Stranger than fanfiction...fanfic chads.

[Coccy]

Before they made Tess the show's biggest villain by having her kill off Alex, I actually noticed some similarities between her and Maria that I think might have allowed them to be friends.

but before we discovered that she was the villain Maria already hated Tess and Tess ignored her.
I never noticed any similarities between Tess and Maria. Mostly because the writers developed Maria and made me see her feelings about things while i know very little about what Tess liked or not and even those scenes are inevitably tainted by her true colors.

Especially in the Christmas episode. Let's face it: Love Tess or hate her, she's very funny in this episode. She's got a good sense of humor like Maria does.

i don't think that Maria's sense of humor can be compared with one, two scenes where Tess showed it. All the characters showed it for the matter. It's nothing extraordinary.
The writers created Maria like that and did build up her personality on it so she always was like that. Those examples with Tess are no different than the times where Liz or Isabel showed some sense of humor too. Even Max showed some sense of humor sometimes this doesn't mean that he's like Kyle for example.

They're both kind of girly girls, they both know how to bicker with guys (Kyle and Michael). I just think it could have worked and it actually would have created a nice non-sci-fy conflict between Liz and Maria.

i don't know about the girly girly... Tess was someone who didn't want to be human and it didn't seem to me that she cared so much about being girly girly.
Maria on the other hand is more like a normal teenager

also look at her friendship with Liz or Alex. They aren't totally like her yet they're perfect together and it didn't seem to me that Maria or Liz were searching for another best friend.
With all the girls in roswell Maria was best friends with Liz (and viceversa). why? because a friendship isn't based only on girly girly things (btw i think that she and Liz shared interests in common too). Otherwise you have a "friendship" like the one Isabel had with her "friends" in the first season.
Your best friend is someone who can understand you like no one and is there for you when you need him/her. Someone who can give you advices and help you if you have a problem. And sometimes your best friend is someone who can complement you.

Maybe Maria didn't trust Tess, but I still think her loyalty to Liz would always have been the primary thing standing in the way of them ever becoming friends.

again, Maria always hated Tess even more than Liz herself. I doubt that her hate toward Tess can be blamed on her friendship with Liz because that would mean that Maria is immature and shallow and i don't think that she was.
She had her own reasons for not liking Tess (maybe because she thought that she played with Michael's mind too?). She simply didn't like her and never tried to hide it. She incited the hate in Liz too.
I think that she sensed that something was wrong about her and didn't trust her. And she was right.
Tess on the other hand didn't "help" either because she ignored the humans. I think that she hardly acknowledged that Maria existed in the first place. She had more chances to be friends with Isabel than Maria.
(at the same time i think that Maria had more chances to be friends with Isabel than with Tess)

It seems to me that people always blame the group for making Tess an outsider but any friendship should be based on both sides and Tess never tried to be friends with them. And we know why. Also it seems that for some people the characters (Kyle included) had the purpose to make Tess a better person and change her. I find this logic very flawed. They couldn't be her psychiatrists. She was what she chose to be. Furthermore the show showed that in the end she betrayed even the ones who cared about her and treated her nicely (Jim&Kyle).


also there's a huge difference between "friends" and "best friends".

Or it could just be because Tess is my second-favorite female character on the show. I don't know.

i think that this is the reason and you're not the only one.
It's like Liz's fans that hate Maria and want another option for the main friendship
Honestly i think that the friendship between Liz and Maria (and Alex) was one of the most important and well developed things in the show. It's something real. If i love Liz i have to respect the fact that she cared about Maria and not Tess. If i make her friends with someone that she hated in the series (Tess) i'm kinda making her OOC. I'm denying a part of her character, an important part. I feel the same toward UC couples.

Just wondering, does anyone ever question Michael and Kyle being written as best friends in fics? Because I don't, but since I'm writing them that way right now and plan on writing them that way again in my next fic, I'm curious.

