(no subject)

[icarus]

Pet peeve time!

I confess, kids in fanfiction bug me.

It's not that I don't like kids. We get along just fine, kids and I. It's just that there's a certain -- certain... people write the kids like they're extensions of their parents.

They look like their fanfiction parents.
They act like their fanfiction parents.
They have similar talents as their fanfiction parents.

They aren't treated as if they are OCs, when really, they ought to be.

Why are they written this way?

Folks, the human method of procreation is designed to mix and match our DNA in such a way that we have a random slice of our parents' genetic code. In addition, that randomization expresses different dominant and recessive traits. Additionally, while I do not believe in Tabula Rasa (no insult to the fine fanfiction writer of that name) I do believe that our experiences do have an impact. There is no way that the fanfic kid's experiences are the same as their parents, so their personalities are going to be radically different.

Why the hell do people go ga-ga over fanfic kids who look or act like their fanfic parents? I'm not into the ga-ga over kids thing anyway, kids are just people as far as I'm concerned, but there's something troubling in the fact that writers forget this fact.

I actually brought my MPreg Reunion to a screeching halt over this issue. Someone sent me a photomanip of what the baby (which I never promised would ever exist) would look like, combining traits from Ron and Draco. Augh!

An entire chapter of that story was devoted to creating kids that were real people and not just one-dimensional extensions of the fanfic parents. Ron's four kids were not cute. Not a single one was like Ron. His youngest little girl was pampered and hurting and a little angry over his divorce, demanding his attention when he was trying to talk to Harry. Ron couldn't control his two oldest -- he was too mellow a parent -- and the third middle child was bright, quiet, and simmering with resentment. They had little lives of their own, and they were pretty miserable.

When Draco's daughter turned up, you were going to find a rigidly correct little stick, wan and smothered by the expectations of her Dad. She didn't have Draco's feisty rebellious spirit so the same parenting that led to Draco's constantly forgetting his father's advice and battling Harry turned her into a virtual paper doll.

But I couldn't battle the kid-lovers. They wanted Ron and Draco's kid to be just like them, ignored the real kids, and panted after the baaaaaby.

Sometimes I strongly suspect that people love babies because they can project their own image of who that person is onto them. Which is precisely why I like young kids over babies: when they're that tiny it's hard to tell who they are.

Comments

[femmequixotic]

While I completely agree with pretty much everything you say here, I do have to quibble a teeny tiny bit with this.... *G*

They have similar talents as their fanfiction parents.

I don't think that's so very farfetched, though. I mean, in my own family my father was a math/computer person and my mother is a writer and artist. Out of three kids, I inherited my dad's computer genes, my mom's writing genes and a bit of her art genes. My brother got my mom's writing genes like whoa. And my sister is quite good at math (unlike the rest of us), has a good smidge of writing genes, and is a fabulous teacher, like both our parents were for years.

I also knew a family growing up where there were 12 children and each of the children as well as their parents were highly talented musicians. I mean highly. As in several of them went to top-rated music schools.

So I really do believe that talents and predispositions can be passed genetically. It doesn't necessarily happen with everyone, but it's possible. Therefore, I guess having Harry have a kid who's good at Quidditch or Hermione raising a swot or Snape having a spawn who had a talent for potions wouldn't really be surprising to me to read.

My own personal pet peeve with badly written children (well-written children I adore) is that so many people don't know the proper developmental stages. There's one child I've read who was supposed to be 15 and acted like she was developmentally 8. And it completly freaked me out.

It's like...er...hello? If you're going to write a kid, either spend some time around them so you know how certain ages act or look up some basic adolescent psych texts and study the developmental ages. Please. For the love of God. Please. *whimpers*

[fullygoldy.livejournal.com]

So I really do believe that talents and predispositions can be passed genetically.

