"Why'd you stop reading a fanfic halfway through?" (r/FanFiction)

What's something you didn't like in a fanfiction bad enough that you stopped reading? Let me know!
Original Reddit Thread: / what_made_you_stop_rea... (some replies have been edited for length)
Support me on Patreon: / tonkajoey
My Discord Server: / discord
Twitter: / joey_tonka

[@brightboi4291]

A lot of authors may need to hear this.. Readers have pet peeves, and things they don't like in fanfiction. Reasons why they leave the fic, or tropes they hate. These pet peeves are things you may see in your own writing. You see your fic as frowned upon because it has a pet peeve. Everyone's pet peeves are different and with all the readers out there, I think every troupe, habit or tag in writing is someones pet peeve. You don't have to be perfect for anyone, just be yourself and enjoy the process. People mostly talk about their dislikes in writing, a lot more than their likes, so you often see what not to do instead of encouragement. Plus, you'll get better, without even realising it. One person's trash is another one's treasure.

[@nevermoreart]

thank you :)

[@darkacadpresenceinblood]

this is really sweet, thank you :)

[@chorus1407]

I needed to hear this 😅

[@katescosmos]

Say it louder please!! 💛

[@mewtuwa]

Yeah, the only thing you really "need" to do is tag your stuff properly. Otherwise, it's all preference.

[@bluucat.]

i read this fic idk what fandom but it was an lgbt romance and IT WAS INCREDIBLE and then the author quit bc they realized they were homophobic 💀

[@fart63]

LMFAOOOO

[@themoon7435]

THAT'S WACK LMFAO

[@naluzoniro]

what a journey

[@WazzupNigga]

I be like that sometimes.

[@Voicesofdoom_legacy]

*wheeze* oh my god.

[@wretchedcats4909]

The untagged mpreg one lmao, bro went in looking for death and got the miracle of life instead

[@laayiv9449]

Would it have been better if the mpreg was heterosexual.

[@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115]

I will call it the curse of life

[@pulped69dago91]

@@laayiv9449 no bc if its the type of mpreg that involves a cis guy (aka booty babies) then its even more of a miracle

[@ToyFreddyGaming1987]

The good old unexpected 180.

[@mirkohoble]

Mpreg and abo should have a huge warning. I do NOT want to read weird fantasies were half of men population are oversexualized and give birth through the ass

[@bakis5930]

Author asked for all women to click away from the fic. I am NOT kidding, they simply said they don’t want women to read it.

[@hello_ree]

LMAO WHAT WAS IT ABOUT

[@bakis5930]

@@hello_ree tw death and se*ual abuse ... an assassin fucked a corpse in very gore way

[@triangularsphere]

Yikes

[@slaysthecrusader.3477]

Unfathomably Based.

[@y2k_hanji]

Yuck..

[@hellothere.3153]

I remember there being one author in a fandom I used to be a part of, that just kept repeating _everything_ they had just written in that same paragraph. examples: "I can't do that today" character A said, he simply could not do it today. "I don't understand!" character B said, she simply couldn't understand. "My leg is broken!" character C said, his leg was broken.

[@justagirl7094]

“I just can’t even!” She just couldn’t even

[@ThePhrog714]

was it from the garfield fandom? if so i bet it was shakespearehemmingway

[@woodman3926]

Peppa Pig ahhh sounding writing. Like no joke it’s the same. The narrator repeats what is said after it was already said and it’s like, we know, we saw it.

[@hynankublai2013]

"How should I do this?" He said not knowing how to do it.

[@angelodc1652]

"This is stupid!" I said. It was, in fact, stupid

[@skywolf25]

"Improper and excessive use of Japanese honorifics" - I once saw a fanfic that used Japanese honorifics for an originally Korean webnovel set in a made-up European-esque world 😂

[@fart63]

Mr worldwide I guess 😂

[@BGDMusic]

lmao

[@cloudysama404]

mr worldwide

[@curiousnerdkitteh]

Oh no...

[@kimeris_]

Getting strong vibes that this is Lout of the count's family

[@Rowan_The_Fae]

The use of bulge in smut always makes me stop and chuckle, but nothing made me freeze and cackle out loud more than the time an author misspelled it as 'Bugle'. All I could think of were those cone shape snacks and couldn't stop laughing.

[@fart63]

LMAOOOOO IM JUST IMAGINING THOSE STUPID LITTLE SNACKS STICKING OUT OF SOMEONES PANTS LMFAOO

[@Rowan_The_Fae]

@@fart63 I KNOW RIGHT?! I couldn't take the rest of the fic seriously after that! I just couldn't!

[@notfamedtvpersonalitydrphil]

MEANWHILE ME THINKING OF THE INSTRUMENT AND HONESTLY IDK WHICH IS A FUNNIER ONE TO VISUALIZE

[@taco_boi1167]

@@notfamedtvpersonalitydrphil TOOT TOOT BABE

[@notfamedtvpersonalitydrphil]

@@taco_boi1167 “is that a brass instrument like a small trumpet, typically without valves or keys in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? 😉😏” “ *HONK HONK* 🎺”

[@yooniverse1536]

the biggest turn-off for me is when people use traumatic events as a plot device. like fics trying to r*** and SA so that the main character gets vulnerable and is saved by the other character leading to some formation of sympathy or jealousy (depends on what stage they are at). but once that is accomplished they quickly push it under the rug as if it never happened, rubs me in all kinds of wrong ways.

[@h4ppyh4rdkore]

or incest smut fics. not cute bro. thats ew.

[@jessy.kins.]

@@h4ppyh4rdkore ew, especially cursed family ones

[@miralang8149]

People still do that??

[@william_suitcase]

yeah thats kinda fucking weird

[@justsomeguy3694]

Yeah I think that's a horrible use of a traumatic event, as an author who uses those kinds of traumatic events in their writing. It's what makes me question even doing it, because I don't want to just use the event to push character's negative emotions, I want it to: a) be a proper representation of how horrible it is to be SA'd and b) connect to my characters in such a way that there's no way it'd be pushed under the rug and just 'used' like that. it disgusts me when people reference SA in such a casual way. if you use SA in your plot AT LEAST do proper research on its effects on people. At minimum. (Feel free to correct me on anything I'm saying. I know this kind of topic can be rather sensitive and I'm not sure if I should bring it up at all in my writing for these reasons)

[@nayramaaguiar7988]

I've stopped reading one where they tagged cheating, but the person who cheated was actually r*ped and they just started to blame the character when all of them knew what happened. To this day I'm still baffled.

[@guggelguggel7491]

At least it was a fanwork, that shit happened in a mainline DC comic where Dick Grayson was raped by a time traveling girl. It was justified as her being his gf in the future timeline she was from and the only reason it happened was to make Kori (his gf at the time) jealous. (Similar stuff probably in other comics too, this one I just remembered off the top of my head)

[@nightynightlayla374]

@@guggelguggel7491Wth???

[@guggelguggel7491]

@@nightynightlayla374 yeah, I dont remember when or what specific comic it was, other than a teen titan from, probably the 90s? It was rape through deception where the time travel girl shapeshifted into Kori to trick Dick into sleeping with her. Pretty fucked up issue that glossed over the inherent violation of it for relationship drama, claimed it was "infidelity". I feel like the author wanted to add dramatics to their romance, where Dick "cheats" on Kori but didnt want him to actually cheat on her so they just. Raped him and used the same storyline. Or something.

[@nightynightlayla374]

@@guggelguggel7491 yeah… that’s messed up in more ways than one. Who thought this was a good idea???

[@guggelguggel7491]

@@nightynightlayla374 probably people who dont understand the concept of rape through deception or somehow thinks boys are incapable of being raped? Though with how often rape and sexual assault is used quite frivously by many comic writers, maybe they knew what they were doing and didnt care.

[@inkling457]

Common turnoff, but fanfics with NO SPACING BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS. Drives me nuts, and makes it really hard to read.

[@laayiv9449]

AO3 removes some breaks if you upload it in plaintext, so most of the time the writer put breaks in but they disappeared and they didn't notice.

[@inkling457]

@@laayiv9449 I use Quotev, not AO3.

[@laayiv9449]

@@inkling457 Well that does away with my explanation I guess your writers are bad

[@inkling457]

@La'ayiv Haha it's cool To be fair, I don't read fanfic often. Been ages since I've written one too. Personally tho I, for some reason, have 3k followers there.

[@persialionheart]

It's this or every paragraph is one or two sentences only. Like where's the variation?

[@imonly1man_]

I think we all hate when fic writers call eyes "orbs" okay i am AMAZED this is still getting replies

[@Doodlands]

Why do they even do that

[@Alex_in_Wonderland111]

Shit you beat me to it

[@emmaloopra5428]

to be fair,synonyms are hard, however if its a story its best to avoid needing too many synonyms. Its not like an essay where you are forced to say audience so many times you have to resort to “playgoers” (and yes this did happen to me)

[@coyotix]

Wish more people would say "gaze" more. "Globes" and "orbs" are overdone and sound.. wrong. Or just describe what the eyes look like, or compare them to something else. Like "her eyes were blue as a winter sky" or "his eyes were like two black pools, drowning me in fear" or even just "their eyes were grey." Not that hard!

[@therustynickle4772]

I have never come across this but IF I EVER DO SO HELP ME..

[@SuperS0nic644]

I was reading a fanfic where two women in a relationship took in a kid and for like 6 chapters acted like a normal family and then suddenly the kid is becoming a 3rd in their relationship???? This was an untagged ship too. I felt so insane especially cause I had left a kudos on the fic before that, wish I could take it back.

[@semicolin8979]

okay very few things in fanfics give me pause but.....okay what? why? why would you do that?

[@justsomeguy3694]

Sorry did I hear the word child??? in a ship??? with adults??? This has so many layers of wrong

[@cornbabylaughter]

like that one manga... *shudders*

[@pinkfaerie]

​@@justsomeguy3694internet user discovers pedophilia

[@wispinwish7835]

​​@cornbabylaughter you just got usagi dropped

[@bumbabees]

i felt the "i used to always finish them, but then i developed taste" _so_ hard. when i was young i plowed through fanfics on wattpad, but now that im older ive noticed i very rarely see a lot of them through to end. if i do its because its so ridiculous i cant look away. going through my old favorites has been a learning experience because out of the probably hundreds i read, so far ive only found _four_ that i still like.

[@tinyetoile5503]

Yeah, but sometimes the pairing/fandom/premise will be rare enough that I'll sigh, swallow my tastebuds and stick my hand in the garbage can to dig around for scraps 😅

[@ieatalgae]

​@@tinyetoile5503So true 😢

[@spectreamaris1455]

Eep yeah, definitely felt that. I'm in the process of vacating my work from Wattpad itself onto a different platform because the content is just so... well, it's a starting ground for early-teen writers, I guess is the nice way of putting it.