Michael and Kyle had some scenes in the show (like in the third season)... with them (or Max-Kyle, or Kyle-Alex) a friendship can make more sense (although nothing in the show suggests that Kyle could be his *best* friend. When Michael had a problem he usually talked with Max. However you still have something to start with).
With Tess and Maria it doesn't because canon Maria despised her and wanted her to die while Tess totally ignored her for the most part. This is the difference.
In the show there isn't a single scene where Maria and Tess talked friendly, shared an interest, interacted in some ways. Something, anything, that could suggest that a friendship was possible between them. A friendship. It figures a "best friend" kind of friendship.
The only things between them is Maria's hate toward her and her mean comments everytime she got the occasion and this is not up to interpretation.
So a friendship between them is totally AU and fandom created because nothing in the show supports this idea. This doesn't mean that people can't write a even believable friendship between them! It's not the point. The mistake, i think, is when people want to justify fanon things using canon especially when canon strongly contradicts them.

[April]

I don't know, different strokes for different folks, I guess. I would have a hard time ever seeing canon Maria and Tess becoming friends, although it is something that I would have liked to have seen explored in the show; but in AU, anything is possible as long as something about the characters as individuals ties back to the canon. To me, they don't have to be friends in the show to be friends in AU, just like they don't have to be siblings in the show to be siblings in AU or romantic on the show to be romantic in AU.

I should probably clarify that it's not that I don't like Liz and that's why I tend to have Maria be best friends with either Tess or Isabel in my fics. It's just that, for me, fanfic is a chance to explore some things that weren't fully developed in the show, so I like to try out different friendships. Plus, like I said, Liz is the hardest for me to write.

Anyway, I don't know if it's a fanfic chad so much as a fanfic fad, but I personally love it, so anyone who wants to write Maria and Tess as friends in an AU fic or give a shot at developing it in a canon fic, go right ahead. I'd love to read it.

[Misha]

wow coccy, you seriously don't like Tess and Maria even in AU, uh?

I can't blame you, most UC pairings make absolutely no sense to me, AU or otherwise, but I gotta admit I was impressed by all the faults you found with that pairing

[Coccy]

wow coccy, you seriously don't like Tess and Maria even in AU, uh?

I can't blame you, most UC pairings make absolutely no sense to me, AU or otherwise, but I gotta admit I was impressed by all the faults you found with that pairing

i like Maria. ^^" I like some Tess AU where she's good although she's not a realistic Tess so i guess that i like another character called Tess

in my post i'm not talking about AU fanfiction or a fanfiction in particular.

i repeat/quote myself

a friendship between them is totally AU and fandom created because nothing in the show supports this idea. This doesn't mean that people can't write a even believable friendship between them! It's not the point. The mistake, i think, is when people want to justify fanon things using canon especially when canon strongly contradicts them.

it's a chad just like people writing fanfictions where Liz is described as someone who has long legs or Max being a playboy
Unless i'm not in the fanfiction chad thread

[Sin]

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 think this mostly comes from the writers trying to make their story at least somehow connected to Roswell. Otherwise you end up getting characters that are only there in name only. Something has to be there that is the same about the character otherwise your not really writing Roswell, are you?

You can change aspects about the character of course, some major and some minor but I think the heart of the character still has to be there if you are trying to find their voice. Which is what I think fan fiction is about otherwise you could end up writing your own original story or novel.

This isn't to say that Tess can't be nice (I find it a little harder to do in Canon/Conventional Fanfiction then in Alternate Universe) but there has to be something there to make Tess be Tess. Otherwise you are just creating a character named Tess who has aspects of Isabel, Maria, Liz or another persons' personality traits and then it really isn't Tess anymore - it's someone else. There are things that make each character special and I think when writing them you just have to value them if your going to try and write them or at least try to write them well, in my opinion.

I actually quite enjoyed a story where Tess was Liz's best friend and I was at first alarmed because I thought the author was going to make her betray Liz, but it didn't turn out that way and I ended up loving the character who still was like Tess but had a different background and ended up being incredibly likable. I can't remember a time where I have read a story where Michael is a bad boyfriend but admittedly I don't read a lot of Candy fic.

LOL. There are plenty of stories where Max is a jerk (I think that seems to be the usual ). As it was stated previously there are plenty of "badMax!" stories. I think the difference is that he just ends up caring and realizing that he messed up and then it turns into a "repentedMax!" story which leads to sweet/good/caring boyfriend Max.

Liz is the most difficult character for me to write and however I end up writing her, people hate her.

