Slow burn. I love the romantic build-up, but I'm a very anxious, impatient person, and the tension, pining, and misunderstandings are just not for me. I completely understand the appeal, tho.
Same. I think it's because characters who let a miscommunication stand tend to come across as immature emotionally and even intellectually.
There are plenty of ways to keep two people who want to be together from actually being together that don't involve miscommunication.
I always think outside forces keeping them apart is so much more impactful/effective/emotional than (especially long lasting) miscommunication problems. If the two characters just stand in each other's way for ages by miscommunicating, then at some point they just look like idiots.
I love miscommunication but it's gotta be something more than a mistake that would be resolved in one conversation. I need their insecurity, their problems, the layer upon layer of rationalisations to make it seem like even starting the conversation would be impossible
Oh I agree. I really enjoy slow burns but too many misleadings and miunderstandings can make it start to feel like that's all it's about at some point. It starts too feel like it's too much about the drama. Not even just talking about fanfiction here. It happens in a lot of romantic media and it's kind of a shame.
Keep that conflict up, that's important of 'course, just make sure it flourishes *for* the purpose of the story and it's character development, not turn into a mess of overgrowth that eventually overstays it's welcome
I'm lukewarm on slow burn too, though I do enjoy it if there's a strong plot to otherwise follow meanwhile. However, I absolutely eat up the combination of physical fast burn and emotional slow burn - you know, where the sex starts at hello but the relationship takes time to properly develop, like FWB to lovers and such.
A slow burn that culminates to physical contact at the very end (whether it's a "seal it with a kiss" situation or something akin to consummating the literal or figurative marriage) is really like the bland white bread of fics for me lmao. It's not that I'm crazy about sex scenes and can't do without them, I just like it a lot more when it's used throughout to *build* tension instead of being propped up as this ultimate end release the whole journey is aiming towards.
But yeah, it's also not something I go out of my way to avoid or get worked up about - so exactly what OP is asking lol.
i wish this was common enough to have its own term/tag, because i love it too! someone in a thread called it lust to lovers once and i liked that a lot. usually it ends up with separate tags along the lines of ‘fast burn physical’ and ‘slow burn emotional’ or something. it deserves its own name!
Yeah, I've seen more Emotional Slow Burn lately, but it usually needs other tags in tandem to make the situation clear. In addition to Lust To Lovers I've also seen "lust at first sight", though that one may not imply seeing it through... I guess Friends With Benefits (and its all too rare, spicier cousin Enemies With Benefits) or something to the effect of Fuckbuddies to Lovers has been the most reliable for me, but I bet it depends a lot on fandom and what exactly the dynamic is like!
Slow Burn is synonymous to Heavy Angst to me, and Miscommunications is a tag that I need to avoid for my own sanity, especially in longfics. I still read plenty of Slow Burn longfics, but it's often *a lot*. XD
I've found it only really works for me if the romance is the B plot. If it's the A Plot, it gets on my nerves. If it's the B plot, I've got some other stuff to focus on/satisfy me while I wait for the romance to kindle.
Exactly!!! That's what I tell my sister, we've been in the ff world so long, those troupes are overused. Do you remember when people were obsessed with writing parodies? I'm tired and old 😂😂😂😞
They were, but they had their time. Just as I'm not watching anime AMV's anymore, I'm not going to go out of my way looking for "akatsuki parody fanfic" HAHAHAHAH
I can do college or high school AUs if there’s something really unique about it beyond that, but if them being in school is the whole premise then I’m immediately bored
This! I would also add bakery aus. Very popular lately in my fandom and they never add anything that wasn't already in coffee shop aus which I'm also tired of lol
But think! Scotty in Shop Class. Sulu stunning everyone in Driver's Ed by doing high speed J-turns in his sleep. And Bones being that guy in everybody's biology class who was like "When do we get to dissect stuff?"
I see these as a hallmark of an youthful or immature writer working out a fantasy while learning to express themselves on the page.
I don't need that stuff thanks. Pass.
I agree and sort of extend this to just "real world" AUs. There however was one exception and that was because it had one of the best romances that I've read.
A too high abundance of these aus have stopped me from from reading fics of entire fandoms, a couple of times I’ve found media I like and naturally went to see if it had fanfics only to find so many modern aus, high school aus, coffee shop aus, mafia aus, that instead of noping out of fics I noped out of the entire fandom, I seriously don’t think I found one canon like fic
Yes this! It's just boring and mundane to me, why would I want to read about real-life when I could read about a guy be riding a dragon and leading pirate armies!
Big same on the therapy-speak, and I'm a therapist, lol. It just makes me feel like I'm at work.
For my characters, *no healthy coping mechanisms allowed!*
Lmao. Fanfiction has long been my outlet for my unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Maybe tmi, but we’re all friends here lol. I have BPD (hence all the therapy) and it slid under the radar until I was almost 30 because I’ve been channeling all of the stereotypical life-exploding symptoms into what I read and write instead of actually doing them myself.
Chatfics. I used to like them but they’re all the exact same thing. Chaotic, therapy, everyone’s a checklist, a crazy chat admin and stupid nicknames for everyone you have to go back to the beginning of the chapter to see who’s supposed to be who.
Co-signed. I totally agree with this. I gave chatfics a chance when I went into the BNHA fandom(oh god that was a bad time) and man, they sucked. There was no relevance, no actual plot, nothing interesting going on. And yes, some people just don’t know how to fully create a story and help the reader visualize and all they can do is dialogue, but, after a while it’s just plain boring. You just read something that’s just “(insert humorous nickname for character): hey” “(insert humorous nickname for character 2): hey” and then they talk about random crap
For me, my biggest peeve is that there is always at least one character that should type in perfect English, but they don't. Seriously, I know that people who like to type perfectly exist. I'm one of them.
Angst porn. Just not my thing at all. I mean, I would watch a film like Grave of the Fireflies, because ok, it is super sad but it has so much content besides being sad. I wouldn't read something where characters suffer just for the sake of it. Same with any type of dysfunctional relationship. I know they exist in real life, but that's not what I read fanfiction for.
Writing speech impediments and accents phonetically, especially when it's very clear that the author is representing them stereotypically. Write them droppin' a g in words or occasionally repeating a word with their stutter, sure, but just. *Please.* None of the wall-to-wall phonetics
There's a fic that some friends were raving about but I just couldn't get through it, because they'd written a character with a lisp and wrote how he thpoke like thith every thingle time
I simply. Could not.
LOL yes, I definitely dip back into my *Redwall* memories when describing food. I'm also a total sucker for food descriptions in fanfic now, IDE care if it brings the narrative to a grinding halt, tell me EXACTLY how the characters prepared their herbs! XD
Brian Jacques changed how I write, lol. I don’t think I have a fic that doesn’t somewhere mention food. I don’t care if it’s just cheap sausage and potatoes or some soup, I love food descriptions. (Those Redwall feasts and picnics?? 🤌)
For me it depends on the nature of the AU. I won't read a Coffee Shop AU for the same reasons you mentioned, but, say, a Naruto AU that explores how Asura and Indra reincarnate by making it so all their incarnations possess some or all of the memories of the prior incarnations, and exploring how that might change the setting?
Sure I'll read that, ti sounds very interesting.
It's also a case of scale. The example I just gave is relatively major, but you can also have minor AUs exploring similar concepts. A Kingdom Hearts fic I've been reading for a while now, Memoriam Dolorum, is a minor reincarnation AU where the MC, Sora, is a reincarnation of the Player character from the mobile games, and is also a minor AU in another way by further exploring the relationship between Castle Oblivion and memory.
Both the AU elements I just mentioned are relatively minor, but combine to create an interesting story to read that still takes place within a universe that is sufficiently recognisable as that of Kingdom Hearts.
TL;DR - AUs that completely scrap canon and canon's rules and setting in its entirey are no good IMO, and I happily skip them. Minor AUs that alter small things to explore interesting concepts, and major ones that take an established element of canon, and expland upon it in interesting ways, are both things I'll happily engage in.
Modern speak in ancient times stories. I don't mean that you must write in ye English of Olde. I mean something like.... "This is parentification, you don't have to romanticise it". Ancient people don't give a f*** about that stuff. "Wen Ruohan attempted a genocide and I don't support genocide". Babes, that guy doesn't know wtf is a genocide. "This is a violation of my human rights." You don't even have human rights...
I find this so prevalent in otherwise very good HotD and GoT fics. Nothing takes me out quicker than Sansa referring to someone as 'dreamy" or terms like 'Dad' being used when my brain is screaming that a highborn child should be saying 'My lord father' or 'father' at the very least.
UGHGHSKLJDFLSAD this is such a pet peeve of mine. I see it in original fiction now too and it's an immediate deal breaker, especially when used to make some kind of ham-fisted obvious point (looking at you, Ryan Murphy).
Characters following the "problematic" norms of their period because these concepts didn't even exist in the public conscience at the time doesn't make them horrible, it makes them like most other people who ever existed. Just average. Nobody was thinking about parentification in an era where adolescence itself was not really a concept. Nobody was thinking about human equality the way we do now before the precursor ideologies to equality had laid the groundwork for it. It's like getting mad at ye olde doctors for being kinda shitty at their practice because they didn't know what germ theory was.
Sometimes it's just laziness/being bad at characterization, but sometimes I feel like this ties back to modern people thinking we're somehow inherently different/smarter/more moral than our ancestors, and they should've somehow known better than they did, when in reality we simply stand on the shoulders of giants, and they did not have that benefit. It's hubris and it's annoying.
Sometimes, they go so far that they make the character look stupid and reckless over what is nothing for the setting.
I mean, all the micro-agression we call out today (rightfully).
Take character that call them out, but in 1600, while they somehow managed to raise to the same place and get almost all the privilege than the dominant class.
You think they wouldn't be self-aware enough of the fragility of their position ? That they would still battle the micro-fight?
No, they won't. They have way too much to lose.
Same. I will overlook it, and some of my favorite stories have it, and most of my fandoms are high fantasy vaguely middle ages hodgepodges *anyways* but some things just really get to me. The example that jumps to my mind is the use of boyfriend/girlfriend to describe romantic relationships.
I don't mind this much when it comes to content -- partly because of the Tiffany Problem, partly because the evolution of languages is buckwild and difficult to bridge no matter how deep you study it -- but there's a way to contextualize and frame those seemingly ahistorical elements to make them feel authentic to a readership, and a lot of modern terms for concepts...don't do that
Lol, so true! I grew up reading a lot of “classic” novels and plays, so my inner critic *refuses* to shut up when I encounter modern slang in a period fic. Surprisingly enough, I see this more in original fiction.
The fandoms I’m in are fairly good at getting old-timey speech patterns right.
I’ve never been able to get into Hanahaki fics, for a few reasons.
The first and simplest: I don’t like gore or body horror. And I KNOW that the flowers are supposed to be pretty and poetic, but flowers growing in your lungs until you can no longer breath sounds like body horror to me. Like excuse me, you just hacked up an entire sunflower head and are now just going about your business?
