A lot of authors may need to hear this.. Readers have pet peeves, and things they don't like in fanfiction. Reasons why they leave the fic, or tropes they hate. These pet peeves are things you may see in your own writing. You see your fic as frowned upon because it has a pet peeve. Everyone's pet peeves are different and with all the readers out there, I think every troupe, habit or tag in writing is someones pet peeve. You don't have to be perfect for anyone, just be yourself and enjoy the process. People mostly talk about their dislikes in writing, a lot more than their likes, so you often see what not to do instead of encouragement. Plus, you'll get better, without even realising it. One person's trash is another one's treasure.
"Improper and excessive use of Japanese honorifics" - I once saw a fanfic that used Japanese honorifics for an originally Korean webnovel set in a made-up European-esque world 😂
Mpreg and abo should have a huge warning. I do NOT want to read weird fantasies were half of men population are oversexualized and give birth through the ass
@La'ayiv Haha it's cool To be fair, I don't read fanfic often. Been ages since I've written one too. Personally tho I, for some reason, have 3k followers there.
to be fair,synonyms are hard, however if its a story its best to avoid needing too many synonyms. Its not like an essay where you are forced to say audience so many times you have to resort to “playgoers” (and yes this did happen to me)
Wish more people would say "gaze" more. "Globes" and "orbs" are overdone and sound.. wrong. Or just describe what the eyes look like, or compare them to something else. Like "her eyes were blue as a winter sky" or "his eyes were like two black pools, drowning me in fear" or even just "their eyes were grey." Not that hard!
the biggest turn-off for me is when people use traumatic events as a plot device. like fics trying to r*** and SA so that the main character gets vulnerable and is saved by the other character leading to some formation of sympathy or jealousy (depends on what stage they are at). but once that is accomplished they quickly push it under the rug as if it never happened, rubs me in all kinds of wrong ways.
Yeah I think that's a horrible use of a traumatic event, as an author who uses those kinds of traumatic events in their writing. It's what makes me question even doing it, because I don't want to just use the event to push character's negative emotions, I want it to: a) be a proper representation of how horrible it is to be SA'd and b) connect to my characters in such a way that there's no way it'd be pushed under the rug and just 'used' like that. it disgusts me when people reference SA in such a casual way. if you use SA in your plot AT LEAST do proper research on its effects on people. At minimum. (Feel free to correct me on anything I'm saying. I know this kind of topic can be rather sensitive and I'm not sure if I should bring it up at all in my writing for these reasons)
The use of bulge in smut always makes me stop and chuckle, but nothing made me freeze and cackle out loud more than the time an author misspelled it as 'Bugle'. All I could think of were those cone shape snacks and couldn't stop laughing.
@@taco_boi1167 “is that a brass instrument like a small trumpet, typically without valves or keys in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? 😉😏” “ *HONK HONK* 🎺”
Some things that turn me away in fics are super cringey moments, mentions of ships i dislike, slurs, too canon divergent to the point it’s not even the characters anymore, too much awful grammar and spelling… the list goes on.
im constantly begging people to stop reading my fic because its this cringey, emo creepypasta mess i never bothered to finish and never will to be fair, the emo is halfway through the fic and the first half is actually kinda charming whenever i reread it…but jesus christ the rest is awful
It's either the author being edgy trying to emulate Lemony Snickett about how sad there story is or their trying to draw a line in the sand. I.E: a harry potter fanfic author telling slytherin fans that they shouldn't read the story because Slytherin house is going to be (rightfully) depicted as the evil villains and that they don't care about their sunshine flowing out the ass slytherin oc's. Also I guess the things that turn me away from fanfics is the writing of Abuse and Depression as accessories to a characters edgy personality and a means to push some idea of mysterious coolness instead of being massive detriments to their mental and emotional health. Nothing takes me out of story more then a trench coat samurai going full fed up circus lion on a group of bullies while thinking about blowing their brains out if that cutie in homeroom doesn't let them do it in the butt.
Personally my sister and I do this since we write for the same fandoms and we always tell each other "DO NOT READ IT" but of course neither of us ever listens
It’s either a) they’re doing a Lemony Snicket b) it’s something they did a long time ago and are now embarrassed by c) the reader was being overly critical in their comments to the point of abuse/bullying and the author finally put their foot down and told them to gtfo.
I remember there being one author in a fandom I used to be a part of, that just kept repeating _everything_ they had just written in that same paragraph. examples: "I can't do that today" character A said, he simply could not do it today. "I don't understand!" character B said, she simply couldn't understand. "My leg is broken!" character C said, his leg was broken.
Peppa Pig ahhh sounding writing. Like no joke it’s the same. The narrator repeats what is said after it was already said and it’s like, we know, we saw it.
I was reading a hurt/comfort fic, and like three out of ten chapters in I realized that there was absolutely no comfort in this. Like, I’d get if they were saving to until the end, but the way they were treating the main character in the first chunk was just so depressingly awful that I couldn’t force myself to go through it any more.
Yeah, I also don't like it when it drags too long. It just gets depressing and uncomfortable. Yeah, the character must be hurt in Hurt/Comfort, but most people don't exactly take much enjoyment from just the Hurt part. The author really needs to know how to retain a good balance.
The switch can feel very abrupt too if it's not done right, same goes for any stories if they don't work to get there. I usually don't like when it leaves it right until the very end for a "happy ending", especially if the first 90% just feels like unnecessary torture/pity porn.
Ive come across so many of those that i have forced myself to try and read through JUST TO SEE if there even was any comfort to the point its emotionally drained me lmao. Like dude.. just give me the comfort.;-;
Yes they have to get the balance right. Like a character will spend the whole fic horribly insecure, thinking their friends and family hate them and at the end they're like "no we love you :D" and that's supposed to be the comfort? Like that's not going to change their mind that quickly and even if it did fix everything we need to spend time with the comfort so it sets in for the reader as well. Otherwise I'm still sad
I once read a Fic where the author tried to use “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” in a serious context. They didn’t even use the term “gatekeep” correctly
I was reading a fanfic where two women in a relationship took in a kid and for like 6 chapters acted like a normal family and then suddenly the kid is becoming a 3rd in their relationship???? This was an untagged ship too. I felt so insane especially cause I had left a kudos on the fic before that, wish I could take it back.
I've stopped reading one where they tagged cheating, but the person who cheated was actually r*ped and they just started to blame the character when all of them knew what happened. To this day I'm still baffled.
At least it was a fanwork, that shit happened in a mainline DC comic where Dick Grayson was raped by a time traveling girl. It was justified as her being his gf in the future timeline she was from and the only reason it happened was to make Kori (his gf at the time) jealous. (Similar stuff probably in other comics too, this one I just remembered off the top of my head)
@@nightynightlayla374 yeah, I dont remember when or what specific comic it was, other than a teen titan from, probably the 90s? It was rape through deception where the time travel girl shapeshifted into Kori to trick Dick into sleeping with her. Pretty fucked up issue that glossed over the inherent violation of it for relationship drama, claimed it was "infidelity". I feel like the author wanted to add dramatics to their romance, where Dick "cheats" on Kori but didnt want him to actually cheat on her so they just. Raped him and used the same storyline. Or something.
@@nightynightlayla374 probably people who dont understand the concept of rape through deception or somehow thinks boys are incapable of being raped? Though with how often rape and sexual assault is used quite frivously by many comic writers, maybe they knew what they were doing and didnt care.
There was this one short fic someone had requested of an author for a scenario for a classic y/n and instead they just put their own oc (which was pretty much a self insert)🙄really took me out of it and left me very disappointed
@@emilybrown9863 Lmao, that's sad for the requester ! That also reminds me of when peoples write yn fanfics but characterize them so much it's just an OC at the end
I had found 2 fanfictions with both main characters had the same name (and the fics had the same premise) so I looked at the author and both had the same author and the authors username had the main characters name, needless to say I dropped those really quickly
@@emilybrown9863 its not even that hard to write a y/n fic! if you need to, use a name while writing, but jfc go back and switch it out before posting…
Once I read a 50 chapter fic, FIFTY CHAPTERS, just to finally get to the confession. Character 1: blablabla ily Character 2: im sorry… FIFTY FUCKING CHAPTERS. EACH ONE 1000+ WORDS. im gonna cry just remembering that
@@wer_3too excuse me, FIFTY CHAPTERS?!!? DAMNN the author hella evil, and it was untagged too? (Im assuming it is because you didnt know)They're going straight to super hell for that one, so sorry for u 🙏🙏
@@wer_3too OMD SAME. i read a texting fanfic (piece of writing with OCs? idk) and it legit took 50 chapters for me to get a confession + untagged main character death. ugh the frustration
Things that will make me stop reading a fic: -No/little punctuation -Consistent spelling errors -Characters are much more horny all the time than they would ever be in any universe -People hate on/mischaracterize the woman characters (any chatacter really, but women commonly) -Change canon for their story with no warning
Why would you read a story if it one to one follows canon? I can't personally grasp this, the reason I read fanfics is because they're different from canon and usually do something unique or unexpected in the story.
