#fanfic writing pet peeve

[i-am-a-secret-ssshhh]

Pet Peeve:

Does anyone else find it really annoying when people misspell character's names when their character information is easily accessible? I'm thinking of two in specific, but I'm sure there's more.

This sweet young boy who may or may not have attempted to commit murder, and it's none of my business to spill what he may or may not have done:

This is a character from My Hero Academia. His name is NOT Lida Tenya, it's Iida Tenya, or Tenya Iida. With an I. I as in pronounced like eye.

And this motherfucker!!

This motherfucker is named Chrollo Lucilfer. His name isn't Chrollo Lucifer. Lucilfer, pronounced like if sulfur was spelt with an I.

I understand some of these are because of language barriers, and I am not at all criticizing that, I understand how difficult English is. But every time I see the misspell it makes me want to comment, but it's hard to do that without seeming like a critical bitch.

Use at your own discretion, I guess I can't stop you from misspelling their names, just a pet peeve of mine. There are others as well, but these two are the ones that come to mind.

[sugarcoatednightshade]

thinking about how Humans Are Space Orcs stories always talk about how indestructible humans are, our endurance, our ability to withstand common poisons, etc. and thats all well and good, its really fun to read, but it gets repetitive after a while because we aren't all like that.

And that got me thinking about why this trope is so common in the first place, and the conclusion I came to is actually kind of obvious if you think about it. Not everyone is allowed to go into space. This is true now, with the number of physical restrictions placed on astronauts (including height limits), but I imagine it's just as strict in some imaginary future where humans are first coming into contact with alien species. Because in that case there will definitely be military personnel alongside any possible diplomatic parties.

And I imagine that all interactions aliens have ever had up until this point have been with trained personnel. Even basic military troops conform to this standard, to some degree. So aliens meet us and they're shocked and horrified to discover that we have no obvious weaknesses, we're all either crazy smart or crazy strong (still always a little crazy, academia and war will do that to you), and not only that but we like, literally all the same height so there's no way to tell any of us apart.

And Humans Are Death Worlders stories spread throughout the galaxy. Years or decades or centuries of interspecies suspicion and hostilities preventing any alien from setting foot/claw/limb/appendage/etc. on Earth until slowly more beings are allowed to come through. And not just diplomats who keep to government buildings, but tourists. Exchange students. Temporary visitors granted permission to go wherever they please, so they go out in search of 'real terran culture' and what do they find?

Humans with innate heart defects that prevent them from drinking caffeine. Humans with chronic pain and chronic fatigue who lack the boundless endurance humans are supposedly famous for. Humans too tall or too short or too fat to be allowed into space. Humans who are so scared of the world they need to take pills just to function. Humans with IBS who can't stand spicy foods, capsaicin really is poison to them. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease, my god all the autoimmune disorders out there, humans who struggle to function because their own bodies fight them. Humans who bruise easily and take too long to heal. Humans who sustained one too many concussions and now struggle to talk and read and write. Humans who've had strokes. Humans who were born unable to talk or hear or speak, and humans who through some accident lost that ability later.

Aliens visit Earth, and do you know what they find? Humanity, in all its wholeness.

[wemlygust]

For Danny Phantom fic writers in particular: The reason your breath comes out in a little puff of fog when you stand in the cold is that *you are warm*. The air you exhale is toasty. It also has a lot of water vapor in it. So, when you stand in the cold, you breathe out toasty warm air into the surrounding cold air. If the surrounding air is cold enough, the warm air you exhale cools rapidly once it leaves your warm body, and the water vapor in it condenses into liquid, and voila! A little puff fog. If you were breathing out cold air, this would not happen, because water would have already condensed out of it.

A supernatural being with a very low body temp might not ever experience their breath fogging. Even if their surroundings were extremely cold, and colder than the being, as long their breath was too cold to be humid/carrying much gaseous water in it, there'd be no fog breath.

It is not that humans just produce steam somehow because we are cold. Seeing a puff of foggy breath from a person means they are warm, not cold. Seeing this is not a sign of hypothermia. It's sorta similar to how you feel cold in the cold because your body is warm. And if you stop feeling cold while in a cold area, it can mean your body is actually very cold, to the point there is no temperature differential to give you the sensation of cold, and you have a problem. That said, Danny Phantom being Danny Phantom, you can 100% absolutely throw all that right out the window whenever you wish. More power to you. I encourage it.

