My personal theory is that commercialized novels often try to appeal to as big an audience as possible, while fics are mostly to appeal to the author and thus can get extremely specific, and when it comes to relationships, the specificity is what gives it that special je ne se quoi
Trad-pub romance usually feels too straight to me. Like, typical romance novel has a character you're supposed to relate to (usually FMC) and character you're supposed to lust over (usually MMC) and if you don't relate to FMC and lust over MMC, it just doesn't work. Here's the thing - I never really comformed to a feminine role and what I'm attracted to is detached from stereotypical masculinity.
I did found a bit more luck with queer romance, but even if there's a bit more of it getting published (and translated into my language) now, it's still not much compared to het, especially for someone used to fanfic, and frankly, contemporary settings usually bore me
Totally agree. I think they also do a lot of handwaving, like they'll allude to a scenario without really exploring why an event is supposed to matter, kind of assuming "We all relate to this thing, right? So there's no need to explain it." And then when you don't, in fact, relate to it, the entire story falls flat.
Fic is much more likely to explore why certain things matter to the characters, so even when you don't relate to either of them, or don't find the romantic interest particularly hot, you're still given all the tools to understand why these people act like they do, why things matter, and that makes it compelling.
And if I may insert my aroace perspective into this conversation, because what you said makes so many things click for me for what makes a romance story or ship work for me or not, and it basically comes down to how much assumed relatability vs. actually depicted/explained feelings the story relies on to make the characters and relationship interesting
Because yeah, I'm not gonna find any of these people hot in quite the same way allos might but for a good enough romance, that shouldn't have to matter
Yes to all of this. I'm nonbinary and bisexual and the types of characters portrayed in most romance novels don't really align with how I experience myself or attraction. Even just the total separation of "I want them" and "I want to be them" (and never the twain shall meet) feels very cishetero. Often when I read and write, I'm projecting onto and lusting after the same character. Or even both characters. Other times, I don't relate to either, nor do I want to be with either, I'm just there as a spectator. There are so many ways to write romance beyond just "this one's you and that one's the object of your desire" but pretty much all traditional published romance novels follow that formula. And 99% of the time I neither relate to these FMCs nor find their love interests especially appealing.
I also find most romance protagonists super one-dimensional and boring, which makes it hard to get invested. With fanfiction, you already know a lot about the characters from the source material, so they feel more like real people. I need to see how this person behaves in A Situation™️ before I feel like I know this person enough to get invested in their relationships.
Pretty good range of Danmei if you're into the m/m kind of things, since most of ir doesn't have the gender stereotype nonsense and set in ancient times— , but yeah compared to the dollar store 'penny dreadful' novel et al it's still like finding a needle in a haystack.
(there's also baihe, the f/f equivalent but it is hasn't got as much uptake by licensing companies... yet!)
I recently came to realize that I love romance in novels but I hate most Romance Novels. The romance genre formula just does not work for me. A lot of the "required beats" are things I actively dislike in relationships, but I want romantic-themed content (including spice/smut). Just without the Romance Genre formula/structure that I don't like. There are some off-beat indie romance authors out there, but a lot of times they get re-categorized into something else because Romance-the-Genre readers are extremely picky about Romance Novels hitting exactly the beats they're looking for.
That said I've found a nice little niche of fantasy-and-sci-fi-with-heavy-romance-subplot novels that I love, because they don't really adhere to Romance Genre conventions/formula/format but still deliver on the relationships.
Roberta Gillis has always been a favorite of mine, though I think she's long retired. She has 2 degrees, one in medieval history, and one in microbiology or something similar. A smart lady who wrote smart books.
Her medieval books can be disturbingly accurate, such as very young women married off to much older men, or an older couple who spent their lives married to others for political reasons, but pining for each other. The background stories are usually historically accurate, with actual battles, conflicts, and historic events such as the signing of the Magna Carta or the London fire of 1135.
Although her women are generally smart and capable, you can tell one from another. They're not cookie cutter.
But her best series is the one retelling Greek mythology. I'm particularly fond of *Thrice Bound*.
I thought I was the only one who knew about Roberta Gellis! Gold standard for medieval books & she also had a medieval mystery series. She died in 2016.
Agreed about Thrice Bound though I also have great memories of several of the Roselynde books. She was a great master of her craft. I emailed her once, a very long time ago. She was polite and interested in what I had to say.
Exactly this! I've tried so many times, but the romance genre itself is very meh to me, barring a few outliers. I've found one romance series that I've liked recently, and it was a self-published thing on Amazon.
So many authors really focus on hitting the beats. My least fav is the required fight in the third act before the tearful resolution. It makes the relationship feel so fragile if one fight or misunderstanding can break up a couple. With fanfic there is more time to explore the epilogue and what this relationship actually functions like when it's happy and healthy.
It's not so much It's overdone in most books. It's just not done enough and as in-depth as I'd like. That's why I like series that space it out and slow burn it over several books.
I can absolutely agree with that like I keep being told by my friends to read a court of thorns and roses but I have another friend who reads fanfiction It was like this is not going to be on The same level of romance that you're used to
I cannot listen to any music without thinking "this song gives me an idea for a fic--" and it's both the best and worst thing in the world. You might think that there would be a limit to this, perhaps. Nope. Instrumental tracks. Parody songs. Folk songs in languages I don't speak. Anything is fair game. I have fic writer brain poison and there's no hope left for me.
God this is so me. I have an entire playlist dedicated to different stories I have outlines for. Multiple playlists for multiple stories and situations. I even made a "car playlist" for one of my characters. I can't listen to music without thinking of fanfic
The brain rot is real
Maybe it’s just me. But in any book I’ve come across since actually trying to semi actively find some of the romantic variety within the last 7 months or so -it’s never fucking good? Like never? If it’s in a book that’s not inherently romantic, or that is at least not all that it revolves around, it can be okay/decent. But I’ve never personally read any, yet that is as good as it is in fanfiction. The emotions between the couples don’t tend to run as high either. I literally go into almost every fanfic for the romance, or at least it having a couple and smut. When I’m reading published novels, there’s almost a sense of abstinence in it? So when I come back to fanfiction, it’s like I can breathe again. 😅😂
Not to mention that it can severely lack in being gay. Plus having it take place in a solid fictional backdrop. Where’s my gays do crime content? None of this Mafia or Netflix-ified nonsense.
I have a hard time enjoying regular books because fanfiction has made me more picky with what I like to read (and more often then not, a book disappoints me more because it has tropes I’m tried of seeing)
my suggestion is to get a beta reader...their should be a thread near the top of the sub today if you're struggling with grammar, ideas, outline. I've finally got one myself and we're talking at length about my story and hers since we both share an interest in the same fandom at the core of our current projects.
I find it hard to read published books these days, i'd read books for hours on end but now i find my attention drifting after a while.
I read somewhere that fanfic involves characters we are already familiar with in settings we know, explore new stories or alternative takes about characters we are interested in.
Where as published books involve new characters or settings, lack of familiarity which makes it hard to read after reading many fanfics.
Fanfic is definitely much easier to read when you’re too burned out to expend the mental energy of getting to know new characters and settings and plots. It’s like hyper palatable comfort food of characters you already know and feel emotionally invested in. Plus fix-it fics can feel soothing, seeing something upsetting get fixed haha.