In a lot of xreader and BL romance fics, they’ll make a woman that one of the characters is often shipped with the villain Like in bnha fanfics, anytime Todoroki is in a romance fic, I ALWAYS see people mischaracterising Momo, and making her some sort of rival.
aw hell no. i once had to read the words "babymaker" and "daddys creamer" and "his disco stick" and i dont think ill ever be the same again. fanfic writers pls just say dick im begging u 😭
Say hello to my little friend>:) Ok but imagine he reaches into his pants, you think you two are gonna have smegzy time, and he pulls out a fucking shotgun
crying. i genuinely like my hero academia fanfics a lot, but some authors love to portray either an actual character (Midoriya, for example) or an OC as a weak uwu baby and it makes me want to die. they’re simply not.
That would make sense if it was right at the start and served as their motivation, but yeah otherwise it's pretty off-putting and senseless. The funniest to me is when they suddenly assassinate a character (sometimes both metaphorically and literally) and it's clear they suddenly had beef with whoever it was based on. We never did get to the bottom of that My Immortal friend/editor fallout lol.
One time I was reading a fic and one of the characters called the other their "little bagpipe" and I've never been the same since. Needless to say, I immediately clicked off, turned off my phone and stared at my wall rethinking my life choices for at least 30 minutes.
I stopped reading a fic because somehow the main character was somehow treated both constantly like dirt and like the most precious thing in the world, and both things felt undeserved. Everyone in the fic either hated his guts or loved him for little reason. It was incomprehensible.
When I was in my BNHA phase years ago, I read and dropped SO many fics where Midoriya was this exact thing. A pathetic helpless little mew mew who everyone in the world was a hairs-breadth away from shoving in front of a train EXCEPT for the random characters chosen to be his New Dad(s)/New Mom who were the only non maniacally evil people in the world.
I love critical ff where the writer leans into tendencies that where in the original, like Harry Potter should be so much more fucked up with how he was raised, albus did so many questionable things..... But you do not need to make everyone cartoonischly evil for that!!!!
*slight TW: abusive relationship* I was reading this super cool Evil AU where the main character seemingly has to escape a relationship that turned abusive. The depictions of gaslighting, trauma responses, and emotional abuse (not just physical) was actually really well done and it seemed like the author had done a decent amount of research into it with how accurately they were depicted. Anyway It was 50k words+ and I was easily a third into it before I realized that all of that was totally unintentional and it was just a SUPER unhealthy depiction of what was meant to be an “endearing” couple.
Yeesh that sucks. The fact that you thought they did research on abusive relationships too😭😭. What type of fic was it if you dont mind me asking? OC or fandom?
That one about the epithets is so real. I can't stand it when they constantly call them by their hair colours. "The brunette" "the blonde" I am begging you to just write their names
fr, I wrote a fanfiction once and only used those briefly because I just wanted to be descriptive but I didn't use it EVERY TIME THE CHARACTER IS MENTIONED.
even worse is when they don't have brown hair but the author still uses "ette"; "the ravenette", "the greenette" - like that's not even a proper word it's so annoying
things like that only work when the pov character doesn't know the other character's name or the author is writing a scene where it is a mystery on who the characters are supposed to be.
Or when it’s stupid shit like “the taller one” “the green eyed one” “the lankier one” bitch I don’t remember what they look like, now I’m confused as to who is speaking.
Not really epithets just general name weirdness, but there was this one fic I read where every character refers to the POV character by their last name while the narrative calls them by their first name. I legitimately thought they were two different characters.
i felt the "i used to always finish them, but then i developed taste" _so_ hard. when i was young i plowed through fanfics on wattpad, but now that im older ive noticed i very rarely see a lot of them through to end. if i do its because its so ridiculous i cant look away. going through my old favorites has been a learning experience because out of the probably hundreds i read, so far ive only found _four_ that i still like.
Yeah, but sometimes the pairing/fandom/premise will be rare enough that I'll sigh, swallow my tastebuds and stick my hand in the garbage can to dig around for scraps 😅
Eep yeah, definitely felt that. I'm in the process of vacating my work from Wattpad itself onto a different platform because the content is just so... well, it's a starting ground for early-teen writers, I guess is the nice way of putting it.
@@spectreamaris1455 To be honest, I don’t think ao3 is that much better than wattpad Both are full of badly written fanfics. Although, maybe it’s the genre and fandoms I like.. 😭
If I ever give up on a fic, it's typically because the author came up with an interesting premise that I expected to be able to keep me invested in spite of other bullshit like grammar errors or purple prose. It rarely is. However, I also recall dropping a story because a normally stoic, straight-laced character who always uses impeccable grammar entered a conversation with the word "Yo."
Ugh I hate that, especially as an asexual person who prefers to skip the smut. I’ve only ever read smut once, but that was because it was out of curiosity to how far the author would go into some very horrific descriptions of “birth” of usually a male character too and oh my god it was a full on graphic horror story for me. Instant regret. That’s a huge dick move to say “no smut” and then add smut in there. At least people usually warn you before it reaches the smut chapter and you can skip it at your own turn, but wow I cannot imagine the disgust of reading about some cute fluff and then suddenly smut.
@@lulub517 I'm usually like to do smut writing but I do give my fair warnings if anyone is going to reach that far. I would sometimes say: "skip to a new chapter or leave this one shot", just like that, I'm not dealing with conflicts here and there lol
I absolutely HATE when i'm reading a fanfic were the main ship are two guys but they make one of them be super masculine and an alpha bad boy and make the other dude a babygirl. they're two guys. don't make him wear skirts and lipgloss 'cause his a bottom. can't he just be a guy, like the other dude? what the hell
I get your point, but I don't think it's a problem on itself. Some couples are like that in real life you know? The problem is when people take these stereotypes with the "straight normative" perspective that even some queer folks fall into.
Personally i don't think it's a problem for one of the guys to wear "feminine" stuff because clothing and make-up is a form to express yourself and as the person mentioned up here, some gay couples are like that. The problem is when people do not treat it as a form to express yourself, but to force heteronormative beliefs in gay relationships. I get what you're trying to say. I enjoy reading gay stories where none of the guys is OBVIOUSLY treated as "the girl in the relationship" by it's creator and/or fans. and that both guys have feelings and actual personalities that aren't BL stereotypes.
IVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS. LIKE THANK YOU. There ARE men out there that are more feminine and wear feminine clothing/makeup and usually act more feminine. That's all fine and dandy, but really? Where are my masculine alpha macho man bottoms? Where are my switch couples? Where are my princess tops?
Ikr? Like why do they gotta look so different? They are both guys. On another note I was reading a bl manhwa today and my sister thought the bottom looked like a top
I suggest you check out ‘heirs game’ it’s a WEBTOON tho. While one of the characters is decidedly more ‘feminine’ (flowery clothes, emotional, writes romantic letters and spends HOURS getting dressed) he is still a man. He is like this because it’s him, not because he’s a male self insert for a straight female reader. (I’m looking at you fujoshis) And his love interest is more ‘macho’ in the way that he is more of a fighter, he doesn’t care about his looks and he doesn’t enjoy people. But they love eachother not because of stereotypes but because the other character is someone they would do anything for. And also the author confirmed they’re both switches so 😼 radical.