[@Milkythefawn]

@@spectreamaris1455 To be honest, I don’t think ao3 is that much better than wattpad Both are full of badly written fanfics. Although, maybe it’s the genre and fandoms I like.. 😭

[@mammoneymelon]

​@@tinyetoile5503 too real, too real

[@yedekheap3169]

Y/n: **Mastered every martial art** Also y/n: "Bakubabe let me go, my arm hurts!😥"

[@fart63]

Ewwwww 😭😭

[@elliechuanimates]

LITERALLY

[@perpetualsick]

crying. i genuinely like my hero academia fanfics a lot, but some authors love to portray either an actual character (Midoriya, for example) or an OC as a weak uwu baby and it makes me want to die. they’re simply not.

[@yedekheap3169]

@@perpetualsick SAME BUT SOME OF THEM ARE SO CRINGE 💀😭

[@HopeIsADrug11037]

i'm gonna kms after reading this /j

[@rosykindbunny1313]

I was very invested in this one fancomic series until the creator took a huge hiatus and came back long after my hyperfixation ended

[@emilybrown9863]

Hate it when that happens

[@crimsonbutterfly2282]

What was the fancomic, if I may ask?

[@wer_3too]

Mood

[@paen8547]

This happened to me, but I was the author lol. I just can't hold a hyperfixation for more than a month

[@rosykindbunny1313]

@@crimsonbutterfly2282 It's a Steven Universe White Diamond AU. I still think it's very well done, but I'm not interested anymore.

[@PillowWantsSleep]

One time I was reading a fic and one of the characters called the other their "little bagpipe" and I've never been the same since. Needless to say, I immediately clicked off, turned off my phone and stared at my wall rethinking my life choices for at least 30 minutes.

[@Orchidlettux]

Nooo 😭

[@PillowWantsSleep]

@@Orchidlettux please note that they were about to do the deed

[@charleston1789]

🤣 my gosh I needed a laugh like this today

[@PillowWantsSleep]

@@charleston1789 glad I could provide!!

[@gabrielle-gamingandmore637]

​@@PillowWantsSleep SOBBING WHAT😭😭

[@_sickbug]

Things that will make me stop reading a fic: -No/little punctuation -Consistent spelling errors -Characters are much more horny all the time than they would ever be in any universe -People hate on/mischaracterize the woman characters (any chatacter really, but women commonly) -Change canon for their story with no warning

[@anusaukko6792]

Why would you read a story if it one to one follows canon? I can't personally grasp this, the reason I read fanfics is because they're different from canon and usually do something unique or unexpected in the story.

[@_sickbug]

@@anusaukko6792 *"with no warning"*

[@Milkythefawn]

In a lot of xreader and BL romance fics, they’ll make a woman that one of the characters is often shipped with the villain Like in bnha fanfics, anytime Todoroki is in a romance fic, I ALWAYS see people mischaracterising Momo, and making her some sort of rival.

[@_sickbug]

@@Milkythefawn fr like just cuz you have an obsessive gay guy fetish doesn't mean all the women must be evil yaoi_luvr44747858 !!

[@cinderelenn]

​@@MilkythefawnYEAH! just like in all bakudeku fics uraraka is the most terrible person on earth

[@humanperson2480]

*slight TW: abusive relationship* I was reading this super cool Evil AU where the main character seemingly has to escape a relationship that turned abusive. The depictions of gaslighting, trauma responses, and emotional abuse (not just physical) was actually really well done and it seemed like the author had done a decent amount of research into it with how accurately they were depicted. Anyway It was 50k words+ and I was easily a third into it before I realized that all of that was totally unintentional and it was just a SUPER unhealthy depiction of what was meant to be an “endearing” couple.

[@no64256]

How the fuck does that even happen

[@youreasimp5232]

Yeesh that sucks. The fact that you thought they did research on abusive relationships too😭😭. What type of fic was it if you dont mind me asking? OC or fandom?

[@ruendheart]

@@youreasimp5232 fandom- if it was oc it would be an original

[@laayiv9449]

As a masochist, I understand wanting to be the victim in an abusive relationship, so maybe it's that.

[@Ghost-ql6tn]

​@@laayiv9449 please unspeak.

[@Halloweenish]

I was reading a hurt/comfort fic, and like three out of ten chapters in I realized that there was absolutely no comfort in this. Like, I’d get if they were saving to until the end, but the way they were treating the main character in the first chunk was just so depressingly awful that I couldn’t force myself to go through it any more.

[@najpotenicewolf934]

Yeah, I also don't like it when it drags too long. It just gets depressing and uncomfortable. Yeah, the character must be hurt in Hurt/Comfort, but most people don't exactly take much enjoyment from just the Hurt part. The author really needs to know how to retain a good balance.

[@tinyblueunicorn7807]

The switch can feel very abrupt too if it's not done right, same goes for any stories if they don't work to get there. I usually don't like when it leaves it right until the very end for a "happy ending", especially if the first 90% just feels like unnecessary torture/pity porn.

[@fluffystuff500]

Yeah I read hurt/comfort mainly for the comfort part so that would bug me a lot, too. If I wanted just hurt I would have looked for angst.

[@therustynickle4772]

Ive come across so many of those that i have forced myself to try and read through JUST TO SEE if there even was any comfort to the point its emotionally drained me lmao. Like dude.. just give me the comfort.;-;

[@amaryllis543]

Yes they have to get the balance right. Like a character will spend the whole fic horribly insecure, thinking their friends and family hate them and at the end they're like "no we love you :D" and that's supposed to be the comfort? Like that's not going to change their mind that quickly and even if it did fix everything we need to spend time with the comfort so it sets in for the reader as well. Otherwise I'm still sad

[@lizzzylis]

I absolutely HATE when i'm reading a fanfic were the main ship are two guys but they make one of them be super masculine and an alpha bad boy and make the other dude a babygirl. they're two guys. don't make him wear skirts and lipgloss 'cause his a bottom. can't he just be a guy, like the other dude? what the hell

[@michellio5962]

I get your point, but I don't think it's a problem on itself. Some couples are like that in real life you know? The problem is when people take these stereotypes with the "straight normative" perspective that even some queer folks fall into.

[@AntonioDejesus-uy1tu]

Personally i don't think it's a problem for one of the guys to wear "feminine" stuff because clothing and make-up is a form to express yourself and as the person mentioned up here, some gay couples are like that. The problem is when people do not treat it as a form to express yourself, but to force heteronormative beliefs in gay relationships. I get what you're trying to say. I enjoy reading gay stories where none of the guys is OBVIOUSLY treated as "the girl in the relationship" by it's creator and/or fans. and that both guys have feelings and actual personalities that aren't BL stereotypes.

[@yeeyeemfs7055]

IVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS. LIKE THANK YOU. There ARE men out there that are more feminine and wear feminine clothing/makeup and usually act more feminine. That's all fine and dandy, but really? Where are my masculine alpha macho man bottoms? Where are my switch couples? Where are my princess tops?

[@nara9404]

Ikr? Like why do they gotta look so different? They are both guys. On another note I was reading a bl manhwa today and my sister thought the bottom looked like a top

[@user-pn8kf2sg1l]

I suggest you check out ‘heirs game’ it’s a WEBTOON tho. While one of the characters is decidedly more ‘feminine’ (flowery clothes, emotional, writes romantic letters and spends HOURS getting dressed) he is still a man. He is like this because it’s him, not because he’s a male self insert for a straight female reader. (I’m looking at you fujoshis) And his love interest is more ‘macho’ in the way that he is more of a fighter, he doesn’t care about his looks and he doesn’t enjoy people. But they love eachother not because of stereotypes but because the other character is someone they would do anything for. And also the author confirmed they’re both switches so 😼 radical.

[@NukkuiskoHyvinVaiPois]

I've been asked by an author to stop reading too. I'd bookmarked a fic on my kink account because I had a feeling it might become kinky. The author wen't ballistic, first saying in the notes "the kinky person reading this, delete your bookmark immediately". I was shocked, I had to check the other bookmarkers to see who they ment. The next chapter they said they'd "literally never been this angry in my entire life", at which point I was kinda insulted. To have such an easy life that someone enjoying your story is the worst thing to ever happen to you. I never left a comment, I simply enjoyed their story and wanted to see more not caring if it becomes kinky. Who obsessively checks the people who bookmark them and demands only some people get to like what they write anyway?

[@slytherinlady3907]

not trying to pick sides but maybe they’re a kid?

[@El-de6nj]

i mean thats kinda valid of the writer ngl.

[@nibblesnarfer]

Why the hell they wrote the fict for public to read then? Weird ass shit.

[@bogwife7942]

why have so many people in fandom gotten so weirdly entitled

[@schleepy6362]

Whats bookmarking do? I don't have an account so I may not be understanding why the writer got so mad, but it SOUNDS pretty friggin unreasonable for that person to publicly and rudely call you out like that. Like they can at LEAST be mature about it

[@S.a.m_S.a.m]

I always drop a fanfiction when there's an obvious author self-insert in it

[@emilybrown9863]

There was this one short fic someone had requested of an author for a scenario for a classic y/n and instead they just put their own oc (which was pretty much a self insert)🙄really took me out of it and left me very disappointed

[@S.a.m_S.a.m]

@@emilybrown9863 Lmao, that's sad for the requester ! That also reminds me of when peoples write yn fanfics but characterize them so much it's just an OC at the end

[@laylam9997]

This is why I am immediately wary of fics/books where the MC loves reading or is an author, usually they’re a full-on self-insert.

[@anugget3932]

I had found 2 fanfictions with both main characters had the same name (and the fics had the same premise) so I looked at the author and both had the same author and the authors username had the main characters name, needless to say I dropped those really quickly

[@wrightcember]

@@emilybrown9863 its not even that hard to write a y/n fic! if you need to, use a name while writing, but jfc go back and switch it out before posting…

[@bethaniahellsing2535]

If I was reading a fic and it said bountiful bodadciousness, I'd keep reading honestly cause that's hilarious 😂

[@mop2420]

Same, I can overlook the purple prose if it means finding gems like that.

[@bluefairy7653]

honestly me too, that's comedy gold my immortal, type shit

[@Abdega]

I’d be wondering if I found Jack Black’s account 😂

[@theyluvtwoset.13]

That's too funny~

[@user-wh5fj6pj6m]

@@bluefairy7653😭😭😭not my immortal😭😭😭😭

[@caileyrookids]

I had a friend who was super into fanfic, but also extremely uncomfortable around dirty topics. Constantly reading fanfic, constantly messaging us shouting about how much of it turned smutty partway in lol

[@gio_giotte]

OMG I FEEL THAT. I had a massive online screaming session with my best friend when the fic I was reading got updated with smut. On one side I was a tad shocked and scared but on the other I kept going just to see my friend get into a total laughing fit at me freaking out

[@daisymay6505]

Lol then there’s me on the other hand who filters for explicit fics, I prefer them because I personally find that fics without smut are kind of boring lol

[@user-ug3eg8ql3e]

FR!I was looking for cute little "aw and they hold hands" but why turn smutty halfway through AND untagged?

