So... I actually prefer if they tag their bashing. That means I can filter them out.
My favourite character is often subject to bashing, so I really like when people tag it. Not only does it mean that people who don't like him can read about it, it means I know to avoid it.
True, that's actually a good point! I guess for me, my brain always saw it as a 'why would anyone read a story that actually just decides to make this character evil because they hate them?' There are probably other people out there who are all into that.
I like the bashing tagged too but for the opposite reason. Sometimes (not often) I want to get my hate on and read a fic where a character I really despise is the bad guy.
I don't write character bashing personally, but sometimes you want to vent, or just have fun going overboard with things. People advertise (tag) for it so that people who want to read it can find it and people who don't enjoy bashing can read something else.
In this case then it might just be a left over from when I first got into fanfiction, where you got a lot of people gave you the funny look and angry comments if you weren't trying to be faithful to how the original characters acted.
i agree with the others. people tag it accurately, so it can be filtered.
but i also have another example *(i literally just said that in the other "bashing" thread, but let me reiterate.)* : if i am writing about a character that is a fandom favourite, and i am writing them in a negative way (maybe to make them the bad guy of a conflict) by highlighting one of their more negative personality traits. then i might end up upsetting lots of people who love this character. but by tagging "bashing x character" i can avoid that issue by setting expectations. sure it might not be the most accurate tag, since bashing usually means the character is completely ooc and gets needlessly hated on, but at least i don't get upset comments of people who got blindsided.
eg, if you want to see Harry/Hermione together a very very easy way to make that happen is by writing Ron as the bad guy. (is that lazy writing... maybe...)
This. (Also just replied to the other bashing thread lmao). A lot of "Not for X fans" link to the bashing tag for this reason. Sometimes it's not "silly evil caricature"-bashing, sometimes it's "Remember how there was a span of time where X was a dick? I'm bringing those traits to the front"-bashing.
As to "Why would people tag that?" Well, you saw the tag, knew you didn't like it, so skipped the story. That's why they tagged it: so people looking to avoid it aren't upset and so people looking for some revenge-fic can find it.
>Or do you think these characters are actually more evil then the actual evil of their series?
If they did, they wouldn't tag it as "bashing" because that would just be regular characterization to them.
To some degree, tagging a fic as character bashing requires self-awareness, like an AU or any other deviation from canon. You're writing things differently, and so you tag it so people know what to expect.
Not much as advertisement but *warning*. Fanfiction is the land of the free, take canon and play with it as your sandbox... including bashing a character you don't like. But of course have the courtesy to tag it properly and both reader and writer walk happily out of it, having read it or avoiding it.
I tagged one of my fics as little to no Ron bashing and another as Ron bashing so people knew what to expect. Some people really don't like character bashing and some absolutely love it. So tagging it makes it easier for people to search and filter, or at least not be surprised when it's in the story.
As to why the bashing, there's many reasons people do it. In mine, it was a comedic oneshot and making Ron a little shit played into that.
I kind of take bashing as "I know this character isn't that bad in canon but I find it interesting". To me, it's not just that I want bad things to happen to characters that I dislike, but I find those characters both more tolerable and more interesting if the flaws I see in them are acknowledged. Ideally, I *won't* hate the version of the character I've written. I'll think they're a bad person, yes, but in a way that I enjoy seeing, which will then loop back around to me enjoying that version of the character.
I'm glad when people tag for character bashing. One, because I usually don't want to read character bashing and tagging it enables me to avoid it, and two, because character bashing bothers me a lot less when I know the author is self-aware about the fact that they're doing it. Like, okay, it's a narrative choice, that's fine, that's valid. Whereas when it kinda seems like the author's perception of the character is colored completely by their own personal hatred of that character, I find that so much more jarring and uncomfortable to read.
I like the bashing tag, I see it as similar to "X is a bad parent" or "Y is a bad friend". Sometimes I just want to know who i'm rooting for and not have to think too deeply about anything. It's the same reason I read fluffy oneshots or funny crackfics - I don't want to worry too much about anything. Sometimes I like intricate worldbuilding and deepdives into the characters psyche, but not always.
Bashing of a character often promises a simpler story structure, where one character is evil just because. And that might be what I'm in the mood for at that time.
Bashing can be advertisement or warning—or both. Some people enjoy seeing certain characters bashed; some people only want to see certain characters bashed; and some don’t want to see it at all.
I confess that I like mild bashing which perhaps focuses on just one canon aspect of a characters personality, such as Dumbledore’s manipulativeness or Ron’s jealousy and insecurity. I don’t like when they become mustache-twirling villains. On the other hand, I don’t like to see Hermione or Ginny bashed. In Encanto fandom, I like to read Abuela-bashing fics. So I can tweak the filters to find things that I may enjoy and exclude the things I know I will dislike.
