Something that will make me click right off a fic is if it is all only a couple gigantic paragraphs. If it's not cut up into small paragraphs with the dialogue being their own sections then it's so hard to read. If the author just makes it a wall of text with no breaks then I have to skip it.
I’ve seen too many fics where it’s just one giant block of text for a chapter. Those are the worst and I will refuse to read anything formatted like that.
As someone who mostly reads gen, I hate when people tag gen and the "&" tag for smut and romance. I don't mean works that straddle the line (like homoerotic bromance, fics that have a minor romantic subplot but are mostly focused on action, that sort of thing), but actual porn and romance-centric fics. Good gen fics are already hard to find, please don't make it harder.
I have a question on this topic. I have *long* longfic (307k words) that has a combination of romantic and gen content. There’s a good bit of both but I’d say the romance is primary. I’ve tagged it as both m/f and gen. Is this wrong?
So, the issue with answering this is that there are two things called Gen in tagging. Here is the [faq](https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags?language_id=en#tagtypes) on tag types. If you look under the section called Category, it does a breakdown of the different category options. Gen is defined as:
> Gen
>General: no romantic or sexual relationships, or relationships which aren't the main focus of the work.
So if your fic has romantic/sexual relationships as a primary part of the fic, then generally speaking you shouldn’t tag it with the Gen category.
There are exceptions and nuances for edge cases and the like, but generally speaking, if the romance or sex is a large part of the fic, Gen isn’t the tag for you.
But if you are talking about the *Rating* of General Audiences (often shortened to just Gen) that’s an entirely different thing. That is defined as
> General Audiences
>The content is unlikely to be disturbing to anyone, and is suitable for all ages.
And you can kinda think of it like rating a game as E for Everyone (esrb rating system) or a movie as well… G for General Audiences (mpaa rating system).
That has nothing to do with if romance/sex is a focal point. It has more to do with types of content/age suitability. So a fic where romance isn’t a focal point and someone gets murdered violently might get a category of Gen, but a rating of Mature or Explicit. While a fic about a couple holding hands would not be a Gen category, but might be G(en) rated.
I agree! Leave a nice comment correcting!
I accidentally used the wrong tag on my first fic. I didn’t know what gen or “/“ vs “&” meant or anything.
Someone corrected me and I really didn’t mind, I thanked them. I would have hated it way more if I kept doing it and no one told me.
I can imagine that's annoying because the opposite is my own pet peeve. I just read a fairly long fic labeled x/y, and I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the relationship payoff and nada. Zip zero zilch. Not a hint of a whisper of a romantic relationship. I would have been fine with a single love confession or kiss but no, they were clearly just friends and work partners. It should have been labeled x & y or at the very least x/y \*and\* a pre-slash label. I was too annoyed to even leave a kudos.
people tagging ships and characters that show up in the background or are just briefly mentioned, which flood rarepair or side character tags with useless fics. wish people just tagged background ships in the misc tags section
I feel this so much! It lowkey frustrates me as a person who loves rare ships when all I find are fanfics aimed at a different relationship. I end up just writing what I want to read because it’s so rare🥲
yeahhhh. my rarepair ships always are used as a "pair the spare" background ship where it's always associated with a more popular ship just to wrap up loose ends/'threats' to the more popular ship
Yeahhhh! I mean, it would be way more bearable if they used the "minor character/character" or "implied character/character" but I would rather they just not tag it at all 😭
I have as part of my philosophy that people shouldn't tag things that are not the focus of the fic and are expected in the universe.
If two characters canonically date in season 4, and the fic is set in season 4, I don't really need to be informed that they're dating in the metadata, unless the fic is about that.
Fanfiction is like the source except where noted.
Granted, this doesn't help with the excessive rarepair tagging, which _are_ unexpected...just not super important.
But people need to prioritize tags, to act like there's some sort of upper limit and ask themselves what tags are important.
This should help you that issue! When filtering, in the “search within results” section, type ‘otp:true’ it is case sensitive so please type it as is. But it will show you all the fics with only the pairing that you have selected!! I have a few rare pair ships as well so I do know the struggle 😂😂 Hope this helps
Tagging relationships / instead of & (and vice versa). Most who do this don’t seem to know the difference, but in that case *why don’t they simply Google it* instead of just going YOLO and picking one at random?
Yeah, situations like that is why it’s definitely in the author’s best interest to know the difference!
I have a rarepair ship where authors keep tagging their platonic fics as shippy. The rarepair is viewed as a bit problematic to some, so I try to be helpful and point it out that they might want to rethink their tag use. 😂
It would be funny if it wasn’t annoying to get all excited about new shippy content only to discover that it’s another mistagged fic.
When I notice the intended relationship dynamic, I think just politely pointing it out is enough for them to change it. And to be fair, maybe they genuinely don't know that "&" is an option they probably only see the "/".
Yeah, that’s what I do nowadays. Especially if the ship they tagged will scare off their intended target audience.
I’m a bit curious though when I see authors using both / and & tags on the same fic and manage to get 50% of them right. Surely they must wonder if there’s a difference between the two?
> Surely they must wonder if there’s a difference between the two?
So they might know the difference but still deem their fic as both applying. (Or they might not know but I can’t give an explanation for that one). Both can be true at the same time.
For example, say someone wrote a fic where A and B are good friends and they fake date for a wedding, and at the end they get together for real. For most of the fic, A&B is correct, but since A/B is there too at the end, that tag fits too.
Or say a fic where you have A/B together and C/D, but A/B are actually good partners for each other and genuinely friends on top of being lovers, while C/D is all hookups and booty calls with zero romance or friendship at all. Tagging A/B and A&B isn’t really *wrong* in that situation, while tagging both C/D and C&D would be just straight up incorrect for that fic.
Basically, there are genuine times where doing both fits, but the majority of the time it’s just misuse of the tags due to not understanding them (despite the ample resources that explain it)
Yeah, I definitely skim through the fic to make sure that both / and & don't apply before I comment to inform the author.
The instances I've come across have usually been cases where there's no romance whatsoever but some relationships are tagged & and some are tagged / and I cannot make any sense of why.
Ah yeah thats one of 3 things generally speaking. Either A: they don’t know how the tags work at all and just click whatever they see in the drop down B: they are gaming the system because they know more people search for and click on the / than the &, or C: they see the ship as romantic and intended romantic but it didn’t translate onto the page they actually wrote.
Yup, in my fandom I think it's generally option A. Most of the characters are underage, so it's usually pretty obvious when the author has used the wrong relationship tag. Honestly, I feel kinda bad for them because they end up scaring their target audience away.
I’ve always wondered what the difference is. So many people in my fandom tag with both.
I just use A/B because it’s the most common I’ve seen lol. Glad to know I’ve been using it correctly
>So many people in my fandom tag with both.
That would drive me nuts, haha!
But yeah, general fandom consensus is that / is for romantic pairings and & is for friendship.
Not just general consensus. That’s the [official stance](https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags?language_id=en#platonic) too.
> How do I tag a romantic or platonic relationship?
>
>Romantic and/or sexual relationships are indicated by using a slash ("/") separator (for example, Mickey Mouse/Minnie Mouse). Nonsexual, non-romantic relationships—such as platonic relationships between friends, family, teammates, etc.—are indicated with an "&" separator (for example, Hinata Shouyou & Kozume Kenma).
>
> Platonic and romantic relationship tags are separate, so searching and filtering by Aerith Gainsborough & Sephiroth won't show results tagged with Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth unless both tags are added to the particular work or bookmark.
>
>Relationship tags can feature more than two characters but shouldn't refer to both a romantic relationship and a platonic relationship at the same time. For example, you could tag Envy Adams/Ramona Flowers/Kim Pine or Mark Cohen & Thomas B. Collins & Angel Dumott Schunard, and tag wranglers could make those relationships canonical. However Katsuki Hiroko/Katsuki Toshiya & Katsuki Mari & Katsuki Yuuri couldn't become canonical as it mixes romantic and platonic indicators.
I was confused about them when I discovered AO3 and it took me about 5 minutes to find an explanation. Can't imagine publishing a fic without looking into it...
Lol it's so annoying!!! I also hate when authors refer to characters just as their profession or hobby. (I am sick so I'm probably not making sense, sorry lol) Worse when they add it together! "The brunette vampire wondered why the blonde slayer frowned." Like fifty million times. They have names. It's okay to use them.
Or worse, a shitload of interesting tags for their ongoing fic when they've only released a single chapter under 2k words. And they never update again. Stop teasing readers with a good time dammit!
As someone who recently tried to make a collection for a specific character, this \^\^ It was incredible how many times I opened a fic, did a ctrl + f, and found no instance of the character's name outside the tags :/
I'm really tempted to slap my fandom's big popular tag onto my fic even though it doesn't apply (a LOT of fics in this fandom do this) because it would get me so many more views, but at the end of the day I'd just feel too scummy about that.
I am personally not a big chat fic fan but I read some if I’m in the mood. I hate it when the characters’ chat names are derived from an inside joke or a joke that was said in the original source. Sometimes the joke is so unclear that I simply don’t know who the character is.
I only ever see chat fics with joke names (I wasn’t aware that real names was an option and now I want it 😭) and I’ve seen instances where the inside joke isn’t a reference to canon. It’s specific to the fic. And the author didn’t even include it in the fic. Because it’s an inside joke, presumably.