[@SofieCarmine]

​@@daisymay6505 lol same

[@seal8092]

Omg- When it comes to my fan fiction I keep it explicitly to myself, even when asked I make sure to be generally family friendly.

[@wintig245]

I was(and am) reading a really weirdly written fic that I cannot read for more than 5 or 6 chapters at a time before I want to bash my head through a table. The reason I stick around? One of the characters gets pinned to walls a lot, so I have made it my civic duty to count every single time the character gets pinned. A "wall count", if you will. I think I'm on chapter 12 or 13, and the wall count is at 9? I don't remember. There's 60-something chapters though. I'm honestly excited to keep going, even if the fic is absolute garbage.

[@tobycrow]

Every so often you find a fic that hits like seeing a trainwreck right in front of you. It's just so horrible and surprising that you just can't look away

[@wintig245]

OMG THE WALL COUNT FIC 😭

[@flickcentergaming680]

PLEASE come back and give us the final tally when you finish it.

[@awooga4891]

Is there any update? I'm very curious.

[@wintig245]

@@awooga4891 I lost the fic after switching to AO3 but I check Wattpad occasionally so if I find it again I promise I'll give the most recent tally I can find

[@epicgamer6678]

Tagging two ships, tagging unrequited love, and not saying which is unrequited.

[@midnight_blue_moon]

I legit don't even start those. I am not about to waste 20 minutes of my time only to find out my ship is the one that's unrequited.

[@wer_3too]

Once I read a 50 chapter fic, FIFTY CHAPTERS, just to finally get to the confession. Character 1: blablabla ily Character 2: im sorry… FIFTY FUCKING CHAPTERS. EACH ONE 1000+ WORDS. im gonna cry just remembering that

[@BooTheEater]

​@@wer_3too excuse me, FIFTY CHAPTERS?!!? DAMNN the author hella evil, and it was untagged too? (Im assuming it is because you didnt know)They're going straight to super hell for that one, so sorry for u 🙏🙏

[@whosminou]

@@wer_3too OMD SAME. i read a texting fanfic (piece of writing with OCs? idk) and it legit took 50 chapters for me to get a confession + untagged main character death. ugh the frustration

[@freshcupofangst]

With those I think the safest bet (aside from just. Not reading the fic) would be assuming the second ship tagged is the unrequited one

[@Fnafiac]

I need an explanation as to why an author would tell someone to stop reading their stories lmao

[@Fnafiac]

Some things that turn me away in fics are super cringey moments, mentions of ships i dislike, slurs, too canon divergent to the point it’s not even the characters anymore, too much awful grammar and spelling… the list goes on.

[@wrightcember]

im constantly begging people to stop reading my fic because its this cringey, emo creepypasta mess i never bothered to finish and never will to be fair, the emo is halfway through the fic and the first half is actually kinda charming whenever i reread it…but jesus christ the rest is awful

[@IncensedAgitator]

It's either the author being edgy trying to emulate Lemony Snickett about how sad there story is or their trying to draw a line in the sand. I.E: a harry potter fanfic author telling slytherin fans that they shouldn't read the story because Slytherin house is going to be (rightfully) depicted as the evil villains and that they don't care about their sunshine flowing out the ass slytherin oc's. Also I guess the things that turn me away from fanfics is the writing of Abuse and Depression as accessories to a characters edgy personality and a means to push some idea of mysterious coolness instead of being massive detriments to their mental and emotional health. Nothing takes me out of story more then a trench coat samurai going full fed up circus lion on a group of bullies while thinking about blowing their brains out if that cutie in homeroom doesn't let them do it in the butt.

[@midnight_blue_moon]

Personally my sister and I do this since we write for the same fandoms and we always tell each other "DO NOT READ IT" but of course neither of us ever listens

[@prastarkeepers]

It’s either a) they’re doing a Lemony Snicket b) it’s something they did a long time ago and are now embarrassed by c) the reader was being overly critical in their comments to the point of abuse/bullying and the author finally put their foot down and told them to gtfo.

[@charleston1789]

Honestly, characters being OOC, and the frequent use of the terms “baby” or “babygirl” when it’s a character would never say that (especially in some of the more gritty media fics) are some of my pet peeves. Also the woobification of any character to fit the dynamic you want instead of what they’re actually like. I’m just straight up nope-ing outta there. Edit: also when no lube is used when lube would be essential. Like - no. Saliva don’t cut it. Will stop reading

[@Sei5715]

I agree with this so hard, your 2nd point especially-one of the most popular wlw ships in a fandom I was REALLY invested in (before the OG piece of media the fandom was created around went to shit) constantly made Character A into the “woman” of the sapphic relationship (if yk what I mean) when that doesn’t fit her character at all and she’s often dumbed down to a damsel in distress or made into this weak character that is uncharacteristically incompetent Granted most of the fandom outside of this ship also interprets her character wrong ☠️ this is just one of the more frustrating/OOC ways I’ve seen (though even without the dynamic A and B were often forced into, this is one of my least fav ships in any media ever so I’m definitely biased)

[@PinkJojo770]

I completely forgot about the over usage of "baby" and "babygirl" in some fics, thanks for bringing that up! I personally dislike those terms so much and it irks me to no end when characters become OOC and start calling their significant other and sometimes even their friends "baby."

[@Rainbowblob_]

Characters being OOC is something I relate to, like I really hate it when, i.e. character A has a whole movie about them not killing and stuff, but then in the fic they kill someone as revenge or something (especially if it's not tagged). But I can also understand it, being a writer myself, it's pretty hard to make a character completely in character for the whole fic, mainly if you want to have a plot point that probably wouldn't happen in canon or hasn't happened. I feel like there is a middle ground or a limit for how OOC a character can be though, just my opinion though

[@pombilhopombo6057]

I couldn't finish the true ending one of the best fics i had ever read in my life because i lost the name, and it was improperly tagged... I found it again years later, only to find out that it was left unfinished, because the author (who was only 15 at the time) DIED FROM HER HEART CONDITION 😭 She was amazing at writing, the characters were well written and seemed OOC at first, but as the story progressed, you could see all the events that shaped them into their canon personalities, and it was amazing the fic was a heavy fluff and angst slow burn, but was divided in two parts. The story started with the characters as children and followed them until adulthood, the first half was through the girls pov, and it made the reader feel very helpless and alone as she did, but the second part was told from the boys pov, where the reader got to find out all of the small good fortunes in her life were actually facilitated by him in some way, and made you realized she had been taken care of all this time. She never got to find out though, because near the end where the two stories would connect, the author was hospitalized and passed soon after.

[@AtarahDerek]

One of the best TLK fics I've ever read stops halfway through the first act because the author died of pneumonia. It was told in comic form, so waiting for each page in a chapter was just like waiting for each chapter of a text only fic. And now we'll never know what the plot actually was.

[@artforlife1802]

NOOOO 😭

[@Scribble2345]

What was the fanfic? I'm interested.

[@pombilhopombo6057]

@@Scribble2345 it was from a dating sim, amour sucré, but it was written in Brazilian Portuguese

[@REDFRLegend]

Had the same thing happen to me with a Cuphead fanfiction about The Devil and King Dice. It hurts knowing that we will never reach the true ending of it

[@queenie3443]

“What do you want, babygirl?” “I want your cummies” I noped out of that tab so fast😭

[@fart63]

WHAT??

[@Whipwinder]

“That’s what I thought you’d say. Now let me offer you this as a rebuttal: a̸̛̭̝͔̯͇̼̪̦̳̤͉̱̰̯͚̙̱̥̤̣͍̰̩̜̳͍̥̣̰̞͉͎̻̭͙̫͓͖͎͙͊̎͌͌̄̐͛͐̀͆͑̔̆̍͒́̓́̓͑̍͘͘̕͘͝ą̵̢̨̥͚̬͔̙̹͈̺̯̟̤̭̯̯̼͙̞̳̥̟͉̻̠̹͓̭͖͎̠͓͖͍̣͚̭̈́ͅȁ̶̫̰͈̥̩͎̙̘͔̪͙̯̮̒͂͗̆͛̃͝Ą̷̜̳̺͕̖͕͓͇͙̠̠͔̦͖̠̫͎̻̯͙̤͇̱͈͔͒́̽̈́͊͜ͅA̵̢̫̜̥̯̙͈͉̩̦̪̬̱̜̤̳͎̞̭̖̯͔̾̀̀͆͂̊̾̉̾̊̂̏̌̒̄̅̋̋̊̑́͗͊͆̒̽̅͂̇̚̕͜͜͝͝͝ͅȂ̸̢̨̢̧̳͚̟̝̩͖͕̳͉̣̤̘̩̘̙͚̜͈̪̥̙͔̰̣̼̮̖͙͚͓͉̗͂͊̉͐͋̍͊̈̀͛̚̕̕Ą̶̨̢̧̡̭͖̖͇̹̥̹̣̝̲̘̣̳̲̺̻̙͈͕̺̼̘̺͎͕͙̰̮̬̫͖͙̝̘̺̄͋̾̎͒̈͑͋͆͗̈́́̃̿̃̑̂̌̔̔̇̕͜͠͠͝͝͝ͅÁ̴̧̯̣̞̳͓͍̮̱͓̱̤̼̝͚͈̬̌̈̅̓̃̂̂̋̿̀̇͑̐̐̋̈̊̀̉͗̀̆̋̀̓̍́̆̃̾͑͆̔͂̓̑̃͑̾̈́̕͠͝Ȁ̴̢̛͙̬̖͉͎̖̤̱̱̻̠̞̝̘̝̪̰̠͍̺̫͍̗̱͑́̈́͑̄͌́͌͜͜ͅG̸̡̨̨̡̛̜̣̣̦͓͙̞̻̫̯̻̩͈̥̺͕̱̱̫̳͍̠͖̜̎̔̍͆͜͝G̷̭͍̥̗͙̞̬̮͇͖̙͕̲̬̝̼͔̺͠ͅG̶̭̩͎͙͚̰͓͊͛̀̿̆̀́͆̍̾̉͗̕͜͠Ḩ̶̛͓̘͈̙̐̉͒́̾͂̑̐̆͆̀͂̍͗̾̈̍̌͑͌̄̓̏̍̎̎̔̽͋̃̔͆̅͊̑̈́̊̐̈́̚͝Ḩ̶̳̭̹̠̪̪͕̺͔̮̬͚̮̟̰̞̟̳̪̳̙̻̲̼̟̥̜̫̘̄͐̒̋͌̿̽̏͊͛̅̏̇̅̆̏̽̏̈́̌̈̒̈́͆͂͂̅̾̎͗̉̔̇̓̏̉̋̉͝͝͝͝ͅH̴̛͓̙̤͛̔̇͆̒̽̒͐̈́̂͛̓́̐̂̀̀͋͑͘͝͝H̵̡̡̟͙̣͓̠͖̮̯̞̘͈̖̤̗͈͓̖̱͖̳̱͙̜̦̞̜͚̒̍̇̾̈͆͛̽̂̐̇̇͗̀̀̑̿͆͂͆̈́̈́́̓̏͌̎̄̕̚̚͜͜͝ͅͅḨ̸̢̢̞̹͖̫̹̣͍͚̝͙͈̗̭̩̲͎̦̫͓͔͖̹̬̪͔͓̲̳̗͕̞̯̮̠̪̝̼̲̰̝̆̓ͅḨ̴̨̧̡̢͖̣͇͓̣͙̖͚̥͈̘̜̥̰̰̳͉̯̝͎̤̠̼͇̰̪̟͔͚̪̪̱̞̣͖̐̓́̋͜͜ͅͅ”