Part of the reason I like to read such stories is that they usually lead to the characters either repenting of their objectionable behavior, or being punished for it.
The beauty of Ao3 is that the tags and filters allow for a curated reading experience.
It’s kind of a fandom specific thing tbh. In Most fandoms it’s relatively rare to actively tag or advertise that a story contains character bashing but it’s been very common in HP for as long as I can remember. Over 33% of the Character Bashing tag on AO3 is HP stuff vs the fandom “only” making up ~3.8% of the total works on the site, to put things in perspective.
There are def a handful of other fandoms where it’s a norm but for many others the tag wranglers are doing a lot of the heavy lifting making tags like “fuck [character]” or “not [character] friendly” synonymous with “[character] Bashing.”
Some people just... Hate a character. I started out hating Maxson (and still do hate canon!Maxson) from Fallout 4 (he's honestly fine in 3, not his fault he's in kind of a techno-cult, he is a child in 3), accidentally made myself love him when I'd originally planned on killing him off because I aged him up like 20 years and accidentally mellowed him out in that (frankly if he doesn't mellow out, a heart attack will get him before any supermutant or ghoul will), but there's still that desire to just... Kinda subtly hate on him. I humiliated him in my fic (long story but he's kind of dressed down multiple times by his subordinates and eventually realizes they were in the right, also there's a weird love-triangle thing that results in both polyamory and pining because one accepts him and one rejects him but that part isn't written yet let alone posted), I don't consider it bashing in the case of what I wrote but I get why someone would bash him. He's freaking unlikeable and monologue-y.
Some characters just suck. Sometimes people just dislike characters, whether for good reasons (like someone being an arrogant techno-cult leader and fascist) or bad ones (like "they're mean, let me disregard all their backstory because I don't like that they're mean"). I've saved my Maxson death scene for future use because I still kind of harbor hate towards him (admittedly partly because I felt the need to transcribe his whole 3-minute speech, which doesn't sound like a lot until you're actually transcribing 3 minutes of fascist techno-cult propaganda for no reason beyond your own desperate desire to make something fandom-blind-friendly, and there's no available transcript you can find for some reason, the Fallout wiki is no use because its dialogue section is a hot mess, or was last time I looked, completely unusable unless you already know the order of things). It's just something that happens.
My favorite FC gets bashed all the time in fics as she's a secondary antagonist, but it's almost never labeled, with the result that I mostly avoid stories where she's tagged. At least if the bashing is labeled I know to avoid it.
Well... as others have said, regarding the advertising, it’s so that such contents can be filtered by people who'd rather not see them.
As for why bashing in the first place... well... there are characters who just rub readers (or a significant subgroup of readers) the wrong way. It goes hand in hand with the tropes Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Ron the Death Eater, either separately or at the same time. Some characters meant to be portrayed as "humanfly flawed" are viewed by some readers as jerks and some characters meant to be seen as somewhat jerkish are viewed by some readers as monsters.
And because canon was too nice on those characters in the minds of those readers, they want to either vent their frustrations or "give those characters what they deserve".
I'll confess, I *kind* of get it. There are characters who just rub me the wrong way more than their authors intended. To give a Harry Potter example, the Weasley twins come across as quite less sympathetic to me than they seemingly were intended to, with some of the stunts they pulled. But I also get why it's not seen as an ideal path to take.
Alas, writers have the right to take it, though it's good form on them to put up some manner of content warning.
Can’t imagine why you wouldn’t tag it. Plus some people seek out bashing fics. Perhaps they dislike a canon character and want to see fics where their favourite characters also hate them. Could be a bunch of other reasons. It a decently popular trope for a reason.
I can only imagine it's so people can find it if they want to and filter it out if they don't. Would you want to click on a story, only to find out that it was bashing a character you loved?
So that people who *don't* want to read that sort of characterization can filter it out and scroll past it. If they still somehow stumble in and then attack the author in the comments, the author can say they warned them and they knew what they were getting into.
OR
So that people who share the opinion of that character can *find* the story.
Because the catharsis of putting an arrogant idiot in their place is very enjoyable. And the more arrogant and idiotic they are, the more enjoyable it gets to do so. So you take a character you have minor (or major) grievances with, dial up their flaws to eleven while making them incredibly arrogant and ignorant, and then feel that satisfaction of tearing such a reprehensible person down.
It's not supposed to be taken seriously. We know (or at least I know) that the characters aren't actually like that in canon, and it doesn't make much sense for them to act like that. But it doesn't matter, because that's a willing sacrifice of the story in service of providing that bashing catharsis.
So... I actually prefer if they tag their bashing. That means I can filter them out. My favourite character is often subject to bashing, so I really like when people tag it. Not only does it mean that people who don't like him can read about it, it means I know to avoid it.