oh yeah, just look at the Barrymores or Baldwins. Your environment has an awful lot to do with where your interests lie and how your talents will express themselves.
I love, love, love Shallot's Hypatia (daughter of John and Rodney in "A Beautiful Lifetime Event"). OTOH, I don't particularly like mpreg. Shallot's worked because of the technology, and I was already familiar with the concept of uterine replicators. And it was more about them discovering their relationship, and less about the baby.
My own daughter entered the world with an opinion. She expressed it early and often, with much encouragement from me, and 16 yrs later, is still doing so. The first morning she was on this planet, my DH was entering the room for the first time that day. She was lying on my chest, head turned away from the door. He knocked, started entering and said, "how're my girls?" She did a *push-up* and turned her head toward him before lowering herself back down. WE were dumbstruck. This is not normal for a baby less than 24 hrs old. Our pediatrician thought we imagined it.
She also is very musical, sensitive, dependent like dad, and tends to be the responsible caregiver with the sex-positive outlook, like mom. She's a girly-girl, loves pink, and doesn't mind camping. I'm a tomboy, hate pink, and think dressing up is fun once in awhile. She's got a touch of my SAD, but nowhere near as much as her brother, and in her baby pictures, she looks like me. Nowadays, she looks more like Julia Roberts.
Babies are people. They act and seem more like regular people when their parents encourage them to be themselves. If they don't get that encouragement, it takes a lot longer for their selves to shine through. So in fanfic, a kid who is really a Mary Sue, or really a parental clone will never ring true. Icarus, don't let a subset of under-experienced readers dictate what you write. Tell your stories. I've seen enough of your stuff to know that you have good stories, and will always have an appreciative audience. (and I haven't even read the one you are referencing, ::G::)
I know you don't know me, I only friended you to keep up with "Out of Bounds," expecting to unfriend when you finished, but I've been enjoying your posts so much, I may stick around.
~goldy

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

OTOH, I don't particularly like mpreg

MPreg gets weird because a lot of it focuses on the mechanics of a man getting pregnant and often feminizes him to a bizarre degree.

And it was more about them discovering their relationship, and less about the baby.

Exactly! In a way she wrote something similar to what I was aiming at in Reunion, though her story was about bringing John and Rodney together, while Reunion is about messy relationships -- Ron and Draco's complicated relationship (split up, then coming back together ten years later), their divorces, and the mix of kids they already have and class differences and... oh, it's a mess. The MPreg is supposed to be another wrench in the works, but Shalott and were on the same track in the focus on the relationship between the two men.

Icarus, don't let a subset of under-experienced readers dictate what you write. Tell your stories. I've seen enough of your stuff to know that you have good stories, and will always have an appreciative audience. (and I haven't even read the one you are referencing, ::G::)

That's really nice of you. I got frustrated with the MPreg readers and back-burned the story, though the main reason it remains unfinished is, well, distraction. After all, I started writing Percy, and then Stargate SG-1, and then....

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll give you that, though I'm not sure how much is nature and nurture. I tend to go for the environmental factors over the genetic coding, simply because even the coding for say, eye-color, is incredibly complicated and interdependent. The results from Mitosis-type cell division shouldn't be so one-to-one; environment explains it better. Dad had books around and liked to read; kiddies imitate Dad and like to read, too.

As for artist talent, it does tend to flow in families, but sometimes I wonder if it's less rare and more that most people who have latent artistic ability don't have an opportunity to develop it in our society. We might be seeing a social phenomenon more than a genetic one. The opportunity to develop artistically is put into to good soil, so to speak, and then the rareness of that is set on a pedestal that encourages the kids to keep going. Coming from a Waldorf school where art was something that pervaded every class, I find it difficult to say that this or that kid is artistically gifted, since I've seen fine artwork done by kids who were largely the class jocks.

Back to fanfic... I think there's a lack of creativity when fanfic kids are written to be so similar to their parents. I can see in A Beautiful Lifetime Event that Hypatia would imitate Rodney because heck, when she was growing up he had all the answers to the "why" questions. No doubt she was impressed.

What doesn't make sense is when it's automatic: Snape's kids are always potions prodigies. Look at the Weasley family. We believe in them, yet is there any connection between the kids' talents and their parents'? No. Charlie loves dragons, Bill's a curse-breaker, the twins talented inventors... of all the kids, the only ones who come close to being like Arthur are the twins and Percy. And not by much. That feels real.

Icarus