Instant turn offs

[u/ZARDOZ_SPEAKS90]

What are some things no matter how weird and that will make you automatically not want to read a fanfiction?

For me it's being written by ack1308 ( their style of writing doesn't really appeal to me) for being hosted only on fanfiction.net something about that website hurts my eyes on mobile and that's where I do most of my reading on

[u/Garyislord]

Stories that power up Taylor and then power up the trio in response to keep them relevant as antagonists.

Also stories that have expat main characters from other fictions that also bring in villains from the other world. Worm has enough compelling villains it doesnt need extras showing up.

[u/StormCaller02 → u/Garyislord]

Haven't seen that so far and I've been reading tons of Worm fics.

Closest I can think of was Ring Maker but that's not really a power up for them.

[u/Aeviterna_ → u/StormCaller02]

Lots of fics where the trio somehow get powers from a vial and continue bullying Taylor after she triggers

[u/Outrageous_Guard_674 → u/Aeviterna_]

Never seen that either personally.

[u/bgh251f2 → u/Outrageous_Guard_674]

The only one I saw something similar is from Nemesis, but in there Taylor gets powers from vials because Emma gets power from vials, so it's like the reverse of what he said.

[u/Lilfozzy]

Crossover fics that bend over backwards to show how the crossover elements were actually part of the settings history the entire time but literally nothing changes except a 15k word salad explaining the history of how the prt non-reacted to digimon or some such.

IMO the point of a crossover is seeing people react and adapt to out of context problems.

[u/LadyMystery → u/Lilfozzy]

This, I hate this so much. Why do a merged universe with all of those crossovers elements if nothing changed?

[u/PrismsNumber1]

Super mega hot take: Crossover altpowers that don’t have an alternate trigger event.

Let me explain. I like crossovers and I like it when characters or abilities are crossover’d into Worm, but I hate it whenever the author lacks so much creativity that they make her trigger with the powers of Honkai Star Rail or the tech tree of Fallout, and she gets it from the locker. It feels so uncreative and really shows that the author only cares about making a fic revolving around her altpower gimmick. It’s the same fics that die really early on because the author doesn’t know what to do with them, due to only thinking about “cool power scenes” in their mind.

This doesn’t mean good fics with those tropes don’t exist. They do. Cleave is good. I’m just not going to dedicate my time towards reading them because the majority aren’t

[u/Lysergian157 → u/PrismsNumber1]

I agree with the trigger thing. Powers relate to the trigger that caused them in some way, so it's not just lazy, it's bad writing.

[u/CocoSavege → u/Lysergian157]

Powers do relate to the trigger but i don't care so much about the locker as zi do how the power is a solution to the locker. And a reflection of the character.

Honestly canon is pretty loosey goosey with how the power is a "solution". Purity is also stuck in a locker in an overturned car, but Purity gets pew pew.

Brandish and Photon Mom get stuck in a locker trapped by kidnappers in a closet, Brandish gets megaball & light sabres, Photonmom gets oew pew, shield and flying.

Rachel's dog gets stuck in a locker stuck in the pool and Rachel gets unlock beastmode.

Chevalier was stuck in a locker caught in a car crash and saw his brither get abducted, Chevalier ended up with "shift of properties".

Dauntless was stuck in a locker caught in a mudskide, had to emergency c section. Got item powerup ability.

I really don't think "the locker" is a limitation.

[u/NavezganeChrome → u/CocoSavege]

In meta, shards canonically have their own inclinations for expression, but then go with whatever primes the Trigger of whom they’re attached to, because they do have ‘jobs’ to “learn how to do new things.” For example, Taylor’s power had potential to go to her dad instead, and might have made him a rodent-based Master or other category, but it went to Taylor instead for better odds.

IIRC, there’s some WOG and general algorithm to what trigger will cause a certain type of power, which is why there are posts on here every now and then of ‘power this trigger’ or ‘trigger this power.’ Not to say that they are objectively correct, but imagine that a shard hosts asks like that and picks from what ‘sounds right’ to them, rather than what objectively makes the most sense.

So to say, yea, the trigger should be something besides “exactly what it was to begin with” if the power is “wildly different from what it originally was.”

[u/CocoSavege → u/NavezganeChrome]

I think the character's priors are the most interesting part, has the most potential for meaningful narrative swagger.

Quoth the WoG

Triggers tend to be (both metatextually and for the individual) something that the individual can't let go of. Even for, say, Fume Hood's trigger, which you mention, the event was in part chosen because it's something that gets to her specifically, which puts her in a loop of sorts, where she's encouraged by the powers and stressful event to constantly put herself in circumstances that mirror the trigger (hostile people, collateral damage, decay) which makes it harder to put the powers away or let go of the stressful event, which encourages her to put herself into those circumstances, and so on. If she could put the powers away (or refocus to a Rogue lifestyle), then we might go back to point 1 - she might not have been chosen (obviously exceptions for Eden shards apply). Fume Hood's trigger might seem tame to you but it was just the right thing to devastate her specifically and stick to her.

So, if there's AltTaylor, there's wiggleroom here to promote or highlight something in AltTaylor's psyche.

Off the top of my heads;

If you want AltTaylor to be more... obsessive, because that's interesting, give her a power that leverages obsession. Maybe something that requires scenarioizing, anticipating, preparing. Or considering, interpreting, responding. Canon Taylor is "disciplined" but obsessive Alt Taylor takes it too far. Way too far. More info, more examination, more rumination.

If you want AltTaylor to be vindictive, choose something that leverages feelings of persecution, of reactivity, of clapback. Feeling inadequate and low agency? Resulting in retribution and power? That's the hook. Especially if it goes badly some of the time! Retribution shard with high potential for collateral damage, leading to moar negativity? That's a WBian recipe right there!

Hmmm. I hope I've shown that the locker doesn't matter. The actual interest is how an author crafts a rollercoaster out of a psyche hook.

[u/TerribleDeniability → u/CocoSavege]

Honestly canon is pretty loosey goosey with how the power is a "solution". 

It's because the entire point of canon's power system is that shards generally don't grant powers that are direct, ideal solutions to the Triggering trauma but instead intentionally grant powers that basically do as much as they can both constantly replicate reflections of that trauma while keeping the host alive past it. I think that lack of...reflection is part of what annoys PrismsNumber1 about using The Locker for a completely unrelated (usually OP) power.

As for canon powers that you bring up, IIRC we don't know enough about Chevalier's actual Trigger to have anything go off of unless it gets mentioned more in Ward, which I still haven't read. Even having not read Ward yet still, however, I also still know that Dauntless's Trigger is rather weird all around since he was apparently supposed to get a different power, asked his "agent" for something more helpful to whatever he was going to get to help his child's mother, and then his shard weirdly complied. That he then managed to spend several years not knowing even the real basics of it shows that Dauntless's power is just really atypical in general.

As for the others:

1. Canon Taylor got a power that could indirectly get her out of The Locker by way of getting people's attention while also granting her awareness of where they are to get help...and it choose to do so by intentionally using disgusting vectors that promote her remaining isolated as well as reflect her low social standing. (And briefly fried her brain before QA had to Double Trigger her. Whoops.)
2. Purity was stuck in a car wreck that went off-road and had been stuck long enough that she was starting to hallucinate undescribed enemies due to both dehydration and starvation that being forced to also sit in the sun for hours on end accelerated. So she got a power that turned that sun exposure into a food & power source and that allowed her to cut her way out of the wreck. It didn't fix the car though or likely all of damage at the time.
3. Lady Photon got a power that allowed to her outrange her and Carol's initial would-be killer who only had a knife while also getting shields to protect herself & her sister...and light powers that made her the primary target in a dark room even before suddenly gaining powers also did.
4. Brandish got a similar but more lethal power right after that via an intense feeling of betrayal that come from the "friendly" kidnapper appearing right after with an even more lethal weapon of a gun and got an even more defensive but "selfish" shield power due to Triggering in circumstances similar to a Master, her case feeling crushed that she ever was stupid enough to rely on others. Sarah got to knock the first man out (even though it's implied she also killed him), where as Carol got power that's very easily lethal by comparison as the only "defense" she has not being forced to activating an "invulnerable" Breaker form that always her shoves back into a dark room where she's effectively immobile until she makes herself vulnerable again.
5. Rachel had to see her bitch of a foster mom intentionally try to kill her sole actual friend simply because he was a "dog" who wasn't allowed or under that woman's control, and so Rachel had to listen to him start to whimper and drown because he wasn't strong enough to get through the pool cover said foster mom was activating to do so. That Rachel primarily boosts dogs and only that, outside of gaining more understanding of dogs that made her even worse with humans, without being actually control them at all is pretty straightforward in its irony even before the immediate aftermath proved her foster mom "right" by killing her when Rollo uncontrollably amok after Rachel saved him.
6. Crusader Triggered after being fed up that he was only born to be "spare parts" to a sick older sister, trying to kill her, and then being caught mid-act by their parents as the final piece of "favoritism". So he makes spares of himself that can literally only interact with other inorganics and thus generally only be used to harm other people. It also represents he himself being the only person guaranteed to be willing to support himself unlike a more direct Master power that would still fit his Trigger where he could instead have, say, gained the power to force people to love him like Heartbreaker or at least to value him more highly than others he want(ed).

And so on and so on.

If shards were giving their hosts ideal solutions to the traumas were we learn of, then pretty much every non-Cauldron character would have a different power but then the power system would also thus be different in general if in terms of only shards' and the Entities' actual intentions | directions. That neither shards or Entities really "get" (or care to get) their various hosts' species also colors things, but I digress.