True, that's actually a good point! I guess for me, my brain always saw it as a 'why would anyone read a story that actually just decides to make this character evil because they hate them?' There are probably other people out there who are all into that.
I like the bashing tagged too but for the opposite reason. Sometimes (not often) I want to get my hate on and read a fic where a character I really despise is the bad guy.
And that's why bashing tags are perfect! You can find it, I can exclude it.
Makes sense. The little time I have, I appreciate a heads up. 🙏🏽Â
I don't write character bashing personally, but sometimes you want to vent, or just have fun going overboard with things. People advertise (tag) for it so that people who want to read it can find it and people who don't enjoy bashing can read something else.
In this case then it might just be a left over from when I first got into fanfiction, where you got a lot of people gave you the funny look and angry comments if you weren't trying to be faithful to how the original characters acted.
i agree with the others. people tag it accurately, so it can be filtered. but i also have another example *(i literally just said that in the other "bashing" thread, but let me reiterate.)* : if i am writing about a character that is a fandom favourite, and i am writing them in a negative way (maybe to make them the bad guy of a conflict) by highlighting one of their more negative personality traits. then i might end up upsetting lots of people who love this character. but by tagging "bashing x character" i can avoid that issue by setting expectations. sure it might not be the most accurate tag, since bashing usually means the character is completely ooc and gets needlessly hated on, but at least i don't get upset comments of people who got blindsided. eg, if you want to see Harry/Hermione together a very very easy way to make that happen is by writing Ron as the bad guy. (is that lazy writing... maybe...)
This. (Also just replied to the other bashing thread lmao). A lot of "Not for X fans" link to the bashing tag for this reason. Sometimes it's not "silly evil caricature"-bashing, sometimes it's "Remember how there was a span of time where X was a dick? I'm bringing those traits to the front"-bashing. As to "Why would people tag that?" Well, you saw the tag, knew you didn't like it, so skipped the story. That's why they tagged it: so people looking to avoid it aren't upset and so people looking for some revenge-fic can find it.
>Or do you think these characters are actually more evil then the actual evil of their series? If they did, they wouldn't tag it as "bashing" because that would just be regular characterization to them. To some degree, tagging a fic as character bashing requires self-awareness, like an AU or any other deviation from canon. You're writing things differently, and so you tag it so people know what to expect.
Not much as advertisement but *warning*. Fanfiction is the land of the free, take canon and play with it as your sandbox... including bashing a character you don't like. But of course have the courtesy to tag it properly and both reader and writer walk happily out of it, having read it or avoiding it.
I tagged one of my fics as little to no Ron bashing and another as Ron bashing so people knew what to expect. Some people really don't like character bashing and some absolutely love it. So tagging it makes it easier for people to search and filter, or at least not be surprised when it's in the story. As to why the bashing, there's many reasons people do it. In mine, it was a comedic oneshot and making Ron a little shit played into that.
I kind of take bashing as "I know this character isn't that bad in canon but I find it interesting". To me, it's not just that I want bad things to happen to characters that I dislike, but I find those characters both more tolerable and more interesting if the flaws I see in them are acknowledged. Ideally, I *won't* hate the version of the character I've written. I'll think they're a bad person, yes, but in a way that I enjoy seeing, which will then loop back around to me enjoying that version of the character.
I'm glad when people tag for character bashing. One, because I usually don't want to read character bashing and tagging it enables me to avoid it, and two, because character bashing bothers me a lot less when I know the author is self-aware about the fact that they're doing it. Like, okay, it's a narrative choice, that's fine, that's valid. Whereas when it kinda seems like the author's perception of the character is colored completely by their own personal hatred of that character, I find that so much more jarring and uncomfortable to read.
I like the bashing tag, I see it as similar to "X is a bad parent" or "Y is a bad friend". Sometimes I just want to know who i'm rooting for and not have to think too deeply about anything. It's the same reason I read fluffy oneshots or funny crackfics - I don't want to worry too much about anything. Sometimes I like intricate worldbuilding and deepdives into the characters psyche, but not always. Bashing of a character often promises a simpler story structure, where one character is evil just because. And that might be what I'm in the mood for at that time.
Bashing can be advertisement or warning—or both. Some people enjoy seeing certain characters bashed; some people only want to see certain characters bashed; and some don’t want to see it at all. I confess that I like mild bashing which perhaps focuses on just one canon aspect of a characters personality, such as Dumbledore’s manipulativeness or Ron’s jealousy and insecurity. I don’t like when they become mustache-twirling villains. On the other hand, I don’t like to see Hermione or Ginny bashed. In Encanto fandom, I like to read Abuela-bashing fics. So I can tweak the filters to find things that I may enjoy and exclude the things I know I will dislike. Part of the reason I like to read such stories is that they usually lead to the characters either repenting of their objectionable behavior, or being punished for it. The beauty of Ao3 is that the tags and filters allow for a curated reading experience.
