Things that I never want to see in Kotor stories again.

[prisoner_24601]

There are some things that I never want to see in Kotor stories again. These are my personal pet peeves, and every time I see these happening in a story it makes me want to tear my hair out. This list doesn’t include my biggest pet peeve: the Revan!Sue, because I think that’s a subject too lengthy to include.

As usual, this is my opinion, so if you disagree with me that’s fine, in fact, let me know, because a good discussion is always entertaining, and hey, maybe I'm wrong.

The “everyone dogs on Carth conversation.”

The scenario is this: after the Leviathan everyone comes on board and Revan reveals who she is. Everyone backs her except for Carth just like they do in the game (so far so good). Then, and this is the part that kills me, Carth goes off and pouts and everyone hates him for not instantly deciding to stand with Revan and for voicing his completely understandable feelings about her. Everyone glares at him and thinks he’s being all mean, until one member of the crew, (sometimes Jolee/sometimes Canderous), sits down and shows Carth the error of his ways.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this exact scenario in at least ten and maybe as many as twenty stories, and it drives me crazy every single time. Here’s why:

Carth is someone who has been traveling with this group of people for presumably months. The crew of the Ebon Hawk are his comrades and friends. You’d think that while they stand by Revan, they’d understand Carth’s reservations and issues with the woman who 1) turned traitor on the Republic and 2) is indirectly responsible for the death of his wife, his planet and for the corruption of his son. But instead, all he gets are lectures from people about “how can you treat her like this” and “she’s different now.” It’s like the characters aboard the Ebon Hawk expect instant forgiveness and acceptance from this man, instead of giving him the respect that he deserves, and personally, I think they’d give Carth more credit than that.

Beyond that, this is REVAN. S/he is inherently dangerous, and in a lot of ways Carth is only bringing up some completely legitimate concerns about the safety of the crew and the Republic.

For once, I’d like to read a story (and this is kosiah’s idea) where the crew freaks out when they find out she’s Revan and chains her up in the cargo bay, demanding an explanation from Jolee as to why the hell he didn’t mention anything about this before. Or maybe a story where Jolee or Canderous sit down for that talk with Carth about how Revan needs him and he should move past his issues, and Carth punches them right in the face and tells them to mind their own damn business.

The “Carth & Canderous emote to one another like 14 year old girls” conversation.

A lot of times this conversation happens in the context of the “everyone dogs on Carth” conversation, although it can happen in other contexts, but one thing remains constant: the two of them are always talking about a fem!Revan and Carth’s relationship problems (how lucky Carth is for having her or how stupid Carth is for not seeing how awesome she is).

Here is the thing. Carth is a 38 year old war veteran. Canderous is in his early to mid 50’s. They have completely opposite outlooks on life and fought on two different sides of a vicious war. While I’ll buy that the two of them might grow into a grudging respect for one another, I simply cannot fathom these two men sitting down and discussing their relationship issues with one another. Canderous simply wouldn’t care about Carth and Revan’s problems. Carth wouldn’t emote like a 14 year old girl to anyone – especially Canderous. If Carth ever tried it, Canderous would mock Carth and probably give the pilot an ass beating he’d never forget.

Fluffy!Canderous

I haven’t seen this in a while, but boy when I do see it, it drives me up the wall. Okay, everyone, say it with me: Canderous is not a nice man. He admits that he has murdered women, children and innocents while working for Davik. Yes, he has a code of honor, but it’s a code of honor that says it’s okay to burn and ravage entire planets – all for the glory of battle. And while at the end of the game, he gets to be a bit introspective, that doesn’t mean that he does a 180 and completely changes his outlook on life to where he’s all of the sudden a gruff yet snuggly guy, who suddenly realizes that he’s in love with Bastila.

Yes, athenaprime did this in her story. Yes, Tim Radley is going there. Yes, Winterfox even has him in a relationship with Revan. All three of these authors took the time to lay painstaking characterization and are very, very careful not to turn Canderous into something that he isn’t… and really these stories are the exception to what is out there.

Bitchy/Codependent Bastila

I admit I fell into the bitchy Bastila trap. I totally hated her until about halfway through my first fic (and I think that it probably shows). Female gamers playing a fem!Revan really get shortchanged, because Bastila doesn’t really do a hell of a lot except lecture you. But that’s no excuse to turn her into a raving bitch/shrew who’s only goal in life is to come in between Carth and Revan’s one tru wuv.

