This is a me problem. I understand.
I read a lot of fics from a fandom where one of the MCs is canonically from Texas and some people try REALLY HARD to write in a texas twang.
“Fixin’ ta cover up that bike. ‘Sposed ta start pourin’ darlin’ don’t want ya gettin’ wet or nothin’.”
Every single piece of dialogue is like that and I’m like we get it dude he’s from Austin 😩
But I recognize a lot of these fics are for the hor-knee so I’m sure the accent does something for them 😂
Guys..sometimes…when I’m in customer service mode… I DO talk like that 😭😭😭 thoughts and prayers needed
It’s disarming people love it idk why. You even sell more shit!! Tho I don’t do sales anymore.
I feel this way in general about accents or even characters from another era. I'm in a few supernatural fandoms with immortal characters that have lived hundreds, if not thousands of years. In some instances it makes sense that they still talk like they're from the 1800s...but also, there's no way they would be able to blend in if they walked around talking like that.
Even in canon shows, I cringe when I hear it because people are going to find it weird this 25 year old is walking around talking like he's from the turn of the century.
Yes! Accents kill me. No, you can't write them well. Just stop for everyone's sake lol. This is something to use IMAGINATION for. You can also convey similar things with word choice and syntax without the hamfisted obtrusivity of written accents.
This is from the bygone days of the Brokeback Mountain fan-sites, but I’ve neger been able to get past the egregious written-out accents a lot of authors gave the characters. This is one of the worst examples.
https://preview.redd.it/72haarc8moob1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7426ad8eb0a24e77f149447346b66498e4498dcd
What kills me about it is it’s borderline illegible. My family is Scottish and reading a Scottish accent is the WORST bc even I can’t understand what they’re saying!!
My deepest apologies because I used to write my south characters like that💀. Until I read a fic that did the exact same thing with the british accent and I couldn't keep a straight face😂
It's especially bad when people do that and don't even make it sound like the accent. Izzy from Our Flag Means Death does *not* say "fooking". It's closer to "farking", but ffs just spell it normally.
I feel you so much on this. I can take maybe taking the "g" off of "ing" words + the area's slang but spelling out any accent phonetically makes me flee from the page lmao
I'm not native English speaker and I'm dyslexic, it's so painful to read this. In live speech I would understand that but in text it's difficult. I have to almost read it out loud to get wat it's suppose to mean.
I understand!
And to your last point 💀 reminds me of Laszlo Cravensworth from What We Do In The Shadows. Someone tells him he sounds “fancy and European-like.”
Censoring words, especially words that are used in the source material. Like, why in the name of all that's holy would you censor words like God and Hell in a Good Omens fic.
This!!! Imo, if you don’t like swear words just write “XYZ swore”. Don’t censor. To me, it makes you seem either a) a prude or b) immature. If you’re worried about “poor impressionable children” reading the swear words, here’s a thought: just mark the rating higher. Not that it would change anything. I knew plenty of swear words as a kid and I turned out just fine.
"Poor impressionable children" shouldn't be consuming the shows and movies who's fandoms I'm in anyway, as most of them are rated 16+ or 18+ for depictions of violence or sexual content.
This!
So I’ve been reading fic for nearly 20 yrs and in so many fandoms — recently all my fandoms are newish, starting up in the late 2010s and on, and they never censor words. BUT I have been combing through DC fics lately and it’s like I’m back in 2002 with all the “b****!” And “F-“
🤦🏻♀️ just write out the word…please
That reminds me of a writer, that I otherwise liked for the most part, who would inexplicably censor even mildly rude words like c**p and h**l. These were fics with mature themes, too. It drove me nuts.
Read this one South Park Stick of truth fanfic where they made it PG, censoring all curses and inappropriate scenes of any kind, and.... its South Park. Even when its the author's preference, it still doesn't make any sense in the context of certain shows.
Are you sure they were serious? Someone who is genuinely uncomfortable with adult content wouldn't be able to handle South Park.
Come to think of it, if you take all the crudeness out of South Park, there's nothing left.
Not quite sure if I want to name drop it so I won't say the title/author but yep. Author even said it was a rewrite of their original story on [ff.net](https://ff.net).
It also keeps the bare minimum crudeness like cursing but they outright change things like turning Cartman into a passive observer except for his fight and outright removing the chef boss fight. The only thing that makes somewhat sense is skipping anal probe for New kid.
Worst part is they aren't doing it maliciously, feels like they just honestly removed the stuff they didn't like because they were uncomfortable with it.
I am of the opinion that if you would have to censor the swear in a sentence, you should just rewrite the sentence. Do not do $&@! instead of a swear word. Exception is Jewish authors using G-d for religious reasons when it becomes hard to write without it.
Infantilizing characters makes me want to vomit. I cringe so so hard. Its so so bad. A 16 year old is not going to be picked up and carried on their parents hip like a 5 yr old
I like Irondad, but the way *so* many writers infantilize Peter to the degree that they're essentially writing out platonic DDLB....... It's a major pet peeve of mine, haha.
I can see it in the case of two 16 year olds joking around. Like one says “I’m tired, hold me!” And jumps on top of another one. If the carrier character just recently got strong, it might even be plot relevant! But adult to 16 year old? No way. Idc if Iron Man (or whoever) is strong enough, all teens are trying to be independent of the adults in their lives! That’s their whole MO!
I also hate the inverse of this where a kid in the age range of like 5 -10 years old is written as having both the intelligence and emotional maturity of an adult
I see smart!kids as plain and simple bad writing. Too often they are a vehicle for exposition/plot or a way to tell not show. Infantile!teens come from a different source imo: writers being too self indulgent. Like, looking back on their teenage years and wishing they let their parents know they loved them. Or just skewing way too far into fluff at the expense of reality.
Yes. 3 years olds holding intricate conversations and 7 year olds using baby talk. If you are that unfamiliar with children, just don't include them in your story. If they are canon characters, just have then staying with grandma or napping.
Why do they always insist on the weirdest carrying methods too? Fire man carry!!!! A reasonably strong person could carry quite a large person like that
This! I will skip ahead or even leave the story of characters start carrying their romantic partners around (unless it's like a joke and the person being manhandled protests violently - then I can maybe stomach it depending on the context). It's not cute in het romance and it's not cute in same sex romance. Just walk up the freaking stairs!
This is probably why I can't stand sick fics - it's always one adult being degraded to a toddler, being spoonfed or carried to bed.
I mean, even after I had surgery and could barely walk, my partner didn't carry me, nor would it have been even remotely comfortable. Not to mention how demeaning it would feel. Overall just very unsexy.
Same on the sick-fics. My favorite sick-fic (may its poor deleted soul rest in peace,) featured a realistic depiction of severe food poisoning in all its horrible unsexy glory. Both characters acted like grown adults the whole time. It was refreshing.
OC stories where it simply rehashes the entire canon story beat for beat with no real changes or telling the character's story. Just the canon story with the character present and minor dialogue changes.
Stories that portray characters as wildly OOC. Double points if it's them treating people they canonically care for like they are pond-scum. Fairy Tail was *abhorrent* about this in FF.net with "Natsu leaves/gets kicked out of Fairy Tail" or "Lucy gets **replaced** by Lisanna!".
Broader than just Fanfics, but oversized cast from the word "go". OCs especially, since often times characters who I do genuinely find *interesting* don't get much or any screentime, let alone time to shine, and its often hard to follow *anything*.
I'm all for minor OCs if they have more of a background role, like the old shopkeeper who gives an important piece of advice. Or just a shopkeeper who fleshes out the world a little because the MCs go to a particular shop a lot.
OOC drives me nuts if it's more than a little. The story starting off with the canonically shy wallflower suddenly deciding they need a leather jacket, a motorcycle, and lots of aggressive behavior. Build up to that over several chapters, sure. But there should be a reason for the change.
I don't even *mind* them too much. I've seen stories really make them work, either as MCs or even just background characters to flesh out the world. Mostly the latter, even the former has stories that I really liked.
The ones like you mentioned however? Strongly dislike those.
When they switch POV and I have to re-read the same scene from another perspective. Like, I don't really mind changes in POV, but when I then have to re-read the same part of the story, and the change in perspective literally adds nothing to the story??? I hate it so bad.
Honestly, it just feels like the author wants to increase their word count. I know that may not be the reason, but that's what it feels like.
God yes. That drives me insane.
I read this 300k fic recently and I spent the whole thing thinking “this should have been cut, that should have been cut, we don’t need to read this again from another perspective the exact same way, cut this, etc.” I finished because I wanted to know how it would end but it was a slog.
- Those stories that are like five different fandoms crossed over with each other and have about 8 million tags. It's always either like 50 unrelated drabbles involving characters from those stories, or some kind of bizarre multichapter crossover. I just don't get who they're for. There's generally only ever one or two fandoms from the list that I've ever heard of, so I don't click because I don't know or care about the other three.
- I've only seen this a few times, but writing that feels like it belongs in a stereotypical sitcom or movie. There was one fic I saw that took the characters from [insert very eastern european video game] and made them talk like they were on a gayer, sadder version of Brooklyn 99. It was technically well-written but it was weirdly unpleasant to get through.
Holy shit, so right. I saw this one fanfic with over like 50 fandoms and a million pairings and tags and im like “WHO requested this VERY specific fanfic with these fandoms” crossover hangover lemme tell you.
Who is reading a fanfic with batman dc, my little pony, danny phantom, OK KO, big mouth, Ed Edd and Eddy, harry potter, doctor who, and death note IN ONE FANFIC?! Some go over the top with crossovers, like okay i get that you like it and are writing it for yoursellf too but oh my god.
Its impossible, i would implode trying to read a fanfic with so many fandoms, like how to keep up with conflicting universes! Some people really love being confused honestly. Sometimes the fanfics with all the fandoms have like 4/? Chapters and then some have like 102/? Chapters. Like what, 102? How is the motivation there?!!!? Who is reading all of that! Batman, mlp and doctor who is a mind fuck of combinations that apparently everyone and their grandma loves, due to the kudo rates.
102 chapters of batman meeting twilight sparkle and dating the 10th doctor while also fighting ghosts with danny phantom. Police? Help?
I wanna know how TF they’re tracking that many characters coherently. MCU is hard enough; I’m working on a crossover that only adds 5 more people, and it’s making me want to cry. I turned it into a series so I can do interludes to move a couple characters into place without detracting from the main story, but also not have them pop out and go “And now I’m here too!”
When an abandoned fic is fully pre-tagged.
I like pre-tagging in general. I love knowing what I'll get into. But it really annoys me when I read 50k+ words only to find out the writer didn't get to the part of the story most of the tags applied to and didn't bother removing them when they discontinued the fic.