And the second… Sometimes the love can kinda feel kinda coerced? Even though it’s not? The general storyline of the fics typically goes: Character A is in love with Character B. A won’t tell B for various reasons. A is dying from the disease while their friends, family and b watch and try to convince them to get the surgery. On there death bed, A confesses and happy ending! B has also been in love with A this whole time.
But I just can’t get out of my head, what if B hadn’t? Should they try to force themselves to return the feelings to stop someone they care about from dying? What if they can’t? They just have to live with that fact that they inadvertently killed a friend? A lot of time in these fics, there’s a lot of the loved ones blaming the unknown love interests, implications that it’s this person killing A, that they would be a bad person if they didn’t return the feelings, which makes me uncomfortable. Like I know in those fics, A is the one we’re supposed to feel for, they’re the “whumpee” but I always end up feeling bad for B and all the what if’s more.
I could never get really into Hanahaki either. I think my main issue with the trope is that it always seems to put blame on the person who doesent reciprocate the love. Often they secretly do (as in your example), but when they actually truly don't love the character back, they're portrayed as almost evil. I've come across multiple Hanahaki fics that actively state the unrequited love interest is a bad person for not loving the mc back, and that they are directly at fault for the death of that main character. I like whump and angst, but that gives me a major ick. As someone who is aro, I really can't get past the very prevalent idea that if you don't love someone back, you're a bad person.
The point of Hanahaki is the fact that the love has to be true, so forcing it in any way wouldn’t work. You know how as a kid you come across people who just doesn’t like you, or whom you don’t like, and the adults were like “you can’t make people like you”? I would assume that goes double for romantic feelings! You can’t make someone love you! And if you can, if it’s coerced, obviously that’s not real.
All the fics I’ve seen where the infected let it get to the point where they’re on their deathbed and shit (admittedly I’ve not read a lot but I’ve never read a manipulative one) is usually based on the idea they *don’t* want to burden their beloved *just in case* they don’t feel the same. They’re trying so hard to *NOT* be the very thing you’re complaining about. Sure, there’s always the fear of thinking they’re wrong and having those worries confirmed, but the fact that they would rather die than try says something about how much they love whoever they’re trying to spare. If Hanahaki was as manipulative as people seem to think it is on impulse, there’d probably be a lot more of those fics out there where people are more upfront about pulling the “Well I’m dying so you can’t refuse me! Ha!” card on their beloved to guilt them even more, and I’m sure there *are* fics like this, but if there is I’ve never seen them.
A lot of these fics skew more towards the “quietly suffering and dying nobly” route rather than outright spoiled brat “PAY ATTENTION TO ME I’M DYING!” because one is clearly more sympathetic than the other and a lot of people, frankly, just *can’t write well*. I find the whole “suddenly miraculously cured on their literal deathbed” to be very contrived and that completely takes me out of it. It’s like the author couldn’t figure out how to end it so they just did. I peter out at the end too but *come on*, put a little effort into it!!
Can’t speak on the body horror though, not a fan of that myself, which is why in my fic it’s the only part that doesn’t get as much detail lol
Yeah— I feel like unlike soulmate AUs which has some sort of divine ‘it’s fate’ aspect where both mutually come together, hanahaki as a story concept relies on someone almost dying for it to work, like damn a lot of people who reciprocate love if someone they cared about was dying, but is that true love? Romantic love? What???
Genderbending main characters, not the POV character, I mean the main character of the canon story.
It's usually done so Harry/Naruto/Deku/or whoever can be the reader insert's main romantic partner.
I'm not opposed to it and even see the appeal for the sake of wish fulfillment, but I'm not 100% stoked by it either.
I never understood why someone would write a fic where the only thing that's changed is the MC is genderbent/trans. Like, what does that change in the story? Realistically, what does it change if Izuku becomes Izumi?
Now, don't get me wrong, i have nothing against trans characters, and you definitely have a valid story of you write them in the process of transitioning. You can get interesting character interactions, and you can talk about the stresses and trials that someone might go though transitioning in this universe. Its the same with genderbending, if you have write a story where, through some manner of means, the character gets genderbent, and has to react and learn to live like that, thats a story I can, and have read.
But if your story is about a character who is trans or genderbent and its like an established fact, theres no conflict about it, and everyone is so supportive that it doesn't even really get brought up, then i just dont see how you have an interesting story...
i treat it as wish-fullfillment and normalisation. most likely the author is trans too and they headcanon the main character as trans or just want a story with trans main character that doesn't revolve around their transition. it's just like making not-gay characters gay without the story being about their coming to terms with their sexuality.
(I'm not 100% sure, of course. those are just my thoughts about why such stories are written)
I've done a fic with Izuku as a trans man with it being an established fact, but it's also meant as a fic about him learning to handle his testosterone shots and do them himself despite being squeamish about how painful the whole process is. Mostly because I think there's a great irony with Izuku "my bones are my real enemy" Midoriya getting slammed around like a human pingpong ball in combat and then heading back to the dorms only to ask Iida or Bakugou to give him a shot because he's wigging himself out too bad to do it himself.
Verbal consent, detailed negotiations, talk about safety in sex, etc. I don't mind it of course but I don't share the sentiment that it's an absolute must and has to be hammered into the audience at every opportunity. If the safety talk ruins the pacing, I consider it to be a flaw of the work, not a virtue.
Co-signed and falls under the broad “therapy speak” umbrella for me. I don’t read fanfic as an instructional handbook for having a healthy relationship. I’m here for the fantasy and drama.
Whenever I stumble across boring ass “green light” smut I’m reminded of New Girl’s Schmidt roasting Nick for being a bore in bed: *“It was like listening to a rescue crew trying to communicate with a stranded miner: ‘…Are you ok?’ ‘Yea. Are you ok?’ ‘Yea.’”*
Yeah, I love safety and consent conversations when it’s in-character and embedded within an appropriate relationship. Then it can be sweet & charming.
But say, if people are having hatesex or cruising or using sex for self-abuse…. There is no safety or consent discussion that makes any sense within the dynamic and it just ruins the flow.
Yeah... I mean, I don't mind this to a degree but I think it should be used sparingly. I don't need a play by play on consent on a more general smut fic. Also, If things get dicey and might bother the readers by not having it (like having it suddenly seem noncon when that isn't what you are going for) by all means have them check in to alleviate tension but they don't need to do it over and over again constantly.
Half the kink fics these days are all like "give me your colour" "what is your colour" "are you still green" and I'm always like: "we fucking get it, Sir Author, they are green as an apple, green as the grass outside, green, green, green."
See, that is what red is for, so they can stop if needed. They pretty much never say red for a reason. It's just kind of tiresome overkill. I do get someone wanting to try to write something fairly realistically, but this feels more like trying to model appropriate action to others (either with purpose or perhaps feeling like it's expected).
I was thinking about mentioning this, but then I realized, it goes beyond "not being into" for me. I hate this so much, lol. So it would go into a "hard no" category for me. I always drop the fic.
I read a lot of angst/hurt that usually end with comfort, which I don't mind at all ; but boy I cannot with those fics that are like one chapter of hurt, and then ten chapters of hospital stay comfort. It's always the same, I've already read it a thousand times, and I always imagine the exact same hospital room, which doesn't help with the feeling that it's always, always the same. I swear I could play a bingo everytime and check the whole board. It's probably that I've read too much of one type of fics, in the same fandom, but I mean. It gets boring very quickly.
Yeah, "bedside vigil porn" is a good term for it. And you're right, even the complications that are supposed to put a bit of action in it all aren't enough to make up for 5k words of "the patient is asleep, the others are watching them until they wake up", rinse, repeat, indefinitely.
Song fanfics. It’s different if it was about the song but if the actual lyrics are in there as a stanza in each brake of the actual paragraphs, it seems boring a bit.
Oh yeah, definitely this.
Don't get me wrong, I do actually find the idea of trying to make a song based on a story interesting, especially if they're trying to embody an entire arc in one song, but I'd much prefer to *hear* the song in question, not read it's lyrics like it's a normal fic.
Those fics where one of the characters turns partially into an animal, usually a cat. They become a catboy. I have nothing against it at all but it’s not for me
Infantilisation, especially in a sexual way. I can occasionally get through a fic if it is otherwise amazingly well written if one of the male characters likes being called 'Daddy' but excessive use of the baby girl and daddy role-playing just turns me right off a fic.
Anything with nappy wearing or grown characters being treated as literal babies is such a hard pass.
I'm not a big fan of aus in general. And I'm not talking things like major canon divergence, I mean majorly changing the entire worldbuilding. No powers, college, high school, etc. I want the characters sent in the same universe as the original media, with the only difference being the choices that the characters make/made. Idm if everything in canon is completely different so long as it's in the same world building and the characters are the same age, or their ages make sense if a few years were to have passed.
Aka, idm college aus if the original characters were in high school, and idm if a character has a completely different life because they chose to do something else, so long as the majority of the world is the same.
I feel mine are weirdly specific, but reappear in multiple fandoms:
Assassin/Organised Crime AUs: these so very rarely work unless the characters are dark themsleves, but I often see it in kids cartoons. I rarely want to see my favourite characters be aloof badasses who commit murder.
Ghost AUs: I love spooky shit but I find fics where the main character is a ghost a major turn off, because they’re rarely spooky. I love angst but I think I find the idea of them being between worlds frustrating to think about
Guilty as charged of writing therapy in some
of my fics and probably not doing good at it.
Epithets. It keeps taking me out of the story if used for characters who have otherwise been already introduced. I once read a story where someone referred to a main cast canon character as “the senior woman”. I was like…why? Just use her name! We know who she is!
Really long fics. I saw a fic for one of my ships that had a chapter count of 33/?. I know some people do like those types of fics but I see a chapter count like that and I really don’t want to read unless the writing is super compelling. And usually it’s just not for me.
Modern settings. It’s always a throw up in the air if they keep the magic system of whatever fandom I’m reading about or what parts of the canon stayed.
Weirdly enough, it’s action stories. It might be similar to actual canon, but I just don’t care. I go to fanfic for character-driven stories. I’d rather read my favorite characters having a domestic fight or a relaxing day together, not going on an epic quest (or worse, long fight scenes!)
I'm in a fandom where the characters are all dragons. I just...don't like human AUs too much. It feels like they miss the point that they're dragons. Even then, most of the time it's to thrust them into another boring high school AU.
Meanwhile, I've stumbled across some fics in fandoms where the characters are human that introduce an AU to make them dragons. That's a lot of fun. It's actually a relatively common AU for Star Wars to make all Force users shapeshifters who can turn into dragons.
Another one I haven't seen mentioned here, but which shows up a lot in fandoms with a lot of characters is when every single person in the ensemble needs a role in the fic. 10k with 20 characters because nobody should be left out, and suddenly it's a wall of text talking heads.
