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.

[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.

[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.