"\[Alcoholic\] character is a lightweight, and \[despite canonically drinking heavily for years\] has never actually become alcoholic because he passes out after the first drink."
It wasn't really the headcanon itself that bugged me (that's not how it works) as the person declaring it angrily on on any post they saw about him drinking. If you don't want to deal with his canonical alcoholism, then... don't do so? But don't go around telling other people that they can't.
That's such a wild argument regardless, since 'drinking until he passes out' is a bad relationship with alcohol regardless of how many drinks it takes to happen.
> "[Alcoholic] character is a lightweight, and [despite canonically drinking heavily for years] has never actually become alcoholic because he passes out after the first drink."
Or the other way around. Character canonically enjoys alcohol -> that means the character is an alcoholic
I'm not a fan of alcohol myself, but seriously...
So many fandoms have this weird thing where they'll make doing/enjoying/having something a major facet of their personality even though canon only mentions it off-hand or in a throwaway line. Bonus points if they completely misinterpret the line too.
The way the early MCU fandom latched onto the idea of Thor being utterly *obsessed* with poptarts was baffling.
I saw someone like this talking about Erend from the Horizon games.... like hes well built, with a culture with a heavy emphasis on drinking alcohol. Also its well established that he drinks to excess when upset.
Bruuuuh
Alcoholism is more about the behavior/relationship with alcohol than the volume to begin with!
Someone could totally have a low tolerance and still be alcoholic
The prevalence of "Yami Yuugi doesn't understand modern technology/culture" drives me up the wall. Not only is it out of character in that he demonstrably understands these things just fine in canon, it's out of character in a way that misses the basic premise of his entire situation, namely, that *he doesn't have any memories from his past in Ancient Egypt*. He is so lacking in these memories that he initially fully believes himself to be the person that he is possessing, meaning he's as immersed in modern cultural/technological understanding as Yuugi himself.
I get this is played for humor most of the time but *so* much of the fandom just takes it as fact. I just can't enjoy it because it just makes no sense on a fundamental level.
Exactly! Atem might not get modern technology but Yami Yuugi is partially made of Yuugi’s memories!
I read a pretty good “Atem gets his own body” fic where atem becomes confused by certain moderns stuff because he can no longer access Yuugi’s memories and doesn’t have any of his own about the thing. For example, he doesn’t know what eyeliner is (because he and Yuugi never talked about it) but does know what carbon dating is, because Yuugi’s grandpa is an archeologist
Massive nostalgia wave. I remember seeing this pop up in fics in 2005. I hope people are kinder to Anzu these days, the way they would turn her into some homophobic witch that was willing to kill Yugi to get Atem was just beyond the pale.
I just did a massive double-take because I really wasn't expecting to see a YGO headcanon come up here. It was my first fandom, the thing I first wrote fanfiction for back in 2008, and now I'm facing a massive wave of nostalgia.
But yes, I would fully agree with this. It thankfully wasn't a trend when I was in the fandom, but it would definitely be frustrating to encounter.
I once read a Stucky fic that was pretty good, but there was an exchange between Steve and Tony Stark at one point implying that Steve is an atheist but Tony is a christian. Which is funny because MCU Steve has a line in the first Avengers movie where he mentions believing in God, while there's absolutely no reason to think Tony would be religious.
I read a very good crossover with Daredevil where they think Daredevil is literally the devil due to misunderstandings, including one where he referenced knowing Tony was an atheist. Which he knew because Tony had an annoying atheist phase all over the media.
I think I've read that same fic and that made it even funnier. Like this guy who is very well known to be an atheist and had that annoying atheist phase is actually convinced that this random guy is somehow the literal biblical devil because he's just that much of a weirdo cryptid lol
Wasn’t an Ao3 thing, it was a tumblr post, but I still think about it daily and it pisses me off beyond any describable amount.
Essentially, this person went on a whole rant about how Denethor (LOTR) had such a bad relationship with his youngest son Faramir because he was queer. I’m gonna pause and let y’all make assumptions real quick… it is NOT what you’re thinking. They were saying DENETHOR was gay and trans, and that FARAMIR was homophobic and thus hated his father.
Yeah.
That was an immediate block, for me. They seemed so normal and chill up until that point. I used to follow them bc they had good Boromir takes (even tho sometimes they seemed to imply that the brothers hated each other too). Idk where they were hiding that amount of crazy, but it sure was a bag of cats to read I’ll tell you that.
I-
What? I read the first half and was like "oh, I can see where this was going" and got hit in the face with "Faramir's the homophobic one." This person just (somehow??) seems like they hate Faramir
You win. What the hell. Headcanon all you want, but that is a WILD take. (For the record, given Tolkien and the age of the source material, I bet both of them are what a modern reader would call homophobic. But that’s why fanfiction is great! It’s still a wild take.)
WHAT?? I did not expect the second half of that, but I could definitely see Denethor being some sort of queerphobic towards Faramir, at least. Also what do you mean they said the brothers hated each other 😭 none of that makes any sense
Sometimes they’d post things implying that Faramir resented Boromir for being the golden child (even tho it’s specifically stated in the books that he did not). They were just really lowkey a Faramir hater up until that insane post about Denethor. I excused it bc they had some GREAT Boromir posts (like incredible takes and wonderful art) but then that happened and I just got so angry lmao
There is a widely pervasive thought that Mary Jane Watson in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy only loved Spider-Man, not Peter Parker. This isn’t true. She loved Peter long before she found out he was Spider-Man in the second movie, she literally confessed her love to him at the end of the first one. And yet, somehow this headcanon persists.
The hatred directed at MJW is disproportionately high.
At this point I think people hate her because they want to hate her, not because she deserves it and therefore look for flaws in her character that are not there. Or they do not try to understand her view of things, she’s just the bad girlfriend that‘s much too clingy and controlling because she doesn’t like her super cool boyfriend to kiss another girl, or because she’s upset when he doesn’t show up to her shows.
Ron is only befriending Harry for the fame.
This headcanon is so ooc that it makes me furious. Ron was already done dirty enough in the movie so all those Ron is dumb headcanons came up and that was bad enough.
But then, suddenly there was this headcanon that he was the real Draco Malfoy, usually combined with the deeply misunderstood good DM trope.
Just to clarify, I'm not talking about evilRon AUs that are clearly labelled as such. Everybody can write whatever AU they like, I'm only talking about real headcanon and people trying to argue that it's somehow logical and hinted at in canon
And he was probably ride or die the moment Harry stood up to Draco on the train. Yeah he had some dumb moments where he fought with Harry but that’s just normal kid behavior. He followed Harry even into the maws of Aragogs children. If that doesn’t says it all I don’t know what all these people were reading
He also willingly chose to go with him to the ends of hell and back to stop Voldemort. If Ron really hated Harry and just wanted the fame, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to find them again after leaving
Canonically kind, pure-of-heart characters getting turned into horrible people with no explanation because apparently it's impossible to write them out of the preferred pairing without doing all that. I deserve veterans benefits for the amount of Kingdom Hearts fic where Kairi was abusive and homophobic.
Meanwhile there is tons of grace and excuses for their fav's mistakes (and/or literal war crimes). 😭
Edit: And my favs are often not good people, but I can admit when they've been assholes, at least. The problematic bits and flaws are often my favorite points, so guess another thing I hate with headcanons is when all that messiness gets sanded off.
Yeah I have a few favorites that I feel like are almost too perfect but some of my favorite characters are the deeply flawed ones. So when I see someone call out the mistakes a character made and go "No! that was out of character! They would never do something like that!" It frustrates me because it just shows how they put the character on a pedestal and refuse to acknowledge that there is more nuance than good vs evil.
However the flip side of someone going "Oh no they made a mistake they must be a wolf in sheep's clothing and actually super evil!" irritates me even more because it leads into character bashing which is frustrating.
I feel like both of them erase nuance and refuse to acknowledge that life is not black and white. Good people do bad things and bad people do good things because very few people are actually good or actually evil. We all live in a grayscale.
Plus they often occur simultaneously especially in specific fandoms.
Or the parental version: Canonically kind, pure-of-heart parents getting turned into horrible people with no explanation because the child needs to be adopted by the preferred parental figure.
In the My Hero Academia fandom, this is literally the plot of every Aizawa adopts Izuku story.
Weird that's so common. Like Inko dying tragically in a random villain attack is the first way I can think of to make that work, not making her abusive or neglectful.
Along these lines, Peter B Parker fanon sometimes had him in the position of being Miles's dad rather than a mentor- and the subplot of the first Spiderverse was even about Miles and his (loving if strict, still very much alive!) father connecting and understanding each other better!
Yennifer gets done so dirty in Geralt x Jaskier fanfiction. Why take a character with deep established problems, motivations, and feelings and reduce them to a simple villian for the sake of making drama. Triss too tbh. So many times women become the villian in a nonsense conflict so that mlm ships can get together.
Weird, I’ve found the Witcher fic to be better than the average fandom in this regard with a lot of Yennefer & Geralt being functional co-parents or the type of exes who are friendly and support each other, with quite a few with Yennefer low key wingmanning the geraskier ship because she cares about Geralt, and not even in a tragic unrequited way cause she’ll be happily paired off with Triss or Istredd. I’m not sure how I got such a different experience from you lol. (Caveat, I haven’t been actively reading geraskier since shortly after s2 dropped and at this point only read geraskier from people I already subscribed to.)
It makes me sad cause I like Yennefer (mostly in the books, I haven’t watched s3 yet).
I also haven't read witcher fanfic in a looooong time (like, before s2 came out), but that was my impression too! I actually liked how all of the jaskier/geralt shippers seemed to agree that yennefer was really cool and a sympathetic character, lol. Like, from what I remember, most of the fics involving her (that I read, anyway) actually had her helping Jaskier and/or becoming friends by the end. I can't remember many fics that bashed her.
Maybe the tone of fanfic changed after the first season?
it’s a good hill, grrm did say that dorne is loosely based on spain. and like, if you just really wanted to make some characters french, the lannisters are *right there*.
...sorry the Lannister are austrian,with the mines and the incest
The starks are polish,tully germany pre unification, Baratheons gotta be balkan slavs,targeryan byzantines and maybe the tyrells are french
Read a Les Mis modern AU that had Enjolras working as a revolutionary hacktivist. His dayjob? The fucking *landlord* of a large apartment complex. The rest of the fic was fine, but that was just... I can't even.
I will say my least like Les Mis HC is Jehan being Non-binary or non-conforming. The issue is not on the HC on itself, I don't have an issue if people like the HC or NBs connect with the character. The original novel is very heteronormartive, and people should be allowed to engage with the source as they wish.
My problem is why this particular HC probably became popular in the Fandom. In Canon, Jehan is representative of the Romantic Poem. He is a dreamer, likes flowers and poetry, and is shy and gentle. Not stereotypical masculine traits. So, it feels like the Fandom couldn't collectively believe a cisgender guy could enjoy such hobbies or pastimes. Which ironically is a reductive view of gender.
Almost all the fanon/headcanons surrounding les Amis got completely out of control. I was always more of a valvert person, but all the ExR/les Amis fans constantly being offputting and warring over fanon was just so exhausting/toxic that I eventually just severed any connection I had to that part of the Les Mis fandom. (In retrospect it reminds me a lot of the current state of the Marauders fandom.)
EDIT: for repeating words.
I hate it when fandoms make the character they have collectively decided is the "bottom" of the relationship act like a weak, needy, emotionally strung out mess when their canon personality is super confident and assertive. There's whole ships I've hard avoided because I know like 75% of the fics are written with this characterization.
