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

Yeah, I do sometimes read gen fics if the idea behind it intrigues me, or even if I just wanna see my BROT Ps have some good ol' platonic bonding. Plus I have written a gen oneshot myself, am working on another one (in the BROTP vein) and will most likely get to work on a gen longfic once I'm done with my current major project.

Well, if you're anything like me, then it takes you out of the story any time you run into a scene that feels like it was clearly written one-handed.

Writing a sex scene without making it come off like gratuitous porn just interrupted the story is difficult at best. There can be merits to a sex scene if skillfully done. It can help flesh out and develop the characters when done right. But it's one of the harder types of scenes to do right. Most fanfic authors and even many professional writers just can't do it.

That's why, if I ever decide to have a pairing in my fic have sex (which won't happen in my current project since one of the characters in the pairing is portrayed as asexual), I'll have it Fade to Black rather than go into detail about it. Well, that and it would probably cause my fic to have a higher rating than necessary.

Oh same. Plus I am not the most experienced person when it actually comes to sex, and for obvious reasons two cis men together might be a bit hard for me to describe

Which is another good point.

There is so much misinformation out there about sex, what it is, what it constitutes, etc. that anyone who doesn't have experience with sex would be well-advised to just not when it comes to writing. If you're writing about sex and you don't know what you're talking about, it is immediately apparent to those of us who do.

Which is not to say that people should stick exclusively to their own firsthand experiences in general, but when you're writing about someone else's lifestyle, you'd be strongly advised to spend time learning about what that lifestyle entails. Which is easier to do in most cases than it is with sex, specifically, because people who have a different level or kind of experience than you aren't always forthcoming with details on that one.

edited 12th Sep '17 6:15:03 AM by TobiasDrake

Oh yeah. Hell, you can tell who has masturbated or not even. That's why Fade to Black is such a useful thing!

To be fair, gratuitous porn is what some of the authors are going for. But yeah, aside from PWP oneshots and other stuff that's primarily erotic in nature, writing sex scenes does require knowing how to work it into the story in a way that doesn't feel tacked on, and a lot of writers (fanfic or otherwise) don't know how to do that. There are very few situations that actually require writing a sex scene, so I agree entirely with those of you saying that Fade to Black is a useful tool - especially if the author doesn't know much about how sex actually works.

Interestingly enough, the fics where I've seen sex scenes done tastefully are the ones where I didn't mind them, probably because it was such a small part of the overall narrative.

A trend I’ve noticed in multichaptered shipping stories - particularly those of the slashy variety - is that the author will often enforce the fans’ anticipation of an upcoming sex scene. It puzzles me because plenty of PWP oneshots exist, but it also bothers me somewhat because it shows that the author aims to please the shippers and yaoi fangirls and not much else. Generally, if I feel like a fic is just a rushed leadup to an ultimately pointless sex scene, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Why would someone who is so prudish they didn't even masturbate, ever, write a sex scene? Oo I mean, professional writers might be forced by the publisher, but fanfic writers aren't, so ...

Related to that, someone writing sex scenes they don't want to write is a big red flag. Probably won't come up in fanfic, ever, but the sex scenes in the Kingkiller Chronicles which Rothfuss said his publisher wanted him to write even though he was reluctant about it ... well, let's say, I could see why he had been reluctant.

If I ever come across fanfic where the writer says they were persuaded by readers to add a sex scene, I won't read it.

edited 16th Sep '17 6:22:54 AM by Gowan

Mostly I encountered this when I was younger, and reading fanfics by other people my age. So some kids were writing sex scenes before they were old enough to masturbate, let alone have sex with another person.

Though it should be noted that a fic being written by a teen tends to be a red flag, because while some may write well most of the time it isn't so good

Modern AUs, Non-related AUs for incest ships, Human AUs, Coffee Shop AUs, Soulmark AUs, and "Viewer/Self-insert gets inserted into work" fics. You can probably tell I use Ao3 a lot.

I can't for the life of me stand Coffee Shop works or Soulmark works. I've read a few good ones but they're few and far between. I can avoid A/B/O stuff by avoiding nsfw fics but those two AUs are everywhere. Modern and human AUs are just so boring, plus "modern" seems to mean "normal". I don't enjoy taking away everything that makes the characters special. I always write my modern fanfics under the impression that it's in the same universe as the actual work, just modernized. Non-related AUs don't do it for me. They completely change the character dynamic. If you're gonna use characters who are related, don't chicken out. I have read a few good non-related AUs but I typically avoid them. Self-insert transportation fics are never interesting. Never. They're just not my cup of tea, yet they're epidemic in fandoms like the FIM and Pokemon fandoms.

edited 8th Oct '17 2:43:41 PM by Pichu-kun

I feel your pain, though I tend to run into the dreaded high school AU instead.

