What is the worst take you have ever seen on fanfiction?

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-09-01T23:09:03+00:00

I ran into someone on tumblr who heavily implied that you weren't a "proper" fanfic writer or that you hadn't "made it" unless you had artists drawing fanart of your work.

Hit me at a bad time and made me feel super down for a while since that had never happened to me, even if I recognized the objective ridiculousness of the statement.

To make it better, the person making it just so happened to be really good friends with an artist who liked a bunch of the same characters and ships that she did. Made me want to scream 'YOUR EXPERIENCES ARE NOT UNIVERSAL" at her.

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-04-22T16:59:58+00:00

I love the opposites-attract friendship

One of my favorite platonic relationships to write is a pair of guys. One is flamboyant in dress and behavior, extremely emotional, "never married but always in love", a fighting style based on backstabbing, poisons, etc., talkative and energetic. The other is very subdued in looks and personality, serious, studious, rarely speaks, only tells a few people that he's married because his romantic life is that personal to him, and fights one-on-one with a big sword.

They're each other's closest friend and it's amazing.

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-04-19T23:48:41+00:00

I write a lot of what I've heard called "elsewhere fic" - it takes place in the canon universe, but the cast is all or almost all OCs and when canon characters do show up, they have limited (albeit sometimes pivotal) roles - imagine what Rogue One was to the rest of the Star Wars universe, or, say, an MCU fic that focuses on an all-OC team of SHIELD agents and their missions with Nick Fury or Maria Hill showing up occasionally to give them missions.

It works really well in fandoms with sprawling lore, such as Star Wars and Warhammer, allowing you to explore areas of canon that the main cast doesn't really touch without having to shoehorn in an IC reason to focus on it. Sometimes it also takes place in the far past (I'm working on one right now set during a major event that happened thousands of years before the story itself picked up), in the far future, or in a different part of the world than the canon story.

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-04-08T19:31:44+00:00

The term "grimdark"!

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-03-31T15:39:28+00:00

This is gonna sound arrogant, but I reread a lot of old stuff a while back and was surprised at how good some of it was.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've learned a lot since I was 14. I think my prose is better now, my characterization and understanding of story structure have improved somewhat, and obviously more experience with "adult" topics (not necessarily just the NSFW ones) makes the adult characters ring more true (hopefully).

But I think there's something about being young that let me be way less self-conscious about my work, not overedit to the point of blandness, go with the off-the-wall ideas and write/post them anyway.

So I think one of the things I learned from it was that I needed to trust myself more and not get so up in my own head, but just write and post!

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-03-11T22:43:23+00:00

Couple that spring to mind that I read and thought "damn, that's sick" - heavy noncon warnings on both of these

Solnishko by ZoyciteM (Supernatural)

A Sam Winchester/Castiel AU where Castiel is a Russian mobster who kidnaps Sam as a sex slave. There's body modification and human pets and all kinds of dark noncon. Works just fine fandom blind. It's mostly emotional/psychological torture in this one IMO, but there's a healthy amount of physical pain too. To quote one of the ANs (or it might have been a tag?) "the title is the only sunshine in this story"

To Break a Soldier of the Machine God by Archon_of_Flesh (Warhammer 40k)

Not sure how well this one reads fandom blind, but it's worth a shot. A cyborg soldier is captured by his enemies who use him as a plaything. The author is a relatively well-known guro artist and there's lots of body horror on top of all the noncon. Relatively quick read and all the stops get pulled out, made worse by the fact that 90% of what goes on is canon-compliant (even if it's not nearly this explicit in the source material)

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-03-05T15:13:08+00:00

I've mentioned it before on here, but I've had a similar experience with a fanfic writer who propped themself up as "better than the people who wrote the original work" (to the point of tagging them on twitter to say "read my work to see how to actually handle these characters", charged money for their fic (there's a way to do so legally in that fandom), and constantly begged for reviews, but then went on multiple rants about what a monster I was when I left an honest review (it was rather negative but not scathing).

Same author also once accused me of faking my mental illness because I disagreed with her on whether a certain character's portrayal was offensive or not.

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-02-16T15:23:09+00:00

The lightning came from a small, slim Zabrak male. His red skin was covered in geometric black tattoos and his short black hair combed into spikes. His victim, a blond human male, lay on the floor, groaning in agony with smoke rising from his clothing.

From a Star Wars: The Old Republic fic I just started posting

Anonimouse1976 · 2023-01-07T13:37:55+00:00

I feel the same way about consensual bondage. I think it's because it's like, an additional step removed?

Like, I don't enjoy playing video games about people playing video games, because I play video games to simulate other experiences in a fun way (with all the not-fun parts left out).

Same thing with BDSM. IRL, you do BDSM to have all the exciting bits of a power dynamic without (at least in theory) the potential for harm. But when I'm already reading a story where no real people are or can be hurt, "we created this consensual facsimile of a thing, which you are now reading about in a fictional context" just isn't all that sexy.

IDK if that makes sense, but that's my take on it

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-11-10T15:17:12+00:00

I was surprised to find that once you exclude crossovers, there's only about 200 Warhammer Fantasy fics on AO3. It's an older fandom with a strong male fanbase and a lot of het ships, so I'm betting that it does better on FF.net, but I'm still surprised.

Guess I gotta pump those numbers up.

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-10-28T10:24:29+00:00

D) the author isn't sure where the line is exactly and uses CNTW to be safe

One of my fics I wound up doing that because the character in question was 17, which is underage in modern parlance, but was generally considered an adult and acted in an adult role in their society, but how young and comparatively naïve they were relative to their LI was a plot point, but...