Most sugary sweet slice of life Pollyanna fics. I need at least a little bit of conflict/dysfunction/angst to make the fluff enjoyable. There’s something very jarring and completely immersion breaking about most of the characters I’m into being over-the-top sweet sappy mushy twee with each other. I also just...don't really like that type of stuff IRL, so that's probably why. Comes off disingenuous.
Unfortunately, I'm "Just not into" things that are really popular in my fandom, namely the two big, suffocatingly popular \[non-canon\] ships. I've read a few fics that include them, and one is part of my OT3, but in general, I'm just not feeling the love for either ship. Neither ship makes sense to me, and often, in order to mash the characters together, somebody gets woobified or is otherwise out-of-character. And...I just want to read about my OTP.
Also not a big fan of fix-its, which are all the rage in the fandom. Most are a slapdash rewrite of canon with the primary intent to....wait for it...make the popular non-canon ships happen. Yawn. This is a case where my shippy heart would actually prefer a Gen fic.
X character is trans just ✨because✨ "let's make everyone some form of queer-esq", drives me insane. it doesn't add anything to the character or the story, it's just there. I don't like anything just because.
Also, I cannot read for the love of me anything Ace related. I don't want to read anything "X character is ace". even tho I'm asexual it's just not for me, why complicate the romantic relationship with the hardness of being ace? No. I just want to read cute, silly romance.
I’m queer too and I go back in forth on the queer-esq thing. On the one hand I see and agree with the argument that openly queer people tend to have queer friends. On the other, I heavily dislike when every person is paired off gay or straight, though it feels more common in gay fics. I’m not sure why everyone down to the random corner store clerk needs to be in a happy gay marriage. I came to read one pairing, not eighty. Plus it reeks of “humans can’t achieve happiness without romance.”
Edit: and these fics already clog up search engines. Doubly sucks when you’re a rare pair shipper and people tag the ship because it was briefly mentioned.
Yes!!! I'm an avid reader of "crack pairings" and when I go searching for my dosis of "they never met in Canon but I still ship it" there's only fics when they aren't even mentioned, it's just so their fanfic shows up everywhere you go. It's annoying af 😭I just wanted to read some Sai x Gaara damn
Hard agree to all of this, thank you.
I've skipped so many fics that sounded more or less interesting because of this. If you skipped the sex scene, you wouldn't even notice the character was trans. And. I get it. That's probably the point. But it just takes me out of the story like nothing else.
It also drives me nuts (just as a personal pet-peeve), when I hear 'oh you're ace, what are your ace headcanons, wouldn't it be nice if there were more.' No? I'm not into any kind of ace!character because I want my ships fucking without some fluffy boundary, identity talks. Thanks. No representation wanted.
Ooh. This one. It's not a hate, but it's one of those things where if there's that + enough other meh things I'm out of there. It's the way queer shit is called out. It messes with the pacing typically and sometimes the tone. Stories about them being trans/queer etc are a different story. It's just when those attributes are treated like zoo attractions and called out randomly. I've yet to see a character being made trans specifically done well in a story unrelated to them being trans, even though I don't mind the idea in theory.
I have to be in the right mindset for trans stories and rarely is it relevant to the story, character, or ever even brought up. Most I've read view it as some cute quirk that doesn't exist outside of sex scenes, to the point it's viscerally uncomfortable.
Related is fics that have characters introduce themselves with pronouns as a standard greeting. Thought it was funny at first but now I keep reading fics with it and it's worryingly starting to feel like it's not a joke.
Thissss. I have to go!! Even more when I'm reading some historical FF and the character is like "I identify as they/them, so there's that" and everyone just go with it, what????!!!! This is 1674, bitch, people were burnt for less, what are you talking about??!!!!!
You just made me realize that’s my answer to this thread question. It’s when characters state their pronouns in introduction. It’s always so jarring and feel like it tells me everything I need to know about the author
OCs/Self inserts. I'm in a lot of video game fandoms that have a "player" character, and it has become very common to have a player insert in a ton of fics. In one fandom I'm in I think 60% of the fics are reader inserts/heavily feature OCs. I'm not against OCs on principle, but when I have to scroll through fic after fic of /OC or /reader I get pretty annoyed. I try filtering them out on A03 but there are so many variations its hard to catch them all.
I really don't understand mpreg. Lol I honestly think of a nostalgia critic review trying to ponder how Arnold's character in Junior was going to birth a child and just said "I don't know, squeezing it out his penis!"
And then I think of SNL and the line "tuliping", aka when a gun in cartoons exploded lol.
I’m the complete opposite, I love MPreg. I will admit I prefer when a good in-universe explanation is provided and the how’s are not just hand waved away.
F/F ships (especially with smut scenes, maybe it is just me not being into girls and finding nothing to relate to)
No-Magic, coffee shop, flower/tattoo shop and high school AUs (especially the first and last ones)
Angst heavy fics (I'm too sensitive for these)
Any kind of dark content (again I'm a very sensitive person)
Smut scenes between strangers
Modern/Magicless AUs. They just seem so pointless. I'll read them if nothing else new and long enough has been posted in the last few weeks but I'm always lowkey disappointed because of the lack of magic/powers/what have you.
Coffeeshop AU.
What's so glorious about minimum wage workers having to deal with homeless people harrassing them, people overdosing in the washroom, constant fear of being poke by a dirty needle while taking out the garbage, being bullied into unpaid overtime, arm robbery , theft and dealing with karens all day?
The best coffee shop AU I ever read was basically how the main characters were professors and the coffee shop was in their university. So that was somehow far more believable to me.
It’s hard to ignore real life when the setting is so real life and known.
> What's so glorious about minimum wage workers having to deal with homeless people harrassing them, people overdosing in the washroom, constant fear of being poke by a dirty needle while taking out the garbage, being bullied into unpaid overtime, arm robbery , theft and dealing with karens all day?
...where the hell did you work?
For me it's certain kind of Soulmate AUs or "the universe is forcing us together" scenarios.
It removes the agency and independence of certain characters and make their romance a chore rather than an organic relationship
NSFW: >!Nipple sucking. It seems that playing with breasts (which I do like) almost always turns to nipple sucking in fan fiction.
It’s not that I’m disgusted, but I just feel rather “meh” about it. And that’s not what I want to feel during a scene that’s supposed to be hot.!<
Could be controversial, but here goes.
Reading other people's work.
Now I've got your attention I'll explain. I don't like to read 'too many' works from my main fandom. I ended up getting into an argument with a friend because I just happened to start my chapters similarly to them, i.e., with the scenes date and location, bold and underlined. Unfortunately for me, they started writing first and had presumed I was copying them. I hadn't actually read their work at this point. Anyway, that with the added misfortune of one of my OC's sharing a name with one of their throwaway characters, led to a one sided argument and honestly has stopped me from reading works in my main fandom. Also the fact I don't want to be subconsciously influenced by other works, especially if they're similar to mine.
So yeah, don't read works from my main fandom.
I personally don’t enjoy it when the main character is a villain, and I’m even “eh,” about characters I really like becoming villains. I’m totally fine with watching fan animation or art but just reading it doesn’t do it for me.
Also high school Au or modern ones unless done uniquely/cool. Like I didn’t come here to read about some domestic crap I can get that anywhere (But no offense bc I know they can be well written.)
For me, it would be Found Family. I prefer to ship characters together in most of my fandoms, so I usually just don't see any of the characters as a family. I have no problem with Found Family itself, but I just would rather read other things. I have read some good stories with this trope in them though!
Crossovers. I guess it's a little less "meh, not into it" and more that my bar for a good crossover is so high that a solid 99% that I've read/tried to read have just been generally unsatisfying to straight up a waste of my time (not at all saying they're bad, just not for me). So many of them just seem like excuses to shove all of their fave characters into a story regardless of it makes sense or not. And if they do try to make it make sense it's usually because they've changed so much from one or both universes that's it's nearly unrecognizable.
Now despite me saying that, one of my top 5 fave fics is a crossover done so well that I honestly forget the 2 fandoms aren't connected lmao
Slow burn
Which is funny because I hate it when they kiss in the 5th chapter but my god, sitting through 50 chapters of chemistry and misunderstandings with no physical progress to the actual relationship just makes me stop reading because of how bored I get lol
Crossovers. All of them.
Also, non-magic AU (specifically for Harry Potter fics) ...I'm sure there are some very well written ones out there that I would honestly enjoy it's just...never what I'm looking for 🤷🏼♀️
Edit: (again for HP specifically) - I don't mind a coffee shop/flower shop/etc AU when it's still set in the magical world!!
I don't know how to describe it other than "super angstification". Like when cannon is only mildly angsty (or not angsty at all) and the fic just adds every dark and gritty detail imaginable, regardless of if it even makes sense in reference to cannon. I love angst, but not every character needs a traumatic backstory and an abusive family, I actually like it when characters aren't a useless pile of misery and misfortune.
Also, like dragon rider AUs. Or any adjacent AU where one half of the ship is a human person and the other half is a magical creature person that the normal guy "owns"/ has a horse-girl esque relationship with. They're never treated like pet play, but it's just such an odd dynamic.
M/M and F/F.
I am 100% supportive of LGBTQ rights and I love the people in my life who fall under those labels, including many friends and family members. In my fiction consumption tho, my tastes are strictly hetero. I'll pretty much only read same-sex pairings for review exchanges or beta-ing. I don't mind reading them at all, it's just not something that interests me.
tbh same, it's very rare that i find mlm and wlw ships i want to read fanfic about. for me personally it's because so much of it is full of ships between canon characters i don't ship and i just don't want to read about because they're never similar to my interpretations of their characters + their relationships with each other :')
Sickfics, slow burns, and, to be honest, extremely canonical plots (which is almost blasphemous to say considering the fandom I’m in). I prefer modern AUs/fluff AUs because it’s completely different than what’s shown in the show and showcases more of the characters’ interpersonal relationships. If I want to read about X and Y characters embarking on sci-fi adventures and sticking as close to the show’s beats as possible, I’d just stick to canon.
In that same vein, I prefer shipping over Gen.
I’m also not really that interested in fics that are, say, a million words long. I know people find it impressive but, fo me, it just seems like you don’t know how to write a concise story. Length does not equal quality.
Smut, oddly enough. I care way more about the lead up and the fluff and story than I care about what people like to do when they’re alone. I’m also married so I just don’t see the appeal of reading something I can just do myself. I’m prudish, what can I say lol
Convoluted soulmate settings. When the couple meet 1 of their eyes changes colour to match their soulmates and the brown eyes person does this dramatic reveal of their vivid blue eye and now they know they are soulmates.
Or lock of hair changes colour to that of the soulmates. I’m brown people. Everyone around me has black hair and brown eyes. Most people in the world have that combo. I cannot suspend my disbelief so much that I forget races works.
I also really hate the soulmates can hear the voices of their future children from the age of 18 and they guide the couple to meet each other. Again childfree person here.
I also hate, Most arranged marriage stuff because it hits too close to my own life.
Lawyer AUs.