“That’s what I thought you’d say. Now let me offer you this as a rebuttal: a̸̛̭̝͔̯͇̼̪̦̳̤͉̱̰̯͚̙̱̥̤̣͍̰̩̜̳͍̥̣̰̞͉͎̻̭͙̫͓͖͎͙͊̎͌͌̄̐͛͐̀͆͑̔̆̍͒́̓́̓͑̍͘͘̕͘͝ą̵̢̨̥͚̬͔̙̹͈̺̯̟̤̭̯̯̼͙̞̳̥̟͉̻̠̹͓̭͖͎̠͓͖͍̣͚̭̈́ͅȁ̶̫̰͈̥̩͎̙̘͔̪͙̯̮̒͂͗̆͛̃͝Ą̷̜̳̺͕̖͕͓͇͙̠̠͔̦͖̠̫͎̻̯͙̤͇̱͈͔͒́̽̈́͊͜ͅA̵̢̫̜̥̯̙͈͉̩̦̪̬̱̜̤̳͎̞̭̖̯͔̾̀̀͆͂̊̾̉̾̊̂̏̌̒̄̅̋̋̊̑́͗͊͆̒̽̅͂̇̚̕͜͜͝͝͝ͅȂ̸̢̨̢̧̳͚̟̝̩͖͕̳͉̣̤̘̩̘̙͚̜͈̪̥̙͔̰̣̼̮̖͙͚͓͉̗͂͊̉͐͋̍͊̈̀͛̚̕̕Ą̶̨̢̧̡̭͖̖͇̹̥̹̣̝̲̘̣̳̲̺̻̙͈͕̺̼̘̺͎͕͙̰̮̬̫͖͙̝̘̺̄͋̾̎͒̈͑͋͆͗̈́́̃̿̃̑̂̌̔̔̇̕͜͠͠͝͝͝ͅÁ̴̧̯̣̞̳͓͍̮̱͓̱̤̼̝͚͈̬̌̈̅̓̃̂̂̋̿̀̇͑̐̐̋̈̊̀̉͗̀̆̋̀̓̍́̆̃̾͑͆̔͂̓̑̃͑̾̈́̕͠͝Ȁ̴̢̛͙̬̖͉͎̖̤̱̱̻̠̞̝̘̝̪̰̠͍̺̫͍̗̱͑́̈́͑̄͌́͌͜͜ͅG̸̡̨̨̡̛̜̣̣̦͓͙̞̻̫̯̻̩͈̥̺͕̱̱̫̳͍̠͖̜̎̔̍͆͜͝G̷̭͍̥̗͙̞̬̮͇͖̙͕̲̬̝̼͔̺͠ͅG̶̭̩͎͙͚̰͓͊͛̀̿̆̀́͆̍̾̉͗̕͜͠Ḩ̶̛͓̘͈̙̐̉͒́̾͂̑̐̆͆̀͂̍͗̾̈̍̌͑͌̄̓̏̍̎̎̔̽͋̃̔͆̅͊̑̈́̊̐̈́̚͝Ḩ̶̳̭̹̠̪̪͕̺͔̮̬͚̮̟̰̞̟̳̪̳̙̻̲̼̟̥̜̫̘̄͐̒̋͌̿̽̏͊͛̅̏̇̅̆̏̽̏̈́̌̈̒̈́͆͂͂̅̾̎͗̉̔̇̓̏̉̋̉͝͝͝͝ͅH̴̛͓̙̤͛̔̇͆̒̽̒͐̈́̂͛̓́̐̂̀̀͋͑͘͝͝H̵̡̡̟͙̣͓̠͖̮̯̞̘͈̖̤̗͈͓̖̱͖̳̱͙̜̦̞̜͚̒̍̇̾̈͆͛̽̂̐̇̇͗̀̀̑̿͆͂͆̈́̈́́̓̏͌̎̄̕̚̚͜͜͝ͅͅḨ̸̢̢̞̹͖̫̹̣͍͚̝͙͈̗̭̩̲͎̦̫͓͔͖̹̬̪͔͓̲̳̗͕̞̯̮̠̪̝̼̲̰̝̆̓ͅḨ̴̨̧̡̢͖̣͇͓̣͙̖͚̥͈̘̜̥̰̰̳͉̯̝͎̤̠̼͇̰̪̟͔͚̪̪̱̞̣͖̐̓́̋͜͜ͅͅ”
I have a couple 1) Xreaders that aren’t actual x readers. I had an author describe what the character looked looked like from skin to the color of the eyes. They were like “well it’s hard to write an x reader story” when they could’ve just made an OC. 2) It’s a small one that I can ignore a couple time before it’s annoying. Usage of Japanese words while everything else is said in English. Honorifics and the names of culturally specific things I can ignore but saying “Gomenazai my love” is where I draw the line. 3) Repetition of plot lines. We’ve been here before, get a little more creative. 4) Incorrect AAVE or slang on ANY character.
As a x reader writer, I only imagine the reader as like a grey person with no description at all from hair lenght,color of the eyes, lips, etc. I am in a small fandom and is so hard to write when they are not much content of my fav characters
Writing xreaders is not easy and I’m grateful for anyone that can. However if you already have an idea for who you want the story to focus on, like what they look like, you should just do an OC. I have no problems with minor descriptions of height or nail length but skin, hair, and eyes is where I draw the line. Leaves no room for the imagination.
2 and 4 depend for me, as 2 there's some words that don't exist in English and the language might be the best way to do it (aishiteru, for example), and 4 is acceptable if it's perfectly in character
I’ve seen 1 too many times. Like, there was one story I came across that was tagged as a reader insert, but it was just objectively not. The character had a name, a clear description, and the story wasn’t even in 2nd person??? It was just straight up a 3rd person OC insert story. Seriously, if it’s not a reader insert, then don’t pretend it is.
One of my biggest pet peeves in mlm fics are the female characters. They’re always either the girl who wants a gbf, or the sl*tty/crazy ex-gf At least write them the right way ❤
i read the exact opposite once to the point where it was comical, there was this fic i read where character a liked character b, character b was married to this girl and they were in a happy relationship, so character a met up with the girl, told her about his crush on her husband, and the next morning SHE HAD DIVORCE PAPERS READY. 100% serious writing apparently.
@@slytherinlady3907 She just needed a reason. Whether it was the toilet seat lid being left up or another girl wanting him, she had those divorce papers at the ready to be unleashed. XD
I was(and am) reading a really weirdly written fic that I cannot read for more than 5 or 6 chapters at a time before I want to bash my head through a table. The reason I stick around? One of the characters gets pinned to walls a lot, so I have made it my civic duty to count every single time the character gets pinned. A "wall count", if you will. I think I'm on chapter 12 or 13, and the wall count is at 9? I don't remember. There's 60-something chapters though. I'm honestly excited to keep going, even if the fic is absolute garbage.
Every so often you find a fic that hits like seeing a trainwreck right in front of you. It's just so horrible and surprising that you just can't look away
@@awooga4891 I lost the fic after switching to AO3 but I check Wattpad occasionally so if I find it again I promise I'll give the most recent tally I can find
@@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115 I can only recommend one based on how cringe it was. Internet Historian did a video on one called sonic high school. It's the only one I can tolerate just because he makes it funny, dispite it's sexual innuendos and blatant racism.
@Supermega hiper Chaos Barren by but_why_not on Archive of Our Own is a gen fic I recommend. It's completed with about 55k words. The story is about Modern!Sonic, Classic!Sonic, Boom!Sonic, and Movie!Sonic meeting each other after some dimensional hopping shenanigans and totally bro-ing it out. But, it's not just a "slice of life" type fic. There's mystery, intrigue, and some angst. The author also has an absolute blast with making up their own world building for the Boom universe that's just * *chef's kiss* * Because of this, the story focuses mainly on Boom!Sonic. The only downside is that there's no sequel. Hopefully, the author does something else with this plot line, but it's almost been 3 years since the 1st story's been completed, so I doubt it.
If you'd like some recs, my three favorite Sonic fics are - The Lost Prince by LeDiz (a games x Underground au, _really_ well-written, but it is unfinished and updates are pretty slow) - Sonic Glitch Rift by Rontufox (set in the classic timeline, a lot of things that are usually just game mechanics to us are real in-universe (such as the inclusion of beta stages), and something goes wrong that causes the world to start glitching) - Sonic Leashed by AnImaginaryColor (first part of a 3-part series, an au that basically switches the roles of the Gaias in Unleashed, with Light Gaia being the antagonist and Dark Gaia getting amnesia and helping Sonic as a smaller version of itself) I love all 3 of these so much and all of them are really well-written :D
@@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115 I'm not exactly a sonic fan anymore, but one author I always really enjoyed reading from is gayemeralds on AO3. I love their takes on all the characters. Also if you're looking for some cute brotherly fluff between Sonic and Tails then the author Chaoxfix makes some really good content.
Mine is always when someone tags them as friends, but makes them a couple in the fic. Im searching for platonic *or* romantic. Don't tag them as the wrong one or, worse, both. Then ships show up when I'm searching for a platonic relationship. It's just annoying.
YES it bothers me so much that people can't figure out the difference between the platonic and romantic ship tags. I don't want to get to the end of a fic thinking my ship was gonna get together only to find out that they both end up with other people and they were only ever friends.
I actually read the entire fic, but there was a part where one of the main characters went, "This smells funny, what is it?" After they drank from a thermos. And I kid you not, the other main character went, "My breast milk!" 💀💀💀
@AvacadoToast I DONT KNOW. One of the characters were prison- it was an alternate universe fic, but... IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE. She even tried to offer it to someone else before the other one, and they refused. Thank god.
I've been asked by an author to stop reading too. I'd bookmarked a fic on my kink account because I had a feeling it might become kinky. The author wen't ballistic, first saying in the notes "the kinky person reading this, delete your bookmark immediately". I was shocked, I had to check the other bookmarkers to see who they ment. The next chapter they said they'd "literally never been this angry in my entire life", at which point I was kinda insulted. To have such an easy life that someone enjoying your story is the worst thing to ever happen to you. I never left a comment, I simply enjoyed their story and wanted to see more not caring if it becomes kinky. Who obsessively checks the people who bookmark them and demands only some people get to like what they write anyway?
