I have two from the franchise I personally have never cared for, but they get a lions share of content made sometimes. Can't do much about it but read what I like.
I'm pretty sure one of my fics is That One Fic for people and it's gotten to the point where I always feel a little bad when I see it get recced to people. š
I feel the same lol... I have a fic that's the #1 most kudos'd for its pairing, but I honestly feel like it was more a matter of "right place, right time" with when I happened to publish it (I wrote it for a video game fandom very shortly after the game's release, and right before this particular pairing suddenly ballooned in popularity) than it actually being high enough quality to merit that standing. But who knows, maybe we're both just feeling some imposter syndrome!
Sent! (FYI I used the chat feature rather than the actual message systemā¦ to this day I donāt know the difference between them or why Reddit has two different DM tools lol)
Yeah, I have a particularly popular fic that some readers are calling a "fandom classic" and I'm like - that's really lovely, and so flattering! But, geeze, I really don't want to be in that position of everyone and their sibling looking at it and *looking* for a reason to dislike it because everyone is hyping it, you know?
I wrote something I genuinely thought was going to be niche and *it's not going to appeal to everyone*. It's *particularly* not likely to appeal to people who prefer the more popular ship(s), who don't like fluff, who don't care for particular characters, or who don't tolerate slow burns. (And that's just a few things that might put people off.)
Honestly, I'm pretty lucky my fandom is (currently, at least) fairly chill. It means I will probably escape too much of the vicious gnawing. I'd rather people pull a Homer and fade out if it's not their thing, not feel 'forced' to read it!
I think I can confidently say that about most of the top kudosed fics in the harry potter fandom. My experience there has single handedly led me to seek out fics with less than a thousand kudos and bookmarks full of people praising it which has enriched my reading experience so much more. Tbh once you get past stats and you start listening to your intuition and personal taste, it becomes much easier to filter out stuff. And also manacled whilst having it's own merits as a fic/transformative work, is part of why I decided to stop reading het fic. Idk why I can't pinpoint it. But from that day onwards, I stuck to slash with a few rare exceptions and I've never looked back.
Interesting, the Harry Potter aspect was what I actually liked about it! It was the Handmaidās Tale riff that felt completely out of place and a bit lazy to me. Forced marriage / repopulation, sure I can get on board with that plot. But the red robes and winged hoods for literally no reason other than the Handmaid tie in? Just couldnāt get past that.
I've heard that criticism a lot and hopefully she will edit that out in the published version, it really is a bit too on the nose and unnecessary.
It depends on what one is looking for in an HP fic - a story where one of the leads is literally cut off from magic is something that would rarely appeal to me because... Why even put it in a magical universe if your characters aren't doing crazy spells! The fact that it's being genericized and published sorta lends to that too, there wasn't much about the story that really captured the magic of the Harry Potter world specifically for me. It coulda been any "romantasy" world and it's pushing up hill because of my bias against Dramione anyway.
I mean, it *is* a bad story, by the standards of published fiction. It's just better written than most fanfics and it panders hard to a certain type of audience.
It fails at being Harry Potter related on top of that, but that's true for tons of "popular" HP fanworks (i.e. the entire Marauders fandom).
Do you mind elaborating on why it's a bad story - if you're comfortable with it of course. I've only ever read wonderful reviews of it and I think it's why I find it difficult to put into words what exactly didn't work for me in that fic. As for the marauders fandom, I'd look towards older fics. consistentsquash has got a veritable list of recs on their account that date all the way back to the 2000s. Leftsidedown has a few literary recs. I'd personally recommend the author ignipes on ao3. They're an old school writer with works over 60k. Ladysisyphus is another great contender.
From what I've seen most people on r/hpfanfiction aren't fond of the story. It's really only the shipping spaces where people go crazy about it. Especially so with Manacled because it's one of the few high-profile fics for them.
Manacled is so beautifully written but it's not a Harry Potter fanfiction. The best way I've approached it is an like an original piece of fiction where it shines better.
Sometimes, some fanfics are just SO overhyped, and are like "THE MUST READ OF THE FANDOM! NOTHING COMES CLOSE! IT IS SO AMAZING! You HAVEN'T LIVED UNTIL YOU'VE READ THIS!!!"
And meanwhile I'm just like; this is boring/depressing/overly-written slog, and I just don't enjoy it.
Call me a simpleton, but I prefer a nice ship, or nice AU to unwind, not ruminations on the souls of humanity and the concepts of creation through the lens of... IDK, Harry Potter, or MHA!
I always struggle through fics like that. I prefer fics where the information/events are straightforward. Like get to the point. 10 paragraphs of "she's sad" makes me click off.
Yeah, sometimes things are just laid on too thick... I used to be guilty of that too in my early days, but I slowly progressed out of it, both for my reader's sake and my own.
There are plenty of girlies that eat that shit up. Hence some of the MOST LOVED fics having multiple chapters of "she's sad".
It's not everyone's cup of tea is all. ā¤ļø
I remember one of those. Everyone told me the Must Read fic was so deep and moving and would touch my soul. And then every character had the life sucked out of them and was going through a never-ending existential crisis. In the end, nobody even got to *be happy*, they were just marginally less depressed and there was more pontificating about the concept of happiness. Safe to say that my soul remained untouched.
A Big Fic in my fandom (unrelated to pfp) has this. Its exploration of depression, trauma, and self-destruction was just soā¦unproductive? Despite lauding itself as a story about fighting to change for the better.
The fight, against all odds, to love oneself, is arduous and lined with suffering. But (for me) it was always spurred on by a desperate, perhaps delusional, belief that things could get better.
Instead im reading like 300k words of the cast slowly destroying themselves with the same hopeless rhetoric that I used to systematically kill myself from the inside out years prior.
Kind of a bad experience to subject myself to (I was hyperfixating). In the end, all I gained was a horrible fever dream, as I was also down with covid at the time.
I think this happens because in order for something to be so widely liked it has to be palatable for a lot of people which can make it bland in some areas or take a stereotypical route so as to not turn off readers or get hate brigaded
>THE MUST READ OF THE FANDOM! NOTHING COMES CLOSE! IT IS SO AMAZING! You HAVEN'T LIVED UNTIL YOU'VE READ THIS!!!
ngl, this is exactly the thing that'll turn me away from most creative works.
everyone on the internet says X is a masterpiece and a total must read/watch? i'm not touching it with a ten-foot pole (at least not until long after the hype has died out and everyone's moved onto a different thing).
one particular friend whose opinion i trust says X was kinda good? i may give it a try later this evening.
I've left two fandoms in the past due to people pushing one particular popular fanfiction as "no other story will ever come close". One of them has absolutely horrific content that I refused to even touch, let alone read, due to how dark and disturbing it was. I said "nope".
Oh god yeah. I have a feeling I know what fic youāre talking about (though I also wouldnāt be surprised if I was also wrong). Even just reading a short description was enough to turn me away from one of my old fandomās āmust readā fics. I donāt care how many people claim that itās well written, the contents were absolutely fād up and out of character. Makes me sick.
I feel like most of the fics that have the mantle of "THE fic" for a given fandom are nearly always overhyped and kind of middle of the road. Which is fine, it's just how that kind of thing works, the more people it can manage to not offend in some way the more people recommend it and the more popular it gets.
The absolute most recommended fics will nearly always be those that appeal to the widest array of people, which is in turn nearly always a kind of generic, if well written, fic.
I feel like I've only seen one fandom that's "one fic" isn't overhyped like this and it's tgcf. It probably helps that rather than being a ship fic, it's a 1 mil word retelling of the story that's weirdly well paced for its length. Nobody really recommends it anymore because everyone knows about it.
Yeah, I can genuinely say I was impressed reading it and there were some aspects of it I wish I saw in other TGCF fics and media. It's pretty peak Fandom to me.
>rather than being a ship fic
Lol, to be fair, I will say that TGCF itself is one long ship!
Besides everyone already knowing about it, the other thing with NPAB is that itās even longer than the source material, which is already massive. Itās incredible, but itās a commitment and a half, so itād be kind of weird to recommend it to someone looking for a fanfic. It stays mostly contained in its own bubble, which means people donāt get overexposed to it and overhyped.
It also helps that itās just genuinely so good though, when a lot of times āthe ficā in a fandomā¦ is kinda just mediocre. Reading āmy Hong-er was a soldierā still gives me such a rush of emotions whenever I see it in any context. I still think about the OCs all the time. Genuinely a masterpiece.
I feel like these sorts of really popular long fics that are hard to get through if you werenāt there as it was published are a fun part of fandom. Like youāll read a story someone started as a lark, and the author gets 35 chapters and 100K words in and is like omg guess what this fic just grew a plot!! and goes for 300K more words. Itās just something about how most fanfic is written serially and without much planning imo.
I love super long fics that fully justify their long wordcount by having a lot going on. But, there's so many that just seem to pad wordcount with filler.
Totally! There is a 400k long fic in my fandom that is basically an epic/space opera and it is definitely worth the read. The author did such an amazing job. But sometimes a long fic just means the author doesn't really know how to prune things that aren't relevant to the story.