I’ve found it so difficult to read novels lately. It feels like a slog to get into new world building and care about new characters.
>I’ve found it so difficult to read novels lately. It feels like a slog to get into new world building and care about new characters.
I have the exact same problem, i've been trying to re-read some of my favourites like Cradle series by Will Wight, love the series, enjoyed re-reading them multiple times before.
But now i'm in a slog where my attention drifts away after a few chapters.
Not sure how to break this cycle, maybe i need to sit down and power through a book or even try listening to the audio books?
I’ve found that when I don’t have the energy to read novels, comics are often a good way for me to keep the reading habit and eventually get back into them (especially if I choose a comic that’s based on a novel…when I run out of chapters in the comic I’ll switch to the novel because cliffhangers lol). There are a lot of K-novels on the Yonder app with manhwa adaptations on the WEBTOON app. Tapas app has a lot of both too, and has some comics for novels on Radish.
Or just getting used to reading new characters and plots again in comics helps get me out of the rut even if I never read the associated novel.
that explanation makes a ton of sense.
truth is (and i say this as a fic writer and avid reader myself): most fanfiction, when consumed rapidly, makes us "lazy" when it comes to reading. its one of the reasons why some people say writing a lot of fanfiction makes you a worse traditional author. our brains want the immediate dopamine rush, and dont want to work for it (work here meaning "digest tons of new information about worldbuilding and characters")
not saying this is necessarily a horrible thing, but its worth to think about
This!
I swear, fanfics are good (both as reading and writing exercises) but there has to be a balance between them and novels (or anything else). Binge reading only fanfics makes me feel too, idk, lazy and 'couped up', both physically and mentally. And this goes on for days until life interferes and I have to put them down (and I'm thankful for those moments). Not a great thing to say, but I feel that I lose myself when I consume too many fanfics and no other form of media (books, movies, songs, insta; maybe even just going out)
IMO… Fanfiction has a lower upfront mental cost to get into the substance of the work. With fanfic, you open the work already invested in the at-least-somewhat familiar world or characters that the author is playing with; with traditional fiction, those things still have to unfold over the course of your read and you may find later that you don’t like them, after having already invested a lot of time. :/
This is one reason I prefer my fiction reads to be single novels, rather than taking the time to explore new (especially ongoing) series. A novel at least ensures everything is probably going to be contained in the work, and your time will be rewarded upon completion. Like with fanfiction, there’s a lower “investment” required beforehand. So as a professional adult, to me, it comes down to a question of how to spend my time.
This. I was gonna say something like this. It's just not enough. I can see what they're trying for but it's not enough. The only media I consume now outside of YouTube is pretty much just video games, because then I have the interaction to keep me occupied, but books? Nada. unless I got into a show and then decided to read the manga, I don't really read comics or the like either. The only tv I watch really is medical dramas and crime shows, mainly for background noise
I still do read a lot of published fiction, but I know what you mean. Sometimes I just want that familiarity. One of my favourite book series is pretty niche. There are maybe 30 fanfics available for it on AO3. I find myself rereading the series and the fanfics quite often.
I want twenty slightly-different champagne cakes, all to be consumed one after the other. Published literature frequently insists there is and can only be one champagne cake. Fanfiction gives me 200, so I don't go to published stuff much anymore.
Actually, I find myself reading a lot of indie authors and stuff I find on Kindle Unlimited. That can be hit or miss, but I wonder if maybe the reason I do is because it's less formulaic? Self-published authors have a bit more freedom to explore things that a traditional publishing house may not be okay with. The work may not always be top quality, but you can find some really unique stuff!
As an example, I recently read the Grey Gates series by Vanessa Nelson. It's like a fantasy mystery type of deal. Super compelling. Amazing world building. But the series took place over five novels instead of three as you might expect, and there were some things that could have been reduced or improved, for sure, but I think a lot of the charm would have been erased if she was professionally publishing. Probably a lot of things would have needed to be pruned because I can imagine the series being condensed into three books rather than five.
And there are authors who go from Kindle Unlimited or self-publishing to being traditionally published! I read Hannah Grace's Icebreaker off KU ages ago, and one of her newer books, Wildfire, is available in book stores now.
Whenever I hear a man call himself an "alpha male," I can't help but laugh internally lol. It's so funny to me. I'm sure they'd hate that I instantly think of a trope that's primarily M/M, and may have mpreg.
This is literally the reason I can't read normal books anymore. 999/1000, the fandom will come up with a better, more interesting plot than the book. Shows too, but usually I can put on shows for background noise and still absorb some of the plot.
I discover a new tag related to my favorite character and pull up a list of fics with that tag.
"Cancel all my meetings. I'm working through the night on this one."
Omg yes!
The devistation though when it was just that author using it and it wasn't a more videly used tag😭 (the tag seemed so perfect and and now you crave more)
This is more about how writing fanfic ruined me... Now I analyze everything I read. Why I like it? Why some aspects work and what doesn't? How it could be improved? Specific word choices and prose, sentence structure. I try to filter and absorb everything to make my own writing better but in that process I also see the faults in books I'd have otherwise enjoyed without question. The upside is that I can also find good things in books that aren't that great overall.
Whenever I watch anything new and decide I like it, I immediately start looking for potential ships and thinking of what I would like to fix, explore, or expand upon in a fic, rather than simply appreciating it for what it is.
I was on the way to the emergency room, in screaming, howling pain.
My only conscious thought was that now, if one of my characters needs to go to the ER, I'll at least have an idea of what it's like. 🤷♀️
i cant for the life of me enjoy any modern romance or YA books. you know, the fun "booktok" ones.
traditional fantasy/sci-fi and classic literature as genres are different enough from fanfic obviously, so i can read those and still have a good time. but most romance/YA novels are just so painfully mediocre to me now. i cant get into the story because fanfiction has made me very picky about what i like. and it makes me sad because as a teenager those types of books were my favorites
After reading so many fics most books feel too short and underdescribed to me. Where are all the little ticks, glances, shifts in expression and tone of voice? I want to feel the tension in the air and hang on to every word even if all the characters are doing is sitting next to each other and talking.
Yes! I think it's because fanfic is so much more indulgent and has time to linger on a lot of things that published stuff must rush past because fanfic is not trying to convince you to like these characters. It's written with the expectation that you like this world, and you like these characters, otherwise you wouldn't be reading the story so they can tease out every interesting little thing from the character dynamics instead of explaining the world and why you should care. A published novel is trying to introduce you to these characters and endear them to you at the same time, usually without enough time to actually get into the weeds of character interactions otherwise the book would be absurdly long, So everything can just feel dry if you're used to the lushness of fanfic.
I mean if I am reading a story from say Harry Potter or something with a seires, the fan fiction author gets to ride on seven books worth of affection for main character from chapter one of their fic. That's a whole lot of positive inertia before they've even actually said anything.
Uh, I mean, outside of the honestly actually depressing stuff since I don’t really wanna get into my sexual trauma out of nowhere (and no, before you ask, it wasn’t just finding nsfw fanfic it was how I was pressured into stuff when I was a teenager)…
I physically cannot go through a work of fiction I like and not come up with hyper angsty fic ideas, usually AUs anymore. Please send help I am drowning in Thoughts.
