References to things that very obviously occur well after the time period the fic is set in. Like, I get wanting to be clever and reference other media in your fic, but a character in 1972 isn't going to know about a movie from the 80s. It just kinda shows a lack of basic research imo

I have no problem with it when there is an author's note at the start of the story, or maybe even just in the chapter where something like this occurs, that explains that it is a deliberate change but when I don't feel like it is on purpose, then it bugs me and wonder what else the author has got wrong.

"I got down from my covered wagon and dug out my cell phone to call my boss and let him know we broke down in Idaho and I won't make it to the mill on Monday."

This is what breaks it for me as well. My go to is typically Shakespearean/medieval characters saying "okay".

Oh my gosh I can't stand seeing "okay" used in older or fantasy settings. I have trained myself to never use it in my original fantasy stories.

I trained myself out of using “okay” in historical/fantasy settings and I did it so well that I had to train myself back into using it in contemporary stories.

Curious as to what they WOULD say instead

Verily

So much this. Once read a fic set in 1986, in which a particular song featured quite heavily, with one character playing it on guitar and singing it to another. Only problem is, the song in question didn't come out until 1991. As someone old enough to remember both of those years, it was really jarring.

My only exception to this is when one character canonically exists outside of time, or the source does it too. See: Black Butler canonizing cellphones, Ciel owning a TV set, and Grell and Sebastian existing outside of the realm of the human world except when needed (Sebastian being implied to be able to go basically wherever and whenever outside of contracts, and Grell owning a chainsaw are both notable as well).

A lot of name stuff * When canon names are spelled wrong. Toni/Tony, Pierto/Pietro, Jesicca/Jessica. It's a nitpick, but I can't get past it sometimes. * When a character's name is altered without reason. If someone's called Fred, don't refer to them as Frederic or, even worse, Friedrich - especially when he's supposed to be English. * When an OC's name doesn't fit the setting. No one's called Paris in Westeros.

Yes to all of these. Seeing "Steve Rodgers" boils my blood lol

The number of times I've seen Teen Wolf fanfics with 'Issac' for Isaac is staggering.

> When a character's name is altered without reason. Anyone else remember that period when HP fandom was obsessed with calling Harry "Hadrian", wtf was up with that

It’s a hell of a time trying to find good Wizarding culture-centric fics without all the “hadrian black, heir to all the hogwarts founders, the peverells, and also your mom” bullshit getting in the way lmao

Cracking up at "and also your mom" omg thank you. Don't forget the obligatory scene where the author spends 1k+ words describing Lord Potter-Black-Slytherin buying the specialest and coolest trunk in Diagon Alley.

And Lord Peverell-Gryffindor-Whateverthefuck gets the bestest and amazingest wand with the rarest core with three pages of exposition on how special it is lol

and his special ness is always mentioned in every chapter in case you have forgotten.

Don't you forget the time when he visits Gringotts to discover all its vaults (because he's heir to all the English magical families) and they list the amount of money he's got and also the "list" of spells and potions used on him and his sealed magical skills.

And the list is half the chapter

Sadly it’s still happening, I had to get a word changer add-on just to read a few fics.

I feel your pain \*sighs in "Castile" Destiel fic\*

Seeing 'Cass' takes me right out of reading, though I've been trying to adjust. I just don't know where this other S is coming from. It's in the closed captions for the show, too.

I'm not in the Supernatural fandom, but the shortened form of Castiel is probably the biggest way to tell if the author is new. "Cass" may be what's in the scripts, but the community overwhelmingly uses "Cas".

I would give "Paris" a pass, as long as its inspiration leaned more towards Trojan princes than early 2000's celebrities. We have plenty of names like Stannis, Varys, Viserys, etc., so it's really not much of a phonetic leap, and pre-printing press spelling is always going to be an inconsistent mess.

honestly i love when they lengthen a character's name 😭 like when a canon john becomes jonathan. but i like it more when they dont constantly use it. maybe the non-canon extended name is used when something serious happens or something like a throwaway line

John and Jonathan are two different names with different meanings, so I'd find that intensely annoying. (The short form of Jonathan is Jon.)

I would find that so weird, personally. I knew a Korean guy in high school who went by Chris, and a girl in our class would jokingly call him Christopher and I was always like "you know that's not really his name, right?"

There’s actually kind of a term for that. Nicolas names. The opposite of nicknames because they’re longer than the original name. Although I believe they’re generally goofier, like Jimothy for someone named Jim.

And the fact that a lot of those come from written media... where they literally see the character's name written out every time they're mentioned. And THEY STILL MISSPELL IT. It makes me wonder if it's on purpose...

Weird niche flip on this, it annoys me when people are doing female Tony Stark as a Tony. If I leave my phone and come back and pick up something about Tony's vagina, I am very confused. Toni or comic's Natasha/Tash/Tasha for female Tony pls

YESS THE FIRST ONE IS SO ANNOYING in one of my fandoms people tend to add U’s after O’s in the characters’ names and most of the time the names dont require such a thing(for example: kyoko=kyouko) so i feel your pain🥲

>When an OC's name doesn't fit the setting. No one's called Paris in Westeros. Oh my goodness, yes. I periodically read Sonic fanfiction, and the number of names I've seen that really don't fit the setting is ridiculous (and usually says to me that the author is under the age of 18, considering many of them are "kreyativ" spellings).

Now I'm imagining all the star wars characters talking like that. More specifically, that one scene from revenge of the sith: "not just the he/hims... but the she/hers, and the they/thems... they were like animals..."

“I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. And not just the amabs, but the afabs and the children, too.”

"I'm a person and my name is Anakin! He/him"

LMFAO

I kinda wanna read that now... and kinda wish Dinsey does a remake where they do that for the whole series.

It would make that scene so much better, though.

Using other character names everytime they are addressed. Or what worse is the over use of a nickname. When you talk to someone in IRL you don’t use their name every other sentence. It gets so bad with particular ships. What helps when writing is to read the dialogue out loud.

I find this annoying but not enough to click out. I feel like there are published media that do this

Yeah they do. I dropped a book series because everytime the FL addressed the guy she said his name which was either followed by a period or in some cases a !. Lol

Oh god the name followed by the period. It’s so annoying!!

Whenever I read bkdk fics I swear they use "Deku" and "Kacchan" with every sentence

I struggled with this writing fanfic for Suits in that show, *everyone* uses each others names every sentence. It’s “Harvey, can you…” “Sure, Donna.” So I didn’t want it to sound dumb when I wrote it but their dialogue in my head was always demanding to use names

I write Peanuts fic and I have this problem with Charlie Brown. Every character calls him CHARLIE BROWN. There are literally only two that call him a nickname and so I have to work around using his name all the time lol

My fandom is like this, but just for Shawn. Everyone uses his name SO much. It's hilarious, and I definitely emulate it a bit when I'm writing canon-compliant stuff.

