[ SECRET POST #3821 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3821 ⌋

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

01.



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02.
[Movie: It Comes At Night]


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03.
[iZombie]


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04.
[New Girl]


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05.
[Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid]


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06.
(Doctor Strange)


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07.
[Fire Emblem]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 26 secrets from Secret Submission Post #547.
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

[(Anonymous)]

Short fics obviously predate Tumblr, but in some of my fandoms I've noticed a definite increase in the numbers of short, simple, fluffy, low-effort fics.

[(Anonymous)]

O tempora, o mores!

[ketita]

For me it's the "imagine" stuff. I don't remember them being nearly as prevalent in the LJ days or on forums. Like, you'd sometimes share plotbunnies, but if you didn't do any actual writing, you generally wouldn't get much accolades.
Nowadays half the fics I'd be interested in reading ask me to imagine them instead.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh my god, yes. Absolutely.

I mean, if you want to share a plotbunny, fine, go ahead, but that's not a fic. It's a goddamn plotbunny. AUGH. (I am saltier than I should be about this, maybe, but fuck.)

[ketita]

I'm so annoyed at it that the other day somebody shared one of those things on a fandom facebook group I'm in, and my comment among all the squeeing was "Imagine if this was an actual fic instead of an imaginary one".

[(Anonymous)]

It seems likely to me that the act of sharing plotbunnies for the squee is going to generate an warped idea of how much effort is necessary to achieve things in, you know, actual life, and the majority of the people generating this type of content are going to have a cold hard awakening some day. Particularly if they try to make any sort of name or living from generating content in a medium that isn't fandom. (I may have a v. slight sense of schadenfreude along with this mental image.)

[(Anonymous)]

More than slight.

Anyway, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and all that.

[(Anonymous)]

I tend to think the same thing. There's a writing forum I frequent, and there's so many people who come on there and are all, "I have this great idea for a fic, but I suck at writing/need somebody to write it with me". Which wouldn't be so bad if they were giving a plot bunny idea to a friend they felt could do something fun with the idea, or if they were looking for a genuine collaborator, but so often most of those requests come across more like they want to have some random stranger write the entire story for them and then they can take all the credit for the story.

Either that, or they'll ask about apps that can "write a story", as though they just plug random words into an app or whatever and boom, instant story. Like, it doesn't work that way? Writing is not easy, not by a long shot, and I get people feeling insecure about their writing abilities, or struggling with some aspect of writing.

But yeah, it does seem like some people forget that even the best writers' early efforts are far from perfect, and don't seem to truly understand just how much time and effort goes into learning to write, how much practice is involved in getting better.

(And I also get that in today's internet age, it might not be the first thing that comes to mind for people, but I'm struck by how many people seem to think that they have to have a computer to write a story. Last I checked, pencils and paper still existed." Not having a computer would obviously limit the amount of places they could post a story they've written, sure, but when it comes to actually writing the thing itself, no, you do not need the internet to do that.)

[(Anonymous)]

How do you - like, they're actually asking for an app that writes a - what, seriously? I mean, seriously? That's not how - you've broken my brain.

And no, writing is not easy, and I totally get people feeling insecure about it, and I understand being daunted by the amount of effort it takes to write something decent. I get it. I really do. I've been writing fic for fun for two decades, I had a job for a couple years that involved me getting paid to write articles online, I have two undergraduate degrees that involved a fuck ton of writing, and it is Not Easy. (My fic - not actually that good, but dammit, I have fun with it.)

...and now I'm annoyed about something entirely new, yaaaaaaaaaaay. XD

[sarillia]

I don't think this is anything new. For years I've come across people who seemed to think that coming up with an idea is the hard part. I don't know if they ever even bothered to try the actual writing part or if they just kept daydreaming about how great the story would be eventually.

[ketita]

Apps that "write a story"?????????????????????????? What.

[ketita]

Huh, that's an interesting point. I don't know that it necessarily reflects on all aspects of achievement in life, but I agree with you that that sort of immediate gratification - even more immediate than reviews or kudos - can be very addictive.
And it encourages writing little posts that give immediate results, rather than developing writing skills and getting in for long-term stuff.
For me, writing multichapter fics was probably some of the best things I ever did in terms of acquiring useful skills. My planning, plot construction, and ability to keep ideas in my head and arrange them coherently and interestingly improved a lot, and those skills still serve me.
Not to mention accepting criticism...

[(Anonymous)]

Not on all aspects, no. But I do think that writing long-term projects does - as you said - give you valuable skills that can be put to work elsewhere; that might be in writing things as a career, that might be in writing things for your job, it might just be improved communication and critical thinking skills. And, as you also said, the ability to accept criticism (or at least constructive criticism) well is incredibly valuable. (It's also valuable to know how to maturely handle random bullshit that that you don't deserve, which may or may not come into play writing multi-chaptered fic.)

Addiction is a good way to describe that bit of immediate gratification, I think. Which, again, can contribute to a warped worldview. Then again, with how technology has changed how we as a society communicate, it's maybe hard to say what constitutes a warped worldview. I do still hold to the idea that not a lot of effort leading to a lot of squee and praise is helpful to no one, though.

[(Anonymous)]

Dude, it's not that deep and not everyone is in fandom to go pro. Many of us are just happy shooting the shit and sharing ideas for fun. People don't exist just to entertain you.

[ninety6tears]

Haha, I might have been very tempted to reblog things just to say "Imagine contributing something of substance to fandom" a couple times. TEMPTED, mind.

[ketita]

HAHAHA brutal

[(Anonymous)]

Do it. Do it. Dooooooooooooooooooooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. :D

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed.

[(Anonymous)]

You know, just today I saw a post that was basically a rundown of how you could characterize all the characters in this one canon in a specific AU, and this just happened to be the premise of a WIP I have sitting around. And I was initially amused that there were a couple ideas in there that were exactly what I was planning to do, but like...after long ago learning to have a sense of humor about the fact that I'm never going to be the first to write certain things in fandom because similar ideas pop up everywhere, it's pretty irritating to realize now you can be rapidly upstaged by the people who are too fucking lazy to write it themselves. And IME those posts can go so viral that people would inevitably assume I didn't come up with the ideas myself.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, man, that sucks. I'm sorry. I hope you keep writing your WIP anyway. But yeah, that's incredibly annoying.

[ketita]

Oh, that sucks :(
And I agree with you, it's sort of annoying when somebody goes viral because of some random premise they spent 3 minutes writing out, when it might coincide with an idea you've been working on actually writing... it discourages writing fic, tbh. On so many levels.

[(Anonymous)]

And ten years ago, people were complaining about how authors would churn out chapter after chapter of fics where nothing happened at great length (except the characters thinking about their super secret feelings for each other).

The one constant of fandom (especially internet fandom) is that there is always complaining about people Doing Fandom Wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

There are still too many chaptered fics like that. I dislike both short fluffy fics and pointless longfics.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sure there have always been some complaints about both extremes. People just want to read good writing? Complaining about trends is not the same as policing. And you can't pretend the culture is the same as it's always been. As fandom has become more mainstream, and the internet in general has changed, fandom has definitely shifted into a more casual low-effort atmosphere. And yes, there has always been badfic, but I can absolutely proclaim that it's harder to avoid than ever before.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like there's a point to be made for tastes being changed and refined over time, but at the same time, OMG, so much more short badfic. AUGH. (At least I can filter out shit that's less than like, 1500 words, knowing that I am missing virtually nothing valuable.)