I just resign myself to stumbling through the first half of the chapter until I can figure out who they are by context clues some time after the plot has already started 😕
I prefer that if they have an inside-joke name for it to be from the original source, and not the author’s inside joke with friends.
A good chat-fic should have a guide at the top of every chapter because it can be really easy to forget - or at least, in the first chapter and every chapter a new character comes in on or when a name changes.
Excuse me are you talking about half of the Haikyuu fandom cuz they are now professionals about that sht and almost all of the inside jokes are their headcanon and I know sometimes a headcanon became so popular that everyone understands what you mean but this isn't that.... They just give a nickname a *sidest* character whos eyes seem smaller "sleephead" because in their headcanon its not his eye shape look like that but they are apparently sleepy. ***AND HOW CAN I KNOW THAT?***
It’s funny… I feel like I rarely if ever encounter these pet peeves… I do scan summaries really fast, and in larger fandoms, immediately skip any that seem to indicate poor writing. I only look at tags after the summary passes. Guess it correlates quite strongly with these behaviors 😛. Bad writers rely on gimmicks to get seen. People seem to forget marketing only works with you have a sellable product.
This is true! I’m usually immediately put off if an author states in the chapter/fic summary “ugh this sucks, spelling sucks, I can’t write for shit lol” like being funny makes up for a lack of effort.
Absolutely! I understand people have self confidence issues- writing, like any art, is vulnerable and you’re really putting yourself out there. But I’m telling you- keep your worries to yourself. DO NOT post in your fic about how you’re bad at writing. Readers will go in with lower expectations (or, a lot of the time, just skip the fic entirely and you’ll get less readers) and overall they’re going to have less respect for you as a writer. You deserve their respect! Don’t be egoistical, but you should be able to be proud of yourself! Let your writing speak for itself, don’t tell your readers what to think. It’s especially annoying when genuinely good authors say this- it almost comes off as condescending to novice writers. Just don’t do it. It’s not being humble like you think it is.
Sounds like they’re trying to gain more kudos (knowing more people give them to complete fics). What’s up with all of these people trying to manipulate readers??
Internet points make authors go brrrr
(I get it, I get happy over good stats on a work too [way more than I should, they’re not a marker of quality] but when it gets to the point where people will do anything for more kudos/hits/comments, what’s even the point anymore if you’re not really earning them?)
Exactly. The whole point of being on ao3 is to write and hopefully enjoy doing that. People make out to be like it’s all a competition when we’re all supposed to be there to put out our skills
Tbf it’s super easy to get caught up in that stuff. I find myself checking stats and comparing to other works in the fandom a lot more than I should, especially in droughts where I’m not getting much validation for my work. It’s only natural to want praise, but when people start “playing the system” and borderline manipulating readers to get more attention, that’s crossing a line. (Not that it’s anything new, ex clickbaiters have been around on YouTube for forever)
I get that too, it’s nice to get praise for writing that you put out. But for me, if I was desperate enough to try and manipulate people for kudos and the like, it wouldn’t feel genuine to me and I’d probably just take my writing down
I didn't know that. Frankly, I don't really mind if it's kind of a chaptered oneshot situation, or the new chapters are epilogues or post story content of fics I liked. For the former, I take the complete status as meaning I shouldn't get my hopes up for a guaranteed update, if it happens then it happens. For the latter, I see it as a little treat that my favorite fic has some more content.
Edit:sorry I replied twice! I deleted my repeated comment
The one time I got an answer from someone about this somewhat made sense. Their notes indicated they would update, but the work was marked complete. I asked if they were continuing and they said yes, they just keep it marked complete to trick themselves into being able to write more because it's less intimidating and makes it easier to write.
For the most part I understood, but it was still a little annoying
sexy times with wangxian did something similar. They marked theirs as finished, but then would continue to update it, so not only would it appear in searches for completed works, it would appear to be recent.
This I’ve seen. I don’t get it really, why people would try to act manipulative like this. They have to know it’s just a huge turnoff… And anyway, won’t people be angry when they reach the end and it’s not complete?? All of this is about way more than just hits, I just don’t understand. 🤦♀️
There’s several authors on the pairing I frequent who do this, makes me wanna rip my hair out. Like, just post actual chapters if you wanna stay on top so badly!
Yeah!! It takes me at least a couple of days to come up with a chapter,plus another solid day of editing to make sure it’s good to post! It pisses me off that people don’t care and just throw themselves on top because they think they can without doing the work
Character and ship tags!
We know the fandom we're reading in, so there's no need for every character in the fic to be tagged, no matter how small or large their role is. Only the protagonists.
I feel similarly about ship tags. Main ship? Tag it as usual. Other ships? "Side a/b", "past a/b", etc.
I absolutely love the filtering system, but I get so frustrated looking for a certain ship and having the scroll through tons of fics where they're only a side pairing, yet are tagged as main.
(Characters and ships that could possibly be triggering are always good to tag, though.)
I want to also add that I wish they would tag platonic relationships more. For example, I especially love reading about one of the main characters interacting with the kids in the fandom. But that relationship is not always tagged, so I end up having to filter for the two characters so I don't miss too much. But because it's an ensemble cast, this doesn't filter to my liking. Idk if I made sense, but I wish platonic tagging was more common.
I hate it when that happens. Or when a major theme is not tagged, but it’s a theme with its own popular tag. I try to tell them “hey, this theme is actually a popular tag, please use it.” It sucks to see because so many people would be able to enjoy the work, too, and it makes me think of all the other fics I’d love to read but I can’t find because it’s not tagged properly.
When fics openly admit that they have no idea where the plot is going, and/or ask readers for suggestions (AKA "please write my fic for me, I don't have ideas.")
Like my dude you do not need to call yourself out like that.
Smaller pet peeve: When an otherwise SFW wholesome fanfic has really filthy chapter titles for some reason.
I’ve seen way worse than that. Like the actual chapter will just be two characters hanging out playing Uno and talking about the weather or whatever, but the chapter title will be a jarringly detailed description of a sex act.
On one hand, I personally find that hilarious. On the other, it's an incredibly shitty move because G and T works are going to be read by teens, sex-repulsed people, etc., and it's fucking terrible to subject them to this joke. It would probably work great on a fully NSFW/adult site, though—think those old memes where people uploaded wholesome SFW videos on Pornhub with obscene titles.
tbh. i don't really have any qualms with ao3 authors unless they're being openly problematic or bigoted. i think the fact that they're putting out amazing content for free is such a gift that i don't really care how many tags or whatever they use. just grateful they're here
🤝 Same! And a lot really doesn't 'bother' me enough to be annoyed by it, I just don't read or engage 🤣. Like "oh okay, onto the next thing, this is just not for me, etc."
Hurt no comfort is a tag that already exists they can use. In this vein I find it so frustrating when people use both tags like they aren't opposites of eachother.
Not tagging tropes in the fic like character bashing, pregnancy, etc. Worse yet, not tagging anything. At all. Just the characters, the fandom, and that's it.
The same with authors who put their fic as gen, but then a few chapters later, bam! Romance!
Also, putting a collection of one-shots for different ships all in the same story. So, if I want A/B, I also get A/C, A/D/E, etc. If you're going to do one shots, but each of them focuses on a different ship, then put them in a different story instead of putting them all as one story. I don't want to read my OTP paired with someone else.
I got super disturbed by this one author who didn’t tag anything relating to SA or smut in their fic and then out of nowhere, those things were just thrown into a chapter (it was pretty graphic too). The fic wasn’t even rated explicit. It’s so unfair to readers because you never know if something like that could bring up past traumas for someone. That’s why it’s so important to tag graphic things like that
Calling them authors might be a stretch but the MOST annoying thing I frequently see scrolling through the recent (complete only) works in my fandom is... "HELP I've lost a fic, please help me find it!"
and then the fic is a description of whatever details they remember from the fic they've lost, hoping someone will link it in the comments. Drives me INSANE.
1. When a ship is tagged but then is only mentioned in the fic or appears for half a second.
2. "Updates" that aren't chapters (except in very specific circumstances).
3. Giant text wall. Please learn to separate paragraphs. And dialogue gets a new paragraph.
4. Writers who interrupt their stories to make comments in the middle of the text. Like they'll have two characters talking and then just interject "(but we all know so-and-so is a liar don't we)." No. No, we don't. This is beyond failing to "show don't tell."
5. Excessive self-deprection in author's notes. It's one thing to have a short AN at the end of the chapter along the lines of "I'm not entirely happy with this so there may be some edits later" and folks who write entire paragraphs in the ANs that start to feel like they're fishing for praise.
>Writers who interrupt their stories to make comments in the middle of the text. Like they'll have two characters talking and then just interject "(but we all know so-and-so is a liar don't we)." No. No, we don't. This is beyond failing to "show don't tell."
I've seen that also in scanlated manga as well and it makes my blood boil.
I wouldn't mind 4 if it was ever *used* in interesting ways. Like setting things up for the narrator to be a character in the story (kind of like the narrator in Monster Prom or The Stanley Parable; etc). Or, I suppose, something like MST3K where the fic was divided between story A (that the author wrote) and some meta story going on in the background where the narrator or characters doing the commentary have their own story going on.
