1) Rampant OOCness and canon breacking. Expecially on my favoutire characters. *Hugs Sakura from Card Captor Sakura*

2) Everything that falls under Bad Logic. You're not going to make a raped girl feel better by having sex with her. And if you're going to describe in detail how everything in an airbase works, please do a little reseach on how that REALLY works.

3) Not caring about grammar. I am Italian, I studied English very hand, and now I write in English good enough to pass for a native English speaker to the casual reader.
A true native English speaker has no excuses to write in an awful way and not doing anything about it. I can still excuse those who learned or are learning English at school, but if you canno write in a readable way you should either study English a little more or write in your own language.

Well, for one thing, I never really like OC/canon romances. OC/OC or canon/canon, yes, but there's just something about OC/canon that just feels sort of wrong. Still, that in and of itself isn't really bad - what I especially can't stand is when the OC is nothing but a jerk to the canon but they fall in love with her anyway. Especially if the canon changes character completely when doing so. Especially if said canon changes from a cool, collected, competent character to a lovestruck fool.

Actually, any severe OOC-ness will get me riled up. The characters are almost always my favorite part of a story - when someone takes these characters and changes their very personality, I get almost morally outraged. Even one really bad OOC moment can make me give up on an otherwise-good fic. (This is why I never got into The Methods of Rationality, despite the intriguing idea; Rationalist!Harry came off as a stuck-up, condescending, pretentious prick).

For me, it's blatant Character Ruptures/Character Replacements - or, to use more general terms, when characters don't act like themselves.

For instance, I was enjoying the Sonic story "Welcome Home, Welcome Doom" until Amy gave up being with Sonic so that the main OC could have him. Wait, what?!? Amy is madly in love with Sonic to the point of obsession - she's been known to get very violent with other girls who show much as a glimmer of romantic attraction towards him. So having her voluntarily stop chasing Sonic for the sake of someone else is an egregious violation of her character, and it completely turned me off from the story. Shame, because the villain was pulling some intense psychological warfare.

...breaking or simply ignoring the laws of physics will still make me want to shoot the screen, as will egregious continuity errors.

I mean sure, not knowing the finer points of orbital mechanics, fine, not too much of an issue. Cthulhu knows most sci-fi works get sound in space and the thing about 'ship's engines cut out != ship plummets toward planet' wrong. However, having a man shot by a .38 bullet fly through a window due to the impact force. No. Just no. :P

Also, ignoring a character's personality for the sake of shipping irritates me. Example if you're familiar with Neon Genesis Evangelion: the number of fics that have Shinji and Asuka fall in love and start a healthy relationship without dealing with both characters'... issues is immense.

((Irrelevant footnote: I'm back! RL got a bit crazy for a while and I had very little free time, but that's changed now and so I can enjoy the delights of fanfic again! Yay(?) :P))

I had to think about it because, well, when I read fanfic I often go in knowing or at least expecting badfic. And when I already expect the worst, nothing can really rile me. A shrug is what most of the stuff on this list gets from me: it's badfic, what was I expecting?

I'm not sure I've ever read a story that started good and then took a turn for the worst. The either start bad and stay bad, or start good and stay good. I guess I'm lucky that way.

But the thing that is currently annoying me most is lack of consequences. I'm sassing out a fic for a mission where an OC returns after having been missing for three years. Everyone though she was dead -- apparently they've seen the body -- but hurray, she's still alive. And everyone's happy.

My problem is that no one is in the least bit upset that the character didn't contact them in three years. I'd be upset if my loved one/best friend disappeared for three years and then came back. Happy, in part, but also upset and a little bit betrailed. I don't think we'd go back to the way things were immediately. And even if she gave a rational explanation of why she couldn't get in touch, I'd still be upset for a little while longer. I'd expect some of the canons to feel the same.

No such consequence in that story. The canons are only having the feelings the OC wants them to have. Love, and an unhealthy amount of forgiveness. (She stole the kid of one of the canons and he doesn't even mention it!)

That's making me go aargh. Every time I think about it. Should start that mission soon.

Medicine fail, definitely. Science fail in general, to an extent. It astounds, frightens, and enrages me that people don't bother to understand even the basics of how their own bodies work, and it definitely sets my fingers twitching for the clue-by-four.

Persistent grammar fail will do it, too. Mistakes here and there tend to be more funny than annoying to me—I look for funny mistakes as part of determining if a fic is mission-worthy—but I still cringe every time I see a construction that reminds me of "The Girl and Her Dragon." I can't use the word "as" anymore without being reminded. >.
And occasionally, things that are done for absolutely no good reason. I expect badfic to be nonsensical, but when someone's character is defamed through sheer incompetence, or just for the heck of it, or just to "prove a point," or what have you... ARGH. I'm primarily thinking of my favorite characters here, but it doesn't have to be one of them. For instance, making the Dursleys more abusive than they really were just so the Stu'd-up child version of Harry could angst more and spend more time being cuddled by various denizens of Middle-earth. Gag me with a spoon.