But if you know about this then you can avoid the common pitfall of writers doing shit like having a character be so cold they're breathing fog into a warm room - which makes NO SENSE - as if this is what just normally happens when people are cold, rather than a supernatural thing that would be very surprising to see. Forgive me, I've just seen so many odd things written re. breath fogging up when it makes no sense at this point that it has become my new pet peeve. :P Again, do whatever you want, but better to do it on purpose rather than by accident.

[leons-lady]

I'm gonna hold yalls hand when I say this again

if you're gonna name the reader that isn't Y/N or (your name), or the character saying their name without those two I mentioned if it bothers you

tag it properly as oc x canon. not x reader. that is NOT my name.

(and yes, I will be blocking, but it's still gonna pop up everywhere so I need at least SOMEONE to try and get me.)

[emkayewrites]

Fanfiction Pet Peeves

I'm currently reading as well as writing fanfiction (Lukola/Polin). There's so many fanfictions out there catering to every taste and fantasy.

It got me curious - what are your pet peeves in fanfiction? What do you see that automatically ruins it for you?

[whoify]

list of my fanfiction pet peeves:

any epithet (“the brunet,” “the blue eyed man”). closable offense. you are not homer

similarly, just referring to a character as “the man,” “the woman.” i promise using their name or a pronoun one more time is less awkward

not enough commas. i feel like an auctioneer is reading your fic to me

that old man would not know the word pansexual

on the flip side, that jock would not take being gay in stride

“slow burn” and it’s 5k words

show vs tell failure. why are you telling me what this character thinks. have him SHOW me

this man is 30 not 16. he has more emotional intelligence than that

when ellipses are written like…this. have you ever seen words written down before

3rd person omniscient. this is fine if done well but it never is. you’re using it as an excuse to jump between character’s heads willy nilly

hey queen, your use of purple prose (that is actually just high school level vocab) isn’t as distracting from your lack of characterization as you think it is

hard stare into the camera to establish enthusiastic consent / validate some queer identity / etc. people don’t talk like that. he doesn’t use tumblr

[paymechildsupport]

IDK man,

does it just kinda put anyone else off when a piece has a giant "IF YOU ARE ___ ALIGNED DO NOT INTERACT" ? Obviously, a writer is entitled completely to their piece and who has access to it, -- but it sometimes just comes off as really hostile. As a man myself, I completely understand how infuriating the lack of m!reader fics is and i'll continue to cry on that hill until the day I die >:(

Still, seeing those few gorgeous m!writers having big 'NO FEM!ALIGNED ALLOWED!!!' signs just make me sad, -- it's not the readers' fault most x reader fics are predominately fem aligned, and it just really only seems to serve to further widen the already big gap between the two kinds of readers-- which is NOT needed. Personally, even if it they aren't the intended audience, -- yet they still wanna read even knowing your work doesn't cater anything to them, -- then I believe people should be able to enjoy every piece of fiction. It always makes me so happy when I get a variety of genders (fem + m + other) enjoying my m! works, knowing that my writing was enough to outweigh the fact that the piece objectively didn't serve any purpose to them as non m! readers.

Goes both ways too, fem! reader fics barring m! aligned readers from reading is the exact same.

I'm a firm believer in creative reading freedom, - if a fem identifying / non-binary reader wants to pretend they have a massive dick, or even just a strap-on, -- then that's fucking awesome, go for them. Normalize people of all groups experimenting and enjoying varied pieces of literature.

And fellow m readers? I see you my brothers and I will continue amping up production of x m!reader fics 😈😈😈 🫶🫶🫶

[lifenconcepts]

*violenty sobs until my eyes are all red and puffy* whY CANT pEOPLE KEEP OUT ships and ROMANCE out of my SILLY. LITTLE. GUYS.

can’t a goober enjoy a show around here without having to filter every single sexual and romantic tag the world has ever existed just to be able to safely scroll through their fics ??? PLEASE I BEG I just want some good angst, perhaps even just some chill stories, BUT WITHOUT THE FICICUIDKSMDMCNB *SOBS* THE STUPID. DAMN. FLUFF AND SMUT. STOP IT. PLEASE. I BEG OF YOU.