Bastila was put into the worst possible situation by the Jedi Council. She’s babysitting the former scourge of the galaxy, whom she’s bonded to, all by herself, and in light of that her uptight and preachy attitude seems to be a bit more understandable. Hell if I were her, I’d be five times bitchier. I’m not saying that writers have to like her as a character, but it would be nice to see some stories where the author recognizes what a completely crappy situation Bastila is tossed into.

In some ways co-dependant Bastila is worse. This seems to be a trait in a lot of male!Revan fics, where Bastila is weepy, spineless and completely dependant on Revan to guide her through her wangst. I’m sorry, but as a female reader – this makes me see red. I understand that after the star forge, she’d be having a rough time, but come on… I’ve read some fics where all she does is wangst and worry and have big strong Revan help her cope. And then when Revan isn’t around… all she does is wangst and wonder when her one tru wuv will come back.

This is a woman who had the guts to take on Revan in combat when Revan was still evil. She also had the guts to keep it together while sheparding an amnesiatic former Dark Lord around the galaxy. She even has the guts to take on Malak, by herself, and sacrifice herself so that Revan and the crew can make a getaway. She’s not a weepy flower of a woman, and she’s not a spineless nitwit. She can exist without Revan supporting her all the damn time.

One tru wuv Atton stories

Same objections about fluffy!Canderous apply to Atton. Atton is not a nice man. In fact, he’s kind of crazy, and in the game he shows absolutely no signs that he is sorry for the fact that he used to torture and kill Jedi. He’s also a complete and utter horndog. So why the hell there are all these fluffy!Atton, one tru wuv stories out there? I’ll never understand this.

Puppy-Dur

I haven’t seen that many Bao-Dur fics, but sadly the one Bao-Dur centric story I have seen, treats Bao-Dur like a big golden retriever for the Exile. I mean, I know the guy respects the exile, but come on, he’s a grown man. I can see this becoming a trend, which is why this makes the list.

Revan confronting the council, and the council taking it like prison bitches

Okay, so your Revan is pissed at being mind wiped and decides to go and chew out the Jedi Council. Okay – I don’t agree that Revan is right in this instance, but hey, maybe you’re version of Revan does this. What drives me up the wall is when Revan chews the Council out the Council just sits there and takes it, letting Revan, get up on his/her high horse and yell about how unfair it was – and then suddenly, members of the council are shamed. Revan then stomps off completely assured of his or her own self-righteousness without so much as an objection from the Council.

Come on. Even if you the author thinks that the mind wipe and keeping Revan’s identity from her/him was wrong, that doesn’t mean that the Jedi Council thinks it was wrong. Would they really allow Revan, of all people, to stand in front of them bitching and moaning, and not say anything? Or would they point out that Revan created the crappy situation in the first place, which forced the Council into their plan of action?

Force healing that heals EVERYTHING.

Okay, I hate this. Where a character gets horribly wounded and in the next scene they are completely fine, because of the awesome power of force healing. I think the worst case of this that I’ve seen is where one character has gotten raped and tortured to the point where she loses her mind and the Jedi healers have a mind healing session which makes everything all better. That just smacks of the unicorn healing touch and it drives me nuts.

If the author is going to have the character get seriously injured, tortured or raped (or all three) then the author has the responsibility to deal with the physical and mental repercussions of the situation that they’ve created in their stories. Having them magically all healed in the next scene is a cop out.

Anyway… that’s my rant. Anyone else have some kotor pet peeves?

Comments

[deej-pete.livejournal.com]

Well, Pris you've managed to outline alot of what I myself hate when I read KotOR fic, so for once I can say "I agree" to you ;)

One of the biggest pet peeves I have was when after my DSM Revan KotOR game, I went looking for DS fics and *all* I could find was "OMGEVUL We're like, omnipotent and no matter what the Republic does, we just use our Awesome Evul Powers(TM) to like...beat them up."

