CHARACTERIZATION PET PEEVES

[variable_x]

 Because if I see another X acting like Superman or that uke from Okane Ga Nai, I gotta kill someone.

Just post here the characterization tropes that make you see red in the fandom, OK? I only ask you to not link to badfic here; and naming names only allowed if the thing is creepy / bigoted as fuck. Also, this time you don't need to be restricted to X series only 8D

Not commenting with mine here because tiredness and because I wanna see your stuff first :)

Comments

[mieldyne]

Invincible Zero and/or Omega. Zero's tough but he doesn't have the godmode cheat on, common.

Also whiny X.

[variable_x]

It's not like

you know

in canon

Zero died

TWICE 8D

[obfuscobble]

"naming names only allowed if the thing is creepy / bigoted"
Okay so everything by The Wallflower, right? I'll name that name and have no regrets.

Other peeves:
Actual Child Axl. Yeah he's "the kid" archetype, but he's not an actual ten year old. He has lived through some serious scrap, and he first appears in game as a happy assassin, so... he's juvenile, he's a delinquent, but he isn't a human juvenile delinquent. And fics where he calls X and Zero daddy? Well, whatever floats your boat, author, but it ain't my schooner.

Abusive Wily. Hate hate hate hate hate hate this. Yes, he's the bad guy. But is he the bad guy because he beats and rapes his robots? No, he's the bad guy because he's a self-absorbed megalomaniacal attention hog who got butthurt over Light getting more recognition for the robots they worked on and thus started a 15-game custody battle. (and for those who don't think that Light and Wily both worked on blues and the first game RMs, just take that last sentence with a grain of humorous salt) Despite building robots to take over the world, he's really low on the scale of black-hearted villainy. You don't need to white knight Wily in fics (like i do because i am a loser) but there is absolutely no reason to twist his character darker and edgier and completely out of recognition. (Protomen Caveat : even here, where Wily is darker than usual, he's still just being a technocratic dictator!)
This is almost always done in the following two circumstances, which compounds its terrible nature : 1. DARKNEDGY BLOOD WHISTLE FIC HEAR ITS CRY ; 2. Romantic fic where just about everything else is still in character and light-hearted, but the author needed to give a Wily Bot a tragic backstory so out comes abusive rapist Wily. That's cheap. Cheep cheep cheep, Mark.
Sure, it's fine to paint Wily as not really caring about his creations. I'd say that this goes against his characterisation in Super Adventure Rockman where he declares his love for his robots, but I'm not writing your fic and you may well yell that Inafune thinks SAR is out of canon. But there's a big gap between "negligent" and "abusive rapist." And I really wish authors wouldn't go out of their way to jump over it.

[variable_x]

Whoa, didn't know that Child Axl was so despised! I agree it sucks, though. Before that, the #1 Axl trope on the Hall of Shame was "angsty cutter Axl", which yes, it's awful, but I never saw works with it!

I tend to interpret Axl as less of a child and more like a cheerful fratbro, making him kind of a foil to asshole fratbro Vile, which kind of makes sense, since both are the Bass expies of the X series (Vile in personality and affiliation, Axl in game mechanics).

Abusive Wily, I think, comes from Ruby-Spears, where he can act quite shitty to his RMs as far as I know. But shitty =/= abusive rapist. Also, people who think that beating and raping is a totally cool thing for evil villains to do without serious analysis and care shouldn't be writing about beatings and rape in the first place. SEE THEWALLFLOWER.

[loconita]

Weak/fragile X or Rock. Yes, they are pacifists and sensitive, but they're by no means completely weak. I hate how just because a character's sensitive and emotional, people immediately think that they're so weak that they can't fend for themselves. They aren't doormats! There's a reason X and Rock have defeated all those Mavericks/Robot Masters! (Hell and have even tied a few times with rivals like Zero and Bass.)

Emotionless/Superman Zero. Zero is a strong, cocky bastard, but he's not invincible. There's also a reason there's so many jokes of how he comes back and dies almost every game. While I hate X4 and ignore it for fan works, that's my best example of why he's not completely uncaring either. Stop acting like he's better than X because he's "SO MACHO" and "NOT A WIMP LIKE X". Or the alternative...