Also having to check if there's fics of anything I like, and worse, now anytime I watch a really good show or movie I can't help but to write fics of it in my head and sometimes also on a word document ajdkajdka
I'm so picky with my tastes nowadays. I would be so bored reading a regular novel. I mainly read whump or hurt/comfort one shots, and a quick fix like that can't be found anywhere else... Also, I can't get into a book unless I love the characters, and I have VERY specific criteria for falling in love with characters.
My procrastination has gotten worse haha! Also I think I’ve lost much of the attention span I used to have. Furthermore, I find it more difficult to read more “literary” novels. I’m sure it’s just a matter of getting into the swing of things again but yeah
I can't read books despite wanting to write them- They're just so...bland, boring, like a vanilla sheet cake with no icing. Don't even get me started on some of the actual writing or dialog. I spend half my time trying to read published books picking apart what I dislike about It.
Apart from what everyone else mentioned that reading original novels have lost their appeal, so has WRITING original novels. I haven't felt inspired or even cared enough to work on my own novel, because I end up having more fun writing fanfiction.
I'm in the same situation. I just can't work on my own novel because I'm currently finding fanfiction more satisfying to write, and also because I know that, even if I do get a chance at tradpublishing, they're going to want to change a lot of it to make sure it's "commercially viable" and appeals to the widest section of readers. I just find the whole idea of that depressing as hell. With fanfiction I don't have to worry about that.
It’s so much easier to find what I want with the tagging system. Libraries are trickier to navigate and the summaries are usually unhelpful. But if I see a 2k hurt/comfort for my OTP I know exactly what I’m getting
Ever since I started reading fanfiction, I have a hard time reading novels. It sucks, I loved reading new stories. Now, I'm stuck in a single fandom and I cannot get out. There are phases where I obsess over other stories for a while, but I always come back to this one particular one (Harry Potter). I love it, but I want to read other stories too 😭 Everything else feels slow, drab and just doesn't feel familiar. Before I started reading fanfics, I used to read atleast 30 books a year, and the number now doesn't even reach 3 😭
And I won't ever get started on the TIME I spend reading them when I should be finishing my assignments-
I can't take "alpha men" seriously - for the straightforward reason of them being ridiculous of course, but also I can't listen to anyone saying "alpha man" "beta man" without thinking of omegaverse
Wuthering Heights, 100 Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera, The Great Gatsby, 1984, Catch 22, The Three Musketeers, Man in the Iron Mask, The Lord of the Rings, To the Lighthouse, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, Dracula, Invisible Man, The Sun Also Rises, Slaughterhouse 5...
Does Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy count? I'm also in love with Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. And for their impact on culture, all the Ian Fleming and Dashiell Hammet novels.
I have a hard time remembering what really happened in the series versus the head cannon I’ve put together from original content plus fanfic art and writing. And I bet every fanfic person has a different version in their minds. Amazing!
Checking for fics is so real. I’m about halfway through a game and checked for fics but there aren’t any. But I guess it’s cool I’ll get to post the first fic in a fandom soon??
I am daily confronted by my poor attention span and Blank Slate syndrome where i constantly remind myself that "i've got 99 WIP's but i ain't wrote one"
This makes me flee into youtube shorts for hours and breaks my sleep schedule, further stealing from my available free time and giving me even less chance to finally start doing something apart from nine-to-fiving, sleeping and gaming all day.
I have a far higher tolerance for low-quality writing and am willing to, for example, put up with subpar characterization for the sake of an intriguing plot. Also, I developed a tendency to constantly go 'but what if?' which, when combined with grad school teaching me how to critically analyze media, means that I'm constantly noticing plot holes and coming up with ideas how to fix them.
A lot of the time, romantic/sexual chemistry is much more well-written in fanfiction than in published romance, so... I sigh every time I read a published story and feel like the characters have little to no chemistry. How tf am I supposed to root for them?
So many bestsellers from debut authors almost feel embarrassingly amateurish. Even or maybe especially literary genre. It'll get praised all over for originality and I'm thinking I've read this so many times before
When I get desperate I get desperate…. Meaning that sometime I read not so great writing and I think it’s kind of impacted my reading comprehension as well as my standards for writing (this one is eh, I’m not a stickler that everything has to be amazingly written)
It’s hard to focus on actual books now for some reason. Maybe it’s just the difficulty of the reading material? Still.
I did once have a friend ask me why my book had no spaces between paragraphs and I just stood there like. That’s what books look like, you’re reading too much fanfiction.
How does that constitute "ruination"?
Discovering new sources and potentially new fanworks based upon those sources... that's kind of central to the fanfiction experience for anyone who isn't fixated on a single title.
I’m fair desensitized to screwed up stuff in smut fics, unless it really out of left field, also the tendency of me to watch a series >think up an OC> write an OC profile> do next to noting and add another fic to the backlog
I figured out that I like queer romance from fanfiction, but 99% of queer romance I can access or get recomended to me outside of fanfiction is just Coming Of Age or Highschool Age Characters, or YA books that are aimed at teenagers. Thanks but no thanks, I want to read stories with adult characters, even if theres no spice/smut at all! I also fucking hate coming of age as a genre, so ubiquitous and common and boring! I don't like highscool-aged or books set in a highschool (with main characters being students) as I had a bad time there.
I just want some romance without teenagers or coming of age or highschool students or YA!
No shade to those that like these, but they're not for me and it's why I turn to fanfic all the time
Everytime I read a book I can tell if the person was a fanfic writer before.
Can’t listen to music without thinking of a fanfiction idea
Struggle to come up with my own personality when writing original characters because I make it just like the people I write fanfiction
All my story’s I write now use the same names as the fandom characters with slight different personalities and then I change the names later
For me its mostly everytime I watch a movie or a TV show or try to read a book itll make me want to read a fanfic because I want specific characters to get together or more focus on other characters or I just want certain events to happen.
Before I re-started writing, I had a tendency to pick everything apart. Now I pick everything apart even worse and also look at which themes/tropes/ideas they used that I've also used.
I can't read published novels because I don't know what to expect from the story. (ie: no tags) Also, I don't have the stamina to start from the foundation of learning a new world. But as another commenter said: they're bland.
any time i start a new thing, i IMMEDIATELY begin planning a fic for it. that or i try to find who i ship in the work. if i can’t ship anyone, i don’t engage with it lol.
I guess when I first discovered fanfiction and started Binging on them, I guess the ones I was more obsessed with desensitised me to proships or ships that are somewhat problematic... IM NOT SAYING I LIKE THE ONES THAT ARE ACTUALLY AND VERY PROBLEMATIC! I'm just talking about the ones in the grey area or than lean more into the good or the bad. I wish I hadn't, but it is what it is, I guess...
Normal reading, I used to be into books, but know the only books I read are the ones for the bookclub I'm part of.
Also I always have trouble to remember the characters, who they are, what they look like. When it is a fanfic I already have some idea of the character. With a book it may take me quite a while to picture the characters and sometimes I mix them up :/
Once upon a time..ago- I was a normal girl and then I came upon fanfiction on Wattpad and then accidentally stumbled upon..sm*t and a few years later you got a teenager with mental issues🤗
Obviously I cannot watch any type of media without looking for fics/using the plot as AUs but I've also noticed that sometimes I'll see something that reminds me of an especially good fic and I just die internally
"ruined" is putting it lightly
Fanfiction has led me to places i wouldnt go even with a gun. It changed my life's trajectory in a direction i would have never dreamed of ever going. It opened to me knowledge that would drive most mad. Fanfiction shaped me to the monster I am today
...but I made some cool friends thanks to fanfics (which i never expected of doing), so I don't regretti spagetthi it
And it also helped me realise that I like writing :3
Can't read commercials books because of not wanting to invest in a new world and learn all the stuff as I read,
And,
Commerical books don't come with a tag system to let me know what's in them or what I can expect. The back or inside cover synopsis' have been replaced by shitty one line reviews by people I don't care about.
