It's just as the topic says, what are the things in a story that completely kill your enjoyment of it?

For me, the list is relatively short:

The author starts overtly bombarding the reader with propaganda or their beliefs and morals.
Magic being ridiculously wanked out.
Ponification
"Humans are Bastards" pontificating by the ponies or the author.
Purity Sue ponies.

One solid paragraph
Overly forced dialogue
Misuse or lack of commas
Cupcakes

Hm.

Probably, first off, an idea that's amazing can be ruined by formmatting.
like when one paragraph is here
and the next is LIKE THIS

OR! Bad dialogue. Your dialogue is the creamy twinkie filling. For god's sake, write me some good dialogue, or I'll not be in love with your idea for long out of frustration!

Magic that is inconsistent. If your Twilight is at level 20, don't suddenly have her beef up for five minutes and then go back to normal just to write yourself out of a corner.

Bad casting choices can turn me off of a story I'm following (like Cadence as a changeling queen).
Stories that have close friends threatening to kill each other over a potential love interest is another.

The description. I can get a very good feeling about the quality of a fic before I even open the first chapter. If the description is error-laden nonsense extolling the accomplishments of their OC, I know I won't enjoy it.

Also, killing main characters. Well, specifically, for no good reason. Offing Twilight in the first sentence to set up an edgy atmosphere just eats away at me. I suppose it can be done right but... I've yet to see it.

Bad grammar.

Misuse of common objects in english (semicolon and apostrophe).
Bad writing.
Rushing through a story to the point of it making no sense.
No backstory.
Adding real religion.
No conflict.
Poor sentence structure.
Lack of using anything but the word "Said"
misuse of character.

Authors notes and a crappy description.

When a story had bucketloads of grammar errors. Sure, everyone can make a typoes; humans are still humans. However, when a story contains mountains upon mountains of grammar and spelling errors, it only shows that the author did not take the time to read over his/her own story (or at least have a pre-reader look over it).

I also do not enjoy giant walls of text.

certain ways that shippings are represented drive me up the wall

most of the same things as you, also

poor character portratrayl

most human in Equestria fics

too little detail.

too MUCH detail (clop)

Poor grammar, OOC writing, same old plot that is polluting a tag/genre, and too linear/obvious of plot.

Tense switches. I don't care if your story is about time travel, tense switches in a single sentence are not forgivable.

That, and being unable to use the right word, such as their, there, and they're.

Comma splices I can forgive, but having too few commas makes everything feel rushed.

Certain types of shipping
Whiny protagonists
Dues ex Machina
Lazy writing
Authors going nuts with the gore tag
Authors who cannot set up a horror atmosphere
Over predictability
Characters from the show breaking character

One other thing I can't stand is a wall of text.

Improper word choice or slightly bad grammar, I just mentally fix them and continue reading.

Pony hagiographies/Purity Sues. My thought is that if you're a sapient species, you have assholes living amongst you, even if they don't speak for your species as a whole. For ponies to "never, ever, ever do no wrong" disgusts me as a writer.

A close second is the Great Wall of China Text - surely, somewhere in there you could hit the ENTER key once or twice? It's not hard.

Emptiness of substance.

769071, tell me about it. Why are authors so intent on making ponies a perfect race that can do no wrong!? It's against what the show depicts!

Porn, or whatever foolish term is no doubt used in its place. Particularly in the case of overtly graphic examples. Especially involving youngsters. I have a very slim margin for adult stories, 'Three Wishes' being at about that point.

Beyond that, the typical: nosebleed-inducing walls of text, authors who seem to believe capitalization and paragraphs to be charming theories, authors who admit a story is their first in the hopes that they'll be shown pity when they prove it...

769086

No kidding. My favorite example of this was a fic (won't menion the author or the fic to spare him/her the embarrassment) that had time-travelling Twilight and mentioned the food fight in Appaloosa "yet ponies were shocked by war." Really? The author has:
1. Future Twilight, who past Twilight asks if she came from an "epic pony war"
2. Mention of the pie fight in Appaloosa, which was a metaphor for a Western-style shootout and in any case, it's still a food fight
3. Celestia's guards in the fic - guards being there to employ violence against the rampaging ursa in Appaloosa.
It's clear that ponies know what war and violence is, and yet they're somehow squeaky cleaner a soap factory? The hell?

Lazy premises, in particular:
Human in Equestria/Pony on Earth
(character) is actually a changeling
Mary Sue OC joins Mane 6
Alternate endings for popular fics
Any form of crossover fic

While these types of stories aren't necessarily bad by default, they're so unoriginal and easy to write that everyone takes a shot at them, and so the majority of them are badly written schlock.