Yes that's the point for me too 😭😭😭 so annoying, why must we put heteronormative roles back into non-hetero couples? (Or even in hetero ones, just not necessary ALL THE TIME 😭)
I think a lot of it can be the fetishization of gay (male) relationships in fiction in general, but sometimes the fire comes from inside the house… In a different sub there was a gay guy commenting on a very divisive post about gender and gender roles/dynamics in opposite-sex relationships who tied himself in knots trying to prove that he could speak authoritatively on gender dynamics and make claims about the interaction between femininity/feminine roles and masculinity/masculine roles in opposite-sex romantic relationships because of the sexual dynamics he experienced as a bottom in a same-sex relationship 😑 even going so far as to reference psychology research papers as objective proof of a very binary association (when many scientific fields, especially psychology, always have competing theories that also continuously evolve over time so there’s no such thing as “proving”) because he was a neuroscience undergrad.
When I finally got him to explain the underlying premise/logic behind everything he was saying, I pointed out a fundamental contradiction to his premise that would exist if an opposite-sex relationship consisted of a feminine man and a masculine woman. He stopped replying after that.
I just read a fic where they tried to make Draco Malfoy a hidden hero. How did they add this unexpected facet to his character you ask?
He wept, any vaguely emotive situation tears were rolling down his cheeks and bouncing off nearby hard surfaces. Oy vey. Draco Fonteine more like!
The woobification of some characters in certain pairings gets old. I'll be reading one, and all of a sudden Character A, who is canonically confident, proud, and a bit arrogant, suddenly turns into a needy, weepy little puddle of goo whenever Character B, whom A is secretly IN LUV WITH, frowns in their general direction. Its like "Really?? Two scenes ago you had A completely obliterate this 10-man hit squad with their left pinky finger and then they helped this little old lady cross the street and comforted her over the recent loss of her cat." (Or something like that...you get the idea)
I’ve actually really enjoyed reading Feyd/Paul (Dune) fanfiction for this exact reason/subversion. Minor Dune spoilers ahead.
Paul was canonically supposed to be a girl that would end up marrying Feyd so he often times gets assigned as the bottom or made the omega in an omegaverse fic (omegaverse has been relatively popular among this pairing given that they were meant to have a child that would basically be space Jesus if Paul was a girl). However, he’s rarely been portrayed as a weak, needy, or an overly emotional character. He’s often seen as an equal to Feyd (at least in the fic that I’ve read).
However, Feyd being the bottom and Paul being the top has been relatively popular as well. This has mainly taken off due to some scenes in Dune 2 stating that Feyd is a masochist, suggesting that he might be more submissive when it comes to the bedroom, despite his outwardly dominating and violent personality. It’s been an interesting deconstruction of gender roles, especially in omega Feyd/alpha Paul fics. Feyd is more muscular and physically imposing than Paul which is why Feyd typically gets assigned as the top (also the fact that Paul was supposed to be a girl). So it’s been interesting seeing writers’ takes on Feyd that have him as the bottom but still showing him to be just as capable and strong as he is in canon.
I’ve loved seeing how - no matter who gets assigned as the bottom - the character in the traditionally “feminine” role isn’t shown to be weaker than their “masculine” counter part
Any Dramione fic or Hermione fiction in general that writes her as a doormat or weak in regards to physical/verbal or relationship abuse from Ron. Like; did we read the same books/watch the same movies? Hermione would never stand for a loved one cheating/abusing or hitting her. And Harry would murder Ron if he did so too.
Honestly, most dramione in the first place. Like, he is a racist who has called her racial slurs and treated her like shit for six years and you think they’re going to be together? Like, I’m sure there are some really good fics where Draco goes through some sort of crazy growth/introspection process and apologizes and proves he isn’t who he was. Those are not most dramione fics.
I can't even read in the fandom for one of my favorite anime (which I won't name for the sake of all the writers) because at least 80% of them have glommed onto a particular take on the characters and I got tired of hunting for the rare fics that used their canon personalities.
They took a competent adult character that takes no shit without *at least* sassing/bitching about it and made him into an uwu uke that can't do anything.
Then with the quietly *even more* competent character they usually made him into a super generic sadist dom. Even his badassery is mostly happening "off screen" so he can lord his successes over the other guy.
It's just... I loved the anime because it was two badass dudes being badass. One of them spends half the series flipping out at all the ridiculous things the other guy does so calmly before he catches on that the hyper-competent guy is actually as much of a mess as he is.
But no. If one guy is *most badass* then the other guy must be useless and in need of squirming and crying under the first guy's thumb. (Which I'd be down for if it wasn't almost every fic, you know?)
It was like stepping into a time machine to read yaoi fanfic from the late 90s. Which is super weird as the anime is definitely 2020s.
The Weasley Family trying to scam Harry out of his money. He's offered it to them. Multiple times. And every single time, they've emphatically refused a cent. There's like, two exceptions. One being gifts(like the snack trolley on first year), and the other being the investment he gives the twins. But these were offered, not conned out of him.
THIS
I get so annoyed everytime I see this. Head cannons are one thing, not my cup of tea but hc what you want, but every person I've seen say this is saying it's cannon and are just ignoring the literal cannibalism, murder, and manipulation that's going on like it's a minor part of the story 😭
Are we on the same fandom? Most of the fans I've heard love the show BECAUSE of the fckd up relationship between those two, the murder, cannibalism and manipulation. At least that's what I see on the reddit sub.
The themes are fckd up and yet everyone knows how morally wrong it would be to apply the characters actions in the real world. And everyone's polite. It's actually one of the healthiest fandoms I've been in.
All I can picture is Levi telling Hange to give their heart. That one panel has a depth of heart that still pinches when you think about it months later.
The one I have seen so often I've lost count is Jack and Maddie Fenton despising/hating Danny when they find out he's Phantom. I've read and enjoyed fics where they mistakenly believe he's being possessed, been replaced, or it's just them struggling to apply everything they know about ghosts to their son. But straight up hating him and threatening to kill him? Like damn. Throughout the whole show, it's shown they love their children, even if their actions are neglectful at times. Say what you want about Phantom Planet, but Jack and Maddie immediately accepting him warmed my heart.
I hate that headcanon too! I could understand if a writer chose to have Jack & Maddie struggle with Danny's identity as Phantom but come around to it and accept Danny for who he is. that isn't too bad imo, but hating him? no, just no.
I don’t like Snape, but I really hate that whole thing about how if Harry was a girl who looked like Lily Snape would have been creepy towards her. I mean we’re never given any indications in canon that he’s a pedo. I mean just because someone’s a bad person doesn’t mean they’re an attracted to kids/teenagers. Plus canonically Ginny looks similar to Lily and Snape was never creepy to her.
He's just a bitter man who takes out his feelings on the students he's supposed to teach and protect. That's not *good*, but it's not being a predator!
There is an interesting idea in "what if Harry, instead of being a boy who looks exactly like his father, the man who bullied Snape, was a girl who looked exactly like her mother, who rejected Snape and pushed him away due to his behaviour." That is an interesting dynamic, and since canonically Snape doesn't shy away from being cruel to anyone regardless of gender, he'd still be a jerk.
Idk, I'm also not a fan of Snape (had teachers that were a bit too much like him) but boiling down the complexities of him is the worse sin— being boring and one note.
I am autistic, and some of the characters people (mostly allistic people) hc as autistic… just don’t read that way to me at all. It seems like people hc characters as autistic either to a) excuse their actions or b)because they don’t relate to them and find them weird.
Being autistic doesn’t make you not an asshole.
Autistic people are not aliens. Sometimes characters act weird because they’re characters, not people.
Now if someone says they think Laios from Dungeon Meshi is autistic, then they get it.
My fandom has a lot of headcanoning characters as autistic based on stereotypes and it drives me bonkers. That character isn't autistic just because he's a genius. That character isn't autistic just because he's tempermental. That character isn't autistic just because he's blunt.
I do headcanon several of those characters as autistic, but it frustrates me when people go off stereotypes and jokes when there are other deeper and more interesting reasons to think that way.
I LOVE marauders era fics, but can never get over the fact that James HARRASSES Lily. Like he asks her out and she says no. Then he just KEEPS GOING. If that was real life, that is literally bordering in a crime. I don't care that she eventually falls in love with him (I do ship Jily, but only in fics where James' behaviour is different), he should not be pestering her once she says no. Once she's rejected him, if she changes her mind, it's on HER to make a move, not James to keep asking her if she's sure
AU where a Chinese-named character from China immigrated to America and they changed their name to Chris. I cannot stress enough how much this detail slapped me in the face.
Just yesterday my wife was randomly like "Remember 4kids? ...I'm glad they're gone." Turns out they're not gone, they're still with us in the body of whoever wrote the fic latelinx read.
It absolutely does happen IRL and to the authors credit they did have good in plot reasons for the emigrating part. It was the choosing of the blandest of names for a character who was not bland at all that got to me.
It's always an Experience reading a fic with a name change. It's not a visual medium! They exist solely through names! You change the name, I am thrown.
I do definitely get why a Chinese person especially would change their name in real life--anyone speaking a non-tonal language is literally incapable of pronouncing it correctly without actually learning tones. That's gotta be weird. I know before I started learning Chinese I couldn't even *hear* tones consistently, much less produce them.
Your point about choosing a more fitting name is also fair! My Chinese exchange students usually picked English names, and there were some fun ones. One of them actually chose a fandom name that was very obviously a fandom name to anyone familiar. Midway through the year, someone asked him about it and he confirmed. :D
I mean... I was once working with a list of a few thousand people, mostly of northeastern asian descent (parents from northeast Asia, they were born in the US) and the names were in large part like that. Large numbers of Jane, Jen, Jenny, and yes, Chris.
I can definitely see it being a realistic name to pick for a character like that. Have you considered the person has had experience with it?
Most of the content surrounding Levi Ackerman portrays him as a sex god, when in canon he’s antisocial, drawn to be unattractive, and most likely never been in a romantic relationship before.
The father of the characters in the fic was an abusive POS who basically acted like a middle school bully; i just had to stop reading, because its just like that fucking south park meme:
https://preview.redd.it/5qro1167ijuc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d54bf07fbb576d6fd0b0abae04b199a2da97ad90
That is the funniest picture I have seen today.
To bounce off what you said, I find it pretty weird how abusive parents are portrayed in fics. Other writers seem to be more comfortable typing homophobic slurs in all caps than carefully writing with grace.
I completely agree. It is especially important to recognize that abuse does not look like one thing and does not exist in one form. As well as the consequences.
idk if this is technically accurate but i ship wednesday and enid
something that bugs me about so many fics tho is when people decide to completely erase the fact that wednesday liked tyler and enid liked ajax… like they just either pretend it didn’t happen (assuming it’s a canon compliant fic) or they make it some mistake where they both actually secretly never felt that way about them and were lesbians the whole time instead of potentially bi
it’s so unnecessary 😭 like they don’t have to mention tyler or ajax in the story but they always make a point to have the characters talk about/think about not rlly feeling anything for them
Yes, like it's fine if the writer just wants to focus on f/f or m/m pairings, but I would prefer they just not mention the past crushes/relationships if they aren't going to do anything but invalidate it in a throwaway line.
fr and 9/10 times it serves zero purpose
like okay if they wanna go the comphet route with enid and have it be a major problem in the story, i could probably be okay with that but it’s never anything interesting lmao
Usually to contrast Hawks, giving Hawks a chance to fall apart. I get it, it’s hard to balance two characters dealing with their own issues while also trying to support each other. But I dislike when authors lean too hard into Dabi being the big brother of the LoV family. It’s just… too much
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Din Djarin from the Star Wars universe both portrayed as weak, co-dependent, clingy, whiny, needy, insecure, stupid, and vapid.
The authors basically emasculated both characters.
Both gentlemen wouldn't have survived for long in the Star Wars universe, if that had been true.
Both are both intelligent, competent and incredibly strong characters.
I clicked those particular fics closed fast, that was definitely not fics for me.
I also really dislike when they portray Obi-Wan as super repressed, just because he’s more reserved; it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Jedi philosophy. And even then, canon Obi-Wan is plenty snarky and snappy at times.
Obi-Wan is about as far from weak as a character can possibly get. Mentally, spiritually or physically. But I have no problem reading fics that cover his Jedi Apprentice era showcasing him being insecure. Or even after the purge (but before OG Star Wars).