And then the way pretty much everyone reduces Bastila to Revan's Evul Wuv Slave-Girl(TM). That just grates on me in so many levels; Love slave? Ok, so even if she's letting her passions totally run her she's still been repressing for twenty-odd years; She is *not* gonna become someone's obidiant little pet, and frankly I imagine Revan would have a helluva time controlling her. She'd be Dominant Bitch of the Universe before she's someone's Wuv Slave-Girl.

She'll be cold, mean and a real Sith to those around her, with the possible exception of Revan *if* something comes from him in turn. DS Bastila projecting her emotions at an aloof and wall-like DS Revan would most likely result in her stabbing him in the heart with her lightsabre.

Dark Side does not mean omnipotent, nor that Revan gets his own private slave-girl out of Bastila.

So anyways, that was my rant. Next?

[rose70.livejournal.com]

Word, on all of that. Let's see, my own pet peeves:

Morgana

She existed. She was Carth's wife. She died. This does NOT mean that you get to make Carth forget all about her or "lessen the blow" by turning her all witchy and hen-pecky so her death looks like it was a blessing for poor beleaguered Carth. Carth said a few key things about her in the game:

Carth: She had courage and ... and she was stubborn. I could never talk her out of anything once she put her mind to it. And she hated it when I signed back onto the fleet at the start of the war. I had planned on... on leaving soon, to join her...

Carth: Because you're an impressive and beautiful woman. In some ways... good ways... you remind me of my wife and I'd like to make things right between us.

Carth: I told you my wife died four years ago. I... I've just been trying to remember what she looked like. It shouldn't be so difficult. I can remember things about her... things she did. The way she smiled, what her hair smelled like, our last fight... just not her face.

You have four adjectives to go with for characterizing Morgana: courageous, stubborn, impressive and beautiful. I don't see pushy, lecturing, cruel, or unsupportive anywhere in there. Fighting about Carth reenlisting doesn't make her OMGSOUNSUPPORTIVEOFCARTH'SBELIEFS!!!11!! Try actually marrying a military man and being away from him for long periods of time and worrying everyday that he's going to die. And then, when he finally does come back and you think the worrying's over, he re-ups again. I think you'd have a few words to say to him too.

And I don't care how big of a shrew you turn her into- Morgana will ALWAYS be a better person than Revan. She didn't kill people or destroy worlds or try to take over the galaxy. She wins, no matter how verbally abusive you make her towards Carth. End of story.

O_o OMG, heh *gets down off Morgana soapbox*

Really Badly Done Dustil

I hate overly-angsty Dustil. I mean, obviously the boy's got a lot of issues that he'll probably never come to terms with, especially with his father and Revan. But that doesn't mean he's going off on Carth/Revan every five seconds or sitting around stewing about it all the time. He was pretty close to the top of his class at a SITH ACADEMY. He didn't do any whining there- it was a weakness. Someone would have killed him just to get him to shut up. He's a teenager with issues, but he's also been through a lot and it's hardened him a little. Getting angry now and then and going off on his dad or Revan is one thing- spending all his time whining about it is another.

And then there's the other side of the spectrum- the "accepts everything with a deranged smile" Dustil. There is no way Dustil's going to parrot the rest of the crew's reactions to Revan, the whole "oh, well you're not Revan anymore so it's okay" reaction. Thankfully I haven't seen too much of this, but it makes me grind my teeth together. He's not going to be happy that his father's moving on. He's not going to be open to calling her his stepmom or anything close to a maternal figure. She's responsible for the death of his mother, and no matter how much Revan sucks up to him, I just don't think Dustil would ever forget that. He might, like Carth/Canderous, develop a grudging respect for her, but I don't see much beyond that being realistic.

Aaaand I'm spent. Heh.

[mizanchan.livejournal.com]

I agree with meraviglia on the whole Morgana thing. It seems some people enjoy demonizing her to make a romance between Carth and female Revan easier.

When I was writing Morgana in The Real World, I wanted to make her reaction believable, yet not so over-the-top so as to make her harpy or witchy. I tried to make her appear hurt, upset, and maybe a bit betrayed by what Carth had told her, without overdoing it.

You're right on with Atton, Pris. As romantic as the whole "let's make him all gushy and sweet and ignore what he did" thing is, it's not believable. Plus it gets old pretty quickly. It's one thing to show this occurring after a few years, but NOT in the timeframe of the game.

