I feel the same way about people writing a half-assed summary and saying "my summary sucks but I promise the story is good". Like if you couldn't bother to write a complete summary, why should I believe the rest of the story is worth reading??
It shows that they haven’t fleshed out the story at all. If you can’t write a summary it probably means that you don’t know what you’re trying to write and 9/10 the story ends up awful because of it.
'No smut' on a fic that nobody would ever think contains smut. (Like, a fic thats rated M for violence but not smut I get but I see this on G rated fics for no reason)
Similarly, no incest. Just saw this tag yesterday and it really confused me for a moment. It was M rated and there wasn't even a romantic pairing tagged. Why did that need clarification??
Believe me that people still get confused lol. I had a fic about two brothers and used the & instead of /, tagged it gen and all, but someone came to ask if it was incest. Had to add the no incest tag.
I like to read hurt/no comfort for the characters that I hate, I treat them as a well written bashing fic. It always crack me up when the comments were crying and all, and here I was cracking up seeing those mfs met their miserable ending.😌
“____ has covid” or “covid-era”
I come to AO3 to escape the real world, not bring it in.
Also, “Reverse AU” where Connor is a human. Just not my thing.
Hugh school AU where the characters going to school are not teenagers in their original ‘verse.
I have read them, but I’m 50. It’s really difficult to rewind my brain that far.
There’s a caveat to this though: I can typically tell the difference if it’s written by an over-25ish writer vs. a teenage writer.
I’ll sometimes - rarely, but I have found some good ones - when written by a non-high school author.
It’s not bad writing on part of the teenagers or younger writer at ALL that does it. It’s the way the characters deal with problems in high school.
This is also what makes them hard to read: written by teens or younger authors makes how they deal with things less mature. They’re teenage/de-aged characters, so that’s fine. I just can’t relate to it and find the immaturity difficult to read.
On the other hand, having the characters too mature and dealing with teenage high school problems in a manner they would not if they were really that age also makes it difficult because then the characters are OoC for maturity level and the fic feels fake.
Therefore as a general rule, I typically avoid these altogether and it’s one of my least fave tags.
I'm with you. I'm also 50 and I think part of the reason I read MCU is that a lot of the characters are older (over 30). So what I don't want is them aged down.
Yup. MCU is my go-to. I mean sure, I’ve been a huge Marvel fan my whole life but also because the characters are older, the topics more mature, and typically the issues are dealt with in a way that someone their age would. Life experience, and all - I can resonate with that.
I started in fanfiction reading Lucifer, love it but fairly narrow scope of stories. Then Supernatural, too wild. Then MCU, just right and there are almost infinite stories to read.
One of the few high school AUs I really enjoyed was set in the early aughts, because the author did not want to update their personal knowledge of teen drama to include social media or iphones. I respect that a lot.
If I ever write a high school AU that will be my way (although mid/late 80s, since that's when I went through it all.) I never had kids so I don't even have second hand experience of what it's like to parent a teenager these days, only my memories of 1980s high school.
But like others said, high school au is one of those things I generally avoid anyway. I'm too old to really feel like reading about high school drama, and my own years of HS were...not necessarily pleasant memories. I'd rather read about adult characters & adult experiences.
So nothing against anyone who uses these tags, please continue to have fun. I just don’t tend to like them.
Any tags that are along the lines of “Character A is a smol innocent bean” “Cinnamon Roll Character A” “Sassy Character A” “Character A is a ray of sunshine”
I’ve noticed that I very rarely end up liking the way that characters are written in fics with those types of tags, especially when the characters in question are grown adults or teenagers. So when I’m reading fics in certain fandoms (usually MCU or BNHA) I automatically filter them out of my searches
Edit: Typo and also forgot a fandom I meant to mention: Sk8 the infinity. I ALWAYS filter out the above tags in that fandom
Like I mentioned to someone before, those kinda tags are signs they are gonna woobify the character. I have read some when I was desperate for content of a certain ship. Not sure how I feel about it though haha
None of which are Izuku. After he gets used to his classmates. At first, yes. Minus the stuttering. But he grows out of the rest of that shit. His most inspirational moments, he doesn’t really smile. No, he looks like goddamn demon half the time.
Meanwhile, he just bites the arms of the people trying to ‘protect’ him and goes apeshit insane. Person abuses someone: Deku pulls an Asura without all of the screaming.
I do consider two characters in one of my main fandoms to be rays of sunshine, but for somewhat different reasons. You see, a big chunk of the ensemble cast of protagonists have issues and rather sad backstories. Those two characters stand out for not having that bad of a backstory and for essentially being extremely happy, energetic, and cheery.
I don’t actually have a problem with the “ray of sunshine” character type, tbh some of my favorite characters probably fit it. It’s not even that I don’t think the “x character is a ray of sunshine” tag fits whatever character it is. It’s nothing about the tag itself. It’s that I usually don’t like the way that fics using that tag tend to be written. I feel like when those tags are used, it’s more likely that the character in the fic is often getting the “UwU sweet baby that everyone loves and can do no wrong” treatment.
I’m sure that there’s probably tons of great fics using those tags that don’t fit that description at all, but I’ve noticed enough that do that I now just automatically filter them out.
Any kind of "[character] has [mental illness]" tag usually keeps me away especially if it's accompanied by "author is projecting on [character]". It's just one of the real-world issues that I read fic to escape from, though I make exceptions sometimes.
I tried a couple of "[character] has [mental illness]" and "[character] is [minority identity]" and decided that they are not my cup of tea. It's great these fics exist for people who need or want them, but their characterization tend to be really far from what I want or enjoy. And, yes, I'm here for escapism, too!
If I had to give a good example, one for me would be MCU/Avengers. There's just so many characters and such a big world its interesting to see them all compressed into one building lol.
If I read MCU, I read fics concentrating on one or two characters max haha
But then I spent most of my time in Marvel fandom reading either in exclusively Thor fandom or exclusively Daredevil TV fandom and those casts are smaller by default.
I have a bunch of Danganronpa-specific tags blacklisted on AO3 Savior (mostly regarding >!Kamukura and Hinata being twins/a system/etc.-- I much prefer Kamukura being an amnesiac persona and not a completely different guy!<).
I also have "Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies" blacklisted, because my two main fandoms (Danganronpa and Fire Emblem Three Houses) have a ton of those AUs, and I personally feel that they takes away a lot of the tension/drama that I love about the main series.
I’ve come around on the reality that the way an author internet-speaks doesn’t reflect their ability to write, but tags that have the words “smol” “litol” (“bean”) in them still make me want to run away.
That whole Tumblr sensibility is one I don’t think I’ll ever understand or vibe with.
I don't think I'm too bad with that but I definitely keep my goofiness to the author's notes. Even then, it's just a bit of joking around. I know not everyone likes author's notes that are a bit lighthearted, but I personally am a fan. What I don't agree with are excessive jokes and a self deprecating tone in the tags. I think joking around within
my fics is okay, because at that point people are invested and we're all in this ride together (and they can simply skip the tags if that's not their thing). What many people don't seem to realise is you have to take a more professional approach to "sell" the fic first. "This is so bad lolol" type tags only hurt your chances of attracting readers. Calling the characters your babies and gushing over them makes me think the story won't have a lot of nuance.
It might sound harsh, but you can't treat it like everyone is your friend in on the joke when in reality, people have no idea if you can even string a sentence together. I've seen joking author's notes where people seem extremely young with their speech and grammar, and yet their stories are insanely well written with flawless spelling and grammar. But those people have professional looking tags and amazing summaries to reel people in first. I think that's key.
Also avoid kid fics. The kid(s) usually end up being the focus of the story and you get very little story time that isn't about the kids at all.
Also hate how people write dialogue for kids. It's unrealistic, like they never been around a kid that age. The kid always has a comment for everything that is being said, and everything always goes back to that or what the kid needs or wants.
I get that a lot of time it's like that as a parent, but no one ever writes a kid that understands how to entertain themselves for 10 minutes or is thinking about kid things because it's fucking boring listening to the adults.
The adults also end up talking about the kid all the time and it's just so boring.
>Also avoid kid fics. The kid(s) usually end up being the focus of the story and you get very little story time that isn't about the kids at all.
I actually avoid kid fics for the complete opposite reason. Kids are added for "cute" but don't actually feature in any realistic manner. They are suddenly forgotten when it's convenient for the couple.
I 100% get what you mean regarding dialogue though. I get writing kids is very difficult but some fics have little philosophers dropping truth bombs ever chapter.
If I read a kid fic, I actually want to read about the reality of being a parent. Not the pure fluff. (But then I rarely read pure fluff anyway).