Whats bookmarking do? I don't have an account so I may not be understanding why the writer got so mad, but it SOUNDS pretty friggin unreasonable for that person to publicly and rudely call you out like that. Like they can at LEAST be mature about it
There was this one fanfiction I had read, where they had the main characters sing Disney Princess songs, in full, while having them perform the same actions that the Disney Princess did while singing that song. It felt like I was reading a novelization of the scene from the movie only with the names, and sometimes the pronouns swapped. The weirdest part was that A) the songs had no plot reasons for being there, B) this fan fiction wasn't even a Disney Princess fan fiction, and C) the events prior to and after the song, didn't even lead up to or conclude the song. This one time one of the male MCs went from the beach to a random river, performed that one song from Pocahontas then went back to the castle. There was no point in him going to the river other than to sing the random song.
My pet peeve in fanfics happens mostly in chatfics specifically with characters from japanese media where they all of a sudden start talking about very "western/americanized" interests with each other. It just makes me cringe for some reason. I know people can enjoy interests from a different country and it's normal(I am brazilian and consume lots of american/japanese media) but the fact that they ALL know exactly what it is as if it was a very popular international interest when its shit like 100 gecs, hamilton or dear evan hansen...
That's honestly a huge deal breaker for me. Especially as I myself am not from the anglosphere let alone the West, and when East Asian character starts talking about those stuff it pulled me out of immersion.
I think my biggest one is unhealthy relationships, but specifically when it's the main ship and the author is trying portray it as not unhealthy. I can handle it a little better if the author at least acknowledges that they are aware the relationship is unhealthy, but sometimes when you're reading it it's very clearly the author is trying to romanticize characters being unnecessarily possessive, controlling, condescending, etc.
I don't want to condone that sort of thing, but as a masochist, I can understand people fantasizing about being in abusive relationships, so sometimes it's that.
@@shadowshade904 No, they should not. A random fanfic writer is not responsible for their audience's education. Even if they are younger people. If someone is getting all their relationship knowledge and advice from fanfic, then there is a bigger problem in their life than the fanfic. It most likely means there is a massive failure on the part of the parents/guardians, and that one fanfic isn't going to make a difference. To put it in another way, you should already know that this stuff is toxic irl before you read the story, and if you don't, that's not the story's fault.
I had a friend who was super into fanfic, but also extremely uncomfortable around dirty topics. Constantly reading fanfic, constantly messaging us shouting about how much of it turned smutty partway in lol
OMG I FEEL THAT. I had a massive online screaming session with my best friend when the fic I was reading got updated with smut. On one side I was a tad shocked and scared but on the other I kept going just to see my friend get into a total laughing fit at me freaking out
Lol then there’s me on the other hand who filters for explicit fics, I prefer them because I personally find that fics without smut are kind of boring lol
That "Last update: Nov 5, 2016" quote hit me hard. There have been too many times in which I've read a fanfic that I was really invested in and hoped to see more of only for the stories to either end up discontinued or on permanent hiatus. It's happened so much, that it has started to infuriate me a little when someone makes a great story and then never continues it. I guess I understand why some authors no longer have the motivation to continue their stories or writing hobbies, but it's still upsetting to never get a conclusion.
I had this problem but with 2020, the author rarely ever updates and it often takes years. I just wanted to read it because "Woah, Diabolik Lovers fanfic that apparently has Kino? Those are rare, lemme read this-" and then he wasn't there and it stopped after a horrifying moment. I didn't even like it much, it made me so uncomfy all the horrors and trauma that Yui had to deal with in it, but yet I kept reading for a point where she finally is saved from that Hell, but it never happened because it wasn't anywhere near finished-
I've only stopped reading two fics halfway, and the reasons were, respectively: - A side quest dragged on for 30 000 words. It ventured outside the canon setting and wasn't really recognizable as the work it was based on anymore - The main character VERY suddenly turned into a mermaid. At the very end of a chapter. There had not been any mermaids in the fic prior to this moment. I did not read the next chapter. I'm sure someone would still be able to enjoy these fics. But I'm a little picky.
Oh i get the side quest thingy. I was reading a really cool fanfiction but the side story became the only thing that was being written and the author completely gave up on the main story.
The side quest one is the worst. I hate reading a book or fanfic because of it's super cool concept, only for them to end up abandoning it to focus on a side story I don't care about.
this was ages ago and i don’t even remember the fandom, but i was reading a fic where two of the characters were human and every other character was some kind of alien. the WHOLE POINT of the fic was using the ‘humans are space orcs’ trope, and it was REALLY GOOD. then sudden plot twist at the end, the two human characters are actually fALLeN aNgELs and they’re super powerful and. bleh. stopped reading at that point (it was the last chapter anyway lol)
thats like a story where the thing about it is destiny is bullshit and we make our own fate only for the big reveal that everything was prophesied before and no this is your destiny foretold thousands of years ago! like way to spit on your theme dude
There's also the sandwich equivalent where oh yeah these characters are on a set destiny but actually they protest and buck the tides of fate and manage things unexpected only for some random ethereal goddess or scruffy dude to pop in the epilogue and reveal that all the deviations are a part of some greater 4D chess scheme.
Bruh, that annoys me too, I saw this one MHA fanfic, it was literally just the mc complaining about Mineta every time she got and the story wasn't even about Mineta, like hate him on your own time stop dragging it into a fanfic😭
@desirefabela6421 aye, like. Im 100% cool with authors writing a bitching meta essay and just posting that. Get it putta your system. But please quit projecting. The worse part, when i have in my comment/revew asked if they can add a ooc tag. Oh boy, do they lose it at me
Honestly same, some fanfics I read I can just FEEL when the author doesn’t like this one character and they ignore any of their complexities and just write them as scum of the earth
The Japanese honourifics one is always difficult for me since they are almost always using them in a context that doesn’t make sense and it becomes very obvious when you know the actual uses of them.
@@BagelBagelBagelBa Close, senpai indicates seniority in a school, workplace, etc. If someone has been at a job longer than you, they are your senpai even if they are younger. But yeah in a school context senpai is for people in a higher grade at the same school.
@@BagelBagelBagelBa Senpai is upperclassman/senior at work. then underclassmen/junior at work counterpart is Kouhai Onii-san/Aniki/Anigo/Ani/Nii-san etc are all "older/elder brother" with varying levels of formality. Most don't specifically mean a blood related brother though, it is also used to refer to older male friends they are close with or older male cousins. Like Simon from Gurren Lagann calls Kamina his "Aniki" or like someone might call their older male childhood friend "Nii-san/Onii-san." Jikkei is a term meaning literal blood related older brother but not used as way to address someone.
@@StartOfTheYear oh i know what the normal dead dove do not eat tag means, i just dont get what that "dead dove *isnt that* dead" tag meant in ur original comment. (Like, why did the fic author use that version of the tag, since they couldv'e just used the normal dead dove tag)
what is that even supposed to mean? like "this fic contains dark topics a little bit but not too much"? or what even was the intention, like it's either dark or not???
It was a fun, light meet-cute type of story. Then one character gets kidnapped, tortured and brainwashed while the second character is forced to watch. That's the reason I don't give kudos until I've finished a story anymore.
oh gosh the amount of times ive given a story kudos and then regretted it a couple chapters later 😭 i dont wanna be associated with that let me take it back
Unfortunately, I've gotten something like that too. I don't remember if I kudos, but it started as a fun sneaking out to explore kind of thing. Had some family issues but still more lighthearted. Then MC is attacked and almost dies???
@@luovalola6022I thought the button worked like likes/dislikes and that if I pressed it again it would cancel the kudos and ended up giving two lmfao rip
Honestly, characters being OOC, and the frequent use of the terms “baby” or “babygirl” when it’s a character would never say that (especially in some of the more gritty media fics) are some of my pet peeves. Also the woobification of any character to fit the dynamic you want instead of what they’re actually like. I’m just straight up nope-ing outta there. Edit: also when no lube is used when lube would be essential. Like - no. Saliva don’t cut it. Will stop reading
I agree with this so hard, your 2nd point especially-one of the most popular wlw ships in a fandom I was REALLY invested in (before the OG piece of media the fandom was created around went to shit) constantly made Character A into the “woman” of the sapphic relationship (if yk what I mean) when that doesn’t fit her character at all and she’s often dumbed down to a damsel in distress or made into this weak character that is uncharacteristically incompetent Granted most of the fandom outside of this ship also interprets her character wrong ☠️ this is just one of the more frustrating/OOC ways I’ve seen (though even without the dynamic A and B were often forced into, this is one of my least fav ships in any media ever so I’m definitely biased)
I completely forgot about the over usage of "baby" and "babygirl" in some fics, thanks for bringing that up! I personally dislike those terms so much and it irks me to no end when characters become OOC and start calling their significant other and sometimes even their friends "baby."