I think there's a lot of fics with Fluffy!Atton because people like his character so much they want to redeem him. But like I just said, trying to do so in the span on the game isn't really believable unless you set it up REALLY well. In my one fic (so far) featuring Atton, I didn't even try going for a romance...just a reconciliation between two characters (Atton and an OC) who had been at each other's throats throughout most of the journey.

Anyway, odd as this may seem, here's my fanfic pet peeve:

Chronological retelling of the game

In other words, retelling the entire game from start to finish in a fanfic. It may seem odd, but it grates me for some reason. I think it's because I've played the games, I know what to expect, so why am I reading a story that basically tells about the entire game? I almost did this myself, but decided to focus on a few specific times instead.

[miakun.livejournal.com]

Or maybe a story where Jolee or Canderous sit down for that talk with Carth about how Revan needs him and he should move past his issues, and Carth punches them right in the face and tells them to mind their own damn business.

Stop steeeaaaaaling my BRAIN! Not that, that was in the story I have four-hundred notes for but will probably never write.

Anyway, I agree with everything you said and I love when you write rants like this it makes me all happy and relieved.

And OMG, I have to write my "Mischaracterzation of Disciple and Dustil Rant" now, cos Rose just gave me ideas. Ugh, Ugh, Ugh.

I agreed with everything and I think Bastila is the one I agree with most, because it's probably hardest to find a good story about her. I mean you get stories from the female side where she's "bitchy bitch bitch bitcherston" and then you get the male side where she's "Oh I love you Revan and I'm not really evil we're both good even though we've killed everyone let me spread my hot lusty love legs for my scmoooples!"

Seriously, ugh. It makes me want to wriiite now, but I have so much to do.

My list

[(Anonymous)]

Agree with all that are already up, but here's mine.

Boring, Predictable Stories

Give me a hook. Push the envelope. Think of something new. I don't want to see all of the characters automatically following all of the game stereotypes. I want to see them expanded. I don't want a simplistic vision of Good and Evil in the galaxy...if I did, I'd actually like the Star Wars movies, now, wouldn't I? One of the worst kinds of boring story is the endless post-Star Forge or post-Malachor romance genres...where everyone rests on their laurels and hooks up, fighting off a few poorly-sketched out Sith, maybe giving the Jedi Council a bitchy lecture, and talking about their feelings. Some of these are really well-written, and really well done, in terms of keeping the characters true to their nature...but they're all the same. They blur together. I never finish them.

The easiest way around this trap? Think of a plot. And think it through. Create a real villian to be your foil and flesh them out. Create a real scenario that your characters have to deal with that involves more than marriage proposals, receptions, and wangsting about the past. Give everyone bigger problems to deal with.

Good examples of the traditional with a twist, and with a hook are Athena's After the Fall or your own Chasing Redmption, Pris. Those anti-Force villians are cool. So is the Fleet's love/hate relationship with their former adversary. So is everything. You need to update more.

Dustil's biggest trauma being his Dad loving someone other than Morgana

(Oh yeah, and she was a former dark lord too.) Frankly, I'd think Dustil has his own issues, what with the whole, being ex-Sith thing to live with. And any objection to Revan should be based on who she is, not that she's "replacing" a dead person. Coupled with this are ficts where Revan is the only one that can "save" Dustil. Sure, there are examples where Revan saves Dustil that work...(rose :)) really damn well, but that's because some facts about the two of them aren't pushed under the rug. Dustil and Revan don't have to be friends. Ever. And if they end up being so, there'd better be a danm long arc explaining it.

Stupid Malak

Okay sure, he seems dumb in the game...but how dumb can you be and successfully outwit Revan and the Republic? Give Malak some credit. You may have to make up motivations to do so, but that is worthwhile.

Juhani has trauma because she's gay

There's nothing in the KoToR universe that suggests anyone has problems with people being gay, or not gay. Personal relationships, sure, are frowned upon...but there's much evidence that says they happen all the time. Actually, right up there with this as a peeve is the assumption that Juhani and Quatra were some kind of couple, or that Juhani had unrequited feelings for her Master in that special way. Juhani says she admires Quatra...but it's Belaya who used to sit out under the stars with Juhani. And its Dak that Juhani rejected. Isn't it more interesting if Juhani has issues because of her tragic past? Her warlike Cathar tendencies? The fact that Mandalorians killed off most of her kind, making her feel like an outsider everywhere?

