Stranger than fanfiction...fanfic chads.

[killjoy]

Why are they always rich?

Have you ever noticed that the characters are usually rich no matter what their profession or how young they are?

At the age when most people are stuggling to find their feet after college, these charaters are rich and successful and don't have to worry about things like student loans.

Says the person who's giving us Gold Diggers....

[nibbles2]

Why are they always rich?

Have you ever noticed that the characters are usually rich no matter what their profession or how young they are?

At the age when most people are stuggling to find their feet after college, these characters are rich and successful and don't have to worry about things like student loans.

Says the person who's giving us Gold Diggers....

Yeah, yeah...but in my defence, none of my characters are teachers or cops. The rich guys are rich because of their parent's company and the others are struggling to pay the bills. Liz is stripping for a living, Maria is taking on extra shifts and Alex....well I can't say just yet but he's struggling.

What I mean is when say for example Max is twenty six - and he's a wealthy lawyer or doctor with a flash car and great apartment and no student loans to pay off. Or worse, when he's a teacher or something else equally low paying yet he still has the car and the apartment and no money worries. Because he's really a rich guy.

[Heavenli24]

On a similar vein to the 'rich characters even though they have crappy jobs' thing, what gets me is the stories where one of the characters (usually Liz or Max, and sometimes Alex in AU) is a university lecturer/professor by their mid-twenties, having only earned a bachelors degree.

Being in academics myself, I can tell you that it's not realistically possible to get that far in such a short amount of time, especially in the US where the degrees programmes are longer than in other countries. And it's not possible to become a prof (Dr.) with just a bachelors degree (if it were, no one would bother with PhDs!).

An example timeline: start college at 18, graduate with bachelors at 22, go to grad school - graduate with masters at 24-25, graduate with PhD at 28-30. And that's just for starters; after PhD, spend between about 3 and 12 years as a post-doctoral researcher, before taking a professorship position, if you can even get one (age 31-42).

I think in the UK it's a bit quicker because our Bachelors degrees are only 3 years, our masters are only 1 year, our PhDs are only 3 years and in some subjects you can go straight from Bachelors to PhD, but you'd still be 30 or so before being able to take a lecturer position.

So, more realistically, in their mid-twenties, the characters would either be studying for Masters/PhD degrees in order to become a professor later on in their careers, or they would have given up and got real jobs!

[nibbles2]

Ooh, another one. When a character has earned a Phd or has some brilliant qualification and then decides to work as a high school teacher. Or after all the trouble and effort to get the education, they give it all up to be Suzy Homemaker. (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a stay at home parent. I just have a hard time believing that somebody who has worked as hard as you have to in order to get an education would walk away from it without a second thought.)

[Heavenli24]

Ooh, another one. When a character has earned a Phd or has some brilliant qualification and then decides to work as a high school teacher. Or after all the trouble and effort to get the education, they give it all up to be Suzy Homemaker. (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a stay at home parent. I just have a hard time believing that somebody who has worked as hard as you have to in order to get an education would walk away from it without a second thought.)

It's not actually all that uncommon for people to do that, at least from my experience of UK schools - we had at least two teachers (in Chemistry (male) and French (female), from what I remember) who had PhDs but chose to go into secondary teaching and not academic research/professorship positions. Alternatively we had one undergrad professor who went into high school teaching after his PhD and then came back to lecture in higher education/do academic research a few years later.

Although I am a PhD student right now, I'm not necessarily planning to go into academics afterward (at the moment, I'm not even sure if I even want to continue with the PhD) - in fact, one of the reasons I am doing the degree is because almost all of the jobs/careers that I am interested in require a PhD in order to apply for the position! I have also considered going into high school teaching, either if I choose not to continue with the PhD or after I've finished it (I'm not entirely sure I can handle the pressures of the academic research world ).

[killjoy]

I tell you what I hate is the people who lock the characters into a sterotype and will never show them in a different light...even in AU.