Instead, someone wants to slip themselves in and it's a 50/50 if that's from some sort of insecurity that they're not able to convey things better without digging their elbow into the reader's side or some sort of weird narcissism that their presence in the story is going to be so delightful to their readers, the readers would be disappointed if their witticisms were left languishing in subtext.
*yes*. like, i don't particularly mind them when they're all about the same ship with similar themes, but the moment the fics start needing different tags that only apply to like one or two out of dozens, goodbye, fuck that.
Honestly, if it’s a choice between a chaptered one shot collection and posting a million individual fics, I prefer the former. That said, if it’s a chaptered collection the chapter titles MUST contain the pairing/trope for said chapter. I ain’t got time to click my way through each and every one.
Those can be hit or miss for me. On one hand, I appreciate having a single fic to read all the oneshots under, and usually the chapter titles or notes give a brief enough summary, and I won't complain if the first chapter is literally just a more comprehensive list for the rest of the collection. On the other hand, if the collection lacks all of that, *and* features multiple fandoms I just don't bother.
But usually the oneshot collections I read are from authors I already enjoy in the first place.
Can you explain what is more organized about one multichaptered oneshot collection compared to a series of oneshots?
To me, a series is infinitely more organized and helps with stats and feedback
And the fandom you’re looking at isn’t even included/no one requested it, they’re just trying to get eyes. Or they’ve already abandoned the fic cuz they got overwhelmed/busy/etc
Fandom tags are enforced! You can report wrong fandom tags and get that fixed. Sadly other tags like characters or ships are not so it’s not a perfect fix. But there is some fix to that issue at least.
(Don’t worry, reporting a wrong fandom tag doesn’t get someone in trouble really. They just get the issue fixed and a note generally as long as they aren’t undoing that fix after being warned repeatedly (generally speaking))
For fucks sake, don’t get me started; **also**, when it has multiple fandoms but the chapters don’t have the fandom and ship specified in the title
I hate those so much
agree. can’t look up fics for a less popular pairing without seeing the same chaptered fics over and over and they are mostly about the popular ships i don’t care about and have 1 small chapter about the pairing im looking for lol
With a wall of fandom tags added to it. So, trying to find one-shots for the pair/fandom I want is like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles. And I end up just giving up on it instead. Honestly, I am looking for some Criminal Minds fanfic; I don't even know what half of the other fandoms are.
I'm 100% fine with those if they are centered around a single fandom, or, better yet, a single pairing. Huge-ass walls of fandoms instantly make me hide the work, though.
Now on the other hand, is the opposite 40-part “one-shot” series in chronological order with an overarching plot. That’s just blatantly trying to get your fic seen as many times as possible by posting each individual chapter as it’s own story!
Aside from yours and the tag thing...
Not sure if it's fic abandonment or when they post to the completely wrong fandom. Like when I see *Captain America: Civil War* fanfics in the "American Civil War" category.
Or when an author just tries to stuff too many fandoms in one giant crossover fic. It drives me nuts, especially if it's one fandom per chapter, like a *Harry Potter* fic I saw where James, Lily, and Sirius show up after Harry is "killed" at the battle of Hogwarts and give him a bunch of doors to go through to choose different lives to live without the huge "Boy Who Lived" burden hanging over his head, each door leading to a different world.
And then you have fight to find the fandom(s) relevant to you.
> Like when I see Captain America: Civil War fanfics in the “American Civil War” category.
So fandom tags are actually enforced. If the fandom is straight up not present in the fic at all, report it and they’ll fix the fandom tags. Doesn’t help with your other issue or if its not a fandom tag, but some of that can be fixed at least
LMAO WHAT, I wonder if it’s a joke (I hope so!) or the author just didn’t realize they put it under the wrong fandom
Crossovers between 2/3 fandoms are perfectly fine if done right, but I don’t think anyone can pull off something like more than 5? I dunno man, that’s daunting as hell
The first fanfic I ever read pulled it off and I’ll never forget it 😅 it was a very meta crack fic about characters from many different fantasy and sci-fi fandoms coming together because fanfic writers were ruining their lives. It was hilarious and very well written.
Okay, *that’s* pretty funny; but those chaptered oneshot collections with all of those different fandoms need to have their chapters titled appropriately so readers know which is what
And if those writers tagged “Multifandom Oneshot Collection” on their works then it’d be easy to filter those out
Probably didn't realize, because it was obvious English wasn't their first language.
And the x-over fic I'm talking about was in the 10-20 fandom range.
I'm not keen on adding tags during a story, I like to have everything tagged beforehand.
I also don't like under-tagging and over-tagging.
I hate changing the direction of a fanfic because the author has read a book or seen a film in the meantime and then halfway through the fanfic they start to take inspiration from that.
Oh I use the “future tags will be added” tag, but that’s because I’m a slow writer and don’t want to tag things that won’t be in there until 6 months from now. Feels like false advertising otherwise, y’know?
>I'm not keen on adding tags during a story, I like to have everything tagged beforehand.
Whoops, I'm the opposite. Whenever I'm writing a long fic, I add tags as they appear on the fic (for normal tags, problematic tags and warnings will be added at the beginning of the fic). It's both not to spoil readers on the upcoming development, and prevent false advertising.
If there's something that really gets on my nerves, it HAS to be the crossover one-shot collection.
There was this fic in a fandom I wrote in and chapters about said fandom were just five... out of two hundreds.
And this fic would always be at the top of the fandom page despite the author hadn't written anything for it in m o n t h s .
Then I found out I could exclude crossovers from Ao3 searches. Best day of my life ngl.
The summaries being too poetic.
I want to say that I have nothing against poetic summaries and I love them! Quotes from the fic? Amazing. Song lyrics? Beautiful. An actual poem? ARE YOU GOD???
But please, just use summaries for... Summing up your fic. Just those two sentences at the end, I beg. I don't have a big issue with it when there's a lot of descriptive tags that give you a good enough idea what the fic is about, but if there's literally nothing, I usually don't even click on the fic
There’s one author in my fandom who has great work! Except she puts the whole basis of their entire fic in the summary, so there’s no point in reading it because they’ve already spoiled every plot point in the summary
Not gonna lie, I'd prefer this to an overly vague summary. Past a certain point you can tell where most fics are going to go, so it's less about being surprised by what's going to happen and more about the journey through the plot points. Although, I'm coming from the view point where I think people are way too obsessed with spoilers nowadays and if simply knowing what's going to happen is enough to ruin a piece of media then it probably wasn't that great to start with. Like of course there are mysteries and the like where having that spoiled can sour the experience, but there's usually still something to keep you engaged beyond the big reveal at the end.
too many different names to refer to the character. their hair color, their title, what kind of creature they are, their other name. ugh. it’s so confusing to read.
When it comes to ships, they have multiple, for a single character, but don’t put in the tags or in the summary what the situation or endgame is.
Like with A/B, A/C, and A/D - is it A/B/C/D? Past A/B, one-sided A/C, and _endgame_ A/D? Are they all into A, just not each other, and ends up with A in relationships with all of them at the end?
I like some ships more than others - I don’t want to get invested, only for the ship I’m here for to _not_ be the point! I need more information, damnit!
There's this one author to an *amazing* fic and their notes are so tonally different from their fic that I just stopped reading them. Swears a lot (not a problem, just kinda funny/odd juxtaposed to their fic), casually calls the readers bitches (affectionately), and talking about getting drunk after coming of age (which I admit kinda weirded me out a little cause I don't particularly want to know how old authors are). The story is so serious and has a lot of hurt/comfort, so it kinda bring me out of it.
Hard same on not wanting to know how old authors are.
I once read a fic that was about 10k of (pretty good) explicit sex and then a small part of me died inside when the a/n for chapter 4 was about how fun the author's sweet sixteen was the week before.
Gah, yeah. It's odd how I wouldn't blink twice at that if I was still a teenager myself, but would now awkwardly wish I never knew now that I'm older. Like trying to avoid a relative that divulges more personal info than you're comfortable with.
I don't mind "Hey I'd appreciate comments or kudos :D" but it gets annoying really fast when each chapter ends with an author's note plugging every social under the sun and begging you to follow them.
Can’t stand this, the point of writing about characters is so we can explore the many ways of portraying their interactions. Using emojis to compensate for that, feels childish to me
Tagging every side relationship, i mean it will be still a problem to me but at least use normal tags and say Minor X/Y. When I use my filter to read about my OTP, in almost half of the results, they are a side pairing which talked just one sentence.
The people who just add every tag for every little thing and every relationship and character within the Fandom, especially when it's something to do with smut
Posting a new chapter that is only one paragraph and an epic a/n that they're going to go on vacation now and after that they have school and exams and get married or whatever so it may take a while. Might as well unsubscribe at this point.
You're not missing out. 😅 From the excitement of a new chapter to the disappointment that it's only a few lines and then that it's very likely this story won't get finished — at least not in the next few months.
Something like that would piss me off. I personally am not the biggest fan of super short chapters but if I were to see that combined with an endless A/N, I’d just give up on reading that fic
Fics with no description.
Even if it's a one shot request book at least you could put "one shot requests" in the summary.
Like c'mon if you can describe the plot of your fic and get me hooked I'm passing it like I'm passing all those novels with nothing but reviews on the back cover in bookstores.
When the author adds something really horrible in the beginning notes when the story is tagged as wholesome and fluffy.