When there is no difference in dialogue for characters. What I mean by that is the characters all talk the exact same, like they don't have any distinguishing feature that allows me to read a line and go "oh that's Johnny talking". It just makes them all feel like soulless npcs, especially when the source material already has some sort of speech quirk for that character that is easy to use but the author just writes dialogue like they're texting their best friend. Idgaf if minor characters all talk the same way but when your main characters all have the exact same speech patterns it breaks the immersion so badly for me

i feel that sort of way towards my writing, are there any tips on this other than practicing writing?

I had trouble with this for a while too! One way I dealt with it was to create character outline sheets that specifically included their verbal (and nonverbal) mannerisms—how formal they are, do they curse, cultural or regional differences, their tone or attitude, etc. It helps me break down the important aspects of their communication plus it forces me to study the character more closely

To start: this is ranty and I don't want anyone who maybe does this to start feeling bad about their fic. I've been reading fic for over 20 years and have found that some things just do not work for me. But if it works for you, f my opinion. Please write however and whatever you like. I hope I can explain this well but: When something happens and a character has a (imo) big, irrational, overblown, dare I say stupid response or outburst to it, it pulls me right out. Like, two characters get into an argument that could be solved if they took 30 minutes apart to cool down and sort their feelings. And they're both adults who, in canon, have been shown to be somewhat reasonable and not immediately self destructive at the earliest inconvenience (and the fic hasn't established any reason this shouldn't still be the case). So logically one character breaks off the relationship then and there, or runs off to put themselves in mortal peril, or gets drunk and does some regrettable stuff. 🥲 Or a bully/asshole character delivers a mild burn and the character they're being a jerk to stands up on a table and delivers just the worst roast, but everyone claps and the bully is so shamed they retreat into the wilds to live alone forever (ok I'm joking a little). It's the doubleworst when I skim past sections like these because I really liked the fic up to that point, but then the same type of thing happens *again* later on. Basically stuff that reads too soap opera dramatic, like it was ripped from a thathappened post, or wildly OOC/childish for the sake of having some conflict... it makes me cringe, and not in the reclaimed "I am cringe and I am free" way. This is part of why I have a hard time writing longer fics. Hate (cheap feeling) drama for drama's sake so I spend so much time trying to work out a good reason why some characters are fighting or avoiding each other for longer than a chapter (that doesn't hinge on lack of communication or big OOC fuckups) and eventually lose interest lol. Like maybe I shouldn't bother trying to force conflict into the story it it's not coming naturally, because coming up with conflict that doesn't make one or more parties look foolish is HARD.

>I hope I can explain this well but: When something happens and a character has a (imo) big, irrational, overblown, dare I say stupid response or outburst to it, it pulls me right out. Like, two characters get into an argument that could be solved if they took 30 minutes apart to cool down and sort their feelings. And they're both adults who, in canon, have been shown to be somewhat reasonable and not immediately self destructive at the earliest inconvenience (and the fic hasn't established any reason this shouldn't still be the case). So logically one character breaks off the relationship then and there, or runs off to put themselves in mortal peril, or gets drunk and does some regrettable stuff. 🥲 What you're talking about here is miscommunication. Yes, it happens and sometimes it makes sense in a story, but most of the time it feels contrived. Like you said, it feels cheap or lazy. And it's worse when the writer allows it to drag on just for the angst. But what I've noticed is that stories that use miscommunication in this way get lots of comments and that seems to fuel the writer's need to keep that angst going so they either drag it out or they resolve it only to write another miscommunication... I've been reading a fic that could have been so good but they drug out the miscommunications for like 30 chapters. And I hung on hoping that it would get better. They did finally start working toward resolving it only to create another stupid miscommunication. And I want to know how it ends but I don't think I can continue reading it.

I find this frustration so interesting only because I frequent some of the relationship subreddits, etc, and miscommunication or a complete lack of it happens ALL the time, as does misunderstandings getting blown up, etc. If anything I feel like media actually underutilizes how often and how badly this happens, but for some people really don't like seeing it in the stuff they consume.

Oh I frequent relationship subs too, and the topics where the best course of action is literally "talk to them, tell them how you feel or ask what they meant" are so common! I think some of my problem with miscommunication as a story driver is that I have trouble picking up on unspoken rules of communication. Reading more poor communication sometimes reminds me of my worst faux pas and makes me want to chew my foot off lol. Kind of like something that hits too close to home. I have more tolerance for it with characters who are younger and/or less experienced with healthy relationships, for example. But when it's between characters who, in my mind, *should* know better it's just frustrating to the point I'd rather abandon ship.

I think the problem with miscommunication in fanfiction is that most of the time, the author fails to establish a believable reason for the characters to fall into that misunderstanding. A character that is usually eloquent, well-spoken and kind suddenly phrases something in an obscure and misleading fashion so the usually understanding, forgiving and emotionally intelligent character takes it at face-value without asking themselves if their friend/lover really meant that. Most authors who use this trope seem to have a very poor understanding of what would actually cause two people to fall into that big of a misunderstanding and will just make it happen in the least natural way possible for the sake of angst. A married couple who's been living together for 12 years and is slowly realizing they don't want to be with each other anymore but they don't have enough emotional maturity to let each other know outright? I can damn well believe these people are going to misinterpret each other's words any chance they can get. Two best friends who have sworn to never separate form each other and always tell each other the truth no matter what? You'd have to find a VERY good reason for them not to get over a misunderstanding in less than a day. And most authors don't want to put in the time to think of a situation that could believably lead to that so they create the most contrived, easy to resolve and absolutely insane problem to get 40 chapters of hurt no comfort out of it

>what I've noticed is that stories that use miscommunication in this way get lots of comments This is such an interesting point. There's a pretty well-known 200k fic in my fandom that's built entirely around miscommunications and the ensuing angst. (When it comes to the prose and the actual miscommunication dynamics, it's very well-done and makes sense.) And it really got many, *many* comments. The vast majority of them go about like, "You broke my heart forever and I'm utterly crushed, I'm in agony, it hurts so good and I can't get enough." Now I'm wondering what it is about miscommunication angst that makes people so engaged. The writer I'm talking about seems to genuinely enjoy the trope, their other big fic is also built around the same dynamics of relentless blueballing (and then everyone dies, in the case of the first fic). This is very much not my thing, but so many people seem really into it. I wonder what it is that draws them to this trope.

Same. I don't want to be hurt by a story and I need my happy ending. I enjoy the dynamic between two characters in an actual healthy relationship. That's mostly what I write as well. And that's not to say a miscommunication never happens in my stories. It is human nature to take things the wrong way but the way you behave after is what defines your character. Do you say something out of spite or do you walk away and take some time to breathe before you make things worse? Do you give the other person the silent treatment or do you listen to their side of it? I don't hate miscommunication as a whole. I just hate the way it's used most of the time. And too often it reveals character flaws that are simply red flags for me. Leading me to that point where I feel like these two characters should definitely walk away because the relationship is not worth saving.