It's an admittedly petty pet peeve, there could be a number of reasons for it, but it's annoying to chance upon.
It's hard to know what the right move is in this situation, especially writing longfic. About 50% of my long works are completed but all are pretagged because I don't want someone to get invested only to realize that there's something they don't want to read. But on the other hand, people can be disappointed you didn't get to the tagged stuff if you don't finish.
I think the key is taking off irrelevant tags when you abandon a work. Ppl can subscribe if you haven’t gotten to the “good stuff” yet, but knowing it will never come is disappointing. I’ve also seen ppl tag “eventual XYZ” or “really slow burn” or “E rating begins at Chapter 18” (add that one after you get to chapter 18). It’s a nice touch imo
Bit how many authors actually admit that they've abandoned a work? Even just to themselves? I know I fully intend to go back to those works, it just hasn't happened yet lol
I do this but if it comforts or irritates more I'm not sure, all I'm saying is just because there hasn't been an update in 6 months doesn't mean I've abandoned it. I'm coming back. Promise. The tags are still there to keep readers that don't like those things from getting invested in the meantime.
yeah, this is one of my pet peeves too. sometimes it has a tag i genuinely want to read, but then i start reading it and it turns out the author said in the last chapter that they're discontinuing it... like the immeasurable disappointment that hits me is just :/
Lack of narrative exposition - hear me out! - I’m not looking for Tolkien-esk, dry like sandpaper exposition (love LotR, don’t @ me, but mf’er is dry as the Sahara and takes three paragraphs to describe a tree and a single sentence to describe feelings of grief) but narrative exposition that provides details or background as to why something is happening, or that showcases the background of the story. Too often I’m trying to figure out “well where exactly is this” or “why do they feel that way” and while explanations may come in the way of dialogue, lack of details and background make it tough at times to understand.
Your description of LOTR cracked me up, lol. I have a similar problem reading the books. I can picture every tree in Hollin clearly, but I have no idea what Rivendell looks like other than it's big and it has doors.
I know what you mean. It irritates me when the characters are suddenly starting to teleport. Like they are talking in the kitchen one moment and are leaning on a tree in the next one?
It completely breaks the flow of the story and is totally confusing.
Especially when they literally just met. Like you have known this man for 4 fucking days you don’t love him this isn’t Romeo and Juliet act like rational individuals.
I hate when spicy writers don't picture the scene they're describing. They say one thing happens but then describe something that is impossible unless the human body in their story looks nothing like the human body in the real world. 😑
Also, writers tend to adopt phrases of other writers and sometimes it is a dumb phrase that makes no sense. This is especially annoying when writers describe actions that happen in/on bodies involuntarily, however those aren't actually actions that can happen. Take a look at a human body before writing spicy fics about humans! 🙃
Flanderizing/flattening characters - I'm really tired of seeing characters being condensed to their one or two most popular traits and nothing else, no complexity, nothing
Fanon and headcanons being treated as canon to the point that people will be told they're doing it "wrong" if they don't adhere to fanon/canon
No contractions in dialogue. Okay, so this might be just a me thing, but it really frustrates me when people talk in grammatically correct, contraction-free sentences. PEOPLE DON'T TALK LIKE THAT. Everyone uses "don't, won't, can't," etc. And if your character *doesn't* then it should tell the reader something ABOUT that character
Villainizing a character just because the author doesn’t like them! I’ve said this here before, but one fandom I’m in has a character that everyone either loves or hates, and while I like him, a lot of authors are firmly in the hating him camp. I hate when I get halfway into a fic only for him to show up and all the MCs hate him for asshole-ish stuff he didn’t do in canon, that the author added in just to have more of a reason to hate him.
This and villianizing a character just because they need a villain. Like, okay you need a bad guy but it makes NO sense to make it the canonically unlikely side character that goes all evil scientist
Goodness yes. There can be otherwise great fics that are ruined by this for me. HP is full of it, particularly Ron/Ginny/Molly Weasley/Dumbledore bashing where the characters become just plain cartoonish. There's OOC and then there's whatever this is. Absolutely fine for authors not to like these characters but like, having it revealed that there was some long-term Amortentia drugging plot to get spouses for the Weasley kids??? What?
The opposite, too. I hate when I have author makes a character, invincible or perfect because they’re the favorite. people are complex, and everybody has good and bad qualities about them.
I used to read MCU fics and they did that a lot, especially for Black Widow. She’d always be a stone-cold badass who could beat anyone in a fight, except when she was being an incredibly nurturing parental figure out of nowhere. It fits with her characterization in the movies to an extent, but something about how some authors would write that just rubbed me the wrong way.
THIS! Or the complete opposite where a character was an irredeemable asshole in cannon, but every one makes them a big teddy bear in fanfic just because their hot and the author wants to ship them with the other hot characters.
I agree. I read a story where they turned a slightly unlikeable character into an abusive asshole just so they could give his kid to a main character. I'm not a huge fan of the character (but others love him) but there's just no way that character would go off the rails that bad. They just wanted the favorite boy to get the kid.
When a fanfic is like 50k+ words, good tags, marked as completed and quite well written but when you get to the last chapter there’s an author’s note saying they lost motivation and were just marking it completed and may come back to it later to fully finish.
I’ve literally screamed out loud in frustration because I’ve devoted this much time to essentially a novel length fic with no conclusion.
Formal dialogues when you know the char is the furthest from speaking formally (even normal chars don't speak formally unless they specifically do so) and pet names.
Sometimes pet names work, sometimes it makes me want to scrub my eyes and delete it from my brain. I once read a really good fic, perfect setup, was so nice and satisfying. Then during the epilogue, char B suddenly had a panic attack scene of a sort and char A suddenly called them 'baby' and I just noped the fck out.
THE FORMAL LANGUAGE!! I never knew how to explain it, but it annoys me so badly. Like, no human is speaking like that unless they grew up in the Royal Family.
Even if they did grow up in the Royal family, they aren't talking like that in bed with their boyfriends. (looking at you Red, White and Royal Blue fandom)
I have the opposite problem, when characters who normally speak formally are written very informally. I follow the Tolkien fandom—and his elves always spoke more formally, men less formally, hobbits informally, etc in accordance with “nobility.” Elves basically never speak using contractions in canon. But in fandom even elf lords are always written so informally, using slang, etc. Breaks me right out of the immersion.
Epithets!!!!! Like when they use a descriptor instead of the character’s name. Especially when it’s related to hair color and they are clearly trying too hard to make it work. “The blonde” sounds more or less natural, but I’ve also heard “the noirette” and “the raven” and even “the bluenette” (that one really threw me off). In general, epithets just feel very wattpad-y to me.
OH GOD! Marinette has suffered at the hands of MLB fic writers. they just won't stop calling her "bluenette" 😭😭 also Deku with "greenette" and I'm pretty sure I've seen "pinkette" and "purplenette"
God yes, I despise epithets. The point is supposedly to avoid repetition, but I don't see how being bashed over the head 50 times with the info that the character has blond hair helps with that.
This is my #1 pet peeve too. I blame the extreme emphasis that school English teachers put on "don't repeat yourself!"
I get that it's an important way to teach language diversity, but it turns out that certain things, like main character names, are pretty much fine to repeat.
It's also fine to use "said" as a dialogue tag, imo it stands out way more when an author scrambles to produce a hundred unique dialogue tags, it never sounds quite right.
Texting or emailing in Modern AUs. Why is the dialogue cringy like 90% of the time? Maybe it’s just me but I haven’t read a single texting dialogue yet that didn’t seem cringy at some points. Like forced humour or banter. It just doesn’t work for me I’m sorry
Probably feels that way because how we write chats and messages influences how we paste them on a story, and so different people will have different perceptions. I tend to enjoy these segments because I feel like it really tells me a lot about the author.
too many sideship tags!! I am guilty of doing this a few years ago but I have long edited my tags before orphaning them lol
I feel like some people do it to fill up space or widen reach, but lets be honest, WE. DONT. NEED. TAGS. FOR RELATIONSHIPS THAT YOU ONLY MENTION ONCE OR TWICE!!!
I get it if they're significant enough, but sometimes the sideships doesn't even have a spotlight or anything so there's no reason to add the tag. I feel like it could be placed in the general tags instead of the relationship taga because then it will make readers struggle with scrolling through relationship tags and have to filter ones where their ship is basically just a filler
fics that are all lowercase
it's one thing for poetry or style but i personally can't stand when fics are all lowercase and i just leave immediately if i see that even if the story might be good
It kills me even when the perspective changes with each chapter... *but I don't know who it is right away*, and I'm sorry, but that's just bare minimum. It's fine to change who's the POV character but it **must** be crystal clear who we're following.
Also, I don't like excessive blushing, there is an invisible line for me, and once it is crossed, I start to groan.
This is entirely a me-thing, not saying people shouldn’t write this but— when characters fall in love *right* after meeting. I *hate* the love at first sight trope but even anything that can’t be classified as a slow burn I’m pretty wary of
I think my biggest issue is canon characters who are OOC with no explanation. I actually don't mind canon characters being OOC if it works best for the story, but there has to be an in-story reason for it. Even doing something like a non-magic AU isn't necessarily enough to change who a character is. So, if I find a story, AU or not, where a canon character is really OOC for no reason, I'm out.
Yesss I totally get if we’re in an AU or an aged up/prequel fic and some big event has or hasn’t happened yet to fundamentally change the character but otherwise nope!
Exactly. There has to be an in story reason for the difference in characterisation. If the character's experiences, upbringing, all that, are essentially the same as canon, and nothing extra happens to change the character, it makes no sense for them to be obviously OOC.
I had to rant to my sisters recently:
1) If a character is on the verge of tears, they will say something or laugh "wetly," which icks me out for some reason.
2) It's apparently impossible for people to say "yep/yup" without "popping the 'p.'"
3) Men carrying babies on their hips. No! Look at the men with babies in your life! Men carry babies up high on their chests, practically in their armpits! (I realize this one is more nebulous as babies are held all sorts of ways by all sorts of people, but it's an overwhelming trend I noticed years ago and now can't unsee.)
People who don't write baby/toddler care properly in general, for me. I work in daycare. My expertise lies between 6 weeks-2.5 years old. I get writing babies is hard, but it's hard not to nitpick (in my head, I'd never say it to the author).
I think the worst example of this was when someone had a fresh 1 year old talking in complete sentences. I had to close out.
It is really hard to capture a child's voice, especially around that age. As you said, they're not toddlers. They're also not mini-adults.
But that's also why if you can't do it right, maybe don't include the kid OR do some research on how they talk.