To many damn OC's or background ponies. I want established characters with my fiction, thank you kindly.

I can deal with any cliche, but if the grammar is continuously atrocious and the speech is persistently overdone and unnatural I have to stop. Another way to drive me off an otherwise great story is to 'tell' the story rather than 'show'. An example of my latter point is 'Blackbird', the newest story by artistically inspired.

Torture porn. I've never understood the appeal of watching/reading about innocent people dying in horrible ways, and that goes double for pony fanfic. No. Just no.

Also, too many spelling/grammar/punctuation issues. A few are okay, but there's a point where the mistakes distract from the story, and that's the point where I tune out. Get a pre-reader if you're not willing or able to do it yourself.

Breaking the canon for canon characters without good justification or build-up (portraying Dash as having no confidence, Rarity as disorganized and thoughtless, etc.)

Mary Sues and Gary Stu's - HiE fics are rife with these, as are many stories featuring OCs

Too many instances of fanservice or cliches (characters who talk in catch-phrases, unnecessary/shoehorned-in examples of popular fanon - Pinkie automatically reverts to Pinkamina when upset at anything, having Dr. Whooves and Derpy appear for no reason in a story about other characters, etc.).

Cartoon physics and descriptions in the story (characters' eyes literally twinkling, birds flying around someone's head, etc.). Some of that stuff is canon - for example, Pinkie does weird stuff with her body - but using it with every character is too much. Many of those things happen in the show as a tool for animators to emphasize certain emotions or set the mood for a scene - and often that stuff comes off as too cheesy or bizarre in writing, without conveying the proper mood.

Lack of meaningful conflict, too much navel-gazing (i.e., look how cute these characters are and how wonderful Equestria is for X thousands of words)

769173

When it comes to Crossovers I find myself annoyed by stories that are basically just retellings of either fiction with character swaps.

But crossovers like Deus Ex: Equine Revolution, Hoennshy, and Fallout Equestria Heroes are truly amazing. Those are my favorite types of crossover.

769086 769122

That really rubs me the wrong way.

Because Luna the the best, in my opinion, I will be having the Night Guard act as the first response team in dangerous combat scenario's in my fic while the Royal Guard take a back seat. Effectively addressing the innocent ponies things in one felled swoop. (TL;DR - No pony knows much about fighting and war because the Night Guard handle it before it becomes an issue, essentially causing the entire concept to fall to the way side and be forgotten.)

Bad grammar and spelling REALLY annoy me. I mean, when a story has frequent enough grammatical/spelling errors, it can become nigh-unreadable. I understand that writing is difficult, but the basics of the English language just aren't.

When grammar and spelling errors overwhelm the quality of the rest of the story. A few little errors are forgivable, even the best writers can typo, and it's easy to think faster than you're typing and start on the wrong word. Sometimes it can even be amusing. After a certain point, though, it starts to get distracting. Then it gets annoying. Then it gets painful. Then it doesn't get read any more.

Formating is an issue, too. I am completely indifferent as to whether you distinguish the separation between paragraphs through indentations or an extra line, but do something. And it rather goes without saying that yes, you need to use paragraphs. The worst issue here, however, is having multiple speakers in the same paragraph. Don't do that. That makes your story harder to read, and the harder it is to read, the less likely I'm going to feel your story is worth that effort.

Excessive references in a non-Random story. Now, I love subtle references. I even try to work some into my own story, usually as faint allusions to moments or lines in the show. And you know what? The show does this, too. But they're subtle. They're things that work fine in context, even if you miss the reference. If you didn't know what it was referencing, you wouldn't even know it was a reference. Loading up the story with blunt references (Dash repeatedly insisting things are "20% cooler," etc) gets annoying fairly quickly. Referencing internet memes does so even quicker. These are things that are witty once (Usually), but so many people have used them that including them in your story is not witty any more. If you're still going to use them, at least make sure that they work in context and don't disrupt the flow of the story. Make sure they actually fit the moment, and maybe even make creative use of it. I've seen people put a new spin on tired old memes and make them hilarious, but it takes more than just throwing them into the middle of a conversation.

Pacing. Too slow, and it gets boring as nothing happens. Too fast, and you don't have enough detail to make things interesting. And for goodness sake, make sure that what you're showing is actually deserving of the screen time it's getting. If you're spending just as much time describing the wandering through ancient forests filled with long descriptions of scenery as you are the giant, climactic battle your story is actually about, you're doing something wrong.