[@Sei5715]

You have to be lying 😭😭😭 that is not real dialogue that is not real dialogue that is not real dialogue that is not

[@clyde-or-monty]

IM WHERIZNGN WHAT

[@AngelDustMyBel0ved]

WHAT THE FUCJ😭😭

[@cookiesandmilkpanda]

I was reading one and it was describing you know what as "his little friend" THAT HAD ME ROLLING 😭😭😭

[@blehsomeguy]

aw hell no. i once had to read the words "babymaker" and "daddys creamer" and "his disco stick" and i dont think ill ever be the same again. fanfic writers pls just say dick im begging u 😭

[@Zai_is_bbg]

Say hello to my little friend>:) Ok but imagine he reaches into his pants, you think you two are gonna have smegzy time, and he pulls out a fucking shotgun

[@dusterfreak]

AINTNOWAY BAHAHAHAHA PLEASE-

[@piedpiper814]

sAy hElLo tO mY LiTtLe fRiEnD

[@music_lover3641]

OH YEAH i've seen so many that are like 'his little friend' or '[insert character name] junior' it's just too funny 😭😭

[@bari3108]

Not so long ago I found a fic with a really interesting premise (the main character has to kill her lover - after that she becomes depressed, suicidal, develops substance use issues, etc., but through a higher power, her lover is returned back to her). I was looking forward to the angst, hurt/comfort, and the topics of mental health and grief, but around 3 chapters in it abruptly turned into a really, really badly written BDSM.

[@katoxyl]

NOOOOOOOOOO COME ON

[@bystandrr]

When a good fic dives into the authors niche fetishes suddenly and inexplicably. I was reading a really good HP fic and it suddenly dove into incest and pedophilia at the last chapter, totally out of character. Huge red flag.

[@camo2156]

That's not a niche fetish that's just illegal

[@Ssjvaca]

@@camo2156 it could be both

[@jasperjazzie]

yeah, it's weird. and sometimes i'll be reading something for a specific niche fetish and get a completely different niche fetish out of nowhere, and if you point it out i've seen people like "you came here for this thing, so why would you be bothered by that thing?" but like, it doesn't matter, i clicked to see this thing and not that thing, so why not just tag that thing as well, it's so easy to do

[@feliciabaxter6423]

that happened in a spider verse fic i read

[@yuricecconi561]

ngl it took me a second to realize you weren't talking about H.P. Lovecraft, where I could see that happening tbh.

[@NotALavaLamp]

The one thing that made me stop reading is they killed off the main love interest in a fic out of nowhere Keep in mind it was an X reader fic

[@SAMuraiiExe]

LMAO So lemme get this straight The author... killed you? That's wild man 😂

[@tinyblueunicorn7807]

That would make sense if it was right at the start and served as their motivation, but yeah otherwise it's pretty off-putting and senseless. The funniest to me is when they suddenly assassinate a character (sometimes both metaphorically and literally) and it's clear they suddenly had beef with whoever it was based on. We never did get to the bottom of that My Immortal friend/editor fallout lol.

[@breawycker]

You've heard of death of the author. Get ready for death of the reader

[@SearaChar]

So did the reader insert die or the character they were being shipped with?

[@NotALavaLamp]

@@SearaChar character they are being shipped with

[@tollie_1268]

one started calling the other “kitten” and i took psychic damage

[@slytherinlady3907]

one of my favorite characters ever calls people “kitten” canonically i think of her each time this kind of thing is brought up

[@wer_3too]

This only works if it’s in a “please god never call me that again” “ok [nickname]” way

[@darkacadpresenceinblood]

*cough cough Diego Armando*

[@aromanticfranziskavonkarma]

@@darkacadpresenceinblood I also thought of him, he's the only character who gets a kitten pass from me in fics honestly

[@-littlesquare-1987]

I saw a fanfiction before and it was a good fanfiction until I saw a chapter was called 'You are my kitten *character name* X Reader'

[@jim-bob3093]

Nothing puts me off when you can really start to feel or outright hear the authors opinions being parroted by chacacters

[@desirefabela6421]

Bruh, that annoys me too, I saw this one MHA fanfic, it was literally just the mc complaining about Mineta every time she got and the story wasn't even about Mineta, like hate him on your own time stop dragging it into a fanfic😭

[@jim-bob3093]

@desirefabela6421 aye, like. Im 100% cool with authors writing a bitching meta essay and just posting that. Get it putta your system. But please quit projecting. The worse part, when i have in my comment/revew asked if they can add a ooc tag. Oh boy, do they lose it at me

[@desirefabela6421]

@@jim-bob3093 😭

[@honeybun8823]

Honestly same, some fanfics I read I can just FEEL when the author doesn’t like this one character and they ignore any of their complexities and just write them as scum of the earth

[@smal5504]

​@@honeybun8823LEAFY FROM BFB SUFFERS FROM THIS SO MUCHH 😭😭

[@Mockingjay975]

Omg I feel the overuse of epithets one, one time I read a fic that basically refused to use one characters name. They kept saying stuff like “the blonde boy”, and worst of all…. You’re not ready for this “tHe wOrRiEd mAlE”

[@xstar4698]

HELP, "THE WORRIED MALE"????

[@user-pn8kf2sg1l]

I wasn’t ready oh gods

[@tentaclesmod]

I stopped reading a fic because somehow the main character was somehow treated both constantly like dirt and like the most precious thing in the world, and both things felt undeserved. Everyone in the fic either hated his guts or loved him for little reason. It was incomprehensible.

[@-AccountVisible]

Ah yes.. the Gary sue

[@gh0st1e7]

I am glad to know I am not the only that has this pet peeves

[@xo.taylormay]

sounds like harry potter ngl

[@curlyfordoge4366]

When I was in my BNHA phase years ago, I read and dropped SO many fics where Midoriya was this exact thing. A pathetic helpless little mew mew who everyone in the world was a hairs-breadth away from shoving in front of a train EXCEPT for the random characters chosen to be his New Dad(s)/New Mom who were the only non maniacally evil people in the world.

[@SingingSealRiana]

I love critical ff where the writer leans into tendencies that where in the original, like Harry Potter should be so much more fucked up with how he was raised, albus did so many questionable things..... But you do not need to make everyone cartoonischly evil for that!!!!

[@animecat33]

Once read a fanfiction about an OC and a male character who was in his 30's, so i assumed the oc was close in age because otherwise surely the author would have said something about it, but it wasn't until the she got pregnant, that the writter decided to reveal the OC was 16. Bro, i've never closed the tab faster in my life, what the fuck?

[@lovesick_loser]

OMG i had a similar moment of the opposite. I was reading a cute first love-type fic of a character whos canonically in their early-mid teens x reader, so i was expecting the reader to logically also be around that age, but no, lo and behold, the reader was well into their adult years (around 30-40). i have never felt more guilt in my entire life... (the author didn't even tag it with large age gap or anything 😭)

[@animecat33]

@@lovesick_loser They can't keep getting away with this!

[@pandapower3076]

This usually happens with self insert x ships. Odds are a 16 year old was the author.

[@honeybun8823]

@@pandapower3076yea, OCs, especially ones that end up with a main character, are usually self inserts

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

​@@honeybun8823Me self insert just teaches rats algebra...

[@PinkJojo770]

I think there's a lot of reasons out there why people will stop reading a fic. Personally I absolutely LOATHE songfics with a burning passion of a thousand suns. I have no time nor patience to read out the lyrics of Wonderwall just because the writer thought it was a relatable song for their OC's inner angst.

[@BingQilin]

when you find a songfic in the wild and it's NOT related to Glee

[@iwakeupandboomimarat]

omg or when half the fic is lyrics

[@PinkJojo770]

@@BingQilin Lol! You would be surprised by how many songfics there are that have absolutely nothing to do with Glee. =P

[@PinkJojo770]

@@iwakeupandboomimarat Yes! I mean, I could maybe handle one miniscule paragraph of lyrics but if the entire fic is lyrics then I wouldn't necessarily say that you even wrote a story.

[@thoopsy]

Yeah songfics are like... What if I don't know the song? Am I taking a poetry break? Did you account for about how long it'll take me to read the lines between the lyrics you picked out??? How many times would I need to loop the song in the BG to get through this?????? Even if this was an experience I wanted, the logistics seem messy. Just tell me at the beginning that the fic is inspired by a song and if I like the fic I'll check it out.

[@OsmSkylandersCheats]

I once read a Fic where the author tried to use “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” in a serious context. They didn’t even use the term “gatekeep” correctly

[@blehsomeguy]

oof i cant imagine anyone saying that shit with straight face 💀

[@Zai_is_bbg]

​@@blehsomeguy McDonalds Kaeya!

[@angelodc1652]

I only understood the concept of gaslighting about a month or two ago!

[@Zai_is_bbg]

@@angelodc1652 no you didn't

[@Enya_artist]

@@Zai_is_bbg LMAO

[@K1nk4j0u]

I actually read the entire fic, but there was a part where one of the main characters went, "This smells funny, what is it?" After they drank from a thermos. And I kid you not, the other main character went, "My breast milk!" 💀💀💀

[@avacadotoast5571]

What???? Why???

[@K1nk4j0u]

@AvacadoToast I DONT KNOW. One of the characters were prison- it was an alternate universe fic, but... IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE. She even tried to offer it to someone else before the other one, and they refused. Thank god.

[@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115]

I need to know what fandom is this from

[@K1nk4j0u]

@@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115 Only one Arcane League of Legends fic

[@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115]

@@K1nk4j0u It can't be... just start reading arcane/lol fanfiction, now how am I going to be able to relax knowing that this is out there

[@RelicQuadrangle]

Speaking of fanfics I can't find hardly any platonic Johnny and Gyro. I want horse riding buddies. Not riding buddies.

