weird
.....Arent they all children...
Regarding the "blue orbs" thing: For the story I'm currently writing, I tried using different levels of details in the narration depending on the pov character of the chapter. So it's kinda like:
Character A: The intricate carvings on the otherwise smooth white paint coated wooden door-
Character B: W h i t e d o o r
would love to see that oh em gee...!!1!!1!1!
Yeah, that's just the basic principle of making your POV characters distinct. I'm assuming you're young, so good job for figuring this out, but as a writer & a reader myself I can tell you that this is a basic principle in good writing
My biggest pet peeve is when there are OC's, self inserts, ext, but other than that absolutely nothing changes. The story stays the exact same and after a while I didn't enjoy it anymore because nothing new was happening. The end can stay the same, yes, but putting a new character in while change things, even just a little bit
There is nothing wrong who original characters you just have to make them right.
@@fatimazafar8907 I think it’s one of those things that are fun to write, but boring to read. Also if the character in question is significantly different from the character they’re replacing, it kind of hard to believe that the story would go the exact same way.
I'm the opposite- I'm not a big fan of fanfics that stray too far from canon. Especially when I'm writing OC fanfics. If I'm including canon characters/events, I don't like changing too much-it feels like I'm making me and my characters the center of attention too much and detracting from the existing story.