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

Not necessarily; I also use AO3 and you have the option of typing in Rich Text, which gives you the option to just type in italic text as-is like you would in Word. This is where I copy-paste all my writing from docs. It does get converted to HTML if you go back and edit it afterwards, but it's still readable in Rich Text without all the formatting tags. If that made any sense.

"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."

>making the fandom look bad

So, basically coming in and being stereotypical, or intentionally going out of the way to pretend like you're like all fans and be as huge a douchecanoe as possible, or what?

Also, I posted mine several pages ago, but I think I'll see if I can recall them all.

Instant no's:

• Bad spelling and grammar. Put effort into it and seek a prereader. A few errors may slip through, but get most of them taken care of.
• Edge for the sake of edge
• Mary Sue protagonists played unironically
• Things that break the Willing Suspension of Disbelief:
  • Unrealistic biology:
    • Gratuitous gore
    • Unrealistic body proportions (I like my athletic women to be flat-chested, dammit! Flat is justice!)
• Inconsistent characterization, or characters that do not act the same way as they do in canon without reason.
• Author tracts (my oft-cited example of an author who went on a long rant for why abortion was bad and people in favor of it should feel bad, right in the midst of a story about a character deciding whether or not to keep an unplanned pregnancy remains my main example)

Depends on the execution:

• Troll/crack fics
• Ron the Death Eater and Draco in Leather Pants
• Shipping execution
• Sarcastic and snarky protagonists (there's being sarcastic, and there's being an asshole)
• Being Reference Overdosed
• Said Bookism and "Burly Detective" Syndrome

There's more I'm forgetting, but I'm kinda pressed for time.

Edited by Rytex on Jan 12th 2021 at 10:30:34 AM

Qui odoratus est qui fecit.

I came across a writer on Wattpad (regrettably) who wrote for unicorn/cat shows (especially Rbuk). Apparently, she had a story of it (Rbuk) set up and needed ideas (number one of the unusual red flags). A friend of mine gave her one, but she didn't exactly stick with it for a few months, friend asks of her progress, he told me she's instantly began focus on something else. My friend goes ' Eff that mess' and wrote fics of the show himself (among a friend of his as well).

In case you were wondering about #1.

To clarify, do you mean references to the work the fanfic is based on, or references to other works? I think the former is almost unavoidable in fanfic since the vast majority will be written under the assumption that the reader is also a fan and is therefore familiar with the source material, for reasons one hopes are obvious. :V

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Jan 12th 2021 at 12:20:37 PM

"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."

I'm pretty sure Rytex means the second, but the first one can be bad too. You see it most in official expanded universe works, actually (since it's basically licensed fanfiction); sometimes you get authors who can't go two paragraphs without reminding you that you're reading Star Wars, with various references to the events of the original films even if it doesn't really make sense for the characters to know the full details.

I’ve seen this one self-insert fic around and read bits of it, and the insert character references other stuff constantly. Not even in creative ways, or in ways that suit the situation. Just for the sake of it. Might’ve mentioned this before, but I can’t remember.

To be fair, the fic is a textbook bad self-insert power fantasy across the board, and I think the author knows it. Last I checked, his profile said “I write bad fanfiction,” so presumably he’s just writing it for fun.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Jan 12th 2021 at 5:37:30 AM

Yeah, I see that a lot when stories have characters into the same stuff the authors into.

Even a one or two sentence mention can be annoying if it keeps happening, but I think its particularly bad when characters go into more depth like comparing a character in the fic to someone in the other bit of media.

"But if that happened, Melia might actually be happy. We can't have that." - Handsome Rob

Yeah, overusing Shout Outs. There is some internal overdosing too, but that's much rarer compared to people just stuffing their story full of references to other media and calling it good because of those references alone (ahem, Ready Player One).

And as I mentioned way earlier in this thread, I am guilty of this too. I used to be really ham-fisted with the references and shoutouts. No subtlety whatsoever. But I got better, and I made them work in the realm of a) being relevant to the story if I wanted to use it as an example (I had characters reference Back to the Future as a way to explain time travel in a fanfic) or b) making them subtle enough where a reader who didn't know about it wouldn't know they missed the joke (I referenced a character being shocked and slightly embarrassed at the sight of a character in a towel, and it works in-context because it's a subtle sign that a crush is developing).

Qui odoratus est qui fecit.

Writing it for fun? Never heard of that before, huh?

I meant write it purely for fun, without caring whether you're putting your full effort into its quality. All fanfiction is for fun when you get down to it, but that one struck me as the "this is a dumb power fantasy and I know it, but I enjoy writing it and it's going online in case someone else is interested" type. There are things I write entirely for myself and have no intention of ever posting, but I could post them if I wanted to. That's the sort of thing I meant.