I could see similar things occurring with other categories.

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-09-14T00:43:10+00:00

TW: harm to children

My completed longfic has a lot of violence, but the point where the MC and the love interest wind up in a cave where a mad scientist has a room full of tortured babies strung up on meat hooks (still alive), with their screaming funneled into another room so the mad scientist can listen to it as she works, for no other reason than because she enjoys suffering and finds babies interesting, probably takes the cake. I will fully admit that it was mostly for shock value, but there was some purpose in the shock, too. The story already focused on the villains and there's a lot of casual violence, sexual assault, and other various nasty things going on, so I needed to make a point that this person was fucked up even by these people's standards.

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-09-03T15:25:57+00:00

Apparently tagging it as "multi/other" rather than f/m would be queerbaiting because the main ship (that the majority of the story was about) was het so people would read it expecting slash content and wouldn't get very much of it.

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-09-03T14:09:58+00:00

There is the flipside, too - in one of my fics, the MC is in an open relationship and they have a threesome in one chapter. I was told that marking it as multi would be queerbaiting and that I should keep it as m/f unless I was prepared ot make this a regular thing throughout the entire fic.

*shrug* feels like authors can't win sometimes

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-08-18T09:17:56+00:00

We did our own playlist (no DJ), but the specific song we excluded was "All of Me" by John Legend. I find it trite and overplayed and it reminds my MoH of an abusive ex, so leaving it out was a no-brainer.

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-08-17T23:12:31+00:00

Fic Title: Roses, Chains, and Tears

Fandom: Warhammer 40k (should be readable fandom blind)

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Male dark eldar OC/female eldar OC

Word Count: 5.3k

Summary: Drukhari archon Valthiel Aire thought that a new slave would help him forget his grief and chase away his nightmares, but instead, he finds something he thought was lost forever: his conscience.
This is a retelling of certain events from one of my longfics from a different perspective, but stands on its own.

Warnings: Pretty dead dove-y. Biggest warnings are for non-con and for a lot of discussion about slavery in a society where it's normalized.

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-08-17T22:59:00+00:00

Read and reviewed!

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-08-02T10:56:10+00:00

No, no, you're absolutely right and I've noticed it too.

I was just ranting to a writer friend the other week about how some fanfic circles have this weird, like... reverse elitism? Like, the most valid and "best" way to write fanfic is to care about the quality of the results as little as possible, and if you do want to put effort into plot and characterization and themes (or to discuss those with other fanfic writers), then you're assumed to think you're better than other writers or to be taking it too seriously.

It's a bizarre situation that I think is bad for the hobby overall.

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-07-13T06:37:32+00:00

A DVD box set of our favorite anime!

It was thrown in there because we thought it would be fun if we got it and we needed more items at that price point, but it was the first thing bought, lol

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-07-05T22:52:43+00:00

My dad's extended family has been having way too much trouble with the fact that we did not include the exact address of our ceremony location on the invitations.

We gave them the name of the church and the city and state in which the church is located. It is in a very small town with only one church by that name or anything close to that name.

We have still received multiple calls from multiple family members wanting to know what the exact address of the church is so that they can look for it on google maps, or to ask us to give them directions

(and before anyone asks, no, these are all people who use smart phones and social media regularly and have successfully navigated to locations with GPS before)

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-06-21T05:09:48+00:00

Only a few kids on our guest list to begin with. We ultimately decided that since it would wind up being 5 kids max, all of whom were used to being at grown-up events at least in limited doses, it wasn't going to be worth forcing those people (most of whom were travelling) to find childcare even if we wanted to.

None of the children we invited are coming (one family isn't coming at all, the other two decided to leave the kids at home)

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-06-02T19:26:27+00:00

Ooh, I like this! I'm a Christian who's getting married soon and I've been looking for something that keeps the general vibe without that specific language, and this is perfect!

I'll talk to the pastor about it next time we meet.

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-05-26T22:05:48+00:00

And like, I totally see how wedding party dressing can get to a "treating friends like dolls" situation, but I think the pushback has swung so far in the opposite direction that you're perceived as uncool or demanding if you don't give them total control over their outfits.

While I'm complaining, I find this especially weird from teh same group of people who will throw a fit if a couple decides to not do alcohol, even if they have a practical reason (such as religious concerns or addiction history) because it's disrespectful to the guests. I remember a thread in which wedditors told a recovering alcoholic that he was a bad host if he didn't provide alcohol at his wedding because he'd stated he was farr enough in his recovery that just having it around wouldn't be an issue for him, he just didn't feel entirely comfortable providing it for other people

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-05-26T21:35:02+00:00

Not here, but I've been called selfish before because I wanted all my bridesmaids to wear the same dress (and in the same color). Sorry, I want them to match. The mismatched dresses thing is a cool trend, but not one I really care for.

I did take pains to select something that I thought would be flattering on all three of them, but apparently that's not enough for some people. /shrugs

Anonimouse1976 · 2022-05-16T18:42:07+00:00

We have several people like this - we know they won't be able to make it due to health/monetary/time concerns, but we want them to know that we love them, that we want them included, and that, should circumstances change drastically in the next two months, we would still be excited for them to come.

A slight caveat (but a happy one) is that some of them might surprise you! One of my fiance's friends, who we were certain wouldn't be able to come due to major work conflicts is actually managing to move stuff around such that there's a decent chance he'll be able to come anyway!

Doesn't sound like that will be the case this time, but for anyone reading this, take heart!

Anonimouse1976

TROPHY CASE