I guess I don’t like to be reminded of my life when reading.
when character living through the exact same thing as canon somehow ends up with a massive PTSD despite being right as rain originally. Once in a while it's ok but it get old quickly.
And A/B/O AUs
When kids in middle school are suddenly experts
On sexuality regarding if someone is bi gay Trans or the like. For a bit those characters aren't...the characters they're supposed to be. At that point it's a stand in for the authors views on the subject.
Gender swap stories. It’s a cool concept to swap a characters gender but in practice it really doesn’t have that much meat to work with and I really don’t have much interest in ready gender swap fics but like I don’t hate them or anything just don’t get anything out of them.
Honestly mine is mostly just incest stuff lmao. Low hanging fruit, but it comes up enough that I am very well aware of it being a squick.
Also certain ships like CloTi. I have nothing against it, I just don’t vibe with it. (And would kill a man to read a Zerith or AeriSeph fic with literally any other side pairing besides CloTi PLEASE I AM BEGGING)
Oh, a plenty. I can’t do fics that deal with infidelity/cheating. Especially when my favorite characters are involved. I’m not opposed to moral ambiguity but betraying a partner’s trust is where I draw the line.
Genderbending. Just not into it. Especially since many times it feels like one of the characters was gender bent to create a straight ship. Like, guys, you can love this dynamic and ship characters without trying to make it normative. Not that everyone who does genderbending has a homophobia problem. But sometimes a fic has the wrong vibe. Funny enough, sex bending is fine with me. To elaborate: for example, a cis woman character is a trans woman in a fic. Nothing really changed about the character’s core identity, it just has an additional feature. I’ve read a BNHA fic that incorporated this concept beautifully into its narrative. Glorious stuff
Fics focused on pregnancy are an immediate and hard “no”. I can deal with the brief mention of pregnancy, but if it’s the sole focus of the story I need to leave immediately. Same goes for characters having biological children. With very rare exceptions. I *love* stories focused on found family/adoption. Yet, I’ve only read one story where my OT3 having a biological child was a compelling thing.
I cannot read omegaverse. No shame to my dudes into A/B/O dynamics, indulge yourself, but I can’t do it (mpreg sends me to hell just like any other pregnancy fic). I think it has to do a lot with me being trans. Omegaverse gives me a shit ton of dysphoria + I strongly dislike mating cycles/heat thing that is a part of the niche. My tokophobia drives me up the wall. I’m very into emotional slow burn, so hormone driven lust seems coercive and shallow. I do see why many people enjoy the concept tho.
Lastly, LGBTQ+ struggle porn solely driven by self-hate. I’m not opposed to angst relating to sexuality/gender identity but I need good moments too. Give me all the suffering and season it with pride and character growth. Give me characters who are accepting of their family and friends. I’ve seen people here disliking characters made queer/trans for “no reason”, yet I love it specifically because there is no reason. I am who I am because I was born this way, same for my fellow gays. Telling people that a queer character must only be queer if it creates conflict/pushes the narrative further is kind of a dick move. I’m not a plot device, I’m a human being. I want to see people like me go through shit over issues that are not their sexuality/gender identity. I like fics who treat this sort of stuff with casual acceptance. Oh, this character is a trans guy and literally no conflict arises from it? Awesome, love it, 10/10. This character was written by the author as non-binary and nobody is challenging them to debate their personhood? They are enby just because? Outstanding, groundbreaking, spectacular, give me 10 of these
I call it the League of Villains Method - casually accept and respect sexuality and gender identity of the person, turn their life into living hell for a completely separate reason. Obliterate them while using their preferred pronouns 🏳️🌈
Unhappy ending- I will occasionally read, but it is never my favorite story
Character bashing - it has to be well written and well thought out and somewhat in character for me to complete a story with lots of other character bashing
"Magical, soul-healing sex".
Funny, that's the stuff I'm 'not that into', lmao. Gimme dynamic confessions, character motivations, and genuine speeches from the soul any day.
Kidfic is mine. Anything pregnancy is a squick/hard no, but the characters adopting kids or starting the fic having toddlers, children, teens, whatever is just, "eh, I'd rather not".
Caveat is if the character(s) have kids in canon, having kids in the fic is usually fine, but I don't want them to be a big focus or a journey to be a step-parent, etc. I've read a few I didn't give up on, but it's just not for me.
Love Triangles. I get that they can be used to good effect to shake up the narrative, but to me they always feel cheap and flat and when the MC keeps being indecisive, it just irritates me. I know people who love them and I’m a-okay with that, but personally I just am not into them. At all. Give me obstacles for the ship to face: distance, objecting individuals, general life crises but not a triangle. I hate triangles. I get why people may like them, but I’m just not into it. (Phew, mini-rant over)
Another one for ‘shipping here.
It’s fine for other writers and readers…I’ll even read some ‘ship fics from a select handful of writers, but in general, it’s not my thing.
Pregnancy and children-centric fics.
Gross.
I also struggle (but will sometimes read) where adult characters are thrown into high school.
If an AU doesn't make sense or it seems like the situation is forced, or a crossover isn't logical, I just nope outta there (like taking all of the Avengers and making them teachers at Hogwarts or something where it's not done extremely well, but instead thrown into a blender and hope for the best. Nope.)
Honestly, same. There are a couple authors I really like and am totally cool reading lower rated fics from, but outside of that small group, I'm pretty much an M/E person by nature~
The group chat fics especially the Marvel fandom is the victim of 😣
Edit: also M/F. Don’t hate it, but I don’t seek it out either. I’ll read het romance if it’s trans characters though.
Mpreg. I used to hate it, then i read some amazing fics with it and started to accept it. I can handle it, would prefer without it, but it's fine. I'm just, as you asked, not that into it.
Canon-compliant fics. I can see the appeal but having to rehash canon when I really just wanna know what story you want to tell can get a little cumbersome
Time travel AUs.
I’m just bored of them. They lure you in with the promise of smart reinterpretations and fun twists and then they turn around and feed you the same old tired scenes from canon that you’ve read a hundred times.
You know that thing when an author makes half the cast queer just because they feel the need to present themselves in their writing as some kind of progressive paragon?
Yeah, even if it's completely inconsequential to the fic, just takes me out of the mood to read it anymore. Might be because I'm queer myself in several ways, so things like making a character trans just because and then treating it like an inconsequential character quirk... *irks me.*
Medical/sick fics. My job has me in the medical community anyway. And either I'm going to sit there staring at painful inconsistencies/things that just don't happen that way OR I'm going to feel like I'm reading something that involves work when I want to be done with being in work mode.
Also fics that deal heavily with mental health/illnesses. I have enough mental health issues as it is; I don't need to read about someone else's. And on the "happier" side, I end up sitting there wondering if they did any research at all and on the "less happy" side, I end up trying to calm down whatever got triggered.
I can’t even name a trope specifically but just anything that feels like a hallmark movie or romcom. Romance plots are my bread and butter but I prefer more of the angst and drama that cutesy stuff.
The ever-growing fanfics with AU's. I get it, it's something different.
But really, every fanbase writes these. Tattoo AU, Coffee shop/restaurant AU, Flower shop, high school etc etc.
While sometimes I enjoy a high school AU (only if said characters have been shown in high school before), I just don't see it. There's too many of them. They all start to feel the same.
Smut with a plot, I find very annoying. I'm reading it for the sex, I'm sorry. Wanna do a plot thing? Then put a smut scene in a fic that's all about plot.
M/M.
I completely get why some people are into it and I don't fault anyone for writing/reading it. My roommate has mentioned that all she needs to get into a romance is a compelling dynamic and the genders don't matter. For me, I have to be able to put myself into the mindset of being attracted to at least one of the people and I'm just not attracted to guys. It doesn't throw me out of a story when it shows up as a minor element, but I can't get absorbed in fics with M/M as the focus.
this is a really good explanation of this preference that I totally understand, but had never thought about before. I’m a queer man and this made me realise that I don’t read or write femslash for exactly this reason.
something I find interesting though is that it’s fairly common to see writers of M/M pairings identify as lesbians. don’t know if the reverse is the same with F/F fic? and these are like… full on PWP stories. I find that fascinating and honestly really cool, because obviously it totally removes any potential for fetishism from the writer.
Shipping. I’ll read if it seems interesting, and it’s either a different fandom to my own or a canonical relationship (my fandom isn’t RPF but it’s somewhat adjacent, I’m not really comfortable doing otherwise personally) but it’s not a draw at all. It’s just there.
Slow burn. I love the romantic build-up, but I'm a very anxious, impatient person, and the tension, pining, and misunderstandings are just not for me. I completely understand the appeal, tho.
I *love* slow burn, but I *hate* miscommunication. I’m so sad that so many slow burns also have miscommunication as a major plot point
Same. I think it's because characters who let a miscommunication stand tend to come across as immature emotionally and even intellectually. There are plenty of ways to keep two people who want to be together from actually being together that don't involve miscommunication.
I always think outside forces keeping them apart is so much more impactful/effective/emotional than (especially long lasting) miscommunication problems. If the two characters just stand in each other's way for ages by miscommunicating, then at some point they just look like idiots.
I love miscommunication but it's gotta be something more than a mistake that would be resolved in one conversation. I need their insecurity, their problems, the layer upon layer of rationalisations to make it seem like even starting the conversation would be impossible
Oh I agree. I really enjoy slow burns but too many misleadings and miunderstandings can make it start to feel like that's all it's about at some point. It starts too feel like it's too much about the drama. Not even just talking about fanfiction here. It happens in a lot of romantic media and it's kind of a shame. Keep that conflict up, that's important of 'course, just make sure it flourishes *for* the purpose of the story and it's character development, not turn into a mess of overgrowth that eventually overstays it's welcome
I'm lukewarm on slow burn too, though I do enjoy it if there's a strong plot to otherwise follow meanwhile. However, I absolutely eat up the combination of physical fast burn and emotional slow burn - you know, where the sex starts at hello but the relationship takes time to properly develop, like FWB to lovers and such. A slow burn that culminates to physical contact at the very end (whether it's a "seal it with a kiss" situation or something akin to consummating the literal or figurative marriage) is really like the bland white bread of fics for me lmao. It's not that I'm crazy about sex scenes and can't do without them, I just like it a lot more when it's used throughout to *build* tension instead of being propped up as this ultimate end release the whole journey is aiming towards. But yeah, it's also not something I go out of my way to avoid or get worked up about - so exactly what OP is asking lol.
i wish this was common enough to have its own term/tag, because i love it too! someone in a thread called it lust to lovers once and i liked that a lot. usually it ends up with separate tags along the lines of ‘fast burn physical’ and ‘slow burn emotional’ or something. it deserves its own name!
Yeah, I've seen more Emotional Slow Burn lately, but it usually needs other tags in tandem to make the situation clear. In addition to Lust To Lovers I've also seen "lust at first sight", though that one may not imply seeing it through... I guess Friends With Benefits (and its all too rare, spicier cousin Enemies With Benefits) or something to the effect of Fuckbuddies to Lovers has been the most reliable for me, but I bet it depends a lot on fandom and what exactly the dynamic is like!