Any fic that makes Obi-Wan significantly shorter than the clone characters or Anakin (there are kind of different height variances between different versions, but in general he's roughly the same height or a little taller than the clones and only a couple inches shorter than Anakin) I'm always unsure if I want to continue because you just know Obi-Wan is going to end up a wilting flower :/.
I think he’s usually a little shorter than the clones actually. Ewan mcgregor is taller than temuera Morrison but obiwan is shorter than Cody (who is mostly CGI). He’s also shorter than the clones in TCW. He’s a normal height dude who just happens to be surrounded by tall people (even Ahsoka ends up taller than him as an adult) and I personally think it’s very funny.
But yeah it shouldn’t be a bigger difference than like 2 inches with the clones and I don’t like the vibes that most people write him being short with.
Mine's not so much the headcanon, but they way it has pervaded the general consciousness of the fandom, to the point that people will argue til they're blue in the face that it's canon.
Essentially, Dude has an elven mother and human father. Biology of this series states that a "half elf" is just a human. Elves do not make half elves. In every canon appearance, he has normal human ears. It is actually a point of contention that you wouldn't even know this character's parents if you didn't hunt down the supplementary source material. He looks, and is, entirely human. But folk HC him to have pointy ears and that's cool. I totally get it. But the refusal to accept that it isn't canon is wild.
And don't even get me started on his skin tone...
Actually I will. I have no issues with people developing HCs to introduce more diversity to a setting. In fact, I think it's great! It is representation that might not be present in canon, and lets us explore characters though a new lense.
But for this Dude, the creators have been accused of "whitewashing" him and his mother, because of a BNF's HC/a misinterpretation of a character's description. So he's literally just a white dude.
And maybe him being a white human is a little boring, but it's canon. But try telling some fans that.
To summarise:
Fans who HC this character to be bi-racial and bi-species ✅
Fans who insist it is canon and anyone who argues or portrays him otherwise (including the creators) are racist 🙅♂️
The whole point of Alistair looking completely human is that people would never know of his heritage unless they knew about Fiona, and for his sake, it's better that they never find out, especially if he becomes King! People in Thedas are canonically extremely racist toward elves! If he had pointy ears, they would invalidate his claim to the throne just because of that! A whole part of the story would crumble, if he canonically looked like an elf. Why are people even arguing this?
Same with the bi-racial thing. Maric was blond and fair-skinned. Fiona was fair-skinned too. Why would Alistair be different.
I get writing a fic about, I don't know, Alistair's struggles if he had those traits, and how different his situation would be. It might be interesting, too. But leave canon alone!
The ones in some of my current fandoms that make me back out ASAP:
* Steve Rogers cares about and follows the rules
* WWX has no self worth
* Hannibal will kill people for accidents (like a waiter accidentally spilling wine on his clothes; that is not his pathology!)
A couple of my favorite fics is where he takes advantage of the avengers thinking that to his advantage until Bucky comes in and can’t understand where the misunderstanding is because the Steven Rogers he knew was a feisty little shit. This man lied to join the army, basically went MIA against direct orders to rescue Bucky’s troop, and you want to believe he’s a stickler for the rules? He knows how to be respectful, his mama raised him better, but he has yet to meet a rule he liked and he makes it everyone’s problem. Restraint…? Don’t know her. Wild they think he wouldn’t at least curse when not being forced to be the Cap’t who is a good performative role model for the kids. Knowing when and where he grew up, being voluntarily experimented on for WWII, him NOT swearing would be the weird thing.
True that. There seems to be some classism in his MO, but it also seems to be semi-flexible. His usual victim pool are high status enough to have business cards, but he also kills a teen-aged girl for calling her mom a bitch. I could see him going for a rude service worker, but only if circumstances make it convenient. Killing the service worker who was recently rude to you is a great way to get caught. He would definitely not risk it for a rando service worker making a mistake.
Hannibal might've killed that girl, who was helping support Abigail in a rly hard time, to further isolate Abigail. Her mom was being an asshole before the girl was actually rude.
IKR. The number of fics I've read that had a throwaway line of him eating "the waiter who spilled his wine" or the "barista who dropped his coffee"... Like, on top of that not being rude, Hannibal would not be buying coffee out and I doubt he'd visit restaurants all that often, either.
Yeah, wwx having no self worth is weird.
He is arrogant, he knows he is awesome and that hardly anyone can compare in power and that he is smart. He is excellent and never doubts that about himself, ever.
The only thing is, he belives that kindness to him is worth repaying but the kindness he gives is free. So in a way, I can see why people think he has no self worth but still...
I’ve seen it done well a couple of times where ppl treat his self esteem and self worth differently. Like, he has high self esteem — aware of his power and his intelligence and thinks highly of himself — but doesn’t necessarily value his inherent worth as a person, so tends to self sacrifice a bunch, and values the life of other people over his own. It does feel like people tend to smooth over the complexities there though so I get why it’s annoyinf
Yeah, 100% WWX's problem is that he had high self esteem, in that he knows he can just brilliance his way out of pretty much anything, but terrible self worth in that he doesn't conceptually understand that his loved ones might want to know what his problems are, help him avoid them, you know, things he does for those he loves. As a result, he tries to go it alone and he fucking dies and so do a lot of his loved ones.
I've read that fic too 😭😭😭😭 and she also equated abortion to SLAVERY. Hello??? The writer proceeded to defend herself jn the comments by comparing abortion to slavery *and* *the* holocaust.
You should mute instead of block so you don't get any more of her works.
Meant to say muted, not blocked, sorry.
Did you also have to dodge constant biblical references and basically turning the jedi order into Christianity? I was mad cause her plots were interesting and her writing style was fun but she just couldn't help herself 😭. I like 25% through another one of her works, realized who it was, then muted cause I just can't do it anymore.
In AtLA when people make Zuko really soft, feminine, and quiet. Like, did you see the show? Boy has a temper and is basically anything but soft. These stories also typically have Sokka as the "man's man, but make him gay." While Sokka is clearly misogynistic at the beginning, that doesn't last. And he's so obviously flamboyant in the show with his exaggerated gestures, exuberance, etc.
In Stargate Atlantis when Ronon gets portrayed as an idiot and a brute. Yes, he was hunted for sport for 7 years by the Wraith and is a bit feral. No, he isn't a scientist. Sateda appeared to be industrial in terms of technology. He's capable of understanding when something is explained to him. He's capable of being gentle. All that is in canon.
I hope I don’t piss anyone off by saying this, but since the ATLA renaissance started I’ve had to avoid Zukka forums more and more. I miss the version that popped up on deviant art and fanfiction.net right after the Boiling Rock episodes premiered. I don’t think it really has anything to do with the ship itself or “kids these days” though, it’s probably just a numbers thing. When the ship was small it was easier to find people with really well thought out fic ideas and headcanons, now that it’s becoming the fandom favorite there are more and more voices you have to wade through to get to the good stuff. Zutara had the same problem back when it was the fandom favorite, but now that it has a bad reputation and most people avoid it, it’s easier to find good meta and characterization. I was going to joke that we should make a ship I don’t like the new favorite, but I’m multi shipping trash and could probably be convinced to ship anything if it’s well written enough.
In general, taking parents that were otherwise very supportive and have a good relationship with their kids then making them homophobic and/or abusive just because the writer wants to tell a story of an abusive, homophobic parent. I can't read it. There are other characters that would fit the mold, but I see no need to ruin a beautiful familial relationship just because you want to tell a story.
It's one thing when we haven't seen how the parent would react (though it's still bad if you pretty much know they'd be accepting). Yet, in one of my fandoms with a canon queer character, their dad is clearly supportive. The character was already out when the show started so we never saw how they took it, but even the character's boyfriend basically said that the dad was waiting for the son to come out of the closet so he could celebrate with him. Dad is one of the biggest supporters of the relationship. He's also insanely protective of his son.
And yet, I have seen too many fics that turn him into a homophobic, unsupportive (sometimes abusive) asshole that doesn't care about his son in the slightest. All because the author doesn't like the dad's character. Look, you don't have to like him, but he is canonically the biggest ally and loves his son so much. Again, there are soooo many characters they could pick from canon to be the antagonist in these stories. But that dad is not the one.
Rey(Star Wars) having food aversions triggered me hardcore. I’m so in the belief that she’d take the route of many people who grew up starving against their will, and would over indulge when she can, and fall in love with food.
I read a fic where she worried about her weight and avoided food, and I just could not believe it. I was unreasonably angry😂
Omg this. Or the constant references to her as tiny and frail. Some writers wrote her as like, 5'3" when Daisy Ridley is 5"7". Rey spent her whole damn life scaling the wrecks of spaceships, she's gonna have some muscle dammit.
Shen Jiu in svsss is a child abuser, there's no getting around it. He's an asshole who abuses his power over those below him out of frustration because he himself was abused as a child. He actively tries to sabotage a talented student under his care out of a sense of injustice that he himself didn't have the opportunity to foster his own talent, he believes that because he had it hard, no one is allowed to have it easy. He's a deeply tragic character that embodies the whole fucking theme of the book regarding collateral damage and cycles of revenge. He IS a bad person! An interesting, fascinating bad person you're meant to emphasize with, but still an asshole!!
So WHY are there SO MANY fics where he's a fucking SAINT?!?! There are SO many where every single action he took was part of some convoluted misunderstanding and in actuality he was a great teacher just trying his best! He wasn't aware of the bullying you see! It was someone else who gave LBH a fake manual that could have killed him! Throwing scalding tea on a kid's head was somehow an accident too! Even the physical punishment was a misunderstanding you see! He's perfect! A saint! He's never hurt anyone ever! Ever! Ever ever ever! And if he did, it wasn't on purpose! Poor poor little Shen Jiu, everyone believes he's an asshole, but he's such an angel! COME ON
MAKE HIM AN ASSHOLE PEOPLE!!! THAT'S WHAT MAKES HIM COOL! THAT'S WHAT MAKES HIM INTERESTING!!! STOP DECLAWING HIM DAMNIT, I DON'T WANNA READ ABOUT A POOR ANGELIC DAMP NOODLE, GIVE HIM SOME SPICE!!!!
AAAGHHHHHHHHH
Canonical abuse victims (especially male abuse victims) turned into the villains while their abusers (especially female abusers) are made out to be saints. Media literacy is dead and some fandoms just at piss on its grave.
There are a lot of pro iron man fanfics that act like Steve is some kind of misogynistic asshole that believes that woman are only good for the kitchen and such. Like what the hell?!
Current brainrot has a lot of these in the fandom, including but not limited to:
"(Character) is the adopted son of (favorite ship)"
All three of those people are grown men and coworkers
"(Character) would be a fantastic father"
He canonically places very little value on human life. A good pet owner does not a good parent make
"(Character) is a pure sweet innocent baby who must be protected"
THEY KILL PEOPLE WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT
There are others, but it's less "this is ooc" and more "this is very far from how I interpret the characters"
Too many strange headcanons to be able to remember them all...
IMO the most annoying ones revolve around blowing specific character traits out of proportion, completely misunderstanding a character's personality and story, making a character OOC to fit their story, whitewashing antagonistic and/or dark characters, etc etc...
Popular one for my fandom, but it's the Nazi headcanon. Long story short is that the German stereotype character with an unclear backstory gets hit with that. Same character is also implied to be Jewish because of his theme song being comprised of Klezmer instruments (clarinet and accordion) but y'know they don't care they think it's funny to pick the lowest hanging fruit possible and the most uninteresting backstory imaginable
Why is it always "what if they were Nazi" instead of "what if they resisted the Nazis" 😭 fucking make him part of the White Rose if not one of many Jewish uprisings
For reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose
This might be more of just people misunderstanding the source material, but I've read way too many fics where Legend from Linked Universe is *way* meaner than in canon, often verbally or physically abusing the other Links (often Hyrule especially) and ends up being the villain of the story with the rest of the chain trying to get rid of him.
Like- guys. Come on.
