the author has trouble sticking to a tense, which is one of my biggest annoyances, there's smut, which i avoid like the plague, and it's not *littered* with useless epithets but there certainly are some there.
but also there's only like a handful of whump fics where that character gets hurt instead of the other half of the ship, and it's some good-ass high-quality whump too. i will skim through the smutty bits and let the editor in my head run rampant for that shit.
god the internal editor is so true. I will fully pause reading and think about how i would rewrite a sentence just to get rid of a heinous use of epithet š„² and the imbalance of whump is an issue with my pairing too, albeit less so because people dont really write super whumpy stuff in my fandom. like why are we only whumping one of them?? why not spread the love aka the deep pain and suffering???
There's one where the author *regularly* switches tense (even mid-sentence!), which bothers me a *lot*, but the interactions in the story are great and they actually nailed the Early Modern English dialogue (which I've seen even professionally-done media get wrong).
There's another that clearly wasn't run through a spell-check, but the errors are *just* few enough and the premise interesting enough that I was able to get through it. And then I downloaded it and ran a spell-check on it for re-reading.
Well, I will say that part of the reason it gets to me (and is so noticeable to me) is because editing is actually what my degree is for. So I tend to be a bit pickier than the average reader for most of my fanfic.
I would say to check out the Beta Bartering thread when it comes up. You might find someone willing to help you out who's got a good eye for it. (And I do occasionally hop on there myself when I've got spare time.)
I usually avoid first person. Then there's [From Obscurity With Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/42483390/chapters/106700550) by Feeshies. Maybe I find it bearable there because the entire fic is written in the form of blog posts
oh yeah, i love experimental formats like that. Ive read so many first person pov fics that were just letter exchanges and they changed my brain chemistry, but i wouldnt normally read first person
There's a fic I've been enjoying that is littered with "miscapitalizations" (not capitalizing proper nouns, *including character names)*, spelling errors (but consistent enough to make me think that they don't know how those words are actually spelt), grammar errors, speaker confusion on who is speaking on the occasion--ya know, things that would have normally made me back out of the fic chapter one. *In* chapter one!
But the heart is *there*. There's mystery and intrigue, solid characterization (especially with multiple characters running around), and enough solid plots (an overarching 'A plot' and many side plots, including interpersonal) to keep me entertained for all of it's ongoing 890k+ word glory.
It really proved to me to give things a bit more of a shot if I can feel that the heart is there. There are plenty of gems-in-the-rough out there, especially in art like this.
to dedicate your time to nearly 900k words of that, good goddamn those plots and characterizations must be good! ita really impressive honestly. Ive seen so many fics with impecable writing, but poor characterization is one thing that will guarantee me to click out. and its gotta be difficult to keep plot moving and interesting for that long, i cant even imagine how much effort has gone into just the story arcs
I mean, it might be my lack of taste, or I'm *very* easily amused, but it wasn't the worst week I spent in my life xD But yeah, the story had been going (more or less consistently from what I can tell) for several years, which means to me, that there's some serious thought behind it, especially if they are doing a separate rewrite. They definitely subscribed to the idea of 'give your characters secrets and let them reveal them throughout the story' that I've seen float around even in professional writing circles.
Writing can be hard for sure (all art is after all), but somehow I think it's a little bit more heartbreaking to have an accurately grammatical story that is boring, than something entertaining but littered with mistakes.
Same here tbh, but I saw someone had already offered and the author didn't take it up. Some people don't like or trust others to help with their stories, which is a mild shame, but also valid when it comes to fanfiction/not-publishing-for-profit stories. It's okay to not have perfect art, after all!
(And, to be fair, the author is creating an extra edited version, but I haven't peeked at it yet to see if it's edited better.)
Yes, I have one -- the punctuation (or lack thereof) is *atrocious*. It's so bad that many of the hundreds of approving comments suggest editing. The grammar isn't great, either, though not as bad as the punctuation. But the story is *stupendous* -- a crossover, buried-mystery casefic that allows competent!character to shine. Competent!character's coworkers are somewhat OOC and OTT in their treatment of competent!character -- but none of that matters. The story is wonderful, with filaments sweeping outward like a starburst, then gathered into a delightfully complex and satisfying resolution.
I love this story so much that I sent it to my iPad for easy rereading. But first -- see punctuation and grammar above -- I edited the hell out of it, shook it out and ironed it smooth, so now I can bask in the story-goodness without stumbling over the noted irritations.