[@lucifershome]

worst feeling is when you write a really good and well thought out fic and upload it and it gets like 0 traction within the fandom just because it isn't smut-heavy

[@iibnbiibn]

literally 🫠 the fics i’m proudest of are short, angstier fillers or codas, but they get like 70 kudos MAX. put in perspective, a smuttier oneshot i wrote that i dont really care about has over 900 kudos. it sucks

[@lieeeleeee]

Don’t write fics for kudos! I write angst oneshots and whump mainly and don’t get a lot of traction on those, my most popular fic is pre slash and found family. Because while it’s disheartening you’ll never be happy with your work if you expect it to get lots of traction. Write for yourself and your online friends and mutuals. Also a lot less people are looking specifically for smut than you may think, porn without plot doesn’t get much traction either

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

The one article I wrote on AO3 was about zoophilia laws in the universe and it blew up. Everything else? Almost nothing.

[@stegydraws]

Mine is always when someone tags them as friends, but makes them a couple in the fic. Im searching for platonic *or* romantic. Don't tag them as the wrong one or, worse, both. Then ships show up when I'm searching for a platonic relationship. It's just annoying.

[@midnight_blue_moon]

YES it bothers me so much that people can't figure out the difference between the platonic and romantic ship tags. I don't want to get to the end of a fic thinking my ship was gonna get together only to find out that they both end up with other people and they were only ever friends.

[@deen7530]

It gets extra confusing when it's friends to lovers.

[@stegydraws]

@Deen My go-to rule is, if they end up being a couple, tag them as a couple.

[@scootermcpeanuts6699]

And this is why I exclusively search with the “Gen” tag. (Unless I’m looking for a fun “so bad it’s good” read.)

[@Alisonsgachaverse]

When I search for ships I find platonic 😭

[@Tabbycat2701]

That one about the epithets is so real. I can't stand it when they constantly call them by their hair colours. "The brunette" "the blonde" I am begging you to just write their names

[@-littlesquare-1987]

fr, I wrote a fanfiction once and only used those briefly because I just wanted to be descriptive but I didn't use it EVERY TIME THE CHARACTER IS MENTIONED.

[@randomgoats]

even worse is when they don't have brown hair but the author still uses "ette"; "the ravenette", "the greenette" - like that's not even a proper word it's so annoying

[@abiean222]

things like that only work when the pov character doesn't know the other character's name or the author is writing a scene where it is a mystery on who the characters are supposed to be.

[@fart63]

Or when it’s stupid shit like “the taller one” “the green eyed one” “the lankier one” bitch I don’t remember what they look like, now I’m confused as to who is speaking.

[@pcenero]

Not really epithets just general name weirdness, but there was this one fic I read where every character refers to the POV character by their last name while the narrative calls them by their first name. I legitimately thought they were two different characters.

[@artfuldodgerrr]

Ok, I love incorrect quotes. In case you don't know, they're stuff like this: Person A: I wouldn't do that, it's against my moral compass. Person B: Your moral compass is a goddamn roulette wheel. You basically put in any character from any fandom that would fit that quote, and I just can't get enough of them. I also enjoy reading actual fanfics from tine to time. But, for the love of Christ, do not format the dialogue like an incorrect quote. Speech marks aren't that hard to use. I would rather burn my favourite book rather than reading dialogue that's like: Person A: How are you? Person B: Not bad, thanks. Person A: That's good. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

[@hello_ree]

What if you're writing in script format?

[@artfuldodgerrr]

@hello_ree Script format is fine, just don't combine it with traditional story writing.

[@klickonthat5244]

Yeah, that shit drives me up the wall.

[@NotSoArrogant_Asshole]

I totally used to do that💀 I don't know wtf was wrong with me lmao

[@heliotikis]

Unless it’s used to show that the characters are texting or something, it shouldn’t be mixed with regular writing

[@c.m.2732]

A few notable ones: The author decided to turn one of the black-coded male characters into a really masculine, sassy black woman stereotype. The author decided to give robots weird animal instincts and broke immersion. The author made the focal characters completely forget who they were, to the point they probably should've just used OCs instead. I drifted to another fandom interest halfway through reading (this is the one that happens most of the time).

[@manbreedr]

One of my biggest pet peeves in mlm fics are the female characters. They’re always either the girl who wants a gbf, or the sl*tty/crazy ex-gf At least write them the right way ❤

[@slytherinlady3907]

i read the exact opposite once to the point where it was comical, there was this fic i read where character a liked character b, character b was married to this girl and they were in a happy relationship, so character a met up with the girl, told her about his crush on her husband, and the next morning SHE HAD DIVORCE PAPERS READY. 100% serious writing apparently.

[@fart63]

@@slytherinlady3907 she was waiting for that 💀💀

[@slytherinlady3907]

@@fart63 NAHHHH

[@tigertempertantrum6573]

@@slytherinlady3907 She just needed a reason. Whether it was the toilet seat lid being left up or another girl wanting him, she had those divorce papers at the ready to be unleashed. XD

[@queertearss]

@@tigertempertantrum6573 “told her about _his_ crush on her husband” she didn’t care what their gender was, as long as someone took him, lmao

[@FloatyyBrain]

It promised no smut, just fluffy romance you know? Just wholesome crushes and awkward teens. There was smut. I was lied to. Immediately left.

[@lulub517]

Ugh I hate that, especially as an asexual person who prefers to skip the smut. I’ve only ever read smut once, but that was because it was out of curiosity to how far the author would go into some very horrific descriptions of “birth” of usually a male character too and oh my god it was a full on graphic horror story for me. Instant regret. That’s a huge dick move to say “no smut” and then add smut in there. At least people usually warn you before it reaches the smut chapter and you can skip it at your own turn, but wow I cannot imagine the disgust of reading about some cute fluff and then suddenly smut.

[@amanekaze]

​@@lulub517 I'm usually like to do smut writing but I do give my fair warnings if anyone is going to reach that far. I would sometimes say: "skip to a new chapter or leave this one shot", just like that, I'm not dealing with conflicts here and there lol

[@speaker97]

For me, the biggest thing is OOC sexual themes. I read a lot of Kim Possible fic, and the amount of times that people over sexauly Kim through Ron's eyes make my skin crawl. Like, Ron is a dude yes, but no way is he constantly think bout Kim and her body. Like did you even see the movie? One of the first things he does when talking with Eric was stopping Eric makes a pretty gross joke bout Kim. And I qoute from So The Drama: "Hey, you know what? Let's not talk about her that way ever again. Okay? K." Oh and bad grammar. That turns me off real quick.

[@ssjpanda8417]

I remember reading one of the best fics. Everything about it was perfect. But it was so good, so visceral and my brain connected to it so well, that it forced a mental breakdown out of me. I forgot about it and recently re-read it. Fell in love again only to freak out again.

[@kaplingnag7267]

omg whats the name?

[@Laura-vs6fs]

Might I ask why and how did you have a mental breakdown from it? Sorry, if I am being insensitive, I am just shocked and intrigued at the same time

[@ArcstoneBionicle]

If I ever give up on a fic, it's typically because the author came up with an interesting premise that I expected to be able to keep me invested in spite of other bullshit like grammar errors or purple prose. It rarely is. However, I also recall dropping a story because a normally stoic, straight-laced character who always uses impeccable grammar entered a conversation with the word "Yo."

[@avacadotoast5571]

"Yo" I am in tears 😭

[@wer_3too]

“Yo” 😔😔😔😔😭😭😭😭😭

[@BooTheEater]

Well maybe they wanted to try being hip and trendy with the fellow teens, dont judge them! xD

[@whosminou]

so disappointing

[@francescapatti2934]

I just imagine like Otto Hightower walking in like "yo your Grace, we must carefully consider the succession"

[@jessgardner7799]

It drives me crazy when you read a fic where the female protagonist is abducted by the male love interest for whatever reason (perhaps he is a Viking raider who stole a village girl or a supernatural creature who believes this human female is his mate) and you naturally expect this to be a slowly developed relationship - because the protagonist is afraid of the love interest and has no idea what he may do to her. However, within two chapters this kidnapped woman will become aroused by her hunky captor when he takes off his shirt and forget the life-and-death situation she may be in, even becoming jealous of the other women around him.

[@clarehidalgo]

I've seen that in plenty of published fiction as well

[@fart63]

Any work of fiction that uses the word “mate” I will immediately drop lmao. I don’t even bother clicking on ones with it in the description

[@fatimazafar8907]

@@fart63 OHMYGOD YEAH it's so funny because I love those sort creature AU mythology AU stuff but LORDDDD knows when I read mate I'm OUT

[@bluefairy7653]

THIS!!! Or when there is a mention of the male love interest being violent and aggressive and this is clearly trying to show us that he is this attractive, masculine force of nature. Blegh. I recently had to put down a Bridgerton novel with Benedict because he saved the female lead from rape (red flag in a romance novel imo) and that was a plot device for her to find him hunky and sexy and aggressive and white-knighty. I really did not like that.

[@IATEALLTHECHEESE]

​@@bluefairy7653 yeah lmao. I don't mind it in sexual context but other than that its offputting

[@tallulahmoon6943]

i want to make "it's tuesday, think i'll be evil now" into a t-shirt and only ever wear it on wednesdays

[@Profishency]

I was so excited to find a particularly long fic about one of my favorite characters not having a great time. Angst and 90ish well-written chapters?! Sign me up! It was a great build up of this character getting tools and preparing to escape his captors. He played his cards right, got influence with the right people, it was all very tense. Around the halfway point, there was a huge fight with a lot of action. I’m talking action spanning multiple chapters. And the character was making their escape! It was so hype! I thought he would escape at the halfway and the rest would be dealing with the aftermath, but nope! One wrong move that he had no control over and he was recaptured by the same people, basically dragged back to square one. I quit at that point.

[@Theawesomeninja_XD]

Honestly, I would too

[@flameshock1013]

That "Last update: Nov 5, 2016" quote hit me hard. There have been too many times in which I've read a fanfic that I was really invested in and hoped to see more of only for the stories to either end up discontinued or on permanent hiatus. It's happened so much, that it has started to infuriate me a little when someone makes a great story and then never continues it. I guess I understand why some authors no longer have the motivation to continue their stories or writing hobbies, but it's still upsetting to never get a conclusion.

[@aaliyaramanathan5362]

I literally sort for complete fics for this reason,,,, actually cannot have a story without guaranteed closure

[@saphirestorm7952]

I had this problem but with 2020, the author rarely ever updates and it often takes years. I just wanted to read it because "Woah, Diabolik Lovers fanfic that apparently has Kino? Those are rare, lemme read this-" and then he wasn't there and it stopped after a horrifying moment. I didn't even like it much, it made me so uncomfy all the horrors and trauma that Yui had to deal with in it, but yet I kept reading for a point where she finally is saved from that Hell, but it never happened because it wasn't anywhere near finished-

[@rzephh]

Exactly why I don’t read fanfics that haven’t been updated recently if they aren’t finished😢

[@Professor_Brie]

The best fics are the ones that never finish 😩

[@perpetualsick]

I’m okay with incomplete or abandoned ones if I go in knowing they’re that way. Otherwise it just makes me really upset 😭

[@jesstar1998]

As a sonic fan, it is so hard to find a decent fanfic, especially one without any fetishes or overtly sexual undertones.

