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

Yeah I never liked those as they generally make the romance as generic as possibly can so anyone can self-insert into the Reader's point of view, this just ends up making the whole thing boring on top of being somewhat weird.

I have seen a few authors try their hand at a genuine self-insert/character pairing but only seen maybe 1 or 2 actually make a decent fic about that and that only because the self-insert was not idealized in anyway or demonized (I have been seeing a few authors do that now, which just made me hate those kinds of self-insert even more that the more idealized ones) than so the self-insert came across as an actual character and on top of that they managed to make the character in the pairing also interesting.

But fics that actually make these much reviled concepts work are very rare.

Edited by Wispy on Apr 12th 2019 at 8:25:16 AM

Most of the self-insert fics (of the author variety, not reader-insert) I've seen lately are actually pretty good. My guess is that since everyone's heard horror stories about bad self-inserts, or complained about seeing them, anyone who makes a serious attempt at the premise has probably put some effort into it.

Probably depends on the fandom, though.

I kind of think Hero Aca's a bad example but because using a dark and edgy name for a fic (or chapter of a fic) that focuses on Tokoyami is completely in character for the Chunnibird

Grimdark mcedge titles or not, I rarely see any fics about Tokoyami. Bird goth needs more love.

Most of the emo-esque works for MHA are just people trying to make Deku a Batman, which is pretty lame, since the whole point of the series is that he got a superpower when he didn't have one before, not that he became a hero without one.

Yeah the MHA fandom has an big issue with turning Deku into either Batman which to me has never been an idea I liked from the very start of MHA or an extremely edgy hateful villain which is vastly OOC for him.

I tend to avoid those fics because they are just hard to read for the OOC. I do like the monstrous quirk Deku fics though as their is a few really good ones.

Edited by Wispy on Apr 14th 2019 at 4:48:02 AM

I like a good Badass Normal, but nowadays people act like they're the only interesting characters you can write about. I don't want to speculate why, because that involves making sweeping generalizations that can quickly get negative, but either way it leads to very uninteresting takes on the matter in fanworks even outside My Hero Academia.

On Self-Inserts, I don't mind reading one but the main problem is that the premise requires the writer to really self-reflect on their own issues and flaws in order to write a compelling character. People just don't do that, at least not as deeply as you'd need to for a story. The other issue is a Catch-22; Since typically these fanfics are defined by the SI having knowledge of the plot and characters, you have to make them influence those in order for the story to be interesting. That also means metaknowledge becomes increasing useless as the story goes forward, which some bad SI don't want to budge on because it's their only advantage unless they gave themselves powers. On the otherhand, without metaknowledge you're writing an OC-protagonist story for all intents and purposes, so why even write a SI story?

I am honestly not sure of the reasons myself but I have seen some people make SI fics just for fun mainly or to just prove that its possible that someone can make a decent SI fic.

Which is respectable I suppose. The fanfiction community does have a ton of issues with overly powerful characters, wish fufillment OCs or S Is, and other stuff. It's interesting to see authors that instead of seeing as something to shy away from try to think of a way to make an concept with stigmas attached to it good.

Another red flag for me is what I call the stations of canon. I see too many fics in some fandoms that have an interesting idea but waste it by retreading canon or they make it boring by retreading canon.

The Stations of the Canon is a trope here. And I agree with you that it can really drag or ruin some stories by following the same plot so closely. Especially when a change should send ripples that deeply affect things the longer it goes on.

Edited by VeryMelon on Apr 14th 2019 at 1:56:25 AM

I'm gonna be honest, and say that this is something I'm trying to avoid falling into.

Though, it's a bit difficult when the main POV characters that I'm writing for don't really have much opportunity to change things around.

Here's one I started noticing: if a fic has "X bashing", "Can you tell I don't like X", or basically any tags that indicate "this character is going to receive the Ron the Death Eater Treatment", I keep scrolling. I never understood why people write characters as more reprehensible just because they don't like them.

Vindication is a hell of a drug, especially when you're a youth who grew up hating certain characters for issues that only makes sense to you.

