No.3452
A thread for fanfic discussion. Recommend stories, talk about tropes, and post your own work!
Old Thread:
>>3 No.3455
>>3453I'm so invested in my anime and videogame bubble that it takes me off guard when I see how much content is produced for live action tv/movie stuff. Genuinely feels like they live on a different planet.
No.3456
>>3455Same, there are series I've never even heard off before realizing they had thousands of works on Ao3. Our Flag Means Death, 9-1-1, Young Royals? Maybe it's just because I don't have any streaming service or even a TV antenna anymore, but it's insane how big things like that hide right under my nose.
I love how consistently high Bungou Stray Dogs are on these charts, never seen it myself, but it's nice to see a non-shonen anime so high up.
No.3464
>Search pairing
>giant 100k word one shot collection
>crtl+f one of the characters names
>0 results
Why do people do this? I'm in a big Boku no Hero mood because of all the posting here recently and its happened a few times.
No.3465
>>3464I really wish there was a way to punish people for improper tagging, especially in big fandoms like BnHA. Or at least a native option for "never ever show me this fic again" (I use Ao3 savior but I've had it hiccup on me enough that I want something concrete). If there's one thing ff.net got right it was only allowing 2 characters to be tagged.
No.3471
>>3465I really just wish they would create a native option to pernamently blacklist. Its so weird to me there isn't a toggable one, especially since it take a while to perfect a search in big fabdoms.
And yes it's stupid people can just tag pairings that don't even exist in the work, or even worse 300 word crackfics with 20 ships tag and no actual relation to the fandom. Its garbage and is just clutter.
No.3472
>>3471I got tired of constantly typing my blacklist in the search results so I just have a general M/M bookmark with the necessary keywords blocked which is a decent workaround.
It seems like AO3 only put effort in having a basic blacklist and tagging system and then completely gave up afterwards. There's so many features they could add to make the QoL better but they don't. I'm still annoyed they haven't implemented a main and sidepairing category. Even if there's otp: true you can still lose out on good fics that tag other pairings. The sites been up for years, what the fuck they're doing with the donations is beyond me.
No.3473
>>3472In their defense I imagine there is some degree of jenga code at play with some of the obvious QoLs like that. I'm more annoyed that tagging culture has gotten very weak. I've gotten so butthurt about it that I keep scrolling when the tag list for non-porn is more than 2 lines.
>donationshttps://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/28423About half of it just goes to keeping the site up.
No.3474
>>3473AO3 still has the best tag system overall even with the pitfalls. I like that I can search, say, an episode title in the "Search within results" and someone probably tagged it even if it isn't a "canon tag." AO3 is miles ahead of FF.Net for actually finding what I'm looking for. It is a shame a minority of users are using it to write paragraphs or purposely mistagging in large fandoms.
No.3685
I recently got into writing fanfic but I'm ESL and not very good. I'd really like to join a discord and/or find a beta. Does anyone have any suggestions?
No.3686
>>3685ff.net has a list of beta readers that you can sort by fandom:
https://www.fanfiction.net/betareaders/There are also beta readers floating around tumblr, but I am not experienced with sourcing one from there.
You could also drop the fandom here and see if anybody bites.
No.3687
>>3455Same. I never once came across any of that stuff besides casually seeing Good Omen fanart on twitter and once or so some harry potter fanart while I was scrolling through the [all] category here. I have never shipped live action characters. Think I associate them too much with the actors and reality as a whole, I am 2D only lol
>>3464I think they tag "per-emtively" when they plan on adding those characters one day. And yeah I fucking hate it. It's especially annoying when you are into a rarepair and everytime you get your hopes up for seeing a single new entry per month it's one of these fucking things, usually even some cross-over with shitty series I don't like so I wouldn't read this mess anyway.
No.3691
>>3687>I have never shipped live action characters. Think I associate them too much with the actors and reality as a whole, I am 2D only lolYeah, exactly. Same reason why I'm never going to care about that live action Legend of Zelda movie. As soon as it's live action I don't see the character anymore, I see some actor in cosplay.
No.3692
>>3691>>3687Interesting point on the actors, I'm basically faceblind, so much so that if there are too many characters in similar outfits I struggle to tell them apart and follow the plot as a result. But also I almost never recognize the actor playing the character and when I do it's usually from the voice like Jimmy Stewart or Steve Buscemi.
