Usually I find these things show up often in the first chapter, but as I recently found one rather deep in a fic, it made me think that it might be fun to list/codify some of these. Feel free to join in if you find it amusing too. I'm sure many of these are already on tropes pages. But mayhaps some aren't.
Yes, I realize I am playing the Tropes game. I blame Jon through a course of events that he is entirely unaware of.
1)Mary-Sue Mentor - All mentors in canon are truly insufficient, ignorant clods. Here to save the day is an OC that has 'always been there', is supremely powerful and capable, but does not meddle in normal affairs. Yet has decided to take this young child who otherwise grows into a hero and raise them away from their normal culture entirely. And people go along with this of course because they are legendary beings that are always there.
2)SI Mary-Sue <Relationship> - Like, this is a fic between Ace and his new girlfriend, the pirate girl from...
3)Poor Injured Superhero. - So Ranma was raised in the wilds, Naruto was an orphan, Harry Potter's family didn't love him, yadda yadda. This hero has had a harsh childhood of some kind, but despite (or because of) that, in canon is usually more powerful and capable than most around them. But if only they hadn't suffered from it, they'd clearly be far more powerful. Now our naturally benevolent sage, wizard, parent, or super-scientist can provide healthy food or magical restoration for all the clear suffering and undiagonosied problems that they have been dealing with all their lives and make them tremendously better. This undoubtedly comes with healing brain damage in almost all cases, eye damage as well goes away, and the hero is always taller and stronger afterwards because their very growth was hindered by this harsh environment that they grew up in. Usually shows up in chapter 2 or 3, once they've established the nefarious villians as incompetent douchebags.
4)Everyone was in on It - Polarizing reveal early that shows that everyone aside from a few Completely Good characters (Who are in love with the hero or are his new mentor) is in on a longstanding effort to hinder, oppress, and diminish the hero.
5)But this guy is A-okay! - Usually matched with 4, The Grand Consipiracy to Ruin Hero's life that is just revealed to him in the fic is also Consipiring to support his rival character. "Harem rules that only like apply to this guy. And let him claim anyone he wants without consideration!"
You've been reading a bunch of Naruto fics, haven't you?
Here's a more general one: "Vote to decide couple" Because you know how much care the writer put into crafting his characters if the writer is treating them like interchangeable parts.
Another one: "Here, I'll pull a method of casually violating a longstanding and fundamental limitation of the canon universe out of my ass so Possession Sue can astound everyone with it!"
Heroic Double Standard - I can maim, rape, and kill at will without suffering any consequences because I'm the Hero (and everyone else is stupid)
Wile E. Coyote Anvil Marksmanship - The Author repeatedly decides to get preachy (drop an anvil) but never seems to actually know what they're talking about
CSO (Character Shaped Object) - It's Ranma! Never mind that he's now a six foot five, hard-drinking lesbian assassin that never met the Tendous, never went on a training trip, never got cursed, and doesn't have Genma as her father. Oh, and her name isn't Ranma.
But she's totally Ranma! The author said so! (Despite the whole 'blonde girl born in America To Eric and Lisa Burclair' backstory)
Heroic Double Standard -- Designated Hero.
QuoteWile E. Coyote Anvil Marksmanship
I nearly spit my drink all over the moniter. I love this as a trope name. Please make it a real one.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 01, 2012, 03:41:47 PM
You've been reading a bunch of Naruto fics, haven't you?
Here's a more general one: "Vote to decide couple" Because you know how much care the writer put into crafting his characters if the writer is treating them like interchangeable parts.
Oddly, it came from a Harry Potter fic that pushed it over. But yes, this is a common second chapter introduced device for many terrible (yet long) naruto fics. It's basically a way in which Naruto is almost entirely overwritten. Sometimes he at least retains his hair color, but even that has been given a blast over in fics I've encountered.
Quote from: Gatewalker on April 02, 2012, 04:09:17 AM
QuoteWile E. Coyote Anvil Marksmanship
I nearly spit my drink all over the moniter. I love this as a trope name. Please make it a real one.
Hillarious. :)
Quote from: Brian on April 02, 2012, 03:40:34 AM
Heroic Double Standard -- Designated Hero.
Hmm.
*ponders*
Alright. I'll go there. Even though it is already a trope page.
Designated Hero - Light Lord.
That redundancy thing where they keep repeating something over and over ad nauseam again and again on and on ad infinitum as though they'd forgotten what they wrote two paragraphs ago.
Here's one: Random Foreign Language Words, Just Because The Writer Can Use Them.
(If I knew Japanese, I'd switch the words "Word" and "Writer" for Japanese their technical equivalents yet ones that are completely inappropriate in context).
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 03, 2012, 12:56:21 AM
Here's one: Random Foreign Language Words, Just Because The Writer Can Use Them.
Sparkling Kotoba Powers, Activate!
(Because Japanese media suffers from the reverse smell of gratuitously nonsensical English. Yes, it's amusing, but sometime's it's just...)
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on April 03, 2012, 01:47:33 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 03, 2012, 12:56:21 AM
Here's one: Random Foreign Language Words, Just Because The Writer Can Use Them.
Sparkling Kotoba Powers, Activate!