NO FANDOM OF MINE IS SAFE

IM LITTERALLY APART OF LIKE. DOZENS. AND ALL MANAGE TO GET UNDER THE RADAR AND STILL SHOW STUPID FUCKING SHIPS AND GAYS.

LIKE. IM FINE WITH GUYS KISSING! BE LESBIAN, PAN, STRAIGHT, WHATEVER, JUST PLEASEEEE GIVE ME ATLEAST ONE LITTLE FIC WHERE THWYRE NOT VIOLENTLY FUCKING AND MAKING OUT PLEASE I BEG

[parkakeet]

none of you know what an octave is, I'm convinced. 'their voice jumped several octaves' no the fuck it didn't. actually fucking wild. like what. are we talking C2 to C7 here or...

average vocal range is like. 3 octaves. are we saying they speak in the very absolute basement of their range on the daily and then got nervous and all the sudden skipped half the damn piano?

anyway

[agaypanic]

if you write something that’s a ‘[character] x oc’ and you tag it as ‘x reader’ i’m trying to blow you up with my mind and i hope you can feel it

[sarahowritesostucky]

Okay there is one type of comment that annoys me:

I try not to be entitled about comments on Ao3, I really do. I try to remember that any comment is a gift that I should be thankful for. And for the most part, I succeed. I am grateful even for comments that consist of nothing but emojis. Unlike many authors, I even enjoy respectful critique and debate over writing choices.

But doggonit, I can't help but be a little 😑 when somebody takes the time to type in the comment box, and the only words they can motivate their fingers to type out are: "When is the next chapter gonna be posted?"

And I'm left like this ⬇️ because I worked my butt off for this last chapter and was looking forward to people's reactions as I recovered from the hard work I put into it.

Please oh please, the only comment I'll ever complain about is a "when's the next part coming?" comment that doesn't say anything else. I'd rather have a comment with respectful criticism than that.

[pygmi-cygni]

If I see this again i'll die - pt. 3

final part in the series ig unless i get pissed off again

overused commentary. if you make the main character too sassy it mucks up the pacing and the understanding. there's a fine line between snarky and pedantic. too much backtalk is annoying and not funny.

not using metaphors/figures of speech correctly. seriously, some of them are so wrong it's funny. 'little to the imagination' means 'revealing' not 'modest'. i see that alllll the time.

'yet' is not another version of 'and.' it is a conjunction like 'but' or 'however.' i'll prob do a full length post abt that cause it's pretty common to see incorrectly.

typos. i mean come on, just copy it into google docs and get rid of the red and blue squiggly underlines. it's not hard.

not formatting paragraphs. BREAK IT UPPP MY EYESSSS ARE SEIZINGGG PLSSSS 😭😭

xox that's all byeee

[silentlyscreamingatyou]

English language tip for ya:

Shudder: to shake, tremble, quiver, shiver.

Shutter: a usually movable cover or screen for a window or door; a mechanical device that limits the passage of light; to close.

These are not homophones, nor are they interchangeable.

[wemlygust]

Dear writers of any kind of fiction,

Even 30 seconds is a really long pause in a conversation. 1 minute is a LOOOONG time for 2 people to stare at each other. 5 minutes in the middle of your climactic scene is a jarringly awkward, inexplicable timefreeze. If you want a long dramatic pause, make it shorter. If you are unsure how long to make a dramatic pause, recruit a friend and a clock. Practice staring at each other and/or pausing your conversation and timing the pauses with the clock. You will see why 1 minute is a lot.

[holly-the-trash-writer]

Question.

When a different language appears in a fic, do you prefer the translations in the line below or in the notes at the end?

Please let me know 🩷

[emkayewrites]

Fanfiction - Polin or Lukola?

Interested in gauging the room on this topic - what do you like to read and/or write? Lukola, Polin or both? And why?

I'm currently writing and reading Lukola fanfiction. I am not completely delulu. I know they are actors but they did do too good of a job during the press tour. I adore Polin but currently, me entire bandwidth for fantasising is taken up by Lukola.