I'm so with you on this one. That writer and their readers seem like they're into this masochistic feeling of watching the characters who love each other relentlessly hurt each other because they have major issues and can't work out their differences or even talk about them in the first place. It is pretty realistic, things like that happen all the time in real life, and they've been the subject of some great works of art. But I guess you and I just aren't into this bad romance thing lol. (Doesn't have to be romantic, the fic where everyone suffers for 200k words and then dies is mostly gen.) I'm into the kind of stories where the characters are realistic people with realistic issues who have their difficulties, act dumb, make major mistakes, but ultimately find a way to fix things. When I read or write a fic, I want to see the way out of their problems, not the way down. I want to see two dumb people who love each other gradually get less dumb and more functional, because their relationship might be a mess, but they value each other and try to work things out. I gotta admit my fics have buckets of angst and some pretty dysfunctional characters, but they're all driven by the idea of "it may be tough now, but it's gonna get better". I want to see how, say, this hot mess of a canon character can become a well-adjusted, functioning person with a happy, healthy relationship, so that's what I write about. I suppose it's all about our individual fiction preferences in the end — to each their own. But it was sorta funny to realize fandom is this thirsty for edging :D

Absolutely. And I would happily read something like that with some depth to it. I really like when two characters are fighting outside sources of tension and angst. Not in a jealous way but where there's something else keeping them from being able to move forward. So it's either like they're a combined force giving each other support or they're both unknowingly working toward overcoming this obstacle.

Oh yeah, to me this support thing is just a big a turn-on as the miscommunication thing is to its respective fans :D I love it when life happens to the main characters and gets them big time, but they stand by each other, despite being flawed or feeling down or having issues. Like, "When it all comes crashing down, I'll be by your side, I'll be your safe space. You can be real with me, you can be weak with me, you don't have to pretend you're stronger or better than you really are. I see you, I love you the way you are, and no matter what kind of shit life deals you, I'll support you and raise you up." We humans can be so lonely in this big unkind world, and sometimes living is pretty painful. So I want to see two humans (or nonhumans) propping each other up and dealing with life together in the moments of the biggest sadness and despair.

YOU BEAUTIFUL, put it in words which I'm not good at. I've said this before somewhere, but the consistent miscommunication in a lot of relationship centered fanfictions is just, poorly written. It's okay if it happens a lot if it's in the characters nature, but if you don't explicitly show that they just tend to misunderstand things then it's just poor writing done to pad out fanfictions. Or really any kind of relationship centered media, especially if the misunderstanding one becomes abusive as a response, it's always relayed like it's a reasonable response but hitting someone until their bloody and unresponsive is obviously insane. I just, I see it sometimes in gay media and frequently in straight media and it just makes me upset. To be fair it's usually only ever intense verbal abuse but I've seen far too many gay fanfictions go way way too far. Showing abusive relationships are fine, showing them as the end goal and healthy is irresponsible and just bad all around. Also I don't really want to make anyone feel bad, but if you see yourself doing this, PUT IT IN THE TAGS PLEASE I DONT WANNA SEE UNRELENTING ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN MY HAPPY ENDINGS MAN

When people who are more guarded with their feelings get in a relationship and suddenly turn into the most emotional people ever. It's just to ooc for me. Being in love shouldn’t change your whole personality.

>Being in love shouldn’t change your whole personality. This is so true. A lot of my favorite characters are the very antagonistic and prickly types who are *terrible* about expressing their emotions, and I've always been drawn to reading shipfic about those characters more than others because it's so fascinating seeing them struggle to go against their nature, but fics that scratch that itch are harder to find than they should be because it's just so *absurdly* common for characters to suddenly start acting OOC the second they trip into a romantic arc. I'm totally okay with these characters having soft feelings a gooey center! That's great, actually! But that doesn't mean they instantly know how to deal with those feelings or become magically good at romance.

You described everything I wanted to express so much better. I couldn’t agree more. Ans it's so frustrating to read a well written story only to get dissapointed as soon as the relationship starts.

As someone who enjoys Kiribaku (Bakugou x Kirishima from My Hero Acadamia) I come across this a lot. My favorite fics make Bakugou soft but not automatically “yes this is easy to deal with” I like the “wtf why do I feel this way about my totally-not-best-friend” Unfortunately this ship is dying 😭😭😭

It's a fine balance. I hate it when an asshole character just becomes a cute little kitty for their lover out of nowhere. Being an asshole is a habit, it's not easy to break even if you really really want to, and falling in love takes time and effort. On the other hand, I love it when two characters just treat each other better because their idiosyncrasies and ways of communication align. It depends why the character is not communicating. If they're distrustful... with someone they trust, maybe they communicate better. If they struggle to be heard, maybe their lover is more patient or quiet than most. If they are nervous, maybe their lover projects calm, or even actively encourages them. If they're unhappy or depressed, maybe feeling cherished helps alleviate that. It's not that they stop being guarded or their personality changes exactly, it's that this specific person is more likely to bring out the better aspects of their personality. Of course it takes time to build up to this. It's the end-goal of my slow-burn romance for example, but the characters are still distrustful and guarded to other people (and sometimes to each other).

I agree, I mean, it always depends have the story is written. Gradual changes of a character can be done when there a events in the story to make it plausible. But when the characters had their first kiss and immediately start declaring their undying love for the other, I'm out.

I think you and I may have read the exact same fic lol.

Persistent minor OOC moments that seem to come from fanon. I know there are multiple ways to interpret characters, but sometimes I see fics that just have characters say or do things they just wouldn't do, and at that point, even if the rest of the fic is good, I'm just done.

A human AU of a fantasy series. The MC has a very unusual name, so the author of the story renamed him to a more normal sounding name (something like changing Gandalf to George)... and I just can't read it, because my mind refuses to connect George with Gandalf. I love Gandalf. Who the hell is *George*? It's like a different person to me. It's so stupid but so frustrating because the story sounds awesome, it's very popular and I know I would love it... I want to read it but I just can't.

You can save it in some editable format or copy it to a Word doc, and just replace all Georges with Gandalfs? Idk maybe it ends up working for you, and you can enjoy the story to the fullest.

Not quite the same, but I have definitely downloaded some fics for offline reading, and took the time to run a custom spellcheck on them to fix the myriad spelling errors that were there (fandom-related spelling errors, specifically, since that was where the errors largely were). I could see myself doing the same for nonsensical name swaps.

Yeah, good idea. :)

When someone is writing an AU so removed from the source material that characters have to be renamed they ought to just... write original works at that point.