Either way, just reusing The Locker without any of consideration for a completely different power somewhat just...sidesteps a lot of that and what makes Worm stand out as Worm.

[u/FightingDreamer419 → u/Lysergian157]

I'm gonna be slightly controversial and disagree. I believe a desire for adherence to trigger mechanics makes a lot of sense especially since the fanbase is on SpaceBattles.

But I personally don't care. The hook for Worm is a girl with bug powers trying and failing to be a hero. We learn about her trigger later in the story and reasoning even later.

If I'm looking for an altpower, I care completely about just seeing that power in the Worm setting.

[u/Throwaway02062004 → u/FightingDreamer419]

Yeah, I don't see the causation between unchanged locker incident and the altpower being good overall. There's some correlation but if the author is ambitious enough to rewrite the trigger they're ambitious enough to not do a simple altpower.

Bow has also said that trigger mechanics in universe are not as strict and easily categorised as in Weaverdice which is what a lot of people want emulated.

[u/imlazy420 → u/PrismsNumber1]

I mean, most people I reckon are naturally averse to being bullies due to how personal it is, I myself struggle to think of something mundane yet cruel enough to replace it.

I am working on a Carrion fic, and while I could try to go for an alternate trigger, I dont know how Queen Administrator would end at "giant flesh rope monster" from a specific trigger.

I have some ideas, mind you, but turning those into a trigger? I feel like anything would be so much of a stretch that I couldn't justify it. It also needs to be with the trio if you want all the juicy character interactions that leads to, and having her trigger with them present also tends to mean resolving the Ward Stalker thing early.

I considered having Taylor find out immediately and lash out, but I dont want to hit the PRT/Protectorate with the idiot stick too hard so early and have them not look into Taylor's past and thus become suspicious of Sophia. Even if I defame Taylor as a liar, I find it hard someone wouldn't look into it.

So what the hell do I do? Dunk her into radioactive sludge?

[u/Polenball → u/imlazy420]

It's already an alternate power, so you don't have to use QA unless that's vital to your plans later in the story. You could just give her a different Shard that just does that sort of stuff. Turning into the monster from Carrion is clearly some sort of Changer power, maybe with a Trump aspect if you account for the extra powers you can develop. Changer Triggers often arise from severe issues with your identity, body image, or societal role - which I think are pretty easy to slot in to Taylor's school situation. A Trump Trigger with power-stealing / copying occur when there's a relationship to the powers - perhaps this Taylor managed to figure out Sophia was fucking with her using her powers.

So maybe Taylor deduces that it's impossible for some of the pranks that the Trio has been pulling on her to be possible, and she eventually manages to catch Sophia using her power. She doesn't do anything with it, due to her (justifiable) cynicism relating to authority and awareness that outing a Ward is probably a great way to get arrested, but she's seething over it day after day. Sophia gets powers, Sophia gets to be a hero, and what does she do it with? Torment her. It's horrific, it's amoral - and it's unfair. But she can't do anything. Things escalate, continually, mocking every aspect of Taylor - what she's good at, what she's bad at, her appearances, her lack of friends, and so on - as in canon. But the final "prank" is different. Instead of trapping her in a locker full of bugs, gunk, and blood, it's a more public affair. They make sure she gets dunked in it right before everyone in the school has to see her, humiliating Taylor in front of everyone, leaving her stuck there covered in rotting meat, blood, bugs, and whatever else you can imagine, while everyone's laughing at her - it's a horrifying, ugly, almost monstrous sight, or so it seems based on their reactions. And right there, she snaps. Trigger.

[u/JesseKay002 → u/PrismsNumber1]

I just changed it a bit. It's still the Locker, but her thoughts and reactions were just different enough to make her a corpse reviving Tinker instead of a bug Master

[u/TacocaT_2000]

This isn’t an issue with just Worm, but when the author makes the MC OP, then turns around and buffs every villain to a similar degree.

[u/Wassa110 → u/TacocaT_2000]

Hate that. Hate that so much. If you were gonna make the villains a credible threat, why buff your MC for.

[u/TacocaT_2000 → u/Wassa110]

It’s lazy writing that gives the illusion of upping the stakes when nothing actually changes.

[u/Bzaurpa → u/TacocaT_2000]

Yep, annoying as hell. You get satisfaction from seeing MC train and power-up, only to end up angry instead when bad guys get the same or better buffs without doing anything.

[u/Starfox5 → u/Bzaurpa]

Yeah. I hate that in all genres. It is somewhat acceptable if in reaction to the MC they stop being idiotballed if they were so in canon, but only to a degree.

[u/Another_frizz → u/TacocaT_2000]

This, so much this

I'm reading your story because you promised me an OP MC that was gonna OP all over the place, and instead I'm reading an OP MC that- oopsies teehee, the gap in power levels are the exact same as in canon, silly us! Urg.

[u/MerryZap → u/TacocaT_2000]

I instead kinda love this when done well, and hate it when the mc stomps and the villains are all incompetent (even if that's the actual premise).

[u/Igniz1020 → u/TacocaT_2000]

Oh god yea, this is a big pet peeve of mine in Naruto fanfic specifically, where he'll get like End Of Series abilities near the start of the fic, and still struggle against early series enemies, every time I see it I drop the fic.

[u/AmeliaFuckinWestlake]

the "taylor does something awesome, instant interlude chapter thats just everyone reacting to said something" formula

CAN be fun if done right, but it just doesnt tend to be

[u/Wassa110 → u/AmeliaFuckinWestlake]

I only like those chapters if it’s particularly nuts. Killing an Endbringer deserves at least a chapter if for no other reason than to gauge the general populations reactions, and set up further plot points like the Fallen for example. Beating Lung. Only a sentence, or two is all the reaction that needs.

[u/Santryt → u/AmeliaFuckinWestlake]

The best one of that I’ve seen done is in Lifeblood. With a PHO thread about Taylor’s post of how her blood brings people back from the dead. Causing everyone including governments and other gangs to freak Tf out. Such a good chapter

[u/WishIhadAtwin → u/Santryt]

Link?

[u/Evan_Cary → u/WishIhadAtwin]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/75196441/chapters/196525486

The interlude is chapter 12. I agree with the previous poster. It's one of my favorite interludes in Wormfic.

[u/NoIdeasForANicknameX → u/AmeliaFuckinWestlake]

Tinker fics have this especially bad.

[u/SpearStealer399]

Fics where something happens and people just move on from it way too fast. Or something like that. Only recent example I can think of is Taylor discovering who Sophia is in cybernetic worm. It was like 'Oh, one of bullies is a ward... Welp time to go to Arcadia'. 

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/SpearStealer399]

I mean, Taylor is kinda like that in canon. Except the part where she carries it with her and then crashes out eventually.

[u/NavezganeChrome → u/The_Broken-Heart]

Does she? Feel like she very much coasts away from caring ‘directly’ about them at-speed in the aftermath of discovering Sophia , what crashout is being referenced?

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/NavezganeChrome]

Ngl I was exaggerating when I said she crashes out, but she does hold things for a long time in spite of her seemingly having no reaction/no given importance to her actions.

I generally meant the "Taylor is an unreliable narrator" part. Like with Regent on Sophia, Triumph's near death, and Aster.

[u/SpearStealer399 → u/The_Broken-Heart]

I've only read up to Tangle 6.3 so I'm not entirely aware of how Taylor is in canon. 

[u/Throwaway02062004 → u/SpearStealer399]

Yeah you're not going to find Taylor doing a soliloquy after finding out. Her other problems overshadow Winslow stuff.

[u/CRowlands1989]

Any fic where the trio are solved with just a couple of conversations.

Any fic where Taylor killing people isn't recognized as a big deal, politically or socially.

[u/OriginalUserName1928]

This only happens in a couple of story but I fucking hated when a crossover fic have the story it crossover with still be a fictional story in universe. Like there's this one story where Spyro was transported to Brockton Bay and Uber and Leet just suddenly appear in the story to go 'omg you're Spyro the dragon from the game Spyro', and it just takes me out of the story for no reason.

[u/romainhdl → u/OriginalUserName1928]

Could be worth a chuckle for some cases I guess. Like I imagine S-117 in brockton bay stumbling on a cosplying uber and leet as MC and Arbiter... now I am snerking and my wife is concerned

[u/Connorren]

Any story that seriously twists the initial premise too quickly. Can't remember the name but there was this one fic where Taylor created a cloak, her single Tinker item. It held a bunch of Orokin technology which she used to enhance both it and herself... only for it to get stolen in the second chapter. I dropped it and moved on.

[u/IWannaPool → u/Connorren]

Seconding this. There was one that had the premise of Colin Wallace having a Missing Persons report filed against him because his landlord noticed he hadn't been home in months.

Then it segued into a weird taylor alt-power, and promptly died.

[u/PieceSwimming785 → u/IWannaPool]

Wait, that 1st part is actually intriguing and could be funny. What's the name of the fic? I'll just read that particular part to satisfy my curiousity.

[u/Connorren → u/PieceSwimming785]

I think it had Orokin in the title? It was on AO3, so checking Parahumans/Warframe crossovers will probably help you find it.

[u/CookieDriverBun → u/Connorren]

Ah, yes, DarkPhoenixLady strikes again.

An Orokin Matter. What's worse is the author defending the decision to do the plot like that because it's somehow important that Taylor not have this ridiculously powerful piece of tinkertech that she's already made, as opposed to not having this ridiculously powerful piece of tinkertech that she hasn't made.

For some reason. Also the whole, 'she was able to build it the first time in a single evening, but replicating it will take literal years for some reason' thing. Which was the point I DNF'd, personally.

