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fanfic,
yuletide

Yuletide Letter 2023

Dear writer, thank you for taking the time to read this!

I have tried to put together some info about my preferences in reading fanfiction, but please also keep in mind that everything below is a suggestion (except for the hard DNW). I appreciate a wide range of fanfic, so if you already have an idea feel free to disregard!

General Preferences

Hard DNW:

Watersports, scat, vomit
Sex involving very underage characters (e.g. under 13)
Omegaverse and/or Mpreg

I'm not that keen on:

PWP
Chatfic, Social Media AUs
Modern AU with no supernatural elements (I tend to dislike real world setting, unless it's canon or otherwise prompted)

I love:

Characters on the asexual or aromantic spectrum
Worldbuilding details! Vivid descriptions!
Getting-together fic
FOUND FAMILY! Childhood friends, sworn brothers, non-romantic life partners, mentor and student, etc.
Cat and dog type romance
Characters with a "gap" in how they are perceived versus how they actually are
Miscommunication (funny or serious!)
Puns and humour
Lies that snowball horribly
Unrequited love, separation, loss and death. Bittersweet or open endings.
Time travel, time loops, fix-it, canon-divergent what-ifs
For NSFW I’m happy to read it as part of a story, but on its own I don’t usually enjoy PWP except for two cases:
- Character-establishing sex which really explores a relationship
- Darker sexual themes such as non-con, horror, manipulation

Specific fandoms

bokura no kiseki (manga)

For this series I'd love to see some exploration of how past lives can bleed into current ones, and if love or hatred would carry forward or be washed away. There are also a lot of characters keeping secrets... It would be a shame if some of them were found out! ;) I'm specifically interested in the dynamics between Hiroki and Minami, or Minami and Zeze.

the apothecary diaries (manga)

I'd love to read casefic about this series! Alternatively, I'd love to see some hints of our poison-obsessed protagonist Maomao start to develop some interest in things of a more romantic nature... maybe she finally starts to take notice of a Jinshi who's been pining so long that he's kind of accepted his feelings will never be reciprocated, so when things start changing they are both wrong-footed.

gnosia (game)

I’d love to see an OC with a personality and a name slotted into the player character. Setsu/player is my favourite ship and I’d read anything with them, happy or sad, but it’s more fun when the player character is fleshed out rather than a placeholder. I would simply enjoy seeing more of them interacting with the player, either during the looping of the game or in an completely different AU!

mo du, the light in the night (cnovel)

For this fandom I'd love to read an AU, or see some explorations of the time before or after the main story. For before, maybe it could be about Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou's interactions during Fei Du's childhood. For after, maybe it could be about Lu Jia and Zhou Huaijin and their unlikely friendship in the wake of shared loss and revenge.

Closing Thoughts

Once again these are all just suggestions! I'm happy to read whatever I get gifted!

When your fave( fic)s are problematic in hindsight...

Sometime in January I had decided it was time to do some new year cleaning. Specifically, of my 250+ carefully chosen bookmarks, I wanted to keep the ones from fics that I had particularly enjoyed and might be tempted to reread or rec, while un-bookmarking the other ones. So I did what any sane person would do—I opened a new tab group, opened 250+ tabs, and started picking my way through. I'm nowhere near done and I might never finish, but it's sure been a fun time marie kondo-ing my bookmarks and reminding myself of a lot of stories that sparked joy for me in the past (and still do!)

My oldest bookmark was created in 2015 and I'd been reading fanfic for a while before then, so perhaps it shouldn't be surprising to realize that among the fics I love I would find a handful that, upon rereading, have things that bother me now (or ones where the writers have went through this experience). It got me thinking...what do you do when an old fic of yours is problematic? Not "dead dove sexual content that was fittingly tagged", but more like "racism/bigotry showing up like weeds in sidewalk cracks" in the same way it pops up in real life.

So, here's three case studies of authors addressing (or not addressing) old problematic fic, arranged in order of severity, and my understanding of how the issue has been handled by the author.

Case A: Author's personal opinion of non-western weddings in author's note is a bit 😬

( Read more... )

Case B: Jarringly fatphobic banter as a backdrop for a love story

( Read more... )

Case C: This fic's entire premise is basically Camp Half-Blood the Residential School

( Read more... )

I think it's pretty self-evident which of these approaches I appreciated the most as a reader.

Please note that these are all fics I have loved at some point in the past, and I didn't notice issues when I first read them years ago. People change and grow and it'd be very hypocritical of me to make assumptions about how the authors or fans of these fics currently feel about X issues. Sometimes we just aren't going to realize things until time has passed or someone else has pointed it out to us.

Fic can be unintentionally hurtful or bigoted just like any other medium, but I believe it's a unique space where authors can be accountable more easily: 1. There's a low barrier for individual readers to contact the author (comments on ao3 and communication through social media) 2. It's relatively easy for the author to modify an existing work and author notes and distribute the changes (unlike, say, physical copies of a book)

With all of that in fanfic writers' favour, I want to believe that most writers are well-meaning people who can have a little grace for readers who may be upset by bigotry in their writing. Personally, I don't think I'm asking much. No need for rewrites or taking down the whole fic, all I'd ask for is an author's note at the beginning and on the relevant chapter to warn your past and future readers.

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revisiting het romance webtoons

Hello I'm new to this website but I've decided to treat it as a blog! (that works, right?)

Over the holidays I had a bunch of longer media lined up to finally sit down and read, and so of course I instead re-installed the line webtoon app and read over 30 webtoons (ty Marley for recs!). I mainly wanted to read romance and fantasy and there seems to be a significant number of isekai/kingdom type series so I started there...and didn't branch out much because there's really a lot! Sweet, cheesy, dramatic, moving, and funny: there's a range to enjoy.

Here's a couple that stand out to me and the part that shines the most in each:

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It's been fun getting reacquainted with the webtoon layout--Vertical scroll and sparse panels--And all the excitement of weekly serialized and translated fiction. Less fun figuring out all the payment models, but I think I understand daily passes and coins now!