(Because Japanese media suffers from the reverse smell of gratuitously nonsensical English. Yes, it's amusing, but sometime's it's just...)
It could be worse. I remember a Yu Yu Hakusho fic back in the day where all the dialogue was written in Japanese but everything else was in English.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 03, 2012, 12:56:21 AM
Here's one: Random Foreign Language Words, Just Because The Writer Can Use Them.
(If I knew Japanese, I'd switch the words "Word" and "Writer" for Japanese their technical equivalents yet ones that are completely inappropriate in context).
Hah, yeah, that often is a 'bleh' bit. I don't mind so much for titles (Shikibichi, Jonin, Hokage) that don't have reasonable one word equivalents in English, but spastic inclusion of foreign language usually makes for a difficult read.
Now imagine how an ancient Roman would cringe reading Harry Potter.
Or hell, how anyone as recent as Isaac Newton might cringe reading Harry Potter. Horrendously butchered Latin!
(EDITED for clarity.)
Titles make sense. Hell, if the writer actually knows how to use honorifics, that would probably be okay (although when people who have studied the language for years say that they think they might have gotten them straight, but aren't sure, I don't really foresee the average Japanophile actually knowing this) because you could write about cool things like situational social hierarchies contextually changing on-the-fly, without having to explicitly write out whenever a change happens -- just change how the characters refer to one another.
My recent annoyance is when writers have their characters swear to God by using "Kami". This irritates me because (1) it's the aforementioned word substitution (2) to my understanding, Japanese people don't swear like that, which means the writer didn't both even trying to keep a characterization (3) I could be completely wrong about this since I've never bothered to study the language, but my understanding is that if you were to reference God in Japanese, he'd be referred to as "kamisama".
Quote
Now imagine how an ancient Roman would cringe reading Harry Potter.
I tried reading the first book of that as well, and couldn't really get into it. But for different reasons.
As far as I know re: 'kami', it's a common, not a proper noun. There isn't really a concept of something like the Judeo-Christian god in Japan, or wasn't until Christians introduced it.
Quote from: Dracos on April 01, 2012, 11:50:21 AM3)Poor Injured Superhero. - So Ranma was raised in the wilds, Naruto was an orphan, Harry Potter's family didn't love him, yadda yadda. This hero has had a harsh childhood of some kind, but despite (or because of) that, in canon is usually more powerful and capable than most around them. But if only they hadn't suffered from it, they'd clearly be far more powerful. Now our naturally benevolent sage, wizard, parent, or super-scientist can provide healthy food or magical restoration for all the clear suffering and undiagonosied problems that they have been dealing with all their lives and make them tremendously better. This undoubtedly comes with healing brain damage in almost all cases, eye damage as well goes away, and the hero is always taller and stronger afterwards because their very growth was hindered by this harsh environment that they grew up in. Usually shows up in chapter 2 or 3, once they've established the nefarious villians as incompetent douchebags.
Quote from: thepanda on April 02, 2012, 03:04:50 AMCSO (Character Shaped Object) - It's Ranma! Never mind that he's now a six foot five, hard-drinking lesbian assassin that never met the Tendous, never went on a training trip, never got cursed, and doesn't have Genma as her father. Oh, and her name isn't Ranma.
But she's totally Ranma! The author said so! (Despite the whole 'blonde girl born in America To Eric and Lisa Burclair' backstory)
Don't these two describe every Hung Nguyen fic ever written?
3 is in pretty much every Hung Nguyen fic.
CSO (of the kind that Panda was mentioning) only about half? But only because he's not really describing character shaped entities, but names being stamped on something totally different that isn't even trying to be the character it is 'shaped' like.
Ngyuen at least attempts to make them Ranma shaped half the time (half the time he doesn't even bother).
I dislike blatantly obvious spelling errors littered throughout a fic. I don't usually complain about them, but they have me 'dieing' inside.
Raistlin Majere Loves Aerosmith - When an author cannot help but add all their own likes/dislikes to a character. Especially jarring when the work is in a universe dissimilar to our own.
Oh, brilliant. I like that, Panda. Great name, too. :D
The "X is too sexy to be evil!" retcon.
Most frequently applied to characters like Belatrix from HP, and added to whatever other tropes the author uses to water down/justify past evil actions.
Quote from: Brian on April 30, 2012, 10:21:18 PM
The "X is too sexy to be evil!" retcon.
Most frequently applied to characters like Belatrix from HP, and added to whatever other tropes the author uses to water down/justify past evil actions.
Draco In leather Pants? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DracoInLeatherPants)
Yeah, I thought about that one, but Draco (specifically) has the required "hint of redeemability". Belatrix does not. Then again, the trope doesn't require it.
That a staple plot twist in original works. I think it even made The Evil Overlord list - something about fiendish yet beautiful princess of evil overlords inevitably betraying them for the dashing hero. If a fic were done well as a continuation of an original story, I could see a writer pulling off a villain who changes his or her mind, or a carefully and elaborately styled retcon that takes little quirks of the villain to add depth of character.
Of course, the nuance you need to pull it off without looking ridiculous is something you won't find out of most fanfic writers. I think this is less of a indication of bad fic per se, and more about writers who reach for the stars while being too stupid to realize they're standing in front of a cliff.