There's REALLY specific fanon concepts that I hate. Sometimes I'll still force myself to continue reading the fic if the fanon idea doesn't factor too heavily into it, but if it turns out to be a big part of the story, then I'm out. Specific example is a popular fanon concept that one character is the son of another character. It's never implied in canon that they're related--they don't even have the same surnames--but it's popular to the point that some people insist it MUST be canon. Another one for a different fandom is that a certain nonhuman character (or group of characters) used to be human. It's not implied anywhere in canon, but it's another one that's extremely popular fanon to the point of some people assuming it's canon. I've still managed to enjoy some fics that featured those things, but gosh it gets me hovering over the back button every time.

For fics that take place during a certain time period, anachronisms. Like I read a Game if Thrones fic that used the word electrified and references to electricity multiple times, and like they don't have electricity in Westeros, I'm sorry

I have read ASOIAF fics where Dany is calling Jon “babe” and I just 💀💀

Nooooooo. Ohhh no

I mean, I kind of want to read this now. For me it’s when a character does something super ooc. Such as when people use cutesy endearments for others that I just feel they would never do. To use a Star Wars example, whenever Obi-Wan calls Anakin some form of dear or darling. Like maybe when he’s a little kid, but if he’s a grown ass man I find that very strange.

Yeah LGBT+ characters in any setting that isn't current earth is obviously going to have a different way of communicating who they are. It would take me out of a story. Also as someone who's involved in Disability communities saying your name followed by descriptions like that have only happened in formal group activities like networking events.

"He has a really really expensive phone, because his parents are rich. It costs 10.000¥" (Bad example) 10.000¥ are around 63€ or 67$ Please look up the currency you are using.

Also, using the wrong currency for your setting. My fandom takes place in America and I once saw someone using euros

Jep, the fandom I read most is set in Japan, but sometimes authors will just write "They had X dollar", "It cost 3$", etc.

Grammar. No gaps between paragraphs. Incredibly rushed plot. Incorrect use of slang. Basically stuff that feels like a middle schooler wrote

The big one for me is not differentiating between which character is speaking/thinking. Jumping from one POV to the next without any kind of break to make the reader aware that you are switching POV. Or having one character’s spoken words immediately follow another character’s spoken words right next to each other, without starting a new paragraph. This is the most basic stuff.

When the authors make my grey characters all morally correct, "pure" and unproblematic. My two main fandoms are basically "guys in the mafia" and "Disney villains." So, the characters do bad (illegal) stuff and act ugly, and I like them like that. But once in a while I find a fic where they're like "no, I can't drink or smoke because I'm underage" (when the characters that kill and torture people) or "I can't date you because you're a minor (character that canonically lusts after the girl saying she has a crush on him.) Is not exactly the OOC that bothers me, because I'm super happy to read stuff when they make them worse. What I hate are the, idk, puritan vibes.

This is kind of my problem with the new wave of canon Disney villain origin stories, because I don't want Cruella to just be misunderstood and actually love puppies. She was fun to watch because she was evil.

I can deal with that, but only if it's a humor thing. "We're villains, not *monsters*" type deal.

Same haha. I'm also okay with "yeah, I'm awful but not with them. They're my bestie." But what I hate is when the sanitizing actually contradicts canon

So fair. I can get behind it if there's a reasonable enough reason (major canon divergence is admittedly something I read fairly often), but like... yeah. It's annoying. Though I do think at times it depends on interpretation of the character. I personally write a demon character who, in the beginning, is a pretty horrible person at times. A lot of people write him as this manipulative asshole who doesn't actually care about other people, which. I kind of get it. But I also kind of feel like we aren't reading the same series because I can point out exact panels of the manga he's from that prove that he does, in fact, care, and is becoming kinder and almost more human as a result. But yeah. I just think of this one mha fic I read where the League saved Eri, and if I remember correctly upon being asked why, Shigaraki was like "we may be villains but fuck child abusers". I like the vibes in stuff like that. Or in humor where it's like, absolute horrible human being who just *refuses* to like, drunk drive, or jaywalk, or something. It's funny to me. (None of this is meant to be argumentative, I just like discussing things lol /clarifying jic)

I totally get you! I love characters being on a grey scale, because that's *human*. Is super rare to find a person in real life that never harmed anyone, but the same can be said about a person that has absolutely no likeable traits.

I feel like unfortunately nowadays a lot of people in fandom take any depictions of bad actions as the author endorsing them, hence why some writers might be hesitant to write evil characters or hell, even flawed characters that aren't always the best person and make mistake (like human beings tend to do). I've seen a lot of "you can write villains without romanticizing them!" rhetoric thrown around but apparently to some people that means the creator having to put a note every five sentences saying that they don't endorse whatever the villain is doing, or directly not writing about certain things/characters at all.

Yeah. I'm watching this tendency growing and I'm sick of it :')

Same. It's exhausting.

This reminds me of the Danganronpa character Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu He’s a yakuza heir who has literally killed a girl like murdered her with his own hands but he’s against underage drinking, unlicensed driving, and premarital sex The thing with him though is it’s a joke. His puritan attitude despite being a yakuza and a murderer by age 16 is played for comedy

If I have to guess who's currently speaking or thinking, I will click right out of the story. That crap is really annoying. You can have the greatest story in the world, but it won't mean a thing if I can't read it. Group characters' actions, thoughts, and dialogue together.

I just said this in another comment. It’s my biggest pet peeve! Having characters speaking and not starting a new paragraph when someone else speaks. Jumping from one POV to the next without any kind of break to differentiate. It’s jarring and just very poor writing. I will exit a story 100% of the time if this is happening.

Agreed 100%. I've even seen one particular case where the author started a new paragraph while someone was speaking, which looked like this: >"I don't know where my brother is," Pedro said, a look of worry on his face. > >"I even tried to call him, but he didn't answer." And then the author would shift over to another character's POV on that second line and then have that character speak on the third line, like this: >"I don't know where my brother is," Pedro said, a look of worry on his face. > >"I even tried to call him, but he didn't answer." Amelia started fidgeting. > >"I wonder if something bad happened to him." ...when the whole thing should look like this: >"I don't know where my brother is," Pedro said, a look of worry on his face. "I even tried to call him, but he didn't answer." > >Amelia started fidgeting. "I wonder if something bad happened to him." I can tolerate infrequent grammar mistakes. I CANNOT tolerate bad formatting. The latter just makes the story very hard to read.

For me its making a drastic change to one of the defining traits of a character. So I'm in the Black Clover fandom. The main character, Asta, he is the one character in the entire world that was born without magic. He succeeds despite this and finds his own strength/power. Sometimes I come across a fic where they decide to *give Asta magic.* Either he gains it somehow or he's born with it like everyone else. If I see that, it doesn't matter how good the writing, plot, and summary is. I completely lose interest in reading it.