It's interesting though because I think there are people who ship because they're following an actor around, much like people who ship anime characters based on senyuu. It edges a bit too much into RPS, but oh well.
Zelda movie is concerning, Link shouldn't talk! Place your bets now is Link's hair going to be an ugly bleach-white Legolas color or are we getting an unnaturally blonde wig? I do think Ganondorf of the main three has the potential to adapt ok.
Speaking of Zelda and fanfiction though have you seen how shitty the results are recently? I just want to find fics actually pertaining to the games and I have to wade though this BS.
No.3693
>>3687I get this. I am 2D only with the exception of Star Trek.
>>3692I don't understand why they added this when the series tags function as the same thing. Too much deference to timeline bullshit.
No.3694
>>3693It's not even a replacement for a game search since it's all weird psuedo-selfcest garbage and if I open a fic and Link is referred to as "Time" I'm closing that shit right away.
In fact it actively gets in the way of searching works, because if you search "OoT" you're going to get a ton of AU filth of "Time/Wild" whatever from people who probably haven't even played non-BOTW games. What a mess
No.3695
>>3692>I'm basically faceblind, so much so that if there are too many characters in similar outfits I struggle to tell them apart and follow the plot as a resultFucking same. I mainly remember the hair style and remember watching a movie with three blonde women with almost the exact same hairstyle and I was almost completely lost. The plot was good, had a good bunch of characters and was complex, but because of that you could rarely tell who was who from context. It was such a fucking work to combine and deduce shit that I shouldn't spend brain capacity on that it became one of the reasons for why I don't watch live action anymore lol
No.3696
>>3695Yeah exactly I always feel bad because there are characters I'm interested in, but then at some point especially during action scenes where there isn't a lot of dialog I'll just lose the characters and I feel stupid.
Subtitles are actually a big help since they'll sometimes name who's speaking. This also makes it easier to look up fics later (hint hint) since you know exactly who to look for without pulling up IMDB to try to find the names.
Movies tend to not have a big fandom unless their attatched to a big name like Nolan or Tarantino. Most live action shipping communities seem to be more into the TV scene for some reason.
No.3698
>>3695personally this is why I prefer multiple races in my kinos. If there's an Asian, a black, and a white, I can tell who's who.
No.3699
>>3696>Movies tend to not have a big fandom unless their attatched to a big name like Nolan or Tarantino. Most live action shipping communities seem to be more into the TV scene for some reason.Because of available content basically. Movies are one and done, sequels if you're lucky but that still only amounts to a few hours worth of content. TV shows go on for years and years and rack up dozens of hours of runtime for fans to dig through.
No.3702
>>3701Personally don't feel comfortable sharing just because it's a sub 10 ship tag so I'd reveal my name for sure. Not Pokemon despite the pic.
It's just for an older franchise and the characters haven't appeared in any media from the franchise post 2000s so it's not surprising, I'm just disappointed I'm not creative enough to flood the tag like some authors can to keep fics coming for a year plus. At the same time that can be a curse if the author has a weird grasp on the characters.
Don't know if any other writers feel this way, but I'm "one and done" when writing ships. I have a very clear grasp of what I want to do and if I come back to a series it's mostly for another side-couple that catches my eye or a major development in later seasons.
No.3703
>Daddy Kink
How did this ever catch on? It hardly every feels in character and when it does it's an incest ship. Did a particular ship popularize it and it spread like a plague or did something else caise it?
No.3704
>>3703We probably lurk in different fandoms but it finally seems on its way out the door where I am. I can't say exactly what caused it but there was a period (~2020) where using daddy ironically (and then NOT ironically) leaked into fanfiction. I think it was just an easy trope for engagement and exploded extra big because of covid. There was some discussion in the previous fanfic thread about the cross-pollination between hetero-leaning porn tropes and m/m fanfics starting around
>>2101 if you'd like to read more.
No.3705
>>3703fujos are girls/women, many of which who happen to have this kink I guess. Call me daddy, praise me, whip me shit. Personally I dislike spankings and praise is only acceptable in small doses.
Eh, what can ya do.
No.3723
I hope this isn't too controversial to ask but can some one explain to me like I'm a child what "Stop A03 Racism" was hoping to accomplish and what specific practices they're fighting? I saw a fic with its title changed to end ao3 racism now, and I remember this being a thing two or three years ago. But all I can find is people talking about A03 ignored the protesters not what they were specifically protesting.