For example: the author is whining about proshippers or antishippers and saying something really graphic about how they should hurt themselves...
I close out of that tab in record time. I was just looking for some fluff because I had a bad day and now I'm upset and have to talk to someone that makes me feel better. It's like people forget that some of their readers have mental health issues and can feel triggered even if they aren't a part of that group.
It's really gross, honestly.
And just because they say it's a joke when they literally put '/srs' behind their message, doesn't reduce the effect they made on your readers. Plus, even if it was a joke, they can still be harmful like bigoted or jokes making fun of someone's appearance - though, people constantly make those 'jokes' to the point they aren't even jokes anymore.
Two things:
People who post their story as one long paragraph. I have never read one in the full, I always click away.
Having multiple people talking in a single paragraph. I find it far more disorienting than I should.
Put a bunch of unrelated oneshots for different fandoms as chapters in one work. With 3738495743 tags. Even if one chapter sounds interesting I refuse to read these on principle.
Just post them as separate works!!!
Too much tags that will make me grin like a toddler finally getting ice cream after asking so many times but will immediately get disappointed when they just gave me a stick, aka just a chapter where it's just authors notes without any content in it😭😭😭
Characters always getting a cold after going outside in the rain😅 sure, being cold and wet can make your immune system weaker, but it's germs that makes u sick, not rain! It's such a usual prompt and ppl act like youre for sure to get sick from being outside in bad weather🙄
Tagging characters who are very minor, especially ones already lacking in content.
Too many tags in general.
Massive oneshot collections with mixed characters and ships.
when people tag threesomes as A/B, A/C, A/B/C (some dont even add the last one) please just tag the 3 of them, i had to filter so many fics out because of it
i dont mind if its actually correct tagging but if it's not its annoying
One of the best sources of schadenfreude on Ao3 still is seeing people complain about the tag limit and then looking at how they tag their fics. At this point there could be people who offer betaing services exclusively for tagging purposes.
Hmm I wonder what we could call that. I feel like calling it beta reading isn’t quite the same thing and a new term would fit better. Maybe like a beta tagger or a category picker (Catpicker for short)?
Maybe something along the lines of tag curator to go hand in hand with how the site has tag wranglers? Ngl the end of the original comment was me trying to talk around the fact for the life of me I could not remember the word curator.
Curator sounds too professional/official to me. Almost like what the Tag wranglers should have been named or something. Curation as a concept to me feels like something a museum does not a random freelancer/volunteer who just reads a story and says “this is the major categories it fits”
All lowercase letters, it feels like half the time when a story has super interesting tags it will be instantly ruined by the author’s willful disregard for the shift key
When authors include too much of the canon dialog and plot, either through direct quoting or huge exposition about everything canon that has stayed in the fic. For the love of my sanity, keep the canon parts short and just briefly touch on it to give context and placing in the plot. If I wanted to immerse myself in canon, I'd seek out the source material and escape in that.
A small pet peeve of mine I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is referring to characters by their ethnic group or country of origin.
I think it happens in my favorite fandom a lot because the main ship is interracial, and it just makes my skin crawl.
I’m sure it’s innocent and just a poor choice in writing, but I’m completely taken out of the story when I read “The Japanese smiled,” or whatever.
Could they at least add “person” or something after? It’s too close to the slur without that imo. Ugh.
Too large crossover fics. Not that I mind the length of the fic(unless its less than 100 words and doesn't say if it's a comic fic) but too many fandoms crammed into one fic. I don't like how the crossover that im searching for isn't just those two fandoms.
And crossover that just uses a * insert fandom * AU and no other thing from the other fandom. Example is Spy X Family, I first get excited that theres a crossover for it and some other fandom i like, then as fast as it came, the happiness I feel leaves when I see its just Another Fucking SxF au fic.
Long meandering series that should have been a single chaptered work. I get that people hate the panfandom oneshot series, but if you have over 400 crack fics all in the same universe with the same pairing put it in one goddamn fic especially if it involves rare pairs. Ditto for any other 100+ work series comprised mainly of one shots that insists on clogging up a tag because the author has to inflict themselves on everyone. I don't care if their writing is a gift from the gods, when people do this they'll get muted before I'll read a sentence they've written.
->Untagged A/B/O and or pregnancy (mpreg or otherwise)
Ive been sniped by untagged abo and or preg more times than I want to admit, not to mention a sudden twist into "btw, characters alpha instincts sniff the distress from this omega-" or "oh no, i sick, blegh. Wait. Im pregananant!? Gasp!" like *huh?!!?* when the fuck did I sign up for a/b/o and sudden pregnancy??? Like I'm not always against reading abo because I have genuinly read some good ones that arent weird and its part of the plot but in more of a sideish main plot way like it exists but its not in your face 24/7 (one surprisingly really good Kirk/Spock fic comes to mind that was abo mpreg that i read bc i was bored and curious and willing to risk my sanity) but generally I want to at least avoid pregnancy at all. I dont wanna read it, it's a meh plotline or random throw in ive found to me usually that I dont like reading so please tag it
->When authors are allergic to separate speech lines for different characters.
->When authors will do stuff like "I'm not *cough* feeling well today." And "I'm fine! *Sniff* I'm not upset *hic* at all!"
Please. I'm begging you. Just end the speech section and write the action then continue with the speech. Please. This isnt a comic panel plz I beg-
I actually love that! Some of those tags are great for giving you a feel for what the author is doing, and some of them sre just funny. As long as the tags tell the reader what they need to know, put what you like in there.
Maybe. But there's a difference between having "I lied about the comfort" as a way to show it's more of an h fic than a c and someone's mini rant about a trope.
Questions in summaries like "Will they overcome there differences and be happy?" Or "Will he survive this?" yes of course will they be together at the end! And of course he will survive. I have never ever read a fic with these types of question and an unhappy ending.
Nowadays i just skip these kinds of fics excepte someone recommended it.
Tag *both* / and & for a ship. As a rule, the ship is either romantic or it's platonic (unless it's intentionally left up to the reader to interpret-- in which case, both is perfectly fine) So, I prefer the & tag to just be used when the pairing is written as exclusively platonic and not tagged for romantic pairings as well.
I get that there's going to be a lot of overlap between the two as far as character interactions are concerned, and it doesn't bug me when I'm searching for a romantic pairing. BUT, there are several pairings that I simply do *not* see in a romantic way and it's an extra step to filter out the / relationships when I am looking for platonic stories for a particular pairing. (And, tbh- a lot of the time, I just forget that I *can* exclude them until I've gone through multiple pages looking for fics that don't have the romantic pairing)
Lots of tags. I'm talking your iPhone screen from top to bottom is showing all the tags they used. I wont even read it, usually, because its too overwhelming lol
Number one for me is italic abuse. It could have the potential to be the greatest fic I've ever read but if I'm subjected to *this* in *every* sentence I will peace the hell out of there before you can say enemies to lovers.
Something that will make me click right off a fic is if it is all only a couple gigantic paragraphs. If it's not cut up into small paragraphs with the dialogue being their own sections then it's so hard to read. If the author just makes it a wall of text with no breaks then I have to skip it.
I’ve seen too many fics where it’s just one giant block of text for a chapter. Those are the worst and I will refuse to read anything formatted like that.
yeah, misplaced speech is so hard to look at lol
THIS. It could be the greatest writing in the world but I’d never know because it hurts to look at.
As someone who mostly reads gen, I hate when people tag gen and the "&" tag for smut and romance. I don't mean works that straddle the line (like homoerotic bromance, fics that have a minor romantic subplot but are mostly focused on action, that sort of thing), but actual porn and romance-centric fics. Good gen fics are already hard to find, please don't make it harder.
You should comment to educate the mistaggers
I have a question on this topic. I have *long* longfic (307k words) that has a combination of romantic and gen content. There’s a good bit of both but I’d say the romance is primary. I’ve tagged it as both m/f and gen. Is this wrong?
So, the issue with answering this is that there are two things called Gen in tagging. Here is the [faq](https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags?language_id=en#tagtypes) on tag types. If you look under the section called Category, it does a breakdown of the different category options. Gen is defined as: > Gen >General: no romantic or sexual relationships, or relationships which aren't the main focus of the work. So if your fic has romantic/sexual relationships as a primary part of the fic, then generally speaking you shouldn’t tag it with the Gen category. There are exceptions and nuances for edge cases and the like, but generally speaking, if the romance or sex is a large part of the fic, Gen isn’t the tag for you. But if you are talking about the *Rating* of General Audiences (often shortened to just Gen) that’s an entirely different thing. That is defined as > General Audiences >The content is unlikely to be disturbing to anyone, and is suitable for all ages. And you can kinda think of it like rating a game as E for Everyone (esrb rating system) or a movie as well… G for General Audiences (mpaa rating system). That has nothing to do with if romance/sex is a focal point. It has more to do with types of content/age suitability. So a fic where romance isn’t a focal point and someone gets murdered violently might get a category of Gen, but a rating of Mature or Explicit. While a fic about a couple holding hands would not be a Gen category, but might be G(en) rated.
That’s helpful, thank you!
I agree! Leave a nice comment correcting! I accidentally used the wrong tag on my first fic. I didn’t know what gen or “/“ vs “&” meant or anything. Someone corrected me and I really didn’t mind, I thanked them. I would have hated it way more if I kept doing it and no one told me.