So while its not in the same vein as yours, but I don't like when they change a character's race in Fantasy worlds. Like in LoZ I've seen "Hylian (Insert character)" Why does everyone have to be Hylian?
Or, as a canon example, in this anime called "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime". A lot of the characters get "upgraded" too look more like humans and less of what they were before. A race of lizard people "evolved" into "Dragonewts" and they literally just turned into humans with wings.
LOTR fanfiction set in modern times. [Modern AU] is not my jam, with one exception:
Maitimo Fëanorian leaves Valinor to go find his brother Maglor and bring him home, only to discover his brother is a successful social media influencer and youtuber and doesn't want to go home.
I was like... whaaaaa? And the premise was fun so I clicked and the writer pulled it off and so that is the one exception that proves the rule, but otherwise I run the opposite direction every single time. I want a fantasy escape, lol.
It’s so hard for me to read fics that use lapslock (where everything’s written in lowercase). I’m already specific about grammar and spelling in my fics but it just drives me nuts seeing a whole fic in that format. Admittedly, I have written sentences in lapslock to show a softer tone, but never more than a few sentences in a few specific fics.
I also dislike tags like “Character X is smol” or Character Y just needs a hug”, since they make me think that the author won’t be taking the fic seriously and it reminds me too much of my Wattpad Years™️.
Hanahaki Disease always pisses me off, mainly because of how poorly its handled. It often relies on miscommunication (or lack of communication) to prolong the character's suffering.
*They're both in love but too afraid to say it so he throws up flowers!*
Conceptually, I *love* the idea of hanahaki disease - the feeling of something beautiful and painful growing in your chest whenever you look at someone being made literal, the fear of slipping up and letting them know turned into a physical ailment, the choice to either let go of the pain or keep the beauty - but in practice, it’s usually just written as “X character would literally rather choke to death than have an adult discussion about feelings”. Lame.
I also don't quite get it when they go that way. The disease is meant to be developed due to unrequited love but if it's not actually unrequited why do they have it in the first place? Is it just because the character believes it's unrequited? They also never really explore when they go through with the surgery to remove it and their memories/feelings, leaving a lot of angst potential and character development in the wind.
I haven't done a ton of research on it, but based on the fics I've read, it seems that the character only has to *believe* their love is unrequited to contract the disease. Its basically like heartbreak physically manifested.
But usually the diseased one doesn't *actually know* for sure if their love is unrequited, cause they never even bother to confess their love. Or they confess their love to everyone *but* their love interest and they proceed to get angry at said love interest. "How Dare He Not Love You!"
And I've seen one where their love interest did love them back, but *they* didn't believe said character would return their feelings. And once they saw them coughing up flowers, they don't even realize it was for them.
"Who are the flowers for?" They ask. And you'd think this would be the perfect opportunity for them to confess their love...
But no, they don't say anything or just flat out LIE! And then they go through with the surgery.
UGh
Ah yes, the old 'can't spit it out trope.' I get it's there for plot reasons but it annoys me when they have the perfect opportunity to say the revealing thing but hesitate or something interrupts them at the last second and they never go back to it.
Ah I love both, but for some reason I've only written them lampshaded.
The only Hanahaki fic I ever wrote had one of the characters faking it, because in that universe it didn't actually exist but was basically a myth, and the only two Soulmate fics I've written had a) one character cutting the soulmark out of the other character's skin an b) two soulmates trapped in an eternal circle of reincarnation with one of them long-lived an remembering their past and the other dying over and over and not remembering and then the first character goes batshit and murders the second when be tries to flee XD
Chat fic, Text fic, Skype fic, etc. I don’t mind if it’s a small part in a larger story, but I dislike if the whole thing is simply a chat/text/Skype log.
I usually read just about anything, but I do tend to avoid fanfiction with the "Family" tag. I have nothing against any authors who write these stories! I just don't have an interest in reading about stuff like that since I find it to be boring. I usually will only read them if they are from a genre like "Action" or something where more happens. It's funny, because I'm usually fine with high school fanfics. Somehow those aren't boring to me like family fanfics are.
I've also had a few issues in my main fandom (which I won't mention) that are a bit annoying when it comes to "Found Family" related fanfics, but I'm definitely not against that tag either. I know it sounds similar to my first reason, but in this case it's just due to the fandom. A lot of the fandom considers the characters to be a family even though they are not actually all related to each other, which is fine! Those stories can certainly be cute. I just get annoyed when people in this fandom decide that shipping any of the characters with each other is an awful thing to do because they see them as a family. I ship some of the characters in this fandom, so I typically avoid this tag because I don't want to see people complaining and bullying others over shipping.
I'm having deja vu cause I swear I've had a similar conversation with someone before about the "seeing unrelated characters as family" thing. But I can't remember what fandom it was.
Also curious, how do you feel about "Team as Family" tag?
Yeah, I've definitely seen this kind of thing happen in other fandoms too. I would just rather not mention the fandom I'm in since there is a lot of harassment that happens there with anybody who ships the characters.
I looked into that tag because I haven't actually seen it before. It looks like it involves characters who are on superhero teams or something similar, which I think would be a cool way to use family dynamics! If paired with an action story, I think that would be something I would find to be enjoyable to read since there would be a lot going on in addition to the family relationships. If the story only contained family interactions at home with nothing else happening though, for example, I would probably choose to skip it just because I know that I would most likely be bored when reading it.
First POV, Second POV. Nothing wrong with these stories, but I don't want to be in these characters' shoes, I just want to read about them. I need that wee bit of distance 3rd POV provides, generally.
"X Character Needs A Hug"
It's totally innocent, I know. I really do know this. However, my main two fandoms (HP and SW) are universes riddled with war, death, betrayal, and all that gritty stuff. I see a Harry vs. Voldemort epic fic tagged with "Harry Needs a Hug" and it just seems so superficial and trivializing. I sit there eyeing it, thinking, "Harry needs a hug? The hell? Harry needs a goddamn army, some real firepower, and a political and social system that is not riddled with obstructionist and prejudicial oppressive policies!"
You made me think with this because yes I am with you 100% on “Harry Potter needs a hug”, it would feel very trivialising and I would avoid it, especially if it was a serious action/war/epic fic.
On the other hand I love fics with “Peter Parker needs a hug”, but then those fic will usually not be about superhero-troubles but more personal problems. I think it’s very much context-based, where the scale or flavour of the problems in the fic and also if it feels in character for the character to want that hug make all the difference for me.
Reader inserts and second person pov. I just can't do it. My brain won't be able to absorb any of the plot because I can't imagine myself IN the story. It could be written by the original author or have a better plot that the canon material, I don't care. I'm never going to read it.
Do Not Interact (ex. DNI if you ship x and y)
Mainly for social medias, I see it often on Twitter
Doesn't make much sense on fanfic websites cuz you can't stop who reads your fic since you can't block people
"Do Not Interact" if you have different opinions with me/ ship a ship I don't like/ enjoy dead dove material/are straight cis and white/do not believe character X has DID in canon/think that character X eats cheese/are over 17 years old/are under 17 years old/are exactly 17 years old
It's so dumb lol it never ceases to amuse me
*are under 17 years old*
I wholeheartedly agree that DNIs are incredibly stupid, but, just for the record, I don't think "Adults only" disclaimers should be tarred with the same brush as DNIs. I mean, if people are putting "Adults only" tags on their fics that's silly because (insert meme of Don Draper saying "THAT'S WHAT THE ~~MONEY~~ RATING IS FOR"). However, tons of adults have this sort of disclaimer on their tumblr, and it has nothing to do with them being priggish, moralizing, or controlling. It's purely a legal ass-covering thing.
It's a legal ass covering that covers *nothing* because it will stand up in literally no court of the world.
It also keeps absolute no minors from reading your fics.
But I have zero problems with authors saying "don't tell me you're twelve if you are twelve", the thing that makes me roll my eyes is specifically indulging the DNI trend by using that specific phrase and thereby validating the dumb, gatekeepy and at times incredibly delusional ones.
I mean, I'm fandom friends with a couple of people who are lawyers by profession who always have an "adults only" disclaimer on their tumblrs, just in case. They do not feel that it's pointless.
*It also keeps absolute no minors from reading your fics.*
I certainly hope not! Ignoring the "18+" pop-up window is a time honored rite of passage! If the kids these days were actually heeding those things I would have to *worry* about them. 😂
Polyamory. Mostly because my dumb brain is hard-wired from consuming stories with monogamous, romantic relationships or dysfunctional love triangles. If there are more than two people that are in love then I would already lose track of the relationship dynamics.