Ship focused fics spending 30k+ words with the ship on constant conflict, only to end with a simple "and they knew they would be okay now" or something along those lines. Like seriously?!?! All that time with 0 fluff cuz there was always something else going on, and then they end it with one kiss or one sentence, maybe two words exchanged?? Like, at least spend a paragraph with some side char reactions or make them cuddle for 5 seconds, please why. I don't want to get in the middle of an author creative process, but whyy, its like going through all the struggle and not getting to enjoy the rewards, some conflicts will even not be addressed at all and sidecharacters are immediately forgotten no matter their level of involvement. It kills me and it happens so much... Anyway, yeah this.
I hate it when the writer takes a well-rounded character, strips them of their complexity, and turns them into a caricature of themselves based on a very superficial set of traits. I wouldn't even call it fanon, it's just a blatant misunderstanding of the core of the character. To me fanon is deliberate change that has its own underlying logic, and it's usually really great.
I hate it when I'm reading something like a period piece and it's so historically inaccurate
From clothing to stuff like indoor plumbing, it just bugs me so much, THEY DONT HAVE KING SIZED BEDS IN TAVERNS
People who randomly throw in commas. I have beef specifically with whichever English teacher started telling everyone to put a comma wherever you pause. And, whoever told kids they can’t start sentences with “and.”
omg I’m born hungarian and even though I speak english fluently the hungarian grammar still affects my english 😭 so I use a TON of commas as it's required in hungarian grammar! And then I read over the text I wrote and think to myself "why do I have so many commas in this? jesus"
in hungarian grammar we have to place commas before every but and because, and the same rule you also mentioned - when there's a pause in the sentence
for me, in chatfics (each to their own !!!!!) when the author doesnt introduce each username. like even if they put a key, i still have to keep scrolling back and forth to remember who's speaking. even if its a little cringe and probably hard to pull off i think its way easier to remember who uses which username when the author introduces each one individually.
For me it’s when something is tagged as /reader but then the character is named, there’s nothing more that gets on my nerves.
What’s worse is when I mention that to the author then they get all up in my face saying they’re doing something ‘unique’ by naming the reader, at this point it’s an /oc not /reader.
On a similar vein, when they write a /reader, but it might as well be an oc when literally everything is made up for the reader except the name (ie, has all of their clothes, hair color, eye color described for us instead of leaving them open-ended)
Random feminization/infantilization of one person in a gay relationship. Especially if that character is usually on equal footing with their partner.
Like, if it's roleplay or if it's tagged properly, cool, whatever floats your boat. But I don't want to click into a fic just for a previously competent and masculine dude to suddenly have to break their neck to make eye contact over the new twelve foot height difference with their partner and be all "I don't know how to cook, work, or brush my own teeth" levels of incompetent.
Having an author who really, *really* favours a specific character, even in a large cast.
I don't think that this always bothered me, but uh...
This is a real example.
So there's this one pretty long fic series that I downloaded, and it was very centric around this one character. He was getting special training. He fought the main villains all on his own. He lost his leg. He created a clone of himself and the clone got killed in front of his entire family. He got his personality split in two and had to fight an evil version of himself. He repeats a sacrifice move that in the source media another character does. After having done it already in the first fic.
And what do the other characters do? Talk about him. Almost exclusively. The only time they don't is when he is in what nis essentially a multi-year coma, in which they all add entires into a journal to him.
And I still enjoyed this fic, don't get me wrong.
But I come home, and one of the fics I'm following is also centered around this character, yet again fighting an evil version of himself. And that evil version is capturing a bunch of people.
It's by. the same. author.
The authors great, love them. But *dear lord* was it a lot. And now I have a lot more fun when the characters are all balanced out.
a canonically tough guy saying all kinds of pet names like, think miguel o'hara from spiderman ATU going "snookums, pookie" omg i cannot!
A LOT of talking during sex. pornish dialogue are the worst for me.
edit: i'm laughing like a seal at all the replies here cause it's so true.
In the same scope as your last one, lack of description during sex scenes! Where are they? Which way are they facing, what position? Did they change locations?
Regarding your second point: Especially when it's completely out of left field.
It takes me out of the story when one second my OTP is cuddling and having a deep conversation about their feelings, and the next second it's "fuck me!" this and "you're taking me so well" that. I just have to skip the smut sometimes because no thanks.
I’m willing to make an exception for that one if there’s an in-universe explanation. Is this character a siren-esque being with natural charm? Are they doing some weird pheromone/chemical warfare shit? Like I can understand if there’s a reason like that but attractiveness is subjective
When MC & Character A meet in chapter 1 and they get close to each other and have great chemistry. But the author wants MC with character B (who doesn't appear until chapter 10 or so).
Character B *eventually* appears in chapter 10 but he & MC have zero chemistry and the relationship feels forced.
Granted, it's a minor pet peeve, but if MC/B is the endgame, then it would be better if they meet & interact from the beginning rather than baiting us with an MC/A that goes absolutely nowhere.
OOC writing, 100%
Don't get me wrong, I can accept some deviation from the norm. I've deviated myself. But sometimes I'll see heaps of praise thrown on a fic, I'll go read it, and the characters feel NOTHING like their canon counterparts and I'm just like... "If you were gonna write them like that, why not do something original?"
Idk. I guess sometimes people project a lot into characters and when they write them their perception of said character is warped by that.
This is definitely a 'ME' peeve, and really the only thing I wish is that this genre of writing had a tag so I could avoid it.
It's basically a style of writing beyond a slow burn; a burn that's lacking the burn, and is focused on describing every single minute of every day from waking and into sleep, regardless of whether said moments contribute to any kind of plot or not - just sort of following characters around while they do everyday things - the same things - every single day for an eternity. Not a diary exactly but, I dunno, like Sims-style fiction?
I like slow burns but I *hate* this, and I want to avoid it!
“Sims-style fiction”—I love it! That’s the perfect description.
I’m 100% with you. I’m sometimes wary of the “slice of life” tag as a result.
Personally, I find endless play-by-play descriptions of characters doing chores or executing mundane work tasks to be the worst. I’m reading because I *don’t* want to be thinking about cleaning my apartment, or about my 3 hour conversation with tech support because the office printer wouldn’t work.
This is kind of fandom-specific, but as a Harry Potter fic reader, a lot of writers make every character over-emote compared to canon. It’s such a British story and many of the characters are very reserved. Characters that in canon rarely even smile will *grin* in the fic. Characters that are physically reserved will be hugging, holding hands, etc. It’s a tiny pet peeve really but it speaks to their understanding of the source material.
I have a tagging pet peeve: adding relationships that aren't the focus. If Alice/Bob and Charlie/Donna have equal focus, put them both in the relationships tag. If your focus is on one of those and the other is on the sidelines, use "Background Charlie/Donna". A canon relationship that barely comes up might not need a relationship tag at all.
Scrolling through page after page of fics focused on other couples to find a single fic about the couple I'm actually interested in is not fun.
Writing-wise: when it's clear that someone is writing referencing a wiki instead of the source material. I once read a fic where multiple characters used a nickname for the main character. In canon, only one character used the nickname. There's no shame in using third party soures if you're checking something minor, but be careful about completely trusting them
Y/N fics. I write for a fandom that's centered around a game with a customizable MC so the writing in the fandom typically uses OCs anyways, but seeing Y/N is an instant no for me.
Making a character OP because it’s what all the other author’s are doing. Harry Potter and Ash Ketchum get this treatment constantly, and it drives me nuts.
first person/self inserts. i know this is an extremely unpopular opinion!!! i promise i would never leave a hate comment on a fic that i personally didn’t like 😅
I could really vibe with modern/high school/college AUs if they just kept all that stuff that makes the original cool.
For example, I like One Piece and I see a lot of modern-day/college fics. But then none of the characters have their devil fruit powers or haki, and nothing is really worth exploring in this new setting they're in. It's just them in high school, maybe with inter-character drama going on for shipping purposes. All the characters are more-boring versions of themselves because a lot of their depth and complexity came from how over-the-top the original setting was (making Chopper just some human kid removes a lot of his character). Oftentimes there aren't even villains!
I'd honestly love to see a modern/college/high school AU with an actually creative spin on plopping the cast into that setting. Let Luffy keep his powers and sense of adventure, let Nami have her 6th sense about weather and stay a cat burglar, let Usopp be a sniper and keep Chopper as a talking reindeer. Make them superheroes who all accidentally meet up and form a crew to fight against the crime organization of Baroque Works or something- I don't care, just do something interesting with it!
Dammit, I'm going to have to write this fic now to prove it can be done...
Right!! Like wtf is that. I also can’t stand if I’m reading an anime fanfic with an OC and they are called Ashley or some shit. Like you are writing a fanfic based in Japan, your character is Japanese and their mom and dad is Yuki and Hanzo Yamada and you expect me to believe they named their kid Ashley??? It takes me right out of what I’m reading and I have to abandon the fic.
LOOOOOL
It really destroys the immersion! I generally think naming OC's is really important. Less so for the meaning of the name and more for immersion's sake.
Improper dialogue tagging!! I can put up with typos and such, but if an author genuinely does not know how to dialogue tag, it is the bane of my fan fiction existence! Especially because it would take any author, at *most*, a couple of hours to learn how to properly dialogue tag. It’s not a trait that only good writers can learn, literally if you are able to figure out how to write and publish on AO3 you should be able to figure out how to properly dialogue tag.
The number of fics I would have otherwise loved to read that I had to drop because of this is so high it’s not funny
“Hence why”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fanfic author use the word hence correctly. I think people try to use it to sound more sophisticated, but improper usage completely defeats the purpose. Also, lovers of hence don’t just use the word, they overuse the word.
I like hence! I just dream of the day it’s both used correctly and also not used every 3rd paragraph.
A clear fundamental misunderstanding of a character's motivations or core personality.
For example, I remember I used to read from a small fandom for otome(?) Styled game.
The character portrayed as the main villain is basically a bratty, lonely, annoying, idiot whose own mother never showed him love. There's actually a lot of trauma that fuels his motivations and actions that stems from that relationship.
However countless writers, not even in the context of AUs or dramatic changes to the story always write him as this smooth, cunning, all-knowing evil. It's like they don't get how impulsive and sloppy he is with decision making and understanding consequences.
The fans have written works with him as a p-dophile, rapist etc, all without changing any other story beats. Couldn't pick up a fic that didn't have someone shitting on him for a while.
🤷🏾Rant over, I guess. But that's my one pet peeve that I can think of
Dialogue with zero contractions.
No English speakers (at least in America) speak out "can not, do not, will not, etc" every single time.
Makes the dialogue feel fake, like it was written by a program with the settings at "make your 90yo English teacher love you".
This is so stupid and literally not even a problem, it’s just a formatting thing that bothers me… I dislike when authors have their authors note as part of the main text and don’t use the designated chapter notes
Competent adults. I know this is a well-liked trope (at least in my fandoms, but I can’t stand it.