Right up there with this one is...

Bastila has issues because she's gay

There is a really well-written fiction out there that I've never been able to finish because I got to this part of the story where it was explained (and used as part of her ds-conversion) and I just went...ugh.

DS stories that are boring.

Think of something interesting for Revan to do with an infinite fleet and an exmpire. And please don't add insult to injury by rationalizing later like TSL tries to with the "greater threat" and "Ancient Sith."

[plutospawn.livejournal.com]

Wow. Everyone beat me to everything and said it much better than I probably could. Neutered Canderous, Sex-slave Bastila and Evul Morgana top my list.

The only thing I can think to add at present is: "The Amazing Vanishing Character Act." But that's relevant to any fandom that's got a large cast.

For characters like Zaalbar, T3, Goto and occasionally Bao-Dur. As the story progresses, they just sort of disappear and aren't mentioned again until the author remembers them at any given climactic scene.

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

Well, my basic response to this could be summed up in one giant, heartfelt "WORD". But I'm feeling nitpicky, so...

Or maybe a story where Jolee or Canderous sit down for that talk with Carth about how Revan needs him and he should move past his issues, and Carth punches them right in the face and tells them to mind their own damn business.

Hee. I like that idea...yeah, Revan's the central character and all, but Carth's got plenty of good reason to act the way he does. Fortunately, I haven't seen much of this, but then I tend to be pretty picky in my fic-reading.

The “Carth & Canderous emote to one another like 14 year old girls” conversation.

I liked it when athenaprime did it, mostly because they were both terminally drunk, and that's about the only way I could see them having a conversation that went past mostly-idle death threats. I actually think Canderous may be more aware of his emotions than Carth is, but that doesn't mean he's gonna talk about 'em.

Atton is not a nice man. In fact, he’s kind of crazy, and in the game he shows absolutely no signs that he is sorry for the fact that he used to torture and kill Jedi. He’s also a complete and utter horndog.

Amen to that. I'm having a lovely time writing redeemable Atton (not redeemed, I hasten to add), but the whole fluffy one-true-love thing makes me absolutely crazy. He's an interesting character, but if you fluffy him up, he's no longer interesting and becomes Stock Love Interest #13,341. (Though I will argue on the "sorry for killing Jedi" point...all the voice acting, for me, pointed to massive denial rather than blithe nonchalance.)

[deej-pete.livejournal.com]

Ok, just got another one.

Someone posted how Bastila would be oh so mad because a Sith Lord messed up her hair.

I can't take the fact that just because she's beautiful, then she's OMGSOVAIN. Like Pris said; she took down the Dark Lord of the Sith. Some people need to realise that it's possible to look half-decent without spending hours fixing your hair and such.

[rimwalker.livejournal.com]

Leave your husband and come live with me.

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

I have a few things I'd like to add to the list.

Kreia Bashing

Now personally I like Kreia as a character, because she is just so opaque: Her motivations are her own, she proscribes to her own philosophy and, most of all, she's an old lady who kicks serious buttock. I'm not saying that I want everyone to like Kreia, but to write her as a simple "I'm going to kill stuff cos I'm teh EVUL Boss Monster" really gets on my nerves. Kreia is complex and deserves to be written that way, to reduce her morals as to simple good and evil is the worst disservice of her character ever.

Faithful Disciple...uh Disciple

This is something else that gets on my nerves: blind, obedient, kick-me-in-the-head puppydog Disciple. Yes Disciple is somewhat naive and idealistic, but he is also a scholar and a Republic spy. He openly questions the Jedi Code and blames the rigidy of the Jedi Council for the stagnation of the Order. He is not a floppsy woppsy bunny rabbit that will believe everything the Exile does and neither would he follow her blindly. Sure he's not too world weary about somethings, like Atton's dry sarcasm for example, but he is not an idiot.

Game Dialog

I can live with game re-tellings, hell I'm writing one so I kinda have to, but one thing that annoys me is over usage of game dialog. There's a big difference between using a few in game quotes and using the entire .tlk file to write your dialog. In my opinion, the whole point of writing fanfic is to make the story your own, if you are not writing your dialog, why are you writing at all?