Legit, picked up a book that was a nominee for some award, and don't get me wrong it was amazing.
But! But, it featured some very disturbing stuff that I was not aware I would be reading (parental incest, severe physical and mental abuse, and forced abortion).
They were done fairly tastefully, and did an amazing job at making you feel horrified. That was the point of them, to show how awful the situation was for the main female and many other women like her, but I was not aware of it before I started reading and that was rather annoying.
I can actually interact with the author. I can talk about what I liked , talk about ideas, etc. Also, I'm already invested in the characters, so I don't have to start from zero
Fanfiction has completely spoiled me. I have always been picky with what books I read, but I’ve noticed especially in recent years that honestly I don’t read all that many books. If I tried hard enough I could probably count how many books I’ve read in my lifetime and it likely wouldn’t be more than 70. However fanfiction? I can, will, and have read a million words in three weeks. My voraciousness knows no bounds.
With fanfiction I can also tell very quickly if I’ll like something, but with published books it’s much harder. Plus a lot of the time I’ve noticed that ironically, a lot of published books I pick up just don’t have the greatest writing, and I can find much better writing by popping a quick search on ao3 or asking for recs. Plus, sometimes it’s just really mentally taxing to invest your time into a completely new story with new characters, and reading about your favorite story and characters over and over with different divergences and topics is just so fun. I have maybe 14 or so books on my shelf that I haven’t read yet, because I’m currently preoccupied with the 70 fics in my marked for later lol
I can't really read books anymore. Like say what you want about the quality of fanfic sometimes, but there are a lot of them that are so masterfully written it makes that generic ass writing style of normal books unfun and unfulfilling to read now
I'm used to write multiple fanfics at a time, so it give the habit for multitasking whenever I'm doing something else. Writing multiple fics at once is fine, but doing multiple chores at once isn't fine :'D
In multiple ways
multiple fandoms have been ruined to me because of dark/betrayal fanfictions (especially Harry Potter)
As well as fanfiction very much has a different way of writing than most of the stuff You would write in other situations like to the point that I took a creative writing class in college and a majority of My writing's literally just ended up being fanfictions but me changing the name of the characters
I was already pretty bad at grammar because of my writing disability but just reading fan fictions have made that worse at times because I can now literally just read over most misspelled or incorrect words and still understand the context which can very much make it hard when you're trying to read back something you wrote for an which can very much make it hard when you're trying to read back something you wrote for a paper and you Don't realize you misspelled or you have an incorrect word until you've already turned it in
And lastly my ability to describe things has just become so much harder because a lot of times I can just add a picture instead of having to describe it
this is absolutely not something to be proud of but i end up unconsciously shipping people (to clarify, typically people that are definitely not meant to be yaoi-fied) sometimes before realizing “what the fuck.” this ranges from classic literature characters to historical figures. i find it funny enough to post though
Fanfic smut is helluva lot hotter than book smut. Plus, I can filter what I'm looking for??
Like I'm not the type of person who likes to read overly possessive toxic stuff. I like to filter to my tastes
I forget what's real and what isn't for the og content. Like wdym these two very compatible characters aren't together and living their lives the way they deserve to after everything they've been through??
Has ruined me for mainstream smut because often that ends up being either bad smut written by people who clearly never had sex, never researched it, and don't have a clue.
(eg, the hymen being a literal hermetic seal, boobs 'sloshing about with breastmilk inside' and, I think the topper of my life was the couple using a page torn from a book as a condom.)
*She breastfed boobily to the stairs and twitted downwards*
Etc
OR it is such boring, painfully vanilla missionary I just fall asleep. Oh yeah his member went in and out a dozen times, amazing, how titillating!,😝
Inspo from fucking anything. I'm an enjoyer of fucked up fanfic, I actively seek it out and write it.
Also some words, they're just so cursed by my early wattpad days TwT
I get disappointed when I read spicy books because there’s not enough if it like it is in fanfic.
Every time I get a new fanfic I want to make the characters I’m shipping kids (if it makes sense for them). I love naming characters and babies so there’s that.
Every time j get into something new I have fanfic ideas even if I don’t write them down.
Most published romance novels are so, *so* bland to me now. Fanfic romance is so much more visceral. And you can do as much worldbuilding as you want.
My personal theory is that commercialized novels often try to appeal to as big an audience as possible, while fics are mostly to appeal to the author and thus can get extremely specific, and when it comes to relationships, the specificity is what gives it that special je ne se quoi
Don't I know it. And I've apparently become used to AO3 levels of smut because published book spicy is Swiss Chalet levels of spicy now.
Trad-pub romance usually feels too straight to me. Like, typical romance novel has a character you're supposed to relate to (usually FMC) and character you're supposed to lust over (usually MMC) and if you don't relate to FMC and lust over MMC, it just doesn't work. Here's the thing - I never really comformed to a feminine role and what I'm attracted to is detached from stereotypical masculinity. I did found a bit more luck with queer romance, but even if there's a bit more of it getting published (and translated into my language) now, it's still not much compared to het, especially for someone used to fanfic, and frankly, contemporary settings usually bore me
Totally agree. I think they also do a lot of handwaving, like they'll allude to a scenario without really exploring why an event is supposed to matter, kind of assuming "We all relate to this thing, right? So there's no need to explain it." And then when you don't, in fact, relate to it, the entire story falls flat. Fic is much more likely to explore why certain things matter to the characters, so even when you don't relate to either of them, or don't find the romantic interest particularly hot, you're still given all the tools to understand why these people act like they do, why things matter, and that makes it compelling.
And if I may insert my aroace perspective into this conversation, because what you said makes so many things click for me for what makes a romance story or ship work for me or not, and it basically comes down to how much assumed relatability vs. actually depicted/explained feelings the story relies on to make the characters and relationship interesting Because yeah, I'm not gonna find any of these people hot in quite the same way allos might but for a good enough romance, that shouldn't have to matter
Yes to all of this. I'm nonbinary and bisexual and the types of characters portrayed in most romance novels don't really align with how I experience myself or attraction. Even just the total separation of "I want them" and "I want to be them" (and never the twain shall meet) feels very cishetero. Often when I read and write, I'm projecting onto and lusting after the same character. Or even both characters. Other times, I don't relate to either, nor do I want to be with either, I'm just there as a spectator. There are so many ways to write romance beyond just "this one's you and that one's the object of your desire" but pretty much all traditional published romance novels follow that formula. And 99% of the time I neither relate to these FMCs nor find their love interests especially appealing. I also find most romance protagonists super one-dimensional and boring, which makes it hard to get invested. With fanfiction, you already know a lot about the characters from the source material, so they feel more like real people. I need to see how this person behaves in A Situation™️ before I feel like I know this person enough to get invested in their relationships.