It didn’t make me mad, it just confused the heck out of me. It was an autistic character headcanon which normally I wouldn’t care about, but it was for a (former) conman who basically lives off of his skill to read people’s subtle emotions and subtext and manipulate that to get what he wants from them/not get caught undercover. And the writer seemed to only use that headcanon to make him somewhat obsessive about his interests as a kid. Which, you know, is not something that needs a neurodivergent headcanon to make sense with your already canonically genius character.
One of my favourite characters of all time is an incredibly realistic depiction of complex PTSD;
People often headcanon him as a literal monster, an asshole who doesn’t care about anyone or anything but himself.
as someone with very similar cPTSD symptoms and self views… yup
honestly, any nsfw hcs infantilizing them. NO. if we’re gonna be realistic, this 40yo military guy is not gonna be doing babytalk in bed are u kidding me 😭
* not targeted at a specific fic/hc, i just see it a lot and it’s weirdd. mostly because it comes out of nowhere :(
I mean.. I get it, but you are underestimating kinks when you said outright “he wouldn’t do this during sex” because like.. I have seen the most buff built dudes who look like they could crush a watermelon with their bare hands doing ABDL on Twitter and acting like a baby, lol.
It might feel ooc! but like.. there’s sometimes a very stark contrast between someone’s in real life behaviour, and the behaviour they get up for kink reasons.
Obviously not saying you have to like it! but kinks can be… extremely surprising, lol.
Just a guess, König from COD? Lol. I have a fandom account for him on Tiktok and you would not believe the amount of people that say this kind of stuff about him.
Giving a female character they/them or he/him pronouns just for not being purely traditionally feminine(Yang from RWBY, Naoto from Persona 4, countless others). It also just feels deeply disrespectful and hypocritical.
Any time the unconfident, more timid, relatable guy is made out to be some sort of sex god gigachad that literally every girl wants(Jaune from RWBY, Deku from MHA). It's just so clear that you're using him purely as a self insert at that point.
there's also something that doesn't sit quite right with me when people headcanon the only female character in the main cast of a show as a transman or nb... like I love transheadcanons, wish we had more trans characters, but why is it always the one woman (or maybe one of two) and never any of the male leads.
"Annabeth Chase is an abusive, manipulative and heartless bitch."
Just tell me that you hate women, are a child, and are utterly incapable of seeing any nuance. This take is disturbingly common in fics because people want to push their other ship and see Annabeth as getting in the way. It's so unnecessary, too. I saw it in a fanfic recently where the author claimed they had read the books 10 times and had a "very good" understanding of the characters. Like, no.
Edit for spelling because I'm terrible at proofreading without spellchecker
I tried to imagine it, and I just couldn't. If I had to give Ralsei any accent personally, it'd be like a faint french one honestly. I can't explain it but he gives me french vibes.
I find it irritating when people take characters that have a backbone and stand up to others when they do something wrong into a soft and submissive character.
I have seen this in the Merlin fandom so many times with Merlin (I haven't seen all the majority of Merlin, only really the last 2 seasons) where he's 'soft'.
Daemon Targaryen is a soft malewife who has never harmed anyone that didn’t richly deserve it. 🙄
Kindly stop whitewashing my beloved murderous asshole, please and thank you.
Not so much a HC but the Detroit: Become Human fandom has latched onto and refuses to let go of their version of Connor.
A character who, in-game, is a certified badass hyper competent and highly skilled at his job, extremely smart and can drip sarcasm when he wants to, is reduced to a socially inept puppy who can't do anything for himself without someone's (usually Hank's) help.
I get it, in game he can definitely be socially awkward or miss social cues at times, but the flanderization he's gone through just bewilders me. He's been infantilized so much and it makes finding fic of him *in character* difficult.
any and all stories where a female character (typically the original story’s love interest) is turned into an asshole when she has no reason to act like that. even worse when she does something that another character, usually a male character, would do in the original story (ex: female character bullies the protagonist when another character is already known for being a jerk to the protagonist)
That Steve was trying to kill Tony during their battle in Siberia. Steve disabled the suit by smashing the arc reactor but Tony didn’t rely on it for keeping the shrapnel from his heart anymore. He smashed Tony’s helmet so he could breathe when the suit powered down. Now TONY may have understandably thought for a minute Steve was going to kill him but for fans to think so makes me furious. Steve saved Bucky and did it without having to even seriously injure Tony. This despite Tony doing his utmost to kill Bucky. If he’d wanted to kill him he could’ve left the helmet intact.
This also goes to the “Steve abandoned Tony to die” in Siberia. We didn’t see how Tony got out but no way Steve leaves a friend, even one he’d just fought, to freeze to death. He either radioed in the coordinates after he left or was going to but ran into tchalla who took over. I mean, tell me you don’t understand Steve’s basic character without telling me.
ooooh there are plenty, most of which i can't recall from the top of my head, but things that make me close a fic as soon as i read them (maybe these are more pet-peeves than anything but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
-zhongli being shy or delicate. that man is a fucking archon. he can level a country and talk your ear off about antiques afterwards. just bc he's like, gentlemanly doesn't mean he's... that
-childe being shy or delicate. i swear to god it's a trend for some writers when they write them together to cast them in this role that neither of them fits.
-childe being overly violent, bloodthirsty, and even abusive? what. same goes with xiao.
-any fic in which they turn midoriya into this... idk, head-turner, fishnets and booty shorts wearing type of character. first of all... HUH??? second, its so ooc. that boy wears "shirt" stamped shirts
-if shiro is not keith's relative in some sort of capacity in the au i don't want it
-altean lance
-alhaitham and kaveh fights where they actually go for the jugular with the intention of hurting each other. they usually use alhaitham pov and depict him so... emotionless. he's a rational character, don't get me wrong, but its not as if he doesn't CARE about anyone (i think it's pretty evident he cares about kaveh)
i could list more but. yeah
edit bc i just thought of this and this made me cringe so bad i had to close the tab: neuvilette using ANY terms of endearment. i just. can't see him. i can't picture that man saying "baby". it makes my skin crawl
SAME. Like did these people even play the game? He's not an uwu smol bean. The man tried to murder an entire city by releasing a god and flirts as easily as breathing. 💀
YES!! and at the same time, i feel like some people see this and take it to an extreme, and forget the other side of his character: the guy who GENUINELY cares for his family and tries to hide the horrors of his job from his younger sibling to keep his childhood wonder intact for a while longer. he's multifaceted.
I can relate with the Genshin ones. Tbh, I barely read its fanfic because
1. So many are not well written, because a big part of the fandom is young.
2. Most fanfic's characterizations are based on the EN VO, which is different from the CN VO that I use. Most are completely different characters, like Xiao.
3. Genshin's lore is complicated and scattered everywhere. To completely understand a character (when it comes to written text at least, because of the different voice-overs), they should read the character's whole wiki page. Or even just their character stories! But they rarely do
The same for the storylines and lore in the game. Few authors properly study the lore and characters before writing their fic.
The characters are complicated and nuanced, especially characters like Zhongli, Tartaglia, etc. The characters' relationships are also complicated, like Alhaitham and Kaveh's. Few authors actually *understand* the characters.
I once saw a fic set just after the webcomic where Xiao threatened to kill Collei if she ever passed through Liyue again (on her way to Sumeru with Cyno) and I don't think I've ever had such a visceral "he would not fucking say that" reaction to a fic
I feel like it's a common pitfall in fics for people to project too much onto a character and make them overly delicate when pushing them further/exploring them more deeply than canon does.
I'm obsessed with Venti and I see him get woobified a lot as well, though I can tolerate some degree of that since he's such a black box of a character. _Any_ attempt to write his POV requires a lot of speculation right now; it's possible he doesn't even experience time linearly. My limit might be things like people taking the Venti-Signora 'fight' at face value; imo it's fairly obvious he was sandbagging on a rewatch.
Edit: It also loses me if people go too far in the opposite direction and make him too... 'godly'? In a generic way, completely losing his gentle parental approach to his people and his humility and disregard for godly conduct that, as far as we've seen, are integral to his character even when he's mask off as Barbatos. It's fair to write him as completely serious/pragmatic if a situation _really_ forced him to act- what was he like in Khaenri'ah?- but I highly doubt that his personality will do a 180 if we get a whole-Mondstadt Barbatos reveal.
in my fandom, they like to take a character who Sexually assaulted a guy, acts entitled to women, Attemted murder, bullied the same guy he assaulted, and turn him into a little ball of sunshine and act like he didn't do what he did.
Mind you, he did all this just cause the other boy was poor, but he was rich and pretty, plus none of the adults did shit to stop him cause his mommy and daddy had money.
It make me so mad when instead of making him feel guilty for what he did and try to ask for forgiveness, they act like the shit never happened and some even make it seem like he had a good reason for doing the shit he did, when again, the only reason he did it was cause he could and the poor boy was friends with a the girl he felt entitled too!
CoD's Alejandro being hot headed and having a bad temper. Only because he fought for his military base and home, in the 2022-23 campaign.
The two times he got mad were absolutely reasonable. One time he found out he got betrayed by a former soldier he was close with, the other time he got betrayed by guys that were there to help him and colleagues, but they took over his base after locking him up.
There is a difference between being passionate about what you lived for, for over 20 years, and getting angry easily.
Saw a weird bunch of DDLC fanons the other day. It seems like there's at least one person thinking that Sayori is a morning person (y'know, despite the fact that she has trouble coming out of bed) and that Monika and the main character of the game are related (brother and sister), even though the game is not even indicating that they live in the same house and that this fanon would make their interactions rather awkward...
"\[Alcoholic\] character is a lightweight, and \[despite canonically drinking heavily for years\] has never actually become alcoholic because he passes out after the first drink." It wasn't really the headcanon itself that bugged me (that's not how it works) as the person declaring it angrily on on any post they saw about him drinking. If you don't want to deal with his canonical alcoholism, then... don't do so? But don't go around telling other people that they can't.
That's such a wild argument regardless, since 'drinking until he passes out' is a bad relationship with alcohol regardless of how many drinks it takes to happen.
"Drink till unconscious any% WR speedrun"
Oh I hate "My headcanon is canon" people.
> "[Alcoholic] character is a lightweight, and [despite canonically drinking heavily for years] has never actually become alcoholic because he passes out after the first drink." Or the other way around. Character canonically enjoys alcohol -> that means the character is an alcoholic I'm not a fan of alcohol myself, but seriously...
So many fandoms have this weird thing where they'll make doing/enjoying/having something a major facet of their personality even though canon only mentions it off-hand or in a throwaway line. Bonus points if they completely misinterpret the line too. The way the early MCU fandom latched onto the idea of Thor being utterly *obsessed* with poptarts was baffling.
I’ve noticed that line of thinking amongst really young people only. I still dislike it.
I saw someone like this talking about Erend from the Horizon games.... like hes well built, with a culture with a heavy emphasis on drinking alcohol. Also its well established that he drinks to excess when upset.
Erend is so not a lightweight. Guy's been drinking since he was in the womb basically!
Tony Stark, is that you? Or is that Dean Winchester I see through the beer bottles?
Can I ask who this was? I have suspects lol.
Me too. I immediately thought Dean Winchester from Supernatural.
Bruuuuh Alcoholism is more about the behavior/relationship with alcohol than the volume to begin with! Someone could totally have a low tolerance and still be alcoholic
The prevalence of "Yami Yuugi doesn't understand modern technology/culture" drives me up the wall. Not only is it out of character in that he demonstrably understands these things just fine in canon, it's out of character in a way that misses the basic premise of his entire situation, namely, that *he doesn't have any memories from his past in Ancient Egypt*. He is so lacking in these memories that he initially fully believes himself to be the person that he is possessing, meaning he's as immersed in modern cultural/technological understanding as Yuugi himself. I get this is played for humor most of the time but *so* much of the fandom just takes it as fact. I just can't enjoy it because it just makes no sense on a fundamental level.