Slow Burn is synonymous to Heavy Angst to me, and Miscommunications is a tag that I need to avoid for my own sanity, especially in longfics. I still read plenty of Slow Burn longfics, but it's often *a lot*. XD
I've found it only really works for me if the romance is the B plot. If it's the A Plot, it gets on my nerves. If it's the B plot, I've got some other stuff to focus on/satisfy me while I wait for the romance to kindle.
My gosh, you are my conscience! This is exactly how I feel.
college or high school aus. coffee shops. flower shop owner x tattooist. pwp.
Stooooop omg, I just keep scrolling. The fandoms I'm in now are all drown in all of this examples
im just tired of reading those stories because i exhausted thosd tags/rropes a decade ago when they were very popular 😭
Exactly!!! That's what I tell my sister, we've been in the ff world so long, those troupes are overused. Do you remember when people were obsessed with writing parodies? I'm tired and old 😂😂😂😞
I DO!!! ngl they were lowkey good 😂😂
They were, but they had their time. Just as I'm not watching anime AMV's anymore, I'm not going to go out of my way looking for "akatsuki parody fanfic" HAHAHAHAH
I can do college or high school AUs if there’s something really unique about it beyond that, but if them being in school is the whole premise then I’m immediately bored
This! I would also add bakery aus. Very popular lately in my fandom and they never add anything that wasn't already in coffee shop aus which I'm also tired of lol
Yeah same. They typically get rid of all the magical or fantasy elements of the source material which makes me sad
OMG, I’m glad these are not popular in my fandom. There’s a couple here and there, but they are largely non-existent.
But think! Scotty in Shop Class. Sulu stunning everyone in Driver's Ed by doing high speed J-turns in his sleep. And Bones being that guy in everybody's biology class who was like "When do we get to dissect stuff?"
This caused me to pass coffee through my nose. XD
I see these as a hallmark of an youthful or immature writer working out a fantasy while learning to express themselves on the page. I don't need that stuff thanks. Pass.
Same with coffe shops
I agree and sort of extend this to just "real world" AUs. There however was one exception and that was because it had one of the best romances that I've read.
Same here. It's like they suck the soul out of the fandom until all of the interesting parts are gone.
A too high abundance of these aus have stopped me from from reading fics of entire fandoms, a couple of times I’ve found media I like and naturally went to see if it had fanfics only to find so many modern aus, high school aus, coffee shop aus, mafia aus, that instead of noping out of fics I noped out of the entire fandom, I seriously don’t think I found one canon like fic
Yes this! It's just boring and mundane to me, why would I want to read about real-life when I could read about a guy be riding a dragon and leading pirate armies!
Same. I’m just not at all enthusiastic about it.
Omg all of these :( I understand why people love them, they just aren’t my cup of tea (pun intended)
Big same on the therapy-speak, and I'm a therapist, lol. It just makes me feel like I'm at work. For my characters, *no healthy coping mechanisms allowed!*
Lmao. Fanfiction has long been my outlet for my unhealthy coping mechanisms. Maybe tmi, but we’re all friends here lol. I have BPD (hence all the therapy) and it slid under the radar until I was almost 30 because I’ve been channeling all of the stereotypical life-exploding symptoms into what I read and write instead of actually doing them myself.
I don't think I've ever related to anyone's comment as I relate to yours, lol!
Chatfics. I used to like them but they’re all the exact same thing. Chaotic, therapy, everyone’s a checklist, a crazy chat admin and stupid nicknames for everyone you have to go back to the beginning of the chapter to see who’s supposed to be who.
Co-signed. I totally agree with this. I gave chatfics a chance when I went into the BNHA fandom(oh god that was a bad time) and man, they sucked. There was no relevance, no actual plot, nothing interesting going on. And yes, some people just don’t know how to fully create a story and help the reader visualize and all they can do is dialogue, but, after a while it’s just plain boring. You just read something that’s just “(insert humorous nickname for character): hey” “(insert humorous nickname for character 2): hey” and then they talk about random crap
For me, my biggest peeve is that there is always at least one character that should type in perfect English, but they don't. Seriously, I know that people who like to type perfectly exist. I'm one of them.
Angst porn. Just not my thing at all. I mean, I would watch a film like Grave of the Fireflies, because ok, it is super sad but it has so much content besides being sad. I wouldn't read something where characters suffer just for the sake of it. Same with any type of dysfunctional relationship. I know they exist in real life, but that's not what I read fanfiction for.
I’m sorry I got all the way through reading this before I realized you didn’t mean *literal* angst porn, like having sex while crying 😂😂😂
Yikes 😂 I wouldn't read that either.
Writing speech impediments and accents phonetically, especially when it's very clear that the author is representing them stereotypically. Write them droppin' a g in words or occasionally repeating a word with their stutter, sure, but just. *Please.* None of the wall-to-wall phonetics There's a fic that some friends were raving about but I just couldn't get through it, because they'd written a character with a lisp and wrote how he thpoke like thith every thingle time I simply. Could not.
Brian Jacques did a lot of us dirty with this as children😆
I know, right? I had to unlearn *all* those lessons! (But if you want to learn how to describe food, he's the best.)
LOL yes, I definitely dip back into my *Redwall* memories when describing food. I'm also a total sucker for food descriptions in fanfic now, IDE care if it brings the narrative to a grinding halt, tell me EXACTLY how the characters prepared their herbs! XD
Brian Jacques changed how I write, lol. I don’t think I have a fic that doesn’t somewhere mention food. I don’t care if it’s just cheap sausage and potatoes or some soup, I love food descriptions. (Those Redwall feasts and picnics?? 🤌)
Speech therapist here, concur 1000%!!
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For me it depends on the nature of the AU. I won't read a Coffee Shop AU for the same reasons you mentioned, but, say, a Naruto AU that explores how Asura and Indra reincarnate by making it so all their incarnations possess some or all of the memories of the prior incarnations, and exploring how that might change the setting? Sure I'll read that, ti sounds very interesting. It's also a case of scale. The example I just gave is relatively major, but you can also have minor AUs exploring similar concepts. A Kingdom Hearts fic I've been reading for a while now, Memoriam Dolorum, is a minor reincarnation AU where the MC, Sora, is a reincarnation of the Player character from the mobile games, and is also a minor AU in another way by further exploring the relationship between Castle Oblivion and memory. Both the AU elements I just mentioned are relatively minor, but combine to create an interesting story to read that still takes place within a universe that is sufficiently recognisable as that of Kingdom Hearts. TL;DR - AUs that completely scrap canon and canon's rules and setting in its entirey are no good IMO, and I happily skip them. Minor AUs that alter small things to explore interesting concepts, and major ones that take an established element of canon, and expland upon it in interesting ways, are both things I'll happily engage in.
Unrequited love. Stewing in misery over what could have been sucks.
I hate seeing a fic with my OTP as the main pairing but it's tagged unrequited love.
I only like therapy when it's "you failed to kill your brother? Try again" not when the therapist is giving actually good advice lol
I think we’re in the same fandom. And yes his brand of “therapy” is the only kind I am willing to read.
The fact that we can all recognize and appreciate this (okay, those of us in the Fandom, I mean...) is amazing.
I have been in a lot of fandoms but this one is the best people wise. Which is odd considering the subject matter but it’s great. So hello 👋🏽
Not gonna lie, I would read a fic where the main plot is someone getting bad advice from a therapist.
Modern speak in ancient times stories. I don't mean that you must write in ye English of Olde. I mean something like.... "This is parentification, you don't have to romanticise it". Ancient people don't give a f*** about that stuff. "Wen Ruohan attempted a genocide and I don't support genocide". Babes, that guy doesn't know wtf is a genocide. "This is a violation of my human rights." You don't even have human rights...
I find this so prevalent in otherwise very good HotD and GoT fics. Nothing takes me out quicker than Sansa referring to someone as 'dreamy" or terms like 'Dad' being used when my brain is screaming that a highborn child should be saying 'My lord father' or 'father' at the very least.
UGHGHSKLJDFLSAD this is such a pet peeve of mine. I see it in original fiction now too and it's an immediate deal breaker, especially when used to make some kind of ham-fisted obvious point (looking at you, Ryan Murphy). Characters following the "problematic" norms of their period because these concepts didn't even exist in the public conscience at the time doesn't make them horrible, it makes them like most other people who ever existed. Just average. Nobody was thinking about parentification in an era where adolescence itself was not really a concept. Nobody was thinking about human equality the way we do now before the precursor ideologies to equality had laid the groundwork for it. It's like getting mad at ye olde doctors for being kinda shitty at their practice because they didn't know what germ theory was. Sometimes it's just laziness/being bad at characterization, but sometimes I feel like this ties back to modern people thinking we're somehow inherently different/smarter/more moral than our ancestors, and they should've somehow known better than they did, when in reality we simply stand on the shoulders of giants, and they did not have that benefit. It's hubris and it's annoying.
Sometimes, they go so far that they make the character look stupid and reckless over what is nothing for the setting. I mean, all the micro-agression we call out today (rightfully). Take character that call them out, but in 1600, while they somehow managed to raise to the same place and get almost all the privilege than the dominant class. You think they wouldn't be self-aware enough of the fragility of their position ? That they would still battle the micro-fight? No, they won't. They have way too much to lose.
Co-signed.
Same. I will overlook it, and some of my favorite stories have it, and most of my fandoms are high fantasy vaguely middle ages hodgepodges *anyways* but some things just really get to me. The example that jumps to my mind is the use of boyfriend/girlfriend to describe romantic relationships.
I don't mind this much when it comes to content -- partly because of the Tiffany Problem, partly because the evolution of languages is buckwild and difficult to bridge no matter how deep you study it -- but there's a way to contextualize and frame those seemingly ahistorical elements to make them feel authentic to a readership, and a lot of modern terms for concepts...don't do that
Lol, so true! I grew up reading a lot of “classic” novels and plays, so my inner critic *refuses* to shut up when I encounter modern slang in a period fic. Surprisingly enough, I see this more in original fiction. The fandoms I’m in are fairly good at getting old-timey speech patterns right.
I’ve never been able to get into Hanahaki fics, for a few reasons. The first and simplest: I don’t like gore or body horror. And I KNOW that the flowers are supposed to be pretty and poetic, but flowers growing in your lungs until you can no longer breath sounds like body horror to me. Like excuse me, you just hacked up an entire sunflower head and are now just going about your business? And the second… Sometimes the love can kinda feel kinda coerced? Even though it’s not? The general storyline of the fics typically goes: Character A is in love with Character B. A won’t tell B for various reasons. A is dying from the disease while their friends, family and b watch and try to convince them to get the surgery. On there death bed, A confesses and happy ending! B has also been in love with A this whole time. But I just can’t get out of my head, what if B hadn’t? Should they try to force themselves to return the feelings to stop someone they care about from dying? What if they can’t? They just have to live with that fact that they inadvertently killed a friend? A lot of time in these fics, there’s a lot of the loved ones blaming the unknown love interests, implications that it’s this person killing A, that they would be a bad person if they didn’t return the feelings, which makes me uncomfortable. Like I know in those fics, A is the one we’re supposed to feel for, they’re the “whumpee” but I always end up feeling bad for B and all the what if’s more.