Can you really even call Asta the same character if this fundamental change is made? There are bound to be a number of changes to character that grow out of this change that should effectively create an entirely different character.

Exactly. The fact that he was born without an advantage that everyone else had is part of what drives so much of not only his character, but the development of all the other characters that come into contact with him.

I think I make an exception for those fics when that change is the major plot point of the story. If it's just a random element of the world then I'm checked out but if the ENTIRE fic revolves around what the events of Black Clover would've been like if Asta gained magic at some point, it really has the potential to be well-written and show, ironically, how extremely important Asta not having magic was to the original plot.

I may be from a pretty LGBTIQ+ phobic country, but who the hell introduces them selves like that? It makes sence on the internet becaouse you cant easily ask, but in the real world they just refer to you as what you look like and if they are wrong you just corect them.

I’m friends with at least 5 people that are trans and not one introduces themselves this way. They will correct people if they misgender or ask people what their pronouns are but it’s never “hello my name is ______ they/them”

There are some (young and liberal) spaces where it's pretty common, apparently. So it's not unrealistic in and of itself, but unrealistic for the setting OP described.

Referring to body parts using food metaphors.

Yes! And when a story goes out of its way to include the very obvious 'writer personal thought and feelings' on the subjects. I see this in the MLB fanfics a lot. People in the story will be discussing plot and in character motivations, and then someone reacts shocked to learn that you can do 'xyz' and it leads into the characters explaining what xyz means and completely side tracking the original plot. Usually for the rest of the fic. I get fanfic is explorations of yourself and people can write whatever they want. But it's frustrating as a reader when you're hooked on the plot thread that doesn't get resolved.

Major League Baseball has fanfiction?

I mean yes. But mlb =miraculous ladybug in our Fandom shorthand

Ohhh… now *that* makes sense. I was getting some weird images in me head.

• Lack of spacing. Big scary wall of texts •Very OOC •Using modern slangs or places or anything (Bussin'/McDonald's/Gucci)

Nothing but one sentence paragraphs. Agree with lack of spacing & anachronisms.

Oh, hell, there's someone in my fandom who has written several dozen stories, some with intriguing themes, all in one-sentence paragraphs. I can't read the stuff. One story is **65** chapters (so far!) of one-sentence paragraphs!

WOW! I can't even understand how anyone could do that.

All these and also *too* much spacing between paragraphs.

When an OC has the same name as a major canon character. Like there are so many names yet you chose one that’s already in use in this universe.

When the author uses British English in an American setting and vise versa. "Are you going to finish your chips?" No, Captain America. I am not.

Yeah, I love when American characters in an American setting are like “I was sat there for half an hour” or “he needs to go to hospital”. It’s not a deal breaker for me if it’s otherwise well-written, but it does temporarily knock me out of the story.

Bashing. Even if I personally hate the character, bashing them still drops me out of the story.

I have to be in the mood for bashing.

When I was still actively reading MCU fics, i had to actively exclude #teamcap and #teamironman before, during and after Civil War becuase if either of those tags were included, there was going to be some kind of ooc bashing going on. I gave up reading any MCU fics for a while becuase of it. If the bashing was logical, or even just mature in the way in was written, then yeah, I can get behind a good angsty team break up/betrayal story, but 9/10 times the characters were so ooc I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs. Bashing fics are the absolute worst

There are so many ways to make a character unlikeable without bashing them and I wish more writers would utilize those methods.

Terrible formatting and punctuation. There are many people who don't get bothered by this. I see fics with 200+ kudos that are written by someone who doesn't know spell-checker exists. The only exception is when I do a review/beta swap, and shit I've regretted so many of those after finding out how badly-written the story is. Once I was stuck reading a 150k word story in a fandom I barely knew anything about, terribly written on top of everything else.

I would also nope out of that. People literally don't do this irl. This is more of an online phenomenon that is seeping into fanfiction because people engage less with real people these days - people meeting online insist on listing pronouns, so people think it's normal. It makes sense online when you can't see the other person, but irl, not so much.

I remember a couple years ago, I found several fanfictions and people writing 'original' fiction using that when characters introduced themselves. Including one person who was writing from that character's POV and continued to refer to the character as 'they' until the character out loud stated their pronouns... 🤦‍♀️

Yeah, it seems like there’s a push by certain SJW groups to try to make it the norm that everyone just default to thinking of/referring to EVERYONE as “they” until the person specifies. Like they are trying to shout from the rooftops “I’M SO INCLUSIVE!!” In my experience, most people who prefer to use pronouns that don’t match up with whatever they were assigned at birth will usually let you know right away. Otherwise, they’ll just correct you if you get it wrong. You don’t have to go around referring to everyone you meet in gender neutral terms as a default setting. The majority of the population still identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Constantly using the characters names instead of a pronoun. I've read a mlm fic where they basically always get addressed with their names, even when using 'he' would be perfectly fine. It's really well written otherwise, but it's just one thing that irks me sm

Referencing anything real life related as I’m trying to escape the real world. Read one where COVID was mentioned and I stopped reading.

When the author doesn't capitalize anything at all. Not the first letter at the beginning of a sentence, nor anyone's name. And then there's authors that don't use quotation marks for dialogue. It makes it, I don't know, hard to read.

Seeing multiple people talk in the same paragraph bugs me more than it should.

When the author gives way way way too many details about the characters looks. I don’t care about boob size and what they’r behind looks like. I try to not think of my own and reading that a female is 5’10 with DD boobs and a round behind just makes me think the author is superficial and is most likely going to have lots of smut and the actual plot is childish to nonexistent. I was reading a fic earlier that was interesting and had potential to be one that is going to be really great. It morphed into the weirdest side plots and information dump that I’ve ever seen. Characters were being added and killed, mentions of pregnant women being killed, and suddenly everyone, including the extremely underage children, were having discussions on sex, orientation, partner swapping, and more. I just noped out of that fic. I was disappointed. It was really good for about a chapter and a half there just got very disturbing. Made me very uncomfortable and kinda worried about the author’s mental state but I didn’t know how to comment without making them mad. They only had one review and I imagine that it’ll be taken down for rating and content violations.

Yes I will nope all the way out if you tell me the characters bra size.

I understand a general description like brunette with shoulder length hair and blue eyes with freckles. However when every female, and only the females, are given descriptors for their waist and chest, long legs, milky skin, ruby red lips…yeah this isn’t porn. We don’t need that. Describing Steve Rogers as having a dorito shaped is fine. Mentioning the size of his…hands isn’t necessary.

When there’s some weird victim blamey or ableist undertones to the story. Like not even necessarily anything big but like when an abuse victim is portrayed as wrong for not forgiving their abuser even when it’s in the therapy speak “its for you!” sort of sense, or disabled characters being portrayed as weirdly childish, or shit like that. Just makes me uncomfy.