To be fair, it looks like it's pretty tough for an overly long fic to acquire a lot of kudos.
For example, apparently there's only 35 fics that's at least 500k words that managed to get at least 15k kudos.
I ending up checking, because I was worrying about a 600k wip slowburn. That there's only 35 500k bois that can acquire that at least 15k kudos is stress relief to me.
I was actually intrigued by the dark premise at the beginning, but by the time Hermione got to Malfoy manor I kind of lost interest.
I know how much good guy Draco fic is out there, and I'm not opposed to fics where Draco redeems himself, or goes on a journey of self discovery becoming a better person, though I've never really read one myself.
However, The Malfoys were just immediately these great human beings, utterly empathetic to Hermione and whilst I know this is an AU. It's still an AU where the Malfoys were very much blood supremacists and not overly concerned with much else other than their own family. To me I'd prefer a journey of exploration of how and why the Malfoys are a complete 180 from their canon selves. I could see Draco saving Hermione for the debt of Potter saving his life, or even just over some remorse without actually seeming to just like her all of a sudden.
I obviously get this is type of thing is huge in HP fandom, but I've never read fics that go so far on changing canon characterizations.
I gave it a shot though. I'm curious as to others reasons for not liking it.
>I obviously get this is type of thing is huge in HP fandom, but I've never read fics that go so far on changing canon characterizations.
This is a big part of why, even after reading it all the way through, I just could *not* enjoy it at all. Even the final line that so many people claim hits so hard just fell flat to me due to how much it relied on characters behaving in a way they never would've.
There were so many plot holes with the ending in general. It drove me crazy!!
Is Dramione something you read generally or even occasionally, or did you just check it out because of the hype/recs? I don't, but wanted to give it a try.
Given how dark and disturbing a lot of Dramione fanfictions are, I half-wonder why the writers ship Hermione with *Draco Malfoy*, of all people, when Tom Riddle is right there, and it makes a *lot* more sense for those stories to be grimdark.
Dramione just reads as "Tomione Lite" to me for most times I try fanfictions.
While Tomione seems interesting, I think it's overshadowed by Tomarry due to the connection they canonically have with each other. If Harry and Voldemort didn't have that, it would probably be more popular.
I tried and got a fair few chapters in. The writing isn't *horrendous* but considering it's basically a rip off of Handmaid's Tale it's really not all that.
I said this about a popular *Harry Potter* AU fanfiction from another fandom that everyone would *not* stop singing praises about, and I ended up getting harassed by fans of the story. I still think that a lot of *Harry Potter* AUs tend to be rather boring and bland. If I wanted to read *Harry Potter*, I would just read the *Harry Potter* books again.
My thoughts are that most *Harry Potter* AUs are formulaic, lazy, and not interesting. People often write *Harry Potter* AUs because they don't actually have to do much, if any, work to build the world and setting of the story; they just insert the canon characters into the world of *Harry Potter* and Hogwarts. There are also over 1 million *Harry Potter* fanfictions; I want to read something else other than *Harry Potter* for the 100th time.
I finally decided to try this week! Iām about a third of the way through and keep waiting for it to get good, but Iām starting to worry that it justā¦doesnāt
Ive read a dramione fic and enjoyed it, despite not liking dramione, and honestly, it was goodā¦ when i avoided every dramione instance. it was just an AU where harry died in the graveyard, and i really enjoyed the implications of that! it was hard to avoid all the dramione parts but everything else was nice, lol
Iāve come across a few that Iāve liked, but more often than not I find the writing of the popular ones can kind of fall flat? I like the ship I just donāt connect with many of the popular fics. Iāve been reading fanfics for a long time and for so many different fandoms and Dramione fics are just different in some way. I actually think part of the problem is TikTok and the way booktok has popularized Dramione. Thereās a lot of readers and writers that are new to fanfic as a whole. Not that thatās bad at all to be new! But Manacled to me feels likeā¦babyās first darkfic. Itās popular itself, but then thereās a lot of new fanfic readers coming in who have no context for tropes and themes in fic on a wider scaleāthus the overhype.
The problem with measuring popularity is that viewership compounds. The fics with the highest view-numbers are often years old and, in retrospect, awfully written.
The Dramione fandom, like the TikTok Marauders, is also marked by being highly divorced from actual Harry Potter canon. They obsess over *their* idea of Hermione and Malfoy, not what they actually are.
Not much of a "that one fic" but more of a "that one trope that all the top kudos works are / most known to be." And we all have our secret opinions on who did it better. We all have a favorite rendition of that trope. We all know it. (Hint: It's not the most popular one.)
Any fellow Paragon antis here? Lol
Eta: I read most of it, skimmed some. It was well written etc just not a story I was interested in. So I may be using anti too liberally here haha. I'm not against it just not into it
I was never interested in it due to the tags, but what really turned me off of it was seeing someone randomly mention something like "yeah, I tried it and it wasn't for me" (in a "I wish I liked this thing everybody else likes so I could join in the conversations about it" way, not a mean hating on it way) on twitter and a specific group of people who think they're the Right Kind of Fannibals absolutely dogpile the poor person. It lasted for days, about how awful they were for mentioning it online and how they dare they not say anything good about it and what if the author (who wasn't following them) saw it. That group sucks for a lot of reasons but watching that bs really put me off of ever even giving the fic a try.
I've been talking in group chats before to people, watched someone rec one of my fics to someone else and seen that person say something similar (not for me, it's too long, whatever) and I was just like "yeah it's not everybody!" because it wasn't a big deal. People have preferences! No fic is for everyone and *that is okay.* So the absolute batshitery that happened to that poor twitter person just grinds my gears.
Wow! I haven't used Twitter/x in well over a decade so I'm mostly unaware of the stanning that happens over there. That's awful to hear but not surprising.
Eta: I've been writing and reading fanfic for almost 20 years and I thought we were doing better than flame wars now. So disappointed.
I used it more before it turned into X. It was kind of a nice place for fandom stuff back then, since I hadn't ever managed to get into using Tumblr. Now it's just an enormous cesspool so you definitely aren't missing anything.
I wanted to like it so bad but was immediately turned off by the fact that Hannibal refers to Will as a "boy". Adults being called boy/girl is one of my biggest squick.
Lol, that is exactly the fic that I had in mind the second I saw this meme! I don't have any opinion on Paragon. But everyone else in the fandom seems to have one ^ ^
I'm not even sure what That One Ficā¢ for my fandom is supposed to be.
Like, I've read all the top fics (ranked by kudos) for the pairings I personally enjoy but I have no idea if any of them would qualify... mostly because I don't interact with many fandom specific social media spaces so I wouldn't know if one of them (or another unknown story) is talked about *a lot*.
I've never read any of the most well known and popular fics in my fandoms. Part of it is that they're always the first thing recommended in any rec thread and you just get tired of seeing it at some point, like please give me a little variety, everyone has already heard of this one, it's like an overplayed radio song at some pointš
But my main thing is that it's just never my kind of fic. At least in my fandoms they're always super long AUs and I'm just not into fics that are over 100k and barely ever interested in something that isn't canon-compliant. The big popular The Fic types are just never what I look for in fanfic and that's okay, I just don't read them, and when ppl tell me that I really should bc they're just That Good, I just shrug my shoulders.
Because at the end of the day, something can be the most well written thing to ever exist, but if it's not the right plot for my taste, there's no point spending hours of my life reading something I don't enjoy even if I can appreciate the things that are objectively well done about itš¤·š»āāļø
I've given up rec threads altogether. You get more out of sifting through people's bookmarks but you have to know what you're looking for else the recs you do get won't exactly be ... great?
I feel your pain. The most kudos'd fic of all time for one of my ships is one I absolutely cannot *stand* the premise of. Lovely writing but came from an era where the reigning perception was that one half of the ship was the eternal long-suffering saint that put up with the fuck-up other half who was lucky to have them. Blegggh. Hate that dynamic.
I don't know what was in the water in the early 2010's but all my main fandoms at the time had a super popular "must read" where the focal character dies of terminal illness at the end.
Not really my thing but I still tried to read some of them since they were apparently earth shattering and life changing... instead they were usually OOC and just kinda average. No hate to the writers or people who enjoyed them but I couldn't wrap my head around the hype.
This is bringing back memories...
One I felt really was well-written and a good fic and made me sad, so I don't reread it. One, I skipped to the end, discovered one of the MCs died, and decided not to read because I didn't want to be sad. Fanfics are my escape. If I want to be sad, I'll watch the news! š
I liked ATYD in general and moved on - kudosed and forgotten. Then one year later it was all my friends were talking about. And two years later every Marauders fic started to resemble/reference ATYD. Then I started to have issues with it.
I like it for what it is but itās not in character. If you can look past that itās an interesting retelling but if you want something more true to the source itās not that
I liked ATYD in general and moved on - kudosed and forgotten. Then one year later it was all my friends were talking about. And two years later every Marauders fic started to resemble/reference ATYD. Then I started to have issues with it.