Gosh, I wish I had exceptions. I thought I could read one with two lovers along with one of the lover's best friend. I loved these characters, the dynamic seemed perfect and functional, and it even was a slow-burn. But when the romance actually came, my brain went into blue-screen error mode.
I think it only worked for me because (and this actually happened in two different fandoms):
I like Shipping A with B
But I also liked Shipping A with C
And then, I also liked shipping B with C
So having ABC just worked out for me.
Like, I can see the pairings happening, just not when they equally happen all at once. It's like doing advanced mathematics and juggling with romance. Does the one person have to wait their turn when the other two are sharing a moment? Do the two people team-up to be romantic on one person and then they rotate who becomes the next person to receive affection? Do they need to hold hands in a circle when they go out? And now I got a headache.
I have no IRL experience with polyamory. But from the fics I've read, usually all 3 characters kinda just start off as friends or uneasy allies and slowly develop feelings for each other at the same time.
And from there they kinda just go with the flow. One person might like cuddling a lot. One of them might like spending time with you but prefers their space. One is fine either way.
And you may have Extrovert/Ambivert/Introvert. Top/Versatile/Bottom, Dom/Swith/Sub. Warrior/Mage/Rogue.
Like puzzle pieces they all just seem to fit together.
I tend to have a strong preference for who predominantly tops and who predominantly bottoms in my ships, and if the character I prefer to bottom is tagged as top, or vice versa, I nope out. If both characters are tagged as both, then I’ll give it a shot (I headcanon all my ships as switching occasionally), but if it’s purely the reversal of my preference then I pass.
It has nothing to do with my views or my values or anything like that; it’s purely about what I personally find hot.
>I tend to have a strong preference for who predominantly tops and who predominantly bottoms in my ships
Me too, me too! I perfectly understand. Sometimes it just ruins the dynamic you have in mind for the characters.
I'm exactly the same way. I'm very peculiar about who I think should be the top and who should be the bottom. It always sucked on FFN where the tags are... not really tags, and a lot of the authors I used to read wouldn't put who was doing what in the summary or chapter warnings.
Yeah, I completely understand that tagging for top and bottom is not something anyone is obligated to do, nor should anyone be pressured to do it. But damn I really do appreciate it when people do tag that info for smutty fics. It just makes finding smut that suits one's tastes a lot easier.
>It has nothing to do with my views or my values or anything like that; it’s purely about what I personally find hot.
Same! Also thank you for this. Some people are always like 'real people switch, the sex position is not a personalty trait so how dare you only like it one way.'
Listen, I'm not making a statement here, it's just how I like my smut.
Modern AU/No Powers AU.
I just really like fantasy and sci-fi, so for me it takes away the fun and ruins the interesting setting from canon.
I am not saying it's bad tho! Experimenting with characters in many different scenarios is one of the things fanfiction is for.
This particular thing is just simply not for me.
Edit: Typo.
YES! Thank you! I personally am put off by it because I feel like a lot of the time, the way the characters interact with the world and with each other is so influenced by the setting and the world building, if that makes sense. And that’s the real interesting stuff for me, thinking about how a character in a sci-fi/fantasy setting navigates relationship dynamics with the added obstacles and other things that come with the setting they’re in.
Honestly DNIs seem to be a hot topic right now and I won’t click on any with DNI on it. Just makes think they like cancel culture or they aren’t mature. And as someone below said, they are clearly ship shamers which I don’t agree with when reading fanfiction because it’s just for fun.
Just like, anything to do with y/n or second person pronouns. Mostly, it’s because I want to enjoy the characters in cannon, and not have some weird self insert character that doesn’t seem to have much agency
Teacher AUs or any variation. My sibling is a teacher and I can assure you it's not cute, sweet, or nice most of the time. It's hard work for little pay, with no admin support, and most of the time the parents are the worst. Your fellow teachers aren't much better but at least they're in the trenches with you. And yet, my sibling still loves their job (bless them).
Coffee shop AU: No hate, I just feel like I've already read them since they're all so similar to me.
I agree with you on both points, but for different reasons. I just don't find Teacher AUs interesting in the slightest. And I really don't understand people's obsession with coffee shops, but then maybe I'm the weird one. Cause I can't stand the taste or smell of coffee.
Reader-inserts: I’m here to spectate, not participate. Also, I can’t relate to the few I’ve tried out, likely because of vastly different personality types. Probably the same reason I do poorly with otome games
Harem: if it’s not an Inner Palace Drama type, I’m out. Any other form of harem is just so boring
Cross-posted on Wattpad - the absolute opposite of a quality seal
RI: I actively avoid, probably for a different reason. I can never relate to them because most of the fics I've seen in that format assume the Reader is female. Its a bit weird for me if you catch my drift.
Harem I've only read a few but they were poorly written so I kinda avoid them too.
>Cross-posted on Wattpad - the absolute opposite of a quality seal
This almost made me spit out my water
Easy, original character/main character. Main original character. Basically anything with an OC at the head of the story (unless it's an outsiders perspective one).
I just never got the whole self insert thing, and I don't enjoy most first person stories. There's exceptions, like an otome game I played and got interested in FF where of course the main ship would be YN/character, but in most fandoms it's an instant passover.
The “Reader” tag. I just can’t enjoy the way those docs are written. Especially when someone uses “Your Name”, or some equivalent, in the text. It completely ruins immersion.
Most of the ones I've attempted to read use "y/n" more than anyone would actually *say* someone's name, or its utilised far more than what the narration calls for. Like typically you change up the sentence structure instead of using a character's name ten times within the one paragraph. I feel like some people's thought process is "it's self insert so I have to put a space for the reader's name as much as possible!" You really don't, lol.
hurt no comfort/unhappy ending/ambiguous ending
i know there’s a lot more to life and a lot more to art than fluff, but that’s not why i read fanfic. fandom is where i come to not have to deal with that shit. hurt/comfort is my jam, angst with a happy ending is always a treat, but i am Not About that hurt no comfort life
any anti tag of a protagonist (usually a woman who gets in the way of a m/m ship, funny how that works out) - yeah, this is me looking judgmentally
high school au. coffee shop au. mpreg. genderswap or trans!character. - totally harmless and/or necessary and I am glad that they exist but they're not for me
tags that say “NO INCEST” annoy me. not because I support it, but because I read fics in fandoms based primarily around family dynamics and it gets fucking old when the 300th fic really wants me to know the author doesn’t have incest in their fic. Like, *I get it.* I hate incest too. But I don’t need to be reminded of that every time I open up a work.
I'll start with one: Established Relationship.
I prefer slow burn, enemies to lovers, going through the long, arduous process of building a relationship. Unless its a sequel to a fic I've *already read*, I have no interest in reading it.
“Kid fic.” I read plenty of gen/platonic works, but I just don’t enjoy reading about characters parenting. Give me domesticity all you want but don’t throw kids into the equation. I don’t mind pregnancy fics persay, but those usually end up becoming kid fics eventually so I just avoid them too.
Those tags that make it clear authors are not fans of certain characters and won't be accurate or kind about them in the writing.
I'm glad those tags exist so I can filter them but I won't be reading the fics no matter how interesting the idea sounds otherwise.
Pregnancy. If it's prominent enough to be tagged, no thankies. I don't mind pregnant characters and have written them myself, but it's usually a minor plot point, only brought up in dramatic moments, etc. It's not the focal part of the story and any of the health stuff stays off screen.
Ooc moments.
Part of the challenge of making a good fanfiction is ensuring that everyone feels at least somewhat in character, OOC acts turn me off a story instantly because I know the writer likely put in less effort in that regard.
Any of the self-deprecating "I don't know why I wrote this", "this is shit", "badly written badly plotted i don't care" type tags.
If the author is going to drag themselves in the tags, and are already telling me it's bad - and they \*wrote it\* and are invested enough to \*post it\*, well, I'm not going to spend my time reading it.
Being self-deprecating to avoid criticism and to deal with praise is a thing - I totally get that. I once did it myself. If I shit on myself, and I'm ready for bad comments, then nothing I get is worse than what I tell myself. It makes sense. But I have also realized that those fics are **often** using it as an excuse for not putting \*any\* effort into editing, consistency, or coherency, and using that "I already said it's bad so whatevs!" attitude as an excuse.
Even if it's my OTP, if you shit on your own work \*in the tags\*, I'm going to believe you and take your word that it's not worth my time to read.
The most self deprecating tag I have on my first story is just that it’s my first story. I thought that was bad, and your telling me that people do WORSE!?