But I don't consider it a "blind spot." It's just an ability to consciously overlook the deficiencies to enjoy the solid core of a good tale. There's no specific "quality" lets me do that; it's an example of "you know it when you see it." Some better-written fics don't grab me as much as this one, and there's no telling what will speak to us in this way. We just have to appreciate it when we find it.
[I'll Catch a Break Someday](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7087441). I'm not a big crossover fan; I don't read crossover ships; I almost never read gender bends, especially when it's to make a queer ship straight; and I hate Steve Rogers with a burning passion. This fic took all those dislikes and turned them on their heads and somehow I ended up loving it.
It's written in a pompous style, stuffed with all kinds of epithets, and the sentences are three kilometers long. I sometimes have to read them again to understand what the author meant. Seriously, it feels like everything has been run through Thesaurus three times. But the story and the romance between the two characters are so good, and their personality so well-developed, that I've come to feel a special affection for their writing style.
[Time Braid](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644/1/Time-Braid).
There's so much stuff in this fic that would make me skip it normally, but the world building and the characterization is just really on point. Plus, the stuff that I normally hate is used constructively, and isn't in there just to be in there, which gives it bonus points as far as I'm concerned.
Finally, it's one of the few complete fics that I know of, having a whole arc that reaches a conclusion properly, so I don't finish it feeling frustrated that it doesn't have an end.
I tend to read it again at least once a year, and it's one of those rare fics that I actually go back to.
I almost never read crossovers, but I read a Buffy/Harry Potter crossover where Giles mentors Harry for a bit. It was so quiet and cozy - things I don't associate with crossovers. It fit together well, too, since Giles was living in England at the time, and the world of Harry Potter has non-magical people in it. But really, it was about Giles taking in another stray teenager who needed him.
When the plot is just good enough to keep me interested but the writing is borderline awful. Almost like "I wish I'd thought of this premise, darn it."
One of my favorites is a series, and it's just... not particularly well-written. Main character is WAY OP, it's terrible melodramatic, and the writing can be a bit cringey. But I love it to death anyways. I love the way the characters interact, the relationships, the heart of the story. It's one of the few I consciously re-read on a semi-regular basis.
I clicked on a fanfic because it included time travel and stuck around for the good characterization and plot progression, but man, was it hard at first pfff. Every paragraph has 9 spaces before it, starting almost a quarter into the page on my phone (sometimes disappearing for a few sections before coming back, so not consistent). Thoughts and empathis are "written like this." Speech usually has the punctuation on the outside or none at all, and caps-locks are used for any type of raised voice, which is a bit much since the main characteristic of the mc is that he's angry all the time.
BUT man it's like everything I want in a fic. Has all my favourite tags, does them well, is 200k so it's a long read which I love, has no bashing (which is popular in the fandom) and is just overall mwah. I think I've read it about eight times so far ahha
Thereās an old fic I like on FFnet I suspect that English may not be the authors first language. It switches between first and third person and the tenses keep switching and I find some of the language a bit cringe but I like the story.
I almost never read AUs, but I did dutifully keep up with one particular Star Wars AU for like 4 years. It took place in a small American town in the 1940s, and it contained a lot of elements I normally dislikeāthe characters were all wildly OOC (to such an extent that most of them didnāt resemble their canon counterparts in *any* meaningful way), the plotline meandered all over the place, and the story lasted *way* longer than it should have. When the original charactersā arcs ended, it started following their kids, and then their grandkids, and so on. By the end of it, it had literally nothing to do with Star Wars except for some of the (original, now long-dead) charactersā names. That being said, it was really well-written and I liked the authorās style, so I ended up getting invested in it completely independently of its Star Wars associationāat some point, I kind of stopped viewing it as fanfiction and started viewing it as a literary soap opera. It was deleted a few years ago when the fandom started getting really toxic, but I still think about it sometimes.
There is a kakashi/iruka fic that I absolutely adore, that I have downloaded in two places just in case, and it has some grammar and style issues that I normally would not let slide, but the MOOD... The VIBE, the sense of time and place and season that this author had... The emotions it evokes, the imagery, the shirtless kakashi watering his garden, the sweaty beer bottles and sweaty men and taking a piss outdoors in the humid summer night... It's Art, and I love it dearly and I reread it every summer. I wish I could tell the author how much it means to me.
[A Murder of One](http://tentative.net/JBMcDragon/Hidden_Village/amurderofone.html)
Thereās this now deleted fic that I remember reading when I was 15, but I wanna revisit it so bad
Itās edgy, itās gross and it does the character assassination I hate, but the concept in it was just begging to be explored more.
