[ SECRET POST #2958 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2958 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 054 secrets from Secret Submission Post #423.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ketita]

I'm pretty sure that every fandom has that fic that makes us want to tear our hair out and go WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY and wonder why it's so bad and people like it anyway.
It's so, so rare that one of the commonly recced fics or most kudo'd fics is actually any good at all. And most fandom classics are terrible.

[(Anonymous)]

There are some great pieces out there with, like, tiny fractions of the hits and kudos that the big (shitty) names get. I try to drop kudos on them if I can, when I write for tiny fandoms I know every little boost helps the writer feel good about themselves.

[ketita]

That is really great of you, anon <3 and I'm sure those authors really appreciate it!
Especially since tumblr has gotten so strong and a lot of authors who have big tumblr followings end up with lots of hits=>kudos=>recs, and the unknown ones stay unknown. That's why tbh I rarely search based on kudos on Ao3, because I've found it to be so unreliable.

Oddly enough I have actually written one of those "fandom classics" for a pairing, but I think it only gained the attention because it's a rarepair and I wrote the longest fic in existence for that ship. So now I feel like a hypocrite saying that all the widely recced fics tend to be crap >_>

[(Anonymous)]

And it's always the ridiculously long ones and people expect you to sit down and read every word of the OOC mess.

[ketita]

and half the time they don't even have a plot, just rely on constant drama to keep it going. Like a damn soap opera.
Stay tuned! Next week the evil twin shows up! Breakup #24098726! Will A cheat on B?? Find out!!!

[(Anonymous)]

This times about a billion.

[a_potato]

Yeah, pretty much. And it's bizarre as hell, because it's not like there aren't any genuinely well-written fics that hit all of the sweet spots that people seem to look for.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I think a lot of it comes from the author's own popularity and following, rather than the actual quality of the fics.

One person in one of my old fandoms had managed to self-appoint herself as the spokesperson for the fandom, would be the first to repost information from official sources etc. (sometimes complete erroneously, but no one seemed to mind because she seemed So Damn Important) and when she started writing fics people automatically gravitated towards them just because they associate her with having some kind of increased validity when it comes to canon. Never mind that she's often wrong, and never mind that the fics are terrible, it's the platform she created for herself that's carrying her popularity.

[a_potato]

I think you're right, and that that's definitely the case a decent amount of the time.

I have seen cases, however, where the badfic of a person who's otherwise mostly silent in fandom has taken off, and that absolutely baffles me.

[(Anonymous)]

The genuinely well-written fics definitely exist, but nine times out of ten, whatever someone's pushing as a better fic that's more deserving of praise than the fandom darling of the moment isn't actually one of those gems. It's an equally mediocre fic that just happens to hit all of Bitter Betty's buttons where the fandom darling doesn't.

[intrigueing]

I think lots of things that are called "fandom classics" just a couple of years after they were written usually suck (and the label is usually bestowed by hardcore shippers caught up in The Zone). Usually, the 10% of classic fics that are still called classics years after being finished are the only "classic" fics that are any good. Forgotten gems tend to have a lot more staying power.

Weirdly enough, though, this only seems to apply to modern fandom. Fics that were written decades ago and were called classics tend to be genuinely great and hold up. iDK why.