Philosophical horseapples. Now, I don't mean that dealing with personal issues is a bad thing. What I mean is, spending the entire story dealing with some philosophical matter that bears little relation to... well, anything, and yet is rapidly taken up and followed by other characters who really shouldn't be. I've seen promising stories end up ruined because they touted some philosophical issue, and had ponies latch onto it as if the author expected it to be some universally-accepted truth. It's even worse when that philosophical "debate" then crowds out any other conflict in the story. I think the worst was in what was at first a promising story with Chrysalis and Luna as main characters, which could have been great, but got weighed down by philosophical matters that largely strangled out the conflict. And then at the end, it just got nonsensical. Chrysalis launched a doomed attack against Celestia, apparently knowing that she would fail. Why? Because she was afraid that nopony would remember her, and this would make sure that they did. What's worse, Luna then defended that position to Celestia, approving of Chrysalis's motivations. That it's better to be remembered as a villain, rather than to be forgotten. Luna. The pony who's primary problems lately have been that ponies remember her as a villain. Ugh.

Which leads into: OOC characters. Yep. Not much to say on that.

Mary Sue OCs are a big one. And I mean actual Mary Sue characters. Being competent doesn't make you a Mary Sue. Having a black coat and red mane, or even being an alicorn, doesn't necessarily make you a Mary Sue (Though you better have a really good reason for that last one). But when you're highly competent to the point of beating out some of the main cast, immediately loved by most, when those who don't like you are obviously wrong and/or suffer for it, and you automatically succeed at everything you do (And any failures that do happen are completely meaningless), then you might just be a Mary Sue.

And for the final piece, one that's more specific to me: Stories that change Equestria without good explanation. I like Equestria. It's a cheery and optimistic place, but not blindly or dumbly so. I greatly prefer stories that are true to that world.

My favorite MLP fan fiction is Fallout: Equestria.

...That's actually not as hypocritical as it looks at first glance, however. I almost didn't read it, because of how off from the show it was. When I first started, I felt uncomfortable with some of the portrayals of the show's cast. But you know what? The further I got in, the more it worked. As the story went on, I saw more and more of how the world changed. It showed the progression from the world of the show to the world that we see when the stable door opens. It was well thought-out. The characters I had originally been so worried about actually had a clear, long arc, showing how the world changed, how they changed in some ways, yet still stayed true (eventually) to themselves. Hell, it's got one of the best portrayals of Rarity I've seen (Actually, I think it does a better job of Rarity than the show usually does!). And perhaps more importantly, despite all the gore and nastiness, it managed to bring out the same sense of optimism by the end. Friendship won the day.

Outside MLP, I am a very happy proponent of the "darker and grittier" trend, not for the aesthetics, but because that method of thinking usually results in a more intelligent look at the settings they're looking at. Normally I avoid bright, cheery, optimistic worlds because they take simplistic views of its own world. MLP manages to be a bright, cheery, optimistic world, but it does it more intelligently. Ponies aren't friendly and optimistic because they live in a utopic world without any real danger. They're friendly and optimistic because the world is a dangerous place, and they work together to stay safe. The world nearly ends at least once a year, disasters happen frequently, and just about anything that can go wrong does go wrong, but they band together and overcome.

To take that world, and suddenly make it a cruel, dark impostor, with no explanation for the change... Eh, no. But at least in that case, it's obvious from the start. What I really hate is when the story starts with what appears to be the same world as the show, but then halfway in, throws in some major break. Since I read a lot of changeling stories, a good example would be the sudden appearance of wide-spread and violent racism. It's one thing to be distrusting in a changeling, even if the bearers of the Elements of Harmony and Celestia herself spoke for him. It's rather another to have multiple murder attempts in broad daylight while the entire town watches on and laughs at the bleeding, dying changeling. It gets even more bizarre when Zecora is casually accepted. If the story were really following through on the theme (Rather than being just a shallowly thought-out point of conflict for the main character), you'd expect some mention of how "we done did strung up dat stripey" or some such.

A story that actually shows some form of descent from the current-day Equestria into the troubled situation there, that might work. But to just throw in a change like that out of the blue, it just comes across as a ill-conceived, heavy-handed attempt at throwing in conflict, without putting in the effort to treat it properly. Too many bad stories just change some element of Equestria just to add some conflict (Or worse, to make the Mary Sue main character look better), but they do it so poorly...

Oh, and Tyrantlestia rather goes with all that, too. That's rather high on the list of things that will make me wary of a story just from the description.