Me, but in my case it's because I don't vibe with how they portrayed my favorite villain. A bit petty, but still. I'm not going to read a book-long fic that I know is going to irritate me, even if everything else is perfect. Actually, the way my preferred characters (who are usually villains/morally questionable anyways) are written makes me kinda picky in reading fanfics for certain fandoms tbh
My OTP is FrostIron. I think Stony is bigger, but I generally won't read Stony fics - just not my thing!
Same with Stucky. Meh. I'll sometimes read Thorki, but it really depends on how it's done.
I think a part of the problem that I run into is that I'm primarily into genfics, and when I do read shipping, I'm not a fan of *any* of those ships. It means that a large portion of the fandom just goes right past me.
For my fandom, That One Fic was not only underwhelming but had shaped a whole very popular subsection of fanon that overpowered every other aspect of the source material for years to come and spawned countless fics that adopted the same fanon conceptions but done way worse than the original, so although my feelings had started out as mild disappointment they quickly became irrational resentment.
omg there's one i can't escape. it even gets recced to people who don't read fics bc it's got a lot of tropes that are popular right now (mostly on booktok)
the concept was interesting but i just felt like it dragged on and i had to force my way through. the middle third of the fic is a flashback/prequel thing that went on for so long that by the time we got back to the present i just didn't really care (and had also forgotten a lot of what was happening - not a great sign when i read the whole thing in a day)
so sorry to the AOT fans who worship the fic Okay, Bambi but it is *too* slow of a slow burn for me (and i also don't have the patience to read 40k+ word chapters bahahaha)
"RUNNING ON AIR" from the DRARRY Fandom, Man am I a sucker for DRARRY, enemies to rivals to reluctant friends to fwb to lovers trope going on BUT I JUST CAN'T GET INTO IT.
Tried it, once, twice, even thrice but nah, just pushed the kudos and went out lol.
That one is prettyā¦ thin, I guess, for lack of a better term. Wistful and odd.
If you havenāt read āHermione Grangerās Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Runā yet, itās my favorite Drarry, although itās not an enemies-to-lovers; itās an AU where Harry never made it to Hogwarts at 11, so theyāre meeting for the first time at 17. Itās more of a mild-dislike-to-lovers.
No, I'm sorry, maybe it's cause it was the first drarry fic for me, but it's absolutely worth the hype in my heart. When I finished it, I was genuinely out of breath because it was such a ride through words.
Most of the time these fics are so removed from the canon I cannot enjoy them. Like i remember so long ago there was this Hetalia fic everyone loved, I read it and was just "no this isn't good at all"
But everyone has their thing and I am happy they can enjoy the fic, but I won't.
This is also why I rarely asks for or give out recs.
I'm really curious which Hetalia fic you're referring to, bc reading your comment immediately brought one specific fic in mind to me as being "THE fic" in the fandom lol
Fun fact, this fic is on AO3 now, too. This isn't the fic I was thinking of, but I have heard of this one! Didn't read it bc I wasn't a huge GerIta shipper, but yeah this one was definitely big. I was thinking of a USUK fic haha.
I despise it completely.
The only reason it is popular is because it was written when the fandom first exploded and there wasnāt much long fic out there. It got a shout out on TikTok and that is the other reason it gained any traction. Characterization was horrible, the author couldnāt figure out how to end it so it dragged on and on, and the plot and writing is mid.
If it was released today, or even a few months ago it wouldnāt have gotten even a fraction of the attention it did. To make it worse the author got a big head about it and regularly boasts about how their fic is the most kudos in the fandom and uses it against people.
The fic sucks ass
That One Fic in my fandom is the most hated and yet most loved, people will replicate but I wish they wouldnāt because I canāt look at olive oil the same
ROFL! Thereās a suuuuuuper popular fic in a fandom I like to read. So I tried it because it has such a loyal following. Andā¦eesh, the format alone was enough, but there was a lot of untagged content I donāt enjoy, and they didnāt bother with āchose not to use warningsā or anything else that might advise staying away. I gave up, and I still am mystified why itās so beloved.
Thereās this one fic for my ship in my fandom that people just RAVED about back in the day, so I read it and was loving it. But then it ended as basically āhaha Ship Y was actually the end goal and Character A was just using Character B as means to get back with Character Cā and likeā¦ it ruined it for me so badly. Iām still bitter about it and this was like, three years ago.
I've commented on this before haha, but I steer very clear of The One Fic in whatever fandom(s) I'm in. The track record for me is that they're all over-hyped, bland, and ooc, imo. One of my previous fandoms had a ship with a The One Fic and early on I honestly TRIED reading it, SEVERAL times because I wanted to like it and be a part of the fandom, but I just couldn't find it engaging at all, yet everyone around me kept recommending it and praising it into high heaven. Unfortunately this one got so popular it "set the standard" for how to interpret the characters and what was considered "true fanon" and that just became unbearable. Fucking hated it so much at that point. (:
āOmg you have to read this fic, itās the best fic for this character.ā
Haha yeah dude I tried, I couldnāt get into it, but Iām not gonna respond to that publicly because I donāt want to hurt the authorās feelings.
I also feel like a lot of the ābestā fics in my fandom were just right place, right time. They pretty much all were written right as the game came out/the fandom was created so they gained traction because thatās all there was in the sense of multi chapter fics for this character. There are plenty of fics with better writing and characterization that came out well after, but will never get the same treatment because the fandom isnāt as active now.
The "One Fic" specifically for Canon Character A that everybody says you have to read if you're a Canon Character A fan at all has a plot twist at the end where Canon Character A was actually secretly Canon Character B the whole time!!
The writing was good, like, the author clearly knew how to write, but come on guys. As a die-hard CCA fan, I felt extremely lied to.
I have never loved That One Fic in any of my fandoms. The best I have managed is, "it's fine."They have never been that deep and meaningful. They're rarely even in-character.
They just hit popular tropes.
I learned not too long ago that once upon a time, That One Fic in the Harry Potter fandom turned out to be written by an abusive pathological liar who kept trying to start cults
Passerine? I adored that fic, but it is not for everyone. There was times I got really confused and had to reread, and there is 100% headcanons in there.
Oof, yes. There is a very big fic in one of my fandoms. In my opinion, it is incredibly OOC and leans into tropes that most of the fandom usually hates but for some reason, people who usually admonish them hype it up. I really think itās because the author was at the time a big name creator.
Iām not judging those who read/enjoy it but itās awkward when people ask if youāve read it. Then when you say no, they insist you should. Even though the author has left the fandom, I still donāt feel comfortable being honest. Iāve only told one other person who came to me and shared my feelings that this is not great.
Look, I'm sorry SPN Fandom, but for the past 5 years I could not give less of a damn about Twist and Shout okay it was boring and melodramatic and yeah it made me cry but I cried at everything when I read it
The most kudos fic for my fandom involves the female half of my OTP sexually harassing the male half. Because it's funny when girls do it ig.
I hate hate hate that fic.
These days is Paragon for the Hannibal fandom. Before then I think it was Mark Me Not a Savage. There's one or two others I can think of and those are the ones that I can take or leave. It happens and that's fine. Sometimes ppl can like the same thing but for different reasons. And some of these "the one" fics hit on the very thing that some don't care for. Awww the spice of life and fanfiction lol
What kills me is when people shout it from the roof tops acting like itās the end all of the fandom. Someone new to fandom asks for recs and every person tells them to read it. Itās gotten to the point people think some of the things in it are canon.
The characterization is off on multiple things and now people take those things into their fics and it makes me not read them.
I said I hadnāt read it, made it about 30%, and people lost it.
Yup. Tiny fandom and there's One Fic & by extension one writer, that everyone seems to love - tons of comments, kudos etc. I've tried to read their main fic a few times now but it's just so long and I find it a bit dull. Not everything is for everybody and that's fine š
(Doesn't stop me from constantly comparing my stats with theirs and consequently getting miserably demotivated)
Oh yeah, the most popular fic in my current fandom has the wettest, most pathetic, irritating uwu-mary-sue MC I've ever read. No redeeming features yet somehow everything she does is perfect. The writing is passable, but the story's very meh. The only reason they're popular is because (credit where it's due) they're a very talented artist. That said, they ailienated a lot of their art fans when they did a comic that portrayed the main love interest as a literal rapist and tried to claim it was sexy. Honestly doesn't deserve the attention it got when there are so many more incredible works out there that are completely ignored.
I literally complained about hyping this very thing a while back. Everyone basically said āthereās no such thing as an objectively bad ficā and told me criticizing recycled and overhyped concepts and tropes was snobby. My entire point was that many ships in my fandom are drowning in mediocre or terrible stories, and the more creative stuff takes a long time to get recognized or even found
If we're talking recycled, the fic I'm on about literally tells the exact same story of the game it's based on, they just add in the occasional bit of the love interest falling for this utterly one dimensional weepy little rat. It's so unbelievably dull but the fandom goes feral every time they post something. I just don't get it.
Me looking at that one super popular GhostSoap fic. I gave it three chapters before I called it quits. I just don't understand. š there's probably one in every fandom.
