My personal red flags:
- Trying to be funny and not being funny. There may be character bashing, there may be bad grammar, there may be rape and torture for no reason, but nothing is more soul destroying than uncomedic comedy. Here are some examples of this example:
- Sight gags. Yes, believe it or not, people write jokes like "He slipped on a banana peel and fell over, hyuk hyuk!" because they saw it was funny in Ouran High School Host Club and they think that it will work when written down.
- The use of the "word" LOL in the story at all if not tongue in cheek makes me turn off the story, I don't care how good it is.
- Referencing things where the very act of the reference is a joke. Either it's a reference or a reference used to support a joke, it can't be just a reference/joke.
- Use of any of the following references: "I am your father", "Do you feel lucky, punk?" "Say hello to my little friend", and such. They are used far too much.
- Dumbledore bashing, Weasely bashing. If you're one of the three people who use this site yet haven't read or seen Harry Potter, then they're characters in a book series and movie series. People hate Dumbledore because he's manipulative and isn't treated as a villain (despite the fact that he wouldn't hurt a fly if he could help it), and they hate the Weasleys because they get in the way of the twu wuv that people like to pretend exists between Harry and Hermione.
- Seriously, I'm so sick of Dumbledore bashing! There is no good story where Dumbledore is a villain, and that is why I refuse to read Harry Potter and the Invincible Technomage.
- A very bizarre trend I've noticed in the Ranma 1/2 fandom is when Ranma is being shipped with either Ukyou or Shampoo, then instead of bashing the other characters they merely ignore them. There are a surprising amount of these stories where Akane simply isn't mentioned at all! This is essentially lying by omission.
- Ranma 1/2 fanfiction that is written by people who have not seen the anime or manga and are only working off of other fanfiction. This is one of those fandoms where that crap happens all the time.
edited 31st Oct '13 5:39:52 AM by Jinxmenow
"Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."![]()
I read a fic once where Minerva discovered how Harry was being treated, demanded Dumbledore do something, and... he did! It was probably the only time that has ever or will ever happen in a fic, but it was nice. I agree. I hate those two bashing sets. Ron the Death Eater is one of my least favorite things, next to bullies, liver, and people who plagerize on group projects.
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Bile fascination maybe? Or just people with really low standards. Or it's just a massive Kayfabe.
edited 31st Oct '13 9:53:15 AM by JapaneseTeeth
Reaction Image Repository![]()
Actually, the fanfic I am currently writing has Dumbledore as Harry's guardian...it is a sequel, so a lot happened until the situation came surpass, and he is still manipulating people from time to time, but he is certainly not evil.
There are a lot of stories which have Dumbledore as either reasonable or a little bit misguided sometimes...it is just difficult to find them between all the shipping and/or bashing fics.
nice. I might have to read that.,.. after november and Na No Wri Mo ends. heh.
I honestly don't understand the Dumbledore hate either, but I don't read much HP fanfiction, so I haven't run into those issues too much. But the umbrella issue of unfairly demonizing, I understand way too well. Heck, I've recently joined the BBC Merlin fandom, and already I get sick of people saying that Merlin was wrong for not revealing a secret that could get him executed to a main character who was on the good guy side who he saw back stab someone.
Oh! Another huge red-flag of doom- racial stereotypes. This shouldn't need to be said, but one of my favorite comic book characters is Latino, and you won't believe how many fics have him as an excellent singer, someone who worked in a Mexican restaurant/one of his parents having worked there (despite the fact in the comics one parent is a mechanic and the other a nurse), and it just makes me want to scream.
My AO3As someone who's never read the Harry Potter books, I find some of the above defenses of Dumbledore fascinating. "Yeah, he's manipulative, but he meant well!" Is this a function of how his canon actions are written? Is it based on the individual reader's tolerance for puppetmasters? Or am I missing something there?
(This is somewhat off-topic, but I justify it as me trying to understand where other people's red flags are coming from.)