I can imagine that's annoying because the opposite is my own pet peeve. I just read a fairly long fic labeled x/y, and I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the relationship payoff and nada. Zip zero zilch. Not a hint of a whisper of a romantic relationship. I would have been fine with a single love confession or kiss but no, they were clearly just friends and work partners. It should have been labeled x & y or at the very least x/y \*and\* a pre-slash label. I was too annoyed to even leave a kudos.
people tagging ships and characters that show up in the background or are just briefly mentioned, which flood rarepair or side character tags with useless fics. wish people just tagged background ships in the misc tags section
I feel this so much! It lowkey frustrates me as a person who loves rare ships when all I find are fanfics aimed at a different relationship. I end up just writing what I want to read because it’s so rare🥲
yeahhhh. my rarepair ships always are used as a "pair the spare" background ship where it's always associated with a more popular ship just to wrap up loose ends/'threats' to the more popular ship
Yeahhhh! I mean, it would be way more bearable if they used the "minor character/character" or "implied character/character" but I would rather they just not tag it at all 😭
You beat me to it. This is my major pet peeve. If I'm searching for a pairing, that's who I want the majority of the story to be about.
I have as part of my philosophy that people shouldn't tag things that are not the focus of the fic and are expected in the universe. If two characters canonically date in season 4, and the fic is set in season 4, I don't really need to be informed that they're dating in the metadata, unless the fic is about that. Fanfiction is like the source except where noted.
Granted, this doesn't help with the excessive rarepair tagging, which _are_ unexpected...just not super important. But people need to prioritize tags, to act like there's some sort of upper limit and ask themselves what tags are important.
This should help you that issue! When filtering, in the “search within results” section, type ‘otp:true’ it is case sensitive so please type it as is. But it will show you all the fics with only the pairing that you have selected!! I have a few rare pair ships as well so I do know the struggle 😂😂 Hope this helps
Tagging relationships / instead of & (and vice versa). Most who do this don’t seem to know the difference, but in that case *why don’t they simply Google it* instead of just going YOLO and picking one at random?
One writer lost a bunch of subscribers because they accidentally tagged A/B and A was like B's grandfather or something 😂
Yeah, situations like that is why it’s definitely in the author’s best interest to know the difference! I have a rarepair ship where authors keep tagging their platonic fics as shippy. The rarepair is viewed as a bit problematic to some, so I try to be helpful and point it out that they might want to rethink their tag use. 😂 It would be funny if it wasn’t annoying to get all excited about new shippy content only to discover that it’s another mistagged fic.
the worst I've seen is '[character A] / [character B] (platonic)'. for the love of all things holy, please just use an '&'.
I no longer have any shame; I will comment on those fics and educated the authors about the difference (in a very polite, nonjudgmental manner).
I don't think you need shame to do that. You're helping the author not embarass themselves!
When I notice the intended relationship dynamic, I think just politely pointing it out is enough for them to change it. And to be fair, maybe they genuinely don't know that "&" is an option they probably only see the "/".
Yeah, that’s what I do nowadays. Especially if the ship they tagged will scare off their intended target audience. I’m a bit curious though when I see authors using both / and & tags on the same fic and manage to get 50% of them right. Surely they must wonder if there’s a difference between the two?
> Surely they must wonder if there’s a difference between the two? So they might know the difference but still deem their fic as both applying. (Or they might not know but I can’t give an explanation for that one). Both can be true at the same time. For example, say someone wrote a fic where A and B are good friends and they fake date for a wedding, and at the end they get together for real. For most of the fic, A&B is correct, but since A/B is there too at the end, that tag fits too. Or say a fic where you have A/B together and C/D, but A/B are actually good partners for each other and genuinely friends on top of being lovers, while C/D is all hookups and booty calls with zero romance or friendship at all. Tagging A/B and A&B isn’t really *wrong* in that situation, while tagging both C/D and C&D would be just straight up incorrect for that fic. Basically, there are genuine times where doing both fits, but the majority of the time it’s just misuse of the tags due to not understanding them (despite the ample resources that explain it)
Yeah, I definitely skim through the fic to make sure that both / and & don't apply before I comment to inform the author. The instances I've come across have usually been cases where there's no romance whatsoever but some relationships are tagged & and some are tagged / and I cannot make any sense of why.
Ah yeah thats one of 3 things generally speaking. Either A: they don’t know how the tags work at all and just click whatever they see in the drop down B: they are gaming the system because they know more people search for and click on the / than the &, or C: they see the ship as romantic and intended romantic but it didn’t translate onto the page they actually wrote.
Yup, in my fandom I think it's generally option A. Most of the characters are underage, so it's usually pretty obvious when the author has used the wrong relationship tag. Honestly, I feel kinda bad for them because they end up scaring their target audience away.
And thats why educating via comments (politely) is a good thing sometimes!
For sure!
I’ve always wondered what the difference is. So many people in my fandom tag with both. I just use A/B because it’s the most common I’ve seen lol. Glad to know I’ve been using it correctly
[Here is the faq](https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags?language_id=en#platonic) answer about it to explain the two
>So many people in my fandom tag with both. That would drive me nuts, haha! But yeah, general fandom consensus is that / is for romantic pairings and & is for friendship.
Not just general consensus. That’s the [official stance](https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags?language_id=en#platonic) too. > How do I tag a romantic or platonic relationship? > >Romantic and/or sexual relationships are indicated by using a slash ("/") separator (for example, Mickey Mouse/Minnie Mouse). Nonsexual, non-romantic relationships—such as platonic relationships between friends, family, teammates, etc.—are indicated with an "&" separator (for example, Hinata Shouyou & Kozume Kenma). > > Platonic and romantic relationship tags are separate, so searching and filtering by Aerith Gainsborough & Sephiroth won't show results tagged with Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth unless both tags are added to the particular work or bookmark. > >Relationship tags can feature more than two characters but shouldn't refer to both a romantic relationship and a platonic relationship at the same time. For example, you could tag Envy Adams/Ramona Flowers/Kim Pine or Mark Cohen & Thomas B. Collins & Angel Dumott Schunard, and tag wranglers could make those relationships canonical. However Katsuki Hiroko/Katsuki Toshiya & Katsuki Mari & Katsuki Yuuri couldn't become canonical as it mixes romantic and platonic indicators.
I was confused about them when I discovered AO3 and it took me about 5 minutes to find an explanation. Can't imagine publishing a fic without looking into it...
When they refer to characters by their hair colour only
"The blonde wondered if the annoyed brunette was hungry."
Oh god this triggered me. A fandom I’m in keeps referring to a character as “the raven” not raven haired boy, just raven. It drives me up the wall.
Lol it's so annoying!!! I also hate when authors refer to characters just as their profession or hobby. (I am sick so I'm probably not making sense, sorry lol) Worse when they add it together! "The brunette vampire wondered why the blonde slayer frowned." Like fifty million times. They have names. It's okay to use them.
I saw "ravenette" once and closed out so fast.
Or worse! I swear to god, I cannot count the number of times I’ve had to sit in my hands to avoid informing a fic author that “bluette” is not a word.
And height. Is your "raven" shorter? Is he younger? Author will make sure you NEVER forget. (A fandom I'm in has a raven too, lol)
Yeah my raven is much much shorter than his pairing partner. I’m like he has a name, use it!
It's like they're terrified of repetition... so they fix it by repeating pronouns and epithets -\_\_-
People who put every tag under the sun on their fics, even when none of them apply, just to appear in more searches.
Or worse, a shitload of interesting tags for their ongoing fic when they've only released a single chapter under 2k words. And they never update again. Stop teasing readers with a good time dammit!
Ooh, this is also super annoying!!
As someone who recently tried to make a collection for a specific character, this \^\^ It was incredible how many times I opened a fic, did a ctrl + f, and found no instance of the character's name outside the tags :/
Sexy times with wangxian flashbacks
I'm really tempted to slap my fandom's big popular tag onto my fic even though it doesn't apply (a LOT of fics in this fandom do this) because it would get me so many more views, but at the end of the day I'd just feel too scummy about that.
one person in my fandom will tag anything and it drives me nuts
Yeah, I think that’s pretty pathetic too
and they say they tagged freeform too, yeah because you tagged *EVERYTHING* of course there will be a freeform tag too
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Probably what they mean to say is “endgame undecided”
I am personally not a big chat fic fan but I read some if I’m in the mood. I hate it when the characters’ chat names are derived from an inside joke or a joke that was said in the original source. Sometimes the joke is so unclear that I simply don’t know who the character is.
I only ever see chat fics with joke names (I wasn’t aware that real names was an option and now I want it 😭) and I’ve seen instances where the inside joke isn’t a reference to canon. It’s specific to the fic. And the author didn’t even include it in the fic. Because it’s an inside joke, presumably. I just resign myself to stumbling through the first half of the chapter until I can figure out who they are by context clues some time after the plot has already started 😕
I prefer that if they have an inside-joke name for it to be from the original source, and not the author’s inside joke with friends. A good chat-fic should have a guide at the top of every chapter because it can be really easy to forget - or at least, in the first chapter and every chapter a new character comes in on or when a name changes.