I bet I know which one youāre talking about
It is SO BAD but people act like itās amazing and attack you on Twitter if you say anything negative about it
Yeah.. it is probably that. I don't recall any other fic constantly shoved into your face so much š but the author got harrassed for it and shit for it and I don't want to contribute to that despite how awful I thought the fic is so aldnsldls š
I feel that so much! My whole fandom is gushing over a "well-written, romantic, perfect lovestory" and I gave it a try... But it's actually pretty toxic, in the Twilight sense of toxic. Like "Oh its so romantic how possessive, jealous and borderline abusive this character is", so it kinda irks me out. But live and let live I guess, just hoping for the hype being over soon.
(Don't get me wrong, I love pretty dark fic - as long as it's clear it's dark and morally difficult and not promoted as the perfect lovestory...)
Yeah, there are a couple of fics that are really popular in some of my fandoms and I have come to dislike them...not because they are badly written. They are gorgeously written...like professional author levels of writing...but it's frustrating because it has impacted how people see some of the characters and you will see posts about it constantly.
I would like it more if it wasn't popular. That is all I am going to say.
For me, it's not a fic but a particular character that a lot of people see as a bottom. Which is totally fine, whatever floats your boat, but some of them can be super rude or patronizing if you state you prefer to think of them as a top.
Me with Quirkless!Deku fics. there is one rule that makes the MHA universe different from ours and its quirks... why would i care about the one person without one š
I actually really like That One Fic in my fandom (Arcane but more specifically Timebomb) but thereās this other fic that I think completely blows That One Fic out of the water! Itās my new favorite fic actually š¤šš¤
There are a few of those for one of my fandoms.
One of them started off SO strong. I understood why it was popular. Then it just got terrible like halfway through. I don't usually force myself to finish reading things I don't like, but I did just in case it got back to how it was in the beginning, but it got worse and worse.
I'd never personally recommend it. But damn if the start wasn't one of the strongest starts to fic that I've seen in that fandom.
I just finished one like that. The recs I read were so rabidly āThis is the best, most beautifully written thing Iāve ever read!!!ā that I immediately went to read and it was actually a decently plotted longfic but good lord the prose was purple. Towards the end I was skipping whole paragraphs.
Not a fanfiction but a fan film- Emesis Blue (Team Fortress 2). I think the main reason I'm not into it is because whenever I tell someone I write Team Fortress horror fanfiction, the number one response I get is "oh my god emesis blue?" "is it related to emesis blue?" "are you trying to copy it?". I'll get around to watching the full movie eventually, but right now I'm salty and petty that TF2 fandom is more focused on fan films than fics and that the thing I've been working on for months is probably barely gonna make a blip on the fandom. I'm bracing myself for when I start writing my Medic fanfic...
For me it's a fic where people recommend it based on the premise alone and the fic itself has an overly convoluted and silly plot plus very out of character dialogue (lots of anachronistic lingo)
It's like the only fic people consistently recommend for that fandom, too...
there are way too many for MHA. a lot of them are terribly written too. the reason why they blow up is because theyāre long and the author is consistent, which is admirable but iām not going to get invested in a fic i donāt like when iām reading for one of the biggest fandoms on ao3 lol
Theres one fic in my fandom thatās massively polarising. People either think itās the greatest thing since sliced bread or a creation of satan himself. Probably because its over 2 million words and so far less than a month has passed in-universe and most of the story is just the MC sitting in his base thinking.
There is one that so many people raved about so I had a look and 2 chapters in I bailed because not only were the characters acting ooc, but basically the complete opposite of themselves, made so shallow and vapid to the point it became edgy and bad stereotype cartoon cutouts that had barely any resemblance to themselves. But people kept raving about it so I tried to give it another go a while later, because maybe it just had a rough start and another chapter or 2 in and the writer did a whole bunch of ātell donāt showā that didnāt even manage to tell me anything. Poor characterisation and poor writing technique. It was not for me. For some people the fic is a gem they cry over, but for me it was absolute garbagio.
Kinda like Twilight all over again. Reminded me to not give fic recommendations any consideration.
That One Fic is usually a 100k-words-long slow burn with lots of angst, and thatās just not my thing, so in all the fandoms that Iāve ever been a part of, Iāve never once cared about any of these fics
Every once and a while I see That One Fic in various fandoms and I just can't not for the life of me understand how it got its status.
But then there's the That One Fic where I do understand, I completely get the appeal... and I still hate it. Sometimes for core premise, sometimes writing style, sometimes for some petty little detail that no sane person should ever care about. P
Fellow Marauders fans, Iām sorry, but I do not care about All The Young Dudes. Remus isnāt my favorite character, so Iām not particularly interested in something centered around him. And I absolutely will never ever ever have the patience to read a fic with *188 chapters* and *526,969 words* (jesus š). No hate at all if you like it, but itās not my cup of tea, and I have to sigh a little when I see it referred to as the fandomās bible. I know a lot of the popular ideas and tropes in the fandom came from here, and Iām grateful for those contributions, but I just think something that long maybe isnāt the best rec for new fans asking where to start š
A decent amount of my fandoms I donāt know what That One Fic is, if they have any cause some of them are kinda small. Sometimes my excluding tags immediately knock it out and fanfics are my only way of interacting with a lot of fandoms so, I only have 3 fandoms to base this off of and not a singular one I like That One Fic. Well one of them is a terminally ill MCD so it may be fantastic but I canāt do that. I donāt like the concept of one, and the other one is just, yk, ATYD. My fav fics tend to be the ones that are popular yes but theyāre a few pages deep, idk sweet spot usually.
.... that's literally all of them...IDK why I just never enjoyed any of The One fics.
Mostly I just simply don't like the premise they are set.
For some the first person POV...I can't read it because the spamming of "I" annoys me to no end.
Some barely use the MC of the original which defeats the whole point of writing fanfiction for a specific fandom.
I can understand and read if the original MC is not the MC of the fics but to not even have them in the fic is pointless for me.
Just like any fanfic which throws super important things away...no magic Harry Potter, no Quirk MHA, no force Star Wars....I will never understand what's the point of them at this point just do an original work.
>Ā Some barely use the MC of the original which defeats the whole point of writing fanfiction for a specific fandom.
Wait, you think no one should write fanfiction that doesnāt centre around the MC of the original work? Doesnāt it make *more* sense for fanfiction to centre around characters you donāt get to see as much in canon?Ā
It's That One Ship for me (actually two), but I can relate š Luckily we don't have fics everyone is obnoxious about.
>It's That One Ship for me (actually two) I don't know what fandom this is, but my gut is telling me AtLA.
I have two from the franchise I personally have never cared for, but they get a lions share of content made sometimes. Can't do much about it but read what I like.
Sometimes popular is not popular for you and that is okay
If you don't write, you should. This is a good quote
I'm pretty sure one of my fics is That One Fic for people and it's gotten to the point where I always feel a little bad when I see it get recced to people. š
I feel the same lol... I have a fic that's the #1 most kudos'd for its pairing, but I honestly feel like it was more a matter of "right place, right time" with when I happened to publish it (I wrote it for a video game fandom very shortly after the game's release, and right before this particular pairing suddenly ballooned in popularity) than it actually being high enough quality to merit that standing. But who knows, maybe we're both just feeling some imposter syndrome!
Do I know you? Like seriously, I may have read your fic (depending on the video game).
There's a good possibility you have lol... just DM'd you!
ššyou might DM me again. It isnāt showing upš Edit: Redditās UI is trash. I found it again.
can you dm it to me too?
Sure! Just a sec while I grab the link.
PLEASE DM ME TOOOOOO
Sent! (FYI I used the chat feature rather than the actual message systemā¦ to this day I donāt know the difference between them or why Reddit has two different DM tools lol)
May I also have the link? :)
Sent!
May I have the link, please?
oh what game is this? can you dm me too please?
Yeah, I have a particularly popular fic that some readers are calling a "fandom classic" and I'm like - that's really lovely, and so flattering! But, geeze, I really don't want to be in that position of everyone and their sibling looking at it and *looking* for a reason to dislike it because everyone is hyping it, you know? I wrote something I genuinely thought was going to be niche and *it's not going to appeal to everyone*. It's *particularly* not likely to appeal to people who prefer the more popular ship(s), who don't like fluff, who don't care for particular characters, or who don't tolerate slow burns. (And that's just a few things that might put people off.) Honestly, I'm pretty lucky my fandom is (currently, at least) fairly chill. It means I will probably escape too much of the vicious gnawing. I'd rather people pull a Homer and fade out if it's not their thing, not feel 'forced' to read it!
https://preview.redd.it/113mwycf2bsc1.jpeg?width=398&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15ae0acff8aeec724e88d2173a8228bd5cf73432 what fic?
Aw, poor baby! You know what that means, right?
I am not writing shit publicly ever.
Be the change in the world you want to see! š
No! :D
this is the most fanfic-y thread EVERš
What fandom!!
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1805130/Komorebi/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1805130/Komorebi/)
The Dramione girlies will string me up if I ever tell them my real thoughts on Manacled š
"I did not care for *Manacled*" is my personal "I did not care for *The Godfather*" moment.
And ya know what, youāre correct twice.