Characters being OOC is something I relate to, like I really hate it when, i.e. character A has a whole movie about them not killing and stuff, but then in the fic they kill someone as revenge or something (especially if it's not tagged). But I can also understand it, being a writer myself, it's pretty hard to make a character completely in character for the whole fic, mainly if you want to have a plot point that probably wouldn't happen in canon or hasn't happened. I feel like there is a middle ground or a limit for how OOC a character can be though, just my opinion though
Tag your fic correctly, don't write orbs unless absolutely necessary and have fun, that's the best advice for ao3, let people know roughly what's gonna happen in the fic
It drives me crazy when you read a fic where the female protagonist is abducted by the male love interest for whatever reason (perhaps he is a Viking raider who stole a village girl or a supernatural creature who believes this human female is his mate) and you naturally expect this to be a slowly developed relationship - because the protagonist is afraid of the love interest and has no idea what he may do to her. However, within two chapters this kidnapped woman will become aroused by her hunky captor when he takes off his shirt and forget the life-and-death situation she may be in, even becoming jealous of the other women around him.
THIS!!! Or when there is a mention of the male love interest being violent and aggressive and this is clearly trying to show us that he is this attractive, masculine force of nature. Blegh. I recently had to put down a Bridgerton novel with Benedict because he saved the female lead from rape (red flag in a romance novel imo) and that was a plot device for her to find him hunky and sexy and aggressive and white-knighty. I really did not like that.
I've never out right stopped a fic halfway through, but I've wished I did. They killed off every character brutally except the love interest (who did the killing), in the last chapter. Last thing the author said was "not every story has a happy ending ;)" Don't end fics like that. Especially without a trigger or tag warning
When a good fic dives into the authors niche fetishes suddenly and inexplicably. I was reading a really good HP fic and it suddenly dove into incest and pedophilia at the last chapter, totally out of character. Huge red flag.
yeah, it's weird. and sometimes i'll be reading something for a specific niche fetish and get a completely different niche fetish out of nowhere, and if you point it out i've seen people like "you came here for this thing, so why would you be bothered by that thing?" but like, it doesn't matter, i clicked to see this thing and not that thing, so why not just tag that thing as well, it's so easy to do
Second hand embarassement made me drop not only fics, but many other forms of media as well. I just cannot stomach much of it. Then there's untagged things coming up, that I just didn't expect or want to see, be it smut, death or a ship. And last one would be too much "they would not say that" moments, just too ooc. On the other hand, I really appreciate authors who have a good grasp on the characters they are writing.
Too many people have gotten offended by the fact that I can't stand most "comedy" shows or movies. Pretty much anything that thrives off of second hand embarrassment humor or humor where the entire "funny" part is just making a joke out of someone. Every now and then it lands but never enough to make me able to watch those things.
On the the “they would not say that” i read TWO stranger things fics where Eddie said darling as a pet name, and not like “like joking around and calling someone shit like “sugarboo” and “sweetiepie”” but like full on “this is a romantic and intimate moment”, needless to say i quickly wanted to acquaint both authors faces with a frying pan.
I swear I just cannot handle second hand embarrasment. I can handle it sometimes, because its things that I personally find cringe, but there's times where I just need like a year leave or directly never continue because it's too much
- Broken spanish. I've encountered this in every fandom I've been in where the media had a hispanic character in it. Gringos will just throw random spanish words and phrases into their fanfic (which is written in english) that are just so obviously incorrect that it totally takes me out of the experience, even though I've not even fluent. - Couple calling each other "babe" every three seconds. And it wasn't remotedly in character for them. - Heroes being so cruel and sadistic towards a villain to the point they started feeling like evil villains themselves or even worse than the actual villain and I started hating them. Their actions all being justified by the narrative.
I once read one fic where Wonder Woman said: “Estás segura”, after saving someone. Like, I guess? If you are saying so. Grammatically there is nothing wrong with the sentence; but, I never in my life have heard the expression “estás segura” in anything other than a question.
@@tiacat11 The TTRPG one is so true, it's hard to make players actually feel some empathy towards NPC when you can just kill the random goblin for gold and have no consequences whatsoever. But it's not aways a bad thing, you can make a good crazy killer character too
I couldn't finish the true ending one of the best fics i had ever read in my life because i lost the name, and it was improperly tagged... I found it again years later, only to find out that it was left unfinished, because the author (who was only 15 at the time) DIED FROM HER HEART CONDITION 😭 She was amazing at writing, the characters were well written and seemed OOC at first, but as the story progressed, you could see all the events that shaped them into their canon personalities, and it was amazing the fic was a heavy fluff and angst slow burn, but was divided in two parts. The story started with the characters as children and followed them until adulthood, the first half was through the girls pov, and it made the reader feel very helpless and alone as she did, but the second part was told from the boys pov, where the reader got to find out all of the small good fortunes in her life were actually facilitated by him in some way, and made you realized she had been taken care of all this time. She never got to find out though, because near the end where the two stories would connect, the author was hospitalized and passed soon after.
One of the best TLK fics I've ever read stops halfway through the first act because the author died of pneumonia. It was told in comic form, so waiting for each page in a chapter was just like waiting for each chapter of a text only fic. And now we'll never know what the plot actually was.
Had the same thing happen to me with a Cuphead fanfiction about The Devil and King Dice. It hurts knowing that we will never reach the true ending of it
i saw a fic with an intriguing premise and clicked only to see it was formatted like a screenplay. it was like "character a: dialogue dialogue character b: blah blah blah" clicked off immediately because. why. unfortunately that happens a lot with fics for video games
I've read one fic where that format actually worked, just one. It was great, but the author also made it clear that it would be a screenplay, so it wasn't a surprise.
So, I'm reading this this fic and it's so so weird because the problem with it is the following: • The main character is _awfully_ out of character • All the other characters however are very much perfectly in character. In fact, I'd say the love interest of the main character is amazingly in character. I don't know if I should stop reading it because the author absolutely massacred the main character and it's a pain to read or I should keep reading to try to guess how the hell did the author manage this. How do you fuck up just one character? And this badly? Genuinely, the fic is interesting but it's so strange!
Dam, that sounds so much like a fic I was reading, at the end I just dropped the fic I couldn't keep up with MC being treated like that, it's like... How? How do u get everyone so correctly BUT the MC? PS. What fandom was it?
I’d had the exact same dilemma with a fic before, only the difference was that it was two supporting characters that were acting extremely out of character, not the MC.
I can tolerate a character being OOC if there is a reason for it. For example, the character is under the influence of a spell/potion/quirk/etc. or there is a change in the character's backstory that's different from canon (though even then, the core of the character should still be intact). If there isn't a reason for the OOCness then that can be a major turn off.
mine are always: "they would NOT say that" "oh my god why are you making this character so mean hes not mean" or when the fic like implies a ship that was not stated as implied in the tags
Omg I feel the overuse of epithets one, one time I read a fic that basically refused to use one characters name. They kept saying stuff like “the blonde boy”, and worst of all…. You’re not ready for this “tHe wOrRiEd mAlE”
I was reading a fanfic that had not tagged properly, but I didn't know it until I came to the (untagged/ no warning) necrophilia scene. I stopped reading and had to try not to vomit. I never went back to that. It is why I tag my fic for anything I can think of. I'd rather over warn than under warn.
one time i stumbled into an untagged pedophilia foot fetish fic and backed out faster than anything. had to take a break to just,, think about my life choices
Reasons I've stopped reading a fic: - No paragraphs/line breaks - No commas at the end of a line of dialogue. "Speech" action "Speech" instead of "Speech," action, "speech." - Turning characters into stereotypes (Re: writing characters in a racist way) - Re: Secondhand embarrassment - Emotional edging / constsntly threatening to give stories emotional weight or resolutions to conflict - Got distracted and forgot about it - The writing style was so vague I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on - Author gets one tiny but very important detail wrong and it ruins the mood (i.e. writing batman or superman as if they were christian or the like, even though theyre canon jewish) - Using anything but quotation marks for dialogue. Why, *why*, would you use HYPHENS instead of "". Why. - 'plot twists' that are just OP pulling random bs out of their arse with no foreshadowing. I think the academic term is deus ex machina but could be wrong - Taking 2 paragraphs words to describe eyes and hair. Without using any metaphor. In the most pretentious possible way - Author's note was annoying - too lazy to remember any others
@@tisjustangie batmans mom was jewish, by relations batmans jewish, but he has no religion- or no consistent religion (to my knowledge) the story of Superman was inspired by the creators experience's with anti-semitism as jewish immigrants (I can't remember if they themselves were immigrants or they were next generation immigrants)
@@fatimazafar8907 the batman one makes sense but eh idk abt the creator one. Unless explicitly stated that superman is jewish, i personally wouldn't say he is jus because his creator is. I've written plenty of characters with experiences similar to my own but i would hope nobody thinks they're self inserts or anything like that
@@tisjustangie it's not that superman IS jewish it's just a fact that superman's whole character was created to personify the jewish immigrant experience, superman isn't necessarily a jewish PERSON but he is a reflection of a jewish person- this isn't a theory btw this is a fact but I get why you wouldn't know because I didn't either until like last year lol
In a Danganronpa fic where one character kept getting treated awfully by the other characters after their love interest was executed. The other characters didn't give them any sympathy and just kept bullying them. I honestly couldn't blame them for becoming the next killer and I kind of wished they would have succeeded in getting away with it because the rest of the cast had become so unlikeable by that point.