Not looking for who's right or wrong, just examples of what the problem that prompted it was
No.3724
>>3723I think it's over A03 allowing raceplay and fics with racism on their website and users leaving racist comments on fics. I found a blog post about it here:
https://echoekhi.com/2023/05/31/endotwracism-controversy/I'm black and I find raceplay disgusting, but A03's tagging system is so good I don't even care, as long as they keep it far far away from me kek. Comments can always be turned off and general harassment isn't allowed anyway. Also how would people reading your fic even know you were black in the first place? In the post hiring a diversity consultant was mentioned which honestly seems like a nightmare of a job considering hundreds of fics are published each day. Honestly what is more concerning with A03 is RPF of actual children being kept up. They did suggest a permanent tag block feature which I agree would be helpful to filter the tranny fics, and for A03 to encourage proper tagging which is fair
No.3725
>>3724"Needlessly Controversial" is right, the first I ever heard of it was some slapfight on tumblr years ago. I really hope it leads to being able to hide a fic forever, IP bans for abusive comments, and an escalation tree for improperly tagged fics.
>>3723Additional reading with rabbit hole links at the bottom:
https://fanlore.org/wiki/End_OTW_Racism No.3726
>>3724>>3725Thanks both of you!
Personally I've never come across racism of the non-fantastical variety, but I've never actually gone looking for it. I agree a permanent tag blacklist feature would probably be the best solution, I also think that making "bigotry" or "racism" a archive warning would be a good idea too.
The blogpost mentions technical issue with the idea of implementing a blacklist, but not with muting specific works. I wonder what the difference is?
No.3816
>>3815As long as the originals never overtake "fandom" as the reason for going to the site I'm fine with it, but you're right about how 99% of it is just fetish/wank material (with tens of thousands of hits to boot, lol).
As for reporting:
open fic
scroll all the way down past the comment box
click link "Policy Questions & Abuse Reports"
No.4340
>>4339Disable guest reviews.
I know I lose a lot of potential comments because I write near strict Dead Dove but I'd rather anon kudos over the copy+pasta accused of AI, positivity, positive negativity and youtuber asking if my story can be used for their ai voiced slop
No.4359
>>4340It's actually coming from real accounts, probably conpromised ones? Very frustrating, but I don't want to diaable comments I want there to be a better filter to detect them.
No.4370
AO3 maintenance soon,
>>4290 I feel you, downloading PDFs of the longfic asap so I don't get caught off guard.
No.4371
>>4370>ao3 maintenanceI’m always grateful they only ever do maintenance when I’m sleeping
No.4388
>>4387Let me tell you a story
It's about the spammed use of singular 'they' in places where I would never use it, and definitely nobody used it back then….
No.4389
>>4387Got any good examples? I was born in the 90s and don't remember it so I'd be curious what smaller things take you out of a work.
No.4390
>>4389Pretty much anything on AO3 published past 2015, I'd say. I was also born in the 90's with English-speaking parents in a non-English. country, and spent a long time on the internet.
I'm talking specifically about places where people call someone they know the sex of as 'they'.
Singular they, from what I could tell, was used for times when you couldn't possibly know the sex of the person, mainly when said person was hypothetical. If you had seen the person, then there is no possible way that his or her sex could be unknown.
If you didn't know, and the person was a named individual, you made a good guess.
Using it for people whom the speaker know of irl makes the speaker sound like an insane gendie to me. Likely because the people I know who use singular 'they' in our own language (Which is not grammatically correct), do so because they spend a lot of time in English-speaking gendie circles.
No.4391
>>4389I'm personally hung up on technology. eg. portable DiskMans/CD players when early 90s' moderately middle-class people would have had Walkmans/cassette players and would have recorded music off the radio instead of buying CDs like they were made of money kek. See this thread for how people did music back then - reddit.com/r/Music/comments/12ls3rf/music_in_the_90s/
Personally, the fact I grew up in a very populous s.asian country makes it even more whiplash-inducing because even tech that was common-place in the US like cordless phones simply didn't come to our very lower-class/middle-class homes. We still had typewriters in my uncle's office in the village and called each other on rotary phones and STD calls. My house in the city still had black-and-white television.
No.4392
>>4391Oh, that point about different countries having different common technology is a point didn't consider. That also would be something hard for a fanfic writer to research if they didn't have first hand experience so it makes sense.