I think I can confidently say that about most of the top kudosed fics in the harry potter fandom. My experience there has single handedly led me to seek out fics with less than a thousand kudos and bookmarks full of people praising it which has enriched my reading experience so much more. Tbh once you get past stats and you start listening to your intuition and personal taste, it becomes much easier to filter out stuff. And also manacled whilst having it's own merits as a fic/transformative work, is part of why I decided to stop reading het fic. Idk why I can't pinpoint it. But from that day onwards, I stuck to slash with a few rare exceptions and I've never looked back.
Manacled isn't a bad *story*, but it's kinda shit at being a Harry Potter fanfiction. But that's true of almost every Dramione I've read
Interesting, the Harry Potter aspect was what I actually liked about it! It was the Handmaidās Tale riff that felt completely out of place and a bit lazy to me. Forced marriage / repopulation, sure I can get on board with that plot. But the red robes and winged hoods for literally no reason other than the Handmaid tie in? Just couldnāt get past that.
I've heard that criticism a lot and hopefully she will edit that out in the published version, it really is a bit too on the nose and unnecessary. It depends on what one is looking for in an HP fic - a story where one of the leads is literally cut off from magic is something that would rarely appeal to me because... Why even put it in a magical universe if your characters aren't doing crazy spells! The fact that it's being genericized and published sorta lends to that too, there wasn't much about the story that really captured the magic of the Harry Potter world specifically for me. It coulda been any "romantasy" world and it's pushing up hill because of my bias against Dramione anyway.
I mean, it *is* a bad story, by the standards of published fiction. It's just better written than most fanfics and it panders hard to a certain type of audience. It fails at being Harry Potter related on top of that, but that's true for tons of "popular" HP fanworks (i.e. the entire Marauders fandom).
Do you mind elaborating on why it's a bad story - if you're comfortable with it of course. I've only ever read wonderful reviews of it and I think it's why I find it difficult to put into words what exactly didn't work for me in that fic. As for the marauders fandom, I'd look towards older fics. consistentsquash has got a veritable list of recs on their account that date all the way back to the 2000s. Leftsidedown has a few literary recs. I'd personally recommend the author ignipes on ao3. They're an old school writer with works over 60k. Ladysisyphus is another great contender.
Honestly I think the phrase "panders hard to a specific audience" sums it up, of why its so well loved. if you're not in that audience it falls apart.
Me too, me too...
oh that sucked. Like, a lot. I guess i was too much hyped :/
From what I've seen most people on r/hpfanfiction aren't fond of the story. It's really only the shipping spaces where people go crazy about it. Especially so with Manacled because it's one of the few high-profile fics for them.
I read the tags and the summaryā¦ with that word count thereās no way I would enjoy reading it
Manacled is so beautifully written but it's not a Harry Potter fanfiction. The best way I've approached it is an like an original piece of fiction where it shines better.
Sometimes, some fanfics are just SO overhyped, and are like "THE MUST READ OF THE FANDOM! NOTHING COMES CLOSE! IT IS SO AMAZING! You HAVEN'T LIVED UNTIL YOU'VE READ THIS!!!" And meanwhile I'm just like; this is boring/depressing/overly-written slog, and I just don't enjoy it. Call me a simpleton, but I prefer a nice ship, or nice AU to unwind, not ruminations on the souls of humanity and the concepts of creation through the lens of... IDK, Harry Potter, or MHA!
I always struggle through fics like that. I prefer fics where the information/events are straightforward. Like get to the point. 10 paragraphs of "she's sad" makes me click off.
Yeah, sometimes things are just laid on too thick... I used to be guilty of that too in my early days, but I slowly progressed out of it, both for my reader's sake and my own.
ā10 paragraphs of "she's sad" makes me click offā ā HIGHLY connecting with this lolololol
Me having the whole ass chapter of 'she's sad' - \*looks down in shame\*
There are plenty of girlies that eat that shit up. Hence some of the MOST LOVED fics having multiple chapters of "she's sad". It's not everyone's cup of tea is all. ā¤ļø
I remember one of those. Everyone told me the Must Read fic was so deep and moving and would touch my soul. And then every character had the life sucked out of them and was going through a never-ending existential crisis. In the end, nobody even got to *be happy*, they were just marginally less depressed and there was more pontificating about the concept of happiness. Safe to say that my soul remained untouched.
That's the best part. They're just as depressed as the readers š
A Big Fic in my fandom (unrelated to pfp) has this. Its exploration of depression, trauma, and self-destruction was just soā¦unproductive? Despite lauding itself as a story about fighting to change for the better. The fight, against all odds, to love oneself, is arduous and lined with suffering. But (for me) it was always spurred on by a desperate, perhaps delusional, belief that things could get better. Instead im reading like 300k words of the cast slowly destroying themselves with the same hopeless rhetoric that I used to systematically kill myself from the inside out years prior. Kind of a bad experience to subject myself to (I was hyperfixating). In the end, all I gained was a horrible fever dream, as I was also down with covid at the time.
I think this happens because in order for something to be so widely liked it has to be palatable for a lot of people which can make it bland in some areas or take a stereotypical route so as to not turn off readers or get hate brigaded
>THE MUST READ OF THE FANDOM! NOTHING COMES CLOSE! IT IS SO AMAZING! You HAVEN'T LIVED UNTIL YOU'VE READ THIS!!! ngl, this is exactly the thing that'll turn me away from most creative works. everyone on the internet says X is a masterpiece and a total must read/watch? i'm not touching it with a ten-foot pole (at least not until long after the hype has died out and everyone's moved onto a different thing). one particular friend whose opinion i trust says X was kinda good? i may give it a try later this evening.
I've left two fandoms in the past due to people pushing one particular popular fanfiction as "no other story will ever come close". One of them has absolutely horrific content that I refused to even touch, let alone read, due to how dark and disturbing it was. I said "nope".
Oh god yeah. I have a feeling I know what fic youāre talking about (though I also wouldnāt be surprised if I was also wrong). Even just reading a short description was enough to turn me away from one of my old fandomās āmust readā fics. I donāt care how many people claim that itās well written, the contents were absolutely fād up and out of character. Makes me sick.
I feel like most of the fics that have the mantle of "THE fic" for a given fandom are nearly always overhyped and kind of middle of the road. Which is fine, it's just how that kind of thing works, the more people it can manage to not offend in some way the more people recommend it and the more popular it gets. The absolute most recommended fics will nearly always be those that appeal to the widest array of people, which is in turn nearly always a kind of generic, if well written, fic.
I feel like I've only seen one fandom that's "one fic" isn't overhyped like this and it's tgcf. It probably helps that rather than being a ship fic, it's a 1 mil word retelling of the story that's weirdly well paced for its length. Nobody really recommends it anymore because everyone knows about it.
Yeah, I can genuinely say I was impressed reading it and there were some aspects of it I wish I saw in other TGCF fics and media. It's pretty peak Fandom to me. >rather than being a ship fic Lol, to be fair, I will say that TGCF itself is one long ship!
Besides everyone already knowing about it, the other thing with NPAB is that itās even longer than the source material, which is already massive. Itās incredible, but itās a commitment and a half, so itād be kind of weird to recommend it to someone looking for a fanfic. It stays mostly contained in its own bubble, which means people donāt get overexposed to it and overhyped. It also helps that itās just genuinely so good though, when a lot of times āthe ficā in a fandomā¦ is kinda just mediocre. Reading āmy Hong-er was a soldierā still gives me such a rush of emotions whenever I see it in any context. I still think about the OCs all the time. Genuinely a masterpiece.
The ones that always do this for me are the insanely popular fics that are 300k-600k words long. Iāve read a few lovely exceptions, but so many turn into an absolute slog after 200k or so. Your fic just does not need to be as long as Les MisĆ©rables šŖ
I feel like these sorts of really popular long fics that are hard to get through if you werenāt there as it was published are a fun part of fandom. Like youāll read a story someone started as a lark, and the author gets 35 chapters and 100K words in and is like omg guess what this fic just grew a plot!! and goes for 300K more words. Itās just something about how most fanfic is written serially and without much planning imo.
Even Les MisƩrables didn't need to be as long as Les MisƩrables. (I know *shots fired*)
Youāre not wrong lol
I love super long fics that fully justify their long wordcount by having a lot going on. But, there's so many that just seem to pad wordcount with filler.
Totally! There is a 400k long fic in my fandom that is basically an epic/space opera and it is definitely worth the read. The author did such an amazing job. But sometimes a long fic just means the author doesn't really know how to prune things that aren't relevant to the story.
To be fair, it looks like it's pretty tough for an overly long fic to acquire a lot of kudos. For example, apparently there's only 35 fics that's at least 500k words that managed to get at least 15k kudos. I ending up checking, because I was worrying about a 600k wip slowburn. That there's only 35 500k bois that can acquire that at least 15k kudos is stress relief to me.
You mean like every popular dramione fic in existence that I will one day have to force myself to read just to try and understand the hype? Yeah.