I could be entirely wrong about the specific fic I mentioned, but the author's profile and the fic itself gave that impression.

Yeah, they only ever get a pass if it's done for fun, I get it. But if not, then you've plenty of reading to do for context on that starting from page one of this entire thread.

Edited by Anasui on Jan 17th 2021 at 5:31:05 AM

...I didn't say doing it for fun made it not bad? It's still terrible, but it's the kind of terrible I can laugh off and ignore from then on.

Right...

Can you guys even imagine an author doing all the red flags in every last one of their fics? I just had this thought occur and I have to know what you think.

The thing about red flags, like a lot of things, is entirely subjective at times, so it's probably very difficult to imagine all the red flags like that.

If I have another possible red flag, it's the one where the targets of the ship have to deal with one of the halves getting pregnant, and that's used as part of the main conflict to prove that they're meant to be together.

Or something. I remember a fic about this, and now that I think about it, it's certainly a weird premise.

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

...Was it Fairy Tail-fanfic?

I assure you, I'm a completely trustworthy person.

No, it was a Big Hero 6 fic again.

I was probably pretty far in that rabbit hole years ago, thinking about it now.

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

Another shipping red flag...

Pairing tags on two characters who are decidedly not meant to be with each other, and where the fic is basically making one half of the "ship" into a Ron the Death Eater Bastard Boyfriend (or Bastard Girlfriend).

It's not as bad if the characters involved in "fake" ship has a one-sided infatuation for the other, a Romantic False Lead, Amicable Exes or the like; but when the only "relationship" the two have is where one is abusing the other, well, that's not a ship no matter how you look at it.

Edited by Adept on Jan 21st 2021 at 12:00:10 AM

Oi, that sounds awful.

---

Tangentially related, fics that are solely about romance are a bit of a yellow flag for me. If it's like a short fluff piece, hey I'll read it, but I prefer the story not being about the ships, rather the ships either being interviewed with the general story or just being there in the background. I also prefer friendship over romance, unless the characters are close platonically and romantically, but that's another thing entirely.

Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢

Not every romance story needs to be a small part of a plot, ya know. And besides, you know the rules of the internet. I mean, if every fanfic was soley romance (in both calibers, even with friendship in the mix), then what?

And another thing, I can understand that there're pairing of characters who've had little to no interactions in a show with plot holes (Final Space is guilty for this, in some areas). I mean, if you think they look cute together, go for it, even if they hadn't even glanced at one another at all. But keep in mind that it won't really seem right.

Edited by Anasui on Jan 26th 2021 at 8:08:19 AM

I mean, I know those two might seem to click together in your head and all, but take into consideration what others think about it, ya know. When pairing up chars that haven't even glanced at each other.

Hi~ Most of my red flags are common, I think.

• Poor grammar & spelling

English is not my first language, please save this poor troper from breaking out a dictionary while trying to relax/have fun.

• Anything that may affect/influence someone's mind involved doesn't sit with me right, especially when it's expressed as romantic. When the fic doesn't make it out romantic, that I can deal with.
• Excessive gore
• Fics with Fangirl/boy character as main.

Especially if said character canonically obsesses over a famous/rich/genius/etc character and idolising, not getting to know actual character, or not show consideration of actual person behind image- even when said pairing is canon.

• Pro-discrimination.

Racial, gender, etc, etc, etc. They are entitled to express their own opinions. Nothing will make me agree or go along with theirs, or allow them to shove their opinions down my throat.

• Irregular & Iffy plot that does not make sense.

It includes events just occurring out of nowhere and unexplained events- while none of them actually does anything to the story. I prefer longer fics, and when there's no continuity to the events- I do not see any reason to read them.

• Hate Fic & Revenge Fic

Edited by Kalias on Feb 17th 2021 at 1:16:50 AM

Lurk over a decade, then make ID.. Me, to the T. AO3:KainCrow

Iffy and irregular plot? That's kinda new. I mean, finding a way to make the plot original and not a rerun of previous fics is hard, really. It'd be awesome if ya did, but if you make it nonsensical and hard to understand, then you ain't doing it right.

Thinking it up would help a lot in the long run.

Personally, I don't think having a fanperson (for a lack of a gender neutral term) as a main character is an issue. It can actually be an interesting character beat and open up interesting situations (eg The Knights Who Say "Squee!" might a long way to humanise an otherwise standoffish character. Or the subject of the admiration can be revealed as a Broken Pedestal, etc). Of course, that requires a certain degree of narrative distance/objectivity, acknowledging that both the admirer and the target are ultimately just people with all that entails.

I didnt know Original Character was gendered...

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.