What kind of fanfics do you hate?

[Comartemis]

Lets see... personal fanfiction pet peeves...

1) Darkfics. Universally depressing, they seem to exist for the sole purpose of tormenting the characters. I can appreciate dark angsty stuff in other sorts of fics, but there must be a light at the end of the tunnel.

2) Betrayal fics. Sailor Moon fanfiction that features Moon being betrayed by one or more of the Senshi. I can make certain allowances for this, like if the traitor in question is Pluto (I just think she's capable of it), but otherwise the characters in these fics are so OOC it hurts to look at them.

3) Lemons written by people who obviously failed Sex-Ed. I can't recall the number of times I've read stuff where the guy puts his wang into the clitoris. Are you trying to drill through it or something, kid?

4) Yaoi. While I don't have anything against guys who swing that way, certain series just seem to be absolutely saturated with yaoi. *coughnarutocough*

5) Rape lemons. To think I used to like this stuff... *shiver*

[runnerz]

I decided to update my list of hated fics. I hate fics that take a pairing and mary sue it. Often times, I find that writers, especially in more romance based shows and books like Sailor Moon, end up turning the relationships perfect and everyone supports it or hates it.
Example
Mamoru abandones Usagi. Seiya, for no apparent reason, returns to earth. Usagi turns to him for comfort and they live happily ever after.
I also hate fics where one of the major characters on the protagonists side turns bad. For example, let's look at the splurge of Harry Potter fics with Manipulative!Dumbledore coming up across ff.net. Do people not get what they said in book six? Harry is Dumbledore's man, through and through. Also, many writers simply skip back to the summer after fifth year to get around this. Harry was honestly worried that Dumbledore would not so much as look at him. He wasn't getting angry, he was concerned. No one seems to understand that. Then take the Powerful!Harry fics, which often end up with a manipulative Dumbledore. They never move along. In fact, I don't think we ever see Voldemort actually show up in these fics, although he's the main villain. It's like the Dark Lord must be cowering away in fear in some cave!
Then other fics I hate are the ones where someone gets abandoned. The biggest time I see this is in Sailor Moon fics, and it's rarely done well, nor is it logical. Why would any of the senshi abandon Usagi, let alone Mamoru? That idea is impossible to comprehend no matter if you read the manga or watch the anime. They honestly care for her.
That's all for now.

[Seraphim]

In no particular order:

1) Fusion fics.

2) Extreme OOC, usually the the kind that paint the character in question in negative light. (Unless it's a blatant parody/crack fic)

3) Mary Sue fics.

4) Pairings that don't make any sense that are in a 'serious' fic.

There are probably more, but I've forgotten.

[Quizer]

Quite frankly, I have no idea. I hate rape of course, but I accept it in a story because it's generally a very important fact the story is based on.

In my experience, a character being (or having been) raped in a story is almost always used as a cheap way to insert vast quantities of angst and suffering (the purpose of which still eludes me after the hundreds of millions of words I've read in my life), but hardly ever truly necessary for the plot. Even then, the author should think not only twice, but at least five times whether they have the genius to make such a plot work. I believe there are things that even in fiction shouldn't be touched with a ten-foot pole, and rape is foremost among those. In all fiction I have read, published and fanfiction combined, there is only a single story containing a rape scene where I can say it was not only crucial to the plot, but also totally worth it in the long run. That story is 'Pillars of the Earth' by Ken Follett. For those who only use rape to crank up the angst factor in a story, I have nothing but contempt.


Quizer

[Southern Cross]

Obviously,Quizer,you're not a Mercedes Lackey fan...

[Siden]

1} Dark fics and angsty drivel.

2} OOC without good reason and developement. If you are going to completely change the character, don't label it as fanfiction, because it's not. It's original fiction with some plagarized names or a bad self insertion. Changes need to be explained in a believable way and still retain that which makes the characters 'them'.

3} Super-fusions. Gets far to confusing to keep track of all the different characters, and most I've read don't even hold together that well.

4} God-fics and Mary Sues. If you resort to these you've already failed as a wrighter. Try and actually build some plot and and drama, work to build the scene instead of just giving the win.