~Neshomeh

1. Bad spelling, grammar or punctuation. I can handle the occasional typo here and there, but repeated misspellings or misuses of grammar really annoy me.
   
   2. Characters using terms they shouldn't know about. This also applies to characters doing things that don't exist in their time, like wearing jeans or singing rock music.
   
   3. Purple prose. Enough said.
   
   4. Epic fails. Whether it's concerning rape, medicine, proper legal procedure, or whatever.

Specifically, where a canon character rejects/forgets her or his old friends and spends all their time with their new love interest.

Also, when a character talks about how love has made them a better person, or how they would be nothing without the love of their life. People have value outside of their relationships. And there are more types of relationships than just romantic ones.

One of my biggest bugbears is blatant breaching of canon personalities. For example: Elrond Half-elven being a Designated Misogynistic Bastard/ a rapist/ married to anyone except Celebrian, Hermione Granger being a fashion plate/ stupid/ timid and weepy and in need of a man to save her, Patrician Vetinari not being aware that his drink was spiked with a love potion and therefore PROPOSING TO A SUE, who then says no to him and gets off with no repercussions...

You get the idea. :P

One of the major problems that I've seen long-running goodfics run into from time to time is arc padding. A story will go on and on with more and more obstacles thrown into the path of the main characters until the audience essentially quits from exhaustion. One of my favorite stories (a monster of a fic, with 30+ chapters) lost me when the author killed off one of the two major villains only to introduce another, even worse villain! As the TV Tropes page on Darkness Induced Audience Apathy says, "MEANINGFUL conflict is the soul of drama."

Free-floating punctuation is also a major sticking point for me. It really chafes my cheeks every time I see characters talking like guards from a Metal Gear Solid game. "!" and "?" are not acceptable sentences. They are lazy substitutes for writing actual descriptions.

Worst of all in my mind is the free-floating ellipsis. Having someone say "..." might be the standard in comic books or manga or Japanese role-playing games, but it has no place in conventional writing. Describe the character's speechlessness: does her jaw waggle soundlessly? Do her eyes boggle out as she stares at the thing which has befuddled her? Is her head tilted to one side?

I've seen the free-floating ellipsis pop up in a few PPC missions. Tut tut, guys and gals. You disappoint Uncle PC.

Well, a lot of things annoy me, but I can soldier through a lot, but something that really makes me ARRRGGHH is...

Characters who get away with things free of consequences, moral of other wise. Especially violence in comedy Shows.

This really makes it hard to read a story, or watch a show. I know it is something that happens a lot in comedy shows, and I can tolerate it usually, because it is For Laughs. But sometimes it just gets way too far. a character pushing someone out of a treehouse, and then jumping on them, to a laugh track playing made me quit watching a show.

I have this 170K LotR fic, and the OCs in it and horrible. They don't have powers, or change races, or even wildly coloured hair or eyes. They do, however, do things so wildly stupid and on impulse. For example, jumping on Frodo repeatedly, kicking Boromir and Aragorn in the nuts to 'prove their worth'. They are NEVER called on ANYTHING.

So, to summarize, I hate it when people can do what ever they want with no consequences. Once it reaches 'Blatantly hurting someone and being allowed' I will mostly dump the fic.

I actually enjoy a good guro scene (though I'm fairly picky about them), but characters surviving things which would logically kill them with no magical or technological explanation makes me stabby in the bad way, hence why the infamous spear incident got me so riled. Not to mention the one where Guy 1 kicks Guy 2 in the back which somehow causes Guy 2 to fall on top of Guy 1.

Also, randomly gained superpowers. If there's some setup that's one thing, but when the guy literally gains a new power with every fight scene ... ack.

not being portrayed in the right way. Even some of the slightest traumas you see in H/C fics are not just going to go away after the injured party is rescued. Sometimes, even minor incidents can mentally impact someone for life. The Hurt doesn't end right after the people are healed from their physical injuries.
Especially Rape. I just can't stand it when a character in a fic only takes about 2 days to recover from rape. NO!
I know people who have been raped, and it's taken them years to recover. It has affected their whole lives, and changed, fundamentally, who they are. You can't just trivialize or shake off something like that, even in fic.
So I suppose, to summarize, my pet peeve for fic would be not showing the mental effects of physical trauma.

You see this most often in Self Insert sues. In fact, it's the reason why I mostly want to tackle those, with only a few exceptions. The exchange of identity is the rawest, most overt, form a Sue can take. Or so I feel.

But what do I mean by this?

It is easy to see that society sets standards for people that are nearly impossible to reach. For example: for women, it's often an image of physical beauty... a beauty that's unattainable by most of the population. Many people, absorbing this in culture, associate themselves with the negative. "Society sets THIS message forward... but I am not that. I am worse than it. I am bad. I need to change."

None of this is conscious, or it usually isn't. But the evidence can be seen so clearly in Mary Sues: Often they are idealized in beauty... THEY reached that unattainable standard. It's not real beauty. I just see the tears and frustration of the writer in stuff like that... that they don't realize they are promoting and desiring to be the very image that's hurting them.