I have my suspicions about what causes it, but it smacks of a certain... lack of imagination for a better term, on the authors part. It's a retreat from having to deal with those things and how they impact the story. Which always seem to make these stories ring hollow. Because even if they get the broad characterisation right, they don't stop to think how that characterisation would have been affected by the extra-normal elements of the show.

I don't understand the appeal of soulmate AUs either. I'm not against people writing them or anything, but they don't interest me at all. Even aside from the "pushes unrealistic expectations of how romantic relationships work" piece, it's still an obnoxiously sappy concept. It's not an interesting one either - since the entire premise makes the romance a foregone conclusion, there's not a whole lot you can do with it. There are dozens of variations on the same idea (several of which are taken directly from random Tumblr posts), but they all boil down to being the exact same thing.

Also, has anyone mentioned the "hanahaki disease" fics yet? I haven't seen many of them, but I feel like the idea of unrequited love having the potential to literally kill you is way too close to Entitled to Have You for comfort.

edited 5th Oct '17 3:34:36 PM by SapphireBlue

My only issue with the idea of a soulmate fic is that writers do weird stuff to signify that the two characters are made for each other (random example: birthmarks or something). These can be kind of absurd yet get played totally straight, which makes it hard to take the story seriously.

Soulmate fics are trash. Most of them don't even explore how fucking creepy that shit would be...

It's weird, but I've never actually read a real soulmate fic. Just little hundred-word drabbles about whatever minor supernatural thing identifies your soulmate. I think the only one I saw that looked interesting (though I never actually read it) was a RWBY one where you're born with a tattoo of the first thing your soulmate will say to you, in their color. I kinda liked tying in the color theming of the series into it.

Anyway, yes, not a fan of soulmate fics and the whole predestination thing when it comes to relationships. I will accept the idea of soulmates in general, but finding out who your soulmate is ahead of time skews the results far too much and just ruins it.

I don'tread soulmate fics because the concept doesn't sound appealing and it reeks of laziness.

I've finally gotten around to getting "bad summaries" as a red flag. It won't always mean the fic is bad, but the really bad one don't even try to make a good summary.

I've been thinking about touching on the soulmate concept with a story I'm writing. Sort of.

A story idea that came to mind recently involves a character learning about a relationship her alternate self is involved with in a parallel reality and drawing the conclusion that this person she's with in that universe is who she's meant to be with. She's discovered the identity of her one true love and sets out to claim it. But this is actually the framing device for a story about harassment, with advances made out of obligation to some vague idea of how things "should be", to a party that doesn't want them.

edited 6th Oct '17 7:40:32 AM by TobiasDrake

Funny that you mention that - I came up with an idea a few hours ago for a deconstructive parody of sorts for the concept.

Basically it’d involve the whole concept of predestined soulmates, and the system used to identify them, having been put into place in the distant past by aliens as a means of steering human genetic evolution down a specific path. I haven’t figured out what exactly they’re “breeding” for, or what purpose it serves, but I like the concept.

Well, personally I think I've read 1 soulmate fic that wasn't utter trash (It was a soul bond one), because it dealt with it pretty well and also showcased significant consequences to the whole thoughts of another person in your mind. In this AU Voldemort was part of a soul bond where his partner died, if one of the two is killed the other goes pretty cray cray. Plus the only benefits of the soul bond were IIRC shared thoughts, plus eventually shared senses which were shown to be massively inconvenient. IIRC it wasn't completely confirmed, but it was pretty heavily insinuated the bond wasn't inherently based on love, but instead was just a quirk of magic that can occur when messing around with souls.

Having straight up soulmates in a fic, or regular piece of fiction is just so boringly dull 95% of the time. It's a massive red flag even in published fiction for me. Even if I like the pairing.

edited 6th Oct '17 10:35:34 PM by 32ndfreeze

Honestly the only Soul Mates fic I liked had it where on one arm you have your soul mate's name, the other arm your greatest enemy. And they had a bit of world building where one person had the names on their arms burned off because they were a slave and slaves aren't allowed to have soul mates.

Otherwise, creepy and it defeats the whole purpose of finding someone to fall in love with

As an aromantic. soumate AUs seem so awkward. Everyone has a soulmate? Even aros? What if someone doesn't have a soulmate? What if you love someone and they're not your soulmate? Having soulmates like that feels so confining. So, you can only love this one person snd if you don't you'll feel miserable? Living in a society like that would probably give people unhealthy expectations on romance.

Maybe I would like them if they didn't seem to suggest finding your soulmate was the best thing in the world and is always romantic. I've seen a few who explore platonic soulmates but they're not common.

edited 8th Oct '17 3:02:12 PM by Pichu-kun

I also avoid time travel like the plague because they never deviate from stations of canon because you know, Butterfly Effect and all that is a thing.

The only fandom I read time travel fics for is Boruto. I'm a sucker for fics where the kids meet their parents as kids, however most aren't actually good.

Butterfly Effect isn't necessarily a thing. You Already Changed the Past is mutually exclusive with the Butterfly Effect.