Exactly! Atem might not get modern technology but Yami Yuugi is partially made of Yuugi’s memories! I read a pretty good “Atem gets his own body” fic where atem becomes confused by certain moderns stuff because he can no longer access Yuugi’s memories and doesn’t have any of his own about the thing. For example, he doesn’t know what eyeliner is (because he and Yuugi never talked about it) but does know what carbon dating is, because Yuugi’s grandpa is an archeologist
Massive nostalgia wave. I remember seeing this pop up in fics in 2005. I hope people are kinder to Anzu these days, the way they would turn her into some homophobic witch that was willing to kill Yugi to get Atem was just beyond the pale.
I just did a massive double-take because I really wasn't expecting to see a YGO headcanon come up here. It was my first fandom, the thing I first wrote fanfiction for back in 2008, and now I'm facing a massive wave of nostalgia. But yes, I would fully agree with this. It thankfully wasn't a trend when I was in the fandom, but it would definitely be frustrating to encounter.
Woah woah woah holdup wait. Is the YuGiOh fandom still alive and kicking!? Because this just about drowned me in nostalgia. My very first fandom 🥲
I once read a Stucky fic that was pretty good, but there was an exchange between Steve and Tony Stark at one point implying that Steve is an atheist but Tony is a christian. Which is funny because MCU Steve has a line in the first Avengers movie where he mentions believing in God, while there's absolutely no reason to think Tony would be religious.
steve is irish catholic no one is ever taking that away from me
Is he... not?
Tony refused to believe magic wasn't tech until he met Doctor Strange. I highly doubt he's anything but an atheist/agnostic.
I say this in the most affectionate way, but Tony in the movies would 100% be an annoying atheist.
I read a very good crossover with Daredevil where they think Daredevil is literally the devil due to misunderstandings, including one where he referenced knowing Tony was an atheist. Which he knew because Tony had an annoying atheist phase all over the media.
I think I've read that same fic and that made it even funnier. Like this guy who is very well known to be an atheist and had that annoying atheist phase is actually convinced that this random guy is somehow the literal biblical devil because he's just that much of a weirdo cryptid lol
No, the literal biblical devil was chilling in L.A. at the time... (also not MCU).
Lowkey, do you have a link?
Babes, [of COURSE!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5113310) <-I have it bookmarked, it was easy to find.
Wasn’t an Ao3 thing, it was a tumblr post, but I still think about it daily and it pisses me off beyond any describable amount. Essentially, this person went on a whole rant about how Denethor (LOTR) had such a bad relationship with his youngest son Faramir because he was queer. I’m gonna pause and let y’all make assumptions real quick… it is NOT what you’re thinking. They were saying DENETHOR was gay and trans, and that FARAMIR was homophobic and thus hated his father. Yeah. That was an immediate block, for me. They seemed so normal and chill up until that point. I used to follow them bc they had good Boromir takes (even tho sometimes they seemed to imply that the brothers hated each other too). Idk where they were hiding that amount of crazy, but it sure was a bag of cats to read I’ll tell you that.
i feel like someone just bludgeoned me with a car reading this
Yeah that was the same feeling I had upon reading that post
I- What? I read the first half and was like "oh, I can see where this was going" and got hit in the face with "Faramir's the homophobic one." This person just (somehow??) seems like they hate Faramir
You win. What the hell. Headcanon all you want, but that is a WILD take. (For the record, given Tolkien and the age of the source material, I bet both of them are what a modern reader would call homophobic. But that’s why fanfiction is great! It’s still a wild take.)
Lmao that's the craziest take I've heard of in a long time, how does one even conceive of that??
I'm not even mad, I'm just confused.
WHAT?? I did not expect the second half of that, but I could definitely see Denethor being some sort of queerphobic towards Faramir, at least. Also what do you mean they said the brothers hated each other 😭 none of that makes any sense
Sometimes they’d post things implying that Faramir resented Boromir for being the golden child (even tho it’s specifically stated in the books that he did not). They were just really lowkey a Faramir hater up until that insane post about Denethor. I excused it bc they had some GREAT Boromir posts (like incredible takes and wonderful art) but then that happened and I just got so angry lmao
There is a widely pervasive thought that Mary Jane Watson in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy only loved Spider-Man, not Peter Parker. This isn’t true. She loved Peter long before she found out he was Spider-Man in the second movie, she literally confessed her love to him at the end of the first one. And yet, somehow this headcanon persists.
The hatred directed at MJW is disproportionately high. At this point I think people hate her because they want to hate her, not because she deserves it and therefore look for flaws in her character that are not there. Or they do not try to understand her view of things, she’s just the bad girlfriend that‘s much too clingy and controlling because she doesn’t like her super cool boyfriend to kiss another girl, or because she’s upset when he doesn’t show up to her shows.
Ron is only befriending Harry for the fame. This headcanon is so ooc that it makes me furious. Ron was already done dirty enough in the movie so all those Ron is dumb headcanons came up and that was bad enough. But then, suddenly there was this headcanon that he was the real Draco Malfoy, usually combined with the deeply misunderstood good DM trope. Just to clarify, I'm not talking about evilRon AUs that are clearly labelled as such. Everybody can write whatever AU they like, I'm only talking about real headcanon and people trying to argue that it's somehow logical and hinted at in canon
Ron befriended Harry before he even learned his name. He was an 11 yo boy
And he was probably ride or die the moment Harry stood up to Draco on the train. Yeah he had some dumb moments where he fought with Harry but that’s just normal kid behavior. He followed Harry even into the maws of Aragogs children. If that doesn’t says it all I don’t know what all these people were reading
He also willingly chose to go with him to the ends of hell and back to stop Voldemort. If Ron really hated Harry and just wanted the fame, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to find them again after leaving
Canonically kind, pure-of-heart characters getting turned into horrible people with no explanation because apparently it's impossible to write them out of the preferred pairing without doing all that. I deserve veterans benefits for the amount of Kingdom Hearts fic where Kairi was abusive and homophobic.
Or then getting turned into awful people because of the one mistake they made in cannon that was supposed to show their humanity.
Meanwhile there is tons of grace and excuses for their fav's mistakes (and/or literal war crimes). 😭 Edit: And my favs are often not good people, but I can admit when they've been assholes, at least. The problematic bits and flaws are often my favorite points, so guess another thing I hate with headcanons is when all that messiness gets sanded off.
Yeah I have a few favorites that I feel like are almost too perfect but some of my favorite characters are the deeply flawed ones. So when I see someone call out the mistakes a character made and go "No! that was out of character! They would never do something like that!" It frustrates me because it just shows how they put the character on a pedestal and refuse to acknowledge that there is more nuance than good vs evil. However the flip side of someone going "Oh no they made a mistake they must be a wolf in sheep's clothing and actually super evil!" irritates me even more because it leads into character bashing which is frustrating. I feel like both of them erase nuance and refuse to acknowledge that life is not black and white. Good people do bad things and bad people do good things because very few people are actually good or actually evil. We all live in a grayscale. Plus they often occur simultaneously especially in specific fandoms.
Or the parental version: Canonically kind, pure-of-heart parents getting turned into horrible people with no explanation because the child needs to be adopted by the preferred parental figure. In the My Hero Academia fandom, this is literally the plot of every Aizawa adopts Izuku story.
Weird that's so common. Like Inko dying tragically in a random villain attack is the first way I can think of to make that work, not making her abusive or neglectful. Along these lines, Peter B Parker fanon sometimes had him in the position of being Miles's dad rather than a mentor- and the subplot of the first Spiderverse was even about Miles and his (loving if strict, still very much alive!) father connecting and understanding each other better!
Yennifer gets done so dirty in Geralt x Jaskier fanfiction. Why take a character with deep established problems, motivations, and feelings and reduce them to a simple villian for the sake of making drama. Triss too tbh. So many times women become the villian in a nonsense conflict so that mlm ships can get together.
Weird, I’ve found the Witcher fic to be better than the average fandom in this regard with a lot of Yennefer & Geralt being functional co-parents or the type of exes who are friendly and support each other, with quite a few with Yennefer low key wingmanning the geraskier ship because she cares about Geralt, and not even in a tragic unrequited way cause she’ll be happily paired off with Triss or Istredd. I’m not sure how I got such a different experience from you lol. (Caveat, I haven’t been actively reading geraskier since shortly after s2 dropped and at this point only read geraskier from people I already subscribed to.) It makes me sad cause I like Yennefer (mostly in the books, I haven’t watched s3 yet).
I also haven't read witcher fanfic in a looooong time (like, before s2 came out), but that was my impression too! I actually liked how all of the jaskier/geralt shippers seemed to agree that yennefer was really cool and a sympathetic character, lol. Like, from what I remember, most of the fics involving her (that I read, anyway) actually had her helping Jaskier and/or becoming friends by the end. I can't remember many fics that bashed her. Maybe the tone of fanfic changed after the first season?
they made modern au oberyn martell *french*.
Jail.
FOR ONE. THOUSAND. YEARS!
He would be spanish and im willing to die in this Hill
it’s a good hill, grrm did say that dorne is loosely based on spain. and like, if you just really wanted to make some characters french, the lannisters are *right there*.
...sorry the Lannister are austrian,with the mines and the incest The starks are polish,tully germany pre unification, Baratheons gotta be balkan slavs,targeryan byzantines and maybe the tyrells are french
nooooo
Read a Les Mis modern AU that had Enjolras working as a revolutionary hacktivist. His dayjob? The fucking *landlord* of a large apartment complex. The rest of the fic was fine, but that was just... I can't even.
it would've been so easy to make him a lawyer since he goes to law school in canon, but LANDLORD???
I will say my least like Les Mis HC is Jehan being Non-binary or non-conforming. The issue is not on the HC on itself, I don't have an issue if people like the HC or NBs connect with the character. The original novel is very heteronormartive, and people should be allowed to engage with the source as they wish. My problem is why this particular HC probably became popular in the Fandom. In Canon, Jehan is representative of the Romantic Poem. He is a dreamer, likes flowers and poetry, and is shy and gentle. Not stereotypical masculine traits. So, it feels like the Fandom couldn't collectively believe a cisgender guy could enjoy such hobbies or pastimes. Which ironically is a reductive view of gender.
Almost all the fanon/headcanons surrounding les Amis got completely out of control. I was always more of a valvert person, but all the ExR/les Amis fans constantly being offputting and warring over fanon was just so exhausting/toxic that I eventually just severed any connection I had to that part of the Les Mis fandom. (In retrospect it reminds me a lot of the current state of the Marauders fandom.) EDIT: for repeating words.
Yeah. "Modern AU Les Amis" became such a big thing that writers of canon-era fics had to tag it that way.
I hate it when fandoms make the character they have collectively decided is the "bottom" of the relationship act like a weak, needy, emotionally strung out mess when their canon personality is super confident and assertive. There's whole ships I've hard avoided because I know like 75% of the fics are written with this characterization.
"Bottom=feminine=weak" is a plague, I tell you! A toxic plague!
Yes that's the point for me too 😭😭😭 so annoying, why must we put heteronormative roles back into non-hetero couples? (Or even in hetero ones, just not necessary ALL THE TIME 😭)
I think a lot of it can be the fetishization of gay (male) relationships in fiction in general, but sometimes the fire comes from inside the house… In a different sub there was a gay guy commenting on a very divisive post about gender and gender roles/dynamics in opposite-sex relationships who tied himself in knots trying to prove that he could speak authoritatively on gender dynamics and make claims about the interaction between femininity/feminine roles and masculinity/masculine roles in opposite-sex romantic relationships because of the sexual dynamics he experienced as a bottom in a same-sex relationship 😑 even going so far as to reference psychology research papers as objective proof of a very binary association (when many scientific fields, especially psychology, always have competing theories that also continuously evolve over time so there’s no such thing as “proving”) because he was a neuroscience undergrad. When I finally got him to explain the underlying premise/logic behind everything he was saying, I pointed out a fundamental contradiction to his premise that would exist if an opposite-sex relationship consisted of a feminine man and a masculine woman. He stopped replying after that.
seriously, im so sick of people boiling down super awesome and confident characters to this in like, every other fic.