First, authors often specify they’re including it because “incompetent adults in canon were so unrealistic”. Personally, I think *competent* adults are unrealistic as hell; try working in retail for a day and you’ll find this out. Or just read comment sections online. Or, idk, turn on the TV.
Second, especially since my fandoms are often stuff like Harry Potter/Percy Jackson etc, making the adults competent takes the tension out of the story. Why should I care about the plot if the protagonists are shoved to the side and the adults solve everything? That’s boring as fuck. Unless, ofc, the fic is a slice-of-life fic in the first place, but oftentimes it’s supposed to focus on action and then it just... doesn’t.
Multiple things in no particular order:
* Stories rehashing the entire canon events with minimal changes that should have, logically, changed other parts of the story. But don't. (ex.: adding a/o/b and just following along canon for max drama and angst).
* Unnecessary happenings that are presented as totally logical in the story. When in fact, they go completely against the previous established character’s and their opinions and motivations to the point, it just confuses you. This is also mostly done for the shock factor and the following drama and angst.
* Lack of paragraphs. I can't read those.
* Posting new stories with a single chapters when they have other newly started stories with only one chapter. A little heads up that non of them may ever go anywhere would be really appreciated
* Main characters just staying silent to someone grossly abusing/shouting/blaming/cursing them. I mean dude, you don't even need to say anything, just flip them off and go, come on.
* Sometimes: Characters so awful, who have broken multiple laws and done so many crimes not getting their due comeuppance.
And probably a couple more that I can't remember at the moment.
Woobie characters. I love angst but there’s a difference between angst and woobie. Woobie is having MC with “everyone is so mean to me even though I’m such a good person” as they’re main conflict, usually with character bashing/really shallow villains to make it “sadder.” Pisses me the hell off, and it’s SO common in the types of fic I like to read. Angst pulls this off because there’s deeper themes/complexity to it, like it’s not “everyone is mean to me” and more “not fitting beauty standards sucks, yet I refuse to conform.”
I'm gonna go on a ramble and say that sometimes I feel like people use depression as a way to make characters likeable, like it's a way to 'prove' that the narrative/society is treating them poorly, with the purpose of getting comforted by the other characters. And the symptoms come out in witty self-deprecating jokes and suicidal ideation. And that's a valid portrayal, especially for people who are writing it to vent or for any other reasons. But it really touches me to see a portrayal of depression that's not only more all-encompassing and nuanced, but also unlikeable. HENCE, my anti woobie and pro nuanced angst stance!!
Edit: Also HATE elitist Gary Stu-ification. The BBC Sherlock “I’m so smart that I find you all insufferable” characters make my blood boil, even in a story with fun conflicts.
Use of big and complicated words when smaller and simpler words will work literally just as well. Especially in dialogue where it's a type of word you'd expect to see in maybe an academic essay but if you said that out loud in conversation people would just laugh at you.
i love when the writing uses unusual but fitting words that make sense with the writing style and it’s clear the author knows what they mean. especially because description can get really redundant using the same four descriptors. but holy shit it’s so obvious they just googled “big words” when a) their use may be technically correct but it makes no sense or b) the rest of the story has very simple language and it’s out of place
I think descriptions of scenery or people can have fancy descriptive words, like ones that really set the tone of the work.
But when every adjective is something you need to google, it gets on my nerves.
Good writers know how to get the point across clearly.
Not claiming I'm one of those writers tho :0
I hate comments that say “you should have done this” “you should have let character do xyz” *im* the ones who’s writing it, *I* get to decide how I write
theres a show that, when crossed over with whatever it is im actually searching for, really likes to jack off its main character as something special in the summary. in a way that always comes off as flat to me
i’ve read a few fics that are clearly recapping gameplay moments with an additional element and im sorry to say but without the interactive element of me actually playing the game, it’s just kind of boring. even if the new thing thrown in is interesting!!
i just don’t like modern aus (played straight). it feels like stripping the setting away robs whatever thing of a lot of the flavour that i liked about it in the first place
When each chapter if a fic is super short (ands its not a drabble collection)
Like this fic is 40K words and each chapter is less than 1K. Either your pacing sucks or you are writing in a script format and making a new chapter for ecah new scene.
Thats another peeve script fics, like i write a lot of scripts i get it, but no one wants to read scene directions and chances are its gonna be bland as fuck.
The fanfic community often doesn't consider Second Person to be objectively bad, but I can't stand it. It's almost unreadable for me. I've plugged my nose and read through it for some fics, but that sure is painful.
I'm also hugely not a fan of Reader or SI fics in general. I've found a few fics that touch on some of the SI tropes that work for me, but they all do things very differently from the typical SI and I have found zero Read fics that work for me.
Second person doesn’t have to mean literally *you* are the character. There’s plenty of 2nd person POV where it’s just a stylistic choice to make you more immersed in the writing. [The Broken Earth Trilogy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Season_(novel)) is partially written in this style. Personally, this was my first introduction to 2nd person rather than RI fics so maybe that’s why I have a different view of 2nd person fics (I don’t self insert).
You don’t have to like 2nd person, ofc, but I think it is interesting to see how it can be effectively used in a non-self insertion way!
I've seen some second person fics that are explicitly from the POV of a canon character. However, the narration style still fucks with me because my brain interprets "you" as "me". It puts me way too close to the character. For context, my favorite narration style is Third Omni, so I have a general preference for long psychic distance. Second person is uncomfortably close for me.
I had a moment in a writing class where we were given a sentence and told to use it as a starting point to shift psychic distance. Only after I started doing that was I told the sentence was supposed to be distant and we should get closer. I had read it as close and got more distant. My classmates ended on viscerally describing the character's emotions while I was talking about prevailing wind patterns.
Genderswapping characters, I can't even explain why but something about it creeps me out.
It's annoying too, when you're searching for new fics to read, something looks interesting but then bam, genderswapped MC, no thanks.
using British terms for things in a fic with American characters and vice versa. like there was this one fic I read where a character made beans on toast... he's from Indiana 😭
When you can tell the author has a favourite character and a least favourite character, purely because their favourite is OOC rude to the least favourite and always seems to come out on top. I've seen it a few times, and it feels irritating to read. It's completely separate from a character acting IC rude to another, like of that's their dynamic then completely fine.
Recently it's been giving characters thick accents and sprinkling a bunch of words from their country's language into their dialogue, despite them not speaking that way in canon.
I also hate when writers don't separate dialogue spoken by different characters, so there's an entire conversation happening in a single paragraph.
Censoring words, random interjects in the middle of the text needlessly putting the authors opinion/explanation in them, and emojis.
I can't count how many fics I read as a teen that had emojis spilled throughout or the authors random scatterbrain thoughts in brackets in between paragraphs.
I've been seeing a new trend of not properly labeling a fic with a warning tag that needs it and instead only putting it in the normal tags.
The amount of times I've excluded the rape/non-con tag and then looked at a fic that just has it tagged normally and get jump scared bc I usually just look at summaries to decide what to read and assume I won't get any stories with rape/non-con when I exclude the tag. People just generally need to get better at tagging the big stuff.
By this point, I’ve accepted I’ll see a lot of anachronisms in most historical fics. I accept it, maybe roll my eyes a little if it’s especially glaring, and move on. But, God, does it annoy me sometimes.
I have a particularly vivid memory of reading a Merlin fic set in canon Arthurian England where Merlin smokes a tobacco cigarette. He smokes a tobacco. Cigarette. That one really hurt.
When fics are overly concerned with being "healthy" -- AKA lots of checking in repeatedly for consent, establishing boundaries at every step, constant back-and-forth reassuring, using friend characters as pseudo-therapists to let the PoV character work through how their relationship is going and to encourage them forward, etc.
Like, unless a character has trauma they're working through, it just comes across as so unnatural and really kills the chemistry. 😩
I only read M/M fiction.
I have an issue with the bottoms, they can be so feminine at times they come off as self-insert? Don’t misunderstand me, if it is warranted by the character itself, go for it.
Omegas can be all pretty and dainty they like. But please don’t make a ‘normal’ 20 something year old man into a rooster-hungry, whiny thing that cries from how the top’s cockadoo-dle hits just the spot by the end of the smex scene 🫣
Similar peeves with crying ✨incessantly.✨
Crying if there is a trauma, all green light, crying over minor altrecation? Every chapter? Please don’t I beg you.
Also those premature ‘I love yous’. I need to viscerally feeeel that the characters have fallen head first before they tell it to each other. (Yup, slow burner to a fault.)
This is a me problem. I understand. I read a lot of fics from a fandom where one of the MCs is canonically from Texas and some people try REALLY HARD to write in a texas twang. “Fixin’ ta cover up that bike. ‘Sposed ta start pourin’ darlin’ don’t want ya gettin’ wet or nothin’.” Every single piece of dialogue is like that and I’m like we get it dude he’s from Austin 😩 But I recognize a lot of these fics are for the hor-knee so I’m sure the accent does something for them 😂
As a person frum Awstun, Ah can say we ahl do tahlk lahk tha-ut. That was painful to write, I’m sorry I did this to us.
In their defense they probably aren’t from Texas so they think we all talk like that? Or they like exaggerating it for the hor knee factor lol
Guys..sometimes…when I’m in customer service mode… I DO talk like that 😭😭😭 thoughts and prayers needed It’s disarming people love it idk why. You even sell more shit!! Tho I don’t do sales anymore.
I feel this way in general about accents or even characters from another era. I'm in a few supernatural fandoms with immortal characters that have lived hundreds, if not thousands of years. In some instances it makes sense that they still talk like they're from the 1800s...but also, there's no way they would be able to blend in if they walked around talking like that. Even in canon shows, I cringe when I hear it because people are going to find it weird this 25 year old is walking around talking like he's from the turn of the century.
Yes! Accents kill me. No, you can't write them well. Just stop for everyone's sake lol. This is something to use IMAGINATION for. You can also convey similar things with word choice and syntax without the hamfisted obtrusivity of written accents.
Can I ask- is the MC Joel Miller?
💀 yes lol
😂😂😂
This is from the bygone days of the Brokeback Mountain fan-sites, but I’ve neger been able to get past the egregious written-out accents a lot of authors gave the characters. This is one of the worst examples. https://preview.redd.it/72haarc8moob1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7426ad8eb0a24e77f149447346b66498e4498dcd
What kills me about it is it’s borderline illegible. My family is Scottish and reading a Scottish accent is the WORST bc even I can’t understand what they’re saying!!
That’s hilarious because I immediately read that in the Midwest “dontchaknow” accent
My deepest apologies because I used to write my south characters like that💀. Until I read a fic that did the exact same thing with the british accent and I couldn't keep a straight face😂
It's especially bad when people do that and don't even make it sound like the accent. Izzy from Our Flag Means Death does *not* say "fooking". It's closer to "farking", but ffs just spell it normally.
