Tbh, I'm on the verge of retirement from fanfiction. It seems like no matter much I write or how well I write I barely get any reviews. It's frustrating. I put so much of my time, so much of my heart and soul, into making the best stories that I can, ensuring I keep characters in characters and my grammar is mostly readable. Yet I see authors garner 10x the number of reviews, faves and followers my stories get despite having poor grammar, no flow to their stories, horrific characterization and no heart. I won't name names, but this one MHAxNaruto "crossover" has the self-insert MC reincarnating into MHA with Naruto powers. How does that make any sense?

That screams Gary-stu, having his powers run on a system that neither Aizawa nor All for One can affect meaning nothing can inconvenience his stu. My characters may be powerful, but I always try to balance them with some flaws. The self-insert from my deleted MHA story was shy and even easily teased by Mina. Everything didn't involve him and his word wasn't law. Not to mention he wasn't tied to Izuku like the self-insert in the aforementioned MHAxNaruto story who was the brother of Izuku. At least my self-insert had his own place in the story. He had his own friends that weren't Izuku's. Sure, he was nice to Izuku because he's a nice guy, but other than that he left him to his own devices.

I just don't get why people are reading the story. The writing style is average, the story doesn't flow well and feels unfocused with so many time-skips and his character is a boring sideman in his own narrative.

A Naruko story I tried to read has thousands of faves and followers despite being badly written. It's ironic because the author claims he hates badly written stories, then writes a story that's badly written, creating a Naruko that has no individuality from canon Naruto. Sure, I get he wants to keep a fem Naruto close to the original, but that doesn't disregard the butterfly effect being a girl would have on his character. For instance, a girl Naru wouldn't say 'dattebayo' or be a Bart Simpson-like prankster because those are traits a brash boy would have. She likely wouldn't wear his shitty jumpsuit either.

The author moves like a sex-deprived virgin forcing a Yuri harem and turns established straight girls like Ino gay to facilitate it. He claims to hate Mary-stus yet has his Naruto dressed in a Naruko skin get everything she wants and needs handed to her on a silver platter. He also uses fanfic troupes like the civilian council, too