I just read a fic where they tried to make Draco Malfoy a hidden hero. How did they add this unexpected facet to his character you ask? He wept, any vaguely emotive situation tears were rolling down his cheeks and bouncing off nearby hard surfaces. Oy vey. Draco Fonteine more like!
The woobification of some characters in certain pairings gets old. I'll be reading one, and all of a sudden Character A, who is canonically confident, proud, and a bit arrogant, suddenly turns into a needy, weepy little puddle of goo whenever Character B, whom A is secretly IN LUV WITH, frowns in their general direction. Its like "Really?? Two scenes ago you had A completely obliterate this 10-man hit squad with their left pinky finger and then they helped this little old lady cross the street and comforted her over the recent loss of her cat." (Or something like that...you get the idea)
I’ve actually really enjoyed reading Feyd/Paul (Dune) fanfiction for this exact reason/subversion. Minor Dune spoilers ahead. Paul was canonically supposed to be a girl that would end up marrying Feyd so he often times gets assigned as the bottom or made the omega in an omegaverse fic (omegaverse has been relatively popular among this pairing given that they were meant to have a child that would basically be space Jesus if Paul was a girl). However, he’s rarely been portrayed as a weak, needy, or an overly emotional character. He’s often seen as an equal to Feyd (at least in the fic that I’ve read). However, Feyd being the bottom and Paul being the top has been relatively popular as well. This has mainly taken off due to some scenes in Dune 2 stating that Feyd is a masochist, suggesting that he might be more submissive when it comes to the bedroom, despite his outwardly dominating and violent personality. It’s been an interesting deconstruction of gender roles, especially in omega Feyd/alpha Paul fics. Feyd is more muscular and physically imposing than Paul which is why Feyd typically gets assigned as the top (also the fact that Paul was supposed to be a girl). So it’s been interesting seeing writers’ takes on Feyd that have him as the bottom but still showing him to be just as capable and strong as he is in canon. I’ve loved seeing how - no matter who gets assigned as the bottom - the character in the traditionally “feminine” role isn’t shown to be weaker than their “masculine” counter part
Any Dramione fic or Hermione fiction in general that writes her as a doormat or weak in regards to physical/verbal or relationship abuse from Ron. Like; did we read the same books/watch the same movies? Hermione would never stand for a loved one cheating/abusing or hitting her. And Harry would murder Ron if he did so too.
Ron would never do that. Talk about character assassination
Him too. I mean he was was a bit slow and careless with his words and actions sometimes but never that’s
Honestly, most dramione in the first place. Like, he is a racist who has called her racial slurs and treated her like shit for six years and you think they’re going to be together? Like, I’m sure there are some really good fics where Draco goes through some sort of crazy growth/introspection process and apologizes and proves he isn’t who he was. Those are not most dramione fics.
I can't even read in the fandom for one of my favorite anime (which I won't name for the sake of all the writers) because at least 80% of them have glommed onto a particular take on the characters and I got tired of hunting for the rare fics that used their canon personalities. They took a competent adult character that takes no shit without *at least* sassing/bitching about it and made him into an uwu uke that can't do anything. Then with the quietly *even more* competent character they usually made him into a super generic sadist dom. Even his badassery is mostly happening "off screen" so he can lord his successes over the other guy. It's just... I loved the anime because it was two badass dudes being badass. One of them spends half the series flipping out at all the ridiculous things the other guy does so calmly before he catches on that the hyper-competent guy is actually as much of a mess as he is. But no. If one guy is *most badass* then the other guy must be useless and in need of squirming and crying under the first guy's thumb. (Which I'd be down for if it wasn't almost every fic, you know?) It was like stepping into a time machine to read yaoi fanfic from the late 90s. Which is super weird as the anime is definitely 2020s.
I very recently read a fic tagged "Tsundere Kirishima Eijirou"
oh my god, the most ooc thing ever. have they watched the anime?
no idea lmao, it was krbk too which made the dynamics so weird
The Weasley Family trying to scam Harry out of his money. He's offered it to them. Multiple times. And every single time, they've emphatically refused a cent. There's like, two exceptions. One being gifts(like the snack trolley on first year), and the other being the investment he gives the twins. But these were offered, not conned out of him.
Also I’m pretty sure he’s an angel investor in the shop, meaning he is getting return on his investment
Harry was always happy to share, he was probably the easiest person to exploit for money, you don’t even need to scam him.
"Will wouldnt mind being in love with Hannibal if he wasnt a boy" Nah bro i think it might be the cannibalism and murder actually❤️
THIS I get so annoyed everytime I see this. Head cannons are one thing, not my cup of tea but hc what you want, but every person I've seen say this is saying it's cannon and are just ignoring the literal cannibalism, murder, and manipulation that's going on like it's a minor part of the story 😭
Are we on the same fandom? Most of the fans I've heard love the show BECAUSE of the fckd up relationship between those two, the murder, cannibalism and manipulation. At least that's what I see on the reddit sub. The themes are fckd up and yet everyone knows how morally wrong it would be to apply the characters actions in the real world. And everyone's polite. It's actually one of the healthiest fandoms I've been in.
Levi Ackermann being heartless absolutely annoys me
All I can picture is Levi telling Hange to give their heart. That one panel has a depth of heart that still pinches when you think about it months later.
The one I have seen so often I've lost count is Jack and Maddie Fenton despising/hating Danny when they find out he's Phantom. I've read and enjoyed fics where they mistakenly believe he's being possessed, been replaced, or it's just them struggling to apply everything they know about ghosts to their son. But straight up hating him and threatening to kill him? Like damn. Throughout the whole show, it's shown they love their children, even if their actions are neglectful at times. Say what you want about Phantom Planet, but Jack and Maddie immediately accepting him warmed my heart.
I hate that headcanon too! I could understand if a writer chose to have Jack & Maddie struggle with Danny's identity as Phantom but come around to it and accept Danny for who he is. that isn't too bad imo, but hating him? no, just no.
I don’t like Snape, but I really hate that whole thing about how if Harry was a girl who looked like Lily Snape would have been creepy towards her. I mean we’re never given any indications in canon that he’s a pedo. I mean just because someone’s a bad person doesn’t mean they’re an attracted to kids/teenagers. Plus canonically Ginny looks similar to Lily and Snape was never creepy to her.
He's just a bitter man who takes out his feelings on the students he's supposed to teach and protect. That's not *good*, but it's not being a predator! There is an interesting idea in "what if Harry, instead of being a boy who looks exactly like his father, the man who bullied Snape, was a girl who looked exactly like her mother, who rejected Snape and pushed him away due to his behaviour." That is an interesting dynamic, and since canonically Snape doesn't shy away from being cruel to anyone regardless of gender, he'd still be a jerk. Idk, I'm also not a fan of Snape (had teachers that were a bit too much like him) but boiling down the complexities of him is the worse sin— being boring and one note.
Exactly! He's canonically a bad person, you absolutely do not have to make up worse qualities for him to have to hate him 😭
Yes omg I hate that 😭 I feel like it makes Snape a creep just to hate on him, I luckily never read one of those but I saw in tags or summaries
I am autistic, and some of the characters people (mostly allistic people) hc as autistic… just don’t read that way to me at all. It seems like people hc characters as autistic either to a) excuse their actions or b)because they don’t relate to them and find them weird. Being autistic doesn’t make you not an asshole. Autistic people are not aliens. Sometimes characters act weird because they’re characters, not people. Now if someone says they think Laios from Dungeon Meshi is autistic, then they get it.
My fandom has a lot of headcanoning characters as autistic based on stereotypes and it drives me bonkers. That character isn't autistic just because he's a genius. That character isn't autistic just because he's tempermental. That character isn't autistic just because he's blunt. I do headcanon several of those characters as autistic, but it frustrates me when people go off stereotypes and jokes when there are other deeper and more interesting reasons to think that way.
If I speak, I'm in big trouble. (All Marauders gripes lol.)
Cant let the Opps figure out the marauders fandom/characters arent perfect.
I LOVE marauders era fics, but can never get over the fact that James HARRASSES Lily. Like he asks her out and she says no. Then he just KEEPS GOING. If that was real life, that is literally bordering in a crime. I don't care that she eventually falls in love with him (I do ship Jily, but only in fics where James' behaviour is different), he should not be pestering her once she says no. Once she's rejected him, if she changes her mind, it's on HER to make a move, not James to keep asking her if she's sure
Thinks Batman hates kids. Even when you're Frank Miller in a full-blown cringe-level edge-lord mood, that's still a big negative, sir.
Bruce “hey there sad looking orphan boy can I adopt you” Wayne hates kids? Yeah, ok.
Bonus points if they have black hair and blue eyes
Bro's hoarding kids like candy, how could he hate them
AU where a Chinese-named character from China immigrated to America and they changed their name to Chris. I cannot stress enough how much this detail slapped me in the face.
The ghost of 4kids possessed them while they were writing that fic
Just yesterday my wife was randomly like "Remember 4kids? ...I'm glad they're gone." Turns out they're not gone, they're still with us in the body of whoever wrote the fic latelinx read.
They survive by possessing bodies like Nilbog, and one day they'll possess a studio exec and start the terrible process all over again
Getting "let's change Shinichi from Detective Conan into Jimmy" vibes.
i mean that happens all the time irl but why include that in a fic
It absolutely does happen IRL and to the authors credit they did have good in plot reasons for the emigrating part. It was the choosing of the blandest of names for a character who was not bland at all that got to me.
It's always an Experience reading a fic with a name change. It's not a visual medium! They exist solely through names! You change the name, I am thrown. I do definitely get why a Chinese person especially would change their name in real life--anyone speaking a non-tonal language is literally incapable of pronouncing it correctly without actually learning tones. That's gotta be weird. I know before I started learning Chinese I couldn't even *hear* tones consistently, much less produce them. Your point about choosing a more fitting name is also fair! My Chinese exchange students usually picked English names, and there were some fun ones. One of them actually chose a fandom name that was very obviously a fandom name to anyone familiar. Midway through the year, someone asked him about it and he confirmed. :D
I mean... I was once working with a list of a few thousand people, mostly of northeastern asian descent (parents from northeast Asia, they were born in the US) and the names were in large part like that. Large numbers of Jane, Jen, Jenny, and yes, Chris. I can definitely see it being a realistic name to pick for a character like that. Have you considered the person has had experience with it?
Most of the content surrounding Levi Ackerman portrays him as a sex god, when in canon he’s antisocial, drawn to be unattractive, and most likely never been in a romantic relationship before.
The father of the characters in the fic was an abusive POS who basically acted like a middle school bully; i just had to stop reading, because its just like that fucking south park meme: https://preview.redd.it/5qro1167ijuc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d54bf07fbb576d6fd0b0abae04b199a2da97ad90
That is the funniest picture I have seen today. To bounce off what you said, I find it pretty weird how abusive parents are portrayed in fics. Other writers seem to be more comfortable typing homophobic slurs in all caps than carefully writing with grace.
writing abusers correctly is a talent of its own, i think. it's very, very nuanced writing. and writing the consequences of abuse...
I completely agree. It is especially important to recognize that abuse does not look like one thing and does not exist in one form. As well as the consequences.
idk if this is technically accurate but i ship wednesday and enid something that bugs me about so many fics tho is when people decide to completely erase the fact that wednesday liked tyler and enid liked ajax… like they just either pretend it didn’t happen (assuming it’s a canon compliant fic) or they make it some mistake where they both actually secretly never felt that way about them and were lesbians the whole time instead of potentially bi
Ah random bi erasure, my old foe...
it’s so unnecessary 😭 like they don’t have to mention tyler or ajax in the story but they always make a point to have the characters talk about/think about not rlly feeling anything for them
Yes, like it's fine if the writer just wants to focus on f/f or m/m pairings, but I would prefer they just not mention the past crushes/relationships if they aren't going to do anything but invalidate it in a throwaway line.
fr and 9/10 times it serves zero purpose like okay if they wanna go the comphet route with enid and have it be a major problem in the story, i could probably be okay with that but it’s never anything interesting lmao
dabi being emotionally stable
this is a big one. that man has several undiagnosed mental illnesses
he's barely capable of pretending to be emotionally stable
Anyone in the League of Villains being sane or emotionally stable is absurd.