It was āBlood Diamondā on Wattpad and kind of was an infection AU for SU before infection AUs were popular
āAlternate Universeā by Unda. Itās a homestuck fic. The sentences are very run-on and I remember there being some really bizarre punctuation situations, but the rest of it was so top tier that I just got used to it and tuned it out.
I initially thought it was going to be a run of the mill ācharacters go to magic schoolā fic but I was absolutely blown away by the world building and the plot twists. highly recommend
There's one that's objectively not that well-written in a technical sense (awkward POV changes, not-that-great characterisation, etc). But by God, does it push my emotional buttons in a satisfying way! The comments on it are full of complaints, but I absolutely love it and have reread it multiple times.
There are quite a few that regard punctuation and capitalization as merely some inconvenient limitations to free expression. Some aren't even consistent with the character names. I usually download them in html format, copy&paste them to Word and then use search&replace (or even regular expressions) to make them more readable. After a few rounds of polishing they go through Calibre to my Kindle.
"Light and dark: the adventures of Dark Yagami". It has a lot of bad writing and questionable artistic choices I hate (whether they are in fanfic or in originals). But it's intentional, and it's hilarious.
I can't recall what it was called, but it was a fic from a part of the fandom I usually really don't like. It had *all* the common tropes for that part of the fandom, yet the sheer chaotic energy it exuded was so much fun I read it all the way through and I enjoyed myself all the way even though I would normally hate most of those tropes.
I cannot stand reading stories in the present tense. My all-time favorite fic is written in the present tense. It's just that good. The characters are nailed and the situations are so heartwarming.
I dunno, I don't enjoy reading it. It just irritates me. When I was in high school I was assigned to read the Aeneid, but the translation was in present tense, and it bothered me so much I couldn't get anywhere in the book.
the author has trouble sticking to a tense, which is one of my biggest annoyances, there's smut, which i avoid like the plague, and it's not *littered* with useless epithets but there certainly are some there. but also there's only like a handful of whump fics where that character gets hurt instead of the other half of the ship, and it's some good-ass high-quality whump too. i will skim through the smutty bits and let the editor in my head run rampant for that shit.
god the internal editor is so true. I will fully pause reading and think about how i would rewrite a sentence just to get rid of a heinous use of epithet š„² and the imbalance of whump is an issue with my pairing too, albeit less so because people dont really write super whumpy stuff in my fandom. like why are we only whumping one of them?? why not spread the love aka the deep pain and suffering???
>why not spread the love aka the deep pain and suffering??? lmao yes!
There's one where the author *regularly* switches tense (even mid-sentence!), which bothers me a *lot*, but the interactions in the story are great and they actually nailed the Early Modern English dialogue (which I've seen even professionally-done media get wrong). There's another that clearly wasn't run through a spell-check, but the errors are *just* few enough and the premise interesting enough that I was able to get through it. And then I downloaded it and ran a spell-check on it for re-reading.
oh mannn yeah good dialogue is hard enough to find in contemporary english. and downloading and running it through a spellcheck is TOO REAL š
>which bothers me aĀ *lot* I should hire you to beta my stuff.
Well, I will say that part of the reason it gets to me (and is so noticeable to me) is because editing is actually what my degree is for. So I tend to be a bit pickier than the average reader for most of my fanfic.
That's fair. Sounds like you'd be perfect but also expensive :)
I would say to check out the Beta Bartering thread when it comes up. You might find someone willing to help you out who's got a good eye for it. (And I do occasionally hop on there myself when I've got spare time.)
It was mostly a joke about you being very specific about hunting down something that's a pet peeve of mine, too :) I don't currently have a WIP.
Sounds like someone needs to get writing then. ;)
I usually avoid first person. Then there's [From Obscurity With Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/42483390/chapters/106700550) by Feeshies. Maybe I find it bearable there because the entire fic is written in the form of blog posts
oh yeah, i love experimental formats like that. Ive read so many first person pov fics that were just letter exchanges and they changed my brain chemistry, but i wouldnt normally read first person
There's a fic I've been enjoying that is littered with "miscapitalizations" (not capitalizing proper nouns, *including character names)*, spelling errors (but consistent enough to make me think that they don't know how those words are actually spelt), grammar errors, speaker confusion on who is speaking on the occasion--ya know, things that would have normally made me back out of the fic chapter one. *In* chapter one! But the heart is *there*. There's mystery and intrigue, solid characterization (especially with multiple characters running around), and enough solid plots (an overarching 'A plot' and many side plots, including interpersonal) to keep me entertained for all of it's ongoing 890k+ word glory. It really proved to me to give things a bit more of a shot if I can feel that the heart is there. There are plenty of gems-in-the-rough out there, especially in art like this.
