[ SECRET POST #3356 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3356 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 093 secrets from Secret Submission Post #480.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. http://i.imgur.com/yHbcKuQ.png

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, sometimes that's how it is. Lots of readers may admire a serious fic, but lots of readers also enjoy a lighter read.

[(Anonymous)]

More folks eat at McDonalds than eat at real restaurants. The trashier something is, chances are the more popular it will be.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's entirely accurate. It's not about being "trashy", it's more about the lowest common denominator. Fast food like McDonalds sticks to popular items like burgers. They're not amazingly good, they aim for being all right (arguably a comfortable level of mediocrity) and they're usually quite consistent. People don't go there because they think they're going to get an out of this world burger they go because it's cheap, they know what to expect, and they know that the fast food place will likely deliver the same product over a long period of time.

[(Anonymous)]

You just found a niche.
Because some stuff my be kinda unpopular overall, but the people who does like it tend to love it and express it openly.

[blitzwing]

Everyone says they hate reader-insert. There's a difference.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's often a discrepancy between what people like and what they'll admit to liking in public. Guilty pleasures and all that. Your fic sounds like a guilty pleasure, and that's nothing to be ashamed about, OP!

[(Anonymous)]

Right now it seems that it is really popular, it keeps filling my fandoms. Even if I think they suck, I do read some of them, not because they're not so bad, but because they're entertaining in their own sucky way.

[(Anonymous)]

So delete the fic and your sock account. Problem solved.

[(Anonymous)]

Either stop writing crap like that or stop whining that it gets noticed more than you ~serious~ fic.

[(Anonymous)]

The keyword here is 'smutty'.

[(Anonymous)]

My fandom loves thinly-disguised (or even not so thinly-disguised) reader inserts. I can't browse the Ao3 tag without finding a million of them.

[type_wild]

I was googling some character names a few months back (the Free! boys, I think), and autocomplete kept suggesting "[Swimming Boy] x Reader" for... more than one of them, at least. I remember it because I was surprised, because that kind of self-insert has always been utterly unheard of in the fandom circles I've frequented since the internet was new, and yet apparently that is exactly what people are googling? (then again, the googling might be exactly the hint. People who know their way about fandom would know how to search more effectively by filters and tags at AO3, FFN and tumblr)

[(Anonymous)]

well clearly not everyone hates reader inserts

[(Anonymous)]

whatever the ship, whatever the porn or OC or insert, it will be more popular than the well written shit.

just accept it and write what makes YOU happy.

[(Anonymous)]

First, the writing you want to be popular is usually not the writing which will end up popular. That's just a thing, it happens to everyone, amateur or professional. What you wanted people to love vs what they actually love will not always sync up.

Second, people lie about what they like. Everyone says they hate reader fics but everyone has at least one they have read and liked, or one they secretly wrote themselves. Look, I'm a mod for one of those "celebrity sexual frustration" blogs, and people send me their fantasies *all the time* and there is seriously a huge under the radar audience for reader and OFC fics. Because in some fandoms, the desire is under served. All those people secretly reading your fic are telling everyone else that they don't read those types of stories, because they don't want to be made fun of.


Third, everyone needs to fucking quit hating on reader fic. Because genre doesn't make something inherently bad. People who read and write slash and canon het pairings aren't automatically artistically superior. Because the fact that something doesn't interest you, that doesn't actually mean all versions of it are always objectively bad (I read Ofc or reader fics only by authors whose writing of canon characters I already enjoy, it's not that hard). Because even if a specific fic is not good, everyone has to start somewhere, you don't learn to write better original characters by hiding behind someone else's. Because fandom complains about how there are no good/not enough female characters in various canons while simultaneously mocking and shaming young women out of expressing their sexual fantasies (or just general wish fulfillment) just because they made the mistake of admitting the character is really them, instead of pretending otherwise and instead using a canon character which they warp out of all recognition so the canon character essentially becomes their reader insert. This has been going on for so long that it goes beyond being afraid they'll be shamed or made fun of or that no one would read it, it doesn't even occur to a lot of fans that they could simply write their own character if canon doesn't meet their needs. And people are like "that's why I write slash, because there aren't any good female characters to work with".

Like, most of the comments I've seen on this Secret are blatant in their distaste for reader/OFC fic and most are assuming it isn't an opinion but an accepted, proven *fact* that the genre is inherently inferior. You never said anything about your story being badly written, only that it was "fun" and not like your "serious" fics, but they're all assuming you wrote a bad story.

But anyway, maybe your fic you wrote for fun is actually better than your "serious" fic and you just can't see it.

[(Anonymous)]

This is an awesome post. Well said with all of it (especially the bit about fandom's attitude towards female characters, and writing one's fantasies).

[(Anonymous)]

I love this comment. I want to marry it and have its comment babies.

[(Anonymous)]

This comment is pure gold.

I think there comes a point where if you don't like any canon female characters, and you mock other women for writing reader inserts, and you turn up your nose at OFCs... then maybe you need to admit that you have a problem with women who are not you.

[(Anonymous)]

Great comment ruined by generalizations.

Everyone doesn't say or like the same things and that's ok. It's also ok to dislike or not being interested in a genre, and there's no need to act like "everyone" who doesn't like something is just saying so because they're ashamed to admitting otherwise.

Yes, most people should get off from their high horses, because the truth is their tastes aren't superior, but that's it.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll deny it vehemently if asked, but I love reader insert fic. Sometimes I just want to get pounded by my favorite hot characters.

No harm, no foul.