(Why can't I write this much this fast when I'm working on my stories? )

769237

I have two issues with the crossover genre. Firstly, they tend to require that the reader has some knowledge of whatever setting/franchise/what-have-you that is being crossed, so it's inaccessible to anyone that doesn't know about or like that setting.

Second, I even avoid crossover fics dealing with settings I dearly love, because the whole thing just strikes me as lazy. It basically boils down to "Hey, I like (insert franchise), and I like ponies...let's mash them together and see what happens!"

Again, this isn't to say that crossover fics are necessarily bad, and I'm sure there's some great ones out there. But on the whole, the idea just turns me off.

Any sort of clop for the sake of clop.

Bad grammar if it really detracts from the story.

Mary Sues.

Rushed story and or ridiclous OOC moments from any of the mane six.

Using a ship that's been done several times without breathing new life into it.

HiE if the human is too perfect.

Making jokes that are rude or offensive or even just really bad.

Pointless gore.

Killing or writting off characters for no reason.

Foalcon.

Same gender shipping between any characters that are the CMC's age.

Making everyone an alicorn or really powerful just because you can.

I absolutely hate when a story takes an abrupt u-turn and turns so mean-spirited and cold just for the sake of causing its protagonist abject misery, especially if their like able or have nothing to suggest that they deserve something like that. I also can't stand integration of politics, religion, or just the authors own xenophobic bullshit or a character to act as a mouthpiece for the aforementioned. Personally, I'm not too big on gore, but that's just my personal turn-off, especially of it comes out of nowhere or forces itself into the sex/rape (Sweet Apple Massacre anypony?)

Bad grammar or spelling. Walls of text. When they write a characters name immediately after a dialog quote, and theyre not the one who was talking. When magic is OP, like when Rarity can teleport or Twilight can nuke Ponyville with magic. When a known character dies unceremoniously. When ponies eat meat, outside of it just being a couple extremely abnormal ponies. Especially when pegasi are said to eat fish. When a writer consistently uses the word hand, except where hand-having creatures are involved, and especially in a pony's dialog.

Oh and shitty writing in general. Its one thing when you can tell the writer doesnt know what theyre doing, its another when theyre purposefully writing bad.

The author starts overtly bombarding the reader with propaganda or their beliefs and morals.

THIS above all.Especially when it comes out of nowhere, one author, in the middle of an excellent story wrote an entire chapter in which an OC we had never met until this chapter( an economic adviser to Celestia) decided to do nothing but spend the entire chapter talking about the joys of the Austrian School of Economics and how evil and horrible any kind of central planning was. Note that the actual plot of the story came to a screeching halt and was in no way advanced in the chapter. That is the only time i have gone off on an author in the comments. My tirade must have worked because even though that particular chapter is still up he has written several more chapters of the story since then and kept any and all political opinions far from his story ever since.

Also of course when a story is a HIE story which is clearly a self insert in which he goes to Equestria and has sex with his favorite pony. But you tend to spot these halfway through the first chapter so you are given fair warning to abandon ship

769237

I'm not talking about the kind of fic you're writing, because in your case there's an active reason for ponies at large to be unaware of the greater horrors of life. What Velkaden and I are referring to are those fics where they are that way for no reason whatsoever.

(This sort of thing in a war fic)

Pony: "What are humans like?"

Human: (Something speech that essentially says 'We're a mixed bag.')

A couple of scenes later, the antagonist race (griffons, changelings, zebras etc.) shows up.

Both: They're all a bunch of evil pricks. Not a single good soul in their entire species.

Shoddy writing and characterization.
an AU might excuse some of the Characterization, provided it makes sense.

Gore/Dark for the sake of being gorey and "edgy".

over use of certain ships.
I can't read anything with VinylTavia, because I'm sick of it.

Shipfics in general are also a huge turnoff for me. I'm not sure why, because I'm not opposed to shipping or anything. But for some reason, whenever I see the [Romance] tag, some part of my brain just goes "Nope."

That said, I have read at least one really great fic that used romance as a major plot point, and others where it's touched on but not a central part of the story. I'm not really sure why I have this hangup over it, to be honest.

769048

too linear/obvious of plot.

I take it you're no fan of one-shots then?

769184 What if you had just spent the last three chapters reading about the horrible things that character did? Read Flutterwhy4's "Breaking Rarity" and tell me you wouldn't like to see some of those characters be tortured.