No.4393
>>4391I think this time period was unique because even in the US what people had at home was a mixed bag. While disposable income obviously played a role, the tech you had at home also depended on interest. In the 90s/early 00s, bougie kids had nicer TVs/home phones, but if they weren't some flavor of geek they didn't have anything "fun" (consoles, music players, home internet access). Even if their parents had a work computer at home, there was no reason for a kid to interact with it unless they were fascinated with rudimentary digital art and games.
Typing this made me kind of jealous of the baseline ubiquity of fast internet access these days. I was on dial-up until 2008!
>>4387I'm okay with the anachronistic hodgepodge just because I think if I read a fic about blorbo going to the computer lab to print something I would crumble to dust.
No.4394
>>4387I am an environmental fag so I care a lot about this and research a lot before I draw anything from another period so this would make me insane as well lol
I am also born in the late 80s. I noticed that lot of younger people are way more detached from time periods before their time as older gens. Like PCs were already a thing when I was a kid, but I know typewriters, black-white television or earlier cultural paradigm shifts in my country regardless. Now teens and young tweens don't even know what floppy disks or faxes are. It strikes me as so weird. I recently talked to a young Thai fujo who is very active on social media and she super nice but she didn't know about the tsunami catastrophe that killed 8000 people in her country and causing the death of 230,000 altogether. This is kinda alien to me. The Chernobyl catastrophe and a bunch of other tragedies or terror attacks in my own country and outside of it were so present to toddler-me and kid-me that they influenced my perception of the world even though I didn't experience any of them since I was born later.
No.4396
>>4391Oh that fucks with me for a different reason. I always begged my parents for a portable music player and headphones, but they just bought me this round as fuck metallic green stereo. I was pissed off because we had a Fisher Price or something tape player from when we were practically toddlers and listened to ABC and nursery rhyme tapes, and the stereo, despite doing CDs and radio, felt like more of the same.
If they're writing in the 90s then they absolutely have to dedicate hours of time to phonecalls sitting on things that aren't even chairs (and the "ding" sound a telephone made when you yanked the cable too far). But like you're saying, I don't think I saw a cordless phone here in Europe until the 00s, and my family didn't adopt one until around 2013. I've seen 20-somethings shocked about the existence of black and white sets. We used to watch morning cartoons in black and white all the time, either staying with grandparents or because that's what you got if your family was buying an extra TV for cheap. Hours of playstation without any color.
>>4392If the average fic is supposed to be set in Japan then they could at least watch some old OVAs and go full retro kink on it.
>>4393Man, when we first got internet at home I remember thinking the only way to connect to and use the web was through the official AOL browser. It had a button for the dial up prompt and played those voiced messages. I don't remember how I felt when we found the short cut for dialing up without the browser, more what it sounded like when the dialing went wrong and struggled.
>>4395If I have to google what part of the body is doing something then that's distracting writing.
No.4397
I wish standard fics were more common. With standard I mean fics that are still based on the canon setting, this excludes not only modern AUs or mermaid AUs but also gender changes or deliberate ooc "[character] is tagged but he is a whole different person here for no reason" and a lot of other stuff.
If you like a series about a non-human race or something historical AUs are the bane of fics since they can make up 80% of the content. I am not picky with the rest, I can enjoy fics with technically mediocre writing as long as the content is good and features my favs but I lack the energy to imagine characters as the ones I love when they're clearly too different to feel like them.
No.4398
>>4397I think what drives me insane about this is that there's no good way to find them. I wish Ao3 had an additional step before letting you upload, like a checkbox for "canon setting" because leaving it for people to self tag is a nightmare. Like "AU where x happens instead of y" is canon setting but "AU where they are all in high school together" is not, so you can't just filter out the AU tag and not worry about missing something you'd actually like! "Canon complaint" is a tag but not everybody uses it (and its definition is variable).
If I were the boss of Ao3 I would add that and a main ship box.
No.4399
>>4398Most of this would be fixed if canon divergence didn't imply AU. If it's set in the same universe and most of the same events apply I want to see it in my search.
No.4401
>>4398I read so much Canon Divergence but for fandoms where there's literally 100 Mer AUs or "no powers" I hate the idea of filtering out AU.
