What are your fan fiction gripes?

That sounds incredibly frustrating.

 

Tfw you want something extremely specific in a fic but you don't actually know what that thing is, just that nothing you haven't read yet for your fandom/ship has it.

Spoiler: Slightly nsfw

I figured out that what I want is really intensely emotional pwp or pwmp, but that still doesn't help the "nothing that I haven't read already has what I want" issue.

Also, wanting to read fic for Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency without being totally caught up on the series is awful. I can't even browse Ao3 for fear of getting a spoiler in the summaries or tags.

 

there is not nearly enough clone trooper-centric fic in the world

 

Not enough playing with bits of the clones either. Like I know a total of one dude who is really obsessed with the Alpha ARCs. There's so much potential with clones. Both for those who want to do fic of, say, existing characters like Cody and for those who really want to make their own by giving names, faces, and lives to the Alphas. Or just random RCs or whatever else have you.

 

yes!! there are so many stories to be told about the clones, and the fandom is generally fond of them but they always end up playing second fiddle to Jedi Angst TM. i mean i like jedi angst too but clones!!! give me clones!!!!

 

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy deserves better characterization than fandom likes to give her. stop making her too innocent for things!! her entire everything if romanced and also if not indicates that she's not a poor innocent wallflower who's never thought about getting naked and sweaty with someone before. GOD

She's a bit shy and insecure about pursing someone, those aren't the same thing at all.

 

this is only a fanfiction gripe in that fanfiction is the only written story format left that is allowed to do this, as professionally published works have to follow Official Standards

DOUBLE SPACES AFTER FULL STOPS!!!!!!!! they look dumb!!! they are distracting!!!! they haven't served a purpose in D E C A D E S!!!! i have an extension on chrome that automatically corrects double spaces but it doesn't work on mobile so i SUFFER

they drive me bonkers enough that i will give up on a promising looking fic one paragraph in just because of double spaces

 

i was helping a customer at work yesterday, an older lady, who was having problems with her email on her laptop. to checks things i had her send a test email... and watched her write a note to her son and put double spaces after each sentence.

the orthography nerd in me was like "oh that's interesting, maybe she learned to type on a typewriter!" but the rest of me was wincing with each one.

 

It doesn’t help that I seem to recall that being taught as Proper Formatting (TM) in high school, at least for essays and shit—I may be misremembering but I’m pretty sure that was a thing? It’s possible that some of these writers are teenagers who are getting the idea from school.

(It’s still annoying though)

 

I know I still do it because A) that is the way I was taught as far back as grade school (we still had a legit type writer that I transcribed hand written book reports to, and the dot matrix printer wasn't that much greater when we got it), and even knowing that it's obsolete doesn't stop it from looking completely wrong to me when left out, and B) it's actually easier for my brain to parse pauses. Without the double space sometimes periods register as commas and the sentence turns into a confusing run-on jumble.

 

I believe that studies have suggested a double space after a period is easier for most people to read

 

i appreciate that other people find the reading process smoother with double spaces!! esp if they learned it that way originally. tragically it makes me feel like there are mosquitos in my brain

 

I don't notice either way, myself, but it does aggravate me when I don't double-space and my co-writers on the same piece do, just because inconsistency is annoying.

 

i learned double spaces after a period on an actual typewriter, and what i've ended up with is double spaces when using a monospaced typeface and single spaces when using a proportional one.

 

fic that is clearly just an RP log with the gaps filled in and sanded over. the writing can be quite good, but the constant POV swaps and the weirdly structured dialogue drive me nuts. plus side characters tend to get the shaft because each author is only writing as one person. i wish people would at least mark their fic as a former RP.

 

this is the opposite of a gripe, but: i love how often Dragon Age fanfic writers will include what is clearly their personal Inquisitor/Hawke/Warden romancing one of the other companions in the background. it's like a little window into how they played. like a fun meta-conversation, about our characters and who they dated, that we have alongside the actual fic. it always makes me happy.

(the Inquisitor in the Dorian/Bull fic i'm currently reading right now is a male Adaar rogue who is romancing Josephine. it's adorable.)

 

Yeah uhhh my mass effect fic tends to have background shakarian because GDI that's my ship

 

There are 3090 fics tagged Harry Potter/Tom Riddle. I try really hard not to complain about ships i don't like, and really I just filter it out in practice (thank you ao3 sorting system) but... I just... Why??? What is so appealing about this pairing? I understand the appeal from a fucked up perspective (I do ship Ra's/Tim), but there's so much fluff. I dont get it. I don't get Harry/Snape, either, which there's even more of. Just. ????

Tl;dr, why do people have different ships from me, wweh