reads fanfic to cope
Feb. 20th, 2022 01:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hereinevitablyi recently hit 3,500 ao3 bookmarks so clearly there is something fundamentally wrong with me. anyways i've been having the worst time ever lately, and subsequently have tearing through fic at very unhealthy paces, so here are some of the thoughts i've gathered:
(disclaimer: obviously fic is still the product of someone's hard work and has inherent merit etc. etc. this is just my personal taste and i am happy to admit that sometimes my personal taste is objectively bad. as always i am taking things too seriously and thus you should do the opposite and not take any of this seriously :thumbsup:)
mechanical / formatting pet peeves:
- "smirked": it's been so overused that even when applied tastefully... as tastefully as it can get i cannot handle it. also i will never not think of 😼
- summaries that include anything but the actual summary: there are two entire sections for author's notes for that on god. seriously when people just write whatever... or worse say stuff like "sorry this sux" "summary is bad but give it a try" you are actively steering me Away do you not understand marketing your own work
- "orbs" "tongues battling for dominance" etc: how has the internet not bullied people out of doing this already
- epithets: bro they're making out i do not need to know their hair colors... the word bluenette is actually funny as shit though i'll admit this
- "impossibly close": i saw a tweet that put the mental image of a video game glitch where two characters actually are freaking out and impossibly inside of each other and i have never been able to read that phrase the same way ever since
- when people don't tag the main ship first: 😐
- overtagging: like obviously tag warnings and other general content stuff i am all for that but at a certain point it is just ridiculous... if your 3k word fic takes up an entire page then there is probably something wrong. like you do not actually have to explain every single nuanced detail of your fic in the tags... that is what reading the actual fic is for... ALSO...
- drabble collection fics / series: if it's like three things then fine but there are some collections that just go On And On and the tags along take a billion years to scroll through because they keep on getting updated and they are always shooting up to the top of every ship they include. Please just split it up at that point. once i saw a series that was just every single fic someone had ever written or something like that... it had at least 50 fandoms with a billion content tags and 3 million words total and it took me at least half a minute to scroll through. why
- "let out a breath they didn't know they were holding": idk i just don't like cliché turns of phrase that much. like i use them too, but that's because i'm not a perfect writer. also maybe i just don't know anything about myself but i swear that i have literally never done this
- quotations that don't have end punctuation: proper punctuation just looks good
- no paragraph spaces: i do not have the attention span to sift through massive blocks of text holy shit
- purple prose: [puts on the hypocrite hat] i know. i know. i am also an offender but seriously sometimes it is just ridiculous
- indentation: leave it to MLA
- overusing italics: when people feel the need to emphasize every other word... it just creates this weird forced cadence when i'm reading it. i don't like it.
- bold and underline: it looks so bad idk. the above overuse of italics would be preferable even
- describing people as broken: can we all please start getting a little more inventive with our figurative language when angsting
- chatfics: 😐
- not writing out numbers: okay this is probably THE most subjective thing on this list like. this is purely a me problem but something about 10 versus ten just looks so much worse to me. like it breaks up the flow of the letters.
content dislikes:
- height differences: the way people harp over them just is not my cup of tea. i think the one time i was okay with it was a chansoo where they were trying to cuddle and kyungsoo was specifically like 'why is he so tall i am trying so hard not to knee you in the dick here' that's okay. basically height differences are bad unless they aren't
- jealousy / possessiveness: somehow people always manage to portray this in the least appealing way possible. idk maybe i'm also just a boring person that likes it when boring people communicate and trust each other in boring ways but like For Real mayb i've just pavloved myself because i feel like a lot of. more poorly constructed fics often feature one very specific type of jealously
- pda / exhibitionism: this is also just a Me thing but i think i'm just a very private person and i literally feel like dying when reading stuff like that. what do you mean you are doing anything remotely inappropriate in public... wtf. sometimes i will genuinely start freaking out if an author did not specifically write in someone closing the door < guy who has issues
- when a pairing that very obviously only works when there is grit and tension has a tag filled with college aus: my new big thing is some people are not destined to be in love in every universe i am going to hold onto this principle until the day i die. anyways seriously some pairings would actually literally despise each other if they met in a coffee shop they would hate each other briefly and then never talk again
- amnesia fics: this can be SITUATIONALLY good but you have to have a really good set-up for it otherwise it just becomes gimmicky and also vaguely insensitive???