What does this have to do with Self Inserts?

The Sue Transformation.

It doesn't happen in every bad/Mary Sue Self Insert story. But it's so common, it hurts. It's so common, it should have a wiki article.

The person enters the world with their normal appearance, or close to it. But as soon as they get involved in the fantasy world, they change their appearance, ability level... even species and personality. They throw away who they were, simply because they wish they were better. Because they think this thing that isn't them is better.

Whenever I see a poor girl that is transformed like that in a Suefic... I just see it as that girl burning out, dying... and a horrid vampire of ego and desire taking hold of the empty husk and puppeting it around. It horrifies me.

It's natural to want to be better than you are.

But to throw your whole self away for it, your entire identity, losing who you are at your very core...

It makes me sick.

I'm sick and tired of people just absolutely sucking at portraying disability and disabled characters.

Okay, first of all: Disabled characters come in as many variations as non-disabled ones. The fictional world is already clogged up with "plucky, inspirational Tiny Tim" and "depressed, self-pitying wreck". We do not need them. We don't like them. They suck. Write real people, not stereotypes.

Second: Magical healing? Not cool. Okay, I get that occasionally you will want to have somebody recover from an injury that should be permanent--maybe to show off a character's healing ability or a doctor's skill. But if you're going to write it as "Oh, noes, this guy is going to be disabled! The horror!" Like that's the worst possible fate for a person, worse than death.

And on that note, can we please stop automatically killing off the guy who just got an injury that will cause disability? If you've got a character who's just gone blind or deaf or lost a limb or broke his spine, that does NOT make it somehow okay to kill him off because "Oh, he wouldn't have had much of a life anyway; it's better this way." Again, it can be legitimate--the guy who's hurt and can't walk may stay behind to pull a You Shall Not Pass on the approaching enemy--but killing off a character because you're too much of a wimp to address the issue of a permanent disability is not cool.

And then there's the mental stuff--the people with the weird brains that work in weird ways. I'm especially sensitive to autism!fail, for the obvious reason that I'm autistic yourself (No, your Mary Sue is NOT going to pull Poor Little Autistic Kid out of his "shell" and turn him into a typical kid just through her magical caring!). But it's more than just that. Being mentally disabled in some way doesn't mean you're a little kid. It doesn't mean you're immature. Say you're 25 years old and have an IQ of 40. Guess what? You're an adult. An adult with a low IQ who is just barely able to learn to read and count--but an adult, not an overgrown kid. There's a difference.

Let's not even get into the psychology. You wanna read about my views on that, go to the "Bad Psychology" page on the wiki--I wrote most of it.

Yeah, so... disability stuff, mostly. But there's other stuff. You can get me pretty riled up if one character "cures" another characters asexuality through magical healing cock.

In my case, I tend to respond really negatively to how the author reacts. I hate it when:

1. The author talks about their thing like it's the greatest thing in the world. If I ever hear that come from any author's A/N, it's an instant turn-off for me, though it's less so if it's actually good.

2. If they start harassing other people. This is self-explanatory, and it'll turn me off to anything.

But yeah. As for things in stories themselves...

1. M-preg. I absolutely cannot stand M-preg. If it shows up in the story, I never read it again.

2. Things being rushed through. Especially dialogue. This is a little more personal, because having well-paced action is something I'm constantly grappling with as a fanfiction author. So if other people can't care about that thing, I don't care about what they do with the rest of it unless the plot is super, super intriguing.

There are a huge number of things that annoy me, but I think they all boil down to four:

1) Equating the actors with the characters.
2) Painfullly obvious vapid wish fulfillment.
3) Anachronism.
4) Stupid AU and original fic masquerading as AU.

1) You might think two actors look hot/good together. This does NOT translate to the characters. Go write RPF/S somewhere else, don't slap character names on the actors and write hot sex.

2) When the female OC obviously exists for the sole reason of falling in love with the author's lust object.

3) This includes prom dresses in medieval fandoms, modern swear words, modern characters revealing the future, modern language, modern viewpoints, etc. Peter Pevensie is not going to say "S**t, babe, you look hot."

4) When the author blatantly ignores any good reasons for things happening, or when it's a cookie cutter fic written for the purpose of getting two characters together. E.g. "Hermione is a water nymph who loves Prince Draco."

OOC is also extremely irritating.

1. Bad dialogue. I hate it, hate it, haaaaate it. So I'm reading a Sherlock fanfic, right? Would've been an okay read, but the dialogue was baaad. It reduced both main characters to whining dramatically about the situation, using phrases like "hook your talons into my friend," and actually crying in front of Moriarty. It made me physically cringe. I especially hate really long-winded dialogue in a situation that normally wouldn't allow for long-winded dialogue. Like when two characters hold an emotional, heartfelt, psyche-probing conversation while apparently ignoring the villain who is standing right in front of them and holding them at gunpoint. Drives me up the wall.
   
   2. Bad attitude in the Author's notes, or author's notes in the middle of the story. Need I say more?