The same honestly should be applied to Draco in Leather Pants. Like, okay, we know that some of these guys like these characters, but it's so weird how they're willing to say "this genocidal monster is actually an honest sweetie!"

What I mean is, yes you can humanise then, but don't make them out to be a goddamn perfect boyfriend if you're not going to be self-aware enough to recognise the crimes he's done, to go with a generic example.

Agreed. I find it much more interesting for the character to be given a solid redepmtion arc than for the author to just sweep their atrocities under the rug because "well he's just misunderstood."

I agree too. I remember this one fic that went with a redemption sort of thing. but it was slow and gradual and was a lot of “two steps forward, one step back.” That was a big part of why it was believable.

It also did not gloss over the awful things the character did before. It acknowledged that he’s been through some shit, but it didn’t use that to excuse anything. The author said something about how there’s no point in going the redemption route if you act like they did nothing wrong to begin with.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Apr 16th 2019 at 10:31:41 AM

I tend to stay away from rewrites of entire seasons/books. Either the story stays too close to the original vision that watching the original would make more sense or the story goes too far that you might as well write a completely original story. Seriously, I've seen Pokemon anime rewrites that had zero pokemon in them except for background filler.

Rewrites are welcomed to me, as long as they really feel like new content.

Self-insert? If it’s very obvious nope.

OCs only made for pairing off someone? Nope.

Crack ships? NO THANKS.

Weird High School AU that messes up a lot of things? Nope.

Sapphire or any Generation past X and Y nuzlockes? NOPE.

I will say this about high school A Us: I LOVE High School A Us where the characters still have their powers. Makes me think of Sky High.

That's honestly a more creative use of HSAU.

Misleading crossovers do it for me. Or crossovers that would seem good but is barred by...

Oh I remember a "crossover" between RWBY and System Shock. What do you know, we have Jaune the super badass harem master in place of Goggles! Or was it the Hacker from first game? Doesn't matter, that ruined it immediately for me. What could have been a crossover which SHODAN tries to conquer Remnant and mess with natural order and try to be the one Goddess or something is a fucking Jaune-centric fic.

Or another crossover with RWBY that barely changes anything, see how both worlds would clash. Anyone heard of The Suffering ? Yeah there's a crossover of it with RWBY but it does nothing with it except follow the story of The Suffering to a T, just with RWBY characters! Lots of swearing and nobody commenting on 4 teenage girls who look so damn out of place.

There's more but these 2 annoyed me to stinking hell...

And what most said here bugs me too.

No Powers AU's in general bug me.

I see a bunch of them for Supergirl fics, and I just think, why take away a big part of the character. You can still do interesting things by changing things up so characters are still aliens.

Although I have a few decent examples before, but most of the time its a case of lazy writing, and authors just wanting to Write What You Know, without factoring in powers.

Yeah... they aren't the same characters if they don't have their canon abilities!

That's a big reason I don't bother with No Power fics. It's am unintentional admission that you have no idea how to make an interesting story with the universe as is.

I have only seen only a very small few no power A Us that worked and thats usually because they kind of went the superhero route, or supernatural route in a different way.

I've never been fond of the term "modern AU" since it gets used even when a work is already "modern", if not even futuristic. "Contemporary AU" would flow better. But what I especially dislike about modern AU's is that most are essentially "our world" AU's. I understand the appeal but I find it so boring.

I'd love to read a "modern AU" Korra story that is set in the Avatar-verse. Similar to how TLOK is fantasy 1920s, a fantasy 2000s/2010s fic would be fine, but most modern Korra fics remove everything that makes ATLA itself. Likewise with modern RWBY stories, though at least some of them keep Faunus, and modern Disney stories.

It's easier to remove the fantasy and make the stories mundane, but it's not as fun for world-building. I've dabbled with writing modern Frozen stories and it always leads to a lot of plot threads. How would Arendelle be in the 20th/21st century, what should its government be like, how do the sisters behave as modern-day royalty (presuming the monarchy is still in place), etc, etc.