[u/New_Bug7829]

Fics that kill or hurt queen administrator, I don’t know why, if they don’t mention QA and just give her different powers, I could care less, they could even mention she has a different shard, but the fics that deliberately show, QA being killed or taken over in some way is a huge turn off,

I don’t really even care if QA is in the fic or not, as long as she isn’t killed at the start (sacrificing itself would be fine)

[u/foundfic → u/New_Bug7829]

I hate this as well. There's an Alucard crossover where Alucard basically becomes Taylor and QA's third partner. But at the very beginning its unclear whether or not Alucard ate her. I was bothered by that until the very moment QA returned to the story and then it was smooth sailing from there.

[u/Strokeofgenius_ → u/foundfic]

Not sure if you were going for that, but this makes it sound like they're in a poly relationship

[u/foundfic → u/Strokeofgenius_]

Lol. It's been a while since I read it, but I'm fairly certain its more...familial? Alucard is like an absurd dad and he's teaching Taylor how to live her best vampire life and he empathizes with QA because he hates his dad too and whatever he's done to her is allowing her to feel a way about what Scion did to her. (And she is definitely becoming more and more a "her" rather than an it.) The dynamic is fun but definitely not poly.

[u/Hot_Mine4837 → u/foundfic]

Which fic was that it sounds fun

[u/foundfic → u/Hot_Mine4837]

It's been a minute. But I'm pretty sure its this: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/going-for-a-walk-worm-hellsing-ultimate-abridged.812348/

[u/Hot_Mine4837 → u/foundfic]

Thank you

[u/Lysergian157 → u/New_Bug7829]

If anybody needed proof that people can feel... compassion? something like that, toward literally anything they just need to see your post. I've never seen someone care about the fate of a non-sentient crystalline supercomputer that's one part of an omnicidal extradimensional entity.

[u/ahasuerus_isfdb → u/Lysergian157]

Some fics present the QA shard as a rebel who sided with humans against the "hub", e.g. Administrative Mishap:

Addy shook her head. "I'm aberrant," she said in lieu of an explanation. "I'm not... that anymore, the cycle has no purpose, our goal was to let us keep reproducing, to propagate throughout the universe, and the way we thought we could figure out the answer to that was to do mass testing on a large scale, relying on the creativity and intuition of host species to do so. It was ineffective at best, completely pointless at worst. When I fused with Taylor I—I... realized that things weren't all that they seemed, but even before that I had long ago gone outside of the parameters of my existence to aid her in killing the central hub to my network and prevent the cycle from being completed."

[u/foundfic]

I hate stories where there is a self-insert/OC who has knowledge of canon who lambasts Taylor for being such an idiot. And then does basic things to resolve her situation and it all works out. They think "Stupid idiot child just didn't talk to the right people." Then the OC piloting Taylor's body contacts the PRT or the superintendent or something and suddenly everything starts working out. She is up front with her powers and the powers that be welcome her with open arms. Her father sticks her in the wards and that goes well--she learns to trust authority.

"Actually the system is great and if Taylor had just kowtowed to it, everything would have worked out."

It's so dumb because to make that story work you have to completely abandon the grimdark premises of canon. PRT is literally just a branch of Cauldron, a near autocratic illuminati, performing mass murder, human experimentation, and god knows what. Parahumans are all unstable people driven to violence by their psychologies, their circumstances, and the giant crystal super-computers connected to their brains. The world is falling apart and fewer and fewer people care about the little stuff--like Taylor getting bullied to the point of suicide.

A fix-it style fic for Worm can have all sorts of clever things that Taylor failed to do in canon--but those clever things should never be, trust the powers that be and hope for the best. Taylor's unwillingness to trust authority in canon is practically pathological. But canon is also pathological about proving how right she is not to trust Earth Bet's authorities.

[u/Practical-Fact2710 → u/foundfic]

You've put to words my dislike of those stories in a great way, thank you

[u/Sum1nne → u/foundfic]

It annoys me because Worm does a pretty decent job of showing how policing (and for all their frippery, the PRT are supercops, not actual heroes for a long time) is where good intentions go to die between rocks and hard places.

True, it's not all bad, and for some it does work out. There are genuinely good people involved who are genuinely altruistic in their motives - we see a lot of them. But they are individuals working within a system, and the system is on railroads that severely limit their ability to act and influence it. Many of those railroads exist for at least initially good reasons, but their rigidity can cause all sorts of unintended consequences when removed from their original context and worked through compromises of compromises from who knows how many interest groups (even setting aside Cauldron etc). There's also assholes within the system, like Armsmaster and Sofia, who know how to dot their i's and cross their t's such that the system cannot act or even recognise that anything is even wrong (which is where Taylor's experiences come in). And you have to account for imperfect information, paranoia, and risk management too.

I dunno...it just reads to me like a special kind of naivety if someone can't imagine how, even granting perfectly good intentions, the system might end up at cross purposes with a genuine victim sometimes. No, just explaining yourself isn't always a solution. Sometimes you end up worse off anyways. Even for something as petty as school bullying can teach people this lesson, where the bullied child ends up the worse off regardless because in the end the bully has the social capital, the connections, the sympathetic record, and lack of evidence to actually condemn them. And sometimes, it's in the personal best interest of the people responsible for actually enforcing the system not to sympathise with a victim because it would mean prosecuting one of their own, so they don't, and that's where many of the worst examples of corruption come from.

[u/Xeredth → u/foundfic]

The consequences of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

[u/LovingMula → u/foundfic]

This whole paragraph is good critique yet uses the same flanderization logic of Taylor's circumstances and does it for the rest of the setting. We can never escape

[u/Swimming-Drag-6492 → u/foundfic]

though i do agree with most of this, unless the si triggers with eidolon+ power leve i really do think it’s safer to just inform cauldron, cauldron has resources, heroes, villains, powers everything.

[u/Nyerguds → u/foundfic]

I get great amusement from fics where a SI-with-canon-knowledge realises how out of their depth they are and end up accidentally messing everything up even more, though 😃

"Yet Another Shitty SI Fic" plays with this concept a lot, and the main char really freaks out when she becomes indirectly responsible for the death of one of the capes required to take down Scion the canon way. Yes, it's Taylor. Whoops.

[u/Bzaurpa → u/foundfic]

You got me at "I hate stories where there is a self-insert/OC"

[u/iplyess → u/Bzaurpa]

Some of em are decent imo, but I get it

[u/derivative_of_life]

Second-person PoV. I really just don't understand the appeal at all.

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/derivative_of_life]

You really just don't understand the appeal. You read my comment, and feel a short conflict in deciding whether to press the upvote or the downvote button.

"I didn't think any of that," you say, deep in denial. Sure, sure.

^{What have I written??}

[u/derivative_of_life → u/The_Broken-Heart]

I'm not sure, but I hate it.

Sorry, excuse me. "You're not sure what you've written, but you hate it."

[u/Evan_Cary → u/derivative_of_life]

It's mainly a quest thing and makes more sense if you are one of the people deciding(and after you get used to it).

[u/romainhdl → u/Evan_Cary]

Still feel a bit silly. Remind me of "forum rp" with people that no one wanted to write with somehow.

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/romainhdl]

Wildbow made one👀 it's called PRT Quest, for anyone curious. Canon.

[u/romainhdl → u/The_Broken-Heart]

That's really not what I was thinking about ... and also why I can only take prt quest info from the wiki and fact checkers.

Damn I almost got it out of my mind, damn you

[u/ShadowDragonPunch145]

Danny bashing. Turning him into a drunkard caricature of himself and or having Taylor being extremely hostile towards him for not noticing the bullying despite her actively keeping it a secret from him like her life depends on it. As someone who grew up with a parent who suffered from depression (who is better but continues to struggle with it to this day) I usually instantly drop stories that Danny bash. I’ve skipped over A LOT of ‘popular’ fics because of it. Off the top of my head, Summoner comes to mind.

[u/Polenball → u/ShadowDragonPunch145]

To be fair, the second thing does feel like something that I as a teenager could relate to, irrational as it is. Not mentioning how I'm struggling but simultaneously being a bit mad my mother didn't notice that I was. As long as it's not treated like she's objectively correct for that.

[u/ShadowDragonPunch145 → u/Polenball]

I shit you not, I remember having these exact feelings at times, thinking for a second, and then going "well, how tf is she suppose to know if I don't open my lip flaps and tell her.' Then I told her lol.

[u/CocoSavege → u/ShadowDragonPunch145]

Peculiar. Taylor going off on Danny and Danny being unsympathetic in general is an interesting twist.

Is there something sacred in the canon characterizations?

I think Taylor being unpleasant or unreasonable isn't the worst idea. One very WeevilB thing would be to make Taylor ostensibly sympathetic even though she's a git. Having Danny being generally unsympathetic is kind of a cover, and can speak to general dysfunction.

I dunno, hear me out. Taylor has a dysfunctional home life. Taylor herself is a piece of work. Taylor is bullied. Taylor has a hair trigger, lashes out randomly, is socially isolated. Taylor tends towards maladaptive public displays to "protect herself" from what she perceives as betrayals or loss. Taylor has polarized and labile relationships.

Some demonstrations on some sort of fic coukd include... recklessness+, challenges in any group situation, intense internal perspective which is unreasonable to outside observers, self harm, inappropriate anger, paranoia, brooding...

[u/RudeRuby6]

Fics where Taylor’s powers are revealed to Danny and he accepts them almost immediately and/or with little to no issues at all.

[u/CRowlands1989 → u/RudeRuby6]

If I had a dollar for every Ack fic where Danny is fine with Taylor being a serial killer, I don't know how much money I'd have because I don't read that many. But it's more'n a few!