Honestly something I hate in fanfiction is when a sex scene had weird kinks with no warning. One day I was reading a fanfic on the part with a sex scene,And suddenly a character PULLED OUT A KNIFE AND START WRITTING THEIR NAME ON THE OTHER CHARACTER'S SKIN,I dropped It right away
Help why does that sound so much like many of character ai chats- (the action, mind you. Also not the other person nor their name, other way around) that kind of startled me
@@saphirestorm7952 hard agree with the character ai chat thing because tell me why I called the bot short in a normal conversation and then he offered to step on me 💀💀
sometimes it's a little author's note at the beginning of a chapter informing the readers of the absolute monstrosity they've written and advising them to run before it's too late
@@cloudenvy47 Little warning for an all caps paragraph in this reply. I had a fic like that I think I've since archived it and hidden in from public view cause it was so awful. No pacing, two characters out of character, and the murderous insane character INSTANTLY "turned good" because she recognized her bestie/crush in the crowd, then as there was a mass escape, the crush THREW HERSELF INTO THE DEATH MACHINE FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO HELP HER INSANE MURDEROUS BESTIE? WHO'S SANITY WAS ALREADY RESTORED?? AND WAS FULLY WILLING AND ABLE TO GET THERAPY AND BECOME A BETTER PERSON??? I like to joke that I only have one braincell, but this is proof that I have grown a few since I was 14ish.
@@bonnietelocole6777 hey, the best thing is that you can clearly see your mistakes and learn from them. at least you had the guts to WRITE something, i shrivel up into a procrastinating ball of nothing when it comes to fanfic lol
I once found a fic that was nicely written and the characters were well done, there was an interesting conflict and I was actually enjoying it. About 5 or 6 chapters in, the author snuck up behind me and smacked me upside the head with one of the most out there and wild backstory headcanons for one of the characters. It did not fit the characters involved, made literally no sense, and was just batshit insane to read. It genuinely felt like I got bashed over the head with a metal chair. I was in a spiral of ‘what the fuck what the fuck *what the fuck* ’ and then dropped the fic. I later found out that it was by someone I’ve been actively avoiding on tumblr because I despise their ugly, washed out, drab-ass artstyle and awful character designs. Quite the wild roller coaster if you ask me.
The one thing that will always make me leave a fanfic almost immediately is piss-poor grammar and spelling, as well as the overuse of letters as substitutions for whole words (u for you, y for why, etc). It drives me up the goddamn wall and makes it impossible to focus on the story. I saw this happen A LOT when reading creepypasta fanfics.
I know right! I've seen some fanfics, and they have a really interesting description and plotline, so I go over to them, and on the first page its liek, there spelling ist atrotsich, and they cant even use a grammars and I'm like NOOO... Okay, I understand if you don't know how to spell or use correct grammar, but surely you can use some kind of spell checker? Like Grammarly or something... Why do they publish a fanfiction like this!?
I feel like it used to be a lot more common back in the day (late 2000s, early 2010s), but honestly I don't see the "letter-for-word substitutions" that often anymore. Every once in a while, though, I end up seeing it and it makes me want to bash my head against a wall.
Especially as someone who reads fic late at night (bad habit, I know...), but the bad spelling/grammar makes me feel like I am legit LOSING MY MIND. Like, am I just too tried that it all started jumbling together? I usually have to force myself to re-read a paragraph 2-3 times before I realize I'm not the problem, lol.
It usually depends for me, chat fanfics where bad grammer and letter for word substitutions are in character are perfectly fine with me. I also love bad grammer in smut, because I despise smut but will read it if it seems funny, and bad grammar is often hilarious
i'm not into smut at all and was reading a fic that wasn't tagged as smut. i really enjoyed it and it was simply angst with some tiny bits of fluff sprinkled in. but then like halfway through it went from watching the stars together to fucking in a grave. so,,, yeahhhh
I used to read on Wattpad where people didn't really use tags or warnings most of the time. I hated when i had to leave an otherwise good fic bc of random, pages long smut in the middle.
I remember reading a fic where I thought two characters were gonna spoon because the writing was vague enough then clothes started coming off and I was like nope nope nope
Especially when it’s absolutely insane smut. Like completely degenerate pervert type shit. Did you seriously think you didn’t need to tag your creepy bdsm fantasy, man? You put fluff in the tags but not this?
I searched for a niche ship from a big fandom on AO3. Huh, 28 fics with that relationship tag found, neat. Well...2 of them were abandoned years ago after one prologue chapter where they didn't even show up yet, 24 fics where authors just mentioned that ship once in their 500k fic about another ship and proceeded to tag it, and the rest were 5 chapters in French and I had no sanity left to use Google Translate. Sigh.
I legit ended up making a list of all the fics that tagged the rarepair I'm looking for, with how much the ship is actually in it Conclusion: My heart goes out to everyone who tags ships as they appear, instead of just putting a handful in that /maybe/ will appear and calling it a day My heart also goes out to writers who state when a ship is very minor right away, either directly through ship tags A/B (background), or putting some kinda note/warning Writers, when you tag a ship, ask yourself if readers of this ship would be satisfied if they read your fic looking specifically for the ship. If your answer is no, then you gotta make that clear through a disclaimer or something.
It usually happens when people really don't necessarily ship the ship but need the one character in the main ship to have a previous relationship with someone, I've encountered a lot of ships like that.
Once read a fanfiction about an OC and a male character who was in his 30's, so i assumed the oc was close in age because otherwise surely the author would have said something about it, but it wasn't until the she got pregnant, that the writter decided to reveal the OC was 16. Bro, i've never closed the tab faster in my life, what the fuck?
OMG i had a similar moment of the opposite. I was reading a cute first love-type fic of a character whos canonically in their early-mid teens x reader, so i was expecting the reader to logically also be around that age, but no, lo and behold, the reader was well into their adult years (around 30-40). i have never felt more guilt in my entire life... (the author didn't even tag it with large age gap or anything 😭)
I didn't know this was a thing in fanfic. Can you even do a written musical? The closest to that would surely just be 🎶a songbook or play script with lyrics🎶
I found one fanfic that was nigh perfect. 9/10. It would've been a perfect 10 if it didn't have lyrics to songs. Instead when I get to that chapter or two I hurry it up and pretend that they do not exist.
for me it's when they portray certain unhealthy things as romance and don't tag said unhealthy behaviors, and like, i will admit sometimes i enjoy reading stuff about yanderes or obsessive love, but like, you gotta tag it as such, it's totally different when it's written as "this is supposed to be a messed up form of love and not healthy" and not "this is something i want for my real life relationship" and sometimes you can tell the author is the latter lmao, i don't know how some people manage to *accidentally* write abusive relationships but it is very worrisome
Right? I actually love dark/unhealthy romance dynamics, but be upfront about them! It’s actually a lot better when an author goes “this is f-Ed up so I’m gonna go all the way with it.”
For me, especially in a M/M fanfiction, it when the original show/story had a male character who is very masculine and strong and the fanfiction writer makes then weaker and more emotional and irrational so they can fit better in the bottom/receiving/uke role. It feels so heteronormative as if the bottom is always weaker and more submissive than the top, as if being a bottom is feminine. As a woman, it feels really annoying seeing femininity be equated to weakness, and it annoys me more even more when the original character's personality and strength is weakened so they can fit into the role of the bottom. They can be both badass and strong whilst also being a bottom. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Also, untagged Inc*st, R*pe, and other disgusting tags, just so your fanfiction can evade people who filter that shit out. It's digusting Also, when characters who are originally older and more mature become unreasonably horny like teenagers and have unrealistic refractory periods. Like I was reading a RE6 Chreon fanfic where in the game, Leon is 35 and Chris is 40, and they were having marathon sex for 5 chapters. Like as a biomedical scientist, I'm always shocked at how unrealsitic and improbable fanfiction smut can be with their imaginative positions and unrealistic times they have sex. Bear in mind that these 2 characters are professional soldiers/agents and have sex in the middle of their mission and acting OOC horny teenagers. It's too much for me to suspend my belief for even a moment 😅
God, I hate that. I don’t read man on man fanfic all that much, but I hate when people write not typically masculine male characters as hyper-masculine, dirty-talking fiends. It’s stupid when a character who would spontaneously combust at seeing a quarter of a tiddy starts dirty talking just so he can top his love interest. It’s not made any better when ninety percent of the time it’s to tip the scales of power away from his love interest who canonically has the more domineering and confident personality.
