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

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SapphireBlue Since: Jan, 2001
#6101: Dec 25th 2019 at 11:26:10 AM

There are legitimate reasons to dislike an author, but since that doesn't sound like it's what you're talking about, I'd agree. The complaints people put in tags are usually petty stuff like the author not giving the minor character the writer latched onto enough screentime, or sinking a ship that was never intended to be canon.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Dec 25th 2019 at 2:15:04 AM

Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#6102: Dec 25th 2019 at 12:39:34 PM

I try to avoid reading author's notes entirely, because I've had otherwise great fics ruined for me when the author admits they think some part of the original canon is stupid and theirs is so much better. Even if I do like the changed version better, it comes off far too insulting. "I took a two-dimensional villain and turned him into a hero! That means I'm a better writer!"

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
Psychedelicate She/Her Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: That's rough, buddy
She/Her
#6103: Dec 25th 2019 at 3:39:01 PM

I get this vibe from rewrites a lot. Idk why, but authors of rewrites often give off this air of "well I didn't like the original work, so now I'm going to fix it! Accept my version of it now!" It feels... kind of off-putting.

G2BattleConvoy The Hope, The Hero from Installation 07 Since: Mar, 2017 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
The Hope, The Hero
#6104: Dec 25th 2019 at 3:46:00 PM

Y'know, as much as I am disappointed with the ending of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, even I have to wonder if I'm gonna fall into this trap.

"We all fail. We all make mistakes. That is what makes us human."
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#6105: Dec 25th 2019 at 3:46:29 PM

I mean, I get it, but at the same time...isn’t that the point of fanfiction, to do things you wanted to see that weren’t in the original work? Might be a bit presumptuous to think that you’re a better writer than the original author, but I don’t there’s anything wrong with thinking that another idea you have is better.

Oh God! Natural light!
G2BattleConvoy The Hope, The Hero from Installation 07 Since: Mar, 2017 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
The Hope, The Hero
#6106: Dec 25th 2019 at 3:47:18 PM

To be fair, it's a bit of a slippery slope.

"We all fail. We all make mistakes. That is what makes us human."
Crossover-Enthusiast from an abaondoned mall (Lucky 7) Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#6107: Dec 25th 2019 at 3:49:21 PM

I guess it depends on the way the author goes about it. "I didn't like how this was handled in canon so I did my own take on it" sounds a lot nicer and way less egotistical than "The author wrote trash and I fixed it for them".

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Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#6109: Dec 25th 2019 at 6:03:27 PM

[up][up] That. There's nothing wrong with trying to do better than the original. It's insisting that the new version is better (especially if it's merely different, and thus apples to oranges) that comes across as annoying.

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
32ndfreeze Since: Mar, 2012
#6110: Dec 25th 2019 at 8:04:58 PM

[up]x3 I agree.

There's a huge difference between the two. I've enjoyed many fics with the former and only a few with the latter.

Psychedelicate She/Her Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: That's rough, buddy
She/Her
#6111: Dec 26th 2019 at 1:26:30 AM

The latter especially sounds rather petty if the only change they're making is canonising a ship. I'd much rather the author be honest and just say that they personally didn't like how things were handled in canon for whatever reason.

Wispy Since: Feb, 2017
#6112: Dec 26th 2019 at 8:16:09 PM

Accusation Fic or fics that Ron the Death Eater are too easy to spot on Archive of Your Own if you just look at the tags.

Another red flag for me is there is plenty of Accusation Fics that go waaaaay too far in accusing the people whom did wrong (physically assaulting them, destroying their lives, etc.)

There is a My Hero Academia fic named Coyote that completely turned me off with how it treated Eraserhead badly for something that makes sense if you know anything about My Hero Academia.

Edited by Wispy on Dec 26th 2019 at 8:24:05 AM

Adept (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#6113: Dec 26th 2019 at 10:19:44 PM

While Ron the Death Eater and Draco in Leather Pants in general are bad, let me just say I avoid any fic that has the tag "Team Iron Man" or "Team Captain America" like a plague, for the sole reason that they tend to treat one side as "absolutely right" and the other as "absolutely wrong".