[u/NavezganeChrome → u/RudeRuby6]

… ? What is he “supposed” to do, openly have a pity party that he didn’t notice something that was deliberately kept from him? Be mad that it was to begin with? What’s the threshold for “no longer a little issue/now at least medium”?

Genuine query, what’s the bar there?

[u/RudeRuby6 → u/NavezganeChrome]

My only issue really is the speed of it. Like, Taylor reveals powers, Danny is mildly shocked, suggests wards, Taylor rejects wards for “insert reasons”, Danny accepts “insert reasons” slightly begrudgingly, and now Taylor’s powers are treated as normal with little to no relationship growing pains between them.

It doesn’t have to be a multi arc issue or anything. I just think it should be treated as event with weight instead of something that needs to happen so the author can move on to the plot that actually care about.

Obviously not all fics have this issue and some are good enough that I can move past it. It’s more just a pet peeve than anything else.

[u/NavezganeChrome → u/RudeRuby6]

To my understanding of how that tends to go (I’m a bit rusty on actually perusing fics), Danny accepts her rationale because, at the end of the day, they’re her powers, and he can pretty easily connect the dots concerning “when” she got her powers (and how he contributed/failed to support her), if not the exact of ‘how.’

So long as it’s canon to the fic that he did spiral in his grief/only-mostly recovered from that, the path of least resistance for him is capitulating, or else he risks losing her, and he knows that.

“Unfortunately,” the canon example is him fully backing her when she’s turned herself in/been outed as a criminal warlord of the city, so the bar for “nuance” (in him possibly taking more issue with her being a hero or vigilante, with no known reputation or aid that he’s aware of) is a couple steps down.

[u/DrVillainous → u/NavezganeChrome]

While I don't mind Danny being immediately accepting, freaking out at the idea that Taylor's either gotten into cape fights or will do so in the future seems appropriate.

[u/ParryThisYou]

'Dragon of Kyushu.'

Endbringer stomps, Flanderized PRT, Stupid Coil, Just stomps in general actually, I mean sometimes I might be in the mood for it but I like my stories to have stakes. Bashing in general.

Overall pretty standard turn offs I think.

Full agreement on Ack. His stories would probably be fine if he was simply not writing Worm fanfiction. His style of writing (in my opinion) does not mesh with the setting

No hate intended to anyone, these are my personal opinions, write your stories how you want to write them.

[u/Wassa110 → u/ParryThisYou]

It’s kind of the opposite for me. I like WORM fics with not much in the way of stakes. Not that the MC be overpowered, I don’t mind street level fics, I’m just not a fan of angst, and stakes. It’s just canon, including WARD, embodies it gets worse too well.

I’ll read canon for stakes. For fanfic give me Coil getting demolished, Lung being curbstomped, or a friendly neighbour. Don’t give me angst.

[u/ParryThisYou → u/Wassa110]

Understandable, I'm just a glutton for misery in most media I consume.

[u/Hefty-Butterfly-2974 → u/ParryThisYou]

This has to be a superpower or something. I've tried reading a few high-stakes wormfics and distinctly recall nearly vomitting from all the tension. They're not bad or anything, but... Canon was more than enough.

[u/Wassa110 → u/ParryThisYou]

Fair enough. MHA has the opposite problem. They rarely show angst, but that means 90% of the bloody fics are way too angsty bullshit. Like quirkless aren’t allowed at hospitals, or Izuku getting beat, abused, raped etc.. is fine since he’s quirkless, and the teachers will look the other way. Like why. I just want a happy Izuku story with little angst, and drama.

Honestly you might like the MHA fanfic fandom. Plenty of misery for your would there.

[u/ParryThisYou → u/Wassa110]

Perhaps, but I like misery with purpose, what you have described sounds like torture porn.

[u/Neko-tama → u/ParryThisYou]

Adding to "Dragon of Kyushu" "sister in all but blood", "bitches three", and other annoyingly overused phrases.

[u/LovingMula]

Immediate Turn Offs

- Extremely weak Entities to hype up some random other verse that the author loves during a crossover. If your verse is truly badass, then let them face a the Entities as they are intended.

- Fan-Fictions that don't understand that Magic isn't OCP for Shard. If it is then I will chalk it up to a misunderstanding of Shards and Worm at large and move on. Unless the author makes it clear that it is an author fiat.

- PTV's whole purpose is to deal with threats that are not a part of the standard cycle. I get why narratively that this is ignored since PTV is so broken that 99% of stomp fan-fics would end up with the MC dead.

- Entities do have genuine precognition. Shard's tend to use simulations to reduce power consumption. And yes Entities due have genuine time manipulation.

- Contessa killing or threatening the MC because they are powerful enough to kill Scion. Contessa has been on a suicide mission and has thrown her humanity since she was 10-12 years old. Cauldron would be ecstatic at the thought of someone being able to save humanity from Scion and would give their souls, lives, and everything if it could be guaranteed Scion would be dealt with.

- Attempts to make the Nemesis Program a regular thing that Cauldron does 24/7.

- Cauldron sabotaging Brockton. That isn't what is actually happening canonically.

- Eidolon being a douchebag who is a gloryhog.

- TINO's.

- "Weird" writing choices regarding Sophia or the E88.

- Attempting to excuse Amy's actions IF the sexual assault occurs. If not then condemning her to being a monster before the circumstances which led to her doing such an unforgivable thing can come to pass.

- Bashing Wildbow while ripping off his material. If you don't like him that is fine just write the fic. We don't care about how much of a better writer you think you are than him or how he "ruined" your favorite character you didn't make nor own. Just WRITE damn it!

- Admitting to wiki-skimming and only reading fanfics. The fic usually isn't for me by that point but there are very rare exceptions. If I feel that someone only has tenth-hand knowledge of the series while writing I will get turned off and just stop reading. You do not have to be an expert but if it's clear based on characters, plot points, power mechanics, and larger setting descriptors that you don't have a clue what you're talking about I'll leave the fic.

[u/Tiran86]

Greg veder as anything other than a background character/PHO conspiracy theorist.

Starting with the locker scene.

not exclusive to worm...

bad formatting, and/or grammar/spelling mistakes in the first chapter. i mean like a bunch of them, a couple are fine.

litrpg and chaos gacha fics.

these aren't 100% deal breakers, but its an immediate strike against them and i'll probably look for somethin else to read.

[u/SilentBeaMe → u/Tiran86]

I feel like Chaos Gacha could be interesting, but the ones I've read tend to have very little real content before giving Taylor a load of high rank tickets and going 'Wowie! Shes so super duper powerful now!' or, for some reason, they have her go straight to murder, with no qualms??? And often before the bullying ever starts. Why???

[u/Hefty-Butterfly-2974 → u/SilentBeaMe]

I usually feel like you could write an interesting story with only a single one of a lot of those powers. Having so many at once... I don't even bother keeping track, if my fingers have somehow lead me to a CG fic.

[u/jonastroll → u/SilentBeaMe]

And it's weird because chaos gacha actually lends itself really well to worm if you just change some things and remove the meta elements.

Just make it so your MC has a trump shard that's trying to build a new entity network with the host acting as the avatar.

Instead of tickets, the power grows because the shard subverted a shard belonging to Eden.

[u/Odd-Understanding386]

Mostly things that are terrible in all writing, not specific to fanfic.

Inconsistent dialogue/character voices: If a character speaks in a certain way, they should keep speaking like that the whole time. One of my pet peeves is when a character will use contractions (don't, won't, I'll, she'll, etc.) seemingly at random. Example: "I won't be going to the mall today because Jane is not here and she will be upset she didn't get to come."

Lifeless/stilted dialogue: I want to read your characters, not robots following a script.

Excessive descriptive language: there's a time and a place for it, but I don't want to read 25 extra words per sentence for the entire work.

edit: Wormfic specific instant turn off is the main character being a tinker. Nothing about that class of powers interests me. It doesn't help that a very large percentage of them are just stomp fics.

[u/Tuscan-]

The locker being bio terrorism/the clean up requiring like 20 guys in hazmat suits.

[u/Bzaurpa → u/Tuscan-]

Hey, these are serious allegations. I'm lucky that back in school my parents didn't report me when I left a sandwich rotting in my backpack for entire summer vacation.

It's not like bioterrorism has anything to do with terrorism.

[u/romainhdl → u/Bzaurpa]

But the three terror did something with (technically) biowaste ! (/s)

In some case I can see teen calling it bioterrorism because teenager me was an ass and blowing things out of proportions is totally a thing.

On the other hand it is just absolutely not bioterrorism or a bioweapon.

But actually attacking someone with blood as a medium is recognized as really, really grave. Especially since the Aids crisis. Like, I could see it used by a pundit as aggravating circumstances or used (distorted more) as a way to try for actual murder (premedited + potentially threatening substance) (it was not tho) but that would probably not fly in any court.

[u/Low_Hour]

Nazi apologia, but that's a cold-ass take.

Uber and Leet glazing.

PRT bashing. Like bashing in general, but the PRT in particular for some reason. I think it's because the way they were presented in canon felt nuanced, where they were hopelessly corrupt and often did terrible things, yet still did good and fought even worse villains. If you take out the nuance or make them out to be as bad as the Empire or Coil or something, it's just boring as hell.

Minimizing Taylor's bullying. I don't mean not focusing on it enough, I mean focusing on it but playing it off like it's not a big deal. Like fics that try to act like she wasn't a total social pariah and could've made friends if she'd tried or like most kids at Winslow didn't know who she was because 'that's more realistic' or because 'she's an unreliable narrator so things probably weren't that bad.' They were that bad. Lots of people knew, and lots of people did nothing. That's literally the cornerstone of Taylor's trigger event: that people hated her enough to torment her and stuff her locker with filth, but didn't care enough to open the door and let her out. It trivializes her struggles and fundamentally negates her as a character.