This seme / uke dynamics is boring tbh. People are multidimensional which means they can act differently in different situations. I also don't like when people have a "fixed" sexual role. Not just preference but "I will never do anything that resembles bottoming because I'm a Top®"
god i hate that when they destroy a character's personality just to fit the top/bottom stereotypes. i also hate surprise incest and rape too. like both are great when i'm in a mood for the drama and the angst, but only when i'm in the mood for it ya'know? i don't want to read that shit when all i want is fluff. i don't know why people don't tag their fics, it just means that those who want to read that stuff can't find it and those who don't want to read that shit will dropped your fic and possibly blacklist you too. then hey look, no one is reading your stuff anymore!
I think there's a lot of reasons out there why people will stop reading a fic. Personally I absolutely LOATHE songfics with a burning passion of a thousand suns. I have no time nor patience to read out the lyrics of Wonderwall just because the writer thought it was a relatable song for their OC's inner angst.
@@iwakeupandboomimarat Yes! I mean, I could maybe handle one miniscule paragraph of lyrics but if the entire fic is lyrics then I wouldn't necessarily say that you even wrote a story.
Yeah songfics are like... What if I don't know the song? Am I taking a poetry break? Did you account for about how long it'll take me to read the lines between the lyrics you picked out??? How many times would I need to loop the song in the BG to get through this?????? Even if this was an experience I wanted, the logistics seem messy. Just tell me at the beginning that the fic is inspired by a song and if I like the fic I'll check it out.
Hurt no comfort. I’m sorry, I am An angst lover myself, but characters also need comfort in their lives. That’s the best part, seeing them overcome their trauma instead of being massacred over and over. Sometimes hurt no comfort is done well, but it mainly sometimes feels like torture
EXACTLY! i feel this so hard omg. right now i'm writing this very long (40k+ words, long for me i'm doing it as i go) thing about these three characters in the apocalypse and they are all very messed up in diffferent ways. the point kinda is that theyre messed up but im making sure to carefully highlight when they do in fact get better because thats the most important part to me. to me, if you're not even giving them a chance to heal then what's the fucking point?
Sometimes when I feel like burning my house down, I go to that specific tag, read like 2 fics and suddenly life is good again. I always have to find a good hurt/comfort fic to recover from the pain but hey, if it works, it works 💀.
I'll occasionally read hurt no comfort if it is a VERY SHORT one shot, in a "gee, wouldn't it suck if this happened in canon?" "Yeah, that would suck. Sure am glad it didnt." Anything longer than a chapter or two just stops being fun, if it ever was in the first place."
Hurt no comfort works better as a quick little one shot. Not chapters and chapters of bs. What’s the point of reading the story if we’ll never see the mc do anything but suffer 😭😭
There was a fanfiction I was reading that was very long(million+ words, 60 something chapters), and well written. It had the sci-fi setting with a bunch of mystery, but I was five chapters in and it was just like... relationship melodrama(which was good, but I am really an angst person). so I stopped reading it. a few months later I saw it in my tabs still and was like, fuck it and read chapter 6. Someone died. I read the whole thing in the next month. really stopped right before it got good. edit: I tried to comment on this comment the name of the fic, and it keep not putting it there. the name of the fic is Your Words Destroyed My Planet and is by Unda on ao3
I read a good sort of horror fic that was basically "stalker x reader" and was supposed to be very dark, which it was for the first half, but then it sort of turned into a rom-com slice of life so I lost interest.
@@rowan404 Liking something in fiction doesn't mean we condone or want that in real life. Just like horror, the fact it's scary and fictional is what makes it so exciting.
worst feeling is when you write a really good and well thought out fic and upload it and it gets like 0 traction within the fandom just because it isn't smut-heavy
literally 🫠 the fics i’m proudest of are short, angstier fillers or codas, but they get like 70 kudos MAX. put in perspective, a smuttier oneshot i wrote that i dont really care about has over 900 kudos. it sucks
Don’t write fics for kudos! I write angst oneshots and whump mainly and don’t get a lot of traction on those, my most popular fic is pre slash and found family. Because while it’s disheartening you’ll never be happy with your work if you expect it to get lots of traction. Write for yourself and your online friends and mutuals. Also a lot less people are looking specifically for smut than you may think, porn without plot doesn’t get much traction either
Not so long ago I found a fic with a really interesting premise (the main character has to kill her lover - after that she becomes depressed, suicidal, develops substance use issues, etc., but through a higher power, her lover is returned back to her). I was looking forward to the angst, hurt/comfort, and the topics of mental health and grief, but around 3 chapters in it abruptly turned into a really, really badly written BDSM.
4:12 I’ve seen this with Spanish in Puss in Boots, Owl House, and Encanto fics, but it never bothered me because I speak Spanish. Often, I wouldn’t even realize there _was_ a footnote with translations until I reached the end of the chapter, especially since it was usually simple stuff like “gatito” and “mi amor”. It never occurred to me how tedious it is when you don’t know the language…
I think it's fine when it's only a few words or phrases and doesn't take the enjoyment out of the audience who can't speak the language and/or is done with a certain a purpose. I think all of your examples there do it well (though I may be biased since I can speak some spanish)
some phrases like "mi amor" can be inferred and if they keep using those phrases then readers will catch on quick and won't need translation. i think its more annoying when they randomly use a different language and very rarely repeat a word or phrase. thats when it gets bad
This reminded me of my Mexican friend went on a mini-rant to me about Americans being obsessed with vamanos and you can often spot an American in fan-fiction if they over use it. This came up when I was telling him about wanting more variation from Nemona in the English version of Pokemon scarlet and violet. I was like "maybe it is because Americans are bossy, lol." Vamanos (let's go) being the command form of vamos (we are going) for those that don't know. Like they only ever have her say vamos which is fine but it felt like they wanted to make it her catchphrase then forgot like halfway through the game. I would have liked her to say vamanos or sígueme a few times to mix it up, since she seemed informal and a little bossy to me.
My personal pet peeve in fanfics, and why I stopped reading Naruto fics back in the day, is when characters who are clearly hated by the author become basically extremely OOC, the Meg/Squidward of the fic where they're unfairly treated or tortured, killed off, or just downright demonized. Sakura suffered this HEAVILY and I didn't even like Sakura myself, but at least when I wrote her in the Naruto fics I tried to make her still in character or treat her with some respect!
@@yukarilolz I personally have seen a lot of fanfics bashing him with the usual neglecting Naruto and Sakura and only training Sasuke or something about him hating Naruto because of the nine tails killing Minato.
Ok, I love incorrect quotes. In case you don't know, they're stuff like this: Person A: I wouldn't do that, it's against my moral compass. Person B: Your moral compass is a goddamn roulette wheel. You basically put in any character from any fandom that would fit that quote, and I just can't get enough of them. I also enjoy reading actual fanfics from tine to time. But, for the love of Christ, do not format the dialogue like an incorrect quote. Speech marks aren't that hard to use. I would rather burn my favourite book rather than reading dialogue that's like: Person A: How are you? Person B: Not bad, thanks. Person A: That's good. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH
The epithet one is one of my biggest pet peeves, there is only so many times I can take ‘the raven-haired’ or the ‘bluenette’ and I’d rather overuse their names. Also it’s the worst when these things come up when you’re looking for something really specific/in a tiny fandom and they’re the only fics that exist so you either have to power through or get nothing.
The worst epithet offence I’ve read was one where it included the height, a personality trait, the skin tone, and the gender of the character so the epithet was (not including the word the) five words long. Needless to say I laughed at it as I closed the fic
@@MAndSquared So it was something like "The 6'1, mean, white boy glared at her"? That sounds like something I'd write at 2 am and delete in the morning after finally getting some sleep.
I mostly read fluff and hurt/comfort, I absolutely despise when there's "body type appreciation", but it's either very objectifying of that body type or it expresses "appreciation" by bashing other body types. Like, c'mon, I get that an author or a character can have their preferences about physical traits, but there's no need to be mean.
Was reading a body horror/torture fic and the scientist's assistant started to hit on one of the victims. And the victim was PLAYING INTO IT. I was so weirded out that i had to give up on the amazing side plot of the victims friends trying to find them.
Ah. That could be a really cool story, actually. There have been victims who have used the interest of their perpetrators against them to later escape. Not so cool if it turns into an actual love story.
@@0Jenna7I dunno, if it's a toxic love story that's basically a horror story that can be really interesting. Sometimes people are messed up! The only issue would be making sure it's all tagged so that people don't read something they're not up for. "Dead Dove Do Not Eat" and all that.
