Blurred text for a reason; please don't harass the author.

I've seen people do this thing where they put a massive amount of blank space in the summary of a fic and it's harmless but dear god does it make me angry. It's taking up like 75% of my screen!! The bottom text was the prompt for the fic, like you could easily put that in the notes. Or use a singular linebreak.

I feel like the "No Archive Warnings Apply" should be mutually exclusive. It doesn't make sense to me that a warning that no warnings apply can be put next to several warnings.

Also why do people do that? Do they want to use it as a way to tag "taboo" things because tags don't seem enough to them? Still illogical.

even though I know that it's oftentimes random what goes big... 😔😔😔 simply no getting around reward hijacking for number go up.

I'm trying to fundamentally understand why r/malfoid blew up. I really am. I mean I've been in this fandom since 2009. But all of a sudden with an AI video and animation female draco malfoy is everywhere. I really don't get it.

Now don't get it wrong. I'm the guy who loved daphne greengrass and harry potter smut fics back in the early to mid 2010s. But I didn't see the virality of it back then.

Now all of a sudden the whole internet has gone crazy for this premise that has been around for at least 17 years and I'm think 'what the hell is going on?'

UPDATE: I think I've finally worked out why the Malfoid trend bothers me, and it isn't because I hate the character.

I've been writing fanfiction for more than a decade. I've been using AI privately to help develop my fictional worlds for the last year or two. I enjoy genderbending, alternate universes, morally grey romance, tsunderes, smut, wish fulfilment, and attractive, powerful female characters.

So I'm not looking down on any of those things.

In fact, that's the problem. Female Draco is remarkably close to the kind of romantic character I like.

A beautiful, wealthy, proud, aristocratic woman with a sharp tongue, questionable family loyalties and the potential to become a fiercely devoted romantic partner? Absolutely. I've written women like that for years.

But there's a catch.

Most of my stories begin where the popular Malfoid romance is trying to end.

My characters are already in relationships. The question isn't whether they'll confess, kiss, have sex or marry. The question is whether they can build something together afterward.

Take my Mass Effect fanfiction. Male Shepard and Miranda Lawson are already romantically involved before Mass Effect 1. Neither knows the full extent of the other's professional loyalties. She's secretly connected to Cerberus, and he's about to become a Spectre. The relationship exists first. The conflict emerges from what they discover later.

Result: Miranda realizes 'oh shit' when she has to revive her husband but the Illusive man doesn't trust her to manage him after revival.

In another story, Jane Shepard discovers her boyfriend has unknowingly been positioned as a romantic intelligence asset against her. She believes he didn't knowingly agree to it, but still investigates the security implications. They love each other. That doesn't eliminate accountability.

Result: She puts him in a holding cell for a week while thinking about what to do with their relationship.

Or take my One Piece fanfiction. My Semi-self insert OC is married to Charlotte Galette and Charlotte Smoothie. Big Mom arranged the relationships for political purposes, and Smoothie was originally meant to execute him if he betrayed her mother.

So what happens when those marriages become genuine relationships? What if their children, household, businesses and shared future create obligations that conflict with Big Mom's instructions?

That's the actual story I want to explore.

Here's an easier experiment.

Give Harry and female Draco $20,000 and establish that they're already married. Now tell me what happens.

Do they invest? Save? Spend? Disagree? Start something? What happens if Draco's father interferes? Can they make an ordinary financial decision without turning everything into romantic insecurity?

I want to know how they function as partners.

My ideal love interest is an independently capable, intelligent, sometimes morally grey, imperfect woman who chooses lasting partnership without surrendering her identity. She can be sarcastic, dangerous, arrogant and even tsundere. But she must remain consistent, loyal, competent and capable of holding her partner accountable.

I don't need her to agree with the protagonist. I need her to judge him fairly. Don't blame him for something genuinely outside his control; do hold him responsible for things he knowingly chooses. And he owes her exactly the same.

I'm interested in established relationships involving people who can cooperate, disagree, make mistakes, raise children, manage resources, have intellectual conversations and construct a shared future. The romance doesn't disappear. It becomes part of their lives.

That's why the Malfoid trend feels like an uncanny valley to me.

She resembles the kind of romantic heroine I want, but the most visible content often concentrates on attraction, jealousy, blushing, romantic denial and the eventual promise of marriage.

I want to see what happens after the marriage.

And I'm irritated by the cultural inconsistency. Female Draco, Drarry, enemies-to-lovers, genderbending and romantic wish fulfilment have existed for decades. Suddenly one attractive anime interpretation explodes and some people talk as though they've discovered something revolutionary.

I'm glad people enjoy it. I'm glad it introduces newcomers to fanfiction. But I'd like the same respect extended to the writers and readers who've been enjoying these tropes for twenty years.

I'm not saying Malfoid can't become a complex character, or that short romantic comics are obligated to be twenty-year marriage sagas.

I'm saying that the viral fantasy is almost perfectly designed to catch my attention, but often stops just before the part I personally find most interesting.

I don't hate the fantasy of Harry getting the girl. I prefer the fantasy of Harry and the girl actually building a life together.

Final Update since I need to make it clear for my sanity:

I've written fanfiction for more than a decade. I don't dislike female Draco, tsunderes, genderbending or romantic wish fulfilment. I dislike the way a familiar, often shallow romantic premise is suddenly being treated as revolutionary, particularly by people who dismiss comparable fanfiction. I prefer stories where the relationship begins early and the characters must actually live with the consequences of loving each other.