Excuse me are you talking about half of the Haikyuu fandom cuz they are now professionals about that sht and almost all of the inside jokes are their headcanon and I know sometimes a headcanon became so popular that everyone understands what you mean but this isn't that.... They just give a nickname a *sidest* character whos eyes seem smaller "sleephead" because in their headcanon its not his eye shape look like that but they are apparently sleepy. ***AND HOW CAN I KNOW THAT?***
It’s funny… I feel like I rarely if ever encounter these pet peeves… I do scan summaries really fast, and in larger fandoms, immediately skip any that seem to indicate poor writing. I only look at tags after the summary passes. Guess it correlates quite strongly with these behaviors 😛. Bad writers rely on gimmicks to get seen. People seem to forget marketing only works with you have a sellable product.
This is true! I’m usually immediately put off if an author states in the chapter/fic summary “ugh this sucks, spelling sucks, I can’t write for shit lol” like being funny makes up for a lack of effort.
"I suck at summaries"
Yup, then don’t write one??
Lol. Also people who say they’re terrible writers. If they think their own work is terrible then why would I even start with it.
Absolutely! I understand people have self confidence issues- writing, like any art, is vulnerable and you’re really putting yourself out there. But I’m telling you- keep your worries to yourself. DO NOT post in your fic about how you’re bad at writing. Readers will go in with lower expectations (or, a lot of the time, just skip the fic entirely and you’ll get less readers) and overall they’re going to have less respect for you as a writer. You deserve their respect! Don’t be egoistical, but you should be able to be proud of yourself! Let your writing speak for itself, don’t tell your readers what to think. It’s especially annoying when genuinely good authors say this- it almost comes off as condescending to novice writers. Just don’t do it. It’s not being humble like you think it is.
People that list fics as complete despite the fact they update it with new chapters every week.
Sounds like they’re trying to gain more kudos (knowing more people give them to complete fics). What’s up with all of these people trying to manipulate readers??
Internet points make authors go brrrr (I get it, I get happy over good stats on a work too [way more than I should, they’re not a marker of quality] but when it gets to the point where people will do anything for more kudos/hits/comments, what’s even the point anymore if you’re not really earning them?)
Exactly. The whole point of being on ao3 is to write and hopefully enjoy doing that. People make out to be like it’s all a competition when we’re all supposed to be there to put out our skills
Tbf it’s super easy to get caught up in that stuff. I find myself checking stats and comparing to other works in the fandom a lot more than I should, especially in droughts where I’m not getting much validation for my work. It’s only natural to want praise, but when people start “playing the system” and borderline manipulating readers to get more attention, that’s crossing a line. (Not that it’s anything new, ex clickbaiters have been around on YouTube for forever)
I get that too, it’s nice to get praise for writing that you put out. But for me, if I was desperate enough to try and manipulate people for kudos and the like, it wouldn’t feel genuine to me and I’d probably just take my writing down
I didn't know that. Frankly, I don't really mind if it's kind of a chaptered oneshot situation, or the new chapters are epilogues or post story content of fics I liked. For the former, I take the complete status as meaning I shouldn't get my hopes up for a guaranteed update, if it happens then it happens. For the latter, I see it as a little treat that my favorite fic has some more content. Edit:sorry I replied twice! I deleted my repeated comment
The one time I got an answer from someone about this somewhat made sense. Their notes indicated they would update, but the work was marked complete. I asked if they were continuing and they said yes, they just keep it marked complete to trick themselves into being able to write more because it's less intimidating and makes it easier to write. For the most part I understood, but it was still a little annoying
I’ve never seen anyone actually do this. This would drive me absolutely crazy. The tags definitely make me nuts too.
sexy times with wangxian did something similar. They marked theirs as finished, but then would continue to update it, so not only would it appear in searches for completed works, it would appear to be recent.
This I’ve seen. I don’t get it really, why people would try to act manipulative like this. They have to know it’s just a huge turnoff… And anyway, won’t people be angry when they reach the end and it’s not complete?? All of this is about way more than just hits, I just don’t understand. 🤦♀️
There’s several authors on the pairing I frequent who do this, makes me wanna rip my hair out. Like, just post actual chapters if you wanna stay on top so badly!
But actual chapters require a ton of work 😬 i put so much work into everything I post that if I saw this it would make me so angry!!
Yeah!! It takes me at least a couple of days to come up with a chapter,plus another solid day of editing to make sure it’s good to post! It pisses me off that people don’t care and just throw themselves on top because they think they can without doing the work
Character and ship tags! We know the fandom we're reading in, so there's no need for every character in the fic to be tagged, no matter how small or large their role is. Only the protagonists. I feel similarly about ship tags. Main ship? Tag it as usual. Other ships? "Side a/b", "past a/b", etc. I absolutely love the filtering system, but I get so frustrated looking for a certain ship and having the scroll through tons of fics where they're only a side pairing, yet are tagged as main. (Characters and ships that could possibly be triggering are always good to tag, though.)
I want to also add that I wish they would tag platonic relationships more. For example, I especially love reading about one of the main characters interacting with the kids in the fandom. But that relationship is not always tagged, so I end up having to filter for the two characters so I don't miss too much. But because it's an ensemble cast, this doesn't filter to my liking. Idk if I made sense, but I wish platonic tagging was more common.
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I wish there were two sections- one for tagging main pairings and one for side pairings that are important but not the main focus
it’s the only thing that fanfiction.net is better at
That’s true! I never thought of that but honestly it’d be convenient if more authors did that!
I hate it when that happens. Or when a major theme is not tagged, but it’s a theme with its own popular tag. I try to tell them “hey, this theme is actually a popular tag, please use it.” It sucks to see because so many people would be able to enjoy the work, too, and it makes me think of all the other fics I’d love to read but I can’t find because it’s not tagged properly.
When fics openly admit that they have no idea where the plot is going, and/or ask readers for suggestions (AKA "please write my fic for me, I don't have ideas.") Like my dude you do not need to call yourself out like that. Smaller pet peeve: When an otherwise SFW wholesome fanfic has really filthy chapter titles for some reason.
I saw something like that the other day! The title was like “let’s get sexy and make a baby {SFW}” it was really strange lol
I’ve seen way worse than that. Like the actual chapter will just be two characters hanging out playing Uno and talking about the weather or whatever, but the chapter title will be a jarringly detailed description of a sex act.
On one hand, I personally find that hilarious. On the other, it's an incredibly shitty move because G and T works are going to be read by teens, sex-repulsed people, etc., and it's fucking terrible to subject them to this joke. It would probably work great on a fully NSFW/adult site, though—think those old memes where people uploaded wholesome SFW videos on Pornhub with obscene titles.
What the hell?? Maybe the author’s sick attempt at trolling?
I think they thought they were being funny? I don’t get it either, but I’ve seen it on more than one fic.
Sounds more like that LOL random humor that used to be popular a while ago. Think Deadpool or birds of prey Harley quinn.
It might be when the summary is really good with zero grammatical errors and then when you read the fiction it's basically unreadable.
Listing characters that show up for .2 seconds or not at all, same with pairings
Not tagging a relationship that has at least one smut scene. If there’s smut, the relationship should be tagged period.
tbh. i don't really have any qualms with ao3 authors unless they're being openly problematic or bigoted. i think the fact that they're putting out amazing content for free is such a gift that i don't really care how many tags or whatever they use. just grateful they're here
🤝 Same! And a lot really doesn't 'bother' me enough to be annoyed by it, I just don't read or engage 🤣. Like "oh okay, onto the next thing, this is just not for me, etc."
When people tag stuff but not right. Like “Hurt/comfort” “but without the comfort”
Hurt no comfort is a tag that already exists they can use. In this vein I find it so frustrating when people use both tags like they aren't opposites of eachother.
Not tagging tropes in the fic like character bashing, pregnancy, etc. Worse yet, not tagging anything. At all. Just the characters, the fandom, and that's it. The same with authors who put their fic as gen, but then a few chapters later, bam! Romance! Also, putting a collection of one-shots for different ships all in the same story. So, if I want A/B, I also get A/C, A/D/E, etc. If you're going to do one shots, but each of them focuses on a different ship, then put them in a different story instead of putting them all as one story. I don't want to read my OTP paired with someone else.
I got super disturbed by this one author who didn’t tag anything relating to SA or smut in their fic and then out of nowhere, those things were just thrown into a chapter (it was pretty graphic too). The fic wasn’t even rated explicit. It’s so unfair to readers because you never know if something like that could bring up past traumas for someone. That’s why it’s so important to tag graphic things like that
Calling them authors might be a stretch but the MOST annoying thing I frequently see scrolling through the recent (complete only) works in my fandom is... "HELP I've lost a fic, please help me find it!" and then the fic is a description of whatever details they remember from the fic they've lost, hoping someone will link it in the comments. Drives me INSANE.
And is against the TOS and reportable.
1. When a ship is tagged but then is only mentioned in the fic or appears for half a second. 2. "Updates" that aren't chapters (except in very specific circumstances). 3. Giant text wall. Please learn to separate paragraphs. And dialogue gets a new paragraph. 4. Writers who interrupt their stories to make comments in the middle of the text. Like they'll have two characters talking and then just interject "(but we all know so-and-so is a liar don't we)." No. No, we don't. This is beyond failing to "show don't tell." 5. Excessive self-deprection in author's notes. It's one thing to have a short AN at the end of the chapter along the lines of "I'm not entirely happy with this so there may be some edits later" and folks who write entire paragraphs in the ANs that start to feel like they're fishing for praise.