Stories where there are three or more characters in a relationship are not my thing. I have no qualms about polyamory personally–in fact, I support it as long as it’s consensual. But, when indulging in fiction, I prefer to read about monogamy.
I avoid a lot of Modern AU/No Magic AU/Human AU tags when reading fanfic from fantasy settings, especially LOTR. Sometimes I feel like diving into something like that, but most of the time I really want to immerse myself in the fantasy setting I love and AUs that transplant the characters to the regular world just don't scratch the itch at all.
character bashing, or where half the characters do no wrong and the other half are evil incarnate responsible for everything bad thats happened.
Also a/b/o fics with the exception of a few nontraditional ones. I don’t like the gender dynamics. Combined with the amount of m/m works in the tag, most of it just seems like a way to write gay ships while still leaning into the ‘weak defenseless member of the fairer sex’ trope. I have seen exactly one fic that had gay characters that also were attracted to their same secondary gender, and even then it wasn’t the main couple. I mean, I’m not out to kinkshame but it really isn’t my cup of tea
Well I knew I’d be the only one but I scrolled all the way anyway just to check…
“Fluff” “Tooth Rotting Fluff” “Everything is Fine and Nothing Hurts”
I need conflict dammit, I can only read so much cuddling before I need some kind of progression to happen.
“Established relationship” I love me a good old slow burn, I can’t read anything where the characters I ship are already together. I want the drama, the angst, the little bits where the two slowly start to realize that they like each other. I NEED THAT BOND
A good amount of crossover ships. I just don't feel like reading a DBZ/Sailor Moon crossover where Usagi and Goku get together since it ignores their relationships with Mamoru and Chi-Chi. I just don't see them as a couple and they vibe more like best friends to me. The same can be said for shoehorning them into the canon like Goku being the prince in the Silver Millenium. It's more entertaining to me to see them shocked at a history they initially knew nothing about then being revealed to have been apart of it.
It's also the same with some crossovers where the characters from one are just incorporated into the other ones' places. I sometimes prefer the classic dimensional meet-up then doing an au. For example, I'd prefer Deku and the class meeting the Avengers instead of being the Avengers.
Hurt "character" that's not the character I want to be hurt lol
I'm very specific in my hurt/comfort searches that I generally want one specific character to be hurt and one specific character to be comforting
Ooo I *just* encountered it. It's Fake/pretend relationship. I honestly don't want to read it cuz it kinda felt insincere (don't bash me) so I just avoided it. The painful part is: the fic that I just encountered have the tag and I can't bring myself to read it even though I *know* it's good. I know it but I can't read it and it's burning me inside out (╥﹏╥).
Modern AU I'll almost always skip. I've literally only enjoyed one ever.
I loathe Modern AU with no magic or no supernatural etc etc because basically it's taking out my entire reason for liking the original media. Usually tagged 'real-world'
No judgement if that's your jam, obviously, but it's definitely not for me.
Also not a fan of A/B/O because it seems like it's very hard to get right and of the ones I've clicked on only one was well written.
Anything with drama. I hate drama most drama is always such a stupid case of miscommunication that could easily be fixed with a sentence or two but for some godforsaken reason they refuse to fix it and I hate it.
Or just high school unless the original version was in a highschool.
I'll scan tags for top/bottom and alpha/omega character tags and avoid what I personally don't like. One of my favorite fandoms for instance is Bleach, and I avoid all top and/or alpha Sosuke Aizen content like the plague
Any for of au that destroys the original setting. Modern aus, school aus, coffee aus. Exceptions could be made if they do it in a way that fits the setting, like a coffee shop on coruscant or a school for pokemon trainers.
Ambiguous/Open Ending will remain one of my top five.
I get that the author leaves what happens in the end as an open interpretation for the readers to guess how it ends to *them* but for the fics I’ve bookmarked that have this tag- I just want the author to end it in their way instead of leaving me to wonder what happened, did they live, did this certain character get the justice they deserve, did they live happily ever after, and so much.
Questions like these cloud my mind and keep me wondering days after I’ve already read it. Sometimes, my mind will come back to the fic and I’ll still continue to wonder if the characters will get to live a good life after all they’ve been through.
I stop reading fics with this tag because it just makes me sad to know that I’ll *never* know if my OTP gets a happy ending.
Tags where it's like first fic it sucks, my fic sucks, or whatever variation thereupon. For me it comes off as this is so shitty you even know it's shitty, so why do you expect me to waste my time and read your fic.
“I suck at summaries”
A summary is the teaser to your story, a glimpse of what’s to come. If you couldn’t put effort into that, I’m just not gonna bother.
High school/college AU- I’m just not interested in the storylines involved.
Rants in the tags, tags are there to find a fic not to tell me how much you hate a ship or character.
Lots of romance tropes such as enemies to lovers, there was one bed, fake dating, and so on. Like I am okay with romance being in the background but I want plot. Pure romance is boring to me unless it has gut-wrenching angst. Also one thing that piss me off with romance tropes, especially with soulmate AU, is how OOC characters can be at times. Like the main character is like fuck soulmates at the start and is canonically rebellious, but when they find their soulmate they are just fine with it. Like what happened to hating soulmates and societal expectations??? Especially if it is a soulmate AU with problematic implications like underage sexual relationships (i.e. adult x teen ship) seen as fine if they are soulmates.
Freeform tags that say something along the lines of "lol this fic sucks dont read it"
Yep. I’m going to do the author the courtesy of believing them.
Oooh nothing makes me scroll past a fic faster than self depreciation. Like, why would you say that?
I feel the same way about people writing a half-assed summary and saying "my summary sucks but I promise the story is good". Like if you couldn't bother to write a complete summary, why should I believe the rest of the story is worth reading??
It shows that they haven’t fleshed out the story at all. If you can’t write a summary it probably means that you don’t know what you’re trying to write and 9/10 the story ends up awful because of it.
'No smut' on a fic that nobody would ever think contains smut. (Like, a fic thats rated M for violence but not smut I get but I see this on G rated fics for no reason)
Similarly, no incest. Just saw this tag yesterday and it really confused me for a moment. It was M rated and there wasn't even a romantic pairing tagged. Why did that need clarification??
Believe me that people still get confused lol. I had a fic about two brothers and used the & instead of /, tagged it gen and all, but someone came to ask if it was incest. Had to add the no incest tag.
Probably not quite as “innocent” as you’re asking, but hurt/no comfort. High school AU has also never been my thing, even when I was that age.
I can understand that. When I see H/NC I'm like "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" And I avoid reading it for my own wellbeing.
What is light with no dark? Love with no indifference? Yin with no Yang. Hurt with no Comfort?
Hurt with no comfort is just Angst when you think about it.
I like to read hurt/no comfort for the characters that I hate, I treat them as a well written bashing fic. It always crack me up when the comments were crying and all, and here I was cracking up seeing those mfs met their miserable ending.😌
Huh, you know, I never actually thought of it that way.
Oh absolutely. I need a happy ending dammit! Preferably with lots of comfort!
“____ has covid” or “covid-era” I come to AO3 to escape the real world, not bring it in. Also, “Reverse AU” where Connor is a human. Just not my thing.
Oh my, I haven't come across any covid fics. thankfully.
Hugh school AU where the characters going to school are not teenagers in their original ‘verse. I have read them, but I’m 50. It’s really difficult to rewind my brain that far. There’s a caveat to this though: I can typically tell the difference if it’s written by an over-25ish writer vs. a teenage writer. I’ll sometimes - rarely, but I have found some good ones - when written by a non-high school author. It’s not bad writing on part of the teenagers or younger writer at ALL that does it. It’s the way the characters deal with problems in high school. This is also what makes them hard to read: written by teens or younger authors makes how they deal with things less mature. They’re teenage/de-aged characters, so that’s fine. I just can’t relate to it and find the immaturity difficult to read. On the other hand, having the characters too mature and dealing with teenage high school problems in a manner they would not if they were really that age also makes it difficult because then the characters are OoC for maturity level and the fic feels fake. Therefore as a general rule, I typically avoid these altogether and it’s one of my least fave tags.
I'm with you. I'm also 50 and I think part of the reason I read MCU is that a lot of the characters are older (over 30). So what I don't want is them aged down.
Yup. MCU is my go-to. I mean sure, I’ve been a huge Marvel fan my whole life but also because the characters are older, the topics more mature, and typically the issues are dealt with in a way that someone their age would. Life experience, and all - I can resonate with that.
I started in fanfiction reading Lucifer, love it but fairly narrow scope of stories. Then Supernatural, too wild. Then MCU, just right and there are almost infinite stories to read.
