Writing Rants

Posted on by

I’m so sick of going to ff.net and seeing truckloads of Mary Sue fics… and worse, seeing them praised to the rafters.

I’m making a big list of all the overused plot lines in order of irritation:

  • New girl at Eden Hall
  • New girl at Eden Hall who fancies Adam
  • New girl at Eden Hall who is an enforcer and “tames” Fulton or Portman by treating them like shit
  • New girl at Eden Hall who treats everyone like shit and is best buddies with all Ducks
  • (and to be fair, Charlie/Adam angst should be on here, I’m bloody sick of that ship and regret posting the first fic of it)

Now a list of things that generally happen in the above mentioned stories and never cease to piss me off:

  • Averman disappears, only to seldom show up to swoon over the new girl (god forbid they give him the funny lines, despite the fact that he is funny)
  • Luis becomes a slut who treats women badly or slides back into the Caveman era
  • Goldberg only thinks about food – in the pigging out sense
  • Fulton and Portman get out done in the toughness (both on and off the ice) scale by the new girl
  • Everyone fancies the new girl
  • Dwayne, Russ, Ken, Goldberg and Averman (aka the non-fangirled Ducks) vanish
  • Connie and Julie befriend the new girl
  • Connie and Julie hate the new girl because she’s prettier/tougher/a better player etc. than them
  • Coach Orion swoons over the new girl’s playing abilities (he’s not the swoony type)
  • The new girl angsts and faffs around getting a load of attention.

Why the hell don’t writers just think before writing? It’s so damned repetitive.

And why do there have to be Angsty Sues? There are two girls on the team already, why don’t they write from their point of view occasionally?

Julie is single, this gives writers the perfect opportunity to act out their fangirl fantasies about their favourite Duck. All we really know about Julie is that she’s an A-student, there’s plenty of room for expanding her character ? though I will happily shoot the first person who gives Julie a gothic makeover and turns her into Gothic-Slut-Julie-Sue.

Connie is ambiguously single, people fight about whether she and Guy broke up. If you want angst n’ romance, she’s the perfect candidate. She’s got years of backstory with Guy that has never been covered and if her relationship is over she’d be upset, if not maybe she’s worried that it’s all going wrong. Who knows. The point is, that if a girl is needed, a writer doesn’t have to put an original character in. And if any of the Ducks was to go off the rails, in my opinion, it would be Connie. She’s a bit bolshy in the films and a lot flirty in the books. If you want angst and bad stuff, this is the girl to go for.

Yes, I know I’m being very hypocritical, given that I have Taz, Annie and Aisha running around the fandom – not to mention the horrible Celine from This Too. Taz was my first foray into the fandom, and I hate how much attention I gave her in the past, it makes me shudder. Annie was created to be a non-romantic, non-threatening outsider for Luis to talk to in Misconception, Aisha was necessary in Shoebox because Connie and Julie would not have fitted Aisha and Annie’s roles ? I always had a plan when I wrote that story. And I really don’t think Celine counts, since she was only a flashback character. I’ve decided that Abi from More Than Meets The Eye doesn’t count because I hate that fic and wish I’d never started it. Also, I hate Abi. Ah, whatever, shoot me. I Sue up the fandom from time to time.

However, that doesn’t make it right.

Bleh, I’m offering up my Characters to ducksues and seeing what happens.