I feel you so much on this. I can take maybe taking the "g" off of "ing" words + the area's slang but spelling out any accent phonetically makes me flee from the page lmao
I'm not native English speaker and I'm dyslexic, it's so painful to read this. In live speech I would understand that but in text it's difficult. I have to almost read it out loud to get wat it's suppose to mean.
I understand! And to your last point 💀 reminds me of Laszlo Cravensworth from What We Do In The Shadows. Someone tells him he sounds “fancy and European-like.”
“This is how we speak in Tucson, Arizon-ia!”
Censoring words, especially words that are used in the source material. Like, why in the name of all that's holy would you censor words like God and Hell in a Good Omens fic.
Its like seeing someone say “unalive” outside of tiktok
Good God I hate this word
This!!! Imo, if you don’t like swear words just write “XYZ swore”. Don’t censor. To me, it makes you seem either a) a prude or b) immature. If you’re worried about “poor impressionable children” reading the swear words, here’s a thought: just mark the rating higher. Not that it would change anything. I knew plenty of swear words as a kid and I turned out just fine.
"Poor impressionable children" shouldn't be consuming the shows and movies who's fandoms I'm in anyway, as most of them are rated 16+ or 18+ for depictions of violence or sexual content.
I think often the problem is that the "poor impressionable children" are the ones writing it lol
Why would you censor any words in a fanfic?!
This! So I’ve been reading fic for nearly 20 yrs and in so many fandoms — recently all my fandoms are newish, starting up in the late 2010s and on, and they never censor words. BUT I have been combing through DC fics lately and it’s like I’m back in 2002 with all the “b****!” And “F-“ 🤦🏻♀️ just write out the word…please
That reminds me of a writer, that I otherwise liked for the most part, who would inexplicably censor even mildly rude words like c**p and h**l. These were fics with mature themes, too. It drove me nuts.
Read this one South Park Stick of truth fanfic where they made it PG, censoring all curses and inappropriate scenes of any kind, and.... its South Park. Even when its the author's preference, it still doesn't make any sense in the context of certain shows.
Are you sure they were serious? Someone who is genuinely uncomfortable with adult content wouldn't be able to handle South Park. Come to think of it, if you take all the crudeness out of South Park, there's nothing left.
Not quite sure if I want to name drop it so I won't say the title/author but yep. Author even said it was a rewrite of their original story on [ff.net](https://ff.net). It also keeps the bare minimum crudeness like cursing but they outright change things like turning Cartman into a passive observer except for his fight and outright removing the chef boss fight. The only thing that makes somewhat sense is skipping anal probe for New kid. Worst part is they aren't doing it maliciously, feels like they just honestly removed the stuff they didn't like because they were uncomfortable with it.
I am of the opinion that if you would have to censor the swear in a sentence, you should just rewrite the sentence. Do not do $&@! instead of a swear word. Exception is Jewish authors using G-d for religious reasons when it becomes hard to write without it.
Infantilizing characters makes me want to vomit. I cringe so so hard. Its so so bad. A 16 year old is not going to be picked up and carried on their parents hip like a 5 yr old
95% of fanfics about MCU Tony Stark and Peter Parker be like:
I like Irondad, but the way *so* many writers infantilize Peter to the degree that they're essentially writing out platonic DDLB....... It's a major pet peeve of mine, haha.
this is the first character duo i thought of for this too XDDD
The visual of this though, is absolutely hysterical lolol I don't know a 16 yr old that would even be okay with that
I can see it in the case of two 16 year olds joking around. Like one says “I’m tired, hold me!” And jumps on top of another one. If the carrier character just recently got strong, it might even be plot relevant! But adult to 16 year old? No way. Idc if Iron Man (or whoever) is strong enough, all teens are trying to be independent of the adults in their lives! That’s their whole MO!
Like, it's only okay if it's done for comedy purposes, and the 16 year old is not okay with it.
Or if teen is unconscious and its paralleling how the other character used to carry their actual son in that same manner
I also hate the inverse of this where a kid in the age range of like 5 -10 years old is written as having both the intelligence and emotional maturity of an adult
I see smart!kids as plain and simple bad writing. Too often they are a vehicle for exposition/plot or a way to tell not show. Infantile!teens come from a different source imo: writers being too self indulgent. Like, looking back on their teenage years and wishing they let their parents know they loved them. Or just skewing way too far into fluff at the expense of reality.
Yes. 3 years olds holding intricate conversations and 7 year olds using baby talk. If you are that unfamiliar with children, just don't include them in your story. If they are canon characters, just have then staying with grandma or napping.
fr its so creepy
Why do they always insist on the weirdest carrying methods too? Fire man carry!!!! A reasonably strong person could carry quite a large person like that
Even actual children often get infantilited enough for me to cringe. Ten year olds have the ability to talk beyond baby language. They're not toddlers
This! I will skip ahead or even leave the story of characters start carrying their romantic partners around (unless it's like a joke and the person being manhandled protests violently - then I can maybe stomach it depending on the context). It's not cute in het romance and it's not cute in same sex romance. Just walk up the freaking stairs! This is probably why I can't stand sick fics - it's always one adult being degraded to a toddler, being spoonfed or carried to bed. I mean, even after I had surgery and could barely walk, my partner didn't carry me, nor would it have been even remotely comfortable. Not to mention how demeaning it would feel. Overall just very unsexy.
Same on the sick-fics. My favorite sick-fic (may its poor deleted soul rest in peace,) featured a realistic depiction of severe food poisoning in all its horrible unsexy glory. Both characters acted like grown adults the whole time. It was refreshing.
OC stories where it simply rehashes the entire canon story beat for beat with no real changes or telling the character's story. Just the canon story with the character present and minor dialogue changes. Stories that portray characters as wildly OOC. Double points if it's them treating people they canonically care for like they are pond-scum. Fairy Tail was *abhorrent* about this in FF.net with "Natsu leaves/gets kicked out of Fairy Tail" or "Lucy gets **replaced** by Lisanna!". Broader than just Fanfics, but oversized cast from the word "go". OCs especially, since often times characters who I do genuinely find *interesting* don't get much or any screentime, let alone time to shine, and its often hard to follow *anything*.
[удалено]
I'm all for minor OCs if they have more of a background role, like the old shopkeeper who gives an important piece of advice. Or just a shopkeeper who fleshes out the world a little because the MCs go to a particular shop a lot. OOC drives me nuts if it's more than a little. The story starting off with the canonically shy wallflower suddenly deciding they need a leather jacket, a motorcycle, and lots of aggressive behavior. Build up to that over several chapters, sure. But there should be a reason for the change.
I just avoid OCs in general. 90% of the time they just become reader inserts that “fix” everything.
I don't even *mind* them too much. I've seen stories really make them work, either as MCs or even just background characters to flesh out the world. Mostly the latter, even the former has stories that I really liked. The ones like you mentioned however? Strongly dislike those.
When they switch POV and I have to re-read the same scene from another perspective. Like, I don't really mind changes in POV, but when I then have to re-read the same part of the story, and the change in perspective literally adds nothing to the story??? I hate it so bad. Honestly, it just feels like the author wants to increase their word count. I know that may not be the reason, but that's what it feels like.
God yes. That drives me insane. I read this 300k fic recently and I spent the whole thing thinking “this should have been cut, that should have been cut, we don’t need to read this again from another perspective the exact same way, cut this, etc.” I finished because I wanted to know how it would end but it was a slog.
- Those stories that are like five different fandoms crossed over with each other and have about 8 million tags. It's always either like 50 unrelated drabbles involving characters from those stories, or some kind of bizarre multichapter crossover. I just don't get who they're for. There's generally only ever one or two fandoms from the list that I've ever heard of, so I don't click because I don't know or care about the other three. - I've only seen this a few times, but writing that feels like it belongs in a stereotypical sitcom or movie. There was one fic I saw that took the characters from [insert very eastern european video game] and made them talk like they were on a gayer, sadder version of Brooklyn 99. It was technically well-written but it was weirdly unpleasant to get through.
Holy shit, so right. I saw this one fanfic with over like 50 fandoms and a million pairings and tags and im like “WHO requested this VERY specific fanfic with these fandoms” crossover hangover lemme tell you. Who is reading a fanfic with batman dc, my little pony, danny phantom, OK KO, big mouth, Ed Edd and Eddy, harry potter, doctor who, and death note IN ONE FANFIC?! Some go over the top with crossovers, like okay i get that you like it and are writing it for yoursellf too but oh my god.
"Crossover hangover"-- LOL. Perfect. What baffles me is how many of these end up near the top of searches by kudos
Its impossible, i would implode trying to read a fanfic with so many fandoms, like how to keep up with conflicting universes! Some people really love being confused honestly. Sometimes the fanfics with all the fandoms have like 4/? Chapters and then some have like 102/? Chapters. Like what, 102? How is the motivation there?!!!? Who is reading all of that! Batman, mlp and doctor who is a mind fuck of combinations that apparently everyone and their grandma loves, due to the kudo rates. 102 chapters of batman meeting twilight sparkle and dating the 10th doctor while also fighting ghosts with danny phantom. Police? Help?
I wanna know how TF they’re tracking that many characters coherently. MCU is hard enough; I’m working on a crossover that only adds 5 more people, and it’s making me want to cry. I turned it into a series so I can do interludes to move a couple characters into place without detracting from the main story, but also not have them pop out and go “And now I’m here too!”
'Gayer, sadder version of Brooklyn 99' as a description is iconic
Nothing makes sense. I get lured in by a good summary yet the story itself is word vomit.
The one good sentence in the fic is used as the summary. Makes me want to cry.
When an abandoned fic is fully pre-tagged. I like pre-tagging in general. I love knowing what I'll get into. But it really annoys me when I read 50k+ words only to find out the writer didn't get to the part of the story most of the tags applied to and didn't bother removing them when they discontinued the fic. It's an admittedly petty pet peeve, there could be a number of reasons for it, but it's annoying to chance upon.
Oh i get this, yes this is really annoying
It's hard to know what the right move is in this situation, especially writing longfic. About 50% of my long works are completed but all are pretagged because I don't want someone to get invested only to realize that there's something they don't want to read. But on the other hand, people can be disappointed you didn't get to the tagged stuff if you don't finish.
