Rotten Smells Of a Fictional Nature

[Dracos]

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!" 

[Jason_Miao]

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.

[alethiophile]

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!"

[thepanda]

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)

[Brian]

Heroic Double Standard -- Designated Hero.

[VySaika]

Wile 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.

[Dracos]

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.

[Dracos]

Wile 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.  :)

[Dracos]

Heroic Double Standard -- Designated Hero.

Hmm.

*ponders*

Alright.  I'll go there.  Even though it is already a trope page.

Designated Hero - Light Lord.

[thepanda]

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.

[Jason_Miao]

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).

[Arakawa]

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...)

[thepanda]

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.

[Dracos]

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.

[Arakawa]

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.)}