[ SECRET POST #2805 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2805 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 054 secrets from Secret Submission Post #401.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

Let's assume that you've found a fic that on the first glance contains all those things you are looking for, such as your OTP, your favorite genre (fluff/angst/etc.) and the summary looks interesting. What would make you skip it anyway without even clicking the link?

I've noticed that there are three things that raise warning flags for me:
-author's name contains misspellings, a pairing or several X's (xXxSwanQuenXxx)
-author apologizes for the fic or gushes about their feelings or inebriation (don't hate me, I'm so sorry, I cried so much, I was so drunk)
-the wall of tags

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[feotakahari]

The summary is full of misspellings and grammar errors. (And I mean absolutely FULL, not just one or two.) With pretty much anything else, if the summary looks interesting, I'll at least read a few paragraphs before I nope out.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[ketita]

+1 on the wall of tags.
As in, aside from (like stella_down said) tags that advertise traits or whatever I'm not into, just the general long/chatty/random tags, or generally anything with way too much tags.

Low wordcount per chapter.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[jaybie_jarrett]

Hmm

Obvious OOCness is a biggie for me, crossovers that have little to them besides "X and Y meet" or rush to much into Characters A and Character B are BEST FRIENDS, Jerk/Bitch Sue characters who get away with being assholes, or their assholery is treated like a good thing is another, Possession Sue characters where the author over identifies with a canon character and turns them into their personal avatar, Die For Our Ship shit. Character bashing, character bashing, CHARACTER BASHING (listed three times because I REALLY hate it)


Oh and text walls because those give me a headache to try to read.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

Word count. I don't have the attention span for long fics anymore.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[peablossom]

Wall of tags, definitely. Misspellings in the summary. And like stella_down said, tags that make it clear the person and I just have very different ideas about a character/trope/whatever.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[brightblueink]

If the summary isn't written well (lots of misspellings) or is full of silly flailing (Chrono might look innocent but he's still a demon! Will he be able to resist giving into his instincts?!!1 SEXY TIMEZ ~o^)

basically if it makes me remember myself as a teenager it makes me recoil in horror and I run. Far, far away.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

Author apologizes for the quality of their work
Author apologizes for shipping a pairing I like
Author is one I recognize as a jackass or bad writer
The taglist or summary is longer than the story (only generally a problem on the really short fic)
The taglist or summary tells me what emotions I will experience or TMI about the author/the author's sex life
Misspelling in the title or the summary (I'll forgive usernames, because those generally have to be unique)

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[silverr]

I read very little fanfic ( partly because my OTPs are in tiny tiny fandoms) but I'd skip a fic with my OTP if:

+ High school or coffeeshop AU
+ mpreg
+ non-canon genderswap
+ canon/OC listed in the relationships

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[dancing_serpent]

I often skip when I see additional pairings - especially when I have no idea which pairing is going to be the endgame, or if I hate the other pairings on the list.

The tags are a major factor, too. When I see certain kinks listed, for example.

Oh, and gender-swaps. I always always always skip those.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[skippydelicious]

Everything you've just listed, and also if it has an OC listed as a main character (although don't get me wrong, I'd much prefer that if a fic has one of those then they list them for ease of skipping). Also if the summary is trying to be cute and just has a line ripped from a poem, or a very cryptic message. I saw a Ranma one recently, and it was "The light, the leaves: Autumn comes to Nerima and Ranma is waiting". That told me nothing about what was going on in the fic. Even the old "What if" summaries are better than that, and I'd give them a chance over something like that.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

OOC-ness is a big one for me. If the tags indicate that the characters are going to be heavily OOC, I am out.

A giant wall of tags will definitely put me off as well. Oh, and people who say they suck at writing summaries. Give me something to indicate what's in store, otherwise I'm just going to assume it's bad.

If there are a ton of misspellings in the tags or the summary, that makes me less likely to keep going forward either.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[iceyred]

Misspellings that spell check should have picked up.

