:D (more seriously: i mean, it would be difficult and ao3's already there but it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.)
(i am an elitist jerk and i have blacklisted any fic whose summary contains the phrase "* at summaries" or "just read *".... to rly weed out all the myriad variations on 'sorry i suck at summaries just read the fic!!!')
summaries are the bane of my existence but there's options. you can either skip it altogether, you can give it the old college try with summarizing events and themes, you can quote a vaguely relevant line or two. fuck you can quote something vaguely related like you can put some fucking cher in there who cares. then you can be the person in the fandom with the story summaries that are just fucking quotes from cher songs and youre halfway to fandom fame already. (last part is mostly joke) the fic summary not the place to talk about your lack of confidence, and lampshading it unfortunately is the opposite of endearing
I honestly find “I suck at summaries” to be more relatable than annoying. I have spent a little too much time recently in unwilling close contact with Business Advice. I’m under the impression that you’re supposed to be snoring the tune of your personal theme song in bed so you don’t miss out on the opportunity to promote yourself while you sleep. It’s bizarre and I wish they’d relax. At best it’s unconvincing and at worst you know there’s a person in there but damned if you can work out where. I know it can grate on people’s nerves, but at this point I actually feel relieved when someone admits outright that they aren’t totally sure of themselves or aspects of their work.
(The day people begin to phrase their discomfort with summaries in terms of opportunities for personal growth is the day I know that we have finally immanentized the eschaton.)
Spoiler: discussion of nsfw content "consensual (mostly)" theres a term for that and it's not "consensual (mostly)" it's dubcon/mild dubcon but then you would have to put #dubcon on your unnegotiated kink fluff story and we can't have that
I’m all for exotic words, but when you have a character discontinue his peregrination, you might just have a thesaurus problem.
I'm all for polysyllabic words in the right context, but I just read an SU fic in which a character's gem was located on her "manubrium". For crying out loud, just say chest!
I once read a pornfic where a character 'removed his [hilarious euphemism] from his pants' and to this day I don't know if the author forgot to go and write in a real euphemism, or if it's just Dave Strider referring to his dick in character. It haunts me
it drives me up a wall when authors are pointlessly uncertain about their own narrative. i'm editing a story right now where the narrator keeps pulling out shit like, "I knew better than to go to his house that night. Then again, maybe I didn't." "I decided that I would have another drink. Or, maybe not." as the author you're omnipotent wrt your story! choose one option!!! you're just wasting the reader's time with this shit!!!!
it can work for me sometimes if the narrator is meant to be feeling uncertain sometimes and having trouble sorting out how they're feeling 'cause i experience that myself sometimes it doesn't work if the narrator isn't supposed to be feeling that way, though
Oh, and polysyllabic words are worse when the author's not using them correctly. In my example above, the manubrium is actually part of the sternum, and I don't think Gems even have bones. Not quite as bad as the bit in Eye of Argon when the character descends the staircase to its posterior, but...
Those fucking charactersuggestion blogs that NEVER use a cut so you’re forced to scroll past 6 pages of bad colossus/reader porn or whatever. Do they know that the readmore feature exists? Do they think that the forced exposure will somehow net them more followers?? It’s bad