- person a is a bully and person b is their victim: i like it when people go from hate to love but the context should not be high school and teens being dicks
- ??? i actually cannot think of anything else. mayb i am pickier when it comes to which tropes i think work for a specific pairing but in general i will genuinely read pretty much anything (see above points about objectively bad taste and mental illness)
content likes:
- identity fuckery: current go crazy go stupid obsession it is just So Good. you can do so much with it. i want to be loved for who i am versus if i were to reveal who i am i would be immediately detested... i want to be loved for who i am versus i know i will always remind them of someone else... etc. etc. character studies also fall into this category imo. It Is Just the inner turmoil the deep insecurities the crisis of it all... incredible this is also a situation where i will accept amnesia when done right.
- hurt/comfort: h/c is the bread and butter of ao3 i swear you just can't go wrong with it if the writing is passable and the dynamics are set up even vaguely correctly aka exactly in line with my left right prefs left is caretaker right is caretakee. yes i know that in a real relationship it doesn't work like that but if you are basing your love life on fanfiction then that is on you.
- speaking of l/r prefs: this is lowkey mortifying to talk about but my l/r prefs are very easy to decipher actually. in theory i like to pretend that i enjoy it when people switch but in reality most of the time whoever i like best is left and everyone else is right. that is literally it [enter some long spiel about my problems with vulnerability and so on here]
- ambiguous relationships: when they aren't really together but yes they are but no they aren't. that is perfection to me. luv it when things are just permanently unstated but still a constant to rely on oh yeah oh yeah some people aren't ever meant to be in a Relationship capital R actually they're just meant to orbit each other for life.
- polyamory: literally the more people you add to the equation the more chances there are of the relationship being more interesting it is that easy. for example if you throw jaemin into any one of dream's boring / bad ships he instantly improves it
- when they are trying to kill each other: [gestures at my ao3] yeah.
- slow-burn: actually i guess i could've put this above but i don't super enjoy it when relationships develop too quickly. like it doesn't ruin a fic or anything for me but personally i love it when people take their time and it is agonizing and they miss each other a billion times before it Finally Happens i am once again talking about the 326k baeksoo pokemon au fic where they don't properly kiss until 200k in.
- fluff / domesticity: i just like it when people are in love. i have many faults but what isn't one is falling into the trap of thinking only angsty painful crazy fics are good
- soft power imbalances: new fic pref unlocked after getting into genshin. i do like it when one person is at the complete mercy of another with the right dynamics re: don't base your life on fic and you will be fine
- friends-to-lovers: to love someone is to know them or whatever and what better way to know someone than to literally travel through the ups and downs of life with them for years.
- there's probably more but again i can't think of any. the tl;dr is i like it when people feel things and i like it when those things are sometimes complex but also i like it when those things are just simple and easy and feel-good hope this helps! if you read all of this you are crazy but also cool. in a few days i'll probably flip a coin to decide whether or not i lock this
fun fact i actually really want to move ao3 accounts and if i ever post anything again it WILL be on a new account. my only problem is that once again i have 3,500+ bookmarks and many years of history on my current one that i could not bear to part with screaming and crying and biting my fist. actually i do not understand how people just post everything they write on one account. i understand pseudonyms are a thing but everything can still be traced back to YOU that is horrifying to me, no.1 account hoarder i can and will compartmentalize every single thing i choose to project to the internet.