5} Lemons written by people who obviously failed Sex-Ed and/or take their scenes straight from porn. (Most) people don't do it like they do in videos.

6} Yaoi. While I don't have anything against guys who swing that way, certain series just seem to be absolutely saturated with yaoi. It's worse when they do impossible couples or warp the characters to the point of not even being the same person anymore.

7} Self Insertions. Won't read em. I don't read fanfiction to here about your delusions of youself, I read fanfiction for the characters and series I enjoy. The only exception to the rule I've ever found is carrotglace's Insertion, which seems to make fun of SI's more than being one.

8} Rape-fics. Cheap cop-out in place of real plot, authors with no sense of decency.

9} Poor writing and grammar. You are on a computer, obviously with access to the net, so you have no excuse for not using a dictionary or thesaurus. I've seen fics out there that look like they were written by my Grade 2s.

10} Copy-cat Fics. At least try for something original instead of repeating the exact same plot as another author.

11} Authors who barely write anything, but then give themselves a pat on the back when they manage 2000 words a chapter. Kids, college/university professors laugh at 2000 words and then fail you. Heck, one of my high school teachers would accept nothing less than 3000 for essays.

[Quizer]

Obviously,Quizer,you're not a Mercedes Lackey fan...

I'm not familiar with her works. I'm guessing she rapes her characters a lot?

I strongly dislike angst in general. That doesn't mean that in order for me to like a story, nothing bad must happen to the lead character, but the author should take care that the suffering doesn't drag on endlessly, or that the situation doesn't seem hopeless, because at that point I'm quitting the story because I just don't think it's worth it. A gratuitous rape scene can bring me to that point very quickly, but there are other things that annoy and bother me so much that I'll just stop reading.

Hostage situations are another example of something I have very low tolerance for. Typical scenario:

Villain: I've kidnapped the Hero's girlfriend, and his parents/mentor figure/spunky sidekick too, just for kicks! Now Hero, you'll do whatever I say, or I'll start doing nasty, unspeakable things to them!
Hero : What?!! You fiend!
Villain: I still might, if you annoy me, so you had better watch your mouth! And don't even try to rescue them or tell someone else! I have you under constant surveillance, so I'll know the moment you disobey me. And don't get any ideas about killing my minions; if I don't hear from them at least every 24 hours, I'll start torturing your loved ones...
[The Villain's speech quickly degenerates to extremely detailed descriptions of what he will do to his hostages and whom he'll force to watch everything.]
Hero : Damn! I don't want to do this, but I have no choice...
[The Hero starts committing various evil and tasteless acts on the Villain's behest. The latter frequently stops by to gloat and crush the Hero's spirit even further. Despite his obedience, the Villain tortures the captives just for the hell of it. The Hero tries to get out from under his influence, but all his attempts fail, incurring further punishment for his loved ones. This continues for the majority of the story.]

Admittedly, this is a little over the top, but I've seen this exact scenario more than once. Unless the situation gets resolved almost immediately and with a minimum of emotional damage done, I'll quickly lose interest and stop reading.


Quizer

[rmt]

I'm going to add: fics with chapters that are only 1-2K words in length. That's a scene, damnit! Not a chapter!

[Tovath]

Obviously,Quizer,you're not a Mercedes Lackey fan...

I'm not familiar with her works. I'm guessing she rapes her characters a lot?

No she doesn't. Rape scenes only happen twice in the over sixty books she has written. Southern Cross judging a writer by their first published story or their first novel series is not a good thing.

[bissek]

Tovath, I can name eight of Lackey's works that involve rape, either on or off camera (that is, the start of the rape scene is described before a scene change, not the whole thing) , off the top of my head. However, if you're thinking of stories where that is a major part of the story rather than just an event in it, that cuts it down to one novel, part of a second novel, and a short story.

Runnerz, as for Dumbledore, there are several plotholes in HP that can only be explained by him either playing a deeper game than is shown, or being nowhere near as competent as everybody thinks he is. HBP proved the correct answer to be the second one, but the first makes better stories, especially since some of those plotholes are grounds for filing criminal charges against the Hogwarts faculty.