[@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115]

Any recs?

[@jesstar1998]

@@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115 I can only recommend one based on how cringe it was. Internet Historian did a video on one called sonic high school. It's the only one I can tolerate just because he makes it funny, dispite it's sexual innuendos and blatant racism.

[@rockinrootbeer1795]

​@Supermega hiper Chaos Barren by but_why_not on Archive of Our Own is a gen fic I recommend. It's completed with about 55k words. The story is about Modern!Sonic, Classic!Sonic, Boom!Sonic, and Movie!Sonic meeting each other after some dimensional hopping shenanigans and totally bro-ing it out. But, it's not just a "slice of life" type fic. There's mystery, intrigue, and some angst. The author also has an absolute blast with making up their own world building for the Boom universe that's just * *chef's kiss* * Because of this, the story focuses mainly on Boom!Sonic. The only downside is that there's no sequel. Hopefully, the author does something else with this plot line, but it's almost been 3 years since the 1st story's been completed, so I doubt it.

[@irishuisman1450]

If you'd like some recs, my three favorite Sonic fics are - The Lost Prince by LeDiz (a games x Underground au, _really_ well-written, but it is unfinished and updates are pretty slow) - Sonic Glitch Rift by Rontufox (set in the classic timeline, a lot of things that are usually just game mechanics to us are real in-universe (such as the inclusion of beta stages), and something goes wrong that causes the world to start glitching) - Sonic Leashed by AnImaginaryColor (first part of a 3-part series, an au that basically switches the roles of the Gaias in Unleashed, with Light Gaia being the antagonist and Dark Gaia getting amnesia and helping Sonic as a smaller version of itself) I love all 3 of these so much and all of them are really well-written :D

[@overusedusername5442]

@@Fan_del_Yaoi_de_viejos115 I'm not exactly a sonic fan anymore, but one author I always really enjoyed reading from is gayemeralds on AO3. I love their takes on all the characters. Also if you're looking for some cute brotherly fluff between Sonic and Tails then the author Chaoxfix makes some really good content.

[@mastermindmokie7401]

Listen I like funny characterizations that the fandom gives characters as a funny joke. Like “haha he’s so babygirl or male wife” but when the character is written like to to an extreme (in an unironic way) that they are no longer their character, I die a little inside. Holds true for other characterizations like the “stoic character” and they make them into the coldest bitch that couldn’t care less about anything or anyone.

[@mywwo]

they messed up ralsei and basil with this

[@NoxAtlas]

I started reading a quite wholesome fanfiction which was about a boy discovering that he's gay, is in love with his best friend, has to deal with homophobia and learns to accept himself the way he was. I thought "wow, this is handled pretty well" and ended up regretting that thought immediately in the next chapter, when the 13 year old boy ended up getting groomed by his best friend's older brother and the best friend getting assaulted by the teacher out of nowhere. It was written in such graphic detail and portrayed as something erotic. Good lord, I immediately dropped that fanfic like a hot potato and deleted my browser history

[@whowhy7554]

Bro I hate those types of things and that’s what made me stop leaving kudos to fics I haven’t finished because some shit like that can happen

[@KSPKIki-]

I have a couple 1) Xreaders that aren’t actual x readers. I had an author describe what the character looked looked like from skin to the color of the eyes. They were like “well it’s hard to write an x reader story” when they could’ve just made an OC. 2) It’s a small one that I can ignore a couple time before it’s annoying. Usage of Japanese words while everything else is said in English. Honorifics and the names of culturally specific things I can ignore but saying “Gomenazai my love” is where I draw the line. 3) Repetition of plot lines. We’ve been here before, get a little more creative. 4) Incorrect AAVE or slang on ANY character.

[@jacobfrying]

As a x reader writer, I only imagine the reader as like a grey person with no description at all from hair lenght,color of the eyes, lips, etc. I am in a small fandom and is so hard to write when they are not much content of my fav characters

[@itoo4884]

Number 1 is definitely a pet peeve of mine

[@KSPKIki-]

Writing xreaders is not easy and I’m grateful for anyone that can. However if you already have an idea for who you want the story to focus on, like what they look like, you should just do an OC. I have no problems with minor descriptions of height or nail length but skin, hair, and eyes is where I draw the line. Leaves no room for the imagination.

[@saphirestorm7952]

2 and 4 depend for me, as 2 there's some words that don't exist in English and the language might be the best way to do it (aishiteru, for example), and 4 is acceptable if it's perfectly in character

[@magicalmercy]

I’ve seen 1 too many times. Like, there was one story I came across that was tagged as a reader insert, but it was just objectively not. The character had a name, a clear description, and the story wasn’t even in 2nd person??? It was just straight up a 3rd person OC insert story. Seriously, if it’s not a reader insert, then don’t pretend it is.

[@33pandagamer]

There was this one fanfiction I had read, where they had the main characters sing Disney Princess songs, in full, while having them perform the same actions that the Disney Princess did while singing that song. It felt like I was reading a novelization of the scene from the movie only with the names, and sometimes the pronouns swapped. The weirdest part was that A) the songs had no plot reasons for being there, B) this fan fiction wasn't even a Disney Princess fan fiction, and C) the events prior to and after the song, didn't even lead up to or conclude the song. This one time one of the male MCs went from the beach to a random river, performed that one song from Pocahontas then went back to the castle. There was no point in him going to the river other than to sing the random song.

[@chey6073]

Tfw theater kids learn how to write 😳

[@Twat_Dirt]

That sounds fucking hilarious

[@cloudenvy47]

I would absolutely read the shit out of this on every bad day

[@chaosthedark]

What fanfic is this 😂 I would absolutely read it.

[@hynankublai2013]

I would love to read a fanfic that is written like a theater play, authors can also practice with their lyrics compositions too

[@miralang8149]

So, I didn't realize this was an issue I had because I never usually read this kind of story; earlier today, out of curiosity, I checked out a fic that involved one of the male protagonists getting turned into a woman by a magic spell gone awry. What ticked me off was that everyone around him, who had been with him for a while at this point, and therefore knew that he was a man and identified as such, immediately started to refer to him by she/her pronouns and a feminine-sounding name that was not his own name (in spite of his protests), and since his clothes didn't fit him the way they did before, they provided him with a skirt instead of the trousers he was asking for - all of that without a hint of irony. The character of course is infuriated by this, to the point of crying with frustration because people are treating him differently now that they see him as a woman (the author could have done something with this realization - they didn't), but he then comes to this weird conclusion where he seems to think he... isn't allowed to refer to himself as a man anymore?? This fic was tagged rule 63, not trans female character or non binary character, so there was no question that our character is a cis man who has been transformed without his consent. The whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth.

[@perpetualsick]

That’s seriously the most bizarre, frustrating description of something I have ever read. What the hell? Like you said, it’s not like it was some trans story tagged as such. And even if it was, the way the characters acted without irony would make me throw something. I’m baffled.

[@MhandleM]

there's actually a lot of these in super old fic or original stories, very bizarre to read in 2023 cuz it's like Ok This Writer Clearly Has Very Set Ideas On How They Think Gender Works

[@sapphireshineauthor]

That... is definitely a tad messed up to be written unironically... When it comes to gender swap or genderbend (I frankly enjoy both types immensely). I usually like it when the character who's changed (and everyone really) is just... Confused by the situation, they try to adjust until the change can be reversed, which usually leads to shenanigans such as the character getting help with how certain aspects of their now changed body from the member of the respective gender. Ex. A guy turned girl has to deal with bras, long hair, maybe shorter stature, and maybe getting hit on. A girl getting turned into a guy, has to deal with the "thing", loss of boobs, height and maybe strength gain, and also getting hit on. And on both notes, trying to dress, either as their usual style or something more "comfortable" for their new bodies. That's how I always viewed gender bend fics, it's a bizarre situation for everyone and they just need to handle it for the time being until they get changed back, with all the potential ups and downs accompanying it.

[@lovesick_loser]

that just sounds like you stumbled upon a forced feminization fetish fic... people legit need to tag their stuff better because nobody wants to just accidentally read that stuff 😭

[@lunaitor-uq9hz]

Geez, poor guy

[@Arthur-yf9yv]

Maybe I’m too Britbrained but one of my pet peeves is reading fic of English books written to imitate the author’s style, but the fic uses American English. It’s just jarring because you’ll suddenly find someone taking their pants off and go ‘HUH’

[@flickcentergaming680]

That's fair.

[@bellac6311]

yea no same

[@thoopsy]

I get it the other way around, it's like "I understand where you're coming from but this guy is from Arizona, he would not say Pride of Place." That said, it's good that I have a non American beta reader, because they catch some things that I don't realize aren't common phrases outside of my region.

[@carpenterthehivewing]

read a fic where a very british character said mom

[@ExtremeWreck]

And the fanfic writing is Hollywood inspired as well.

[@garglemabals]

this was ages ago and i don’t even remember the fandom, but i was reading a fic where two of the characters were human and every other character was some kind of alien. the WHOLE POINT of the fic was using the ‘humans are space orcs’ trope, and it was REALLY GOOD. then sudden plot twist at the end, the two human characters are actually fALLeN aNgELs and they’re super powerful and. bleh. stopped reading at that point (it was the last chapter anyway lol)

[@abiean222]

thats like a story where the thing about it is destiny is bullshit and we make our own fate only for the big reveal that everything was prophesied before and no this is your destiny foretold thousands of years ago! like way to spit on your theme dude

[@pcenero]

There's also the sandwich equivalent where oh yeah these characters are on a set destiny but actually they protest and buck the tides of fate and manage things unexpected only for some random ethereal goddess or scruffy dude to pop in the epilogue and reveal that all the deviations are a part of some greater 4D chess scheme.

[@Furina_Neuvi]

Tbh valid

[@unknown_cat6969]

They could be space orcs which descended from fallen angels lol

[@hynankublai2013]

It's rare to see plot twists being executed in fanfics so I'm always trying to seek those, but that one seems to be like a bad plot twist

[@aeolianaether]

The Japanese honourifics one is always difficult for me since they are almost always using them in a context that doesn’t make sense and it becomes very obvious when you know the actual uses of them.

[@Hewasnumber1]

Turns out that ignorance really is bliss.

[@BagelBagelBagelBa]

like "senpai" is literally just "older person/person in a higher grade" and "oni-chan/san??" is "big brother" (at least from what i recall)

[@aeolianaether]

@@BagelBagelBagelBa Close, senpai indicates seniority in a school, workplace, etc. If someone has been at a job longer than you, they are your senpai even if they are younger. But yeah in a school context senpai is for people in a higher grade at the same school.