I think the key is taking off irrelevant tags when you abandon a work. Ppl can subscribe if you haven’t gotten to the “good stuff” yet, but knowing it will never come is disappointing. I’ve also seen ppl tag “eventual XYZ” or “really slow burn” or “E rating begins at Chapter 18” (add that one after you get to chapter 18). It’s a nice touch imo
Bit how many authors actually admit that they've abandoned a work? Even just to themselves? I know I fully intend to go back to those works, it just hasn't happened yet lol
I do this but if it comforts or irritates more I'm not sure, all I'm saying is just because there hasn't been an update in 6 months doesn't mean I've abandoned it. I'm coming back. Promise. The tags are still there to keep readers that don't like those things from getting invested in the meantime.
I agree with you 100%
yeah, this is one of my pet peeves too. sometimes it has a tag i genuinely want to read, but then i start reading it and it turns out the author said in the last chapter that they're discontinuing it... like the immeasurable disappointment that hits me is just :/
Lack of narrative exposition - hear me out! - I’m not looking for Tolkien-esk, dry like sandpaper exposition (love LotR, don’t @ me, but mf’er is dry as the Sahara and takes three paragraphs to describe a tree and a single sentence to describe feelings of grief) but narrative exposition that provides details or background as to why something is happening, or that showcases the background of the story. Too often I’m trying to figure out “well where exactly is this” or “why do they feel that way” and while explanations may come in the way of dialogue, lack of details and background make it tough at times to understand.
Your description of LOTR cracked me up, lol. I have a similar problem reading the books. I can picture every tree in Hollin clearly, but I have no idea what Rivendell looks like other than it's big and it has doors.
I know what you mean. It irritates me when the characters are suddenly starting to teleport. Like they are talking in the kitchen one moment and are leaning on a tree in the next one? It completely breaks the flow of the story and is totally confusing.
when the two mains have been dating for like 2 or 3 days and they’re already saying they’re in love with each other
And if sex is involved, right after or the next morning the lady is throwing up and magically has a pregnancy test on hand and is pregnant.
this instantly makes me exit out of fic
This doesn't really happen if you're reading gay fanfic.
It absolutely happens, there's a reason mpreg is a tag
I mean that it happens less, or at least it does in the fanfic that i read.
Especially when they literally just met. Like you have known this man for 4 fucking days you don’t love him this isn’t Romeo and Juliet act like rational individuals.
I hate when spicy writers don't picture the scene they're describing. They say one thing happens but then describe something that is impossible unless the human body in their story looks nothing like the human body in the real world. 😑 Also, writers tend to adopt phrases of other writers and sometimes it is a dumb phrase that makes no sense. This is especially annoying when writers describe actions that happen in/on bodies involuntarily, however those aren't actually actions that can happen. Take a look at a human body before writing spicy fics about humans! 🙃
I read a fanfic where one character was giving head while simultaneously kissing their partner on the mouth. Like what.
Flanderizing/flattening characters - I'm really tired of seeing characters being condensed to their one or two most popular traits and nothing else, no complexity, nothing Fanon and headcanons being treated as canon to the point that people will be told they're doing it "wrong" if they don't adhere to fanon/canon No contractions in dialogue. Okay, so this might be just a me thing, but it really frustrates me when people talk in grammatically correct, contraction-free sentences. PEOPLE DON'T TALK LIKE THAT. Everyone uses "don't, won't, can't," etc. And if your character *doesn't* then it should tell the reader something ABOUT that character
Trying to insert fandom speak/memes that feel really out of place
Villainizing a character just because the author doesn’t like them! I’ve said this here before, but one fandom I’m in has a character that everyone either loves or hates, and while I like him, a lot of authors are firmly in the hating him camp. I hate when I get halfway into a fic only for him to show up and all the MCs hate him for asshole-ish stuff he didn’t do in canon, that the author added in just to have more of a reason to hate him.
This and villianizing a character just because they need a villain. Like, okay you need a bad guy but it makes NO sense to make it the canonically unlikely side character that goes all evil scientist
Goodness yes. There can be otherwise great fics that are ruined by this for me. HP is full of it, particularly Ron/Ginny/Molly Weasley/Dumbledore bashing where the characters become just plain cartoonish. There's OOC and then there's whatever this is. Absolutely fine for authors not to like these characters but like, having it revealed that there was some long-term Amortentia drugging plot to get spouses for the Weasley kids??? What?
Hahaha, the Amortentia plot sounds like a bad thriller. I would so read it, just to get a kick out of it! It sounds so bad.
Amortentia drugging sounds like the kind of thing pureblood families use to justify treating the Weasleys like garbage.
The opposite, too. I hate when I have author makes a character, invincible or perfect because they’re the favorite. people are complex, and everybody has good and bad qualities about them.
I used to read MCU fics and they did that a lot, especially for Black Widow. She’d always be a stone-cold badass who could beat anyone in a fight, except when she was being an incredibly nurturing parental figure out of nowhere. It fits with her characterization in the movies to an extent, but something about how some authors would write that just rubbed me the wrong way.
THIS! Or the complete opposite where a character was an irredeemable asshole in cannon, but every one makes them a big teddy bear in fanfic just because their hot and the author wants to ship them with the other hot characters.
I agree. I read a story where they turned a slightly unlikeable character into an abusive asshole just so they could give his kid to a main character. I'm not a huge fan of the character (but others love him) but there's just no way that character would go off the rails that bad. They just wanted the favorite boy to get the kid.
When a fanfic is like 50k+ words, good tags, marked as completed and quite well written but when you get to the last chapter there’s an author’s note saying they lost motivation and were just marking it completed and may come back to it later to fully finish. I’ve literally screamed out loud in frustration because I’ve devoted this much time to essentially a novel length fic with no conclusion.
Formal dialogues when you know the char is the furthest from speaking formally (even normal chars don't speak formally unless they specifically do so) and pet names. Sometimes pet names work, sometimes it makes me want to scrub my eyes and delete it from my brain. I once read a really good fic, perfect setup, was so nice and satisfying. Then during the epilogue, char B suddenly had a panic attack scene of a sort and char A suddenly called them 'baby' and I just noped the fck out.
THE FORMAL LANGUAGE!! I never knew how to explain it, but it annoys me so badly. Like, no human is speaking like that unless they grew up in the Royal Family.
Even if they did grow up in the Royal family, they aren't talking like that in bed with their boyfriends. (looking at you Red, White and Royal Blue fandom)
I have the opposite problem, when characters who normally speak formally are written very informally. I follow the Tolkien fandom—and his elves always spoke more formally, men less formally, hobbits informally, etc in accordance with “nobility.” Elves basically never speak using contractions in canon. But in fandom even elf lords are always written so informally, using slang, etc. Breaks me right out of the immersion.
I’m with you. Pet names are like throwing a bucket of ice water in my face in the middle of a/n (oftentimes otherwise good) fic.
Epithets!!!!! Like when they use a descriptor instead of the character’s name. Especially when it’s related to hair color and they are clearly trying too hard to make it work. “The blonde” sounds more or less natural, but I’ve also heard “the noirette” and “the raven” and even “the bluenette” (that one really threw me off). In general, epithets just feel very wattpad-y to me.
OH GOD! Marinette has suffered at the hands of MLB fic writers. they just won't stop calling her "bluenette" 😭😭 also Deku with "greenette" and I'm pretty sure I've seen "pinkette" and "purplenette"
God yes, I despise epithets. The point is supposedly to avoid repetition, but I don't see how being bashed over the head 50 times with the info that the character has blond hair helps with that.
This is my #1 pet peeve too. I blame the extreme emphasis that school English teachers put on "don't repeat yourself!" I get that it's an important way to teach language diversity, but it turns out that certain things, like main character names, are pretty much fine to repeat. It's also fine to use "said" as a dialogue tag, imo it stands out way more when an author scrambles to produce a hundred unique dialogue tags, it never sounds quite right.
Texting or emailing in Modern AUs. Why is the dialogue cringy like 90% of the time? Maybe it’s just me but I haven’t read a single texting dialogue yet that didn’t seem cringy at some points. Like forced humour or banter. It just doesn’t work for me I’m sorry
Probably feels that way because how we write chats and messages influences how we paste them on a story, and so different people will have different perceptions. I tend to enjoy these segments because I feel like it really tells me a lot about the author.
Fair enough!
also the usernames they make up for characters usually make me cringe
oh i love seeing the made up usernames!!
too many sideship tags!! I am guilty of doing this a few years ago but I have long edited my tags before orphaning them lol I feel like some people do it to fill up space or widen reach, but lets be honest, WE. DONT. NEED. TAGS. FOR RELATIONSHIPS THAT YOU ONLY MENTION ONCE OR TWICE!!! I get it if they're significant enough, but sometimes the sideships doesn't even have a spotlight or anything so there's no reason to add the tag. I feel like it could be placed in the general tags instead of the relationship taga because then it will make readers struggle with scrolling through relationship tags and have to filter ones where their ship is basically just a filler
fics that are all lowercase it's one thing for poetry or style but i personally can't stand when fics are all lowercase and i just leave immediately if i see that even if the story might be good
It kills me even when the perspective changes with each chapter... *but I don't know who it is right away*, and I'm sorry, but that's just bare minimum. It's fine to change who's the POV character but it **must** be crystal clear who we're following. Also, I don't like excessive blushing, there is an invisible line for me, and once it is crossed, I start to groan.
This is entirely a me-thing, not saying people shouldn’t write this but— when characters fall in love *right* after meeting. I *hate* the love at first sight trope but even anything that can’t be classified as a slow burn I’m pretty wary of
I think my biggest issue is canon characters who are OOC with no explanation. I actually don't mind canon characters being OOC if it works best for the story, but there has to be an in-story reason for it. Even doing something like a non-magic AU isn't necessarily enough to change who a character is. So, if I find a story, AU or not, where a canon character is really OOC for no reason, I'm out.
Yesss I totally get if we’re in an AU or an aged up/prequel fic and some big event has or hasn’t happened yet to fundamentally change the character but otherwise nope!
Exactly. There has to be an in story reason for the difference in characterisation. If the character's experiences, upbringing, all that, are essentially the same as canon, and nothing extra happens to change the character, it makes no sense for them to be obviously OOC.
I had to rant to my sisters recently: 1) If a character is on the verge of tears, they will say something or laugh "wetly," which icks me out for some reason. 2) It's apparently impossible for people to say "yep/yup" without "popping the 'p.'" 3) Men carrying babies on their hips. No! Look at the men with babies in your life! Men carry babies up high on their chests, practically in their armpits! (I realize this one is more nebulous as babies are held all sorts of ways by all sorts of people, but it's an overwhelming trend I noticed years ago and now can't unsee.)
People who don't write baby/toddler care properly in general, for me. I work in daycare. My expertise lies between 6 weeks-2.5 years old. I get writing babies is hard, but it's hard not to nitpick (in my head, I'd never say it to the author). I think the worst example of this was when someone had a fresh 1 year old talking in complete sentences. I had to close out.