What I mean is....Tess is always the evil slut while Liz is the pure goody goody angel.It's why I loved the story Calender Boys so much.It had both girls swapped.Liz was the party gal who slept around and Tess was the quiet school loving bookworm.I got the biggest kick out of that.

I mean how about some times Michael being the good boyfriend while Max is the jerk?

[tequathisy]

I would love to read a fic where Liz is the bitch who hurts Max and Maria and the others for a change. Or at least one written by a dreamer. There are one or two around but it always turns out that Liz is a really lovely person deep down and the only reason she's acting that way is because her parents didn't love her or something like that. It would be fun to read a fic where Liz is a bitch and that's it.

[girl afraid]

I tell you what I hate is the people who lock the characters into a sterotype and will never show them in a different light...even in AU.

What I mean is....Tess is always the evil slut while Liz is the pure goody goody angel.It's why I loved the story Calender Boys so much.It had both girls swapped.Liz was the party gal who slept around and Tess was the quiet school loving bookworm.I got the biggest kick out of that.

I mean how about some times Michael being the good boyfriend while Max is the jerk?

I can only speak for myself but.......

For me, the reason I continue to read and write in this fandom is because of the characters I fell in love with in the first place on the show. Michael is my favourite character and his taciturn, rebellious nature is why I'm attracted to him. His personality traits (and those of Maria also, for that matter) are ones I really relate to. Michael as a perfect nice guy, a la Max? That's not Roswell to me. You may as well change Michael's name to Max or Steve, or John Doe because he's no longer Michael Guerin in my eyes.

I can't get into Roswell stories where the characters do not maintain similar personality traits to the show because those stories take away the reason I fell for the fandom/characters in the first place. Mixing things up by changing the setting of the story or circumstances of the characters in an alternative universe is great, but the core elements of the character personalities have to stay the same to keep my interest. This doesn't mean Liz has to be a total goody two shoes or that Tess has to be an evil ho - I'd rather they not become caricatures but keeping the basics of the character's personality, and making sure they are three dimensional multi-faceted individuals at the same time is what keeps me interested.

Oh and keeping Michael with Maria too, can't forget that small, minute fact.

[nibbles2]

I tell you what I hate is the people who lock the characters into a sterotype and will never show them in a different light...even in AU.

Not always true - there must be an eleventy million fics where Max is portrayed as a player who sleeps around and is mean and moody. Which is not an accurate portrayal of canon Max. (sleeping with one girl over a year after being dumped by another girl is the exact opposite of player.)

And there's countless fics where Liz is tough, kick ass, sarcastic. That's not an accurate portrayal of Liz either.

People enjoy seeing Max as the bad boy or Liz as the tough chick. As long as they aren't portrayed in a negative manner. That's why dreamer fics where Liz is the bitch are few and far between.

The Tess thing is crazy. In fics where she's the evil character, she really is made into a caricature. She never called Max Maxie or acted like a slut and was never nasty to Liz. Often you see in fics where Tess is described as being unattractive and no man would look at her. That's simply not true - Tess (and Emilie) is a gorgeous woman. I find it hard to believe that men wouldn't be attracted to her. She mightn't be every guy's type but I think most of them would appreciate that she's a vcry pretty girl.

[Misha]

Ok here's one that gets me... in fics where the gang go back to Antar and then there is a big explosion or the ground shakes and even the natives call it an earthquake. I could understand those he came from earth calling it that cause it's what they are used to calling it. But you'd think the people who'd lived on Antar all their lives would call it an antarquake or something similar... wouldn't you?

Actually, if you want to get technical, we call them "earthquakes" not because they happen on planet Earth, but because they happen on the earth. Just like you would call "seaquake" if the movement was happening in the sea. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/seaquake

There are also "moonquakes" because they happen in the Moon -or any moon for that matter- but "earthquake" is the generic way of refering to a movement in solid ground. Otherwise, we would have "venusquakes" and "calistoquakes" and "asteroidquakes" and it would be a big messy thing...

So I have no problem with that specific term