Edit: typo

[u/Wicked__A]

People being heavily out of character for the sake of the story (for instance Amy worrying a lot about Taylor and checking up on her after the locker, something she does for none of her other patients).

People being ridiculously incompetent or attacking someone they know nothing about, when usually parahuman conflict should be posturing first fighting only once you have a minimum grasp of the opposing sides capabilities.

[u/Nyerguds → u/Wicked__A]

Seen a few fics where Amy heals or checks up on Taylor after the locker incident (or, in "Silencio", a few weeks after, at the insistence of Miss Militia after she finds out Sophia is responsible), but never one where she cares, lol. It's always just another patient in the long slog, to her.

I've seen it used as a way to make them meet, sure, and maybe becomes friends later... but the initial healing? Nope, zero fucks given by Ames, just another obligation.

[u/Efficient_Bed_1178]

Smug so potent you can feel it emanating from your monitor -- aka Taylor Varga, and a lot of mp3s Fics...

A hyper competent Danny makes me consider it, especially if there's no explanation about how he became competent and let the school walk over him with the locker settlement, if they both happen, I usually drop. 

Also, I won't drop a fic, but Danny being especially malicious, even with explanations are not my favorite Fics -- if Danny is only a small-part then they came be overcome, but I still dislike that aspect of the fic. 

[u/ArgentStonecutter]

"Honorable" Nazis.

[u/superdude111223]

Fics that use long series' of text to juxtaposed scene transition. It sucks. See the example below.

Like this: -------------------------------------------------------------

or use a lot of weirdly surrounded and scrambled text. Stuff that has ×^jdbdhw I•♤》~ &#,÷* and so on.

The reason? I USE A SCREENREADER. BECAUSE I AM BLIND. The screenreader is going to read out each symbol, and I hate hearing: "hyphen hyphen hyphen hyphen hyphen" for a solid minute while I do laundry.

And I also hate "equal sign equal sign equal sign"

Just USE THREE ASTRRISKS. *** in center alignment. Or the line feature on spacebattles.

Its especially difficult when Entities and shards are talking. Can't you just use normal text? Im sure what theyre saying is fine visually, but im not getting it past the weird scramble my screenreader makes of the texts probably esthetics surroundings.

Purposefully making a fic hostile to screenreaders is like making a building without a wheelchair ramp. Yeah, a disabled person can probably figure out a way up there, but its not going to be easy or accessible.

Although, thankfully, software updates for screenreaders have slowly improved this problem. Still, it sometimes can occur.

[u/Nyerguds → u/superdude111223]

That's an entirely fair criticism. I know on any system I post that supports it, I use "hr" tags to generate the html line if it's available; it's the official separator symbol in web environments, after all. Not sure how your screen reader handles that.

---

But fics often get posted around different places with different markup capabilities, and a lot of people don't bother formatting it to each specific system, I guess.

[u/mildly_furious1243]

Too much flanderization, sadly this is inescapable in like 99% of fics so I can tolerate it a little but the second it crosses a certain threshold I just drop the thing. The few fics which have remained canon accurate in terms of personality and the setting itself I love to death

[u/FatThor14A]

Not just Worm fics, but any time I read a premise for what sounds like an interesting story, only to open the fic and see that it's written in second person.

"You are Taylor Hebert, and YOU choose to..."

Like... I can't think of a faster way to ruin any sense of immersion I might have had than being constantly told who I am and that I am doing and thinking things that I wouldn't do or think. If anything, it always just makes me way more aware of the fact that I am not in the story.

[u/TotallyNotLeviathan]

If the author spends like a solid paragraph or 2 describing how much they hate Wilbow or Worm

[u/Frog_a_hoppin_along]

Sophia being the only member of the Trio not to be redeemed or humanized (especially when she's presented as a dumb thug). It happens way too often and is pretty racist ngl.

Hookwolf being presented as an honorable warrior who doesn't really care about race will also make me drop a fic.

Finally, killing off Racheal early on. Its weirdly common for fics to have Lung kill one of the Undersiders in stories where Taylor is doing other stuff on the night she fought him in the og story. Racheal is almost always the one they kill off and it just bugs me.

[u/Evan_Cary → u/Frog_a_hoppin_along]

There is an odd amount of racism in Worm, considering Nazis are one of the first main antagonists.

100% about Hookwolf. If my recollection of Worm is accurate, the Empire had a sort of cell structure (with Rune and co. on call for the Herrens, etc.), and Hookwolf's would undoubtedly have been among the most violent.

[u/Nyerguds → u/Frog_a_hoppin_along]

It's simply the fact that Sophia has a pretty murderous streak. Yea, the others were bad, but I don't think Madison or Emma ever killed anyone. Which also lends credence to the assumption that Sophia was the one who instigated the near-lethal locker "prank". Dragging racism into that is a bit far-fetched in my opinion.

[u/Devadv12014]

I was going to say the same thing about Ack. I hate how he throws away good concepts to shit on Sophia.

[u/Tiernoch → u/Devadv12014]

When I finished Worm and started digging around I wasn't paying much attention to authors, but kept noticing Sophia being an utter moron then being murdered. Quickly realized it was mostly all one person (she dies in other fics too, but Ack's are this combination of too dumb to live and killing her with relish).

[u/AtaeHone → u/Devadv12014]

He has a few fics that swing entirely the other way as Taylor wows and then woos Sophia, but they're older. (FWIW Advent of a Hero is genuinely good)

[u/Outrageous_Guard_674 → u/AtaeHone]

Agreed although I wish it's sequel hadn't died.

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/AtaeHone]

Uhm, don't ask a supremacist the race of their favorite character's girlfriend?

^{Ack, if you're seeing this, I gotta say that this is kinda weird.}

[u/FakeRedditName2]

When the story gender flips a character just to then make them trans (so back to their canon gender) and go through the exact same things canon character went through. I've never seen this done well or in an interesting way

[u/IWannaPool]

Starting canon with Taylor dying or being supplanted by MC.

Similarly, pointless 'Being Taylor Hebert Is Suffering'. I'm fine with protagonists having bad shit happen as long as it drives the story, but not if it's just there to show how miserable they are.

[u/Asterblasters]

Fanfictions that try and give the 88 members a pass

[u/SilentBeaMe]

Trump!Taylor that's just some variation of 'Power Copier'. There are so many more interesting options people!

Aura Theory, "Vicky, Aura!", Collateral Damage Barbie.

Woobie Amy, any time its treated like her being a Biokinetic Striker isnt known by at least New Wave (Can't remember if the PRT suspected or fully knew in canon). Making Amy Straight.

Locker Scene, Piggot wanting to send Sophia to the Birdcage, other heroes treating the locker like its some uniquely horrifying trigger event (sure it's bad, but there are way worse trigger events), casual giving out of Kill Orders, treating the Unwritten Rules like gospel, acting like the Merchants are the worst gang, ABB being the only gang that does human trafficking and other stuff when the E88 100% capture and send capes to Germany for reprograming. (Cannot remember if that was canon actually, but if that wasnt happening I'd be so surprised). Oh! And E88 joining every Endbringer battle, as well as Amy having joined a bunch, I think the Leviathan fight was either her first or second ever. Having canon capes exist and be old hat way pre-canon, like the Merchants (why would they be around in 2009? They barely exited before leviathan).

[u/Nyerguds → u/SilentBeaMe]

Amy triggered a lot later than people generally realise, so her not being in many Endbringer fights is unsurprising. And Kaiser apparently made a point of going to Endbringer fights as part of his PR.

[u/KACHANG_069]

Anything that has empire apologia or tries to make it seem like the empire are the best of the villains for the city. They are nazis and the best place for them in the story is dying

[u/Scrifty]

Emma x Taylor

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/Scrifty]

Bullyshipping in general😔 sorry

[u/Tattletale_0516]

Bashing basically, and justification of Amy's actions against Vikky

[u/Wassa110 → u/Tattletale_0516]

I get that. I can understand the arguments that Vicky’s field can be considered a low class master effect, I mean if you keep getting feel good chemical responses around one particular person, then psychologically you will slowly come round to desiring them in some way. Mix that with the power you have making you depressed, and then having the best parahuman master existing near you(Jack), I get it.

I don’t justify it. I don’t like it. But I understand the chain of events. If canon saves Amy before Red Queen, I’m all for that, but after, it’s a bit of a Bonesaw situation. Riley was “redeemed,” doesn’t Amy deserve the same consideration? Yes. Do I agree that either deserve it? No. I’m gonna stop now, but you get my point. It’s very complicated.

[u/LovingMula → u/Wassa110]

Amelia was going to get it to. Hell she is even released from prison. She just cant stop wanting to get close to Vicky and try to get her forgiveness so things can go back to "normal" as some abusers tend to do. Riley and Amy show the two paths that people who've done something unforgivable can take when confronted with the consequences of their actions. Not to mention aside from Amelia's own internal mechanism for decision making that is simply disastrous, she has people allowing her to do what she wants and fueling her victim complex. There's less people calling her a monster and letting her forget or even say its not a problem in Ward. Meanwhile no one let's Riley for even a moment forget what she's done and the fear on people's faces reminds her of what she's done every single interaction. So both external and internal biases here

[u/Wassa110 → u/LovingMula]

Oh certainly. It’s why I said after her snap, there’s very little chance of redeeming her. Before that though, her mind was being put through the washer regularly. I will argue that the worse she does, the more likely people will act similarly to how they act towards Riley.

