What are your personal "red flags" before reading any fanfic?

Just wanted to see what my fellow tropers will not read based on the title / pairing / content.

My list would be:

• slash fics
• Oddly enough, I loathe Harry/Hermione fics
• Ranma crossovers
• rampant bashing fics (that don't use bashing as a vehicle for character development)
• overuse of Ron the Death Eater and Draco in Leather Pants
• writers who have difficulty knowing the difference between "amoral" and "evil"
• readers who have a huge problem with separating an author from his work and vice versa

What's yours?

edited 4th Aug '13 5:03:12 AM by Nitramy

Anything with content that doesn't seem to belong in the fic's universe.

For example, just gave up on Yugioh Forever because of it adding sudden gang-rape backstory to all the other problems it had accumulated.

Typos in the title. Typos in the summary. Lack of punctuation in the summary. Explicitly stated pairings listed in the summary. Slash. Anything involving Twilight.

Bad grammar in the summaries. I Suck at Summaries. A summary that tries to avoid telling you what the story is actually about.

"Character X/Harem"

Nopenopenope.

One author writing lots of unrelated stories starring the same OC. Especially if they have a different variant on the OC for each fandom they're in, and super-especially if the OC has a connection to canonical characters that does not fit into the canon. (Best example I've ever seen was an OC whose backstory was that they were the cousin of a character from the original story... who was an orphan with no idea who their parents were.)

Same with Tropay Xion and kay4today, I absolutely ignore harem fics, I consider them to be a lame solution to a overstated problem. The problem that Tropay Xion said is a tendency with a lot of fics, especially with beginner authors. They think if it they add violence and gore and sex they have automatically a good fic, this is a major red flag for me.

Eh, mostly just yaoi and bashing - ESPECIALLY if the one being bashed is Naru and/or Motoko or Asuka.

Also, what Hyper said.

Other than that, I'll give most things a fair shot.

edited 3rd Aug '13 10:19:30 AM by EvaUnit01

Regarding those three, I'd rather see Character Development over bashing.

But if you'll have to rough them up some to get their characters to develop, a little bashing is fine - if it leads to Character Development.

Which is why I consider Evangelion Gear to be just a bit worse than Gundam Seed Destiny, and why Promises of a Wandering Hero pleasantly surprised me.

edited 3rd Aug '13 10:38:39 AM by Nitramy

Well, it's always nice to see Character Development done well. And I don't have a problem with roughing up characters in order to have them grow up a bit. That's fine. But I'm talking about treating them as some kind of Complete Monster Ultimate Evil.

Most fics I've seen are just content to spew the hate... though I believe Love Hina Double Trouble is better about it than most, making use of deconstructive consequences in one instance to have them start growing out of the "pervert revenge" thing.

Rape, harems, infidelity, and depending on the fandom, OCs.

Betrayal Fics: Don't get me started just don't.

Bashing Fics: For the record I do not consider fics that use "bashing" as a means of Character Development as actual "Bashing Fics", Character Development is in fact sometimes the result of the character being broken down and built back up again, even if it means putting them through a metaphorical or literal hell. That's not bashing because it serves a purpose.

Bashing is basically the author going out of their way to reduce certain characters to one-dimensional shells of themselves and make them suffer-sometimes for completely fandom conjured reasons or over exaggerated ones, till they are completely broken shells of themselves or dead.

They think it's funny.

Crossover Fics that basically scream Spotlight-Stealing Squad. Particularly Crossover Character/Harem.

Real World AU's where everyone is normal despite the entire premise of the series was the cast being Ninjas, Wizards, Demigods, or Mon Trainers. Might as well be an original series by this point.

@ World Turtle: Betrayal is possible though. It's one of the driving forces of classical literature. Seeing it done badly would peeve me to no end.

My personal red flags - I Suck at Summaries, completely crack-tastical pairings that make no sense (when the fic is not listed as crack or humor), rape, extreme violence/gore, and author's notes in the middle of the story.

OOC is a YMMV term, but if a normally cowardly character is suddenly acting like a Knight in Shining Armor, the better be some character development.

Oh. Also review-begging in the author's notes or summary. That is a big no-no. If you really want to finish your story and you wrote it out of love and respect for the fandom, you would write it if you had 1 review or 10.

(sigh) I think that's off my chest now. Sorry, it got a bit long. I hope I don't sound too picky.