I know how you feel for the brief time I ended up writing Roswell fanfic I had the hardest time getting the voices of Max and Maria correctly. I think it was just because I didn't get them our their voices and didn't want to end up making them seem under developed in my story. I can write from Liz, Michael, Isabel and even Tess' ( ) point of view but I can't really write those two that well. With Maria I just find it hard to find the core or platform of her character. She is bubbly, fiery, quick-witted and humorous but I can't write it in a way that doesn't end up making her seem shallow. I usually go for the in-depth stuff when I try. Max is just harder because I just feel he shifted a lot over the series and when I do end up trying I feel like I am missing something when I write him.

[Ti88]

i don't really think its out in left field to have any of these people be really good friends or hate each other in canon. tess gets the raw end of the deal and always has. i have always felt that if alex hadn't off died then the natural progression of the show would have had tess and maria living in the same house at some point. amy defends them in the supermarket. tess was starting a thing with kyle and would have realized her max desire was all from nascedo. between the valenti christmas, saving the world from the jelly fish, and vegas. tess was at a vulnerable point. maria hated tess because she didn't trust her to leave max alone. not becuase she thought she was going to kill alex. liz and max put their friends in the middle of their relationship. i always wandered what would the dynamics of the group have been if they had never done that. and would alex still be alive if forget about future max...is they would have let alex go to isbael that day. and when did tess have time to mind alex?

we got 1 hr once a week for 3 seasons. the characters had lives before and beyond that. and these people go to school. have known each other for ever. true tess was the new comer. but hey kyle beats max up first season, they get drunk and it gets better. valenti is out for blood but you know you saved my kid so i'm your new best friend. really what you are saying is that if tess and maria had a civilized conversation on screen then it would be believable to have them as friends.

heck most of the on screen conversation between max and liz make me wander how in the heck they ever got back together and why they wanted to...but its maria who is the horriable one for leaving michael. i have always thought michael and maria's relationship was the most realistic in many ways.

i mean isn't all fic really just au anyway. some just strays more from the original concept than others.

[Sin]

Ever notice when Liz is described as having legs that go on forever?

Since we are talking about physical descriptions by some authors can I just say i don't get where this description of Tess with huge breasts came from? The way this comes up and the many times I've read the description one would think that she had the biggest breast of the cast or something when Emile simply doesn't have that body type. I guess size is subjective but it still seems kind of weird to me the way it persists. She's a beautiful girl, but I don't get the description. She's not even as big as Isabel/Katherine was but this is constantly been used to describe her.

[nibbles2]

Ever notice when Liz is described as having legs that go on forever?

Since we are talking about physical descriptions by some authors can I just say i don't get where this description of Tess with huge breasts came from? The way this comes up and the many times I've read the description one would think that she had the biggest breast of the cast or something when Emile simply doesn't have that body type. I guess size is subjective but it still seems kind of weird to me the way it persists. She's a beautiful girl, but I don't get the description. She's not even as big as Isabel/Katherine was but this is constantly been used to describe her.

They're not huge, but she has a pretty nice set of knockers for a girl who is so petite.

[Coccy]

tess gets the raw end of the deal and always has.

no wonder why

i have always felt that if alex hadn't off died then the natural progression of the show would have had tess and maria living in the same house at some point.

natural progression? poor Maria She could always live at Michael's home.
in the xmas episode she didn't even go to the Valenties with Amy (very realistic that in the xmas day she wasn't with her mother...)

tess was at a vulnerable point.

IMO she was everything but "vulnerable"

liz and max put their friends in the middle of their relationship.
i always wandered what would the dynamics of the group have been if they had never done that.

excuse me? I don't remember them putting their friends in the middle of their relationship what you're talking about?
I don't remember Liz telling Maria that she had to hate Tess or something like that. She never tried to influence her opinion.
it was more the contrary (Maria telling her that she was too good with Tess), from what i remember.
Sorry but i find it a bit ridiculous that you blame Liz or Max because Maria hated a character that you like
not to mention that you basically blame them because Tess killed Alex? amazing

heck most of the on screen conversation between max and liz make me wander how in the heck they ever got back together and why they wanted to...

(what this have to do with the fanfic chads thread?)
i guess that it's a matter of personal perception but i don't remember that most of the conversations between M&L were about them whining about each other and their flaws, for example.
Heck some people think that they were boring because most of their conversations are nice or romantic and it seems that nowadays it's not "cool" to show your love for someone because for some (especially from what i saw for other tv-shows) ignore/hate each other is the epitome of love.
Of course they had their serious problems to resolve so it wasn't always a bed of roses.

i have always thought michael and maria's relationship was the most realistic in many ways.

