OK, first things first,

I'm a chick with an obsession with Japan, anime, manga, art, writing, video games, books, and my own daydreams.

As you can see, I spend a lot of time in front of some type of screen or paper, and probably suffer from multiple psychological issues because of that. See the tick? *eye twitches* Yes, that. Along with my need to sit cross-legged no matter what I'm doing. Hmmm... anyone here a psychiatrist? ehehe... -_-;

All of my authors notes and general ramblings and musings can be found on my blog at http:///

Feel free to harass me on my blog if you feel the need to, I need the entertainment. :)

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It might not seem like it, if you were have an opinion of it based on my favorites list, but I do read a lot of fanfiction on this site. Far too much, really, as I've spent countless hours here, yet I know how many published, paper-and-print, books I've read simply by looking at my bookshelf and my checkout history at the local library.

With all of that reading, however, comes many, many, many pet-peeves that really make-or-break a fic and dictate whether or not I will bother to read it. I could write a fic about how not to write a fic... at this point in time, though, I'll stick with a list, a list that will doubtlessly continue to grow, but stands now as thus:

#01: Unwarranted Slash/Yaoi/Yuri/Shounen-ai/etc - As you wail at me for being a homophobe - note the word 'uanwarranted' and shut-up; because I'm far from it. My problem with the aforementioned type of fic is the that most fics that fall into this category are either: badly written, badly characterized, badly thought-out, have no plot, unfounded, unwarranted, shag-fics, completely disjointed, or all of the above. I'm talking about fics where the writer takes it upon themselves to force characters into being of a particular sexuality for no reason but to sate some personal desire to write two characters screwing each other. Pairings for example: Harry/Snape of Harry Potter. L/Light of Death Note. Goku/Vegeta of Dragon Ball. And, my most hated pairing of all, Ed/Roy of Fullmetal Alchemist. None of the characters I've mentioned here have ever displayed any kind of non-platonic emotion for the other, yet they're some of the most popular pairings in any of the fandoms they come from. If there is a build-up to the change in the mentioned characters' relationships, then I don't mind quite as much (though it'll still take a lot to get me to read) but for every one of these good little stories, there's a thousand more that fall into the opposite side of the spectrum.

It also bugs me that nine out of ten of these slash fics are written by little girls... which baffles me. Wheres the attraction?

Gender-benders I don't mind so much, as long as, once again, it's a justified alteration to the plot. Such as Ed being gender-reassigned during a human transmutation, for example, so a character simply being born of an alternate gender to begin with.

#02: EPIC Author's Notes - When I set out to find myself a fic to read, often I use the search function. This includes the word-count function. It drives me batshit insane to find a half-decent sound fic with a, say, 10,000 word count, only to find that half of that number is made-up of ANs at the start of each chapter that are longer than the chapter its self, most of which are usually random, rambling walls of text that comprised of the writer talking to his/herself, nattering about some crap happening in their life that has absolutely nothing to do with the fic, or having half-conversations with characters from the fic usually in bolded italics or CAPITALS WITH * AT EACH END OF EACH SENTENCE *

It's both unnecessary and unpleasant. This is what blogs are for, so GO GET ONE, like I did. :)

If, however, the AN is concise and to-the-point, it's forgivable.

#03: Usuless Fic Summaries - Author's who manage to write absolutely everything but anything about the plot of the fic. It's a giftfic! (I don't care). It's slashfic! (Okay, about who?). It's a songfic! (They're not supposed to be here. Bugger off). It has characters A B C and D! (And their relation is...?). I suck at summaries (No shit? lol).

Anything is better than nothing.

#04: M-PregOH, GOD NO! Can't unread! Can't un-imagine! There's something intrinsically wrong with you! Excuse me while I try to pour bleach on my brain through my freaking left ear to get rid of this ghastly crap.

#05: OOC-ness - I understand very well that keeping characters in-character can be difficult, but this where the ability self-criticize comes in handy. Read your own fic before you subject others to it. Is this what this character would do in this situation? No? Then rewrite it. I don't care how much time you spent writing it. Do it again. And again. And again. Until you get it right. And if, even after all of that, you still get a bad review, then fet ready to do the whole thing all over again, and don't bite off said reviewer's head! Which leads me to...

#06: Review-replies (good and bad) - Sometimes getting a reply for writing a review is pleasant, I quite like getting a "thanks!" every once and again. Other times, getting a 2000 word reply about the fic and things I didn't ask to know is just annoying... even more annoying is getting a waspish little backhand of a reply. Really, if someone bothers write a review to point out a mistake, or something that didn't make sense, or even just a typo, biting their heads of is childish and you should have a nice and long think about why you're writing in the first place. Criticism comes with the territory. Can't hack it? Suck it up, learn to write more professionally so you dont' get 'bad' reviews, or get off.

Also, if you have to write back every review, don't write them at the start of the next chapter you post! This goes hand-in-hand my peeve #02.

#07: Begging for reviews - Don't. It makes you look pathetic. Making an amusing suggestion here and there isn't so bad, but outright begging is sad. Insulting your readers because they're not reviewing isn't right either. Maybe they don't want to/can't be bothered/ can't think of anything to say/don't want to hurt your feelings/etc... begging doesn't change anything. Which leads me to

#08: Holding fics to ransom - Review or I won't post the next chapter! I see this or variants of it all the time, such as asking for a particular number of reviews. Stop it. We all know you're going to update eventually, regardless of your review count-per-chapter ratio.

There's more to come, but this is all I can think of now. And, this is all to be taken with a grain of salt (or a bucket) and an 'if the shoe fits' mentality. ;)

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