-Mary Sues
-Characters suddenly knowing implausible things or making unreasonable conclusions on what they know
-Deus ex machina
-Songs without in-universe motivation. You know what I'm talking about.
-Purple prose

Clop
Lesbian Shipping (No, I am not kidding).
Really bad grammar.
Vagueness in description for the sake of creating "an air of mystery". (This only happened once, but it was kinda a big deal).

Handwaving mary sue-ing. I.E. there was this story I used to follow, but stopped. There was some decent character development, though a bit unbalanced for lack of a better word. Was interesting enough to keep me reading though. Then through a deux ex machina and "SUDDENLY A DRACONEQUUS!" everyone suddenly gained superpowers for no readily apparent reason. Same chapter also mary sued the backstory of the world as well.
In short, When the narrative loses coherence, I lose interest.

769253

(Why can't I write this much this fast when I'm working on my stories?)

Heh. I definitely know that feeling.

My biggest problems are:

-Lavender Unicorn Syndrome and other excessive description. We already know what the main characters look like, and there's no reason to remind us that Twilight is purple in the middle of a conversation.
-Emotional blackmail, which is a term that I stole from somewhere referring to excessively sad stories. Particularly those involving Scootaloo, which is part of why I wrote this. There's nothing wrong with having a sad story, but if you just pile it on that she's an orphan and homeless and has abusive parents and nobody loves her... I stop caring, because it's just ridiculous.
-Applejack having an incomprehensible accent. The worst is when she says "Ah" instead of "I." It slows me down, takes me away from the story, and it's obnoxious. If you try to get her mannerisms down, use country language and an "ain't" here and there, that'll work. There's no need to misspell every single word because she's kinda got an accent.
-The Mane Six treated as "The Mane Six." Just a big group that always goes around together, doing the same things, with generally the same ideas and opinions. The best example of this would be HiE stories where all six of the main characters show up to welcome the human to Equestria or whatever. It's kind of hard to explain, but I'd rather focus on them individually. You end up with things like, "Rainbow Dash will say this line, because she hasn't said anything in a while, and Pinkie will make this awkwardly forced joke because she's there." Usually, unless they're using the Elements of Harmony or on a special mission, they aren't all together. And never, ever use the term "Mane Six" in your story. You might as well call them The Protagonists.

I'd come up with more, but it's Friday night and I need to meet some people to watch He-Man, so I'll end it there.

769841

Oh man, "Mane Six." Yeah, I forgot about that. It works fine when talking about a story, but it's really bad when it's in the story. I'd include other words used commonly in the fandom, but that seem out of place in the setting. "Plot" as a euphemism for butt can work in a silly comedy piece, sometimes, but in other cases it just seems jarring and immature. Same for "buck" as a curse, which leads to all sorts of strange innuendos ( "Hey AJ? How do you get apples out of a tree?" ). But at least those ones are fairly minor, the kind of thing that seems a bit weak, but I can usually overlook. Seeing "Mane Six" used in a story is just bad.

Hypocrisy.

Basically anything that sets off the quote in my profile.

I can walk away from anything with craft problems but if there's a bad moral core it just sticks to my tongue for days.

If I had a peeve I guess it would be shipping as written by people who don't understand how relationships work, or anti-shipping also written by people who don't understand how relationships work.

769282
I do almost all of these, why are you following me?

770456 You do turn out some good quality fics. Most of what doesn't intrest I don't read. The way I see it if after reading the summary I don't see anything that makes me want to read the whole thing I just move on. I try not to thumb down stories just because I dislike their content. If I hear really good things about certain stories I sometimes give them a shot.

1 The typical Mary sue op stuff from noobs.
2. Fail-safes thrown in half way through a story.
3. Mopey characters. (especially suicidal humans)
4. Annoying jokes and memes. (LEEEEROOOOOOOOOOY Please shut the fuck up. You weren't funny. EVER.)
5. Any clop fic with Spike growing up and hooking up with any of the mane 6. (Don't dragons have crazy long life spans?)

769342

I was just saying that I dislike that as well, and because I dislike it, I justified it in my writing.

Well I don't like... Wait, *reads every else's posts, realizes these are all elements of my story, facepalms* dammit... (That was my little bit of shameless self-promotion(/demotion) that everyone's all ways talking about) Well anyways, my three biggest pet peeves are:
1) Horrible grammar - to the point where reading is difficult
2) Awkward writing/plot/situation - sometimes its almost like a writer doesn't realize that the whole scene is just off... (I probably do that a lot)
3) Anything that's Super OOC - and I mean, super, super, OOC, like Fluttershy killing people for no reason (even though that's more ooc than what would annoy me)

770827

Ah. Well, Nvm then.