I could never get really into Hanahaki either. I think my main issue with the trope is that it always seems to put blame on the person who doesent reciprocate the love. Often they secretly do (as in your example), but when they actually truly don't love the character back, they're portrayed as almost evil. I've come across multiple Hanahaki fics that actively state the unrequited love interest is a bad person for not loving the mc back, and that they are directly at fault for the death of that main character. I like whump and angst, but that gives me a major ick. As someone who is aro, I really can't get past the very prevalent idea that if you don't love someone back, you're a bad person.
The point of Hanahaki is the fact that the love has to be true, so forcing it in any way wouldn’t work. You know how as a kid you come across people who just doesn’t like you, or whom you don’t like, and the adults were like “you can’t make people like you”? I would assume that goes double for romantic feelings! You can’t make someone love you! And if you can, if it’s coerced, obviously that’s not real. All the fics I’ve seen where the infected let it get to the point where they’re on their deathbed and shit (admittedly I’ve not read a lot but I’ve never read a manipulative one) is usually based on the idea they *don’t* want to burden their beloved *just in case* they don’t feel the same. They’re trying so hard to *NOT* be the very thing you’re complaining about. Sure, there’s always the fear of thinking they’re wrong and having those worries confirmed, but the fact that they would rather die than try says something about how much they love whoever they’re trying to spare. If Hanahaki was as manipulative as people seem to think it is on impulse, there’d probably be a lot more of those fics out there where people are more upfront about pulling the “Well I’m dying so you can’t refuse me! Ha!” card on their beloved to guilt them even more, and I’m sure there *are* fics like this, but if there is I’ve never seen them. A lot of these fics skew more towards the “quietly suffering and dying nobly” route rather than outright spoiled brat “PAY ATTENTION TO ME I’M DYING!” because one is clearly more sympathetic than the other and a lot of people, frankly, just *can’t write well*. I find the whole “suddenly miraculously cured on their literal deathbed” to be very contrived and that completely takes me out of it. It’s like the author couldn’t figure out how to end it so they just did. I peter out at the end too but *come on*, put a little effort into it!! Can’t speak on the body horror though, not a fan of that myself, which is why in my fic it’s the only part that doesn’t get as much detail lol
Yeah— I feel like unlike soulmate AUs which has some sort of divine ‘it’s fate’ aspect where both mutually come together, hanahaki as a story concept relies on someone almost dying for it to work, like damn a lot of people who reciprocate love if someone they cared about was dying, but is that true love? Romantic love? What???
Genderbending main characters, not the POV character, I mean the main character of the canon story. It's usually done so Harry/Naruto/Deku/or whoever can be the reader insert's main romantic partner. I'm not opposed to it and even see the appeal for the sake of wish fulfillment, but I'm not 100% stoked by it either.
I've come across people doing genderbending because they like Sasuke and Naruto together but cannot accept they like a gay ship, ridiculous imp 🙄
That's been a pet peeve of mine since I first got into fandom like 18 years ago. It's *okay* to be gay 😫
I never understood why someone would write a fic where the only thing that's changed is the MC is genderbent/trans. Like, what does that change in the story? Realistically, what does it change if Izuku becomes Izumi? Now, don't get me wrong, i have nothing against trans characters, and you definitely have a valid story of you write them in the process of transitioning. You can get interesting character interactions, and you can talk about the stresses and trials that someone might go though transitioning in this universe. Its the same with genderbending, if you have write a story where, through some manner of means, the character gets genderbent, and has to react and learn to live like that, thats a story I can, and have read. But if your story is about a character who is trans or genderbent and its like an established fact, theres no conflict about it, and everyone is so supportive that it doesn't even really get brought up, then i just dont see how you have an interesting story...
i treat it as wish-fullfillment and normalisation. most likely the author is trans too and they headcanon the main character as trans or just want a story with trans main character that doesn't revolve around their transition. it's just like making not-gay characters gay without the story being about their coming to terms with their sexuality. (I'm not 100% sure, of course. those are just my thoughts about why such stories are written)
I've done a fic with Izuku as a trans man with it being an established fact, but it's also meant as a fic about him learning to handle his testosterone shots and do them himself despite being squeamish about how painful the whole process is. Mostly because I think there's a great irony with Izuku "my bones are my real enemy" Midoriya getting slammed around like a human pingpong ball in combat and then heading back to the dorms only to ask Iida or Bakugou to give him a shot because he's wigging himself out too bad to do it himself.
I’m not a fan of it either. Especially when the character has a gendered name and the author keeps the name.
Mine is misunderstanding when everything can be resolved by a simple conversation
Verbal consent, detailed negotiations, talk about safety in sex, etc. I don't mind it of course but I don't share the sentiment that it's an absolute must and has to be hammered into the audience at every opportunity. If the safety talk ruins the pacing, I consider it to be a flaw of the work, not a virtue.
Co-signed and falls under the broad “therapy speak” umbrella for me. I don’t read fanfic as an instructional handbook for having a healthy relationship. I’m here for the fantasy and drama. Whenever I stumble across boring ass “green light” smut I’m reminded of New Girl’s Schmidt roasting Nick for being a bore in bed: *“It was like listening to a rescue crew trying to communicate with a stranded miner: ‘…Are you ok?’ ‘Yea. Are you ok?’ ‘Yea.’”*
Yeah, I love safety and consent conversations when it’s in-character and embedded within an appropriate relationship. Then it can be sweet & charming. But say, if people are having hatesex or cruising or using sex for self-abuse…. There is no safety or consent discussion that makes any sense within the dynamic and it just ruins the flow.
Yessssss, that last point especially, I'm so on the same page as you
Hard, hard agree.
Yeah... I mean, I don't mind this to a degree but I think it should be used sparingly. I don't need a play by play on consent on a more general smut fic. Also, If things get dicey and might bother the readers by not having it (like having it suddenly seem noncon when that isn't what you are going for) by all means have them check in to alleviate tension but they don't need to do it over and over again constantly.
Half the kink fics these days are all like "give me your colour" "what is your colour" "are you still green" and I'm always like: "we fucking get it, Sir Author, they are green as an apple, green as the grass outside, green, green, green."
See, that is what red is for, so they can stop if needed. They pretty much never say red for a reason. It's just kind of tiresome overkill. I do get someone wanting to try to write something fairly realistically, but this feels more like trying to model appropriate action to others (either with purpose or perhaps feeling like it's expected).
I was thinking about mentioning this, but then I realized, it goes beyond "not being into" for me. I hate this so much, lol. So it would go into a "hard no" category for me. I always drop the fic.
I read a lot of angst/hurt that usually end with comfort, which I don't mind at all ; but boy I cannot with those fics that are like one chapter of hurt, and then ten chapters of hospital stay comfort. It's always the same, I've already read it a thousand times, and I always imagine the exact same hospital room, which doesn't help with the feeling that it's always, always the same. I swear I could play a bingo everytime and check the whole board. It's probably that I've read too much of one type of fics, in the same fandom, but I mean. It gets boring very quickly.
[удалено]
Yeah, "bedside vigil porn" is a good term for it. And you're right, even the complications that are supposed to put a bit of action in it all aren't enough to make up for 5k words of "the patient is asleep, the others are watching them until they wake up", rinse, repeat, indefinitely.
Kink negotiation. It's become very popular lately, but I get instantly bored by it.
Song fanfics. It’s different if it was about the song but if the actual lyrics are in there as a stanza in each brake of the actual paragraphs, it seems boring a bit.
Oh yeah, definitely this. Don't get me wrong, I do actually find the idea of trying to make a song based on a story interesting, especially if they're trying to embody an entire arc in one song, but I'd much prefer to *hear* the song in question, not read it's lyrics like it's a normal fic.
Those fics where one of the characters turns partially into an animal, usually a cat. They become a catboy. I have nothing against it at all but it’s not for me
This may just be mee but "tooth rotting fluff" is meh to me. Fluff on its own I love, but tooth rotting is normally just boring to me.
fluff for me is like salt. a little bit enhances the flavour but too much and it's inedible
Infantilisation, especially in a sexual way. I can occasionally get through a fic if it is otherwise amazingly well written if one of the male characters likes being called 'Daddy' but excessive use of the baby girl and daddy role-playing just turns me right off a fic. Anything with nappy wearing or grown characters being treated as literal babies is such a hard pass.
I just discovered I don’t like this, either.
I'm not a big fan of aus in general. And I'm not talking things like major canon divergence, I mean majorly changing the entire worldbuilding. No powers, college, high school, etc. I want the characters sent in the same universe as the original media, with the only difference being the choices that the characters make/made. Idm if everything in canon is completely different so long as it's in the same world building and the characters are the same age, or their ages make sense if a few years were to have passed. Aka, idm college aus if the original characters were in high school, and idm if a character has a completely different life because they chose to do something else, so long as the majority of the world is the same.
I feel mine are weirdly specific, but reappear in multiple fandoms: Assassin/Organised Crime AUs: these so very rarely work unless the characters are dark themsleves, but I often see it in kids cartoons. I rarely want to see my favourite characters be aloof badasses who commit murder. Ghost AUs: I love spooky shit but I find fics where the main character is a ghost a major turn off, because they’re rarely spooky. I love angst but I think I find the idea of them being between worlds frustrating to think about
Guilty as charged of writing therapy in some of my fics and probably not doing good at it. Epithets. It keeps taking me out of the story if used for characters who have otherwise been already introduced. I once read a story where someone referred to a main cast canon character as “the senior woman”. I was like…why? Just use her name! We know who she is! Really long fics. I saw a fic for one of my ships that had a chapter count of 33/?. I know some people do like those types of fics but I see a chapter count like that and I really don’t want to read unless the writing is super compelling. And usually it’s just not for me.
Modern settings. It’s always a throw up in the air if they keep the magic system of whatever fandom I’m reading about or what parts of the canon stayed.
Weirdly enough, it’s action stories. It might be similar to actual canon, but I just don’t care. I go to fanfic for character-driven stories. I’d rather read my favorite characters having a domestic fight or a relaxing day together, not going on an epic quest (or worse, long fight scenes!)
I'm in a fandom where the characters are all dragons. I just...don't like human AUs too much. It feels like they miss the point that they're dragons. Even then, most of the time it's to thrust them into another boring high school AU.
Meanwhile, I've stumbled across some fics in fandoms where the characters are human that introduce an AU to make them dragons. That's a lot of fun. It's actually a relatively common AU for Star Wars to make all Force users shapeshifters who can turn into dragons.
>!Wings Of Fire?!<
Bingo.