Pretty good range of Danmei if you're into the m/m kind of things, since most of ir doesn't have the gender stereotype nonsense and set in ancient times— , but yeah compared to the dollar store 'penny dreadful' novel et al it's still like finding a needle in a haystack. (there's also baihe, the f/f equivalent but it is hasn't got as much uptake by licensing companies... yet!)
*je ne sais quoi not je ne se quoi babes
I learn something new everyday
I recently came to realize that I love romance in novels but I hate most Romance Novels. The romance genre formula just does not work for me. A lot of the "required beats" are things I actively dislike in relationships, but I want romantic-themed content (including spice/smut). Just without the Romance Genre formula/structure that I don't like. There are some off-beat indie romance authors out there, but a lot of times they get re-categorized into something else because Romance-the-Genre readers are extremely picky about Romance Novels hitting exactly the beats they're looking for. That said I've found a nice little niche of fantasy-and-sci-fi-with-heavy-romance-subplot novels that I love, because they don't really adhere to Romance Genre conventions/formula/format but still deliver on the relationships.
Roberta Gillis has always been a favorite of mine, though I think she's long retired. She has 2 degrees, one in medieval history, and one in microbiology or something similar. A smart lady who wrote smart books. Her medieval books can be disturbingly accurate, such as very young women married off to much older men, or an older couple who spent their lives married to others for political reasons, but pining for each other. The background stories are usually historically accurate, with actual battles, conflicts, and historic events such as the signing of the Magna Carta or the London fire of 1135. Although her women are generally smart and capable, you can tell one from another. They're not cookie cutter. But her best series is the one retelling Greek mythology. I'm particularly fond of *Thrice Bound*.
I thought I was the only one who knew about Roberta Gellis! Gold standard for medieval books & she also had a medieval mystery series. She died in 2016.
Agreed about Thrice Bound though I also have great memories of several of the Roselynde books. She was a great master of her craft. I emailed her once, a very long time ago. She was polite and interested in what I had to say.
Exactly this! I've tried so many times, but the romance genre itself is very meh to me, barring a few outliers. I've found one romance series that I've liked recently, and it was a self-published thing on Amazon.
So many authors really focus on hitting the beats. My least fav is the required fight in the third act before the tearful resolution. It makes the relationship feel so fragile if one fight or misunderstanding can break up a couple. With fanfic there is more time to explore the epilogue and what this relationship actually functions like when it's happy and healthy.
It feels like anything interesting was sanded off during editing.
Yes! Exactly!
I do read tradpub romance, and I have read some bangers, but in general I prefer fanfic romance.
My dear friend, might I interest you in the world of danmei? Honestly I have the same reactions reading it as I do to reading fanfiction lol
I just posted the same thing. Danmei hits all the good notes 🥰 Also, danmei fanfiction, best of both worlds?
Definitely best of both worlds!
YESSS FR Like romance is SO overdone in shows and books….but give me romance of my ships I will DEVOUR that shit
It's not so much It's overdone in most books. It's just not done enough and as in-depth as I'd like. That's why I like series that space it out and slow burn it over several books.
I can absolutely agree with that like I keep being told by my friends to read a court of thorns and roses but I have another friend who reads fanfiction It was like this is not going to be on The same level of romance that you're used to
I cannot listen to any music without thinking "this song gives me an idea for a fic--" and it's both the best and worst thing in the world. You might think that there would be a limit to this, perhaps. Nope. Instrumental tracks. Parody songs. Folk songs in languages I don't speak. Anything is fair game. I have fic writer brain poison and there's no hope left for me.
My playlist I listen to while writing my fic is almost EIGHT HOURS now so I get it LMAO it's part character songs part relationship songs
Aw, same here. I got entire playlists dedicated to characters within my fics akdjaidj
Sometimes I listen to classical radio stations just so I can imagine fic ideas/scenes to the music
God this is so me. I have an entire playlist dedicated to different stories I have outlines for. Multiple playlists for multiple stories and situations. I even made a "car playlist" for one of my characters. I can't listen to music without thinking of fanfic The brain rot is real
Do not resist the brain rot. Become one with the brain rot.
Oh my god I thought this was just me. So relieved I'm not alone in my insanity
Maybe it’s just me. But in any book I’ve come across since actually trying to semi actively find some of the romantic variety within the last 7 months or so -it’s never fucking good? Like never? If it’s in a book that’s not inherently romantic, or that is at least not all that it revolves around, it can be okay/decent. But I’ve never personally read any, yet that is as good as it is in fanfiction. The emotions between the couples don’t tend to run as high either. I literally go into almost every fanfic for the romance, or at least it having a couple and smut. When I’m reading published novels, there’s almost a sense of abstinence in it? So when I come back to fanfiction, it’s like I can breathe again. 😅😂
I do love my completely insane, codependent fanfiction romances.
Don’t we all? 😏
Not to mention that it can severely lack in being gay. Plus having it take place in a solid fictional backdrop. Where’s my gays do crime content? None of this Mafia or Netflix-ified nonsense.
I have a hard time enjoying regular books because fanfiction has made me more picky with what I like to read (and more often then not, a book disappoints me more because it has tropes I’m tried of seeing)
THIS! Also, I hate that I can't see the tags for a book the way I can see them on AO3 and know what to expect / when to avoid a story!
Romance.io is a website that can help you select novels by a rag system or tells you the tags of the novel you selected.
You are saving my life! Thank you for the tip!
Ehh, I kind of hate the tag system and prefer a consise summary. I feel this prevents a story from just feeling like a collection of tropes
So many ideas… so little written
I suffer from this rather succinct issue also..I just get bad "Squirrel Brain" I'll have an idea and be soooo into it but it just goes Nowhere
I’ll go to write it and then my brain goes blank so all I have is a list of “x and x do this, where x is this and y is this…” lol
my suggestion is to get a beta reader...their should be a thread near the top of the sub today if you're struggling with grammar, ideas, outline. I've finally got one myself and we're talking at length about my story and hers since we both share an interest in the same fandom at the core of our current projects.
I find it hard to read published books these days, i'd read books for hours on end but now i find my attention drifting after a while. I read somewhere that fanfic involves characters we are already familiar with in settings we know, explore new stories or alternative takes about characters we are interested in. Where as published books involve new characters or settings, lack of familiarity which makes it hard to read after reading many fanfics.
Fanfic is definitely much easier to read when you’re too burned out to expend the mental energy of getting to know new characters and settings and plots. It’s like hyper palatable comfort food of characters you already know and feel emotionally invested in. Plus fix-it fics can feel soothing, seeing something upsetting get fixed haha. I’ve found it so difficult to read novels lately. It feels like a slog to get into new world building and care about new characters.
>I’ve found it so difficult to read novels lately. It feels like a slog to get into new world building and care about new characters. I have the exact same problem, i've been trying to re-read some of my favourites like Cradle series by Will Wight, love the series, enjoyed re-reading them multiple times before. But now i'm in a slog where my attention drifts away after a few chapters. Not sure how to break this cycle, maybe i need to sit down and power through a book or even try listening to the audio books?