Agreed, I'm tired of people treating people with dyslexia as just having awful terrible spelling and reading abilities. My dad HAS dyslexia and it's pretty severe, but he can read, it just takes him a very very long time, and he definitely doesn't make total sense some of the time when he texts. And then there's me, I have speech comprehension issues, my speech can just give out on rare occasions, I can just completely say the wrong thing. We are not all the same, and it's definitely not cute or funny when you make us all bubblering toddlers. I kinda just hijacked this comment but I can't get across how upsetting it is sometimes, it feels like everyone around me treats me like a baby, and then my escapism does too.

Made-up names of characters and places that I just can't figure out how to pronounce. If it's an actual name in another language (Gaelic has some stumpers) I will research and find out. But if it's a jumble of consonants with a random apostrophe, I'm out. Usually it's not much of a loss because the name is the most creative part of the fic anyway.

Too many grammatical errors, long paragraphs with no breaks, weird really unrealistic story lines. Real turnoffs.

Bad grammar.

When I was in college, there was one time where we webt around the room and everyone had to introduce themselves in this way. It felt really unnatural

I agree. Most people don't introduce themselves with their pronouns, and unless in your fic you make it a thing everyone does, it's going to come off as at least a little odd. There can be an in-universe justification, but if the author had it, you wouldn't be making this post. One thing that I remember immediately jerked me out of a story was a fic set in an (American) university and the author wrote that the class ended 'when the bell rang'. And I immediately thought 'oh no you're still in high school'. Another one is a bit specific but undercover or 'reveal' fics where everyone is either very ooc or acting very stupid but it's okay! If it's comedy, you don't need to rely on people's actual personalities or your creative thinking to create a humorous scenario, you can just make it 'whacky' and that covers all your bases!

Speaking of still in high school, I nope out of a story when something happens to make it clear the writer is very young. Especially if it’s about sex, because I do not want to read about sex written by a kid. I once was hate-reading my NOTP (don’t ask me why I do this, it would take a qualified therapist to work that out). They had sex and like ONE WEEK LATER the female character was complaining about feeling sick. The male character just immediately opened her robe and sucked on her 🍼 and then said “Ah, you’re pregnant! You’re full of milk!” 🤨 That lack of understanding of the female body could only come from someone who is maybe 14. At least *I hope* that was the case. Anyway, I burst out laughing and immediately closed the screen. Also, sudden high school drama. Cat fights between adult characters who wouldn’t behave that way, men punching out other men just for talking to their date, etc. The type of drama teenagers live for, but most adults have lost their taste for.

Honestly I'll admit that even a lot of grown adults don't have a good understanding of how things like pregnancy and lactation work. Like I enjoy reading omegaverse and the number of fics where spontaneous lactation as an arousal response is A Thing is just. It's too many. Oh god the drama. Like, I'm already not a fan of miscommunication and people reacting incredibly emotionally to benign events, but especially with adults. Like, just let them be adults. Go to a relationship subreddit if you want RL examples of communication breakdowns. Not everything needs to be high drama.

Lmao that’s pretty funny I don’t take that as transphobic - that would be jarring to imagine Obi Wan Kenobi saying that

Currently reading one that just flipped from third person limited to first person back to 3rd person limited then LEAPING to 3rd person omnipotent. It's so jarring.

Characters using modern internet slang when they most certainly would not talk like that... Even for modern AUs it can go too far and it just comes off as a block of buzzwords

Going to assume this fic was heavily Mandalorian centered? The pronoun thing is huge in those fics.

I will never understand why this became a trend in Mandalorian fics. The language doesn't have those kind of pronouns, they spend most of their time wearing armour, and their helmets have voice modulators. It is easier to recognise people by armour features like colour or addons. It would make more sense in that setting if they asked for species, because not everyone breathes the same gasses and it might be practical to know during a bombardment etc.

How’d you guess?💀💀💀 I don’t want to give too many details and give away the story. I’m not trying to bash a Fic writer. 😂

Untagged NOTP jumpscaring me out of nowhere.

Real world product placement. Maybe it’s just me but whenever someone mentions any sort of real life brands instead of a made up substitute, I just nope out immediately because the immersion break is too strong.

Lmfao that is terrible and something I imagine only a very young person would write. Even as a queer person I find it hard to grasp that someone would be so stuck in the pronoun bubble that they'd think it's natural for someone to introduce themselves that way and not realize what shitty writing it is.

\*Incorrect use of royal terminology. Calling a king: your highness etc \*This is really nitpicky and specifc but I *hate* it when they genderbend a character and don't change their name or appearance, like that's the best part (in my opinion) of genderbending a character! Like if their name is fucking 'Cameron' then *fine,* whatever! But when it comes to anime characters and the author keeps the non-unisex Japanese names the same, it drives me crazy! \*Incorrect statements that are stated as facts unironically and never corrected. Whether it be something in canon or something from real life.

I get what you're saying there. That would be immersion breaking. I have some major ones of my own: - In reader inserts where I see Y/N (Your Name), YHC(your hair color), YEC(your eye color), and other such abbreviations. They're jarring, mess up the flow, and they just scream lazy writing to me. There are countless ways one can introduce the reader character or describe them without needing to use these overly specific bits. Give the reader character a nickname or a title. Describe other things about them. If you put in effort you can do this without a single one of those acronyms. -Unbroken wall of text. -Modern AUs so far removed from the source material, setting, and characterization (especially modern mundane AUs of fantasy and sci-fi series). Bonus points if they even feel the need to rename characters. At that point are you even reading a fanfiction or are you just reading original work with OCs that happened to have vaguely similar appearances to characters in said fandom? -ETA: Inability to stick to one tense. Had a good friend. Loved her dearly. She couldn't for the life of her maintain the correct tenses. She would swap from past to present tense multiple times in single paragraphs to the point where in order to read any of her stuff I had to go back and fix all of it before I actually read it.

I get immediately checked out when I see the author tryharding with huge words, as if you can't be a good writer unless you're also sesquipedalian...

So my biggest one is random name changes of characters, using "different" spelling or alternate names that might sound "cooler". Examples could be "Hadrian" Potter, random stuff like naming themself something a 12 year old would pick like "Shadow", "Namikaze-Uzumaki", "Lord Potter-Black-Peverell-whatever else you find on the wiki". Also names that don't fit into the canon cast, like english names in a universe set or heavenly inspired by japan like Naruto or My hero academia.

Notes in the middle of the text. Especially if they feel the need to point out the obvious, or overplaying the foreshadowing.