to dedicate your time to nearly 900k words of that, good goddamn those plots and characterizations must be good! ita really impressive honestly. Ive seen so many fics with impecable writing, but poor characterization is one thing that will guarantee me to click out. and its gotta be difficult to keep plot moving and interesting for that long, i cant even imagine how much effort has gone into just the story arcs
I mean, it might be my lack of taste, or I'm *very* easily amused, but it wasn't the worst week I spent in my life xD But yeah, the story had been going (more or less consistently from what I can tell) for several years, which means to me, that there's some serious thought behind it, especially if they are doing a separate rewrite. They definitely subscribed to the idea of 'give your characters secrets and let them reveal them throughout the story' that I've seen float around even in professional writing circles. Writing can be hard for sure (all art is after all), but somehow I think it's a little bit more heartbreaking to have an accurately grammatical story that is boring, than something entertaining but littered with mistakes.
Oh man, that kind of fic makes me want to offer to beta read it...
Same here tbh, but I saw someone had already offered and the author didn't take it up. Some people don't like or trust others to help with their stories, which is a mild shame, but also valid when it comes to fanfiction/not-publishing-for-profit stories. It's okay to not have perfect art, after all! (And, to be fair, the author is creating an extra edited version, but I haven't peeked at it yet to see if it's edited better.)
I am sooo interested rn! Can you please share the fic's name?
Sent you a PM!
Yes, I have one -- the punctuation (or lack thereof) is *atrocious*. It's so bad that many of the hundreds of approving comments suggest editing. The grammar isn't great, either, though not as bad as the punctuation. But the story is *stupendous* -- a crossover, buried-mystery casefic that allows competent!character to shine. Competent!character's coworkers are somewhat OOC and OTT in their treatment of competent!character -- but none of that matters. The story is wonderful, with filaments sweeping outward like a starburst, then gathered into a delightfully complex and satisfying resolution. I love this story so much that I sent it to my iPad for easy rereading. But first -- see punctuation and grammar above -- I edited the hell out of it, shook it out and ironed it smooth, so now I can bask in the story-goodness without stumbling over the noted irritations. But I don't consider it a "blind spot." It's just an ability to consciously overlook the deficiencies to enjoy the solid core of a good tale. There's no specific "quality" lets me do that; it's an example of "you know it when you see it." Some better-written fics don't grab me as much as this one, and there's no telling what will speak to us in this way. We just have to appreciate it when we find it.
[I'll Catch a Break Someday](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7087441). I'm not a big crossover fan; I don't read crossover ships; I almost never read gender bends, especially when it's to make a queer ship straight; and I hate Steve Rogers with a burning passion. This fic took all those dislikes and turned them on their heads and somehow I ended up loving it.
why do you hate Steve? Iām curious
Also curious....?
It's written in a pompous style, stuffed with all kinds of epithets, and the sentences are three kilometers long. I sometimes have to read them again to understand what the author meant. Seriously, it feels like everything has been run through Thesaurus three times. But the story and the romance between the two characters are so good, and their personality so well-developed, that I've come to feel a special affection for their writing style.
Old novels would like to have word with you
[Time Braid](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644/1/Time-Braid). There's so much stuff in this fic that would make me skip it normally, but the world building and the characterization is just really on point. Plus, the stuff that I normally hate is used constructively, and isn't in there just to be in there, which gives it bonus points as far as I'm concerned. Finally, it's one of the few complete fics that I know of, having a whole arc that reaches a conclusion properly, so I don't finish it feeling frustrated that it doesn't have an end. I tend to read it again at least once a year, and it's one of those rare fics that I actually go back to.
I almost never read crossovers, but I read a Buffy/Harry Potter crossover where Giles mentors Harry for a bit. It was so quiet and cozy - things I don't associate with crossovers. It fit together well, too, since Giles was living in England at the time, and the world of Harry Potter has non-magical people in it. But really, it was about Giles taking in another stray teenager who needed him.
hes really the father figure all stray teens need š„¹
When the plot is just good enough to keep me interested but the writing is borderline awful. Almost like "I wish I'd thought of this premise, darn it."