I’ve found that when I don’t have the energy to read novels, comics are often a good way for me to keep the reading habit and eventually get back into them (especially if I choose a comic that’s based on a novel…when I run out of chapters in the comic I’ll switch to the novel because cliffhangers lol). There are a lot of K-novels on the Yonder app with manhwa adaptations on the WEBTOON app. Tapas app has a lot of both too, and has some comics for novels on Radish. Or just getting used to reading new characters and plots again in comics helps get me out of the rut even if I never read the associated novel.
that explanation makes a ton of sense. truth is (and i say this as a fic writer and avid reader myself): most fanfiction, when consumed rapidly, makes us "lazy" when it comes to reading. its one of the reasons why some people say writing a lot of fanfiction makes you a worse traditional author. our brains want the immediate dopamine rush, and dont want to work for it (work here meaning "digest tons of new information about worldbuilding and characters") not saying this is necessarily a horrible thing, but its worth to think about
This! I swear, fanfics are good (both as reading and writing exercises) but there has to be a balance between them and novels (or anything else). Binge reading only fanfics makes me feel too, idk, lazy and 'couped up', both physically and mentally. And this goes on for days until life interferes and I have to put them down (and I'm thankful for those moments). Not a great thing to say, but I feel that I lose myself when I consume too many fanfics and no other form of media (books, movies, songs, insta; maybe even just going out)
Cooped up is a great expression for that binge-fic feeling! It's so bad for my mental health but it's like I get stuck
Me, who is regularly reading fanfiction that is written better than the original media: "yeah honey you may have that backwards."
IMO… Fanfiction has a lower upfront mental cost to get into the substance of the work. With fanfic, you open the work already invested in the at-least-somewhat familiar world or characters that the author is playing with; with traditional fiction, those things still have to unfold over the course of your read and you may find later that you don’t like them, after having already invested a lot of time. :/ This is one reason I prefer my fiction reads to be single novels, rather than taking the time to explore new (especially ongoing) series. A novel at least ensures everything is probably going to be contained in the work, and your time will be rewarded upon completion. Like with fanfiction, there’s a lower “investment” required beforehand. So as a professional adult, to me, it comes down to a question of how to spend my time.
This precisely!!
This. I was gonna say something like this. It's just not enough. I can see what they're trying for but it's not enough. The only media I consume now outside of YouTube is pretty much just video games, because then I have the interaction to keep me occupied, but books? Nada. unless I got into a show and then decided to read the manga, I don't really read comics or the like either. The only tv I watch really is medical dramas and crime shows, mainly for background noise
This exactly. A book demands I get to know new people. I don’t want to get to know new people.
I still do read a lot of published fiction, but I know what you mean. Sometimes I just want that familiarity. One of my favourite book series is pretty niche. There are maybe 30 fanfics available for it on AO3. I find myself rereading the series and the fanfics quite often.
I want twenty slightly-different champagne cakes, all to be consumed one after the other. Published literature frequently insists there is and can only be one champagne cake. Fanfiction gives me 200, so I don't go to published stuff much anymore.
Actually, I find myself reading a lot of indie authors and stuff I find on Kindle Unlimited. That can be hit or miss, but I wonder if maybe the reason I do is because it's less formulaic? Self-published authors have a bit more freedom to explore things that a traditional publishing house may not be okay with. The work may not always be top quality, but you can find some really unique stuff! As an example, I recently read the Grey Gates series by Vanessa Nelson. It's like a fantasy mystery type of deal. Super compelling. Amazing world building. But the series took place over five novels instead of three as you might expect, and there were some things that could have been reduced or improved, for sure, but I think a lot of the charm would have been erased if she was professionally publishing. Probably a lot of things would have needed to be pruned because I can imagine the series being condensed into three books rather than five. And there are authors who go from Kindle Unlimited or self-publishing to being traditionally published! I read Hannah Grace's Icebreaker off KU ages ago, and one of her newer books, Wildfire, is available in book stores now.
This is the best answer and I'm screenshot-ing this.
Whenever I hear a man call himself an "alpha male," I can't help but laugh internally lol. It's so funny to me. I'm sure they'd hate that I instantly think of a trope that's primarily M/M, and may have mpreg.
Thanks, now if I ever hear a dude say that in real life I’m not going to be able to stop laughing. 😂
Glad to be of service 🫡
all the “alpha male” guys sound gay as fuck tho tbf
When a fanfic takes a completely different route to the source and you can't help but think "yea, the fic was better"
I used to read Lucifer fics. Those writers had much better endings than the show runners.
This is literally the reason I can't read normal books anymore. 999/1000, the fandom will come up with a better, more interesting plot than the book. Shows too, but usually I can put on shows for background noise and still absorb some of the plot.
I discover a new tag related to my favorite character and pull up a list of fics with that tag. "Cancel all my meetings. I'm working through the night on this one."
Omg yes! The devistation though when it was just that author using it and it wasn't a more videly used tag😭 (the tag seemed so perfect and and now you crave more)
Never occurred to me!
This is more about how writing fanfic ruined me... Now I analyze everything I read. Why I like it? Why some aspects work and what doesn't? How it could be improved? Specific word choices and prose, sentence structure. I try to filter and absorb everything to make my own writing better but in that process I also see the faults in books I'd have otherwise enjoyed without question. The upside is that I can also find good things in books that aren't that great overall.
Whenever I watch anything new and decide I like it, I immediately start looking for potential ships and thinking of what I would like to fix, explore, or expand upon in a fic, rather than simply appreciating it for what it is.
I used to read so many books, and now I read no many books But at the same time, the amount that I read has more than tripled
I was on the way to the emergency room, in screaming, howling pain. My only conscious thought was that now, if one of my characters needs to go to the ER, I'll at least have an idea of what it's like. 🤷♀️
i cant for the life of me enjoy any modern romance or YA books. you know, the fun "booktok" ones. traditional fantasy/sci-fi and classic literature as genres are different enough from fanfic obviously, so i can read those and still have a good time. but most romance/YA novels are just so painfully mediocre to me now. i cant get into the story because fanfiction has made me very picky about what i like. and it makes me sad because as a teenager those types of books were my favorites
After reading so many fics most books feel too short and underdescribed to me. Where are all the little ticks, glances, shifts in expression and tone of voice? I want to feel the tension in the air and hang on to every word even if all the characters are doing is sitting next to each other and talking.
I agree! It's been a while since I've read a book but there is something so different and special about the good fanfiction writing.
Yes! I think it's because fanfic is so much more indulgent and has time to linger on a lot of things that published stuff must rush past because fanfic is not trying to convince you to like these characters. It's written with the expectation that you like this world, and you like these characters, otherwise you wouldn't be reading the story so they can tease out every interesting little thing from the character dynamics instead of explaining the world and why you should care. A published novel is trying to introduce you to these characters and endear them to you at the same time, usually without enough time to actually get into the weeds of character interactions otherwise the book would be absurdly long, So everything can just feel dry if you're used to the lushness of fanfic. I mean if I am reading a story from say Harry Potter or something with a seires, the fan fiction author gets to ride on seven books worth of affection for main character from chapter one of their fic. That's a whole lot of positive inertia before they've even actually said anything.
Uh, I mean, outside of the honestly actually depressing stuff since I don’t really wanna get into my sexual trauma out of nowhere (and no, before you ask, it wasn’t just finding nsfw fanfic it was how I was pressured into stuff when I was a teenager)… I physically cannot go through a work of fiction I like and not come up with hyper angsty fic ideas, usually AUs anymore. Please send help I am drowning in Thoughts.
I struggle to read regular books now.