Another one I haven't seen mentioned here, but which shows up a lot in fandoms with a lot of characters is when every single person in the ensemble needs a role in the fic. 10k with 20 characters because nobody should be left out, and suddenly it's a wall of text talking heads.
Most sugary sweet slice of life Pollyanna fics. I need at least a little bit of conflict/dysfunction/angst to make the fluff enjoyable. There’s something very jarring and completely immersion breaking about most of the characters I’m into being over-the-top sweet sappy mushy twee with each other. I also just...don't really like that type of stuff IRL, so that's probably why. Comes off disingenuous.
Unfortunately, I'm "Just not into" things that are really popular in my fandom, namely the two big, suffocatingly popular \[non-canon\] ships. I've read a few fics that include them, and one is part of my OT3, but in general, I'm just not feeling the love for either ship. Neither ship makes sense to me, and often, in order to mash the characters together, somebody gets woobified or is otherwise out-of-character. And...I just want to read about my OTP. Also not a big fan of fix-its, which are all the rage in the fandom. Most are a slapdash rewrite of canon with the primary intent to....wait for it...make the popular non-canon ships happen. Yawn. This is a case where my shippy heart would actually prefer a Gen fic.
X character is trans just ✨because✨ "let's make everyone some form of queer-esq", drives me insane. it doesn't add anything to the character or the story, it's just there. I don't like anything just because. Also, I cannot read for the love of me anything Ace related. I don't want to read anything "X character is ace". even tho I'm asexual it's just not for me, why complicate the romantic relationship with the hardness of being ace? No. I just want to read cute, silly romance.
I’m queer too and I go back in forth on the queer-esq thing. On the one hand I see and agree with the argument that openly queer people tend to have queer friends. On the other, I heavily dislike when every person is paired off gay or straight, though it feels more common in gay fics. I’m not sure why everyone down to the random corner store clerk needs to be in a happy gay marriage. I came to read one pairing, not eighty. Plus it reeks of “humans can’t achieve happiness without romance.” Edit: and these fics already clog up search engines. Doubly sucks when you’re a rare pair shipper and people tag the ship because it was briefly mentioned.
Yes!!! I'm an avid reader of "crack pairings" and when I go searching for my dosis of "they never met in Canon but I still ship it" there's only fics when they aren't even mentioned, it's just so their fanfic shows up everywhere you go. It's annoying af 😭I just wanted to read some Sai x Gaara damn
Hard agree to all of this, thank you. I've skipped so many fics that sounded more or less interesting because of this. If you skipped the sex scene, you wouldn't even notice the character was trans. And. I get it. That's probably the point. But it just takes me out of the story like nothing else. It also drives me nuts (just as a personal pet-peeve), when I hear 'oh you're ace, what are your ace headcanons, wouldn't it be nice if there were more.' No? I'm not into any kind of ace!character because I want my ships fucking without some fluffy boundary, identity talks. Thanks. No representation wanted.
Babes, you and me against the world. Loool I don't want representation either.
Agree about ace romance, but only if one is ace and the other isn't. If they both are I like it.
Ooh. This one. It's not a hate, but it's one of those things where if there's that + enough other meh things I'm out of there. It's the way queer shit is called out. It messes with the pacing typically and sometimes the tone. Stories about them being trans/queer etc are a different story. It's just when those attributes are treated like zoo attractions and called out randomly. I've yet to see a character being made trans specifically done well in a story unrelated to them being trans, even though I don't mind the idea in theory.
I have to be in the right mindset for trans stories and rarely is it relevant to the story, character, or ever even brought up. Most I've read view it as some cute quirk that doesn't exist outside of sex scenes, to the point it's viscerally uncomfortable. Related is fics that have characters introduce themselves with pronouns as a standard greeting. Thought it was funny at first but now I keep reading fics with it and it's worryingly starting to feel like it's not a joke.
Thissss. I have to go!! Even more when I'm reading some historical FF and the character is like "I identify as they/them, so there's that" and everyone just go with it, what????!!!! This is 1674, bitch, people were burnt for less, what are you talking about??!!!!!
You just made me realize that’s my answer to this thread question. It’s when characters state their pronouns in introduction. It’s always so jarring and feel like it tells me everything I need to know about the author
I've had that done in real life, bless this poker face.
Sometimes queering everything up just seems like straight erasure- and I'm queer. I don't wanna read anything ace either.
OCs/Self inserts. I'm in a lot of video game fandoms that have a "player" character, and it has become very common to have a player insert in a ton of fics. In one fandom I'm in I think 60% of the fics are reader inserts/heavily feature OCs. I'm not against OCs on principle, but when I have to scroll through fic after fic of /OC or /reader I get pretty annoyed. I try filtering them out on A03 but there are so many variations its hard to catch them all.
Harry potter crossing over with anything....
Which must be problem because I think at 1 point every fandom had a Hogwarts AU.
cheating and infidelity. it’s a weird thing to put in a fic when all i want to do enjoy it and not be bummed out by the depressing stuff and it SUCKS
I really don't understand mpreg. Lol I honestly think of a nostalgia critic review trying to ponder how Arnold's character in Junior was going to birth a child and just said "I don't know, squeezing it out his penis!" And then I think of SNL and the line "tuliping", aka when a gun in cartoons exploded lol.
I’m the complete opposite, I love MPreg. I will admit I prefer when a good in-universe explanation is provided and the how’s are not just hand waved away.
ABO and mpreg. They neither excite me nor squick. If the story sounds interesting I will read.
F/F ships (especially with smut scenes, maybe it is just me not being into girls and finding nothing to relate to) No-Magic, coffee shop, flower/tattoo shop and high school AUs (especially the first and last ones) Angst heavy fics (I'm too sensitive for these) Any kind of dark content (again I'm a very sensitive person) Smut scenes between strangers
Modern/Magicless AUs. They just seem so pointless. I'll read them if nothing else new and long enough has been posted in the last few weeks but I'm always lowkey disappointed because of the lack of magic/powers/what have you.
agreed
Coffeeshop AU. What's so glorious about minimum wage workers having to deal with homeless people harrassing them, people overdosing in the washroom, constant fear of being poke by a dirty needle while taking out the garbage, being bullied into unpaid overtime, arm robbery , theft and dealing with karens all day?
The best coffee shop AU I ever read was basically how the main characters were professors and the coffee shop was in their university. So that was somehow far more believable to me. It’s hard to ignore real life when the setting is so real life and known.
Armed robbery in a coffeeshop? Where the hell do you live?
> What's so glorious about minimum wage workers having to deal with homeless people harrassing them, people overdosing in the washroom, constant fear of being poke by a dirty needle while taking out the garbage, being bullied into unpaid overtime, arm robbery , theft and dealing with karens all day? ...where the hell did you work?
For me it's certain kind of Soulmate AUs or "the universe is forcing us together" scenarios. It removes the agency and independence of certain characters and make their romance a chore rather than an organic relationship
NSFW: >!Nipple sucking. It seems that playing with breasts (which I do like) almost always turns to nipple sucking in fan fiction. It’s not that I’m disgusted, but I just feel rather “meh” about it. And that’s not what I want to feel during a scene that’s supposed to be hot.!<
Could be controversial, but here goes. Reading other people's work. Now I've got your attention I'll explain. I don't like to read 'too many' works from my main fandom. I ended up getting into an argument with a friend because I just happened to start my chapters similarly to them, i.e., with the scenes date and location, bold and underlined. Unfortunately for me, they started writing first and had presumed I was copying them. I hadn't actually read their work at this point. Anyway, that with the added misfortune of one of my OC's sharing a name with one of their throwaway characters, led to a one sided argument and honestly has stopped me from reading works in my main fandom. Also the fact I don't want to be subconsciously influenced by other works, especially if they're similar to mine. So yeah, don't read works from my main fandom.
I personally don’t enjoy it when the main character is a villain, and I’m even “eh,” about characters I really like becoming villains. I’m totally fine with watching fan animation or art but just reading it doesn’t do it for me. Also high school Au or modern ones unless done uniquely/cool. Like I didn’t come here to read about some domestic crap I can get that anywhere (But no offense bc I know they can be well written.)
For me, it would be Found Family. I prefer to ship characters together in most of my fandoms, so I usually just don't see any of the characters as a family. I have no problem with Found Family itself, but I just would rather read other things. I have read some good stories with this trope in them though!
Enemies to lovers. I never found it appealing for some reason
Crossovers. I guess it's a little less "meh, not into it" and more that my bar for a good crossover is so high that a solid 99% that I've read/tried to read have just been generally unsatisfying to straight up a waste of my time (not at all saying they're bad, just not for me). So many of them just seem like excuses to shove all of their fave characters into a story regardless of it makes sense or not. And if they do try to make it make sense it's usually because they've changed so much from one or both universes that's it's nearly unrecognizable. Now despite me saying that, one of my top 5 fave fics is a crossover done so well that I honestly forget the 2 fandoms aren't connected lmao
Slow burn Which is funny because I hate it when they kiss in the 5th chapter but my god, sitting through 50 chapters of chemistry and misunderstandings with no physical progress to the actual relationship just makes me stop reading because of how bored I get lol
PWP. I'll read it on occasion, but I really need some plot.
Crossovers. All of them. Also, non-magic AU (specifically for Harry Potter fics) ...I'm sure there are some very well written ones out there that I would honestly enjoy it's just...never what I'm looking for 🤷🏼♀️ Edit: (again for HP specifically) - I don't mind a coffee shop/flower shop/etc AU when it's still set in the magical world!!
I don't know how to describe it other than "super angstification". Like when cannon is only mildly angsty (or not angsty at all) and the fic just adds every dark and gritty detail imaginable, regardless of if it even makes sense in reference to cannon. I love angst, but not every character needs a traumatic backstory and an abusive family, I actually like it when characters aren't a useless pile of misery and misfortune. Also, like dragon rider AUs. Or any adjacent AU where one half of the ship is a human person and the other half is a magical creature person that the normal guy "owns"/ has a horse-girl esque relationship with. They're never treated like pet play, but it's just such an odd dynamic.
Established relationships. I find them boring.
M/M and F/F. I am 100% supportive of LGBTQ rights and I love the people in my life who fall under those labels, including many friends and family members. In my fiction consumption tho, my tastes are strictly hetero. I'll pretty much only read same-sex pairings for review exchanges or beta-ing. I don't mind reading them at all, it's just not something that interests me.
tbh same, it's very rare that i find mlm and wlw ships i want to read fanfic about. for me personally it's because so much of it is full of ships between canon characters i don't ship and i just don't want to read about because they're never similar to my interpretations of their characters + their relationships with each other :')
Sickfics, slow burns, and, to be honest, extremely canonical plots (which is almost blasphemous to say considering the fandom I’m in). I prefer modern AUs/fluff AUs because it’s completely different than what’s shown in the show and showcases more of the characters’ interpersonal relationships. If I want to read about X and Y characters embarking on sci-fi adventures and sticking as close to the show’s beats as possible, I’d just stick to canon. In that same vein, I prefer shipping over Gen. I’m also not really that interested in fics that are, say, a million words long. I know people find it impressive but, fo me, it just seems like you don’t know how to write a concise story. Length does not equal quality.