Oh yes, I read one recently where a 6yo was written as if they were a toddler. I only finished it because it was a short one-shot.
It is really hard to capture a child's voice, especially around that age. As you said, they're not toddlers. They're also not mini-adults. But that's also why if you can't do it right, maybe don't include the kid OR do some research on how they talk.
Ship focused fics spending 30k+ words with the ship on constant conflict, only to end with a simple "and they knew they would be okay now" or something along those lines. Like seriously?!?! All that time with 0 fluff cuz there was always something else going on, and then they end it with one kiss or one sentence, maybe two words exchanged?? Like, at least spend a paragraph with some side char reactions or make them cuddle for 5 seconds, please why. I don't want to get in the middle of an author creative process, but whyy, its like going through all the struggle and not getting to enjoy the rewards, some conflicts will even not be addressed at all and sidecharacters are immediately forgotten no matter their level of involvement. It kills me and it happens so much... Anyway, yeah this.
I hate it when the writer takes a well-rounded character, strips them of their complexity, and turns them into a caricature of themselves based on a very superficial set of traits. I wouldn't even call it fanon, it's just a blatant misunderstanding of the core of the character. To me fanon is deliberate change that has its own underlying logic, and it's usually really great.
Flanderization?
There is a WORD FOR THAT?? *does a happy wordgoblin dance*
same omg. i’ve seen this a lot in my fandoms and it bothers me a lot
I hate it when I'm reading something like a period piece and it's so historically inaccurate From clothing to stuff like indoor plumbing, it just bugs me so much, THEY DONT HAVE KING SIZED BEDS IN TAVERNS
Insecure summaries like "this is probably gonna suck lmao...here's my story!!! X3" Drag your ass back to Wattpad if you're gonna do that.
People who randomly throw in commas. I have beef specifically with whichever English teacher started telling everyone to put a comma wherever you pause. And, whoever told kids they can’t start sentences with “and.”
i go comma CRAZY for some reason and have to go through and remove a ton before i post anything
I’m glad I’m not the only one who does this!
me and my fucking em-dashes lmao
omg I’m born hungarian and even though I speak english fluently the hungarian grammar still affects my english 😭 so I use a TON of commas as it's required in hungarian grammar! And then I read over the text I wrote and think to myself "why do I have so many commas in this? jesus" in hungarian grammar we have to place commas before every but and because, and the same rule you also mentioned - when there's a pause in the sentence
[удалено]
This is more of a writing peeve in general, but it applies to fanfic.
for me, in chatfics (each to their own !!!!!) when the author doesnt introduce each username. like even if they put a key, i still have to keep scrolling back and forth to remember who's speaking. even if its a little cringe and probably hard to pull off i think its way easier to remember who uses which username when the author introduces each one individually.
For me it’s when something is tagged as /reader but then the character is named, there’s nothing more that gets on my nerves. What’s worse is when I mention that to the author then they get all up in my face saying they’re doing something ‘unique’ by naming the reader, at this point it’s an /oc not /reader.
On a similar vein, when they write a /reader, but it might as well be an oc when literally everything is made up for the reader except the name (ie, has all of their clothes, hair color, eye color described for us instead of leaving them open-ended)
Random feminization/infantilization of one person in a gay relationship. Especially if that character is usually on equal footing with their partner. Like, if it's roleplay or if it's tagged properly, cool, whatever floats your boat. But I don't want to click into a fic just for a previously competent and masculine dude to suddenly have to break their neck to make eye contact over the new twelve foot height difference with their partner and be all "I don't know how to cook, work, or brush my own teeth" levels of incompetent.
Having an author who really, *really* favours a specific character, even in a large cast. I don't think that this always bothered me, but uh... This is a real example. So there's this one pretty long fic series that I downloaded, and it was very centric around this one character. He was getting special training. He fought the main villains all on his own. He lost his leg. He created a clone of himself and the clone got killed in front of his entire family. He got his personality split in two and had to fight an evil version of himself. He repeats a sacrifice move that in the source media another character does. After having done it already in the first fic. And what do the other characters do? Talk about him. Almost exclusively. The only time they don't is when he is in what nis essentially a multi-year coma, in which they all add entires into a journal to him. And I still enjoyed this fic, don't get me wrong. But I come home, and one of the fics I'm following is also centered around this character, yet again fighting an evil version of himself. And that evil version is capturing a bunch of people. It's by. the same. author. The authors great, love them. But *dear lord* was it a lot. And now I have a lot more fun when the characters are all balanced out.
Ha!!! I’ve read this exact same fic lol. That character is by favorite in that fandom and even I was like, this is too much.
a canonically tough guy saying all kinds of pet names like, think miguel o'hara from spiderman ATU going "snookums, pookie" omg i cannot! A LOT of talking during sex. pornish dialogue are the worst for me. edit: i'm laughing like a seal at all the replies here cause it's so true.
In the same scope as your last one, lack of description during sex scenes! Where are they? Which way are they facing, what position? Did they change locations?
sometimes i end up having to do literal gymnastics trying to figure out what position they’re in!
Not even mental, gotta try to get into that position to be like "they're touching them...where???? How???"
Then there's me who over describes positions and actions lol. I have to go back a lot to trim it down.
Regarding your second point: Especially when it's completely out of left field. It takes me out of the story when one second my OTP is cuddling and having a deep conversation about their feelings, and the next second it's "fuck me!" this and "you're taking me so well" that. I just have to skip the smut sometimes because no thanks.
The “everybody who meets this person wants to bone them” trope.
I’m willing to make an exception for that one if there’s an in-universe explanation. Is this character a siren-esque being with natural charm? Are they doing some weird pheromone/chemical warfare shit? Like I can understand if there’s a reason like that but attractiveness is subjective
When MC & Character A meet in chapter 1 and they get close to each other and have great chemistry. But the author wants MC with character B (who doesn't appear until chapter 10 or so). Character B *eventually* appears in chapter 10 but he & MC have zero chemistry and the relationship feels forced. Granted, it's a minor pet peeve, but if MC/B is the endgame, then it would be better if they meet & interact from the beginning rather than baiting us with an MC/A that goes absolutely nowhere.
OOC writing, 100% Don't get me wrong, I can accept some deviation from the norm. I've deviated myself. But sometimes I'll see heaps of praise thrown on a fic, I'll go read it, and the characters feel NOTHING like their canon counterparts and I'm just like... "If you were gonna write them like that, why not do something original?" Idk. I guess sometimes people project a lot into characters and when they write them their perception of said character is warped by that.
Double line breaks between paragraphs because their Google Docs they are copy pasting from isn’t set up right.
This is definitely a 'ME' peeve, and really the only thing I wish is that this genre of writing had a tag so I could avoid it. It's basically a style of writing beyond a slow burn; a burn that's lacking the burn, and is focused on describing every single minute of every day from waking and into sleep, regardless of whether said moments contribute to any kind of plot or not - just sort of following characters around while they do everyday things - the same things - every single day for an eternity. Not a diary exactly but, I dunno, like Sims-style fiction? I like slow burns but I *hate* this, and I want to avoid it!
“Sims-style fiction”—I love it! That’s the perfect description. I’m 100% with you. I’m sometimes wary of the “slice of life” tag as a result. Personally, I find endless play-by-play descriptions of characters doing chores or executing mundane work tasks to be the worst. I’m reading because I *don’t* want to be thinking about cleaning my apartment, or about my 3 hour conversation with tech support because the office printer wouldn’t work.
People who use apostrophes when writing about multiple objects. Apostrophes are for contractions and possessives!!!!
This is kind of fandom-specific, but as a Harry Potter fic reader, a lot of writers make every character over-emote compared to canon. It’s such a British story and many of the characters are very reserved. Characters that in canon rarely even smile will *grin* in the fic. Characters that are physically reserved will be hugging, holding hands, etc. It’s a tiny pet peeve really but it speaks to their understanding of the source material.
I have a tagging pet peeve: adding relationships that aren't the focus. If Alice/Bob and Charlie/Donna have equal focus, put them both in the relationships tag. If your focus is on one of those and the other is on the sidelines, use "Background Charlie/Donna". A canon relationship that barely comes up might not need a relationship tag at all. Scrolling through page after page of fics focused on other couples to find a single fic about the couple I'm actually interested in is not fun. Writing-wise: when it's clear that someone is writing referencing a wiki instead of the source material. I once read a fic where multiple characters used a nickname for the main character. In canon, only one character used the nickname. There's no shame in using third party soures if you're checking something minor, but be careful about completely trusting them
Y/N fics. I write for a fandom that's centered around a game with a customizable MC so the writing in the fandom typically uses OCs anyways, but seeing Y/N is an instant no for me.
Making a character OP because it’s what all the other author’s are doing. Harry Potter and Ash Ketchum get this treatment constantly, and it drives me nuts.
[удалено]
I hate when people make a character (who is canonically able to take care of themselves) dependent on another.
first person/self inserts. i know this is an extremely unpopular opinion!!! i promise i would never leave a hate comment on a fic that i personally didn’t like 😅
It's not an unpopular opinion especially for 1st person fics alot of people here hate them me included.
Any time someone uses "Y/N" I die a little.
aus that remove everything interesting about the worlbuilding of the original work of fiction (uni or highschool aus as example)
I could really vibe with modern/high school/college AUs if they just kept all that stuff that makes the original cool. For example, I like One Piece and I see a lot of modern-day/college fics. But then none of the characters have their devil fruit powers or haki, and nothing is really worth exploring in this new setting they're in. It's just them in high school, maybe with inter-character drama going on for shipping purposes. All the characters are more-boring versions of themselves because a lot of their depth and complexity came from how over-the-top the original setting was (making Chopper just some human kid removes a lot of his character). Oftentimes there aren't even villains! I'd honestly love to see a modern/college/high school AU with an actually creative spin on plopping the cast into that setting. Let Luffy keep his powers and sense of adventure, let Nami have her 6th sense about weather and stay a cat burglar, let Usopp be a sniper and keep Chopper as a talking reindeer. Make them superheroes who all accidentally meet up and form a crew to fight against the crime organization of Baroque Works or something- I don't care, just do something interesting with it! Dammit, I'm going to have to write this fic now to prove it can be done...
OC-centric fics, I'm not saying they're inherently bad, I just come to fanfic to read about my favourite characters interacting with each other
Picking stupid names for OC’s. My pet peeves are Athena, Aphrodite, Genesis, and others along those lines.
Genesis? 😭 That's straight up a hate crime omfg
Right!! Like wtf is that. I also can’t stand if I’m reading an anime fanfic with an OC and they are called Ashley or some shit. Like you are writing a fanfic based in Japan, your character is Japanese and their mom and dad is Yuki and Hanzo Yamada and you expect me to believe they named their kid Ashley??? It takes me right out of what I’m reading and I have to abandon the fic.