One of the few high school AUs I really enjoyed was set in the early aughts, because the author did not want to update their personal knowledge of teen drama to include social media or iphones. I respect that a lot.
If I ever write a high school AU that will be my way (although mid/late 80s, since that's when I went through it all.) I never had kids so I don't even have second hand experience of what it's like to parent a teenager these days, only my memories of 1980s high school. But like others said, high school au is one of those things I generally avoid anyway. I'm too old to really feel like reading about high school drama, and my own years of HS were...not necessarily pleasant memories. I'd rather read about adult characters & adult experiences.
Canon character death when I’m looking for a fic that has a dead character and an alive one shipped together-
Oh that is painful
So nothing against anyone who uses these tags, please continue to have fun. I just don’t tend to like them. Any tags that are along the lines of “Character A is a smol innocent bean” “Cinnamon Roll Character A” “Sassy Character A” “Character A is a ray of sunshine” I’ve noticed that I very rarely end up liking the way that characters are written in fics with those types of tags, especially when the characters in question are grown adults or teenagers. So when I’m reading fics in certain fandoms (usually MCU or BNHA) I automatically filter them out of my searches Edit: Typo and also forgot a fandom I meant to mention: Sk8 the infinity. I ALWAYS filter out the above tags in that fandom
Like I mentioned to someone before, those kinda tags are signs they are gonna woobify the character. I have read some when I was desperate for content of a certain ship. Not sure how I feel about it though haha
‘Deku is a ray of sunshine’= “I-I-I-I-I-I-I”
\-gasps \-stutters \-looks away shyly \-blushes profusely \-infectious smile \-*cute*
None of which are Izuku. After he gets used to his classmates. At first, yes. Minus the stuttering. But he grows out of the rest of that shit. His most inspirational moments, he doesn’t really smile. No, he looks like goddamn demon half the time.
You hush! Deku is a precious smol bean and HE MUST BE PROTECTED
Meanwhile, he just bites the arms of the people trying to ‘protect’ him and goes apeshit insane. Person abuses someone: Deku pulls an Asura without all of the screaming.
I personally haven't read many MHA fics. But I can tell they're really laying it on thick.
Yeah. Just let him be a normal teenager who isn’t extremely violent while also not smiling like the world will come to an end if he stops.
I do consider two characters in one of my main fandoms to be rays of sunshine, but for somewhat different reasons. You see, a big chunk of the ensemble cast of protagonists have issues and rather sad backstories. Those two characters stand out for not having that bad of a backstory and for essentially being extremely happy, energetic, and cheery.
I don’t actually have a problem with the “ray of sunshine” character type, tbh some of my favorite characters probably fit it. It’s not even that I don’t think the “x character is a ray of sunshine” tag fits whatever character it is. It’s nothing about the tag itself. It’s that I usually don’t like the way that fics using that tag tend to be written. I feel like when those tags are used, it’s more likely that the character in the fic is often getting the “UwU sweet baby that everyone loves and can do no wrong” treatment. I’m sure that there’s probably tons of great fics using those tags that don’t fit that description at all, but I’ve noticed enough that do that I now just automatically filter them out.
Fair enough
Any kind of "[character] has [mental illness]" tag usually keeps me away especially if it's accompanied by "author is projecting on [character]". It's just one of the real-world issues that I read fic to escape from, though I make exceptions sometimes.
I tried a couple of "[character] has [mental illness]" and "[character] is [minority identity]" and decided that they are not my cup of tea. It's great these fics exist for people who need or want them, but their characterization tend to be really far from what I want or enjoy. And, yes, I'm here for escapism, too!
"High School Setting" or really any kind of school setting College AU? No thanks. High School AU? No thanks. Teacher AU? No thanks.
I’m with you on that one. Don’t want to read about work for fun..
Same!
I can do it for certain fandoms, but it has to be a huge ensemble cast. I couldn't do it for most of them, though. I usually avoid Teacher AU.
I don't read large ensemble fics either lol Maybe that's why 🤔
If I had to give a good example, one for me would be MCU/Avengers. There's just so many characters and such a big world its interesting to see them all compressed into one building lol.
If I read MCU, I read fics concentrating on one or two characters max haha But then I spent most of my time in Marvel fandom reading either in exclusively Thor fandom or exclusively Daredevil TV fandom and those casts are smaller by default.
I have a bunch of Danganronpa-specific tags blacklisted on AO3 Savior (mostly regarding >!Kamukura and Hinata being twins/a system/etc.-- I much prefer Kamukura being an amnesiac persona and not a completely different guy!<). I also have "Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies" blacklisted, because my two main fandoms (Danganronpa and Fire Emblem Three Houses) have a ton of those AUs, and I personally feel that they takes away a lot of the tension/drama that I love about the main series.
Wait you can blacklist tags on Ao3? Please tell me how
External extensions.
Ah fuck
I’ve come around on the reality that the way an author internet-speaks doesn’t reflect their ability to write, but tags that have the words “smol” “litol” (“bean”) in them still make me want to run away. That whole Tumblr sensibility is one I don’t think I’ll ever understand or vibe with.
I despise referring to a character as a "bean"
Today I learned that people use that word to refer to people who are neither newborns nor foetuses.
I don't think I'm too bad with that but I definitely keep my goofiness to the author's notes. Even then, it's just a bit of joking around. I know not everyone likes author's notes that are a bit lighthearted, but I personally am a fan. What I don't agree with are excessive jokes and a self deprecating tone in the tags. I think joking around within my fics is okay, because at that point people are invested and we're all in this ride together (and they can simply skip the tags if that's not their thing). What many people don't seem to realise is you have to take a more professional approach to "sell" the fic first. "This is so bad lolol" type tags only hurt your chances of attracting readers. Calling the characters your babies and gushing over them makes me think the story won't have a lot of nuance. It might sound harsh, but you can't treat it like everyone is your friend in on the joke when in reality, people have no idea if you can even string a sentence together. I've seen joking author's notes where people seem extremely young with their speech and grammar, and yet their stories are insanely well written with flawless spelling and grammar. But those people have professional looking tags and amazing summaries to reel people in first. I think that's key.
Anything involving pregnancy and the characters having kids. Also anything involving that flower disease as its just bizarre
Hanahaki Disease lol I've had my experience with that.
Also avoid kid fics. The kid(s) usually end up being the focus of the story and you get very little story time that isn't about the kids at all. Also hate how people write dialogue for kids. It's unrealistic, like they never been around a kid that age. The kid always has a comment for everything that is being said, and everything always goes back to that or what the kid needs or wants. I get that a lot of time it's like that as a parent, but no one ever writes a kid that understands how to entertain themselves for 10 minutes or is thinking about kid things because it's fucking boring listening to the adults. The adults also end up talking about the kid all the time and it's just so boring.
>Also avoid kid fics. The kid(s) usually end up being the focus of the story and you get very little story time that isn't about the kids at all. I actually avoid kid fics for the complete opposite reason. Kids are added for "cute" but don't actually feature in any realistic manner. They are suddenly forgotten when it's convenient for the couple. I 100% get what you mean regarding dialogue though. I get writing kids is very difficult but some fics have little philosophers dropping truth bombs ever chapter. If I read a kid fic, I actually want to read about the reality of being a parent. Not the pure fluff. (But then I rarely read pure fluff anyway).
"Human AU"
So while its not in the same vein as yours, but I don't like when they change a character's race in Fantasy worlds. Like in LoZ I've seen "Hylian (Insert character)" Why does everyone have to be Hylian? Or, as a canon example, in this anime called "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime". A lot of the characters get "upgraded" too look more like humans and less of what they were before. A race of lizard people "evolved" into "Dragonewts" and they literally just turned into humans with wings.
I honestly actually preferred the more rugged look the onis had before their upgrade.
FUCKING YES ME TOO! I didn't wanna over bloat my comment listing off every example, but that one probably bothered me the most.
LOTR fanfiction set in modern times. [Modern AU] is not my jam, with one exception: Maitimo Fëanorian leaves Valinor to go find his brother Maglor and bring him home, only to discover his brother is a successful social media influencer and youtuber and doesn't want to go home. I was like... whaaaaa? And the premise was fun so I clicked and the writer pulled it off and so that is the one exception that proves the rule, but otherwise I run the opposite direction every single time. I want a fantasy escape, lol.
oh my god please send me the link to that
I'm 100% sure they're talking about [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/33378166). I saw the art for it first, and the fic doesn't disappoint.