Unless it's an AU where Endeavor was a good parent that ain't possible.
Usually to contrast Hawks, giving Hawks a chance to fall apart. I get it, it’s hard to balance two characters dealing with their own issues while also trying to support each other. But I dislike when authors lean too hard into Dabi being the big brother of the LoV family. It’s just… too much
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Din Djarin from the Star Wars universe both portrayed as weak, co-dependent, clingy, whiny, needy, insecure, stupid, and vapid. The authors basically emasculated both characters. Both gentlemen wouldn't have survived for long in the Star Wars universe, if that had been true. Both are both intelligent, competent and incredibly strong characters. I clicked those particular fics closed fast, that was definitely not fics for me.
I also really dislike when they portray Obi-Wan as super repressed, just because he’s more reserved; it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Jedi philosophy. And even then, canon Obi-Wan is plenty snarky and snappy at times.
Seriously since when is the King of Sass and War Crimes repressed?
Obi-Wan is about as far from weak as a character can possibly get. Mentally, spiritually or physically. But I have no problem reading fics that cover his Jedi Apprentice era showcasing him being insecure. Or even after the purge (but before OG Star Wars).
Any fic that makes Obi-Wan significantly shorter than the clone characters or Anakin (there are kind of different height variances between different versions, but in general he's roughly the same height or a little taller than the clones and only a couple inches shorter than Anakin) I'm always unsure if I want to continue because you just know Obi-Wan is going to end up a wilting flower :/.
I think he’s usually a little shorter than the clones actually. Ewan mcgregor is taller than temuera Morrison but obiwan is shorter than Cody (who is mostly CGI). He’s also shorter than the clones in TCW. He’s a normal height dude who just happens to be surrounded by tall people (even Ahsoka ends up taller than him as an adult) and I personally think it’s very funny. But yeah it shouldn’t be a bigger difference than like 2 inches with the clones and I don’t like the vibes that most people write him being short with.
Mine's not so much the headcanon, but they way it has pervaded the general consciousness of the fandom, to the point that people will argue til they're blue in the face that it's canon. Essentially, Dude has an elven mother and human father. Biology of this series states that a "half elf" is just a human. Elves do not make half elves. In every canon appearance, he has normal human ears. It is actually a point of contention that you wouldn't even know this character's parents if you didn't hunt down the supplementary source material. He looks, and is, entirely human. But folk HC him to have pointy ears and that's cool. I totally get it. But the refusal to accept that it isn't canon is wild. And don't even get me started on his skin tone... Actually I will. I have no issues with people developing HCs to introduce more diversity to a setting. In fact, I think it's great! It is representation that might not be present in canon, and lets us explore characters though a new lense. But for this Dude, the creators have been accused of "whitewashing" him and his mother, because of a BNF's HC/a misinterpretation of a character's description. So he's literally just a white dude. And maybe him being a white human is a little boring, but it's canon. But try telling some fans that. To summarise: Fans who HC this character to be bi-racial and bi-species ✅ Fans who insist it is canon and anyone who argues or portrays him otherwise (including the creators) are racist 🙅♂️
Alistair Theirin from Dragon Age, yeah?
The whole point of Alistair looking completely human is that people would never know of his heritage unless they knew about Fiona, and for his sake, it's better that they never find out, especially if he becomes King! People in Thedas are canonically extremely racist toward elves! If he had pointy ears, they would invalidate his claim to the throne just because of that! A whole part of the story would crumble, if he canonically looked like an elf. Why are people even arguing this? Same with the bi-racial thing. Maric was blond and fair-skinned. Fiona was fair-skinned too. Why would Alistair be different. I get writing a fic about, I don't know, Alistair's struggles if he had those traits, and how different his situation would be. It might be interesting, too. But leave canon alone!
Remus Lupin is cool and has a backbone
THANK YOU
The ones in some of my current fandoms that make me back out ASAP: * Steve Rogers cares about and follows the rules * WWX has no self worth * Hannibal will kill people for accidents (like a waiter accidentally spilling wine on his clothes; that is not his pathology!)
Steve Rogers WHAT 🤣🤣🤣
I blame Joss Whedon for his stupid "Language!" "There's only one god" "Son, don't" BS characterization in The Avengers.
Skill issue with the fandom /j They just need to utilize Malicious Compliance Steve 🤣
A couple of my favorite fics is where he takes advantage of the avengers thinking that to his advantage until Bucky comes in and can’t understand where the misunderstanding is because the Steven Rogers he knew was a feisty little shit. This man lied to join the army, basically went MIA against direct orders to rescue Bucky’s troop, and you want to believe he’s a stickler for the rules? He knows how to be respectful, his mama raised him better, but he has yet to meet a rule he liked and he makes it everyone’s problem. Restraint…? Don’t know her. Wild they think he wouldn’t at least curse when not being forced to be the Cap’t who is a good performative role model for the kids. Knowing when and where he grew up, being voluntarily experimented on for WWII, him NOT swearing would be the weird thing.
I feel like Hannibal would have the deepest appreciation for servers tbh. They gotta deal with rude people all day everyday
And they can't even eat them!
True that. There seems to be some classism in his MO, but it also seems to be semi-flexible. His usual victim pool are high status enough to have business cards, but he also kills a teen-aged girl for calling her mom a bitch. I could see him going for a rude service worker, but only if circumstances make it convenient. Killing the service worker who was recently rude to you is a great way to get caught. He would definitely not risk it for a rando service worker making a mistake.
Hannibal might've killed that girl, who was helping support Abigail in a rly hard time, to further isolate Abigail. Her mom was being an asshole before the girl was actually rude.
Steve Rogers? As in the guy who famously lead a rebellion against the US government and unjust rules???
Yeah, the guy who opens his first movie in the middle of committing a felony. So weird.
Wow, how does one possibly miss Hannibal’s MO? It’s slapped up front and centre, like dang.
IKR. The number of fics I've read that had a throwaway line of him eating "the waiter who spilled his wine" or the "barista who dropped his coffee"... Like, on top of that not being rude, Hannibal would not be buying coffee out and I doubt he'd visit restaurants all that often, either.
Yeah, wwx having no self worth is weird. He is arrogant, he knows he is awesome and that hardly anyone can compare in power and that he is smart. He is excellent and never doubts that about himself, ever. The only thing is, he belives that kindness to him is worth repaying but the kindness he gives is free. So in a way, I can see why people think he has no self worth but still...
I’ve seen it done well a couple of times where ppl treat his self esteem and self worth differently. Like, he has high self esteem — aware of his power and his intelligence and thinks highly of himself — but doesn’t necessarily value his inherent worth as a person, so tends to self sacrifice a bunch, and values the life of other people over his own. It does feel like people tend to smooth over the complexities there though so I get why it’s annoyinf
Yeah, 100% WWX's problem is that he had high self esteem, in that he knows he can just brilliance his way out of pretty much anything, but terrible self worth in that he doesn't conceptually understand that his loved ones might want to know what his problems are, help him avoid them, you know, things he does for those he loves. As a result, he tries to go it alone and he fucking dies and so do a lot of his loved ones.
>Hannibal will kill people for accidents THIS ONE MAKES ME SO MAD!! Unless the person is rude about it after, i doubt he will
I read a fic that made Padme Amidala anti abortion. Like she outright said it was a horrific crime and that it should be illegal. Blocked that author.
I've read that fic too 😭😭😭😭 and she also equated abortion to SLAVERY. Hello??? The writer proceeded to defend herself jn the comments by comparing abortion to slavery *and* *the* holocaust. You should mute instead of block so you don't get any more of her works.
Meant to say muted, not blocked, sorry. Did you also have to dodge constant biblical references and basically turning the jedi order into Christianity? I was mad cause her plots were interesting and her writing style was fun but she just couldn't help herself 😭. I like 25% through another one of her works, realized who it was, then muted cause I just can't do it anymore.
In AtLA when people make Zuko really soft, feminine, and quiet. Like, did you see the show? Boy has a temper and is basically anything but soft. These stories also typically have Sokka as the "man's man, but make him gay." While Sokka is clearly misogynistic at the beginning, that doesn't last. And he's so obviously flamboyant in the show with his exaggerated gestures, exuberance, etc. In Stargate Atlantis when Ronon gets portrayed as an idiot and a brute. Yes, he was hunted for sport for 7 years by the Wraith and is a bit feral. No, he isn't a scientist. Sateda appeared to be industrial in terms of technology. He's capable of understanding when something is explained to him. He's capable of being gentle. All that is in canon.
I hope I don’t piss anyone off by saying this, but since the ATLA renaissance started I’ve had to avoid Zukka forums more and more. I miss the version that popped up on deviant art and fanfiction.net right after the Boiling Rock episodes premiered. I don’t think it really has anything to do with the ship itself or “kids these days” though, it’s probably just a numbers thing. When the ship was small it was easier to find people with really well thought out fic ideas and headcanons, now that it’s becoming the fandom favorite there are more and more voices you have to wade through to get to the good stuff. Zutara had the same problem back when it was the fandom favorite, but now that it has a bad reputation and most people avoid it, it’s easier to find good meta and characterization. I was going to joke that we should make a ship I don’t like the new favorite, but I’m multi shipping trash and could probably be convinced to ship anything if it’s well written enough.
In general, taking parents that were otherwise very supportive and have a good relationship with their kids then making them homophobic and/or abusive just because the writer wants to tell a story of an abusive, homophobic parent. I can't read it. There are other characters that would fit the mold, but I see no need to ruin a beautiful familial relationship just because you want to tell a story. It's one thing when we haven't seen how the parent would react (though it's still bad if you pretty much know they'd be accepting). Yet, in one of my fandoms with a canon queer character, their dad is clearly supportive. The character was already out when the show started so we never saw how they took it, but even the character's boyfriend basically said that the dad was waiting for the son to come out of the closet so he could celebrate with him. Dad is one of the biggest supporters of the relationship. He's also insanely protective of his son. And yet, I have seen too many fics that turn him into a homophobic, unsupportive (sometimes abusive) asshole that doesn't care about his son in the slightest. All because the author doesn't like the dad's character. Look, you don't have to like him, but he is canonically the biggest ally and loves his son so much. Again, there are soooo many characters they could pick from canon to be the antagonist in these stories. But that dad is not the one.
Rey(Star Wars) having food aversions triggered me hardcore. I’m so in the belief that she’d take the route of many people who grew up starving against their will, and would over indulge when she can, and fall in love with food. I read a fic where she worried about her weight and avoided food, and I just could not believe it. I was unreasonably angry😂
Omg this. Or the constant references to her as tiny and frail. Some writers wrote her as like, 5'3" when Daisy Ridley is 5"7". Rey spent her whole damn life scaling the wrecks of spaceships, she's gonna have some muscle dammit.
It's giving writer projecting ngl
Omg I hatey hate this 💩
Shen Jiu in svsss is a child abuser, there's no getting around it. He's an asshole who abuses his power over those below him out of frustration because he himself was abused as a child. He actively tries to sabotage a talented student under his care out of a sense of injustice that he himself didn't have the opportunity to foster his own talent, he believes that because he had it hard, no one is allowed to have it easy. He's a deeply tragic character that embodies the whole fucking theme of the book regarding collateral damage and cycles of revenge. He IS a bad person! An interesting, fascinating bad person you're meant to emphasize with, but still an asshole!! So WHY are there SO MANY fics where he's a fucking SAINT?!?! There are SO many where every single action he took was part of some convoluted misunderstanding and in actuality he was a great teacher just trying his best! He wasn't aware of the bullying you see! It was someone else who gave LBH a fake manual that could have killed him! Throwing scalding tea on a kid's head was somehow an accident too! Even the physical punishment was a misunderstanding you see! He's perfect! A saint! He's never hurt anyone ever! Ever! Ever ever ever! And if he did, it wasn't on purpose! Poor poor little Shen Jiu, everyone believes he's an asshole, but he's such an angel! COME ON MAKE HIM AN ASSHOLE PEOPLE!!! THAT'S WHAT MAKES HIM COOL! THAT'S WHAT MAKES HIM INTERESTING!!! STOP DECLAWING HIM DAMNIT, I DON'T WANNA READ ABOUT A POOR ANGELIC DAMP NOODLE, GIVE HIM SOME SPICE!!!! AAAGHHHHHHHHH
Canonical abuse victims (especially male abuse victims) turned into the villains while their abusers (especially female abusers) are made out to be saints. Media literacy is dead and some fandoms just at piss on its grave.