Marvel is the worst for this. Because the whole universe is an AU of an AU
>>4400I will always return to FF15 and see if anyone's written anything new for the fandom. The popularity is at its lowest but the universe is the best for fanfic because the game is 25% plot, 75% camping and exploring. One of the hardest things to write in a tight storyline where something's always keeping the narrative in motion is finding when something can happen. Even with 0 sidequesting the downtime is so massive you spend in game days doing absolutely nothing but traveling, sleeping and basically having real in game time of where a fic could happen. Even the movie allows room for things to happen given the protagonist can actually sit and watch television.
It sucks FF15 is a point of shame for the franchise because Square will pretend it doesn't exist outside of the yearly crossover with XIV
No.4402
>>4400Watchmen is my comfort fandom and I love to check in every year to see what new Rorschach x Nite Owl stories have been made and re-read favorites. I feel like my fandoms are very cylindrical and repeat every few years but Watchmen is my one consistency.
No.4403
>>4400I always go back to Spock/Kirk when I'm in the mood for fanfiction but can't find anything good in the tags of more recent interests. A lot of people (rightfully tbh) hate the AoS movies, but I like how they gave us 2 distinct flavors of Spirk to play with. If I'm not in the mood for that I'll go check Garak/Bashir (which recently got some fresh entries thanks to the cartoon). Thanks Star Trek!
I sometimes hate that I am a weeb because western fandoms tend to have a much higher percentage of adult women writing quality, no-nonsense, novel length fics. I wish I could pay some of them to play some of my favorite jrpgs and write for my dead fandoms haha.
No.4405
>>4403>I wish I could pay some of them to play some of my favorite jrpgs and write for my dead fandoms haha.Be careful what you wish for, I found it really obvious to spot Untamed fic written by slashers from western TV fandoms because everyone will be talking like a pair of American guys and the basic cultural research i.e with food will be lacking.
No.4440
I am not sure if it's just me but recently I stumble upon more and more fics that are so bad that they're literally written like summaries, not stories.
I am usually the type who doesn't have high standards for fics, I enjoy almost everything as long as it's about a series I like and I mainly read non-fiction books, so I lack the experience of a seasoned novel reader anyway. But those "summary" types of fics are unreadable, even for my standards.
They fail to convey any sort of emotion because there is none. I recently even saw a porn fic that reduced the sexual act to a single sentence. It was basically "then they had sex and X cummed onto Y's head", another one "one night he slept besides him and felt to urge to do more. He took his dick and started rubbing. He then notices [name] giving a silent moan and then he cummed" etc. text slightly edited by me because I don't want it to be googleable since I don't want to shit on specific writers. These fics have more than 130 kudos.
Recently even a person I know posted a fic PV and it was the same. One of the most important parts of the fic are literally described with "That night, many things happened: the house was filled with eerie winds. It was quiet outside too even though it usually wasn't. [MC] saw a shadow in front of his room for a moment and it was strangely cold". The character is shocked and those events are supposed to convey an eerie atmosphere, but it's just listed so it reads like a synopsis. At least some of the writers are in their 20s so it's not teens either.
Again maybe this always existed and I just never stumbled upon this. But I see it so much these days and never encountered it before.
No.4443
>>4440I must admit I'm guilty of doing this when I want to get through exposition and get to the juicy scenes I actually want to write as fast as possible. But writing a whole fic like this, and especially the smutty bits, sounds kind of pointless. The whole point of smut is to be titillating and evoke emotion in the reader. Why even include it if you're not looking for that reaction in your readers.
I think it might be due to a lack of sexual experience on the author's part, like they don't want to come off as fakers so they don't include any details that might give them away. Who knows.
No.4444
>>4440>It was basically "then they had sex and X cummed onto Y's head", another one "one night he slept besides him and felt to urge to do more. He took his dick and started rubbing. He then notices [name] giving a silent moan and then he cummed" etc. text slightly edited by me because I don't want it to be googleable since I don't want to shit on specific writers. These fics have more than 130 kudos. This is honestly how most smut fics read to me from what I've seen that I feel like this 'reduction' is exactly because people are ADHD brained and don't want to read that much when looking for porn. That + adding unnecesary amounts of doujin-tier talk like "OH BREED MY SLUTTY HOLE" that's just so unnecesary
No.4445
>>4443Having rushed parts is not bad, it's basically the intro or like a text box in a comic. Even professionals might start a story with a short summary of events like "It was on my third day of vacation when I" etc. The problem is when even the core plot of the fic (be it porn or not) is written in the same way, with the same pace and detachment.