I always thought that realistic doesn't automatically mean better or good. It only means that most of the people are like that = ordinary. Wars are "realistic" too but it doesn't mean that "peace" sucks
although i wonder how a show with aliens can be really "realistic", in the first place.
if you mean "real" as true and existing well all the couples existed in the show and they're obviously true for the ones that love them otherwise they wouldn't love them.

[Sin]

i don't really think its out in left field to have any of these people be really good friends or hate each other in canon.

I don't think it would be possible for them to be good friends. The problem with Tess never had anything to do with Max. It had to do with the fact that she never fit in with the group regardless of her being the "fourth one". She didn't like the humans, saw them as means to an end and as tools for either her amusement (the guard from VLV) or as tools to manipulate (see Alex, Maria's mom, and Kyle). She didn't like Alex, Maria or Liz so when you go into the group hating one of the core people in the group (Liz) and not valuing the other two, she was already on the wrong track from the word go.

The only one she showed any toward of affection toward was Kyle and she torpedoed that relationship as well. Add the fact that she used her abilities to manipulate Isabel and Max and she was in even worse shape in terms of trust. Even at the best of times Tess was always isolated from the relationships in the group, not because of them but because she chose to ostracize herself. She was only concerned with Max.

It would be impossible for any of the humans to form relationships with Tess in the form of friendship unless Tess put effort into the relationship and wanted those things and since she didn't want those relationships it would be impossible for Tess to have cannon friendships with Alex (whom she used and killed), Liz (who she hated, and offended often), or Maria (who she disliked on principal because of the destiny thing).

It may have been easier for her to have friendships with Isabel, Max and Micheal because they actually ended up having things in common. But she didn't even really have those relationships either because she never cultivated them or sincerely cared about them. She just wanted to use them. This is why it's so hard to work Tess into a canon story while having it be believable because hardly anyone like her. So why would these people spend any amount of time with her when they willingly had the choice to do so?

You can make Tess into a friend of the group in but then again you would have to change who Tess is as a character regarding cannon because she was willing to send them all to their deaths anyway. She never liked them and for the way she acted she seemed to only be around them for one reason and she didn't like the group anyway.

So how can we buy friendship for this group either (or that Tess genuinely wants to be apart of them) and this is completely barring the fact that Tess pretty much ignored Michael half the time, killed someone Isabel loved and fractured the group in which Max was obsessed with protecting and cared very much about.

Canon Tess being their friend doesn't work unless you completely change Tess' character. Which isn't canon Tess anyway. So even if you are writing Tess as their friend, in a canon story your not even writing Tess.
You would basically have to make her into Isabel, Liz or Maria for her to even half way resemble a friend towards this group and then what's the point of even trying to write Tess? She isn't even Tess anymore.

You can get away with it more in AU because you are more or less changing things about the character, via the upbringing, conditioning, society, whatever to make a different Tess and perhaps she won't be motivated to do the things she did. But making Tess "nice" in canon fics doesn't work because that's not who Tess is. Tess was evil. She didn't love anyone. Her entire point of being was to betray the pod squad.

Can Tess be friends with everyone in AU fics yes but I think even then you have to realize that even this version of Tess isn't Tess at her core either. You changing major characteristics of her person in order to make her viable or "good" in your fiction. Which is fine. But I just think it proves the point that Tess was never a good character if you have to basically turn her inside out to make her character work and make her "nice" or make her an important part of their group. The group got along without her just fine, and persisted even when she was gone.

i have always felt that if alex hadn't off died then the natural progression of the show would have had tess and maria living in the same house at some point.

Even if this were to happen that doesn't mean that they would be friends. Maria never liked Tess of her own accord and Tess never wanted to be attached to humans in anyway and never showed care for humans apart from a brief moment with Kyle.

tess was starting a thing with kyle and would have realized her max desire was all from nascedo.

I don't think this was the case either. Nascedo was dead for like an entire year. Tess had an entire year to change her mind about chasing after Max and she never did. I mean she was on him like white one rice in TEOTW and was always around him. Tess was never going to give Max up in that time line while Liz was away from him.

i mean isn't all fic really just au anyway. some just strays more from the original concept than others.

I actually agree. But there is still some form of character within the fiction otherwise we would be writing original stories and not be interested in writing Roswell centered fan fiction, wouldn't we?