[tradley.livejournal.com]

Belated addition here:

I think Kosiah hits my big one with Boring, Predictable Stories.

I want plot. I want dramatic tension. Some kind of indication that I'm not reading the Adventures of Super Revan and her Amazing Friends as they cheerfully flit about the galaxy setting everything right, while sorting out that stuffy old Jedi Council and pausing occasionally for a bout of picturesque angsting.

It doesn't have to be action. Romance done well can work brilliantly and be far more dramatic than any dozen lightsaber duels or confrontations with Sith, or starship battles. But I need some kind of plausible doubt that everything's going to work out perfectly in the end bar a few minor mishaps along the way. I need the sense I'm not reading an interminable soap opera in which nothing much is ever going to happen or change, and I could skip ten chapters ahead without missing anything significant.

Some way back from that:

General blandification of the cast

What do I like about the Kotor crew? It's not the fact they're perfect people and shining beacons of virtue. I like them because of their flaws and imperfections and personal inner darknesses and failings. These rough edges are a very large part of what makes them so interesting to me, but a lot of this seems to get constantly pruned away, and they all get made too perfect and nice.

A lot of this has already been said far better than I could, particularly on the subjects of Bastila (I think she gets it worse than any other character generally), Canderous and Dustil, but:

Bastila and Juhani both fell to the dark side. These were genuine falls, with genuine consequences, and they aren't just momentary aberations that can be conveniently ignored and swept away. Both characters have that dark side to them, and its something they're always going to have to face up to.

Carth isn't perfect. He's probably the most truly good and heroic character in either of the two games, but he's made mistakes, some of them serious, and he does have flaws. The game strongly indicates that his relationships with Morgana and Dustil weren't perfect, and personally I find it makes him that much more interesting if he's allowed to have screwed up here through his own genuine failings as a husband and father. That Dustil isn't being a whiny teenage brat with unreasonable expectations.

Jolee may be a wise old man, but he isn't always going to be right or know best in every situation, and he doesn't necessarily know better than the whole rest of the Jedi Order on every single available subject. And his self-imposed exile in the Shadowlands when the Jedi refused to punish him over his wife's death - I think there's a genuine argument here that the Jedi Council were much more in the right here than he was, and he was in fact behaving like a petulant, self-indulgent ass.

True love doesn't conquer all, nor is it the most impotant thing in the galaxy

Honestly.

Whether the relationship between Revan and Carth/Bastila works out is likely to of prime concern to precisely two people in the galaxy. Themselves. Some of the rest of the crew are likely to care about the happiness of their friends, but not to to a degree that it completely overrides their own concerns and issues.

In fact, whether their relationship works may well not be the most important concern to Carth, Bastila or Revan either. Carth's relationship with his only child is likely to be much more important to him than any relationship with Revan. Put in the position where he has to make a choice here, he is going to chose Dustil. Bastila and Carth, by the nature of their characters, are likely to place a whole number of priorities higher than their love lives. Revan also has his/her own list of problems that may very well take precedence over any romantic interests.

I suppose this next comes more under things I'd like to see rather than what I wouldn't, and should be on an entirely different topic, but just occasionally I'd like to see more stories where the relationship between Carth/Revan or Bastila/Revan genuinely does fail irretrievably. Where they don't resolve their problems or overcome their differences and become perfect soulmates.

[maddcoffeybrown.livejournal.com]

You guys pretty much hit them all.

Revan is crazy, dangerously crazy. Revan is not emotionally 'okay' after all that happens. It's not okay! He/She is a messed up individual in need of some long counseling sessions. Carth is not 'Mr. Fix-it' he can't make it all 'magical' disappear. Some fics that I have read has Carth pulling a 'Padame: Going in too quickly with a unstable character. Throwing caution to wind, because its 'true love'. Just totally, blind to their flaws. Such as Anakin's killing spree of Sand people, and she seemed to be totally fine with this. Please tell me she gave all this some thought before taking the plunge?!
Revan killed, twisted and destroyed lives for her own gain. I'm shocked that other crew mates don't share Carth's opinion on the matter. That's something you can't just 'overlook' and the honeymoon begins. Nope. Doesn't happen that way. Everything is not easy and that's double for relationships. Got work at those too. :>

But I'm just artist, not all that skilled with words anyway.(^^)