>>4444Considering that some of these fics were among the most popular ones among my fandom (if we talk about kudo numbers) I am inclined to agree. It baffles me that people read that and think it was good writing. But it reminds me of an argument I had with a different fan two years ago because she claimed that it wouldn't matter whether she read a wikia entry about a volume of a manga or said volume itself. Of course it does, wth? In hindsight it's not surprising anymore. I guess a lot of people lost the ability to enjoy fiction and reduce it to pure information.
Besides tiktok I blame the "ironic" culture that made people believe that feeling emotions while engaging with fiction was cringe.
No.4446
>>4445A huge fandom's top kudos'd fics are rarely that good. They are usually just a combination of "long" and "posted early in the fandom's lifecycle". I have very vivid memories of getting mad because I was like an hour into reading a 100k fic with 10k+ kudos wondering when the fuck it was going to get good and realizing that it was never actually going to. It was my first time in a really big Ao3 fandom! I didn't know 10,000 readers could just lie like that!
No.4447
>>4446I've been having this problem in the Transformers fandom.
Sort by Kudos, and it's genuinely only there because someone fandom famous posted it in 2012. Alternatively, site founder is an author of many.
I tried to give some of them a chance, and was thoroughly bored. I would genuinely get a better fanfic out of the horse show crossover comics. Which ironically did not spawn that many stories. I've searched the longest, popular work as well as crossovers on FFN and it's almost all written prior to 2018.
Tracks for a lot of older fandoms overall vs newer series. But the downside to newer fandoms is being unable to escape written on mobile summary sentences, ethnicity/trans washing, and PROSHIP DNI (posting on AO3, the site founded for the exclusive reason of brotherxbrother incest)
No.4450
>>4447>nonna also dislikes the founder's ficsFucking FINALLY. Everybody keeps telling me how high IQ her TF fics were and that they had a prose that's on par with Shakespeare and her fics just bore the hell out of me and feel OOC and I was a MegOP shipper that should have liked them. Agree about kudo problem with the time that you and
>>4446 mentioned, I noticed that too.
I also have the problem that almost everything I care about or like was written before 2018 for some reason. I feel like most newer fandoms don't even get fics to begin with. In the past I always found fics no matter how obscure the fandom was, now even remotely popular anime don't get anything.
For TF I don't simply don't see fics for my favorite ships anymore but that might because I am more into the comics and they with the exception of the big IDW1 hype among fujos that lasted till ~2018 or so comics are generally getting way less fics than cartoons.
No.4451
>>4440I actually don't mind prose like this if it works for the fic itself. For example, if the fic is short, like under 3k words, or the writing is somehow poetic or stark in a way that works in actual context. It rarely works in traditional longfic though imo.
No.4465
>>4446Agreed, there's also a point where if it's too popular it'll attract outsiders that'll go "I don't like x pair but this fanfic is amazing", which would not be so bad if they didn't start to flame people that don't have that interpretation of the characters and start to pretend they're shippers of that pair themselves. The worst is when it attracts total outsiders to the fandom though, because they'll never touch canon material or when they do, call it disappointing compared to the fic.
The best fics are too canon dependent to be that popular and end up unfinished or deleted anyways… No.4470
>>4452I was thinking of this exact image as I was posting haha. However, there is a way to sort by kudos and get around this problem! With large and long-lived fandoms I use the "Date Updated" category to browse a year at a time. Unfortunately, it doesn't get rid of stuff like you described (posted in the 2010s and running for a decade), but once you recognize those kinds of stories for what they are they're much easier to dodge.
>>4465I sometimes browse /r/Ao3 and /r/fanfiction and learning that there is a not insignificant amount of people who read fandom-blind was really surprising. I guess it's kind of cool that they just get to skim the cream off of the top of every fandom without knowing the cream is extremely derivative.
No.4471
>>4470>insignificant amount of people who read fandom-blind was really surprising. I guess it's kind of cool that they just get to skim the cream off of the top of every fandom without knowing the cream is extremely derivative.Weird, didn't know people did that. Seems like if you didn't care about the characters you'd be better off reading romance novels.
No.4472
>>4471In their defense, the high kudos AU fanfics are indistinguishable from mid-to-decent light literature. As a fan I still think they mostly suck, but I think if I were a fandom-blind reader I could see myself having a good time (for free!).