(disclaimer: obviously fic is still the product of someone's hard work and has inherent merit etc. etc. this is just my personal taste and i am happy to admit that sometimes my personal taste is objectively bad. as always i am taking things too seriously and thus you should do the opposite and not take any of this seriously :thumbsup:)
mechanical / formatting pet peeves:
- "smirked": it's been so overused that even when applied tastefully... as tastefully as it can get i cannot handle it. also i will never not think of 😼
- summaries that include anything but the actual summary: there are two entire sections for author's notes for that on god. seriously when people just write whatever... or worse say stuff like "sorry this sux" "summary is bad but give it a try" you are actively steering me Away do you not understand marketing your own work
- "orbs" "tongues battling for dominance" etc: how has the internet not bullied people out of doing this already
- epithets: bro they're making out i do not need to know their hair colors... the word bluenette is actually funny as shit though i'll admit this
- "impossibly close": i saw a tweet that put the mental image of a video game glitch where two characters actually are freaking out and impossibly inside of each other and i have never been able to read that phrase the same way ever since
- when people don't tag the main ship first: 😐
- overtagging: like obviously tag warnings and other general content stuff i am all for that but at a certain point it is just ridiculous... if your 3k word fic takes up an entire page then there is probably something wrong. like you do not actually have to explain every single nuanced detail of your fic in the tags... that is what reading the actual fic is for... ALSO...
- drabble collection fics / series: if it's like three things then fine but there are some collections that just go On And On and the tags along take a billion years to scroll through because they keep on getting updated and they are always shooting up to the top of every ship they include. Please just split it up at that point. once i saw a series that was just every single fic someone had ever written or something like that... it had at least 50 fandoms with a billion content tags and 3 million words total and it took me at least half a minute to scroll through. why
- "let out a breath they didn't know they were holding": idk i just don't like cliché turns of phrase that much. like i use them too, but that's because i'm not a perfect writer. also maybe i just don't know anything about myself but i swear that i have literally never done this
- quotations that don't have end punctuation: proper punctuation just looks good
- no paragraph spaces: i do not have the attention span to sift through massive blocks of text holy shit
- purple prose: [puts on the hypocrite hat] i know. i know. i am also an offender but seriously sometimes it is just ridiculous
- indentation: leave it to MLA
- overusing italics: when people feel the need to emphasize every other word... it just creates this weird forced cadence when i'm reading it. i don't like it.
- bold and underline: it looks so bad idk. the above overuse of italics would be preferable even
- describing people as broken: can we all please start getting a little more inventive with our figurative language when angsting
- chatfics: 😐
- not writing out numbers: okay this is probably THE most subjective thing on this list like. this is purely a me problem but something about 10 versus ten just looks so much worse to me. like it breaks up the flow of the letters.
content dislikes:
- height differences: the way people harp over them just is not my cup of tea. i think the one time i was okay with it was a chansoo where they were trying to cuddle and kyungsoo was specifically like 'why is he so tall i am trying so hard not to knee you in the dick here' that's okay. basically height differences are bad unless they aren't
- jealousy / possessiveness: somehow people always manage to portray this in the least appealing way possible. idk maybe i'm also just a boring person that likes it when boring people communicate and trust each other in boring ways but like For Real mayb i've just pavloved myself because i feel like a lot of. more poorly constructed fics often feature one very specific type of jealously
- pda / exhibitionism: this is also just a Me thing but i think i'm just a very private person and i literally feel like dying when reading stuff like that. what do you mean you are doing anything remotely inappropriate in public... wtf. sometimes i will genuinely start freaking out if an author did not specifically write in someone closing the door < guy who has issues
- when a pairing that very obviously only works when there is grit and tension has a tag filled with college aus: my new big thing is some people are not destined to be in love in every universe i am going to hold onto this principle until the day i die. anyways seriously some pairings would actually literally despise each other if they met in a coffee shop they would hate each other briefly and then never talk again
- amnesia fics: this can be SITUATIONALLY good but you have to have a really good set-up for it otherwise it just becomes gimmicky and also vaguely insensitive???