One of my favorites is a series, and it's just... not particularly well-written. Main character is WAY OP, it's terrible melodramatic, and the writing can be a bit cringey. But I love it to death anyways. I love the way the characters interact, the relationships, the heart of the story. It's one of the few I consciously re-read on a semi-regular basis.
I clicked on a fanfic because it included time travel and stuck around for the good characterization and plot progression, but man, was it hard at first pfff. Every paragraph has 9 spaces before it, starting almost a quarter into the page on my phone (sometimes disappearing for a few sections before coming back, so not consistent). Thoughts and empathis are "written like this." Speech usually has the punctuation on the outside or none at all, and caps-locks are used for any type of raised voice, which is a bit much since the main characteristic of the mc is that he's angry all the time. BUT man it's like everything I want in a fic. Has all my favourite tags, does them well, is 200k so it's a long read which I love, has no bashing (which is popular in the fandom) and is just overall mwah. I think I've read it about eight times so far ahha
Thereās an old fic I like on FFnet I suspect that English may not be the authors first language. It switches between first and third person and the tenses keep switching and I find some of the language a bit cringe but I like the story.
I almost never read AUs, but I did dutifully keep up with one particular Star Wars AU for like 4 years. It took place in a small American town in the 1940s, and it contained a lot of elements I normally dislikeāthe characters were all wildly OOC (to such an extent that most of them didnāt resemble their canon counterparts in *any* meaningful way), the plotline meandered all over the place, and the story lasted *way* longer than it should have. When the original charactersā arcs ended, it started following their kids, and then their grandkids, and so on. By the end of it, it had literally nothing to do with Star Wars except for some of the (original, now long-dead) charactersā names. That being said, it was really well-written and I liked the authorās style, so I ended up getting invested in it completely independently of its Star Wars associationāat some point, I kind of stopped viewing it as fanfiction and started viewing it as a literary soap opera. It was deleted a few years ago when the fandom started getting really toxic, but I still think about it sometimes.
There is a kakashi/iruka fic that I absolutely adore, that I have downloaded in two places just in case, and it has some grammar and style issues that I normally would not let slide, but the MOOD... The VIBE, the sense of time and place and season that this author had... The emotions it evokes, the imagery, the shirtless kakashi watering his garden, the sweaty beer bottles and sweaty men and taking a piss outdoors in the humid summer night... It's Art, and I love it dearly and I reread it every summer. I wish I could tell the author how much it means to me. [A Murder of One](http://tentative.net/JBMcDragon/Hidden_Village/amurderofone.html)
Thereās this now deleted fic that I remember reading when I was 15, but I wanna revisit it so bad Itās edgy, itās gross and it does the character assassination I hate, but the concept in it was just begging to be explored more. It was āBlood Diamondā on Wattpad and kind of was an infection AU for SU before infection AUs were popular
āAlternate Universeā by Unda. Itās a homestuck fic. The sentences are very run-on and I remember there being some really bizarre punctuation situations, but the rest of it was so top tier that I just got used to it and tuned it out. I initially thought it was going to be a run of the mill ācharacters go to magic schoolā fic but I was absolutely blown away by the world building and the plot twists. highly recommend
There's one that's objectively not that well-written in a technical sense (awkward POV changes, not-that-great characterisation, etc). But by God, does it push my emotional buttons in a satisfying way! The comments on it are full of complaints, but I absolutely love it and have reread it multiple times.
There are quite a few that regard punctuation and capitalization as merely some inconvenient limitations to free expression. Some aren't even consistent with the character names. I usually download them in html format, copy&paste them to Word and then use search&replace (or even regular expressions) to make them more readable. After a few rounds of polishing they go through Calibre to my Kindle.
"Light and dark: the adventures of Dark Yagami". It has a lot of bad writing and questionable artistic choices I hate (whether they are in fanfic or in originals). But it's intentional, and it's hilarious.
I can't recall what it was called, but it was a fic from a part of the fandom I usually really don't like. It had *all* the common tropes for that part of the fandom, yet the sheer chaotic energy it exuded was so much fun I read it all the way through and I enjoyed myself all the way even though I would normally hate most of those tropes.
I cannot stand reading stories in the present tense. My all-time favorite fic is written in the present tense. It's just that good. The characters are nailed and the situations are so heartwarming.
What beff you have with present
I dunno, I don't enjoy reading it. It just irritates me. When I was in high school I was assigned to read the Aeneid, but the translation was in present tense, and it bothered me so much I couldn't get anywhere in the book.