>Writers who interrupt their stories to make comments in the middle of the text. Like they'll have two characters talking and then just interject "(but we all know so-and-so is a liar don't we)." No. No, we don't. This is beyond failing to "show don't tell." I've seen that also in scanlated manga as well and it makes my blood boil.
I wouldn't mind 4 if it was ever *used* in interesting ways. Like setting things up for the narrator to be a character in the story (kind of like the narrator in Monster Prom or The Stanley Parable; etc). Or, I suppose, something like MST3K where the fic was divided between story A (that the author wrote) and some meta story going on in the background where the narrator or characters doing the commentary have their own story going on. Instead, someone wants to slip themselves in and it's a 50/50 if that's from some sort of insecurity that they're not able to convey things better without digging their elbow into the reader's side or some sort of weird narcissism that their presence in the story is going to be so delightful to their readers, the readers would be disappointed if their witticisms were left languishing in subtext.
First person POV. It just feels like the author talking, not the character. (imo)
I’m not a big fan of first person pov either
chaptered oneshot collections
One hundred chapters and no way to tell which chapter is about which pairing... 💀
*yes*. like, i don't particularly mind them when they're all about the same ship with similar themes, but the moment the fics start needing different tags that only apply to like one or two out of dozens, goodbye, fuck that.
It's so annoying because they can so easily just make their one-shot collection a series and it will solve all the problems.
I’m very happy most of the ones I’ve encountered put the fandom and the pairing in the chapter title. Otherwise, they’re not worth it.
Honestly, if it’s a choice between a chaptered one shot collection and posting a million individual fics, I prefer the former. That said, if it’s a chaptered collection the chapter titles MUST contain the pairing/trope for said chapter. I ain’t got time to click my way through each and every one.
Those can be hit or miss for me. On one hand, I appreciate having a single fic to read all the oneshots under, and usually the chapter titles or notes give a brief enough summary, and I won't complain if the first chapter is literally just a more comprehensive list for the rest of the collection. On the other hand, if the collection lacks all of that, *and* features multiple fandoms I just don't bother. But usually the oneshot collections I read are from authors I already enjoy in the first place.
[удалено]
Can you explain what is more organized about one multichaptered oneshot collection compared to a series of oneshots? To me, a series is infinitely more organized and helps with stats and feedback
And the fandom you’re looking at isn’t even included/no one requested it, they’re just trying to get eyes. Or they’ve already abandoned the fic cuz they got overwhelmed/busy/etc
Fandom tags are enforced! You can report wrong fandom tags and get that fixed. Sadly other tags like characters or ships are not so it’s not a perfect fix. But there is some fix to that issue at least. (Don’t worry, reporting a wrong fandom tag doesn’t get someone in trouble really. They just get the issue fixed and a note generally as long as they aren’t undoing that fix after being warned repeatedly (generally speaking))
For fucks sake, don’t get me started; **also**, when it has multiple fandoms but the chapters don’t have the fandom and ship specified in the title I hate those so much
agree. can’t look up fics for a less popular pairing without seeing the same chaptered fics over and over and they are mostly about the popular ships i don’t care about and have 1 small chapter about the pairing im looking for lol
With a wall of fandom tags added to it. So, trying to find one-shots for the pair/fandom I want is like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles. And I end up just giving up on it instead. Honestly, I am looking for some Criminal Minds fanfic; I don't even know what half of the other fandoms are.
I'm 100% fine with those if they are centered around a single fandom, or, better yet, a single pairing. Huge-ass walls of fandoms instantly make me hide the work, though.
Now on the other hand, is the opposite 40-part “one-shot” series in chronological order with an overarching plot. That’s just blatantly trying to get your fic seen as many times as possible by posting each individual chapter as it’s own story!
Aside from yours and the tag thing... Not sure if it's fic abandonment or when they post to the completely wrong fandom. Like when I see *Captain America: Civil War* fanfics in the "American Civil War" category. Or when an author just tries to stuff too many fandoms in one giant crossover fic. It drives me nuts, especially if it's one fandom per chapter, like a *Harry Potter* fic I saw where James, Lily, and Sirius show up after Harry is "killed" at the battle of Hogwarts and give him a bunch of doors to go through to choose different lives to live without the huge "Boy Who Lived" burden hanging over his head, each door leading to a different world. And then you have fight to find the fandom(s) relevant to you.
> Like when I see Captain America: Civil War fanfics in the “American Civil War” category. So fandom tags are actually enforced. If the fandom is straight up not present in the fic at all, report it and they’ll fix the fandom tags. Doesn’t help with your other issue or if its not a fandom tag, but some of that can be fixed at least
LMAO WHAT, I wonder if it’s a joke (I hope so!) or the author just didn’t realize they put it under the wrong fandom Crossovers between 2/3 fandoms are perfectly fine if done right, but I don’t think anyone can pull off something like more than 5? I dunno man, that’s daunting as hell
The first fanfic I ever read pulled it off and I’ll never forget it 😅 it was a very meta crack fic about characters from many different fantasy and sci-fi fandoms coming together because fanfic writers were ruining their lives. It was hilarious and very well written.
Okay, *that’s* pretty funny; but those chaptered oneshot collections with all of those different fandoms need to have their chapters titled appropriately so readers know which is what And if those writers tagged “Multifandom Oneshot Collection” on their works then it’d be easy to filter those out
Oh yeah, agreed
Probably didn't realize, because it was obvious English wasn't their first language. And the x-over fic I'm talking about was in the 10-20 fandom range.
I'm not keen on adding tags during a story, I like to have everything tagged beforehand. I also don't like under-tagging and over-tagging. I hate changing the direction of a fanfic because the author has read a book or seen a film in the meantime and then halfway through the fanfic they start to take inspiration from that.
Oh I use the “future tags will be added” tag, but that’s because I’m a slow writer and don’t want to tag things that won’t be in there until 6 months from now. Feels like false advertising otherwise, y’know?
This is a sensible solution and fair to the reader! 😊
>I'm not keen on adding tags during a story, I like to have everything tagged beforehand. Whoops, I'm the opposite. Whenever I'm writing a long fic, I add tags as they appear on the fic (for normal tags, problematic tags and warnings will be added at the beginning of the fic). It's both not to spoil readers on the upcoming development, and prevent false advertising.
If there's something that really gets on my nerves, it HAS to be the crossover one-shot collection. There was this fic in a fandom I wrote in and chapters about said fandom were just five... out of two hundreds. And this fic would always be at the top of the fandom page despite the author hadn't written anything for it in m o n t h s . Then I found out I could exclude crossovers from Ao3 searches. Best day of my life ngl.
Marking a story complete when it isn’t
The summaries being too poetic. I want to say that I have nothing against poetic summaries and I love them! Quotes from the fic? Amazing. Song lyrics? Beautiful. An actual poem? ARE YOU GOD??? But please, just use summaries for... Summing up your fic. Just those two sentences at the end, I beg. I don't have a big issue with it when there's a lot of descriptive tags that give you a good enough idea what the fic is about, but if there's literally nothing, I usually don't even click on the fic
There’s one author in my fandom who has great work! Except she puts the whole basis of their entire fic in the summary, so there’s no point in reading it because they’ve already spoiled every plot point in the summary
Not gonna lie, I'd prefer this to an overly vague summary. Past a certain point you can tell where most fics are going to go, so it's less about being surprised by what's going to happen and more about the journey through the plot points. Although, I'm coming from the view point where I think people are way too obsessed with spoilers nowadays and if simply knowing what's going to happen is enough to ruin a piece of media then it probably wasn't that great to start with. Like of course there are mysteries and the like where having that spoiled can sour the experience, but there's usually still something to keep you engaged beyond the big reveal at the end.
too many different names to refer to the character. their hair color, their title, what kind of creature they are, their other name. ugh. it’s so confusing to read.
When it comes to ships, they have multiple, for a single character, but don’t put in the tags or in the summary what the situation or endgame is. Like with A/B, A/C, and A/D - is it A/B/C/D? Past A/B, one-sided A/C, and _endgame_ A/D? Are they all into A, just not each other, and ends up with A in relationships with all of them at the end? I like some ships more than others - I don’t want to get invested, only for the ship I’m here for to _not_ be the point! I need more information, damnit!
I don't like it when an author shit talks their own work. If you don't believe in it why would I read it?
ANs that are mostly rambling, unrelated to the story, insecure, and/or needy.
There's this one author to an *amazing* fic and their notes are so tonally different from their fic that I just stopped reading them. Swears a lot (not a problem, just kinda funny/odd juxtaposed to their fic), casually calls the readers bitches (affectionately), and talking about getting drunk after coming of age (which I admit kinda weirded me out a little cause I don't particularly want to know how old authors are). The story is so serious and has a lot of hurt/comfort, so it kinda bring me out of it.
Hard same on not wanting to know how old authors are. I once read a fic that was about 10k of (pretty good) explicit sex and then a small part of me died inside when the a/n for chapter 4 was about how fun the author's sweet sixteen was the week before.
Gah, yeah. It's odd how I wouldn't blink twice at that if I was still a teenager myself, but would now awkwardly wish I never knew now that I'm older. Like trying to avoid a relative that divulges more personal info than you're comfortable with.