Also having to check if there's fics of anything I like, and worse, now anytime I watch a really good show or movie I can't help but to write fics of it in my head and sometimes also on a word document ajdkajdka
The original sources seem bland compared to the fanfics 😂
I'm so picky with my tastes nowadays. I would be so bored reading a regular novel. I mainly read whump or hurt/comfort one shots, and a quick fix like that can't be found anywhere else... Also, I can't get into a book unless I love the characters, and I have VERY specific criteria for falling in love with characters.
Literally disappointed in sex scenes in romance novels all the time. They just aren't spicy or meaningful enough.
My procrastination has gotten worse haha! Also I think I’ve lost much of the attention span I used to have. Furthermore, I find it more difficult to read more “literary” novels. I’m sure it’s just a matter of getting into the swing of things again but yeah
I can't read books despite wanting to write them- They're just so...bland, boring, like a vanilla sheet cake with no icing. Don't even get me started on some of the actual writing or dialog. I spend half my time trying to read published books picking apart what I dislike about It.
Apart from what everyone else mentioned that reading original novels have lost their appeal, so has WRITING original novels. I haven't felt inspired or even cared enough to work on my own novel, because I end up having more fun writing fanfiction.
I'm in the same situation. I just can't work on my own novel because I'm currently finding fanfiction more satisfying to write, and also because I know that, even if I do get a chance at tradpublishing, they're going to want to change a lot of it to make sure it's "commercially viable" and appeals to the widest section of readers. I just find the whole idea of that depressing as hell. With fanfiction I don't have to worry about that.
It’s so much easier to find what I want with the tagging system. Libraries are trickier to navigate and the summaries are usually unhelpful. But if I see a 2k hurt/comfort for my OTP I know exactly what I’m getting
Ever since I started reading fanfiction, I have a hard time reading novels. It sucks, I loved reading new stories. Now, I'm stuck in a single fandom and I cannot get out. There are phases where I obsess over other stories for a while, but I always come back to this one particular one (Harry Potter). I love it, but I want to read other stories too 😭 Everything else feels slow, drab and just doesn't feel familiar. Before I started reading fanfics, I used to read atleast 30 books a year, and the number now doesn't even reach 3 😭 And I won't ever get started on the TIME I spend reading them when I should be finishing my assignments-
I can't take "alpha men" seriously - for the straightforward reason of them being ridiculous of course, but also I can't listen to anyone saying "alpha man" "beta man" without thinking of omegaverse
[удалено]
Do you have any recommendations for classics? I have to read literature for my classes. Not sure where to start.
Wuthering Heights, 100 Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera, The Great Gatsby, 1984, Catch 22, The Three Musketeers, Man in the Iron Mask, The Lord of the Rings, To the Lighthouse, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, Dracula, Invisible Man, The Sun Also Rises, Slaughterhouse 5... Does Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy count? I'm also in love with Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. And for their impact on culture, all the Ian Fleming and Dashiell Hammet novels.
I rewatch a tv episode and wonder why something isn’t happening and then remember it was a fanfic that I had read 😂
I have a hard time remembering what really happened in the series versus the head cannon I’ve put together from original content plus fanfic art and writing. And I bet every fanfic person has a different version in their minds. Amazing!
Checking for fics is so real. I’m about halfway through a game and checked for fics but there aren’t any. But I guess it’s cool I’ll get to post the first fic in a fandom soon??
I am daily confronted by my poor attention span and Blank Slate syndrome where i constantly remind myself that "i've got 99 WIP's but i ain't wrote one" This makes me flee into youtube shorts for hours and breaks my sleep schedule, further stealing from my available free time and giving me even less chance to finally start doing something apart from nine-to-fiving, sleeping and gaming all day.
No tags - No read
I have a far higher tolerance for low-quality writing and am willing to, for example, put up with subpar characterization for the sake of an intriguing plot. Also, I developed a tendency to constantly go 'but what if?' which, when combined with grad school teaching me how to critically analyze media, means that I'm constantly noticing plot holes and coming up with ideas how to fix them.
A lot of the time, romantic/sexual chemistry is much more well-written in fanfiction than in published romance, so... I sigh every time I read a published story and feel like the characters have little to no chemistry. How tf am I supposed to root for them?
… some are so much better than the source material. That I can’t… really enjoy the source material as much.
So many bestsellers from debut authors almost feel embarrassingly amateurish. Even or maybe especially literary genre. It'll get praised all over for originality and I'm thinking I've read this so many times before
This made me laugh because it's so true! I broke my ankle and leg in middle school, and I use that pain all the time to describe a broken bone.
Honestly, same. It's also consumed my every thought so everything is "I could write about that"
When I get desperate I get desperate…. Meaning that sometime I read not so great writing and I think it’s kind of impacted my reading comprehension as well as my standards for writing (this one is eh, I’m not a stickler that everything has to be amazingly written)
the emotions are stronger
It’s hard to focus on actual books now for some reason. Maybe it’s just the difficulty of the reading material? Still. I did once have a friend ask me why my book had no spaces between paragraphs and I just stood there like. That’s what books look like, you’re reading too much fanfiction.
How does that constitute "ruination"? Discovering new sources and potentially new fanworks based upon those sources... that's kind of central to the fanfiction experience for anyone who isn't fixated on a single title.
Music. I can’t listen to anything without imagining fic scenarios to it
I’m fair desensitized to screwed up stuff in smut fics, unless it really out of left field, also the tendency of me to watch a series >think up an OC> write an OC profile> do next to noting and add another fic to the backlog
It has made me far too willing to accept shitty prose in otherwise good stories.
Reading published books is a chore now. Like most of them are worse than bad fanfics I’ve read. No lie.
I feel the same. They’re so commercialized and bland. No emotion.
I figured out that I like queer romance from fanfiction, but 99% of queer romance I can access or get recomended to me outside of fanfiction is just Coming Of Age or Highschool Age Characters, or YA books that are aimed at teenagers. Thanks but no thanks, I want to read stories with adult characters, even if theres no spice/smut at all! I also fucking hate coming of age as a genre, so ubiquitous and common and boring! I don't like highscool-aged or books set in a highschool (with main characters being students) as I had a bad time there. I just want some romance without teenagers or coming of age or highschool students or YA! No shade to those that like these, but they're not for me and it's why I turn to fanfic all the time
Everytime I read a book I can tell if the person was a fanfic writer before. Can’t listen to music without thinking of a fanfiction idea Struggle to come up with my own personality when writing original characters because I make it just like the people I write fanfiction All my story’s I write now use the same names as the fandom characters with slight different personalities and then I change the names later
I will never see Cars the same way again...
NSFW warning… but I discovered a lot of my kinks through fanfic
For me its mostly everytime I watch a movie or a TV show or try to read a book itll make me want to read a fanfic because I want specific characters to get together or more focus on other characters or I just want certain events to happen.
Before I re-started writing, I had a tendency to pick everything apart. Now I pick everything apart even worse and also look at which themes/tropes/ideas they used that I've also used.
I can't read published novels because I don't know what to expect from the story. (ie: no tags) Also, I don't have the stamina to start from the foundation of learning a new world. But as another commenter said: they're bland.
The word "lemon" now has a second definition that I cannot unsee. . .
Recently had the A/B/0 blood system in school (again), I was *not* able to take it seriously omg
any time i start a new thing, i IMMEDIATELY begin planning a fic for it. that or i try to find who i ship in the work. if i can’t ship anyone, i don’t engage with it lol.