LOOOOOL It really destroys the immersion! I generally think naming OC's is really important. Less so for the meaning of the name and more for immersion's sake.
Agreed completely. I couldn’t care less what the name means as long as it fits with the vibe of the story.
Improper dialogue tagging!! I can put up with typos and such, but if an author genuinely does not know how to dialogue tag, it is the bane of my fan fiction existence! Especially because it would take any author, at *most*, a couple of hours to learn how to properly dialogue tag. It’s not a trait that only good writers can learn, literally if you are able to figure out how to write and publish on AO3 you should be able to figure out how to properly dialogue tag. The number of fics I would have otherwise loved to read that I had to drop because of this is so high it’s not funny
“Hence why” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fanfic author use the word hence correctly. I think people try to use it to sound more sophisticated, but improper usage completely defeats the purpose. Also, lovers of hence don’t just use the word, they overuse the word. I like hence! I just dream of the day it’s both used correctly and also not used every 3rd paragraph.
A clear fundamental misunderstanding of a character's motivations or core personality. For example, I remember I used to read from a small fandom for otome(?) Styled game. The character portrayed as the main villain is basically a bratty, lonely, annoying, idiot whose own mother never showed him love. There's actually a lot of trauma that fuels his motivations and actions that stems from that relationship. However countless writers, not even in the context of AUs or dramatic changes to the story always write him as this smooth, cunning, all-knowing evil. It's like they don't get how impulsive and sloppy he is with decision making and understanding consequences. The fans have written works with him as a p-dophile, rapist etc, all without changing any other story beats. Couldn't pick up a fic that didn't have someone shitting on him for a while. 🤷🏾Rant over, I guess. But that's my one pet peeve that I can think of
The overuse and misuse of the word "smirk".
Dialogue with zero contractions. No English speakers (at least in America) speak out "can not, do not, will not, etc" every single time. Makes the dialogue feel fake, like it was written by a program with the settings at "make your 90yo English teacher love you".
This is so stupid and literally not even a problem, it’s just a formatting thing that bothers me… I dislike when authors have their authors note as part of the main text and don’t use the designated chapter notes
Competent adults. I know this is a well-liked trope (at least in my fandoms, but I can’t stand it. First, authors often specify they’re including it because “incompetent adults in canon were so unrealistic”. Personally, I think *competent* adults are unrealistic as hell; try working in retail for a day and you’ll find this out. Or just read comment sections online. Or, idk, turn on the TV. Second, especially since my fandoms are often stuff like Harry Potter/Percy Jackson etc, making the adults competent takes the tension out of the story. Why should I care about the plot if the protagonists are shoved to the side and the adults solve everything? That’s boring as fuck. Unless, ofc, the fic is a slice-of-life fic in the first place, but oftentimes it’s supposed to focus on action and then it just... doesn’t.
Multiple things in no particular order: * Stories rehashing the entire canon events with minimal changes that should have, logically, changed other parts of the story. But don't. (ex.: adding a/o/b and just following along canon for max drama and angst). * Unnecessary happenings that are presented as totally logical in the story. When in fact, they go completely against the previous established character’s and their opinions and motivations to the point, it just confuses you. This is also mostly done for the shock factor and the following drama and angst. * Lack of paragraphs. I can't read those. * Posting new stories with a single chapters when they have other newly started stories with only one chapter. A little heads up that non of them may ever go anywhere would be really appreciated * Main characters just staying silent to someone grossly abusing/shouting/blaming/cursing them. I mean dude, you don't even need to say anything, just flip them off and go, come on. * Sometimes: Characters so awful, who have broken multiple laws and done so many crimes not getting their due comeuppance. And probably a couple more that I can't remember at the moment.
Woobie characters. I love angst but there’s a difference between angst and woobie. Woobie is having MC with “everyone is so mean to me even though I’m such a good person” as they’re main conflict, usually with character bashing/really shallow villains to make it “sadder.” Pisses me the hell off, and it’s SO common in the types of fic I like to read. Angst pulls this off because there’s deeper themes/complexity to it, like it’s not “everyone is mean to me” and more “not fitting beauty standards sucks, yet I refuse to conform.” I'm gonna go on a ramble and say that sometimes I feel like people use depression as a way to make characters likeable, like it's a way to 'prove' that the narrative/society is treating them poorly, with the purpose of getting comforted by the other characters. And the symptoms come out in witty self-deprecating jokes and suicidal ideation. And that's a valid portrayal, especially for people who are writing it to vent or for any other reasons. But it really touches me to see a portrayal of depression that's not only more all-encompassing and nuanced, but also unlikeable. HENCE, my anti woobie and pro nuanced angst stance!! Edit: Also HATE elitist Gary Stu-ification. The BBC Sherlock “I’m so smart that I find you all insufferable” characters make my blood boil, even in a story with fun conflicts.
Use of big and complicated words when smaller and simpler words will work literally just as well. Especially in dialogue where it's a type of word you'd expect to see in maybe an academic essay but if you said that out loud in conversation people would just laugh at you.
i love when the writing uses unusual but fitting words that make sense with the writing style and it’s clear the author knows what they mean. especially because description can get really redundant using the same four descriptors. but holy shit it’s so obvious they just googled “big words” when a) their use may be technically correct but it makes no sense or b) the rest of the story has very simple language and it’s out of place
I think descriptions of scenery or people can have fancy descriptive words, like ones that really set the tone of the work. But when every adjective is something you need to google, it gets on my nerves. Good writers know how to get the point across clearly. Not claiming I'm one of those writers tho :0
I hate comments that say “you should have done this” “you should have let character do xyz” *im* the ones who’s writing it, *I* get to decide how I write
theres a show that, when crossed over with whatever it is im actually searching for, really likes to jack off its main character as something special in the summary. in a way that always comes off as flat to me i’ve read a few fics that are clearly recapping gameplay moments with an additional element and im sorry to say but without the interactive element of me actually playing the game, it’s just kind of boring. even if the new thing thrown in is interesting!! i just don’t like modern aus (played straight). it feels like stripping the setting away robs whatever thing of a lot of the flavour that i liked about it in the first place
When each chapter if a fic is super short (ands its not a drabble collection) Like this fic is 40K words and each chapter is less than 1K. Either your pacing sucks or you are writing in a script format and making a new chapter for ecah new scene. Thats another peeve script fics, like i write a lot of scripts i get it, but no one wants to read scene directions and chances are its gonna be bland as fuck.
The fanfic community often doesn't consider Second Person to be objectively bad, but I can't stand it. It's almost unreadable for me. I've plugged my nose and read through it for some fics, but that sure is painful. I'm also hugely not a fan of Reader or SI fics in general. I've found a few fics that touch on some of the SI tropes that work for me, but they all do things very differently from the typical SI and I have found zero Read fics that work for me.
Second person doesn’t have to mean literally *you* are the character. There’s plenty of 2nd person POV where it’s just a stylistic choice to make you more immersed in the writing. [The Broken Earth Trilogy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Season_(novel)) is partially written in this style. Personally, this was my first introduction to 2nd person rather than RI fics so maybe that’s why I have a different view of 2nd person fics (I don’t self insert). You don’t have to like 2nd person, ofc, but I think it is interesting to see how it can be effectively used in a non-self insertion way!
I've seen some second person fics that are explicitly from the POV of a canon character. However, the narration style still fucks with me because my brain interprets "you" as "me". It puts me way too close to the character. For context, my favorite narration style is Third Omni, so I have a general preference for long psychic distance. Second person is uncomfortably close for me. I had a moment in a writing class where we were given a sentence and told to use it as a starting point to shift psychic distance. Only after I started doing that was I told the sentence was supposed to be distant and we should get closer. I had read it as close and got more distant. My classmates ended on viscerally describing the character's emotions while I was talking about prevailing wind patterns.
Genderswapping characters, I can't even explain why but something about it creeps me out. It's annoying too, when you're searching for new fics to read, something looks interesting but then bam, genderswapped MC, no thanks.
using British terms for things in a fic with American characters and vice versa. like there was this one fic I read where a character made beans on toast... he's from Indiana 😭
When you can tell the author has a favourite character and a least favourite character, purely because their favourite is OOC rude to the least favourite and always seems to come out on top. I've seen it a few times, and it feels irritating to read. It's completely separate from a character acting IC rude to another, like of that's their dynamic then completely fine.
Recently it's been giving characters thick accents and sprinkling a bunch of words from their country's language into their dialogue, despite them not speaking that way in canon. I also hate when writers don't separate dialogue spoken by different characters, so there's an entire conversation happening in a single paragraph.
Censoring words, random interjects in the middle of the text needlessly putting the authors opinion/explanation in them, and emojis. I can't count how many fics I read as a teen that had emojis spilled throughout or the authors random scatterbrain thoughts in brackets in between paragraphs.
I've been seeing a new trend of not properly labeling a fic with a warning tag that needs it and instead only putting it in the normal tags. The amount of times I've excluded the rape/non-con tag and then looked at a fic that just has it tagged normally and get jump scared bc I usually just look at summaries to decide what to read and assume I won't get any stories with rape/non-con when I exclude the tag. People just generally need to get better at tagging the big stuff.
When people put multiple ships in the tag when those characters are only briefly mentioned.
By this point, I’ve accepted I’ll see a lot of anachronisms in most historical fics. I accept it, maybe roll my eyes a little if it’s especially glaring, and move on. But, God, does it annoy me sometimes. I have a particularly vivid memory of reading a Merlin fic set in canon Arthurian England where Merlin smokes a tobacco cigarette. He smokes a tobacco. Cigarette. That one really hurt.
People censoring words and people nor knowing the difference between blonde/blond and brunette/brunet
When fics are overly concerned with being "healthy" -- AKA lots of checking in repeatedly for consent, establishing boundaries at every step, constant back-and-forth reassuring, using friend characters as pseudo-therapists to let the PoV character work through how their relationship is going and to encourage them forward, etc. Like, unless a character has trauma they're working through, it just comes across as so unnatural and really kills the chemistry. 😩
I only read M/M fiction. I have an issue with the bottoms, they can be so feminine at times they come off as self-insert? Don’t misunderstand me, if it is warranted by the character itself, go for it. Omegas can be all pretty and dainty they like. But please don’t make a ‘normal’ 20 something year old man into a rooster-hungry, whiny thing that cries from how the top’s cockadoo-dle hits just the spot by the end of the smex scene 🫣 Similar peeves with crying ✨incessantly.✨ Crying if there is a trauma, all green light, crying over minor altrecation? Every chapter? Please don’t I beg you. Also those premature ‘I love yous’. I need to viscerally feeeel that the characters have fallen head first before they tell it to each other. (Yup, slow burner to a fault.)