Openly announcing pairings? I'd say it depends on the nature of the fic. If romance is the point of the story, then yes, announcing who gets who in the summary is an absurd spoiler. If romance is a side plot, then it doesn't really matter all that much.

[Drawde]

Most of Mercedes Lackey's novels, that I've read, are fantasy. But many of them are partially there to be about some social problems like child abuse and such. In other words, she writes about them to tell people about them.

[tsukiakari]

Hmm, this may take a while.

Yaoi with details. I don't really care if two guys are in love and are happy together, but I do not want the details. Don't really want the details for straight couples either. But if you feel the need to give details, be original and don't just use the same stuff over and over.

Bad grammar and spelling. It's called spellcheck, I can't think of a single reason you wouldn't run this. And the excuse that the check doesn't recognize a word doesn't work as you can generally add words to it's database. Grammar takes a little more effort, but you should always have someone else read your stuff before you post it. Hell, you should read it a day or two after you finish it just to check it yourself. Oh yea, paragraphs are your friend.

Bad pacing. If a story goes too fast and jumps all over the place I am just going to stop reading, there are exceptions, very rare ones. Its just as bad thou when a story goes too slow, something has to happen every once in a while if you want to keep my attention.

Mega-crosses are ok, but the important details need to be kept to a limit. You can travel thru as many series as you wish, but the amount of information I need to keep track of in order to follow the story needs to be manageable. Mirrors Multiplied is a very good example of this, thou it started getting a little hard to keep track towards the end.

Good and evil fics. I hate good and evil fics. By this I mean fics were everything is black and white. Most Harry Potter fics are good examples of this, thou BtVS are truly horrible when it comes to this. I really can't put into words why this whole idea bothers me, it just does.

Let's see, specific dislikes.
I don't like Dumbledore. The man is either an idiot and there are a lot of coincidences, or he is a bastard. So I won't read much with him in a good light.
Crystal Tokyo is a horrible idea, in any incarnation that resembles canon. Just no.
Akane, there has already been enough said in another thread on here somewhere about this subject, suffice to say, I go with the people with the more negative look.
Canon, or similar, Naruto, he is a bad ninja...he's wearing orange. Also, any story were Sasuke is allowed to return to Konoha, they are a military state and he is a traitor.
The, seemingly, automatic assumption that the GW boys are together, this is so old. I would like to find one decent fic where this is not the case.

Think that's it. At the moment anyways. >^^<

[CRBWildcat]

As far as disliking certain fanfics go, I try to avoid anything worse than borderline PG-13-rated stuff (implied romances in particular). Some of the mental imagery is a bit much for me to take.

Some particular pet peeves I have are when the characters in the story are portrayed as total dunces (unless they were that way to start with, but I digress); when they do things for apparently no reason at all; stories without any plot whatsoever; and lastly, points where the story gets extremely depressing (like when one of the main characters dies, and his/her friends start crying about it). I've always been a bit emotional about stuff like that.

Anyhow, that's just my opinion.

[lwf58]

The discussion of "good" versus "evil" in fan fiction was off topic, and drew complaints. However, one of persons who complained pleaded that the topic was worthwhile, and that it be split off rather than removed, or that this topic be locked. So, because of that, it has been moved to its own topic.

Next time - if there is a next time - it won't. It's not hard to create a new topic for a conversation you want to have, instead of hijacking another. So when a forum member keeps saying "we're off topic!", pay attention to it. I certainly will.

[Comartemis]

I seem to cause new threads wherever I go on this forum, don't I? First the Whipping Girl thread, now this.

I'm very much against fics involving a love triangle where one of the characters gets completely left out in the cold. I'm aware that this is how real life works, but I don't read fanfics to get a look at real life, especially when the fic in question is from Evangelion; if Rei's emotions have developed to the point where she's in a relationship with Shinji, I'd much rather see her work something out with Asuka than see Rei "steal" Shinji. 'Those Who Hunt... Eva?', 'The Wild Horse Thesis' and 'Only in Your Eyes am I Worthy' all managed this wonderfully, though 'Thesis' used Ranma instead of Shinji.

*EDIT*
And as long as we're on the subject of Eva, I really hate Gendo/Rei stories, especially lemons. Come on folks, that might as well be incest!