#fanfiction culture

[anxious-m3ss]

“I hope this email finds you well”

First of all the only emails that ever find me well are from AO3

[roomwithavoid]

“dead dove” is not a warning. it has never been a warning. if you use “dead dove” as a trigger warning you are missing the entire point. the origin of it is that if you see a bag labeled “dead dove” and open it, you should expect to see a dead dove. that’s not how so many of you assholes use it. you expect me to know whatever secret code you came up with and then have the audacity to get upset with me for stumbling across something i didn’t want to see?

putting “dead dove” and nothing else on something is like putting “trigger warning” and not elaborating. you stupid dumb fucks.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Maybe it's my leftover instincts from the "flame wars" phase of ff.net but whenever I see people getting a bit too invested in complaining about fanfics getting their blorbos wrong, like it's some sort of personal insult to them or a systemic injustice, I get worried. It wasn't that long ago that getting someone's favorite character "wrong" was considered a "sin against fandom" and people who ran around bullying new writers into quitting were considered heroes saving people from bad fanfic. There's a reason ao3 doesn't have forums like ff.net did, they were are magnets for targeted harassment, especially for female fanfic writers who wrote characters that were "too perfect".

There was never a perfect era where all fanfic writers lived together in harmony and if we just did x y or z we'd all go back to it. There's always been an element of bullying and judgment in the community and if we aren't careful it'll sneak back.

[frogdottir]

Well folks, from recent observation— turns out that creating mental scenarios in my brain while driving for 6 hours does NOT increase your word count. 😞

[rosekillerbf]

at the end of the day, it's me and that one fanfiction i read when i was 14 against the world.

[lunarriviera]

all of us who are fic readers, we say these things about fic. we say things like, this fic walked into my living room, slapped me across the face, and took my lunch money. we say, this fic hurt me in my feelings, this fic dared to perceive me. when what we are trying to say is: i remember.

i remember what it felt like, my mouth on the cotton, the warmth of skin seeping through cloth. i remember what it felt like, waking alone and trying to figure out why i felt so terrible—do i have the flu? did someone die?—and then having it all come back in a rush: oh right, i was left behind and i’m surviving it, somehow. i remember what it felt like, being so in love it threatened to spill out, did spill, ruined everything it touched, saved me even as it flowed away and was gone.

because fic, like fiction like poetry like songs, is a mnemonic device, a little engine of memory, a container that holds recollection like a liquid. it says, don’t forget. don’t forget what it felt like to love someone that much.

alternatively and in corollary, fic is an imaginary. it says: imagine if it were you, that someone loved. imagine someone loved you once, once you mattered to someone, once someone chose you. one day something made them stop, then turn, then see you in a different light. one day they realized: no, this is different. this is more. this is love. one day they felt for you something that made them lose their breath, that almost doubled them over, one day they thought about losing you and realized they might not survive that. one day they got it, that you were it for them.

fic says: know that you loved another on this earth. don’t forget. and don’t forget to imagine that (perhaps) you were equally beloved too.

[fairfowl]

Naming your fanfiction "cupcakes" is similar to naming your fic "my immortal"

In theory, they're very normal fan fic titles... but they have implications

Know your herstory?

[snowviolettwhite]

Me writing fan-fiction, making the brooding tough character secretly being neurodivergent and a giant softie who needs to let their walls down. Also writing the awkward character who the embodiment of human sunshine secretly willing to break the law and kill if anyone dare hurt the people they love.

[fan-girls-r-us]

When your favorite fic updates

[persimnon]

i love him so dearly. and i want to read his destiel fic

[roamingtigress]

"He/she wouldn't fucking say that"

Explain the words on my screen then

[daringdoombringer]

Watching ColeyDoesThings explain the “omegaverse” genre in fanfiction as an Apothisexual person feels like I’m some scientist studying the behavior of mice or chimpanzees.

It’s kinda beautiful and very hilarious.

[thestarlightforge]

I do not understand what a “blorbo” is. But if I had to guess. I’d say Jason Todd is it

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Also fix it to mean "What if MY favorite character was the protagonist and all the other ones who disagreed with them are show how wrong they were".

That too. I get the wish fulfillment aspect of it, but there's also serious sexism to it. Women can't do self-indulgent fanfics where they fall in love with their favorite characters or they're "Mary Sues" but guys can write self-indulgent fanfics where everyone tells them or their character of choice how smart and right they are? I'm fine with self-indulgent fanfic, I love self-indulgent fanfic, it's crucial to growing as a writer, but I see this constant double standard based on who is allowed to indulge and who is not. If you're allowing the latter, you have to allow the former. But the latter will never allow that, because as far as they're concerned, this isn't self-indulgence, it's just them being "right".

[epitome-of-an-openbook]

share the holiday spirit with your favorite fanfic writers by giving them the gift of a comment on your favorite of their fics