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

Yeah, that leads to some Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy in the best of cases, or worse, it just becomes unable to be taken seriously (a la Thirty Hs).

I'm just glad AO3 finally coded in an exclude tag, instead of you having to do it manually (which was unreliable at best). Used to be that you could search by each rating, but not search for everything but that rating. It's still not perfect because different people have different standards for what counts as "explicit," but it's better than nothing.

I guess I should share an actual red flag, though, huh? Anything Omegaverse related. Lots of squicky issues of consent and people acting (inaccurately) like animals and whatnot.

We've... mentioned that special poop pile several times before.... Though considering how real wolf alphas are merely the parents, there's also something incestuous about the idea also. In a pairing someone with their parental figure sense.

If you're going to age up a character for the sake of plot, make sure to tweak the characterization a bit to make them act their age. I've read too many fanfics where eternal children like Ash Ketchum, Franklin Richards, Jimmy Neutron, and Timmy Turner are aged up, yet keep their childhood characterizations. Really, the age up only made them horny, especially if their's an explicit sex scene in a story rated T for teen.

I always found that kind of thing very odd. I mean yes people tend to retain some traits from their childhood, including personality traits but even then they still change a lot as they grow older.

Poor spelling and grammar. I know, maybe that's a bit elitist, but it just bugs me so much. I can't get through something that's technically wonky. Outside of that... "[Hero] has been betrayed by all those who normally like them and have no reason to do that." Just a terrible start, honestly.

As a matter of personal taste, I'm not as fond of Chosen One stuff these days. I feel like if the god of your given setting shows up in the fic and talks about the protag, then you're leaning way too hard on Destiny to carry the plot.

With Timmy, it's canon that he'll be an overgrown child until his 20s. At least if we take the live-action films into consideration.

I'm more a fan of The Unchosen One stuff myself. Probably why I like Rey when a lot of other people hate her (though they keep calling her a Mary Sue, and while I can kind of see why, I find their qualifiers to be narrow and she's nowhere near as Sue-ish as Bella Swan, Jenna Silverblade, or other well-known Sues, so it just feels like they're hating as a consequence of hating the new films).

The thing about Chosen One stories is that they get a bit predictable. Unless it's outright stated and demonstrated that prophecies aren't bound to happen, then you know that no matter what, even if our hero is an unscrupulous twatwaffle and abandons the gang right before the finale, he's coming back. I like subversions. I like the plot being taken in different directions.

It depends on the execution, really. Most fantasy protagonists tend to be imbued by Plot Armor and often operate on Protagonist-Centered Morality, whether or not they happen to be the centre-piece of some sort of prophecy.

The problem I have with Rey (which I believe is the beef most other non-fans have against her) is that even without any explicit statement that she's chosen by some sort of higher power, the plot mostly conveniences her whenever she needs to get a cool, heroic scene. She manages to master the Force with practically 0 training (managing to mind control stormtroopers and defeat Kylo Ren, a trained Force-user with relative ease) in TFA.

Her supposed "training" with Luke in TLJ doesn't really show her overcoming any challenge that results in her becoming a stronger Force-user. In fact, she was the one who taught him to return to be the hero he used to be. I never watched the original trilogy and have no attachment to Luke Skywalker the way diehard Star Wars fans do, but I still find that arc iffy, and I imagine those fans taking it way worse than I do.

For The Hero's Journey to be compelling, I think the character needs to face both internal and external conflicts. A protagonist who is good at everything and is practically invincible, but is only inhibited by personal issues, is not much better than a morally upright hero whose lack of skills/competence hinder them from breezing through their quest. A character can grow & mature in their way of thinking and action without having to change in terms of moral spectrum.

But I digress. Speaking of self-made heroes, I for some reason don't like game-based fanfictions changing around the protagonist's Canon Name, even if the original source material does allow name customization.

Edited by Adept on Dec 14th 2018 at 11:32:59 PM

Same. The only exception is if the default name is weird- which is probably why I always call her "White" instead of "Hilda".

I'm one of those people who always uses a character's default name in their actual game because it feels like it's screwing up the narrative not to. (I've named Link "Link" without fail in every Zelda game.) So yeah, I definitely don't want anything else in fanfiction.

Edited by Berserker88 on Dec 13th 2018 at 3:58:47 AM

I use canon or default names with some characters (Link being one of them), but mostly the ones whose canon names are really well-known. I choose other names in Fire Emblem games where it’s applicable, for example.

As far as fanfics go, though, it’s best to use canon names for any nameable character that has one, just to make everyone knows who you’re writing about. Depending on the source material, alternate-continuity or fanon names can work too (like some Pokémon player characters, as mentioned earlier).

The tricky part is when there isn’t a canon name. If the character doesn’t have an easily-substituted title or other alias that other characters actually use, it’s pretty much up to you. I’ve written a few fics for a game where the nameable character does have a set name (or part of one) but you don’t learn it until later, and even then, the other characters still use the one you picked. I just came up with something and stuck with it, although I think some writers just use the set name to make things easier.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Dec 13th 2018 at 5:29:51 AM

Try being a persona fan. The modern games like P3 and P4 use Hello, [Insert Name Here], so for years fanfic writers used the names from the manga adaptations instead. Then when the animes came out in recent years the names used for the main characters there became "official canon" due to spin-off games using those names as well. The fanbase either stuck with the manga names because they liked them more or used the anime names because they were now canon.

Edited by VeryMelon on Dec 13th 2018 at 9:26:18 AM

That sounds like a mess.

Hell, there are fanfics with trope pages here that had their titles change because the author decided to use the anime name over the manga name.

Try the Undertale pages. Its a mess, the player character has not only 2 names but also called the child, the player character, Frisk and Charaa (Which is the canon name BTW) its infuriating that no one has said "Look lets pick one name and stick with it."

...Frisk and Chara are two different characters.

Yeah, Frisk and Chara are two separate beings.

Frisk is the name of the child that falls into the well.

Chara is the old child, who grew up alongside Asriel and was a homicidal psychopath, and eventually takes possession of Frisk if you go that route.

OMG So confusing aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

LOL just kidding.

For me....

• Changing a character's canon personality for the sake of a ship (mainly if it's evident in the first chapter)

• Not starting a new paragraph when a new character speaks

• Mentioning your OC's name in the summary without telling us anything about them. I don't mind OCs but don't expect me to automatically know what Jessica has to do with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

JTTW fanfics: Does it ship Tripitaka with Monkey? DON’T READ IT, IT’S GOING TO BE AWFUL.

Miraculous fanfics: Is it Mari Chat? NOPE, SORRY, GET AWAY. Actually, if it contains Chat I probably will think twice before looking at it.

Edited by JTTWlover on Dec 16th 2018 at 5:50:05 PM

If your Flash fic has Snow Barry (Caitlin/Barry) as a ship, I won't read it no matter how good it is. For some reason, the ship just rubs me the wrong way. It feels...boring somehow? IDK.

Any My Hero Academia fic involving Bakudeku (Bakugou X Midoriya) is not worth a look in my opinion.

I don't like shipping fanfics based on real people like actors or musicians since it feels creepy that people make stories about real people who might be just good friends or don't not each other but the writers choose to make it more than that or even worse. It got to the point when you check the Harem tag in Ao 3, expect to find hundreds of shipping fanfics on BTS, One Direction or any other Korean Boy band group.

Just the Harem tag? Try virtually ANY tag, or the most recent fics posted/updated. BTS slashfics are a dime a dozen no matter what.