@@LanceyDanceyPants Yup. It would be a dark fic for sure. And it should be treated like it's a warning not something to romantizised. Looking at you, Twilight, Fifthy shades of Grey
That’s funny. I always love an unhealthy Stockholm Syndrome romance, and wouldn’t care about the friends trying to find them… Unless the victim actually rejects help in the end or even gets their former friends caught… Ah, THAT’S the kind of fvcked up darkfic I crave!🥺💔
@@yYSilverFoxYy absolutely! It sucks that it was out of nowhere (and the victim was shown to hate anyone and anything related to the scientist) but that would've been a great idea if it was the main focus of the fic!
Listen I like funny characterizations that the fandom gives characters as a funny joke. Like “haha he’s so babygirl or male wife” but when the character is written like to to an extreme (in an unironic way) that they are no longer their character, I die a little inside. Holds true for other characterizations like the “stoic character” and they make them into the coldest bitch that couldn’t care less about anything or anyone.
I dropped one halfway through the first chapter bc they made my comfort character a sexist jerk who threatened to non-consentually make a person with me. Point of note that it was an x reader and you were supposed to like him??
Similar thing happened to me! It was a 'That time I got reincarnated as a slime x reader'. Vesta my favorite character in that show (one of two reasons why I haven't dropped the show yet), a dwarf, was arrogant but still adorable when he was first introduced and just didn't seem like he has any interest in women. First thing the fanfic did? Make him uncomfortably flirt with the already unlikable reader insert! That was not him! Vesta has manners and is way to stuck in his work to even start a relationship! He would never try to flirt with someone and not so weird! I personally believe that man has a crush on the dwarf king, Gazel Dwargo aka my other favorite(other reason), and only doesn't confess because he knows it won't work and he's already happy, that even after making a big mistake that cost him his job as minister he didn't lose the kings trust.
I dealt with it for a while but I remember this one fic where the AI character's speech patterns just felt wrong, too human. Like they were a human instead of an AI. Sometimes that's appropriate but not with this one Edit: Also just remembered a crossover fic where Din immediately removed his helmet and introduced himself and I was just. Buddy I haven't even seen the series and I know that's OOC.
Yeah, I'm always like "huh?" when a character willingly reveals something they haven't told anyone at the drop of a hat. I was kind of satisfied when in a fic I read the dude was being magically compelled to reveal everything and he started tearing at his own throat to stop speaking.
i had a walking dead/harry potter binge a few years ago and in like most of the fics harry just suddenly drops his life story to these random strangers like "oh yeah i was orphaned at a young age and suffered child abuse and then spent my school years being hunted by my parent's murderer and this one time this teacher made me carve into my own hand and i totally murdered a guy when i was 11" and like, no, you wouldn't tell your own friends about the cupboard, why are you telling these assholes about it harry? i hate when characters are that ooc just for the plot
So, I didn't realize this was an issue I had because I never usually read this kind of story; earlier today, out of curiosity, I checked out a fic that involved one of the male protagonists getting turned into a woman by a magic spell gone awry. What ticked me off was that everyone around him, who had been with him for a while at this point, and therefore knew that he was a man and identified as such, immediately started to refer to him by she/her pronouns and a feminine-sounding name that was not his own name (in spite of his protests), and since his clothes didn't fit him the way they did before, they provided him with a skirt instead of the trousers he was asking for - all of that without a hint of irony. The character of course is infuriated by this, to the point of crying with frustration because people are treating him differently now that they see him as a woman (the author could have done something with this realization - they didn't), but he then comes to this weird conclusion where he seems to think he... isn't allowed to refer to himself as a man anymore?? This fic was tagged rule 63, not trans female character or non binary character, so there was no question that our character is a cis man who has been transformed without his consent. The whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth.
That’s seriously the most bizarre, frustrating description of something I have ever read. What the hell? Like you said, it’s not like it was some trans story tagged as such. And even if it was, the way the characters acted without irony would make me throw something. I’m baffled.
there's actually a lot of these in super old fic or original stories, very bizarre to read in 2023 cuz it's like Ok This Writer Clearly Has Very Set Ideas On How They Think Gender Works
That... is definitely a tad messed up to be written unironically... When it comes to gender swap or genderbend (I frankly enjoy both types immensely). I usually like it when the character who's changed (and everyone really) is just... Confused by the situation, they try to adjust until the change can be reversed, which usually leads to shenanigans such as the character getting help with how certain aspects of their now changed body from the member of the respective gender. Ex. A guy turned girl has to deal with bras, long hair, maybe shorter stature, and maybe getting hit on. A girl getting turned into a guy, has to deal with the "thing", loss of boobs, height and maybe strength gain, and also getting hit on. And on both notes, trying to dress, either as their usual style or something more "comfortable" for their new bodies. That's how I always viewed gender bend fics, it's a bizarre situation for everyone and they just need to handle it for the time being until they get changed back, with all the potential ups and downs accompanying it.
that just sounds like you stumbled upon a forced feminization fetish fic... people legit need to tag their stuff better because nobody wants to just accidentally read that stuff 😭
i was reading this one fanfic and it was a pretty good. i don’t remember much of what happened but the relationship just IMMEDIATELY jumped from “we’re taking things slow” to “HEY LETS HAVE SMUT IN EVERY CHAPTER FROM NOW ON”. i don’t mind smut, but not when that basically takes over the entire fanfic because there’s literally no reason?? so i just gave up when i realized it was going to be *every chapter from then on*
Bro just described the average Shiro fic lmfao, he works his way up to the lemons then every chapter is a lemon with majority plot progression until its more lemons than actual plot progression, gotta love that guy.
For me, the most memorable time I stopped reading well into a story was literally a rage quit. I really wanted to stick it out because the ideas at the beginning were really interesting but the characters were so ooc that they were unrecognizable, it turned into a parade of misery porn, the author decided to have each chapter take place in separate timeframes, like “30 years ago” and “14 years ago” and only half of it felt like it added to the story. But i think the thing that made me go, this isn’t worth it and won’t get better was the author responding to a comment, saying she was surprised the reader found a particular character unforgivable and and was happy he was dead in the timeframe the story was originally taking place in. She was surprised that a character who lied, raped, kidnapped and constantly talked about how he “deserved” the girl he wanted to marry (the one he did all this stuff to), because he was coerced into it with: “if you help us destroy this girl’s life and enslave the boy she likes we will give her to you to marry.” Plus he “felt bad” that she became so broke as a person that she threw herself out a window and down a cliff. Of course when it was revealed she didn’t die, just broke every bone and had such severe brain damage she lost all memory instead of staying away from her he tried to be her perfect boyfriend to “do it right” this time and prove they were destined to be together. That’s the broad strokes of what the author wrote that character doing and she was shocked that some people didn’t find him sympathetic
@@jupitersorbit528 devil may cry. It was supposed to be a fic about Nero’s mom (the girl that was subjected to all the bullshit) and the character who we apparently were supposed to find sympathetic while he did nothing but heinous things was Credo
Epithets are also a pet peeve of mine. They sound so amateurish and break the flow of a fic so much. IMO they should only be used for comedic effect (if it fits the tone) or if the fic is from a limited POV and the character doesn’t know another one’s name
Yeah. If I have to read "the brunette" "the taller man" "the younger one" one more time. Just use their dang names! And when they don't know their names I prefer it if the POV character just makes up a name, or notices a physical characteristic that is not eye colour. "I called the first attacker Grumpy in my head, it seemed appropriate. Grumpy grabbed a metal pipe from the ground. The other one, who didn't seem interesting enough for a name better than the other one, held out his knife." Stuff like that works perfectly fine. But yeah, if established characters are called all these epithets I nope out. It probably stems from teachers encouraging students to not use one single verb and two nouns for their entire essay, and then they over-correct and think they can't use a word more than once.
Oh yeah, using epiphets for characters who's names haven't been named yet, or if it's an established character but the POV character doesn't know who it is are the exact reason you use them.
For anyone who thinks it's too repetitious to use the character's names more than once or twice, I assure you, it's not! Think of it this way: Do you think of your friends, partners, or family members as "the blond," "the shorter man," "the younger man"? Do you refer to them that way during phone calls or texts? I bet you don't! Please, use their names, you will not only avoid confusion for your readers, but your work will be better overall.
the two main use cases are when the name isn't known by the character whose POV it is or to emphasize a certain quality that's relevant to the action/scene, and often times it's neither of them
For me, the biggest thing is OOC sexual themes. I read a lot of Kim Possible fic, and the amount of times that people over sexauly Kim through Ron's eyes make my skin crawl. Like, Ron is a dude yes, but no way is he constantly think bout Kim and her body. Like did you even see the movie? One of the first things he does when talking with Eric was stopping Eric makes a pretty gross joke bout Kim. And I qoute from So The Drama: "Hey, you know what? Let's not talk about her that way ever again. Okay? K." Oh and bad grammar. That turns me off real quick.
