fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6387 ]

[ SECRET POST #6387 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6387 ⌋

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What are some weird hangups you have/pet peeves that take you out of a story? Be it worldbuilding quirks, language choices or plain errors.

For me, it's when a narrative mention unnecessary large numbers for things. For example when in cultivation novels/fantasy novels, there are ridiculously large timespans up in the higher ten thousands or more, be it as time that passes or as time skips. Especially when everything apparently stays the same in the world for all that time, in terms of general developments. It's just silly.

And another more specific example is the 7000 vampire spawn in Baldur's Gate 3. Yes, sure, we're supposed to imagine there are probably other cells with lots and lots of people down in that dungeon and not just those two tiny rooms with 15 people each max but seriously, it's just too much. 700 would have been more than plenty, already far too much, really.

Language choices can. If I see slang, abbreviations, and such in a Middle Earth fic, that's a backbutton.

Worldbuilding/characterization that feels too OOC. I can accept a certain amount given different interpretations. But if it just feels like it is this universe and these characters in name only, I'm not interested.

I’ll back button based on formatting or not even open a fic based on the summary and tags. But if I’m reading a fic and the tense shifts, it throws me right out. I don’t notice much but that is probably the one that’s happened to me the most. And the irony is that I’m more likely to change tense than anyone I’ve ever read.

When the epithets used (even sparingly) are not distinguishing - referring to the dark-haired woman when there are two in the scene, referring to the shorter man when the two men are of similar heights (Are you serious, author? I don't want to go to IMDb and look up how tall the actors are), or referring to the younger one when the characters' ages are within a few months of each other.

When a physical characteristic is wrong - eye color, height, hair color, nose shape (this comes up more than you'd think), lips, whatever.

When a character's speech is too realistic - with all the actual stutters, pauses, filler words, repeating words, wrong pronunciations, weird sentence constructions, sentence fragments, etc. A few here and there are fine and even necessary to convey casual speech, but putting them all in all the time, like it's a verbatim transcript, makes it difficult to read. Yes, all those verbal stumblings are there when it's spoken and that's normal, but written down, it really messes with the flow. The brain processes written language differently than spoken language.

First person

The word "cum." I do not care whether it's being used as a noun or a verb, it takes me right out of the scene either way. To me it reads as, 1. juvenile, and 2. sleazy-male-gaze. No thank you.

Yes, same. If it's a longer fic I'll skip through the sex scenes but if it's a shorter fic or PWP I'm out.

I absolutely hate when a story gives you a timeframe for how long it's been since earlier events in the story, and it very clearly feels like it's been [longer amount of time], but the writers are trying to tell you it's been [much shorter amount of time]. One of the most egregious examples I can think of is when I was like three seasons deep in The 100 and the writing tried to claim it had been six months since the start of the series, when it definitely felt like it had been around three years, give or take six months. Claiming it had only been six months cheapened everything so massively that I actually quit watching in disgust. Admittedly, I had been waffling about quitting anyway, but still. Six months??? The fuck?

young characters talking like old people for no reason
fake phone numbers starting with 555
fictional characters having the exact same birthday as the actor who plays that character (I used to see that one a lot in fanfic)
when a movie or TV show obviously looks nothing like the city it's supposed to be taking place in

Edited 2024-07-02 03:15 (UTC)

you can thank tommy tutone for the 555 thing.

I find it really distracting when there's a historical setting, but people speak like they're from the 21st century. No need to go the whole nine yards with authenticity but try to avoid modern slang and abbreviations, yeah?

"Mood," said Abraham Lincoln.

In modern settings, a lack of prejudice from every appearing character on even the smallest scale. I don't need anyone to be like, a raging homophobe, but if your main character goes about happily with their same-gender partner and no other character they meet even bats an eye or acts uncomfortable, your story is in the fantasy genre and you need to stop
pretending it's slice of life. Or when even the biggest asshole characters never misgender anyone.

I mean it really depends on the modern setting and the scope of the story? There are plenty of places where no one in your day to day life WILL bat an eye about you and your same-gender partner. If a story is set in cities where I've *seen* people not bat an eye at gay couples, I'm not going to wonder why the characters aren't facing discrimination when the story isn't about that. As a queer adult there are places where I've been out with visibly queer groups of couples and singles and encountered not a single instance of homophobia-- you can EASILY take slices out of my real life that are me out being queer with other queers and no one caring. (there are also places I've lived that were very much NOT friendly, so it does still depend on the story's setting!)

I just read a fic where the author seemed to have a personal vendetta against apostrophes (the mans weapon, cant, your instead of you're, etc.). 9/10 times the apostrophe would be missing, then randomly it would be correct and the inconsistency somehow made it worse.

The same author also used "should/would of" instead of "should/would have" which was also grating.

It's fine if you don't have a beta, but a basic spell check would have caught these!

Tense hopping in fanfic. I can ignore it once or twice, it happens to the best of us, but if it's more than that I'm out.

When the writer describes brown eyes as "chocolate" or having a chocolate color. I just think of people biting into chocolate.

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[ SECRET POST #6387 ]

Weird things that take you out of a story

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