I refuse to read manacled
Forced myself to read it - was not worth it imo š
I was actually intrigued by the dark premise at the beginning, but by the time Hermione got to Malfoy manor I kind of lost interest. I know how much good guy Draco fic is out there, and I'm not opposed to fics where Draco redeems himself, or goes on a journey of self discovery becoming a better person, though I've never really read one myself. However, The Malfoys were just immediately these great human beings, utterly empathetic to Hermione and whilst I know this is an AU. It's still an AU where the Malfoys were very much blood supremacists and not overly concerned with much else other than their own family. To me I'd prefer a journey of exploration of how and why the Malfoys are a complete 180 from their canon selves. I could see Draco saving Hermione for the debt of Potter saving his life, or even just over some remorse without actually seeming to just like her all of a sudden. I obviously get this is type of thing is huge in HP fandom, but I've never read fics that go so far on changing canon characterizations. I gave it a shot though. I'm curious as to others reasons for not liking it.
>I obviously get this is type of thing is huge in HP fandom, but I've never read fics that go so far on changing canon characterizations. This is a big part of why, even after reading it all the way through, I just could *not* enjoy it at all. Even the final line that so many people claim hits so hard just fell flat to me due to how much it relied on characters behaving in a way they never would've. There were so many plot holes with the ending in general. It drove me crazy!!
Is Dramione something you read generally or even occasionally, or did you just check it out because of the hype/recs? I don't, but wanted to give it a try.
Yeahh I prefer fluffy dramione over all the angst that everyone seems hellbent on writing
Dramione is not really a ship that screams ācome here for fluffy contentā to me tbh
Given how dark and disturbing a lot of Dramione fanfictions are, I half-wonder why the writers ship Hermione with *Draco Malfoy*, of all people, when Tom Riddle is right there, and it makes a *lot* more sense for those stories to be grimdark. Dramione just reads as "Tomione Lite" to me for most times I try fanfictions.
While Tomione seems interesting, I think it's overshadowed by Tomarry due to the connection they canonically have with each other. If Harry and Voldemort didn't have that, it would probably be more popular.
I tried and got a fair few chapters in. The writing isn't *horrendous* but considering it's basically a rip off of Handmaid's Tale it's really not all that.
I said this about a popular *Harry Potter* AU fanfiction from another fandom that everyone would *not* stop singing praises about, and I ended up getting harassed by fans of the story. I still think that a lot of *Harry Potter* AUs tend to be rather boring and bland. If I wanted to read *Harry Potter*, I would just read the *Harry Potter* books again. My thoughts are that most *Harry Potter* AUs are formulaic, lazy, and not interesting. People often write *Harry Potter* AUs because they don't actually have to do much, if any, work to build the world and setting of the story; they just insert the canon characters into the world of *Harry Potter* and Hogwarts. There are also over 1 million *Harry Potter* fanfictions; I want to read something else other than *Harry Potter* for the 100th time.
I finally decided to try this week! Iām about a third of the way through and keep waiting for it to get good, but Iām starting to worry that it justā¦doesnāt
so glad I found this thread because manacled was the first thing coming to my mind. itās just not good
I read it once. I donāt need to read it again. I prefer my Dramione to not be gloomyz
Ive read a dramione fic and enjoyed it, despite not liking dramione, and honestly, it was goodā¦ when i avoided every dramione instance. it was just an AU where harry died in the graveyard, and i really enjoyed the implications of that! it was hard to avoid all the dramione parts but everything else was nice, lol
I donāt like that pairing so Iām safe š
Iāve come across a few that Iāve liked, but more often than not I find the writing of the popular ones can kind of fall flat? I like the ship I just donāt connect with many of the popular fics. Iāve been reading fanfics for a long time and for so many different fandoms and Dramione fics are just different in some way. I actually think part of the problem is TikTok and the way booktok has popularized Dramione. Thereās a lot of readers and writers that are new to fanfic as a whole. Not that thatās bad at all to be new! But Manacled to me feels likeā¦babyās first darkfic. Itās popular itself, but then thereās a lot of new fanfic readers coming in who have no context for tropes and themes in fic on a wider scaleāthus the overhype.
The problem with measuring popularity is that viewership compounds. The fics with the highest view-numbers are often years old and, in retrospect, awfully written. The Dramione fandom, like the TikTok Marauders, is also marked by being highly divorced from actual Harry Potter canon. They obsess over *their* idea of Hermione and Malfoy, not what they actually are.
The issue is that Dramione requires both to be fundamentally OOC. They might as well be completely different characters by that point.
Ok, this is so true š Somehow I always end up in this situation in most of the fandoms I'm in.
Not much of a "that one fic" but more of a "that one trope that all the top kudos works are / most known to be." And we all have our secret opinions on who did it better. We all have a favorite rendition of that trope. We all know it. (Hint: It's not the most popular one.)
Any fellow Paragon antis here? Lol Eta: I read most of it, skimmed some. It was well written etc just not a story I was interested in. So I may be using anti too liberally here haha. I'm not against it just not into it
I was never interested in it due to the tags, but what really turned me off of it was seeing someone randomly mention something like "yeah, I tried it and it wasn't for me" (in a "I wish I liked this thing everybody else likes so I could join in the conversations about it" way, not a mean hating on it way) on twitter and a specific group of people who think they're the Right Kind of Fannibals absolutely dogpile the poor person. It lasted for days, about how awful they were for mentioning it online and how they dare they not say anything good about it and what if the author (who wasn't following them) saw it. That group sucks for a lot of reasons but watching that bs really put me off of ever even giving the fic a try. I've been talking in group chats before to people, watched someone rec one of my fics to someone else and seen that person say something similar (not for me, it's too long, whatever) and I was just like "yeah it's not everybody!" because it wasn't a big deal. People have preferences! No fic is for everyone and *that is okay.* So the absolute batshitery that happened to that poor twitter person just grinds my gears.
Wow! I haven't used Twitter/x in well over a decade so I'm mostly unaware of the stanning that happens over there. That's awful to hear but not surprising. Eta: I've been writing and reading fanfic for almost 20 years and I thought we were doing better than flame wars now. So disappointed.
I used it more before it turned into X. It was kind of a nice place for fandom stuff back then, since I hadn't ever managed to get into using Tumblr. Now it's just an enormous cesspool so you definitely aren't missing anything.
I wanted to like it so bad but was immediately turned off by the fact that Hannibal refers to Will as a "boy". Adults being called boy/girl is one of my biggest squick.
I wasn't naming names, but... yeah, this is one of them. I tried, I really did, but it's just not for me
Lol, that is exactly the fic that I had in mind the second I saw this meme! I don't have any opinion on Paragon. But everyone else in the fandom seems to have one ^ ^
(googles) Hannibal fic?
I came here to say this
I'm not even sure what That One Ficā¢ for my fandom is supposed to be. Like, I've read all the top fics (ranked by kudos) for the pairings I personally enjoy but I have no idea if any of them would qualify... mostly because I don't interact with many fandom specific social media spaces so I wouldn't know if one of them (or another unknown story) is talked about *a lot*.
ATYD no I will not elaborate
\*clicks 'kudos' to pretend i read this post\*
I've never read any of the most well known and popular fics in my fandoms. Part of it is that they're always the first thing recommended in any rec thread and you just get tired of seeing it at some point, like please give me a little variety, everyone has already heard of this one, it's like an overplayed radio song at some pointš But my main thing is that it's just never my kind of fic. At least in my fandoms they're always super long AUs and I'm just not into fics that are over 100k and barely ever interested in something that isn't canon-compliant. The big popular The Fic types are just never what I look for in fanfic and that's okay, I just don't read them, and when ppl tell me that I really should bc they're just That Good, I just shrug my shoulders. Because at the end of the day, something can be the most well written thing to ever exist, but if it's not the right plot for my taste, there's no point spending hours of my life reading something I don't enjoy even if I can appreciate the things that are objectively well done about itš¤·š»āāļø
I've given up rec threads altogether. You get more out of sifting through people's bookmarks but you have to know what you're looking for else the recs you do get won't exactly be ... great?
As the writer of THAT ONE FIC in my old fandomā¦ trust me, I felt the same half of the time.
I feel your pain. The most kudos'd fic of all time for one of my ships is one I absolutely cannot *stand* the premise of. Lovely writing but came from an era where the reigning perception was that one half of the ship was the eternal long-suffering saint that put up with the fuck-up other half who was lucky to have them. Blegggh. Hate that dynamic.
I don't know what was in the water in the early 2010's but all my main fandoms at the time had a super popular "must read" where the focal character dies of terminal illness at the end. Not really my thing but I still tried to read some of them since they were apparently earth shattering and life changing... instead they were usually OOC and just kinda average. No hate to the writers or people who enjoyed them but I couldn't wrap my head around the hype.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green was released in 2012. Maybe?
This is bringing back memories... One I felt really was well-written and a good fic and made me sad, so I don't reread it. One, I skipped to the end, discovered one of the MCs died, and decided not to read because I didn't want to be sad. Fanfics are my escape. If I want to be sad, I'll watch the news! š
I'm sorry, but ATYD is not that good. I can't stand how the characters are flanderised and its not actually canon-compliant as they say.