I once had the stars align for me after Attack on Titan S1 dropped and all the modern AUs were easy to treat as original works because the canon at that point was really shallow and one half of one of the most popular ships was already dead. Strange time. I think that was my first brush with a fandom that was like 75% modern AU.
No.4473
>>4471I don't know about others but I've done that a few times when I was vaguely familiar with the characters from being into a franchise a very long time ago like Naruto and felt like reading some fics for nostalgia.
But that might be the only understandable reason cause otherwise I don't know what's appealing about reading fics when you don't even know who they are or where they're from.
Especially if it's a AU fic that still has nods to the original series in some shape or form, isn't that confusing for them?
>>4472PDFs for normal literature is free too but I suppose there's less barriers to read fanfic vs piracy if you just wanted a quick read.
No.4474
>>4470People who read for series they haven't looked into are mostly reading PWP stuff where the canon is negligible so it's not as bad as it sounds. The more egregious thing is people writing for series they haven't watched/read. I've seen at least three authors note this in their fics and it irks me so badly I immediately close the tab. Even if it's a mindless oneshot I have no interest in a fic written by someone who hasn't watched or read a single episode/chapter of the series they're writing for.
No.4476
>>4474Yeah I can't stand it, I get writing a story when you aren't done with a multi-season show, long game, or zombie franchise but watch the movie before you write something! I also will immediately exit the story if they disclose it, or if they mention that they just saw a streamer playing it.
No.4716
>>4440I don't usually like pointing fingers like this because I find it disingenuous to actual authors who may be new to writing, far advanced, etc. But there's a 50/50 chance that fics like these are AI generated. Specifically due to the summarizing nature that large language models take when writing story-like requests. It's not uncommon, and AO3 has had an AI problem. Although sizeably a much more miniscule one than people make it seem.
I did an experiment a long time ago (and revisited recently where I ran the same basic fic prompts through several LLMs to see how realistic/passable the writing could come accross and the stylistic trends they seem to fall upon. I came out with several LLMs that could be accurately tied to fics I've seen out in the wild. Models heavily flagged for similar writing were; CALM3-22B, Falcon 180B, Yi-34B, Mistral-7B, Qwen 14B, Llama 3.2 3B, Coffee's Erotic Story Generator, Mixtral-46.7B, LLM Uncensored, Zephyr Chat, and Grok. Grok specifically being easiest to get to write NSFW, and the GPT models it runs on have been stated to be trained from internet data, AO3 fics training these things are not out of the picture. In fact it's actually noted to be true. Chatbot software such as Janitor AI and Character AI produced similar results when prompted as well, but far less advanced than the LLMs.
So the influx of fics that read just as "summaries", have unnatural pacing that not even an inexperienced writer would come up with, blocky sense of story ("too linear" in a sense), etc. may be the product of an LLM. In an age where most younger users on AO3 are preteens and middle schoolers who rely on AI for homework it makes sense that they've turned to this. Unsure what could be done to prevent this, or if it even should be prevented at all, since my stance on LLMs is pretty neutral at best. But they're definitely evolving and implementing themselves in the fanfic sphere. I'd say, just keep an eye out.
No.4722
>>4716Could you post an example of one of those "summary" fics, you don't need to point a finger at anyone on Ao3, I'm just curious and want to see if they're like anything I've stumbled upon before.
No.4723
>>4705I really don’t understand winx club autists in general yet I keep running into them.
No.4724
>>4723Not really unusual that some people never grow up.
No.4728
>>4716Well damn… ain’t no stopping this train, but like… It’s one thing when it’s just silly “haha what can I make Talk to Transformer say?” but it’s another when these “authors” presumably want people to take them seriously- because otherwise they would be very clearly honest and upfront that they’re posting AI output, right?
No.4734
Does anyone else have writer’s block specifically due to not having finished the media you wanna write a fanfic for? Like I have tons of ideas for this ship but my brain doesn’t wanna function enough to write at least a rough draft before it decides to not even bother because I haven’t gotten through the entire media yet. I applaud the fanfic writers that write in between seasons and chapters. I don’t know how they do it without later feeling like they missed out on certain plot points that could’ve enhanced their fics if they just stuck it out longer and got to the next arc or something.
No.4740
>>4734i feel this spiritually, especially when it comes to following ongoing media. and it sucks because then you have people moving on once the series is over (at least for modern “trendy” fandoms) but that’s the only time i actually want to make stuff. and tbh i don’t mind being this way, because so much of my writing comes from analyzing existing canon details anyways so having all of canon works best for me. but i also wish i could hop on the bandwagon so to speak and make stuff when fandom activity is at its peak.