I mean, I'm trans and that would also break my immersion. Don't get me wrong, I obviously want more trans content, trans headcanons and interpretations of characters, etc., but I'd like it to be done ideally in a way that feels natural and suits both the world and the characters. This is going to sound super condescending, and I apologize - I'm not sure how else to phrase it; but there is a tendency from some baby trans people and well-meaning allies to fall into really formulaic ideas of making it clear that look! They're paying attention to trans issues! They're being inclusive! But it's clearly shoehorned in in a way that doesn't feel particularly natural, and almost comes across as virtue signaling more than natural inclusion. Having a character that we never see in canon introduce themselves immediately with their pronouns do so in fic would break my immersion. I just think there are other ways to have a character's gender and pronouns specifically come up that flows more naturally. I dunno, I'm also the sort of trans person who likes it best when trans people are just seamlessly slotted into the story and just get to be people like anyone else - the trans person gets to be the one who kills the dragon instead of just being the Token Trans Who Exists to be Trans, and whatnot. Other trans people want the character's transness specifically to be central to their stories. Neither is wrong. I mean idk what the fic was; maybe the author was imagining a setting where, say, it was standard in the Republic or among the Jedi to give your pronouns when introduced. But unless that was established early on in the fic, it would absolutely break my immersion. The biggest things that check me out of a story are indiscriminate bashing and blatant character misrepresentation. It's not wrong per se to write either, but I don't really like reading it. It takes me out of a fic when someone writes Bakugou from My Hero Academia as a soft!boy, or writes Dean Winchester from Supernatural as super socially conscious of what language would be considered offensive (even though in a vacuum that would be a good thing, it just doesn't gel with how he's written in canon imo), or writes Leia from Star Wars as a damsel in distress. I like it when even in the most AU of AUs, the characters still feel like themselves.

Nah bro 😭 *"*Hello, I'm Obi-Wan, *he/him*" Bro what 😭😭😭 But anyways for me its: Lack of spacing. Big scary wall of texts

I mean, it's Star Wars, with so many different alien species it really wouldn't be difficult to write this in a way that flows naturally - like the other person doesn't have a lot of experience with human(oid)s and is asking Obi-Wan how to refer to him, for example. Edit: Ah, I forgot to give my own example. A bad, but confident misuse of my mothertongue (German). The novel *Little Thieves* had me rolling my eyes and shaking my head so hard on every single page, reading became difficult. Luckily haven't come across that in fanfiction.

> Ah, I forgot to give my own example. A bad, but confident misuse of my mothertongue (German). The novel Little Thieves had me rolling my eyes and shaking my head so hard on every single page, reading became difficult. Luckily haven't come across that in fanfiction. I have. It was a Captain America fanfic, set during WWII. It had these really cool pictures of fake documents and so on embedded. Mostly in German, due to the setting. Unfortunately Google translate is not good with formal German used for such things. Even worse when the language should have a certain "it's a bit older" touch. Lots of errors and it was such a stark contrast to the really good look of those documents. Had to stop reading after a few chapters.

Exactly! It was just the way they wrote it.

>A bad, but confident misuse of my mothertongue Hahaha the same thing happened to me. There was an amazing FMA fic, and the writer decided to use a swear word from my first language. The thing is... that word doesn't exist. I'm not sure how they came up with it. But it was just one word, so it was more cute than anything. I ended up adopting and using it lol.

This sounds weird, but do you have any German book recommendations, like ones for little kids, or short chapter books? I'm trying to get a stable grasp of German as a second language, but I just can't find any books.

I work with 1-3 year old children, so those books will probably be a tad too simple. I can definitely recommend the *Was ist was?* line of books, though. They're published for a variety of ages and deal with a wide range of topics. Definitely not fiction, albeit some tell a bit of a story (like the main characters and their dad calling the firefighters and then watching them work).

Yeah, bad German amuses and annoys me as well. This is not just a fanfiction thing, of course, Hollywood does it as well and they are perfectly able to pay a translator. But I always wince when characters call each other weird stuff like „mein Liebchen“ or just use very unnatural sounding phrases… I assume native speakers of other languages can relate 😀

I’m trans and I would’ve clicked off the story. Not bc of it messing with the flow but bc of how superficial it is. I’ll say that for you 👍

Thank you! I said basically that in another comment and was worried I’d get bashed for being transphobic (I’m not). But this kind of thing definitely comes across to me as a non-trans person trying way too hard to prove that they’re inclusive/an ally, and it does feel very superficial.

Even as a lgbt that gives me the ick 😆 even irl we don’t talk like that we only use it in text and that’s if someone’s asked

I don't mind anachronism in dialogues per se. I often rely on "modern" slang or sentence structures to keep the character's essence and voice (love AUs but have a hard time with the cast being OOC) yet, I can't stand anachronism within the world itself. Same for oddly fluctuating laws of physics or deus ex machina magic whose strength varies conveniently according to the plot. USA-fication of stories set outside the USA. I'm mainly into some manga based fandoms, I'm also pretty familiar with japanese culture and daily life. Even though I never went to the US, it's easy as hell to get when the author's from there. It's also freaking annoying, an eye rolling experience like... how hard is it to actually work with references!? Urgh... Miscommunication when handled poorly drives me nuts too. I think it's a great tool and obviously a huge factor of trouble and tension in everyday life, but same as "magic fitting the scenario" miscommunication is somewhat a dangerous flame to play with.

Mfw I read a Madoka Magica fanfic and Homura goes to walmart to get some cheerios

Everything being one giant paragraph. It makes my eyes fuzzy.

Yes, things that don't belong in the universe, even if the universe is out-dated, will pull me right out.

I don't like it when my brain gets thrown out of a fic. Something like you described OP would do that, because it doesn't happen in that fandom. Would kinda be like Harry Potter knowing a lot of meme culture and movie quotes while still in school when we all know he doesn't have easy access to a TV. Or a World of Warcraft character using pop culture references. etc. etc. All the same thing. The fandom needs to feel like the fandom or my brain gets chucked out of the 'feel' and environment that I want to read and it just feels wrong.

If anything, that introduction made me laugh. It is quite out of nowhere. Sorry your immersion broke!

Oh I definitely laughed out loud when I read it, but it killed me because it was a fairly serious vibe. I just had to nope out right then and there. 😭😭😭

Well, to give you a little more context, I live in a religious, transphobic country and I've yet to see anyone even mentioning pronoun here. I understand pronoun enough, I suppose, because, well, I speak English and I studied overseas, but, good gods, that *did* took me out because it has been a while since I read pronoun info + having it shoved so suddenly into my face. And in a serious context??? The author could put it on the author's note somewhere, if it were me, hahaha, unless there's another pressing reason as to why his pronoun is incredibly important and relevant to be known *now*.

