Things that turn you off in fan-fiction

[JustinD]

-Most first person fics.

[Drawde2]

Not much that hasn't already been mentioned, namely bashing, extreme OOC, and extreme clicheing of characters.

I don't like fics that use too much Japanese though. I don't mind honorifics or names (such as techniques) being in Japanese, but I can't stand it when common easily translated words (such as yes/hai) are in Japanese just to show that the author knows a bit about the language. It ends up being either distracting or incomprehensible, depending on how much is used.

[LawOhki]

CANON ARGUEMENTS - MANGA COVERS, US RELEASE VERSIONS, AND RANMA'S HAIR COLOR

Some argue the manga has female Ranma's hair as black. I in fact have been told the first chapter in the Japanese edition is in color and shows it as black. My own U.S. release 1st chapter is not in color.

I will not dispute any fan fiction author using black. But the anime and most of the covers show it as red.

I should note also, there are two US releases. The first US release went only to volume 21. The second US release went and did the whole series, but they:

......

That yields 12 red, 4 purple, 3 pink, 2 black, 1 brownish black, 1 blue

Thus, since so many are red on manga covers (all other colors combined do not match number of red), and anime was consistently red. I see little issue with fan fiction authors using red.

By this same fallacious logic, Ranma is canonically a girl because the vast majority of covers have Ranma as female. You also didn't mention the chibi Ranma-chan on the sides of all japanese volumes that run through a rainbow of hair/eye colors.

[frice2000]

My ultimate most hated thing in a fanfiction series is the multicross. I have only seen maybe one good cross that has ever used three or more series. I just don't think it is really possible to write a compelling multicross at all. You're supposedly taking two series that are strong on their own since they had their own following...That can work just fine with only two. Add another and I think the whole thing falls apart because the separate elements become so diluted. Now I do think a multicross can be good for pure humor and a not at all serious story or a quick cameo or two without any other involvement in the plot...but I just can't stand reading stories where authors try to combine three or more at all.

In regards to Ranma fics in specific one of my main annoyance factors is psychotic/super-nice Akane. Neither are in character. I don 't like her character but DAMN people who go crazy to either one side or the other make me shudder. I can read fics where one or the other occur but it's almost always pretty distracting to me. Another one in regards to Ranma fics in general for me is if Ranma decides on one girl/guy/demon/god/goddess/whatever and then that's it everything is happy sails. Umm....what about the other people vying for his affections and his rivals/chaos? Where did they go? What happened to them?

Also I can't stand DBZ anything. If that series touches a fic and it is not a spoof I go away quickly. Also just don't like Harry Potter or Naruto if a fic veers into those universes I usually don't like them and if they aren't really compelling stop reading quickly. Another minor annoyance for me is super dark fics. I can and do like a few of these but when there is no hope whatsoever and the author leads the characters to extreme darkness I usually skip to the last chapter quickly to see if the tone lightens at all. If it doesn't I stop reading. No hope and everyone dying/failing in a fic doesn't interest me at all. If instead the author does brighten the fic marginally at the end I will read and usually enjoy them. Another minor gripe for me is omnipresent only focused on original characters. I don't understand authors who do this if you wanted to write a fanfiction why write one about your original character? Why not make your own story?

By this same fallacious logic, Ranma is canonically a girl because the vast majority of covers have Ranma as female. You also didn't mention the chibi Ranma-chan on the sides of all japanese volumes that run through a rainbow of hair/eye colors.

Wait...Ranma isn't canonically a girl? Hrm...I guess my favorite sub-genre is usually ooc...

[LawOhki]

Wait...Ranma isn't canonically a girl? Hrm...I guess my favorite sub-genre is usually ooc...

Well a good case could be made for Ranma not being 100% guy, but not by the same 'logic' that heintz is using to justify his red hair fetish.

[Spokavriel]

I thought this was going to be point out personal dislikes and possibly reasons for them not debate to defend that you don't like something. I wish this site had an ignore thread option to turn off the alert of new posts for certain threads. ::sigh:: And yes being drawn into a debate is one of my things that really irks me. Its not so much that I would avoid discussions but the aggressive style, almost accusatory, that allot of debates take which really turns me off on even wanting to participate.

[Crescent Pulsar R]

I'm more put out by the fact that LawOhki made a prejudiced remark toward PCHeintz than anything else. (You're an author who prefers black hair over red, right, LawOhki?) I had the impression that the argument simply shows that it's okay to go with one or the other, at one's own discretion. But the anime came after, so I'd wonder if they got the idea for red hair because of Takahashi's use of red hair. Either way, I prefer his female form to have red hair, though I don't consider it a fetish. It makes Ranma stand out more since so many characters have black and brown hair. And I have no problem reading stories where his female form has black hair. Or any hair color, for that matter: it's an inconsequential detail to me.

Anyway, frice2000 brought up multicrosses, and I remembered that I'm usually turned off by these, too. You know, 'cause different universes have different rules, and the more universes combined usually causes some logical discrepancies, which hurts the quality of the plot. Well, unless it's not a serious story, anyway. But multicrosses so often have AU and OOC, and I don't care for that. And some of them are god-awful long but don't really go anywhere. Others have characters hopping from one universe to the next, and those usually have terrible plots because the whole thing basically becomes a series of dealing with one thing in one universe before doing it again in another. So, basically, if I'm going to read one, it will probably have to be recommended by someone who can tell me more about it than the summary can.