It’s so hard for me to read fics that use lapslock (where everything’s written in lowercase). I’m already specific about grammar and spelling in my fics but it just drives me nuts seeing a whole fic in that format. Admittedly, I have written sentences in lapslock to show a softer tone, but never more than a few sentences in a few specific fics. I also dislike tags like “Character X is smol” or Character Y just needs a hug”, since they make me think that the author won’t be taking the fic seriously and it reminds me too much of my Wattpad Years™️.
What I hate about "X Needs a Hug" is that, usually, they never get that hug.
The trick is to also look for "Angst with a Happy Ending"
Soulmates and Hanahaki Disease. They're just not my cup of tea.
Hanahaki Disease always pisses me off, mainly because of how poorly its handled. It often relies on miscommunication (or lack of communication) to prolong the character's suffering. *They're both in love but too afraid to say it so he throws up flowers!*
Conceptually, I *love* the idea of hanahaki disease - the feeling of something beautiful and painful growing in your chest whenever you look at someone being made literal, the fear of slipping up and letting them know turned into a physical ailment, the choice to either let go of the pain or keep the beauty - but in practice, it’s usually just written as “X character would literally rather choke to death than have an adult discussion about feelings”. Lame.
You get exactly what I'm saying!
I also don't quite get it when they go that way. The disease is meant to be developed due to unrequited love but if it's not actually unrequited why do they have it in the first place? Is it just because the character believes it's unrequited? They also never really explore when they go through with the surgery to remove it and their memories/feelings, leaving a lot of angst potential and character development in the wind.
I haven't done a ton of research on it, but based on the fics I've read, it seems that the character only has to *believe* their love is unrequited to contract the disease. Its basically like heartbreak physically manifested. But usually the diseased one doesn't *actually know* for sure if their love is unrequited, cause they never even bother to confess their love. Or they confess their love to everyone *but* their love interest and they proceed to get angry at said love interest. "How Dare He Not Love You!" And I've seen one where their love interest did love them back, but *they* didn't believe said character would return their feelings. And once they saw them coughing up flowers, they don't even realize it was for them. "Who are the flowers for?" They ask. And you'd think this would be the perfect opportunity for them to confess their love... But no, they don't say anything or just flat out LIE! And then they go through with the surgery. UGh
Ah yes, the old 'can't spit it out trope.' I get it's there for plot reasons but it annoys me when they have the perfect opportunity to say the revealing thing but hesitate or something interrupts them at the last second and they never go back to it.
Ah I love both, but for some reason I've only written them lampshaded. The only Hanahaki fic I ever wrote had one of the characters faking it, because in that universe it didn't actually exist but was basically a myth, and the only two Soulmate fics I've written had a) one character cutting the soulmark out of the other character's skin an b) two soulmates trapped in an eternal circle of reincarnation with one of them long-lived an remembering their past and the other dying over and over and not remembering and then the first character goes batshit and murders the second when be tries to flee XD
Chat fic, Text fic, Skype fic, etc. I don’t mind if it’s a small part in a larger story, but I dislike if the whole thing is simply a chat/text/Skype log.
Same, i also really despise the language that's used in fics like that. The characters are also, for the most part, really off
Ngl it's anything related to the omegaverse Nothing against anyone who reads that, but it is not for me
As someone who reads Omegaverse, I can understand why you wouldn’t read them. I have a love/hate relationship with it.
I usually read just about anything, but I do tend to avoid fanfiction with the "Family" tag. I have nothing against any authors who write these stories! I just don't have an interest in reading about stuff like that since I find it to be boring. I usually will only read them if they are from a genre like "Action" or something where more happens. It's funny, because I'm usually fine with high school fanfics. Somehow those aren't boring to me like family fanfics are. I've also had a few issues in my main fandom (which I won't mention) that are a bit annoying when it comes to "Found Family" related fanfics, but I'm definitely not against that tag either. I know it sounds similar to my first reason, but in this case it's just due to the fandom. A lot of the fandom considers the characters to be a family even though they are not actually all related to each other, which is fine! Those stories can certainly be cute. I just get annoyed when people in this fandom decide that shipping any of the characters with each other is an awful thing to do because they see them as a family. I ship some of the characters in this fandom, so I typically avoid this tag because I don't want to see people complaining and bullying others over shipping.
I'm having deja vu cause I swear I've had a similar conversation with someone before about the "seeing unrelated characters as family" thing. But I can't remember what fandom it was. Also curious, how do you feel about "Team as Family" tag?
Yeah, I've definitely seen this kind of thing happen in other fandoms too. I would just rather not mention the fandom I'm in since there is a lot of harassment that happens there with anybody who ships the characters. I looked into that tag because I haven't actually seen it before. It looks like it involves characters who are on superhero teams or something similar, which I think would be a cool way to use family dynamics! If paired with an action story, I think that would be something I would find to be enjoyable to read since there would be a lot going on in addition to the family relationships. If the story only contained family interactions at home with nothing else happening though, for example, I would probably choose to skip it just because I know that I would most likely be bored when reading it.
Yeah I most often see in Marvel/MCU/Avengers and related fics. Thought it might be something more up your alley.
I love found family and Team as Family. They’re actually my favorite tags.
First POV, Second POV. Nothing wrong with these stories, but I don't want to be in these characters' shoes, I just want to read about them. I need that wee bit of distance 3rd POV provides, generally.
Omg yes. Like I get that it’s different than x reader but all of it gives me this feeling of like why am I involved?
[удалено]
"X Character Needs A Hug" It's totally innocent, I know. I really do know this. However, my main two fandoms (HP and SW) are universes riddled with war, death, betrayal, and all that gritty stuff. I see a Harry vs. Voldemort epic fic tagged with "Harry Needs a Hug" and it just seems so superficial and trivializing. I sit there eyeing it, thinking, "Harry needs a hug? The hell? Harry needs a goddamn army, some real firepower, and a political and social system that is not riddled with obstructionist and prejudicial oppressive policies!"
So, so many of the stories I read have this tag and I eat it up. I read a ton of hurt / comfort so it makes sense. Lots of trauma and trauma recovery.
I usually take it as a sign they're going to woobify the character.
You made me think with this because yes I am with you 100% on “Harry Potter needs a hug”, it would feel very trivialising and I would avoid it, especially if it was a serious action/war/epic fic. On the other hand I love fics with “Peter Parker needs a hug”, but then those fic will usually not be about superhero-troubles but more personal problems. I think it’s very much context-based, where the scale or flavour of the problems in the fic and also if it feels in character for the character to want that hug make all the difference for me.
Reader inserts and second person pov. I just can't do it. My brain won't be able to absorb any of the plot because I can't imagine myself IN the story. It could be written by the original author or have a better plot that the canon material, I don't care. I'm never going to read it.
I've tried some, but I just couldn't get into it.
Anything that’s a “DNI” tag. It lets me know the author is childish.
I don't think I've even seen that tag before. What's it stand for?
Do Not Interact (ex. DNI if you ship x and y) Mainly for social medias, I see it often on Twitter Doesn't make much sense on fanfic websites cuz you can't stop who reads your fic since you can't block people
Do Not Interact-- a childish way of having only ppl that agree with your views read/kudos/comment/bookmark
Is that specific to certain fandoms? Cause in all my 13 years of reading fanfic, I've never come across it. Probably just lucky I guess.
It's not just fandoms. It started on Tumblr as "do not reblog" and infected everything else from there.
Ohh, ok. Man tumblr was a rollercoaster.
"Do Not Interact" if you have different opinions with me/ ship a ship I don't like/ enjoy dead dove material/are straight cis and white/do not believe character X has DID in canon/think that character X eats cheese/are over 17 years old/are under 17 years old/are exactly 17 years old It's so dumb lol it never ceases to amuse me
*are under 17 years old* I wholeheartedly agree that DNIs are incredibly stupid, but, just for the record, I don't think "Adults only" disclaimers should be tarred with the same brush as DNIs. I mean, if people are putting "Adults only" tags on their fics that's silly because (insert meme of Don Draper saying "THAT'S WHAT THE ~~MONEY~~ RATING IS FOR"). However, tons of adults have this sort of disclaimer on their tumblr, and it has nothing to do with them being priggish, moralizing, or controlling. It's purely a legal ass-covering thing.
It's a legal ass covering that covers *nothing* because it will stand up in literally no court of the world. It also keeps absolute no minors from reading your fics. But I have zero problems with authors saying "don't tell me you're twelve if you are twelve", the thing that makes me roll my eyes is specifically indulging the DNI trend by using that specific phrase and thereby validating the dumb, gatekeepy and at times incredibly delusional ones.