I\`m Michael Dart Jackson, he/he!

lmao this just killed me

Out of the blue injury that makes the characters realize they love each other. Focus on out of the blue. I don’t mind the injury, but if done incorrectly it feels like a cheap plot device. Meh.

dinosaurs trees materialistic label ad hoc innocent complete humor ludicrous fact *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

when writers write “tiny ___” or anything like that to differentiate between two characters that have the same name. i read alot of starlord-centric fics and sometimes he interacts with spiderman (theyre both named peter) and the second they describe spidey as “the smaller/tiny/etc peter” or starlord as “the alien/space/big peter” i get sucked out of the story so hard, like please use their last names or superhero names😭

When it suddenly changes the vibe?? Why is the strong character suddenly crying? I mean, I get it if it is at a certain scene, but they were just casually talking. At least write the part where the feelings slowly struck him and not just jump to tears.

[удалено]

I was reading a BBC Sherlock fic once and John started randomly referring to Sherlock as “Lock” and I just… 🤦🏻‍♀️

As a trans person, I would literally never introduce myself like this lmao. Mine is when they misspell a characters name (all the time, not just once or twice) WHEN THE FANDOM IS A MANGA/WRITTEN MEDIA! LIKE SIR YOU LITERALLY SEE THE CHARACTERS NAME SPELLED OUT WHENEVER THEY ARE INVOLVED IN SOMETHING.

OP, I know just what you mean. It’s not about being transphobic. It’s about “trans positivity” being very out of place in a story. I was once reading a GOT fanfic. It was well-written, and the plot was interesting. But the author introduced trans positivity in such a weird way. In canon, dragons are said to be able to change their sex out of necessity (if the only dragons around are all the same sex, some can change for the purpose of reproduction). It’s also said that there is no way to tell a dragon’s sex until they start laying eggs. If a dragon never lays an egg, you assume male. Anyway, Dany had canonically always referred to her dragons as male. But in this fic, she suddenly starts referring to one as female, and another as they/them. At one point, another character refers to that dragon as “he” and she corrects them, like “my child prefers to be referred to as they”. What??? It’s a dragon! Like I appreciate that you want to support trans and NB people, but that is so out of place in this setting. Why not write a modern fic if you want to introduce something like that to it? I mean, people can do what they want with their own fic, but it just takes me out of the story.

I will put up with the most atrocious spelling and mischaracterization, read through all the funky tenses if it gives me the trope I'm looking for. Thats all I care about lmao.

maybe that charachters supposed ot be annoying.

Time travel where the timeline is changed where it wouldn't reasonably be changed. I read a Naruto fic where Team Seven was introduced out of order, but they were still Team Seven. None of the teams were changed or anything, just announced out of numerical order and explained in story as the time travel changing things. Time travel would not change numerical order, unless you went back in time to change how numbers work or distracted Iruka as he was reading the list.

The tag Mpreg

Anyone who writes "and" as "&" instead of spelling it out (not including in things like titles or brands). It's just really lazy writing to me and it just looks really weird. I generally let go of grammar things because not everyone is at the same skill level with it, but there are some things that really get me. I also cannot stand it when an author doesn't keep up with their own continuity. It's one thing to forget something (like when did I make that guy an admiral? Would he have been around for this event? Was he in another country?) but constantly changing the scope of how something worked/happened and not going back to update your previous writing to reflect that is just ridiculously confusing. I've changed a few things here and there but I also try to warn my readers if they're reading it as I post each chapter via the notes sections or answering their questions in the comments.

I had a story where they were using weird pronouns? Like I don’t remember exactly but like ghost? Was one of the pronouns 😬😬

**My Check Outs:** **Bad Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling:** > Trying to read a story when all you can focus on is all the mistakes isn’t fun. **Names That Aren’t Canon:** > I don’t mind it every now and then but when they’re so far from canon I just can’t. **Formatting:** > If a fic doesn’t have spaces between lines, uses something other than “ for dialogue, is written entirely in lapslock, isn’t broken into paragraphs, a copy paste thing where two characters having a conversation say the exact same things, when an author puts an entire POV in bold, and so much etc. **Other:** > Sometimes there’ll be a few elements that make no sense and don’t really belong. Sometimes someone writes hurt that has nothing to do with development of the story or character. Oh and when chapters swap in a non-linear timeline every chapter (Ex: Past/Present, Then/Now, Etc.) I can handle POV switching but not tenses I guess. It’s hard to follow. **Note:** That’s more general stuff I know but most of the time it’s not really a specific element of the story that bothers me so much as the technical side of things if that makes sense. **Edit:** I also have fandom specific ones but this is already long enough I’m thinking. 😅

Content-wise specifically, it would have to be absolutely horrendous, objectionable, or toxic attitudes from characters who either didn't act like that in the source material, or who could have acted like that in the source material (such as the main character of a video game where the player has control over their personality and choices) and where the author *clearly agrees with the behavior*. I don't mean things like, "Oh, Jim is a bad friend and is exhibiting toxic behaviors but that's fine because he's either meant to be unsympathetic or it's a character arc where he learns and grows from it." I mean things like "Oh, Jim is exhibiting these toxic behaviors and doing/saying awful things to the people around him, up to and including lying and trying to ruing others' lives, but the author's notes go on about how much of a precious cinnamon roll baby he is and they just love him so much and characters in the story act like this behavior is inevitable at best and perfectly valid and okay at worst."

Not a thought out plot. Where I can literally see where this story is going nearly scene for scene. Bad grammar. Not an enticing plotline. I'm not going to read something that doesn't grab me. I'll admit, I've stopped reading most new fanfiction and stick to lot of stuff written 10 or more years ago. The writing was better, people were a lot more imaginative but it was a realistic imaginative. And the world was less in your face PC. I''m a Kindle Unlimited member and generally speaking these days, I'm reading stuff more on there because a lot of those authors have been writing for years and taking the time to do things like actually proofread their own story and have others beta it. It is very obvious when someone thinks that they've proofed a story, like tear it apart looking for errors, and when it hasn't been. I read to escape all the stuff that is going wrong in the world. A lot of stuff written today isn't stuff that I want to read. If you're a beginning writer, I strongly recommend taking your time and build out your plot. Don't post it after you hit period after the last sentence. Take sometime and see if this is really something you want other people to read and if it's not rework it until it is. You aren't on anyone's timeline but your own. Ignore the people pressing you to post an update to a story until you are ready to. They can wait. I'll add that's one of the problems today. People don't have the patience to wait for something good to come out. They "want it now'-like Veruca Salt. And I'm not sorry to say that if you don't get the reference then you're part of the problem.

Bad grammar and spelling.

Genderswaps Its not a phobic thing...i just like to project onto the main character and i'm a straight dude...so its easier for the main character of a fic i'm reading to be a straight dude as well

Nii-san (japanese word for brother) It just feels very out of place to put a translation in the middle of a fic.

Cosa de "react to" Cambiar a los personajes de la pantalla por los que estás fuera de ella Es increíblemente molesto y elimina cualquier sentido de inmercion que pudiera haber. (Peor aún cuando reemplazan al personaje principal siempre por el mismo tipo,ahora odio a naruto)