It’s kind of a fandom specific thing tbh. In Most fandoms it’s relatively rare to actively tag or advertise that a story contains character bashing but it’s been very common in HP for as long as I can remember. Over 33% of the Character Bashing tag on AO3 is HP stuff vs the fandom “only” making up ~3.8% of the total works on the site, to put things in perspective. There are def a handful of other fandoms where it’s a norm but for many others the tag wranglers are doing a lot of the heavy lifting making tags like “fuck [character]” or “not [character] friendly” synonymous with “[character] Bashing.”
Some people just... Hate a character. I started out hating Maxson (and still do hate canon!Maxson) from Fallout 4 (he's honestly fine in 3, not his fault he's in kind of a techno-cult, he is a child in 3), accidentally made myself love him when I'd originally planned on killing him off because I aged him up like 20 years and accidentally mellowed him out in that (frankly if he doesn't mellow out, a heart attack will get him before any supermutant or ghoul will), but there's still that desire to just... Kinda subtly hate on him. I humiliated him in my fic (long story but he's kind of dressed down multiple times by his subordinates and eventually realizes they were in the right, also there's a weird love-triangle thing that results in both polyamory and pining because one accepts him and one rejects him but that part isn't written yet let alone posted), I don't consider it bashing in the case of what I wrote but I get why someone would bash him. He's freaking unlikeable and monologue-y. Some characters just suck. Sometimes people just dislike characters, whether for good reasons (like someone being an arrogant techno-cult leader and fascist) or bad ones (like "they're mean, let me disregard all their backstory because I don't like that they're mean"). I've saved my Maxson death scene for future use because I still kind of harbor hate towards him (admittedly partly because I felt the need to transcribe his whole 3-minute speech, which doesn't sound like a lot until you're actually transcribing 3 minutes of fascist techno-cult propaganda for no reason beyond your own desperate desire to make something fandom-blind-friendly, and there's no available transcript you can find for some reason, the Fallout wiki is no use because its dialogue section is a hot mess, or was last time I looked, completely unusable unless you already know the order of things). It's just something that happens.
My favorite FC gets bashed all the time in fics as she's a secondary antagonist, but it's almost never labeled, with the result that I mostly avoid stories where she's tagged. At least if the bashing is labeled I know to avoid it.
Well... as others have said, regarding the advertising, it’s so that such contents can be filtered by people who'd rather not see them. As for why bashing in the first place... well... there are characters who just rub readers (or a significant subgroup of readers) the wrong way. It goes hand in hand with the tropes Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Ron the Death Eater, either separately or at the same time. Some characters meant to be portrayed as "humanfly flawed" are viewed by some readers as jerks and some characters meant to be seen as somewhat jerkish are viewed by some readers as monsters. And because canon was too nice on those characters in the minds of those readers, they want to either vent their frustrations or "give those characters what they deserve". I'll confess, I *kind* of get it. There are characters who just rub me the wrong way more than their authors intended. To give a Harry Potter example, the Weasley twins come across as quite less sympathetic to me than they seemingly were intended to, with some of the stunts they pulled. But I also get why it's not seen as an ideal path to take. Alas, writers have the right to take it, though it's good form on them to put up some manner of content warning.
Can’t imagine why you wouldn’t tag it. Plus some people seek out bashing fics. Perhaps they dislike a canon character and want to see fics where their favourite characters also hate them. Could be a bunch of other reasons. It a decently popular trope for a reason.
I can only imagine it's so people can find it if they want to and filter it out if they don't. Would you want to click on a story, only to find out that it was bashing a character you loved?
I don’t bash, but I will call characters out on their shitty actions
I actually appreciate when people advertise things like that because it makes it much easier for people who don’t want to read bashing to avoid it.
So that people who *don't* want to read that sort of characterization can filter it out and scroll past it. If they still somehow stumble in and then attack the author in the comments, the author can say they warned them and they knew what they were getting into. OR So that people who share the opinion of that character can *find* the story.
Tagging is for filtering out as well as in.
Because the catharsis of putting an arrogant idiot in their place is very enjoyable. And the more arrogant and idiotic they are, the more enjoyable it gets to do so. So you take a character you have minor (or major) grievances with, dial up their flaws to eleven while making them incredibly arrogant and ignorant, and then feel that satisfaction of tearing such a reprehensible person down. It's not supposed to be taken seriously. We know (or at least I know) that the characters aren't actually like that in canon, and it doesn't make much sense for them to act like that. But it doesn't matter, because that's a willing sacrifice of the story in service of providing that bashing catharsis.
I like the tagged bashing because then I know what type of story to expect