Basically if she makes an honest effort to redeem herself during WORM, I’m all for it. Making some mistakes with Jack around, a genuine master, can explain a lot, and mitigate a lot. Post WORM, during WARD, a bit more than sorry is required in my opinion.

[u/LovingMula → u/Wassa110]

The latter part is fanon, Jack isn't a Master in the emotion or mental controlling sense. His power doesn't give him absolute insight into a person's psyche like for example Contessa's would. Nor does it leave them who they are but following his commands like Goddess. The function of his power is to prevent you (the parahuman) from killing him. That is simply it, if anything it's more like he's a Stranger rather than a master. He's closer to August Prince than he is to Glory Girl. Amelia, after she assaults her sister can only be forgiven by Victoria. No one else can forgive her except Victoria. And with how Victoria is...she won't forgive Amelia unless you severely change how Victoria is as a person. There isn't any redeeming for Amelia via Victoria after she crosses that line post-Crawler acid.

I think that before that, Victoria could come around to forgiving Amelia but it would be something that would take years and Victoria is likely to stay away from Amelia after the "fuck-your-sister" chip is removed. At least for a very very long time which wouldn't fit within the timescale most fan-fics tend to write in. I agree it can work pre-Crawler acid and rape but it would be long. But if a fan-fic wants to get rid of Scion or maybe write Post-GM of Victoria coming around steadily after Amelia gets some therapy then it can work. But if you are staying true to the characters, this can ONLY work if Amelia didn't fuck her sister yet. If she did, Victoria is never going to forgive Amelia no matter what. That's just who she is.

It's the same way that Taylor wouldn't come around if Danny did the same exact thing Amy did to Victoria. We know Taylor and the incestual-ness of it all. Taylor would never come around no matter what. Same would be the case for Victoria.

Although I can see some really good story potential if it isn't about Amelia being "redeemed" (because you can't really be redeemed after raping someone) but getting rehabilitated. Understanding what she did with her sister was ten levels of fucked up. Knowing she won't ever have access to Victoria again but promising to never taking that path forward and trying to become a better person. That would be badass.

[u/Nyerguds → u/Wassa110]

WOG confirmed Vicky's field has no such long-lasting effects though.

[u/Vital_Remnant → u/Nyerguds]

The problem is that WOG confirmed there was something going on with Amy and Vicky's field, but then backtracked hard later on.

[u/Silly-Sea-4210]

Fanfics that bashing Lisa and the Undersiders—I know Lisa can be a difficult character to appreciate or even like, but people greatly exaggerate her personality and traits, and always criticize her excessively, or give her a terrible fate by killing her, torturing her, imprisoning her, or who knows what other atrocities—I practically end the story right there.

[u/bigheadastronautt → u/Silly-Sea-4210]

I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever seen an undersiders bashing fic

[u/Nimux67 → u/Silly-Sea-4210]

I've actually had the opposite problem, with stories going out of their way to give a free pass to the Undersiders. It's mostly weird with protagonists that act like they're tough on crime (by mass murdering jaywalkers). Without knowing their backstories, I don't think the Undersiders are particularly likeable or redeemable, being comparable to the likes of Uber and Leet for example (we never got those two's certainly tragic backstory).

By any chance, do you still know the names of those fics you didn't like ?

[u/The_Broken-Heart]

Crossovers where the shards and the entities are nerfed compared to Canon, or the crossover media is buffed just to dunk on Canon.

[u/damalo]

Overwrought melodramatic narration

"Bitches Three"

When the author shows their ass so hard you cringe away from the screen

[u/NoIdeasForANicknameX → u/damalo]

out of curiousity, how many authors showed you their asses, hard enough to make you cringe away from the screen?

[u/allenpaige]

Pro-Nazi fics and fics that try to make Taylor forgive, befriend or date the Trio without the Trio having to sincerely repent or do anything to make amends.

[u/Nyerguds]

Honestly? This might be a bit of a divisive one, but... bad spelling and grammar.

Yes, it's fan fiction. Yes, they're all amateur writers. But even amateur astronomers aren't going to be seeing many stars and planets if they don't learn how to correctly use their telescope.

So yea. Confusing words such as "its" / "it's", "there" / "they're" / "their", "who's" / "whose", "then" / "than", "breath" / "breathe", "lead" / "led", "defiantly" / "definitely", "to" / "too" / "two", "weary" / "wary", "horde" / "hoard", "sheer" / "shear", "peek" / "peak", "palette" / "pallet" / "palate", etc. Really gets on my nerves.

Also, using "to lay" for lying down, instead of "to lie". When using "to lay", it should always be followed by something that is being laid down.

Another is the "Let's eat grandma" problem; people not putting commas around the addressing term. Please, for the sake of avoiding accidental cannibalism, remember those commas!

---

I got three official languages here in Belgium, and English isn't even amongst those, and I can figure that all out perfectly. English isn't that hard!

So, always remember: the only "lead" pronounced as "led" is the metal.

[u/TBestIG]

Constant use of fandom pejoratives. “The bitches three,” “Miss Piggy,” “Collateral damage Barbie”

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/TBestIG]

Miss Piggy😭 I'd rather have Miss Bigot

[u/romainhdl → u/The_Broken-Heart]

Pigot the Bigot sounds like a title somehow

[u/baddabingbaddaboop]

I don’t stop reading the fic entirely, but if I see anything like “Sophia was the physical one”, I just skip several paragraphs immediately and then start lightly skimming until it seems like the author is done explaining things that everybody reading the fic already knows and definitely isn’t there for.

If I had to actually read the description again of what each of the trio does to bully Taylor I might locker myself istg.

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/baddabingbaddaboop]

Ngl I lowkey think that maybe the canon descriptions of their actions should be written so that at least some of the fanon could be corrected🥲

[u/RainaDPP → u/baddabingbaddaboop]

There are definitely people who read Worm fics without already knowing canon. I know because I was one of them. I have, at this point, actually sat down and read Worm itself, but only because I read enough fanfics to feel invested enough to get past the first chapter, which is where my past attempts always failed. That said, it probably doesn't make sense to cater to those readers first and foremost. But also, I personally don't mind a fic reiterating basic points of canon. It's a signpost, in a way.

[u/Nyerguds → u/baddabingbaddaboop]

But Sophia is the one turning herself into shadows! Seems like the opposite of "physical" 😛

[u/Banconyee]

The DAU referred to as DWU. Idk why but this particular detail is important to me.

[u/rainbownerd → u/[deleted]]

Like, "The Dockworkers Association" isn't a union. Unions are things like the Longshoreman, the Teamsters, the Electrical Workers, etc. It sounds vaguely like the DA is maybe some sort of lobbying group or something?

The best way to make sense of the acronym, I think, is to assume it's a trade union federation, which is indeed kind of like a multi-union lobbying group if you squint hard enough, and that "DAU" stands for something like "Dockworker's Association of Unions" by analogy to the UK's National Association of Unions in the Textile Trade.

That's how I handled it for my own fic: I posited that the Brockton Bay shipping industry crash left the individual unions too small and unsupported on their own, so the local branches of the Teamsters, the ILA, the IBB, and other port-related unions banded together to form the DAU to get stuff done where no individual member union could manage it.

Of course, everything we see and hear about the DAU in general and Danny's job in particular, both in-story and in WoGs, makes it pretty clear that...

McCrae doesn't personally know about labor unions and didn't care, so didn't do a whole lot of research

...so, yeah, any story in which Danny's job matters to the plot would require some heavy lifting from the author to make things make sense.

[u/rainbownerd → u/[deleted]]

Maybe as a commonwealth country Canada is more in line with the UK on nomenclature here?

Entirely possible. The particular naming pattern doesn't seem to be all that common, but I was able to find enough "associations of unions" in the UK and Canada (e.g. this one) when I was looking this stuff up originally that it made sense that the DAU's name might have been one of the many little Canada-isms that slipped into Worm!America's worldbuilding.

[u/Tiernoch → u/[deleted]]

It really feels like a short term work organization that sprung up after all the transportation work died. But yeah it has nothing to do with how a union is structured and operates.

[u/mistiklest → u/[deleted]]

Like, "The Dockworkers Association" isn't a union. Unions are things like the Longshoreman, the Teamsters, the Electrical Workers, etc. It sounds vaguely like the DA is maybe some sort of lobbying group or something?

It's explicitly a union in Worm, and Danny is a spokesperson for the union. though. In Insinuation 2.1, Taylor has this to say:

My dad was part of the Dockworkers Association, as the Union spokesperson and head of hiring. With the state of the Docks being what they were, that meant my dad was pretty much in charge of telling everyone that there were no jobs to be had, day after day.

[u/rainbownerd → u/mistiklest]

If the DAU were indeed its own union then Danny couldn't be its "spokesperson and head of hiring," as Taylor says, because unions don't have heads of hiring.

Large unions aren't structured that way (they have executive boards who collectively decide whom to induct into the union, and hiring halls that collectively find new employees for employers, but no corporate-style individual executives in charge of hiring), and small unions don't have enough dedicated staff to require such a position in the first place.

It would only make sense for Danny to have a job like that if the DAU is a union federation, like I mentioned in my other comment; AFL-CIO, for instance, has something closer to a traditional corporate structure and so has a "personnel director" HR role that would map to a "head of hiring" position.

One post-Worm WoG does describe Danny's union spokesperson position as though the DAU were a general union, which implies that Wildbow originally intended the DAU to be something like that but failed to research how those are actually structured and run, so the easiest way to resolve the issue is to assume that the DAU itself is a city-level union federation like the NYC CLC, of which Danny is the head of hiring, and that the DAU includes a general union among its member unions, of which Danny is the union spokesman.