I AM NOT FINE!!!!!😭

To be more specific: what personality trait does a character have to have in for you to lose any interest with their presence in the story? And I don’t mean something that causes you to dislike them for personal or moral reasons- just anything that causes you to want to skim past their dialogue or focus within the narration because you can’t bring yourself to display any form of interest in them; whether it’s for reasons you can or cannot explain.

I’ll give an example: any character that happens to show interest in Tarot cards or arcana or anything along those lines, I just immediately don’t care about anything they have to say. I’ll try my best to focus on the parts where they have a meaningful impact on the story, but other than that, I consider them to be a waste of my time; and I can’t even explain why- I just find them boring no matter what.

When you pour your soul into your fic and click "post" for the first time, your fingers trembling with joy because your story is finally seeing the light, but your hits start slow... I feel you.

When you post the second chapter, hoping for the numbers to grow, but they only come in dribs and drabs... I feel you.

When you get to chapter five and hope for that first kudo, but it never arrives... I feel you.

When it seems like your hits have completely stopped... I feel you.

When you click "post" feeling like you're just screaming into the void... I feel you.

When you look at other fics' statistics and, even though you write out of pure love for the fandom, you still get that painful twinge in your heart... I feel you.

When you seriously think about deleting your fic, and maybe your entire account as well... I feel you.

But let me tell you something: please, don't.

I'm sure that somewhere, someone out there is reading your work and waiting for the next chapter. I'm sure that more people will give it a chance, even if right now it feels impossible.

Be incredibly proud of your story. Remember why you started writing it in the first place: that work is your grand victory, and nobody can take it away from you.

Sending you a massive hug. You're not alone in this.

The title. I feel like mainstream "romantasy", "dark romance", "erotica" (I don't read erotica but many authors have a bad tendancy to shove it into the story even if its not in the synopsis), and even the more niche genres is just really objectively bad and cliche. Like with the same ten plots repeated every time, such as "petite feminine woman who is actually really badass is stuck with a dark haired broody man and they go from enemies to lovers 🥹❤️"

ik this isn't an uncommon sentiment with "booktok" and what not, but has anyone else just FULLY stopped reading formally published works? For a solid year I kept picking up books that sounded interesting and unique before realising its the same plot over and over again.

It might also be that my fandom tends to write AUs more than stuff that's very connected to the source material

EDIT: The general consensus in the comments is that I should be reading more genres and I even got some recommendations from y'all. Thank you all so much, I'm going to be reading them when I get the chances.

Enjoy!

It took just under a year which is a whole lot more months than I’d initially thought it would have. It’s only the first part of what will probably end up as 3 different fics, but it’s done and I’m really happy with it.

A message to all the fanfic writers as a reader: please dont delete stories you consider to be bad. Maybe for you its cringeworthy or shows your lack of skill as a newbie, but it might be some kids fav story😭

Theres this fic i used to read when i was in school and look forward to updates everyday. I tried to find it years later and its GONE. The writer said it was EMBARRASING😭

Is it a very intimate alone time thing with you? Do you tend to set some things up before you settle down and read?

Just hit 1k kudos after posting a new chapter a few hours ago! I don't care much for the number going up day to day, but this somehow feels significant. I'm glad I caught the moment and took the screenshot.

If so, what is it?

I just woke up and now I'm craving garlic bread I'm sad now

I know hits don’t mean they necessarily all read my fic, but still! 100 people potentially looked at my fic and were at least interested enough to click on it. …which means I should really get chapter 2 finished

I personally don’t mind either first person or second person writing styles, so long as the first person is of an actual character and not like y/n or insert character here type stuff yk?

I only have written one fic and it’s in first person and I’ve heard a lot of people don’t like reading first person fics? Is this a thing?

I chose to write that way because the character is deaf and there’s a lot of internal thoughts and things that I found difficult to write about in any other way, but someone recently commented that they were excited to read my fic until they realised it was first person and then just wished me luck (I deleted the comment, it didn’t make me feel good, just felt like they were passive aggressively shitting on my work)

So tell me, do you prefer third over first person or are you indifferent or what’s the deal?

Edit: I understand why people don’t like second person, I personally also hate it, but with first person I feel like it’s a good difference? Let me know :)

Read a fic earlier and LOVED this little addition, thought you guys would get a giggle or two out as well :D

don’t be fooled by the completion time, i had written almost all of it before posting. wanted to avoid the curse!

A reader dropped a comment to let me know one of my fics got plagiarized (lifted the entire fic including the summary and notes, just swapped the names). Of course I reported it immediately, but I know the volunteers are super busy and it can be a few months before they get to my report. Any ideas of other things I can do in the meantime?

The account is anonymous and also moderates the comments on the story. I still dropped a comment to let them know I know they plagiarized my fic and that I reported them, so while they obviously won't approve the comment for others to see I hope it will scare them into taking it down. I also made a public bookmark with a comment that it was plagiarized off my fic with a link to the original.

I've been writing for around 20 years now, I guess I'm lucky it didn't happen before (that I know off, at least).

Edited: Poster took the fic down (I assume, a day seems too quick for the volunteers). So they must've gotten spooked by my comment that I'm on to them. I did get a few people who came through my bookmark to comment on my own story, so that was nice, at least.

I guess, in a way, the introduction succeeded in its goal? I clicked off right after reading this.

Edit: this is a fanwork, the rest of the chapters/fic were oneshots. It was only the first chapter that was an introduction like this.