[@BagelBagelBagelBa]

@@aeolianaether yeah, that's sorta what i was talking about, school context, but i didn't know work context, thanks for the input!

[@clarehidalgo]

@@BagelBagelBagelBa Senpai is upperclassman/senior at work. then underclassmen/junior at work counterpart is Kouhai Onii-san/Aniki/Anigo/Ani/Nii-san etc are all "older/elder brother" with varying levels of formality. Most don't specifically mean a blood related brother though, it is also used to refer to older male friends they are close with or older male cousins. Like Simon from Gurren Lagann calls Kamina his "Aniki" or like someone might call their older male childhood friend "Nii-san/Onii-san." Jikkei is a term meaning literal blood related older brother but not used as way to address someone.

[@DragonbornCanid]

i actually love when a fanfic uses phrases from the canon material in their work, even if the context/situation is different from the canon 😂 it always makes me very excited and emotional

[@Flufux]

I remember one Kim Possible fanfic I read a while ago that decided to completely change the plot a third of the way through. It started with the idea that Kim lost her memories and Shego and Drakken managed to convince her that she was a villain like them and part of their team, and that was a really great premise...but then the author, I kid you not, revealed that Kim, and a lot of other characters, were actually alien cat people in disguise and the story was all about that from that point on instead.

[@midnight_blue_moon]

I think my biggest one is unhealthy relationships, but specifically when it's the main ship and the author is trying portray it as not unhealthy. I can handle it a little better if the author at least acknowledges that they are aware the relationship is unhealthy, but sometimes when you're reading it it's very clearly the author is trying to romanticize characters being unnecessarily possessive, controlling, condescending, etc.

[@laayiv9449]

I don't want to condone that sort of thing, but as a masochist, I can understand people fantasizing about being in abusive relationships, so sometimes it's that.

[@laayiv9449]

@@shadowshade904 Yeah they should have.

[@spiritmuse]

@@shadowshade904 No, they should not. A random fanfic writer is not responsible for their audience's education. Even if they are younger people. If someone is getting all their relationship knowledge and advice from fanfic, then there is a bigger problem in their life than the fanfic. It most likely means there is a massive failure on the part of the parents/guardians, and that one fanfic isn't going to make a difference. To put it in another way, you should already know that this stuff is toxic irl before you read the story, and if you don't, that's not the story's fault.

[@LiterallyInklingGirl]

That’s not a pet peeve that’s common sense

[@midnight_blue_moon]

@@LiterallyInklingGirl The topic isn't necessarily pet peeves (although a lot of these are), just reasons to stop reading a fanfic halfway through.

[@ralseisbiggestblunt2076]

My pet peeve in fanfics happens mostly in chatfics specifically with characters from japanese media where they all of a sudden start talking about very "western/americanized" interests with each other. It just makes me cringe for some reason. I know people can enjoy interests from a different country and it's normal(I am brazilian and consume lots of american/japanese media) but the fact that they ALL know exactly what it is as if it was a very popular international interest when its shit like 100 gecs, hamilton or dear evan hansen...

[@fart63]

100 gecs?!? I can understand Hamilton but.. 100 gecs???

[@2006HondaCivicD]

That's honestly a huge deal breaker for me. Especially as I myself am not from the anglosphere let alone the West, and when East Asian character starts talking about those stuff it pulled me out of immersion.

[@imperialguardsman5726]

mas nem por um caralho kkkkkkk

[@Furina_Neuvi]

It's calles intrest lamk

[@Gumine14]

IKR?! I especially hate it when they make British & Australian characters talk like Americans (as an Aussie kid) like the world isn't just America 🙄

[@duckcatthequrugosk5504]

My main pet peeve is grammar, spelling, and punctuation (including stuff like "pls" or "u") so bad that it messes up your interpretation of time. I CANNOT handle that type of stuff, including the oh so terrible fate of OOC... that stuff haunts me.

[@perasperaadinferi]

Frrr, the only moment I can excuse that is when there’s a messaging part and it’s not OOC for the character to text that way

[@ApathyandAestheticxs]

When Mc or y/n stutters 24/7 or cries for nothing ☠️

[@Yami_yuugi]

It was tagged as "dead dove isn't that dead" but bitch it was like they were playing with its corpse and was like "no it's still alive I swear".

[@BooTheEater]

Not the "dead dove isn't that dead" 😭✋ Your comment is so funny lmao but whats that tag supposed to mean anywho?

[@StartOfTheYear]

@@BooTheEater dead dove do not eat is a tag where the fic has really dark or violent tropes. It’s like saying “don’t like, don’t read”.

[@BooTheEater]

@@StartOfTheYear oh i know what the normal dead dove do not eat tag means, i just dont get what that "dead dove *isnt that* dead" tag meant in ur original comment. (Like, why did the fic author use that version of the tag, since they couldv'e just used the normal dead dove tag)

[@darkacadpresenceinblood]

what is that even supposed to mean? like "this fic contains dark topics a little bit but not too much"? or what even was the intention, like it's either dark or not???

[@BooTheEater]

@@darkacadpresenceinblood right?? 🤣🤣 Or "its dark topics but trust me its not that bad guys"

[@jem_jaqovich]

i love this channel because i can get tips on how to NOT write a fanfic to make mine better

[@Larsen_illustrations]

Tag your fic correctly, don't write orbs unless absolutely necessary and have fun, that's the best advice for ao3, let people know roughly what's gonna happen in the fic

[@justaclownhonkhonk7941]

same here it's really helpful tbh

[@kaliyuga9240]

ngl don't worry too much, can't please everyone

[@august6760]

My favorite outlook to have for fan fiction is “This fic is for me, but it might be for someone else too.”

[@katescosmos]

I love this channel because I get tips on how to make my fanfics so I can annoy people lmao

[@YamiNoire]

I remember that in my search for horrible fanfics, in which I would later try to correct all the defects, I found one that was a character x female reader. I decided to read it because it looked like a decent thing... big mistake. The MC was the daughter of two canonical super powerful characters, she fell in love with character x immediately, she defeated a villain in the purest Steven Universe style, and she made every male character fall in love with her in a split second... Oh, and if I counted everything OOC that was in that fanfic, I would stay until tomorrow EDIT: I wanted to give a little more information about the fanfic, i'm just gonna say this: The X character had a soul WHEN THEY NEVER HAD A SOUL IN FIRST PLACE FOR GOD HE CAN'T SENSE LOVE

[@Ars3nic.]

imo my biggest pet peeve in fanfics is when the love interest tells the female main lead that “she’s not like other girls” like girl no- 🚩🚩🚩

[@therustynickle4772]

“Was asked to by the author” I would actually really like to hear the backstory to THAT reason lol

[@scp-phenomenon014]

FR WHAT HAPPENED SPILL THE TEA

[@Riddlish_pie]

I've never out right stopped a fic halfway through, but I've wished I did. They killed off every character brutally except the love interest (who did the killing), in the last chapter. Last thing the author said was "not every story has a happy ending ;)" Don't end fics like that. Especially without a trigger or tag warning

[@catbatrat1760]

Wow. Writing what you want is one thing, but that's just plain shitty. :/

[@whosminou]

oh woah

[@ReptilianTeaDrinker]

Wtf? They really should have left a warning. Also, I see you are a TWST fan. :D

[@Who_evenamIanymore]

Was the murdering/yandere part at least written all right?

[@cynister7384]

Was there no foreshadowing at all? Like the character going slightly insane or something?

[@productjoe4069]

Agreed on the anachronistic/context-inappropriate language one. Also when they get cultural/systems facts wrong, especially when they’re easily researched or even described in detail in the source material (like using a British school system in the US or vice versa, using a US political system for Germany, etc). Utterly immersion breaking for me as it requires me to AU the real world as well as the fic’s source material.

[@sofyflora98]

I dropped a fic after three chapters. It was about a Chinese piece of media, and the author for some reason kept using a lot of American slang or idioms. It was very annoying. Also, I loose it when the story is set in the past and you see blatantly modern words or terms used. I'm pretty sure that no one used the words "demisexual", "post traumatic stress disorders" and "stiletto heels" in ancient China.

[@Northflowo]

I've only stopped reading two fics halfway, and the reasons were, respectively: - A side quest dragged on for 30 000 words. It ventured outside the canon setting and wasn't really recognizable as the work it was based on anymore - The main character VERY suddenly turned into a mermaid. At the very end of a chapter. There had not been any mermaids in the fic prior to this moment. I did not read the next chapter. I'm sure someone would still be able to enjoy these fics. But I'm a little picky.

[@filledbrain]

Oh i get the side quest thingy. I was reading a really cool fanfiction but the side story became the only thing that was being written and the author completely gave up on the main story.

[@RaysNewestLow]

The side quest one is the worst. I hate reading a book or fanfic because of it's super cool concept, only for them to end up abandoning it to focus on a side story I don't care about.

[@alfxrr]

NORTHFLOWO??? neat to find you here! love ur work

[@RaysNewestLow]

@@alfxrr I didn’t notice it was Northflowo until this comment lmao

[@asteroid9789]

This gave me such a big jumpscare

[@scrufyed]

mine are always: "they would NOT say that" "oh my god why are you making this character so mean hes not mean" or when the fic like implies a ship that was not stated as implied in the tags

[@fart63]

When they make a really sweet character some creepy weirdo or a cheater😭😭…

[@Thislackspurpose]

I can handle odd word choices, I think it’s fun when authors play around with their vocab, but cringey OOCness is just impossible for me to get behind. I’m into a lot of dark and gritty fandoms, with dark and gritty characters, so reading fics where they suddenly act unironically cute and flirty is pretty disturbing. I also 100% agree that slow burns can be ‘too’ slow. I want the characters to meet early on - it’s the development of their relationship that I personally find interesting; not the massively detailed story of how their paths eventually crossed.

[@missobvious5436]

I absolutely feel the character feeling off one at 5:17 I kept simping for characters in movies so I read a lot of Character x Reader fics and got so annoyed when the characters didn't seem like they did in the movie, like "who is this, that's not [character], he wouldn't do that!"

[@Anonymous_Gambito]

- Broken spanish. I've encountered this in every fandom I've been in where the media had a hispanic character in it. Gringos will just throw random spanish words and phrases into their fanfic (which is written in english) that are just so obviously incorrect that it totally takes me out of the experience, even though I've not even fluent. - Couple calling each other "babe" every three seconds. And it wasn't remotedly in character for them. - Heroes being so cruel and sadistic towards a villain to the point they started feeling like evil villains themselves or even worse than the actual villain and I started hating them. Their actions all being justified by the narrative.

[@tiacat11]

God, that third one though. I fucking HATE that, and unfortunately as a TTRPG player I encounter that attitude a LOT. Main Character Syndrome.