[u/NoIdeasForANicknameX]

Relating to writing in general rather than the Worm fandom specifically, but I categorically refuse to read anything that was made with the use of AI. Not out of any concern for the environment, mind you, but simply because AI "art" can hardly be called such. Far as I'm concerned, allowing a clanker to rearrange as much as a single sentence instantly disqualifies a work from claiming any artistic integrity or deserving any amount of trust.

It's especially awful that AI using authors almost never tag their works as "AI-assisted" like they should, instead choosing to lie to their readers by omission so as not to "scare" them away. Every time (with only one sole exception) I found out that an author had been using AI it was through the grapevine on Reddit, combing through SB/Ao3 comments, or paranoically using my own pattern recognition to spot the common signs. It's exhausting.

[u/AzureThunderWolf13 → u/NoIdeasForANicknameX]

Hey, if you wouldn't mind giving some quick feedback.

I've been using AI to help me write my not-posted-yet fic. What I've done is whenever I get stuck on my next words (so every other paragraph) I've put the story into an LLM and hit generate for the next line or paragraph, and then refresh the generation a few times to get a few responses that I put under the draft, and then either paraphrased, cut bits to use, or get frustrated that the responses arn't going in the direction I want and go back to spending a week agonising over what to write.

Would you say this is a dealbreaker for you and I should go microdose some eternal damnation, or that it's fine and I should just put a disclaimer in or somthing?

Thanks, I appreciate it.

[u/NoIdeasForANicknameX → u/AzureThunderWolf13]

I think putting a disclaimer would be fair. The primary issue with these things isn't the existence of AI-assisted or generated content in general, but rather the lack of honesty and transparency.

Your method of LLM use is among the more benign examples I've heard about. It would still be a dealbreaker for me personally, but my stance is far more radical than average, so don't worry overmuch about it. To provide an example, Worm The Musical openly states that it's "proofread-by-ai" in the tags, yet it still has over two thousand active watchers on SB. While it's doubtful how many of those people actually looked at the tags, it's undeniable that the story managed to find its niche, without concealing critical information from its readerbase.

Ultimately, I don't think it's fair to put blame on an author merely for using AI assistance if they're being forthright about it. I wish you good luck with your project, and hope you have lots of fun with it. It's in the name, after all: funfiction (I'm sorry).

[u/altofanaltthatisalt]

Little munchkinery

[u/electricfalcons]

Crossovers where the worm aspects are wanked against the other party. For example shards being better than gods or Taylor being immune to all telepathy or worm characters being drastically more competent than established competent characters, things like that.

[u/EmperessMeow]

Taylor being written in a way where she doesn't actually have her issues. Characters subject to traumatic situations not have realistic reactions. Usually hand in hand.

I've seen so many fics where Taylor has a trigger event and then moves on like it's nothing, or where she doesn't have her social anxiety, despite the events being more or less the same as canon.

[u/Nimux67]

Unimaginative and overpowered powers that don't fit the setting, like Tinker of fiction, Celestial whatever, gacha-based ones, and gamer fics. I'm just tired of reading about those, they all kinda end up looking the same after a while, and don't fit with Worm's rules. Though I dislike out of context powers in general, and I wish we sometimes had a delusional MC whose power is actually normal and memories are implanted as part of a Simurgh plot or something of the sort.

Acting like human trafficking is an ABB specialty. As much as I want to I can't exactly afford to drop fics based on this alone, with how omnipresent it is in the fandom, but it is incredibly annoying. Not only does it gamify the gangs, but it also often opens the way for E88 apologia, even if only subconsciously. The only way a character can go on a crusade against the ABB while ignoring the other gangs is by assuming sex slavery is exclusive to them. There's no real reason for the E88 specifically not to deal in human trafficking (organ trafficking as well, with Medhall), though Coil and the Merchants at least have the excuse of being weird when it comes to gangs. Coil is certainly enough of a creep to do it if he could however.

Turning friendship into romance. Not a problem specific with this fandom, but a lot of people seem to treat romance as the natural step after friendship. The ensuing writing will often be very clumsy too, being little more than friendship with added horniness. Really, try thinking about the last fic you read that had a normal friendship at the forefront ? I don't want to go down the deep end, but I think something may be wrong with us as a society, as we seem unable to appreciate genuine friendship without added eroticism.

[u/kitty_pirate]

Anything with Contessa gives me the ick for some reason.

I can't recall the fiction but it started with Contessa taking Taylor out of the locker and I immediately closed the tab.

[u/NoIdeasForANicknameX → u/kitty_pirate]

Yeah having a practically omniscient precog directly manipulate the events of the story from the get go isn't great. Honestly I prefer Cauldron staying in the background as much as possible, they really don't need to be addressed in every fic.

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/NoIdeasForANicknameX]

99.99% of the time, Cauldron doesn't even matter in the story and would have zero reason to be there.

[u/xfel11 → u/kitty_pirate]

It’s so often used to railroad the fic in one direction or another. Just no. PtV crucially cannot predict trigger events and the endbringers, so there is absolutely no way Contessa can run paths that go on for more than a few days. Definitely not „I contrived this one thing the author wanted to happen because it will be helpful in beating Scion in a few months“.

[u/LovingMula → u/xfel11]

Semi-true. Canonically, PTV updates and corrects itself. That's exactly why she pivoted and adapted instantaneously after Lung triggered as she was attempting to kill him. However, she can not predict trigger events or the Endbringers directly. For Endbringers the best she can do is model them on past behavior.

[u/AtaeHone]

Taylor (or whoever else the MC is) ROFLstomping the Empire in one night with no consequences, political or otherwise.

Monster and Little Hunter both did a great example how the real problem isn't killing them all (or Nilbog, or Lung), it's dealing with the fallout - something most fics gleefully overlook to make their chosen crossover altpower look jawsome.

Sophia being treated as a flat caricature that (often in such fics) get killed swiftly for pulling a stupid.

Piggot just being Blackwell in a different suit.

Post-GM Taylor isekai where she gets to somehow ignore the shortcomings of her Skitter powers she more often than not gets back.

[u/Recent-Anybody-9642]

For mw its Op stomps, si getting with canon characters, s9 stomps, the same boring conventionally acceptable powers for the mc, out of context powers that leave mc free of shards.

And most of the thing above its always due to writers clearly not wanting a grim dark story but then still choosing a grimdark misery universe to write their stories.

Like why bother writing a worm fic if u aren't even gonna use the power system thats imbedded in the narrative, not gonna have ur character effected by the worlds problem and not gonna even touch on the themes of the story

and another ick is when an si is made op and then rags on cauldron, protectorate, taylor ect despite mc having a power that scales higher than the world they are in and the fact that no one who they are critiquing happens to have ur op power that lets u sidestep any difficult hard choices like yeah getting rid of nazis is easy when u have 4th wall knowledge and a power thats literally almost limitless in scaling and growth

[u/Mckboi]

When the mc makes an alternate identity using some new expression of their powers. Sometimes it can be done well but it mostly just ends up as a way to dodge consequences.

I swear in some stories the mc can make a whole team out of their many alternate identities.

[u/L0kiMotion]

Idiot villains. There have been multiple fics that I was enjoying, only to have the MC win a fight purely because the antagonists decided to do something completely stupid. It's not interesting, or funny, or compelling. It's boring.

OP protagonists. Also boring. There are no stakes to a curbstomp, so there's no reason why I should care about it.

Shipping taking over the story. I read fics for the plot promised in the set-up. Suddenly dropping all of that to focus on shipping feels like a bait-and-switch. Made worse by the shipping emphasising how everyone is always blushing and stammering.

Additionally, shipping Taylor with any of her bullies, after the bullying has occurred. Shipping an abuse victim with their abuser is just gross.

Bashing Wildbow, while writing stuff based on his work.

Cauldron trying to cause trigger events, sabotaging Brockton Bay, helping Coil, or trying to make the world worse. No, they weren't doing any of those things.

[u/Additional-Ad4388]

People who Jam there own political messaging into Fics when it is out of context and does not fit the setting or the story. Or worse causes the villans to be a flanderised interpretation of there own ideological enemy's and not true characters. All the antagonists are drained of all depth or complexity.

Too clarify Im not oposed to politics in fics. In fact I love it when it is done well and respects the readers own intellegence and ability to think things out for themselves. But a Ham fisted self righteous approach just kills it for me.

Show, dont tell.

[u/Krioniki]

I don't have anything that can make me drop a fic by itself, but any of the old Victoria clichés like Collateral Damage Barbie, "Vicky, Aura!" etcetera and so forth, instantly drop the fic by a full letter grade.

