Roswell Fanatics

Have you ever noticed that sometimes things happen in Roswell fanfics that we just accept but would never believe if it happened on the show? Or that sometimes things happen in fics that make no sense if we really think about it, but we say nothing. Like the show had chads, so do fanfics.



Such as…

1. The population of Roswell, New Mexico is 45,000 with a thriving tourist industry. Yet whenever a new person who will later become a friend of the group first comes into the Crashdown, the gang always know immediately that she (it’s usually a she) is new. They don’t assume that she’s somebody that goes to another school, or a tourist, or in town visiting relatives, they know she’s new.

2. Despite being a highly secretive, guarded and suspicious group of people, the gang are immediately friendly and welcoming of the new girl. With the exception of Michael, of course.

3. Evil Tess looks like a gerbil, has an annoying whiny voice, dresses like a slut and isn’t attractive to the guys. Good Tess is none of those things.

4. Evil Tess can be the most brainless, stupid, rude, blatantly evil person. Max can hate her, all his friends can hate her. He doesn’t like spending time with her, doesn’t find her attractive, doesn’t like her touching him. But he still dates her until Liz moves into town.

5. If Liz has a boyfriend who isn’t Max, he usually ignores her, cheats on her, treats her life crap yet is madly in love with her and goes crazy when she dumps him.

6. When the girls are getting ready to go out with the guys, Maria and Isabel can spend ages doing Liz’s hair and doing Liz’s make up and picking out Liz’s clothes and admiring Liz’s appearance. Yet Liz is always the last to come down stair and make her entrance.

7. The girls who attend Roswell High or live/work in whatever AU the gang exist in, (with the exception of Liz, Maria, Isabel and Good Tess) are slutty, brazen, forward, jealous bitches. They have no respect for the sanctity of marriage, or men who are taken. And they can’t take no for an answer.

8. Despite being slutty, brazen and forward, they are only interested in Max but ignore Michael who has the sexy bad boy thing going on and who has the advantage of his own apartment.

9. That even though Alex is really attracted to Isabel’s beautiful exterior, he doesn’t want to sleep with her.

10. Only the gang use the eraser room for making out. It’s never locked and never occupied by other students.

Can you think of any others?

Actually most of those are as much cliche as they are chad.

One cliche that exists in almost every fandom is that of the nymphomaniac pregnancy. As soon as the heroine is even slightly pregnant she turns into this highly demanding insatiable knot of wanton sexual excess. Given the fact that most fic authors are women it causes me to wonder...

Rick

nibbles2 wrote:7. The girls who attend Roswell High or live/work in whatever AU the gang exist in, (with the exception of Liz, Maria, Isabel and Good Tess) are slutty, brazen, forward, jealous bitches. They have no respect for the sanctity of marriage, or men who are taken. And they can’t take no for an answer.

I think Rick is right most of the above are more cliché then plot hole. Not that fanfics don't have plot holes because I know of many of them.

But the one I've quoted actually shouldn't be too surprising. Here we have a group of friends that are very secretive and not prone to allowing outside friends in. But in any case the fics are about them and their interactions.

As you pointed out there are a great many people around them, hundreds or thousands, or millions. But the ones we see are the ones that interact with them. The polite upstanding girls, who respect marriage and/or committed relationships won't hit on the guys in the group because they know they're taken and because of how tight knit the group is they aren't likely to try and befriend the women in the group cause it's not easy to work your way into a group of friends who are that close to each other, you end up feeling like an outsider for a long time.

Therefore it's only the disrespectful, antagonistic girls that are going to be interacting with the group and therefore end up with a major role in the fic.

And every once in a while you can throw in a Serena or an OC that can be added to the list of "good girls". This is often Kyle's girl in a Evil Tess fics or the friend of one of the gang that has been out of touch with the rest of them for one reason or another.

nibbles2 wrote:The population of Roswell, New Mexico is 45,000 with a thriving tourist industry. Yet whenever a new person who will later become a friend of the group first comes into the Crashdown, the gang always know immediately that she (it’s usually a she) is new. They don’t assume that she’s somebody that goes to another school, or a tourist, or in town visiting relatives, they know she’s new.

The real Roswell is that large, yes, but the show (and the Roswell High book series, actually) presented Roswell as a much smaller town. I mean, I've been to the actual Roswell, and they have a downtown business section full of nicely-sized office buildings. The Roswell on the show was nothing like that, made much smaller by "artistic license," I guess. Of course that doesn't answer the tourist aspect of your point... which was actually really downplayed in the show... Because while the Roswell on the show is actually much more tourist-trappy than I found the actual Roswell to be, there were hardly ever random tourists on the show. Basically outside of the UFO Convention there was only Larry and Jennifer. I've always found that a bit odd.

I've never seen Liz fainting in the show, not even after being shot, learning about aliens, being chased by the government or by anything evil. But in fics ? Damn, the number of times where Liz faints in fics is incredible !

Another cliche : Maria, in the show, was "a tower of strength", when Michael was sick, or when he needed her in ID, or when she heard about Isabel being pregnant. But she is always presented as freaking out in fics, while she doesn't when it really matters.

Um can anyone say, Pam Troy??
We hear one thing about her in the pilot and immediately she is assumed to be the queen of sluts! I love that though, if you need someone in yoyur story who is disgusting it's almost always Pam Troy.

No matter how busy the Crashdown is, if Max comes in to see Liz there's always a booth free and it's always their usual one. And even if they are incredibly busy and Max is on his own occupying an entire booth, he's never asked to move to the counter to free up the booth.

dreamerfrvrp3 wrote:Um can anyone say, Pam Troy??
We hear one thing about her in the pilot and immediately she is assumed to be the queen of sluts! I love that though, if you need someone in yoyur story who is disgusting it's almost always Pam Troy.

I've got to admit that I rarely buy Pam Troy as a garden-variety slut. IMO Liz was SO much more likely to hate a bratty suck-up she was in a grades race with.

Well there's a couple there I've definitely been guilty of in at least one of my fics. gives me some food for thought...

The main one is Pam Troy though, and I'm not sure I would change on that one - and yes, you could make up a compeltely OC character to play the same role, but it seems to fit easier if you're not lots of unfamiliar names, she was only mentioned once, but she sticks in your mind... *shrugs* anyway, just my tuppence worth for now...

Fanfic chads : I am always surprised that when Liz leaves for years and comes back, oftenly she has a new best friend (Serena, Ava or an OC) and Maria is jealous.

Maria, on the other hand, never has a new best friend. Why ? It's not like she was a shy girl who couldn't find friends.