Dumbledore put Harry in a home with some cruel relatives because he didn't want him to be near anybody the main villain knew existed. A lot of people think this is stupid. Thus, a lot of stories have a sort of Calling the Old Man Out thing where they basically tell Dumbles "You're a moron, there are lots of other options." Then again, I didn't think that there were any really good options, but well, your mileage may vary, right?
"Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."The blood protection saves Harry's life multiple times - it is hard to argue with this. It might not be the ideal solutions, but this is not exactly a normal situation either. Dumbledore made a mistake when he left Harry in the dark for so long, but he is hardly a seer. Not wanting to tell an eleven year old that he might be destined to die is certainly understandable.
But I think it is because we see Dumbledore from Harry's point of view in the first books, as the all-knowing protector. The moment Harry is disillusioned and realizes that Dumbledore is just human after all, the reader reacts the same way and feels betrayed by him...with Snape there is the opposite phenomena, he starts out as a villain but the more we understand his motivation, the more we are inclined to defend his bad deeds.
edited 1st Nov '13 5:19:40 AM by Swanpride
Wow. That actually explains it. We're supposed to reenact Harry's change of opinion, just like how we're meant to reenact the Fall in Paradise Lost. Okay, that's being very very generous to the Harry Potter books, but wow, that explains the Dumbledore hatedom and the blatant Snape-worship both at once.
"Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."
x a few
The thing about Dumbledore-bashing fic is that it tends to ignore that while Dumbledore can be a rather manipulative schemer, he's also a fairly self-aware one who does feel a great deal of guilt over his actions having hurt people he cares about, like Harry. (He explicitly apologises to Harry for his treatment of him in Oot P, to the point he is in tears; in HBP he calls out the Dursleys on Harry's behalf and attempts to be more open with Harry about things - not everything, but certainly more open than earlier).
The character arc is fairly overtly Harry coming to realise his pseudo-parental figure isn't a flawless paragon, but more complicated, flawed person - and coming to accept you can still care for them in spite of their flaws.
It's classic character-bashing Ron the Death Eater writing, really: it starts with canonically flaws and negative traits of a character, but simultaneously amplifies them hugely while ignoring the same characters more sympathetic traits.
tl;dr: For a fandom which criticises the HP series for being too black and white at times, a lot of fans can be really bad at dealing with the actually morally gray characters and their relationships with Harry.
The owner of this account is temporarily unavailable. Please leave your number and call again later.When it comes to Humor in stories I sometimes make humor purposely, and obviously bad, depending on the character in the sense of:
"Bluestreak? More like Blue-Reek, har,har,har."
"Oh my God, shut up."
Sometimes I find that some humour can be so bad that it's funny and I tend to do it from time to time. Course I mostly try using actual "Good" humour in my fics and stories, but sometimes some characters make bad jokes and/or bad puns, and it can lead to some fun dialogue.
edited 1st Nov '13 9:36:24 AM by Coheed
I've only really written one fanfic... but you can find it here http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8476612/1/After-the-Fall![]()
That's true, of course, but it seems that a large portion of fanfic writers are immature Fan Dumb that can only see things in black and white, albeit in an extremely twisted manner. A flawed hero is inherently bad, a sympathetic villain is inherently good, bonus point if he (or she) is good-looking because Beauty Equals Goodness.
And God help you if your favorite character is a sympathetic person who makes some bad decisions/is morally gray but they gets in the way of the main ship of the fandom/show. You will find them best characterized when they are barely in a story.
Although, admittedly, sometimes I will give a big, thorough critic of some fics that have minor red flags in the hopes that it will encourage the writer to improve, or I will warn them when they are incorporating sexist/racist stereotypes in their fics and give canon information to help combat that. The minor red flags because every fic writer has to start somewhere (and they may be 12 like I was when I started writing fics), and for the racist/sexist stuff because people have got to cut that stuff out.
My AO3

Try Twilight...there are actually senseless phrases like this in the book, though sparkles are more likely than glitter....