[@cloudynguyen6527]

Writers unconsciously write Homelander instead of Superman.

[@pikyu-sama4534]

I once read one fic where Wonder Woman said: “Estás segura”, after saving someone. Like, I guess? If you are saying so. Grammatically there is nothing wrong with the sentence; but, I never in my life have heard the expression “estás segura” in anything other than a question.

[@pikyu-sama4534]

The broken Spanish it’s sooo obvious when it happens, we can tell it’s from Google translate

[@pudimjogando1198]

​@@tiacat11 The TTRPG one is so true, it's hard to make players actually feel some empathy towards NPC when you can just kill the random goblin for gold and have no consequences whatsoever. But it's not aways a bad thing, you can make a good crazy killer character too

[@NekoKumeika]

Second hand embarassement made me drop not only fics, but many other forms of media as well. I just cannot stomach much of it. Then there's untagged things coming up, that I just didn't expect or want to see, be it smut, death or a ship. And last one would be too much "they would not say that" moments, just too ooc. On the other hand, I really appreciate authors who have a good grasp on the characters they are writing.

[@midnight_blue_moon]

Too many people have gotten offended by the fact that I can't stand most "comedy" shows or movies. Pretty much anything that thrives off of second hand embarrassment humor or humor where the entire "funny" part is just making a joke out of someone. Every now and then it lands but never enough to make me able to watch those things.

[@foxonfire7]

I am with you on this one, second hand embarassment is the death of comedy for me too.

[@Who_evenamIanymore]

On the the “they would not say that” i read TWO stranger things fics where Eddie said darling as a pet name, and not like “like joking around and calling someone shit like “sugarboo” and “sweetiepie”” but like full on “this is a romantic and intimate moment”, needless to say i quickly wanted to acquaint both authors faces with a frying pan.

[@vamosfreddi]

I swear I just cannot handle second hand embarrasment. I can handle it sometimes, because its things that I personally find cringe, but there's times where I just need like a year leave or directly never continue because it's too much

[@violetiolite]

THIS. I suffer from second hand embarrassment a lot and it makes really difficult to watch most things. It's pain.

[@tired_and_bored_nerd]

8:56 one time i read an entire fic, it was like 36 chapters and i spent a week on it only to realize when i got to the “end” that it was last updated in 2015 and ended on a cliffhanger

[@user-pn8kf2sg1l]

It’s time for the revolution .

[@justausername5749]

I’m thinking of a very specific story while watching this. I was intrigued while reading it because the story delved into real world issues the main character faces, but then halfway through the LOVE interest turns so OOC and into the biggest piece of crap for plot related reasons and it genuinely took me right out of the story. And I think the worst part is that we’re supposed to still support the relationship after they do a whole 180 in the matter of a chapter and become an awful person that’s just there to make the main character fly off the edge. It’s such a sign of cheap, lazy writing that I couldn’t keep reading after that.

[@Kittymouth]

It was a fun, light meet-cute type of story. Then one character gets kidnapped, tortured and brainwashed while the second character is forced to watch. That's the reason I don't give kudos until I've finished a story anymore.

[@luovalola6022]

oh gosh the amount of times ive given a story kudos and then regretted it a couple chapters later 😭 i dont wanna be associated with that let me take it back

[@PonkChonk]

Ah yes. That one mistake i often commit and regret.

[@niko5008]

I feel called out, and now I'm wondering how can I fix it.

[@Theawesomeninja_XD]

Unfortunately, I've gotten something like that too. I don't remember if I kudos, but it started as a fun sneaking out to explore kind of thing. Had some family issues but still more lighthearted. Then MC is attacked and almost dies???

[@aronsurakh1747]

​@@luovalola6022I thought the button worked like likes/dislikes and that if I pressed it again it would cancel the kudos and ended up giving two lmfao rip

[@lampgirl100]

In a Danganronpa fic where one character kept getting treated awfully by the other characters after their love interest was executed. The other characters didn't give them any sympathy and just kept bullying them. I honestly couldn't blame them for becoming the next killer and I kind of wished they would have succeeded in getting away with it because the rest of the cast had become so unlikeable by that point.

[@Tsu1811]

Mind if I know what character I t was based off? I’m a tad interested on whether it’s who I think it is or not.

[@featherybastard]

i think i've read a fic like that before! I wanna say it was saiouma but dont quote me on that

[@youreasimp5232]

@@featherybastard from their description Im imagining either that or Komahina

[@rubythebitch46]

what character was it?

[@duskydoggo]

I wanna read this fic-

[@olgapedan7123]

I remember there was a fic where an author clearly didn't do research on a character's nationality and origin. Get this, they nation-swapped (is this a right term?) him and proceeded to write some of the dialogues on his NOW native language and make references for religious and nation specific events. And I'm sitting there, reading the butchered dialogues that were translated with Google where the verb doesn't correspond with a noun in gender and tense, and I started crying right there. And then he went and celebrated Christmas on the 25th of December as Eastern Orthodox Christian. My guy, my buddy... your Christmas should be on the 7th of January you are a bit early💀

[@yukihitoshi1095]

6:46 In my first fic I made the MC be revealed as an angel... Ngl I just hate this fic and just don't delete it because of emotional meaning

[@gigi-f27]

i saw a fic with an intriguing premise and clicked only to see it was formatted like a screenplay. it was like "character a: dialogue dialogue character b: blah blah blah" clicked off immediately because. why. unfortunately that happens a lot with fics for video games

[@lazybtch8982]

They thought they were the Shakespeare of fanfic 💀💀

[@soifinallyhaveanaccountnow]

It’s even worse when it’s all bunched together to the point you can barely read it, this has happened me SO MANY TIMES-

[@anotterwithamushroomhat7140]

I've read one fic where that format actually worked, just one. It was great, but the author also made it clear that it would be a screenplay, so it wasn't a surprise.

[@cupio-stardust]

@@anotterwithamushroomhat7140 odd question but was it a Dinosaurchestra fanfic?

[@midnight_blue_moon]

I've seen that too many times, it makes me mad every time.

[@theworldisajojoreference8342]

The one thing that will always make me leave a fanfic almost immediately is piss-poor grammar and spelling, as well as the overuse of letters as substitutions for whole words (u for you, y for why, etc). It drives me up the goddamn wall and makes it impossible to focus on the story. I saw this happen A LOT when reading creepypasta fanfics.

[@that_nerdy_hylian]

I know right! I've seen some fanfics, and they have a really interesting description and plotline, so I go over to them, and on the first page its liek, there spelling ist atrotsich, and they cant even use a grammars and I'm like NOOO... Okay, I understand if you don't know how to spell or use correct grammar, but surely you can use some kind of spell checker? Like Grammarly or something... Why do they publish a fanfiction like this!?

[@astracrits4633]

I feel like it used to be a lot more common back in the day (late 2000s, early 2010s), but honestly I don't see the "letter-for-word substitutions" that often anymore. Every once in a while, though, I end up seeing it and it makes me want to bash my head against a wall.

[@GriffinStitches]

Especially as someone who reads fic late at night (bad habit, I know...), but the bad spelling/grammar makes me feel like I am legit LOSING MY MIND. Like, am I just too tried that it all started jumbling together? I usually have to force myself to re-read a paragraph 2-3 times before I realize I'm not the problem, lol.

[@niko5008]

U, mad broh?

[@saphirestorm7952]

It usually depends for me, chat fanfics where bad grammer and letter for word substitutions are in character are perfectly fine with me. I also love bad grammer in smut, because I despise smut but will read it if it seems funny, and bad grammar is often hilarious

[@jordynchloe787]

Like one of the people in the video, I hate when a fic refers to characters by their hair colors. This one fic referred to a character as a “ravenette” over and over again and eventually I couldn’t take it anymore because why would they do that????

[@honeybun8823]

Some fics I read actually do that a lot but with some other stuff too like “the man”, “the painter”, “the *insert animal*”, the magician” ect, just calling the character by whatever species they are or what their occupation is and it doesn’t bug me that much until it’s overdone, like just say their name or he/she/they-

[@Neucher]

Very weird formatted dialogue. You know what I mean. Or if there is too much dialogue to the point where you have to use your imagination to try to understand what's going on.

[@oougahersharr]

I was reading a fanfic that had not tagged properly, but I didn't know it until I came to the (untagged/ no warning) necrophilia scene. I stopped reading and had to try not to vomit. I never went back to that. It is why I tag my fic for anything I can think of. I'd rather over warn than under warn.

[@nuijax]

one time i stumbled into an untagged pedophilia foot fetish fic and backed out faster than anything. had to take a break to just,, think about my life choices

[@aronsurakh1747]

​@@nuijaxyikes

[@HopeIsADrug11037]

😨

[@AltThrowawayAccount]

​@@nuijaxreminded me of the time i stumbled into an a untagged nsfw markiplier fanfic, i hate it so goddamn much

[@AltThrowawayAccount]

and i didn't even know it was about markiplier

[@Sea_Creature_OfLarge_Scale]

Honestly something I hate in fanfiction is when a sex scene had weird kinks with no warning. One day I was reading a fanfic on the part with a sex scene,And suddenly a character PULLED OUT A KNIFE AND START WRITTING THEIR NAME ON THE OTHER CHARACTER'S SKIN,I dropped It right away

[@audreys8739]

Bro they didn't even put warnings ? Nah 😔

[@saphirestorm7952]

Help why does that sound so much like many of character ai chats- (the action, mind you. Also not the other person nor their name, other way around) that kind of startled me

[@comet3136]

@@saphirestorm7952 hard agree with the character ai chat thing because tell me why I called the bot short in a normal conversation and then he offered to step on me 💀💀

[@michellegebert8280]

Bro same those make me so mad. Like warn me if you're gonna include weird shit in there😭 not everybody likes that stuff

[@LLOLLICHI]

FOR REAL, especially with spankings imo😭😭

[@DrrZed]

I stop reading fics the moment I see 'POV [Character]' in the text. Show, don't tell. Also when the characters behave like idiots, do nothing, or there is something that kicks up the nine deadly words (I do not care what happens to those characters)

[@perpetualsick]

“POV character” will make me immediately drop it, too. Same with first person. It’s just really icky to me.

[@sparrowpelt20xx61]

I love hurt and comfort, but there must be balance between the level of comfort and the level of hurt. I also have to deal with liking certain characters as a platonic pair, but a large portion of fanfic writers depict them as romantic instead.

[@AtarahDerek]

It's hard to find a good Zootopia fic that focuses on Nick and Judy *without* making them a couple. I like their platonic relationship, and it makes more sense in the context of their careers. There are some good WildeHopps ship fics out there, but there's a notable dearth of quality platonic fics.

[@delaneybenlon6106]

​@@AtarahDereki think they would be a cute couple but i sympathize with your plight i wish you luck. I hope that helps.