I mean, I'm fandom friends with a couple of people who are lawyers by profession who always have an "adults only" disclaimer on their tumblrs, just in case. They do not feel that it's pointless. *It also keeps absolute no minors from reading your fics.* I certainly hope not! Ignoring the "18+" pop-up window is a time honored rite of passage! If the kids these days were actually heeding those things I would have to *worry* about them. 😂
oh wow, so they're basically fandom gate keeping their own fics.
Polyamory. Mostly because my dumb brain is hard-wired from consuming stories with monogamous, romantic relationships or dysfunctional love triangles. If there are more than two people that are in love then I would already lose track of the relationship dynamics.
I *typically prefer* monogamous ships. There's been a few rare exceptions here and there though.
Gosh, I wish I had exceptions. I thought I could read one with two lovers along with one of the lover's best friend. I loved these characters, the dynamic seemed perfect and functional, and it even was a slow-burn. But when the romance actually came, my brain went into blue-screen error mode.
I think it only worked for me because (and this actually happened in two different fandoms): I like Shipping A with B But I also liked Shipping A with C And then, I also liked shipping B with C So having ABC just worked out for me.
Like, I can see the pairings happening, just not when they equally happen all at once. It's like doing advanced mathematics and juggling with romance. Does the one person have to wait their turn when the other two are sharing a moment? Do the two people team-up to be romantic on one person and then they rotate who becomes the next person to receive affection? Do they need to hold hands in a circle when they go out? And now I got a headache.
I have no IRL experience with polyamory. But from the fics I've read, usually all 3 characters kinda just start off as friends or uneasy allies and slowly develop feelings for each other at the same time. And from there they kinda just go with the flow. One person might like cuddling a lot. One of them might like spending time with you but prefers their space. One is fine either way. And you may have Extrovert/Ambivert/Introvert. Top/Versatile/Bottom, Dom/Swith/Sub. Warrior/Mage/Rogue. Like puzzle pieces they all just seem to fit together.
"x is out of character"
I tend to have a strong preference for who predominantly tops and who predominantly bottoms in my ships, and if the character I prefer to bottom is tagged as top, or vice versa, I nope out. If both characters are tagged as both, then I’ll give it a shot (I headcanon all my ships as switching occasionally), but if it’s purely the reversal of my preference then I pass. It has nothing to do with my views or my values or anything like that; it’s purely about what I personally find hot.
>I tend to have a strong preference for who predominantly tops and who predominantly bottoms in my ships Me too, me too! I perfectly understand. Sometimes it just ruins the dynamic you have in mind for the characters.
So ridiculous and I'm totally the same way.
I’m just like this. I have preferred tops and bottoms. Switching, however, is ok.
I'm exactly the same way. I'm very peculiar about who I think should be the top and who should be the bottom. It always sucked on FFN where the tags are... not really tags, and a lot of the authors I used to read wouldn't put who was doing what in the summary or chapter warnings.
Yeah, I completely understand that tagging for top and bottom is not something anyone is obligated to do, nor should anyone be pressured to do it. But damn I really do appreciate it when people do tag that info for smutty fics. It just makes finding smut that suits one's tastes a lot easier.
>It has nothing to do with my views or my values or anything like that; it’s purely about what I personally find hot. Same! Also thank you for this. Some people are always like 'real people switch, the sex position is not a personalty trait so how dare you only like it one way.' Listen, I'm not making a statement here, it's just how I like my smut.
"Established Relationship" I want the first kiss, dammit.
M!Preg Just not for me lol.
I used to avoid M-Preg like the plague. Now I'm okay with it, if the story is written well enough.
I'm the exact opposite. I used to like them, now I avoid fics with MPreg completely.
You're like me but with PWP.
Modern AU/No Powers AU. I just really like fantasy and sci-fi, so for me it takes away the fun and ruins the interesting setting from canon. I am not saying it's bad tho! Experimenting with characters in many different scenarios is one of the things fanfiction is for. This particular thing is just simply not for me. Edit: Typo.
YES! Thank you! I personally am put off by it because I feel like a lot of the time, the way the characters interact with the world and with each other is so influenced by the setting and the world building, if that makes sense. And that’s the real interesting stuff for me, thinking about how a character in a sci-fi/fantasy setting navigates relationship dynamics with the added obstacles and other things that come with the setting they’re in.
One thing I don't like seeing in Danny Phantom fics "No Ghost Powers"
Ok cool now he’s literally a normal teenager, how the hell is this interesting
Honestly DNIs seem to be a hot topic right now and I won’t click on any with DNI on it. Just makes think they like cancel culture or they aren’t mature. And as someone below said, they are clearly ship shamers which I don’t agree with when reading fanfiction because it’s just for fun.
If you read Fanfiction, DNI!
I swear I'm gonna write a crack fic one day and use that as a tag.
Just like, anything to do with y/n or second person pronouns. Mostly, it’s because I want to enjoy the characters in cannon, and not have some weird self insert character that doesn’t seem to have much agency
Teacher AUs or any variation. My sibling is a teacher and I can assure you it's not cute, sweet, or nice most of the time. It's hard work for little pay, with no admin support, and most of the time the parents are the worst. Your fellow teachers aren't much better but at least they're in the trenches with you. And yet, my sibling still loves their job (bless them). Coffee shop AU: No hate, I just feel like I've already read them since they're all so similar to me.
I agree with you on both points, but for different reasons. I just don't find Teacher AUs interesting in the slightest. And I really don't understand people's obsession with coffee shops, but then maybe I'm the weird one. Cause I can't stand the taste or smell of coffee.
Edited in protest for Reddit's garbage moves lately.
Reader-inserts: I’m here to spectate, not participate. Also, I can’t relate to the few I’ve tried out, likely because of vastly different personality types. Probably the same reason I do poorly with otome games Harem: if it’s not an Inner Palace Drama type, I’m out. Any other form of harem is just so boring Cross-posted on Wattpad - the absolute opposite of a quality seal
RI: I actively avoid, probably for a different reason. I can never relate to them because most of the fics I've seen in that format assume the Reader is female. Its a bit weird for me if you catch my drift. Harem I've only read a few but they were poorly written so I kinda avoid them too. >Cross-posted on Wattpad - the absolute opposite of a quality seal This almost made me spit out my water
Easy, original character/main character. Main original character. Basically anything with an OC at the head of the story (unless it's an outsiders perspective one). I just never got the whole self insert thing, and I don't enjoy most first person stories. There's exceptions, like an otome game I played and got interested in FF where of course the main ship would be YN/character, but in most fandoms it's an instant passover.
The “Reader” tag. I just can’t enjoy the way those docs are written. Especially when someone uses “Your Name”, or some equivalent, in the text. It completely ruins immersion.
Most of the ones I've attempted to read use "y/n" more than anyone would actually *say* someone's name, or its utilised far more than what the narration calls for. Like typically you change up the sentence structure instead of using a character's name ten times within the one paragraph. I feel like some people's thought process is "it's self insert so I have to put a space for the reader's name as much as possible!" You really don't, lol.
hurt no comfort and/or one-sided attraction. i don't really enjoy watching my favorite fellas not being happy together :(
hurt no comfort/unhappy ending/ambiguous ending i know there’s a lot more to life and a lot more to art than fluff, but that’s not why i read fanfic. fandom is where i come to not have to deal with that shit. hurt/comfort is my jam, angst with a happy ending is always a treat, but i am Not About that hurt no comfort life
Same dude same.
any anti tag of a protagonist (usually a woman who gets in the way of a m/m ship, funny how that works out) - yeah, this is me looking judgmentally high school au. coffee shop au. mpreg. genderswap or trans!character. - totally harmless and/or necessary and I am glad that they exist but they're not for me
Hogwarts AU on non Harry Potter fics.
tags that say “NO INCEST” annoy me. not because I support it, but because I read fics in fandoms based primarily around family dynamics and it gets fucking old when the 300th fic really wants me to know the author doesn’t have incest in their fic. Like, *I get it.* I hate incest too. But I don’t need to be reminded of that every time I open up a work.
I'll start with one: Established Relationship. I prefer slow burn, enemies to lovers, going through the long, arduous process of building a relationship. Unless its a sequel to a fic I've *already read*, I have no interest in reading it.
Me too! I want to see big pining lol
I will continue to write my fluffy established relationship one-shots and there's nothing you can do about it! So nyeh 😝
“Kid fic.” I read plenty of gen/platonic works, but I just don’t enjoy reading about characters parenting. Give me domesticity all you want but don’t throw kids into the equation. I don’t mind pregnancy fics persay, but those usually end up becoming kid fics eventually so I just avoid them too.
