I give constructive criticism and state which parts of the Content Guidelines that your story breaks, if any.
I never review any fanfic anonymously. I always log in when giving them.
If you are an author that notices your story is on the Reportable offense! community, don't be afraid to PM me as to why I put it there. If I find that the story is in the community and that it's not my contribution, then finallyexploded is the one who did it. I will only remove that story on the community if the story is indeed fixed and complaint within the Content Guidelines.
The list will expand over time when it comes to story types that will cause me to put it on the Reportable offense! community and report it without the need to PM or review them:
- Non-stories that give out a help plea by the author trying to find a specific story. These stories are nothing a big waste of space. Please make a forum, use a forum, or use a search engine like Google to find your story.
- Non-story contest announcements. Please take advantage of the new “Contests” forum type classification introduced to help communities gather and create awards/contests for their favorite genres. By putting the contest as a non-story, you're making this new feature introduced by the admins go to waste.
- Second person/you based stories or reader inserts. Sometimes, the reader would feel traumatized when the story puts them in it. I feel that stories like that show a sign of laziness when authors put things like "(name)" or "(h/c)". Can't you use another character from the fandom or an original character instead of putting the reader in the story? Read post #11 of Critics United's "FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Cornucopia" thread if you want to know why those stories aren't allowed here.
- MSTs or its commentary equivalents. I'm quite sure that the admins added the rule against MSTs because they don't want complaints from the original authors that had their work ruined by other authors with those stories. There's no creativity with copying a story from another author and adding your comments to it. It's generally not funny and that it's offensive to the original author. There are better sites for MSTs out there like deviantART.
As for stories with copyrighted song lyrics, I advise you to read the links below as to why this site forbids them:
https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/146991/132799919/1/Got-A-Question-Concerning-Songfics-Read-This
All lemons that I see made in 2014 and beyond will now be put on the new Reportable Lemons community. Any lemon found in Reportable offense! will be eventually moved to that community. Don't be afraid to give me a PM if you want to know why it's on there. Please minimize the detailed descriptions of physical interaction of sexual or violent nature if you want it to be on this site. Stories that contain them are forbidden because advertisers don't want to advertise their products on a website that allows them. Another choice is to delete the story from this site and upload it to another like WattPad, Archive Of Our Own, or deviantART.
If you have any complaints about the forum, my PM warnings, or my review warnings, feel free to take it up to the following link: https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/146991/104106233/1/Fanfiction-Authors-Complaint-Thread
Here are my thoughts on some story types on this site:
- Stories where characters read the books that feature themselves ("_ Read(s) _" type stories). How would the authors of the original works feel when they read stories like that? I can see why the book sales for those authors have dropped. That's because of stories like these. There is a reason why the admins added the rule against copying from a previously published work that is not in the public domain.
- High School AUs. In my opinion, those stories are hit and miss. I wouldn't mind characters in a high school setting so much if it retains the tone, feel, and themes of the fandom that it's being written on.
My favorite authors and favorite stories list shows that I don't just use this account to report any fanfic that is rule-breaking. If you're going to call me out to try my hand at writing a story before I critique your story, then you lost the argument. If you follow that logic, then review sites like Yelp will hardly become popular. One example is a user of Yelp being forced to show proof that he/she is a chef at restaurant before giving a review to a restaurant's food quality. I would tell you more, but the article "Let's See YOU Do Better" at TV Tropes will serve as useful reading as to why that argument fails.
You can check out those stories if you want to find something that is worth reading.
Here are some responses (or its equivalents) to my reviews that I will not accept and why:
- "Rules are made to be broken!" or "But everyone else does it!": Please imagine if someone decides to use that mindset to commit any crime on you. And if you think rules are meant to be broken, I kindly recommend that you watch this video here.
- "I can do whatever I want because it's my story!": Keep in mind that this is a privately owned site where the admins can make any rule they want. If you don't like the rules for this site, then go find another one or make your own writing site.
- "I'm not changing my story until an admin messages me!" or "You are not an admin, so you can't make me fix it!": You must realize that the admins don't have the time to manually inspect every single story by themselves. This is the reason why the site admins created e-mails to report abuse and gave us the "Report Abuse" feature.
If you reply to my review or private messages with profanity, I could just ignore you depending on how much profanity you give me. I can also use it as evidence that you're breaking the third point of the Community Etiquette.
"I don't like it when people get by with association alone; what you DO is what should matter, not what you are." -Donovan Gonoru Fa-Alregis, MARDEK 3
"Remember. If it's your story, then it's your responsibility!"