Summaries that include 'if I told you anything else it would be a spoiler.' If someone's fic is so shallow that a line or two about what happens in the story then I don't want to read it.

Mpreg. Not my cup of coffee.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[queerwolf]

Misspellings in the title, tags or summary.
Too many tags, especially Tumblr-like tags
Signs of character bashing or OOCness

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[solticisekf]

Lol, my name contains misspelling. It's intentional!

Recently I hit a new low and gave a try to a fic with a misspelled name.
The fandom was tiny and I was desperate.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

-Banners, multiple fonts/colors in the story header, or other obnoxious formatting
-"Not mine or [pairing] would be canon"-type disclaimers
-Putting other people's reviews of the story in the header

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

- "Ship/Ship if you want there to be." No. I mean, sometimes I'll say "some Ship/Ship" or "pre-Ship/Ship", but if you want something to be left to interpretation, don't tell people you're doing so, because then they will do the exact opposite.

- "THIS US BASED ON ME." Uh oh.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

I won't read works in progress. I'd only make an exception if it's an author I've read before who has a an outstanding track record of actually completing their fics.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

- Tumblr tags
- Misspellings
- Obvious OOCness (or if it's clear that the author and I clearly not interpret characters the same way. At all.)
- Word count (if your fic has 5+ chapters and less than 2000 words I'm not touching it for the most part)
- Most incomplete fics (I have been burned too many times at this point)
- "lol I suck at summaries"

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

The author apologises for anything in the fic.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[elaminator]

I just realized that I've mostly stopped looking at tags if the summary and pairing interest me. There's so many unnecessary tags on fics now that I just go, "Whatever" and give it a try; if I don't like it I'll just x out.

Iif there's about four or five tags I'll read them, but if there's a shitload of them I ain't spending my time on that.

Not a lot makes me skip a fic (at first glance!), but if it's a WIP and it's clear the author isn't sure what pairing is going to be endgame, I'll skip. I don't need that disappointment!

Or, sometimes if I find a WIP that is really long and shows no sign of ending I'll think to myself, "Is this person ever going to finish? What if they don't? I don't want to be left hanging."

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

I skip any and all high school AUs. (I might make an exception if someone whose taste I trusted gave a rec.)

I also don't want to read about adult characters as kids or teenagers unless it's only about individual characters or characters who canonically knew each other at that age. I don't want to read ship fic about teens or kids, especially if the characters are adults in canon. (I recognize that some fic authors are teenagers themselves, so I don't begrudge anyone the right to write what they know or want, but I have zero interest in the romantic lives of teenagers and I prefer to read about my adult OTPs as adults.)

I also skip anything where the summary/intro is too cutesy or too self-deprecating.

I back out of fic that is formatted in a way that makes it hard to read, where there are just too many misspellings or grammatical errors to ignore, or where the characters are immediately and relentlessly OOC.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[intrigueing]

Mostly if it's written by certain authors. There are some authors I personally can't stand so much due to something they wrote in another fic or in their meta that no matter how interesting the fic's premise looks, I will not read it because my view of them and my knowledge of what their opinion of certain aspects of the canon will negatively color the whole fic. I'll make an exception if people I actually respect are gushing over it and reccing it left and right, but if not, I usually don't bother.

Also, if the entire summary is a quote from the fic that is just a pretentious and nonsensical line or exchange of dialogue about some kind of feeling of sooper speshel romantic transcendence or esoteric existential angst over nothing (rather than, you know, an actual descriptive or intriguing line or exchange of dialogue), I'll probably skip it.

It depends a lot on the fandom and characters, though.

Re: What makes you skip a fic?

[(Anonymous)]

The author themselves if I know they are a known character basher, regardless of if the summary/parings are interesting. There's a good chance that if I know the author is a basher of certain characters than at some point those characters will end up being mentioned in a degrading fashion or somehow show up in some sort of OOC manner.