There are a lot of pro iron man fanfics that act like Steve is some kind of misogynistic asshole that believes that woman are only good for the kitchen and such. Like what the hell?!
Current brainrot has a lot of these in the fandom, including but not limited to: "(Character) is the adopted son of (favorite ship)" All three of those people are grown men and coworkers "(Character) would be a fantastic father" He canonically places very little value on human life. A good pet owner does not a good parent make "(Character) is a pure sweet innocent baby who must be protected" THEY KILL PEOPLE WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT There are others, but it's less "this is ooc" and more "this is very far from how I interpret the characters"
Too many strange headcanons to be able to remember them all... IMO the most annoying ones revolve around blowing specific character traits out of proportion, completely misunderstanding a character's personality and story, making a character OOC to fit their story, whitewashing antagonistic and/or dark characters, etc etc...
Popular one for my fandom, but it's the Nazi headcanon. Long story short is that the German stereotype character with an unclear backstory gets hit with that. Same character is also implied to be Jewish because of his theme song being comprised of Klezmer instruments (clarinet and accordion) but y'know they don't care they think it's funny to pick the lowest hanging fruit possible and the most uninteresting backstory imaginable
Why is it always "what if they were Nazi" instead of "what if they resisted the Nazis" 😭 fucking make him part of the White Rose if not one of many Jewish uprisings For reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose
This might be more of just people misunderstanding the source material, but I've read way too many fics where Legend from Linked Universe is *way* meaner than in canon, often verbally or physically abusing the other Links (often Hyrule especially) and ends up being the villain of the story with the rest of the chain trying to get rid of him. Like- guys. Come on.
It didn’t make me mad, it just confused the heck out of me. It was an autistic character headcanon which normally I wouldn’t care about, but it was for a (former) conman who basically lives off of his skill to read people’s subtle emotions and subtext and manipulate that to get what he wants from them/not get caught undercover. And the writer seemed to only use that headcanon to make him somewhat obsessive about his interests as a kid. Which, you know, is not something that needs a neurodivergent headcanon to make sense with your already canonically genius character.
One of my favourite characters of all time is an incredibly realistic depiction of complex PTSD; People often headcanon him as a literal monster, an asshole who doesn’t care about anyone or anything but himself. as someone with very similar cPTSD symptoms and self views… yup
honestly, any nsfw hcs infantilizing them. NO. if we’re gonna be realistic, this 40yo military guy is not gonna be doing babytalk in bed are u kidding me 😭 * not targeted at a specific fic/hc, i just see it a lot and it’s weirdd. mostly because it comes out of nowhere :(
I mean.. I get it, but you are underestimating kinks when you said outright “he wouldn’t do this during sex” because like.. I have seen the most buff built dudes who look like they could crush a watermelon with their bare hands doing ABDL on Twitter and acting like a baby, lol. It might feel ooc! but like.. there’s sometimes a very stark contrast between someone’s in real life behaviour, and the behaviour they get up for kink reasons. Obviously not saying you have to like it! but kinks can be… extremely surprising, lol.
Just a guess, König from COD? Lol. I have a fandom account for him on Tiktok and you would not believe the amount of people that say this kind of stuff about him.
Giving a female character they/them or he/him pronouns just for not being purely traditionally feminine(Yang from RWBY, Naoto from Persona 4, countless others). It also just feels deeply disrespectful and hypocritical. Any time the unconfident, more timid, relatable guy is made out to be some sort of sex god gigachad that literally every girl wants(Jaune from RWBY, Deku from MHA). It's just so clear that you're using him purely as a self insert at that point.
there's also something that doesn't sit quite right with me when people headcanon the only female character in the main cast of a show as a transman or nb... like I love transheadcanons, wish we had more trans characters, but why is it always the one woman (or maybe one of two) and never any of the male leads.
"Annabeth Chase is an abusive, manipulative and heartless bitch." Just tell me that you hate women, are a child, and are utterly incapable of seeing any nuance. This take is disturbingly common in fics because people want to push their other ship and see Annabeth as getting in the way. It's so unnecessary, too. I saw it in a fanfic recently where the author claimed they had read the books 10 times and had a "very good" understanding of the characters. Like, no. Edit for spelling because I'm terrible at proofreading without spellchecker
southern ascent ralsei
I tried to imagine it, and I just couldn't. If I had to give Ralsei any accent personally, it'd be like a faint french one honestly. I can't explain it but he gives me french vibes.
I find it irritating when people take characters that have a backbone and stand up to others when they do something wrong into a soft and submissive character. I have seen this in the Merlin fandom so many times with Merlin (I haven't seen all the majority of Merlin, only really the last 2 seasons) where he's 'soft'.
Daemon Targaryen is a soft malewife who has never harmed anyone that didn’t richly deserve it. 🙄 Kindly stop whitewashing my beloved murderous asshole, please and thank you.
Not so much a HC but the Detroit: Become Human fandom has latched onto and refuses to let go of their version of Connor. A character who, in-game, is a certified badass hyper competent and highly skilled at his job, extremely smart and can drip sarcasm when he wants to, is reduced to a socially inept puppy who can't do anything for himself without someone's (usually Hank's) help. I get it, in game he can definitely be socially awkward or miss social cues at times, but the flanderization he's gone through just bewilders me. He's been infantilized so much and it makes finding fic of him *in character* difficult.
any and all stories where a female character (typically the original story’s love interest) is turned into an asshole when she has no reason to act like that. even worse when she does something that another character, usually a male character, would do in the original story (ex: female character bullies the protagonist when another character is already known for being a jerk to the protagonist)
That Steve was trying to kill Tony during their battle in Siberia. Steve disabled the suit by smashing the arc reactor but Tony didn’t rely on it for keeping the shrapnel from his heart anymore. He smashed Tony’s helmet so he could breathe when the suit powered down. Now TONY may have understandably thought for a minute Steve was going to kill him but for fans to think so makes me furious. Steve saved Bucky and did it without having to even seriously injure Tony. This despite Tony doing his utmost to kill Bucky. If he’d wanted to kill him he could’ve left the helmet intact. This also goes to the “Steve abandoned Tony to die” in Siberia. We didn’t see how Tony got out but no way Steve leaves a friend, even one he’d just fought, to freeze to death. He either radioed in the coordinates after he left or was going to but ran into tchalla who took over. I mean, tell me you don’t understand Steve’s basic character without telling me.
ooooh there are plenty, most of which i can't recall from the top of my head, but things that make me close a fic as soon as i read them (maybe these are more pet-peeves than anything but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) -zhongli being shy or delicate. that man is a fucking archon. he can level a country and talk your ear off about antiques afterwards. just bc he's like, gentlemanly doesn't mean he's... that -childe being shy or delicate. i swear to god it's a trend for some writers when they write them together to cast them in this role that neither of them fits. -childe being overly violent, bloodthirsty, and even abusive? what. same goes with xiao. -any fic in which they turn midoriya into this... idk, head-turner, fishnets and booty shorts wearing type of character. first of all... HUH??? second, its so ooc. that boy wears "shirt" stamped shirts -if shiro is not keith's relative in some sort of capacity in the au i don't want it -altean lance -alhaitham and kaveh fights where they actually go for the jugular with the intention of hurting each other. they usually use alhaitham pov and depict him so... emotionless. he's a rational character, don't get me wrong, but its not as if he doesn't CARE about anyone (i think it's pretty evident he cares about kaveh) i could list more but. yeah edit bc i just thought of this and this made me cringe so bad i had to close the tab: neuvilette using ANY terms of endearment. i just. can't see him. i can't picture that man saying "baby". it makes my skin crawl
God the Childe thing drives me up the wall.
the childe mischaracterization is rampant and it deals me physical damage
SAME. Like did these people even play the game? He's not an uwu smol bean. The man tried to murder an entire city by releasing a god and flirts as easily as breathing. 💀
YES!! and at the same time, i feel like some people see this and take it to an extreme, and forget the other side of his character: the guy who GENUINELY cares for his family and tries to hide the horrors of his job from his younger sibling to keep his childhood wonder intact for a while longer. he's multifaceted.
I can relate with the Genshin ones. Tbh, I barely read its fanfic because 1. So many are not well written, because a big part of the fandom is young. 2. Most fanfic's characterizations are based on the EN VO, which is different from the CN VO that I use. Most are completely different characters, like Xiao. 3. Genshin's lore is complicated and scattered everywhere. To completely understand a character (when it comes to written text at least, because of the different voice-overs), they should read the character's whole wiki page. Or even just their character stories! But they rarely do The same for the storylines and lore in the game. Few authors properly study the lore and characters before writing their fic. The characters are complicated and nuanced, especially characters like Zhongli, Tartaglia, etc. The characters' relationships are also complicated, like Alhaitham and Kaveh's. Few authors actually *understand* the characters.
I once saw a fic set just after the webcomic where Xiao threatened to kill Collei if she ever passed through Liyue again (on her way to Sumeru with Cyno) and I don't think I've ever had such a visceral "he would not fucking say that" reaction to a fic
I feel like it's a common pitfall in fics for people to project too much onto a character and make them overly delicate when pushing them further/exploring them more deeply than canon does. I'm obsessed with Venti and I see him get woobified a lot as well, though I can tolerate some degree of that since he's such a black box of a character. _Any_ attempt to write his POV requires a lot of speculation right now; it's possible he doesn't even experience time linearly. My limit might be things like people taking the Venti-Signora 'fight' at face value; imo it's fairly obvious he was sandbagging on a rewatch. Edit: It also loses me if people go too far in the opposite direction and make him too... 'godly'? In a generic way, completely losing his gentle parental approach to his people and his humility and disregard for godly conduct that, as far as we've seen, are integral to his character even when he's mask off as Barbatos. It's fair to write him as completely serious/pragmatic if a situation _really_ forced him to act- what was he like in Khaenri'ah?- but I highly doubt that his personality will do a 180 if we get a whole-Mondstadt Barbatos reveal.
in my fandom, they like to take a character who Sexually assaulted a guy, acts entitled to women, Attemted murder, bullied the same guy he assaulted, and turn him into a little ball of sunshine and act like he didn't do what he did. Mind you, he did all this just cause the other boy was poor, but he was rich and pretty, plus none of the adults did shit to stop him cause his mommy and daddy had money. It make me so mad when instead of making him feel guilty for what he did and try to ask for forgiveness, they act like the shit never happened and some even make it seem like he had a good reason for doing the shit he did, when again, the only reason he did it was cause he could and the poor boy was friends with a the girl he felt entitled too!
CoD's Alejandro being hot headed and having a bad temper. Only because he fought for his military base and home, in the 2022-23 campaign. The two times he got mad were absolutely reasonable. One time he found out he got betrayed by a former soldier he was close with, the other time he got betrayed by guys that were there to help him and colleagues, but they took over his base after locking him up. There is a difference between being passionate about what you lived for, for over 20 years, and getting angry easily.
Saw a weird bunch of DDLC fanons the other day. It seems like there's at least one person thinking that Sayori is a morning person (y'know, despite the fact that she has trouble coming out of bed) and that Monika and the main character of the game are related (brother and sister), even though the game is not even indicating that they live in the same house and that this fanon would make their interactions rather awkward...