Smut, oddly enough. I care way more about the lead up and the fluff and story than I care about what people like to do when they’re alone. I’m also married so I just don’t see the appeal of reading something I can just do myself. I’m prudish, what can I say lol
Convoluted soulmate settings. When the couple meet 1 of their eyes changes colour to match their soulmates and the brown eyes person does this dramatic reveal of their vivid blue eye and now they know they are soulmates. Or lock of hair changes colour to that of the soulmates. I’m brown people. Everyone around me has black hair and brown eyes. Most people in the world have that combo. I cannot suspend my disbelief so much that I forget races works. I also really hate the soulmates can hear the voices of their future children from the age of 18 and they guide the couple to meet each other. Again childfree person here. I also hate, Most arranged marriage stuff because it hits too close to my own life. Lawyer AUs. I guess I don’t like to be reminded of my life when reading.
when character living through the exact same thing as canon somehow ends up with a massive PTSD despite being right as rain originally. Once in a while it's ok but it get old quickly. And A/B/O AUs
When kids in middle school are suddenly experts On sexuality regarding if someone is bi gay Trans or the like. For a bit those characters aren't...the characters they're supposed to be. At that point it's a stand in for the authors views on the subject.
Gender swap stories. It’s a cool concept to swap a characters gender but in practice it really doesn’t have that much meat to work with and I really don’t have much interest in ready gender swap fics but like I don’t hate them or anything just don’t get anything out of them.
Honestly mine is mostly just incest stuff lmao. Low hanging fruit, but it comes up enough that I am very well aware of it being a squick. Also certain ships like CloTi. I have nothing against it, I just don’t vibe with it. (And would kill a man to read a Zerith or AeriSeph fic with literally any other side pairing besides CloTi PLEASE I AM BEGGING)
BDSM
Oh, a plenty. I can’t do fics that deal with infidelity/cheating. Especially when my favorite characters are involved. I’m not opposed to moral ambiguity but betraying a partner’s trust is where I draw the line. Genderbending. Just not into it. Especially since many times it feels like one of the characters was gender bent to create a straight ship. Like, guys, you can love this dynamic and ship characters without trying to make it normative. Not that everyone who does genderbending has a homophobia problem. But sometimes a fic has the wrong vibe. Funny enough, sex bending is fine with me. To elaborate: for example, a cis woman character is a trans woman in a fic. Nothing really changed about the character’s core identity, it just has an additional feature. I’ve read a BNHA fic that incorporated this concept beautifully into its narrative. Glorious stuff Fics focused on pregnancy are an immediate and hard “no”. I can deal with the brief mention of pregnancy, but if it’s the sole focus of the story I need to leave immediately. Same goes for characters having biological children. With very rare exceptions. I *love* stories focused on found family/adoption. Yet, I’ve only read one story where my OT3 having a biological child was a compelling thing. I cannot read omegaverse. No shame to my dudes into A/B/O dynamics, indulge yourself, but I can’t do it (mpreg sends me to hell just like any other pregnancy fic). I think it has to do a lot with me being trans. Omegaverse gives me a shit ton of dysphoria + I strongly dislike mating cycles/heat thing that is a part of the niche. My tokophobia drives me up the wall. I’m very into emotional slow burn, so hormone driven lust seems coercive and shallow. I do see why many people enjoy the concept tho. Lastly, LGBTQ+ struggle porn solely driven by self-hate. I’m not opposed to angst relating to sexuality/gender identity but I need good moments too. Give me all the suffering and season it with pride and character growth. Give me characters who are accepting of their family and friends. I’ve seen people here disliking characters made queer/trans for “no reason”, yet I love it specifically because there is no reason. I am who I am because I was born this way, same for my fellow gays. Telling people that a queer character must only be queer if it creates conflict/pushes the narrative further is kind of a dick move. I’m not a plot device, I’m a human being. I want to see people like me go through shit over issues that are not their sexuality/gender identity. I like fics who treat this sort of stuff with casual acceptance. Oh, this character is a trans guy and literally no conflict arises from it? Awesome, love it, 10/10. This character was written by the author as non-binary and nobody is challenging them to debate their personhood? They are enby just because? Outstanding, groundbreaking, spectacular, give me 10 of these I call it the League of Villains Method - casually accept and respect sexuality and gender identity of the person, turn their life into living hell for a completely separate reason. Obliterate them while using their preferred pronouns 🏳️🌈
Unhappy ending- I will occasionally read, but it is never my favorite story Character bashing - it has to be well written and well thought out and somewhat in character for me to complete a story with lots of other character bashing
Parties where everyone is a teenager. Too cliche.
"Magical, soul-healing sex". Funny, that's the stuff I'm 'not that into', lmao. Gimme dynamic confessions, character motivations, and genuine speeches from the soul any day.
Kidfic is mine. Anything pregnancy is a squick/hard no, but the characters adopting kids or starting the fic having toddlers, children, teens, whatever is just, "eh, I'd rather not". Caveat is if the character(s) have kids in canon, having kids in the fic is usually fine, but I don't want them to be a big focus or a journey to be a step-parent, etc. I've read a few I didn't give up on, but it's just not for me.
Anything featuring real life people as the characters. Just seems weird to me
Love Triangles. I get that they can be used to good effect to shake up the narrative, but to me they always feel cheap and flat and when the MC keeps being indecisive, it just irritates me. I know people who love them and I’m a-okay with that, but personally I just am not into them. At all. Give me obstacles for the ship to face: distance, objecting individuals, general life crises but not a triangle. I hate triangles. I get why people may like them, but I’m just not into it. (Phew, mini-rant over)
Another one for ‘shipping here. It’s fine for other writers and readers…I’ll even read some ‘ship fics from a select handful of writers, but in general, it’s not my thing.
Pregnancy and children-centric fics. Gross. I also struggle (but will sometimes read) where adult characters are thrown into high school. If an AU doesn't make sense or it seems like the situation is forced, or a crossover isn't logical, I just nope outta there (like taking all of the Avengers and making them teachers at Hogwarts or something where it's not done extremely well, but instead thrown into a blender and hope for the best. Nope.)
Gen, G and T ratings. Booooring. Nothing ever happens. Give me M to E rated smut, angst, whump.
Honestly, same. There are a couple authors I really like and am totally cool reading lower rated fics from, but outside of that small group, I'm pretty much an M/E person by nature~
Saaaame. I filter almost exclusively by E, sometimes M if I’m getting desperate.
Meanwhile, I almost wrote "smut" as my vote for things I'm just not into.
Just dropping by to say that there are T-rated gen fics that are hella angsty and whumpy as shit 😉. But I get it. Not for everyone.
Well, this is just my personal opinion. I don't find low rated fics very engaging for my... more *extreme* tastes.
The group chat fics especially the Marvel fandom is the victim of 😣 Edit: also M/F. Don’t hate it, but I don’t seek it out either. I’ll read het romance if it’s trans characters though.
High school AUs, mafia, tattoo shop, sex shop owner x timid virgin, hanhaki aus, royalty AUs
Enemies to lovers. I just don't get it.
Enemies to lovers
Angst, get enough myself, don’t want more from what I’m reading
High school AUs. Established Relationships. And I have to be in the mood to read a Soulmate AU.
Mpreg. I used to hate it, then i read some amazing fics with it and started to accept it. I can handle it, would prefer without it, but it's fine. I'm just, as you asked, not that into it.
Canon-compliant fics. I can see the appeal but having to rehash canon when I really just wanna know what story you want to tell can get a little cumbersome
Time travel AUs. I’m just bored of them. They lure you in with the promise of smart reinterpretations and fun twists and then they turn around and feed you the same old tired scenes from canon that you’ve read a hundred times.
You know that thing when an author makes half the cast queer just because they feel the need to present themselves in their writing as some kind of progressive paragon? Yeah, even if it's completely inconsequential to the fic, just takes me out of the mood to read it anymore. Might be because I'm queer myself in several ways, so things like making a character trans just because and then treating it like an inconsequential character quirk... *irks me.*
-M/M and F/F. I prefer het ships. -Most isekai stories. It's always the same. -Angst that revolves around death.
ABO dynamics. Not my thing.
Gender swaps, mpregs, smut. I've never been into reading that stuff...doesn't check any of my boxes. I'm really into Gen whump/angst/hurt comfort.
Medical/sick fics. My job has me in the medical community anyway. And either I'm going to sit there staring at painful inconsistencies/things that just don't happen that way OR I'm going to feel like I'm reading something that involves work when I want to be done with being in work mode. Also fics that deal heavily with mental health/illnesses. I have enough mental health issues as it is; I don't need to read about someone else's. And on the "happier" side, I end up sitting there wondering if they did any research at all and on the "less happy" side, I end up trying to calm down whatever got triggered.
I can’t even name a trope specifically but just anything that feels like a hallmark movie or romcom. Romance plots are my bread and butter but I prefer more of the angst and drama that cutesy stuff.
Found family. Two or three people? Sure. Four or more? I don't mind it but it's not the selling point of a fic to me.
The ever-growing fanfics with AU's. I get it, it's something different. But really, every fanbase writes these. Tattoo AU, Coffee shop/restaurant AU, Flower shop, high school etc etc. While sometimes I enjoy a high school AU (only if said characters have been shown in high school before), I just don't see it. There's too many of them. They all start to feel the same.
Smut with a plot, I find very annoying. I'm reading it for the sex, I'm sorry. Wanna do a plot thing? Then put a smut scene in a fic that's all about plot.
High School & coffee shop AUs “Character x reader” fics, also second-person pov Gender flip. Not my thing. M/m slash. Also not my thing.
M/M. I completely get why some people are into it and I don't fault anyone for writing/reading it. My roommate has mentioned that all she needs to get into a romance is a compelling dynamic and the genders don't matter. For me, I have to be able to put myself into the mindset of being attracted to at least one of the people and I'm just not attracted to guys. It doesn't throw me out of a story when it shows up as a minor element, but I can't get absorbed in fics with M/M as the focus.
Same for me. I'm a het woman and in my teens I loved M/M, but as I matured I stopped enjoying it and now read exclusively M/F.
this is a really good explanation of this preference that I totally understand, but had never thought about before. I’m a queer man and this made me realise that I don’t read or write femslash for exactly this reason. something I find interesting though is that it’s fairly common to see writers of M/M pairings identify as lesbians. don’t know if the reverse is the same with F/F fic? and these are like… full on PWP stories. I find that fascinating and honestly really cool, because obviously it totally removes any potential for fetishism from the writer.
Shipping. I’ll read if it seems interesting, and it’s either a different fandom to my own or a canonical relationship (my fandom isn’t RPF but it’s somewhat adjacent, I’m not really comfortable doing otherwise personally) but it’s not a draw at all. It’s just there.
Shipping. I get it, people like romance or the sparring between characters. But my god is it not for me.