Fanfic pet peeve #197

[graculus]

What is it with people writing Daniel Jackson as this self-loathing weepy character, more reminiscent of a Victorian maiden than anything else, who sits in his lonesome room, cutting himself while he sheds a solitary emo tear. Oh, and he's amazed when anyone says he's any good at doing anything and overwhelmed by any sign of appreciation.

Why is this still happening? Have you people never actually seen either the movie or the series?

In the movie, Daniel is the one who strolls into the depths of Cheyenne Mountain, casually correcting the translation someone has been working on forever, and he doesn't think 'oh noes, they'll all hate me!', he just gets on and does his thing. Brilliantly. Despite the fact this should all be well outside his comfort zone as an academic. And then he's going offworld without a second thought through this bizarre alien device, throws himself into this new civilisation he's encountering for the first time and isn't at all abashed when his understanding of the language turns out to be not quite as good as he thought it was, not to mention that he casually quizzes Ra about his plans before getting involved in an escape plan. Oh, and then he helps to blow up a spaceship with a nuclear warhead.

See any difference between the two characterisations? And that's just the movie! ;)

Comments

[lachli.livejournal.com]

Heh, my favourite is when Daniel is hurt and says "J'ck" pathetically, so J'ck scoops his slight frame up into his arms and hikes miles with him to get him to safety. Never fails to make me laugh, he's this big, strapping bloke, you couldn't scoop him up if you tried and I defy anyone to hike miles carrying him, LOL.

Gave up reading Daniel fic a long, long time ago because so many writers lost all sense and reason when they wrote him and I just never recognised the guy on paper with the one I saw on screen.

There's also a wonderfully sarcastic side to Daniel that so rarely comes over in fic, not sure whether writers think it's a negative trait so choose to ignore it because it doesn't fit in with the ideal they have of him.

Where do you find SG and Daniel fic these days? I'm assuming Heliopolis isn't the place anymore and I loathe fanfic.net.

[moss6886.livejournal.com]

Word.

[ankh-lj.livejournal.com]

Seems to happen to all the young(est) pretty ones. Poor Tony DiNozzo seems to spend most of his fanfic life on his knees being Gibbs' weeping, needy, collar-wearing, masochistic fuck puppet.

[khek.livejournal.com]

You think those writers watch the show? I always thought that they had their story all mapped out, then they just jumped from fandom to fandom, changing the names and situations:

"Let's see, we have Blair...no, Daniel...no, Martin...no, Tony...no Illya! So we'll put him with Jim...no, Jack...no, other Jack...no, Gibbs...no Napoleon! And they'll be on a case...no, stranded on a planet...no, on a different case...no, on a really different case...no, on a spy mission! Then he'll get hurt, and cry, and his big manly rescuer will come and comfort him, and then they'll talk about how much they mean to each other, and they'll hug (or, if it's slash, do more), then he'll be rescued and they'll solve the case! Er, escape. Or solve the case...it's all the same."

In other words, I don't get it either. I have to admit, I find the illness fics more disturbing though. Not only is Daniel still all weak and weapy and in need of rescue (in the author's mind) but he also sufferes from an incurable disease and everyone sobs over him as he dies beautifully,and usually underappreciated until the last minute. Unless Jack has Seen The Light and decided to nurse him until the bitter end, and then there are minute details about every moment of his care.

*shudder*

It's a beautiful Saturday morning! Why did you make me think of this!! :p

[cycnus39]

"Jack, it's the answer. It's right there."

"So's Apophis and his minions, Daniel. You can see them. They're right there. They're minioning."

"We can go around them."

"The floor's collapsing."

"You brought rope, right?"

"Oh, great. You hear that? That's a monster, Daniel. You know it's gonna have big teeth and claws and slime. And really bad breath."

"Maybe if we're really quiet."

"Monster, Daniel."

"Answer, Jack."

"I'll..."

"Yeah."

"You'll..."

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Just don't--"

"I won't."

"And keep--"

"I will."

"Fine."

"Good. Can we go now?"

[stacy-l.livejournal.com]

LOL! I know what you mean and I try VERY hard not to do that to Daniel. Actually I've found since the newer seasons I'm not able to write a weepy Daniel unless I put him through all kinds of crap to ground him down to that point, and still I can't write him in tears.

[zellieh]

It's not just SG1. As previous commenters have said, it seems to happen in every fandom: lazy characterisation leads to the Hero being stereotyped as an incommunicative macho jerk and the Other Hero being stereotyped as the helpless weepy femme. *bangs head against brick wall for a while*

It's not as if there are no other choices, after all. If you really want to show a character falling apart, then you don't have to do it for some stupid relationship reason - you can do it with PTSD. At least that would be canonical. It'd also be much more powerful and much more interesting to read.

Emo cutting-fic scares me almost as much as the beagle fic. *shudders*

[superbadgirl]

Well, you can't have a hero-rescues-fair-maiden story without a fair maiden.

Only slightly less troubling than stories with weepy Daniel are stories that have every other character mentally waxing poetic about what a magnificent, faultless, beautiful guy Daniel is.

Heh. He can't win for losing.