No.4741
>>4734Feeling this as a newbie gintama fujo. I'm not even halfway through the anime and I already want to write about gintoki taking it up the ass but what if there's some really juicy bit of worldbuilding I haven't gotten to that would really enhance the buttsex I could write?
No.4744
>>4741There are so, so many episodes/arcs in Gintama that don't have nearly enough fic/doujin about them. Including the times Gintoki did canonically take it up the butt.
Don't be discouraged from writing while watching, though. Fanwork made based on someone's initial impressions can be the most interesting sometimes! And the most important thing is catching that creative spark when it comes and getting it done or you may miss the moment and never make it happen.
No.4879
>>4389Using modern slang that didn't exist back then.
>>4391Also to watch anything you had 3 options:
1) cinema
2) TV
3) VHS rental
Mobile phones were rare and expensive. Everybody had a phone book (which also listed your address) and doxing was an unknown concept. I myself did prank-calling random people once as a kid… I regret it to this day.
>>4392>That also would be something hard for a fanfic writer to research if they didn't have first hand experience so it makes sense.Not really. Many people post old films from their countries on Youtube/other services.
>>4393>with rudimentary digital art and gamesOh boy. How wrong. Those rudimentary games (and even Solitaire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire ) were peak entertainment. The only reason a kid hassled their parents for a computer. Making/editing stuff in basic Paint was also fascinating.
No.4880
>>4879And that's why I said "unless". I was obsessed too anon. We have lost this soft filter and now the internet is worse for it.
No.4882
>>4879PCs were and are the only reasonable way to go online and they were pretty common in the late 90s. All of my friends already went online with the PC back then with 5-10 years of age and now, 30 years later, we still do it. PCs fascinated kids thanks to all the shit you could do with them even before the internet.
Phone fags needed ages till they even touched the net. First they got addicted to phones because of their shitty SMS addiction. Later when smartphones came it was facebook and similar shit. It took till the mid 00s when the smartphone hordes invaded the net as far as I can tell.
>>4392It's easy to research. Unlike most historical stuff there are billions of photos and videos from that era, regardless of the place. It's also not just about countries but urban centers vs rural areas too. I already downloaded anime as early as 1997 but I heard some anons say that they were still watching the crappy 240p three-parter youtube rips in 2005 because their connection was shit.
No.4886
>>4879>getting a random ass photo editing software off a CD from a magazine so you could use airbrush tools on your art>saving all three artworks to a floppy disk as BMP filesAwww yeeah
>>4882Yeah I was downloading batch torrents on dial up still in about 2004? Had to leave it running in the day and pray nobody phoned the house, but at least with torrents you didn't lose any progress. If there were no seeds then 3-4 part youtube uploads and later crunchyroll were a great help, and that did happen to series fujo were interested in.
No.4889
I don't read other fanfic within the fandom when I am currently writing, or planning on writing one myself. I'm afraid of accidentally utilizing ideas/characterization I liked via general osmosis, but more than that, I'm extremely prone to losing confidence in what I've managed so far. Anyone else?
No.4890
>>4889Same, once I've decided I'm writing a fanfic for a series I force myself to stop interacting with fanworks until I finish at least one because I don't want to subconsciously borrow ideas or be influenced by fandom characteristics. Part of it is definitely insecurity about my own writing, the other half is about "purity" using only the source material as inspiration.
No.4895
>>4889>via general osmosiosI've used this exact phrasing before. I'm SO paranoid about it, especially because the fandom and ship I'm writing for is so small. I worry that my ideas aren't unique and I'm sure they've already been written already, but if I close my eyes and post without knowing that, at least I got my work out there…
No.4900
>>4890>>4895I'm glad I'm not the only one. I managed to resist and get my work out there (I'm still resisting since I'm still writing), but more than a few people compared my fic to one of the fandom's most popular. I tried reading it since I was curious, but I couldn't even finish it. I can see why it's popular, and it was released during that Prime Fandom Popularity window which always helps, but I found it extremely OOC. Like the sort of writing in which the early-20-something woman projects her interests/politics on characters that aren't from Earth to begin with. I know I should take the comparison as a compliment, as it's meant to be no doubt, but… get a feeling so complicated.