Edited by Adept on Dec 28th 2019 at 10:27:53 PM

TaranUlas from Look within the Labyrinth within the Warp. There Since: Nov, 2018 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
#6114: Dec 27th 2019 at 7:35:29 PM

[up]I think my favorite example of someone just completely not thinking through their fic with one of those tags was when they had Team Cap coming back from Wakanda and meeting up with Tony and his group (Which had expanded to include Harley from Iron Man 3.) Cap, obviously confused about the young kid there (And believing that Tony was using Child Soldiers), starts to yell at Tony and then Harley pulls out an Iron Man gauntlet and threatens to shoot Steve in the head if he "attacks" Tony again. This is treated as a heroic moment by Team Tony and not the obviously proof of why we don't use children for soldiers in the first place. In addition, Hawkeye then proceeded to be used as the verbal punching bag for everyone because he was mean to Tony in the prison and for no other reason (Author outright said it in comments.) Needless to say, that was an easy one to stop reading.

Over in my main fandoms for reading right now, the main red flags I have are:

1. Tagging certain characters as evil prior to the start of the fic and then playing them as stupidly evil. I'm getting real tired of my Sansa/Daenerys/Edelgard/Rhea mwahahahaing into a bowl of their favorite food as they twirl their nonexistent mustaches. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind them being the villain in the story and they are all genuinely gray characters morality wise to say the least. I just now get much more picky about how obviously evil I want them.

2. Things that are obviously messed up being presented as A-okay. The aforementioned Harley moment is a great example with another one being a Sansa-centric fic that had Sansa writing to Cersei Lannister after the talk with Tyrion before they depart in canon, knowingly giving her the info to get Rhaegal and Missandei killed. This was treated as Sansa being intelligent and heroic and so on... Despite the fact that she deliberately got two of her allies murdered so that Dany would lose her mind. They even noted that it was because Sansa didn't want Daenerys in charge of the North because reasons. Just... Holy shit, do you not read your stuff to realize how morally fucked up it is? I'm currently planning a fic where the Main character is going to murder people in battle and directly threaten to and will maim others for relatively minor things. I intend on it being made very clear that those moments are morally highly fucked up and that the character has been corrupted by the environment they are in with them actively debating whether or not they should continue to even wield the power they have. Their younger self would be heavily disgusted with them to say the least and the cruelty has consequences on those who know about it.

3. GET TO THE DAMN POINT. I get it, you want to describe things and world build and you don't have limits on your word count and that's nice and all.... but you are here to tell a story about particular characters in a particular time and place. Stop interrupting the plot for these digressions into your world building that isn't going to be coming up in your fic ever again. Writers do world building when it is going to come up again or directly play into the thematics of a group that will come up again, but not just randomly. You are not Star Wars. Stop trying to be Star Wars and keep your fic to a nice readable level.

4. AO 3 specifically, but please stop tagging every character that gets even a mention in your fic. It is highly frustrating to dig through the piles of fics for a story about a specific character and wind up dealing with fifty fics in a row that basically have the character show up for a paragraph apiece at most. Tag things that are important to your fic and the occasional thing that your reader request or that they comment on a lot. This way, you actually get readers that are interested in your fic and not just those looking for a character who isn't in your fic.

Start of match* I did not come here to be Queen of the Ashes. Five minutes later* I AM FIRE I AM DEATH
32ndfreeze Since: Mar, 2012
#6115: Dec 27th 2019 at 8:58:58 PM

Yeah, AO 3 is much worse than FFN when I want to find stories staring a minor character that appears often enough to get a tag.

For instance, in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom finding non shipping fics about other classmates is just impossible because they get tagged in lots of fics just because they show up for background spice.

Another example where I don't have this issue is when I was looking for fics about Usagi's parents in the Sailor Moon category. Since they rarely get tagged for flavor it was pretty easy to find them.

Psychedelicate She/Her Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: That's rough, buddy
She/Her
#6116: Dec 27th 2019 at 9:31:04 PM

Same thing with ships, especially rarepairs. The AO 3 tag for my OTP is pretty much only updated these days because of several different chatfics where the ship gets very little screentime or focus. :/

Adept (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#6117: Dec 28th 2019 at 6:40:28 AM

Yeah, that's why I tend to skip stories whose tags are longer than the summary paragraph, because most of them are probably irrelevant to the plot.