- person a is a bully and person b is their victim: i like it when people go from hate to love but the context should not be high school and teens being dicks
- ??? i actually cannot think of anything else. mayb i am pickier when it comes to which tropes i think work for a specific pairing but in general i will genuinely read pretty much anything (see above points about objectively bad taste and mental illness)
content likes:
- identity fuckery: current go crazy go stupid obsession it is just So Good. you can do so much with it. i want to be loved for who i am versus if i were to reveal who i am i would be immediately detested... i want to be loved for who i am versus i know i will always remind them of someone else... etc. etc. character studies also fall into this category imo. It Is Just the inner turmoil the deep insecurities the crisis of it all... incredible this is also a situation where i will accept amnesia when done right.
- hurt/comfort: h/c is the bread and butter of ao3 i swear you just can't go wrong with it if the writing is passable and the dynamics are set up even vaguely correctly aka exactly in line with my left right prefs left is caretaker right is caretakee. yes i know that in a real relationship it doesn't work like that but if you are basing your love life on fanfiction then that is on you.
- speaking of l/r prefs: this is lowkey mortifying to talk about but my l/r prefs are very easy to decipher actually. in theory i like to pretend that i enjoy it when people switch but in reality most of the time whoever i like best is left and everyone else is right. that is literally it [enter some long spiel about my problems with vulnerability and so on here]
- ambiguous relationships: when they aren't really together but yes they are but no they aren't. that is perfection to me. luv it when things are just permanently unstated but still a constant to rely on oh yeah oh yeah some people aren't ever meant to be in a Relationship capital R actually they're just meant to orbit each other for life.
- polyamory: literally the more people you add to the equation the more chances there are of the relationship being more interesting it is that easy. for example if you throw jaemin into any one of dream's boring / bad ships he instantly improves it
- when they are trying to kill each other: [gestures at my ao3] yeah.
- slow-burn: actually i guess i could've put this above but i don't super enjoy it when relationships develop too quickly. like it doesn't ruin a fic or anything for me but personally i love it when people take their time and it is agonizing and they miss each other a billion times before it Finally Happens i am once again talking about the 326k baeksoo pokemon au fic where they don't properly kiss until 200k in.
- fluff / domesticity: i just like it when people are in love. i have many faults but what isn't one is falling into the trap of thinking only angsty painful crazy fics are good
- soft power imbalances: new fic pref unlocked after getting into genshin. i do like it when one person is at the complete mercy of another with the right dynamics re: don't base your life on fic and you will be fine
- friends-to-lovers: to love someone is to know them or whatever and what better way to know someone than to literally travel through the ups and downs of life with them for years.
- there's probably more but again i can't think of any. the tl;dr is i like it when people feel things and i like it when those things are sometimes complex but also i like it when those things are just simple and easy and feel-good hope this helps! if you read all of this you are crazy but also cool. in a few days i'll probably flip a coin to decide whether or not i lock this
fun fact i actually really want to move ao3 accounts and if i ever post anything again it WILL be on a new account. my only problem is that once again i have 3,500+ bookmarks and many years of history on my current one that i could not bear to part with screaming and crying and biting my fist. actually i do not understand how people just post everything they write on one account. i understand pseudonyms are a thing but everything can still be traced back to YOU that is horrifying to me, no.1 account hoarder i can and will compartmentalize every single thing i choose to project to the internet.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-19 04:17 am (UTC)10000X AGREE ON THE AMBIGUOUS RELATIONSHIPS POINT!!! the most romantic thing in the world is when things are not romantic. at least not explicitly. it's the love in the unsaid... the will they/won't they... just all around perfection no matter what. power imbalances & identity fuckery are both so great too especially when it comes to genshinfic (<-- eimiko enjoyer). also the polyamory point is so real jaemin literally does fix everything
no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 04:37 am (UTC)unsaid relationships are the most tear your hair out thing ever. they make me insane. jaemin my lovely darling boy who fixes everything by virtue of not being able to like people normally thank god <3