Angsty Zero. STOP. RIGHT NOW. HAVE YOU SEEN X4? HE DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT IRIS UNTIL SHE DIED. HE IS NOT SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG. HE'S NOT SOME "EMO, PRETTY BOY" THAT NEEDS BABYING. WHILE I DON'T DOUBT HE NEEDS THERAPY, HE DOESN'T WALLOW IN HIS OWN EMOTIONS OVER SOME THROWAWAY CHARACTER. YOU STOP THAT.

Child Axl. I'm with a lot of you folks on this. Yes, Axl is young and a little bit of a buffoon. That doesn't mean he's an incompetent kid! He's learning what it means to be a Maverick Hunter and while he's a little bloodthirsty about it, he by no means doesn't understand what that job entails.

Incompetent, trophy wife Alia/Layer. Both of these lovely Reploid ladies are intelligent, supportive, and do their jobs. Stop treating them like they're only sole purpose in life is to be sex toys/wives of X, Vile, Sigma, etc. Speaking of which...

Gold digger/wh*re Layer. STOP YOU FUCKING GROSS PRICKS. JUST BECAUSE LAYER'S OUTFIT IS PRETTY BADLY DESIGNED DOESN'T MEAN SHE'S TRYING TO 'STEAL' ZERO. (WHO, BTW, DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT IRIS UNTIL SHE DIED.) SHE HAS A CRUSH, BUT SHE DOESN'T LET IT GET IN THE WAY OF HER DUTIES. SHE CARES ABOUT ZERO OUTSIDE OF HIS LOOKS. (WHY THE FUCK WOULD SHE BE CONCERNED ABOUT ZERO'S PAST WITH SIGMA IF SHE DIDN'T CARE ABOUT HIM?) STOP TREATING HER LIKE SHE'S A HOME-WRECKING SL*T BECAUSE OF HER CRUSH AND HER OUTFIT.

[variable_x]

Almost all of your points can be pointed to sexism in the fandom: the failure to understand that being emotional and sensitive (traits still coded feminine) equals weakness and its flipside, the idea that to be a BADASS you should feel no emotion or, if strictly necessary, angsty manpain over a dead female character.

AND UGH WAIFU NAVIS. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH. They're professionals, not some random freeloaders on the base. AND EVEN IF THEY WERE FREELOADERS/REFUGEES, they wouldn't throw themselves to the feet of any male character that gives them a look.

You already know my position about Layer-bashing: extremely slut-shamey and racist with extra shit points if she's compared to Iris (the gynoid with the palest skintone and most conservative design, just saying). HOW CAN SHE ~STEAL~ ZERO FROM SOMEONE IF SOMEONE IS DEAD AND WAS NEVER ZERO'S GIRLFRIEND IN FIRST PLACE??? DeviantArt is full of those racist, sexist fucks D:

[mieldyne]

Also I'm not really sure, but wasn't Zero reacting to Iris because he felt really shitty about not being able to help her and having to retire her and such? He might have seen her as a comrade, since they were hunters together at one point, and it's kinda like "I failed to help my comrade now I feel (temporarily) awful about this." and then goes to "I'll be sure to prevent something like this from happening!" and being determined about it?

Also speaking of the angst, I don't like it when people make Blues / Protoman nothing but an emo little shit. (The comic and Powered Up! don't make it any better) I always saw him as the cool one who might have had some grudges but he still helps out, and sometimes seems a little more mature from my point of view. Like maybe he was angsty a lot and maybe still is, but still really wants to help regardless? But I keep seeing people doing this as with him like with Zero, making it the sole point of their character.

Also, I greatly dislike it when people think that just because the MMX characters live in a crapsack world doesn't mean that they can't have moments on down time where they're not SRS BZN. What I mean to say is that I am tired of people thinking that Zero has only one face and one state of mind: that he is 100% just "the cool guy" and srs bzn ALL THE TIME. And that he never had moments in which he smiles or thinks of others other than himself or has bumbling moments, or scenes where he loses his cool? He's a robot but he's not that flat of a character.

[obfuscobble]

I generally don't mind philosophical shithead ProtoMan. I feel that in the comic at least, he's obviously using it as a distancing method to cover his own actions and insecurities, such as when he projects like an Imax onto Tempo. But I agree that he really does need more moments of levity to reflect that side of his character, such as "Try using the fire weapon in the woods, Mega Man." Yeah just do it. burn down the forest, try it. it'll be a larf.

There s a flip side to this though. Mostly inspired by Ruby Spears, TOTAL MEME PROTO is also very popular nowadays. I can't call that wrong, especially not for an RS portrayal, but I think Classic Blues should be a blend of philosophy and meme.