[Comartemis]

Apart from yaoi in general, there are essentially two things in fanfiction that bug me and they're somewhat related to each other.

Darkfics
Now Darkfic is a pretty general term and I've seen a lot of fics that had a darker tone than the shows they were based on but were still very good. Most often these are Sailor Moon fics that ramp up the action and head in a general shoneny direction. The type of fics I'm talking about here are the ones that inflict excessive physical or emotional suffering on the characters with either nothing or very little to show for it by the end of the series. A good example of this is Seriously, who writes that crap and expects people to read it? There's no entertainment value in watching people suffer!

Grim Dark
This one isn't a pet peeve or a turn off so much as it is a Berserk Button. Grim Dark is when a fanfic author takes a series with an upbeat tone and generally optimistic themes and tears its' heart out. You've seen these things before; Sailor Moon fics where the Moon Kingdom or Crystal Tokyo was/is a fascist dictatorship, fics where the Senshi betray Usagi and suddenly turn into shrieking bitches demanding that she turn over the ginzuishou, pretty much all Warhammer 40K crossovers, fics where the author kills off all the characters for the hell of it, fics where people who are indisputably "white knight" heroes like the Senshi are suddenly revealed to be no better than their enemies for whatever bullshit reason, fics where Mamoru gets axed offscreen and the Senshi start getting turned into succubae and poor Usagi gets turned into a chew toy because she's stupid enough to believe that love and justice have any power in a cold and uncaring world...

I AM LOOKING DIRECTLY AT YOU, SUNNY. I don't care how popular The Return is around here, to me it's a pile of garbage not worth the kilobytes it was written with.

[Spokavriel]

You do realize there was an actual series episode where the Senshi appeared to have betrayed Usagi and were making that demand while they were trying to find a way to the Negaverse to attempt to rescue Mamoru right?

[Konsaki]

Let's keep this topic on stating what you dislike about certain types of fan fics and not individual writers, okay?

[frice2000]

Edit: Forget it I don't want to respond changed my mind might as well try to keep this on topic.

[Comartemis]

You do realize there was an actual series episode where the Senshi appeared to have betrayed Usagi and were making that demand while they were trying to find a way to the Negaverse to attempt to rescue Mamoru right?

What's your point? There's a rather huge difference between pretending to betray someone as part of a plan that you discussed with them and actually turning your back on a precious friend. The first is a clever gambit, the second is inexcusably out of character for the Senshi. I'm talking about fics that make the Senshi genuinely turn their backs on Usagi for some trivial reason. There was one Ranma/Sailor Moon fic I read a long time ago where Moon was beaten by Uranus and Neptune in their last fight in the S season and suddenly the Senshi were questioning whether Usagi was really the Moon Princess. As if they hadn't had proof since the first season, and as if her status as the Princess were the only reason they followed her or something. [sarcasm] I mean it's not like they ever followed her into battle before they knew she was royalty reincarnated, right? [/sarcasm]

[Drawde2]

Here's a couple more. The first is when authors completely disregard different continuities. When you read a fanfic you usually have certain expectations based on the original series. Mainly how the characters react and when certain situations happen. But when different continuities of the same series are mixed, the reader doesn't know what to expect next. It's not quite as bad for me when the continuties are close like in "Ranma 1/2". Though it's still annoying seeing Sasuke appear later in the story when both Gosenkugi has already appeared and Ranma got the phoenix pill at the beach. Or Herb shows up after Ranma got the pill on the mountain. It's really bad when competely different stories are involved, like with the various Tenchi continuities. I loose interest in a story if I see Tsunami and Kiyone in the same story, since I no longer have any idea how the characters will react to things or what events have happened or will happen. Yes I know that reading or watching something you've never seen will do that too, but in that case you're reading or watching to find out that stuff. With fanfiction you're reading about things you already know, and getting confused about that knocks me out of a story.

The second is fics that completely remove the original characters and setting, except for one character who is completely gutted except for his or her original name. As stated before, you usually read fanfiction to see more of the characters and setting, though the characters are usually more important. But if the only thing familiar is a single character's name, and that character doesn't even act the same, it's basically original fiction now using that name to draw readers in. Unless there is significant and shown backstory for the change (as in many chapters showing it) it turns me off of the story. Especially if the change is merely part of the first chapter, especially if it happened somewhere in the past before the original began. At least if the change happened later in the original you MIGHT run into more of the original characters, though more often than not it's just to bash them.

[CRBWildcat]

Character bashing, evidence of dirty humor and situations (and other stuff that would potentially make me sick to my stomach), romance in general (it's alright if it's there, but I usually don't read stories labeled as such), and (in most cases) God Mode Sues. Only a few of those are usually evident in the summary itself.

[Pale Wolf]

LawOhki, Comartemis.

Civility, please.

Law, please read what you're replying to. Heintz said 'there's enough evidence one way or the other, and it seriously doesn't matter', and you leaped on him.

Comartemis, chill. You don't like Sunny's style, and that's fine, but please either don't read it, or criticize constructively. A highly emotional rant just damages your own point and makes the whole thread a little less pleasant to read.

This isn't an official warning, but please tone things down to a dull roar.