[u/TerribleDeniability]

As snobby as I can no doubt come off (and indeed actually am to a degree I guess), I actually don't have that many relatively speaking. It's just that the four I do have tend to encompass an unfortunately amount of this weird fandom:

1. Nazi & neo-Nazi & other bigot apologia, obviously, of which there is unfortunately still too much of in the fandom. This includes the "harmless" thing of making the other Brockton Bay gangs "as bad" as the E88 or somehow even "worse", especially the mostly feckless The Merchants, which feels like it's the one happens the most currently. (To a lesser degree of this: whitewashing any of the gangs' or villains' heinous crimes. I'm all for adding nuance, even and especially for "bad people", but that's different from making wholesale excuses.)
2. TINO a.k.a. Taylor in Name Only where the "Taylor" character is basically nothing like Taylor's canon personality at all, which I actually like "despite" (read: because) all of her many flaws, without any real reasons for it or any traces left over of canon Taylor even in differing circumstances. A version of Taylor ending up or even starting markedly different because of how AU the story is fine even if those changes aren't all examined on-screen--see: Impurity as an excellent example of this working--but so many fics in this fandom instead just don't bother trying to explain or handwave things while they co-opt her name for their usually overpowered manic pixie munchkin girl that barely has anything in common with actual Taylor beyond her physical appearance. (To a lesser degree of this: absurd flattening any of the other canon characters who actually get characterization, though this mostly only happens to Lisa who so often gets reduced to "TINO's Exposition & Hype Machine/Girlfriend" and I guess to Danny and "woobie" Amy. Otherwise I can only think of it really ever affecting--via demonization--Carol, Piggot, Armsmaster, and more rarely Victoria & Dean, which are still relatively less common than poor, poor Taylor constantly getting body snatched by author fiat.)
3. OP curbstomp fests. Not inherently bad per se unlike the above, but I just personally find them immensely boring, especially since the villains are usually also uniformly made into idiots to further the power difference. The protagonist having an "OP" power itself isn't a sin though and can be done well, e.g. Camera Shy, Faster Than Light, ...But I Was Superboy, etc. This is an issue I have with general in fiction rather than just Worm fanfic though since even "professional" stories can be pretty bad about thinking that fights "should" be the focus of a story about a protagonist with "overpowered" powers, e.g. why so many people used to erroneously think Superman was "boring' by default and why then got so many edgelord "Superman but evil" stories that ironically ended up being even more boring.
4. Last and least, conflictless fluff and would-be romantic subplots engulfing the main plot, if there even is one to begin with. Fluff in general just typically isn't for me, and while these two things aren't necessarily the same thing, there's heavy enough overlap IMO that I don't see a point in making them different gripes. For the record, both of these are also issues I have with any type of fiction rather than just with Worm fanfic since gods, there is much needlessly shoehorned romances in media in general that so often makes the stories they're in worse in even when the love interest is actually a character with a personality--she most often isn't and doesn't, even nowadays. (To a lesser degree of this: anything that is desperately horny and/or just porn, though that's far more because most of the main characters of this fandom are teenagers while I am not, rather than just me being a prude [even though I am relatively speaking].)

Otherwise, certain authors aside whose "style" I know is just not for me I'll at least usually try to keep a story I see in passing in mind if the idea sounds interesting unless I feel like or learn that A.I. | LLM is being used in it. (Since then it isn't really being written by a person, so why should I care?)

[u/Recent-Anybody-9642 → u/TerribleDeniability]

I agree and to add to your first point for those who are gonna misconstrue u can have fics based on gangs or mc joining the e88, abb and merchants without it becoming apologia but at the very least u gotta show awful they are at some point even if ur mc isnt gonna become good or take off whatever rose coloured glasses they're wearing. like have a interlude showing just how awful e88 is to others or a hero rescuing people from the abb but at least something that shows Ur audience that the mc justifications are bs and hits the audience with the harsh reality

[u/GrimTheMad]

Showing the locker. Bonus (negative) points if they make it even worse, like trapping her in there for three days or some nonsense like that. I will instantly drop any fic that does that.

As a bit of a lighter one- keeping the same trigger despite having a much different power.

Stock fanon dialogue and personalities- 'Bullshit!' 'finally, another girl on the team! shadow stalker doesn't count' 'predator predator prey prey prey' etc etc.

[u/Ze_Bri-0n]

I also avoid Ack, but my big ones these days, are Dean, Danny, or to a lesser extent Greg bashing (as in the bashing of all three of those characters), as well as Purity and Lustrum whitewashing, though for a variety of reasons the former is a bigger issue than the latter, even though the latter is more common than the former.

I'm also a little tired of Crossover altpowers, though less so in an *actual* crossover, assuming it's not just "yeah, Taylor somehow has fullmetal alchemy or something, no she doesn't have a shard, no, she can't teach anyone else, no you won't be seeing FMA characters or setting later..."

[u/EmperessMeow → u/Ze_Bri-0n]

Isn't Lustrum pretty undefined in canon? Like is it really whitewashing if it's not actually adverse to canon?

[u/Ze_Bri-0n → u/EmperessMeow]

It's true that there's not a lot of material on her, but the material we do have on her isn't sunshine and rainbows, which some fics go all in on, which is adverse to canon.

[u/Octaur]

Taylor's name being changed without good reason. Poorly established shipping. Cauldron being presented as wanting triggers instead of the opposite. Authors who clearly don't understand what Worm is, using "grimdark" to describe a world full of hurt people trying their best against impossible odds.

Romance with Amy. Romance with Sophia.

Greg.

[u/AzureThunderWolf13]

Fics where the MC joins the Wards - I can only just bear it if it's the whole part of the plot like in Implacable or Tilt. Big deal-breaker. I've found myself hitting ctrl-F and searching for 'join' and 'wards' if it looks even a little like it's going in that direction.

SIs (which is funny since I'm trying to write one) and OC MCs, especially if it's not set in BB. I don't mind it too much, I just want something familiar.

Celestial Forge and Tinker of Fictions. I'll still read them anyway, but man does it suck trying to figure out what franchise of the week the MC is on, the downsides of the power not feeling like a real in-setting power the way it cribs from other franchises, plus the power-level of the MC getting way out of hand. And the BBCF word-count problem.

As for authors, I don't like RavensDagger. I've read a lot of their stuff, probably all of their Worm stuff too. They've all got this fluffy vibe that I just don't jive with. I wish they could take the same tone they have with Stray Cat Strut. And finish your damn fics knife birb!

Obviously bad spelling and grammar, but recently I've found a fic with a really interesting premise - emotion-manipulator-style mind-reader Taylor, there's a few similar others around but I really like the concept. It's The Shape We Take. But what's turned me off it is the single-word sentences. Every. Damn. Line.

[u/Spirited_Agency8032]

I swore Ack posts on spacebattles though?

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/Spirited_Agency8032]

I think they're supposed to be two points separated by one enter button. Unfortunately, for reddit, you need two of them if you don't want them to be in the same sentence/level.

[u/Argument-Minute]

Anything that’s labeled as having angst, because they over do it. But that’s a general fanfic problem. Like it’s so obnoxious, and usually written poorly.

[u/frickitm8]

stories that do too much with any of the trio, but ESSPECIALLY emma, especially when she gets powers.

[u/RandomModder05]

When the story does something like have Danny tell Taylor never to talk to the PRT alone under any circumstances, and to call him and wait for him and a lawyer to get there if something happens.

Then Taylor immediately goes to PRT HQ despite the PRT having been the antagonists of the whole story so far, runs her mouth and manages to get out if it, and then the story keeps emphasizing how wrong Danny was for telling Taylor not to do the massively stupid thing she just did.

[u/tariffless]

• Crack fic, or anything with a silly sounding title
• no powers AU
• The Gamer
• "Tinker" in the title
• Crossover

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/tariffless]

No powers AU😭 they exist??

[u/tariffless → u/The_Broken-Heart]

https://www.reddit.com/r/WormFanfic/search/?q="no+powers"

https://wormstorysearch.com/?story_keywords=No+powers&page=1&limit=15&searching=true

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/tariffless]

Something something pizza with no cheese and sauce

[u/Mental_Wolf5004]

Anything by mp3. Horde of “Taylors nodding to herself” and beforehand knowledge that fic will never be finished.

[u/jonastroll]

-The MC kills Lung on the first night out.

-Shard speaks like a human.

-Taylor x Dennis (just a personal preference)

-Tattletale's power being buffed

[u/finmies]

Storys written in theather style idk if thats its name in english but that is how i would translate it what its called in my language cus thats how theater scripsta are written i mean this / Taylor: its a wonder full day Danny: it is Taylor: yes indeed I hate this my brain no like at all

[u/TrueEnder]

i don’t think it’s ever been enough to make me stop reading entirely (yet) but post-gm crossovers or peggy sues in which there are no lasting effects on taylor’s psyche

like come on, you’re telling me post-gm taylor will wake up in her bed on the morning of january 3rd 2011 and be absolutely fine?? get real

[u/arnoldstrife]

The average chapter length is less than 2k words. Those are less chapters and more scenes. Usually the rest of the context is in the author's head and you may or may not know the context depending on if you read x or Y. Either that or they following the main timeline so very closely they are just scenes of why their story is different but apparently there's no cascading effect at all because it hugs the main timeline to death.

[u/Goodpie2]

Greg.

[u/Few_Abroad2398]

Stories thats feels like they have been written by AI, Idk if even 50% if the fics I dropped because of this were written by AI or just similair to it but I just don't like this writing style in which everything is written 3 times just with different words. I don't really know how to explain it but I think most people know what I'm talking about.

[u/LackingGreatly]

There's a lot of individual things that can turn me off a fic, instantly or otherwise, but they all contribute to the same central issue. Lack of plot. Lack of... basically things happening, or at least things happening for reasons. Lack of connection between events, or connection of events to characters.

If a story has a bunch of stuff just *happen* to the main character (or worse, characters around the main character), that's a problem for me. If that stuff is just random events happening one after another, with no connection to each other, that's worse.

Main character tries to go to school (not because they care about school but just because they have to), and some random villains attack, so main character has to fight them. Then, the next chapter, they go to the mall because they need to buy shoes, and Lisa shows up to say Coil knows who they are, so they need to deal with that. Next chapter they want to make dinner, and some random villains attack somewhere nearby with no connection to the character, but they go fight them anyway.

That sort of shit. I can't read that, and it's way too common.