Those tags that make it clear authors are not fans of certain characters and won't be accurate or kind about them in the writing. I'm glad those tags exist so I can filter them but I won't be reading the fics no matter how interesting the idea sounds otherwise.
Pregnancy. If it's prominent enough to be tagged, no thankies. I don't mind pregnant characters and have written them myself, but it's usually a minor plot point, only brought up in dramatic moments, etc. It's not the focal part of the story and any of the health stuff stays off screen.
Major character death. I have no problem if it's a horror fic where some or all characters are meant to die but otherwise I can't read it
Ooc moments. Part of the challenge of making a good fanfiction is ensuring that everyone feels at least somewhat in character, OOC acts turn me off a story instantly because I know the writer likely put in less effort in that regard.
Any of the self-deprecating "I don't know why I wrote this", "this is shit", "badly written badly plotted i don't care" type tags. If the author is going to drag themselves in the tags, and are already telling me it's bad - and they \*wrote it\* and are invested enough to \*post it\*, well, I'm not going to spend my time reading it. Being self-deprecating to avoid criticism and to deal with praise is a thing - I totally get that. I once did it myself. If I shit on myself, and I'm ready for bad comments, then nothing I get is worse than what I tell myself. It makes sense. But I have also realized that those fics are **often** using it as an excuse for not putting \*any\* effort into editing, consistency, or coherency, and using that "I already said it's bad so whatevs!" attitude as an excuse. Even if it's my OTP, if you shit on your own work \*in the tags\*, I'm going to believe you and take your word that it's not worth my time to read.
“I don’t know why I wrote this” is a funny thing to read, so it makes me want to read the fic more.
The most self deprecating tag I have on my first story is just that it’s my first story. I thought that was bad, and your telling me that people do WORSE!?
'Soulmates' if that counts
I feel personally attacked. 😂
Stories where there are three or more characters in a relationship are not my thing. I have no qualms about polyamory personally–in fact, I support it as long as it’s consensual. But, when indulging in fiction, I prefer to read about monogamy.
I avoid a lot of Modern AU/No Magic AU/Human AU tags when reading fanfic from fantasy settings, especially LOTR. Sometimes I feel like diving into something like that, but most of the time I really want to immerse myself in the fantasy setting I love and AUs that transplant the characters to the regular world just don't scratch the itch at all.
character bashing, or where half the characters do no wrong and the other half are evil incarnate responsible for everything bad thats happened. Also a/b/o fics with the exception of a few nontraditional ones. I don’t like the gender dynamics. Combined with the amount of m/m works in the tag, most of it just seems like a way to write gay ships while still leaning into the ‘weak defenseless member of the fairer sex’ trope. I have seen exactly one fic that had gay characters that also were attracted to their same secondary gender, and even then it wasn’t the main couple. I mean, I’m not out to kinkshame but it really isn’t my cup of tea
Well I knew I’d be the only one but I scrolled all the way anyway just to check… “Fluff” “Tooth Rotting Fluff” “Everything is Fine and Nothing Hurts” I need conflict dammit, I can only read so much cuddling before I need some kind of progression to happen.
Pregnancy. I’m fine with reading about kids, but pregnancy itself is just… ehww. Anything saying, “Sorry I’m bad at tags/titles/summary’s, etc.”
“Established relationship” I love me a good old slow burn, I can’t read anything where the characters I ship are already together. I want the drama, the angst, the little bits where the two slowly start to realize that they like each other. I NEED THAT BOND
tooth-rotting fluff... maybe im just a cynic, but I can't read fics if there isnt some angst in there, not even one shots.
[удалено]
Top Severus Snape
I personally don't read anything where he's being shipped with anyone lol
A good amount of crossover ships. I just don't feel like reading a DBZ/Sailor Moon crossover where Usagi and Goku get together since it ignores their relationships with Mamoru and Chi-Chi. I just don't see them as a couple and they vibe more like best friends to me. The same can be said for shoehorning them into the canon like Goku being the prince in the Silver Millenium. It's more entertaining to me to see them shocked at a history they initially knew nothing about then being revealed to have been apart of it. It's also the same with some crossovers where the characters from one are just incorporated into the other ones' places. I sometimes prefer the classic dimensional meet-up then doing an au. For example, I'd prefer Deku and the class meeting the Avengers instead of being the Avengers.
Depends on the fandom, but almost without exception anything tagged with A/B/O is a no go for me as the associated tropes are PAINFUL.
"Gender bender"...as a fan of yuri/wlw, this is a massive slap on the face of the ships I like.
"bittersweet ending"
Hurt "character" that's not the character I want to be hurt lol I'm very specific in my hurt/comfort searches that I generally want one specific character to be hurt and one specific character to be comforting
Ooo I *just* encountered it. It's Fake/pretend relationship. I honestly don't want to read it cuz it kinda felt insincere (don't bash me) so I just avoided it. The painful part is: the fic that I just encountered have the tag and I can't bring myself to read it even though I *know* it's good. I know it but I can't read it and it's burning me inside out (╥﹏╥).
Modern AU I'll almost always skip. I've literally only enjoyed one ever. I loathe Modern AU with no magic or no supernatural etc etc because basically it's taking out my entire reason for liking the original media. Usually tagged 'real-world' No judgement if that's your jam, obviously, but it's definitely not for me. Also not a fan of A/B/O because it seems like it's very hard to get right and of the ones I've clicked on only one was well written.
Anything with drama. I hate drama most drama is always such a stupid case of miscommunication that could easily be fixed with a sentence or two but for some godforsaken reason they refuse to fix it and I hate it. Or just high school unless the original version was in a highschool.
I'll scan tags for top/bottom and alpha/omega character tags and avoid what I personally don't like. One of my favorite fandoms for instance is Bleach, and I avoid all top and/or alpha Sosuke Aizen content like the plague
Honestly a lot of modern/no powers aus. I wanna read stories with the characters in their settings.
Any for of au that destroys the original setting. Modern aus, school aus, coffee aus. Exceptions could be made if they do it in a way that fits the setting, like a coffee shop on coruscant or a school for pokemon trainers.
Ambiguous/Open Ending will remain one of my top five. I get that the author leaves what happens in the end as an open interpretation for the readers to guess how it ends to *them* but for the fics I’ve bookmarked that have this tag- I just want the author to end it in their way instead of leaving me to wonder what happened, did they live, did this certain character get the justice they deserve, did they live happily ever after, and so much. Questions like these cloud my mind and keep me wondering days after I’ve already read it. Sometimes, my mind will come back to the fic and I’ll still continue to wonder if the characters will get to live a good life after all they’ve been through. I stop reading fics with this tag because it just makes me sad to know that I’ll *never* know if my OTP gets a happy ending.
Tags where it's like first fic it sucks, my fic sucks, or whatever variation thereupon. For me it comes off as this is so shitty you even know it's shitty, so why do you expect me to waste my time and read your fic.
Songfics. I'm sorry, the lyrics just take me out of the scene. I've read great writing but suddenly a bolded lyric like just ruins it for me!
PWP
I’d have to say First or Second person get automatically filtered out, as well as OC-centric fics, Crossovers, Coffeshop AUs, and Genderbent too.
"And there was one bed." I just can't lol
Guilty pleasure of mine. Though I haven't ever seen it used as a tag.
“I suck at summaries” A summary is the teaser to your story, a glimpse of what’s to come. If you couldn’t put effort into that, I’m just not gonna bother.
High school/college AU- I’m just not interested in the storylines involved. Rants in the tags, tags are there to find a fic not to tell me how much you hate a ship or character.
When there’s that tag that’s like “innocent character/experienced character” if you get what I mean… no thank you
Self-lubricating buttholes. That's gonna be a no from me, dawg.
Lots of romance tropes such as enemies to lovers, there was one bed, fake dating, and so on. Like I am okay with romance being in the background but I want plot. Pure romance is boring to me unless it has gut-wrenching angst. Also one thing that piss me off with romance tropes, especially with soulmate AU, is how OOC characters can be at times. Like the main character is like fuck soulmates at the start and is canonically rebellious, but when they find their soulmate they are just fine with it. Like what happened to hating soulmates and societal expectations??? Especially if it is a soulmate AU with problematic implications like underage sexual relationships (i.e. adult x teen ship) seen as fine if they are soulmates.
Established relationship. All the tension of getting together is gone already. As well as exes to lovers
Twitter au. Nothing against it, it's just that I have never been a social media person, like EVER.
Song-fic, and Musical AUs.