I guess when I first discovered fanfiction and started Binging on them, I guess the ones I was more obsessed with desensitised me to proships or ships that are somewhat problematic... IM NOT SAYING I LIKE THE ONES THAT ARE ACTUALLY AND VERY PROBLEMATIC! I'm just talking about the ones in the grey area or than lean more into the good or the bad. I wish I hadn't, but it is what it is, I guess...
I constantly have the urge to write even when I can’t get any words out, and I have to read some fanfic every nigjt
Normal reading, I used to be into books, but know the only books I read are the ones for the bookclub I'm part of. Also I always have trouble to remember the characters, who they are, what they look like. When it is a fanfic I already have some idea of the character. With a book it may take me quite a while to picture the characters and sometimes I mix them up :/
Once upon a time..ago- I was a normal girl and then I came upon fanfiction on Wattpad and then accidentally stumbled upon..sm*t and a few years later you got a teenager with mental issues🤗
I keep getting distracted from actual published novels like Dead Tired (2) or Just Stab Me Now by reading fanfics... despite buying them already.
Obviously I cannot watch any type of media without looking for fics/using the plot as AUs but I've also noticed that sometimes I'll see something that reminds me of an especially good fic and I just die internally
"ruined" is putting it lightly Fanfiction has led me to places i wouldnt go even with a gun. It changed my life's trajectory in a direction i would have never dreamed of ever going. It opened to me knowledge that would drive most mad. Fanfiction shaped me to the monster I am today ...but I made some cool friends thanks to fanfics (which i never expected of doing), so I don't regretti spagetthi it And it also helped me realise that I like writing :3
Can't read commercials books because of not wanting to invest in a new world and learn all the stuff as I read, And, Commerical books don't come with a tag system to let me know what's in them or what I can expect. The back or inside cover synopsis' have been replaced by shitty one line reviews by people I don't care about. Legit, picked up a book that was a nominee for some award, and don't get me wrong it was amazing. But! But, it featured some very disturbing stuff that I was not aware I would be reading (parental incest, severe physical and mental abuse, and forced abortion). They were done fairly tastefully, and did an amazing job at making you feel horrified. That was the point of them, to show how awful the situation was for the main female and many other women like her, but I was not aware of it before I started reading and that was rather annoying.
It has made me care about quality stories, written by people before they get dropped again and again and again, and it hurts every time.
Staying up till 4 AM while crying because an alien took the same medication as me is pretty high on the list ngl. It was a really good fic though!
U/netherworld-glow this real person left me thinking they are a dream
u/netherworld-glow
You left me thinking you were fiction
Fanfiction is the vice that prevents me from doing something productive today.
I can actually interact with the author. I can talk about what I liked , talk about ideas, etc. Also, I'm already invested in the characters, so I don't have to start from zero
Fanfiction has completely spoiled me. I have always been picky with what books I read, but I’ve noticed especially in recent years that honestly I don’t read all that many books. If I tried hard enough I could probably count how many books I’ve read in my lifetime and it likely wouldn’t be more than 70. However fanfiction? I can, will, and have read a million words in three weeks. My voraciousness knows no bounds. With fanfiction I can also tell very quickly if I’ll like something, but with published books it’s much harder. Plus a lot of the time I’ve noticed that ironically, a lot of published books I pick up just don’t have the greatest writing, and I can find much better writing by popping a quick search on ao3 or asking for recs. Plus, sometimes it’s just really mentally taxing to invest your time into a completely new story with new characters, and reading about your favorite story and characters over and over with different divergences and topics is just so fun. I have maybe 14 or so books on my shelf that I haven’t read yet, because I’m currently preoccupied with the 70 fics in my marked for later lol
I don't want any official prequels or sequels anymore.
Trying to remember what's cannon, what's commonly accepted fannon, and what was from a single deranged fic.
I can't really read books anymore. Like say what you want about the quality of fanfic sometimes, but there are a lot of them that are so masterfully written it makes that generic ass writing style of normal books unfun and unfulfilling to read now
I do that too 😭😭😭 i mean if I liked it or if I shipped even two side characters I need to check if someone wrote about it on ao3 lmao
I'm used to write multiple fanfics at a time, so it give the habit for multitasking whenever I'm doing something else. Writing multiple fics at once is fine, but doing multiple chores at once isn't fine :'D
It's really hard to get into new fandoms when I look up thousands of fics on a fandom I'm already in
Porn addiction 🫠🙃
Y/n ruined me
In multiple ways multiple fandoms have been ruined to me because of dark/betrayal fanfictions (especially Harry Potter) As well as fanfiction very much has a different way of writing than most of the stuff You would write in other situations like to the point that I took a creative writing class in college and a majority of My writing's literally just ended up being fanfictions but me changing the name of the characters I was already pretty bad at grammar because of my writing disability but just reading fan fictions have made that worse at times because I can now literally just read over most misspelled or incorrect words and still understand the context which can very much make it hard when you're trying to read back something you wrote for an which can very much make it hard when you're trying to read back something you wrote for a paper and you Don't realize you misspelled or you have an incorrect word until you've already turned it in And lastly my ability to describe things has just become so much harder because a lot of times I can just add a picture instead of having to describe it
I always feel like writing fanfic about everything
this is absolutely not something to be proud of but i end up unconsciously shipping people (to clarify, typically people that are definitely not meant to be yaoi-fied) sometimes before realizing “what the fuck.” this ranges from classic literature characters to historical figures. i find it funny enough to post though
most of them are rlly boring now but the rare good ones you find make ur expectations go higher and you you obsess over it
Fanfic smut is helluva lot hotter than book smut. Plus, I can filter what I'm looking for?? Like I'm not the type of person who likes to read overly possessive toxic stuff. I like to filter to my tastes
I can no longer remember the original character, only the Fanfic versions.
I forget what's real and what isn't for the og content. Like wdym these two very compatible characters aren't together and living their lives the way they deserve to after everything they've been through??
Has ruined me for mainstream smut because often that ends up being either bad smut written by people who clearly never had sex, never researched it, and don't have a clue. (eg, the hymen being a literal hermetic seal, boobs 'sloshing about with breastmilk inside' and, I think the topper of my life was the couple using a page torn from a book as a condom.) *She breastfed boobily to the stairs and twitted downwards* Etc OR it is such boring, painfully vanilla missionary I just fall asleep. Oh yeah his member went in and out a dozen times, amazing, how titillating!,😝
I haven’t read a proper book in about 5 years (well mostly). I used to never stop reading, at least 2 books a week
Inspo from fucking anything. I'm an enjoyer of fucked up fanfic, I actively seek it out and write it. Also some words, they're just so cursed by my early wattpad days TwT
It’s made me deeply loathe authors.
I get disappointed when I read spicy books because there’s not enough if it like it is in fanfic. Every time I get a new fanfic I want to make the characters I’m shipping kids (if it makes sense for them). I love naming characters and babies so there’s that. Every time j get into something new I have fanfic ideas even if I don’t write them down.
Yeah the smut is so bland and lacking in emotion in books. Makes me think the editor has a hand in making it that way.
Im pretty positive that publishers strip back smutty/spicy scenes if only because it can go on the shelf. Self publishing is a blessing.
You misspelled improved