Rant Number Ten: Relations

Okay, so, I'm going to go ahead and assume this one is going to be unpopular. But I just don't care at the moment. This drives me crazy because everyone fucking does it.

It seems to be, or at least feels like, in about 90% or so of Transformers fanfics, the main OC is impossibly related to a main character.

Like, it's just this random mention of, "Oh hey, by the way, I all of a sudden have a sister/brother/cousin that I love to death but never talk about!"

Yes, I realize that it's a story. You can do whatever the hell you want and fuck shit up to hell and back. Some people will like it or even love it.

And people like me will absolutely fucking hate it.

I'm sorry if anyone doesn't like this rant, but I hate reading a story and these things get disrupted. All of a sudden, people have this fucking huge-ass families with all these different people, and why? Because people need reasons and ways to just stick their character right the fuck in there.

Why not just make them friends? Why not just have them stumble on this shit on their own? Why must they always, always, always be family members that couldn't possibly exist in the actual TF universe?

I mean, really, what's the point?

And maybe it isn't even the fact that I just get beyond annoyed with these things because it is what it is, but the prevalence of this. I mean, it's everywhere. There's tons of TF stories on Wattpad. I'm not going to pretend I've read them all.

But find me ten or more that have human characters that aren't somehow related to another character.

This includes when they later reveal themselves to be techno-organic and related to a Cybertronian.

Can you find even ten? I don't have the patience to even try. I'm just so sick of "How am I going to fit this person in? Oh, I know! They'll be secretly yet obviously related to one of the already existing characters!"

The worst part is when it's supposed to be a secret but it's completely obvious and it's practically given away the entire time before it's revealed!

So here's a self-critique involving one of my own works, just because I know i can't offend anyone else, and I know exactly what happens and what has happened with it:

The 'I Bleed' series.

~MAJOR SPOILER ALERT FOR WHAT HAS HAPPENED THUS FAR. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ AND PLAN TO, I SUGGEST BACKING OUT QUICKLY~

Okay, so . . . Fay. Farrah Naomi Meadows. She's a techno organic, but has no slagging clue. Her 'deceased' father and brother are the holoforms of IronHide and Jazz. Her living (though a bit distant) mother is the holoform of Chromia.

They raised her to protect her from the Decepticons.

But they aren't her real, biological 'family'.

And they most certainly are not the reason Fay gets involved in the TF world. Her 'first' self-inflicted encounter is caused by Fay scratching Optimus's paint job while he's resting in his alternate mode.

That's how she starts interacting with transformers of her own will, even if she finds Optimus (and his holoform) beyond annoying.

She doesn't get involved with this stuff because her Dad/Mom/Brother/Cousin/Uncle/Aunt/Third-Cousin-Twice-Removed was her way in. She stumbled into it on her own.

~Spoiler Over~

See what I'm getting at? Family is okay if you separate yourself from the main timeline enough that it's plausible. I've developed a major pet peeve with these people that sit there and follow the timeline word for word or moment for moment but completely disrupt it becuase their OC is suddenly everywhere.

I won't be surprised if I get some hateful comments on this, but it's just my opinion. And it drives me absolutely insane to see these things. You can't all possibly think that this makes perfect sense all the damn time.

And frankly, in my mind, it disrupts how I see the original. I want to still look at the original with wonder and amazement, not look at it for five seconds, see some amateur overwrite in the back of my mind and groan, damn nearly wincing at the similarities.

Touch on the same plotline? A good, sound strategy to give people a reference.

Following hte exact same plotline but altering every single loved scene for your characters?

No offense but it personally drives me crazy and I'm not going to keep reading. It's just not my cup of tea.

~As always, do your research if you're going to get involved in the transfan universe. Even if there's no research to be done from this one. Unless of course you're going to find me a minimum of ten stories. You know what I'm talking about. Also, they should be well-written. No text talk, lack of separation for talking, lack of quotation marks, etc. Good spelling. They should at least be average.

Know why? I'd like to see them and alter my availability heuristic. Thank you to anyone up to the challenge.