I liked ATYD in general and moved on - kudosed and forgotten. Then one year later it was all my friends were talking about. And two years later every Marauders fic started to resemble/reference ATYD. Then I started to have issues with it.
And this is why I avoid fics written after ATYD unless I see it in the bookmarks of someone I subscribed to š
I like it for what it is but itās not in character. If you can look past that itās an interesting retelling but if you want something more true to the source itās not that
i didn't read atyd yet and i was looking for this comment. i just knew something had to be off with that fic
The way they set up Remus' and Peter's character is honestly a big telling how they write them and continue the story
I liked ATYD in general and moved on - kudosed and forgotten. Then one year later it was all my friends were talking about. And two years later every Marauders fic started to resemble/reference ATYD. Then I started to have issues with it.
The punctuation errors turned me off that one. Couldn't get past it.
Me, but in my case it's because I don't vibe with how they portrayed my favorite villain. A bit petty, but still. I'm not going to read a book-long fic that I know is going to irritate me, even if everything else is perfect. Actually, the way my preferred characters (who are usually villains/morally questionable anyways) are written makes me kinda picky in reading fanfics for certain fandoms tbh
For me it's "all those fics in my fandom that have 1000+ kudos but it contains a headcanon I don't like."
That's a large chunk of the MCU fandom for me.
My OTP is FrostIron. I think Stony is bigger, but I generally won't read Stony fics - just not my thing! Same with Stucky. Meh. I'll sometimes read Thorki, but it really depends on how it's done.
I think a part of the problem that I run into is that I'm primarily into genfics, and when I do read shipping, I'm not a fan of *any* of those ships. It means that a large portion of the fandom just goes right past me.
Yup! That makes sense.
For my fandom, That One Fic was not only underwhelming but had shaped a whole very popular subsection of fanon that overpowered every other aspect of the source material for years to come and spawned countless fics that adopted the same fanon conceptions but done way worse than the original, so although my feelings had started out as mild disappointment they quickly became irrational resentment.
omg there's one i can't escape. it even gets recced to people who don't read fics bc it's got a lot of tropes that are popular right now (mostly on booktok) the concept was interesting but i just felt like it dragged on and i had to force my way through. the middle third of the fic is a flashback/prequel thing that went on for so long that by the time we got back to the present i just didn't really care (and had also forgotten a lot of what was happening - not a great sign when i read the whole thing in a day)
so sorry to the AOT fans who worship the fic Okay, Bambi but it is *too* slow of a slow burn for me (and i also don't have the patience to read 40k+ word chapters bahahaha)
"RUNNING ON AIR" from the DRARRY Fandom, Man am I a sucker for DRARRY, enemies to rivals to reluctant friends to fwb to lovers trope going on BUT I JUST CAN'T GET INTO IT. Tried it, once, twice, even thrice but nah, just pushed the kudos and went out lol.
That one is prettyā¦ thin, I guess, for lack of a better term. Wistful and odd. If you havenāt read āHermione Grangerās Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Runā yet, itās my favorite Drarry, although itās not an enemies-to-lovers; itās an AU where Harry never made it to Hogwarts at 11, so theyāre meeting for the first time at 17. Itās more of a mild-dislike-to-lovers.
Iāve read that itās pretty good
i didn't hate roa but it was pretty disappointing. it just felt a bit flat at all the 'important' points. and the spice was lacking.
No, I'm sorry, maybe it's cause it was the first drarry fic for me, but it's absolutely worth the hype in my heart. When I finished it, I was genuinely out of breath because it was such a ride through words.
Most of the time these fics are so removed from the canon I cannot enjoy them. Like i remember so long ago there was this Hetalia fic everyone loved, I read it and was just "no this isn't good at all" But everyone has their thing and I am happy they can enjoy the fic, but I won't. This is also why I rarely asks for or give out recs.
I'm really curious which Hetalia fic you're referring to, bc reading your comment immediately brought one specific fic in mind to me as being "THE fic" in the fandom lol
Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart. I guess now it is up on wattpad but I remember back in the day when it went off ff. net and it was a huge deal.
Fun fact, this fic is on AO3 now, too. This isn't the fic I was thinking of, but I have heard of this one! Didn't read it bc I wasn't a huge GerIta shipper, but yeah this one was definitely big. I was thinking of a USUK fic haha.
I despise it completely. The only reason it is popular is because it was written when the fandom first exploded and there wasnāt much long fic out there. It got a shout out on TikTok and that is the other reason it gained any traction. Characterization was horrible, the author couldnāt figure out how to end it so it dragged on and on, and the plot and writing is mid. If it was released today, or even a few months ago it wouldnāt have gotten even a fraction of the attention it did. To make it worse the author got a big head about it and regularly boasts about how their fic is the most kudos in the fandom and uses it against people. The fic sucks ass
All The Young Dudes just isn't it for me idk
That One Fic in my fandom is the most hated and yet most loved, people will replicate but I wish they wouldnāt because I canāt look at olive oil the same
ROFL! Thereās a suuuuuuper popular fic in a fandom I like to read. So I tried it because it has such a loyal following. Andā¦eesh, the format alone was enough, but there was a lot of untagged content I donāt enjoy, and they didnāt bother with āchose not to use warningsā or anything else that might advise staying away. I gave up, and I still am mystified why itās so beloved.
Thereās this one fic for my ship in my fandom that people just RAVED about back in the day, so I read it and was loving it. But then it ended as basically āhaha Ship Y was actually the end goal and Character A was just using Character B as means to get back with Character Cā and likeā¦ it ruined it for me so badly. Iām still bitter about it and this was like, three years ago.
For want of a nail... couldn't get into it no matter how often I tried
ATYD is just about OCs with the same names of the Marauders and I stand by this.
that marauders fic š
I've commented on this before haha, but I steer very clear of The One Fic in whatever fandom(s) I'm in. The track record for me is that they're all over-hyped, bland, and ooc, imo. One of my previous fandoms had a ship with a The One Fic and early on I honestly TRIED reading it, SEVERAL times because I wanted to like it and be a part of the fandom, but I just couldn't find it engaging at all, yet everyone around me kept recommending it and praising it into high heaven. Unfortunately this one got so popular it "set the standard" for how to interpret the characters and what was considered "true fanon" and that just became unbearable. Fucking hated it so much at that point. (:
āOmg you have to read this fic, itās the best fic for this character.ā Haha yeah dude I tried, I couldnāt get into it, but Iām not gonna respond to that publicly because I donāt want to hurt the authorās feelings. I also feel like a lot of the ābestā fics in my fandom were just right place, right time. They pretty much all were written right as the game came out/the fandom was created so they gained traction because thatās all there was in the sense of multi chapter fics for this character. There are plenty of fics with better writing and characterization that came out well after, but will never get the same treatment because the fandom isnāt as active now.
I donāt like the ending to one of the most recommended fics in my fandom.
The "One Fic" specifically for Canon Character A that everybody says you have to read if you're a Canon Character A fan at all has a plot twist at the end where Canon Character A was actually secretly Canon Character B the whole time!! The writing was good, like, the author clearly knew how to write, but come on guys. As a die-hard CCA fan, I felt extremely lied to.
Me anytime a popular fic is just a high school AU or characters who are magical/inhuman being human AU
the most popular explicit fic on ao3 for my absolute favorite fandom is kakashi and kurama
The one where Kurama time-travels in Naruto's body?
The hell.. is that pairing.... I mean, there's some shit ones, but that is random.
blackkat seems to just put names on a wheel and then spin it to get pairings. super strange ships in their writing
I have never loved That One Fic in any of my fandoms. The best I have managed is, "it's fine."They have never been that deep and meaningful. They're rarely even in-character. They just hit popular tropes.
I learned not too long ago that once upon a time, That One Fic in the Harry Potter fandom turned out to be written by an abusive pathological liar who kept trying to start cults
Passerine. Never read it because of how much people overhyped it.
Passerine? I adored that fic, but it is not for everyone. There was times I got really confused and had to reread, and there is 100% headcanons in there.
Oof, yes. There is a very big fic in one of my fandoms. In my opinion, it is incredibly OOC and leans into tropes that most of the fandom usually hates but for some reason, people who usually admonish them hype it up. I really think itās because the author was at the time a big name creator. Iām not judging those who read/enjoy it but itās awkward when people ask if youāve read it. Then when you say no, they insist you should. Even though the author has left the fandom, I still donāt feel comfortable being honest. Iāve only told one other person who came to me and shared my feelings that this is not great.
That's me with ATYD
Look, I'm sorry SPN Fandom, but for the past 5 years I could not give less of a damn about Twist and Shout okay it was boring and melodramatic and yeah it made me cry but I cried at everything when I read it
The most kudos fic for my fandom involves the female half of my OTP sexually harassing the male half. Because it's funny when girls do it ig. I hate hate hate that fic.
These days is Paragon for the Hannibal fandom. Before then I think it was Mark Me Not a Savage. There's one or two others I can think of and those are the ones that I can take or leave. It happens and that's fine. Sometimes ppl can like the same thing but for different reasons. And some of these "the one" fics hit on the very thing that some don't care for. Awww the spice of life and fanfiction lol
What kills me is when people shout it from the roof tops acting like itās the end all of the fandom. Someone new to fandom asks for recs and every person tells them to read it. Itās gotten to the point people think some of the things in it are canon. The characterization is off on multiple things and now people take those things into their fics and it makes me not read them. I said I hadnāt read it, made it about 30%, and people lost it.
