fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5310 ]

[ SECRET POST #5310 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5310 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 20 secrets from Secret Submission Post #760.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Good evening, and welcome to Fandom News at UCT.

In tonight's special, we'll be looking at trends in your neck of fandom. As for myself, I keep seeing "No Minors/Do not read or interact if you're a minor" etc. Type of warnings on fic summaries. Lmao. This is AO3. Try again (and I get the sentiment; if I was posting filth I wouldn't want to interact with any youth either lol). But before I wax poetic about all the age warnings young anon completely disregarded when reading fic back in the day of fandom/pairing centric archives and LJ, I turn to you, F!S, what's going on your realm of fandom?

What trends are you seeing?

I've been writing fic for about 20 years now and I've always slapped a disclaimer on it that the canon isn't mine it belongs to so and so.

In the last year I've noticed a definite uptick in comments loling at my disclaimers and saying there's no need to put them in.

The odds of my getting in shit from the creators has always been minuscule but the idea of not putting a disclaimer is just totally weird to me. I'm going to keep doing it. But my younger readers seem to think it's strange and silly to bother.

Yeah, I remember those disclaimers used to be common in the 90s.

I always smile when I see disclaimers in fic. I put disclaimers like that on my fics until around 2010 and NGL, it still feels a little strange to not write one.

It does feel very outdated to me, but not in a way that I'd judge someone for still doing it.

However, I did read an interesting argument someone (It might've even been astolat, but please don't quote me--or her!--on that) made back in the pre-AO3 era, saying they wished people would stop saying "please don't sue me" and things to that effect in their disclaimers. IIRC the argument was basically, if content creators wanted to sue, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but by asking not to be sued you are potentially weakening the strength of your legal position (and also inadvertently spreading misinformation by suggesting that fanfic writers are doing something that breaks copyright law, when in fact we aren't).

Just a ton of trans!character, sometimes with no clear tagging.

Same. Also a lot of race!bending and I really don't care so long as you tag it but people don't tag and it's so frustrating.

Same with my fandom, but most people do tag properly.

Yeah I'm seeing that a lot, too.

Yup yup. It's all good, but when people don't tag it's frustrating.

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 05:36 (UTC) - Expand

All the fics seem to be written in third person present tense and I’m not personally keen on it. A good chunk of the fics are really good, but I just don’t like third person present tense.

I wasn't keen on it initially but I got used to it. I think it's overused but present tense sometimes lends an immediacy to the story.

same. I associate present tense with RP, where we're writing as we're doing, and it's hard to take seriously outside of RP context. past tense is proper storytelling tense to me, the narrator is telling you the story well after it's finished whether the narrator is first or third person.

but apparently books get published and put on shelves in present tense now so fuck me I guess.

Trends in my fandom? *looks at AO3* ...Still clogging the listings with a pairing only I and a couple other people liked, since the only time other people write for the fandom is for rare fandom fic exchanges, as far as I can tell.

No capitalization.
The worst when a prolific author I liked went from nothing grammar rules to no capitalization. I know it's an aesthetic choice but... why?

Ew, I hate that.

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 01:06 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 01:41 (UTC) - Expand

Unfortunately, tons of grammatical and spelling errors. I don't get it. Why don't people use betas anymore? If you know grammar and spelling are a challenge for you, have somebody check it over for mistakes. I see tons of "I know my spelling sucks no beta don't care" notes lately. What's the point of posting it if you're not going to make sure it's readable?

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 03:03 (UTC) - Expand

I feel like authors respond to comments more often now. It's GREAT please let me know I'm not being creepy when I comment guys, please.

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 00:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 01:05 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 02:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 04:28 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 12:51 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 14:10 (UTC) - Expand

Honestly I want to kick the person who came up with the Unsympathetic![Character's name] tag/trend in the face - especially when they've helped make a character who has literally done anything wrong become the fandoms 'bad guy' for the sake of angst and drama.

I wouldn't mind and would just use the tags to exclude it when looking for fics, but half the fuckers keep mis-tagging shit because they've decided it's only a little bit 'unsympathetic' because it's a semi-toxic relationship with the ships I'm trying to look up.

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 07:44 (UTC) - Expand

Vomiting.

Lots of "You can't ship like this because [blah]" and I'm always super annoyed by it.

I get saying "I don't like this because X" or "I don't ship this because Y" but it's really on each of us to block/blacklist/tumblr savior/not engage with whatever we don't like. (I'd even understand "Be aware of Z if you ship/like this thing") I keep saying this sentiment and it's like telling a little girl how to play with her barbies. It makes my teeth itch.

Writers put those disclaimers so they can't say they didn't warn when a minor reads their fic and calls them out as a predator for making their delicate underage brain read a nasty yuck-yuck sex thing, because the E-rated fic tagged "smut" that they chose to click on did, in fact, contain smut.

misgendering canon trans characters. I expect it from the 14 year old powerleveling edgelords but not from people who should know better, like those who have tried trans headcanons for other characters from the series in the past.

I don't care if he's got sideboob going on, he's a boy. canon has confirmed.

90% of the popular kinks for my OTP are kinks I dislike. Daddy kink, incest AUs, major feminization, sugar daddy/sugar baby, infantilization/littles play, polyamory, watersports, Mob AUs, High School AUs, DD;DNE. There. I've just described 98% of the fic.

I am clearly in the wrong fandom for my interests, but what can you do?

Re: Trends in Your Fandom

(Anonymous) - 2021-07-21 16:46 (UTC) - Expand

Janet Jackson fandom trends:
Whining about her rare engagement with fans online,

Whining that her "Black Diamond" album/tour that got delayed because of Covid is taking too long to come out (as if she never took long breaks between albums),

Whining "Where's 'Black Diamond'??!" when she posts something that isn't about the release of "Black Diamond",

Declaring solidarity with Britney Spears, especially the overall insidiousness of Justin Timberlake.

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