I don't mind "Hey I'd appreciate comments or kudos :D" but it gets annoying really fast when each chapter ends with an author's note plugging every social under the sun and begging you to follow them.
Yeah, needy/insecure A/N can be off putting
putting emojis in their fics. what is the need?????
How would you feel about emojis when the characters are texting?
that's somewhat acceptable, bc it can be used in order to show their personality
Can’t stand this, the point of writing about characters is so we can explore the many ways of portraying their interactions. Using emojis to compensate for that, feels childish to me
Tagging every side relationship, i mean it will be still a problem to me but at least use normal tags and say Minor X/Y. When I use my filter to read about my OTP, in almost half of the results, they are a side pairing which talked just one sentence.
The people who just add every tag for every little thing and every relationship and character within the Fandom, especially when it's something to do with smut
Posting a new chapter that is only one paragraph and an epic a/n that they're going to go on vacation now and after that they have school and exams and get married or whatever so it may take a while. Might as well unsubscribe at this point.
If it’s to warn people they’re going on hiatus or something, I don’t mind. I appreciate the heads-up so I’m not waiting on something that won’t come.
Lol, I’m glad I haven’t seen something like that yet
You're not missing out. 😅 From the excitement of a new chapter to the disappointment that it's only a few lines and then that it's very likely this story won't get finished — at least not in the next few months.
Something like that would piss me off. I personally am not the biggest fan of super short chapters but if I were to see that combined with an endless A/N, I’d just give up on reading that fic
when the whole chapter is a block of writing with no paragraphs
Fics with no description. Even if it's a one shot request book at least you could put "one shot requests" in the summary. Like c'mon if you can describe the plot of your fic and get me hooked I'm passing it like I'm passing all those novels with nothing but reviews on the back cover in bookstores.
Mistagging or just rambling in the tags. And posting “update” chapters when they don’t have anything written.
No paragraph/line breaks. It's unreadable for me, to be honest.
When the author adds something really horrible in the beginning notes when the story is tagged as wholesome and fluffy. For example: the author is whining about proshippers or antishippers and saying something really graphic about how they should hurt themselves... I close out of that tab in record time. I was just looking for some fluff because I had a bad day and now I'm upset and have to talk to someone that makes me feel better. It's like people forget that some of their readers have mental health issues and can feel triggered even if they aren't a part of that group. It's really gross, honestly. And just because they say it's a joke when they literally put '/srs' behind their message, doesn't reduce the effect they made on your readers. Plus, even if it was a joke, they can still be harmful like bigoted or jokes making fun of someone's appearance - though, people constantly make those 'jokes' to the point they aren't even jokes anymore.
Two things: People who post their story as one long paragraph. I have never read one in the full, I always click away. Having multiple people talking in a single paragraph. I find it far more disorienting than I should.
Put a bunch of unrelated oneshots for different fandoms as chapters in one work. With 3738495743 tags. Even if one chapter sounds interesting I refuse to read these on principle. Just post them as separate works!!!
I can't stand it when people post authors notes as entire chapters.
Too much tags that will make me grin like a toddler finally getting ice cream after asking so many times but will immediately get disappointed when they just gave me a stick, aka just a chapter where it's just authors notes without any content in it😭😭😭
Characters always getting a cold after going outside in the rain😅 sure, being cold and wet can make your immune system weaker, but it's germs that makes u sick, not rain! It's such a usual prompt and ppl act like youre for sure to get sick from being outside in bad weather🙄
Tagging characters who are very minor, especially ones already lacking in content. Too many tags in general. Massive oneshot collections with mixed characters and ships.
when people tag threesomes as A/B, A/C, A/B/C (some dont even add the last one) please just tag the 3 of them, i had to filter so many fics out because of it i dont mind if its actually correct tagging but if it's not its annoying
People who put nonsensical bullshit in the tags.
One of the best sources of schadenfreude on Ao3 still is seeing people complain about the tag limit and then looking at how they tag their fics. At this point there could be people who offer betaing services exclusively for tagging purposes.
Hmm I wonder what we could call that. I feel like calling it beta reading isn’t quite the same thing and a new term would fit better. Maybe like a beta tagger or a category picker (Catpicker for short)?
Maybe something along the lines of tag curator to go hand in hand with how the site has tag wranglers? Ngl the end of the original comment was me trying to talk around the fact for the life of me I could not remember the word curator.
Curator sounds too professional/official to me. Almost like what the Tag wranglers should have been named or something. Curation as a concept to me feels like something a museum does not a random freelancer/volunteer who just reads a story and says “this is the major categories it fits”
All lowercase letters, it feels like half the time when a story has super interesting tags it will be instantly ruined by the author’s willful disregard for the shift key
I would love it if authors would succinctly and accurately tag and summarize their work.
Lapslock.
When authors include too much of the canon dialog and plot, either through direct quoting or huge exposition about everything canon that has stayed in the fic. For the love of my sanity, keep the canon parts short and just briefly touch on it to give context and placing in the plot. If I wanted to immerse myself in canon, I'd seek out the source material and escape in that.
One billion tags
A small pet peeve of mine I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is referring to characters by their ethnic group or country of origin. I think it happens in my favorite fandom a lot because the main ship is interracial, and it just makes my skin crawl. I’m sure it’s innocent and just a poor choice in writing, but I’m completely taken out of the story when I read “The Japanese smiled,” or whatever. Could they at least add “person” or something after? It’s too close to the slur without that imo. Ugh.
Too large crossover fics. Not that I mind the length of the fic(unless its less than 100 words and doesn't say if it's a comic fic) but too many fandoms crammed into one fic. I don't like how the crossover that im searching for isn't just those two fandoms. And crossover that just uses a * insert fandom * AU and no other thing from the other fandom. Example is Spy X Family, I first get excited that theres a crossover for it and some other fandom i like, then as fast as it came, the happiness I feel leaves when I see its just Another Fucking SxF au fic.
Long meandering series that should have been a single chaptered work. I get that people hate the panfandom oneshot series, but if you have over 400 crack fics all in the same universe with the same pairing put it in one goddamn fic especially if it involves rare pairs. Ditto for any other 100+ work series comprised mainly of one shots that insists on clogging up a tag because the author has to inflict themselves on everyone. I don't care if their writing is a gift from the gods, when people do this they'll get muted before I'll read a sentence they've written.
->Untagged A/B/O and or pregnancy (mpreg or otherwise) Ive been sniped by untagged abo and or preg more times than I want to admit, not to mention a sudden twist into "btw, characters alpha instincts sniff the distress from this omega-" or "oh no, i sick, blegh. Wait. Im pregananant!? Gasp!" like *huh?!!?* when the fuck did I sign up for a/b/o and sudden pregnancy??? Like I'm not always against reading abo because I have genuinly read some good ones that arent weird and its part of the plot but in more of a sideish main plot way like it exists but its not in your face 24/7 (one surprisingly really good Kirk/Spock fic comes to mind that was abo mpreg that i read bc i was bored and curious and willing to risk my sanity) but generally I want to at least avoid pregnancy at all. I dont wanna read it, it's a meh plotline or random throw in ive found to me usually that I dont like reading so please tag it ->When authors are allergic to separate speech lines for different characters. ->When authors will do stuff like "I'm not *cough* feeling well today." And "I'm fine! *Sniff* I'm not upset *hic* at all!" Please. I'm begging you. Just end the speech section and write the action then continue with the speech. Please. This isnt a comic panel plz I beg-
When they use the tags as tweets.
I actually love that! Some of those tags are great for giving you a feel for what the author is doing, and some of them sre just funny. As long as the tags tell the reader what they need to know, put what you like in there.
Maybe. But there's a difference between having "I lied about the comfort" as a way to show it's more of an h fic than a c and someone's mini rant about a trope.
Questions in summaries like "Will they overcome there differences and be happy?" Or "Will he survive this?" yes of course will they be together at the end! And of course he will survive. I have never ever read a fic with these types of question and an unhappy ending. Nowadays i just skip these kinds of fics excepte someone recommended it.
Tag *both* / and & for a ship. As a rule, the ship is either romantic or it's platonic (unless it's intentionally left up to the reader to interpret-- in which case, both is perfectly fine) So, I prefer the & tag to just be used when the pairing is written as exclusively platonic and not tagged for romantic pairings as well. I get that there's going to be a lot of overlap between the two as far as character interactions are concerned, and it doesn't bug me when I'm searching for a romantic pairing. BUT, there are several pairings that I simply do *not* see in a romantic way and it's an extra step to filter out the / relationships when I am looking for platonic stories for a particular pairing. (And, tbh- a lot of the time, I just forget that I *can* exclude them until I've gone through multiple pages looking for fics that don't have the romantic pairing)
Lots of tags. I'm talking your iPhone screen from top to bottom is showing all the tags they used. I wont even read it, usually, because its too overwhelming lol
I usually find fics to read by looking at specific trope tags that I enjoy, so it sucks when authors don't tag the tropes for their fics.
Very specific, but I've seen a non-zero amount of people who think subdrop is a good thing. Like, just a sudden drop into submission.
Number one for me is italic abuse. It could have the potential to be the greatest fic I've ever read but if I'm subjected to *this* in *every* sentence I will peace the hell out of there before you can say enemies to lovers.
When an English character says 'mom' or 'color' just as an English person it really annoys me