Well yeah I am talking about the badly done betrayal fics. Like Percy walking in on Annabeth making out with his OC Half-Brother (another Son of Poseidon) who just showed up one day and somehow has everyone loving him. Or Ash's friends (and Pokemon) deserting him for Paul after loosing to him in the Sinnoh League stuff like that. Followed by the "betrayed" coming back years later under a "totally cool and Bad Ass" Alias to save the day/prove everyone wrong/revenge/whatever.

edited 3rd Aug '13 12:32:09 PM by WorldTurtle

I've never seen a betrayal fic done well though. For example, in Naruto fandom, betrayal fics usually have rubbish like Naruto getting kicked out because he didn't bring back Sasuke or something like that, plus Kakashi, Sakura, etc turning on him for no good reason, e.g. bashing.

Coming to that point, the one thing I hate in fanfiction is bashing, especially when the fic is otherwise good. I've actually taken to avoiding Harmony fics, Slytherin Harry and Dark Harry fics because I'm tired of seeing bashing crop up.

I also avoid High School AU fics, just seems silly to me.

edited 3rd Aug '13 12:30:48 PM by Chaosjunction

Another thing that bothers me (that I don't think has been mentioned by someone else) are the author having 'conversations' with the characters in the author's notes for... no real reason, or adding a "I DON'T OWN THIS YOU GAIS" disclaimer in every chapter.

The former bugs me because... it basically amounts to begging for reviews or saying "Keep reading!" In a more round-about way, and the latter... well, it's a fanfic on a fanfic site. I'm hardly expecting J.K. Rowling to start writing Harry/Parvati crack stuff on the site.

I tend to avoid a lot of what has already been mentioned. I feel like a hypocrite though; I often avoid fics that star an OC, yet at the same time I like creating my own OCs and thinking of stories for them set in the 'verse. Sometimes it just wouldn't feel right to try and change an established character for my own fic, so I feel better making up my own character to fill that role, but then I see someone else's OC fic and can't help but feel like it's going to be a Mary Sue, or soemthing. Now I feel really guilty. I guess it all depends on how its handled, and what fandom it is. Maybe I should give more OC starring fics a chance.

Try White Rain if you're looking for a fanfic with well-written original characters...

I thought that fic died! Thanks,man, I'll go read it.

Slash, OC/Canon Character, acting out scenes in an Authors Note, bad grammar, for the most part I don't mind the occasional misspelled word here and there, but when it is consistent and poorly done then you can see the author isn't living up to their full potential. Certain crossovers I find myself staying away from, but otherwise I'll try whatever I can.

I Suck at Summaries, at least for me, always equals either a bad story or a story with potential that has become dead.

Though out of curiosity, why do so many people hate author notes in the middle of a story?

It interrupts the flow of the narrative and makes the author look amateur. There's no reason to do it.

Message fiction. Goes for real life works as well, though they typically don't take the form of bashing there.

Star Wars crossovers written by Star Wars fans, because I swear to god I'm going to strangle the next person who says a BDZ is a real possibility.

Tell me the last time you saw that done in a story. Even Prachett and Sandy Mitchell at least add their notes at the bottom of the page.

edited 3rd Aug '13 11:15:27 PM by Night

I Suck at Summaries - if the author thinks is sucks, why should I read it? Bashing fics, like many other people said. Anything with Twilight. I will occasionally read slash if I find the premise otherwise interesting enough, same with harem fics, but if the sole draw for the story is the nonstandard shipping, then I won't bother.

OCs make me leery, but they are not automatically bad. There are many fanfics with totally awesome OCs, and others where they took canon characters who are barely used and made them central characters; those are almost completely OC.

Are you guys complaining about having an Author Note at the beginning of each chapter in a fanfic? Or do you literally mean there's people with A/N's halfway through a chapter? I only hate it when I see an A/N that's longer than the actual fiction in that chapter.

high chapter count combined with a low word count

Bashing

A bad summary (overuse of fandom terms, I suck at summaries, spelling mistakes, aso)

Certain pairings, especially combined with "romance" as genre (I'm not really into romance fics and they are rarely well written).

With slash it depends on the fandom, but I gravitate more to gen in general. There are also certain genre I simply don't like to read.

Those are the main points. There are other aspects, which make me cautious (OC's, the dreaded American exchange student or the lost daughter are a not-read reason though), but those put me off a fic from the get go.

edited 4th Aug '13 8:11:15 AM by swanpride