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#6118: Dec 28th 2019 at 2:36:33 PM

While Ron the Death Eater and Draco in Leather Pants in general are bad, let me just say I avoid any fic that has the tag "Team Iron Man" or "Team Captain America" like a plague, for the sole reason that they tend to treat one side as "absolutely right" and the other as "absolutely wrong".

Second Chances Series is pretty much that, and the source of my recent red flag.

G2BattleConvoy The Hope, The Hero from Installation 07 Since: Mar, 2017 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
The Hope, The Hero
#6119: Dec 28th 2019 at 3:07:16 PM

I just read the trope page on that, and I'm absolutely gut-wrenched by how they did Team Cap a disservice.

"We all fail. We all make mistakes. That is what makes us human."
Loctavia Since: Dec, 2018
#6120: Dec 29th 2019 at 7:53:39 PM

Related to the morality thing that Taran Ulas mentioned: I once saw a fic where character A cheated on character B with character C (and had the children of character C while passing them off as character B’s.) This was presented as good and noble. Then character B cheated on her with character D, and this was presented as horrible and cruel. To top it all off, character A’s cheating was treated as justified revenge for character B’s cheating- despite happening first! And it was drastically out of character for character C in the first place. (In canon he was friends with and incredibly loyal to character A). Challenge: guess which series and characters I’m talking about.

Edited by Loctavia on Dec 29th 2019 at 10:51:15 AM

MisterTambourineMan Unbeugsame Klinge from Under a tree Since: Jun, 2017 Relationship Status: Browsing the selection
Unbeugsame Klinge
#6121: Jan 2nd 2020 at 3:15:11 PM

[up] I'm guessing Harry Potter, Hermoine cheating on Ron with Harry and then Ron cheating with... I don't know, Pansy? Lavender? Cho?

I don't like Accusation Fic in general. They don't tend to be much fun to read, just one character or another acting as an author's mouthpiece. I also don't like fics where the main character of a work loses all their canon character traits to complain about/ try to destroy every aspect of canon that the author doesn't like. I've seen quite a few Harry Potter, Naruto, and My Hero Academia fics of that type.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.
Adept (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#6122: Jan 2nd 2020 at 6:20:24 PM

[up][up]TBH, that could be talking about any series, if the character derailment is that bad.

Wispy Since: Feb, 2017
#6123: Jan 2nd 2020 at 10:41:39 PM

[up]I saw something like what that troper described occur in a fanfic from the Overwatch fandom out of all things.

An OC whom was actively dating D.Va suddenly after having an epiphany cheats on her with Mei.

What made it even worse is the guy made it very obvious to D.Va that he was going to cheat on her and just left her crying. And the fanfic treated him like he was in the right for that. That fanfic in general was not that great but that dramafest was the last straw for me.

Edited by Wispy on Jan 2nd 2020 at 10:46:12 AM

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#6124: Jan 5th 2020 at 7:36:26 PM

Writers venting their issues through their work. I'm not against it in spirit, but when I sense it's become unhealthy then I have to bail.

Psychedelicate She/Her Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: That's rough, buddy
She/Her
#6125: Jan 5th 2020 at 11:04:53 PM

I dislike the idea that romantic relationships are more important or valuable than familial relationships or close friendships, and unfortunately this seems to be omnipresent in fanfic (and fiction in general.)

As a particularly glaring example, yesterday I read a fic of my OTP, which is two guys who are basically just chill with each other in canon. Canonically, one of these guys are very close with a girl whom he's known his entire life, although it's not made clear whether he's in love with her or he sees her as a sister figure/very close friend. For the purposes of the fanfic I read, the author went with the latter interpretation to make this slash ship work. The problem is that the fic established that this other guy he's being shipped with, whom he's only known for about a week in the fic, is everything to him and he cares more about him than the aforementioned sister figure whom he's literally known since birth.

It almost reads as a more subtle form of Die for Our Ship in this specific instance, and it doesn't help that the female character is a Posthumous Character in the fic since it takes place right after she dies in canon. It does kind of prove to me, though, that romantic relationships are generally placed on a higher pedastal than friendships and familial relationships. I'm certainly a romantic and I'm very passionate about my ships, but at the same time I do wish platonic relationships were portrayed as this valuable and desirable more often.


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