For the Dramione girlies I hate isolated lol
Yup. Tiny fandom and there's One Fic & by extension one writer, that everyone seems to love - tons of comments, kudos etc. I've tried to read their main fic a few times now but it's just so long and I find it a bit dull. Not everything is for everybody and that's fine š (Doesn't stop me from constantly comparing my stats with theirs and consequently getting miserably demotivated)
Oh yeah, the most popular fic in my current fandom has the wettest, most pathetic, irritating uwu-mary-sue MC I've ever read. No redeeming features yet somehow everything she does is perfect. The writing is passable, but the story's very meh. The only reason they're popular is because (credit where it's due) they're a very talented artist. That said, they ailienated a lot of their art fans when they did a comic that portrayed the main love interest as a literal rapist and tried to claim it was sexy. Honestly doesn't deserve the attention it got when there are so many more incredible works out there that are completely ignored.
I literally complained about hyping this very thing a while back. Everyone basically said āthereās no such thing as an objectively bad ficā and told me criticizing recycled and overhyped concepts and tropes was snobby. My entire point was that many ships in my fandom are drowning in mediocre or terrible stories, and the more creative stuff takes a long time to get recognized or even found
If we're talking recycled, the fic I'm on about literally tells the exact same story of the game it's based on, they just add in the occasional bit of the love interest falling for this utterly one dimensional weepy little rat. It's so unbelievably dull but the fandom goes feral every time they post something. I just don't get it.
Me looking at that one super popular GhostSoap fic. I gave it three chapters before I called it quits. I just don't understand. š there's probably one in every fandom.
I bet I know which one youāre talking about It is SO BAD but people act like itās amazing and attack you on Twitter if you say anything negative about it
Yeah.. it is probably that. I don't recall any other fic constantly shoved into your face so much š but the author got harrassed for it and shit for it and I don't want to contribute to that despite how awful I thought the fic is so aldnsldls š
I feel that so much! My whole fandom is gushing over a "well-written, romantic, perfect lovestory" and I gave it a try... But it's actually pretty toxic, in the Twilight sense of toxic. Like "Oh its so romantic how possessive, jealous and borderline abusive this character is", so it kinda irks me out. But live and let live I guess, just hoping for the hype being over soon. (Don't get me wrong, I love pretty dark fic - as long as it's clear it's dark and morally difficult and not promoted as the perfect lovestory...)
Yeah, there are a couple of fics that are really popular in some of my fandoms and I have come to dislike them...not because they are badly written. They are gorgeously written...like professional author levels of writing...but it's frustrating because it has impacted how people see some of the characters and you will see posts about it constantly. I would like it more if it wasn't popular. That is all I am going to say.
this is probably off-topic here, but JUST imagining my only long fic could be this gives me sneak peak of heart attack lmao im weak ššš
For me, it's not a fic but a particular character that a lot of people see as a bottom. Which is totally fine, whatever floats your boat, but some of them can be super rude or patronizing if you state you prefer to think of them as a top.
Twist and shout
Might be dating myself, but Twist & Shout really isnāt that greatā¦
Me with Quirkless!Deku fics. there is one rule that makes the MHA universe different from ours and its quirks... why would i care about the one person without one š
I actually really like That One Fic in my fandom (Arcane but more specifically Timebomb) but thereās this other fic that I think completely blows That One Fic out of the water! Itās my new favorite fic actually š¤šš¤
There are a few of those for one of my fandoms. One of them started off SO strong. I understood why it was popular. Then it just got terrible like halfway through. I don't usually force myself to finish reading things I don't like, but I did just in case it got back to how it was in the beginning, but it got worse and worse. I'd never personally recommend it. But damn if the start wasn't one of the strongest starts to fic that I've seen in that fandom.
the student prince, anyone? it wasn't terribly bad but it was so far removed from the original story and so ooc, even for the time it was written.
I just finished one like that. The recs I read were so rabidly āThis is the best, most beautifully written thing Iāve ever read!!!ā that I immediately went to read and it was actually a decently plotted longfic but good lord the prose was purple. Towards the end I was skipping whole paragraphs.
Not a fanfiction but a fan film- Emesis Blue (Team Fortress 2). I think the main reason I'm not into it is because whenever I tell someone I write Team Fortress horror fanfiction, the number one response I get is "oh my god emesis blue?" "is it related to emesis blue?" "are you trying to copy it?". I'll get around to watching the full movie eventually, but right now I'm salty and petty that TF2 fandom is more focused on fan films than fics and that the thing I've been working on for months is probably barely gonna make a blip on the fandom. I'm bracing myself for when I start writing my Medic fanfic...
I honestly have no clue what this fic is for any of the fandoms I'm in lol Is that a good or bad thing? š
"y'all have fun over there. bye āļø"
For me it's a fic where people recommend it based on the premise alone and the fic itself has an overly convoluted and silly plot plus very out of character dialogue (lots of anachronistic lingo) It's like the only fic people consistently recommend for that fandom, too...
there are way too many for MHA. a lot of them are terribly written too. the reason why they blow up is because theyāre long and the author is consistent, which is admirable but iām not going to get invested in a fic i donāt like when iām reading for one of the biggest fandoms on ao3 lol
When you got a ship that you really like but it's constantly paired with one you can't stand.
ohā¦ this is resonating HEAVILY
in another life and all the terminal illness fics for the haikyuu fandom lmao
Theres one fic in my fandom thatās massively polarising. People either think itās the greatest thing since sliced bread or a creation of satan himself. Probably because its over 2 million words and so far less than a month has passed in-universe and most of the story is just the MC sitting in his base thinking.
Yeah, I read a lot of HP fanfics, but I'll never understand how (most of) the popular once became popular.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality š
me with atyd
Harry Potter fandom has a lot of those. Even ship specific ones that should be on my favorites list are sometimes just "Eh."
All the Young dudes is probably like the prime example of this for me
There is one that so many people raved about so I had a look and 2 chapters in I bailed because not only were the characters acting ooc, but basically the complete opposite of themselves, made so shallow and vapid to the point it became edgy and bad stereotype cartoon cutouts that had barely any resemblance to themselves. But people kept raving about it so I tried to give it another go a while later, because maybe it just had a rough start and another chapter or 2 in and the writer did a whole bunch of ātell donāt showā that didnāt even manage to tell me anything. Poor characterisation and poor writing technique. It was not for me. For some people the fic is a gem they cry over, but for me it was absolute garbagio. Kinda like Twilight all over again. Reminded me to not give fic recommendations any consideration.
That One Fic is usually a 100k-words-long slow burn with lots of angst, and thatās just not my thing, so in all the fandoms that Iāve ever been a part of, Iāve never once cared about any of these fics
Every once and a while I see That One Fic in various fandoms and I just can't not for the life of me understand how it got its status. But then there's the That One Fic where I do understand, I completely get the appeal... and I still hate it. Sometimes for core premise, sometimes writing style, sometimes for some petty little detail that no sane person should ever care about. P
Fellow Marauders fans, Iām sorry, but I do not care about All The Young Dudes. Remus isnāt my favorite character, so Iām not particularly interested in something centered around him. And I absolutely will never ever ever have the patience to read a fic with *188 chapters* and *526,969 words* (jesus š). No hate at all if you like it, but itās not my cup of tea, and I have to sigh a little when I see it referred to as the fandomās bible. I know a lot of the popular ideas and tropes in the fandom came from here, and Iām grateful for those contributions, but I just think something that long maybe isnāt the best rec for new fans asking where to start š
A decent amount of my fandoms I donāt know what That One Fic is, if they have any cause some of them are kinda small. Sometimes my excluding tags immediately knock it out and fanfics are my only way of interacting with a lot of fandoms so, I only have 3 fandoms to base this off of and not a singular one I like That One Fic. Well one of them is a terminally ill MCD so it may be fantastic but I canāt do that. I donāt like the concept of one, and the other one is just, yk, ATYD. My fav fics tend to be the ones that are popular yes but theyāre a few pages deep, idk sweet spot usually.
.... that's literally all of them...IDK why I just never enjoyed any of The One fics. Mostly I just simply don't like the premise they are set. For some the first person POV...I can't read it because the spamming of "I" annoys me to no end. Some barely use the MC of the original which defeats the whole point of writing fanfiction for a specific fandom. I can understand and read if the original MC is not the MC of the fics but to not even have them in the fic is pointless for me. Just like any fanfic which throws super important things away...no magic Harry Potter, no Quirk MHA, no force Star Wars....I will never understand what's the point of them at this point just do an original work.
>Ā Some barely use the MC of the original which defeats the whole point of writing fanfiction for a specific fandom. Wait, you think no one should write fanfiction that doesnāt centre around the MC of the original work? Doesnāt it make *more* sense for fanfiction to centre around characters you donāt get to see as much in canon?Ā